D&D, which edition? or something else?

[Little Odo]

If you can wait until June/July then Wizards are reprinting a special Gygax memorial edition of the 3 original AD&D core rulebooks. This will save having to hunt them down on EBay and paying exorbitant prices. I will be getting these as my originals are tatty as hell.

[Cherno]

Aren't these memorial books supposed to be pretty pricey as well?

[constrict]

Thanx everyone! I'm having a real dungeon crawl with all your rules of choice    Having a blast just exploring this  About the newprints of AD&D 1ed, from what I can see I can get the old ones for maybe a 3rd of the price then the new ones.

[Kestrel]

It's mainly Pathfinder for my group as well although we have tried out a few things Pathfinder is the fantasy ruleset of choice, it has the advantage (like some other systems) that the rules are available online for free, so whilst you may only have one copy of the book in the group everyone can look stuff up out side of the session.

Another system that is popular with some of our group is Traveller, which although the base setting is sci fi with planet hopping has rules for tech levels and has I believe even been used to represent Imperial Rome by Mongoose.

I am in a group that is playing Pathfinder.  It takes the D&D 3 and kind of makes it into 3.5 (fixing many of the problems from 3.0, or so I am told.)  The campaign we are playing has us playing the goblins.  Quite funny and exciting.   In the first scenario, two out of the six of us goblins die.  And the DM had nothing to do with it.

Revford ran a module recently where we played goblins, moments of note included the grabbing of potions (folded up post it notes) thrown into the middle of the group of players and finding out what a potion was when you drank it - This did lead to one player drinking alchemists fire when what he needed was a healing potion.

Best moment though had to be entering the big bad bosses room, who we had alerted to our presence by being full of fail. I opened the door and promptly got blinded by a firework and stood there dazzled whilst one of the other players decided to steal my weapon (which I had stolen from him earlier after he had been knocked unconscious by a dog). Then when he got dazzled by a firework, ignoring the bad guy I attempted to steal my weapon back. This went on for a couple of turns until the bad guy summoned a horse indoors and a giant frog swallowed one of the other goblins, at which point the fight got serious. 

[Conquistador]

<snip>

This went on for a couple of turns until the bad guy summoned a horse indoors and a giant frog swallowed one of the other goblins, at which point the fight got serious. 

"Serious"   

Right.

Seriously?   

Gracias,

Glenn

[Kestrel]

Well, when I say serious I mean we actually started trying to fight the horse, giant frog and bad guy* and not each other, but being goblins we weren't very good at it.

*In that order if I recall as Pathfinder goblins are consider dogs and horses terrifying mortal enemies and obviously more dangerous than a goblin sorcerer armed with fireworks.

[M.P.]

I'd suggest trying Swords & Wizardry Core Rules (4th printing), it's a very neat retroclone, very streamlined system if this term can be applied to the old school games. Labyrinth Lord  is also a good choice, however seems to be a bit  crunchy(YMMV of course). Oh, and it's free.

[Spooktalker]

If you can wait until June/July then Wizards are reprinting a special Gygax memorial edition of the 3 original AD&D core rulebooks. This will save having to hunt them down on EBay and paying exorbitant prices. I will be getting these as my originals are tatty as hell.

FYI the DMG can be had for $5 for a fine/near mint copy. The Monster Manual $5-10 and the player's guide $10-20 (more players than GM so more demand for them in what I figure). That's for the original printings. The reprints with the alternate covers go for $3-5. I assure you the new Hasbro printings will cost you many times the price.

edit... hehe, wrote that before I saw:

Thanx everyone! I'm having a real dungeon crawl with all your rules of choice    Having a blast just exploring this  About the newprints of AD&D 1ed, from what I can see I can get the old ones for maybe a 3rd of the price then the new ones.

Anyway, yes is the answer. 

[Damien]

Hi constrict, I personally like the old Basic set (from the 80s and comes in a box) with the original module B2 The Keep on the Boaderlands (the adventure where you explore the Caves of Chaos); we are talking really old school here but can still be found pretty cheap on ebay (boxed set and module for around 20$).

Another suggestion and I don`t know if this is too far from your original concept but you can introduce your friends to Song of Gold and Darkness (an expansion to Songs of Blades and heroes) but the rules are used for dungeon crawling.

Whatever you decide, let us know what rules you get and post up some pics of your gaming sessions.


Cheers
 Damien

[mweaver]

We play both D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder.  As noted above, Pathfinder is really a tweaking of 3.5.  If you go in that direction, go with Pathfinder (the main reason we still play 3.5 is that we have a well-established group under that system and we are too lazy to make the relatively minor changes to port them over).  The 3/3.5/Pathfinder generation of D&D is much more intuitive, and therefore lends itself to bringing in new players.

Alternatively, you could take a skirmish game like Mordheim and fix up some role-playing elements to spice it up even more. 

Whatever you choose - hope you and your friends have a blast!

[Warren Abox]

Rules Compendium here.  It's chock a block full of all sorts of stuff that I'll probably never use, but it's got everything I need and plenty of stuff that I can bolt onto the game on an as-needed basis, and all in one book.

[Conquistador]

Well, when I say serious I mean we actually started trying to fight the horse, giant frog and bad guy* and not each other, but being goblins we weren't very good at it.

*In that order if I recall as Pathfinder goblins are consider dogs and horses terrifying mortal enemies and obviously more dangerous than a goblin sorcerer armed with fireworks.

  OMG!  That's great.     ROFLAMO.  I know too many anal-retentive FRPGers who would be totally mesmerized in shock/horror    at the scene.  Who says Grognards are anal-retentive?     Logically button counting is therapeutic... 

Too bad you don't have video!   

Gracias,

Glenn

[Braxandur]

Rules Compendium here.  It's chock a block full of all sorts of stuff that I'll probably never use, but it's got everything I need and plenty of stuff that I can bolt onto the game on an as-needed basis, and all in one book.

Ooh I remember that one. It was the first D&D book I bought. A really nice tome with loads and loads and then some information. Though for a 14 year old non native English speaker with no experience in role playing games at all, it might have been a bit too much. Still have the book in storage and will probably never use it, but keep if for nostalgic reasons.

Most of my experience is with D&D 3.0/3.5 but I've read soem Pathfinder and D&D 4.0 as well. Love how pathfinder feels, hate D&D 4.0

[thebinmann]

We're playing with the Basic & Expert sets from the original D&D.  Having a blast.

Is that basic basic, from 20+ years ago of the reprint?

There are some classic basic dandd mods out there Skarda's Mirror, Night's Dark Terror and or course Slavers (htough are they ADandD). I remember playing and enjoying Hollow World Too

[Warren Abox]

Ooh I remember that one. It was the first D&D book I bought. A really nice tome with loads and loads and then some information. Though for a 14 year old non native English speaker with no experience in role playing games at all, it might have been a bit too much. Still have the book in storage and will probably never use it, but keep if for nostalgic reasons.

I can definitely see that.  Funny thing is, the RC that I play doesn't really look any different from the B/X or AD&D games.  As DM, I tend to forget or hand wave away all the same stuff regardless of which book I'm ostensibly using.  It would probably make a lot more difference to the players, but my latest campaign is a first for my son and his (12 year old friends) so they don't know any different.  It's all new and grand and exciting adventure for them.