I started playing way back in the early 1980s where the 1st edition, or as I knew it, AD&D. The only other version of Dungeons & Dragons was Basic/Expert rules, but AD&D was what the cool kids played. I’m not going to get into the OD&D since it was more of a wargame. I know many people who consider 2nd edition the true Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but they’d be wrong. Sure, there were more books and precise structures in place, but G. Gygax was full-blown crazy in 1st edition. The monsters were bizarre, the rules made no sense sometimes, and there were enough charts and tables to make your head spin. It was awesome.

Here’s a tiny taste of the beautiful world of 1st edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Player’s Handbook

1 - Charisma is centered around how beautiful you are. Sure, you can have a high Charisma if you are a nonbeautiful creature. Instead, you’ll be very persuasive and have raw personal magnetism. But you’ll still be ugly.

2 - Darkvision is called infravision since you can see in the infra-red spectrum. There was also ultravision, which sounds like a new and fabulous feature for a TV from the 1950s (Now in Ultravision!). Ultravision was the ability to see radiation in the ultraviolet spectrum. Long story short, creatures with ultravision could see in the dark too.

3 - We all know that races have abilities specific to them. When you play a gnome these days, you have advantage on all Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws against magic. But wouldn’t you rather have a 70% probability of detecting unsafe walls, ceilings, or floors? I know, way deep down, you’d prefer the second option.

4 - Here are just a few of the quirky racial abilities from the 1st edition:

Dwarves have a 75% chance of detecting grade or slope in a passage, upwards or downwards. Ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and titans all have a -4 to hit penalty when fighting a dwarf due to their fighting prowess and diminutive stature. On the flip side, they cannot have a Charisma score higher than 16. I guess beards weren’t considered attractive in 1979.
Elves have a 16 2/3% chance (better known as 1 in 6 chance) of detecting hidden doors just by walking near them. When they are traveling the world alone, scouting headed at least 90 feet ahead of their friends, and not wearing metal armor, they have a 66 2/3% chance of surprising monsters (4 in 6 chance).
Gnomes gain a +1 bonus to saves against magic for every 3 1/2 points of Constitution they have. Gnomes and kobolds have hated each other since the dawn of time, so not surprisingly, they gain a +1 to hit bonus against kobolds and goblins.
Halflings can only play a fighter, thief, or fighter/thief. If they play a fighter, they max out at the 6th level. They gain resistance to poison equivalent to +1 per 3 1/2 points of Constitution.
Half-Orcs get fucked over. What did you expect?
Humans get nothing but aren’t level-capped and can play any class they want.

5 - The druid was a subclass of the cleric. The paladin and ranger were fighter subclasses. The thief had, of course, the assassin. The one subclass for the wizard was illusionist.
Yep, you heard me right….the illusionist

6 - The needed XP for level progression varies by class. If you had a party where everyone had 15,000 XP, the cleric would be 5th level, the fighter 4th level, the magic-user 4th level, and the thief would be 5th level. It wasn’t uncommon for me as a DM to award different amounts of XP to each player to try and keep everyone at the same level. Yes, it was a major pain in the ass.

7 - You could reach up to 30th level, but again you’d have to survive all those saves vs. poison, dying instantly on a fail. A 30th-level cleric has nine 1st through 6th level spells and seven 7th-level spells (Cleric spells capped at 7th level). A 30th level magic-user was a character to be feared, possessing seven 1st through 4th level spells and six 5th through 9th level spells. Take that, fighters!

8 - There were a great many more weapons to choose from. The military fork was a two-pronged polearm. The Jo stick was a 4-foot staff Monks could use. The lance you bought depended on whether you were riding a light, medium, or heavy horse. You had quite a few sword choices; bastard, broad, long, short, or two-handed, and each did a different amount of damage.

9 - Alignment language is a thing. Think thieves’ cant for the masses.

It’s essential to stop here and acknowledge that the 1st edition provides all the systems and details missing from the current game. We shouldn’t have to wait for Stephen to create an incredible chase system for the 5th edition when AD&D had almost two pages on how to handle pursuit and the evasion of it. If you can think of it, there was a good chance one of the core books told you how to do it.

Dungeon Master’s Guide

10 - One of the first sections in the Dungeon Master’s Guide is on Character age, aging, disease, and death. Character age I get, but disease and death? You can contract a brain tumor, be the victim of a parasitic infestation, or have a urinary tract infection. The effects range from mild to terminal. It kind of sets the mood for what 1st edition is all about.

11 - The day-to-day acquisition of cleric spells was more than just praying to your god. Your basic training to become a cleric gave you insight on how to prepare 1st-level spells. Continued service in the name of your deity gave you access to 2nd level spells. 3rd through 5th level spells were obtained via a supernatural servant of your god. once you can get 6th and 7th level spells, you got to speak to your deity directly.

12 - Hirelings were a carry-over from OD&D. You can own lands and castles and rule over your subjects as you wish. To do so, you’ll need people to lead and work for you. And gold. Lots of gold.

13 - Hirelings come in all shapes and sizes. General laborers, alchemists, sages, and footmen are all people that keep your castle from falling apart and your kingdom running.

14 - Closely intertwined were loyalty and morale. There are all sorts of charts and tables on determining whether or not your subjects love you, hate you, or will just walk away, leaving you alone in your empty castle.

15 - I’d love to go into the horrors of 1st edition psionics, but I’m afraid I’d lose what little is left of my mind.

16 - Let’s talk about all the tables and charts in the Dungeon Master’s Guide tables and charts. Holy crap, there are so many it will make your head swim. Gygax left nothing to chance. There are so many it would take ten articles to scratch the surface. If you can get your hands on a book copy, turn to the Appendix section, and revel in the glory.

17 - Appendix A is chock full of charts on random dungeon generation. Want to figure out the width of a passageway you’re traveling down. Roll a d20 and find out. Need the direction of an exit out of a room? Roll a d20. There are ten options for the treasure you fought for desperately, sixteen things that can guard treasure and aren’t monsters, and ten ways the treasure can be hidden by or in.

18 - Appendix C is about random monster encounters, a lost art in the 5th edition. Adventures are cut and dry, and travel from point A to point B is completed with a snap of the fingers (although you can find the Dump Stat article on making travel interesting here). Instead, how about rolling to see if you happen to bump into an owlbear or ice toad. Need an encounter for an underwater adventure? Covered. When traveling the outer planes. Gotcha. You can really, really go down the rabbit hole and generate an encounter for uninhabited sub-tropical wilderness areas, and if you roll up a snake, there’s even a chart to determine what type of snake it is.

Deities & Demigods

19 - The book that is probably talked about the least is Deities and Demigods (1980). There are gods from seventeen different backgrounds and mythos, including Cthulhu gods, Norse Gods, and for some strange reason, Finnish Gods. If the adventurers somehow managed to survive to become epic heroes, you can fight some insanely powerful gods.

20. - One of the most obscure sets of supreme beings exists in the Melnibonean mythos. Created by British author Michael Moorcock, these deities appear in his Elric book series. Melnibonean gods live on multiple planes simultaneously and can have hundreds of avatars simultaneously.

They spend all their time trying to conquest various planes in the name of Law or Chaos. The gods come in all shapes and sizes. Grome, the King of the Land Below the Roots, looks like an oak tree with a chubby pissed-off face and two arms. Pyaray, the Whisperer of Impossible Secrets, is a massive blood-red octopus. There is even a wide selection of heroes and creatures available for use.

21 - Let’s do one bonus fact to right a wrong from our Deep Dive series. In the deep dive on the Kuo-Toa, we missed mentioning their god Blibdoolpoolp the Sea Mother, the lobster-headed goddess whose shrines litter the deeps. She appears in Deities and Demigods. A giant naked female humanoid with a lobster head and crab claws for hands, she hates everyone because, in her mind, everyone was mean to her precious kuo-toa. She’s a 15th-level cleric, 15th-level fighter, 20th-level magic-user, and 15th-level assassin. She can summon giant lobsters and water elementals. If you get too close and meet her gaze, you’ll probably go insane.

Shame on us for missing this glorious goddess’ appearance in AD&D.

Feel free to share whatever you find interesting from the books above. I know I didn’t include Monster Manual I or II, the Fiend Folio, Unearthed Arcana, and many others, but I only have so much time. Got a fun fact from one of the undiscussed books? Please leave it in the comments below!

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