Adventures Dark & Deep ...Returns!

I never expected to see this game again.

Adventures Dark & Deep (ADAD) started life as a first-edition retro-clone under the OGL, with an interesting premise, "What if Gary Gygax had stayed with TSR to write the second edition of the game?" This was a strange concept to work under, and who would know what would have happened, but we have enough historical data, magazine articles, and work to present a theory of "what could have happened."

This is sort of the same "mind experiment" that Dungeon Crawl Classics uses for its concept, "What if we wrote an old-school game that adhered to the principles of Appendix N books?" The "game concept" is essential since it guides the designer's decisions and creates a unifying statement that fans can support.

Well, the OGL fiasco happened, and ADAD was taken out of print, but we still did have most of the "expanded content" with books by BRW Games with the Book of Lost Lore, Book of Lost Beasts, and so on. This is where my love of OSRIC comes in because these books are meant to be expansions. You can "play" the old ADAD game using OSRIC and the expansion books.

My original first-edition ADAD books are still in the garage; I have not found them yet, so how I had to play the game was with OSRIC, plus my BRW Games expansion books. This was fine since the expansion books had updated content, and it worked well enough (with a few missing pieces).

So, last night, I was looking for OSRIC character option books on Drive Thru RPG, and I found out that the ADAD game has been rebuilt, new content has been added and is under the Creative Commons SRD 5.1 license. We have two books, the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary, comprising a first-edition, CC-licensed, retro-clone with over 1,000 game pages. Also, it bears a stamp of "No AI Content."

An instant buy.

I was reading this until one in the morning.

I could not sleep, so I was excited to get up and read more.

Now, OSRIC is no longer needed; the game stands alone. We also replace the Book of Lost Lore and the Book of Lost Beasts, but we keep all the other excellent books in the series, including the Book of Lost Tables, Swords of Cthulhu, and Swords of Wuxia. These three books expanded the game incredibly and were a part of my OSRIC collection. We can still use the Darker Paths expansions for the necromancer, witch, and demonologist with the game - adding three new classes and spell lists.

This is not a "rules-light" first edition. The rules go deeper into many areas, and the tables are revised and expanded. Many "great ideas" from outside sources are included, giving the character's ability scores deeper meanings and broader uses. The game moved beyond a simple "WWGGD" concept and became a first-edition mega-expansion under the CC SRD.

So what? Why play this?

One, this is a Creative Commons first edition retro-clone. No AI content is in the book.

Two, the first edition race choices are widely expanded, including centaurs, four types of dwarves, drow, five types of elves (including half-elves!), four types of gnomes, two types of half-drow, four types of halflings, half-orcs, and humans. The race selection alone is excellent, expanded in areas I dreamed of seeing race options, and some of the all-time classics are back and ready to play.

Three, no Tieflings or Aasimars keep the game grounded and terrestrial, and it is a refreshing change of pace. Too often, players who want to "be more holy" will pick the angelic race, and players who want to be instantly "more devious" will go for tiefling. Here? You have to roleplay it and not lean on the rules saying you are. I would instead write my own rules for these situations or roleplay the notable ancestry differently for each player. God and demon-blooded backgrounds should be more of a role-playing and story thing, and even in classical literature, this is the right way to go. Hercules was a human first, and his story of being the lost son of Zeus was a story thing (with a lot left to the referee).

Four, the half-races are back. I feel sorry for all the 5E role-players who lost the half-elves and half-orcs. Roleplaying these trying to fit into society is some of the best roleplaying I have ever had. We get half-drow in this tome and a classic full-drow character race. Half-elves were one of the most popular race choices in any fantasy game, and these mirror many people's lives of the struggle of constantly needing to fit in. Removing half-races destroys the game and hurts role-players severely. Here, we have half a drow of both elven and human parentages.

The fifth reason is we have six main classes, with two subclasses each, for eighteen and twenty-one, if you include the Darker Path books. We get the bard, with the jester and skald subclasses. The cavalier is the main class, with paladins and the evil blackguards being subclasses. Clerics have druids and mystics. Fighters have rangers and barbarians. Magic users have illusionists and seer-like savants. Thieves have assassins and con man-like mountebanks. Paladins and barbarians can only be humans, which mirrors the classic literature and gives humans exclusive classes to experience.

We have "evil character classes," which is glorious. We have a classic nine-axis alignment. You can play classic "evil campaigns" with these books, watch your campaign fall apart, and smile as players backstab each other. Ah, the good old days we were warned about were glorious times.

For the sixth reason, we have the classic demi-human class-level limits, balanced by demi-humans being the only ones able to multi-class. This is why we play races other than humans, as multi-classing is insanely powerful, and this is also why we need level limits. Also, in this game, the most permissive abilities override the other class' limitations. An elven fighter/magic user can wear full armor and cast spells without spell-failure rolls or other restrictions. Thieves have no level limits for any race, so that option always does multiclass well.

You can ignore the level limits if you don't like them, but I love them since this is a massive part of the "creating a character build" game in the first edition. These are also here for balance since why not be a fighter/magic user and go to the 10th, 20th, or even 30th level and beyond? Some classes have no level limits, and the game sticks to that.

The seventh reason? Clerics get bonus spells for high wisdom. This is in OSRIC, but this is a critical feature for me considering playing a cleric.

The eighth reason? A secondary skill system allows characters to spend XP permanently to gain skills like hunting, construction, jeweling, or other 36-skill specialties. These have specialties and skill levels, so you can spend more XP and improve the skill level. No other first-edition game has this, and it gives characters a reason to get XP and not level up.

The ninth reason? A 1d10 initiative rolled each round and was modified by weapon speed and action type. The combat system is more crunchy and detailed than your typical B/X game, with a large attack table (write your character's numbers down), rules for helmets, firing into melee, unarmed combat, morale, and rules for spell casting in combat. There is no spellcasting if engaged in melee combat, so there is a balance to casters overpowering the game. Again, if you don't like all this detail, ignore it. But I love the crunchy systems and options.

The tenth reason? It is one of the most detailed and exhaustive equipment and magic-item systems in any retro-clone. We also have many significant sections of ships, henchmen, construction, and anything else you can imagine.

I can go on about this game, and I haven't even touched the monster book yet. Many "5E favorites" return and are incorporated into a first-edition framework. We have a few renamed ones for SRD purposes, but that is fine. This first-edition game will make you look at many 5E monsters in a new light and give you reasons to fear them again.

Do you need this game to play the first edition?

No. You can be happy with the OSRIC book and play a lifetime of games.

Is this a massively expanded first edition with many options and surprises, ideal for the first-edition player who may have "seen it all?"

Oh, yes.

If you love the first edition, want more and even more on top of that? ADAD is your game. This is my new favorite first-edition game.