Off the Shelf: Adventures Dark & Deep

While Castles & Crusades is the fantasy game for me, nothing can touch the king, which would be the heavily modified and improved 1E clone, Adventures Dark & Deep. This is the premium edition of 1E, starting off as a "what if" game: "What if Gary Gygax had never been forced out of TSR, and 2nd Edition was a logical continuation of AD&D 1E?" Joseph Bloch did his best to answer that question, and a revised edition later emerged, becoming its own game while retaining those strong theoretical roots. Nevermind Castles & Crusades was the last game Gary Gygax was associated with, so the two games share that bond.

And nothing touches this game.

Do you want to play the best version of 1E, with all the fiddly 1E bits, like weapon speed and attack tables? This is your game. I like descending AC and the tables! There is a cryptic, runic, old-school feeling about writing your attack matrix down and cross-referencing it during play. This was the way we did it; this is the way you should be doing it. I don't care about "the same math" or "streamlining," and sometimes those take away from the experience.

What is your chance to hit AC 6?

14.

Ooooh!

There is a magic and feeling of mystery here that, once you know the math behind it, something is lost. If your "attack modifier" is +3, and the referee gives you a further +1, it is now +4, so what? If the AC is 18, you still need to roll a 14 or higher, but the magic feels somehow diminished.

With that 14, if the referee ever gives you a positive modifier for an attack, it feels more special. Even if the math is the same, a bulk "plus to attack" feels less special than "looking it up on a table" and "getting a further bonus." Why are we ruining the magic of the dice by factoring everything down to the lowest common denominator?

It sounds silly and stupid, but there is something to this. Back when we were kids, we didn't factor this in. We trusted the "kind wizard Gygax" and his "magic dice rocks." We trusted the methods by which his game could unlock worlds of adventure. Get the math majors and mobile game producers out of the hobby, and get the superstition and mysticism back into it.

And the monster book is amazing, the best-of-the-best 1E foes and creatures, all laid out in exacting detail and glory. Since this is a 1E game, you have complete OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, and many other bestiaries to choose from. There are almost too many monsters to count in 1E books, and that is a wonderful thing. You get the best monsters here, and many you will recognize immediately from any edition of the game.

If I am supporting one edition of the game going forward, with the best books you can buy, this is the version to get. Sure, C&C and OSE are easier and more streamlined, but if I am playing 1E, I want all the fiddly bits and strange table references. I want weapon speed to matter. I want the RoF and all the modifiers in the weapon charts. I want the ability score modifiers, the level limits, and all the strange race-and-class combinations allowed.

Is it fair to allow a drow to be a paladin? Yes. Is it allowed? No, there isn't that hierarchy or tradition in the drow culture. Could they? Sure, as a special case, but that should be left for the referee to decide and the player to ask for.

Why are game designers making the "special case" the "every case"? Again, here we go with streamlining, optimization, changes to fairness, and the blandification of the game's "inbuilt" culture and assumptions: "everyone can be everything and all math is optimized." You are taking what should be the game's strangeness and mystery and allowing "all to be all," and now nothing really matters. Gnome barbarians? Orc bards? Dwarf wizards? Lawful good assassins? Any race and class combo to any level? Sure, why not? The absurd becomes the everyday.

The designers just took away all my "special player requests" and "allowed everything."

Gee, thanks.

I used to be able to do favors for players with really great ideas, but the designers took all that away to please imaginary people. In short, this is the number one problem in gaming right now. Trying to please everyone, yet pleasing nobody.

We also have a quick-start set of rules that covers about 70% of the game. Lite is an amazing value and worth having as a one-book reference guide to all the best options and lower-level powers, spells, and monsters in the game. You can start a campaign with this and run it through until the end, and never know you were playing with the lite rules until a few special cases come up, if they ever do.

The Lite rules are a near-complete game focusing on the lower levels (and the iconic choices), most of which many groups will never venture past. The only major missing piece is the optional skill system, which is easily ported in from the main book and not really needed for most play.

And the books go on and on with this game, not needing many, but each one is a winner. We have a Cthulhu mythos book, an expansion (Book of Fell Wisdom) on the way, an answer to Oriental Adventures, and a few more that are all amazing. These are all fully compatible with OSRIC and AD&D 1E (and 2E), so you get the best game ever created, with more.

If I want a rules-light AD&D-style game with modern improvements, I will play Castles & Crusades. If I want the best version of 1E ever imagined, Adventures Dark and Deep is a behemoth. For realistic fantasy gaming, Rolemaster is still my go-to game, but if the 1E "stuff" is what I want, then ADAD is the game to play.

If you are a mega-fan of 1E, this is the mega-game for 1E.

Crowdfunding Trio!

We have a trio of great crowdfunders today! First up is Pinball Crawl Classics from Goodman Games:

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/goodman-games/old-school-adventures-1

Next up is Night Hunters for 5E and Tales of the Valiant:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deepmagic/night-hunters-gothic-horror-for-tov-and-5e-dandd

Adventures Dark and Deep Book of Fell Wisdom is a wonderful expansion for the premier 1E retro-clone.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/adventures-dark-and-deep-book-of-fell-wisdom

I am onboard with all three. This is a good day for crowdfunding, bad for my wallet, but I am a fan, and they earned my support.

Kickstarter: Book of Fell Wisdom (Adventures Dark & Deep)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brwgames/adventures-dark-and-deep-book-of-fell-wisdom

I like Adventures Dark & Deep a lot. As an expanded, reimagined first-edition game, it is one of the best we have outside of OSRIC. We are getting a new book this year: basically, everything that didn't make it into the ADAD tomes we have, plus some of the PDF-exclusive evil classes the creator put out. And here is a list from the notification pager:

• Clerical servants of demon lords
• Necromancers
• Witches
• Alchemy
• Ley Lines
• Demiplanes
• New spells
• Followers for high-level characters
• Courtly intrigue
• Generational play

I am looking forward to this one a lot, since ADAD is the de facto new standard of first-edition gaming, expanded and beautifully presented in two massive tomes of first-edition goodness. Outside of Old School Essentials, this is one of the best OSR games out there, well worth your attention, and it captures the 1E vibe perfectly.

The Kickstarter should be happening in the next week, sometime from what I hear, so put this one on your radar, and if you haven't checked this out, please do so!

The Case for OSRIC

While Adventures Dark & Deep is voluminous and a massive game, I can see why groups would like to stick with the classic OSRIC system. While the new content and expanded monster list in ADAD are nice, they are not required, and OSRIC provides an open-source version of the classic first-edition rules with no new content. OSRIC 3 is coming soon, and that will be under a much better open license than the deeply flawed OGL.

I can get reprints of AD&D books, sure, but for who knows how long? I can't rely on a Wall Street corporation for anything these days, and while these are lovely keepsakes, they have scanning errors, and the hard copies will likely go away someday and be rented as "digital goods" only on some subscription service. Gary's words are still prophetic, but I can't hold the hobby hostage to them.

The sooner you give up on your AD&D books and support something else for gaming and content creation, the better off the hobby will be. OSRIC was built in an era when we did not have POD reprints of First Edition books, and playing the game was nearly impossible with thrift-store copies. Who knows when we will be back to those days?

And while other First Edition games have expanded content, like a great, bare-bones BX game, nothing beats a focused game that just delivers the basics. In Adventures Dark & Deep, I am supporting all this new stuff; in OSRIC, the game is mine to expand. I could create a "World of Warcraft" or "EverQuest" mod with OSRIC far more easily than with Adventures Dark & Deep, since the latter is a "more stuff" expanded mod to First Edition, and there are times when just the basics are more straightforward as a starting point.

It is far easier to create a modded game off an unmodded core system.

This is also why having a Classic Fantasy version of Old School Essentials was so important. OSE Advanced Fantasy is the same sort of "more stuff" mod to the classic BX core system. Our unmodded core systems are essential; these are like the "Linux core utilities" of the operating system. Sure, you could add all this fluff to the core rules —extra stuff, added classes and races —but the "core utilities" don't need it, and it only makes the base system harder to maintain, modify, and support.

There is wisdom in keeping the core game unmodified, available, and open to all.

This ensures future generations will have a game to modify, play, and make their own someday.

Another Best: Adventures Dark & Deep

If I ever get tired of D&D 3.5E, Adventures Dark and Deep will be my jam. It is a rejection of character creation software, ultimately, and if Hero Lab ever stops working, either the company no longer supports it or allows registrations, the updates go offline, or the entire package becomes unusable and unsupported. I am getting my money out of it while I still can, but D&D 3.5E's life is tied to a commercial software platform, just like 5E is tied to a few websites holding characters.

This has always been the massive flaw in Wizards D&D: the constant support needed sucks the life out of the game. From 3.5E to 4E to 5E, each required software, websites, or character builders. Wizards' D&D is digital dependency D&D.

They make the game too complicated to play; thus, software is constantly needed. Then, they lock the needed content behind non-open releases, and you are bait-and-switched with must-have, unlicensed, non-SRD expansion content into buying something to do all this work and manage the options for you.

If you can't run a character sheet by hand, the game sucks. And I know, but GURPS! I love GURPS, but I have had so many issues with the software over the years, including terrible anti-virus programs complaining constantly about the app when there is nothing there. If an app isn't open-source and the data is free to use, I can't rely on it being around another 5 to 10 years.

It does make me want to give up entirely on character creation apps.

And there is another bad part about these websites and apps: if you have the wrong opinions about anything, they can ban you from using them, and thus, prohibit you from playing the game. We don't live in an innocent age anymore, where everyone is welcome in every game. Just one social media post can invalidate a few thousand dollars in books and hobbies, and keep you out of the community, game, and conventions forever. This has already happened many times, and these VTT and character creation sites only invite this sort of gatekeeping. Refuse to play games that give others that power over you, even if you agree with the current opinion de jour; the winds will change, and you will be locked out someday.

My game is mine, and my speech is mine.

Why do I play games that give others power over me?

As a matter of principle, I refuse.

We never needed these apps in the 1980s, and we played games like Rolemaster, Space Opera, Palladium, Car Wars, GURPS 3rd, and Aftermath. In fact, there is an argument that if a game needs an electronic character sheet, then it is not a pen-and-paper role-playing game; it is a video game.

If I ever give up a game, it will be because I can't support the software dependency anymore, and I see the game as inferior because of that requirement. Games that I can play without computers will be superior. ADAD is the game I will fall back to, thus making it my main game. This is sort of the theory of "Just play now what you end up with later."

Beyond this, it is an OSR standby, like OSE, DCC, or S&W. I can have fun with these, and they are mostly cross-compatible. I worry about Dungeon Crawl Classics, as the system's support feels waning in favor of Goodman Games supporting 5E. I get it, the company needs to make money. I still have a massive DCC library, so I am not worried, but I want DCC to keep going strong since the game is so creative, imaginative, and strange.

To be honest, Goodman Games should just make a version of DCC 5E that uses their dice and aligns their products, making the adventures compatible with either system. You are just a few years back on the Kobold Press timeline, thinking you can support commercial 5E, and then 6E will come along in a few years and torpedo your product development, back catalog, and revenue pipeline. Short-term versus long-term thinking here, and I would love to see what they come up with.

Adventures Dark & Deep is on the same level as OSE, an S-Tier game. The game is so complete and packed with so much first edition gaming that nothing comes close. This is the best first edition game out there, featuring an open license. It does everything just as I remembered, with a few key improvements. This system finally realizes the dream of how weapon speed and initiative were supposed to work, but back in the day, we ignored it. This "does the thing," and it brings me back to that first-edition simulation feeling where you may want a lighter, faster weapon that does less damage just to be able to strike earlier.

And the character sheets are open and trivial to run by hand. The characters are simple, but the combination of the skill system and the referee's ability to "add anything to a character" without worrying about "paying for it with feats" is just so refreshing and frees up my imagination. If a character grows wings due to something happening in the game, guess what? They have wings. Write it on the character sheet and record the flying speed, oh, and make a note of encumbrance when you are too overloaded to fly. This is the first edition, you know.

And the game has deep old-school sensibilities. If a character has demon blood, they aren't a cosplay character with blue skin and horns; they are likely of evil alignment and up to no good, with the blood of Satan running through their veins. That classic, almost Bible-inspired gameplay and world model is here in full force. Evil and wickedness come from Hell.

We bought our first D&D boxed set from a Christian bookstore, back when 1970s hippies ran these places and everything was cool, man.

You can't take the Christian influence out of D&D; if you do, the game gets boring, as if its heart is ripped out. The demons and devils are the "end boss" of the game, the reason there is so much evil, why the dragons kill mercilessly, and why the wicked humanoid tribes worship them in dark rituals. This is the reason why evil pillages, conquers, and despoils good kingdoms and untouched lands. Monsters are the corrupted blood of God's creations.

This is why the Satanic Panic happened: AD&D cut too close to being a biblical role-playing game, and organized religion found an easy target. Original AD&D gamified a religious text's world model, but since those stories are the origin of our myths, that makes sense and feels natural to us as humans. You can take the religion out of the game, but you will never take the religion out of the human playing it.

No monster is humanized. Nothing wicked is painted in a good light. And will never be. For many, this is why we play. And we refuse to play anything which can be retconned, the beholders and owlbears made good, mind flayers and devils turned into player races, and the game turns to slop and mush.

I understand where the whole move towards D&D 3.5E is coming from. It is a good, tight, easy-to-play, and modern game. There is no considerable difference in feeling between it and 5E, beyond a couple of mechanical differences and combat being slightly more crunchy. But I like the crunchy combat with the tactical options; this makes table-based play fun again. Both games are broken at high levels. D&D 3.5E is more hardcore than 5E by a considerable margin. And D&D 3.5E was designed for the tabletop and figure-based play; this is a tactical game.

But the first edition is the best game ever written; even 3.5E pales in comparison to its majesty. The first edition is like the Bible of roleplaying, the source document, the origin of all that we have today. Yes, ADAD is a descendant of the first edition, a refinement and improvement, but also a more open document that is worth supporting over the originals. It is either this or OSRIC, and this gives me much more, so this catches my interest more than a pure reference guide. Mind you, OSRIC is the purest form of the first edition, and every bit as significant as OSE. We are also getting an OSRIC 3 pretty soon here once the Kickstarter fulfills.

Both OSRIC and ADAD have far better licenses and community models than the original game. If given a choice, I will support the open games before I support something the community can't publish for.

The first edition will be a forever game.

Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 16

The more I try to make Open 5E and D&D work for me, the more I find myself saying, "Why bother?"

We had the best edition of the game since its inception. We have plenty of first-edition games out there, too. OSRIC and Adventures Dark and Deep are both excellent. Zero Edition games like Swords & Wizardry are amazing. White-box games are plentiful, and many are printed at cost with free PDFs. Old School Essentials is the king of the B/X market. Even Dungeon Crawl Classics and Castles & Crusades are incredible games, full of fun and potential.

Why do I play 5E? The two significant things that the game brings to the table are subclass abilities and infinite-use attack cantrips. In the end, it doesn't matter since your damage is halved from B/X and first edition games, and your character power goes down the higher level you go. Who cares about fancy baubles you get every level if character power is not preserved?

I would rather have that d8+2 longsword work out until 20th level than have a few dozen subclass abilities and all these tricks to keep my damage contribution high, and monster hit points that scale to piles of hundreds. If I get weaker as I level, none of it matters.

The math is all wrong in 5E.

Pick up Nimble 5e and check the math, along with the average damage per level needed. And then look at the boss monsters with a few hundred hit points. My First Edition fighter scales much better with the old-school linear math.

But the First Edition has the crunch. This game will require you to consider the supplies you can carry and their limitations. You need to prepare for a dungeon session with hardcore prepper levels of detail. This feels like going on a camping trip and realizing that you forgot to take matches or something to start a fire with. Games like Shadowdark and others minimize the "prep," but that level of detail is a part of the game. What you can carry, where you carry it, and how you get it out during an emergency is a part of your "character build."

That gear? Those are character abilities, and the more you carry, the slower you move.

And there will be things you take and leave behind, just so you can haul a few more gold coins out. We no longer need the pole, spikes, and rope; leave them behind so we can get out of here alive.

Too many people see gear as "unfun" and "boring paperwork." Gear is a part of your character build, along with the weight you can haul.

Adventures Dark & Deep is a fantastic version of the First Edition game. There is so much in here that I would never really need much else. I told Grok to generate a few hundred fantasy races for me for every game, world, movie, and fantasy setting I would ever need. They are so simple that it all works. Toss a few level limits on them, and we are good to go. Grok can even make classes for you, and all those prompts are on my ADAD House Rules page.

When I am done worrying about character power and abilities, the world and story become more important. I want to strip away all the noise around fantasy gaming and focus on what is essential. We get so distracted by "builds" and "character power" that we lose sight of the story we are trying to tell.

Plus, if I want a character build game, I have the ultimate one with GURPS over there on the shelf.

Mail Room: Adventures Dark & Deep Lite

Is there a new trend for slimming down games? If so, I am on board with this concept all the way. Adventures Dark & Deep is my favorite First Edition reimagination, but the sheer size of a pair of 500-page books might intimidate most new players. A need for a Lite version of the rules, covering core classes and races, and playable up to level eight, was thus created. This book is a lean 174 pages, and gives you the best-of-the-best in terms of characters, monsters, spells, and magic items.

This book is all you need for most campaigns. Most games rarely go into high levels, and the cut material can be found in the other volumes. For "table play" during the first few months, this is the only book you need. Also, having the fluff and variant classes cut does not lose much of anything. The skill system has been cut, but that is more of a mid-to-late game feature in the core rules and is an optional subsystem. The book also needs an index, but I can't complain too hard about that.

This book would appeal to Shadowdark players, which is where I feel it fills an important niche. A complete first-edition experience in under 200 pages? A tight game that is compatible with 90% of the classic first edition adventures? You mean I could go and play any of the classic adventures with a set of rules that gives me the most authentic experience? Granted, you could always buy the AD&D PoD books and do that, but having a game presented in a modern, clean, concise, easily-understood layout that is easily grasped and referenced is a huge plus these days.

I love Gygaxian prose, but there is an argument for lowering the reading level needed to understand and play the game to a more accessible level, and ADAD Lite does that very nicely.

Page-count-wise, this book is a thing of beauty. The entire characters and equipment section only takes 30 pages! Combat is about 12 pages. The spells are 34 pages. The last 100 pages contain GM information, including treasures, monsters, creating dungeons, and how to run the game. Compared to the corebooks, this version of the game is extremely tight and focused, and reminds me of classic OSR games such as Labyrinth Lord or Swords & Wizardry.

The tight control of page count (174 pages) gives us a game that is half the length of the Shadowdark rules (344 pages), but gives us a whole First Edition experience in a comparable level range. The original AD&D PoD books, combined, are 486 pages and can be daunting for newcomers due to their size and reading level. Granted, the Shadowdark experience is much different, and more of a Dungeon-style board game, but for beginners to First Edition gaming, this is an excellent place to get started.

This book is a winner, making it an excellent resource to start a game that eventually transitions into a full ADAD game, and 90% of what you need to start a new campaign. This book is all you need for low-level ADAD play, and the ideal campaign starter book. ADAD Lite is one of the best of 2025 and an excellent gateway book for players looking to go back to the hobby's roots with the 1977-1979 original First Edition releases.

Off the Shelf: For Gold & Glory

AD&D 2nd Edition was our heyday for AD&D, and we had a Forgotten Realms campaign that was fun and more story-based in this world. The expanded classes, the greater focus on normal monsters, and the "story XP" brought us back into the game. The game was not "kill for treasure," and we enjoyed the more action-oriented and story-based experience.

We played the Forgotten Realms as a low-magic setting, where magic was not all that common, and the world felt grounded and realistic. This was a serious world, far removed from the science fiction of Baldur's Gate 3, and there were no Eladrin, Tieflings, Dragonborn, or any of the 4E races in the world. The world was mostly human, with a scattering of the other races represented and in their own communities.

For Gold & Glory is the OSR AD&D 2nd Edition clone, and it is a great book and game. I pulled this out recently, and it still holds up well. AD&D 2nd Edition was the high point for many with D&D, and it mirrored the rise of the novels, most of which were NYT Bestsellers through the 1990s. This was the "novelization" era of D&D, and it still amazes me that with all that success and mainstream recognition, TSR went bankrupt at the end of the decade.

It shows you how the D&D cycle rises and falls, and how fickle the mainstream audience is. I get the feeling Baldur's Gate 3 and Critical Role were this era's "D&D craze," and we are entering the post-pop bust cycle again.

Demons, having been banned from the game due to TSR's reaction to the Satanic Panic, were gone from the setting, and the renaming of them to "Baatezu" and "Tanarri" was a profane mess of a solution, meant to hide them from prying eyes like men's magazines on the top shelf. The Monstrous Manual for AD&D 2e had the Balor, Maralith, Pit Fiend, and three of the Abishai, and that is all. You had to pick up the Outer Planes Appendix for the rest of the classics.

But still, removing them felt like a surrender. The players who wanted a darker role-playing experience all went to Vampire: The Masquerade. When D&D surrenders to the outrage mob, it begins a slow death, and it falls apart in about 10 years.

That said, our version of the Forgotten Realms excluded demons, and we focused on the classic monsters instead. If they were banned, this world would not have had them, and we would have moved on and focused on other evils. Perhaps the gods found a way to banish all demons in this world, and it was more like Mystara? It did not matter to us, but I still felt something important was missing. It was like playing a console RPG, wanting to have certain monsters and options, realizing the game didn't have them, and then accepting that and moving on with other things.

FG&G has a limited selection of demons in the rules, just like AD&D 2nd Edition.

All the AD&D 2nd Edition books work seamlessly with AD&D 2nd Edition, and the rules and game are not that different from AD&D 1st Edition. This update includes a cleanup, rewrite, demon removal, and clarification of the game rules, with a few new classes and options added to the game to cover characters in the books.

So, why not play AD&D 2e on print-on-demand?

For Gold & Glory is a community-supported game with a better license. When given a choice, I will always support the community-made game. This supports a larger ecosystem of creators, allowing people to create adventures for the system, and fosters a more positive, productive, and healthy environment than merely playing a dead game.

I would rather play with others than support a system that can't be created for.

But here is the problem with FG&G. I have a game that adds classes, supports classic content, has many more options, and clarifies class abilities to a better degree than either FG&G or AD&D 2nd Edition.

Adventures Dark & Deep.

This has all the classes and options that FG&G has, but it is not a pure clone. Actual design work was done on the class options to unify the mechanics, give them some design "oomph," and make everything more straightforward and make sense. Why have a clone of the second edition, when we have a vastly improved first edition to play?

I look at the bard class in AD&D 2nd Edition, FG&G, and Adventures Dark and Deep. The ADAD bard is the best of the bunch, with the abilities all clearly laid out, the mechanics behind them all unified to a single percentage roll, and the best abilities clearly explained. There are no questions here, nor are there diverging mechanics where some abilities use saves while others use percentages.

The design flex in Adventures Dark and Deep is real, and it pays benefits.

The second edition is a clean-up of the first edition, and having a rebuilt first edition that accomplishes the added pieces of the second edition, plus gives us more, is a clear winner to me. Adventures Dark and Deep is like the second edition of the second edition.

While FG&G is cool and evocative with its art, and the best 2nd Edition retro-clone, ADAD improves the first edition so much that a second edition isn't needed.

All the classic monsters are here, the demons and devils are here, and nothing is renamed. We have the best of the best in the monster book. We have all the classics, with nothing held back. The elder demon and devil lords are all here. We get angels. We get everything.

And if we want elder gods and monsters, we get those too in an expansion. The hits keep coming here, along with a fixed and product-improved remake of the old Oriental Adventures book, in Swords of Wuxia.

FG&G is a fantastic game, the best second edition clone out there. If this is all you want, to simulate that era, use the second edition monster books and adventures, and play in that world while supporting community content - you can't go wrong here.

Adventures Dark and Deep eclipses anything else in the first edition sphere of gaming, including every edition of second edition. For me, this has it all, the most, and with a level of streamlining and design that makes everything make sense.

The Case for ADAD

With Old School Essentials and Swords & Wizardry, why do I need Adventures Dark and Deep?

ADAD is a huge game. This is the ultimate version of the first edition, and it does not even belong in the same class as OSE or S&W. This is a big book game, with everything you would ever want in it, looking through a detailed, stat-heavy, and complete first-edition lens. It is so comprehensive and massive that there is only one game it could compete with.

ACKS II. 

ACKS II is a game just as large, just as ambitious, just as complete, and just as compelling as ADAD. Both are in the heavyweight division of gaming, and these two massive games can slug it out for tabletop dominance. Where ACKS II is the Bronze Age powerhouse of savage lands and the wickedness of chaos tearing apart civilization, ADAD is classic first-edition gaming at its best.

ADAD is gearing up in town, wandering through the woods and avoiding deadly encounters, and prying open the lost tomb's sealed entrance to delve inside. It is the slow grind, every bonus matters, count the coins of encumbrance, and full-bore first edition game, plus so much more. The game expands our knowledge, with page after page of what could have been. And it reflects the future, some, while keeping its boots firmly planted in the golden era of roleplaying.

ACKS II is the tale of conquering kingdoms. Zero to hero, or diabolical villain. Savage lands, conquering cities, raising armies, and rebuilding civilization. It is equal parts brutal, beautiful, notorious, and glorious, with iconic heroes and vicious creatures of myth and legend.

So, why ADAD? Isn't the rules-light S&W close enough?

ADAD features classic monsters, classic presentation, and tons of additional content inspired by years of research and inspiration. This is the big "what if" first edition got a proper second edition, but it was done by the original creator. Of course, it isn't; the game began as a speculative work, but it has evolved into a solid, well-presented, historical document and excellent role-playing game. And then, the game evolved into its own thing, no longer a fantasy "second edition" but a distinct game in its own right. We offer new classes, including magic, monsters, and races, as well as various other options. We have a skill system. We have so much more than the original books, and it would take years to explore them all.

And really, we have the best of everything in this game.

Not to mention a wealth of excellent add-on books and adventures from the same creator. If you like the classic "stuff" and that retro crunch, this will be a new favorite game. The Swords of Cthulhu book is not to be missed, and can feed an entire campaign's worth of action fighting against elder gods as first-edition heroes.

Both games are similar in that they limit character race and background options. ACKS II offers a diverse selection of humans, while AD&D offers the classic races, plus a small number of new ones to try. If you don't want a bunch of silly talking dragons, half-demons, and other modern distractions, both of these games will challenge you to be diverse in a smaller set of choices. The more I limit race choices to the classics, the better the diversity of people represented at my table becomes. ACKS II is a master class in incorporating setting-specific, heroic, and noble backgrounds from diverse cultures into the setting, yet they are all humans. ADAD is the classics, plus a few new ones.

ADAD feels like the real thing, plus everything that could have been. It is like AD&D 2nd Edition never happened, and the world kept moving on with the original first-edition game. The game hasn't been streamlined; there is no THAC0. We write down our to-hit numbers on our character sheet by AC numbers, and all our stats have these wonderful secondary modifiers.

Grappling hooks have their own chart, which determines different percentage rolls based on the object they are trying to grab onto. Additionally, some results have a chance to slip off after a random amount of time passes. That is wonderful, first-edition, pedantic, nerd-delighting, wonderful nuance and detail. This is why I play this game. If something can happen, it has a chart somewhere. If it doesn't? I will create one that generates a set of fun, random results.

ADAD is about every last detail, minor modifier, and rolling on a chart for something, somewhere, for almost anything.

It is like Dungeon Crawl Classics in a way, only the charts are not wild and gonzo results, but all manner of great and terrible things that can happen to normal people. If there was ever a game that required a percentage chart for pulling potion bottles open with your teeth, this game would have it, or you would need to create one.

For any not-by-the-rules action, you could always roll 1d100 and interpret the result as a disaster (1), a miracle (100), or a combination of both, with failure and success being the intermediate outcomes (2-99). Modify up or down based on the ability score or situation, if needed.

Want to read an ancient text? Make that 1d100 roll.

If I did not have the energy to "drill down" into this level of detail, Swords & Wizardry is a great alternative, with far fewer charts and modifiers floating around on random pages. It depends on your tolerance for charts and modifiers, and ADAD may either be the perfect game for you or a nightmare. The rules state that you can ignore most details, and the specifics are provided if needed.

ADAD is clearly a "superfan" game, just like GURPS. If you are devoted enough and love the system, no amount of complexity and detail is too significant. Otherwise, even if you are half-interested, go for a more rules-light game, such as C&C, S&W, or OSE.

If you can be a nerd about that grappling hook table, then ADAD is clearly your game.

ACKS II is complex in a different way. As you level up and your game scales to dominion management, you start to delve into the more complicated areas of the game. The lower-level games in ACKS II are more akin to a B/X-style set of game rules in terms of complexity, making it easy and straightforward to dungeon crawl without needing extensive rule references.

ADAD keeps you in the weeds from day one. A few too many coins of encumbrance could kill you.

While ACKS II went its own way with dominion-style gaming and that savage, classic, myth and legend feeling, ADAD goes back to the hobby's roots and gives us a wealth of new toys for our toybox. ADAD is like if 5E and AD&D had a collision, and AD&D came out on top.

But both games are giant, huge-book heavy hitters. There are games in the "superheavyweight class" of tabletop gaming, and these games are for some people, and not for others. Both are excellent games, and each has its place.

Video: BRW Games Big Announcement

BRW Games, the publisher behind Adventures Dark & Deep, is publishing ADDventure Engine, a system-neutral first-edition generic ruleset.

https://www.addventureengine.com/

This is a core game, a game creation toolkit, based around a stripped-down first-edition license. This is scheduled for 2026 and is an interesting development in open development and game engines. I like this, the hobby needs these sorts of toolkits and base systems under open licenses. For those who are fans of first editions, this is a good thing. Along with OSRIC 3 being released under a Creative Commons license, we are entering a new era of first-edition gaming that looks to be a fun one.

Of course, the Worlds Without Number system has been released into the public domain, and that is a fantastic game engine as well. That isn't a first-edition engine, but it is very close.

A great announcement, and this is on my radar!

ADAD: Legitimacy

A group of goblin bandits are holding the quarry outside of town.

I played this scenario in 5E, and I felt this sense of comfort. It will be no problem; I have an unrestricted power that lets me toss magic bolts every turn, we can heal, this one gets an advantage on many attacks, and we are all doing super significant damage with maximum ability score modifiers. Every magic character can fling damage as if we were playing an MMO.

In fact, the entire encounter felt like an MMO. I had this "bored sense of it being a waste of time" running through my head as I played it out. Just get me to the boss fight to finish this and turn in the quest rewards.

In 5E, I had so much power before level five that I was tired of the game and uninterested in whatever stories I could tell with it. This was the ultimate easy mode, and I quit the system.

5E is over-reliant on false empowerment, where they double the hit points and make daggers do 1d4+5. There was no damage scaling in the original game, so we did not need all these fixed modifiers. B/X started these out-of-control modifiers, and I prefer 0e or 1e games where those modifiers are scaled way back and kept under control.

You could not infinitely blast away with cantrips. You did not have feats that added damage to attacks. Your ranger had 20 arrows and a melee weapon. That is what you have to deal with the situation. Do you have a mage? Do you want to expend magic to solve this, or is there another way?

Swords & Wizardry was like this: The game did not hand out bonuses like popcorn and candy, and only fighters thoroughly enjoyed the STR bonus for to-hit and damage. Other classes, even the fighter sub-classes, did not get the bonuses. Swords & Wizardry gets it right like Shadowdark gets it right by keeping the numbers under control.

You start throwing fixed modifiers into everything, and they take over the game. A fixed modifier of more than half the dice size, like a 1d4+5, is a sloppy game design that invalidates the meaning of the dice. It is a significant mistake in 5E's math. For all the vaunted 'bounded accuracy' 5E hyped (and later tossed out) in the design, they did nothing on the damage dice and let those numbers get out of control.

In ADAD, to-hit modifiers for STR start at 17, and damage starts at 16 - which is only a +1. Most characters will never see a melee damage modifier unless they use magic weapons or are fighters who selected weapon specializations. You need to understand the rules and where your fixed modifiers come from, and you aren't just given everything.

I can play a character who does flat weapon damage; it is not a problem, and the game is designed that way if the monster hit points are low and kept under control. The polyhedral dice mean more if hit points are lower, and when Wizards' D&D starts scaling hit points two to four times and you lean on fixed modifiers far too much, the game breaks hard.

Dungeon Crawl Classics has replaced D&D for me. Shadowdark is still the best 5E, but if I want super-heroic fantasy with many character powers and toys, then DCC fills the need. It is far less complicated than D&D, with its mess of actions and complex builds, and I can run DCC character sheets by hand.

ADAD is perfect for first-edition games. I want characters to do without and have limited powers and options in the first five levels. They need to work together during this time and think smart, use gear, leverage skilled classes, and play smart.

In my 5E game, the party rarely needed synergy or cooperation. Everyone was an “army of me,” and healing did not need to be shared; everyone could heal themselves or rest it off later.

ADAD hits the serious game notes perfectly for me while providing new options to explore.

In DCC, monsters can be deadly, and my characters must work together. At first level, they have quite a bit of power, so they are capable and potent. The world can hit back hard, death is easy, and healing relies on a cleric and a god’s benevolence, which can run dry.

With ADAD, I am playing stories again, and characters must make hard choices when taking risks. Sometimes, there is no choice at all, and fighting is unavoidable. The fewer powers and abilities characters have, the better the stories become. What they get means something, and being a thief in these games is fun; since few have repeatable powers, your thief skills begin to shine, and you are doing all sorts of sneaky things to get away with the crazy plots the party thinks up.

Your weapon speed matters, your armor matters, your encumbrance matters, and the few powers you have matter. Your party composition matters, along with your hirelings. How you travel matters. Rangers can make a journey where you are lost and lose party members to wilderness encounters into easy navigation, and a few times, you make camp. Did you take enough hirelings, pack animals, and carts to haul your treasure back home? Do you have a home?

DCC, S&W, and ADAD all have this style of gameplay. Some are a little more rules-light than others, and some are more gonzo fantasy. They all have that legitimate game loop, where you need to be careful about how you approach situations and think beyond an encounter, and the game forces you to consider the entire journey.

ADAD vs. DCC

Of the two games competing for my time, Dungeon Crawl Classics and Adventures Dark and Deep are my favorites. DCC is designed in the typical 3.5E style: Give the players toys, silly powers, and lots of funny dice, and watch them cause havoc and panic while trying to avoid dying. The whole design theory of "classes give the players table toys" is embraced by this game, and this is a classic 3.5E design style.

Is DCC a serious game? It can be, but for the most part, it is embracing the mantra of old-school gaming while standing on the back of a pterodactyl while shooting a las-rifle at rampaging muck men. DCC is always supposed to be over the top on the player side, and also how deadly the dungeons are. Forget a poison needle on a treasure chest; a swarm of flesh-devouring beetles comes out of the chest; save or be left a kneeling skeleton with lockpicks still in your hands.

ADAD hits differently. I sit here in front of giant tomes of knowledge, like fate has bestowed two mighty spell books into my possession, letting them rest on the table before me, and it is up to me to unlock their secrets. Characters don't get toys; they have tools. You are judging your weight allowance. You are kitting out your equipment. You don't have a "class toy" that will kill those goblins on the road ahead; you have limited resources and the choice to wade in and fight, avoid them, or deal with them another way. Spells are to be saved as a last resort, and magic is not used flippantly.

If there is one thing about D&D 4E and 5E that ruined gaming for me, it is those "infinite use" powers and spells that trivialize magic. I imagine a "Street Fighter" character infinitely casting fireballs or Hadouken, summoning forth "fire fist magic" with no cost or care. You could use this power at a restaurant to open a ketchup bottle. Cheap and easy magic ruins the magic, the world, the characters, and the game.

I don't know what those "always on" powers are, but they ain't magic. They are VFX, CGI, fake and dumb-looking. It is "empowerment" minus the power.

Magic assumes something is mysterious, has a price to pay, and is not well-understood.

DCC gives me that with its unpredictability.

ADAD gives me that with its scarcity.

Especially if you play "the spell game" in ADAD, where spell scrolls are not free, easy to find, buyable in shops, and freely traded. A fireball scroll? Spells and that knowledge locked in them are power, and wizards will not "pass that around" freely. There are no "public universities" with "free spells" to walk in and copy into your spellbook. If you find a rare and unique spell in a dungeon, you can trade that for something you want (if you can find someone to deal with), or you can keep that spell for yourself.

Imagine a world where anyone can buy a fireball scroll. Magic is power. Power is not handed around freely. Kingdoms, wizards, magic orders, and every other group would horde scrolls and spells to control these powers for their benefit. Just like today. Power must be tightly controlled and doled out to advance the group's aims, goals, and control of the world.

Even clerics should not be given the whole spell list for which to pray. You find a temple, serve them well, and then are granted access to the fonts of knowledge on how to pray for a new power or two. In every prayer, you need to learn to receive the blessing. A temple may be small and not have higher-level powers locked away; you need to seek a larger one. You may be given quests or expected to give tithes. Clerics learn their spells, too. There are pecking orders and hierarchies of the faithful in churches. Prove your faith in your god.

The whole assumption spells are like MMO powers and given to you when your character "dings" and levels up is another stupid trope of modern gaming.

The "video-gamification" of D&D has been going on since D&D 3.5E, and it sucks. I will play video games to get that hit, not tabletop games. Putting the rules before your world is lame, and it is another power grab by game designers away from referees, placing that power in a book and set of rules instead of a story and a world a group creates together.

"But the book says I get all these powers for free!"

Beware of those games. They take power away from your characters, referee, and group. They make every character in the world the same. That is real power if my wizard is the only one in 500 miles with a fireball scroll. If every wizard gets "fireball for free," there is no power or ownership of something unique or rare. For clerics, your faith may not be large enough to have powers above level 5, so you must help establish temples, seek ancient knowledge from similar lost gods, and build your church among people of the land.

Modern games divorce your character from the setting and story of the world. You are married to the rules and the game designer's whims. They take power away from you by pretending to give it to everyone for free.

ADAD is the real thing, where part of your character's story is acquiring knowledge, wealth, and power. None of this is given to you for free. You may have a few spells or a good to-hit, but most of your decision-making is driven by the story versus what you feel you are capable of, minus any notion of turn-based abilities or encounter powers that require short rests.

My ranger has no spells, just a sword and a limited quiver of arrows.

My fighter is a high AC and has a ton of hit points.

My magic user and cleric have a few spells saved for the right moment.

My thief is skilled, and those come up when I need them.

I am not thinking of feats, subclass powers, cantrips, short rest powers, or looking through my character sheet to "find something to do" on a turn. In DCC, I am sort of doing that at a lower level, like my fighter's "mighty deeds" die, but I prefer that "mighty deeds die" to anything that 5E offers me since it is designed as a "fun old-school themed mechanic" instead of a "character sheet lock in" one. DCC is very pulp and action-oriented, which appeals to me.

With ADAD, I have very little of that "character sheet interference" in my thoughts and actions. What I do is almost entirely controlled by my character and their motivations. This is a much more serious and gritty mechanic, harkening back to the days when rules were not as important as they are today.

DCC is my 3.5E game. It is also a direct replacement for 5E.

And ADAD is my 1e game.

Mail Room: Adventures Dark and Deep

The hardcovers for ADAD came today, and wow.

Wow.

Wow.

I got both the core rulebook and bestiary. They are impressive, chunky, thick books full of first-edition goodness. Each one is an inch-and-a-half thick, totaling more than 1,000 pages of the game. If you want to play the first edition and want "more stuff" within an incredible recreation of the original rules, this game can't be beaten.

Better yet, the rules are balanced, and things remain deadly to the highest levels. If you play by the rules, you won't have invincible characters or those annoying GMNPCs that litter the Forgotten Realms. Characters are meant to gain levels, possibly do great things, grow old, leave first-level heirs, and die.

The most influential shall live on as gods' servants and not hang around in the mortal world to solve other people's problems. Elminster should have retired to become the librarian of Mystra, lived on the planes to pass wisdom, and left that terrestrial "high mage" slot open for a PC to try to take the title. If you earn that place, all the better. When the world needs him, Elminster can appear as a ghost to give the heroes quests. The Realms would have been a better place.

The world, like a garden, should live in cycles and seasons.

As a referee, your game encompasses the garden's stories.

The problem with 5E is that it treats the characters like a TV show that never ends, matures, or allows (or needs) the next generation. They stick around until we are sick of them and their superpowers and watch another show because we get tired of them. You are superheroes who never retire and never let others replace you. The game is very self-centered and inwardly focused on heroes. Gold means nothing. People never die. The planes are overly central to the game and not mysterious places of the afterlife or strange dimensions beyond.

No place in the planes should be "livable" by mortals for long. Staying out there will transform you, consume you, kill you, or drive you insane. The planes are not home to anything other than magical creatures, spirits, strange beasts, or alien life.

Remember how vulnerable you are?

No, the planes are not your home nor a place you want to remain for long.

ADAD is a game I could start a Realms or Greyhawk campaign in and savor how great everything is. Characters would be afraid and careful, but they would need to test fate to save the day. Spells would be a lost art, hard to find, and magic treasures would be unique and special. Gold would be the currency of the realm and the way for characters to quickly advance in power. The world would be filled with danger and the terrors of evil, with walls around civilization needed and armies raised to guard the way of life of a nation. Armies between nations may battle, and they would be necessary to drive back the hordes of demon-worshipping humanoids from the wastelands.

Even better, a Nerrath campaign surrounded by a random hex-crawl world. Let's send off the 4E campaign setting as a proper, first-edition place full of danger and mystery. Welcome home.

The first edition has you thinking about your future, what you will pass along, and whether you will survive to do everything you wish. You settle lands. You raise heirs. You serve the gods or kneel to darker powers. You vanquish evil or succumb to it. You build a kingdom and a future. You defeat demons. You travel to the planes and beyond.

And in the end, you pass along what you can.

You are not the story; you are a part of history.

Maybe.

If that poison dart or pit-trap full of spikes doesn't get you first.

The Case for ADAD

Adventures Dark & Deep and OSRIC are mostly the same game.

But why play ADAD? OSRIC has a lot of support, but one of the best things about the OSR, first-edition, and B/X is that the games and numbers are mostly compatible. OSRIC adventures work perfectly with ADAD, so at this point, it is just a system preference.

Do you like the original, basic first-edition game? Play OSRIC.

Do you like a tuned, 1.5 Edition game with more stuff? Play ADAD.

ADAD has the better combat system, streamlined with weapon speed tied into initiative. This is nice, and the game plays more like the original creator wanted. Slower weapons will hit later in the combat round. ADAD also has an expansion skill system for roleplaying and between-session activities, and the skills do not control your turn-by-turn decisions. Anyone can try influencing people, and a referee may rule that a low CHR score is a bonus when trying to scare off others.

Rulings matter.

Not rules.

ADAD has the most stuff: new classes, more monsters, more magic items, and lots of expansion content pulled from magazine articles and forum posts. This keeps with the original Gygaxian intent and expansion wish list but sticks with the first-edition style. We get modernized classes, such as the bard and barbarian. It is hard to argue with more stuff since there is not much hardcover expansion content for first-edition games (outside of monsters).

The only argument against ADAD is wanting a simple game. Starting with OSRIC may be easier if you are new to the first edition. You will have a lot of 5E to unlearn, such as feeling the need to roll for everything. If there is no time pressure or real difficulty, just let the thief climb the wall or pick the lock without a roll! You don't need to make charisma checks for every interaction! Sometimes, hiding in shadows will work 100%, especially if your plan and hiding spot are excellent.

5E gives referees this horribly toxic habit of "using the dice to punish the players" and it sucks. Climbing a wall with a rope and grappling hook in exploration? Sorry, failed the roll! You fall and die! Ha-ha!

What are you doing?

5E also has the toxic concept of "passive skills," which protect players on their phones who ignore what is happening in the game. In the first edition, there is no passive skill for anything. You pay attention, tell the referee where you search, and you can find the scroll hidden under the cabinet without a roll.

90% of the die rolls in a first-edition game should be combat. The rest of the game is mostly "talk it out" and "make plans." You are not rolling dice every minute in a first-edition game session unless you are in combat.

In fact, your character can die without a single die roll in a first-edition game! You see a pit. My character jumps in! Your character dies.

In 5E, that will require 10 minutes of rules reference and probably six to twelve die rolls. Someone will levitate down with a healer's kit and revive you. Other players around the table will say, "Well, what about this rule or that action?" Someone will devise an ingenious plan way after the fact and try to force you into allowing them to attempt it, 30 minutes after everyone heard the thud.

What are you doing?

But you are not being fair by disallowing us to use the rules to retcon what the referee said happened! This game is about you and your choices, not the rules. Power does not come to you in this game by knowing the rules and how to abuse them. Your success or failure will not be decided by that book.

The dice are not toys that are constantly rolled for every action and interaction. You will never see a "game show roulette wheel" pop up with a musical d20 every time your character interacts with people or the environment. This is not a pen-and-paper mobile phone game.

I like what ADAD brings to the table. This game is also nearly identical to OSRIC if you just play with the OSRIC-familiar things. The extra stuff is ultimately optional, but it helps fill out the game to appeal to some of the later additions, such as the bard class. This game also has some of the Creative Commons' familiar 5E material converted to 1E.

The game is also written by a Greyhawk expert, so it feels right at home in classic settings. And since this is first-edition, nobody will become an unkillable GMNPC or immortal player character. People needing to fear the world, monsters, traps, and dungeons is perfect. Even the highest level wizard is not invincible, so high-level player characters must still play smart.

Don't cheat the rules; you will have a world where everyone is at risk and needs to be careful. Even the highest-level Elminster could be killed anytime, blow his resurrection roll, and the world would change. Action does not come without risk. Change will happen. This means a spot for the next hero will open, and that position as the "high magister" will be open for you.

Do not cheat or fudge rolls! This is how we get unkillable, no-fun, super characters! And I loathe the term "fantasy superheroes" as an excuse for poorly designed rules where no risk or danger exists. You don't need a game or rules at that point; just toss dice on a table and say what you want to happen.

Every version of D&D from the 2nd Edition has GMNPCs, and everyone was encouraged to "cheat the system for player fun!" What ended up happening was that players were the ones who were cheated out of the original game's fun. In 5th Edition, you get to play an invincible GMNPC.

You don't want to be an invincible supercharacter. Trust me, it is boring.

I leave those games and return to what I know and love.

ADAD would make a fantastic system to run a Forgotten Realms campaign with a sense of realism and deadly consequences. If you look at the cover of the original boxed set, you will see that the first edition was the setting that it was designed for. This is how we played our original Forgotten Realms setting. Greyhawk was the super-character playground, with a level 100 setting, while the Realms were supposed to be low-magic, realistic, and gritty dark fantasy.

What is the case for ADAD?

You have it all in two books, everything you need for a classic Greyhawk or Realms campaign, before they were spoiled by power gaming, fantasy superheroes, or modern "character build" gaming. You get a good selection of classes, some new, and others people expect. You get the CC-licensed content converted back into first-edition. You get a streamlined combat system that emphasizes weapon speed and initiative. Unlike every modern version of D&D, the game doesn't self-destruct after ten levels.

You can play a first-edition game in a first-edition world.

You can really go back to those days.

The chance to go back in time is a more memorable gift than most books you can buy in gaming.