For my OD&D enjoyers, which is your preferred version? 3LBBs, FMC, Delving Deeper, FMAG, The Littlest Brown Book? I’ve kind of settled on Delving Deeper and TLBB(Have a hard copy of DD as well as FMC, and a hard copy of TLBB on the way.) I’m not so tied to hyper accuracy but I do want to maintain a functional version of the original rules for me to mangle and butcher for my weird scifantasy bullshit. I want room to play around, but I do want something just a bit more put together than 3LBBs/FMC. Wbu?
1 Like
Imho it kinda doesn’t matter. I think the fun of playing OD&D is constructing the game yourself through play.
With that perspective, I don’t find the same OD&D joy in any of the restatements or “retroclones.”
I do think Delving Deeper is interesting for being intensely well researched, which is fairly rare compared to many of the other restatements, and the Citation edition of the v5 fragments are gold… even if I disagree with most of the interpretations 
5 Likes
I like FMAG though I’m not married to it. I like that its a bit more streamlined but not entirely so. It’s cleaned up not dumbed down and if there is something missing it isn’t very difficult to jam it back in. Though there’s something about 3LBB and having to wrestle with it that gives it a sort of feel that makes you want to mess with it.
I find Delving Deeper the easiest to read and reference. I haven’t read the original booklets yet, but that might be a fun journey to take.
If I were to run it, I’d likely just rewrite it myself tbh, with a bit of Strategic Review on the side.
Since I’m not running and don’t care, I generally use Delving Deeper just because it’s easier and “good enough”. Back when I was running Pendragon in B/X I had Delving Deeper and the OSE SRDs open on a window, so whenever I couldn’t find something in DD, I looked it up in the OSE SRD and 10/10 times found it. But it almost never came up because everyone already had their mental version of D&D and I generally either already had some idea of how to adjudicate or, if I didn’t, I asked the players what they thought would be a fair adjudication method - usually I suggested one myself so as not to put them on the spot.
In my current game, this means a lot of “I think this is a 2-in-6”, “Hmm I’d say it’s more like 3-in-6 because of [Reason]”, “That makes sense, roll it up”.
I’ve ran FMAG, almost strictly, for a few years now. No campaigns of extended length, but we’ve had a bunch of fun with it.
The only reason I grabbed a retroclone was because FMAG was available for $4.20 on Amazon and it looked easier to start with than OD&D. After reading OD&D, I would definitely say I made the right decision since easy and low cost entry was the focus at the start.
But I got the itch and I’m moving over to the 3LBBs (no CHAIMMAIL, Supplements, or Strategic Review). Printed out OD&D recently and going to move future games over to that. It’s been fun reading it over and filling some of the gaps (Initiative, Combat Sequence, etc…). I’ll have to find out at the table how those go. I will say that I think people make a bigger deal out of the “difficulty” of running OD&D than it reads. Of course, someone with zero experience running OD&D would have some problems and I would not recommend that. But anyone with 10+ games under their belt would be able to start pulling it off.
We will see if it ends up becoming my preference in the long run. Assuming this isn’t your first old school game, you can definitely just start with 3LBB. Every retroclone is going to have different implementations of all the secondary sources. Greyharp does a pretty great job (unofficial of course) if you looking for something that is very closed to 3LBB with only a few clarifications that many folks agree on.
1 Like
The only problem with Greyharp, unless someone updated it, is that it is missing two tables, I believe Cleric saves and the flyers encounter table.
1 Like
The copy I have has the Cleric Saving throw. For the flyer table, do you mean the hit on flying creatures or something else? Mine has a flying movement table, a hit on flying creatures one, and a hit location.
EDIT: I’ve reviewed… Greyharp is missing the Flying Encounter table. Although, the version I have does have that cleric table.
1 Like
Definately not my first rodeo, and I dl have 2(!) good pdfs of all the 3lbb in a single pdf, one with calrification and edits(ODD Single Volume)and one without(Dungeons and Dragons White Box). I need to give tjem a straight through read, I “get” OD&D at this point, I should give the rules proper a good look. I will however use TLBB for actual running for sake of ease, portability, pretty decent accuracy, and physicality all in one.
1 Like
It’s missing the lycanthrope encounters subtable, iirc.
Edit: Looks like it’s actually missing like… nearly all those subtables. Flyers, Lycans, Swimmers, Undead, Dragon, Giant, etc. Everything but Men and Animals. Unless there’s an updated PDF somewhere, or maybe I just missed em, I dunno.
2 Likes
Well in true OD&D fashion, even the attempts to build faithful unofficial copies forget critical elements. I cannot tell if that makes it truer to the original spirit or less LOL.
1 Like
I’ve been using Delving Deeper v4b for a long while now, and I like the level of openness it has while still providing you a bunch of detailed reference stuff (for free online, too) if you need it while running. A nice canvas.
2 Likes
First answer - the one I made. 
Second answer - Either Delving Deeper or White Box FMAG. Truth is, it’s all just a hodgepodge anyway. One of these days I’ll run a game entirely with just what’s in the 3 LBB and no other house rules and it’ll be interesting and likely very frustrating.
2 Likes
I made my own (The Littlest Brown Book) as a very condensed reference that suits my needs at the table, but I usually recommend new players either go with Delving Deeper if they don’t want to tinker much, or wrestle directly with the original LBBs if they do.
2 Likes
I love tinkering and playing with system stuff, and already have my own notes doc. I also have just kind of internalized large parts of 0e, so. Like I mentioned I got a physical of TLBB on the way, it also suits my needs very well(very small and portable, largely accurate with a bit of cleanup and light tweaks, very clear layout) with the exception of reduced class xp progression tables.
3 Likes
You’re the author of TLBB? I’ve been loving digging through it, some important things that I feel get missed I find in it and I’m glad someone remembered to add the Martians, too often I feel like the sci-fi bits of 0e get ignored!
3 Likes