The Fantastic is Fact

Getting Started With Original Dungeons & Dragons

Introduction

Dungeons & Dragons recently had its 50th anniversary. A game with such staying power is well worth exploring, I'd reckon! There's no denying that it's the world's greatest most popular tabletop role-playing game and has been enjoyed by millions of people for decades. Your interest piqued you enough to check out this blog post but hasn't quite pushed you over the edge to actually try the game. Or perhaps you want to get started but don't know how. Either way, I'm here to help you.

This article is not intended to introduce you to the art (or science, perhaps) of old-school play; there are already numerous writings that cover that topic well.1 Rather, I hope to provide a glimpse into the ever-evolving world that is Original Dungeons & Dragons, hereafter referred to as "OD&D." For such an old game, there's still a lot of life left in it!

Why OD&D?

It's worth briefly asking ourselves why we'd play OD&D in 2025. Since OD&D's inception, countless tabletop role-playing games ("TTRPGs") have emerged, and more are published every year than anyone could hope to play in a lifetime. Besides the aura of authenticity or authority that comes with being the first to do it, or at least to do it well enough to gather a large following, why do so many continue to play or even discover OD&D for the first time 50 years after its inception?

Simplicity

First, while I would not classify OD&D as a rules-light game, per se, it is certainly much easier to learn than its fifth (or is it sixth?) edition. OD&D is relatively straightforward because it leaves so much up to the players themselves and less so to strict rules that must be adhered to. One discovers not just a world by playing but also how to play in said world through the collective creation of house rules as each campaign unfolds. The game leaves many gaps for referees and players to fill in on their own based on the tastes of their table. Th game's creators suggest as much in OD&D's Afterword:

There are unquestionably areas which have been glossed over. While we deeply regret the necessity, space requires that we put in the essentials only, and the trimming will often have to be added by the referee and his players. We have attempted to furnish an ample framework, and building should be both easy and fun. In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you? Write to us and tell about your additions, ideas, and what have you.2

There's certainly room to argue that needing to come up with your own rules can be more daunting than flipping through dozens of pages to find a specific rule for a specific scenario because coming up with rules that work requires experience, time, and effort. I'm here to tell you that off-the-cuff rulings that keep the game going are perfectly fine, as long as everyone at the table agrees with its logic. Relax. Just keep the game moving and embrace the fluidity. Compared to picking up a game like D&D 5e, Pathfinder 2e, Vampire the Masquerade, Burning Wheel, or whatever else, OD&D is fast to teach and play. It's liberating.

Low Cost

OD&D is relatively cheap: you can buy all of the PDFs on DriveThruRPG for $9.99 US. The retroclones that you'll find below are free or generally printed at cost, so the entry threshold is quite low compared to those shiny new hardcovers you'll find in your local game shop. Even the fancier, more expensive retro clones aren't terribly pricey compared to the competition.

History

OD&D has a lot of history. There are multiple books on the subject, as a matter of fact.3 OD&D is basically the ground zero of the hobby and therefore carries much historical interest. If you're interested in seeing where the hobby evolved from, there's probably no better place to start than here. (Along with reading The Elusive Shift).

Community

And with that historical interest comes lots of fantastic blog posts (get it?), theorizing, and pontificating in all the weirdest and most wonderful ways. OD&D has a strong community surrounding it 50 years on, including a strong DIY culture that carries the faintest scent of the early days of the OSR that has long since been lost to fancy Kickstarters, Backerkits, Exalted Funeral, and other boutique storefronts. Below you'll find a list of some of the best blogs out there for the game.

First Steps

So, first things first: you need to decide whether you'll just use the LBBs or go LBBs + supplement(s).

Um... what?

LBBs refers to the Little Brown Books, or the three little brown booklets that comprised the original game. They make up the 1974 version of the game. Many OD&D players prefer to play with the original booklets and nothing else because they feel that the supplements begin to pull the game farther and farther away from its wargaming roots that are so central to its early appeal, add various (unnecessary) complexities, and ultimately—some would say—make the game begin to feel like the redheaded stepchild of future, more fleshed out iterations of the game.

Others, however, prefer to play with the supplementary material because it's in those very supplements that we find the foundations for what TTRPGs would become today—at least, in the OSR space (such as variable weapon damage, for instance. That's right: when you're playing with the 1974 rules, you'll be rolling d6 for every weapon). They also add several classes and options that flesh out the game into something juicier with more to sink your teeth into. The game did not originally include the Thief class, for instance! No, that class came with the first supplement entitled "Greyhawk." Playing with material from the supplements may be a much easier sell for new players than the comparatively light options found in the first three core booklets.

Once you've made your decision, it's time to decide which version you'd like to play.

Choosing a Game

There are several options for playing OD&D in 2025. Note that this list is not necessarily comprehensive, but it covers all of the most widely-recommended and played games with polished, finalized versions (if anything can truly be considered finished). For a huge list of retroclones, see this oft-cited page.

The Originals

The original booklets are available on DriveThruRPG for less than a microbrew will run you in a bar in downtown Manhattan. This is for you if you want to play with the original, untarnished, honest to God rules. The editing and layout are atrocious by modern standards, but this is the "real deal." It's worth noting that should you want to dip your feet into some of the online communities for the game, knowledge of the originals will be assumed over the retroclones below. It's good to have as a baseline before branching out, but you shouldn't feel like you have to play the originals over anything else.

Delving Deeper

This retroclone, created by Simon Bull, hews closely to the LBBs. It came out a bit over a decade ago and has been a staple in OD&D spaces since. It pulls from sources like Strategic Review, the old Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) newsletter, to make sense of confusing or vague rules. In so doing, Delving Deeper attempts to clean up the game to make it more immediately playable, cohesive, and parsable. This includes not assuming players have access to Chainmail or Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival (granted, Delving Deeper does suggest utilizing a book of mass combat rules like Original Edition Delta's Book of War). The layout is old-school inasmuch as it features hefty paragraphs and only three pieces of artwork (beautiful artwork, though). No index, unfortunately. It's $5 US on Lulu print-on-demand or free over at the author's forums. Check out this review on YouTube, or this upbeat video on why you might want to give Delving Deeper a go. There are a couple versions of the game out there; just stick with the one on Lulu or the v4b PDF on the author's website.

It's worth mentioning that the author has been working on an annotated version of Delving Deeper that has literally hundreds of footnotes explaining Delving Deeper's relationship with its source materials. It has been in development for several years and will hopefully come out before I die. The author's website includes a link to some quiet forums and the latest rendition of the game in PDF form, including some handy player reference sheets.

Play this version if you want a set of rules that is close to the LBBs but tidies them up ever so slightly to make the game more playable, with no real tinkering required from the get-go. Approved by the venerable Odd74 forums.

Link to the PDFs

Link to Lulu POD

The Littlest Brown Book

This lean and mean retroclone condenses 95% of the rules of the LBBs into a slim, 93-page volume. It doesn't feature rules that many gamers won't run into anyway, such as naval combat and the highest character levels. It also includes cute emojis in place of some standard acronyms/abbreviations.

Link to the game

Iron Falcon

This retroclone, created by Chris Gonnerman of Basic Fantasy RPG fame, clones the LBBs plus the first supplement, Greyhawk (hence the name, Iron Falcon: grey hawk). The first supplement introduced the Thief class and variable weapon damage, which have remained two staples of D&D ever since. The layout, like Delving Deeper, is old-school, and it does little to nothing to clean up the original rules. As such, it's quite close to the LBBs + Greyhawk, and has many a grognard's nod of recognition. There's also a fantastic monster manual and a creative "Lake Geneva '75" setting.

Play this version if you want OD&D with some of the gameplay additions that made D&D much more recognizably a "role-playing game" by modern standards.

Link to the website

Swords & Wizardry

This retroclone was one of the first in the OSR, created by none other than Matt Finch of OSRIC fame. The game has gone through several iterations and versions that I will not expound on here, because Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised is the one that most people mean when they refer to the game. (The one other version I will mention that's in print is the White Box, which just uses the LBBs as its basis and is absolutely fantastic). This version clones OD&D and all the supplements. In so doing, it presents the game as it was played in 1978 on the eve of AD&D's release. As such, it includes far more content than the other games listed here. Swords & Wizardry makes some changes to the core rules, most notably having one unified save compared to the several different saves in the LBBs as well as including ascending Armor Class. The latest version of Swords & Wizardry, which had a wildly successful Kickstarter not that long ago, carries a polished layout, lots of artwork, and best of all, Finch's explanations for his rationale behind changes he made to the original game in S&W, including the original versions of those rules for players to pick and choose from if they want. His publishing house, Mythmere Games, has also been putting out some fantastic supplements.

Play this version if you want the most feature complete version of OD&D on the market in an attractive, modernized layout.

Link to Mythmere Games

White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game

Also known as White Box FMAG, or just FMAG, this game by Charlie Mason stems from an earlier version of Swords & Wizardry, simply known as Swords & Wizardry White Box, created by Marv Breig. FMAG keeps Swords & Wizardry's changes to the LBBs but fleshes out the original retroclone considerably, including an optional Thief class. It carries a great, modern layout, but above all else, this retroclone is exceptionally easy to understand and parse. It's as if it were designed to introduce new players to OD&D. It is a good version of the game for a table where everyone is new to old-school RPGs or OD&D more specifically.

Play this version of the game if you're looking for a clean, modernized introduction to OD&D that's easy to understand and get to the table right away.

Link to Amazon

Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

As explained here by its author, Marcia B., what sets FMC apart from most of these other clones is that it does not make any attempts to clean up or polish the LBB rules in any capacity, but rather, opts to leave in all of the ambiguities and confusions that the original rules presented. FMC also includes Chainmail, Gary Gygax and Steve Perrin's wargame that was referenced repeatedly in the original rules, among several optional rules from the supplements presented as appendices (so as to make it extremely clear where the LBBs end and the supplements begin). FMC includes multiple indexes, a modernized layout, lots of cute artwork, and a Creative Commons license.

Play FMC if you want to play a retroclone that is as close as humanly possible to the LBBs without risking a lawsuit, even if that means leaving in all the rules that are confusing, vague, and require some on-the-fly adjudications as well as tinkering to get the game going.

Link to itch.io with further links to PODs

Blueholme

Alright, this one's a bit of an oddity here. Blueholme was created many years ago as a "what if?" retroclone and expansion of the Holmes Basic box set. What's interesting about Holmes Basic is that it was created by Dr. John Eric Holmes after he played OD&D and felt that it could use a better introduction to make it easier to grok for new players. Holmes Basic, which served to introduce players to OD&D, came out on the eve of AD&D, so Gygax inserted references to AD&D throughout in order to help sell AD&D once it launched. Thus, Holmes Basic's raison d'être was short-lived, and was supplanted by later versions of the game pretty quickly. The rest is history. Why do I recommend Blueholme? Because it's still firmly in the OD&D camp, but it includes far more rules and onboarding to help ease new players into the OD&D sphere. It's a brilliant neoclone that carefully clones Holmes Basic and expands it all the way to twentieth level. It's easier to grok than most of the games I listed above, and is a fantastic game in its own right that is sadly overlooked!

Link to DriveThruRPG

Where to Find Players

Yeah, this one's a bit tough. The OD&D scene is unfortunately pretty fragmented online. If you're not able to find an in-person group, here are some options for you:

Forums

Discords

There are several Discords that include OD&D discussion.

Next Steps and Further Reading

Intrigued, are you? Here's some follow-up reading and watching that I recommend:

My Personal Recommendations

So, there you have it: a primer on getting started with Original Dungeons & Dragons in 2025. Above lies a compilation that should get you well on your way towards playing OD&D. If you're interested in my personal recommendations, however, here they are:

  1. Grab a retroclone from the list above. I personally recommend Swords & Wizardry Whitebox for LBBs or Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised if you want the kitchen sink.
  2. Grab some d6s, d10s, and d20s. (Unless you select Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised, in which case, a standard set of polyhedrals).
  3. Play a few rounds of combat on your own to get the gist of it. For inspiration, check out the Chaoclypse YouTube channel or Bandit's Keep.
  4. Embrace the liberation from lots of rules and get comfortable with ruling on the fly to keep the pace of the game going. As long as your players are on board for that type of experience, you're all going to have a good time. I promise.
  5. Hit up any of the Discord servers linked above for any questions you have or to find a game.
  6. Have fun!

And as always...

Fight on

  1. See for instance Matt Finch's A Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming.↩

  2. "The Wilderness and Underworld Adventures," p. 36.↩

  3. Books include Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It by David M. Ewalt, Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson, Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman et al., and The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 by Jon Peterson.↩