• Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    11 months ago

    My dad used to play red box D&D (which I believe was the first edition ever released). Still has some manuals, which I got the chance to read.

    Not only it was encouraged to play humans, it was assumed! You didn’t get to pick a race, only a class. And while the classes of “elf” (think like 5e’s ranger) and “dwarf” (5e’s barbarian, sort of) were a thing, all of the other classes assumed for the player to be a human. You couldn’t play an elf wizard: you either are an elf OR a wizard. Wild stuff, compared to some of the crazy stuff we get to do in modern D&D.

    • timgrant@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      9 months ago

      Late reply, but original D&D and Holmes-book D&D came before Red Box. Not sure about OD&D, but Holmes had race-class separation. AD&D has roughly contemporaneous with red box, and had the concept of Elf Wizard.

      Red box D&D (both its editions) was pretty different in a lot of ways than other editions.