this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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[–] Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com 39 points 9 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Spot@startrek.website 10 points 9 months ago
[–] timgrant@ttrpg.network 5 points 9 months ago

If your first-level halfling is wearing plate mail, you may be playing Red Box D&D.

[–] s12@sopuli.xyz 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com 2 points 9 months ago

Not familiar, but from what I just read online it looks pretty similar yeah. I believe the idea behind DCC was recreating exactly that simpler old school fantasy.

[–] timgrant@ttrpg.network 1 points 7 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.