My solution to that is not to play the newest system. If I get the urge to play 3E, i fire up my computers and play Diablo online for a while. No real difference.
I think I mentioned long ago that I DMed In Search Of as my first gaming experience. The party would walk down a corridor, open a door, and I would read the entire description of the room, including things like "Under a loose flagstone is a box containing 30 GP", or "Placing a chip of the rock under the tongue produces a magical effect". I remember perfectly how they beat the shit out of the magic rock, hacking off chips by the dozen, and stuffing them in their mouths. I still crack up picturing it.
After that abortive attempt, I didn't play again until I was invited into a game with B2 as the mod. I rolled these stats on 3d6 per stat (still have the character sheet):

STR: 18/00
INT:12
WIS:12
CON:18
DEX:17
CHA:15

I of course had to be a fighter. Since the party was already well into the module, I was chained up against a wall in the zombie room near the Temple of Chaos for my big intro. The PC's were supposed to rescue me. Unfortunately, they were annihilated. Just as the last character went down, I asked the DM if it was possible for me to pull the chains out of the wall. I did so. The Dm then told me the zombies were turning toward me, and I had to decide what to do. One PC was right in front of me, almost dead. Beside him was the silver +2 bastard sword that the party leader had owned. I thought it thru, and announced I was taking the PC with me, since I could not carry both. We got out, I spent a great deal of time nursing him back to health. When we went back later, we destroyed the zombies with the help of a new cleric, and I got the sword, which was what I had figured on anyways, hence my decision to save the PC. My character eventually hung it over the mantle in his castle.
Ack, I am misting up.........

I started playing in 1977 with Holmes' Basic set, and moved quickly into AD&D from there.  I bought an OCE set in the early 80s, but never used it except for reference, and later sold it to Paul Stormberg or Jason Zavoda (I forget which off the top of my head; between them, they bought 90% of my early SRs, TDs, OCE, supplements, etc. when I unloaded them in the middle 90s).  

MShipley88 wrote:

ddt58 wrote:The first set of rules I owned was a xerox copy of the 4th printing of the original rules. I know, I know, but I was a poor high school student. And the statute of limitations ran about 25 years ago! I paid Kerry Lloyd (who went on to write the Thieves Guild stuff with Gamelords) $3 for copies of the three books. I got an OCE and a 2nd print woodgrain later, but we moved on to AD&D as soon as the MM and PH came out.

Do you know Kerry Lloyd? Do you know what he is up to?

Kerry Lloyd died years ago, c. 1984 or so. Tadashi Ehara (formerly of Chaosium, and currently of Different Worlds) owns all the rights to the Gamelords lines, and we're working to republish them. There's some additional discussion on this over in the non-TSR items on eBay thread.

If you're looking for GL stuff, see the DWP web site (in my .sig), though it crops up pretty regularly on eBay too.

keith wrote:Did you (or anyone you know) begin playing Original/Basic D&D and then move on to play with the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, & Immortal rules?

... everyone I knew who used "D&D" (like a module) simply adapted it to AD&D.

My group started with the Holmes basic set, and then we moved to AD&D later that same year.  However, we actually played both lines throughout.  Although realism in a fantasy game is a bit oxymoronic, AD&D was grittier, slower and heavier!  Those hardbound books started to weigh you down if you were peddling everywhere, whereas with just those two 3-hole punched, Erol Otus-arted softbacks you had everything you needed!  

So while we were totally hooked on AD&D, every so often we would decide to just slam together some basic/expert characters (they were so quick to make, and you could buy down/up your stats, which rocked!) and take on Tegel Manor, Castle Amber, the Lost City, Curse of Xanathon, or suchlike and have a blast.  It was D&D pared down to the fun.

In fact, when I just ran Curse of Xanathon and the Lost City last summer using the basic/expert rules, and it was just as much fun as it has always been.

muaddib5 wrote:Played very briefly in 1984. My best friend tried teaching me basic D&D out of the red box set. I moved and didn't play for almost two years. Then my best friend and I met up again in 1986 and we dived head first into AD&D. My first Gen Con was GC19 that summer. I had been only playing for a few months at the time, and I can remember my buddy telling me while we were waiting to be picked for teams for that years AD&D Open "remember if anyone asks, you've been playing for a year." That first year was the only time we made it to the second round of the Open

Hey at least you made it to the second round, we got booted after the first round this year and I have been playing for years

killjoy32 wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:Hey at least you made it to the second round, we got booted after the first round this year and I have been playing for years

oooh a story in the making....start a thread off and tell us what happened

Well we had a disfuntional group to say the least.  First off the DM was very slow, his grasp of the rules was poor and his decisions were wishy washy; especially when one of the girls (we had two in our group) talked.  I think he may have helped write the 40 year old version

One of the other players felt he was the best player and everybody should listen to him.  That was fine but he was far from the best player at the table.  After he started bragging that he was the manager of a Dominoes Pizza I knew we were doomed.

The best part was there were two players from the UK, both these guys brought exactly no books with them   They told us that coming from all the way over there meant they had to leave there books at home.  Wait a minute, I came from western canada and somehow I could fit a players handbook in my luggage.  Come on man, you are coming to a gaming convention with no players handbook .  They really slowed us down always borrowing a book, finally my wife told them to go in the hall and buy one .  We did not come close to finishing, still had a few laughs (especially the girls bugging the nervous DM).

I played in a tournament once.  We crushed the adventure (didn't really even take any damage) but ended up finishing second......

   ......Turns out that we were so inexperienced that we did not know that teams could score points for doing stupid things.  The team that won bumbled about the adventure getting smacked by monsters and scoring points for it.  

    Not that I'm still pissed or anything.  

killjoy32 wrote:

MShipley88 wrote:I played in a tournament once. We crushed the adventure (didn't really even take any damage) but ended up finishing second......

......Turns out that we were so inexperienced that we did not know that teams could score points for doing stupid things. The team that won bumbled about the adventure getting smacked by monsters and scoring points for it.

 Not that I'm still pissed or anything.

talking of running games, i am gonna get me mate over for halloween. i got the kids down n stuff, so am gonna run I6 - ravenloft, just so i can get the atmosphere right. ran it before and it was a success.

gonna use some music for it too....anyone got any good ideas? was thinking of something backgroundish and moody.....

Al

    For Ravenloft, you cannot beat the soundtrack CD to the most recent Dracula movie (with Gary Oldman as Dracula).  It might still be around on a large music store's racks.

Killjoy32 wrote:talking of running games, i am gonna get me mate over for halloween. i got the kids down n stuff, so am gonna run I6 - ravenloft, just so i can get the atmosphere right. ran it before and it was a success.

gonna use some music for it too....anyone got any good ideas? was thinking of something backgroundish and moody.....

Ah!  Music for Ravenloft -- now yer in my wheelhouse, mate!  

You have three routes for this -- the first is to play up the Bela Lugosi cheese factor -- special effect CDs, Halloween CDs, Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in Dm (which, incidentally, is the piece that Tracy Hickman had in mind when he wrote the scene in front of the organ).  Vampyre of the Harpsichord/Phantom of the Organ is also good in this vein (pardon the pun); these are older works, but if they don't take you back to 1960's Hammer Horror/American International fright pictures, it's a damn shame.
Ultimately, though, these are pretty silly things to throw in-- if you just want to go way over the top and have Strahd spout lines in a thick Hungarian accent "I never drink.... blood...." then these soundstracks will have everyone rolling around on the floor.

The second route is to grab an off the rack soundtrack.  Dracula falls into this category, the Alien soundtrack, John Carpenter's The Fog, The Prince of Darkness, or The Thing, are all very good.  Most of the CDs from Midnight Syndicate fall into this category as well.  Problem is, they match the rhythm of the movie, not necessarily the rhythm of your game -- just when the suspense is building to a crescendo with Strahd stepping out of the shadows to open a vampire-sized can of whoop-a** on the PCs, the soundtrack launches into a love theme and the moment is gone.  I've been there -- especially with the Omen soundtrack, which while good, has a vocal love theme track that will suck the horror out of a game in a heartbeat.  

The third route, and the one I recommend for true gloom, is to find some dark ambient music.  This stuff is minimalist, dark, and often heavy on low- and sub-harmonics.  I think the majority of its regular listeners use it to enhance their already... erm, altered, state of awareness, but even without resorting to chemical assistance, it has great gaming uses.  Because a fair portion of it is subharmonic, you need a subwoofer that can move some air at the 17-30 hz range, to get maximum effect.   Nevertheless, this stuff blends into the background fast -- it never disturbs your DM narration, or throws the players out of their groove -- within minutes no one is really "aware" that it is still playing.  But it is working on you nonetheless -- before the evening is through, you will be seriously believing that you are deep in a crypt that someone else calls home.   And better yet -- because almost no one listens to this stuff for real, it can be had used for pennies on the dollar from most online used CD stores (Amazon.com/Secondspin.com/insert your country's used CD store here).  

Here are the titles that I recommend:

Stalker [Audio CD] Rich, Robert; Lustmord, B
The Magnificent Void [Audio CD] Steve Roach
Cold Summer [Audio CD] Lull
Midnight Moon [Audio CD] Roach, Steve

There are others, but these work like no ones business.  Be aware, they are not "heroic," they don't evoke romance or excitement, or anything like that.  These are tracks that capture, however, the sense of dread of creeping around a haunted house, castle, catacombs -- in the dark, with something around that palpably wants to do you in.

Yama-Arashi wrote:Here are the titles that I recommend:

Great post! Thanks for providing the info and recommendations.

I've been a longtime fan of The Thing, but I just watched the Omen and the Fog for the first time last week. Getting ready for Halloween...

Another choice for theme music might be Joy Division. All the songs are downcast yet commanding; some are propulsive and rhythmic and others are slow and atmospheric. I think JD would make a good soundtrack for Frodo being chased by the Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings.