I grew up about an hour from Lake Geneva, D&D was everywhere when I was a kid. So I played, but I had no real context for it. I was more of a Star Trek/Heinlein kid, never had any interest in fantasy or made an attempt to read it.
A few years ago I started to try to get into Fantasy. I read Vance, Howard's Conan stories [0], Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories, Tolkien as an adult for the first time, and a bunch of other stuff referenced in the old DMG's Appendix N [1]. I like Smith's "evil as an aesthetic experience" vibe best but I wouldn't say that I'm a fantasy fan. Still, getting the S&S context has been neat.
I recently moved back to my hometown from NYC because of the pandemic. Being back here and living in a forest again got me reading the old AD&D books. And, AD&D is just more interesting than the third edition we played in high school. When I talked to Gygax about 3rd edition he just kind of sneered and said "It's for powergamers." [2]
Reading AD&D 21 years later, I see what he meant. AD&D has texture [3], it's bumpy, it's rough, it's great. But, beyond the mechanics, what's really grabbing me is that it hints at a style of play that I'd heard about from people who used to play with Gygax and his kids, but never experienced myself. The old D&D campaigns weren't epic, level 1-40, movie trilogies with a definite beginning middle and end like we think of them today. A D&D "campaign" was something a that could be played with a large number of players in a club. It was like the old military campaigns wargaming clubs used to organize. People in the campaign would have multiple characters of different classes and drop into or run individual games that exist in a shared time and place. Want to play, stop by. Someone can't make it, who else is available? Why does everyone meet in a tavern and then live together for the next forty levels? I'd rather play in a world that's populated with NPCs that used to be PCs.
Reading these old stories and the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide for the first time really makes me want to run a shared world with a group of 10-20 people.
[0]: No one tells you this but Conan stories are basically Lovecraft Mythos stories. But with Howard's version of the Mythos you can just punch the cosmic horrors until they crawl back down their mystery wells.
[2]: I met Dave Arneson too. I was digging through a bin of old miniatures at Gen Con in 2004. I turned to the old guy dressed as a wizard rummaging next to me and said something like "I really love these old miniatures." He said: "Me too" and we go to talking. About 10 minutes in I looked at his badge. He just smiled.
[3]: Look at the AD&D version of the "Animal Friendship" spell and then compare it to the 5th edition version:
Ask yourself, do you want to play the game where animal companions "follow you about" while you teach them tricks over the course of a month or the game where "Animal Friendship" just means "Bear go away now."? And no, I don't care about "balance".
That's what a DM is for.
I was recently catching up on Dark Horse's Conan the Avenger, and sure enough, Conan and his companions of circumstance end up facing a monstrous beast from the outer dark. Conan's plan?
"Hit whatever attacks us, man or beast, repeatedly, until it dies."
Conan is the best type of character to deal with terror-inducing beings like shoggoths or Cthulhu. His extremely uncomplicated conscience coupled with high intelligence makes him totally immune to fear that suppresses 'civilized' people.
As someone who's always lived next to the "original" (Swiss) Lake Geneva, I was confused as to why I'd never experienced this D&D enthusiasm you've mentioned
The idea that AD&D didn’t have powergamers sounds like Gygax propaganda. This is the edition that put out a book of diety statblocks like it was another monster manual. Your linked Animal Friendship, allows 2xHD of companions so a L3 druid could have a Cave Bear. That’s as bad as it sounds.
Every edition has many issues but imho 1e is pretty terrible by modern standards.
He didn't say AD&D didn't have powergamers, he said that 3rd was FOR powergamers.
On Animal Friendship, see my comment about balance: Who cares. The bear is taught three tricks and kinda hangs around, the druid doesn't get to control it. How many "friends" would you take a bullet for?
Still a problem? Get rid of the bear and see if the player wants to skip leveling their druid for three weeks and play a different character while their druid trains a new one. Time passes in real-time when not playing in AD&D and the bear will wander off after three days if the druid leaves before it's fully trained. If the druid wants to try taking a half-trained bear along on a hike, make it more trouble than it's worth. Playing AF like this is really fun.
Every edition has issues but AD&D is pretty fun by modern standards.
A few years ago I started to try to get into Fantasy. I read Vance, Howard's Conan stories [0], Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique stories, Tolkien as an adult for the first time, and a bunch of other stuff referenced in the old DMG's Appendix N [1]. I like Smith's "evil as an aesthetic experience" vibe best but I wouldn't say that I'm a fantasy fan. Still, getting the S&S context has been neat.
I recently moved back to my hometown from NYC because of the pandemic. Being back here and living in a forest again got me reading the old AD&D books. And, AD&D is just more interesting than the third edition we played in high school. When I talked to Gygax about 3rd edition he just kind of sneered and said "It's for powergamers." [2]
Reading AD&D 21 years later, I see what he meant. AD&D has texture [3], it's bumpy, it's rough, it's great. But, beyond the mechanics, what's really grabbing me is that it hints at a style of play that I'd heard about from people who used to play with Gygax and his kids, but never experienced myself. The old D&D campaigns weren't epic, level 1-40, movie trilogies with a definite beginning middle and end like we think of them today. A D&D "campaign" was something a that could be played with a large number of players in a club. It was like the old military campaigns wargaming clubs used to organize. People in the campaign would have multiple characters of different classes and drop into or run individual games that exist in a shared time and place. Want to play, stop by. Someone can't make it, who else is available? Why does everyone meet in a tavern and then live together for the next forty levels? I'd rather play in a world that's populated with NPCs that used to be PCs.
Reading these old stories and the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide for the first time really makes me want to run a shared world with a group of 10-20 people.
[0]: No one tells you this but Conan stories are basically Lovecraft Mythos stories. But with Howard's version of the Mythos you can just punch the cosmic horrors until they crawl back down their mystery wells.
[1]: https://goodman-games.com/blog/2018/03/26/what-is-appendix-n...
[2]: I met Dave Arneson too. I was digging through a bin of old miniatures at Gen Con in 2004. I turned to the old guy dressed as a wizard rummaging next to me and said something like "I really love these old miniatures." He said: "Me too" and we go to talking. About 10 minutes in I looked at his badge. He just smiled.
[3]: Look at the AD&D version of the "Animal Friendship" spell and then compare it to the 5th edition version:
Animal Friendship (AD&D): https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Animal_friendship
Animal Friendship (5th Edition): https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/animal-friendship
Ask yourself, do you want to play the game where animal companions "follow you about" while you teach them tricks over the course of a month or the game where "Animal Friendship" just means "Bear go away now."? And no, I don't care about "balance". That's what a DM is for.