OD&D - The Original Intended Audience & Basic Assumptions - 01

When OD&D was first published back in January of 1974 there were some basic things that are usually overlooked. The common view point these days is that OD&D is essentially the same as the later versions, just not as well organized and full of unpolished stuff. I have always viewed OD&D as radically different from all of the versions that followed. I did have never viewed the later versions as being better organized not as having filled in holes in the rules or as having resolved ambiguities. I have always viewed those later versions as fixing things that were not broken. However, I believe  that the difference in viewpoint is due to a number of things that are not being considered. This post has developed out of a discussion over on my forum.

The title of the game is: 

Dungeons & Dragons - Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures

So the game in the very beginning had an intended target audience of adults and not just any adults. The target audience were adults who played wargames set in the medieval period who also had an interest in fantasy. Adults who were well read in fantasy, history and played wargame(s).  This is very much a niche audience. History shows us that the game sold and because of that was distributed and came to the attention of many who did not belong to the niche described by those four things: not all were adults, not all were wargamers, not all were students of history, although the majority were into fantasy. This resulted in a flood of questions being sent into TSR that initially baffled Gary Gygax and his staff, since they were used to people like themselves that played wargame(s) and were used to house-ruling things during the course of play. They did not understand why so many people needed help imagining things and creating things.

Because of this additional audience AD&D was written that defined way more things and tried to answer most of the common questions with rules.  For this and a number of other reasons the Holmes, B/X and BECMI D&D versions were created and these were for market reasons aimed at a much younger audience that were not wargamers, were not well-read in fantasy or history and that resulted in what I consider a completely different game from OD&D.

To quote Mr Darke on my forum:

This also may be why OD&D and the clones can be hard to grasp for newer players, especially those coming from newer D&D editions. While you can clone the rules you cannot clone the assumption that a player or DM would have a working knowledge of the Hundred Years War, Howard's Conan tales or know how medieval weaponry worked. This is something to think on and something I think those that make the clones need to consider.

 I agree with this and I believe that he hit the proverbial nail on the head.