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Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game Expert Rulebook
The rule booklet is easy to read and understand, and the rules have been organized into eight modular sections that can easily be integrated with the D&D Basic rules.
64 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 28, 2018
While I cut my teeth on the basics with the Basic Set like a proper D&D geek of ye olden days, it was with this Expert Set that I really dove headlong into my love affair with this wonderful fantasy gaming system.
The new rulebook expanded upon the basics and made of a few rule changes, but mainly the new set was all about more more more! And how did I like it? I loved it! I read and leafed the fuck out of this book! I still have my original copy and it is in tatters. Also, any naked breasts are marked with penciled-in nips, because my cousin was a horn-dog and not above defacing my property for his pleasure.
(When I get the chance, I'm going to bust out my copy and go into more depth on the contents for this review.)
It came with a companion module called The Isle of Dread, which introduced players to a more open gaming style. In the very least, the sandbox got bigger! The monsters were more dangerous. The chances for role-playing with a non-lethal outcome were more varied and more challenging. I wasn't old enough or have a decent enough crew of people to play with who could get the most out of The Isle of Dread, so unfortunately it never became a nostalgic favorite of mine. More's the pity, because it has real potential.
The new rulebook expanded upon the basics and made of a few rule changes, but mainly the new set was all about more more more! And how did I like it? I loved it! I read and leafed the fuck out of this book! I still have my original copy and it is in tatters. Also, any naked breasts are marked with penciled-in nips, because my cousin was a horn-dog and not above defacing my property for his pleasure.
(When I get the chance, I'm going to bust out my copy and go into more depth on the contents for this review.)
It came with a companion module called The Isle of Dread, which introduced players to a more open gaming style. In the very least, the sandbox got bigger! The monsters were more dangerous. The chances for role-playing with a non-lethal outcome were more varied and more challenging. I wasn't old enough or have a decent enough crew of people to play with who could get the most out of The Isle of Dread, so unfortunately it never became a nostalgic favorite of mine. More's the pity, because it has real potential.
May 17, 2021
Again, coming back to this in the end stages of the pandemic, and seeing why we loved it so. This one i probably loved _less_ as a kid because in the stew of gaming supplies I had as a kid by the time this one was in play I also had the AD&D books and none of us were purists when it came to rules sets (which made things _really confusing_) until we all settled on AD&D. Which I then immediately started to modify. Looking back at this it's a solid rulebook, but still confusing on _what_ you were supposed to be doing. All the seeds of "travel to hidden places in the world to explore magical places and face the threats festering there" are present but not specifically stated, and then you're supposed to transition to clearing land and becoming lords, except the rules that make that interesting will come later....
Really, the Basic set should be levels 1-4, this should be levels 5-8, and then the rulership set should cover 9-16. YMMV.
Still, if you want to play B/X (or BECMI) D&D, you'll have fun doing so.
Really, the Basic set should be levels 1-4, this should be levels 5-8, and then the rulership set should cover 9-16. YMMV.
Still, if you want to play B/X (or BECMI) D&D, you'll have fun doing so.
August 17, 2022
8/16/22: Update: To the below review I will add one note with somewhat deeper implications. Going through the list of monsters provided in this volume, I see that they were trying to beef up the “wilderness” monsters one would encounter outside of the cramped environs of underground labyrinths. We find things like brigands, rhinoceros, and pterodactyls in that sense. We also find various more powerful creatures, including some that aren’t in the standard “AD&D” books, such as Caecilia, Rhagodessa, and Frost Salamanders. And then there are monsters which fill out the mythological category such as Hippogriffs and Chimera, and popular D&D names like Black Puddings and Blink Dogs. The problem with this last category is that it emphasizes how little effort there has been to integrate this version with the “Holmes” Basic Set – everything listed in the last sentence was already given in that monster list! I have to assume that the Moldvay list was reduced to creatures more appropriate for 1st-3rd level characters exploring dungeons, but it’s disappointing to find so much space devoted to information many players already had. Various other elements really do not map as directly as implied in the rules here, including alignment, morale, and missile/melee combat. It seems that TSR decided it wasn’t that important to make the two systems work together, beginning a form of the “edition wars” years in advance of its official beginning.
12/21/14: Although it was unintentional, the first edition of D&D wound up splitting into two not-entirely compatible systems: The more complex “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,” and the simpler version based on the old D&D Basic Set combined with this one. Really, since I started playing at a very young age, I probably “should” have stuck with this version, but I was precocious enough to feel like that would put me in the “dummy group” of gamers, so I was mostly an AD&D advocate (though I never really learned all the rules, anyway). So far as I recall, I never used this book for anything but a few test characters.
On the whole, it works well to expand the Basic rules without adding an overwhelming amount of detail. While Basic D&D only took you up to third level characters, this gives you enough information to go to 14th and even beyond. There are new spells, new character classes, and new monsters, and a fair amount of information for “wilderness adventures” (meaning adventures not confined to the closed spaces of dungeons). They kept it short enough to be readable by anyone with an interest, and also kept the price down by not including a huge amount of extra artwork or detailed tables. It is not playable without the Basic Rules, however, it is an expansion upon them.
This version introduces three non-human races: Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. Interestingly, they are treated as character classes in and of themselves: Elves are essentially treated as multiclassed fighter-magic users, while Halflings and Dwarves are basically fighters with especially good saving throws. I think it would have been more interesting to give the Halflings some thieving skills, and maybe make Dwarves gain cleric abilities at higher levels. My major beef with D&D (all versions) of this time were the racial limitations. Supposedly demi-humans could only advance so far, and then had to stop, sometimes as low as 8th level (Halflings). So far as I know, nobody played by this rule. What would be the point of making a character that stopped progressing while everyone else in the party kept getting more powerful? Supposedly this was to add “game balance,” because otherwise everyone would play non-humans, and campaigns would therefore be rare in which humans were present. This argument never made the slightest bit of sense to me, and seems even dumber in a game where the demi-humans are already limited in terms of class. So what if everyone wants to play Elves? Build a party of nothing but Elves in this system, and you’ll have no one capable of healing or disarming traps, and your party will be dead pretty quick. Game balance takes care of itself, and any decent DM can come up with interesting adventures for an all-demi-human party.
Anyway, this is overall a playable but now quite dated game, which I never really got into, but I’m glad to have had it for the entertainment value.
12/21/14: Although it was unintentional, the first edition of D&D wound up splitting into two not-entirely compatible systems: The more complex “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons,” and the simpler version based on the old D&D Basic Set combined with this one. Really, since I started playing at a very young age, I probably “should” have stuck with this version, but I was precocious enough to feel like that would put me in the “dummy group” of gamers, so I was mostly an AD&D advocate (though I never really learned all the rules, anyway). So far as I recall, I never used this book for anything but a few test characters.
On the whole, it works well to expand the Basic rules without adding an overwhelming amount of detail. While Basic D&D only took you up to third level characters, this gives you enough information to go to 14th and even beyond. There are new spells, new character classes, and new monsters, and a fair amount of information for “wilderness adventures” (meaning adventures not confined to the closed spaces of dungeons). They kept it short enough to be readable by anyone with an interest, and also kept the price down by not including a huge amount of extra artwork or detailed tables. It is not playable without the Basic Rules, however, it is an expansion upon them.
This version introduces three non-human races: Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings. Interestingly, they are treated as character classes in and of themselves: Elves are essentially treated as multiclassed fighter-magic users, while Halflings and Dwarves are basically fighters with especially good saving throws. I think it would have been more interesting to give the Halflings some thieving skills, and maybe make Dwarves gain cleric abilities at higher levels. My major beef with D&D (all versions) of this time were the racial limitations. Supposedly demi-humans could only advance so far, and then had to stop, sometimes as low as 8th level (Halflings). So far as I know, nobody played by this rule. What would be the point of making a character that stopped progressing while everyone else in the party kept getting more powerful? Supposedly this was to add “game balance,” because otherwise everyone would play non-humans, and campaigns would therefore be rare in which humans were present. This argument never made the slightest bit of sense to me, and seems even dumber in a game where the demi-humans are already limited in terms of class. So what if everyone wants to play Elves? Build a party of nothing but Elves in this system, and you’ll have no one capable of healing or disarming traps, and your party will be dead pretty quick. Game balance takes care of itself, and any decent DM can come up with interesting adventures for an all-demi-human party.
Anyway, this is overall a playable but now quite dated game, which I never really got into, but I’m glad to have had it for the entertainment value.
November 27, 2022
Moldvay/Cook might be the best repackaging of the original D&D rules into an easily-understood basic game - sure, sure, the planned Companion rules had to wait for the Mentzer-penned revision of the basic game, but in practice the game always functioned best at the dungeons-and-wildernesses levels covered by B/X. The main downside here is that Basic only goes to 3rd Level and incorporating the material from Expert requires a bunch of cross-referencing. Full thoughts on this and other TSR-era D&D editions: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
September 15, 2021
This continued the easier version of D&D started in the Basic Rules and expanded it into overland adventures. The most enduring impression it had on me was the map of the Known World, later called Mystara, which I used in my own adventures for years afterwards.
January 27, 2019
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews