I'm trying to get the various abbreviations for the various editions and versions of Dungeons & Dragons straight in my mind, and could use some help.
These are the abbreviations that I have down:
OD&D: This is the woodgrain and white box sets from early 70's; along with several supplemental booklets.
BD&D: This is the blue box set by Holmes from 1977, and first edition of Basic D&D.
BXD&D: This is the red box set by Moldvay and companion Expert box set by Cook from the early 80's, and the second edition of Basic D&D.
BECMI: This is the series of boxed sets by Mentzer for Basic D&D, and the third edition of Basic D&D.
RC: This the compilation of BECMI rules into the Rules Cyclopedia hardback book. Also, the Wrath of the Immortals box set is combined with the RC to form the fourth edition of Basic D&D.
1st AD&D: Self-explanatory.
2nd AD&D: Self-explanatory.
2.5 AD&D: This the slight revision of 2nd AD&D in the Player's Option books from the mid-90's.
3.x D&D: This is the WotC revision of AD&D and includes 3.0 D&D and the revision 3.5 D&D.
4e D&D: This the latest WotC revision of 3.x D&D.
I think that I have got down, but I'm not entirely sure about the Moldvay/Cook abbreviation for the second edition of BD&D.
Did I miss anything?
Cheers!
2.75 AD&D = Castles & Crusades?
Many people will lump OD&D thru RC into "OD&D" or "Classic D&D" and then there are those special butterflies who declare that OD&D is only the books that came in the white / brown box and not the supplements.
B/X aka Moldvay/Cook aka Moldvay/Marsh/Cook aka the Red Book and the Blue Book.
BD&D Basic D&D A boxed set with simplier classes (Blue Box I believe)
ED&D Expert D&D, a more advanced box set of the simplier rules gave extended levels. (light blue if memory serves)
And then there were the Prefix
m Modified 1-15% changes in the rules
v Variant Changing about 25% of the core rules
sv SuperVariant Changing about 50% of the core rules
u Unique - changing about 75% of the core rules, basically a brand new game with some similarities.
In the early days some conventions used this nominclature so people would know how different the rules would be when you were playing DnD (Since D&D was about 95% of the games being run, tiny bits of RQ, Traveller, and a few others. Though I did play in a cool vTravller game that was Star Wars in 1979)
Drohem, your list is basically correct as I understand things. As noted above, it's pretty common to refer to Moldvay/Cook as B/X. People also generally say Holmes Basic instead of BD&D, for clarity.
The one major correction I have is that RC doesn't include all of BECMI. I learned recently that it just has the BECM rules, while Wrath of the Immortals takes the place of the Immortals from BECMI. I have no idea what the relationship is rules-wise between the two.
Another point is that with the possible exception of Holmes, there never was a "Basic D&D". There was D&D (OD&D), then B/X and BECMI. The latter two were still "D&D", but the game was broken down into learning modules of Basic/Expert/etc.
This is a bit of an ideological point but it needs to be made in the face of claims about "Basic D&D" which ignore the fact that it wasn't a complete presentation of the game, but a portion of the entirety.
So depending on how you count (i.e., including Holmes or not), RC was the fourth or fifth edition of (non-Advanced) D&D.
There were also some minor variants in publication/presentation. According to the Acaeum (http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html), the 15th-18th printings of Basic covered levels 1-5 and were meant as an introduction to RC. As such I'd consider them the same revision/edition as RC. Information on the 19th and last printing is sketchy there--it sounds like it was still an RC intro, though.
Cool, that's some good information guys. Thank you!
RC only including BECM and not I is very interesting. Also, that later printings of Basic covered levels 1-5 rather than the standard 1-3 levels.
Damn, now my interest is really been sparked, lol. Looks like I'll have to do some more digging on the web, and on the Acaeum site.
FYI, if you're looking to try out some of these games without plunking down your money, there are free and legal "retro-clones" available for many.
Swords and Wizardy close to OD&D, but incorporates some things from the supplements and a few other differences.
Labyrinth Lords a very close to identical clone of B/X. There's a difference in Clerics getting a 1st level spell, but that's about all I can tell. Really a great resource if you're interesting in the B/x version of the game. You can also get Mutant Future which pretty much takes the B/X D&D rules and applies them to a Gamma World type setting.
OSRIC a clone of AD&D 1st Edition. I haven't really spent any time with it, so I can't speak to how different it is from the actual game.
There's also the Basic Fantasy RPG, but it is really a hybrid of a variety of editions of the game and doesn't modle any of them very closely.
All of these are available as free downloads.