Original Dungeons & Dragons vs The Lost March

Compare Original Dungeons & Dragons and The Lost March side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Original Dungeons & Dragons	The Lost March
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Exploration, Sandbox, Random Tables, Vancian Casting, Descending AC, Domain Management	Classic Fantasy, Sandbox, Exploration, Hexcrawl, Dungeon Crawl, Faction Play, Domain Management, Random Character Creation, Vancian Casting, Inventory Management
Core Mechanic	Ability scores are rolled on 3d6, and combat uses a d20 attack matrix keyed to class or Hit Dice and Armor Class. Initiative uses dice, saving throws use class-and-level tables, and spellcasters have limited spells remembered per adventure.	A skill check rolls a pool of d6s equal to the skill level: one to five dice, plus a die for some class bonuses. Normally a 6 is a success and a 5 is a partial success. An Ability adjustment either widens the success range or adds a critical-failure range on the lowest faces. Settlement, wilderness and combat checks are opposed by the referee's dice, where equal results cancel and a partial success downgrades a full one. In combat, successes and partial successes are assigned to attack or defend. A hit deals the weapon's maximum damage on a success or its minimum on a partial success.
Dice	d20	d6 dice pool
Complexity	High	Low
Availability	Paid	Free core rules
Runnability	3 of 5 book tools	4 of 5 book tools
License	Proprietary	Proprietary
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Tactical Studies Rules	Fausto Botta
Year	1974	2025
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want an early fantasy campaign game with dungeon expeditions, open wilderness play, and substantial referee adjudication. It fits tables willing to choose or adapt procedures when the rules leave room.	Groups who want a long old-school sandbox campaign that turns treasure into faction rank, training and eventually conquered land.
Highlights	A class-and-level attack matrix turns a d20 roll into a direct Armor Class result. Separate dungeon, wilderness, aerial, and naval procedures let a campaign expand beyond expeditions. Referee-facing dungeon design and stronghold rules support an open campaign beyond a prepared scenario.	There are no hit points: wounds lower Ability scores directly, so an injured character can carry less treasure home. The lawful factions sell ranks and months of training for gold, so treasure replaces experience as the advancement currency. Each exploration turn, the referee secretly rolls hazard dice sized by difficulty (1d6 on plains, 3d6 in swamps), and each 5 or 6 adds a complication or an encounter.
Considerations	Classes, race limits, spell lists, and attack matrices impose a specific early D&D structure. The original rules distribute important procedures across separate subjects rather than one universal task rule. Running strict 1974 requires separating the original rules from Chainmail references and later compilation material.	Dice resolve only a set of defined checks, so players usually get past traps and puzzles by describing what their characters do rather than by rolling a skill. Wounds normally heal at one Ability point per day of rest, and ten or more days of healing cost a month of training. Characters begin as agents of a supremacist colonial reconquest, a premise the book states openly and asks the referee to expose through play.