This is Demon Idol, a site dedicated to helping gamers learn, play, and master Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), the legendary adventure game of swords & sorcery.

You might have heard that AD&D is impossible to understand, that it's a broken game, or that no one actually plays by the rules. You heard wrong. Anyone can learn AD&D and play some of the best Dungeons & Dragons of their life.

In the years since the renaissance of old-school D&D, and especially in recent years, focus has been on Basic D&D, “rules-lites”, and “rulings before rules” gameplay. Demon Idol offers something different.

This is a brand new project just started in September 2023! Check back regularly as we translate our group's campaign doc and tools over to this site.

• Convention over configuration. Instead of being bombarded with hundreds of varying rules interpretations from forums and blogs, we'll just tell you what actually works, backed by real gameplay. ¹⁾
• By-the-book AD&D – for real. Demon Idol AD&D uses every rule in the books with two exceptions: no sex-based ability score caps for classed characters, and players are allowed to read any rulebook.
• Rules expansions. AD&D was always meant to be a living game which grows with your campaign. Any time we've expanded on a rule, it's clearly marked with an ^Ex, indicating that it's not part of the books. Since Demon Idol is about convention over configuration, we recommend you use these by default. But you can always toss them or improve on them.
• Insights into third-party content. Ever since the days of Judges Guild, gamers have been creating great stuff that works with AD&D. Demon Idol will point you to it and explain where it comes in.
• Regular, visible improvements. We play this game multiple times every week and are always learning more. Demon Idol will be powered by real table experiences, and changes will be easily visible thanks to Demon Idol's change logs and page history.
• Tools and resources. Demon Idol will provide character sheets, calculators, generators, and show you how to set up tools to help you run a campaign.
• Freedom. Demon Idol is free-as-in-cost and free-as-in-freedom. Everything here is licensed CC BY-SA, and Demon Idol runs on free software.

• A retroclone. We want you to play the original game, and we want you to enjoy the original books. There is magic in those tomes to last ten lifetimes.
• “2nd edition”. This is original AD&D (or “1st edition”).
• The only way to play. Just our way.

Read Getting started and don't let other people control your campaign.