Worth more than most copies you find online because the box looks in nice condition, but not especially valuable. They printed a ton of copies of that edition, it was very popular in the 80s.
Maybe consider playing it? I really like the way the Basic Set plays. Very different from the modern game.
Looks cool! Piques my interest in the same way as Nox Archaist -- getting to experience gaming from a time before me, but with some of the rough edges sanded down.
The SN30 is about as close as you can get to that, I think. I have two, and use them for everything. They're basically SNES controllers with analog sticks. No paddles or other macro buttons. Just ABXY, dpad, start, select, shoulders, triggers and sticks.
They do also make the Micro, but that might be too tiny even for a child. Dpad and face buttons only.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I actually like D&D and much prefer it to every other family of games I've tried (WoD, GURPS, PbtA, etc). What i dont like is the current iteration of D&D, which is why my recommendations are:
Swords & Wizardry Complete: it's OD&D with some of the rough edges sanded off and all the optional material added. Tons of classes, lots of tools for procedural world building, and very easily hackable. It's simpler to teach to a new player, and its more flexible than 5e for experienced players. The tick-tock of the dungeon turn structure makes it easier to keep pace as a GM, and when in doubt, rolling x-in-6 always holds up. If you want a classic dungeon crawler, this is it.
Whitehack: Still D&D but more narrative. Skills are replaced with groups that can give advantages to tasks directly influenced by membership in that group. Magic is super flexible and everyone has access to some form of it, but the "magic user" class gets to just make up their own spells and pay some HP depending on effect size. Great rules for base building, good GM advice for making adventures that aren't dungeon or wilderness crawls (but are structured like those things). The core mechanic minimizes table math so even your players who struggle with addition can play fast. Less deadly than actual old D&D but keeping the same vibe. It's my favorite for those who prefer narrative to mechanics. In a lot of ways, it's D&D rewritten for the way a lot of people actuslly play 5e.
Asking them to bring precons sounds good. UT at least two of the people in that group don't even own any precons. For them, the deckbuilding is the fun part, so they'd just as well not play than run someone else's deck.
I think trying to proxy something more powerful is the last chance here, and if I still don't "get" commander after that, I'll probably just throw the towel in and do something else when they break out the commander decks.
Another friend (not in this pod) pointed out that it's for cards you love, a commander youre dying to build around, etc, so if you have to ask where the fun is, it's not the format for you, and I guess I get that.
I've been thinking about your comment and I started to wonder if maybe the politics is what's actually keeping me from enjoying the format. I've tried some of that but I get swung at anyway, often because I'm the least dangerous/easiest to attack at any given moment (no blockers, no reach, etc). Even as much as I point to the Muldrotha and say "hey I've played that deck and none of you have targeted that player, it could get wild" it never seems to work. If I'm bad at the political game, maybe the rest of the game just kind of crumbles around me? I hear these stories of people "not looking like a threat" but when i try to do the same I think it looks more like I'm a soft target.
I will definitely proxy those and test out this version of the deck next time we play. And if it feels better, I'll get the real ones.
Hm...we may be onto something, then...
We tried that early on, where I'd get stuck, show my hand and they'd go "oh..." I think part of it is that my luck might just be really bad, and the first precon I picked up on my own is apparently really quite terrible, so that didn't help either. On board wipes, it's not that I have much of an issue with them, it's just that so far they seem to only come right before I'm able to do something, and it's incredibly frustrating to have never had an opportunity to actually affect the game. Although by the sound of it, maybe that's actually normal? The very mean part of me wants to put together 99 cards worth of board wipes, targeted removal, land destruction, stun counters, you name it and take an "If I can't play, nobody can" approach. But that'd be very very un-fun for everyone else, so I shan't.
Just for completeness' sake and to hopefully give context to what the rest of the group is playing, I tried to remember what card caused the Pantlaza situation, and it appears to have been Expropriate. Stuff on that order is what I'd consider normal for the power level here. Lots of things that can destroy one's chance of playing in a single turn.
I'll take a look, but I do wonder if maybe Prosper just isn't resonating with me and I should just look elsewhere.
There's some incredulity that there's nothing I can do or have no answers in hand, and then encouragement to stay in because there somehow might be a comeback when I've missed 4 land drops and none of my mana rocks have come out. Or similar. I think there's a certain amount of feelsbad that commander is not catching with me, or how often in collateral damage in such a way that I don't actuality get to play even though I'm technically in the game. Probably a little over half the games so far have resulted in that.
Just this weekend I played the Pantlaza deck and it got removed early, I played it again and started building up a board, then the next turn it and the rest of my creatures got sent back to my hand, then I had to discard half of them for hand limit, and one I finally got it back out again, someone could either take it or get an extra turn. That deck basically ceases to function without its commander, so I waited another hour and a half being completely unable to affect the game state at all. In hindsight, I should've scooped to deny that player the resources. After 3 consecutive turns, they didn't even win!
But yeah it's not about winning, it's about sitting there bored out of my skull not being able to affect the game. At this moment I would rather play any other format because commander has been unbelievably boring in every one of the dozen plus games I've tried.
That's kind of what I feared. Although I guess in this case, a "bring whatever you got" would wind up being just zero point canlander decks, so maybe that's fine. This is meant to be fairly casual anyway.