Let's Read...Everything D&D!

[Olgar Shiverstone]

It seems that the assumption back then was that players would delve into the same dungeon numerous times. The booklet gives advice about revising and restocking dungeon levels between excursions to keep things from getting boring.

You know, this is something we seem to have lost over the years. While I'm sure some groups still do it -- I know my group did in 3E when we ran Banewarrens -- I suspect the demise of the mega-dungeon plus the focus on encounter- or story-based adventures doomed the multi-excursion exploration.

It is something I'd like to see brought back in exploration-type play.

 

[diaglo]

since i still run OD&D(1974) i'll just stick to some of your choice of things to review.

Dungeons & Dragons 3-Volume Set

Originally published January, 1974

Version being read and reviewed: Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG - Original Edition Premium Reprint (November 2013)

Book 1: Men & Magic

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames: Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" by Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson

Foreword: Gary Gygax introduces us to this first version of the D&D game with a little history of the Castle and Crusade Society and taking a subtle dig at traditional wargamers who "lack imagination." The foreword is dated 1 November 1973. Dave Arneson's Blackmoor is referred to here as predating Gygax's own Greyhawk, though both campaigns were still ongoing as of the writing of this foreword.

After that the booklet doesn't have actual chapters, just a bunch of little subsections, so I'm just going to ramble a bit here. First interesting tidbit is the number of possible players - from 4 to 50 (though the recommended DM to Player ratio is 1:20). 50 players! Now I'm kind of curious just what that would look like.

20 is optimal. the game was born from wargaming. many times in wargaming you had sides/teams. and you elected a spokesman or Captain. for D&D the term is Caller.

For character classes we have Fighting Men, Magic-Users (who have some rudimentary item creation rules), and Clerics. A note on Fighting Men - this being from 1974, the subtle (and not so subtle) exclusion of women is pervasive, most clearly evident in the name of the class that would become the Fighter. If I ever try to run this version of the game, I'll be changing the language quite a bit.

We also have dwarves (who can only advance as fighters up to 6th level), Elves (weird multiclassing rules here - they can advance as fighters up to 4th level and magic-users up to 8th level, but must choose which one to adventure as for each adventure - they can't use their magic-user spells if they are adventuring as a fighter and vice versa), and Halflings (who are limited to fighters of up to 4th level). There's also a paragraph about more exotic characters, like dragons, though its left entirely to the DM as to how such a how character would work.

Moving on a bit, I found it interesting that the DM (referee) is supposed to roll for each player's ability scores - the player only notes them on the character sheet, along with whatever gold total the DM rolled for them.

this is still done today for many tournaments/conventions. we call these characters pre generated (pre gens). you skipped the part where the players optimized the PCs to their liking.

There's a relatively extensive section on NPCs with the assumption being that player character's will hire NPC retainers and often choose to subdue monsters into service instead of killing them. Amusingly, there's also a note about relatives (effectively replacement PCs) to whom a player character can leave their belongings to. The new PC thus starts with better gear (though they still start at 1st level, regardless of the level of the other PCs).

Of interest in the equipment section are wooden and silver crosses (not holy symbols) and other items inspired by the horror genre's monster hunters (garlic, wolvesbane, stakes, and the like). Gygax notes Leiber, Howard, and Burroughs as inspirations in the Foreward, but I would wager that Stoker and Shelley had a subtle influence as well.

see the note on Chainmail coming up.

There are several references to Chainmail in this booklet, mostly in reference to combat. An alternative combat system is provided, though it is bare bones (the skeleton upon which later edition combat systems would be built).

Chainmail was not optional. it is required. rules for exhaustion for example are on page 9 of Chainmail. also rules for other things for bonus or penalties to rolls.

Spells are rather vague and often open to DM fiat. Magic-User spells only go up to 6th level and Cleric spells max out at 5th level. There's an odd little side note about Anti-Clerics (evil clerics) who make use of the Finger of Death spell.

And that's it for Book I: Men & Magic. Having started my D&D career with Mentzer's Red Box and moving straight into AD&D 2nd Edition, this little artifact is difficult to comprehend at times and feels somewhat incomplete, likely due to the strong ties to Chainmail (and the assumption that readers are at least somewhat familiar with it).

Next up: Dungeons & Dragons 3-Volume Set - Book II: Monsters & Treasure

you forgot to mention Outdoor Survival too. which included rules for adventuring outside, tracking food/resource management, getting lost, etc...

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk

Originally published February, 1975

Version being read and reviewed: Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG - Original Edition Premium Reprint (November 2013)

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames: Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" by Gary Gygax & Rob Kuntz

We start with a Foreword by Gygax which notes two things of importance. One, the supplement doesn't stand on its own and requires the Dungeons & Dragons Three Volume Set and two, the supplement is organized such that information pertaining to the original three booklets appears in the order of those booklets. That is, new character info first, then new treasures and monsters, and finally advice for the DM on wilderness and dungeon adventures. There's also a note about potential future supplements, with Blackmoor already in the works.

And so, the Thief enters the game. In this version, the Thief is the only class that all races can take and that has no level limits for any race. So, if your dwarves, elves, and halflings want to keep earning levels along with their human friends, thief is their go-to class. The thief abilities that the class is known for are relatively the same here as they appear in AD&D 1E, BECMI, and AD&D 2E. We are also introduced to the half-elf whose main claim to fame here is their versatility when it comes to multi-classing.

In the section that expands and clarifies ability scores is where we find the Paladin, a subclass of Fighter, described under Charisma since a character needs a 17 Charisma to qualify for the class. As with the Thief, the Paladin didn't change much between its introduction here and the version found in AD&D 1st Edition. Alternate hit dice and maximum hit dice values are presented, apparently as a means of balancing fighters and magic-users (we also see the fighting class referred to here as "fighter" instead of "fighting man" for the first time).

Combat is expanded and clarified, specifically the alternate system to the Chainmail rules, making the game a bit more complete. Weapon type vs armor tables show up here, which make my eyes cross a bit.

There is a plethora of new spells, including some of the more powerful and infamous 9th level spells like Gate and Wish.

Monsters are again presented in a big table, with some of the critters mentioned briefly in the original set now having statistics (like the Gelatinous Cube). Dragons get some expansion including the metallic dragons and some words about the Platinum Dragon, King of Lawful Dragons and the Chromatic Dragon, Queen of Chaotic Dragons (no names as of yet). The authors were evidently quite aware of gender issues even then, as the following note appears concerning the Chromatic Dragon - "Women's Lib may make whatever they wish of the foregoing." From a game history standpoint, the Chromatic Dragon is presented as dwelling in a "stupendous cavern far beneath the earth" - her presence on the first layer of Hell apparently comes along a bit later (a Dragon Magazine article if I remember correctly). The Beholder debuts here, also known as the Sphere of Many Eyes or Eye Tyrant. Other monsters we now consider classic, iconic D&D monsters are also present, like the Rust Monster and the Owlbear.

Magic items get a major expansion with an extensive number of new miscellaneous items. Some highlights include the Vorpal Sword which began life as a holy sword variant and more powerful version of the sword of sharpness, Portable Hole, Sphere of Annihilation, the Book of Vile Darkness (and its counterpart, the Book of Exalted Deeds), the Deck of Many Things, and a number of cursed items, mostly masquerading as normal items (bag of devouring looks like the bag of holding, bowl of watery death looks like the bowl of commanding water elementals, etc). The Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity makes its debut here as well.

The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures section is short and contains a few new traps and tricks. After a brief list of monsters by hit die, the version I have then has one page of errata.

As other reviews have noted over the years, the Greyhawk supplement doesn't actually contain any information on the world of Greyhawk or Castle Greyhawk at all. It does, however, expand the game considerably, adding a significant amount of material that we now consider to be iconic and part of what makes D&D the game we know and love.

Play-Through Review

Since writing this review I have dabbled with OD&D but ultimately decided I'm just not going to be able to run it as written. What I have done instead is adapted D&D 5E for a similar feel. Thus, I'm going to be introducing the Rogue (Thief) and Paladin (Oath of Devotion) to my setting in the next mini-campaign I run for my kids.

Next up: Supplement II: Blackmoor

(Apologies for the delay, I've been job hunting since getting laid off on the 17th.)

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Sorry hear that you got laid off, hope the job hunting is going well!

 

[diaglo]

Dungeons & Dragons Supplement I: Greyhawk

Originally published February, 1975

Version being read and reviewed: Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG - Original Edition Premium Reprint (November 2013)

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames: Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" by Gary Gygax & Rob Kuntz

We start with a Foreword by Gygax which notes two things of importance. One, the supplement doesn't stand on its own and requires the Dungeons & Dragons Three Volume Set and two, the supplement is organized such that information pertaining to the original three booklets appears in the order of those booklets. That is, new character info first, then new treasures and monsters, and finally advice for the DM on wilderness and dungeon adventures. There's also a note about potential future supplements, with Blackmoor already in the works.

And so, the Thief enters the game. In this version, the Thief is the only class that all races can take and that has no level limits for any race. So, if your dwarves, elves, and halflings want to keep earning levels along with their human friends, thief is their go-to class. The thief abilities that the class is known for are relatively the same here as they appear in AD&D 1E, BECMI, and AD&D 2E. We are also introduced to the half-elf whose main claim to fame here is their versatility when it comes to multi-classing.

In the section that expands and clarifies ability scores is where we find the Paladin, a subclass of Fighter, described under Charisma since a character needs a 17 Charisma to qualify for the class. As with the Thief, the Paladin didn't change much between its introduction here and the version found in AD&D 1st Edition. Alternate hit dice and maximum hit dice values are presented, apparently as a means of balancing fighters and magic-users (we also see the fighting class referred to here as "fighter" instead of "fighting man" for the first time).

Combat is expanded and clarified, specifically the alternate system to the Chainmail rules, making the game a bit more complete. Weapon type vs armor tables show up here, which make my eyes cross a bit.

There is a plethora of new spells, including some of the more powerful and infamous 9th level spells like Gate and Wish.

Monsters are again presented in a big table, with some of the critters mentioned briefly in the original set now having statistics (like the Gelatinous Cube). Dragons get some expansion including the metallic dragons and some words about the Platinum Dragon, King of Lawful Dragons and the Chromatic Dragon, Queen of Chaotic Dragons (no names as of yet). The authors were evidently quite aware of gender issues even then, as the following note appears concerning the Chromatic Dragon - "Women's Lib may make whatever they wish of the foregoing." From a game history standpoint, the Chromatic Dragon is presented as dwelling in a "stupendous cavern far beneath the earth" - her presence on the first layer of Hell apparently comes along a bit later (a Dragon Magazine article if I remember correctly). The Beholder debuts here, also known as the Sphere of Many Eyes or Eye Tyrant. Other monsters we now consider classic, iconic D&D monsters are also present, like the Rust Monster and the Owlbear.

Magic items get a major expansion with an extensive number of new miscellaneous items. Some highlights include the Vorpal Sword which began life as a holy sword variant and more powerful version of the sword of sharpness, Portable Hole, Sphere of Annihilation, the Book of Vile Darkness (and its counterpart, the Book of Exalted Deeds), the Deck of Many Things, and a number of cursed items, mostly masquerading as normal items (bag of devouring looks like the bag of holding, bowl of watery death looks like the bowl of commanding water elementals, etc). The Girdle of Femininity/Masculinity makes its debut here as well.

The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures section is short and contains a few new traps and tricks. After a brief list of monsters by hit die, the version I have then has one page of errata.

As other reviews have noted over the years, the Greyhawk supplement doesn't actually contain any information on the world of Greyhawk or Castle Greyhawk at all. It does, however, expand the game considerably, adding a significant amount of material that we now consider to be iconic and part of what makes D&D the game we know and love.

Next up: Supplement II: Blackmoor

(Apologies for the delay, I've been job hunting since getting laid off on the 17th.)

Greyhawk also introduces the power creep in print. the end to limited bonus and penalties to ability scores. you get % dice for str for fighting men. you get greater than +1 for damage, to hit, hps for all classes for Con, increase in the spell lvl, and more.
it doesn't limit the players from creating their own classes. dwarf paladin could exist. just not the version in the book or called that. how do you think the first thief or paladin happened? someone made them and asked to play them. the referee made a ruling. and viola. they made it into print.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Dungeons & Dragons Supplement II: Blackmoor

Originally published September, 1975

Version being read and reviewed: Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG - Original Edition Premium Reprint (November 2013)

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames: Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" by Dave Arneson

The forward by Gary Gygax takes a tongue-in-cheek approach, warning players away from this highly addictive pastime that is D&D. He also acknowledges that Blackmoor is the oldest and longest running D&D campaign and Dave Arneson's role as the originator of the dungeon adventure concept.

In the Men & Magic section of the booklet we are introduced to Monks (a subclass of Cleric) and Assassins (a subclass of Thief). Monks are a sort of a weird hybrid between thief and druid, with unarmed combat thrown in. Though a subclass of Cleric, they bear little resemblance to their parent class, with no spellcasting ability at all, just a list of interesting and unique special abilities. Monks have the odd restriction of only allowing a certain number to exist at each higher level, thus forcing a PC monk to ascend the hierarchy via combat with NPCs (unless there are two or more monks in the party...that would certainly make for some interesting PC conflict). Assassins are a bit more focused, functioning as thieves of two levels lower but gaining the ability to disguise themselves, use poison, and, of course, assassinate. Assassins hit a glass ceiling at 13th level, with an additional "Guildmaster of Assassins" existing as a pseudo-level after that.

Following the two new classes, we have a hit location system that, to my recollection, was not carried forward in any later editions except as purely optional add-ons.

Moving on to the Monsters & Treasure section, we have some new monsters of note - A variety of aquatic critters, including the arguably iconic sahuagin. There is also an interesting, albeit brief, discussion of were-creatures developing a split personality between their two forms. The new magic items are also heavily centered around aquatic themes, including items like the Cloak of the Manta Ray and Helm of Underwater Vision.

The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures section of the book focuses almost entirely on what is, essentially, the first official D&D adventure scenario, the Temple of the Frog. We start with some background on the Brothers of the Swamp, a cult intent on forcing their view of evolution on animals to replace humanity. In later years, the Temple evolved into an outpost for raiders and the like, though many of the cult's experiments remained. Unlike latter adventure locales, the Temple of the Frog is not an abandoned or ruined place but a fully occupied base of operations with an adjacent town. The maps are fairly sketchy and difficult to read, but the descriptions are quite thorough, detailing the town and temple as an active place, full of guards and surprises. The current ruler of the temple is noteworthy because he is not native to Blackmoor. Stephen the Rock is said to be from another plane or dimension. With a name like Stephen, my first assumption is that he's from Earth and that's what I ran with in my loose adaptation of this adventure for my Sunday group. Stephen also has access to high tech gear and apparently communicates with an orbiting satellite space station of some sort. The details here are a little vague but this does continue the trend we've seen thus far of a heavier mingling of sci-fi in this earliest version of D&D, where-as later editions focused on the fantasy elements. Another interesting detail...the entire temple can animate into a huge frog.

The book wraps up with a brief look at underwater adventuring, sages, and diseases.

Play-Through Review

I loosely adapted Temple of the Frog for my Sunday group, using the D&D Next playtest rules (the last public playtest packet). While I kept some of the key concepts (secret high-tech empowering the ruler of the Temple and the ruler being "not-of-this-world," I eschewed much of the layout in favor of episodic set-pieces, more in keeping with the style of the campaign I'd been running thus far. I turned the temple itself into the head section of a dragon-shaped ship that crashed long ago, splitting into three parts on the way down (the other two parts will be used for Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and the spaceship section featured in the Wrath of the Immortals campaign). Stephen became a clone of an Earth astronaut, one of the crew on the first manned mission to Mars. The party was invited to dinner with Stephen, drugged, and captured, thus necessitating an escape from the dungeons of the temple. While we had fun, I ended up feeling that I hadn't really captured the feel of the original and plan on giving it another go in the near future, with an eye toward staying closer to what's in the book while adapting it to D&D 5E.

Next up: Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry

(And you thought I'd give up. After a hiatus, I'm finally getting back to this insane little project. I can almost guarantee that there will be more hiatuses, announced and unannounced, in the future, but I plan on keeping at this regardless.)

 

[TarionzCousin]

I just found this thread and enjoyed reading your posts so far. Keep up the good work!

(Apologies for the delay, I've been job hunting since getting laid off on the 17th.)

Did you find gainful employment yet? We're worried.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I just found this thread and enjoyed reading your posts so far. Keep up the good work!
Did you find gainful employment yet? We're worried.

Unfortunately, no. Still waiting to hear back from two promising interviews (Steve Jackson Games and Xaviant). In the meantime, the search continues.

 

[ronaldsf]

I just want you to know that I'm really enjoying your read-throughs! I've enjoyed (un)reason's series on Dragon as well -- it's so interesting to see the early development of the hobby.

The fact that the first adventure module was an organized, defended temple that could transform into a frog is a big rejection of the style of dungeon laid out in the first D&D books. I wonder if Arneson had evolved his Blackmoor campaign along those lines between 1974 and 1975?

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Dungeons & Dragons Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry

Originally published April, 1976

Version being read and reviewed: Original Dungeons & Dragons RPG - Original Edition Premium Reprint (November 2013)

"Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames: Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures" by Gary Gygax & Brian Blume

The forward, this time by Timothy J. Kask, TSR Publications Editor, offers this supplement to DMs as a means to combat the apparently already growing trend of "been there, done that" in the D&D community by throwing in some unpredictability via psionics.

In the Men & Magic section, we are introduced to psionics. I must confess that reading through this made my brain hurt a bit and I'm still not sure how this system is supposed to work. I was able to figure out that each class has a different set of possible powers and that fighters lose followers when gaining psionic powers while magic-users and clerics lose spells. Thieves are hit the hardest, I think, because they lose points from their Dexterity score. We also get to meet the druid, a subclass of cleric, in this supplement. Druids have their own spells and gain a small selection of special abilities, most notably, the ability to shapechange into animals of various sorts. Like monks, druids of higher levels are rare and must face another druid in combat to gain another level, until they reach a glass ceiling at level 13 (The Great Druid). Monks and druids are not allowed access to psionics.

An alternative initiative system is presented next, which is almost as confusing as the psionics system in this book.

The list of psionic powers by class presents a suite of powers that give each class a feel similar to much later versions of psionics. Specifically, the fighter's (and thief's) powers create a Psionic Warrior vibe, the magic-user powers are reminiscent of a Psion focused on the clairsentience or telepathy disciplines, and clerics are the most well-rounded, resembling a Wilder slightly.

No surprises in the druid's selection of spells as most of them are ones we're familiar with from later editions. There's an interesting note about the effectiveness of mistletoe as a spell focus. Mistletoe harvested with a gold sickle on Midsummer's Eve is most effective, though how, precisely, that works is left to the DM.

The Monsters & Treasures section of the book first gives us a few updates to previously presented creatures, noting psionic potential and whether their normal abilities can reach the astral or ethereal planes. The new monsters are mostly psionic creatures, including the iconic Mind Flayer. We are also introduced to demons of various sorts, though they are classified as Type I, II, III, IV, V, and VI rather than given names. Interestingly, Succubi exist outside that system of classification. We also get to meet Orcus and Demogorgon, presented as examples of Demon Princes. Finally, we have a note about demons' amulets, odd little trinkets that allow a measure of control over a demon prince. Though this idea made it into AD&D, it was dropped starting in 2nd Edition. I thought it was a nifty enough idea that I adapted it to for my D&D Next "Everything D&D Ever" campaign, though I replaced the amulets with daggers (killing with a demon prince's dagger absorbs the soul of the victim and empowers the demon prince while turning the wielder evil...but, only a demon prince's dagger, fully charged with a number of souls depending on the power of the demon prince, can permanently kill a demon prince).

For treasures, we have artifacts, with a number of now iconic items making their debut. The Hand and Eye of Vecna, the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, the Rod of Seven Parts, and several others all make their debut here. In keeping with the theme of unpredictability noted in the forward, the powers of artifacts are not fully defined. The DM is expected to select powers for artifacts from the tables at the end of this section. Though the introduction to this section notes that artifacts are notoriously difficult to destroy, a couple of items (The Machine of Lum the Mad and Heward's Mystical Organ) are noted as being quite fragile and already damaged. Another interesting little side note is that the Orbs of Dragonkind are not color-coded to the various dragon types as they were in later editions, but by age, with only five presented.

The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures section is only a couple of pages of encounter tables for the new monsters.

The original cover art for this booklet was rather risqué and, while the recent reprints paid homage to the original covers for all the other booklets, this one was a completely original piece in the same style, as WotC wanted to avoid any potential controversy associated with a nude female sacrificial victim as cover art. Can't say I blame them.

Next up: Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes