Actually, it really does not require Chainmail. In fact, I don't know anyone who has actually used Chainmail as the combat system for OD&D..including Gary Gygax. The so-called "optional system" was what we used right from the start.
Allen
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- Thread starter M.L. Martin
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Actually, it really does not require Chainmail. In fact, I don't know anyone who has actually used Chainmail as the combat system for OD&D..including Gary Gygax. The so-called "optional system" was what we used right from the start.
Allen
Libramarian
Adventurer
I think this is a really cool idea, but before even considering spending that much money I would need a guarantee that the text has actually been re-typed rather than OCRed. The OCR-related typos in the 1e reprints are really annoying.
You can ignore Chainmail's combat system, but there are quite a number of other references there, particularly in the spells and monster abilities, that refer back to Chainmail. Also Initiative and Morale.
Iosue
Legend
What about those of us who look forward more to Next than these reprints (nice though they be)?
Knightfall
World of Kulan DM
Indeed it is... I'll never give up mine.
Echohawk
Shirokinukatsukami fan
Speaking of which, the PDF version of L3: Deep Dwarven Delve was added to the DNDClassics web site just yesterday. I think that's the first time it has been made available in electronic format.
delericho
Legend
Thanks to you both for the clarification. You're right, of course: Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer...
(And, FWIW, I came in with the Mentzer Basic Set.)
I was looking at this last night. I think it was the maps that were lost and were recreated - the manuscript was found while going through some drawers. A very lucky find!
Echohawk
Shirokinukatsukami fan
According to the product history for L3 at DNDClassics:
The Lost Adventure. L3 was originally commissioned by TSR around 1979 as part of a three-adventure trilogy. It was submitted by Lakofka to TSR alongside L1: "The Secret of Bone Hill" (1981) and L2: "The Assassin's Knot" (1983), around 1980. And then it sat around for 19 years.
The problem was reportedly the changing political tides at TSR. Following the 1985 departure of Gary Gygax, Lorraine Williams is said to have purposefully cut out Gygax's friends and supporters. Thus Dave Arneson's Blackmoor adventures came to an end, and the third Lendore Isle adventure was never published by TSR.
The Found Adventure. Sometime prior to the publication of the Silver Anniversary Collector's Edition, someone at Wizards of the Coast found L3 in the "TSR Design Vault" (which probably meant a folder in some file cabinet). WotC decided to publish "Delve," but the editors thought it needed "depth and clarification" to bring it up to modern AD&D standards. Lakofka was happy to oblige and produced a new version of his adventure… which WotC then also lost. Lakofka says that that he didn't hear about the loss until after L3 was published, by which time a number of WotC developers had stepped in to do that required expansion for the adventure.
In the end, Lakofka says, the L3 that we have here is about 80% comprised of material he'd turned in two decades before its release.
The Lost Adventure. L3 was originally commissioned by TSR around 1979 as part of a three-adventure trilogy. It was submitted by Lakofka to TSR alongside L1: "The Secret of Bone Hill" (1981) and L2: "The Assassin's Knot" (1983), around 1980. And then it sat around for 19 years.
The problem was reportedly the changing political tides at TSR. Following the 1985 departure of Gary Gygax, Lorraine Williams is said to have purposefully cut out Gygax's friends and supporters. Thus Dave Arneson's Blackmoor adventures came to an end, and the third Lendore Isle adventure was never published by TSR.
The Found Adventure. Sometime prior to the publication of the Silver Anniversary Collector's Edition, someone at Wizards of the Coast found L3 in the "TSR Design Vault" (which probably meant a folder in some file cabinet). WotC decided to publish "Delve," but the editors thought it needed "depth and clarification" to bring it up to modern AD&D standards. Lakofka was happy to oblige and produced a new version of his adventure… which WotC then also lost. Lakofka says that that he didn't hear about the loss until after L3 was published, by which time a number of WotC developers had stepped in to do that required expansion for the adventure.
In the end, Lakofka says, the L3 that we have here is about 80% comprised of material he'd turned in two decades before its release.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
You get Next. Everyone wins.
