Things you didn't know about D&D...

skinnydwarf · Oct 31, 2004

Dr Midnight said:
I made up a bunch of these in a Star Wars trivia thread. I think the one I'm proudest of is "Rumor has it that George Lucas created the jawa exclamation 'Utinni' based entirely on something his wife is reported to have shouted during a particularly passionate session of lovemaking. Mr. Lucas has yet to comment publicly on the issue."

That reminds me of some fun a friend and I had back in our high school days. We were both on AOL at the time (thankfully not anymore), and the Star Wars rereleases had just come out. My friend had this idea to make up a fake book trilogy- the "Inner Systems Trilogy" and just talk about it in a star wars chat room. The other people hadn't heard of it, of course. Then, all of a sudden this unrelated (as far as they knew) person (me) came into the chat, and talked about it too! It must be real! Oh, those were the days...

rounser · Oct 31, 2004

*Flashback*--remembers the days when each level had a name

Rumour has it that these were added in an attempt to jump on the legal rights to synonyms of class names that competing games might try and use.

Kyuss is not only the evil cleric who created Sons of Kyuss from the Fiend Folio, but also a "stoner metal" band from the 90s who named themselves after him. (A couple of them are now in Queens of the Stone Age.)

Greyhawk has been destroyed at least a couple of times now (once in the letters page of Dragon magazine, and once by EGG in the Gord the Rogue novels). So no-one can set their game there anymore, and that's that.

A practical joke map was once published that showed the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk on the same globe.

Sturm the Solamnic Knight of the Dragonlance novels and modules had his name chosen because the designers wanted something more "stern sounding".

"Hit points" is a term borrowed from a naval wargame.

A Forgotten Realms book on dwarves by Ed Greenwood features the dying race kidnapping human women for breeding purposes.

Baldur's Gate II (based on 2nd edition AD&D) features a halfling paladin named Mazzy, who comments that the gods might create a "Third Edition of Halflings" where they can be paladins. And a spectator beholder who understands metagaming; "Oh, *I* get it! You think if a *Beholder* is guarding it, it *must* be cool!"

Henrix · Oct 31, 2004

Games Workshop did not only first publish many of the monsters in Fiend Folio, many of the Fiend Factory monsters were made into miniatures by Citadel (at that time not yet the same company as GW).
When Fiend Folio was published GW lost the right to the monsters and Citadel had to cease manufacturing them!
They are rahter ugly, but I'm a proud owner of a bunch of them. Sadly they are also rather badly painted by me (almost 25 years ago!).

And, although I am not absolutely certain of this, the illustrations in the first edition Monster Manual of orcs and hobgoblins were in fact inspired by the MiniFigs miniatures! As seen below:

Dismas · Oct 31, 2004

Dave Blewer said:
Lolth was originally detailed in the Fiend Folio and although she did have an AC of -10 (which counter intuitively was the best AC you could have in 1st and 2nd edition) she only had 66 HP!

This meant that the Demon Queen of Drow must have lived in constant fear of her sneaky treacherous spell using drow followers.

And (IIRC) she was not immune to posion!

ephemeron · Oct 31, 2004

die_kluge said:
The basis for the stinking cloud spell is supposed to be that of a skunk's scent.

A lot of the material components for 1e spells are rather jokey -- e.g., a "small legume seed" for Gust of Wind, a set of brass knuckles (described rather obliquely) for Bigby's Clenched Fist.

Zander · Oct 31, 2004

rounser said:
"Hit points" is a term borrowed from a naval wargame.

That sounds right. I heard that the term "class" was taken from a naval wargame that divided ships into classes (just as navies do) such as typhoon class, frigate class etc. "Armo(u)r Class" and "AC" also comes from naval wargaming apparently.

Sebastian Francis · Oct 31, 2004

Dr Midnight said:
-The above is all made up,

I'm sure this applies to at least *some* of the other stories in this thread...

Plane Sailing · Oct 31, 2004

Steverooo said:
The AD&D 1e Monk, added to AD&D about the time it was being removed from D&D, was cobbled together out of a book (or a series of books). I can't recall the player or author, but the book/series was entitled The Destroyer.

Sorry to correct you but the Monk was added to OD&D in the second supplement (Blackmoor) - along with the assassin class. AD&D just followed the tradition and basically wrote into the PHB the three original classes (fighter, mu, cleric) the two from the Greyhawk supplement (Paladin, Thief), the two from the Blackmoor supplement (Monk, Assassin) and the one from the Eldritch Wizardry supplement (Druid), plus the two classes that appeared in issues of Strategic Review (Ranger, Illusionist).

Cheers

Glyfair · Oct 31, 2004

Plane Sailing said:
Sorry to correct you but the Monk was added to OD&D in the second supplement (Blackmoor) - along with the assassin class. AD&D just followed the tradition and basically wrote into the PHB the three original classes (fighter, mu, cleric) the two from the Greyhawk supplement (Paladin, Thief), the two from the Blackmoor supplement (Monk, Assassin) and the one from the Eldritch Wizardry supplement (Druid), plus the two classes that appeared in issues of Strategic Review (Ranger, Illusionist).

His timing was wrong, but I, too, have heard the story that a player wanted to play Remo Williams (the Destroyer) and the Monk class was what developed from that. I'm sure there was a specific player mentioned, so I assume it was EGG who had the player and not Dave Arneson.

Plane Sailing · Oct 31, 2004

Henrix said:
And, although I am not absolutely certain of this, the illustrations in the first edition Monster Manual of orcs and hobgoblins were in fact inspired by the MiniFigs miniatures! As seen below:

I can't remember who actually did it first, but there was some legal shenanigans that meant that human faced orcs couldn't be used, hence the pig faced ones. I can't remember whether D&D did it first and informed minifigs for their D&D line, or minifigs took this ball and ran with it and D&D came following after. I have a vague feeling it was the former but at this remove I can't be sure any more.

Cheers

Things you didn't know about D&D...

skinnydwarf

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rounser

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Henrix

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Dismas

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ephemeron

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Glyfair

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