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There's a fun new commercial that is a "sequel" to E.T. and features Elliot (Henry Thomas) as an adult: A Holiday Reunion It's chock full of easter eggs, including (read this after watching and see if you noticed it)

Great job & thank you for the shout-out! I made a blog post today pointing folks to the video: https://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2019/11/rpg-retro-review-tower-of-zenopus.html

I'm reading Arneson's "Northern Marches" letter for the first time. The Picts are obviously straight out of Conan, in both their description and in occupying territories to the west. It's interesting to speculate that the other regions might also be influenced by the Hyborian Age, with the...

Another data point: Playing at the Word page 42 says that Domesday Book #9 has an "announcement of the publication of Chainmail" including mentioning a "large fantasy supplement for fighting Tolkien-type battles" (the second quote being directly from DB#9). Jon repeated this info on his blog in...

I found one data point regarding the publication date of Chainmail. Over on the mostly defunct but still useful Tome of Treasures forum, poster scribe writes that the April 1971 issue of International Wargamer has a full-page advertisement for Guidon Games that includes Chainmail. International...

I too would like to see the evidence of when Chainmail was first available. I imagine it is something from wargaming journals/magazine from the time and/or personal correspondence. But I doubt a small publisher like Guidon would have released three games on the same date.

Yes, because it is the material where "the powers of the Spells and Swords were taken right from the available copies of Chainmail". The "Magical Items Summary" later in the book has no "Spells", whereas the Swords in the "Magic Swords Personality Matrix" material have a number of otherwise...

In my opinion he's switched back to talking about the first matrix in the last two sentences of the second paragraph. Why else would he say "was, again, the first attempt"? He's referring back to the first attempt he described in the first paragraph. Furthermore, the second matrix presented in...

One thing that the analysis doesn't appear to address is that Arneson in FFC actually says that his first "Magic Swords" matrix used powers "taken right from" Chainmail: (emphasis added) So right here we have Arneson saying he set up his first Swords matrix "prior to setting up Blackmoor", and...

Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica CA is closing later this month. Aero has been around for decades and was an important FLGS in the early days of D&D, both for the group there that created the first Thief character class, and as the place where J. Eric Holmes --- editor of the original Basic Set ---...

Thanks for the column, Rob, I enjoyed reading it, and am looking forward to the next installment. I've only been outside of it once while driving around at Gary Con, but the Lake Geneva Public Library has perhaps the most beautiful location of a public library that I've ever seen...

Well, perhaps I overstated it, but my comments were made in the context of this thread, which is about the 5E version being much less powerful than the 1E version. But I also could also point to other editions. 2E added more restrictions to the 1E version, including checking the saving throw...

The original conception of the spell, in Vol 1 of Original D&D (0e, 1974), actually did bring the target fully under the caster's power: "If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the "charm" is...

I'm guessing it was what Gygax thought worked best on standard graph paper (say, 4 or 5 squares per inch) for a reasonably sized dungeon map. One can fit more/larger rooms and longer corridors if using 10' per square scale. If using 5' per square you'd fit less rooms per sheet (or make them all...

Hello all. I had the pleasure of being the guest on the latest episode of the old school Dungeons & Dragon podcast Save or Die! This episode is dedicated to the original D&D Basic Set (in print from 1977-1980), colloquially known as Holmes Basic after its editor, J. Eric Holmes. The link...