Gaming with Gygax

[diaglo]

Good Grief

I forsee a party of 20 or so...shades of DMing in my basement back in 1973-4. I'll ask son Alex to assist with the monster attacks, as he loves to be on the delivery end of slings and arrows. Back to character sheets done on 3c5 index cards for the lot of you!


Gary

20 is optimal.

 

[WSmith]

you should have been in one of the sessions i ran at Gen Con.

Salt in the wound, my friend...

 

[WSmith]

Hmph. I just figured we'd be using SUPPLEMENT I: GREYHAWK where dwarves can be thieves!

Shoot. Sorry about that. Sometimes I forget about thieves as I venture little beyond Vol I-III. I am so closed minded like that.

 

[grodog]

Rob and I ran tables of 10 for the Bottle City and Warlocks Walk events at GenCon, and went well, overall, but I can't imagine doing so without a co-DM. And to think that I ran groups of up to 15 players BITD without blinking: I must be losing my touch

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hmph. I just figured we'd be using SUPPLEMENT I: GREYHAWK where dwarves can be thieves!

Thieves?

What are those? I can't find the term in any of the three OD&D booklets...


Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

If you're going to play pure OD&D, don't limit your racial choices to dwarf, elf, hobbit . . . ask Gary if you can play a dragon or goblin or lizard man or some such, as suggested in the rules themselves.

Sure, and I'll personally select the encounter area where the remainder of the party of PCs will run into such a character. Ptherwise, the unusual PC can join the group and likely provide some early XPs for them!

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Awesome thread! Got out my OD&D books to give them a read-through. Very inspiring!

What rules were used for combat?

Any references to Chainmail 2d6 or was it the alternative system all the way?

The d20 to hit, d6 for damage, and THAC0 to make it easy to determine if a number rolled hit the AC of the target.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[thedungeondelver]

Thieves?

What are those? I can't find the term in any of the three OD&D booklets...


Gary

The three booklets it is then! Put me down as a "dwarf"

 

[Crossroads]

The d20 to hit, d6 for damage, and THAC0 to make it easy to determine if a number rolled hit the AC of the target.

Cheerio,
Gary

Thanks for answering my question, Gary.

I've been scouring the web at many fine sites dedicated to "old school D&D" with regards to combat. It's a treat to find people dedicated to discussing their interpretation of those rules, providing insights and examples of combat from Chainmail, Swords and Spells, and even the AD&D round by round combat example posted on this board.

But it's not only the rules - it's the ideas behind the development, history, and implementation that I find most fascinating.

Best regards and thanks for sharing here and elsewhere,

Crossroads

 

[GwydapLlew]

As soon as I heard about Gary's passing, I had two emotions. One was sadness, because he helped so many people discover worlds that never existed before. The second was joy, because of the look on all of our faces when you told (and told) (and re-told) this story last year. I never had the fortune to meet him, but what I've seen and read of him, this is exactly the sort of stories he would enjoy.