The importance of non combat rules in a RPG.

[Ariosto]

D&D itself didn't have the complete rules for combat. Players were referred to Chainmail man-to-man rules. It is impossible to learn how to run combat from just the original D&D set alone.

Then a lot of folks did the 'impossible'.

This system is based upon the defensive and offensive capabilities of the combatants; such things as speed, ferocity, and weaponry of the monsters attacking are subsumed in the matrixes. There are two charts, one for men versus men or monsters and one for monsters (including kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc.) versus men.

All attacks which score hits do 1-6 points damage unless otherwise noted.

Easy-peas-y. What would be a bit difficult is deciding how to integrate the three different combat systems in Chainmail with the D&D rules set. It has been done in "modern" times, but I don't know of any actual attempt "back in the day". By all accounts I have encountered, even Arneson's proto-D&D dumped Chainmail pretty quickly (probably by the second or third session of dungeon expeditions).

The D&D FAQ from 1974-75 made clear that Chainmail was mainly meant for battles among non-fantastic types at a 1:10 or 1:20 model:man ratio. The 'alternative' rules in D&D were strongly recommended for all combats among individually depicted fantastic figures. As put in the dedication, "Here is something better!"

It might be close enough to impossible to learn from the OD&D booklets how to run combat just as in some later game -- but that's an absurdly anachronistic bar to raise!

 

[Gentlegamer]

Then a lot of folks did the 'impossible'.

"Al lot of folks" had Chainmail to refer to. It wasn't until AD&D or Holmes Basic that combat was fully explained in its own rules.

Could anyone read the Men & Magic volume of D&D alone and understand how combat was supposed to work according to the rules given?

The "alternative combat system" became the standard later, but in Men & Magic, the bare description of the "alternative" method isn't enough to actually run combat from.

 

[Ariosto]

It most certainly was enough for a critical mass of those in the target audience. Being a bit beyond that (into cardboard panzers more than lead hussars), I greatly appreciated the Holmes book -- which became for a while my "core rules".

Much more than for any book, I am grateful for the introduction I got via a brief experience of actual play!

The target audience, the ones most likely to have pressing combat questions unanswered in the original set, would have no particular need of Chainmail. If they did not have Wargames Research Group to the rescue -- or even if they had -- then they would certainly have their own estimations of the ranges and rates of fire of slings versus bows, or the advantages of cavalry versus foot, or such and sundry. If it takes a certain punditry to think of some questions in the first place, then it is vanity to offer an 'authoritative' answer!

Combat resolution was either the most cut-and-dried business or the one most likely to get "house ruled" (with experience points and magic hot on its heels). In the balance, it was pretty trivial next to what was really NEW about the D&D game form.

 

[Ariosto]

It was the business of setting up a campaign that most impressed contemporary gamers as an imposing and perhaps confounding undertaking. From today's perspective, that may be hard to understand. How was it (one might well wonder) that -- three years, and however many releases, later -- the interstellar milieu of Traveller seemed imposing even to old hands at D&D?

(Newer to the scene, I did not know enough to be intimidated; I took to Traveller like a fish to water.)

 

[Beginning of the End]

"Al lot of folks" had Chainmail to refer to. It wasn't until AD&D or Holmes Basic that combat was fully explained in its own rules.

Have you actually looked at the OD&D rulebooks? The combat rules are not hard to find. I've played OD&D with just the White Box and with nary a copy of Chainmail. It can be done. It is, in fact, relatively trivial.

Furthermore, your contention that everyone playing D&D before 1977 had a copy of Chainmail doesn't seem to match any of the sales information I've seen: Chainmail did not sell anywhere near the number of copies that the White Box did, which would make it difficult for all those owners of the White Box to have access to the Chainmail rules.

 

[Ariosto]

Maybe Joe Blow didn't know what he was doing.

The historical fact is that the game somehow or other took off.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I just recently re-read the 3 original booklets. From this recent reading and trying to pretend that I have not been gaming for 30 years I would say that it would be easier to run combat without referencing Chainmail than it would be to run wilderness adventures without Outdoor Survival.

 

[keterys]

My understanding, which is somewhat flawed since I got in on AD&D1 and BD&D apparently, was that people made up a lot of the rules and played a lot via word of mouth. Like, one guy would play with one group, then he'd go and teach another group, and there'd be a lot of little mistakes, but really the important part was the concept of the activity not the little details.

 

[ExploderWizard]

My understanding, which is somewhat flawed since I got in on AD&D1 and BD&D apparently, was that people made up a lot of the rules and played a lot via word of mouth. Like, one guy would play with one group, then he'd go and teach another group, and there'd be a lot of little mistakes, but really the important part was the concept of the activity not the little details.

I don't find your understanding flawed. Many gamers today are much more hung up on the details .

 

[keterys]

Well, I meant flawed more from OD&D being before my time, so I'm just operating off of war stories I actually didn't even know the difference between OD&D + BD&D until this thread. I thought it was just all OD&D...