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I recently unearthed my White Box D&D set, which has somewhat renewed my curiosity from when I bought it about 1980, for what it actually is, how it was supposed to be used, and whether anyone really considered it usable by itself (or what else someone was supposed to know, and from where).

I bought it already having heard what essentially D&D was, and already knowing The Fantasy Trip and having learned several much more complex and thoroughly explicit wargame rules (Squad Leader, other Avalon Hill games etc) and I had also invented dozens of pen & paper games for myself and friends. I saw that there seemed to be 100 or more D&D products available, but I didn't realize that Basic and Advanced were distinct later and different systems. I thought it would probably make sense to start at the beginning with the White Box labeled the "Original Collector's Edition". I got that the DM was supposed to fill in most details, and I tried several times to find a usable starting place, but there was so much that seemed missing that there didn't seem to be one. Not only did the terminology seem strange and inconsistent, but there seemed to be several really basic pieces of context and mechanics entirely missing, as if there needed to be another book or two that were left out. The set mentioned the Chainmail miniature wargame rules and Outdoor Survival board game by Avalon HIll, but those were supposed to be optional. Without them, I didn't really see a way to play without inventing my own system, and in that case I didn't see why I'd choose to include much of anything from the D&D books.

From the wood box auction thread, I gather that my gold-stickered "Original Collector's Edition" was ironically a later version with an earlier version's Tolkien terms (hobbits & balrogs) removed, but I assume they didn't also remove some rules?

Looking at the books again now, I get the same impression, and I'm still curious. These can't really have been intended to be usable by someone who doesn't already know many assumptions and several details that were left out, was it? What would someone need to also buy or have experience with in order to buy the White Box and have a usable game system? Was it written as if the reader already was familiar with and had access to an earlier edition? Or was it written for people who were expected to react to incomplete rules by just making stuff up?

Quote from: Skarg;1002765These can't really have been intended to be usable by someone who doesn't already know many assumptions and several details that were left out, was it?

As far as I'm concerned, this is the key. The assumptions would not have been found in other RPG books (there were no other RPG books). Instead, as far as I can tell, the OD&D rules grew from the soil of what I call "Referee-driven" war-games like Free Kriegspiel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsspiel_(wargame)).

When we say "war-game" it is important to make a distinction from the Avalon Hill games -- which were complete in their rules and required no Referee. In contrast, a game like Kriegspiel depended on a Referee to make rulings using detailed rules as two players or sides battled it out. The rules were thick and combat long, so "Free Kriegspiel" came into vogue, where the Referee referenced the rules far less often, making rulings on the fly.

This sort of play is led to Braustein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunstein_(wargame))and other games of this nature, and later rules sets like original D&D and original Traveller.

Here's a blog post I just found (http://advancedgaming-theory.blogspot.com/2017/04/unlocking-gygax-code-game-hidden-inside.html) that touches on these matters in reference to D&D and AD&D. I write about these matters in posts about the original Traveller rules here  (https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2016/05/21/traveller-out-of-the-box-notes-on-the-personal-combat-system/)and here (https://talestoastound.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/traveller-out-of-the-box-an-approach-to-refereeing-and-throws-in-original-traveller-part-i/).

Ultimately, Gygax was writing for an audience of hobbyists who knew this stuff. It was part of their vocabulary, part of their experience, and part of the culture. That's why he could name drop Chainmail and Outdoor Survival without bothering to explain what the hell he was talking about.

This is also why, to touch on a recent thread here, there were no rules for how to handle killing a bound, helpless opponent. It was the Referee's job to adjudicate such things. Rules would not be needed to handle every self-evident situation. The Referee's adjurations would come first, and if he was uncertain as to outcomes the rules would be pulled out -- not the other way around, which is how the hobby developed.

And the hobby developed that way because D&D caught lightning a bottle. It was passed on to, and bought by, people who were not as deep into a particular gaming culture as Gygax was (or the guys at GDW were). The rules seemed incomplete and strange -- and rightly so if you were steeped in the assumptions Gygax was working from.

Thus, a shift was made to make the rules more complete, less Referee-driven, and more driven by the rules with the Referee now getting the job of applying the rules. There's nothing inherently wrong with this shift, of course. But it is a very different kind of play.

Of note:

Marc Miller, Frank Chadwick, and others formed GDW they ran political simulation roleplaying games on their college campus. These games were not at all like roleplaying games as we know them today. There were no character sheets, and no "digital" version of characters stats. Instead, Players would take on roles in political conflicts (sometimes as world leaders, sometimes as bureaucrats within the same government) and play out stressful scenarios. They would make alliances, plot against each other, keep secrets, trade secrets... all while playing a specific roll. Significantly, Referees (people like Miller or Chadwick) would make calls as to how someone's plan against someone else paid off. Since there were no numbers to fall back on, a Referee in such a game simply made up what happened.

In a recent interview (http://www.stargazersworld.com/2017/05/15/interview-with-marc-miller/) Miller spoke of reading the original D&D and said:

QuoteWhen Dungeons & Dragons came out, I was a wargame designer. In a sense, the fantasy role-playing idea was new, but in another sense, it was a familiar concept. I had done political role-playing exercises in college: model UN and model Organization of American States, and some campaign simulations.

What struck me (and everyone else) about D&D was the application of numbers to the individual character and role. Gary Gygax’s conversion of role-playing from a touchy-feely analog system to an easy-to-use digital character system was brilliant, even if we couldn’t quite put it into words. D&D literally took over everyone at Game Designers’ Workshop, and after a couple of weeks, we (the designers and owners) had to make an important rule: no D&D during work hours. Nothing else was getting done.

So, as an example of what I'm talking about, the team at GDW, even though they did not know Gygax and had not encountered D&D before, immediately got Dungeons & Dragons as soon as they read it. They played it... and they played it a lot. And I think it is because they shared a lot of the same game culture.

Quote from: Skarg;1002765I recently unearthed my White Box D&D set, which has somewhat renewed my curiosity from when I bought it about 1980, for what it actually is, how it was supposed to be used, and whether anyone really considered it usable by itself (or what else someone was supposed to know, and from where).

I bought it already having heard what essentially D&D was, and already knowing The Fantasy Trip and having learned several much more complex and thoroughly explicit wargame rules (Squad Leader, other Avalon Hill games etc) and I had also invented dozens of pen & paper games for myself and friends. I saw that there seemed to be 100 or more D&D products available, but I didn't realize that Basic and Advanced were distinct later and different systems. I thought it would probably make sense to start at the beginning with the White Box labeled the "Original Collector's Edition". I got that the DM was supposed to fill in most details, and I tried several times to find a usable starting place, but there was so much that seemed missing that there didn't seem to be one. Not only did the terminology seem strange and inconsistent, but there seemed to be several really basic pieces of context and mechanics entirely missing, as if there needed to be another book or two that were left out. The set mentioned the Chainmail miniature wargame rules and Outdoor Survival board game by Avalon HIll, but those were supposed to be optional. Without them, I didn't really see a way to play without inventing my own system, and in that case I didn't see why I'd choose to include much of anything from the D&D books.

From the wood box auction thread, I gather that my gold-stickered "Original Collector's Edition" was ironically a later version with an earlier version's Tolkien terms (hobbits & balrogs) removed, but I assume they didn't also remove some rules?

Looking at the books again now, I get the same impression, and I'm still curious. These can't really have been intended to be usable by someone who doesn't already know many assumptions and several details that were left out, was it? What would someone need to also buy or have experience with in order to buy the White Box and have a usable game system? Was it written as if the reader already was familiar with and had access to an earlier edition? Or was it written for people who were expected to react to incomplete rules by just making stuff up?

Learning to play required being part of a Bardic like oral tradition. It was the Dungeon Master or Referees job to interpret, and/or explain the rules. This came from wargaming where someone highly experienced in playing the game would serve as a judge or referee and make rulings just so the players of the game would not get into arguments or disputes over the rules, have the game derailed, or unsatisfactorily delayed. This was actually the Dungeon Masters job. Anyone who just picked up the books, and who would try to learn to play solo, or without an experienced coach, would be confused, because the rules were very poorly organized, as well as incomplete, so incomplete in fact, that Gary included the following commentary concerning this in Introduction on page four of Men & Magic.

"The rules are complete as possible within the limitations imposed by the space of three booklets. That is, they cover the major aspects of fantasy campaigns but still remain flexible. As with any other miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity - your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors, and the fact that you have purchased these rules indicate that there is no lack of imagination.  - the fascination of the game will tend to make participants find more and more time. We advise, however, that a campaign be begun slowly, following the steps outlined herein, so as to avoid becoming too bogged down with unfamiliar details at first."

From the original little brown box, only references to Tolkien creatures were omitted. An errata sheet was included in any later orders from TSR for brown box D&D. Whitebox contained some rules and grammer clarifications, and was slightly re-organized. I don't recall any other rules being dropped from the three books except for the Tolkien fantasy critters, and references to J.R.R. Tolkien himself.

We added whatever we liked for our early games, and also eagerly checked out supplements and enhancements provided by other publishers like Judges Guild and the Balboa Game Company. It was explicitly (as you can see above) understood that we were expressly permitted to create whatever we wanted to add to our games, in order to make our games interesting, and more appealing. This accounted for a major portion of the explosive growth and popularity of D&D, and changed dramatically with the release of AD&D which insisted players follow the rules provided in the AD&D books, and with the re-release of Moldvay/Cook version of Basic D&D after the Holmes Blue Book edition was out of print.

One could play D&D perfectly well with just the original White Box (or Brown Box) bookset. I of course, already had bought the Holmes Bluebook D&D as well as a number of Judges Guilds supplements like Ready Ref Sheets which greatly improved the play experience by the way, and understood that as a DM, I could optionally add whatever supplements I liked to play with to run our games with. Later after AD&D was released, I added the newer AD&D spells to basic, as well as the Ranger character class, since the D&D and AD&D rules were more or less, fully interchangeable even though they weren't fully compatible. I cherry picked what I like for my D&D game in the spirit of the original rules, and still do now.

D&D was not originally designed to be a "complete" game and was instead designed to be an ongoing gaming development project or campaign for the referee or DM, that was part of its appeal.

I have never bought Wilderness Survival, and only bought Chainmail in 1999, and found it didn't add anything I already didn't have to my game, because almost all of relevant portions of Chainmail is included in Judges Guild supplements.

Here is the errata or changes of you happen to have the 1st-4th printing of D&D (all of these would be brown box, with just a few minor exceptions since I received an intermixed whitebook lot with the 5th printng and heard a rumor they found some missing boxes of the original books that had been improperly stored at TSR, and added those books were randomly added in later 5th & 6th collectors edition printings of the White Box. No one there at the time had a clue they would end up being so valuable later on.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
--Errata Sheet--

A few added notes are in Italics! To the best of my (The Archivist@Murkhill) knowledge, all of these changes are for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th printings since the errata sheet was inserted in the box for the 2nd and 3rd printing. All of these errata were corrected for the 5th and 6th printings, except as noted below. I also added the % in Liar correction, which to the best of my knowledge is uncorrected in all printings.

MEN & MAGIC, Volume 1

Page 9: Add “Griffons” under the neutrality column. Delete the first listing for “Wights” under the Chaos column.

Page 11, line 35: “30% to 40%” should be 40% to 50%.

Page 22, line 21: The “T” cross index for Zombie/Adept should be 7.

Page 23, line 34: “…2+1), (“and” deleted) from 1-6, 3rd level types, and but 1 4th level type (up to 4+1 hit dice).”

Page 28, line 9: “each” should be east (it may be this in the 1st , 2nd, 3rd and 4th printing I do not have any of those to check. However, in the 5th and 6th printing the reference is page 27, line 18: “each” should be east and it was corrected.

MONSTERS & TREASURE, Volume 2

Page 3: Table heading “% In Liar” should be “% In Lair”

Page 3: Skeletons/Zombies hit dice should read 1/2/1 (read as one-half / one)

Page 14, line 24: “doing two, three or four dice of damage (depending on size)!” Refers to Balrogs description, which is not in the 6th printing.
Page 14, line 31: add Only magical weapons/attacks affect Gargoyles. In the 6th printing, this is Page 14, line 15
Page 14, line 33: add Only silver weapons or magical weapons/attacks affect Lycanthropes. In the 6th printing, this is Page 14, Line 18

Page 14 In the 5th printing and earlier Balrogs appears immediately after dragon treasure, but in the 6th printing Balrogs is replaced with an illustration.

Page 18, line 22: add Only magical weapons/attacks affect Elementals.

Page 24, SCROLLS: There is a 25% chance that any scroll of spells found will contain those useable by Clerics.

Page 32, Heroism: add The potion will cause fighters of 5th – 7th level to increase two levels, and 8th – 10th level to increase by one level of ability.
SCROLLS: N.B. After reading a spell from a scroll the writing disappears, so the spell is usable one time only! In the 5th and 6th printing, this correction was made except that the “N.B.” was not inserted.


THE UNDERWORLD & WILDERNESS ADVENTURES, Volume 3

Page 11: Balrogs should have “Die” 9. In the 6th printing “Spectres” were inserted in place of Balrogs.

Page 18, line 10: An Encounter occurs in a City on a 6. Actually, line 7, at least in the 5th and 6th printings.

Page 24, line 16: The missing word is ten. Actually, line 18, at least in the 5th and 6th printings and is inserted as the number 10 instead of the word ten.

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Read more: http://ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/thread/243/original-dungeons-dragons-errata-annotated#ixzz4wGEYi3q0

Hey, are you The Ruins of Murkhill? I came across that site recently. Lots of good stuff to read on there.

Thanks Christopher and GameDaddy. Those explanations do help.

However it seems to me that there are a few fundamental things missing from the books, or else either I have blind spots when I look for them, or Gygax et al and the people who DO have the rest of the context have blind spots keeping them from seeing some basic things are missing. I get that they're supposed to be imaginative seeds but what GameDaddy's Gygax quote above and what GameDaddy wrote suggest they think it there is a more complete ruleset than I have found. I'll have to re-read the books again, and I wanted to ask about this topic before doing so to know with what lens I should do so, but IIRC and from a few brief skims, I don't see any indication of what to roll for damage - there's an equipment table with weapons with zero weapon stats other than rough encumbrance ratings. What do you roll to determine the amount of damage if something is hit with an arrow, dagger, club, battle axe, halberd, etc? I don't see any indication of any differences between the weapons except cost, encumbrance, and whether they are a ranged weapon or not.

Quote from: Skarg;1002785I don't see any indication of what to roll for damage - there's an equipment table with weapons with zero weapon stats other than rough encumbrance ratings. What do you roll to determine the amount of damage if something is hit with an arrow, dagger, club, battle axe, halberd, etc? I don't see any indication of any differences between the weapons except cost, encumbrance, and whether they are a ranged weapon or not.

Volume I, p. 19: "All attacks which score hits do 1-6 points damage unless otherwise noted."

There is probably a chain of reasoning for writing the rule this way based on previous games that influenced D&D's development, but I am unfamiliar with it.

Apart from that, I'm fine with it. Using the rules this way means that a) getting hit is dangerous, because, really, a knife wound can really be dangerous; and b) the focus is on the individual character's abilities -- that is, ultimately during a combat the better the odds a character has to hit in a given round, the more times he will deal damage across a fight.

Ultimately, when many of us go back to look at games like Original Dungeons & Dragons or original Traveller I truly think we approach them with strange kinds of "lenses" over our eyes. We cannot see what is there, or see what is not there on occasion. We bring in so many expectations of "What an RPG is" that we we overlay those expectations on a text that has nothing to do with those expectations -- and become confused because we can't see what the game actually is doing. I have said for some time now that the games of the hobby's first four years grew from a completely different soil than the games that came after.

Also, if you are looking for some sort of "guide" while digging back into the books, you might want to check out "Philotomy's Musings (http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf)" which is a book of a guy who really digs OD&D and explains why you might dig it too. He also addresses lots of the rules, variations, and such.

Finally, the rules are rather haphazardly laid out. There are a couple of compiled and edited PDFs of the Original D&D rules floating around out there that make it much easier to read them. My favorite is a single volume with Frazetta art. Nothing is changed in terms of rules, but all relevant details are gathered near each other, making it much easier to understand.

Quote from: Skarg;1002785What do you roll to determine the amount of damage if something is hit with an arrow, dagger, club, battle axe, halberd, etc?

It 1d6 and supposed to be on the bottom of 19. Some copies, including mine, omitted this vital piece of information due to a misprint or something.

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Quote from: estar;1002799Some copies, including mine, omitted this vital piece of information due to a misprint or something.

Whaaaaaat???

Quote from: Skarg;1002785However it seems to me that there are a few fundamental things missing from the books,

It easy to navel gaze when talking about original Dungeons and Dragons. The best thing to do is ask specific questions like you asked about damage and but formulate your own opinion. OD&D is a light rules system that works well for referees willing to make up shit that is fun (to paraphrase Gronan).

If you want a thoroughly researched account of the origins of D&D and the community that is was created in then read Jon Peterson's Playing at the World. Then branch out to other accounts like Hawk & Moor. Thanks to the internet enabling the D&D collecting community a lot of the old newsletters and documents are seeing the light of day. So people don't just have to rely on 40 year old memories to figure out what happen like it was 10 years ago. A lot of people have strong opinions about the origins of D&D. My view is simple, there where a bunch of gamers who figured out that wargaming was fun, and in their quest to create fun and interesting challenges the community invented the things that allows Arneson and Gygax to create Dungeons & Dragon. Because of the limited number of published resources most had to do their own original research and there was a lot of back and forth sharing.

Two resources I recommend are Matt Finch's Old School Primer (http://www.lulu.com/items/volume_63/3019000/3019374/1/print/3019374.pdf) and Philotomy's Musing (http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf). Both offer practical ideas for using OD&D to run a campaign.

Yah there was a lot missing to play out of the box.   Got introduced to it by my friends college age brother.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1002804Whaaaaaat???

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Quote from: Dumarest;1002780Hey, are you The Ruins of Murkhill? I came across that site recently. Lots of good stuff to read on there.

Yes, I'm over there as registered as Dragondaddy. It's a good resource for Original Dungeons & Dragons as well as other early games like Gamma World, Metamorphosis Alpha, Boot Hill, and such...

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1002797Volume I, p. 19: "All attacks which score hits do 1-6 points damage unless otherwise noted."

I am totally not seeing it anywhere in Volume I, not on p. 19 or anywhere near it. Maybe I have a defective edition of the book. My page 19 has Spells & Levels, Levels Above Those Listed, Alternative Combat System [zero rules], Attack Matrix 1.: Men Attacking [says nothing about damage]. Page 20 is the Monsters Attacking table [no damage mentioned], Saving Throw Matrix [no damage] and then it switches to the magic system for the rest of the book. I don't see anything about damage done before that either.

There is a few sidelong clues in Volume II - Monsters & Treasure, some of which are good examples of rules that I could interpret several ways none of which seem to make much sense to me (like the dragon damage rules that I have no good idea what they are trying to say) or the best hint (now that you said the rule is always 1d6) is under Elves, where it says that Elves with magic weapons do 1d6+1 (which seems weird because saying that under Elves implies to me that Elves get an extra +1 damage with [only their own?] magic weapons. Oh I see there are more clues in the magic weapons rules, which I think I often don't get to when I skim because I start to lose my mind when I see that after very vague rules on most things, we get almost four complete pages of detailed rules on the intelligence, egoism, alignment hostility (which DO get damage rules), and other (alien to me) weird things about magic swords. The magic weapon damage notes again seem like they're referring to some other context or table we're supposed to have.

E.g. "Axes can be utilized as a hand weapon or thrown 3" with the +1 bonus."
* Is that all axes or just magical axes?
* Why "the +1 bonus"? Sounds like it's referring to something else? This is under a section header about weapons wit +1, +2, or +3 bonuses. (I guess we're supposed to get that this is actually just a key to the specific random miscellaneous weapon loot table seven pages earlier, so the "the" refers to that table and how there is only a +1 Axe listed there.)
* Is that a +1 for all axes in addition to magic bonuses?
* Does the +1 apply only to thrown attacks?
* Like several of the other entries, it's not clear whether this is +1 to hit, +1 to damage, or both.

QuoteThere is probably a chain of reasoning for writing the rule this way based on previous games that influenced D&D's development, but I am unfamiliar with it.

Apart from that, I'm fine with it. Using the rules this way means that a) getting hit is dangerous, because, really, a knife wound can really be dangerous;

You mean the idea that a knife can potentially inflict deadly wounds, so may as well just have them be mechanically the same as every other weapon?

So, "Magic Users may arm themselves with daggers only." is only relevant in that there are fewer and less cool magic dagger items, but for mundane weapons it makes no difference and fighters may as well just carry knives to reduce encumbrance, or clubs because they float in water?

Quoteand b) the focus is on the individual character's abilities -- that is, ultimately during a combat the better the odds a character has to hit in a given round, the more times he will deal damage across a fight.

Any individual character abilities other than what level they are? My Volume I page 19 does mention under "Alternative Combat System" that "This system is based upon the defensive and offensive capabilities of the combatants; such things as speed, ferocity, and weaponry of the monster attacking are subsumed in the matrixes." But then the matrixes are just Level versus Armor Class, with a 1-2 AC modifier for range (but I don't see any rules for range bands anywhere except for a few specific magic weapons or monsters). So (I just want to be sure I'm understanding) it sounds like both you and the rules say that the detailed abilities and equipment are relevant, except that they are abstracted into a table that does not take them into account. It doesn't even seem to matter what class the attacker is, just their level (and the table columns only shift every 3 levels) so unless there are magic weapons, every level 7-9 PC attacker, whether a Fighter with a Halberd or a Magic User with a dagger, not only does the same damage but has the same chance to hit a target with the same armor class. The differences would be the target's armor (and I see no rules that MU's can't use non-magical armor), hit point totals which are different per class, and the fact that MU levels do take more XP to earn (though Clerics cost less, so if that's supposed to be a measure of fighting ability, clerics seem better than fighters... oh there's also the "Fighting Capability" column of the class level tables, where fighters clearly do get some sort of major bonus to attacks (in the form "3 Men or Hero -1" or "Wizard +1), but I have no way to know what it means ... oh yes, I see, it's the "non-alternative" combat system, except it says to consult Chainmail, so that doesn't apply.

QuoteAlso, if you are looking for some sort of "guide" while digging back into the books, you might want to check out "Philotomy's Musings (http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf)" which is a book of a guy who really digs OD&D and explains why you might dig it too. He also addresses lots of the rules, variations, and such.

Thanks. I'll give that a look.

Quote from: estar;1002799It 1d6 and supposed to be on the bottom of 19. Some copies, including mine, omitted this vital piece of information due to a misprint or something.

Aha!! Thank you!
(Skarg just regained a sanity point!)

Quote from: estar;1002799It 1d6 and supposed to be on the bottom of 19. Some copies, including mine, omitted this vital piece of information due to a misprint or something.

Amazing, but not surprising. I actually never used that chart to hit in any of my games, even back in 1977. The first thing I could afford to buy were the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets along with the Holmes Blue Box, and Ready Ref Sheets had this chart in them instead, which listed variable weapon damage, as well as the much better to-hit charts organized by character class attacking, and everything else needed that was needed for play except the spell lists and exp tables to level, I actually played D&D for about four months just using the Holmes Bluebook and the Ready Ref Sheets;

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So, the only game I ever played with just d6 damage was the original first three or four D&D games we played with my first DM back in 1977. From maybe June on, when I was GMing I used the variable weapons damage chart from Ready Ref Sheets, and of course picked up Greyhawk no later than 1978 and adopted the Greyhawk Alternate Combat System Damage Done by Weapon Type tables (which were the same as the Judges Guild tables, lol!). This was actually a very sophisticated damage chart which included taking into account the changed to-hit probabilities for using different kinds of weapons versus different kinds of armor.

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I believe you! It's just a horrible piece of information to be missing from the rules. As Skarg's frustration can attest to.


Skarg, yes, when I said abilities I really should have said "level" -- though in OD&D what level a character is really is their ability in combat.

See ester's note about the damage sentence being missing on p. 19 in some editions (yikes!)

If you look under the Attack Matrix Chart you will see a notion about how other classes move through the columns of the matrix. It's a ridiculous chart as laid out with that little notation underneath. But there are differences by classes. Please understand I'm not here to defend or excuse the editing or layout of the original books. This is why I sought out a DYI-better-edited edition!

Yes, as far as I can tell the limit of Daggers for M-Us will effect mostly magical loot. Additionally, however, circumstances will matter whether one is at an advantage with a sword over a dagger (see my post above about Referee judgments).

Thanks a lot, folks! I think I am understanding better my core question of what the White Box is and what the missing context is. It's hilarious that I managed to get the edition that didn't have the damage rule.

Even though I could never get past it's quirks to find a game I could use, it still holds some nostalgic charm and mystery in how random and analysis-resistant its content is. Even when it seems to be explaining something in detail, there often seem to be omissions or multiple possible interpretations, or unexplained missing contexts.

Quote from: Skarg;1002821Thanks a lot, folks! I think I am understanding better my core question of what the White Box is and what the missing context is. It's hilarious that I managed to get the edition that didn't have the damage rule.

Even though I could never get past it's quirks to find a game I could use, it still holds some nostalgic charm and mystery in how random and analysis-resistant its content is. Even when it seems to be explaining something in detail, there often seem to be omissions or multiple possible interpretations, or unexplained missing contexts.

Wizards sells the PDFs which have been laid out again so they are as clean as we are going to get. And you can get the supplements for reasonable prices as well. Plus they are small enough to make it reasonable to print out a hard copy. I did that with Greyhawk for a while until I scored a copy for myself along with Eldritch Wizardry. The only one I am missing is Swords & Spells.

I was able to buy in the store back in the day, Chainmail, The Collector's edition White Box, Blackmoor, and Gods, Heroes, and Demi-gods. Until 2008, I used Chainmail the most because of the Jousting Rules, still one of the better takes on Jousting out there.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1002816I believe you! It's just a horrible piece of information to be missing from the rules. As Skarg's frustration can attest to.

And it was never printed on the Reference Sheet which had plenty of room to do so.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1002815Amazing, but not surprising. I actually never used that chart to hit in any of my games, even back in 1977. The first thing I could afford to buy were the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets

You used to be able to buy pristine copies from the Different Worlds website but one too many OSR bloggers posted about it and now they are gone. You get a PDF on RPGNow (http://www.rpgnow.com/product/932/Ready-Ref-Sheets-1978?it=1). I concur that it is very useful and highly recommend to anybody that running an OD&D campaign to get it. It just that handy even if you don't use the Judges Guild additions.

Quote from: Skarg;1002821Even though I could never get past it's quirks to find a game I could use, it still holds some nostalgic charm and mystery in how random and analysis-resistant its content is. Even when it seems to be explaining something in detail, there often seem to be omissions or multiple possible interpretations, or unexplained missing contexts.

I can't stress enough that if you are willing to embrace rulings not rules it is quite playable even superior to subsequent RPGs who try to be "less complex" for example Microlite d20.

Quote from: estar;1002854I can't stress enough that if you are willing to embrace rulings not rules it is quite playable even superior to subsequent RPGs who try to be "less complex" for example Microlite d20.

This is the point I've been trying to make as well.

I have a copy of those rules...maybe I should try playing them straight out of the box. Never played "OD&D." I remember being confused by the "Explanation of Abilities" section where it kept saying things like "Clerics can use Strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining  experience only." Anybody out there want to tell me what the heck that is supposed to mean? I'm missing something or that sentence and the surrounding sentences is assuming I have information not provided there.

The OD&D books are a lot of fun to read and totally usable as the core rules for a game IF you already know how to play. If you don't, they are pretty hopeless. And I personally think it is stupid to pretend we don't all know why: they are just really badly written and organized. ('gasp!!!'). It's not like no one had ever written an instructional manual for a game before. Or, say, a paragraph in English. Gygax was a genius and we all owe him tons. And I love his goofy syntax and creative way with words. But the dude simply could not explain shit in anything like a straightforward and rational way.

If you know OD&D and 1E AD&D well, a reasonable interpretation of the latter is that it is basically just an edited version of OD&D (plus the supplements), where some effort was finally made to turn all that word salad into a string of logical operators. If you want to enjoy some history, or pursue your view of how the game can be played, then OD&D is great. If you want to understand what the fuck is actually going on in this game, you will do better to read AD&D and either play that, or go back to OD&D with an understanding of how things work.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002867I have a copy of those rules...maybe I should try playing them straight out of the box. Never played "OD&D." I remember being confused by the "Explanation of Abilities" section where it kept saying things like "Clerics can use Strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining  experience only." Anybody out there want to tell me what the heck that is supposed to mean? I'm missing something or that sentence and the surrounding sentences is assuming I have information not provided there.

There are two common ways of interpreting this.

1) It trading points in one ability score for another. Note according to page 11 you can only reduce an ability to 9.
This is straightforward and how Holmes in the Basic Boxed Edition choose to interpret it.


2) It allows abilities other than your prime requisite requires to add in with your prime requisite to count toward your bonus XP.

For example Bob the Fighter has a 12 Strength, 10 Intelligence, 13 wisdom, 10 Constitutions, 9 Dexterity, and a 12 Charisma
According to page 11 you have no bonus to earned XP with a 12 strength. But.. you can take 3 points of Wisdom and count it as +1 strength for the table on page 11. Thus making strength count as a 13 and you now can earn +5% XP. You can only count those points of Wisdom 9 or more.


For example Bob the Fighter has a 12 Strength, 13 Intelligence, 13 wisdom, 10 Constitutions, 9 Dexterity, and a 12 Charisma
In this case Bob can count 4 points of Intelligence as +2 to strength, and 3 points of Wisdom as +1 to strength giving him a 15 strength on the Page 11 chart thus giving him +10% to earned XP.

This example is a good one as it shows the fuzziness of OD&D which for many is a downside. Back in the day when confronted with this people just made up something that made sense. Resulting in regional variations of D&D. Several Judges Guild Modules based on tournament modules like Of Skull of Scrapfaggot Green illustrates by including a list of "This how we are going to play OD&D" rules in the module. The genesis of AD&D in part was fueled by the incessant questions TSR was bombarded with.

However this is not back in the say and we have umpteen editions of D&D to use as inspiration to figure out how to make the above and other fuzzy work in your own campaign. Plus OD&D has been and continued to be discussed to death which also a resource to use to figure out how you want to handle this. Hence my earlier statement about you need to be comfortable with idea of rulings not rules. Because even when you figure out your take on the fuzzy stuff there still remains stuff like what you do when the fighter wants to climb a wall, the magic user pick locks, and the cleric wants to haggle the price down of a mace with a merchant.

Right, rulings, etc... That doesn't answer the question...

What did Gygax actually mean by that Str/Wis thing?  It can't be unknowable, we're not talking about hieroglyphics from the Tomb of Ramesses II, people are still living who played with the man using his rules.

Quote from: Dumarest;1002867I have a copy of those rules...maybe I should try playing them straight out of the box. Never played "OD&D." I remember being confused by the "Explanation of Abilities" section where it kept saying things like "Clerics can use Strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining  experience only." Anybody out there want to tell me what the heck that is supposed to mean? I'm missing something or that sentence and the surrounding sentences is assuming I have information not provided there.

Yes, say for example your Cleric has a strength of 16 and a Wisdom of 14.  At Character generation time, the player can opt to trade three strength points for a point of wisdom, thus this character would have a strength of 13, and a Wisdom of 15 instead, which would be just enough for the cleric to earn a 10% Bonus for on all experience points earned. The other reason to tradeoff exceptional high scores to boost marginal scores is to play the character you want to play, suppose for example, you had a character with an Intelligence of 12, and a Wisdom of 14, and wanted to play a magic user. at Chargen you could trade Wisdom for Intelligence on a 2 for 1 basis, so four points of wisdom would provide two points of intellgence. Your Wizard would have an Intellgence of 14, and a Wisdom of 10. He/She would get a 10% experience point bonus, can learn to speak, read, and write more languages.

With the Greyhawk supplement I, Intelligence determines how many spells a caster can know at any given time, as well as how many spells the caster can learn. Knowing the spell meant the caster could write the spell in his/her spellbook and add it to his/her learned list. With an Intelligence of 14 for example our mage would have a 65% base chance to know any given spell after reading it out of another wizard's spellbook. He could then either copy the spell into his/her spellbook while spending 1,000 GP for the components of a 1st level spell so that he/she could read or memorize it later, or he/she could immediately memorize the spell in order to cast it at some time during that day... and after successfully acquiring the spell has a base 65% chance each day of memorizing the spell.

The minimum number of spells our INT 14 caster could know is five, meaning at the beginning of the game, the player gets to pick five first level spells that can be added to his/her spellbook as part of their "Wizard" training. After that, it costs dearly to add new spells to spellbooks in the range of thousands of gold pieces, even for first level spells.

The maximum number of spells our INT 14 caster could know is eight, meaning he/she could learn up to eight 1st level spells, but first, even reading the spell from another spellbook, the wizard only has a 65% chance of "Knowing" how to cast that spell. If he fails to know, he cannot cast that spell as long as he/she remains that level.

Once the character leveled to 2nd level he/she could make another attempt to learn that first level spell again, and has a 65% chance to successfully do so, and then spending the required gold on components to cast the spell, can add it to his/her spellbook.

One of the houserules for my games was three strikes and your out, if you fail to learn a spell with three attempts, you'll never be smart enough to successfully learn the spell and have to find another spell to add to you spellbook. Gaining spells, even after leveling up,  was never an automatic or guaranteed process in original D&D. One had to learn the spell from another wizard, visit a magic unioversity or college and gain access to the a magic library, or research how to prepare and cast the spell from scratch.

Spell research and creating entirely new spells was very popular, very time consuming, and very expensive, which provided ample motive for wizards to join on treasure hunting expeditions, as well as providing down time, where the wizard player would leave his wizard in the village while researching a new spell, and play some other character class for awhile.

I had a folder chock fuill of characters of various levels, and would switch out whenever the wizard character needed a few weeks or few months to research a new spell. When I mean researching a new spell this would be a custom designed spell, one that was not already in the D&D books, Men & Magic or Underworld & Wilderness Adventure. It would be a completely new spell with new effects, and new saving throws, and/or different types of damage.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002877Right, rulings, etc... That doesn't answer the question...

What did Gygax actually mean by that Str/Wis thing?  It can't be unknowable, we're not talking about hieroglyphics from the Tomb of Ramesses II, people are still living who played with the man using his rules.

And so we enter the rabbit hole. Sorry for teasing you but in a nutshell there not a definitive interpretation of how OD&D plays even when you limit it to things similar to what Dumarest asks. I been following all this since 2008 and there hasn't been a resolution. In many cases there are a limited set of choices where is agreement that it could be one of the possibilities listed.

People look at things like

1) Strategic Review
2) Early issue of Dragon Magazine
3) What Gygax said (which is not often due to the fact he was trying to answer questions about things 30 to 40 years ago).
4) And it turns out often what Gygax the RPG author says is different that what Gygax the Dungeon Master does.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1002878Yes, say for example your Cleric has a strength of 16 and a Wisdom of 14.  At Character generation time, the player can opt to trade three strength points for a point of wisdom, thus this character would have a strength of 13, and a Wisdom of 15 instead, which would be just enough for the cleric to earn a 10% Bonus for on all experience points earned.

And yet it says on page 10

Quotefor purposes of gaining experience only.

Your interpretation of changing the attributes would have it gain the other bonuses given to high attributes.

But then in support of how you view things

QuoteNote: Average scores are 9–12. Units so indicated above may be used to increase prime requisite total insofar as this does not bring that category below average, i.e. below a score of 9.

I don't about other folks but this sounds like about a trade of X points of one ability for 1 point of another. But yet there that pesky "for the purpose. ... only"

And in terms of how it looks in-game it make sense that a fighter with a high intelligence and wisdom should have a bit of an edge. That fighting is not all about being the strongest person around. That having wits and foresight counts as well at least in terms of earning experience.

And to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong. Only that in the case of OD&D several sections have two or more reasonable interpretations for what they mean.

It sounds to me like a Cleric with an 18 Str and 12 Wisdom can count as a 15 Wisdom for experience gained.

He trades 3 for 1 down to a minimum of 9. 18-9=9, 9/3=3, so +3 to Wisdom only for experience gained.

His stats are 9 Str and 15 Wis for the purpose of exp bonus only.

The actual stats remain 18 Str and 12 Wis for everything else.

In other words, Str is a secondary exp stat for Clerics.

Still would be easier to just ask Gronan or whoever, if he remembered if he ever saw anyone do that when playing with Gary.

IMO, you can go way the hell overboard with this "rabbit hole" stuff.  These are not the writings of Nostradamus.

Quote from: estar;1002880And yet it says on page 10



Your interpretation of changing the attributes would have it gain the other bonuses given to high attributes.

But then in support of how you view things



I don't about other folks but this sounds like about a trade of X points of one ability for 1 point of another. But yet there that pesky "for the purpose. ... only"

And in terms of how it looks in-game it make sense that a fighter with a high intelligence and wisdom should have a bit of an edge. That fighting is not all about being the strongest person around. That having wits and foresight counts as well at least in terms of earning experience.

And to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong. Only that in the case of OD&D several sections have two or more reasonable interpretations for what they mean.

Weird. I always assumed it meant you actually trade the points. But now that you've shown me the second option I suddenly see it as the obvious reading. I kind of like it... as if a Cleric's Strength will add fortitude to his efforts as a Cleric, or Wisdom will, of course, help a Magic User or Fighter increase in ability as they adventure.

Quote from: estar;1002880Your interpretation of changing the attributes would have it gain the other bonuses given to high attributes.

And to be clear, I am not saying you are wrong. Only that in the case of OD&D several sections have two or more reasonable interpretations for what they mean.

That is correct, this is exactly the way we played it, but only during character generation. I decided that my newest character with a strength of 11 and Int of 13 and wisdom of 13 should be a fighter, so I trade 4 points of intelligence at 2-1  and three points of wisdom at 3-1 to receive a three point boost to my strength. So my starting stats are as follows: Str 14, Int 9, and Wisdom 10. My fighter gets to add 5% to earned experience, and according to Greyhawk receives a +1 bonus to hit, can carry an extra 100 Gp worth of weight before becoming encumbered.

The section stating "...for the purpose of gaining experience only" is only relevant when you are trading Strength away to boost Wisdom for Clerics so the clerics who trade thusly make better clerics, but worse fighters as they lose their STR enhancements for combat. When you are trading INT and WIS to increase STR there are no similar limitations however, and I'm pretty sure this was deliberately put into place to make clerics either a really good cleric casting holy spells and turning undead, or a really good holy fighter thrashing on the infidels and unbelievers, but not both, which ended up being a real problem in AD&D and 3e.

And yes, there were so many variations on play because of the rules ambiguities, that we had our house rules written down, and would provide them for guest players from other clubs and gaming groups, and similarly expected to be provided a summary of house rules in their games when we were visiting their clubs. Tournament modules and adventures had their own rules, of course, which may or may not have been in the white bookset depending on who organized the adventure in the tournament.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002883...
His stats are 9 Str and 15 Wis for the purpose of exp bonus only.

The actual stats remain 18 Str and 12 Wis for everything else.

.....
IMO, you can go way the hell overboard with this "rabbit hole" stuff.  These are not the writings of Nostradamus.

I agree with your sentiment, but you just demonstrated yet a third interpretation of the text. Hence the origins of whole talmudic reading of the OD&D rules meme that get floated around.

Which I been stressing, it will work if you are comfortable with rulings not rules. All of these issues are easily solved by just deciding how YOU, the referee, want to handle. And in my opinion far more in the spirit of the  time period prior to the release of D&D than any reconstruction of the rules.

As a sidenote it becomes even more problematic which people trying to figure out how Dave Arneson ran the Blackmoor. Because Dave was far more "seat of your pants" than Gygax was. His rule book was a binder full of pages of jottings meant to remind him of how he adjudicated things. Which is why Judges Guild's First Fantasy Campaign was so rambling.

And yet another reason why I say if you want to play like the old days, figure out the setting and kind of campaign you want to play, make up some rules, and start playing. If there a gap make a ruling and note it for later. Rinse and repeat over and over again.

Yeah, the part about certain classes being able to "use" certain attributes "in their respective prime requisite areas", "for purposes of gaining experience only", and "Units so indicated above may be used to increase prime requisite total insofar as this does not bring that category below average, i.e. below a score of 9." always seemed extremely cryptic.

Looking at it now, I think I would interpret it as not changing what your attributes are, but ONLY for the purpose of figuring out your experience bonus for your class, you calculate your effective Prime Requisite by taking the usual attribute plus a fraction of the mentioned secondary attributes that may be over 9.

For example:
Name: Examplio
strength: 12
intelligence: 13
wisdom: 13
(other attributes irrelevant to determining Prime Requisite)

If he's a fighter, his Prime Requisite as a fighter would be Strength + (IQ - 9) / 2 + (WIS - 9) / 3 = 15.
If he's a Magic-User, his Prime Requisite as a Magic-User would be IQ + (Wis - 9) / 3 = 14.
If he's a Cleric, his Prime Requisite as a Cleric would be Wis + (Strength - 9) / 3 + (IQ - 9) / 2 = 16.

The effect of this would only be to determine the experience bonus (and the highest tier is 15+, so none of that's needed unless you're below 15 in your class' Prime Requisite). The abilities would stay what was rolled for all other purposes, because this is just how you calculate Prime Requisite for experience bonus purposes.

So for another example,
Name: Keplo the Krafty
strength: 11
intelligence: 15
wisdom: 12
As a fighter, his Prime Requisite would be 10 + (15-9)/2 + (12-9)/2, which is 11 + 3 + 1 = 15, which is as good as an 18 for the experience bonus (and I don't see any other effect of strength in the books I have).

Another great example of a rule that is cryptically written and can defy interpretation unless you talk to people who already know what's meant from other sources and/or from decades of discussion. ;)

Quote from: Skarg;1002923Another great example of a rule that is cryptically written and can defy interpretation unless you talk to people who already know what's meant from other sources and/or from decades of discussion. ;)

We played it as actually changing the stats, not just applying it to stats for purposes of determining the experience bonus, because 3d6 straight up. Rolling 3d6 right down the line often meant having a suboptimal character. Being able to trade attributes to boost the prime attribute for our character class was seen as a benefit. It saved time instead of re-rolling new characters up, we could roll our character then modify or adjust, ...somewhat, because the trade-offs were not actually favorable towards overall attributes, ...to suit the character class we wanted to play.

Also like I mentioned about the Cleric, The Cleric could have either a good Strength and be a Holy Warrior or Holy Defender, that knew a few spells, or he could buff his Wisdom and become a much more powerful Spellcaster, but not receive the bonuses for strength that a strong and burly fighter would have. It was seen in our group as an early attempt to "balance" the classes and prevent any kind of preference for playing a specific class.

When the AD&D Players Hand Book came out in the Autumn of 1978 the play style instantly changed and there were a lot more Fighting Clerics that formed the core of adventuring parties. This was because from 1-12th level or so, the Cleric was tremendously overpowered when compared to the other three core character classes. They were powerful spellcasters who could also fight extremely well, and stand in the front line with the fighters, and beserkers, in battle. This imbalance favoring clerics continued up until after 3rd edition in 2006, and resulted in adventure parties having a disproportionately high number of clerics in the party, and very few parties without a cleric in it.

Wizards were generally very weak and vulnerable, right up until about 12th level or so, when the power of their magic would then often eclipse what the rest of the party could contribute (but only because most people were not playing wizards right, they would just pick the spells out of PHB or Men and Magic, instead of making the players roll to learn the spells based on their characters intelligence). This incorrect style of pick and play resulted in Wizards being way overpowered, especially at higher levels. After that Wizards were subsequently nerfed after 2nd edition, and had their power level, and the power and effects of their spells scaled down dramatically. All of the Wizards in fiction though, were very high powered characters. I would also add, that having Wizard's and Clerics create their own unique spells was an inherently awesome part of the game, and even being physically weak, the other players were reluctant to attack Wizards because they could potentially have a very lethal or embarrassing surprise spell for defense, and play was really enhanced when the Wizard cast some awesome new spell that no one had ever seen before, and this really added to the Wow! effect in playing a session or game, even for veteran D&D players.

Some of the best games I have played included Wizard's or Clerics who had a spellbook where just about none of the spells came out of the D&D core books, either 0D&D or AD&D.

Luke Gygax talked about this in the recent Geek & Sundry videocast with Satine Phoenix where he talks about how and why he chose to create spells like Melf's Acid Arrow and Melf's Minor Meteors, and Melf's Unicorn Arrow. he also talks about his house rules that he uses for his AD&D games.

Wonderment in D&D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD6FHnf1Xyc

Melf's Unicorn Arrow Spell
https://dndtools.net/spells/players-handbook-ii--80/melfs-unicorn-arrow--2933/

Another thing I liked about Wizards and Clerics is Wizards and Clerics that would create new magic items, for themselves, and for the other players in their adventure company, but this should be a separate thread.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002877Right, rulings, etc... That doesn't answer the question...

What did Gygax actually mean by that Str/Wis thing?  It can't be unknowable, we're not talking about hieroglyphics from the Tomb of Ramesses II, people are still living who played with the man using his rules.

There are plenty of people who did, and my guess is that what they did with attribute exchanges in Holmes, B/X, BECMI, etc. are a good indicator (although I'm sure they did in some cases take they way that other people interpreted things and say, 'yeah, that makes more sense.')

However, and this is basically death of the author literary analysis, writ small, but, Does it matter? Does it matter what Gary actually meant? If he didn't put it down on the page, is there any reason to give his interpretation any specific primacy over anyone elses'? I guess that depends on what we're trying to do of course, but it is worth asking.

Quote from: estar;1002850And it was never printed on the Reference Sheet which had plenty of room to do so.

I suspect that at the point that the reference sheet was put into the boxes, everyone who was buying them was being taught to play by someone who already had it figured out (or was using the ready reference of Greyhawk alternatives.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1002872The OD&D books are a lot of fun to read and totally usable as the core rules for a game IF you already know how to play. If you don't, they are pretty hopeless. And I personally think it is stupid to pretend we don't all know why: they are just really badly written and organized. ('gasp!!!'). It's not like no one had ever written an instructional manual for a game before. Or, say, a paragraph in English. Gygax was a genius and we all owe him tons. And I love his goofy syntax and creative way with words. But the dude simply could not explain shit in anything like a straightforward and rational way.

I think it is worth noting that Gygax, at the time, had no idea that this odd little supplemental sub-game variation of the fantasy subsection of his historical miniatures battle rules would take off, become a cottage industry that would massively influence another growing industry (how much of computer games were influenced by D&D...), and that we'd all be analyzing this close to 45 years later.

The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

I kind of like this ambiguity as it means the ref can't be wrong in his interpretation and a big middle finger to rules lawyers. :D

I'm thinking about trying out an OD&D game with just the original books from 1974 similar to running Traveller with only Books 1 through 3 from 1977.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933Does it matter what Gary actually meant? If he didn't put it down on the page, is there any reason to give his interpretation any specific primacy over anyone elses'?

It can be useful to know what the author intended to inform your own decision.

I often said fuck the rules when as it pertains your setting and your campaign. Do what make sense for what you are trying to do. Not what the rules say and certainly not with what some author says. Having said that taking the time to learn how the hobby developed and what Arneson and Gygax doing in their own games was useful to me.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933I suspect that at the point that the reference sheet was put into the boxes, everyone who was buying them was being taught to play by someone who already had it figured out (or was using the ready reference of Greyhawk alternatives.


....

The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

Some historical footnotes here:
1) The reference sheets were included in the first printing.

2) By the summer 1973, the idea of tabletop roleplaying was wildly popular among the wargaming community of the upper midwest. The Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns had dozens of players with mobs showing up for each session. Plus stuff was converging from the wider national wargaming community. People were making wargame or running campaign where the focus was on the players playing individual characters. Plus Gary's economic situation wasn't good.

All these factors combined to push Gygax into publishing D&D as soon as possible after the summer of 1973. His best friend, Don Kaye was his partner in trying to get the rules published. But they had barely enough money to pay for the printing with nothing for expenses like postage.

So they tried selling another wargame Cavaliers and Roundheads, figuring that it would generate just enough profit that when added to their capital would allow publication of D&D. But sales were slow and it would not be until 1975 that the sums would be enough to pay for the print run of D&D.

But Brian Blume was interested in help and had the cash. So he was brought as a equal partner. Now Gygax had enough to pay for the printing and all expenses.

Finally during the printing process the manuscript was turned over to be typeset. Gygax thought he made it clear that he wanted some professional editing done and the printer agreed to do this. But when the books came back, they were not edited. They were just type in 'as is' from the original manuscript.

Also in conjunction with above, the rules were refined through extensive actual play and Gygax felt he was making progress but it wasn't quite there. But the pressure listed above pushed him to take the rules in the state they were in late 73 and go with that. Something I can emphasize with due to the work I am doing for my own stuff.

We always played it as Holmes put it, trading points to raise prime attributes. But our group really started play with Holmes. For us Holmes was the Rosetta Stone that unlocked 0D&D. Then we switched to AD&D when that came out. Issues of Dragon, etc and contact with other gaming groups ere pretty much non-existant in our little town.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002933The writing is not good. The writing is not clear. Even those of us with great affection for the thing can say that. But it probably was a rushed job pushed out the door because there was a deadline and who knew that they weren't going to get a second chance to clean it up if this thing really took off?

Well, TSR's position was that they DID get a second chance to clean it up - AD&D on the one hand (for the "serious" hardcore gamers) and the various D&D Basic (et al.) sets on the other (for beginners, kids, and less-hardcore gamers). The 1981 D&D Expert Set in particular was clearly intended as a direct replacement for the D&D white-box.

The D&D Basic Set was originally released in 1977 and was intended as a way to help beginners (players and DMs alike) make sense of D&D, so it includes a lot of examples and explanatory text and advice and intentionally covers only the simplest aspects of the game - dungeon adventures for character levels 1-3. But it was a weird stand-alone thing that directed readers to consult AD&D for higher-level play even though its rules weren't really consistent with AD&D (which was still being written and wouldn't be fully released for 1-2 more years). It would've made more sense to refer the readers to the D&D white-box but in Dragon magazine they said that they decided not to do that because they knew readers would be confused by the white-box and figured they'd have an easier time with AD&D (when it was eventually released).

In 1981 TSR revised the Basic Set. The 1981 version has pretty much the same content as the earlier version (as far as classes, spells, monsters, and magic items) but the writing is clearer and the editing and organization are much better. Plus, instead of pointing readers to AD&D, it points to new a book specifically designed as a sequel/companion - the D&D Expert Set. If you look at the D&D Expert Set and the D&D white-box side by side the former is pretty much literally just all of the rules from the latter that were left out of the Basic Set - the rules for wilderness (and waterborne and aerial) adventuring, the rules for building castles and acquiring a retinue of hirelings, the rest of the monsters and magic items, and the XP charts, spells, and combat & saving throw tables for levels 4+. There are a couple of new spells (in order to make the lists have a consistent number of spells per level) and a handful of new monsters that presumably came from the editors' home games (my favorites being the bronze golem and devil swine), but 95% of the content is just straight out of the D&D white-box, lightly edited to match the format and style of the Basic Set.

It's no coincidence that it's only when the D&D Expert Set was released that TSR finally took the white-box out of print. As far as they were concerned, the combined Basic + Expert Sets (not to mention AD&D) rendered it fully obsolete. The thing they had no way of knowing was that decades after the fact people would decide to reject the fixed/cleaned-up versions and return to what they at the time considered to be, effectively, the "beta-test" version.

Quote from: T. Foster;1002947It's no coincidence that it's only when the D&D Expert Set was released that TSR finally took the white-box out of print. As far as they were concerned, the combined Basic + Expert Sets (not to mention AD&D) rendered it fully obsolete. The thing they had no way of knowing was that decades after the fact people would decide to reject the fixed/cleaned-up versions and return to what they at the time considered to be, effectively, the "beta-test" version.

Pretty much the point I was trying to make. No one warned them that we'd consider the future games separate editions or something and be going over EGG's initial guidebook looking for flaws. It was flawed (as anything written on a deadline is), but who knew that it would matter?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1002952It was flawed (as anything written on a deadline is), but who knew that it would matter?

It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Quote from: estar;1002955...literally spammed...

Literally? ;)
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Quote from: estar;1002955It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Matter, as in my original point that no one knew we'd be looking back 40-odd years later and critiquing the thing. I am sure, in their minds, if the thing caught on, they'd get a chance to re-edit the thing, and put it out again, and people wouldn't consider it a separate edition or however we now separate out oD&D, B, B/X, BECMI, AD&D, 2e, etc.

If they were making the thing with the goal of making themselves free from critique 40 years in the future, they would have done things differently. As you pointed out, they had immediate financial concerns that were more pressing.

And yes, it had plenty of downstream consequences, both immediate and long term.

Quote from: estar;1002955It mattered right away as TSR was literally spammed via letters and phone with gamers asking questions about the game.

Right. By early 1975 TSR was already well aware that a lot of people were confused by the D&D rules and needed (or at least wanted) a lot more guidance - a lot of stuff in the Greyhawk supplement seems intended to provide that, plus various explanatory articles in "The Strategic Review" (e.g. "The Questions Most Frequently Asked About D&D" in issue #2 and "The D&D Magic System" in #7) and various fanzines (e.g. "How To Set Up Your D&D Campaign" from Europa #6-8). And by mid 1976 TSR was already promising a new/revised edition that would make everything much clearer, even though it took them a couple-three more years to actually get that version (i.e. AD&D) written, edited, and released. The D&D set as released at the beginning of 1974 was, effectively, a proof-of-concept placeholder for TSR, released as-is in order to get something onto the market to forestall anybody else from doing so first. That it was so immensely popular and paradigm-shifting, despite being nigh-incomprehensible without a ton of oral tradition, proves that their instincts were correct and the concept was a winner, and if they'd waited another year+ to release it someone else almost certainly would've stolen the moment from them. But they always knew from day one that the initial release was sort of a mess, that it was incomplete and a lot of it had already been superseded in their home-campaigns before it was even released, and felt that given more time and resources they could do a much better job of it - AD&D on the one hand, the Basic & Expert Sets on the other.

EDIT: FWIW I like playing with the D&D white-box, because it's so simple and focused on the pure elemental core of D&Dness - adventures in dungeons and the wilderness fighting (and/or running away from and/or negotiating with) monsters and gathering treasure. Because I know the rules (what there are of them) pretty much by-heart I can get a game running in about 5 minutes and don't need to refer to the text at all. To me, playing white-box D&D isn't about depth or detail (in the way that my AD&D games are), it's about getting immediately into the action with a minimum of fuss. Sometimes that's all I want, and at those times white-box D&D satisfies that itch in a way that none of the later versions (even the B/X sets) do. Where I differ from the hardcore OD&D-only fans is that my understanding of this version is always filtered through and projected back from the later versions - I'll pretty much always fill in holes and resolve ambiguities the way they were resolved in the later editions (e.g. stat points are actually traded, hit points are cumulative and rolled as you gain levels, elves split their XP between fighter and MU, clerics don't need spell books, hold person causes paralysis, etc.). I have no interest in Talmudic study of the OD&D text to divine (or create) alternate interpretations or to try to recreate (or invent) some ur-game that was "lost" in the later versions; nor do I try to hold the holes and ambiguities up as some sort of intentional Zen riddle the point of which is to ultimately reject the text and make up your own game. White-box D&D isn't some mysterious or mystical text to me - it's just a really simple, no-frills version of the game that I find ideally suited to casual "beer & pretzels" play, as an occasional break and palate-cleanser from AD&D.

Quote from: T. Foster;1002947The 1981 D&D Expert Set in particular was clearly intended as a direct replacement for the D&D white-box. . . .In 1981 TSR revised the Basic Set. The 1981 version has pretty much the same content as the earlier version (as far as classes, spells, monsters, and magic items) but the writing is clearer and the editing and organization are much better. . . .95% of the content is just straight out of the D&D white-box, lightly edited to match the format and style of the Basic Set.

I agree. If you want to know what a well-written and edited OD&D looks like, just get the 1981 B/X version of D&D.

I wonder if they would have believed in 1974 that we would still be playing D&D in 2017.  I know I heard it said many times over the years that D&D was "just a fad" or that I "would grow out of it". Instead both of my girls play, one regularly, one occasionally.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1003006I wonder if they would have believed in 1974 that we would still be playing D&D in 2017.  I know I heard it said many times over the years that D&D was "just a fad" or that I "would grow out of it". Instead both of my girls play, one regularly, one occasionally.

By the time D&D was published in early 1974 Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign was in its 5th year of play, so they had some idea of its potential longevity. But even so, I suspect they figured most people would play for at most 1-2 years before moving on to something else. In the designer's notes to the AD&D DMG in Dragon magazine Gary Gygax mentions how some people complained that they'd exhausted the possibilities of D&D within "6 weeks or 6 months" of play and that AD&D had been deliberately balanced so that wouldn't happen. He said "maybe in 6 years you will" - laughing it off as an almost-arbitrarily-long time and showing that even by the time (the summer of 1979 - so D&D had been on the market for a little over 5 years) the idea that people would stick with the game for decades on end probably had yet to occur to him.

Quote from: Skarg;1002812I am totally not seeing it anywhere in Volume I, not on p. 19 or anywhere near it. Maybe I have a defective edition of the book. My page 19 has Spells & Levels, Levels Above Those Listed, Alternative Combat System [zero rules], Attack Matrix 1.: Men Attacking [says nothing about damage]. Page 20 is the Monsters Attacking table [no damage mentioned], Saving Throw Matrix [no damage] and then it switches to the magic system for the rest of the book. I don't see anything about damage done before that either.

There is a few sidelong clues in Volume II - Monsters & Treasure, some of which are good examples of rules that I could interpret several ways none of which seem to make much sense to me (like the dragon damage rules that I have no good idea what they are trying to say) or the best hint (now that you said the rule is always 1d6) is under Elves, where it says that Elves with magic weapons do 1d6+1 (which seems weird because saying that under Elves implies to me that Elves get an extra +1 damage with [only their own?] magic weapons. Oh I see there are more clues in the magic weapons rules, which I think I often don't get to when I skim because I start to lose my mind when I see that after very vague rules on most things, we get almost four complete pages of detailed rules on the intelligence, egoism, alignment hostility (which DO get damage rules), and other (alien to me) weird things about magic swords. The magic weapon damage notes again seem like they're referring to some other context or table we're supposed to have.

E.g. "Axes can be utilized as a hand weapon or thrown 3" with the +1 bonus."
* Is that all axes or just magical axes?
* Why "the +1 bonus"? Sounds like it's referring to something else? This is under a section header about weapons wit +1, +2, or +3 bonuses. (I guess we're supposed to get that this is actually just a key to the specific random miscellaneous weapon loot table seven pages earlier, so the "the" refers to that table and how there is only a +1 Axe listed there.)
* Is that a +1 for all axes in addition to magic bonuses?
* Does the +1 apply only to thrown attacks?
* Like several of the other entries, it's not clear whether this is +1 to hit, +1 to damage, or both.


You mean the idea that a knife can potentially inflict deadly wounds, so may as well just have them be mechanically the same as every other weapon?

So, "Magic Users may arm themselves with daggers only." is only relevant in that there are fewer and less cool magic dagger items, but for mundane weapons it makes no difference and fighters may as well just carry knives to reduce encumbrance, or clubs because they float in water?


Any individual character abilities other than what level they are? My Volume I page 19 does mention under "Alternative Combat System" that "This system is based upon the defensive and offensive capabilities of the combatants; such things as speed, ferocity, and weaponry of the monster attacking are subsumed in the matrixes." But then the matrixes are just Level versus Armor Class, with a 1-2 AC modifier for range (but I don't see any rules for range bands anywhere except for a few specific magic weapons or monsters). So (I just want to be sure I'm understanding) it sounds like both you and the rules say that the detailed abilities and equipment are relevant, except that they are abstracted into a table that does not take them into account. It doesn't even seem to matter what class the attacker is, just their level (and the table columns only shift every 3 levels) so unless there are magic weapons, every level 7-9 PC attacker, whether a Fighter with a Halberd or a Magic User with a dagger, not only does the same damage but has the same chance to hit a target with the same armor class. The differences would be the target's armor (and I see no rules that MU's can't use non-magical armor), hit point totals which are different per class, and the fact that MU levels do take more XP to earn (though Clerics cost less, so if that's supposed to be a measure of fighting ability, clerics seem better than fighters... oh there's also the "Fighting Capability" column of the class level tables, where fighters clearly do get some sort of major bonus to attacks (in the form "3 Men or Hero -1" or "Wizard +1), but I have no way to know what it means ... oh yes, I see, it's the "non-alternative" combat system, except it says to consult Chainmail, so that doesn't apply.


Thanks. I'll give that a look.

One thing to keep in mind when reading about magic weapons is from what I understand they originally lowered the enemy's AC but after A player added it to his attack rolls the rules changed regarding that.
If any one here knows beater please elaborate.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1002883[snip]  These are not the writings of Nostradamus.

With all the blood that's been spilled over the years are you truly sure about that?

Well, Nostradamus predicted D&D:

Bêtes farouches de faim fleuves tranner;
Plus part du champ encore Hister sera,
En caige de fer le grand sera treisner,
Quand rien enfant de Germain observa.

Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;1002884Weird. I always assumed it meant you actually trade the points. But now that you've shown me the second option I suddenly see it as the obvious reading. I kind of like it... as if a Cleric's Strength will add fortitude to his efforts as a Cleric, or Wisdom will, of course, help a Magic User or Fighter increase in ability as they adventure.

In B and BX its more planely stated that you are altering the characters stats by shuffling them from one to another. So I assume since both are very close to OD&D that this is probably the case there too as the wordings are much the same. Just a slightly different use in B and BX.

Quote from: Omega;1003162In B and BX its more planely stated that you are altering the characters stats by shuffling them from one to another. So I assume since both are very close to OD&D that this is probably the case there too as the wordings are much the same. Just a slightly different use in B and BX.

How is it in AD&D?

Quote from: Skarg;1003202How is it in AD&D?

Replaced (multiple times, if you count Unearthed Arcana). Now there are multiple ways to generate stats, but none which allow you to trade off 2 strength for 1 int or anything like that. That's one of those places where oD&D->BECMI went one direction and AD&D went another.