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Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Whitebox OD&D PDFs

Screenshot: #1 in the Top 100 Products at RPGNow

I've been too busy to post here for the last month, but I had to make a quick one for this.

Yesterday, WOTC released a set of pdfs from their OD&D reprint set from three years ago. The set of pdfs costs $9.99, which is almost the same as the original 1974 price ($10), and includes four pdfs: the original three booklets plus the reference sheets. I imagine the four supplements also included in the reprint will be available shortly.

In terms of printings, the pdfs approximate the 7th printing, also known as the Whitebox (for its white box cover) or OCE (Original Collector's Edition, which appears on the cover in a starburst). This is the same box that I found in a store in the late '80s, and still have.

This set is missing the Tolkien references of the original, but as Wayne R. reminded me, I created a Balrog Reference Sheet to supplement those of us with later printings.

Having these pdfs available goes a long way towards making the original invention widely accessible. It will be easy to point players to this pdf and say "we are playing this" - with x, y and z house rules, of course!

As Holmes wrote in Dragon #52: "D&D is, after all, a truly unique invention, probably as remarkable as the die, or the deck of cards, or the chessboard."

Now we just need Holmes Basic!