AD&D Core Back in Print!

Screenshot of the new POD options for the Monster Manual

As of last week, the "Big 3" of the AD&D rules are now back in print via DrivethruRPG:
Monster Manual (1977) (pretty much usuable with OD&D or Holmes Basic as-is)
Players Handbook (1978)
Dungeon Masters Guide (1979)

The prices: $25 for the hardcopy, $9 for the pdf, or $28 for both together.

These are the "deluxe reprints" from a few years ago, so unfortunately they have the revised covers, and some introduced OCR typos, but it's still great for accessibility, placing the entire ruleset "back in print". It also gives hope that the OD&D reprint volumes will be made available shortly.

Also, this week they've added two more AD&D modules in print-on-demand:
A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity - $9 POD
A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade - $10 POD

A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords ($10 POD) was previously available, so we almost have the entire A series available in print again.

Other classic D&D/AD&D modules already released in print-on-demand:
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness 
D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa (original monochrome version)
S1 Tomb of Horrors 
S2 White Plume Mountain  (original monochrome version)
WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure 
X2 Castle Amber

Previous related posts:
Return of the Chainmail PDF (not available in print yet)
Monochrome D2 Print on Demand
TSR Print on Demand

(Links include my DTRPG affiliate # which gives me 5% credit if you make a purchase)

A Dungeon Map

Dungeon Map by Zenopus Archives. Click for a Larger View

Above is a draft of a dungeon map I've been slowly working on the last month or so. I finally finished the final layout/walls, so I thought I'd post it. I hope to turn it into a stocked Holmes Basic/OD&D Dungeon. This isn't necessarily the final draft as I may add more features to particular rooms once I thinking more about the room contents.

Current features (clockwise from left), which I added for variety while drawing:
-Entrance double doors on left. Next to the doors are 'peepholes' that can be used to spy in or out of the rooms on either side of the doors.
-Room with tentacles that extend from walls
-Room with 20' x 20' square pit
-Room with chasm with waterfall at end and river running through it
-Room filled with rubble
-Room with five alcoves
-Two-way chasm extending through room and walls
-Room with three 'closets' - doors resemble rock walls so can be treated as concealed
-Room with wall in middle full of arrow slits
-Staircase up to room with weird tentacle statue.
-Room with rectangular pool - magical, of course
-Room filled with gas
-Large central/final room with "viewing area" surrounded by metal bars (denoted by dots), and "maw" on west wall.

Return of the CHAINMAIL PDF

As of today, CHAINMAIL (1971) is once again available for purchase at DrivethruRPG:

CHAINMAIL pdf

If you purchased the pdf in the past, you should be able to download the new version for free. Per Stormcrow on ODD74, the new pdf is an improved version, clean-up and with bookmarks. From the preview, the pdf is a 3rd edition (1975), 7th printing of the rules.

There's no print-on-demand option yet, but that may be coming as WOTC has been slowly adding new titles (for example, a print option for dungeon module A2 was added this week).

Holmes used Chainmail as one of his sources when assembling the manuscript of Basic. He included some rules from Chainmail that didn't appear elsewhere in OD&D, such as the Parry rule (See Part 17 of my Holmes Manuscript series).

(Links include my DTRPG affiliate # which gives me 5% if you make a purchase)

500

The adventuring party forms ... artwork by David C. Sutherland III for the module B1 In Search of the Unknown

Raise your flagons: the Holmes Basic G+ community just hit 500 members for the first time!

If you like this blog, you might consider joining the G+ group. Over there I often post links to articles (other blogs, discussion group threads, news articles, etc) of interest to the members. It's not strictly limited to discussion Holmes Basic; rather, anything of interest to fans of the era is fine. If you set notifications "on", you can get an email sent to your gmail "Social" tab when anyone makes a post (generally only one or two a day at most). Plus Chris Holmes has been hanging out there lately!

I created the community in Dec 2012 when G+ added communities. At the time I had privacy concerns so I set it to private (and can't change this now), so you will need to request to join, but I approve all requests that appear to be from real people interested in the community. 

Right now is great time to join because there's a fun collaborative project going on, organized by Jon of the Appendix M blog, which you can still participate in. Essentially, he's getting everyone to submit their stats/descriptions for anything shown in the art of the Holmes Basic rulebook. It will be assembled into a zine. If the art of the rulebook ever inspired you to create anything new, it would be perfect for this. Multiple submissions for each piece are being accepted. I've submitted my version of the lizardman riding the lizard art at the top of this blog!