Holmes Day 2025

J. Eric Holmes at his chalkboard game table, contemplating miniatures and notes.
Taken by Tony Bernard for the 1979 L.A. Times article, "Fantasy Life in a Game Without End";
a cropped version appears with the article. Scan of the original photo courtesy Bill Galaxy.

For fans of the Holmes Basic Set, today is notable as it marks the birthday of its editor, J. Eric Holmes. And this year he would have been 95 years old, although sadly we lost him in 2010 at the age of 80.

To mark the occasion, here are some Holmes-ian highlights from the last year:

February

For Leap Day 2024, I shared a new monster inspired by Holmes' Sample Dungeon: the Giant Zenopus.

March

At Gary Con 2024, I ran two games, one of which was a session of the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave, my Ruined Tower of Zenopus-adjacent dungeon. Later in the year I worked on preparing this for publication, although I haven't been able to finish it yet.

April

At our local Scrum Con 2024, I ran the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave again, and also an impromptu fill-in session of the original Ruined Tower of Zenopus sample dungeon, which is always a blast.

May

May saw the publication of 50 Years of D&D, which includes an article, "Doctor Holmes I Presume?' How a California Neurology Professor Penned the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set", co-written by Tony Rowe and yours truly. Read more about the book here: 50 Years of D&D.

June

Pacesetter Games published the Islands of Peril, the latest adaptation of Holmes' original campaign maps and notes, to which I contributed a Foreword discussing the maps and notes on which it was based.

Wizkids promo photo. Source.

July

WizKids released a line of miniatures for the 50th anniversary of D&D, which included the Red Dragon, Blue Wizard and Green Knight from the cover of the Holmes Basic set. I have been somewhat frustrated with the availability of these figures, and haven't written a separate post about them on the blog, although I still might.

August 

I wrote about the return of the OSR zine Fight On #15, with an issue dedicated to Holmes, including an article by myself about how to Holmesify your OSR game.

September

I reviewed a Holmes Basic metal sign available from Ata-Boy via Amazon.

November

I wrote about the Coleman-Rider-Waite Deck tarot card The Tower, and its thematic similarities to the Tower of Zenopus.

December

I shared the "Tower of Xenopus", a writeup by Tony Stroppa of his adaptation of the Sample Dungeon for the Greek mythology-based Mazes & Minotaurs RPG.

January

Looking forward to Gary Con 2025, I wrote about the games I will be running, one of which is The Eye of Arzaz, Holmes' other sample dungeon from his 1981 book Fantasy Role-Playing Games.

 

Scrum Con Preview Video by Little Wars TV

Just over three weeks until Scrum Con 2024!

Tony Marano of Little Wars TV has made a great preview video for us, with lots of footage from last year; it's a great way to get a feel for what the con is like.

See my earlier post for more info about the con (dates, location, etc). Badges can be purchased here on Tabletop Events.

Tickets sales have been healthy, but there are still plenty of seats left in great games, both RPGs & miniatures wargames. See the event schedule here (protip: set the "items per page" to 100 to scroll through the whole game list without paging back and forth).

If you liked my post last fall about playing in a Fury Road game, you can play in that game on Friday morning at 10 - there are still seats left.

See you there!

Scrum Con 2024 (March 29-30) Badge Registration now open!

 

Attention DC metro area gamers:

Scrum Con is back for another year of games!

This year, for the first time, it will take place over two days, Friday March 29th and Saturday March 30th. The location is the same as last year (and 2020), in the Civic Building in Silver Spring, Maryland.

General registration opens today, Monday February 20th, at Tabletop Events:

Get your Scrum Con 2024 Badge Here

The standard price this year is $55 for a regular two-day pass, $25 for a Friday-only pass or $35 for a Saturday-only pass. But register right now (until this Thursday, Feb 22nd) and there is an early bird discount of $5 off per day. There is also an $80 VIP option that includes a two-day pass, a t-shirt and swag bag.

As in previous years, Scrum Con strives to offer an even mix of tabletop RPGs and miniatures wargaming. The schedule of games can be perused here:

Scrum Con 2024 schedule of games

In general, there are two slots of games each day, running from 10 AM - 2 PM and 3:30 - 7:30 PM, although there are few games at other times. So you should easily be able to play in two games per day.

And as always, sign up with an email address on the mailing list at scrum-con.com to stay on top of the latest announcements and updates.

For an idea of what the games are like, see this post on the Scrum in Miniature blog with over 400 photos from the 2023 event. 

Hope to see you there!

And please help us get the word out by sharing this with anyone who may be interested.

Furiosa (2024): New Trailer

It's a lovely day for a new Furiosa trailer!

The eternal George Miller is back with a prequel to 2015's unexpectedly amazing Fury Road. I'm not generally a huge fan of "just-so story" prequels, but I loved Fury Road and have been eagerly anticipating another look at the rebooted, Dark Sun-paletted Mad Maxiverse. And Anna Taylor-Joy, who plays Furiosa this time around, was marvelous in the Queen's Gambit. 

I'm also primed for this, having just recently played in a Scrum Club game based on Fury Road and then re-watched the movie with my son - his first Mad Max!

The two photos above are from the game, run by Peter Megginson using his What a Lovely Day! miniatures rules, and run previously at Scrum Con (here's the 2020 program listing) and many other cons.

Ride eternal, shiny and chrome!

STAR SCHLOCK Battle Game (Kickstarter)

Scrum Club member John S., who blogs over at the 1000 Foot General, is currently running a kickstarter for his skirmish miniatures game, Star Schlock. As the tagline in the graphic says, this game is inspired by the tropes and aesthetics of all of those sci-fi shows and movies we loved as kids - Trek, Planet of the Apes, Buck Rogers, SW, etc. 

I've pledged for the "Recruit" level, which supplies the Star Schlock Battle Game set, including the rulebooks, dice, cards, organizing consoles, and tokens for playing the game, plus a starter set of 12 pewter minis (unpainted) - 6 each of Space Apes and Explorer Corps. Higher pledges levels include more minis. It's already blown way past its funding goal, with all sorts of bonuses for different pledge levels being unlocked.

Space Apes vs Explorer Corps

It's running for about one more week; find it here:

Star Schlock Battle Game

Scrum in Miniature: Scrum Con IV report

 

Myself (right) running the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave at Scrum Con IV. Source.

Visit the Scrum in Miniature blog to read about Scrum Con IV, which took place on Saturday, April 8th, and see over 400 (!) photos from the day:

Scrum Con IV: In Your Face!

Scrum Con 2023 registration opens tomorrow!

 

Scrum Con returns this year on Saturday, April 8th, at the Civic Building in Silver Spring, Maryland, and registration, including both purchasing badges ($15 per person) and signing up for games, begins at noon EST tomorrow, Saturday 2/25/23.

For now, you can peruse the listing of games on Tabletop Events and pick out what you might be interested in signing up for. The selection includes an equal number of RPGs and miniatures wargames:

Scrum Con IV (2023) Schedule of Events

And as always, sign up with an email address on the mailing list at scrum-con.com to stay on top of the latest announcements and updates.

For an idea of what the games are like, see my 2020 Post-Op or this post on Scrum in Miniature with over 400 photos.

Hope to see you there!

And please help us get the word out by sharing this with anyone who may be interested.

Gary Con 2023 Games Scheduled!

This year Gary Con is in its 15th (!) year, and I'm attending, which will be my fourth time attending in-person, and sixth counting two virtual attendances. I've again signed up to run two D&D games, one new and one I ran last year. These are:

(1) The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave on Friday morning from 9-1; Character Level 3; 6 seats.

Find it here: tabletop.events/conventions/gary-con-xv/schedule/893

This is the new adventure that I've been serializing on and off on the blog for the last two years. I will be play-testing it for the first time tomorrow with the Scrum Club, and plan to also run it at Scrum Con on April 8th in Silver Spring, Maryland.

(2) Expedition to Skull Stack Crater on Saturday night from 7-11; Character Levels 3-4; 6 seats.

Find it here: tabletop.events/conventions/gary-con-xv/schedule/892

This is one I ran last year at Gary Con for the first time.

I plan to use the same pre-gens for each game, and anything that happens to them (XP, leveling, treasure acquired) from the first game will be carried over to the second one. 

I will also be helping my friend Demos, who blogs at OSR Grimoire, run a miniatures game in the Legends of Wargaming Hall:

(3) The Black Eagle Banner on Thursday night from 6-11; 6 seats.

Find it here: https://tabletop.events/conventions/gary-con-xv/schedule/1586

This is a scenario from the module X10 Black Arrow, Red Shield - which is part of series with X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5 Temple of Death - and uses TSR's Battlesystem miniatures rules.

Read previous Gary Con convention summaries I've written:

Gary Con 2023 (unfinished): Day 0

Gary Con 2022: Day 1 --- Day 2 --- Days 3 and 4

Gary Con 2019 (unfinished): Day 1 --- Day 2 (part 1)

Other Gary Con links of interest:
Gary Con website
Badge Purchase
Full Schedule of Events on Tabletop Events (searchable)
Grand Geneva Resort website
Facebook Group (main source for announcements)
OD&D Discussion thread
Dragonsfoot thread
Knights & Knaves Alehouse thread

Scrum Con Returns!

 

Just announced:

Scrum Con returns to in-person gaming on Saturday, April 8th, 2023!

It will again be held at the Silver Spring Civic Building in Silver Spring, MD, which was the site of the last in-person event, in late Feb 2020, just before the pandemic swept in.

Sign up for the newsletter at http://scrum-con.com so you don't miss any announcements about registration.

This will be the fourth Scrum Con overall, with in-person events in 2019 and 2020, and a virtual event in 2021. Clicking the Scrum Con label on this post should bring up most of my previous posts about Scrum Con.

As you can see in the ad, Scrum Con includes both RPGs and Wargames; the aim is a 50:50 ratio of each in a variety of genres. For an idea of what the games are like, see my 2020 Post-Op or this post on Scrum in Miniature with over 400 (!) photos.

I'm part of the group, Scrum Club, that organizes this event, and I plan to run my new Forgotten Smugglers' Cave D&D adventure.

Hope to see you there!

And please help us get the word out by sharing this with anyone who may be interested.

Scrum Con 2021: online April 24-25

This coming weekend, Scrum Con returns for the third time! This year's con will be solely virtual due to the ongoing pandemic; we hope to in-person gaming next year.

Going virtual allows us to expand to two days of games & more on Saturday, April 24th and Sunday, April 25th. Register for the con at our new website, scrum-con.com; the cost is $5, and there is currently no limit on the number of games you can register for. 

The following games and seminars currently have open seats:

Sat 10 AM-2 PM:

"Battle on the Borderland", a CHAINMAIL fantasy miniatures game run on a real sandtable.

Sat 2:30-6:30 PM:

"The Counterattack: Elves against the Dark Emperor", a Ral Partha Chaos Wars (2016 revived) miniatures scenario.

Sat 7-11 PM:

"The Garnet Town Gambit", a RIFTS Savage Worlds Adventure Game.

"Star Schlock - Battle for Verdo Prime": a tabletop miniatures skirmish game, based on 1980s Sci-fi Movies. See more here at the website for the game: Star Schlock.

Sun 11 AM-3 PM:

"Into the Dragon's Lair", a 5E D&D game for kids ages 9-14, run by a kid of like age (this one is free)

"Stringbags Out of Darkness", a "heavily modified Torpedo Raiders" WWII wargame scenario.

"Wampus Country: Into the Lumberlands", a Moldvay Basic D&D (aka B/X) game run by Erik Jensen of the Wampus Country blog (I'm signed up for this game).

Sun 1 PM:

Interview and Q&A with Jon Peterson, author of Playing at the World and The Elusive Shift.

Sun 3:30-7:30 PM:

"Ambush in Provence", a WWII tank-combat miniatures game run using the What a Tanker rules.

"In Deep Trouble", a fantasy miniatures skirmish game run using Crawlcraft, a custom system that blends D&D, Warcraft and MTG.

Holmes Day 2021

Today marks the 91st anniversary of the birth of J. Eric Holmes in 1930. Above is a picture that Chris Holmes sent me a while back for the J. Eric Holmes Photo Gallery, which I will be adding to it shortly. Chris doesn't have a specific date but thinks it is from the late '50s or early '60s.

Some "Holmesian Highlights" of the past year for me, in roughly chronological order:

On Leap Day, just before the pandemic hit, helping the Scrum Club put on its second Scrum Con, including running a session In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus. A bit of new news: Scrum Con may return later this year in virtual form!

Being a guest on the Wandering DMs Chat show on YT, talking about the original Sample Dungeon and my 5E conversion.

Releasing three new reference sheets for Holmes Ref, including an Equipment Sheet, "Rolling Up An Adventurer" and a Dungeoneering Reference Sheet.

Chris Holmes being a guest on the Appendix N podcast and being interviewed by the newly resurgent Grognardia.

In the summer, running an all too brief series of D&D games for my kids, exploring B1. To be continued?

The publisher of The Maze of Peril starting to sell copies from the original 1986 printing on Amazon, making it much easier to obtain a copy.

Reviewing Sunny Rolls the Dice by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (no relation to J. Eric Holmes), the most recent installment in a coming-of-age series of graphic novels, and one that prominently features D&D and Holmes Basic.

Discovering that an audio recording of "Frontiers in Brain Research", a lecture that Holmes gave at Worldcon 36 in 1978 (aka IguanaCon) was available for download on the internet. This is a real treat if you missed it at the time!

Watching the success of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus, my first "commercial" project, on DMs Guild over the year, as it earned a Platinum badge. A big thank you to everyone who took the time to review it! 

"Octopus Attack" by Chris Holmes for The Ruined Tower of Zenopus

Updating the RTOZ adventure twice during the year, first to add a map file for Roll20/VTT (essential during the pandemic), and then to add a printer-friendly map, and best of all, a commissioned illustration by Chris Holmes.

Being interviewed by Bart Carroll for the D&D Classics Column in issue #32 of Dragon+, the on-line successor to Dragon Magazine!

The Lurker in the Grotto by Lore Suto

Trying something new on the blog: writing an adventure, The Forgotten Smugglers' Cave, in installments, area-by-area. I've been lucky to have a talented artist, Lore Suto, volunteer to provide art for the series. This is still in the progress, with Area #7 being posted last week, and the next one coming soon!

Please leave comments below on anything of interest from the past year or that you are looking forward to: Holmesian games you've run or played in, or are planning to; stories of starting D&D with Holmes Basic; etc

See also: Holmes Day 2020

Note:

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

In Search of the Brazen Head of Scrum Con

Brazen Head illustration by John Sears of the 1000 Foot General

In seems incredible that Scrum Con 2020 was only two-and-half-weeks ago, in those halcyon pre-pandemic days.

In my Post-Op report I said I would write more about the game I ran, which was a session of In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus. The con program listing is shown above, with great Brazen Head art by John of the of the 1000 Foot General. It was scheduled to be at Table 14 in the Spring Room, but the game was actually ran in the upstairs Fenton room at the Civic Center; see the "dungeon map" of the site in this post.

This scenario is a sequel to the original Zenopus dungeon, set forty years later and using Holmes' characters from the Maze of Peril as pre-gens. 

IIRC, this was the fifth time that I have run this scenario. The four earlier occasions were: an initial playtest with my Local Group; a first con run at North Texas RPG Con in 2018 (with Chris Holmes playing!; pictures by players are here (Allan G.) and here (Noah G.)), and two sessions last year at Gary Con X; the first of which is written up here. I was supposed to run it again at Gary Con this year but the physical event has been canceled. I'd like to run it as part of Virtual Gary Con (badges and seats in available games are free to all!) but I have no experience with on-line games. I will play in at least one game at VGC in order to start gaining some experience in that milieu.

For Scrum Con, the game had a full table of players; with all of the pre-gens in play: Boinger, Zereth, Murray, Lady Hortensa, Sir Geoffrey, Brother Ambrose, Bardan, Olaf & Haldor (played together), Maximillian the Centaur and Sunna. I think this has happened only once before, in the first game I ran at Gary Con last year.

Olaf & Haldor character sheet and "table tent", photo by Ellen Levy

I'd like to share a full run-down of the game, but I'm still keeping the details secret to preserve certain surprises. So that will have to wait until some point in the future, perhaps after I publish it in some form.

I will say the Scrum Con group played their characters strategically. David H., playing Boinger, made an extremely innovative use of a found magic item, which made for a very memorable encounter. This group was also the first group to enter a certain part of the dungeon, so it was fun to get to playtest that area for the first time. Here is another photo of the game, different from the one I posted in my earlier post:

Running In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus, photo by Ellen Levy

The group included at least four folks who are members of the Holmes Basic Facebook Group, none of whom I had met in person before. Thanks to everyone who participated; it was great to meet and game with you!

If you would like to see more photos of the con, there are over 400 (!) here in a post on the blog Scrum in Miniature, written by our prime motivator, Joe.

The Scrum Con Ad for the Ruined Tower of Zenopus

This is the advertisement for The Ruined Tower of Zenopus that was printed in the program for Scrum Con 2020! This sharp design was created by Second Saturday Scrum Club member John, who blogs at the 1000 Foot General. Read more about the adventure module in my earlier post.

The link in the ad (https://bit.ly/3bGicsr) goes to the DMs Guild page for the product. Coincidentally, they are having a 20% off sale for DM's Day, so the pdf is now only $1.79.

The entire Scrum Con program can now be viewed on Facebook here. There is also an ad for the second issue of Bayt Al Azif, edited by Jared Smith, which among lots of fantastic Call of Cthulhu scenarios includes a reprint of Holmes' 1983 review of the Call of Cthulhu, along with notes by myself. Read more about this here.

John also did illustrations and layout for the program book, which is a thing of beauty, including a neat dungeon map of the convention center. The editor of the program is Joe Procopio who blogs at Scrum in Miniature, and the photography is by Ellen Levy.

Scrum Con 2020 Post-Op

Scrum Con 2020 Program designed by the 1000 Foot General

Scrum Con 2020 was a resounding success! 

A big thank you to the organizers (the Scrum Club), the hard-working GMs, the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society (HMGS), who supported the con with a grant, and all of the attendees who came out and played in the games.

Guest of Honor Zeb Cook running Star Frontiers. Source: the FB Album

A large number of photos are up in a album on the Scrum Con Facebook page. Most of the games at the con are represented, and most are annotated with the names of the GM, scenario and rules system. So you can click through the gallery and see and read about what was played. There were two sessions, morning (10-2) and afternoon (3:30-7:30), with a few shorter sessions starting at other times. The games were an even split between Miniatures and RPGs. Update: there are now over 400 photos in a post on the Scrum in Miniature.

A familiar fiend appeared in Noah G's Dungeon Hack+ game

I've also re-tweeted a bunch of photos from the day, adding the #scrumcon2020 tag.

And there is another con report by John at the 1000 Foot General, a member of the Scrum Club who also ran a session of his Star Schlock game and also designed an impressive program for the con (photo above).

Registration Desk after the morning rush

The games were spread across three rooms in the new venue, the Silver Spring Civic Center which everyone seemed to like. Being a member of the Scrum Club, I helped out around the registration desk in the morning, while my son played in Dragon Hunt, a Blood & Swash miniatures game run by Eric Schlegel of the HAWKS (Harford Area Weekly Kriegspielers). 

The Flea Market was popular all day, with items coming and going, including an extra copy of Dragon Strike (TSR, 1993) that I sold, and a beautiful original Monster Manual that I picked up. Thank you to the Scrum Club members and auxiliaries who manned the fort there.

Food options were plentiful around the site; Cava was basically the closest, which is where we had lunch. After the con a number of us went to McGinty's Public House for dinner, a short walk up the block.

Me (in Sauron cap) running the Brazen Head

In the afternoon I ran In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus in the upstairs Fenton room. I'll write more about it in another blog post. 

At the same time my son played in A Dead Man in Deptford, a wild miniatures (Frostgrave) game set in an alternate reality Elizabethan London, where he was William Shakespeare! This was run by Jeff Wasileski. Below are a few shots I took of this game. The first shows the view my son had sitting at the table; he felt like he was actually in a town.

The picture below was taken just after his party recovered "a work of magical dramaturgy that would open the door to another dimension" in an attic and leapt out the window to escape a demon, leaving one injured and doomed member of their party behind to guard the exit. Nearby is a model representing the Globe Theatre!