Where is L3 Deep Dwarven Delve located?

The Area Map from L1

In my previous post, I noted that the published version of L3 Deep Dwarven Delve (1997) omits a separate map showing "an aerial view of the mountain and surrounding areas" that the cover of 1979 draft indicated would be included along with maps of the three dungeon levels. In the published module, the map of the first dungeon level does include an outline of the hill at 80 feet, which is the height at which this level is located, and also three surrounding lower topographic lines at 20' increments. This could be considered "an aerial view of the mountain", but there is nothing on it showing "surrounding areas".

The two earlier entries in the L-series, L1 The Secret of Bone Hill (1981) and L2 The Assassin's Knot (1983), each had large area maps. The one in L1, shown above, is drawn in a black & white topographic style similar to the famous one in B2 Keep on the Borderlands, but employs hexes rather than squares, and depicts a much larger area, about 28 miles east-west and 17 miles north-south. The map in L2 overlaps with this to the south, but only adds about half as much territory because much of the map is water. Here is a fan-made splice of these two maps, from a post on the Restenford Project blog, which may be useful if you are running a Lendore campaign:

Area Map combining the maps from L1 and L2

In contrast to the earlier modules, the content in L3 consists of one large dungeon under a single hill, which means it doesn't necessarily need such a large area map, particularly if its location can be referenced using one of the earlier maps. But L3, in addition to omitting an area map, does not even clearly indicate where the Delve is in relation to the maps from L1 and L2...! 

Instead, it keeps the location vague. The "Background" relates that humanoids have been attacking Restenford and Lake Farmin (aka Garrotten), and that after the most recent attack on the former, "a member of the militia, a ranger, tracked the humanoids back to their lair" and thus "[s]omewhere in the dark wilderness nearby lurks a great threat..." (page 3). The module further explains that the town council will "provide the directions to the Delve..." (page 4, "Preparing to Play"); and that "[t]he Delve resides beneath one of the many hills in the area" (page 7, "External Locale"), which could be almost anywhere on the L1 or L2 maps, each of which depicts numerous peaks, or somewhere off the edge of those.

To some degree this vagueness may be because the adventure was introduced by means of an event in Lakofka's campaign. In comments on FB, he wrote: "L3 starts with the attack on Restenford in 576CY. The party follows the retreating humanoids back to their lair: an ancient Dwarven cave complex" (see here); "...But the little road to the front door is not obvious. A ranger tracked them and came back to Restenford to report ... He told the adventuring party what to look for and left a token along the road that tells them where he spotted their movement. Once they know the proper peak and the approximate location of the main entrance they should be able to find it" (see here); and "If it’s too easy to find others will go up and discover the orcs etc" (see here). So, it's clear that he intended for the Delve, in game, to be a "hidden location" that is not accessible until it is "unlocked" by the attack.

But note that while Lakofka didn't want players to find the Delve early, he also didn't intend for the published module to keep it completely hidden from the DM, as evidenced by his original 1979 intention to include an area map, and also more recent comments: "I looked at L3. There is no area map. I would not miss something that basic. But TSR did. The entrance is up 80 feet and the hill at that point is around 2,000 feet. The height of the entire hill is not given" (see here). (Note that on review there's nothing in L3 stating the hill is 2,000 feet high at the entrance; in fact, it clearly states, "The main entrance is some 80 feet above ground level and cannot be seen from the base of the hill" (page 7)).

The lack of a specific location poses some problems for actual play as part of a campaign. In what direction do you tell the players they are headed? What do you do once they get there and want to leave and then return? Or what if you want to include it as a hidden but possibly findable location in the Lendore sandbox from the get-go?

Lakofka's aerial map for L3

Fortunately, in 2018, Lakofka found among his papers a draft of the aerial map of the exterior of the Delve, and shared this on FB, where he wrote:

"And I found the real location! Guardian Peak. On the L1 map it’s labeled Garden Peak!!"

The map he shared, shown above, is possibly the exterior map referred to in the 1979 draft, or a later drafting of it, as to me it looks like something drawn on a computer program in the 1980s. It's not an area map like in the earlier modules, just an immediate location map showing the exterior of the hill up to its peak at 3,145 feet, and with topographic lines at 500 foot intervals. It shows the two entrances to the dungeon, each at 2,000 feet as referenced in Lakofka's quote above, rather than at the 80 feet indicated in the module (and which means that TSR most likely did not have a copy of this map when they produced L3). 

It also depicts the "Humanoid Trail" leading to Entrance A, which Lakofka referenced in one of the above quotes. The published module instead describes this singular trail in the plural, describing that "[t]he humanoid trails leading from the front gate (entrance A) are well hidden. At ground level, the trails can be found only by inspection and are not obvious to casual searchers". 

Most crucially, there is a label added to the map in pencil reading, "Garden Peak aka Guardian Peak". If you look at the L1 area map at the top of this page you will see a Garden Peak near the upper center. The reason for the dual names is that while the peak is labeled Garden on the L1 map, the text of the module refers to it as Guardian (page 8). Lakofka's comment quoted above implies that Guardian is the correct name. In a game, one might use both names if Garden is assumed to be a corruption of the earlier name, Guardian.

There is a discrepancy in the contour lines shown on the aerial map of Guardian, which are at 500 foot increments, and the map in L1, which the key indicates are at 400 foot increments. When he found the map, Lakofka noted this discrepancy, and issued a correction: "Based on the L1 map these elevations are incorrect. The contour lines should be 400 not 500. The very top contour line should be eliminated. So the A [and] B entrances should be on the 1600 foot line and the peak 2145 not 3145" (see here). The L1 map shows only five contour lines between the river and the peak of Garden, so this correction does allow the Guardian map to fit in better. Even adjusting for this, the shape of the contour lines on the Guardian map don't quite match the ones on the L1 map, but are close enough to use. If using this map, make sure to note the direction of north on the Guardian map; it should be turned to line up with the map in L1.

In retrospect, Garden/Guardian Peak is a good location for the Delve, as there are no encounters or areas of interest that are specifically tied to it in L1. It's referenced a single time in the text of the module (page 8), where it is simply given as part of a list of locations, also including Lark Hill, High Top, Low Point and Reddy Forest, that are described as potential sites for encounters with NPCs: "These sites are often used as campgrounds by travelers, and for the purpose of this module they will be sites for special encounters. Other hills and forests may also be added to this list if the DM desires". The text goes on to describe four NPCs that can be encountered in these areas, about 1/3 of the time a random encounter in indicated. While it's a bit difficult to believe that a lone NPC could safely camp on Guardian if it is home to the large force of humanoids found in the Delve, but it is easy enough to remove Guardian from this list and make it more desolate. The module further describes these peaks as "grass-covered, with bushes and rock outcroppings every 50 to 300 feet. Small stands of trees are quite common. The larger copses are shown on the map", which fits well with the aerial map shown above, although there should be one "larger copse" at the north end of the map.

In conclusion, this unearthed treasure provides us with a specific location for the Delve in relation to the other L-series locations. The dungeon in L3 is very linear, but clearly situating it in the L1 Area Map helps to give it more of a feel as just another location in the sandbox.

L3 Deep Dwarven Delve: 1979 draft

Lakofka's photo of the vintage typescript draft for L3

The late Lenard Lakofka is probably best remembered for his long-running, detailed-oriented column in Dragon magazine, Leomund's Tiny Hut (1979-1986), and for writing the classic AD&D modules L1 The Secret of Bone Hill (1981) and L2 The Assassin's Knot (1983). The former is innovative as a small sandbox, the latter as a murder mystery, and they were drawn from the adventures he ran in his home campaign set in the Lendore Isles, which were later incorporated by Gary Gygax into the World of Greyhawk (1980). 

No further L-coded modules appeared during the era of 1st Edition AD&D, and thus for many years that was it for the series, as far as gamers knew. However, after ownership of D&D passed from TSR to Wizards of Coast, they surprised us by publishing a third installment for the 25th anniversary of D&D. Specifically, the 1999 Silver Anniversary Collector's set included the module L3 Deep Dwarven Delve, touted on its cover as "the last 1st Edition AD&D adventure ever to be published!", because it "lain unseen and forgotten in the TSR design vault for twenty years". However, as Shannon Appelcline reports on the DriveThruRPG page for the product, this story may only be considered accurate if you expansively include Lakofka's home as part of "the TSR design vault":

"[Sean K. Reynolds of WOTC] said that all of TSR's copies of the adventure had been "lost or destroyed" over the years. The adventure (apparently) resurfaced only when Lakofka found a copy around his house and sent it to Roger E. Moore in 1997 ... [who] then passed the adventure on to Reynolds in 1998."

Furthermore, as Appelcline explains, even after the original was located, publishing it was not without snags:  

"[Wizards] thought [Delve] needed "depth and clarification" to bring it up to modern AD&D standards. Lakofka was happy to oblige and produced a new version of his adventure… which Wizards again lost. Lakofka says that he didn't hear about the loss until after "Delve" was published, by which time a number of Wizards developers had stepped in to do the required expansion for the adventure ... Lakofka says that "Delve" is about 80% comprised of material he'd turned in two decades earlier."

The reception to L3 was somewhat mixed. While most were grateful for another AD&D module, especially one that written during the original era, some were disappointed that it wasn't as innovative as Lakofka's earlier modules, being a rather linear dungeon crawl. And being a limited edition, copies became increasingly expensive over the years, although now you can get an inexpensive pdf or print-on-demand copy from DriveThruRPG. 

In the years after L3 was published, Lakofka became active in D&D circles again, eventually releasing more Lendore material through Dragonsfoot, including L4 Devilspawn and L5 The Kroten Campaign.

Another twenty years had passed when, in 2018, Lakofka once again located in his house a copy of the draft for L3, in a formatted typescript, and posted a photo of it (shown above) in a comment to a FB group, the Flanaess Geographical Society.

It's exciting to see this typescript draft, particularly because the cover is laid out in vintage TSR format. I don't recall ever seeing a draft of this type for any other TSR module. And with "FINAL CORRECTION COPY" written across the top, it suggests that at one point someone (Lakofka? a TSR editor?) considered it close to finished.

While his photo only shows the cover page and a small portion of one interior page, there are still interesting details to be gleaned: 

 

---The title is "The Deep Dwarven Delve", which became just "Deep Dwarven Delve" as published, although the interior text still refers to it by the original title in several places. 

---The cover has a copyright date is 1979 and uses the TSR Wizard Logo. Lakofka ran Deep Dwarven Delve at Gen Con 12 in August 1979, according to the program book, indicating that the adventure had taken shape by mid-1979. While the draft's 1979 date could just indicate when it was originally written, the Wizard Logo was phased out in 1980, and L1 employs TSR's next logo, the Face Logo. This suggests that this draft, which must have been prepared by an editor at TSR, actually does date to 1979 or 1980. 

---It refers to "one part of a four-part series", whereas the published version, which has different cover text, states that it was "[w]ritten as the concluding adventure of the "L" series". This suggests that Lakofka not only wrote this draft of L3 written in 1979, but also conceived that the series would include an L4 at the time. WOTC in the '90s omitted any mention of further unfinished work, possibly because they wanted to seem like they were bringing the L-series to a conclusion. 

---The reference to "three level maps" matches the published version, but the "aerial view of the mountain and surrounding areas", does not. Either this was never finished, lost, or omitted by WOTC. And this is a big omission, because there's no indication in L3 as to where exactly it is located on the memorable area maps found in L1 and L2. As Lakofka wrote on FB: "i looked at L3. there is no area map. i would not miss something that basic. But TSR did". 

---It also mentions "monster rosters", and the published module does, in fact, contain a section titled "Rosters" on pages 5-7, which has a list of monsters for each of the three levels of the dungeon. 

---It recommends characters of levels 2-6, with approximately 40 levels total, whereas the published module suggests 6-10 characters of levels 3-6, average 4, with about 35 total levels and no more than 45 (page 4). 

---The small portion of the interior page shown in the photo contains text that is close to the same material as published, with a few minor changes. The original reads:

NOTES FOR THE DUNGEON MASTER 

The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played at two levels; first as an orc stronghold (level one), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (levels two and three). The upper level of the Delve is filled with orcs, bugbears, ogres, trolls an a magic-user. They do not know of the.......................................first level of the Delve 

This was changed on page 4 of the published module to: 

PREPARING TO PLAY  

The Deep Dwarven Delve can be played as two linked adventures; first as a humanoid stronghold (Level One), and second as a hidden treasure store and place of great evil (Levels Two and Three). 

(the heading "NOTES FOR THE DM" was moved to page 3, after the Background)  

---The last sentence in the original paragraph exactly describes the composition of monsters found in the "First Level Roster" on page 5 as published. This suggests the types of monsters on the first level were not changed from draft to publication.

Lakofka later indicated he was preparing a comparison document between the two versions, but unfortunately ended up putting it aside when he moved, and never got back to it or shared what he had completed. He did, however, make the comment that "TSR decided to change the final encounter in the Delve (along with a few minor changes in other encounters)" (here on FB), which together with the details gathered from the draft cover page suggests that overall, the published version of L3 is not too dissimilar to what he original drafted in 1979.

In future posts, I will take a look at where L3 should be located on the L1 area map, and also what Lakofka intended for the original final encounter of L3.

Was the Holmes Basic Rulebook Sold Separately?

 

Source: Tome of Treasures

There have been a few discussions on Dragonsfoot lately, including this one, about whether the early D&D Basic and Expert rulebooks were sold separately from the boxed sets, which spurred me to post some pictures that show, for Holmes Basic and B/X (Moldvay Basic and Cook-Marsh Expert), that the answer is yes.

For example, above is a section from a 1978 TSR Catalog hawking the "BASIC SET of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS", "complete in a full color bookshelf-sized box", for $9.95...but also the rulebook "only" for an even $5. (Incidentally, I'd love a better scan of this catalog entry if anyone has or can make one that is higher resolution and/or not water-stained).

As reported by Jon Peterson back in 2021, the almost $5 price difference actually played a pivotal role in Dave Arneson's lawsuit against TSR, as "Arneson learned that he was not being paid his expected 5% royalty on the $10 cover price of the whole Basic Set, but instead only on the copy of the Basic D&D rulebook that shipped in the box, which then sold separately for $5". Read Jon's article for the full story.

Here's another piece of ephemera, also from 1978, again showing the availability of each item separately. It's the first page of an Order Blank - an order form - for the Dungeon Hobby Shop from April 1978, which shows the boxed set and separate rulebook available for the same prices, and also provides the TSR Stock Numbers - 1001 for the boxed set, and 2001 for the rulebook. These are the same numbers printed on the products starting with the 2nd printing, dated Jan 1978.

Source: image from Ebay auction

Four years later, and the 1982 Dungeon Hobby Shop catalog has both products still available for sale, but at a deep discount because they have been superseded by the revised Moldvay Basic set. The boxed set now has a product code of T1001, a $10 original price (5 cents higher than above), a $6 sale price, and is described as "Original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Basic Set. Contains all the rules need to play D&D game adventures". The rulebook has a product code of T2001, a $5 original price, a $2.50 sale price, and is described as "D&D Booklet (Original). The original booklet found in the D&D Basic Set. This product is no longer in print!".

(Incidentally, 1982 is when I received my Holmes Basic Set. Did my parents get it for me because it was on sale?)

Image Source: Battlegrip.com

Here are two pages from one version of the 1981 TSR Gateway to Adventure catalog which show the separate entries for the B/X boxed sets (stock numbers 1011 and 1012) and the stand alone rulebooks (stock numbers 2014 and 2015).

And these stand-alone rulebooks weren't only available for mail order purchase. As T. Foster reports on Dragonsfoot (here): "I can confirm that I purchased the 1981 Expert rulebook as a standalone for $6 at a Waldenbooks store" and "I also purchased the Holmes Basic book as a standalone at a Toys R Us store sometime around 1986 - no idea why they still had it on the shelf when it had been officially out of print for ~5 years..."

The next iteration of Basic, aka Mentzer Basic, arrived in 1983 and changed the rulebook more radically, splitting the material between two booklets, one for Players and one for DMs. This change meant that the rulebooks needed to be sold together, so TSR didn't offer a stand-alone rulebook for this iteration of Basic.

Dragon Dice Bag cross stitch kit (1982)

The above image, taken from a recent Ebay auction, shows the packaging for a 1982 DRAGON DICE BAG, a "Counted Cross Stitch Kit" from TSR subsidiary Greenfield Needlewomen, which includes some interesting hand-drawn line art showing the bag front and back, along with a set of polyhedral dice. The bag front includes a dragon and "D&D games", and the back says "May you always make your saving throw". Another image from the auction shows the pattern for stitching the dragon, which is green-colored, with a yellow-green belly:

I've seen other Greenfield D&D-tie-in cross stitch products before - for examples, see this post on Cyclopeatron - but I don't recall seeing this particular one, which has more rudimentary packaging than the others. Per Frank Mentzer on FB, this is because:

This was very early after our acquisition. We retooled their packaging; later ones all have a distinctive green theme. This has their art, not ours. (No it's not a Sutherland dragon. ;> )

This one is also interesting because it uses the "DRAGON DICE" trademark and logo (i.e., the same font) also featured on TSR's 1981 Dragon Dice, the packaging artwork for which was designed by Jim Roslof and can be seen in this post.

Advertisement for TSR's DRAGON DICE
(this was the first set of dice that I owned, in the same blue color)

You can read more about TSR's purchase of Greenfield Needlewomen in Jon Peterson's book Game Wizards, which briefly covers it in the chapters titled, "1982: Extravagance" and "1983: Splitting the Party". Based on quotes from Gary Gygax in TSR's in-house newsletter Random Events, TSR had designs on growing their business by entering the adjacent craft field; which isn't unreasonable because, as pointed out by T. Foster in the first comment in this post on Grognardia, at the time D&D was often sold in hobby shops alongside craft products. However, this particular company, based in Greenfield, Indiana, was purchased seemingly because it was owned by relatives of the Brian and Kevin Blume, and ended up being shuttered by TSR in 1983 after losing a large sum of money for the company.

A thank you to a post on the TSR Old School Gamers FB group for making me aware of this.

Gary Con 2022: Day 2

DMing "Expedition to Skull Stack Crater".
Photo by Gary W.

This post covers the gaming highlights of my second day at Gary Con XIV, Friday the 25th. If you missed it, the report for first day can be found here.

In the morning I ran Expedition to Skull Stack Crater, a newly revised version of a scenario that I originally ran for my son and his cousins more than five years ago, and had planned to run at Gary Con in 2020 before the pandemic unfolded. The setting is inspired by the various skull-faced dungeons and mountains of fiction, including of course the Skull Mountain cross-section of the Holmes Basic rulebook, but is an original location rather than a writeup of something pre-existing. You can read the introduction from the convention program here.

The pre-generated characters for this adventure are 3rd level, so it mostly uses the Holmes rules, with any higher level material filled in from OD&D. There were six players which is pretty much optimal for a con game. Several I knew previously, including Demos from OSR Grimoire and Larry from Follow Me and Die!, each of whom played in my Zenopus sequel at the last in-person Gary Con in 2019. And I'd exchanged forum posts with two others that I met here for the first time, James and Gary. The game fun was run and ran well with this fairly experienced group, who finished just before our time was up. I plan to revise this scenario and make it available on DrivethruRPG. Demos briefly mentions the game in his Gary Con recap here, and Larry shows off another photo from the game here.

Mike Carr refereeing Don't Give Up the Ship

In the afternoon I played in the annual session of TSR's Don't Give Up The Ship, refereed by Mike Carr, who co-authored the rules with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Carr is also well known to aficionados of Holmes Basic as the author of the module B1 In Search of the Unknown, the first Basic module ever published, and one of only two written for specifically for the Holmes set.

The DGUTS game took place in the Legends of Wargaming hall, and the large group of players - over 20 (!) - sat on chairs in a ring around a large blue sheet, representing the sea, where Carr carefully crouched or lay to manipulate the ships after receiving our written orders each turn. The scenario this time was an engagement between the French and British fleets during the Napoleonic era, specifically 17 October, 1812, and the players were divided evenly between the two sides.

My "Ship Data Sheet" & mini for the game

I played Andre Cheviot, captain of the French frigate Nereide, although these details were simply flavor as resolution of actions relied solely on movement orders, opportunities to fire, the ship's stats and dice rolls. The game moved slowly with so many players; in the five hours scheduled for the game I think we only finished 6 turns, but it was fun to participate in one of the more unique centerpiece events of the con. 

Gary Con XVI GM's Cup,
featuring Geezel from Snarfquest

Towards the end of the game I ducked out into the hall to fill up on Spotted Cow beer from one of the Happy Hour stations, so this is a good point to show off my GM's Cup featuring art from Larry Elmore's Snarfquest comic, which ran for years in Dragon magazine in the mid-1980s. Other cups available this year featured Telerie and Snarf himself. Elmore was a guest at the con once again this year, and there was even a Snarfquest 5E D&D game as an event.

My last game of the day was part of the Legends of Roleplaying Tournament, an annual AD&D tournament organized by Paul Stormberg. For each one, Paul develops a scenario derived from old school material; for example, 2019 featured a sequel to the module B1 that was newly co-written by Paul and Mike Carr. This year's scenario was listed as "Depths of Terror", a level hidden deep within Gary Gygax's Castle Greyhawk. However, as a surprise, it actually turned out to be an expanded version of The Tomb of Ra-Hotep, a 1970s dungeon by Alan Lucien that Gygax hid in part of Castle Greyhawk, and which inspired Gygax's own Tomb of Horrors. The version for the tournament was expanded by Paul from the original together with additional vintage campaign material supplied by Lucien. Paul later indicated on Facebook that he plans to publish this version soon.

I joined a team of ten players who drew Steve Winter, former TSR employee, as our DM. I've played in Steve's games a number of times, including the in-person tournament in 2019. My group this time was very clever, and did a great job with the riddles and devious traps, placing 5th out of the 13 teams, and only a few points behind another team.

Dave and I after his game,
photo by one of the other players.

After the tournament ended, I stopped by to say hi to Dave W. of RPG Retro Reviews, who was running a 6-hour session of the original Tower of Zenopus dungeon using the Holmes Basic rules. I had met Dave in person back in 2020 when he played in my Zenopus sequel at the second Scrum Con. 

The strong Halfling; note this is after leveling,
so the level should be 2, not 1

By the time I arrived, another player had already left, so I ended up running his PC, a halfling with 18 strength (!), for the last hour of the game. He was mostly silent during my time due to my knowledge of the dungeon. The party had already rescued Lemunda, earning her father the mayor's favor, but I witnessed showdowns with the flying dagger (which killed a PC), the ghouls, and the evil thaumaturgist. I always enjoy see other folks spin on this ur-dungeon. 

This report continues with Days 3 and 4.

Dragonsfoot Thread: How many AD&D players knew of OD&D?

A recent thread over on Dragonsfoot asks: How many AD&D players who started in the 80s knew about OD&D?

Here is my answer, which I posted there, and have expanded a bit here:

My first D&D set, from 1982, was (obviously) Holmes Basic, and the rulebook includes a Preface stating that it is "based upon the original work published in 1974 and three supplementary books published in the two year period after the initial release of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS", and then a reprint of the "Foreword from the Original Edition", where Gygax gives a brief yet evocative history lesson on the origins of D&D that begins, "ONCE UPON A TIME, long, long ago..." And my copy was the 3rd edition, which has a product listing on the back cover of "OTHER ITEMS FROM TSR" available for mail order, including the "Original Dungeons & Dragons Collector's Editions".

So I was aware of the original D&D rules basically as soon as I had my first rule set. I quickly moved onto AD&D from Holmes Basic, owning all of the hardcover rulebooks by mid-1983, but there again I encountered OD&D: my copies of the Monster Manual and the Players Handbook again have product listings that include it. 

And I learned even more about the early history once I started reading Dragon. On the rack at B. Dalton at the local mall where I bought my Dragon magazines, I found the Best of Dragon #1 and #2, which reprint a number of articles from the early years, including "Gary Gygax on D&D: Origins of the Game" in BoD #1.

 

At some point I found a copy of Moldvay Basic at a Goodwill thrift store. This set included a copy of one version of TSR's Gateway to Adventure catalog, which had a page for the "Collectors Edition" which showed the OD&D set and supplements. This was the first place that I actually saw what the OD&D booklets looked like, other than Eldritch Wizardry, which early on I once spotted on the rack at B. Dalton. 

Later in the '80s, I came across a still new-on-the-shelf copy of the Original Collector's Edition (OCE) of Whitebox OD&D at a game shop and bought it, and still have. I was actually somewhat surprised that the rules were so similar to what I was familiar with, as I was expecting more differences. In the next year or two after that I ordered Chainmail and the Blackmoor supplement directly from TSR's Mail Order Hobby Shop, which was still selling copies through '89 or so, although the copy of Blackmoor I received from them was essentially a high grade photocopy.

So, with different degrees of understanding, I was aware of OD&D throughout my years in the 1980s playing Holmes Basic and AD&D.

 

 

Jim Ward on the Why of Chits

The Chit Sheets, Front and Back.
Source: The Dice Collector

Later printings of the Holmes Basic D&D set came with an infamous sheet of chits, pictured above, in place of dice. I myself was one of those kids that received such a set, which only added to my confusion in understanding how the game was placed, despite the instruction sheet included for using the chits. It's long been rumored that the change was due to a dice shortage in face of D&D's popularity, and thus increased need for dice, but former TSR employee Jim Ward recently related (here on FB), how it was actually the result of management decisions by TSR during a time they were developing their own dice:

Young Jim Ward and the Dice Monster

© all rights reserved by James M. Ward 

“Young Jim Ward” was a history teacher in a small rural school when the call came in. I had just finished writing Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes, Deities & Demigods for AD&D, and Metamorphosis Alpha the first science fiction role-playing game. I told Gary Gygax that as soon as he could pay my teacher’s salary of 13,400 dollars I would move back to Elkhorn and join his company. In 1980 he was able to do that and I moved. 

“Young Jim Ward” started out in the sales department as the inventory controller. It was my job to order the boxes and parts for the games and especially the D&D box set. It was selling 100,000 units a month, steady as clock work. One of “young Jim Ward’s” jobs was to make sure the Hong Kong dice came in on time to fill the next batch of 100,000 boxes. It was a responsibility I took very seriously. 

It took exactly six months for 100,000 sets of poly dice to be made, ship from Hong Kong over the water, and be delivered to the boxer in Madison; Patch Press at the time. Naturally, being a careful person “young Jim Ward” ordered the dice two months early so that 100,000 boxes in December had their dice ordered 8 months out. So in May “young Jim Ward” was ordering dice for the December publication and everyone was fine with that. 

I’m proud to say there were some problems with getting things in on time before me. After “young Jim Ward” started, we were never late on getting product out. This included the day Patch Press printed 16 pages of the monster manual pages in the player handbook [sic*] and shipped the 100,000 to our warehouse. 

So one day “young Jim Ward” is doing his job and the vice presidents of the company have a meeting and decide it would be much more cost effective to make our own dice. I had no problem with the concept. I told them my dice schedule and young Jim Ward went back to work. Two months later, the Vice President in charge of getting the dice molds made comes into my office and says I can stop ordering Hong Kong dice. I became very alarmed and asked the question, do we have finished dice molds? His reply was no but he was sure we would have finished molds in a few short weeks. That was why I could stop ordering dice. “Young and diligent Jim Ward” didn’t want to stop ordering dice since there wasn’t a finished dice mold yet. He went to his Vice President and got permission to order the next month’s 100,000 dice. 

Weeks later the other Vice President comes storming into the sales office. “I thought I told you not to order dice,” he shouted. “Do we have a working dice mold?” I asked very meekly even though I wasn’t feeling meek. I had a job to do. “No we don’t, but that doesn’t matter, we will when we need the dice.” He stormed out of the office and I heard the lecture. I was told if a vice president of the company gave me an order I had to do it. I didn’t order the next month’s dice and it almost killed “young Jim Ward” with worry. 

For two months “young Jim Ward” got real sneaky and tracked the progress of the dice mold. On the day we were going to be late if we didn’t have Hong Kong dice “young Jim Ward” sent out a memo detailing the schedule and our need for 100,000 sets of dice. “Young Jim Ward” gave it to all of the vice presidents. An hour later the mold VP brought the memo back to my office and threw it in my face. “We will have dice when we need them. You are not to worry about this matter any more.”

Naturally, “young Jim Ward” started to worry even more. I asked my Vice President if I would send out memos every week (I wanted every day, but held myself in check) on the dice issue. He made me send out one a month. On the day when it would be too late to order dice to get them in December I sent out a memo detailing that fact. All the vice presidents got together and were assured we would have dice. “Young Jim Ward” was ordered not to send out any more memos on the dice. Raw blades of inventory agony transfixed “young Jim Ward’s” body as the weeks went by. Still sneaky, I knew exactly what condition the dice were in that were being made by the mold. I begged my VP to talk to Gary about the matter. He did and Gary went to the dice mold VP and asked to see what type of dice were being made by the new molds. That VP opened his desk to pull out several pieces of what looked like popcorn with numbers on them. Clearly they would not be used for the D&D box set. Gary went to me and told me to order dice and get them as soon as possible. He also told me never to listen to anyone who said not to order dice again. That dice VP got a written reprimand and I got a huge smile on my face. 

For three ugly months we used cardboard counters and a coupon for dice in our box sets. The only people happy about that were the prisoners in jail as they couldn’t get games with dice in them. From then on the dice VP didn’t like me at all and every time I was promoted into another position he would tell my supervisor what a trouble maker I was.

* It was the Dungeon Masters Guide that was misprinted with the pages of the Monster Manual, in what is designated the "Second Alpha" printing here on the Acaeum.

"Game Wizards" Has Arrived!

 

Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons is the title of the new book by Jon Peterson of Playing at the World fame. I had eagerly awaited it since hearing about it, and had pre-ordered from Amazon, and it arrived in the mail today, like magic, on its official release date. Shelfie above. 

After checking out the images in the book, I naturally looked up Holmes & the Basic Set in the index and skimmed some of those parts. This lead to reading more parts before I forced myself to stop, so I can start at the beginning. But my early verdict is that it is very readable.

Get your copy of Game Wizards here

(" As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases ")

In the weeks leading up to the release, Jon made a related series of "behind the scenes" posts to the Playing at the World blog:

Game Wizards: My New Book

Game Wizards: TSR Financials

Game Wizards: TSR Staffing

Game Wizards: D&D Development Timeline

Units of Value and the Tactical Studies Rules Partnership

There were also several tie-in media articles:

Polygon: History of Dungeons & Dragons chronicles the battle between Arneson and Gygax

Polygon: How a pending lawsuit changed the original D&D Basic Set (a "never-before-seen piece that was cut from the final book")

Wired: The Missing Teen Who Fueled ‘Cult Panic’ Over D&D ("This story is adapted from Game Wizards")

"D&D and Fantasy Fiction: Giants in the Oerth": a talk by John Rateliff

On 1/28/21 there was a online talk, open to the public, titled "D&D and Fantasy Fiction: Giants in the Oerth", given by John D. Rateliff, who is both a Tolkien scholar (author of the History of the Hobbit) & a former TSR employee (author of the Return to the Keep on the Borderlands module among others). The talk was recorded and is now available here:

https://youtu.be/b5Kynx0NZQA

I watched the talk & enjoyed it, particularly Rateliff's concluding "fantasy crossroads" image  from the last issue of the Strategic Review. Knowing that Rateliff had written his doctoral dissertation on Lord Dunsany, I asked a question about his influence on D&D, having been listed in Appendix N of the Dungeon Masters Guide.

The talk was co-hosted by the University of Glasgow Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic , which has a page for the talk here: fantasy.glasgow.ac.uk/index.php/2021/01/06/dd-and-fantasy-fiction-giants-in-the-oerth/

Rateliff blogs regularly at Sacnoth's Scriptorium: sacnoths.blogspot.com/

(Updated 1/29)