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.

 

The Mirkwood Tales RPG: the link between the original D&D rules and text-based computer games

Cover of Mirkwood Tales, 1977, by Eric S. Roberts

In May 1977, the all-text computer game Adventure, also known as Advent or Colossal Cave, "became the first computer game blockbuster", per the book 50 Years of Text Games by Aaron A. Reed (2023). Its popularity led to a whole genre of text-based adventure games that enjoyed popularity in the 80s, the best known being the Infocom games such as Zork, a close cousin of Adventure. While the start of Adventure approximates a real-world cave system, the game includes many fantasy elements, and it has long been known that the initial developer, Willie Crowther, was inspired by playing a D&D-type fantasy RPG.

Some of the earliest information came from Barry Gold, husband of Alarums & Excursions editor Lee Gold, in his article "Computers and Fantasy Gaming" from issue 30 of A&E, January 1978 (which I happen to have a physical copy of):

"As far as I know, Willie Crowther of Stanford University wrote the first fantasy simulation game. Don Woods added several features and expanded the dungeon to produce the current ADVENTURE game. Tim Anderson and Dave Lebling of MIT built on the Adventure game by using a more powerful computer language and including some ideas from D&D (Dave Lebling plays it). With help from two other users they came up with ZORK, sometimes called DUNGEON."

Later in the article, Gold adds follow-up information from Adventure co-designer Woods:

"ADVENT: Willie Crowther was at BBN (Bolt-Beranek and Newman - Massachusetts) when he wrote the original Adventure program. He was inspired by a Middle-Earth offshoot called Mirkwood Tales. Neither Willie nor Don appear to have drawn any ideas from the D&D rules in building Advent. Don Woods doesn't play any RPG games."

"The original program by Willie Crowther was much less complex than Don Wood's current version, and the dungeon was only about half its current size."

"Don Woods also provided a short genealogy of these games: war games, D&D, Mirkwood Tales, Adventures (original), Adventure (Don dropped the 's' from the name of his version), Zork."

From Gold's account, one might gather that this Mirkwood Tales was some kind of game situated between D&D and Adventure, but from this it's not really clear from this which it is closer to.

A 1996 Washington Post article by Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon clarifies that Mirkwood Tales was a version of D&D set in Middle-Earth, in which Crowther played a thief sharing his first name:

"Dave Walden, who had been a programming ace working under Crowther at BBN, got his introduction to the game one night in 1975, when Eric Roberts, a student from a class he was teaching at Harvard, took him to a D&D session. Walden immediately rounded up a group of friends for continued sessions. Roberts created the Mirkwood Tales, an elaborate version of Dungeons and Dragons set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. The game stretched on for the better part of a year and was played mostly on Walden's living room floor. One of the regulars was Will Crowther. Where the dozen other players chose names like Zandar, Klarf or Groan for their characters, Crowther was simply Willie, a stealthy thief."

In 2012, the epilogue of the first edition of Playing at the World by Jon Peterson has a section "The First Virtual Worlds", which contains the first detailed description of the Mirkwood Tales rules, based on an unpublished 1977 manuscript written by Eric S. Roberts, the DM of the game (page 617). Peterson quotes from the Introduction and Acknowledgements section to demonstrate the "debt of Mirkwood Tales to Dungeons & Dragons", and then notes some of the significant differences in classes and combat from D&D, but concludes:

"Mirkwood Tales is a game of stratified progression, where characters accumulate experience points while adventuring and go up in level as they reach certain experience totals. It moreover relies on underworld exploration, combat and treasure to drive an engaging narrative. In all those respects, it very closely follows the precedent of Dungeons & Dragons" (page 617). 

Later in the section, Peterson reveals that Dave Lebling, one of the developers of Zork, also played in Roberts' Mirkwood Tales campaign (page 622).

(Note: The 2012 edition of Playing at the World is out of print, and is being republished in a two-volume edition; the first volume is already out but does not contain the above material).

Until this month, this was the most detail about The Mirkwood Tales RPG that was generally available. Now, however, Eric Roberts has made public a reformatted pdf of Mirkwood Tales, as announced recently on Renga in Blue by blogger Jason Dyer:

Renga in Blue: Crowther's Adventure and Mirkwood Tales

Head over there to find the link to the pdf, hosted on the Internet Archive, and much more in a deep dive back into Crowther's original version Adventure - before Woods added on to it - as viewed anew through the lens of the full Mirkwood Tales rules. Dyer has an ongoing project called All the Adventures, wirh the goal of playing and blogging "about every adventure game ever made in (nearly) chronological order" (!), and has previously played through the many variations of Adventure, and thus has great insight into the details of the game. 

Unlike Gold's early assertion, which appears to be based on communication with Woods rather than Crowther himself, after playing through Crowther's original version again, Dyer concludes that Adventure does draw upon several elements from The Mirkwood Tales:

"It isn’t like Crowther was trying to “adapt Dungeons and Dragons” entirely — this is not an RPG, and nearly every room has an analogue in the real cave — but there’s still clearly some flavor of Crowther’s world found in the campaign he participated in, with the treatment of magic, direct reference to the computer as the “eyes” of the player, and heavy emphasis on dwarves (if a bit more aggressive in this game)"

Of these, the element with the strongest ties to the original D&D rules is "the treatment of magic", which here refers to the identification of properties of magic items in the game. Dyer asked me about how magic items were identified in OD&D, and I pointed to the Example of Play in Vol 3, where a player tries on "old boots" to identify them as magical Elven boots:

Dyer notes that this concept, which is merely exemplary in OD&D, is expressly stated in The Mirkwood Tales rules:

"In addition to spells, magic appears in the Mirkwood Tales in the form of magical artifacts and equipment. More often than not, the magical effect of some object will not be clear from simple examination of the object, and it may require experimentation or searching for further clues to its nature" (The Mirkwood Tales, page 21, section "3.5.3 Magical Artifacts")

Adventure, in turn, requires the player to experiment to figure how out how to use magic such as items or words. The first magic item encountered in Adventure is the "the iconic three foot black rod with a rusty rod", which has two different properties in the game, and "the experience of fiddling with the rod — and finding two effects, both positive and negative — are similar to OD&D campaigns", per Dyer.

The Mirkwood Tales rules mostly rewrite the first volume of OD&D, Men & Magic, with some material from Vol 3, including a much longer Example of Play. The subject matter of Vol 2 is almost entirely missing; there are no lists of monsters or treasure. If I find time in the future I will take a closer look at how the Mirkwood Tales RPG rules differ from OD&D.

FIGHT ON fanzine returns with an issue dedicated to J. Eric Holmes!

 

The long dormant OSR zine Fight On! has returned from the crypt with a new issue, #15, dedicated to none other than J. Eric Holmes...! 

Find it on DrivethruRPG (currently PDF only; print is coming) or on Lulu (print or PDF).

For this issue I contributed an article, titled "Ten Ways to Holmesify Your Game", which goes over ten different rules or themes you can use to make your D&D game more "Holmesian". It is accompanied by an illustration by Cameron Hawkey of adventurers tangling with a purple worm.

Other Holmesian content in this issue includes:

• "Holmes Town Heroes" by Tony Rowe (with whom I co-authored an chapter about Holmes in the recent book Fifty Years of D&D), which provides D&D character write-ups for Boinger, Zereth and Murray the Mage from Holmes' stories.

• "Bringing it All Back Holmes": Holmes Basic origin stories from Aron Clark (author of the Holmes & Clark RPG), Grodog and Calithena.

• "Distributary of Darkness" by Alex Zisch expands an area of the Sample Dungeon.

• Two original dungeon maps by J. Eric Holmes that relate to the Maze of Peril (these can also be found in Things Better Left Alone).

• A page of art by Chris Holmes

Plus loads of other content, including a continuation of the long-running Darkness Beneath megadungeon!

All of the Back issues of Fight On are also available, either individually or in compilations (see the links above).

Article in KNOCK! #3

 

"3D rendering" of KNOCK! #3

KNOCK! is a still newish "zine" that describes itself as "Compendium of Miscellanea for Old School RPGs". I put "zine" in quotes because each issue runs over 200 pages, making it more of a book. Two issues are already out, which still can be purchased via the website of the publisher, The Merry Mushmen (issue #1 is only available digitally at this point). 

The Kickstarter for the third issue of the "zine" KNOCK! has just gone live, and this one includes an article by yours truly. Part of the goal of the publication is to reprint "nearly-forgotten blog posts" and this issue I'm honored that they asked to include my 2013 article "One Hit Point Monsters", which I revised for them. As full disclosure, they pay authors per page of content at a rate based on the success of the KS.

Find the Kickstarter here:

KNOCK! #3

The promo video - featuring awesome music - can also be watched here on Youtube.

There's a "Zenopus (homless seer)" quoted in there, but that's not me.

And publishers are promoting the KS on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Reddit. 

First Adventures in Dungeoneering: 1976 Gygax article

Gary Gygax Day by Jim Wampler

For Gary Gygax Day 2020, I'd like to share "First Adventures in Dungeoneering", a heretofore mostly forgotten article that Gygax wrote for the Europa zine, issue #12-13 (Feb/Mar 1976). This was one of his follow-ups to his now fairly well known 1975 article to the same zine called "How To Set Up Your Dungeons & Dragons Campaign" (issue #6-8), which you can find a link to here on Grognardia. Many thanks to Allan Grohe of From Kuroth's Quill and Black Blade Publishing for discovering this article and making a transcript that he posted here in a thread over at the OD&D Discussion forum last year.

Being published in early 1976, this article is still firmly in the era of OD&D; the AD&D Players Handbook was still about two years off. This was during the era when Gygax was promoting/explaining D&D through articles & letters sent to various gaming publications. Allan has a list of many of these on his website here. Since the field of role-playing games was still in its infancy, many these publications were related to wargaming or Diplomacy, including Europa (published in Europe as suggested by the name) as seen the description in issue #6-8: 

The article is a gem because it contains an otherwise unpublished "Example of Play" for OD&D, written up in part as a dialogue between the DM and players in a manner similar to the original one in OD&D, Vol 3 and the later examples in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. I've always greatly enjoyed Gygax's play examples not only for their entertainment value but also for insight into how he ran games and for the bits of his designs that are shown. Holmes and Moldvay continued this tradition by writing new Examples of Play for their respective Basic rulebooks.

The bolded, bracketed numbers below correspond to notes I've added following the article. I've grouped them at the end of the relevant paragraphs to make them less distracting.

FIRST ADVENTURES IN DUNGEONEERING (by Gary Gygax, USA) 

You have been thoroughly hooked on Dungeons & Dragon (D&D), and during the last few days every spare moment has been spent happily preparing several dungeon levels. Great care and thought have been employed to do things just so - and of course you have spent a bit of time laughing fiendishly at the thought of what the hapless dungeoneers will encounter in choice areas! Actually, you certainly don't want your players to get killed, for then they'd miss seeing just how cleverly you've set them up! They don't want to buy the farm either (unless the dice were unkind indeed). Think about that. 

A good referee does not wish to deliberately set his players up for certain death in the game - although there are sometimes one or two players who... Anyway, by the same token you should not set out to aid them either. The whole purpose of the game is for the players THEMSELVES to face the challenge presented by the dungeonmaster's maze, to defeat it, or be defeated by it without help or hindrance. If they are clever they should survive and gain great rewards, and if they are stupid they should finish themselves off rapidly. This implies that you have located and numbered monsters carefully, so that the players can usually fight them on even terms, outwit them, or run like hell, i.e., one doesn't put invisible stalkers on the first level. If there are errors they will quickly be spotted on the first adventure, and they should be corrected before the next! In fact that is why I urge that a separate key listing monsters and treasure be kept for each level, rather than writing the information right on the map. With all this in mind, let's move on to the actual game. 

Several players are gathered in some secluded place, and you have a good spot set up where they cannot see your dice rolls or map. It is a good plan to give them at least a half an hour to get everything together. Magic-Users will have to decide what spell they are going to take. Everyone will be selecting basic equipment, figuring costs and encumbrance. Although spell selection always takes a bit of time, we have pretty much settled upon the following as 'standard equipment':

dagger, 50' rope, 10' pole, 12 iron spike, small sack, leather back pack, water/wine skin, lantern, 3 flasks oil, holy water/vial, quart wine, iron rations. [1] 

Your players can simply compute the price of what they set out as standard and save much time and effort. Additional items and encumbrances can then be noted aside as additions to the standard. 

Your players will also have to appoint their leader and mapper. At this point everything is all ready for the first descent into the deepest dungeon! So let us move on to a typical account of a first trip, assuming that the players have moved outdoors to a ruined city which is reputed to have dungeons beneath it. The ‘dungeonmaster’ will be indicated as ‘D’, the party of the players as ‘P’. 

D: “You have found the ruins of the deserted city of Detresed. You can see that there are streets going northeast, northwest, and north. Most of the ruins are nondescripts, but due north you note that there are several larger structures, one or two of which are in less disrepair than the others.” [2]

After going northwards a few hundred feet, and getting complete descriptions of the ruined edifices visible to them, the party selects a ruined structure which appears to have been a temple, and they enter cautiously. After thorough exploration they decide to ignore a set of steps they have located, for a vast stone idol hid a narrow shaft penetrating very deep beneath the temple. The latter would not normally have been located, but careful checking and perseverance found a secret door in the idol’s back. The party descends some 40’ into a large, circular arched chamber. It is 30’ in diameter and has eight doors. [3-5] 

P: “There is no sense debating, let’s take the door to the west, for it seemed that there were more ruins above in that direction than in any other direction. One member of the party will carefully try the door to see if it will open normally. All others will have their weapons drawn and ready in case there is someone or something behind it!” 

D: “Door opens normally (without ANY sound, in fact), and beyond you see a 10’ wide corridor going north.” 

P: “The door didn’t make ANY noise when we opened it?! Hmmmm. Examine the hinges.” 

D: “They were oiled – greased lock.” [6] 

P: “Oh, oh! Watch out! These doors are USED. Helmets off, everyone. Listen at all of the other doors.” [7] 

After some time spent so listening, noise is detected behind the door to the east and that to the southeast. And meanwhile the dungeonmaster has checked, but the party is lucky and no wandering monster has happened along during the interim. The brave adventurers ready themselves, creep close to the eastern door, and ready an attack. Two of the six will watch the southeast, one will open the east door, and the three with bows will have their weapons ready as the door is flung wide. 

P: “We are set. Open the door!” 

D: “You see, ahh ((die roll)) 4 hobgoblins attending some sort of cleric. They are dressed in black and blood red garments. Now, did you surprise them? ((die roll of 3)) NO! Initiative check – you are at plus 1 because you prepared. ((The check shows that the party is able to attack before the cleric and his servitors will be able to react at all.)) The enemy is approximately 15’ away, by the by.” [8-10]

P: “Loose arrows, drop bows, draw swords, and charge. If I can manage to cast a Sleep Spell during all this I’ll do so, but I will be careful not to cast it so as to include our men in its effect. The two watching the other door will maintain position.” 

The dungeonmaster now checks to see which arrows score hits, whom the hits are scored upon, and how much damage is done. Simultaneously, he determines if the magic-user who opened the door will be able to get a spell prepared and cast – about equal odd for and against due to preparation and positioning. It is successful, and 4 of the hobgoblins fall to the floor snoring. The cleric was not named as a specific target, and as he is a 4th level (Evil Priest)  the general area spell doesn’t affect him. He shouts loudly, points, and an attacker is struck by a Light Wound Spell. Undaunted they press on, eager to close with the cleric and slay him. The next melee turn is spent by the party closing, with the cleric backing and raising his finger to deliver another Light Wound. Just as the party is about to hack and slew this evil opponent they hear shouts from the chamber without: “Beware! HOBGOBLINS! There are more who serve this priest…” [11-13]

P: “Two of the fighters will finish the cleric off as quickly as possible. I will go to the door we just entered, with the other fighter, to help the rest of the party, but while he goes directly to aid them, I’ll stop and kill the sleeping hobgoblins here.” 

A general melee now ensues in the chamber and in the room where the cleric fights on. Seeing that the party’s two fighters and cleric are seemingly holding their own against 6 hobgoblins, the magic-user creeps up behind the badly wounded Evil Priest and delivers the ‘Coup de grâce’. This frees them all for immediate attack upon the remaining hobgoblins. Good thing, too! One fighter and the cleric are down, and there are three hobgoblins attacking the remaining man. After a long round of attacks and counters the party finally wins, although only three remain alive – the magic-user leading it, an elven fighter, and a fighting man. 

P: “Well, let’s quickly check the bodies and the rooms for any treasure. The priest’s quarters will be searched especially well by the elf.” 

D: “You find some silver pieces in the pockets of the hobgoblins ((a dice roll determines how many for each)), and in the robes of the cleric you find a pouch with 100 gold pieces. Nothing else is found.” 

P: “Let’s all go check out that room some more… I am not satisfied that we’ve located everything. But to be on the safe side, let’s spike the door shut good and tight, and the fighter will keep an eye on it also just in case.” 

Several turns are spent in this manner, and finally a small trap door in the floor is discovered. It is lifted to reveal a hidden trove – an alabaster idol worth not less than 500 gold pieces. As the party is in bad shape, they elect to return immediately to the surface. Their comrades are buried, their own wound treated, and before passing on the idol to some merchant, they minutely examine it. It too reveals a small magical compartment, and after several days the magic-user manages to open it. Therein lies a map to a temple on the 4th level – a place veritably stuffed with treasure, but strongly guarded by many hobgoblins and powerful men and monsters. Better still, there are some very valuable gems hidden in the compartment too! When the survivors share the wealth and experience, they are all well-pleased and rewarded, all going up a level. Time now for them to seek some powerful allies and many met-at-arms for a special expedition to that temple… [14-15]

The above may not be exactly typical, for many first adventures are spent trying to figure out where the party is, for mapping CAN be a difficult task until you get the hang of it. Also, many first-timers take on monsters too powerful for them, or don’t use ‘hit-and-run’ tactics as they should. Again, I have had first time parties who had adventures just about like the one above. 

This should enable you to ready your dungeons. How about a questions and comments section from all of you next time? And I’ll try to answer in the next…

Notes

1. Gygax's "Standard Equipment" could serve as an "Equipment Pack" for OD&D, with a price of 70 gold pieces for the twelve items: dagger (3) + 50' rope (1) + 10' pole (1) + 12 spikes (1) + small sack (1) + backpack (5) + water/wine skin (1) + lantern (10) + 3 flasks of oil (6) + holy water/vial (25) + wine/quart (1) + iron rations (15). Characters rolling 30-60 gold won't be able to afford this, but dropping the holy water would bring it down to 45. Clerics could switch out the dagger for a mace, for a total of 72 gp. Notably, this pack doesn't include other armor/weapons. Since Holmes uses the same costs, we could also use this in Holmes without change, except perhaps adding a Tinderbox (3) --- the only "new" equipment in the Holmes price list. OD&D encumbrance would be dagger (20) + "Miscellaneous Equipment (rope, spikes, bags, etc)" (80) = 100, plus armor and any additional weapons.
2. Allan notes that the name of the ruin "Detresed" is "deserted" spelled backwards, a trademark Gygax name-pun. 
3. The ruined city brings to mind the never released Outdoor Geomorphs Set Three: Ruin. And the "lost, ruined city of the Old Suloise" that "is said to be hidden somewhere in the Suss forest..." (World of Greyhawk folio, pg 26), the same forest where, in the novel Artifact of Evil, Gord & company explore a "three-tiered structure ... a large building, probably a temple of some sort".
4. The vast stone idol naturally recalls the cover of the AD&D Players Handbook.
5. The circular 8-door room is a bit like the octagonal entrance room in the Delving Deeper level from Hall of Many Panes, but with twice as many exits. He used a similar shaped room in Castle Greyhawk and in the Dungeon Geomorphs (where the room is circular); see the linked post for images.
6. Here it is interesting to see an example of an OD&D dungeon door that is *not* stuck because it is in regular use. This edges away from the OD&D idea that all dungeon doors open for monsters but not players.
7. The rules for listening at doors in OD&D Vol 3 do not specifically require that helmets are taken off, but this does appear later in the Dungeon Masters Guide.
8. Gygax also used an evil cleric (3rd level) plus hobgoblins in the DMG Sample Dungeon (in areas 35-37, but only mentioned in the Wandering Monster table for the Crypt Areas). There's also the evil Adept (2nd level) with a Gnoll guard on the first level of the Greyhawk dungeon, who has one spell: Cause Light Wounds, much like the priest here. And in the Moathouse dungeon in T1 The Village of Hommlet module, there is Lareth (a 5th level cleric) with his Gnolls, Bugbears and Ogre.
9. Allan notes that "the hobgoblins wear red and black, which corresponds with their description in the MM---"Hobgoblins favor bright, bloody colors and black leather"; this also matches the red shields of the Hobgoblins of the Pomarj heraldy from the Greyhawk folio and boxed set". I add that the Evil Priest in B2 has his room decorated in the same colors: "a red carpet, furniture of black wood with velvet upholstery of scarlet, and a large bed covered with silken covers of black and red cushions and pillows".
10. The +1 to initiative for "being prepared" given here is an interesting addition. The OD&D FAQ in Strategic Review #2 (Summer 1975) that first describes initiative mentions giving a bonus for dexterity, but not for preparation.
11. The note "4th level (Evil Priest)" is consistent with the level titles for Anti-Clerics in OD&D Vol 1, either page 34 or 35 depending on the printing.
12. The priest's method of casting the "Light Wound Spell" from a distance is very interesting & quite different than Cause Light Wounds in AD&D, which requires touch. The pointing is reminiscent of "Finger of Death", making the spells seem like low/high level versions of the same power. It should be noted that "Cure Light Wounds" in OD&D Vol 1 doesn't include any mention of requiring touch, so it is possible at this point that neither Cure nor Cause Light Wounds required touch. The "Light Wound Spell" spell also doesn't require the "course of one full turn" listed for Cure Light Wounds in OD&D Vol 1, although that reference is possibly just be inconsistent terminology for "one full round".
13. The "enemy" is only 15' away, but the party has to spend a "melee turn" (presumably meaning melee round) closing with the priest, who is "backing" and casting.
14. B2 The Keep on the Borderlands also has two alabaster statues. One of alabaster & gold (3000 gp) in the Loan Bank in the Keep, and a 30 lb one of alabaster & ivory (200 gp) in the Bugbear Chieftain's Room. This later one is also hidden (in a chest on a hidden high ledge), but lacks any secret magical compartments.
15. The "map to a temple on the 4th level – a place veritably stuffed with treasure, but strongly guarded by many hobgoblins and powerful men and monsters" is a good example of OD&D Treasure Map.

Reviews from R'lyeh on Bayt Al Azif #2

Reviews from R'lyeh recently reviewed the second issue of the Call of Cthulhu RPG zine Bayt Al Azif (link below), in a column entitled, "A Cthulhu Collecteana II".

As I announced last fall, this issue of this zine includes a reprint of J. Eric Holmes' 1983 review of the Call of Cthulhu RPG, along with some commentary on his review by myself. This was a follow-up to the article I wrote for the first issue about Holmes role in bringing the Cthulhu Mythos to D&D in the '70s. Each issue can be found at DrivethruRPG in either PDF or Print format:

Bayt al Azif issue 1 ~ Bayt al Azif issue 2

(links include my DrivethruRPG affiliate number)

The R'lyehian reviewer Pookie provides an in-depth review of the issue, concluding:

"Overall, Bayt al Azif Issue 02 is a good second issue, much improved on the first. Its better sense of professionalism is combined with a good range of voices, scenarios, and articles about Lovecraftian investigative roleplaying"

And specifically regarding Holmes' review, Pookie writes:

"The second review is actually of Call of Cthulhu itself, but not of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition. Rather, ‘“It is not dead which can eternal lie…” Game Review: Call of Cthulhu’ is actually a review of Call of Cthulhu, First Edition by J. Eric Holmes, the editor of the 1977 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set RPG. This is fascinating continuation of Zach Howard’s ‘Clerical Cosmic Horror: The Brief Era of the Cthulhu Mythos as Dungeons & Dragons Pantheon’ from Bayt al Azif Issue 01 and he adds a commentary to the end of the review. Together they provide a contrast between a time when Cthulhu was just beginning to appear in the gaming hobby and its prevalence today."

Read the rest of the review here: 

A Cthulhu Collectanea II

s with editorial, 'Houses of the Unholy', which really takes stock of the progress of the magazine from the first issue to this one. So it is somewhat reflective in nature before it sets out what the -fulfilled and unfulfilled, the highlights, and the trends. From , .

Lee Gold: 45 Years of Alarums & Excursions!

Alarums & Excursions #1, June 1975. Source: RPG Geek

As of this month, Lee Gold has been publishing the APAzine Alarums & Excursions for 45 years! During this time she has missed only a few months, which means that this month's issue is a jaw-dropping #535, per the RPG Geek page. Lee not only assembles every issue, she also contributes her own column Tantivy:

Lee Gold's Tantivy from A&E #1. Source: RPG Geek

A lengthy 2019 audio interview with Lee can be found here on YouTube, and follow the link at the bottom of this page to read a new profile of Lee over at the DM David blog.

A little more on A&E: it's an APAzine (Amateur Press Association zine), which means that it is assembled from contributions from various subscribers. When it started in the '70s, it was the closest thing to what we would now recognize as an internet forum for D&D discussion, with content and comments going back and forth between contributors. Issues are dense with content, ideas and discussion and can be over a hundred pages in length. Fans of Holmes Basic may recall that this is where J. Eric Holmes got his start writing D&D articles, along with many other RPG designers of the '70s, '80s and beyond, which DM David covers.

You can subscribe to, contribute to, or buy pdfs of back issues of A&E here at Lee's site. I own the first 29 issues in pdf, and if you are interested in the early history of D&D and RPGs they are well worth the money. I also own one copy in paper, issue #30:

Alarums & Excursions #30, January 1978 with cover art by Troy Hughes

Meet the Woman Who by 1976 Was the Most Important Gamer in Roleplaying After Gary

In 1976, after Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax, the most important person in roleplaying games was a Los Angeles woman named Lee Gold. She still contributes to the hobby and still runs a campaign using her Lands of Adventure (1983) game. Lee who? And what happened to Gary's co-designer Dave Arneson?

Holmes Ref: Rolling up an Adventurer

Another Holmes Ref sheet - actually a two-parter this time!

Go the Holmes Ref page to download the sheet

The first page is shown above and gather together the six standard abilities and modifiers, as appearing in Holmes and also including the expansions I posted a few years back (...has it really been that long?).

To make things more interesting I've included six alternate old school options for generating ability scores. 

The first, which I've termed The Bullpen, reflects the habit of early Lake Geneva players of rolling up multiple characters until they got one they liked, naturally with high stats. This was eventually immortalized in the AD&D DMG as Method IV of character generation, where 12 sets of 3d6 stats are rolled up and one is picked. A variation on this practice was also seen in Alarums & Excursions #2 (July 1975), where a character generation sheet (link goes to Playing at the World) suggested rolling three sets of stats for one character, or five sets of stats for two characters. I've added a restriction I've seen suggested occasionally (here or here, for example) that the extras are to be saved as replacement characters.

The Arnesonian method was mentioned here on ODD74 by Dave Arneson himself in 2008. That's right, Dave was a member of the forum and made over a 170 posts in 2008 and 2009 before he passed away.

The Gygaxian method comes from Method I of the AD&D DMG and Gygax's houserules for running OD&D games in the '00s.

The Holmesian method comes from Holmes early A&E article, "Warrior-for-Hire". It was intended for NPC men-at-arms, but there's no reason it couldn't be generalized it to PCs.

The Ivesian method was detailed by Wesley D. Ives in Alarums & Excursions #14 (August 1976), stated to be used in his "Homlas" campaign (page 26).

What I've termed the Swansonian method is simply an additional roll for a bonus ability for a character rolled up RAW. The first version of this kind of table by Mark Swanson was featured in the very first issue of Alarums & Excursions in mid-1975. It was presented by Lee Gold as Mark Swanson's Special Abilities, and was popular enough with A&E contributors to become known as "Swanson Abilities" by other A&E contributers. See the character generation sheet at Playing at the World linked above for an example of such a use. Jon also discusses the "Swanson Abilities" in his commentary in that post, which was the first to bring it to my attention. The Complete Warlock in 1978 included a variation on these, called "Table of Special Abilities", but includes more defects than bonuses. Gygax eventually developed a version of these called Knacks for his Lejendary Adventures RPG in the late 90s.

Swanson's original list was actually two lists, one for clerics/fighters and one for magic-users. I've instead made a single table for all characters with 50 entries, some inspired by Swanson's list but many others simply brainstormed while perusing Holmes Basic. See the screenshot below.

If you note any typos in either page, please let me know below in the comments and I will eventually correct and repost the sheets.

As with the previous new sheet (the Equipment Reference Sheet), these will eventually be incorporated into a new version of Holmes Ref. The various existing Holmes Ref sheets and compilations can be found here.

Update 4/29: Revised version posted at the same link. Corrected typos found by myself and others and clarifies some wording in places. Screenshots still reflect the original version, so check the pdf if you note a typo in the screenshot.

Holmes Basic Testimonials

2019 update: Today is the 89th anniversary of J. Eric Holmes birthday! Please feel free to add your own testimonial to the comments below.

If you missed it major new addition to the Zenopus Archives site this past year was the addition of a J. Eric Holmes Photo Gallery.

2018 update: This year we celebrate Holmes' birthday in the middle of the 40th anniversary year of Holmes Basic (July 2017-July 2018). As a tribute, I'll be running two session of Return to the Tower of Zenopus at Gary Con in a few weeks (I had to cancel these).

There will also be a "Ruined Tower of Zenopus - 40 years later" event, by a different author, at the North Texas RPGCon this year in June! (this game was played with Chris Holmes in attendance)

And Beyond the Door to Monster Mountain - a Holmes Basic mini-scenario available here - will be run for the second year in a row at Dundracon this coming Sunday.

If you missed it, last July Chris Holmes was on the 3rd season of the short podcast Tell Me About Your Character, talking about his third favorite D&D character (after Boinger and Zereth) in the games he played with his father in the '70s. (this podcast seems to be no longer available)

And since Holmes' birthday last year we've seen a lot of great releases:

Tales of Peril, a gorgeous hardcover compilation of Holmes' stories of the adventures of Boinger the Halfling and Zereth the Elf, debuted at North Texas last June and shortly thereafter was available for direct order from Black Blade Publishing. I've been slowly blogging my way through the book in a series called the Tales of Peril Book Club, although at the moment it is on hiatus while I prep my con scenario.

The Blueholme Journeymanne rulebook was released by Dreamscape Design, and expands the Blueholme Prentice rules up to 20 levels. It is chock-full of evocative art thanks to all of the Holmes fans out there who funded the Kickstarter for the art.

Jon of Appendix M released two issues of his zine Fantastic! Exciting! Imaginative!, which is inspired by the art found in the Holmes Basic rulebook. The content is by various members of the Holmes Basic groups on G+ and Facebook, including one article in each by myself. Join up if you want to contribute to the next one! These can be found at DTRPG: Vol 1 (free pdf) and Vol 2 ($4 pdf).

On Free RPG day I released Holmes Ref 2.0 an expanded compilation of my reference sheets for Holmes Basic referees. I hope to release a further expansion this year.

Each year I bring this post forward and invite you to add new testimonials. I've moved my posts from previous years to an archive page on the Holmes Basic site, but everyone else's comments from previous years remain below. Feel free to comment again if you've commented before.

See also:
Testimonal Thread at OD&D Discussion
Testimonial Thread at Knights & Knaves Alehouse  
Testimonial Thread at Dragonsfoot
Testimonial Thread at the Acaeum

(DTRPG links include this blog's affiliate # which gives us a 5% credit for each purchase)

Seligman on Holmes Basic

As I've written previously, the earliest reported public availability for Holmes Basic is at Origins 1977, which ran from Friday July 22nd to Sunday, July 24th at Wagner College on Staten Island, NYC. This weekend is the 40th anniversary of this event!

The above information is from a convention report by Bill Seligman (who has a blog here) in the August 1977 issue of the APAzine, The Wild Hunt (via Jon Peterson and Playing at the World).

Lee Gold is now offering pdf copies of early Alarums & Excursions issues (ordering details are here), and in these I found that Bill also included a convention report in issue #25 (8/16/77) as part of his contribution, "I WOULD HAVE MADE A GREAT PLATINUM DRAGON #10". Note that APAzines are compilations of mini-zines made by each contributor. 

As part of this report, Bill had several paragraphs devoted to the new Basic Set. First, he addressed Holmes directly as part his comments made to previous A&E contributors:

Eric Holmes: the new revised D&D is written extremely well, at least. Kudos to you, sir, at least future DMs will not have to struggle with what we had. (numbered page 3 of Seligman's mini-zine, unnumbered page 83 of A&E #25)

Second, his information & thoughts about the new set:

But now, for some even bigger news: THE NEW REVISED AND TRULY PROOFREAD VERSION OF D&D IS OUT!!! Well, not the whole thing, just the basic version, for $10.00, This includes dice, a dungeon geomorph (yuk) and a set of pre-allocated rooms for 1-3 levels (yuk). The whole set is designed for setting up to third level characters and up to the third level of the' dungeon. Further versions of D&D will expand the current one to the Nth level. The next D&D book to be put out will be on monsters — there will be 378 of them. It will be out in October [actually published in Dec - Z]. Future releases will be an advanced D&D playing volume, a Dungeonmasters guide, and a revised Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes, each of which will be 8'-1/2 by 11 inches and bound like a paperback.

What I think of Basic D&D-- it is far, far better written than the original. There are a lot, more examples. Including examples of melee, spell use, encumberance, and setting up a dungeon level. Naturally the spell system and combat system is the Gygaxian one — what did you expect? Kask [at Origins] justified this too -- he said that D&D is based on Vancian magic, and that it restricts high-level mages, who would otherwise control the whole game. I wish they had not included the geomorphs and dungeon example, since too many neo-DMs will use them with no individual changes when they first start out. However, if you are starting a D&D campaign, from the 1st level, then get this book. It is available w/o dice, geomorphs, pre-allocations, and box for $5.00, with for $10.00. 

One thing though -- in the monster encounter charts, they list creatures like Leprechauns and Troglodytes which are not listed in the monster descriptions. Kask said that if a person never saw a Lucky Charms commercial or read a fairy tale there was nothing he could do --but normally somebody could work up something for those monsters. I disagree - assuming a true neo, he would not be able to assign the monster any hit points that were reasonable - he would not even really understand what hit points were for. But, Kask said, Leprechauns would be explained in the next book. (numbered page 4 of Seligman's mini-zine, unnumbered page 84 of A&E #25)

Fantastic Exciting Imaginative zine

A different perspective...

Fantastic Exciting Imaginative is a new zine of content for Holmes Basic or any old-D&D, compiled by Jon Wilson (aka bygrinstow) of the Appendix M blog. Contributors were drawn from G+ and include Jon, Paul Wolfe, JV West, Robert Fairbanks, Shane Ward, Tony A. Rowe, James George, Robyn George, Grandpa Chet, and myself. Jon is the primary artist, with one piece each by Denis McCarthy and Chris Holmes (!)

The name comes from Holmes' first line in the Introduction to the Basic Rulebook: "Dungeons & Dragons is a fantastic, exciting and imaginative game of role playing for adults 12 years and up".

For the theme, Jon's brilliant idea was to compile material inspired by each piece of art in the Basic rulebook (2nd/3rd edition) by the artists David C. Sutherland III, Dave Trampier and Tom Wham. Multiple contributions per artwork were accepted. For instance, my main contribution is the Regal Lizard Man*, a write-up of the lizardman in Sutherland's artwork accompanying the Foreword (shown in the header of this blog). But the same art also inspired the Iguanadyte by Robert Fairbanks. My other minor contribution is the Harpy Axe, a magic item inspired by the Harpy battle scene, which appeared previously as part of a list of "Lesser Magic Items" in the zine Dungeon Crawl.

Click here to download the free zine from DTRPG**
(It's only available in pdf, but the pdf does include a version optimized for printing at home).

*Inspired by the Regal Horned Lizard of the American Southwest
**link includes my Drivethrurpg affiliate # that gives me 5% credit if you do buy something while you are there