Holmentzer Basic blog series

Over on the DON'T LET IT KILL YOU blog, the author is writing a series on using the Holmes rulebook together with the Mentzer DM's book. Here are the entries so far:

Holmentzer Basic
Holmentzer Monsters: Intro
Holmentzer Monsters: A-D

Starting with the third entry, he's going through the monster lists in Holmes and Mentzer and comprehensively comparing them (and vis-a-vis Moldvay Basic as well). It's interesting to note the differences in iconic monsters (such as the Carrion Crawler) between editions, and see where the text of the Holmes edition remained essentially the same.

new Holmes Basic T-Shirt

     The retro offerings from Wizards continue to expand... Dungeon Fantastic just posted a link to some new Dungeons & Dragons tees available for pre-sale for $25. And one features the monochrome blue cover of the Holmes Basic rulebook (Wizard Logo version) featuring David Sutherland's art. It's currently available only as a women's tee, but Peter at Dungeon Fantastic mentioned the ad he saw in his FLGS didn't mention this - which means it may be available in other styles once the pre-sale ends. For right now, the Fighting Men will have to be content with this totally metal Trampier Minotaur shirt in Asmodeus Red:

     The sale also includes shirts featuring the Elmore red dragon vs warrior from the Mentzer Basic Set, and the "ampersand dragon" from the D&D logo of that time period, but made entirely of dice. The ad Peter saw also featured a shirt with Trampier's lich from the Monster Manual which isn't available right now. The pre-sale ends 10/29/12. I'm assuming that by using the words "pre-sale", these will be for sale regularly after that, hopefully with more styles/designs.

     This isn't the first time the Sutherland art has been sold as a t-shirt. Back in 1981, the TSR Gateway to Adventure catalog had t-shirts in various styles, including the ones below. IIRC the quality was low (essentially iron-ons) and they didn't survive much washing, making them extremely rare. I've never even heard of one appearing on Ebay.

Little Nemo in Slumberland

     
     Today the Google Doodle is a tribute to the comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, by the artist Winsor McCay, which ran in American newspapers from 1905-1914. Each night the hero of the strip, Little Nemo, would fall asleep in his bed and embark on adventures in Slumberland, sometimes continuing from the night before. Each strip would end with Nemo falling out of his bed and waking up. In those days strips were often given a full newspaper page, and McCay used this to full extent, varying the size of the panels and employing great architectural detail in creating vast fantastical locations. Google's tribute uses the imagery of McCay to show a typical Nemo adventure. The excerpt I posted above from the Google Doodle pays tribute to The Walking Bed (1908), where Nemo's bed grew legs and walked through the city. Read more in this Comic Riffs blog post.

PHB on Dex-based Initiative

     

In the oft-overlooked back of the 1E Player's Handbook (1978), Gygax ends a section titled "First Strike" with "When important single combats occur, then dexterities and weapon factors will be used to determine the order and number of strikes in a round" (pg 105).

This, plus the reference in the Monster Manual (1977), makes me think that for a time Gygax considered including a Holmes Basic (1977) type dexterity-based initiative for certain combats in AD&D. However, by the time of the Dungeon Master's Guide (1979) there's no trace of using the dexterities of opponents to determine first strike, other than a reaction bonus for missile weapon fire. Perhaps Gygax dropped this in a (futile?) attempt to keep the complexity of the DMG combat rules for initiative under control. 

The PHB reference does suggest a way to adapt Holmes-initiative if moving on to AD&D: subtract the AD&D weapon speed factor (e.g., fist = 1, dagger = 2, two-handed sword = 10) from dexterity to determine an adjusted dexterity for each melee combatant, and use this to determine strike order. Number of strikes per round is more difficult to determine/integrate, particularly when monsters are also considered, so I'm not going to consider it today.

(I was inspired to write this after reading a post in this thread on Dragonsfoot)

Ruined Tower by Cole

Click on the picture to see it in larger form

     
      I found this painting yesterday and couldn't help but think of the ruined tower of Zenopus along the sea cliffs of Portown. It's "Italian Seacoast with Ruined Tower" by Thomas Cole, 1838. Cole is more well known for his American landscapes, being considered the founder of the Hudson River School, but also painted European ones after traveling there.

Heroic Worlds on the Holmes Basic Set

     

     Heroic Worlds is a 1991 encyclopedia of role-playing games, written by Lawrence Schick, formerly of TSR, where he is probably best remembered for authoring the module S2 White Plume Mountain. It covers most game products that had been published up to the time, including many obscure games, although the folks at the Acaeum have found some that are not covered. It's still in print and remains an excellent resource for those interested in the first two decades of rpgs. As I wrote on the Acaeum in 2007 when I first found my copy: "The product lists are comprehensive, well-organized (by genre) and have well-written capsule reviews of each product. There are a nice quantity of illustrations recycled from covered products (with permission). For example, Tramp's Lizardman from the Monster Manual squats threateningly at the top of page 104. The short essays are a real treat (by EGG, Greg Stafford, Ken St. Andre, Dave Arneson, Tom Moldvay, Sandy Peterson, Paul Jacquays and others). Law Schick's intro covers the history of RPGs, starting with Dave Wesely's Braunsteins."

     Here's what Schick has to say about the Basic Set in his History section:

     "By 1977 TSR realized they would never be able to meet the demand for D&D products by simply releasing more rules supplements. The game was so succesful that even the big toy store chains were starting to sit up and take notice, bu tth eoriginal three-book set would never do for distribution to the mass market - it didn't look or read like a mass market product. TSR decided to publish a simplified, easy-to-learn version of D&D in a larger box with new artwork. Writer J. Eric Holmes revised the rules for mass consumption, and the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set was released to the toy stores of America in time for Christmas. It was the first attempt at a really introductory role-playing game, and it was a big hit. Suddenly obscure little D&D was being printed in runs of 100,000 - unprecedented numbers for anything resembling a "wargame". TSR had hit the jackpot.

     The Basic Set was revised in 1980 [released Jan 1981 - Z], and again in 1983, improving each time as TSR's game design and graphic standards improved. Over ten years several million copies of the D&D Basic Set have been sold. It was an remains the single most common introduction to role-playing gaming. Today's Basic Set contains only enough rules for character classes to advance to the third level of skill - if they want to go further, players have to buy the Expert Set. In 1977, when Basic was first released, there was no Expert Set and no plans for one; instead, players were directed to buy TSR's new improvement on D&D, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

      Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, or AD&D, was intended to consolidate all the many and contradictory D&D rules into one comprehensive game, a system that reflected author Gary Gygax's opinion of how D&D ought to be played. It was originally conceived as the replacement for Original D&D: new players would buy the D&D Basic Set, then move on to AD&D, and the Original D&D boxed set would be phased out. Two factors derailed this agenda.

     The first was the incredible popularity of Original D&D, which wouldn't die no matter how popular AD&D became (and it became very popular). TSR kept Original D&D in print long after it became an embarrassment because they couldn't bear not to sell it if people wanted to buy it.

     The second factor was the perceived legal necessity to separate D&D from Advanced D&D after Dave Arneson sued for royalties from Advanced D&D, which bore Gygax's name alone. TSR had to contend that AD&D was a different game from D&D, so that the differences between the two were exaggerated and eventually AD&D actually became a different game from D&D. The Arneson case was ultimately settled, but by the time things were straightened out the two games had acquired quite different identities."

     Frank Mentzer, writing on Dragonsfoot in 2008, commented further on the print run info:

     "Before '77 a large print run in gaming was 10,000. A huge run was 50k, and iirc that's what 1st print Holmes was, maybe 2nd print as well. Most of the reprints were 100,000 each (I think Law mentions this in Heroic Worlds) except for the last one (down to 50-75k iirc since TSR was planning a new version)."

     There are at least eight distinct printings of the rulebook between 1977 and 1980, so if these numbers are correct, there were at least 600,000 copies in total during that time.

     And here's the Basic Set entry from Heroic Worlds, page 130-131. It covers all of the basic sets together but I've extracted the information for the Holmes edition:

     Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules Set

     Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson; 1st ed. edited by J. Eric Holmes

     The rulebook covers character levels 1-3 and dungeon adventuring, with an emphasis on easy introduction to the concepts of the game. The 1st ed. incorporates concepts from Greyhawk, Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry supplements and leads the players who want to go beyond third level to the AD&D system.

     The set also includes an introductory scenario designed to ease new players and GMs into the concepts of D&D. For the 1st ed., this was B1, In Search of the Unknown, replaced toward the end of its run by B2, The Keep on the Borderlands. [HW is missing mention of the earliest printing having a set of Geomorphs and Monster and Treasure Assortment - Z]

B3 originally written for Holmes Basic

     Earlier this year, I speculated that B3 may have been originally written for Holmes Basic, based on the date of publication and that the author Jean Wells ran a Basic tournament at Gen Con in 1980, before the Moldvay set came out in 1981.

     Today I came across a post by Frank Mentzer from 2008 in his Q&A thread on Dragonsfoot that actually verifies this:

     "Mike wrote B1 pretty much based on OD&D but modified it a bit when Holmes was finalized. Gary wrote B2 as a replacement for B1; he decided that the starter module shouldn't be stocked by novice DMs. When Jean wrote B3, she was working off Holmes but transitioned to Moldvay. (I was involved with B3 somewhat.)"

     Interestingly, the green cover B3 revised by Tom Moldvay contains a short paragraph on using the module with Holmes Basic; it basically just assures the DM that the module can be used as-is with the earlier set.