Gary Con XIV games I'm running

Next month Gary Con returns from the ether to the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva,  for the first time since the pandemic started. I'm registered to attend, and have rescheduled the same games that I originally had planned to run at Gary Con XII, back in 2020. Each is a Holmes + OD&D game, and this will be the first time I've run two different scenarios at a single con.

Expedition to Skull Stack Crater is on Friday morning from 8 AM to 12 PM. The event listing can be found be found here. This is a scenario that I originally wrote and ran a number of years ago as part of my continuing annual kids' campaign, now revised as a convention scenario:

"Join an expedition to Skull Stack Crater to recover the legendary Spear of Decree, stolen from the Realm years ago by skull-masked raiders who then vanished from history. Your party has followed an old map to their hidden lair on an island in a water-filled volcanic crater. This 3rd level adventure from the Zenopus Archives celebrates the 40+ years of the Holmes Basic D&D set. Characters provided."

In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus is scheduled for Sat night from 7-11 PM. The event listing can be found here. This is the same scenario I ran twice at Gary Con XI in 2019, including once in the same time slot:

"Meet at the Green Dragon Inn and return to the dungeon under the ruined tower of the doomed wizard Zenopus to search for his legendary talking mask, forty years after adventurers first braved the passages. Play as Boinger, Zereth, Murray, or another character from J. Eric Holmes' stories. This adventure from the Zenopus Archives celebrates the 40+ years of the Holmes Basic D&D set." 

General event registration opens up today at 12 PM Central Time; this is also known as Silver registration and includes the vast majority of badge holders. Due to the newer system of staggered release of seats for registration, there will be at least one more seat available for every game at the con when registration opens today, including my games.

Other Gary Con links of interest:
Gary Con website
Badge Registration
Full Schedule of Events (searchable)
Grand Geneva Resort website
Facebook Group

According to the Events schedule, there are 32 games with system listed as "D&D (Original)", including mine.

Other GMs on this list include paleologos of the OSR Grimoire blog (2 linked sessions, which I plan to sign up for), Paul Stormberg (2 sessions at the old Gygax house at 330 Center Street in Lake Geneva) and 5 sessions from Tim Kask. And Muddy at OD&D Discussion is running two Blueholme games. And there's also a Ruined Tower of Zenopus game by captcorajus, who runs the RPG Retro Reviews channel on YT.

Are any other readers of this blog going?

Superb Owl Sunday

Giant Owl by Darlene

Here's my pick for today's Superb Owl:

 "Giant owls speak their own language ... [t]hese creatures are intelligent and will sometimes befriend other creatures" --- Gary Gygax, from the entry for Giant Owl in the AD&D Monster Manual, 1977

There was no illustration accompanying the Giant Owl entry in the original Monster Manual, but one by Darlene (attributed at the time to Darlene Pekul) was included in the Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979, on page 184 beneath the table for "OUTDOOR RANDOM MONSTER ENCOUNTER TABLES: Arctic Conditions", which includes a Giant Owl among the entries; presumably this represents a Snowy Owl variant.

Find more "Superb Monsters" from the Monster Manual here:

d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Original Monster Manual

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. 

Piazza Thread: Original Known World Campaign Documents

Sample Page from the Original Known World documents - "Origins of Characters".
Note the extensive list of non-human races available for play including
Felis Sapiens, Toad-Men, Balrogs, Protein Polymorphs and Tharks...!

Over on the Piazza, a great forum dedicated to the various and sundry D&D settings, member TraverseTravis has posted scans of a sheaf of documents from the Original Known World D&D campaign of Lawrence Schick and the late Tom Moldvay before they started working for TSR. This is the original material which Moldvay and others drew on for developing the published Known World campaign setting - later Mystara - as it initially appears in the 1981 D&D Expert Rulebook and the module X1 Isle of Dread. 

Portions of this material surfaced back in 2015, which I described in post on this blog called "Ur-Known World"; from there you can find a link to an interview with Schick on Black Gate.

The new set of documents was saved by one of the original members of the group, Bill Wilkerson (thanked as a playtester in Moldvay's module B4 The Lost City), who provided them to TraverseTravis for scanning. Shannon Appecline compiled the scans into a single document organized by subject according to OD&D Vol I-III.

Find links for downloading them in the first post here:

Bill Wilkerson's Original Known World documents

I've been contributing to the Piazza thread with comments on how the "New Monsters" from the Original Known World were later used by Moldvay and Schick in various TSR publications such as the Fiend Folio, X1 Isle of Dread and X2 Castle Amber.

A big thanks to TraverseTravis and Shannon Appelcline for their efforts in making this material available to the public!

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.

 

 

Demon Idol Review

A Happy New Year from my original and new Demon Idols!

That's my original Players Handbook, which I received for my birthday in 1983 along with a Pac-Man watch. I still remember reading it in bed that night, captivated by all the new options not found in my Holmes Basic rulebook, like Half-Orcs!

The statue is a new Xmas present; a licensed "D&D Dice Tower" available from Gamestop.

Here's a quick review of the new demon idol tower:

Construction: Probably the biggest dice tower you'll ever own, being 10 inches tall, 8.5 inches wide, and 7 inches deep. It feels sturdy, weighing a bit under 4 lbs. The "aged" color and texture are well done. 

Design: The nicest feature is the fire, which lights up via a switch on the bottom. It requires 3 button cell batteries (1.5 LR44), which are included.

It's not a perfect recreation of Dave Trampier's original art; notably, the horns have been turned into ears, giving it a more goblin-y feel. The statue's feet are not visible in the original; here, they are wearing sandals that somewhat comically resemble flip-flops. 

Note that the statue is missing one jeweled eye in a nod to the PHB cover. I feel like a bit of an opportunity was missed here to have two removable eyes.

For a more faithful and creepier design, see the version available from Otherworld Miniatures.

Functionality: The top of the head comes off, revealing a chute into which you drop your die, which shoots out the dungeon archway in the front. It works well; my first roll sent the dice flying about 3 feet across the kitchen floor.

And it could easily serve as a gigantic dungeon prop. The archway is big enough to slide a mini into, and there are some flat spaces on the pedastal and statue in which a mini could stand.

TSR's 1976 "Lower Prices" Dice Ad (that shares text with Holmes Basic)

Over on Ebay, Jim Ward has been auctioning items accumulated from his career working at TSR, and among them I noted this early advertisement for dice from TSR that I don't recall seeing before. It appears to be from 1976, as the reverse side is an announcement for the new Metamorphosis Alpha RPG. TSR produced a number of these monochrome advertising sheets in the 1970s, some of which were also used as ads in magazines.

The lengthy explanatory text at the bottom of the page especially caught my attention because it's extremely similar to the "USING THE DICE" section found near the end of the Holmes Basic rulebook. Back in the last post of the Holmes Manuscript series, I presumed that this section originated with TSR, as it is not found in Holmes' manuscript.

Image originally posted in the Holmes Basic G+ Community (archived here)

The above image is from a 2nd or 3rd printing of the rulebook, but the "Using the Dice" text is the same in the 1st printing. Below is a transcription in which I've bolded the text that is the same as in the "Low Impact" Ad:

        Players need not be confused by the special dice

called for in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. By using the

assortment of 4-, 6-, 8-, 12- and 20-sided dice, a wide

range of random possibilities can be easily handled.

        For a linear curve (equal probability of any

number), simply roll the appropriate die for 1-4, 1-6, 1 -

8, 1-10 , or 1-12. If some progression is called for,

determine and use the appropriate die (for instance, 2-

7 would call for a 6-sided die with a one spot addition).

For extensions of the base numbers, roll a second die

with the appropriately numbered die. For example: to

generate 1-20, roll the 20-sided die and 6-sided die,

and if the 6-sided die comes up 1-3 , the number shown

on the 20-sider is 1-10 (1-0), and if the 6-sider comes up

4-6, add 10 to the 20-sided die and its numbers become

11-20 (1-0). This application is used with the 12-sided

die to get 1-24. If 1-30 or 1-36 are desired, read the 6-

sider with the 20- or 12-sided die, with 1 -2 equalling no

addition, 3-4 adding 10, and 5-6 adding 20. This

principle can be used to generate many other linear

curves.

        For bell curves (increasing probability of numbers

in the center, decreasing at both ends), just roll the

same die two or more times, roll several of the same

type of dice, or even roll two or more different dice.

The introductory sentence has been replaced with two sentences, and one extra sentence covering modified ranges has been added, but otherwise the text is almost identical. From this we can see how another portion of the text of the Holmes Basic rulebook was constructed from some pre-existing text. I don't know whether this text is original to this ad, or if there is yet another source text from which it was taken. I assume the author here is Gygax based on the lengthier "Dice" section in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide.

A later version of the "Using the Dice" text that is revised to include the chits can be seen in my recent post, Jim Ward on the Why of Chits.

See Also: 

Dice Dragon (New Monster)

Gygax's Killer Die

Marked 20-sided Die

Dice of the Gods (Creative Publications Dice Packaging)

TSR Percentile Dice in the 1970s

And Jon Peterson's numerous articles on RPG dice of the 1970s.