Expert Set rulebook pdf notes

I ended up buying the new pdf of the Expert Set rulebook, which you can find here on DriveThruRPG

A few notes:

(1) The scan quality is great, the text is completely OCR'd and searchable, and the pdf is fully indexed with bookmarks. Front and back covers, including insides are all included, important since there's a table of contents inside the front and an index inside the back. Pages are mostly scanned straight, though a few are slightly off, which you can see in the screenshot of the Gnome Lair:

GNOME LAIR - location from the Sample Wilderness in the Expert Set rulebook

(2) It's a 1st printing of the rulebook according to the Acaeum. The distinguishing feature on the front cover is the lack of a white circle around the "2" on the upper left front cover. I hadn't seen the interior of a 1st printing before, but a quick comparison to a later printing didn't reveal any major text differences in the rules. I do note that the title page of the 1st printing has Gygax & Arneson's name on it, but for some reason their name is missing from the hard copy later printing that I have.

The corresponding Moldvay pdf from dndclassics is not a 1st printing, as it has a white circle around the "1" on the front cover. Apparently the Wizards are not paying attention to the printings at this level of granularity. It will be interesting to see what printing of the Holmes rulebook we end up with - most likely the 2nd or 3rd printing.

(3) Here's the neatest part of the pdf: It's 88 pages rather than the 68 pages as you'd expect (64 page rulebook plus covers). That's because it has several bonus items from the Expert Set at the end: a 16 page TSR product catalog, a 2-page RPGA membership form, and a 2-page TSR survey. The catalog is a real treasure if you haven't seen it before: a 1981 Gateway to Adventure TSR product catalog (see the cover here). There are several versions of this catalog, and this one happens to be the one that shows the Holmes Basic rulebook cover next to a listing for the new Expert Set rulebook. So now I have a better scan of the picture of this, which I've replaced in my previous post. However, I also noted that the catalog shows the Moldvay Box Set on another page along with the Expert Set. So perhaps the B/X box cover design was finished at the time of this catalog but not the rulebook cover design.

Update: Ten years later, they've added a Print-on-Demand (POD) option for this. Find it here:

1981 D&D Expert Rules PDF and Print-on-Demand (POD) at DriveThruRPG

B/X Mud Brown and Pea Green Polyhedral Dice

In the early days my friend E.H. had the 1981 D&D Basic and Expert (B/X) sets, often knonw now as the Moldvay Basic and Marsh/Cook Expert Sets. I'll always remember the polyhedral dice from those sets, because they were so different than my pale blue Dragon Dice, which were the first set I'd purchased after starting with the notorious chits that came with my Holmes Basic Set. His Basic Set dice were pea soup green, and his Expert Set dice were mud brown, and each had a faint swirled pattern. On Tome of Treasures, a collecting site, I found a post with a picture of dice from a first print Expert Set that are exactly the same color as the brown ones I remember (see screenshot above). These dice came uninked, and the set also had a crayon for coloring them. There's been some discussion of the B/X dice on the Acaeum recently here. I haven't found a picture of the green dice yet.

Update: The "swirly-pea green" dice can be seen here on the Dice Collector's TSR dice page. Also, it looks like there may have been two slightly different versions of the brown dice, one with a more prominent swirl like I remember.

In those days we'd try to play D&D anywhere. Once we were in his dad's brown Subaru, with E.H. DMing in the front with the green/brown dice in a flat space on the dash. Unfortunately, the window was also open, and when his dad made a U-turn some of the dice went flying out into a busy intersection. We had to dodge traffic to try to recover them, and I don't think we found all of them.

B/X Expert Set for use with Holmes Basic

Screen shot from the bonus catalog at the end of the new Expert Set rulebook pdf

The D&D Expert Set rulebook by Cook/Marsh is now available on pdf at dndclassic.com. It was designed to accompany Moldvay Basic, together forming what is commonly called B/X now, but it contains a section in the beginning on using it with the previous (Holmes) Basic Set. So in one sense it's the official Expert Set for Holmes Basic.

As I wrote on the Rules Expansion page on the ZA site: 

In Dragon #35, Gygax also revealed that "Design is now hard at work on the second boxed D&D game, the Expert Set. It will take players through at least 12th level of experience, tie in the best of the “Original” material, and actually add some new classes, spells, magic, monsters and so on." In context, this appeared to be an Expert Set that would complement the Holmes Basic Set. A late 1980 Gateway to Adventure catalog shows the Holmes Basic set side-by-side with an unpictured but soon-to-be-released Expert Set. However, when the Expert Set finally arrived in 1981 it was accompanied by an entirely new Basic Set that replaced the Holmes Basic set (although TSR continued to have the original in stock through the Mail Order Hobby Shop until at least 1986). To aid owners of the original Basic set who did not wish to buy a new set, the Cook/Marsh rulebook contained a section on page X4 titled "Using D&D Expert with an early edition of D&D Basic" which began "If your copy of the D&D Basic rules has a blue cover with a picture of a dragon on it, then this section is for you". This section then provides a summary of the "new material found in the 2nd edition of D&D Basic.

See also the previous post, Holmes Expert Set from TSR catalog.

Update: I ended up buying the new pdf of the Expert Set rulebook. See a future post for some notes.

Draw Your Own Floor Plan, II

Three Level Dungeon, click for a larger view

Here's a three-level dungeon I drew on a copy of the Draw Your Own Floor Plan sheet from B2. It's in the same style as the previous map by my friend E.H., with green ink dungeon walls (presumably because the grid is in black), red secret doors, yellow 10' falling blocks (here outlined in green ink) and black pits. It also shows the influence of the Holmes Basic rulebook in two places: the levels are Lvl 1, Lvl1 up, and 2nd Lvl, like the first three levels of Skull Mountain, and there's an underground cave with a beach and water (Room 21) per the Sample Dungeon.

Some of the other traps on the map:
Room 3 - The "L" on the door indicates it is locked.
Room 7 - The brown-colored trap at the entrance is a blade that swings out sideways when the door is opened. The wavy lines along the walls are curtains, surely concealing a hiding monster. Boo!
Room 8 -  In the hall leading to this room, the circle with a line in the hall is a "pendulum ball" trap (ball swings down from the ceiling). There's also one at the entrance to room 12.
Room 15 - A key I have elsewhere indicates that a "red man" is a teleporter, though it's possible I had something else in mind here.
Room 17 - At the bottom of the stairs to the east is a "pendulum blade" trap (blade swings down from the ceiling). 
Room 19 - The entrance to this room is just a wall, which may mean it was bricked shut. Perhaps the teleporter sent you here. Or I just forgot to draw a door, as there seems to be one missing between rooms 26 and 27. 

I do have two pages of unfinished notes for this dungeon, including the two upper levels, but I think they date from several years after I originally drew the map. In this conception some kind of evil cult had taken up residence in the lower level and was intent on summoning an evil horror in room 19.

Basic Blueholme

Cover of the Blueholme Prentice Rules, available at RPGNow

I posted an announcement in the Holmes Basic G+ Community, but I have been remiss in posting here about the release of the first parts of a new OGL clone of Holmes Basic, Blueholme. I was waiting to gather up links to reviews from other blogs, but the editor himself scooped me on that, so for that I'll just point you over to the post on his blog, Dreamscape Design. The editor, M.T., goes by Vile on the OD&D Discussion forums, where he is an enthusiastic convert to the charm of the original Basic set.

So far there are two releases for Blueholme, each currently a free download on RPGnow:

Prentice Rules - A starter set of rules, covering levels 1-3 much as the original Basic rulebook. There's an enthusiastic review over here at the Dispatches from Kickassistan blog. Since I am dedicated to the original Holmes Basic rulebook, I can't say I will personally be using the Prentice Rules, but they do a great job of cloning for anyone who does not have the original. In the interest of simplicity it does sidestep the famous (infamous?) rule giving daggers two blows per round and heavy weapons one attack every other round. The Prentice Rules particularly shine in the use of fantastic public domain art by the illustrators Henry Justice Ford and Victor R. Lambdin. Even if you are not a fan of the Holmes set it is worth checking out these rules just to see how this art has been masterfully juxtaposed with the rules. My only criticism of the look of the rules is the constant referral to the game as BLUEHOLME ^TM, which brings to mind mid-80s trademark proliferation in TSR products.

(Full disclosure: I am listed in the Acknowledgements section, which is quite an honor particularly given the other names that included).

Maze of Nuromen - this is an introductory module by J.B. of the Forbidden Mazes of the Jennerak blog. Here is his original post about the adventure from 2011. J.B. is also a member of the OD&D Discussion forums (as xerxez). This module continues with the use of great public domain art, here by Harry Clarke. I'll post more on this module when I have a chance to read through it in more detail.

Draw Your Own Floor Plan

The Cyclops' Treasure. Click on the map for a larger view

One feature of the module B2 Keep on the Borderlands, in both the original Holmes edition (1st and 2nd printings) and the revised Moldvay version (later printings), is a single sheet of detachable graph paper on page 27 of the module. This sheet is labeled DRAW YOUR OWN FLOOR PLAN in the same Futura font used in the module, Holmes Basic and the first three AD&D hardcovers. The grid area on the sheet is 10.25 by 7.5 inches at 4 squares per inch, giving 41 by 30 squares. The back side of the sheet (pg 28) contains a blank table for listing ADDITIONAL NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS. 

This sheet is part of the guidance for new DMs found on pages 1-7 and 24-28. The page preceding the graph paper is a map of Area 16 of the Keep, labeled GUILD HOUSE FLOOR PLAN, which shows two levels of the Guild House at a scale of 2 feet per square. It's the only area of the Keep with a map at that level of detail. This floor plan is described on page 24 in the section DESIGNING FLOOR PLANS, as an example of how to detail the buildings of the Keep, followed by the instructions to "lay out as many buildings of the KEEP as you can". So it's clear that the graph paper was intended for drawing the floor plans of more buildings. However, I never used it that way...

Shortly after learning how to play Holmes Basic D&D from some neighbors who had the same set, I found out my best friend E.H. had also learned the game from his older cousins. He had the Moldvay Basic and Expert sets, so he also had a version of B2. One of our fathers photocopied the graph paper page for us, and for a while we used these sheets for drawing our dungeons. E.H. also introduced me to his method of drawing dungeons with colored pens, generally with the dungeon in green ink and each trap or other feature in a different color. I retained one of his maps from our youth, which I recently returned to him after scanning, and this is shown above as an example.

I always thought my friend's maps turned out better than mine, in part because he had finer-tipped pens. This particular dungeon started with rooms 1-19 that he drew, with rooms 20-24 added by myself at a later date. Unfortunately, no corresponding key remains, and I have only the vaguest memory playing this through this dungeon. Other than room numbers, the only words on the map are "Cyclop Trease" (Cyclops Treasure, I believe), which means room 15 probably had a Cyclops from the D&D Expert Set.

I don't remember all of the notations he used, but a black square is obviously a Pit, a red "S" is a secret door, a yellow square is where a 10' Ceiling Block falls, a red square is a 10' fire wall, a blue-lined circle is a falling net (I may have added these later), and the blue lines in the corridor are a Moaning Corridor. Other possible features:

Room 2 - Ice (I think I added this later)
Room 6 - Magic Pool "whose waters have strange effect"
Room 7 - Red lines = Spray "that attracts Wandering Monsters"
Room 8 - Curtain in front of circular pit that may lead to red Chute near room 20
Room 9 - Hexagonal room with statue?
Room 9a - Gold behind some kind of special door?
Room 15 - Black lines = Spring-fired Darts
Room 16 - Room-filled with Poison Gas
Room 17 - Red line = Flying weapon that attacks "only if disturbed"
Room 18 - Yellow circle with BC? or BL? Blinding Lights?

Our early dungeons were typical Funhouse Dungeons / Monster Zoos, each room having a different monster essentially in stasis until encountered, without reason or connection to the other rooms. But they were perfect for us at that age (late elementary school). I would see E.H. every other weekend when he visited his father, and we would take turns DMing each other through our dungeons, each of us controlling an entire party of our own characters, typically 4 or 5 characters each.

The title Draw Your Own Floor Plan remains etched in my mind, and I even considered using it as a name for this blog. Instead I plan to post other maps drawn on this paper in a gallery on the ZA site. 

Did anyone else use this graph paper for their maps? Searching on the net, I found one other blogger who posted a map he drew on this paper: The RPG Corner's Own Floor Plan.

5/20/15 Update: Looking over the list of Traps in Moldvay Basic reminded that E.H. started with B/X, and the traps he used were clearly influenced by that list. I've bolded the ones that seem to correspond.

Wizard's Blue Book: New Magic Item

Wizard's Blue Book

Copies of this gigantic magical tome, bound in highly decorated blue leather, are extremely rare and highly sought after by magic-users, for it can prove very beneficial in their studies. The text is said to have been assembled long ago by the philosopher-mage Erekomes in the now Sunken Lands from knowledge he gathered in the forgotten cities of the Ancient Builders of the Underworld. More recently, certain correspondence obtained after the disappearance of the wizard Zenopus of Portown suggests that he possessed a copy but its whereabouts remain unaccounted for following the destruction of his tower.
 
Reading the entire book takes 3 months, and requires daily use of Read Magic and Read Languages to understand it because it is written in a magical script in an archaic language. Any magic-user finishing this course of study may add 10% to their chance of learning spells, or researching new spells - as long as they retain possession of the tome. In addition, the magic-user may make one new attempt to re-learn any spell which they previously failed to learn and still have a copy of. The book is even larger than ordinary magic books and may not be carried into a dungeon.

(Image is of an 1893 Russian Book from here)