Were Chainmail combat tables ever used for OD&D?

[harlandski]

I can't see this question recently on the forums, and as it's an important one for me, having spent rather a lot of time including hours of play working out how to use Chainmail combat tables for OD&D.

As far as I can tell the evidence for Chainmail combat tables having actually been used for combat in OD&D is:

1. The first three OD&D books expressly state that Chainmail should be used, and label the d20 system 'alternate'
2. A naive reader of the 3lbbs in the 1970s (like this naive reader in the 2010s) might have decided to pick up Chainmail, or might have used the copy s/he already had, to play the game.
3. The 3lbbs and Greyhawk both give Chainmail stats for characters at different levels.
4. Blackmoor also has numerous mentions of troop types that correspond to Chainmail

Against we have statements like:

Jan 16, 2019 12:36:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Dave Arneson had dropped CHAINMAIL long before he ever showed BLACKMOOR to Gary Gygax.

Rob Kuntz has stated repeatedly that CHAINMAIL was included in OD&D to boost sales of CHAINMAIL.

D&D did not "evolve" out of CHAINMAIL in any meaningful way. Dave Arneson started his first couple of BLACKMOOR games using the CHAINMAIL Fantasy Combat Table but dropped it within the first three or for games, per Swenson, Mayer, Megarry, et al.

The entire "Use CHAINMAIL for D&D" movement is based on mistaken premises, I fear.

Even if we accept everything in this statement (some of which doesn't sit well with the evidence of Blackmoor), what we have is that the designers never intended Chainmail combat tables to really be used for OD&D, and that they included the references to (and rules for) Chainmail as a marketing strategy.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that no-one did it anyway. The original D&D books were sold in their thousands, did nobody think to do what they actually said with regard to Chainmail?

I'd be interested to hear what increment thinks about this, and what he knows about the use of Chainmail combat tables with D&D from 1974.

[waysoftheearth]

3) Limitation on number of spall thrown/time period
Current local custom allows each MU 1/2 the sum of his Intelligence
and Constitution a day in a dungeon. This my be modified to permit
this to be increased in terms of the number of men he fights as. In
any case, throwing spells uses up energy, which can be partially
restored by frequent resting after fighting.

…

Gary Switzer: Agree, CHAINMAIL isn't all that good a set of rules. The problem
with using miniatures is that this forces setting up each room, which
slows down the game.

…

The latest prices we have are: D&D $10, Chainmail & Greyhawk $5 each,
dice $2.50 per set--one each D4, D6, D8, D12, D20. CHAINMAIL is the
predecessor of D&D and is useful for resolving missile fire in melee.
Greyhawk is the first supplement with new spells, monsters and treasure.

…

Some Proposed Parameters for Firearms: Ted Johnstone
All the following are handled after the form used in CHAINMAIL for projectile weapons, dividing the maximum range into thirds ("close", "medium" and "long") and giving three numbers to indicate the 2D6 roll needed to hit at the respective ranges.

…

12. If you use the Alternative combat tables, do you run a battle
between a party and, say, Bandits, letting both groups use
Attack Matrix One, or do the Bandits use Attack Matrix Two on the
grounds that (I, 12) "the term 'monster' includes men found in the
dungeons."

Some comments printed in A&E #1 (from June 1975).
Emphasis mine.

Also Mark Bufkin's BTPbD (late 1973?) which integrates the M2M rules into the 3LBBs. Supposedly he never played his 'variant' but it illustrates what he was thinking at the time.

Probably there are other hints from the time that could be dug up with more effort...

[harlandski]

Jan 17, 2019 4:36:45 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

3) Limitation on number of spall thrown/time period
Current local custom allows each MU 1/2 the sum of his Intelligence
and Constitution a day in a dungeon. This my be modified to permit
this to be increased in terms of the number of men he fights as. In
any case, throwing spells uses up energy, which can be partially
restored by frequent resting after fighting.

…

Gary Switzer: Agree, CHAINMAIL isn't all that good a set of rules. The problem
with using miniatures is that this forces setting up each room, which
slows down the game.

…

The latest prices we have are: D&D $10, Chainmail & Greyhawk $5 each,
dice $2.50 per set--one each D4, D6, D8, D12, D20. CHAINMAIL is the
predecessor of D&D and is useful for resolving missile fire in melee.
Greyhawk is the first supplement with new spells, monsters and treasure.

…

Some Proposed Parameters for Firearms: Ted Johnstone
All the following are handled after the form used in CHAINMAIL for projectile weapons, dividing the maximum range into thirds ("close", "medium" and "long") and giving three numbers to indicate the 2D6 roll needed to hit at the respective ranges.

…

12. If you use the Alternative combat tables, do you run a battle
between a party and, say, Bandits, letting both groups use
Attack Matrix One, or do the Bandits use Attack Matrix Two on the
grounds that (I, 12) "the term 'monster' includes men found in the
dungeons."

Some comments printed in A&E #1 (from June 1975).
Emphasis mine.

Also Mark Bufkin's BTPbD (late 1973?) which integrates the M2M rules into the 3LBBs. Supposedly he never played his 'variant' but it illustrates what he was thinking at the time.

Probably there are other hints from the time that could be dug up with more effort...

That's some really cool stuff, thanks! It reminded me that pdf back issues of Alarums and Excursions are also on my list of things to buy.

[increment]

Jan 17, 2019 1:54:34 GMT -6 harlandski said:

Even if we accept everything in this statement (some of which doesn't sit well with the evidence of Blackmoor), what we have is that the designers never intended Chainmail combat tables to really be used for OD&D, and that they included the references to (and rules for) Chainmail as a marketing strategy.

I've gone on record about this particular issue before here in this post: the Alternative Combat System is underspecified in OD&D, and while we're tempted to fill that vacuum with later systems, I think as intended it had a lot of structural dependencies on Chainmail. The further question of whether the resulting OD&D system is so different that no one was "using Chainmail" at the time is a philosophical one, not something that can be resolved with a historical inquiry.

[peterlind]

I suggest that you might want to seek anecdotal evidence, or set up a poll, for the folks who played back in the day. I played OD&D with supplements starting from late '77, which included pick up games with different GMs at my local gamestore. I also personally had a copy of Chainmail. However, I never saw the Chainmail rules used to resolve combat in a D&D game. But this was just me and I am from the West Coast.

[harlandski]

Jan 17, 2019 11:00:06 GMT -6 increment said:

Jan 17, 2019 1:54:34 GMT -6 harlandski said:

Even if we accept everything in this statement (some of which doesn't sit well with the evidence of Blackmoor), what we have is that the designers never intended Chainmail combat tables to really be used for OD&D, and that they included the references to (and rules for) Chainmail as a marketing strategy.

I've gone on record about this particular issue before here in this post: the Alternative Combat System is underspecified in OD&D, and while we're tempted to fill that vacuum with later systems, I think as intended it had a lot of structural dependencies on Chainmail. The further question of whether the resulting OD&D system is so different that no one was "using Chainmail" at the time is a philosophical one, not something that can be resolved with a historical inquiry.

Thank you for responding - I really appreciate it. I've now read the two previous posts you linked, and they're very cogent and informative, as I would expect. As someone who's recently started playing OD&D, I can confirm that I found it impossible without first adopting various parts of Chainmail (turn structure, morale, missile ranges) to make up a playable system. The fact that concepts such as armor class, saving throws etc carry across from Chainmail to D&D is also incontrovertible.

But my specific question is about the Chainmail combat tables ('normal' and Man-to-Man melee, fantasy, 'normal' and individual missile). I've discovered from play that once you have the turn structure and morale systems in place, you can swap out e.g. the Alternative Combat System and the Man-to-Man / Individual Missile tables in a modular manner. And both 'work', ie produce a playable game.

I suppose what I was wondering is whether there is evidence of people using any of Chainmail combat tables instead of the Alternative Combat System after the publication of D&D in 1974, and waysoftheearth has already provided some, suggesting some Chainmail missile tables were being used in OD&D.

[Deleted]

I have never seen anyone "back in the day" use the CHAINMAIL combat tables for D&D.

If you want to try it and see what happens, go nuts. Let us know how it works.

I predict it will be far bloodier than the ACS, because it's a wargame, and the aim is to get figures off the table.

[waysoftheearth]

Jan 16, 2019 12:36:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

But Dave Arneson had dropped CHAINMAIL long before he ever showed BLACKMOOR to Gary Gygax.

Rob Kuntz has stated repeatedly that CHAINMAIL was included in OD&D to boost sales of CHAINMAIL.

D&D did not "evolve" out of CHAINMAIL in any meaningful way. Dave Arneson started his first couple of BLACKMOOR games using the CHAINMAIL Fantasy Combat Table but dropped it within the first three or for games, per Swenson, Mayer, Megarry, et al.

The entire "Use CHAINMAIL for D&D" movement is based on mistaken premises, I fear.

"Rob Kuntz has stated repeatedly that CHAINMAIL was included in OD&D to boost sales of CHAINMAIL."

Imagine if this sales strategy actually worked... what then?

Maybe that's why we see those CM hints in A&E as late as June 1975?

[increment]

I do think we should understand an example like the CONTAX system, as waysoftheearth already mentioned, as showing a way people incorporated the Chainmail tables into OD&D. But because there was so little guidance about combat in OD&D, the integration of Chainmail was probably different in different places. Groups that already had experience with Chainmail before OD&D came out might have approached the new rules as just an adjunct to Chainmail, at first.

There are play reports in GPGPN, for example, that seem to flip between Chainmail and D&D pretty seamlessly. Like in July 1974, Lurvey talks about running "a Chainmail Fantasy scenario" where "the scenario centered around gentlefem Gwendoline, who had departed on a Dungeon expedition a wizard of the sixteenth rank and had returned much the worse for wear." Sounds they were importing ideas from OD&D, and much of the action that follows took place "underground", as Lurvey put it. In a play report a few months later also relating to the Gwendoline scenario, Lurvey is clearly talking in Chainmail terms ("Gary's superhero wiped out a dragon, but was himself killed after several turns of combat, Bill lost two heros to a Nazgul-Wraith, which was finally downed by a mob of Mike's Elves"). But he seems to label this a Dungeons & Dragons session. For some early adopters in the wargaming community, the transition to OD&D probably came in fits and starts, drawing heavily on prior experiences with Chainmail.

Or look at a piece in Wild Hunt #4 (1976), where George Phillies wrote about "two general styles" of approaching the question of how many swings you got in the alternative combat system, per my earlier post. As an aside to those two styles, he mentions, "I exclude the large group north of here [Boston] that only uses the Chainmail rules." That suggests Phillies was aware of early adopters who didn't use the alternative combat system, but instead the Chainmail system.

There are other scattered pieces of evidence like that. In a blog post a while ago, I showed a scan from a copy of Chainmail which happened to belong to Bill Owen of the Judges Guild. Owen has written the armor class numbers from OD&D (9 to 2) into the man-to-man Chainmail combat tables. That's the sort of thing you'd do if you were using the Chainmail man-to-man tables to determine hits in OD&D, or at least, I'm not sure why else you'd do it.

So I suppose I'd say there are reasons to think that at least some people were using the Chainmail combat tables, though there wasn't just one way to do it. The rules are just guidelines, after all.

[Deleted]

As far as Jim's report in GPGPN, was he mixing systems or was this casual use of wording? Did he mix systems or verbiage?

Since Jim is still in Vermillion, SD and on Facebook, you could ask him what he meant.

[thegreyelf]

Honestly, of all the people here, Mike's statements can be generally taken as authoritative. He was there, after all, and if he says Dave and Gary weren't using Chainmail combat, they likely weren't using Chainmail combat. Naturally, the references are in the books, and certainly it makes sense that in home games across the country (and world) people tried it. Hell, that goes on even to this day. A number of years ago, around 2009, in fact, there was a great deal of theorizing and discussion surrounding how this would be accomplished. The first "substantial" work, to my knowledge, was my effort, Forbidden Lore, which can be found here:

www.grey-elf.com/Forbidden_Lore.pdf

Others added to, corrected, and expanded on that over the ensuing months, leading to aldarron putting together a complete Chainmail combat system. It works extremely well, and I use it at my table to this day, as I actually prefer it to the d20-based so-called "alternate" system. Adarron's booklet can be seen here:

www.grey-elf.com/compleat-chainmail.pdf

Mine is simpler and more straightforward (and the entirety of it is included in my Age of Conan booklet), but still 100% workable, while Aldarron's is an exceptionally complete look at Chainmail as a combat system for OD&D. It forms almost an OD&D Book 4. Where mine assumes you own Chainmail and requires referencing that work, Aldarron's is complete in and of itself, and includes such subsystems as mounted combat, dismounting warriors on horse, unarmed combat (grappling, pummeling, etc.) and has an expansive list of creatures with Chainmail/Fantasy Combat statistics.

As Mike has stated, the "alternate" d20-based combat system was actaully used as the core system, and nobody really ever used Chainnmail back in the day for more than quick references to things not covered in OD&D.

I have a bunch of other OD&D resources at my website: www.grey-elf.com/ , including books tweaking OD&D for Age of Conan games (designed for Chainmail combat), Barsoom games (based on Warriors of Mars and good for whichever combat you prefer), Star Wars (using the d20 system) and others. Enjoy.

[magremore]

Jan 19, 2019 6:23:16 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Adarron's booklet can be seen here:

www.grey-elf.com/compleat-chainmail.pdf

Help a lazy fellow out—is this Aldarron's "Using Chainmail To Resolve OD&D Combats" from 2010 just re-skinned? 

[thegreyelf]

Jan 24, 2019 6:58:59 GMT -6 magremore said:

Jan 19, 2019 6:23:16 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Adarron's booklet can be seen here:

www.grey-elf.com/compleat-chainmail.pdf

Help a lazy fellow out—is this Aldarron's "Using Chainmail To Resolve OD&D Combats" from 2010 just re-skinned? 

It's not even re-skinned. I just put a cover and table of contents on it. He gave me the OK to do so YEARS ago.

[Malchor]

From an email exchange with Lee Gold:

“I used to play Original D&D with a couple of bits of Chainmail plus Greyhawk.”

Edit: as noted in Ways post, Lee was likely refering to using Chainmail for resolving missile fire.

[Finarvyn]

These threads are always a little tricky. If the question is "did anyone use Chainmail?" than my answer is "yes" since I played around that time and I used Chainmail sometimes in our OD&D games. We liked the Alternate method better, but we tried all sorts of variations back in the day because no one was there (except for the Strategic Review) to give us clues on how to play.

If the question is "did Dave use Chainmail?" or "did Gary use Chainmail?" or "did Phil use Chainmail?" or … well, you get the idea .. than the best we can do is to take the word of folks like Michael who played in their campaigns. On the other hand, as Michael identifies himself as a "second wave" player, even he probably doesn't know what rules were used prior to him joining the campaigns.

Logic tells me that since Chainmail was out there, and Chainmail has many references in the OD&D rulebooks, that Chainmail must have played a part in the evolution of the game at some point. Some of the researchers have said that the Chainmail connection is overstated, and that it wasn't as much a part of the development as Strategos. I can't say, having not had access to much of their information. All I can say is that for our group Chainmail happened before OD&D and we saw OD&D as a natural extension of the Chainmail miniatures games that we had been playing and that is one reason that I think we understood OD&D so well when others say it's confusing in its presentation.

I just can't speak to what "they" did.

[atlantean]

     The one thing that Chainmail adds to the game was ranges for missile fire which were not given in the LBBs.  In the very brief period of time that my group played with-
 
out Greyhawk (one game that ended in a TPK and maybe one other) we agreed to use Chainmail's man to man missile fire table but I don't remember a situation where it  

came up during play.

[waysoftheearth]

The other foundation out of Chainmail that could have been "unconsciously" ported to D&D is morale, and specifically when to check morale. The LOSS TABLE's casualty triggers and Score to Remain could so easily have become the basis of D&D morale checks.

I'm not suggesting the originals did this; just that other players could have easily done it. Otherwise, they could have invented their own morale rule, used another morale system, or just ignored morale entirely. All possible.

[Malchor]

Jan 29, 2019 5:54:14 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

The other foundation out of Chainmail that could have been "unconsciously" ported to D&D is morale, and specifically when to check morale. The LOSS TABLE's casualty triggers and Score to Remain could so easily have become the basis of D&D morale checks.

I'm not suggesting the originals did this; just that other players could have easily done it. Otherwise, they could have invented their own morale rule, used another morale system, or just ignored morale entirely. All possible.

This. It seems the more frequently ported bits were small and specific rather than for combat as a whole.

There were, of course, some other attempts or uses, sometimes for larger battles.

And of course, use (or non-use) was different in different clubs or for different DMs.

It was kind of the same for Warlock. Someone might dis Cal-Tech's Dungeons and Beavers, but then a sentence or two later point out how great it is to use a specific table or other rule from it.

There was no "one way," but many very creative ways to use, or not use, parts of Chainmail. And I'm speaking of reports from early players who were not with the big three.