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Post by Zenopus on Mar 16, 2015 19:34:47 GMT -6
I love that. For years now it has echoed in my imagination: "Fear the worm, not the dragon." It's why the background for my own game world has become "medieval civilization rebuilt after an apocalypse of worms." (And let us not forget the note regarding purple worms on page 15 of M&T: "These huge and hungry monsters lurk nearly everywhere just beneath the surface of the land.") Just beneath the surface. Makes you wonder how deep "just beneath the surface" is... Holmes has one prowling about on the first level of the dungeon in The Maze of Peril. An obstacle to be avoided rather than a monster to fight.
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 16, 2015 20:21:56 GMT -6
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 16, 2015 20:28:51 GMT -6
"Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." --Bilbo (in "An Unexpected Party") Can anyone doubt that the wild Were-worms are purple?
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 16, 2015 21:17:03 GMT -6
"Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." --Bilbo (in "An Unexpected Party") Can anyone doubt that the wild Were-worms are purple? Red - but that's pretty close - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_death_worm(The original draft mentions the Gobi)
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Post by geoffrey on Mar 16, 2015 21:53:36 GMT -6
"Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." --Bilbo (in "An Unexpected Party") Can anyone doubt that the wild Were-worms are purple? Red - but that's pretty close - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_death_worm(The original draft mentions the Gobi) Whoa. I didn't realize that Tolkien was referencing a cryptid! There is, of course, an obvious explanation for the Mongolian death worm's red color. They are only 2' to 5' in length. They are merely baby purple worms! As they mature, they attain their purple color. Clearly, none of those in Mongolia who have sighted adult purple worms has lived to tell the tale...
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Post by cooper on May 13, 2015 15:25:39 GMT -6
Reading the other day Lynn Thornd**es monumental 13 volume series "magic and the experimental sciences in the first thirteen centuries of our era" I came across an interesting mention of dragons. Greek and Roman word for Dragon was for a description of a creature existing in India at the time which, today, is commonly referred to as a Python snake.
This makes sense as one can easily imagine how one would react to a 15-20 foot long monstrosity when your only previous experience is with 1-3 foot long creatures; it almost requires a new vocabulary.
One then can look at the artwork from the middle-ages and see how the Greek/Latin word became interpreted through Christian Apocrypha. Furthermore, extrapolating to Tolkien; Tolkien's goal was to codify mythology of Europe as he did with all of the conflicting types of faerie (codify them into elves dwarves and orcs). The first dragon, Glarung, was wingless and possibly legless (called by Tolkien a "long worm" and "serpent"). This follows the Greek/Roman view of "dragon", later interpretations added legs, wings, and fire and therefore the offspring of Glarung, like Smaug, developed as such.
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Post by Stormcrow on May 14, 2015 6:37:04 GMT -6
Furthermore, extrapolating to Tolkien; Tolkien's goal was to codify mythology of Europe as he did with all of the conflicting types of faerie (codify them into elves dwarves and orcs). The first dragon, Glarung, was wingless and possibly legless (called by Tolkien a "long worm" and "serpent"). This follows the Greek/Roman view of "dragon", later interpretations added legs, wings, and fire and therefore the offspring of Glarung, like Smaug, developed as such. This was not Tolkien's goal. His main goal was to give context to his invented languages. At one point he was trying to invent an English mythology, since real English mythology has largely been lost or merged with others, but this goal was largely forgotten as his mythology grew. The difference between Tolkien's early and later dragons was wings only, not legs. Glaurung had legs.
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Post by cooper on May 14, 2015 7:17:10 GMT -6
How about "a goal of tolkiens". Based on the numerous doctoral dissertations on the subject of his codification of mythology (he probably did not include anything in ME that wasn't in some ways grounded in real world mythology) certainly was a goal. He wasn't some pulp fantasist who just made up races because he thought the concept was cool. In European myth, what we now know as "dwarves elves and goblins/orcs" we're universally called "elfs" or "faerie"; some bearded, short an industrious, sometimes tall and fair, other times depicted as grotesque and malignant. Tolkien solidified the taxonomical classifications of, what was until then, mostly oral myth.
Why wouldn't it be assumed that tolkiens various species of dragon would also derive from the various conflicting oral and written myths of antiquity and the medieval age?
Anyway, I looked up Glaurung's and he is described as having forelegs and Tolkien drew a picture of him, wormlike, but with legs.
Tolkien is still ancillary to what the Hellenistic and Romans considered "Dragons" and the effect that undoubtably had on 1st-5th century Christians in that area and specifically the Christian art depicting St. George.
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Post by aldarron on Feb 6, 2020 9:10:38 GMT -6
This question came up in another thread regarding the HD as damage dice reference: ....do we have any way to date Snider's dragon write-up? As you said on your blog, it doesn't appear in the Snider variant. And, it didn't carry over to AiF. This example could be an outlier. I've always been under the impression that "hit dice" was just an informal name for the number of dice that figures get to roll to-hit. There is no attack roll included with a dragon's breath attack; only saving throws (maybe). How is the dragon's hit probability determined when he's clawing or biting? Are there any other examples of "hit dice"-as-damage? Could it be that the to-hit determination AND the damage are decided with the same, single roll of the "hit dice"? The dating isn't especially relevant (probably 1974, possibly 75 or 76). It certainly was written before 1977. The point rather is how the term is being used. It's not unique to Richard. HD as damage dice also appears in EPT and other TC material. The manpower list very likely reflects this too.
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 6, 2020 12:05:17 GMT -6
aldarron, EPT uses the term "damage dice" for the damage roll in the published and the manuscript versions. There are "hit dice" in EPT, but they serve the same function as they do in published d&d. They are rolled between battles, or during levelling, to determine a combatant's hit point total. This question came up in another thread regarding the HD as damage dice reference: ....do we have any way to date Snider's dragon write-up? As you said on your blog, it doesn't appear in the Snider variant. And, it didn't carry over to AiF. This example could be an outlier. I've always been under the impression that "hit dice" was just an informal name for the number of dice that figures get to roll to-hit. There is no attack roll included with a dragon's breath attack; only saving throws (maybe). How is the dragon's hit probability determined when he's clawing or biting? Are there any other examples of "hit dice"-as-damage? Could it be that the to-hit determination AND the damage are decided with the same, single roll of the "hit dice"? The dating isn't especially relevant (probably 1974, possibly 75 or 76). It certainly was written before 1977. The point rather is how the term is being used. It's not unique to Richard. HD as damage dice also appears in EPT and other TC material. The manpower list very likely reflects this too. The only reference to manpower that I could find was this: "As any attempted Chronicler is undoubtedly residing in some Trolls stomach, the number of fantastic creatures is unknown. Estimated Man- power in known World is 2OO000 Men." - taken from the FFC Snider Additions You must have meant something else by "manpower list". I was interested in the origin of the term "hit dice" as posited by waysofearth. To be meaningful to me, any reference would need to be dated to a time before d&d was published (and, preferably, to an Arneson refereed campaign). Any later than that and the published definition of the term is what my mind is going to default to, wherever I read "hit dice". "Hit Dice" was originally (in Arneson's game) the number of dice your rolled for damage if you scored a hit. The amount of damage you could sustain before dying was another stat called "Hits to Kill" (HTK). Fighter HD (damage) increased each level; HTK was a fixed value per tier (from vague memory it was something like 6 for flunkies/normals, 12 for heroes, and 24 for supers). The foregoing is all news to me. I'm happy to accept it, but I want more context. My hope is that this definition has substance more than being just a semantic difference. In your blog post about the asymetrical use of armor class, you put together an Ironclads-deri ed table of AC values for monsters to roll against. Is this how a dragon (without regard to his size or age or "hit dice") would find his chance to hit an attacker, using his claws or bite? Is this how any monster would determine their hit probability, exchanging regular (non-"special attacks") blows?
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Post by derv on Feb 6, 2020 15:44:13 GMT -6
It's as Ways and Aldarron are saying.
There's a chart for dragons in the FFC by Snider. It lists HD and an explanation is under the chart.
HTK is found in various places and is similar to hit points.
The "manpower" section Dan is referencing is found under "Blackmoor's More Infamous Characters". There you'll see stats like:
Baron Jenkins: HD 6+2; 28 men Swenson's Freehold: HD 8+5; 30 men
He's saying HD here is likely "damage dice" and not a reflection of HTK or hit points, which was a fixed number based on level.
p.44 "The nature and powers of the Spells and Swords were taken right from the available copies of Chainmail, which served as the basis for all our combat."
There is also the argument that combat evolved or at least was influenced by Strategos.
I'm not sure it completely matters how a hit was determined, the point is that HD, as it was being used, was not a factor for determining hp's.
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 6, 2020 17:33:08 GMT -6
It's as Ways and Aldarron are saying. There's a chart for dragons in the FFC by Snider. It lists HD and an explanation is under the chart. HTK is found in various places and is similar to hit points. The "manpower" section Dan is referencing is found under "Blackmoor's More Infamous Characters". There you'll see stats like: Baron Jenkins: HD 6+2; 28 men Swenson's Freehold: HD 8+5; 30 men He's saying HD here is likely "damage dice" and not a reflection of HTK or hit points, which was a fixed number based on level. There is a chart for dragons in the FFC by Snider. Yes. HTK is found in the later, GenCon stocking lists for dungeon levels 1-6. I don't know why Arneson didn't just call them h.p. by this point (1976?), but he knows what he meant. Thanks for the lead on the manpower list. My text search tool was lettin' me down. This is interesting. In D&D, "named" NPCs listed with exact hit point values rather than hit dice. "Blackmoor's Infamous Characters" was a convention handout, was it not? These aren't playable stat blocks. Either way, the mere mention of HD next to an NPC doesn't give it an alternate meaning as a method to generate damage. I took waysofearth's original statement to mean that Arneson originated the concept of "hit dice" so that melee damage could be calculated and, later, Gygax repurposed the term to mean what it does in published D&D. Snider's dragon table in the FFC portrays hit dice just as aldarron said that it would, but if it wasn't made until 1974, and it wasn't written by Gygax or Arneson, then the "damage dice" meaning of the term wouldn't have been the original meaning. p.s.: I am aware, from Dan's blog, that monster hit points were assigned, rather than randomly generated. So, when Arneson says that they didn't really use "hit dice", I take it to mean that he literally didn't roll dice to come up with monsters' hit points. I think that, either the HD mentions in FFC were from later games that were ACTUALLY compatible with published D&D, or Arneson updated his original notes to comport with modern D&D style stats for convenience sake
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Post by derv on Feb 6, 2020 18:27:44 GMT -6
Snider was one of Arneson's original players, as were Jenkins and Swenson. The use of the word "hit dice" has origins in wargaming and predates both Gary and Dave's campaigns. In wargames a hit was a kill. Damage and "hits" were synonymous.
I'm not sure that there are actually that many references to HD in the FFC. And where we know D&D was used, such as some of the content for Blackmoor Dungeon (first 6 levels), the mention of HD as we have come to know it is absent. Instead, only AC and HTK is listed.
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Post by Zenopus on Feb 6, 2020 18:41:25 GMT -6
I think that, either the HD mentions in FFC were from later games that were ACTUALLY compatible with published D&D, or Arneson updated his original notes to comport with modern D&D style stats for convenience sake I hear you. This is why I take all arguments based on FFC alone with a big grain of salt. We don't know how much these notes were edited or updated between 1973 and 1977. Until the text can be shown to be identical to one produced at an earlier date, it's just conjecture. Even minor changes could really throw off interpretations.
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Post by aldarron on Feb 7, 2020 8:18:06 GMT -6
Snider's dragon table in the FFC portrays hit dice just as aldarron said that it would, but if it wasn't made until 1974, and it wasn't written by Gygax or Arneson, then the "damage dice" meaning of the term wouldn't have been the original meaning. That last statement appears to claim that Richard Snider was some kind of outsider who took words defined in D&D and re-defined them on his own. I'm sorry but that's unlikely to the extreme. It is simply an example in a published work of how a core TC gamer applied a term in a way familiar to that group in the period in which they were still all gaining together. "Hit dice" wasn't a term they used very formally or very often, and it is not unlikely that it became more common after D&D was published but that is irrelevant, to them it clearly could mean dice rolled to determine hits. That's the whole point. The term "Hit Dice" is rarely used and is used by Arneson only in relation to characters. It *appears* to have been used informally as one of several ways to say the same thing and in two ways, as damage dice, certainly in at least some circumstances, and possibly as a dice pool to determine hits (attack dice) though the evidence for the latter is thin at present. In my opinion it functioned both ways depending on who was attacking. HTK is the term used in 1976 in the restocking of Blackmoor dungeon levels 1-6. I don't know of any earlier use. Before that the informal terms for what we would call Hit Points was simply "hits" or "points" . Examples of each even in the same entry can be found in the mini monster manual in the FFC and lots of other places. p.s.: I am aware, from Dan's blog, that monster hit points were assigned, rather than randomly generated. So, when Arneson says that they didn't really use "hit dice", I take it to mean that he literally didn't roll dice to come up with monsters' hit points. Sort of. Initially monsters had fixed points per CM point costs. Sometime in 1972 (after July) Arneson began experimenting with HP variations in d6 intervals (again see the mini monster manual, also levels 7-10 of Blackmoor dungeon - some discussion relevant to the latter touched on HERE). I think that, either the HD mentions in FFC were from later games that were ACTUALLY compatible with published D&D, or Arneson updated his original notes to comport with modern D&D style stats for convenience sake Sure, I would agree with that statement in two of three cases - otherwise it has very little application. As I said above, there are very few mentions of HD in the FFC (the manpower list, the "How to become a bad Guy" bit and Sniders monsters). Of these, only they manpower list is pre-D&D, and if you are claiming that is edited for compatibility with mid 1970's D&D then.... well let's just say you would be incorrect. The manpower list is from 1971. It lists characters who at that time had fixed HP, and is not likely to refer to HP in any case given the bonuses. Therefore, it likely refers to damage dice. aldarron, EPT uses the term "damage dice" for the damage roll in the published and the manuscript versions. There are "hit dice" in EPT, but they serve the same function as they do in published d&d. They are rolled between battles, or during levelling, to determine a combatant's hit point total. Ahem. "Cure light wounds: this restores 1-6 points of hit dice damage (roll a 6 sided die) to any being. It is usable only once a day" (p13, Green Cover) IIRC there are also references in AiF to Hit Dice as damage dice, but I haven't got all day to retype things I've talked about before. (yes, as a professional scholar who's spent more than a decade researching and writing about this stuff, I'm a tad grumpy at being doubted all the d**n time.) Note that I wouldn't argue Barker necessarily confuses Hit Dice and damage dice, here or in other places where he uses the term this way, but it does show a certain informality and flexibility of the meaning.
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Post by aldarron on Feb 7, 2020 8:44:11 GMT -6
I think that, either the HD mentions in FFC were from later games that were ACTUALLY compatible with published D&D, or Arneson updated his original notes to comport with modern D&D style stats for convenience sake I hear you. This is why I take all arguments based on FFC alone with a big grain of salt. We don't know how much these notes were edited or updated between 1973 and 1977. Until the text can be shown to be identical to one produced at an earlier date, it's just conjecture. Even minor changes could really throw off interpretations. That sounds eminently reasonable - until you actually look at specific parts of the text and consider what is actually there. Looking at what is actually there is what scholars do, but you've just dismissed entire fields of textual critical studies given that Original Source texts are almost never available - New Testamet, for example - though we do have some for the FFC. Those few of us who study the FFC aren't idiots and while skepticism is useful, blanket dismissals are not.
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akooser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 150
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Post by akooser on Feb 7, 2020 9:43:55 GMT -6
HTK is the term used in 1976 in the restocking of Blackmoor dungeon levels 1-6. I don't know of any earlier use. Before that the informal terms for what we would call Hit Points was simply "hits" or "points" . Examples of each even in the same entry can be found in the mini monster manual in the FFC and lots of other places. I am with aldarron here on the term hit dice for rolling hits. This terminology and mechanics were in use in several naval warfare rules sets that the Blackmoor group had and used. HTK is pre-Blackmoor because it shows up in the Strategos documents for figures that need multiple hits to kill, always a fixed value.
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Post by retrorob on Feb 7, 2020 10:27:55 GMT -6
HTK is the term used in 1976 in the restocking of Blackmoor dungeon levels 1-6. I don't know of any earlier use. Before that the informal terms for what we would call Hit Points was simply "hits" or "points" . Examples of each even in the same entry can be found in the mini monster manual in the FFC and lots of other places. Actually vol. III mentions HTK: But I guess it's rather a figure of speech here, used interchangeably with "points of damage".
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 7, 2020 12:09:42 GMT -6
To reiterate:
The op explains that, at Dave Arneson's table, the phrase "Hit Dice" referred to the dice thrown by an attacker to figure the amount of damage dealt if their attack had succeeded (what we now call "rolling for damage"). Not to be confused with the modern term "hit dice", which are the dice used to roll up the starting hit points for npc monsters; nor to be confused with the dice thrown in wargames to tally the number of casualties inflicted on enemy units (one per man). The op continues, pointing out that, originally, fighters received additional "Hit Dice" to roll for more "damage" against future victims, as a reward for levelling. Coincidentally, all hit points were called HTK's (hits to kill), at these games, and they were static (not rolled with "hit dice"). So far, the material source for this information has been Arneson's campaign notes published in 1977, and specifically a table of dragon stats created by Richard Snider (another Blackmoor referee).
Whatever the semantic issues between the terms (hits, points, dice, etc.), I think the mechanical difference between what waysofearth posted and what's in the D&D rules is interesting. Even if this version of "Hit Dice" turns out not to be relevant to the development of Dungeons and Dragons, I'd definitely still try it out at my table.
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 7, 2020 12:22:11 GMT -6
HTK is the term used in 1976 in the restocking of Blackmoor dungeon levels 1-6. I don't know of any earlier use. Before that the informal terms for what we would call Hit Points was simply "hits" or "points" . Examples of each even in the same entry can be found in the mini monster manual in the FFC and lots of other places. I am with aldarron here on the term hit dice for rolling hits. This terminology and mechanics were in use in several naval warfare rules sets that the Blackmoor group had and used. HTK is pre-Blackmoor because it shows up in the Strategos documents for figures that need multiple hits to kill, always a fixed value. Would you believe, I couldn't find the phrase "hit dice" anywhere that I looked?! I didn't see it in Chainmail, or Strategos, or Bath's Ancient Wargaming, or Don't Give up the Ship. Even D&D calls it something different on the advancement tables. What other game calls attack dice "hit dice"?
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Post by derv on Feb 7, 2020 12:35:14 GMT -6
captainjapan I thought an early example might be of help. The term "hit dice" is not directly used per se and this example is not my way of saying this is exactly what Arneson was doing. But, you'll get the idea of the general understanding of the time. This comes from my favorite wargaming book. I hold it in high esteem and have mentioned it in other threads in the past. It's Don Featherstone's, War Games. The excerpt comes from the section on Ancient Warfare, taken from rules devised by Tony Bath. A brief explanation- cavalry are worth 2 points and infantry are worth 1 point each (point costs ie. hit points). Force A is made up of 10 cavalry (20 points) and Force B consists of 15 infantrymen (15 points). "One dice is thrown for every five points involved, so that Force A have four dice and Force B have three dice. An attacking force is deemed to have a certain 'shock' value known as impetus- which means that for the first round of fighting Force A can add one to each dice total." "Let us assume that Force A throw their four dice and score 5,4,3, and 2, which with one added to each dice, gives them a total of 18. Force B throw their three dice and score 6,6, and 4- a total of 16. Force A have therefore caused casualties to Force B of 9 points whilst Force B have caused casualties to Force A of eight points. The total casualties are determined by counting half the total dice scored as casualties." "In the case of this particular melee, Force A would lose 4 cavalrymen (worth 2 points) whilst Force B would lose 9 infantrymen." I hope this example helps with thinking about HD a little differently. One more point, when the term "dice" is used it means "number of dice". So, you are rolling a certain number of dice to determine "hits" or "kills" (casualties) or "damage".
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 7, 2020 13:40:12 GMT -6
If we're talking about the same book (the one with the Battle of Trismos?), then yeah, that was the first place I went for the answer, too.
The first Featherstone book, is it?
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akooser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 150
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Post by akooser on Feb 7, 2020 16:35:46 GMT -6
Just to clarify I was talking about HTK coming from the Blackmoor group's versions of Strategos which pre-date the Blackmoor game. I realized I wasn't clear there.
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 7, 2020 16:49:29 GMT -6
Just to clarify I was talking about HTK coming from the Blackmoor group's versions of Strategos which pre-date the Blackmoor game. I realized I wasn't clear there. I looked for this, but I could not find HTK in the rules. Strategos figures represent 100 men each, though, so I'm sure there probably was such a thing.
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akooser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 150
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Post by akooser on Feb 7, 2020 16:53:40 GMT -6
Just to clarify I was talking about HTK coming from the Blackmoor group's versions of Strategos which pre-date the Blackmoor game. I realized I wasn't clear there. I looked for this, but I could not find HTK in the rules. Strategos figures represent 100 men each, though, so I'm sure there probably was such a thing. It's in Strategos A !
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akooser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 150
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Post by akooser on Feb 7, 2020 16:55:11 GMT -6
If we're talking about the same book (the one with the Battle of Trismos?), then yeah, that was the first place I went for the answer, too. The first Featherstone book, is it? Yeah! I think it's the Tackle Model Soldiers This Way. Sometimes called Close Little Wars?
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Post by captainjapan on Feb 7, 2020 16:58:01 GMT -6
I looked for this, but I could not find HTK in the rules. Strategos figures represent 100 men each, though, so I'm sure there probably was such a thing. It's in Strategos A ! That's very cool! Are you an old twin cities guy?
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akooser
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 150
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Post by akooser on Feb 7, 2020 17:02:07 GMT -6
It's in Strategos A ! That's very cool! Are you an old twin cities guy? Nope! A not so young data scientist that does lots of text mining and analysis for work. Data mining RPG texts is a bit of a side hobby. I've dumped out some of the analysis in a thread or two around here. Plus I like taking documents apart and figuring out where there early rules/mechanics came from (i.e. object studies in anthro). EDIT: I still run and play many of these early war games. Typically for rpg designers. Since there are so many interesting bits and war gamers are typically decades ahead of rpgs in term of design space explored.
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Post by Zenopus on Feb 7, 2020 21:31:21 GMT -6
Judges Guild was using the term "HTK" extensively before they published First Fantasy Campaign, JG37. It's used throughout JG03 Initial Guidelines which came out in 1976, J10 The Guide to the City State (1976 or 1977), the original Tegel Manor (1977, JG27), and the original Modron (1977, JG34). These are the majority of JG publications that refer to hit points prior to First Fantasy Campaign (some others, like the Ready Ref sheets don't have a need for the term).
So, how do we know that Judges Guild did not edit Arneson's notes for FFC to include HTK so that it was consistent with the prior JG products?
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Post by retrorob on Feb 8, 2020 5:41:26 GMT -6
FWIW Craig VanGrasstek in "Game of DUNGEON" also used "hits to kill", but it might be derived from vol. III:
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