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Post by foster1941 on Apr 8, 2008 15:52:27 GMT -6
Very cool. I like that he's 1st level and has 5 magic items, and that one them's a cursed item
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 25, 2007 16:07:42 GMT -6
I didn't count the covers of the booklets or the dungeon/castle illos on pp. 3, 4, and 21 of vol. III, but I did count double-illos (vol. I, p. 27, vol. III, p. 25) separately, which is how I came up with a total of 41 to your 47
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Post by foster1941 on Aug 25, 2007 11:42:04 GMT -6
My vote would be to skimp on the art. Most people into OD&D-style products probably don't care much about art anyway. Heck, look at the brown books and the simple line-art contained therein. Nothing fancy, but enough to convey some enthusiasm and give something visual along the way. I dunno. On the one hand the art in OD&D is very simple (and amateurish) but OTOH there's a ton of it -- there are over 40 illustrations in the 3 books (approx. 1 every 3 pages, but they're not spread out that evenly -- sometimes there are 2 on the same page, sometimes there are 5 or 6 pages with nothing) and I believe (though I've never bothered to actually check) that almost every monster in vol. II is illustrated somewhere. Compared to most wargames of the period that had no illustrations whatsoever, this is a lot. Presumably Gygax and Kaye realized that in a game of imagination some visual cues were needed for guidance and inspiration (I wonder how many people took these illustrations literally and had ninja-gnomes and leprechaun-hobbits in their games). So while it's correct to say that OD&D fans are likely to be more forgiving of technical quality (we will accept, and perhaps even prefer, amateurishly enthusiastic line-art drawn by the author and his friends over "professional quality" art) I know that I at least would be a bit disappointed to open a book, especially a book of new monsters, and find no illustrations at all. (That was one of our biggest obstacles with Monsters of Myth, btw == we knew that as a book of monsters we had to have illustrations for as many of them as possible, so there was a mad scramble to find people willing and able to draw the monsters we had created, which added several months to the production process and even so we ended up falling short and had to fill in with a lot of 'generic fantasy' art in the final book.)
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 27, 2008 20:06:15 GMT -6
Futura!
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 25, 2007 23:22:25 GMT -6
FWIW (in case anyone here doesn't know) that pic is from Tower of Blood, one of Rob Kuntz's recent "generic" (AD&D-compatible) modules, and actually depicts undead gnome-ghouls. Regarding Dunsany's gnoles, there was a recent thread on, I believe, one of Gene Weigel's now-defunct boards in which he posted a picture of the gnoles from an old illustrated edition of Dunsany that showed them as ape-like -- furry, stooped, long-armed but carrying swords (and possibly wearing belts/harness?). On that basis, and also the fact that they're depicted as being very stealthy in the story ( How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles) Gene suggested that D&D's bugbear (from Supplement I) might make a good substitution for Dunsanian Gnoles, and I've kept that in the back of my mind ever since.
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 30, 2008 20:14:06 GMT -6
I've heard that some of the scans on that CD-ROM aren't very good. However, you're absolutely correct that the price can't be beat -- that's a ton of material (~70 books) published over an 11 year period (1977-87). You could easily do without probably 2/3 of it, but to acquire just the essentials would end up costing more than the CD so you might as well get the whole thing and just not bother to read the stuff that doesn't strike your fancy.
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Post by foster1941 on Jan 13, 2008 11:48:59 GMT -6
I never owned nor played this game but all the adults in my local game-club back in the 80s (i.e. the folks who were in their 30s-40s when I was 13 years old) loved it, and it alongside RQ (2nd edition) was the adult-rpg of choice (whereas we kids played mostly AD&D and WFRP). The way they played it (which I don't know whether it's the way it was written or not) player knowledge and character knowledge were essentially one and the same, so if you wanted your character to know a lot about computers or chemistry or military hardware or outdoor survival skills or whatever, you as a player had to know it. This was always intriguing to me, but also intimidating (because, of course, as a punk kid I had no valuable real-world knowledge of any kind...).
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 20, 2008 13:42:54 GMT -6
the LBBs never once mention Tolkien or the trilogy by name Be careful: the early printings mention Tolkien (or, rather, "Tolkein") repeatedly in the monster descriptions (orcs, wights, spectres, rocs, and perhaps others). All of these references were, of course, scrubbed out alongside the hobbit/ent/balrog name-changes in the 6th (OCE) printing.
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 20, 2008 13:36:54 GMT -6
Tolkien/LotR had a huge cultural (or at least counter-cultural) footprint in the 60s and early 70s (i.e. when D&D was being created). Even if we take Gygax at his word that he's not a big fan of LotR (though he does claim to like The Hobbit) it's undeniable that pretty much everybody else who was involved in the early history (and pre-history) of D&D was heavily influenced by it, players and designers alike.
It seems to me that the primary literary influences on the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement were Tolkien and Conan, with a dash of Anderson and Moorcock. To this mix Arneson didn't seem to add much fantasy-wise, but did add a healthy dose of "Hollywood" sci-fi & horror (Dracula, The Blob, creepy castles, mad scientists, etc.). Going back to Gygax and Greyhawk, Vance and Leiber get added into the mix and that seems to be about where things stood at the time the original set was released. Supplement I adds even more Vance and Leiber, as well as a lot of A. Merritt, some Lovecraft, and perhaps some Clark Ashton Smith (pet theory: the CAS-influence is the main thing that separates "Kuntz-feel" D&D from "Gygax-feel" D&D -- I detect a lot of CAS in Rob's work and little if any in Gary's) and the result is pretty much "the AD&D feel" -- ERB and de Camp & Pratt (and a ton more authors faithfully catalogued in Gygax's "Inspirational Reading" list in the AD&D DMG) also fit in there somewhere, though perhaps more obliquely.
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Post by foster1941 on Dec 4, 2007 15:37:31 GMT -6
From what I understand (and I also only have the 1980 printing) the actual contents are the same, and the difference in the earlier printing is some art (not sure if the earlier versions have more, less, or just different art), bigger dungeon maps (in the version we have most of the dungeon maps are crammed 2 to a page, whereas in the original they're apparently a full page apiece) and probably different typesetting (since art and dungeon-maps alone wouldn't account for that big a pagecount difference).
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Post by foster1941 on Sept 28, 2007 21:40:33 GMT -6
There's more usable content in FFC than, like, any single other product? I'm seriously staring at my RPG collection and scratching my head. FFC is THE greatest D&D supplement/module of all time? I think so. There are 4 D&D supplements that I consider really indispensable -- Greyhawk, FFC, JG's Ready Ref Sheets, and Best of The Dragon vol. I -- and of them all FFC easily is the most loaded with content, the most inspirational, and the one I'd be least willing to give up. Yeah it's a mess and a lot of the stuff in it is lacking sufficient context to really make sense of, but it's all glorious, and trying to fill in the blanks and connect the dots with your own imagination is a big part of the appeal (as the various mediocre "cleaned up" rehashings -- for Classic D&D in the 80s and d20 in the 00s -- have shown; the slicker, more professional and more conventional Blackmoor is made, the less intriguing it becomes).
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Post by foster1941 on Sept 23, 2007 10:53:57 GMT -6
For heaven's sake, when will they ever publish City of Blackmoor? Assuming, as Arneson claims, that it's been written all these years, and hoping that it's not just another section of FFC filled in by other writers!I have no doubt that's exactly what it will be -- "it's been written all these years" = map and notes from FFC, to be expanded/fleshed out by other writers.
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Post by foster1941 on Jan 25, 2008 0:28:46 GMT -6
Dont forget that Mike Mornard ( oldgeezer) is also a member of this site Are any other of these folks active online?
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Post by foster1941 on Dec 5, 2007 16:31:19 GMT -6
I've got copies of both Man of Gold and Flamesong kicking around somewhere, but haven't gotten around to reading either one yet. They're on the list, but not particularly near the top and it's a very long list...
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 13, 2007 12:59:00 GMT -6
Yes
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Post by foster1941 on Dec 9, 2007 16:38:58 GMT -6
If I've got my TSR history correct (which is a big if) the original partnership in 1973 was 50% Gygax and 50% Kaye. In order to raise cash for the publication of D&D they brought in the Blumes as minority shareholders so it became 40% Gygax, 40% Kaye, 10% Brian Blume, 10% Kevin Blume. When Don Kaye died in early 1975 the Blumes convinced his widow to sell his share directly to them, leaving the ownership 40% Gygax, 30% B. Blume, 30% K. Blume, and the rest is history...
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 26, 2007 12:52:24 GMT -6
As a historical footnote, I believe this booklet was Tactical Studies Rules' first release, and that it preceded D&D because the latter, as a 3-volume boxed set, would've been more expensive to produce and they needed to raise more money first (which they eventually got, if I've got my history straight, from the brothers Blume).
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 20, 2008 17:05:20 GMT -6
My first D&D adventure was the solo in Book 1 of the Mentzer-edit D&D Basic Set with the rust monster (I was down to my dagger before I finally finished that bastard off!). I don't remember what my first D&D adventure with an actual other person was -- I suspect it was either with my mom (me as DM running the sample dungeon in Mentzer Book 2 with the carrion crawler) or my friend Brad (him as DM running (very badly) The Keep on the Borderlands).
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 19, 2008 17:01:22 GMT -6
I strongly suspect these folks are going to come to a bad end, whether at the hands of the dungeon inhabitants or each other. The only open question at this point seemd to be whether it will be a TPK or whether 1 survivor will make it back to the surface in order to recruit some new vict... err, "companions." P.S. You're playing at lunch-hour, so these sessions are ~30-45 minutes long, right? That in itself is pretty d**n cool...
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 15, 2008 22:43:40 GMT -6
There's a gaming con going on in LA this weekend too, and inspired by jrients' blog post I'm seriously tempted to go down there with my white-box (and my newly created set of player handouts -- a series of 1 page (LBB-sized) summaries of each class and race, a char-gen checklist, the equipment list, and the ability score bonuses/penalties chart, printed on colored cardstock -- gray for general stuff, salmon for races, green for classes) and try to run a pickup game (perhaps Tegel Manor, or Blackmoor Castle, or perhaps something pulled straight out of my ass). Alas, given the cost of admittance (+ parking), the fact that I might not be able to find players (or might not be allowed to run an "unsanctioned" game even if I did), and the fact that this is the only reason I'd be going means I'll probably end up not bothering. But who knows, the con does run through Monday...
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 8, 2008 0:59:40 GMT -6
So, average level is 3 and 4? Depends on the class: an average roll (10 or 11) is 4th level for clerics (unless they roll a 10 and have a -20% XP penalty), 3rd or 4th for fighters (roll 10 = 3rd, roll 11 with least avg PR = 4th), 3rd for magic-users, and 4th for thieves.
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 7, 2008 19:48:56 GMT -6
I really like the idea of this table. I especially like how (intentionally or otherwise) your numbers seem to allow characters with +10% to get an extra level in several cases, and in fact I'd probably tweak the numbers a bit so that happened even more often -- for instance, if a roll 4 gave a baseline 1,100 instead of 1,000 then the +10% character would get 1,210 -- just enough for a thief to hit 2nd level
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 18, 2008 20:02:22 GMT -6
Mike, you might these of interest if you have not seen these yet. Philotomy posted these, based off some interpretation of Swords & Spells IIRC. www.philotomy.com/simple_sequence.htmlIs a more simplistic sequence. I tend to like this one. Point of order! Philotomy's simple sequence was originally posted by me, at the bottom of this post
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Post by foster1941 on Feb 16, 2008 12:18:03 GMT -6
Very cogent analysis (which I suppose shouldn't be too surprising, since it's actually your job to think analytically about D&D) that underlines the fact that, despite the dropped letter, D&D3 and (presumably) its direct descendant D&D4 are really following in the tradition of AD&D -- the stylistic difference you describe between OD&D and D&D 4 in your last paragraph pretty much echoes the distinction in intent between D&D and AD&D described by Gary Gygax in TD14, though perhaps to a greater degree -- and that the freewheeling/DIY OD&D tradition has been allowed to wither away, at least commercially (which was perhaps inevitable, since the AD&D/3E/4E model rewards more commercially-oriented behaviors (buying and studying rulebooks, keeping up with the latest "official" word, organized play, etc.) whereas the OD&D model says, essentially, buy 1 product ever and fill in everything else with your imagination -- and once you've got the basic idea even that 1 product is optional!).
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Post by foster1941 on Jul 23, 2007 13:57:35 GMT -6
I never owned any of their stuff (and likely never will). "The Character Archaic" is actually included in the list of "Other TSR Products" in back of my OD&D set (5th printing). In the late 80s at GenCon I went to a series of seminars by John Wheeler and Peter Rice (aka "The Companions") about adventure/dungeon design wherein they discussed "Palace of the Vampire Queen" (PVQ, as they called it) at some length, declaring it simultaneously the best and worst module ever published -- the worst because as published it was lame, just a bunch of rooms and nonsensical monsters, the best because it inspired them to come up with all kinds of plots, explanations, expansions, justifications, etc. -- sort of like OD&D as a whole.
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 3, 2008 15:22:05 GMT -6
What TSR considered appropriate numbers appearing by monster type by dungeon level can be gleaned from the Monster and Treasure Assortments -- not a precise or exact formula but a general idea that's easy enough to interpolate and extrapolate from. See the big index I posted ages ago at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse. Treasure by dungeon level is already in the rules (Vol. III, p. 7). % in Lair in the dungeon is easy: if you've assigned a monster to a specific room that's its lair. If the monster is encountered as a wandering monster (or otherwise outside of its assigned room -- perhaps attracted by noise or a general alarm) then it's not in its lair
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Post by foster1941 on Apr 3, 2008 11:31:17 GMT -6
Coffee's got it right -- the number appearing, % in lair, and treasure type entries are all for wilderness encounters only: if an encounter with that type of monster comes up on the tables you roll to see how many of them there are, then you roll to see if the encounter occurs in/near their lair and if so you use the treasure type tables to see what goodies they have stored up there. If the encounter doesn't occur at the monster's lair then it's out wandering the wilderness (just like the players are) and doesn't have any treasure (in most cases; there are a few exceptions noted in the rules). Note that the wilderness encounter tables have no "balance" and even if you do encounter a weak monster it's likely to be in huge numbers (30-300 orcs, etc.), which makes the wilderness a very dangerous place for small parties of low to mid-level characters (and explains why there are such detailed rules for running away from stuff in the wilderness!).
In a dungeon environment none of this applies (which is why smart players will spend as much time in the dungeon and as little time in the wilderness as possible until they're high level and looking for suitable places to build their own castles).
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 26, 2007 12:30:14 GMT -6
Perhaps we could add a (wholly arbitrary) rule that if you're wearing magical armor your shield must be at least as magical as the armor -- so if you're wearing +1 armor you can't use a normal shield, only a +1, +2 or +3 shield, and if you're wearing +2 armor you can't use a normal or +1 shield, only +2 or +3. So if you're wearing +2 armor without at least a +2 shield you're at AC 3 with a -2 on opponents' hit rolls; if you have +2 armor & shield you're AC 2 with -2 on opponents' to hit rolls; and if you have +2 armor and a +3 shield you're AC 2 with -2 on opponents' to hit rolls and a 1/3 (2 in 6) chance of -3. That would work, I think. Of course players would complain "why can't I use my +1 shield with my +2 armor," but the answer there would be the old reliable "because that's not how the rules work." Perhaps magical armor has some sort of magico-magnetic property that "repels" shields of lower properties?
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Post by foster1941 on Nov 26, 2007 12:00:20 GMT -6
I really like the idea of magical armor and shields not having straight "stacking" bonuses like they do using the Supplement I system (rampant AC-inflation is IMO one of the biggest flaws in later versions of the game) but I must confess that I really have no idea how this rule is supposed to work Your interpretation seems to match what the text says, but leads to the troubling fact that the character in case 2 doesn't have any bonus over the character in case 1, despite having a magical shield. Could that really be correct? Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
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Post by foster1941 on Mar 24, 2008 10:23:01 GMT -6
In a world without clerics you wouldn't handle them and they'd be that much more terrifying!
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