BLUEHOLME™ ... Journeymanne?

[Vile Traveller]

As the final edit of the Compleat Rules (predictably) is taking longer than predicted, it's entirely possible that another little project of mine might hit the virtual bookshelves a bit sooner. Not-Quite-Compleat, but considerably More-Journeymanne-Than-Prentice.

[Vile Traveller]

Okay, enough teasing, this is basically all the rules needed to take characters of the basic four races and classes from 1st to 20th level. That also means more spells, more magic items, and a few adventuring rules expansions. It's a more straightforward extrapolation of Holmes Basic than the Compleat Rules, without all the new bits like sub-classes, and extra monsters. The reason I'm doing this is because it's those new bits that are slowing down the Compleat Rules, and getting Journeymanne out there first will allow people to expand their current Prentice Rules games while providing me with feedback on the higher-level elements which can then go back into Compleat.

Oh, and this naming progression may well mean a name change for Compleat: Prentice, Journeymanne ... Maester?

[Vile Traveller]

The Journeymanne text is done and laid out. There is a table of contents to do, and some page references, and proof reading, and an art Indigogo.

But the Journeymanne text is done.

[Vile Traveller]

The first piece of interior art is also in place, in the creature chapter right next to the carrion crawler cave creeper entry. By a gentleman called Chris-something-or-other. Begins with H.

[MormonYoYoMan]

Sept 29, 2016 8:36:47 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

The first piece of interior art is also in place, in the creature chapter right next to the carrion crawler cave creeper entry. By a gentleman called Chris-something-or-other. Begins with H.

So that's what Chris Hemsworth has been doing these days.

[Vile Traveller]

And now the same gentleman has kindly let me have another illustration. Some weird mutated shark-thing with arms and legs! Wouldn't want to meet that in a dark cave on the beach of some underground lake ...

Thanks to grodog for letting Chris submit this to me, as it's also in the upcoming Tales of Peril anthology (which is coming real soon, right, Allan?).

[MormonYoYoMan]

Sept 30, 2016 20:38:22 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

Some weird mutated shark-thing with arms and legs!

I used to date her in college.!

[Vile Traveller]

There is a gentleman named Holmes looking at the Journeymanne Rules manuscript and giving me all kinds of interesting ideas. Some I simply can't entertain because, although eminently sensible (to-hit rolls for magic missile? that's crazy!), they would not be in the spirit of a retro clone. Others, however, have me re-organising the spell chapter to list spells by level and class instead of just alphabetically by class.

[Mike]

Oct 15, 2016 23:40:01 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

There is a gentleman named Holmes looking at the Journeymanne Rules manuscript and giving me all kinds of interesting ideas. Some I simply can't entertain because, although eminently sensible (to-hit rolls for magic missile? that's crazy!), they would not be in the spirit of a retro clone. Others, however, have me re-organising the spell chapter to list spells by level and class instead of just alphabetically by class.

It sounds like you need to add an appendix...

[waysoftheearth]

Oct 15, 2016 23:40:01 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

Some I simply can't entertain because, although eminently sensible (to-hit rolls for magic missile? that's crazy!), they would not be in the spirit of a retro clone.

This old topic may be useful odd74.proboards.com/thread/8804/story-magic-missile

Holmes (F116-R and also 3rd Ed 1979) re: Magic Missile (p15) "Roll the missile fire like a long bow arrow (Missile Fire Table)."

[Vile Traveller]

Oh, I'm pretty sure there will be a 2nd edition which takes care of things like this. Maybe magenta-coloured.

[Vile Traveller]

And if I ever want to make any money off this baby there will almost certainly have to be a 5th edition (we can skip 3rd and 4th). Not least because of said gentleman named C. Holmes keeps making comments on how silly some rules are.

[Deleted]

I really love the cover for this, very old school!

[Vile Traveller]

Just so you all know, the reason I'm dropping off the face of the planet for a while is because I'm trying to get my BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules art-funding Indiegogo launched before the end of November. It's heads down and elbows to the grindstone here at Dreamscape Design!

There are some teasers on the BLUEHOLME™ G+ Community in case you're interested.

[Vile Traveller]

The foreword by Chris Holmes has arrived. Just need to tweak the Kickstarter pages and get the video finished, and we can start funding that artwork.

[Vile Traveller]

I thought I'd ask here, as I respect your opinion: What do you think of this Kickstarter video, created with the help of Alex Karaczun of Mischief Inc.?

For some reason the link doesn't work, you'll have to copy and paste it directly into your browser window.

1drv.ms/v/s!At2_c7VW8EQBjlbGoOPqoL4GTNfz

[cadriel]

I'm not at all a fan of that style of Kickstarter video; it seems like they're obligatory, though. It's fine given what it is. I'd rather have a video explaining more of the motive behind the project, but that seems to be on the out.

[Vile Traveller]

Yeah, the details (inspiration, designer's notes, etc.) will be in text on the KS page itself. I settled on this style after going through lots of OSR Kickstarters to get an idea.

[Vile Traveller]

In case you haven't noticed yet, the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules have gone print-on-demand. Copies are going out to the backers as I write. They come in Lulu hardback and perfect-bound Lulu softcover flavours for now.

www.lulu.com/spotlight/bromgrev

[Vile Traveller]

You might have missed the Kickstarter campaign, but now you can get the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules direct from Lulu. And, if you get in there before 23:59 on 25 December, you can get 20% off with the code LULU20. 

[tetramorph]

Vile Traveller, I really want to pick up a copy of this.

How close is it to Holmes and how much did you have to modify the rules to follow the open-game license rules?

How close is Holmes, and this rewrite of it, in the end, to 0e?

I would love to have a more coherent and edited 0e rule set (without having to do all the work myself).

And I would love to have something I could give to kids as a starter kit without having to switch books (like B/X), but still be able to say "this is really D&D and it is really the original edition of it!"

[Vile Traveller]

tetramorph - it's much closer to Holmes than the first printing of the Prentice Rules was, thanks in large part to members of the community and people like DM Mike, DM Liz, and DM Jim formerly of the Save or Die podcast*. The OGL and the 3.5E SRD are not really that restrictive in those terms, so there are never really cases where you can't do something because of them. Okay, the OGL specifically excludes Chris Holmes's favourites, displacer beasts and carrion crawlers. But there are octocats and cave creepers (illustrated, coincidentally, by a certain C. Holmes). It's usually just a case of wording. So I think at levels 1-3 at least it's pretty much like playing Holmes. The goal is to keep that feel for the next 17 levels.

It is not entirely OD&D - because the mission was to recreate the Holmes style of play, not simply another OD&D clone (for which I would recommend waysoftheearth's excellent Delving Deeper). Thus there are things in there to deal with playing any kind of creature, options for resolving the light/ medium/ heavy weapon conundrum, and the awesome and wonderful Holmes scroll and magic book rules. However, there are cases where OD&D was used as a reference, specifically to expand the spell, creature, and magic items listings to go up to level 20.

So, in summary, it's not exactly OD&D, or even OD&D + Greyhawk - but I certainly feel it's as close as I could make it to a "complete" version of Holmes Basic, in the spirit of Dr Holmes's gaming style. And it is a complete game in 118 pages. Sorry, too much art to cut it down to 100.

* Actually, as I've updated the Prentice Rules to fully line up with the Journeymanne layout, you might as well grab a copy of the former for a look, it's only Homer Simpson free pay-what-you-want: www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3982/Dreamscape-Design

[tetramorph]

Vile Traveller, I've heard many people explain that Holmes, in many ways, just clarified for folks outside of the war-gaming community how to play D&D (0e). How close is the "Holmes style of play" to 0e style? Isn't it just an example of an 0e style?

I'll look into it!

Thanks!

[Zenopus]

Tetramorph - I agree, the game Holmes presented in the Basic rulebook is just a version of OD&D as assembled by one DM (Holmes). There were no other versions of D&D yet available when he edited it. Like any good DM, he looked over the various options presented and used some rules from the LBBs, some from Greyhawk, some from Chainmail, some from non-TSR rules, like Warlock.

While Gygax added/changed a bit of what Holmes put together, there's very little change to the fundamentals despite the references to AD&D. A few new spells that would later appear in the PHB. "Normal men" attacking worse than 1st level characters. Many other changes are just additional sentences appearing at the end of spell or monster entries making a clarification. In this way, it's sort of like Gary's penultimate edit of the OD&D rules, with the Monster Manual being the last (it's also still fully compatible with OD&D).

[Vile Traveller]

What Zenopus said. Pretty much the whole of my research into Holmes was born out of the Zenopus Archives.

Rules-wise, there are some small differences, including but not limited to:

• The way magic books are handled (Holmes explicitly states they can't be taken on adventures), and the scroll rules )any magic-user can create spells for any of the spells he or she knows, for a relatively low cost in time and money).
• Holmes interpreted the initiative rules as simply going in order of DEX, with ties resolved by a d6 roll. That means you need to roll DEX for monsters if there's a fight.
• Zombies are poisoned by salt!
• the 5-axis alignment rules are unique to Holmes (they first appeared in Strategic Review).
  

In addition to concrete rules differences, there is also Holmes's style of refereeing to consider. By all accounts he was open to almost any suggestion from the players, and tried to accommodate them. Once the application or spot rule was worked out, however (e.g. a paladin praying for divine intervention, referring to and then modifying the advice in the DMG), dice were rolled - and "the dice never lie."

The BLUEHOLME™ rules for using creatures as player characters are directly descended from his advice in the Holmes rulebook as well as his article Confessions of a Dungeon Master.

Apart from these, there are a host of tiny "easter eggs" in the text and art of the book. I'm not giving any of those away.

In other words, you could probably use BLUEHOLME™ to run a very OD&D+Greyhawk-like game, but there would be differences. Some small, some pretty noticeable - e.g. magic-users have to come up with need very good home security for their magic books, and a highly efficient scroll-carry system for quick access of the many scrolls they will be carrying on an adventure.

[Vile Traveller]

3 days and nights of typing individual orders into Lulu’s system (which happened to be glitching, causing it to lock up every dozen orders or so), and almost all of the Kickstarter backers’ books are printing, shipping, or in the hands of their proud new owners.

It’s been an interesting (!) New Year’s holiday, and one I hope I won’t repeat for a while, but it’s nice to know that there will soon be 400+ physical copies of the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules out in the world, including quite a few from non-backers who took advantage of the Lulu coupons. If you’re looking for your copy, check out the Dreamscape Design Lulu Shop.

Now back to those remaining stretch goal PDFs! 🙂

[bigjackbrass]

It's arrived in mist-shrouded Yorkshire! Looks great at first glance; I'll settle in for a better look through latest in the evening. Thanks for putting it together and dealing with the Kickstarter so well.

[Todd]

Just got mine today! Huzzah!

[raisin]

Hey, I'm ordering the Journeyman version in Hardcover - I don't need the Prentice rules with that book, right?

[hamurai]

Nope, the Journeymanne rules start at level 1 and covers all basic rules, too.