Introducing the "Lazarus Challenge"

[stonetoflesh]

Riffing off of the article introduced in the future of tabletop thread... In the caption of the photo below, article author David Lazarus (or maybe a copy editor, who knows) asserts that "this was once all you needed to play Dungeons & Dragons":



(In the event of display issues, the photo shows a copy of Supplement II: Blackmoor and a bunch of old platonic polyhedral dice.)

For an utterly ridiculous thought experiment, here's the LAZARUS CHALLENGE: Assume it's 1976, and you know nothing about D&D (or RPGs) other than some vague, second-hand rumblings about some game where "you're a guy who goes down into an old wizard's dungeon, fights monsters, and finds treasure." As a gift, you have just received a copy of Supplement II: Blackmoor and a sack of polyhedral dice. You don't live anywhere near a hobby store to get the LBBs (or Chainmail), but your buddies are really excited for you to run a D&D session for them TOMORROW!

I don't think it would be possible, so much is missing, but I suppose someone way more creative than me might be able to use it as Free Kriegsspiel fodder... What do y'all think? Can I at least get some votes for "dumbest thread of 2020?"

[Punkrabbitt]

Between ages 9 and 11, I would have managed quite a game involving a mixed party of humans and halflings, thieves, monks, and assassins attacking the Temple of the Frog. Between ages 12 and 14 I would have been far too distracted by the picture of the harpy on page 25 to have properly made any sense of the rules. 14 and beyond I would have made plenty of house rules to fill in the gaps. Of course, in 1976, I was 7 and most of the reading was beyond me; I was a non-reader and considered possibly retarded until I was 8, when I sorted reading in my head and went from baby books to adult novels in a matter of weeks.

[captainjapan]

That's an interesting thought experiment. Ok, I'll bite.

The first thing to take note of is the subtitle, which appears on the cover of Blackmoor the same as it does on the boxed set. It specifies miniature figures. If someone would notice this, the specification for movement in inches will become clear, at least. Then look at the Monk stats to find player character movement, base 12". But, wait! Monks gain higher movement rates as they advance. Does that mean that everyone moves faster with experience?.

Ok, who's next?

[howandwhy99]

It's a paper and pencil and imagination game. All 3 are required to to play too. Will the DM know the rules and have a map designed by tomorrow? I doubt it.

Plus, that's just Supplement II

[captainjapan]

After taking turns moving their minis around, SURPRISE, one player runs into a monster! Or, the two players get itchy and decide to fight each other, instead. Or, one of the players takes the role of the monster and they run into each other deliberately.

The easiest way to resolve it, with only Blackmoor, is to attack using the assasination table. Otherwise, how does anyone know that they have hit points and in what amount. The column headers in the monster list are pretty spare. I wouldn't trust myself to be able to figure them out.

[stonetoflesh]

Oct 14, 2020 21:26:50 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

The easiest way to resolve it, with only Blackmoor, is to attack using the assasination table. Otherwise, how does anyone know that they have hit points and in what amount. The column headers in the monster list are pretty spare. I wouldn't trust myself to be able to figure them out.

Maybe "hits" could be more wound-based, based on the hit location system. (Dang, that weapon/height adjustment matrix is a mess... I don't think any of the monsters' heights are even listed!)

[stonetoflesh]

Oct 14, 2020 16:05:07 GMT -6 Punkrabbitt said:

Between ages 9 and 11, I would have managed quite a game involving a mixed party of humans and halflings, thieves, monks, and assassins attacking the Temple of the Frog. Between ages 12 and 14 I would have been far too distracted by the picture of the harpy on page 25 to have properly made any sense of the rules. 14 and beyond I would have made plenty of house rules to fill in the gaps. Of course, in 1976, I was 7 and most of the reading was beyond me; I was a non-reader and considered possibly retarded until I was 8, when I sorted reading in my head and went from baby books to adult novels in a matter of weeks.

Good point, I didn't specify ages. In real life I would have been one in 1976, so I probably would have just tried to put everything in my mouth! No, let's say our hypothetical participant is at least old enough to have played (and at least semi-understood the rules of) some other tabletop games of low-to-medium complexity.

[captainjapan]

A few more observations on cold reading Supp. 2:

Advancement is doable if the novice DM reads the entire Assassin entry and applies the xp for bounties, universally. Experience will be awarded at a rate of 90% (or 9 x.p. for every 10 g.p. earned) for gold. Secondly, experience can be gained directly from killing e.g., a 4th level Assassin kills a 5th level magic user and collects experience at a 5:4 ratio on 175 points + 125 points for each of two special abilities that the magic-user had (pg. 4) The advancement tables are on the same page. There you have a 175 x.p. base value per Hit Die killed.

Doors are opened by thieves (Assassins open doors as halfling thieves). Probably, no roll required. Just remember to bring a thief/assassin along. They can also be opened with keys, obviously; but they can also be opened with enchanted Power Rings, a la Temple of the Frog.

Temple of the frog may also unlock the secret of descending armor class. Where as the Monk already has descending AC in his advancement table; Temple of the Frog sometimes rates armor with roman numerals e.g.: Floating Eyes, 1 HD -2 pts. creatures, appear in schools of 2-12 and have Class VIII armor while the powerful Strangleweed, 12 HD, has Class I armor. hmmm. The monk progression would make me stop and scratch my head, but maybe the roman numerals would make it click?. Class I = high ranking, Class VII= much lower rank. Okay, but now what do you do with this information?

I'm still taking a lot for granted here, concerning the mindset of someone who has never, not in their lives, referee'd an rpg before. But, all they would have to do is make something work, not necessarily what we think is the correct way.

[captainjapan]

Oct 15, 2020 10:02:16 GMT -6 stonetoflesh said:

Oct 14, 2020 21:26:50 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

The easiest way to resolve it, with only Blackmoor, is to attack using the assasination table. Otherwise, how does anyone know that they have hit points and in what amount. The column headers in the monster list are pretty spare. I wouldn't trust myself to be able to figure them out.

Maybe "hits" could be more wound-based, based on the hit location system. (Dang, that weapon/height adjustment matrix is a mess... I don't think any of the monsters' heights are even listed!)

No heights listed, so both players and DM would have to make something up, ahead of time. As for the Hit Location system, it deals in percentages of the total points of a body, but it also says something like losing two limbs is a kill and losing your head is a kill (obviously), so maybe players could aim for dismembering opponents rather than exhausting their hit point totals. I can see that working.

[Zenopus]

I'm guessing the author of that article is confused about what the Blackmoor Supplement contains, thinking it describes Arneson's original D&D game.

[stonetoflesh]

Oct 15, 2020 11:31:31 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

No heights listed, so both players and DM would have to make something up, ahead of time.

Instead of modifier creep, maybe we'd have height creep, with increasingly crazy justifications for unusual character heights. Growth spells, potions, and items will be highly coveted by fighter-types!

Referee, looking around the table at the players: "So let me get this straight. Your characters are each 8 feet tall?"
Player 1: "Uh, yeah... We're brothers from a tribe of northern barbarians, it's a rare genetic trait for people in our clan."
[Cacophony as other players eagerly agree]
Player 2, interrupting: "Well, I'm actually 9 feet tall, my mother was blessed by the village shaman at the full moon before my conception..."
Referee:

[stonetoflesh]

Oct 15, 2020 11:20:44 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

Temple of the frog may also unlock the secret of descending armor class. Where as the Monk already has descending AC in his advancement table; Temple of the Frog sometimes rates armor with roman numerals e.g.: Floating Eyes, 1 HD -2 pts. creatures, appear in schools of 2-12 and have Class VIII armor while the powerful Strangleweed, 12 HD, has Class I armor. hmmm. The monk progression would make me stop and scratch my head, but maybe the roman numerals would make it click?. Class I = high ranking, Class VII= much lower rank. Okay, but now what do you do with this information?

[In character:] Hmm, let's check out what funny-shaped dice we have. What if in order to hit that armor class, I have to roll the roman numeral or less on the 12-sided one? If I have 3 hit dice, I have 3 tries?

[tdenmark]

Oct 15, 2020 12:47:59 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I'm guessing the author of that article is confused about what the Blackmoor Supplement contains, thinking it describes Arneson's original D&D game.

Yup.

[captainjapan]

I'm not sure how it works. Does the columnist write the caption for the photo? Well, I emailed him, so maybe we'll find out.

This Supp. II game is not looking very enticing, seeing as how there are no spellcasters in it. The Monk doesn't cast. The high priest in TotF uses alien tech. And, there's only about a half-page of magic items - aquatic themed. Devising a new magic system in a single night might be too much to ask. The players are definitely going to want that.


Some of the monsters have saves listed for specific magical attacks, but it's not much to go on.  

[stonetoflesh]

Agreed, this "Blackmoor" game isn't going far on its own without the rest of the rules. I think a session or two of this could be fun given the hypothetical scenario, and would definitely prompt me to seek out the rules (and, hopefully, someone who actually knew how to play!)

Captainjapan, let us know what the author says if you get a reply!

[bobjester0e]

I picked up the four supplements in 1985 in Orlando after USN boot camp. Until this time, I only had Holmes, BX, AD&D, Traveller, and Star Frontiers.

After looking through Greyhawk & Blackmoor, I couldn't work it out completely. What I did recognize, I knew was already in AD&D and BX, so I put them away in a box and didn't really look at them again until I bought (legally) the OD&D & Chainmail rules on PDF in the mid-2000's.

Turns out that I had lost my original Eldritch Wizardry, so I had to print out a PDF to take its place, and that was disappointing to say the least.

If the Blackmoor Supplement happened to have a set of the OD&D reference sheets, then, yeah - you could play D&D using "just" Blackmoor.

I suspect that the hipster reviewer never actually read the Blackmoor Supplement, possibly assuming that the 3rd edition Blackmoor to be a direct descendent of the original, and the only changes were the format that makes OD&D so infamous among millennials?

[hamurai]

The rest of the rules would be required to begin immediately, I'd say. Not sure if my teen self would have been in the mood to go through this book and try to find out how it's meant to work. I guess we would have skimmed it and used the adventure and creature ideas, playing it with 2d6.

Edit: Page numbers refer to my reprint edition. Not sure if the original edition has the same page numbers.

But:
In the description of the monk class we have several mentions of other classes and races. We therefore know that there are several playable races: humans, dwarves, halflings, maybe elves (only mentioned as followers).

Playable classes we learn: Cleric (sub-class Monk), Thief (sub-class Assassin), Fighting-Man, Paladin, maybe Ranger (only mentioned as followers, but capitalized as other classes). We also may assume that there is a Magic-User class, or that one of the other classes counts as a MU, from the Underwater Adventures section (p. 48):

One thing to keep in mind is that any
but magic-users will find it extremely hard to function (m-u have access to spells that enable
them to breathe water, change their form, etc.).

From this we also learn a few of the spells available to players.

Alignments: Lawful, Neutral, Chaos

Languages: High INT gains bonus languages. There are alignment languages.

Attributes: also mentioned in the Monk's description: Strength, Wisdom, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, Constitution (first mentioned in the Lycanthrope description and then again more often when covering diseases).
They range from at least 12 (minimum requirement for Monk STR to 18 (mentioned several times as high), or even 18 (00) for STR, whatever that may mean. But, the Languages section of the Assassin class mentions "an 18 or better intelligence", so scores may be even higher.
If we assume they're generated randomly, and if we assume 18 is the maximum score, then dice rolls of 3d6 may get scores of both 12 and 18, or 1d10 + 2d4. If higher numbers are indeed possible (maybe only for INT?), then a d20 may again be possible.

Followers: Charisma dictates how many you can get. (p.3) Maybe Followers = CHA score.

Thief Abilities: Opening Locks, Remove Traps, Listening, Climbing, Move Silently/Hide in Shadows (the mention makes it rather unclear if these are seperate skills or one, but since MS is mentioned again alone, they're probably 2 abilities).

Hit Dice: Monks have a d4 (16 max.), Assassins a d6 (13 max.), gaining 1 die per level (p.6). Since they are sub-classes of other classes, we could deduct that Clerics get a d4, Thieves a d6. 

Hit Points: The only mention of HP in regard to level I found was on p.45 in the adventure: "2nd-level fighter/personal guards for the Keepers of the Frog" take 3-5 HP. That's a rather low amount compared to what damage creatures do (Sea Horse 1d6... o.0), but we can learn that HP are not fixed by level or class, apparently, but variable. 
The Sahuagin description (p. 21) mentions Hit Dice correlate with the ability to take damage:

Their tough reptilian hide is similar to leather armor while the body can sustain
two hit dice in damage.

Therefore we can deduct that Hit Dice are connected to Hit Points.
Monks do 1d4 unarmed damage on 1st level, so assuming that HD = HP is out of the question.

Combined with the info from the adventure we can assume that HP are randomly generated and dependant on the class, so we can make the small jump to 1 HD per level for each class. Fighting-Men should be tougher and able to withstand more damage than thieves and clerics, so they'd probably have a d8, because apparently the die size increases for tougher classes.

Several MUs turn up as enemies in the adventure, seemingly with some 2-3 HP per level, strangely similar to what the personal guard above has. Getting their HP and HD in line with the classes we have already found out, Magic-Users have a d3 or d4 HD.

Saving Throws: Death Ray, Poison, Staves & Spells, Paralyzation, Fear / Hypnosis (p.23, Floating Eyes)
Saving Throws are sometimes mentioned to receive a bonus of +2 or +3, being in a range similar to the bonuses mentioned for attacks. That won't be enough to lead to the conclusion that STs use a d20, though. Could just be 2d6 as well. Numbers are never exactly given; we only learn that different classes have different STs.

Armor Class: from the description of the monk on p.3 we learn that they learn to ward off harm similarly to armor, and since the only mention of armor in the monk table is "Armor Class" (p.6) we know that high values are bad, while low values are good. From the description we do not learn if monks have a better AC at 1st level already, but I'd have expected this, so my guess would have been that AC 10 is unarmoured.

The monk description mentions that

any score 25% (5 or better) above the minimum required for a hit has a 75% chance of stunning the opponent for from 3–12 turns and a 25% chance of killing the opponent.

If 25% are 5, then we can deduct that 100% are 20, so we could know that attacks are made with a d20 or 2d10, but then 25% wouldn't really be 5 because of the bell curve we get from 2d10.

Surprise: Monks use a bigger die the higher they get in level, a d6 at 3rd level and they are always surprised on a roll of 1. So at 1st level they would probably (like the other classes without a bonus) be surprised on 1 on a d4, using the logic of ascending die sizes.

Damage: Coincidentally, Monks have a d4 HD and do 1d4 damage at first level. 1d4 is also the damage a Merman does unarmed and Mermen take "1 die damage per turn" (die size?) during daylight when out of water.
Sahuagin do 2-12 damage and we learn in their description that they usually use tridents. The Underwater Adventures section informs us that tridents do twice the damage of a spear.

Therefore, damage probably is:
Unarmed d4
Spear d6
Trident 2d6

We can make up damage for other weapon types from there. Or we assume that a Hit Die actually also means that we hit for that amount of damage, because from p.13 we can learn that there is apparently a non-variable damage rule (which isn't used for the monsters here). Fighting-Men probably not only take a lot more damage but also deal more than priests, we might say FM do d8 damage, Thieves d6, and Clerics and MUs d4.


Well, that was fun. Gotta go to bed now.

[hamurai]

One thing that's still missing from my rules is the target number for attack rolls. I was pondering this a while longer while I was half asleep. There's just no way of knowing how it's done from Sup 2.

We can try to get there, though. We know from several descriptions that attack bonuses are added, so rolling high is surely a good thing.
From the Monk class table we learn that AC ranges at least from 9 to -3, and as I wrote above I'd have guessed that AC 10 would have been unarmoured. That makes 14 levels of armour, from 10 to -3.

I'd assume the game is fair enough to give everyone a chance at hitting even the best AC, so with a d20 to hit AC -3, I'd probably need a 20. That means that I'd need a 7 for AC 10. My attack matrix would look like this:

AC	10	9	8	7	6	5	4	3	2	1	0	-1	-2	-3
Target Number	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20

So my unmodified ThAC0 would be 17 instead of 19. Close enough.

To increase my chance to hit I add bonuses from whatever sources. Apparently attacking with ferocity is a good thing, because p.3 (Poison section) says it means a +4 to hit and +4 to damage.

From the Monk class table (again) we can conclude that we can reach level 16 in the game. If we assume a +1 to hit bonus for each level, ThAC0 would be 1 on 16th level. Coincidence? Probably. ACs in the normal range (deducted from the monster table) are between 8 and 2 for creatures, so maybe a +1 to hit bonus every other level for Monks and Clerics (Monks are a sub-class so I assume the same rules for Clerics) would be more realistic, leaving me with a base ThAC0 11 at 16th level. But how about other classes?

We know from the fighter/personal guard description in the adventure (p.45) that at least fighters can practive the use of different weapons, getting additional bonuses. The example has 2nd-level fighters with a +2 to hit with bows, and +1 to hit with swords. For player characters I'd assume Fighting-Men can train a weapon each time they level up, gaining a +1 bonus to using that weapon (bow, crossbow, sword, club, spear.... general categories).

Thieves can probably fight at least as well as Clerics, so Thieves get a +1 to hit every other level. 

Magic-Users. Why would they be less trained in combat than a Cleric? Since I don't know the Cleric class description I don't know that they aren't the priests I take them to be. The "armoured holy warrior" thing sounds more like the Paladin to me. So, Magic-Users also get a +1 to hit every other level.


That leaves the entire magic system to be generated from scratch as we don't know jack about it from supplement 2.

Magic is powerful, so it should be limited in its use. Since my first contact with fantasy games was HeroQuest, I'd probably make a spell card for every learned spell and you can use it once per adventure/game session. When you used the spell, flip the card over. Easy. Knowing that wizards could draw power from special places, there'd probably be such places in my game. They'd maybe allow shuffling the spell cards and drawing a number of spells to be used again. Maybe either 3 random ones or 1 selected spell.
Edit: MUs would start with 7 (magical number, right?) spells and can learn 1 new spell per level, if they find a spell book or scroll or a teacher, or some other means of learning a new spell. So a 16th-level MU will have 23 spells in their grimoire.

The only problem remaining: What's the Cleric's specialty? We learned Fighting-Men gain better to-hit bonuses, Thieves get thief abilities, Magic-Users get spells. The Monk, as a Cleric sub-class, gets self-healing skills at 7th level. A nice idea, and if we want the game to keep going after a battle, we'd need someone who can heal. Hey, that's a fitting special ability for a priest! So, Clerics can heal. Let's just make it 1d6 HP per level per day.
From movies we know that priests can ward off evil, so why not at that ability to the Cleric, too? How do we roll it? I'd certainly not invent a 2d6 table. Knowing that more HD means more power, we could sort of turn around the combat matrix and say that evil 1 HD-monsters are warded off 50% of the time for a beginning priest, so they'd roll a 10 on a d20 to do that. More HD means it's more difficult, but as we progress in level we get better, so let's use a formula for our target number: [10 - (monster HD) + (Cleric level)], and make it a roll-under or equal mechanic. Therefore, for example a 3rd-level Cleric would need to roll (10 - 8 + 3 =) 5 or less on a d20 to ward off a 8 HD evil monster. 


Now we only need XP rules and XP-level tables for our classes. We know the Monk and Assassin tables, and I'd use them for Clerics and Thieves respectively. Judging from the descriptions of these two classes alone we might think that the more supernatural the abilities, the more XP needed to level up. To make things easier, let's use the Assassin/Thief table for Fighting-Men too, and the Monk/Cleric table for Magic-Users.

We still know almost nothing of the Paladin (only the treasure rule) and the Ranger (only the name). From the names alone I'd have made the Paladin a mix of FM and Cleric, and the Ranger a mix of FM and Thief.
Paladin: use Cleric XP table, works as FM but gain half the abilities of the Cleric: Healing 1d6 per 2 levels, Ward Off Evil [10 - (monster HD) + (half Paladin level)].
Ranger: Use Thief XP table, works as FM and gain "outdoors thief abilities" Remove Traps, Listening, Climbing. Move Silently, Hide in Shadows. Stealth and Climbing would be impossible with metal armour, though, so we have a nice limit for the Ranger.


Good morning y'all  I'm off to work.

[arkansan]

Oct 15, 2020 12:47:59 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I'm guessing the author of that article is confused about what the Blackmoor Supplement contains, thinking it describes Arneson's original D&D game.

Could be based on actual experience. I know a few people who's first rpg material was a random game supplement because their parents didn't know better. I cobbled together a working version of D&D just out of the material in the old Icewind Dale pc game manual when I was in 6th grade.

[stonetoflesh]

Oct 19, 2020 23:21:18 GMT -6 arkansan said:

Oct 15, 2020 12:47:59 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

I'm guessing the author of that article is confused about what the Blackmoor Supplement contains, thinking it describes Arneson's original D&D game.

Could be based on actual experience. I know a few people who's first rpg material was a random game supplement because their parents didn't know better. I cobbled together a working version of D&D just out of the material in the old Icewind Dale pc game manual when I was in 6th grade.

That was pretty much my experience. Star Frontiers Knight Hawks was the first RPG product I got (1984, I was 8 or 9.) The only character info was the NPCs listed in the mission module, how was I supposed to make my own? Thankfully, after a month or so of playing out space battles, a friend of mine got Alpha Dawn and we were able to begin our "proper" Star Frontiers game.

[hamurai]

Thread necromancy on a thread about the "Lazarus Challenge" seems appropriate

I realized, while sifting through my HDD RPG folder, that I never the "finished" document I made back in 2020. Darn. I found the document and made a PDF for you to enjoy or despise. A version of D&D created from only Supp II and my prior experience with games like HeroQuest (and a small pinch of later knowledge for some clarification).

Let me know what you think.


drive.google.com/file/d/1OOUOSuaNDNO4XiGneUTCnU_a0Osz8XYJ/view?usp=sharing

[Finarvyn]

I think you did a remarkable job, considering what you had to work with. Supplement II Blackmoor is unfortunately missing so much core content that a person has to reach pretty far in order to obtain it, and overall you did a great job of organizing this stuff. I'm not sure that I would want to play such a game, and at the start of the thread I would have posted that it was impossible, but this doc makes me think that it could be done.

Of course, had D&D not happened then HeroQuest wouldn't have happened either so basing extrapolation on HQ is sort of cheating.

-----------------

EDIT: One nit to pick, however...

"Clerics get 1d4 Hit Points per level up to a maximum of 16" and the like might be reworded "Clerics get 1d4 Hit Points per level up to a maximum of level16" because otherwise it might be interpreted as "once I gain 16 hp I can no longer get any more." Obvious once you know how hit points and hit dice work, but to a novice using your doc independent of any knowledge of OD&D I could see some confusion.

[hamurai]

Feb 7, 2022 5:05:03 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I think you did a remarkable job, considering what you had to work with. Supplement II Blackmoor is unfortunately missing so much core content that a person has to reach pretty far in order to obtain it, and overall you did a great job of organizing this stuff. I'm not sure that I would want to play such a game, and at the start of the thread I would have posted that it was impossible, but this doc makes me think that it could be done.

Thank you

Feb 7, 2022 5:05:03 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Of course, had D&D not happened then HeroQuest wouldn't have happened either so basing extrapolation on HQ is sort of cheating.

Of course What I was trying to say is, I tried to think that my resources were HeroQuest and Sup II. Blackmoor is based on OD&D, so it also only exists because OD&D exists...

Feb 7, 2022 5:05:03 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

EDIT: One nit to pick, however...

"Clerics get 1d4 Hit Points per level up to a maximum of 16" and the like might be reworded "Clerics get 1d4 Hit Points per level up to a maximum of level16" because otherwise it might be interpreted as "once I gain 16 hp I can no longer get any more." Obvious once you know how hit points and hit dice work, but to a novice using your doc independent of any knowledge of OD&D I could see some confusion.

That's indeed confusing. To my defense, I did mention on p.3 that you get to roll new HP every level. Yet, I'd probably improve that in a 2nd printing I also just realized that I included one of our house rules there, rolling all HD each level.

[Starbeard]

Nabbed! I will read through this when I get the chance (which may be in a month or two). Wacky fun ideas like this interest me these days infinitely more than yet more streamlined retroclones. So even if it's bonkers unplayable, at least it was a fun read and has the real juice.

[hamurai]

That's how it was meant to be read

It was an experiment, and, personally, I believe it went rather nicely. I guess it's playable enough, although I have to admit I've never had the chance to try it.