Why Holmes…for you?

[machfront]

This is especially for those who find that Holmes is their main source. Why is it your fave?
Despite OD&D and its digital full availability? Despite retro clones, etc.
Despite B/X?
Blah, blah, blah…

It’s your fave…so…despite all of the actual (OD&D) and other (B/X, AD&D1E), and nowadays, clones of this, that and the other….

Why, even today….is it still your go-to…your own ‘bullet-proof’ iteration of how and what D&D is and or should be?

So many will say it’s incomplete or that B/X goes further so as to be complete or that, it’s best to step back to the 3LBBs + Grehawk…so….again…what are you doing and how do you ‘find peace’ as Holmes being “the one” for you?

Holmes plus a page of house rules?…based on what?…which?….
Holmes is your fave to guide you with a few other resources? What resources?
Holmes as a simple PHB/DMG…and you have/use AD&D1E PHB/MM/DMG right there just in case?…
Holmes is a simple part of your use of OD&D… then…what parts of OD&D do you use after/beyond? And why Holmes as the key?
Holmes as it’s own, singular thing,..and again, how and why…OD&D or no…

I’d LOVE to hear and know.

Note, I’m not at all (far from it) ignorant of Holmes. I’m simply highly interested in hearing things from those who prefer it and why it’s what they/you ‘reach for’, thus this thread.

(Also…Marv and other mods….I feel it’s a solid contender for General….but if you guys feel it needs to be in the Holmes board, I totally understand. Cheers!)

[Falconer]

The 1977 Basic Game Book is not my all-time favorite, but it’s a book that I actually use at the gaming table. For what it does, nothing does it better. Single book, low page count, relaxed layout, Gygaxian feel, simple and unambiguous instructions, relentless prioritization of fun. If you’re lucky, your impression has got hobbits, for extra authenticity.

I keep it (with a module and dice) in my bag and bring it with me to parties and on trips, just as one might (and I do) bring a deck of cards or a friendly board game—just in case. Now, a one-shot can be many things, and if I am planning a one-shot, I will brainstorm it and tailor it and prepare pregens and select the just-right ruleset. But there is something to be said for the unplanned one-shot, and I think the way to do it is with “mere D&D.” Roll up characters (in order!), grab equipment, kill monsters, find secret doors and treasure. The Basic Game Book does that just perfectly.

[Vile Traveller]

Well, I suppose I may as well throw in my 2 cp, even though I'm not that big a Holmes fan...

There are two things that set Holmes apart from other editions as far as I'm concerned.

Firstly, there are the quirky rules resulting from it's peculiar genesis as an OD&D quickstart written by an outsider with his own ideas as to how the game worked (and his own work-arounds where he thought they were needed), which was then edited to be an AD&D introduction before TSR knew what AD&D would be. So it has unique takes on things that didn't exist in OD&D and were changed in AD&D, making Holmes a repository of orphaned rules. Some are admittedly not great, some I love and they are an important part of how I use Holmes differently from other editions.

Let's not talk about the dagger rule. And the 5-way alignment system which in my view is better than AD&D's 9-way, but I actually prefer OD&D's 2-way (I see neutral as being non-aligned rather than it's own thing the way Moorcock has it). But there are some rules I absolutely love, chief of which are the magic-user combination of big magic books and scrolls.

Holmes magic books, as we all know, cannot be taken into the dungeon. From this I infer that magic books are huge and delicate. Also, if they can't take them to the dungeon, where do they leave them? Well, there are magical colleges. If the magic-user can't leave them there, the colleges are powerful enough that no-one would consider burgling a magic-user's inn room to steal their book. So, I like this rule because it's given me a load of setting assumptions to work with.

A more tangible rule I love is the ability to write scrolls for any spell they know. My magic-users carry loads of scrolls at any one time, and scrolls are a major treasure type. They're a great money-sink, because parties always pool leftover resources to get more scrolls. I let PCs buy them, too, at triple or more of their cost, so they don't have to spend so much time writing them. Magic-users in these games really are spell casters instead of dagger-throwers, and all those obscure spells get their time in the limelight instead of all games being limited to sleep or charm person.

But the real reason I fell in love with Holmes is not the rules, but the good doctor himself.

Back in the day I and my peers abandoned AD&D because of the growing voices from TSR about 'official' this and that, about people who house-ruled not really playing D&D, etc. Nowadays not many people talk about how much Gygax and TSR were upsetting their fanbase with their growing corporate identity.

Now, I didn't get back to D&D for many decades (barring a brief fling with 3E just because that's what my club group ran for a bit), and the thing that drew me back in was Holmes's article -not the rules themselves - about the game. Here was someone who got it, who understood fully that fun was the ultimate and only goal of roleplaying. If players want to do crazy stuff, the referee should work with them to make it happen and to make the game more fun for everyone. Not by allowing everything or throwing out the rulebook, but by really sitting down and fitting things into the game. That's what hooked me, and the more I read by Holmes about D&D (and later by talking to his son Chris), the more his style clicked with me and the more I could see it codified in his rules. I'll admit a lot of that is me leaning into anything in Holmes that reinforces that style.

Some of you may remember my journey because most of it happened and was documented here on these forums, and made possible through the posters here (especially Zenopus, of course). But that's it, really, Holmes is my favourite because it epitomises the reason for gaming - not slavish adherence to one particular play style, but a completely open-minded yet rules-oriented approach to fun.

[Greyharp]

In 2010 I did a revision of Holmes, expanding it using OD&D. I did this because Holmes was my first and sentimental favourite version of the game and I wanted to be able to play it without swapping systems after level 3. Holmes has a feel that appeals to me, less barebones than the glorious mess that is OD&D, more flavoursome than B/X. To quote a much loved Aussie movie, "it's the vibe of the thing". Given that Holmes is a revision of OD&D, it made sense to me to use the latter to expand Holmes. The foreword I wrote for the revision probably goes someway to answering some of your questions machfront. Here goes:

Is this yet another Holmes expansion? Well, yes and no. Yes it expands the rules beyond the original three levels, but unlike the several Holmes expansions already floating around the internet, this one isn’t basically just someone’s set of house rules. First and foremost this document is the complete and original Holmes rulebook reformatted along the lines of Moldvay Basic D&D and its clone, Labyrinth Lord. I did this because, whilst Holmes set out to produce an easier to understand introductory edit of the original game, the end result was still somewhat lacking in clarity and organization. In the reformatting process, I have tried to keep any necessary editing to an absolute minimum.

Secondly, I have expanded the original three levels to level 12 and beyond. The utility of the Holmes rulebook was limited by the fact that it dealt only with the first three levels of experience. Readers wanting to play higher levels then had the choice of referring to the original or advanced versions of the game, and let’s face it if you had to do that you were probably going to play those games instead, or having a go at expanding the Holmes rules themselves. The various Holmes expansions borrow from a variety of sources, from the original game through to 1st Edition AD&D, and in one case even 3rd Edition D&D, but none have attempted to faithfully follow the path that Holmes himself trod by using only the same source material, without the "taint" of house rules.

Having said that, this document is more than just a reformat of the original rulebook, and more than just an expansion of the rules, it is also a revision of those rules. Quite a few changes were made by TSR to the Holmes rulebook between its first print in 1977 and its third edition in December 1979. Thanks to the wonderful detective work of Zenopus76 in his article List of Changes Made to the Holmes Rulebook (1st/3rd), we have a detailed list of these changes. Working from that article I have revised this document to include various weapons, monsters and magic items mentioned in the rulebook but lacking detail, as well as text missing from one print to the next. You can read a more detailed explanation of what I have done at the end of this book.

My hope is that this document will not only help people to have a better understanding of this most unique version of D&D, the first Basic edition of the game, but that it will also be useful for those wanting a truly Holmes gaming experience. And for those wanting a "pure" Holmes game without all the extras, a list of changes made can be found at the end of this book.

[Falconer]

I forgot to mention the other thing I actually use the Basic Game Book for, and that’s gaming with my kids (my four older kids, ages 7-10). It’s a no-brainer! It’s kid-friendly without being kiddified. I don’t actually use it to run the game, but for the player-facing stuff like equipment and spells, it’s a-ok, plus they get some monsters and treasure to look at and stimulate their imagination. I think the kids actually are pleased by the fact that they have “their” D&D which is just for them.

[geoffrey]

A quick note before I go into other reasons that I like Holmes:

Using dexterity scores to determine who attacks first!

1. Spells are cast in order of dexterity.
2. Missiles are fired in order of dexterity.
3. Melee weapons are swung in order of dexterity.

That accords with my common sense.

Initiative is a dirty word, not found in the 1974 game, or in GREYHAWK, or in BLACKMOOR. With no explicit rules for who attacks first in those three products, it is an obvious solution to go with dexterity determining who is...most dexterous.

[cadriel]

Why do I like Holmes? It's a good question, because I hadn't seen a copy until 1999 when I bought a Gen Con boxed set that included a Holmes reprint. I thought it was a mild curiosity at the time. I only came to appreciate it later, when I had already run OD&D.

I like Holmes because it organized OD&D to some extent without expanding it too much (like AD&D) or starting down the road of rationalizing it (like B/X). I like it because it's idiosyncratic and things aren't rounded off into neat bonuses and penalties. Nothing's standardized and simple. I think the scroll rule and the thrown oil rule did a lot to make magic-users viable after casting their first spell, though the weapon speed rules need to be fixed. I especially like my first print of Holmes where there are Hobbits rather than Halflings and monsters don't get a d8 hit die, which gives PCs a much better chance with their d6 damage dice. And zombies are poisoned by salt.

I like Holmes in part because it sits in the middle of old school D&D and lets you expand it wherever you want to go. You can match Holmes with the Cook/Marsh Expert book any which way, or fill it out with the rules from OD&D. It's simple and easy to do mashups however you like. @zenopus made some really great charts (Holmes Ref) that expand on Holmes without bogging anything down. You can set new players down with the character creation worksheet and 15 minutes later they've got a character (I know, I've done it). I think the Zenopus Archives, and the amount of loving detail put into this 48 page booklet, is a tremendous testament to its depth.

I like Holmes aesthetically. Like, I love the cover art. I think the sample cross section for a dungeon is awesome, and I still want to run a game with a domed city under a great stone skull. I like the sample dungeon, with its empty rooms and its giant crab and its pirates (I published a second level to the dungeon, FWIW, in Dungeon Crawl #3). I mean, I literally published a magazine issue themed around Holmes D&D. I also love that it's a 48 page book and you can play D&D for months before you need anything else.

I guess I like it most because it's a distillation of what's good in D&D, and it set the standard for what the core of the game would be.

[Finarvyn]

For me, getting to Holmes was an interesting journey. My group started with OD&D and then moved on to split between OD&D and AD&D. Two of my friends from the group (who were players but not DM's) owned sets other than OD&D/AD&D ... one owned Holmes Basic (still has it) and the other bought the two B/X sets (Moldvay/Cook, no longer has it) ... but since they didn't run games I saw the sets but never really spent much time looking at them. And since we played AD&D some we looked down on Basic, assuming that it wasn't worth our time.

Eventually, decades later, I found a number of threads on DragonsFoot that discussed Holmes and this got me curious about its contents. I wish I had found it earlier. As others have noted, it's a quirky rewrite of OD&D with a lot of character and fun to read. My play experience with Holmes is very minimal, but I feel like had I learned to play with Holmes I would probably have been a fan of that edition for life.

Greyharp's post about an expansion of Holmes to fill in the gaps with OD&D sounds like a great system, or at least a blend of two great systems. Showing my ignorance, is this one of the files one can find in an easy search, or is it just a home doc that no one else has gotten to read over? Sounds like an enjoyable read.

EDIT: Is this the "single volume edition" that I see talked about online? If so, I may have that somewhere.

[captainjapan]

Finarvyn said:

EDIT: Is this the "single volume edition" that I see talked about online? If so, I may have that somewhere.

It's not the od&d single volume, but it is very close in time to that edition. The Holmes revision is still available at least one place on the web. I know that aldarron expanded Holmes to level 12 using the Greyharp revision. I used it in conjunction with Zenopus manuscript posts to create my own table copy of d&d. I recommend it.

[machfront]

This is fun and interesting! Thanks to all who’ve commented and explained.

I’ve seen how and why folks love it for good reason…For example, Falconer loves it as a means to ‘just play D&D’ whenever, whichever, however. Others seem to adore its idiosyncrasies.

I’ve still yet to hear from Holmes fans exactly why they use and STAY with Holmes and how they prefer to expand it, as expand it you must…..despite our many discussions on it being a game unto itself (which is pretty cool, too…but not how even Holmes adherents utilize the game).

I’m still interested to hear from fans of Holmes how/what/why insofar as they expand it.
100% house rules?
OD&D?
AD&D1E?
A bit of this and that?

Which? What? Why?

And why do you choose Holmes in this context(s) as what to expand and utilize?

[machfront]

Maybe I ought to spell out my own….even though I, myself, am not a person my own thread targets…

When I use Holmes, I, too…love the ‘slim, simple, concise booklet with an amazing array of monsters, etc.’
I choose to expand it along the realm of OD&D with the help of Zenopus’s extras (though I’ve used Meepo’s Companion, too, years ago). Besides, I feel completely comfy using the 1E MM, of course.
Thus, outside of tables (mostly) and some latter spell descriptions, I can just and only use a 48 page booklet. A book I love the aesthetics of.
And I’m a huge B/X guy.

It’s…..well…it’s a …’mood’, I guess.

So that’s MY personal reasoning and use.
But, having said that, I’m not a super strong Holmes guy as others seem to be.
So I still wonder how you that are….what you do and how?

[machfront]

Oddly enough…only just tonight, my main go-to copy of Holmes disconnected from its cover. I bought it off eBay it around about ‘07 or so. Though I’ve multiple copies, it’s the one I’ve used and have copies of Meepo’s Companion and Zeonopus’s various expansions stuffed into. Sad.
I’d referenced it just yesterday…tossed it onto my side table… picked it up tonight…and the cover has come off. Dang!
But hey….as I said, I’ve other…but this still has life!

[Greyharp]

Dec 20, 2022 8:28:29 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Greyharp 's post about an expansion of Holmes to fill in the gaps with OD&D sounds like a great system, or at least a blend of two great systems. Showing my ignorance, is this one of the files one can find in an easy search, or is it just a home doc that no one else has gotten to read over? Sounds like an enjoyable read.

EDIT: Is this the "single volume edition" that I see talked about online? If so, I may have that somewhere.

Definitely a different project Marv, although I did of course do the single volume edition too.

[makofan]

Holmes plus Meepo's 4-page expansion to level 9 gives you years of fun in my sweet spot. The evocative writing sets me in the mood, and the limited but broad ballot of monsters and treasures is just enough to get my creative juices flowing without having to invent too much. I just ignore the dagger rule

[Vile Traveller]

Dec 22, 2022 7:17:39 GMT -6 makofan said:

I just ignore the dagger rule

One day I'll have a go at the light weapons rule. I can see the attraction, because in practical terms adventurers - especially those after gold and not fighting - would be going for light weapons. Easy to carry, easy to stow and pull out, easy to use in confined spaces. Halberds and 10 foot poles in the dungeon are, frankly, silly (but Gygax clearly had a soft spot for them!).

They just need a rule that makes sense.

[retrorob]

Dec 19, 2022 17:44:57 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Initiative is a dirty word, not found in the 1974 game, or in GREYHAWK, or in BLACKMOOR. With no explicit rules for who attacks first in those three products, it is an obvious solution to go with dexterity determining who is...most dexterous.

One could argue that initative based on dexterity rule is "hidden" in OD&D Vol. I:

Dexterity applies to both manual speed and conjuration. It will indicate the
character’s missile ability and speed with actions such as firing first, getting off a
spell, etc.

[Falconer]

Updated links for these…

Holmes Companion, by Meepo
Holmes Treasury, by Delve

The Treasury is more the sweet spot for me, mainly for the spells.

[Zenopus]

Dec 22, 2022 10:00:17 GMT -6 retrorob said:

Dec 19, 2022 17:44:57 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Initiative is a dirty word, not found in the 1974 game, or in GREYHAWK, or in BLACKMOOR. With no explicit rules for who attacks first in those three products, it is an obvious solution to go with dexterity determining who is...most dexterous.

One could argue that initative based on dexterity rule is "hidden" in OD&D Vol. I:

Dexterity applies to both manual speed and conjuration. It will indicate the
character’s missile ability and speed with actions such as firing first, getting off a
spell, etc.

Certainly, although that could refer to using either direct scores (as in Warlock/Holmes) or for a modifier to a d6 roll (as in the OD&D FAQ by Gygax)

[machfront]

Dec 22, 2022 10:54:50 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Updated links for these…

Holmes Companion, by Meepo
Holmes Treasury, by Delve

The Treasury is more the sweet spot for me, mainly for the spells.

I love all of these and also Zenopus’s own expansions in his “Holmes Ref”, which is, so far…so expansive so as not to wish for another….well…depending on exactly how one’s wishes to expand Holmes.
Delves Treasury , I agree, is a great and solid go-to, for now.
I wish he was still around and active here.
Meepo, too. His Companion doesn’t really need anything else, considering what he wished it to be.

I just….I just want Zenopus to finally finish his amazing Holmes Ref….but, that’s all on him. Heh

[machfront]

I’m gonna put him on the spot (again), but, honestly, the absolute best way to expand Holmes …would be Zenopus’s Holmes Ref…when it finally has its tiny last lil bit finished.

And….being able to grab that same thing as a saddle-stitched POD, to slap together with one’s Holmes booklet….

I know it can be and should be!

So I’m still looking forward to it potentially being so! 😁

[soundchaser]

I never owned Holmes. Now I should, it seems. (Looks online, well, no I should not!). Okay, back to my clones and related…

[derv]

Not a Holmes aficionado, but I did run the Holmes sample dungeon this holiday weekend (using the LBB's). I accompanied it with paleologos' map of Portown and supplemented it with Fen Orcs "dingleman" Brubo the Hooded, Zenopus' (Zach) Portown Rumors, with intention to follow it up with Fen Orcs (Jonathan Rowe) Beneath the Ruined Wizard Tower.

In my view, Holmes writing has its own unique take on the fantasy environment. Just a slightly different slant. Not sure I can put my finger on it exactly even after having read The Maze of Peril. Regardless, I certainly appreciate the part he played in shaping the history of the game.

[machfront]

Dec 26, 2022 16:59:00 GMT -6 soundchaser said:

I never owned Holmes. Now I should, it seems. (Looks online, well, no I should not!). Okay, back to my clones and related…

Well, that’s a real shame. You deserve to grab a copy. Keep searching eBay regularly.
Or, at the very least, get a pdf to read. Not that there’s an official, legal copy, sadly….but you may.

[distortedhumor]

Holmes for me is a odd little system that I love, but I learned to love it after playing in various systems.

Grew up playing BECMI and 1st, then 2nd, later on found OD&D and B/X, and till I really learned OD&D did I really start to love Holmes. It is someone idea of what OD&D can be, and I am currently working on my houserule/Retro expanding it to 8 levels (I like the idea of 5th levels being heros, and 8th levels being near legendary with modern amount of time to play. Sadly I not ever been able to own a physical copy.

[chicagowiz]

Holmes was how I was introduced to D&D. This box was on the shelf in the games/toys aisle of a store; the colorful Sutherland box art caught my eye! I read the back and had to have this - devoted my allowance savings to get it. I bought it at a now-defunct discount store called "Rinks" from the Cincinnati area.

Nobody else in school knew what the hell this was, so I was stuck to just reading, drawing dungeons and fantastic maps, trying to create adventures and even figure out how to solo game, when I discovered a local hobby store that was selling these hard-covered books called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. As I purchased them, and got to know players around that store, and got to play in games despite my age of 12, I learned AD&D. To make a friendly version to try to get my friends to play, I mashed AD&D and Holmes together and pulled them into the sample dungeon, which was also connected to B2 - Keep on the Borderlands because the tower was right next to the Keep, of course! B2 had come in the box set.

Holmes always was/is the "mashup" rules. Whether with AD&D back in the day or now with AD&D+OD&D+blog/OSR stuff+my creations. The only time I've ever played Holmes as written was when I did a 12 hour marathon of B2 at a local gamestore in 2009, 2010. It was great fun!

It will always be first steps into a larger world, though, and the colored box cover will always be a fond memory of the surge of curiousity and excitement I felt in seeing in for the first time.

[dwayanu]

Holmes did not remain my mainstay, but was that for a key period.

I first played D&D in 1976, but had neither further experience nor any handbook until ‘78. In between, I made up my own game to role-play Marvel Comics characters. (Details of that are long forgotten.)

I got first Holmes and eventually OD&D from people who were moving on to AD&D.

The incompleteness of Holmes was part of the charm to me. Rather than expanding to levels beyond 3rd, I stuck with that and introduced other opportunities for characters to get more powerful. The emergent game was less cut and dried, more a matter of discovery on the players’ part, than standard D&D.

Once I had OD&D, Holmes still answered questions the little brown books did not. It was also a more compact thing to carry (as was OD&D plus supplements when compared with AD&D).

[ThrorII]

I first played D&D (one game) around 1978, at the age of 9. I don't remember now if it was OD&D, Holmes, or AD&D. I soon was bought the Holmes box set (with chits!!!). I learned D&D from Holmes. When I got to 6th grade (1980) kids were playing AD&D, so I changed.

Funny thing is, we all learned on Holmes. So, we essentially played Holmes rules (exploration & combat) with the AD&D Player's Handbook for races, classes, spells, and equipment. We didn't even understand or use the DMG.

[chicagowiz]

Jan 26, 2023 18:01:45 GMT -6 ThrorII said:

the Holmes box set (with chits!!!)

Did you use a Dixie Cup?

[Finarvyn]

Dixie was the cup of champions back in the day. I think it's Solo now, the red ones.

[dwayanu]

I got the dice that TSR provided, which were pretty rubbish. The d20 ended up roughly spherical, the faces scarcely evident. Folks stuck with chits due to the oil crisis were not quite so badly off from that perspective.

Seeing the use of chits was also an eye-opener to the possibility of different kinds of funky dice, easier to implement without the need to make literal polyhedra.

The drawback was needing to have a cup or bag for each type, else a frequency of needing to draw again. The alternative of cards also has the drawback of shuffling being a more elaborate process than shaking up chits.