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The question is, why is it *more likely* that Gygax intended 6 second rounds in OD&D (10 rounds/per 1 minute "combat turn"), than one minute rounds, with 10 equaling a ten-minute turn?

*We've got Chainmail saying that "One turn of play is roughly equivalent to one minute of time in battle", and Gygax's 1975 letter upthread, indicating but a single melee round per turn in Chainmail.

*We've got OD&D adding "Two moves constitute a turn" and "There are ten rounds of combat per turn", with no other stated distinction between turns.

*We've got Gygax saying in 1978 that the 1 minute melee round in OD&D was what was intended:


(Dragon #15, June 1978, "From the Sorcerer's Scroll: D&D GROUND AND SPELL AREA SCALE")

*We've got Gygax keeping the 1-minute round in AD&D, and defending it.

It's pretty easy from the above to draw a straight line from the Chainmail 1-minute turn through OD&D to the AD&D 1-minute round. It's possible to argue that shorter rounds were intended in OD&D Vol 3, but I think it requires a heavier burden to overcome the above than has been put forth so far. And it's harder now that there's evidence indicating that the Chainmail turn was not, by default, meant to include multiple rounds of combat.

ThrorII

Thanks for your comment. Whether or not "Chainmail has an unlimited number of melee rounds in a 1-minute combat turn" is actually what this entire thread is about!

I replied to you on Grognardia. Here's part of what I wrote:



See the referenced article in my post upthread.

Donjon Lands has a follow-up post now, where they retract their previous argument:

www.donjonlands.com/2021/07/the-one-minute-combat-round-revisited.html

However, in my opinion, the issue of whether Chainmail MTM also assumes one round of combat per 1 minute-turn is still open for discussion.

There is a new blog post over on DONJON LANDS that cites this thread as part of an argument that D&D rounds are meant to be less than one minute long. The thrust of the argument, which I am not sold on, is that Chainmail's Man-to-Man combat sequence *must* occur at a shorter scale than the 1 minute rounds of Mass Combat.

www.donjonlands.com/2021/07/chainmail-odd-and-the-one-minute-combat-round.html

There's also a post about it on Grognardia today, with further discussion.

grognardia.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-one-minute-combat-round.html

As I wrote there:


But for purposes of this thread, where we've now found contemporaneous evidence (see my post above) that the "second round" of Mass Combat occurs in the "second turn", meaning there is typically one round of combat per turn, how do you feel about the argument that Man-to-Man combat differs in that the procedures assumes multiple rounds of combat per turn if both combatants survive the first round?

The argument over there is long, so I won't repeat it all here, but a lot of hit hinges on the interpretation that the instructions for "2nd Round and thereafter" in Man-to-Man only makes sense if the rounds are all occurring in a single turn. Which, to me, remains debatable.

Thanks for the heads up! From the preview, it's a 3rd Edition (1975), 7th printing (April 1979), and scanned from an original rather than re-typeset like the OD&D booklets.

The print plus digital version costs the same as the print version alone, $6.99. I just ordered a copy, will report on quality when it arrives. The total with tax and media mail shipping was $11.91.

I haven't owned a print copy of Chainmail in quite a while. I used to have this same edition (including the coiled rings mentioned above), which I ordered from the TSR Mail Order Hobby Shop in the late '80s, but I sold it on Ebay at some point in the late '90s.

Congrats to Fin, and the rest of the members, old and new!

I also joined in 2008, on June 26, but still feel like one of the newer members as that was about a year after it started.

This is the oldest post of mine here that I've found, from Feb 6, 2009: odd74.proboards.com/post/24944/thread

Welcome, son of bear!

Bumping an old thread is fine here. In fact, I will sometimes merge a new thread with an older one that covers the same topic.

aramis

Bold choices, placing TFA and Mandalorian below the Holiday Special!

Sure, but that meme makes out like the "reluctant mentor" is this outlandish idea that only Johnson would use, when in fact it's such a common trope that it was used in the Karate Kid series itself.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we should refrain from posting Wee Warriors material here. The intellectual property was acquired by Precis Intermedia a few years ago, and they sell digital copies now: www.pigames.net/store/default.php?cPath=145

"Wee Warriors, Palace of the Vampire Queen, The Dwarven Glory, The Misty Isles, The Embattled Trek, Labyrinthine, The Vanquished Foe, Dogtags, Dragonlord, The Character Archaic, The Endless Dungeon, The Village, and Dungeon Designer's Kit are game and game accessory trademarks of Precis Intermedia. All rights reserved."

They don't offer the Character Archaic per se for sale, but do have a free pdf download of a remastered version of the character sheet from it here:

www.pigames.net/store/articles.php?page=537

The Troll Lord Games forums, including Gary's original post, are still around; they've just moved in the intervening time which has resulted in broken links.

Here's the current link to the post with "Gary's OD&D House Rules" from August 2007. I also put that corrected link in the older thread here that you linked above.

For posterity, here's an exact quote of what Gary wrote there. I again stress that these are his 2007 rules for convention games. They aren't exactly the same as what was reported in 2005, and most certainly differ from what he used in the 1970s. As a followup to what you wrote above, I don't see anything about damage reduction here.

I had my Gen Con XIII program handy and checked it. There's a full page ad on page 17 for D&DG that screams across the top: "JUST RELEASED from TSR HOBBIES INC".

So it was definitely available at that Gen Con, which was Aug 24-26.

Depending on when they had it ready, it may have also been available at the earlier Origins, but we would need to check the program book or con reports to see if there is any evidence for that.

* * * * *

Other Gen Con XIII ads for new TSR products include the Knights of Camelot boardgame and the World of Greyhawk folio, along with WoG Fantasy Figures by Minifigs. TSR also has ads for the Dungeon Hobby Shop and Dragon Publishing, and TSR artist Darlene has her own ad for Art & Calligraphy.

Other companies/products with ads include Valiant Miniatures, Balboa Game Company, SPI, Iron Crown Enterprises, Judges Guild, The Courier magazine, Martian Metals, International Team Games, Asteroid by GDW, Titan, Ral Partha, La Bataille D'Austerlitz, TA-HR miniatures, Tom Loback General Artworks, Lyles Hobby & Craft Center, Game Room Productions, Grenadier Models and, on the back cover, "New Fantasy Aids!" by Dimension Six.

As far as I remember, the first D&D book that I ever looked through was a Monster Manual at a Crown Books! This was before I got my Holmes Basic set. I remember the Bulette on the title page - which I recognized from my sandbox toys - and the ferocious-looking Carnivorous Ape.

Thanks! That means the bit about striking with 18 Dexterity was in there from the beginning. I've added a note about this to my post here.



That's actually what it says in my copy of the Fiend Folio, so I think Turnbull just copied over the intro information from an early printing of the Monster Manual. I've also confirmed that this language was still present in the 3rd printing of the Monster Manual, which per the Acaeum is from around Dec 1978.

I wonder how the 21 to 30 was intended to correspond to the various Giants?

Perhaps....

21: Hill Giant (HD 8 + 1-2)
22: Stone Giant (HD 9 + 1-3)
23-24: Frost Giant (HD 10 + 1-4)
25-26: Fire Giant (HD 11 + 2-5)
27-28: Cloud Giant (HD 12 + 2-7)
29-30: Storm Giant (HD 15 + 2-7)