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Post by Zenopus on Sept 29, 2023 18:03:35 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Sept 29, 2023 12:15:29 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Sept 28, 2023 10:18:49 GMT -6
Another possibility for the answerer is Arneson, who was at TSR until November 1976, per Game Wizards. Any thoughts increment or stormberg? |
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Post by Zenopus on Sept 28, 2023 7:01:17 GMT -6
Wow! Thanks for sharing. There have been many reports that TSR/Gygax was inundated with requests for rules clarifications in the early years, so it's amazing to see an actual example of one! A few notes: ---The letter writer is named Wayne Patton. There is an author of the same name in Judges Guild Journal #3 (Installment N), Aug/Sep 77, who contributes a single new monster: Gremlins. Notably, the OD&D set up for auction also includes some Judges Guild tables. The author's hometown, Iowa City, is about 3 hours driving southwest of Lake Geneva, and 4 hours northwest of Decatur, IL, where JG was located, so they were part of the mid-west gaming milieu. ---The letter is dated 9/9/1976. This is after all of the supplements for D&D were released, with the last two (GD&H and S&S) having been released in July, per the Acaeum. The writer mentions thieves & gelatinous cubes, which both appeared in the Greyhawk supplement. ---I wonder if we could figure out who answered the letter based on the handwriting? The mix of upper and lower case does remind me of some of Gygax's writing that I've seen. ---As to the clarifications themselves, they are a mixed bag, but interesting. Question 1: The writer seems to be asking about the ability of characters to read & write, but the answerer seemingly misunderstands and just replies with a reference to the rules for thieves being able to read languages & magic at certain levels. Question 2: The writer is asking for alternate rules for damage by fire, including for susceptible creatures (referencing mummies and gelatinous cubes). The answerer focuses only the susceptible creatures, providing a system for those to take extra damage (+1 per die; sort of the opposite effect of Resist Fire). Question 3: This is a good example of a DM back-in-the-day wondering about the oft-questioned armor/weapon restrictions in Men & Magic. The answerer gives a quick and emphatic clarification that the restrictions for magic armor/weapons are intended to apply to the normal versions as well. Question 4: The answerer provides a useful clarification that a dwarf can detect traps while walking along, as long as they are not otherwise engaged. |
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Post by Zenopus on Sept 15, 2023 5:10:27 GMT -6
Holmes also doesn't say that damage equals current HP. The example it gives is that a dragon with 20 HP does 20 points of breath weapon damage, or 10 if the save is made. There's nothing saying to reduce this if the dragon is wounded.
I think this idea was introduced in B/X Basic.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 29, 2023 6:57:35 GMT -6
The Yggsburgh PDF is now up for sale by itself on the Troll Lord Games page, for $24.95: Yggsburgh PDF at TLG(Remember if you buy the hardcopy, it comes with the PDF as well) It's supposed to be up on DrivethruRPG soon as well, but I don't see it there yet. |
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 28, 2023 16:28:44 GMT -6
I thought this was going to be about the $26,000 copy that just sold on Ebay.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 25, 2023 9:11:50 GMT -6
Per TLG on FB, a PDF-only option is coming shortly to their website and DrivethruRPG. No price indicated yet.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 24, 2023 14:45:04 GMT -6
I just checked and my hardcopy published in 2005 has an MSRP of $39.95 on the barcode on the back. But there's also a $20 price tag on it. And I actually bought it from an online shop for less than that in 2009. It was basically considered abandonware for years once the TLG lost the license to continue publishing the Zagyg series.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 24, 2023 14:18:40 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 24, 2023 14:01:45 GMT -6
Email states price is $39.95. Link in email to product indicates $65.00 ? Yeah, that puzzles me too. Over in the parallel DF thread, foster1941 mentioned that the $39.95 is the original MSRP. It looks to me that in the email they simply cut-and-pasted some of their old ad copy without proofing it. Which is pretty on-point for them.  |
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 23, 2023 16:52:18 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 19, 2023 9:16:06 GMT -6
... Here's a second suggested strategy: - Cast fly- Cast invisibility- Cast non-attacking spells in support of an allied army ( control weather, move earth, hallucinatory terrain, conjure elemental, etc.) In this case, the wizard would getting a lot of value and seemingly not even be detectable by a conventional army. (There are probably other combos, but these two strike me as the most obvious and troubling.) ... A non-preferred answer would be "the other army needs its own wizard" (or the like), because it effectively capitulates on the issue that conventional armies would be helpless against a standard D&D wizard. Is there any better near-rules-based response? Now, Vol-3 has a ground-to-air missile fire rule (p. 27) where a catapult can fire a load of stones at an aerial target in a "shotgun effect", so perhaps that provides a conventional counter for armies of normal man (and you better have one or more of those most of the time). But it still seems to fail against the second strategy with the invisible wizard. Are there other options? Another possible option: Superheroes in Chainmail and OD&D (at least per the Pixie entry in Vol 2) can see invisible targets, as you yourself recently wrote about. It seems that a Superhero with the ability to fly (using a mount or magic item) could target a flying invisible wizard. And even if there's no flight available, the Superhero could attach to a unit and direct missile fire at the wizard from the ground. Per the Fantasy Reference Table, Wraiths, Dragons and Rocs also have the same ability "to detect hidden invisible enemies", and can each fly. This ability is not clearly defined, however, as only the entry for Dragons mentions the ability to see invisible (and only up to 15"), and the entry for Roc indicates that they can see hidden enemies up to 48" but *not* invisible ones. This brings to question whether the ability of Superheroes is also range-limited. In OD&D, Vol 2, some intelligent swords also have the ability to See Invisible Objects (the 2nd level MU spell "Detect Invisible (Objects)" says that this includes invisible creatures). A sword with Detect Magic might work as well, if interpreted to encompass creatures with a spell cast upon them. Or possibly Detect Evil. Intelligent Swords don't have any indicated range limitation, although one might limit them to an equivalent magic-user spell. |
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 17, 2023 18:27:10 GMT -6
With respect to the first scenario (flying wizard/wand of fire balls), it gives one side a high-powered magic item but then the other side nothing of equivalent strength. It seems you could construct a similar unbalanced scenario by giving only one side a pack of hippogriffs able to drop bombs (using the bombing rules in Vol 3).
I also note that the Vol 3 section on Ground-to-Air attacks also mentions a "tension-type" of light catapult that can fire darts doing 2d6 damage into the air, including straight up, to "the maximum range of such catapults", which in Chainmail is 30" for light catapults, so longer than the range for fireball. I think if such aerial attacks were common, these types of catapults would also be common.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 14, 2023 16:23:32 GMT -6
Question: have they severed the early D&D, Chainmail and other out of print games out of the regular con? What’s up with Legends and Founders con scheduled for the weekend before the regular Gary Con? Apparently we got to buy an extra badge and extra room & board. That kind of sucks No, F&L is a separate one-off con this year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D. You can still run any type of game at the regular Gary Con as usual. |
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 12, 2023 20:08:00 GMT -6
I've got my badge and am planning on running two game sessions. Probably the Forgotten Smugglers' Cave again and something purely LBB OD&D for the 50th anniversary.
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Post by Zenopus on Jul 23, 2023 12:28:07 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Jul 1, 2023 14:38:00 GMT -6
Desparil: In case you haven't seen it, upthread ( here) there's an example of Chainmail combat written by Gygax in 1975 where the post-melee result is 14 (i.e., "melee continues" on the "Post Melee Morale" table), but Gygax states that the melee continues in the next turn rather than being immediately resolved by further rounds.
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Post by Zenopus on Jun 28, 2023 19:51:37 GMT -6
I voted "Yes".
I typically run theatre-of-the-mind combat and allow casting during melee unless the caster is directly engaged in melee (i.e., someone swinging at them) or has been hit (by melee, missile or spell) earlier in the round. I use Dex-based initiative without declarations, so on a caster's turn they can choose to cast if they haven't been hit by something and don't have anyone swinging at them.
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Post by Zenopus on May 2, 2023 22:14:34 GMT -6
Gamism
Narrativism
Simulationism
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 30, 2023 13:41:52 GMT -6
All characters have one ability score called "Ability Score" That's close to the Awesomesauce RPG, where you have exactly 1 stat named Awesomesauce: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/107162/Awesomesauce-The-Roleplaying-Game-Troll-Hammer-EditionIt's your generic skill and you can roll as many dice as you have in Awesomesauce, as long as you roll above the enemy's result in combat, you retain your score in Awesomesauce, if you lose, you lose the dice you used. I was thinking of TWERPS by Jeff and 'Manda Dee, which also did that back in the '80s with a single stat: Strength. But I did have a sense there were more recent RPGs that also took that approach. |
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 30, 2023 10:39:08 GMT -6
All characters have one ability score called "Ability Score"
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 27, 2023 19:18:50 GMT -6
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 27, 2023 8:12:44 GMT -6
My apologies, I approved him last night as it seemed straight forward.
One of my friends played in one of his games at this past Gary Con.
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 20, 2023 18:44:26 GMT -6
I compared the list in the first print to a later printing and found a single change. The cost of a Spear was initially 2 gp (in the first print), and was changed at some point to 1 gp (the later print).
This explains why Holmes has the Spear at 2 gp instead of 1 gp. Need to revise my post now!
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 20, 2023 11:49:33 GMT -6
Offhand, I can't think of any changes to the LBBs themselves. Holmes did copy most of the table over into Holmes Basic, and then Gary added one item, a Tinderbox for 3 gp. There is a deeper dive into the other minor changes between the LBB equipment list and the one in Holmes on my blog. In fact, I just recently revised/expanded this section of this post: zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/11/part-4-and-half-human-half-serpent-naga.html |
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 18, 2023 14:53:42 GMT -6
So, rather than Ernie Gygax taking stats for things like giant rats and carnivorous apes from a draft of the Monster Manual, he may have just sprinkled in real or nearly-real animals with whatever stats he felt fit because that was standard GM practice at the time. That's a possibility, but if so then the stats from the M&TA must have been used for the Monster Manual entries, because the two sets of stats are close. If we look at the Carnivorous Ape, entry #19 on Level 1, we see: Carnivorous Apes - (1) HP: 18; #AT: 3; AL: 6; ST/F 4-6; SA: if 2nd and 3rd attacks score, the ape does 1-8 points additional damage (rending). These entries are weird in that they don't give HD, only AL ("Attack Level"), which is THAC9 (score to hit AC 9) and "ST", which is Saving Throw. But this was early on and they were still working out how to present monster stats in abbreviated form. If we look at the MM, the C. Ape has a HD of 5, which fits with it saving as "F 4-6" (Fighter 4-6). Number of attacks, three, also matches, as does the Special Attack of rending, a term also used in the MM entry, and it does the same amount of bonus damage (1-8). The only stat that doesn't match is "AL" (THAC9). A 5 HD creature would have an AL of 5 using the "Monsters Attacking" table in Vol 2 of OD&D, where as an AL of 6 would be for HD "3-4". But maybe they only had 4 HD at this point and were later increased. |
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 18, 2023 9:08:55 GMT -6
It's possible that there were some changes made to a later printing, but I'd be careful spending too much time analyzing a PDF of uncertain provenance as it possible that the PDF itself was edited by someone. As in, someone may have edited the PDF to match the later set. We'd really need to see an original printed copy.
That said, the Monster & Treasure Assortment Set One was included in the first printing of the Holmes Basic Set, so was definitely out prior to the Monster Manual, and contains monsters that had not yet been given a full write-up in D&D: Centipedes (note the missing "Giant"), Giant Rats, Carnivorous Apes, Large/Huge Spiders, Giant Lizards, Giant Weasels. Probably some others. These were all mentioned somewhere in the OD&D booklets by name but not given stats until the M&TA and then the Monster Manual. I'd guess that whoever wrote up the M&TA (Ernie Gygax has stated that he did the work) was working off a draft of the Monster Manual.
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Post by Zenopus on Apr 3, 2023 12:55:42 GMT -6
I saw the movie on an IMAX screen with the family yesterday & enjoyed it as much as any of the various Marvel movies, which is to say, much better than I would have predicted. Tonally, it is very similar to a Guardians of the Galaxy movie in its mix of humor and action.
Z
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 21, 2023 7:30:19 GMT -6
Each of the subforums has a description listed beneath the title, and the description for each of the subforums for OD&D Volumes I-III indicates that it also covers the corresponding material from the supplements and strategic Review. For example, the Men & Magic forum covers character class info from the original volume as well as any supplements or SR.
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) for the three Dragon issues with the Boinger & Zereth short stories (#s 31, 46, 58)
