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This was post was in this thread, but I decided to move it to its own thread on the General Board, as the goal is to make people aware of the show in case they would like to visit while it is running.

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David Sutherland's iconic painting for Holmes Basic is on exhibit for the first time at the Norman Rockwell Museum in MA!

I visited two weeks ago, below is my best photo of it.

I've also written a blog post for the Zenopus Archives about my visit:

zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-holmes-basic-set-cover-art-exhibited.html

Thanks for starting this thread!

I've got a new post up on the Zenopus Archives in honor of the day:


"d20 Unexpectedly Intelligent Monsters in the Monster Manual"

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.

I can confirm that the 1st printing of Chainmail also has all of the above text, on page 41. I don't have a full copy of the 1st printing, just some auction images, but this is one of the pages that I do have an image of.

My rankings are pretty close to these, though I would place Rogue One lower and Solo higher.

Rewatching Episodes 1-9 with the kids last year, and all in order for myself for the first time ever, reinforced my views.

Original Trilogy > Sequel Trilogy >>>>> Prequel Trilogy. I just don't enjoy much of the Prequel Trilogy, while I find the Sequel Trilogy entertaining, with the chemistry between the leads much closer to the original trilogy, which goes a long way.

badger2305

Awesome, I've played in several games with Steve in the past, both at NTX and Gary Con, and have always enjoyed it.

I am participating in a few virtual NTRPGCon games. These have not been very well advertised, but there are 21 of them, including some Tim Kask OD&D games. The schedule is here: tabletop.events/conventions/ntrpgcon-2021v-virtual-

Badges are $2 for a day, or $5 for the weekend, a bargain compared to virtual Gary Con.

Tonight I'm playing a Tekumel game (Bethorm version), run by Manda, Jeff Dee's wife (Jeff is the Bethorm author).
There's one seat left in it if anyone here is interested:
tabletop.events/conventions/ntrpgcon-2021v-virtual-/schedule/4

A friend of mine is running a MERP game, "Wight Gold", tomorrow night that could use more players:
tabletop.events/conventions/ntrpgcon-2021v-virtual-/schedule/21
(I playtested it or I would join)

I'm also playing in a Holmes game run by DM Perky on Sunday, but that one is full.

Well, Mr Miyagi did refuse to train Daniel in Karate Kid III...

@ampleframework

I also thought of Black Puddings when I read At the Mountains of Madness, enough that I used them in the write-up for the Ancient Builders (Old One/Primordial One analogs, which Vile Traveller included in Blueholme). But I didn't note that the Shoggoths could also be an inspiration for the "clean-up crew" term. The Blob is another strong contender for the Black Pudding, so we need to consider both as possible sources for the idea of the "clean-up crew".

Gygax credited Arneson with the Black Pudding, but I don't know who coined "clean-up crew" term. See my speculation on the origins of the Ochre Jelly here for more discussion of this: Ochre Jelly Inspiration?

Back in 2006 on DF, someone actually asked Gygax whether the Shoggoths served as inspiration for the Black Pudding. His reply, which includes a very Gygaxian pun:

I became aware of the 1st print when I noticed the extra mythos in the copy of D&DG at my local library! I already had my own non-Cthulhu/Melnibonean copy, received in mid-1983 (IIRC), so this was probably around '84. I'm surprised it survived in the stacks for that long!

Yes! I did grow up in the region. Some of my favorite places to visit growing up were the DC Zoo, the Smithsonian Natural History Museum and the Baltimore Aquarium. In the later '80s, I bought my OD&D "Collector's Edition" Whitebox at a game store that used to exist in the Harborplace Mall in the Inner Harbor.

That's as specific as I will be in a public forum.