|
Post by Zenopus on Mar 6, 2022 12:31:28 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Mar 5, 2022 10:38:21 GMT -6
Paleologos on DF first clued me into Diesel being the source of the maps in B2. I talked to Diesel in person about it at NTRPCon one year, and he said he remembered drawing all of those little trees. Paleologos also talked to him about it in person in 2018, which he posted about here ("...Diesel (ditto, confirming that he did all the cartography for B2, and even added a secret chamber to the gnoll lair)...")
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Mar 4, 2022 18:11:21 GMT -6
krusader74. Welcome back; that's an epic return post!
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Mar 2, 2022 16:31:14 GMT -6
That's a good insight.
Bigfoot was also a memorable character on the hugely popular Six Million Dollar Man, appearing in two different two-part episodes, The Secret of Bigfoot (Feb 76) and The Return of Bigfoot (Sep 76). The former appears to have just before Star Wars started shooting in March '76.
There was also Cha-Ka on the Land of the Lost, starting in 1974, who basically looks like a mini Chewebacca with less facial hair. The first episode of the series is called "Cha-Ka". Come to think of it, the name "Cha-Ka" is not that far off from Chewbacca...
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Mar 1, 2022 12:30:16 GMT -6
That image is just an advance mock-up using recycled art from the July 1984 Amazing Stories magazine cover. During that era, TSR constantly made catalog placeholders for advance products, typically using recycled artwork or rough guides. See a bunch at once from a 1985 catalog in this Acaeum thread, including products both produced and unproduced. The product code, 2020, was later assigned to the Wilderness Survival Guide, which was published November 1986, pretty close to the projected date (October 1986) for the Unearthed Arcana II in the catalog listing. Now, was the Unearthed Arcana II simply an undeveloped placeholder so retailers could place advance orders, or was it an actual in-development project that was shelved in favor of the Survival Guides? Impossible to know without more insider knowledge. Gygax was asked about it a few times, once on Dragonsfoot, and once in an interview, but didn't indicate any familiarity with the concept, stating that it would have been after his time. Of course, it is still possible that it was an idea that originated in his time, and he had just forgotten about it.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 25, 2022 15:09:17 GMT -6
Since they're so elaborate, I wonder if it wouldn't be a better use of the DM's time to grab one of these maze books off the shelf and start walling off portions to produce rooms and chambers rather than mapping the dungeon corridors from scratch. I'll bet somebody's already thought of that. Offhand, one dungeon that was definitely influenced by mazes was Judges Guild's Nightmare Maze of Jigresh (1981):
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 23, 2022 13:05:59 GMT -6
I had that Monster Mazes book by 1980 or so; I have a copy here and the copyright date is 1976. That's still a few years after D&D got started, but the product listing in the back has a section of "Gamebooks" that includes a number of earlier mazebooks, including Maze Craze, which may have be Troubadour's first Maze Book. Another maze book from the era - I think I had it before Monster Mazes - that I remember fondly was one that made a maze out of the streets of various cities of the world (London, Paris, etc). I've never been able to trace this one down on the internet. There's a much newer book called "City Mazes" that does the same thing, but it's not the one I remember. [Update: *Finally* found it using World Cat. It's "The Great Round the World Maze Trip" (1978) by Rick & Glory Brightfield - who are mentioned in the article below] Here's a NYT article from 1975 about the '70s Maze fad: www.nytimes.com/1975/07/27/archives/labyrinthian-way.htmlSo the above article is from about a year-and-a-half after D&D was released in Jan 1974, but there are already 30 maze books on the market. Koziakin's first book, Mazes, was published in 1971, which is well before D&D. So the beginning of the "Maze Craze" does predate D&D and may have been part of the milieu in which it was developed.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 23, 2022 0:32:57 GMT -6
I do. Look up the various 3D Maze books illustrated by Larry Evans. His 3D Monster Maze book was a particular favorite of mine prior to discovering D&D:
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 17, 2022 15:15:46 GMT -6
Interesting. I'm looking at set 2 from 1980 (the only one I have access to), but according to the Acaeum's list of changes for that compiled version of M&TA, the metallic dragons have all been replaced by chromatic ones. Is the reason for this, to somehow make the dragons more compatible with Moldvay?
Yes, definitely. The only metallic dragon in B/X is the Gold Dragon. My guess is that this is because it was the only one in the LBBs, the others being added in Greyhawk, and TSR was trying to distinguish the D&D and AD&D lines at the time. * * * * * I remembered another early module, from before the G-series, with a Gygaxian dragon or two. The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth, 300 copies of which were produced for Wintercon in 1976, has two dragons: a Copper Dragon in the Lesser Caverns, and a Bronze Dragon in the Greater Caverns, each of neutral alignment. There's a full write-up for each, including behavior and spells known, and a stat block in the "Monster Characteristics" table. There are also two Fire Lizards, from the Blackmoor supplement, which are dragon adjacent, also being known as the 'false dragon'.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 17, 2022 7:54:37 GMT -6
FWIW, there are also early TSR-published dragons in Monster & Treasure Assortments, Vol 2 (1977) and 3 (1978). However, the authorship is a bit ambiguous because the products don't credit anyone and Ernie Gygax has said that he rolled up the tables while working at TSR after school (though the results aren't strictly possible from any particular known table).
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 11, 2022 14:44:20 GMT -6
My guess would be prior usage in wargames. Here's one example: Blitzkrieg Module System (BMS), "1969 rules set for modifying Avalon Hill’s Blitzkrieg game"
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Feb 1, 2022 15:27:02 GMT -6
That is true, although if the Intelligence is 6 or less, the particular Int score is not of much importance because the sword will have no communicative power and no Ego. Alignment will then be the only factor of significance (other than any powers the sword has, which "will have to be discovered by the user").
You can see this in the Monster & Treasure Assortment Sets 1-3 (written for OD&D), where every sword has an Alignment listed, but only those with higher Intelligence have the score noted, along with an Ego score.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 29, 2022 10:31:56 GMT -6
Trying to put myself in that 1977 head space: Human cloning was a major bioethics issue in the 1970s! For example James D. Watson's famous 1971 article in The Atlantic, titled "Moving Toward The Clonal Man"I betcha George Lucas read Watson's article in the Atlantic during the time he was writing Star Wars. Yes, cloning was very much in the popular culture in the 1970s. Widespread enough that we got a Clone spell in Greyhawk in 1975. Dune was obviously a huge influence on the first Star Wars movie with its desert planet setting and mention of spice, and Dune has its own version of a clone, a ghola, which first featured in 1969's Dune Messiah. Several years before Star Wars there was even a 1973 sci-fi movie called The Clones. Just after Star Wars, in 1978, we have an episode of the live action Spider-Man show called Night of the Clones where he battles his own evil clone (I remember watching this), and the Boys from Brazil, with a plot revolving around cloning. The very 1970s plot twist of having Luke battle his own clone was used by Zahn in the Thrawn trilogy.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 29, 2022 10:18:47 GMT -6
I trained as a biologist, work in an adjacent field.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 25, 2022 14:55:58 GMT -6
The thoul has two lines of invention: the name, which is known to be created by a typo; and the interpretation of what the monster actually was, which as far as I know is still not fully discovered and could have been anyone's invention. If you see my notes above about the Mangroll, it looks like Moldvay used characteristics from the Mangroll from their campaign in creating the version of the thoul for B/X. This would suggest that there wasn't a standard version in play at TSR at the time; or at least Gygax hadn't shared his version (if it existed) with them. James Mishler noted in the Piazza thread that that item and several others (Hawk Helm, Ring of Ruthlessness) are copied almost word-for-word from the Arduin Grimoire Vol 1. It appears the handwritten material was written out by Bill Wilkerson rather than Moldvay or Schick.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 22, 2022 17:49:30 GMT -6
Interestingly, the Mangroll in the Moldvay/Schick/Wilkerson notes (page 34 of the compilation) shares several characteristics with the Thoul of Moldvay Basic. Notably, they are composed of three monsters, "part troll, part human, part ghoul"; two of these are the same as the thoul (troll and ghoul). They also paralyze and regenerate like thouls can do. A big difference is the Mangrolls have tentacle arms, whereas Thouls instead resemble hobgoblins. Page 55 of the compilation also has "Thoulls" on the Fourth Level table, but there doesn't seem to be a further description of them, perhaps because it was just taken from the OD&D tables.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 22, 2022 16:57:02 GMT -6
Look at the wild "Wandering Dungeon Parties" (page 62 of the compiled doc assembled by Shannon Appelcline)
A few examples:
1st Level = Minotaur Fighter, Bugbear MU/T, Goblin Fighter, 5 Fighters
4th level = Hobbit MU, Lizard-Man Cleric, 6 fighters, 2 clerics, 2 MUs
5th level = Turtle-Man F/MU, 2 Dwarf fighters, 6 fighters, 3 MUs.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 21, 2022 15:19:59 GMT -6
Holy Thyatis, Batman!
Thanks for the heads up, Falc.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Jan 19, 2022 18:34:47 GMT -6
Much as Sauron was Morgoth's lieutenant, and stepped in to fill the power vacuum once he was gone, you could have a lieutenant of Sauron's attempting to take over his remaining forces/assets after he is gone.
Possibilities: -Mouth of Sauron, Lieutenant of Barad-Dur (or another Black Numenorean) -Gothmog, Lieutenant of Morgul (only briefly mentioned once in LOTR) -A Balrog that Sauron unearthed from beneath the Mountains of Mordor -Blue Wizard(s) -An Uruk Hai or Olog Hai Chieftain -Some kind of military mastermind from afar (the East in LOTR) like Thrawn in the SW Expanded Universe.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 23, 2021 15:59:04 GMT -6
In the Sources and Acknowledgements, Jon lists at least 25 people who helped make the book possible through "interviews and conversations", and these are all people who were there at the time (Ward, Schick, Cook, Ernie Gygax, etc).
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 23, 2021 15:44:33 GMT -6
I can still remember when my dad came home from the library with an early hardcover copy of the "Third Planet from Altair": I think this was around 3rd grade, and before I had discovered D&D, so it was as significant life event for me from a "gaming" perspective. I loved it, and soon after read others in the series, mostly paperbacks from the library. I later enjoyed the Time Machine and Interplanetary Spy series, the latter of which had a lot of puzzles to solve as part of the story. Around the time I was getting into D&D, I also discovered the Endless Quest books, although I only really remember the first four, and one or two of the Super Endless Quest books I later had (where you had a character). I only every found one Fighting Fantasy book (City of Thieves), at our local library, so I never really got into those, but I loved the long-running Lone Wolf/Magnakai series. I think I played through most of the original 12 books. But best of all were the Tolkien Quest/Middle-Earth Quest gamebooks, some of which were the pinnacle '80s gamebook design, with hex maps to explore, events based on tracked time, a character you could bring from book-to-book, and essentially an entire simple 2d6-based RPG system. I played through 5 of 6 of those (I could never find the 6th) with a dwarf named Fori I; I still have his character sheet around here somewhere.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 23, 2021 15:38:35 GMT -6
A few "data points":
Chainmail, 2nd Edition refers to "Tolkien's trilogy" in the entry for Rocs
In "Fantasy Wargaming and the Influence of J.R.R. Tolkien" (1974), Gygax calls it "Tolkien's "Ring Trilogy""
In the Basic Set rulebook, Holmes calls it "Tolkien's great Lord of the Rings trilogy"
In the Appendix N list of the DMG, it's "Ring Trilogy".
In the revised Basic set rulebook, Moldvay calls it the "Lord of the Rings (trilogy)".
* * * *
I'd say it's natural to shorthand "Lord of the Rings trilogy" down to "Rings Trilogy", but that sounds little weird when you say it out loud, so it's further easy to switch to "Ring Trilogy", particularly because the first book also uses the singular ("Fellowship of the Ring").
Nowadays we are more aware that Tolkien thought of it as one long book, so we are more likely to refer to it as just "Lord of the Rings" without appending trilogy.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 21, 2021 13:17:40 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 20, 2021 6:52:12 GMT -6
Nice writeup- Dr. Holmes sure went all in when he decided to try out D&D. Maybe better for another topic, but has Chris indicated whether his Dad adopted any/much of the Warlock rules to his games as they were starting out? Delayed reply, but I believe they used much of the Warlock rules when they started. Holmes mentions using the combat system in his book, and Chris has referenced the damage system (multiple d6s for variable damage). There are also references to specific spells from Warlock in Holmes' writing, and in some artifacts that have been preserved, like Murray the Magic-User's character sheet. Eric Frasier, who played Murray, still has his original Warlock rules (the Spartan magazine version) and Manual of Aurania; you can see a picture here.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 19, 2021 12:20:56 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 18, 2021 8:04:50 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 16, 2021 12:21:53 GMT -6
One tidbit I don't recall hearing before (or have forgotten) is that "an area of the "Great Kingdom" campaign world" contained Barsoomian creatures - the ones that appeared in the U&WA tables. increment : was this an area shown on one of the maps? It survives in a piece of the 1973 correspondence between Gygax and Arneson - just a passing mention from Gygax that "Keoland has Martian beasts, so we'll ride thoats and fight banths + apts." Thanks! That is intriguing. Previously, I had the impression that the OD&D Vol 3 table "Optional Arid Plains" - the one with the Barsoomian critters - was inspired primarily by running games in Barsoom itself ( accesible via Castle Greyhawk) rather than in part of the lands of the Great Kingdom (which later developed into the World of Greyhawk). The idea of using Mars per se is reinforced in that booklet by the "Desert (Mars)" subtable for Men, and the mention of Mars in the section "Other Worlds" ("Some areas of land could be gates into other worlds, dimensions, times, or whatever. Mars is given in these rules, but...") And I wouldn't have guessed Keoland as a home to Barsoomian fauna based on its later description in the World of Greyhawk folio, but it does fit better with the description in Quag Keep, where the "plains of Koeland" [sic, spelled Keoland elsewhere] are a largely empty and dry place, broken only by tributaries of a great river (geography which generally matches the "Megarry" version of the Great Kingdom map). The party in the story crosses "long dry patches" between the rivers, which causes problems for the lizardman in the party. "Arid Plains" certainly fits how Keoland is described there. On the Great Kingdom map, Keoland also runs up to the mountains bordering the Sea of Dust, another obviously dry area.
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 15, 2021 17:12:08 GMT -6
I'm up to 1975 now! The first Origins approaches. I'm very much enjoying it. The amount of correspondence that survived to enable the telling of this story is jaw-dropping. One tidbit I don't recall hearing before (or have forgotten) is that "an area of the "Great Kingdom" campaign world" contained Barsoomian creatures - the ones that appeared in the U&WA tables. increment: was this an area shown on one of the maps?
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 12, 2021 20:01:19 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by Zenopus on Oct 12, 2021 19:50:28 GMT -6
My condolences! It's really great that you played RPGs with her and she was part of your group.
|
|