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Wednesday, February 26, 2020

2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Fifty-Seven

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

 Today we continue with Part 2 of our look at Dungeons & Dragons - Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures. Men & Magic Volume 1 of Three Booklets.

 Next up is the Scope of which the most relevant part is:
With the various equipage listed in the following section, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS will provide a basically complete, nearly endless campaign of all levels of fantastic-medieval wargame play. Actually, the scope need not be restricted to the medieval; it can stretch from the prehistoric to the imagined future, but such expansion is recommended only at such time as the possibilities in the medieval aspect have been thoroughly explored.
The point here is that you can play anything with OD&D. For instance, I like Gamma World and if I had the opportunity I would run a Gamma World mashup game that used stuff from several other apocalyptic games, but I would use the OD&D mechanics with some tweaks. Similarly, Classic Traveller looks like a lot of fun and if I had the opportunity I would also run it with OD&D mechanics with some tweaks. I am a big science fiction fan and space travel/adventure/exploration is a huge draw for me. I am also a huge apocalyptic fantasy/science fiction fan (and yes it is a mixture of both, they are inseparable IMO). I am also a fan of the lost world genre with dinosaurs (thank you Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

 Age Level is given as 12 years and up. Personally I have refereed 9 and 10 year olds and it worked really well, even younger a few times with good results.

 Now here is the part that people usually freak out over:
Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts.
First Gygax ran games with usually IIRC about 3-6 people at a time or at least that is my impression. But he was running multiple adventuring parties through the same dungeon. During the play tests he was running many different groups all the time with varied overlap among players. He also ran games for Rob Kuntz for solo treks. As for Arneson, I am under the impression that his groups of players tended to be larger than what Gygax ran. The Braunsteins had some sizable groups in those games.

 I have heard from many people that think that three or four players are the minimum and maximum sizes to go with and for some it is up to six. Apparently very few people want to referee a group larger than six. When I was in college we started with a referee and twelve players (6 men & 6 women) and that is the smallest group that we played with. Over the four years we averaged about 16-18 players at a time and the maximum was 30 players. We rarely had anything other than equal numbers of men and women. IMO an all guy game is not nearly as much fun. Sadly I have never had the opportunity to play in a game refereed by a woman. 

 For me 12-20 players was the sweet spot for the group size, 30 was a real stretch, but in college with those young ears and eyes, I could do it. Now at 63, about 8-10 is ideal and the largest I have run over the last 10 years was 16 and that was a stretch. Now granted in college we were all the same age and the most recent time I ran 16, half the group was between 10-14 years old, so that is a little more difficult. 

 Next we move on to Recommended Equipment and in the 2013 printing they have dropped the recommendation for Outdoor Survival. Why did they do that, well they bought up the company that made it and then buried it as they have so many other great games. There are hundreds of great games that are out of print and will likely remain that way. Shame on Hasbro/WotC!

 But to be fair you really do not need Outdoor Survival. However, it is quite handy and there is an easy simple solution. Go to the blog Semper Initiativus Unum to On OD&D's Setting and to OD&D Setting Posts in PDF. The second post says:
I've made a single PDF file out of all the posts from my Original D&D setting series. It's available as a publicly accessible Google document...
Kudos to James Mishler for the excellent map that is on the first page.
I'd really like to hear stories from referees who use any of these ideas in their games, and how it goes - should be a fair sight different from "vanilla" Dungeons & Dragons! Thanks to all the people who've had kind words as this series went on, it was a lot of fun.
Follow the link to this blog post for the link to the file and while you are there save the link to the blog so that you can go back and read this blog for it has a lot of great stuff.

 The author who is identified on the blog is Wayne Rossi. This pdf that he freely shares is IMO the best play aid that has ever been published for OD&D. I do not say that lightly nor do I insult anyone who has produced a lot of the other great play aids for OD&D and there are quite a few.

 I have always been fascinated with time travel. This document should have been included in the OD&D books as part of the text IMO. Mr. Rossi has not blogged since 2017, it is to be hoped that he will resume as his is one of the very best blogs.

 But back to the equipment. There is a whole list which includes Chainmail which is not really required but is handy for mass combat. Both OD&D and Chainmail are available in PDF here:


This last one is not really a supplement, but is kinda sorta a partial rewrite of Chainmail with the attempt at more compatibility with OD&D. There are a number of useful things in it that I will get to at a future time when I take a look at it for this series. But I will give you a teaser, it contains the duration of a sleep spell. What do you think that might be. Write down your guess and then at the end of this I will print the answer.

 The blurbs that WotC provided for each of these products does unfortunately contain information that is known to be inaccurate, something that I will address at some future date, but not anytime soon.

 Next up is Preparation For The Campaign:
The referee bears the entire burden here, but if care and thought are used, the reward will more than repay him. First, the referee must draw out a minimum of half a dozen maps of the levels of his “underworld,” people them with monsters of various horrid aspect, distribute treasures accordingly, and note the location of the latter two on keys, each corresponding to the appropriate level. This operation will be more fully described in the third book of these rules. When this task is completed the participants can then be allowed to make their first descent into the dungeons beneath the “huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses.” Before they begin, players must decide what role they will play in the campaign, human or otherwise, fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Thereafter they will work upwards — if they survive — as they gain “experience.” First, however, it is necessary to describe fully the roles possible.
As noted this (dungeon design) is covered more fully in Volume 3. However, the players have to get to the dungeon, well at least in my world they have to travel to where a dungeon is. But if you use the linked document by Wayne Rossi above you can get an idea of the world building and go from there and you can work on the dungeon (assuming your players want to do that) as they travel to that location. My players find interesting things when traveling and make many detours. I will get into world design and dungeon design later on. The preparation for a campaign does not have to be daunting.

 Tomorrow we will look at the roles that you can play in OD&D.

 Oh, I almost forgot to add this, the duration given for a sleep spell is 4-16 turns. 
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3 comments:

  1. CountingWizardFebruary 27, 2020 at 12:17 PM

    Why wouldn't Chainmail be required? You have possibly already seen me bring up this topic on odd74, but I'll repost my main points here:

    p.1 M&M, "Dedicated to all the fantasy wargamers who have enthusiastically played and expanded upon the CHAINMAIL Fantasy Rules, with thanks and gratitude. here is something better!..."

    p.3 M&M, "From the CHAINMAIL fantasy rules he [Dave Arneson] drew ideas for a far more complex and exciting game, and thus began a campaign which still thrives as of this writing! In due course the news reached my ears, and the result is what you have in your hands at this moment."

    p.5 M&M, "RECOMMENDED EQUIPMENT: ...Chainmail miniature rules, latest edition..."

    p.8 M&M, "They [elves] gain the advantages noted in the CHAINMAIL rules when fighting certain fantastic creatures."

    p.8 M&M, "Halflings cannot progress beyond the 4th level (hero), but they will have magic-resistance equal to dwarves (add four levels for saving throws), and they will have deadly accuracy with missiles as detailed in CHAINMAIL."

    p.13 M&M, "Non-player characters and men-at-arms will have to make morale checks (using the above reaction table or "Chainmail") whenever a highly dangerous or unnerving situation arises. Poor morale will mean that those in question will not perform as expected."

    p.18 M&M, "Fighting Capability: This is a key to use in conjunction with the CHAINMAIL fantasy rule, as modified in various places herein. An alternative system will be given later for those who prefer a different method."

    p.19 M&M, "ALTERNATIVE COMBAT SYSTEM: This system is based upon the defensive and offensive capabilities of the combatants; such things as speed, ferocity, and weaponry of the monster attacking are subsumed in the matrixes. There are two charts, one for men versus men or monsters and one for monsters (including kobolds, goblins, orcs, etc.) versus men."

    p.24 M&M, "Invisibility: A spell which lasts until it is broken by the user or by some outside force (remember that as in CHAINMAIL, a character cannot remain invisible and attack)."

    p.25 M&M, "Fire Ball: A missile which springs from the finger of the Magic-User. It explodes with a burst radius of 2" (slightly larger than specified in CHAINMAIL).

    p.25 M&M, "[for Lightning Bolt] It is otherwise similar to a Fire Ball, but as stated in CHAINMAIL the head of the missile may never extend beyond the 24" range."

    p.28 M&M, "[for Conjure Elemental] The Elemental will remain until dispelled, but the Magic-User must concentrate on control or the elemental will turn upon its conjurer and attack him (see CHAINMAIL)."

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  2. CountingWizardFebruary 27, 2020 at 12:19 PM

    p.5 M&T, "[for monsters] Special Ability functions are generally as indicated in CHAINMAIL where not contradictory to the information stated hereinafter, and it is generally true that any monster or man can see in total darkness as far as the dungeons are concerned except player characters.

    p.7 M&T, "Goblins: These small monsters are as described in CHAINMAIL."

    p.8 M&T, "Giants: As stated in CHAINMAIL, Giants act as mobile light catapults with a 20' range."

    p.9 M&T, "Ghouls: As stated in CHAINMAIL for Wights, Ghouls paralyze any normal figure they touch, excluding Elves."

    p.16 M&T, "Pixies: Air sprites as described in CHAINMAIL, Pixies can be made visible, or make themselves visible, but they are naturally invisible to human eyes."

    p.16 M&T, "They [dwarves] are otherwise as outlined in CHAINMAIL."

    p.20 M&T, "Horses: As explained in CHAINMAIL, war horses melee."

    p.38 M&T, "Horn of Blasting: A horn whose sounding has the effect of a double bombard (see Book III and CHAINMAIL) on non-living materials such as walls, gates, etc."

    p.15 U&WA, "If a joust takes place (use rules from CHAINMAIL) the occupant of the castle will take the loser's armor if he wins, but if the character wins, the castle owner will host all in the party for up to one month, supply them with two weeks of rations, and provide warhorses (Heavy) if the party so requires."

    p.25 U&WA, "LAND COMBAT: The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, with one figure representing one man or creature. Melee can be conducted with the combat table given in Book I or by the CHAINMAIL system, with scores equalling a drive back or kill equal only to a hit. Battles involving large numbers of figures can be fought at a 20:1 ratio, with single fantastic types fighting separately at 1:1 or otherwise against but a single 20:1 figure."

    p.25 U&WA, "AERIAL COMBAT: Many of the most interesting battles take place in the air, so we offer you "Battle in the Skies," or "BITS" (with no apologies to Mike Carr, creator of Fight in the Skies). Most firing and melee is based on CHAINMAIL."

    p.30 U&WA, "[in context to naval combat] MISSILE FIRE: All missile fire, including the various forms of catapult fire, are as in CHAINMAIL."

    p.31 U&WA, "[in context to naval combat] BOARDING: ...Once boarders are on the enemy ship, combat takes place on a man-to-man basis (CHAINMAIL)."

    p.31 U&W, "[in context to naval combat] MELEE: Use Man-to-Man rules as found in CHAINMAIL."

    All this evidence appears to point to the fact that the Chainmail man-to-man system is the basic framework for D&D combat, and that the "alternative combat system" is the table that gets used instead of any of the Chainmail combat tables.

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  3. Halenar Frosthelm™, The Perilous Dreamer™February 27, 2020 at 2:22 PM

    @CountingWizard, CHainmail is not required, because you can play OD&D without having a copy of Chainmail. It is useful, especially if you run mass combat. But very few people run mass combat and the so-called alternative combat system is in fact the primary combat system of OD&D and what Gygax used when playing OD&D. OD&D was not descended/derived from Chainmail. In fact, what happened was that Gygax took Blackmoor and in writing OD&D substituted his own more familiar(to him) mechanics for Arneson's. (Note: this is not a criticism, just a statement of fact). He also peppered OD&D with many references to Chainmail for the express purpose of selling copies of Chainmail (Note: this is not a criticism, just a statement of fact). If I were Gygax, I would have done the same thing. Or maybe I would have just included the relevant information in OD&D to begin with, who knows.

    Chainmail was one of many influences that led to Blackmoor, although the Chainmail combat was soon discarded in Blackmoor because 1 hit being death was not a lot of fun for individual play as differentiated from mass combat. So Arneson created his own system, that is the Alternative Combat System.

    The main point here is I am discussing OD&D and commenting on how I used it, not how you or anyone else may have used it. I do not recall ever in 45 years using Chainmail at the table. On those few occasions when mass combat has taken place, I use a quick and dirty system on the fly that was fun for the players and did not slow down the game.

    Another point is that back in the day and to this day, I do not refer to the rules during play beyond a few tables. To paraphrase Gygax, "We must not let them know they don't need rules."

    So is Chainmail useful? Yes! Is Chainmail required to be able to play OD&D? No! While I possessed Chainmail bitd, many people did not. I also did not have Outdoor Survival, would it have been useful? Yes! Was it required? No! Even though it too is listed as needed equipment.

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