OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs 016

As I continue to try to follow the blogs on my list and catch on my reading here and there, I am continually struck with the range, the breadth and depth of the talents that resides in these blog and that for the most part it is by people who are not getting paid to do it. All this is shared with us for free:

Rended Press
He says he is going on Hiatus for a while, but don't let that throw you off. By the time you read his archived posts and check out the downloads and other resources, he will likely be back at it with new materials.

Howling Tower
Here is a sweet little blog with quite bit of resources for old school and new.

... and the sky full of dust.
Here is what it says about itself and I cannot improve on that:

I draw maps, I play games, I try to write too. You can see some of my maps on my blog, you can buy/read some of my stories, and you can follow my two current campaigns on Obsidian Portal (Against the Giants and Álfheimr). I am also open to being commissioned for drawing maps, and you can follow me on G+ if you are so inclined. 

Remebering Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy has passed away. Sad as it is, it comes to all of us and it is a time to reflect. Even when someone has lived to a ripe old age (83) it is still hard to see them go. I never met him, but he brought a lot of joy to my life and that of many others. In his portrayal of Mr Spock, he taught those of us who love games like D&D that when you portray an "other" whether a Vulcan, an elf or dwarf or something else, how it is done. Star Trek would not have been what it was and is without him.

A few things he said:

"I am not Spock. But given the choice, if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock. If someone said, 'You can have the choice of being any other TV character ever played,' I would choose Spock. I like him. I admire him. I respect him."

"Whatever I have given, I have gained."

"The miracle is this: the more we share the more we have."

"When you let me take, I'm grateful. When you let me give, I'm blessed."

"I believe in goodness, mercy and charity. I believe in casting bread upon the waters."

 "Live Long and Prosper"

OD&D and Magic Sword House Rules

How do you run Magic Swords in your campaign? I have run them a lot of different ways over the years. Here is the current method I use in my Redwall inspired campaign:
Magic Swords

Magic Swords, unlike other magic items, are intimately tied to their master on every plane of existence. A magic sword once claimed and used by its master, then becomes the ultimate symbol of its master’s power. An unused, unclaimed magic sword starts out as a semi-sentient entity with the potential for relating to its master as a good dog relates to its dearly loved master. Magic Swords start as a blank slate and align themselves over time with the alignment of their master. A magic sword has its own life-force that it bonds with its master’s life-force when it is treated with the proper respect and care and they become intertwined over time so that they cannot be separated willingly.

A mistreated sword will turn on its master seeking to cause him harm in battle and slowly drinking his life force. A stolen sword is deadly to the thief and will seek to return to its rightful master.

When the master of a sword dies, if he so chooses, his soul will combine with the sword increasing the power of the sword, its Intelligence and its Ego. In this way it is sometimes possible for a great Artifact to be created.

When its master dies there are usually only two things that can normally be done with a magic sword, one is to pass it on to a blood relative who must be like minded with the original master and must seek vengeance for the original master’s death if the killer still lives and if they choose to take up the sword. These inherited swords are the only ones that do not start as a blank slate. If the blood relative is not like minded or does not choose to seek vengeance assuming the killer lives, then they should not take up the sword or it will turn on them.

Inherited swords can be passed down through several generations until a suitable master is found. The other option is to bury the sword with its master where it will guard its master and is deadly to grave robbers.

When the conditions are right for an Artifact to be created, these Magic Swords have a definite purpose and as such it is possible for someone other than a blood relative to wield the sword. This type of sword will seek out the person best suited to fulfill its purpose. Usually this person will have to undergo a series of tests in order to be found worthy.

A newly gained magic sword starts with the ability to glow in the presence of its new master’s enemies and the ability to wound anything that requires magic or silver to wound. As the master grows in power and skill, so grows the sword and they will grow from semi-sentient to fully sentient over time. Swords will as their master grows discover talents unique to that master. No two swords are ever the same. Swords used by those who also wield magic will discover talents unique to that master. Swords forged with unique and special metals will also discover unique talents. The more powerful the master, the more powerful the sword will become.

Ye Olde School List of Retro Games & Clones, Retro Clones, and What Have You! - 003

Just jumping on here to give you links to two new retro clones out there. Since I don't want to appear to favor one over the other. I am making a d6 roll (1-3 vs 4-6) to see whose game I list first. They are both focused on OD&D - two different takes on it. The roll is in and here are the games:

Treasure Hunters RPG
This game is by Scott Anderson and he has been developing it in a couple of threads over on Dragonsfoot and it is, as noted above focused on OD&D as the source. It is as he says not yet complete, so take a look and then go give him some feedback.

Iron Falcon Rules for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing
This game is by Chris Gonnerman who is best known for writing Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game. Here he shows us his version of OD&D as it was in 1975 after the thief class was introduced. You may also want to get a copy of The Role-Playing Game Primer and Old School Playbook. I am not sure if this last is a download or hard copy, but if I get a link to it and I will come back and update this post with it.

While I have not read these in detail yet, I am certain they are both worth a good look. Great job guys. Keep creating!

New OD&D forum: OD&D - Campaigns & House Rules Discussion - Purpose: widen the discussion on the creative do-it-yourself part of the game!

Announcing a new discussion board focused on Campaigns and House Rules.

The primary purpose of these forums is to discuss fantastical medieval wargames campaigns and house rules in all threads, unless otherwise noted. The primary focus is on OD&D, other Classic D&D rules and their various simulacra as the assumed foundational rule-sets for our campaigns, as well as, the house rules used therein.

This will be a place to vet house rules and discuss them before they are tried out on the unsuspecting players. We will post new monsters and all types of new material for our campaigns; including, but not limited to, setting ideas, setting/world building and the like. Tips on how to run a campaign, how to ref/DM and other related topics are also welcome.

This new forum is not an attempt to replace any existing forum, but rather to complement and spur more creativity. The focus is more on using and adapting the rules to your personal campaign. We hope it will be a great deal of fun to look at other people's campaigns and see how they do things. Even on those rare occasions when there is nothing that you directly want to borrow, we hope the discussion will always prove inspiring.

If this is of interest to you, please join us in this joint creative effort to harness the synergy of sharing ideas and mixing them to get more old school goodness out of many minds than what one mind working alone could accomplish alone.

You can find us at: OD&D - Campaigns and House Rules Discussion.

Worldbuilding and a Link Collection of Resources - 003

For worldbuilding there are a wonderful cornucopia of resources available for free and here are some of the links that I have looked at from time to time.  One of the things that you will notice if you google the topic is that most of the resources are geared towards writers of novels and not towards referees that want to create game settings (worlds). So most of the resources are top down design and you are hard pressed to find much related to bottom up design or a combination of the two. You will also be hard pressed to find much specifically for game settings.

My favorite site is this one, but a lot of the links are old and you may need to use the Wayback Machine and a little work to access some of the resources:

Worldbuilding Links 
Since a lot of these do have to be accessed through the Wayback Machine I will likely post some of those links at a later date.

First I will list some of the other resources that are available and then later on (i.e. not in this post) I will post additional information. This links are not posted in order of preference, but in the order they came up in multiple google searches (which may make you go "Huh???!?!". Again remember that these are geared more towards writers not referees and they vary in a lot of ways.

7 Deadly Sins of Worldbuilding

The Rules of Quick and Dirty Worldbuilding (possibly NSFW book cover in essay)

12 Questions to Ask Yourself About the System of Magic in Your Fantasy Novel

13 Worldbuilding Questions

Worldbuilding for Urban Fantasy 

FAQS About Worldbuilding 

Country & Culture Development Questions

Five Foundations of World-building 

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions By Patricia C. Wrede 

Too Much Fun: A Review of Patricia C. Wrede's World Building Questions 

Berley’s Top 10 World Building Tips for Sci Fi or Fantasy 
 
Reddit Worldbuilding 

20 World Building Questions for Authors to Ask Themselves  

The Scriptorium - World Building Basic Worksheet - Science Fiction/Fantasy 

5 Tips: World-Building Template  

World Building Worksheets Part One 

World Building Worksheets Part 2 

ADDENDUM : World Building Generators: Seventh Sanctum 

Creating Your Own World: A Masterlist 

Creating Your Magical World Workshop 

Dystopian World Building Worksheet: Part I

Dystopian World Building Worksheet – Part II

Dystopian World Building Worksheet – Part III 

A World Building Checklist 

Designing a Planet for the Non-Scientist  - Requires Facebook Login

Organic Worldbuilding

World Building I: When Genres Collide

World Building II: “The Creator’s Checklist”

World Building III: Republics and Empires

World Building IV: Magic is the Opposite of Everything

Welcome to My World—A World-Building Checklist

Tips for World Building When Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

Creating a Realistic Fantasy World  

Kick the Fantasy Cliche (And Some World Building Tips) 

Rich Staats' RPG/World Building Articles 

The Spiral Method of World Building 

The Worldbuilding School: blog 

OD&D - Mixing in some Original Arduin Trilogy 003

The first non-TSR product I ever used in a game was the first volume of The Arduin Trilogy which is The Arduin Grimoire. It was quirky and full of wild ideas, tiny print only young eyes could read without help and generally just had so many different things in it ranging from completely silly to brilliant that I found it inspiring . It set the standard of there are no limits, this can be as wild as you want it to be. I hope to talk about some of the things I used out of Vol I going forward from here. A thing to remember is this started out as a OD&D fan supplement until TSR sent a CEASE & DESIST letter to Dave Hargrave. So he whited out the D&D references, typed over them and kept printing.

Here are the unedited Table of Contents from the first three volumes - The Arduin Trilogy:

Table of Contents (unedited) The Arduin Grimoire Vol I:

How to Play the Game
Experience Point Chart
Experience Level Charts
Character Limitation Charts
Height and Weight Charts
Notes on Fantastic Beings
Allignment Chart
Special Abilities Charts
New Character Classes
Multiversal Trading Co. Price List
Magik in Arduin
Clerical Undead Turn-away Charts
Various Saving Roll Charts
Random Chance Weapon Creation Chart
Prismatic Walls
New Spells
New Magikal Treasures
Notes on Allignment, Combat, Movement, Monsters, etc.
Melee and Attack Charts
Main Combat Table
Critical Hit and Fumble Charts
Brawl Chart
Were-creatures Combat Chart
Dinosaur Charts
Sea Creatures List
Escape Table
Encounter Charts
Weather Tables
Random fog/mist Generator
Random Trap Matrix
Fantastic Diseases
New Monsters
Demon Lore
The 21 Planes of Hell
Lesser Demon Lists

Here is the Table of Contents for Welcome To Skull Tower Vol II (without any editing):

TABLE Of CONTENTS

Notes on character functions, capabilities  and characteristics
New character classes
Character Saving-Throw and Limitation Charts
Character Resurrection and Reincarnation Charts
Non-Weapon Attack Matrix and Critical Hit Charts
Real medicine and fantasy gaming
Gunnery Charts
Monster-Slaying Experience Charts
General Hireling Pay Scales
Multiversal Trading Company Price lists, Price Examples, etc.
Coinage Value Chart
Gems and other valuables
New Mages' Spells
New Druidical Magik
New Clerical Magik
New Treasure
New Monsters
Dungeon Sign Posts
Rules changes and additions
Notes on Magik
Notes on Combat
Weapon Breakage Chart
Weapon Classification Tables
Miscellanous Notes
Travel Notes and Charts
"Stoning" Save Chart
Comments
Arduin, its Seasons and Days
Arduinian Guilds and Societies
Religion in Arduin
Law and Punishment
Rank and Royalty
Arduin, a Capsule History
The Elf-Human Wars
The Inns and Roadhouses of Arduin
Undead Attack Chart
Space Creatures and Aliens

Here is the Table of Contents for The Runes of Doom Vol III (without any editing):

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Character individualization, leqacy and equipnent charts, etc.
Character aging
Natural Character Armor Classes
Random events, charts, solo DM'ing, etc.
New character classes
Resurrection and other clerical notes
New Character Hit Point System
Guild fees
Random Life Style Changes
Combat and Other Notes
Energy Weapons (Chart) in fantasy games
New Magikal Items
New Mages Spells . .
New Clerical Magik
New Druidical Magik
"Techno Magik"
Hell Spirals
100 New Monsters .
True Elementals
New Lesser Demons
The Great Name Demons
Arduin's Principle Noble Familys .
The Bandits, Brigands & Highwaymen of Arduin
Denizens of Arduin's "under citys"
Notable Characters of Arduin's Legends
Principle Wild Tribes of Arduin :
Arduin' s Dungeons, Towers, Cavarns and other areas of Death & Glory
A Message to the Fans of Arduin

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 015

I ran across this wonderful blog a few days ago and now have a chance to talk about it a little:

Go visit Great & Small: The Roleplaying Game Of Animal Fantasy 

This blog is brand new this year and it is already a must read. Go there look around and read this essay: What Is Animal Fantasy?  He talks about several different kinds. Mine, which I will post on this blog by and by, was inspired by Brian Jacques' Redwall series. He has a completely different and fantastic take on it and I look forward to seeing the finished product. 

In addition follow this link and take a look : Revels & Rhymes - A "World's 1st" Fantasy RPG That Never Was. Where he says:

During that time, I began to wonder: what would the world's first roleplaying game look like if it had been invented by a Shakespearean theater troupe instead of a wargaming club?

Revels & Rhymes: First Folio -- The Original Shakespearean Fantasy Roleplaying Rules 
As he says these rules are not complete and have never been play tested. But look at them!  I hope at some point he decides to finish them.

Who is King Truffle IV? His name is Robert F. Mason according to the above blog and let's encourage him to keep posting!

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 014 - Jeff Perren Co-Author of Chainmail Rules Needs Our Help

As I continue to highlight blogs that I find of interest, I ran across the latest post at Follow Me And Die! - Ramblings of an Old Gamer on the topic of Jeff Perren Co-Author of Chainmail Rules Needs Our Help.  Apparently Jeff Perren needs a stair lift so that he can live at home with his daughter instead of in a nursing home. Seems like a very worthwhile thing to help with. Go here to see the information: Stair lift needed for Jeff Perren. Please check out both links! :)

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 013

Here are some more blogs that I find to be interesting and a source of intriguing ideas. Have a look! ;)

The Darkside of Willmark - A Long Time Ago, In A Blog Far, Far Away ...
Over on Willmark's blog take a look at this post The New Shadow- Middle Earth.

World of Ortix
A lot of great resources and links at this site, very useful.

World of Tiglath
His most recent post about the Old Dark House trope stirs the idea cauldron of my mind and gives me an idea to spring on my players. Perhaps it will do the same for you.

Yog-Blogsoth
This blog is another fun read and yes he is into H.P. Lovecraft and others. :)

Ye Olde School List of Retro Games & Clones, Retro Clones, and What Have You! - 002

Here is an addition to the Retro Clone List.  Had to use the Wayback Machine to find these. I thought I remembered something from a few years back and it was not an easy search but here it is.



Campaign journal

The Dark Coast

Player's Handbook v3.7, Lvs 1-14. Warriors & Wizards
(OOo v2.0 format)

Player's Handbook v3.7, Lvs 1-14 Warriors & Wizards
(PDF format)

Spellbook v1.31.
(OOo v2.0 format)

Spellbook v1.31.
(PDF format)

Eastern Ursian Regional Map

Thrud the Barbarian's Classic DnD Character Sheet

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 012

Here is are some more worthwhile blogs that I have an appreciation for:

Campaigns Playable - . . . with paper and pencil and traditional legendaria . . . Come and check this out:
Campaign Setting - the ever-developing "fantasy Christendom" wargames campaign: "Dun Kells." I cannot wait for more to be posted. 

Roles, Rules, and Rolls - classic games of fantastic adventure Rules & Tools - free resources and a well stocked archive of posts - what more could you want.

Coffee swillin' analog gamer this is a blog that I like and although it has been quite as of late, I have every hope that it will resume again.

Sham's Grog & Blog - Original D&D Rambling from the Quixotic Referee this is another blog that I like, it has a fantastic archive and it has been quite for going on three years. I have every hope that it will resume again.

I hope to over time encourage a lot of great old school blogs to continue or resume their posting. They have voices that need to be heard!

Ye Olde School Megadungeons

This thread found here Ye Olde School Megadungeons was created by libertad and is posted here with his kind permission. There megadungeons run the gamut of versions of D&D and related games:

Back around mid-2012 I decided to create a Master List of D&D Retroclones and Simulators. For a time it became a very popular resource before it was eventually eclipsed by Taxidermic Owlbear's own list (which was inspired in part by my previous efforts).

In regards to last year we saw the release of several mega-dungeons. The long-awaited Dwimmermount, Castle of the Mad Archmage (a sort of inspiration of the old Castle Greyhawk legacy), and soon an upcoming Barrowmaze Complete!

I figured that a compilation of megadungeons would be a worthy project. But first we should define what a megadungeon is. My terms are broad: a megadungeon should be a large enough dungeon which could encompass the better part of a campaign for players to explore session after session. Note that while some megadungeons might be spread over multiple products (some of them being more recent Editions), I intend to cover megadungeons built for OSR games or whose legacy is encased with the TSR eras of D&D for the interests of this forum.

For those wishing to build their own megadungeons, this thread contains some very useful advice on the matter.

So here's my list so far. Tell me if you have any others to add, or if I missed any relevant products:

Anomalous Subsurface Environment (ASE1 and ASE2-3, available for Labyrinth Lord)

Barrowmaze ((I & II, available for Labyrinth Lord)

Castle Greyhawk (WG7 Castle Greyhawk for 1st Edition AD&D, Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk for 3rd Edition D&D, Castle Zagyg series for Castles & Crusades)

Castle of the Mad Archmage Adventure Book (available for Adventures Dark & Deep and Pathfinder)

Castle Triskelion (available for AD&D 1st Edition)

Dwimmermount (available for ACKS and Labyrinth Lord)

Rappan Athuk (available for Swords & Wizardry and Pathfinder)

Stonehell Dungeon (available for Labyrinth Lord, Down Night-Haunted Halls with 2 bonus Supplements)

Temple of Elemental Evil (available for 1st Edition AD&D, has sequel adventure Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil for 3rd Edition D&D)

Undermountain (Undermountain I and II for 2nd Edition D&D, Ruins of Undermountain boxed set, Expedition to Undermountain for 3rd Edition D&D)

One of my readers suggested:

Greyhawk ruins for 2nd Ed
Castle Whiterock from the d20 DCC line

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 011

Continuing my series on looking at other peoples blogs brings me to Robert Conley's blog Bat in the Attic and not just his blog either, here are some other links of his: The Sage's Tower - The Majestic Wilderlands, Bat in the Attic Games, Thieves of Badabaskor (14 page preview), Judges Guild - Wilderlands of High Fantasy and Points of Light (Preview).

There are a lot of resources here, many are completely free and some are for sale.  I applaud his efforts on both fronts as I applaud anyone else that is creating old school goodness, those people are to be commended.

This blog has been around since 2008 and has a healthy archive of good reading.

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 010

Another great set of blogs with some twists on things is The Semi-Retired Gamer, author Charlie Warren. One of the highlights of this blog is he talks about Adventures in Fantasy (AiF) by Dave Arneson and Richard Snider.  He goes through several posts giving a through description of what is in the box and it looks like the series is to continue and be even more in depth. In addition to that he has a Book of House Rules in Development!

There are also posts about a new game Perilous Journeys which I am looking forward to learning more about and he has created a character creation reference sheet for it also.

He also has two more blogs: The Old Gamers Notebook and A Megaversal® Miscellany . The second one is focused on:

Assorted ideas and resources for the lesser supported game lines of Palladium Books®.

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 009

Another old school blog and website is the BusyGameMaster along with some thought provoking posts there are also some free downloads and other products. Please take a look, besides the author Gregory B. MacKenzie has old school blood flowing in his veins.

For some right scholarly analysis with footnotes! check these out. :)

Attack Matrices in Men & Magic

Style v.s. Substance in OSR Role Playing, Does it Matter?

The Magic in the Matrix

He raises some questions that require some thought? I might even change my mind about a couple of rules.

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 008 (comments on post)

This post is part 3 of a 3 part post.

Over on the blog Smoldering Wizard ~ Old-School Role Playing in a post titled The Many Unique Rules of OD&D, Doug M. (the blogs author) for each of the 3LBBs, creates a list of rules that are unique to OD&D. He has a lot of other posts you should check out, but this one was of direct interest to me.

He states:

The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Volume 3:

The condition of surprise allows a free move and attack, or two attacks (if the distance rolled is 10 feet, although the second attack could be construed as merely winning initiative the first combat round).

Bitd we did use this rule and the italic above is an interpretation as it is not stated that way, but it is in effect exactly what happens.

There is a 25% chance a surprised player will drop a held item.

This rule we never used at all and if I were to implement it, I would reduce it to a 5% chance.

“Angry Villager Rule” – Players who commit some sort of offense in-game can be brought back into line by an angry mob, thieves from a thieves’ quarter, city watches or even insertion of a Conan-type character.

I love this rule, never had or needed to use it, but I love it.

Encountering a Fighting-Man stronghold will result in players being challenged to a jousting match, or paying a toll of 100 to 600 GP.

Never have used this option. I usually have enough other stuff going on, there has never been a need.

Encountering a Magic-User stronghold will result in either a Geas, “request”  for a magic item or toll of 1,000 to 4,000 GP.

Never have used this option. I usually have enough other stuff going on, there has never been a need.

Encountering a Cleric stronghold will result in either a Quest or a 10% tithe of all money and jewels (lawful Clerics) or an attempt to kill the players who cannot pay (chaotic Clerics).

Never have used this option. I usually have enough other stuff going on, there has never been a need.

All monsters can see in the dark, but no players can do so. Monsters serving a player (either by subdual or charm) cannot see in the dark, however.

I always have played this that only humans can not see in the dark. I have always played it that elves, dwarves, hobbits, gnomes etc., can see in the dark. I understand the reason for the rule, which is to force the players to always have to use artifical light - torches and such - which leads to them never being about to surprise the monsters and always being the ones at risk of being surprised. However, an NPC (monster) elf being able to see in the dark, but a PC elf not being able to see in the dark for me breaks that "suspension of disbelief" required for full enjoyment of rpgs.

Burning oil is only mentioned as a way of deterring monster pursuit.

Good catch! I don't recall anyplace else it is mentioned, although we used it for lots of things, especially mummies and trolls.

Most dungeon doors are difficult to open for players and doors always close on their own, but monsters have no problem opening them.

Great rule!

There is a 1/3 chance that doors spiked open by players will close due to the spikes slipping.

Another great rule!

Movement is given in inches, but this translates to feet indoors and yards outdoors.

This makes sense to me, it is dark, you are checking for traps, secret doors, the floor is wet and slippery, etc.; so you will be moving slower.

There are detailed Aerial and Naval combat rules.

Bitd we never used those at all. The campaign I stared in 2009 spent about 2 years of game time on a ship. I thought it was a lot of fun.
 
Thus ends this 3 part series.

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 007 (comments on post)

This post is part 2 of a 3 part post.

Over on the blog Smoldering Wizard ~ Old-School Role Playing in a post titled The Many Unique Rules of OD&D, Doug M. (the blogs author) for each of the 3LBBs, creates a list of rules that are unique to OD&D. He has a lot of other posts you should check out, but this one was of direct interest to me.  

He states:

Monsters & Treasure Volume 2:

Monsters (later clarified to include players who are Fighting-Men - See the 1975 OD&D FAQ from TSR) gain one attack per round as a normal creature against normal men, for each of their own hit dice (“normal” is open to interpretation). Attack bonuses apply to only one such attack.

Bitd and currently we always defined nornal men as not being PCs or classed NPCs.  A troll was always played by us bitd as a claw, claw and a bite or three attacks every round. Using this rule and calling 1st levels normal men leads to 18 attacks by a troll against a first level party for just the first melee round, so we did not and do not do that. On the other hand we do not give higher level PCs those extra attacks against 1 hit die monsters either. I have considered doing it if I had  a group of only experienced players who knew up front that the rule would be enforced.

*Only plate armor can be magical.

*The author made a correction and deleted this - see his comments below in the comments section.

I searched my memory and could not remember anyplace in Monsters & Treasure Volume 2 that stated or implied that only plate armor could be magical, then I went back and read through the entire volume and still do not see anything that would lead to that conclusion.  I don't have a non-hobbit printing (6th print OCE) readily available, so I will have to dig one out later and check it also.

Armor class is static depending on the base armor worn, magical armor bonuses subtract from the opponent’s to-hit roll.

Yep, that is what it says, but bitd we never once used it that way. Plate armor was AC 3 and magic plate armor +3 was AC 0, we always did that way from the very beginning.

Magic shield bonuses only stack with armor bonuses against 1/3 of attacks.

This is a rule that from the very beginning bitd we always ignored. We just did not want to spend time making that extra roll on every attack where a shield was involved.

Certain magic helmets are considered non-protective and will be struck and smashed 10% of the time a hit occurs.

The non-protective helms were worn by magic-users in our campaign and since they were unamored anyway it was a non-issue.

Magic swords confer a to-hit bonus only, unless they have a special purpose against a specific monster class. In that case, they provide a to-hit and damage bonus.

Bitd we did not follow this in a strict sense at all, we added many, many swords to the treasure table so that at least half of the magic swords in the campaign had a damage bonus, and some only had a damage bonus but no to hit bonus.

All magic swords have an alignment, touching a sword of a differing alignment causes the player to take damage.

We always followed this rule.

50% of magic swords are intelligent and will have one or more powers.

I looked this up just to confirm it, the rule reads as follows:

Intelligence: There are two factors considered under Intelligence, mental power and communicative ability. These factors are both determined by a single die roll:

This means that 50% of Swords had an intelligence of 1-6 and could not communicate and the user had to discover any powers it had, and 50% had an intelligence of 7-12 and could communicate. So 100% have one or more powers.

10% of all magic swords will have a special purpose.

We liked this and always rolled for it. Special Purpose swords were fun!

Scrolls are for Magic-Users only (there are no Clerical scrolls), although protection scrolls can be used by any player.

We always house-ruled that 33% of Scrolls were for Clerics and otherwise kept it the same.

Thus ends part 2 of 3 parts. 

OD&D and Taking a Look at Other Peoples Blogs - 006 (comments on post)

Over on the blog Smoldering Wizard ~ Old-School Role Playing in a post titled The Many Unique Rules of OD&D, Doug M. (the blogs author) for each of the 3LBBs, creates a list of rules that are unique to OD&D. He has a lot of other posts you should check out, but this one was of direct interest to me. (With the number of blogs out there and the number of posts that interest me, I could work 60 hours a week and do nothing but this. However; since I must work for a living, that is not going to happen. Some of you have already sent me links to things that interest me and given time I will try to get to all of those and comment.) This post is part 1 of a 3 part post.

He states:

A few are carried into Holmes or Moldvay Basic (some as optional rules), but the combined flavor of these rules was never seen again.

What I am going to do here is go through and comment on each one of those rules as to whether I use it as it is or do I house rule something else. (Note that I began playing OD&D in Sept of 1975.) Everything showing in quote is in the rules and taken from his post. Yeah, he did the work to pull the information out and I am just commenting on it here.

Men & Magic Volume 1: 

Referee rolls starting abilities (3d6 in order) and starting gold.

Any OD&D refs out there use this rule? Bitd (in college) we never used this rule at all; however, a few years ago when I started up a new campaign only playing once per month I did it this way before the game, handed the players a few character sheets to choose from and there were no issues with my players doing this. In one playtest I ran for some ideas, I did not even give them a choice of sheets, I just gave them the one I wanted them to run for the playtest, again no issues. What has been your experience with this, if you have done it?

Encumbrance is measured in gold pieces, with 10 GP per pound and a maximum of 3000 GP.

Bitd and up to recently I have always used it this way, but I never liked it. Now as noted in my series of posts starting with Money (Treasure), the OD&D Economy & Equipment 001, I am starting to convert to a Silver Economy and as part of that process I am also correcting the coin size and the way encumbrance is measured. This is something in process and the information posted up until today date in that series of posts is not yet in the final form.

Players can be monsters, although there are no rules given for handling them.

Have you ever done this? I have done a  few, one of which was for dragons. The player wanted to play a dragon and that was a toughy to do since IMC while dragons can be killed, other than death by violence they are nigh on immortal creatures. I worked out a life cycle - part of which is when dragons will "hang" with other creatures such as men and the demi-humans. I will post that here one of these days.

Non-player monsters can be subdued or captured and sold.

This is something was we did a few times, but was not used very much. I am not really sure why we did not use it anymore than we did.

Hit points are rolled anew at each level.

This is exactly what we did bitd to start with, but I have also used a multitude of different house rules over the years too. I have done max at first level and then role each level once, max at first level and then roll each level once with a min of 2 per die, max at first level and then roll each level and keep track of each roll so that when you go up a level you get the chance to improve the previous roll.

There are no strength bonuses, only a bonus (or penalty) to earned experience for Fighting-Men.

When I use just the 3LBBs, this is the way I have always done it. Sometimes I use just the 3LBBs and sometimes I add things from the Supplements.

Dexterity does not affect armor class, it only confers a bonus or penalty to missile weapon to-hit rolls, and then only +/-1.

When I use just the 3LBBs, this is the way I have always done it.

All weapons do 1d6 damage (the one exception is a spear impalement doing double or triple damage).

When I use just the 3LBBs, this is the way I have always done it.

Magic-Users and Clerics must carry one spell book for each level of spell they know.

I have never done this, neither bitd nor currently. Characters are assumed to have one spell book containing all of their spells.

Clerics must choose to be either Lawful or Chaotic by 7th level.

In the original rules Clerics chose at the time of Character Creation and it was this was for the 1st through the 3rd printing (I have never seen a 4th printing so I don't know which way it was in the 4th printing); however, in the 5th print (IIRC) and later it was changed to the choose by 7th level. I have always played it that players chose at the time of Character Creation.

Cure light wounds acts over a full turn (10 minutes).

Two things here -one: both bitd and currently I have always played it that the healing acts immediately in the same round the spell is cast and two: one of the first house rules I ever implemented and used (and that was at the very beginning) was to change melee rounds to six sec instead of one min and that made a turn one minute long. I did this because I had seen swordplay in movies and how fast and furious it could be; later on when I saw live fencing matches how fast it could move, I was certain that the house rule was one of my better decisions. In addition, Warriors of Mars used 10 second rounds and it is reported that the original manuscript of Empire of the Petal Throne used one second melee rounds.

Monsters are worth 100XP per hit die. Fun fact – in the first OD&D supplement, Greyhawk, this formula is mocked as “ridiculous”.

Bitd I used this and I still do.

Experience is however limited by the ratio of monster and dungeon level (defeating an orc on the 5th dungeon level gives only 1/5 experience).

I have never used it this way, neither bitd nor currently.

Players may designate a relative to inherit their possessions should they die.

I have never used it this, neither bitd nor currently. I am not sure why, because I am and was aware of the rule, we just never used it.

Thus ends part 1 of 3 parts.

Worldbuilding and the world of The Ruins of Murkhill campaign 002

The next part of the top down behind the curtain portion of the worldbuilding is to determine the land masses it will have. I started with earth and then extrapolated from there.

First we will at the major land masses of earth:

Here are the seven continents of the world ordered by size.

Rank-------Continent-------Square Miles

1-----------Asia------------17,139,445

2-----------Africa----------11,677,239

3-----------North America---9,361,791

4-----------South America---6,880,706

5-----------Antarctica ------5,500,000

6-----------Europe----------3,997,929

7-----------Australia--------2,967,124

The Largest Islands

Rank--Island’s name Area

---------------- (sq mi)

1 -Greenland ------822,706

2- New Guinea------303,381

3 -Borneo ------288,869

4- Madagascar------226,917

5 -Baffin Island 195,928

6 -Sumatra ------187,831

The next largest group of islands

Rank Island's name ------Area

------------------(sq mi)

7 -Great Britain ------89,784

8- -Honshu ------------89,048

9 -Victoria Island ------75,767

11-Sulawesi ------------69,761

12 -South Island ------56,308

13-Java ------------------53,589

14 -North Island ------43,082

15 -Luzon-----------------42,458

16- Newfoundland ------42,031

17- Cuba (main island) 40,369

18- Iceland (main island) 39,315

There are 30 islands ranging from 7,700–38,600 sq miles

There are 29 islands ranging from 3,900–7,700 sq miles

There are 40 islands ranging from 1,900–3,900 sq miles

There are 70 islands ranging from 970–1,930 sq miles

There are 150 islands ranging from 390-970 sq miles

There are 190 islands ranging from 190-390 sq miles

There are about 180,000 islands of less than 190 square miles.

*************************************************************************************

I used this as a basis (with some tweaking and extrapolation ) to create continents and islands for the campaign world setting. Only a portion of this has any mapping down as yet.

4 continents averaging 23,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 16,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 10,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 9,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 6,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 5,500,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 4,000,000 square miles

6 continents averaging 3,000,000 square miles

for 47 total continents.

This totals 427,000,000 square miles for continents leaving 26,822,871.503 square miles for islands.

There are 60 islands ranging from 80,000 square miles up to 800,000 square miles(Avg. =100,000 square miles)

There are 120 islands ranging from 40,000 square miles up to 79,000 square miles(Avg. =50,000 square miles)

There are 462 islands ranging from 7,000–39,000 sq miles(Avg. =10,000 square miles)

There are 471 islands ranging from 3,900–6,900 sq miles(Avg. =4500 square miles)

There are 612 islands ranging from 1,000–3,800 sq miles(Avg. =1300 square miles)

There are 1063 islands ranging from 500– 999 sq miles(Avg. =700 square miles)

There are 2310 islands ranging from 350-499 sq miles(Avg. =400 square miles)

There are 3080 islands ranging from 170-349 sq miles(Avg. =250 square miles)

There are about 3,080,000 islands of less than 169 square miles(Avg. =1.57457 square miles)