Chainmail Link

Before Dungeons and Dragons Gary Gygax wrote a short 12 page Fantasy Supplement for Chainmail, a set of wargame rules for medieval miniatures. From the first line of the Fantasy Supplement we see the connection to literature as Mr. Gygax notes many of the fantastic battles in fantasy literature more closely resemble the medieval period than other periods.  He goes on to mention a couple of authors of such work by name. Chainmail appears here on White Box and Beyond because the White Box rules draw from Chainmail in several instances.  D&D monster descriptions say things like.. as described in Chainmail.  The reader of the Little Brown Books is referred to Chainmail for rules to resolve larger combats and the combat mechanic is based on that found in the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement, although there is the alternative d20 combat system which in future editions will become the only combat mechanic. The Fantasy Supplement includes many of the fantastic races that have become standard fantasy gaming fare, elves, dwarves, goblins, orcs and so forth. Dragons make their appearance here and can be killed by an arrow shot as they pass overhead, just like in the famous novel.  There is a brief description of each type of character, be they monster or hero, including a morale rating and a point value for building armies (using miniatures) based on such points.  Wizards are a type of hero and are given a list of spells including lightning bolts and fire balls.  The spell system includes rules for casting counter-spells requiring a dice score and optional rules for spell complexity which requires the Wizard to roll dice (all dice in Chainmail are six-sided) to determine if the spell goes off immediately, is delayed a turn or negated.  Magic weapons and enchanted armor makes its appearance in the Fantasy Supplement. I didn't own or have access to Chainmail at the time I acquired the White Box, but learning the Dungeons & Dragons game might have been easier if I had. As it was, Chainmail remained one of the mysteries of Dungeons & Dragons for a while and its eventual discovery was part of the fun of the hobby.  At it's core White Box D&D is about discovery and exploration, both in game and out.