Runequest

Second Love
And lo, there came a time between the coming of the White Box and the rise of the Wizards of the Coast when my gamer's eye grew restless and did seek for a new mistress of adventure. That which had once glittered so irresistibly, had dulled, it's secrets discovered, it's puzzles solved. Unto this came Runequest, fresh, mysterious and exotic, it seemed somehow more real and demanded so much more attention to master.
Runquest in 1981 was in it's second edition and is written with a unique and specific setting in mind called Glorantha. The rules do not use classes, are percentile based and skills differentiate one character from another. Magic is common and most all PCs will know at least a few spells, but it is also less spectacular and more subtle feeling than White Box magic. There is an emphasis on PCs interacting as part of society, belonging to various societal groups such as a tribe, a cult, a guild and so on. These memberships are important to character growth and not just background. The combat mechanic is detailed and demanding of both players and referees. It is also deadly, even at the highest levels. all these game elements combine to give the hobbyist a feeling that Runequest is a simulation of life in the imaginary setting of Glorantha as well as a game for enjoyment.
Glorantha as a setting was introduced in a pair of boardgames, White Bear & Red Moon and Nomad Gods. It is the creation of Greg Stafford who owned The Chaosium which published the Gloranthan boardgames as well as Runquest in those days. The main adventuring area of Glorantha differs from the typical D&D setting and more closely resembles our bronze age as opposed to our middle ages. Myth plays an enormous part in Glorantha gameplay and the heroes are closely connected to the gods in a manner that reminds me of Homeric epic.
Having discovered Runequest at a time when our group was looking for something new, something more "realistic" than the game we had been playing for some years, it became our go-to roleplaying rules for approximately the next decade. The Chaosium supported Runequest and Glorantha with many fine supplements and play aids at the time and we discovered many things about the world of Glorantha. Eventually this new treasure ceased to entice us the way it once had, and with nostalgia we probably recalled only the best from past gaming so we returned to the original game.
Gamer legend has it that at one time, back before Runequest was written, in a land called California, there were those brave gamers who played a version of the white box using a setting known as Glorantha. Inspired by this vision, I have attempted to reverse engineer such modification of the white box so that the old game has a recognizable Gloranthan feel. Such is my enthusiasm for the setting and the white box rules. It has been a rewarding endeavor, one I will probably share more about in a future post.

Mood & Setting

Setting the Mood in Role-playing
"A cold rain falls slowly from a grey, overcast sky. You are wet and shivering. It has been several days since you have glimpsed the sun and water stands in puddles everywhere you look." Thus I have often described the opening of another session set in my own dark world of Dreadmoor. Choice of words can paint a picture as brightly or as gloomy as the referee desires. By choosing our verbal or written descriptors we can set the mood for the evening's play. Shared mood helps bring the players into the scene, suspending disbelief and immersing the players in the fictional action at the table. What starts out in the imagination of the referee is transferred to the imagination of the players and a collective, shared "reality" is created in which the PCs come alive and interact with "their" world. The referee of course must tell the players what the PCs see, hear, feel, smell, taste, etc. By choosing descriptors deliberately and carefully, mood as well as objects appear in the players imagination.
When setting mood, the referee's description of light and shadow plays a significant part. Light is often warm or cool, harsh, bright, dim, grey, orange, red, blinding and so forth. The quality of the light, along with temperature, humidity and air movement can create a reaction in the players who imagine their own experience with those environmental qualities and in doing so conjure memories, feelings and moods. Pacing, how fast we speak, can also greatly affect mood as can tone of voice.
I have remarked in past posts on the connection between literature and roleplaying. Nowhere is this connection more obvious to me than in how the referee or author must bring the player or reader into the fictional action through words, painting a mental picture. Some authors do this better than others and as a referee I frequently borrow from such authors. I recently re-read The Broken Sword, pictured above, written by Poul Anderson. The Broken Sword is set in a fantastic world that co-exists alongside our earthly Britain somewhere around the tenth century of the common era. Elves and trolls are real, witches cast spells and gods influence the lives of men and women in Poul Anderson's version of a viking tale. The first half of this book is simply excellent, the last half is more uneven and if it were not for this, I believe more of us would be reading The Broken Sword.
The action in The Broken Sword mostly takes place at night under moon-light or star-light, often during winter with a cold wind driving a stinging snow. The action is unseen by most humans, those without the witch-sight which allows them to see into the realm of fairy, that parallel world where elves and trolls go about their business just out of mortal sight. The Broken Sword has lots of mood and atmosphere that takes the reader out of the comfort of the living room and into a magical place we can almost believe exists. Just what we want to do when playing at our fantastic hobby!

Saving Throw Magic

Adding Magic to the Game with a Saving Throw.
"Save verses Death Ray", a phrase that can cause players of the White Box to fear for their characters' lives because failure means death and rolling up a new character. Let's face it, the lives of player characters (not players!) are relatively cheap in white box play. The game can be deadly and I believe is designed to be that way.  A little fear for your character adds tension and excitement at the game table the same way fear of losing one's money adds excitement to gambling. But like gambling, there's the big payoff when what we fear doesn't happen...we make the save in white box play and live to adventure another day!
The Saving Throw as a mechanic seems to be a carry-over from wargaming with miniatures. A saving throw is often awarded in various wargames for having armor or cover that might save a unit or playing piece from the effects of a hit. It is a way to negate bad effects under certain circumstances. I also see the saving throw in D&D as also a way to mitigate or get out of the negative effects of some in-game event. It provides a sort of cliff hanger moment in play when the effect is kinda known (the witch throws a spell), but there is the question of "Will it apply to my character?"- maybe not if I can make this saving throw.
The LBBs list saves verses Death Ray or Poison, Wands, Polymorph or Paralyzation, Stone, Dragon Breath, Spells and Staves. The target number is different for each of these categories according to class and improves with level, thereby making saving throws a unique feature of each character class. The progression as the PC levels-up is somewhat uneven and this further adds to the unique feel of the class saving throws. In typical White Box fashion the rationale for all this is left largely unexplained and it is up to the referee and players to offer any explanation as to why things are the way they are. Is the cleric saved by faith? The fighter by brawn? The magic user by knowledge? You decide! It's part of the mystery, the magic of the game that certain things remain unexplained and often seem to have no logic behind them...they just are. We as players are left to wonder, to speculate and to use our imagination.
Attributes in White Box do not affect saving throws, but can be used to supplement saving throws if the referee calls for a check against an attribute (such as a Dex check to see if the PC catches something thrown to them). This lends itself well to a style of play where the players tell the referee what they want their PCs to do, then the referee figures out how to fit that into the game using the available mechanics. As referee I have frequently enjoyed the task of deciding how I want to use the available rules to determine if certain things happen in-game. This flexibility is one of the reasons White Box has remained my favorite version of the world's most popular role-playing game.

Egalitarian Roots of the Game

"By This Axe I Rule!"
The White Box describes a default setting similar in many ways to the European middle ages. The technology is similar with swords and armor being the weapons of war, people living in castles and walled cities and riding horses. To borrow a phrase, it is a world lit only by fire. Much like the middle ages it is a superstitious world where people believe magic works and gods, devils and demons interact in people's lives. Kings and queens rule, princes and princesses need saved and evil barons plot foul schemes in the dark. But for me there was always one glaring difference, egalitarianism. That modern idea that all people are created equal and each has the chance to go as far as his/her talents can take them in life is an underlying assumption. The PC starts with nothing (a few gold coins) and can rise to be monarch, or at least a lord with a castle and some estate lands. Each PC, no matter how humble their birth, is entitled to improve their position in society, unfettered by social restrictions.  Being a student of history, this always struck me as very non-medieval, an inconsistency or anachronism. During the middle ages it was common for each generation to do the same kind of work as the previous generation of a family. Society was divided into classes and there was little or no mobility between classes. If you were born a peasant, you were always a peasant. You might become a wealthy peasant, but always a peasant. I often wonder if Mr Gygax and Mr. Arneson (both members of the Castles and Crusades Society of medieval wargamers) gave it much thought when designing their game, or themselves being a part of a society founded on egalitarian principles, "all men (people) are created equal", they just took it for granted that PCs were not limited by being born into some social class from which it was difficult or impossible to escape.
There of course is another interest other than the middle ages that heavily influenced the authors of the White Box, fantastic literature. The stories that were variously termed, fairy tales, myths and legends, the sword & sorcery tales of pulp fiction, and the more fantastic tales found in science fiction were all influential and helped inspire the idea of fantasy gaming and specifically influenced the shape the White Box rules took. One need only read through the list of monsters to recognize beasts borrowed directly from fairy tale, myth and legend. The influence of sword & sorcery and other literature is there too, although it is sometimes more subtle. Among these sources of inspiration the hero's social class is often either irrelevant or plays little part in limiting the character's ability to act and achieve. In literature it is not hard to find the rag-to-riches character or the adventurer who wins a kingdom.

Tunnels & Trolls

A Roleplaying Legend
According to gamer legend, back in the mid 1970's, down in Arizona there was a fella named Ken St. Andre who got his hands on the LBBs and decided there was a game worth playing in them, but the concept needed some work to meet his personal preferences. Mr. St. Andre set about making rules for dungeon delving fantasy adventures that seemed to make more sense to him. He added some of his own unique humor to the mix and tried the new game out on some friends, who apparently loved it. They played it a lot and loved it so much they thought Mr. St. Andre should share it with the wider world. So he printed up his new game and quickly sold out. One print run ran into the next and the world's 2nd published roleplaying game was a hit. Mr. St. Andre and friends soon introduced a series of solo adventures for his Tunnels & Trolls game, thus allowing us gamers to go adventuring almost anytime, anywhere without need for preparation or referee.
I discovered Tunnels & Trolls (T&T) at the first GenCon I attended. I had the good fortune to be living in Kenosha, Wisconsin the summer of 1978 and being freshly initiated into the hobby through the White Box, I was thrilled to learn that GenCon was being held nearby at the University of Wisconsin Parkside campus. By this time T&T was in it's 4th edition as shown in the picture above of my copy. It is a 54-page softback booklet with a comb binding. The book is illustrated throughout with the delightful work of Liz Danforth, who I believe also edited the 5th edition of T&T. The 4th edition has three character classes, warrior, magic-user, and rogue (unschooled, amateur users of magic) from which to choose and the rules suggest the players have several characters in their "stable" so that if one or two get killed on an expedition, they are not too heartbroken (good advice in most early rpgs). Mr. St. Andre spends several pages describing how to create and populate the dungeon which the players will explore through the various actions of their characters. There is only the briefest listing of monsters and Mr. St. Andre seems to prefer each referee make their own unique monsters, which is fairly easy given the T&T mechanics. Combat seems more cooperative in T&T than in any other adventure gaming system/roleplaying game I have played. T&T only uses regular six-sided dice and the player gets to roll lots of them, totaling up the sum, adding this number to the other player's sums and arriving at a grand total to compare against the monster (referee's roll) total. The difference is the number of "hits" taken. Armor absorbs hits and various weapons differ by rolling a number of combat dice and adds unique to each weapon. There a number of weapons listed, more than is usually seen in a roleplaying game. The distinctive and often humorous names of magic spells has become an identifying factor in T&T with gamers either enjoying the lightheartedness or rejecting it. Spells cost Strength to cast and T&T magic therefore seems more akin to magic point systems in general.
I have refereed and played T&T as a tabletop game with friends a few times over the years, but have mostly enjoyed the many solo adventures put out by Flying Buffalo and others. A new Deluxe T&T edition is now in the works and I will look for it at GenCon this year. I imagine the T&T creation story was happening over and over again across the gaming world in those early days of the White Box as folks grabbed onto the new roleplaying adventure game concept of Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson and sought to modify the game, to a greater or lesser extent, adding and replacing rules, exercising their imagination and inventiveness, making the game they played their own. Rarely was this done with as much success as Mr. St. Andre has had with T&T.

The Complete Warlock

Warlock: a major D&D variant
Warlock is as it says on the first page, a variant of D&D and has been played at Caltech at least since 1975 (three play-test years before publication in 1978). The White Box as written is more like a set of guidelines or a design kit than hard and fast rules and they are by no means exhaustive in their completeness covering every conceivable situation encountered at the game table. Nor were they meant to be. Folks naturally made the White Box their own by changing and adding to the rules as written. At the time Warlock was written it was becoming fairly common to publish the house rules a group had been playing with for some time and which seemed to meet with some acceptance. Warlock refers the reader to the original edition of D&D to complete the rules...despite being titled The Complete Warlock, there are no monsters to fight, no magic items to discover and nothing about exploring the dungeon or wilderness. What The Complete Warlock does give are new rules for combat and magic and variants on the character classes. The rules seem written with an eye to replacing some or all of the pertaining White Box rules with Warlock variant rules.  Combination characters, those with more than one character class, are seemingly pretty common in Warlock. Dwarf, elf and halfling are stand alone character classes (race as class) which can also be combined with some other classes for combination characters. The Warlock version of the thief class is as far as I know unique in that the thieving abilities are to be taken in spell-like slots. For example a 1st level thief can choose 1 first level thief ability from a list which includes abilities like pick most locks, sure strike dagger x3, hide in shadows, slight of hand, etc. The actual chance of succeeding at these abilities is much higher than a 1st level thief per White Box rules. The combat variant is a percentile system using a matrix of weapon type verses armor type adjusted by level and with any magic or ability bonuses/penalties added or subtracted.  There are rules for critical hits and fumbles with hit location for the critical. Magic rules use a combination of Vancian spell memorization per White Box and Warlock spell points to power the memorized spell. Like many of the early variants/houserule systems, it is easy to pick and choose among the new rules treating them as plug-in "modules". In such a manner might the rules for magic be exchanged for those in the LBBs or perhaps rather the combat "module" be exchanged. I can recall a fondness for the Warlock version of the thief class and for a while adopted it for our White Box game, but I don't recall ever trying to play with The Complete Warlock as a replacement for the White Box as a whole. The Warlock Special Characteristics Table found some use and popularity in our game for a while as it allowed the PC an individualized bonus or handicap with various weapons, spells, abilities, hearing, vision, and etc. The LBBs opened the door to our gamer imaginations and Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson taught the world a new type of game to play. The Complete Warlock and other variants represent the work of various re-imaginings as gamers have sought to "improve" on the original. Before I leave the subject, I might mention the Warlock system has one additional connection of interest to D&D; according to gamer legend as it was the version of the game played by Dr. J. Eric Holmes who took the LBBs (and Supplement I) and edited/authored the first "Basic" version of D&D, the Holmes Blue Book. 

Random Table Love

Random Table, oh how I love thee!
Ok, silliness aside, I do really love to use random tables in my White Box game. White Box itself is chocked full of randomness, from rolling up the PCs to finding out if a monster comes down the hall while the party is trying to get the stuck door open. What kind of monster is it, how many are there and what is their disposition to the party...all answers can be found by rolling on the random tables. Several of the products for use with the White Box have even more random tables than thus in the core rules. Say the PC walks into a tavern, lets roll and see what kind of tavern, it's an upscale tavern with a "magic" theme. PC orders a drink and feeling adventuresome decides on something called "lover's leap". Downing the "lover's Leap" drink and failing a saving throw, the referee now rolls on a random table to determine the object of the now enchanted lover's affection. The random table may look something like this:
      1 - hairy gentleman standing at the bar
      2 - a random member of the PCs party
      3 - beautiful barmaid
      4 - wooden bar stool or other inanimate object
      5 - PCs own reflection in the mirror above the bar
      6 - MU seated at a nearby table
Rolling a die 6 or just going with what sounds like fun, the referee announces that the PC will be madly in love with (insert random object of affection) for the next, say 24 minus your constitution score hours. The random table can provide humor, surprise and inspiration for both the PCs and referee and helps keep things interesting. A random table can take the evening's game in a new direction if the referee is willing to improvise. To be most effective the random table should of course be closely tied to the situation at hand.I am especially fond of tables specifically designed for a given locale, encounter, etc. A custom random table is pretty easy to design and can be a way to reflect what is unique in an area. Obviously wilderness random encounter tables should vary according to terrain type, but it may be less obvious that a unique random table for each urban neighborhood or street can give character to the town. Different taverns with different random tables will have a different feel to PCs. Random results determined by the roll of a die is at the heart of the White Box. There is a significant amount of randomness that goes into creating the PC who is never going to be far from the randomness brought about by rolling dice in combat, avoiding misfortune and acquiring treasure. Personally I like to roll with the randomness and go with where ever it takes me, as a PC and as a referee. It is one of the things I really love about the White Box game.

Hexcrawlin' the Wilderlands

Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy
About the same time that Judges Guild released City State of the Invincible Overlord Bob Bledsaw and Bill Owen introduced the hobby to yet another hobby standout product, Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The Wilderlands mapped out a good portion of the fantasy world in which the City State was located and like the City state of the Invincible Overlord, the product had a very catchy title. Wilderlands consisted of 5 sets of maps, one each of the referee and player copies and 2 sixteen page guideline books. Player copies of the maps had less detail, but both player and referee copies were full size (17" x  22") and printed on the enchanting pebble-grain tan paper that gives Judges Guild maps the feel of quality and antiquity. The maps all have a numbered hex grid printed on them in a manner that doesn't detract from the beauty of the cartography, but does allow for quick reference. Such hex grids have often appeared on cardboard chit and paper map wargames starting well before the 1977 publication date of Wilderlands. The guideline booklets contain descriptions of some of the numbered hexes, but not nearly all of them.  The entries are brief and mostly intended to act as inspiration for the referee's imagination. Many entries are suggestive of plot hooks and with improvisation or more careful detailed design on the part of the referee could become the adventure of an evening or two's play. I have never owned Avalon Hill's (noted publisher of those paper map wargames) Outdoor Survival, but it is my understanding that it has a wilderness map, presumably with a hex grid, and can be used as described in the White Box to provide a setting for wilderness adventure. My friends and I did have access to Judges Guild Wilderlands of High Fantasy and spent many gaming sessions exploring the world maps hex-by-hex in a style of White Box play that is now termed hexcrawling. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting was one of somewhat isolated city states separated by tracks of wilderness where monsters ruled and adventure was possible in each hex on the map. There was not much history of the world provided so each referee was therefore encouraged to make the Wilderlands their own setting by inventing what wasn't provided in the brief guideline material. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is therefore very much in keeping with that do-it-yourself theme that is so prevalent and I think appealing in the White Box game.

Tomb of Horrors

Dungeon Module S1  Tomb of Horrors
Once Judges Guild had demonstrated to TSR that there was money to be made in publishing Playing Aids for their popular role-playing game, TSR began to publish their own Playing Aids, which they often termed modules. Dungeon Module S1  Tomb of Horrors was not the first such product from TSR, but it's the one that stands out best in my memory. The copy I have is a 1981 reprint, but a friend who frequently refereed for our group acquired the original around 1978 and it is that original monochrome cover edition that gave us so many hours of gaming fun. The module for high level PCs comes with a 20-page illustration book that really takes the player inside the "tomb" as most of the rooms have accompanying illustrations. TOH is notoriously deadly and I believe was designed to be so. According to gamer legend, Mr. Gygax is supposed to have designed TOH to be a challenge for the best players with the most powerful characters (or to humble some fellas who kept bragging about their PCs). My friends and I certainly enjoyed testing ourselves as players by sending into the Tomb our highest level characters, usually to die. The number of monsters in TOH is relatively small, but traps and puzzles abound. This is old school, save-or-die White Box D&D and we knew most of our characters would die in the dungeon, but the challenge to make it to the end, defeat ol' Acererak (it's his tomb) and take his treasure was irresistible. We would play our PCs up until they were high enough level to have a chance at the "Tomb", then hopefully send them in. Most died, but any that survived had passed the ultimate test and had earned eternal fame at our gaming table. The short list of survivors of the TOH were our PC celebrities. Sometimes we didn't have any high level PCs ourselves, but were impatient and begged the referee to let us play in TOH with the pre-generated PCs found at the back of the module. TOH is one of the reasons our little group never did much with high level PCs as barons, temple high priests and retired old wizards playing at politics...we killed most of them off in Acererak's Tomb. I recently revisited TOH in the form of reading the novel, given to me by that same friend who refereed TOH years ago.

The Tomb of Horrors uses the old module S1 as setting for a story involving two rival groups who enter the Tomb for competing reasons. The story unfolds as they struggle with each other as well as to overcome the traps, puzzles and monsters Acererak has left for them in his Tomb of Horrors. Inspiration for creativity takes a twist with The Tomb of Horrors, a novel inspired by a module for a game inspired by fantastic fiction. And with that I am feeling a bit trapped yet again by the Tomb of Horrors.

City State

Judges Guild City State of the Invincible Overlord
Sometimes it's fun to just wander the streets looking for trouble. A map, several NPCs and some random tables can be the making of many an evening of adventure and with City State that is exactly what you get...and more. Go wandering up and down the City State streets, spot an interesting sign above a door and step inside.  Maybe it is the shop of a carpet dealer who is cruel to his slaves, or a baker who has four lovely daughters and knows of a mead hall haunted by a barrow wight. If the City State guide hasn't already inspired your referee's imagination with these two random entries, there are plenty more. Making its first appearance in 1976, this is the city that set the standard for urban adventure. This referee's aid comes with 5 tan paper maps, two each of the city (one players' map, one referee's map) and campaign area (player and referee versions also) and one double-sided map of Thunderhold, Castle of the Dwarven King and a 92-page City State guide-book full of entries, NPCs, rumors, random tables, history and more. Wonder how the watch will react to the PC party wandering the streets, a couple rolls on the random tables may indicate they suspect the party of smuggling, or maybe the guards are just looking to squeeze some coin from the party to let them pass. Wonder what that pretty face is thinking of you as your eyes meet across the room...the random tables can help the referee handle dozens of potential encounters. If I sound excited about the City State of the Invincible Overlord, it's because I am...still excited after almost 40 years of familiarity! This product is that good. Judges Guild offers players of the White Box a real treat with their City State of the Invincible Overlord. Even the name is fun to say. Having spent many hours with the City State, both as player and as referee, I can honestly say no product outside of the game rules themselves has provided me with more fun. I have gotten rich, become famous, fallen in love, died muddy drunk and created more good memories in the City State than any other imagined place I can think of. Sometimes a product comes along that is just a veritable engine for the imagination. The White Box is definitely such a product in my experience. The City State complements White Box nicely and together they can inspire many (PC) lifetimes of fun and adventure.

Swords & Spells

The Forgotten Supplement
Sometimes referred to as Supplement V, Swords & Spells was released in 1976 as the last of the digest sized game books for use with D&D. Swords & Spells is part of my original White Box kit, although I have never actually used it in a game. Written by Gary Gygax, this LBB is 45 pages in length. Swords & Spells hasn't gotten much love from the hobby in general and is often omitted altogether in a discussion of OD&D. Swords & Spells is a set of rules for conducting wargame battles for the White Box campaign using miniature figures. In the White Box there is a suggestion to use Chainmail for this purpose, but Chainmail actually predates the White Box which contains monsters and spells not in Chainmail. Swords & Spells brings the wargame battle rules up-to-date with the White Box and its supplements. I have played out a few battles using Chainmail, but as I mentioned have not done so using the Swords & Spells rules. I see Swords & Spells as an extension of the miniature wargaming roots of the White Box. Before Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson wrote the White Box game, they wrote wargames for historical battles using minature figures. Their interest in fantasy literature most like led them to combine two loves, wargaming and fantasy as first appears in the Fantasy Supplement at the back of Chainmail. The idea in Chainmail and continued with Swords & Spells is that units of fantastic creatures and beings, led by mighty fighting men, magic users and clerics, could fight out their battles on the gaming table. Swords & Spells, I assume, allows for a more direct way to use the PCs in those tabletop battles that were probably quite common in many White Box campaigns. In the campaigns I have been involved with, dungeon crawling and wilderness survival have been the focus rather than the struggle of nations and armies. Again we see an example of how the White Box encourages each to make it their own game by using what rules they want and inventing whatever is needed beyond the printed rules.

Dungeon Module B2

The Keep on the Borderlands
Among the many published modules a few stand out as widely recognized "classics". B2 The Keep on the Borderlands is one such module and as one of the B series was written to help teach the Basic game. B2 was included in some version of the Basic Box, my copy shown above, was purchased at a used book store a few years ago. As an example of how to set-up a really good D&D mini campaign this has become the hobby's go-to module.  Written by Gary Gygax, one can assume B2 shows us how he suggested we play the game. The module comes as a 28 page booklet wrapped in a card-stock cover with a map printed in blue on the inside. As part of the Basic Box and as an intro module, B2 is written with directions, explanations and advice to make the referee's job easier. The module includes a background history section to set the stage for the players, a Rumor Table to help build interest and spark the imagination, a detailed keep stocked with NPCs (some with their own motives) to serve as both a home-base for PCs and location for role-play, a wilderness area (complete with a couple side-adventure locations) between the keep and the dungeon proper, the Caves of Chaos stocked with monsters of various factions, some more hostile than others and most at-odds with their monster neighbors. The module is by no means linear and really there is very little in the way of plot. It is basically a playground for PCs, what we call a sandbox today. The PCs arrive at the keep, interact with the NPCs there and learn of the dungeon nearby. What they do with this information is up to them. The dungeon itself has several entrances and interconnections and is located far enough away from the keep so as to require a short wilderness travel. I have never run B2, nor been a player in it, but I do use it as a model for some home-brew White Box adventures. Figuring things out for ourselves can be hard work and it is definitely easier when the master shows us how it is done. The downside is that if we just create variations on a template we miss the opportunity to create anew. True imitation of Mr. Gygax would be to use our imagination and create something not done before.

Alignment

The Philosophy of Alignment
Alignment in da White Box is Law, Chaos and Neutral. That's it. One of the differences I noted when reading through Blue Book Basic is that the author, Eric Holmes, adds good and evil to the alignment mix allowing for Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, etc. Alignment has been somewhat debated from the beginning and remains open to interpretation. I don't know that Mr. Gygax or Arneson ever stated what they had in mind for alignment, but like several of the more ambiguous elements of the White Box, referees and players have applied their inventiveness to the concept of alignment in the game. Having read a couple literary pieces in which the idea of law versus chaos is directly discussed, my thought immediately turn to those.  Poul Anderson discusses Law and Chaos at odds in his novel Three Hearts and Three Lions. As I recall Law represents the order of things and the scientific, somewhat predictable world as humans experience it. Chaos is the realm of elves and other fantastic creatures and in the novel threatens to push back and overwhelm the world of Law. The Elric series of books by Micahel Moorcock makes frequent mention of the struggle between the forces of Law and Chaos. Elric, as a practitioner of magic, is firmly in the Chaos camp, sometimes calling on his patron deity of Chaos to aide him.  Elric, being Elric and a being of Chaos, is not above asisting the forces of Law and calling on them for aid at times. Both authors link the magical arts with Chaos. Both authors, Moorcock more than Anderson, suggest Chaos and Law are opposed, but somewhat interdependent. Law is constancy, Chaos change. Law is conformity, Chaos is wild and rebellious. Both can be seen as forces at play in our own real world as well as the fantastic worlds found only in our imaginations. In the White Box, certain races of creatures are described as being "aligned" with Law or Chaos or remain Neutral. Some, like humans seemingly get to choose. White Box rules do not answer the question, "Is Law good and Chaos evil?" rather the player is left to define this themselves. A referee can run the campaign with exactly the interpretation that Law = Good and Chaos = Evil, and many have...I have played in some that do. It is also possible to leave good and evil up to the individual regardless of alignment with Law or Chaos. I think this is what Dr. Holmes was getting at by adding those dimensions to the alignment rules of Basic. Personally, I don't think it is necessary or desirable and therefore I prefer just Law, Neutral and Chaos as alignments. The reason is the nature of "alignment" in the game. Does alignment determine moral behavior in a given situation or does it signify which team one plays for? I like to think more philosophical about Law and Chaos and not equate them with good or evil moral behavior. As I play it, promoting Law upholds the established order, Chaos rebels against the established order and is opposed to any order, old or new. Alignment has been much discussed around the hobby and seems to be one of the subjects on which it is hard to find agreement. I suppose the uncertainty and openness for interpretation is one of the things I like about Alignment and especially as it's presented in the White Box.

The "Basic" Game

The Blue Book
About the time TSR was working on AD&D they also decided to run a parallel product line they termed "Basic". My understanding is the 1st edition of Basic D&D, the Holmes Blue Book, referring to author/editor J. Eric Holmes, was written using the original 3 Little Brown Books and Supplement I as reference. I didn't have the Holmes edition until many years later, but I suppose it was the gateway for many into the hobby. Rereading Holmes over the weekend I can see how certain aspects of the game are more clearly explained in this Basic rule book than in the 3 Little Brown Books of the White Box, but there is a lot that's left out and some new stuff that seems puzzling. According to Basic, a PC armed with a dagger gets two attacks, each doing a d6 damage if they hit.  Weapons like the battle axe, pole arm and two-handed sword get to attack every-other-turn and still do one d6 damage. Power gaming hadn't come into its own in 1978, but who wouldn't equip their character with a dagger under these rules? A friend who ran some adventures I played in used the Holmes Basic as his rules of choice and I don't believe that's the way he, or probably most referees played Basic. The real genius of Basic in my opinion was in marketing. The Basic box cover illustration was colorful and it could be found everywhere it seemed. Until the arrival of Basic, I rarely saw D&D product in a store. (My own White Box had been mail ordered.) By the time of the release of Basic, the White Box had probably acquired a reputation of being difficult to learn and rightly so. The Basic box included a starter adventure as well as the blue rulebook. Over the various print runs, the included adventure would change, but all of the B series adventures were written as teaching tools targeted at first time referees. The Basic rules make frequent reference to AD&D and it is assumed that players will eventually move on to the AD&D game. A "Basic" version of the game implied it would be easier to pick-up and more suitable as a gift or for someone starting out and I am guessing that was true. Ease of entry and availability almost everywhere in an eye-pleasing box...that was "Basic". I call that a great idea and I am pretty sure it helped grow the hobby. I wasn't real sure where that left me with my White Box. The new AD&D hardbacks were coming along, released one a year or so through the late 1970's and Basic was available and the latest printings of White Box were labeled "Original Collector's Edition" and contained some minor changes mostly due to copy rights such as changing hobbit to halfling. I purchased the AD&D Players Handbook shortly after it's release.  The PH had a lot of new material in it, but lacked the essential "To Hit" tables that would appear later in the Dungeon Masters Guide. So I continued to run my game from my White Box, often with the PH unopened, but at the table. Other referees I played D&D with seemed to use a hybrid of White Box and AD&D, but I didn't play at a table where there was even an attempt to run AD&D with the RAW until some years later. Meanwhile, I just quit pretending I was playing AD&D and returned to White Box where things have come full circle, finally making sense.

On Character

Unique White Box Player Characters
The White Box presents the player with three character classes from which to choose.  The player's character can be a Fighting Man, a Magic User or a Cleric. Just three classes, but an infinite variety of characters, if we apply a little imagination.  For some of my early characters I chose not very original names from comics, movies, books. Basically, I based many of my characters on a character that I borrowed from someplace else. My first decision would be what White Box class does this character have most in common with. For some it was easy, others took a little imagination. At some point I got tired of trying to copy characters and started coming up with my own character concepts and names. In game mechanic terms all Fighting Men player characters are somewhat similar in White Box D&D. Outside of the actual numbers for attributes and hit points, the name given to the character is all that distinguishes it from another Fighting Man PC. Unless the player adds some detail while role-playing the character! I guess it should be obvious since the game is called role-playing. Maybe not. The White Box refers to "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns..." it doesn't say role-playing, at least not on the cover. The actual role-playing, giving characters unique personality, crept into early Fantastic Medieval Wargames because we had an idea who the character was, often based on the original character borrowed from another source for game play. Was the character an honest do-gooder, or a bit of a self serving rascal? Events at the table are often just as likely to shape a PC's personality as any pre-conceived character concept unless dealing with a "borrowed" character. We all bring a bit of our own personality to our PCs, but with a little effort we can go much further than playing a version of ourselves. In many ways I think it is actually easier to do this with the White Box rules than while using many other rules because White Box doesn't get in the way.  The game mechanics can easily slip into the background and the character sheet has very little on it that would shape the PC's personality other than an extreme attribute score now and then. With later editions of the game a PC may have a high or low Bluff score and the payer just rolls the die to see if the PC successfully lies. In White Box play, you decide what your PCs relationship to lying may be and role-play it out. The White Box really gives the player lots of freedom regarding how each PC is played. Let your imagination be your guide and make each character really unique.

Inspiration

Appendix N
In 1979 TSR published the Dungeon Masters Guide written by E. Gary Gygax which included a list of books for Inspirational and Educational Reading. I assume these were books Mr. Gygax had read and found inspiring with regard to his work on D&D and AD&D. A few of them, such as the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard were already familiar to me (first through comics, later books), but most I had never heard of. Almost as soon as I became aware of this list, I started reading from it.  Finding the harder to get titles has become somewhat of a passion for me as I have searched libraries and used book sellers. Over the years I have located and read many of the titles and authors listed in Appendix N, but not all. Some I found and didn't like well enough to read. I recently acquired and read The Shadow People by Margaret St. Clair. I would say the book is set in the late 1960s by the events depicted and the 1969 copyright. The gaming inspiration comes from the shadow people who live beneath our earth and occasionally come to the surface to steal or even kidnap, returning to their underground world. St. Clair does an excellent job establishing the feeling of being watched by creepy folk sneaking in the dark and of underground tunnels hidden beneath our world. I have read that The Shadow People was one of the inspirations for Mr. Gygax's drow race and having read the book, I can easily believe this to be true. For the referee I believe inspiration is essential. Some referees seem to be able to draw inspiration from everything and anything. Others have to work a little harder. I have run adventures based on inspiring TV or movies, comics, short stories and novels, and pieces of art and illustrations. Often the best game ideas have come from some pretty mediocre film plots. I read gaming publications of all sorts for inspiration, including random tables, often drawing an idea from here and there and combining them into something I can run for my players. One aspect of role-playing is telling a story in a group. The inspiration for creativity and imagination can come from just about anything. One piece of advice I always give to a potential referee who asks is to surround yourself with lots of stories, TV, movies, books, comics, everything you can and draw from them all. If you are reading this and you have not given serious consideration to the works listed in Mr. Gygax's Appendix N, maybe you should. I can't say I have enjoyed every book I have found from Appendix N, but many of those titles are among my very favorite books. Many of them are books I would never have found without Appendix N.

Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes

Supplement IV Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes
Supplement IV follows the cover style of Supplement III. It's cover is white rather than brown and it has a full color illustration, this time showing two seated Egyptian gods. Like the cover of Supplement III, the cover of Supplement IV depicts another major influence on the game, this time mythology. Written by Robert Kuntz & James Ward with a forward by Timothy J. Kask I see no reference to either Mr. Gygax or Mr. Arneson as authors and I rather wonder what to make of that. The Forward mentions this is the last D&D supplement. I am guessing AD&D was already in the works. Mr. Kask states in the Forward what has been said before that the rules to the game are just guidelines. This attitude would soon change with the publication of AD&D, even though many referees including myself would continue to modify the game to suit our preferred play-style regardless of whether using the White Box or AD&D. Supplement IV abandons the usual organization of three sections based on the original three books in the White Box and instead lists the various pantheons one after another. Included are descriptions and stats in the D&D style for the Egyptian, Indian, Greek, Celtic, Norse, Finnish, Mexican, and Eastern Asian deities, heroes and magic of mythology as well as those from the Conan stories of Robert E. Howard and the Elric stories of Michael Moorcock. How the referee is to make use of this information is not specified. Personally I didn't. Supplement IV was not something I had in my collection until many years after I had acquired the White Box and other supplements. In my world, which I eventually named Deadmoor, clerics were not encouraged to pick a deity and as referee I offered no pantheon from which to choose. Oh, various deities would make a brief appearance as part of a particular story arc or module and my players were free to talk about any deity they wished, but there was no campaign pantheon in the usual sense. Clerics were just clerics. A friend eventually purchased a copy of Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes and for a time we had great fun playing the characters of Conan and Elric...and we borrowed a few magic items from this deity or that, but that's all I recall from those early days and Supplement IV. The copy you see pictured above is one I eventually got second-hand, just to complete my collection. Today, I am still not sure how I want to incorporate Supplement IV into my game.  It mostly just sits in my collection.