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.

Eldritch Wizardry

Supplement III Eldritch Wizardry
I believe we are back to the world of Greyhawk with Eldritch Wizardry, at least it has always felt more in tune with Greyhawk than Blackmoor to me. Blackmoor seems more sinister, more dark and maybe a bit depressing. Greyhawk seems a little less so, but all the old White Box campaigns seem a little more serious and dangerous than what came later. With Supplement III we see the 1st full color cover in the series and are reminded both of the fact that this game is not aimed at children and that the game's roots are (at least partially) in pulp literature as the "sacrifice" on the cover of Supplement III could just as easily have been gracing the cover of Weird Tales or another pulp magazine.  My copy, seen above, was purchased new along with the rest of my White Box kit for Christmas 1977 and now shows considerable wear. The 58 page booklet is organized into the now familiar three sections titled Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and Underworld & Wilderness Adventure.  The Druid class is introduced here in Supplement III as a subclass of cleric. Rules for psionics are introduced to the game as a new kind of mind magic available to all the player character classes, except monks and druids, and to certain monsters. New magic spells are introduced for the existing cleric and magic user as well as for the new druid class. Several new monsters including a number of demons are described and illustrated and available for the referee or DM (Dungeon Master) as he/she is now referred to as to challenge the heroes with. There are a number of artifacts or unique and powerful magic items listed under the heading The Treasures, many of them requiring the referee to roll for their magical powers randomly on tables, thereby individualizing the Artifact for each campaign. The names of many have become closely associated with the Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property, such as Vecna and Orcus. The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure section includes several new creature tables including one for astral and ethereal encounters and one for psionic encounters. The nature of the supplements gives me the impression it is permissible or even preferable for each referee to add to or change the game rules as they prefer, each producing their own creative version of the dungeon adventure game. This is a great strength of the White Box version of D&D and the main reason it remains my favorite version of the game. The rules are such that the referee can easily modify one aspect of the game without breaking anything else. Adding new classes, spells, monsters, and rule mechanics is essentially encouraged. The standardization later sought by TSR executives definitely has it's place in the hobby as is explained by the authors elsewhere, but White Box D&D has its own unique place as well. I personally think that place is as relevant today as it was back in 1977.  

More Blackmoor

The First Fantasy Campaign
Supplement II gives us a taste of Mr. Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, Judges Guilds The First Fantasy Campaign gives us an additional insight into the campaign that started it all.  In this playing aid, as it's referred to on the cover, are maps of castle Blackmoor and the village nearby, the dungeon beneath and some select sites such as Svenson's Freehold. Also included are two campaign maps printed on the signature heavy brown paper that makes Judges Guild maps a delight to handle. In this 92 page book Mr. Arneson shares information on how he ran his Blackmoor campaign, some of the characters involved and their fate, price lists, construction costs, a glimpse into how magic and melee were handled, the magical nature of swords, gypsy sayings and more. As inspiration The First Fantasy Campaign is just full of mysteries and snippets of information. Scattered throughout the book are a number of sketches depicting events which presumably occurred during Mr. Arneson's early campaign, and which give the reader ideas for developing their own adventures. A set of blue armor and an heroic horse are described which can seemingly make a hero out of anyone, no matter how unwilling they may be. Blackmoor as described in The First Fantasy Campaign, is a dynamic, living, ever changing setting for adventurers. The book describes how the early players discovered the dungeon beneath castle Blackmoor, how the castle was raised by Funk I, King of All the Orcs, who in turn was defeated by the elves who currently reside in what's left of the castle and for a time ran the dungeon as a sort of business enterprise called The Elven Tour. With a copyright of 1977 this Playing Aid would have been available about the time I started out in the hobby with the White Box. I don't recall when I purchased The First Fantasy Campaign, but I think it was the first Judges Guild product I owned. I never ran a Blackmoor campaign straight of the book, but rather was inspired by it to take pieces here and there, which ended up ideas twisted to fit into my own version of a White Box campaign.The First Fantasy Campaign definitely got me thinking beyond one-off dungeons and onto world building, elaborate back stories, and changes being brought about by player actions as well as by Non Player Characters. Together with Supplement II, The First Fantasy Campaign can take us back in time to the beginning of the hobby whare we can share in the magic of those early days of discovery as Mr. Arneson leads us into adventure in his Blackmoor campaign.

Blackmoor

Supplement II Blackmoor
Blackmoor, what a great name for a campaign. In homage my own campaign is called Dreadmoor. Blackmoor is the second official supplement to the White Box, but the first dungeon adventure campaign, or so the legend goes. Dave Arneson, co-author of the White Box rules, authored the material contained in this supplement and gave it the name of his campaign. There is a nice illustration (of castle Blackmoor?) on the cover and together with the name, this supplement always had a more ominous feel to it for me. Supplement II is organized along the same lines as Supplement I, that is to say it mimics the organization of the White Box. There are three sections, Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Under Men & Magic two new character classes are described, the monk and assassin. From what I understand Mr. Arneson liked to experiment with more detailed combat mechanics and in Blackmoor he gives us a taste of this with his hit location percentile mechanic which includes adjustments for height differences and weapon reach. Monsters & Treasure introduces several giant animals, some dinosaurs and undersea creatures such as mermen and sahuagin. New treasures include some magic items directed at underwater adventuring. The Underworld & Wilderness adventure section includes rules for underwater adventures, disease and an adventure from the Loch Gloomen part of Blackmoor, The Temple of the Frog, which I believe is the first published adventure for the game. Temple of the Frog takes up about half of the 60 page book and includes background story, maps and descriptions of various rooms, above and below ground and the treasures and baddies that are present therein. The Temple gives us a brief peek into the world of Blackmoor specifically and by example into the world of limitless imagination that is possible.