Original Dungeons & Dragons reprint, brings back great memories

So, Wizards finally released the (announced over a year ago) Premium Edition of the Original Dungeons & Dragons set.

New reprint of Original D&D - recently arrived at Gaming with Chuck headquarters (picture from WOTC website)

This is the reprint, in the spirit of the other earlier edition reprints they have been doing, of the original white box version of Dungeons & Dragons, published once upon a time by TSR, thanks to the heroic writing and publishing efforts of the early greats of the industry - Gygax, Arneson, Blume, etc.

The original game came with three booklets:
Volume 1: Men & Magic
Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure
Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures

Book one deals with building characters, and man-to-man combat, heavily dependent on Chainmail

Book two, with (you guessed it) Monsters and Treasures

Book three with campaign and adventure rules and guidelines

Following its release in 1973, there was a flurry of excitement and reprints as the popularity of the game took the fledgling wargaming company by storm, but by 1975, the Supplement train was going strong, and the original release was supported by:
Supplement I: Greyhawk
Supplement II: Blackmoor
Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry
Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes

The new set was received at Gaming With Chuck headquarters during the recent Snowpocalypse, and that gave me some time off from teaching at the university to spend a few hours perusing these little gems of nostalgia.  All the rules, text, descriptions, charts, tables, examples, and interior art is just as it always was (or, at least, as I remember it).  The biggest changes came in - (1) extremely clear typesetting (although that wasn't too much of a problem with the TSR originals), and (2) new cover art for each book. Sigh.  I miss the cover art, but still, as a chance to get this reprint, it is okay that they changed it (I suppose).  Still, they didn't ask me. I would have voted for the original.

The whole thing comes in a really nice dark wood box (with the stylized ampersand from the modernized game logo), with a felt lined well in the middle for the books, and smaller wells on both sides, to hold a large set of polyhedral dice.  I say large, because it also accommodates 4 d6, in addition to the rest.  This is very nice, and I dare say much, much nicer than the dice that I got with the redeemable coupon in my 1979 boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons.

The dice I got from the hobby store in Huntington WV, with the coupon from my set of Basic D&D

Rereading it is exciting, and the descriptions of the monsters, spells, abilities, and adventure ideas are all grand.  But, I am struck by how spread out everything is.  Basic monster abilities (descriptions and hit dice) in one place.  Details about how many attacks (monsters can get multiple attacks?  Cool new rule...), and how much damage each does (not everything does the same damage? Cool new rule...), are all in different places.  The release of the canonical spells for Magic Users and Clerics are in different places.  The introduction of the Thief (a player can play a thief?  Cool new rule...) - all this and other stuff, spread out over the different books.

Gathering all this, as well as "official" stuff that came out in The Dragon, and else where, was the reason for releasing the hardcover AD&D books.  It wasn't supposed to change the game (although it did) as much as it was supposed to make it easier for DMs and players to find all the stuff that came out in dribs and drabs over 7 books, and in magazine articles, etc.

In between the release of the White Box set, and the full set of the first three Hardcover books (released, in order, as Monster Manual, Players Handbook, and Dungeon Master's Guide), there was the release of the first box set since the white box edition - the first Basic Dungeons and Dragons set.  This was edited by J. Eric Holmes, and was the set that I first purchased (and played, and played...).  It wasn't fantastic, or extremely thick, but it captured all the rules (mostly) needed to play initial adventures, from the three volume set of 1974, along with some of the additional materials (spells, monsters, rule changes) from the supplements.

I had the 5th printing, identifiable because it came with adventure B1 and a coupon for dice

The edition I bought came with cut out chits for polyhedral dice randomization, and a coupon redeemable for dice (see picture above) from TSR at a local hobby store.  My set came from a small book story in Huntington WV, in the winter of 1979-80, called Nick's News.  There was a hobby store in town, where I had been buying some wargames (I bought both GEV and also the Hinchliffe Guide to Wargaming there, on my first trip), and had gotten interested in medieval miniatures (including some fantasy figures, in the Heritage "Fantastiques" line).  Then I saw the white box set, with the subtitle "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures". That was what I needed for my small, but growing, collection of medieval toy soldiers (including my first fantasy figures - a pack of beornings, that came with three Beorn-like figures and three bears).  But I also saw the first of the hard cover books, and a TSR rack of products - including some of the first packaged modules, the monster & treasure assortments, the geomorphs - all of it.

The book cover of the rule book in the Holmes box set. I still have a copy, and it is great reading.

It seemed to me that the 8x11 Holmes set would be a good bridge to the  hard cover books, and after all, it came with an adventure.  And - Oh! - what an adventure!  I got the fifth printing which came with B1 - In Search of the Unknown.  I STILL love that adventure.  And I can't think of anything better to teach a DM how to build their own dungeons.  It was a map, with room descriptions, and fill in the blank places for the newby DM to fill in monsters and treasures (complete with space for traps and containers), but the basic dungeon structure was done.  It was fantastic.  I was hooked - along with my two brothers, and anyone else we could get to play.

Best intro module ever made, in my humble opinion.

So, while WOTC has not reprinted the Holmes version of Basic D&D, they have done a good job of reprinting the White Box set, which is even more wonky, and more fun to read.  If they do a version of Basic D&D, honestly, I think I would rather have the Moldvay Version (Basic and Expert rulebooks), or the later B1-B5 version as it eventually ended up in the Rules Cyclopedia.  That was a fantastically complete ruleset, and loads of fun to play.  In the meantime, I think that the Labyrinth Lord game is a great modern replacement, and if you include the supplement Advanced Labyrinth Lord book, it is a pretty good replacement for both Basic D&D and also 1st Edition Advanced (this was the version we played over Labor Day Weekend at friends in 2013 - and my Daughter and Wife played in the same game, along with a pack of some of the best friends of the family who are all gamers).  Good times can still be had with this older version of the classic.

Gaming weekend in Clemmons

The entire staff of Gaming with Chuck (except for the two Battle Cats, who stayed behind at GwC headquarters, to defend against the encroaching hordes) took a journey from Columbus GA up to Clemmons NC, to engage in a weekend of Bacchanalian Ludo-Revelry.  The games played included a variety of board and card games, as well as loads of roleplaying.

Roleplaying Games

The roleplaying consisted of two sessions of Labyrinth Lord, and one session of D&D Next.  Yours truly ran the sessions of Labyrinth Lord (on Friday evening, and also during the day on Saturday).

Dan Proctor's wonderful clone game, that copies early D&D so very well

The Friday night session followed a character building session for folks who didn't have characters.  That included two GwC staff members (Anita and Heidi) as well as.  It was to be the first RPG session ever for Heidi, although she has grown up playing all sorts of games, and hearing her parents and all the friends of the family talk about the RPG aspect of the hobby.  She chose to create, and play, a 1st level Gnome Thief.  The session involved a bridge crossing (with a goblin ambush), some outdoor encounters, and was going to culminate in a short dungeon adventure, but the evening ended before the gaming did.  The action was loosely based in the Gran March of the World of Greyhawk.

Section of the phenomenal Darlene map for World of Greyhawk

Heidi's character, the Gnome Thief (named Trixie) was not the only newly created character for the evening,  the other players all had new 1st level characters - including Anita rolling up a 1st level female Dwarf fighter named Badb Bigaxe.  Carol had a half elf Ranger called Dil (her name was much longer, and extremely elven, but Dil is a nice nickname).  Marcy played an Elven Druid called Glengaraeth.  Rachel also played a Druid called Aerilyn.  John played a Magic User.

The Saturday day session, featured an installment in the ongoing Greyhawk campaign (detailed, moderately, over at the Sword and Potion blog) that I run.  This featured four of the five regular weekly players being present face to face, as well as one player being present via Google Hangouts (he couldn't travel to Clemmons).  In addition to the Wednesday Night All Stars, we had some additional players.  Heidi and Anita had their characters, Trixie the Gnome, and Badb the Dwarf, upped to 2nd level (for survivability reasons) and they joined the fray.  Also, Dil and Aerilyn joined the group, allowing Carol and Rachel to join the game (they were also bumped to 2nd Level).  John and Marcy are regular players on Wednesday nights, so they switched over to their regular characters (John plays a halfling thief named Flinders, and Marcy plays an Elven cleric named Rhysgil).

Saturday's adventure was a continuation (and part sidebar) of this much larger group, along the main campaign quest, to investigate a curious dungeon located inside the Rushmoors.  The Rushmoors is a swamp that lies over what was once the heart of the Occluded Empire of Vecna.  One of the most noteworthy locations in the Rushmoors is the Black Tower (or Rotted Tower), which was once the capitol of the Empire.  The characters in this campaign, however, are seeking a curious spot inside the fetid and evil swamp, where a curious dragon ship has crashed into the heart of a huge and ancient cypress tree.  This ship has opened up a portal to another world, and is called "The Ship between the Worlds" - also the name of the adventure path the players are following.  This sidebar adventure is inside the Rushmoors, but the dungeon is one where a curious little tribe of fishmen (not too different from Kuo Toa) have an underground temple.  The players invaded, began investigating, and disrupted the nest of evil.  The adventure wasn't finished, but it was a fun time for a long Saturday afternoon of gaming.

A different version of Greyhawk, this time showing the Rushmoors, lower left.

Sunday's gaming was run by John, and was a short adventure using the latest playtest package of D&D Next.  I made up a character - hailing from the city of Dyvers, at the northern edge of the Gnarley Forest, named "Robin of the Gnarley Wood".  The character has a heavy Errol Flynn influence and was quite fun to play as a swashbuckling bravo!

Robin of the Gnarley Wood

There were all new characters around - Steve with a wizard, Rachel with a Druid, Marcy with a Cleric, Heidi repeating her Gnome Thief, Rowdy with a Monk, and Carol repeating her Elven Ranger.  It was fun to play, but it still doesn't feel like AD&D (or D&D) to me, yet.

Board Games

A wonderful weekend of gaming, that also included some board and card games.  We played a game of Eight Minute Empire.  This is turning out to be quite a fun little game, I can't wait for the release of the successor (which I backed) to come out - Eight Minute Empire Legends from kickstarter.

We also played a game of When Zombies Attack. This is a new dice game based on the players trying to survive a zombie attack.  Slightly different than the (superior) Zombie Dice game from Steve Jackson Games, where the players are themselves Zombies, trying to collect Brains.  This game has the dice representing Zombies, and the players trying (through dice rolls) to get rid of the Zombies.  If a player survives a whole round being zombie (dice) free, then they are the winner.  In one or two respects it is superior to Zombie Dice, but in general, I think it will not surpass the original.  The biggest advantage, is not having to keep score.  But, I have heard that it is easy to keep score in Zombie Dice, if one uses little plastic brains or skulls (or similar) instead of writing the score on paper.  Must try.

Finally the group played a round of The Resistance.  This was a fun game as a filler between the long Labyrinth Lord session on Saturday, and the evening activity (which was a ctered BBQ dinner and a group viewing of "The Avengers" at Steve's wonderful home theater at his house in Greensboro).  We had a great time playing Resistance, even though it was a new game to most of the players.  Everyone fell into it right away, with lots of accusations and paranoia out of the gate.  It was a seven player game, and the Government Spies won!!  Treachery!