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I'm impressed/depressed we rated as social media.Thanks, just been minimizing social media for a while.
Regular rations would be just food wrapped in some sort of paper but iron rations would be food in cans. If the cans got wet, the food would still be fine.It bothered me, and I didn’t don’t fully know, the difference between standard rations and iron rations.
Mechanically the two would be the same. We always assumed that a regular steel mirror would be a big, clunky, rectangular thing and that the silver mirror would be a fancy hand thing. The rules never specified.Also, silver vs steel mirror?
Caltrops aren't in the OD&D equipment list. They may be in Holmes basic, but they were not in OD&D.in OD&D caltrops were also on the list
I take this differently. Regular rations would be food that would spoil after a week or so. Iron rations are dried food, hard tack bread and dried meat. It's meant to last longer but at a cost of edibility.Regular rations would be just food wrapped in some sort of paper but iron rations would be food in cans. If the cans got wet, the food would still be fine.
Mechanically the two would be the same. We always assumed that a regular steel mirror would be a big, clunky, rectangular thing and that the silver mirror would be a fancy hand thing. The rules never specified.
Caltrops aren't in the OD&D equipment list. They may be in Holmes basic, but they were not in OD&D.
The exact language is: "The Dungeon Master should have all this completely mapped out, hit points and attack die rolls calculated and recorded, so that the game will proceed most rapidly at the exciting moments when the enemy is encountered".
Welcome to the Pub, G Gentleman Ranker!Is it possible that the reference in Holmes to pre-rolled attacks
is a reference to the procedure outlined in "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" in 1978/79 and used in the Gen Con X dungeon competition in IIRC 1976(?). It's early enough to be a tertiary source for Homes. I don't know how widespread the process was but according to Bob Blake in "of skulls..."
Also, there is an example of pre-rolled monster attacks that will be used wherever and whenever a monster appears.
Remember, this was run as a tournament, thus all monsters were to perform the same for each competing team. Turn
to Building #42 . Simon the Moneylender has just been gurked by a band of Ores that somehow got into town. The
first melee attack for Ore #1 is 1/1. This means that the best armor class that attack could hit is.1, and 1
point of damage would be inflicted. Thus, if it fell on a Fighter with armor class 0, it would miss, but on a
Magic User with armor class 7, it would hit. The fourth melee attack for Ore #3 is 9/1. That means that the only
thing he could hit with that attack would be someone without armor or shield. A " 11 means an automatic miss. I
think you can get the idea. If you run out of pre-rolled attacks, simply go back to mr #1 and start over. Remember
to randomly roll what target a monster is striking; don't match the attack to the armor class of a party member.
In other words, these are just as if they were rolled out on the spot. Use them if you wish, or roll your own.
The sample gives Orc 1, 2 , 3 etc round by round lists of what AC they hit for how much damage.
Could Holmes have been familiar with that process from organised play of the period Zenopus? Or could that process of pre-rolling have been more widespread in the early hobby than we usually suppose?
GR
Yeah, that always felt like an odd oversight. Another item that should have been on equipment lists was the grappling hook. I don't know about Holmes or AD&D, but I was always surprised that OD&D didn't have those.Caltrops are not found in the OD&D, Holmes or AD&D equipment lists...
Is it possible that the reference in Holmes to pre-rolled attacks
is a reference to the procedure outlined in "Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green" in 1978/79 and used in the Gen Con X dungeon competition in IIRC 1976(?). It's early enough to be a tertiary source for Homes. I don't know how widespread the process was but according to Bob Blake in "of skulls..."
Also, there is an example of pre-rolled monster attacks that will be used wherever and whenever a monster appears.
Remember, this was run as a tournament, thus all monsters were to perform the same for each competing team. Turn
to Building #42 . Simon the Moneylender has just been gurked by a band of Ores that somehow got into town. The
first melee attack for Ore #1 is 1/1. This means that the best armor class that attack could hit is.1, and 1
point of damage would be inflicted. Thus, if it fell on a Fighter with armor class 0, it would miss, but on a
Magic User with armor class 7, it would hit. The fourth melee attack for Ore #3 is 9/1. That means that the only
thing he could hit with that attack would be someone without armor or shield. A " 11 means an automatic miss. I
think you can get the idea. If you run out of pre-rolled attacks, simply go back to mr #1 and start over. Remember
to randomly roll what target a monster is striking; don't match the attack to the armor class of a party member.
In other words, these are just as if they were rolled out on the spot. Use them if you wish, or roll your own.
The sample gives Orc 1, 2 , 3 etc round by round lists of what AC they hit for how much damage.
Could Holmes have been familiar with that process from organised play of the period Zenopus? Or could that process of pre-rolling have been more widespread in the early hobby than we usually suppose?
Another important contributing factor to consistency in DMing was pre-rolled monster attacks . Each monster had 10 rounds of attacks rolled out (using Greyhawk for the number of attacks per round) and the damage each attack would do, if it hit.
That is a breath-takingly inefficient way to spend your time preparing an adventure. You don't know in advance which encounters will happen, which will turn into fights or how long they will go on, so you need to prepare some large number of attack 'rolls' to everyone your characters might potentially run across!
These days I doubt anyone would do this by hand - there are any number of ways to generate thousands of rolls on a computer and print them out. I've done similar things in other games, it works a treat.That is a breath-takingly inefficient way to spend your time preparing an adventure. You don't know in advance which encounters will happen, which will turn into fights or how long they will go on, so you need to prepare some large number of attack 'rolls' to everyone your characters might potentially run across!
Yes, they were in Men & Magic. Greyhawk introduced a lot more bonuses, but those didn't make it into Holmes.Do you know if the Dexterity and Constitution bonuses were in OD&D as well or were they just a Holmes addition?
Men & Magic has a subset of the bonuses in Holmes which has a subset of the bonuses in Greyhawk.Yes, they were in Men & Magic. Greyhawk introduced a lot more bonuses, but those didn't make it into Holmes.
Do you know if the Dexterity and Constitution bonuses were in OD&D as well or were they just a Holmes addition?
Yes, they were in Men & Magic. Greyhawk introduced a lot more bonuses, but those didn't make it into Holmes.
I have a fresh question Zenopus. Apologies if it's been done to death elsewhere. How sure are we that the tower of Zenopus is outside Portown? I found the description a little ambiguous and certainly the relevant areas in the dungeon don't seem very far apart. Is it possible that Holmes was envisaging the wizards tower as within the town itself?
That last sentence might be the issue. I'm sure someone could provide a top notch scan of the book. I'm not sure the family is an impediment but the question of what was the contract might be an issue. I recall from the Goodman Games B2 publication some of the early agreements were a bit too lucrative for the authors. I believe that's the reason B1 and B2 get swapped out in the Holmes edition. Can't recall which but one was earning an employee quite a bonus. I'll look when I get up to the office.I have a couple of Holmes sets floating around. For me OD&D hits its peak in Holmes. Most of us played a mish mash of OD&D AND Holmes before AD&D in 79.
I am under the impression it is the only basic set not in PDF form at online stores.
My real question is, what would it take to get a published PDF of Holmes for those who have not seen it.
I want to share it with people, but quite honestly I would feel odd scanning and sending around copies. I also think the Holmes Estate should get a buck for each copy sold.
Just to update this I found the entry. Mike Carr received $0.11 per copy of B1. Including copies in the early Holmes Basic set. That apparently worked out to a significant enough payout that they swapped out B1 for B2 where he go no royalties.That last sentence might be the issue. I'm sure someone could provide a top notch scan of the book. I'm not sure the family is an impediment but the question of what was the contract might be an issue. I recall from the Goodman Games B2 publication some of the early agreements were a bit too lucrative for the authors. I believe that's the reason B1 and B2 get swapped out in the Holmes edition. Can't recall which but one was earning an employee quite a bonus. I'll look when I get up to the office.
Gods & Demons: Khalk'ru the Dissolver, Ozymandias, the Mi-Go, the Fungi from Yuggoth, Artaban, Asmodeus, Mithra (used a lot), Hastur, Cthulhu, Azathoth, (Church of) Saint Mellon, Gor, Thor, Odin, Crom, Hypnos, Morpheus and Ishtar.
A few points on the lack of a Holmes Basic rulebook pdf:
---There was a pdf of the rulebook for sale at one point, in one of the earlier iterations of the pdfs sales. It may have been when SVgames and/or Paizo was selling the pdfs under agreement with WOTC. I've heard it was a 3rd edition of the Holmes rulebook, and a poor scan. The scans were much poorer back then; I believe most of the items have been rescanned for the new releases.
Edit: Here's an Internet Archive Snapshot of the RPGnow page for the Holmes Basic pdf from Dec 1st, 2007. $4.95.
It says the product was added in 01/01/2001, but the oldest Internet Archive shot of the page is from 2004:
RPG Now: Dungeons and Dragons Basic Rulebook
RPG Now: Dungeons and Dragons Basic Rulebookweb.archive.org
---Chris Holmes has indicated that his father didn't get paid money for his work on the Basic Set. Gygax also referred to Holmes as a volunteer several times (once in Dragon #35). So there may not have been any sort of contract, and I don't know that he got any residuals. Although he did get copies of new TSR releases for several years.
---I also tend to think it's not an ownership issue. In addition to the earlier sales of the pdf, WOTC has also been giving away the Sample Dungeon, albeit in a poor scan, for over ten years. Furthermore, they included the Tower of Zenopus as an adventure site in Ghosts of Saltmarsh just last year. So they obviously feel they own that IP, which is the part that Holmes would have the strongest claim to.
Thanks for that Zenopus.
So Zeus is the only one mentioned in Holmes D&D that's not in Maze of Peril.
I wonder if the Church of Saint Mellon is the Quakers?
I'd noted that there were Crosses but no Holy Symbols in Holmes. Also, they don't appear to be needed for clerical spells or turning undead or anything specific in the rules.
I've not had access to Maze of Peril or the early Dragon stories so most of my thoughts about religion for a Holmes setting are based on the rules and on B1/B2 (and finding anything in B2 is a real stretch!)
Edit - Just thinking about it, if Zereth refers to the moon as the goddess and the Amazons refer to the goddess, this strengthens your identification of the Amazons goddess as Artemis because she was associated with the moon in classical mythology.
What is the connection between the name Mellon and the Quakers?
...NOooooOoOOOooooo!I'm impressed/depressed we rated as social media.
AFAIK, in the 1200-1500 period, it was worse in most places of the world, indeed.In the American Civil War, soldiers were given the equivalent of Iron rations. It was corn meal and some grease that they would boil into little cakes to carry with them.
Sometimes they'd get standard rations, known as blue beef, which was meat that was right on the edge of being inedible.
If soldiers got lucky, they might raid a shipment of canned lobsters.
That is the 1860's. Imagine the 1200- 1500 period.
IC or OOC?Well, it must be ~40 years since *someone* brought up caltrops in a D&D game. I guess it was his idea. Thanks for setting me straight.
Anyway, my question is simple.
I've got 1234567890* games, and I don't talk just about D&D-alikes. I can do fantasy in well over two thirds in them, and probably in all of them with a bit more hacking (but in most, I just need to ignore stuff I don't need - even SF games tend to have stats for armour and magic for some almost unfathomable reason).
So why should I, in your opinion, buy and read Holmes? Outside of "because I like new games", that is! That doesn't count. (Actually, it counts as a dirty shot!)
That's the question I keep asking to many, many game authors. You're not the author, but since he isn't having an AMA here for obvious reasons, and you offered to answer any questions...
I don’t think OD&D and the four Supplements are just algorithms. To me they are literature as well. That can’t be cloned.
"The characters are then plunged into an adventure in a
series of dungeons, tunnels, secret rooms and caverns
run by another player: the referee, often called the
Dungeon Master. The dungeons are filled with fearsome
monsters, fabulous treasure and frightful perils.
As the players engage in game after game their
characters grow in power and ability: the magic users
learn more magic spells, the thieves increase in cunning
and ability, the fighting men, hobbits, elves and
dwarves, fight with more deadly accuracy and are
harder to kill. Soon the adventurers are daring to go
deeper and deeper into the dungeons on each game,
battling more terrible monsters, and, of course,
recovering bigger and more fabulous treasure!"