I mention in the preface to Blue Flame, Tiny Stars that several articles or parts of articles from Anecdotes and Old Games are omitted from the text, as they are impertinent to the memoir. Because they may be of interest to old-school role-players and fans of Holmes Basic D&D, I include an index to the orphaned articles on the book’s web page under the heading Bonus Material.
The Story Continues…
After my initiation to the game with the Holmes edition, I happened upon Moldvay, Cook, and Marsh’s D&D Basic and Expert Sets: “A Craft Store Discovery.”
In the original 1974 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS rules booklets, Gygax and Arneson give us scant guidance on designing the surface and underworld environments in which a campaign will take place, and hardly anything at all about setting up “the campaign for which these rules are designed” (Men & Magic, 3).
The first of three thin volumes, under Preparation for the Campaign, advises:
“The referee bears the entire burden here, but if care and thought are used, the reward will more than repay him. First, the referee must draw out a minimum of half a dozen maps of the levels of his ‘underworld,’ people them with monsters of various horrid aspect, distribute treasures accordingly, and note the location of the latter two on keys, each corresponding to the appropriate level” (Men & Magic, 5).
This summary is followed by the assurance: “This operation will be more fully described in the third volume of these rules” (5).
The third volume provides some degree of satisfaction in the details. The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures opens with an illustration, showing a “Sample Cross Section of Levels,” and a half-page of text, which again points out the referee’s burden of time, the necessity to draw maps of a few dungeon levels, that eventually the dungeon should have a dozen or more levels with new levels under construction, and that, indeed, the depth and breadth of a dungeon is limited only by the world’s capacity to manufacture graph paper (3-4).
The book then provides a sample dungeon map accompanied by several examples of tricks and traps and advice on placing monsters and treasures (4-8).
We will see shortly that the DM’s burden of time is a recurring concern for Gary Gygax. Much like entering the dungeon, we are warned against it, but we do it anyway—That’s where the fun is.
Later, in The Wilderness section, the referee gets an outline of maps necessary to run surface-level adventures:
“First, he must have a ground level map of his dungeons, a map of the terrain immediately surrounding this, and finally a map of the town or village closest to the dungeons (where adventurers will be most likely to base themselves)” (14).
Following brief examples of the now-iconic Blackmoor and Greyhawk base towns and a suggestion to use the Outdoor Survival map board for “off-hand” or “general” adventures, the rules then get into conducting play in areas previously established. In all that, though, the D&D referee has little in the way of an overview of how to set up the campaign.
While still cursory, the article’s three letter-sized pages give the referee a more structured process to set up a campaign.
#Gygax75
A blogger named Charlie (who goes by @Thatakinsboy on Twitter), coming upon Gygax’s Europa article in 2019, was inspired to follow the guidelines to set up a campaign. In a September 10 article on his blog Dragons Never Forget, Charlie introduces the Gygax ’75 Challenge and invites us to play along. He gives us a series of articles in which he walks the reader through the five steps over the next couple months, as he creates the Valley of the Three Forks, a post-apocalyptic fantasy campaign setting inspired by sci-fi and fantasy literature.
Meanwhile, in October, fellow blogger Ray Otus of the Viridian Scroll saw Charlie’s introduction and caught the bug to make a campaign using Gygax’s brief guidelines. He reviews the article in “The Gygax 75 Challenge.” Then he went further: Otus wrote a 40-page book, outlining Gygax’s steps in “achievable, bite-sized prompts and goals for a week-by-week program.” The Gygax 75 Challenge booklet (PDF) walks a DM through the five-step process in as many weeks.
After laying out the purpose of the book in the Introduction, Otus reminds us of the weekly deadline and addresses Gygax’s recurring concern:
“You are allowed one week, (no more, no less!) for each step. That may sound a bit overwhelming, but don’t overthink it!” (1)
Some time afterward, the hashtag #Gygax75 began appearing on social media, as twenty-first-century old-school D&D fans became likewise inspired.
Questing Beast Ben Milton touts Ray Otus’s Gygax 75 Challenge as “one of the best resources you can use [to build your own D&D campaign],” saying, “It’s a great way to give yourself some structure and to shepherd you through until the end” (“The ‘Gygax 75’ technique for building DnD campaigns,” 2:29-3:04).
#Dungeon23
More recently, Sean McCoy started work on “a cool little project.” McCoy tweeted:
“Megadungeon for 2023. 12 levels. 365 rooms. One room a day. Keep it all in a journal” (Twitter, December 5, 2022).
McCoy elaborates on the project in a December 6 post, “#Dungeon23,” on his Win Conditions Substack. “I love dungeons and megadungeon play,” he writes, “but writing a megadungeon is difficult!”
Journal
In the post, McCoy mentions using a stand-alone notebook or journal. He uses a Hobonichi Techo Weeks planner, whose layouts have seven days on one side, for each room of the week, and a graph-ruled page on the other, for the week’s map section.
Here, I add my own Flying Dungeon Stocking Tables, random content generation tables with probabilities based on guidelines in Holmes Bluebook D&D, Monster & Treasure Assortments, and Dungeon Geomorphs. Available in PDF for print and phone.
DM’s Burden of Time
McCoy also addresses the recurring concern, proposing “one room a day” to reduce the otherwise daunting project into small tasks, achievable in a few minutes.
“Once you realize you can create a dungeon of this magnitude, your whole world opens up with what you can do.”—Sean McCoy, “#Dungeon23,” Win Conditions
A game designer with several RPG product credits to his name, including the wildly successful Mothership RPG, McCoy further encourages the dungeon-maker. In the same words as Ray Otus, he admonishes, “Don’t overthink it.” He continues: “Don’t make a grand plan, just sit down each day and focus on writing a good dungeon room.”
Later, he adds further advice: “The goal is the finish line. Just get to the finish line,” and “Once you realize you can create a dungeon of this magnitude, your whole world opens up with what you can do.”
Inspiration Inspires
There are also hashtags now for #City23, #Hex23, and #Facility23. Maybe you have another idea…?
Now It’s Our Turn
Ray Otus closes his Introduction to The Gygax ’75 Challenge with more good advice: “Just get started.”
Starting now and throughout 2023, I am combining #Gygax75 and #Dungeon23 into a project named for the resulting old-school D&D campaign: Deep Dungeon Doom.
1 Gygax’s is a title upon which no pundit can resist comment. Mine is reserved for this footnote.
“Stephen’s delightful memoir makes you want to travel upstream to your own formative D&D headwaters, dig out your old graph-paper maps and worn dice, and rediscover the gateway to what the author calls ‘the fantastic path.’” —Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms
“A vibrant recollection of what it’s like to encounter Dungeons & Dragons for the very first time.” —Dan “Delta” Collins, author of Book of War and co-host of Wandering DMs
Warning: Reading this book will make you want to play D&D!
Thirteen-year-old Stephen is growing up in a mundane world until, during one fateful week in 1982, he discovers a new kind of game. It’s called Dungeons & Dragons, it’s a role-playing game, and under his best friend’s tutelage, he learns to play it. Now, he enters a world of medieval fantasy, where knights in shining armor perform heroic deeds, where monsters lurk in the shadows, and wizards wield powerful magic, where fabulous treasures lie hidden behind cunning traps, and deadly pitfalls await the unwary. In this game anything is possible, and by week’s end, Stephen knows it will change his life forever.
Praise for Blue Flame, Tiny Stars
“I recommend this book not just to fans of ‘Holmes Basic’ but to anyone who enjoys playing Dungeons & Dragons. The author’s clear prose captures the excitement of those early, half-remembered adventures when everything about the game was new and awe-inspiring.” —Zach Howard, author of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus and archivist at Zenopus Archives
“From his first glimpse of those strange dice, Stephen paints a picture of a young gamer’s friendships and adventures as he finds his way into a new world. The book is both a wonderful narrative and a personal history.” —Tony Dowler, author of How to Host a Dungeon: The Solo Game of Dungeon Creation
“Stephen’s essays take me right back to those heady days. You will recognise many of the moments in this book, from figuring out weird dice, employing outside-the-box tactics, inventing new spells and monsters and magic items, drawing sprawling maps—but, most of all, you’ll remember the freshness of a completely new kind of play.” —Michael Thomas, author of BLUEHOLME
“A celebration of dice, maps, friendship, and, above all, imagination—the very stuff from which the hobby of role-playing is made.” —James Maliszewski, author of Grognardia: Musings and Memories from a Lifetime of Roleplaying
This is the 15th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].
Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.
Beowulf the Bully charged the last bugbear. He rolled a natural 1 with his two-handed sword, so he missed. Hazard said he stumbled in the charge. He would miss his next attack while he recovered his balance, and the bugbear got to attack him from the flank. The bugbear rolled a 20! That's double-max damage!! The Bully fell dead on the floor with a mace in his face.[1]
—Phenster, from “At the Gates of Pandemonium,” Paradigm Lost #4 (December 1982)
Natural Hits and Misses [E]
A natural 20 always hits; a natural 1 always misses.
Following D&D editions in chronological order, I don’t find this rule in its full form (including both hits and misses) until Molday’s Basic D&D (1981): “…a roll of 20 will always hit, and a roll of 1 will always miss” (B25). We can’t have crits and fumbles without it, so we assume the house rule.
Critical Hits
Critical Hits: Double-Max Damage [P]
On a natural 20, an attack roll automatically hits and does double maximum damage.
Apart from twice maximum damage being a lot, the beauty of this option is that the big moment when the dice comes up 20 is the BIG moment. It happens in an instant. There is no second guessing: “Yeah, well, we’ll see if you confirm…” And no doubling a low damage roll. Because rolled damage, even doubled, is often a let down.
Phenster does not mention whether a Strength or magic bonus is included in the doubling. I would say not: assuming the natural 20 represents an optimal blow, the attacker’s strength is not suddenly doubled, nor does a magic weapon’s power surge.
Critical Hits: Max damage [E]
On a natural 20, an attack roll automatically hits, inflicting maximum damage.
For those who balk at double-max, simple maximum damage also has the benefit of immediacy, while being less likely to end an adventuring career.
Critical Misses
When you roll a 1 for your attack blow, we usually say you drop your weapon and have to draw another one, but it depends on who's the DM. It gets a little boring if it happens more than a couple times in one game. But Hazard has a flair for making stuff up on the spot. Like, you stumble, or your flail gets stuck in the other guy's shield, or something more dramatic. We almost always miss our next turn.
I've tried it before when I'm the DM, but it takes me too long to make something up. So I made a list of all the things Hazard ever did. It turned out that the list wasn't long. It's the details Hazard adds that make the flair. I keep the list handy, and if somebody rolls a 1, I just have to pick something from the list and add some flair.
- Drops weapon - Weapon stuck - Breaks weapon - Over swing (off balance) - Stumble (off balance, 1 step in random direction) - Expose flank - Impaired (penalty on attack OR armor class for 1 round)
—Phenster, from “Combat Complications,” L’avant garde #49 (September 1982)
Critical Miss: Lose Next Action [E]
On a natural 1, an attack roll automatically misses, and the attacker loses the next attack or the next round of action.
I include “next attack” for the case of combatants wielding a lighter weapon and fighters with multiple attacks per round (see Multiple Attacks per Round [E] and “Combat Complications” forthcoming).
Using Phenster’s list, the DM may add details as necessity demands and one’s capability for flair permits.
Critical Miss Immunity [E]
An attacker, who needs a 10 or less on the attack matrix (level/hit dice vs AC), is immune to a critical miss.
My own addition, this rule lowers the chance that a high-level character looks like a bumbling idiot. It takes into account only the attacker’s level versus the defender’s AC. I don’t include bonuses and penalties in the criteria, because often, when the attack roll is high or low, we don’t take the time to add up all bonuses and penalties. By including them in the calculation for critical miss immunity, it forces us to make that calculation, which slows the pace.
Note on Critical Hits and Misses
Statisticians and game designers criticize critical hits and misses for a variety of good reasons. Here I outline the major arguments briefly. The web is mired with more thorough discussion on the topic.2
The base rule is that a 20 always hits and a 1 always misses. Adding additional penalties and bonuses introduces more randomness—therefore more chaos—into combat.
Statisticians warn players that critical hits and misses work against their characters in a number of ways:
If we suppose that player characters should have a chance—whether high or low—to win a given fight, then any additional chaos in the system means it’s more difficult to gauge the chance of success.
Because there are often more individual monsters than PCs, the latter are more likely to receive critical hits than to deliver them.
As fighters advance in level, they get more attacks per round. More attack rolls means a higher-level fighter has more chances to fumble than a lower-level fighter. This works against the game’s basic tenet that characters become more competent as they gain experience.
Game designers agree with the statisticians on the points above. They also balk at additional dice rolls and table lookups. All that takes time, not to mention the dramatic tension is more often broken than held taught.
Most of the statisticians and game designers who make these arguments are adults. In my youth, my friends and I gave little thought to such complicated concerns. The chance to have a dramatic impact on combat far outweighed the chance of bad stuff happening to a beloved player character—if only in our risk-ignorant adolescent minds.
1 To assuage Beowulf’s fans: Phenster tells us later that the party had him raised at the the fortress chapel. Afterward, “Friar Tombs healed his face, but the wound left scars.”
2 In the old school, generally, we talk about critical hits and misses, or casually: crits and fumbles. In later editions, when we start rolling skill checks on a d20, the terms become critical success and critical failure. Adjust search keywords accordingly.
I got the second print proof last week. The color looks a lot better, outside and in. It’s a story of two friends, RGB and CMYK. One looks nice on screen, the other on paper. Perfect foils, they take turns being hero and villain.
I mentioned the too-tight margins in the first proof and thought to up the size to 5½″ × 8½″. On further reflection though, I like the smaller size for this short book. I keep the 5″ × 8″ trim size through judicious margin adjustment.
This last change made and files submitted, the book is now in process at DriveThruRPG. Blue Flame, Tiny Stars will be ready for you—barring any further complications—by mid-December.
Thank you all for your patience and for your enthusiasm. I’m looking forward to getting this book into your hands.
“I recommend this book not just to fans of ‘Holmes Basic’ but to anyone who enjoys playing Dungeons & Dragons. The author’s clear prose captures the excitement of those early, half-remembered adventures when everything about the game was new and awe-inspiring.” —Zach Howard, author of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus and archivist at Zenopus Archives
“Stephen’s essays take me right back to those heady days. You will recognise many of the moments in this book, from figuring out weird dice, employing outside-the-box tactics, inventing new spells and monsters and magic items, drawing sprawling maps—but, most of all, you’ll remember the freshness of a completely new kind of play.” —Michael Thomas, author of BLUEHOLME
Because the 1981 Basic and Expert were the first D&D rulebooks I read and understood thoroughly, I see earlier editions through B/X-colored reading glasses. For examples, when in the 2000s I got my hands on the original 1974 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS rules, I understood that elves were fighter/magic-users, a magic sword +1 grants a bonus to attack and damage rolls, and ability score adjustments reduce one score to raise another.
The first thing we learn from reading the original D&D rules booklets is that one does not just read the original D&D rules booklets. It’s like casually reading a foreign language. To do so is to comprehend nothing. The OD&D rules must be studied, deciphered, and interpreted.
After struggling with the text, I figured out that, in OD&D, elves are not the fighter/magic-users I was accustomed to1, a sword +1 grants its bonus to the attack roll only2, and—most surprising—ability score adjustments do not, in fact, adjust ability scores.
Within the last example is a paradigm that shifts throughout D&D’s old-school editions.
Complimentary Paradigm
The first instance showing how to adjust the prime requisite makes the point. From the Strength entry under Determination of Abilities:
“Clerics can use strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining experience only” (Men & Magic, 10, emphasis mine).
According to the last phrase, the ability scores are not raised or lowered. We must think of the adjusted prime requisite score as a separate entry on the character sheet. If the cleric’s Strength, as rolled, is 14 and Wisdom 12, the player can use 3 points of Strength to raise Wisdom by 1. The adjusted prime requisite score is then 13. The Strength and Wisdom scores remain 14 and 12. The 3 points of Strength are used but not expended; the prime requisite is “increased” but not the Wisdom score.
To explain what’s happening in the game world, we can say that the above-average Strength compliments Wisdom and, therefore, the cleric advances faster, earning a bonus to earned experience points.
Similarly, a fighter can use 2 points of Intelligence or 3 points of Wisdom to raise the prime requisite (Strength) by 1 point. A clever fighter, like the strong cleric, advances more quickly.
If we need to be convinced, the magic-user’s case cinches it. A magic-user may use Wisdom—but not Strength—to augment earned experience. A wise magic-user may employ intellect more effectively, while Strength is of no use in the exercise of the arcane arts.
Language in the first supplement hints that players at the time were also confused about the adjustments. In Greyhawk, under the Strength entry, where the co-creator allows fighters with above-average Strength a bonus to attack and damage rolls, Gygax stipulates:
“This strength must be raw, i.e. not altered by intelligence scores” (7).
Here, we sense that Gygax knew players were ignoring “for purposes of gaining experience only” and adjusting the actual scores.
To add further confusion, Gygax goes on to allow thieves to raise the raw score.3
“[Thieves] may use 2 points of intelligence and 1 point of wisdom to increase their raw dexterity score…” (8).
Note he does not say the raw Intelligence and Wisdom scores are lowered.
The language elided above: “…so long as they do not thereby bring the intelligence and wisdom scores below average” is the same as the note given in Men & Magic (footnote, 11), where the raw scores are not changed.
As Greyhawk maintains the limited benefits of Dexterity, affecting only “the ability of characters to act/react and fire missiles” (8), thieves apply high intelligence and wisdom, not only to their experience point bonus, but also to initiative and careful aim. (As of 1976, only fighters can take advantage of high Dexterity to improve their armor class.)
Practice Paradigm
In Basic D&D (1977), editor Eric Holmes shifts from the complimentary to a practice paradigm. The editor explains in clear language:
“It is possible to raise a character’s scores in a prime requisite by lowering the scores of some of the other abilities. This recognizes that one can practice and learn feats of fighting, intelligence, etc., but must take a penalty in another area by so doing” (6).
In the practice paradigm, a magic-user can sacrifice Strength for Intelligence. Again, the lack of this option in OD&D is a tell for the complimentary paradigm.
Moldvay, with similar language, brings the practice paradigm forward into B/X, only simplifying the exchange rate, always two for one.
Complimentary vs. Practice
Apart from it just makes better sense, I prefer OD&D’s complimentary paradigm over the practice paradigm for two reasons:
The practice paradigm, though it raises the prime requisite scores, tends to draw the two other abilities down toward 9. The 3d6 method already produces scores heavy toward the average.
While the practice paradigm results in a net loss, the complimentary paradigm requires no sacrifice on the player’s part. No tough decision: “Do I lower strength to get one more point of wisdom…?” Therefore, character creation goes faster.
Subsumed Paradigm
Meanwhile, in the Advanced D&D Player’s Handbook (1978), Gygax omits adjustments to prime requisite scores all together. He proposes instead more generous methods to generate ability scores. The rolled scores, we infer, represent the character’s natural talent as well as any improvements and sacrifices made during one’s formative years. Furthermore, only an exceptional score (above 15) in one’s “principal attribute”—the term Gygax favors—grants a bonus to earned experience.
Brian Rogers on Mastodon points out that, according to his calculations, the chance to get an XP bonus at AD&D’s higher threshold and 4d6-drop-lowest is about the same as other old-school editions’ 13 threshold with 3d6. [13:10 02 February 2023 GMT]
But Gygax does something else in 1st Edition. He introduces ability adjustments based on race. Each player character race, except humans, receives a bonus and a penalty to two or three ability scores. For example, an elf benefits from an extra point of Dexterity, while suffering the loss of one point from Constitution. The exchange is always one for one.
Still, the adjustments represent the innate characteristics of the race. They are born in, not acquired later. Scores generated during character creation—no matter the method—represent the character’s abilities at the beginning of his or her career.
Though 3E grants ability score increases at higher levels and gives no XP bonus for high scores, and 4E grants ability score bonuses based on race without penalties, the subsumed paradigm is followed in later editions of the world’s most fascinating role-playing game.
Further Reading
James Maliszewski sparked discussion last year about ability score adjustments and related topics on Grognardia: “What’s the Point of Ability Scores? (Part IV).” Look for the other parts as well, six total.
If you too struggle with B/X-colored reading glasses, we are not alone. JB at B/X Blackrazor expresses his own dismay upon discovering this difference in OD&D in “Wow. I FINALLY Get It!”
In “On prime requisites and XP adjustments” on reddit, Ivan the Unpleasant goes into some detail about each old-school edition’s treatment of prime requisites.
1 Instead of playing the familiar elf, who is at once fighter and magic-user, the OD&D player decides, before each adventure begins, which class abilities the elf will employ for the adventure (Men & Magic, 8). If we assume the game simulates a fantastic world, this makes no sense. The decision point only makes sense when we remind ourselves that D&D is a game after all.
2 See heading “Swords, Damage Bonuses” in Monsters & Treasure, 30.
3 I base the interpretation solely on the fact that Gygax employed “raw” score a few paragraphs before. I assume he would not be so sloppy with terms as to misuse this one on the next page. Or would he…? Here we might rather say, “Gygax seems to allow thieves to raise the raw score.”
I got the print proof this week. I note for future reference: that’s two weeks from ship date, plus four days from proof submission.
The thing in hand, I think a print edition is worth the paper and the effort necessary to get it into shape. A few corrections to be made:
The background blue is supposed to match the website header. Printed, it looks washed-out.
At 0.13 inches, the spine is just wide enough to allow text. I put the title, author, and publisher (not shown) in different sizes to see how they look. In printing, the cover suffered a slight rotation, which shows in the tight space—the text creeps off the spine. Including text on a narrow spine is like casting a spell through a steel sword on Tékumel: just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Spine text to be removed.
The graphic elements, which fill the allowed (printable) space, don’t breathe on the front or back covers.
At current margins, font size, and 5″ × 8″ trim, the interior text breaks at all the right places. The font size is just right, but the margins look a little tight, and the gutter (interior margin) is far too narrow. Instead of reducing the font size, I’ll add a half-inch to the trim to widen the margins. At 5½″ × 8½″, the front and back covers also breathe.
I hope those who opt for print will agree that color on the few interior images are worth an extra buck.
Another proof is necessary. That will push release date into the holiday season, a period of increased competition for reader attention and spending money. A nice-looking product is worth it.
The story continues. This is the next episode following my early experiences playing Holmes Basic D&D, recounted in Blue Flame, Tiny Stars.
Memory fades like a ship on a foggy horizon when there is nothing to anchor it. So, the remainder of the summer passed into obscurity. I started high school in the fall, made new friends, and got a paper route. Of these, the last would stir the fog and give me another glimpse of D&D on the horizon.
After school, I would walk to the downtown law office where my mother worked as a legal secretary. The half-hour commute took me along the town’s main street and by the county library.
I dropped my books at the office and went to the corner convenient store, where the newspaperman left the papers, bailed in a plastic strip. I tore the strip, folded the papers, and loaded a shoulder bag made of heavy cloth, bleached white, “Citizen Tribune” printed on a side.
This wasn’t a bike-riding, paper-throwing, “’Afternoon, Mr. Wilson!” route, like we used to see on the television. It was a walking, newspaper-box route, and I never talked to or even met any of the folks who presumably read the papers I delivered.
I walked the route every day, except Mondays and Saturdays when there was no edition. My older brother drove me to the neighborhood on Sunday mornings. Every other Tuesday, I wrote the amount each subscriber owed for the period on an envelope and put it in the box with the paper. The following Friday, I collected the envelopes filled with coins and dollar bills. The route took just less than an hour. Biweekly earnings came to ten dollars and change.
One day on the after-school commute, as I turned the corner onto Main Street, something in a shop window caught my eye. A sign that stuck out over the sidewalk identified the shop as Witty’s Craft Store. The afternoon sun reflected off the glass. Shielding my eyes with a hand, I squinted through the glare.
The window was divided into two shelves. Balsa wood boxes and knitting books were arranged on the bottom shelf. On the top, above eye level, I made out a box cover and, on it, a bright green dragon. Large capital letters declared the title “DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.”
I whispered aloud, “Isn’t that the game I played with Garth…?”
The box was red violet, not the blue of the book I remembered. But it had a dragon. Facing it from the other side of the shelf, a matching box, this one blue, had a wizard. All that didn’t jive with memory, but tiny stars were flashing in my mind.
A bell dinged overhead as I pushed through the door. The store smelled like cedar and Elmer’s glue. A woman at the counter talked into a telephone.
I turned toward the window. The two boxes, each on a triangular stand, showed me their backs. I would have to reach to get them down.
The counter woman penciled notes into a ledger with one hand, while holding the receiver to her ear with the other. Glancing from the corner of an eye, she smiled and raised the pencil and an index finger at me.
I waited. A glance around the shop told me there were no other boxes with dragons or wizards on them. The shelves were filled with wooden dowels, kraft paper, and paint-by-number kits.
A moment later, the woman hung up the phone and laid the pencil on the ledger. “Hi, can I help you?”
I pointed to the blue box. “Can I look at this?”
My voice was sheepish. Shopping for me was a rare activity. Shopping on my own more so. The etiquette was unfamiliar. Here I was, asking to examine an item from the display case, as if I had money to buy it.
“Sure,” she said and went back to the ledger.
Reaching up, I took the box from its triangular stand. I was careful not to upset the stand or the other box. The contents shifted as I drew it down. Shrink-wrap crackled under my fingers.
The box in both hands, my eyes searched for a dragon atop a mound of treasure, adventurers, a magic wand. They found a wizard wearing a green robe. He gripped a staff at the end of an outstretched arm. The staff’s ornament shed a blue light. The other arm upraised, the hand empty, fingers spread, tensed, as if exerting some unseen force.
The wizard’s angular features gave him an exotic and menacing aspect. He had bony joints and a triangle nose. The robe bent at angles rather than flowing in smooth curves. I found a wand hanging from his belt, secured by two loops. The loops were rigid and angular, as if made from metal. The wooden staff crooked at right angles.
From beneath a pointed cap flowed stark white hair. Also white, a beard framed a small mouth, open in a gasp, and bushy brows raised over wide eyes. The pupils focused on a scene in a cloud of smoke that billowed from a flaming brazier. The scene contained two adventurers confronting a dragon. Still no treasure.
“That’s the second one,” said the woman. “You have to start with the other one.”
A black number “2” in a white circle was printed in the upper left corner above a yellow banner that read “EXPERT SET for use with D&D Basic Set.” In the left corner, a sticker put the price at $10.00.
“Okay.” I nodded, looking up from the box. “Do you know anything about this game?”
Her thick, blond hair was tied back. It had a gray tinge that matched her complexion. “No, I’m sorry. Not really.”
I ran my fingers along the box edge, feeling the shrink-wrap’s seams. “Can I see what’s inside?”
“There’s a picture on the back.”
I turned the box over. A black-and-white photograph showed the box in miniature beside two books. One book shared the image from the box top. Neither looked like the pale blue book Garth had. Also in the photo, I made out a crayon and multi-sided dice.
Garth’s voice sounded in my head: “They’re polyhedrons.”
Above the photo, a block of text in a red rectangle warned that I could not play this game by itself. I needed the basic rulebook.
I replaced the blue box in its stand and took the violet. Other than the crackling shrink-wrap and shifting box contents, the store was quiet. Every sound I made was amplified in my ears. I felt the woman’s gaze.
I looked first at the back. No warning on this one. Below a similar photograph showing the contents, I scanned small text that described a scene: a sword, a fight with a dragon, treasure. I stopped on a line:
“‘What do you want to do now?’ asks the Dungeon Master.”
Garth was always asking Jarrod and I what we wanted to do. And didn’t he call himself the dungeon master?
I turned to the front. The dragon’s green skin stood out against violet cavern walls. Two figures, with the same angled features as the wizard, attacked it. One, an armored man with a spear, the other, a woman with a green flaming ball. The man defended himself with a wooden shield and wore armor and a winged helm. The woman held a torch. She wore a sleeveless robe, one leg exposed from thigh to calf boot. A dagger hung from a waist belt. At her feet, an open chest spilled coins and sparkling gems— treasure!
The number in the upper left was a “1.” The banner text read, “BASIC SET with Introductory Module.” Like the other set, the price was $10.00. In the lower right corner, I read: “The Original Fantasy Role Playing Game For 3 or More Adults, Ages 10 and Up.”
This must be the game. It was Tuesday. Envelopes would go in paper boxes today. I returned the box to its stand and thanked the woman for her time. The bell dinged as I went through the door. I could not bare to look again at the boxes in the shop window as I strode by, head bent, full of anticipation.
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Basic and Expert Sets, Cover Art by Erol Otus. Edited by Tom Moldvay and David Cook with Steve Marsh (Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Hobbies, 1981), this edition, known as B/X D&D, and its retro-clones today enjoy a large and growing fan base.
The release of Blue Flame, Tiny Stars is back on. The bad news is a publishing deal for a print edition didn’t work out. The good news is I am thinking to do it myself.
The book is short—about 30 reading pages, hence my reluctance. With front and back matter, it comes to 45 total. The printer requires a book of that size to have a page count divisible by six. That makes a thin volume, but I can think of another book that has only 48 pages.
Formatting the manuscript for print requires some labor, the cover quite some more, and receiving print proofs requires time. The labor is done. A proof copy is on the way, scheduled to arrive mid-October. I’ll have a look at it and decide if it’s worth the pulp.
Expect an update in about two weeks. Thank you for your patience and your support.
