#AtoZChallenge2024: Z is for the Z-Library (of Dungeons & Dragons)

Ok a bit of a change for the last post of the A to Z of Dungeons & Dragons today. First off, I want to thank everyone who came by, commented, and shared my links. You all are the reason I love doing this.

So, for that, I want to give back to you all.  

If you have been involved in academia in the past few years you likely know about the infamous "Z-Library." This is a "shadow library" (which admittedly sounds cool) that gives you access to 1,000s of books. The legality of this, though, is on the questionable side to outright piracy. So no, I will not be linking out to it. 

But what I can do for you, my readers, is provide you with a 100% free and 100% legal, and in many cases with the author's express permission, access to books so you can play or discover Dungeons & Dragons on your own: A Dungeons & Dragons Z-Library.

Again, all these titles are free, 100% legal, and 100% safe for you to download and begin playing.  Often all you will need is pencil, paper and some dice.

Don't have mult-sided polyhedral dice? No worries, Google's Dice Roller has you covered.

Dungeons & Dragons for Free

D&D Beyond has a portal where you can read the rules and create (up to 6) characters for free. This is for the current edition of 5e.

IF you don't mind a little work and don't care about art, the entire D&D 5e system has been released to the Creative Commons. It is free to grab and use as you like.

• Systems Reference Document (SRD) 5.1

DriveThruRPG has many free items from D&D's current publisher, Wizards of the Coast, for free. In particular, they have the following for older editions:

• Into the Darkness (3.0)
• Monster Slayers: The Heroes of Hesiod (4e lite) Great for kids 10 and under!
• D&D RPG Starter Set Quickstart (4e) 
• H1 Keep on the Shadowfell & Quick-Start Rules (4e)

The last two 4e titles can be combined into a fairly robust version of 4e. 

Other D&D-like Games for Free

These games are often referred to as "Retro Clones," and they emulate older forms of D&D. While they are not 100% D&D, they are close, and ALL offer the same sorts of experiences. You could play one of these, call it D&D, and everyone would be happy.

Since I have been talking about the various editions of D&D all month long, I will organize these Clones by the edition they are most similar to.  Some are full games, and others will be "quick starts," which are usually just an introduction to the game. 

Note: This is not everything, but it is many free ones. Many of these also have paid versions as well.

Original Edition

These games mimic the original Edition of the D&D game.

Delving Deeper. This game mimics the original three books of OD&D. It is free from it's website and from DriveThruRPG.

Iron Falcon. This game mimics OD&D and its first supplement, which made the game the one we recognize today. Iron Falcon comes to us from the same team that gave us Basic Fantasy, so everything is 100% free. The print books are at cost. In terms of giving back to the community, none is better than Basic Fantasy/Iron Falcon. I like to support them for these reasons alone. 

White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game. Based on the Swords & Wizardry rules. Not exactly OD&D but very close. 

Dungeon Crawl Classics. This is an odd one. It has the feel of OD&D, some of the mechanics of Basic D&D, and the game play of AD&D. All with the grit turned up to 11.

Basic Edition

These games are most like the Basic-era games, so Holmes, Moldvay, and Mentzer versions of D&D Basic.

Basic Fantasy. This is the gold standard when it comes to free content and community. It is most similar to Basic D&D, but not Rules as Written, but more like how we actually played it back in 1980-2. EVERYTHING for it is free. The print books are sold at cost. There is a ton of material for it, and it really is the best game for learning to play a Basic (and basic) D&D game. I highly recommend it.

BLUEHOLME™ Prentice Rules. This game very specifically was designed to emulate the John Eric Holmes edited version of the D&D Basic rules. So great for that 1977 to 1979 gaming experience. This version is free, if you like it then there is the BLUEHOLME™ Journeymanne Rules for $10.  I reviewed them both here.

Dark Dungeons and Dark Dungeons X. These books emulate the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, the Basic era RPG that covered the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters rules from level 1 to level 36! The first book is free, and DDX is "Pay What You Want" with print options. The name is an homage to the notorious anti-D&D Jack Chick tract.

Holmes77. A free RPG based on the Holmes version of Basic. I don't know a lot about it, really.

Labyrinth Lord. One of the premier Basic D&D clones with a ton of support.

Mazes & Perils RPG. Another Holmes-influenced retro clone. I reviewed it here.

Old-School Essentials Basic Rules. Old-School Essentials is one of the current favorites of the Retro-Clone games. It is a pretty faithful replication of the Moldvay Basic / Cook-Marsh Expert rules from 1981. The OSE rules have some fantastic production values, and these free rules are a great example.

Shadowdark RPG Quickstart Set. The newest darling of the Retro-Clone scene. It is a combination of Basic and 5th edition D&D. This one might easier to find a game going on than most of the others.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition

OSRIC. The Old School Reference & Index Compilation was one of the very first retro-clones produced and was one of the test beds of the concept of a clone game.  It is the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules but reorganized.  Designed as a tool to publish new AD&D 1st Ed rules, it does work as a game. 

Castles & Crusades Players Handbook. This is the player's book for the Castles & Crusades RPG. It is a presentation of the D&D 3rd edition rules designed to play like the AD&D 1st edition rules.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition

For Gold & Glory 2e Core Rules. A good emulation of the AD&D 2nd Edition game.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

3.5 d20 SRD. The D&D 3.5 System Reference Document is the rawest version of the D&D 3.x rules. No thrills, no fluff, but everything you need to play a D&D 3 game.

Pathfinder d20 SRD. Same as the SRD above, but with the added Pathfinder material. 

NOTE: The SRDs are not games per se, but they are all the rules. They do not have art, no explanations, no examples. Just the rules. 

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I would be remiss if I didn't at least promote my own game here. 

Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars is a modern supernatural urban fantasy role-playing game.  If you liked shows like Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and  Vampire Diaries as well as Friday the 13th the series,Tales from the Darkside, and horror movies, then this is the game for you.

AND you can try it out (up to 4th level) for free!

Night Shift: Veterans of the Supernatural Wars Quick Start Kit

The title is Pay What You Want, but I urge you to give it a try.

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Regardless of which one you choose, and you can choose them all, the most important thing when playing any role-playing game is to remember to have fun. 

And that is it for another A to Z Challenge! I hope you enjoyed my rather geeky exploration into the last 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons.  Come back all year long and I will be doing more of the same. May will be Sci-Fi month so I am going to talk about sci-fi RPGs related to Dungeons & Dragons. October is my huge Horror month, so I am going to talk Ravenloft. June I typically save for Basic-era D&D (B/X and BECMI) but not sure yet. 

So come back all year long!

#AtoZChallenge2024: W is for Witch

 Of course, I was going to do this.

I talk a lot about witches here. I mean a crazy amount. It is by far my most commonly used post-label. I am obsessed, and I don't apologize for it.

"What is it with you and Witches?"
- My mom, some years back.

I think if I have to point to something in my childhood it was the Wicked Witch of the West. My parents said I was frightened of her when I first saw The Wizard of Oz. I was likely 3-4 at the time. But I don't think scared was the right word. Fascinated. Enthralled. Spellbound. Those are the words I would use. 

We had an old "Wonderful Wizard of Oz" book back when I was a kid. I was younger than five. I know this because we had moved into a larger house and these memories are in the older house. Yes...I know memories are fluid, but I am 99.98% confident of this one. I remember looking at pictures of the WWotW in this book and those are the ones I loved the most.  

I remember Witchie-Poo from "HR Puffinstuff," but I never really liked her. Any time a witch appeared on a TV show, I was excited.

Then there was Angelique Bouchard of "Dark Shadows."  Played by Lara Parker in the original series she was blonde, sexy, and wonderfully evil. I loved her.  She would be played by Lysette Anthony in the 1991 reboot, and by Eva Green in the otherwise awful 2012 movie. 

This began a love affair that has lasted my entire life. I can't explain it, and honestly, I don't feel the need to. 

So, how does this relate to Dungeons & Dragons? Glad you asked!

Witches in Dungeons & Dragons

My history with D&D is a long one, and it began in 1979, when I first read the AD&D Monster Manual. Soon after I was able to get my hands on a poorly Xeroxed copy of the Holmes Basic book. And what treats did I find?

A witch class? A proper Witch?

Of course, by the time I saw this in late 1979/early 1980, the AD&D Player's Handbook was already out, and there was no witch class. All those others were there, but no witch. 

That was fine; I had so much to do that I didn't even notice its absence. However, I did notice something. Around age 11 (1981 or so) I began making characters that had a decidedly "witch" cast to them. A Pagan cleric, an alluring Illusionist, and then I made "Marissia" (yes, that is how I spelled it).

I have called Marissia my "First Witch."  She wasn't, but she is the first one I committed to paper as a witch. Her name comes from me mishearing the Jerry Reed version of "Pretty Mary Sunlight."  I thought he was saying "Pretty Marissa mine."  Hey, I was young and I am certain I had heard it from The New Scooby-Doo Movies.  In fact, a lot of my early ideas about witches came from Scooby-Doo. It is also very, very likely I based her and her name also on Millissa Wilcox, The Ghost Witch of Salem, from the Scooby-Doo episode "To Switch a Witch." An interesting episode since it featured a gravestone for the witch with a Leviathan Cross on it.   I mean seriously, a goddamn Leviathan Cross in 1978? That was a ballsy move on the eve of the Satanic Panic.

Eventually, all of this would take me to 1986 the year I made my first witch class for AD&D. I have documented this time and again here, but it corresponds to my first proper witch character, Larina.  She is the character I also use for my own witch experiments in other games.

I first rolled her up in July of 1986. At first, she was a "magic-user," and I would play her like a witch. She had a few adventures that year, but that was also when my then DM was heading out of town, and I was getting ready for my senior year at high school. 

Then Dragon Magazine #114 came out in October, and it had its own Witch class. 

I read it all over and wondered how or if I should convert her. The answer became obvious to me right away. She was a witch, only pretending to be a wizard so she could go to Glantri's School of Magic. I kept her magic-user levels and then went on to advance her as a Dragon #114 witch. In the game, I said she ran out of money to keep going, so instead, she got a job at the library in hopes of paying her tuition. 

I updated her sheet and declared her birthday was October 25, but she tells everyone it was October 31st.

I have since used witches more and more in my games and I even wrote all these books about how to play witches in D&D, each one looking at a different sort of witch. In my mind, each of these different types was called a Tradition, and each Tradition was reigned over by a Witch Queen.

This has also led to my use of various Witch Queens and my campaign The War of the Witch Queens.

Honestly, there is too much to say in one post on this subject. But if witches are your thing then you have come to the right place.

Tomorrow is X Day, and I am going with something that is new to me as well! The crime lord Xanathar.

#AtoZChallenge2024: M is for Monster Manual

 Today is Monday. It is also "M" Day. Here at The Other Side, Mondays are used for Monstrous Mondays, where I talk about monsters. Since I am doing the A to Z of Dungeons and Dragons my topic for today was pretty much handed to me.  Today I am going to talk about the Monster Manual.

All printings of the 1st Edition Monster Manual

Monster Manual for AD&D 1st Edition

This is the book that got me into D&D and RPGs. Along with The Hobbit, this is where my journey began. 

The Monster Manual was the book for me.  The one that got me hooked.  The book I borrowed from a friend to read in "silent reading" back in 1979 at Washington Elementary School in Jacksonville, IL, was the one that made me the über-geek you all know today. How über? I used the freaking umlauts, that's my street cred right there.

Back in '79 I was reading a lot of Greek Myths, I loved reading about all the gods, goddesses and monsters. A particular favorite of mine was D'Aularires' Book of Greek Myths. So I saw my friend's Monster Manual and saw all those cool monsters and I knew I had to have a copy. Though getting one in my tiny near-bible-belt town was not easy.  Not hard mind you, by the early 1980s the local book store stocked them, but I was not there yet.  So I borrowed his and read.  And read.  And read.  I think I had the damn thing memorized long before I ever got my own game going.

Since then, I have judged a gamebook on the "Monster Manual" scale. How close of a feeling do I get from a book or game compared to holding the Monster Manual for the first time? Some games have come close, and others have hit the mark as well. C.J. Carella's WitchCraft gave me the same feeling.

Also, I like to go to the monster section of any book or get their monster books. Sure, sometimes there are diminishing returns—Monster Manual V for 3.5, anyone? But even then, sometimes you get a Fiend Folio (which I liked, thankyouverymuch).

This book captured my imagination like no other gamebook.  Even the 1st DMG, a work of art, had to wait until I was older to appreciate it.  The Monster Manual grabbed op to me from the start and took me for a ride.

The Book (and PDF)
The Monster Manual's PDF has been available since July 2015. The book has three different covers from the various printings in 1977, 1983 and 2012.

Regardless of what cover you have, the insides are all the same. The book is 112 pages long and features black-and-white art from some of the biggest names to grace the pages of an RPG book.
This book was the first of so many things we now take for granted in this industry. The first hardcover, the first dedicated monster tome, and the first AD&D book.

The book contains 350+ monsters of various difficulties for all character levels. Some of the most iconic monsters in D&D began right here. Mostly culled from the pages of OD&D—even some of the art is similar—and the pages of The Dragon, this was and is the definitive book on monsters.

Eldritch Wizardry gave us the demons, but the Monster Manual gave us those and all the new devils.  The Monster Manual introduced us to the devils and the Nine Hells. We also got the new metallic dragons, more powerful and diverse undead, and many more monsters.  There were new sub-races of the "big 3". Elves get wood, aquatic, half, and drow.  Dwarves get hill and mountain varieties. Halflings get the Tallfellows and Stouts. So, there are not just more monsters but more details on the monsters we already know.

While designed for AD&D, I used it with the Holmes Basic book. The two products had a similar style and seemed to work great together. It was 1979, and honestly, we did all sorts of things with our games back then. The games worked very well together.

Flipping through one of my physical copies or paging through the PDF, I now feel the same sense of wonder I did 45 years ago.

Thankfully, you can get the PDF of the Monster Manual for just a little more than the hardcover cost 45 years ago.

Gary Gygax's oldest daughter, Elise, with the Monster Manual

The original Monster Manual is still so popular today that Wizards of the Coast is still making minis for D&D 5th Edition in the style of the monsters from AD&D 1st Edition. Granted, those sets are not aimed at casual 5e players but rather old gamers like me with fond memories and more disposable income than we had in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I feel it is difficult for me to truly convey how I felt when I first read this book. But I think I have approached explaining it.

One thing is certain. This is the reason I have been working on my own Basic Bestiary.

Tomorrow is N Day. I plan to discuss the infamous Appendix N from the Dungeon Master's Guide.

#AtoZChallenge2024: E is for Expert

 There are a lot of "E"s I could have gone with today. Epic. Encounter. Heck, even Eclipse and how it relates to D&D. But there is really only one "E" I want to talk about, and that is the Expert Set.

The Expert Set is the follow up the Basic Set I covered on Tuesday. Just like there is more than one Basic there is more than one Expert.

So, a bit of background.

The Expert Rules for D&D follow the Basic Rules. So these books are compatible with the Basic-era of D&D, the so-called "B/X" rules (Basic/Expert) and the "BECMI" rules. They are not, and I would later discover, part of the same line as Advanced Dungeon & Dragons.

The first Expert set was out in January of 1981. This is the one I started with.  Edited by David "Zeb" Cook with Steven Marsh it is sometimes called the Cook/Marsh Expert or B/X Expert.  I have a lengthy review of it here: D&D Expert Set.

The second Expert set was edited by Frank Mentzer, so it is sometimes called the Mentzer Expert or most often the BECMI Expert. BECMI was for the entire series of Mentzer edited/authored Basic line of Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal rules.  I reviewed this Exper set here: BECMI: Expert Set review.

I discussed these differences for my B post, B is for Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons.

The two sets are largely compatible with each other with just minor changes that I detailed in the BECMI Expert review. 

The focus here is higher level characters, levels 4 to 14, and moving out of the dungeon into "Wilderness" and, therefore, more dangerous adventures. This is the end of the B/X line but that actually is a feature, not a bug. The adventures from levels 1 to 14 represent some of the most exciting adventures you and your character can do. It was true then and still true today. Many of the official Dungeons & Dragons adventures end at level 15 (even though the limit now is 20), and the post-popular "D&D" adventure out now, Baldur's Gate 3 video game, has a limit of level 12.  While the BECMI moves on to level 36 (C & M) and beyond (I), I still think this is the sweet spot for most gamers.

"That's Not REAL D&D!"

I got my start with Holmes Basic then quickly moved on to Moldvay Basic and it's companion Cook/Marsh Expert. And I was very, very happy with that for the longest time. While it is not a perfect overlap, I always equate this edition with my gaming in Jr. High.  My then regular DM, Jon Cook, and I would play a lot of this. He also had the B/X books but he also had Advanced D&D (published in 1977) and we played a mix-mash of them both (something I later on discovered was very typical). Sure I wondered why things were different between the games. Clerics had slightly different spell progression and everyone was a bit tougher in AD&D, but I was content. I was happy. Until one night.

This would have been near the end of Jr. High, I know because the Mentzer Expert had not been released yet. I think I must have been about 12 or so. Anyway, Jon and I got invited to a "real" D&D session with some highschool kids. Now let me step back a second here and set the stage. At this time D&D was popular enough that we had a lot of local groups playing completely independent games. I can remember sitting in the lunch room in my Jr. High and listening to friends talk about their D&D games, I was in awe and wonder (of course, I later learned that many of them were just stealing from things like Dune like I was Dark Shadows!).  So we got to go to this game and we were told just bring out PHBs (Player's Handbooks), I didn't have one, I had an Expert book.

Well. I got told in no uncertain terms that what I was I playing was NOT REAL D&D. I was like, "what are you talking about?" Gygax's name was on the insider cover. It was published by TSR. I had very nearly the same rules you did. 

My friends, I had entered into my first battle of "The Edition Wars," and I did not come out unscathed. "Edition Warring" in D&D is the misguided (and stupid, yeah I said it) notion that one edition is better than the other. There were only two editions (maybe four) editions of D&D out at this point and I am already getting shit for it? The effect it had on me was enough that I can still remember it over 44 years later, AND it kept me from playing the BECMI version of D&D for nearly half that time. 

Which is, of course, stupid. It also was not the last time I'd make a bad choice based on editions, but at least the next time was all my own doing. I'll detail that on Sunday.

Today, if I am going to go back and play some "Classic D&D" chances are real good I mean the B/X versions of Basic and Expert.  

It is also my favorite to write and publish for with four of my books designed specifically for the B/X rules in mind, via the Old School Essentials clone game.

• The Craft of the Wise: The Pagan Witch Tradition
• The Warlock
• Monster Mash
• Monster Mash II: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Much like what I said for the Basic Set any future "Basic" or Introductory set of D&D needs to do what these sets did. Introduce me to the game, give me some options, an adventure to play, and if possible, some dice! I still have my original Basic and Expert sets of dice.

Tomorrow I talk about a topic that has dominated my posting all year long, The Forgotten Realms.

#AtoZChallenge2024: D is for Dice

$3.97 in the 80s. A LOT more now.

One topic spans the years and editions of Dungeons & Dragons and many other Role-Playing Games.

DICE!

One of the features of D&D has been the use of and inclusion of "polyhedral" dice. Each is used for various things in the games, which can sometimes lead to confusion with new players, but a lot of fun for experienced players.

The dice are used for various random numbers.  A typical set includes the following:

• d4 Four-sided dice
• d6 Six-sided dice (the most common)
• d8 Eight-sided dice
• d10 Ten-sided dice (for percentile roles)
• d12 Twelve-sided dice
• d20 Twenty-sided dice (the most popular)

These dice got their start as various Platonic Solids and were originally from a teacher supply store to teach math. I have in turn used them to teach my own kids math and used them in my stats classes to teach probability.

The old Basic sets all used to come with dice, except for the Holmes set. There was such a demand for dice then that TSR had to ship many set with "chits" instead of dice.

Like many gamers I have a lot of dice. Even though they are all just variations of the same 6 dice, I have different sets I like to use for different games and different themes.

This is the set I use when playing Ravenloft of any other Horror themed D&D-like game. Made up of black and red dice with some Castles & Crusades dice.

These are my main D&D dice right now.

My Ghosts of Albion Dice.

I got a bunch of Drow Dice at Gen Con and have used at Gen Con when running the GDQ series.

Some of my oldest dice. Used these throughout high school.

Various witch-themed dice.

Halloween-themed dice!

More old dice to add to my collections.

Some "Holmes-themed" dice, including some Gary Con ones.

Here are two of my newest sets.

These are replicas of the old "Basic era" dice that shipped with the Cook/Marsh Expert set, and the Mentzer Basic and Expert sets. Yes, I had to use a crayon for these!

I got this set at Gary Con, so they are only about two weeks old. I got them at The Bewitched Parlor at Gary Con. The dice bag is from my wife from this past Christmas.  Since I loved themed dice for my characters, the old-school blue set will be for when I play Sinéad, and the purple set will be for Taryn.

Dice have even become a secondary market catering to Gamers. And there are some really nice ones out there.

Places like Dice Witchery, ZucatiCorp with their Holmage Dice, Threshold Diceworks, and so, so many more.

Tomorrow, I take a step back to talk Expert Sets to round out my week of some Classic D&D themes. 

#AtoZChallenge2024: B is for Basic Set Dungeons & Dragons

Yesterday I talked about the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game.  Today I want to take a step back and talk about the Basic D&D game.  Though there are several sets that can make the claim of being the "Basic Set."

Regardless of how many or for which edition they all share some things in common.  The Basic set is usually a simpler or stripped-down version of the D&D game designed to introduce new players. They typically come in a boxed set and very often have the very first set of dice a player will own.

My own history with D&D begins with the Basic game. 

Moldvay D&D Basic

Christmas 1981 will forever go down in my memory as the one where everything changed.  I was in Junior High and had been playing D&D for about two years, off and on.  I had read the Monster Manual and I had a copy, badly xeroxed, of the Holmes Basic set.

Christmas though was the turning point. I got two box sets that year; the Ballantine Books boxed set of Lord of the Rings and the "magenta" Basic Set.
Inside was finally my own book, not a copy of someone else's book. I had my own dice (finally!) and a complete adventure.
I devoured that book. Cover to cover. Every page was read and read over and over.

A lot of people talk about "the Red Box." My Red Box was magenta and had Erol Otis on the cover.  For me this was the start of what became "my" D&D. Not someone else's game, but my own.

In 1981, I felt fairly proficient in D&D. But with Holmes D&D, I always felt like something was missing. I only learned later about the "Little Brown Books" and how "Basic" actually came about.

The Moldvay Basic set had almost everything I ever needed for a game.  Plenty of classes and races.  More monsters than I expected (it had dragons!!) and what then felt like tons of spells.  I made dozens of characters, some that saw actual game play, but I didn't care, for me it was the joy of endless possibilities. And that was just in the first couple of dozen pages.

Everything I know about exploring a dungeon, checking for traps, carrying holy water and a 10' pole began here.  I learned that ghouls can cause paralysis (unless you were an elf!) and that zombies always attacked last in the round.  I learned that Thouls was a magical cross-breed between a hobgoblin troll and a ghoul. No, I still have no idea how they are made. I got to meet Morgan Ironwolf herself.
There was a sample adventure in the book, but I never really looked over. I don't think anyone did. It was called the Haunted Keep by the way. Though I very recently was reading that someone put it under the Keep in the famous adventure, Keep on the Borderlands.

This magenta-colored box with strange art on the cover also had other prizes. There inside was my first set of real D&D dice.  No more raiding board games for six-siders, though I learned those dice were properly called "d6s," and my new ones were "polyhedral."  I had a set of blue dice with a white crayon to color them in.  They are not great dice, even then, I knew.  But they were mine, and that is all that mattered.

I want to pause here a second and come back to that art.  Let's look at the cover again.  A woman casting a spell, a man with a spear. Fighting some sort of water dragon (that didn't even appear in the rules!). But look how awesome it is. Do you need to know anything else? No. They are fighting a dragon! That box is why so many gamers fell in love with the art of Erol Otis.  Inside are some equally important names; Jeff Dee, James Roslof, David LaForce, and Bill Willingham.  They gave this D&D a look that was different than AD&D.  I love that art in AD&D, but in this book, that art was just so...timeless. It was D&D.

In that box was also the adventure The Keep on Borderlands. I don't think I need to go into detail there. We have all been to the keep. We have all taken that ride out along the road that would take us to the Caves of Chaos. Nevermind that all these creatures, who should by all rights be attacking each other, never really did anything to me. They were there, and they were "Chaotic," and we were "Lawful." That was all we needed to know back then.

What treasures in such a small box!

The Moldvay Basic set was more than just an introductory set to D&D. It was an introduction to a hobby, a lifestyle. The rules were simply written and organized. They were not simple rules, and re-reading them today, I marvel that we all conquered this stuff at age 10-11. It may have only covered the first three levels of character growth, but they were a quality three.

I bought the Expert Set for my birthday in 1982. For the longest time, that was all I needed. Eventually, I moved on to AD&D. I discovered those Little Brown Books and even picked up my own real copy of Holmes Basic. I love those games, and I love playing them still, but they never quite had the same magic as that first time I opened up that box and saw what treasures were inside. I did not have to imagine how my characters felt when they discovered some long-lost treasure. I knew.

Today, I still go back to Tom Moldvay's classic Basic book. It is my yardstick for measuring any OSR game. Almost everything I need is right there, just waiting for me.

Basic D&D is a very popular topic for me on the old A to Z Blogging Challenge. Here are some other "Basic" posts I have done in past years.

• 2011 Basic D&D
• 2012 B is for Basic Clones (games that play like Basic D&D)
• 2016 A to Z of Adventure! B is for Basic Adventures

Other Basic Sets

It would be very remiss of me not to mention that there were other Basic sets as well.

Holmes Basic, also called the "Blue Book," was my start. Sort of. The rules I used back when I began were a hodge-podge of Holmes Basic and AD&D, particularly the Monster Manual. This was fine, really, since, at the time, 1979, these game lines were a lot closer to each other. I have talked about this in my "1979 Campaign" posts.

Edited by Dr. John Eric Holmes, this book took the original D&D books and re-edited them to a single cohesive whole, though limited to 3rd level, as a means to get people introduced to the D&D game.  The Original Rules (see "O" day!) were an eclectic collection of rules that grew out of Gary Gygax's and Dave Arneson's playstyles. Debate continues on who did what, and I am not going to provide anything close to a definitive answer, but the game sold well but had a steep learning curve to others who were not part of that inner circle or came from War Games. The Holmes Edition attempted to fix that.

Mentzer Basic, or the BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, Immortals) rules, was published after the Moldvay Basic, Cook/Marsh Expert sets. The rules between the B/X and BECMI rules are largely superficial (I will discuss this more), and the BECMI rules go past level 14 into the Companion rules (more on that tomorrow).

There is evidence that the Mentzer Basic set, also known as the "Red Box," was one of the best-selling editions of D&D ever, even outselling the flagship line of AD&D at times. It was also sold in more countries and more languages than any other version of D&D. If you recall Sunday's post, the D&D Basic line was in play for 22 years, covering the same time period as AD&D 1st and 2nd Edition rules. And it is still widely popular today. 

Basic books from England, the USA, and Spain

Is Basic D&D the Game for You?

Basic D&D (all three varieties) are all remarkably easy to pick up and play. Character creation is fast, and the play is super flexible.  It is also one of the main systems I still love to write about and publish for.

Basic D&D has great online support regarding books from DriveThruRPG and other "Old School Renaissance" creators. But it is an older game. One of the oldest in fact. So, some things made perfectly good sense back then that would cause people to scratch their heads at the various design choices (Descending Armor Class? Level limits?), but that doesn't detract from the fun. Finding a Basic game or even people to play it with will be harder.

Any future version of D&D (or any RPG) needs to use Basic D&D as its model for introduction to the game.

Tomorrow, I will talk about a newer topic, Critical Role.

Check out the April A to Z Blogging Challenge

#RPGaDay2023 FAVOURITE RPG of all time

 This is a tough one. I have had so many favorites over the years. Each one representing a different point in my life and gaming.

Most of these will be known to readers here.

Basic (B/X) D&D - not the one I started with that would be the Holmes Basic, but the one that got me deep into the hobby.

AD&D 1st Edition - This is the one I played the most in those early days. The Monster Manual was my gateway drug to RPGs coming from Mythology.

Chill 1st Edition - This was either my first or second RPG after D&D (tied with Traveller) but it was my first horror RPG, and it spawned everything after.

Call of Cthulhu - Not my first Horror RPG, but one of my favorites. Really set the bar on what a horror RPG should be.

Masque of the Red Death - not an RPG by itself, and a bit wonky, it did something I always wanted: it brought my AD&D 2nd ed rules to Gothic Victorian Earth and Horror. Ravenloft brought some of this earlier, and both were my game of choice throughout the 90s until D&D-burnout set in and I went to my next big thing. 

CJ Carella's WitchCraft - I can't overestimate how much this RPG changed things for me. The world was close enough to that of Chill, Call of Cthulhu, and Masque of the Red Death that my ideas for those games gained new life under Unisystem. I loved the game so much I pestered the publisher, Eden Studios, to let me write for them. The result was my next favorite.

Ghosts of Albion - while this might be self-serving, it is my favorite for a reason. Everything I wanted in a Unisystem game is here. Victorian era, magic, horror, and Unisystem. I would have happily written for Unisystem for ever if I could have.  Which leads me to my last one and the top of my list.

NIGHT SHIFT Veterans of the Supernatural Wars - Again, a little self serving but NIGHT SHIFT is everything I have ever wanted in a game. It combines the best mechanics of all the games above along with a play style I love and in a world, or more to the point worlds, I enjoy.

If I only get to pick one, then it will be NIGHT SHIFT.

I have had the luxury and the privilege to work on a great number of RPGs over the years. Some of which were dream jobs and dream games. I consider myself lucky. But of all of those, NIGHT SHIFT is not just my favorite game, favorite rules, and favorite setting; it was also my favorite writing experience. Only Ghosts of Albion and my various Witch books come close.

Thank you, Dave Chapman for hosting this again! I had a great time.

#RPGaDay2023 Game you WISH you owned

I have been pretty lucky, I lived in an area where my access to RPGs was rather fantastic. Even when I moved my access really only got better. So there are not a lot of RPGs I actually need anymore. Sure some I want, others I might like to have, but for the most part I am good.  But there is one I would really love to have.

The UK printing of the Holmes Edition of D&D Basic. 

I was such an Anglophile that I always felt that anything British made it better. Sure I since matured a bit in my thoughts, but I still love a British print. 

Of course, I am not the only one here. This set has been discussed at Zenopus Archives, the Acaeum, and Dragonsfoot. I know I'll have to get in line behind a lot of people for one of these. 

Still. It would be a nice piece for my collection.

#RPGaDay2023 Favourite DICE

 Favorite dice??? How do you choose that? I have different sets for different needs.

This is the set I use when playing Ravenloft of any other Horror themed D&D-like game. Made up my black and red dice with some Castles & Crusades dice thrown in.

These are my main D&D dice right now.

My Ghosts of Albion Dice.

I got a bunch of Drow Dice at Gen Con and have used at Gen Con when running the GDQ series.

Some of my oldest dice. Used these throughout highschool.

Various witch-themed dice.

Halloween-themed dice!

More old dice to add to my collections.

Some "Holmes-themed" dice, including some Gary Con ones.

A box of character-themed dice with their minis.

Various dice bags from my years of playing.

These though are my best sets. Original TSR-era Dragon Dice from the Basic and Expert sets. These are my "showcase" ones. These are the rules and dice that don't get played. I have plenty of other copies for the table. 

So you see...how can I choose?