At
last week's
Old School Hack game, one of my players brought along some very interesting items. In addition to a stack of classic
Dungeon magazines, he also carried a roughly 80 page glimpse into gaming history. As it turns out, my player's boss was an avid
D&D player in the early days of the hobby and he saved his extensive campaign notes. It a fascinating look at how the game was played by a large and organized group of players. And in a little "small world" moment, one of my other players recognized the parents of a former girlfriend among the names referenced.
The first few pages consist of an introduction to the campaign world and instructions to new players. It includes campaign logistics, house rules, and an introduction to the game's two GM's (I didn't know they used that term back then), who ran adventurers in a shared world containing what appeared to be two separate megadungeon complexes.
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| Page 2 |
To one not especially familiar with pre-
AD&D/Moldvay Basic
D&D, I found the house rules to be very interesting. Take a looks at the combat tables here (if you can make out the poor scan):
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| Page 3 |
There is evidence in the document that they received advice directly from Gary Gygax himself in clarifying how experience points work (XP awarded only for gold and creatures
killed) and how to tweak the magic system (a caster's spells are limited per
expedition and magic-users do not have to prepare spells in advance).
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| Page 5 |
Much of the rest of the document consists of play reports and summaries of what happened to the many characters over the course of the campaign (gold and experience gained as well as who died). I may post items of interest that I discover later, including a map or two.
UPDATE: Cleaned up some of the scans. More pages coming soon!
25 comments:
Hilarious and cool. I recall here in N. Indiana in the late 1970's we used to get some pass through from early players from WI and Ann Arbor who had been in early proto-campaigns. By the time the blue-boxed set came out they were already talking about how things were in the old days.
That's really cool. It's always neat to see these bits of ludoarcheology.
A cool find. I always wonder what those old campaigns were like. In spite of all the attention to the subject, there are actually very, very few concrete examples of homemade megadungeons from the 1970s. There are odds and ends, but not the full deal.
I love this stuff, too. Very cool.
WOW! Neat stuff! I love these real documents dug out of forgotten drawers!
I see that the original recipient lived in Rochester, MI., at the time... which is of interest to me since I currently live just one zip code away in Rochester Hills... but in the 1970s I was still in St. Louis.
That's an amazing find. I may have to dig out some of my old campaign notes and scan them.
HOXE!! HOXE!!1
PPL HAD NO SCANNRES BACK THEN, THEY WRERE LUCKY FOR RUNNING WATER!
IT IS A RISUS-TRIK DON'T BE FOOLED AGAIN!!1
P.S. =ME NUNYA
I like how it's Lawful to charm a monster, then hit it in the back of the head with an axe to gets its xps.
They didn't need no stinking rule of engagement back in the day. It was like one, never ending rendition of "War Ensemble" by Slayer.
\m/
Risus Monkey, you get a gold star for this post.
That's magic of the best kind, man. Any chance you can get the entire document a little cleaned up?
I'm pretty sure the term "GM" came into the hobby via Tunnels & Trolls in 1975.
I'd happily pay to get my hands on photocopies, or scans....
I pay can pay in both sweet lucre, or Arby's gift certificates!
Given the response, I'm going to try to get permission to post the rest of the document. In the mean time, I cleaned up the current scans to the point that they are fairly legible.
Look for more posts soon (though I won't have access to my scanner again until Monday).
Is there a page 4?
@ADD Grognard: Page 4 has a list of players and the gold/Xp they earned on various expeditions. I figured I'd wait for permission before posting it.
TRANSELLATION: HE IS TO NEED MOAR TIME TO TYPE IT UP!!!1
YOU R BEING FEWLED1!!!
-NUNYA
Oh, that's fine. I just archive material like this and didn't want to skip anything. A permanent 'History' folder is always waiting for input :)
Very cool find. I wish I still had some of my old documents I used back when I was DMing in the 80s, I bet those would be a rather interesting trip down memory lane.
@limpey: There was no city of Rochester Hills in the 70s; it was Avon Township until the mid-80s, and it used the Rochester post office. So it could be closer than you think.
This makes me curious...there's a decent chance I knew or met the recipient of the letter. I was probably a bit younger, but I went to the cons and the games at Oakland U., which drew pretty much every gamer in Rochester at the time.
Just got back from my Saturday night game session and my player's boss has given a preliminary "ok" to publishing the doc. He's just going to check with the primary author (he was the recipient) but doesn't expect any objection.
Hi! It's flattering that you are interested in our old D&D campaign. I wrote most the Ryth Chronicles material to keep the 40+ players informed of what was happening, and most of the questing was done in my portion our game world, but Len and a few others had nice dungeons so that I could play too. You have my permission to scan and post the material.
We got started in D&D when Gary Gygax and his wife attended a Michicon convention to peddle the very first edition of D&D rules. The very thin 3 booklet rules were so vague that I had to call Gary for many rule clarifications, and he was very helpful. We also added a lot of material, like the weapon and combat tables, because we weren't too keen on the Chainmail combat rules that D&D was based on.
- John Van De Graaf
@John: As you can tell from the comments, many people in the community are very interested in seeing examples of how the game was played back in those early years. Thank you so much for giving your blessing on publication. :)
aside@Gaptooth: "GM" predates D&D, fwiw. :)
Amp 108 - I moved out of Rochester to come to Washington DC and work for the State Department in 1977, but returned regularly for the MGA cons at Oakland and elsewhere. We may have met, but, its more likely you met John VanDeGraaf - along with his wife Laurie, he managed the boardgame tournaments for years.
Len
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