Newer readers may not be familiar with my old Reactions to OD&D series. If you haven’t read them, you may want to check them out first. It’s been more than half a decade since I last visited the series, but a recent discussion prompted me to track down and dust off some old notes.

Dave Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign was published by Judges Guild in 1977. It “attempted to show the development and growth of his campaign as it was originally conceived.” (For those unfamiliar with the early history of D&D, the campaign in question is Blackmoor: The original dungeon, city, and wilderness setting in which Arneson created modern roleplaying games, and which would eventually become Dungeons & Dragons.) In practice, sadly, it is a deeply flawed book. It’s a haphazard concordance of lightly edited campaign notes, and Arneson, unfortunately, is not particularly effective in explaining what many of these notes mean or how they were supposed to be used in actual play. The confusing nature of the book is heightened because its contents span both the original Blackmoor material (starting in 1970), revisions made to his home campaign after D&D was published in 1974, and further revisions made to the material in order to run it at conventions from 1975-77… and Arneson is rarely clear about exactly which material is which.

To take one small example, let’s consider the BLACKMOOR DUNGEONS section of the book. The material described here is literally Ground Zero for every single roleplaying game ever published (and, by extension, a huge percentage of pop culture, literature, and gaming over the past 50 years). Being able to get a glimpse into how Arneson actually ran those games would be an incredibly cool insight into a cultural watershed.

It’s frustrating, therefore, to discover that the First Fantasy Campaign makes it basically impossible to puzzle out what Arneson’s actual procedures were. I’ve spent an incredible amount of time pouring over this section of the book, and it remains a tantalizing enigma. I have, however, managed to work out a few details which I think others might find interesting.

Before we begin taking a close look at the text, however, it’s important to note a key point of context:

The Castle itself is still blank since it has been destroyed twice and rebuilt twice and then taken over by non-player Elves when the local adventurers were exiled. Thus, there are no sheets or goodies for it and only a sketch of its appearance. The Cavern sheet of Encounters is also lost (at least the first ones and the new one is in use). For these deletions I apologize.

The first six levels of encounters were prepared in the last two years for convention games, and set up along “Official” D&D lines. The last (7th – 9th and Tunnel Cavern System) are the originals used in our game. Additional crazy characters that got into the game over the years have been the Orcian Way and Sir Fang the Vampire.

(…)

Details on room, Cavern shapes for the Tunnel/Cave system have been lost or misplaced.

The first thing is that, as noted before, sections of Arneson’s notes as presented in the First Fantasy Campaign had been revised for convention play. This has, for better or worse, eradicated some amount of crucial information. The second is that the notes have also been partially (but not wholly) revised through actual play.  And the third is that Arneson has deliberately not included some of his notes because he’s still using them in actual play. So you can already see that there are multiple layers of obfuscation here, made worse by the fact that some material has simply been lost due to the passage of time.

With that being said, let’s take a look at what Arneson is able to give us:

(click for larger version)

The other obstacle we almost immediately encounter here is poor proofreading.

For example, Arneson lists Group I, Group II, and Group III for monsters. Later he says: “The Grouping of the Monsters were Level I for 1st and 2nd levels; Level III Creatures for 3rd and 4th levels, etc . . .” It seems fairly certain that “Level III” here should be read as “Level II”. One might initially conclude, both due to similarity of usage and the use of the capitalized term “Grouping”, that “Group I” and “Level I” are meant to be the same thing, but they are clearly not. (Balrogs on the 1st level of the dungeon would be an unusual design choice.)

Level I most likely refers to something equivalent to OD&D’s Monster Level Tables, so Arneson is saying to use the “Level I” (sic) tables for the 1st and 2nd level maps of Blackmoor. But if “Level I” and “Group I” aren’t the same thing, what are the Group listings used for? Ultimately, after going over the text several times, I’m forced to conclude that there simply isn’t any explanation given for why he created the Groups or what purpose they served. (Perhaps the order of the Groups was inverted and they ARE the same thing as the Levels, with Balrogs being Group III creatures instead of Group I?)

THE ARNESONIAN DUNGEON

Here’s what I think can be worked out with a fair degree of certainty. If you want to run Blackmoor in a style similar to how Arneson originally ran it:

1. You’ll need Level I, Level II, Level III, Level IV, and Level V monster tables.

• 1st / 2nd level: Level I
• 3rd / 4th level: Level II
• 5th / 6th level: Level III
• 7th / 8th level: Level IV
• 9th / 10th level: Level V

These tables are not provided in the First Fantasy Campaign, but it’s likely that these were D10-based tables. (He writes “all dice throws were with 10-sided dice.” Although this appears as almost a non sequitur in the text, the only logical use of the D10s here would be on the monster tables.) To stock the tables, I would probably try to pull a full list of monsters appearing on the Blackmoor key and the anomalous “Group” listings and then distribute them appropriately. (You might also consider stocking all of the creatures found in Chainmail.)

2. You’ll need to pull the point values for creatures from Chainmail. (And “due to the addition of new Creatures beyond those given in Chainmail” create point values where necessary. Additional values might also be gleaned from other sections of the First Fantasy Campaign.)

3. There is a “magic protection point” encounter budget that is determined by the dungeon level:

• 1st level: 5 points
• 2nd level: 15 points
• 3rd level: 15 points
• 4th level: 25 points
• 5th level: 35 points
• 6th level: 40 points
• 7th level: 50 points

(It feels extremely likely that the value listed for either the 2nd or 3rd level is a typo. I’m guessing the values should either be 10 & 15 or 15 & 20.)

4. For each room, roll an encounter chance:

• 1st level: 1 in 6
• 2nd level: 2 in 6
• 3rd+ level: 3 in 6

5. If an encounter is rolled, roll 1d6 for a 1 in 6 chance that the room includes “a higher (stronger) creature”.

(By default, I would assume “stronger” just means “use the next Level monster table,”  but you might have some chance of using encounters from even stronger Level tables. There’s also “a chance that weaker creatures would be present”, but it’s not spelled out. It’s possible Arneson just winged that. You might also consider rolling 1d6 and using a weaker encounter on 1 and a stronger encounter on 6.)

6. Roll on the appropriate Level table, then purchase creatures of that type using the “magic protection point” budget. If you don’t have enough points, then either “reroll or place a weaker version of the creature within the room (extremely old or young).

(Arneson gives no indication for mixed encounter types. You might wish to do so: Perhaps generate No. Appearing using OD&D methods and then, if you have points left over, check for additional encounters in the same room. OTOH, Arneson’s keys and wandering encounters give no indication that he ever used encounters with mixed creature types.)

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

It remains unclear whether this was a “restocking” procedure that Arneson used between sessions or if he randomly determined results during play as rooms were being explored. It has the feel of a during-play system, but look at the key for the 7th to 10th levels (the ones set up according to the original schema and not revised for post-D&D convention play):

Note that the “Protection in Points” entry doesn’t consistently list points; it also lists specific creatures which have been generated with those points. If these are the notes Arneson was running the adventure from, then he was using the Protection Point system to restock. (For more on re-stocking dungeons, see (Re-)Running the Megadungeon.)

On the other hand, look at the similar key given for the Glendower Dungeons:

Those entries would appear to be the “Protection Point” or “Magic Point” values for those rooms, without the nature of that protection being predetermined. In the description of Loch Gloomen, Arneson also writes:

Defense of Area

30 – 180 Magic Points Creatures (two six-sided dice): 2) Giant; 3) True Trolls; 4) Roc; 5) Air Elemental; 6) Ogre; 7) Basilisk; 8) Goblins; 9) Ghouls; 10) Lycanthrope; 11) Balrog; 12) Dragon

The fairly clear intention here is to roll 3d6 x 10 to determine the number of Magic Points, and then roll 2d6 to determine the creature type.

So it seems quite likely that the Protection Point system was a flexible one. Arneson could:

• Stock the dungeon with specific creatures (using the Protection Point system as a procedural content generator).
• Quickly note “there should be X amount of protection in this room” (and then either specify it later or generate it during play).
• Randomly stock the dungeon room by room during play.

However, there are still several points which I find confusing. You might notice the “(Magic)” values given in the key for the 7th level of the Blackmoor dungeons, for example. It’s unclear what this entry is supposed to be: In any single entry it might be interpreted as an empty room’s encounter budget, the total cost of the listed “protectors”, or an unspent number of “magic protection points” that is meant to be spent in addition to the listed protectors. But no explanation seems to satisfactorily explain all instances (and any given explanation I’ve ventured is frequently contradicted by one of the usages). My suspicion is that he actually had a point system for determining how many magic items were located in each room (similar to the point budget for monsters in each room), but if so there’s no surviving evidence of how it would have worked.

Based on the key, it’s also likely that Arneson had some method for generating “Wealth” values independently from the Protection Points, but it’s not detailed here. (I’m guessing it was not dissimilar from that described in OD&D: 1 in 3 chance for treasure in occupied room; 1 in 6 chance in unoccupied room. And then rolls on some associated treasure table based on the dungeon level.)

It’s also unclear whether Arneson used wandering monster checks in addition to these room stocking procedures. It seems likely, but whatever method he may have used isn’t detailed. (Note that the poorly described “Wandering Monster Area” quadrant system described in the First Fantasy Campaign is part of the revision done to the material for convention play.)

Arneson also mentions that he would intermittently create “Home Bases for the Orc Tribes” and “special treasure troves”. These appear to have been completely arbitrary in their creation, but he would randomly roll to determine which level of the dungeon they would be added to. (“Thus the upper levels would occasionally have quite powerful encounters.”) The special distinction of the “Home Bases for the Orc Tribes” (as opposed to lairs for other creatures) seems significant, but I’ve been unable to tease it out. (And it may be entirely illusory.) There were four orc tribes in the campaign: Red Eye Orcs, Orcs of the White Hand, Isengarders, and Orcs of the Mountains, but the only information given relates to outdoor adventures, and it’s unclear what their agenda/function within the Blackmoor dungeon would have been.

I’ll also admit that I stopped trying to make sense of Arneson’s key for Blackmoor when I realized that he had 32 dwarves keyed to a room that’s 20′ x 10′. In the lower levels, there’s a point where he keys “250 Dwarves (living quarters)” into a room 10′ x 40′ long. There’s clearly some method to the madness here, but it’s beyond my ability to figure it out.

Go to Arneson’s Machines

Back to Reactions to OD&D

Wizards of the Coast has finally made the PDFs for OD&D available again! For those unfamiliar with the evolution of D&D throughout the years, check out A Nomenclature of D&D Editions. (Which is somewhat out of date at this juncture, but should more than suffice for the current topic.)

If you’re a newer reader here at the Alexandrian, you may be wondering what the fuss is all about. The short version is that exploring the strange nuances of OD&D proved to be an incredibly insightful journey for me, most notably culminating in my understanding of the importance of an Open Gaming Table for roleplaying games. I wrote a number of short articles here at the Alexandrian about my reactions, and if you’d be interested in visiting (or revisiting) those thoughts here are some quick links to explore:

Reactions to OD&D
The Ur-Game
Thinking About Morale
OD&D in the Caverns of Thracia
Ranged Combat
Prime Requisites
The Scope of the Game
OD&D Character Sheets
Gygaxian Rulebooks
Experience Points
Encounter Probability
Size Does Matter?
Turns, Rounds, and Segments… Oh My!
Bachelor Party OD&D
(Re-)Running the Megadungeon
The Intemperate Jungle
My Favorite Character Sheet
Keep on the Borderlands – Factions in the Dungeon
Treasures Maps & The Unknown: Goals in the Megadungeon
Wandering Adventures
Interesting Facts About the Blood Shield Bandits
Untested: Reserve Items
Vampires as Lycanthropes
Untested: At Death’s Door
The Ruined Temple of Illhan
The Subtle Shifts in Play
Turn Undead in Blackmoor

You might also find these interesting:

DH Boggs at Hidden in Shadows has put together an absolutely fascinating bibliographic analysis of the earliest versions of the turn undead ability in D&D.

The short version: Virtually no explanation of the “turn undead” ability was provided in the original edition of D&D. Boggs makes a strong case that the ability was only being used by Arneson’s Blackmoor group in Minneapolis and not being used by Gygax’s Greyhawk group in Lake Geneva. Gygax, therefore, gave the ability short shrift in compiling the 1974 rulebooks; this short shrift, in turn, resulted in people interpreting the ability in a way that was much more powerful than Arneson intended (or the Blackmoor group was experiencing). And the legacy of that power-up is something that the game is still dealing with 5+ editions later.

This is a great example of the “Ur-Game” of D&D, as I described it in my Reactions to OD&D several years ago.

What’s also interesting to me is how closely Boggs’ reconstruction of Arneson’s original rules mirror the house rules for turning that I posted here on the Alexandrian back in 2007. (These rules are still being regularly used in my 3.5 Ptolus campaign. And they’re great: Streamlined resolution paired with a range of effects which is less overpowered and, simultaneously, more interesting in the results it produces.)

Back to Reactions to OD&D

Not quite as auspicious as Gary Gygax’s house rules, but these are the house rules we’ve developed as part of my Thracian Hexcrawl open table campaign.

Virtually all of these rules are the result of discussing the rambling inconsistencies of the rulebooks. For the first five or six sessions of the campaign, in fact, every session started by tackling a few key passages and trying to unravel their meaning (which led to many different experimentations). Over time, however, the table settled sort of naturally into a set of “standard practices”, at which point I codified them and printed up a small booklet to accompany the copies of Volume 1: Men & Magic I have on the table.

WEAPON DAMAGE

One-Handed Weapons: 1d6
Two-Handed Weapons: 2d6, take highest
Light Weapons: 2d6, take lowest

Bows
Short Bow: 2d6, take lowest
Long Bow: 1d6
Composite Bow: 2d6, take highest

Crossbows
Light Crossbow: 1d6
Heavy Crossbow: 2d6, take highest

(In OD&D, despite a lengthy list of different weapons all costing varying amounts of money, all attacks do 1d6 points of damage regardless of what weapon you’re using. This always prompted merry discussion. It gave rise to a memorable session in which a character opted, instead of buying a proper weapon, to simply turn 1 gp into 100 cp and then hurl copper pieces for the duration of the session. During this time period I read James Maliszewski’s Dwimmermount Campaign House Rules and mentioned his rule for two-handed weapons (2d6, keep highest). Everyone liked it and we quickly expanded upon the concept.)

DUAL-WIELDING

Dual-wielding grants you a +1 bonus on your attack roll. On a hit, you deal damage as per the most effective weapon. (You can’t dual-wield with a two-handed weapons unless you have more than two hands.)

HELMETS

Not wearing a helmet inflicts a -1 penalty to Armor Class.

(This was another rule prompted by consideration of the equipment list: Helmets are listed, but what are they good for?)

SHIELDS

Shields grant a +1 bonus to Armor Class (as shown on the combat tables) when they are readied. (Surprised characters do not benefit from their shields.) In addition:

Shields Shall Be Splintered:Whenever you take damage, you can opt to have the damage absorbed by your shield. The shield is splintered and destroyed, but you don’t take any damage from the blow.

Magic Shields: You can do the same with a magic shield, but the shield won’t be destroyed. Instead there will be a 75% chance that the shield will lose +1 of its enchantment.

Magic Shields vs.  Spells: In addition, you can automatically sacrifice +1 from a magic shield in order to make a successful save vs. any spell, breath weapon, gaze, or similar effect.

Special Materials:

• Dragonscale Shields: Can be sacrificed like a magic shield in order to make a successful save vs. any spell, breath weapon, gaze, or similar effect.
• Silver–Faced Shield: Functions as a magic shield against spectral attacks (75% chance of the silver-facing being ruined).

(These rules are adapted from Trollsmyth’s Shields Shall Be Splintered and Aeons ‘n Auguries’ Splintering Shields by Material. Unlike the other house rules here, I included these simply because I liked ’em so much. The result? Unlike the other house rules, these are basically never used.

What I like about all of these house rules, however, is that they provide a simple-yet-effective method of making greatsword wielders (effectively +1 damage), dual-wielders (+1 to hit), and sword-and-boarders (+1 AC plus the splintering) all mechanically diverse and rewarding options.)

MOVE/TURN IN THE UNDERWORLD

1 turn = 10 minutes = 10 rounds = 2 moves
1 segment = 5 minutes = 1 move

1 move = speed x 10 feet
1 turn = 2 moves = speed x 20 feet
1 turn of flight = speed x 40 feet

Search a 10’ wall = 1 full turn
Listening/ESP/Clairvoyance/X-Ray = 1 quarter turn

(Check out Reactions to OD&D: Turns, Rounds, and Segments – Oh My! for a complete description of archaeological text work that was required to piece out this system.)

COMBAT SEQUENCE

• Declare Magic / Preparations
• Missiles
• Movement
• Magic
• Movement
• Melee
• Miscellaneous

All actions in a phase are considered simultaneous. If a character becomes incapacitated in a phase, they will generally not deal damage in that phase.

Surprise: Surprise allows one movement and one action.

Magic: Includes turning and most magic item use. Characters preparing to cast cannot take other actions. Any damage suffered while preparing forces a prime requisite check (modified by damage taken) to avoid losing the spell / turning.

Preparations: Retrieve 1 item, stow a weapon, draw a weapon (while dropping current weapon), pouring oil in front of you.

Missiles: Firing into melee has 50% chance of hitting a random target.

Movement: Move a number of feet equal to your speed (6” = 6 feet) or charge at twice that rate (suffering -2 penalty to AC and attacks for round).

Melee: If you’re engaged in melee, all non-melee actions (spells, missile fire, etc.) are considered a miscellaneous action and delayed until that phase. You cannot attack during melee if you are waiting to take a delayed action in the miscellaneous phase. (A spellcaster forced into melee during the first movement phase can’t cast until the miscellaneous phase, even though they were out of melee when they declared their spell.)

Miscellaneous: Includes helping wounded comrades, imbibing potions, lighting a flask of oil, etc.

Note: It is possible to shoot a missile weapon, move, move again (into melee), make a melee attack, and then drink a potion (although this would require you to be wielding a one-handed missile weapon and a one-handed melee weapon, since you wouldn’t be able to switch weapons between those actions). Similarly, one can declare a spell, cast a spell, move (into melee), and then make a melee attack (but if someone engages you in melee before the spell goes off, your casting is delayed to the miscellaneous phase and the other actions become impossible).

COMBAT SYSTEM DESIGN NOTES

OD&D doesn’t include a system for determining the order in which actions are resolved. My initial impulse was to embrace a system of simultaneous action resolution. We went through several variants of this — generally with a guideline that incapacitation favored the PCs (either striking one last valiant blow before falling unconscious or preventing monsters from dealing damage by slaying them first) — and what I discovered was that I could generally manage the system as long as the number of combatants remained relatively small.

But as group size grew — both due to the popularity of the open table and the increasing number of henchmen and hirelings — it became more difficult to juggle all of the disparate elements into a compelling narrative and game experience. This led to a fresh round of experimentation. Throughout this process I resisted the impulse to simply embrace initiative checks and call it quits (largely because I view my OD&D experiences as a chance to radically experiment with the basic game-form).

I eventually settled on this system, which is largely inspired by the Mmmmmm! System from Swords of Minaria and the Perrin Conventions. Resolution in each phase is simultaneous, but sufficiently broken up that I can manage much larger groups without losing all sense of cohesion and comprehension.

These house rules — and more! — can be found in the Blackmoor Player’s Reference.

Consider this: In 1974, create water was a 4th level spell and create food was a 5th level spell. That meant you wouldn’t have magical access to a water supply until you had a 6th level cleric in the group; and you wouldn’t have magical access to food until you had a 7th level cleric. (By 7th level you’re considered a major religious leader and at 8th level you’re assumed to be founding your own churches.)

This remained true in the Basic line of the game all the way through the Rules Cyclopedia in ’91. In the Advanced line of the game, however, things shifted. In the 1st Edition PHB create water became a 1st level spell.

What does this mean? Well, it means that B4 The Lost City was a viable scenario in the Basic game, but not in the Advanced game:

Days ago your group of adventurers joined a desert caravan. Halfway across the desert, a terrible sandstorm struck, separating your party from the rest of the caravan. When the storm died down you found that you were alone. The caravan was nowhere in sight. The desert was unrecognizable, as the dunes had been blown into new patterns. You were lost.

(…)

The second day after your water ran out, you stumbled upon a number of stone blocks sticking out of a sand dune. Investigation showed that the sand covered the remains of a tall stone wall. On the other side of the stone wall was a ruined city.

The whole concept of being driven into an ancient ruin because you’re short on water pretty much ceases to be an issue. This is even more true in 3E when the already devalued create water became a 0-level orison.

But like the wings of a butterfly, the subtle shift in this single spell actually has a profound impact on gameplay.

THE WIDER EFFECT

As my old school 1974 campaign moved towards hexcrawling, my players began figuring out how to equip their characters for wilderness exploration. The hexcrawling was based around a fairly basic system (which served as the test pilot for the wilderness exploration mechanics found in Legends & Labyrinths). It’s not a mass of complexity, but it does provide a basic model for:

1. Travel Time
2. Navigation
3. Discovery

Combined with the standard systems of encumbrance and a daily requirement of food and water, the result was a fairly plausible demand for supplies (particularly if they were heading into the jungle where potable water was difficult to come by).

What they quickly discovered was that, for any journey of appreciable length, they couldn’t physically carry the necessary supplies. So they needed horses.

But horses pose a problem if you need to go spelunking. So they needed hirelings to care for the horses.

And once you’ve got hirelings watching the horses, it doesn’t take much imagination to start hiring men-at-arms to come into the dungeon with you.

All these hirelings, of course, need their own supplies. Which means more horses. And eventually pack horses. (The latter, particularly, once they started hitting treasures that they couldn’t easily haul back in a single load.)

After some trial and error, each group found their own equilibrium. But, in general, adventuring parties grew. And as the parties grew, the need for larger, more elaborate, and more rewarding ventures grew.

The reality of this dynamic is actually more complex than this, of course. (For example, I also believe the fact that hirelings are given a prominent place as a major feature of your character in the original rulebooks plays a large role in making them a major feature in old school play. Take those same rules and put them somewhere else in the rulebook and that gameplay doesn’t get as much attention.) But the need for supplies was, in a very real sense, the camel’s nose in the tent: Take that need away, the need for horses disappears. The need for horses disappears, the hirelings disappear.

And I’d argue it can actually be taken one step further: Take low-level hirelings away and you take away mid-level fiefdoms because you haven’t developed the skills or style of play necessary to gradually transition into those fiefdoms. The entire original “end game” of the game disappears.

THE LARGER METAPHOR

The other thing about create water as a spell is that it’s a small example of a larger phenomenon in D&D which is often overlooked.

Specifically, it’s an ability which removes gameplay.

I’ve spoken with many game designers who consider this to be a huge mistake. It was certainly a motivating factor in the design of 4th Edition. A similar motivation gives you the game world scaling of Oblivion.

But I, personally, think it’s great: As you play D&D, the game shifts. At 10th level you aren’t playing the same game you were playing at 1st level.

If we consider this narrow slice of the game, D&D basically used to say: “Okay, you start out exploring a nearby dungeon for 2 or 3 levels. Then you start exploring the wilderness and you have to really focus on how to make those explorations a success — supplies, navigation aids, clear goals, etc. We’ll do that for 3-4 levels and then, ya know what? I’m bored with that. So we’ll keep doing the explorations, but we’re going to yank out all that logistical gameplay, replace it with some magical resources, and start shifting the focus of wilderness exploration to staking out fiefdoms and clearing the countryside. We’ll do that for 3-4 levels. By that time you’ve probably transitioned pretty thoroughly into realms management, so we’ll just give you this teleport spell and we can probably just phase that ‘trekking through the wilderness’ stuff out entirely.”

(Of course, it’s not really gone because the same players are running multiple PCs. So if they’re in the mood for some hexcrawling on Tuesday night, they’ll just bring out their lower level characters to play.)

You’ll find these kinds of abilities studded throughout the game. Their impact has been dulled somewhat over the years (and removed pretty much completely from 4th Edition), but this fundamental panoply of gameplay experiences continues to be a major strength of classic D&D.