| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| froglegg |
Posted - 28 Jul 2010 : 23:53:01
My copy came today and I thought 1st edition fans here might like it as well.
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=44132
John |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Halidan |
Posted - 24 Oct 2010 : 17:42:22
I can't promise anything, but I'm headed home for the Thanksgiving holidays. I'll make it a point to look up Jeff and see what stories he wouldn't mind me sharing. |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 23 Oct 2010 : 13:27:29
quote:
Originally posted by Halidan
If you're talking about the puns and shaggy dogs stories, I'll try and remember some of them.
If you're using "entertaining" to mean stories about the many different personalities and happens in the early days of D&D, not without either talking to Jeff or the persons involved with the tale. Candlekeep is too classy a place for some of my more "entertaining" stories. Sorry.
Quite understandable, but I had to ask.
|
| Halidan |
Posted - 22 Oct 2010 : 19:41:10
quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
Strange trivia--Dave's maps for his EPT campaigns later became the core maps for the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set! 
I had the very good fortune to be an occassional (i.e. as often as my parents would allow) player in Dave's EPT campaign, and saw those maps on many occasions. They were actually bigger than the Undermountain poster maps, mounted on 4'x8' foamcore (or maybe thick posterboard) and covered significantly more area.
I still remember opening the Undermountain box set and diving straight for the maps (as I do with any RPG product). I was looking at the level one map and my eye was drawn to a aprticular area. It looked hauntingly familiar. Suddenly, I realized it was Dave's Temple of Vimukla (EPT's evil Fire/Destruction God). Several years before (in real time) the EPT campaign set out to destroy this temple. We suceeded, but at great cost.
Dave was also the one who drew those amazing 3/4 perspective maps of the castle for Hickman's original Ravenloft. He was a mapping genius.
For those of you who never knew Dave Southerland, he had an amazing set of styrofoam dungeon blocks, grided in 1" squares. Floors and dungeon/cavern walls were included, as well as things like stairs, grav cars, crystal statues, and almost anything else that mattered.
The Vimukla temple was both large and complex, but Dave had no problem pulling thins out of his boxes and building the entire complex as we explored it. It was truly eye-candy for the RPG gamer. Seeing it as part of Undermountain was amazing.
My interest in miniatures and terrain was started by Dave, and to this day, I try and live up to his standard. I rarely suceed.
quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
Amazing guy I still miss today, that Mr. Sutherland.
Steven
Agreed. I actually cried the day I was told that he had passed away. Dave had his demons, but I (for one) had thought he had gotten a handle on them. If Gary Gygax is truly running D&D in the afterlife, he'll be doing it with Dave's miniatures and terrain. |
| Steven Schend |
Posted - 22 Oct 2010 : 15:37:51
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
quote:
Originally posted by Halidan
While I games with historically with these folk, I didn't bite on role-playing until David Sutherland showed me the marvelous maps that M.A.R. Baker had produced for the 1E Petal Throne game. D&D naturally followed.
Thanks for this piece of RPG trivia - I was unaware of the world of Tékumel, and will have to add that to my list of canon D&D worlds (because it used a simplified version of the D&D rules and was produced by TSR). Looks very cool - I will have to try and appropriate some of those maps.
I have heard of Petal Throne before, but never really looked into it - I saw the ads in the old Dragon magazines and just assumed it was some crappy (early) 3rd party product. Live and learn.
EDIT: OMG! This is too funny - while trying to track down material for the setting I found that one of the lead Illustrators (Marjasall) is a guy I have worked with before and is a friend of mine on MySpace - small world.
I'll have to keep him in mind when I get my site up - I love the work he did on that Kobold book.
Strange trivia--Dave's maps for his EPT campaigns later became the core maps for the Ruins of Undermountain boxed set!
Amazing guy I still miss today, that Mr. Sutherland.
Steven |
| Markustay |
Posted - 21 Oct 2010 : 20:40:41
quote:
Originally posted by Halidan
While I games with historically with these folk, I didn't bite on role-playing until David Sutherland showed me the marvelous maps that M.A.R. Baker had produced for the 1E Petal Throne game. D&D naturally followed.
Thanks for this piece of RPG trivia - I was unaware of the world of Tékumel, and will have to add that to my list of canon D&D worlds (because it used a simplified version of the D&D rules and was produced by TSR). Looks very cool - I will have to try and appropriate some of those maps.
I have heard of Petal Throne before, but never really looked into it - I saw the ads in the old Dragon magazines and just assumed it was some crappy (early) 3rd party product. Live and learn.
EDIT: OMG! This is too funny - while trying to track down material for the setting I found that one of the lead Illustrators (Marjasall) is a guy I have worked with before and is a friend of mine on MySpace - small world.
I'll have to keep him in mind when I get my site up - I love the work he did on that Kobold book. |
| Halidan |
Posted - 21 Oct 2010 : 19:31:31
If you're talking about the puns and shaggy dogs stories, I'll try and remember some of them.
If you're using "entertaining" to mean stories about the many different personalities and happens in the early days of D&D, not without either talking to Jeff or the persons involved with the tale. Candlekeep is too classy a place for some of my more "entertaining" stories. Sorry. |
| Jorkens |
Posted - 21 Oct 2010 : 11:23:41
quote:
Originally posted by Halidan
One of the side benefits of working with Jeff (other than a lifetime of painting tips and many marvelous puns/shaggy dog stories) was that it gave him ample time to fill in the hole in my knowledge of the early Lake Geneva days with his stories.
Anything entertaining you could share? |
| Halidan |
Posted - 19 Oct 2010 : 18:31:08
Your correct about the magazine discovery of the dice. As Jeff Perren told it to me, the science magazine had an artical about a pacific rim (Japan IIRC, but it could have been Korea) school that taught percentiles, bell curves and other probability subjects by designing different sized dice and having students use them in different combinations and graph the result.
The article also gave the LGTSA (Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association) the info on where to get the dice. They imported them in large cardboard barrels. Some of the dice were used in TRS's pre-D&D wargaming products. IIRC, at least one rules phamplet/booklet for determining the hit locations and body damage for modern and WWII firearms used the dice. At least several of the home-brew rules of the various LGTSA members used some/all of them. They were just too unusual not to use.
As chainmail morphed into OD&D, the used of the polyhedrals was used as an alternative the 2-12 bell curve that most other contemporary waragmes used.
BTW - for those of you wondering how I know these inane detals is that I grew up in Rockford, IL., just 45 min from Lake Geneva. My folks had good friends who owned lakeside property up there and we went often in the summers. At the time, I was a high schooler with with a deep love for both historical board and miniature wargames. I caught that particular bug from a couple of PE teachers and baseball coaches at my school.
While never a member of the LGTSA, I went to several of their events - mostly the summer weekend games, but also the ocassional mini-cons during the school year that eventually morphed into things like Autumn Revel and Winter Fantasy.
While I games with historically with these folk, I didn't bite on role-playing until David Sutherland showed me the marvelous maps that M.A.R. Baker had produced for the 1E Petal Throne game. D&D naturally folowed.
After college, I had the pleasure of working with Jeff Perren at a hobby shop in Rockford. A dream job, the owner paid us every week in cash, and allowed us to purchase games, paints and figures during the week as a draft against our pay. I often took home less than 1/2 my check and one week, owed him money on Saturday.
My parents strongly encouraged me to look for alternative employment. Fun work, but not the kind that will pay off college loans very fast.
One of the side benefits of working with Jeff (other than a lifetime of painting tips and many marvelous puns/shaggy dog stories) was that it gave him ample time to fill in the hole in my knowledge of the early Lake Geneva days with his stories. |
| Matt James |
Posted - 19 Oct 2010 : 15:11:25
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
Okay, Matt, you clearly know your stuff, so I'll take your word for it. I wish I could remember where the heck I got polyhedral dice, though; it's going to bug me.
hehe, sorry if my last reply came off as dry ;) It was late and I the internet has a way of swallowing emotion unless I use little digital faces -> :)
I am curious of the answer to your question as well. I remember speaking with Dave Wesely, one of the pre-D&D pals of Dave and Gary. He said that they found the dice in some science magazine and thought it would be cool to include them in their new game somehow. Anyways, I'm not sure this helps in figuring out where they came from or not. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 19 Oct 2010 : 15:00:10
AFAIK, I always had to buy the crayon separately - I don't recall one coming in a box (but there may have been a 'printing run' I didn't have, of course). My first box may have also been bought second-hand - I'm not sure.
D10's did indeed come out until much later - AFAIK no-one ever got one of those in a box. You got the D20's with the double sets of 0-9 on them. If I had to take a guess, I would say those d10's came out around 1980 (but that's just a guess based on when and where I remember being the first time I saw them).
I collect dice, and have hundreds of them. I have a few dozen black d6's with skulls for the '1' I got when I worked for FGU, which produced them. I stopped using them a long time ago because I found the skull pic wore-off after only a couple of months of use and I didn't want to ruin them.
I also have that nifty sarcophagus that came out a few years back with 10 D10's in it - my players always panic when I pull THAT box out. 
Hmmmm... just tried to find those and I see that they later produced a set (in the same container) with ankhs for the '1' - I must get that ASAP. |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 19 Oct 2010 : 14:40:58
Okay, Matt, you clearly know your stuff, so I'll take your word for it. I wish I could remember where the heck I got polyhedral dice, though; it's going to bug me. |
| Matt James |
Posted - 19 Oct 2010 : 06:01:39
Dice did not show up inside the box-sets until the Basic Set in 1977. Check out this link for some references. I own many (far too many) ancient D&D relics and while my word may not suffice, this site is consider top-notch for research. The Basic Set came with five precolored dice in a small poly bag (no D10 or dice crayon-- those came in later printings). It is easy to believe the OD&D sets had them due to the proximity of time between the 1st print OD&D (1974) and the Basic Set (1977).
http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/basic.html
|
| Ayrik |
Posted - 18 Oct 2010 : 21:28:05
It is entirely possible the dice were added/swapped by the previous owner.
My version was a (fairly used) hand-me-down, a freebie received from the DM when he bought himself the newer box. I recall a mismatched set of Armory dice (conclusively identified a few years ago, with the help of Kevin Cook's site), many colours, a bit irregular and lumpy, no d10 (but an extra 10+10 d20). The cheap d6 was definitely wooden and bounced around like a crazy puppy (until it broke, rolling 2 and 5, incidentally), but it may not have been OEM issue.
[Edit]
Now that I think of it, it seems almost certain the previous owner swapped dice. He always insisted on playing with his "luckiest" dice. So the box he gave me probably contained all his rejects. |
| Halidan |
Posted - 18 Oct 2010 : 20:56:56
Arik, I don't mean any disrespect, but I think you're incorrect about the wooden dice.
To my knowledge, those first sets of polyhedral dice were plastic (not wooden) and were made available first through the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association and later from the Dungeon Hobby Shop in Lake Geneva. At that time, DHS was being run by one of Gary's sons (Luke, I think) and Jeff Perren. I have several sets from the summer of 1976, which was before the first Basic box set came out, but the products were the same.
The plastic was cheap (the dice were imported wholesale from a Korean science/teaching company, I seem to recall) and each size dice (d4, d6, etc) was a different color, with two colors of d10's for rolling percentiles. The one's I have from that era had green d6's, but IIRC, those colors did vary depending on the batch. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 18 Oct 2010 : 20:31:43
I still have the ugly, melted-looking plastic ones that came with my first box, but I am unaware of any wooden ones. However, it sounds like the version Arik had may have been an even earlier iteration of the box.
My d6, which I still own, is definitely plastic.
And I do remember having to fill-in the numbers with crayon - funny how something so minor brings a smile to my face. The D20's also only had numbers 0-9 (twice), so you had to use two different color crayons to make a D20 (and call a color for 'high').
Oh, and I had to walk 20 miles - in a blizzard - just to get to the LGS. You whipper-snappers don't know how good you got it, with your horseless carriages and your celly-phones! |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 18 Oct 2010 : 15:54:12
Matt, I'm almost positive there were dice in my OD&D box. I couldn't have played without them, and at that point in time, I wouldn't have known where else to get them. |
| Matt James |
Posted - 18 Oct 2010 : 07:55:22
No dice came with the original boxes. I believe the first time dice showed up was in the D&D Basic Set, circa 1977. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 17:52:33
The D&D games in those boxes are spectacular ... but what kind of dice are in 'em? |
| Matt James |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 14:35:42
I'm not sure what the were called back in 1974, but the original boxed sets are referred to as OD&D. I own many, including a 1st print woodgrain boxed set-- confirmed as having only 1000 copies and all hand assembled by E. Gary Gygax and family.
|
| froglegg |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 14:31:09
quote:
Originally posted by Arik
Haha, I remember my first D&D set (probably the "Holmes" box) included absolutely crappy polyhedral dice ... the little d6 was made of wood and actually broke during a play session.
LOL  My D20 kind of got worn smooth, it would just role for a good while and the white crayon stuff that you had to put on the numbers yourself was starting to come out. Sigh, it seems like only yesterday. 
John |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 10:36:43
Haha, I remember my first D&D set (probably the "Holmes" box) included absolutely crappy polyhedral dice ... the little d6 was made of wood and actually broke during a play session. |
| Thauramarth |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 08:02:08
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Right.
The old Basic boxed set is usually referred to as OD&D. It never had another edition, AFAIK. 'Editions' always refer to AD&D.
Well, they were not referred by number, but OD&D basically went through five incarnations (see this wikipedia article:
- the original 3-book 1974 boxed set (the beige books);
- the 1977 Holmes version (just the Basic set)
- the 1981 Moldvay version (Basic and Expert sets)
- the Mentzer boxed set series (1983-1985): the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortals sets;
- the Rules Cyclopedia version and the accompanying Wrath of the Immortals boxed set.
These were not specificially referred to as separate editions, but there were revisions and changes between them. Although personally I can only vouch for the differences between the Mentzer sets and the Rules Cyclopedia. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 17 Oct 2010 : 00:14:38
Right.
The old Basic boxed set is usually referred to as OD&D. It never had another edition, AFAIK. 'Editions' always refer to AD&D.
It looks cool, but I'm not interested in running a 1st edition game. I wish them all the best. |
| Ashe Ravenheart |
Posted - 16 Oct 2010 : 04:59:58
Not officially, no. But it is a spiritual descendant, like OSRIC and Castles & Crusades. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 16 Oct 2010 : 04:44:44
I'm not sure Pathfinder officially counts, does it? |
| Thauramarth |
Posted - 15 Oct 2010 : 17:37:40
quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
Am I the only one who finds it odd to see this referred to as a "1st edition" product? To me, the 1st edition is three beige pamphlets in a white cardboard box, and a whole lot of fun they were, too.
Actually, come to think of it, the whole D&D product line is a bit like the Star Wars Franchise, when it comes to naming and numbering.
The beige books were 1st edition D&D, and D&D followed by the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition. After the 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons, came the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which followed the 1st Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and was followed by the 3rd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which was, however, called the 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (which was published long after the Rules Cyclopedia, which was the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons) and then came 4th Edition, followed by Pathfinder, which is the 3.75th edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
All that's missing is Jar-Jar Binks, really. |
| Ashe Ravenheart |
Posted - 15 Oct 2010 : 16:57:48
Technically, that's true. But most gamers refer to those as the OE (Original Edition) and 1st Edition is generally considered to have started with the Advanced D&D release in 1977 (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDArchives_History.asp). |
| Richard Lee Byers |
Posted - 15 Oct 2010 : 16:28:48
Am I the only one who finds it odd to see this referred to as a "1st edition" product? To me, the 1st edition is three beige pamphlets in a white cardboard box, and a whole lot of fun they were, too. |
| Ayrik |
Posted - 15 Oct 2010 : 11:48:37
I liked it - it's worth looking into  |
| froglegg |
Posted - 29 Jul 2010 : 15:13:15
quote:
Originally posted by Jorkens
It seems like the general reaction at Dragonsfoot is positive to. It might be worth looking into.
Oh-Yeah! |
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