Why Holmes' Sample Dungeon?

For those of you keeping up here at the Home Brew, you will have noticed that for the past forty-two odd campaign sessions have revolved around Holmes' sample dungeon from basic D&D rule book.

You may have also remember that that same dungeon was the inspiration for the Beneath the Ruined Tower of Zenopus radio play that we produced last year.

And now I begin work on an animated version of that same radio play which of course has the sample dungeon as the main setting.

Why has the Holmes' sample dungeon, a tiny thirty-five year old creation, been such a mainstay of my FRPG revival these recent years?

Perhaps it's because when I first opened the Holmes' basic set and flipped through the pages of the rules for the first time and I came across that crude dungeon map, my imagination and wonder and curiosity was forever sparked.

My basic set came with the module B: In Search Of The Unknown and we played the hell out of that one as I'm sure many of you have as well.  A great starter dungeon and learning tool without a doubt.

But the Sample Dungeon was a deadly maze, fully stocked with monsters, treasures, pirates, wizards tricks and traps and intersecting corridors to challenge even experienced characters and players as soon as they pass through that first four-way intersection.  It was and still is the best example of what Dungeons & Dragons was/is/could be.  It was a complete work and adventure that came in a set of rules. It has never been topped since.  The 'sample' dungeon in the DM Guide is incomplete as is the sample Haunted Keep in the Moldvay rules.

Holmes' threw everything at you to make a fun and exciting dungeon experience.  His brief and colorful portrait of the history of the tower of Zenopus and Portown with it's Green Dragon Inn and the author's permission for expansion has always made this the crossroads of that moment when the game was presented as just sit down and jump right in to one that become monetized over time.

That aside, when I was looking to get a campaign started I knew I'd be running an early adventure of come sort.  I figured B1 (ISOTU) and B2 (Keep on the Borderlands) were both probably all overplayed but Holmes' sample dungeon was just obscure enough to give folks a taste of a fun old school dungeon adventure.  I figured we'd play it out in a couple of sessions and then move on.  Little did I realize that this little sample dungeon would become the hub of a campaign that has been going on for forty-two plus sessions.  Of course I changed Portown to Caladan from Holmes' Maze of Peril, his prose story based on his own campaigns within his world where the sample dungeon comes from.

I have to say it IS my favorite dungeon.

That is why I have chosen to pay homage to it over and over again, in our campaign, in the radio play and now in the animation project because it really is that great.  It speaks volumes to what Holmes added to this hobby.

Zenopus Tower Cut-away

Even though our Swords & Wizardry campaign has been on hold for quite a while while we delve into some other games (plus giving the trusty GM, me, a break) I thought I'd share this with the Warlock's loyal readers.

Note to players....Stop reading NOW! The wrathful campaign gods will not take kindly to mortals prying into their dark mysteries!

Since I love side-view maps of dungeons I created this map of the Tower of Zenopus levels a while ago and just ran across it today. I've altered the dungeon to make it a mega-dungeon campaign. With a few side-quests the campaign had gone on for over two years now.

Click to enlarge

I started with Holmes' original dungeon as a starting point and added deeper levels to it, some being borrowed and some being created by yours truly. I've highlighted the explored areas in purple so you can see that they players have fought their way quite deep into the Underworld but there's still much more to explore.

Zenopus' mega-dungeon was created using the following:

1. Graveyard & Crypt (created 1 page dungeon)
2. Main dungeon level Holmes blue book
3. Rat tunnels (made up on the fly)
4. Tomb Level (forgotten tomb of the warrior King 1 page dungeon)
5. Crotch-goblin and Mushroom-men level (created 1 page dungeon)
6. Purple worm level (1st level of R. C. Pinnell's Holmes' dungeon sequel In Search of the Forgotten City)
7. Weird giant eye-ball sub-level (Forgotten Chambers by Ramsey Dow which exited into the level 1 of The Darkness Beneath mega-dungeon from Fight On! magazine)
8. Lowest Levels (R. C. Pinnell's Holmes' dungeon sequel)

As you can see, this mishmash of dungeon adventures has served quite well. The players still haven't gotten to Zenopus' lair though they have rebuilt and claimed the tower for themselves. We'll get back to this campaign probably sometime this summer and see what happens.

Updated with In Search of the Forgotten City module links.

Tower Of Zenopus Radio Play Chapters 1-3

If you remember this past summer the Warlocks Home Brew released its radio play; Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus! in three chapters.

We'll the original concept was that these three chapters actually made up the first chapter of the story. So here is the original three chapters together in their 34 minute entirety for your listening enjoyment!




Download and listen at your leisure.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Lieberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot, Morak

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Pirate Captain

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes



Or Download for your leisure listening!

Beneath The Tower Of Zenopus Radio Play Chapter 2

We continue with the second chapter to our original scripted radio drama Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus; a pulp fantasy about a group of adventurers exploring the labyrinth beneath a magicians ruined tower!

A bit shorter than last weeks episode but I'll make up for it next week with Chapter 3. If you missed Chapter 1, you can listen to it here.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS
Chapter 2: An Unexpected Alliance

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Lieberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Morak

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

Listen Now (11 minutes)...



Tune in next week for Chapter 3: Dark Sorcery!

Chapter 1: Into the Dark

Tales Of High Adventure Original D&D Pod-Play

So for all of you that have returned from your journeys at GenCon, for all of you getting ready for the OSRCon, for all of you Grognards out there old and young, for all you classic role-players, fantasy bloggers and all other fans of pulp fantasy drama The Warlock's Home Brew presents the first chapter in it's original Pod-Play drama Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus! An original scripted performance about a group of adventurers exploring the labyrinth beneath a magicians ruined tower! Dedicated to and influenced by John Eric Holmes' sample dungeon in the original blue book.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS
Chapter 1: Into the Dark

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Liberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Morak

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

Listen Now (17 minutes)...



Listen to Chapter 2: An Unexpected Alliance

Listen to Chapter 3: Dark Sorcery!

Okay, I'll Play

As per Jame's question, when I think of D&D this is what cover comes to mind:

But this is the image that really does it for me:

Save Or Die! Classic D&D Podcast

Check out this new weekly podcast called Save Or Die! Our hosts, Liz, Mike and Vince chat about the early days of D&D with a great focus on the rules-lite classic style of the game.

1st Cast: Adventure 1 (with a review about B1 In Search of the Unknown)

2nd Cast: Interview with Tim Kask

John Eric Holmes 1930-2010

Word has been spreading throughout the fantasy role-playing blogosphere about the passing of John Eric Holmes. For those of you that don't know, he was the writer of the infamous 'blue book' rule set of 'Basic' Dungeons & Dragons. It was his rule book that captured my imagination as well as thousands of other youth int he late 1970's and first pulled me into this hobby of Role-playing games over 30 years ago.

I have always returned to his Blue Book over these thirty plus years. It was my opinion that his rules, though eventually amended with the term 'Basic', was a very gritty, adult version of the game before the it was filtered down to a more acceptable version marketed towards a larger mainstream audience of families and children. And it was all packed into just 48 pages. This was even before Advanced Dungeons & Dragons came out set the bar for hundreds of pages of detailed hard-bound rules.

And let's not forget his infamous Zenopus' Tower complete sample dungeon adventure which were part of his rules. It is truly a classic and still stands up after all these years as my players can attest to!

Though Gygax and Arneson will forever always be the pillars of the hobby, it was John Eric Holmes that was the gateway for many.

Dr. John Eric Holmes passed away on March 20, 2010.

The Warlock's 100th Post

And with that here we are. One Hundred Posts at the Warlock's Home Brew!



It's been a lot of words and I've really enjoyed throwing things out there into the inter-webs but have I really actually said anything? Have I contributed to this resurgence of classic fantasy role-playing game interest?

Well, I think so, I hope so. I think we all have.

All the comments, all the blogs, all the resources out there, which I would have slain a hundred dragons to have access to over 30 years ago when I was just a newbie gamer, have made this hobby an even better place.

Sure, some of these great blogs have come and gone and new ones have taken their place but isn't that just like the game we all love; ever changing, evolving, morphing and coming full circle like many of us have. All to meet back where we have started those many years ago, to tread on familiar paths and to blaze new trails.

And it's a wonderful place to be.

Yeah, I've slacked a bit here and there. My Fantasy Friday feature sort of fell by the wayside and I really enjoyed that too. But to present the type of artists and samples that I would have liked to would have taken too much time that I barely have now. And I've promised to come back to certain themes or topics that I brought up but never quite made it back to. Oh well, we'll have to see what the future holds. Like many of you I'm just letting this be what it is with hopes of contributing something back to this community.

So with one hundred posts under my belt I'll recap some of the highlights and the more popular posts.

Eleven campaign gaming sessions, seven regular dedicated players, one PC death, rules-lite fast-paced play and characters just having reached 2nd level. Really, that's what we're talking about here. Read the Campaign Tales.

We all have our own method and here is mine: Map making tutorials.

In Search Of The Unknown: The Illustrated Story of…

Why Play A Retro Clone

Can D&D Ever Be Played Wrong? - Answered!

The Cultural Stew That Birthed Dungeons & Dragons

My Dungeon Illustrations

Oh and I can't forget my players...

There's more but you'll have to explore on your own, it's in your nature after all, looking around that next corner, wondering whats around the next bend. Don't forget your lantern and your 10 foot pole.

So I hope you've all enjoyed something of what I've posted here at The Warlock's Home Brew. I appreciate everyone visiting and commenting if you felt moved to. Hope to see you all in my future posts!

Oh and a special thanks to Garry Gygax, David Arneson and John Eric Holmes, my wizards of Role-Playing Games!

And don't forget to visit The Warlock's Curiosities on your way out….

Paperback Roundup

I'm sure like many of you I can't turn down a used book store especially with the prospect of picking up a couple of vintage paperbacks. I love those classic covers and will buy the book just for a Jeff Jones or Frazetta cover or some weird 60's bizarro cover. In fact, I'll pick up a used paperback over a new edition most anytime.

When I lived in Chicago, there was never a shortage of amazing used book shops that had so many vintage paperbacks on their shelves it was virtually impossible walking out without a hand full of delicious treats.

Here in Tucson I've still been able to find some pulp treasures. Latest acquisitions....

Can D&D Ever Be Played Wrong? - Answered!

Role playing games have become so common place these days that it may be hard to imagine or even remember that there was a time before funny looking dice and charts and rules defined any type of fantasy world. But it was just that way once long ago and when the abstract concepts of Dungeons & Dragons trickled into our consciousness it was something a bit bewildering.....especially to a ten year old boy!

As I've mentioned before, Holmes' Blue Book was my gateway drug, so to speak. Now the only games that I or for that matter my family ever played up to that point were your typical boardgames; a six-sided die or two, a playing board, some game pieces and maybe some cards or fake money. So when I opened the rule book for the first time, that is where I was coming from. I didn't have a big brother that had played the game before, the hobby shop had only just begun carrying the basic game for a couple of months testing the waters (I don't think they even knew what it was but that soon drastically changed), no internet to guide the way, and my parents couldn't believe there was a "game" with a 48 page rule book. I had Holmes' rules and that's it.

It might be argued that the Holmes rule book may have been a bit unclear and contradictory at times, and that is a valid argument, but I have to admit, being only ten years of age, I did pretty good with the rules. I understood rolling up characters and even combat was fairly easy to figure out. Even the descriptive exploration of the dungeons I was able to understand. But what threw me was the concept of Turns and Miniatures.

Games had pieces, right? Miniatures are pieces, correct? Therefore you need minis to play. So my brother and I went out and picked up some minis; some skeletons, a couple of fighters and a five headed hydra (also at our local hobby shop). Those were our game pieces for our game and that's what we played with. My brother's 1st level fighter would always run into the same skeletons and, if he survived that, a five headed hydra! Needless to say, his characters died all the time. It may sound like it wouldn't have been that much fun but it actually was. Oh, did I mention that we also played it on a chess-board? Each square was 10 feet!

So, with characters dying so very often, I read the rules attached to the B1 module "In Search of the Unknown" concerning Henchmen and Hirelings. Ahhh, no more failed battles with that dreaded Hydra! Time to hire an army of men to be paid upon any recovery of treasure, after the fact of course. That eventually began the cycle of Henchmen death. So it was off to the hobby store to buy some more minis and the next thing you know, we had an army of grunts battling skeletons and hydras. Now it was getting interesting!

Now to branch out with some more players.

The only concept of turns I had were with other board games. No one worked together, you competed to win the game and took turns doing so. So when we got the other neighborhood kids together to play this crazy game, game turns played a huge part.

Each player would roll up a character.
Okay, not bad.

That character would hire a virtual army of henchmen.
Hmmm, getting a bit strange now.

And each player would take his character and army of henchmen and explore the dungeon for his turn of 10 minutes. Then, he would stop playing and the next player would take his character and army of henchmen and explore the dungeon for his turn of 10 minutes! This would go on and on for hours. Of course we needed minis for all of this. So we all went out and bought tons of these little lead minis. And if there was a monster in the dungeon that we didn't have a mini for it would be replaced by one that we did have. All of this would eventually lead to one player killing some monsters and finding an over abundance of treasure (don't even get me started on trying to figure out the treasure charts!). This inevitably would bring the players and armies together for one complete classic pulp blow-out battle with the surviving player and henchmen gaining all the loot. Of course, the player would then proceed to kill all his henchmen to take the loot for himself.

It was absurd, yes, but crazy fun for a bunch of little kids.

It wasn't until later that summer that some of us joined a introductory game at the hobby shop (by this point they went from a typical hobby shop with models, etc. to a full fledged gaming store circa 1978) where we experienced the correctly played game for the first time. Oh boy, did things click! All the little odds and ends suddenly fell into place. We were all even more excited than we were before.

So, can D&D ever be played wrong? Looking back on it now, I don't think so. We just took what we understood and made up our own game. In other words, we "imagined the hell out of it". And that is part of the spirit of the game!

Magic User House Rules...so far

(Reader's Note: Sorry about the revisions to this post. I was trying to get the table to work properly. I'm still figuring out this google blog thingy.)

The concept of 'game balance' these days is a bit foreign to me. I have always pictured campaigns as being open ended, a bit deadly and characters of all skill levels running around. A low level character stumbling into an encounter too challenging for them just made the game more 'realistic' for me.

When I was younger (like around 10 years old) and first introduced to the game, Magic-Users were always a bit tricky to figure out. They tended to play a very, very minor roll in my childhood games. Now days, I'm a bit more fascinated by them and their powerful magic.

Wizards, who start out incredibly weak at first, evolve into the mighty arcane casters we are familiar with. So in working magic-users into my campaign I wanted to keep that characteristic in place also, I've always liked the spell book for wizards; thick old tomes filled with mystic runes and characters, so that was, for sure, staying.

My house-rule magic-users are nothing ground-breaking, but I kinda like the general sketch of them. I may evolve things over time but this is where I'm at now. I've added some of the Holmes' elements to it as well.

The Magic-user begins his trade as a graduated apprentice and a number of spells that he has knowledge of from his studies. Additional spells can be studied or discovered through adventure. A Magic-user's spells are recorded in a large heavy tome . Any new spell that a magic-user wants to know has a chance of being knowable or unknowable. Any spell that is unknowable cannot be added to the Magic-users spell book.

Intelligence of MU	% Chance to know any given spell	Minimum number of initial spells known	Maximum spells known per level.
3-4	20%	2	3
5-7	30%	2	4
8-9	40%	3	5
10-12	50%	4	6
13-14	65%	5	8
15-16	75%	6	10
17	85%	7	All
18	95%	8	All

The apprentice magic-user 'graduates' with his minimum number of spells as per the rule, with one having to be Read Magic. The player can choose what those spells he/she wants (or random roll) from the first level spell list to complete the minimum. Thus, a higher intelligence apprentice graduates his education with with a larger repertoire. Of course, the apprentice can still only can memorize but a single spell per day. After he graduates, he is on his own. Only adventure and self-study will gain him additional spells.

These rules place some limitation on the magic-user's power, but there are ways to partially overcome them. One way is to have the spell written on on a magic scroll. Magic-users may make a scroll of a spell they already 'know' (have in their spellbook) at a cost of 100 gp and 1 week's work for each spell level.

The gold spent in this process counts towards experience (I'll be talking more about experience a future post).

Copying other spells from another spellbook or scroll into your spellbook: First you must cast Read Magic to be able to decipher the magical writing. Then you must spend a day studying the spell. Then at the end of the day you must make your know spell percentage roll. If you succeed, then you understand the spell and can copy it into your spellbook. The process leaves a spellbook that was copied from unharmed, but a spell successfully copied from a magic scroll disappears from the parchment.

If the check fails, the wizard cannot understand or copy the spell. He/she cannot attempt to learn or copy that spell again until another level is gained. A spell that was being copied from a scroll does not vanish from the scroll.

It is recommended that a Magic-user not bring his spellbook with him on his adventures. The book is quite heavy and very costly to replace. but it is up to the MU to decide if he would risk it being stolen or ruined. Now, if he wants to make a copy of his book that he can carry with him, he can, but it will cost him in terms of gold and time. 1000gp and 1 weeks work for each spell/level. If the spellbook is lost or destroyed the magic-user can try to recreate his original spells as per the creation spell rule below but has an additional 5% chance of success per character level.

My other addition would be that if a MU never runs across a spell he would like to have, he can research or create a new spell. The first attempt would cost the 2000gp per spell level and 1 week. After that week, we see if he can know the spell, if so, he has a 20% chance of success. If not, time and money lost. If he can know the spell but failed his success, he can try again with an additional cumulative 10% on each attempt.

I may evolve this a bit as time goes on but this is the foundation that I'm working from. I saw a really good article in Knockspell #2 by Brendan Falconer called Spell Complexity which gives the MU character odds of keeping the spell in his mind after casting. I like that as well but haven't applied it to the game yet.

Friday's Fantasy Art

As I prepare for tomorrow's 2nd Annual Tucson ComiCon, my head is filled with artwork and drawings and I got to thinking what is one of the most captivating classic D&D dungeon crawl images? I'll have to go with the classic B1 In Search of the Unknown's David Sutherland III's drawing of the Room with the Pools. The apprehension at the pool's dark liquid, the blackness beyond, the fighter's alertness to danger, the wizard's pointy hat, all of these elements make for a great atmosphere that the old game inspired.
By far, one of my most favorite images and one that has stuck with me ever since.

Enjoy!

Where It All Began...

...for me was Holmes.

I first saw the Holmes basic D&D set on a shelf at a local hobby shop back in the fall '78. A traditional model airplane/rocket shop, this was the very first RPG item that they had on display taking up one little tiny space on the rack. I would walk home every day from school and stop at this hobby shop (The Hobbyist) and just get lost in the cover image of that box. Without ever opening it, the title and cover painting triggered something wild in my imagination. I was already reading Howard's Conan thanks to Marvel's comic of that same name and earlier that year saw Bakshi's version of The Lord of the Rings so something was in the air and I was being swept up in it.

It wouldn't be until that Christmas that I received a copy of the game and open that box for the first time. And what treasures to behold! The funny shaped colored dice, the adventure module in monochrome green "In Search of the Unknown" were riches beyond thought!

Now...if I were only able to understand those rules....