Men and Magic, Monsters and Treasures, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, plus supplements

[Billiam Babble]

After feeling a little out of depth when comparing Swords and Wizardry's Whitebox rules to 1974+ Original D&D, I decided it was time to return to searching for those mythical three booklets which appear during the early editions of Dungeons and Dragons.  

Acaem provide a useful reference here regarding the early editions, now often referred to by players and collectors as "Original D&D" http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/original.html

"Contains three booklets (Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, Underworld & Wilderness Adventures"

Wizards and the Coast originally provided pdfs for nostalgia reasons (with a charge I believe), but recently pulled the documents from their websites (so multiple forums will tell you if you type "OD&D rules download" or similar into Google!)

I found these on esnips.com and I'm hoping it's okay to post them here for non-profit reference:

Rules Booklets

1.  Dungeons_and_Dragons_%28_Book_1_%29_-_Men_and_Magic.pdf
2. monsters_and_treasures.pdf
3. underworld_and_wilderness.pdf

According to reviews, it is assumed that the player has access to the Chainmail miniatures battle rules
Chainmail_%28_3rd_Edition_%29.pdf

Supplements (settings and new rules some of which develop into AD&D)
I. supplement1greyhawk.pdf
II. (Edit file resubmitted: blackmoor.pdf )

Greyhawk is a general rules expansion, with new combat rules, additional character classes (paladin and thief), as well as new monsters, spells, and treasure.
Blackmoor is the second expansion, adding underwater rules, two new character classes (monk and assassin), and hit location rules.  It also contains the first scenario ever published for a role-playing game, "Temple of the Frog", which was later developed into module DA2 Temple of the Frog.

 
from http://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/setpages/supplements.html

There's quite a few more out there, but there's enough to quite started with here.

At the time of posting I've yet to read these thoroughly, but I am mostly curious about the changing dice mechanics.  Forums inform me that Chainmail apparently uses 2d6 for hit rolls (will check this), the d20 rule is cited as optional in the early rulebooks.

I'm hoping that I haven't used too much of Mortis's file space quota.  Also, the head of the forum gets the final say on whether I can post these here and I respect his to decision to rule against etc. etc. yadda yadda ...

[MortiS-the-Lost]

Excellent find!

Yes it's fine to post these on the forum for discussion and review. Also don't worry about the forum's file space, one of the great features the Nabble service gives us is unlimited storage!

 Well, I've got a lot of reading up to do now then!

[Billiam Babble]

Check out the hit location rules,  page 7, Blackamoor Supplement.  :-o   I genuinely thought Runequest was the first to try Hit Locations  (I have Runequest I, by the way, I only realised a few years ago ... long-short story)

[Billiam Babble]

Why do I keep calling it "Blackamoor" when its clearly "Blackmoor".  We'd better change the name of that pdf as well, before people start thinking I'm a 17th century racist! :o

[Billiam Babble]

Edit: Title changed on PDF supplement from "blackamoor" to "blackmoor".

[Marchomer]

I missed this post!
Some years ago I find the old D&D too... I don't remember where...
I really enjoyed reading all the booklets and the supplements, It was very interesting finding out the beggining of the RPGs!

Billiam Babble wrote

Check out the hit location rules,  page 7, Blackamoor Supplement.  :-o   I genuinely thought Runequest was the first to try Hit Locations  (I have Runequest I, by the way, I only realised a few years ago ... long-short story)

I remember I was impressed too when I saw these rules!
And did you see the Initiative/Round system in Eldritch Wizardry? It was accurate like the hit location rules but even more unusable!

I remember I was trying to make an Italian D&D  first edition merging all the stuff in these booklets! And I almost did it.... but I lost all the files during an unexpected HD format... (thank you micro$oft!)
By the way it was not a problem... AD&D 1st edition already is the result of all these booklets (with the bugs fixed, some extra details, no hit location rules and another uncomfortable Initiative/Round system).

Did you notice that Wisdom is quite useless in old D&D?

[Billiam Babble]

Yes indeed, Wisdom seems to lack practical application!  Why not add those bonuses to spell saves and Turning Undead and ...? Hmm, I can see how "power creep" starts. :)
____



I was trying to upload a couple more OD&D supplements found on Scribd but they are too large  for the forum (25MB+) so I'm posting the direct links to the Scribd website.

1. D&D Monster and Treasure Assortment Levels 1-3 on Scribd.com (which may also go well with the Holmes rules)
2. D&D Monster and Treasure Assortment Levels 4-6 on Scribd.com

[RockabillySwing]

Hey there! I was searching the web and found this post. Just made an account real quick to say thanks! I have been looking all over for these original rules, in their original format! Can read up and start a game now ;). Thanks!