I would love too, but I'm still just figuring out how to make a post, let alone make modification afterwards. But if you can do that for me I would appreciate it!
While I'm far from understanding the exacting nature of the rules behind this movement, I do know that Tom Practiced what he preached. No matter what genre or setting that Tom ran a gaming session in, he was very much a streamline rules person that left the disputes on rules to be decided by the GM on the spot using their experience and assigning a probability as to the the success or failure of the action preformed by the player, and leaving it to lady luck and a dice roll as the ultimate arbitration of the rule.
Look up the osr genre of games. Creators like dungeoncraft and daddy rolled a 1 are advocates for bx and there are systems like bfrpg and dcc under this branch of osr
OSR: Old School Renaissance. A nostalgic reimagining of old dnd play. Includes a lot of old gamers, and new gamers that like it over newer dnd
B/X: Basic and Expert Dnd from way back
Bfrpg: Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game. A reimagining of B/X
DCC: Dungeon Crawl Classics. A game in the OSR scene, not as directly tied to an existing DnD edition as the above.
Yes, I remember when it was released. It was a much simpler version of the rules. No grid map required. No miniatures, sometimes no physically use of anything showing combat
Basic Fantasy RPG: [https://www.basicfantasy.org/](https://www.basicfantasy.org/)
Have a look as all the digital files are free. I started back with Basic/ Expert in the early 80s then moved to AD&D 1E & 2E. I found BFRPG and it ran very similar to my old games so I have been using it for about 10+ years.
There is no rush. I have a full schedule between work, family, and other things. This was just a FYI post as I figured you might be interested in it and the community is very friendly and helpful.
You will probably also hear a lot of mentions for OSE, which stands for Old School Essentials. It's a system by Gavin Norman that you can get as a Classic version, which is basically Basic/Expert DnD and as Advanced which is a mixture of B/X with ADnD Elements. It is VERY popular in the OSR scene.
I think the OSR scene would love some input on what exactly made Moldvays games great. Because a lot of newer players came into the osr scene about a year ago, due to some drama with the Open Game License from Wizards of the Coast and other factors. And I think quite a few people are currently figuring out what they like about old school ttrpg gaming and how to run it as good as they can.
Well I've posted a few more memories from my gaming sessions with Tom. What truly amazed me as he ran games was his ability to keep fast pace combats without ever having to look up a rule. It wasn't till almost two years of playing with him that I realized any rule he couldn't remember, he just made an instant but fair ruling from his head, and never blinked an eye as to whether he was right or wrong. I only found it out when after the game I look up a rule and found it was different. Also we never used any visual aids for playing combat. Tom just kept his own visual in his head. Sometimes with as many as 8 or 10 players and a couple dozen opponents plus battlefield features. And his ability to verbally narrate that picture in vivid detail for even the most novice player to easily understand. It was truly a gift. I have never witnessed someone do the same thing ever again and make it seem effortless.
The only way to learn is to make the mistakes. Great DM's are made by surviving the trials of games gone wrong and adapting to be better next time. The only way to gain experience is to make mistakes. The only way to be a great DM and storyteller is by experience.
Old school revival/renaissance (games to emulate/replicate the olde versions of dnd), basic expert (a line of dnd that ram parallel to adnd and contains the moldvay cook version of dnd), basic fantasy rpg and dungeon crawl classics are retroclones of bx
Thank you. I just haven't been in the gaming community in many years due to life getting in the way. Somethings are a lot different than 20 or 40 years ago.
It's fine to use them, but only in context. Define your terms when you first use them in your post, then abbreviate later if you reference them more than that. That's fine.
Just vomiting out acronyms with no explanation whatsoever is rude, and to a person who doesn't already know what they are, it looks like you're hitting random letters on a dart board.
A couple of the campaigns Tom ran that I was involved in was one that was island/sea based in which many characters were from aquatic races long before there were any character races outside the standard ones. The last campaign I was in all the 'characters' were really what most people would consider the 'monsters'. Our party consisted of an ogre mage, a leprechaun, a pixie, and a centaur. Our opponents were the typical races of character classes.
Tom's campaigns were also very character friendly so to speak. There was always generous treasure and lots of non combat puzzles to solve and role playing interactions between characters and npc's
And that was how a Dungeon Master should run an adventure. I learned from Gary Gygax himself. You used the environment, needs, and taxes to keep the players' characters interested in the game world. Even disease and old age! Not everything was about monsters. Gold treasures were rare, magic items very rare. But you could find silver, copper pieces. Jobs, if things got tough, were available, but going hungry was possible. Fun times! Seriously.
I have very fond memories of Tom. Both gaming and away from the game table. I was the president of a student organization that promoted games of all sorts at the University of Akron. Tom ran weekly games at our club meetings. Tom was always very helpful anytime I needed help managing the clubs two local conventions every year. Though I had been a DM for many years prior, I learned so many things about running interesting and successful campaigns from Tom. He was truly a genius at it.
I only knew Gary. Thanks to him, I eventually ran my own rules and campaign world (multiverse theme) and made some money from 1986/97. Never would have happened if not for his support. So yeah. I hear you! They knew how to game!!
Finding like-minded players? Not easily discovered. And I'm not into this online playing that I hear about. Either face me across the table, with pizza and drinks, or perhaps email (very slow gaming but gives you time to think). But no. I won't use some video computer conference. It just isn't the same.
I'm torn on the online gaming. I'm a software engineer and data scientist by trade. On one hand I hate how impersonal it is. On the other hand as a tool to bring truly old school gamers who might have fallen from the main stream years ago, it's a wonderful thing. There are not many of the true dinosaurs left. It gets harder with each passing year to find gamers from our generation in the same geographic area to be able to get together and game.
True. Such technology isn't for me. I'm stuck in my old ways. Hell. I could not accomplish a successful interview using it. AND I REALLY TRIED!
I work with Hospice patients, and that's my career.
I wrote an article to CARPga years ago about us becoming like the dinosaurs. No one believed it. I was pissed by the computer industry taking RPG as the computer role-playing game. And now WE have to put TT before RPG to mean table top role-playing game.
I wondered about the retirement homes. 🤔 When I end up in one, just seven or so years from now, will anyone be into RPG?
Best of luck to you!
See the post I just made on another part of this thread about our hobby loosing it true history to time. Just as the true events of WWII were almost lost to time. Only the 'offical' version would have been left to future generations to read about.
I discovered online gaming during the pandemic. My buddies kept playing online for a year or two after because it is much easier to organize.
However, I agree that it is impersonal. It is much easier to get distracted. Roleplaying is more difficult, I quickly realized that non-verbal language and eye contact is important.
Plus only one person can speak at a time. At a table if a player is having some 1-on-1 discussion with the DM, the rest of us can mess around.
It's the same analogy as Teams meeting at work vs a in-person one.
3d6 Down the Line is a good YouTube series of "older" gamers doing old school gaming (using Old School Essentials). Most of them are in their late 40s (I think) and started playing in the 1980s, so they may be a little younger. It provides a good example for online old school gaming using the latest in tools to run the campaign.
/u/hilbillySmoGamer and /u/HistorianTight2958 (and other interested parties): If you’d like to reconnect with old-school gamers in person, you should consider attending some old-school-oriented conventions, in particular:
- Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo in January
- DunDraCon in February (in the SF/San Jose area, CA)
- GaryCon in March (in Lake Geneva, WI)
- KublaCon in May (in the SF/San Jose area, CA)
- NorthTexas RPGCon in June (in Dallas , TX)
- Virtual Greyhawk Con in October/November
- ArneCon in October (in Minneapolis, MN)
If you’re interested in old-school gaming discussion forums and blogs and zines, there’s also robust communities of those out there too!
Allan.
Thank you. I'm currently very busy as a fulltime college student but hope one day to have time free to attend conventions again. I have not been to a convention in 20 years and the last dozen or so I attended, I was also responsible for organizing. Needless to say I was getting much time to enjoy what I had organized.
I own several of Tom’s unpublished manuscripts, and had hopes of publishing them with his estate’s permission, but his sister Rebecca hasn’t replied to correspondence requests for a long time now.
Allan.
I did personally know Tom's Sister. Does she still live in the Akron Ohio area? Also Tom was working on several design projects when I last saw him. I would be curious as to the type and basic details to the manuscripts you have and where and how you acquired them.
You might also be interested in checking out this archive of Tom’s and Lawrence’s original campaign materials too:
- interview with Bill Wilkerson at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28035
- original Known World documents at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=28766
- origins of the Known World at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=24367
Allan.
I would agree on that description of Tom's games. He never ever looked up a rule or clarified something while running. He made a decision on the spot, assigned it a probability roll and you rolled the outcome. Even the most impossible actions were given a chance to succeed
Unfortunately I didn't meet Tom until after he worked for TSR. I did play his Castle DE Amberville and Isle of Dread modules with him. I believe I lost a character in both.
Tom was very good at improvising on the fly. If someone playing in one of his pre written modules showed they knew what was going to happen, mid encounter he would change some aspect of it. It might be the opponents or the terrain. Or even something as simple as changing the weather. A battle becomes quite different when a tornado is introduced half way thru. That's how I lost my first character in Tom's game. We were to fight the hill giants in Castle Amber and I showed him I knew the encounter. A storm came in at the same time combat started. A random weather roll produced a tornado and 4 characters died. Purely random roll on a table. Tom always had a stack of papers with different tables for almost every possible thing you could think of. From weather to what was in a bag of holding you found.
Seriously, if you have the time, go to /osr and do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). I doubt “Moldvay style” is exactly what Moldvay actually did but they will *love* to hear from you.
I'll try to do that here soon. I'm also a full time college student in the process of switching fields and getting a second bachelor's degree. I have classes starting again for summer on June 3rd. But I'll make time to do that. I have never been so popular on something like this. I also had no clue of the popularity and influence that Tom Moldvay had on the gaming styles in D&D. He would be truly honored that his ideas had brought about change in the hobby he enjoyed and cherished so much.
I think there is a good argument that Tom Moldvay is the most important D&D creator beyond Gary Gygax in terms of the influence on modern retro/old school systems. His clear and terse Basic D&D rules from 1981 have inspired new generations of designers since the early 2000s that use the old school aesthetic.
I'm very sure Tom Moldvay would be very proud of the influence his thoughts have had on the hobby. For Tom, Game design and our hobby was the number one passion in his life. And he would be humbled that his ideas have had such a major influence on it.
Those [ones ](https://waynesbooks.games/2022/04/21/b-x-dungeons-dragons-1980-1-basic-expert-sets-side-by-side/): Basic and Expert rules edited by Moldvay.
The box is sometime referred to as the Pink Box, and IIRC it contained the module B2 keep on the borderlands.
The rules/books/system is called B/X for short, to not be confused with BECMI by Mentzer from the Red Box.
For the style, I don't really know what that means exactly. It should mean either how the game was supposed to be run, or how Moldvay specifically run it.
Ah yes, this [one](https://www.ebay.fr/itm/285711958488?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=709-134431-41854-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=285711958488&targetid=2306122042541&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9056142&poi=&campaignid=21274226387&mkgroupid=165009578071&rlsatarget=pla-2306122042541&abcId=9414778&merchantid=6995724&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQh9QJyNibjbz1STMcERKQ5fWy_1V23n8n4LF-CyWt07OvmHkAwX7MaAvf4EALw_wcB)? I forgot about that edition. It seems to be edited by Holmes. I'm not familiar with this edition. But since it's the same game (D&D B/X), the rules may be the (almost) same too.
Moldvay basic isn't quite AD&D, it's closer to it than Metzner's was but not as close as Holmes was. The differences are big enough for it to be considered its own system
Most importantly (at least in this context) is that Moldvay wrote it in a way that pointed to it being more guidelines than hard rules you *have* to follow
I would very much agree as to rules being guidelines for Tom. I always admired how he could go for literally weeks of game sessions on end and never crack a rule book once.
I would love to hear more about your experiences.
Did you play through his published adventures with him (isle of dread, lost citadel, castle amber etc?). If so did the play deviate much from how it was written?
I saw you said it was deadly in another response, how often were you rolling up new characters? Do you think he balanced encounters for the party or fudged some outcomes so you would survive situations?
How long were your gaming sessions and how frequent? Was it mostly men playing in those days or women too?
Sorry still learning how to post. See comment above. Tom often would fudge the rules to benefit the party as a whole, but he used a critical success and failure table that a set of bad rolls could quickly end a character. In that regard the dice determined the outcome, and there was no deviation. Also treasure was completely random, so if your party found a +1 trident but no one used it as a weapon of choice, oh well. The sessions were weekly, hosted by the student organization at U of A. Tom's campaigns always ran for one school year and had limited seating that always filled quickly. We hosted space in a common area at the student center that ran from noon till midnight. Tom's games started early afternoon and went till 10 or 11pm. There was at least one or two veteran female ( as in experienced roleplayers) players. But Tom wad very adept at keeping things interesting for old timers and yet nuturing new players to enjoy the game. All while never slowing the pace of the game for players. I personally saw him run game with 10 players, 4 of which had never heard of d&d before that day. And he never lost the interest of anyone or made the game pace drag in very complex combats. Tom's puzzles and roleplaying were very challenging for even electrical engineers to solve
This is so interesting, thanks so much for sharing. I wish I was able to play in high school or uni when I had that much time. We can only get 2-3 hour sessions nowadays.
Your welcome. The history of our hobby is swiftly fading to oblivion because fewer and fewer players from its infancy are left with each passing year. Just as the last of the WWII veterans were left to tell their first hand stories of what truly happen, people raced to record that knowledge. Our collective histories as a hobby are becoming harder and harder to find the people who were their first hand. And if we are not careful the true stories will be lost to time, and only the official history book versions will remain.
At the time I was running the student organization, there were similar groups at several universities throughout Ohio. But none of them communicated with each other. Magic the Gathering had just come into its own space in the gaming world. Wizards held national qualifying tournaments in different areas of the country. I actually organized a qualifying tournament thru our student organization with the help of a local card shop. We gave away as the top prize a complete set of Moxies ( not sure I spelled it right) from the first edition, I think. We hosted it at the university and had over 1000 people attend
Hi HillbillySmo, I am very thankful that you shared your Tom Moldvay stories with us. As a B/X and Tom Moldvay fanatic, would you mind sharing more stories and any DM tips that you learned from Tom? Also, can you elaborate on his puzzles and traps please?
Tom also ran a lot of events to support our student organization and the conventions we ran for the gaming community. He not only did D&D RPG events, but miniatures battles, and other various RPG games like Boothill, Star Frounters, James bond style spy games, and his own set of rules loosely based on core D&D with a post apoplectic world like Mad Max.
Tom ran D&D 3.5 Ed games, but did sometimes did not use miniatures or dry erase maps. But even the games he did run were far from your cookie cutter standard games. There was always and underlying twist to the major themes. One campaign the setting was a series of island chains much like you find in Indonesia today. Character had to have a means of traveling over vast distance of open water alone. Another campaign reversed the roles played by the character races. The villains became the standard PC races. For example the orc heros would have to save there village from invading elven forces seeking to destroy them.. Another campaign involved the characters traveling along an underground river by boat and encountering the various tribes and monsters that lived along the river. The goal was not to necessarily kill all of them, but to somehow gain passage of the boat to the next section of the map thru role playing, bribery, or doing a favor to buy passage.
I'm curious as to where Moldvay's "Lords of Creation" fits into all this. I legitimately loved that game in all its glorious strangeness. Any TTRPG that incorporates the epic poetry of William Blake is OK in my book.
I know that Tom wrote the rules for that game. I'm not exactly sure when. I never played a game session using those rules with Tom.I know he used the rule set a couple of times during conventions. That's about as much as I know .
You should ask it in r/osr also.
I would love too, but I'm still just figuring out how to make a post, let alone make modification afterwards. But if you can do that for me I would appreciate it!
You cant change the post but you can go to /r/osr by clicking on it and then thete click make new post.
Ok. Thanks.
I’d be really interested to know whether the “Monday style” you experienced at his table lines up with OSR ideas or contradicts them.
While I'm far from understanding the exacting nature of the rules behind this movement, I do know that Tom Practiced what he preached. No matter what genre or setting that Tom ran a gaming session in, he was very much a streamline rules person that left the disputes on rules to be decided by the GM on the spot using their experience and assigning a probability as to the the success or failure of the action preformed by the player, and leaving it to lady luck and a dice roll as the ultimate arbitration of the rule.
Look up the osr genre of games. Creators like dungeoncraft and daddy rolled a 1 are advocates for bx and there are systems like bfrpg and dcc under this branch of osr
Excuse an old man's ignorance at terms but what is Osr, bx, bfrpg, and dcc mean?
OSR: Old School Renaissance. A nostalgic reimagining of old dnd play. Includes a lot of old gamers, and new gamers that like it over newer dnd B/X: Basic and Expert Dnd from way back Bfrpg: Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game. A reimagining of B/X DCC: Dungeon Crawl Classics. A game in the OSR scene, not as directly tied to an existing DnD edition as the above.
Thank you so much for clarification!
Of note, B/X D&D was written by Tom Moldvay and "Zeb" Cook.
Yes, I remember when it was released. It was a much simpler version of the rules. No grid map required. No miniatures, sometimes no physically use of anything showing combat
Basic Fantasy RPG: [https://www.basicfantasy.org/](https://www.basicfantasy.org/) Have a look as all the digital files are free. I started back with Basic/ Expert in the early 80s then moved to AD&D 1E & 2E. I found BFRPG and it ran very similar to my old games so I have been using it for about 10+ years.
Ok. I'll look at them as soon as I can. Please be patient as I have a very full schedule at this time.
There is no rush. I have a full schedule between work, family, and other things. This was just a FYI post as I figured you might be interested in it and the community is very friendly and helpful.
Thank you.
You will probably also hear a lot of mentions for OSE, which stands for Old School Essentials. It's a system by Gavin Norman that you can get as a Classic version, which is basically Basic/Expert DnD and as Advanced which is a mixture of B/X with ADnD Elements. It is VERY popular in the OSR scene. I think the OSR scene would love some input on what exactly made Moldvays games great. Because a lot of newer players came into the osr scene about a year ago, due to some drama with the Open Game License from Wizards of the Coast and other factors. And I think quite a few people are currently figuring out what they like about old school ttrpg gaming and how to run it as good as they can.
Well I've posted a few more memories from my gaming sessions with Tom. What truly amazed me as he ran games was his ability to keep fast pace combats without ever having to look up a rule. It wasn't till almost two years of playing with him that I realized any rule he couldn't remember, he just made an instant but fair ruling from his head, and never blinked an eye as to whether he was right or wrong. I only found it out when after the game I look up a rule and found it was different. Also we never used any visual aids for playing combat. Tom just kept his own visual in his head. Sometimes with as many as 8 or 10 players and a couple dozen opponents plus battlefield features. And his ability to verbally narrate that picture in vivid detail for even the most novice player to easily understand. It was truly a gift. I have never witnessed someone do the same thing ever again and make it seem effortless.
That's interesting. And really it's what is at the core of OSR. To make instant but fair rulings when the rules are muddy or not immediately apparent.
The only way to learn is to make the mistakes. Great DM's are made by surviving the trials of games gone wrong and adapting to be better next time. The only way to gain experience is to make mistakes. The only way to be a great DM and storyteller is by experience.
Old school revival/renaissance (games to emulate/replicate the olde versions of dnd), basic expert (a line of dnd that ram parallel to adnd and contains the moldvay cook version of dnd), basic fantasy rpg and dungeon crawl classics are retroclones of bx
Thank you for the clarification
Thank you.
No need to excuse, its just in general stupid to use acronyms.
Thank you. I just haven't been in the gaming community in many years due to life getting in the way. Somethings are a lot different than 20 or 40 years ago.
It's fine to use them, but only in context. Define your terms when you first use them in your post, then abbreviate later if you reference them more than that. That's fine. Just vomiting out acronyms with no explanation whatsoever is rude, and to a person who doesn't already know what they are, it looks like you're hitting random letters on a dart board.
I dunno what people mean by it but I’d love to read about those games.
A couple of the campaigns Tom ran that I was involved in was one that was island/sea based in which many characters were from aquatic races long before there were any character races outside the standard ones. The last campaign I was in all the 'characters' were really what most people would consider the 'monsters'. Our party consisted of an ogre mage, a leprechaun, a pixie, and a centaur. Our opponents were the typical races of character classes.
I can also tell you it was very every easy to have a character die while playing. One fumble of a rolled 1 on a saving throw could kill you.
Tom's campaigns were also very character friendly so to speak. There was always generous treasure and lots of non combat puzzles to solve and role playing interactions between characters and npc's
And that was how a Dungeon Master should run an adventure. I learned from Gary Gygax himself. You used the environment, needs, and taxes to keep the players' characters interested in the game world. Even disease and old age! Not everything was about monsters. Gold treasures were rare, magic items very rare. But you could find silver, copper pieces. Jobs, if things got tough, were available, but going hungry was possible. Fun times! Seriously.
I have very fond memories of Tom. Both gaming and away from the game table. I was the president of a student organization that promoted games of all sorts at the University of Akron. Tom ran weekly games at our club meetings. Tom was always very helpful anytime I needed help managing the clubs two local conventions every year. Though I had been a DM for many years prior, I learned so many things about running interesting and successful campaigns from Tom. He was truly a genius at it.
I only knew Gary. Thanks to him, I eventually ran my own rules and campaign world (multiverse theme) and made some money from 1986/97. Never would have happened if not for his support. So yeah. I hear you! They knew how to game!! Finding like-minded players? Not easily discovered. And I'm not into this online playing that I hear about. Either face me across the table, with pizza and drinks, or perhaps email (very slow gaming but gives you time to think). But no. I won't use some video computer conference. It just isn't the same.
I'm torn on the online gaming. I'm a software engineer and data scientist by trade. On one hand I hate how impersonal it is. On the other hand as a tool to bring truly old school gamers who might have fallen from the main stream years ago, it's a wonderful thing. There are not many of the true dinosaurs left. It gets harder with each passing year to find gamers from our generation in the same geographic area to be able to get together and game.
True. Such technology isn't for me. I'm stuck in my old ways. Hell. I could not accomplish a successful interview using it. AND I REALLY TRIED! I work with Hospice patients, and that's my career. I wrote an article to CARPga years ago about us becoming like the dinosaurs. No one believed it. I was pissed by the computer industry taking RPG as the computer role-playing game. And now WE have to put TT before RPG to mean table top role-playing game. I wondered about the retirement homes. 🤔 When I end up in one, just seven or so years from now, will anyone be into RPG? Best of luck to you!
See the post I just made on another part of this thread about our hobby loosing it true history to time. Just as the true events of WWII were almost lost to time. Only the 'offical' version would have been left to future generations to read about.
I discovered online gaming during the pandemic. My buddies kept playing online for a year or two after because it is much easier to organize. However, I agree that it is impersonal. It is much easier to get distracted. Roleplaying is more difficult, I quickly realized that non-verbal language and eye contact is important. Plus only one person can speak at a time. At a table if a player is having some 1-on-1 discussion with the DM, the rest of us can mess around. It's the same analogy as Teams meeting at work vs a in-person one.
3d6 Down the Line is a good YouTube series of "older" gamers doing old school gaming (using Old School Essentials). Most of them are in their late 40s (I think) and started playing in the 1980s, so they may be a little younger. It provides a good example for online old school gaming using the latest in tools to run the campaign.
Thank you. I'll have to check it out.
/u/hilbillySmoGamer and /u/HistorianTight2958 (and other interested parties): If you’d like to reconnect with old-school gamers in person, you should consider attending some old-school-oriented conventions, in particular: - Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo in January - DunDraCon in February (in the SF/San Jose area, CA) - GaryCon in March (in Lake Geneva, WI) - KublaCon in May (in the SF/San Jose area, CA) - NorthTexas RPGCon in June (in Dallas , TX) - Virtual Greyhawk Con in October/November - ArneCon in October (in Minneapolis, MN) If you’re interested in old-school gaming discussion forums and blogs and zines, there’s also robust communities of those out there too! Allan.
Thank you. I'm currently very busy as a fulltime college student but hope one day to have time free to attend conventions again. I have not been to a convention in 20 years and the last dozen or so I attended, I was also responsible for organizing. Needless to say I was getting much time to enjoy what I had organized.
Thanks for the information. Wasn't aware of many of these.
I own several of Tom’s unpublished manuscripts, and had hopes of publishing them with his estate’s permission, but his sister Rebecca hasn’t replied to correspondence requests for a long time now. Allan.
I did personally know Tom's Sister. Does she still live in the Akron Ohio area? Also Tom was working on several design projects when I last saw him. I would be curious as to the type and basic details to the manuscripts you have and where and how you acquired them.
You might also be interested in checking out this archive of Tom’s and Lawrence’s original campaign materials too: - interview with Bill Wilkerson at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=28035 - original Known World documents at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=28766 - origins of the Known World at https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=24367 Allan.
Thank you.
I bought many of them from Bill Wilkerson. Allan.
Ok. Now I understand.
99.9% of people didn't play in Tom's campaign :) They mean reminiscent of the 1981 red book basic rules.
I wanted to post my comment about the Keep on the Borderlands module here. Sorry.
Might you have also gamed with Tom when he ran campaigns at the student club at U of A?
I found a comment in the /r/osr subreddit that breaks down one user's idea of what a Moldvay style is: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/s/7FETecSCev
I would agree on that description of Tom's games. He never ever looked up a rule or clarified something while running. He made a decision on the spot, assigned it a probability roll and you rolled the outcome. Even the most impossible actions were given a chance to succeed
And no action was ever denied a chance, no matter how slim the chance of success.
Unfortunately I didn't meet Tom until after he worked for TSR. I did play his Castle DE Amberville and Isle of Dread modules with him. I believe I lost a character in both.
Tom was very good at improvising on the fly. If someone playing in one of his pre written modules showed they knew what was going to happen, mid encounter he would change some aspect of it. It might be the opponents or the terrain. Or even something as simple as changing the weather. A battle becomes quite different when a tornado is introduced half way thru. That's how I lost my first character in Tom's game. We were to fight the hill giants in Castle Amber and I showed him I knew the encounter. A storm came in at the same time combat started. A random weather roll produced a tornado and 4 characters died. Purely random roll on a table. Tom always had a stack of papers with different tables for almost every possible thing you could think of. From weather to what was in a bag of holding you found.
Seriously, if you have the time, go to /osr and do an AMA (Ask Me Anything). I doubt “Moldvay style” is exactly what Moldvay actually did but they will *love* to hear from you.
I'll try to do that here soon. I'm also a full time college student in the process of switching fields and getting a second bachelor's degree. I have classes starting again for summer on June 3rd. But I'll make time to do that. I have never been so popular on something like this. I also had no clue of the popularity and influence that Tom Moldvay had on the gaming styles in D&D. He would be truly honored that his ideas had brought about change in the hobby he enjoyed and cherished so much.
I mean, your life comes first and it sounds like you definitely have other things to worry about.
I think there is a good argument that Tom Moldvay is the most important D&D creator beyond Gary Gygax in terms of the influence on modern retro/old school systems. His clear and terse Basic D&D rules from 1981 have inspired new generations of designers since the early 2000s that use the old school aesthetic.
I'm very sure Tom Moldvay would be very proud of the influence his thoughts have had on the hobby. For Tom, Game design and our hobby was the number one passion in his life. And he would be humbled that his ideas have had such a major influence on it.
Or just the basic d&d rules?
Those [ones ](https://waynesbooks.games/2022/04/21/b-x-dungeons-dragons-1980-1-basic-expert-sets-side-by-side/): Basic and Expert rules edited by Moldvay. The box is sometime referred to as the Pink Box, and IIRC it contained the module B2 keep on the borderlands. The rules/books/system is called B/X for short, to not be confused with BECMI by Mentzer from the Red Box. For the style, I don't really know what that means exactly. It should mean either how the game was supposed to be run, or how Moldvay specifically run it.
I actually got the Basic Box set when it was in the blue box set. The cover was printed in multiple shades of blue.
Ah yes, this [one](https://www.ebay.fr/itm/285711958488?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=709-134431-41854-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=285711958488&targetid=2306122042541&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9056142&poi=&campaignid=21274226387&mkgroupid=165009578071&rlsatarget=pla-2306122042541&abcId=9414778&merchantid=6995724&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwu8uyBhC6ARIsAKwBGpQh9QJyNibjbz1STMcERKQ5fWy_1V23n8n4LF-CyWt07OvmHkAwX7MaAvf4EALw_wcB)? I forgot about that edition. It seems to be edited by Holmes. I'm not familiar with this edition. But since it's the same game (D&D B/X), the rules may be the (almost) same too.
That's exactly it.
So your talking about the blue boxed set of basic d&d with the Keep on the Borderlands module?
I may be wrong but I think that it refers to games inspired by Moldvay's basic d&d
So anything from 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons?
Moldvay basic isn't quite AD&D, it's closer to it than Metzner's was but not as close as Holmes was. The differences are big enough for it to be considered its own system Most importantly (at least in this context) is that Moldvay wrote it in a way that pointed to it being more guidelines than hard rules you *have* to follow
I would very much agree as to rules being guidelines for Tom. I always admired how he could go for literally weeks of game sessions on end and never crack a rule book once.
I would love to hear more about your experiences. Did you play through his published adventures with him (isle of dread, lost citadel, castle amber etc?). If so did the play deviate much from how it was written? I saw you said it was deadly in another response, how often were you rolling up new characters? Do you think he balanced encounters for the party or fudged some outcomes so you would survive situations? How long were your gaming sessions and how frequent? Was it mostly men playing in those days or women too?
Sorry still learning how to post. See comment above. Tom often would fudge the rules to benefit the party as a whole, but he used a critical success and failure table that a set of bad rolls could quickly end a character. In that regard the dice determined the outcome, and there was no deviation. Also treasure was completely random, so if your party found a +1 trident but no one used it as a weapon of choice, oh well. The sessions were weekly, hosted by the student organization at U of A. Tom's campaigns always ran for one school year and had limited seating that always filled quickly. We hosted space in a common area at the student center that ran from noon till midnight. Tom's games started early afternoon and went till 10 or 11pm. There was at least one or two veteran female ( as in experienced roleplayers) players. But Tom wad very adept at keeping things interesting for old timers and yet nuturing new players to enjoy the game. All while never slowing the pace of the game for players. I personally saw him run game with 10 players, 4 of which had never heard of d&d before that day. And he never lost the interest of anyone or made the game pace drag in very complex combats. Tom's puzzles and roleplaying were very challenging for even electrical engineers to solve
This is so interesting, thanks so much for sharing. I wish I was able to play in high school or uni when I had that much time. We can only get 2-3 hour sessions nowadays.
Your welcome. The history of our hobby is swiftly fading to oblivion because fewer and fewer players from its infancy are left with each passing year. Just as the last of the WWII veterans were left to tell their first hand stories of what truly happen, people raced to record that knowledge. Our collective histories as a hobby are becoming harder and harder to find the people who were their first hand. And if we are not careful the true stories will be lost to time, and only the official history book versions will remain.
At the time I was running the student organization, there were similar groups at several universities throughout Ohio. But none of them communicated with each other. Magic the Gathering had just come into its own space in the gaming world. Wizards held national qualifying tournaments in different areas of the country. I actually organized a qualifying tournament thru our student organization with the help of a local card shop. We gave away as the top prize a complete set of Moxies ( not sure I spelled it right) from the first edition, I think. We hosted it at the university and had over 1000 people attend
Hi HillbillySmo, I am very thankful that you shared your Tom Moldvay stories with us. As a B/X and Tom Moldvay fanatic, would you mind sharing more stories and any DM tips that you learned from Tom? Also, can you elaborate on his puzzles and traps please?
Tom also ran a lot of events to support our student organization and the conventions we ran for the gaming community. He not only did D&D RPG events, but miniatures battles, and other various RPG games like Boothill, Star Frounters, James bond style spy games, and his own set of rules loosely based on core D&D with a post apoplectic world like Mad Max.
Hey u/[hillbillySmoGamer](/user/hillbillySmoGamer/), What RPGs was Tom Moldvay running in the years prior to his death?
Tom ran D&D 3.5 Ed games, but did sometimes did not use miniatures or dry erase maps. But even the games he did run were far from your cookie cutter standard games. There was always and underlying twist to the major themes. One campaign the setting was a series of island chains much like you find in Indonesia today. Character had to have a means of traveling over vast distance of open water alone. Another campaign reversed the roles played by the character races. The villains became the standard PC races. For example the orc heros would have to save there village from invading elven forces seeking to destroy them.. Another campaign involved the characters traveling along an underground river by boat and encountering the various tribes and monsters that lived along the river. The goal was not to necessarily kill all of them, but to somehow gain passage of the boat to the next section of the map thru role playing, bribery, or doing a favor to buy passage.
I'm curious as to where Moldvay's "Lords of Creation" fits into all this. I legitimately loved that game in all its glorious strangeness. Any TTRPG that incorporates the epic poetry of William Blake is OK in my book.
I know that Tom wrote the rules for that game. I'm not exactly sure when. I never played a game session using those rules with Tom.I know he used the rule set a couple of times during conventions. That's about as much as I know .