My aged and grumbly self is glad that I didn’t start D&D with OD&D or the Holmes Basic Set. When I read through them now, there’s part of me that thinks I would never have continued playing that game. My aged and grumbly self is wrong, of course. He lives in a time where awesome games are everywhere. Not to sound like the guy who tells you about getting wherever it is in the show to wherever the fuck, but in my day there were only two avenues for awesome new games—D&D and the Atari. And contrary to popular belief, you did have to compete with parents for the Atari (at least Dad), so D&D was it…at least with those of us who liked to tinker with our games.
People play D&D because it is fun and they have a good DM. DMs play because they like to build and tinker. Even in the age of 3e and 4e, no two groups run D&D entirely the same. There are house rules and DMs uses different many tools to track initiative, or to illustrate movement in combat, and create a repository of information for their campaign (though I think most use the contents of their own head alone for this). D&D often defies the franchised experience model. And it is better for it. It didn’t stop whatever company owning it from trying to push forward an idea of a definitive product. Those companies usually fail. Reality and the conflict of ideas gets in their way. The Paizo/Wizards rift is just the most current example of this, but you don’t need competing companies for this to happen. Often it can occur in the same company.
It seems obvious to me that Gary Gygax and other powers at Ol’TSR fundamentally disagreed about that definitive product, and that’s why we got the AD&D / D&D dichotomy that was in existence when I played my first D&D game. For those of you who don’t know, from 1978 on, there were basically two different versions of the D&D game. The one in the hardback books, called AD&D, and the one in the boxes (mostly) called D&D. It was a strange division. They were so similar that to most of us the divisions seemed trivial. And both did a much better job of clearing up more of those WTF moments of earlier rules.
This classic Dave Trampier illustration of Emirikol the Chaotic from the 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide proves that chaotic is not stupid. Even Emirikol loves the certainty of magic missile.
Let’s look that wild and woolly sleep spell.
Sleep (Enchantment/Charm)
Level: 1 Components: V, S, M
Range: 3″ + 1″/level Casting Time: 1 segment
Duration: 5 rounds/level Saving Throw: None
Area of Effect: Special
Explanation/Description: When a magic-user casts a sleep spell, he or she will usually cause a comatose slumber to come upon one or more creatures [other than undead and certain other creatures specifically excluded (see Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Monster Manual) from the spell's effects]. All creatures to be affected by the sleep spell must be within a 3″ diameter circle. The number of creatures which can be affected is a function of their life energy levels, expressed as hit dice and hit points.
Creatures Number Affected
Hit Dice By Sleep Spell
up to 1 4-16 (4d4)
1+1 to 2 2-8 (2d4)
2+1 to 3 1-4 (1d4)
3+1 to 4 1-2 (1/2d4, round off)
4+1 to 4+4 0-1 (d4, 3 or 4)
The area of effect is determined by the range and area centered decided upon by the spell caster. Slapping or wounding will awaken affected creatures, but noise will not do so. Awakening requires 1 complete melee round. Note that sleeping creatures can be slain automatically at a rate of 1 per slayer per melee round. The material component for this spell is a pinch of fine sand, rose petals, or a live cricket. (1e AD&D Player’s Handbook, page 68)
Wow! Now that’s a lot more information. Not only are there a bunch of new rules items floating around the place (components!) we have some better organization as well. It’s got some wonky, but it’s an improvement from what we’ve seen. And three years later, we get this version in the Moldvay Basic Set.
Sleep Range: 240′
Duration: 4-16 turns
This spell will put creatures to sleep for 4d4 turns. The caster can only affect creatures with 4+1 hit dice or less. Only 1 creature with 4+1 hit dice will be affected; otherwise, the spell affects 2-16 (2d8) hit dice of creatures. The undead cannot be put to sleep. When affecting a group of creatures of mixed levels (hit dice), lower level creatures will always be put to sleep before higher level ones. Any pluses are ignored (for example, 2+1 hit dice is treated as 2 hit dice). Creatures with less than 1 hit dice are still considered as 1 hit die. Any sleeping creatures may be awakened by force (such as a slap). A sleeping creature may be killed (regardless of hit points) with a single blow with an edged weapon. EXAMPLE: A party encounters 4 hungry lizard men. Sarien, an elf, cats a sleep spell at them. The DM rolls 2d8; the result of 7 means that 7 levels of creatures are affected. Lizard men have 2+1 hit dice each treat as 2 for the effects of this spell. Three lizard men fall asleep: 7 divided by 2 equals 31/2, but a creature cannot be “partially” asleep from the spell. (D&D Basic Set [Moldvay], page B17)
This spell is in some ways is an improvement on the PH version and most of us back in the early 80s’ actually used hybrid version of the two. Typically we took order of hit dice affected and the slightly better explained wake-up rules. The edged weapon thing we ignored…as did everyone upon seeing a particular scene in Braveheart. There was definitely some talk back and forth between the two games. The Moldvay Basic Set was in the mind to keep some of the “simplicity” of the earlier game, but with a mind to improve upon the spells of AD&D. You can see that in magic missile as well. Here is the text from the Player’s Handbook.
Magic Missile (Evocation)
Level: 1 Components: V, S
Range: 6″ + 1″/level Casting Time: 1 segment
Duration: Special Saving Throw: None
Area of Effect: One of more creatures in a 10 square foot area.
Explanation/Description: Use of the magic missile spell creates one or more magical missiles which dart forth from the magic-user’s fingertips and unerringly strike their target. Each missile does 2 to 5 hit points (d4+1) of damage. If the magic-user has multiple missile capability, he or she can have them strike a single target creature or several creatures if desired. For each level of experience of the magic-user, the ranger of his or her magic missile extends 1″ bend the 6″ range. For every 2 levels of experience, the magic-user gains an additional missile, i.e. 2 at 3rd level, 3 at 5th level, 4 at 7th level, etc. (1e AD&D Player’s Handbook, page 67).
And here is the Moldvay version.
Magic Missile Range: 150′
Duration: 1 turn
A magic missile is a glowing arrow, created and shot by magic, which does 2-7 (1d6+1) points of damage to any creature it strikes. It will automatically hit any visible target. For every 5 levels the caster has gained, he or she may shoot two more missiles when casting this spell. EXAMPLE: a 6th level magic-user may cast three missiles. These may be shot at one target, of the caster may choose to cast the missiles at different targets. (D&D Basic Set [Moldvay], page B16)
You’ll notice that the Moldvay version keeps the old dice expression and the multiple missile progression, but moves in favor of the auto-hit that I know and love, but with the caveat that it strikes a visible target. This is also an improvement over the PH version, which was house-ruled into many AD&D games, including my own.
In many ways these spells or the combination of these spells became the recognized version. While 2e fiddled with the auto kill rule (which was a good thing) and put a limit on the wild 1e progression of magic missile, these spells stayed relatively untouched even through to 3e. So much so, that when 4e was released, the changes startled the fan base, but I’ll get to that later.