I recently read that Dr. Holmes, the author of the D&D Blue Book edition has recently passed away. It was is his edition of D&D that got me started on this whole mess :D.
I can still remember rolling up a magic user and heading underneath Porttown, taking a right and running into some skeletons. I let loose my lone magic missile which didn't down a single one. I was left trying to hit them with my staff. After I got hit once I was down to a single hit point. Using the parry rule I starting parrying successfully fending off the skeleton's attack for a while. However if I moved away or dropped the parry they would get a free attack on me. Stymied I just sat there until one of them got a lucky shot and dropped me.
And thus I died.
Thanks Dr. Holmes and god bless you.
Your tale is as inspirational as Dr. Holmes' set of rules. Roll on, fair warriors, role on!
ReplyDeleteWhile I'm too young to have played the Blue Book, that seems very similar to the time when my wizard got killed by goblins when trying to save the unicorn Alabern in 3.0.
ReplyDeleteAnother great thing about JEH was the Boinger the Halfling and Zereth the Elf stories: The Adventure of the Lost City (Alarums & Excursions, no. 17 Dec. 1976 and no. 19 Feb. 1977), Trollshead (The Dragon, no. 31 Nov. 1979), The Sorcerer's Jewel (The Dragon, no. 46 Feb. 1981), In the Bag (The Dragon, no. 58 Feb. 1982) and The Maze of Peril (ISBN 0-917053-05-2 Nov. 1986). I have all of them but all the appearances in Alarums & Excursions.
ReplyDeleteI love these stories and think the characters are awesome. I remember reading them when I was first collecting The Dragon and have always wanted them to show up in a game, either by playing one of them or as NPCs.
You can find more info on JEH's Boinger and Zereth series (as well as JEH's other writings) at http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16989 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Eric_Holmes and http://www.acaeum.com/forum/about3318.html and http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=38933&start=0