Thanks. It's interesting how closely Moldvay hews to Holmes' structure. I wonder if he had the blue booklet at hand when he was writing it. The big difference I see is the addition of a "dungeon master information" section that tries to codify a process that Holmes alludes to but doesn't spend much time explaining. I'd be curious to know how many DMs from the class of '81 actually designed adventures as Moldvay recommended: choose a scenario, decide on a setting, pick "special monsters", stock the dungeon, and fill in details. My own method for designing dungeons in those heady days was far less top-down!
Good point about the influence of the structure of the Blue Book on the Moldvay rulebook. I wouldn't be surprised if Moldvay started his editing process with the Blue Book text. The original Gygax mention in Dragon of the Expert set made no mention of a revised Basic Set, so possibly they were just going to revise the Blue Book but took it further.
Awesome! I thought of doing something like this for B1, B2, but was just too lazy.
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's interesting how closely Moldvay hews to Holmes' structure. I wonder if he had the blue booklet at hand when he was writing it. The big difference I see is the addition of a "dungeon master information" section that tries to codify a process that Holmes alludes to but doesn't spend much time explaining. I'd be curious to know how many DMs from the class of '81 actually designed adventures as Moldvay recommended: choose a scenario, decide on a setting, pick "special monsters", stock the dungeon, and fill in details. My own method for designing dungeons in those heady days was far less top-down!
DeleteGreat graphic! Love the colors.
DeleteGood point about the influence of the structure of the Blue Book on the Moldvay rulebook. I wouldn't be surprised if Moldvay started his editing process with the Blue Book text. The original Gygax mention in Dragon of the Expert set made no mention of a revised Basic Set, so possibly they were just going to revise the Blue Book but took it further.