In January 1974, the original Dungeons & Dragons box set was released. Often this is referred to as OD&D or the “3 little brown booklets.” Much has been said about this, including multiple retroclones (like Delving Deeper and Fantastic Medieval Campaigns).
During Dave Arneson’s lawsuit against Gary Gygax and TSR, a 1973 draft of the game was submitted as evidence. It stayed buried in the archives of the case for nearly 50 years before it was unearthed by a variety of people. Now it’s available for anyone to read.
I had a hard time finding a link to this draft in a lot of the blog posts that talked about it, so here’s a link to the PDF:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gwiPJSxQEX6ozSluhi4RWRmGfM-HWN0u/view?usp=sharing
I won’t be going over it today, but here’s Arneson’s response:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gtojjrlTywMjKW7T-qjlm8vh8qVpxVCY/view?usp=sharing
But, I’m going to look at it today, because I’m a crazy person with a lot of time on my hands. And I’m going to post the interesting shit I find. Let’s ride.
The first real interesting thing is the XP table. Prior to this is an explanation of the ancestries in the game (at this point only elves and dwarves are called out, assuming humans as the default) and they mostly conform to the OD&D rules. The text is a little hard to read (these are scans of typewritten papers), and the way elves work is still as complicated and inscrutable as it always was.
But, the XP table!
1000 XP to level up a fighter? 500 to level up a cleric?! Easy game back then.
There are only 5 stats in D&D73: Intelligence, Cunning, Strength, Health and Appearance. Dexterity has not been added yet.
There is also a lot of language in the stat explanations about classes using other stats on a “2 for 1 basis” in their prime requisite area. I’m not sure what the fuck this is supposed to mean. This is all the rest it says about prime requisites:
Let’s move on to the rest of the class tables. Why the XP wasn’t just included in these tables, I don’t know, but hey, it’s 1973.
I’m mostly just showing this because it’s the most important part of any OSR style game, the TABLES.
Moving on, the game talks about the equipment list (also important) and retainers. It refers to NPCs as “non-real players” which is fucking hilarious.
Engineers are on the list of retainers and prices, but then crossed out with typewriter dashes.
Just thought this was interesting; table of magic users being able to create spell scrolls and potions.
Magical research!
I’ve never been a big fan of this rule, as it just seems to complicate shit, but it’s right here.
I don’t know if this table ever made it to OD&D or other versions of the game; it’s a matrix that determines what dungeon level relates to what hit die monster there will appear on the level. Here’s further results to go with it:
But then this next part was the thing that blew me the fuck away:
Actual mechanics for running away from monsters?? Was this in OD&D and I just fucking forgot somehow?
This is interesting, because it basically implies not that one should be using the Chainmail system or what’s eventually known as the “alternative combat system,” but in fact both in tandem depending on the combat situation.
The next section is a bunch of monster stuff and a section on castles. I’m not interested at this time in a big list of monster AC and hit die and comparing them against the released version or your favourite retroclone, you can do that yourself. But the fun thing is that there’s about 35 monsters which is bonkers.
Next up we got a random encounter table for overland travel:
I don’t have any idea what this page is saying:
Interesting little sample megadungeon layout!
Some stuff about overland travel there, and then we get to the spells. This is where I admit I do not have encyclopedic knowledge of the OD&D spells, so I can’t sit here and give a blow by blow of the spells and if they’re any different from the finished version. Then there’s the saving throws table:
The names of the saves have always changed around a bit. I like that paralysis and stone are one thing and spells is another–fuck wands, fuck staves, it’s always been confusing. These ones are clean. If I was gonna do an OSR (other than Knights of Diamond), this is what I would use.
I’ve reached the end of the draft now, so it’s time for me to move on. Check it out for yourself!
