Stephen Colbert Started with Holmes Basic

Here is the whole thing. 

I am half watching Stephen Colbert play dungeons and dragons with Matt Mercer. I don't love watching other people play dnd but... well there is no but I'm not that into it.  But Stephen Colbert's first set of Dnd rules was Holmes Basic.  Readers probably now that Holmes is my favorite rule set so I was a little excited. Stephen then goes on to give a brief inaccurate summary of Tactical Studies Rules publishing history. Which is interesting because it demonstrates the confusion and difficulty of engaging with the hobby back in 1977. 

Here are some highlights from the Colbert publication history of Dnd:

He says that Men & Magic was a supplement. It wasn't it is the first of the 3 LBBs. But that makes me think that even back then these books were getting split up and applied piecemeal to cobble together a ruleset. 

He also describes Holmes Basic as a pamphlet not boxed set. Which is also how I first got a hold of the book. I got this copy from my uncle. I figured that my uncle had lost the rest but it turns out that the book was sold separately.

He refers to all the little brown books that predate Holmes as extra modules. He seems to think that they were published afterwards. My guess is that this is because his group was only able to track them down afterwards. 

The video provides an interesting window into how people found out about and experienced Dnd back in the 70's.