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.

The Dungeons beneath Clargarser

Detail of Nupo's basement. You can see the bed he slept in
during the plague outbreak

I am very happy that my wife is no longer merely willing to play Dungeons and Dragons with me, but also motivated enough to get isometric graph paper and map out the dungeon the party is exploring.

Level 1 of the Dungeons of Clargarser

The first level of the dungeon takes part of the lower half of the map from the Mad Demigod's Castle by Richard Graves. The first time the party went down into the dungeon I actually tried to use the Dungeon as written. Unfortunately, the dungeon is pretty boring and has basically no treasure. Here's a sampling:

3. A wooden table and a stool exist here. On top
of the table is a small box containing 89 nails.
A leather backpack that contains a dead
mouse and an empty potion bottle can be
found under some wooden debris along the
west wall.

Not quite the thrill that my people are looking for when they play  a game called Dungeons and Dragons. Here's one that's more interesting:

30. ROOM OF NAMES. The walls of this secret room
are made of smooth polished granite. Several
hundred names have been carefully
engraved on the walls in small silver letters.
These are the names of former adventurers
who perished while exploring the dungeons
under the Mad Demigod's Castle. Any PCs
that die while exploring the dungeons will
magically have their names added to the
walls of this room.

That is pretty good, but it's a secret room. That should be the first thing you see when you come down into the dungeon.  Any way, I took a couple elements from the Towers Two to try to add more interest,  redrew the map to make it less of wandering around in corridors, and added an artifact.

The Second Floor of the dungeon as explored so far. 

The second floor is still being explored. I am going for a classic Holmesian vibe as the dungeon gets deeper. So far the party has fought a giant slug next to a fast running underwater stream. You can see the slug on the map.

Here is the mini that was used for the giant slug.