The first post to my blog was on Sept. 22, 2013. That was four years after I had gotten back into the same old-school gaming I had enjoyed as a kid, thanks to one of a handful of the first retro-clones Swords & Wizardry White Box (link is to a PDF of the first printing, no longer available in print).
That first post had an image of my gaming collection – just one bookshelf! Now that has increased to four shelves. Of course this is just what I wanted to collect in print over the years – like many in this hobby, I have a large digital collection of games as well. But I still prefer print copies of the classic games.
Much has changed with the OSR in the past 10 years, and much is the same. Mainly I think there is more fragmentation as people joined groups on various social media platforms when some of the original forums, along with G+ went away. But I’m happy that there seems to be a resurgence in OSR blogs, and forums are definitely not dead, with some of the largest from 10 years ago (or longer) still online. In my opinion the blogs and forums are where the old-school gaming community should congregate, discuss and share ideas, as they are indexed by search engines and the Internet Archive. Facebook, MeWe, Discord and the like are not public in that sense, and anything posted to those platforms is lost when they go away. I created my own public forum in 2016 in reaction to the Swords & Wizardry forums being taken offline, and in 2017 I created a static snapshot of the Goblinoid Games forums, just before they too were taken offline.
2013 was also the year our current gaming group was formed, and it’s still going strong today. It’s not a overstatement to say that these games, gaming friends and the OSR in general have been a major part of my life for the past decade. So thanks again to the OSR and the many people that make it fun, and here’s hoping to another 10 years!
We know, thanks to Zenopus’s study of the Holmes manuscript, that the Elf was written up originally by Holmes as it was in OD&D – where the player chose to be a Fighting Man (FM) or Magic-User (MU) at the start of each game session. This text was removed in the published version of the rules (presumably) in order to steer it more closely to the AD&D multi-class model.
But if we ignore the intent or the history, and just want to play an Elf strictly by-the-book in Holmes, up to level three, how would we do it? Let’s start with the key facts about Elves as written:
They have the advantages of both FM and MUs, referring to armor, weapon and spell use.
They progress as both a FM and a MU, splitting experience equally each game, making them progress more slowly than other classes.
They use d6 hit dice.
In the advancement charts on p. 11, we can see the first table is titled “Fighting Men, Elves, Halflings and Dwarves”, to imply we should be using the FM advancement table for Elves.
Just below the charts, there is the text “Elves progress in two areas – fighting man and magic-user”, to imply we should also be using the MU advancement table for Elves.
Elves encountered as monsters will have a leader of FM level 2-4 and MU level 2-8.
This list raises some more questions, however. When do Elves gain hit dice (HD), and can they wear armor and cast spells at the same time?
I’d argue that as written, Elves can indeed wear armor and cast spells simultaneously, just due to #1, above, and due to the fact that there is no other qualifying language regarding Elvish use of spells and armor in the Holmes rulebook. Reconciling #2 through #5 is a bit harder, but I think the following does it:
Each game, keep track of the total XP earned, but track it at double the cost and ignore the MU HD progression. The effect will be that when you gain a level as a FM, you add a HD (but 1d6 instead of 1d8), and when you gain a level as a MU, you add spells. You can use this combined table for advancement to see how it works.
This table can be easily extended to higher levels, and I think it’s an elegant way to handle Elves.
Obviously, we’re assuming that Elves don’t progress at matched levels, i.e. they don’t progress from level 1/1 directly to level 2/2, and finally to level 3/3. This is due to #6, above, and due to the fact that you must split the XP evenly between the two classes.
In the 1974 D&D rules, encumbrance was tracked in coins. The PC’s miscellaneous equipment was assumed to always weigh 80 coins. To that, one added armor and weapon weights (in coin equivalents), and the actual number of coins carried to come up with a total, which could be mapped to a movement rate. Ostensibly 10 coins weighed one pound, but you did not need to know this fact to calculate encumbrance. In that system, 3000 coins is the maximum a PC can carry.
This is an elegant system, because it did not force the player to track individual equipment weights. I think one of the biggest mistakes later systems and various old school D&D clones made was discarding this system and providing a weight in pounds (or kilograms, stone etc.) for every single bit of equipment. I’ve noted before that tracking encumbrance this way is a fun-sucking exercise, and I have never used it when I run games. Using it as written slows down character creation to a crawl.
The system I’ve settled on is an even simpler one, and in the finest old-school tradition is a mix of rules from OD&D, Pits & Perils, and Holmes Basic. A PC can carry a reasonable amount of gear, armor, and weapons, plus 1200 coins – no more. In the original game, strength does not directly affect attack or damage rolls, or give any direct bonuses or penalties at all. What I do is give PCs with a STR of 15 or more an added 600 coin carrying capacity (so 1800 coins). With a STR of six or less, they can carry only 600 coins. 20 coins of any type weigh one pound, but again this fact is not needed to calculate encumbrance. I think this directs the player attention away from miscellaneous equipment weights back to coins, where it should be. After all, when 1GP = 1XP, treasure becomes more important than defeating monsters, and is the end goal of any dungeon or overland expedition – to gain XP and advance levels. But what is “reasonable”? Here we can take a tip from Holmes and have players note on their character sheets where their equipment lives. To do this quickly the character sheet can be sectioned by container – so one heading would be “backpack”, another would be “large sack”, and then maybe “belt”. Then the players just list the items in each section.
How does this tie in with movement? In line with the original rules, there are three movement rates, corresponding with armor worn.
None/Leather/Magic or Elven chain: 12″ Chain/Magic plate: 9″ Plate: 6″
You can see that magic armor in this system is treated as the next higher category to reflect its lower encumbrance.
A character can carry up to their maximum allotted coin weight with no change – but once they hit 1200 coins, they drop 3″ to the next lower rate. So, for example, if Drizzle the M-U has a STR of 9 and carries 1,200 coins, his move rate is 9″ and he can carry no more. To make things even easier, a large sack holds (you guessed it) 1200 coins.
Apart from keeping track of coins, which players do anyway, and being aware of armor worn, there is nothing more to do as far as figuring out movement rate. You might also like to figure coin-equivalent weights for other common items of treasure, like gems or jewelry. But it’s not strictly necessary unless your players stumble onto a dragon’s hoard.
I’ve been considering using the Judge’s Guild Ready Ref Sheets to streamline initiative in my White Box games. Â If you haven’t seen the Ready Ref Sheets, they were released in 1978 as a referee’s aid for OD&D. They have some really great random tables and include the usual monster listings and attack tables. I bought two physical copies a few years ago at the original cover price.
Anyway, one of the tables in the book is titled ‘Weapon Priority’. Here it is:
The way I would use it as a player would be to pre-calculate my priority number by weapon. That probably won’t change much, unless the character’s dexterity changes, or they lose their armor to a rust monster, say. For spellcasters, I would write down my priority number by spell level, or note what it is when reading a scroll. As a referee, I would make the priority number part of a monster’s stat block. That would speed up combat a bit, by removing the need for an initiative roll. But what I really think is neat about this is that it would allow players to make tactical decisions around weapon choice. If I were playing a fighter, I would make a point to carry a longer weapon like a spear, and a missile weapon, in addition to a sword. As a M-U I would favor memorized spells over reading a scroll, given a choice.
The note at the bottom “In case of a tie compare actual dexterity ratings” is interesting. That seems to imply that monsters have a dexterity, which implies this table was created with Holmes Basic in mind. The copyright date supports that, although the combat tables reference the Greyhawk OD&D supplement, not Holmes. Both would have been in print at the time the Ready Ref Sheets were published (note in comments – according to Zach Howard/Zenopus, this table first appeared in 1976, in JG’s Thunderhold, so it pre-dated Holmes Basic).
Has anyone used this system in their games? I’d be interested to hear how it plays.
I’ve been thinking lately about how to impart a more Holmes-like feel to Swords & Wizardry games. Now, before you ask “Why not just play Holmes D&D?”, of course this is an option. Holmes Basic D&D is a great ruleset in its own right, but has some limitations that could be filled in nicely by S&W (higher levels of play of course, but also wilderness adventuring rules, among other things), and S&W has all of the advantages of an established retro-clone – it is free in PDF, it is still in print at low cost, the rules are better organized and consolidated than the originals it copies, and it is supported by an active community. It turns out that doing this is not that hard – using the Swords & Wizardry Core rules (note we’re discussing the latest, 4th edition) as a base, many of the Holmes Basic mechanics are already present, either as options or as by-the-book rules. Not surprising, really, since Holmes Basic and S&W both stem from the 1974 OD&D rules, and both add bits and pieces of the various supplements. Let’s see how we can modify S&W Core to make it more Holmes-like.
Character Creation
In Holmes, players can adjust rolled ability scores by trading points in non-prime requisite abilities, subject to certain rules. In S&W, merely a nod to these rules is present, but one could just adopt the Holmes mechanics wholesale with no issues. Get rid of the strength bonuses/penalties from S&W completely (this is commonly house-ruled in OD&D and Holmes, I would at least add a small bonus of +1 for strength scores of 15+ and the corresponding penalty for scores of 6 or less). Also gone would be the extra first-level spell for a Wisdom of 15+. The spell-choosing mechanics for M-Us are pretty much identical, so no changes are needed there. Constitution and Dexterity adjustments are almost the same. Charisma, too, is much as in Holmes, with merely a maximum number of hirelings noted.
The four core classes are the same. S&W Core has more multi-classing options than Holmes, but I would keep these, along with the S&W multi-classing rules detailing advancement and hit point calculation, which fill out the very sparse rules for Elves given in Holmes. Most of the class abilities will be as in S&W, except that fighters do not get multiple attacks per round against 1HD creatures. The fighter’s parry ability can stay, since Holmes has a similar rule. I’d add the Holmes rule that states a weapon will be broken and no damage taken if that weapon is used to parry and the to-hit roll is exactly what was needed.
Alignment
The Holmes 5-point alignment can be adopted as-is without any real issues, but it’s also not a big deal to keep the S&W standard 3-point. This choice won’t impact play at all.
Turning Undead
The Holmes rules use the OD&D turn undead table for Cleric levels 1-3, which is very different than the one used in S&W at the same levels. The S&W table generally gives Clerics less of a chance to turn, but at first level gives them some small chance to turn shadows and wights. However, since the general result is the same (2d6 creatures are turned on a successful roll), I would opt to keep the S&W table to keep things simple.
Scrolls and Spellbooks
Spellbooks in Holmes are large, heavy and impossible to carry into a dungeon. This makes re-memorization of spells impossible for extended adventuring. However, Holmes also comes with another rule that mitigates this restriction a bit, that a M-U of any level can scribe a scroll for one week’s labor and 100gp per level. This allows even 1st level M-Us to start with one scroll, if they roll high enough for starting gold. We can just import this rule as written. If you want to be even nicer to your low-level M-Us, allow them to re-memorize spells from a scroll, with the restriction that they must have had the spell or spells previously memorized (this rule comes from the Holmes retro-clone BLUEHOLME).
Spells
For magic missile the S&W rules give the option to require a to-hit roll in exchange for more damage, this is identical to Holmes so we’ll use that option. The sleep spell is almost the same as in Holmes. There are quite a few spells in Holmes that are not in S&W (specifically dancing lights, ventriloquism, enlargement, Tenser’s floating disk, audible glamer, ray of enfeeblement, remove fear, resist cold, know alignment and resist fire), so you could allow some or all of those if you like.
Armor & Armor Class
Remove the option for ring mail, and use descending armor class.
Saving Throws
Use the option given in the S&W Core rules for the standard five categories of saves.
Oil
I’ve noted before that the Holme’s oil rules are quite detailed, you could import those as-is, although this would not be my personal preference as I would opt for the simpler S&W rules. Note that this nerfs oil quite a bit – in S&W flaming oil is primarily useful as a deterrent to monster pursuit (this is taken directly from the OD&D rules), it does only 1d4 damage the first round and 1 point of damage for two more rounds. So you might want to compromise and allow oil to do more damage per round, 1d8 as in Holmes, or perhaps 1d6.
Encumbrance and Movement
In Holmes, each character is assumed to carry about 15 pounds of miscellaneous equipment, and can carry about 600gp (60 pounds) more before being considered encumbered. The base movement rate is then looked up on a table, factoring in armored vs. unarmored. In S&W, each character carries 10 pounds of miscellaneous equipment, to which we add armor, weapon and treasure weight (and adjust for strength) to determine movement. Holmes is slightly simpler, but there is not much difference and so I’ll opt to keep the S&W rules. I do like the Holmes example of having players note where their PC’s equipment is worn or stored, so I would add that as a requirement during character generation.
Weapons & Combat
The rules surrounding weapons, attacks per round, and damage represent some of the bigger differences between the two games. In Holmes all weapons do 1d6 damage, and we also have the infamous broken “daggers attack twice per round and heavy weapons once every other round”. This is so often house-ruled that I think it makes sense to just keep the S&W rules and tables, for simplicity’s sake, with a minor change that bows can only fire once per round.
Combat is easy – just use the “Blue book method” given in the S&W Core rules, since it is based on Holmes already. The additional rules in S&W for other specific situations can stay, they are either identical to Holmes, or just additions that are seldom used anyway.
Monsters
I would adopt the S&W bestiary as-is, the S&W Core rules use d8 hit dice and variable/multiple attacks as in Holmes, so no changes are needed.
Treasure
The S&W rules are very different as far as generating treasure, however this is not visible to players and so we won’t need to change it.
That’s essentially it. As you can see, there are not many changes needed to give S&W a more Holmes-like feel. Here is a summary of rule changes for the “full Holmes experience”, of course you can pick and choose from this list as suits your taste.
Remove the strength bonuses table entirely
Allow the Holmes point swaps for prime-requisite ability scores
Have players note equipment location on their character sheet
Fighters do not get multiple attacks on 1HD foes
Clerics do not get a bonus spell for high wisdom
M-Us can use daggers only
Scroll creation rules for M-Us – one week/100gp per level of spell
Add the additional Holmes spells noted above to the M-U and Cleric spell lists
Use descending AC
Use the optional five categories of saving throws
No ring mail
Bows fire once per round
Thrown oil that hits a foe and is subsequently set alight does 1d8 damage for two rounds
A weapon will be broken and no damage taken if that weapon is used to parry and the to-hit toll is exactly what was needed
Use the “Blue book method” of combat from the S&W Core rules
I’ve written yet another character generator, this one for the 1977 Holmes Basic D&D. As with the other generators, it will create a random first-level character for you, complete with hit points, armor, equipment, armor class, XP and ability bonuses, saving throws and spells. Reload the page to get the class/race combination you want (right-click and save-as to save a text file of a given character). See the player & DM resources page for direct links to all of the generators.
I made one, non-standard addition, after seeing it on the 1st level pregen party sheet at Zenopus’ Holmes Ref – Halfing thieves. This is such a common fantasy trope, and is mentioned in the rules briefly, even if it is not officially presented. As on the pregen sheet, I used the Halfling racial bonuses from the OD&D Greyhawk supplement for the Halfling’s thief skills.
Last night we continued the foray into the Endless Tunnels of Enlandin, using the Holmes Basic D&D rules. Two players were now running three PCs each. They were left in a difficult position, having been teleported to level two with no obvious way back up to the first level. One of their fighters was wounded, and they had but one flask of oil left (plenty of torches, however). At the end of the last session, they had scouted out part of the level, not opening any doors but mapping the corridors as far as they could go, hoping to find a way up. When they found no means of ascent, they started opening the doors. Things went south pretty quickly.
They woke up six sleeping Troglodytes (thinking to negotiate), but the Trogs were having none of it, hating humans as they do. The claw/claw/bite attacks of the Trogs proved fatal to two party members – the wounded fighter and the party’s only cleric. After killing four of the creatures, the Trogs failed a morale check and the last two fled. The party wisely chose not to pursue them.
Moving on through a couple of empty rooms, the next door they tried proved difficult to open (rather than do repeated ‘open door’ rolls, I assume a failed roll means the door opened, it just took a while and was noisy). Unfortunate because they failed to surprise a group of four Orcs, who were now waiting for them. It was here that I think the player’s tactics could have at least delayed what happened. They opted to enter the room and fight, but had some unlucky die rolls and the party was whittled down to just the Dwarf fighter, who was killed fairly quickly. TPK.
We talked afterwards, and I asked the player running the Elf why he did not use his sleep scroll. Since a few of the party had already entered the room and were in melee, he was worried that he would sleep the party members and not the Orcs. The party could have just closed the door and fled, but that would not necessarily have been effective if the Orcs gave pursuit. It may have at least allowed them to barricade themselves somewhere or set themselves up for missile fire, however. In any case, we had loads of fun. I’m fortunate that my players don’t get upset when PCs die. We’ve had TPK’s before, they happen sometimes playing old-school as we do.
A final thanks to Zenopus for his great Holmes Reference, the pregens saved us lots of time, and I used the one-page monster reference during play. I also use his backgrounds in my Ravendale White Box campaign.
I had a couple of fun sessions this week running Holmes Basic D&D. I was inspired by reading the Dragonsfoot adventure ‘Endless Tunnels of Enlandin‘, which, as the author (Stefan Poag) explains, was originally created for the Holmes version of Basic D&D. I had two players, and since time was at a premium, gave them Zenopus’ Holmes pregen sheet, and had them split the seven characters thereon. We dispensed with the travel to the dungeon bit, and I placed them at the ruins above the dungeon.
My goal was just to use as much of Holmes by-the-book as possible. Using Zenopus’ pregens adds two house rules – the to-hit bonus for 15+ strength, and Hobbit thieves, who get some racial bonuses to thief skills. I also made all weapons do one die of damage with one attack per round, regardless of weapon weight. All else was as per the rules.
Some observations:
Using d6 for all weapon damage doesn’t mesh well with monsters’ d8 hit dice
and the multiple d8 attacks per round some of them get. The original Holmes
draft used d6 monster hit dice, this is a much better fit. You could also
use variable weapon damage, perhaps ported directly from the Greyhawk
OD&D supplement.
Combatants in Holmes act in order of dexterity, unless their dexterity scores are within 1-2 points of one another, in which case a d6 is used to determine first attack. With 9-12 being an average dexterity for PCs, this happens quite frequently when rolling dexterity for monsters ‘on the spot’ as Holmes advises. Two of Zenopus’ pregens have a 10 dexterity, these two PCs were rolling a d6 in almost every round of combat. So combat is not as fast as it may seem at first. A better rule would be to use the tie-breaking d6 only if dexterity scores were identical, or just dispense with the d6 and treat combatants with identical dexterity scores as acting simultaneously.
I like the 100xp per hit-die rule from pre-Greyhawk OD&D. That, coupled with 1xp per gold piece of treasure allows for fairly rapid advancement at lower levels. I’ve used this method in my S&W White Box games. I don’t see this as a bad thing, it is hard to get adults together nowadays for gaming for more than a few hours a week, maybe even per month. I’m generalizing a bit here, but I do note complaints from other gamers on forums and blogs regarding how hard it is to hold regular game sessions. Holmes uses the Greyhawk experience table, so for example you get 5xp for an Orc, rather than 100xp. The two, three-hour sessions we played netted the players only 190xp each. The alternative is to either use the 100xp per hit-die rule, increase the treasure rewards, or just give the surviving players xp bonuses after each session.
As with all old-school systems, Holmes can be quite deadly. In our first session, five PCs were killed. One was killed by a Kobold arrow, two were sucked dry by giant ticks, and two were killed by a Thaumaturge’s wand of magic missiles. In the second session, the players were far more cautious and none died, although they did teleport themselves to a deeper dungeon level, so a TPK is probably imminent, unless they can find the way back up.
My own OD&D campaign is based on just the 3LBBs, plus some house rules. These were informed by lots of different sources, including Holmes Basic, BLUEHOLME, Philotomy’s Musings, the Delving Deeper rules, the OD&D FAQ from Strategic Review magazine, and various bits and pieces mentioned in games, forums or blogs that stuck in my memory. Most recently, I’ve read through the Seven Voyages of Zylarthen (SVoZ) and pulled in spending gold for experience from that. Here are some highlights (last updated 2015-06-02):
I don’t like the stat/hit dice/bonus inflation that was ushered in with the Greyhawk supplement, so I keep d6 for all hit dice and d6 for all weapon/monster damage. I only add minimal bonuses/penalties for strength, and keep the other ability bonuses as-is.
Magical healing is downplayed, with binding wounds available to all PCs along with the Warden class’ healing poultices. I prefer not to use Clerics, but I keep the option available as some players really like them, and at least this way the Cleric can be something other than ‘the party healer’.
I really liked the idea of gold being used for experience, but only if it is spent (from SVoZ). This avoids the problem of “where do I keep my mountain of gold?” that is so often hand-waved away as PCs get to higher levels, and gives PCs a choice if they want to buy pricier items like scrolls or potions – gain experience, or spend it on cool stuff?
I love the scroll/spellbook rules from Holmes and BLUEHOLME, so I incorporated those as-is.
I don’t like race-as-class (as much as OD&D did not ostensibly have this, giving a Hobbit or Dwarf one ‘choice’ for a class, and the odd Elf multi-class are all pretty much the same thing). So I allow other class choices for non-humans, including Dwarven Clerics and my own Rogue and Warden (a Ranger minus the spells) classes for Hobbits and Elves, respectively. Elves can also choose to be just FM or M-Us if they wish.
I like the encumbrance rules from Men & Magic, particularly that ‘Miscellaneous Equipment’ is a set weight. No need to count every torch and iron spike. I just don’t like that the max encumbrance is 300lbs worth of gold coins. So I just changed the weight of a coin from 10 coins per pound to 20. This effectively halves that weight allowance while still allowing lots of coins to be carried.
I use the Delving Deeper interpretation of the FMs multiple attacks being based on normal-types of less than 3HD.
I love random character generators. As a DM, they are great for quickly generating a party for a spur-of-the-moment pickup game, or for that henchman or major NPC. Here are the old-school RPG character generators I know of, let me know if there are any more out there and I’ll add them to the list (updated 2025-06-04).
