Chainmail

Technically the very first D&D product ever published was the Dungeons and Dragons box set published in 1974.  However, it's not really possible to jump straight into that product without discussing the product that spurred its creation - the Chainmail rules for fantasy miniatures.

I don't want to devote a lot of time in this blog to talking about the publishing history of D&D - the interactions between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the history of TSR, etc.  For one, I'm far more interested in the game history - the history of the game elements themselves - and second, others have done it before and done it better.  Some of it will naturally come out in discussing the varying products though, and we really can't talk about the evolution of D&D without talking about Chainmail and how it led to it.  If the historical road from war gaming to role-playing is already familiar to you, feel free to skip on down to the actual impressions.

A Brief History of Time

Before role-playing games there were tabletop war games, a hobby which continues to this day in games like Warhammer.  If you're not familiar with them, war games are played on a large tabletop where two players control opposing armies (well, perhaps not quite entire armies, but the emphasis is on large troop formations).  The players move the various units around the field and engage other units in combat, proceeding until one side has been eliminated or driven off the field.  In 1971 Gary Gygax wrote a set of rules for war gaming with units representing forces from the early medieval period up through the Renaissance (mounted knights, pikemen, etc.) called Chainmail.  Chainmail was not the first set of war gaming rules by far (the hobby had already existed for many years), nor was it the first set of rules for medieval units.  However, what it did have that had not been seen before was the "fantasy supplement" at the end of the "normal" rules.  Being a fan of fantasy literature (Lord of the Rings, Conan, and others), Gygax provided rules for battles involving fantastic units such as elves, dragons, wizards, giants, and others.  Whereas the "normal" rules allowed people to replay real-life battles such as the Battle of Agincourt, the fantasy supplement allowed them to replay battles straight out of Lord of the Rings.  It was a huge hit, and the concept directly paved the way for role-playing.  Already the rules provided for "units" that were in fact just single characters (something not seen in war gaming before) - heroes, super-heroes, and wizards, for example.  The leap was an idea of Dave Arneson's for his players to control individual characters instead of whole units.  This naturally led to the idea of the character representing the player in the game, and thus role-playing was born.

Impressions

Having said all that we can now dive in and dissect the product itself.  Sadly, I have never found a scan of the 1st or 2nd edition of the rules.  I only have a scan of the 2nd printing of the 3rd edition which came out in 1975, right around the same time as the original D&D boxed set.  I know that they did expand the fantasy supplement between 1st and 3rd edition, but alas, I cannot know what the differences are.  So take this with a grain of salt, as I'm not sure what kind of feedback loop there might have been between the original boxed set and this edition of the fantasy supplement, published at approximately the same time.

I don't have too many comments on the war gaming rules, as they are not my primary interest, nor am I qualified to comment on them since I've never been a war gamer. But what did stand out to me was this statement at the very beginning of the rules that is astoundingly prescient in describing role-playing games and how they are played.  In commenting on the fact that players might find the rules incomplete or ambiguous in some points, it says, "These rules may be treated as guidelines around which you form a game that suits you."  Certainly other types of games like board games or card games invite the creation of house rules, but no other type of game does so like role-playing, where it's almost impossible to join a new group of players without asking what their house rules are.  This is a theme I'll be exploring throughout this blog as we look at the evolution of the game and talk about how it is played.

I think the thing I'm most struck by in reading this book is just how far back some D&D concepts go.  To give you perspective, I started playing D&D (my first role-playing game) in high school in the early 90s.  2nd edition AD&D was the standard at the time and what all my friends played.  1st edition material was the stuff of legend and tall tales to us, having been too young to play it ourselves.  We heard all the stories about how overpowered monks had been, and how the books used to call creatures demons and devils before the satanic panic of the 80s forced a change, and we wondered what it must have been like to live in such a glorious time.  Materials earlier than 1st edition - the original boxed set, the original Basic Set, or modules like Keep on the Borderlands - were firmly in the realm of myth - tales passed down by our gaming ancestors to preserve our culture.  "Chainmail" was just a name whispered around campfires that made us shiver in a Lovecraftian manner due to its unimaginable antiquity (i.e., before we were born).

With so much history prior to my personal encounter with it, I had always assumed the game had evolved significantly from its original primal steps away from war gaming table.  However, I was surprised in both a good and bad way by how many familiar things I found here:

• Straight from the war gaming rules, one round (a "turn", here) is equivalent to one minute, a concept that would stick all the way through 2nd edition.
• In AD&D 2e, I always found it odd that dwarves got a seemingly random +4 AC bonus versus giants and similar creatures.  Yet here is the basis of that rule, in a much older concept that giant units score only half kills versus dwarven units.
• Perhaps the thing I find most fascinating in the whole book is the fact that the venerable Fireball and Lightning Bolt spells (some of the most iconic spells in D&D) had their start right here.  A wizard unit could cast one or the other (decided before play started) at will.  But what is most fascinating is that these spells were meant to be fantasy equivalents of catapult and cannon fire, the rules for which are laid out in the war gaming section!
• Equally interesting are the additional spells wizards can use.  A shocking number of spells recognizable to players of later editions are all right here (if with perhaps slightly different names): Conjure Elemental (with the associated idea of the wizard having to maintain control), Protection from Evil, Slow, Haste, Polymorph Self, Confusion, Hallucinatory Terrain, Cloudkill, Anti-Magic Shell, and others.  The idea of spell level is even represented here primordially by a "complexity" number associated with each spell.  What's even more surprising is that most spells complexity numbers are identical with their spell level in later editions (for instance, Haste has a complexity of 3, while Confusion has a complexity of 4), representing a shocking amount of continuity to me.
• There are a couple of other elements that seem to have gotten their start in these rules, although I'm not 100% sure.  There are five different levels of magic user, each with their own name, which seems to me to be a proto-example of the named character levels in 1st edition.  Each level of wizard can in turn use a different maximum number of the spells listed above, which perhaps speaks of the origins of Vancian magic in D&D.
• I was also shocked to find all five chromatic dragons here, along with their traditional breath weapons.  A purple dragon is also briefly mentioned, which seems to be the ancestor of the purple worm, but I'm not sure.
• The idea of magical weapons giving pluses to hit is well represented here (although I find the remark that Excalibur would be a +2 or +3 sword amusing - obviously some power creep has happened over time).
• Ah, alignment, my old foe.  I've never been a fan of the concept of alignment in D&D, but I see it got its start here with the division of the various kinds of creatures into Law, Neutral, and Chaos.
• The "Man to Man Melee Table" has an armor progression instantly recognizable to any D&D player (or the player of virtually any computer role-playing game ever).  I find it fascinating how hard D&D cemented our notions of types of armor in fantasy games.

Besides the primordial origins of some rules, I'm also amazed at how some D&D concepts make sense now in light of its war gaming origins.  One of the things I was always struck by when playing AD&D growing up was how abstract combat positioning was treated.  There was an incredible freedom to wander around the battlefield - the modern notion of opportunity attacks was completely absent.  We almost never drew maps of fights unless positioning was absolutely critical for some non-combat related reason.  Now that I see how movement and melee is handled for war gaming I can see why.

On another note, I find it amusing how the fantasy supplement is largely The Lord of the Rings, the Game - the names Hobbit, Nazgul, balrog, and ent are used outright; Hobbits are noted for their accuracy with slings; orcs are mentioned as having factions such as orcs of Mordor and Isengarders; and rocs are explicitly said to be the eagles from The Lord of the Rings.

All in all, reading Chainmail was an experience akin to reading Lovecraft's Pnakotic Manuscripts - understanding forbidden lore that has come down from across a vast abyss of time.  I hope you enjoyed the journey, and I look forward into diving into our next product: the original D&D boxed set.