I don't care what anyone says, Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was a damn great fantasy cartoon back in the day, and it deserves a D&D treatment. If you've never heard of it, here it is on YouTube for free, or you can watch it in a less clumsy format on Disney+ www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcdHhJ83WveO5S9AeAeDKD-qQrsfB4dpw Also, the theme song is one of the catchiest cartoon themes ever. Okay, so...   Source:  https://www.deviantart.com/tomarmstrong20/art/Adventures-of-the-Gummi-Bears-1985-1991-566374688 GUMMI BEARS (Stats for Original, Basic, Advanced and most OSR games) No. Appearing: 1-8 Hit Dice: 1-5 Armor Class: 7 (2 with gummi berry juice) / 13/18 high AC Attack: By weapon or bounce slam (1d6) Special: Gummi Berry Juice, Stealth Move: 12 (18 with gummi berry juice) / 30ft/45ft Modern games Size: Small % in Lair: 60% Alignment: Lawful Treasure: C XP: Varies by hit dice Primes (for Castles & Crusades): P,M Description...

So for many years, the Arduin books have been on the periphery of my awareness. I knew they were out there, knew they comprised significant expansion and modification to the OD&D rules, knew they eventually became their own system of sorts, and knew that there was some controversy regarding Dave Hargrave, but that was about it. I've seen more and more discussion about them recently, so finally I decided that I would take the plunge. I acquired copies of the "Trilogy" on eBay. My copy of The Arduin Grimoire Volume 1 is a 4th printing; the Volume 2 and Volume 3 books are first printings. Replica box I made to store the trilogy in.   So I guess I'll start a running commentary here as I work through. Again, bear with me as I don't read fast to begin with, and combined with the piles of writing work on my desk and the fact that I can only read a few pages of this tiny text without getting a splitting headache and, well...it's going to take awhile...

If you read this blog, you're probably well aware that over the past decade-plus, fifteen years or so, there's been a wealth of scholarship surrounding the original 1974 D&D rules. I was recently reading over...let's just say, an early printing of these rules, and a few things jumped out at me. There are definitely assumptions we make about OD&D that are based on later developments. Things that were written in AD&D, B/X, even some of the later supplements have colored our idea of "how things are supposed to be." With that in mind, I'd like to go back and interpret OD&D through the lens of someone who had just picked it up in 1974, without the benefit of everything that came later, without actually having gamed with Gary and Dave, and see what comes out in the wash. This is nothing more than a thought experiement--I'm not necessarily trying to challenge common wisdom about how these things work, but the way they are presented and worded at...

Okay, so this series is just growing and growing. I believe this should be the last entry. I just really like psionics and I thought this would be an interesting topic. So now we've looked at how psionics work in OD&D and AD&D , and examined how they compare and contrast with one another . Certainly it seems to me that while OD&D's system is a bit simpler and more straightforward, AD&D's system is clearer, cleaner, and more balanced, less likely to overpower a character who has the abilities. What occurred to me, then, is how psionics could be used in other games. Since the system itself is a sort of self-contained "bolt on" subsystem, it can pretty seamlessly be dropped in a range of other games. I'll look at a few below, but honestly, most of them, the process will be, "just drop 'em in!"   B/X and BECMI D&D Note that this section also applies to retroclones like Labyrinth Lord , Basic Fantasy , OSRIC , and oth...