Dungeons & Dragons

2023-01-05T13:28:45Z

2A01:E34:EC96:6320:4DF9:C681:E5D4:C636: /* D&D Rules Cyclopedia */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Dungeons & Dragons
|picture = [[Image:Dungeons-&-Dragons-logo.png|200px]]
|type = [[RPG]]
|publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]] ([[TSR]] originally)
|authors = [[Gary Gygax]] Dave Arneson
|year = 1974 (D&D Original) 1977 (Holmes Basic D&D) 1977–79 ([[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 1st Edition|AD&D 1st Edition]]) 1981 (Moldvay BX D&D) 1983-1986 (Mentzer BECMI D&D) 1989 ([[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons#AD&D 2nd Edition|AD&D 2nd Edition]]) 1991 (Rules Cyclopedia D&D) 2000 ([[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition|D&D 3rd Edition]]) 2003 (D&D v.3.5) 2008 ([[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition|D&D 4th Edition]]) 2014 ([[D&D Next|D&D 5th Edition]])
}}

'''''Dungeons & Dragons''''' began as a crossover project by [[Gary Gygax]] and [[Dave Arneson]] in the early 1970s. Arneson's concept was to take the individual hero from ''[[Chainmail]]'' and tell his story. Gygax and Arneson collaborated on a project to realize this goal, and at Gen Con in 1974, they sold copies of the resulting game, ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The game contained three small books in a brown box with white labels.

''People often confuse the nearly identical white box (1978) with the actual original; the White Box was labeled with '''Original Collectors Edition''' to differentiate it from the newer Basic set being released around that time. In any case, this spawned the roleplaying game genre as we know it.''

==Versions==

===Original Dungeons & Dragons===

[[Image:ODnDBox.jpg|thumb]]

''Dungeons & Dragons'' was directly linked to ''[[Chainmail]]'' in many ways. The ''Chainmail'' books even fit in the D&D box. By adding multiple hero types to play and focusing on the aspect of the individual rather than the unit of the army, Gygax and Arneson [[Old School Roleplaying|kickstarted the Role Playing Game industry]]. People were no longer content to read tales of high fantasy in a book, not when they could control what the characters did. ''Dungeons & Dragons'' was released as a core set of 3 books and supplements were to follow later.

====Dungeons & Dragons Contents====
*Men & Magic - Allowed you to create a character and to learn the magic system.
*Monsters & Treasure - Pretty much exactly that. Rules for monster encounters and appropriate rewards for such.
*Underworld & Wilderness Adventures - The meat and potatoes of exploring overland and dungeon.
*Reference sheets - A stapled collection of pages with cross referencing tables and charts on them.

====Supplements====
*Supplement I Greyhawk - Introduced the setting of Oerth, new classes, spells, items, and optional rules.
*Supplement II Blackmoor - Introduced TONS of items, and optional rules mostly for underwater. The Blackmoor-specific stuff is the module [[Temple of the Frog]]. (Judges Guild would later publish the actual Blackmoor setting as run at this time.)
*Supplement III Eldritch Wizardry - A lot of new magic rules and classes
*Supplement IV Gods, Demi-Gods, & Heroes - Rules for immortals, more classes, introduced the Paladin class.
*Supplement V Swords & Spells: More combat and magic rules, more game mechanics. This would be incorporated into [[AD&D]] later.

===Basic Dungeons & Dragons===
See [[Basic Dungeons & Dragons]].

===The Dungeons & Dragons Game===

[[Image:ClassicDnDBox.jpg|thumb|Classic D&D Game Box]]

The replacement for the Basic Set, covering levels 1–5. This box set was a comprehensive guide to roleplaying. It came with dice, a map, and a detailed book that guided you through an adventure to generate your character and learn the fundamentals of role-play (Zanzer Tem's dungeon). Players were supposed to continue to the Rules Cyclopedia.

===D&D Rules Cyclopedia===
The Rules Cyclopedia was, essentially, a compiled version of all the rules in the first four Basic D&D sets and some of the Known World Gazetteers. While the book does cover Immortal level play very slightly, almost all of the actual rules for it was reworked into the book '''''Wrath of the Immortals'''''. There were some other minor rules tweaks, but nothing drastic.

Since 2018 one can acquire the Rules Cyclopedia [https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic/ as a print-on-demand book from DMs Guild/DriveThru RPG].

==Nicknames==
There have been a wide variety of names used to distinguish these first iterations of D&D from their successors. As indicated above, Original D&D (or "OD&D") is used for the original sourcebooks that formed the first stepping-stones between [[Chainmail]] and the BECMI set, although it can sometimes be misused for both the Original books and the subsequent Basic Edition books.

That secondary iteration is commonly called BECMI, an acronym used internally for the different box-sets that made it up, but it has many other names. One of the more common is "Basic Dungeons & Dragons" (or "BD&D"), a direct counterpart to [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]] ("AD&D"). Another common name for it is "Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition". This is inaccurate, as, amongst other things, AD&D was the first D&D iteration to be explicitly divided into 1st and second editions, but because there is a much wider gap between Basic and Advanced (plus, AD&D 2nd edition ran longer than AD&D 1st edition), and all subsequent editions of D&D have numbered themselves from 3rd edition onwards, the idea of BECMI as D&D 1e remains entrenched. It's even used here on this website!

====The complete list of acronyms identifying D&D's early iterations====
'''Dungeons & Dragons''' (1974): 
''Original D&D'', ''OD&D'', ''0th edition'', ''0e'', ''The White Box'', ''The Little Beige Books'', ''The Three Little Books''

'''Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set''' (1977): 
''Holmes Basic'', ''Holmes Edition'', ''The Blue Book''

'''Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set/Expert Set''' (1981): 
''Moldvay Basic'', ''Moldvay Edition'', ''Basic D&D B/X Edition'', ''B/X'' (probably the most common nickname), ''Otus Edition'' (from the cover illustrations by Erol Otus)

'''Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert/Companion/Master/Immortal Set''' (1983): 
''Mentzer Basic'', ''Mentzer Edition'', ''Basic D&D BECMI Edition'', ''BECMI'', ''The Red Box'', ''Elmore Edition'' (from [[Larry_Elmore|Larry's]] cover illustrations of the Basic Set books)

==Movie==
There was a [[wikipedia:Dungeons_&_Dragons_(film)|Dungeons & Dragons movie]] back in 2000. If you were not aware of this, that's because this movie was largely forgettable and had little to no impact on the rest of the franchise. Its few memorable moments include:

*Jeremy Irons acting at his hammiest yet
*Marlon Wayans acting at his most annoying yet (also he's named "Snails" for some reason)
*The bald lackey of the [[BBEG]] has this weird blue lipstick and a disturbing brainworm scene
*Several dungeon scenes are blatantly stolen from various Indiana Jones movies

To the surprise of nobody, the movie was a commercial and critical failure. And yet, for reasons that defy logic and common sense, this film spawned not one but two direct-to-video sequels. Like their progenitor, both of these are also terrible movies that aren't even worth watching for the D&D references.

Most recently, a new movie was announced, currently titled "[[wikipedia:Dungeons_&_Dragons:_Honor_Among_Thieves|Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves]]." Thankfully, this film appears to be completely unrelated to the previous films.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
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</gallery>

== See also ==
* ''[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]''
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition]]''
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition]]''
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition]]''
* [[Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings]]
* [[List of D&D PC Races]]
* [[you rolled a 1]]
* [[D&D skills]]
* [[Standard Fantasy Setting]], which D&D helped codify.
[[Category:Dungeons & Dragons]]
[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Clark Ashton Smith

2023-01-05T13:14:33Z

2A01:E34:EC96:6320:4DF9:C681:E5D4:C636:

[[File:Clark Ashton Smith 1912.jpg|thumb|Hailing from the weird and terrible land of, Ne'ew Engluund]]
'''Clark Ashton Smith''' was an American writer of weird horror, pulp fantasy and science fiction novels, poems and serials. He is one of "The Big Three of ''Weird Tales''", those men who published most prolifically in that most well-known and long-lasting of Weird Fantasy dedicated magazines, alongside [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and Robert E. "[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]]" [[Robert E. Howard|Howard]]. Although Smith isn't (today) as well-known as them, he had a significant impact; Clark was a co-creator for the world of [[Hyperborea]], the primeval "lost past" world in which Robert's own Conan and King Kull [[Sword & Sorcery]] works were set, and corresponded frequently with Lovecraft, resulting in many of his weird races and deities being promoted in the latter's works. It is also worth noting that Lovecraft praised Clark Ashton Smith as one of the modern (early 20th century) masters of the weird tale.

'''Poseidonis''' and '''Hyperborea''' overlap in theme if not in setting. The former is a subcontinental remnant of sunken [[Atlantis]] that ''avoided'' the ocean. Klarkash-Ton's stories for both of those settings revolve around a magical culture characterized by bizarreness, cruelty, death and postmortem horrors.

'''[[Averoigne]]''' is Smith's version of pre-modern France; at least of John the Magnificent's Berry-to-Auvergne part of it. It compares with James Branch Cabell's Poictesme: an alternate Earth where magic is very real, just illegal, and cracked down upon by the [[Catholic]] church.

'''Zothique''' - debuting late in his career - exists millions of years in the future. It is "the last continent of earth, when the sun is dim and tarnished". This inspired [[Jack Vance]]'s Dying Earth series and then [[Gene Wolfe]]'s New Sun.

Smith is most of interest to /tg/ for his role in inspiring [[Gary Gygax]] to write [[Dungeons & Dragons]], as he has long been [[Appendix N|listed]] in the inspirations for D&D as a whole. The adventure module [[X2: Castle Amber]] invokes a cross-over between [[Mystara]] and [[Averoigne]].

CAS's D&D revitalisation was all super-annoying to 1980s kiddies who could never track down this man's much-hyped work at the bookstores or libraries. But then the Internet came along and [http://www.eldritchdark.com/ Eldritch Dark] posted whatever they legally could. Those mad lads at Nightshade Press recently Got Shit Done and edited every story the man ever wrote from the original manuscripts - definitely an improvement over ED's 1990s-flava webpages, much as they were appreciated then. Seriously, go out and buy all five Nightshade volumes, you will not regret it.

Perhaps ''because'' Eldritch Dark made Clark's Zothique writings (especially) more-or-less readily available, its [[necromancer]]s are cited as a direct inspiration in [[The Complete Book of|The Complete Necromancer's Handbook]]; [[Wolfgang Baur]] also quotes such content. And in [[Pathfinder]] Zothique's [[ghoul]]-worshipped Great Old One [[Mordiggian]] became a deity.

= Links =
* http://www.eldritchdark.com/ : a repository of Clark Ashton Smith writings that skirts on the public domain limitations.
* https://nightshade.start-publishing.com/author/722/clark-ashton-smith/ : the nicely printed books.

[[Category: Writers]] [[Category: Cthulhu Mythos]]

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Dungeons & Dragons

Clark Ashton Smith