Retro Oddities | Old School D&D Accessories

[@ryan.1990]

Such an underrated channel my man, I'm binging all your videos 👍

[@Malcadon]

Firstly: Hell yeah MadIrishman! I have been going to his site since the early 2000s, and mostly due to the Gamma World sheets. More people need to know about the site! I did not have any Dungeon Geomorphs or the Rogues' Gallery when I got started in the late '80s, so I used the Random NPC tables and Dungeon Generation found in the old DMG. Personally (if printing is not an option), I would sort though the morphs and trace a map on a blank sheet of paper, using the morphs like a fashion design template, adding and omitting content freely. For NPCs, I used to buy packs of the 2e AD&D Collectable Trading Cards in the early '90s. Besides the usual Monster and Magic Item cards, there where Character cards that made for great ready-made NPCs. The front of a card has an image of the character while the back would have some basic game stats, magic items, and a short description/backstory of the character. Sadly, no ability scores, so that was something I had to make-up. A good number of those characters (nearly 100--a small tip the what was available in the card sets), were found in the second book to bare the name Rogues' Gallery, and had expanded information for each of them. Great video! Keep up the great work!

[@KamilMalach]

The most classic accessory is the legendary plate of snacks mom would leave at our room during campaign with homies

[@captcorajus]

True!!

[@Meh-j9s]

Awesome. We would blow through liters of soda on game nights

[@mikep6263]

Yes!! Every time I eat one of those frozen burritos, I have flashbacks about hacking our way through "Against The Giants". Good times!

[@Marcus-ki1en]

Judges Guild products, and Ral Partha Minis, just to name two. Oh the great old days.

[@Jimalcoatl]

The blue ink was able to spoof some photocopiers back then. I remember the AD&D 2e character sheets had the blue ink as a decorative highlight and the photocopies were made of them often lost the blue part altogether or it showed up super faint.

[@WebMonkey741]

I can confirm that the "blue maps" made it difficult to easily photocopy. (for the copiers of the hayday) You usually had to pencil them in to make it easier to read.

[@keithdonohue4631]

I have some of these accessories in my collection! They are among my favorite reading, when I am feeling nostalgic

[@Raycheetah]

The Dungeon Master's Adventure Log has a feature unmentioned in this video: Illustrations of the armor and weapon types used in the game. For this, alone, it was a much-favored reference in the days when I rode a dinosaur (uphill both ways in the snow) to gaming sessions. =^[.]~=

[@WilliamDowie]

All of the rules clarifications and additions in the inside covers of the products were nice too.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

My first D&D book was Unearthed Arcana, and I was so confused about what a khopesh was and looked like until the Internet came around and I could just look up a picture.

[@SoundVoltage]

Oh man, I loved the Rogue's Gallery -- I used it all the time. And getting a bit of insight into the history of some of the most famous names in D&D lore was really inspiring at the time.

[@captcorajus]

Right? It was pretty cool at the time! I really love D&D lore.

[@mickikaufman5360]

I loved these as a kid! The rogues gallery art inserts, the fun characters based on fiction filtered into the character lists, the geomorphs… so fun! Filling out the special permanent sheets for my most senior character was a particular pleasure.

[@jonhowland73]

Love this walk down memory lane.

[@johnholton8157]

I love that Erol Otus cover on the Rogues Gallery. I still use those dungeon geomorphs (I made mine by priting off a PDF, laminating the pages, and then carefully cutting them using one of those big paper cutters). Those and the Monster & Treasure Assortments are two of the best old-school D&D accessories ever (along with the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets). Cheers!

[@Raycheetah]

The Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets were my DM's Guide before TSR ever published theirs! =^[.]^=

[@elfbait3774]

I still have my original Rogues Gallery. My friends and i seldome used the geomorphs the way they were intended. Instead we made up our own D&D light sort of game we just called "Geomorphs". "Want to come over after school and play Geomorphs," we'd ask. In this game, one person would take a full page geomorph and stock it as a dungeon, using letter notations for different monsters. You would then challenge a friend to run a character or characters through you stocked geomorph.

[@captcorajus]

That sounds like so much fun!!

[@jackleg2007]

The blue ink definitely prevented photocopying back in the day.

[@Marcus-ki1en]

It is known as "Non Photo Blue". There was hex & grid paper printed in the same color that would not show up when copied.

[@HairyTuttle]

It made it difficult but it didn't prevent me from spending many dimes at the library photocopy machine.

[@Marcus-ki1en]

@@HairyTuttle Haha, just crank that contrast up and ignore the shadows

[@zombiTrout]

My favorite accessory was a large packet of graph paper.

[@johnedgar7956]

Same! Ah, the old days...

[@johnholton8157]

Playing tabletop RPGs makes trips to the office supply store feel more like visits to the toy store. You can always use more pencils and erasers, and scribblers are nice for recording campaign notes/journals. They even sell these big three-panel carboard standup thingies for, like, school displays or something - I use them to make homemade customizable D.M. screens. The only thing they don't have that I wish they did is pads of hexagonal graph paper...that would be sweet.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

I was at a historic minis con a couple weeks ago and one booth in the dealer's hall had a smattering of vintage TTRPG products and one of them was a d&d branded book of hex paper.

[@KabukiKid]

The Mad Irishman reconstructions of various sheets from old-school D&D and other TTRPGs is impressive. Definitely recommended if you want a nugget of old-school nostalgia with your character sheets and whatnot. ;-)

[@shep1807]

When I used to use non electric sheets, even for 3.5/PF1 I still printed them on Golden Rod paper :)

[@Sichuanbeef]

I found one of these at Half Price Books. I snatched it up quickly to add to my collection

[@Lamenter40K]

Thanks for the review and link to the Mad Irishman.

[@captcorajus]

Absolutely! The Mad Irishman is one of the real gaming treasures on the internet.

[@gerrylake]

Radiant as always, captcorajus.

[@Blerdy_Disposition]

As someone who is new to OSR and old school DnD, that Rogue pdf definitely has me sold. I am going to check it out for my BX DnD games for sure!

[@GravesRWFiA]

I still have my rogues gallery, on the main shelf in my study next to my AD&D players handbook. When you look at that and the monster manual you see how the game has changed. basically there was little for dm's to think about the monster's motivation-it was all on you as these instructions basically had where to find it, how does it fight, what is it treasure.the art is good and i still love the bard in fishnet stockings The back part with the famous characters was amazing

[@Silversmith70]

In a sense I feel bad for kids today that are getting into D&D. When we were kids 70's-80's and even 90's, there wasn't an internet. We only had the each other, the artwork and the books to ignite our imaginations. We had to fill in a lot of the blanks with our imaginations on what monsters looked like, how they acted etc. I am glad for that even though I pronounced Drizzt wrong for decades. =) Thanks Cap, appreciate you!

[@captcorajus]

I pronounced a LOT of things wrong for decades... still do... as my comments section can attest.

[@jonhowland73]

How does Drizzt get pronounced? As it's spelled? I have a way of pronouncing Lovecraft old ones. It is more sound effect than language. Cthlulu is the sound of a disemboweled belly dropping to the floor, for example. Creepy sound...

[@Raycheetah]

@@jonhowland73 As I understand it, it's pronounced "Driz-zit." =^[.]^=

[@Silversmith70]

@@jonhowland73 I think its actually pronounced Drisst and not Drizz-it, which is what I was doing.

[@kernowpolski]

Thanks Captain - great stuff as always. Rogues gallery is useful, but I found it a bit too brief for individual NPCs with quite a bit too flesh out. It was very useful for groups though. The permanent record folder I never knew existed, I shall investigate. Fabulous!

[@stevenkennedy4130]

Good stuff. Thanks for the share!!

[@apathyguy8338]

Ah the rogue's gallery. I remember my 10-year-old self always smirking at that cover art where the guy has his hand down the ladies top. The early 80s was a very different time I suspect it would take a lot more to make me smirk now.

[@danielrowan4716]

Captain - I have plundered The Mad Irishman’s page for the 1e Golden Rod sheets. It’s a solid resource. Back in the day I made my own city geomorphs on graph paper then mounted them on construction paper then on cardboard. They were very sturdy and made for an interesting and fun bit of urban adventure.

[@jamesmaclennan4525]

I stil have some of my permanent player character record sheets one day I might update those characters to pathfinder2e

[@calvanoni5443]

I still use the monster & treasures assortment levels 1-3.

[@automatics1im]

The the most fascinating character in the Rouge’s Gallery was “Erac’s Cousin,” who got alluded to every now and then in other rule books and editions, especially regarding the “Horned Society”.

[@Anaris10]

40 YEARS LATER AND YOU STILL CAN'T SPELL "ROGUE"

[@automatics1im]

@@Anaris10 I meant what I said.

[@worldbigfootcentral3933]

I still have the originals of these, believe it or not. I can speak to the efficacy of the blue ink in foiling the photocopiers of the time, and that is true, not a rumor.

[@captcorajus]

Good to know! Thanks!!

[@davezenz]

The blue color was called "non-repro blue"

[@johnedgar7956]

Dungeon Geomorphs! Now that takes me back. 🙂 These days, I prefer to just use the Pathfinder Flip Tiles from Paizo for all kinds of maps for dungeons, forests, etc. I *had* to have these Geomorphs when I was a kid. Fun times!

[@captcorajus]

Yeah, those pathfinder cards are really great!

[@Henrikdead]

Get timing, just what I needed the Captain on Dungeon and Dragons. Happy day

[@fleetcenturion]

I've never used any of these, but I own them all. 🏴‍☠

[@Classic_DM]

Classic content. Jeff Dee's art>all

[@reverance_pavane]

The Monster & Treasure Assortment was useful as an example of how the OD&D dungeon encounter table was supposed to be used. In particular, the number appearing expected for those monsters encountered on each level.

[@MemphiStig]

When I first got into the game, I had the Moldvay box set, but no one to play with, so I read the books obsessively, and spent a lot of time rolling up and creating characters, fully geared, named, and ready to go. They were all 1st level, but there were a lot of them. So the Rogue's Gallery was the first of these books I found, later on, and I loved it. It was a great insight into how they expected characters to develop over many levels, but there was also a wide swing to this. I never used these books in game, tho I had them, but I didn't DM much, or well, either. I just loved the stuff.

[@Se7enBeatleofDoom]

Playing Dungeons and Dragons pre-Internet forced players and DMs to be more creative. The classic accessories are testaments to this.

[@jamiemcdonough6548]

Thanks for the heart and the thumbs up from the captain and whomever respectively.

[@jamiemcdonough6548]

I didn't have a particular comment this time around, but nice video all the same. Thanks.

[@HowtoRPG]

Thank you.

[@geofftottenperthcoys9944]

Loved my copy of Rogues Gallery, to bad you cannot get it as a POD. It's $2.74AUD at the moment (only $4.57AUD normally)

[@captcorajus]

yea, love my copy. Its still pristine, and nowadays I use the PDF anyone and just cut and paste the parts I'm using for an adventure.

[@shep1807]

Where did you get the Geomorphs PDF. Can't find any but the Outdoor one on DriveThruRPG. I have a PDF on the complete book but want to take a look at that and the split monster/treasure

[@sunsin1592]

Greg Gillespie's megadungeon Dwarrowdeep has its own set of geomorphs and dungeon stocking guidelines.

[@guyfrattallone6029]

I have some of this stuff...used to look at the roges gallery a lot.

[@aWOLtrooper]

Great video.

[@SaintCuthbertoftheCudgel]

The good old days when orcs were orcs, fighting men were fighting men, and everything was done for fun.

[@danacoleman4007]

this is GREAT!!!

[@jrmoneyloser]

Shoutout to the CE Elven assassin with ability scores of 18 18 18 18 17 17 (#65 on the NPC table) 👀

[@craighicks1065]

Purple Crown Royal dice bag ftw 😎

[@johnnyo3535]

Thank you my liege

[@machfront]

More fun and solid stuff in your vid. Having said that, again, got bored of dungeons only one year in (so…by 1987). Coming back to dungeons here and there since….yeah…no… still far too messy, complicated and confusing. No thanks.

[@swirvinbirds1971]

Dungeons & Dragons... It's in the name. The game was enter a dungeon and kill a 'Dragon'. Today's game has evolved far past the original intent of the game. It is kinda funny to see Gygax say a dungeon should be 75% empty when his published dungeons were Monster Condos.

[@captcorajus]

While fundamentally true, its clear that the game didn't stick to just that for every long. City State of the Invincible Overlord anyone? Thank goodness too, because its unlikely we'd be talking about if it hadn't.

[@swirvinbirds1971]

​@@captcorajusagree and that was part of the evolution of the game but again it's a dungeon under the city you explore.

[@Raycheetah]

Gygax had some odd design philosophies, including how doors worked (or didn't). In an underground environment, "real estate" would have significant value, especially to intelligent creatures, while telling my players 75% of the time that the door they just bashed open, because Gary said it had to be stuck, was empty, was an ongoing drag. ='[.]'=

[@ishmiel21]

While these accessories are awesome, and they totally are awesome, they do not necessarily show the way the game was being played. That's like saying the stuff that has bro puts out today shows the way the game is being played. These accessories show the way the people at TSR thought that the game should be or Was being played by a very small of the gamers out there. These accessories tell us more about the people working at TSR than they do about the people playing the game out in the wild

[@machfront]

Also….NPCs…. A whole resource? Weird to me. The only thing I’ve ever done with NPCs is: A) nothing B) “kinda like Sean Bean’s character in the movie “Ronin”.” That’s it. Period. Ever. Don’t ask me about a NPCs MU spells, cuz I never knew. He just slung whatever spells I wanted him to……not that that ever happened….because so what?!??? He’s not the bad guy….even if he was…same thing anyway. “Monsters” in D&D don’t follow the same parameters….so neither does the Big Bad. Also…. I hate homework and especially math. He’s just gonna do what he does. Eff the rules. I’m too tired to plan or read and go by the rules again. I just wanna have a Krull or Willow or Dragonslayer or Stalker comic book or Fritz Lieber bit of fun…. Sheesh! Eff rules and structure! Dang! 🙄

[@machfront]

Yuk. No. Old-school gamer here….dungeons suck. I despise dungeons. Always have since I was 12 in 1986. Blech! Also equally despise newer systems. (Except that now I’d rather use RISUS or the FF clone Spellzard! or at least using B/X or WB:FMAG!)

[@danacoleman4007]

😂😂😂