Hmm. Bootleg Japanese versions of TSR products?

🚨 I'm signed up for this Dungeon Design event at #GaryCon next month ⤵️

📸 Great photo of a collection of modern takes on the Holmes Basic D&D set of dice. Note the Holmes set in the background ⤵️

📝 A very tardy report on my first day at Gary Con last year, when I ran my Party of Balrogs OD&D game and played Chainmail twice ⤵️ zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2026/02/gary...

The very first D&D rulebook I had was actually a photocopy of the Holmes Basic rules, which a kid on the schoolbus gave me when he was about to "graduate" to AD&D. I still have that wonderful bootleg, though much the worse for 40 years of wear.

Quick post about some cool and very convenient public domain heraldic shields I found. Perfect for kingdom making using some very iconic imagery that is easy for players to remember, yet similar enough to draw connections. icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/12/d20-...

Michael Pondsmith wrote a "d20" version of Buck Rogers, and TSR basically didn't tell people that they could mine this D&D-compatible game for their D&D campaigns. TSR's owner was the Buick Roger heiress, and she acted as though she didn't like gamers. I guess she earned royalties on this game.

And don't miss the polished mirror in the guest chamber, it could be useful against, say, a medusa...

🚨 Epic thread alert! ⤵️

Sample Dungeon Redux II A review of Beneath the Ruined Wizard’s Tower, an expansion by Fen Orc of The Ruined Tower of Zenopus using BLUEHOME: Fantasy Roleplaying Game. rlyehreviews.blogspot.com/2025/04/samp... #reviewsfromrlyeh #rpgreview #rpgreviews #rpg #DnD #OSR

I bought a stand-alone Holmes Basic rulebook new at a Toys R Us store in 1986 or 87. It must have been gathering dust in a warehouse for years - no idea why it wasn’t returned to TSR or pulped but I was thrilled to find it. I’d never even seen that version before (I started with the 1983 Basic set)

Roll for initiative, it's a Cranberry Gelatinous Cylinder!

This is the way

New arrival today, via Paperback Swap. This the first in a short series of Zork gamebooks published by Infocom in the early 80s. It's not Choose Your Own Adventure, it's not Pick A Path, it's What Do I Do Now.

Had a fun time today starting to explore the ruins of Xak Tsaroth (DL1 Dragons of Despair) in our periodic Dragonlance game. Draconians and gully dwarves! I'm running the power couple Goldmoon and Riverwind.

"Before I left the NYC Conflicts of Interest Board back in 2022, I created (along with Dan Iwrey and Rob Casimir) what might be the greatest municipal ethics-law-based D&D one-shot module ever conceived… or at the very least the ONLY municipal ethics-law-based D&D one-shot module ever conceived."

True. Most of the TSR catalogs and price lists from the era list the Holmes Basic rulebook as available separately for $5.

The Arnesonian model. Even more difficult to map, as everything is on an angle! TSR didn't publish any modules in this style, but you can also see it the Blackmoor Dungeons in the First Fantasy Campaign published by JG in 1977.

It's the closest published module map to the style that Gygax, Kuntz and other were using for their home dungeons like Castle Greyhawk. Where almost every square of the graph paper is filled with corridors and rooms.

I'm starting a little readthrough of Dungeon Module B1: In Search of the Unknown! Not a terribly original idea, but I'm interested in finally digging into some of these classic TSR modules to see for myself what they have to offer. I'd really like to pick one of these up to run in a low-effort game.

🔥 Awesome blog post alert. My favorite kind of historical analysis of old D&D books ⤵️

Given common complaints against starting MUs, I wondered what the starting spells were for early D&D pre-gens so I took a look at the B-series: icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/11/basi...

Overall, it's neat to see someone recognizing gaps in the rules and filling them in themselves. I did this myself in the same place in my original Holmes Basic rules, adding things like a Grappling Hook, Bracers and Scroll Tube. Some of which I had come across in other sources like AD&D.

Found a copy of the 1977 Holmes Basic D&D rules at NW's Largest Garage Sale. So well loved they colored in the art and added their own items to the equipment list! Love this so much. #odnd #adnd #dnd #osr

New on the Zenopus Archives, more about the forthcoming metal minis set based on the #HolmesBasic cover from Sirius miniatures: zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2025/10/meta...

New metal minis based on Sutherland's art for the #HolmesBasic cover are forthcoming! See this post & discussion thread on EnWorld:

🔥 Cool blog post alert:

drew my friends character, we're playing as cowboys but in B2 Keep on the Borderlands he's a lizardman hireling called Henry who got upgraded to player character and ended up taming a giant ant

I love this era when half of natural history books were based on scientific observations and half of them were straight-up cryptids

A new Miniature Monday has appeared on my blog! dungeonsandpossums.com/2025/10/mini...

a little wut from Das Schwarze Auge RPG

Zenopus Archives Flashback ⚡️ M1 Blizzard Pass: Dungeon Design. I wrote about my love for the short group D&D dungeon in the back of this solo module: zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2020/11/m1-b...

In two hours, we'll get to chat with NY Times bestselling author @rasalvatore.bsky.social about playing D&D, the legend of Drizzt, and the new book about his daughter, THE FINEST EDGE OF TWILIGHT. Join us with questions in the live chat! #dnd #books #drizzt www.youtube.com/live/uyBVG-M...

💡 Interesting idea for a wizard's abode ⤵️

PENDRAGON is Greg Stafford's masterpiece. 40 years after its debut, we're bringing the iconic Pendragon 1st Edition #TTRPG collection back to life - and the Kickstarter begins on October 14th! Sign up to notified on launch and join our epic quest:

New outtake from the Replacements' classic Let It Be album released today!

💡 From the Sorcerer's Scroll, a cool idea for quick high-concept random campaign settings based on Appendix N authors. I've followed this blog since I started the Zenopus Archives ⤵️

NEW FROM TTRPG INSIDER: I got to sit down and try @dndbeyond.com 's new starter set HEROES OF THE BORDERLANDS. Is it worth your time? www.ttrpginsider.news/p/news-round...

The Keep and the Cave of Chaos are back in the box of the newest D&D "basic", which is called "Heroes of the Borderlands"

Mail call...the new #Superchunk CD has arrived! Officially out this Friday, it's called Songs in the Key of Yikes. Time for a spin on the vintage 3-disc changer. @superchunk.bsky.social

Just heard about this: The World of #Greyhawk is returning as a setting for organized D&D play, and it begins with an adventure derived from the Village of Hommlet.

DRAGONFLIGHT (1978) Acrylic on Masonite - 20" X 30" For the first book in Anne McCaffrey's now legendary Dragonriders of Pern series, I wanted to create a literal visualization of the title. I selected an aerial point-of-view and tilted the horizon to simulate the dizzying sensation of flight. 1/4

The first dragon I owned. From the Fisher Price Little People Castle set. It lived in a cave with a secret door that led into the castle.

"The influence of Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu has spanned more than 40 years..." — The Strong National Museum of Play (Rochester, NY) looks at the enduring impact of #CallOfCthulhu on #TTRPGs and beyond.

If You See This Post A #Castle 🏰 The Keep on the Borderlands

Thanks to living 1 hour from the University of Wisconsin Parkside and another era's low standards for leaving kids unattended, my first Gen Con was in 1981. I saved the program. dmdavid.com/Gen_Con_XIV_...

A favorite house rule of mine lately for my Holmes/OD&D games is that thieves can fire missile weapons into melee without penalty; i.e. no chance of friendly fire. This leans on Dex being their prime requisite, and gives them the ability to hang back but still contribute.

Sad news. Trend's scratch & sniff "Stinky Stickers" of the early 80s were a favorite of mine around the same time that I started with D&D. The front of my Monster Manual II, which I still have, became a sticker album including several Stinkies.

On Wandering DMs, a fun conversation about their recent play-through of the 2011 Skull Mountain module, by Jeff Sparks, which is inspired by the famous cross-section in #HolmesBasic. ⤵️