I have a problem. I can’t start getting into any hobby without going into a deep complex and slightly unhinged rabbit hole of pop-cultural archeological research. So, I recently got back into D&D, after playing it as a kid (it was AD&D then, so it was a while ago). But this led me to this point, reading rule books from 1974’s original game. 

Actually, this is even kind of a beta test of D&D, the game is really starting out, you can see this as it leans on the rules of Chainmail, an older miniature fighting game and is trying to add magic and tolkienesque fantasy to that. In this first of three volumes where the original rules were set out we are looking, as you can probably guess from the title, at character creation and magical spells.

Essentially, these 30-something pages detail how to create characters and develop them through levels as well as giving the player the bare bones of a magical system, including spell lists and effects. The game at this time is very loose, there are few rules and the ones that exist are either very vague or very complicated in a way that doesn’t improve the game but makes it daunting to new players. This was clearly written by old hands at tabletop games, and you can really see that. It would be more streamlined later, but the foundations are all here, although the art of the illustrations on display here is generally on the terrible side of naive. An interesting historical document, more than anything today, it’s still fun reading if you are into D&D.