Sources

Here is a list of the main sources that will be used on this blog. They are organized into three broad categories: primary sources, secondary sources, and additional material.

PRIMARY SOURCES

In the jargon of academic research, primary sources are original, firsthand accounts of an event, topic, or time period: they come directly from the source and have not been filtered through interpretation or evaluation. 

Since this blog is about playing OD&D (see Start Here), I chose my primary sources to be the original game itself as well as the two other games that it heavily references and builds upon. Together, these three sources are:

• Dunnigan, Jim. 1972. Outdoor Survival. Avalon Hill (A survival board game that lays the foundation of OD&D's wilderness adventures. Specifically, OD&D recommends the use of Outdoor Survival's hex map for conducting "off-hand" wilderness adventures);

• Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. 1974. Dungeons & Dragons: Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures. Tactical Studies Rules (Refered on this blog as OD&D - see Acronyms. A PDF version of OD&D can be purchased here. What's to say? It's the first RPG ever published. Because the game was published in a white box cointaining three brown booklets, OD&D is sometimes called "White Box D&D" or the "Three Little Brown Books", "3LBBs");

• Gygax, Gary, and Jeff Perren. 1971. Chainmail: Rules for Medieval Miniatures. Guidon Games (A PDF version can be purchased here. Chaimail is a miniatures wargame that OD&D recommends as the standard method for resolving skirmishes).

SECONDARY SOURCES
In the same vein, secondary sources interpret, analyze, or summarize primary sources, provinding commentary, discussion, or critique rather than firsthand information. 

For the purposes of this blog, secondary sources are games or documents closely related to the 1974 version of D&D which shed light on some of its aspects. They are:

• Arneson, Dave. 1977. The First Fantasy Campaign. Judge's Guild (Arneson created his "Blackmoor" game around 1970. He demonstrated his game to Gary Gygax in 1972 and went on to work with him on the game which would become Dungeons & Dragons. The First Fantasy Campaign is one big mess of a book, but within it there are hints on various aspects of early D&D or proto-D&D);

• Gygax, Gary, and Brian Blume. 1974. Warriors of Mars. Tactical Studies Rules (A miniatures wargame based on the fantasy version of Mars as imagined by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Published in the same year of OD&D, its concurrent development is probably the reason for all the references to Burroughs' Mars in the RPG. Importantly, Warriors of Mars offers information on the creatures and inhabitants of Mars that are mentioned but not described in OD&D. For this reason, I consider Warriors of Mars an essential secondary source);

• Gygax, Gary, and Dave Arneson. n.d. Pre-publication fragments of OD&D (Some pre-publication versions of  OD&D have surfaced over the years, such as the Mornard fragments and the Dalluhn manuscript, with a few intriguing differences from the game as published);

• Megarry, David R. 1975. Dungeon!. Tactical Studies Rules (An adventure board game simulates some aspects of Dungeons & Dragons. Even though OD&D was released before Dungeon!, Megarry - a member of the original Blackmoor group run by Dave Arneson - had a prototype of the board game ready as early as 1972).

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL

Below are links to works that don't fit into the above categories:

OD&D Supplements and OD&D Siblings (coming soon)

OD&D Retroclones

Modern Works with Great Content for OD&D (coming soon)

Inspirational Media (coming soon)