Last week I had some down time and read through my copies of Holmes Basic, Moldvay Basic and the old Monster & Treasure Assortment (the final level 1-9 compilation version). Given its roughly contemporary publication date to Holmes (the original 3 booklets in 1977-78, the compilation in 1980), I figured the M&TA could make a good resource for a Holmes DM looking to quickly stock a dungeon a la B1.
One interesting thing I noticed about the 1980 M&TA compilation - it mixes monsters from several versions of the game. There are listings for crab spiders and caecilia (which I only recall being present in B/X), but also demons on the lower levels (only present in OD&D/Eldritch Wizardry and AD&D1e). I guess you could say that compilation had little something for everybody , or at least every edition available at that time.
Not sure supplements were looked at in terms of editions like they are today.
ReplyDeleteAndy C The monster selection was revised to B/X when the sets were compiled. But they weren't completely thorough. The original entries were all OD&D, some from Supplements, Strategic Review and the original tournament version of Tsojconth. T. Foster compiled a list of the changes:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.acaeum.com/library/m&tchanges.html
Great link, thanks Zach!
ReplyDeleteMarc, I agree they differently didn't view editions as they are now. Odd though that rather than make the compilation consistent for one set, they took the original mix (LBBs / supplements / other sources) and then seemingly randomly threw in entries from B/X. I'd have expected that when they did the compilation they'd have edited it for either B/X or AD&D.
As it is, AD&D players who didn't own B/X would be scratching their heads about rhagodessae and crab spiders, while B/X folks who didn't own the MM or the Greyhawk supplement would be scratching their heads about demons and others not in B/X.
An odd choice, if unsurprising given that TSR was still pretty fast and loose.
Did a little more digging around on the M&TA - pretty good post on Grognardia about it as well: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/08/retrospective-monster-treasure.html
ReplyDelete