I started with B/X but we very quickly began playing a mash-up of B/X and AD&D as at the time we didn't really realize they were supposed to be different games. I devoured all the books I could borrow from my friends or check-out from the library, and later my mom would sometimes give them to me for birthday or Christmas gifts. I have a nostalgic fondness for it, and currently am enjoying playing Old School Essentials, which is a clone of B/X D&D, but it also has an "Advanced Fantasy" supplement, which essentially allows you do incorporate AD&D stuff like the new races, classes, weapons, and spells, but using the B/X rules. I use it for the game I run for my daughter and her friends. Thanks for watching and commenting! I appreciate it!

Many still playing 1E and B/X

I loved it as a kid more for the idea and because it was from the UK, which really intrigued me, but now that I'm older I've gone back to it and taken a harder look at the parts I dismissed in my younger days. Lots of fun stuff in there!

That's awesome! I will need to go check that out. Thank you for the heads-up!

I remember when it came out and I was just completely fascinated by it due to my (at the time) love of all things from the UK (particularly music). Lots of great monsters in there, and also a bunch of "interesting" ones!

Oh that's amazing! Do you recall which book that was? I'd love to see a list of the original creators.

Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your feedback! I definitely have some reviews planned of stuff that I use for the 1981 B/X game I run for my 13yo daughter and her friends. And more history coming up as well! I loved Dragon magazine and all those classes. I think perhaps you mean "The Death Master" from Dragon #76? That was the first issue of the magazine I ever got!

It may be that you're remembering the Necromancer Class from White Dwarf Issue #35. I played one in a game years ago where my friend and I played 'Evil' characters in order to prove that mixed Alignment parties just didn't work. My friend played a Demonologist, which was another evil Character Class from White Dwarf issue #47. Between the two of us, we proved that 2 evil characters could totally wreck a party if played as 'properly evil'. I have an original copy, signed by Ian Livingstone when he was at the Game's Gallery in Glasgow, 1983 (I think), to sign of copies of his latest Fighting Fantasy book 'The Forest of Doom'. I was there picking up back issues of White Dwarf and managed to get his autograph. I still have Issue 35, though I long since loaned the other one out, never to be seen again.

Very happy to hear that! Thank you so much for watching, and for letting me know. Cheers!

Thank you for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! My friend had this book, too, and I would often check it out from the library. I didn't get my own copy until about 14 years ago!

As a kid, I couldn't stand it and found quite a few of the monsters silly and child-like. Now I'm more inclined to embrace them for the sheer weirdness and also appreciate that "serious fantasy" isn't the only kind.

I will be making more shortly. I already have the topic as well as about half of the research done for my next "history" video. And I'll be posting Part 2 of my "Desert Island TTRPG Books" video soon. Thank you for watching and commenting!

It definitely has an "undead vibe" to it, for sure. I had no idea what a Githyanki was when I first saw this book and it wasn't until reading the entries that I figured it out. It is quite a striking image! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!

Thank you! I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you for watching and commenting! And yes, that monster freaked me out as a kid. Definitely creepy! And yes, Sir Ian was knighted last fall I believe!

Although it is before my time (in my early 40s, started on 2e and quit for 25 years until recently), it is fantastic content. I enjoy the history of these things.

I am so happy to hear that! Thank you very much for watching and commenting. I'll definitely be making more history videos but sprinkling in others like reviews and such just to mix it up. I am an over-50 gamer as well. I hope my content will also be appreciated by younger gamers! Thanks again!

@@Jibcutter Thank you, Zack! I really appreciate you watching and commenting. More history to come!

Indeed! Especially because you've done the deep research into stuff that I've forgotten. For instance, just hearing "Cavaliers And Roundheads" (around 1:01) mentioned - Wow! - takes me back to when my teenage friends and I first discovered DnD ('79-'80). We met an old (probably mid-30s, so from our 13-year-old perspective, *old* ) wargamer at our FLGS. He explained things like HD, AC, and Saving Throws to us, often using what he called "the Cavs" or "Chainmail" rulesets to explore what were variant rules to him but wholly unfamiliar concepts for us. From him we learned what things like "skirmish" and "rout" meant, and the difference between a ballista (scorpion) and a trebuchet. And he called us the "future of gaming". And now I'm an old Grognard, passing on ancient TSR lore - like ration, torch, and encumbrance management - to the ones who'll be the next "future of gaming". It's like . . . The Circle Of Life! 😏

Thank you for watching and commenting! As a tween/teen in 1982/1983 when I first discovered this book, I was hugely into British culture, particularly the music, and I viewed this book similarly, as being "cool" just because it was published in the UK. As a consequence, I think I looked on it a bit more favorably than I might have had it been published in the US. But, I also really liked Russ Nicholson's art, because it was so different!

Recurring villains like that are the best!

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I was very saddened when I heard the news of Russ Nicholson's passing. His art is really what made this book, to me, so different from all the other TSR books of that era. I was a big fan of the book back in the day, partly just because it was published in the UK. It felt so "exotic" from an American standpoint, and that was also during a time period when I was devouring anything from England, especially the music! And yes, while a lot of folks make fun of some of those monsters, I think your description of "Lovecraftian" is perfect!

I think that monster takes the prize for most gamers making fun of it! I think it can be creepy and somewhat alien or Cthulhu-like, if you want it to be. But so many people hated it!

Back in the 80's, I always looked for White Dwarf at my local shop, but they never carried it. I also enjoy the UK module line, particularly UK2-3.

​@@daddyrolleda1did you ever get any white dwarf magazines. I have several just sitting in a box and can pop one in the post for you.

This is such a generous offer! No, I never got any old White Dwarf magazines. I only began collecting in the late 90s when the magazine had turned into basically a catalog to showcase the new Warhammer miniatures and there weren't any D&D or other TTRPG articles.

I am so glad you liked it! This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid! I really loved the Russ Nicholson art. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!

I fell in love with this book as a kid, but I think it was partly to do with the fact that I was about All Things British back then (including music and TV shows)!

@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah. The same was true for me. In the 1980s if it was British it was better than anything in the US.

I'm really glad I could help provide some information for you! I was totally enthralled with this book as a kid, partially because I had to keep borrowing it from a friend or checking it out from the library. I loved the very different art style especially. I didn't get my own copy until decades later on Ebay! Thanks for watching and commenting!

I have a few friends on Twitter whose first experience with TTRPGs were the Fighting Fantasy books, and they had a similar reaction as you to the art in the Fiend Folio! It was a weird book, but I think that's part of why I liked it!

@@daddyrolleda1 I was maybe 11 and would play Warlock Of Firetop Mountain in bed at night (ignoring game mechanics and assuming best outcomes) for what felt like hours. The text and those illustrations got me almost feeling claustrophobic, fighting for my life far inside the mountain. :)

Oh, I think *everybody* had a hard time figuring out psionics! As a consequence, we never really used it!

Thank YOU for watching and commenting. I sincerely appreciate your support. More to come!

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I appreciate it. For whatever reason, as a kid, I didn't really like the slaadi, but looking at them now, I think they're really cool and I'm working on a way to incorporate them into the game I'm running for my daughter and her friends.

@@daddyrolleda1 I was obsessed with all of those extraplanar creatures, my players spent a lot of time fighting Demodands, Daemons, and Slaadi. Probably too much time :)

@@thesonofdormammu5475 Sounds like fun to me!

Thanks again! I had a blast putting this one together, and I'm really glad folks are finding it and learning about this era of the hobby and its publisher.

Yes, I remember seeing ads for White Dwarf in early issues of Dragon and thinking it would be fun to read, but I never saw a copy for sale at my local shop. Years later when a friend got me into Warhammer 40k for a skinny minute, I grabbed an issue of White Dwarf and was surprised that it was basically just a catalog for Games Workshop miniatures. The very few issues of White Dwarf I've seen in PDF form from the early days all look great and I wish I'd had the opportunity back in the day to read it more.

@@daddyrolleda1 they were great, well, I thought so 🙂 was a time you could get back issues from them but I doubt that's still the case, for the really old ones at least.

One other person mentioned in the comments that his DM had one back in the day and he didn't realize it was an actual product - he thought his DM had cobbled it together! I've never met anyone who actually owned one. I suspect there must have been a very limited print run. But maybe you'll find one someday! Thanks as always for your support in watching and commenting! I appreciate it!

That's very cool! I'm running Keep on the Borderlands right now for my 13 year-old daughter and her friends, and am planning to start including a few of these creatures now, just to mix things up. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Any tips/lore for running an ogrillon? I've been thinking about them since I played Baldur's Gate as a kid, so I just added one as an NPC.

@@jeremiahsafford1389 He didn't last long enough for me to give him a personality. 🙂 They're stupid and violent, so they're really designed as canon fodder. If you want a culture or individual quirk for them, then it's on you (or at least I can't help you because I haven't made one).

Thank you so much! I appreciate it!

Oh, wow! That's really cool! On my Twitter account today, one of designers who contributed some of the monsters from the Fiend Factory (Neville White) was chatting with me about my video and his involvement back in the day. Fun conversation!

I've not played Baldur's Gate 3 (or, in fact, any D&D video games - I'm not a video game player). I assume there are creatures from the Fiend Folio featured in the game? Thank you for watching and commenting!

Oh, man! I used to love reading Order of the Stick! I kind of lost track of it but I loved it at the time I was reading it. And I do remember the flumph story arc!

I really appreciate your support. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! A new video will be posted tomorrow (Monday) for Part 2 of my "Desert Island TTRPG Books" and I'm working on the next video in my Early TTRPG History series. Thanks again!

Yeah, Jon Peterson's stuff is great. You may have noticed I source some of my images from his blog. I think it's highly likely that Gary's later-years comments on the subject are highly colored by his shifting viewpoints and shifting memory, and the narrative he wanted to tell. I can't say with definitive truth whether his quote is completely true or completely false, but I suspect it's somewhere in-between. What we can say for certain is that there was a period of time that TSR was considering combining and/or buying Games Workshop, but that deal didn't happen for whatever reason, which led to the creation of TSR UK. Thanks for watching and commenting!

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I appreciate it! And yes, so many iconic monsters debuted in this book. I'm also quite partial to the art. But what I remember most is that my best friend at the time had this book and I didn't, and he would sometimes let me borrow it, and then I began checking it out from our local library until someone at the library never returned it.

Picking Russ Nicholson was genius for this one!

@@daddyrolleda1, absolutely!

Thanks for watching and commenting! I, too, liked the Aarakocra when I saw them as a kid, and had always planned to use them as an NPC race for a campaign world I was working on. I knew they were part of 5E as I mentioned in the video but didn't realize their appearance had changed! I liked both UK2 & UK3 - especially the cover for UK2 reminded me a bit of the Rankin-Bass Hobbit art.

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! And I, too, was surprised by Charles Stross' involvement in this book! Very cool on getting the book! Where did you find a copy?

Thank you so much! I actually only learned of the existence of the UK cover to the Holmes Basic book just last year. You're the only person I "know" who had one! I remember the 3-ring binders for the 2E Monstrous Compendium! I didn't get those, but instead waited until the later "Monstrous Manual" which was a regular hardback book version of many of the creatures. Thanks again for watching and commenting!

@@daddyrolleda1 I wish the book was mine :). I only got the joy of looking at the cover when my DM was using it. It's the only one I've ever seen and until I saw your video, I always thought it was something he'd made, or a protective cover he'd added, as all the books I saw afterwards had the standard cover art. He was a regular visitor to the original GW store in Hammersmith. It's probably why we played so many different systems. Although they became zealously litigious and alienated many people, Games Workshop is a very important player in my TTRPG life, and no doubt many other players from the good old days :)

@@MrChasanDayve I'm very jealous! I've never seen one in the flesh either. I've never even met anyone who has! I believe the cover art is by a very young John Blanche.

That's right, thank you! I think most of the monsters in here that were credited to TSR United States creators, like Lawrence Schick, etc., first debuted in different modules or in Dragon magazine.

Oh my goodness, I didn't realize they BOTH wrote Fighting Fantasy gamebooks! That's crazy!

Are you sure about that?

@@owenbloomfield1177 I am. American Steve wrote Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando. British Steve has a very distinctive writing style, and it's clear that he didn't write those ones.

@@thekelvingreen interesting. Those titles are after my time with the books.

Ha! So funny. I remember a friend hiding his copy of the Monster Manual at the bottom of his nightstand drawer but his mom eventually found and confiscated it. I was never sure if it was due to the few lascivious illustrations, or due to the inclusion of devils and demons (they were a highly religious family).

There are a lot of those goofy creatures in there. It took me decades but I began to re-envision them as Cthulhu-style nightmare creatures, and they work better for me now. I just don't use the name "Flumpf." 😄

Lol. I can see that. Welcome to the Down with Flumpf society, Daddy!

Thank you for much for the compliment, and for the other channel suggestions. I appreciate it! I watched your video on your first time playing D&D and have your D&D novel in the queue! Thanks again!

@@daddyrolleda1 cool. I hope you enjoy listening to it 🙂

Ha! Nicely done! I tried to come up with a clever pun for my team's name, but it didn't work.

Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Glad you liked the video. And, yes! That's exactly what happened! I used to seek out the Peel sessions at our local record shop once I'd heard of them, particularly Joy Division and New Order!

Nice! I loved the Siouxie and the Banshees one!

@@nuriochi Ooh, cool! Now I need to go check that out!

And go find Mitch Benn's tribute song to him, "a minutes noise for John"

Yes, the flumph gets a lot of hate! I strongly disliked it as a kid, but these days I can see the sort of alien/weird aspects that could be talked up. I'd probably just not show the illustration, though!

Thank you for watching, commenting, and subscribing! I really appreciate your support! I've played OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and Old School Essentials, plus borrowed ideas from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, White Box FMAG, DCC, and more for my B/X game I'm currently running. Retro-clones are great! You can find the PDF of the 1st Edition Fiend Folio for sale at DriveThruRPG for only $4.95! www.drivethrurpg.com/product/50012/Fiend-Folio-1e Good luck and thanks again!