2025 Wrap Up

2025 is almost done, and boy has it ever been a big year for DD5.

I started this coffee club back in May (around 7 months ago) to motivate me to get DD5 done, and specifically to get the central challenges around book 2 sorted out.

DD5's book 2 (Delving & Exploration) organises gems from across the 3LBBs coherently, and fills the most obvious gaps with contemporaneous lore from Chainmail and Arneson's FFC. That's no small thing. Add a thousand footnotes to the annotated version. And then add brilliant art from Jim Holloway (yes) and Timothy Ide to the illustrated version. I may be biased, but I think it's shaping up to be something pretty solid.

So, where did we get to, and what's still left to do?

Here's an update to the book 2 Table of Contents that I posted back in August.
Everything that was done back then is now marked O.
Anything I've completed since then is marked X.

Fantastic Medieval Wargames:
 [O] Organisation 
 [O] Referee’s Introduction 

Preparing for the Campaign: 
 [O] The Known World 
 [O] Wilderness Preparation 
 [O] Town Preparation
 [O] Underworld Preparation 

Moderating the Adventure: 
 [X] Hazards
 ---[X] Flaming Oil
 ---[X] Falling
 ---[X] Drowning
 ---[X] Poison
 ---[X] Falling Rocks
 ---[X] Fatigue 
 [O] Underworld Adventures 
 [ ] Monster Reaction to Players 
 [x] Fantastic Medieval 1:1 Scale Battles
 ---[X] Figure, Ground, Time Scale
 ---[X] Normal and Fantastic Combat
 ---[X] Command and Control
 ---[X] Turns and Rounds
 ---[x] Space Required
 ---[X] Movement During Melee
 ---[X] Spells and Missiles
 ---[X] --Missile Range
 ---[X] --Turning the Undead
 ---[X] Initiative/The First Blow
 ---[X] Determining Hits
 ---[X] --Men Attacking
 ---[X] --Monsters Attacking
 ---[X] --Magic Weapons and Armor
 ---[X] Determining Kills
 ---[X] Saving Throws
 ---[X] --Magic Item Saving Throws
 ---[ ] Morale
 ---[ ] Subdual and Capture
 [O] Wilderness Adventures 

Moderating the Campaign: 
 [ ] The Move/Turn in the Campaign 
 [ ] Player Characters 
 [ ] Non-Player Characters 

Far Horizons: 
 [ ] Seafaring Exploration 
 [ ] Aerial Exploration 
 [ ] Other Worlds 
 [ ] Artifacts 

Appendices

License

The 1:1 Scale Battles section was certainly the outstanding elephant in the room last time I posted, but that's largely in the rear view now, with only Morale, Subdual and Capture to complete. Those sections are already written; I just need to integrate the footnotes with the main text.

I'm still pondering whether the detailed combat rules should be pushed to an appendix to make DD more like the original game (which is "lite" on combat rules). That said, a clear rendition of OD&D's CM-based combat-isms has been DD's mainstay, so... decisions.

Either way, the book 2 TODO list is getting shorter now. The "glimmer" of light at the end of the book 2 tunnel I mentioned in August is growing brighter, and I'm starting to think more about how the illustrated version and the section layouts will work.

I'm looking forward to sharing some of these with my valued supporters and members in the New Year :)

Fire up the espresso maker. Let's get it done!