The Treasure In The Mentzer Basic D&D Rulebook Adventure
It was the Tom Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons rulebook that got me into the game. Though I owned some of the advanced books, I never moved beyond basic. To me, the simplistic nature of those rules was all me and the group I played with needed.
I think the Moldvay book was a better Basic book to work with than the Frank Mentzer version. I always respected that Frank took it all the way from Basic to Immortal. Five boxed sets, and I own them all. There's another thing I liked about Frank's version.
To teach new people how to play the game, Frank actually had them rolling up a character and adventuring in a solo quest that he created in the book. You were playing before you knew the rules. As it unfolded, you learned things about the statistics and about the game itself. That was brilliant, in my opinion.
With the cleric Aleena and the wizard Bargle, we had a couple of characters to draw our attention. Aleena taught us about the value of a cleric and got us to care about her. Bargle gave us a bad guy to hate.
Both characters were immortalized when Bargle ultimately killed Aleena. This is the way Frank meant it to be, although other people at TSR brought Aleena back. With her death came the Kill Bargle meme.
There's another thing that interested me about the little solo adventure. There was the treasure. Let's not kid ourselves. There might be a quest that leads our characters into the dungeon, but we're looking to grab the loot. Beyond Aleena and Bargle was something else of interest to me.
When I first did this adventure, I discovered the treasure chest room from the secret door. You could peer through the crack and see the treasure chest, but you couldn't enter. That moment made me wonder. What was in that treasure chest? Were there any magic items?
I don't think I ever got an answer to the treasure chest question, and that was enough to inspire my imagination. If you come at it from the other way, you do get to the treasure, but there are other issues to deal with. There's a trap.
You learn very quickly that there's a lethality to this game. A trap can take you out in one fell swoop. In this case, it's a blade. Frank gives you an out. If you have the healing potion, you can drink it.
There's another issue you're going to deal with here. It's that pesky rust monster. To get to the treasure chest, you have to get past that annoying creature. You may just lose your weapon and your armor in that encounter.
If you survive the trap and get the treasure chest, you find that you get enough money to buy yourself better equipment. The problem is you have to drag that treasure chest past the rust monster.
You find out that even though the pest isn't a threat to your safety, it is a threat to your loot. It will disintegrate the treasure chest and all the coins within it.
Frank manages to introduce you to some of the different dangers you will see in a game. He also teaches you about other skill sets. You're playing a fighter, but you learn where a cleric or even a thief might come in handy.
The Frank Mentzer solo adventure in that rule book captured our imaginations. I thought he did a good job with basic as well as all the books that followed. Throughout the '80s, I enjoyed the game before life took me another directions.
I'm glad I got to meet Frank at Gencon in 2007. He's a genuinely good guy and was an important part of TSR back in those days. In all honesty, they could have used a guy like Frank to introduce people to the newer version of the game. They've never quite done basic rules like they did back then. At least not in the last 25 years or so.
