TEXT: YOUR 
  PERSONAL 
  INVITATION 
  TO 
  ADVENTURE 
  UNDERSTANDING DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® AND 
  ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS ® 
  FANTASY ADVENTURE GAMES 
  
  Welcome! TSR Hobbies, Inc. invites you to cross the threshold of adventure and enter an exciting new world where 
  imagination reigns supreme. All those who choose to travel these lands are asked to temporarily suspend reality and 
  step into wondrous realms where monsters and magic roam free, good and evil battle, and law and chaos are forever at odds. 
  We urge you to seize this opportunity-for heroism, high adventure, fame and fortune await you in the world of 
  DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® adventure games! 
  Once past the portal, you will find that DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® adventure games are unlike any games you have 
  ever played before. There is no playing board, no piece to move from space to consecutive space, and no play money. 
  In DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Role Playing Games the action takes place in the Imagination of the players them­
  selves. Without even stepping into a phone booth, they shed their everyday identities as students, office workers and 
  serious professionals and assume the roles of fearless fighters, mighty magicians, courageous clerics or any one of a 
  number of heroic classes and professions. 
  Role playing requires that the players become so familiar with their game persona that they become one with their 
  characters in their imagination while playing the game. They will react throughout the game as the characters would in 
  each given situation. The player becomes an actor. Through the character, he or she may vicariously "act out" heroic 
  deeds, fight great battles with courage and brilliance, or perhaps flee to fight yet another day. Just as in everyday life, 
  each character is endowed with a variety of attributes and characteristics such as strength, intelligence, dexterity, 
  constitution, wisdom and charisma - in short, an instant personality profile of relative strengths and weaknesses. 
  To illustrate how a character is developed, assume that you, as a beginning player, have named your character Rendel. 
  Rolling the dice for intelligence, wisdom and charisma you roll consecutively, 4, 6 and 5. This is unfortunate, as these 
  low scores mean that Rendel is somewhat of an unintelligent, bumbling lout. Fortunately, you roll high scores of 17, 16 
  and 14 for strength, constitution and dexterity. This means that although Rendel is no mental giant, he does enjoy far 
  above the normal amounts of physical strength, stamina and skill. Given his strengths and weaknesses, you decide 
  that Rendel should be a fighter. He will make an excellent member of an expedition as long as he receives good 
  direction from the group leader. Had you rolled high scores for intelligence or wisdom rather than strength, you might 
  well have elected to have Rendel be a magic-user or perhaps a cleric. Whether a fighter, magic-user, cleric or another 
  class, your character's success in an adventure will depend on how wisely and well you play the character. It's all up to you. 
  One individual, known as the Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master, is the grand coordinator of all the action. His or 
  her role is a combination of actor and story teller. The DM's narrative breathes life into the world that the players must 
  travel. The DM must not only order and create the cosmos, he or she must also play the part of each and every person 
  or creature that the player characters encounter. A DM may be called upon to portray a gate guard or an inn keeper, a 
  merchant or a monster, an oracle or a madman as the situation dictates. It is a demanding position, for the DM must be 
  able to properly play a wide range of personalities in any given moment: in one role cooperative, in the next uncaring 
  and non-committal, foolish and clever, and so on. 
  When the players experience their first encounter with a monster, the DM must be ready to play the part fully. For 
  instance, if the monster is basically unintelligent, the DM must have it act accordingly, enlivening the meeting with the 
  proper dramatics of the animal sort-including noises! 
  Throughout the game, the DM must use dice and tables of various types to decide the results of many situations, 
  including combat and encounters. 
  The DM must lead his or her group of players step by narrative step through their journey. He or she describes the 
  scene of the adventure, what the characters see, and then allows them to choose their course of action. In such 
  situations, the DM must be a true disinterested party, giving information as required by player questioning and proper 
  action, but may neither help nor hinder otherwise. 
  
  Using scenarios of his or her own or pre-packaged individual scenarios called modules, the OM leads the players 
  through a single adventure or through a campaign consisting of a series of ongoing adventures. The OM may answer 
  any question asked by a player, but if a clue is missed or a wrong turn taken ... so be it! 
  While the Dungeon Master describes the physical territory that the party is encountering, one member of the 
  expedition carefully (and as accurately as possible), maps their progress on graph paper. In this manner, if a clue is 
  missed, a blind alley encountered, or obstacles discovered which prove impossible to overcome, the adventurers have 
  a map with which to retrace their steps. After all, discretion is still the better part of valor, even in a game! 
  To bring these elements into focus, we include the following piece of descriptive action, which might easily be taken 
  out of a beginning level campaign: 
  Picture the lowest level of a crumbling, abandoned castle, where (rumor has it) a great fortune, spoils of a long 
  forgotten crusade, lies buried. Our brave band of adventures has fought their way past a variety of traps and monsters 
  which were left to guard the treasure and is now confronted with a new problem. In the dark and narrow stone-paved 
  passageway they have been following, a new obstacle is encountered. They are wounded, exhausted and hungry; 
  nonetheless, a decision must be made. 
  The Dungeon Master speaks, outlining their situation. 
  OM: Before you is an open pit. It spans the corridor from wall to wall. The pit is 20 feet across and you can see that the 
  corridor continues on the other side. 
  Maria (an elven character): How deep is the pit? 
  OM: The light from your torches only reaches 30 feet, and you can't see the bottom. 
  Salek (a dwarven character): We can't go down. How about up? What do we see if we look upward? 
  OM: The ceiling is rough stone, about 20 feet high. You notice a hook set in the ceiling over the pit. 
  It is about halfway across. 
  Maria: Ah! I'll put a loop in the end of my rope and lasso the hook. Then we'll swing across on the rope. 
  OM: I'd say that you would have a 75% chance of catching the hook on your first throw (OM rolls percentile dice). 
  You're sucessful, but the noise of your actions has alerted and angered a cave bear whose den is nearby. The bear 
  attacks just as you finish crossing. 
  Salek: With our backs to the pit, we have no way to avoid the bear. Everybody draw weapons and fight. Maria and 
  Rondel will try to work to the side and attack the bear's flank. 
  The adventurers quickly position themselves into a defensive formation. The huge bear attacks viciously with teeth 
  and claws. 
  DM: The bear snaps at Rondel and (OM consults a combat table and rolls a die) bites for (OM rolls a different type of 
  die) five points of damage. (In similar fashion, it is determined that the bear misses its attack on Maria and Salek.) 
  OM: Now the party attacks. Rondel swings at the bear and (OM consults table and rolls die) misses. Maria casts a 
  magic missile spell and hits the bear ..... 
  Through the combined efforts of the party, the bear is beaten, but Ronde! lies badly wounded and bleeding on the floor 
  of the passageway. Felton the cleric, using skill and holy spells, heals the brave fighter. The exhausted party rests, 
  gathering their strength for whatever terrors and treasures may lie ahead. 
  As you've guessed by now, adventure and excitement are the name of the game. You get a spine-tingling and 
  absolutely safe adventure, bounded only by the far limits of the players' imaginations. Perilous unknown lands, 
  populated with dangers of man, magic, and monsters, can be traversed from the safety and comfort of your living 
  room. 
  So, if the thoughts of limitless adventure, the friendship of brave companions, and open vistas of imagination appeal to 
  you ... this is only the beginning. Once the skills of the basic set are mastered, your choices are infinite. 
  
  As players progress from one adventure to the next, they accrue points from successful adventures. With enough of 
  these experience points, player characters advance in level and with each advance gain new skills with magic and/or 
  weapons.Thus, Ronde! might eventually wind up as a seasoned warrior and respected member of his society, if he 
  remains alive. Serious injury to a character isn't the end in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® adventure games, for members 
  of an expedition can sometimes be magically healed of wounds through spells. Even if a player's character dies, all the 
  player has to do is roll up a new character for the DM to introduce into the game. 
  Just as there need be no end to the game, there are no winners or losers except in tournament play. The focus of the 
  game is on the cooperation of comrades, rather than one of competition. Many have found that the game also 
  increases such skills as reading, mathematics, problem solving, logic, art, and most important, the stimulation of 
  imagination. In fact, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® adventure games are sometimes used by educators, counselors and 
  the clergy. The game has been specifically endorsed by a noted authority on education of the gifted. 
  While DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Basic Set introduces the beginner to the world of fantasy role playing, DUNGEONS 
  & DRAGONS® Expert Set expands the horizon. The rules in the Expert Set booklet enable players to advance to higher 
  levels, gaining new spells, abilities, and magical treasures as taken from the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 
  Collectors Edition Adventure Game. Mightier characters require mightier opponents, and the expert rules include 
  many powerful and awesome monsters. 
  There's a great deal of information for Dungeon Masters as well. Included are rules for conducting wilderness 
  adventures, handling air and sea battles, and building strongholds. In addition, the Expert Set contains an instruction­
  al wilderness module, ideal for introducing new concepts found in the Expert rulebok. DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® 
  Expert Set completes the framework upon which players can build any fantasy world they can imagine. 
  ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® Adventure Games are completely different and independent games. The 
  AD&D™ game system is more structured and detailed than the D&D® game system. AD&D™ games introduce the 
  fantasy role player to a fascinating new world, with so much to explore that it takes several hardbound volumes to tell 
  about it: 
  The Players Handbook contains everything a player needs to know to enter this world as a fighter, magic-user, 
  illusionist or other adventurer, including character abilities, equipment, playing tips and hundreds of magical spells 
  and their effects. 
  The Monster Manual provides the DM and players with over 350 monsters drawn from world mythology and sheer 
  imagination, which range from helpful to hostile, and from miniscule to mighty. 
  The Dungeon Masters Guide is the complete definitive work on how to be an effective Dungeon Master, with special 
  information on how to handle almost any situation, plus magical treasures, encounter charts and more. 
  The DEITIES & DEMIGODS™ cyclopedia enables the DM to round out his or her campaign with gods and heroes 
  drawn from the world's great myths and their legends. 
  FIEND FOLIO™ tome gives the OM and players an alphabetical listing of monsters and new encounter tables. Each 
  creature is described and most are illustrated for easy identification. 
  Together, these volumes provide fantasy lovers with a solid, believable set of rules and a rich world bound only by the 
  players' imagination. 
  DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, AND DEITIES & DEMIGODS, FIEND FOLIO 
  are trademarks owned by TSR Hobbies, Inc. 
  © 1980 TSR Hobbies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/1st Edition (ODD, D&D Basic, AD&D)/1st Edition/Core/Your Personal Invitation to Adventure.pdf