Hey all,

While researching Dave Arneson's work for an "Arnesonian" RPG supplement I'm working on, I started a cheat sheet of the Adventures in Fantasy rules (since the character, combat, and magic rules appear be be 90% similar to accounts of Blackmoor in the late-70s). This then led me into getting into the idea of cleaning up the entire rules to make them more understandable and then finding The Semi-Retired Gamer's posts on the subject on his blog.

After talking to Charlie at The Semi-Retired Gamer, I've started a semi-sharable Google Doc (if anyone else wants in, I can send them the link) for a new version of the rules. I have the character creation process with stats and simplified combat rules right now. So far everything in there is fully backwards compatible with the original books (I think). There is definitely a tension between trying to present the rules as written since AIF is an important historical document and the temptation of fixing the little things that would make the system better.

Surprisingly, most of the text can be used as-is with minor modifications; it's mostly been a lot of just adding introductory sentences to everything (like "after you roll to hit, then roll damage") and reformatting tables.


There are a lot of things that need to be clarified, though. My biggest gripes right now:

Why does STR matter the most when determining hit points? Why isn't HLT included at all? (This actually does almost have a slight historical precedence, since in very early Blackmoor rules hits and damage ("strength") were correlated.)

It doesn't seem to say anywhere that you can't fire a missile weapon and melee during the same turn. Does anyone think this would have been allowed?

In combat, it says all and any damage is 1d6, but that is clearly contradicted by the notion of hit dice (which doesn't seem to be explained in the text).

Does anyone actually know what Knowledge (the almost-hidden second optional stat) is supposed to be used for? (Also, would its abbreviation be "KNO" or "KNW"?)