Assembling the Original D&D Recommended Equipment

Towards the end of 2025, I decided that I was going to return to first principles with Dungeons & Dragons, and start up a campaign exactly as the original rules instruct.  I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to achieve by returning to the game's primordial roots in this way, but I do have some vague goals in mind.  I'd like to evoke the spirit of the earliest D&D campaigns, if such a thing is possible.  I want to experience first-hand some of the failings and holes in the rules that led to the creation of Advanced D&D.  Most of all, I want to kickstart my own creative process, strip away the analysis paralysis and anxieties that have stopped me moving forward with a new campaign in the past, and just get cracking with some simple procedures.

The first thing I need to do is assemble the list of recommended equipment at the front of D&D Vol. 1: Men & Magic.  I spent a decent chunk of today at a shopping centre, and a quick trip to Games World and Officeworks was sufficient to obtain (almost) everything I need.  I'm going to run through the list and show what I got, so strap in for the high-octane thrill that can only come from stationery photography.  On with the list!

Dungeons & Dragons (you have it!)

I do indeed have it, as the list in the booklet attests. In fact, I have it in various forms: the official PDF purchased from drivethrurpg, other PDFs of different printings from rather more dubious sources, and a physical copy that I had the foresight to purchase nearly 20 years ago before the price became unfeasible.

This is the Original Collector's Edition from the late 1970s, so at the earliest it's a 6th printing.  It's definitely past the point where hobbits, ents, balrogs, and other such Tolkienisms have been excised.  I doubt I'll ever be able to afford a printing that includes that earlier text, but I have a PDF so I'm happy enough with that.

Outdoor Survival (available from your hobby dealer or directly from Avalon Hill Company, 4517 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD. 21214)

Please note that Outdoor Survival is no longer available from Avalon Hill Company at that address, or indeed any address at all.  But I'm listing the recommended equipment exactly as it appears in the booklet, so you get the full details.

I don't yet have a copy of Outdoor Survival, but I do have one on order.  It's not exactly cheap to find these days, especially when you add in shipping to Australia, but it's no more expensive than I'd pay for an upmarket board game at retail, so I'm not too bothered.  The board is the component most relevent to D&D play, and I'm looking forward to checking it out when it arrives.

Dice -- the following different kinds of dice are needed:

    1 pair 4-sided dice                1 pair 20-sided dice

    1 pair 8-sided dice                1 pair 12-sided dice

    4 to 20 pairs 6-sided dice

I've been playing D&D since 1988, of course I have dice!  Alas, not the original green plastic dice that came with my D&D Basic Set, I lost those on a tram many years ago.  But I have a few sets.  Certainly not as many as some folks, I don't have that urge to collect huge mounds of them.  I have enough to suit my needs.

Note that there are no 10-sided dice on the list above.  Those didn't exist in 1974, as far as I know.  Also note that the 20-siders mentioned above would have been numbered 0 through 9 twice.  So they were effectively 10-siders shaped like the d20 we know and love today.  I guess that rolling to attack back then would have involved rolling a d20 for a result from 1 to 10, then any other die to determine the 50/50 chance that it's a result from 1-10 or 11-20.  I won't be going so far in my efforts to explore 70s D&D, I'm quite happy to use the full range of dice I have available.

 This is my meager dice collection.  The two black-and-red sets I bought separately; one set is missing the d6.  The ugly multi-coloured set on the top left came out of the D&D Adventure Game (aka the starter set for 3rd edition).  The blue d20 in the middle found its way into my collection from somewhere.  The purple d6 was sent to me as part of the Fighting Fantasy Fan Club about 25 years ago.  I bought the large group of d6s today from Games World.  The equipment list recommends having from 4 to 20 pairs of six-siders; I bought ten.  I'm not thrilled that they have the company's brand name on them, I wouldn't have bought them if I'd seen that earlier.  But at least the font is kind of metal.

Chainmail miniature rules, latest edition (available from your hobby dealer or directly from Guidon Games, P.O. Box C, Belfast, ME. 04915)

Once more I must point out that Chainmail is in all likelihood not available from your hobby dealer, and is definitely no longer available from Guidon Games.  Which is a shame, because I don't have a physical copy, and they are too bloody expensive to justify purchasing.  I have PDFs of the 2nd and 3rd editions though, so I'm sorted if the need for Chainmail arises.

1 3-Ring Notebook (referee and each player)

This is the first of my Officeworks purchases today.  I ran into some slight confusion, because Gary wrote notebook but I think maybe he meant binder.  I dunno, maybe he meant exactly what he wrote, but describing a notebook as "3-Ring" is unusual.  So I bought a 3-ring binder and a notebook that can go in it.  I only bought one, because I don't know how many players I'll have yet.  And to be frank, they can fend for themselves when it comes to stationery.

 Graph Paper (6 lines per inch is best)

Ah, beautiful graph paper.  I already have plenty of it, but I can never resist an excuse to buy more.  Officeworks didn't have any that was "6 lines to the inch" (which I'm interpreting as 6 squares per inch).  Sorry, but we're on the metric system here, Gary.  The closest I could find was paper with 5mm squares, but that only gave 5 squares per inch.  So I've gone with 2mm squares, which fits about 12 squares per inch.  That can divide by 6, so that's as close as I'm going to get. without doing some more shopping.

Sheet Protectors (heaviest possible)

As Gary instructs, I did buy the heaviest sheet protectors I could find (80 whole microns!).  But now I'm wishing I'd bought a thicker binder, because these things take up almost all of the room it has.  For now, it will have to do.  Regardless, my sheets will be adequately protected.

3-Ring Lined Paper

Did they not call this looseleaf in the 70s?  Or is Gary just being needlessly descriptive?  Anyway, it took me forever to find this today.  There were loads of exercise books, and one small pile of looseleaf tucked away next to them. I guess the kids don't use it at school anymore.  I'm already annoyed that one page has a damaged corner.

Drafting Equipment and Colored Pencils

Behold, my new drafting equipment!  I'm actually pretty happy with this.  It comes with a stencil, a ruler, set squares, a protractor, a compass, a pencil and sharpener, and an eraser, as well as a handy little tin to store them all in.  I'm not sure if this is what Gary meant when he mentioned drafting equipment, but he definitely wasn't referring to a copy of Campaign Cartographer, so I can only guess that I'm on the right track.  As for the coloured pencils, see below.

Scratch Paper and Pencils

 

I bought this set of coloured pencils years ago to draw the wilderness maps of my last campaign.  The pad and pencils are new.  Having some proper Staedtlers is very nostalgic.  I threw in the coloured pens as well, because if I'm being honest I'll probably get more use out of them than I will the pencils.  Apologies to Gary and Dave for deviating from the list.

Imagination

1 Patient Referee

Players

No photos here of course, and no shopping necessary.  I have a brain, or so the anatomy books would have me believe, and thus imagination.  I am a referee, and a patient human being in general.  And while I don't have players lined up as yet, I do have friends who enjoy D&D and trust me as a Dungeon Master.  So I'm probably sorted.

Before I end the post, I want to mention some things that aren't on the list of recommended equipment.  The first is miniatures, which is odd for a game that advertises itself as "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures".  The use of miniature figures and unit counters are covered earlier in the rules, where it's said that they can be used if they're available and the players desire, but their purpose is mostly aesthetic.  It's been a long time since I've played without minis, as 3rd edition D&D is just about unplayable without some sort of battle map.  It would be nice to go back to full "theatre of the mind", mostly because in my experience combats run a lot faster that way.  Plus, it's also very difficult to obtain an adequate variety of minis to cover every monster in the rules.  I suspect I'll run a mix: theatre of the mind for simple combats, and a battlemat with minis for when things get more complex.

The other big omission seems to be hex paper.  The wilderness movement rules assume the use of a hex grid, so I feel like I'll have to get some for when I start mapping the outdoors.  Of course, wilderness exploration can be abstracted with the Outdoor Survival board... but I'll need a bespoke wilderness sooner rather than later, so I'll need to source some hex paper.  I doubt Officeworks will have any, so I'll need to do some searching.

That's enough for today.  It's not the deepest of D&D content, but I'm happy to have almost completed this first step.  Soon enough, the actual work will begin.