A Game for Grown-Ups

In honor of Halloween, I've decided to take a brief break from talking about Dungeons & Dragons to discuss another great love of mine, Call of Cthulhu. Along with D&D and Traveller, CoC is part of my Holy Trinity of Roleplaying Games -- the three RPGs I've played the most over the last three decades and the ones that speak most powerfully to my imagination.

There are a lot of reasons why I love this game. You'd probably think one of them was my appreciation of H.P. Lovecraft's writings and you'd be right -- to a point. One of the oddities of my literary education is that, despite having read Howard and been at least vaguely acquainted with Clask Ashton Smith, I never read a word of HPL until after I purchased and began playing CoC. Now, it's true that I knew lots of people, mostly older guys, who kept telling me I ought to read Lovecraft and that it'd appeal to me, but I wasn't really all that knowledgeable about when I bought this game in 1981. Once I began to play, though, I soon became a Lovecraft fanatic, reading all his stories I could lay my hands on, but it was CoC that was my first introduction to the Mythos.

A lot of people -- my wife, for example, can't quite wrap their heads around why I have such a thing for Lovecraft. Grandpa Theobald and I have probably about as diametrically opposed worldviews as you can imagine. Indeed, besides our shared appreciation for the past, I'm not sure there's much he and I would have agreed upon. Perhaps because of this, I find the bleakness of Lovecraft's imaginary creation truly horrific. Were the universe as he describes it reality, I have little doubt that I'd be driven to depths of despair the likes of which I've never experienced (and never hope to). I find Lovecraft's stark, uncaring universe a source of profound terror for me. It affects me in a way that more "traditional" types of horror simply doesn't, because they operate according to a logic that isn't all that dissimilar to my own, whereas the Old Gent has conjured up something that is completely alien to me and how I conceive of the universe.

I'm on the fence as to whether CoC qualifies as an "old school game." I think it certainly has a lot of old school qualities to it, at least mechanically. The Sanity system, for example, is very old school in my opinion, because it takes part of your character's inner life -- his psychological well-being -- and puts it in a box outside of your control. I don't find skill system to be old school in general, because they have a tendency to dominate play by spawning sub-systems and rules that remove the role of the referee in adjudicating the results of skill rolls. The early editions of CoC didn't do this, with skill descriptions being vague and left to referee interpretation (for the most part). I can live with such skill systems, particularly in games, like this one, where there's no class structure.

But what I really like about Call of Cthulhu is the way that it turns the old school ubiquity of death into the stuff of high drama. Old school games are renowened -- or infamous -- for the ease with which characters can die, often due to purely random occurrences. CoC is very much in that vein; the mortality rate among investigators is quite high in any CoC campaign worth its salt. What sets this game apart from others is that investigators are essentially martyrs. They know -- or at least their players -- know the score: odds are they will die, probably horribly and without fanfare, possibly because they decided to use the tools of the enemy against him, in the process destroying their minds and maybe even their bodies. Yet they do it anyway -- just to give Mankind one more day before the stars become right.

Lovecraft's imaginary worldview isn't necessarily predestinarian; there's a chance humanity might somehow survive in an uncaring universe. After all, the Great Old Ones don't hate human beings or have it in for us. Mostly, we're beneath their notice and so it's likely that, should we get in their way, they'd think no more about squashing us than we would about squashing ants. What investigators do is delay the time when we ever have to test this theory. They may never stop the likely extermination of humanity, but they hold off that reckoning for a little while longer, even though they must sacrifice themselves to do so. That's pretty damned heroic in my book, particularly because they have no idea if what they do matters in the final analysis. There are no guarantees in Call of Cthulhu, just probabilities and slim ones at that.

It's for this reason that Ken Hite, for example, has called CoC the only adult roleplaying game ever made, because it presumes that your characters aren't venal, self-interested rogues interested in lining their pockets and increasing their fame. Instead, they're men and women who labor, almost certainly unknown, to fight against the Dark that threatens to consume us all, in the full knowledge that they may not only fail but lose all that they value in the process of their fight. That's some heavy stuff right there and it's why I still love Call of Cthulhu despite its flaws.

What flaws, you ask? First and foremost, I think CoC is one of the birthplaces of the "adventure path" concept. Now, I happen to think this format generally works very well in this game, given its themes and structure, but many gamers have drawn the wrong conclusions from the way Chaosium has supported Call of Cthulhu. The other big flaw in the game is the way it's adopted a very Derlethian approach to the Mythos. Indeed, the very concept of "the Cthulhu Mythos" isn't Lovecraftian at all. The systematization and categorization of the various alien beings and entities -- the emergence of a Lovecraftian Canon, if you will -- is a mistake and one that reduces Lovecraft's ideas and concepts into mere stats and trivia. Like D&D, the power of CoC lies not in some Canon but in a Methodology and approach that both underlies and transcends that Canon. I think Call of Cthulhu would in fact be a more fun and interetsing game if it took a more explicitly toolbox approach to the Mythos, focusing on the themes that gird the whole rather than the specific implementations of those themes.

In short, I think Call of Cthulhu is really keen, even if I do think plush Cthulhu toys are the Devil's own handicrafts.

Prelude to a Post, Part III

Read the explanation for this illuminating chart at 6d6Fireball.

Prelude to a Post, Part II

A Second Edition is a major undertaking. There are corrections to be made, parts to be meshed, material to be deleted or shifted, and new rules and information to be included in such a work. The first question, then, is when does this undertaking begin? We anticipate starting the preliminary work in mid-1986. The scope of the project is such that it will certainly require two to three years to complete. When it is finished, we will have fewer, but thicker, tomes for your amusement and edification. It is important to add that this task does not preclude later supplements, changes, and yet new editions (a Third, perhaps a Fourth someday). The AD&D game system is vital. It grows, changes, and develops with continuing play and fresh ideas. One day it might attain the point where the rules can be graven in stone, but I don’t see that likelihood for some time.

--Gary Gygax, Dragon, November 1985

Blast from the Past

So, I was looking at back issues of Dragon thanks to my CD-ROM collection and, while reading issue 105 from January 1986, I come across this fascinating piece of "wisdom" in The Forum, which was a section where they let any gamer with an opinion voice it

The debate about character alignment of late has driven me to give my thoughts on the subject. In the original edition of the D&D® game, all characters were told that “it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take.” To the new hobby of fantasy role-playing, character alignment was an important concept. Not only did it state what the imaginary player character believed, but it also served to help the player to better take on the role of his or her persona.

In later supplements of the original rules set, alignment was taken a step farther. It was used as a means (along with ability scores) to determine whether or not a PC was eligible for one of the more specialized (and often more powerful) subclasses. In this way, alignment was a tool used by both the players and the Dungeon Master to relate to the characters’ beliefs, ways of acting, and to restrict entrance into certain sub-classes.

It has been eleven years since the original D&D game appeared. While many of the ideas found in those little brown booklets and supplements were expanded and revised for inclusion in the AD&D game, alignment was not one of them. Even though the number of possible alignments has been tripled and more detailed descriptions of each ethos given, they are used as little more than tools for the players and Dungeon Master, in much the same way as was done over a decade ago.

My belief is that alignment should be used to restrict entrance into certain character classes and to determine how a player character will act in most circumstances. For example, an assassin, no matter how evil or chaotic he or she may be, would not attack the first group of good and/or neutral adventurers sighted simply because of their conflicting alignments. The assassin character class as written is composed of very intelligent individuals who make a living by killing those individuals who are deemed “troublesome” by the assassin’s employer. Being as intelligent as he is, an assassin would know when a particular job was over his head. Intelligence, not only alignment, should dictate how a character reacts to certain situations. Similarly, paladins do not charge the first demon prince they see, even though such a creature is diametrically opposed in its beliefs and actions.

Thus, alignment has been around with fantasy role-playing games too long simply to be forgotten. It is still an integral part of the game. Alignment, like other aspects of the game, needs only to be restructured in order to once again take its place of importance among the minds of players and their fantasy personae. Remember that all that needs to be done is use your head!

James Maliszewski
Baltimore, Md.

Now you can see why The Forum was eventually abandoned. This guy couldn't have been any more than 17 or 18 years old and his knowledge of the history of D&D is clearly lacking (He seems to think OD&D was released in 1975 -- madness!). And the pseudo-intellectual verbiage is the mark of someone overcompensating for the vapidity of his thought. What a moron.

The Fat Lady Sings

As many feared, the end is nigh for Castle Zagyg from Troll Lord Games.

Damn it.

Prelude to a Post

Fanatical game hobbyists often express the opinion that DUNGEONS & DRAGONS will continue as an ever-expanding, always improving game system. TSR and I see it a bit differently. Currently D&D is moving in two directions. There is the “Original” game system and the new ADVANCED D&D® system. New participants can move from the “Basic Set” into either form without undue difficulty — especially as playing aid offerings become more numerous, and that is in process now. Americans have somehow come to equate change with improvement. Somehow the school of continuing evolution has conceived that D&D can go on in a state of flux, each new version “new and improved!” From a standpoint of sales, I beam broadly at the very thought of an unending string of new, improved, super, energized, versions of D&D being hyped to the loyal followers of the gaming hobby in general and role playing fantasy games in particular. As a game designer I do not agree, particularly as a gamer who began with chess. The original could benefit from a careful reorganization and expansion to clarify things, and this might be done at some future time. As all of the ADVANCED D&D system is not written yet, it is a bit early for prognostication, but I envision only minor expansions and some rules amending on a gradual, edition to edition, basis. When you have a fine product, it is time to let well enough alone. I do not believe that hobbyists and casual players should be continually barraged with new rules, new systems, and new drains on their purses. Certainly there will be changes, for the game is not perfect; but I do not believe the game is so imperfect as to require constant improvement.

--Gary Gygax, The Dragon, February 1979

This is Getting Annoying

Could someone please tell me how the heck I can snag a copy of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works that doesn't involve having to pick up the phone to Arkansas and hope that someone at Troll Lords answers my call? Because the game was released at GenCon in early August and it's still not available through regular distribution channels so far as I know. No online game stores carry it; none of my local ones can get it. Even the TLG website continues to list it in their own catalog as "Available for Pre-Order."

I know people have gotten hold of the product. What did you do to get it? Was a phone call what it took? I have nothing against phone orders, but I have to say that, in this day and age, not being able to order easily online is rather inconvenient.

Retrospective: Vault of the Drow

It might be an exaggeration to call Module D3, Vault of the Drow, the greatest D&D adventure of all time. It might even be an exaggeration to say that it's my favorite D&D module of all time. However, I think it could reasonably be argued that it's the greatest Gygaxian naturalist adventure of all time, for what it presents is a vast subterranean locale -- the Drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu -- brought to darkly beautiful life, from the various feuding dark elf noble houses to their monstrous servitors to their pitiful slaves. It's really an amazing piece of work -- even moreso when you consider that it was only 28 pages in length.

What a lot of gamers forget, assuming they ever actually played D3, is that there is absolutely no plot to the module, just as there was no plot to its precursors in the D series. The "plot" of the series, such as it is, mostly occurred in modules G1, G2, and G3, where the evil high priestess of the Elder Elemental God, Eclavdra, was attempting to organize the giants into a vast army with which to subjugate a portion of the surface world, in the process gaining power for herself and her house, Eilservs. Once that plan is defeated, though, all that remains for the PCs is vengeance and exploration of the depths of the earth. Eclavdra -- or her clone -- reappears in Vault of the Drow, but only as the leader of House Eilservs, not as "the big bad evil guy" of the module. No such personage exists in D3, as its 28 pages are devoted primarily to describing Erelhei-Cinlu, its inhabitants, and their activities.

There's a lot to love in this module, though I admit that its hard to erase from my memory the horrible ways in which the drow have been fetishized and bastardized in the years since. It's frankly a testament to Gygax's brilliant imagination that he made chaotic evil elves who (mostly) had a thing for spiders so alluring. And of course, in 1978, when this module was first published, the drow were new and exciting rather than clichéd and dull. I know I found the drow fascinating back in the day, even if I never quite shared the same level of interest that many did (the same goes for elves generally, so maybe I'm weird).

Erelhei-Cinlu itself is like a pulp fantasy come to life, illuminated by the soft purple glow of phosphorescent fungi and filled with buildings built on the presumption its inhabitants could naturally levitate, it's an alien place, where the PCs can't help but feel like fish out of water. Even more unsettling in my experience is that, unless the PCs are actively disturbing the peace of the city (or have ticked off someone of importance), they can wander about the place without being hunted down like dogs. True, it's a chaotic evil city and it's all too easy to wind up on the wrong side of inter-house disputes, but the drow are civilized and their city behaves according to rules, albeit twisted and evil ones.

The tiers and dungeons of Erelhei-Cinlu reek of debauchery and decadence, and the city‘s inhabitants are degenerate and effete. (Those with any promise and ability are brought out of the place to serve the fighting societies, merchant clans or noble houses. The rest are left to wallow in the sinkhole of absolute depravity which is Erelhei-Cinlu.) The most popular places in the city are the gambling dens, bordellos, taverns, drug saloons, and even less savory shops along the two main streets. The back streets and alleyways too boast of brothels, poison shops, bars, and torture parlors. Unspeakable things transpire where the evil and jaded creatures seek pleasure, pain, excitement, or arcane knowledge, and sometimes these seekers find they are victims. All visitors are warned that they enter the back streets of the city at their peril.

It's easy to see why the drow made such a profound impression on gamers. What Gygax has done here is present us with an entire evil city to use as our sandbox, pursuing whatever adventures we wished within or without its walls. It's a great example of location-based design and a reminder of what modules were like before the demands of convention play or obsession with "story" changed their nature forever.

When I get around to it, after all my various other projects are put to bed, I'd love to take a whack at designing something like Erelhei-Cinlu. If it's even a tenth as evocative and useful as what Gygax achieved, I'll be beside myself with joy.

REVIEW: Spellcraft & Swordplay

One of the bits of gaming trivia grognards know is that the D&D combat system with which most people nowadays are familiar -- roll high on 1D20 against a number determined by the Armor Class of one's target -- began its life as OD&D's "Alternative Combat System," so called because the assumed standard combat system was that of the miniatures wargame Chainmail. By all accounts, comparatively few players of OD&D used Chainmail's system, instead opting for the alternative and the rest, as they say, is history. But what if it hadn't happened that way? What if the links between Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons hadn't been severed and the latter game developed in a way that was more closely tied to the wargame from which it sprang?

One set of possible answers to these questions forms the basis for the intriguing game Spellcraft & Swordplay by Jason Vey of Elf Lair Games. I hesitate to use the word "retro-clone" to describe S&S, because it's not a restatement of an earlier game so much as the product of an alternate universe. At the same time, the game uses many of the same tools as retro-clones, most notably the Open Game License, to create a fascinating work of speculative game design. S&S shows some clear affinities with retro-clones like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry, but it's definitely a unique animal, not quite a "true" retro-clone but showing strong genetic similarities to OD&D and its descendants.

Spellcraft & Swordplay is a complete game, 110 pages in length and divided into three internal "books" that closely imitate the three volumes of OD&D. Characters in S&S have the familiar six ability scores of D&D, although modifiers associated with them more closely resemble those of the Moldvay Basic Rules than those of OD&D (or AD&D). Percentile Strength is also present here, but its implementation is unique to S&S. Playable races include Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings, with the three demihuman races limited in both their class selection and level advancement more or less as presented in OD&D. The ambiguity of just how Elven "multiclassing" works is preserved in S&S, being left to each referee -- nice to see this term used! -- to decide what he prefers for his own campaign.

There are four basic character classes: Warrior, Wizard, Thief, and Priest. There are also two "elite paths," the Paladin and the Assassin. Rather than being subclasses in the traditional sense, they are instead a collection of additional abilities given to members of the Warrior and Thief classes respectively whose ability scores and other attributes meet the requirements of the paths in question. Some will no doubt balk at this, as neither the Paladin nor Assassin require more experience points to advance in level compared to "normal" members of their class, but the benefits of their extra abilities are weighed against the additional strictures placed on their behavior. It's definitely an old school approach and I applaud it, though I will admit some unease about how it might function in play.

The classes are all roughly as you would expect them to be, given the OD&D influences on S&S. There are a number of interesting wrinkles that derive from Chaimail, however. All classes use D6 Hit Dice and the rate at which they gain them is not uniform, being staggered by pips in addition to whole dice. Likewise, wizard spells require a 2D6 roll in order to function -- all "action" rolls in the game use 2D6, incidentally -- modified by the wizard's Intelligence score modifier. If the number generated is high enough based on the level of the wizard and the level of the spell, the spell is cast immediately. If the number generated is high but not high enough for the spell to be cast immediately, it takes effect the next round after casting. If the number is not high enough for either, the spell fails to function and is erased from the wizard's memory. The implication here is that spells that are cast successfully do not fade from memory but may be used again later, pursuant to the usual rules for casting spells. Addtionally, for every day the wizard goes without re-memorizing his spells, he loses a number of them, starting with his highest level spells. Thus, while memorization is present as per OD&D, it demands slightly less planning than the standard system. I should note that this is close to the magic system presented in Chainmail. The selection of magic spells is very similar to that of OD&D, plus Greyhawk with some additional ideas borrowed from Chainmail (mostly having application in mass combat situations).

Spellcraft & Swordplay includes an ability check system to handle ad hoc actions by the PCs not covered by the rules. I have very mixed feelings about it, particularly because there are specific rules on how to use the ability checks to handle things like perception and social interaction, activities that I generally prefer to leave to player skill rather than dice. Ironically, the game includes optional background skills, which have no system associated with them at all and their implementation is left entirely to the referee's discretion.

Combat is handled much like the man-to-man system in Chainmail, with a character's chance to hit being determined first of all by his choice of weapon and comparing it to the Armor Class of his opponent. As in OD&D, magical armor subtracts from the to hit rolls of attackers rather than being a bonus to their AC, which remains an unchangeable class based on the type of armor rather than a generic target number. For reasons I don't quite understand, S&S uses a different AC system than OD&D, with higher numbers being better. Thus, plate mail and a shield is AC 8 rather than AC 2. Granted, the number is purely arbitrary and retro-clone games often change certain game mechanics to avoid infringing upon the artistic presentation of the games they're restating. Still, it's a bit jarring to see AC 8 as a "high" AC, when one is accustomed to its being a "low" one after three decades of playing D&D.

Like Swords & Wizardry, characters in Spellcraft & Swordplay get only a single saving throw, based on their class and level, but modified when appropriate by ability scores and class-specific situational modifiers. Warriors, for example, get a +2 bonus to any Constitution-based saving throws. As befits a game inspired by Chainmail, there is ample room devoted to movement, the effects of terrain, siege weapons, morale, and other related topics. At the same time, the experience rules are a bit odd, being a mix of old (XP for defeating monsters) and new (XP for good roleplaying), along with the notion that "treasure is its own reward."

The monsters section includes the usual staples of OD&D-descended games, but there are universal rules governing how certain abilities work, meaning that, for example, any creature with the Paralysis ability paralyzes opponents for 1D6 turns unless otherwise specified. Again, I have a very minor quibble about this, as this is a bit too schematized an approach for my tastes. Given the simplicity of the system overall, there's little real need for such mechanical shorthand and, more importantly, I prefer my monsters to be unique, right down to their own unique rules implementations. There are also some rough and ready guidelines for the creation of one's own monsters, but they're very "impressionistic," trusting the referee's judgment and ability to eyeball appropriate abilities. This is another example of the game's schizophrenia, one minute lapsing into 3e-style mechanical universalism and the next minute giving referee fiat free rein. The book concludes with a selection of magic items, most of which should be familiar to D&D players.

Let me be blunt: I really like Spellcraft & Swordplay. As a game, I think it's quite good. As an example of "what if?" logic applied to design, it's even better. There are quite a few ideas in here that I think could -- and should -- be swiped for old school homebrews, in particular the way that magic works. I'm also a fan of one's choice of weapon playing a more important role in determing whether one can do damage to an opponent. Still, there's something off-kilter about the game, as if its author can't quite make up his mind whether he's writing an old school game or a new school game in ur-Gygaxian dress. You can see this in the fact that the book's illustrations alternate between early modern woodcuts and lithographs depicting medieval tales and legends and Larry Elmore clip art of the lowest sort. Jason Vey notes in his introduction that he intended S&S to be a minimalistic rules set that is simultaneously old school and "cinematic." Granted, I don't share Vey's interest in such an approach, but I nevertheless think it's fair to say that the game, as presented, suffers because it's largely an old school one, but it has enough of a foot placed in the new school that it rankles. I have a hard time imagining committed new school gamers finding much to appreciate in S&S, so I'm not sure of the rationale behind this "of two worlds" presentation.

These are quibbles, though. Spellcraft & Swordplay really is an excellent game and I think it has a lot to offer old school gamers, particularly those interested in the prehistory of the hobby. I do hope that, one day, we might see a somewhat more refined version of the game, freed of the new school mechanical incursions and with a more consistent esthetic, but, even as it now is, S&S is well worth the cost. I recommend it very highly.

Final Score: 4½ out of 5 polearms.

S&W Monster Compendium

Somehow I'd forgotten to mention that Mythmere Games has released a MS-Word document entitled Monster Compendium: 0e for use with Swords & Wizardry. Matt Finch has converted a vast array of monsters to S&W's format, including many creatures from 3e D&D, in addition to beasties of his own creation. Weighing in at 60 pages and over 30,000 words, it's an absolutely impressive piece of work and one that I'm sure I'll get much use out of.

At present, the Compendium is intended solely as a tool for referees looking to use some of their favorite monsters with Swords & Wizardry. One day, it might become a polished book available for purchase. In the meantime, if you have some original monsters you'd like to submit, pop on over to the S&W forums and make a post. One day they might see publication in a hardcopy edition of this great bit of work.

Picaro and the "Story" of D&D

I mentioned previously that I believe Dungeons & Dragons has a "story," by which I mean a thematic core. I probably never should have used the word "story," because the word carries with it too many expectations, chief among them being a degree of coherence that I don't believe D&D, on a purely game mechanical level, is capable of attaining or that its creators sought to attain. I'm of the opinion that "story" is, to use a wretched bit of jargon, a meta-game artifact. That is, it's what you get when players, looking back on the events of their characters' adventures, ascribe a meaning and relevance to it all that's simply not inherent to the bare facts of the adventures themselves. It's much the same way that we frame the biography of a famous man so as to highlight the events that contributed to his being or doing the thing for which he became famous. The famous man's life only has a "story" when looked at as a whole and by presuming that the fame he achieved was somehow always "meant to be" from the beginning.

Now, I don't want this post to become a philosophical discourse on fate or teleology. My digression here was to help me assert that D&D, purely as a game, doesn't promote or encourage a story. Story is an optional extra added on top of the game, either by ex post facto pattern-finding (which is, generally, the old school sense of story) or by imposing it on the game beforehand (which is, generally, the newer approach). I think it's important to make this clear, because many gamers assume that all RPGs, by their very nature, including D&D, are "story games." Indeed, many D&D players, primarily those who entered the hobby in the post-Dragonlance era, accept this assumption without question and may have even been drawn into the hobby because they were attracted to the conception of an RPG as "fantasy novel where you're the hero," which is how the hobby was promoted throughout the 80s and how it's largely been designed since the 90s.

With that behind us, let's return to the question at hand: what is the thematic core of D&D, which is to say, what is its organizing principle? The game may not, of itself, tell stories, but, given that gamers almost always find stories in their play, what kinds of stories does D&D support natively? This is where my regular invocation of pulp fantasy rears its head again. I think it's easy to get hung up over the specific elements of this pulp fantasy story versus that one and argue, as many do, that D&D doesn't "model" pulp fantasy very well, because this or that element either doesn't exist in the game or is in fact prohibited by the rules as written. If that's the way you judge D&D, then, yes, I agree that it doesn't do a very good job of being a pulp fantasy game.

I'll return to the modeling issue later, because it's very relevant. For now, though, it's important to realize that there are common elements that undergird all pulp fantasy stories and it's these elements that D&D picked up and built a game around. They're the underlying assumptions that, taken as a whole, (largely) explain why D&D is the way it is and why it has an affinity for certain types of "stories." As I read pulp fantasy, the assumptions D&D takes from it are the following:

• The protagonists are "rogues," by which I mean outsiders generally of low station (though not necessarily birth) who live on the margins of society.
• Said society is generally corrupt, or at least venal.
• Consequently, the protagonists generally pursue personal betterment (whether monetary, secret knowledge, position, etc.) rather than more "noble" goals.
• Despite this, the protagonists sometimes achieve noble, or at least broadly beneficial, goals in the course of their pursuit of personal betterment.
• The world is generally humanocentric, with non-humans relegated to the margins, which is why the protagonists often interact with them.
• Magic is (at best) unreliable and (at worst) downright dangerous (if not morally dubious).

I would also add that pulp fantasy stories are generally episodic in nature, with each one being discrete. Likewise, characters and setting elements tend to be strongly archetypal, even clichéd. Both characters and setting may "grow" and change over time, but such things aren't the point of the stories; they are consequences of them. Thus, pulp fantasies are generally not written to recount the biography of a great man, even though, when taken as a group, many stories may, over time, be read in that way. Of course, there's no necessity that they will or even can be, as a great many pulp fantasies are "just a bunch of stuff that happens."

With the exception of the last two entries in my bulleted list, there's a strong affinity between the pulp fantasy story and the picaresque, which is probably no accident. The picaresque is a clear antecedent of "adventure stories" of all sorts and many pulp writers latched on to the Picaro archetype as an ideal vehicle for telling lurid, sensationalistic tales set in far-away lands. I contend that it's here that we find the thematic core of D&D and that the game was written on the assumption that most characters would come from this mold. I see, for example, few alternative explanations for why characters improve in D&D through the accumulation of wealth.

My feeling is that one's level of dissatisfaction with D&D is closely related to one's dissatisfaction with picaresque stories. If your preference is for something more "epic" than a bunch of rogues -- possibly with hearts of gold -- on the make, then you're likely to see D&D as lacking in some way. And many gamers have from the very beginning. Eventually, whether by nature or nurture I can't say, the vast majority of fantasy gamers wanted something more out of fantasy than Picaro in a wizard's hat, which is why we saw the growth and popularity of things like Dragonlance and many of the myriad campaign settings TSR published during the 2e era. But I contend that, in most cases, D&D is simply a poor fit for these settings, because its thematic core evokes the picaresque rather than the epic. To do the latter, one must change D&D in various ways -- and so its publishers have, either by modifying it on a campaign-by-campaign basis (as was commoner in the past) or by modifying it permanently (as has been done in recent years).

I hope there's something coherent in the above, as I'm still working out some things in my head and may well not have been clear. So, to summarize, in case I was indeed opaque: D&D is a game founded on pulp fantasy, which is a modern development of the picaresque. The game was designed on the assumption that the typical PC would thus be rogueish and possibly venal rather than nakedly heroic. Its rules, while not necessarily good at emulating every particular example of pulp fantasy, are built to support this assumption. While D&D is flexible enough to do other types of fantasy, the farther one gets from pulp fantasy/picaresque roots, the more "broken" the game is likely to seem. To this I'll add that the history of post-Gygax D&D has largely been one of trying to "fix" this seeming brokenness in various ways, which has led us to where we are today -- a game divorced from its roots and of limited appeal to people such as myself who prefer its original one.

Quote of the Day

Daniel Proctor hits the nail on the head:

So for those of you out there who keep asking why WotC won't republish old editions of D&D, I think you have your answer right there. It's not that they have some secret agenda. It's nothing personal against AD&D, OD&D, Basic D&D, etc. If they thought they would make money hand over fist on any of those you can bet anything they'd have published them a long time ago. Again, it's about the $.

The point of all of this? This is why hobby publishing is so important. The biggest goal of hobby publishing is not to make money. OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, Swords & Wizardry, those of us who produce these games do so because we enjoy the hobby and want to see these rules carry on.

So when Andy says, "Any expectation that the debut of a new game... includes an implicit promise that it'll be supported ad infinitum is simply unreasonable." He's wrong. It isn't unreasonable depending on the publisher's goals.

Add another page to the Hobby Publishing Manifesto.

Mutant Future, Randomness, and Old School Games

For those of you who enjoy listening to gaming-related podcasts, Midnight's Lair recently released a special about old school gaming, with particular attention devoted to Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future.

Check it out!

Birthday Bash

As I mentioned last week, I decided to celebrate my birthday with some friends by cracking out the Moldvay/Cook D&D rules to play an adventure with my friends, my wife, and my 8 year-old daughter. (My six year-old son had better things to do) I chose the Moldvay/Cook rules first, because they're dead simple and straightforward, so even my non-gamer wife could (mostly) understand them and second, because the module I chose to run was Castle Amber. It only seemed fitting that I should use the rules set for which the module was written.

All the characters began at fifth level, received three permanent magic items -- one weapon, one piece of armor/protection, and one miscellaneous item, all randomly rolled -- and were generated with 3D6 rolled in order. This resulted in surprisingly playable characters. Moldvay/Cook de-emphasizes ability scores compared to AD&D, making it very much in line with OD&D in this respect anyway. Ability scores become (mostly) roleplaying cues, which I think are important when you determine your character's class after you roll the dice rather than beforehand. What we wound up with was a party consisting of an elf (played by my daughter) with the unexpectedly odd name of Amber (my daughter didn't know the name of the module when she named the character), a magic-user named Arveene (played by my wife), a cleric named Brother Candor (played by a friend), a fighter named Thugg (played by another friend), a dwarf named Rock (another friend), and a Thief whose name I simply can't recall (another friend).

What was amusing is how quickly these randomly generated characters came to life. Certainly, they were mostly caricatures -- the dwarf had a limited vocabulary and a tendency to attack anything he thought might have gold, for example -- but experience has taught me that caricatures help to establish a character much more strongly than does sublime characterization, if only because very few gamers are actually capable of the latter. Likewise, caricature enables players to "stake a claim" to a particular social niche in the adventuring party, which in turns lets other players establish their own niches. Given enough time, the caricatures soften and accumulated shared experience lends nuances that, to me anyway, feel "real" or at least organic. In any event, I was quite pleased with how these characters interacted with one another and with the challenges I set before them in the module.

Now, Castle Amber is a bit of a funhouse. Much of it, at least initially, makes no sense. Again, this worked to our advantage, I think. Had the adventure been more plot-heavy -- that is, beyond "you must explore this mysterious manor house in order to find a way to escape its curse" -- I suspect the players might have more quickly fallen into line with the plot rather than creating their own. Likewise, throwing this mix of random characters into some outlandish situations, such as a room whose floor was covered with green slime, its ceiling cover by a black pudding, and whose treasure lay in a chest resting on a pillar of gray ooze, let them go wild. Because encounters like this literally make no sense, the only way the players could ground it in something resembling even fantasy "reality" was to play up their characters' reactions to it.

Over the course of the adventure -- about halfway through the module in about three hours of play -- we lost two characters, both to the magical food served in a ghostly banquet. The thief drank the wrong drink and became an insubstantial ghost who joined the other spectral revelers, taking his shiny new magical sword -- won in the slime room -- with him. Thugg the fighter keeled over from toadstool poisoning, but not before uttering the memorable warning, "Don't eat the 'shrooms!" Later, Rock the dwarf, driven mad by gold lust, began felling trees in an indoor forest, because he had seen squirrels who could turn acorns to gold and he hoped to liberate the acorns from the squirrels' nests. This attracted the attention of the Wild Hunt led by a member of the insane Amber family, who demanded the dwarf's head in punishment for his theft. It was at this point that my wife, who is not a gamer let me reiterate, calmly told the Master of the Hunt that, if the dwarf was guilty of theft, so too were the squirrels, since they'd been swiping acorns from the oak trees without asking their permission. The Master was forced, by the logic of his previous speech about "defending Nature from despoilers," to concede this point and so he let the dwarf go if the party promised never to return to the indoor forest. They readily agreed and headed toward a connecting chapel, unsure how they'd escape if the chapel proved to be a dead end.

There were, of course, many other enjoyable moments throughout the evening and I wish we had had longer to play out more of the module. Nevertheless, I found the experience satisfying, particularly because even my daughter and my wife were able to get into the game. Again, I think the funhouse quality of Castle Amber was a plus in this respect. No one felt the need to "perform" as if they were playing a key role in an epic tale of deep import and meaning. Instead, it was clear this was a fun romp for a bunch of somewhat disreputable characters looking to save their skins and make a few gold pieces in the process. Likewise, the sheer goofiness of the place let me ham it up when playing the parts of NPCs; I always find it much easier to play oddball characters than serious ones, which is why I'm known for including them in all my adventures.

All in all, it was a fun night. I'll probably have some further thoughts on the evening at some point, because I learned a few valuable things I think might be of general interest.

Pulp Fantasy Gallery: Elric

Michael Moorcock's doomed albino sorcerer, Elric VIII of Melniboné, made his first appearance in the novella "The Dreaming City," published in Science Fantasy magazine in June 1961. Moorcock was only 22 years old when he created his "anti-Conan" and the character -- and its take on fantasy -- has been influential ever since. Moorcock provided many with an alternative to J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, as well as the prototype for the many antiheroes that came to dominate fantasy in the 60s and 70s.

I don't always agree with everything Moorcock has said, least of all about Tolkien, but the man definitely knows the history of fantasy, so he's earned my respect. I still have very mixed feelings about the Elric stories, but it's impossible to deny their importance. D&D owes a lot to them, so anyone interested in the history of the hobby ought to read at least a couple of them to see what all the fuss is about.

Another Holmes Companion

Most of my regular readers probably are already aware of Meepo's Holmes Companion, but today I learned of the existence of another Holmes Companion and thought I should spread the good word. I've looked it over and there's a lot to like in it, particularly the way that it proceeds as if in an alternate universe where AD&D never happened and the Holmes rules developed according to their own logic.

I have a great fondness for the Holmes edition; it's the edition from which I learned the game and it's probably the last version of Dungeons & Dragons that retains the do-it-yourself ethic of the early days of the hobby. Much as I love both AD&D and Moldvay/Cook, they're both mass market products, with all that implies. Holmes is still very rough around the edges and filled with mysteries and oddments that I find charming even after all these years. I'll almost certainly mine Holmes for some ideas as I work on my own old school products in the months to come.

Apologies

I've been a bit distracted today, so posting will be light today (and possibly through the weekend). In the meantime, I leave you with this wonderfully evocative piece of art posted by Trent Foster to the Knights & Knaves Alehouse. It's an absolutely terrific illustration of the menace-cloaked-in-beauty that I associate with old school fantasy.

Enjoy!

Dream World

If anyone has a lot of money to burn and an inexplicable desire to get me something really cool for my birthday next week, my I suggest this?

My Brush with "Fame"

My interview with Tim Kask is cited as a reference in this Wikipedia entry.

Weird.

The Changing Meaning of "Campaign"

One of the interesting observations I've made in looking at the history of Dungeons & Dragons -- and, by extension, the entire hobby -- is the way that the word "campaign" has changed in meaning. "Campaign" is first used in a RPG context in OD&D and is obviously borrowed from wargames, which in turn borrowed it from the military science term for a connected series of battles. Although OD&D does occasionally make a connection between mass battles and campaigns, this doesn't seem to be the primary meaning of the word, since the text makes reference to Gygax's "Greyhawk campaign"and Arneson's "Blackmoor Campaign" in ways that don't quite make sense if the meaning was focused primarily on military matters. Indeed, I think it's in these particular usages that we can intuit just what is meant by the term in the context of OD&D.

In the Forward [sic] to Volume 1 of OD&D, Gary Gygax notes two things. First,

While it is possible to play a single game, unrelated to any other game events past or future, it is the campaign for which these rules are designed. (emphasis mine)

Second, he comments on the "longevity" of the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns. Taken together, it seems clear to me that an OD&D campaign is something that is 1. "Larger" than a single "game" (i.e. adventure) 2. Maintains continuity between individual adventures 3. Not tied to a single "story" or focused on the exploits of a single group of characters.

The third item is, I think, key. We know that, in the Greyhawk campaign at least, there were multiple groups of characters, some of whom did not interact with one another regularly, if at all. I am not certain if the same was true in Blackmoor, but I believe it was. I know that it was the case with the Tékumel campaign, with its Monday and Thursday Night Groups. In each case, though, we speak of a single campaign, not multiple ones. That is, we don't speak of the Greyhawk campaigns but instead the Greyhawk campaign, even though the actions of players not necessarily playing in the same groups or on the same nights (let alone the same adventures) had an impact on one another. A "campaign" is thus what might be called nowadays, in video games jargon, a "persistent world." Thus, a campaign could -- and often did -- outlast the lives of any particular PC or series of adventures. A campaign continued on, changing and growing as the years wore on and the actions of myriad characters affected it.

While I'm not certain this is the case, I get the impression that contemporary gamers don't think of a campaign in this way. For them, a campaign is a series of adventures involving the same group of characters (more or less) and that comes to an end when its story is finished. Whereas the older understanding of a campaign was geared more toward sandbox play, the newer one seems built around the notion of a story or at least a "theme." The popularity of the Adventure Path style of play in 3e (though it has antecedents going back to 1e, Dragonlance foremost among them) is, I think, good evidence of this shift in the understanding of a campaign. Listening to gamers speak nowadays, they talk of having played several campaigns, even if all these campaigns are set in the same persistent world. It's a subtle difference, to be sure, and not a universally pernicious one, but I think it's a shift nonetheless.

I'm still not sure what to make of this or even if my intuitions are correct. However, I can't shake the sense that campaigns are different now and viewed differently and that's had a profound impact on the way RPGs are designed and marketed.

A Crazy Idea

My birthday is next week and, as anyone who reaches a certain age knows, there's increasingly less enthusiasm about celebrating the occasion of one's birth as the years wear on. However, I have a longstanding tradition of getting together with friends for dinner to celebrate and I am loath to break with tradition, when possible. So, after some thought, I concluded that, instead of going out for dinner, we'd meet at my place, order in a lot of food, and spend the evening playing a one-shot old school adventure.

I'm pretty keen to do this, because it'll be the first time in years that I'll have a large party of adventurers and I think the one-shot is a lost art form. As I've lamented many times in the past, RPGs have become too focused on story for my tastes. "Campaign" has become synonymous with "story arc" and it's made self-contained one-shot adventures with a bunch of random characters a thing of the past. I miss them and I figured here's my chance to give it a whirl again.

For simplicity's sake, I'm using the Moldvay/Cook rules. They're straightforward, accessible, and everyone knows them, including my nearly 9 year-old daughter, who's expressed an interest in joining in on the fun. I've been spending the last little while randomly generating PCs to use as both starting characters and replacements for the inevitable deaths. It's been a very eye-opening exercise, not least of all because I'm finding that, far from generating poor characters, rolling 3D6 in order is generating very average characters, often with one stand-out ability score -- "stand-out" being 14 or 15 usually, with a rare one being 16+. I can't help but like that. Not only do I see how easy it would be to "get into" these characters, but it makes me realize that a truly high ability score is a rarity that sets that character apart. If your Fighter has a 17 or 18 Strength, he's a veritable Hercules as far as the setting goes, because the odds of his encountering another Fighter equally strong is small. Personally, I find that really cool.

Anyway, I'll be sure to post about how this experiment turns out. I think it's going to be a blast, but we shall see.

Larger than Life

I wonder how much of the shift in the expected power level of D&D characters over the years is a result of the game's not having an integral mass combat system with which to provide additional context. Consider: OD&D arose out of the fantasy supplement for Chainmail. The default combat system for OD&D is the Chainmail combat system. If you're using that system, you can see directly how effective a Fighting Man is supposed to be against masses of armed and armored troops.

The problem is that, by all accounts, most players of OD&D didn't use Chainmail, but instead chose the "Alternative Combat System" that we all now associate with D&D. That system provides a few hints about the level of "realism" it's supposed to model -- such as the Fighting Man's multiple attacks against creature of 1 Hit Die or lower -- but it's much more "abstract," since it wasn't intended to work in conjunction with larger numbers of massed troops. Gygax attempted to rectify this with Swords & Spells in 1976, but it comes across as more of a "pure" miniatures wargame that's compatible with OD&D than as an adjunct to the game itself. AD&D had no mass combat rules at all, till 1985's Battle System, but I suspect it was too little, too late. Like Swords & Spells before it, Battle System was an adjunct to the rules and most players saw no need for it. 3e had no mass combat rules for its entire run and I've seen no evidence that 4e will have one either, but the game is still new enough that anything is possible.

I've long argued that an important part of understanding how OD&D was supposed to feel lies in understanding its endgame -- stronghold construction and domain management -- but my argument is difficult, because D&D, with the exception of the Mentzer boxed sets, has never adequately discussed these topics. Likewise, as I noted earlier, the lack of such rules has also contributed to power creep by not providing context for the rise in level of characters and their relationship to the wider game world. What this suggests to me is that OD&D desperately needs to rectify this situation in some way, although exactly how I'm not certain.

Retrospective: Castle Amber

Released in 1981, Castle Amber is part of what I call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," consisting of this module, The Isle of Dread, and The Lost City. I'm not sure that the term is original to me; I might have picked it up from the incomparable Philotomy Jurament. In any case, all three of these modules are homages to the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D, but Castle Amber is the only one that makes explicit reference to its inspiration, the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith.

I can't say for certain, but I think Castle Amber is what first introduced me to CAS. I knew of his name, of course, from having read, among other things, Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Moldvay's own Basic Rulebook recommends Smith as well, although more for his Xiccarph stories than anything else. After playing the module, I hunted down what little of Smith's writings as I could find in the local library. I wasn't very successful in my quest and it was years before I read a significant number of CAS stories.

But what makes me remember Castle Amber so fondly is that, even though I wasn't able to read most of Smith's literary corpus until much later, I still "knew" Smith through Moldvay's rather brilliant evocation of his spirit in this adventure. Most of the distinctive Smithian features are here: decadence, ennui, the macabre, black humor -- all stirred together in an unsettling stew. I won't deny that, as kid of 12, I found Castle Amber a tad disturbing. I wasn't scared of it so much as fascinated by it. There was something not quite right about the whole thing, something I couldn't then put my finger on and yet I loved it all the same.

Even now, it's hard to articulate precisely what it is that still fascinated me about Castle Amber. On a superficial level, it's just another "funhouse dungeon," filled with nonsensical and whimsical encounters, like the ogre who believes himself to be a human woman, the troll under the bridge in the indoor forest, and jester who polymorphs opponents into white apes, among others. But what I think sets Castle Amber apart from true funhouse dungeons is two things. First, there is a degree of internal consistency and unity to even the most whimsical encounters; that is, there is a method behind the madness. Second, and more importantly for me, there's very little outright malevolence in the place. There are many evil people inside Castle Amber -- most of the Amber family, for instance -- and their actions are objectively evil according to almost any moral compass and yet, somehow, they come across not so much as evil as bored. On some level, that strikes me as much worse than if they they behaved as they do because they actively wished ill upon their victims. Instead, they're just looking for something to do, something to alleviate their world weariness.

With its Erol Otus cover, Castle Amber has a phantasmagoric, fever-dream quality to it that still holds up after 27 years. The module is far from perfect -- there are a number of pointless D&D-isms that break the frame, for example -- but it remains a good example of an approach to fantasy gaming that has largely been lost, at least among gaming publishers nowadays. Module X2 combines literary allusion, hallucinatory imagery, and deadly whimsy to produce a challenge for all but the most clever players. Even better, it combines a dungeon -- Castle Amber itself -- with the mini-sandbox setting of Averoigne, thus making it a useful teaching tool for referees looking for advice on how to combine the two styles of old school play into a unified whole. And all in 26 pages! How many modern adventure modules can compare?

What is sad is the realization that, in retrospect, 1981 was probably the highwater mark for the old school. While I would argue that we still see a goodly stream of old school material in the two years that follow Castle Amber's publication, it was nevertheless a declining stream. The shift in how modules were designed was obvious by 1983-84 and there's been no turning back. I'm sorely tempted to crack out my copy of Castle Amber and play it again with my gaming group soon. Some of my most cherished gaming memories center around playing it with my friends nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps it's time to make some new memories.

Ditto

Melan said it so I don't have to:

Would Carcosa have worked with sorcery some degrees less horrid? I think the answer to this question is positive. It could still have been strange and possessed of hidden menace, it could still have come with a hideous price, and been ultimately wrong and fruitless. And that is the real tragedy of Carcosa. The questions it could have asked are not being considered because they are asked so harshly that the only response is the conditional reflex of rejection and moral outrage (or moral outrage over moral outrage!). There is no discussion about the majesty of the rest of Carcosa, the sheer alien beauty of a world bathed in the colours of jale, dolm and ulfire (hues unknown on our planet); no campaign ideas are raised about the very first successful transplantation of H. P. Lovecraft’s cosmic mysteries into fantasy roleplaying and seeing the Mythos from a yet unknown, genuinely original angle. There are precious few to appreciate the cleverness of mixing swords, sorcery and weird technology, the loving homages to the Wilderlands, Gamma World, Gygaxian fantasy, Tékumel, which nevertheless do not feel like cheap imitation, but rather new and original. The best, most authentic and imaginative old school supplement I have known has been written, where every phrase radiates a mastery of language (who could resist a spell named “The Exoteric Consuming”, words like “ultratelluric” or an NPC named “The Autocrator”?) and a sense of adventure, and what are we discussing? The morality of writing about child rape? Is this what we will take away from Carcosa? That is my suspicion: that it will not go down as Carcosa, the fanmade supplement that rightfully deserved to be called Supplement V. (or outdid the others, even...), but Carcosa, the Child Rape Game. And who will want to buy, read and play that? People being transgressive for the sake of being transgressive? And even if that is an appreciative target audience, is it really the best one to have?

In the end, I think Carcosa is a lesser work for these reasons. It did not need to be sanitised, like so much of the boring escapist fantasy that surrounds us. It need not have had that embarrassingly cutified degeneration of the domesticated Cthulhu Mythos we can buy in the forms of plush figures and cute green slippers. But in some cases, less is more. With a little restraint, Carcosa would have been the greatest evocation of a sort of primal, original, authentic fantasy that makes you say ‘Hell yes!’; the sort you just can’t buy in stores anymore. Some of it – most of it – is still that. But precious few will see those parts.

Some lines are not meant to be crossed, and there are sometimes good reasons for that.

I really have nothing to add.

D&D as a Myth Cycle

There are more amusing faux book covers here, one of my favorite being:

Shocked though I'm sure you all are, I don't have much liking for Marion Zimmer Bradley's re-telling of the Matter of Britain. But that's not what I want to talk about in this post. Instead, I'm going to put forward a position that I hope will make clear my own perspective on the role of "tradition" in D&D.

The legend of King Arthur is, to put it bluntly, a mess. They're a mass of conflicting tales from a variety of different sources that have, over the years and largely through the overwhelming influence of Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, acquired a kind of incoherent coherence. That is, though there are many strands, both cultural and literary, within the legend of King Arthur, those strands have nevertheless coalesced around some central themes, events, and characterizations in a way that makes it possible to say with some degree of certainty that the legend of King Arthur is about certain things, includes certain events, and has a cast of characters with recognizable personalities and features. In short, despite its origins, it's not at all unreasonable to talk about "the legend of King Arthur" and expect that most educated people in the Western world will know the rough outlines of what you mean by it.

One of the many reasons why the legend of King Arthur can be told and retold again and again is that, aside from its timeless themes, it contains so many cultural and literary strands within it that any given storyteller can choose to emphasize this one over that one in order to keep the legend "fresh" and engaging to a variety of audiences. Not all of these new takes on the legend work, of course, but that's not because of the weakness of the source material. In my opinion, it's because the only way to retell the legend of King Arthur is to do so in ways that are consonant with its thematic core. Betray that core and what you're left with isn't a retelling of an immortal tale but the creation of a merely derivative one.

I recall reading somewhere that Professor Tolkien hoped that, one day, Middle-earth might become the focus of its own legend cycle, with other storytellers picking up what he had done and using it to create additional tales so as to establish a proper English mythology (Tolkien famously deemed King Arthur unsuitable both because of its Continental, specifically French, influences and the way it mixes magic and Christianity). H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos already is something similar: his alien gods and blasphemous books are commonplace in contemporary fantasy and horror. I've often felt that both Star Wars and Star Trek work better when viewed as myth cycles, with each new series, movie, or book viewed as a retelling of the same basic story rather than as an addition to the overall story. Indeed, unless I am mistaken, Star Trek novels have no continuity between them, except whatever their authors might choose to accept, thereby freeing each author to use as much or as little of the "myth cycle" as suits their dramatic purposes.

A myth cycle isn't a "story" precisely, though it may include many very specific events within it. The legend of Arthur, for example, includes a number of events common to most of its tellings. However, the myth cycle can't be reduced to a series of events or even a collection of characters, because all of these can be altered or outright ommitted, especially if the myth cycle is large and convoluted enough. So, a myth cycle's foundation is its thematic core -- what it's about; that's its "story." The truth of this is pretty plain when you look at, for example, many putative stories of the Cthulhu Mythos. The work of August Derleth contains innumerable references to the gods, monsters, tomes, and characters of HPL's work, but its themes are so different and, in many ways, contrary to those of his predecessor that I don't think they can reasonably be deemed "Cthulhu Mythos stories" except in the most analogical sense.

The key, of course, is locating the thematic core of a myth cycle. Once you've done that, it's possible to recognize the derivative works for what they are. I realize, of course, that my position will be controversial, since it explicitly excludes revisionism from being part of the myth cycle. I don't think this is an unreasonable position, but I know that not everyone will accept it. Nevertheless, the point remains that myth cycles have a coherence to them that transcends the welter of specific things associated with the myth cycle. That's why you can tell a perfectly good Arthurian story in which certain characters or events never appear. It's also the reason why most of us, if reading a story that purports to be part of the myth cycle, can intuit whether it really belongs to it or not. I contend we all have a sense of the thematic core of most myth cycles with which we're quite familiar and can thus tell whether the author is working within the tradition or not.

D&D, being a game rather than a series of tales, can't really be viewed as a myth cycle in quite the same way. Certainly, there's the Gygaxian Canon, but I long ago came to the conclusion that it's a mistake to conflate D&D with the Gygaxian Canon. I find most of the wailing and gnashing of teeth -- "Save the Great Wheel!" and all that -- about the changes to the Canon in the new edition to be missing the forest for the trees. Despite this, I think there is a central "story" to D&D, which is to say a thematic core, and it's from this core that all things that wish to call themselves "Dungeons & Dragons" must draw. What is that thematic core? I hope I can be forgiven for saving my answer to that question for a later post, but, rest assured, I'll be discussing it at some length over the next day or two.

Truth in Advertising

This and other amusingly accurate faux books covers can be found here. Thanks to my friend Kevin for the link.

Pulp Fantasy Gallery: The Face in the Frost

While the influence of both The Dying Earth series and the Harold Shea stories is widely acknowledged as important inspirations on the creation of the D&D magic system, much less frequently mentioned is John Bellairs' 1969 historical fantasy The Face in the Frost. This book adds the detail of wizards studying their spells in advance of casting them. I couldn't find a large image of the original 1969 cover, so instead I present the cover from the 1981 reprint.

Some Words about Pulp Fantasy

I don't think it's a self-important exaggeration to say that I'm one of the foremost proponents of the notion that D&D, especially OD&D, can best be understood in light of the pulp fantasy literature that inspired Gygax and Arneson. As I have delved deeper into the history (and pre-history) of the hobby, I grow ever more convinced of the truth of this notion. Indeed, I believe that, as popular tastes in fantasy have grown more distant from from the pulp conception of the genre, D&D has become a caricature, the end result being a new edition that is so divorced from its roots as to be of little interest to me.

But D&D isn't the only thing that has become a caricature. I would argue that the conception of "pulp fantasy" many hold is similarly rootless and thus of little interest to me. Chief among the caricature being foisted on pulp fantasy is the idea that the genre's protagonists weren't heroes. I think such a position is only tenable if you equate "hero" with a spotless white knight who not only knows what is right but always does it without fail. Pulp fantasy doesn't have many such characters -- though they do exist -- but the genre nevertheless doesn't lack for heroes.

Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, even Elric are all heroes. That they are often greedy, self-interested, and prone to violence doesn't disqualify them from hero status in my opinion, because, when push comes to shove, they are all, however fitfully, on the side of the angels. They all possess moral codes, lines they will not cross, even in pursuit of their sometimes prominent vices. That these characters are all flawed, inconsistent, and conflicted doesn't mean they aren't heroes; what it means is that they're human and to be human is often to stumble and fall while striving for the Good.

Somewhere between the time these characters were created and the present day, the thread of a grand conversation was lost. Somehow, instead of being seen as flawed heroes, they came to be seen instead as antiheroes. Somehow antiheroism then became elevated to a quintessential element of pulp fantasy; it is not. To see Conan primarily as a brute who indulged his every appetite with glorious abandon is to forget that we are introduced to the character as the first just king Aquilonia has seen in generations, who strives to govern this foreign land honorably despite the machinations of its nobles and the fickleness of its populace. Conan is certainly flawed and, at times, deeply antiheroic, but he remains a hero, precisely because he abides by a rough code that regularly compels him to do what is right even at great cost to himself.

What does any of this have to do with D&D? Quite simply: being a game inspired by pulp fantasy does not mean that it's a game without heroes -- just the opposite. Pulp fantasy is a genre of flawed heroes certainly, but flawed heroes do not cease to be heroes because they aren't spotless. The attraction pulp fantasy holds for me is that its protagonists seem real; I can identify with them, because, like me, they make mistakes, give in to their worst vices, and selfishly confuse what is easy with what is good. Yet, each of them proves that, when stripped to their core, they will stand up for what is right.

Every one remembers that Conan famously abhorred civilized ways, but the truth of it is that he abhorred the way men used civilization as a cloak to hide their baser natures. Conan did not revel in barbarism so much as acknowledge its basic honesty when compared to "civilized" men whose morality was little more than a veneer. To reduce Conan to Arnie's "what is good in life" quote is not only to misread Conan, but also to contribute to the caricature of pulp fantasy that has driven many people away from it. Many proponents of the genre have done it a grave disservice in their exaltation of brutality and amorality. Such things exist in pulp fantasy, to be sure, but they are not its defining characteristics nor are they things that pulp fantasy authors admired and promoted.

To cite a non-pulp fantasy example: Lancelot may be a far more interesting character than Galahad, but that doesn't mean adultery is laudable or a defining characteristic of an Arthurian hero. Lancelot's betrayal of his king and his disregard for Christian morality are not what make him admirable. To see them as such is to get it backwards and to misread one of the central themes of the Arthurian legends. In like fashion, I don't expect D&D characters to be sinless paragons, but they should still be admirable; they should still be recognizably heroes. I fail to see the point in playing an evil character in a roleplaying game and I certainly don't think RPGs ought to be seen to treat evil as laudable or even "necessary."

I could probably go on, but I'm leaving it at this. I trust my point is reasonably clear and I sincerely hope no one will get the mistaken impression that, because of my advocacy of pulp fantasy as the lens through which D&D must be understood that I support the reduction of a rather nuanced genre to a catchphrase of velvet Boris Vallejo painting. I love and respect the greats of pulp fantasy too much to do that, just as I love and respect D&D. The last thing I want is for either to be caricatured, because it doesn't take long before a caricature -- especially a lurid one -- to become the reality.

Alignment Thoughts

I'm putting this here partially to remind myself of it later and partially to get some feedback for further refinement.

The way I'm envisaging it right now, there are three forces at work in the cosmos: Nature, which simply is (and is thus Neutrality); Law, which seeks to control/subdue Nature to one degree or another; Chaos, which seeks to undermine/destroy Nature.

Neutrality is made up both of creatures who simply go about their daily existence without regard to why and creatures who have chosen, for philosophical reasons, to uphold/protect "the Balance" that Nature represents, said Balance being often impersonal and even amoral.

Law is made up of those who favor Order, whether that order be civilization, hierarchy, or outright domination. There are thus "ethical" distinctions between adherents of Law, some being Good, some being Neutral, and some being Evil. Regardless of such distinctions, all Lawful aligned creatures seek to impose structure on Nature and oppose the entropic character of Chaos.

Chaos is made up of those who revel in destruction, whether it be outright destruction or gradual corruption. Despite different approaches, there are no ethical distinctions between Chaotic beings, since all wish to bring Nature crashing down because they see even its disinterested "order" as too restrictive and stifling. Only destroying Nature will bring ultimate freedom -- the freedom of total annihilation.

So, this gives me the following alignments for my campaign:

Chaotic
Neutral
Neutral (Balance)
Lawful (Good)
Lawful
Lawful (Evil)

I still need to work out how these various alignments relate to one another for the purposes of spells, etc. but I am starting to like this setup a great deal, because it's a nice middle course between the wargam-ish "pick a side" mentality of straight OD&D and the overly schematized to the point of incoherence of AD&D.

More Swords & Wizardry Goodness

Hot on the heals of the release of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules comes Tomb of the Iron God, an introductory adventure by Matt Finch, available in both PDF and print formats. Designed for levels 1-2, this is, in the author's own words, "a high quality meat-and-potatoes dungeon," which strikes me as a very positive thing. I'll be posting a formal review of the thing once I've had a chance to digest it fully, but my quick read of it so far is that it reminds me of the early B-series modules from TSR, particularly In Search of the Unknown.

On the subject of reviews: I will continue to review any products I receive that I personally have not had a hand in producing. Though I worked with Matt Finch on the Core Rules and will be editing Knockspell, I'm not going to say I like a product that I don't simply because Mythmere Games produced it. Fortunately, I've been favorably impressed with all of Mythmere's products to date, so it's never been an issue. However, I wanted to make this clear now, in case anyone was concerned that my perspective -- I won't say "objectivity," since my reviews glory in their subjectiveness -- might somehow be skewed because of my working relationship with Matt on various S&W projects.

Of Ancient Empires

Every campaign needs Atlantis. Or Rome. Better yet, why not combine the two? That's what I did in creating Hyperborean Thule, but let's back up a little bit.

One of the many things people complain about in D&D is the way that its magic is so codified, with spells assigned to levels. Indeed, the very concept of spell levels strikes many as a metagame concept that's found its way into the implied setting. I think it's a fair criticism, but it doesn't bother me anymore than do level titles (which I love, by the way). Looking at both of these things without any preconceptions, the first idea that suggests itself to me is that there must have been some ancient civilization that was really into systematizing and organizing things and both the arrangement of spells and level titles are watered-down holdovers from these old systems, like the way that late Roman military ranks morphed into noble titles over the centuries or how the dress of Imperial Roman courtiers was adopted and adapted by the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

So, in my campaign setting, the Thulians are my "Romans" whose civilization laid the groundwork for the world that came after them. Actually, the Thulians are a bunch of different archetypes. Besides being the Romans when it comes to systematization, they're also the Atlanteans, a mighty civilization whose command of both magic and technology was rivaled that of the Eld, whom they overthrew and from whom they learned a thing or two. The Thulians are also my "good guys gone bad." Originally a remote barbaric tribe from an island to the north -- Hyperborean Thule -- they eventually became the nucleus of a revolt that cast off the Eldritch yoke and held back Chaos for centuries before finally becoming corrupted by it. The Thulians in turn fell prey to revolts, as well as the punishment of the gods, who sank Thule beneath the waves rather than see it become a toehold of the Abyss in the world.

Before the end, though, the Thulians did all the things you'd expect magical Romans to do: built roads, founded cities, researched spells, created artifacts, established laws, collected the gods into a single pantheon, and so on and so forth. This gives me an excuse for any systematic elements of my setting -- I can claim Thulian antecedents -- while the distance in time between the sinking of Thule and the present gives me lots of leeway to change anything I want.

Plus, let's face it: with all the ruins lying around in a typical D&D world, you need magical Romans to explain their existence. The Thulians are mine.

Thank You

I wanted to say a quick thank you to all of you have in recent days made a donation to me because of my work on this blog. As I said before, I do this because I love doing it and will do so as long as I continue to enjoy it -- which means for a very long time indeed -- but it's nevertheless gratifying when my readers show their appreciation through donations. I certainly never expected to make a living off Grognardia (and doubt I ever will); anything I receive because of my writing here is a terrific bonus to lively discussion and shared memories it has engendered.

Thank you, all.

Offline

I'm likely going to be offline much of today, since I'm in the process of upgrading my computer. Regular posts will resume once I have my new system up and running and have worked out all the inevitable snags that come when a technological illiterate such as myself undertakes such a project.

Wish me luck.

Update: Nearly done with digging myself out from under the upgrade process. It'll still be a few days before I'm fully back to where I was before, but I should be able to post and receive mail as usual soon.

Kard és Mágia

The prolific and imaginative Melan (aka Gabor Lux), author of The Garden of al-Astorion and The House of Rogat Demazien, in addition to being a member of the design team responsible for Necromancer Games' Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set, has released his own old school RPG for your enjoyment. Entitled Kard és Mágia -- Sword and Magic, if my rudimentary skills in Hungarian are correct -- the game is, in Melan's words, "not a 'simulacrum game,' but rather a mixture of d20 light, old school concepts and weird fantasy." In addition to its rules, Kard és Mágia is already supported by five adventure modules, which, if his past work is any indication, ought to be terrific evocations of a style of fantasy rarely seen in RPGs.

I wish I could say more about the game, but my reading comprehension of Magyar is extremely limited. Perhaps one day we can look forward to a translation into a language I do understand. Even so, it's terrific to see yet another old school-inspired game appearing on the scene and I hope it is well received.

My Megadungeon: Dwimmermount

As I worked on the bits and pieces of my pulp fantasy campaign setting, I realized that I needed a megadungeon of my own. I used to be somewhat contemptuous of the notion that old school fantasy gaming required such a thing, but I've slowly come round to the belief that I was wrong to be so dismissive. I still believe that a campaign that revolves entirely around a single megadungeon is probably going to be too narrowly focused for my idiosyncratic tastes. Yet, I also believe that a megadungeon is an important component in establishing the proper vibe of old school play. Neither Greyhawk nor Blackmoor was solely about delving into the dungeons beneath their eponymous castles, but it's hard to imagine either campaign without the megadungeons from which they derived.

Thus was born Dwimmermount. Once I accepted that I needed a megadungeon, I knew I needed a proper megadungeon, which is to say, one that was a suitable potpourri of danger, discovery, and whimsy. To achieve the right mix, I came up with the idea of a mountain that set atop a node of primal Chaos. When the Eld invaded, the mountain called to them and they responded by establishing a fortress there to plumb the mountain's depths and harness the raw Chaos that seemed to roil up from beneath its roots. Over the centuries they occupied it, the Eld mined deep into the mountain -- and beneath it -- in the process creating many chambers and expanding the natural cave systems of the place.

Later, after the Thulians overthrew the Red Elves, they occupied the fortress, dubbing it Dwimmermount, a pidgin word incorporating the Eldritch word "dwimmer," meaning both "magic" and "chaos." The Thulians continued the work of the Eld, adding to the vast complex within and beneath the mountain, gaining deep insights into the workings of magic -- and being slowly driven mad by the raw Chaos that permeated the place. Some of the Thulians and the servants, like the Eld before them, were forever changed by spending so much time in Dwimmermount, leading them to delve into things that only accelerated these changes, to the detriment of all.

Like the Eld before them, the Thulians fell to their own hubris and Dwimmermount was shunned by most civilized men, who rightly saw it as a lair of madness and corruption. Yet, there are some who brave its dangers nonetheless, seeking out the magic of the Eld and Thulians alike, as well as the treasures they dredged up from the depths. Few who do so who return and fewer still return with their minds and bodies intact.

That's the rough sketch of the thing. The idea is that Dwimmermount isn't an entirely natural place, so I have an excuse for lots of weirdness when I need it. Likewise, it's not completely artificial either. One of the problems I always had with many old school megadungeons is that they're supposed to have been built by some mad wizard or other, but they always came across as simply too loony even for that explanation to work. And because there were (at least) two different groups, with slightly different agendas, who occupied Dwimmermount over the centuries, I have some leeway in varying the look, feel, and contents of the levels and chambers. In short, Dwimmermount is meant to give the illusion of naturalism to what will be a semi-funhouse dungeon (but only semi; I have my limits).

More on this as it gets developed.

Swords & Wizardry Core Rules Released

Today, Mythmere Games released the core rules for Swords & Wizardry in both free PDF and in printed form. Rather than try and explain the whys and wherefores of S&W myself, I'll just quote its creator, Matt Finch:

As a lot of you know, Swords & Wizardry is a retro-clone of 0E, although it's not as tight as OSRIC is with 1E. The main differences are that there is only one class of saving throw, the initiative system (there's not one in 0E) is rudimentary (since everyone had to house rule this or use Chainmail, I just used a least common denominator) and the XP bonuses are constructed differently (but with similar results) - for legal reasons. These core rules are a mix of the White Box classes (only), the GH system of hit dice and variable damage by weapon, and spells from across the supplements.

In addition to the normal reasons for creating a retro clone (organized/beginner-accessible rules, shared brand name, preservation of rules in free format), Swords & Wizardry is a project to re-initiate the "hobbyist" approach to OOP gaming, the idea that you can tinker from the ground up and make the rules fit any sort of fantasy you want. Too many gamers (and this is not limited to modern gamers, I have seen it on OOP sites as well) approach games like consumers. If it's not in the rules, it's not in the game; if it doesn't fit into the rules, it's not in the game; if the rules aren't completely specific, they're bad rules - you see what I mean by this mindset. But games used to be approached with the ASSUMPTION that the GM and players were going to hack them apart and make them fit the desired effect. The same way we'd take rules for Napoleonic wargaming and tweak them into rules for Space Marines or 52mm green plastic army men.

I have spend an enormous amount of time over the last 6 months or so preparing the rulebooks (with especial thanks to Red Priest, Finarvyn, Philotomy Jurament, and Jerry Mapes) and building up a body of supplemental resources such as new spells, city encounters, etc). The intro module is just around the corner, and an expanded monster book for 0E is getting close to being done. My goal here is to assure those who want to be playing a living game that 0E is once again a living game supported by an active publisher.

I had a very small hand in the production of Swords & Wizardry, acting as editor of the core rules, so I'm to blame for any grammatical or spelling errors in the text. I've also agreed to oversee Knockspell, an upcoming magazine to support S&W, as well as any other retro-clone for which we get permission to provide support. The first issue has been simmering in the background until completion of the Core Rules. Now that they're done, expect to hear -- and see -- more of Knockspell in the near future.

As a personal aside, any old school products I create will use Swords & Wizardry as their rules, both because they're simple and straightforward but also because they're easily adaptable to any pre-WotC edition of D&D (and their spin-offs). Expect to see quite a few Grognardia-related S&W products over the coming months.

REVIEW: Aendryth's Eldritch Compendium

Aendryth's Eldritch Compendium is the latest PDF from the prolific James Mishler of Adventure Games Publishing. This 12-page product (10 pages of text, plus a title/table of contents and a full-page ad for an upcoming AGP product) retails for $2.50 normally, but is currently on sale for $2.00. Either price is, quite, frankly a steal, considering the terrific ideas to be found here. It's true that the PDF is very "bare bones," consisting of three-column pages of small type and no illustrations. However, I'd argue that's a point in this product's favor, since Mishler was able to pack quite a lot of great ideas into only 10 pages and it's great ideas that distinguish AGP's products.

In principle, the Eldritch Compendium is designed for use with Castles & Crusades and AGP's variant Wilderlands setting, but its contents should easily translate into almost any D&D-related fantasy roleplaying game. Mechanics aside, there's plenty of ideas here that should be easily usable in any RPG with a swords-and-sorcery feel. One of the many things I most appreciate about about AGP's products is their high degree of utility. Whether I'm playing OD&D, AD&D, or C&C, I'd be able to pick and up and use them without worrying a difficult process of converting their game mechanics. That may seem like a small thing, but it isn't and it's one that old school gamers should particularly appreciate. In this respect, AGP is following in the illustrious footsteps of Judges Guild: creating products that are packed with ideas and light on mechanics.

The Eldritch Compendium's actual contents consists of two separate sections. The first details twelve new wizard spells, ranging in level from 1-9. The spells themselves are diverse and interesting, with just enough flavor and idiosyncrasies to make them memorable yet not so specific that they'd be difficult to import into most fantasy campaign settings. A good example is the spell Blood Childe, which enables the caster to create a semi-independent clone of himself that might (if he's lucky) do his bidding. The spell description is lengthy and filled with plenty of information on the process by which the blood childe is created and grows over time, as well as the likelihood that the clone is defective in some way and thus prone to rebel against its "parent" when the time is right. Most of the spells are similarly interesting and not always without dangers in casting them, which appeals to me greatly. Also to be found amongst the spells are a few sly references that struck me as the kinds of silliness Gary Gygax and others foisted on their players in days of yore, such as the spell Chirurgeon ex Nihilo, which summons an extra-dimensional doctor of a race called "Djeeps." Long-time fans of Popeye will immediately recognize the race's origins.

The second half of the PDF consists of formulae for the creation of different potions made from the eyes of a prysmal eye. For those not in the know, a prysmal eye is C&C's ersatz beholder, since the beholder is IP of Wizards of the Coast and not part of the D20 SRD. There are eleven formulae -- one for each eye -- and their descriptions not only explain their effects and how to make them, but also the possible unintended side effects of imbibing them. I think these side effects, many of them quite unpleasant for the imbiber, are pure gold. They're exactly what I want to see more of, since they remind players that magic is unpredictable and often dangerous. They very nicely exude a swords-and-sorcery vibe that I think is not only great fun but also in keeping with the pulp fantasy roots of the hobby. Rounding out the chapter is a formula for the creation of plate armor made from the hide of the prysmal eye; it too has potentially horrible consequences. I sincerely hope Mishler continues to create new magic items in this same vein.

If I have a complaint about Aendryth's Eldritch Compendium, it's that it's too short, but that's my love of good ideas talking rather than any objective judgment on the PDF's length. At 10 pages of small text, the product is full of great ideas and a real bargain, even at its regular price. Like Mythmere Games' Eldritch Weirdness, Book One, this product does more than provide new "toys" for use in one's campaign; it provides plenty of hooks from which to hang dozens of adventures. Few of these hooks are explicitly spelled out -- doing so is the referee's job -- but they're there aplenty and they really do inspire me. That's probably the highest praise I can give any product and I gladly give it here.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 polearms

Riddle Me This

There are lots of strange things that have, over the years, become gamer "collective wisdom." As with all such things, much of it is utterly wrong and based on misunderstandings and misapprehensions. One common one is that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was an impenetrable maze of complexity. How anyone who actually played AD&D could say this eludes me, because, with the exception of psionics -- which I grant was indeed complex (and stupid) -- AD&D was, in nearly every respect, far less complex than, say, 3e either to prepare or run.

Were I to guess, I suspect that the myth of AD&D's complexity owes its origins in the Cult of the Universal Mechanic. AD&D has no single way to do anything. Sometimes high is good; sometimes is good. Sometimes you roll 1D20; other times, you roll D100. There are matrixes; there are tables. There are sub-systems galore, many of which have their own internal logic to them rather than building on existing systems. I deny none of this, but if this makes AD&D "complex," then what are we to call pretty much every game every published by FGU?

I ask this only partly in jest, because I simply can't get my mind around the idea that any gamer, in this post-3e world, could call AD&D complex with a straight face. Complex compared to OD&D perhaps, but otherwise? Not on your life.

Pulp Fantasy Gallery: Kane

This is the first author to be featured in the pulp fantasy gallery who was not in Gary Gygax's famed Appendix N, but his contributions to the cause of pulp fantasy deserve recognition nonetheless. Beginning in 1970, Karl Edward Wagner began the saga of Kane, a left-handed, red-headed warrior cursed with eternal life after slaying his brother. As well as being a peerless swordsman, Kane is also a potent sorcerer with a decidedly amoral streak. It's been years since I read them, but these stories always epitomized what I used to call "heavy metal fantasy;" they were the types of tales my friend Mike's older brother probably loved.

Wagner also deserves praise, though, for his formation of Carcosa Press, which sought to preserve pulp authors and tales and present them for a new generation in hardcover form. Even more important, Wagner edited several volumes of Conan stories that were the first to restore the texts to their original form, free from the accretions that had watered them down in the decades after Howard's death. For that alone, we all owe him a great debt.

Old School Building Blocks

Lost in the mists of time was a nice little essay by Matt Finch, in which, among other things, he lays out how one might go about modifying Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition in order to make it more like old school D&D. The original post was found on ENWorld, but it's no longer to be found in the forum archives, at least not that I've been able to discover.

In any case, I'm not really interested in the specific topic, since I no longer play 3e. However, I think Matt's general advice is quite excellent, which is why I'm borrowing parts of it here, with apologies to him. My goal is simply to lay down some basic guidelines on mechanical/methodological elements that contribute powerfully to playing D&D à l'école ancien.

1. Magic items should never be available for purchase. Instead, they must always be won from opponents or discovered by exploring the hidden places of the world. In a similar vein, magic should never be a substitute for technology. Outside of the PCs, their allies, and their enemies -- and perhaps not even then -- magic and magic items should be rare.

2. Always award XP for gold. The reason for this is that it makes acquiring loot, not killing foes, the primary focus of dungeon delving. Once the players understand this, they might begin to behave more sneakily and realize that discretion is sometimes the better part of valor. XP should still be awarded for defeating enemies, of course, but it should pale in comparison to the XP gained from treasure.

3. Keep characters poor by any means you can. AD&D used training costs as a way to ensure that the PCs never had much money, as they rose in power. OD&D has no such mechanism, but I'd consider adding something like it. I know of several referees who only give XP for gold that's spent. This is a nifty idea, as it rather nicely emulates the way that Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser would go on binges of spending after they'd completed a particularly successful adventure -- only to wind up poor again in short order. Either way, PCs should rarely have a full coin purse.

4. Make the acquisition of new magic-user spells difficult. They should rarely be available for outright purchase; when they are, they should cost ridiculous amounts of gold. Otherwise, the MU must win his new spells by finding scrolls or spellbooks. The point is to keep the magic-user's repertoire limited, both to encourage creative thinking and give him yet more reasons to go adventuring.

5. Encourage map-making by presenting environments where having a map is a must. D&D is as much a game of exploration as it is of heroic exploits. I've said before that planning a dungeon expedition is a bit like planning a safari or archeological dig. Having to draw a map in order to avoid becoming lost or suffering some horrible fate is essential to old school D&D. Yes, this means the game will run more slowly, but that's an important part of the old school gaming experience. This goes for wilderness exploration as well as dungeon exploration.

6. Sometimes there are no answers. That is, there are mysteries that will remain such. Not everything has an explanation, at least not an explanation available to the PCs. It's important to remind players that there are many things beyond their characters' ken.

7. All politics is local. Old school gaming is not about world-spanning, "epic "plots and cabals. There is no single Dark Lord whose machinations are behind the rise of evil in the world. Indeed, if you feel the compulsion to talk about the Big Bad Evil Guy of your campaign -- or, worse, to use the abbreviation BBEG -- seek help immediately. Likewise, there are no large organizations of do-gooders who oppose them. Instead, everything happens on a much smaller scale, with events being confined to (at most) a few hexes on the map.

8. High-level characters are few and rare and generally have no interest in helping -- or opposing -- the PCs. They have better things to do with their time.

These are some very broad strokes. I have some more specific advice I might dispense in a future post, but these ought to keep people busy arguing for a while.

Grognard's Grimoire: S&W Monk

I've always had a fondness for the monk as a class, partially because, when I first encountered it -- in AD&D, not OD&D -- I didn't quite get it. At the time, I don't think I'd seen a single martial arts movie and I'd never watched Kung-Fu. To me, a "monk" was a Christian priest or brother living in a monastery or, if I stretched the term a bit, it could cover mendicants like the Dominicans and Franciscans. So, when I first saw this class in the Players Handbook, I imagined someone kind of like Friar Tuck. Given the monk's fondness for staves, this didn't seem entirely unreasonable to me. Consequently, my early D&D campaigns included tonsured, sandaled, quarter staff-wielding priests/brothers who, while largely pacific in their behavior, knew how to whoop ass when needed. Unsurprisingly, St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel served nicely as their patron deity in my early games.

Despite correct this misapprehension, I still like the monk. I think there's definitely a place in D&D for an unarmed combatant and he need not be of obviously Asian origin, though he certainly can be. Below is my first stab at a monk usable with Swords & Wizardry. I'm not 100% happy with it, even if I like much of it. It's largely inspired by the Blackmoor version of the class, but it's largely recognizable to those who know the class from later sources.

The material in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game Content via the Open Game License.

The Monk

Hit Dice Type: 1d6 per level. After reaching 9 hit dice, the monk gains only 2 hit points per level.
Armor/Shield Permitted: None
Weapons Permitted: Any
Prime Attribute (5% XP bonus): Wisdom 13+, Dexterity 13+
Alignment: Any
Race: Human

Monk Class Abilities and Restrictions

Armor Class: The monk gains an unarmored AC bonus that increases with experience, as indicated on the Monk Advancement Table below.

Deflect Missiles: The monk may deflect non-magical missile attacks with a successful saving throw.

Fast Movement: Beginning at 3rd level, the monk moves faster than normal when unencumbered.

Quivering Palm: At 12th level, the monk gains a fearsome attack, usable once per week. If the monk successfully deals damage with an unarmed attack against a creature with fewer hit dice than himself or herself, the monk may then choose to slay the creature automatically at any time thereafter, up to one day per level of the monk.

Slow Fall: At 4th level, the monk takes damage from a fall as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is. The monk must be within 10 feet of a vertical surface to use this ability. At 8th level, any fall is treated as if it were 40 feet shorter and the monk must be within 20 feet of a vertical surface. At 11th level, the monk may fall any distance if he or she is within 30 feet of a vertical surface.

Still Body: At 6th level, the monk can slow his or her bodily functions to appear dead for a number of turns equal to his or her level.

Still Mind: At 3rd level, the monk gains a +2 bonus to saving throws against spells that affect the mind.

Unarmed Attack: The monk specializes in unarmed, hand-to-hand combat. Such attacks deal 1D6 points of damage, but the monk may choose whether they inflict normal damage or subdual damage. At 6th level, the monk rolls 2D6 for unarmed attack damage and takes the higher result of the two dice. At 11th level, the monk rols 3D6 and take the highest result of the three dice for unarmed combat damage.

Wealth: A monk may never possess more than five magical items, including weapons. In addition, a monk must donate all treasure they acquire to their monastic order, except that needed for personal upkeep.

Wholeness of Body: Beginning at 7th level, the monk can heal a number of hit points of damage equal to his or her level per day.

Monk Advancement Table
Level	Experience Points Required	Hit Dice (d6)	Saving Throw	AC	Fast Movement
1	0	1	14	9 [10]
2	2,000	2	13	8 [11]
3	4,000	3	12	7 [12]	13
4	8,000	4	11	7 [12]	14
5	16,000	5	10	6 [13]	15
6	32,000	6	9	6 [13]	16
7	64,000	7	8	6 [13]	17
8	128,000	8	7	5 [14]	18
9	256,000	9	6	5 [14]	19
10	350,000	9+2 hp	5	5 [14]	20
11	450,000	9+2 hp	4	5 [14]	21
12	550,000	9+2 hp	4	4 [15]	22
13	650,000	9+2 hp	4	4 [15]	23
14	750,000	9+2 hp	4	4 [15]	24
15	850,000	9+2 hp	4	4 [15]	25
16	950,000	9+2 hp	4	4 [15]	26

Otherworld Miniatures Early Winter Sale

Otherworld Miniatures are having a sale, starting tonight and running for the next month. All figures in the range will be discounted by 20%, and orders over £75.00 GBP will be shipped worldwide free of charge.

The sale also includes pre-orders for October and November new releases, which include more Hobgoblin Warriors, Hobgoblin Guards and Commanders, the first encounter with Kobolds, Giant Rats, and a trio of Troglodytes.

So, with 20% off, free shipping, and an exchange rate of £1.00 GBP to $1.70 USD, you might want to pick up some of those figures you've been eyeing for a while!

For more information, take a look at http://www.otherworld.me.uk/

(And if anyone wants to get me something for my birthday at the end of the month ...)

Irony

The Keep on the Borderlands was written after the Village of Hommlett, after the D series. Those modules weren't masterpieces, but they sure as heck had far more depth and coherence than this disaster of a gaming product. RPG's had crawled past the point where this module was considered acceptable. Yet, the marketing geniuses at TSR decided to bundle this baby in with the 1981 D&D Basic book. They decided that their target audience was so desperate for anything new that they could just print so much garbage and the dimwitted gamers would buy it all.

I'd never seen this review before. Granted, it's nearly 10 years old. Goodness knows I'd hate to be held accountable for every brain spasm that found its way into print with my byline on it, especially if said spasms occurred almost a decade ago. Still, it's nevertheless a bit shocking to read such a snarkily dismissive review of a classic module such as this.

Addendum: It's been suggested that the original review was a joke. The review does carry the tag "Comedy," so it's possible and I sincerely hope it is. If anyone can shed light on this topic, I'd appreciate it.

Yet More Buzzwords

I'm always pleased when I see that people have taken something I wrote and run with it. That's what's happened over at the Paizo forums, where there's a long thread that spun off from my post about Gygaxian Naturalism. Aside from the generally thoughtful tone of the thread, I was particularly impressed with its introduction of two more terms that I plan to add to my vocabulary: Gygaxian Methodology and Gygaxian Canon.

As defined by poster Jeremy MacDonald, Gygaxian Methodology consists of:

the use of tables to enhance authenticity. Rules and rulings that don't have anything to do with the players but are simply aspects of the world at large. The creation of adventures that are internally consistent and not modified one way or another simply because your players party does or does not have a Paladin. Adventures that have secrets that might or might not be discovered by the players.

Authenticity is the key here even if it trumps story.

Gygaxian Canon on the other hand:

This is adherence to Gygax's original view of the monsters and their themes and of the Great Wheel Cosmology. Kobolds are fecund little dogmen, Mind Flayers plot to extinguish the sun and there are hints that that they are either from the future or the past but they are deffinitly not from this time line. Drow are led by powerful woman and they are always evil. They worship the Goddess Lolth.

In both cases, I have quibbles and qualifications I'd make, but I agree with the general thrust of both definitions. I find these new terms useful because they help to highlight where some of the fault lines lie in "old school" vs. "new school" debates, particularly as it relates to the WotC editions of Dungeons & Dragons. In my case, it's the deviation from the Gygaxian Methodology (of which Naturalism is a sub-set) that bothers me more about the WotC editions than it is the deviations from the Gygaxian Canon.

Now, obviously, I like many aspects of the Canon and have indulged in my fair share of potshots at the re-evaluations of the Canon, but I'm actually much more open to doing so than I am to changes to the Methodology. For me, the Gygaxian Methodology is where D&D "lives," so to speak, and it's what has long distinguished it from other RPGs, both in the past and now. I have a lot of sympathy for folks who want to "save the Great Wheel" and all that, but I think it's a mistake to conflate D&D with the Gygaxian Canon, even if the Canon has such a long history with the game that it's practically synonymous with it. On this point, I don't think 4e necessarily made any mistakes by changing the Canon (even if I think many of the specific changes are just plain idiotic).

The Gygaxian Methodology, however, not only undergirds the game's mechanics (at least from late OD&D onward), but it's central to the way the game was played and experienced by most gamers before 1983 or thereabouts. That's where the "soul" of old school D&D resides, like it or not. Indeed, I suspect, far moreso than the Gygaxian Canon, it's the Methodology that's at the root of whether one has sympathy for the old school or not. That's not to say there aren't other parallel, equally valid Methodologies -- Dave Arneson assuredly has his own -- but I imagine these parallels share much with the Gygaxian one, so much so that you could easily create a superset to describe their characteristics.

With all that aside, I think it's a mistake to fixate too much on the Gygaxian Canon, love it though I do. Over the years, I've deviated from it in various ways and I plan to do so again in my next campaign. At the same time, I plan to hew very closely to the Gygaxian Methodology. One of the reasons I object to equating old school play with "a feel" is that this position tends to downplay the close connection between the Methodology and the mechanics. If you look back at the history of 2e, though, what you'll see is that each of TSR's many campaign settings either replaced large swaths of the core rules in order to accommodate a different Methodology or, if they didn't, gamers complained that the D&D rules weren't "right" for the setting in question. This is an important lesson to those who would argue that "old school" is a flavor that can be easily added to any rules set.

Works for Me

In contemplating the set-up I'm imagining for my campaign setting, it occurs to me that Jeff's Threefold Apocalyptic Alignment System is the closest to what I want to do. As I envisage it, all the gods -- even the evil ones -- are Lawful, because they stand on the side of continued existence of the universe, even if they differ on just what they'd do with the portion of the universe over which they have dominion. Chaos represents those who would destroy the universe, such as the demons and those who serve them. Neutrality is for those who wish neither the outright destruction of the universe nor attempts to master it, believing instead that reality (i.e. Nature) has its own logic that is aloof from the plans of both mortal and god alike.

(As an aside, I should note that D&D's devils, which I plan to use in some form, are solidly on the side of Law, being fallen servants of the gods who wish to rule the universe under their iron fists, unlike demons, who, through various means, both subtle and explicit, wish to destroy the very fabric of reality and cast the universe into the Abyss from whence they come)

I Still Don't Like Thieves

I'm on record as a certified "hater" of the class, because I think it steps on the toes of too many other classes and because I think Thief abilities open the door to a more generalized skill system, which I see as a large nail in the coffin of old school play. For the past few weeks, I've been trying to re-evaluate my stance to determine if I'm being reasonable. A big part of me thinks I should just cut the poor Thief some slack, since the class has been around since 1975 -- long enough to have entered into the traditional canon of the game and thus become, by my usual criteria, sacrosanct. After all, if 4e had cut the Thief/Rogue from the game, I'd be screaming bloody murder about it, wouldn't I?

Actually, no. The more I think about it, the more it becomes clear to me that the Thief is a self-justifying class. Prior to its introduction in Greyhawk, pretty much every "thief ability" was something a character of any class might attempt. Listening at doors? Check. Moving silently? Check. Locating and disarming traps? Check. The list goes on. I've noted before that "thief" is an occupation that could describe characters of any class. If you consider the pulp fantasy antecedents of OD&D, you soon realize that many, if not most, of the protagonists of such tales could be rightly called "thieves" even if none is at all similar to the Thief class. That suggests to me that being a thief is more a question of what you do as opposed to who you are -- and "who you are" is exactly what a character class represents (which is why I object strenuously to the conflation of class with profession).

What's also interesting is that, as D&D has developed, the Thief class has moved more and more away from being the dungeon trap-removal specialist he was in OD&D and AD&D. He's now, for wont of a better word, a ninja -- the stealthy, high damage-dealing class. Now, I think there's a place for such a class in even OD&D, but we already have one and he's called the Assassin. It seems to me that, as the years have worn on, the Thief/Rogue has become more and more like the Assassin, to the point where, under 3e, for example, the class doesn't necessarily have to be good at opening locks or picking pockets but it's inherently good at dealing lots of damage through subterfuge.

So, my plan at present is to treat "thief" as an avocation for other classes and use some version of the Assassin (which I'd dearly love to call a Slayer in homage to Lieber) as the "ninja" archetype class. I think eliminating the Thief might encourage players of other classes to try to be sneakier and I also think that, without the Thief, the temptation to introduce a skill system on top of D&D's class system will be greatly lessened -- a good thing indeed!

What Made Original D&D Great

This is the title of a superb essay by Daniel R. Collins that sings the praises of Gygaxian design principles. I'll almost certainly have more to say about the essay later, because it's got a lot of wisdom in it, but, for now, I'll simply recommend that you read and enjoy it.

The Plot Thickens

In the wake of the announcement that Jeff Talanian was no longer associated with the Castle Zagyg project, today Mongoose Publishing announced that they were re-launching the Lejendary Adventure game line under license from Gygax Games. I'd not be the slightest bit surprised to hear that Mongoose had also acquired the license to continue Castle Zagyg, but such has not been announced as yet.

I'll refrain from making any commentary about this move for the moment. Needless to say, I have some thoughts on the subject. I want to take some time to hunt down some details before saying anything further.

A Tale of Two Lists

I yield to no one in my lamenting the fact that neither 3e nor 4e saw fit to include a recommended reading list in their pages. I see this as a further symptom of the way the WotC editions of the game have diverged from its Gygaxo-Arneson roots, being the product of a post-literate culture quite unlike the one that birthed our hobby. I hold out some hope that Pathfinder might correct this oversight, given Erik Mona's deep love for and understanding of pulp fantasy.

That said, I would argue that the divergence that can be seen so clearly in the WotC editions began much earlier. Consider that, in the justly famed Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide ("Inspirational and Educational Reading"), Gary Gygax explains:

The following authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases, I cite specific works, in others, I simply recommend all their fantasy writing to you. From such sources, as well as just about any other imaginative writing or screenplay you will be able to pluck kernels from which grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

As you can see, Gary wasn't closing off possible sources of inspiration to only a handful of books or authors. He was, throughout his career, committed to taking inspiration from wherever one might find it. At the same time, Gygax made clear which authors and books were the primary influences on him as he created D&D. It's these pulp fantasy books and authors who form the game's "literary DNA" and are the ones most consonant with the game as one of its creators conceived of it. (A similar list written by Dave Arneson would be intriguing indeed)

The DMG was published in 1979. Just two years later, Tom Moldvay's Basic Rulebook includes a lengthier bibliography, entitled "Inspirational Source Material," which was compiled with the help of Barbara Davis, children's librarian at the Lake Geneva Public Library. Moldvay states that

Books on folklore, mythology, fairy tales, bestiaries, and knightly legends can often help the DM fill in important details of a campaign, but fictional tales and fantasy novels usually provide the best sources of inspiration. The following list includes some books which might prove useful.

The divergence is clear. Whereas Gygax's list was a list of the specific books and authors who influenced him in creating the game -- and are thus a window into how he saw the game -- Moldvay's list is a generalized quasi-academic survey of fiction and non-fiction that might hold some interest to players of D&D.

It would be foolish to claim that Moldvay's list is the cause of the shift in the perception that D&D was a "generic" fantasy RPG without very specific inspirations and antecedents. Rather, I think Moldvay's list suggests that, by 1981, either enough gamers already believed this to be case so that including a reading list so different in tone from Gygax's was uncontroversial or that TSR was making a concerted effort to shift the game away from its literary origins in order to broaden its mass market appeal. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in between. I certainly have an abiding respect for the memory of Tom Moldvay, whose work on modules B4, X1, and X2 reveal him to have been a keen student of pulp fantasy. Likewise, as highly as I regard TSR's products between the years 1974 and 1983, it's not as if the Golden Age ended abruptly and without the gleeful assistance of TSR itself, which made a number of creative decisions that laid the groundwork for the gaming world that exists today.

This is not a matter of "Gygax good/Moldvay bad" and I resist any attempt to characterize it as such. Nevertheless, it's hard to deny that the difference between the two reading lists reveals a shift in emphasis and approach that has had consequences for decades to come. Despite that, I feel compelled to say that, for all their differences, the fact that both Gygax and Moldvay saw the need to include a reading list at all shows how different they both were from the way the hobby would develop subsequently.

The Swordsman of Mars

I received in the mail today the latest installment of my Planet Stories subscription, The Swordsman of Mars by Otis Adalbert Kline (Writers used to have such terrific names, didn't they?) Kline is probably not very well known to many people today, except perhaps as Robert E. Howard's literary agent from 1933 until REH's death three years later. Kline continued to act in that capacity afterward, helping to get Howard's manuscripts published posthumously, including the planetary romance, Almuric (also available from Paizo).

Prior to this, though, Kline had penned many pulp fantasies himself, including the Martian adventures of Harry Thorne. This is the first complete edition of the stories to have appeared since the 1930s, which alone is good enough reason to read them. That they're also excellent tales that compare very favorably with those of Burroughs only adds to their attraction.

Once again, my hats off to Paizo and Planet Stories. Frankly, I can't think of a more exciting series of books being published anywhere today.

All is Not Well in Yggsburgh

Yesterday, Jeffrey Talanian, lead developer of the Castle Zagyg series produced by Troll Lord Games under license from Gygax Games (formerly Trigee Enterprises), announced the termination of his association with the project and with Gygax Games. In his announcement, Talanian explained that Gygax Games has a "new vision and new interpretation of Gary's legacy." Precisely what this means is unclear, since Gygax Games has not, as yet, come forth with any explanations or clarifications. Indeed, Gygax Games hasn't been forthcoming with any information on its plans since they shut down production of the Lejendary Adventure line at the end of August.

At this stage, what the future holds is simply speculation, of which there's a lot flying around various forums these days. All I know is that Jeff Talanian had been, over the last few years, Gary's chosen protegé. Through his efforts, the Castle Zagyg line had finally begun to make good on the promise it held, after many years of delays. By all accounts -- I still have yet to see a copy -- Castle Zagyg: Upper Works is a supremely good product, one that drips with Gygaxian goodness, thanks in no small part to Jeff Talanian's ability to channel the creativity and cleverness of the Dungeon Master. The idea that anyone could take his place and remain true to Gary's vision for the product line is simply ludicrous. I simply cannot fathom any "new vision" that would benefit from dropping the man whose close work with Gary over the last few years has brought us a product that's as close to the definitive version of Castle Greyhawk as any we'll ever see.

In any case, I'd urge anyone who's interested in Castle Zagyg to snap up any copies they can find now, because there's no telling what the future might hold. I hate to think that Gygax Games might do to it what they did to Lejendary Adventure, but I'm not willing to count on that. I fear that, once again, gamers will be denied seeing the Holy Grail of megadungeons.

New Blogs

Just a reminder to everyone: I regularly update my list of old school and related blogs, adding new and interesting ones as I come across them. I've added several over the last few weeks, most notably Bat in the Attic, written by cartographer extraordinaire Rob Conley. Take a moment to visit these other blogs, because there's really a great diversity of content and opinion in the old school community, which is how it should be.

Enjoy!

Introducing Ya'govian of Volmar

This is a very rough draft of the opening scene of the short story that's been occupying my thoughts over the last few days. I'll almost certainly be adding to it over the next little while, because it's an idea that I can't let go, even if it's still a bit inchoate at this time. There's not much to judge yet, but I wanted to throw it out on the blog anyway, since people indicated they were interested in it.

---

Ya'govian looked up at the stranger in the broad-brimmed hat. "Why should I help you?"

"Because you're bored," he replied. "I find it hard to imagine that a man such as yourself is content with his present circumstances. Had the College lived up to your expectations, you'd almost certainly be one of the most esteemed mages in the city rather than … Well, let's just say that your talents weren't properly appreciated by the Termaxian Magisters."

"Don't flatter me," Ya'govian spat. "I wasn't under-appreciated; I was lazy and arrogant."

The stranger smiled. "It is good to see that your years as consort and child-rearer have not dulled your self-knowledge. Let us hope your command of sorcery remains as acute."

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Because you have debts," he sighed. "Debts you cannot hope to repay if you don't start putting your considerable abilities to work for you and soon. You may well have been lazy and arrogant while you studied at the College, but that doesn't change the fact that you were one of the most natural sorcerers the Magisters had seen in generations. You had – you have – remarkable potential and I'd like to help you put it to use, if only to make us both a goodly sum of money."

Ya'govian rubbed one of his soft hands over his mouth and chin and pondered.

"Your reluctance is understandable. You have your wife's position and your children's safety to consider. Sorcery can be a dangerous vocation, after all; it's not for those with something to lose, is it? Not unless they're very good indeed."

Ya'govian swore that the tavern suddenly grew quieter, but, taking a moment to examine his surroundings suggested otherwise. The place was as boisterous as ever and no one seemed to take any more notice of him now that he was talking to someone other than himself.

"Of course," added the stranger, removing his hat and taking a chair across from Ya'govian. "if I didn't believe you were very good indeed, I wouldn't be here right now, interrupting your nightly visit to this fine establishment."

Once more, the man smiled that smile that made Ya'govian want to reach across the table and punch him, but Ya'govian was no brawler – and he was bored. He was wary too; this stranger understood his mind too well and that concerned him.

"I do not do business with nameless men." He explained, hoping that the stranger might provide him with an excuse not to take up his offer.

"I am called Tiro," the stranger explained, extending his hand across the table to Ya'govian. "Does this mean you're willing to help me?"

"That depends on what you want me to do."

A New Take on Spell Slots

In response to a comment posted elsewhere about the differences I saw between magic-users, clerics, and druids, I explain that each had a different relationship to Nature/Reality. Druids act as intermediaries between the mortal world and Nature. Clerics act as intermediaries between the mortal world and the supernatural realm of the gods. Magic-users, on the other hand, attempt to bend Nature to their wills -- to master and control it. The reason why MUs pay a price for their magical knowledge is because Nature doesn't "like" being warped to serve the whims of mortals and so does its best to destroy any mortal that attempts it. The problem is that, Nature, being impersonal and insensate in the mortal sense can't just snuff out meddling magic-users, really instead on the slow and scatter shot approach of destroying their bodies and minds, one piece at a time. After all, Nature is good at waiting.

Anyway, in my post about the druids, commenter richardthinks makes an absolutely brilliant connection: what if the constant re-memorization of spells is another minor way that Nature tries to foil the use of magic? I rather like this suggestion and think it works nicely with several thematic/stylistic elements I'm planning to import into my campaign setting. There are some kinks that still need to be worked out and this approach does require that, fundamentally, all magic functions more or less the same way, but D&D already assumes that anyway. The benefit of this approach is that it adds a flavorful gloss on the game mechanics that doesn't change the way the game works. That's a big deal in my book. Bravo.

Cursed Chateau Art

The first piece of art for The Cursed Chateau has appeared and I'm quite pleased with it. Drawn by Steve Zieser, it's a great example of an artist using old school art as an inspiration without slavishly imitating it. I like it a lot.

Good work, Steve!

Pulp Fantasy Gallery: John Carter of Mars

It's true: Barsoom doesn't have to look like a Frank Frazetta painting; it could look like the cover of a book published in 1912.

This is in fact one of my favorite illustrations of Dejah Thoris. I'd certainly be happy if Pixar decided to go with retro esthetics in their upcoming movie. John Carter is, after all, supposed to be a Civil War veteran, so it'd only make sense if the whole thing had a pre-Great War look to it.

Yes, yes, I know: there's about as much chance of that as Flash Gordon ever again being portrayed as a professional polo player, but a guy can dream, right?

A 1000 Words

All pictures tell a story; some just tell more interesting stories than others -- like this one, for example:

The Druids

One of the overlooked idiosyncrasies that OD&D originated (and that AD&D maintained) is the notion that clerics could be any alignment but Neutral. In OD&D, this meant a choice between Lawful and Chaotic, with Chaotic clerics being in fact "anti-clerics" whose spells were in many cases reversed versions of their Lawful opposite numbers. When Eldritch Wizardry introduced the druid as a playable class (a "monster" version of them appeared previously in Greyhawk), we finally had a Neutral "cleric," complete with his own selection of unique spells.

Now, I like the druid and I find, particularly in a setting where Law and Chaos play an important role, the idea of a Neutral religious class is particularly appealing. In later AD&D, druids came to be more explicitly associated with the elements and elemental planes and I think this is an intriguing idea. I'm now toying with the notion that there are no gods associated with "natural" things, like the weather, the seasons, the oceans, fertility, etc. I'm even considering the possibility of having no god associated with death. Those things either have no divine patrons or else are associated with various elemental lords. The druids, in this scheme, would be mediators between the world of mortals and the greatly-expanded-in-conception natural world.

Foolish consistency may be the hobgoblin of new school game design, but I think any version of the druid I create would be based more closely on the mechanics of the cleric, with some new abilities and, of course, spells swapped in to compensate for their loss of clerical staples like metal armor and turning undead. Eldritch Wizardry gives lots of food for thought here, as does Greyhawk, which calls druids "combination clerics/magic-users." I rather like that, given how the way I wish to tie clerics and magic-users more closely together conceptually. Still, I have to think on this some more. I've got the germ of some good ideas, but they're still pretty rough.

Once I've worked it all out in my head, I'll post my Swords & Wizardry-based version of the druid here.

Shudder

Say hello to Elwita, female dwarven fighter, and as good an argument in favor of making dwarves a unisexual race that carves its children out of solid rock as any I can imagine (which, incidentally, is what they do in the campaign setting I'm working on now).

Orcus Ponders

In a post over at the Necromancer Games forum, Clark "Orcus" Peterson indicated his interest in creating what might be called a "4e variant" that brings the game more in line with the old school sensibilities it has abandoned.

But I look at how Monte's Unearthed Arcana did things and I like the concept of a niche version of the rules. Plus, I want a version of 4E that I want to play. So that is what Scott and I and maybe Bill are going to do while this GSL mess gets sorted out. We are re-writing 4E the way we want it, with the soul of 1E put back in. I am really, really excited about this. I played 4E and I like some stuff about it. It is a fun game. It just isnt D&D to me, the more I play it. Yes, I can defend it. Yes, I can say it is. But the truth is that my heart knows it isnt D&D anymore. I cant ignore that. I want D&D. To me the soul of D&D was AD&D. Somehow that got lost in making 4E.

I'm going to do 4E right.

Sure, some people might roll eyes and say not another version. To those I say, then dont buy it. I'm doing this for me. And I'm inviting you along. Come along if you want. If you dont, that is up to you.

Peterson clarified in a follow-up post that "this is not a product announcement. It isnt anything yet ... There is no GSL. I am bored. I wanted something to work on. So I decided to do this. It is just me screwing around. "

My dislike for 4e is well known, as is my belief that it abandons too many aspects of the Gygaxo-Arneson heritage of the game, both mechanical and conceptual, to be reworked into something I'd enjoy. Consequently, I see Mr. Peterson's intentions as likely Quixotic. That said, I also know that he's a huge D&D fan whose love of the old school is genuine. I have no doubt that he and his collaborators will do their best to try to inject some old school soul into the body of 4e's mechanics. I'm skeptical that they'll succeed, but I wish them the best in their efforts. I'll certainly applaud them if they somehow overcome this Sisyphean task. I'll be even more impressed if they not only succeed but if the revised GSL -- should it ever appear -- allow them to a variant of this magnitude.

REVIEW: Barbarians of the Wilderlands I

Barbarians of the Wilderlands I is a 20-page PDF, retailing for $4.00, written by the prolific James Mishler and intended for use with Adventure Games Publishing's Castles & Crusades-based Wilderlands of High Adventure setting. Of those 20 pages, 17 are devoted the text of the product itself, the other three being a cover, a table of contents/OGL page, and an illustrated dedication to "the Last Celt" (Robert E. Howard, for those curious). As with all of AGP's releases, Barbarians of the Wilderlands I is illustrated by Peter Bradley, who also acted as its graphic designer. The PDF has a clean, three-column layout that's easy on the eyes. The text is likewise clear and free of any egregious typographical or grammatical errors. From a purely technical standpoint, this is a solid product (though I must admit that I'd love to see other artists and art styles used in future products, if only to introduce some of the variety I tend to associate with the old school).

The PDF dedicates six pages to a variant barbarian class intended either to replace or to supplement the standard barbarian from the C&C Players Handbook (now dubbed a "savage warrior"). The variant's basic abilities are similar to those of the standard class, with some tweaks to make it more generalized and a bit less like a berserker. I appreciate this, since one of my biggest beefs with 3e is the way it conflates the berserker archetype with the barbarian archetype. The two are related certainly, but many pulp fantasy barbarians were not berserkers, so it's nice to see an attempt being made to broaden the class a bit. Of course, the variant barbarian still possesses a "primal rage" ability, but it doesn't overshadow its other abilities.

Among the variant barbarian's other abilities are what are called "tribal abilities." A 1st-level barbarian gets three of these abilities, depending on his native culture. The run the gamut from animal handling to horsemanship to sound imitation. The wide variety of tribal abilities should enable the referee to create many distinctive barbarian tribes, each with their own unique cultures and "specialties." Mishler clearly took a cue from the barbarian class in AD&D's Unearthed Arcana, which certainly reveals his long association with the hobby. In my opinion, though, this product's barbarian is much more playable and appealing than its UA predecessor. One way it does this is through a class ability called Versatility, which allows the barbarian to pick up minor class abilities from other classes, simulating the way that barbarian wanderers sometimes become jacks-of-all-trades over the course of their travels. It's a nifty little idea and I'm curious to see how it works in play.

The remainder of the product discusses some of the barbarians of the Wilderlands of High Adventure, providing specific information on their societies, cultures, and how to present them using the new rules. Each barbarian nation is given a single page write-up, which is, in my opinion, just about perfect. This way the referee gets a good overview of what, say, the Altanians are like -- their physical appearance, tribal structure, religion -- without bogging down in unnecessary details that just tie his hands. In each case, the barbarian nations are given one or more real world historical cultures from whom they are descended. At first, I thought Mishler had intended to say that, for example, the Skandiks were similar to Earth's Vikings, but the text clearly uses the words "are descended from." I asked him what he meant by this and he explained that many of the cultures of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy are literally descended from historical Earth cultures, brought to Ghenrek IV by various means throughout the ages. Mishler added that further details about this, as well as alternative explanations/options for those who prefer their Wilderlands to be "pure" fantasy, will be found in an upcoming product.

I was initially somewhat unsure about the utility of this product. I've stated before that I think one of the virtues of the Wilderlands is how skeletal it is as a setting. My great fear is that AGP might spend too much time fleshing out its every nook and cranny and publishing products filled with minutiae of interest only to the hardest of the hardcore fans. That's clearly not the case with Barbarians of the Wilderlands I. Instead it's a terrificly usable product that gives just enough information to save the beleaguered referee time but without burying him in mounds of details that he could just as soon create himself through play. Because of this flexibility, I'd recommend it even to those who don't use the Wilderlands setting or even play C&C. It's full of good ideas and ought to inspire anyone who wants to add pulp fantasy barbarians to their campaigns.

Final Score: 4½ out of 5 polearms

Planned Obsolescence

Though written with board games in mind, the quote from a very fascinating blog post could just as easily be applied to RPGs:

Now we have a publishing culture whose business is to get people to buy, not to play. That means games that don't last for more than a few plays, games that appeal to collectors or fad culture, and games that need quick massive sales in order to be worth publishing - because they're not going to be worth anything next year.

What I find particularly interesting about the post is that the author rightly notes the role that television has played in forever changing the way games are made and played. I've noted many times in the past that the cultural shift away from the written word and toward visual media has had a deleterious effect on the way people now conceive of fantasy, an effect that's shown very clearly in the way D&D has changed over the last 34 years. I'd never considered the effect it might have an effect even on the way games are sold.

Much to consider here.

A Crazy Idea

Here's the thing: like most gamers I want to be a writer. Technically, I already am a writer and have been for years. Besides this blog, I've written quite a lot of gaming material. But that's not the same as being a writer, by which I mean a writer of fiction.

I've got a lot of ideas for short stories and, as any aficionado of swords-and-sorcery literature will tell you, short stories are the native form of the genre. The problem is that there aren't a lot of outlets for short stories anymore. There are a handful of magazines out there who are theoretically interested in swords-and-sorcery tales, but it's just a handful and many of them tend to have slush piles so tall that the odds of breaking into print are slim. On the book publishing side of the equation, fantasy generally means interminably long books that are part of an interminably long series that started out as trilogies and then just never ended. I have no interest in contributing to that literary miscarriage, even if I had stories I could somehow extend in perpetuity (which I don't).

What I do have, though, are some ideas for a series of short stories about a failed wizard's apprentice named Ya'govian of Volmar. What I think might make my stories interesting -- and dare I say unique in the annals of swords-and-sorcery -- is that Ya'govian is a family man, married to a respectable priestess and father to three children. Because of his wife's position, Ya'govian doesn't lack for much in the material sense, but, as he approaches middle age, he's growing bored of his cosseted lifestyle and looks back on his failed apprenticeship with increasing regret -- which is naturally how his adventures begin.

In any case, what I plan on doing is posting these stories here once I write them. I have a large enough readership that I ought to be able to gauge how much people like what I'm writing. If there's actual interest, which is to say, if my readers think my writing isn't terrible, I might then be able to collect these short stories together and do some kind of print on demand edition or even try and sell them to a "real" publisher. The point is I'll be using this blog as a testing ground for my fiction every now and again. It won't be often and the first installment might not come for a month or more, but I wanted to give everyone a heads up so they won't be surprised when Ya'govian of Volmar makes his appearance on this site in the future.

Continuity and Tradition, Part IV

Let me begin by saying that, with a few exceptions, I am a big fan of Pixar's movies. Even in the wake of some truly excellent superhero films in recent years, I remain convinced that The Incredibles is the best treatment of the genre ever put to film, for example. So, I'm not a hater of Pixar's work (though Ratatouille was a miserable, self-absorbed film, but I digress).

When I heard that the studio had acquired the rights to produce a movie based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars books, I was elated. If anyone could do these stories justice, it'd be Pixar. Looks like I may have been wrong. Andrew Stanton, who's writing and directing the film (slated for 2012 release), recently said this about his approach to the original source material: "I'm going to do what I remember more than what they [i.e. the stories] exactly do ..." Granted, that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Film is a different medium than literature, so there are occasions where changes make sense.

Indeed, slavish adaptations are often very unsatisfying. Still, you want to feel that the people adapting the stories understand and respect their sources and that any changes they make arise out of that. Based on what Jim Morris, the general manager at Pixar, added to Stanton's comments, I'm not so sure this will be the case.

"Everything that's been out there has been an attempt to kind of capture this Deco-esque [Frank] Frazetta vision of John Carter, which I think feels old and stale," he said. "And where Stanton is going--from what we've seen so far--is very different than that. And I think that the people who really love the essence of the books will really dig it, but so will audiences in general."

The "essence of the books?" That sets off alarm bells in my head. Whenever someone talks about the "essence" of something of long vintage, it usually means they're going to gut the thing of its core in the name of brand building.

And that's the thing that baffles me here. John Carter isn't exactly a household name. Compared to Tarzan, he's a nobody. There have been, so far as I know, no major Barsoom-related movies, TV shows, or cartoons. Most average people have never heard of Carter or Dejah Thoris and wouldn't know what a Thark was if it bit them. Given that, why even bother to adapt Burroughs if what you really want to do is tell something very different than the original stories. Again, don't get me wrong: there are aspects of the John Carter stories I can see some justification in changing for the benefit of contemporary sensibilities. But, really, what's the point in doing a John Carter of Mars movie if you're not going to base them on the books? It's not as if there's a dearth of planetary romance stories Pixar could mine in developing its own original story in that genre.

It's still early, so perhaps the end result will be better than I fear it will be, but I am not sanguine based on these early reports. Because Barsoom is not a household name, the Pixar film may be many people's first exposure to it; consequently, it should be treated with respect for the way Burroughs described it. If Pixar can't do that, they should just create their own story. They're clever enough to do that, right?

Research

Can anyone direct to me to any Open Game Content versions of the Dao and Marid (preferably both)?

Thanks.

Useful Link

If you haven't already checked out Kellri's "Old School Encounters Reference," you should. It's almost certainly one of the most useful old school gaming products I've seen. I plan to write a more formal review of the thing sometime in the near future, but please don't wait on my say-so. Seriously, it's an amazing piece of work and one I'd gladly have paid for. That it's free only makes it even more amazing.

Grognard's Grimoire: S&W Paladin

I've said before that the paladin is probably my favorite D&D class. I've played a lot of paladins over the years and I find it to be much fun despite -- or perhaps because of -- the restrictions placed on the class. I think that in campaigns heavily influenced by pulp fantasy, a paladin is going to have a rough time of it, which is as it should be. Paladins clearly run counter many of the currents of pulp fantasy, since they're not amoral bastards looking to make a quick gold piece at any cost. Like Holger Carlsen from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (after whom the class is patterned), a paladin must walk a difficult path.

So, what I've set out to do here is create a paladin class for Swords & Wizardry. It's largely based on its original appearance in Supplement I: Greyhawk, but it's been modified somewhat, both to conform to the Open Game License and to the way S&W handles certain mechanical elements. Those unfamiliar with the OD&D paladin will note that the class lacks the ability to cast spells or turn undead. Likewise, some mechanical elements of the class are kept "loose" so as to allow individual referees to interpret them as they wish.

As a final note, I ditched the 17+ Charisma requirement from the paladin, because S&W, like OD&D before it, places much less emphasis on ability scores than do later editions of D&D. I think D&D largely went down the wrong path by making high ability scores so vital to play. Likewise, my feeling is that, while the referee should limit the number of paladins in his campaign, there's no need to make playing a paladin any more difficult than it already is by adding an onerous ability score requirement on top of its other drawbacks.

The material in the quote box below is hereby designated Open Game Content via the Open Game License.

The Paladin

Hit Die Type: 1d6+2 per level. After reaching 9 hit dice, the paladin gains only 3 hit points per level.

Armor/Shield Permitted: Any
Weapons Permitted: Any
Prime Attribute (5% xp bonus): Strength 13+, Wisdom 13+
Alignment: Lawful (Good)
Race: Human

Paladin Class Abilities and Restrictions

Associates: A paladin will never knowingly associate with Neutral or Chaotic characters, nor will he or she continue an association with someone who consistently offends his or her code of conduct (see below). A paladin may accept only henchmen or hirelings who are Lawful (Good).

Code of Conduct: A paladin must be of Lawful (Good) alignment and loses all class abilities if he or she ever willingly commits a Chaotic (Evil) act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that he or she respect legitimate authority, act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents.

Detect Evil: At will, a paladin can detect evil, as per the 2nd-level clerical spell of the same name.

Dispel Evil (8th): At eighth level, a paladin may dispel evil once per day, as the 5th-level clerical spell of the same name.

Divine Health: A paladin gains immunity to all diseases.

Establish Stronghold (9th): At ninth level, a paladin may establish a modest stronghold and attract a small body of loyal men-at-arms who will swear fealty to him. Preferably, this stronghold will be within the domain of a Lawful (Good) ruler, but this is not a requirement.

Ex-Paladins: A paladin who ceases to be Lawful (Good), who willfully commits a Chaotic (Evil) act, or who grossly violates the code of conduct loses all paladin class abilities (including the service of the special mount), becoming forevermore a Fighter of a level equivalent to his or her current experience point total.

Lay on Hands: Each day a paladin can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to his or her paladin level x 2.

Remove Disease: Each day a paladin can cure one disease for every five levels he or she possesses.

Special Mount: A paladin may choose to gain the service of an unusually intelligent, strong, and loyal steed to serve him or her. This mount is usually a warhorse. Should the paladin’s mount die, he or she may not summon another mount for 10 years. Unlike normal warhorses, a paladin's special mount has AC 5 [14], 5 Hit Dice, and a higher than normal intelligence.

Wealth: A paladin may never possess more than five magical item, not counting a single suit of armor, a single shield, and up to five weapons. In addition, a paladin must donate all treasure they acquire, except that needed for personal upkeep and that of his or her henchmen, hirelings, men-at-arms, and stronghold (if any).

Paladin Advancement Table

Level	Experience Points Required	Hit Dice (d6+2)	Saving Throw
1	0	1	14
2	2,500	2	13
3	5,000	3	12
4	10,000	4	11
5	20,000	5	10
6	35,000	6	9
7	70,000	7	8
8	140,000	8	7
9	275,000	9	6
10	500,000	9+3 hp	5
11	600,000	9+3 hp	4
12	700,000	9+3 hp	4
13	800,000	9+3 hp	4
14	900,000	9+3 hp	4
15	1,00,000	9+3 hp	4
16	1,100,000	9+3 hp	4
17	1,200,000	9+3 hp	4
18	1,300,000	9+3 hp	4
19	1,400,000	9+3 hp	4
20	1,500,000 (100,000 per level beyond)	9+3 hp (+3 per level beyond)	4 (remains at 4)

Happy Birthday, Dave Arneson

On this day in 1947, David L. Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, was born.

Mr. Arneson's role in the early days of the hobby is sometimes overlooked by people who know better, myself included. The dungeon as focus of play was born in his Blackmoor campaign, making possible the game we now recognize as D&D. At the very least, it's safe to say that, without Mr. Arneson, fantasy gaming might have been very different than it is today.

I'd like to extend my personal felicitations to him on the occasion of his 61st birthday and wish him health, happiness, and long life. He is one of the founders of our shared hobby; it's only right that he should be honored, not only on this day but throughout the year.

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Retrospective: The Village of Hommlet

I absolutely adore The Village of Hommlet.

There are a lot of reasons why this is so, but I think, more than anything, what I like most about it is that it has an ominous, brooding character to it that haunts my imagination. Unlike, say, the Keep from Keep on the Borderlands, Hommlet feels like it's a community that sits on the precipice of disaster. Though the forces of Good carried the day and defeated the forces of Elemental Evil some years previously, the victory was not total and everyone in Hommlet knows it -- even if they dare not speak the truth. The ruins of the moathouse are stirring again and agents of Elemental Evil have infiltrated the village. Everyone knows it's only a matter of time before Evil will again rear its ugly head; it's simply a question of when and whether Hommlet will emerge from the coming battle intact.

I don't know; it's hard to explain. There's just something powerful about this set-up, something that, for me anyway, strikes me as the perfect set-up for a new campaign. I share with Tolkien the conception of history as a "long defeat" and The Village of Hommlet touches on that theme obliquely -- the notion that each generation must stare Evil in the face and bar the way of its advance, even if it's ultimately just a holding action, for Evil can never truly be defeated in this life. Obviously, I'm reading more into this module than is there in the text, but that's part of the point of this entry. T1 inspires in me a lot of feelings and emotions that I find incredibly useful in kicking off an old school fantasy campaign.

There's also the fact that, as the cover notes, The Village of Hommlet is the "first of 2 modules." T2, as originally conceived, never came out and I regret that. When we finally got The Temple of Elemental Evil, it was nothing like the module I expected it to be, nor do I think was it much like the module Gary would have written had he done so in 1979, as planned. The six year gap between T1 and its sequel gave me plenty of time to create my own conception of the Temple of Elemental Evil, which bore little resemblance to what we finally saw in 1985. The "unfinished" character of T1 is appealing to me; I see it as representing unexplored possibilities and, for me, that's the essence of old school module making.

Hommlet itself is a joy. I love every little bit of it, from the Inn of the Welcome Wench to the tower of Burne and Rufus. The inhabitants of the village, from their names to their personalities, are Gygax at his mellifluent best: Jaroo Ashstaff, Calmert, Fernok of Ferd, Ostler Gundigoot, and more. And of course my love for the church of St. Cuthbert was forever by his holy sayings presented in the module, such as:

SQUARE CORNERS CAN BE POUNDED SMOOTH
THICK HEADS ARE NOT MADE OF GLASS
SALVATION IS BETTER THAN SMART ANSWERS

Little details like that simply tickle my fancy. Likewise, the pretty squabbles of the various villagers over past slights, the rivalry between the followers of St. Cuthbert and the Old Faith, and the loves and losses of the townsfolk are an amazing tableau against which to adventure. The whole thing is very atmospheric and I can't helped but be pulled into it.

Then there's the moathouse, which has everything I crave from a low-level old school dungeon: a plausble backstory, lots of vermin, and several encounters that might, if the PCs are foolhardy, lead to deaths. To my mind, the moathouse ruins provide a superb template which other referees might use in creating their own starting dungeons. It's a great example of Gygaxian naturalism in action, which is itself a reminder that, while the campaign may be set in a fantasy world, that doesn't mean the world exists solely to fulfill the players' fantasies. There are many encounters -- such as the giant crayfish -- that will kill low-level PCs if they are stupid enough to charge in until they are ready to do so. I like that a lot and it's something that D&D has slowly lost over the years, much to my disappointment.

What can I say? I absolutely adore The Village of Hommlet.

Fantastic Medieval Wargames

As the furor over whether or not 4e represents a major departure from D&D's roots has raged, lots of people haveturned OD&D in an effort to find support for their own position in this argument. In many cases, the people turning to OD&D have neither firsthand experience playing the game nor any knowledge of the history and culture of the early days of the hobby. Consequently, they view OD&D through a modern lens that leads them astray.

Case in point: the subtitle of OD&D. "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures." Those words are included on the cover all three little brown books and on Supplements I through IV. On the face of it, the words "fantastic medieval wargames" would seem to imply that, from the beginning, D&D was nothing more than a military simulation, albeit one with fantastical elements, such as magic and dragons. If so, this might support the notion that focusing on tactical combat is in fact a return to the game's roots rather than a flight from them.

My own feeling is that it's a mistake to interpret the word "wargames" too narrowly. What people forget, living as we do in a post-D&D world, is that there was no such thing as a "roleplaying game" in 1974. Or rather, "roleplaying" was something actors and psychologists did; it wasn't a form of entertainment as we think of it today. Indeed, I don't recall the words "roleplaying game" appearing anywhere in the entire OD&D corpus. Consequently, it means little that Gygax and Arneson did not dub their new game a RPG.

But why call it a "wargame" if it's not focused primarily on combat? As I said, it's a mistake to interpret "wargame" too narrowly. Certainly nowadays the term refers almost exclusively to military simulations, but was that the case in 1974? If you look at the hobby culture out of which D&D arose, you'll immediately notice the import part played by Dave Wesley's Braunstein games in expanding the definition of "wargame" to include non-military endeavors. Of course, this expansion had already occurred earlier in games like Diplomacy, which, while involving military matters to some degree, was not exclusively focused on them.

My point is simply that one shouldn't make too much of the fact that OD&D calls itself a "wargame," because, at the time of its publication, "wargame" was a very broad term that encompassed a lot of different games, including several that had proto-roleplaying elements. Imagine if, at some future date, someone invented a new entertainment medium that transmitted images directly into one's brain. Imagine further that, despite the novelty of this medium, people call entertainments that use it "movies" or (better yet) "films." This medium is not at all like a motion picture technologically, but it functions analogously to the way movies do, except that there's no projector and no screen involved. This is why OD&D was initially dubbed a wargame -- it was most like that category of games then called wargames, even if it was in fact something quite different.

In short, D&D isn't and never was a wargame in the sense we understand the term now. It was, however, an outgrowth of the wargaming hobby, a hobby that was a lot more expansive and varied than people today might think. This is why I think it's vital that we study the history of not just our hobby, but of its "big brother" as well. Without such study, you're in the same position of people who try to interpret Shakespeare while employing 21st century definitions for his vocabulary -- you're going to misinterpret a great deal.

Pantheon, Part II

Here's an incomplete list of the gods I'm thinking of using in my setting, along with their real world inspirations (if any):

• Anesidora: Goddess of grain, fertility, marriage, and law. Based on Demeter.
• Asana: Goddess of strategy, heroism, and science. Based on Athena.
• Caint: God of medicine, poetry, and music. Based on Dian Cecht.
• Donn: God of the dead. Slightly reworked Celtic god.
  
• Mavors: God of warfare, blood lust, and slaughter. Based on Ares.
• Ptah: God of travelers, craftsmen, and invention. Slightly reworked Egyptian god.
  
• Sutek: God of darkness, serpents, and storms. Based on Set.
  
• Turms "Thrice-Great": God of writing, magic, and diplomacy. Based on a combination of Thoth and Hermes.
  
• Tyche "Lady Luck": Goddess of fortune, prosperity, and destiny. Slightly reworked Greek goddess.

Obviously, there are still a lot of gaps in the pantheon and even the gods I have chosen will probably be tweaked in various ways. My general rule is that I want the gods to have diverse tutelary interests, because this makes the gods much more interesting. Likewise, I want some of these interests to overlap, in order to provide excuses for rivalries between gods and their mortal followers. I'm also ditching the notion of racial deities. Instead, some races may only worship a subset of the overall pantheon, but that's as far as I'll go. I simply don't like the idea of "elf gods" or "orc gods" or whatever.

More later.