Dwimmermount, Session 8

Once more the brave adventurers Brother Candor, Pike, Dordagdonar, Iriadessa, and Vladimir plunged headlong into the dungeons of Dwimmermount, continuing their explorations of Level 2. The characters are of mixed levels, with Brother Candor and Dordagdonar both level 3, while Pike and Iriadessa are level 2, and poor Vladimir still at first level. For some reason, I find a mixed-level party very satisfying to me. I suspect that's pure nostalgia talking, as it was very commonplace in the old days to have a wide spread of levels in the same group. Partially, of course, it's a function of the different XP requirements for the various classes, but there are other factors too, such as the introduction of new PCs into an existing campaign. In any event, I'm very pleased with the group and how it's progressing.

There were comparatively few combats this last session, as the players spent most of their time mapping out unknown areas of the dungeon and grappling with its mysteries. There were fights with a swarm of angry oil beetles and a giant black widow spider, but that was about it. Having slaughtered 20 beast-men in their last foray, they seem to have de-populated a goodly portion of their current area of operations. This was perhaps fortunate, since there were numerous traps and oddities with which to deal.

In one room, the characters encountered a strange manhole cover-like object that could not be pried open. When sufficient weight was placed on it, the object descended about 20 feet into a darkened chamber filled with an oily, black liquid. Because the characters couldn't see the size of the room or whether it had any inhabitants, they hastily pulled up Pike, who'd volunteered to take a look on the condition he had a rope tied around him for just such an emergency.

Later, the characters found a darkened room from which no sound, smells, or light emanated. Entering it, one was swallowed up a palpable blackness that left only one's sense of touch intact. Brother Candor (again, with rope attached) went in to examine the place by feeling his way around, which led to the discovery of a large hole in the middle of the room. A bag filled with copper coins -- the characters consider copper worthless -- was lowered into the hole until the rope went slack, which turned out to be about 20 feet down. The bag was pulled back up and removed from the room. It was found to be covered in an oily, black liquid, which was combustible. However, the liquid was consumed so quickly by the flames that it did not burn the bag at all, even though it generated (brief) heat. The characters now assume the two rooms both lead to the same place beneath them, though they have no idea what the black liquid is or what purpose it might serve.

Another room contained a door covered with what the characters assumed to be magically trapped glyphs. Because the door opened outward, they hammered an iron spike into the floor a distance away from it, tied a rope to the door's handle, looped the rope around the spike, and then pulled on it from a safe distance away. This way, no one was directly in front of the door should opening the door activate the glyphs, which they did. I was quite amused by their cleverness. They're getting very good at foiling traps. I guess I'm going to have to be more devious in future.

In their explorations, the PCs discovered numerous dead bodies, which they presume to be those of other adventurers. They'd seen evidence -- chalk marks, messages painted on doors, etc. -- that someone else was exploring the dungeon ahead of them. They'd even ordered a couple of their hirelings, twin Norsemen Erik and Ethil, to hang out in the inn at Muntburg to see if they saw anyone who looked like they were also heading off to explore Dwimmermount. Unfortunately, their hirelings are overly fond of drink (and women's boots, as it turns out, but that's another story), and so remembered seeing no other adventurers. Because the dead bodies consisted first of a dwarf, then a cleric of Tyche -- whose holy symbol Brother Candor intends to return to the temple in Adamas in an effort to curry favor with them -- the suggestion was made, in jest, that maybe these people were the PCs from the future. When it was pointed out that these bodies couldn't be the PCs because there was no dead elf among them, Dordagdonar said, "Of course not. I would have abandoned the party if you'd gotten into any real danger." Needless to say, no one completely trusts the elf.

Urheim Sideview

Courtesy of Cartographer Extraordinaire, Rob Conley, here's a sideview of Urheim.
Lots more coming on this front, so stay tuned.

Lulu Contest Update

With a day to go in the Lulu Author Sales Contest, Fight On! has risen again to the #2 spot and Swords & Wizardry has risen to #5. This is really excellent news -- but it could be better still. If you haven't bought something from either publisher, please consider doing so in the next 24 hours. It'd be an amazing turn of events if either -- or both! -- made it into the Top 3, which would earn them cash prizes as well as free publicity from Lulu in the form of free advertising and an interview on the site's blog.

2008 was already a remarkable year for the old school renaissance. Let's make 2009 and even more remarkable one.

Demihuman Oddities

One of the things I really love about my Dwimmermount campaign is how readily my five players have all, to varying degrees, contributed to the development of the still-vague game world in which the megadungeon exists. This is particularly in evidence when it comes to the portrayal of the demihuman races.

In our latest session, we discovered a few things about the nature of dwarves, since Vladimir rejoined the party after a long absence. (As an aside, I am gratified that Dwimmermount's dwarves seem to be vaguely Slavic in conception rather than the Germanic or Scottish stereotypes that typically afflict the race). When asked where Vladimir had been while the party was off in Dwimmermount, his player explained that he'd been "making my baby." What he meant, of course, was that Vladimir had been using his time and treasure to carve a son for himself.

As I believe I mentioned once before, my dwarves are free-willed earth elementals who usually don't venture out from their subterranean strongholds. They're thus rather alien in nature, at least by human standards. I decided to sidestep the whole question about what dwarf women look like by establishing outright that there are no female dwarves at all. Dwarves reproduce (slowly) through a long and expensive process of crafting their descendants from living rock. Consequently, most dwarves don't really get the idea of gender or sexual reproduction, leading to all manner of misunderstandings when dealing with non-dwarves.

We also concluded that, because the process of crafting a descendant was so expensive, the newly-born dwarf -- who enters the world a fully functional adult -- is expected to repay his father and his clan, preferably in raw materials like precious metals and jewels. Most dwarven adventurers are in fact on quests either to repay their fathers for the expense of making them or trying to acquire enough valuables to be able to craft their own child. Thus, dwarves aren't really greedy so much as needy; they wish to acquire wealth to ensure the perpetuation of their elemental race and the cultural practices that have grown up around it.

As for elves, it was interesting how many later accretions to the OD&D conception of the race we just accepted without any thought. For example, we never once considered that sleep or charm spells might affect Dordagdonar, because we all knew elves were immune to both. They are in AD&D true, but no such immunity is noted in the three little brown books. Accepting this led Dordagdonar's player to assume that elves are immune to sleep because elves never sleep. They are always awake, which is why some elves, particularly younger ones, quickly grow bored and seek out excitement, even if it is among "ephemerals" like humans. Elven adventurers are thus elves with really short attention spans. We had also previously established that elves have quite the sweet tooth, with sugar acting as a mild narcotic, thus leading to jokes about "Pixie Stix addicts."

And these are all details that evolved through play, springing from tiny germs I'd planted early on in the campaign. I absolutely love this kind of stuff and see it as part of why I love this hobby so much.

Anniversary

One year ago, I wrote this entry. 632 entries later -- well, 633 now -- here we are. Back then, there was no Swords & Wizardry or Mutant Future, no Fight On! or Knockspell, and the number of old school blogs was so few that I could actually keep up with everyone of them. What a year it's been!

I began this blog in the weeks following the death of Gary Gygax as a place where I could celebrate the hobby that he, Dave Arneson, and innumerable others had created and that had brought me so much joy in my life. I'd begun my return to the old school about a year before that, having become thoroughly disenchanted with the then-current edition of Dungeons & Dragons. At first, I thought I could "fix" my problems with that game, but, as I attempted to do so, I quickly found myself recapitulating the history of the hobby, albeit in reverse. I was treading well-trod ground and decided that, rather than re-invent the wheel and call myself clever, I'd instead embrace the history and traditions of this hobby wholeheartedly.

Together, these two events gave birth to Grognardia, a place where I naively thought I could collect my thoughts and share them with a small handful of likeminded people. I'd already been posting on a number of old school forums, most notably Finarvyn's Original D&D Discussion and had been drinking deeply of its collected wisdom. At the time (December 2007), those forums were already very lively, but the number of posters was, I think, less than 100 -- certainly not the 400+ that now can be found there -- and, of those, only a handful posted often, myself being one of them. I expected a similar level of readership for this blog, as I knew its subject matter, not to mention my own idiosyncratic style, wouldn't have a lot of appeal outside a small circle of eccentrics.

How wrong I was! Confounding my expectations, Grognardia has somehow managed to acquire more than 137 regular readers, quite a lot more in fact. I'm frankly amazed and humbled by this -- and occasionally a little frightened. I still treat the blog as a place where I can "talk out loud." That means many of my posts, even if written in a pontifical style, don't necessarily represent my final thoughts on any given subject. I work out my thoughts on things by talking about them with others and that's what I always intended this blog to be. For the most part, it's worked brilliantly and I've clarified many of my feelings on various matters because of my interactions with commenters. Unfortunately, there are times when an unfinished thought of mine gets interpreted as dogma and it's led to misunderstandings and, worse, misrepresentations of where my thoughts actually lay. That's the danger of a public blog, of course, and I'm slowly coming to accept that, but it's still a mite frustrating nonetheless.

My frustrations, though, are comparatively few. How can I be unhappy when the past year has brought me in contact with so many others who share my love for the Old Ways? Likewise, I've been inspired to create, just for the fun of it, more than I have in years. From articles in fanzines to Urheim to the Cursed Chateau, I feel reinvigorated about my hobby, which is a remarkable reversal of where I was two years ago, when I started to wonder if maybe I'd "outgrown" gaming entirely. Obviously, I hadn't, but I think it's fair to say I'd outgrown a certain phase in my interest in the hobby. I won't call it "adolescence," but it was characterized with an obsession with the new and the "innovative" at the expense of the things that drew me into the hobby in the first place.

By the time I'd begun the blog, I had understood this for nearly a year and was ready to begin the next step in my journey of re-discovery. I'd like to extend my most heartfelt thanks to everyone who's joined me on this journey. The last year has been a blast, in no small part due to the people who've bothered to read what I've written and grapple with it the same as I have. Here's to many more years of the same.

Jason and the Argonauts

One of the things I liked about growing up in Baltimore in the 1970s was that many of the local movie theaters regularly showed older classic films in addition to first-run features. Consequently, I had the benefit of seeing lots of great motion pictures on the big screen that had been released years before I was born. One of the ones I most vividly recall was 1963's Jason and the Argonauts, a movie that I now connect not just with my childhood but also with Dungeons & Dragons.

There are a lot of reasons why this is so, starting with the basic premise of the film (and the Greek myth on which it's based): an adventurer gathers together a band of other adventurers to set off to an unknown land in search of a treasure with which he hopes to reclaim the kingdom usurped from his father when he was a baby. But it's the dangers Jason and his Argonauts face that make me think most of D&D. There's Talos ("called a triple iron golem" in the Dungeon Masters Guide and illustrated by Dave Sutherland in the Monster Manual), the hydra, the harpies, and of course the "children of the teeth," skeleton warriors used by King Aeëtes of Colchis to try and stop Jason from escape with the Golden Fleece. Those skeletons made a huge impression on me as a kid, as I suspect they did on Gary Gygax. If you check out the nifty skeletons available from Otherworld Miniatures, you'll see that some of them bear shields that are identical to those from Jason and the Argonauts.

Ray Harryhausen was my patron saint as a boy. I ate up all the movies on which he worked, like this one and the various Sinbad films, all of which I saw in theaters during the 70s. Remember that this was in an era before VCRs where readily available and well before there was a huge library of old films available for viewing by later generations. I don't know if my experience in seeing these movies as they were meant to be seen was unique, but I consider myself lucky for having had that opportunity, because my imagination was informed not just by the works of my own time but by those of the generations before me. Maybe that's why, even though I'm younger than the earliest generation of gamers, I still feel like I have a kinship with them. D&D never felt "old fashioned" to me, but perfectly in line with the conception of fantasy I've held since a very young age -- and still do.

I bought a copy of Jason and the Argonauts on DVD this weekend and watched it with my nine year-old daughter. She's got a love for mythologies of all sorts and plays in my weekly Dwimmermount campaign. She's still a little young to quite get into the game on the same level as my friends, but she's a quick learner and I feel a certain obligation to accommodate young people who take an interest in what might otherwise seem a very esoteric hobby. My daughter was a bit frightened of the harpies at first, but she otherwise enjoyed the movie a lot, particularly the hydra. She also took special interest in all the scenes on Mount Olympus, but then, when Honor Blackman is playing Hera, I can't say I blame her. I'll probably try and acquire copies of the Sinbad movies too and watch them with her in the coming weeks. I see no reason why my children should be deprived of the "classical education" I received when I was their age.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Eyes of the Overworld

I've always strongly associated the works of Jack Vance with those of Gary Gygax. Not only did D&D's co-creator readily admit to the huge debt the game owed to those works, but I hear Vancian echoes in the cadences of High Gygaxian. Gary was flattered by such comparisons, given his great regard for the author of The Dying Earth, but felt his own unique writing style couldn't hold a candle to that of Vance. Even so, these two writers had many points of commonality, not least of all their liking for roguish characters and appreciation for sardonic humor (a trait they also shared with Clark Ashton Smith).

These points of commonality are particularly in evidence in The Eyes of the Overworld, the 1966 novel that introduces Cugel the Clever, perhaps the best known character from The Dying Earth series. Cugel is a silver-tongued thief, who fancies himself a member of the natural aristocracy, a man whose intellect and refinements are far above those of most other men, thereby entitling him to anything his wits can win, regardless of the means by which they do so. Of course, Cugel is no such thing, being at best a semi-successful con man, brigand, and philanderer who falls prey to the wiles of others at least as often as the reverse. And therein lies the character's charm -- his fallibility. Cugel is certainly far from a hero, as his often despicable actions make plain, but neither is he an admirable anti-hero, a character whom we respect precisely because he challenges the status quo. Cugel is, in my opinion, a very human character and his vicissitudes are generally self-inflicted, brought on by a combination of bravado and concupiscence; he suffers as much as he benefits from his trickery. To call him a "lovable rogue" is not to do him proper justice, but the phrase will have to suffice as short hand for describing just why I was attracted to rather than repulsed by Cugel.

The Eyes of the Overworld is a Picaresque novel that follows Cugel on a quest to find an item called an Eye of the Overworld. The Eye is a magical purple gemstone that, when worn as part of a pair, provides the wearer with a sublime vision of the world, one that turns shacks into mansions and hags into goddesses. Cugel must find the Eye as part of a bargain with the powerful wizard Iucounu, into whose home he had broken and by whom he'd been caught. Rather than slay the would-be burglar, Iucounu places an alien being inside Cugel's body. This creature, called Firx, possesses many hook-like appendages with which he can internally "encourage" Cugel to keep his mind on his appointed task. The wizard then sends Cugel to a far-away land and the main plot of the novel begins, with Cugel simultaneously trying to undertake his mission and extricate himself from it. While doing so, he encounters many amusing characters, strange sights, and demonstrates again and again that he is neither respectable nor trustworthy -- nor as clever as he believes himself to be.

Cugel, along with the Gray Mouser, was almost certainly one of the inspirations behind the thief character class. Reading this book gives one a slightly different perspective on the thief. Cugel may be a lovable in some sense, but Vance never lets the reader forget that he's also a selfish, lying coward whose greed, lust, and general viciousness rain misfortune down upon him as much as those he swindles. The Eyes of the Overworld is too humorous to merit being called "dark" and yet there is more than a touch of darkness to it, as there often is with Vance's best works. I think that's part of its appeal: it superbly juxtaposes wit and moral turpitude in ways that provide genuine insight into the baser natures of human beings, all the while never forgetting that it's a fantasy adventure story whose primary purpose is to entertain. It's rare to find an author able to produce a novel of this sort, especially one that isn't "heavy" or didactic, while being humorous, but Vance has done so and I appreciate it greatly.

Art of the Old School Announcement

Produced by Matt Finch and jointly published by Knockspell and Fight On! magazines, Art of the Old School represents an effort to win the Lulu Author Sales Contest. Currently Fight On! is in third place and Knockspell is in seventh place. Both publishers would like to finish in the top three, for which there is a monetary award, among other benefits. Perhaps more importantly, it'd be a signal that the old school renaissance represents a serious movement of more than just a few disgruntled old guys complaining on their blogs.

Art of the Old School costs $9 and available for purchase from the webstores of either Mythmere Games or Fight On! Magazine. Buying a copy will help put one or both publishers over the top in the final contest standings. If you buy one from each store and give the extra to a friend, you can combine shipping even when your products come from different sources. You might also want to consider buying copies of Fight On!, Knockspell, Swords & Wizardry, and all the other great products these publishers have for sale. All products must be purchased by the end of March to count for the contest, and, as of April 1, Art of the Old School will be gone forever.

Busy, Busy

It's going to be one of those weekends, I think. Ah well.

More posts to come during the week and, once again, my apologies for the slowness of replies to comments and email.

On the Loss of D&D's Endgame

You'll find lots of gamers who will sing the praises of the Basic Rules published in the early 80s (either 1981's Moldvay version or 1983's Mentzer version) -- and rightly so -- but it's rare to find many who express the same affection for the Expert Rules, whether the Cook/Marsh or Mentzer version. I personally find that a bit odd, because, for me, the Expert Rules are one of those places I can clearly point to and say, "This is what D&D is all about."

I'm certain that strikes at least a few people as odd. The Basic Rules introduce not only the rules of the game, but also its default setting: the dungeon. If anything is "what D&D is all about," it's the dungeon and surely the Basic Rules do a far better job of describing that environment and what it's like to play in it than do the Expert Rules, which muddy the waters with all this talk of wilderness adventuring and building strongholds and creating magic items and the like. Right?

Well, I'm one of those oddballs who takes seriously the notion that Dungeons & Dragons, despite its name, is actually about more than dungeon delving. After all, OD&D devotes a goodly amount of its sparse verbiage to adventuring in the wilderness -- so much so that the term "sandbox" is every bit as significant for old school play as is "megadungeon." Indeed, OD&D makes it pretty clear that, after a certain point, the focus of the game shifts away from the dungeon and toward establishing and maintaining a "barony." If you read reminiscences of the earliest campaigns in the hobby, such as Blackmoor and Greyhawk, you'll see that this was the case.

The Expert Rules present this shift in focus not as an "add-on" or accretion to the Basic Rules but as a natural development of them. Exploring and taming the wilderness, building a castle, and ruling a domain -- these aren't alien to D&D; they're a major part of what the game was intended to be about. This only makes sense, given the origins of the game in wargaming and yet they're topics that got short shrift even in AD&D, never mind later editions. In this sense, I'd say that, for all my issues with the presentation of Cook/Marsh and Mentzer, they're truer to OD&D than were their various descendants.

I can't stress this point enough, because I think it's a vital counter-balance to the tendency to see D&D, especially old school D&D, as solely about acquiring ever more power in the service of venality. Not only do I think that tendency does a disservice to D&D's origins, but I also think it exaggerates the themes of pulp fantasy to ludicrous heights. While not every Picaro will eventually settle down, many will, particularly if their players wish to continue playing that character beyond a certain point. The Expert Rules showed how to do that; they were where D&D's endgame was fleshed out and revealed it as the logical extension of all that had gone before.

I hesitate to say that the Expert Rules are where Dungeons & Dragons "grows up," because that implies a childishness to dungeon delving that I don't think is appropriate. Nevertheless, the Expert Rules are where D&D grapples with the nature of what it means to have reached high level -- to have "grown up" mechanically -- in a fantasy world. Certainly characters could continue to remain aloof from the world around them, remaining outsiders forever on the make, but how satisfying would that be for their players? The Expert Rules offer up new options of play, things that characters could take up in order both to expand the scope of the game and to ensure that beloved characters can continue to be played even after it no longer makes much sense for them to continue adventuring. These are the rules for King Conan of Aquilonia, as opposed to Conan the wandering Cimmerian.

I am ever more convinced that the progressive deformation of the original Gygaxo-Arnesonian vision of the game is due to the loss of D&D's logical endgame and its replacement by vapid alternatives. Only by restoring that endgame can Dungeons & Dragons again become the game it was meant to be.

Light Posting

I'm a bit busy today, at least one of which I hope to unveil in the next day or two (I wonder what that could be?), so my posting today may be light. I also have a large backlog of comments and emails to answer. My apologies for the delays in doing so. Such is the nature of actually having a life outside of blogging.

Free Ads in Knockspell #2

Once again, Knockspell Magazine is running all old-school advertisements for free. If you have a blog, or a free module, or a website, or you're an artist (here we are a bit arbitrarily selective - you've got to be part of the old school community), or you're a retro-clone publisher, or publish materials compatible with 0e, 1e, Basic, etc ... whatever.

Email Matt Finch at mythmere at yahoo dot com with the text of a classified ad, or with a quarter-page or smaller graphic (which must contain any text you want attached). Graphic ads will need to be approved - no photos, and artwork needs to be roughly in the general style of the magazine's internal appearance. Clip art is fine.

Mythmere Games does this to show the full strength and resources of the old school renaissance, as a service to the readers, and as an expression of gratitude to those who are producing free (and paid) material for all the rest of us to game with.

I May Not Be a Wargamer ...

I readily admit that I'm not a wargamer. In general, I find wargames a bit too persnickety for my liking and, while I have a great deal of patience, I often find that playing most wargames taxes me greatly. That said, I still played wargames back in the day, mostly because my friend's Dad and older brother had lots of them and we often enjoyed a change of pace from our various roleplaying campaigns. Later, as my circle of gaming contacts expanded, I met a lot of other guys who really mixed wargaming and roleplaying much more easily than I ever did, leading to yet more dabbling in the field.

The games I remember most strongly were almost all Avalon Hill games, which, apropos of the discussion going on elsewhere in the comments, could all be bought at the local Toys R Us and Kaybee Toys shops. Here are a few of them:

• 1776: I recall having a lot of fun playing the British.
• Civilization: Not really wargame, I suppose, but it was published in the US by AH, so I'm going to throw it in here anyway. It's a pity I never owned a copy, because I had a lot of fun with it.
• Diplomacy: One of the greatest games ever made in any genre, I played this game to death in high school. For some reason, I liked to play Austria-Hungary, which explains why I rarely ever won.
• Dune: How I wish I owned a copy of this game! Many good times were had playing this.
• Kingmaker: Like Diplomacy, I played the heck out of this game back in high school. It's a bit more formulaic than Diplomacy, but I loved it just the same.
• Magic Realm: It was a bit like a more complex version of Dungeon!, except that it mostly took place outdoors. I remember it took a long time to set up and play, but we had a lot of time on our hands in those days.
• NATO: The Next War in Europe: This was produced by Victory Games and I loved it to death. I think my friends and I enjoyed it mostly for the tactical nuclear weapons rules.
  
• Rise and Decline of the Third Reich: I have no idea why I played this game. I don't think I ever really enjoyed it, but several of my friends loved it and so I suffered in the name of friendship.
• Squad Leader: I never played ASL, but I did play the original. I liked it for what it was. I liked the hex maps even more and appropriated quite a few of them for use in my D&D wilderness adventures.
• Starship Troopers: This was fun, especially if you got to play the Bugs.
• Wooden Ships & Iron Men: I was never a big fan of naval games, but this one was enjoyable, even if it often felt very "game-y" at times rather than being a strict simulation.
  

What We Need

I know this topic has come up before, but it bears repeating: the hobby really needs an inexpensive yet complete introductory game. Yes, yes, I know we already have several, most notably Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry. The problem with both is that neither is available in non-specialty stores and neither looks like a game to the uninitiated.

Here he goes again, blathering on about boxed sets. There's a reason I do that and it's simple: to people outside the hobby, you buy a game in a box, at least if it's a game you're going to pick up for kids to learn. I don't think it's a coincidence that the best-selling RPG products of all time have been boxed sets. I understand that producing a boxed RPG is expensive nowadays; that doesn't change the fact they're a very attractive way to package a game.

The other vital thing is getting those boxed sets out to places like Toys R Us and Wal-Mart. Having young children, I go to toy stores quite regularly and there are a lot of fantasy themed games and products out there. Lego recently started a very cool line of fantasy sets that include knights, dwarves (complete with tankards of ale!), trolls, skeletons, dragons, and wizards. How wonderful it'd be to see a RPG on the same shelves. I don't really know why D&D is no longer to be found in such places. You'd think, given the tentacles of Hasbro, that it'd be an easy matter to ensure the game was sold in them, but I haven't seen D&D outside of hobby and book stores since the 80s.

I know full well that these aren't magic bullets. They won't turn back history and return roleplaying into the fad it once was. But I'd still like to see these games accorded the same opportunities that even collectible card games are (which you can get in Toys R Us). I recall Gary Gygax musing in the pages of Dragon that, one day, Dungeons & Dragons would achieve a steady state and become like Monopoly or Clue -- a classic game each new generation could discover and play with previous ones because the game was forever in print, easily available, and largely untouched by time. I like the sound of that.

Happy Maryland Day

On this day in 1634, 150 settlers from England disembarked from two vessels, the Ark and the Dove, onto an island in the Potomac River. They named the island after Pope St. Clement I, patron saint of mariners, in thanksgiving for having safely crossed the Atlantic Ocean. March 25 is also the Feast of the Annunciation (called "Lady Day" in England), celebrating the visit by the archangel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a happy coincidence, as the colony these settlers were to found had already been named Terra Mariae, or Maryland, by King Charles I, in honor of his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria. Though many of the earliest settlers were Protestants, the Calvert family, who sponsored the expedition, were Roman Catholics (as was the queen) and explicitly wished Maryland to be a place where all Trinitarian Christians could live together in peace, making it a model of religious toleration.

Though I haven't lived in Maryland regularly since 1989, I still consider it my home. My formative years were spent in this lovely, quirky Midatlantic state and most of my blood relations still live there, including my parents. I remain a diehard Baltimore Orioles fan and miss steamed crabs and seafood that doesn't have to be transported hundreds of miles to reach my dinner plate. It was a great place to grow up and I suspect that my love for "rough edges" comes at least in part from having grown up in a state whose identity has been a weird mix of influences held in barely coherent tension since the beginning. Maryland's a southern state that never seceded and fielded regiments for both the Union and the Confederacy, though the state song's lyrics curse Abraham Lincoln ("The despot's heal is on thy shore," a reference to the fact that the District of Columbia was established on land donated to the federal government by Maryland). Geographically, it's both heavily urbanized in parts and extremely bucolic and wild in others. Our distinctive accent is like no other in the region and jousting is our state sport. And we boast a storied history of corrupt local politics of which perhaps only Louisiana can top.

Too strong an attachment to the place of one's birth can be the source of much evil, as history has shown. At the same time, I can't help but feel that a little parochialism might be a useful tonic against the depredations of this age of globalization. I like local oddities and quirks. I prefer it when everything isn't the same bland pabulum no matter where you go. That's probably why returning to the old school feels so right for me. Like my experiences of home, we're a weird, confused, cantakerous bunch. It's easy for outsiders to look at us and dwell on the individual trees without seeing the glorious forest of which we're all a part.

Retrospective: City State of the Invincible Overlord

When one thinks of the greatest city in the history of pulp fantasy, one immediately thinks of the City of the Black Toga, Lankhmar. And when one thinks of the greatest city in the history of fantasy roleplaying, one immediately thinks of Judges Guild's City State of the Invincible Overlord. First published in 1977, CSIO made a huge splash at the time of its release and it remains, in my opinion, the gold standard for urban sourcebooks over 30 years later.

One reason for that was its huge 34" x 44" map (in four sections), detailing over 300 individual locations, along the NPCs who inhabited them. This opened urban adventuring to sandbox-style play with great ease. Players could send their characters to wander aimlessly through the City State, checking out its various shops and sights without the referee having to worry about the daunting task of creating it all himself. Of course, in typical Judges Guild fashion, these details were sparse and open-ended. This let each referee tailor the City State to his own campaign, making this product very much a "playing aid," just as it bills itself.

CSIO really was a very flexible and easy to use product. I have filed off the serial numbers and re-tooled it for use in many campaigns, most memorably my Greyhawk campaign of old, where it stood in for the City of Greyhawk itself (there being no official alternative at the time). The City State is also the basis for Adamas in my current Dwimmermount campaign. Oddly, I've never actually used it in a genuine Wilderlands campaign. My few Wilderlands campaigns were all set far away from the City State, which makes me a bit unusual, I suspect.

I don't think it's an understatement to say that Judges Guild played a bigger part in establishing most of what I consider the essential elements of old school play than any company outside of TSR. Beyond that I'd say that JG did even more than TSR when it came to developing certain elements, most notably wilderness/sandbox and urban play. CSIO shaped many people's perceptions of what a D&D city ought to be and, as I said, I've yet to see a more immediately useful urban environment for gaming than this one. Like the Wilderlands of which it's a part, the City State is a terrific pulp fantasy goulash that borrows gleefully from many sources of inspiration, creating a city that's not only a great place to adventure in its own right but one that feels as like a D&D city should -- boisterous, somewhat incoherent, but brimming with possibilities.

You can still find copies of this great game aid on eBay and from used game sellers, but they're often very pricey. Necromancer Games produced a 3e version of it several years ago and, like all their JG stuff, it's excellent. It really is a pity that they're not continuing to produce new Wilderlands material, but that leaves an opening for guys like James Mishler, so I can't really complain. In any event, City State of the Invincible Overlord remains one of my favorite RPG products of all time and, in terms of its influence, it certainly ranks highly indeed.

Pondering a Revamp

In the not too distant future, once I've got Urheim up and running (should be sooner rather than later) and I've gotten out from under some other projects I have cooking, I'm probably going to revamp the website a bit. Much as I like the look of the place as it is, it could be a bit better organized and easy to access, particularly when it comes to my old posts (especially reviews, retrospectives, and the pulp fantasy library). Likewise, I eventually need to find new images to use to decorate the place -- images I either actually own or that I am legally able to use. No one from WotC has complained about either my masthead or the Greg Bell pic on the right. Yet. But they'd be well within their rights to do so. I'd rather not give them the chance. I may also have to call upon the services of a professional web designer to help me with this. Seeing how nice the new Mythmere Games site is, I have to admit to being a little envious.

No ETA on when any of this might happen, but it's slowly moving to the front burner.

"We're #2!"

For those who haven't heard the news, Fight On! magazine is currently ranked #2 in Lulu.com's "Author Sales Contest." What that means is that, during the period beginning March 1 (and continuing through the end of the month), only one publisher has managed to sell more copies than has FO!. That's frankly a really remarkable achievement, considering that's an amateur fanzine selling primarily to a niche market. The top three spots receive monetary rewards and I know that Ignatius Umlaut would put the reward to good use.

So, if you haven't yet bought a copy of Fight On!, now's the time to do so. If you have, thanks for your support. And while you're at it, grab a copy of Knockspell #1 too, another superb old school fanzine.

Myth Busting

One of the inevitable consequences of preferring what some have patronizingly called "legacy D&D" is being treated like an exhibit in a natural history museum: "And here we have a fine example of Primitive Gamer, mussitor crassus barbatus, who thrived between 1974 until 1983. Unable to adapt to the changing environment of gaming, his numbers dwindled precipitously. Though scattered tribes of Primtive Gamer still exist, their vitality is sapped, their gene pool shallow. It is only a matter of time before he becomes extinct, taking with him his strange ways, most notably spending his spare time not actually gaming, as one might expect, but complaining about more evolved forms of Gamer."

For reasons I don't fathom, it's a common stereotype that grognards don't in fact game. I'm not sure where this myth came from, because my experience is that old schoolers are no different in their gaming habits than most other gamers. That is, we game as often as we're able to do so, given the demands of our real lives. Certainly we don't game as much as we used to when we were teenagers, but then who does? From what I have gathered, wanting to game and not having a group with which to do so is a pretty common problem, not restricted either to old schoolers or to D&D players in general.

Yet, for some reason, there's this perception that grognards never actually get together with their friends and roll some dice together. All one would need to do is read old school blogs and forums to see this for the lie it is. The most active blogs in our community are filled with discussions of the author's ongoing campaigns, not to mention events at conventions. I'd never argue that old school play is common or that its numbers are as great as those playing the latest and greatest, but since when did quantity becoming the determinant of whether grognards actually game? Our numbers are but a drop in the wider ocean of gaming. Consequently, measuring how many fewer 1e events there are at GenCon compared to 4e and then using it to opine that grognards don't play strikes me as the height of idiocy.

I suppose, to some extent, this misperception is based on the fact that grognards spend a lot of time talking (or writing) about gaming. As a rule, I'd wager that our blogs and forums are, for wont of a better word, much more verbose than those of other games. We spend a lot of time dissecting the rules, divining wisdom from lacunae, and constructing esoteric philosophies of play and design from our sacred texts. Of course, I'd argue that so do most gamers. It's just that old schoolers do it in a particular style that might lead outsiders to misunderstand what we're doing or why.

My own blog, for example, has what at least one detractor has termed "a pseudo-intellectual" style and, while there's no doubt that my chosen idiom is a lot more extreme than that of many of my fellow bloggers, we are all cut from a cloth you can't buy in the big box stores. We're an idiosyncratic, eccentric bunch and our discussions probably aren't easy to pentrate if you're not already steeped in the old school midrash. Because of this, perhaps it seems as if we're more focused on gaming in the abstract than we are in actually gaming. It's a polemically useful stereotype, to be sure, but that's mostly all it is. Believe it or not, grognards do game and some of us game quite a lot.

To that end, if you're currently running an old school game and talk about it on your blog, state this in the comments section of this entry, particularly if you do so on a blog or forum I don't have linked to the right.

Another Cool Map

Jeff Rients recently reminded me of the awesome map of Minaria from Divine Right (a game I never owned but wish I had). Another terrific map is the map of Arduin.

I never owned this either, but I keep going back to the Emperor's Choice website and considering buying it now. I have no idea why, since I don't think I could be called a fan of Arduin. Well, I do know why: I'm a sucker for fantasy cartography and the Arduin map simply looks nifty. Still, I doubt I can justify spending $20 on a map for a setting I'd never use in my own gaming. Maybe when I win the lottery ...

Imaro Update

Charles Saunders emailed me and offered some details of interest:

Here’s some “from the horse’s mouth” information you can pass on to your readers concerning my future publications.

The fourth Imaro novel will soon be published by Sword & Soul Media, and, like the third one, will be available via print-on-demand. The fifth Imaro novel is in the pipeline, as is a collection of Imaro short stories that were not blended into the novels. The collection will also include three brand-new Imaro stories I wrote in 2007-08.

At present, I am working on a new Dossouye novel. After I finish it, I have some other ideas I want to pursue.

And there you have it. As I said in my original post, now's a good time to give these novels a try. If you enjoy them, as I do, there's lots more in store for you over the next few years.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Imaro

Charles Saunders's Imaro doesn't appear in Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, but I like to think that's only because the novel didn't appear until 1981, two years after the DMG was first published (though, to be fair, its titular character first appeared in Dark Fantasy in 1974 and a year later in the very first Year's Best Fantasy Stories). That's a pity, because Imaro and its sequels are remarkable books, at once thoroughly steeped in the traditions of pulp fantasy and original creations that transcend and transform the genre in ways that recall Michael Moorcock's tales of Elric. By this, I don't mean to imply any dramatic, let alone thematic, connection between the writings of these two authors. Rather, it's that both Saunders and Moorcock turn critical eyes on the tropes of pulp fantasy in ways that only writers who understand and love the genre, warts and all, could do. Saunders isn't an ignorant young Turk out to prove himself by denigrating his pulp fantasy elders, but instead a writer who clearly appreciates them, even as his own unique vision is at least in part a corrective to what he sees as their weaknesses.

Though originally billed as "The Epic Novel of a Black Tarzan," which led to the delay in its publication because of a lawsuit by the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, I think it's the writings of Robert E. Howard that cast the longest shadows over Imaro. Saunders's Nyumbani is a close cousin of REH's Hyborian Age, being a fantastical Africa that draws equally from history and myth to create an imaginary world that artfully mimics the depth and texture of reality. Reading through Imaro, one is immediately struck by the opportunities pulp fantasy has lost over the years by not turning its gaze more readily upon non-European settings for its inspirations. It would be a gross over-simplification to call Imaro a "black Conan" as some have done, not least because Imaro's motivations and ultimate destiny are far more inward-directed than are those of the Cimmerian. Nevertheless, it's hard not to compare him to Howard's creation, as Imaro is one of the few swords-and-sorcery characters to match -- and perhaps exceed -- the complexity of his barbarian predecessor.

Indeed, Saunders excels at writing characters who feel like people rather than caricatures and it's here, I think, where Imaro shines brightest and offers the most strident critique of the genre of which it's a part. Saunders isn't content to paint with broad strokes, particularly when it comes to entire peoples and societies. Nyumbani is not only beautifully drawn, but diverse and variegated. Its inhabitants are similarly diverse and well realized, in stark contrast to the more stylized approach favored by many other pulp fantasy tales. Reading Imaro, one is often subtly reminded of just how often even writers as talented as Howard relied upon stereotypes to do the heavy lifting in their characterization. And because the reminders are subtle, one never feels as if Imaro was written solely to criticize or make a point. The novel isn't a parody or a satire of the genre but rather an unapologetic illustration of its under-used potential, not to mention a celebration of its primal appeal.

If it sounds like I'm gushing over Imaro, it's because I am. I never read this novel or its sequels back in the day and I doubt I would have appreciated them even if I had. Having filled in this gap in my pulp fantasy education, I can't help but imagine many "what if?" scenarios in which Saunders's stories had become more widely read and influential. Had this occurred, it's possible that swords-and-sorcery might have renewed itself, remaining vital and energetic until the present day. Fortunately, the novel and its sequels have been reprinted and are available once again. Likewise, Saunders has written another novel set in Nyumbani, about the warrior-woman Dossouye, and is working on two more novels in the saga of Imaro. If you've never had the opportunity to do so before, there's no better time to delve into the adventures of Imaro than right now.

Pondering Conan the Barbarian

What to make of John Milius' 1982 film, Conan the Barbarian, which made a star of the largely unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger? That's a question with no easy answer, even though I've spent more time than I care to admit trying to disentangle my own very conflicted feelings about it. Conflicted feelings seem to be par for the course from what I can tell, with even professional Howardists (is that a word?) divided, sometimes bitterly, over its relative merits. That said, there are at least two points on which everyone agrees:

1. The film's soundtrack, by the late Basil Poledouris, is pretty much perfect in every way.
2. The film's 1984 sequel, Conan the Destroyer, was abominable.

Unfortunately, that's the extent of the common ground between the lovers and the haters of this film.

I was 13 when this film was released, but, due to its R rating, I didn't see the film until it was released on video sometime afterwards. At that point, my exposure to the character of Conan was limited primarily to a handful of Lancer paperbacks I'd picked up here and there, almost none of which contained any actual stories by REH. Consequently, I wasn't much bothered by most of the divergences from the Howardian canon, because, quite frankly, I was utterly unaware of them. Having only read (I think) parts of Conan the Avenger and Conan of Aquilonia, my sense of the both the character of the Cimmerian and of the Hyborian Age was lacking. I'd also seen the covers of many a Marvel comic featuring Conan, though I'd never read one.

Given this background, the story and character we got in the film matched my own expectations reasonably well. Indeed, if one takes Conan the Barbarian simply on its own terms, as a swords-and-sorcery tale vaguely inspired by some names found in Robert E. Howard stories, I think it still holds up quite well. Certainly it reaks of pastiche. Untutored though I was in the mysteries of pure Howard back then, I could still sense that it was a strange, cobbled together Frankenstein of a movie, unapologetically borrowing elements from a wide variety of sources. I don't consider "pastiche" a term of opprobrium. Dungeons & Dragons wouldn't exist if not for the gleeful pastiche-making of Gygax and Arneson and, as readers of this blog know, I actually believe D&D is at its best when referees and players alike adopt a similar approach in their own games.

Yet, there's little question in my mind that Conan the Barbarian can't really be called "Howardian" except in a tenuous analogical sense. Yes, there are characters, themes, and even scenes that appear in the film that are broadly consonant with Howard's own work. However, I can't recall a single line of dialog in the film that comes from a REH story (someone can correct me if I'm wrong) and there are a few places where I feel the film actually undermines Howardian themes, replacing them with its own. Again, I don't mean this in a negative sense. Much like D&D, I think there's virtue to be found in creating one's own story by looting the parts of other stories one likes. So long as one doesn't mistake this for "being true to the spirit" of authors and stories one loots, you won't hear a peep of criticism from me.

As I got older, though, I read more genuine Howard and came to appreciate his work considerably more than I ever had as a youth. It's hard now, with the knowledge of and love for those stories that I now possess, to view Conan the Barbarian as much more than a typical example of Hollywood grave robbing, albeit a riotously fun example of it. As I said before, if this movie had been about some other northern barbarian seeking revenge against the slayer of his parents and people, I could continue to extol its virtues without qualification, because I think Conan the Barbarian may well be the best swords-and-sorcery movie ever made. Admittedly, that's as much an indictment of Hollywood's woeful treatment of the genre as it is praise for the film, but I mean it positively.

Conan the Barbarian is a fun, occasionally insightful, feast for the eyes and I enjoy it on that level. I think, though, that it's also an exercise in brandification, playing off the fame of the name "Conan" to tell a very different story than any Robert E. Howard would have told. For many people, Schwarzenegger's portrayal of Conan in this film is the only exposure to the character they will ever have and that's a shame -- not because I think Schwarzenegger's portrayal is bad (I don't) but because his portrayal has very little to do with Howard's Cimmerian. Now, for many, this isn't an issue, in much the same way that they can shrug off the brandification of D&D over the years. If one has no particular knowledge of or liking for the real Conan, this criticism likely rings hollow. And of course many people who possess both still don't see it as a fatal flaw to what I cannot deny is a well-made fantasy action film.

So where does that leave me? I still don't know. Part of me just wants to sit back and revel in the spectacle of it all, for the film has many terrific moments that I absolutely adore. Another part of me recoils, though, at the hash made of Conan, the Hyborian Age, and the auctorial voice of Robert E. Howard. Even more than the Peter Jackson The Lord of the Rings films, Conan the Barbarian misrepresents its ostensible inspiration to audiences who might otherwise not be familiar with them. Traditionalist that I am, I can't help but be bugged by that. Is that enough to make me stop watching the film every now and again? No, it's not, which makes me wonder if why. Do I continue to enjoy it in spite of the things I dislike about it or do I perhaps sense some hidden depth to the film that I'm not yet consciously aware of? Or is it that I just hope that there's something of substance beneath the spectacle? I wish I knew.

S&W Psionics, Part II

Here's the section on psionic combat I promised. I'm a bit ambivalent about it, as it stands now, so I'd appreciate criticism that would improve it. I want it to remain fairly simple to use and I want to keep psionics as a side show by default, meaning that it never overshadows either melee or magic. Ideally, though, it should be easily changed to work as a substitute for magic in certain kinds of settings, so keep that in mind too.

I'm also toying with changing the number of power points available by level, since, as written now, psionic combat would be difficult for low-level characters to engage in for very long. That's by design, but I do worry it might be too hard as written. Once again, comments and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged.

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

Psionic Combat

In addition to employing psionic powers (see below), psionic creatures can also engage in psionic combat with one another through the use of psionic attack and defense modes. Psionic combat functions similarly to melee and missile combat, with an attack roll made against a target's psionic armor class (PAC). If successful, attacks deal damage that reduce the target's current psionic power points, just as melee and missile attacks reduce the target's hit points. If psionic power points are reduced to zero, the psionic creature may no longer use psionic attack/defense modes or psionic powers. Such defenseless psionic creatures are even more susceptible to psionic attacks than are non-psionic creatures, as noted below.

Psionic Attack and Defense

All creatures, psionic and non-psionic alike, have a base psionic armor classs of 9. The creature's Wisdom bonus (if any) affects the PAC. Psionic attacks are treated as if made by a first-level character, meaning that a roll of 10 or more on 1D20 is necessary to succeed against PAC 9, adjusted by the character's Intelligence modifier (if any). A character's Charisma modifier may apply either to PAC or the attack roll, at the discretion of the player. The modifier may be shifted between the two on a combat-by-combat basis, but not within a single combat.

Like melee and missile combat, creatures engaged in psionic combat must select “weapons” and “armor” for the occasion. Each round, players must choose an attack mode and/or a defense mode from among those available to their characters, provided they can pay the power point cost for using them. Power points are expended before the attack or defense is used, regardless of whether they prove successful. However, once activated, they may be maintained without any cost for the duration of the psionic combat. Activating a different attack or defense mode, however, requires the expenditure of power points, as does re-activating modes formerly maintained.

Some attacks are more effective against certain defenses than are others. The following chart shows the bonus or penalty to the psionic combat attack roll.

	Empty Mind	Intellect Fortress	Mental Barrier	Thought Shield	Tower of Iron Will
Mind Thrust	-3	6	1	4	5
Ego Whip	1	-2	-1	-3	3
Id Insinuation	-2	1	-4	-1	0
Psychic Crush	-5	4	3	2	-3
Mind Blast	3	0	-3	-2	-1

All psionic attack modes suffer a -8 attack penalty against non-psionic creatures, except for mind blast, which gains a +4 bonus. Conversely, all attack modes gain a +8 attack bonus against psionic creatures who no longer possess any power points.

Attack and Defense Modes

Unless otherwise stated, all attack and defense modes affect only a single creature at a time. Likewise, a psionic creature can always raise a defense mode as a reaction in response to a psionic attack mode, even if he or she has already acted in the round, unless the creature no longer possesses any power points. Such a reaction requires the expenditure of power points, as usual, however.

Ego Whip

Attack Mode

Range: 8ft

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 3

An ego whip targets the “I” or self and, overwhelming it with negative or vicious feelings that inhibit its ability to function properly. As such, this attack mode is only usable against a sentient being. A successful use of an ego whip deals 1d6 points of power point damage to a psionic target, while non-psionic creatures are stunned for 1d4 rounds.

Empty Mind

Defense Mode

Range: Self

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 1

This defense mode induces a low-level meditative trance in which the mind of the creature using it becomes less distinct from the world around it.

Id Insinuation

Attack Mode

Range: 120ft

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 3

Id insinuation attacks a target's basest instincts, freeing them temporarily from the control of his or her higher psyche in order to induce confusion. A successful use of this attack mode deals 1d8 points of power point damage to a psionic creature, while non-psionic creatures are stunned for 1d6 rounds.

Intellect Fortress

Defense Mode

Range: Self

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 5

This defense mode summons the strength of the higher psyche to create a powerful bulwark against psychic attack.

Mental Barrier

Defense Mode

Range: Self

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 3

This defense mode draws on innocuous, repetitive thoughts to shield the mind against unwanted intrusions.

Mind Blast

Attack Mode

Range: 40ft.

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 9

This attack mode blasts the minds of all creatures in a 40-foot cone with mental energy, dealing 1D12 points of power point damage to a psionic creature. A non-psionic creature is more susceptible to mind blast than to other psionic attack modes. On a failed saving throw, a non-psionic creature is stunned for 3d4 rounds.

Mind Thrust

Attack Mode

Range: 60ft

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 1

This attack mode shapes mental energy into a “psychic blade” with which to “stab” the mind of the target. This deals 1d4 points of power point damage to a psionic creature, while non-psionic creatures are stunned for 1 round.

Psychic Crush

Attack Mode

Range: 25ft.

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 5

This attack mode uses neural impulses to assault the target's mind, thereby rendering mental activity more difficult. A successful attack deals 1D10 points of power point damage to a psionic creature, while a non-psionic creature is stunned for 2d4 rounds.

Thought Shield

Defense Mode

Range: Self

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 1

This defense uses ephemeral, surface thoughts to protect the mind from attack.

Tower of Iron Will

Defense Mode

Range: Self

Duration: Immediate

Power Point Cost: 5

This defense mode harnesses a creature's determination and mental resilience to fashion a psychic barrier so powerful that it can protect other creatures, psionic or not, within a 10-foot radius around the user, who gain the full benefits of this defense mode as if they were using it themselves.

Another Awesome Map

This is the map of the Upper Catacombs beneath the surface ruins of the monastery. It's not part of the "true" dungeon levels, but I really like it. Combined with the ruins themselves, the Lower Catacombs, and the Hermit Caves, there's plenty to do at Urheim before descending into the maw of Chaos itself. I'm really pleased by this set-up, since lots of lateral movement and meaningful choices about how best to proceed are an important part of designing a good megadungeon.

Thanks, as ever, to the talented Fr. David for his cartographic work.

REVIEW: Dungeonaday.com

Short version: Much better than I'd expected but also much pricier than I could justify spending (which is good, since Monte Cook very kindly gave me a free month's access).

Now, for the long version.

As people should know by now, I am very -- how shall I say? -- protective about the term "old school." I'm one of those rare birds who strongly believes the term is both meaningful and useful, which often puts me at odds with some of my fellow gamers, who, for different reasons, would prefer that it be banished to the terminological netherworld. Ironically, this fact hasn't stopped lots of people from throwing around "old school" to describe games and products that, by any reasonable definition, are nothing of the kind.

But I readily admit that I'm an eccentric among eccentrics on this score. So, when Monte Cook conjoined the words "megadungeon" and "old school" when announcing his latest project, Dungeonaday.com, I was among only a handful of grognards who took it as an affront (a "hissy fit," one ENWorlder called it). There are several reasons I felt this way, the main one being that the old school renaissance is really hitting its stride right now. Lots of gamers are taking notice of our little corner of the Net and engaging our ideas in a way they never did before. "Old school" and "megadungeon" are now regular topics for debate and conversation on forums and blogs and I don't think there's any question it's because traditional gamers have done a great job of showing their continued relevance to the hobby.

The second reason I felt as I did was because it wasn't someone I strongly associated with old school D&D who was launching this site but Monte Cook, whom I primarily connected to the decidedly not-old school Third Edition and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, a module I both disliked as an adventure and that I felt misrepresented Greyhawk lore. To be fair, Monte did a lot of stuff I did like, such as his various Planescape products, but I don't consider Planescape "old school" by my definition. Finally, I was miffed by the subscription model, which I think is problematic when you're dealing with an electronic product. I realize that most professional game designers aren't going to follow the approach of the old school renaissance and give things away for free, but there's something about paying for the privilege of having a product parceled out to you in small pieces over many months rubs me the wrong way.

Combined, my first reaction to Dungeonaday.com was probably irrationally over the top, even if it was understandable. Having now had a chance to explore the site at much greater length over the last week and a half, I'm in a much better position to evaluate it on its actual merits and flaws rather than on what I presumed it would be like. What I found was something that was decidedly more old school than we've probably seen from a big name designer of the 3e era. By that I mean that, if Monte Cook is a poser, he's doing a very good job of it. Dragon's Delve, the megadungeon he's constructing, hits most of the right old school notes. There is in fact a great deal to like about it and I'm not ashamed to admit I may even steal an idea or three from it. At the same time, Dungeonaday.com also highlights how much WotC D&D has strayed from its heritage, both mechanically and philosophically.

Dungeonaday.com is a very straightforward and easy-to-use website. Navigation is simple and intuitive. Each page is nicely presented, with just enough graphics to be useful but not so many as to create visual clutter. I know some people have expressed disappointment at its relatively "bare bones" look, but I personally find it refreshingly elegant. The pages load quickly and I never had any trouble figuring out where to find what I was looking for. There's also a built-in search engine in case you still have difficulty, along with forums to which Monte regularly responds with answers, even to technical questions about the site.

All dungeons live or die by their maps and Dragon's Delve has some nice ones. First there's a side view map of the place, which I just love. Not only does it remind me of the best old school dungeons, such as Stone Mountain from the Holmes set, it's got a lot of flavor in its own right. I love each level of a dungeon having a name that describes it and apparently Monte Cook does as well. Level 1 is so far the only level to have its own map, which is to be expected, since the site is detailing Dragon's Delve a couple of rooms a day. Level 1 is fairly small by the standards of truly old school megadungeons, but Monte has indicated that deeper levels will be bigger. Personally, I think size is a fairly small quibble, although I do agree that it would have been nice if Level 1 had more obvious room for expansion, since near-infinite expandability is an important quality of the megadungeons of old. On the other hand, the map doesn't strike me as too obviously linear, with lots of options for meaningful decisions.

Each room receives its own page on the site, complete with an image of a bit of Dwarven Forge dungeon terrain constructed to represent it. I think that's a great idea, actually, first because it provides the referee with a better idea of what the room looks like, and second because it keeps the level map uncluttered with too much detail, a flaw common in many modern dungeon maps. As you can see by looking at a sample room, the descriptions are exhaustive, far moreso than I generally like. This is true even of otherwise empty rooms, since Monte has stated that, "Each [room] will have something of interest, and most will be fairly elaborate." This is a case where I think the realities of his subscription model -- providing something "meaty" every day -- has trumped old school dungeon design principles, which demanded not only a large number of otherwise empty rooms but empty rooms without much of interest in them.

Looking back at the sample room, you can see a few features that I think are telling. As noted, they're highly detailed, meaning you can just read the description and run with it; there's little need to wing it. Whether one considers this a good or a bad thing is a question of taste, I suppose. The information is presented very clearly and is well organized, however. You'll also immediately notice how unwieldy 3e D&D is, since game mechanics, particularly the stat blocks of unique NPCs take up a lot of space. You'll also see that pretty much everything in the dungeon is quantified, with Difficulty Classes aplenty, not to mention formulae for calculating the effects of spells, etc. I recall Monte Cook stating that he was amazed at how "light" the mechanical component of Dungeonaday.com felt to him, but, from my perspective, I found it the opposite, but then I play Swords & Wizardry these days. Many rooms also include a "Revisit" entry, which explains what the room will be like once the PCs have cleared it of its original inhabitants. That's a nice touch and one that goes a long way toward conveying that a proper megadungeon isn't a static place. There are also wandering monsters, for which I give Monte bonus points.

Overall, the site is extremely slick without being soulless. It's easy to use and has lots of nice features, like the ability to download every page (or print it off) as a PDF, as well as hyperlinks to the D20 SRD and other useful outside sites. I hope there will be an ongoing compilation of the entire dungeon, as the Greyhawk Grognard is doing with his The Castle of the Mad Archmage. That would go some way toward making up for the lack of a print product associated with the subscription, since those who let their subscriptions lapse would still have something to show for the money they spent beyond some disjointed PDFs. In addition to the aforementioned forums, Monte also has a blog where he discusses the design of Dragon's Delve and related topics. A lot of it would be of interest to old schoolers, I think, but much of it is also well known to us and there are also times when it's clear Monte has very different interests and priorities than we do, at least some of which stem from the design philosophy behind 3e.

Dungeonaday.com is a very ambitious project and a good enough idea that I'm going to be imitating it in broad terms. I would still balk at calling it "old school" without qualification, since both its native rules set and the nature of the subscription model demanded compromises I don't consider wholly congenial. Despite that, there are many nifty things in Dragon's Delve, as I said, and, in most cases, you can "retro-fit" its contents to make it more amenable to the TSR editions of the game. And there are times, such as in the presentation of puzzles, where Monte seems to understand the limits 3e places on play and so abandons mechanics entirely to make it a challenge to the player rather than his character. This isn't revolutionary to old schoolers, but I imagine it might be to a lot of younger gamers, for whom 3e is the first D&D they ever knew. In this way, Dungeonaday.com might prove an unexpected ally to the old school renaissance, by disseminating its ideas outside of the narrow confines of our community, but it's too early to tell.

In the end, my biggest beefs with Dungeonaday.com are the price and the subscription model. At $10 a month ($8 a month if you subscribe for 12 months, reduced to $7 a month if you do so before the end of March), it's too rich for my blood, considering that I already have my own Dwimmermount, not to mention Urheim, and a host of other megadungeons available for next to nothing. That's a shame, because I do think Dungeonaday.com shows great promise and hope its possible success will prove beneficial to the Old Ways. However, I'm not sure I can justify the cost in my particular case.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 7 out of 10
Utility: 6 out of 10

Buy This If: You're a fan of Monte Cook, are looking for a new megadungeon, don't mind a subcription model for content and/or don't find the 3e rules a distraction.
Don't Buy This If: You can't stand 3e rules, already have a megadungeon of your own, and/or dislike content being parceled out in small chunks over time.

The Monastery of St. Gaxyg-at-Urheim

The monks of Saint Gaxyg (popularly called “the Gray Monks,” after the color of their habits) were a Lawful order that undertook devotions, good works, and scholarship in equal measure, thereby winning them the esteem and affection of the folk throughout the land. So zealous were the monks in defending the realm against the depredations of Chaos that they established a monastery upon the crags of Urheim, under which existed a series of caves that not only spawned foul aberrations but whose supernatural taint drew monsters and evil men alike to itself.

The monks valiantly embarked on a generations-long project of cleansing Urheim of its contagion by venturing deep into its subterranean recesses to confront its denizens with holiness, magic, and steel. As part of their plan, they worked the very stone itself, giving it a Lawful pattern and sanctifying it in the name of St. Gaxyg. Slowly but surely, despite the cost to themselves, the Gray Monks did more than just contain Chaos; they pushed it back, defeating it in its very lair, in the process amassing items of mysterious origins and magical potency, along with other treasures, all of which they either put to good use or stored away, lest they fall into the wrong hands.

While the monastery stood strong, it was a beacon of light in a darkened world. Pilgrims flocked to it in order to venerate the memory of the saint in whose name the monks labored and to gain spiritual edification from their example. Novices regularly entered the monastery, swelling their numbers and ensuring that Law carried the day in the battle beneath Urheim. Many warriors pledged themselves to the monks and joined them in their great task, which further strengthened their cause and led some to believe that the Chaos beneath Urheim might finally be defeated for all time.

Alas, the taint of Chaos touches all things, even a bastion of Law, such as the monastery of St. Gaxyg. After several centuries and a succession of weak abbots, the Gray Monks grew indulgent, preferring wealth and influence to wisdom and piety. Slowly, the blasphemous spawn of Urheim reclaimed the caves as their own, pushing the monks out and reversing the hard-won victories of the centuries. Rather than fight them, as had their predecessors, the monks simply warded the entrance to the underworld and settled into a comfortable laxity. No longer exemplars of law and goodness, the wealth of the monastery aroused the envy of local lords, who eventually sacked it, putting the remaining monks to the sword, and seizing their treasures. Greedy though they were, these lords knew well enough than to disturb Urheim, leaving it safely warded by the holy magic of St. Gaxyg.

Chaos still issues its siren call, drawing evil beings, both human and otherwise, to Urheim. Rumors have spread that someone -- or something -- has found a way to enter the hidden caves once more, seeking both the wealth and evil power they reputedly hold. If true, the darkness the Gray Monks once fought could escape its prison and pour out across the land, heralding a terrible future ...

Slow Day

Tired and swamped with work, so posting may be light today. My apologies.

Yet More on Wargames

I'm not much of a wargamer -- thus making me a poser when it comes to the "grognard" title -- but I am very interested in the history of the hobby, both in general and in how it relates to the development of roleplaying games.

So, it's with great pleasure that I read Zach Houghton's post today that includes some fascinating historical documentation about Strategos, the post-Civil War era game that inspired the Braunstein scenarios run by Dave Wesley. This is very cool stuff and Zach's to be thanked for digging it up.

More on Wargames

Here's another perspective on the present and future of wargames. It's also a few years old, but was written more recently than Greg Costikyan's article.

Thanks to Rob Kuntz for the link.

Final Megadungeon Update

I'm nearly read to go content-wise. I'm still waiting on a couple of maps and images and I need to complete something of my own, but otherwise we're very close to being ready. I think, barring any big problems, you'll see something online before the end of the week. If it carries over till next week, them's the breaks when you're doing this on the fly.

In any case, I'd like to once again thank everyone who's provided me assistance in various ways. I think the end result is going to be pretty cool. Like a megadungeon itself, it'll be an evolving project, one that starts humbly but will grow over time. I also think that, once the beginnings are out there and online, it'll give many people a better handle on just what I have in mind, which'll make it easier to contribute in the future.

Anyway, just wanted everyone to know I'm still barreling ahead with this. It's going a little slower than expected, but it's still going to appear imminently. Next time I mention it, you'll be able to see for yourself.

Retrospective: Dungeon Master's Screen

I haven't used a referee's screen in many, many years, mostly because I rarely get the chance to sit at a table large enough to accommodate all the people with whom I play, never mind unwieldy gaming paraphernalia as well. And referee's screens are unwieldy, at least in my experience, none moreso than the AD&D Dungeon Master's Screen. This product consisted of not one but two cardboard screens, each being a three-paneled gatefold. The insides of each screen were covered with charts and tables from the AD&D rulebooks, while the outsides were mostly festooned with artwork (incuding a rare example of color Dave Trampier art), though one panel on each was dedicated to player-oriented charts, like weapon damage or experience point requirements for each class.

In my younger days, though, when we used to play D&D while seated at a ping-pong table, I used screens religiously and not just for the charts. Back in those bygone days, having a screen up conferred a weird kind of authority to the person sitting behind them and establishing one's authority was important. Heyday of the "imperial referee" it might have been, but it's often forgotten that one became emperor by making your players believe you were emperor. That is, simply being the guy who bought a module and was willing to run it for the group wasn't enough to make one a referee. At one time or another, all the players in my old crew did this. However, only I was ever the Dungeon Master and part of the reason why is that I did all the little things that conferred this august title upon me: I was flexible but decisive, tough but fair, and, above all, someone the players wanted to beat at his own game. And I had a screen. The combination of these elements was a strange alchemy that elevated me in the eyes of my friends and contributed greatly to the feel of the game and it was that feel that kept us playing almost non-stop for years.

The basement of my current home has this enormously ugly bar built into it. When I say "enormously ugly," I do not exaggerate -- it's a monstrosity of faux green marble and "stonework" paneling that I have a hard time imagining that anyone in the 1970s (when it was undoubtedly constructed) finding the least bit attractive. I've been meaning to destroy it for years, but, because it sits on top of a water turn-off valve, I know that eliminating it would mean moving the valve, making it a rather involved project. When I first moved into the house, I used to stand behind the bar when I was refereeing. It was my neo-Dungeon Master's screen. I could rest all my books back there and roll my dice easily. Like its cardboard predecessors, it was fairly unwieldly -- I had to walk over to the game table if I needed to inspect anything there -- but there was a certain "aura of power" about it that provided focus to our sessions, which was important since our group grew quite large.

Despite all this, I'm not sure I could go back to using a referee's screen. Somehow, the idea of it makes me feel self-conscious now. I'm not sure I can explain why, particularly given how readily I like to experiment with the Old Ways. And goodness knows I could use a handy collection of reference charts and tables rather than having to flip through books to find what I need. I just don't know if a screen is the way to go, at least for me. So, if anyone's looking for "dirt" to use against my old school credentials, enjoy!

Rhyme

All that is left to carry on the tradition are a few small companies like Fresno Game Associates, run as labors of love by hobbyists, who manage, in these days of desktop publishing, to produce games of remarkably high graphic quality which are, by and large, thoroughly derivative and quite mediocre. Where wargames once sold in the hundreds of thousands, a game that sells a few thousand units is accounted a success; an industry that once sold in department and chain stores across the country now has products only in a few scattered hobby outlets. Wargaming is not quite extinct, no; but all that remains are the reflex twitches of a still-warm corpse.

It is hard for those of us who grew up with wargames, who loved them, who spent so many years studying them and taking them seriously as works of scholarship and art, it is hard for us to acknowledge this. We keep on hoping for some last minute reprieve, some renaissance; how could so much effort, so much inspired work, go for nought? How can it be that all of our labors will be forgotten? Yet it is so: whole artforms, whole genres grow and disappear. Where now is vaudeville? Radio drama? The air story? Perhaps board wargaming will survive in some form, greatly diminished from its glory days, as have poetry and the western; but that is all that can be hoped for.

From a very interesting essay by Greg Costikyan on the decline and fall of RPGs' big brother. Thanks to Justin Alexander for pointing me toward it.

S&W Psionics, Part I

Here's an early -- and rough draft -- of the basic details of the Swords & Wizardry psionics rules I'm working on. The mechanics are a mix of ideas from Eldritch Wizardry and my own thoughts, plus material derived from the 3.0 D20 SRD (not v.3.5). Comments and suggestions are welcomed at this stage, particularly with regards to making the system more customizable to differing assumptions about psionics and their power. Nothing is yet set in stone, although I'm happy with the general outline I've got here.

Part II will consist of the psionic combat rules. Part III will be the psionic powers themselves. Because of their length, I may not post them directly to the blog but instead make them available in PDF form on a website somewhere.

This isn't formatted very well, so please no complaints about the lack of proper tables.

Determination of Psionic Abilities

In campaigns where psionics are permitted, any character with a score of 13 or more in Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma may potentially possess these abilities. Roll 1D20. If the result is 19 or 20, the character possesses some form of psionic potential. Generally, this roll is permitted only once, at the character's first appearance in a campaign, but referees may permit additional rolls, as they see fit (upon gaining a level, being exposed to psychic energy, surviving a psionic attack, etc.).

Psionic Potential

Each psionic character has an inherent potential to develop psionic powers (see below). This potential is either a bonus or a penalty to his or her dice rolls to acquire specific psionic powers. To determine this potential, roll 2D6 and consult the following table:

Dice Roll Psionic Potential

2-4 -1

5-8 0

9-10 +1

11-12 +2

Psionic Powers

A roll of 19 or 20 on 1D20 indicates that a psionic character has developed a specific psionic power. The range of the roll is modified by the character's psionic potential bonus or penalty. For example, a character with a psionic potential of +1 develops a psionic power on a roll of 18, 19, or 20, while a character with a psionic potential of -1 develops a psionic power only on a roll of 20.

If the dice roll indicates they have gained such a power, the player rolls randomly to determine his or her initial power, using the charts below. Characters may develop an additional psionic power every time they gain a level, at the usual chance, as modified by their psionic potential.

Psionic powers are divided into basic and advanced powers. A character's initial psionic power must be a basic ability. Subsequent powers may be either basic or advanced, but no character may ever have more advanced powers than he or she has basic ones (though they may be equal in number). Re-roll any contradictory dice results.

Psionic powers are also divided into disciplines. Some referees may require that characters develop one or more powers from the same discipline as their first power before developing powers from other disciplines, but, by default, there is no necessity for this. On the other hand, some powers have class restrictions by default, but individual referees may choose to ignore them in their own campaigns.

Attack and Defense Modes

There are five psionic attack modes and five psionic defense modes. These modes are like specialized psionic powers whose use pertains only to engaging in psychic combat. When a character develops psionic powers, he or she gains immediate access to the first attack mode (mind thrust) and the first defense mode (empty mind). Thereafter, characters gain an additional attack mode every time they develop a total of three psionic powers; they gain an additional defense mode every time they develop a total of psionic powers. Thus, a character with four psionic powers would have two attacks modes and three defense modes. Both attack and defense modes are learned in order, according to the list below.

Psionic Power Points

Psionic powers and attack/defense modes use power points to manifest. The power point cost of each is listed in its description below. Power points, once used, cannot be restored until the character has a chance to meditate without interruption for a period of time (exact length and details determined by the referee). The number of power points available per day is as follows:

Level Power Points

1 2

2 6

3 11

4 17

5 25

6 35

7 46

8 58

9 72

10 88

11 106

12 126

13 147

14 170

15 195

16 221

17 250

18 280

19 311

20 343

By default, “level” in the chart above equals character level. However, in campaigns where characters may develop psionic powers after first level, the referee may choose to track psionic ability separately from character level. In that case, “level” refers to their psionic ability level.

Fight On! #4 in PDF

Issue #4 of Fight On! is now available in PDF. You can purchase it here. Issue #4 is dedicated to the memory of Dave Hargrave, creator of the Arduin Grimoire and, by all accounts, one of the greatest referees in the history of the hobby. Clocking in at 122 pages, there's a lot of superb material to be found within, including my own contribution to the megadungeon, "The Darkness Beneath," in which the Thelidu play an important part. Biased though I am, I think it's well worth picking up if you're looking for some gonzo old school fun.

Fame and Fortune

I'm always a little bit surprised when I discover that venues outside our little bubble have taken notice of anything I've written. So it was this morning, when I found lots of hits from The Escapist, an online site dedicated primarily to video games of various sorts, though it's probably best known for the reviews of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw.

The hits originated in an article written by Allen Varney about the decline of tabletop roleplaying as a hobby and the effects, both good and bad, the Internet has had on the medium. Varney's no stranger to the world of pen and paper gaming, even if he spends most of his time nowadays in the electronic realm. His article is short, making it more a conversation starter rather than a definitive statement on the predicament tabletop gaming currently finds itself in. It's well worth a read, if only because The Escapist is widely read and influential, shaping the opinions and perceptions of many who might otherwise have little contact with the RPG community anymore, assuming they ever had any.

More Megadungeon Help

I need one more thing before the first batch of materials for the megadungeon go online. That's a "side view" map of the dungeon itself. I'm useless when it comes to anything like that and, while not strictly necessary, I think it adds a lot to the dungeon, if you can see how its various pieces fit together.

So, if you're someone with some artistic ability and is interested in doing something like this -- and have the time to do it -- let me know. I'm not looking for anything fancier than the side views found in Holmes or Moldvay.

Thanks.

Dwimmermount, Session 7

After a three week hiatus because of various real life commitments, Dwimmermount resumed yesterday and did so quite enjoyably. The characters -- Brother Candor, Dordagdonar, and Iridessa -- along with many of their hirelings decided to make the journey to the City-State of Adamas to purchase some specialty supplies, such as riding horses, scrolls, and anti-venom. While there, they once again encountered Pike, who'd be spending his loot from previous sessions in true Conan fashion. Since he was down to his last few silver pieces when the others arrived, he was ready to rejoin their company and explore Dwimmermount once again.

Brother Candor used the opportunity to pay a visit to the local temple of Tyche, attempting to engage in a little simony. As conceived, he's not part of the formal hierarchy of the faith, having been trained by his adoptive father, a wayard cleric of Lady Luck, without sanction of his superiors. Candor now realizes that he'd benefit greatly from having some connection to the temple. Nothing has yet come of his efforts, but that may change once he returns to Adamas to "donate" some more money to Tyche's mortal servants.

The characters plotted their way back down into the second level. Iridessa, played by my nine year-old daughter, vowed not to be so cowardly this time. In the previous session, she spent most of the time running away from situations she considered too dangerous. She still stayed toward the rear of the party -- though not all the way back, of course -- but she was a bit more active than previously. Mind you, much of her activity consisted of unsuccessfully throwing darts at enemies rather than casting spells.

What I found interesting was how much my daughter really enjoyed herself this time, even though her character was, to put it charitably, a less than effective member of the party. To her, dungeon delving is exciting simply to watch, never mind to participate in. In my biased opinion, this is a very heartening to see; it's a reminder of just how much fun D&D really can be, even at its most primal. Interesting too is how she's constructing an imaginary "superstructure" to support the existence of her character and the dungeon, filling in details where none have been provided. These details certainly lack the polish (or coherence) of less improvisational creativity, but, since I've explicitly eschewed that approach, I'm going to run with what she or anyone else comes up with and see where it takes us rather than fret over how it's "not what I would have done." Indeed, "not what I would have done" is part of the point.

The party's continued exploration of level 2 had some fun moments. The characters encountered a collection of malicious -- and invisible -- fairy creatures in a room with some unnatural mushrooms. The fairies used ranged weapons to keep themselves safely away from the party, which made it difficult for them to engage them. Pike decided that he would rush forward and attack the mushrooms, hoping that they'd release a cloud of spores into the room that might briefly make the fairies visible. He was correct, except that the spore cloud was poisonous. Had he not wisely used the anti-venom he purchased, he'd now be dead. Upon seeing the fairies' outlines in the spore cloud, Dordagdonar decided to cast sleep on them, both forgetting that, like himself, fairies are probably immune to this spell (they were) and that Pike was in the area of effect. Pike was placed in a magical slumber for 90 minutes, during which time a wandering swarm of fire beetles attacked the party. When Pike came to, he was less than pleased with his elf companion, who offered no defense except, "The affairs of ephemerals do not concern me."

Level 2 seems to be populated by a large number of "beast men," sub-human morlock-like creatures of indeterminate origin. Stupid and fearless (well, they are now, since I forgot to check morale for them -- oops), they travel in large hordes and try to overwhelm their opponents. At one point, the characters stumbled on a room filled with 10 of them. The ensuing melee alerted 10 more from a nearby room. This led to a massive battle between the four PCs and their hirelings (Hrothgar the Viking mercenary, Sam the archer, Brakk the goblin, and Henga the Shield-Maiden) that lasted many rounds. This being Swords & Wizardry, I don't think the combat lasted more than 30 minutes of real time, if that, which really pleased everyone involved. I was also very impressed by the good use of tactics by the PCs, who took full advantage of the narrow hallways to keep the beast-men at bay. Missile weapons and polearms also contributed to the characters' ultimate victory, after which they headed out to heal, rest, and re-memorize spells.

All in all, this was a very fun session, a nice way to get back into the groove of things after several weeks off. The characters are also starting to gel nicely, with little details coming out through play. For example, it was learned that Pike is only semi-literate, most of his education having come from reading tombstones in his previous line of work. Likewise, Iridessa is not in fact 15 years old, as she claimed, but 12. Her parents had sold her to an unscrupulous wizard as an apprentice, but she fled him, taking a spellbook with her, from which she learned the rudiments of her class.

Needless to say, I look forward to our next session.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Tros of Samothrace

While very few people remember him today, the Englishman William Gribbon, who used the pseudonym Talbot Mundy, was one of the most successful and well regarded pulp writers of the 1920s. His stories appeared in many places, including Adventure magazine. It was in the pages of Adventure that Mundy introduced the world to his greatest creation, Tros of Samothrace, a Greek rebel living in the time of Julius Caesar. More than that, he was a swashbuckling adventurer and initiate into a mystery cult, who traveled the Ancient World, fighting against the tyranny of Rome while aiding peoples crushed beneath its iron-shod sandals. Tros is also a peerless sailor and dreams of one day sailing around the world, seeking both excitement and freedom from Roman domination. Consequently, the stories of Tros see him travel the length and breadth of the Mediterranean world, giving Munday the opportunity to show off a wide variety of locations, cultures, and historical events.

In 1934, the publishing house Appleton-Century collected nine Tros novellas together under a single cover and released it. This same collection was re-released in 1958 by Gnome Press and, through this edition, many future fantasy and science fiction writers were first exposed to these well-written stories of historical fantasy. Mundy was a very talented writer, far better than many of his contemporaries, particularly when it came to characterization. His characters have a depth that is usually lacking in pulp fantasy. Likewise, the details of the Ancient World are presented in a way that, while not always historically accurate, nevertheless provide a verisimilitude that nicely grounds them in reality, thereby making some of the stories' more outlandish elements easier to accept. Of course, the adventures of Tros are broadly "realistic" anyway, so it's not much of a stretch. Still, it's hard not to appreciate Mundy's facility with his material; these stories are a lot of fun and good inspiration for players and referees alike.

(Tros of Samothrace is also one of several books that might have inspired the D&D druid class, since Tros makes common cause with the druids in his battle against Rome)

I Need Rumors and Random Encounters

One area where people can help me immediately -- and easily -- is to provide me with rumors and random encounters for the surface ruins of the megadungeon. I love random tables and plan to include lots of them in this project, because they're great idea mines, not to mention very useful in play. However, I find I tend to get in ruts when it comes to creating these things myself, so ...

Send me an email at the address to the right with [MEGADUNGEON] in the subject line, since that'll make it simpler for me to keep track of all this stuff. I don't want anything detailed or elaborate, though I have no objection to such things. What's important is that the rumors about the megadungeon be interesting and that the random encounters (which can include events) be similarly intriguing. I can come up with "The abbot possessed a giant diamond the size of a man's fist" rumors and "1d6+1 kobolds" encounters easliy enough on my own. What I often have trouble with are the wackier and more creative examples of the same, which is why I'd like some assistance. Refer to the background I posted the other day if you need some context for the whole thing.

Thanks in advance for this.

Yet More Megadungeon News

Just a quick update: we're on track to go live next week with a basic website and information about the surface ruins of the megadungeon. That ought to be a good start to the whole project. With luck, we'll also have some subterranean material as well, such as the catacombs and the first level of the dungeon proper. If not, they'll be coming along soon enough.

Once again, thanks to everyone who's been pitching in to get this done. I have no idea how successful this project will prove in the end, but it won't be for lack of assistance from others. Wish us luck.

In Praise of Call of Cthulhu

I've talked at length about my long love affair with Call of Cthulhu before. I don't intend to plow that particular field again in this post. Instead, I wanted to talk not about the greatness of Call of Cthulhu as a roleplaying game, but about its greatness as a product.

Take a look at the image of the cover to the right. You can see that it's the game's sixth edition. If you follow the link to my original post, you can see the cover of the first edition box. Look carefully at each and you'll see a couple of interesting things. First, there's the logo. The one that appears on the 2004 6th edition is nearly identical to the one that appears on the 1981 1st edition. That may seem like a small thing, but it's not, for reasons I'll explain momentarily. Take a look too at the credits on the cover. Both editions credit Sandy Peterson and Lynn Willis as the primary authors. On one level, that might not seem that unusual, except that Sandy Peterson hasn't worked at Chaosium since the late 80s and, unless someone can correct me on this, hasn't actually been involved in the development of the Call of Cthulhu RPG in close to 20 years. Yet Chaosium still credits him as the game's author. Why?

Here's the reason: it's essentially the same in 2009 and as it was in 1981, when I first bought the thing. Yes, there have been some changes: APP replaced CHA (a change I still dislike), the introduction of Magic Points, slight changes to the skill lists, etc. Most of those changes happened a long time ago (2nd edition?) and, in any event, are so minor as to be insignificant in play. I can still use my 1st printing of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth with my 20th anniversary edition of the rules with ease. The various editions of the game are mostly just reprintings that incorporate errata and minor rules fixes rather than complete overhauls of the system. The only reasons to buy a new edition of Call of Cthulhu is if your old copy is falling apart from use, you want to get a copy for a newcomer to the game, or you feel you ought to support Chaosium's efforts. But there's never any sense that one must buy a new edition and, if one did, you'd quickly realize how mistaken you were in thinking this, for, as I said, the changes between editions are quite minor.

Having the same logo for nearly 30 years emphasizes the continuity between the editions, just as crediting its original authors does. That's an amazingly commendable thing on many levels. I'm hard pressed to think of a roleplaying game that's been as stable and consistent as Call of Cthulhu over as long a period of time. Can you imagine if other RPGs had followed the same path? I can already hear the objection that Chaosium is far from a model business. If their approach is so good, why aren't they a bigger and more successful company?

To that there are many answers, but, ultimately, I think any gaming company that's managed to be in business for over 30 years despite its many mistakes is definitely a "successful" one. No, they're not a subsidiary of a multibillion dollar megacorporation, but so what? I can still go into a game store and find a copy of Call of Cthulhu to purchase, take it home, and play it with my friends, some of whom own copies from two decades ago. We'll be able to play together with no problem. From my idiosyncratic perspective, I count that an amazing success, one that almost no other game in the history of the hobby can match.

Words from the Past

If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, D&D will have become staid and boring indeed. Sorry, but I don't believe that there is anything desirable in having various campaigns playing similarly to one another....I desire variance in interpretation and, as long as I am editor of the TSR line and its magazine, I will do my utmost to see that there is as little trend towards standardization as possible. Each campaign should be a 'variant', and there is no 'official interpretation' from me or anyone else.

--E. Gary Gygax, Alarums & Excursions #2 (July 1975)

Thanks to Victor Raymond for providing me with this quote.

Alternate Histories

The always-insightful Victor Raymond offered up a brief comment to my post about Swords & Wizardry psionics that hits very close to something I intended to talk about today. He says:

What's interesting here, I think, is the way in which we're recapitulating the evolution of Original D&D - various discussions of various supplements, like here, and finding ways to adapt or recreate these systems for availability and use today. This doesn't surprise me, but there is an interesting possibility in all of this: at some point, Original D&D will have been fully re-imagined, but it's not at all clear that AD&D 1st Edition is the "natural" next step. Nothing against the fine folk who have put together OSRIC, but fairly soon we will be able to take our "Original D&D" in directions that were not thought of "back in the day" - and that will be a good thing, I think. YMMV.

Victor hits several nails solidly on their heads here. Much as I love AD&D, there's very little question that its appearance between 1977 and 1979 was not a wholly organic development, except from a business standpoint. By that I mean that, if one reads editorials in The Dragon from the early days of the hobby, not to mention other fanzines and even the OD&D supplements themselves, AD&D doesn't seem to have been inevitable and one could argue quite cogently that it was in fact a volte-face on the part of TSR, a repudiation of Volume III's question, "... but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?"

I exaggerate, of course. For all its ponderousness, at its core AD&D is still a very "light" system compared to many of its contemporaries and successors. I wouldn't hesitate to call its mechanical design principles old school, though I would feel compelled to note that the way the game was sold and promoted laid the groundwork for much mischief later, both by Gary Gygax and others. AD&D was only possible in the wake of the twin legal battles with Dave Arneson and Dave Hargrave and the rise of convention play as an important element of TSR's business plan.

Let me reiterate that I'm not trying to saying AD&D is the Devil's own game or that Gary or TSR or anyone associated with those days were involved in some kind of conspiracy to suck the soul out of the hobby, as I think no such thing. However, I think it's quite possible to imagine an alternate history, one in which the inclusiveness and open-mindedness of the early days of the hobby hadn't disappeared once roleplaying became a big business. In such an environment, I don't think AD&D would have come about at all, as there'd have been no need, let alone demand, for it.

To imagine what such an alternate history might look like, you need only consider the current state of the old school renaissance. What you're seeing now is a "retro-clone" of this possible past. We have multiple games -- Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, to name just three -- that all derive from the same root stock. Each is supported by a variety of third parties, as well as a fan community that freely and easily moves between them all without any sense that it's "wrong" to do so. There are fanzines and the latter-day equivalent of APAs, the blogs. This community is a chaotic, roiling mess, bubbling with creativity and discussion -- and arguments -- about how best to do this or that or what would happen if you mix these two things to build a third thing. There is no one true way here, even if there are some who will occasionally try to convince you otherwise. At the very least, there is no single True Game®, as no one has the resources to create the perception of one in the fans, who are frankly too happy with the embarrassment of riches to care anyway.

Again, I exaggerate, of course -- but only slightly. One of the reasons why I don't shirk from talk about an old school "renaissance" is because, in a very real way, this is a rebirth of the hobby. It's like it's 1977 all over again, except this time Supplement IV really is the last OD&D supplement and there will be no cease and desist orders sent to the House of the Dragon Tower.

How cool is that?

REVIEW: El Raja Key's Arcane Treasury

Fantasy has always embodied the spirit of impossibilities come to life and the ability to interact within a fictional strangeness, and sometimes, to even understand it. The freshness of mystery and suspense that that brings to the game can be readily manipulated by a competent DM, and so too can it be enhanced by uniqueness, whether self-created or borrowed from books meant to help with that.

I've touched on the topic of my disenchantment with magic items (no pun intended) in this blog before. To summarize: I think one of D&D's biggest flaws, one that's been amplified as the years -- and editions -- have dragged on, is the reduction of magic and magic items to an alternate technology, often of a very base sort. It's one thing to use a spell or item in a way that mimics a mundane technology. Anyone who's run a campaign long enough has seen clever players do such things and I don't (generally) have an issue with that. It's another thing entirely, though, to create spells or magic items whose sole purpose is to mimic mundane technology, which is to say, that have no other use other than to introduce some modern convenience into a fantasy world. Worse still are those spells and magic items whose sole purpose is to provide some mechanical benefit -- +2 to Armor Class or +10 to Stealth checks or whatever -- rather than the mechanical benefit arising out of another in-game purpose.

So it was with great interest that I purchased El Raja Key's Arcane Treasury from Pied Piper Publishing, because I felt pretty certain that one of its authors, Rob Kuntz, felt similarly about the matter. ERKAT is a 96-page perfect-bound volume that sells for $24.95, written by Kuntz and Eric N. Shook, whom Kuntz credits with "the majority of the design work" in his introduction. Its contents consist of an alphabetical listing of nearly 150 magic items. Unlike those described in Daemonic & Arcane, these items appear to be wholly original to this product, without any antecedents in the Greyhawk campaign. If I'm mistaken on this point, I think it's still safe to say that the majority of these items are wholly original and created for publication in ERKAT. In itself, this is no flaw, as I'll explain, but it may be a disappointment to some who assume that every Pied Piper Publishing release is based on material created for or used in the Lake Geneva campaign Rob Kuntz co-DMed with Gary Gygax. The impression I get is that ERKAT describes the kinds of magic items that might have appeared in the Greyhawk campaign, even if they never actually did so.

As I said, this is a departure from previous Pied Piper products, although it's not an entirely unwelcome one. Much as I crave more "historical" products, I actually think there's a great need for new material written in a way that's consonant with the "philosophy" behind the early days of the hobby. Kuntz's introduction makes it apparent that he not only understands that philosophy but believes it has a lot to offer the hobby even today. In that sense, ERKAT is what one might call a "neo-old school" product -- a terrible term, I know -- as it uses old school principles to present original material that's not explicitly an ape or a simulacrum of anything that's gone before. It's a bold approch and one of which I approve, even if the final result doesn't quite fulfill the promise I see in it.

Let me be clear, though: this is a very good product. It's certainly the most polished and "professional" product PPP has published to date. The writing is clear, the editing solid. The artwork, particularly Eric Bergeron's cover, is attractive and even evocative at times. This is a very well put together product and one that I hope is the first of many similarly well made products from PPP. More importantly, the ideas to be found with ERKAT's page are, for the most part, top notch. Most of the magic items described within are singular items. They're not the products of a magical assembly line, endlessly cranking out +1 swords to be deposited in treasure troves throughout the fantasy world. Instead, we're treated to unique items like The Escutcheon of the Gorgeous Maw, a shield with a ravenous mouth, and The Two-Faced Memorial Mace, a weapon whose efficacy reflects the religious standing of its wielder.

There are no "throwaway" items in ERKAT; you can tell from the sometimes lengthy descriptions that each one is the result of a kind of mad genius who understands the virtues of mystery, danger, and whimsy in the crafting of memorable magic items. I personally appreciate this, since my own talents in this area are meager. Reading through ERKAT, I had no trouble finding many items that I'd readily drop into my Dwimmermount campaign. There were also many items I'd never include and it's here, I think, that ERKAT falters at least a little. Items like D'Trampa's Magic Coach, a magically summonable taxi, for example, are a little too obviously "jokey" for my liking, though I readily concede that I tend a bit more toward the serious when it comes to how I run my campaign than do many old schoolers. Given the large number of items included in ERKAT, I don't think its authors can be faulted for including a few misses in with their many hits, however.

My main criticism of the book lies in its sometimes-wordy descriptions of its magic items. On some level, this is understandable. ERKAT has very few explicit mechanics in its descriptions and, even when it does, they're presented in an almost "impressionistic" way. That's not to say they never mention "2d6 damage" or "-3 penalty" or "for six rounds" at all, because they often do. Compared even to AD&D's magic item descriptions, though, those in ERKAT are notably lacking in "crunch," which necessitates being a bit wordier when it comes to elucidating their effects. I won't go so far as to say it was a "mistake" to adopt this approach. I do think, however, that it did a less than ideal job in highlighting the loose, free-wheeling nature of old school design and play. I'd have much preferred slightly more laconic entries, if only for compactness, never mind the implicit invitation to each referee to interpret the effects of these items as he sees fit in his own campaign. I'd say that James Mishler's many magic item descriptions come very close to my ideal, as do the descriptions in PPP's other product, Daemonic & Arcane.

In the end, though, despite my criticisms, this is an excellent book and represents a terrific step forward for Pied Piper Publishing, both in terms of presentation and content. While I hope PPP will continue to provide many more historical gaming products, I also look forward to seeing more original material from them. If it's as good as El Raja Key's Arcane Treasury, it will be very good indeed.

Presentation: 7 out of 10
Creativity: 9 out of 10
Utility: 8 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for a collection of unique magic items whose use is not always immediately apparent.
Don't Buy This If: You prefer magic items to be straightforward in their use and have lots of game mechanics attached to their functioning.

If this be madness ...

St. Cuthbert help me but I've begun doing a hack of the Eldritch Wizardry psionics rules for Swords & Wizardry -- and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. I started it up on a lark, trying to see how easy it'd be and I soon found it wasn't that bad at all. I'm especially grateful to the D20 SRD, which has proven very useful in this little lark of a project. My feelings about 3e's complexity to the contrary, if you dig deeply into it, you'll find a lot of the game's OD&D/AD&D is buried under the surface, just waiting to be mined for old school projects. It's frankly amazing to me that WotC allowed so much of the Gygaxo-Arnesonian patrimony of the game to enter into public use through the OGL, but thank goodness for that.

If this gets anywhere, I'll probably just make a little PDF of the whole thing and make it a free download somewhere.

Some Megadungeon Details

The megadungeon project is picking up steam and, barring some unforeseen turn of events, should go live sometime next week, although I don't have a precise date. A lot depends on how soon a few bits and bobs being done by people other than myself are completed. That said, I'm mightily impressed by the assistance I'm getting and would like to thank everyone who's contributed their talents to this. I have no doubt that the final result of all this work will be much, much better for all the help I have received (and will receive in the future).

Since many of you are chomping at the bit for some guidelines for submissions, I'll offer the following tentative ones. Fuller and more detailed ones will appear once the site is up and running.

• Please send all submissions to me at my email address to the right. Let me know if, in the event I use your submission, the name under which you'd like credit to appear. Likewise, if you want a link to your website/blog along with your name, let me know that as well.
• Anything I accept remains yours to use in any way you see fit to use it. I only ask for the right to use your submissions in the context of this project, including in the (unlikely) event that a printed version of the megadungeon appears later.
  
• The native rules set for this project is the Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules. They're available free here. Submissions are not required to use these rules -- I can make an conversions myself -- but having them in a form that's at least roughly compatible with them is a big help to me.
• Submissions can be any length, but I generally prefer shorter entries to longer ones, since I want to keep the format relatively spartan and easily customizable.
• Besides room descriptions (which I'll discuss below), I'm especially keen on getting submissions of artwork, new monsters, new magic items, new spells, tricks, and traps.
  

Once the site is live, there will be a selection of maps available, with each room/area numbered. If you're interested in a particular room, you can lay claim to it by sending me an email to let me know that you'd like to detail it. I'll respond to let you know if it's still available and, if so, you're expected to make your submission in fairly short order. "Fairly short order" is vague, I know, but I can't be more precise than that, since it's very situational. If you choose room 50 and I've only detailed up to room 10, odds are good you have more time than if you'd chosen room 12. That said, in most cases, I will not be waiting on a submission to arrive before proceeding. If someone claims a room and doesn't make a submission by the time I get to that section of the dungeon, I'll just make up my own details instead. I'm taking this approach not to be a cruel taskmaster but to ensure that the whole project doesn't founder on any one person's inability to follow through. In the end, if this project fails, I want to be the reason for its failure, not anyone else.

Now, the first areas to be detailed will be the following. If you're really keen to help now and would like to offer something before the maps are posted, you can do so. Otherwise, you can use the basic ideas I'm presenting here to start thinking about possible submissions.

• Lower Temple: This is the ruined remains of a Lawful temple used primarily by villagers and pilgrims. It's small and was sacked by humanoid invaders, whose evil masters used it as a field headquarters as they besieged the fortifications atop the nearby hill.
• Lower Gatehouse: This is all that remains of the portal that once allowed travelers to pass through the walls of the monastery.
  
• Tower Ruins: Two defensive towers still stand and may hold inhabitants and/or secrets of use to adventurers.
• Ruins and Rubble: The monastery once had many other buildings, mostly made of wood and other less sturdy materials: a hostel, a hospital, etc. These were all razed when the monastery was attacked, but some remnants of them remain, some of which might be of interest.
• Upper Temple: The upper temple was used primarily by the monks and by others on high holy days and other important occasions. Like the Lower Temple, it too was sacked but its structural sturdiness and powerful consecration to Law made it much more resistant the ravages of time and the depredations of Chaos.
• Upper Gatehouse: This portal limited access to the underworld over which the monastery kept watch. Even now, it stands strong and passing through it requires not just bravery but also wisdom (or at least cleverness).
• Fortifications: The protective walls and rooms of the Upper Temple's defenses still stand and certainly hold clues to be found.
• Hermit Caves: The monastery grew after a number of mystical hermits established themselves here, living lives of prayer and devotion in a series of natural caves. There are several entrances into the underworld hidden here as well.
  
• Lower Catacombs: The Lower Catacombs are a combination of natural caves and rough-hewn chambers used to entomb the dead of non-clerical and low estate. They contain at least one entrance into the underworld.
  
• Upper Catacombs: The Upper Catacombs contain more hewn chambers than the Lower Catacombs and houses the tombs of clerics, including a succession of abbots, and individuals of high estate. There are several entrances into the underworld here.
• The Well: Used to draw fresh water for the fortifications, it's also another entrance into the underworld.

That's the general structure of the surface ruins of the monastery; it's these that will be detailed first, following by levels of the underworld proper. As always, I'm very keen on suggestions about how to use this basic set-up to create an interesting environment to explore through play.

Size Does Matter

As there often is, there's a nifty little thread at Original D&D Discussion about the page count of roleplaying games over the ages. Of particular interest are the statistics provided for the various incarnations of old school D&D:

• OD&D (LBBs only): 56 full pages (112 half-sheets)
• OD&D (LBBs + 4 supplements): 183 full pages (366 half-sheets)
• Holmes Basic: 48 pages
• AD&D 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 470 pages

As you can see, there's a huge jump there between even OD&D in its fullest form and AD&D -- nearly three times as many pages. I've stated before that I adore AD&D; I keep my copies of its three Gygax-penned rulebooks on my shelf right above my computer where I write this. I frequently refer to those volumes for insights into many issues pertaining to the game.

Yet, I can't deny that those books are unnecessarily ponderous. Even though I used most of its rules back in the day, I'm not sure much was gained with the added complexity of AD&D and I know much was lost, in particular the free-wheeling, open-ended nature of OD&D. Part of the appeal of games like Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord is that they're so compendious, a virtue long since bred out of the descendants of OD&D.

Retrospective: The World of Greyhawk

Though my fondness for Judge's Guild's Wilderlands has since eclipsed it, I still consider 1980's The World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting to be the best campaign setting product TSR ever produced. I can already hear the chorus of disagreement rising in the background, as fans of Planescape and Dark Sun, Birthright and Ravenloft, even the 1983 Greyhawk boxed set prepare to show me the error of my ways. They're welcome to try and make their case, but I'm not easily dissuaded on this point, as I'll explain.

When I say "best," I'm not speaking specifically about the Greyhawk setting itself. I certainly like Greyhawk a great deal, make no mistake. As one might expect, it's a perfectly naturalist setting -- a faux medieval Europe with magic and monsters added to it. It's the very definition of what hipsters nowadays call "vanilla fantasy." I readily concede that point. Greyhawk isn't very remarkable as a work of the imagination. Most of its setting elements are immediately recognizable to anyone with a passing knowledge of history and pulp fantasy archetypes. But that's to the good, since it makes it very easy for both players and referees to get into the setting without having to understand reams of backstory and minutiae. The World of Greyhawk was intended to be a backdrop for one's D&D adventures. Backdrop. It's there to provide a little context and depth; it wasn't intended to be the focus of one's campaigns.

Commendable though that is, The World of Greyhawk's real virtues are as a product. When I said it was "the best campaign setting product TSR ever produced," I meant that literally. This product consists of two large hex maps -- among the most beautiful ever made for any RPG product -- and a 32-page booklet that gives a brief overview of the setting, its nations, peoples, points of interest, and related matters. You'll find no uber-NPCs within, very little history, and no epic plotlines. With the exception of a few adventures that were tied to locations on its maps, The World of Greyhawk didn't even get further supplements.

The setting was a gigantic canvas onto which great swaths of bright colors had been applied, but which was noticeably lacking in detail. If the referee wanted such detail, he had to make it up for himself, which is exactly what I did do. When I tell people that, as a kid, I played in a Greyhawk campaign, what I mean is that I played in a campaign that used the map from The World of Greyhawk and the sparse details I found in the accompanying folio. The specifics of that campaign bear minimal resemblance to what Greyhawk would become later, with its great wars, grand plans, and powerful NPCs. Mordenkainen? Tenser? Robilar? Who were they? They never appeared in my games except as names associated with spells or magic items. I'm not even sure I was cognizant of their connection to Greyhawk at the time. My Greyhawk was home to Morgan Just, Sir James Calvert, Theinburger the Thief, and Evro, among many others. They were the most important people in the Flanaess and it was they who stood against its worst villains: Severinus the Lich-Lord, Ragrak Troll-Born, and Ashad Raghul and his Black Brotherhood. If you've never heard of them, that's no surprise, since I made them all up, placing them within Greyhawk and using them in all manner of adventures that forever changed the face of the setting. My setting.

They say that brevity is the soul of wit, but it's also the soul of a good campaign setting product in my opinion. The best ones are those that provide referees with the broad strokes and allow all the detail work to be done later, as needed, by the referee as his campaign evolves. The World of Greyhawk did that for me as a young person and I'm forever greatful for that. Much as I've loved many later campaign setting products for their brilliant ideas, none has ever compared with that Darlene map and 32-page folio when it comes to utility in play -- a brilliant product whose like I'd dearly love to see again.

Speaking of Artwork ...

Anybody out there have the skills and interest to do a banner for the website of the megadungeon? I don't want or need anything too elaborate -- I want to keep the website very straightforward and fast to load -- but I do want something that's eye-catching, attractive, and speaks to the idea behind this project: a collaborative, community-based, old school dungeon.

As with everything, I can't offer anyone a thing except my thanks for helping me with this.

Upcoming Review Change

I've got a rather large queue of reviews for the blog, which is terrific. Thank you to all the publishers who've sent me copies of their products -- and thank you for creating some many excellent old school products in the first place. While I don't think new products are the be-all and end-all of the old school movement, I nevertheless see the existence of new products as a sign (one of many) of its vitality, one that's often an important gateway through which gamers outside our company might be drawn into it.

One of the problems with my reviews to date is its scoring system. The original polearm rating was a bit of whimsy on my part, back when I never imagined I'd write so many reviews or that so many people would read them. After nearly a year of doing them, the inadequacies of the scores is starting to become more apparent. For one, the use of a zero to five gradation, even with half-grades in between, is a lot less intuitive than it ought to be. A 0 to 10 scale probably works better, since most readers seem to get it more easily. Secondly, and more importantly, a single grade doesn't really capture all the nuances of a product. And, frankly, I'm inconsistent on how many points I knock off for the things I don't like. So, sometimes a product I like but that has lots of production errors gets off more lightly than one I don't like that has far fewer such errors. What I need is a system that takes into account these various aspects of a book.

With that in mind, starting with my next review, I'll be using the 0 to 10 scale in three categories. These categories are:

• Presentation: This category covers the physical qualities of the product (if applicable) as well as its layout, artwork, and editing.
• Creativity: This category covers the ideas and concepts presented in the product.
• Utility: This category covers how useful the product is to players of old school games.

I think the expansion of the scoring system and the institution of categories will make the reviews more useful overall. At the very least, it'll give me wider scope to note a creative product's presentation difficulties without having to downgrade its overall score.

Let me also note that I don't generally write reviews of products I dislike. Even those products I rated 3 out of 5 under my old system (the lowest scores I gave) were ones I liked, even if I had issues with them that affected their final scores. Part of it is because I'm buying the vast majority of the products I review and I'm a picky buyer. I don't generally take chances on products I don't think possess some virtues, even if only as an idea mine. Now, if that situation were to change and I were to start getting lots of freebies from publishers, I might start publishing more negative reviews (not that I like writing negative reviews). Until then, I expect my reviews to be generally positive, even if I take them as opportunities to pick nits as well.

Monte Cook is Cool

In light of recent events, I'd like to state clearly that, whatever our philosophical differences, I think Monte Cook is a good fellow. I received an email from him yesterday in which he offered me access to his Dungeonaday.com so that I could see for myself what he was up to. He did this without any strings attached and in fact said upfront that, if I didn't like what I saw, he'd have no beef with my saying so here. He didn't have to do that and, honestly, after the uproar my posts caused, I'm mightily impressed he did so. Monte is obviously a bigger man than I.

More than that, though, he's a man who's interested in engaging in discussion about the points I've raised here. Our initial email exchange ranged over a number of topics pertaining to the "old school" question and I'll admit that I was taken aback by some of what he said -- not in a bad way but because a lot of it sounded like things I myself have said here on this blog. And as I'm constantly reminded by some of my commenters, I like nothing better than having my prejudices confirmed by others. All the better if Monte Cook is among them!

That's not to say we agree on all counts, because we don't, but I didn't expect we'd agree on half the stuff we do agree on, so those sources of disagreement seem a lot less significant by comparison. In any case, I certainly hope to continue this dialog with Monte; it's already been immensely useful to me as I grapple with a couple of issues related to the "old school" question. I'll also be taking a good, hard look at Dungeonaday, as I said I would in my initial post. Once I've had a chance to do so, I'll compose my thoughts into a review, with an eye toward its utility for gamers whose understanding of "old school" is roughly similar to my own. My first peeks at it left me with a positive feeling. There are things I already know I dislike about it, but there's also a lot to admire and approve of. But I'll save those thoughts for another time.

My hat's off to Monte Cook. He's one of the good ones.

More Megadungeon Details

Some more updates for those of you following the development of this project:

1. I apologize for not yet responding to all my emails, particularly those offering assistance. I've been floored by the large number of responses I got and it's taking me a few days to reply to them all, but I will do so. Please bear with me.

2. In all likelihood, the site for the megadungeon will launch sometime next week. I'm not sure of the precise date yet, since it depends on how quickly I can get all the initial materials together. Things are coming along very quickly, though, so it shouldn't be too long before it's all under way.

3. Initially, the online material will focus on the surface ruins of the place. Take a look at the map I posted yesterday for an idea of what's in store. If anyone has any ideas for encounters, tricks, traps, treasures, rumors, or anything else pertaining to these area, send them my way. I'll likely be very selective with what I can use initially, since I want to be sure the early material sets the tone for the whole megadungeon. Not having posted much yet, it'll be harder for contributors to intuit what I'm getting at now than it will be later. So, caveat scriptor.

4. More specific guidelines for what I want/need will be forthcoming in a day or two.

5. I am likely to use Swords & Wizardry Core Rules for this project. Lots of people have sent me advice and suggestions about this question and there seems to be a clear majority of people for whom S&W is their preference. It's position as a "Rosetta clone" makes it easier for people to convert to their favorite old school system, especially if, as I will, I put aside my dislike of Ascending AC for the greater good and use it.

I think that's it for the moment. More soon.

Swords & Wizardry Second Printing Now Available

Press Release

Swords & Wizardry Project
http://www.swordsandwizardry.com
mythmere at yahoo dot com

I’m very proud to announce that the second printing of the Swords & Wizardry Core Rules is now available for free download here: Free PDF of Core Rules and that print versions are for sale (and super-cheap) at Lulu.com at our storefront

Swords & Wizardry is an OGL “retro-clone” of the original fantasy roleplaying game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The Core Rules also contain some selected material from the supplements (1974-1978). With a thriving internet community and tons of support products, Swords & Wizardry is bringing back a lost style of fantasy roleplaying. Forget huge rulebooks - just play. If you can imagine it, you can do it in Swords & Wizardry. The rules are simple and quick to learn, and they are infinitely flexible and expandable. Take the basic framework and “Imagine the hell out of it!”

Swords & Wizardry is supported by Knockspell Magazine, the quarterly magazine of fantasy retro-clone gaming, and by the active forums at http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/forum.

The Megadungeon Takes Shape

Things are moving swiftly on my still-nameless megadungeon project. I've been deluged with offers of assistance from many people -- and I apologize to those of you to whom I have yet to respond; I'm really behind on my correspondence this weekend -- and I'm quite grateful for it. I may yet be proven to have bitten off more than I can chew, but, if so, it won't be for lack of help from many quarters. In addition to the offers of assistance, I've received many private messages of encouragement, some from rather unexpected sources, and I can't say how much that cheers me. I'm starting to think I actually can orchestrate this project to good effect and I'll be talking more specifically about my plans shortly.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a preliminary map of the surface ruins of the megadungeon. This gorgeous map was drawn for me by Fr Dave of the fascinating Blood of Prokopius blog. I'm very impressed by it, because it really captures exactly what I wanted for this first "level" of the dungeon, not to mention blowing away my own pathetic cartographic efforts in the original "Ruined Monastery" adventure from Fight On! issue #1. Aside from its attractiveness, the map is superb because it provides lots of possible means to enter the megadungeon complex.

I say "complex," because I envision this place as being a collection of levels, sub-levels, alternate levels, and related underworld environments. Lateral movement and choice of how to approach the megadungeon are important parts of the old school approach to dungeon delving. Castle Greyhawk, for example, had many different ways to enter it; choosing which entrance one used to do so was every bit as important as what one did once inside. It's all part of the strategic element of D&D -- itself a holdover from its wargaming roots -- that I absolutely adore and that makes the megadungeon concept so much fun. This is the kind of thing I intend to talk about as the megadungeon is built piece by piece. I hope that my readers will find it useful to understand the logic behind the decisions I make.

Once again, thanks to Fr Dave for a job extraordinarily well done. This map alone has already kick-started this project in an amazing way.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Legion of Space

Dungeons & Dragons, though a "fantasy" game, is the product of men who grew up in a time when the distinctions between that genre and what we now call "science fiction" were less firm. Indeed, one could argue with some justification that those distinctions only really firmed up in the years after the publication of OD&D. I myself sometimes find it difficult to come to terms with this reality. One of my great failings is that I like to put things into little mental boxes. This flaw has served me well in many ways, not least in ordering my thoughts as I marshal arguments in making my case for this or that. But it's a flaw nonetheless and it frequently leads me astray, particularly when I come across things that defy easy classification. Trying to put such things into a little box not only does them a disservice but it also prevents proper understanding.

Jack Williamson's 1947 novel, The Legion of Space, which was originally published in 1934 as a serial in Astounding Science Fiction, is pretty clearly a science fiction story. Yet Gary Gygax admitted that Williamson's science fiction yarns were a big influence on him in creating D&D. Until about a year ago, I wouldn't have been able to make much sense of this. On some level, I still find it odd, mostly because I'm working against decades-worth of indoctrination by the "fantasy and sci-fi don't mix" brigade that I sometimes think sprang up in reaction to the immense popularity of Star Wars, which gleefully committed that Original Sin of genre fiction.

In any case, The Legion of Space is a clever reworking of The Three Musketeers as a science fiction novel (one of the main characters' names is an anagram of Dumas). The titular Legion is an interplanetary police force/army that arose after the downfall of the Purple Hall, a tyrannical regime that had once ruled humanity. Now, a scion of the Purple Hall seeks help from the alien Medusae to assume the mantle of Emperor of the Sun and only the colorful members of the Legion stand in the way of this nefarious plot.

It's very easy to see why novels like this were so beloved by Gygax. Not only are they fun, enjoyable reads in their own right, they provide good models for referees looking to adapt classic literature to other ends. Williamson's borrowing from The Three Musketeers makes plain why the original story is considered a classic -- its characters, situations, and themes really do transcend both the time in which they were written and the times in which they were set. I suspect it's this that appealed to Gary and from which he took inspiration. As a novice referee, I know I cribbed heavily from my favorite books, although certainly not as skillfully as Williamson. Nevertheless, I think doing so was an important part of my "education" as a referee.

Books like The Legion of Space are another teacher, as they show a more sophisticated way to do what I often attempted less successfully in my youth. They're also vital in developing a more expansive understanding of "fantasy," something I think is key to comprehending the long-lasting appeal of Dungeons & Dragons. I'm still in the process of training myself to look beyond a staid conception of fantasy and to see a wider perspective. It's been an illuminating experience and one I recommend highly to anyone who, like me, is psychologically inclined to putting things into boxes even when it flies in the face of reality.

Treasure Maps

In OD&D, one-quarter of all "magic items" consist of treasure maps. This percentage is reduced to one-tenth in AD&D, but that's still sizable. If you've ever wondered about the origin and purpose of the read languages spell, look no further than treasure maps: "the means by which directions and the like are read, particularly on treasure maps."

I've always had a fondness for treasure maps, both in the abstract and in D&D. Perhaps I read Treasure Island one too many times, but I find maps of this sort to be very "magical." They're invitations to adventure, which strikes me as very old school. Characters who find a treasure map aren't required to follow it up; there's no guarantee that it leads to anything of value to them -- but it might. Weighing the risks of pursuing the directions of a map of unknown origin is another aspect of the strategy inherent in old school play. Maps are also an opportunity for the referee to expand the world beyond his immediate campaign area and indulge in that other pillar of D&D, the wilderness adventure.

I've used maps with a lot of success in the past. Morgan Just's quest for a pair of gauntlets of ogre power included at least one treasure map that ultimately proved to be of dubious value. Rory Barbossa's map to the Isle of Dread provided a lot of fun back in the day too. I've got some maps waiting to be found in Dwimmermount and the megadungeon beneath the ruined monastery will also include a number as well. When I was a teenager, I went through a phase where I was very keen on making props for use in my campaign. Treasure maps were among my favorites to make and I went to some great lengths to make them look "authentic." I used to bury them in the mud and dig them up after the soil had hardened. Sometimes I soaked them in tea for a while and then threw them in the dryer to give them a weathered look. I also discovered that a particular kind of aerosol air freshener, when applied directly to a piece of paper gave it a spotted, almost worn-eaten look. This also gave the paper a peculiar odor. Unfortunately, it also made the map quite flammable, as I discovered to my chagrin after applying a lighter to one in another experiment to give the map a "realistic" appearance.

Judges Guild produced at least one volume of treasure maps for use with D&D. I never owned it, so I can't speak to its virtues or flaws. I seem to recall that TSR produced something similar in the 2e era, but my memory may be playing tricks on me. So, the concept of the treasure map hasn't entirely faded from the hobby's memory, even if it is a lot less prominent than it used to be. OD&D "hardwires" the notion that at least some of the loot adventurers obtain from their expeditions is deferred and requires additional effort to claim. I rather like that and plan to do my part to promote the idea more widely.

Rival Adventurers

There are lots of elements of old school play that have been forgotten over the years and one of the ones I miss a lot is rival adventurers. Starting with OD&D, whose random encounter tables included entries for "Veterans" and "Mediums," and continuing at least through 1e -- I'm not sure if the tradition was continued in 2e -- there was always the implicit assumption that the player characters weren't the only adventurers delving into a particular dungeon. These other adventurers might not necessarily be evil, but, seeing as they were likely after the same things as the PCs, they could certainly be called rivals, with whom the PCs might even come to blows, as famously illustrated in the Dungeon Masters Guide, which describes the battle between Aggro the Axe, Abner, Arkayn, and Arlanni against Gutboy Barrelhouse, Balto, Blastum, and Barjin.

Rival adventurers are useful in a campaign for a variety of reasons. Firstly, they provide a link between the PCs and the outside world, especially in a megadungeon campaign. They're as much a part of Gygaxian naturalism as are monsters who do more than wait around to be killed. Second, they serve as a useful goad to the PCs. If they know they have rivals who are after the same goals as they, odds are good they might move a lot more precipitously, thereby leading to some interesting situations. In my Dwimmermount campaign, the players have found signs that someone has been in the dungeon while they were away healing and disposing of their loot, which has added another layer of urgency to their explorations. Finally, as a referee, rival adventurers provide an opportunity to roleplay with more depth than one is typically afforded by most monsters. I love playing the role of venal, self-interested antagonists; it's fun in a way that playing Pig-Face Orc #231 is not.

I suspect that one of the reasons why the idea of rival adventurers dropped out of gaming is because of the time consuming nature of creating them as rules become more complex. In ancient times, I could make up random adventuring parties on the fly by just referring to a couple of tables and making some quick dice rolls. I can't even begin to imagine doing that under 3e, for example, and I suspect I'm not alone in feeling this way. That's a shame, since rival adventurers bring a lot to the table and greatly expand the scope of the campaign in small but significant ways. That's why I was glad to see the concept included in Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. I'll be including several such groups for use with my megadungeon project and I'll be using them with Dwimmermount as well. It'd be nice to see other old school projects do the same.

Megadungeon Background

One of the things I think is very important for the creation of a good megadungeon is a solid background for its existence. By that I most certainly don't mean pages upon pages of details about the dungeon's construction and all the little events that took place in and around it. That strikes me as largely useless. I do, however, find utility in a "framing device" that gives some context to the whole thing -- something to provide a rough explanation for what's going on in the dungeon, even if it does obey its ecological and physical laws quite distinct from those of the world outside.

So, in thinking about it, I'm going to go back to the same well from which I drew "The Ruined Monastery" in issue #1 of Fight On! In that adventure, I created an order of Lawful monks dedicated to St. Gaxyg the Gray, who built their monastery on top of an ancient site suffused with the power of Chaos. The monastery thus served to "bottle up" Chaos, keeping it locked away in its subterranean stronghold and eventually, it was hoped, driving it out completely. Unfortunately, the monks grew corrupt and fell victim to greed both within their community and without, which led to the downfall of the monastery about a generation ago. Without the monks there to maintain the wards against Chaos and manning the battlements against its onslaught beneath the surface of the world, evil is growing and expanding once more.

That's the basic explanation of the megadungeon itself, which I plan to use to justify all the oddities within it. As I currently see it, there will be some surface ruins (of the monastery itself), as well as a couple of sub-levels that form the "topmost" levels of the dungeon. Beneath them, behind slowly-unraveling wards are the levels of the dungeon proper. They're a mix of natural caves and hewn rooms, the latter being part of the monks' centuries-old war against Chaos. Consequently, there are some "waypoints" and "bunkers" scattered throughout the lower levels, which in times past were used by the monks in their crusade. Some of them can still provide delvers with temporary "safe zones," but many, if not most, have been overtaken by Chaos and have been turned toward evil purposes. And, of course, as one gets deeper, the power of Chaos grows in strength, especially as one reaches levels that even the monks never entered, for it's here that the sources of the megadungeon's evil are to be found.

How's that sound?

Old School Megadungeon Update

Looks like my idea has generated a lot of enthusiasm and I'm pleased about that. I'm definitely moving ahead with this project, which I plan to launch formally sometime after the weekend. I need a few more days to hash out some basic ideas, get in touch with the many, many people who've offered to help me in various ways -- and I'm very grateful for that -- and otherwise lay down a plan for the whole thing.

For those keeping score, this is how things stand at the moment:

• I have a domain name and hosting service to deal with the actual placement of the megadungeon online.
• I am leaning toward using straight-up OD&D for this, though, truth be told, I'm not sure it'll matter what rules set I'm ostensibly using, since they won't play a big part in my writing.
• I won't promise daily updates, since, as many have wisely counseled, that's a recipe for burning out. Instead, I'll stick to "regular" updates, since that's vaguer and gives me some creative breathing room if I hit a snag or real life intervenes. Of course, given the rate of my posts on this blog, odds are good I'll update the megadungeon nearly daily anyway, especially if I garner enough contributions from others.
• I'm going to scale back my ambitions slightly. I'd originally envisaged a 10+ level dungeon. Now, I'm aiming for six levels, with the option to expand later. I say six levels, since that's the highest level covered by wandering monster tables in the White Box and because I think six levels is more easily doable. I don't want this project to terminate half-finished, so I'm trying to keep my initial work a manageable size.
  
• Finally, I'm thinking to turn this project, at least in part, into a "tutorial" about the design of old school dungeons. So, along with the various rooms themselves, I'll be adding some commentary about what I (or my contributors) did and why. The truth is that a lot of gamers are theoretically interested in megadungeons, but they don't completely understand the practicalities either of designing or running one. I'd like this project to educate about both.

So that's where I am at the moment. I'll be posting more over the weekend, as things solidify in my mind and I'll be getting in touch with people to assist me in this undertaking. I particularly need the services of cartographers who can produce old school-style maps that are both easily reproducible online and easily usable offline. I'm also grateful for artists who wish to help out, since I have even less ability to illustrate than I do to make maps.

More soon.

Modern Oddity

I was recently reminded of a bit of trivia I once knew but had somehow forgotten: George Romero's 1968 horror magnum opus, Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain, because its original distributor released it without a copyright notice. Consequently, anyone can now sell their own copies of the film or produce works derivative of it, including roleplaying games. I personally think that's rather nifty, but it's definitely an oddity in the modern world, where I long ago gave up hope that almost anything will ever pass into the public domain again.

This includes OD&D, which, under the terms of copyright at the time of its publication in 1974, would have entered the public domain in 2030. Those terms have since been revised multiple times, so that's an alternate reality that'll never come to pass. Fortunately, we have the Open Game License, which has given us Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord, among many other fine retro-clones and simulacra. So, whatever else I might say, my non-existent hat's off to the guys who came up with and promoted the OGL. The old school movement owes them a lot.

Don Quixote Rides Again

I've been thinking a lot about Monte Cook's Dungeonaday.com and I have to admit that I'm a little miffed about the whole thing. There are two reasons for my feelings, one rational and one not. Let's go with the irrational one first, because it's more easily dismissed. On a primal level, I feel as if there's a poacher in the King's Forest. Cook hasn't shown much evidence that I can see that he's at all sympathetic either to old school gaming or to the old school renaissance. I rather suspect (though, admittedly, I don't yet have proof) that his use of the term "old-school tradition" in his announcement is a marketing fiction rather than a statement of his philosophical commitment to the Old Ways. Like I said, this is my irrational, lizard brain reaction to the whole thing, so please don't criticize me for it.

My more rational feeling pertains to the commodification of the whole thing. Yes, I know Monte Cook's a writer and he needs to make a living just like everyone else, but knowledge of those realities doesn't change the bad taste I get in my mouth when I think about this. For what it's worth, I think WotC's D&D Insider is a similarly crass venture. Over the last year, the old school community has done some amazing stuff, much of it for free or for nearly so. We've launched not one but two fanzines, seen multiple retro-clones made available (all with free PDFs), and shared our ideas and homebrew dungeons with one another -- and all for the love of this hobby. When you consider that, it's hard for me not to wonder why anyone would bother to subscribe to Cook's latest project.

So, I've decided to take up the gauntlet and create an old school answer to Dungeonaday.com. Like Fight On!'s "The Darkness Beneath" and Matt Finch's "Megadungeon Slam," I envision this as a collaborative project, drawing on the talents of as many people as want to contribute. Though I may revise my plan, these are the major points of my proposed approach:

• I draw up a scheme for the entire dungeon, including its levels. I'll probably need help with this from someone who can make maps.
  
• I create a rough background for the dungeon to use as a framing device for the entire project.
• I get some maps for the various levels, again with the assistance of people with actual skills in this area.
• All of these things get posted to a website somewhere, free of charge.
• Then, each day, a room, collection of rooms, or some other aspect of the dungeon -- starting on Level 1 -- is created and posted to the website. By default, I'll do this myself, but I would very much like help in doing so. To that end, if anyone wants to submit something to me, it'd make my life immensely easier.
• My hope is that each daily entry will include something new: a magic item, spell, monster, or even a clever new use of something we've all seen before. Even empty rooms -- of which there must be many -- will be interesting in their own right.

I will be exercising some degree of editorial control over the whole project, since I want there to be some "evenness" to the dungeon. That doesn't mean I'm opposed to the wild or whimsical, but I do favor a broad coherence even in a dungeon. At the same time, I am open to persuasion, so if you have a terrific idea for something that's rather off-kilter, I can be convinced to use it. I'm going to try very hard to come up with a broad background for the dungeon that allows for a lot of variety, so rest assured that this won't be a boring place.

I welcome any help people are willing to offer, but it'll be without any compensation beyond my thanks and the knowledge that we're doing something really remarkable. I especially need cartographers and artists who are willing to offer their skills, as I lack the ability either to draw or make maps. I likewise need writers who can contribute anything, no matter how small. Your work will be credited in your name and it remains yours to do with as you please, so long as I may use it for the purposes of this project.

Unless there's a huge uproar against this, I plan to use Swords & Wizardry for the rules -- yes, even with the damned Ascending AC -- but the goal really is to keep it as free of rules as possible. S&W has the advantage of being very simple and easily compatible with all pre-WotC editions of the game. Plus, it's what I use in my own campaign.

I plan to get this up and running ASAP, but a lot depends on how quickly I can get dungeon maps, so if you're able to help with that, let me know. After that, I'll get the ball rolling in a serious fashion.

Yes, I am aware that I am crazy.

A Vote of Confidence

A combination of scheduling conflicts has conspired to put my Dwimmermount on hiatus for the last two weekends and will do so again this coming one. I'm not happy about that, since I think regular, continuous play is an important part of old school gaming, but family obligations always take priority over fun (sometimes all too literally) and so I must wait yet another week before resuming play where we left off last time.

I mention this both because several people have emailed me to learn when I'd post next about my campaign -- there's a minority of people for whom "actual play" reports are of great interest -- and because I was chatting with one of my players last night and he expressed disappointment that we wouldn't be playing again this weekend. I take great pleasure in hearing this, since this particular player was the one I most worried might not be enjoying himself. As it turns out, he is and he even went so far as to say he "missed" Dwimmermount.

Just what every referee wants to hear.

Interview

For those who can't get enough of me, there's an interview with yours truly at Ken Hite's "Out of the Box" column. I appreciate the fact that Ken gave me another space in which to spread the old school Gospel and that he asked such excellent questions. I don't expect I said much there that will be new to regular readers of this blog, but you never know. Check it out if you have the opportunity to do so.

Retrospective: Keep on the Borderlands

Although I contend that The Village of Hommlet, about which I've already written a retrospective, is the greatest exemplar of Gary Gygax's remarkable skills as a designer of adventure modules, I recognize that this is a minority opinion. There's a peculiarly large contingent of gamers who dislike module T1, a sentiment I find baffling. Far more gamers, if asked to choose their favorite Gygax-penned module, would choose The Keep on the Borderlands. To some extent, I suppose such a choice is inevitable, given that module B2 was packaged with the Moldvay Basic Set, through which perhaps more gamers entered the hobby than any other. For these gamers, The Keep is where they first took up their swords and donned their shields in defense of the Realm against the depredations of Chaos. It's a touchstone for an entire gaming generation in a way that the better-crafted Hommlet is not.

This isn't to denigrate The Keep on the Borderlands, whose purpose is much different than that of T1. It's quite explicitly intended, like its predecessor In Search of the Unknown, to be an aid to the novice referee. That's why so many of its 32 pages are devoted to advice and suggestions on running the module and on the art of refereeing D&D. I'm frankly torn in my estimation of B2's success in this regard. On the one hand, it's a lot more structured than B1, with both the eponymous Keep and the Caves of Chaos thoroughly "filled in." On the other hand, this structure might be better suited as a tutorial than is B1's open-ended approach. It's hard for me to judge this, since I came to The Keep on the Borderlands after playing the heck out of In Search of the Unknown for many months. My feeling then was that B1 was too "kiddie-fied," which led me to mistakenly turn my nose up at all subsequent B-series modules until I could be convinced that they were "proper" D&D modules.

Still, there's a great deal to like here and I certainly had my fair share of good times refereeing this module. Morgan Just made his first appearance as a PC in B1, after the death of his ill-named predecessor Hercules (at the hands of fire beetles, no less). Likewise, the Mad Hermit of the surrounding wilderness became a minor patron/villain for later adventures, something the module itself suggests as a possibility. Likewise, the Keep served as a home base for many levels and Muntburg from my Dwimmermount campaign is at least partially inspired by it.

There's no denying that there's something extraordinarily primal about The Keep on the Borderlands. Gygax was always very good at setting a scene and the scene he sets in this module is a potent one: a lonely bastion of Law, defending the Realm against the creeping hordes of Chaos. In many ways, that's the most archetypal description of Dungeons & Dragons ever written. It sums up the game very succinctly and yet in such a way as to leave lots for the individual referee and player to imagine for himself. Whereas B1 is about a dungeon without much context, B2 presents us with a world, one to which even the Caves of Chaos exists in relation. It's a sketchy world, to be sure, but it's a world nonetheless. Perhaps it's this implied expansiveness that makes The Keep on the Borderlands so powerful even after so many years. Its lacunae open up entire fantastical vistas into which our imaginations can expand.

How very Gygaxian.

Fight On! Issue 4 Released

Issue #4 of Fight On! is now available for sale. My contribution to the megadungeon "The Darkness Beneath" is included in its pages, along with lots of other great work by the best and brightest of the old school renaissance. Be sure to check it out.

Dungeonaday

Monte Cook, one of the designers behind Wizard of the Coast's Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, has just announced his latest project: Dungeonaday.com. The site doesn't go live till next week, so there's nothing to see there just yet. According to the announcement on his blog, Dungeonaday.com will be "a subscription-based website that will offer new game content every weekday," with a subscription costing $7 a month.

Now, normally, I wouldn't give much consideration to announcements like this, since I'm not really a fan of subscription-based gaming content. What I found interesting, though, is the further explanation Cook gives for the nature of the content on the site:

Basically, what I'll be doing is building an ongoing dungeon-based campaign of a decidedly old-school tradition, but utilizing all the newest presentation options. [italics mine]

He elaborates on this description further:

Dungeonaday.com describes Dragon's Delve, a mysterious (mega-)dungeon of vast size, fascinating secrets, and great danger. It includes such locales as the Font of Dreams, the Domain of the Venom Cult, the Prison of the Red Saint, the Aberrant Laboratory, the Sprawl of the Demon Leige, and the Secret City. It offers weird and wild encounters with the Bestial Host, the Insidious Kings, swarm-demon Czarzem the Wicked, and the Prince of Dragons. It holds treasures and secrets like the Twelve Secret Sigils, Sao's Bones, and the mystical wendways. But the adventure includes much more than just a dungeon. Dungeonaday.com also describes the surrounding area (filled with intriguing ruins), the nearby town of Brindenford (which is far more involved in the goings-on than it first appears), side trips to a mysterious island and an extradimensional tesseract, and forays into strange other planes. And that's just for starters. Seriously.

Notice the use of the M-word -- megadungeon. I can't deny that this does sound very intriguing, particularly since I'd actually been contemplating a vaguely similar concept for Grognardia, although without a subscription component. Though it's far too early to tell how accurate it all is -- and Monte Cook is a master of hyping his own products -- I do get an old school vibe from that description. The mention of multiple named locales, for example, reminds me of Castle Greyhawk and its Machine Level, Bottle City, Black Reservoir, and so on. As things stand now, Dungeonaday is being written with v.3.5 D&D in mind, but Cook intriguingly notes that it's extremely "rules-light" and could easily be used with any edition of the game.

The proof will be in the pudding, of course. Monte Cook is a very talented writer, but his credentials as an old school module designer are slim at best (he was, after all, the writer of the execrable Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil), so I am skeptical. Still, I think the fact that a big name "modern" RPG writer is going to try his hand at a megadungeon is a testament to just how far the old school community's ideas have spread. Likewise, Cook's emphasis on "rules-light" suggests two things. One, he's interested in attracting fans of editions other than v.3.5, including those of us who play pre-WotC editions. Second, I think it's an indication that D&D players are permanently split between partisans of many different editions.

Again, I remain skeptical of the whole enterprise, but I'll be keeping an eye on it when it launches next week. There's supposed to be lots of free preview content available then and I'll certainly be looking into it carefully. Still, there's a big part of me that wishes the old school community could organize itself into a similar kind of project but without a fee. I know we have the talent to do so.

One Year

REVIEW: Original Edition Options - Paladin, Cavalier & Squire

This 7-page PDF confused me at first. Some months ago, I reviewed another PDF entitled Original Edition Characters, produced by Goblinoid Games in order tweak the rules of the excellent Labyrinth Lord to play a bit more like those from the little brown books of OD&D. Given that this product, published by Brave Halfling, uses very similar trade dress (intended to recall the White Box), I suppose the confusion was inevitable. In point of fact, though, the "Original Edition Options" line, of which Cavalier, Paladin & Squire is one example, isn't a support product for Labyrinth Lord alone, but for all OD&D-descended retro-clones and simulacra, including Swords & Wizardry. Unsurprisingly, I think this is terrific and evidence of just how compatible the pre-WotC editions of Dungeons & Dragons were with one another, despite their having been packaged and marketed differently from another another.

As its name suggests, Cavalier, Paladin & Squire introduces three new character options for original edition games, chief among them the cavalier, knightly warriors who excel at both mounted combat and swordplay. Unlike their predecessors in Unearthed Arcana, the cavalier presented here is a reasonable -- dare I say "balanced?" -- class with a very specific focus. Cavaliers receive bonuses when fighting form horseback, when attempting to parry attacks, and are disciplined to the point of nigh-fearlessness. In addition, cavaliers must abide by a code of chivalry, adherence to which earns them respect and benefits in the eyes of their peers and social superiors. Like all the Brave Halfling character classes, the cavalier presented here is straightforwardly archetypal, with simple mechanics that support that archetype.

Also included in this $1.25 PDF are rules for playing a 0-level squire, a would-be candidate for knighthood. I have mixed feelings about 0-level characters as PCs, but they do have a history in D&D, albeit one from late in the 1e era, when the Golden Age had long given way to the Silver. There are also rules for using the paladin as a sub-class of the cavalier rather than of the fighter -- a very Gygaxian conception of the class. The presentation of the paladin here supersedes the presentation found in Delving Deeper - Paladin, at least for original edition games, making the earlier PDF superfluous. Like 0-level characters, I have mixed feelings about the paladin as a cavalier sub-class, partly because of how egregious the AD&D version was and partly because I don't see any inherent connection between the saintliness of the paladin and the knightliness of the cavalier.

However, I do love options and Brave Halfling once again provides this in spades for a very reasonable price. If you have even the slightest interest in cavaliers, 0-level characters, or original edition character construction, you'll get your money's worth out of this product. Here's hoping we see more entries in the "Original Edition Options" line in the weeks to come.

Final Score: 4½ out of 5 polearms

GM's Day Sale

Over at both RPGNow and DriveThruRPG, March 2nd through the 8th has been designated "Game Master's Day." No, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me either. In any case, both sites are offering sales on their PDF products, including a handful from publishers of interest to this blog, such as:

• Fantasy Games Unlimited: Now's your chance to fill out your collection of Space Opera supplements.
• Goodman Games: They've got some C&C modules on sale, as well as the excellent Points of Light and Random Esoteric Creature Generator.
• Necromancer Games: Sure, they're 3e but many of their modules, including the massive Rappan Athuk Reloaded, have lots of great ideas you can mine for your old school games.
• Ye Olde Gaming Companye: Makers of Wayfarers.

I might head over there and grab a copy of Bushido or Aftermath. Despite it all, I have a strange soft spot for FGU's game, some of which remain absolute classics even now. Check it out.

Gygaxian Unnaturalism

Like the term "old school," trying to define the precise mix of ingredients that makes Dungeons & Dragons Dungeons & Dragons is a slippery business, so slippery in fact that many have long been quick to dismiss it as a pointless exercise. This quickness has been all the more pronounced in the last year. Between the death of Gary Gygax and the advent of a new game laying claim to his legacy, there's been much discussion of these and related topics, much of it sadly ill-informed either by history or by logic. There's a natural tendency in human beings -- gamers in particular -- to want to put ideas and concepts into nice, neat mental "boxes." I'm as guilty of this as anyone, as regular readers of this blog can attest. It's the same tendency that reduces complex discussions into simple formulae or sees lists as exhaustive rather than as mere aids to understanding.

Something like this has happened in the months since I wrote the well-regarded entry entitled "Gygaxian Naturalism." I don't think I'm flattering myself to say that it's one of the more influential posts to have arisen out of the old school blogging community. Lots of people seem to have latched on to the idea I put forward in that post, including people whose interests and agendas are very different than my own. Unfortunately, some have reduced my original post to a mantra or formula, seeing in it an exhaustiveness I never intended. In and of itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since I'd much rather see the adoption of a literal-minded interpretation of Gygaxian Naturalism than the wholesale rejection of it. The problem is that such literal-mindedness makes it far too easy for some to reject the principle or to argue that it's incoherent, much in the way that a child who'd been taught "all swans are white" would be at a loss to explain the black swans of Australia.

Naturalist though he was, Gary Gygax was also -- perhaps even pre-eminently -- a fantasist: "These rules are strictly fantasy ... those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a 'world' where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!" It doesn't take a sharp-eyed scholar to find innumerable examples of where Gygax's love of the fantastic trumps his love for the natural. For every creature whose behavior obeys an approximation of natural laws, there is another that exists wholly outside of Nature. For every place where the implied world of D&D works according to recognizable axioms, there is another place where they flout them.

The many exceptions to naturalism found in the Gygaxian canon are only a threat to a naive understanding of it -- an understanding founded primarily on tallying examples of one approach and weighing against examples of another. I suspect that, if this is the approach one takes, explicit examples of naturalism would prove far less numerous than one might imagine. That's partly because the underlying assumptions of D&D -- the things it doesn't say -- are those of the real, natural world. Gygax didn't bother to talk about such things, because he simply assumed their veracity, whereas unnatural events and effects needed specific explication. Gygaxian fantasy takes place not in a wholly magical world, but instead in a natural world to which magic has been added, which is why magic often gets a great deal more attention in his writings.

All that aside, Gygaxian unnaturalism is nevertheless an equally important principle of the game. Flip through the Monster Manual and take a look at the creatures you find there. You'll almost certainly find monsters, like demons and devils, that exist completely outside anything resembling an earthly ecology and whose existence and behavior cannot be accounted for according to "scientific" principles. More than that, though, look carefully even at many of the "natural" creatures described in that volume: dinosaurs, Irish deer, giant lynx with the power of speech, to name but three. None of these beasts is "monstrous" in the usual sense of the term, but all are largely outside our experience of the natural world, being either throwbacks to earlier prehuman eras or unnatural modifications of real world animals. Indeed, a goodly percentage of the Monster Manual's entries are made up of giant animals of many sorts -- hardly sterling examples of Gary's commitment to naturalism.

But why does it have to be either/or? Part of the appeal of Gygax's vision of Dungeons & Dragons is that he rejected both the whimsy of a completely magical world even as he avoided the banality of "realistic" fantasy. His unique genius was in being able to steer the game between these twin extremes and into the heady waters where the two approaches exist in relative harmony, the one serving the other. It would be a mistake, I think, to deny that naturalism was the foundation on which Gary built his game, but, by the same token, that never stopped him from building glorious edifices of purest fantasy -- the "dark fairyland" of the Drow, the terrifying tomb of the demi-lich, the whimsy of Dungeonland -- upon that foundation. This marvelous coincidence of opposites is perhaps the greatest of many gifts Gary bequeathed to the game he co-created and tirelessly promoted during his life. It is his truest legacy and one I have tried very hard to honor.

Selling Out

I knew my blog would pay off for me one day and so it has at long last. I've been invited to join a group blog hosted by Pied Piper Publishing. Called Lord of the Green Dragons, the blog is much more narrowly focused than Grognardia, being primarily about topics specifically related to PPP, its products, and the history of the Greyhawk campaign (AKA The Original Campaign). I'm sure that, given the large and diverse nature of the bloggers associated with it, including such luminaries as Joseph, the Greyhawk Grognard and Allan Grohe, as well as Rob Kuntz himself, this focus may shift a little bit over time, but, in the main, it'll till somewhat different fields of interest than I do here.

My regular posting on this blog won't be affected by my acceptance of this invitation. Grognardia remains my primary online home and you can expect my output to remain much as it has for nearly a year now. I'll eventually settle in to a schedule of regular posts at Lord of the Green Dragons, likely two or three times a week -- nowhere near as often as I post here. Likewise, my objectivity, such as it is, won't be compromised by my posting on a blog associated with an old school publisher. I hope I've already demonstrated that my opinions are my own and that won't change in the future. I'm far too stubborn to be "bought," although I encourage anyone with large sums of cash to try and prove me wrong.

My Least Favorite OD&D Supplement

This volume is something else, also: our last attempt to reach the "Monty Hall" DM's. Perhaps now some of the 'giveaway' campaigns will look as foolish as they truly are. This is our last attempt to delineate the absurdity of 40+ level characters. When Odin, the All-Father has only(?) 300 hit points, who can take a 44th level Lord seriously?

It is without a doubt ironic that in the same foreword in which TSR Publications editor Timothy J. Kask extols the virtues of "winging it" and notes that OD&D's rules are "not even true 'rules'," he also expresses the sentiment in text quoted above. I'm no fan of Monty Hall campaigns myself and having once met a guy who boasted of his character being a "42nd-level demigod," I have a longstanding, visceral dislike of that style of play. But, at the end of the day, if OD&D was "meant to be a free-wheeling game, only loosely bound by the parameters of the rules," as Kask states in the foreword to Eldritch Wizardry, why all this fretting about those guys who are playing it wrong?

The same foreword calls Gods, Demigods & Heroes "the last D&D supplement," which is technically true. Unless one counts Chainmail's "grandson," Swords & Spells, there were no other official OD&D supplements after the publication of Supplement IV. Of course, even as this foreword was being written, Gary Gygax was hard at work creating Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which owes its origin at least in part to the desire to ensure that everyone who played the game did it right. Even though, by today's standards, AD&D remains a free-wheeling game of the sort Kask rightly praises, there's no question that it set a not-entirely positive precedent for the way RPGs should be designed and presented. In hindsight, the lunacy of it all becomes apparent in a way that it probably wasn't in 1976.

There's the additional irony that Supplement IV tried to mock Monty Hallism by providing stats for the gods it describes. Speaking from personal experience with its successor volume, Deities & Demigods, providing stats for, say, Zeus is not going to shame power gamers into giving up their munchkiny ways -- quite the opposite. Once gods have hit points and armor classes, they just become big bags of experience points waiting to be looted by those 44th-level fighters Kask lambastes in his foreword. My own feeling is that, if one looks at OD&D as written, the gods are distant and mysterious, with spells like commune and contact other plane being vague and unreliable means to know their minds. This strikes me as being far more consonant with the humanistic thrust of pulp fantasy than giving statistics to Crom or Arioch or Odin. None of this is to say there's anything wrong with slaying gods and taking their stuff, if that's how one enjoys playing D&D (though I don't), but, given what the foreword to Supplement IV says about one of its goals, I can't help but feel it chose the wrong approach to meeting those goals.

In the final analysis, Gods, Demigods & Heroes is the one OD&D supplement I could have lived without. It's far weaker and less useful than the regularly-reviled Blackmoor (which, I agree, is less than it should have been) and, worse than that, it's the only OD&D book that exemplifies an attitude so at odds with the way the game was designed and played. I've stated before that I'm not a huge fan of Arduin, but I am glad Arduin exists. I am glad that referees like Dave Hargrave decided to put their dirty hands all over OD&D and reshape it into something they and their players enjoyed. That's what this hobby is all about.

Casimir Pulaski Day

In many parts of the United States, the first Monday in March has been designated Casimir Pulaski Day, in order to honor the "Father of the American Cavalry," the Polish general Kazimierz Pułaski. Growing up, I used to visit my paternal grandparents just about every weekend and they lived not too far from Patterson Park in Baltimore. In the park, there's a large monument dedicated to Pulaski's memory, just as US Route 40 is known locally as Pulaski Highway. Consequently, this man and his contributions to American history have long been a minor fascination of mine. Strictly speaking, I suppose there's not much connection between Pulaski and the subject matter of this blog, but I do allow myself the occasional personal indulgence here from time to time. Plus, I'm sure someone who reads this can recall a classic wargame in which Pulaski plays a part, right?

In any case, Happy Casimir Pulaski Day!

Pulp Fantasy Library: Saga of Old City

In general, this series of posts has been devoted to books without which Dungeons & Dragons would not have been possible, at least not as conceived by Gary Gygax. Today's entry is a little different, because the converse is true: Saga of Old City would not have been possible without Dungeons & Dragons. First published in 1985, it's another late Gygaxian work and, like many other works penned by the Dungeon Master during this same period, I can't help but see it as intentionally "retro." That is, I've come to think that Gygax was, if not thumbing his nose at the direction of TSR and D&D in the years prior to his return from his California exile, offering a counterpoint to that direction. I have no evidence for this thesis beyond looking at what Gygax wrote and published in the post-Dragonlance era: multiple very old school modules stemming from early adventures of his own Greyhawk campaign and the opening novels of the "Gord the Rogue" series.

Perhaps I'm just seeing a method in the madness where there is none, but, even if I'm wrong, can there be any question that Saga of Old City is a literary atavism? The novel tells the story of the childhood and youth of an orphaned boy named Gord who escapes his cruel foster mother to undertake a life of adventure that begins when the Beggars Guild, of which Gord has become a very talented member, runs afoul of the Thieves Guild, leading to a turf war between the two criminal enterprises. To avoid his demise, Gord flees the City of Greyhawk and wanders the surrounding regions of the Flanaess, becoming involved in a variety of events that hone his skills and pave the way for his eventual triumphant return to the city.

There's no question that, as a novelist, Gygax possessed many deficiencies, particularly when it came to dialog. Nevertheless, the picture he paints of Gord's early life and his youthful adventures is a compelling one -- a pulp fantasy pastiche that answers the question, "What if Oliver Twist had been written by Fritz Leiber?" More importantly, it provides many insights into how one of D&D's creators saw the game. Reading through Saga of Old City, it becomes readily apparent that, for Gygax, fantasy adventures didn't have to be epic to be entertaining and fantasy protagonists didn't have to be pivotal figures in the world to be worthy of our attention. What we get is a picaresque tale that feels like a throwback to earlier fantasy literature than anything that was being written in 1985.

Ironically, as the series continued (particularly after Gary left TSR), the original focus of the books shifted considerably, with Gord becoming ever more significant, not just on Oerth but in the wider multiverse. Again, I detect another thumbing of the nose at the company from which he was ousted, with the later books being Gygax's attempt to sabotage the continued viability of the Greyhawk setting, but there are other possible interpretations. Still, I have a great soft spot for Saga of Old City, for in it we saw Gygax bring his home campaign setting to life in a way he never did in any of his other writings. It's only partially successful as novel, I think, but there can be no question that, as a window into the mind of D&D's co-creator, it's well worth reading.