Retrospective: Rahasia

My feelings about the work of Tracy and Laura Hickman are more complicated than is generally assumed. While I have very little regard for the Dragonlance series and feel that it set Dungeons & Dragons down a path that isn't to my liking, I'm actually quite fond of the roughly contemporaneous Ravenloft, even though it exhibits many of the same elements I dislike in the former. This makes me wonder if many of my criticisms stem from matters of degree rather than substance. I'm not yet committed to that position by any means, but it's nevertheless been on my mind lately.

To test my thesis, I re-read the 1984 D&D module, Rahasia, a lesser known work of the Hickmans. Before diving into it, a brief bit of history. The earliest version of Rahasia, which I have never seen, was self-published by the Hickmans in 1979, along with Pharaoh (another Hickman effort for which I have largely positive feelings). In 1983, Rahasia was released by the RPGA, along with its follow-up, Black Opal Eye. Then, both modules were combined under a single cover as module B7, which is the only version of these adventures I've ever seen. I understand there are a few differences in content between the various editions but they are mostly minor. If I am mistaken in this understanding, please don't hesitate to offer corrections in the comments below.

Make no mistake: Rahasia is just as heavy-handed as most Hickman modules, in that there's a very definite "story" in which it intends to involve the player characters. That story begins with the PCs traveling through a "beautiful elven forest," when they come upon the body of an elf, perhaps slain by bandits. A letter is found on the body and a lengthy one at that. The contents of the letter are reproduced at the back of the module, presumably either to be read aloud to the players or photocopied so they can read it for themselves. Written by an elven maiden named Rahasia, the letter details how a handsome stranger known simply as "the Rahib" had come to the village to seek her hand in marriage. Though everyone else in the village was won over by the Rahib, Rahasia's father was not. 

Not long thereafter, the elven students of a nearby temple disappeared, as did Rahasia's father, who traveled to the temple to determine what happened to them. Like them, he seems to have disappeared. Disappearing along with him was his wealth, which would have been used in part for Rahasia's dowry. Rahasia's betrothed, Hasan, then sets off for the temple too and, like everyone else, does not return. That's when the Rahib reveals – surprise! – that he is behind these shenanigans. He has placed the students under his spell and will not release them until Rahasia turns herself over to him. She will not do so and seeks help from outsiders who'd be willing to brave the temple, defeat the Rahib, and free those whom he has enchanted.

If you can keep all of that straight, good for you! I left out many details (such as the kidnapping of two other elven maids) in the interests of brevity and because, frankly, they only complicate what is already an unnecessarily complex scenario for 1st to 3rd level characters – or so I say. For a great many gamers, I suspect that this type of set-up is greatly appealing, because it gives their characters an obvious hook that immediately embroils them in a fantasy adventure tale filled with heaping helpings of bombast and melodrama. The boxed text scattered throughout the module is exactly what you'd expect, starting with one of the very first.

In the village, the delicate elven dwellings mirror the grace of their people. Yet the faces of the villagers reveal great sadness. You soon are lead to an elven maid, whose veiled face and beauty outshines all others present as the sun outshines the stars – she is Rahasia.

One either cringes at such prose or one embraces it. I fall firmly in the first camp, finding it some of the worst boxed text to appear in any D&D module, but I recognize that not everyone feels that way. Indeed, I suspect that I'm in the minority when it comes to disliking this kind of heavy-handed mawkishness. Leaving that aside, what's more frustrating to me is that, like Ravenloft and Pharaoh before it, the dungeons of Rahasia are actually quite good. Both the Temple of Gray Mountain and Elyas's Tower have interesting layouts with multiple unique encounters and traps. I was particularly struck by how often the best solution to dealing with an encounter is not violence but instead cleverness. This is a commonplace in the Hickmans' work, demonstrating, I think, that they're actually more talented dungeon designers than they're sometimes given credit for, especially in old school circles.

Consequently, Rahasia only adds to my growing uncertainty about how to assess the contributions of Tracy and Laura Hickman on the development of both Dungeons & Dragons in particular and the hobby of roleplaying more generally. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that they stand solidly alongside Gary Gygax himself when it comes to the influence their style has had on subsequent generations of roleplayers. There is little question in my mind that their emphasis on presenting coherent stories, with clear beginnings, middles, and ends, through the vehicle of modules became widely imitated to the point that it's now the unquestioned standard for such things. Regardless of one's feelings on the matter, that's the very definition of a success.