Memory can be a powerful thing. Even at my advanced age, there are many things I can vividly recall about moments or events decades in the past. My memories are particularly strong about my earliest experiences playing RPGs, which shouldn't really come as a surprise, considering that I'm still involved in the hobby more than 40 years later.
A good example of this concerns issue #62 of Dragon (June 1982), which long-time readers may recall is the first issue of the magazine I ever owned. I purchased it from Waldenbooks, one of two chain bookstores found at my local shopping mall, and carried it around with me almost everywhere. I read that issue until its glorious Larry Elmore cover fell off, in the process committing nearly everything about it to memory.
I wrote a post about this a few years ago, in which I noted that the advertisements of that issue loom large in my memory, partly, I think, because I never saw the products being advertised on the shelves of any hobby shop or bookstore I visited. That was certainly the game with this advertisement:
I have the Ysgarth Bestiary. The 48 entries range from "Auroch" (sic) to "Wolf". Twenty are not found in (A)D&D. Stats are vaguely Runequest-like. There are conversion notes for use with other systems. If you have any questions just ask.
ReplyDeleteI too was enamored with this game's advertisements. I cannot recall if I ended up sending away for it, or found it a local game store (probably this as I grew up in NOVA), but I ended up getting it eventually. 5 cheaply made little tan cover booklets (covers were basically same as interior pages, thickness wise) and an adventure, IIRC. I dont recall details, but I recall being completely disappointed. Complex/hard to wrap my head around and poor layout/poorly written.
ReplyDeleteHi James,
ReplyDeleteI had to check the wikipedia entry to be sure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ysgarth), but I actually had a chance to play through a brief session of this game. What's more, it happened at an OSR convention in Toronto (OSRCon?) around 2009 or so, which I believe you attended (I vaguely remember playing in a session through Dwimmermount that you DMed, we made it through the portals to... well, no spoilers).
Anyway, everyone's understanding of this game sounds roght, but the wikipedia entry gives you a better sense of just how bonkers the gameplay was. I'd characterize it as a swords-and-sorcery version of The Morrow Project (make sure to pre-calculate the impact points and bleeding points and trauma points of your left ankle as 1.3% of your totals, it'll save time during combat, that kind of vibe). The designer fell into all the math traps that have since been identified by designers, like the flattening effect of compound statistics (HP = (health + strength + size + toughness + stamina + willpower) / 6, now allocate 1% of that to each of 254 hit locations rounding up, that sort of thing) and of compound rolls (attacker rolls 1d100 + Attack Bonus to hit, subtract target's 1d100 roll + Defense Bonus, compare to 2d100 Difficulty, you get the picture).
I'm afraid I was a bad sport and couldn't soldier through the session without making a few wisecracks. It was definitely an interesting historical artifact. Made me understand the importance of playtesting; it read like something typed out in a nonstop week-long manic episode, then sent directly to the printer. I do not believe that the designer ever played it, at least not with other people.
Hello! I remember that particular session at OSRCon quite well actually, including the journey through the portal.
DeleteDo you recall who was running Ysgarth?
Sorry for the delay -- I dug through all my old emails and trawled the web looking for some indication of who was running that table. No dice. All I can say is:
Delete1. It was OSRCon 2011, held on August 13, 2011.
2. The con organizer, Chris Cunnington, would know who hosted the Ysgarth game. (Maybe it was him?)
3. I tried to scroll through this photo slideshow from the event, but didn't see anything that looked like the Ysgarth game:
https://osrcon.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/photos/
4. Here's a pretty good reddit comment from someone who played in the session. You could hit him up through his reddit account, maybe (he posted via this account recently):
https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1olh81/comment/cct9fyc/
I'm intrigued by the magazine, honestly. I'm curious about what showed up in lesser known gaming magazines, what adventures, what monsters, ect. Sometimes you find something really interesting; the French Games Workshop magazine Le Heraut Citadel came out in a weird point and so had scenarios based on Warhammer but statted out for AD&D.
ReplyDeleteI can dimly recall seeing copies of "Ysgarth Rolecraft" and "Ysgarth Spellcraft" in a shop out in University Park, PA back in 1985. Didn't buy them, although I registered on the fact I'd seen the name in Dragon ads. If the internet is to be believed the game had six editions over the years, the most recent having come out in 1992 or 1995 depending on what source you believe. If true, it was remarkably unsuccessful at getting on retail shelves anywhere I lived or even shopped at, and I was traveling and visiting stores in passing a lot more in the late 80s and 90s.
ReplyDeleteA quick search shows two Ysgarth books available on Kindle through Amazon, dating back to 2014. There may be more.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3ADavid+Nalle&s=relevancerank&text=David+Nalle&ref=dp_byline_sr_ebooks_1
I do have Ysgarth, in the form of several thin digest-sized books, similar to OD&D. It’s indeed complex and kind of unusual, so I never really delved into it. But it certainly exists. In fact, I believe it is a later edition, so someone cared enough to continue it.
ReplyDeleteI played some sessions of Ysgarth, more often used bits of it in my other games. Dave Nalle was a little intense but interesting guy, always willing to discuss his game design, and his later development of the game cleaned up some sharp edges. Freeform magic is really interesting, it's mechanical but not just a laundry list of effects.
ReplyDeleteThere's a partial work of the 7th edition, but it's not really usable, 6th Ed is better.
The Oroborus rules-light version was a lot more useful, and I played that quite a lot for a few years, it's a nice almost-historical-fantasy system.
The author, Dave Nalle, was a bit of an odd duck. I did have a rather odd interaction with him on usenet back in the day. He was, for some reason, railing against Ars Magica, which he claimed was an awful game and, specifically, that you could not have any fun playing that game.
ReplyDeleteWell, in college we played it for several years in an epic campaign that roamed across medieval europe. We had a blast (it helped that our primary gm wrote a few sourcebooks for the game), and I mentioned our experiences.
He told me (and others who had chimed in with similar positive experiences), that we were wrong, and reiterated that it was not actually possible to have fun playing Ars Magica as written.
It was a very odd conversation, to say the least.
It's not really a conversation when one side isn't listening. At best you'll get an Argument, but Abuse is even more likely.
Delete" Memory can be a powerful thing. Even at my advanced age, there are many things I can vividly recall about moments or events decades in the past. "
ReplyDeleteActually, if the current research on how memory works is correct, memories can easily fool you. Contrary to what most people believe (if I understand correctly), then one of the aspects is that 'memories' are not really 'static' or 'digital' representations of what happened in the past; they are constantly in motion and changing, as current/new events and memories mix and interact with the older memories, changing the way you 'remember' things.
Well, yes, but there's considerable evidence that the more you revisit a memory, the more it changes over time due to the neurological processes you're talking about. More obscure memories that haven't been mentally "handled" as much are actually more likely to be objectively accurate, assuming you can remember them at all. That latter can be impossible if the event didn't get processed into long-term memory when it happened, most likely because it didn't cross some nebulously understood threshold of interest. Things that do make the cut they can apparently sit "in archive" for decades without much change if you don't consciously call on them and no stimulus pulls them to the surface. It's quite possible that an ad seen a few times in Dragon decades ago might be more accurately recalled than something you've looked back on many times like (say) your first date or high school graduation - but you might need some help digging the ad out of memory in the first place, eg hypnosis or the sight of magazine's cover or a reminder of article that shared a page with the ad.
Delete@Dick McGee :
DeleteWell, I honestly do not know enough about the subject 'in-depth' to contradict what you are saying here, but:
I vaguely seem to recall reading an article that stated that all police officers know that (partly because of how memory works) that the 'eyewitness statement' turns out to be one of the *least* reliable sources of evidence that you can get (despite the value the eye witness testimony is given in court by the jury), and you need to get the objective evidence from other sources (like for example, but not limited to, DNA found on the crime scene and such).
Also, this might not be strictly related to my earlier statement so not relevant here, and I cannot find anything online right now to back my statements up, so perhaps you are correct here and I am wrong.
Oh, well.
One vivid reminder that memory can morph that I have is my memory of riding in the back of our car in England when we drove around Europe when I was a kid. I have a vivid image memory of riding in the back of the car, traveling down a highway. On the RIGHT HAND side of the highway. The tree filled median is on the LEFT. I absolutely know that isn't the reality. But the image remains the same.
DeleteIn 2021, Shannon Appelcline wrote a survey of David Nalle’s industry contributions: https://www.rpg.net/columns/advanced-designers-and-dragons/advanced-designers-and-dragons45.phtml
ReplyDeleteOne of the typefaces Nalle published was the main display font in the Ars Magica 4th edition line, a small irony given his intemperate comments about the game.
Quoting from an old comment found on Facebook: "The only way to describe these rules is as exhaustive. In fact, reading them is exhausting. In 100 or so pages they manage to cram in every system and every mechanic you need to play, plus two or more variant versions of every major rule. It is more like three or four different RPG systems combined together into one book. For every standard rule there is a basic variant and an advanced variant, and you can mix and match different versions of the rules to customize the game to the way you want to play". James, i own Ysgarth and for this very features of the game i must admit that i love Ysgarth. To me it is like the definitive fantasy game for mature/experienced grognards, something you can stumble upon and appreciate in ypur life after you have passed through AD&D, Runequest, Rolemaster and Chivalry & Sorcery. I mean, Ysgarth is for refined palates, for coinnosseurs. Also, i saw that no one mentioned the fanzine called "Abyss" which you cite in the post. It was a marvellous fanzine, chocked full of extremely interesting articles on how to play your your fantasy game (imagine articles of Dragon magazine but more subtle and philosophical in nature). I think Dave Nalle (RIP) was a giant intellect.
ReplyDeleteDuring the early 80’s I helped Dave with Abyss, which was an interesting little fanzine with a fairly eclectic list of industry subscribers. Ysgarth was very crunchy but fun and I was in Dave’s campaign for two years. As an artifact of the time, Ysgarth is interesting. Trying to play it now would be challenging and something I likely wouldn’t do again. Dave was multi-lingual with a focus on Gaellic myth and history. The one key memory I have from his games is never trust a merchant for anything. There was always a downside.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone is interested in details of this old game I posted a gallery of pics with the most outstanding pages here: https://astrifiammante.substack.com/p/the-ysgarth-rule-system-ragnarok
ReplyDelete