Dragonlance at the End of the World

One of many things that doesn't always come through in my campaign update posts are the little moments of roleplaying and character development that are, for me anyway, why I continue to participate in this hobby after so many decades. Reading those posts and the supplementary ones that draw attention to larger developments within them, one might well think the Big Stuff is all that matters to me. Of course, the Big Stuff does matter to me, especially in my House of Worms and Barrett's Raiders campaigns, where political, social, and religious struggles are important drivers of the action. Even so, it's the characters who matter most to me. They are, after all, the means by which my wonderful players interact with the situations I set before them and I appreciate the added texture they can add to the game world.

An amusing case in point is Corporal Wayne "Rocketman" Schweyk. Rocketman was originally a back-up character, introduced during the unit's time in the Free City of Kraków. All the players had a back-up character, both to fill out the unit's complement, but also as insurance in case one of the "main" characters died in combat or through some other means. Rocketman, as his name suggests, had been part of a Multiple Launch Rocket System crew during the earlier stages of the Twilight War. He eventually found his way to the Free City and became part of a group of displaced American soldiers there, some of whom joined the Raiders when they fled Kraków and its Machiavellian politics. 

As a character, Rocketman has several defining characteristics. Most obviously, he likes rockets, missiles, grenade launchers, mortars, and similar weaponry. Second, he is a good driver and always volunteers to drive one of the unit's vehicles. Finally, he's an avid reader of Dragonlance novels and makes an effort to seek out new sources of them whenever it's practical. Now that the Raiders are back in the USA, this is a fair bit easier than it was in Poland. Recently, Rocketman has begun to branch out. He's expressed an interest in Forgotten Realms novels, too, a few of which he was able to obtain in trade from soldiers stationed at Fort Lee.

On the one hand, this bit of characterization is a joke, making fun of just how many of these novels TSR published throughout the '80s and '90s – and there were a lot of them. We looked into the matter and, assuming that, in the timeline of Barrett's Raiders, TSR stopped producing new Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels at the end of 1997, shortly after the first Soviet nuclear strikes against America, there'd still be just shy of 100 Dragonlance novels and a little less than 80 Forgotten Realms novels. As I said, there really were a lot of these novels, but, from what I understand, they sold very, very well, outshining even the gaming material on which they were based. Talk about brandification!

On the other hand, little details like help a character to come alive. They help set him apart from his comrades and often serve as motivations for what the character does. In the case of Rocketman, he really does spend time talking to other soldiers, learning if any of them shares his interest in fantasy novels and whether there's library or other potential source for more of them. Further, his interest helps ground the campaign in its time and place. Barrett's Raiders is presently set in December 2000 in an alternate timeline that diverged at least as far back as 1985, if not earlier. Seeing as we're a quarter century removed from its chronological date and in a different reality altogether, these small reminders have proven useful.

From time to time, I should probably devote more posts to stuff like this. I've repeatedly said that the success and longevity of my various campaigns is, in large part, due to my players, who have created some really fun and memorable characters. They're one of the things that keep me engaged week after week. Shining the spotlight on some of them might prove helpful or at least interesting to readers as well.

Landfall!

Never having been a huge reader of comics, I keep forgetting that, during the late '80s and early 1990s, DC Comics published a number of titles based (mostly) on Dungeons & Dragons settings. One of them was set in Krynn, the world of Dragonlance. From what I understand, the Dragonlance comics were prequels that took place before the events of the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and consequently introduced a number of original characters to serve as its protagonists alongside more familiar names.

Since I haven't had the chance to read these comics, I don't have much more to say about them specifically. However, I am fascinated to discover that, starting with issue #22 (August 1990), the series had a fair number of issues whose stories took place on the continent of Taladas, the setting of the Time of the Dragon boxed set for which I retain a fondness. I suppose this makes sense. If the comic writers had to keep away from the more familiar War of the Lance storyline, looking to a new and mostly undeveloped part of the larger Dragonlance world is a good choice. 

Did anyone read these or any of the other TSR comics published by DC? Were any of them any good?

Polyhedron: Issue #20

Issue #20 of Polyhedron (November 1984) is another with which I am very familiar. Regular readers should also remember it from another post I wrote almost a year ago. The cover, by Roger Raupp, depicting the events of this issue's "Encounters" article, is a big part of the reason why it made such an impression on me as a teenager. I'll have a little more to say about it shortly.

"Notes from HQ" is a good reminder that, whatever else it may have been, Polyhedron was supposed to be the official news organ of the RPGA. Consequently, the article focuses on the most recent GenCon and the events run there on behalf of the Role Playing Game Association. While most of the information it conveys is ephemera – "Due to a computer mixup, our events didn't make it into the pre-registration brochure ..." – I nevertheless found the titles of some of the RPGA events fascinating. For example, there was "Baron of San Andreas" for Boot Hill, "Seventh Seal" for Top Secret, and "Rapture of the Deep" (or "Face of the Anemone") for Gamma World. It's all quite evocative and makes me wish I knew more about them.

Speaking of Gamma World, there's another installment of James M. Ward's "Cryptic Alliance of the Bi-Month," this time devoted to the Healers. To date, most of the entries in this series have been, in my opinion, vague on details and generally limited in utility. Some, however, get by because the cryptic alliance covered is sufficiently interesting in its own right, like, say, the Knights of Genetic Purity, Sadly, the same cannot be said of the Healers, who come across as very generic peaceniks without much in the way of adventure hooks that might convince a referee to include them. Also, like too many of the cryptic alliances in this series, the Healers' own legends include too many sly jokes and references to 20th century pop culture ("Lue of the Sky" and "Bencassy"), but then that's a common problem with the presentation of Gamma World's setting and not unique to them.

Kim Eastland's "The Proton Beam" describes a new form of weapons technology for use with Star Frontiers, along with defenses against it. I've always had conflicted feelings about the fixation sci-fi games have with an ever-expanding equipment list, so I tend to greet articles like this with some skepticism. In this case, though, I appreciate that Eastland use the introduction of the proton beam into an existing Star Frontiers campaign as an occasion for adventure. He suggests several possible ways the new weapon could debut, each of which has the potential to send the campaign in different directions. To my mind, that's how new equipment/technology ought to be handled.

James M. Ward returns with "The Druid," a two-page article describing Thorn Greenwood, a druid NPC, in some detail. This is part of an irregular series begun back in issue #17, in which Ward presents an archetypal example of an AD&D character class as an aid/inspiration to players and referees alike. Accompanying the article is another page in which RPGA members have submitted their own shorter examples of members of the class. It's an interesting idea, but I'm not convinced it's quite as useful as Ward might have intended.

"The 384th Incarnation of Bigby's Tomb" is a very high-level (15–25) AD&D tournament adventure by Frank Mentzer. Despite its title, the scenario does not seem to have anything to do with either Gary Gygax's character Bigby nor with The World of Greyhawk. The titular Bigby would seem simply to be a generic archmage, though artist Roger Raupp seems to have taken some inspiration from Gygax's actual appearance in depicting him:

The premise of the adventure is that Bigby labors under a curse that makes him unable to employ potions of longevity and thereby extend his life. Rather than die, he placed himself in suspended animation within an artifact, where he would rest until brave adventures might find him, lift the curse, and deliver to him the desired potion. The dungeon surrounding the artifact is not really a tomb, since Bigby isn't dead, but it is a deadly place filled with lots of tricks, traps, and challenges, just as you'd expect of a good tournament dungeon.

"Encounters," yet another piece by James M. Ward, features the Aquabot for Gamma World, about which I've written before, as I noted above. In my youth, I remember finding the article somewhat jarring, because, up until this point, the setting of Gamma World had never included anything like this in any of its previous supplementary material and I didn't quite know what to make of it. Years later, I'm still not sure, but there's no denying that it made an impression on me, so I suppose it achieved its purpose.

The antepenultimate section of this issue is a doozy: Roger E. Moore's three-page essay on "Women in Role Playing." The article is a very well-intentioned and reasonably thoughtful attempt to broach a number of topics relating to the entry of more women into the overwhelmingly male dominated hobby of roleplaying. While I suspect that many readers today, male or female, might detect the occasional air of condescension in Moore's prose, I think that's probably the wrong lens through which to view this piece. TSR, to its credit, was always quite keen to expand the hobby beyond its traditional male fanbase and articles like this suggest, I think, that they were at least partially successful. 

Roger Moore returns with "Now That It's Over ...," another report on the most recent GenCon (17 for those who care). Unlike "Notes from HQ," Moore's article focuses not solely on RPGA matters but on the entire con. Consequently, there's some genuinely interesting bits of historical trivia, like the performance of a dramatic reading from the first Dragonlance novel that received "a standing ovation." He also highlights all the new RPGs that appeared that year, like Paranoia, Toon, Ringworld. and Chill, not to mention TSR's own additions, like Marvel Super Heroes and The Advenures of Indiana Jones – quite the banner year for new releases!

Finally, there's "Dispel Confusion," with answers to questions about D&D, AD&D, Gamma World, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, and Top Secret. Only the AD&D questions have any lasting importance, largely because they're questions put directly to Gary Gygax himself at the latest GenCon. One concerns the appearance of the mythical module T2, whose manuscript Gygax says is now complete, though without committing to a release date. The second monsters that are "pretty useless" and that "are never seen in the modules." Oddly, Gygax replies that "work is being done to update and improve the Fiend Folio," even though the questioner, at least as reported, did not specifically mention that book of monsters. It's well known that Gygax didn't like the Fiend Folio and many of its entries, so perhaps he simply took this question as another opportunity to vent his spleen about it.

Retrospective: Time of the Dragon

When I first started writing these Retrospective posts, I set myself some broad historical parameters, in order to pare down the absolutely immense number of potential games and gaming products about which I could write. Those parameters were (very roughly) the first decade of the RPG hobby, meaning the years 1974–1984, which maps pretty closely to what I've previously called the Golden Age of Dungeons & Dragons. Like all such parameters, mine was somewhat (though not entirely) arbitrary and, over the years, I've deviated from it when I felt there was a worthy product whose publication date fell outside that range of years. 

For the most part, though, I've stuck to my original framework, if only out of habit and some degree of stubbornness. However, a conversation with a very old friend of mine reminded me that the early years of 1990s were more than thirty years ago. Likewise, the first non-TSR edition of D&D was released just shy of a quarter-century ago, making it almost as old today as OD&D was at the time 3e was published. Shocking though these reminders were to my increasingly aged self, the served a valuable purpose in giving me some additional perspective on the history of the hobby. 2024, after all, marks the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and I'm still focusing very narrowly on a small sliver of that half-century. Perhaps it was time to expand Grognardia's gaze a little further into the future past – to the end of TSR's existence, at least.

And what better way to kick off the expanded coverage of the Retrospective series than a post about my favorite Dragonlance product, 1989's Time of the Dragon? Yes, you read that right: my favorite Dragonlance product. I know that I am well known as a Dragonlance hater, but the truth is that my feelings toward the setting and line of AD&D products is rather more nuanced than simple hatred. I don't actually hate Dragonlance itself so much as what its popularity and success did to the subsequent direction of Dungeons & Dragons, nudging it down the road toward whatever it is that it's become in recent decades. 

Time of the Dragon is the brainchild of none other than David "Zeb" Cook, which may explain why I've always had such an affection for it. It's also one of those glorious boxed sets that TSR produced in large numbers during the 2e era, something no one else in the hobby (with the possible exception of the Chaosium of old) has ever done as well. Consisting of two books – the 112-page Guide Book to Taladas and the 48-page Rule Book of Taladas, along with 24 full-color cardstock sheets and 4 poster maps – Time of the Dragon presents for the first time another continent of Krynn, the aforementioned Taladas. Like the more familiar Ansalon, Taladas suffered from the events of the Cataclysm, when a single huge meteor fell from the sky and nearly sundered the continent. However, Taladas has its own unique races, cultures, and history, not to mention relationship with the gods that set it apart from Ansalon.

That's a big part of why I retain an affection for Time of the Dragon. Whereas Ansalon and the modules focusing on the War of the Lance have a faux-Tolkien-meets-Ren-Faire vibe to them, Taladas is a darker, harsher place, owing in part to how it experienced the Cataclysm. The meteor strike caused massive terrain-altering earthquakes, resulting in lava flows and volcanic eruptions that blackened the skies. Survival in this environment required hard decisions by the peoples and societies of Taladas, making it a crueler, more pragmatic and occasionally xenophobic place. In some respects, Taladas anticipates many aspects of the later Dark Sun setting, though admittedly lacking in the more sword-and-planet feel of the latter.

Consequently, Taladas feels very different from Ansalon, almost to the point of feeling as if the continent were not located on Krynn. Its peoples and societies deviate from the standard assumptions of both AD&D and Dragonlance. For example, the majority of the elves of Taladas have a nomadic, horse-based culture quite unlike those of Ansalon, while a minority of the race are reclusive tricksters who steal human babies to replenish their own sickly stock. Similarly, the dwarves of Taladas do not dwell underground and, in fact, have a fear of subterranean locales. Kender – much disliked in many gaming circles – barely exist in Taladas and those who do lack the carefree attitudes of their Ansalon cousins. Taladas is also home to numerous new playable races, like goblins, ogres, lizard men, and minotaurs, the latter of which rule a Roman-inspired empire. Combined with several distinct human cultures, likewise inspired by historical antecedents, Taladas would never be mistaken for Ansalon.

Time of the Dragon is also notable for its various rules changes and alterations to 2e. The one I remember most are its kits, an innovation most AD&D players would probably associate with the interminable The Complete X Handbook series, but which, so far as I recall, debuted in this boxed set. At any rate, it's the first place I encountered the idea of kits and I was immediately taken with them. For those unfamiliar with them, a kit is a set of small tweaks to a standard character class to reflect the idiosyncrasies of a particular race and/or culture. For example, there's a kit for the horse-riding bowmen of the Uigan culture and another for the gnomish Companions of the Dead, an elite group of fighters. What I think works about these kits, as compared to those that appeared later, is that they're all very specific and serve to ground the character that possesses one in the setting, which is something I find very agreeable.

I don't get the impression that Taladas was very well received by Dragonlance fans in general, though, as I recall, there were a handful of supplements produced to support it during the 2e era. If my assessment is correct, I can understand why that might have been the case. Aside from a few high-level connections to standard Krynn, such as the influence of the three moons over magic, Taladas might as well be its own unique setting. Even the signature draw of Dragonlance – the dragons – are downplayed and re-contextualized so that, if it weren't for the DL logo on the box, one might be hard pressed to recognize it as taking place on Krynn. That might also explain why I was (and am) so fond of Time of the Dragon: it's a fascinating experiment in building a distinct and unusual AD&D setting that doesn't quite fit into the usual array of building blocks, which is itself a feature of the entire 2e era of AD&D.

White Dwarf: Issue #78

I've got to be honest: reading White Dwarf for these posts is not as much fun as it used to be. Partly, I think I'm simply tired of the magazine, which I've been reviewing for almost two years now. At the same time, I'm finding the individual issues are much more miss than hit, in no small part due to the shift in content toward games that don't interest me very much. That's not necessarily a comment on White Dwarf itself. However, the end is nigh for this series. I'll try to tough it out till issue #80, so I can end it on a nice round number. Any more than that is beyond my patience.

Issue #78 (April 1986) features a cover by Chris Achilleos and a new editor, Paul Cockburn. Prior to coming to White Dwarf, Cockburn was an editor and writer at TSR UK's Imagine, which ceased publication in October 1985, with its thirtieth issue. In his editorial, Ian Livingstone, states that "it looks like everything is changing around here except the name" and he's not mistaken. The whole look of WD is different with this issue – the graphic design is more "professional" and there's a lot more color, for instance. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of taste, I suppose. I can only say that, for me, these "improvements" are a vivid signal that the times, they are a-changin' and I hate change.

With this issue, "Open Box" abandons numerical ratings for its reviews, which I applaud. As commenters have repeatedly pointed out to me, those ratings were not made by the reviewers themselves but by someone on the magazine's editorial team, hence their frequent inconsistencies with the actual text of the reviews. The first product examined is Night's Dark Terror, which the reviewer liked as much as I. Cthulhu by Gaslight is also reviewed positively, though somewhat less enthusiastically. The Nobles Book for Pendragon receives an even more muted thumbs up, while Dragons of Glory is recommended only for "the Dragonlance fanatic," which, I think, is quite fair. 

Paul Mason's "Cosmic Encounter" is not, strictly speaking, a review of the classic science fiction boardgame. Instead, it's an overview of the game's rules and play, no doubt with an eye toward enticing readers to purchase Games Workshop's new edition of the game. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is, oddly, more readable now than in previous issues. Whether that's due to a better layout or the fact that Langford – in this issue anyway – reviews fewer books, I can't rightly say. It's a pity that, with one exception, none of his reviews stuck with me. The one that did, for Gary Gygax's Artifact of Evil, which Langford criticizes for its "brutalities visited upon the English language" and for being little more than "an AD&D campaign write-up." I wish I could disagree.

"Solar Power" by Gary Holland is an occasionally amusing bit of original fiction about Norbert Parkinson, a man whose maladaptive development leads to a psychosis in which "he lives in a world occupied by elves, goblins, dragons, evil wizards and diverse other fantasy figures ..." It's fun enough for what it is, I suppose. Meanwhile, Graeme Drysdale's "Ashes to Ashes" is supposed to be "a closer look at resurrection in AD&D." In fact, it's a fairly cursory examination of all the magical spells by which a character can be returned to life in AD&D (reincarnation, raise dead, and resurrection) along with some comments and advice about their advantages and drawbacks. Again, fine for what it is, but nothing special.

Peter Tamlyn's "The Pilcomayo Project" is an adventure for Golden Heroes. The scenario is long – 7 pages – and takes place in Bolivia, where a Neo-Nazi supervillain and his robot stormtroopers are attempting to locate the legendary city of El Dorado. It's four-color nonsense, of course, but probably enjoyable in play. I find it notable, though, that, unlike previous superhero scenarios in White Dwarf, this one is not dual statted for Champions, only Games Workshop's own Golden Heroes – a sign of the times, no doubt! 

"The Spunng Ones!" by Marcus Rowland is an adventure for Judge Dredd the Role-Playing Game. This is another long one (8 pages) but it's absurd in a way that only a Judge Dredd story can be. A gang of criminals have given an experimental food additive called "Spunng" to a group of "fatties." Spunng converts their fat deposits into rubbery flesh that is also bullet proof. The fatties the engage in a crime spree the player Judges must stop. As I said, absurd, but that's Judge Dredd for you. "'Eavy Metal" takes a look at Judge Dredd miniatures and includes photos of a Sector 306 diorama built for Games Day '85. As always, it's a pleasure to see the amazing work others put into their miniatures.

This issue includes a full-page "Gobbledigook" comic, along with a re-telling of The Lord of the Rings had "Thrud the Barbarian" been involved. Hint: it doesn't go well for the Dark Lord. Sadly, the issue also marks the end of "The Travellers" comic, which had long been a favorite of mine. If I didn't already have other reasons for wanting to give up on this series, the departure of "The Travellers" might be sufficient.

Two more to go, two more to go. I just need to keep telling myself that ...

So You Don't Have To

Loren Rosson, a regular reader of this blog and old school RPG fan, recently put together a ranking of twelve of the original fourteen Dragonlance modules published by TSR between 1984 and 1986 (leaving out only DL 5, Dragons of Mystery, which is a sourcebook, not an adventure, and DL 11, Dragons of Glory, which is a wargame). As I remarked to him when Loren first told me about this project, this is a difficult and thankless job. Despite my own decidedly negative feelings about the entire Dragonlance series, I nevertheless think there's great value in looking at these modules, since, for all my criticisms, a few of them contain genuinely imaginative elements. Likewise, they offer some insight into the changing face of TSR, D&D, and roleplaying games generally during the mid-1980s.

If this interests you at all, head on over to Loren's blog and take a look at what he has to say.

White Dwarf: Issue #70

Issue #70 of White Dwarf (October 1985) has a very striking cover by Brian Williams. Though the idol in the back recalls gaming's best cover ever, I find myself drawn to the blindfolded barbarian in the foreground. Why is he blindfolded? What is the significance of the runes written on that blindfold? What is that glowing device in his left hand? It's a very evocative piece and all these unanswered questions only makes it more compelling.

Ian Livingstone's editorial mourns the loss of Imagine magazine, which ceased publication with its thirtieth issue. His words seem genuinely heartfelt, especially when he notes "the good relationship between the White Dwarf staff and their opposite numbers." At the same time, Livingstone uses this occasion to downplay any suggestion that there is a decline in interest in the hobby of roleplaying. He likewise crows that "White Dwarf's circulation continues to increase," which, while undoubtedly true, seems – to me anyway – to be in slightly poor taste, given the circumstances. 

"Tongue Tied" by Graeme Davis deals with the questions of languages and literacy in AD&D. Davis offers a simple but "realistic" system for handling fluency and the learning of new tongues. It's probably more than is needed by most players of AD&D, but it looks to do a good job at emulating "the polyglot flavour of Howard's Hyborian Age or Moorcock's Young Kingdoms." I may look at it more closely as I ponder similar issues in The Secrets of sha-Arthan.

As usual, we get new installments of "Thrud the Barbarian," "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers." The latter concludes its series of presenting Traveller statistics for the comic's many characters by giving us a look at "the galaxy's most repugnant pervoid," Jason Dinalt – no, not that one – and Felix the Dawlri, an "albino koala bear/tribble." We also get several superhero-related features, starting with Paul Ryder's "The Coven," a cabal of villainous magicians for use with Golden Heroes. There's also "Reunion" by Simon Burley, an adventure dual statted for both Golden Heroes and Champions. The scenario is a follow-up to the introductory one included with Golden Heroes, so I suspect it would hold much less appeal to a Champions referee (unless he happens to own GH as well).

"Open Box" looks at a lot of D&D-related items, starting with three Expert-level modules: Quagmire!, The War Rafts of Kron, and Drums on Fire Mountain, all of which receive scores of 8 out of 10. Dragons of Mystery for the Dragolance series does not fare nearly as well, receiving only 6 out of 10, which is frankly a much higher score than its text would suggest. The reviewer says that "its actual use and value is questionable" along with many other harsh truths. Battle System, meanwhile, gets a better hearing (8 out of 10). I was surprised by this, given that Battle System was something of a rival to GW's own Warhammer rules. Finally, there's The Lost Shrine of Khasar-Khan, the second entry in "The Complete Dungeon Master" series (8 out of 10).

"The Price is Right" by Marcus Rowland is a follow-up of sorts to last month's "The Surrey Enigma." The article describes in full the pre-decimal UK monetary system, along with a price list of common items. I'm a sucker for articles like this, so I found it quite useful. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is here once more and, as usual, I couldn't muster the interest to do more than skim its three columns. Oh well. "Dead or Alive" by Diane and Richard John presents a new career for Traveller: the bounty hunter. Along with the usual information on terms of service and skills, there's also a nice variant of the classic type-S scout ship – with deckplans!

The third part of Peter Blanchard's "Beneath the Waves" series focuses on "creatures from the depths." This includes not just the usual underwater menaces, like cephalopods and sharks, but also sentient species, such as aquatic elves, mermen, and sahuagin. As with earlier installments, this is a solid article but much too short; it only scratches the surface of its subject. "In Too Deep," also by Blanchard, is an AD&D adventure for 4th–5th level characters. The scenario concerns a maritime expedition for spices, the politics of the merchants guild, renegade mermen, and other submarine shenanigans. There are plenty of twists and turns in the adventure and I think it does an effective job of showing how to integrate underwater threats into an AD&D campaign.

"Monstrous NPCs" by Paul Ormston offers up three fully fleshed-out monster NPCs, each a unique individual with his own personality, history, and goals. There's a lizard man prince, a jovial stone giant, and an intellect devourer masquerading as a human. Though each description is short, they're all interesting. They also nicely demonstrate that even monsters can benefit from characterization. "Chop and Change" is Joe Dever's article on modifying miniature figures by adding or subtracting elements from the original molds. He includes several photos of conversion techniques in action, including one of a dinosaur playing a saxophone that I found rather amusing for some reason.

All in all, I mostly enjoyed reading this issue of White Dwarf, though I continue to see signs that the magazine is in the midst of its transformation into the Games Workshop house organ it will one day become.

White Dwarf: Issue #67

Issue #67 of White Dwarf (July 1985) is one I remember very well, largely for a single article with which I became quite enamored after having read it at the time (more on that soon). Featuring a cover by Mark Bromley, this issue is also fixed in my memory because it was the last issue I received by subscription. I still continued to read the magazine for some time after this, but I never again had a subscription to it. Precisely why I ended my subscription I can't recall; it may have been simple laziness on my part. 

Ian Livingstone's editorial notes that, "after nearly ten years of running a poor second to the USA in the creation of fantasy games ... Britain is quickly catching up." Though intended as a boast – and a bit of self-promotional for Games Workshop's products – there's a great deal of truth in this. By the mid-1980s, the industry leader, TSR, felt like a spent force, even to a fanboy such as I. No other American company ever achieved the same level of success or reach until the '90s, leaving an opening for a new top dog. Warhammer, still on the rise at the time, would soon become the juggernaut it remains today. 

The issue's articles begin with the cleverly named "Haunters of the Dark" by Graeme Davis. Over the course of three densely-packed pages, Davis offers up rules and ideas for handling ghosts in Call of Cthulhu. This is the article that made the issue for me in my youth, as I was much impressed not only with the content of the article itself but the possibilities it opened up. In my teen years, CoC was my go-to game for horror. While the game provided some support for non-Mythos adversaries, that was never the focus of the game. This article was a step toward correcting that and I adored it. 

"Open Box" opens with a very fair but largely negative review of Pacesetter's Star Ace (5 out of 10), a science fiction game whose mix of ideas never managed to gel. Also reviewed is Monster Coliseum for the Avalon Hill edition of RuneQuest, which fares only slightly better (6 out of 10). Finally, there are reviews for three Dragonlance modules: Dragons of Flame (7 out of 10), Dragons of Hope (8 out of 10), and Dragons of Desolation (9 out of 10). In retrospect, it's quite fascinating to be reminded of just how well received Dragonlance was at the time. While the reviews here are not wholly without criticisms, the overall tone is positive. Though I remain convinced that, on balance, Dragonlance was a net negative for the development of D&D, there really was a hunger at the time for what the Hickman Revolution was offering.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" laments the pace at which fantasy and science fiction books are being published – and his own inability to keep pace with reviewing them. Consequently, he decides not even to try, focusing instead on longer reviews of fewer books than one lots of rapid fire bullet point reviews of everything that comes across his desk. Even so, Langford still manages to review slightly more than a half-dozen books in this month's column, which is nothing to sneeze at. The standout is his review of Brian Aldiss's Helliconia Summer, the final book in what Langford calls "an impressive trilogy." I couldn't agree more.

"Loam Wolves" by Barry Atkins is a fun little article that introduces "barbarian" magic to replace standard battle magic in RuneQuest. As its title suggests, the magic takes the form of runes drawn with moist earth upon the body of a barbarian, imbuing him with certain powers for a duration of time. While not mind-blowing by any means, it's a solid, flavorful article of the sort I generally like. "Peking Duck" by Phil Masters is a superhero brawl set in and around a Chinese restaurant, the Fo Yen Wok. Statted for both Champions and Golden Heroes, the article is also notable for the appearance of yet more terrible graphic design choices by the White Dwarf staff. Behold!

"Worldly Wiles" by Anna Price discusses "social customs in Traveller." It's a fairly innocuous examination of how to flesh out the societies and cultures of new worlds by reference to history and science fiction literature – nothing special. "A Murder at Flaxton" by Michael Heaton, meanwhile, is much more interesting. It's a low-level AD&D scenario set in a seaside town beset by smugglers and slavers, filled with lots of hidden secrets and memorable NPCs. Though the situation presented in the scenario is far from innovative, Heaton handles it well. I think it could serve as an enjoyable kick-off of a new campaign.

"Parlour Game" by Stephen Dudley is a terrific article on a topic I loathe: spiders. The article provides lots of information about the hunting practices of spiders, as well as their use of webs to achieve similar goals. Obviously, not every referee will care about this sort of thing, but, in an adventure that heavily features eight-legged baddies, the additional detail might well be useful. "The Vivimancer" by Steve Palmer introduces a strange new "monster," a bodhisattva-like being returned to the land of the living after death to aid "goodly characters in their struggle against evil." The vivimancer is a powerful healer and foe of undead, demons, and devils. As presented, I suppose it'd be useful as an ally to the PCs rather than as a front-line combatant, which I don't mind (too much).

"The Magic Frame" by Joe Dever and Gary Chalk discusses the ins and outs of photographing miniatures. Specifically, the article talks about the best kinds of cameras and equipment for doing so, which is a topic I'd never really considered before. "Traveling Light" describes a collection of special magical and mundane backpacks, like messenger packs, which teleport items from one backpack to another to which it is connected. I appreciate minor magical items of this sort. The issue also includes further installments of "Thrud the Barbarian," "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," as usual. The last one is noteworthy this month, because it not only concludes a long-running storyline, it also does so by recourse to a random dice roll à la 76 Patrons.

As I said at the beginning of this post, this is an issue I remember well. The issues that follow are hazier in my memory, so it will be fascinating to re-read them. I wonder how much of their content will seem genuinely new to me and how much I'll begin to recall once I've had the chance to peruse them again. 

White Dwarf: Issue #65

Issue #65 of White Dwarf (May 1985) features a cover by Chris Achilleos derived from a painting that had previously been used in a Fighting Fantasy advertisement (or perhaps they both derive the same painting). This was a common practice for White Dwarf and not in itself noteworthy. I only mention in this instance, because I actually remembered the original FF ad. Ian Livingstone's editorial mentions "a slight decline in fantasy gaming in the USA," which he clarifies as meaning that "the fickle mass market in the USA ... are tired of it." Based on my own memories, this seems about right. The peak fad years of Dungeons & Dragons were largely over and TSR itself was in knee-deep in the struggle between Gary Gygax and the Blume brothers for control of TSR. That said, it certainly didn't feel that way to me at the time.

"The Good, the Bad, and the Downright Odd" by Phil Masters is a decent article about the creation and use of non-player characters in superhero RPGs. However, my enjoyment of it was seriously hampered not by anything in its content by its godawful layout, one of the worst in the long history of White Dwarf's godawful layouts. Let your eyes feast upon this:

More damning than the possibility that this layout could trigger epileptic seizures in the reader, it's almost completely illegible. The combination of colors, especially in the areas that combine a white background with black text and a red overlay, makes the thing almost impossible to read. This isn't just middle age speaking; this was true even in my teen years before I ever owned a pair of glasses. What were they thinking?

Fortunately, "Open Box" is as readable as ever. This issue, there are reviews for West End's Paranoia (7 out of 10), which used to be a favorite of mine. Reviewer Marcus L. Rowland quite correctly points out that, though fun, Paranoia is probably not suitable for a "prolonged campaign." Also reviewed are the first three Alien Modules for GDW's Traveller, focusing on the Aslan (9 out of 10), K'Kree (7 out of 10), and Vargr (9 out of 10). Concluding the column are reviews of three different supplements and adventures for use with FASA's Star Trek RPG: The Romulans (8 out of 10), The Orion Ruse (9 out of 10), and Margin of Profit (8 out of10). For a lover of science fiction like myself, this issue included a great collection of product reviews.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is an unexpectedly good installment this months, perhaps because I'm much more familiar with the books he's reviewing. Langford starts off talking about the Dune series and, by and large, I agree with his initial assessments: Dune is excellent, Dune Messiah almost as good, Children of Dune a mess, and God-Emperor of Dune a slog. Unlike Langford, who – unexpectedly – enjoyed both Heretics of Dune and Chapter House: Dune, I was by turns annoyed and bored. Go figure, He also spends some time slagging Dragons of Autumn Twilight, which is a fine way to spend one's time: "inspired by an AD&D campaign full of chunks ripped bleeding from Tolkien." Langford says he couldn't even finish it; I sometimes wish I could say the same. Langford's byline reappears beneath "The Distressing Damsel," a humorous fantasy tale that I didn't love, but I also didn't hate, so that's something, I guess.

"Thrud the Barbarian" continues its fun "Thrud the Destroyer" storyline. Rather than waste time talking about it, here's a reproduction of the comic to give you a sense of its content.

Graham Miller's "Smile Please" is an adventure for Traveller that is better in concept than execution. The characters are contracted to transport a mysterious box aboard a merchant vessel filled with a motley assortment of fellow passengers. As the ship enters jump space, some of these passengers start dying, seemingly as the result of a murderer in their midst. In truth, the whole thing is part of an Imperial version of the TV show, Candid Camera, which is a bit of a letdown. Mind you, I never ran this scenario, so perhaps it works well in play, though I have my doubts.

"Balancing Act" by Mike Lewis is an interesting early example of discussing the possible tension between the logic of drama (or "storytelling") and the unexpected outcomes of rules. Lewis suggests downplaying the role of rules to ensure a greater degree of dramatic coherence in a campaign and provides lots of examples and suggestions on how to handle this. His ultimate point is that the flow of a game session ought not to be broken by an errant dice roll or even the dictates of a rule. A good referee understands the need for judgment calls when in-game events dictate it. I find it hard to disagree, though leaning into this approach too heavily leads to the railroad and similar pathologies.

"The Sahuagin Heel" by Graeme Drysdale is a nice little AD&D adventure for characters of levels 2–4. The scenario involves a string of islands menaced by the aforementioned sahuagin. It's a solid sea-based adventure, with numerous interesting encounters, including tricks and traps. If it has a flaw, it's the extensive backstory presented at the start of the adventure to set the stage. In general, I prefer less of this sort of thing, but that's just personal preference. "The Other Imperium" by Michael Scott presents several civilian organizations for use with Traveller, like Intercredit (an intersellar banking service) and the Mercenary Monitoring Corps. Much more interesting is the latest installment of "The Travellers" comic, which has a go at Star Trek in forms of the characters of Captain Quirk and his first officer, Speck. We're also treated to more "Gobbledigook," though I almost missed it this time, because its placement amidst a sea of advertisements at the end of the issue obscured it somewhat.

"Forecasting the Runes" by Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson is an article for RuneQuest that presents two small rules/world additions to the game. The first is the titular runes, which function as a type of augury, while the second pertains to a system of birth signs based around the four parts of the soul (as understood by Glorantha's Lunar Empire). Both are quite flavorful and, just as importantly, mechanically simple, which I think is very important. Well done! Meanwhile, "The Noegyth Nibin" by Steven Prizeman stats up the "pettty dwarfs" of Tolkien's Silmarillion in D&D terms. 

"Armed to the Teeth" by MJ Bourne is (yet another) collection of unusual historical weapons for use with D&D – stuff like the misericorde and poinard, alongside the boomerang and blowpipe. I don't hate articles like this, but I do question their utility after so many others have been written – and are still being written – that cover the same material. Finally, there's "Horse Sense" by Joe Dever and Gary Chalk in which they discuss the intricacies of painting horse miniatures for use with RPGs and tabletop wargames. As always, I find this series weirdly fascinating, perhaps because I know so little about miniatures painting.

And there you have it: issue #65 of White Dwarf. It's a better than average issue in my opinion, though a little more staid than earlier issues in the magazine's run. Unfortunately, that's the nature of these sorts of things. As a publication becomes more polished and "professional," its content is both more consistent and more "safe." Much as I have commented negatively about the inconsistency of White Dwarf's content in its early days, I nevertheless recognize that that inconsistency was, in some respects, a necessary consequence of its newness – the very same newness that regularly inspired some truly phenomenal creativity and that I'd love to see again.

Experience a Legend

Despite my well-known dislike of the way that the Dragonlance series changed AD&D (and roleplaying), the fact is that I actually looked forward to the appearance of the first Weis and Hickman novel in November 1984. As a TSR fanboy, I dutifully bought it, along with its two sequels, though, in retrospect, it's difficult to say exactly why. I suspect the sheer novelty of a "D&D novel" – Quag Keep doesn't really count in my estimation – was enough to inflame my interest. 

I had just turned fifteen at the time and Dungeons & Dragons meant a lot to me. I suppose I saw the advent of the Dragonlance novels as some kind of validation of all the time, energy, and love I poured into this rather odd pastime. From the vantage point of middle age, it's mildly embarrassing, but adolescent enthusiasms often are. 

White Dwarf: Issue #60

Issue #60 of White Dwarf (December 1984) is another issue I remember well, largely because of its Call of Cthulhu scenario, which I rather liked at the time. I also remember finding its installment of "Thrud the Barbarian" – "Thrud Gets Sophisticated" – enjoyable as well, though, in my defense, I was only fifteen at the time and I was easily amused. Ian Livingstone's editorial focuses on the rising price of metal miniatures, which he fears will lead to figures becoming a luxury. He suggests that plastic miniatures might be a solution to this problem – which did, in fact, happen a few years later, the first plastic Citadel minis appearing in 1987 or thereabouts.

"First Issues" by Simon Burley is the first part of a series about superhero roleplaying. As its title suggests, the article deals with what makes a good kick-off adventure for a superhero campaign. For its length (two pages), it offers solid advice and suggestions, along with some examples to illustrate its points. As these kinds of articles go, it's pretty good.

Dave Langford's latest "Critical Mass" column makes a few suggestions of books appropriate as Christmas gifts, some of which are high-priced, hardcover reprints of classic science fiction and fantasy books, often illustrated. Even more than usual, the column is mostly of interest historically rather than being of enduring interest. "Open Box," on the other, held my attention more fully. First up, we're treated to a review of Chaosium's ElfQuest, which its reviewer praises (9 out of 10) as "really the nicest RPG I have seen to give someone as a present." Dungeon Planner 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh gets a solid 7 out of 10, while the first two Lone Wolf books – Flight from the Dark and Fire on the Water – score the same. Finally, there are reviews of three AD&D modules: The Sentinel (8 out of 10), The Gauntlet (7 out of 10), and Dragons of Despair (8 out of 10). The review of Dragons of Despair is notable for its belief that Tracy Hickman is a woman and its dislike for Clyde Caldwell's cover. 

Part 2 of Graeme Davis's rules for magic item creation, "Eye of Newt and Wing of Bat," appears in this issue, with rods and potions being its subject this time. As I mentioned previously, I love the idea elaborate item creation rules, but most of them, this one included, are simply too fastidious ("The leg muscles of one axebeak. Simmer for 24 hours and stir in one powdered platinum arrow, minimum value 500gp.") to be workable in almost any campaign in which I have played. I don't know; perhaps others' experiences are very different from mine.

"The Bleeding Stone of Iphtah" by Steve Williams with Jon Sutherland is an excellent Call of Cthulhu scenario set in Jerusalem. Professor Foster is an archeologist being mentally manipulated by the Great Race of Yith, who seek to use him to open a gate that would enable them to escape destruction in the ancient past – but at the cost of mankind's survival in the 20th century. Fortunately, Foster is sufficiently strong willed that he is sometimes able, often with the aid of opium, to break free of the Great Race's control, thereby aiding the Investigators in thwarting their plans. Originally a convention adventure, it's short and focused, both of which are blessing in my opinion. I had fun with this in my gaming group of old and still think fondly of it.

"Boarding Actions" by Marcus L. Rowland is a look at the hazards of attempting to seize a starship in a science fiction RPG. Very well done, it's an extended examination of the tactics behind such an endeavor, from the perspective of both the would-be boarder and those who wish to repel them. The issue also includes new episodes of "Gobbledigook," "The Travellers," and "Thrud the Barbarian." Earlier, I alluded to "Thrud Gets Sophisticated," in which writer/artist Carl Critchlow attempts to (unsuccessfully) interject some elegance and urbanity into the adventures of the mighty-threwed barbarian – with predictable results.

Stuart Hunter's "The Fear of Leefield" is an AD&D adventure for characters of levels 3–5. In some ways, it's a fairly typical "rural village" in trouble, as the PCs must contend with mysterious events that are threatening the townsfolk. However, the scenario has an interesting twist in the form of its primary antagonist, a troublemaker who'd been exiled from Leefield in his youth and nursed a grudge against the place of his birth. Now a cleric in service to an evil deity (Bane the Black Lord), he is engineering a situation that will not only enable him to avenge himself upon the village but make him rich as well. 

"Microview" reviews five computer games, three of them produced by Games Workshop. I had completely forgotten that GW was at one time involved in this part of the hobby. "Ars Arcana" by Kiel Stephens continues to provide commentary on AD&D spells, including clever uses for some of them. This series continues to be unexpectedly good and I'm amazed I hadn't recognized it before. "Felines, Fungi and Phantoms" presents four new monsters for Dungeons & Dragons, while "Bits of Fluff" does something similar for RuneQuest. Of the two, "Bits of Fluff" is better – and sillier – in that its monsters play with expectations in a way that a referee might find useful. Take a look and see what I mean:

Concluding the issue is "A Wash and Bush-up" by Gary Chalk and Joe Dever, an article about techniques for color washing miniature figures. As ever, I found the piece fascinating, probably because I was never a very good painter of figures (or indeed of anything else).

All in all, this is a solid issue, though not quite as good as I remember its being. 

Retrospective: Dragonlance Adventures

Although there are nearly four thousand posts on this blog, one of the most widely read remains "How Dragonlance Ruined Everything," published all the way back in 2008. Though the title is intentionally hyperbolic, I largely stand behind what I wrote then, namely that the release and success of the Dragonlance series of adventure modules was the crowning achievement of the Hickman Revolution and forever changed the trajectory of Dungeons & Dragons. I don't think this is disputable. Since 1984, D&D – and indeed roleplaying games in general – have been slowly evolving into a much more story-driven, character-focused form of entertainment than the by-blow of miniatures wargaming it was in 1974. Whether one views this evolution as good or bad is irrelevant to the truth of it.

Consequently, it should come as no surprise that, as Dragonlance's star rose ever higher, TSR would attempt to use it as a platform to change the game mechanically as well as conceptually. Dragonlance Adventures demonstrates precisely what I mean. Published in 1987, DLA is a 128-page hardcover volume on the model of previous AD&D tomes like the Players Handbook. Though billed as a "source book," its content is not simply setting material; the book contains many new rules that augment or outright replace those of standard AD&D. In fact, many of these new rules, as we'll see, appear to be dry runs for rules that would later be incorporated into Second Edition when it appeared in 1989. 

The most obvious changes in Dragonlance Adventures come in the form of its character classes. Almost every standard AD&D class is either altered or replaced in DLA, the only exceptions being fighter, barbarian, ranger, thief, and thief/acrobat. Consequently, the book provides quite a few new classes, such as three different types of clerics, wizards, and Knights of Solamnia, all of which tie closely into the history and cosmology of the world of Krynn. Also presented is the tinker class for use by the setting's unique take on gnomes. Other nonhuman races are similarly reimagined or, in the case of halflings, replaced entirely (which has the added benefit of severing some of D&D's most direct connections to Tolkien's Middle-earth – there are no orcs on Krynn, for example). 

Though these changes, as I note, are presented in order to bring the rules more into line with the realities of the setting, they also enable Tracy Hickman, who is credited as the book's "designer," to tinker with some of AD&D's rules in ways that, at the time, were genuinely original. For example, the three types of wizards – White, Red, and Black – are distinguished not simply by their alignment, but also by which "spheres" of magic to which they have access. These spheres are simply AD&D's schools of magic (abjuration, conjuration, etc.) renamed. The effect of this change is to differentiate wizards by their background and training, much in the way that Second Edition would do with specialist wizards. Similarly, clerics would have access to different spheres of spells based on the interests of the gods they served.

The mechanical treatment of Krynn's races is quite similar, fiddling as it does with the verities laid down in the Players Handbook. Not only does Hickman shift the ability score ranges, he alters both the availability of classes and, more significantly, their level limits. Silvanesti Elves, for instance, can be paladins and they're unlimited in their advancement, two remarkable deviations from the Gygaxian canon of earlier AD&D. There are also rules for playing minotaurs, who, while brutal, are not inherently evil or unintelligent – another notable shift away from the "facts" of the game as it was known at the time.

From the vantage point of present day D&D, filled as it is with innumerable new character classes, nonhuman species, and nary a level limit to be seen, none of this likely appears worthy of mention, let alone suspicion. Yet, at the time, these tentative steps away from the humanocentric, pulp fantasy picaresque of Golden Age D&D were truly revolutionary, especially coming from TSR, which had previously resisted – and, under Gygax, mocked – any such attempts to upend the game's presentation and focus. A great many people, myself included, welcomed these changes and felt that they presaged a a great sea change in the game. As it turned out, we were more prescient than we realized and Dragonlance Adventures served as the herald of the new age aborning, just as the Dragonlance adventure modules had done several years previously.

There's a lot more that could be said about this book and the role it played in changing the design of AD&D, such as its inclusion of the non-weapon proficiencies of the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides as baseline features of the rules. While I don't want to minimize the significance of their inclusion, even more significant, I think, is the overall presentation of DLA, which offers the reader – more on that in a moment – a coherent setting whose rules are designed to emulate and reinforce its flavor and themes. Krynn is explicitly a setting that "promot[es] the power of truth over injustice, good over evil, and grant[s] good consequences for good acts and bad consequences for evil acts." The Angry Mothers from Heck would be pleased.

Let me conclude with a brief note about the book's preface, which states that "you can certainly enjoy this book without playing the game." Though Hickman and Weis quickly enjoin the reader to play, I think it's significant that the preface even countenances the idea that one might buy Dragonlance Adventures without wishing to play AD&D. We must remember how popular – and lucrative – the Dragonlance novels were and how many people became fans of the setting and its characters as a result. I'd wager that, while Dragonlance was very profitable for TSR, the number of new players it introduced to playing D&D was not nearly as great. Dragonlance (and, by extension, D&D) was a powerful brand and that's all that mattered. Once again, Dragonlance was a forerunner of what was to come.

Dragonlance is Coming

 From Dragon #82 (February 1984):

Little did we know ... 

Coming Soon

Retrospective: Dragons of Glory

My overall opinion of Dragonlance is, I think, well known and, in the thirteen (!) years since I first publicly expressed it, I haven't much mellowed. I remain convinced that, while Dragonlance may well have "saved" Dungeons & Dragons in some sense, the hobby is still paying the price of that salvation nearly four decades later. This does not mean, however, that the entire Dragonlance project was wholly devoid of worth. Indeed, in the course of changing the course of D&D and, by extension, the entire hobby, a number of genuinely interesting things were produced.

A case in point is 1985's Dragons of Glory, written by Douglas Niles and Tracy Hickman (though I suspect that it was Niles who was responsible for the bulk of the product). Ostensibly the eleventh module in the original Dragonlance series, Dragons of Glory is, in fact, not an adventure scenario at all but rather a stand-alone wargame set in the world of Krynn, complete with rules, maps, and hundreds of cardboard counters.

I dutifully purchased module DL11 upon its release, as I had all the previous modules in the series. As I've explained before, I was never a fan of Krynn as a setting or even of the specifics of Dragonlance – particularly its pre-generated characters – but I was quite taken with the idea of a lengthy series of connected scenarios that chronicled a war against a high fantasy Dark Lord. Thus, I cannibalized the DL modules to use in a campaign setting of my own devising (about which the less said the better) and rarely regretted that decision. Dragons of Glory was one such occasion. 

You see, the module presented a strategic-level simulation of the War of the Lance, with rules for movement, combat, and reinforcements, among other such details. The rules are simple, probably laughably so for anyone with much experience in the hobby of hex-and-chit wargaming. Not having such experience myself, I wasn't at all bothered by this. In fact, I considered it something of a plus, since, as a neophyte, I wasn't in a position to handle a more sophisticated wargame. 

Dragons of Glory was supposed to serve two purposes. As already mentioned, it was intended as a stand-alone wargame that could be played again and again, much in the way one might play Third Reich or Kingmaker. More interesting is the second purpose of the game: integrating the wargame with the module series. The idea here is that the referee (and another player) could take note of their play of the wargame and then use it to influence the play of the module-based campaign. For example, if a battle takes place in the wargame in a particular place, when the player characters make their way through that same place, the referee could use that fact to affect what those characters see and encounter there. Now, to be clear, there are no actual rules to govern this. Even the guidelines offered amount to little more than vague advice, but I cannot tell you how much the idea of using the results of a wargame to affect the play of a RPG inspired me at the time.

There's another unspoken angle here, namely that Dragons of Glory points the way – tentatively, to be sure – toward "alternate universe" versions of Krynn, where things don't necessarily play out exactly the way the adventure modules intend them to. That's always been one of my biggest beefs with the whole Dragonlance project: its expectation that certain events would happen in certain ways and that certain characters would be involved in them. I hated this approach then and I hate it even more now. If the project had been more flexible in allowing events to unfold differently in each campaign, I might have fewer objections. As it is, Dragonlance is a vast railroad with a pre-determined beginning, middle, and end. 

Dragons of Glory hints at the possibility of other approaches and that's probably why I still retain a certain fondness for it, despite its design shortcomings. DL11 is probably the first and only time that a module in this series toys with the idea of the War of the Lance having different trajectories than those presented in official TSR products, trajectories unique to each campaign. Again, I feel I should reiterate that Dragons of Glory itself does little to support this idea and I am likely being more charitable toward it than it deserves. Even so, I was so positively impacted by what little it does offer that I felt it deserved a second look. 

Alignment Tracking

I sometimes think I must be the only gamer who doesn't have a problem with alignment in Dungeons & Dragons. Though my personal preference these days is the simple three-way system of OD&D, I'm equally fine with Holmes's five-way version and the very well known presentation from AD&D, with its nine alignments. For me, the only "wrong" alignment system in D&D is a non-existent one. I consider alignment in some form to be one of the distinguishing features of the game, like character classes or Vancian magic. Get rid of alignment and it's not really D&D anymore, at least not for me.

That's why I'm equal parts intrigued and repulsed by attempts to improve alignment by better tying it to game mechanics. I fully understand the impulse. Many critics of alignment feel that it's useless, a wargaming atavism with no purpose in the game. Associating alignment with some kind of mechanism is, I think, an effort to answer these criticisms and I can appreciate that. At the same time, I enjoy reading optional and alternative rules as intellectual exercises, even though I rarely make use of them myself.

Last week, one of the players in my Empire of the Petal Throne campaign asked me if I remembered an alignment tracking chart from an AD&D product from the 1980s. His question immediately reminded me of the existence of such a thing, though it took me a couple of minutes racking my brain to answer his question correctly. As it turns out, 1987's Dragonlance Adventures includes such a chart, which I've reproduced above. 

As written, it's an odd thing. For one, it only tracks a character's moral alignment, which is to say, the good-neutrality-evil axis. At start of play, a character's alignment is deemed to be at the midpoint of his chosen moral alignment. I'm not wholly sure why the chart has no interest in the so-called ethical alignment axis of law-neutrality-chaos. I presume it might have something to do with the unique cosmology of Krynn, but it's not directly spelled out in the book. 

If, in the opinion of the Dungeon Master, a character's actions deviate from his stated moral alignment, it moves one to three steps closer toward the opposite end of the chart. With enough deviations, the character enters the gray "transition" area, which signals that he is in danger of changing his alignment. While in the transition area, there are various game mechanical penalties levied against the character, such as lowered combat statistics and a chance of spell failure. Certain classes, like clerics, suffer further penalties.

Dragonlance Adventures is actually a fascinating AD&D book, one of several setting-specific rulebooks that appeared just prior to the publication of Second Edition. My impression is that these books, each in their own way, was a test run for various ideas and concepts that were being considered for inclusion in 2e. For example, Dragonlance Adventures introduced "spheres" of clerical spells, with each god's clerics having access to only some of them, in an effort to distinguish them from one another. This idea would become a big part of 2e's priest class, one the edition's biggest divergences from its predecessor. 

It's worth noting that First Edition already included something akin to this. Page 24 of the Dungeon Masters Guide includes a section of "graphing alignment," in which Gygax states that "It is of importance to keep track of player character behavior with respect to their professed alignment." Likewise, there are penalties for deviating from one's alignment, though they're not as clear cut as those described in Dragonlance Adventures. Still, I feel confident that alignment tracking is likely an idea considered for Second Edition and given a trial in this book. That it never appeared in 2e suggests it probably wasn't well received or that it had failed to serve its intended purposely, namely to make alignment more mechanically significant in AD&D.

Imagine Magazine: Issue #26

Alan Craddock provides the cover to issue #26 of Imagine (May 1985), which also very prominently features a starburst proclaiming that the magazine is "For players of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game." A banner at the bottom left also proclaims that the issue will include "(almost) live" coverage of Gamesfair '85. From a purely historical point of view, the three-page article devoted to that game convention is by far the most interesting one in the whole issue, if for no other reason than its being a window on the hobby of yesteryear. For that reason, I'm going to save my comments on it till the end of this post. 

"The Adventurers' Guild" by Chris Felton takes the form of a faux lecture delivered by a veteran adventurer to his colleagues about novel uses for magic spells. For example, by casting continual light on marbles, one can determine the depth of a shaft or the contents of an alcove. Likewise, one could cast wall of iron above a target, which then drops on his head. As articles go, it's fine but nothing I haven't seen before in other similar articles. Roger Musson's "Monstermark Revisited" is a revision of the author's famous system for measuring the lethality of a monster that appeared in the pages of White Dwarf. Again, it's fine for what it is, but I've never had any need for such a system (though I understand the Monstermark was well regarded in its day). 

This month's Pelinore material consists of descriptions of the setting's gods and the village of Tellhalter, neither of which grabbed me the way previous entries in this series have – perhaps I'm becoming jaded. "Fellow Travellers" by Paul Vernon treats what it calls "wayfarers" one might encounter on the road for use as random encounters in D&D or AD&D. Wayfarers are divided into groups, such as commoners, dignitaries, or officials and then further sub-divides them, offering descriptions, game stats, and ideas on how to use them in a game. It's a clever little article with genuine utility, which is just what I like to see. "The Great Paladin Hunt" by Mike Brunton is an AD&D adventure, in which the characters are all paladins who have escaped from the clutches of a band of gnolls who were preparing to eat them as part of a celebration. The scenario is basically a wilderness hexcrawl, with multiple keyed encounters, as the paladins attempt to flee to safety while the gnolls pursue them. As a tournament adventure for Gamesfair, it seems like it'd be fun to play.

"Mindmeld" is "a game of psionic warfare" for two players (though suitable for solitaire play), written by Alan E. Paull. Since I didn't have the chance to play it myself in preparation for this post, I unfortunately can't speak to its quality. "Rock Touch" by Sharon Clark is a short story about a geologist and her assistant who encounter something strange while on a survey. This issue's reviews focus on Dragonlance (both its modules and first novel), all of which are reviewed with charity though without much love, if that makes sense. The reviewers are certainly fairer to the series than I have been in the past. Meanwhile, Colin Greenland's "Fantasy Media" takes on Ladyhawke and Brazil (among other things), both of which he liked a great deal. In "Stirge Corner," Roger Musson continues to talk about the uses of fantasy maps and tackles the issue of whether they ought to "make geological sense" or whether it's more important they serve the ends of the referee's campaign – as always, thought provoking stuff. There are comics too, but …

Which brings us to the coverage of Gamesfair, complete with photos. Here's an example of one that, though taken in another country, nevertheless reminds me of my own early experiences of game conventions.

These young lads could have been my friends and I around the same time, a thought that fills me with equal parts wistfulness and embarrassment.

The coverage also provides details of a seminar  to be led by Gary Gygax, described as "the highlight of the weekend." However, Gary was not able to make the event and TSR UK head, Don Turnbull, took his place. Despite this disappointment, Turnbull offered up a number of interesting tidbits and controversial statements, some of which really struck me. First, he mentions that the long-awaited module T2 was nearly complete but had been so greatly expanded that it would probably be released as a hardback book. Turnbull also stated that the D&D toys "have nothing to do with our hobby" and had "harsh words … about some other recent trends in the industry." Sounds like a man after my own heart! The article also notes that the crowd "were concerned about the Dragonlance modules and the direction that modules seem to be taking." Sadly, there was no elaboration of what this direction was, but it definitely piqued my interest, given my own well-known feelings about Dragonlance and its baleful influence on Dungeons & Dragons.

In sum, issue #26 was a fairly middling one, with only the coverage of Gamesfair being a stand out for me personally and, even then, primarily for the nostalgia factor of peering into the world of nerdery circa 1985. Those were the days!