Podcasting is a medium about which I know very little. My experiences with it are limited to being a guest on a couple of them. However, a lot of people enjoy them, so I thought I'd pass along a link to one specifically dedicated to AD&D. Called Roll for Initiative, new episodes are posted regularly and focus on a variety of 1e-related topics, with a special focus on the Greyhawk setting.
If you have some time to spare, drop by and give it a listen.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Microdungeons
Reader JD passed along a link to this cool site, Microdungeons by Tony Dowler. Microdungeons are very stylized representations of partial or entire dungeons, done without a map grid but intended to inspire referees when designing their own sites. I think it's a very nifty concept and hope we'll see the site take off in the coming months. I know how difficult it can be to stock a megadungeon and having a supply of bits and pieces to riff off of like these is a terrific boon.
Take a look!
Take a look!
Young'uns
As I've mentioned too many times by now, 2009 marked the 30th anniversary of my introduction into the hobby. I started playing D&D at Christmas 1979 at the age of 10 with the Holmes-edited boxed set. What's intriguing to me is that I keep meeting gamers who are younger than me and yet have been roleplaying longer than I. This means that there were apparently lots of kids who started gaming when they were as young as five years old.
That strikes me as strange; I can't imagine having the interest, let alone patience, to play D&D when I was in Kindergarten or First Grade. I've long suspected I got into the hobby when I did not just because of a series of serendipitous events, but because, at age 10, I was ready to do so. That is, I had grown up enough to (mostly) cast aside a lot of my childhood toys, but I wasn't yet old enough to cast aside the fantasies that went with them. Roleplaying thus provided me with an outlet for my imagination free from the toys I associated with being "a little kid."
Had I been younger, I doubt I'd have taken much notice of D&D, since it would have seemed a poor substitute for playing with GI Joe or Star Wars figures -- and too complicated to boot. Obviously, not everyone felt this way, given that seemingly so many of my "elders" in the hobby are in fact younger than I am -- but it's still odd.
That strikes me as strange; I can't imagine having the interest, let alone patience, to play D&D when I was in Kindergarten or First Grade. I've long suspected I got into the hobby when I did not just because of a series of serendipitous events, but because, at age 10, I was ready to do so. That is, I had grown up enough to (mostly) cast aside a lot of my childhood toys, but I wasn't yet old enough to cast aside the fantasies that went with them. Roleplaying thus provided me with an outlet for my imagination free from the toys I associated with being "a little kid."
Had I been younger, I doubt I'd have taken much notice of D&D, since it would have seemed a poor substitute for playing with GI Joe or Star Wars figures -- and too complicated to boot. Obviously, not everyone felt this way, given that seemingly so many of my "elders" in the hobby are in fact younger than I am -- but it's still odd.
Whte Box Sold Out!
Just a little over a week after opening pre-orders for a boxed edition of Swords & Wizardry: White Box, John Adams of Brave Halfling Publishing has announced that the product is sold out for the foreseeable future. This is both terrific and disappointing news -- terrific because it means that BHP has obviously created something for which there was much demand and disappointing because many gamers, myself included, won't get their hands on copies of this game anytime soon.
John has said there will be a second run of boxed sets "later in 2010," though no specific date has been given. He has also indicated that a single-volume version of the White Box rules will be released "as soon as possible." The latter is good news for those who don't already own copies of White Box, but, speaking only for myself, it was the boxed, small booklet format that really appealed to me and made me consider buying a copy not only for myself but for my friends as well. Without the box, the appeal of the new release is minimal.
I certainly look forward to seeing what BHP produces to support the White Box rules. I do hope, though, that the company finds some way to keep a boxed version of the game in regular print rather than its being an occasional grab-it-before-it's-gone product. I think a boxed set of simple fantasy roleplaying rules could do extremely well, particularly if they were readily available through game stores. That White Box won't be such a game, at least not in the near future, is a disappointment, although it does leave an opening for Jim Raggi's own offering, which he plans to release as a boxed set, though I have no idea if his game will be put into distribution or not.
Still, congratulations to Brave Halfling for producing an instant winner. I guess I'll just wait until the next print run before I snag my copies.
John has said there will be a second run of boxed sets "later in 2010," though no specific date has been given. He has also indicated that a single-volume version of the White Box rules will be released "as soon as possible." The latter is good news for those who don't already own copies of White Box, but, speaking only for myself, it was the boxed, small booklet format that really appealed to me and made me consider buying a copy not only for myself but for my friends as well. Without the box, the appeal of the new release is minimal.
I certainly look forward to seeing what BHP produces to support the White Box rules. I do hope, though, that the company finds some way to keep a boxed version of the game in regular print rather than its being an occasional grab-it-before-it's-gone product. I think a boxed set of simple fantasy roleplaying rules could do extremely well, particularly if they were readily available through game stores. That White Box won't be such a game, at least not in the near future, is a disappointment, although it does leave an opening for Jim Raggi's own offering, which he plans to release as a boxed set, though I have no idea if his game will be put into distribution or not.
Still, congratulations to Brave Halfling for producing an instant winner. I guess I'll just wait until the next print run before I snag my copies.
Rulesets and Supplements Thereof
Last week, Jim Raggi posted a "rehearsal tape" version of his upcoming old school RPG rules. It's quite an interesting document and well worth looking at, if only to see where Raggi's ideas match up with one's own. I'm also intrigued by the fact that it's called a "weird fantasy" roleplaying game, although there's not much (to my mind anyway) evidence of that in the material that's currently available online. Perhaps that will be more apparent in later iterations.
I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing the publication of this game, though. I personally appreciate seeing lots of mutant descendants of Dungeons & Dragons, each one reflecting the idiosyncrasies of its creator. To me, that's where the hobby lies, not in unambiguous "official" rules that admit to only one interpretation and foster only one style of play. Confusing though it probably is to an outsider, I adore the crazy quilt nature of the old school movement these days, with all of its participants presenting their own eccentric takes on the game. That's why you'll never hear my complain about "too many old school rulesets" except to the extent that it's often hard to keep up with them all.
Despite this, I am of two minds about the possibility of ever publishing the rules I use in my Dwimmermount campaign. That's because the rules are mostly just tweaks to already existing rulesets rather than extensive rewrites. Likewise, they borrow from no single source but are instead a Frankenstein's monster knitted together from OD&D, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardry, along with my own ideas and those I've borrowed from others. The result is a game that's at once not so different as to justify being called a "new" game but also different enough that I couldn't just point to already existing game and say, "Use these."
This is why, despite my criticisms of it, I am sympathetic to the fanciful reinterpretation of OD&D's supplements advanced by Geoffrey McKinney. I think it would have been terrific if each supplement to OD&D had in fact been one writer's take on the game presented through the lens of his home campaign. That's more or less what I'd love to do with a theoretical Dwimmermount supplement, since most of my "rules" are in fact rules changes. The basic structure of my game is still recognizably OD&D; it's the little nuances that are different and deserve mention.
But, as I say, the problem is that I'd prefer it if I could say, as Rob Conley did in his own Supplement VI, that Dwimmermount was a supplement to Ruleset X, but I can't. My baseline is OD&D rather than a retro-clone. I suppose it's fairly close to Original Edition Characters in many respects, so perhaps I could associate it with that. It's also similar to Swords & Wizardry: White Box, but since I refuse to include ascending armor class notations that option isn't available to me. In the end, it might not matter, since this isn't meant to be a mass market product and, in all likelihood, those who purchase it are probably more interested in the world and megadungeon I've created than in my rules variants. Still, something to ponder.
I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing the publication of this game, though. I personally appreciate seeing lots of mutant descendants of Dungeons & Dragons, each one reflecting the idiosyncrasies of its creator. To me, that's where the hobby lies, not in unambiguous "official" rules that admit to only one interpretation and foster only one style of play. Confusing though it probably is to an outsider, I adore the crazy quilt nature of the old school movement these days, with all of its participants presenting their own eccentric takes on the game. That's why you'll never hear my complain about "too many old school rulesets" except to the extent that it's often hard to keep up with them all.
Despite this, I am of two minds about the possibility of ever publishing the rules I use in my Dwimmermount campaign. That's because the rules are mostly just tweaks to already existing rulesets rather than extensive rewrites. Likewise, they borrow from no single source but are instead a Frankenstein's monster knitted together from OD&D, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardry, along with my own ideas and those I've borrowed from others. The result is a game that's at once not so different as to justify being called a "new" game but also different enough that I couldn't just point to already existing game and say, "Use these."
This is why, despite my criticisms of it, I am sympathetic to the fanciful reinterpretation of OD&D's supplements advanced by Geoffrey McKinney. I think it would have been terrific if each supplement to OD&D had in fact been one writer's take on the game presented through the lens of his home campaign. That's more or less what I'd love to do with a theoretical Dwimmermount supplement, since most of my "rules" are in fact rules changes. The basic structure of my game is still recognizably OD&D; it's the little nuances that are different and deserve mention.
But, as I say, the problem is that I'd prefer it if I could say, as Rob Conley did in his own Supplement VI, that Dwimmermount was a supplement to Ruleset X, but I can't. My baseline is OD&D rather than a retro-clone. I suppose it's fairly close to Original Edition Characters in many respects, so perhaps I could associate it with that. It's also similar to Swords & Wizardry: White Box, but since I refuse to include ascending armor class notations that option isn't available to me. In the end, it might not matter, since this isn't meant to be a mass market product and, in all likelihood, those who purchase it are probably more interested in the world and megadungeon I've created than in my rules variants. Still, something to ponder.
Retrospective: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
Published at the tail end of the Golden Age, 1982's The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth was one of my favorite modules for a long time. Even today, looking back on it, I retain a great deal of fondness for module S4, in part because I played it so often. That's something that's been missing from D&D modules for some time: replayability. Back in the day, I clearly recall using many, perhaps most, modules multiple times and not just with different groups of players or even characters. Rather, the same characters would re-visit modules in which they'd previously adventured, a phenomenon I don't recall happening during the 2e or 3e eras, when modules seemed much more "disposable" in nature.The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth was anything but disposable. Firstly, unlike a lot of modules, this one included an extensive wilderness component, with the characters having to travel overland to reach the dungeon itself. Now, wilderness adventuring was commonplace in those days, but comparatively few AD&D modules dealt with it explicitly, focusing instead on the dungeon itself. That's probably due to the fact that a great many of these modules had their origins in tournament play, where wilderness adventuring would eat up too much time to include. Ironically, The Lost Caverns is based on a similarly-named tournament module played at WinterCon V in 1976, which did not include a wilderness component.
The meat of the module itself consisted of two levels of caverns, formerly the abode of the archmage Iggwilv, binder of demons and mother of the demigod Iuz of the Greyhawk setting. Consequently, the caverns are home to all manner of strange beasts, many of them former servants (or slaves) of Iggwilv, now free to pursue their own agendas. This gives the caverns a strange, almost otherworldly flavor to it, a feeling that lingers more than two decades later. Despite this, Gygaxian naturalism is in somewhat attenuated force, with the various inhabitants of the place doing more than just hanging around awaiting the arrival of the PCs. Even so, most of the naturalism is suggestive rather than explicit, depending on the referee to expand upon the brief details given in the text. That's part of the fun of this module -- figuring out why, for example, a hill giant keeps a giant rhinoceros beetle as a pet or what the dao disguising themselves as harem girls are up to.
I suppose the real draw of The Lost Caverns was its 32-page monsters and magic items supplement. Remember that this module was published in 1982, before both the Monster Manual II and Unearthed Arcana ushered in "AD&D 1.5e." Unless you were a regular reader of Dragon -- as many of my players weren't -- you weren't familiar any of the new creatures, magic items, or spells previewed there before their appearance in module S4. I'll admit that I loved most of the new material introduced here, particularly the expanded menagerie of demons and demon lords, as they were frequent antagonists in my old campaigns. I also appreciated the new magic items, particularly the Prison of Zagig, which saw much use in the hands of one of the PCs back then.
For all my affection for the module, it's a tinged a bit with disappointment and not a little sadness. Like many late Gygax works, you can see a definite change in both the presentation and content. There's boxed text aplenty in The Lost Caverns and, although it's mostly innocuous (compared to, say, Isle of the Ape anyway), it nevertheless presages a shift toward a hand-holding, pre-packaged style that eventually turned me off buying TSR adventure modules at all. Likewise, while I don't generally mind "more stuff," S4 feels a bit like an extended advertisement for upcoming products, notably Monster Manual II. The original tournament module included, so far as I can recall, no new monsters and was perfectly adequate for its purpose.
But then that's the point. By 1982, TSR was changing and the purpose of adventure modules along with it, as we'd see more fully in the watershed year of 1983. That's why, much as I like The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, I also see it as a harbinger of much I would not like and whose effects proved far-reaching.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Dwimmermount Sessions 25-27
I've been terribly remiss in posting session summaries of my Dwimmermount campaign. That's partially due to being rather busy in December, but it's also a function of the fact that many of the recent sessions have provided a lot less obvious fodder for discussion. After dealing with the "zombie horde" at the end of session 24, the player characters -- who, at the suggestion of Brother Candor, had taken to calling their party "Fortune's Fools" -- left Adamas, intending to stay away from the city-state for a long period of time. Having now twice been at the center of Termaxian-related disturbances, they thought it wiser to return to Dwimmermount where any trouble they caused might stay within the ancient Thulian fortress rather than affect the wider world.
Taking stock of Dordagdonar's maps, the party noticed several sets of stairs that they had no yet explored and decided to descend one set of them, which led to an unusual area of the dungeon. This area showed evidence of rather different architecture, still Thulian in general appearance but of a more "primitive" sort, suggesting that it was older than the levels they'd already explored. The level also demonstrated a vaguely "religious" character to it, as if it had been used as a temple, monastery, or something similar. This notion was confirmed by the fact that the party found a metal statue of an armor clad figure, holding a sword and a set of scales, whose head had been replaced by that of Turms Termax. Whoever the figure was, he was likely a god, since the replacement of his head by that of Turms was a practice they'd seen in other temple areas within the dungeon. Brother Candor's religious knowledge proved insufficient in guessing the original identity of the statue, as its iconography was not that of any god he knew.
Exploring the level resulted in the discovery of many rooms, most of them empty or filled with supplies formerly used by the inhabitants of this place. A number of Ranine were encountered, along with some goblins, neither of which were a huge surprise, given the presence of both races on nearby levels. The party also found a cat, whom Iriadessa befriended and urged her comrades to take out of the dungeon. This they did and Brother Candor used his speak with animals spell to talk with the feline, who revealed she was part of several families of cats who'd lived in Dwimmermount for generations. The cat would not reveal her true name but accepted the name "Dusty" given to her by Iriadessa and promised to assist the party in navigating the dungeon in exchange for food and protection.
The party continued exploring the strange monastery, where they discovered a number of extraordinarily lifelike iron statues of Termaxian cultists, often with expressions of surprise and horror on their faces. (Yes, it's true: I swiped some ideas from Matt Finch's Tomb of the Iron God -- I am shameless). This led to some concern on the part of the PCs, who feared that some sort of magical catastrophe or curse had overtaken the Termaxians, one that they feared invoking accidentally. Further investigation revealed that the original inhabitants of this area served a deity called simply "the Iron God," who seemed to be some sort of guardian of the dead. This confused Brother Candor, as he was only familiar with Donn as the god of the dead, never having heard of the Iron God.
Explorations continued, providing some more details of what may have happened in the monastery: the clerics of the Iron God resisted the Termaxians, who sought to impose their cult on them. Tortured and eventually killed, the clerics resisted valiantly against the Termaxians, who were in turn punished by being turned to iron -- the wrath of the Iron God. Needless to say, these discoveries only solidified the party's dislike for the Termaxians like the Argent Twilight cult they'd tangled with in the past. And Brother Candor felt a personal obligation to continue exploring this area of Dwimmermount to see what damage the Termaxians might have wrought so that he could set it right.
Much time was spent meticulously exploring the rooms and chambers of the Iron God's servants. Along the way, the characters accumulated a number of items associated with his worship, including some vestments worn by his clerics. These the characters donned before descending in the crypts and catacombs over which the clerics had kept watch. The party found evidence that the Termaxians had attempted to despoil them and had likewise engaged in necromancy within their hallowed precincts. It's these acts, along with the torture and murder of the clerics, that likely brought punishment down upon their heads. Brother Candor warned his companions not to take anything from any of the crypts, no matter how seemingly valuable, lest they suffer the same fate as the Termaxians.
Now that things have calmed down a little bit, I hope to give more regular (and detailed) updates of the various sessions of the campaign, which is now nearly a year old. I continue to be surprised at the longevity of the campaign, both because of its strong focus on dungeon-crawling and because no character has yet reached higher than 5th level -- and several are below that. I think the low-key, evolving nature of the campaign has been a great boon. It's certainly made it easier for me to run things. I don't worry too much about extensive preparations beforehand and neither do I have to "plot out" where things will go in advance of the players' decisions in-game. Sometimes this results in the campaign's being a little more "rough" than I'd like, but it's also enabled me to make course corrections with ease, so that the actions of the characters drive the action, which is how it should be in my opinion.
Taking stock of Dordagdonar's maps, the party noticed several sets of stairs that they had no yet explored and decided to descend one set of them, which led to an unusual area of the dungeon. This area showed evidence of rather different architecture, still Thulian in general appearance but of a more "primitive" sort, suggesting that it was older than the levels they'd already explored. The level also demonstrated a vaguely "religious" character to it, as if it had been used as a temple, monastery, or something similar. This notion was confirmed by the fact that the party found a metal statue of an armor clad figure, holding a sword and a set of scales, whose head had been replaced by that of Turms Termax. Whoever the figure was, he was likely a god, since the replacement of his head by that of Turms was a practice they'd seen in other temple areas within the dungeon. Brother Candor's religious knowledge proved insufficient in guessing the original identity of the statue, as its iconography was not that of any god he knew.
Exploring the level resulted in the discovery of many rooms, most of them empty or filled with supplies formerly used by the inhabitants of this place. A number of Ranine were encountered, along with some goblins, neither of which were a huge surprise, given the presence of both races on nearby levels. The party also found a cat, whom Iriadessa befriended and urged her comrades to take out of the dungeon. This they did and Brother Candor used his speak with animals spell to talk with the feline, who revealed she was part of several families of cats who'd lived in Dwimmermount for generations. The cat would not reveal her true name but accepted the name "Dusty" given to her by Iriadessa and promised to assist the party in navigating the dungeon in exchange for food and protection.
The party continued exploring the strange monastery, where they discovered a number of extraordinarily lifelike iron statues of Termaxian cultists, often with expressions of surprise and horror on their faces. (Yes, it's true: I swiped some ideas from Matt Finch's Tomb of the Iron God -- I am shameless). This led to some concern on the part of the PCs, who feared that some sort of magical catastrophe or curse had overtaken the Termaxians, one that they feared invoking accidentally. Further investigation revealed that the original inhabitants of this area served a deity called simply "the Iron God," who seemed to be some sort of guardian of the dead. This confused Brother Candor, as he was only familiar with Donn as the god of the dead, never having heard of the Iron God.
Explorations continued, providing some more details of what may have happened in the monastery: the clerics of the Iron God resisted the Termaxians, who sought to impose their cult on them. Tortured and eventually killed, the clerics resisted valiantly against the Termaxians, who were in turn punished by being turned to iron -- the wrath of the Iron God. Needless to say, these discoveries only solidified the party's dislike for the Termaxians like the Argent Twilight cult they'd tangled with in the past. And Brother Candor felt a personal obligation to continue exploring this area of Dwimmermount to see what damage the Termaxians might have wrought so that he could set it right.
Much time was spent meticulously exploring the rooms and chambers of the Iron God's servants. Along the way, the characters accumulated a number of items associated with his worship, including some vestments worn by his clerics. These the characters donned before descending in the crypts and catacombs over which the clerics had kept watch. The party found evidence that the Termaxians had attempted to despoil them and had likewise engaged in necromancy within their hallowed precincts. It's these acts, along with the torture and murder of the clerics, that likely brought punishment down upon their heads. Brother Candor warned his companions not to take anything from any of the crypts, no matter how seemingly valuable, lest they suffer the same fate as the Termaxians.
Now that things have calmed down a little bit, I hope to give more regular (and detailed) updates of the various sessions of the campaign, which is now nearly a year old. I continue to be surprised at the longevity of the campaign, both because of its strong focus on dungeon-crawling and because no character has yet reached higher than 5th level -- and several are below that. I think the low-key, evolving nature of the campaign has been a great boon. It's certainly made it easier for me to run things. I don't worry too much about extensive preparations beforehand and neither do I have to "plot out" where things will go in advance of the players' decisions in-game. Sometimes this results in the campaign's being a little more "rough" than I'd like, but it's also enabled me to make course corrections with ease, so that the actions of the characters drive the action, which is how it should be in my opinion.
The Outer Limits
One of the gifts I received from my wife this Christmas was a DVD set comprising all 49 episodes of the 1963-1965 sci-fi anthology series, The Outer Limits. I'm obviously too young to have seen this show in its first run, but I saw it in reruns during the 1970s and really enjoyed it. Perhaps "enjoyed" isn't the right word, because, as I recall, a great many of the episodes frightened me as a child. Despite (or because of) that, I watched as much of the series in reruns as I could, which of course meant that I'd probably missed more than a few of them. Having the whole series on DVD is thus a godsend for me, a chance to fill in my knowledge of early sci-fi TV.I've been watching an episode every day or so and, even nearly 50 years on, it's obvious what drew me to it as a child. Unlike The Twilight Zone -- another great series -- episodes of The Outer Limits weren't generally morality plays or parables. Instead, they're more conventional horror-tinged science fiction. What really sets them apart, though, is their dark and cynical undertones. More often than not, it is human beings, not extraterrestrials, even antagonistic ones, who are the real enemies. The Outer Limits paints a very gloomy picture of human nature, yet does so with such flair that, rather than finding it depressing, I find it now, as I did as a child, eerily captivating. I know that most episodes will end badly for the protagonists before I even begin to watch them; what intrigues is just how it will all go wrong -- which human vice will bring about ruin and damnation.
It's also fascinating to see the the cast of actors who appeared on the series who eventually went on to bigger things. There's Robert Duvall, Martin Sheen, Cliff Robertson, Ed Asner, Carrol O'Connor, Dabney Coleman, Adam West, Donald Pleasance, and of course William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and James Doohan. Seeing all these actors from my childhood as younger people is strangely exciting for me, a reminder that the world did not begin at my birth. An equally important reminder is that science fiction was once a vibrant enough genre to spawn anthology series on network television -- and rather philosophical ones at that.
The Outer Limits isn't an action-adventure series and its special effects, while frequently compelling, aren't its main draw. It's the stories and the acting that carry this series and I've been enjoying my getting re-acquainted with it over the last few weeks. Some of the episodes I remembered as a kid are still just as creepy today as they were then, some moreso in fact. Others don't hold up as well, but I appreciated being able to see them again nonetheless. The Outer Limits was a great TV series not just for its time but for all time and this collection of DVDs is certainly one of my favorite gifts in recent years.
Pulp Fantasy Library: The Hour of the Dragon
Serialized in five parts in Weird Tales -- December 1935 through April 1936 -- "The Hour of the Dragon" is the last Conan yarn published before Robert E. Howard's death. It's also the only tale of the Cimmerian lengthy enough to be considered a novel. Howard wrote it over the course of several months at the behest of a British publisher, whose business went bankrupt before the proposed book could be published. Once all the legal wrangling was done, REH submitted it to Weird Tales, which accepted it and commissioned a Margaret Brundage cover depicting Conan in chains being aided by the slave girl Zenobia -- a surprisingly tame cover compared to many of the others associated with Howard's WT appearances.In "The Hour of the Dragon," Conan is 45 years old and is king of Aquilonia, a title he seized by slaying the previous king, Numedides. The heir of Numedides, Valerius, joins forces with the new king of neighboring Nemedia in a plot to overthrow Conan and put him on the throne instead. The conspirators use an artifact called the Heart of Ahriman to resurrect an ancient Acheronian wizard named Xaltotun to aid them in their plot -- which succeeds, resulting in Conan's capture and imprisonment. The bulk of the novel consists of describing Conan's escape from captivity and efforts to return to Aquilonia to reclaim his rulership of the proudest kingdom of the Hyborian Age.
"The Hour of the Dragon" is a peculiar story, as it's quite reminiscent of an earlier tale, "The Scarlet Citadel," in which Conan is also captured and imprisoned through the assistance of a powerful wizard. However, "The Hour of the Dragon" is lengthier and less focused, by which I mean that it consists of many individual episodes that, while occurring within a larger narrative of Conan's escape, aren't always directly connected to that goal. The result is something that feels a bit disjointed and almost picaresque in nature. Of course, Howard keeps Conan -- and the action -- moving so that, regardless of the content of each individual episode, the reader doesn't lose sight of the purpose of it all.
Even so, I can't deny that "The Hour of the Dragon" isn't my favorite Conan story. It feels less polished than Howard's best creations. I can't shake the feeling that the greater length demanded of a novel worked against REH's genius for concision, producing an uneven tale. Still, there's a lot to like here, particularly the character of Zenobia, whom I've long regarded as an under-appreciated female of the Hyborian Age. True, she's no Valeria or Bêlit, but that may be why I find Zenobia so intriguing. She's not a warrior woman and yet she manages to save the Cimmerian's life and is rewarded like no other woman in Conan's saga.
I'll admit I have a soft spot for King Conan, an aspect of the character Howard obviously considered important too, given that his very first appearance also features him as king of Aquilonia. Seeing Conan fighting for the kingship of the most powerful and sophisticated realm of the Hyborian Age is a nice antidote to caricatures that paint him as an unthinking brute, unchanged by his many years of adventuring in civilized lands. I regret there are so few REH-penned tales of Conan's kingship, which is why, despite its flaws, I nevertheless enjoy "The Hour of the Dragon" and recommend it to anyone looking to better familiarize themselves with the stories of Conan.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Happy Eleventy-Eighth, Professor
Had he somehow attained Bilbo-like longevity, J.R.R. Tolkien would today have been 118 years old. As it was, he lived to be over 80 years old, having produced what is quite arguably the most influential fantasy novel in the English language -- perhaps any language. Now, I'm on record as downplaying the influence of Tolkien on Dungeons & Dragons, at least in its Gygaxian incarnation, a position that's the source of amusement and consternation in many quarters. As is often the case, I think people misunderstand my position, taking it as more dogmatic than I ever intended it to be, but that's always the danger of the written word, particularly on the Internet, where nuance is often a dirty word, or at least one less useful in fueling polemics.But my intention today is not to go over old ground. Instead, I wish to discuss an area where I do think Tolkien has been influential on the hobby of roleplaying (and, of course, on fantasy writing more generally). What's interesting is that I'm not talking about the story of The Lord of the Rings so much as the world of Middle-earth, especially as presented in the appendices to the novel. This is a point that the perspicacious Rob Conley noted in a November post on his blog.
I regularly talk about the importance of Appendix N of Gygax's Dungeon Masters Guide, but nowadays it's generally taken to be descriptive, which is to say, it details the books and authors whom Gary regarded as influential on him but not necessarily on the game as a whole. The appendices of The Lord of the Rings, while not intended by Tolkien as anything more than providing additional information about the background of his novel, have nevertheless become prescriptive in the minds of many, fantasy writers and gamers alike. In their minds, no fantasy setting is complete unless it can compete with Middle-earth when it comes to history, ethnography, and linguistics.
Speaking for myself, I know all too well the gravitational pull of Tolkien's appendices. They were, as a younger man, my favorite parts of The Lord of the Rings, a novel whose story I didn't particularly like in my youth but whose depth and detail I envied. These appendices became my model in "properly" fleshing out a fantasy setting, which is why I filled many notebooks with extensive lists of kings and princes, battles and wars, and even dabbled in fictitious languages. I wanted my own settings to be every bit as real as Middle-earth seemed to be and I wouldn't settle for anything less. Judging from the articles I read in Dragon back in those days, I'd wager I wasn't alone among gamers in this regard. Judging from the fantasy novels that followed in the wake of Tolkien's success in the 60s and 70s, I'd wager this desire could be found among novelists too, whose imitation of the surface details of Tolkien's tale wasn't limited to writing novels in threes.
Paradoxically, as my love of Tolkien's storytelling grew, my desire to ape the content and presentation of his creation has grown less. I no longer craft faux Middle-earths nor do I see much point in writing histories stretching back to the Creation. I prefer more unknowable settings and tend to recoil when encountering game or literary settings that see reams of minute detail as essential. I certainly can't fault anyone who envies Tolkien his imagination or his skill in applying it to his writing. His is a work of creativity that has few equals in any field of literature and his achievement within the realm of fantasy casts such a long shadow that even those who foolishly deny its worth are in fact acknowledging it despite themselves. Who among us would not wish our own creations to be similarly lauded? Who among us doesn't feel a twinge of jealousy when reading Professor Tolkien's words? If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the hobby of roleplaying has probably flattered Tolkien in the last 30+ years more than any man in history.
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