Interviews

An early hallmark of this blog were the interviews I did with many of the writers and artists of the early days of the hobby. In the years since I returned to Grognardia, I've done comparatively fewer interviews. That's something I'd like to try to change in the coming months. 

Are there any people you'd especially like to see interviewed? When I'm at Gamehole Con this year, my hope is that I'll be able to secure a few interviews with notable guests and attendees for the blog. Beyond those, who else would you be interested in? 

Conan Meets the Flower Children of Set

Long ago, I discussed my own thoughts about the 1982 Conan the Barbarian movie. In issue #63 of Dragon (July 1982), Gary Gygax offers his own.

Level Titles: Druids, Rangers, and Bards

The druid class first appeared in Supplement III to OD&D, Eldritch Wizardry (1976). Though the supplement gives Gary Gygax and Brian Blume the byline, the class was actually the creation of Dennis Sustare, who's credited with a special thanks (and dubbed "The Great Druid"). Here's the original list of druid level titles:

The level titles of the druid found in the AD&D Players Handbook (1978) is nearly identical, except that Gygax has inserted a new title, "ovate," between "aspirant" and "initiate of the 1st circle." Its inclusion is interesting, because of its connection to British neo-druidism, where "ovate" is a type of prophet or seer. I suppose it's a good thing that the term and its connections are sufficiently obscure or else critics of the game might have had more "support" for their bad arguments against it.

The ranger class originates in volume 1, number 2 of The Strategic Review (Spring 1975) in an article written by Joe Fischer. Presented as a sub-class of fighting men akin to the paladin (which appeared in the Greyhawk supplement earlier the same year), this OD&D version of the ranger has the following level titles:

The ranger reappears in the AD&D Players Handbook. Its level titles are almost identical to those from The Strategic Review. However, a few of the titles have been transferred to different levels and the original 9th-level title (ranger-knight) has been pushed back to level 10, in order to make room for the title of "ranger." 

Like the ranger, the bard class first appeared in the pages of The Strategic Review, specifically volume 2, issue 1 (February 1976). Written by Doug Schwegman, the article presents bards as jacks-of-all-trades based on ideas drawn from the Celtic bard, the Nordic skald, and the southern European minstrel. As originally presented, the bard has the following level titles:

The level titles of the AD&D version of the bard differ from the OD&D version in only one small way. The OD&D title of "lore master" is changed – bizarrely, in my opinion – to "lorist," a coinage for which I can find very little evidence in any of the dictionaries to which I have access. Regardless, I find it notable that Gary Gygax, in translating Schwegman's bard to AD&D, retained nearly all the level titles while changing the overall nature of it. 

Druids explicitly and bards implicitly all belong to an organization that governs their advancement. In the case of druids, this advancement is similar to that of monks in being adjudicated through a trial by combat. I find details of this very fascinating for what they suggest about the "world" of Dungeons & Dragons and how the various character classes fit into it. Perhaps this is a topic worthy of a later post or two.

Retrospective: The Lost Island of Castanamir

I'm a fan of the first two entries in the C-series of AD&D modules, The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and The Ghost Tower of Inverness, but a guarded one. That's because these modules, filled as they are with tricks, traps, and puzzles designed to challenge the wits – and patience – of the players, are hard to run properly and, in my youth, I was not always up to the task. I don't mean that as a knock against either module, which I do like, but I do recall that they were frustrating for both me and my players, albeit for different reasons. 

To some extent, my experiences were probably due to my ignorance of the very idea of tournament modules. I remember being somewhat confused by the scoring guidelines and sheets included with many of TSR's AD&D modules from the early '80s, since I'd never attended a convention, let alone participated in a tournament. Moreover, our preferred style of play was very loose and rambling and most tournament modules included very contrived framing devices that were hard to fit into that style. 

By the time the third module in the C-series, The Lost Island of Castanamir, was published in 1984, our style of play had evolved further, this time in the direction of epic fantasy under the influence of Dragonlance. Consequently, tournament modules fit even less into our campaigns than they had before. Skeptical as I was, I remained a TSR fanboy, which meant I often snapped up anything new the company might publish, including this module. Besides, it had a colorfully eye-catching cover, courtesy of Jeff Easley, whose art I'd come to like a great deal – though I did wonder about why it looked like the elf was preparing to shoot his bow at the little yappy white dog in front of him. 

Written by Ken Rolston, who'd later go on to bigger and better things both within the tabletop RPG and video game worlds, The Lost Island of Castanamir is, alas, not a very good adventure. Or at least, as presented, it's not very good. 

Its premise is that the player characters are hired by a magician to investigate a mysterious island that, until recently, had disappeared entirely. This island had once been the abode of a powerful magic-user named Castanamir the Mad. Castanamir was eccentric and paranoid, believing that his rivals sought to steal his wealth. Therefore, he protected his island home with all manner of spells to ward off would-be thieves. One of those spells caused the island to vanish without a trace. Its sudden return has aroused the suspicion – and greed – of the magician who hires the PCs to see why the island has returned and what, if anything, remains of Castanamir and his treasures.

As backgrounds to fantasy adventures go, this isn't a bad one. You've got a forbidding locale, a mystery, danger, and, of course, the promise of treasure. That this is an adventure designed for 1st–3rd level characters is also quite appealing, since many low-level modules are much blander and limited in scope. Despite this, the final product is less than it could have been, which is a shame, as there are some genuinely interesting ideas in it. 

For example, the characters soon discover that Castanamir was a master of planar sorcery and his abode isn't laid out according to a straightforward plan. Instead, doors act as magical portals that connect to one another in unexpected ways. The module's maps include codes to indicate how the various doors connect to one another. Initially, this cartographic idiosyncrasy will foil with efforts by the characters to map the place, disorienting them. In time, they'll likely figure out how the various doors and rooms related to one another. It's a fairly simply trick but an effective one. I've used similar tricks in my own adventure locales over the years. 

Other tricks and challenges are more whimsical, even silly, to the point that I'm not sure it's fair to call them "challenges" so much as vexations. I've never been a fan of "Mother, may I?" tricks or traps that depend on the players' ability to read the referee's mind or to use out of character knowledge to succeed. I much prefer challenges that are, in the terminology of commentators more pretentious than even I, call "diegetic," which is to say, explicable solely within the context of the game world. This isn't a damning criticism of the module. Indeed, it's very much in keeping with venerable tradition within the hobby, but, at the time I first read this, I had tired of it and, even now, my feelings about it are decidedly negative.

Perhaps The Lost Island of Castanamir plays better than it reads – I wouldn't know, as I never ran it for my friends back in the day – but I doubt it. In charity, I suppose it could be called a "funhouse dungeon" that just didn't click the way that, say, White Plume Mountain did. I can't quite put my finger on the source of my dissatisfaction. Maybe I'd simply lost interest in that kind of dungeon and was looking for something more naturalistic. By this point, I'd been playing Dungeons & Dragons in one form or another for five years more or less non-stop. Perhaps the truth is that I was simply tiring of D&D itself and workmanlike modules of this sort were simply not up to the task of firing my imagination in the way they might have even a year or two earlier. 

Regardless, The Lost Island of Castanamir was a something of a letdown for me and, in the years since, I've come to associate it with my waning enthusiasm for D&D in the mid-1980s. That's terribly unfair to the module and Ken Rolston, who, as I said, has produced some truly remarkable stuff, but such is the power of memory, I guess. 

The War against Lovecraft

I've often joked that nowadays, in critical discussions of the creator of Conan the Cimmerian, it's almost required that he be referred as "that writer who killed himself, Robert E. Howard." It's a joke – but only barely – because you can easily find plenty of examples where the circumstances of Howard's death have become the most important thing about him. I find this frankly bizarre, as if any man can be reduced to a single fact about his life, never mind a man as complex and, let's be honest, troubled as Robert Ervin Howard.

I was reminded of this recently because I was given a copy of Free League's oversized edition of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror," illustrated by François Barranger. It's an absolutely gorgeous book that pairs HPL's text with Barranger's moody, evocative artwork. The back of the book includes "A Note about H.P. Lovecraft," which reads:

There has long been an ongoing debate about Lovecraft's world view and prejudices. Lovecraft wrote in a time when racism was widespread and accepted in literature, and it is in this context that his works should be read.

Lovecraft himself expressed a racist world view and often let it shine through in his texts. Lovecraft's novels are outstanding classics, but the racism that now and then appears in certain texts is reprehensible, and something that we in Free League reject and distance ourselves from.

Despite this, we have chosen to print The Dunwich Horror without linguistic intervention. It is one of the greatest classics in horror literature. Lovecraft's stories deserve to be released and find a new readership, but at the same time, the author's racism should be approached critically and rejected.

What's the purpose of this "note?" No doubt I am biased, but I can't recall anything in "The Dunwich Horror" that could be called racist by any reasonable definition. Given that, why alert the reader that Lovecraft himself held odious views about his fellow man? Had the text of "The Dunwich Horror" contained clear and unambiguous evidence of these views, this approach might – might – have made some sense, but it doesn't. Consequently, the boast that "we have chosen to print The Dunwich Horror without linguistic intervention" is an empty one. There's nothing courageous or principled about it. Instead, it comes across as an attempt to look virtuous while doing to Lovecraft what is often done to Howard: reduce him to a single fact about his life – "that racist writer, H.P. Lovecraft."

I don't begrudge anyone his feelings about H.P. Lovecraft and his reprehensible opinions. If someone sincerely believed that even his stories with no explicitly racist content are somehow tainted because of HPL's views, I can find no fault with him. I don't share that belief any more than I share Lovecraft's beliefs about race, but it's not for me to say what is or is not beyond the pale for someone else. We should be free to decide what we like and don't like without censure, especially when it comes to works of art, whose impact is often intensely personal. 

That said, I strongly reject the tendency of the last decade or so to try to tarnish Lovecraft's literary fame by pointing out his racism at every turn. To me, it smacks of an invidious effort to diminish the influence he continues to exert on fantasy, science fiction, horror, and the wider popular imagination. When one considers that, at the time of his death in 1937, Lovecraft and his comparatively small corpus of writings were largely unknown, his lasting impact is all the more remarkable. He belongs to a very select group of popular writers, whose ideas have transcended the short span of his life and now belong to the ages. What better way to take Lovecraft down a peg than to point out again and again that he was a virulent racist?

I regularly say that it's easy, from the vantage point of the present, to hurl brickbats at our ancestors for their ignorance, shortsightedness, and other sins. That's especially true of a man like H.P. Lovecraft, who is estimated to have written nearly 90,000 letters to dozens of correspondents during his lifetime. In those letters, of which only about 10% survive, HPL revealed much about himself, his life, and his opinions. We thus have a much better sense of him as a man, both good and bad, than we do about many historical figures, which, of course, makes it all the easier to highlight his flaws, if that's what one wishes to do.

As for myself, I prefer, on the occasion of 134th anniversary of his birth, to unambiguously celebrate H.P. Lovecraft and his works. All of us reading this owe him and his singular imagination a debt of thanks. 

The Articles of Dragon: "Giants in the Earth"

 As I pen more posts for this series, you'll notice that many of its entries are themselves about series of articles from the pages of Dragon. I could offer a lot of explanations for this, but the simplest, I suppose, is that, with series, you know what you're getting. In theory, if you like one entry in the series, you will probably enjoy those that follow. Series provide a foundation on which to build and a format to follow that makes them attractive to both writers and readers – that's the reason this blog has so many series of its own.

Issue #59 (March 1982) introduced me to a new series of Dragon articles. Entitled "Giants in the Earth," this was an irregular feature devoted to presenting famous characters from fantasy (and occasionally science fiction) literature in terms of Dungeons & Dragons game mechanics. This particular issue included write-ups for five different characters – Poul Anderson's Sir Roger de Tourneville (by Roger E. Moore), L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea (by David Cook), Alexei Panshin's Anthony Villiers (by Andrew Dewar), Clifford Simak's Mark Cornwall and Sniveley (both by Roger E. Moore). 

At the time I first saw this article, I think I was only familiar with Sir Roger de Tourneville, having already read The High Crusade. The others were completely unknown to me and, in the case of the Simak characters, I'm embarrassed to admit, still are. Nevertheless, I found the piece fascinating for several reasons. First, almost from the moment I started playing D&D, I began to think about how best to stat up characters from myth, legend, and books. Seeing how "professional" writers did so held my interest. Second, many of the entries – even the science fiction ones! – included suggestions on introducing these characters into an ongoing D&D campaign, an idea I'd never considered before. Finally, the entries served to introduce me to authors and books I might otherwise never have encountered, just as Appendix N and Moldvay's "Inspirational Source Material" section had done.

That last one is of particular importance to me, especially nowadays, as the inspirations for fantasy roleplaying shift away from books of all kinds and more toward movies and video games. With the benefit of hindsight, one of the things that's very obvious is how much more literary fantasy was in my youth. Arguably, that's because, until comparatively recently, fantasy hadn't much penetrated the mainstream and thus there were few other ready sources for the genre. If you were interested in wizards and dragons and magic swords, books were all you had, whereas today we have a greater number of options available to us. Perhaps – and maybe I'm just being an old man again – I detect a difference in kind between the literary fantasies I grew up reading (and that inspired the founders of the hobby) and the pop culture stuff we see today.

The irony of my being introduced to "Giants in the Earth" through this issue is that it's one of the last ones published in Dragon. Though I'd eventually see some of the earlier installments, the vast majority of them were long out of my reach, their having been published long before I started playing RPGs, let alone reading the magazine. Even so, the few that I did read served the useful purpose of broadening my knowledge of fantasy and science fiction, as well as acquainting me with characters and writers who would, in time, become lifelong companions. 

Level Titles: Assassins and Monks

To continue with our discussion of level titles in Dungeons & Dragons, I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at two classes that first appeared in Supplement II to OD&D, Blackmoor (1975), and later in the Advanced D&D Players Handbook (1978) – assassins and monks. Here are the level titles of the former, as they were in Blackmoor:

As with most level titles, these are all mostly synonyms, with a few exceptions, the first being "dacoit," which is an archaic term that, like "thug," ultimately derives from India. Another notable exception is "guildmaster of assassins," which suggests, like the titles immediately before it, that there's some kind of organized structure granting these titles to assassins as they gain experience. The text of Supplement II more or less states this: "Any 12th level assassin (Prime Assassin) may challenge the Guildmaster of the Assassins' Guild to a duel to the death, and if the former is victorious he becomes Guildmaster." This suggests there's a single Assassins' Guild rather several, as seems to be the case with thieves.

Regardless, the assassin level titles in the Players Handbook are somewhat different:

While many of the low-level titles are identical to those in Blackmoor, their arrangement is changed. In addition, Gygax indulged in his fondness for odd archaisms, like rutterkin and waghalter, while getting rid of "dacoit." Interestingly, he added a new title above "guildmaster assassin," namely, "grandfather of assassins," for reasons both historical and practical.

Monks offer an intriguing parallel to assassins, because, like them, their level titles suggest the existence of a single organization that governs them and thus grants these titles. Likewise, above a certain point, the granting of these titles is tied to success in combat against the previous holder of the title, perhaps inspired by martial arts trials. The OD&D level titles are:

In the AD&D Players Handbook, we get this version of them:

The AD&D list differs only in inserting an additional level and reserving the title "grand master," as opposed to simply "master" for the highest level. Otherwise, the two lists are almost identical, even down to the progression order of the various master titles (Dragons, North Wind, West Wind, etc.). I find that interesting, but I'm unsure what conclusions, if any, we can draw from these facts. It's also worth noting that, according to some sources, the "master" titles were inspired by the names of mahjong tiles, which seems plausible, given how wide were the interests in games of men like Arneson and Gygax.

"You're a Player of Role-Playing Games"

Following up on yesterday's post about the "Appendix N" of Temple of Apshai, let's look at the paragraphs that follow, because, in many ways, they're even more interesting. After asking the reader whether he was familiar with any of stories, books, and characters cited, the game's introduction then declares:

If any or all of your answers are "yes," you're a player of role-playing games – or you ought to be. (If your answers are all "no," you have either stepped through the looking glass by mistake, or fate knows your destiny better than you.)

As I said, interesting. In particular, I think it's notable that the writer (Jon Freeman) saw an almost necessary connection between being familiar with fantasy literature and being a player of RPGs – as if you can't be one without also being the other. He continues:

Role-playing games (RPGs) allows you to step outside a world grown too prosaic for magic and monsters, doomed cities and damsels in distress ... and enter instead a universe in which only quick wit, the strength of your sword arm, and a strangely carved talisman around your neck may be the only things separating you from the pharaoh's treasure – or the mandibles of a giant mantis.

The standard (non-computer) role-playing game is not, in its commercial incarnation, much more than a rulebook – a set of guidelines a person uses to create a world colored by myth and legend, populated by brawny heroes, skilled swordsmen, skulking thieves, cunning wizards, hardy Amazons, and comely wenches, and filled with treasures, spell-forged blades, flying carpets, rings of power, loathsome beasts, dark towers, and cities that stood in the Thousand Nights and a Night if not The Outline of History. 

Freeman writes very evocatively, doesn't he? Old school RPG fans will also, no doubt, approve of his description of a rulebook as "a set of guidelines." 

Role-playing games are not so much "played" as they are experienced. Instead of manipulating an army of chessman about an abstract but visible board, or following a single piece around and around a well-defined track, collecting $200 every time you pass GO, in RPGs you venture into an essentially unknown world with a single piece – your alter ego for the game, a character at home in a world of demons and darkness, dragons and dwarves. You see with the eyes of your character a scene described by the "author" of the adventure – and no more. 

Again, evocative stuff. Reading this, you can really tell that Freeman is passionate about the then-new hobby of roleplaying games.

There is no board in view, no chance squares to inspect; the imaginary landscape exists only in the notebooks of the world's creator (commonly called a referee or dunjonmaster) and, gradually, in the imaginations of your fellow players. As you set off in quest of fame and fortune with with those other player/characters, you are both a character in and a reader of an epic you are helping to create. Your character does whatever you wish him to do, subject to his human (or near-human) capabilities and the vagaries of chance. Fight, flee, or parley; take the high road or low; the choice is yours. You may climb a mountain or go around it, but since at the top may be a rock, a roc's egg, or a roc, you can find challenge and conflict without fighting with your fellow players, who are usually (in several senses) in the same boat.

This is very good stuff and, if I may, very much in keeping with the philosophy of gaming that's been championed in the Old School scene over the last fifteen years or so. 

Role-playing games can (and often do) become, both for you and your character, a way of life. Your character does not stop existing at the end of a game session; normally, you use the same character again and again until he dies for a final time and cannot be brought back to life by even the sorcerous means typically available. In the meantime, he will have grown richer on the treasure he (you) has accumulated from adventure ro adventure, may have purchased new and better equipment, won magic weapons to help him fight better or protective devices to keep him safe. As he gains experience from his adventures, he grows in power, strength, and skill – although the mechanics and terminology of this process vary greatly from one set of rules to another.  

The remainder of Freeman's introduction pertains mostly to the ways that Temple of Apshai alleviates some of the burden typically placed on the shoulders of players and referee alike, which is understandable, as part of his purpose is to demonstrate the value of computer RPGs over "standard" ones. Even so, what he says about roleplaying games – in 1979, please recall – still holds interest more than four decades later, especially to those of who prefer the "old ways." Indeed, I think it's all the more interesting when ones considers where this introduction appeared and who its intended audience was.

Temple of Apshai's Appendix N?

Here's the opening paragraph to introduction of the user manual from 1979's Temple of Apshai. This section was reprinted verbatim in the manual to The Temple of Apshai Trilogy six years later. 

Did you grow up in the company of the Brothers Grimm, Snow White, The Red Fairy Book, The Flash Gordon serials, The Three Musketeers, the knights of the Round Table, or any of the three versions of The Thief of Baghdad? Have you read The Lord of the Rings, The Worm Ouroboros, The Incomplete Enchanter, or Conan the Conqueror? Have you ever wished you could cross swords – just for fun – with Cyrano or D'Artagnan, or stand by their sides in the chill light of dawn, awaiting the arrival of the Cardinal's Guard? Ever wondered how you'd have done against the Gorgon, the Hydra, the bane of Heorot Hall, or the bull that walks like a man? Would you have sailed with Sinbad or Captain Blood, sought passage on the ship of Ishtar, or drunk of the Well at World's End? Did Aphrodite make Paris an offer you couldn't refuse? Would you seek a red-hued maiden beneath the hurtling moons of Barsoom, or walk the glory road with "Dr. Balsamo," knowing it might be a one-way street?

Written by Jon Freeman, co-designer of the game, this paragraph is filled with literary references that it could almost be taken as the Appendix N of Temple of Apshai. I say "almost," because the paragraph is not meant to describe the specific influences upon the game itself so much as to describe the kinds of stories, books, and characters that might serve as introductions both to fantasy as a genre and to fantasy roleplaying. In that respect, it's less useful in understanding Temple of Apshai than it is in understanding what, in 1979, might have been considered the "must reads" of fantasy – and the kinds of literature that had served as the seed beds of roleplaying.

Level Titles: Clerics and Magic-Users

Yesterday, we looked at the level titles of fighters and thieves, so today we'll turn to the level titles of clerics and magic-users. These are a bit more interesting, in that there's more variability between the different editions of Dungeons & Dragons. In OD&D (1974), clerics have the following level titles:

In the AD&D Players Handbook (1978), we get a similar but not identical list. Levels 1 and 2 are the same, while level 3 is simply "priest" rather than "village priest." The title of "curate" becomes a level 4 title and "vicar" disappears entirely, replaced by "perfect," which may or may not be a misspelling of "prefect." "Bishop" is replaced with "canon" and there's a title above patriarch – high priest.

The 1981 Expert Rules has yet another set of level titles, one that is fairly close to that of OD&D and yet still distinct. There's a new title, elder, that's placed in between curate and bishop, making the latter a 7th-level title rather than a 6th-level one in OD&D.

The strangest thing about all the lists of clerical level titles is how, for the most part, they're all derived from the names of Christian clergy, which says a lot about the origins of the cleric class. The anomalous titles are "adept," which strikes me as being more appropriate to a magic-user of some kind and "lama," which, while religious in character, has nothing to do with Christianity. Why these were both included in the list, I have no idea.

Turning to magic-users, we get this list in OD&D:

AD&D has a similar list, starting at level 3. The first two AD&D level titles are quite different and the titles that were replaced appear nowhere else on the list. They're simply removed. 

The Expert Rules give us yet another list. "Medium" and "seer" are restored to level 1 and 2, while "theurgist" and "thaumaturgist" are both removed entirely, much as "medium" and "seer" were in AD&D. The OD&D level titles that followed, starting with "magician" simply drop down several levels, perhaps so that "wizard" can now be the 9th-level rather than 11th-level title, since the 1981 edition places a great emphasis on level 9 being "name" level for the four human classes. Also of note is that the 1981 rules spell "conjurer" and "sorcerer" as "conjuror" and "sorceror," despite neither OD&D nor AD&D spelling them that way.

Normally, the 1983 Frank Mentzer-edited edition of D&D follows its 1981 predecessor quite closely, but there are some differences worthy of note. In the case of magic-user level titles, it's worth noting that '83 restores the "–er" endings of both "conjurer" and "sorcerer," while everything else remains the same.

I find these changes quite fascinating, but I wish I knew precisely why they were made. I have theories but no proof and I suspect, even if I were to hunt down the people responsible for doing so, they would not remember after so many decades.