Thursday, December 1, 2022

Sir Pellinore's Book

A few weeks ago, a regular correspondent of mine, who often sends me pointers toward forgotten bits of RPG history, alerted me to the existence of Sir Pellinore's Book of Rules for a Game of Magical Mideval [sic] Adventures, a 1978 amateur publication by Michael Brines of Prescott, Arizona. 

As you can probably tell just by looking at the cover to the left, I'm not kidding when I call this an "amateur publication." Sir Pellinore's Book is the raw, unpolished work of a fan, replete with misspellings, grammatical errors, occasionally unclear text, and little illustrations (presumably by Brines). It's also a charming window on the early days of the hobby and, for that reason alone, of great interest to me and anyone else who has an interest in such matters.

Consisting of twenty typewritten pages, Sir Pellinore's Book is quite clearly a variant of Original Dungeons & Dragons, though even a cursory examination of it reveals that it is quite variant in places. For instance, there are ostensibly three classes of characters, just as in OD&D. These classes are wizards, fighting men, and "others," the latter consisting of "priests, merchants, etc." Likewise, Wisdom is replaced with Luck, which is used to calculate most of a character's saving throws (25 – Luck score + level = target on "two dice," presumably 2d6, though it's never specified). At the referee's discretion, other ability scores might be substituted for Luck, such as Dexterity for falls and Constitution for resisting poison. 

Nearly every rule in OD&D is given some alteration or tweak, from combat to experience points to spells. The result is something that feels at once familiar and strange. It's difficult to tell whether Brines was inspired by other early RPGs – his use of Luck reminds me of Tunnels & Trolls and his percentile-based combat reminds me of RuneQuest, to cite two examples – or whether his ideas simply ran parallel to those of other games at the time. The early days of the hobby were one of reckless enthusiasm and cross-pollination, so this may not be an either/or situation. In any case, the end result is something that feels genuinely distinctive and reflects the sensibilities and tastes of its creator, something of which I've always been quite supportive.

I had intended to write a post about Sir Pellinore's Book when I was first told about it, but it slipped my mind, as too many things seem to do these days. Fortunately, another correspondent informed me that Precis Intermedia has made it available in electronic form both through its own site and through DriveThruRPG. There are apparently plans to make it available in print as well, in case that's your preference. If you're at all interested in the roots of the hobby, it's well worth a look. Plus, it has a spell called "Banana Peel;" you can't go wrong with that. 

15 comments:

  1. "replete with misspellings, grammatical errors, occasionally unclear text"

    Honestly, it doesn't sound that different from the professional RPG books of the time.

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  2. Huh. I knew it existed, but didn't realize Precis had revived it. They certainly are dredging up some history as time goes by. How they even find some of these creators to get the rights is beyond me.

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    1. Most creators are still alive are fairly easy to find if they have any kind of online footprint. The less common their name is the easier finding them is. Unfortunately many creators don’t even have original copies of their own creation from long ago. The Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, NY for all games and the University of California Riverside (for zines) are two great resources for amateur game historians.

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  3. Was this game every advertised or reviewed anywhere? Some strange game coming out of nowhere decades later just seems like a bizarre prank.

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    1. FWIW, it has an entry on RPGGeek and its author seems to have written other things over the years. I'll admit I was a bit skeptical at first too, but it seems to be legit.

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    2. John Petersen has an entry for Sir Pelinore's game from early 2018.

      See: http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2018/01/a-forgotten-variant-sir-pellinores-game.html#more

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    3. I think that clinches its authenticity then. I doubt that Jon would have been taken in by a hoax.

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  4. Precis Intermedia is looking for copies of the 2nd and 3rd edition/printings to make a single volume with all editions in one. https://www.pigames.net/store/contact_us.php

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  5. As a gamer in Prescott, Arizona thank you for this!!! I've never heard of the book.

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  6. Michael Brines was definitely inspired by T&T. Not only is he describing a 2nd Level Luck Saving roll in the T&T game (I'm surprised if he didn't mention doubles should be added together and the 2d6 rolled again with the second roll added to the first) but he also authored one of the early T&T solo adventure modules, Overkill.

    In 1981 Overkill was completely rewritten and changed and given a plot by Michael A. Stackpole (along with a great color cover by Chris Carlson), but some old time fans of T&T have the original Brines' dungeon, which was similar in spirit to Buffalo Castle--wander around, kill stuff, take stuff, and likely very similarly written to the item mentioned in this post.

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  7. Despite not yet having the beefy arms he would be known for later, that dragon looks like he could be a preincarnation of Trogdor.

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  8. Precis, bless them, now has the 3rd edition of Brines' game, Sir Pellinores Favorite Game and intend a print copy of both. You owe it to yourself to take a look.

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