Preserving Grognardia

The launching of Grognadia Games Direct yesterday – thanks to those of you who have already subscribed to the newsletter – seems to have put me into a philosophical mood. I now find myself thinking not just about Thousand Suns and Secrets of sha-Arthan, but also about other RPG-related projects I've started and then never completed. While the purpose of Grognardia Games Direct is to serve as a dedicated place to discuss those kinds of undertakings, there is one such endeavor that I wanted to discuss here, if only to get the ball rolling.

I'm speaking of a long-simmering idea of assembling a collection of the "Best of Grognardia." Over the past sixteen years, this blog has published nearly 5,000 posts on a wide range of topics, such as old school RPGs, pulp fantasy, gaming history, interviews, reviews, nostalgia, and curmudgeonly digressions (or, as some prefer to call them, unhinged rants). Some of these posts still get linked and cited today, while others have quietly passed into the digital ether.

The question that keeps coming back to me is: Should I try to preserve some of this? The internet is ephemeral by nature. Blogger still functions – for now – but we’ve all seen Google abandon products without much warning (RIP Google+). If that happens to Blogger, what becomes of Grognardia? A properly edited and formatted anthology, whether print, PDF, or both, might serve as a small bulwark against that impermanence. It'd be a way to retain some of what made the blog meaningful to me and, I hope, to some of you as well.

Would a project like this be worth doing? More to the point, would it be of interest to readers? What would you want to see in a Grognardia collection, if I pursued this seriously? The most widely read posts? The most obscure? The ones that sparked discussion (or controversy)? Should it be organized chronologically, thematically, or by some other criterion?

To be clear: I don’t yet know if this is a project I’ll take up in earnest. A lot depends on the response it receives and whether there’s real interest in such a thing. So, consider this post a bit of informal market research, but also a chance for me to gauge how much of Grognardia's legacy still resonates with its readers.

If this project does move forward, I’ll likely be discussing it in more detail over at Grognardia Games Direct. My intention is to keep the newsletter focused on my writing specifically for publication, while Grognardia remains a space for broader reflection and commentary. So, if you’re curious to follow the development of this or other projects I’ve mentioned in passing over the years, you might consider subscribing.

Thanks, as always, for reading – and for sticking with me through all these years.

Retrospective: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl

In the early days of this blog, I wrote a Retrospective post about Against the Giants, the 1981 compilation module that first introduced me to Gary Gygax’s famed G-series. That post focused less on the individual modules themselves than on my memories of discovering, playing, and refereeing them. There’s nothing wrong with that – Grognardia has always been as much about reminiscence as analysis – but it did mean that the constituent adventures never quite received the attention I think they deserve.

That’s why, in February 2023, I set out to remedy this oversight by writing a series of posts dedicated to each module in turn. I managed to complete only the first installment before the effort fell by the wayside, for reasons I can no longer recall. With this post, I hope to resume that series and finally give The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl an individual consideration it merits, followed by Hall of the Fire Giant King next week.

First published in 1978, module G2, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, occupies the middle position in Gygax's Giants Trilogy, itself the lead-in to the even more celebrated D-series. Consequently, G2 has long been overshadowed by both its position within its own series and the looming presence of what follows. Taken on its own terms as a discrete module rather than simply as a bridge between modules G1 and G3, G2 deserves more recognition than it typically receives. It is, if nothing else, a terrific expression of Gygaxian adventure design, offering a tightly focused, environmentally distinctive, and surprisingly open-ended scenario for high-level (9th–10th) play.

The module’s premise is simple: following the defeat of the hill giants in the previous scenario, the player characters are tasked with continuing the investigation into the source of recent giant-led raids. Their next destination is the icy domain of the frost giants, located high in a forbidding mountain range. What they find there is an immense rift in a glacial plateau, honeycombed with caves and tunnels, and populated by the violent and hierarchical society of the frost giants.

From the outset, Glacial Rift sets itself apart with its setting. The rift is not merely another dungeon, but a semi-natural, hostile environment that actively contributes to the module’s sense of danger. The cold is not just flavor text; it informs the monsters encountered (remorhaz, winter wolves, yetis), the terrain, and the general tone of the place. There’s a starkness to the rift that evokes the unforgiving nature of the mythic North, a realm of elemental cruelty, barbaric strength, and ancient, unknowable powers. There's also something almost mythic in the Jarl’s domain: a vision of primitive kingship, drawn more from Norse sagas than from the usual pulp fantasy tropes, where authority is measured by might and the feasting hall rings with the howls of dire wolves.

Structurally, G2 is more interesting than it first appears. The rift is split into two levels: the upper level consisting of cave-like lairs and animal dens and the lower level home to the giants’ halls, guard posts, and meeting places. Unlike many early modules, G2 is decidedly not linear. Its design encourages infiltration, observation, and guerrilla tactics as much as direct confrontation. A cautious party could spend several sessions simply gathering intelligence, probing defenses, and slowly unraveling the nature of the giants’ organization. Conversely, a reckless party might find itself quickly overwhelmed. It’s a sandbox in miniature, where the players’ tactics genuinely matter. 

Like its predecessor, Gygax naturalism is on full display here. The frost giants are not simply bags of hit points awaiting extermination. They're part of a brutal but functioning society, with guards, servants, prisoners, and even non-combatants. Gygax includes giantesses, young giants, and slaves, all of which contribute to the sense of this being a "real" place that operates according to a certain logic. This forces players (and referees) to make choices. Do the characters kill everything they encounter? Do they parley? Do they seek allies among the captives? For a module that, when it's remembered at all, is remembered simply as “the one where you fight frost giants,” G2 contains a surprising amount of nuance.

Gygax’s authorial idiosyncrasies are on full display throughout the module. His monster choices, like the remorhaz or the white pudding, show a willingness to embrace the weird and unexpected. His treasure hoards are filled with oddities, while his trap placement is often arbitrary but memorable. His prose, full of abrupt capitalizations and florid phrasing, imparts even the most banal descriptions with contagious energy. Glacial Rift is thus unmistakably his work: unapologetically high-level, at times unfair, even cruel, but always imaginative.

That said, the module is not without its flaws. The maps, presumably drawn by Dave Sutherland (there are no credits), can be difficult to read, especially given the three-dimensionality implied by the rift’s vertical layout. Navigation can become a chore unless the referee is particularly adept at spatial description, which I must confess I struggle with. Some encounters do feel a bit like filler – yet another cave, yet another pair of frost giants – and the rationale for the party’s presence here (to follow up on the events of G1) does feel thinner than that of either of its brother modules.

Even so, The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl more than stands on its own as an effective and engaging high-level adventure. Its strength lies in its atmosphere, its open structure, and its presentation of a society of intelligent monsters bound by codes of strength and tradition. While Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is more immediately accessible and Hall of the Fire Giant King arguably more refined, I think Glacial Rift does something unique in presenting a wilderness-like dungeon. I think it's understandable that it's not often celebrated, but I nevertheless think it would be a mistake to overlook it, as it's a fine example of Gygaxian adventure design that rewards careful and clever play.

REPOST: Plants vs. Macrobes

I hope no one misunderstands me: I think Gamma World is plenty weird. I also think there's a great deal of scope within that weirdness for humor, even of a very low sort. In that respect, I firmly believe that it's no different than Dungeons & Dragons, which I have long characterized as being a "pulp fantasy roleplaying game of high adventure and low comedy." What I have grown to greatly dislike, though, is the deliberate emphasis on and encouragement of low comedy in Gamma World to the detriment (or even exclusion) of its potential for high adventure. Mind you, I think the reverse is also an error in judgment too, but then I feel the same way about D&D.

I was thinking about this topic in reference to another couple of articles I loved from Dragon back in the day. Issues 86 and 87 (June and July 1984, respectively) described the Moon in Gamma World, as part of an excellent ongoing series detailing Earth's only natural satellite in a variety of SF RPGs. The Gamma World articles were written by James Ward and thus carried an imprimatur of official-dom about them. Even if I hadn't loved what they described – which I did – my teenage self would have dutifully accepted their contents regardless, since they came from the pen of the Creator.

As detailed in that pair of articles, the Moon of the 25th century was utterly devoid of human life, which was wiped out by a plague not long after the destruction of civilization on Earth. In the absence of humans, Tycho Base's cybernetic installation kept it running as before, right down to allowing existing experiments to proceed unhindered – such as the genetic manipulation and irradiation of plants and single-celled organisms. Left unchecked, both experiments eventually resulted in various mutant strains, some of them intelligent, which before long initiated a war on the other to gain full control of the cybernetic installation and, with it, Tycho Base. Thus, the Moon of Gamma World consists of a base once large enough to support 50,000 human beings but now inhabited by colonies of mutant plants and huge microbes locked in a death struggle against each other. A world gone mad indeed!

I really like the idea of a Moon base filled with warring mutant plants and giant microbes, because it's unexpectedly alien. But, let's face it, the idea is pretty ridiculous taken out of context. Even in context it's peculiar. That's OK in my book, though, since this situation isn't unique to Gamma World but in fact a facet of all but the most self-serious RPGs. If I am belaboring this point, I apologize. It galls me that Gamma World has for so long been relegated to the "joke RPG" category, all the moreso when I read these articles about the Moon and realize that, rather than dispelling such notions, they'll probably only confirm them in the minds of many gamers.

So, yeah, I admit that I've probably been thinking too much about this topic, but that's what I do: think too much about roleplaying games. After Easter [this was originally posted in April 2011], I'll have some more to say about this, I am certain. It's my hope that, even if I start to sound like a broken record, I'll at least play an interesting tune.

Whither Grognardia? (Part II)

It’s been almost five years since I brought Grognardia back from its extended hiatus and, in that time, I’ve worked hard to stay true to its original spirit as a space for reflection, commentary, and celebration of the history and legacy of roleplaying games, especially those we now call “old school.” That guiding purpose hasn’t changed and it won’t. However, after more than a year of mulling over how best to balance this blog with my ongoing RPG design work, I’ve come to a decision, one that affects how I’ll be handling Grognardia from now on, as well as the future of the two games that have increasingly claimed my creative attention: Thousand Suns and Secrets of sha-Arthan.

Starting today, I’ll be moving all my RPG design work – new rules, setting development, playtest notes, and related commentary – to a separate Substack newsletter. This will be the new home for all things related to my ongoing RPG design projects. My reasons for doing this are partly practical and partly experimental. Substack offers tools for managing subscribers, tracking readership, and organizing content, tools Blogger doesn’t provide but that are increasingly important to me, especially as I prepare to release material for both games commercially.

Like Grognardia, the newsletter is entirely free to read. There’s no paywall, no locked posts, just another outlet where I can share ideas and progress, hopefully in a more focused and consistent fashion. That said, I do maintain a small Patreon, which I plan to continue for the foreseeable future. It doesn’t generate much income, but I’m immensely grateful to the readers who’ve chosen to support me there over the years. Their generosity has helped me fund art and other resources for Secrets of sha-Arthan and related projects, expenses that would otherwise come entirely out of pocket. I don’t expect anyone to become a patron, but I do genuinely appreciate those of you who do. It makes a real difference.

Just as important, splitting these projects off to their own platform will help me stay focused. Right now, things are more scattered than I’d like. I often find myself juggling work across multiple trains of thought, which I suspect has hindered my ability to make as much progress on either Thousand Suns or Secrets of sha-Arthan as I would have liked. I’m hopeful that this change will help bring some order to the chaos and allow me to be more productive overall.

That said, Grognardia isn't going anywhere. The blog will continue much as it has since its return, with daily posts (more or less), musings on the history of the hobby, looks at old gaming materials, and the occasional detour into obscure corners of pulp literature or genre films. If that’s why you’re here, nothing will change. If you're interested in my RPG design work, I hope you'll also subscribe to the Substack, where I’ll be posting a couple of times a week – one update each for Thousand Suns and Secrets of sha-Arthan (perhaps more, but I don't want to be overly ambitious just yet). 

This division of labor is an experiment, like much of what I do. If it works, I hope it’ll benefit not only me but you, the readers, by giving each project the attention and clarity it deserves.

Speaking of Call of Cthulhu ...

... what's the general opinion of its current (7th) edition, especially among long-time players? 

As I've explained many times before, I got into Call of Cthulhu with its first edition all the way back in 1981 and I've owned and played every edition of the game up through sixth, all of which were essentially identical rules-wise. However, I haven't played the game in many years, but I've lately begun thinking about the possibility of returning to it in some fashion. Chaosium has released some rather nice-looking supplements and adventures over the last few years, suggesting that this new edition has been well received, hence my curiosity.

At the same time, I'm a grumpy old man. I remember that, when 7th edition was announced, I was none too keen on many of its purported rules innovations (like percentile characteristics) or by the tone of its designers regarding how they had "improved" upon Sandy Petersen's classic game. Consequently, I haven't picked up the latest edition or any of its supplementary material. Am I mistaken in having avoided it thus far?

I'm quite keen to hear more from old timers who've played the new edition. I have long considered Call of Cthulhu to be close to perfect in the melding of its rules, content, and presentation, so I am naturally skeptical of any attempt to change it, even a little. If you've played and enjoyed this edition, please tell me why my concerns are misplaced. In this particular instance, I'd love to be shown the error of my ways.

Keep Them Hungry

Not long ago, I remarked to the referee of a long-running campaign in which I play that he had managed something quite rare: a steady, satisfying equilibrium of reward and need. Our characters receive just enough compensation, whether in money, items, or status, to feel that their efforts are meaningful, but never so much that they grow complacent or aimless. And by "rewards," I don’t just mean money, though it’s worth noting that monetary incentives are too often undervalued in modern games. In the House of Worms campaign, for example, two of the original six characters were initially motivated largely by the pursuit of wealth. It took them years of play to realize that goal, at which point they had acquired new aspirations, grounded in relationships, secrets, and obligations they had accumulated along the way. The quest for gold set them in motion, but it was never the final destination.

In my experience, one of the enduring challenges in roleplaying games is managing the balance between keeping characters "hungry" enough to stay motivated, while ensuring they’re not so deprived that their every action is driven by desperation. This tension is especially pronounced in the early years of a campaign, when characters are still finding their footing. It’s a subtle and vital balancing act that both referees and players must navigate, because it has a profound impact on how compelling, engaging, and even playable a campaign becomes.

Characters who are too impoverished may find their choices narrowed by the constant demands of survival. The campaign risks becoming a slog, where every session is a battle for rations or ammunition and long-term goals fall by the wayside. On the other hand, characters who have everything they need can just as easily lose their drive, making it difficult to justify their continued risk-taking or exploration. The sweet spot lies between these extremes: when characters have just enough to persist, but not enough to be content. That’s where true adventure lives, where ambition, curiosity, and necessity intersect.

This principle applies across genres. In most fantasy roleplaying games, especially those derived from or inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, gold is more than just a measure of wealth or experience. It can also buy better arms and armor, fund magical research, grease the wheels of bureaucracy, or earn the goodwill of influential patrons. In a science fiction setting, similar constraints emerge around currency, but they’re often refracted through different lenses: fuel, maintenance costs, tech upgrades, or the acquisition of rare components may serve as the limiting factors. Even basic necessities like oxygen or can become precious commodities. Meanwhile, in horror and post-apocalyptic games, the same dynamic exists in grimmer form, like clean water, ammunition, medicine, or safe shelter, all of which can stand between the characters and a gruesome end.

While money is often the most obvious and fungible form of reward, it’s far from the only, let alone the most interesting, resource to manage. The principle applies just as strongly to other needs within the game. Equipment, food, information, training, healing, influence, even time – over the years I've used all of these to keep the campaign moving forward. A character might have a full purse but lack access to a mentor who can train him in rare knowledge, prompting a journey to a distant locale. Another might possess a reputation that grants entry into high society but find himself struggling to acquire the materials he needs to craft something important. Still another may enjoy access to advanced technology, but without the knowledge or permissions needed to use it. The gaps between what the characters have and what they want is vital to the health of a campaign. They become reasons to explore, to negotiate, to take risks, and to change. Managing these gaps without frustrating the players is part of the referee’s art and, when done well, it ensures that the world remains dynamic and full of opportunity for adventure.

To the extent that I have any wisdom to offer on this subject, it's drawn from years of trial and error as both a referee and as a player. Much of it strikes me as common sense, but it bears stating because it's easy to overlook in the heat of play or the rush to get a campaign off the ground.

At the start of a campaign, it's usually wise to establish a baseline of scarcity, whether of money, equipment, information, or access to influential allies. This doesn’t mean starving the characters or turning the early game into a joyless slog, but it does mean making them work for the things they need. Even a well-connected patron should not simply hand out powerful items or resources without cost or consequence. Early challenges should reinforce the idea that the world does not revolve around the player characters, at least not yet. Let them earn their status and let them remember how they earned it.

• I've used this to good effect in the House of Worms campaign several times, especially as the characters began involving themselves more fully with the factions of Tsolyáni politics. Their assignment to govern the colony of Linyaró, for example, initially appeared to be a reward – and it was in many ways – but they soon realize that it also tied them down and made them responsible for resolving problems that kept them occupied for years of play. 

Scarcity can be more than an economic condition when it's used to reward ingenuity. One of the simpler ways I've found to encourage clever play is to tie success not to brute force or luck, but to creativity. Allow characters to negotiate, trade favors, leverage contacts, or even take calculated risks to meet their needs. If they succeed through resourcefulness, they should be rewarded but within limits. The goal is to give them just enough to keep them moving forward, not so much that their momentum fades.

• When the Barrett's Raiders campaign was still in Poland, for example, the characters often had to trade items from their supplies – ammunition, clothing, fuel, even weapons – to gain the help of neutral or otherwise uncommitted NPCs they encountered. On other occasions, one of these NPCs might have something they wanted and the only way to acquire it was to do them a favor of some sort. This dynamic was a useful "gateway to adventure" that I found very effective (and continue to use).

As the campaign progresses and characters evolve, so should their motivations, as well as the challenges that come with them. For instance, a character who once hoarded coin might later crave legitimacy, land, or even a title. These new desires should be harder to obtain than mere gold, since they involve reputation, trust, or long-term planning. You can’t simply loot a title from a dungeon. If a player is really interested in his character's pursuit of these goals, doing so will shape the direction of the campaign.

• In my Dolmenwood campaign, one of the characters, Clement, began play as a wannabe knight. However, to become a knight, he needed to find someone of sufficient station to accept his service and that proved difficult, because he had a reputation as a bit of a dolt. Not even his own family thinks much of him. The quest to find him a noble patron thus formed a big part of the first few months of the campaign. Even now, after he found a patron, his desire to prove himself worthy of her pushes many sessions forward.

Another way I've found tension within the campaign can be maintained is by introducing new needs as older ones are fulfilled. Characters who have mastered one environment might be cast into another, where their equipment is less useful or where their knowledge insufficient. That moment of displacement, where old advantages no longer apply, is not just a challenge but an opportunity for deeper engagement with the setting. It forces players to reorient themselves and take nothing for granted.

• An important moment in the House of Worms campaign's early years came when the characters found themselves in a region where spells and magic items did not work. In the face of an impending attack by a numerically superior force, they had to find other ways to defend themselves and escape.

Scarcity, used thoughtfully, can also be a tool for worldbuilding. In the aforementioned example, the characters learned for the first time that, on Tékumel, there are some places where the otherplanar energies that power sorcery do not function as they do elsewhere. The next time they encountered a similar situation, they could use their hard-won prior knowledge to address the situation more easily. Among my favorite moments in the House of Worms campaign have been when the characters are confronted with something that confounds what they thought they knew about the world and its rules and have no choice but to improvise. 

Another thing I've learned is that, believe it or not, players remember their characters' first major windfall. Beginning characters scrimp and save to upgrade their equipment, so the discovery of a valuable gem or a cache of magical weapons can feel momentous. Veteran characters, by contrast, shrug at another pile of coins, but light up at the chance to retrieve a lost tome of knowledge or to curry favor with an important patron. The trick is aligning the party’s current desires with the rewards their actions give them. When the carrot matches the desires of the character, the player almost always follows. When it doesn't, the hook falls flat.

Again, I don't imagine any of this is new to long-time referees, but I found myself thinking about it over the last few days and decided to turn it into a post. Here's hoping at least something in the foregoing can serve as food for thought.

Call of Cthulhu Advice

I was recently asked for some advice from a younger Call of Cthulhu Keeper who wishes to introduce the game to newcomers to both the game and Lovecraft: what adventure would I recommend as a good introduction to it? That's when I realized that I haven't played Call of Cthulhu in more than a decade, unless you count Delta Green, which I don't. Consequently, I don't have any good answers to this question. However, I suspect many of my readers might. 

So, if you were going to introduce new players to Call of Cthulhu, what adventure would you use? Bonus points if the scenario can be reasonably completed in two 4-hour sessions or less. It can be for any edition of the game or any publisher. Just don't say "The Haunting," because, much as I like it, I don't think it's all that representative of what Call of Cthulhu is about.

Thanks!

Spellbooks

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the occult and esoteric roots of early science fiction and fantasy. The response to that post was enthusiastic, which got me thinking that perhaps it’s time I returned to writing more regularly about fantasy literature. Not long after, I happened to watch an old television episode in which a character mused that a writer’s deepest desire is to affect others with his words. That line stuck with me. Something about it lodged in my thoughts and, when paired with my recent reflections, stirred up an old connection I’ve often found fascinating: that the word grimoire, meaning a book of spells, as every D&D player knows, is merely a corrupted form of the word grammar. This, perhaps inevitably, led me to think of Alan Moore.

Now, Alan Moore has long had a reputation for being, let us say, an eccentric. From his decision to worship an obscure Roman snake god to his renunciation of the comic industry that made him famous, Moore has never shied away from holding – and expressing – unusual opinions. Among his more intriguing ones is the notion that writing is a form of magic. This is not a metaphor, at least not entirely. Moore has argued, quite seriously, that the act of writing, of using symbols to influence the thoughts and emotions of others across time and space, is indistinguishable from what the Ancients understood as sorcery.

Strange though it is, I must admit there’s something compelling about this idea. Even if one doesn’t share Moore’s larger worldview, as I do not, it’s hard to deny that writing can have a powerful effect on the human mind. Through the arrangement of words alone, a writer can make his readers laugh, weep, tremble, or dream. He can transport us to faraway lands, real or imagined, and introduce us to people we’ve never met but whose lives we come to care about deeply. In a very real sense, writing is a kind of conjuring, one that requires no candles or pentagrams, only ink and paper (or a keyboard and computer nowadays).

Consider, for example, the word spell. In modern English, it refers not only to an act of magic but also to the construction of words. To spell something is to put its letters in the correct order. Both meanings trace back to the same Old English root, spellian, meaning to speak or to tell a story. Similarly, as I alluded to above, the word grimoire originally refereed in Old French to a book of Latin grammar and only later came to mean a book of magic, in part because of its obscurity to later generations who no longer studied or understood Latin. Similarly, during the Middle Ages, the word grammar (or gramarye) was used as a synonym for occult knowledge. To be “learned in grammar,” meaning to be a sorcerer, is found in both Spenser and Tennyson, to cite two famous literary examples.  

My mind continued to dwell on these and related thoughts. Like many gamers my age, my first experiences with the hobby were less like reading an instruction manual and more like poring over an ancient tome whose true meaning was just out of reach. For example, Gary Gygax's AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide is notorious for its impenetrability in places. It's dense, baroque, and often bafflingly arranged – but it's also weirdly compelling. When I first encountered it, sometime in 1980, it felt charged in a way I could scarcely articulate at the time. Its pages were filled with the promise of discovery and, yes, even power, if only I could fully unlock its secrets.

The parallels with magic are not hard to see. A rulebook, especially one from those bygone days, isn’t just a guide to playing a game. It’s a grimoire, a book of hidden knowledge that, when properly understood, allows one to reshape the world. In the case of an RPG, that world is imaginary but no less real in the moment of play. The referee becomes a kind of conjurer, invoking the words of the text and combining them with his own imagination to create something new. Dice are his ritual tools. The rulebook is his spellbook. A well-loved module might as well be a scroll, its battered pages whispering of dungeons never fully explored and treasures never claimed.

I can still remember the first time I cracked open the D&D Basic Rulebook edited by J. Eric Holmes. I had just turned ten years-old a couple of months prior and, try as I might, I didn’t entirely understand what I was looking at. Nevertheless, the effect was immediate. The words, the terse descriptions and evocative names, the crude dungeon map at the back, all hinted at something larger, something just beyond my grasp. It was like standing at the edge of a forest and seeing strange lights flicker between the trees. I didn’t need to know everything to feel the pull. The rulebook was already working its magic.

That’s the heart of it, I think. The magic doesn’t reside solely in the words themselves, but in what they evoke and the spaces they open in the reader’s mind. A good RPG rulebook doesn’t just tell you how to play; it helps you see something, to imagine people and places and situations that didn’t exist before. It grants you the ability to summon worlds. That’s no small thing. When I look back on the early designers of RPGs, there's a real sense in which the word "magician" is apt to describe them. Their words conjured entire settings, systems, and styles of play that still persist decades later. Through their books, they reached into the minds of people across the world and sparked curiosity, wonder, and creativity. They transmitted dreams, wrapped in game mechanics and monster stats.

To this day, when I pick up an old TSR module or GDW product, I feel a flicker of that same enchantment. By today's standards, their production values may be modest and the prose often obscure, but their spells still work. That probably explains why I've never left this hobby behind, as so many of my childhood friends did. There’s something undeniably magical about it, something that goes beyond nostalgia. These books are more than just artifacts of a bygone era. They’re vessels of imaginative power and those who wrote them were, knowingly or not, practitioners of the oldest art of all.

The art of making something from nothing.

The art of words.

The art of magic.

Retrospective: Shadowrun

One of the things that's easy to forget in our hyper-connected age is how we used to discover new roleplaying games in the days before the Internet. Back then, the most reliable way to learn about an upcoming release was through an advertisement in the pages of whatever gaming magazine happened to be on hand. In 1989, I wasn't reading any of those magazines with regularity and the few I did pick up were mostly issues of Challenge, published by GDW.

I can’t recall exactly which issue it was, but one from late 1989 (or perhaps early 1990) featured a full-color ad on what I think was the inside back cover. It was promoting an adventure titled DNA/DOA for a game I’d never heard of before: Shadowrun. The only reason I paid it any attention or indeed remember it now, nearly four decades later is that the ad prominently noted the adventure had been written by none other than Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. That odd little detail stuck with me, not only because of Arneson’s name but because it hinted that this Shadowrun might be more than just another entry in the growing library of cyberpunk RPGs.

That was my first encounter with FASA’s Shadowrun, a game that seemed unusual from the outset.

Released in 1989, Shadowrun appeared just a year after R. Talsorian’s eponymous Cyberpunk had helped define the genre’s tabletop presence. With its street samurai, megacorps, and jacked-in netrunners, Cyberpunk set the tone for what most people came to expect from a game inspired by the dystopian futures of Gibson, Sterling, and their peers. And yet, more than 35 years later, it’s Shadowrun that has endured. With multiple editions, a series of novels, video game adaptations, and a fiercely loyal fanbase, it remains a living game line, unlike most of its "pure" cyberpunk contemporaries, which have faded into semi-obscurity or niche reverence.

Why?

The most obvious reason for Shadowrun’s enduring success is the same one that raised eyebrows back in 1989: it isn’t just cyberpunk. It’s cyberpunk with elves. And orcs (or orks, if you prefer). And dragons who run multinational corporations. In Shadowrun’s timeline, magic returns to the world in 2011(!), mutating humanity and transforming a familiar dystopian near-future into something far stranger (and, from a publishing standpoint at least, much more resilient) than the genre that inspired it.

This wasn’t just a gimmick. By blending fantasy tropes with cyberpunk conventions, Shadowrun did something genuinely clever: it created a setting with depth and layers. On the surface, players could engage with the game as street-level mercenaries wielding neural implants and SMGs. But beneath that were shamans communing with spirits, dragons manipulating global markets, and ancient conspiracies stretching back to the Fourth World. Players who might have bounced off the bleak, tech-saturated grit of Cyberpunk could instead be drawn in by magical lodges, the emergence of metahumanity, or the social and spiritual upheaval that followed the Awakening.

In short, Shadowrun broadened its appeal and, in doing so, expanded the possibilities for adventures and campaigns. 

It’s also important to recognize how this hybrid design has helped Shadowrun weather the passage of time. Cyberpunk as a genre hasn’t aged gracefully. Its once-speculative technologies – cyberlimbs, virtual reality, hacking over phone lines – often feel more quaint than futuristic today. However, Shadowrun’s fantasy elements aren't so bounded by the decades. Magic, dragons, and spirits don’t become obsolete; they remain today much as they were decades ago. Ironically, Shadowrun has proven more adaptable than its “straight” cyberpunk peers precisely because it was never just a game about a decaying high-tech future. It had a mythic layer that lifted it beyond the limitations of its moment.

That elasticity of focus has undoubtedly contributed to the game’s remarkable longevity. Each new edition – I've lost track of how many there have been – has updated the rules and revised its vision of future tech. Yet, the game's setting has remained fundamentally intact: a strange, compelling fusion of chrome and sorcery, where megacorps rub shoulders with magical traditions and the shadows are always alive with danger.

Another reason for Shadowrun’s staying power is its strong esthetic identity. The original game’s art direction and tone were memorable, with neon-lit sprawls, chrome-and-leather runners, magical glyphs scrawled on alley walls. The world felt lived in and visually distinct. The idea of a troll shaman arguing with a street samurai while a decker jacked into a corporate node in the background was somehow evocative in a way that pure cyberpunk rarely matched. Just as important, Shadowrun encouraged a specific kind of play, consisting of caper-style runs against megacorporations, betrayal, shifting alliances, and messy consequences. It was heist movies, urban fantasy, and cyberpunk noir rolled into one big, messy ball.

In hindsight, FASA’s gamble proved remarkably wise. In a market soon crowded with gritty cyberpunk dystopias, Shadowrun chose to be weird. It paid off. The game is still here. Cyberpunk is fondly remembered, but it needed a video game revival a few years ago to reach a new generation. Shadowrun, meanwhile, kept chugging along through decades of changes. While I never really got into the game, despite have friends who were huge fans, I always respected it for what it was: a bold, imaginative departure from the RPG norms of its time. It dared to be strange, to blend genres in ways that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did. That willingness to be more than just another cyberpunk clone gave it a vitality that few of its contemporaries could match. Even now, decades later, Shadowrun remains a fixture in the hobby, not because it played it safe, but because it embraced the chaos of magic and machine and built a world unlike any other.

The Petal Throne Has Thorns

Recently, I sent a message to the players on our House of Worms campaign Discord server. It was, in essence, a warning.

This is not meant to frighten anyone.

Now that I've succeeded in frightening everyone, here it is: From this point on in the campaign, the gloves are off. 

By that I mean, we're nearing the End and that means anything can happen, including characters dying. Obviously, there are means to bring them back cough, *cough, cough Aíthfo* but there's no guarantee of that, especially given how things are going. I bring this up only because I'm committed to the campaign's conclusion being a tense and uncertain one in every way. Though I've never held back in letting the dice fall where they may *cough, cough, Aíthfo*, things may nevertheless get even nastier than they ever have before and I feel an obligation to remind everyone that no one has Plot Armor.

Have a nice day. 😊

It’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but the underlying message is serious: after more than a decade of weekly play, the House of Worms campaign is approaching its conclusion. The characters, most of whom have been in play for years, are not guaranteed a happy ending, let alone a heroic one. They can fail. They can die. They might even die pointlessly, offhandedly, from a bad roll at the wrong moment.

That’s all par for the course in a proper old school RPG campaign, of course, but I felt compelled to remind the players. As I’ve likely said many times over the years, House of Worms is light on dice rolls outside of combat and combat itself is rare outside the underworld. Most sessions consist almost entirely of roleplaying in one form or another and the players are very good at it. More often than not, they resolve their problems through conversation, manipulation, and clever schemes rather than through swordplay or spellcraft. Much as I love that – and I do, given my longstanding dislike of combat – I sometimes worry it’s made them a little too comfortable. A little too safe.

From what I read online and have sometimes even observed "in the wild," there's a tacit expectation in a lot of contemporary gaming circles that player characters are protagonists will, therefore, reach the end of a campaign. They might suffer, they might be scarred, but they'll get there. There's an implicit contract between referee and player that, so long as you show up and play your character, you'll at least survive to the final scene. Old school play usually doesn't work out that way and, at least in my interpretation of it, Tékumel especially doesn’t work that way.

Tékumel is a setting where the gods are real, inscrutable, and often indifferent. It's a place of Byzantine scheming, hidden pacts, and ancient horrors. A misplaced word or an ill-advised alliance can unravel everything you've worked toward – and that’s glorious. As I conceive it, a Tékumel campaign should end the way it began: full of mystery, danger, and unpredictability. There's n script; there’s no "true ending." There's only what the players do and what the dice say about it.

I've always tried to referee the House of Worms campaign in a way that respects the players' choices – as well as the consequences of those choices. That doesn’t mean I'm out to kill their characters for shock value or for sport. However, it does mean that no character is safe just because they’re "important." If anything, being important only puts a larger target on a character's back. Indeed, that's been the pattern of this campaign since its inception in March 2015: each time the characters succeed, there's been an escalation in the stakes and the strength of the opposition. Where once they contended with local matters of small moment, now they're at the very heart of an imperial succession crisis, one that involves not just earthly power politics but the machinations of gods and demons. 

In playing House of Worms, what I’ve come to appreciate most about it and, by extension old school RPG campaigns more generally, is their fragility. There’s no safety net, no rewind button. The stakes are real and when the players realize that, when they know the character they've played for literally years could disappear into the void at any moment, the impact on play is considerable. That’s when the game transcends mere mechanics and becomes something else: a shared experience of genuine risk and reward.

So yes, the gloves are off, but they were never really on to begin with.

Have a nice day. 😊