Polyhedron: Issue #25

Issue #25 of Polyhedron (September 1985) features eye-catching artwork by the Marvel Bullpen, depicting the Hulk and long-time foe, the Abomination, bursting through the cover. Both characters appear in the issue's Marvel Super Heroes article – a first for the newszine. At the time, I was quite pleased by this expansion of Polyhedron's coverage, because I was a big fan of MSH and was always on the look-out for new material (particularly write-ups of Marvel characters that hadn't yet appeared elsewhere).

Normally, "Notes from HQ" is filled with RPGA-related ephemera and thus doesn't command my attention for long. This time, though, part of it is of greater interest, specifically the call for Dungeon Masters to submit "a store, tavern, house, city block, NPC, street encounter, guild" for inclusion in a fantasy setting to be used by the RPGA as a "home base" and possible locale for adventures. Robert Asprin's Thieves' World is referenced as an inspiration and it's stated that Gary Gygax has agreed to allow this city to be placed in his World of Greyhawk setting. If any of this sounds familiar, that's because I suspect the project was eventually retooled for use with the Forgotten Realms, becoming Ravens Bluff, the Living City, an RPGA staple for years to come.

Jon Pickens offers up a second part of his "Unofficial Magic-User Spells" series, again looking to existing magic items as source of new spells (like the ring of spell turning and ring of x-ray vision). It's fine, if a bit unimaginative, though I cannot forgive the consistent misspelling of "absorption" as "absorbtion" throughout, especially when the magic item that inspired it, the rod of absorption, spells it correctly. The "RPGA Network Player and Judge Standings" is hardly worth mentioning, since it's little more than three pages' worth of names. Looking through them, I spotted the usual assortment of TSR employees and freelancers, along with a few others whose names I recognized from Dragon and elsewhere. I wonder if any readers of this blog had earned enough tournament XP to make it onto the list?

Part II of Frank Mentzer's AD&D adventure, Needle, also appears in this issue. Having found the titular needle – a magical obelisk – in Part I, the characters are now tasked with removing it for transport back to their homeland while dealing with hostile bullywugs and pirates. The adventure is quite fascinating, in that it's mostly a matter of resource management and logistics. The characters command a team of workers and mercenaries over the course of the several weeks needed to achieve their goal. How well they manage their resources, as well as how they respond to various threats, determine whether or not their mission is successful. I have no idea how it would be to play, the idea behind this scenario sounds compelling.

Michael Przytarski's "Fletcher's Corner" returns, talking about high-level adventures this time. That's a topic of great interest to me, since there aren't a lot of good examples of them in my opinion and I'd love to read some good advice on how to create my own. Sadly, there's not much meat to this article. It's mostly brief nuggets ("Try not to be bring the gods into it") intended to keep things somewhat grounded and avoiding boredom ("Three red dragons are fun, but they can become tiresome"). Perhaps the article's brevity (one page) prevents Przytarski from getting into the weeds of this topic, I don't know. Regardless, I didn't find what I was looking for here, which is a shame. My quest continues.

"Rampage" by Roger E. Moore is a straightforward Marvel Super Heroes scenario, in which four different super-strong characters – the Hulk, Hercules, the Abomination, and Titania – in the streets of New York. It's not deep, but it's fun. I also appreciate the way that Moore presents different Karma award charts for each character as a way to highlight their differences. That's something I always liked about Marvel Super Heroes and that's harder to implement in a game where the characters are all original creations of the players rather than established personalities. 

With apologies to Rembert N. Parker, I'm going to pass over his "How to Succeed at Judging an RPGA Network Event," because it's of minimal interest to me. "Dispel Confusion" consists of two full pages of AD&D questions, with no other RPGs represented. By and large, the questions this issue concern ambiguities in the rules and, as such, aren't that interesting to discuss here. The most notable question concerned psionics and its use, with the answer noting that psionics will be revised "in the future." Rounding out the issue is a positive review of Paranoia, an old fave of mine, though it's been years since I've attempted to play it. Maybe I should change that.

As always, Polyhedron is so much more of a mixed bag than is Dragon and it's frustrating. Most issues contain good material, but very few are consistently good. That probably explains why I eventually stopped reading it, while I continued with Dragon well into the 1990s. I suspect this is because Polyhedron always had a much more "amateur" quality, which limited both its audience and its submissions. It's a real pity.

White Dwarf: Issue #40

I have no idea what artist Emmanuel's cover to issue #40 of White Dwarf (April 1983) is supposed to depict. Despite that, it's exactly the kind of cover I strongly associate with the magazine: weirdly evocative and vaguely science fictional or fantasy in its subject matter. Somewhat relatedly, Ian Livingstone's editorial notes that fantasy RPGs remain much more popular than science fiction ones and he wonders why that is. It's a question I regularly ponder myself. The closest I've come to an answer is that fantasy is a more strongly codified and, therefore, familiar gaming genre, where even those RPGs that deviate from the Tolkien-descended consensus tacitly acknowledge its supremacy. The same is not true of science fiction, with its welter of sub-genres and approaches.

"Zen and the Art of Adventure Gaming" by Dave Morris reminds us that we're solidly into the '80s and its fascination with all things Japanese. His article is an attempt to present feudal Japan in RuneQuest terms, with new weapons, armor, and skills, in addition to a very brief treatment of kami and magic. Being on something of a RuneQuest kick lately, I found this article a welcome one, though its brevity limits its utility considerably. I now find myself regretting that I never picked up Land of Ninja during the years when Avalon Hill was publishing RQ under license from Chaosium.

"Dungeon Master General" by Alan E. Paull presents a system for handling large scale combats in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Paull's system is a relatively simple one that eschews miniatures and downplays precise measurements in favor of speed and ease of use. Consequently, the system is loose and relies on referee judgment and common sense in many areas, such as the adjudication of morale. Not having used it myself, I can't speak to how well it works, but I nevertheless appreciate articles like this. I've long been of the opinion that D&D is in need of a mass combat system that does not expect the referee to break out a sand table every time he wishes to simulate a clash between armies. Paull's system may or may not succeed in doing this to most people's satisfaction – I suspect the latter – but it's a worthy project nonetheless.

Dave Langford's second "Critical Mass" column focuses on two authors whose works have been discussed on this blog in the past: Robert Asprin and Stephen R. Donaldson. In the case of Asprin, Langford reviews Myth Conceptions, the third in the author's Myth series. Langford doesn't think much of the book or its humor; I can't say that I disagree with him. It's very difficult to write a series of humorous novels without eventually descending into an unintentional parody and that's more or less what happened to Asprin. As for Donaldson, Langford reviews White Gold Wielder, the third and final book in the second trilogy of Thomas Covenant. Langford doesn't think better of this novel and, again, I can't really disagree with him. The second trilogy showed promise early on, with the protagonist being much less awful than he was in his previous outing, but it's still a convoluted, self-serious slog with a couple of interesting ideas that don't justify the time I invested in reading it.

"Open Box" reviews Soloquest 2: Scorpion Hall for RuneQuest, giving it an 8 out of 10. Also reviewed are a quarter of AD&D modules: Hidden Shrine of the Tamoachan (8 out of 10), Ghost Tower of Inverness (8 out of 10), White Plume Mountain (8 out of 10), and Dwellers of the Forbidden City (5 out of 10). Perhaps I am biased, but I find it difficult to believe that Dwellers of the Forbidden City rates only a 5 or that either Ghost Tower of Inverness or White Plume Mountain, both of which are contrived funhouse modules, deserve ratings as high as they received. Chacun à son goût. Illuminati receives a 7 out of 10, while Starstone, a generic fantasy module published by Northern Sages (and with which I am unfamiliar) receives a 9 out of 10.

"The Eagle Hunt" by Marcus L. Rowland is an AD&D scenario for 1st–3rd level characters. Its premise is that an ancient artifact, the titular Green Eagle, has been stolen from the king's treasure vault and the two detectives dispatched to locate it have themselves gone missing, thereby necessitating a public reward of 20,000gp for anyone who can recover it. "The Eagle Hunt" is a lengthy and engaging adventure, quite different from the usual low-level scenarios one regularly sees. Likewise, the Green Eagle's true purpose, if discovered, has the potential to open up interesting possibilities in a D&D campaign.

"Trading" by Oliver Dickinson presents a simple trade system for use with RuneQuest, one vaguely reminiscent of that found in Traveller (not that that's a bad thing). Speaking of Traveller, Andy Slack offers up "Explorer Class Scoutships," a detailed look at a new type of starship, complete with game stats and deckplans. Part II of "Inhuman Gods" by Phil Masters treats readers to the deities of yet more non-human beings, such as the firenewts, flinds, and frogmen. "RuneQuest Characters" by Nelson Cunningham provides the code for a GAP (game assistance program) intended to generate random RQ characters. I love that the article includes a section entitled "What to do when it crashes." Good times! Finally, "Treasure Chest" gives us six more D&D magic items, because we can never have too many magic items, can we?

Issue #40 is a very strong issue, filled with plenty of meaty and imaginative articles, many of which have a unique flair that differentiates them from what I saw in the pages of Dragon and other American gaming periodicals of the same era. Re-reading this issue, I found myself unexpectedly nostalgic for the White Dwarf of old, before the magazine became wholly devoted to Warhammer and its spin-offs. I consider myself fortunate to entered the hobby at the time I did. We shall not see its like again.

Retrospective: Thieves' World

I've long had a fondness for Chaosium's boxed sets, starting with Call of Cthulhu, the first RPG from the company I ever owned. From there, it was all downhill: with the exception of RuneQuest, I soon became a dedicated collector of Chaosium's boxed sets. Among those I treasured the most was Thieves' World, based on the fantasy anthology series of the same name edited by Robert Lynn Asprin. 

The boxed set, first published in 1981, consisted of three books and a collection of maps depicting the city of Sanctuary. The first book, Players' Guide to Sanctuary, serves as an introduction to not just the whole set but also its setting. Kicking off the book are two essays by contributors to the literary anthology, starting with Asprin's "Full Circle," which was simultaneously published in issue #12 of Different Worlds. Following it is "Thud and Blunder," Poul Anderson's essay skewering the excesses of sword-and-sorcery literature and a call to produce better entries in the genre. Rounding out the first book are discussions of the city, its inhabitants, history, and gods, as well as an extensive glossary of names and terms unique to Sanctuary.

The Game Master's Guide to Sanctuary presents a variety of articles on how to use the boxed set in one's campaign. These articles discuss bribery and graft, law and order, and the gods (in greater detail). More immediately useful are the extensive encounter tables, each tied to one of the city's districts. Each district gets its own article, including a map that describes the most important locales. In some cases, there are also maps of individual buildings. Wrapping up this book is a map of the city's sewers.

Personalities of Sanctuary is the third and perhaps most interesting book in the set. Each of its chapters describes the most important inhabitants of Sanctuary in terms of a different roleplaying game's rules – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (by Lawrence Schick), Adventures in Fantasy (by Dave Arneson and Richard Snider), Chivalry & Sorcery (by Wes Ives), DragonQuest (by Eric Goldberg), Dungeons & Dragons (by Steve Marsh), The Fantasy Trip (by Rudy Kraft), RuneQuest (by Steve Perrin), Tunnels & Trolls (by Ken St. Andre), and Traveller (by Marc Miller). The last one is notable, as Miller offers three different ways to integrate Thieves' World into Traveller's science fiction setting. The most interesting of these options is one that postulates that Sanctuary is a computer simulation created for entertainment – a kind of MMORPG for the citizens of the Third Imperium. Concluding the third book is a collection of scenario ideas.

There are three large maps included in Thieves' World: one depicting the whole city, another the Maze district, and the last one the underground areas of the same district. The maps are lovely, as is typical for Chaosium products from this era. 

Thieves' World is an impressive boxed set and I deeply regret that I long ago got rid of mine in a moment of stupidity. I absolutely adore the idea of fantasy cities, particularly those of a shady, crime-ridden sort like Lankhmar or Sanctuary. That said, I can't deny that the set nevertheless has flaws, chief among them being the amount of space devoted to describing all the characters in so many different RPG systems. I'd much rather that the book had provided statistics for only two or three rules sets – D&D, RQ, and T&T maybe? – and then used the freed space to flesh out the city further or expand the scenario ideas instead. Of course, I'd have been even happier if this product had been a complete Thieves' World fantasy roleplaying game using Basic Role-Playing, but I can't really complain in the end. If  only I'd kept my copy … 

Different Worlds: Issue #12

Issue #12 of Different Worlds (July 1981) is the first monthly issue of the magazine, all previous ones being bimonthly. It also features cover art by William Church, whom I will always associate with RuneQuest and the wonderfully evocative map of Prax that appeared in the game's rulebook. 

"Meaningful Names for Characters" by Jane Woodward is the issue's first article and it's a big one – eight pages – consisting largely of lists of names and name elements from a variety of languages, both real (Old English and Welsh) and imaginary (Quenya and the Black Speech). The idea behind that article is to encourage players to come up with better names for their characters than "bad puns or meaningless constructs." I'm deeply sympathetic to this perspective; I think character names are important. At the same time, I prefer names to be rooted in a game's setting rather than by recourse to whatever language catches one's fancy, regardless of how appropriate it is (and it's never appropriate, in my opinion, to use Tolkien's languages, unless one is actually playing in Middle-earth).

"The Full Circle" by Robert Lynn Asprin is a preview of the upcoming Thieves' World RPG supplement, based on the anthology series of the same name. Asprin talks not just about the supplement itself but the ways that his experiences as a referee and player affected his decisions in putting together the anthologies. The article's title is thus a reference to the way that roleplaying games were influenced by literature, only for literature, in turn, to be influenced by RPGs. Though brief, Asprin provides some fascinating insight into these matters and I was glad to have read what he had to say. "Bersekers" by Laurence J.P. Gillespie is an overview of Norse berserkers from the perspectives of history and myth, with a few suggestions on how to use them in roleplaying games. 

John T. Sapienza reviews several new sets of Zargonian paper miniatures from Bearhug Enterprises. As in his review of earlier releases in this series, Sapienza thinks highly of these miniatures. The issue also includes many other, generally shorter reviews, most notably those of The Isle of Dread (for D&D), Plunder and Rune Masters (for RQ), Thieves' Guild, and the D&D Basic and Expert sets. All these reviews are positive, though, perhaps unsurprisingly, the review of the Basic and Expert sets include a number of cavils about Dungeons & Dragons and its approach to both rules and presentation, even though D&D clearly appeals "to a lot of happy adventure gamers." 

Larry DiTillio's "The Sword of Hollywood" column continues, focusing this time on the still-untitled second Star Trek movie, Clash of the Titans, Dragonslayer, and Conan the Barbarian. There's also mention of multiple fantasy films supposedly in the works, almost all of which DiTillio believes will never see the light of day. His instincts were indeed correct, as the only one that seems to have seen the light of day was The Beastmaster, unless "The Dragons of Krull" was a working title of 1983's Krull. 

Gigi D'Arn makes another appearance, providing some interesting gossip, chief among them being that TSR was rumored to have laid off "a dozen or so employees for 'bad attitude.'" This is no rumor but fact: starting in April 1981, TSR fired Paul Reiche, Evan Robinson, Bill Willingham, Jeff Dee, Kevin Hendryx, and others. There's mention, too, that Dave Arneson "settled (happily)" with TSR and that Greg Costikyan "hasn't been heard from in a while," followed by an appeal to "people who know his whereabouts" to contact the Game Designers' Guild. I have no idea what this might have been about. Gigi also references a "Troll Ball" game from Greg Stafford, which will have miniatures sculpted by Steve Lortz. I assume this never came to pass and that the rules were later incorporated into Trollpak.

Issue #12 is unusual in that, although it's the same length as previous issues (48 pages), it feels shorter. I suspect that has to do with the fewer articles in this issue and the presence of huge numbers of advertisements. Now, I actually like seeing these ads, since they're a terrific way to remind oneself of the state of the hobby in 1981, but, in terms of actual gaming content, this issue seems a slight downgrade to past ones. Here's hoping future issues will see a return to previous form.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Another Fine Myth

Another Fine Myth is the first installment in Robert Asprin's series of humorous fantasy novels known as "the Myth Adventures." In 1978, when this book first appeared, this was rather an original concept, which is why I enjoyed the early books of the series. As the years dragged on, though, my enjoyment waned and I eventually came to have bad feelings about the entire endeavor. As anyone who knows me well is aware, I'm actually not a fan of humorous fantasy novels, even ones as supposedly well-written as the "Discworld" books, of which I have not read a single word and have no intention of doing so (Please don't use the comments to try to dissuade me from this. Seriously).

Nevertheless, Another Fine Myth is a good, if light, read. Its plot concerns Skeeve, an apprentice wizard with a knack for thievery. Indeed, his skills as a thief far outstrip those as a magician, a fact his master says is retarding Skeeve's ability to cast spells with any success. Hoping to shock some sense into him, his master decides to show Skeeve the true power of magic by summoning a demon, which he does just as a magical assassin appears. The assassin and Skeeve's master slay one another, leaving the apprentice behind to deal with the strange, reptilian demon.

As it turns out, "demon" is simply a slang word for traveler between dimensions. The traveler Skeeve's master has summoned is known as Aahz and he offers to take Skeeve on as his apprentice, teaching him magic, since his own ability to use magic has been temporarily lost due to the summoning ritual that brought him to Skeeve's world. Of course, the assassin that killed the master was not alone and his comrades are now after Skeeve, which is why he and Aahz flee, hoping to evade them long enough for the demon to teach Skeeve the magic they need to survive all these people wanting them dead for reasons as yet unknown to them.

What follows is a humorous fantasy picaresque filled with all manner of bizarre situations and strange characters, especially the latter. Asprin had a real knack for creating quirky, yet oddly believable, characters and I suspect that he's had a strong influence on my own NPC characterizations, which can be quite ... unusual, as my players will attest. Likewise, the central premise is a classic fantasy one: a nobody in the "real" world, in this case a fairly mundane fantasy one, finds himself thrust into a much bigger -- and more dangerous -- world than he ever realized existed, along the way acquiring knowledge, power, and influence he otherwise never would have possessed. Sound familiar?

There's lots of good ideas to mine in this novel and its sequels, particularly if one doesn't take one's fantasy too seriously. As I said, I found the later books increasingly less good. I suspect that Asprin kept writing them because they continued to sell well rather than because he had anything new to say with these characters. It's a common problem in genre fiction, where interminable series seem to be the norm. Mind you, the same is true of roleplaying games, where the power of "the brand" generally wins out over anything resembling esthetic integrity. Regardless, Another Fine Myth at least is worth a read if you've never had the chance to do so. Asprin is an under-appreciated writer and I think one gains a better sense of his unique virtues from his early books rather than his later ones.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Thieves' World

One of the things I think most obviously separates pulp fantasy from high fantasy is its literary format. While there are many pulp fantasy novels, the short story (and its cousins, the novelette and the novella) is the genre's true home and it's generally a good bet that a fantasy tale written as a short story is more likely to be a pulp fantasy than a high fantasy. It's no accident in my opinion that many of the strongest influences on early Dungeons & Dragons were short stories. Indeed, I would argue that D&D works best when a campaign consists of episodic "short stories" rather than a lengthy epic "novel."

Unfortunately, the short story seems to have fallen into disfavor, particularly in the fantasy genre, where multi-book series seem to be the norm. It's refreshing to remember that this wasn't always the case and one needn't return to the 1940s or 50s to find terrific examples of episodic fantasy. 1979, for example, saw the publication of Thieves' World, the first of twelve shared world anthologies edited by Robert Asprin concerning the inhabitants of the dissolute city of Sanctuary.

Several things elevated the Thieves' World series in my estimation, chief among them being the diversity of its authors. The first volume included short stories by Asprin, Lynn Abbey, Poul Anderson, Joe Haldeman, Andrew Offutt, and Marion Zimmer Bradley, among others. Later installments in the series included authors such as Philip José Farmer, David Drake, A.E. van Vogt, and C.J. Cherryh. As a result, the stories, especially the early ones, never fall into a rut or become repetitive, as each author brought a different perspective and style with their contributions. The series was also notable for its excellent setting and characters. Sanctuary is a wretched hive of scum and villainy that is no mere pastiche of Lankhmar, even if it clearly pays homage to Leiber's creation. Similarly, the characters of Thieves' World -- Lythal the Star-Browed, Jubal, One Thumb, and others -- are worthy to join the pantheon of great pulp fantasy protagonists ("heroes" is too unambiguous a word to describe them).

The Thieves' World series lasted for a decade, the last volume in the original series being published in 1989. As the series wore on, it showed signs of tiredness. There were fewer and fewer different contributors to each volume, with most of the short stories written by a handful of authors. Likewise, the episodic, picaresque nature of the series became less strong, as several overarching stories came to the fore, some of which veered a bit too much toward high fantasy for my liking. Even so, it's hard not to be impressed by the original volume and its immediate sequels. They injected some much-needed vibrancy into the pulp fantasy genre and their tales of Sanctuary's burglars and bandits, rebels and rapscallions remain among my favorite "modern" fantasy stories.

RIP: Robert Asprin (1946-2008)

Robert Asprin, creator of the humorous MythAdventures and co-creator of the Thieves' World shared world anthologies (with his ex-wife Lynn Abbey) has died at the age of 61. Asprin will be remembered by a lot of gamers of a certain age, both because of his involvement with the Society of Creative Anachronism (where he co-founded the Great Dark Horde household) and because the fact that former Dragon magazine cartoonist Phil Foglio illustrated many of his MythAdventures books. But it was Thieves' World for which I will remember him most. I greatly enjoyed those anthologies in the early days, which brought together some of the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy to tell stories about the cutthroats and rogues of the city of Sanctuary. Anyone who loves swords and sorcery tales owes Asprin a debt of thanks for helping to create this series.

Asprin will be missed.