Gaming with Allen Hammack

I played in several RPG sessions while at Gamehole Con this year. Though I enjoyed them all – and will eventually discuss each in turn – the one I most immediately want to talk about is The Ghost Tower of Inverness, refereed by its original author, Allen Hammack. The AD&D module was published in 1980, having been used before that as a tournament scenario for Winter Con VIII in late 1979. Like many tournament scenarios, this one is rather contrived in its set-up and features a funhouse dungeon filled with all manner of puzzles, trick, and traps. 

For the purposes of this post, I don't have a lot to say about the scenario itself, since it's old and probably quite well-known to most readers of this blog. Instead, what most interests me and that I think is most worthy of attention is the way Mr Hammack ran it at the table during the con. Bear in mind that Hammack was employed by TSR Hobbies between 1978 and 1982, where he worked as a writer, designer, and editor, primarily on the AD&D. I mention this to provide some context to what follows.

The module is designed for five pre-generated characters, all human – a fighter, a cleric, a magic-user, a thief, and a monk. I played the cleric, Zinethar the Wise, who was 9th level and, oddly, had slightly more hit points than the fighter. The module assumes that all the characters with the exception of the monk are condemned criminals who are offered the opportunity to escape imprisonment by undertaking a dangerous mission for the Duke of Urnst (in the World of Greyhawk), namely, the recovery of the Soul Gem from the titular Ghost Tower. I knew none of the other four players prior to play, so we had to learn to work together to succeed.

Mr Hammack is an older gentleman. I have no idea his actual age, but I suspect he's probably in his late 60s or early 70s at least. Despite this, his mind is very sharp, especially when it comes to the AD&D rules. More than once during the four hours we were at his table, a player asked a question about how, say, a spell functioned. Before someone could find the appropriate page in the Players Handbook, Hammack recalled the relevant information – and correctly. After a while, we learned to trust his memory over our ability to flip pages quickly. I bring all this up, because it supports my long-held contention that hobbies like roleplaying are good for the health of your brain. 

Given how well he remembered the rules of AD&D, another question that came up was how strict Mr Hammack would be in applying them. He chuckled and said that he was generally quite flexible about doing so, with a couple of exceptions. Going back to spells, Hammack explained that he is often loose with spell durations but he was more rigid about areas of effect. Likewise, he noted that he was loose with encumbrance, unless he felt a player was trying to take advantage of a situation. He then told a terrific story about how he and other AD&D players of his acquaintance would use 3×5 index cards for character sheets, with stats being written on the front and equipment on the back. Anything you could fit on the back of an index card – in legible writing – would probably not bring encumbrance penalties into effect. 

Mr Hammack's overall approach to rules was governed by common sense. He clearly knew the rules and was prepared to apply them when he felt it necessary or appropriate, but he never felt bound by them. Indeed, he could be talked out of applying them by a good argument from a player, as he was on at least one occasion. At the same time, Hammack was also quite clear that his decision was final. Once he'd made a decision and considered any input from the players, there was no further arguing of the point. That he was fair and judicious probably explains why no one argued with his final decisions – that we were all middle-aged men, not children probably helped, too. I found the whole experience quite refreshing, to be honest.

I should note that, despite his extensive knowledge of AD&D rules, Mr Hammack was not above introducing house rules into play. For example, there were many occasions when he asked us to roll under a character's ability score to determine if our characters succeeded at some action or other. Likewise, he made use of a simple critical hit/fumble mechanic that's definitely not something Gary Gygax would ever have approved of. The mechanic worked fine in play and even contributed to a number of fun moments, which was exactly what we all hoped for.

In sum, I had a great time at Allen Hammack's table. He was a charming, knowledgeable, and imaginative Dungeon Master and he made me appreciate how good a module The Ghost Tower of Inverness actually is. I consider myself very lucky to have played with him at Gamehole Con this year.

Retrospective: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords

Since I've already done Retrospective posts about the first, second, and fourth modules in the "Slave Lords" series, I thought it only proper that I should finally do one on the third, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. Written by Allen Hammack (best known for The Ghost Tower of Inverness) and released in 1981, module A3 is probably my least favorite of the four, perhaps because it reveals its origins as a tournament module even more obviously than do the others in the series. So much of its content and structure is contrived to test the skills of its players that it feels obviously artificial. That's a shame, because there are some genuinely good ideas here that, presented differently, might have been more successful. 

Having destroyed a caravan fort of the slavers in the previous module, the characters are now investigating a hidden mountain city reputed to serve as one of their main bases of operation. Reaching the city first requires a trek through cave tunnels to find its entrance. Once there, the characters must then descend into its sewers to locate the council chamber of the slave lords. Only at this point can they face off against them and hope to put an end to their depredations. 

If all that sounds convoluted, even improbable and tedious, you're right. There's a reason I called this module contrived. It's presented as a series of gauntlets – make it through the caves to find the city; through the city to find the sewers, etc. – the characters must run, each one filled not only with a lot of enemies but also with tricks and traps of all kinds. This probably works really well in a tournament, where each gauntlet is part of a different round of play, but, as a module to be used in campaign play, it leaves a lot to be desired.

The situation is made worse, I think, by the fact each section includes elements that strain credibility. For example, the mountain "caves" the characters must navigate to reach the city are actually a mazelike series of worked stone corridors. The slave lords clearly went to a lot of trouble to make them and then fill them with monsters and traps. The "city" of Suderham that serves as their base is really quite small (about 70 locations), a great many of which are taverns and "houses of ill repute." The referee is encouraged to flesh it out more fully, based on some limited details provided in the module. Perhaps that's enough, given its purpose here, but I find myself wishing for more. Almost nothing in this module feels naturalistic to me. Instead, it's all here to support a tournament experience and it shows.

Worst of all is the ending. Because this is the penultimate module in the series, the characters clearly cannot defeat the slave lords once and for all. Likewise, the next and final module in the series, begins with the characters defeated, stripped of their equipment, and thrown into a dungeon from which they must escape. Consequently, the module provides numerous ways to ensure that, no matter what else happens, the characters are captured so that they be thrown into said dungeon. I fully understand why this is the case, especially in a tournament situation, but it's deeply unsatisfying nonetheless. 

Despite all of my complaints, there's still a lot to like here. Suderham, while smaller and less detailed than I'd have wanted, has potential, given its location in a volcanic crater and nefarious character – a pity that it's unceremoniously destroyed in the next module. Likewise, the idea of exploring the sewers and encountering weird monsters, like a killer mimic and a crossbow-wielding minotaur, is great, even if its execution leaves something to be desired. Then there's the art by TSR's stable of Electrum Age artists like Jeff Dee, Bill Willingham, and Erol Otus, most of which is quite good and probably deserving a post of its own. Such a shame they weren't put to better use!

Speaking of halflings ...

Polyhedron: Issue #13

Issue #13 of Polyhedron (August 1983) is dubbed a "special issue," because, in the words of its editor, Mary Kirchoff, more "strictly gaming aid articles." What that means is that, unlike previous issues, this one includes no RPGA ephemera, only articles for use with TSR's various roleplaying games. This is precisely what I'd hoped to see in the pages of Polyhedron when I first started to subscribe to it. Alas, the 'zine would return to its earlier form with issue #14, but I nevertheless enjoyed this one, singular though it was.

The letters page contains two letters of note. One asks about the possibility of a D&D movie, while the other questions why Deities & Demigods includes "fighting abilities and statistics" for the gods described therein. Here's the response regarding a D&D movie:

The story of the D&D movie Gary Gygax was supposedly working on during his time in Hollywood is the stuff of legend. I know very little about it myself, but Jon Peterson, has written a lengthy essay about its history and development that's well worth your time. 

The Deities & Demigods question is interesting, both for the answer (provided by DDG co-author James M. Ward) and for its asker, a name that might be recognizable to those familiar with the luminaries of the OSR:

And here is Ward's answer:

This is pretty much the same logic employed by Tim Kask in the foreword to Gods, Demigods & Heroes, the predecessor to the DDG. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, except that it suggests TSR felt a need to police the boundaries of power within D&D. What an odd thing!

"Dispel Confusion" contains the usual assortment of questions about TSR's stable of roleplaying games. Of these, one stands out as worthy of being highlighted:

One can quibble about whether these are indeed "the two most important concepts in the D&D game," but I find it difficult to disagree that both of these concepts in the answer are indeed significant ones, particularly the second one. My ongoing House of Worms campaign – which will celebrate its ninth year of continuous play in March 2024 – is largely propelled by player choice and the consequences of those choices, for example.

Mary Kirchoff provides another installment of "Under Construction," this one being something of a follow-up to the one that appeared in issue #10. Like its predecessor, it's clever and flavorful – a good example of a dungeon "special." The issue also includes a "policy statement" from the publishing division of TSR, regarding Dragon and the newly-acquired Ares:

In short, TSR decided to focus Dragon solely on fantasy RPGs, shifting science fiction RPGs over to Ares. This was a huge disappointment to me at the time, because then, as now, I prefer SF to fantasy and I had no interest in subscribing to yet another gaming magazine. Ultimately, like everything else TSR did with the former SPI's properties, this move was ill-considered and failed. In time, Ares would cease to exist as a stand-alone magazine and sci-fi content would be re-incorporated into Dragon in the form of the Ares Section, which would become one of my favorite parts of the magazine.

Roger E. Moore's "Gods, Demigods, and DMs" is yet another look at the apparently vexed question of how to handle interactions between deities and powerful player characters. Moore's advice is generally very good, relying on both mythological tales, the AD&D rules, and common sense as guides. He quite reasonably believes that the gods should not be seen as "pushovers" even by the mightiest PCs and that the DM should pull out all the stops when roleplaying gods and demigods that their awesomeness is fully manifest. As I said, he provides lots of solid advice and examples, but I still have to wonder: were battles with the gods so commonplace that TSR needed to address it again and again?

"Spelling Bee" by James M. Ward looks at just two spells: continual light and its reverse, continual darkness, in order to show how versatile and useful they can be in play. I appreciate articles like this, because I've long felt that (A)D&D has too many spells, especially when one considers how many ways even a handful of spells can be used by a clever caster. Pointing out all the ways existing spells might be employed goes some way, I think, toward alleviating the need for further, ever more specific, spells – at least that's my feeling.

"The Hive Master" by Harold Johnson is an unusual four-page adventure for use with Gangbusters. I say "unusual," because, unlike all previous scenarios written for the game, this one doesn't deal with bootlegging or bank robbery but instead with efforts by a mad scientist – Professor Abe Malefica – to get his revenge on the world who mocked him by releasing a specially-bred type of harvester bee into the world. It's pulp nonsense of the highest order and I hated it at the time. Looking at it now, though, I have a better appreciation for what Johnson was doing, even if he refers to Malefica as an "entymologist." 

The issue includes a double-sided cardstock reference sheet of Dawn Patrol rules and tables. I still have mine inside my game box to this day. "Ecosystem," another by Ward, looks at the ramifications of the environment in Gamma World on adventure scenarios. "Go West, Young Gamer" by Steve Winter suggests the inclusion of four new ability scores to Boot Hill – Coordination, Observation, Stature, and Luck – as a way to further differentiate characters in the game. Given that BH is a very primitive game in terms of mechanics, this makes some sense. Does anyone know if these were these incorporated into the third edition of the game by chance?

"Raid on Theseus" by Doug Niles is a starship combat scenario for use with Knight Hawks. Kim Mohan's "Psionic Pspells" is a lengthy (four pages) article looking at "spells resembling psionic powers" from every possible angle. These spells are enumerated in Appendix C of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, but Mohan is, for some reason, interested in explaining the logic behind each spell's inclusion in the list in order to better understand AD&D magic, psionics, and the interplay of the two. I cannot say I share his enthusiasm for the topic. "The Condor Assignment" by Allen Hammack is ostensibly a Top Secret article, but it's mostly a review of then-current espionage media, like the Bond novel, Icebreaker. 

Other than the obligatory RPGA catalog at the end, that's issue #13. Though no longer than its immediate predecessors, it certainly feels meatier to me, probably because of the lack of RPGA ephemera that didn't interest me at the time and interests me even less four decades later. This issue represents what I always wanted Polyhedron to be, but very rarely got – a pity.

Polyhedron: Issue #2

Issue #2 of the soon-to-be named RPGA Newsletter (Autumn 1981) features a cover illustration by Stephen D. Sullivan, depicting an unfortunate encounter with a bathing nymph. Sullivan tends to be forgotten as a TSR artist, probably because his contemporaries, like Erol Otus, Jeff Dee, and Bill Willingham, all loom larger in our collective memories of the late '70s and early 1980s. Consequently, I always enjoy seeing his artwork and being reminded that, yes, TSR did in fact employ other illustrators at that time.

"Dispel Confusion" continues, though this time all the questions pertain to AD&D and are answered by Gary Gygax. Whenever I read columns like this, I'm always struck by just how different my own early experiences of roleplaying games must have been compared to those of others. Undoubtedly my friends and I were doing it wrong, but we rarely focused on the minutiae of rules interpretation and, on those occasions when we did, we never even considered the possibility of asking TSR for an "official" clarification. I've always played RPGs in a rather fast and loose fashion, trusting in common sense and on-the-fly judgment to fill in any gaps. Call me weird.

Speaking of Gygax, the second part of the interview begun in the previous issue appears here. As with the previous installment, this one is quite interesting, particularly for those of us interested in the history of the hobby. For example, Gygax talks a little bit about his work on AD&D module T2, which, of course, he never finished himself, handing it over instead to Frank Mentzer. He also mentions "the plane modules I want to do. I want to do the elemental planes, para-elemental planes, demi-planes and semi-planes, and demi-semi-planes, et cetera ..." Of all the D&D products that never were, my own thoughts drift most often toward Gygax's planar modules and supplements. I would have loved to see what he'd have done with the concept, since, from other statements he made over the years, it's clear he saw the planes as the playground of high-level characters in AD&D and that sounds terrific.

Mike Carr's "Dawn Patrol™ Preview" focuses on the creation of pilots for use with the upcoming game of World War I aerial combat. It's basically a two-page excerpt from the soon-to-be-published game, hoping to generate interest in it. Much more interesting is "How to Create Monsters for D&D® Basic and Expert Games" by Jean Wells. Wells explains that, because D&D, unlike AD&D, has comparatively few monsters, referees are likely to want to create new ones, but there's a lot to consider when doing so. She then devotes a nearly two-page article discussing various aspects of D&D monster design as she creates a new monster step-by-step. I like articles that balance the theoretical with the practical and this one does that nicely. It's also a reminder that Jean Wells was a much better designer and writer than she's often given credit for.

"Turnbull Talking" is a reprint of a short article by Don Turnbull, head of TSR UK at the time, in which he talks – rambles is perhaps more accurate – about the growth and development of the larger hobby. It's really a space filler rather than a substantial article. On the other hand, "Mutants: A Representative Sample of the Weak Ones" by James M. Ward is quite meaty. Ward presents a variety of new opponents for use with Gamma World. Despite the title, not all of these opponents are mutants, nor are they in any sense "weak." All, however, are imaginative and make me wish that, during his time at TSR, Ward had produced more support material for Gamma World. It is a mystery to me why he did not.

Also included in the issue is a RPGA Gift Catalog, featuring many of the items listed here. To this day, I wish I'd bought the "fighters wheel" gadget. "Notes for the Dungeon Master" includes more tricks and traps for use by the referee in his dungeons, as submitted by Polyhedron readers. It's amazing to me how many of these tricks are intended to foil or frustrate mapping – a reminder, I think, of just how important good cartography was in the early days of D&D. "Top Secret Transmissions" by Allen Hammack talks a bit about the popularity of "commando raid" missions for Top Secret, in part because of how much players enjoy loading their characters up with lots of weaponry. What Hammack says is true in my own experience and may go some way toward explaining why espionage RPGs have never been as popular as the books and movies that inspired them.

This issue's installment of "Rocksnoz" by Tom Wham is not a comic but rather a bit of background about the setting of the comic itself. Wham explains that, "in this very universe, before the last big bang, there was a world very similar to ours." This world, called Nidd, was inhabited by intelligent beings called "huemans." Despite its similarity to Earth, on Nidd "no chemicals combine to make gunpowder, and nuclear weapons are impossible. To make up for this deficiency, the denizens of Nidd have turned to magic." It's an odd little article but a strangely fascinating one, if only to see into the mind of Wham and his conception of fantasy. Finally, there's "The RPGA Scoring System," which lays out recent changes to the way that the RPGA evaluates players and DMs in its tournaments. Since I'm unfamiliar with the original system, I can't say this article held much interest for me, but it's probably of interest to those looking into the history of organized play.

Issue #2 of Polyhedron predates the years when I subscribed to it, so much of what's in it is new to me. What's most notable about it is its roughness. Were it not published by TSR and filled with articles by its staff, it'd be hard to tell it apart from a high-end fanzine of the same era. I think that's what's most appealing about it and why I look forward to exploring it over the coming months.

Polyhedron: Issue #1

Polyhedron was the newsletter of the Role Playing Game Association (RPGA), TSR's official "club" for players of its various RPG offerings. When the first issue appeared during the summer of 1981, it wasn't called Polyhedron yet but rather the much more banal "RPGA News." A contest to give it a proper name is mentioned, but it will be several more issues before the winner is announced. Darlene provided an original illustration for the cover, one of several provided in issue #1 by her and other early TSR artists, like Greg Bell, Jeff Dee, Dave LaForce, and Erol Otus. 

Polyhedron is notable for, among other things, providing Frank Mentzer with a regular soapbox from which to preach, since he was Polyhedron's inaugural editor. Mentzer was later responsible for the revision of the Dungeons & Dragons line, starting in 1983. That version of the game, consisting of the Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortals boxed sets, was reputedly the best-selling one of its first quarter-century, and remains much beloved by generations of players. However, it was through his association with the RPGA and Polyhedron that Mentzer first made a name for himself.

The newsletter's first issue opens with a "letters page," an odd choice since, as Mentzer admits, "there were no letters to the editor" yet. Instead, he presents "a few incomplete comments plus one letter from the DRAGON™ files." Most of these "incomplete comments" are mere ephemera, but one of them is longer and worth discussing. Its unnamed author (known only as "DB" from Montgomery, Alabama) offers up a house rule from his home AD&D campaign. Mentzer reply is as follows:

Concern about AD&D rules variants started to become commonplace in official TSR circles around this time, with "international tournament stability" (or similar things) being offered as an explanation of the company's skepticism toward them. This stance would harden as the years wore on, with Gary Gygax taking up the cause through his own soapbox in the pages of Dragon.

"Dispel Confusion" was Polyhedron's version of "Sage Advice," offering official answers to rules queries about TSR's RPGs. Initially, this column differed from "Sage Advice" in that there was no single author. Instead, Polyhedron tapped multiple TSR designers for answers. In this issue, the designers are Lawrence Schick, David Cook, and Harold Johnson, but I suspect future issues will see different ones included in the roster.

The issue devotes four pages to a lengthy and genuinely interesting interview with Gary Gygax. The interview is wide ranging, so it'd be impossible to do it justice with a short summary. Previously, I've covered a couple of portions of it on this blog, so I'd recommend talking a look at those posts for a glimpse into the kinds of things Gygax says. I'll probably return to the interview again in the future to highlight other sections of note. Suffice it to say that, as with all Gygax interviews, it's a mix of truths, half-truths, and dissimulations – absolutely fascinating stuff but it must be approached with some degree of suspicion.

"The Fastest Guns That Never Lived" by Brian Blume, with Allen Hammack, Gary Gygax, and Tim Kask is an article for Boot Hill. Its title riffs off a section in the game's rulebook, "Fastest Guns That Ever Lived Chart," which provides statistics for historical gunfighters from the Old West. By contrast, the article provides stats for fictional characters from Western media, like the Lone Ranger, Bret Maverick, and Ben Cartwright, as well as composite stats for actors who portrayed a number of different characters. It's a fun little article and the kind of thing that aficionados of Westerns can argue about. In case anyone cares, Clint Eastwood's characters have the highest Gun Accuracy rating (+22), closely followed by those of Lee Van Cleef (+21). 

"Notes for the Dungeon Master" is a collection of eleven short descriptions of "really good, relatively unknown trick[s] or trap[s]" for use with Dungeons & Dragons. As with all such articles, how much one enjoys it depends heavily on one's tastes and experience. For me, the descriptions are all fine but not phenomenal. "The Fight in the Skies Game" by Mike Carr is a brief overview of the World War I aerial combat game that would soon be revised as Dawn Patrol. "An Open Letter to Frank Mentzer" by Merle Rasmussen is similar, if much shorter, in that it's mostly a plug for Top Secret and its continuing support by TSR.

"Gen Con® South Report" is, as its title suggests, a report of events at TSR's convention in Jacksonville, Florida earlier in 1981. I sometimes forget that, once upon a time, there are a number of reginal Gen Cons, though none of them survived past the '80s so far as I know. The article focuses primarily on the results of tournaments at the con. However, it does include a photo of the top winner, Matthew Rupp and his fellow gamers, which I found very charming.

The last article is "Gamma World Science Fantasy – A Role Playing Game with a Difference" by James A. [sic] Ward. Like the previous articles on Dawn Patrol and Top Secret, this one is simply a plug for Gamma World and its upcoming support by TSR. It's fine, but then I have an inordinate fondness for Gamma World (and the decades-long, unfulfilled promises of a revision of Metamorphosis Alpha compatible with it). Closing out the issue is a full-page comic by Tom Wham called "Rocksnoz in the Land of Nidd." If you're a fan of Mr Wham's work, you'll likely enjoy this one too. I'd never seen it before, so it was definitely a treat for me.

There you have it: issue #1 of Polyhedron and the start of a new series of retrospectives on a gaming periodical of yore. I suspect this series will not run as long as my previous one on White Dwarf, because I have access to fewer issues and because (due to its not being monthly until very late in its run) there are simply fewer issues to review. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to this one, if only as a dose of nostalgia for my days as a TSR fanboy. 

Retrospective: The Ghost Tower of Inverness

It's becoming accepted wisdom in old school circles that what we think of as an "adventure module" says more about the exigencies of tournament play than the way referees constructed scenarios for use in their home campaigns at that time. That is, the module format is largely artificial and gives a somewhat false impression about early adventure design. There's definitely a lot of truth to this perspective, but we should all bear in mind that a great many TSR modules were in fact clearly identified as having their origins in tournament play and indeed made no effort to disguise this fact.

1980's The Ghost Tower of Inverness is a good example of a tournament adventure turned into a published module. Written by Allan Hammack, it's a very difficult adventure, one that my players came to loathe when I ran it back in the day. That's because it's filled with a wide variety of ingenious -- and deadly -- tricks and traps, in addition to more than a few monsters. But it's the tricks and traps that really stand out nearly 30 years later. There's the chess room, the reverse gravity area, the temporal stasis room, and many more. And of course the module's MacGuffin, the Soul Gem, is itself a death trap for the unwary -- a classic move that many players of a certain vintage will remember all too well.

The Ghost Tower itself is something of a "funhouse" dungeon. There's very little rhyme or reason to the way the place is constructed except that the challenges it presents were deemed "fun." I have to admit that they are fun. The Ghost Tower is a big puzzle, a brain teaser that tests the quick thinking and logic of the players. As I noted yesterday, this style of play appeals to me a great deal more now than it did when I was younger, although, even then, my qualms about it had more to do with my own mental inadequacies than with any absolute dislike of the format. Indeed, I always felt that dungeons should include lots of really fiendish traps; I simply wished I was better at overcoming them myself!

The Ghost Tower of Inverness might be fun to run as a tournament-style module someday, since it includes both pregenerated characters but also a scoring sheet. Never having participated in tournaments back in the day -- and, even now, the whole concept of it strikes me as odd -- I will admit to some curiosity about the entire undertaking. I will also admit to some trepidation, since, much as I love the very focused approach these modules possess, it's probably a lot more focused than my games ever were (or are). Still, as a historical exercise, it might be worth a try. If I take this up at some point, I'll be sure to make some posts about it.