Special Delivery

Last month, I mentioned Barrows & Borderlands, a new old school RPG created by Matthew Tapp. A couple of days ago, my copy of the 4-volume boxed set arrived in the mail and I was so impressed with it that I wanted to show it off. Here's the front of the OD&D-inspired woodgrain boxed set.

 Here's the side of the box.

This is a shot of the open box, with all four of its integral volumes: Men & Mutants, Psychics & Sorcerers, Horrors & Treasure, and The Underworlds & Borderlands Adventures. 

I have not yet had a chance to delve deeply into the books yet, but what I have seen so far has really impressed me, all the more so, because, as I mentioned previously, Matthew and the players in his campaign are all much younger than the usual cohort for old school roleplaying games. It's really heartening to see the spirit of the old days is still very much alive, even among people less than half my age. 

I'll have more to say about B&B in the days to come. 

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: Physics and Falling Damage

And so we return to falling damage once again.

Issue #88 (August 1984) presents a lengthy article by Arn Ashleigh Parker that uses physics -- complete with equations! – to argue that neither the as-published AD&D rules nor the purportedly Gygaxian revisions to same from issue #70 adequately reflects "the real world." Here's a scan of some of the equations Mr Parker uses in his article:

I'm sure it says something about my intellectual sloth that my eyes just glaze over when I see stuff like this in a roleplaying game. The very idea of having to understand acceleration, terminal velocity, and the like to arrive at a "realistic" representation of falling damage is bizarre enough. To do so as part of an argument against earlier rules is even more baffling. D&D's hit point system doesn't really stand up to extensive scrutiny if "realism" is your watchword. In my opinion, devoting so much effort to "prove" that terminal velocity is reached not at 200 feet as in the Players Handbook system or at 60 feet as in the revision but at 260 feet is a waste of time better spent on making a new monster or a new magic items – things that actually contribute meaningfully to fun at the game table. But I'm weird that way.

Amusingly, issue #88 also includes a very short rebuttal to the above article by Steve Winter. Entitled "Kinetic Energy is the Key," Mr Winter argues that, if one considers the kinetic energy resulting from a fall, you'll find that its increase is linear, thus making the original system a surprisingly close fit to the "reality." He makes this argument in about half a page, using only a single table (albeit one that draws on the earlier equations). While I agree with Winter that the original system is just fine for my purposes, it's nevertheless interesting that the author also makes his case on the basis of physics, as if the important point is that AD&D's rules map to facts about our world. It's a point of view I briefly held as a teen and then soon abandoned, for all the obvious reasons. Back in 1984, though, this was the height of fashion and many a Dragon article proceeded from the premise that the real world has a lot to teach us about how rules for a fantasy roleplaying game ought to be constructed ...

If a Game Falls in the Forest

In discussing the possibility of roleplaying games being invented in another era, I soon found myself thinking more and more about the actual history of the hobby, particularly its beginnings. That’s because every so often, someone unearths an obscure set of notes or recalls the private campaign of a long-forgotten hobbyist and claims that roleplaying games were created before Dungeons & Dragons, sometimes long before. According to these accounts, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson merely popularized the form, while others were its “true” inventors.

I understand the impulse. Recorded history often overlooks lesser-known figures and it's right to acknowledge the contributions of pioneers who laid the groundwork for later developments. That said, I have difficulty crediting anyone as the “father” of a hobby unless he shared his creation in a way that made it accessible, intelligible, and, most importantly, replicable by people outside his immediate circle.

This may seem a narrow definition of invention, but I believe it’s essential, especially in the case of roleplaying games. A private amusement, even if it includes characters, rules, and imaginative scenarios, does not a new hobby make. Countless clever diversions have lived and died in obscurity, forgotten or never known at all. If no one beyond its creators can play, understand, or build upon it, then its significance is limited at best. To put it bluntly, if a roleplaying game existed in, say, 1958 but was never published, never disseminated, and never expanded beyond its original group, it may as well have never existed.

To put it somewhat flippantly, this is the creative equivalent of the old philosophical question, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" Did a roleplaying game “exist” in any meaningful way before D&D if no one else could participate in or reproduce it? My answer is: not really.

To invent something isn’t simply to stumble upon a novel idea. It’s to realize that idea in such a way that others can use, learn from, and transform it. That’s the true achievement of Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, an achievement no one else can claim. They didn’t just play a new kind of game. They wrote down its rules, organized them, and, however clumsily at first, published them so that others could do the same. No one else had done that before. Here, I think we must be honest: it was Gygax who did the lion’s share of this work. Arneson brought his imaginative brilliance and the experience of his Blackmoor campaign, without which roleplaying games as we now know them would have been impossible, but it was Gygax who hammered the concept into something others could use and got it into print.

With Gygax's efforts in this respect, Dungeons & Dragons would probably never have been published. Instead, we might still be sifting through the remnants of the Twin Cities wargaming scene, piecing together anecdotes about some curious experiment in fantasy miniatures Arneson and his friends played in the early '70s. Because of Gygax, we got three little brown books that any reasonably curious teenager could pick up, read, and use as a blueprint to build worlds of his own. That’s invention in the fullest sense.

None of this is to diminish the role of earlier innovators like Dave Wesely, creator of Braunstein, or others whose names have been lost to time. They’re worthy of celebration. Each, in his own way, added ideas to a growing stew of influences out of which roleplaying coalesced. However, none of these predecessors synthesized those ideas into a coherent, replicable form, let alone shared them widely. They didn’t transmit the concept.

I think that's a distinction that matters. Creativity is common; invention is rare.

The history of games is full of apocrypha and alternate claimants. Perhaps someone did play something like D&D in the 1940s. Maybe there’s a letter buried in an archive describing a fantasy parlor game with a referee and evolving characters. If so, that’s fascinating, but it’s not the same as creating the roleplaying game as we know it today.

Invention isn’t about who got there first. It’s about who made it possible for others to follow.

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "Setting Saintly Standards"

"Setting Saintly Standards" from issue #79 (November 1983) exemplifies two of the worst aspects of D&D: a mania for quantifying everything combined with forgetfulness about the game's origins. Written by Scott Bennie, the article to provide a system "for defining sainthood [and] classifying the precise abilities or capabilities of a saint." Saints, Bennie notes, are mentioned several times in passing in the Dungeon Masters Guide (the Mace of St. Cuthbert being the most notable), but what saints are and what purpose they serve is never explained. Bennie is correct so far as he goes. What he forgets (or is unaware of) is that Gary Gygax provided some good evidence as to the nature of saints back in an issue of The Strategic Review where he talks about alignment. There, saints are exemplars of Lawful Goodness, just as devils are exemplars of Lawful Evilness and demons exemplars of Chaotic Evilness. While AD&D provided lots of information on devils and demons, saints get no similar treatment (neither do "godlings," but no one seems to care about them for some reason).

That's where "Setting Saintly Standards" steps in. Bennie proposes that saints are special servants of the gods who've achieved immortality and some measure of divine power. He makes them on par with Greyhawk's "quasi-deities" like Murlynd or Keoghtom, but explicitly tied to a specific deity, whom they serve and whose cause they promote. The article lays out their spell-like abilities and offers four examples of saints from his own campaign to give the referee some idea of how to create saints of his own. He likewise suggests that some saints -- "patron saints" -- may have shrines dedicated to them and, over time, achieve sufficient power to become demigods in their own right. Exactly what this means for relations between the saint, his followers, and the deity he ostensibly serves is never discussed.

I'm on record as intensely disliking the reduction of gods and semi-divine beings to game stats. It's not for nothing that I dislike both Gods, Demigods & Heroes and Deities & Demigods. One of D&D's worst failings is its reductionism, its voracious appetite to turn everything into either a monster to be killed or a piece of magical technology to be wielded. Saints, as Bennie imagines them, are just big monsters -- or little gods -- to be confronted rather than anything more sublime. Maybe I'd be less bothered by this if he'd have adopted another term for what he's presenting; I don't think the idea of fighting gods is necessarily out of bounds. For certain styles of fantasy, it's even highly appropriate. But saint has a very specific meaning and Gygax's mention of them is almost certainly tied up in the implicit Christianity of early gaming.

Late 1983, though, was a long distance away from 1974, though, and the culture of the hobby had changed. What to Gygax had seemed obvious was now in need of explication and not just explication but expansion. That's why Bennie broadens the use of the term "saint" to include the servants of any god, not just Lawful Good ones. Thus we have St. Kargoth, a fallen paladin, among the four examples he provides us. To say that the idea of an "anti-saint" or "dark saint" is bizarre to me is an understatement. Mind you, I find the idea of non-Lawful Good paladins similarly bizarre, so clearly I'm out of step with a lot of gamers, no that this is any surprise.

The Long Game (Part III)

In Parts I and II of this series, I laid out some of the principles and practices that have helped me successfully referee several long-running RPG campaigns. In my experience, flexibility, treating the game world as a living place, and investing in player choices all pay huge dividends. I also touched on my weekly routine: very light prep, frequent reuse of old material, tracking what matters, and finding ways to maintain player engagement between sessions. All of this is system-agnostic and, to some extent, it can be applied to any roleplaying game with the right mindset. However, I’ve found that certain games make this style of play easier. They either assume it from the start or provide rules and mechanics that reinforce the kind of open-ended, collaborative worldbuilding that long campaigns thrive on.

So, to conclude this part of the series – there are a few more related posts coming next week – I want to recommend a handful of RPGs I’ve played that I think are particularly well-suited to supporting enduring, player-driven campaigns.

Dungeons & Dragons

The TSR editions of Dungeons & Dragons, especially AD&D, are built on assumptions that naturally support long-term campaign play. They treat the referee as the final authority, assume player freedom of action, and offer no built-in plot or “story.” Advancement after the first few levels is slow, exploration is richly rewarded, and the game world exists beyond the player characters. These games provide excellent frameworks for the kind of emergent, faction-rich, consequence-driven campaigns that I’ve found work well over the long haul. Though I haven’t played AD&D in years, I still think it has just the right mix of elements to encourage sustained, imaginative play, especially if the referee is comfortable using his own judgment.

D&D Derivatives

While it probably goes without saying, I nevertheless want to be explicit: most RPGs that share a lot of rules or mechanical DNA with early Dungeons & Dragons are likely well-suited to long campaigns. I’m talking about games like Gamma World or Empire of the Petal Throne (obviously), as well as the many retro-clones of D&D. Particularly worth mentioning are Kevin Crawford’s Stars Without Number and related games. These not only preserve the simplicity of older systems but also explicitly support long-form sandbox play with tools for faction management, procedural content, and worldbuilding. In fact, I’d say many of the principles and practices I discussed in the earlier parts of this series really crystallized for me after I first read Stars Without Number all those years ago.

Traveller

The default playstyle of Traveller revolves around sandbox exploration, commerce, patronage, and factional intrigue, all of which are ideal ingredients for long-term campaigns. The original 1977 rules support the growth and development of an enduring campaign through a robust set of procedural tools: world and sector generation, reaction rolls, random encounters, and more. Traveller encourages players to make their own way in the universe, taking risks, building reputations, and developing relationships with factions and NPCs. Since I’ve been playing and thinking about Traveller for decades, I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s had an outsized influence on how I referee RPGs in general. Its assumptions and tools are deeply compatible with the kind of campaign play I find most rewarding.

Pendragon

For something more structured but still open-ended, Pendragon absolutely deserves mention. It’s built around generational play, where sessions span years of in-game time and characters age, retire, or die –only to be replaced by their sons. It assumes from the outset that the campaign will unfold over decades, filled with consequences and a world in motion. Unlike D&D, Pendragon places strong emphasis on character development in moral and psychological terms, not just skills and abilities. Players must contend with passions, virtues, family legacy, and political entanglements. For referees willing to embrace its tone and rhythms, it’s uniquely rewarding, which is why I consider it one of the best roleplaying games ever written.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. The games above are simply those I’ve used successfully in multi-year campaigns, but I’m sure many others could work just as well, especially if the referee and players commit to a shared style of play. In the end, I’d probably argue the “best” system for a long campaign is the one your group enjoys returning to week after week. If your players care about the world and the game gives you the tools to keep that world alive and responsive, then you’ve already got the makings of something lasting.

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: "Falling Damage"

And so it begins.

Issue #70 of Dragon (February 1983) saw the appearance of "Falling Damage" by Frank Mentzer, the first of what would turn into several articles discussing this strangely contentious subject. I say strangely contentious because, until this article appeared, I don't think the "right" way to adjudicate falling damage was ever a topic of serious conversation, at least not among the gamers I knew. The LBBs provide rules for falling damage hidden away in the section on aerial combat in Volume 3, where it's stated simply that

for every 1" of height a rider must throw one six-sided die for damage occurring from the crash, i.e. a crash from 12" means twelve dice must be rolled and their total scored as points of damage

That passage is the basis for what was the standard interpretation of falling damage in every form of D&D -- 1d6 damage per 10' fallen. That is, until this article, where Mentzer claims that the rules in AD&D were hastily written by Gary Gygax and were, as such, unclear as to his actual intent. Instead of 1d6 damage per 10' fallen, the claim is advanced that Gary actually meant 1d6 damage per 10', with the dice being cumulative in effect. That is,

1d6 for the first 10' feet, 2d6 for the second 10' (total 3d6 for a 20' fall), 3d6 for the third 10', and so on, cumulative. The falling body reaches that 20d6 maximum shortly before passing the 60' mark.

According to Mentzer, this new system -- which in fact Gygax had "always used" -- is "definitely more realistic." (emphasis mine) There's that dreaded word, the hallmark of the Silver Age. It's something that, at the time, meant a lot to me, but that, as the years have worn on, I find myself caring less and less about. In a game where people can throw balls of fire from their hands and adventurers become tougher to kill as the result of slaying monsters and looting treasure, fretting over whether a 60' fall or a 200' fall deals 20d6 damage seems bizarre. More to the point, after nearly a decade of "doing it wrong" (Mentzer's words), did the difference matter enough to make the change?

Regardless, the claim that Gygax had "always used a geometrically increasing system for damage in AD&D games" strikes me as somewhat suspect. I suppose it's possible that, sometime after the LBBs were published, Gary changed the way he dealt with falling damage in his home campaign. But, if so, I find it surprising that he never noticed that in every other D&D product published after 1974, the 1d6 per 10' rule is the norm. Indeed, I'd hazard a guess that, if one were to look through the various modules and articles Gygax penned between 1974 and 1983, we'd find instances where the 1d6 damage per 10' rule was in fact used. There's a fun project for an enterprising soul out there!

D&D and Traveller

I think we tend to underestimate just how old Traveller is.  

Consider that original Dungeons & Dragons, the very first roleplaying game ever published, was released sometime in late January 1974. Traveller first appeared less than three and a half years later, in late May 1977 (before the wide release of Star Wars, which is a very important fact to bear in mind).  Less than a dozen other RPGs were published between these two dates and, of those that were, almost none of them are still published today. That alone sets Traveller apart from its contemporaries. 

I mention this because, as I was thumbing through my 1977 Traveller boxed set, I was struck by just how similar in format and content the game is to the 1974 OD&D boxed set. This is not an original thought and indeed it's one that I've had before. I nevertheless think it's worthy of further examination. We are, after all, closing out D&D's semicentennial year and, while I'm reducing the attention I'll devote to that game for the foreseeable future, there really is no escaping its gravitational pull. Like it or not, discussions of almost any roleplaying game will inevitably lead back to Dungeons & Dragons. 

In the case of Traveller, the most immediately obvious connection to D&D is its format. Like OD&D, Traveller was initially released in a boxed set containing three digest-sized booklets. Each of these booklets focuses on a different aspect of the overall game rules. OD&D's first volume is entitled "Men & Magic" and provides the rules for character generation, combat, and spells. Traveller's first volume is called "Characters and Combat" and covers very similar ground. The second volume of OD&D is "Monsters & Treasure," while that of Traveller is "Starships." The difference between these two volumes is stark, since there's not much commonality of subject matter here and not merely because OD&D has no need of rules for space travel. However, the obvious connections between the two games return with the third volume of each. OD&D has "Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" and Traveller has "Worlds and Adventures." 

As I said, there's nothing novel about these observations. They've been made for years on OSR blogs and forums and were probably noted at the dawn of the hobby, too. I would not be at all surprised if Marc Miller and/or other notables at Games Designers' Workshop made them as well. When I attended Gamehole Con in October, one of the many amusing stories Marc Miller told about the early days of GDW concerned the release of Dungeons & Dragons. He said that the company's staff was so taken with the game that they soon spent all their time playing it. So enamored were they with this weird new game that Frank Chadwick, GDW's president at the time, established a rule: "No playing D&D during office hours."

It's a very funny story in its own right, as well as a reminder – as if we needed one – that the appearance of Dungeons & Dragons on the wargaming scene in 1974 forever changed the face of that hobby and, in the process, created an entirely new one. Though primarily a historical wargames publisher, GDW was no stranger to science fiction. Prior to the release of Traveller, the company had already published two science fiction games: Triplanetary in 1973 and Imperium in 1977. The latter game initially had no connection to Traveller, which, upon its release, included no setting whatsoever. It was only later that the background of Imperium. with its series of Interstellar Wars between the Vilani and the Terrans, was folded into the much more successful Traveller. 

OD&D was thus a significant inspiration for Marc Miller in creating Traveller, since it showed him not just what was possible with a roleplaying game but also the form such a game might take. Admittedly, this is likely true of nearly every RPG published in the last half-century, but, in the case of Traveller, it's especially so, since, by his own admission, he and the other designers at GDW were playing a lot of D&D in those days. Miller even contributed some D&D comics to The Strategic Review, which testifies to his early devotion to the game. When I spoke to him in October, he repeatedly emphasized the debt we all owe Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for having created a form of entertainment unlike any that came before. Miller even included Gygax in his deck of cards as a "king" of GDW, since the company published his Dangerous Journeys game in the '90s.

The connections between D&D and Traveller were not apparent to me in my youth, in large part because I didn't come across a copy of OD&D '74 until I was in high school, by which point Traveller was already well on its way toward becoming MegaTraveller – a much more mechanically complex game published, like AD&D, in a conventional 8½ × 11" format. Now that I am aware of the myriad connections, they're impossible to un-see. To be honest, I'm glad of that. As I have no doubt written here dozens of times, Dungeons & Dragons was my first love, but Traveller is my true love. They're both very special to me and, while there's no question which one is my favorite, I would prefer not to have to choose between them. For the moment, though, Traveller has my attention. I very much look forward to sharing my thoughts and memories of this great roleplaying game.

REVIEW: Wulfwald

A common early complaint about Dungeons & Dragons was that the game's three little brown books failed to provide much in the way of a cultural or social context for its "fantastic medieval wargames campaigns." Correcting this perceived shortcoming was part of the impetus behind the creation and publication of several early RPGs that appeared in OD&D's wake, most notably Empire of the Petal Throne, Chivalry & Sorcery, and even RuneQuest to some extent. All of these games (and others) place much greater emphasis on the ways that culture and society not only intersect with but can offer a justification for adventuring than Dungeons & Dragons did at the time or, in fact, has ever done. 

I was reminded of this when I started reading Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson's superb roleplaying game set in a world inspired by the folklore and legends of pagan Anglo-Saxon England. I say "inspired by," because, as Reynoldson explains, "Wulfwald is not set on our Earth," but rather is set on "another world," where "the myth and magic that was superstition in Earth's history is a real, if rare, force." As a game, Wulfwald should be almost immediately familiar to anyone who's played D&D or one of its descendants – not merely in terms of its rules but also in terms of its play. All the usual activities you expect in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be delving in the dark, fighting monsters, or looting treasure, are supported in Wulfwald, but are given a new and compelling context.

Before proceeding further, I'd like to elaborate briefly on Wulfwald's relationship with D&D and its rules. Wulfwald is not "complete" game in the sense of including all the rules you need to play yet another retro-clone of Dungeons & Dragons. Reynoldson assumes you already know what hit points, armor class, and saving throws are, for example. When these and other familiar concepts come up in the text, there's no explanation of them or how they work, except when Wulfwald offers a new take on them that deviates from the way anyone who's played D&D generally understands them. I don't see this as a problem, but it might be surprising or even off-putting to those used to the approach adopted by most other old school D&D-derived games. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to Wulfwald itself. The game comes in a thin, sturdy box, inside of which are five staplebound A5 booklets and a cloth(!) map depicting the land of Wulfwald, as drawn by the late, great Russ Nicholson. The booklets have a clean, simple layout that's easy on the eyes. The covers of each booklet features artwork by Katie Wakelin, while the interior art is done by Stefano Accordi. I like the cover art much better than the interior art, but all the illustrations evoke the dark, early medieval period in which the game is rooted. Nicholson's cartography, of course, is gorgeous and a joy simply to look at and wonder at its details.

The premise of Wulfwald is that all the characters are "wolfsheads," who are outsiders and outlaws who exist outside the law's protection. Their status means that anyone can harm or kill them without fear of retribution. To avoid this fate, the game assumes the characters have banded together in the service of a Thegn or warrior-lord and act as his service. In exchange for such service, the wolfsheads can expect gifts of beauty and value that reflect their newfound honor and status within the setting. This set-up is a clever way to recontextualize adventurers, making them simultaneously rough outsiders but also having a place, albeit an unusual one, in society. 

Unlike "normal" D&D, Wulfwald has only three levels, corresponding (more or less) to the veteran, hero, and superhero levels from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. However, there is a rules appendix that provides for a greater number of levels for those referees and players who prefer them. Characters belong to one of four kindreds: Eorðwerod (Men), Ælfcynn (Elves), Dweorgas (Dwarves), and Réðealingas (Outlanders). Each kindred has three unique classes, each belonging to one of three archetypes: warrior, skirmisher, and wizard. For example, Men have the Scildmægden (warrior), Sperebróga (skirmisher), and Scinnlæca (wizard), while Elves have the Wuduheald (warrior), Scytta (skirmisher), and Gealdor Sangere (wizard). All classes have their own advancement tables, as well as unique results for criticals and fumbles. Warriors also have an ability called "heroic effort," an unusual feat of arms that can be employed once an adventure.

An aspect of Wulfwald that could, I imagine, discourage some potential buyers is its regular use of Old English, complete with odd letters like æ or ð. Speaking as an old Tékumel hand, I know that a lot of people don't like words that require the use of a pronunciation guide to say properly. I can only say that Old English, once you know the rules, isn't all that difficult to pronounce. Moreover, its use in Wulfwald goes a long way toward investing the setting with a distinct flavor. In many cases, the text does provide alternate, contemporary words to use instead of the Old English ones for those who find the others a bit too flavorful, but I much prefer the Old English ones. Your mileage may vary.

Flavor is a big part of what separates Wulfwald from "standard" D&D, even if it makes use of all the expected elements of the game, like magic, monsters, and treasure. I've already noted that each of the character classes is distinctive. The same holds for the systems of magic some of them use. Wulfwald includes four different systems, from runic fateweaving and spell singing to the Forbidden Path and wicce cræft. Likewise, magic items are all unique items, each with its own history and powers. Monsters, too, include a fair number of unique beings, like the draca (dragons) and eotenas (giants).

"Unique" is a word I've used a lot in this review and with good reason. What sets Wulfwald apart from many old school fantasy products is that it's very specific in not just its inspirations but also in the way it's chosen to make use of them. While I'm on record for saying there's nothing wrong with vanilla fantasy, there's also, in my opinion, a distinct pleasure that comes from roleplaying according to the culture, customs, and beliefs of a particular society, whether real or imaginary. That's why my House of Worms campaign has been so enjoyable: the players get to be, if only for a little while, people who inhabit another world with its own rules and ways of looking at things. This is something Wulfwald does very well, too.

The game's five books cover character generation, magic (including magic items and religion), the setting of Wulfwald (including a sample scenario and skirmish battles), monsters, NPCs, and more. Taken together, they provide enough for the referee to kick off a campaign while still leaving lots of room for individual creativity. Wulfwald isn't Tékumel or Glorantha; there isn't an encyclopedia's worth of information to digest. Rather, the game's five books do a good job of painting a compelling big picture with plenty of room to add detail here or a splash of color there. It strikes a nice balance between too much and too little. In short, it inspires, which is exactly what I want out of a product like this.

If you're looking for a well presented new setting for your favorite D&D-alike that draws on real world folklore and history in a fun way, I'd highly recommend yout take a look at Wulfwald. It's one of the best things I've bought this year.

800-lb. Gorilla

Last week's post, Pretenders to the Throne, was occasioned by my frustration about the fact that, in general, posts about Dungeons & Dragons tend to get more views and generate more comments than those about any other RPG. Now, on one level, that's just common sense. Not only is D&D the first and most well-known roleplaying game, but it's also been the most popular one for a half century now. No matter how many players of other games might despair of this fact, it's true. Dungeons & Dragons is and always has been the only roleplaying game whose name is recognizable outside our little hobby – or indeed inside some segments of it. In my experience, there are far more gamers who play only D&D than there are gamers who play a wide variety of them.

As commenter Rick noted the other day, that's the power of branding. By getting to publication first and by having a title that's both evocative and easy to say, Dungeons & Dragons has a number of advantages that make it uniquely well placed to be the leader of the pack. I remember some years ago, back when Hasbro first bought Wizards of the Coast, reading an article in some business magazine that the name Dungeons & Dragons was one of best known in the world, alongside things like Coca-Cola and Kleenex. While most people had no real sense of what D&D actually was – most, I think, believed it to be some kind of video game – they nevertheless had at least heard of D&D, something that could not be said about any other RPG, no matter how successful or celebrated it was within the hobby.

Being the most well-known is not, of course, an indication of quality, a point frequently made by partisans of different, less-known brands, both within and without our hobby. Anyone who prefers Pepsi to Coke or Burger King to McDonald's, to cite just two rather prosaic examples, probably feels this way. Believe me, I'm sympathetic to this point of view. As a fan of Traveller, for example, I wish the game were better known, appreciated, and played than it is at present, but, as the old saying goes, if wishes were credits, beggars wouldn't need to travel by low passage. I make this joke to illustrate my point about just how obscure RPGs other than D&D are, even within the hobby. How many of you reading this post knew what I was talking about? (There's no need to answer that.)

I love lots of roleplaying games. Last year, I did a two-part post about my ten favorites – and I have many more besides. But I know only too well that, if I were to write lots of posts to discussing, say, Pendragon or Gamma World, they'd be among my least read posts and certainly the least commented upon. As you all know, I've been refereeing an Empire of the Petal Throne campaign for the last nine and a half years and, despite that, my posts about that campaign and its setting of Tékumel don't receive a lot of attention or comment. Don't misunderstand me: I completely understand why that is the case. Neither Empire of the Petal Throne nor Tékumel are widely known even within the hobby, so why would I expect posts about them to generate much attention?

And that's really my point. I write so much about Dungeons & Dragons and its history here, because D&D is the single most widely known and played roleplaying game, even in 2024. Those of us who enjoy more than just D&D are very apt to claim that we're presently living in a Golden Age of Roleplaying, with more games and more variety of games than ever before. That might well be true by some metrics, but, on one significant metric – popularity – nothing much has changed. Dungeons & Dragons remains the game most people are playing and that most people, even those of you reading this blog, are interested in reading about. It's not for nothing that I use a version of Trampier's iconic demon idol in my masthead.

What does this all mean? Honestly, I'm not sure. Though it's not my favorite RPG, I still very much like D&D, so I don't think there's any chance I'll stop writing posts about the game and its history. However, my frustration with the fact that it's those posts, with a few exceptions, that tend to generate the most interest is very real. I don't like writing stuff that garners little or no interest. Who, after all, likes to feel as if he's shouting into the void? At the same time, I cannot expect most readers are going to be familiar with all the same obscure things that I am or that they'll share my interest in the same. To some extent, if one is going to write for public consumption, one must write what will attract the most readers and, in my case, that means posts about Dungeons & Dragons. 

C'est la vie. 

Level Titles: Illusionists and the Rest

Having already covered the level titles of most of the character classes in Dungeons & Dragons, it's now time to turn to those that remain, some of which are unusual. Let's start with the most straightforward: illusionists. A sub-class of magic-user, illusionists first appeared in volume 1, issue 4 of The Strategic Review (Winter 1975) in an article written by Peter Aronson. As presented there, illusionists have the following level titles:

The AD&D Players Handbook (1978) has an almost identical list of level titles. The only difference is that the original level 1 title, minor trickster, is turned into the level 2 title, in order to make room for "prestidigitator," which also happens to be the level title for a level 1 magic-user. There is, of course, no explanation for this overlap of titles, which is, I think, unique in the game.

The paladin class first appeared as a kind of proto-prestige class to the fighting man in Supplement I to OD&D (1975). In that form, the class has no distinctive level titles. Those didn't appear until the stand-alone version of the class was presented in the AD&D Players Handbook several years later.

Unearthed Arcana (1985) formally introduced the cavalier class into AD&D. The book also made the paladin, previously a sub-class of the fighter, a sub-class of the new cavalier, which makes a certain amount of sense, given its knightly overtones. The cavalier's level titles, includes those of its two 0-levels.

Speaking of "proto-prestige classes," Unearthed Arcana also gives us the thief-acrobat. The thief-acrobat is a specialist version of the thief that an ordinary thief can opt into, starting at 6th level, provided he meets certain ability score requirements for Strength and Dexterity. Interestingly, thief-acrobats have their own distinct level titles.

Finally, there is the barbarian class, also appearing in UA. The barbarian probably has the most unusual level title chart of all:

Aside from being funny, what strikes me about the chart above is the implication that level titles actually mean something and are perhaps even bestowed by someone or some group within the world of D&D. Barbarians, as outsiders, aren't part of that world and thus have no such titles. At least, that's how I read it – but I may simply be finding meaning where there is none.

I'll return to the question of the meaning of level titles in a future post, since I've still got at least a couple more to present before I can offer any attempt at a summation of my thoughts. Stay tuned.

Level Titles: Druids, Rangers, and Bards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Level Titles: Assassins and Monks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Level Titles: Clerics and Magic-Users

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Level Titles: Fighters and Thieves

Level titles first appeared in original (1974) Dungeons & Dragons, seemingly inspired by the various types of figures available in the "Fantasy Supplement" to Chainmail (1971), about which I may make a separate post later. These titles, in themselves, have no mechanical purpose whatsoever, serving solely as a verbal way to distinguish between two characters of the same class but of different levels. Consequently, they disappeared entirely from AD&D's Second Edition (1989), but were present in all editions of D&D until the Rules Cyclopedia (1991), when they disappeared (though they did reappear in the brief and often forgotten The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game in 1994).

Since I've lately become very interested in the degree of continuity between the various editions of D&D, I thought looking at the level titles of the various classes might make for an interesting series of posts. To start, let's look at fighters (fighting men) and thieves. Here's the level title chart for the former from Volume 1 of OD&D:

 In the AD&D Players Handbook (1978), the list is identical.

However, in the 1981 David Cook/Stephen Marsh-edited Expert Rules, we get this list of level titles, which is only nearly identical. The 3rd-level title, Swordsman, becomes Swordmaster, probably for the same reason the 9th-level title, Lord, gains the parenthetical option of Lady. All later editions of D&D (1983, 1991, 1994) use these same level titles.

Thieves first appear in Supplement I to OD&D (1975) and use the following level titles:

In the AD&D Players Handbook, we get a slightly different list for thieves. Most of the titles are the same, but the levels they're associated with are swapped. We also get a couple of new titles, like Filcher at 6th level and Magsman at 8th level, because Gygax loved obscure and archaic words.

The D&D Expert Set much more closely follows the Supplement I level titles than does AD&D, replacing only Master Pilferer at 8th level with Thief instead (and lowering the level at which Master Thief becomes available).

Of the two character classes examined today, it's the thief that shows the most changes in its level titles between their first appearance in Greyhawk and later versions, though, even there, the changes are small. Meanwhile, the fighter changes barely at all. The same cannot be said of clerics and magic-users, as we'll see in the next post in this series.

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Lizard Men

Lizard men were introduced into Dungeons & Dragons in the pages of its first supplement, Greyhawk (1975). The first illustration of them appears on the inside cover of Supplement I, provided by Greg Bell. As we'll see, this image established the general outlines of what D&D's lizard men look like and nearly all of those that follow will use it as the foundation on which to build their own specific interpretations.

The next time we see a lizard man is the Monster Manual (1977), with artwork provided by Dave Trampier. There's a lot of similarity between Tramp's depiction and that of Bell above, like the tattered loincloth, spiny ridges on the head, and serpentine tongue. This is my default mental image of a lizard man, probably because it's the first one I ever saw. 

In the 1980 Rogues Gallery, Jeff Dee provided an illustration of a lizard man – or, rather, a human who was reincarnated as a lizard man by druidic magic. Aside from the additions of bracers and pirate boots, the latter of which are quite common in Dee's artwork, this looks pretty similar to the work of both Bell and Trampier. 

That same year, Grenadier Models acquired the AD&D miniatures license, producing numerous boxed sets of 25mm figures. One of these sets, Denizens of the Swamp, featured lizard men on its cover by Ray Rubin. The lead lizard man looks almost identical to Trampier's version from the Monster Manual. 

The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh was published in 1981 and contains this piece by Harry Quinn. Once again, we can see the influence of both Bell and Trampier, though I'd say Trampier has the upper hand. Look, for example, at the skull necklaces the lizard men are wearing, as well as their shields.

The module's immediate sequel, Danger at Dunwater (1982), also features lizard man art, this time depicted by Timothy Truman. Truman's take on the monster is much more bestial and savage.

The same year, the AD&D Monster Cards appeared. Jim Roslof offereed us his take on the lizard man, which doesn't differ all that much from the one found in the Monster Manual. Note again the presence of the skull necklace.

The 1983 Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series featured lizard men several times during the course of its run. Here's a trio of them, one of which (again) wears a skull necklace.

Jim Holloway's depiction of lizardmen in the AD&D Second Edition Monstrous Compendium is notable for downsizing the head and back ridges while also extending them to the end of the tail. Holloway also shortened the snout and shrank the size of the mouth. 

Tony DiTerlizzi's interpretation of lizard men appeared in the 1993 Monstrous Manual. It's very distinctive in many ways, such as the legs. Interestingly, DiTerlizzi gave the lizard man a polearm that looks very similar to the one Greg Bell included in his original illustration. I wonder if this was intentional.

Lizard men are not monsters about which I think a great deal, so it was instructive to take a look at their depiction during the TSR era. While there are undoubtedly many I've not included here – feel free to post your favorites in the comments below – what strikes me most about the ones I have included is how similar they are. Greg Bell laid a foundation in 1975 that Dave Trampier then built upon; all subsequent artists have either directly copied or slightly altered their work.