The Least Important Attribute

I was recently poring over a number of different RPGs to see how they defined and handled ability scores. One of the games I examined was Chaosium's 1981 game, Stormbringer, written by Ken St. Andre and Steve Perrin. Section 2.1.7 of its rulebook says the following about the attribute of Charisma:

This is a measure of leadership, charm, and of personality. It is not necessarily a measure of physical beauty, although it may be used as such from time to time. CHA helps your character in dealings with other player and non-player characters. In reality, it is the least important attribute. (italics mine)

Charisma (or its equivalent) is regularly deemed a "dump stat" in many RPGs, but I think this is the first time the text of a game explicitly makes this claim. The irony is that, while Charisma isn't as broadly useful as many other attributes in Stormbringer, it nevertheless plays a role in demon summoning and binding – significant activities in the world of the Young Kingdoms. Still, I find this section of the rulebook fascinating, since it would seem to be a rare instance of the designers speaking directly to the reader about the relative utility of some aspect of the game's rules.

White Dwarf: Issue #32

Issue #32 of White Dwarf (August 1982) is both the very first monthly issue of the magazine and the first issue I ever owned. I bought it while traveling with my family a couple of months before my thirteenth birthday. I'd heard of White Dwarf, of course, and might even have seen a copy or two in the possession of the older roleplayers I knew, but I can't recall ever reading an issue cover to cover before this one. Consequently, reaching this issue in this series represents an important milestone: the point where my knowledge of the issues I'm discussing is founded on past experience.

This issue had a lasting effect on my imagination, in part because of its outstanding cover by Jim Burns. I really taken with its depiction of retro-futuristic prop fighter planes, not to mention the two downed airmen facing off against an alien tiger-thing. I can't imagine how much time I spent staring at this cover, picking out details and trying to figure out a way to work a scenario like this into one of my games (which I finally did in a Traveller campaign set on a TL5 world).  

The issue begins with an odd article that nevertheless fascinated me at the time. Entitled "Lore of the Ring" by Stephen Bland, it provides D&D stats for Tolkien's rings of power, as well as the Nâzgul and their winged steeds. Needless to say, it's all a bit silly, inasmuch as I can't really see any circumstance where a D&D referee would seriously consider including even one of the lesser rings in his campaign. On the other hand, the Nâzgul are undeniably cool, especially when accompanied by one of Russ Nicholson's illustrations. I never made use any Nâzgul either, but, believe me, I was tempted ...

Next up is "STL: Slower-Than-Light Ships in Traveller" by Marcus Rowland. I loved this article, too, which includes an overview of the topic, rules expansions for use with the Traveller starship construction rules, sample STL ships, and several patron encounters. It's very well done and succeeded in piquing my youthful interest in ramships and lightjammers. Also related to Traveller is "Striker: Design of Civilian Vehicles for Traveller" by Bob McWilliams. The author talks briefly about the vehicle design system of Striker and how complex they are (an understatement). He then presents a vehicle design of his own – a gravcar – and kicks off a design competition, in which he asks readers to submit their own Striker designs. How I wanted to participate in this contest! Unfortunately, I never saw a copy of the rules until many years later, so this dream was unattainable.

Paul Vernon's "The Town Planner" continues with another installment, "Designing Towns and Cities." He focuses on several related topics, such as background, topography, population, and denizens, all of which Vernon then uses to offer advice on drawing and keying a map of the place. It's good stuff; I loved this as a kid. My only complaint is that it's too short and could easily have occupied many more pages. "A World of Your Own" is a short article by none other than Ken St. Andre, in which he, in between snarking about Dungeons & Dragons, counsels readers to make Tunnels & Trolls their own by changing it in any way that suits them. I find it hard to argue with him, but then I largely feel the same about any RPG.

"Open Box" offers just four reviews this month, starting with Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium. The reviewer is effusive in his praise and gives it a 9 out of 10. Bushido and its only published adventure, Valley of the Mists, meanwhile both receive perfect scores. I admire Bushido as much as the next guy, but is it really a better game than Call of Cthulhu? Finally, there's the Mattel D&D electronic game, which receives a 4 out of 10. I have a strange fondness for this game born out of fond memories, but even I have to admit that, objectively speaking, it's not a very good game, even by the primitive standards of electronic games in the early 1980s.

"Chaos from Mount Dorren" by Phil Masters is a fun little AD&D "mini-scenario" of the type that White Dwarf so frequently published. The characters come across a prosperous little town whose caravans are being attacked by unknown assailants. The town's rulers offer a reward to anyone who can get to the bottom of this. The basic scenario is a well-worn one but Masters offers enough twists and turns that it still feels fresh. "Rune Rites" provides game stats for a monster (the cyclops) and Griselda, one of the signature characters in Oliver Dickinson's delightful Pavis stories from previous issues. 

"Fiend Factory" focuses this time on "Little Things" by providing statistics for five small monsters for use with D&D. Because I have a soft spot for low-level monsters, I've always liked this article. I'm particularly fond of the wyrmlets – weird disc-shaped monsters with arms and legs that can combine to form a more powerful wyrmling with powers commensurate with the number of wyrmlets that join together. The issue ends with "Drug Use and Abuse in D&D," which, I must confess, never did much for me. Author Graeme Davis provides some basic rules for addiction, along with several examples of fantasy narcotics. I have little doubt this might be useful in some campaigns, but I never made use of them in my own.

And there we have it: the first issue of White Dwarf I ever owned. Re-reading it for this post, I think it holds up quite well, being a good mix of authors and topics. This was the issue that kept me on the look-out for additional issues in the months to come. I'm glad to see that, unlike some things I once adored as a younger person, this one still holds up decades later.

White Dwarf: Issue #31

Issue #31 of White Dwarf (June/July 1982) marks the fifth anniversary of the magazine. Alan Howcroft provides its cover, which depicts a coastal fantasy town, perhaps intended as an illustration for "The Town Planner" by Paul Vernon. This article is the first part of a follow-up series to Vernon's previous two-part "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society" series. Subtitled "Designing and Running Villages," Vernon asks readers to consider how villages differ from towns, especially when it comes to their economies and populations. As he did in "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society," his purpose is not detail or historical accuracy for its own sake but as springboards for D&D adventures. It's an approach I greatly appreciate, because Vernon doesn't lose sight of the fact that D&D is a game.

"The Mad Dwarf" is a short solitaire adventure for Tunnels & Trolls, written by its creator Ken St. Andre. Content-wise, the scenario is fine; what's more interesting to me is its presentation. The adventure's various entries share numbers with the pages on which they appear, with multiple entries on the same page being distinguished by letters. For example, page 18 includes entries 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D. I was strangely impressed by this clever use of layout and space.

"Prior Service in Traveller" by John Conquest presents an alternative character generation procedure for the Navy and Marines in Traveller. Conquest's approach seems to take the expanded possibilities of Book 5: High Guard and simplify them into a format that's closer to what's found in Book 1. There's definitely something to be said in favor of this, especially if, like me, you appreciate the finer distinctions between enlisted and officer training. "Additional Detector Systems for Traveller Starships" by Antony Cornell and Martin Barrett is just what its title suggests. Like many articles of this sort, there's nothing essential about it, but I have little doubt that many Traveller players and referees would enjoy the additional options.

"Open Box" reviews several new products, starting with Federation Space by Task Force Games, an expansion of its well known Starfleet Battles (8 out of 10). Then there are various entries in the Thieves' Guild series (rated 7–9 out of 10) and The Free City of Haven (9 out of 10), both by Gamelords. Also reviewed are four Traveller adventures, all by Gamelords: Ordeal by Eshaar, Action Aboard, Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars, and Legend of the Sky Raiders (6 out of 10, 5 out of 10, 8 out of 10, and 8 out of 10 respectively). It's probably not surprising to note that the two most best reviewed of these four are products of the Keith Brothers, whose contributions to Traveller – and the larger hobby – are incomparable.

"Arms at the Ready" by Lewis Pulsipher is subtitled "Combining the AD&D Combat Tables," which is a very good description of what it attempts to do. Pulsipher is concerned that the rules governing combat in AD&D are complex and scattered over too many pages and books. What he does here is produce a series of compact tables that combine all the relevant details in a series of "cards" divided by weapon type. Here's one example:

It's clear, simple, and well-done. If I were playing AD&D and making full use of all its details, including the weapon vs AC adjustments, I think an article like this would come in handy.

"Crime and Punishment" by Geoff Winn would seem to be the first article in a new series, "Rune Rites," which focuses on RuneQuest. I remember "Rune Rites" well from my time reading White Dwarf regularly. Though I wasn't a player of RQ at the time (and indeed had an irrational prejudice against it at the time), I nevertheless enjoyed this series, which often contained clever ideas I'd swipe for use in my D&D games. In the case of Winn's article, it's simply a pair of tables for the referee to use to reward or punish characters who adhere to or transgress the strictures of their cults. The idea behind it is sound, I suppose, but I find the implementation a bit heavy handed for my tastes.

"Treasure Chest" introduces six new amulets and talismans for use with D&D, none of which really stands out as noteworthy. What does stand out is that none of these are credited to Roger E. Moore, who'd been a mainstay of "Treasure Chest" for many issues. This is still a year before he formally joined TSR to work on Dragon, so it'll be interesting to see if his byline returns to White Dwarf in the coming issues. Ian Livingstone reviews "Treasure Trap," which is an early LARP established in Cheshire, England. Livingstone seems to have enjoyed his experience with it and hopes that it might improve, expand, and inspire others to follow suit.

This month's "Fiend Factory" takes the form of a mini-adventure for 4th-5th level characters entitled "In Search of a Fool." The scenario involves the characters accepting a quest from a group of Leanan-Sidhe – fey vampire-like beings – to find their missing fool. The characters can either accept this quest of their own accord or be charmed by the Leanan-Sidhe. As presented, the quest is mostly an outline, leaving a lot of details up to the referee to decide. Accompanying it are three new monsters, including the aforementioned Leanan-Sidhe. One of the new monsters is written by Roger E. Moore – apparently he wasn't absent from this issue after all!

Lastly, there's "The Star," which presents itself as the front page of a fictional newspaper – "Midgard's Brightest Daily" – that reports on matters relating to the hobby. Normally, I wouldn't draw attention to articles of this sort. I make an exception in this case, because it includes a number of amusing photographs from the time, including this one, which features Gary Gygax, Don Turnbull, Ian Livingstone, and Steve Jackson.

I'm always happy to find photos like this. They're vivid reminders of past people, places, and events and I think it's vital that we not forget the past, even the past of something as relatively insignificant as the hobby of roleplaying.

White Dwarf: Issue #30

Issue #30 of White Dwarf (April/May 1982) features a very odd cover by Nicholas Bibby. What is that thing? Meanwhile, Ian Livingstone's editorial takes notes of the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is now a very broad brand, encompassing electronic games, video games, coloring books, and possibly a film one day. Livingstone's is neutral in his feelings about this development, whereas I was, at the time, quite enthusiastic about the pop cultural triumph of D&D. Nowadays, I'm a fair bit less excited about all this, but what do I know?

"Androids in Traveller" by Roger E. Moore is a terrific article that focuses on introducing artificial human beings into GDW's science fiction roleplaying game. Moore does an excellent job first of describing these "technologically produced manlike organisms made of organic material" and then contextualizes them within the Third Imperium setting. After that, he provides rules modifications for using them in play, including modifications of the character generation system. It's very done in my opinion and introduces some fascinating possibilities for both roleplaying and scientific speculation. 

Part 2 of Paul Vernon's "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society for D&D" continues to discuss the economy. This time, his focus is on mercenaries and resources owners, which strike me as a rather odd pairing. As he did in last month's installment, Vernon bores down to the nitty-gritty details of how a town might work in the implied setting of D&D without sacrificing playability. That's why this series has impressed me so far. I've read plenty of articles that have attempted to bring "realism" of one sort or another – social, political, economic, historical – into D&D but did so at the expense of what makes the game fun to play. Vernon does no such thing and his discussion of the economics of hiring mercenaries or dealing merchants and business owners is grounded in "D&D as she is played," to borrow a phrase. While not everyone will care about these topics, for those who do, Vernon has provided plenty of food for thought.

"Unarmed Combat in RuneQuest" by E. Varley is a short article that introduces some new combat skills into the game, namely those pertaining to combat without weapons. Never having used the rules, I can't comment on their actual utility. Based solely on my read of them, they appear straightforward and easy to use. Also related to RuneQuest is "Griselda Gets Her Men" by Oliver Dickinson. This is the second short story of the ne'er-do-wells of New Pavis and it's every bit as good as its predcessor. 

"Open Box" presents multiple reviews, starting with Thieves' World from Chaosium, reviewed by the aforementioned Oliver Dickinson (10 out of 10). Also reviewed are Champions (7 out of 10) and The Island of Doctor Destroyer (8 out of 10). Interestingly, the reviewer, Dave Morris, wonders whether Champions is suitable for long-term play, given the power level of even starting Champions characters. It's an interesting question; not being much of a superhero gamer myself, I have no answer. Yaquinto's Adventurer gets a decent review (8 out of 10), while GDW's Invasion: Earth is given a more lukewarm reception (6 out of 10).

"The Curse of the Wildland" by Phil Masters is an introductory AD&D adventure. Its premise is very straightforward, with the characters enlisted by the leadership of a small village to deal with the titular curse that is wreaking chaos. I'm a sucker for introductory adventure, so I think pretty well of this one, which is nicely done, even if its set-up is something of a cliché. "Ideas for Traveller" by Bob McWilliams is a clever little article. McWilliams asserts that Ttraveller "is essentially a game about life," by which he means that it takes place in a world in which humanity pursues goals that are not all that different from those of today, albeit in a sci-fi context. Consequently, a referee looking for inspiration can turn to almost any everyday situation, book, or film and find it. He then provides multiple examples of how this might work in practice, resulting in a short but nevertheless helpful little article.

"The Apocrypha according to St. Andre" is an article by the creator of Tunnels & Trolls, Ken St. Andre, in which he talks about his own background, the origins of T&T, and his own gaming. He says little that is unknown to long-time fans of St. Andre or T&T but it's nevertheless interesting to peer into the mind of one of the earliest designers of a RPG. St. Andre is quite open and honest about his inspirations and preferences; there's not much artifice or pretense in what he has to say. There's little mythmaking in this article and that's quite refreshing, regardless of whether or not one is a fan of Tunnels & Trolls.

The issue ends with six more D&D monsters in "Fiend Factory." The theme this time is "In Good Company," meaning monsters that are frequently in league with other creatures, such as the stirge demon (which allies with stirges) and a vampire wolf (which allies with vampires). "Treasure Chest" provides six new D&D spells, none of which stand out as notable. That's probably because many are very specific, utility spells like resist electricity, know duration, or hide portal.

White Dwarf is clearly firing on all cylinders at this point. By this point, it's become a very solid magazine with a wide array of excellent content. It's also a superb counterpoint to Dragon, in terms of both its creative voice, which is a bit more "rough around the edges" than TSR's house organ, and in terms of the games it regularly covers. I begin to understand better why partisans of the magazine's early years think so highly of it.

Different Worlds: Issue #22

Issue #22 of Different Worlds (July 1982) is a special RuneQuest issue, as its cover by Lisa Free, depicting a morokanth setting a trap for herdmen, makes clear. Like the ducks, morokanth are an aspect of Glorantha that's nearly impossible to explain easily and, even then, I'm pretty sure that they'll be baffling to most people (including myself). Regardless, issue #22 is a very good one that's not solely geared toward dedicated Glorantha aficionados.

The first article presents a "gateway" cult for RQ by Michael Kolb, entitled "Cult of Dionysus." As you'd expect, it details the cult of the Greek god for use with the game. I found the article interesting, because, unlike many previous articles presenting new cults, this one includes no new spells or rules. Instead, it shows how to use the existing RQ spells and rules to model an interpretation of the cult of Dionysus. Whether you agree with Kolb's presentation or not, I think there's something very positive about his approach of not using rules as the way to expand the scope of a game.

"Advice from Rurik" by Steve Perrin is a question-and-answer column for RuneQuest. Named after the sample character in the RQ2 rulebook, the column deals with both rules and the setting of Glorantha. "RuneFix1" by Greg Stafford presents a series of changes to the RuneQuest rules "adopted in the Chaosium house campaign." Amusingly, one of the largest changes concerns the acquisition of languages. I can't speak to the utility of any of the changes, but I am always happy to see evidence of RPGs actually being played by the people whose names appear in its byline. 

"Terraforming Part One" by Doug Houseman is a Traveller "source article" that discusses the topic of planetary engineering and includes game statistics and deckplans for a pair of starships. "Hela's House of Dark Delights" by Ken St. Andre is a solo adventure for Tunnels & Trolls. As someone with a growing interest in solo RPG adventure design, I found this useful. "Eight New Weapons for RuneQuest" by Paul Cardwell Jr. does what its title suggests. Most of the weapons detailed are "exotic" ones like atlatls, boomerangs, and caltrops.

This issue's reviews positively covers Worlds of Wonder, 76 Patrons, and Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars (the last two for Traveller). It also negatively reviews C&S Sourcebook II and The Dungeon of King Lout, the latter of which I've never heard. Reviewer Dave Nalle sums up his feelings in the following way:

This product is ridiculously overpriced, almost contentless, and an affront to my pride as a gamer. There is no reason why anyone would buy this. You can design your own random and unrealistic dungeon (if you want) in the same time it would take you to prepare The Dungeon of King Lout and you would save $5.95.

Ouch!

John T. Sapienza continues to look at cardboard miniatures, this time focusing on Steve Jackson's Cardboard Heroes products. Larry DiTillio's "The Sword of Hollywood" returns, with some brief gossip about then-upcoming movies, like Revenge of the Jedi [sic]. Meanwhile, John Nubbin reviews Conan the Barbarian at length – and he doesn't think very much of it. Nubbin is critical of nearly everything, starting with its story (which "makes no sense"), but expanding to include the editing, acting, even its soundtrack (which he calls "awkward"). I have many problems with the film myself, but, even so, I think Nubbin's review is often needlessly nitpicky and mean-spirited. 

The issue concludes, as most issues do, with Gigi D'Arn's column. This time, she continues her coverage of TSR's purchase of SPI and its subsequent actions, such as the canceling of all SPI game events at Origins. In retrospect, it's not at all surprising how badly things ultimately turned out for SPI and its many excellent games. What a waste! Gigi also relates a darkly amusing story of something she overheard in a game shop: "That's the D&D role-playing game. It's based on Mattel's D&D electronic game."

I really enjoyed this issue and look forward to reading the next issue – though I should note now that I seem to have misplaced part of my collection of these issues, including issue #23. I'll keep digging around in my "files" to find the missing issues, but it's possible I might not be successful before next week, in which case I'll think of some way to continue this series. 

Different Worlds: Issue #21

I don't usually write about the letters column of Different Worlds for a number of reasons. However, in the case of issue #21 (June 1982), I want to draw brief attention to a letter by Steve Perrin, in which he responds to an article in issue #20 about heraldry. Perrin is quite complimentary about the article by Robin Wood but wishes to point out a handful of errors and misapprehensions based on his longtime association with the Society for Creativity Anachronism. In looking at the history of roleplaying games, we often forget the role played by the SCA as a crucible for many ideas that would later become important in the hobby (especially on the West Coast of the United States). Seeing this latter reminded me of that, as well as my own ignorance about this aspect of the hobby's prehistory.

"Racial Sight Differences" is the first article of the issue and it's an odd one. To start, it's author is credited simply as Shadowstar, which I can only assume is a pseudonym. Its subject matter is the differences between "human and non-human ways of seeing," starting with infravision but going beyond that into theoretical notions such as texture and vibration sensitivity. The article is short and peculiar – a bit like me, I suppose – and, while it doesn't include any game mechanics, it raises some interesting questions in a Gygaxian naturalistic vein. Also of note is that the article is illustrated by an artist credited as "Michael Mignola," who, at the time, was still a student.

"Healing Plants and Other Herbs" by Robin Wood is an amazing article. Seven pages in length, it's filled with many helpful illustrations of leaves and flowers to accompany straightforward, interesting text about various plants and herbs with healing properties. Most useful, though, is a series of tables at the end of the article to help the referee in designing unique (and fantastical) healing plants for use in his campaign setting. These are the kinds of articles I really enjoy seeing and this one is no exception. "Pistols" by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh offers up a few new handguns for use with GDW's Traveller, while John T. Sapienza's "Grenadier Hirelings, Fighting Men & Specialists" is a review of three different sets of AD&D miniatures.

Larry Best's "Fantasy Is Reality" is listed as a "philosophy" article, which tells you what you're in for. Best recounts his experiences as a graduate student in medieval English literature studying older texts and how what he read in, say, Beowulf or the Greenlander's Saga clashed with his everyday experience of the world. He knew there were no such things as monsters or spirits of the dead and yet all these stories spoke of them as if there were. Best states that 

I realize that technology, education, and shoes have caged me, kept me from a realm too often considered mere fantasy, a world through which I might perceive medieval literature, and all literature, and my entire life from a new and visual standpoint, a beautiful and fantastic world of pure reality.

I really don't know what to make of this article, so I won't even try.

Ken St. Andre's "The Elric Saga: See Battle Near Melniboné" is a solo adventure for use with Stormbringer. It's a fun little scenario based on events from the works of Michael Moorcock. "Creating Jolanti" by Michael Malony and Greg Stafford is a RuneQuest piece describing the constructed race known as the Jolanti. "Making a Magic Staff" by Gerald M. Schmitt is a D&D variant that offers rules and guidelines for making the ubiquitous wizard's staff much more mechanically useful. As is often the case with the articles of Different Worlds, it's not something I'd make use of myself, but I nonetheless appreciate variants of this sort.

This month's reviews highlight Waspwinter and Legend of the Sky Raiders, both for Traveller. The latter is rightly lauded, while the former is not. Also reviewed are Journey to the Center of the Circle (which I do not know) and Descent into the Depths of the Earth. John T. Sapienza's "An Expanded Cleric vs. Undead System" seeks to alter the turning system in order to better take into account the disparity between a cleric's level and that of the undead he's attempting to turn. Gigi D'Arn comments on how hard it is to write a monthly column, with which I can sympathize. Nevertheless, she comments upon the fall-out of the end of SPI, starting with its acquisition by TSR and the establishment of Victory Games. There's also mention of TSR's purchase of Amazing stories and a needlework company, as well as the (unrealized) rumor that Chaosium had obtained the rights to produce a game based on Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories. 

I continue to enjoy reading Different Worlds and am curious to see where the magazine goes as the 1980s wear on.

Different Worlds: Issue #15

Issue #15 of Different Worlds (October 1981) features a cover by Rick Becker, who had previously done the covers for issues #6 and #10, as well as The Gateway Bestiary. Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "More Citizens" kicks things off by presenting six new professions for use with GDW's Traveller: cavalry, artillery, technician, engineer, reporter, and civilian, along with three new skills. In my youth, when I was playing Traveller regularly, I used to adore articles like this, so reading this one was a nice blast of nostalgia for me.

"Tournament Role-Playing" by Ken Rolston is a lengthy, 10-page piece that covers a great many topics relating to the refereeing a adventure scenarios at gaming conventions. The topics range from styles of play to the creation of characters to judging players. He provides a lengthy example of a RuneQuest scenario he has designed that nicely demonstrates the principles he puts forward. Of particular interest to me was his assertion that one's "best bet" is "basing your tournament scenarios in the campaign you are currently running." As someone who's long felt that too many game writers aren't even playing the games for which they are writing, I couldn't agree more.

"Calandra and Aurelion" by Charles Huber is a Gloranthan cult for use with RuneQuest. Even though I don't play RQ regularly, I nevertheless enjoy these cult write-ups. Religion is a topic that's near and dear to me; I find its treatment in most fiction (including RPGs) to be laughably simplistic. RuneQuest makes a much better effort to take religion seriously and many of these cult articles demonstrate that quite well. David F. Nalle's "Favorites of the Gods" is another article treating religion, specifically the ability of characters to gain the favor of deities through sacrifices and quests. Nalle's treatment is simple and mechanical in its approach, but I nevertheless appreciate his attempt to grapple with the topic of divine intervention.

"A Modest Proposal for The Fantasy Trip" by David R. Dunham is a short article suggesting the splitting of the game's attribute scores into related pairs to deal with both the over-importance of certain attributes and the "unrealistic" nature of combing, say, one's physical strength and endurance into one score. This is a long-standing complaint about not just TFT but also its descendant GURPS. "Man Bites Dog" is Ken St. Andre's rather peculiar article that's ostensibly about "role-playing in the future." Instead of a prognostication of how the then-new technology of computers might change the face of the hobby, St. Andre instead offers a half-serious, half-parodic account of what roleplaying might be like in a post-apocalyptic world when only the aged remember "the good old days back in the 1980s." 

Lewis Pulsipher's "Making Life Hard for Magic-Users" is another entry in the ancient genre of "cutting magic-users down to size," the belief that magic-users in Dungeons & Dragons are too powerful compared to other character classes. To correct this supposed imbalance, Pulsipher offers numerous possible fixes, such as spell points, spell failure, spell interruption, and more. I appreciate the range of options he suggests, even if I've never been of the opinion that magic-users needed fixing to make them less potent and flexible.

This issue's reviews are lengthy and mostly critical of the products reviewed, starting with SPI's Universe. Actually, the review of Universe is quite measured and fair. The review of Aftermath is similarly fair, but notes that the complexity of the rules militates against wading through its rules to get to the genuinely good material in the game. The poor Fiend Folio gets the most abuse, such as the following passage that mocks the monsters contained therein.

Harsh but not wholly incorrect.

Gigi D'Arn's column is shorter, owing to the fact that it's now monthly, a fact Gigi draws attention to at the start of her piece. Nevertheless, there are a few notable tidbits, such as further rumors about the insolvency of SPI and that Chaosium is working on a King Arthur RPG (though it's rumored that Ken St. Andre is working on it with Greg Stafford). Gigi also says the following, which I found amusing.

Ouch! Equally amusing, I think, is that not everyone who read Different Worlds liked Gigi's column, as this letter to the editor makes clear.

I guess there's no accounting for taste.

"This is Not My Game"

Back in March, I wrote a post about an interesting section of the original (1975) edition of Tunnels & Trolls that I found quite interesting, if only because it highlighted the similarities and differences between the approaches of Gary Gygax and Ken St. Andre. While re-reading T&T recently, I came across a passage I'd meant to bring up previously but had forgotten. The passage in question occurs early, in a section entitled "Troll Talk," where St. Andre recounts his memories of the creation of T&T and his general feelings about it and its genesis. He writes:

Lastly I wish to make one thing perfectly clear. This is not my game in any sense of the word except that I'm taking the trouble to get it printed so anyone who wants to can have a copy of the rules. Please feel free (as a Dungeon Master, not as a player-character) to modify and improve these basic rules as your imagination dictates to be right for you. You will recognize your successes by the enthusiasm of your dungeon-delvers and likewise the opposite.

This reminds me somewhat of the "afterward" [sic] of Volume 3 of OD&D, which counsels the referee to "decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!" It also brings to mind Gary Gygax's reply to Ted Johnstone in Alarums & Excursions, where he agrees with the sentiment that "D&D is too important to leave to Gary Gygax." 

Just so.

"Pulsipher's Sanctimonious Pile of Crap"

In my posts about each issue of Different Worlds, I generally pass over commenting upon the letters pages. Most of the letters aren't all that interesting in their own right and even the interesting ones are frequently very "inside baseball" in terms of the content. However, there will certainly be occasions when a letter catches my eye and I think it worthy of mentioning. Issue #10, for example, includes this brief letter:

The article that so enraged Ken St. Andre appeared in issue #8. Its author, Lewis Pulsipher, discussed various refereeing styles, one of which he called "silly" and of which he considered Tunnels & Trolls to be an exemplar. 

The degree to which T&T actually is a silly game has long been a matter of debate. I've written previously about my own feelings on the subject. While I readily concede that there's perhaps more nuance here than many, including Pulsipher, might admit, I also think T&T is itself to blame for this common perception. From the beginning, Tunnels & Trolls has presented itself in a more lighthearted way than, say, D&D or RuneQuest. Its spell names, for example, are notorious for their humor, if that's the word, and have no doubt contributed greatly to how outsiders perceive it. I've often wondered if T&T's reputation might have been different had it had a more conventional list of spell names.

Starfaring in Moves Magazine

In a comment to a previous post, James Mishler asked me to post the review of Ken St. Andre's science fiction RPG, Starfaring, that appeared in issue #35 of SPI's Moves. Here it is in its entirety:

Different Worlds: Issue #7

Issue #7 of Different Worlds (April/May 1980) features a cover by Cora L. Healy, an artist known for her work on science fiction periodicals throughout the 1970s and early '80s. The issue proper begins with an installment of the "Beginner's Brew" column that lists "all the more popular role-playing games (RPGs) and magazines available." The games and magazines are divided up by publisher, sixteen for RPGs and fourteen for magazines. There are also fifteen miniatures manufacturers listed. The list are interesting, most especially for the "forthcoming" games mentioned, such as Chaosium's Dark Worlds and Elric RuneQuest and Heritage USA's Heroes of Middle Earth. 

"Ten Days in the Arena of Khazan" by Ken St. Andre is a seven-page outline of a campaign for use with Tunnels & Trolls. More than that, though, it's an overview of a portion of the game's setting of Trollworld, with lots of interesting tidbits about its history and peoples. I really enjoyed this article, because it gave me some insight into what it's like to play in St. Andre's home campaign, a topic that never ceases to interest me. 

I find it hard to disagree with Richard L. Snider's effusive review of Cults of Prax, one of the truly great RPG supplements of all time. He rightly deems it "the best extant cosmology designed for use with any FRP" – which was probably true in 1980 and, even today, it stands head and shoulders above most other treatments of similar topics. "Gloranthan Birthday Tables" by Morgan O. Woodward III is a series of random tables to determine when a Gloranthan character is born, with special attention given to those during Sacred Time (and the special abilities that might come from such an auspicious birth). 

Part two of the "Vardy Combat System" by John T. Sapienza appears in this issue. A variant combat system for use with Dungeons & Dragons, this article provides expanded rules and tables for handling parries, shields, hit points, and more. What I appreciate about the system is that it strives to be genuinely compatible with D&D's existing combat system rather than simply replacing it. The article even offers a further option that uses D20 rolls rather than percentile ones, for even further compatibility. As I said previously, I have not tested this system and have no idea how well it works in practice, but, from reading it, I think it might be worthy testing out in play.

"Foundchild Cult" by Sandy Petersen is a cult for use with RuneQuest and its setting of Glorantha. Meanwhile. Steve Perrin reviews In the Labyrinth by Steve Jackson. Perrin thinks very highly of the game, his main complaint being that, like Tunnels & Trolls before it, allows characteristics to increase as a character gains experience, something that he thinks inevitably leads to an "incredibly strong, lightning fast, cosmically intelligent character who seems to have stepped directly from the pages of Marvel or DC Comics." I think that's a fair criticism and one of the reasons I prefer the more grounded approach taken by many older RPGs. 

James M. Ward offers "Power Groups and Player Characters in RPGs," in which he talks specifically about the importance of factions in a campaign. He then provides examples from his home Metamorphosis Alpha campaign, showing how the characters became involved with them and how this involvement affected the development of the campaign. It's a solid, though short, article, covering a topic that is increasingly near and dear to my heart. "Two from Grenadier" by John T. Sapienza is a lengthy, five-page article that reviews in detail two AD&D boxed sets from Grenadier Models, Woodland Adventurers and Tomb of Spells. His review is quite positive overall and a nice bit of nostalgia for me, since I once owned both of the boxed sets in question.

"System Snobbery" by Larry DiTillio is an early entry in the now well-worn genre of "there are no bad RPGs, just bad GMs" articles. It's fine for what it is; its main interest to me was DiTillio's recounting of his experience with various GMs over the years. Gigi D'Arn's gossip column this month mentions the departure of Tim Kask from the editorship of Dragon and eludes to "dubious circumstances." There's further mention of a D&D movie, as well as a reference to something called the "AD&D Companion," a collection of variants for use with D&D and AD&D. I suspect this is either simply untrue or a garbled rumor of something like the Best of Dragon anthology, the first of which did appear in 1980. Concluding the issue is "Oriental Weapons for RuneQuest" by Sean Summers, with additional material by Steve Perrin. It's pretty much what you'd expect for this type of article, a staple of the '70s and '80s, when all things Asian were the rage in RPG circles.

General Rules for Dungeon Designers

Jon Salway recently pointed out Ken St. Andre's "general rules for dungeon designers" from the first edition of Tunnels & Trolls (1975), which I reproduce below.

For the benefit of those, like myself, whose eyesight isn't as good as it used to be, these general rules are, as follows:

1. Let your imagination run wild. You can do anything you want to.
2. Put in a lot of stuff. Nobody wants to mess around in a dull dungeon.
3. Use as much humor as you can, but don’t be silly or juvenile.
4. The deeper the dungeon, the more dangerous it should be.
5. Every trap or spell should have some way of being avoided, nullified, or overcome. You need not tell people how to save themselves, but there should be a way. It is definitely not fair to teleport everybody who enters your solar room into the heart of the sun.

There's nothing here that I think is controversial, with the possible exception of point 3. Many people, myself included, are wary of overt humor in RPG material (with certain exceptions, obviously) and not unreasonably. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever participated in a game session that wasn't regularly punctuated by laughter, puns, in-game jokes, and other tomfoolery – nor would I wish to do so. At the same time, one of my longstanding objections to T&T is that it veers a little too close to the "silly or juvenile" that St. Andre wisely warns against (take a look at the spell names, for example). 

Point 2 is where I think St. Andre is really on to something. In a dungeon-centric campaign, it's vital that there be "a lot of stuff" in the dungeon in order to hold the players' attention and encourage them to spend more time in the place. Of course, "stuff" isn't just limited to monsters, treasures, and traps. I imagine things like factions and long-term mysteries. Frankly, those are two elements I'd consider important for any type of campaign, but they're especially important in dungeons, I believe, in order to avoid the inevitable boredom that might otherwise creep in after kicking open the doors of untold rooms on multiple levels over many weeks or months. 

Can anyone recall similar sorts of dungeon design rules from other RPGs? I enjoy reading advice like this, doubly so if it reflects the thoughts of someone who had a reputation for being a good referee (and Ken St. Andre is one such person).

Different Worlds: Issue #1

Different Worlds premiered in February 1979 with Tadashi Ehara as its editor, a position he held for the entirety of the magazine's run. Ehara states, in his inaugural editorial, that Chaosium wanted to produce "a magazine to cover all aspects of role-playing, from Dungeons and Dragons to Bunnies and Burrows, from Traveller to En Garde! Even SPI's Commando." Thus, Different Worlds was intended to cover the entirety of the hobby rather than focusing on a specific game or even group of games. In this, Different Worlds was no different than Dragon, White Dwarf, or Imagine, though I have little doubt that its origins on the west coast of the United States colored its content in ways both subtle and obvious.

The issue kicks off with Charlie Krank's "Beginner's Brew," the subtitle of which is "What is all this stuff?" Krank then explains what an RPG is and what its various elements (referee, players, dice, etc.) are and how they all relate to one another. The article is basic, as one might expect, but what interests me most is that such an article was deemed necessary at all. Yes, it was written in early 1979, barely five years after the invention of the hobby, but how many readers of Different Worlds wouldn't know what a roleplaying game was? Of course, Imagine regularly included such articles, too; perhaps it was simply considered a requirement at the time, much like examples of play in RPG rulebooks.

Next up is the first part of Mike Gunderloy's D&D variant, "Specialty Mages." Specialty mages, as opposed to "True Mages," (i.e. OD&D magic-users) are somewhat more robust (d6 hit dice) and have a wider range of weapons (swords and spear) but have a narrower, more focused list of available spells. The first part focuses on the Mages of Earth, providing lists for spell levels 1–10 – yes, 10. This is not explained, simply presented as if it were a fact, which I suspect reflects early house rules of an additional level above 9. I myself remember encountering such things in the early '80s, which suggests it was a widespread notion. I'm curious to see what Gunderloy might do in the second part of the article.

"My Life and Role-Playing" is a collection of articles of varying lengths by notable game designers and writers of the period, in which they talk about their early experiences with the hobby – how they discovered it, what led to their creating a game of their own, etc. – and, in several cases, give us insight into their home campaigns. The range of writers is indeed vast, consisting of (among many others) Ken St. Andre, Marc Miller, Greg Costikyan, Dennis Sustare, Lee Gold, and Dave Hargrave. I could devote a post or more to each of these articles, since nearly all of them contain historical tidbits that were otherwise unknown to me. For example, Marc Miller not only mentions his unpublished fantasy RPG, Companions of the Road but also Frank Chadwick's If I Were King … (which might be an earlier version of Liege Lord). Equally interesting is reading about Dave Hargrave's disappointment with OD&D and how it fueled his desire to come up with his own design. It's terrific stuff and I'm so very glad I read it.

Ed Simbalist, one of the creators of Chivalry & Sorcery and Space Opera, presents "Archaeron," his home fantasy campaign setting, along with a hand drawn map of its main area. What's most appealing about the article is not so much its content, which, if I am honest, isn't all that remarkable, but Simbalist's own comments on why he designed the setting in the way he did. I adore articles of this sort and wish more game designers – or indeed just gamers – would do something like this. Greg Stafford provides "The Cult of Geo," a new cult for use with RuneQuest, the first bit of content in the issue specifically geared toward a Chaosium game. 

Steve Lortz's "What is a Role-Playing Game?" is an odd article, not quite in the same genre of Charlie Krank's earlier piece from the same issue. Rather than being a discussion of RPGs from the perspective of a neophyte, it is rather an examination "rule organization," with a focus on things like time, scale, and sequences, among related topics. He demonstrates his point of view more fully by outlining the rules structure of an imaginary game, Cannibals and Castaways, in which the player characters attempt to survive on a desert island inhabited by cannibals. There's even an example of play, followed by yet more analysis of RPG rules, this time with an eye on "move structure in RPGs," "move" here being a synonym for "action." As I said, it's an odd article and I must confess I found it tedious and generally uninteresting to me (but my disinterest in rules discussion is legendary). The issue concludes with an article by P.E.I. Bonewits and Larry Press to support Authentic Thaumaturgy. 

My overall impression of Different Worlds is immensely positive after only a single issue. Unlike Imagine, which seemed to take a while to find its footing, it's pretty clear that Different Worlds already has a good sense of what it's about. Since I only ever read a single issue of the magazine back in the day and one fairly late in its run – I can't recall the issue number but I will remember it when I get to re-reading it – this is all new to me. I anticipate that there will be many moments of discovery and pleasure along the way; I cannot wait to read more.

"It Just Grew"

In his book, Fantasy Role Playing Games, J. Eric Holmes devotes an entire chapter to the history of RPGs, with particular attention devoted – obviously – to the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. Holmes's perspective is interesting, both because of the relatively early publication date of his book (1981) and because of his direct involvement in that history, through the editing of the 1977 D&D Basic Set (about which I'll say more in a future post).

Before getting to the history of roleplaying games proper, Holmes takes note of several "prehistoric" phenomena that, in his view, laid the groundwork for the invention of the hobby. The first is the growth and development of miniatures wargames, as one might expect, while another, in his opinion, is the paperback publication of The Lord of the Rings. Of the novel, he says

This epic fairy tale, without a doubt the greatest work of fiction produced in this century, inflamed the imaginations of an entire generation. The story, as most of my players know, involves the clash of great armies of men, elves, dwarves, goblins and magical creatures. 

From there, Holmes discusses the publication of Chainmail and its incorporation of "a large amount of fantasy material, magic spells, giants, trolls, dragons and what have you." He also notes that Chainmail was "reasonably popular." It's at this point that Holmes makes a brief but meaningful aside, saying:

What happened next is conjecture on my part. Unfortunately, as so often happens in an enterprise that becomes financially successful, the principals are now engaged in litigation over the priority of the discovery.

With that caveat out of the way, Holmes turns to Arneson and the Blackmoor campaign, "run using the Chainmail rules, which the gamers [i.e. those in Minneapolis] were already used to." It is to Arneson that he attributes that concept of dungeons, which I think is indisputable. Arneson and Gygax then put their heads together, "making up new spells, new monsters and new magic artifacts at a tremendous rate," at which point "they decided to risk the investment and have Gygax's little company, called TSR (Tactical Studies Rules), publish the books." Remember: this is Holmes's perspective, as he saw it in 1981, nothing more.

After Dungeons & Dragons was published, its popularity grew, with "myriads of new players springing up in every high school and college in the country," but, he adds, the rules "were often confusing." 

Few, if any, of the new players guessed that spells could be used only once in each expedition, and beleaguered Dungeon Masters made up their own systems for handling these ambiguities. 

At Caltech in Pasadena, students Cowan, Clark, Shih, Smith, Dahl, and Peterson put together a set of rules with what they felt to be an improved combat and magic system: Warlock.  I used their combat table when I first started playing D&D, because I could not understand the one in the original books. In Arizona, Ken St. Andre created a role playing game called Tunnels and Trolls, again with different rules for magic and combat. These games were published; other rule sets appeared in the amateur magazines. In fact, within a few years of its appearance, D&D had generated many more pages of commentary and revision than were contained in the original three little rule books.

This section, I think, hits on a deep truth about the early history of both D&D and roleplaying games more generally: no one had any idea what they were doing. There was no "plan" or "vision" beyond trying – not very well by most accounts from the time – to document the ideas, processes, and rules that allowed Arneson, Gygax, and others to create these "wildly imaginative fantasy" campaigns that, in turn, inspired others to create their own versions. Holmes quotes Gygax on the development of D&D and what he says is probably truer than most people realize: "Like Topsy … it just grew."

I think, in our quest to understand the past, we often attribute intentionality and purpose to people's actions that, at the time, were at the very least unknown to them, if not wholly absent. I don't think anyone involved in the prehistory or early history of D&D had any real sense of what they'd created. D&D was, in many ways, an accident, like the discovery of penicillin and, like the discovery of that first antibiotic, it changed the world forever.

Interview: Steve Jackson

2019 saw the re-release of the classic fantasy roleplaying game The Fantasy Trip after thirty-six years. Its designer, Steve Jackson, was kind enough to answer a series of questions I put to him about his designs, his involvement in the hobby, and the future of The Fantasy Trip, now that it is in print once again.

1. How did you first become involved in the hobby of roleplaying?

I first played when I was in college – a game of D&D. One game. But a couple years later I got involved in a Traveller campaign.

2. When did you decide to pursue a career in game design?

I’m not sure exactly – it came on me gradually – but it would have been after Ogre, in 1978 or so.

3. Do you mean that, when you first started working at Metagaming, you hadn't yet decided to take up game design as a career?

I was not an employee – I was working as a freelancer – but no, I didn’t think of it as a career at first. It was just an interesting thing to do, since I was a gamer.

4. You developed Monsters! Monsters! while at Metagaming, which was designed by Ken St. Andre, What do you remember about this project? Were you already familiar with Tunnels & Trolls at the time?

I had seen T&T but had not played it, if I recall correctly. I remember that the development work was fun; I remember thinking that if creatures had a Move stat there should be a movement system. I liked the concept of the monsters coming out of the dungeon to get even.

5. One of your most well known early designs is Ogre, a game that was a favorite of mine as a younger person. I recall that Keith Laumer's Bolo stories were its literary inspiration. Is that correct?

That was my very first design, and yes, the Bolo stories, and Colin Kapp’s “Gottlos," are in the acknowledgements for the game. My Ogres probably look more like Bolos, but they act more like Gottlos. I could say more but I don’t want to spoil Gottlos, which, if your readers can find it, they would enjoy.

6. Melee began at least partly as a response to your dissatisfaction with the combat system in Dungeons & Dragons. What deficiencies in particular did you wish to correct and were you satisfied with the results?

D&D combat just wasn’t tactical at all. Anybody could attack anybody; nobody could hide behind anybody or anything; thieves could backstab without regard to where backs might be, and so on. I was fairly satisfied. I continue to tweak it, though more for quick play than any sort of “accuracy.” It’s not supposed to be a detailed simulation; it’s for people who need some positional cues to enjoy the fantasy.

6. Did Wizard have a similar origin story?

Wizard grew out of Melee. The combat system wanted a magic system, and it got one.

7. With the publication of In the Labyrinth in 1980, you had written everything that was needed for a complete fantasy roleplaying game, which became known as The Fantasy Trip. I've always wondered about the origin of the name. How did it come about?

The Fantasy Trip name was Howard Thompson’s idea.

8. Among the things for which The Fantasy Trip is known are its programmed adventures. Where did the idea for this come from?

I think Tunnels & Trolls was the first game to do programmed adventures. And they’re still doing them!

9. The setting of The Fantasy Trip is Cidri, an immense world created by a superhuman race called the Mnoren and filled with gates leading to other times and places. Was there a literary antecedent for this kind of setting? What did you hope to achieve by presenting this rather than a more conventional fantasy setting?

The big reason for doing Cidri that way was to allow for everyone’s worlds to be included.  There’s room for everything. The scope is reminiscent of Niven’s Ringworld, but this is not a ringworld. I don’t say what it is.

10. When you re-acquired the rights to The Fantasy Trip and prepared to make it available again for the first time in decades, were there aspects of the game you knew you wanted to change? What were they?

I knew in particular that I wanted to modify the system for experience gained through character points, because, with several campaigns having run continually for over 30 years, it was clear that after enough advancement all characters became very similar and almost unstoppable. Whether the new system puts the numbers in the right place is a thing we will have to wait and see, but it’s now possible to gain a lot of spells and skills without having an Einstein, never-miss-a-roll level of IQ, and that’s important.

11. Were you surprised by the immensely positive response to the re-release of the game?

A little surprised and very gratified, yes! I knew that there were people out there waiting for it. I didn’t realize how many. And there has also been uptake of new players.

12. What were your thoughts on seeing one of your earliest RPG designs becoming available to the public once more?

Most of them were thoughts like “Woo hoo!”

13. The new edition of the Fantasy Trip has been available for a little over a year now and there have been multiple expansions released for it, including adventures and the Hexagram zine. What's next for the game? Do you have any plans to write something yourself?

We have several things coming out in the last part of 2020, and a lot scheduled for 2021 – you picked a good time to ask, because recently Phil and I reviewed the schedule.

2020 - Hexagram 5 will ship and Hexagram 6 will go to press for early 2021 release. We are doing a large (36” square) playmat for each issue. You don’t have to buy them, of course, but they will be available. And pretty!

The colored megahex tiles will ship - they may be in Warehouse 23 as you read this. There are three colors - rock, earth, and grass - and there are a lot of tiles in each set.

Ardonirane, a city book by David Pulver, will ship.

Old School Monsters, a bestiary of traditional fantasy-game creatures, will go to press. This will include both cards and counters for the monsters.

The Fantasy Trip Adventures 2, a collection of five 12-page adventures, will go to press. This will include counters for the monsters.

And there are some cool little things like the “Compass Rose” and a puzzle of the Soothsayer Octopus cover from Decks of Destiny.

2021 - We will ship Hexagram 6, certainly 7, probably 8, probably not 9. Schedule on the zine is deliberately loose; it depends both on when we need a release and on how much  material we get. We may or may not do playmats; it depends entirely on what winds up in the zine.

Old School Monsters and The Fantasy Trip Adventures 2 will ship.

We will complete and ship the big “Bestiary” book late in the year. It will include counters and monster cards.

We will ship at least one long solo adventure, and maybe two or even three if they all move smoothly through testing.

We will ship The T’Reo School, which is like a citybook, but describes a college of martial wizardry.

We will ship a whole batch of super-short adventures – the working title is MicroQuests.

We may release miniatures; we may release miniature terrain. That is a big decision. A survey about that is coming very soon as I type this.

You asked about my own writing. At the moment I am acting as TFT line editor, so everything passes through my hands. This does not leave me time to write anything long, but I create short material as the spirit moves me – I have three articles in Hexagram 5. That’s actually more articles than I like to publish by any one person in a single issue, but they were ready and they fit and they were all very different. (Having said that, there is one tentative 2021 or 2022 project with my name on it, but though it’s big, it’s made up of lots of small parts, and I might be able to handle that. We’ll just have to see.)

Weird Maps II

I talked the other day about weird maps, focusing primarily on literary examples of them. Today, I want to draw attention to the maps of Trollworld, the setting of Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls.

This is the continent of Ralph (or Rrr'lff, as it is known in some later sources). As you can see, it's shaped like a dragon, just like the one depicted in the Chart of Weirdworld. If anything, though Ralph is even more fantastical, since it looks like the entire body of a dragon rather than just its head. Ralph is home to Khazan, perhaps the best known city of Trollworld.

Zorr is the eagle-shaped continent of Trollworld. It's also the land of the letter "z," as nearly all of its locations include that letter somewhere in their names. If I recall correctly – and my knowledge of T&T lore is limited – Trollish names tend to include lots of z's in them. Of course, that's a minor detail in my estimation compared to the appearance of the continent itself. Trollworld isn't a natural place; there is nary a concern for plate tectonics, geology, or anything remotely scientific. Instead, I suspect that Zorr, like Ralph, looks that way, because someone thought it was cool – and that's a perfectly valid reason in a fantasy roleplaying game setting! 

Allow me to lay my cards on the table: in my own efforts to create fantasy settings, I have tended toward the Middle-earth/Hyboria model when it comes to map making. I don't outright eschew magical weirdness and whimsy but neither do I embrace it the way that Trollworld clearly does. Is that a mistake? No, I don't think it is – not all fantasy settings are the same and there is room for a variety of different approaches. At the same time, I can't help but look at maps like that of Weirdworld or Trollworld and wonder. Isn't that what maps of fantasy worlds should make us do?

OSRCon: Dwimmermount, Session 1

Last Friday, I ran the first of two sessions of Dwimmermount at OSRCon here in Toronto. I'd done this the year before and, from that experience, I knew what worked and what didn't. One of the things that worked was doing all the mapping myself. I brought with me a dry-erase map to which I added details as the players explored the first level of the dungeon. I'm frankly terrible at giving out reasonably accurate map descriptions anyway -- I often wind up correcting the maps of my players out of shame -- so I felt this would save a lot of headaches at the table and ensure that things moved along at a brisker pace.

Last year, I used pregenerated characters and gave the players an objective for the four-hour session, like "Find the rumored dwarf cemetery on Level 1" or "Locate the portal to Areon on Level 3," thinking this would provide some useful focus. This year, I abandoned both, allowing players to create characters on the spot and to wander about with whatever purpose they made for themselves. I think both decisions were wise, particularly generating characters at the table, since many players had never used the OD&D rulebooks before and it gave them a chance to handle and peruse them not as artifacts of a hoary past but as, well, RPG books that are meant to be used. I did allow players to create 2nd-level characters, since I wanted them to plausibly be able to explore the second levels of the dungeon if they so desired (both groups did).

My Friday night game had two "celebrity" players: Greg Gillespie of Barrowmaze fame and Ken St. Andre, creator of Tunnels & Trolls. Greg's presence was well known to me in advance and I really looked forward to having the chance to play with him, while Ken's appearance was quite unexpected. Shortly after I arrived at the con, Ken walked up to me -- he must have recognized me from my blog photos -- and asked if he could snag a seat at my game. I was more than a little surprised at this, since I was running D&D -- "That Other Game," as Ken calls it -- and didn't think he'd be very interested. Ken assured me he was interested, although he did express disappointment that I wasn't running "my" game, by which he meant Thousand Suns. I explained to him that attendees at OSRCon expected me to run Dwimmermount and he again asked if he could play. I said yes, knowing full well I was likely in for a ride, since Ken is well known for his impish personality, as well as his dislike of D&D and its rules.

In total, there were eight players at Friday's session and their characters consisted of a good mix of fighting men, magic-users, and clerics. There was a single elven thief, who was slain by a poison dart trap. He was replaced mid-game by a dwarf henchman (also a thief), who proved to be an unreliable scout, often claiming to have spotted no monsters up ahead when he really had. Needless to say, this led to chaos and hilarity at times. Two other characters ought to have died: a fighting man reduced to exactly 0 hit points but who was saved by the immediate application of a black sludge found in an alchemy lab that turned out to be a potion of healing and a 83 year-old magician who'd been carrying a slept gnome on his back. When a kobold spear struck the magician, his player asked if the gnome might have been struck instead. Quick recourse to the oracular dice yielded an affirmative and the MU lived to explore further.

Lots of things stand out about this session, most notably how cautious players become when they're playing in an avowedly "old school" dungeon. Likewise, there was a lot of creative spell use, particularly of charm person, which enabled the characters to take control of orcs on Level 2A and use them as guides, as well as cannon fodder. With the exception of the player of the dwarf thief and Ken St. Andre (about which I'll say more in a moment), the players worked very well together, forming a fairly cohesive team that not only relied on one another but worked to each others' strengths. Consequently, they managed to explore quite a lot of two levels in four hours and, I hope, had a good time doing so.

I called Ken "impish" above and that may be something of an understatement. Though the other players all created their own characters, Ken asked that I create his. I gave him a magic-user and that was probably a big mistake, since he continually balked at not only his spell selection but the very nature of D&D's magic system, attempting at many turns to get me to modify it to make it more like that of Tunnels & Trolls. When he saw that this was getting him nowhere, he took a different tack, turning his magician into a bloodthirsty combatant, leaping into battle and wielding his dagger with reckless abandon. Fortunately for him, the dice favored him and he didn't die, despite his foolhardiness. Later, he killed an orc, flayed it and wore its face as a mask, hoping to disguise himself as a monster. The tactic didn't quite work as he'd hoped, but neither did it hinder him, so he seemed content.

I can't deny that, in retrospect, I feel a little bad at how things unfolded with Ken. He and I have corresponded by email for a long time and I suspect he felt that, given our familiarity with one another, it was perfectly reasonable that he play as he did. He later remarked, on Saturday's panel, that he thought me a very good sport for the way I persevered under his constant barrage of wheedling. Of course, he also said that he felt it was the job of players to "give the referee opportunities to change his mind," but I wasn't in the mood to do that on Friday. The other players handled the situation well and didn't complain, even though it was clear at least a couple of them weren't pleased with what they, quite reasonably, perceived as a disruption. What saddens me most, I think, is that they've probably got a far worse opinion of Ken than they ought, but, given the circumstances, I don't blame them at all for feeling that.

All in all, I think my first Dwimmermount session this year was solid, but not as good as I'd have hoped it would be. On the plus side, I got the chance to meet a number of local folks interested in old school gaming and that's a victory no matter how you view it.

My Latest Acquisition

As a general rule, I have very bad luck when it comes to eBay auctions for old school gaming products. Part of it is that I'm not a collector; I'm not willing to pay absurd amounts of money for a rulebook or module just for the distinction of owning it. At the same time, I prefer that anything I do pick up be in decent condition -- not mint, mind you, but usable without falling apart in my hands. The combination of these two facts, therefore, conspire against me and I've seen more than my share of RPG finds slip through my fingers because I won't plunk down large sums to acquire them.

Fortune sometimes smiles on me, though, as it did recently. I was, at long last, able to obtain a terrifically well-preserved 1987 Games Workshop printing of Chaosium's Stormbringer RPG for a song.

For those of you too young to know this, back in the '70s and '80s Games Workshop often produced amazing hardcover editions of American RPGs for the UK market. Besides being hardcovers, they often incorporated supplemental material along with the rulebook, creating a unique "complete" edition that gave you everything you needed under one cover. This Stormbringer volume, for example, also includes The Stormbringer Companion, too, along with full color art plates.

It's easy to forget that, early on, Games Workshop acted as a mail order service for British gamers who wanted to get hold of the latest releases from North America. Later, they produced UK editions of popular games, such as this one and a Call of Cthulhu third edition I also possess. I still consider some of these editions to be the best ever made for their respective games, which is why I like to snag copies of them when I can do so at a reasonable price. This copy of Stormbringer, as you can see from the photo, is in superb condition. It's binding is still strong and the pages are clean. The only flaws are some slight whitening along the spine and the careful removal of four perforated character sheets at the back.

I was incredibly lucky to get hold of this one. I think I'll need to find some way to run it this summer, if only as a one-shot or short campaign.

An Interview with Ken St. Andre

One of the early staples of this blog were interviews with important figures in the history of the hobby. One noteworthy figure whose did not appear here was that of Ken St. Andre, perhaps because I'd already interviewed him over on The Escapist. Even so, as the creator of the second published roleplaying game, I felt there was lots more insight Ken could impart and so I asked him if he'd consent to another interview. He graciously agreed, even though my questions this time were a bit more personal and demanding than those I'd asked him before. The full text of that interview can be found below. 

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1. I've read elsewhere that, as a boy, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan was one of your earliest literary heroes, followed later by Robert E. Howard's Conan the Cimmerian. What was it about these characters that so inspired you?

Do you think it could be that opposites attract?  I have never been particularly strong, athletic, heroic, good-looking, or successful with women.  I’m the kind of guy who would like to live a life of high adventure, but am either too smart or too chicken to really pursue such a life.  Tarzan and Conan—those guys are my ideals—physically superhuman, handsome, courageous, and irresistible. Or maybe it was just that all the old Tarzan movies were shown on Saturday afternoon television in Phoenix.  From the movies I discovered the books, from the books I discovered the comics. Escape fiction is my preferred reading material.  You can’t really get any bigger escapes than the exploits of Tarzan and Conan.

2. Unlike a lot of early roleplaying game designers, you didn't come from a background in wargames. Do you think this helped or hindered you?

Well, I don’t think that’s strictly true.  I did a lot of gaming in elementary school, high school, and college.  I played the Avalon Hill wargames back in the day.  I even had a friend in high school named Mike Watters who was into miniatures, and we would get together once in a while, and refight World War II-style battles with model tanks and rubber soldiers.  I started the chess club at Maryvale High School and was its first president back in 1965.  I learned to play Diplomacy in grad school in 1974 including variant Diplomacy, and I created several Diplomacy variants including Hyborean, Young Kingdoms, and Barsoomian variants.  And others.

But I wasn’t much of a miniatures wargamer in the mid-70s.  I hadn’t played anything like that since high school back in 1969.  I was a big fan of swords and sorcery, and of comic books in general.  I was dreaming of being a full-time professional science fiction writer.  Because I wasn’t a minis gamer, and I’m still not, I didn’t know or understand the mini-traditions embodied in early D&D.  Not understanding, I rebelled, and rebellion spawned Tunnels & Trolls.  I guess I’d say not having that miniatures background helped.  If first edition D&D rules had made any sense to me, there probably never would have been a Tunnels & Trolls.

3. What were some of the aspects of miniatures wargaming that you  didn't understand or didn't like and sought to work around when  designing Tunnels & Trolls?

Ah, James, you give me far too much credit.  When I wrote the first edition of T&T in a red-hot creative frenzy to get the ideas for character creation, monster-fighting, medieval weaponry, and jokey spells down on paper for the first time, I didn’t give a single thought about miniatures.  At the time I had never even seen anyone play That Other Game.  To me, the whole game took place in the theater of my mind.  It wasn’t until a couple of years later when I had gone to some gaming conventions and actually seen people playing That Other Game that I realized how dependent on miniatures those gamers actually were.  All I knew was that moving in terms of inches didn’t make any sense to me.

4. As I understand it, you originally wanted to call T&T Tunnels & Troglodytes but were overruled by your players. Since then the troll has become the mascot not only of the game itself but of you personally. What is it that you find interesting about trolls, as presented in T&T?

Back in 1975 there was a popular rock and roll song called Troglodyte, or else a group by that name.  I thought it was a tremendously funny word.  Trogs are cave dwellers, and here was this game about exploring caverns and dungeons.  Who would be there to greet our bold explorers?  Troglodytes, of course! 

Well, the Tunnels & Troglodytes name was laughed out of the room the first time I mentioned it at one of our Friday night gaming sessions.  I think it was artist Rob Carver—he who did the illos for the first edition of T&T--who suggested Tunnels & Trolls instead.  It’s not that I was really drawn to trolls—the troll thing sort of jumped up and said, “take me, I’m available”.  There’s a lot of material available in literature about dragons, but relatively little about trolls.  Having gotten stuck with trolls because I wanted the alliterative title for the game, it has just become more and more my thing to champion them.  Maybe because I’m not much of a winner in real life, I’ve always been one to cheer for the underdog.  When you compare trolls to dragons, who comes off as the underdog?  Yeah, trolls do. 

People don’t understand that trolls are not just one kind of monster in T&T.  The word troll could mean a lot of different things to the old Scandinavians.  Inspired by Tolkien, trolls usually means rock trolls in Tunnels & Trolls, creatures of living stone.  Yeah, Tolkien’s trolls were flesh and turned to stone when struck by sunlight, but what if being stone didn’t really stop them?  There are many different kinds of trolls in T&T:  rock trolls, meat trolls—those made of flesh—ice trolls, water trolls, wolf trolls, spider-trolls.

5. Long ago, you described the setting of Tunnels & Trolls as "The Lord of The Rings as it would have been done by Marvel Comics in 1974 with Conan, Elric, the Gray Mouser and a host of bad guys thrown in." I have to admit that that's a really evocative description. Could you elaborate on what you meant by that?

Tunnels and Trolls happened because I was a huge fan of swords and sorcery fiction.  Robert E. Howard was my favorite writer of all time, closely followed by Edgar Rice Burroughs, J.R.R. Tolkien, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock.  I wanted to be a writer.  I wanted to be a swords and sorcery writer more than anything.  Along came this new style of gaming that was all about my favorite kind of fiction.  Conan, Tarzan, Aragorn, the Gray Mouser, and Elric are all heroes. They battle tremendous odds and win.  For them it was never about wargaming—never about achieving superior numbers and power and then crushing the foe.  It was about one vs. many—about defeating the odds, and triumphing despite adversity.  I identified with those heroes because in a way I always saw myself battling against the odds.  I wanted T&T to be that kind of game—a game for heroes.  And so, I never really made any attempt to balance things out.  As a player in a frpg, the odds should be against you.  Cope with it!  Triumph anyway!  That’s what makes a game memorable and fun.

6. Does that mean you have no interest in questions of game mechanical  "balance" when creating adventures for T&T?

I wouldn’t say no interest in mechanical balance of the game, but not very much.  Obviously the challenge has to be appropriate to the power of the delvers, but not really.  It’s a self-correcting thing.  If the GM always makes adventures that are too hard for his players, the players should get wise and quit gaming with that guy.  I like to think that T&T is more about actually role-playing through situations.  Liz Danforth used to call it role-playing as opposed to "roll-playing."

So one rule I made for the sake of balance was that no character type could have a Speed multiplier greater than one.  I want all the Kindred types to be on more-or-less equal ground when it comes to reaction time, because super speed is perhaps the greatest super power around.  But aside from that, there really aren’t any limits in terms of game rules as to what a player or a GM can do.  Another unbalanced rule is that the G.M. is God—he/she can do pretty much whatever they want to make the adventure work.  My in-game bosses and dungeon-masters are gods.  Gristlegrim the Dwarf God, Lerotra’hh the Death Goddess, Arahk Gnahk, the culture bringer of the uruks and many another.  Deus ex Machina—yes, all the time.  Game balance is, in my humble opinion, good for people who want little internally consistent models that run on their own power.  You wind up with things like Knights of the Dinner Table where the GM is so tied up in rules that he must follow that I’m surprised they ever manage to get through an adventure.

Some T&T players have worked out rules for balancing the toughness of the monsters in their adventures to the size and toughness of the adventuring party.  Good for them!  I don’t do that, and you won’t see those formulas enshrined in the official T&T rules.  My number one rule is “What’s reasonable under the circumstances?”  Is it a swamp full of Goblins with one Goblin about equal to one first level delver?  So, if I have six delvers, do I limit myself to attacks by only six or seven Goblins?  Goblins in the wild are like other hunter-gatherer peoples.  They do their hunting alone or in small groups—large groups scare away the prey.  Our six delvers meet some fishergoblins in the swamp.  The odds are six to two.  Goblins don’t have a chance if they stand and fight.  That’s okay.  Later, our delvers stumble into a goblin village with 40 active adults living there, and make them mad.  Now the odds are 40 to 6 in favor of the Goblins.  I’m not going to balance these encounters out so that our 6 delvers always meet about 6 goblins.  What’s reasonable?  Not, what balances?
 
7. You're among only a handful of early RPG designers who not only still owns and controls the game he created nearly 40 years ago but is actively involved in its continued development. How did this happen? Did you make a conscious effort, back in 1975, to ensure that T&T remained in your hands?

Yes, I did make that effort.  Back in 1975, when Rick Loomis first had success with selling my extra copies of T&T at a game convention, he offered to buy it from me outright—for some trivial sum I can’t remember.  I didn’t have any money at the time, and I might have been tempted, but I was thinking like a writer.  I considered it to be writing even back then.  I had gone to the trouble of getting copyright forms, filling them out, and sending them to Library of Congress with my copyright in the first edition.  I wanted royalties.  I knew what had happened to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster with Superman.  I knew they had lost control of their creation.  I had no idea whether T&T would ever amount to anything, but just in case it did, I wanted my name to be attached to it.

Then again, perhaps T&T has never been important enough to cause anyone to make a serious attempt to take it away from me.  It’s not like Hasbro ever came and offered me any money to give up the rights.  Heck, if a big game compnny offered me $100,000 or more, I”d sell my copyright in a heartbeat.  I don’t suppose you get credit for resisting temptation if you’re never tempted.  (grin).

And anyway, I don’t really control T&T.  I’m associated with the game because I never quit writing, playing, and promoting it, but I don’t believe I own it.  Tunnels & Trolls has a life of its own.

8. Though you're most well known as the creator of Tunnels & Trolls, my personal favorite design of yours is Stormbringer, which you co-wrote with Steve Perrin. Can you briefly describe how you wound up working on this game?

Greg Stafford and I are friends from way back.  The rpg I most admire is Runequest—it’s brilliant, wacky, individual.  We talked to each other and gamed together once in a while at California gaming cons like DundraCon.  Somehow I heard that Greg had gotten the rights to do a game based on the Elric stories of Michael Moorcock.  I was then, and am now, a big fan of Mr. Moorcock.  I wrote to Greg and talked to him on the phone and simply asked to do the game.  Rudy Kraft was also interested in doing it.  We both submitted proposals for the kind of game we would write.  Greg picked mine, and assigned Steve Perrin as editor on the project.  Steve was a big help to me in writing the game.  He contributed a lot of good ideas, and I wound up suggesting that he get a co-credit as game author, although I did almost all of the writing.

9. Are there any gaming or gaming-related projects you've not yet gotten  the chance to do but would like to?  That's it.

There are so many gaming projects that I would have liked to do, or wanted to do and didn’t get the go-ahead on.  When Magic: the Gathering first came out I very quickly came to see the possibilities of such a game.  I really wanted to do a T&T cardgame based on the Magic the Gathering paradigm.  I created my own card dungeon—Gristlegrim--with each room described in just enough detail to allow the Game Master to flesh it out and roleplay encounters within them.  I made a deck of monster cards of varying toughness to use against the delvers in a random fashion.  I envisioned not my ugly hand-written prototype, but a slick set of dungeon “tiles” and monster cards and trap cards and magic cards and weapon cards and treasure cards that could be mixed and matched in infinite combinations, all playing under the basic T&T rules which could also be summarized on a couple of cards.  Quite a few companies have done such projects now, but I swear to you, James, that I had the idea for it ten to twenty years ahead of everyone else.  We couldn’t do it.  Printing card decks was/is expensive.  Flying Buffalo didn’t have the money for it.  I certainly didn’t.  Window of opportunity passed and it never happened.  I even toyed with the idea of collectible monsters and weapons à la MTG.

Another game I wanted to do and still want to do is a simple dice game called Fantasy Armies.  The basic idea is that each fantasy race is represented by a different kind of dice.  Human would be D6 creatures with numbers ranging from 1 to 6 on the sides.  Dwarves might be D4 creatures, but the numbers would all be multiples of 2, so a face would not have a 1, 2, and 3 on it, but would have 2, 4, and 6.  Another face would have 4, 6, 8.  The third face would show 6, 8, 10, and the fourth would show 8, 10, 12.  I had it all worked out for more than a dozen different races.  No one but me seems to like the idea. 

I have dozens of ideas for games I’d like to do.  Some spin off from T&T, and others have nothing to do with it.  I had a game idea based on E.E. Doc Smith’s Lensman novels called Lords of the Spectrum—mostly about warring fleets battling each other in interstellar space.  It will never see the light of day. 

I guess I’m lucky to have had as much success as I have had with games like Tunnels & Trolls, Monsters! Monsters!, Stormbringer, and Wasteland.  I can’t really complain if all my ideas don’t come to fruition.