Before the OSR

I must confess it still baffles me that, even after all these years, the nature of the Old School Renaissance remains a matter of contention in some quarters. Given that, I suppose it should be no surprise that there's no universally accepted start date for the OSR, though I think a good case can be made for 2007 or 2008. I favor 2007 myself, though 2008 is also a good choice, since it's the year in which Gary Gygax died, as well as the year in which old school blogs really exploded in number and influence. 2008 is also, not insignificantly, the year in which the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons was published and I think we'd be remiss in overlooking 4e as a symbolic Bright Red Line. The OSR owed much of its early energy to the shudders of revulsion many felt at the marketing campaign that presaged Fourth Edition's arrival.

One of the reasons a start date is difficult to pin down is that, prior to both the dates I mention above, no less than three significant rules sets inspired by old school Dungeons & Dragons appeared. To varying degrees, each one exists outside the OSR ecosystem, despite the fact that the OSR owes huge debts of thanks to all three. Without their trailblazing examples, I'm not sure retro-clones would have existed, or, if they had, they might well have appeared later or taken different forms than they did. 

The first of these was Castles & Crusades, first published by Troll Lord Games in 2004. Though I do not play it, I have a personal affection for C&C, since it was my gateway to old school gaming. Like a lot of people, I'd returned to playing D&D in 2000, with the publication of Third Edition. Also like a lot of people, I grew tired of 3e and was looking for an alternative to its ponderousness. C&C was the very first game I checked out in my quest, having been drawn there due to Gary Gygax's association with Troll Lords. The designers of C&C were, I think, among the first people to recognize that Wizards of the Coast's Open Game License (OGL) and System Reference Document (SRD) gave publishers the raw materials from which to rebuild something akin to AD&D. 

While one can quibble about the final result, C&C was close enough for my tastes at the time that I readily embraced it. More importantly, the game eschewed all the skills, feats, prestige classes, and other cruft that made Third Edition such cumbersome mess. Better still, C&C built up an active, enthusiastic, and imaginative community around itself. Reading the C&C forums was joyous: every other thread wasn't devoted to dissecting the rules or arguing over the best way to "build" a character. People were just playing the game and having fun doing it. As a new refugee from WotC D&D, this was revelatory and I'll always be grateful for it.

Around the same time, I also came across the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game (BFRPG), which was first published in 2006. Basic Fantasy takes a similar tack to C&C, in that it leverages the OGL and SRD to recreate a defunct edition of Dungeons & Dragons, in this case, as its name suggests, the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert rules. BFRPG went farther, in my opinion, than C&C in using WotC's resources to present a game that played like its inspirations. This was important, because it demonstrated just how much could be done with the OGL and SRD if you were determined to do so.

BFRPG is significant in another way. Castles & Crusades was the invention of Troll Lord Games and some aspects of its design, such as the Siege Engine core mechanic, remained proprietary, which limited the ability of third parties to support it. By contrast, everything about BFRPG is completely "open," allowing anyone and everyone to add to it as they wished. Even more, the game's site actively promotes supplements and adventures produced by others, which is the same spirit I associate strongly with the earliest days of the OSR, when ideas flew fast and furious and everyone involved was sharing and promoting one another's wacky ideas. 

Also released in 2006 was the Old School Reference and Index Compilation, better known as OSRIC. The original purpose of OSRIC was to provide a legal framework for the creation of adventures and supplements to support Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. However, because, at the time, AD&D was no longer readily available, except through the second hand market, some gamers began to use OSRIC as its own ruleset, playing it rather than using it for its original purpose. In doing so, OSRIC effectively became the first retro-clone.

OSRIC went far beyond C&C and BFRPG in terms of its willingness to make use of the content of the SRD to recreate an earlier edition of D&D. Indeed, at the time it was first released, there was some concern that Wizards of the Coast might object and take legal action to suppress it. OSRIC was thus the veritable canary in the coalmine. Because no legal action occurred, it emboldened others to follow suit and, within a couple of years, there were many retro-clones released. Without the boldness of OSRIC, that might never have happened.

Nowadays, I don't see as much talk about Castles & Crusades, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, or OSRIC as I once did, but the fact remains that the contemporary OSR owes a great debt to each of these pioneering games. Without them, I doubt we'd where we are today.

Castle Keepers Guide Released At Last

I've had several people point me toward this thread over at the Troll Lord Games forums, where there would appear to be visual proof that the Castle Keepers Guide for Castles & Crusades actually exists. I know that's hard to believe, since the book has been delayed repeatedly since the middle of the last decade. I haven't seen a copy myself, so I can't provide any details about its length, contents, or quality, but I'm glad for C&C players that it's finally finished and available.

Mind you, this news doesn't mean a lot to me personally. My brief flirtation with Castles & Crusades was back in 2006, when I abandoned D&D III and started looking for an alternative. I still have fond feelings for C&C, since it was what helped me realize that what I really wanted was not a simplified 3e with some old school chrome but the real McCoy. That's why, in 2007, I turned to OD&D and wound up where I am today and I owe that to Castles & Crusades.

That probably doesn't sound like a compliment, but I sincerely mean it as such. C&C, even moreso than Third Edition, made me realize what I actually like about and want out of Dungeons & Dragons. Without it, I probably would have given up on D&D altogether.

REVIEW: 100 More Calamitous Curses

If the late James Brown was the hardest working man in show business, then James Mishler may be the hardest working man in the old school movement. In recent weeks, he's produced a flurry of new PDF products for Castles & Crusades (all of which I'll be reviewing over the next few days), but the one that really solidifies my awe at his industry is 100 More Calamitous Curses, the sequel to his previous 100 Calamitous Curses, which I reviewed earlier this year.

Most of what I'd say about this product I already said in my review of its predecessor. Once again, Mishler has come up with 100 inventive curses for the delectation of the referee and the dismay of players. If anything, the curses in this product are even more clever than those in the earlier release. They're certainly far more complex, which undoubtedly explains why 100 More Calamitous Curses is 15 pages in length -- three pages longer than 100 Calamitous Curses. The increased word count has also led to an increased price. This product sells for $3.00 compared to the $2.50 (discounted to $1.00 for the moment) of the original.

100 More Calamitous Curses is ostensibly a Castles & Crusades product, but the game mechanics are light enough that referees of almost any fantasy roleplaying game will be able to use them without much difficulty. This isn't a "must have" product, particularly if you haven't yet exhausted all the curses in its predecessor. But, as I said of low-level adventures, you can never have too many random tables when running an old school campaign. Likewise, there are so many clever ideas contained within the descriptions of these curses that they could easily be pressed into other uses by referees, such as spells, magic items, or even special attacks by monsters. 100 More Calamitous Curses is a veritable goldmine of inspiration and is heartily recommended.

Presentation: 6 out of 10
Creativity: 9 out of 10
Utility: 8 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for even more ideas for unpleasant magical effects to inflict on the player characters.

Don't Buy This If: You don't like curses or already have enough ideas for them in your campaign.

REVIEW: 100 Calamitous Curses

There are lots of things one can focus on when trying to pinpoint specific game mechanics that separate old school games from their modern descendants -- save or die effects and level draining are two of the most popular ones. Strangely, I almost never hear anyone mention curses. Back in the day, cursed magic items were pretty commonplace -- about one out of every ten scrolls or swords, for example, was cursed -- which is why both magic-users and clerics got the remove curse spell in OD&D. Curses were a standard part of the referee's bag of tricks and players understood the need to be wary when picking up that cool new sword you looted from the troll lair or reading that scroll you found on the dead body floating in the subterranean lake.

If there was a problem with curses, it was that, after a while, it became increasingly hard to come up with new and interesting ones. Volume 2 of OD&D, for example, provides exactly five sample curses for use in the game. Now, five is better than none, but, if a campaign lasts long enough, odds are you're going to use up all those options and how many more times do your players want to see their characters transported to Barsoom as a result of a cursed scroll? That's where the relentless James Mishler's 100 Calamitous Curses comes in. For $2.50, Mishler gives you just what the title promises: 100 different curses for use with your favorite fantasy RPG. Though written for Castles & Crusades, like so many of Adventure Games Publishing's products, this 12-page PDF is effectively system-neutral. There's only a small amount of C&C-specific game mechanics in the text, so little that I don't hesitate to recommend it to any referee who's looking for new and unusual curses to add to his campaign.

And what curses! I've commented many times before that James Mishler has a real knack for creating game material with a decidedly swords-and-sorcery vibe. 100 Calamitous Curses is no different. Consider just two curses:

• Curse of Unquenchable Thirst: The accursed one is always thirsty, and must drink a gallon of water every hour. If in hot dry weather or during exertion (such as extended combat), the accursed one must drink two gallons per hour. Every gallon missed the accursed one suffers one point of subdual damage, which cannot be healed naturally or by magic until she catches up on all the missed water.
• Curse of the Ghoulish Gourmand: The accursed one develops a taste for the flesh of humans, demihumans, and humanoids, but especially those of his own race. This is first noticed when he is within 10 feet of a corpse, which to the accursed one smells like an irresistible well-seasoned and perfectly-grilled steak. The accursed one must make a Charisma check each time he encounters a new corpse (with a -2 penalty for the flesh of his own race), or he decides to succumb to temptation and tucks in without worry for cooking or seasoning (though he still seeks to do so surreptitiously, if others can see). After failing and consuming such flesh a number of times equal to his Constitution score, he is hooked, and can only subsist on such flesh; all other foods are regurgitated or simply provide no sustenance. Thereafter for every day he goes without the flesh such a being he suffers 1d6 points of subdual damage, which cannot heal naturally or be cured by magic until he once again consumed forbidden flesh.

And there are 98 more curses in this product, many of them even more inventive than these two examples. This really is a remarkably useful product for old school fantasy games. I know I'll get a lot of use out of it and I expect I'll not be alone. Once again, a superb piece of work from James Mishler and AGP.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 polearms

REVIEW: 100 Exciting Encounters & 100 Treasure Troves

I'm not usually a big fan of PDF products. Oh, I'll buy them, mostly because they're cheap and provide almost instant gratification, but it's rare that I find the format sufficiently better to traditional printing that I find myself thinking, "I'm glad this product is a PDF." Adventure Games Publishing's recent offerings are rare examples of products that do get me thinking just that.

Taking a page from D&D's past, James Mishler has produced two excellent products modeled on TSR's Monster & Treasure Assortment. The first, entitled 100 Exciting Encounters -- 1st Level Encounters presents 100 full-statted encounters suitable for use against a party of 1st-level characters. Of course, as Mishler notes, "some encounters are designed to be rather tough; however, at some point early in their careers all characters should learn that discretion is the better part of valor and that it is better to run away to live and fight another day!" If I hadn't already liked the idea behind the product in the first place, this comment certainly would have won me over!

The second product, entitled 100 Treasure Troves -- Treasure Type 1, follows a similar format, being a collection of 100 treasures of the sort one might reasonably encounter on the 1st level of a dungeon. The treasure are a mix of coins, gems, art objects, and miscellanea, as well as the occasional magic item. One of such magic item -- a wand -- is cursed but it's the kind of cursed item that generates a lot of fun, as the players try to come to grips with its peculiar malediction. Mishler has a real flair for creating dangerous but enjoyable magic items, as I noted in an earlier review; I hope to see more of his handiwork on this topic in the future.

Both PDFs use a simple simple, straightforward layout that is effectively a gigantic table numbered 1-100, so the referee can randomly generate encounters and treasures for use in populating his dungeons or wilderness areas. There's no art in either product, but that's not really a drawback, since there's no need for illustrations here. These products are meant to be used -- printed out, stuck in a referee's binder, and written on as the encounters and treasures are introduced in play, just like the old Monster & Treasure Assortment.

Both products are written with Castles & Crusades in mind, like all of AGP's products. That means that 100 Exciting Encounters requires a small bit of conversion if you use it with a different game, because the stat blocks use the ascending armor class system I so dislike. Granted, it's a small matter to convert them into the traditional D&D system, but it is an inconvenience worth mentioning. 100 Treasure Troves has no such problem, being completely usable without any modifications.

The old Monster & Treasure Assortment is still available as a PDF, but it's more expensive than these two products combined, so, if saving a couple of bucks is a concern, you might be better off grabbing AGP's offerings, particularly if you're playing C&C. Myself, I use both in populating Dwimmermount, as I find variety is never a bad thing. Indeed, one of the often-forgotten dangers of designing a megadungeon is falling into ruts, which is all too easy when dealing with dozens of rooms per level. By having not one but two collections of random monster encounters and treasures, I can avoid that more easily. Consequently, I heartily recommend 100 Exciting Encounters and 100 Treasure Troves to anyone running an old school campaign; they'll both save you a lot of time and effort better spent on creating fiendish tricks and traps and what referee wouldn't rather be doing that?

Final Score:

100 Exciting Encounters -- 1st Level Encounters: 4* out of 5 polearms
100 Treasure Troves -- Treasure Type 1: 4½ out of 5 polearms

*Judged solely on its broad old school utility. As a C&C product, it probably rates a 4½ out of 5.

Upper Works Response

Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works writer and developer Jeff Talanian dropped me an email in response to my recent review. He was kind enough to give me permission to post it here for everyone to read. He writes:

Thank you for taking the time to review Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. I appreciate the time and effort you put into sharing your opinions with your usual articulate and thoughtful manner. I must bear full responsibility for most of your content-related criticisms, for I was provided much latitude in the design and development of Gary's famous work, for good or ill. I understood the expectations were high, and I accepted the responsibility knowing that my resources were limited and that Gary's health was in a severe decline; notwithstanding, I peppered him with emails throughout the process, seeking his advice in matters small and large. Essentially, James, I did what I feel was my best work at that time, given the circumstances. I am proud of the work, and I make no excuses for all the warts CZ:UW no doubt bears. Noting your criticisms (not all of which I agree with, of course!), those of Allan Grohe, and other gaming peers whom I respect, I hope to turn my design and development weakness into strengths so as to produce better adventures in the future. Again, thank you.

I would also like to thank Jeff for all the hard work he did in trying to do justice to this project, particularly given the circumstances under which he no doubt worked. Although I am less pleased with the end result than I had hoped I would be, I remain glad to have picked up The Upper Works. There's a lot of good contained within its pages and I'll certainly be swiping bits of it for my own megadungeon, which I mean to be a high compliment. In addition, I have no doubt that, without Jeff's tireless labor, we'd never have seen as much of Castle Zagyg as we did. We are all in his debt for that. I sincerely look forward to his future products, as I have every reason to expect great things from him.

REVIEW: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (Part III of III)

As I noted in Part II, I like Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. I believe it's a very fine product and well worth the money I spent on it. I also think it's a fitting capstone to Gary Gygax's life and career, even if it's a somewhat melancholy one. I say "melancholy," because TUW is a textbook example of opportunities missed and promises unfulfilled. While it is still, by any measure, a worthy product and a truly Gygaxian one, it could have been better than it was. There's a host of "could have beens" associated with this product and I'd like to talk about several of them to give a better context for my final review of TUW.

1. Timeliness: As we now know, TUW will be the last product of the Castle Zagyg line published by Troll Lord Games. That it was also, by most standards, also the first product in the line to attempt to make good on what most fans expected from it only makes this fact harder to accept. I understand that at least some of the delays in getting TUW to press were not TLG's fault. A combination of factors, no doubt including Gary's failing health, contributed to its tardiness. By the same token, had the projct been better managed from the start, with a realistic timetable and a fewer about-faces in terms of content and format, there's a chance we might have seen more than TUW in the four years since the project was first announced. A good portion of my dissatisfaction with TUW stems from the fact that, after all these years, it's all we've managed to see of the megadungeon I had hoped we'd have seen by now.

2. Appearance and Organization: Being an old schooler, I'm quite accustomed to amateurish products and indeed have a certain affection for them. At the same time, there are many companies out there that have managed to produce attractive and well organized materials without having the resources of Wizards of the Coast. TUW should have been treated like the prestige product that it clearly is. Its organization should have included at the very least an index and better cross-referencing and I don't think it's asking too much in expecting an overview of the entirety of the Castle and its levels. TUW is packed with information -- which is a good thing! -- but it's not particularly user friendly, especially compared to products like Rappan Athuk Reloaded or Castle Whiterock, both of which are larger and yet easier to use. Likewise, TUW's box is flimsy; mine is already splitting after very little use and its pasted-on cover is starting to peel and crack. All these complaints are minor in themselves and I'd have quite happily overlooked them, but, in aggregate, they contribute to the impression of a product made with less care than it ought to have been.

3. Historicity: I had hoped that Castle Zagyg would have taken an approach closer to Rob Kuntz's products, such as The Living Room and The Original Bottle City. In those products, Kuntz not only presented a reconstruction of material from his days as co-DM of the Greyhawk campaign, but also commentary on the origins of this material and how it was used, including reminiscences of events from those days. In some cases, this made the material very "modular," which is to say, disconnected from its original environment, but it also made the material far more useful for referees hoping to drop it into their existing campaigns. Furthermore, it made the material of terrific interest to people whose primary attraction to it is in gleaning insights into the early days of the hobby, not to mention details of one of the oldest fantasy campaigns in existence. Granted, there was never much chance that the Castle Zagyg line was going to adopt this approach. Anyone who'd read Yggsburgh could have seen that. Gary himself stated on numerous occasions that he didn't favor treating the Castle as a "historical" product. I think this was an error in judgment on his part, if only because I don't think historicity need get in the way of gameability. Indeed, I think a greater emphasis on historicity would have made the material of wider interest and greater gameability, particularly for old schoolers such as myself. Again, it's probably unfair to judge TUW too harshly because it didn't adhere to a model that its creator rejected, but I can't deny I held out hope that he might have changed his mind in the course of writing it.

4. Completeness: In itself, TUW contains everything it promises. It does detail all of the Upper Works of Castle Zagyg. Unfortunately, the Upper Works aren't where the Castle "lives." They're, at best, a tantalizing glimpse of what lies beneath them, a sideshow that briefly holds our attention before we move on to bigger and better things. Jim Ward notes that, in the original Greyhawk campaign, the Upper Works occupied very little of the players' attention, because the subterranean levels were far more lucrative and intriguing. I find it hard not to feel the same way. Were it not for the fact that the Upper Works are all that have been described, I rather suspect that most adventuring parties would imitate their Lake Geneva predecessors and delve deeper, lured on by the promise of sights more exciting than endless humanoid barracks and store rooms. To be fair, there is much more to the Upper Works than these things, but, taken as a whole, the feeling I come away with is that TUW describes only a handful of truly memorable encounters and a whole lot of filler intended to keep players busy until such time as the Real Dungeon is published. Alas, it never will be, at least not by TLG -- and that's deeply frustrating.

As you can see, my complaints are, in large part, extraneous to the actual product itself, having more to do with what I wish had been the case rather than what is. For me, TUW, like the entire Castle Zagyg line, is timid and mundane when it should have been daring and otherworldly. TLG and Gary clearly decided to "play it safe" in presenting the Castle and I can't shake the feeling that this approach was unwise. Had TUW (and Yggsburgh before it) treated us to lots of commentary, historical context, and vintage Gygaxian lunacy, I would likely have deemed the entire line a glorious failure cut short by the vagaries of licensing. As it is, what we have is a solid -- dare I say "workmanlike?" -- product with occasional moments of brilliance. TUW has a kind of watered-down, washed-out feel to it, as if it were a copy of a copy of a copy. You can still see the artistry of the original piece of art, but it's muted compared to what it must have looked like fresh from the brush of the Master. Instead of being grateful that the original was preserved, however badly damaged it was from the toll of years, I found myself thinking it far less impressive than the stories I had read of it from those who saw it in its glory.

My hope is that Gygax Games, now that it has reclaimed the license, will take a new tack in any future publication of materials relating to Castle Greyhawk. There are many valid approaches a company could take that would, I think, do justice to this most famous of megadungeons. My own preference is for an approach similar to that adopted by Rob Kuntz in his own work, with additional input from members of the old Greyhawk campaign, where possible. This approach would almost certainly run counter to the tastes of modern gamers, but then I don't think Castle Greyhawk was ever likely to appeal to modern tastes and it was a fool's errand to ever think it could. Perhaps the best approach is to treat Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg primarily as a document of historical interest rather than as a complete, ready-to-play "mega-adventure." Such an approach would be truest to the spirit of the Lake Geneva campaign back in the day and also the most realistic as a publishing project. Anything more would, I fear, reduce Gary's legacy to a mere brand -- which isn't to say it won't happen. Even TLG was heading in that direction, as they dubbed the line "Gary Gygax's Castle Zagyg."

As far removed as we are in time from the days of the Greyhawk campaign, it's well-nigh impossible to produce a definitive version of the Castle that fulfills 30+ years of hopes and dreams. It would be best, I think, not even to try to do so and it's here that TUW's reach exceeds its grasp. By aiming for a playable Gestalt approach to the megadungeon, it winds up being less than the sum of its parts, at least as far as I'm concerned. It's lacking both in the expansiveness necessary to make me overlook its disconnection from history and in historical depth to make me overlook its smallness. For some, these are probably not flaws and the middle of the road approach adopted in Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works hits a sweet spot that neither of my preferences would have done. I certainly recognize that my own tastes are idiosyncratic and far from widespread, even among old schoolers, most of whom seem to like this product far more than I do. Even I, for all my complaints and nitpicks, can't grade it too harshly. I remain unmoved from my repeated assertion that I am glad I own this and find much good in it, but I am equally unmoved from my belief that, as the final work from the pen of the Dungeon Master, it's disappointing on numerous levels. Gygax Games has one more chance to fulfill the promise this megadungeon holds. Let's see if they do so.

Final Score: 3½ out of 5 polearms

REVIEW: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (Part II of III)

As I noted in Part I, Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works consists of six staple-bound booklets and three glossy maps. I'd like to comment first on the physical qualities of these items before diving into a more detailed discussion of their contents. I think it's fair to say that TUW is by far the best looking and presented product Troll Lord Games has ever made. It's very clear to me that they quite correctly saw this boxed set as a prestige product and made every effort to avoid the past mistakes of earlier TLG offerings, many of which are legendary in their production missteps. That's not to say that TUW is entirely free of the gaffes I've come to expect from TLG -- there are typos, omissions, and other editorial infelicities to be found throughout, but none that I came across struck me as anything more than the kinds of errors one might reasonably expect from a product of this size and scope. Cory M. Coserta is listed as the editor for TUW and he deserves a debt of thanks for his work on it.

The five booklets containing the descriptions of the Upper Works all use the same workmanlike two-column layout that TLG seems to use for all its products. It's not pretty but it's quite serviceable, particularly given the density of the text itself, which uses a very small typeface. The text is broken up by black and white art drawn by TLG stalwart Peter Bradley and Jason Walton. Of the two, I found that Walton's work was by far more to my liking. There's a sameness to Bradley's pieces that reminds me a bit of Elmore's later work, whereas Walton's pieces have a "rougher" and slightly cartoonish look that somehow struck me as more appropriate to the subject matter. Ironically, Bradley's color work for the covers of the booklets were much more in a vein I like. Art, of course, is highly subjective, so I certainly won't hold my own opinions against TUW.

On the other hand, I will hold cartographic errors against TUW. Aside from lots of minor but inconvenient issues, such as inconsistent map symbols, there are a number of missing or misnumbered locations. Likewise, there are places where the maps contradict the text or where the maps were drawn in a way that I found difficult to follow. In a location-based product of this size, I would have hoped that greater care would have been taken to ensure that the maps were made as exactingly as possible and that their presentation would aid the referee in their use. The sense I get, though, is that this project was just a little too big for TLG's resources and, while they put forward a solid effort, it still wasn't quite as professional as TUW demanded.

Two more brief points before proceeding: TUW includes neither an overview of the entire Castle nor an index. In themselves, neither omission is ruinous, but their lack contributed to the "drip, drip" in the back of my brain, slowly wearing down my enthusiasm for this product. An index would certainly have made using TUW much easier and an overview of the entire Castle would have given some much needed context to the material we were given in the boxed set. Combined with the unnecessary contrivance of the "Curse of Fog & Frogs," this made me wonder exactly how much of Castle Zagyg had been completed at the time TUW was published.

1. Mouths of Madness: This is the first of the six booklets included with TUW. 44 pages in length, it details the wilderness surrounding Castle Zagyg, including the eponymous Mouths of Madness, a collection caves in which dwell several different types of humanoids and other monsters. If that sounds remarkably like the set-up for Keep on the Borderlands, I'm sure that's no accident. Despite the nostalgia this elicited, I found Book 1 to be one of the weakest bits of TUW, consisting mostly of repetitive humanoid encounters. There are a number of memorable bits -- the ogre's cottage, the gateway to Barsoom -- and several references to fabled locales (such as the Black Reservoir), but these were few and far between. I suppose it didn't help that TLG had already sold me this booklet in the previously-released Eastmark Gazetteer, but I can't say I found much here that excited my imagination or inspired me.

2. Ruins of the Castle Precincts: This 48-page booklet was much more to my liking, both because it deals directly with the Castle's grounds and because the encounters within it were varied and generally interesting. There is a goodly supply of tricks, traps, and diversions amongst its monster encounters, as well as snippets of Greyhawk lore (with the serial numbers filed off, of course). It's here that you catch glimpses of the whimsy and mercilessness that are Gygaxian trademarks. There's also a fitting -- if heavy-handed -- tribute to Gary himself in the form of a goblin cobbler that seems all the more poignant in the wake of his death.

3. East Wall Towers: At 20 pages, this is the shortest of the booklets, but it hits well above its weight category in terms of allusions to Greyhawk lore. Here we encounter the brothers of the Crimson Hand, as well as a shrine to a "celestial deity" that includes a number of nice twists and turns.

4. Castle Fortress: This 44-page booklet is another excellent one, detailing the ruins of Zagyg's old surface fortress. This area of the Castle contains a goodly mix of encounters, some of them quite memorable and challenging. According to the introduction, which includes quotes from Lake Geneva campaign regular (and Gamma World designer) Jim Ward, these ruins received very little exploration in the original campaign, as the subterranean levels had "more and bigger loot," to quote The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. Consequently, the material here is potentially quite new, in the sense that it has never before been even hinted at in earlier accounts of the Lake Geneva adventures. I found this booklet held my attention for quite some time, as I read and re-read it for details I might have missed. There's lots of inspiration to be found here.

5. Store Rooms: Another 44-page booklet, it's a mixed bag, with several interesting encounters and far too many rooms filled with humanoids barracks, armories, and storage chambers. It's probably unfair to have expected anything more from it, given its name, but I did feel a mite disappointed. I'm a fan of Gygaxian naturalism, as you know, but this section of TUW proved fairly dull because of it. The book concludes with many new magic items, monsters, and a fully-statted rival adventuring party, the latter being a very nice old school touch that I greatly appreciated.

Maps & Illustrations Booklet: 36 pages in length, 20 of them is devoted to maps of the Upper Works. I've already mentioned my feelings about them above. The remainder is a series of 33 illustrations (all by Jason Walton) that are presumably intended to be shown to players at appropriate times, after the fashion of the illustration booklets of TSR modules of old. I was very taken by many of these pieces, as they nicely highlight the whimsical and deadly nature of the Castle. Just looking through them is a terrific antidote for anyone who, like me, tends to look down on the unique pleasures of funhouse dungeons. In some ways, I found it the most inspirational portion of TUW.

Taken as a whole, TUW didn't shake that "drip, drip" feeling I noted earlier. Part of it was that my own expectations for this boxed set were unreasonably high. I had hoped that we'd actually get to see something of the fabled dungeons, not just the areas immediately above them. Clearly, that was never the plan and I can't hold TLG accountable for that. Gary Gygax likewise decided that, rather than attempt to recreate one of several versions of Castle Greyhawk from the past, he would instead create a new castle that was a distillation of all of them that was at the same time none of them -- a kind of Gestalt. This was certainly not my own preference, but, again, I can't blame TLG for this, since it should have been clear, after having read Yggsburgh, that the best I could hope for was an "impressionistic" approach to the Castle and its levels.

Even so, TUW felt "small" and I don't just mean in the sense of its expanse, although it certainly did seem far smaller in size than I'd have expected. Rather, it felt as if there was a great deal missing from it -- its "heart," if you will. What we got in this boxed set certainly had lots of Gygaxian flourishes to it. It was hard not to recognize the spirit of the Dungeon Master hovering above it. Yet, it also had many other hovering spirits and, while I can't quite put my finger on all of them, their presence at all made me feel that TUW wasn't as good as it could have -- should have -- been.

It's not as if there's not a lot to like here, because there is. I know I'll be swiping portions of it for use in my own Dwimmermount campaign. However, I was never moved to try to and run TUW straight out of the box. Indeed, I found TUW wanting compared even to the notes that loremeister Allan Grohe has assembled on his webpage. Certainly, TUW is more "complete" in the sense of containing more statted up encounters, treasures, and so forth, but there's a very real sense in which that attempt at completeness works against it. For one thing, TUW isn't complete; it's only one very small part of a much larger megadungeon that still hasn't seen publication yet. For another, it doesn't invite the kind of tinkering and personal modifications that, say, Rob Kuntz's Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign products do, which perhaps says more about my own expectations than it does about the weakness of TUW, but there it is.

In the end, I like Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. It's a worthy product and one I'm glad to own. But I don't love it; it didn't knock my socks off and I had hoped that it would. Again, maybe that's unfair, which is why the final part of this review will be a discussion of what I had hoped I would see and what that means not just for this product, but for any future publications of Gygax-derived material.

REVIEW: Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works (Part I of III)

Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works -- or, more precisely, Gary Gygax's Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works -- is the coda that brings the symphony of Gary Gygax's game writing to a melancholy conclusion. Consisting of six staple-bound booklets (varying in length from 20 to 48 pages) and three glossy maps in a large box, The Upper Works (hereinafter abbreviated TUW) is available from Troll Lord Games for $44.95 until the end of December 2008, after which TLG's license to publish and sell it and other Gary Gygax-related products ends. This had made TUW an instant collector's item for devotees of the late Dungeon Master. And collector's item it ought to be, for TUW is a remarkable, if flawed, piece of work. These flaws do not, I think, diminish the remarkable achievement Gygax and his protégé, Jeff Talanian, have given to the gaming world, but they do contribute to the lingering sense of time wasted and promises unfulfilled that swirl around Gary's gaming legacy.

Gamers have been waiting to see the fabled levels of Castle Greyhawk since 1980 at least, when Gygax indicated that TSR would be publishing them in an upcoming module. Since then, no such module has ever appeared, although numerous products supposedly connected to Castle Greyhawk have been published. Gygax was involved in the writing of none of them and the relationship of even the best of them to the megadungeon of the original Lake Geneva campaign is tenuous at best. Consequently, news that Troll Lord Games would be publishing a series of products detailing the renamed "Castle Zagyg" was met with great excitement. That not only Gary Gygax but also Rob Kuntz, co-DM of the Greyhawk campaign, was actively involved in writing these products only heightened the anticipation many felt. At long last, it seemed as if the fabled Holy Grail of fantasy roleplaying was about to be revealed to the world.

Alas, such hopes proved to be misplaced. The first Castle Zagyg products appeared in 2005, consisting of the 250-page hardcover Yggsburgh by Gygax, detailing a large settlement near Castle Zagyg and the surrounding wilderness, and the 40-page softcover module Dark Chateau by Rob Kuntz, detailing the ruined and abandoned former abode of the Mad Archmage himself. Anyone who read these early products with clear eyes could have seen warning signs that the Castle Zagyg project would likely never see completion nor would it fulfill the fondest hopes of gamers. Yggsburgh, while a worthy product in many respects and full of trademark Gygaxian goodness, offered little to nothing in the way of new information about the fabled Castle nor about the campaign whose centerpiece it was. Dark Chateau hinted at much but was ultimately constrained by the fact that it was quite clearly a "space filler," a bone thrown to gamers while they chomped at the bit for the main course of Castle Zagyg itself.

It took two more years before additional Castle Zagyg products appeared -- the East Mark Gazetteer and the "City Expansions" series -- but none of these new products detailed the Castle and most of them contained not a word of Gygaxian prose, instead focusing on the ever more minute details of Yggsburgh. TLG in fact planned to produce 19 separate products describing each of Yggsburgh's districts. Of these, only four were ever published. Again, it was an omen of things to come and in more ways than one. Along the way Rob Kuntz removed himself from involvement with the project, with several explanations from several sources being offered for this turn of events, but, in retrospect, it seems most plausible that it was disagreements about the direction of Castle Zagyg that were the most pertinent. When TUW finally debuted at GenCon 2008, I have to admit that I was more than a little surprised. I honestly never expected to see any more Castle Zagyg material, especially since Gary had died almost six months beforehand. I saw no reason to doubt that Castle Zagyg would disappear into the same black hole as the Castle Keeper's Guide and other such announced-but-never-materialized TLG products.

I didn't attend GenCon this year and so I waited to see TUW in one of my local game stores or available for order through an online retailer that didn't treat shipping to Canada as if it were shipping to Antarctica. I never saw either occur and so bit my tongue and ordered directly from TLG at the exorbitant shipping costs they charged to get it to me. Even at that price, I was glad to pay it, because I doubt I would otherwise have ever seen TUW. Fortunately, TLG was prompt in shipping me my copy and it arrived not long after my having ordered it. Despite being in a box, my copy of TUW was not shrink-wrapped, which at first worried me that it might not be intact. My worries proved unfounded, but, when compared to companies like Necromancer Games or Goodman Games, both of which have produced expensive boxed sets over the last few years, I can't help but be a bit disappointed that similar care wasn't taken with TUW as they showed with their products. After all, TUW was clearly meant to be a flagship product for TLG and Castles & Crusades and yet it certainly didn't appear to be treated as such.

Perhaps it's a small thing and I shouldn't think to much of it. Nevertheless, the lack of shrink-wrap suggested to me a kind of slapdash approach that I feared might carry over to the contents of the boxed set itself. Given the history of the Castle Zagyg project up till the release of TUW, I think my concern was justified. In Part II tomorrow, I'll return to this question at length as I discuss the actual contents and presentation of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works. In Part III, I conclude my review with my thoughts on the place of Castle Zagyg in the gaming legacy of Gary Gygax and what the future might (or ought to) hold for Castle Zagyg now that Gygax Games has rescinded its license to Troll Lord Games.

The Plot Thickens

I'm not a regular visitor to the Gygax Games website, in part because the recent announcements regarding the disposition of Gary's unfinished gaming projects left me ill at ease. From the looks of it, the whole thing smacked of a money grab on the part of Mrs Gygax, perhaps egged on by third parties who felt they could take better financial advantage of her late husband's legacy. Nevertheless, I paid a visit to the site yesterday and noticed that a Holiday Greeting, signed by Mrs Gygax, appeared on its front page. Reading through it, I noticed a number of interesting things that, while far from making everything plain, do cast a slightly different light on recent events.

After reminding everyone that it's been nine months since Gary died, Mrs Gygax adds that "I want you all to know, Gary and I discussed his wishes for his works prior to his passing and I am following the road map he left for me. Many of you are unaware how close we were, I was devoted to him." This is intriguing. Firstly, I think it's good to see Mrs Gygax laying claim to this message. Whether or not she actually wrote it, the fact remains that, by speaking directly to the point that what is happening is happening because her husband wanted it to be so, she helps to dispel rumors that she has no idea what is going on and is being manipulated by others. Gail Gygax is now a known quantity rather than some abstraction in the background. Secondly, her mention of a "road map" implies that she's acting on the wishes of Gary himself and it's vital she get people to believe this.

Now, I personally have no difficulty at all in believing that Gary, in the months leading up to his death last March, got all his affairs in order and discussed with his wife what he wanted to be done with his various properties and projects. I recall Gary's frequent allusions to his eventual demise on various message boards as early as the summer of 2007, if not before. I think it highly likely that he did in fact produce some kind of a "road map" for his wife to follow. What is unclear and probably always will be is the actual content of this road map and the extent to which Mrs Gygax is following what is laid out in it. By that I mean that I can believe Gary might have laid out what he wanted to see done with the Castle Zagyg project after his death, but I'm not certain that he specified, for example, that the license be revoked from Troll Lords and given to someone else. I'm not saying it's impossible (and I'll expand my thoughts on this shortly), but I'd like to see more evidence.

Mrs Gygax further explains her role: "To that end, after Gary passed, I asked Spencer Wright and Jon Creffield to help me. They have given freely of their time, we should all thank them. I am grateful for their help. They are not advising me what to do, but helping to maintain the integrity of the IP and continue its development." I've italicized the key bit there. Again, Mrs Gygax says the buck stops with her and, by implication, that it stops with the road map that Gary laid out before his death. She then concludes with these words:

Gary would want us all to be kind to each other during this time of transition and especially kind to each other during this holiday season. After all, that’s what his life was all about – creating environments for the enjoyment of others –

I plan to continue his mission.

That conclusion rings very true. I didn't know Gary Gygax personally -- we were, at best, infrequent email correspondents -- but I like to think I understood him. In recent years, he was a much more pacific and less cantankerous personality. He remained strong-willed, even opinionated, on many topics, but he was also much more giving and indeed forgiving than popular caricatures would have us believe. He had a keen sense of his role in the hobby and he was genuinely -- and regularly -- touched by the outpouring of affections he engendered. Consequently, toward the end, he seemed to me to be very interested in fostering fun and enjoyment and ensuring that it was those things that were his legacies.

What is now very clear to me is that Mrs Gygax has decided to step out from the shadows a bit and boldly state that what is happening now is happening in accordance to a plan she is following, a plan laid down by Gary before his death. I think it was important that she do this, but stating it does come with some risks, not least being the likelihood that many might not believe her. After all, while he was alive, Gary spoke highly of Troll Lords and, so far as anyone knows, never considered pulling the Castle Zagyg license out from under them, despite all the delays and missteps that were undoubtedly their fault and not his own. As I'll explain in my upcoming review of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, late as it was, the product shows many signs of having been rushed and less well produced than it ought to have been and surely Gary knew this would be the case. Yet, he continued to work with the Trolls without any public hint of displeasure or unhappiness. So why would Mrs Gygax now revoke the license when Gary never did so during his lifetime?

I have no answer to that question. I suppose it's possible that Gary was simply unwilling to pull the trigger on such a move because of his personal affection for the Trolls. On the other hand, why set up his wife to look like the bad guy after his death? Whatever else he was, Gary was no coward and I find it hard to imagine he'd planned to go to the grave without voicing his dissatisfaction like that. This is the part of the whole affair that still rankles me, not because I think it impossible that someone else might do a better job with Castle Zagyg -- depending on what approach is taken, it's quite possible, in my opinion -- but because it seems somehow "un-Gygaxian." As I say, I didn't know the man personally, so I could be wrong; I hope, though, that, if he had genuine problems with the Trolls, he'd have made them plain while still alive. Indeed, it's also possible that he did and it was because of this that he instructed his wife to pursue other avenues for the project after his death.

We may never know the truth, but there's now more evidence to sift through that might get us closer to it. I'll be paying careful attention to what happens next and will have some additional thoughts relating to this when I complete my own review of The Upper Works.

Castle Zagyg Review

Allan Grohe offers up a magisterial 15-page review of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works here. I was planning on offering my own review, but, having now read Allan's work, I'm not sure there's any point. He's done a great job and hit a number of points I'd intended to make as well. Go read it for yourself.

The Fat Lady Sings

As many feared, the end is nigh for Castle Zagyg from Troll Lord Games.

Damn it.

This is Getting Annoying

Could someone please tell me how the heck I can snag a copy of Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works that doesn't involve having to pick up the phone to Arkansas and hope that someone at Troll Lords answers my call? Because the game was released at GenCon in early August and it's still not available through regular distribution channels so far as I know. No online game stores carry it; none of my local ones can get it. Even the TLG website continues to list it in their own catalog as "Available for Pre-Order."

I know people have gotten hold of the product. What did you do to get it? Was a phone call what it took? I have nothing against phone orders, but I have to say that, in this day and age, not being able to order easily online is rather inconvenient.

All is Not Well in Yggsburgh

Yesterday, Jeffrey Talanian, lead developer of the Castle Zagyg series produced by Troll Lord Games under license from Gygax Games (formerly Trigee Enterprises), announced the termination of his association with the project and with Gygax Games. In his announcement, Talanian explained that Gygax Games has a "new vision and new interpretation of Gary's legacy." Precisely what this means is unclear, since Gygax Games has not, as yet, come forth with any explanations or clarifications. Indeed, Gygax Games hasn't been forthcoming with any information on its plans since they shut down production of the Lejendary Adventure line at the end of August.

At this stage, what the future holds is simply speculation, of which there's a lot flying around various forums these days. All I know is that Jeff Talanian had been, over the last few years, Gary's chosen protegé. Through his efforts, the Castle Zagyg line had finally begun to make good on the promise it held, after many years of delays. By all accounts -- I still have yet to see a copy -- Castle Zagyg: Upper Works is a supremely good product, one that drips with Gygaxian goodness, thanks in no small part to Jeff Talanian's ability to channel the creativity and cleverness of the Dungeon Master. The idea that anyone could take his place and remain true to Gary's vision for the product line is simply ludicrous. I simply cannot fathom any "new vision" that would benefit from dropping the man whose close work with Gary over the last few years has brought us a product that's as close to the definitive version of Castle Greyhawk as any we'll ever see.

In any case, I'd urge anyone who's interested in Castle Zagyg to snap up any copies they can find now, because there's no telling what the future might hold. I hate to think that Gygax Games might do to it what they did to Lejendary Adventure, but I'm not willing to count on that. I fear that, once again, gamers will be denied seeing the Holy Grail of megadungeons.

REVIEW: Monsters & Treasures of the Wilderlands I

Monsters & Treasures of the Wilderlands I (M&T henceforth) is a 17-page PDF (one of which is a credits and OGL page) written by James Mishler of Adventure Games Publishing and sells for $4. The product is extremely text-heavy, with three columns of what looked to be 8-point type throughout. The typeface was easy even for my aging eyes to read, but I would not be surprised if others found it less legible, particularly given that there are no illustrations to break up the text. This isn't a criticism so much as a simple acknowledgement that you're getting a lot of words for your $4 -- and very good words at that.

M&T describes 16 new monsters and an equal number of new magical items for use with AGP's "Wilderlands of High Adventure," a variant of the classic Judges Guild campaign setting for use with Troll Lord's Castles & Crusades. Although C&C is derived from the D20 SRD and is, in many ways, a kind of "3e Lite," it's most admirable feature is that enough of the cruft and accretions of 3e have been stripped away so that products written for C&C work well with older editions of D&D and their retro-clones/simulacra without much effort. This ease of conversion works to the advantage of M&T, whose contents would make great additions to many old school games. Despite this, I will note here that I think C&C still retains a little too much of 3e's obsession with mechanical exactitude, which is why many of the otherwise excellent entries in this product are longer than they need to have been. Given the density of the text, this is a small blemish and I can hardly fault Mishler for having stayed true to M&T's native rules set.

The monsters described herein range from low-level foes, such as giant vampire bats, to much mightier ones, such as fallen demigods known as the angrasinamru and everything in between. I appreciated the breadth of the entries, both thematically and mechanically. I also enjoyed the fact that many of them were worthy of the fine Gygaxian tradition of taking the germ of an idea from myth or legend and reworking it into a unique creature for use in one's fantasy campaign. Several monsters contain a "Death" entry indicating the unusual consequences of its being slain, such as the earth and stars mourning the death of the aforementioned angrasinamru or how the gorgosphinx turns into a statue of rock salt capable of petrifying anyone who is so foolish as to consume part of it. It's little touches like these that elevate the monsters in M&T above the usual fare found in monster books. I also note with approval that many of these creatures contain honest-to-goodness save or die effects of the sort that are so out of fashion these days.

The magical treasures described in this product are similarly good, demonstrating a terrific combination of creativity, whimsy, and old school sensibilities. I was particularly taken with the Demon Die of the Mandarin-Lords, an arcane dodecahedron once used by servants of an ancient emperor devoted to Chance and whose rolls determine the justice meted out against those accused of crimes. Naturally, there's a D12 random table that's suitably nasty, since "the Accursed Emperor was fond of chance, but liked to hedge his bets!" Many of the magical treasures exhibit negative qualities in addition to their beneficial ones. There's a price to pay for using them, in keeping with the traditions of pulp fantasy on which D&D was founded. Unsurprisingly, I think very highly of this approach.

If I have a complaint about Monsters & Treasures of the Wilderlands I, it's that there's not yet a volume II. For the price, this is a superb product and I found myself wishing for more monsters and treasures from Mishler's remarkable imagination. I'll admit that I also regret the lack of art, since several of the monsters have bizarre appearances that took me some time to wrap my head around. For some, though, this is a feature, not a bug and I'm sure the lack of art helped keep the price of the product down, so it may be a boon in disguise. I encountered a few small editorial glitches here and there, but nothing worthy of specific note. I wholeheartedly recommend this product and hope to see additional entries in the series before too long.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 polearms

Castle Zagyg: Upper Works

I understand this product was released as a boxed set for GenCon. Has anyone seen it or, better yet, know anything about it? I ask because I'm in principle quite interested, but there's also a part of me that's rather worried that, for various reasons, it won't meet with my approval. I rather liked Yggsburgh, warts and all, so I'm hoping this product will be in a similar vein. And let's face it: I'm a sucker for a boxed set. At the same time, I have fears and trepidations.

Anyone have any deep insights to share?