Speaking of Old D&D Campaigns

Here's a scan of a small section of a much larger map I did for my old campaign world of Emaindor.
I drew -- and colored! -- this by hand when I was 13 or 14, so that puts its origin in 1984 or thereabouts. I'd been playing in a version of the same setting for several years prior to that (as well as in a Greyhawk-based campaign). I can't quite recall why I used graph paper instead of hex paper, but I suspect it's because I didn't have hex paper larger enough to cover the vast amount of terrain I wanted to draw.

You will note I was very fond both of calligraphy and of imaginary languages. I created several of them (Cynda, Emânic, Otrenska, and Rathwynnic, derived from Dutch, Welsh, Swedish, and Old English, respectively) with simple grammars and extensive vocabulary lists. I found that even the silliest names sounded much cooler if they were translated into a language no one natively understood.

The setting itself was a weird mishmash of things, but was primarily a medieval Europe knock-off, albeit one that mix and matched cultures and time periods. I had a Frenchified Roman/Byzantine Empire analog, for example, and an Arthurian/Celtic bunch standing in for the Germans. Now that I think on it, there were a lot of Arthurian elements to the setting, because, let's face it, King Arthur is heroic and tragic in a way that appeals to teenage boys (and old men, ironically enough). Despite being an AD&D world, it was even more strongly human-dominated than you'd expect. There were no halflings and few gnomes. Dwarves were reclusive but present and elves were reclusive to the point of xenophobia. Most of my adventures were political or investigative in nature, a tendency of mine that hasn't changed much in 20+ years.

A few years ago, I had a professional cartographer do a rendition of these maps and it was really cool to see that. I'll dig around on my computer to see if I can find them again. I won't say I prefer my amateur versions, because I'm not sure I do, but I still have a lot of pride in them. I spent untold hours drawing them and carefully placing the towns and cities and sites and naming them all. It was a labor of love and pretty well illustrates why I still love this hobby after so many years.

Pig Faced Orcs

I decided to be stupidly indulgent and bought myself a bunch of old school orcs from Otherworld Miniatures. I'm suffering mightily from a wave of nostalgia about some of my old D&D campaigns (about which I'll write in due course) and these orcs just spoke to me. I'm not sure exactly when I learned to understand Orcish, but then you pick up a lot of weird knowledge after gaming for nearly 30 years.

A New Beginning

In 1996, TSR was unable to pay its printer, meaning that, if something were not done, Dungeons & Dragons would go out of print for the first time in 22 years. For nearly six months in late 1996 and early 1997, TSR released no new products in any of its many game lines. Even publication of Dragon and Dungeon magazines ceased for time. For all intents and purposes, it was a gamer Apocalypse.

On April 10, 1997, Wizards of the Coast of Renton, Washington acquired TSR and its properties, saving D&D from extinction. However, it was clear that the game had suffered both creatively and financially during the latter days of TSR. WotC decided that the best course of action was to release a new edition of the game -- a fresh start to herald a new beginning for the venerable fantasy RPG. That new beginning happened in August 2000, with the release of Third Edition. "Advanced" was dropped from the title, but it was clear that 3e was primarily a successor to Gygax's AD&D line begun in 1977 rather than the D&D line inaugurated by Tom Moldvay in 1981 (or earlier, depending on where you wish to draw your lines of creative demarcation).

A new beginning required a new look and 3e's graphic design was very different both from 1e and from 2e. The Player's Handbook, shown below, sports a faux "tome" cover, lacking a cover illustration at all. The clear intention here was to make the PHB (and all the other 3e books) look as if they were gilded, jewel-encrusted librams of great value.


In 2003, the infamous v.3.5 revision was released, with a slight variation on the original 3e cover. My friends called it the "super pimp" edition, because the faux gilding and jewel-work was even more prominent and elaborate.


I'm going to take liberties and treat the 3e and v.3.5 covers as a single cover for the purposes of the present discussion. The differences between them are more of degree than of kind. Both have the same basic appearance and attempt to evoke the same feel from viewers. More to the point, I'm not sure the few differences are enough to justify two separate entries, so I hope I can be forgiven this one indulgence.

I'm really of two minds about these covers. On the one hand, they're rather garish and more than a little silly. In general, I'm not at all fond of faux antique veneers. At their best, they make you wonder why you should choose a faux antique when you can just as easily get a real one. At their worst, they come off as kitschy and the 3e PHB covers certainly do veer toward kitsch. On the other hand, I can completely understand the thought processes that lead WotC to choose this as the cover design for the books. They wanted covers that made D&D "special" again and that conjured up images of spell books and grimoires.

This was, after all, the relaunch of the first RPG ever created and I have no doubt that WotC wanted to give the game not just some spit and polish, but also a look that expressed something of what D&D meant to them and to the hobby. WotC may have been richer than God thanks to the success of Magic: The Gathering, but their experience as a RPG publisher was limited and certainly not anywhere near as successful as even TSR had been in its dying days. Thus, the 3e covers, goofy as they definitely are, were likely born out of love and respect for the game they had inherited and no small amount of awe at what they were undertaking. The WotC of 1999 and 2000 was simply a different beast from the one that emerged in later years, or so it seems to me. They may have hit it big, but they were still gamers, through and through, and they were geeked to high heaven to be captaining the hobby's flagship.

So, for me, the 3e era covers are a wash. I don't hate them but neither do I love them. The faux tome concept was silly even when Ars Magica did it back in its own third edition. Nevertheless, there's a certain rough charm to it; these covers are the kinds of things a twelve year-old would, in his naive enthusiasm for the game, think were really cool. I have a hard time faulting WotC for giving in to such enthusiasm themselves, even if there should have been an adult somewhere telling their art department that this probably wasn't the best look for the game.

A few sour notes before closing. Both covers have the new Dungeons & Dragons logo and, not only is the logo rather uninspired, it also seems to me to yet more evidence of the treatment of the game as primarily a brand rather than an entertainment. This approach is not unique to WotC, so I don't mean to single them out. However, in light of their eventual acquisition by Hasbro, it is nevertheless ominous. Both covers also have the words "Core Rulebook I" and that too bothers me. As it turns out, I don't believe any 3e books other than the Big Three ever used the words "core rulebook" to describe themselves (though I could be wrong), but it set the stage for what would reach full flower with 4e: the serialization of the D&D rules and the elevation of supplementary material to necessary components for playing the game.

Good Grief

Anyone know where this piece of art is from?

Is it perhaps from the Player's Handbook II? I accidentally stumbled upon it while looking for cover images of the 3e and v.3.5 PHBs to use in today's entry on those two covers (yes, I'm doing both at once, because they differ so little in appearance that I didn't think they deserved separate entries).

In any case, I can't say I'm too fond of this illustration. Aside from being a particularly poor example of the "wall of action" style, its ham-fisted execution strikes me as paradigmatic of the iconoclasm-cloaked-as-respect-for-the-past that WotC excels at these days. I mean, if I were an artist and my mandate was to paint a picture that encapsulated "this ain't your father's D&D," this is how I'd do it.

REVIEW: Eldritch Weirdness, Book One

Welcome to Eldritch Weirdness, the first booklet of Options and Resources for the Swords & Wizardry game, containing 30 optional spells to inspire your imagination. All these spells are described in the S&W format, so they’re less detailed and more open-ended than you’ll find in most fantasy role-playing games. One spell, “Infuse,” is so open-ended it’s got no discernable game purpose at all, unless you add something somewhere. Like everything else in Swords & Wizardry, you’ve got the basics: now go and imagine the hell out of it.

So begins Matt Finch's Eldritch Weirdness, Book One, the first supplement to his OD&D retro-clone Swords & Wizardry. That opening paragraph sets the tone, not just for the five pages of arcane spells that follow, but also for the whole of the S&W project. "Imagine the hell out of it" is a brilliant summation of this minimalist retro-clone that both respects the roots of the hobby and points the way toward the future.

How does S&W do this? For one, the entirety of its text is Open Game Content, meaning that anyone, including publishers, can use as little or as much of its text as they wish in their own products without the need for a special license or permissions. S&W also has its own "compatibility-statement license," which allows you to indicate that your games or products are compatible with S&W. Secondly, its text is a very close approximation of OD&D and some of its supplementary materials, including a fair degree of "elbow room" when it comes to adjudicating many game mechanics. There are differences, of course, some of which, such as the Hit Dice conventions -- I favor D6 for all classes and for monsters -- bring the game a fair bit closer to AD&D than I would like, but they are easily fixed. Indeed, the real genius of S&W is that its core rules are intended to be easily edited and then printed out, so each referee can make the game his own. Likewise, the rules are light enough that they can expanded in numerous directions without having to worry about the entire mechanical edifice crashing down on you.

But this post is a review of Eldritch Weirdness, not Swords & Wizardy. The 8-page PDF consists of a cover, five pages of text describing 30 arcane spells, and two pages devoted to the Open Game License. The entire package sells for $1.50. Let me state at the outset that I love the cover page. The very title itself recalls Supplement III to OD&D, Eldritch Wizardry, and font chosen for it (which it shares with the S&W logo) is a legible blackletter script that sets the perfect tone. The cover also features a black and white illustration by the author that depicts a robed and cueball-headed wizard conjuring with the aid of a crystal ball. It's a very nice image that recalls the best old school art, while not being imitative of any of it. The style and content is original yet evocative. I'd like to see more art done in this fashion.

The meat of the book itself is 30 optional arcane (i.e. magic-user) spells, from ball of ice to word of IOUN. As you would expect from magic spells of the old school, their effects are often quirky and sometimes even without immediately obvious use. The spell infuse mentioned in the quote above "infuses liquids (usually prepared ones) with magical propensities and potentials. It does not, in and of itself, create potions." What does that mean? I can think of several answers, but Eldritch Weirdness canonizes none of them, instead leaving it to the referee to decide for his own campaign. Another spell, called Omar's mistake, causes the caster to demonstrate numerous strange and unusual traits and qualities at once, some beneficial -- members of the opposite sex have a 1% chance to be affected as if by a charm spell -- and some not -- the caster may feel compelled to steal shiny objects. Why would anyone cast this spell? That's for each magic-user to decide should he learn it. And so on.

Eldritch Weirdness was thus aptly named; it's filled with lots of odd, slightly off-kilter magic that makes you scratch your head a wonder, "Why?" It's the perfect antidote for the overly mechanized, honed to a fine sheen approach we've seen in more recent edition of D&D, where randomness, judgment calls, and whimsy are frowned upon. I simply could not help being inspired by this book, which is remarkable both because it's so short and because, after nearly 30 years of gaming, I thought I'd seen it all. It's rare when you come across a work of imagination that makes you sit up and take notice. Eldritch Weirdness does just that and I heartily recommend it for anyone who wants to see a new product that shows what old school is all about.

Final Score: 5 out of 5 polearms

v.2.5 PHB

In 1995, just two years before it would be acquired by Wizards of the Coast, TSR released revised editions of the 2nd Edition rulebooks, in addition to a series of "Option" books (three for players and one for the DM). In recent years, it's been fashionable to refer to these as v.2.5, mimicking the computerese v.3.5 revision title used in 2003. These revised rulebooks featured a new logo, graphic design, and artwork. I never owned the revisions in any form, so their actual content remains a gaping hole in my D&D knowledge. My understanding is that the text was minimally altered from the original 2e release in 1989, with the bulk of the changes coming in the Option books, some of which presaged the direction D&D would take in Third Edition five years later.

As I said, my knowledge of the 2e revisions is non-existent. I knew of their existence, as I was still gaming in 1995, but I'd pretty much dropped out of D&D entirely. I'd grown disgusted with the rules bloat, the proliferation of settings, and the general lack of focus the game line had at that point. I was a huge fan of Planescape, but, even at the time, I didn't think it worked well within the context of Dungeons & Dragons and the setting's development was too metaplot driven for my tastes. So I can't really comment on the whys and wherefores of v.2.5, though I'd assume it was a last ditch effort to remake D&D into something "modern," which is to say, able to compete with the latest fads in RPG design. Even before the revisions, 2e was clearly struggling to remake itself into a game that bore no resemblance, thematically and stylistically, if not mechanically, from the little game Gygax and Arneson birthed in 1974.

If that was the intention, the cover of the 2e revision didn't really do a good job of selling it either as something new and "relevant" or something connected to the history of the hobby.

I don't know if the image I've included with this entry really does justice to how awful this piece is, even on a technical level. Jeff Easley is once again the cover artist of the Players Handbook, providing us with what is very likely the worst of all PHB cover illustrations. About the only positive thing I can say about it is is that the barbarian's companions -- one with a bow drawn and one in a hooded cloak -- certainly don't look like members of Larry Elmore's Central Casting; they look scruffy and even sinister. The focal barbarian himself barely looks human, with his left arms twisted in a way that I'm not sure is even possible.

We do at least get a dungeon, so perhaps that's another positive thing I can say about the illustration. The barbarian obviously did really well on his Open Doors roll. The piece has a very "cinematic" air to it, "cinematic" being the latest jargon term for "horribly unrealistic." The planks of the door are all falling over in a nice fan around the barbarian, with just enough splinters flying about to show how strong he must have been to have broken down a metal-reinforced door. We see this door-breaking mid-action, as the pieces haven't yet hit the floor. There's also a strange implication of "light" emanating either from the barbarian's powerful blow comic book-style or perhaps from the corridor outside the chamber into which the barbarian is breaking. The problem with the latter interpretation is that the illumination of the corridor doesn't make this likely. Indeed, light in general is rather strangely used; I can't quite figure out where the light sources are in the picture, as there seem to be several conflicting ones, whose interplay should have produced a very different effect than the one we see. But it's my experience that "cinematic" artwork is all about looking good and not being plausible, so why worry about frivolous details like light sources?

The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons logo (as well as the TSR corporate one) is given a revamp, this time being about as bland as possible. Interestingly, the logo is placed beneath the title of the book rather than above it. That strikes me as peculiar, but then I know little of "branding" and other corproate marketing practices. The cover art is bounded by a frame, which is set on a solid black background. All the revised 2e books, as well as the Option books, were solid black in color. Placed side by side, there was a uniformity of appearance that I absolutely hated, but then 2e itself followed a similar practice for its hardcover volumes. One of the things that I still to this day love about the original AD&D books is how they look when sitting on my shelf. Each one is different and has its own unique look. Mind you, I'm of the opinion that art direction is a dirty word, at least in the way it's developed over the last few years. Modern RPGs are too slick and too uniform, with an emphasis on the look of "the line" that I abhor. The commoditization of esthetics in the name of marketing has no place in the hobby.

I find it very hard to say much more about this cover, because it's just awful. That it was released during a time when D&D, my first RPG, lost its appeal for me only makes it worse. The mid to late 90s was clearly a dark time for the game and the company that produced it. The game lacked direction and had no sense of its own history and origins. Had things turned out differently, there was a very good chance that Dungeons & Dragons would have died as an RPG entirely. As it turns out, that wasn't far from the truth but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Down at the Alehouse

I have regular misgivings about the Knights & Knaves Alehouse and certainly don't feel comfortable posting there, but I still read the forums with great alacrity. The Alehouse is among the best old school forums on the net, provided you have a strong constitution, which I guess I don't. However, it's one of Trent Foster's regular hang-outs and he's a true gurus of old school history and philosophy, so I check the place out on a regular basis nonetheless.

To illustrate my point, here are two really interesting threads I'll be keeping my eye on.

What was the first non-old school RPG? (Hint: Moldvay Basic is a strong contender)

Matt Finch is working on a Primer for Old School Gaming. Some really excellent stuff here. Little wonder that he's someone whose judgment and insights I've come to respect a great deal.

Very good stuff.

Interesting Observation

I've so far made three posts in my six-part series critiquing the covers of the Players Handbook and the one that has thus far elicited the most response, much of it dissenting from my own point of view, is today's entry discussing the AD&D 2nd Edition PHB. I'm honestly not surprised by this. In my experience, 2e was the first edition that the vast majority of still-playing D&D gamers played. It is, for them, what they think of when they think of "D&D." I think this is significant for a number of reasons, which I'll talk about in a future post. For now, though, I'll say only that I think anyone who discounts the existence of a gamer generation gap is either ignorant of history or trying to sell you something (or both -- I'm looking at you, WotC).

A New Look for the PHB

1989 saw the release of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition, the first revision of the AD&D line. The origins of 2e are multifarious. Gary Gygax, while still at TSR, indicated his intention to produce a new edition of the game, but he never had the opportunity to do so. He was ousted from the company in 1985 and shepherding the new edition fell to David "Zeb" Cook, who'd been at TSR for many years and had produced numerous classic adventures, such as The Isle of Dread (with Tom Moldvay) and Dwellers of the Forbidden City. By some accounts, 2e was published in order to sever the link between Gygax and D&D, much in the way that 1e itself may have been published in order to sever the link between Dave Arneson and D&D.

In any case, 2e was intended primarily to be a clean-up and rationalization of the original AD&D books. There was no apparent mandate that it be innovative and Cook worked hard by all accounts to make the new edition backward compatible with the previous one. By my lights, he largely succeeded on this score, although the incorporation of non-weapon proficiencies was a poor design decision, as was the elimination of classes such as the assassin and the monk and began the transformation of the thief into the rogue that would be finalized in 3e. Still, 2e, for all the little tweaks and changes it introduced, was, at least as presented in the Player's Handbook (the first time the apostrophe is used in the title, incidentally), about 80% identical to 1e, perhaps even more. One could easily pick up a 1e module or supplement and use it with 2e without the need for mechanical conversion.

In terms of feel, though, 2e was far removed from 1e, as is evidenced by the cover of the Player's Handbook, shown here:


The cover illustration is by Jeff Easley, the same artist who did the revision of the 1e PHB. The same logo is used, this time with the addition of the words "2nd Edition" and without the word "official" at the front.

Unlike the 1e revision cover, this cover has context, albeit a vague one. The heroic rider -- a warrior or knight of some sort -- is galloping astride his equally heroic steed through a canyon or mountain pass, followed by at least two companions, also on horseback. The overall thrust of the piece is dynamic; it's definitely not a static pose, but it is a pose nonetheless. The rider is looking directly at the viewer and he's holding his sword aloft, despite the lack of an obvious opponent. His companions are doing the same. Were they more clearly heading into battle, the presence of their swords wouldn't bother me so much, but seeing as they are traversing some rough terrain while mounted, one would think it more prudent to have both of their hands on the reins. The riders are attired in mostly plausible gear, although the focus character has a ridiculously winged helm. Again, the piece has at least a toehold in the past while pointing toward the future.

In many ways, I find this cover even more unsatisfactory than the 1e revision cover, which at least showed a wizard engaged in magical combat. The 2e cover says nothing about what D&D is about except in the most generic sense: it's a game of heroic sword-wielding guys boldly going off somewhere. I give it credit for illustrating more than one figure; D&D is, after all, about parties of adventurers, not lone wolves. But, overall, the cover simply conveys nothing at all. It has no flavor or feel. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say it is bland, evoking neither the grim and gritty sword & sorcery world of Trampier nor presaging the frenetic "wall of action" we see in the art of Wayne Reynolds.

Quite simply, this is a terrible cover and its flaws suggest to me a game that is unclear about its origins or purpose and that owes its existence to something other than creative expression.

PHB Take Two

The 10th printing of the AD&D Players Handbook featured a new cover, replacing Dave Trampier's illustration with a new one by Jeff Easley.


This cover was introduced as part of a revamp of the graphical look of the entire AD&D line in 1983. All of the books (with the exception of the Fiend Folio, which Gary Gygax, among others, considered to be an inferior book, possibly explaining the lack of an update) were given new covers, an orange spine, and updated logos. In addition, Deities & Demigods was renamed Legends & Lore. The interiors of all the books were identical to the older printings, right down to listing the wrong cover artists, an error corrected in subsequent printings. The Monster Manual II was the only book in the revamped line whose interior was actually different in style from that of earlier printings, since it was the first new AD&D from the pen of Gary Gygax since 1979's Dungeon Masters Guide. The MMII is noteworthy as well, because it's almost entirely illustrated by "second generation" artists, like Jim Holloway and Larry Elmore. Dave Sutherland has a few illustrations in the book, most notably the polyhedral modrons, creatures that are in my opinion a lightning rod for the generation wars in D&D fandom.

Easley's PHB cover is a fine example of the "technically well done but soulless" style of art that has come to be the mainstay of gaming art since the early to mid-80s. The revised cover is certainly more "dynamic" than Trampier's original. The profusely bearded wizard is engaged in magical pyrotechnics against imps or gargoyles or some other type of winged monster, but this battle takes place nowhere. There's no real context to it or suggestion of an outside world. There are some billowing clouds or smoke that obscure everything except the wizard and his opponents. I suppose one could argue that it's a different instance of the "points of color sparkling in the shadows" I see in the Trampier cover, but that seems like a bit of a stretch here. To me, the Easley cover is simply uninterested in anything beyond the immediate action it illustrates.

In this respect, the cover is strongly character focused. What is important is the character of the wizard and what he specifically is doing. In part, that's of necessity, as there is nothing else on which to focus. The cover is not a wrap-around one. The book cover is just promotional text, like all the revised covers. The wizard himself is still an old school one. He's an old white male, with a ridiculously long beard. He's not wearing a pointy hat or a robe decorated with stars and moons, but he is dressed in flowing robes, complete with a stiff backed collar right out of the Dr. Strange school of magic. But he's not in an old school illustration at all. He's not quite in the full "strike a pose" mode of Larry Elmore or later artists, but his appearance is definitely an atavism, a throwback to an older style of illustration that was passing from the covers of game books.

One of the other really fascinating things about this cover is its logo. The original AD&D books didn't really have logos. The words "Advanced D&D" were included only as small yellow banner in the upper left hand corner, using the same "olde time" font as the OD&D books. This suggests to me that TSR assumed that the vast majority of potential buyers of the AD&D books would be familiar with OD&D or at least didn't need to be sold of the game, because they already knew about it. The revised cover, on the other hand, has a full fledged logo, complete with a fire-breathing dragon doing double duty as an ampersand. There's also the word "official" in front of the words "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," another telling change about the corporate culture of TSR and how far the industry had move from its hobbyist roots.

All in all, the revised cover of the Players Handbook is not a terrible piece of art, but neither is it very good. It's certainly several steps removed from the traditions of the old school, with just a small iconographic toehold in the past. As a representation of what D&D is supposed to be, it's frankly terrible. It's much too focused on a single individual and his kewl powerz, a trend that has been continued and extended in years since. Combined with the new graphic design and logo, though, you can see the transformation of D&D from a hobby activity to a brand, another trend that, while inevitable, was unfortunate.