Slaying Ouroboros

An integral part of my pathetic attempt to reclaim my lost youth is re-watching a lot of the old TV shows and movies that I loved as a younger person. I do this to see if my memories of them are faulty, for good or for ill. What's interesting is that there's no clear trend: some things I liked way back when simply don't hold up over time, while others are in fact every bit as good as I remembered -- or better.

Star Trek clearly falls into the latter camp. I've been systematically working my way through the series from Season 1 on, thanks to the DVDs' finally being priced reasonably. I'm nearly done Season 2 now and my overwhelming feeling is that Star Trek truly was awesome. I could go on at great length about its virtues but I'll save that for some other time. What I wanted to talk about today was the format and content of the series, because I think it has some relevance for discussions we often have here.

What people forget, over forty years later, is that Star Trek was, for all intents and purposes, an anthology series. There were continuing characters certainly and there was an extremely vague persistent setting, but, by and large, each episode is self-contained and makes few, if any, references to what came before. Consequently, you can watch the series in pretty much any order and it still makes sense. There's no "canon" to internalize or setting details to understand beyond the most basic ones that you can pick up within five minutes of watching any given episode. This is the exact opposite of its brandified offspring series, all of which depend, to varying degrees, on your already being invested in "Star Trek," a vast mythology constructed by mining the original 79 episodes for names and ideas that others can then elaborately build upon.

Watching Star Trek, I am continually struck by the fact that it's never about itself. Each episode is simply a science fiction adventure story, with little or no connection to anything that comes before or after. These stories are not exercises in IP mining or brand building or any of the other practices we nowadays associate with popular entertainment. I find this frankly refreshing and indeed inspiring. Perhaps this is why so many episodes of Star Trek were written by or based upon the work of genuine science fiction writers rather than professional screenwriters -- Robert Bloch, Frederic Brown, Harlan Ellison, Norman Spinrad, Theodore Sturgeon, to name a few.

It's a really remarkable thing and it probably explains why, despite having been a Star Trek fan for most of my life, I can go back and find the original series far less dated than I'd expected it to be. I hesitate to use the word "timeless" to describe these episodes -- though a few of them merit it -- but the fact that the show isn't self-referential and self-absorbed does make it far more enjoyable to me than does re-watching The Next Generation, which I loved at the time of its first broadcast. There's a simplicity and directness to Star Trek that seems utterly missing from so much genre work these days, where dreams of establishing a profitable franchise overwhelm the primal desire to tell good stories. Re-watching Star Trek has reminded me that this wasn't always the case and I'm very glad of that.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Circus of Doctor Lao

"Lost world" stories, in which a modern man is flung into a corner of reality whose physical -- and metaphysical -- laws are different than those of the mundane world, were an important overlooked influence on the development of OD&D. An uncommon but related genre concerns incursions of the magical and the mysterious into mundane reality, often with disastrous results. A good example of this is Charles Finney's 1935 novel, The Circus of Doctor Lao (which was loosely adapted into the 1964 film, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao).

The novel takes place in a small town in Arizona, where a strange circus owned by an enigmatic Chinese man named Dr. Lao pays a visit. The circus is strange because its attractions consist exclusively of mythological beasts and legendary people. Among its exhibits are a satyr, a medusa, a werewolf, a unicorn, and the occultist Apollonius of Tyana, among many others. The townsfolk are drawn to the circus and many have inexplicable experiences as a result of their interactions with Dr. Lao or his attractions -- inexplicable in the sense that there is no easy way for them to dismiss what they have experienced as hallucinations or illusions even though they "know" that they could not have experienced what they have in fact experienced. The exhibits of the circus challenge their conceptions of reality and rationality.

Finney seems to have intended the novel as a critique of the modern mindset that readily dismisses magic and mystery, closing itself off to the possibility that reality might be bigger than what can be viewed by the senses or explained through science. The book offers no definitive explanations for what the townsfolk experience and even its tentative ones are incomplete and contradictory. This might make the novel frustrating to some readers, but that's probably a response Finney wished to elicit, at least as I read it. The book is an invitation to open one's mind and ponder how many things we've been told to be true either are not or that don't tell the whole story. It's an ode to wonder and awe.

I can't claim that The Circus of Doctor Lao had much direct influence on D&D, although the treatment of Medusa as a kind of species of creature rather than a singular being might have its origin here. Nevertheless, the phantasmagoric nature of the circus provides good fodder for referees looking for unusual obstacles for their adventures. Likewise, the book's central theme -- the openness to wonder -- is one every gamer should keep close to his heart. Lose sight of that and this hobby very quickly becomes a joyless exercise.

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: Idol of the Orcs

I'm a firm believer in the notion that you can never have too many low-level adventures. Part of the reason why I believe this is because not every campaign takes root and lasts long enough to get to higher levels of play, but most campaigns begin at the low levels. Consequently, having a large number of low-level adventures ensures that not every new campaign has to kick off with Keep on the Borderlands or The Village of Hommlet. Likewise, even referees who don't use published adventures as-is can pillage them for ideas; I know I do.

That's why I was very pleased to see James C. Boney's Idol of the Orcs, released by Goblinoid Games for Labyrinth Lord. Intended for characters of levels 1-3, Idol of the Orcs is labeled "Module 1," making it the first "official" module for the game, all previous ones having been released by other companies. One is immediately struck by its color scheme, logo, and general look, all of which are quite different than previous releases. Labyrinth Lord's creator, Daniel Proctor, had noted that the game and its support products would be getting a revamp. If this is any indication of the appearance of future releases, I am quite pleased. Labyrinth Lord's new look is very attractive -- clean, uncluttered, and, most important of all (from my perspective anyway), original. This isn't an attempt to ape the past; rather, it's proof that one can publish an old school product without imitating TSR's art direction, circa 1978. It helps, of course, that artist Andy Taylor possesses his own unique style, one that evokes the past without being a slave to it. Idol of the Orcs includes some of his best work to date and goes a long way toward solidifying my favorable impression of this adventure.

Of course, James Boney deserves even more credit. He has succeeded in a minor miracle by injecting new life into a tired old gaming cliché: the player characters must seek out the lair of a band of unusually organized orcs and destroy them before they gain sufficient strength to be a true menace to civilization. That's about as hoary an adventure outline as any in the long history of the hobby and yet, thanks to some interesting little twists, Boney manages to wring one more good adventure out of it. The result is not only a terrific introductory dungeon adventure, complete with monsters, tricks, and traps, but some roleplaying opportunities that could easily kickstart a campaign with follow-up adventures. In my opinion, that's the hallmark of a superb low-level module and that's precisely what you get here.

Idol of the Orcs can't be called "revolutionary" and anyone expecting it to forever change the way they play fantasy roleplaying games will be disappointed. What it can be called, though, is "inspiring." It's a reminder that there is yet much life in the archetypes and tropes of traditional gaming. On a very basic level, this is just another kill-the-orcs-grab-their-treasure adventure, but James Boney reminds us that there's no reason that old school adventures need exist only at such a basic level. Further complexities can and should be added to tried and true formulae and they can be done without turning those formulae on their heads or twisting them into unrecognizable shapes. Idol of the Orcs is thus a rare thing: a straightforward, unpretentious homage to the past that nevertheless manages to introduce some spice into a much-loved recipe.

Idol of the Orcs is available in both PDF and print versions, for $4.95 and $10.95 respectively. If I have a complaint about the module, it's the price. At 14 pages, plus the cover, the price for the print version is a little steep -- not out of line with other publishers, to be sure, but still more than I would expect for something of that length.

Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Utility: 7 out of 10

Buy This If: You're looking for an excellent introductory adventure that adds some twists to a classic set-up.

Don't Buy This If: You have no need for introductory adventures or if you think an "orc hunt" can't possibly be interesting.

Moorcock Interview

Reader Markus Siebler pointed me toward a new interview with Michael Moorcock that can be found here. As always, there's some very interesting stuff there and well worth the read.

Save or Die, Part III

I reading the comments to my latest post on the subject of save or die effects in D&D, I think I've finally hit upon precisely where the difference really lies between those who support such mechanics and those who reject them. But first let me quote from the introduction to the AD&D Players Handbook, because it rather nicely frames what I'm about to say:

Even death loses much of its sting, for often the character can be resurrected, or reincarnated. And should that fail there is always the option to begin anew with a new character. Thus ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is, as are most role-playing games, open-ended. There is no "winner", no final objective, and the campaign grows and changes as it matures.

So many useful insights in so few words.

Lots of people have pointed out, rightly, that it's because old school characters are mechanically simple, it's a small matter to replace them when they die to a failed saving throw. There's no slowdown in the action, because it takes no more than five minutes to generate a new OD&D or AD&D character to replace a fallen adventurer. As the Gygax quote above points out, though, in D&D, there's often no need to replace the character at all.

I recall that some people were shocked and even appalled that, in my Dwimmermount campaign, a 2nd-level PC was returned to life by his comrades, who pooled all their resources to pay for his resurrection. This was seen as somehow a betrayal of the pulp fantasy principles I've regularly championed in this blog. The reality is that, while I do believe that modern incarnations of D&D have strayed ever farther from the literary roots of the game, I believe neither that pulp fantasy literature is the only source of OD&D nor that OD&D was ever intended to be a strict simulation of pulp fantasy -- or indeed of any of the many things that influenced its creators.

The players in my campaign chose to resurrect their fellow adventurer both because the rules gave them the tools to do so and because they felt it's the action their characters would reasonably take, given the existence of resurrection magic. I did not feel then -- and do not feel now -- that it was "wrong" to let them play the game as it was written because it would be a violation of the grim and gritty feel most people associate with pulp fantasy. The campaign is not a simulation of pulp fantasy short stories; it's Dungeons & Dragons and in D&D, as Gygax says, "even death loses much of its sting."

My point here is simply that I think most of the people who dislike save or die do so because they feel it gets in the way of "the story." To have a hero unceremoniously cut down because of a giant spider bite or a beholder eye blast ruins the grand epic they want to tell. Ironically, I think the presence of resurrection and restorative magic is a similar bugaboo for gamers at the other end of the spectrum. They're not so concerned about "story" as such, but they are keen on pulp fantasy emulation and, since Conan couldn't just go and raise Valeria from the dead, they feel that D&D characters shouldn't be allowed to do so either. For them, resurrection breaks the frame of their imagination every bit as much as save or die does for others.

Me, I just play D&D, with all its quirks, whether they be save or die or (relatively) easy resurrection. That's what the game has always been for me. Indeed, I'd consider both defining characteristics of the game: easy death and easy resurrection. Sure, save or die makes it hard to play Aragorn and resurrection makes it hard to play Conan, but then who said D&D is about playing either Aragorn or Conan?

Retrospective: Boot Hill

I've talked before about the influence of Westerns on Dungeons & Dragons, so it's really no surprise that one of the earliest RPGs TSR produced after OD&D would be Western -- Boot Hill. Its original incarnation, which I never saw, was published in 1975 and was written by Brian Blume and Gary Gygax. Historically, this is interesting, because it reminds us (once again) that Brian Blume was not just a monied hanger-on but also a game designer in his own right. It's also a rare example of non-D&D work by Gygax, something one didn't see much of.

The edition I owned was the second, pictured here, which was published as a boxed set in 1979. The set contained a 36-page rulebook, a double-sided map, some counters, and old school percentile dice. As you would expect, the rules are very sparse, focusing largely on combat. Indeed, reading Boot Hill, one is immediately struck by how much more combat-focused it is even than D&D. This isn't surprising, since gunfights, saloon brawls, knife throwing, and the like are the primary things the game is intended to simulate. Most other actions could just be improvised either through roleplaying or simple random adjudication. In this respect, Boot Hill is the epitome of "old school."

Much like Dawn Patrol, there's a sense in which Boot Hill is more of a wargame than a RPG. Its concerns, both mechanically and thematically, are centered on violence in all its myriad forms. To call it, as its subtitle does, a "roleplaying game of the Wild West" is to be fairly generous, even in my eccentric opinion. While there are rules for forming posses, aging, and earning a living, they're quite vestigial. Playing a lengthy Boot Hill campaign would take some remarkable creativity on the part of the referee, even moreso than in OD&D, which at least sketches out an endgame. This gives Boot Hill a vaguely "beer and pretzels" sort of feel to it, as if it were intended primarily as a simulation of Wild West shoot 'em ups rather than anything more ambitious.

I know I never managed to do more with the game than run fistfights and showdowns. We had fun with the rules, but I cannot now tell you the name of a single character or recount a single session of our play in any detail beyond a vague recollection of a character getting access to a Gatling gun and laying waste to a lot of desperadoes who were attacking the town. Perhaps that speaks more to our immaturity, I don't know. Being a big fan of Westerns, I've always wanted to run and/or play in a Western RPG campaign, but, if I ever did so, I doubt I'd turn to Boot Hill to do it. Even with my level of simplicity and do-it-yourself elegance, I'd need to create too much from whole cloth. Thus, Boot Hill is an example of an old school game that I think doesn't live up to its full potential -- a pity.

Ruins & Ronin Released

More old news, but Mike D of Sword +1 has released his chanbara-inspired version of Swords & Wizardry. Called Ruins & Ronin, it's available either in print or PDF form from Lulu.com.

I saw early drafts of the rules and I was very impressed with them. What I particularly liked was that no attempt had been made to create a historically accurate set of rules. Ruins & Ronin bears about as much connection to real Japanese history and culture as OD&D does to medieval European history and culture -- and I think that's just swell. What you get is an old school Japanese "flavored" fantasy RPG, where bujin, shugenja, and sohei all meet in the local tea house to plan their expedition into the ruins of Katsushiro's Castle.

If that sounds awesome to you, go ahead and grab yourself a copy.

Save or Die, Part II

The term saving throw is common enough, coming to us from miniatures wargames and D&D. It represents the chance for the figure concerned to avoid (or at least partially avoid) the cruel results of fate. In AD&D it is the same. By means of luck, skill, magical protections, quirks of fate and the aid of supernatural powers, the character making his or her saving throw takes none or only part of the indicated results ...

That's probably the most exhaustive explanation for what a saving throw is in the Gygaxian canon, but, coming as it does in 1979's Dungeon Masters Guide, it can hardly be called definitive for the entirety of D&D. (And if anyone knows of a lengthier or more detailed discussion of saving throws in Gygax's works, I'd be interested in knowing about it).

I bring this up at all, because my post last month on this topic generated a lot of valuable discussion, but also some disagreement. I treat saving throws, by and large, as a kind of check against a player's foolhardiness. It's a last chance to mitigate the consequences of his own stupidity. Quite rightly, some, including the estimable Dan Proctor, creator of Labyrinth Lord, disagreed with my approach, since it doesn't explain why a character should get a save vs. a spell cast by an opponent or why a fighter has a better saving throw against dragon breath than any other class.

That's a perfectly valid criticism and, in light of the text quoted above, illustrates that, like many things in D&D, there's no single overriding explanation for their existence. Saving throws have, so far as I can tell, a dual purpose. One purpose serves verisimilitude; saves are a way to represent the fact that not every attack is 100% effective all the time. The other serves "fairness;" it's a recognition that D&D is a game and people often better enjoy games when they feel "there's always a chance" that they might succeed (or at least avoid the worst effects of failure). Gygax himself was aware of this when he wrote later on in the same section of the DMG:

Yet because the player character is all-important, he or she must always -- or nearly always -- have a chance, no matter how small, a chance of somehow escaping what otherwise would be inevitable destruction. Many will not be able to do so, but the escapes of those who do are what the fabric of the game are created upon. These adventures become the twice-told tales and legends of the campaign.

I rather like this passage and think it does a good job of showing not only why saving throws are themselves an invaluable game mechanic, but also why saving throws whose consequences are "inevitable destruction" lend richness and texture to a campaign -- which is why I do not now, nor have I ever, shied away from "save or die" effects.

D&D 0.75

One of the lasting, if unfortunate, legacies of the Revised Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons is the widespread use of version numbers when discussing the game's various editions. Thus, pre-Unearthed Arcana Gygaxian AD&D becomes 1.0, while post-UA AD&D is termed 1.5. Second Edition is termed 2.0 and the Player's Option books herald the arrival of 2.5. And so on. So ubiquitous has this usage become that gamers argue about whether the upcoming Pathfinder RPG from Paizo should count as D&D 3.6 or 3.75 or 3.9, depending on their estimation of just how much the game deviates from 3.5.

Though I'm guilty of using this scheme from time to time, I'm not a big fan of it. For one, I don't think the hobby gains much by aping the conventions of computer gaming. Indeed, it remains my contention that what the hobby ought to be doing is playing up the ways in which it differs from computer gaming, because, when it comes to direct comparisons of the things traditional RPGs and computer games have in common, traditional RPGs generally lose. As a friend of mine once famously put it years ago, "Why would I play D&D when Diablo has better graphics than my imagination?" Secondly, versioning assumes an evolutionary paradigm that I don't think has much applicability to RPGs. 2.0 is not simply a less fully-featured version of 3.0, but a different game entirely. I'd probably be much happier calling the current edition of the game Dungeons & Dragons IV after the manner of movie or video game sequels, since it doesn't carry with it any connotations of either evolution or improvement but only succession.

All that said, I was much taken with the comment by ckutalik to my earlier post in which he "yearn[s] for something like D&D .75 edition (for lack of a better term)." I know exactly what he means. One of the reasons I returned to OD&D rather than AD&D, despite my great love for the latter, is that, after the bloated mess of Third Edition, the last thing I wanted was another complex RPG and AD&D, while far simpler than 3e, is still more complex than I wanted. Futhermore, baseline AD&D has a much sharper power curve than I like in my fantasy these days. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "munchkin-y," because that'd be hyperbole, but there's little question in mind that AD&D, with its "it is usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics," caters more to that mentality than does OD&D.

Yet, AD&D possesses a lot of great flavor. The ambience and trappings of 1e are far more to my liking than much of OD&D. And I find that, when it comes to inspirations and the practical matter of how I play, I feel a lot more affinity for the AD&D grognards than I do for the OD&D ones. That's why my Dwimmermount campaign has begun to borrow a lot more from the supplements to OD&D, laying the groundwork for the "proto-AD&D" to which I've alluded in the past. Like ckutalik I realize that I want a game that plays as fast and loose as OD&D but has much of the "chrome" of AD&D. In short, I want a kind of AD&D-flavored OD&D, which may explain why projects like Goblinoid's Advanced Edition Characters hold so much appeal for me. The thought of the clean, easy-to-use rules of Labyrinth Lord married to the flavor of AD&D is where I want to be these days.

Am I the only one?