The Long Shadow of AD&D

In yesterday's Open Friday question, I asked people to cite the cover image that immediately springs to mind when they think of "Dungeons & Dragons." I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to respond. I found the comments really interesting, if only because I discovered that, for a great many old schoolers, the Erol Otus cover of the Basic Rules is hands-down the most iconic representation of Dungeons & Dragons. After that, it was a close race between Tramp's Players Handbook cover and Elmore's "red box" cover. The Holmes cover did well too, though it was cited less often than any of the other three already mentioned. Interesting too was that there were a very large number of commenters who chose none of these four popular options, instead citing other cover images.

Now, as everyone knows, I was introduced into the hobby through the Holmes "blue book," which is an edited and pared down version of OD&D, even though, for marketing reasons, it sometimes presents itself as if it were an introduction to AD&D (it's not). Despite that, my friends and I eventually "moved on" from Holmes to AD&D anyway, as it seemed to be the only way to go. In 1980, which was our first full year of roleplaying, getting the AD&D Players Handbook was the only pathway to levels above 3 that was readily available to us. The Moldvay/Cook/Marsh sets were still a year in the future and, though we knew of the existence of the LBBs and supplements, for some reason none of us ever considered the possibility of using them in conjunction with Holmes. Plus, the PHB was a 128-page hardcover book selling for (I think) $12.00 , while Greyhawk or Blackmoor was half that length, softcover, and $5.00 -- hardly worth it in our opinions.

And so it was that we all became AD&D players. Or, rather, we became users of AD&D books to play Dungeons & Dragons. I honestly don't think we ever played AD&D using all of the rules it presented. I'm not talking about stuff like weapon speed factors (which we never used) or weapon vs. AC adjustments (which we sometimes). I'm not even talking about psionics, bards, unarmed combat, weapon proficiencies, or any of a dozen other rules that, in my experience, lots of gamers ignored, then and now. I'm talking about really basic stuff like initiative (has anyone ever used AD&D's version?), armor types (I still have trouble with "unarmored" being AC 10, not AC 9), and damage vs. different-sized opponents. AD&D's peculiar (to us, anyway) divergences from Holmes were honored more in the breach than in the observance.

Yet, if someone had asked us back then, we would have unanimously claimed to be playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, especially once Moldvay/Cook/Marsh was released, which we tended to look down on as "kiddie D&D," even as we bought them and the adventure modules associated with them. In our adolescent minds, AD&D was "a man's game," so to speak and we proudly carried about our Gygaxian tomes, even though we regularly ignored the man's actual words when it came to running our games. I don't imagine we were the only ones who did so. Indeed, as the years pass, I have become ever more convinced that very few people ever played AD&D as written, instead simply using Gary's books as source material to flavor games that were, in their essentials, far closer to the LBBs, Holmes, or Moldvay than what's presented in the three volumes released between 1977 and 1979.

I'd hazard a guess that more people entered the hobby through some "basic" version of D&D than directly through AD&D and yet it was AD&D that was the favored son at TSR. Some of this, I am sure, had to do with the disputes between Gygax and Arneson over OD&D, but that doesn't explain it all. As a younger person, when I thought of "D&D," I always thought of AD&D, an association I still haven't shaken to this day. It's not for nothing that I have an image from Dave Trampier's PHB cover on the masthead of this blog, for example. But, when I returned to old school gaming in late 2007, I never seriously considered playing AD&D despite my fondness for it. I found that I like a lot of the Gygaxian flavor of the game, but I preferred OD&D's presumed association with flexibility and open-endedness.

I don't think it can be denied, though, that, even amongst people who don't prefer AD&D over other versions of the game, it remains their mental "default" for imagining "Dungeons & Dragons." Why is it, for example, that we call WotC's current version "Fourth Edition?" That implies that AD&D is "First Edition" and that is what most people call it, including myself. Yet, in truth, AD&D isn't the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons and, to its credit, never claimed to be. The term "First Edition" arose only after the game's revision in 1989. Prior to its release in 2000, you might remember that there were references to "AD&D Third Edition." Even though WotC ultimately dropped the word "advanced" from the title, the company still called its new version "3e" or some variation thereof. The third edition of what? AD&D, of course.

Now, I actually think the name "Third Edition" is an accurate one. For all the ways in which D&D III differs from its TSR ancestors, it still retains a lot of ideas and even verbiage that can be traced directly back to Gygax's manuals (take a look at many of the spell and monster descriptions, if you doubt this). D&D IV, so far as I can detect, can make the claim far more tenuously (especially when it comes to verbiage), but WotC still promotes it as "Fourth Edition." Again, fourth edition of what? The game implicitly presents itself as a successor to Gary Gygax's Advanced D&D, not any other version of the game, even though it's now employing imagery not derived from it.

AD&D casts a long shadow over the subsequent history of Dungeons & Dragons. Every version of the game that has been released in its wake, from Moldvay/Cook/Marsh down to WotC's latest offering, is, to varying degrees, influenced by or reacting against it. It's a testament to its enduring power that, more than three decades on, AD&D remains as iconic as it does. I'm far from certain that that's a wholly good thing (I'm pretty sure it isn't), but there's no denying it. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is the proverbial elephant in the old school living room; it simply can't be ignored.

Why Even Try to Fight It?

I'm done trying to make excuses for ever more frequent posts about the Marvel Star Wars comics. The simple fact is I loved these things as a kid and, unlike a lot of stuff I liked back then, I think these actually hold up pretty well more than 30 years later. At the very least, they're incredibly inspirational to me as I turn my mind toward science fiction and space fantasy.

Which brings me to the Wheel:

The Wheel was basically Las Vegas in space, a pleasure station owned and operated by Senator Simon Greyshade, who seems to have stolen his wardrobe from Dr. Strange (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Greyshade isn't exactly a villain; he's more of an antagonist. In fact, looking back on him now, he comes across as a kind of Lando Calrissian figure -- a guy quite happy to keep raking in the credits until he gets in over his head in a bad deal with the Empire, a deal that puts him at odds with our heroes, until he finally finds the courage within himself to do the right thing.

Like Baron Tagge, what I find interesting about Greyshade is what his existence implies about the Empire. Marvel's vision of the Empire is far more corrupt than Evil, if that distinction makes any sense. Yes, there are plenty of evil men in the service of the Empire. Indeed, the Empire provides lots of scope for such men to give vent to their evil. But, mostly, the Empire is about the acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary. In such an environment, a giant casino in space -- complete with live gladiatorial games for prize money -- seems natural, indeed plausible, rather than goofy.

I have a hard time imagining a place like the Wheel in the official Star Wars universe, whose Empire is too monolithically evil, from its black magic-wielding Emperor down to its lowliest jackbooted minion. Don't misunderstand: I love the good versus evil vibe of the Star Wars movies and I certainly don't think what the setting needs is a lot of moral grayness. Still, I do think that, by making Darth Vader an exemplar of what the Empire is rather than a throwback, an aberration, used by it for its own purposes, a lot of dramatic possibilities are lost.

As I noted in my post about Tagge, I much prefer an Empire filled with plots within plots, where everyone of any ambition and influence is using every tool at his disposal to advance himself one step toward the top of the heap. From a roleplaying perspective, it's a really great set-up and provides plenty of scope for a multitude of campaigns where the PCs don't feel like second-stringers who aren't fighting the Empire "for real" since they're not staring down Vader or a bunch of dark side adepts personally sent by the Emperor to hunt them down. Space opera is supposed to be a wide open genre and on this the Marvel comics really delivered.

Open Friday: Imagining D&D

Today's question is one that's tangentially related to a post I'll make tomorrow: when you think about Dungeons & Dragons, the cover of what product comes first to min? For me, it's the AD&D Players Handbook, even though I'm far less enamored of AD&D than I once was. That cover pretty much encapsulates my vision of "D&D" in a single image.

What cover image does the same for you?

RIP: Edwin Charles Tubb (1919-2010)

I just learned that British science fiction author Edwin Charles (E.C.) Tubb died last Friday (September 10, 2010) at his home in London at the age of 90. Tubb probably isn't very well known among science fiction fans today, but, from the 1950s through 1980s, he produced a large number of excellent space operas, chief among them being the "Dumarest Saga," a 32-volume series that was first published in 1967. The series chronicles the adventures of Earl Dumarest, as he travels about a fragmented, anarchic galaxy in hopes of finding his lost homeworld of Earth.

The series had a huge influence on Marc Miller in his creation of Traveller and many of Miller's concepts, like "low" and "high" passages come straight out of these tales. More significantly, Dumarest calls himself a "traveller," a word Miller not only adopted to describe the protagonists of his SF RPG but adopted in its British spelling. Before I read any of Tubb's work, I wondered why Traveller was spelled as it was and, while I can't be sure this is the explanation, it seems to make sense.

Regardless, Tubb's death marks the passing of yet another giant of "old school" science fiction. I don't imagine there are too many other writers left who began their careers in the 40s and 50s, so another link with the past has been severed. He will be greatly missed.

The Eld -- in Living Color!

Thanks to Luigi "Artikid" Castellani, I can show you the first ever illustration of an Eldritch warrior rushing into battle with his swords drawn.

REVIEW: Old School Magic

Old School Magic is the latest PDF by Charles Rice, a 29-page supplement for OSRIC introducing nine new magic-using classes and new spells for use by them. Unsurprisingly, it's a very meaty product, with nearly every one of its two-column pages devoted to the presentation of mechanical material. About 5 pages pertain to more "philosophical" subjects, including rebuttals/defenses of Rice's approach to design against criticisms I've made in past reviews (at least I think they're directed toward me, but then, as we all know, I think everything's about me, right?). I'll address those sections later in this review. First, I'd like to look at the new classes and spells Old School Magic introduces.

• Alchemist: This would appear to be the very same class I reviewed in an earlier product and my feelings about the class remain much the same.
• Artificer: An interesting but very weak class, devoted to the crafting of magic items. Members of this class have no ability to cast spells but instead imbue items they construct with such magic. This struck me as more appropriate as an NPC class.
• Conjurer: A magic-user specializing in summoning creatures to battle on his behalf, the conjurer consequently has a very limited selection of spells. As members of this class advance, their summoned creatures become more powerful and numerous, but summoning is their sole magical ability. I found this class rather weak as well, especially given that its XP requirements are the same as standard magic-users.
• Elementalist: Another specialist magic-user with a limited selection of spells, the elementalist is at least potent within his sphere. I very much like the idea of this class, even if I'm not sure about its implementation here.
• Hermit: Again, another great idea -- a solitary divine spellcaster whose austere lifestyle grants him remarkable proficiency with divination and healing -- that I don't think gels quite right. In any event, this is another class that strikes me as more appropriate for NPCs than adventurers.
• Holy Man: This is an alternative class to the cleric in low magic campaigns, focusing on fighting undead and medicinal knowledge.
  
• Naturalist: Another alternative class, this time for the druid, the naturalist is a kind of cunning man with knowledge of the wild places of the world.
• Sage: This is a nice expansion of sages as presented in Supplement II and the Dungeon Masters Guide, with lots of useful abilities, but, again, I have a hard time seeing him as an adventurer.
• Seer: Another specialist magic-user with a limited spell list, this time focusing on detection and divination. The seer's only unique ability is its resistance to illusion, which give members of the class a greater chance of seeing things as they truly are.

As you can see, all of Old School Magic's classes fall into two categories: intriguing non-adventuring classes (some of which don't quite match up with AD&D/OSRIC's implied setting) and highly specialized -- but underpowered -- adventuring classes. The non-adventuring classes are, by and large, very well done; they're flavorful and channel recognizable fantasy archetypes, but I have a hard time imagining a player choosing to create any of them as a character, as they're more "stay at home" types. The adventuring classes are all more or less "specialist wizards," to use 2e parlance. However, they all pay for their expertise in a narrow field by having extremely limited spell selections, which I fear will make them a lot less attractive than the standard magic-user as PC options.

Old School Magic also introduces 31 new spells, most of them intended to fill out the spell lists of the aforementioned specialist wizards. Most of the spells are clever and provide some much needed versatility to the conjurer, elementalist, and seer classes. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough new spells to put these classes on par with even the illusionist, the lone pre-2e example of a specialist magic-user. Where the illusionist typically has between 8 and 12 spells per level, the specialists of Old School Magic generally have about half that (or less, especially at high levels). Certainly they all get some minor class abilities, like the seer's resistance to illusion, but I'm not sure they make up for the loss of versatility in terms of spell selection, at least not enough that I'd choose to play one over a standard magic-user.

Early in Old School Magic, after discussing "levels of magic" and "laws of magic" (which I'll get to in a moment), Rice takes a couple of paragraphs to answer criticisms made in the past (by me primarily, unless I'm mistaken) about his approach to game design. Rice places himself in the "variety is the spice of life camp," stating that he liked the "wild and woolly" days when publications featured "new classes of every shape and description, some balanced, most not in one way or another, either overpowered or purposely gimped and cordoned off as 'NPC only' classes." That's fair enough and I appreciate his addressing this upfront.

Now, obviously, given my past reviews, his position differs from my own. I am not now nor have I ever been a fan of having a class for everything. That's an approach that, while having a long old school pedigree, I don't care to see revived. But then I'm generally of the opinion that AD&D probably had too many classes, so what do I know? This is an example of a philosophical difference, I suppose. I remember all those classes from the pages of Dragon back in the day and I was generally baffled by most of them. What was the point in having an armorsmith class or a scribe class? They seemed so unnecessary to me. Clearly, not everyone felt the same way, which is why they kept getting created and published, so there's an audience for them, even if I'm not a member of it.

Fortunately, the new classes all contain good ideas and, even though I won't be using any of them in my campaign, I might well re-purpose bits and pieces of them in other fashions. In addition, Rice's discussions of "levels of magic" -- low, medium, and high -- and the "laws of magic" both contain interesting concepts, particularly the latter. He makes suggestions for other approaches to magic that replace or supplement the tradition spell slot system. Again, there are lots of good ideas to be had here, such as mana channeling and astrological magic, that more than justify the $3.50 price tag of Old School Magic, particularly if, like its author, you prefer a smorgasbord of new classes, abilities, and game mechanics in your campaigns. Even if you don't, you still might find some inspiration here for unusual NPC spellcasters; I know I did.

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

Get This If: You love having lots of different classes in your game or are just looking for a few ideas about spellcasters to pilfer for your own game.
Don't Get This If: You're not a fan of having lots of different flavors of magic-user.

Quick -- A Distraction!

My apologies for the slowdown in posts here. I'm knee-deep in work on the revision to Thousand Suns and, as often happens when I'm hitting my stride, I'm ignoring lots of other work to take full advantage of the momentum I've generated. I'm also gearing up to finish the first Dwimmermount-related PDF (on dwarves and gnomes) and do more work on the Dwimmermount book itself, so, needless to say, I've been more neglectful than usual with posts and, especially, correspondence. With luck, that'll change soon, since I have quite a few posts to make, including many, many reviews, but I can't guarantee anything.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd share some more images from the Marvel Star Wars comics, because I continue to be, well, obsessed with them and people seem to be enjoying my entries reminiscing about them.

Among the many intriguing characters introduced in the Star Wars comics was Baron Orman Tagge, the head of a noble house of which General Ulric Tagge -- the guy with the awesome sideburns in the Death Star conference room -- is a member. Baron Tagge had a vendetta against Darth Vader, who'd apparently blinded him at some time in the past, and now plotted revenge against him, hoping to displace him in the Emperor's favor.

As you can see, Tagge was a believer in old school irony; nothing less than beating Vader at his own game would suffice, which is why he trained relentlessly with the lightsaber. But, like just about everyone else associated with the Empire in the original film, he has no respect for the Jedi or their "ancient religion."

So, Tagge uses his family's resources over several issues of the comic trying to create a new "technological terror" with which to defeat the Rebellion -- and embarrass Darth Vader in the process. The baron is a wonderfully melodramatic villain and you've got love the man's fashion sense, right down to the "cyber vision" glasses that allow him to see despite the wounds he received from the Dark Lord.

I also like Tagge because of what he implies about the political structure of the Empire: a dog-eat-dog society of barely controlled chaos, where ambitious nobles, greedy corporate executives, mad scientists, and military strongmen vie with one another for power and influence under the iron fist of the Emperor, who no doubt encourages this behavior as a way to keep his Empire powerful and ensure his underlings are too busy fighting one another to try and overthrow him. It's a very different conception than what we get in the later movies, but I confess to preferring it in many ways, not least of all because it makes for better space opera.

Anyway, I should get back to work, so I'll leave you with another Marvel Star Wars image. It has little to do with the musings in this post, but it's cool nonetheless and you have to dig the boxed text.

Retrospective: Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier

Earlier this year, I talked about FASA's Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game and, more recently, about FGU's Starships & Spacemen. Each represented a different take, one official, one not, on Gene Roddenberry's brand of science fiction adventure in roleplaying form. However, they were not the only such takes in the early days of the hobby. In 1978, miniatures manufacturer, Heritage Models released a 40-page RPG to be used in conjunction with their line of official Star Trek miniatures. Called Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, it was written by Michael Scott and is both the earliest licensed Trek RPG and one of the earliest science fiction RPGs of any kind.

As one would expect from a RPG with only 40 pages, Heritage's Star Trek is a very simple game. Indeed, its rules are so minimal that it's barely a game at all. The "basic game" does not have any character creation rules, assuming the players will select pregenerated PCs based on characters from the Original and Animated series. Like D&D, all characters have six abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Luck, Mentality, Charisma, Constitution), ranging in value from 3 to 18. Characters also have Hand-to-Hand (melee combat) and "Initiation" (i.e. initiative) abilities. There is no skill system; instead, a series of 3D6 rolls under abilities is used to handle most activities in which a character might engage, with Luck being used as a saving throw. Melee combat is based on opposed rolls, with a defender subtracting his result from the attacker's and positive numbers being used to determine damage, which is subtracted from a character's Constitution score. Ranged combat is a bit more complex and relies on a chart that cross-references a character's Dexterity score. There are also some very basic rules for equipment, such as communicators and medi-kits, as well as a sample scenario.

The Advanced Game enables players to create their own PCs by rolling 3D6, modified by bonuses or penalties based on species. There are two new abilities introduced here: Size and Movement. Psionics, which were treated simply through the use of a Mentality roll in the Basic Game, are given slightly greater coverage, including differentiation between types of psionic powers (the Basic Game included only a mindlink). Alien races and lifeforms from the series are given short write-up, along with rules for creating one's own. There's a similar collection of short descriptions for many types of equipment. The Advanced Game's combat rules are noteworthy primarily for being more "fiddly," particularly with regard to time and movement (hence the new stats). There are many more modifiers, in addition to rules for armor and shielding. There is a sample adventure for the Advanced Game, along with guidelines and advice to the "Mission Master" in creating his own.

All in all, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is more a sketch of a roleplaying game than anything else. It's painted in very broad strokes, far moreso than even OD&D or Metamorphosis Alpha, two early games that often get knocked for their brevity and rules lacunae. Compared to Traveller or even Starships & Spacemen, both released the previous year, Star Trek doesn't seem to have much to recommend it beyond the fact that it was "official." Of course, my opinion clearly wasn't shared by all, as there were several interesting expansions to the game included in various gaming publications well into the early 80s, including a lengthy "mini-supplement" in issue 18 (January 1982) of Chaosium's Different Worlds by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh. Crabaugh's article greatly expands the rules of the game, adding mechanics for rank, experience, skills, aging, salaries, world generation, and warp travel. It's hard to imagine trying to use Star Trek without Crabaugh's expansions and, even then, there's still a lot of ground, such as starship combat, that isn't even touched upon.

I know nothing of the origins and history of this RPG; I never even saw a copy of it until comparatively recently. Nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling that it was created primarily to create a larger market for Heritage's miniatures line, thus explaining the greater detail given to things like movement and range in the Advanced Game. Remember that, in 1978, Star Trek, though popular in certain circles, was not yet the media franchise that it would become in the aftermath of its big screen adventures, the first of which was still a year away at the time of the RPG's release. That might well explain why Heritage never did much with the game and it became one of the great mysteries of the hobby, unknown to the vast majority of gamers, including those who love Star Trek. Of course, it might also be because the game isn't particularly good or memorable.

Otherworld Miniatures (Late) Summer Sale

From now until the end of September, Otherworld Miniatures -- which I use in my Dwimmermount game, so I think very highly of their work -- is offering a 20% discount all orders and pre-orders. Given the very favorable exchange rate right now between the British pound and both the US and Canadian dollars, now's a very good time to consider picking up any Otherworld minis you've been considering.

There are a number of truly excellent new models available, especially in the undead series. I may have to pick up a few myself.

REVIEW: Modular Dungeon Cut-Up Sections Basic Set

Regular readers of this blog know that I often use miniatures in my ongoing Dwimmermount campaign. I also use Hirst Arts dungeon blocks to represent the chambers and corridors through which the players characters travel in their adventures. But when I was a younger man, there were no such things as 3-D dungeon blocks, or rather those that existed weren't readily available to me. Consequently, my friends and I, like nearly everyone we knew who hadn't been a miniatures wargamer before getting into roleplaying, had to make do with paper and cardboard "dungeon floorplans" (as we called them) to represent the environments in which our scenarios took place. Consequently, I was intrigued when I first heard about Inked Adventures' line of hand-drawn printable maps for use with miniatures.

The Modular Dungeon Cut-Up Sections Basic Pack is 41-page PDF retailing for $5.50 (currently discounted for $4.00) and would seem to be, as its name implies, the foundational product of this line. 36 of the PDF's pages consist of colored illustrations of rooms, corridors, junctions, stairs, and dungeon features like doors, pools, trapdoors, corpses, furniture, and more. The selection of architecture and scenery in the Basic Pack is remarkably varied, covering most of the classic elements of a fantasy dungeon, all drawn in an attractive style that's neither too "realistic" nor too cartoonish. I liked the look of them so much that, even though I'm unlikely to use them in actual play, I printed off a couple of pages just to see how they'd look. I can report that they look very nice indeed.

Certainly the cut-up sections lack the "grandeur" of 3-D blocks, but they more than make up for it in the quirky charm of their artwork and, unlike 3-D blocks, it'd be very easy to print off pieces and pre-assemble them for an upcoming session without having to set aside large areas of space in one's home. They're also a lot more flexible than 3-D blocks, since it takes little effort to alter the shapes of the rooms and corridors with the deft use of scissors. If I have any real complaints about the cut-up sections it's that, because they use a scale of 1" to 5 feet, many contemporary miniatures, which have circular bases, such as the Otherworld Miniatures I use in my games, a little larger than a single square. It's not a huge problem, to be sure, but it could pose some difficulties.

Still, I was suitably impressed with the Basic Pack and hope it will be well received by gamers who don't already own or use 3-D blocks in their fantasy campaigns. It's an excellent product at a good value and fills a void in the old school market.

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

Buy This If: You're looking for an attractive, inexpensive alternative to dungeon blocks for use with your fantasy miniatures.
Don't Buy This If: You already have and use dungeon blocks with your fantasy miniatures.