Retrospective: Knight Hawks

I've made no secret of my love for Traveller. It was my go-to SF RPG when I was a kid and I retain a special place in my heart for it. Despite this -- or, perhaps, because of it -- I was always keenly aware of its shortcomings as a game and one was in the area of starship combat. Don't misunderstand me: Traveller's starship combat works just fine, but it's not particularly fun or exciting. Like many aspects of Traveller, it feels a bit like an exercise in double-column bookkeeping and it's decidedly lacking in the Big Explosions® department. That's probably due to the game's literary inspirations, none of which, to my recollection, has particularly memorable space battles in it.

Consequently, I very rarely ran space battle when I refereed Traveller, an omission that tended to limit the game's appeal among my friends, most of whom not unreasonably expected that there'd be lots of them in a science fiction RPG campaign. Enter Knight Hawks, the 1983 boxed expansion to TSR's Star Frontiers. Written and designed by Douglas Niles, Knight Hawks was produced to patch a glaring hole in the original Star Frontiers boxed set: no starship rules of any kind. This was a source of much annoyance among purchasers of the game, who'd mistakenly believed that any SF RPG would necessarily include starship rules in its initial release. Whatever virtues Star Frontiers had as a game were lost in the fact that it wasn't complete. Even my friends, who generally preferred the more wild and woolly approach of Star Frontiers to Traveller, were sufficiently displeased with its lack of starship rules that they never pressured me to run it very often.

All that changed with the release of Knight Hawks. It might be an exaggeration to say that this boxed set "saved" Star Frontiers in any absolute sense, but it certainly did amongst my friends and I. Consisting of a single 64-page campaign book, a 16-page rulebook, a 16-page adventure module, a double-sided map, a sheet of cardboard counters, and some percentile dice, Knight Hawks was a terrifically complete package. Better still, it was extremely well designed. Its starship rules, which were divided into basic and advanced versions, didn't even take up all 16 pages of the rulebook, some of which was filled with examples and short scenarios. What's more, the rules were scalable, allowing the referee to use them to handle anything from one-on-one dogfights to huge fleet engagements with a dozen or more ships per side.

This scalability was what really won me over to Knight Hawks. Traveller's starship rules weren't particularly complex, but they were just complex enough that I'd never have considered using them to run a battle involving more than a handful of ships at a time. Knight Hawks, on the other hand, seemed to revel in its ability to handle such large battles, with three different "levels" of action, corresponding to amount of rules detail employed. For large battles, only the basic rules were used. For smaller engagements, the advanced rules were suggested. And for small fights in which the PCs could reasonably play a significant part, the "extra-advanced" rules, where individual character skills come into play, were suggested. But of course all three levels were, by most standards, simple enough that an experienced referee could mix and match as he felt appropriate, such as the way I used to run big battles using only the basic rules but would "zoom in" when the ship on which the PCs served became involved in combat. It was a very clever design, all the more remarkable because it took up very few pages to present.

I absolutely adored Knight Hawks. I think only the starship combat rules from FASA's Star Trek come close to eclipsing it in my affections and the FASA rules suffer from being a bit slow at times, whereas Knights Hawks was always fast and furious. Now, I don't think this style of combat is appropriate for every SF campaign. Knight Hawks, like Star Frontiers itself, has a decidedly "bubblegum space opera" feel to it rather than something more "serious." That's not a criticism, merely an observation, lest anyone get the false impression that its design is universally applicable to any science fiction game or setting.

That said, contemporary game designers would be well advised to take to heart its emphasis on simple, scalable rules presented succinctly. Knight Hawks is clear, concise, and easy-to-use, yet very flexible, making good use of a few tables and without resorting either to abstraction or a one-size-fits-all universal mechanic. Knight Hawks was very accessible and had a low buy-in, two factors that I'd love to see employed more widely in 21st century game design. This is a forgotten classic and one from which I personally derived a great deal of pleasure over the years. Maybe I need to give it a whirl again sometime ...

Artist Identification

So, I was reading issue #3 of The Judges Guild Journal (August/September 1977) and I came across the above illustration. Though it's not visible in my scan of it, the piece is signed by someone called "Gil Dea." A note beneath it reads, "Illustrations by the Sorcerors Guild, all rights reserved." Additional artwork with the same style and signature and bearing the same copyright notice can be found in several subsequent issues of the Journal.

Does anyone out there in the ether know who Gil Dea is? Is that even the name of an actual person or was it a pseudonym for artists who were part of this "Sorcerors [sic] Guild," whatever that might have been? I'm curious both because I've never heard of this guy before, but also because the artwork is a cut above a lot of the art seen in products of that era.

A Word on Editing and Proofreading

As with the submissions and artwork, lots of folks have kindly offered to serve as editors and proofreaders for the Petty Gods project. I'll likely be taking several of you up on this offer once the submissions period is over, since having more eyes on the manuscript ensures that it won't be full of embarrassing typos/errors when I release the book early next year.

For the moment, though, hold off on sending me any more emails about this, since they'll just get lost in the sea of emails I already have (and that I've nearly worked my way through). I'll make a post to the blog sometime in late December asking for volunteers to edit/proofread the manuscript and we can proceed at that point.

Thanks, again, to everyone for their enthusiasm and offers of assistance. They are greatly appreciated.

For All Your Fallacy Needs

Before wading into another "discussion" on some blog or forum, be sure to check out the Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies. Amuse your friends! Confound your opponents!

The Travellers

In general, I'm not a fan of "gaming comics." With the exception of Wormy, which, in my opinion, isn't really a gaming comic anyway, I find most of them decidedly un-funny, primarily, I think, because their creators don't really get the fine distinctions between humor, satire, and irony that are necessary to make comics of this sort work.

Mark Harrison's The Travellers, which appeared in the pages of White Dwarf between 1983 and 1986, is a rare example to the contrary. Based, as its name would suggest, on GDW's classic SF RPG, Traveller, The Travellers tells the story of the five-man crew of the trading vessel Osprey, as they go from world to world in search of easy credits. What I really like about the comic, though, is the way that Harrison manages to capture the feel of what it was like to play Traveller in the early 80s without being self-conscious about it. The Osprey's adventures are comedies of errors, fueled by equal parts greed and violence, and filled with characters, places, and situations ripped bleeding from every SF novel, TV show, and movie within easy reach. That's how I remember actually playing the game, even if my aspirations were often much higher.

I'd never make the claim that The Travellers is high art, but it's a gaming comic, so I take that as given. It is, however, a fascinating window on the past, one that reveals a lot about the culture surrounding one of my favorite RPGs. And, besides, "Gavin's Swan Song" is a joy to behold.

Petty Gods News

Thanks to everyone who's sent me reminders regarding submissions or offers of help with art, etc. I'm slowly working my way through them all, but it's taking longer than I anticipated, owing to the fact that I, literally, have more than 100 people to contact and I'm trying to keep this project well organized (something at which I do not excel).

Anyway, keep the submissions and emails rolling in. I suspect I'll be out from under all my backlog in a day or two more. I've been distracted by other work, real life, and an uncharacteristic case of creative lethargy, so my apologies for the continued slowness on my part.

More soon.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Door to Saturn

Appearing in the January 1932 issue of Strange Tales, Clark Ashton Smith's "The Door to Saturn" is part of his Hyperborean cycle, although very little of its action actually takes place in that ancient far northern realm. Instead, as its title suggests, the story is set on the planet Saturn, called Cykranosh by the Hyperboreans, a world that is totally unlike the Saturn of science. Cykranosh possesses a surface with Earth-like topgraphy, a breathable atmosphere, and at least two intelligent humanoid species: the Blemphroims and the Ydheems.

The story thus has more in common with Edgar Rice Burroughs than "true" science fiction, which should come as no surprise, given that its protagonist, the wizard Eibon, makes his journey to Cykranosh by means of magic -- a journey he undertakes only because he is being pursued by an inquisition led by Morghi, high priest of the elk-goddess Yhoundeh. Eibon's crime is the worship of "the long-discredited heathen god Zhothaqquah," known in later times as Tsathoggua. Rather than face death at Morghi's hands, Eibon uses

a large thin oval plate of some ultra-telluric metal, ... fitted as a hinged panel in an upper room of his house. The panel, if swung outward from the wall on open air, would have the peculiar property of giving admittance to the world Cykranosh, many million miles away in space.

According to the vague and somewhat unsatisfactory explanation vouchsafed by the god, this panel, being partly wrought from a kind of matter which belonged to another universe than man's, possessed uncommon radiative properties that served to ally it with some higher dimension of space, through which the distance to astronomically remote spheres was a mere step.

Zhothaqquah, however, warned Eibon not to make use of the panel unless in time of extreme need, as a means of escape from otherwise inevitable danger; for it would be difficult if not impossible to return to Earth from Cykranosh — a world where Eibon might find it anything but easy to acclimate himself, since the conditions of life were very different from those in Mhu Thulan, even though they did not involve so total an inversion of all terrene standards and norms as that which prevailed in the more outlying planets.

Morghi follows Eibon through the panel, intent on arresting him according to the doctrines of the elk-goddess.

"Detestable sorcerer! Abominable heretic! I arrest you!" said Morghi with pontifical severity.

Eibon was surprised, not to say startled; but it reassured him to see that Morghi was alone. He drew the sword of highly tempered bronze which he carried, and smiled.

"I should advise you to moderate your language, Morghi," he admonished. "Also, your idea of arresting me is slightly out of place now, since we are alone together in Cykranosh, and Mhu Thulan and the temple-cells of Yhoundeh are many million miles away."

Morghi did not appear to relish this information. He scowled and muttered: "I suppose this is some more of your damnable wizardry."

Eibon chose to ignore the insinuation.

"I have been conversing with one of the gods of Cykranosh," he said magniloquently. "The god, whose name is Hziulquoigmnzhah, has given me a mission to perform, a message to deliver, and has indicated the direction in which I should go. I suggest that you lay aside our little mundane disagreement, and accompany me. Of course we could slit each other's throats or eviscerate each other, since we are both armed. But under the circumstances I think you will see the puerility, not to mention the sheer inutility, of such a proceeding. If we both live we may be of mutual use and assistance, in a strange world whose problems and difficulties, if I mistake not, are worthy of our united powers."

Together, this odd couple traverses across Cykranosh, encountering strange gods, equally strange Saturnian life forms, and sparring with one another by means of typically Smithian dialog. "The Door to Saturn" soon becomes a darkly humorous tale, full of wit and wonder. It's a bit of sardonic fun rather than anything deep or substantial, but I find it difficult not to enjoy it.

Reading the story, I am reminded once again that Smith presents a universe almost as weird and inhuman as Lovecraft's but one whose alienness is suffused with equal parts whimsy and horror. It's a combination not everyone finds congenial and I can certainly appreciate that reaction, but, for me, it's the perfect antidote to the kind of self-seriousness that HPL can sometimes engender in his readers. Smith regarded "The Door to Saturn" as one of his best stories and there's a lot to recommend in it, especially if you enjoy the idea of planetary romance seen through a slightly twisted lens.

Cool Hats

In the comments to my last post, Limpey speaks positively of the helmets worn by the Teutonic Knights and I can't say I blame him. Those helmets are pretty awesome, even if, as I understand it, they're actually the medieval equivalent of "parade dress" and no knight would ever have gone into battle wearing one (though I'm sure someone will speak up if I'm mistaken in this impression). Still, the helms go a long way toward establishing the German crusaders as sinister villains, so I'm willing to forgive the historical inaccuracy. In fact, in watching Alexander Nevsky, I noticed there is a lot of cool headgear associated with the German characters.

Take, for example, these helmets, worn by the footsoldiers of the crusading army. Again, I don't believe they're historically accurate for the 13th century, but they are appropriately sinister. That they look a lot like the German Stahlhelm is, of course, entirely the point.

And here's Hermann von Balk, Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, in his terrific horned helmet, surmounted by a crown to denote his status as a lord. The real Von Balk did not participate in the Battle of the Ice, having been dead for several years beforehand, but he is remembered for his military conquests and his ruthlessness toward pagans in the Baltic lands who resisted Christianization.

Here are three lords among the Teutonic Knights, each of whom has a distinctive ornamented helmet. The two on the left, Hubertus and Dietlieb, are granted fiefs in the conquered Russian lands by the Grand Master.

My favorite in the above picture is the unnamed guy on the right, who can also be seen below:

The Knights aren't the only ones who get nifty hats. The unnamed high-ranking cleric among the crusaders wears some noteworthy headgear. The first is this broad-brimmed galero, which would suggest that he's a cardinal, even though the galero didn't enter common use until after the Battle of the Ice took place. Again, I won't fault Eisenstein for his decision, because the galero is a great hat.

And, of course, no discussion of the hats of Alexander Nevsky would be complete without the aforementioned cleric's miter, which rather unsubtly includes swastika-like symbols in place of crosses.

The Battle of the Ice

Recently, Al Harron over at The Blog That Time Forgot reminded me about a film I haven't seen in a while and that I regard very highly: Sergei Eisenstein's 1938 historical epic, Alexander Nevsky. The film principally concerns an invasion by the Teutonic Knights in 13th century Novgorod, an invasion repulsed by Grand Prince Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky's efforts culminate at the Battle of the Ice, so called because it was fought atop the frozen surface of Lake Peipus on the border between what are now Russia and Estonia.

Eisenstein's film depicts this battle in a sequence that's one of the most famous in all of motion picture history. Set to the choral score of Sergei Prokofiev, it's an amazing piece of work that, like so much of Eisenstein's output, has proven extraordinarily influential on other movies. Likewise, Prokofiev's score, which is widely regarded as the best movie score ever composed -- and rightly so in my opinion -- has proven similarly influential, especially in genre films that feature pitched battles between the forces of good and evil.

Anyway, here's a clip of the Battle of the Ice, in case you've never seen it before. It's an impressive example of film making and a perfect marriage of image and sound to create a memorable viewing experience.

Another Overlooked Rule

Here's another rule from the LBBs I overlook. In my defense, it's probably because it's unclear exactly what it means:

Player/Characters must pay Gold Pieces equal to 1% their experience points for support and upkeep, until such time as they build a stronghold. If the stronghold is in a wilderness area all support and upkeep costs then cease, but if it is in a village or town not controlled by the player/character then support and upkeep must continue.

As a principle, I like the idea of "encouraging" characters to settle down and establish a stronghold in the wilderness. Unfortunately, this section of Volume 3 is unclear. How often must a character pay these costs? Once per month? Once per year? Likewise, is it all characters, from level 1 on up or only characters of a certain level or higher? I presume the former, but the text is silent on this point.

Regardless, it's a rule I haven't been applying in my current Dwimmermount campaign and I doubt I will retroactively employ, but I'll certainly keep it in mind should I ever start a new OD&D campaign -- once I figure out exactly what the rule is saying, that is.