Gradually, then Suddenly

It's been a rough few weeks for my ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign. Recently, the combination of the usual summer doldrums I've come to expect over the last nine years with the vagaries of my players' real-life schedules and obligations has resulted in fewer sessions where we actually play than those where we just chat. Now, there's nothing wrong with chatting with one's friends and, truth be told, I often enjoy those sessions where we shoot the breeze rather than roleplay. But House of Worms is a roleplaying game campaign, so I do take note of when we have an extended period of time when our playing is erratic to non-existent, as has been the case for the last month or so.

As it happens, one of my players also has taken note of it and today raised the question of whether or not I thought the campaign was in danger of sputtering out. Despite my optimism of only a few months ago, I had to agree that the campaign might indeed be entering its final days. Amusingly, our newest player, who only joined our merry band in January of this year, joked that he should have known this would happen. Anytime he'd joined a Tékumel campaign in the past, it fell apart soon thereafter, so why should House of Worms be any different? One of the original six players of the campaign hasn't been able to join us since earlier this year, while another of the original six is now taking an extended leave due to his work. Other players have also found themselves unable to attend for various reasons and that's had an adverse effect on our sessions, which, in turn, has slowed the momentum of the campaign to the point where the players are now openly discussing the possibility of things coming to a halt. 

As I said during today's session, when the question was first raised, we've had periods like this before, when our session frequency became inconsistent and we lost some momentum, but we always managed to keep things going somehow, so that might well be the case this time as well. However, I must confess that this time feels a little different. If I had to put my finger on why it's probably related to the loss of two of the original six players. We're entering into Ship of Theseus territory, where the thread connecting the first session in March 2015 and the present is getting ever more tenuous. Maybe that's not what's going on, I don't know. I can only say that I agreed with the player that lately House of Worms feels as if it's no longer as energetic as it once was.

Of course, the reason the player brought the topic up was, in part, to see if we could make an effort to "wrap things up," which is to say, reach a place in the campaign where, if we were to decide to end it, doing so would bring some degree of satisfaction. Given the meandering nature of the campaign after nearly a decade of play, I'm not sure it'd be possible, even under the best of circumstances, to tie up all the dangling threads into a neat little bow, but, even if that's impossible, there's no reason we shouldn't work toward some kind of closure. We've spent too much time with these characters, this world, and one another not to try – which is why, in today's session, the characters began to lay the groundwork not only to effect Kirktá's rise to emperor of Tsolyánu but also to ruler of a restored Bednallján Empire. They think big, don't they?

And who knows: thinking big might just be the sort of thing that helps pull the campaign out of its doldrums and ensures our contemplation of its end is for nothing.

Level Titles: Fighters and Thieves

Level titles first appeared in original (1974) Dungeons & Dragons, seemingly inspired by the various types of figures available in the "Fantasy Supplement" to Chainmail (1971), about which I may make a separate post later. These titles, in themselves, have no mechanical purpose whatsoever, serving solely as a verbal way to distinguish between two characters of the same class but of different levels. Consequently, they disappeared entirely from AD&D's Second Edition (1989), but were present in all editions of D&D until the Rules Cyclopedia (1991), when they disappeared (though they did reappear in the brief and often forgotten The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game in 1994).

Since I've lately become very interested in the degree of continuity between the various editions of D&D, I thought looking at the level titles of the various classes might make for an interesting series of posts. To start, let's look at fighters (fighting men) and thieves. Here's the level title chart for the former from Volume 1 of OD&D:

 In the AD&D Players Handbook (1978), the list is identical.

However, in the 1981 David Cook/Stephen Marsh-edited Expert Rules, we get this list of level titles, which is only nearly identical. The 3rd-level title, Swordsman, becomes Swordmaster, probably for the same reason the 9th-level title, Lord, gains the parenthetical option of Lady. All later editions of D&D (1983, 1991, 1994) use these same level titles.

Thieves first appear in Supplement I to OD&D (1975) and use the following level titles:

In the AD&D Players Handbook, we get a slightly different list for thieves. Most of the titles are the same, but the levels they're associated with are swapped. We also get a couple of new titles, like Filcher at 6th level and Magsman at 8th level, because Gygax loved obscure and archaic words.

The D&D Expert Set much more closely follows the Supplement I level titles than does AD&D, replacing only Master Pilferer at 8th level with Thief instead (and lowering the level at which Master Thief becomes available).

Of the two character classes examined today, it's the thief that shows the most changes in its level titles between their first appearance in Greyhawk and later versions, though, even there, the changes are small. Meanwhile, the fighter changes barely at all. The same cannot be said of clerics and magic-users, as we'll see in the next post in this series.

Madison Bound

So, who's going to be attending Gamehole Con 11 this year? After much hemming and hawing, I finally went ahead and committed to going this October 17–20 in Madison, Wisconsin. As I've mentioned before, I had a great time at GHC the couple of times I was there before, so I'm looking forward to returning once again. I'm also looking forward to seeing friends from all over once again. For me, that's the real joy of conventions: having the chance to chat, hang out, and roll some dice in the flesh rather than just virtually, as I do too often these days.

With that in mind: who else will be attending? I'd love to have the chance to meet up with some of you and maybe even play something. I've been contemplating using the con as an opportunity to publicly playtest the latest draft of Secrets of sha-Arthan anyway, so it might be even more fun to do it with regular readers and patrons. If you'll be there and would like to get together, drop a note in the comments below and we can begin to planning it now.

Retrospective: Temple of Apshai

When I was in the seventh grade, a new kid joined my class and he soon became my best friend. He was also an early adopter of personal computers, owning a TRS-80. I didn't own a computer of any kind – and wouldn't until the early '90s – so I spent a lot of time over his house. admiring this wonder of the dawning Information Age. We played a lot of games on that "Trash-80," most of them not very good or memorable. However, a handful do stick out in my mind as being both, chief among them being Temple of Apshai.

Temple of Apshai is one of the earliest computer dungeoncrawlers, not to mention one of the first have graphics, albeit very primitive graphics. For many computer aficionados at the time, I suspect that was one of the biggest draws about the game. For me, though, the mere existence of a computer RPG at all was more than enough to attract my attention. That I'd also seen advertisements for Temple of Apshai in the pages of Dragon probably played a role, too. In those days, I was easily captivated by ads and those Dragon magazine ads, showing an adventurer fighting some antmen, intrigued me.

Temple of Apshai was developed and published by Epyx, the company that also produced Crush, Crumble & Chomp (another game I'd first seen advertised in Dragon). Its earliest version appeared in 1979 and, from what I understand, came on a cassette type, a format that prevented player progress from being saved. My friend and I were playing on a later version that included 5¼-inch floppy disks, thank goodness. Temple of Apshai was already difficult enough as it is. I can't imagine trying to play it without the ability to save.

The game's premise is simple: enter and explore the ruined Temple of Apshai, the insect god, in the hopes of finding treasure and magic items. The instruction manual does provide some cursory background information about the founding of the temple and its relationship to the Temple of Geb, the god of earth. But the play of the game doesn't really make use of, let alone depend upon, this information, which is mostly about exploring – and surviving – a four-level dungeon consisting of more than 200 rooms and inhabited by two dozen different types of monsters, most of which are (appropriately) giant insects, along with a handful of slimes and undead.

As I said above, the game's graphics were quite primitive, not much better than Atari's Adventure, which appeared only a little later. Even so, I was quite impressed with being able to see the layout of the dungeon rooms and corridors, in contrast to games like Zork, which relied entirely on text to present their in-game environments. The limitations of technology at the time being what they were, your character and the dangers he faces appear as simple pixelated shapes rather than as something genuinely representational. Later versions of the game improved upon this, but that occurred long after my friend and I played the game.

Like all early computer games, Temple of Apshai clearly shows inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, but it has a number of features that remind me a bit of RuneQuest. A character had six ability scores – Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Intuition, and Ego – whose scores ranged from 3 to 18, just as in D&D. However, unlike D&D, there are no character classes. All characters are effectively fighters, since, aside from magic items, no magic powers or spells exist in the game. Further, combat and other actions can fatigue a character, who must rest in order to regain his energy. Armor lessens damage suffered, while shields make a character harder to hit. None of this is remarkable to old RPG hands, but, for a computer game of this, it's pretty sophisticated stuff.

Because of its graphical limitations, Temple of Apshai could not visually distinguish the contents of one room from another. Instead, each room, trap, and treasure have an entry in the game's instruction manual to which the player must refer in order to get a more detailed description of what his character is presumably encountering. For example, the first room of the dungeon is described as follows:

The smooth stonework of the passageway floor shows that advanced methods were used in its creation. A skeleton sprawls on the floor just inside the door, a bony hand still clutching a rusty dagger, outstretched toward the door to safety. A faint roaring sound can be heard from the far end of the passage.

This is very much like a "real" dungeon, which is to say, one a referee might create beforehand, with keyed room descriptions to which he'd refer in play. I don't think I appreciated this at the time, but, in retrospect, I find it fascinating. I recall reading somewhere that Temple of Apshai's designer, Jon Freeman, was inspired to create the game after he'd spent several years trying to find ways to use computers to aid referees in running D&D campaigns. If true, it's yet another reminder of just how important and influential Dungeons & Dragons has been on the growth and development of computer games and, by extension, computer technology itself. 

Like so many early computer RPGs, I don't think I could play Temple of Apshai today. That's no knock against the game itself or its deserved place of honor in the history of computer games. Rather, it's because you can't go home again, however much you might want to do so. What enthralled and amazed my friend and I in 1982 is not something that would do so today – but it was an amazing game in its day and I'm glad to have had the chance to play it.

The Articles of Dragon: "Cantrips: Minor Magics for Would-Be Wizards"

You would think I'd remember issue #59 of Dragon (March 1982) for its 20+ pages of science fiction content, but, at the time I first read it, I was much more interested in Gary Gygax's latest "From the Sorceror's Scroll" column. Entitled "Cantrips: Minor Magics for Would-Be Wizards," this column is what first introduced 0-level spells into Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax offers these up as the first preview of the AD&D "expansion volume" he was working on at the time and that he hoped would be released "next year" (i.e. 1983). He explains that this volume "will be for both players and DMs, with several new character classes, new weapons, scores of new spells, new magic items, etc." 

Needless to say, this was irresistible to my youthful, Gygax-loving, TSR fanboy self. I'd been playing AD&D – or, at least, using AD&D books to play a game we called "AD&D" – since sometime in 1980 and had, during that time, had dutifully acquired all its available volumes. The prospect of a new volume and one penned by Gygax himself filled us with excitement. That he was now sharing monthly glimpses into what this volume might contain in the pages of Dragon more or less assure that I'd be paying careful attention to the magazine from now on.

Of course, this first article in the series of previews didn't really interest me all that much. For whatever reason, my friends and I weren't all that keen on magic-users. It's not that we never played magic-users – well, I didn't, but that's another story – but that our favorite classes tended to be fighters, thieves, and clerics. With one exception, I can't recall a single player character who was a single-classed MU. All of the magic-users amongst our characters were multi-classed elves and even these were pretty uncommon. Consequently, I couldn't get too excited about cantrips, since I knew they wouldn't see much use at our table.

And I was correct in thinking this. Early on, shortly after the article was published, I suggested that we give these new minor spells a whirl to see if they'd actually be useful. As Gygax presents them, a magic-user can memorize four cantrips for every first-level spell he's willing to forgo. At that very favorable exchange rate, a couple of players thought it worth a try, selecting cantrips like exterminate, knot, tangle, and wilt in place of a single detect magic or light. The consensus, as I recall, was that some cantrips had value in certain limited situations, but that, by and large, few magic-users would ever willingly give up a spell slot for them. After that, I don't think we ever thought much about cantrips.

Nevertheless, this remains a memorable and important article for me even now – because it was the first article that suggested to me that the AD&D game's rules might change or evolve in any significant way. You must remember that, by the time I started playing, all three of AD&D's rulebooks had already been released. While both Deities & Demigods and the Fiend Folio came out after my introduction to the hobby, I didn't pay either of them much heed and indeed made comparatively little use of either of them. More to the point, neither one changed much of anything about the AD&D rules, so they could be safely ignored. However, this Gygax column from issue #59 heralded the dawn of a new era, one in which AD&D would, at last, change through the introduction of new character classes, spells, magic items, etc. That was a very big deal to me at the time, hence why I can recall reading this article for the first time, even more than forty years later.

The Book of Apshai

Later this week, I'll be posting a Retrospective on the early dungeoncrawler Temple of Apshai. While doing some research into this important computer game, I was reminded that, in 1985, publisher Epyx released Temple of Apshai Trilogy, which collected all three games in the series and graphically updated them for the newest generation of personal computers. Temple of Apshai Trilogy also included a game manual entitled The Book of Apshai whose interior contained, in addition to instructions on how to install and play the game, some truly amazing art by Mike Mott. 

Before getting to the interior art, here's the color cover art of the game box itself, courtesy of Ken Macklin. This image is reproduced, in black and white form, on the cover of The Book of Apshai.

Inside the book, we get to Mike Mott's work, like this piece showing an adventurer facing off against one of the game's iconic Antmen.

Speaking of Antmen, here's one lurking in the dark near a set of stairs the same adventurer is now descending.

The adventurer appears yet again, this time waiting around a stone pillar, sword drawn, as some vicious monster prepares to attack.

As in Dungeons & Dragons, torches are very important in Temple of Apshai. 

Here's a nifty little illustration from a section at the end of The Book of Apshai where the concept of roleplaying games is explained to an audience that, even in 1985, might still not understand it. The section is worthy of a post on its own, but I'll leave that for later.

I know nothing of Mike Mott, the artist behind these terrific illustrations. Does anyone have any details about him or his career? His artwork is both very good and very evocative, the kind of thing that often appeared in computer game manuals at the time. Just looking at it as I wrote this post was strangely inspiring, which is what good gaming artwork should be.

Escape from C'thulhu

Speaking of minigames, Phil Foglio's What's New with Phil & Dixie humorously treated this topic in issue #60 of Dragon (April 1982). The last game tested by the titular characters is Escape from C'thulhu [sic]. According to Phil, it's very easy to play: Just open the box, read aloud the enclosed incantation ...

A (Very) Partial Pictorial History of Troglodytes

Since last week we looked at lizard men, I thought it would make sense to examine troglodytes next, since they're both humanoid reptilian monsters. There are, of course, lots of differences between them, starting with their alignment – troglodytes are Chaotic Evil, while lizard men are Neutral – I can nevertheless easily imagine someone confusing the two. With that in mind, how did TSR era Dungeons & Dragons visually distinguish between them?

The earliest illustrations I can find of troglodytes come from the AD&D Monster Manual (1977), both by Dave Sutherland. Sutherland gives trogs a much shorter snout and a large crest on their heads. These are both features that can be found in most of the depictions that follow.

The second illustration from the Monster Manual gives us a better look at these monsters' legs, as well as their scaly skin. Both pieces of art hide the troglodyte's tail in shadow, but it is there, if you look carefully.

Sutherland provides two additional depictions of trogs on the front and back covers of the original 1978 release of the module Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Here's the front cover, which shows them as looking little different from those in the Monster Manual.

The back cover of the module is interesting, because it depicts not only a troglodyte, but also an exceptionally long-nosed troll and a bugbear.

A troglodyte next appears in the Tom Moldvay D&D Basic rulebook (1981), as drawn by Bill Willingham. Willingham's take on the monster is clearly inspired by Sutherland's, but with a few new elements. First, ridges or frills like the head crest also appear on both arms. Also, the monster's face looks a bit more fishy or amphibian, with large, blank eyes and a mouth that reminds me of a catfish's. 

In 1982, as part of the AD&D Monster Cards, we get Jeff Dee's nifty take on troglodytes. Once again, it's broadly consonant with Sutherland's original, but Dee's version has a slightly more dinosaur-like appearance. Coupled with the stone axe it's holding, Dee gives the trogs a kind of Lost World flavor that I really like.

The same year, we get Jeff Easley's version in the AD&D module The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. Though recognizable because of their head crests, these troglodytes look a bit fishy in appearance. Take note of their eyes and mouths, not to mention their scales, which strike me as more piscine than reptilian in appearance. 

1982 seems to have been a big year for troglodyte illustrations, because we get one by Jim Holloway in Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Though we don't get to see the entirety of the monster, what we do see suggests that it's closer to Sutherland than any of the other artists we've examined. It's also a return to a more clearly reptilian depiction, as you can see from its mouth and eyes.

In 1985, Citadel Miniatures released a troglodyte miniature that's also very reptilian in appearance. If you look carefully, you can see not only its crocodile-like scales but also its cranial ridges (which are smaller).

Two years later, in 1987, Ral Partha gained the AD&D miniatures license and released its own version of the troglodyte. Here's a trio of them, which, to my eyes anyway, don't look all that different than traditional depictions of lizard men. They do have the cranial ridges at least, though, like Citadel before them, they're much smaller than in previous depictions of them.

AD&D Second Edition's Monstrous Compendium (1989) saved the troglodyte for its second release (MC2), which suggests that TSR didn't see troglodytes as being as important as lizard men, who appeared earlier. True or not, we get this absolutely atrocious illustration of them (by Daniel Horne) that looks like an anthropomorphic horny toad with some serious dental problems. Yikes!

Then, in 1993, Tony DiTerlizzi provides this illustration for the Monstrous Manual. It's something of a break with previous versions. DiTerlizzi opts for a newt-like, amphibian appearance rather than a reptilian one.

Reviewing this sampling of troglodyte artwork from the TSR era of Dungeons & Dragons, I'm struck by two things. First, there is some degree of consistency in the depiction of these monsters, with most artists looking to Dave Sutherland's Monster Manual art as a foundation. Second, each post-Sutherland illustrator (with the possible exception of Holloway) put his own spin on the troglodytes by giving them some fish-like or amphibian characteristics. I can certainly understand why they might do this, since it's a good way to distinguish trogs from lizard men (and other reptile men) visually. At the same time, I think this variability contributes to rather than diminishes the conflation of troglodytes and lizard men, which likely explains why my vision of troglodytes is very close to that of Sutherland.

How about you? How do you view troglodytes?

Capture Action Packed Fantasy Adventure

In light of yesterday's post about Revolt on Antares, this advertisement from issue #58 of Dragon (February 1982) seemed like it would be of interest.

I owned and enjoyed all these games in my youth. After Revolt on Antares, I think Saga was probably my favorite, though Vampyre was also fun. Does anyone make games like this today? I don't mean reprints of older games, like Ogre, but new, original minigames with simple components that can be played in an hour or so? If so, I'd love to hear about them.

Retrospective: Revolt on Antares

While I've briefly touched on TSR's 1981 mini-game Revolt on Antares a couple of times before, I've never done a proper Retrospective post on it. I've decided to rectify that this week, both because it's an excellent, fun-to-play little hex-and-chit wargame and because, of all TSR's mini-games, it's the one with which I had the most experience playing. Consequently, I've got a lot more to say about Revolt on Antares compared to its seven sister games published over the course of 1981 and 1982.

Before getting to the game itself, I'd briefly like to draw attention to its place within the history of TSR. Revolt on Antares came out in '81, during a time when TSR was rapidly expanding both its release schedule and its ambitions. Though Dungeons & Dragons remained the company's bestselling line of products by far, there seems to have been genuine concern that its popularity was faddish and could not be sustained forever. TSR, therefore, began to experiment with other games (and approaches to games) as a hedge against the possible collapse in interest in D&D.

Mini-games, like Revolt on Antares, were part of that experiment. Coming on a clear plastic case, the game consisted of a short, 16-page rulebook, a sheet of cardboard counters, a colored map, and a pair of dice. Tom Moldvay designed the rules, while Kevin Hendryx served as its developer. Graphically, it makes full use of TSR's stable of young artists, like Jeff Dee, Dave LaForce, Erol Otus, Jim Roslof, and Bill Willingham, all of whom I'd consider representative of this experimental period in the history of the company. Dee's cover is especially memorable to me, probably because of how I often I played Revolt on Antares with my friends at the time.

As wargames go, this one is quite simple – but that was a big part of its appeal to me. Though I knew a lot of guys into wargames in my youth, I never really devoted much effort to playing them myself, with a couple of exceptions here and there. For the most part, this was simply a matter of not being sufficiently interested in wargames to devote the time necessary to learn and play them. I'd much rather have been playing roleplaying games than the Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. 

What immediately appealed to me about Revolt on Antares was its science fiction setting. I've been a huge fan of SF since I was a young child, growing up in the immediate aftermath of the Apollo program and watching reruns of Star Trek on a grainy black-and-white TV with my aunt. And, of course, like all little boys at the time, I was a fan of Star Wars. The combination of these facts with my TSR fanboyism made it perhaps inevitable that I'd purchase Revolt on Antares almost as soon as I saw it. 

The simplicity was, as I've already noted, a plus, especially when compared to other SF wargames I attempted to play around the same time. The rulebook quickly establishes the basic scenario:

Imirrhos, ninth planet of the star Antares, lies on the edges of Earth's Imperial Terran Empire. As the Empire grows weaker, Imirrhos boils with unrest and intrigue. The seven local ruling families (or "houses") fight for power. Some want the Terrans to leave, others need Imperial support. A few know of the Silakka, an alien race that is waiting to invade ...

The rulebook then offers up three different scenarios for play. The basic scenario is for two players and concerns the revolt against Terra. One player takes the role of a house leader leading the revolt, while the other is the Imperial Terran consul, who is attempting to crush the rebellion. The second scenario is also for two players and concerns the defense of Antares against the invading Silakkans. The third – and, in my opinion, most fun – scenario is for 2 to 4 players, with each player taking on the role of one or more houses as they jockey for control of Imirrhos. 

A big part of the appeal of Revolt on Antares are its characters. Each of the houses is led by a character with both a name and a unique ability. For example, House Orsini is led by Messalina Orsini, whose power of fascination enables her to subvert the loyalty of opposing units, while House Edistyn is led by Nureb Khan Edistyn, whose precognition ability allows him to roll two dice instead of one in combat, taking the best result. In addition, there are "Galactic Heroes" whom you can recruit, like the assassin Corvus Adromeda and Dr. Death, who can animate the bodies of fallen units as zombies. These heroes act much like house leaders in their use but may be recruited by any faction. There are also ancient alien artifacts, such as the Force Cannon and Energy Drainer, whose possession and use adds yet more mayhem into the mix.

Looking back on it now, it's clear that what made Revolt on Antares so appealing to me was its world building. Though the information Moldvay provides about Imirrhos and its inhabitants are as brief as its rules, they are surprisingly evocative. Names like Black Dougal Mackenzie or Ward Serpentine possess a certain mystery that made me want to know more – and, in the absence of such information, my friends and I imagined it for ourselves. That's precisely the stuff from which good games are made and, by that standard, Revolt on Antares is a very good game.

From a purely objective perspective, it's nothing special. As I keep saying, the rules for combat and movement are very, very simple. I'm sure long-time wargamers would justifiably scoff at their lack of depth. I can't really argue against such judgments, except to say that I had a blast playing Revolt on Antares again and again, each time coming up with new ideas about the implied setting of the game – not bad for a little game published four decades ago!