Recent Acquisition

One of the reasons I've been talking about SPI's Universe RPG is because I recently acquired the boxed first edition of the game, which you can see below in a rather poor photo I took of it.

I won't deny that I really like boxed games. I don't think their return would, as some people seem to believe, herald a return to the halcyon days of the hobby, but I do think boxes place physical constraints on a game's design. If you're going to put a game in a box, it can't have a 400-page rulebook, for example.

Likewise, I hope, perhaps naively, that a box might also nudge a designer into recognizing "completeness" as a virtue. One of the neat things about the Universe boxed set is that it really does contain everything you'd ever need to play: the rules spread over two books (one 72 pages long and the other 24 pages long), plus a star map, dice, a tactical display for starship combat, 200 counters, and a nice little tray to hold them all in. The set sold for $20.00 in 1981, which would likely be more than double that in today's dollars, but you know what? I'd balk a lot less at $50 boxed sets if they really did have all you ever needed to play.

Anyway, I'm reveling in the goodness of Universe at the moment. I wish I had a copy of the boxed edition of DragonQuest too, but they seem much harder to come by and, when they do appear, they sell for ridiculous prices. Ah well.

What Edition for Drizzt?

Over at Cave of Chaos, I ran across a post pointing me to a video I might otherwise not have seen. It's part of a "Meet the Author" series from Northeastern University, this installment being devoted to R.A. Salvatore, whose claim to fame -- or infamy, depending on one's point of view -- is the creation of conflicted good guy drow, Drizzt Do'Urden.

Now, I expect a goodly percentage of the readers of this blog to loathe Drizzt and all that he represents and, honestly, I can't blame anyone who feels that way, because it's a feeling I share. But, after hearing his creator discuss, at 35:41 on this video, his preferences regarding roleplaying games and -- more importantly -- the reasons for his preferences, I can't deny that I feel a little warmer toward R.A. Salvatore than I ever expected I would.

Pulp Fantasy Library: The Man of Gold

As a general rule, I'm not usually keen to read "game fiction." That's probably why, all other considerations aside, I don't tend to think very highly of, say, the Dragonlance novels. To me, they're so clearly vehicles for selling game products that it's difficult to accept them as works of literature in their own right, let alone noteworthy ones.

As with all such prejudices, there are always exceptions and M.A.R. Barker's 1984 novel, The Man of Gold, is a good example of one. The novel tells the story of Hársan, an orphaned, clan-less acolyte of the Temple of Thúmis, the god of knowledge, as he makes his way from his home in a rural province to the capital of Tsolyánu, the Empire of the Petal Throne. Hársan, though young and inexperienced, is remarkably intelligent and talented, particularly in the field of languages, which come to him almost effortlessly. He can even speak the language of the insectoid Pé Chói, a feat no human has ever mastered. And it is because of Hársan's facility with languages that he soon finds himself on the road to the capital at the behest of powerful figures within the empire, a journey that will eventually take him far and wide in a quest far more important than he -- or anyone else -- imagined.

I would be lying if I said that The Man of Gold is a great novel. Stylistically, I found it dry and almost academic in tone, which is no surprise, given its author's background. With the notable exception of Hársan, most of the characters are somewhat flat and their dialog stilted. Yet, despite that, I found it hard to put The Man of Gold down. The book is filled with a plenitude of difficult to pronounce names and byzantine plots, but it nevertheless moves at a brisk pace, even with all the digressions into matters of history, anthropology, linguistics, and theology. While it may be true that Professor Barker is no great novelist, he is clearly an excellent teacher; I came to understand far more about his world of Tékumel through this novel than I ever did through his game writings. For my money, The Man of Gold is probably the best primer of this remarkable campaign setting that I have ever read.

And that's the real appeal of this novel. The overall story is only so-so in my opinion and, as I noted, its characters and dialog lack a certain vitality. However, the world in which the novel takes place is brilliantly vibrant and well-presented. In many ways, it is the star of The Man of Gold and why I continued to read the novel even when its story might otherwise have failed to hold my attention. That's why I consider The Man of Gold a rare example of a gaming novel that works: it makes me want to play in the world of Tékumel. Better still, it's quite accessible even to people who've never read a single gaming product that described that alien planet and its strange races and cultures.

Whenever someone asks me the best way to learn more about Tékumel, I always recommend they seek out a copy of The Man of Gold. Reading it will give a far better sense of what the setting is like than almost anything that's ever been written about it. Moreover, it'll give a better sense of what one does in a Tékumel-based campaign. Too often gamers become overwhelmed by all the details and minutiae of Tékumel and fail to see that, at base, it's a wonderful pulp fantasy world after the fashion of Burroughs. Far from being "unusable" as a roleplaying setting, it's actually a pretty straightforward evocation of sword-and-planet literature, albeit one that's done with surprising skill (and, let's be honest, more than a few areas of authorial obsession).

Ever since I first read this novel, I've felt that it ought to be more widely read. A few years ago, there were plans to reprint it, I believe, but, so far as I know, they never came to pass -- a pity. Still, I regularly see copies in used bookstores and there are many online vendors from whom copies can be obtained. If you're at all interested in Tékumel as a fantasy setting, The Man of Gold is as good a place as any to start. It's not the most compelling novel, I've ever read (though it's far from the worst), but it's an unmatched introduction to one of the most interesting imaginary realms ever conceived.

Mutant Future News

Over on his blog, Dan Proctor of Goblinoid Games has announced the imminent arrival of the revised edition of Mutant Future, which will include an all-new cover by Mark Allen, as well as lots of new interior art. Here's the cover:

Better still, Mutant Future will be available through traditional distribution, meaning you should be able to buy a copy through your local game store -- excellent news for an awesome game.

Petty Gods Update

Just popping in briefly to let everyone know that -- shock and surprise! -- I'm not yet through all the Petty Gods submissions, but I'm getting closer. The same goes for all the offers of help for art. If you haven't heard back from me yet, give me another day or two more and I should be up to date. I'll also be posting an updated list of all accepted submissions, so those of you who still want to send me stuff will know what I've already got.

More soon.

Open Friday: Iconic Images

Back in September, I did an Open Friday post about "Imagining D&D." This time I'd like to do something similar but with other RPGs. What are the images that, to you, will always sum up how you envision certain roleplaying games?

To start us off, I'll give you two examples from my own mind:

Luise Perrine's illustration of a classically-inspired warrior woman in battle with some Chaos-tainted monster is what I immediately think of when I hear the name "RuneQuest." It's not only an evocative piece in its own right, but it helped strongly differentiate RQ from Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs, which is no mean feat.

Gene Day's cover to the first edition of Call of Cthulhu is my mind's eye encapsulation of the game. This piece is a powerfully accurate summation of the RPG's frankly Derlethian approach to the Mythos rather than much of the artwork created in its wake.

What are your iconic images for RPGs?

An Appreciation of Rough Edges

I recently had the good fortune to acquire a copy of the SPI science fiction RPG, Universe. I never played the game much back in the day, but, like DragonQuest, it exercised a strange fascination over me. I long ago gave away my copies of both of them -- how foolish I feel now! -- but, in recent years, I've thought of them often with fondness.

They're both far more complex than they needed to be, making it highly unlikely I'd ever consider running either of them again, but I have to admit that their complexity is likely a big part of their charm. To give you an example of what I mean, take a look at the way that a character's chance of success with a given skill is calculated:

2. One of the character's Characteristics Ratings (specified in the skill description) is added to the square of his Skill Level, and the total is added to the base chance listed for the task. In some instances, the Skill Level may be increased (before squaring) by a piece of equipment or decreased if the task is especially difficult. The base chance may be further modified by the task description or at the GM's discretion (in some cases, he may apply a modifier secretly).

Perhaps I'm crazy but I find something quite delightful in the passage quoted above. I'm on record as seeing a lot of value in idiosyncratic game systems and any system that requires to square a number goes down in my book as idiosyncratic. Of course, the argument could be made that, in a science fiction RPG, having to perform a calculation like that lends a certain flavor to the game, but I'm not sure such an argument is even necessary. So long as the system, no matter how quirky, does its intended job, I'm OK with it.

I'm unconvinced that there's such a thing as a single, ideal approach to game design anyway, so I don't have a problem with something like Universe's skill system, even if it's not necessarily what I would have designed. What I do appreciate about a game like Universe, though, is that it was clearly designed by a human being. It's got "rough edges" and I like rough edges in my RPGs, because they grate. That is, they make me aware of them. Now, sometimes, being aware of them, I realize I don't like them and move on. That's the danger with rough edges. Of course, not everyone deems the same thing rough edges, so one man's unnecessarily complex ruleset is just right for another -- as it should be.

The Clubhouse

"... and we liked it."

I've reading everything written by Dr. Holmes on the subject of roleplaying that I can find. Yesterday, I read his article from issue 52 of Dragon (August 1981), where he offers his perspective on the then-new Basic Rulebook edited by Tom Moldvay. Holmes provides a lot of interesting commentary on both his own rulebook and on Moldvay's, so it's well worth tracking down the article if you're able to do so. For the moment, though, I just want to focus on a small section at its beginning, where Holmes says:

Most of you reading this article already know how to play a D&D or AD&D game. Most of you learned how to play by watching a game or having a friend guide you through your first game. If you have seen a game played, the rules are pretty easy to understand. 

But the D&D Basic Rulebook is written for people who have never seen a game. It is intended to teach the game to someone who’s coming to it for the first time. All other considerations should be secondary to teaching how to play the game with a minimum of confusion. I like to think that the first Basic Set did just that.

Now, as much as I love the Blue Book and revere the memory of Dr. Holmes, I can't say that his basic set succeeded in his intention, at least for me. My friends and I were powerfully intrigued by D&D after reading the Blue Book; we wanted to play the game as written, but we just didn't get it. It wasn't until my friend's older brother deigned to explain everything to us that all the pieces started to fall into place. Only then could we make heads or tails of the Blue Book and use it as a reference for running our games and teaching others how to play in turn.

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, this pattern seemed well-nigh universal. Nearly everyone I met, through school, at the hobby shops, or at games days, had learned to play RPGs not because of a rulebook but because someone else, who already knew how to play, took pity on them and explained the rules to them. To us, that was simply the way of things, a way that we all perpetuated by initiating others into our "Secret Club." I can tell you for a fact that that was a big part of the appeal to the hobby back then: unlike other games, you couldn't just pick up a copy, read the rules, and play -- you had to have someone "on the inside" willing to teach you the ropes, like becoming a Mason except without the aprons and trowels.

I'm very fond of looking back and trying to pinpoint change points in history. Biased though such exercises are, I find them useful nonetheless. One of the change points I recall quite distinctly was sometime in the mid-80s, when I first started running into guys, usually younger than myself, who weren't part of the Club. They were these mysterious kids who, to my friends and I, who liked to think of ourselves as well connected within the local gaming scene, had just popped up out of the woodwork. We'd never taught them how to play and none of the older guys who'd taught us had taught them, so where'd they come from and how'd they learn to play?

Intellectually, I understand the need for a game to be intelligible in its own right. On some level, it is a flaw if a game's rules can only really be understood if taught by another human being. At the same time, that was part of the magic of gaming for us in those days. It was a hobby so arcane and esoteric that mere written words were seemingly inadequate to convey it. Only by finding a "master" willing to share his wisdom with you could you enter into the most hidden of human entertainments.

And we made a lot of friends to boot. Back then, we knew lots of other gamers all over the place and, while we didn't play with them regularly, we still felt as if we were all part of a larger community. That's why we could get together every month or so at the library to play pick-up games together and would swap stories with one another at the hobby shops we all frequented. There was a sense of connection, a common bond born out of the fact that there was almost no way any of us could ever have started gaming if it hadn't been for someone else who'd taken it upon themselves to teach us what no rulebook could adequately do.

I won't deny that I miss those days. Maybe it's just nostalgia talking, I don't know. The hobby felt a lot "tighter" back then, even without the undreamed of wonders of the Internet. There were lots of personal bonds between players in the area, with many of them having learned to play the game from the same guys as each other. It probably seems silly, but knowing that some guy you never met first entered a dungeon refereed by the same guy who did the same for you used to be enough to establish a weird kind of kinship between you and I oftentimes think there's not enough kinship in this hobby.

Between the Cracks

By now, I probably don't need to mention that my introduction to the hobby came by way of the Dungeons & Dragons basic set edited by Dr. J. Eric Holmes. That "Blue Book" has probably influenced me more than other RPG product I've ever owned, shaping my sense of what both D&D and roleplaying games are. Since I started this blog, I've met a lot of other gamers like myself, which is comforting. For the longest time, it seemed as if my friends and I were the only gamers who ever started with the Blue Book, everyone else seemingly having started with either the LBBs or one of the later, mass market editions of the game (or straight into AD&D).

The Blue Book exists in a weird place historically. Consequently, there are a lot of misconceptions about it. Perhaps the biggest one is that it was written as an introduction to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I've seen that suggestion made in quite a few places, often by people who ought to know better. To be fair, it's a position I myself believed for a long time, mostly because there are sections in the Blue Book that strongly imply this relationship. Moreover, the Blue Book only covers levels 1-3 and there were no follow-up products to it, so what exactly is the "upgrade path" after one is done with Holmes? For most people I knew, my friends and I included, it was AD&D.

But it was AD&D only because that was how TSR chose to market the game. It's clear that Holmes himself thought of the Blue Book as a revision of OD&D. Those references to AD&D in the text were, for the most part, later additions made by someone at TSR, even when their addition made the text more muddled and unclear. The LBBs and supplements were still being printed by TSR into the early 1980s, but they weren't stocked in most of the places where I purchased RPG products back in the day. So, the odds that most readers of Holmes would have looked to the LBBs as their next logical purchase were slim. I know I soon bought both the AD&D Monster Manual and Players Handbook as supplements to my Holmes game, because they were both readily available, while OD&D was not.

A close examination of Holmes's text quickly reveals that, despite the mentions of the then-largely unwritten AD&D -- only the Monster Manual was available, I believe -- it really does have more in common with the LBBs than not. There are some obvious deviations, but a great many of them are in fact Holmes's own inventions rather than "previews" of AD&D. Furthermore, Holmes draws heavily on the exact words found in the LBBs (and Greyhawk), though sometimes simplified for the purposes of clarity and concision. The Blue Book is deeply rooted in OD&D; to call it an introduction to AD&D is a distortion, even if it's a forgivable one.

Though most strongly connected to OD&D, it's not identical to it. The basic set also predates AD&D, even if it includes, thanks to TSR, a few nods toward that incipient ruleset. And then there are Holmes's own little idiosyncratic additions, like Dexterity-based initiative and a magic missile that requires a roll to hit. The Blue Book is the product of a strange alchemy, a composite edition that I increasingly think ought to be viewed as on its own merits rather than either as a simplification of OD&D or an introduction to AD&D. I mean, both those approaches have merit (the OD&D connection moreso than the AD&D), but neither really does the Blue Book justice.

In thinking about this lately, I've started to realize that my attachment to the Blue Book probably explains a lot about my place within the larger D&D community. I feel a lot of kinship with the OD&D folks, but I'm not one of them. I also appreciate the virtues of AD&D, but I've never been able to get on board with it fully, even back in the days when I was supposedly playing "AD&D." I have admiration for Moldvay, but I've never really played it. Anything after that is the "kid's stuff" I wouldn't touch then and have even less time for now. So, like the Blue Book itself, I sometimes feel like I occupy this weird space between the cracks in the history of Dungeons & Dragons. At least I know I'm not alone.

Retrospective: Hawkmoon

I've never made a secret of my love for post-apocalyptic RPGs. Maybe it's a product of growing up during the Cold War or maybe it has to do with my melancholy, pessimistic attitudes generally, I don't know. Whatever it is, I find something incredibly powerful and evocative about The End of the World as We Know It.

I've also never made a secret of my love-hate relationship with Michael Moorcock, a conflict that has only become more acute as I've gotten older and read more of his non-fiction works. Consequently, though I find much to enjoy in his stories of Elric of Melniboné, there's always this nagging feeling at the back of my brain that prevents me from enjoying them unreservedly.

For whatever reason, though, I don't have this problem with Moorcock's Hawkmoon books. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but I suspect a good part of it is that they're -- at least nominally -- post-apocalyptic tales, taking place in the "Tragic Millennium" of 54th century Earth. Chaosium's 1986 game, Hawkmoon, provides rules for roleplaying in this setting. The game is written by someone called Kerie Campbell-Robson ("also by Sandy Petersen"), a writer who's otherwise unknown to me, though she (I am assuming the author is a woman) also contributed to The Shattered Isle, the one and only supplement to Hawkmoon, published in 1987.

Hawkmoon is a peculiar product. Though playable as a stand-alone RPG, it nevertheless feels more like a supplement to the excellent Stormbringer. Throughout the text, there are numerous references to using the Tragic Millennium as an alternate setting for Stormbringer, including guidelines for converting characters between the two games. Likewise, there's a fair bit of artwork recycled from Stormbringer and its supplements, which only contributes to the sense that Hawkmoon isn't really its own game but rather an adjunct to its "big brother." If I were to guess, I suspect that Hawkmoon was a labor of love by its author, submitted to Chaosium unsolicited, who were impressed enough with it that, after some minimal polishing by also-author Sandy Petersen, released the game to see how it might do. Judging from its lack of support and relative obscurity, I'm guessing that it never did very well.

And that's too bad. Make no mistake: Hawkmoon is decidedly inferior to Stormbringer in almost every way. The rules are sketchy in many places -- mutations and mass combat come immediately to mind -- and there's more space than necessary spent on recounting the events of the Hawkmoon novels. Yet, there's still something very compelling about this game and I regularly find myself opening up its box and paging through its booklets. The Tragic Millennium is a unique creation: a medieval/early modern society built amidst the ruins of a high-tech world that cleverly blurs the lines between fantasy and science fiction. Moorcock doesn't provide a lot of information on the world in his stories and the RPG doesn't add much more -- just enough to intrigue and inspire, as all good RPG settings ought to do.

Now, I've never actually played Hawkmoon. I only acquired a copy of it comparatively recently and I won't deny that, while I regularly skim its pages, I've not felt a strong urge to play it, as I do with, say, Stormbringer or RuneQuest. I wish I could put my finger on just why that is. Ironically, it might be because I like the Hawkmoon stories that I find it harder to work up interest in the RPG than I do with Stormbringer, since my feelings about the Elric tales are decidedly more mixed. Or it might be that, as I said above, Hawkmoon feels like a "half-game," neither a mere supplement to its predecessor nor a complete RPG in its own right. I really wish I understood my ambivalence toward it. I want to want to play it, if you get my meaning, but something prevents my doing so and it baffles me.