REPOST: Retrospective: Castle Amber

(I feel a little dirty about reposting an old entry of mine, even if it is well over a year old. However, seeing as it's Clark Ashton Smith's birthday, it only seemed right to highlight module X2, Castle Amber, for today's retrospective. So far as I know, it's the only old school D&D module to base itself explicitly on any of Smith's tales.

This post has not been altered from its original appearance in October 2008, right down to my error of citing CAS as an author listed in Appendix N of the DMG, despite my being repeatedly reminded that he wasn't. Other than correcting that mistake, I wouldn't change much of what I wrote back then. If anything, my affection for Castle Amber has only increased since I first wrote this and I expect a retrospective written on it today would be even more effusive in its praise)

Released in 1981, Castle Amber is part of what I call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," consisting of this module, The Isle of Dread, and The Lost City. I'm not sure that the term is original to me; I might have picked it up from the incomparable Philotomy Jurament. In any case, all three of these modules are homages to the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D, but Castle Amber is the only one that makes explicit reference to its inspiration, the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith.

I can't say for certain, but I think Castle Amber is what first introduced me to CAS. I knew of his name, of course, from having read, among other things, Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Moldvay's own Basic Rulebook recommends Smith as well, although more for his Xiccarph stories than anything else. After playing the module, I hunted down what little of Smith's writings as I could find in the local library. I wasn't very successful in my quest and it was years before I read a significant number of CAS stories.

But what makes me remember Castle Amber so fondly is that, even though I wasn't able to read most of Smith's literary corpus until much later, I still "knew" Smith through Moldvay's rather brilliant evocation of his spirit in this adventure. Most of the distinctive Smithian features are here: decadence, ennui, the macabre, black humor -- all stirred together in an unsettling stew. I won't deny that, as kid of 12, I found Castle Amber a tad disturbing. I wasn't scared of it so much as fascinated by it. There was something not quite right about the whole thing, something I couldn't then put my finger on and yet I loved it all the same.

Even now, it's hard to articulate precisely what it is that still fascinated me about Castle Amber. On a superficial level, it's just another "funhouse dungeon," filled with nonsensical and whimsical encounters, like the ogre who believes himself to be a human woman, the troll under the bridge in the indoor forest, and jester who polymorphs opponents into white apes, among others. But what I think sets Castle Amber apart from true funhouse dungeons is two things. First, there is a degree of internal consistency and unity to even the most whimsical encounters; that is, there is a method behind the madness. Second, and more importantly for me, there's very little outright malevolence in the place. There are many evil people inside Castle Amber -- most of the Amber family, for instance -- and their actions are objectively evil according to almost any moral compass and yet, somehow, they come across not so much as evil as bored. On some level, that strikes me as much worse than if they they behaved as they do because they actively wished ill upon their victims. Instead, they're just looking for something to do, something to alleviate their world weariness.

With its Erol Otus cover, Castle Amber has a phantasmagoric, fever-dream quality to it that still holds up after 27 years. The module is far from perfect -- there are a number of pointless D&D-isms that break the frame, for example -- but it remains a good example of an approach to fantasy gaming that has largely been lost, at least among gaming publishers nowadays. Module X2 combines literary allusion, hallucinatory imagery, and deadly whimsy to produce a challenge for all but the most clever players. Even better, it combines a dungeon -- Castle Amber itself -- with the mini-sandbox setting of Averoigne, thus making it a useful teaching tool for referees looking for advice on how to combine the two styles of old school play into a unified whole. And all in 26 pages! How many modern adventure modules can compare?

What is sad is the realization that, in retrospect, 1981 was probably the highwater mark for the old school. While I would argue that we still see a goodly stream of old school material in the two years that follow Castle Amber's publication, it was nevertheless a declining stream. The shift in how modules were designed was obvious by 1983-84 and there's been no turning back. I'm sorely tempted to crack out my copy of Castle Amber and play it again with my gaming group soon. Some of my most cherished gaming memories center around playing it with my friends nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps it's time to make some new memories.

Retrospective: Castle Amber

Released in 1981, Castle Amber is part of what I call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," consisting of this module, The Isle of Dread, and The Lost City. I'm not sure that the term is original to me; I might have picked it up from the incomparable Philotomy Jurament. In any case, all three of these modules are homages to the pulp fantasy stories that inspired D&D, but Castle Amber is the only one that makes explicit reference to its inspiration, the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith.

I can't say for certain, but I think Castle Amber is what first introduced me to CAS. I knew of his name, of course, from having read, among other things, Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Moldvay's own Basic Rulebook recommends Smith as well, although more for his Xiccarph stories than anything else. After playing the module, I hunted down what little of Smith's writings as I could find in the local library. I wasn't very successful in my quest and it was years before I read a significant number of CAS stories.

But what makes me remember Castle Amber so fondly is that, even though I wasn't able to read most of Smith's literary corpus until much later, I still "knew" Smith through Moldvay's rather brilliant evocation of his spirit in this adventure. Most of the distinctive Smithian features are here: decadence, ennui, the macabre, black humor -- all stirred together in an unsettling stew. I won't deny that, as kid of 12, I found Castle Amber a tad disturbing. I wasn't scared of it so much as fascinated by it. There was something not quite right about the whole thing, something I couldn't then put my finger on and yet I loved it all the same.

Even now, it's hard to articulate precisely what it is that still fascinated me about Castle Amber. On a superficial level, it's just another "funhouse dungeon," filled with nonsensical and whimsical encounters, like the ogre who believes himself to be a human woman, the troll under the bridge in the indoor forest, and jester who polymorphs opponents into white apes, among others. But what I think sets Castle Amber apart from true funhouse dungeons is two things. First, there is a degree of internal consistency and unity to even the most whimsical encounters; that is, there is a method behind the madness. Second, and more importantly for me, there's very little outright malevolence in the place. There are many evil people inside Castle Amber -- most of the Amber family, for instance -- and their actions are objectively evil according to almost any moral compass and yet, somehow, they come across not so much as evil as bored. On some level, that strikes me as much worse than if they they behaved as they do because they actively wished ill upon their victims. Instead, they're just looking for something to do, something to alleviate their world weariness.

With its Erol Otus cover, Castle Amber has a phantasmagoric, fever-dream quality to it that still holds up after 27 years. The module is far from perfect -- there are a number of pointless D&D-isms that break the frame, for example -- but it remains a good example of an approach to fantasy gaming that has largely been lost, at least among gaming publishers nowadays. Module X2 combines literary allusion, hallucinatory imagery, and deadly whimsy to produce a challenge for all but the most clever players. Even better, it combines a dungeon -- Castle Amber itself -- with the mini-sandbox setting of Averoigne, thus making it a useful teaching tool for referees looking for advice on how to combine the two styles of old school play into a unified whole. And all in 26 pages! How many modern adventure modules can compare?

What is sad is the realization that, in retrospect, 1981 was probably the highwater mark for the old school. While I would argue that we still see a goodly stream of old school material in the two years that follow Castle Amber's publication, it was nevertheless a declining stream. The shift in how modules were designed was obvious by 1983-84 and there's been no turning back. I'm sorely tempted to crack out my copy of Castle Amber and play it again with my gaming group soon. Some of my most cherished gaming memories center around playing it with my friends nearly 30 years ago. Perhaps it's time to make some new memories.

Retrospective: Mark of Amber

Because I’m focusing this month’s posts on the life, works, and legacy of Clark Ashton Smith, I’ve been trying to find roleplaying game products to discuss in my weekly Retrospective series that connect, even tangentially, to him. I’ve been surprised by how difficult this has proven, a fact that’s probably worthy of a post of its own. Still, while pondering the question, I was reminded that fourteen years after the publication of Castle Amber for the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh edition of Dungeons & Dragons, TSR released a follow-up adventure, albeit a rather unusual one.

Released in 1995, Mark of Amber is a strange product, at once a sequel to 1981’s module X2, an experiment in multimedia presentation, and part of a broader effort by TSR to retrofit its “Known World” setting for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Consequently, this boxed adventure offers a revealing snapshot of TSR in its final years, as it looked backward for inspiration while simultaneously trying out new gimmicks in the hope of reinvigorating sales.

In the abstract, the core idea behind Mark of Amber is a solid one, namely, a return to the old-school weirdness of Castle Amber and expand upon it in interesting ways. Unfortunately, the published adventure is very much a product of its time, the mid-1990s, and all that entails. The tension between the original module’s unrepentant eccentricity and the narrative design impulses then in vogue results in a product that feels caught between two worlds, neither fish nor fowl.

It’s important to remember that, while Castle Amber has many virtues as an adventure, subtlety was never one of them. Tom Moldvay trapped the characters inside a haunted manor populated by eccentrics modeled on figures from Clark Ashton Smith’s fiction. Once ensnared, the PCs were expected to poke around the castle, encountering all manner of bizarre and often dangerous oddities. Castle Amber was thus a classic funhouse dungeon that, despite its literary inspirations, made no great pretensions about itself. It was simply a module where curiosity was its own reward – and frequently its own punishment.

Mark of Amber presents itself as a sequel, taking place decades after the events of X2. The d’Ambreville family still looms large, but the tone has shifted considerably. Gone is the open-ended exploration of a cursed mansion. In its place is a more structured mystery involving murders, secret identities, and dreamlike visions tied to the immortal Étienne d’Ambreville. This shift, I think, reflects a broader change in adventure design. Where Castle Amber invited players to wander, experiment, and uncover strangeness at their own pace, Mark of Amber asks them to follow a plot. Events are paced. Clues are arranged. The Dungeon Master is given a clear narrative spine to maintain.

This approach is by no means unique to Mark of Amber and isn’t even necessarily a flaw. Mystery scenarios, for example, often benefit from structure. Still, it does highlight just how different TSR’s adventure design priorities had become by the mid-1990s. If Castle Amber feels like a haunted museum for the characters to explore freely, Mark of Amber feels more like a guided tour. There are still plenty of strange sights to see and unhinged NPCs to interact with, but the route to them is far more constrained.

To the extent that Mark of Amber is remembered today at all, I suspect it’s largely because of its inclusion of an audio CD. TSR intended it to be played during the session, with specific tracks keyed to certain locations and encounters. The disc contains ambient soundscapes, musical stings, and even narrated segments designed to heighten immersion. This wasn’t the first time TSR had experimented with audio accompaniments, but it was, so far as I can recall, the only time I encountered it myself.

As ludicrous as this might seem now, in 1995 it was actually a somewhat ambitious idea. Tabletop RPGs were still overwhelmingly analog experiences. I doubt every group even had a CD player available at the table and, even when they did, cueing tracks mid-session would almost certainly disrupt play. As a result, the CD was probably more trouble than it was worth. For me, it stands as a perfect emblem of TSR’s late-era mindset: occasionally bold and genuinely experimental, but often out of step with how most people actually played their games.

An equally interesting aspect of Mark of Amber is its place within the evolution of the setting that would come to be known as Mystara. In its earliest conception, the Known World belonged firmly to the Basic/Expert line. AD&D already had its own distinct stable of settings, like Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Krynn, each with different assumptions about character power and campaign focus. Nevertheless, beginning in 1994, TSR began adapting Mystara for AD&D and Mark of Amber is part of that effort.

How well this translation worked overall, I can’t really say, since I didn’t purchase any of the other AD&D Mystara products. Even so, I sense a certain contradiction here. Mystara was built as a sandbox setting, with clear geography and room for emergent play, while many AD&D adventures of that time emphasized plotted narratives. Mark of Amber embodies this mismatch, taking place in a setting born in the freewheeling era of the early 1980s now pressed into service for a much more scripted style of play.

All of this leaves Mark of Amber as an uneven adventure. It boasts strong atmosphere, memorable NPCs, and an ambitious presentation, but it’s probably best remembered today for what it reveals about the state of TSR and, by extension, Dungeons & Dragons, just a few years before the company was acquired by Wizards of the Coast.

Bringing this back to Clark Ashton Smith for a moment, Mark of Amber is a curious artifact. Its connection to CAS is almost entirely inherited rather than organic, filtered through Castle Amber rather than drawing directly from the source. Where Moldvay’s original module gleefully embraced the weirdness and excess of Smith’s fiction, Mark of Amber seems to me to approach that inheritance with a more cautious, narratively controlled hand.

In that sense, the adventure neatly encapsulates TSR’s situation in 1995. It looks backward to a beloved classic, tries to dress it up with new technology, and then situates it within a setting undergoing corporate redefinition. The result is neither a pure revival nor a bold reinvention, but something in between. It's a respectful sequel that never quite recaptures the anarchic spirit that made its predecessor memorable.

Castle Amber remains, in my opinion, a monument to Golden Age D&D’s joyful strangeness. Mark of Amber, by contrast, stands as a reminder of how much the game (and its publishers) had changed. For better or worse, it shows us what happens when old school weirdness is filtered through the sensibilities of the 1990s, becoming more polished, more controlled, and ultimately less surprising.

Thoughts Occasioned by Castle Amber

This post is not, strictly speaking, a Retrospective, since I've already done one on Tom Moldvay's 1981 module, Castle Amber – two, actually, if you count the repost as well. Nevertheless, in honor of The Ensorcellment of January, I thought it more than appropriate to take another look at the only old school Dungeons & Dragons module to take explicit inspiration from the works of Clark Ashton Smith. While I'll endeavor not to repeat much of what I said in my original Retrospective, there will inevitably be a few points to which I'll return, though I hope I'll offer some additional insights to justify doing so.

Despite my repeatedly thinking otherwise, the name of Clark Ashton Smith does not appear anywhere in Appendix N to Gary Gygax's AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide nor does he appear in the expanded list of "favorite authors [and] inspirational sources" in his 1992 Mythus Magick bonus. On one level, it's a very odd omission, as Gygax was quite well read when it came to fantasy and science fiction literature – including lots of early pulp fantasy authors, like Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, both of whom he considered "among the most immediate influences" on his conception of the game he co-created. 

The fact that Gary Gygax, of all people, could seemingly have either not known or not cared about CAS suggests that, compared to many of his literary contemporaries, he has always been, if not necessarily obscure, something of an acquired taste. Speaking even as an avowed devotee of Smith, I can’t really blame anyone who finds his mellifluous prose, sardonic demeanor, and detached misanthropy a bit much, particularly when set beside the more muscular storytelling of Howard or the raw imaginative urgency of Lovecraft. Smith demands patience and a willingness to luxuriate in language for its own sake. His stories often feel less like adventures than like jeweled relics to be contemplated from a respectful distance.

Consequently, Smith’s fiction is not easily mined for gameable elements in the way Conan’s swordplay or Lovecraft’s Mythos can be. Howard offers clear models for heroic action and conflict. Lovecraft provides a cosmology of forbidden knowledge, cults, and monsters that can be lifted almost wholesale into play. Smith, by contrast, traffics in mood, decadence, and fatalism. His stories often lack conventional heroes, hinge on ironic or poetic reversals, and end not with triumph or revelation but with extinction, transformation, or bitter resignation. These qualities make his work harder to translate into D&D and that difficulty is probably at the root of why Gygax took little notice of him. Smith does not easily become a list of monsters, spells, or magic items.

Fortunately for me, Tom Moldvay did notice him. Although I’m still not absolutely certain that it was Castle Amber that first introduced me to Smith – it may well have been Call of Cthulhu, released the same year as module X2 – I can say with certainty that it was this adventure that solidified Smith’s hold over my imagination. Castle Amber suggested that roleplaying games could evoke not just action or terror, but a sense of dreamlike estrangement and baroque melancholy. It suggested that play could feel uncanny rather than merely dangerous, strange rather than merely challenging, and that those feelings could linger long after the dice were put away.

That lingering quality is a large part of why I still love Castle Amber four decades later. It is, above all else, unsettling. On the surface, it is just another dungeon for characters of levels 3 to 6, complete with monsters, traps, and treasure. Dig a little deeper, though, and the dungeon in question reveals itself as a kind of fun house, governed less by internal logic than by a warped, almost oneiric sensibility. Its 70 keyed locations feel less like rooms in a coherent structure and more like fragments of half-remembered stories stitched together by madness and decay.

One chamber hosts a boxing match against magical constructs; another contains the lair of spellcasting spiders imported from The Isle of Dread (itself another Moldvay creation); elsewhere, there is a kennel of hellhounds. None of these elements really belong together, at least not in a naturalistic way and that disjunction might be the point. The titular Castle Amber resists easy categorization. It feels wrong in a way that is difficult to articulate, as if it obeys a set of esthetic or even metaphysical rules that the players can sense but never fully grasp. Layered on top of this is the grotesque parade of the Amber family themselves – decadent, deranged, and occasionally tragic figures who are, unsurprisingly, closer to characters out of Smith’s own stories than to standard fantasy villains.

Castle Amber thus has a very strange vibe, one that I picked up on even as a twelve-year-old. It made me uneasy in a way that very few D&D modules ever have. How much of that vibe is intentional and how much of it is something I've been projecting onto it is difficult to say, especially after so many years of reading and playing it. I assume at least some of it must have been intentional, because Moldvay was adapting elements of Smith's Averoigne stories for use with D&D and those stories have a similar ambience. 

This brings to mind another question that has longed dogged me about this module: why was this particular module was ever released. Though not a close adaptation of the Averoigne tales, it's close enough that special thanks are given to CASiana Literary Enterprises, Inc. (the estate of Smith) "for use of the Averoigne stories as inspirational material." It's unclear whether TSR acquired or sought out a license from CASiana for use of the stories or not, but, even if it didn't do so formally, Castle Amber is an unusual early example of an RPG product published by TSR explicitly derived from a pre-existing intellectual property. 

Regardless, I count Castle Amber as one of my favorite adventure modules for any edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Not only did it play a role in making me a lifelong Clark Ashton Smith fan but it also forever affected my sensibilities when it comes to fantasy and fantasy adventures. It was, for example, one of the primary inspirations behind my own The Cursed Chateau (an adventure that I am, not coincidentally, in the process of revising for re-release). It's a weird, fun, disconcerting scenario and I think it still holds up today.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Nine Princes in Amber

I'll admit upfront that I've never been a big fan of Roger Zelazny's "Chronicles of Amber." I've read the series -- at least the part of it published in the 1970s -- and found it intellectually interesting, but something about its characters and plots just didn't click with me. That's certainly no crime; lots of very good books aren't to my taste. The only reason it bugs me in this particular case is because Gary Gygax included the series in Appendix N as an influence on AD&D. Likewise, I enjoyed Jack of Shadows, also by Zelazny, which shares similar themes with the "Amber" books, thus making my own lack of enthusiasm all the more peculiar.

The series kicks off with 1970's Nine Princes in Amber, which is the one book of the original five I enjoyed without qualification. The book begins with a man named Carl Corey who finds himself in a secluded medical clinic, unable to remember who he is or how he got there. In time, he learns that he was the victim of an automobile accident and that he was sent to the clinic at the expense of his sister. This information convinces Carl to escape the clinic and seek out his sister, hoping it might shed further light on his situation.

When he finds his sister, she addresses him by another name -- Corwin -- and his reluctant to let him stay with her. She does, however, which enables Carl/Corwin to come across a strange set of Tarot-like cards, through which he sees people and images associated with his life, a life he still cannot remember. In addition, he's contacted by a brother, Random, who asks Carl/Corwin for his protection and in turn offers to take him back to a place called Amber. Since Carl/Corwin has no idea what is going on or why, he agrees and soon finds himself in a strange reality, where he and his family (including eight brothers, of which Random is only one) wield remarkable powers and are forever plotting against one another for control.

Nine Princes in Amber has a lot going for it, chiefly the mystery of Carl Corey's identity and its connection to what he perceives to be happening to him. It also includes some fascinating speculations regarding alternate realities and Chaos, themes that recur not just in Zelazny's other works, like the aforementioned Jack of Shadows, but in a lot of late 60s/early 70s fantasy. In retrospect, it's this that I think appealed to me most way back when and it's this that still appeals to me even now. The style of fantasy the "Amber" series represents is one that seems largely to have fallen into disfavor as the 1970s wore on and the influence Tolkien -- and his pastichists like Terry Brooks -- became ever greater. Although Gygax's published writings betray comparatively little influence by authors like Zelazny, he continued to express admiration for their writings and several of his unpublished projects, such as Shadowland, might have taken D&D in a more Zelaznian direction.

I personally see the influence of Zelazny over Tom Moldvay's classic Castle Amber, perhaps unsurprisingly. As a younger person, I was confused by the title of this module, which recalled Nine Princes in Amber, despite having nothing to do with the novel overtly. Yet, its contents, while explicitly tied to the Averoigne stories of Clark Ashton Smith, nevertheless seemed very "Amber"-like to me. The Amber family is filled with a variety of ambitious, Machiavellian personalities and their rightful head, Stephen, has been "murdered" by his family and whose salvation depends on items obtained in an alternate reality. Certainly the connection between Moldvay's work and Zelazny's is not strong, but it's there, I think, and I'm surprised more people don't seem to comment on it.

Regardless, the "Chronicles of Amber" (the first five books anyway; I can't comment on the later ones) are worth the read, if only to mine for ideas. They're definitely quirky in their sensibilities, but that's a positive thing in my estimation. D&D -- and fantasy gaming in general -- could use more quirkiness these days.

Birthday Bash

As I mentioned last week, I decided to celebrate my birthday with some friends by cracking out the Moldvay/Cook D&D rules to play an adventure with my friends, my wife, and my 8 year-old daughter. (My six year-old son had better things to do) I chose the Moldvay/Cook rules first, because they're dead simple and straightforward, so even my non-gamer wife could (mostly) understand them and second, because the module I chose to run was Castle Amber. It only seemed fitting that I should use the rules set for which the module was written.

All the characters began at fifth level, received three permanent magic items -- one weapon, one piece of armor/protection, and one miscellaneous item, all randomly rolled -- and were generated with 3D6 rolled in order. This resulted in surprisingly playable characters. Moldvay/Cook de-emphasizes ability scores compared to AD&D, making it very much in line with OD&D in this respect anyway. Ability scores become (mostly) roleplaying cues, which I think are important when you determine your character's class after you roll the dice rather than beforehand. What we wound up with was a party consisting of an elf (played by my daughter) with the unexpectedly odd name of Amber (my daughter didn't know the name of the module when she named the character), a magic-user named Arveene (played by my wife), a cleric named Brother Candor (played by a friend), a fighter named Thugg (played by another friend), a dwarf named Rock (another friend), and a Thief whose name I simply can't recall (another friend).

What was amusing is how quickly these randomly generated characters came to life. Certainly, they were mostly caricatures -- the dwarf had a limited vocabulary and a tendency to attack anything he thought might have gold, for example -- but experience has taught me that caricatures help to establish a character much more strongly than does sublime characterization, if only because very few gamers are actually capable of the latter. Likewise, caricature enables players to "stake a claim" to a particular social niche in the adventuring party, which in turns lets other players establish their own niches. Given enough time, the caricatures soften and accumulated shared experience lends nuances that, to me anyway, feel "real" or at least organic. In any event, I was quite pleased with how these characters interacted with one another and with the challenges I set before them in the module.

Now, Castle Amber is a bit of a funhouse. Much of it, at least initially, makes no sense. Again, this worked to our advantage, I think. Had the adventure been more plot-heavy -- that is, beyond "you must explore this mysterious manor house in order to find a way to escape its curse" -- I suspect the players might have more quickly fallen into line with the plot rather than creating their own. Likewise, throwing this mix of random characters into some outlandish situations, such as a room whose floor was covered with green slime, its ceiling cover by a black pudding, and whose treasure lay in a chest resting on a pillar of gray ooze, let them go wild. Because encounters like this literally make no sense, the only way the players could ground it in something resembling even fantasy "reality" was to play up their characters' reactions to it.

Over the course of the adventure -- about halfway through the module in about three hours of play -- we lost two characters, both to the magical food served in a ghostly banquet. The thief drank the wrong drink and became an insubstantial ghost who joined the other spectral revelers, taking his shiny new magical sword -- won in the slime room -- with him. Thugg the fighter keeled over from toadstool poisoning, but not before uttering the memorable warning, "Don't eat the 'shrooms!" Later, Rock the dwarf, driven mad by gold lust, began felling trees in an indoor forest, because he had seen squirrels who could turn acorns to gold and he hoped to liberate the acorns from the squirrels' nests. This attracted the attention of the Wild Hunt led by a member of the insane Amber family, who demanded the dwarf's head in punishment for his theft. It was at this point that my wife, who is not a gamer let me reiterate, calmly told the Master of the Hunt that, if the dwarf was guilty of theft, so too were the squirrels, since they'd been swiping acorns from the oak trees without asking their permission. The Master was forced, by the logic of his previous speech about "defending Nature from despoilers," to concede this point and so he let the dwarf go if the party promised never to return to the indoor forest. They readily agreed and headed toward a connecting chapel, unsure how they'd escape if the chapel proved to be a dead end.

There were, of course, many other enjoyable moments throughout the evening and I wish we had had longer to play out more of the module. Nevertheless, I found the experience satisfying, particularly because even my daughter and my wife were able to get into the game. Again, I think the funhouse quality of Castle Amber was a plus in this respect. No one felt the need to "perform" as if they were playing a key role in an epic tale of deep import and meaning. Instead, it was clear this was a fun romp for a bunch of somewhat disreputable characters looking to save their skins and make a few gold pieces in the process. Likewise, the sheer goofiness of the place let me ham it up when playing the parts of NPCs; I always find it much easier to play oddball characters than serious ones, which is why I'm known for including them in all my adventures.

All in all, it was a fun night. I'll probably have some further thoughts on the evening at some point, because I learned a few valuable things I think might be of general interest.

Huge Ruined Piles

Men & Magic, Volume I of original Dungeons & Dragons, in a section entitled "Preparation for the Campaign," rather famously describes a dungeon as a

"huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses".

The quote is a popular one in the OSR and for good reason: it's incredibly evocative. Reading it, I find myself thinking of an immense, crumbling Gothic structure, perched precariously on some mountaintop and sprawling across its slopes. In this, I've likely been influenced by the cover illustration to OD&D's Supplement II: Blackmoor.

What's interesting is that both the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns were centered around – and indeed named after – a castle (as was Rob Kuntz's El Raja Key). Despite that, it was the levels beneath those two castles that served as the focus of player character action rather than the castles proper. Castle Greyhawk did have an "upper works" (as did Castle Zagyg), but they did not occupy much of the player's attention, at least according to one account by James M. Ward. For Castle Blackmoor, we have a map of the surface levels of the castle, presented in Judges Guild's The First Fantasy Campaign, but they're sadly not very interesting – hardly a "huge ruined pile."

Speaking of Judges Guild, the 1977 module, Tegel Manor, is in some ways closer to this ideal, though, at only 250-ish rooms, it's probably too small to be called truly "sprawling" (though moreso than either Castle Amber or my own The Cursed Chateau). 

I've written before about "above ground" dungeons, but, in that case, I was thinking mostly of ruined cities on the model of Glorantha's Big Rubble, which is itself worthy of further discussion. However, my present musings are occasioned more by today's Pulp Fantasy Library entry. I now find myself thinking about immense, haunted castles – an unholy amalgam of Castle Dracula, Neuschwanstein, and the Winchester Mystery House, peopled with all manner of monsters and perhaps even the degenerate descendants of the original inhabitants á la H.P. Lovecraft's The Lurking Fear

It's funny really that "the dungeon," meaning an improbable warren of subterranean tunnels should become the default environment for adventuring in RPGs. On one level, it makes perfect sense, since dungeons, as conceived by roleplaying games, have no real world analog, thus freeing the referee to map them according to his own fancies. Mapping a castle, even an absurdly large and rambling one, might demand at least a little knowledge of the layout of such buildings and that can impede one's creativity. I've experienced a little of this myself, in detailing the surface ruins of Urheim, since it's meant to be a "real" fortified monastery where all of its buildings have a clear and logical purpose. 

That aside, I don't see any reason why a would-be designer of a massive castle "dungeon" need be limited by real world considerations. My references above to Neuschwanstein and the Winchester Mystery House were chosen specifically to highlight the legitimacy of whimsical, irrational, and downright deranged design choices. After all, if your huge ruled piles is the result of "generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses," why should its floorplan be bound by normal logic? 

I remain quite taken with Jason "Philotomy Jurament" Cone's notion of "the dungeon as mythic underworld," which I believe comports almost perfectly with OD&D's presentation of the game's play environment. But we need not be too literal when it comes to adopting this perspective. Properly presented, a sprawling, crumbling castle can be every bit an example of an underworld as any series of monster-infested tunnels. Indeed, if one looks at Gothic fiction from the late 18th through 19th centuries and beyond – fiction that has had a clear influence on fantasy roleplaying – cursed and haunted castles abound and entering them is often metaphorically akin to descending into Hades (consider Jonathan Harker's trip to Transylvania in Dracula, for instance).

Obviously, creating a dungeon of this sort will require some re-thinking of the traditional structure of levels and the difficulty associated thereto. Off the top of my head, I might suggest dividing the castle into wings, with certain certain wings being "low level" and others "high." Alternately – or even in conjunction with wings – one might instead opt for a vertical approach: as one ascends the castle's spires, it becomes more difficult. Another possibility is simply to dispense with such artificial notions and opt for a more "organic" one, where the challenge is independent of location and characters exploring the place must learn to be clever to avoid running into dangers beyond their present abilities. The possibilities are quite large and, were I a better cartographer, I might start work on my own huge ruined pile. Alas, my skills in this area are negligible, so it won't be happening anytime soon. One day ...

My Top 10 D&D Adventures of the Golden Age (Part I)

By far and away, the most popular post I've ever written on this blog is one of its earliest ones. Entitled "30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time," the post is a brief commentary on a list published in issue #116 of Dungeon magazine, in which I offered my thoughts on the entries included in this list. The list includes modules from the entire history of Dungeons & Dragons up until that point (2004) and its choices, as I say in my post, are idiosyncratic to say the least. Even so, the list is a good conversation starter and I've had many fruitful discussions of the merits and flaws of various D&D modules over the years.

Recently, a long-time reader of this blog asked me if I'd ever written a post in which I ranked the modules of D&D's golden age. As it turned out, I had not and, with his encouragement, I started thinking about doing so. Unlike my reader, I wasn't prepared to look at all the adventures published for D&D during the period between 1974 and 1983. Instead, I decided to restrict myself solely to those published by TSR during that period. Further, I was only going to rank my top ten. 

Please note the possessive pronoun. What follows is the first part of a list of the ten D&D adventure modules published by TSR during the game's golden age, ranked according to my own tastes. I make no claims that my preferences are, let alone should be, universal. Nevertheless, I will make an effort to explain the reasons I've included every module on this list. I hope that doing so will provide not just some context to my own ranking but also engender wider conversation about the classics of the early days of Dungeons & Dragons.

10. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan

Of all the modules in my list, this is the one whose esteem in my eyes has risen the most. That's because, with the benefit of hindsight, I better appreciate the cleverness of its design. While there are a handful of monsters to be found here, such as the first appearance of the gibbering mouther, the real attractions are the shrine's many tricks and traps. Speaking as someone who's often had difficulty coming up with such things, I can't help but admire the imaginations of Harold Johnson and Jeff R. Leason. They succeeded in creating a good mix of challenges for both brain and brawn, which is precisely what a good dungeon requires to be memorable and fun. Couple this with the Mesoamerican vibe of the shrine – used to good effect in the included illustration booklet – and you've got a winner. One of these days, I ought to try running it again to see if I can use it to better effect than I did as a kid. Given the quality of its design, I suspect I can.

9. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Published in 1980, this is the first (but not the last) time Gary Gygax's byline is seen on this last. As a kid, I was somewhat ambivalent about this module, given its inclusion of explicitly science fictional elements, but, nowadays, such genre bending appeals to me a lot more. Beyond that, the module features lots of unique encounters, not just with the alien animals living aboard the wrecked spaceship – who can forget the froghemoth? – but with some of the weird denizens of the Monster Manual, like the mind flayer and the intellect devourer. Equally memorable are the striking visual designs of the high technology scattered throughout the ship. Few of them look anything like what players would expect of a futuristic weapon, which very nicely simulates how medieval fantasy characters might look on such things the first time they encounter them. Finally, the design of the ship's decks deserve praise too.

8. The Lost City 

I simply adore this module. The only reason it isn't rated higher is that there are so many excellent candidates for this list and inevitably one of them would have to occupy this rank. Part of what I regularly call Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," (the other parts to be discussed shortly) The Lost City is a great evocation of, as its name suggests, the "lost city" genre that was a staple of pulp fiction (Howard's "Red Nails" probably being one of the most relevant examples for our purposes.) That Moldvay wrote the adventure for low-level characters is, to my mind, one of its best features. Too often scenarios of this sort are reserved to higher levels, on the assumption that the lost civilization contains mighty wonders and terrors suitable only for potent PCs. Moldvay, on the other hand, offers up the titular city as the starting point for a whole campaign, one that could potentially take those low-level characters to much greater heights of power and importance. That's how it's done.

7. The Isle of Dread

This was the adventure module that first taught me the joys of wilderness exploration, an aspect of D&D with which I still sometimes struggle to this day. Together, David Cook and Tom Moldvay present a delightfully open-ended locale, populated by all manner of monsters and NPC. Though the promise of treasure is what initially draws the characters to the Isle, there's so much more to do there, whether it be fighting prehistoric monsters, negotiating with the natives, or even just filling in every hex on the blank map they're carrying with them. When I first refereed this in my youth, the player characters spent many sessions on the Isle, scouring every hex in search of its mysteries. In the process, they ran afoul of pirates who would eventually become recurring antagonists for a time. The module is also notable for having presented a map and brief gazetteer of the "Known World" fantasy setting.

6. Castle Amber

This module ranks so high for me, because it was my introduction to the fiction of Clark Ashton Smith, thereby initiating a lifelong fascination with the Bard of Auburn and his works. Of course, Castle Amber is a genuinely fun adventure, provided you're in the mood for a funhouse dungeon. What I like about this module is that, while it is a funhouse, filled with bizarre and occasionally silly things, it's not completely inexplicable. There's an underlying logic to the place and its inhabitants. There are reasons why the Amber family behaves as they do and uncovering those reasons play a large role in the fun of this adventure – assuming you survive. I know many aficionados of old school D&D point to Judges Guild's Tegel Manor as the best example of this style of "wild and woolly" module, but, for my money, Castle Amber is better written and presented and overall more fun. It's a true classic and worthy of more praise than it typically gets.

Forgotten Bard

Had he indulged in the necromantic practices of some of his most memorable characters, Clark Ashton Smith would today be 118 years of age. Instead, this year will also mark the 50th anniversary of his death and, unlike his fellow Weird Tales writers, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, Smith's star has not much risen outside the small circles that have always lauded him and his unique imagination.

As someone whose first taste of Smith occurred long ago (after refereeing Tom Moldvay's Castle Amber in the early 80s, as I recall), I sometimes forget how poorly known CAS actually is. Indeed, until the last few years, I was convinced that Smith had been listed in Gygax's Appendix N and was thus an important influence on one of the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons. As it turns out, Gygax hadn't read Smith until after he'd created D&D and I've never seen any evidence put forward that Dave Arneson was a devotee either. Outside of the aforementioned Castle Amber, there aren't many Smithian allusions in the game's canon. (Supposedly, Rob Kuntz's Maure Castle contains such allusions, but, if so, it's not in evidence in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, at least not to me anyway).

This is, of course, a well-worn topic on this blog, something I in fact mentioned on this very day last year. I think it bears repeating, though, because, while it's true that Smith's works provide much less "furniture" to import into D&D's ever-growing treasure house than, say, Lovecraft or Tolkien, he nevertheless has a lot to offer the roleplayer. In particular, CAS reminds us of the power of words to transport us to other places and times and to induce in us feelings and moods. Smith began his literary career as a poet, which is why so many of his stories are better understood as prose poems rather than as narratives in the traditional sense. That's not say that Smith's stories are devoid of plot, but plot is often secondary to the evocation of emotion in the reader through the use of exotic language. Critics of Smith's approach deem his vocabulary unnecessarily ornate and they would be correct if one were to indulge in a steady diet of such language. But, as a "palate cleanser," such language is both useful and inspirational.

Much discussion is had in roleplaying circles about the meaning and purpose of "story" in the context of our shared hobby. Such discussions certainly have value, but, in my experience anyway, it's not "story" that most roleplaying games lack in practice as it is feeling. Too often, neither the players nor the referee has their senses (both internal and external) engaged, which is understandable, because it's hard to do. Clark Ashton Smith did it, though; his best stories really do transport you to weird, otherworldly realms and fill your eyes and ears and other senses with strange feelings, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always interesting. I can think of worse models for how to add this extra layer to gaming than Smith. I'm not suggesting that one adopt his luxuriant diction and fondness for archaism -- though there's no harm in doing so! -- in order to add some depth to your gaming sessions, but I am suggesting that reading a few of his best stories, such as "The Empire of the Necromancers" or "The Charnel God" will pay great dividends for your fantasy roleplaying campaigns.

So here's to Clark Ashton Smith on the anniversary of his birth. May his memory and his work continue to inspire all who seek out the exotic and the weird.

White Dwarf: Issue #35

Issue #35 of White Dwarf (October 1982) features a wonderfully evocative cover by Les Edwards. Covers like this one highlight one of the most visible differences between WD and Dragon. Dragon's cover artwork was, in general, very good, but much of it felt "game-y" to me, whereas White Dwarf's cover illustrations looked like the kind you might see on fantasy and science fiction novels – no surprise, since many of the pieces originally did appear on novels). 

Ian Livingstone's editorial references an unnamed survey of unit sales of RPGs in the USA. According to this survey, the ten top selling games are, in order: D&D, AD&D, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, Top Secret, Chivalry & Sorcery, Tunnels & Trolls, RuneQuest, Space Opera, and Arduin Grimoire. Quite the list, isn't it? I'm not at all surprised to see both D&D and AD&D there; the same goes for Traveller. With the exception RuneQuest and perhaps Tunnels & Trolls, I wouldn't have expected any of the others to be on the list at all, never mind in the top ten.

"The Necromancer" is a new AD&D character class by Lewis Pulsipher. The class is interesting in two respects. The first is that it's limited only to evil aligned characters, much like the assassin (or the death master). The second is that it's not, strictly speaking, a sub-class of magic-user but is instead a unique class all its own. Consequently, it doesn't have spells but "abilities," rated according to "grades," ranked from 1 to 5. Many of these reproduce the effects of certain existing spells (e.g. animated dead, feign death, speak with dead, etc.) but the majority of them are original and focus on the creation and control of undead beings. The class is distinctive and well done and would work well as the basis for an antagonist. I'm not so sure I'd allow its use for a player character, but then I long ago lost the taste for evil PCs.

"... We Have a Referee Malfunction" by Bob McWilliams is a short, humorous article about how a Traveller referee should handle situations that don't go as planned in a session. While it's clearly satirical in purpose, McWilliams nevertheless presents some genuinely useful ideas in the article. "Green Horizon" by Marcus L. Rowland is a stand-alone Traveller scenario in which the players take on the roles of alien beings – the Ksiffchi – whose ship misjumps and winds up in orbit around a primitive planet. Due to the misjump, the ship is damaged and the crew of the vessel have no choice but to land on the planet and attempt to find the parts they require to effect the repairs. The twist is that the primitive world is, in fact, Earth and the Ksiffchi have arrived in June 1944. If you've ever wanted to play a sci-fi adventure where marsupial-like aliens face off against Nazis, "Green Horizon" is for you.

"Open Box" starts its reviews with the Games Workshop boardgame of Judge Dredd (9 out of 10). Next up are five different TSR modules for D&D and AD&D: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh (9 out of 10), The Secret of Bone Hill (8 out of 10), Against the Giants (10 out of 10), Palace of the Silver Princess (10 out of 10), and Castle Amber (6 out of 10). As you can see, it's both an odd collection of modules and an odd array of ratings. I'm particularly baffled by the high rating of Palace of the Silver Princess, which, while it has much to recommend it, is not even close to being in the same category as the Giants modules. Likewise, I take some offense at the mediocre rating of Castle Amber, but I readily admit my affection for the things probably blinds me to some of its flaws. Finally, there's a review of Chaosium's Borderlands, which receives a 10 out of 10. 

"Lashing Out" by Phil Masters is a surprisingly long article on introducing whips into Dungeons & Dragons. In addition to ordinary whips, Masters also presents multiple magical whips, some of which have unusual effects (like the whip of lightning). "Weapon Quest" by Andrew Brice offers up multiple new weapons for use with RuneQuest. Part II of Lewis Pulsipher's "A Guide to Dungeon Mastering" tackles the subjects of "Monsters & Magic." This encompasses not just the choice and placement of monsters and magic items in a dungeon, but also the use of magic and magic items by monsters. As with its predecessor, the advice is solid for it time, but, from the vantage point of 2022, there's hardly anything here I've not before.

"Lord of Kanuu" by John R. Gordon presents a new monster – the spidron – and a mini-scenario in which to use it. The spidron is a malignant green liquid that can disguise itself under a robe to appear as if it is a humanoid being. Instead of being silly, it's strangely creepy, partly, I think, because of the spidron's use of drugs to create zombie-like minions from ordinary people. The author says that he was inspired by an episode of the television show The Tomorrow People. Never having seen the show (that I can recall), I wonder if any readers who have might be able to identify the story that inspired him.

Aside from "The Necromancer" (about which I nevertheless have some issues), issue #35 doesn't stand out in my opinion. It's not a bad issue by any means, but it doesn't quite rise above the level of "workmanlike." That's no criticism. It's difficult to produce exceptional material on a monthly basis; the fact that it ever happens is, frankly, remarkable.

Retrospective: Trail of Tsathogghua

I continue in my Quixotic quest to find RPG products that show the influence, explicit or otherwise, of Clark Ashton Smith. As I wrote last week, this has proven a surprisingly difficult endeavor, so I hope I can be forgiven for grasping at whatever straws I can find, which is why, this week, I'm taking a look at Trail of Tsathogghua, a scenario pack for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1984. 

Now, as I've mentioned many times before, the Dungeons & Dragons module, Castle Amber, is probably – probably – what first introduced me to Clark Ashton Smith. I can't say that for certain, especially after forty-five years, in part because Call of Cthulhu was released the very same year, 1981, and it includes a number of references to Smith and his creations, most notably Tsathoggua. Having been a devoted CoC fan since its initial appearance, it's just possible that it was this game rather than Castle Amber that turned me on to CAS, but I think that unlikely.

Speaking of Tsathoggua, perceptive readers will no doubt have noticed that I spell the name of the Hyperborean bat-toad god differently than does the title of this scenario pack. For reasons unknown to me, author Keith Herber inserted an "h" into the deity's name, an addition not attested in Smith's own work nor, for that matter, in Call of Cthulhu itself, whose entry on him spells it as I do. Given that CAS includes a mangled spelling of the name (Zothaqquah) in his Averoigne stories, this isn't a particularly unusual variant, but I nevertheless can't help but wonder why it was used here.

Trail of Tsathoggua is a 64-page book, featuring a terrific cover by Steve Purcell, an artist who, in his later career, would work for LucasArts, Nelvana, and Pixar. The book consists of three adventures, the first two of which are loosely connected to one another, while the third stands on its own and is, by far, the best of the trio – and indeed widely regarded as one of the best Call of Cthulhu scenarios of its early years. 

The first adventure shares its title with the book itself, albeit with the definite article added, "The Trail of Tsathogghua." It concerns an Miskatonic University archeological expedition to Greenland, where a massive stone slab carved with a giant bas-relief and odd hieroglyphs has recently been discovered. As it turns out, the slab is an artifact of ancient Hyperborea, as described by Clark Ashton Smith, providing information not just about the prehistory of the region but also about the location of a temple to Tsathoggua that is strongly implied to be the same one Satampra Zeiros attempted to plunder untold millennia ago.

The second adventure, "The Curse of Tsathogghua," moves to Canada, British Columbia specifically, as characters investigate rumors of the Sasquatch and a connection to the Greenland expedition from the first adventure. Like the first scenario, this one has a connection to Smith's work, albeit a more tangential one, since the Sasquatch are depicted as present-day descendants of the furry Voormis of Hyperborea. The adventure also includes the possibility that, if successful, the investigators might draw the attention and patronage of the Canadian prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King (incorrectly called simply William Lyon McKenzie [sic] in the text), who, in real life, was secret Spiritualist with a keen interest in the occult. 

The third and final adventure, "The Haunted House," a title it shares with the classic adventure found at the back of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook, takes place in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has little to do with the other two. Instead, it focuses on the Van Laaden Mansion, which is plagued by all manner of unusual and possibly supernatural events. The explanation for this is a clever and genuinely spooky one: centuries ago, a druid merged his consciousness into a tree that was later felled and shipped to America as some of the lumber used to build the Van Laaden Mansion. Now, his spirit possesses the place and wreaks havoc.

Taken as a whole, Trail of Tsathogghua is a mixed bag, but there are enough good ideas here to make it useful to almost any Keeper running a Call of Cthulhu campaign. As a fan of Clark Ashton Smith, it's nice to see ideas from his Hyperborea cycle incorporated into the game, even if the incorporation doesn't have a huge overall impact. Too few RPGs look to CAS at all, so I suppose I'm naturally inclined to give bonus points to products like this one that make even a small effort to do so.

30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time

Back in November 2004, Paizo published Dungeon 116, among whose contents was "a list of classic adventures with help from an all-star panel of judges including Ed Greenwood, Christopher Perkins, Bruce Cordell, and Monte Cook." Called the "30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time," the list was intended to showcase the best modules ever published for the game. It's an interesting list for a number of reasons, chief among them being how idiosyncratic it is in its inclusion of modules that, quite frankly, aren't noteworthy in any significant way, never mind worthy of being called one of the "greatest." The list consists entirely of TSR-published modules with one exception, which I also think is important, because it points out how the "official" moniker has so come to dominate not just the way people play the game but also how they remember its past.

Here are my thoughts on the list.

1. Queen of Spiders, 1986 (G1-3, D1-3, Q1)
This is a bit of a cop-out entry. Taken as a whole, I don't think there's much doubt that the Giants/Drow series of modules is probably the most iconic collection of D&D adventures ever published and firmly established a number of Gygaxian elements/motifs/idiosyncrasies as normative for the game as a whole. However, I think it's cheating to lump all the modules together, particularly in the rather hamfisted "supermodule" format, and declare it the greatest D&D adventure of all time. In my opinion, Q1 is very weak, both conceptually and in its presentation, and the G series consists primarily of workmanlike dungeon crawls, albeit with a solid theme and enough backstory to give them greater significance. The D series, on the other hand, are universally excellent and indeed groundbreaking on many levels. I'd have fewer quibbles about naming, say, Vault of the Drow the greatest adventure of all time, even if it's not necessarily what I'd have chosen.

2. Ravenloft, 1983 (I6)
Much as I love the Gothic horror/melodrama atmosphere of this module, I think it's fair to say that Ravenloft has probably exercised the most baleful influence over the development of D&D of any module other than the Dragonlance series, which isn't surprising since Tracy Hickman was involved in both. I loved David Sutherland's three-dimensional maps at the time, but they proved less than ideal to use in play. Likewise, the plot is heavy-handed and railroad-y. And don't get me started on the fetishization of Strahd von Zarovich.

3. Tomb of Horrors, 1978 (S1)
I wrote at length about this yesterday, so you already know my opinion of this module. It's definitely one of the top 5 adventure modules of all time and I'd be suspicious of any list that didn't include it as such.

4. The Temple of Elemental Evil, 1985 (T1-4)
Another cop-out, but a more justifiable one. I'm personally of the opinion that T1 The Village of Hommlet alone deserves to be in any top 10 list of greatest adventures of all time. Coupled with the rest of the material from this supermodule, you can see how much better it is than the material that followed, which represents a valiant effort by Frank Mentzer to put into print both an important part of the Greyhawk campaign's history and a module promised for many years beforehand. I think T1-4 is solid, but it's not top 10 material as its rank here would imply.

5. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, 1980 (S3)
I don't have any quibbles about this module, which I both thoroughly enjoyed and think is indeed a classic on many levels, not least of which being its excellent illustration booklet.

6. The Desert of Desolation, 1987 (I3-5)
Another cop-out compilation but one I'm willing to let pass with less worry, since the modules play less as a series of independent but connected modules and more like a single module broken up into three pieces. It's been a long time since I looked at these and, while I am pretty sure they share the flaws of Tracy Hickman's other works (i.e. a heavy-handed plot), I recall there being a number of very clever old school traps and tricks throughout. Again, I'm not sure these modules are top 10 material, but I don't think them unworthy of some praise.

7. The Keep on the Borderlands, 1979 (B1)
Like The Village of Hommlet, B2 is nearly perfect. I'd rate it higher than 7, but that's a quibble.

8. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, 2001
I could go on at some length about why this is a terrible, terrible module that misunderstands and butchers Greyhawk lore and demonstrates why the 3e Challenge Rating system is an abomination, but why bother? There's simply no justification for including this in a top 30 list, let alone ranking it at number 8.

9. White Plume Mountain, 1979 (S2)
I have great fondness for this module and no qualms about its inclusion in the top 30. I think it's too "game-y" an adventure to make the top 10, though. By that I mean that the whole set-up feels too artificial, as if it exists solely to provide an adventuring locale rather than as a location with its own internal logic independent of the adventurers having to go there.

10. Return to the Tomb of Horrors, 1998
I never owned or read this boxed set, so I can't really comment on its merits.

11. The Gates of Firestorm Peak, 1996
Written primarily to show off the new rules options from the 2.5e Player's Option books, I suspect this module made the list because of its introduction of the Far Realm, the Lovecraftian dimension that WotC era D&D seems so in love with. I'm not sure that alone justifies its inclusion here, as the rest of the module is pretty forgettable.

12. The Forge of Fury, 2000
I never owned this module either and, given that it's the second rather than the first release in WotC's 3e adventure path, I'm a bit baffled as to why it's here.

13. Dwellers of the Forbidden City, 1981 (I1)
As I've said before, this is definitely one of the greatest modules ever. I'd actually rate it higher than 13.

14. Dead Gods, 1997
I'm a fan of Planescape, but I can't say much good about most of the modules produced for the line, particularly the later ones, of which Dead Gods is part. They represent TSR's rather unfortunate flirtation with White Wolf-style metaplot, in the process wreaking havoc on an otherwise well-done, if off-kilter, take on fantasy.

15. Castle Amber, 1981 (X2)
Part of Tom Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," Castle Amber is a favorite of mine.

16. Isle of Dread, 1980 (X1)
Ditto Isle of Dread.

17. Ruins of Undermountain, 1991
I never owned this, so I can't comment on its placement here.

18. The Hidden Shrine of Tamochan, 1980 (C1)
This is an excellent old school module that reminds me a bit of Tomb of Horrors in that it has very few monsters but plenty of tricks and traps. Likewise, the Mesoamerican ambience of the place -- given glorious life by many Erol Otus illustrations -- adds to its charm.

19. Against the Cult of the Reptile God, 1982 (N1)
An under-appreciated module that proves Douglas Niles once had serious design chops.

20. Scourge of the Slave Lords, 1986 (A1-4)
Yet another cop-out, but, again, an understandable one, given that modules A1-4 are a tighter series than the G/D/Q modules. I have a certain fondness for these adventures, but I don't worship them the way some old schoolers do. Part of my problem with them is that I don't find the central premise very compelling and the modules, being written by a variety of authors, are somewhat uneven in quality. In addition, there are moments of heavy-handedness, such as the necessity of the PCs to be captured, that I think militate against the series' real virtues. I don't object to their inclusion in a top 30 list and rank 20 seems about right for them.

21. Dark Tower, 1980 (from Judge’s Guild)
The sole entry in this list that wasn't produced by TSR, I don't have any problem with its presence, since this is a classic module by Paul Jaquays and deserves to be recognized as such. However, I happen to think there are many other Judges Guild modules even more deserving of being here, such as Caverns of Thracia and Tegel Manor (among others). Were I to make my own top 30, you can be sure quite a few JG adventures would bump many of the entries in this somewhat myopic list.

22. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, 1982 (S4)
I have a fondness for module S4, but that's mostly because of its extensive booklet of monsters, magic items, and spells, which made far more of an impact on my campaign than the adventure proper, which is is rather bland.

23. The Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun, 1982 (WG4)
The "sequel" to The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, though, is one for which I have a greater appreciation. The adventure has a creepy, "eldritch" ambience to it that I love and the eponymous locale is suitably bizarre and Lovecraftian.

24. City of the Spider Queen, 2002
No. This adventure exists solely to sell more R.A. Salvatore novels and its heavy-handed plot depends on events in the novels to make any sense.

25. Dragons of Despair, 1984 (DL1)
Though my dislike for Dragonlance is well-known, I do think the first module in the series is well-done and intriguing. Had the series as a whole not been so heavily tied into events in the novels and had there been more support for deviating from the "correct" storyline, I think the DL could have become true classics. As it is, DL1 represents a path not taken, as well as one of the key moments when D&D lost its soul.

26. City of Skulls, 1993 (WGR6)
I never owned any of the Carl Sargent era Greyhawk modules, so I can't comment on this one, which I believe is about the empire of Iuz.

27. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, 1981 (U1)
Like most of the TSR UK modules, this one was excellent, being another great starting module that combines a fascinating little town with adventuring locales and adventure hooks. The rest of the U series is just as good in my opinion and quite possibly deserve a place on this list.

28. The Lost City, 1982 (B4)
The third module of Moldvay's "Pulp Fantasy Trilogy," this one is one is sometimes overshadowed by its bigger brothers, which is a shame, because it's a terrific evocation of "Red Nails" and other similar stories.

29. The Assassin’s Knot, 1983 (L2)
Why this is here and not L1 The Secret of Bone Hill is a mystery to me. Oh wait, it's because L2 features a mystery that it got the nod while the often-overlooked L1 did not. I think L2 is a solid module -- practically a mini-campaign, just like L1 -- but I also think that it gets more kudos than it deserves simply because of its murder mystery plot.

30. The Ghost Tower of Inverness, 1980 (C2)
While I have fond memories of this module, like White Plume Mountain it has the feel of being a game module rather than an internally consistent and logical location in its own right.

Imagine Magazine: Issue #19

Chris Collingwood provides the cover for issue #19 of Imagine (October 1984). Its first article is "The Art of Animation" by Mark Davies, which deals extensively with the topic of golems and other magically animated beings. I've always had a fondness for golems, influenced perhaps by the presence of the magens in Castle Amber. The article itself is solid, looking not just at existing golems and golem-like creations but providing several new ones. Meanwhile, "Geas" by Venetia Lee presents several geased magical items. These items are powerful but they also impose restrictions on the behavior of the person possessing them, such as the sword of Bast, which prevents its wielder from ever willingly harming any cat or cat-like creature. It's a simple idea but a good one. 

"The Private Lives of NPCs, Part II" is a follow-up to an article that appeared in issue #11. Like that previous article, which I enjoyed, this one is very good, focusing on a half-dozen basic questions a referee should ask himself when creating non-player characters. It's not a radical or revelatory article, but it's the sort of grounded, commonsensical piece that I still find helpful, even after four decades of gaming. This month's game reviews caught my attention, purely for historical reasons. The first Dragonlance adventure, Dragons of Despair, is given a positive review, unlike the Top Secret scenario, Ace of Clubs. Never let it be said that Imagine was a mere house organ, despite being published by TSR UK. The review of Avalon Hill's Powers & Perils is encouraging, noting that, while it was unlikely that such a complex game would develop a huge following, it was nonetheless worthy of continued support. I have a weird fascination with P&P myself, so I appreciated seeing this review.

"Sinvel's Peril" by Doug Cowie is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure for levels 12-15, intended, it seems, to promote the newly released Companion Rules. The scenario concerns the defense of the town of Sinvel against a horde of barbarians – a trite set-up that's been done numerous times and better, but it does include some terrific maps by Paul Ruiz (about which more below). "Role Playing for Remedials" by Alan Heaven is another look into the past. The article is a counter to suggestions that RPGs are "addictive escapism." How strange to consider that this was once a serious charge against the hobby! Pete Tamlyn offers "Towards Systemless Scenarios," which is a brief overview of the question of how to present adventures intended to be used by many rules systems. The answer? Be as vague as possible, as demonstrated in the companion article (also by Tamlyn), "The Stolen Herd." I'm being flippant, of course, but it is  true the case that what Tamlyn is suggesting is not so much scenario writing as establishing a broad "plot" and then letting each referee decide how things play out. On the other hand, "Games without Frontiers" by Graeme Davis is extremely practical – maybe too practical – as delves into mathematical comparisons of various rules systems.

Paul Vernon's "Uncharted Stars" is a rare example of a Traveller article in the page of Imagine (leaving aside the previous issue), something that was very common in White Dwarf.  It provides rules for spectral classes for stars, as well as an Amber Zone (scenario). Colin Greenwood's "Fantasy Media" tackles a pair of movies (The Last Battle and Supergirl) and a pair of novels (Tanith Lee's The Castle in the Dark and James P, Hogan's Voyage from Yesteryear). "Rubic of Moggedon" and "The Phalanx" comics are here once more, along with Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner." Musson talks about the two ways alignment can be interpreted: as ethics or allegiance. Though short, it's a fine meditation on this contentious topic and does a good job of offering some solutions.

The real heart of the issue is "Pellinore: Law and Order" by Paul Cockburn, which describes the legal system of the City League. There are discussions of police forces, courts, and crimes, in addition to tables devoted to adjudicating all of the above. There's also a gazetteer of those sections of the city where the Courts can be found, along with NPC write-ups of various magistrates. It's terrific bit of worldbuilding by small steps, one that I now realize I have been subconsciously imitating in my own Urheim posts – great minds and all that! The article is accompanied by the maps of Paul Ruiz, whose style I absolutely adore. It's unlike any other cartographer I've seen before or since and I find myself wishing he were still active in the scene.

Imagine has definitely hit its stride. This is a great issue, probably my favorite so far. I look forward to the next one.