Remembering Aaron Allston

Aaron Allston passed away this past week. Allston was a prodigious game designer and author. In the roleplaying world he was best known for his work for Hero Games, TSR, along with Ghostbusters International for West End Games. He later moved on to producing fiction, best known for writing several well-received novels set in the Star Wars universe.

For many in the gaming world he is best known for his Hero Games work but I was most familiar with his work for TSR, most notably being the force behind three of the most noteworthy D&D products of the late 80s and early 90 (along with several other products he wrote):

• GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987)
• Dungeons & Dragons Hollow World (1990)
• Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia (1991)

The Grand Ducky of Karakeikos was a detailed look at the default starting area of play in the D&D "known world" (later renamed Mystara). The Hollow World gave us a good measure of pulp with the lost civilizations of the known world (as well as dinosaurs) finding their way into the inside of the globe.

It was the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia that was his masterpiece. My brother and I, both D&D fans, wondered how he got TSR's ok to produce it. While the AD&D 2nd edition game was just beginning to produce its first "splat books" the Rules Cyclopedia for the parallel D&D game was (and remains) one of the most complete gaming books ever made. Over 300 pages of small-font rules, optional rules, monsters, other planes, magic items, information on the default setting, paths to immortality. Armed with that one book you could have a complete game lasting for years and years. It was not an introductory book that gave you the basics and expected you to move on to other books - it was incredibly complete. Allston took nearly two decades of D&D games and versions and consolidated it into the most complete version the game has ever seen (or has seen since). Wizards of the Coast has been reprinting many of the old TSR versions of D&D and AD&D - I really hope this is something they get around to reprinting.

Eventually Allston moved on to producing fiction - some of it his own, the bulk of it being media tie-in fiction, largely in the Star Wars universe. I'm not a huge consumer of media tie-in fiction, though once upon a time I was. I did I followed the early Star Wars tie-ins like Heir to the Empire but the volume was far more than I could keep up with, something that became especially true when the New Jedi Order series came out. Allston wrote the Star Wars novel Betrayal, taking place after the New Jedi Order and he had the difficult challenge of launching a new series that would be accessible to people who were not familiar with much of what had gone on before. I actually did read Betrayal several years ago and found it an enjoyable read, showing the first steps of a man going down a dark path with the best of intentions.

I never had the opportunity to meet with or correspond with Mr. Allston but he made contributions which brought me a great deal of joy - indeed, which continue to do so to this day.

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Let the Dice Fall Where They May

Though I began gaming in the 80s the 90s proved to be very formative in my gaming style. I absolutely ate up story-based games like Vampire: The Masquerade as well as the story-based style seen in D&D 2nd Edition products.

One of the frequent elements of that style is not letting the dice get in the way of the story. I'm not going to bash that gaming style - I had a lot of fun gaming that way, playing through the Forgotten Realms Avatar-trilogy of adventures and managing to have a great time, despite its strong element of rail roading. It's a style and if everyone is having fun with it then there's nothing wrong with it.

One of the dangers with that style is players can turn into spectators or actors for a story designed by the GM (or a pre-packaged adventure). You'll have villains who absolutely cannot be killed in the first encounter, events that must happen no matter what the players do. One of the innovations I've seen over the last decade is game systems which incorporate these assumptions into the game. For example, in various FATE games (such as Spirit of the Century and The Dresden Files) if your freedom of action is restricted by certain story or genre elements you get rewarded for going along with it in the form of FATE points. At the same time you can spend those FATE points to override that loss of narrative control. This, in my opinion at least, is a good way to run such a game. It removes the players from being passive observers but still drives towards telling a story, with modifications to prevent it from simply being the story the GM wanted to tell. I think it emulates well what you'll often hear writers of fiction say when they indicate the characters they created dictated a different ending. For example, Stephen King indicated he was surprised to discover some of the characters he created for 'Salem's Lot chose not to go along with the horrible end he'd anticipated for them.

"Old school" games typically advise against this sort of play. In my experiments with such games, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) last summer and my recently begun Adventurer Conqueror King System (ACKS) campaign I've tried my hand at the style of play. One consistent piece of advice I've seen in such games is letting dice rolls be binding. To the best of my recollection, I first read that in Hackmaster and saw it furthered in Dungeon Crawl Classics with advice for all die rolls to be in the open. In both games I've operated in this manner. In both cases I used random character generation. In our ACKS game I had each player roll up five characters and generate two PCs. Since we've typically had around four players per session I've had players run both characters at once. DCC has players generate four zero-level characters and whoever survives the first adventure (if anyone does) gets to be 1st level. The only allowance I've made is allowing 1st level characters to start with maximum hit points.

It's probably worth noting that I've not gone fully random, allowing the dice to determine the contents of every hex - but it's something I may end up doing as I've only detailed the hexes immediately around the starting home base.

The obvious reason for writing all of this is to discuss how it plays. I'd have to say it represents quite a change from what I'm used to. Generally speaking I'd roll the dice behind a screen. Which means I might fudge the results. "Well gee Bob is down to 3 hp and so 10 hp damage would pretty much finish him and it's first encounter of the night so it seems anticlimactic to kill him now." There's pretty much zero chance of me doing that. It makes the word an unforgiving one, where even the brightest, most skillfully played character can get unlucky. But it also discourages trusting to luck unless there is no other choice. But it also adds to accomplishments - most characters have penalties to at least one ability score, some several. That max hit points I give out is still subject to Constitution penalties which several characters in the group have.

I'd like to think this makes success all that much more noteworthy. In both DCC and ACKS games I've seen characters who are pretty much average people scrape their way through some horrific scenarios and escape by the skin of their teeth - or die trying. It also makes death, oddly enough, less frightening. The odds of your character perishing in his or her adventures are decidedly greater than zero so be bold (but not foolish) while you live. I've grown to greatly enjoy the mortal wounds table in ACKS - our poor band of adventurers has a number of persistent injuries....

I'll likely talk at a later point about the effects of removing a set plot in a later entry, but I do find the randomness coupled with players in more control of their destines really leads to the players determining the plot line and importance of various events and locations. The player of the cleric, for example, was rather interested in undoing the defilement created by an unholy altar to Orcus while another player was more interested in moving on to a tomb they had been gathering keys to.

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D&D Products of the 1970s and Sandbox Games

One thing I've noticed is the D&D products of the 1970s seem awfully different from the material produced now. Not totally - looking through the material that companies like the Judges Guild and TSR produced, adventures have always been popular. (Though the adventures of the day were a lot more open/easy to drop into a campaign.)

But what I see is a lot of products designed as resources for Dungeon Masters. You had your Monster & Treasure Assortments and Dungeon Geomorphs. Judges Guild produced a gazillion products with dungeon and wilderness maps, random encounters, etc.

As I'm prepping my first "real" sandbox style game I have to confess I see the utility in them. Not knowing precisely what the players will do has me going through my not inconsiderable gaming library (stretching, if not back to the 1970s, at least to the 80s - when a lot of those old products were still in print). Lots of adventures I've used in the past seem just perfect for location x or location y. Heck I can see the value in random encounters, something I don't think I've used in ages. Once you have an idea as to who lives in that mountain range, it is not unreasonable that characters adventuring in that area will run into those beasties. It draws to mind the adventure of Bilbo Baggins, whose encounter with trolls screams "random encounter".

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My Ideal D&D Original Edition

Earlier this week Wizards of the Coast announced they would be reprinting the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the famed "white box".  This set will consist of the following:

• Volume 1: Men & Magic
• Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure
• Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures
• Supplement I: Greyhawk
• Supplement II: Blackmoor
• Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry
• Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes

I first started playing with the "magenta box" version of the D&D Basic Game. Prior to this the Advanced D&D Game, the "blue box" Basic Game, and Original Edition were released. AD&D 1st edition was still very active and would be for years to come; it was the game we probably played most in the early 80s though by the late 80s I'd switched to science fiction games. It wasn't till years later that I managed to get copies of the Original Edition and blue box version of the Basic Game. I also have PDFs of all these versions. Thankfully Wizards of the Coast has again begun releasing their library in PDF format again. I've a hunch that anything they are releasing premium reprints of though won't be released in PDF for some time, though I could be wrong.

I'm glad Wizards of the Coast is releasing this, albeit at a pretty steep price ($150 US). It's probably only a dream, but some day I'd love to see a "cleaned up" version of the Original Edition. By careful use of the Open Gaming License and System Reference Document for D&D 3.0/3.5 people have been able to produce "retro-clones"of the Original Edition - Swords & Wizardry being the best known with Delving Deeper having been recently released. These games are far, far better organized than the Original Edition. I love the Original Edition but, organizationally, it is an absolute mess. In some ways that's part of its charm, with its very vagueness encouraging the Dungeon Master to make his or her own rulings. However, even with this charm it's often difficult to find what it does spell out. For example, penalties giants have to hit dwarfs are listed in the monster book instead of the player section. 

While the retro-clones are far better organized they are limited by just how close they can copy the original rules. A lot of the terminology can be found in the System Reference Document but some of the terminology from older versions do not appear in it. Similarly while you cannot copyright a formula not all of the tables in the Original Edition follow formulae. So there is a limit in how "true" these retro-clones can be. 

Basically, I'd love to see a 0.5 edition of the D&D game be released - keep the same rules (including where they are vague) but give it far greater organization. With digital publishing one could have different variants of the game, allowing a group to decide which supplements they want to use - indeed which rules from which supplements they want. The result could then be organized in an order that makes sense - keep all the class information together, the spells together, etc. In some ways this is what Advanced D&D was meant to do, but I'm looking more for a consolidation and organization vs. all the new stuff and changes that AD&D added.

Failing that another interesting product could be an annotated version of the rules. Ron Edwards is in the process of producing an annotated version of his Sorcerer RPG and, having access to the draft material (due to funding the Kickstarter campaign) I have to say the result is very interesting. The product is still a usable game but the author is also able to indicate what he was thinking with certain rules, what he would change, etc.

 

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RPG Review: D&D Expert Rules (1st-3rd Printings)

D&D Expert Rules 1st-3rd Printings

D&D Expert Rules 4th+ Printing

The product I'm reviewing here isn't quite the Expert Set that had the most popularity. The better known version is a heavily revised version with a cover drawn by Larry Elmore (on the right). The version I began with has the Erol Otus cover featuring a wizard observing the scene that was on the cover of the original D&D Basic Rules. Back when Wizards of the Coast offered legal PDF downloads only the 4th+ Printing was made available. I really wish Wizards of the Coast would make a reprint of this version, digital or physical, available.

Overview

As has been my habit we'll begin with an overview of what we get in the book. I won't be going in as much detail as I did in my review of the Basic Rules as many portions of this are simply an expansion of what has come before.

Part 1 - Introduction

The Expert Rules begin with a description of what this book covers. It expects that you've got the Basic Rules. It explains how these rules cover 4th through 14th levels of play. It talks about how the Expert Rules include adventures in the wilderness - in the Basic Rules you were typically expected to make a short trip to the dungeon and then return. It also talks about the concept of "name" level", typically 9th (except for poor halflings who only get 8 levels total) upon which your character can build a stronghold. There is also a section on the importance of avoiding adventures when there is too large a gap between levels of characters.

One thing which got my attention was a section dedicated to players who had the original D&D Basic Rules - the blue cover version that was edited by Eric Holmes - it explained the changes in assumptions between that version and the 8th-11th printing version. I didn't have that version so it piqued my curiosity until I was finally able to borrow a copy of the Holmes version from a friend. 

Part 2 - Player Character Information

This section covered levels 4-14 for human classes (cleric, fighter, magic-user, and thief) and levels up to 12th (dwarves), 10th (elves), and 8th (halflings). There are some oddities here for people used to other versions of the rules - for example at one level clerics gain two new levels of spell (a time for celebration!) 

What got my most attention was a teaser of what would be in the D&D Companion Rules - something which never really came out, as when it finally did it was for the revised version of the Basic and Expert Rules, not this version. It promised multiple attacks for fighters, new spells for magic-users and clerics, and new thief abilities such as the ability to climb under overhangs, ventriloquism, distractions, etc. I was somewhat curious what would happen to the poor demi-humans. A few years back Jonathan Becker produced a "what if version" of this Companion Rules entitled the B/X Companion. It is an excellent product which I have on my list of review candidates.

Part 3 - Spells

This section was pretty straightforward, with more powerful spells along with rules for reversing spells - for example casting Darkness instead of Light or Cause Light Wounds instead of Cure Light Wounds.

One thing which was rather memorable for me was the quality of the illustrations. Though simple they were quite evocative, showing how powerful the spellcasters were becoming.

Part 4 - The Adventure

This section introduces wilderness adventures. This was my first exposure to hex maps. It has rules for getting lost, evading pursuit in the wilderness, etc. Also it had rules for more advanced hirelings for the characters to employee.

Part 5 - The Encounter

A lot of this section is a reprint of rules from the same section in the Basic Rules. I assume this is because of the differences between the original Blue Box Basic Rules and the later (and then-current) Magenta Box Basic Rules.

There were some additions such as the sequence of events over the course of a day and new options for combat such as combat with lances, flight, etc. 

Also the combat and saving throw tables from the Basic Rules were expanded to 14th level.

Part 6 - Monsters

The monsters section had some interesting additions to the rules. It featured more powerful undead including the first energy-drainers (eek, run!!!) There was an assortment of prehistoric critters. It introduced an assortment of beasts and also giants are present here as well.

As before the illustrations were quite evocative and stay with me to this day. Check out this Erol Otus spectre on the right...

Part 7 - Treasure

This is why we go on adventure darn it! I remember loving this section with some impressive items being introduced - horns of blasting, intelligent swords, staves of wizardry. What fun! 

Part 8 - DM Information

My Future Home

This section has rules for the Dungeon Master - guidelines for creating wilderness environments and base towns. It also had rules for constructing strongholds along with an illustration that made me want to get a castle...

Also included were sections on wandering monsters for the wilderness and some example maps - an introduction to the Grand Duchy of Karameikos and a sample gnome lair. And there was an introduction to hex map symbols that to this day are still used.

Sampling of Hex Symbols

Part 9 - Special Adventures

The final section, not present in the Basic Set, introduced sea-going adventures, with rules for going to sea on various ships. This was quite handy as most of us had as our first adventure a trip to the Isle of Dread (included in all boxed versions of the Expert Set).

Overall Impression

I'm kicking off my Dungeon Crawl Classics game tonight. As I write this I suddenly want to play D&D Basic and Expert...

All kidding aside, coupled with the Basic Rules the D&D Expert Rules gave you a game which could last you for years. It's not a game with rules for every possible scenario but my memories of it are of a game that was a ton of fun. 

There are a few things which aren't quite "right". The biggest to my mind is the limits placed on demi-humans. The level limits begin to come into affect with the Expert Rules. It's not a big deal for dwarves and elves at this point but it seemed fairly crippling for halflings. I always felt a better option would have been to allow demi-humans to advance nearly as high as humans but make their experience costs put them a little behind their human counterparts. In any case it's a fun game and house-ruling for early versions of D&D was not a difficult undertaking...

I also see I noted the art here a lot more than I did in my review of the Basic Rules. For whatever reason the artwork in this set was more memorable for me - even looking at it today it has me wanting to play this game.

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RPG Review: Caves and Caverns

Examining my history with D&D I find it interesting to notice some of the products that I missed. For whatever reason, my early gaming was entirely devoid of any Judges Guild products.

Judges Guild was one of the first (maybe the first) licensed 3rd party publisher for D&D. They produced lots of supplements, from settings to adventures to reference charts. For whatever reason, I never encountered any of their products.

A number of their products are available for download at RPGNow, though to be honest, the quality of their scans is pretty horrible. I've been occasionally sweeping up reasonably priced physical copies of their books that I find online.

Recently I acquired their Caves and Caverns product. It is described as "Forty-Eight Caves & Caverns with Nine Pages of Charts & Guidelines using the City State Campaign Hexagon System." With that description I was expecting something resembling TSR's Dungeon Geomorphs. Their mention of the Campaign Hexagon System was however an indication of what to expect.

Instead the product is dominated by maps using Judges Guilds' campaign hexagon system. Oddly, there is no scale given for these maps - unless I'm missing it this would seem to be a poor oversight. From the Judges Guild website I see:

The large overland maps of the Wilderlands setting are mapped in 5 mile hexes. Each five-mile hex can be broken down using these maps into smaller hexes of .2 miles (1056 feet). Using the same maps, those .2 mile hexes can be broken down into smaller hexes approximately 40 feet from side to side.

Looking at the maps here it would seem that the smaller hexes on these maps are designed to be of the forty feet variety. as some of them have buildings on them which just wouldn't make sense as 1000 feet hexes. All of the maps in this packet have small underground complexes mapped out in special dotted or hatched lines while showing the terrain above-ground.


In general I like the idea of these sorts of maps. They allow one to start off with low-detailed maps and zero in to the proper resolution for encounters. You could, for example, have a game where the characters are crossing a mountain pass. The large-scale maps would just show the mountains as symbols but as you get more detailed you could show a treacherous narrow trail that the characters must traverse.


Products like these are handy, either for generating an adventure in advance or to set up an encounter on the fly. 


This product is designed to be generic so it avoids precise D&D terminology, though it is also designed to be easily portable to D&D - and similar games like Tunnels & Trolls would have made for easy ports as well.


Also within this product are tables for generating your own caves and dungeons on the fly and random occupant tables for the maps included within this book.


How would I rate this product today? To be honest, I suspect it was a far more useful product in pre-internet days when a map for a cave complex wasn't a Google-search away. However, I can still see where these sorts of products can be useful for Judges who have careers, families, etc. and need to ration their gaming prep time accordingly. This isn't a product I'd suggest spending a ton of money to snag on eBay but it certainly is one for which one could get a lot of use.

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Player vs. Character Abilities

On a recent Google+ conversation I found myself discussing what makes an "old school" D&D game. Part of the conversation involved whether throttling back character abilities is what makes something old school. For example, in AD&D your magic-user can cast a single 1st level spell once per day at first level. He might have as few as 1 hit point and can wear no armor nor master the weapons of a fighter. In the 3rd edition of D&D your 1st level wizard may have multiple spells per day with high intelligence, is guaranteed to start off with at least 4 hit points (barring low constitution), can wear armor if he wants to risk spell failure, can learn how to use fighter weapons, etc. Moving on to 4th edition this wizard at 1st level now has an unlimited amount of magic missiles available to him.

Clearly character abilities, especially at low levels, is something that has increased with newer editions of the game. I'd argue that is certainly part of what one finds in an old school game.

Another part of the equation I would venture is the difference between games that test players vs. those that test characters. In newer incarnations of D&D your character's abilities are far more spelled out. Any character can search for traps or sneak around, it is a simple matter of rolling his or her skill vs. a difficulty. In original "white box" D&D there are no general skills. With AD&D 1st edition we see the introduction of secondary skills. This was very basic - the Dungeon Masters Guide had a table of possible former professions for player characters to give an idea as to the types of things a character might be able to do outside the bounds of his class. The 1st edition Oriental Adventures book expanded on the AD&D concept of weapon proficiencies to double as a rough skill system with non-weapon proficiencies, an idea which was made a bit more formal with the Dungeoneer and Wilderness Survival Guides and made a part of the core rules with the 2nd edition of AD&D. Personally I found the non-weapon proficiency system to be rather mediocre - you received only a small number of them and improving them was something you could only do every few levels. With its 3rd edition D&D moved to a full skill system where many character abilities became linked to skills. In my opinion the skill system developed in 3rd edition is far superior to the non-weapon proficiency system introduced in later 1st edition books.

However, I'm uncertain if D&D always needs a skill system. This isn't to say skills are some newfangled idea that we must huff at with disdain. After all Chaosium's RuneQuest, introduced in 1978, and Game Designers' Workshop's Traveller, from 1977, both had skill systems. So skills are far from a new innovation, even if it did take D&D until the year 2000 to really fully integrate them.

What I've observed in my own experience is what a difference a tightly integrated skill system makes in the way D&D is played. In older versions of D&D it often seemed to me the goal was to challenge the players. There were devices, traps, dungeons, etc. whose challenges were primarily directed at players. In newer versions of D&D a large part of that challenge has been siphoned off to the characters run by the players. I don't want to give the impression that I'm saying all games of 3rd edition or later are simply exercises in dice rolling with no player creativity to be found. I've played and/or DM-ed all versions of D&D except for the original white box and I've found ample opportunity for player creativity. But what I'd see in later editions is a lot more looking at character sheets to see who will perform a given action. Bob thinks of an awesome bluff to get past the guards but Mary's character has a higher fast-talk skill so Mary's character goes to talk to the guard. Mary thinks of a way to solve a puzzle but Bob's character has a better disable device skill. I know a lot of people reading this will say "that's not a bug, that's a good thing". And I can see that point. I'm not a believer in such a thing as badwrongfun or "one true way".

However without such a strong skill system I've found players often do a lot more out of the box thinking. And to be honest, this requires game masters to also do a lot more out of the box thinking as well, which I tend to view as a good thing, despite usually being GM - the way I figure it, it's only fair if I too have to react to a changing set of circumstances. There's such a thing as taking this too far. A common argument is that a character will often have knowledge that a player won't and I tend to agree with this. If my character has lived in a medieval village all my life chances are my character has better wilderness survival skills than I do, even if he's not a ranger or druid. I think the key to handling this in an older school game is having the players leverage their character's knowledge. This often involves a give and take between the player and GM as they discuss what is reasonable for a character to know or be capable of.

There are issues that can make this model work less well for some groups - it requires the GM to adjudicate rulings on the fly very frequently, something which can be tricky to do, especially consistently. But it can make for a very different style of gaming experience and one that I feel is worth trying out.

One of the things I've enjoyed about many of the newer "old school" games is how they deal with the issue of character skill. Dungeon Crawl Classics takes a hybrid of 1st edition's secondary skill system with the 3.x skill resolutions. Adventurer Conqueror King System gives access to a very basic proficiency system which gives characters access to abilities that are somewhere between feats and skills. Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy formalizes the "x in 6" task resolution implied in the D&D Basic/Expert rules into a skill system, making its specialist character the only type who can readily improve such skills. None of these skill systems are so extensive as to preventing the give and take that I described above but they provide a basic foundation which avoids everything falling into "GM fiat".

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RPG Review: D&D Basic Rules (8th-11th Printing)

D&D Basic Magenta Box

For me D&D began with the "magenta box" version of the D&D Basic rules. My next door neighbor received it for Christmas, it having become available at Toys R Us and similar stores. During one snow day I was flipped through it and was hooked - to be honest, I was also confused as heck, as were most people who were introduced to it via the rules and without other people teaching them. I'm not certain how typical my experience was - learning the game by figuring it out on my own.

Unfortunately Wizards of the Coast no longer has its old D&D PDFs available for sale - and even when they did they did not have this version for sale - they had the later "red box" Basic set and the previous "blue box" Basic set. To be honest, the red box is probably a better introduction to the rules but I prefer the atmosphere of the purple box.

D&D Basic Red Box

D&D Basic Blue Box

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Though it isn't available via legal download it is not that difficult to find copies of the rulebook at a reasonable price, though a complete set with sample adventure, dice, etc. is much more expensive. For this review I'll actually be covering just the rules.

Overview

The Magenta Basic rules were printed in a 64 page book that was three-hole punched with the idea you could separate the pages and gather them in a three-ring binder, possibly combining them with the Expert rules and Companion rules (which were never actually released until the Basic rules switched to the Red box).

Part 1: Introduction

The Introduction gave the typical overview to what D&D was. Its worth noting that this was the set were this was important information for me, as I honestly didn't know. It does talk about the next sets of rules (Expert and Companion). It gave basic definitions such as parties, experience points, encounters, etc. It discusses one player who is the "caller" whose job it is to speak for the whole party under normal circumstances, something that went away in later versions of the game.

We also get a discussion on what the word "Level" is intended to mean - Experience Level, Monster Level, Spell Level, and Dungeon Level. I find it interesting that Experience, Monster, and Dungeon Level are roughly equivalent - the 1st level of a dungeon is intended to have Level 1 monsters (i.e. 1 hit die or 1d8 for hit points). However spell levels did not follow this trend - for example 3rd level magic-users being able to cast a maximum of 2nd level spells. It wasn't until decades later with the 4th edition did spell level become equivalent to experience level. 

We also get a much needed explanation as to what all the dice were and how to roll them. It did not warn you however that a d4 also doubled as a caltrop.

Part 2: Player Character Information

Here we get the rules for generating characters. We get a discussion of ability scores, classes. hit points, money, equipment, Armor Class, attack chances, and saving throws.

Abilities are intended to be rolled using 3d6 for each score and keeping each roll, assigning them in order to Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. There is no suggestion of rerolling hopeless characters. You were allowed under certain circumstances to increase your main (or prime requisite) ability score(s) by dropping from others on a 2 for 1 basis. 

As I discussed in my review of ACKS, bonuses and penalties are a little bit different than those found in 3.x/4e:

Rating	Bonus/Penalty	Rating	Bonus/Penalty
3	-3	13-15	+1
4-5	-2	16-17	+2
6-8	-1	18	+3
9-12	0

As far as classes go, we have the "classic 7" or clerics, dwarves, elves, fighters, halflings, magic-users, and thieves. Unlike later versions of the game, clerics do not get spells until reaching 2nd level. As a point of criticism, the thief just does not have a lot going for him - they start with 1d4 hit points, just like the magic-user and their thief ability chances are extremely poor. Within the Old School Renaissance community there is some debate about whether the thief should be included, with the argument that the thief tends to add encounters to justify its own existence. My main criticism would be that the thief just isn't all that good at what he's supposed to do.

Magic-users are pretty vulnerable as well, with just a d4 for hit points at first level, the ability to only use daggers, no armor, and only one spell per day.

Alignment is discussed with three alignments - Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic, with Lawful usually being considered "good" and Chaotic usually being "evil". There are alignment languages, secret languages of "passwords, hand signals, and other body motions".

Part 3 - Spells

This section describes cleric and magic-user/elf spells. The analogy used to describe the process of memorizing and casting spells is one of a blackboard - the spells memorized are on a blackboard and when cast they can be thought of as erased. To this day I still think of them in this manner.

One thing that is worth noting is that the rules explicitly state that a magic-user only has as many spells in his spellbook as he is able to cast on a given day. For example, a 1st level magic-user only has one 1st level spell in his book and cannot gain another spell until he reaches 2nd level, upon which he gets a 2nd 1st level spell.

The spell descriptions are fairly straightforward and has all the D&D classics - cure light wounds, magic missile, light, read magic, etc. I suppose that the magic-user who starts with read magic feels rather lame until he finds a scroll (the rules indicate the DM can either choose a magic-user's spells, roll randomly, or allow the player to choose - with everything else against the poor magic-user, let the poor guy pick...)

D&D Basic characters can only cast up to 1st level spells (for clerics) or 2nd (for magic-users and elves), though sample 2nd level cleric spells and 3rd level magic-user/elf spells are given for high level foes and spell scrolls. We get our peek at fire ball, letting the poor magic-user see why he's going through the humiliation of low levels...

Part 4 - The Adventure

This section discusses parties, time, dungeon exploration, etc. It advises the party have 6-8 characters. Time is divided into 10-minute turns during exploration. We've got rules for light, encumbrance, opening doors, retainers, traps, experience points, and wandering monsters.

I've been joking at the poor 1st-level magic-user. Looking back, it occurs to me that given a magic-user has little he can spend his money on the use of that money on retainers seems well-advised.

As in other early versions of D&D, every gold piece retrieved in an adventure also yields an experience point.

Part 5 - The Encounter

When an encounter begins, the game switches from 10-minute turns to 10-second rounds. When moving to AD&D I always had a tough time accepting the 1-minute round - the 10-second round always felt better to me.

The rules for combat are a bit different than they are in later versions of D&D. When an encounter begins, both sides check for surprise (if the DM considers surprise possible), allowing for a free round.

Initiative is rolled per round per side, with an option to roll for each character and the monsters he is fighting. DMs are given the option of choosing how monsters react to characters or to roll for their reaction. We've got rules for evasion, pursuit, movement, etc. 

There is no mention as to the possibility of magic spells getting interrupted in their casting - nor is their mention that any declaration is needed. To be honest, I prefer this option spellcasters, especially low level ones, have so much against them to begin with.

As in the original D&D, damage per weapon by default is 1d6, regardless of weapon type. There is an option for variable weapon damage, something that all the games I played in made use of.

One oddity of low level play is all characters have the same chance to hit, regardless of class. This changes in mid to high level play in the D&D Expert rules. There's still an advantage to being a fighter or dwarf, with the ability to wear any armor, use any weapon, and typically have higher hit points.

Finally there is an example combat. I like the use of examples, as they tend to clarify confusion in rules.One of the PCs gets killed in the sample combat, something I recall as typical from examples in old TSR products. Rereading the sample combat, I see a possible error - the monsters being fought lose initiative in the first round and never act - after the PCs attack we move to round 2. The other rounds do not have this problem. The sample combat does have the party speak the immortal words "It's okay; Gary sent us" in an attempt to bluff the hobgoblins...

Part 6 - Monsters

The chapter on monsters is, as one would expect, a listing of monsters, with statistics and descriptions. The Dungeon Master is encouraged to modify statistics and create his own monsters. It is expected that a monster will be found on a level of the dungeon equivalent to its hit dice (i.e. monster level), plus or minus two. One thing I'm curious about is what this means for high-level play - was it expected, for example, that 33rd level characters go through 33 levels of dungeon.(Though if using a megadungeon as the basis for a campaign that seems reasonable.)

For the most part, the monsters represent those appropriate for low-level characters. It does include dragons which would likely overwhelm a low-level party, though it is understandable that in a game called Dungeons and Dragons you'd best include dragons within the game.

Primarily consisting of monsters which are now classics, there are some interesting monsters which did not find their way to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons - at least as far as I can tell. For example, there are some neat monsters called living statues, with some variants bleeding lava when struck.One of the more unusual monsters is the Thoul, a magical combination of troll, ghoul, and hobgoblin. I've no idea where that came from but it does make for a good model for creating your own monsters. There's also the hairy tarantella spider, whose bite can force its victims to dance!

Like many other early D&D versions, among the monsters is a listing for Neanderthal man.. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain if there was some fantasy source for including them so often - perhaps Burroughs' Pellucidar? 

Part 7 - Treasure

At last, the reason for going on adventure! Every monster has a treasure type which is used as an index into tables determining the amount of treasure the monster has, including coin, gems, and magical items. The tables are designed to give treasure appropriate for low-level characters. There is a fair chance of getting a cursed item or a poison potion. In my experience, while players tended to dread testing potions and other magic items, they usually kept the poison potions for their little assassination plots.

One thing I noticed that for items like staves and wands there is no mention of command words, just that to know what an item does a character must experiment with it and use it - incurring any curses on the item.

While read magic seems a somewhat useless spell, it is the only way for a magic-user or elf to read a spell scroll. While per this variant of the rules scrolls cannot be copied into a spellbook, spell scrolls are still awfully handy. From my early games I recall I tended to use the AD&D rules of allowing the copying of scrolls and spellbooks and having more spells in the book than the caster can cast per day. As other blogs have noted, combining various versions of D&D was quite common back in the early days of the hobby.

Part 8 - Dungeon Master Information

This section gives information for DMs. As a novice both to the hobby and Dungeon Mastering, I found this section especially useful when I first started out.

There was guidance on the types of adventures one could make, stocking dungeons, creating NPC parties, etc. Part of a sample dungeon is given, a haunted keep. While not as iconic as the skull mountain in the previous version of the Basic D&D rules, it was still an interesting setting, with a floorplan of one of the keep's towers and a side view showing the dungeon below.

An excerpt from a sample game is given. It features the memorable death of the thief Black Dougal, which has inspired the blog Ode to Black Dougal. I always found something odd about the death - the DM declares "he looks dead" after poor Black Dougal is struck by a poison needle, having failed to detect the trap (did I ever mention how lousy thieves are at low levels?) Without confirming that he truly is dead the players dump out his pack to fill with coins that are in the room. Gee guys, don't shed too many tears on my death...

Inspirational Reading

While not as iconic as the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide Appendix N, there is a reading section here as well. It has most of what can be found in Appendix N along with some additions such as a young adut fantasy literature section (including the Narnia and Earthsea cycles) and some additions to the adult fantasy section such as Heinlein's Glory Road, Larry Niven, Bram Stoker, etc. The young adult section does seem to mark the first time that TSR acknowledged their game had been finding a younger audience than they had perhaps anticipated (and the artwork in D&D Basic is far tamer than what one found in Original D&D or AD&D).

Overall Impression

It is difficult for me to be fully balanced in reviewing this version of the game. It marked my entry into D&D and the whole gaming hobby, so I am definitely biased in its favor.

Attempting to look at it practically, I will say the next version of the game, the more famous "red box", was a far clearer entry into the game, taking extremely great pains to explain everything - and was more clearly aimed at the young adult/teen market. However, I personally preferred the sense of danger this version of the game brought, with the two detailed examples both featuring a PC fatality.

Rules-wise, the game does have many of the quarks that would define D&D up to and including AD&D 2nd edition. Low-level magic-users are incredibly weak, though with the promise of greater power. Thieves are, in my opinion, rather hobbled by their extremely poor success chances, something that plagued them since their introduction in the first D&D supplement, Greyhawk. Even at this early stage the demi-human characters are stated to be limited to 8th (halfling), 10th (elf) and 12th (dwarf) levels, something which doesn't seem all that practical in light of the possibility of 36th level human characters. Indeed when the D&D Companion did finally come out it resolved this by giving demi-human pseudo-level attack ranks. I understand the desire to limit demi-humans but I think it would have been better to have front-loaded the limits and advantages together.

The above sounds rather negative which isn't my intent. For me, this is the game where I started and I got tons of play from it. I still look at it fondly and believe it was a fantastic introduction to the hobby. While the red box variant made things even more basic, I have to confess at times I felt I was being talked down to in that version - though in truth I wasn't the audience for it. Moreover, this version of the rules screams out with inspiration, wanting to be played, encouraging the DM to create things as needed and modify as well. With this version of the rules you could get weeks and weeks of play and with the D&D Expert rules added on you've got plenty for an entire campaign.

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Developing a New Campaign Setting - Broad Strokes

Previously I examined some of the early TSR D&D adventures which effectively doubled as settings. In this installment I'm going to begin constructing my own in broad strokes. The goal isn't to design everything about the world but rather to think about the world at a high level, enough to properly place the local setting.

As I'd mentioned, I'm a big fan of nautical elements to campaign settings. I'd given some thought to a water world like Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea or a Pacific setting inspired by the Aubrey/Maturin series and Polynesian history and legends. However, while a campaign setting should engage its creator, I do want to be careful not to overdo it with extreme detail - the Judge's hobbies should not interfere with the enjoyment of his players. ("Wait a minute, what time is it when it is seven bells?") There is something to be said for a certain amount of familiarity. I know there's some controversy on George R.R. Matrin's Song of Ice and Fire Series. I myself fall on the side who enjoy it. One of the strengths of his series is, in my opinion, how grounded it is "reality" - it has fantastic elements but it also feels like a real world. The use of magic, the appearance of a legendary creatures... all these things feel special when when they happen.

This brings me to the idea of starting the game in an equivalent of the Aegean Sea, a large bay within the Mediterranean, with gazillions and gazillions of islands. The Aegean is the setting for most Greek mythology, one of those things that I've found most gamers run into in their youth.

I'd mentioned previously how much I enjoyed The Secret of Bone Hill and will be using Lendore Isle as the inspiration for the starting point. We are looking at an island small enough to be mapped in its entirety at a fairly small scale and large enough to be a good starting point for adventure. If the mood of the game makes nautical adventures seem the way to go we have a location for which that works well but we also have a mainland available to us. In the World of Greyhawk, Lendore is the Suel god of time. While I'm not setting this game on our Earth, I am aiming for a pastiche liberally borrowing from sources such as our own history, the World of Greyhawk, the works of Lovecraft, C.A. Smith, Tolkien, and Leiber. With that in mind Chronos Island, named for the Greek god of time, seems a nice homage to The Secret of Bone Hill's Lendore Isle.


But while grounded in reality I want some elements of the fantastic. Dungeon Crawl Classics is designed to emulate Appendix N of the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide. My own favorites from that list are Leiber's Lankhmar tales and the Middle Earth stories of J.R.R. Tolkien. Though he's not on the official Appendix N list, I've also been greatly enjoying the tales of Clark Ashton Smith and I feel his exclusion was an oversight.

I really like the tone of the Lankhmar stories. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser would fit in well within a D&D campaign. They like treasure and adventure. I also want to note that while it won't be where the game starts, a city like Lankhmar in the vicinity seems like it would be a good thing.

One element from Tolkien I'd like to emulate is the dangerous wildernesses and the emptied out feeling of Middle Earth. Consider Aragorn's lost Northern Kingdom - people still live there though there is no longer a king or even a nation and the ancient cities of Arnor and its successor states lay ruined and abandoned. Tolkien also gives us an interesting mix of fantasy races, one of the few works in Appendix N to do so.

From Clark Ashton Smith I really like the idea of borrowing his wizards. They feel to me a lot like the wizards of D&D. I also enjoy the "weirdness" he injects into his tales. He's got a lot of Lovecraft in him but his heroes seem a bit less intimidated by the horrors they face.


So let's try our first pass at combining all those elements. Islands. Creepy wizards. A lot of empty lands and ruins. Lots of races. Big city. So we've got our starting island, so where to go next?

I'm going to start with the ruins. What happened to civilization? Where is everyone? The answer lies with the fall of a local empire. If I'm basing the game on the Aegean and the rest of the Mediterranean we've got some powerful empires that have been there. Rather than the traditional Roman Empire I'm going to think more about the eastern Empire. They considered themselves the Roman Empire as well but they are more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire. They endured throughout the entirety of the medieval world that D&D invokes for much of its feel. But I'm not seeing this empire fall the same way the Byzantine Empire did - by the time the Ottoman Empire finished them off the Byzantine Empire was pretty much a city-state centered around Constantinople. Rather in our setting it was that evil wizard and his damn orcs.



One of the scenes added to the Lord of the Rings films was showing the orcs being bred by Saruman and his talk of how the first orcs were corrupted elves (YouTube clips of those two scenes below).

I think in this setting I like the idea of orcs and possibly goblins and other nasty humanoid creatures not being "natural". Dungeon Crawl Classics suggests as much and similarly Adventurer Conqueror King has rules for wizards making their own critters. The orcs are bred by wizards, using some source material as their starting point. We'll need to think about if they can reproduce naturally and how long they live barring accidents. I have this vision of orcs returning with prisoners to their creation pits to be used as the raw material for new orcs.

So we've got some evil wizard who bred himself an army of orcs in his effort to conquer the empire. He was partly successful - the empire did indeed fall, with entire cities and nations being destroyed by his orc hordes. But there was little to rule over after this and his orcs quickly fell into infighting, greatly reducing their numbers. I want orcs and similar creatures to be things to be feared, at least by the commoners of the setting, in a way that brigands and human or demi-human barbarians are not..

This devastation was probably a while back - a few hundred years ago at the least. Long enough for tales of the empire and its fall to be dominated by legends as opposed to facts. It does sound a little like D&D 4e's "Points of Light" concept but then again Middle Earth, Greyhawk, etc. all fit within such a model rather well.

Now what about a big city? It is possible that the capital of this big empire did technically survive these "orcwars" but was reduced to being little more than a city-state, much as Constaninople became in our own world. Indeed just like Constantinople, large portions of the city might be empty, making the city itself a possible location for dungeon crawls - but that will be in the future. Nearby will be a more settled city for urban adventures. My first pass of a name for this is Miklagaard, the name the Vikings used for Constantinople. Though I'm not even remotely a Glorantha scholar, I am aware that they did something similar, having a huge ruined city near the city of Pavis.

There's a lot of ideas here but these are more for background, ideas that I believe will work well with the smaller setting I will take on creating next. If this smaller setting demands some of these larger elements change then, assuming the game hasn't kicked off and made use of them, those elements will change. What I'm trying to do is a hybrid of top-down and bottom-up design. I'm not all that comfortable designing a setting that is just a small area in vacuum without having broad strokes of what the world is like. But I don't want to overdo the design to the point that it winds up restricting adventure opportunities rather than create them.

Being a bit of a map geek I've drawn up a map to help me in my creative process - it is of medium scale, 1000 x 800 mile. To the south of the map we can see Chronos Isle. I've added a Mordor-like region called "The Scar" - I'm thinking this is where bad ole wizard created his orcs. I used Campaign Cartographer 3 to create this map, representing my first real effort with the Herwin Wielink overland style, designed to evoke the feeling of a "dark fantasy". With an empire in ruins that seemed appropriate. You should be able to click on the image to see the map in greater detail.

Next up will probably be an examining Chronos Isle in more detail, as that is where we'll be starting the game.

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Developing a New Campaign Setting - Exploring What Has Been Done Before

I'm in the process of getting a game ready for Dungeon Crawl Classics. I've been gratified that my recruitment effort on my young little blog has gotten some interested parties.

In today's post I'm going to begin the process of designing the setting. What I'm going to do is explore the nature of some early adventures which double as settings in their own right. This ties in nicely with the idea of "sandbox" play, an approach to game play that has been rediscovered over the past several years. In this model, the setting is developed and the characters are let loose upon it. There isn't a metaplot or a course of action that the players must take. However, they tend to have super-shiny dungeons which just scream "visit me, I have treasure". And what hero in the mold of Fafhrd, Grey Mouser, Conan, Tregarth, or Shea could resist such gems.

The classic novice adventure, Keep on the Borderlands features a neat little play area. You've got the titular keep as a home base. There is a small wilderness with some designated encounters and a dungeon complex known as the Caves of Chaos. The Caves are a group of semi-isolated cave complexes, each inhabited primarily by a certain type of foe, with caves perched higher in the ravine tending to have tougher monsters. Nothing prevents a party from trying to tackle the tougher monsters first but it is a bad, bad idea to do so.

Another classic adventure, designed to move players from the dungeon to the wilderness, and included with all versions of the D&D Expert Set, is The Isle of Dread. It involves the players finding a map of the Isle of Dread with rough directions how to get there, descriptions of friendly natives, and hints of great treasure in the interior. The characters are expected to buy or hire a ship and adventure to the island. There are suggestions as to how they might get financing if they need it ("please come back with a live T-Rex" being one of my favorites). As with other early adventures, there isn't an overarching plotline but there are hints of lots of them. There are pirates near the Isle. There are friendly tribes to give the characters a home base on the Isle. There's hints of forbidden cults within the friendly villages. A dangerous wilderness with lots of encounters. A big finale dungeon at the central plateau of the island, complete with another friendly, albeit isolated village. Rather than providing dungeon maps for every possible encounter the adventure includes a pair of sample maps that can be used as needed. This illustrates a useful technique that I know I'd lost - don't design more than you need. It is also worth noting the need for friendly home bases scattered throughout the setting. The adventure doesn't force the characters to take certain actions but it does recognize that after a long ocean voyage a trip back home is out of the question. And by the time the characters reach the center of the island the friendly villages on the outskirts of the island are too far to easily retreat to, hence a secondary base.

A third adventure that I'd like to investigate is one that is not, in my opinion, discussed as much, that being the AD&D adventure The Secret of Bone Hill. This is one of my favorite adventures. It occupies an odd space as it is intended for characters of low level, but not first level. However, its setting is perfect for kicking off a campaign. It takes place on Lendore Isle, a decent sized island - ballparking it I'd guess it is the around 6-7000 square miles, though more spread out. It's big enough to have its own terrain regions, rivers, etc. The Secret of Bone Hill details the town of Restenford, the surrounding wilderness, various evil critters in the wilds, and a ruined castle and dungeon atop Bone Hill. Again it makes use of a home base (the town of Restenford) and again there is a "main" dungeon. There's lots of encounters in the wilderness to occupy lots of play. One of my favorite encounters is a wilderness church to a god of luck, called the Church of Big Gamble. Press your luck against the priests. It was kind of a "home base" combined with a casino. One thing I liked about this adventure is it upped the weirdness, with strange forests, talking intelligent skeletons, etc. It did a lot of things not really explainable by "the rules", making for a strange setting.

Looking at this trio of adventures we can see a lot of things in common. They all have at least one "home base" for the characters and some of them have secondary bases that our heroes can use. They all have a "main" dungeon that the characters don't really have to visit, but no group of heroes dependent on treasure and killing monsters to advance in level will realistically be able to resist them. The wilderness areas themselves are filled with encounters, both static and random, for our heroes to encounter. And none of these adventures have any overarching plotline. The DM or players can certainly find one, but they themselves make no such assumptions.

With this in mind, let's consider what sort of setting I think would work well at taking these ideas while also keeping me, who will be the Judge (to use the DCC term), engaged. I'll be exploring this further in detail going forwards, but let's work in broad strokes. One thing that stands out to me right away is two of the samples I've chosen take place on islands. This isn't all that surprising - I'm a huge fan of all things nautical. I love Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels of the Napoleonic Wars. Every Independence Day we make a family outing to Boston Harbor for the U.S.S. Constitution turn-around cruise. I enjoy reading about ships, from Polynesian sailing canoes to ships-of-the-line to dreadnoughts. Going to the fantasy genre, Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea series takes place on a world made up solely of islands with no real mainland. 

This isn't to say that starting off on an island necessitates a world such as that of Earthsea. The Mediterranean has islands that would be larger than Lendore Island or the Isle of Dread. And if isolation is what is desired the Pacific Ocean provides a real-world example of a setting with island chains separated by vast expanses of ocean. We'll explore the details of such a decision going forward, including determining just how much needs to be decided at the outset. But what I think we are seeing is there is something going for making use of a decent sized island. It is large enough that it provides us with a varied environment. We can have a wide variety of terrain with ancient ruins and unexplored areas. It is small enough that we can map it all at a moderate scale - if using hex-maps, using 5 or 6 miles per hex. It includes natural borders to limit where adventure will take place, but it is a soft barrier. With the acquisition of treasure and the call for further adventure characters can book passage off the island or buy their own ship and go off on adventures to the mainland (if there is one) or to other islands.

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On Bullying

Having written a political blog in the past I'd decided that this blog would be more focused on the more geeky side of life. This past week there was a Washington Post story on how current US Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney had bullied a fellow student. To quote the story:

Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors. 

The incident was recalled similarly by five students, who gave their accounts independently of one another.

I'm not writing to say that every sin we commit in childhood must be held against us for all time and there are those who consider this to be a non-story. However, I found Mr. Romney's response to this story troubling. He issued a rather tepid response:

I don't recall the incident myself, but I've seen the reports and I'm not going to argue with that. There's no question but that I did some stupid things when I was in high school and obviously if I hurt anyone by virtue of that, I would be very sorry for it and apologize for it.

What bothers me is Mr. Romney does not seem to indicate an awareness of just how hurtful bullying can be. Mr. Romney indicates he does not recall the incident though does acknowledge it as a possibility. If he is being truthful I find it somewhat frightening that he is able to forget something like that.

This is where I tie things into the rest of my blog. For me, the transition from elementary school (kindergarten through 5th grade) to middle school (6th through 8th grade) was very difficult. I remember being mocked for  my weight, for the jeans I wore, for the way I played the trumpet, the way I walked, my bookishness, the way I spoke. I remember the spitballs. I remember the close friend who betrayed me as a way to help himself socially. I'm a forty year old adult who has thus far had a reasonably good adulthood. Happily married, two wonderful kids, a good career. Not a perfect life, but one that I have to say I'm happy with. Yet I still look back at those days with pain. I'm forty years old and 6th grade was probably the worst year of my life, beating out a lot of adult problems which have come since. If I could pull off stretching out a cold I would. Not one morning did I wake up looking forward to going to school. The most common emotion would be one of dread.

Oddly enough, as I looked through social networking sites, I don't seem to be the only person among my peers of around the same age who dealt with such issues.

D&D was one of my escapes from this bullying. I had my D&D group on Saturday mornings. I could get lost reading books, preparing for games, etc. And the social aspect of the game was a lifesaver for me, as it gave me friends, it gave me some level of confidence in my own circle. There was no real "cool geek" subculture back then.

Today bullying is taken more seriously. I'm proud to say that when my wife as a teacher witnessed a student being bullied for his sexuality she pounced on it. I think that is necessary. One needn't look far to find a story of a student bullied into suicide.

It is overly simplistic to label all bullies as the stereotypical evil bruiser of a kid who is on a mission of destruction. I have witnessed scenarios with younger children where the bully really needed to be made aware of the hurt he or she was causing in their way of getting attention..


Mr. Romney missed an excellent opportunity. I didn't need him to get down on his knees and and engage in an act of self-flagellation. But I feel as a person in the public eye and a leader he missed an excellent opportunity to educate. I would have loved to have heard something along the lines of... "Looking back on those days with the eyes of an adult I can now see I engaged in behavior that would today be regarded as bullying. I can only offer my sincerest apologies for the any pain I  caused in my ignorance and would like to praise the teachers of our nation who take an active role in making every student feel safe and secure in school."

I'm feeling a bit glum for posting something so serious and real-world to what is intended to be a geekiness embracing blog. My life did get better. I still encountered bullying throughout the rest of middle school and high school, though never to the same extent. I also seemed to shed some of the big target I had on me as I grew in confidence in myself. And remember the advice of Foamy the Squirrel on bullies...

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Visiting Gamma World

The 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide contained rules for converting characters between AD&D and Boot Hill or Gamma World, the other two RPGs produced by TSR at the time AD&D was initially released.

I found this all rather interesting, especially since I had no real idea about other RPGs at the time. Moreover, my access to other RPGs was limited as well, both by availability and cost.

The cost is easier to explain. As a child in middle school I just didn't have a ton of disposable income. Actually, pretty much all of my income was disposable, I just didn't have all that much of it. And those game books were expensive - as I recall, the Players Handbook ran for $12 and Dungeon Masters Guide for $20. As a DM I of course got the Dungeon Masters Guide first. A bit confusing when you tried to combine it with the D&D Basic and Expert rules but I was far from the only person who did that.

As far as availability goes. My initial source of gaming books were from the Toys R Us store in nearby Waterbury, Connecticut. Believe it or not, back in the early 80s one could get D&D and AD&D products pretty much everywhere. I know I bought Deities and Demigods and Expedition to Barrier Peaks from a Toys R Us. However, Toys R Us tended to focus just on D&D and AD&D along with, I recall, the TSR minigames. I was therefore quite pleases when a hobby store opened in my hometown of Naugatuck. It was a tiny shop called Witzend. But it had so much stuff. Lots of black books from a game called Traveller. Something I never got at the time as I could never find the main rules for the game. But it never had Gamma World despite me wanting it so bad, both from the mysterious description in the Dungeon Masters Guide as well as the mysterious sounding advertisement in TSR's "Gateway to Adventure" catalog.

I was home sick from school once when my mother offered to get me something from the hobby store. I listed some of the books I was looking for - imagine my surprise when she came home with Gamma World, not the 1st edition version from the catalog but the new 2nd edition (that probably explains why I couldn't find the darn game - Gamma World is notorious for going out of print and returning with a new edition).

I greatly enjoyed the game - and I will probably review it in full at some point in the future. Despite being a new edition, it certainly appeared compatible with the conversion rules in the Dungeon Masters Guide (I believe the 1st and 2nd editions of the game are the only two which maintained full compatibility with each other). The rules seemed familiar to the D&D rules I knew, though it was clearly a different game. I was also a little creeped out by it, growing up in the final surges of Cold War with nuclear armageddon around the corner.

Despite being a little frightened of the subject matter, Gamma World had something which made it feel more fun. Whatever apocalypse befell the Earth (and the game was vague on that), it was not an apocalypse inflicted on our Earth but rather one hundreds of years in the future, a world with blasters, lasers, portable nuclear power, broadcast power generators, etc. That made it feel a lot "safer" to pretend with.


My gaming group of course tried it out. We did what seemed natural - our AD&D characters paid a vist to Gamma World (by this time we'd figured out D&D and AD&D were two separate games - who at TSR thought that strategy was a good one?) I don't recall the reason I gave as DM for crossing worlds - it certainly wasn't for some epic reason. I think I had a MacGuffin where some item they were looking for was located on Gamma World. We used the Rite of Passage adventure included in the 2nd edition game. This adventure had the characters go on a manhood ritual for their tribe to visit the ruins of Pitz Burke (Pittsburgh) to retrieve an artifact and return.

I don't recall much of the adventure save it was a lot of fun. One memorable incident was when they tried to gain access to a city-state and the guards didn't like their looks, causing the magic-user to intimidate them with his fireballs, becoming regarded as a deity. Gamma World has a reputation for "gonzo" gaming, a bit of whackiness. I think it is a mistake to try to incorporate that in the rules, something I get an impression is being done with the latest incarnation of Gamma World with mutations you can gain and lose by trading mutation cards. Rather I think it was a natural outgrowth of play. Yes, you were going through the ruins of a lost civilization and facing all sorts of odd mutations. But to be honest, that greatly resembled most D&D games of the day.


With the Dungeon Masters Guide giving such "permission", I recall running and participating in a lot of games where visiting other worlds was commonplace. TSR and Dragon magazine certainly encouraged this, with adventures taking place on Earth (Dragon magazine's "City Beyond the Gate"), in Wonderland (the Dungeonland adventure), aboard a spaceship (Expedition to Barrier Peaks), etc. D&D featured Blackmoor which had science fiction elements to it. In Dragon magazine Gary Gygax discussed how his Greyhawk campaign featured visits to the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

This sort of world-hopping seems to have diminished in gaming of late which to my mind is a bit of a pity. It certainly seemed prevalent in the early days of the hobby and also was something found in much of the literature which was the inspiration for D&D.

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Appendix N - Checkpoint and Thoughts

I've mentioned the inspirational reading section of the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide a few times in this blog. It seems worth it to show it in its entirety and discuss it a little bit. In the list following the authors in bold represent those of which I have done at least some of the relevant reading.

APPENDIX N:INSPIRATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL READING
Inspiration for all of the fantasy work I have done stems directly from the love my father showed when I was a lad, for he spent many hours telling me stories he made up as he went along, tales of cloaked old men who could grant wishes, of magic rings and enchanted swords, or wicked sorcerors and dauntless swordsmen. Then too, countless hundreds of comic books went down, and the long-gone EC ones certainly had their effect. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror movies were a big influence. In fact, all of us tend to get ample helpings of fantasy when we are very young, from fairy tales such as those written by the Brothers Grimm and Andrew Long. This often leads to reading books of mythology, paging through bestiaries, and consultation of compilations of the myths of various lands and peoples. Upon such a base I built my interest in fantasy, being an avid reader of all science fiction and fantasy literature since 1950. The following authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases I cite specific works, in others, I simply recommend all their fantasy writing to you. From such sources, as well as just about any other imaginative writing or screenplay you will be able to pluck kernels from which grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

Inspirational Reading:

• Anderson, Poul. THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS; THE HIGH CRUSADE; THE BROKEN SWORD

• Bellairs, John. THE FACE IN THE FROST

• Brackett, Leigh.

• Brown, Fredric.

• Burroughs, Edgar Rice. "Pellucidar" Series; Mars Series; Venus Series

• Carter, Lin. "World's End'' Series

• de Camp, L. Sprague. LEST DARKNESS FALL; FALLIBLE FIEND; etal.

• de Camp & Pratt. "Harold Shea" Series; CARNELIAN CUBE

• Derleth, August.

• Dunsany, Lord.

• Farmer, P. J. "The World of the Tiers" Series; et alal

• Fox, Gardner. "Kothar" Series; "Kyrik" Series; et of.

• Howard, R. E. "Conan" Series

• Lanier, Sterling. HIEROS JOURNEY

• Leiber, Fritz. "Fafhrd & Gray Mouser" Series; et ofal

• Lovecraft, H. P.

• Merritt, A. CREEP, SHADOW, CREEP; MOON POOL; DWELLERS IN THE MIRAGE; et al.

• Moorcock, Michael. STORMBRINGER; STEALER OF SOULS; "Hawkmoon" Series (esp. the first three books)

• Norton, Andre.

• Offutt, Andrew J., editor SWORDS AGAINST DARKNESS Ill.

• Pratt, Fletcher, BLUE STAR; etaf.

• Saberhagen, Fred. CHANGELING EARTH; etal.

• St. Clair, Margaret. THE SHADOW PEOPLE; SIGN OF THE LABRYS

• Tolkien, J. R. R. THE HOBBIT; "Ring Trilogy"

• Vance, Jack. THE EYES OF THE OVERWORLD; THE DYING EARTH; et al.

• Weinbaum, Stanley.

• Wellman, Manly Wade.

• Williamson, Jack.

• Zelazny, Roger. JACK OF SHADOWS; "Amber" Series; et al.

The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH, Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL, and A. Merritt; but all of the above authors, as well as many not listed, certainly helped to shape the form of the game. For this reason, and for the hours of reading enjoyment, I heartily recommend the works of these fine authors to you.

As can be seen my familiarity with the inspirational reading of Appendix N is moderate at the time of this writing. Over the next several months I endeavor to expand my exposure to these works.

As I go through some of these works for the first time (for example, the works of Norton and de Camp & Pratt) I have been amazed to see just how strong an inspiration they were. Upon reflection, that should not have been that surprising considered the clear inspirations from the works I have already cited - for example the thieves of Lankhmar, the magic of Dying Earth, the halflings of Tolkien, etc.

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Gaming with Black Leaf and Elfstar - D&D in the 80s

Excerpted from Jack Chick's Dark Dungeons for purposes of illustration

For those who entered the gaming hobby after the 80s it is difficult to imagine the impact D&D had on popular culture.

I first encountered the D&D game in elementary school - I believe I was in 5th grade, probably winter and spring of 1982 which would fit in with the 8th printing of the D&D Basic Set - the first magenta-boxed rules with the Erol Otus cover. To this day I still have a soft spot in my heart for this version of the rules. At the time it was just beginning its upward swing in popularity - I purchased my copy of the rules in a Toys R Us.

Fall of 1983 had me entering the 7th grade and the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon going on the air. I didn't get to see too much of it as this coincided with Saturday morning soccer (no Tivo, VCR, or streaming...)

1983 was also the year that a revision to the Basic Set was released, the Red Box with the Larry Elmore cover. In my circles this version of D&D was extremely popular. Kids would play it in study halls, there would be D&D clubs in school, etc. I was something of a holdout, clinging to my magenta rules for the longest time, though I eventually gave in and also acquired the red box. I also remember we used to play a ton of Star Frontiers. There would be ads for D&D and Star Frontiers in all the kids magazines and comic books.




However during this golden age there was also controversy. Now to be honest, I was fortunate. I grew up in Connecticut, very far removed from the Bible Belt so for me the controversy was mainly something I caught on the news. I first learned about D&D from my neighbors, whose mother was a very conservative Catholic whom I can recall having no big problem with the game. It wasn't an issue for my more liberal parents either - the only time D&D would get me in trouble with my parents was when I'd spend too much time playing D&D and not enough time doing homework. However they were well aware that a game need not be a tool of Satan in order to distract a kid from his homework. It was (and is) one of many things that competed for a child's attention. (Heck, my parents were mainly glad playing D&D got me to socialize more.)

But you only had to turn on the television to see that there was controversy brewing. The most famous incident and possibly the spark that kicked the whole thing off was the 1979 disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, a 16-year old child prodigy attending Michigan State University. He went into steam tunnels on campus intending to commit suicide. The attempt was unsuccessful. After the failed attempt he went into hiding. A private-investigator concocted the theory that Egbert had entered the tunnels as part of a Dungeons & Dragons game. (He had not and indeed didn't even play it.) The media latched onto this and treated it as fact. Egbert was eventually recovered and brought home, though he eventually committed suicide by gunshot in 1980. The steam tunnel story never really went away and was used as the basis of Rona Jaffe's novel Mazes & Monsters about a player in her stand-in for D&D, "Mazes & Monsters", who lost his mind to the game. This was eventually made into a tv-movie starring... Tom Hanks!

The steam-tunnel controversy was minor, however, next to the religious attacks on D&D. In 1982, Irving Pulling, a high school student who played D&D, committed suicide. The mother, Patricia Pulling held Dungeons & Dragons directly responsible for his death. She filed suit against his high school principal (apparently blaming him for a "D&D curse" being placed on her son) and she also sued TSR, publishers of Dungeon & Dragons. Though the lawsuits were dismissed, she founded the organization BADD (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) where she linked D&D to occultism, describing the game as "a fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings." She achieved a great deal of success in her crusade, both in Christian media and in the mainstream media, appearing on 60 Minutes. (Gary Gygax appeared on that episode of 60 Minutes as well. My recollection of it was the interview with him was edited in an unfavorable way - which would not have been surprising, as a controversy about an evil game seducing our innocent children is great for the ratings.)

That brings us to our friend Jack Chick. Jack Chick is famous for his "Chick Tracts", short comics which show you the one true road to salvation (accepting Jesus as your personal savior) - failing to do this sends you to hell. (I'm triply damned per Jack Chick's standards, playing D&D, being a Catholic, and supporting same-sex marriage.) One of the more famous tracts is Dark Dungeons, which features two girls who are pulled away form Jesus by the evils of Dungeons & Dragons (their characters being named Black Leaf and Elf Star). One commits suicide and the other finds her way back to Jesus and burns her D&D books. While horrifying in both its ignorance and its offensiveness, this one tract has generated lots of satire. Chick also features articles about the evils of D&D at his website. For example:

Literally millions of young people are unknowingly participating in genuine occult practices and opening the doors for demons to enter their bodies through this seemingly innocent game.

By the time they find out they were hood-winked, it's too late. They have taken that last step down the stairway to hell and are greeted by the engulfing flames. 

-From Stairway to Hell Chapter 10, D&D: Just a Game?

While there have been some well-written defenses of D&D refuting these inaccurate charges (for example, Michael Stackpole and Tracy Hickman have both penned defenses of the game), TSR removed a number of these "offensive" elements from the 2nd edition of AD&D, removing elements like demons, devils, assassins, half-orcs, etc. Over time these elements all made their way back into the game as the media spotlight moved to other items like the dangers of the Mortal Kombat Nintendo game...

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