This post said a lot that I have been wanting to say for a while. I've read Alarums & Excursions from as far back as they go, and people were...using Greyhawk, modding the living crap out of the rules, and doing things that they keep on doing down to this day. People wanted different levels of crunch and detail, and they improvised as necessary. Tunnels & Trolls and Chivalry & Sorcery – that's about as yin and yang as you can get - both came out before AD&D.
At the heart of what I think is the problem is that the old school movement has, for a while, been trying to adjust expectations in a certain direction, one embodied in the slogan "rulings, not rules." It's not about the objective quality of rules, it's meant to break people out of the assumption that you really need a 3e-style single, unified mechanic and rules for every occasion (one roll to rule them all...).
And it works. The old school style is a success. Combats in OD&D go lightning fast, because there's nothing to worry about in terms of complicating factors. It's a matter of imagining it and having the rules match quickly. Dungeon delving is more fun when it's about problem-solving and trial and error instead of every trap and trick being a roll-off between the thief and the DM. Ability scores barely matter, and determine a couple of key factors.
For some people, that's enough. The core of the game holds together for them just fine, and they enjoy playing with it as is. That's great. But other people don't have the same enchantment with the bare basics. For me, what has really hampered things is the relative limits of creature design you have in by the book OD&D. There isn't much you can do for different creatures' attacks; a bonus is a pretty big thing, not dished out lightly. Two dice even moreso. I don't think it's an accident that D&D never went back to "everything is a d6" – monster diversity just works better with the minor complications that ensue. And the thing is, very few gamers really played like that. Gygax didn't. Don't know about Arneson. But the reality is, people wanting simpler combat mechanics at the time were more likely to go to Tunnels & Trolls, where the whole thing is two big die rolls. It's a great little game, which I like a lot for the solo adventure concept, but not what I'd want for my day to day. That takes nothing away from it.
This is the kind of thing that I think old-school gamers have started to hit up against. For some, the extreme varieties of "rules light" was just a step in getting to a further path. For others, it was the end of the journey. It leaves a much bigger problem: where do we go from here?
Well, by way of answering, I think there's a little more clear view of what could be published. Probably the easiest thing to do is lots of dungeon modules. These are something we know how to do fairly well, how to craft and publish and use a printed module. And that's going to be part of what our next step is. But then there's the whole rest of the story: creating material that works for people regardless of what step of their own crazy journey they're on. Stuff that works if you're doing OD&D, B/X D&D, AD&D, RC D&D, S&W, BFRPG, LL, microlite74, OSRIC or some combination up to and including "all of the above."
Personally, I think our biggest successes thus far have pointed in the right direction. Fight On! has had a ton of "drop this in your game" type of articles which are awesome, and Green Devil Face is an idea whose time is gladly here. Monsters of Myth, another collaborative effort, is another highlight of the Old School Renaissance so far. And I think there's ample room for another kind of project, which I've talked about before: the old school miscellany. Thing is, I'm not sure I want to come up with enough material to put something out on my own. It's going to wind up being filler, at least in part, and I don't want to put out something I can't be proud of. So I'm going to open this idea up for discussion: who else would be interested in contributing to such a project? I'm not talking about a fanzine, but a book of stuff that is usable to drop into your games or reference when you need a chart, or some flavor, or some variants to get things going. Would anyone be willing to commit some contribution to such an effort?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Buy Green Devil Face #1 and #2
Green Devil Face #1 and #2 are available.
You should buy them. It's an idea whose time has come: a magazine full of trap ideas. One of them (in issue #2) is submitted by yours truly, so of course you ought to buy it. I'll think up – and use! – something by the next issue, but in the mean time make sure you pick this up.
You should buy them. It's an idea whose time has come: a magazine full of trap ideas. One of them (in issue #2) is submitted by yours truly, so of course you ought to buy it. I'll think up – and use! – something by the next issue, but in the mean time make sure you pick this up.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Dave Arneson, 1947-2009
Dave Arneson died yesterday. He was with his loved ones.
It was Dave's wild creativity that led to the very concept of D&D, of the dungeon and the role-playing game. Sadly, he left much less on the printed page than Gygax did, but his contributions are felt throughout our hobby. And I think, in a real way, Arneson remained ever a hobbyist. He was very much one of ours, and he loved his game. We all owe him a deep debt of gratitude.
Every game we play is a tribute to Dave's legacy and his contributions.
It was Dave's wild creativity that led to the very concept of D&D, of the dungeon and the role-playing game. Sadly, he left much less on the printed page than Gygax did, but his contributions are felt throughout our hobby. And I think, in a real way, Arneson remained ever a hobbyist. He was very much one of ours, and he loved his game. We all owe him a deep debt of gratitude.
Every game we play is a tribute to Dave's legacy and his contributions.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
....
As chgowiz noted, Dave Arneson is fortunately still with us, but in hospice care. I'm glad he has a bit more time in this world, and I wish him all the very best.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Medieval Naturalism and D&D
D&D has always inhabited a sort of in-between realm, stretched between the classic sword & sorcery fantasy works – which have a very particular take on a lot of aspects of everyday life – and being much more medieval than most really popular fantasy has been. But I think certain aspects of how medieval people thought have been neglected because we let our modern understanding of how the world works shine through too much.
It's the kind of thing I'm reminded of when I find an article like this. Medieval people saw cotton plants, didn't know what it really was, and figured (based on what they did know) that it was a plant that grows sheep. That's unscientific but ten different kinds of awesome for fantasy purposes. Regardless of what you feel about how the real world got here, the fantasy world is explicitly creationist – which was the default assumption of people in the middle ages as well. And, acting based on that assumption, they came up with some pretty interesting theories of how things came to be as they are.
Unfortunately, I think the tension between D&D's pulp S&S roots and the attention to medieval detail got washed away, to a great extent, by settings that internalized big chunks of what I think of as "Tolkienesque" fantasy (the mode of modern high fantasy; the biggest epigone being Terry Brooks). Which is a shame, because I think there's tons of useful material that could be wrenched out of not just the various facts and names of the medieval world, but how people used to think. I've been spending a lot of time lately on considering just how superstitious people really were; they weren't stupid in any way, they just lived in a time where the best explanations for natural phenomena involved unknown forces acting in barely-explicable ways.
There are two ways, both of which I think are quite valid, of approaching magic. One is to assume that the world operates pretty close to how it does in reality, but there's also magic stuff. Some people play up the otherness of such magic really well; it's the intent of all the stuff that was so controversial in Geoffrey's Carcosa, for instance. But I think there's a second way, where the laws of reality really are like people believed them to be. Numbers have deep mystical meanings, which actually has some bearing on outcome. Herbs and stones and gems really do have the properties that people ascribed to them, not because of some weird medical coincidences, but the innate properties of life work like that. I'm talking about going the way that says that what you read in the medieval bestiary – the weird stuff about animals born from plants, or having unconventional internal temperatures, or tearing open their own breasts to birth their young – is true.
It's a vision of fantasy that I think deserves some exploration, and I really think that incorporating it could bring a very different feel than most modern high fantasy, rooted in history and painting the world several shades of fantastic. I think it's where I want to go with the work I need to get back into on my OD&D miscellany.
It's the kind of thing I'm reminded of when I find an article like this. Medieval people saw cotton plants, didn't know what it really was, and figured (based on what they did know) that it was a plant that grows sheep. That's unscientific but ten different kinds of awesome for fantasy purposes. Regardless of what you feel about how the real world got here, the fantasy world is explicitly creationist – which was the default assumption of people in the middle ages as well. And, acting based on that assumption, they came up with some pretty interesting theories of how things came to be as they are.
Unfortunately, I think the tension between D&D's pulp S&S roots and the attention to medieval detail got washed away, to a great extent, by settings that internalized big chunks of what I think of as "Tolkienesque" fantasy (the mode of modern high fantasy; the biggest epigone being Terry Brooks). Which is a shame, because I think there's tons of useful material that could be wrenched out of not just the various facts and names of the medieval world, but how people used to think. I've been spending a lot of time lately on considering just how superstitious people really were; they weren't stupid in any way, they just lived in a time where the best explanations for natural phenomena involved unknown forces acting in barely-explicable ways.
There are two ways, both of which I think are quite valid, of approaching magic. One is to assume that the world operates pretty close to how it does in reality, but there's also magic stuff. Some people play up the otherness of such magic really well; it's the intent of all the stuff that was so controversial in Geoffrey's Carcosa, for instance. But I think there's a second way, where the laws of reality really are like people believed them to be. Numbers have deep mystical meanings, which actually has some bearing on outcome. Herbs and stones and gems really do have the properties that people ascribed to them, not because of some weird medical coincidences, but the innate properties of life work like that. I'm talking about going the way that says that what you read in the medieval bestiary – the weird stuff about animals born from plants, or having unconventional internal temperatures, or tearing open their own breasts to birth their young – is true.
It's a vision of fantasy that I think deserves some exploration, and I really think that incorporating it could bring a very different feel than most modern high fantasy, rooted in history and painting the world several shades of fantastic. I think it's where I want to go with the work I need to get back into on my OD&D miscellany.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Fight On! #4 is released
Fight On! #4 is available in print. I bought it as soon as the proof was up on Lulu, and already have my copy. I've always been an early and frequent enthusiast of such works. Table of contents is here.
FO! 4 contains some of my own work, a table full of magical weapon drawbacks. Now, that's about half a page, and personally I think the other hundred twenty odd are worth full admission price without my little contribution. But it's always fun to see your name get in print. I really like what I've read so far (most of the charts, incl. the random facial hair generator, and Calithena's award-winning Arduin adventure). I love that every issue has tables and goodies that are easy to drop into a game as well as those more involved dungeons and areas that take a bit more doing. FO! 4 is also Arduin themed, although it really has a ton of different gonzo influences going for it.
On a sad note, as everyone's been pointing out, it's a year now since Gary Gygax died. Still, it's beautiful to see that his legacy is still alive. Fight on!
FO! 4 contains some of my own work, a table full of magical weapon drawbacks. Now, that's about half a page, and personally I think the other hundred twenty odd are worth full admission price without my little contribution. But it's always fun to see your name get in print. I really like what I've read so far (most of the charts, incl. the random facial hair generator, and Calithena's award-winning Arduin adventure). I love that every issue has tables and goodies that are easy to drop into a game as well as those more involved dungeons and areas that take a bit more doing. FO! 4 is also Arduin themed, although it really has a ton of different gonzo influences going for it.
On a sad note, as everyone's been pointing out, it's a year now since Gary Gygax died. Still, it's beautiful to see that his legacy is still alive. Fight on!
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Reading Arduin, part 1
So, in the interest of doing more for this blog, I've decided I'm going to read and comment on aspects of the original Arduin trilogy. My editions are the three-book reprints done a few years ago by Emperor's Choice, which I will note had the unfortunate effect of mis-paginating the reprint text by a page (so that page 1 faces page 2, rather than page 2 facing page 3, and so on). The newer reprint, I understand, puts Hargrave's somewhat random tables and notes in a more coherent order, which may be contrary to the spirit of the whole exercise, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The book starts with a dedication to the player characters of Arduin, rife with names stolen from Moorcock and Tolkien; it is a tribute that Hargrave found his fantasy world through. He continues with a guarantee to answer any inquiries personally; his home address is printed in the book as a guarantee. It's nothing really that far afield, but it underscores the fact that it was a very personal work, for all its oddness and quirks (which we'll get into).
Actual rules text starts off with a page of notes on overland travel procedure. There is an implied re-write of the reaction chart, with the most aggressive result being a "screaming attack upon your party." This is not in the shape of a table, although there will be plenty to come; it's described narratively, with a separate listing for intelligent foes, who exercise more caution. We also find out that Hargrave was using Dexterity to determine who goes first in combat, describing that a fighter may hit an enemy just before it is struck by magic, which then does its work on the weapon. The procedures are straightforward enough, and there is an offhand reference to using "other roleplaying games" for random encounter charts (i.e., D&D), but an admonition to make your own.
Page two breaks with Gygaxian tradition and instructs the referee not to give experience points for gold or treasure. Instead, the experience rewards are given on a chart, scaling from 50 (figuring out a trap, casting a minor spell, any generally uncalled for or dangerous act) to 400 (dying and coming back). Rewards range from acquiring Satan's pitchfork or nuclear weapons (350) to going down to 1 HP (100), and focus mostly on magic items acquired and spells cast, with combat only coming when you beat a monster worth 4x your hit dice or more.
The next two pages (the book now flips to landscape format, which will happen often enough) run experience charts for Arduin. Unlike OD&D, which capped out with 11, these take characters up to 105th level and beyond. The actual math in the charts is interesting, because it takes quite a different tack than D&D. Where D&D keeps raising numbers by factors of 2 for a number of levels, Arduin prefers to add a new level whenever the total for 3rd is reached, up to a point around or after 10th level, when the number doubles. Somewhere around 20th level it gets doubled again (although the charts stop listing individual levels and go in increments of 5, then 10). It works out that a fighter in D&D with 240,000 XP is 9th level, but in Arduin they are 27th level.
Arduin's experience tables are interesting. Because points come much harder, (although it isn't clear whether standard monster XP is accrued) it makes a certain degree of sense that levels come more easily. Not having run that much at higher levels, I'd be curious to see their impact, although I certainly wouldn't use them with 1 GP=1 XP. There are also more classes listed than are presented in the book. They are: Thief, Slaver, Techno, Courtesan, Assassin, Alchemist, Rune Weaver, Saint, All Outlaws, Warrior, Cleric, Monk, Mage, Illusionist, Druid, Singer or Bard, Ranger, Normal, and Barbarian. The classes in the first Grimoire are Trader, Psychic, Barbarian, Rune Weaver, Techno, Medicine Man, and Witch Hunter. The Trader, Psychic and Witch Hunter all have XP tables with their descriptions. Given the classes that were in D&D use at the time, that leaves us with Slaver, Courtesan, Alchemist, Saint, miscellaneous Outlaws, and Normals without explicit description.
The "Singer or Bard" class is particularly noteworthy. The Bard class from the Strategic Review (reprinted in Best of Dragon #1) is implied, but the "Singer" part actually refers to a class published in the first two issues of Alarums & Excursions, which filled the gap prior to the TSR version.
Level limits follow this. For a game that gets up into 105th level, Arduin doesn't expand the more traditional demihuman level limits too much. The highest numbers are 15th level (Mermaid Mages, Titan Psychics, Gnorc (sic) Warriors and Insect Thieves). Almost every race is on the chart, some with unlimited levels in a few classes, others with almost no classes to be a part of. There is a riotous diversity here - from Hargrave's originals (Saurigs and Phraints, lizard and mantis men respectively), to his hybrid Kobbits and Gnorcs (though not Knoblins) and everything from Titans and Giants down to most types of animals, where Hargrave helpfully explains "Obviously, normal insects and animals are not smart enough to do much of anything, but there are were-creatures and other types that fit the bill, so these guidelines are meant for them." Were-creatures were extremely prolific in early Alarums & Excursions, with one were-fox mage, Brilliant Jade, being a prominent character in several campaign stories, so it's not surprising to see them here. Cave men and Amazons are their own races, with quite restrictive level limits; there are also Uruk-Hai, an indication of Hargrave's tendency to crib bits he liked quite shamelessly from other sources. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to have a cat mage with a human familiar, but that might just be me.
That's just the first five pages of Arduin. It's intriguing, and I do have to say I enjoy the idea of some of the different possibilities open here, but it'd take a bit of doing to get them into a D&D game without upsetting the whole apple cart. Next up will be more race info.
The book starts with a dedication to the player characters of Arduin, rife with names stolen from Moorcock and Tolkien; it is a tribute that Hargrave found his fantasy world through. He continues with a guarantee to answer any inquiries personally; his home address is printed in the book as a guarantee. It's nothing really that far afield, but it underscores the fact that it was a very personal work, for all its oddness and quirks (which we'll get into).
Actual rules text starts off with a page of notes on overland travel procedure. There is an implied re-write of the reaction chart, with the most aggressive result being a "screaming attack upon your party." This is not in the shape of a table, although there will be plenty to come; it's described narratively, with a separate listing for intelligent foes, who exercise more caution. We also find out that Hargrave was using Dexterity to determine who goes first in combat, describing that a fighter may hit an enemy just before it is struck by magic, which then does its work on the weapon. The procedures are straightforward enough, and there is an offhand reference to using "other roleplaying games" for random encounter charts (i.e., D&D), but an admonition to make your own.
Page two breaks with Gygaxian tradition and instructs the referee not to give experience points for gold or treasure. Instead, the experience rewards are given on a chart, scaling from 50 (figuring out a trap, casting a minor spell, any generally uncalled for or dangerous act) to 400 (dying and coming back). Rewards range from acquiring Satan's pitchfork or nuclear weapons (350) to going down to 1 HP (100), and focus mostly on magic items acquired and spells cast, with combat only coming when you beat a monster worth 4x your hit dice or more.
The next two pages (the book now flips to landscape format, which will happen often enough) run experience charts for Arduin. Unlike OD&D, which capped out with 11, these take characters up to 105th level and beyond. The actual math in the charts is interesting, because it takes quite a different tack than D&D. Where D&D keeps raising numbers by factors of 2 for a number of levels, Arduin prefers to add a new level whenever the total for 3rd is reached, up to a point around or after 10th level, when the number doubles. Somewhere around 20th level it gets doubled again (although the charts stop listing individual levels and go in increments of 5, then 10). It works out that a fighter in D&D with 240,000 XP is 9th level, but in Arduin they are 27th level.
Arduin's experience tables are interesting. Because points come much harder, (although it isn't clear whether standard monster XP is accrued) it makes a certain degree of sense that levels come more easily. Not having run that much at higher levels, I'd be curious to see their impact, although I certainly wouldn't use them with 1 GP=1 XP. There are also more classes listed than are presented in the book. They are: Thief, Slaver, Techno, Courtesan, Assassin, Alchemist, Rune Weaver, Saint, All Outlaws, Warrior, Cleric, Monk, Mage, Illusionist, Druid, Singer or Bard, Ranger, Normal, and Barbarian. The classes in the first Grimoire are Trader, Psychic, Barbarian, Rune Weaver, Techno, Medicine Man, and Witch Hunter. The Trader, Psychic and Witch Hunter all have XP tables with their descriptions. Given the classes that were in D&D use at the time, that leaves us with Slaver, Courtesan, Alchemist, Saint, miscellaneous Outlaws, and Normals without explicit description.
The "Singer or Bard" class is particularly noteworthy. The Bard class from the Strategic Review (reprinted in Best of Dragon #1) is implied, but the "Singer" part actually refers to a class published in the first two issues of Alarums & Excursions, which filled the gap prior to the TSR version.
Level limits follow this. For a game that gets up into 105th level, Arduin doesn't expand the more traditional demihuman level limits too much. The highest numbers are 15th level (Mermaid Mages, Titan Psychics, Gnorc (sic) Warriors and Insect Thieves). Almost every race is on the chart, some with unlimited levels in a few classes, others with almost no classes to be a part of. There is a riotous diversity here - from Hargrave's originals (Saurigs and Phraints, lizard and mantis men respectively), to his hybrid Kobbits and Gnorcs (though not Knoblins) and everything from Titans and Giants down to most types of animals, where Hargrave helpfully explains "Obviously, normal insects and animals are not smart enough to do much of anything, but there are were-creatures and other types that fit the bill, so these guidelines are meant for them." Were-creatures were extremely prolific in early Alarums & Excursions, with one were-fox mage, Brilliant Jade, being a prominent character in several campaign stories, so it's not surprising to see them here. Cave men and Amazons are their own races, with quite restrictive level limits; there are also Uruk-Hai, an indication of Hargrave's tendency to crib bits he liked quite shamelessly from other sources. Personally, I think it'd be interesting to have a cat mage with a human familiar, but that might just be me.
That's just the first five pages of Arduin. It's intriguing, and I do have to say I enjoy the idea of some of the different possibilities open here, but it'd take a bit of doing to get them into a D&D game without upsetting the whole apple cart. Next up will be more race info.
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