GROGNARDIA: runequest

Showing posts with label runequest. Show all posts

Monday, April 14, 2025

Initial Thoughts on Dragonbane

As I mentioned at the start of the month, my ongoing Dolmenwood campaign is on a short hiatus while one of the players is away traveling. In the meantime, another member of the group has kindly offered to run a few sessions of Dragonbane, Free League's fantasy roleplaying game, and I’ve taken the opportunity to step out from behind the screen and join as a player. I jumped at the chance, not only because Dragonbane has been on my radar for a while, and this seemed like the perfect time to give it a try.

For those unfamiliar with it, Dragonbane is the modern English-language evolution of Drakar och Demoner, Sweden’s first major fantasy RPG, originally released in 1982. That game was built on Chaosium’s Basic Role Playing (BRP) system, adapted under license and inspired in part by Magic World and RuneQuest. Over the decades, Drakar och Demoner went through numerous editions in Sweden, each refining or reshaping its rules. In 2023, Free League acquired the rights and reimagined the game as Dragonbane, distilling its BRP roots into something faster, lighter, and more accessible. While it retains the BRP hallmarks, like skill-based resolution, opposed rolls, it swaps out percentile dice for d20s and favors simplicity wherever it can.

While I’ve played my fair share of BRP-based games over the years, most of my fantasy RPG experience comes from Dungeons & Dragons and that likely shapes how I see other systems in the genre. That said, Dragonbane feels immediately familiar in all the best ways. Like older editions of D&D, character creation is fast and to the point: you choose a kin (i.e., race), a profession (class), some skills, and you’re good to go. It's more straightforward than making a character in RuneQuest and only marginally more involved than in D&D. You can feel the BRP ancestry throughout, but almost everywhere the system has been pared back to emphasize ease of play. The use of d20s streamlines resolution, and Dragonbane replaces modifiers with “boons and banes,” a system akin to advantage and disadvantage.

All of this is well and good, but what pleasantly surprised me was the combat system. I’m someone who often finds combat a necessary but uninspiring part of roleplaying games. I don’t dislike it outright, but I rarely look forward to it. In Dragonbane, though, combat has consistently been fun: brisk, dynamic, and full of opportunities for clever play. In fact, I’ve found myself anticipating combat encounters, which is not something I say lightly. It’s almost as if the Dice Gods are mocking me for having just written a post about my ambivalence toward combat mechanics. If so, I don’t mind. I’m grateful to have found a system that’s helping me understand what I do enjoy in RPG combat.

Each round, a Dragonbane can move and act. Special weapons or abilities can bend the rules in flavorful ways, but the core loop remains fast and approachable. Initiative is determined with cards rather than dice and reshuffles every round, introducing a layer of unpredictability. There are ways to act out of turn or swap initiative order, which adds some tactical flexibility. Beyond that, there are other mechanical wrinkles, such as morale checks, weapon breakage, special maneuvers, that bring the system to life without bogging it down.

That, for me, is what stands out about the Dragonbane combat system: it hits a sweet spot that’s hard to find. Too often, combat systems fall into one of two traps: they’re either so streamlined that they feel flat or they’re so loaded with options and subsystems that the pace suffers. Dragonbane threads the needle rather well in my opinion, offering just enough crunch to make combat engaging, but not so much that it becomes a slog. Whether this will remain my considered opinion over the long haul remains to be seen, but so far, it’s been a delight.

Thursday, March 6, 2025

REVIEW: Sun County

When RuneQuest burst upon the roleplaying game scene in 1978, it quickly became known for both its percentile-based skill system (which would later become the basis for Chaosium's house system, Basic Role-Playing) and its rich Bronze Age fantasy setting, Glorantha. Glorantha is steeped in mythology, both real and fictional, which not only distinguishes it from other fantasy RPG settings but has also made it one of my favorite imaginary settings of all time.

Between 1979 and 1983, Chaosium released numerous superb supplements, many of them boxed sets, fleshing out Glorantha to the delectation of its growing legion of fans. Then, in 1984, Chaosium entered into a deal with wargames publisher, Avalon Hill, who'd publish a new edition of RuneQuest but stripped of Glorantha. Though the company reversed this decision later, its support for Glorantha was desultory at best, much to the disappointment of long-time devotees.

I wasn't one of these devotees. I knew of RuneQuest, of course, but I was a diehard player of Dungeons & Dragons and indeed somewhat skeptical of RQ at the time. Consequently, I largely missed out on the game until the early 1990s, when Avalon Hill hired Ken Rolston to revitalize its version of the game. This he did through a renewed focus on Glorantha. His tenure kicked off a RuneQuest renaissance that gave birth to multiple excellent expansions of Glorantha, many of which are still regarded as classics. This was the period when I first fell in love with the setting, a love that has only grown in the three decades since.

Currently, RuneQuest and Glorantha are undergoing what might well be called a second renaissance. Since the publication of RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha in 2018, Chaosium has released a steady stream of excellent new material for the game and its setting. Just as importantly, the company has made a lot of its older material available again in electronic and print-on-demand form, both through its own store and through DriveThruRPG. Its most recent classic re-release is Sun County, written by Michael O'Brien, with contributions from Rolston, Glorantha creator Greg Stafford, and others.

Before discussing the contents of the book itself, I'd like to briefly comment on the 2024 remastering. The book's interior layout is clear and straightforward. It makes use of two columns and splashes of column – titles, headers and footers, tables, etc. It's been years since I saw the 1992 original, so I can't say if the use of color is new, but it's attractive nonetheless. There's a new foreword by Shannon Appelcline, which contextualizes Sun County within the larger history of RuneQuest (some of which I've mentioned above). As someone who enjoys learning about the history of the hobby, I love this sort of stuff and am glad it was included.

Originally published in 1992, the 2024 re-release of Sun County is a 124-page sourcebook, packed with detailed setting material, rules expansions, and adventure scenarios. The first half of the book is dedicated to fleshing out the region of Sun County itself – its geography, culture, and history – while the second half presents a series of interconnected adventure that showcase different aspects of the rigid society of the Sun Dome Templars, a militant theocracy devoted to Yelmalio, Son of the Sun. As a setting, Sun County is one of isolationism and decline. The Sun Domers are a proud but stiflingly conservative people, desperately clinging to a past that has long since left them behind. Their deity, Yelmalio, is cold and indifferent sun and their stiff hierarchy, strict moral codes, and inflexible traditions make them an excellent counterpoint to the vibrant and increasingly chaotic world around them. Sun County leans into these themes, both in its descriptive text and in the several included scenarios.

From a presentation standpoint, Sun County stands out for its strong authorial voice. This is not an encyclopedic setting book filled with dispassionate information but rather a living, breathing culture, conveyed through in-character documents, legends, and anecdotes (as well as game mechanics). This has long been a hallmark of the better Gloranthan materials, but Sun County does it with a degree of clarity and usability that makes it, in my opinion, much more accessible than other books of this kind. The reader still needs to be already familiar with Glorantha, of course, but Sun County does a good job of explaining itself without too many references to other products.

The reader is treated to details about the cult of Yelmalio and related subcults, as well as the Sun Dome Temple itself, the seat of both religion and government within the County. Equally well detailed are its elite soldiers and citizen levies, which play significant roles here. A collection of random encounters and events serve both as sparks for adventures and to highlight unique aspects of Sun County, like the Yelmalian beadles who deal with unlicensed beggars or succubi who prey upon the sexually inhibited Sun Domers. These sorts of details flesh out the setting in straightforward, practical ways that I appreciate.

As I mentioned earlier, slightly more than half the book consists of adventures set in and around Sun County. Two of these pertain to a Harvest Festival in the town of Garhound, just beyond its borders. Garhound makes a great starting point for non-Yelmalian characters to visit the land of the Sun Domers. Another scenario affords characters the opportunity to become landowners in the County, while two further adventures concern the locating of lost artifacts associated with Yelmalio. There's also a collection of ideas for the Gamemaster to flesh out on his own. Taken together, these scenarios cover a lot of ground, though I do wish there'd been a few that dealt more directly with navigating the ins and outs of Sun County's often-strict society.

The book features strong black-and-white illustrations by Merle Insinga and Roger Raupp (the latter of whom also did the cover) that reinforce the setting’s stark, sun-bleached aesthetic. The imagery depicts the militaristic and hierarchical nature of Sun County, though there are also plenty of pieces that highlight other sides of the setting, like the contests of the Harvest Festival and the hidden threats to the region. The maps, though functional, are generally not as evocative as those found in earlier, Chaosium era products like Pavis or Big Rubble, but they serve their purpose well enough.

Sun County is a great setting book. It captures something rarely seen in RPGs: a genuinely believable culture, shaped by its environment and history, filled with tensions that make it ripe for adventure. This is precisely the kind of supplement I like, where cultural and philosophical conflicts drive the action as much as physical threats. More than thirty years after its original release, Sun County holds up very well. Its portrayal of the Sun Domers is compelling but nuanced, like the best Gloranthan supplements, then or now. It makes a great addition to any campaign set in or near New Pavis and the River of Cradles. Sun County's main downsides are that it was written for RuneQuest's third (Avalon Hill) edition and, as such, its game statistics and the political situation depicted within it will need to be updated if used in conjunction with the current version of the game. That's a small criticism of what is otherwise an excellent and well-presented supplement. I hope its publication is a portent of more to come in this vein from Chaosium.

Thursday, February 13, 2025

sha-Arthan Combat

Mechanically, Secrets of sha-Arthan began as a variant on Moldvay/Cook Dungeons & Dragons, because I'm a big fan of that version of D&D, which is easy to learn and to play. However, as I've worked on it and playtested bits of it, several elements – for example, the magic system – have diverged more and more from B/X, to the point where it's becoming more of its own thing. I'm fine with that, since, at the end of the day, my first priority is to make a game I like. However, I do hope that, when I'm done (whenever that might be), it'll also be something others might enjoy, too.

Lately, I've been experimenting with some ideas related to the combat system. Most significant among these ideas is that player character hit point totals are mostly static and equal to one of the character's ability scores. So, for example, if the character's score in relevant ability is 12, he has 12 hit points. This makes beginning characters quite a bit tougher than a typical 1st-level D&D character, who might have half that many hit points to start. However, I don't envisage those 12 hit points ever really increasing with experience, except perhaps in small ways here and there.

This is a big change from D&D and its derivatives, though very much in line with games like RuneQuest and other members of the Basic Role-Playing family. Having played many BRP games over the years, I do appreciate the benefits of non-inflationary hit points. For one thing, combats are generally much more dangerous, since a single lucky hit is capable of knocking a character out of a fight, if not outright killing him. That means players have to think twice about rushing into battle and, when they do so, they have to rely on planning and superior skill, not simply bags of hit points, to achieve victory.

On the other hand, precisely because of combat's deadliness, BRP games include a lot of ways to potentially mitigate that deadliness. For example, the combat rules include active defense maneuvers, like dodging and parrying. The rules also include ablative armor that lessens any damage that makes it through those defenses. These are welcome aspects of the combat rules, but there's no question that their inclusion slows down play in a way that D&D's relatively simple and abstract combat rules do not. As a guy who usually finds combat the least interesting aspect of most RPGs, fast and simple better suits my preferences.

Yet, I'm still playing around with ways to keep hit point totals low and combats quick and deadly in Secrets of sha-Arthan. It's proving to be harder than I thought it would, for some of the reasons I've already mentioned. Though BRP-style combat historically grew out of early attempts to regularize OD&D combat and make it more "realistic," it did so at the cost of speed. Finding a way to thread the needle between the elegance of D&D's combat system and the perilous nature of BRP's equivalent is tough, or at least I'm finding it so.

Consequently, I'd love to hear more from people who have long experience with BRP in any of its forms. Is there a way to have your cake and eat it too? Can I get the best of both worlds? Fast, simple combat that nevertheless has some tactical depth, with lower hit points and active defense? Or is this a fool's errand and I should just abandon the attempt? I'd love to know your thoughts.

Thursday, October 31, 2024

REPOST: Fantasy is Frightening

(This month, I'd intended to write a longer post about the domestication of horror and frightening things in our popular media, including RPGs, but, as so often happens, time slipped away and here we are on Halloween and I never wrote that post. I still intend to write it; I just can't be sure when. In the meantime, enjoy this old post that touches on the topic. –JDM)

In RuneQuest, there is a race of beings known as Broos or goatkin. In my second edition rulebook, they're described as

Human-bodied and goat-headed, [they] ... are tied irrevocably with the Rune of chaos. They are given to atrocities and foul practices, and carry numerous loathsome diseases.

Broos have the ability to procreate with any species, intelligent or otherwise, with the resulting offspring taking characteristics from both its Broo and non-Broo parent. Most Broos in the Dragon Pass area (the area of Glorantha originally most detailed in RQ's early materials) have the heads of goats and other herd animals, hence their nickname, but Broos come in a variety of types, depending on their parentage.

Anyway, during the RuneQuest Renaissance of the '90s, a product was put out for RQ3 called Dorastor: Land of Doom, which detailed a Chaos-tainted land to the south of the Lunar Empire. As I've stated several times before, I never played much RuneQuest at any time, but I was often interested in it. Just before Avalon Hill was purchased by Hasbro in 1998, the company was selling off its stock of RuneQuest materials in very cheap -- and hefty -- bundles. I bought them out of curiosity and it was then that I first read Dorastor. The supplement included a NPC known as Ralzakark, leader of Dorastor and king of the Broos.

For reasons I can't fully articulate, I found Ralzakark quite frightening. Perhaps it was because he had the head of a unicorn, a creature normally associated with purity and goodness. Perhaps it was because he was an urbane, sophisticated creature unlike his subjects. Whatever it was, Ralzakark frightened me. I don't mean scared in that ooga-booga-monster-in-closet sort of way; I mean in some psychological/emotional way. Ralzakark was a disturbing NPC -- and fascinating too. For all I know, I may be the only person who finds the Unicorn Emperor of the Broos unnerving, but I suspect not. I know of many people who find the Broos more than a little creepy and Ralzakark's inversion of many of the known facts about these creatures probably does unsettle people besides myself.

This got me to thinking about how the best fantasies, the ones that really stick with me, are frightening on some level. Shelob, in The Lord of the Rings, frightens me and so does Gollum, come to think of it. They both touch on things within my psyche that I'd rather not think about and force me to confront them. Most of us, I imagine, need to do this from time to time, which is why I think it's healthy for children's stories to include frightening elements. It's the same reason I think RPGs shouldn't shy away from being frightful. That's not all they should be, of course. Still, I think they're a lesser entertainment than they can be if they neglect to include things to unnerve us from time to time.

Friday, October 4, 2024

Pretenders to the Throne

Like most people involved in the hobby of roleplaying, Dungeons & Dragons was the first RPG I ever played. Furthermore, it's probably the RPG I've played the most over the decades, even though it's not my favorite. I do like it and would even go so far as to say that most versions of it are fun to play. This isn't a controversial opinion. Indeed, if history is any guide, most roleplayers feel similarly, because some version of Dungeons & Dragons has been the most popular, most played, and most profitable roleplaying game pretty much continuously since 1974.

I say "pretty much," because there have been times and places when this was not case, but most of these instances have been unusual in one way or another. I was thinking about this topic for reasons I'll explain in an upcoming post, but my present point is that, with only a handful of exceptions, D&D has always been the King of Roleplaying Games. That was true in 1974 and it's still true in 2024. That's a truth that a lot of partisans of other RPGs don't like to hear. While I'm sympathetic to their feelings, I'm not going to pretend as if it's not the case that D&D's reign has not been a largely secure one.

There I go again with my quibbling adverbs – largely. I'm old enough to remember several moments in time when it seemed as if the fortunes of Dungeons & Dragons were on the downswing and another roleplaying game was on the ascent. Whether that was actually the case is another matter. For now, though, I'd simply like to focus on three occasions when it seemed to me – perhaps mistakenly – as if D&D was in danger of being pushed aside by a competitor.

The first time was in the mid-80s, once I had become a subscriber to White Dwarf. One of the things I very quickly noticed was that the magazine frequently carried content for Chaosium's RuneQuest, then in its second edition. This was in stark contrast to Dragon magazine, the gaming periodical with which I was most familiar, which scarcely ever included articles, let alone adventures, for RQ. At that time, AD&D was in its late 1e doldrums, so I took the appearance of so much RuneQuest material in White Dwarf as evidence that its star was on the rise. I would eventually learn that this was mostly a British phenomenon, where RQ's popularity met or even exceeded that of D&D. So far as I know, this never extended to North America, but I still started contemplating the possibility that Dungeons & Dragons might one day be toppled from its position as King of the Hill.

The next time I saw what I thought was a serious challenger to D&D was about a decade later, in the mid-1990s. That's when White Wolf's "World of Darkness" games were all the rage, particularly the first game in that line, Vampire: the Masquerade. While I didn't get into any of "World of Darkness" games until a few years later – I'd eventually even write for a few of them – I was nevertheless quite familiar with them, thanks in large part to friends who were regular players. What I learned from them was that Vampire and its companion games had proven popular with many people who'd otherwise not played RPGs. The "World of Darkness" was bringing in new players and those players were very devoted to it. It probably helped, too, that Dungeons & Dragons (and indeed TSR itself) was in the midst of another period of doldrums, which made White Wolf's offerings seem even more vital by comparison.

Finally, there was Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Pathfinder came out shortly after Wizards of the Coast announced that the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons – Fourth Edition – would not, unlike its immediate predecessor, being an "open" game. Instead, it would use a much more restrictive licensing scheme. Likewise, the new edition's rules would be rather different from those in 3e, making backward compatibility an issue. For a lot of fans of the Third Edition, this was dreadful news and Paizo saw an opportunity to serve them by producing its own version of 3e, which it called Pathfinder. Pathfinder proved quite successful and, for a brief time, appeared to have snatched the RPG crown from Dungeons & Dragons. Ultimately, that proved to have been an illusion, but that doesn't change the fact that, for a brief moment, I felt otherwise.

In the end, none of the aforementioned roleplaying games were truly successful in knocking D&D off its pedestal, at least not for long. In each case, the plausibility of this belief rested on the same thing: the perceived weakness of D&D. Whenever the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons was in its late, decadent phase, disenchantment with the direction of the game or the perception that it was on the wrong track made me feel that some other RPG might have a shot at the Throne of Gygax. That's not to say that none of these games enjoyed a genuine popularity boost when D&D was "weak." In the case of Vampire the Masquerade, I'm pretty sure it did enjoy a period of wild popularity and good sales and that might well have been true of Pathfinder, too (RuneQuest in the UK is more of an edge case). Yet, for all that, D&D always came roaring back, its place as the hobby's top dog secure for another decade or so.

I can't predict the future, so if another roleplaying game will ever succeed in displacing Dungeons & Dragons, I have no idea. Judging by the past, however, it seems quite unlikely, which is why, for good or ill, in most people's minds, tabletop RPGs will always be synonymous with D&D.

Friday, May 10, 2024

Speaking of Miniatures ...

Behold! Qualos – guardian of the Duck Temple. This is an official RuneQuest miniature produced by Infinity-Engine. Whether you use miniatures in your games or not, it's hard to deny that this one is pretty amazing.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

sha-Arthan Appendix N (Part II)

In Part I of this post, I shared the four authors whose stories and settings have most influenced my development of Secrets of sha-Arthan. In this part, I'd like to share the four roleplaying games I'd single out as having played a similar role.

Empire of the Petal Throne: This one should be obvious. The mere fact that I've spent the last nine years refereeing my House of Worms campaign pretty much guaranteed EPT would be included in this list, since it's the RPG I've played the most and most consistently since my youth. However, the game shares so many elements in common with sha-Arthan – secret science fiction, ancient history, baroque societies, weird monsters – that, on some level, it'd be completely accurate to call sha-Arthan "my Tékumel." Of course, sha-Arthan isn't just that, but it owes a huge debt to Tékumel, which is one of my favorite fictional settings of all time.

Skyrealms of Jorune: This is another important secret science fiction game and one whose influence over sha-Arthan is important to acknowledge. Though I never owned, let alone played the game when it was first released, I was entranced by the ads for it that ran in the pages of Dragon magazine. Replete with the evocative artwork of Miles Teves, Jorune had a wonderfully exotic setting in the form of the titular planet, where "magic" of a sort is possible, thanks to peculiar physical laws. Likewise, its many unusual – and completely non-terrestrial – intelligent aliens and lifeforms have served as inspirations as I imagined their counterparts on sha-Arthan. Amazing stuff!

RuneQuest: Right behind Tékumel is Glorantha when it comes to my favorite fictional settings. The main things I took from RQ was its non-medieval, more Bronze Age setting and its emphasis on the importance of culture and religious cults. Indeed, the alignment system of Secrets of sha-Arthan is directly inspired by the cults of Glorantha. I've likewise borrowed a couple of other elements from the game that I thought would fit in well with the setting I was creating for my own game. Beyond that, RuneQuest impresses me with its ability to take itself seriously but not too seriously and that's something that a lesson than an old stick in the mud like me needs to be reminded of often.

Bushido: This is another RPG that stresses the importance of culture and religious beliefs and thus inspired me as I developed Secrets of sha-Arthan. While there's not much of feudal Japan's DNA in the True World, there is something of Bushido's rules in my own game, in particular those covering "downtime." Characters in Secrets of sha-Arthan can engage in training, research, intrigue, and social climbing when not traveling or exploring ancient ruins and vaults. The inclusion of these options was inspired by Bushido, which is the first game I recall having rules for these kinds of activities. While other RPGs have subsequently included them, Bushido is the game from which I first learned them.

And there you have it: the four roleplaying games whose settings and/or rules influenced me in my own work. As Picasso is reputed to have said, "Good artists borrow; great artists steal." I make no claim to being a great artist, but I thought it only right to let you know from whom I've stolen, if only so that you might be introduced to some really terrific roleplaying games well worth your time.

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

sha-Arthan Appendix N (Part I)

Last week, I pointed out a "problem" with Gary Gygax's Appendix N, namely, it's just a list without any explanatory apparatus, unlike its counterpart in the original RuneQuest. As I explained in that post, this is far from a damning criticism – Appendix N remains an invaluable guide to excellent fantasy and science fiction stories – but it does limit its utility in trying to understand Gygax's own thought processes as he created both D&D and AD&D.

That's why I decided I'd do things differently in Secrets of sha-Arthan. Rather than simply include a lengthy list of all the books (and games) that had had even the tiniest influence over my own work on SoS, I'd instead present a smaller, more focused list, along with commentary on precisely what I'd taken from each source. The goal is not merely to honor my inspirations, but also to aid anyone who picks up the game in understanding where I'm coming from.

The list, like the game itself, is still in a state of low-level flux. I've purposefully narrowed the list to just four authors, each of which wrote a series of multiple stories within those series. By keeping the list focused on those whose influence is strongest and most clear, I hope that I'll do a better job than Gygax of "showing my cards," creatively speaking. Obviously, other authors and books have inspired me, too, but their inspiration has been more limited. Rather than muddy the waters, I've stuck only with whose influence is most clear.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice: The influence of Edgar Rice Burroughs over the subsequent history of fantasy cannot be underestimated. His Barsoom novels in particular have played a huge role in establishing the broad outlines of that genre and the stories and characters that inhabit it. Everything from building a unique setting, with its own history and geography to populating it with all manner of exotic cultures and beasts to even presenting an alien vocabulary, it's all there in A Princess of Mars, a book not much read today but that I have come to love more the older I get.

In creating sha-Arthan, I often looked to Barsoom and Amtor for inspiration, particularly in my conception of the creatures that dwell upon it. Furthermore, the Ironian language is intended to be reminiscent of the Martian tongue as invented by Burroughs. I also imagine adventures in the True World to be swashbuckling affairs, filled with perilous danger, narrow escapes, and feats of derring-do, just like the delightful novels of ERB.

Smith, Clark Ashton: Of all the writers whose work graced the pages of Weird Tales during the Golden Age of the Pulps, Clark Ashton Smith remains my favorite by far. His examination of the dangers of egotism and the ever-present risk of divine punishment combine with his black humor and imaginative dreamscapes to produce some of the most inventive – and often terrifying – fiction of the first half of the 20th century. Though I am fond of all his story cycles, it's those set in Zothique, Earth's last continent untold eons in the future, that I find most compelling.

There's more than a little of Zothique in sha-Arthan. Its ancient history, selfish sorcerers, and otherworldly daimons are all directly inspired by CAS. Smith's baroque and archaic vocabulary have likewise influenced the nomenclature and general tone of my writing about the setting. Though sha-Arthan is not as dark (or darkly humorous) as Zothique, it does possess some of the latter's world-weariness,

Tierney, Richard L.: Secrets of sha-Arthan takes a lot of inspiration from the late Hellenistic and early Roman eras. That's a period of history that's always fascinated me, so that's no surprise. It's also the time period covered by the Simon of Gitta historical fantasies of Richard L. Tierney, some of whose stories I've discussed in the past.

Tierney's stories deftly combine real world history and beliefs, particularly those relating to Gnosticism, with an unusual interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and swashbuckling adventure. This combination of elements is both unique and appealing to someone of my interests, which is why I consider the Simon of Gitta tales to be among the most important influences on my development of sha-Arthan as a RPG setting.

Vance, Jack: Rounding out this quartet of inspirational authors is Jack Vance, creator of The Dying Earth and its sequels, all of which have, to varying degrees, influenced sha-Arthan, though the original 1950 fix-up novel remains the most important. Like Smith's Zothique stories, I've looked to Vance for ideas about ancient, forgotten history, venal wizards, and cruel, otherworldly beings. However, the single most significant idea I've taken from Vance is that of secret science fiction, which is to say, an ostensibly fantasy setting that is, beneath the surface, based on scientific (or pseudo-scientific) principles. That's a big part of sha-Arthan and its eponymous secrets.

In Part II, I'll talk about the other roleplaying games that have influenced the development of Secrets of sha-Arthan. For obvious historical reasons, this is something Gygax could never have done. However, I've played enough RPGs over the years that there's no question they've had as much of an impact on my thoughts about sha-Arthan as has fantasy literature. Revealing just what I've taken from them is, I think, every bit as important as revealing my literary inspirations.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023

Cozy Maps

Here's the thing: I am preparing a regional map for my sha-Arthan setting and I must confess that I am having some difficulty in settling on a scale. I know that fans of OD&D favor the five – or six – mile hex for reasons both historical and rational. My natural inclination, as a traditionalist, is to choose one of those scales for the map, but I worry that scale might be too small for my purposes.

This is, as I said, a regional map, depicting the territory of the Empire of Inba Iro and its neighbors. This is the area through which I want to introduce the overall setting, where a new campaign of Secrets of sha-Arthan might begin. Even though it's only a portion of a much larger world, I want it to be large enough to sprinkle with lots of adventure locales and scenario seeds. At the same time, I want its size to be both manageable for the referee and comprehensible to the players. In my opinion, too many creators of fantasy worlds think Bigger is Better and draw their maps accordingly. My intention is something that's, if not exactly small, a bit more "human-sized," if that makes sense.

I've always been very fond of this map from Chaosium's RuneQuest, which depicts the lands of Prax:

While the map isn't perfect by any means, it comes very close to balancing manageability and comprehensibility. The area covered by the map is large enough to encompass lots of important landmarks/adventure sites and leave lots of space for the referee to place his own locales. Conversely, the map is also small enough that it isn't filled with lots of blank, empty spaces that take weeks for the characters to traverse. This kind of map feels "cozy," for lack of a better word and it's more or less what I'm aiming for with the first regional map of sha-Arthan, though I'm still wrestling with the specifics.

Do you have a favorite regional, "adventure scale" map for use with RPGs? I'm very curious to know which ones you like, because they might be helpful to me as I wrestle with making my own.

Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Retrospective: SoloQuest

For obvious reasons, the last few years have seen a resurgence of interest in solo adventures for use with roleplaying games. Adventures of this sort have a long pedigree, going back at least as far as 1976's Buffalo Castle for Tunnels & Trolls. Other attempts to present a referee-less scenario for use by a single player followed, employing a number of different approaches, some of them quite exotic, like invisible ink and a "magic viewer."

The most successful ones, however, followed in the footsteps of Buffalo Castle (or perhaps Sugarcane Island?) by presenting a series numbered paragraphs read according to the narrative choices of the reader. This is the format adopted by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's phenomenally successful Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks, for instance. It's also the format Chaosium employed for its own forays into the field of solo gaming, starting with SoloQuest in 1982.

Written by Allen LaVergne, who was a player in Steve Perrin's Pavis campaign, SoloQuest presents three adventures for RuneQuest suitable for use by a single player without the need for a referee. The scenarios are not specifically connected to Glorantha and the book's introduction suggests they're completely usable by a character from any RuneQuest setting. The first of these scenarios is "DreamQuest," the most straightforward of the three. Its premise is that the character's favored god appears to him in a dream and asks him "to fulfill a mission, a symbolic reenactment of [the] god's conquests. Unlike most dreams, in this one there are real risks to run and real rewards to gain."

What follows is a series of combat encounters, in which the character's dream self must overcome ever more powerful opponents. There are twenty such encounters, ranging from Sardanik Scrolleater, an armored baboon with a spear, to Errol, a swashbuckling manticore, to Huey and Looie, a pair of ducks, and many more, culminating in the final battle – against the character's doppelganger. Almost all of these encounters are idiosyncratic in one way or another, reflecting the opponent's personality and nature. They typically include an outline of the opponent's tactics in combat and some even note the conditions under which combat might be avoided. "DreamQuest" isn't really an adventure so much as an excuse to run some battles using the RQ rules. How much one enjoys that will likely determine how much one enjoys the scenario as a whole.

The second adventure is "Phony Stones," which concerns the sale of "bogus statues of Issaries" to naive individuals hoping that, by buying them, they might be initiated into the god's cult. The temple of Issaries is thus offering a sizable reward for anyone who can find and capture the perpetrator of this deception. The setting of the adventure is a small town of about 50 residences, which the character will need to investigate to unravel this mystery. Unfortunately, the limitations of the solitaire format hamper one's ability to do so as effectively one might during refereed play. For example, interactions with NPCs are largely pre-scripted, meaning you can only perform whatever actions the numbered paragraphs offer you, which, in many cases, are very few. The end result is fairly unsatisfying, even compared to your average Fighting Fantasy book.

The third adventure is "Maguffin Hunt." The Duke of Jawain hires to the character to enter the hideout of a band of dwarves who have stolen his maguffin. Despite the fact that the duke "will provide a very detailed description of the maguffin," nowhere does the text actually do so. I am left to presume that this ambiguity is intentional, allowing it to be whatever the player imagines it to be. If so, the scenario never makes this clear, which is all the more vexing since, at its conclusion, the character discovers the dwarves no longer even have it. They've sold it to a third party and there's not a hint as to the identity of the buyer. Even so, "Maguffin Hunt" is a little more enjoyable than "Phony Stones," since it's largely a series of combat encounters, which the solo format handles reasonably well, rather than the frustratingly limited investigations of the previous adventure.

Ultimately, that's the biggest problem with SoloQuest: its scenarios rarely rise above the level of scripted combats, which strikes me as almost criminal when dealing with a game like RuneQuest, whose strength has always been its richly detailed settings and interesting characters. Of course, how one would succeed in presenting such things within the context of a solitaire adventure is a vexing question even in 2023. The computer RPGs of the present are vastly more sophisticated and complex than something like SoloQuest and yet even they often struggle with presenting an imaginary world and its inhabitants with the kind of depth to be found in even a mediocre tabletop session with other human beings. Consequently, I can't judge SoloQuest too harshly for its shortcomings, though I nevertheless wish it were better than it is.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

White Dwarf: Issue #75

Issue #75 of White Dwarf (March 1986) sports a horror – or I should I say Call of Cthulhu? – themed cover by Lee Gibbons, whose work appeared several times in the past few months, most notably issue #72. This issue marks a changing of the guard at the magazine, with Ian Marsh taking over its reins from Ian Livingstone. In his inaugural editorial, Marsh admits to "an element of trepidation" about his new job, especially at a time when WD is "mutating slowly into a different beastie." He elaborates on this, explaining that there is a "shift away from the usual formulaic style" of the magazine, by which I think he means an end to the regular, monthly columns and other features that have defined its content since the beginning. Regardless, the times, they are a'-changin' at the Dwarf.

"Open Box," for example, consists almost entirely of reviews of Games Workshop products, starting with the Supervisors Kit for Golden Heroes (8 out of 10) and Terror of the Lichemaster (9 out of 10) for use with Warhammer. There's also a review of Judgment Day (9 out of 10), an adventure for Judge Dredd – The Role-Playing Game. Rounding out the GW products covered this issue is its edition of the venerable science fiction boardgame Cosmic Encounter (also 9 out of 10 – I'm sensing a theme here). Finally, there's a look at Chaosium's second Call of Cthulhu companion, Fragments of Fear, which earns 7 out of 10. While it's inevitable that a periodical published by a company involved in the industry it's covering will include reviews of products it also publishes – TSR's Dragon certainly did – I nevertheless can't help but feel a line was crossed this issue, given the preponderance of Games Workshop releases reviewed. Perhaps next issue will be better?

I feel like a bad person for only enjoying Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" when he snarks about books about books and authors I, too, dislike. This month he brings the hammer down on the Darkover novel, Hawkmistress:

There will no doubt be hordes more 'Darkover' tales from Marion Zimmer Bradley: publishers love issuing books very similar to previous ones. Hawkmistress ... despite its veneer of science-fantasy, seems hauntngly familiar. Heroine Romilly wears breeches and gets on well with animals, but Daddy wants her to don girlish clothes and marry. One knows instantly that the chap Romilly finds most loathsome is Daddy's intended bridegroom: and so it proves. With hawk and horse our heroine to find her way in the world.

The interesting thing about Langford's critique of the novel is not that he thinks it's bad – he calls its "a readable yarn" – but that it is essentially a romance novel in very thin science fantasy dress, which I think is a fair criticism of her oeuvre (and that of Anne McCaffrey, come to think of it).

"Getting the Fright Right" is this month's installment of Colin Greenland's "2020 Vision" column. It's a collection of reviews of then-current horror movies, broadly defined, ranging from The Return of the Living Dead to Fright Night to Teen Wolf. Greenland's reviews of these films is interesting, because, as the article's title suggests, he takes some time to talk about the proper balance of thematic elements within a horror movie to make it enjoyable for him. I like this approach to reviews, since, even when I disagree with them, I at least understand where the reviewer is coming from and that's quite useful.

"Thrud Gets a Social Conscience" is this issue's installment of "Thrud the Barbarian," humorously addressing the claim that the comic (and, by extension, the entire genre of sword-and-sorcery) is sexist. This leads to an amusing exchange between Thrud and his occasional female guest star, Lymara the She-Wildebeest, about how her attire reinforces negative sexual stereotypes.

There are also new installments of "Gobbledigook" and "The Travelles," but they're not nearly as amusing.

Oliver Dickinson's "RuneQuest Ruminations" is a look at the third edition of RQ (published by Avalon Hill) with a special focus on those parts of its rules that he found vexing or inadequate in some way. A lot of the article is very "inside baseball" to someone like myself whose experience with RuneQuest is limited. What most comes across, though, is how much of a shock and disappointment this edition of the game was to many of its long-time fans, particularly in the way that it downgraded Glorantha to the status of an afterthought.

"How to Save the Universe" by Peter Tamlyn is a lengthy and thoughtful look at "the delights of superhero gaming." Tamlyn's main point seems to be that there are a lot of different styles of play within superhero RPGs – more than enough to satisfy almost every preference. Consequently, one should not dismiss the entire genre as "kid's stuff." "Gamesmanship" by Martin Hytch is an oddly titled but similarly lengthy and thoughtful look at "injecting a little mystery" back into AD&D adventures. The overall thrust of the article concerns the way experienced players treat so many of the game's challenges in a procedural fashion, quoting rules and statistics rather than entering into the fantasy of it all. It's difficult to summarize Hytch's advice in a short space; suffice it to say that it's mostly quite good and filled with useful examples. I may write a separate post about it, because I think he does an excellent job of addressing the many questions he raises.

"Mass Media" by Andrew Swift looks at the nature of communications technology at various tech levels in Traveller. It's fine for what it does but nothing special. On the other hand, Graeme Davis's "Nightmare in Green" AD&D adventure is phenomenal. Aimed at 4th–6th level characters, it concerns the threat posed a collection of nasty, plant monsters crossbred by a mad druid. I'm a big fan of plant monsters, so this scenario immediately caught my attention, all the more so since some of the monsters are inspired by the works of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

That brings us to another highlight of this issue. You may recall that, back in issue #68, reviewer Marcus L. Rowland gave a very negative review to GDW's Twilight: 2000. This led to a flurry of letters in issue #73, both pro and con Rowland's review. With this issue, Frank Chadwick, designer of the game weighs in and he pulls no punches.

"The Heart of the Dark" by Andy Bradbury is "an illuminatingly different" Call of Cthulhu scenario, because it does not directly feature any encounters with the Mythos or its associated entities. Indeed, the adventure includes no game statistics of any kind "since it is doubtful that they will be needed." This is a pure, roleplaying scenario filled with lots of investigation, social interactions, and red herrings. It's intended as a change of pace

"Local Boy Makes Good" by Chris Felton looks at character background in AD&D, with lots of random tables for determining social class, birth order, father's profession, and so on. I suppose this could be of interest to others, but not to me. Finally, Joe Dever begins a new series on preparing and using oil paints for miniature figures. I know nothing about this topic; despite that, I find it weirdly fascinating, like all of Dever's articles in his monthly "Tabletop Heroes" column.

Issue #75 of White Dwarf continues the recent trend of feeling slightly "off" to my sensibilities. There's still plenty of excellent content, but there's also an increasingly detectable undercurrent of change and not for the better. Perhaps I am simply hypersensitive to this because I know that WD will soon be little more than a house organ for Games Workshop and I am constantly one the lookout for signs – any signs – of this imminent transformation. Regardless, I will keep plowing ahead, though, for how much longer, I don't yet know.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

White Dwarf: Issue #74

Issue #74 of White Dwarf (February 1986) sports a cover by American conic book artist, Frank Brunner, who's probably best known for his work on Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, as well as his covers for Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan and Red Sonja. The issue also marks the point where Ian Livingstone hands over day-to-day editorial duties to Ian Marsh. Livingstone states that he is not "deserting the magazine" and will still "be keeping a benevolent eye on the progress of [his] eight-year-old love-child" in his new capacity as Editor-in-Chief. Despite his reassurances, this nevertheless feels like a turning point in the history of White Dwarf.

Case in point: the issue kicks off with "Superpower" by Bruce Hollands, which is an extensive look at the Games Workshop-published boardgame of the same name. Like the look at Warrior Knights from the previous issue, this article, while informative, nevertheless feels more like an extended advertisement for a GW product than a "real" article. That may be an unfair judgment on my part, but reading it convinced me that the oft-discussed transformation of White Dwarf into a full-on house organ of Games Workshop was not far in the future.

Countering that worry is "Open Box," which only reviewed one GW product this issue, the Call of Cthulhu scenario Night in Norway, which scores 7 out of 10. Also reviewed is Dragon Warriors and two of its supplements (The Way of Wizardry and The Elven Crystals), which collectively earn 9 out of 10. After all these years, I've still never read Dragon Warriors, which people whose opinions I respect tell me is well worth a look. The historical RuneQuest supplement Vikings gets 8 out of 10, while Oriental Adventures for AD&D receives 9 out of 10. The Pendragon Campaign, the predecessor to the well regarded The Boy King, is similarly well regarded, earning 9 out of 10. The column wraps up with a look at two different scenarios for use with FASA's Star Trek, The Outcasts and Termination 1456, both of which are judged perfect (10 out of 10).

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" generally vexes me, but this issue's column at least looks at a few books I know and have read, like Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series. Langford quite correctly recognizes the value of these books and of Vance more generally

The good stuff lies in Tschai's rich scents and colours, and in elaboration of style. No Vance villain would say 'I'll get you for that.' Instead: 'Low-grade assassins will drown you in cattle excrement! Twenty pariahs will drub your corpse! A cur will drag your head along the street by your tongue!'

Langford's byline reappears under "The Power of the Frog," a science fiction short story about a human junior military officer held prisoner by an alien race. Like all of Langford's previous short stories, this one is both brief and amusing. It's clear the man has talent, which is why I sometimes feel bad at the lack of interest his book review column elicits. Truthfully, I wish he had contributed more fiction to White Dwarf.

"Terror at Trollmarsh" is an AD&D adventure for 4th–5th-level characters by Peter and Janet Vialls. I really enjoyed this one, which takes the form of a murder mystery with fantasy/horror elements. A monster is stalking the halls of Baron Uther Torgrim, killing his servants, and it's up to the players to figure out just what is really going on. While the overall concept is a standard, even clichéd one, the authors handle it well, giving the referee an interesting, well mapped out environment, an array of compelling NPCs, and a culprit with clear, understandable motives. "Terror at Trollmarsh" is nothing revolutionary, but, like all good scenarios, it gives players lots of "moving parts" with which to interact as they grapple with its central mystery.

"A Company of Wolves" by Peter Blanchard looks at lycanthropy in AD&D from both a game and folkloric perspective. The article doesn't offer much in the way of new rules mechanics, which I appreciate, focusing instead on "social" aspects of this magical curse, which is to say, how it might function in a fantasy setting, including its advantages and drawbacks. "The Hide of the Ancestor" by Chris Watson is a short RuneQuest scenario about the recovery of a relic holy to the twenty-six tribes of the Ithillian-Fane, a race of lion-centaurs. I find it oddly refreshing to read a RQ adventure set in Glorantha whose author feels comfortable enough with the setting to his own creations, like the Ithillian-Fane to it. Too often settings like Glorantha – and Tékumel and Hârn and ... – are treated as inviolable to the point that no one is even willing to play in them, lest they "do it wrong." That's nonsense in my opinion, which is why I delight in scenarios like "The Hide of the Ancestor."

"Gentlemen and Players" by Richard Edwards and Chris Elliott is nice little article about creating British characters for use with Call of Cthulhu. As its title suggests, the article focuses on the creation of "gentlemen" (or aristocratic amateurs) and "players" (professional sportsmen). "Hitting the Right Note" by Ian Berridge presents information on musical instruments, their use, and the how to learn to play them for use with AD&D. Articles like this are godsends to those whose campaigns would benefit from such fine details – and absolutely useless to those whose campaigns wouldn't.

"Alternative Origins" by Ian Thomson is a collection of random tables for use with Games Workshop's Golden Heroes. The tables are intended to replace those presented in the game for character generation in order to produce more "convincing" heroes whose powers are an incompatible jumble. This makes good sense to me, but then I haven't looked at a copy of Golden Heroes in decades, so it's hard for me to judge how useful this article would be. Elsewhere, Joe Dever offers part three of his look at "Dioramas," accompanied by some lovely – though non-diorama – photographs of painted miniatures.

The issue also includes more "Thrud the Barbarian," a full-page "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," which continues its Shadows-inspired plotline. I particularly enjoyed the latter, especially this bit:

Of course, I've always been fond of the way that "The Travellers" blends Traveller-specific humor with more general lampoonery of roleplaying games, so I may be biased. In any case, it's nice to see that one of my favorite comics remains as amusing ever, even if White Dwarf as a whole looks to be on the verge of some monumental – and not entirely pleasing – changes.

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

White Dwarf: Issue #73

Issue #73 of White Dwarf (January 1986) features a cover by Lee Gibbons, an artist whose work I recall from various Call of Cthulhu products over the years. Inside, Ian Livingstone boasts of the fact that the UK pharmacy chain, Boots, has "decided to stock role-playing games, Citadel miniatures, and Fighting Fantasy books." He sees this as a major victory that will help "dispel the illusion of [the hobby's] being a weirdos' cult."

Having grown up in the United States, I find this fascinating. For all the overheated rhetoric about Dungeons & Dragons in certain quarters, RPGs and fantasy games had been readily available in major retail chains across the country since the beginning of the 1980s, if not before. However, Livingstone states that Boots is "the first major chain to stock a large range of rolegames in the country." This surprises me. When I was an exchange student in London in 1987, I had no trouble finding RPGs in most of the bookshops I visited and so assumed they had been a fixture in such places for a long time, as they were in the USA.

"Open Box" reviews Queen Victoria & the Holy Grail, a scenario for Games Workshop's Golden Heroes, which nets a score of 8 out of 10. Also reviewed is another Games Workshop product, Judge Dredd – The Role-Playing Game, which earns a perfect 10 out of 10. I remember wanting a copy of this game for a long time, but never encountered it for sale anywhere on this side of the Atlantic. The Dungeons & Dragons Master Rules receive a (in my opinion) very charitable 8 out of 10, while Unearthed Arcana is given a serious drubbing (4 out of 10). The reviewer, Paul Cockburn, has many reasonable criticisms of the book, a great many of which I share. His biggest complaint seems to be that UA "is about as important to running a good game as Official character sheets or figures." I find it hard to disagree.

"2020 Vision" is a new column "covering fantasy and science-fiction movies" by Colin Greenland. The inaugural column focuses on two movies, Back to the Future, which Greenland enjoyed, and The Goonies, which he most certainly did not. He also reviews The Bride, "a hokey new variation on The Bride of Frankenstein," about which his opinion is more mixed. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass," meanwhile, does what he usually does: looks down his nose at various books, only a couple of which I've ever heard of, let alone read. It's a shame really, because it's clear that Langford is quite a talented writer in his own right, but most of his columns simply leave me flat. Some of that, no doubt, is the alienating effect of time. He is, after all, writing about the literary ephemera of three or more decades ago; it would be a miracle if it were still of vital interest to me today.

"Power & Politics" is an interview with Derek Carver, in which he talks about his boardgame, Warrior Knights. From the interview, it would seem the game is in the same general ballpark as Kingmaker in terms of overall focus and complexity, though it's set in a fictitious medieval European country rather than a real one. The game was (of course) published by Games Workshop, hence the two pages devoted to what is essentially an advertisement for it.

I usually don't comment on the letters page of most issues of White Dwarf, because they're rarely of lasting import. This issue is a little different in that it's been expanded to two pages (from the usual one) and it's given over to lots of arguments back and forth about the merits of previous articles, not to mention letters attacking and defending said articles. This time, much ink is spilled with regards to Marcus L. Rowland's review of Twilight: 2000 from issue #68. Rowland, you may recall, intensely disliked the game and what he saw as its inherent immorality, calling it "fairly loathsome." Judging by the letters in this issue, not everyone shared Rowland's assessment and felt the need to say so. Of course, others very much agreed with him. Reading the letters for and against, it's a reminder that the past really is a foreign country.

Simon Burley's "The American Dream" is a lengthy scenario for Golden Heroes that focuses on a former American superheroine who has gone rogue in order to take down corruption within the secret government organization that trained her. It's delightfully overwrought and cynical and very much in keeping with the general spirit of the late 1980s. "3-D Space" by Bob McWilliams takes another stab at a classic Traveller "problem," namely, the game's star maps are two-dimensional. As he so often does, McWilliams makes a challenging topic easy to understand. In this case, though, I remain unconvinced that much is gained by adopting a more "realistic" style of stellar mapping.

"Star Spray" by Graham Staplehurst is an adventure set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, written for use with both AD&D and Middle-earth Role Playing. The adventure takes place in southern Gondor and concerns the fate of Maglor, the second son of Feänor, who disappeared during the First Age. It's clear that Staplehurst knows his Tolkien and "Star Spray" makes good use of that knowledge to present a situation that's more than just a dungeon delve in Middle-earth. Good stuff!

"First This, Then That" by Oliver Johnson is a fairly forgettable bit of advice on adjudicating the rules of RuneQuest. I'm sure the article seemed very relevant at the time, but, in retrospect, it's hard to muster much interest in it – the fate of a lot of gaming material, alas. "Cults of the Dark Gods 2" by A.J. Bradbury looks at the Bavarian Illuminati from the perspective of Call of Cthulhu. "A New Approach to Magic Weapons" by Michael Williamson is an interesting, if frustratingly sketchy, plea to give magic weapons in AD&D more "oomph" by rooting them in a setting's history. I'm very sympathetic to this approach, since I think there should be no "generic" magic weapons in any campaign, but, unfortunately, Williamson provides only the barest hint of a way to implement this mechanically. That's a shame, because I very much think he's on to something.

"Jungle Jumble" gives us four new jungle-themed monsters for use with AD&D, including vampire bats and army wasps. Joe Dever's "Dioramas" is the second part of his look at this intriguing topic, focusing this time on "scenic effects," like sand, snow, water, and foliage. I continue to find this column enjoyable, despite my own lack of experience with miniatures painting. The issue also includes new episodes of its long-running comics, "Thrud the Barbarian," "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," all of which are diverting, if not always memorably so.

The transformation of White Dwarf into a full-on Games Workshop house organ continues apace. While there are still quite a few articles devoted to non-GW games and topics, more and more space is devoted to GW's own publications. While probably a good business decision – Games Workshop still exists today and most of its contemporary competitors do not – it does lessen the magazine's appeal in my eyes. I'm going to keep soldiering on with this series for the foreseeable future. How long I'll be able to do so is another question ...

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

White Dwarf: Issue #71

Issue #71 of White Dwarf (November 1985) boasts an eye-catching Alan Craddock cover, featuring a team-up between a heroic knight and a Conan-esque barbarian, as they face off against a demonic horde. Meanwhile, Ian Livingstone's editorial focuses on the expansion of gaming conventions within the UK, which he suggests will result in "gamers up and down the country ... hav[ing] even greater opportunities to participate in their hobby, and meet famous personalities as well as other players." As someone whose own con experiences are quite limited, I'm fascinated by just how important conventions are, not simply to many gamers, but also to the history of the hobby itself. It's a pity I live in a wasteland when it comes to this sort of thing.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" kicks off this issue. In addition to his usual reviews of books I've never read and, therefore, don't care about, he spends some time talking about "huge blockbusters arcing down from interliterary space." In reference to Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's Footfall, for example, he elucidates the flaws of blockbuster-style fiction, specifically "momentum takes 100 pages to build, several of the teeming characters are dispensable, and megadeaths are glossed over." These remain issues in this style of popular fiction even today, which is why I prefer short stories over 600-page doorstops.

"Open Box" reviews two gamebooks I've never encountered before: Avenger! and Assassin! (both 8 out of 10). Published by Knight Books, they take place in a world of "Kung Fu meets AD&D," with the viewpoint character being a ninja. The description of the books' unarmed combat system sounds genuinely interesting. Also reviewed is the Paranoia adventure, Vapors Don't Shout Back (7 out of 10), Masks of Nyarlathotep for Call of Cthulhu (9 out of 10), and Thrilling Locations for James Bond 007 (9 out of 10).

"The Face of Chaos" by Peter Vialls is yet another article discussing the contentious topic of alignment in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I must confess this topic bores me to tears, but, judging by the number of articles written about it over the years, I must be in the minority. In any event, Vialls rehearses all the usual beats – What is alignment anyway? How does Chaos differ from Law? Isn't Neutral a cop-out?, etc. – without offering any answers that are new or interesting. That's no knock against him, of course, just an acknowledgment that, after decades of debate, there's not much insight left to be gleaned, so why not write about something else?

"Not Waving But Drowning" by Dave Lucas presents RuneQuest stats for the fossergrim and nereid. "Cults of the Dark Gods" by A J Bradbury provides historical information on the Assassins and Knights Templar for use with Call of Cthulhu. However, Bradbury doesn't give either group any significant connection to the Mythos, which leaves me wondering about the actual purpose of the article. Fortunately, this month's installment of Thrud the Barbarian leaves no doubt as to its purpose, to wit:

"A Box of Old Bones" by Dave Morris is a low-level adventure written for use with both AD&D and Dragon Warriors. Dual-use scenarios of this sort appeared regularly in the pages of White Dwarf and I have long wondered how often anyone made use of the "lesser" of the two game systems for which it was written. In any case, this scenario is a clever and original one that focuses on the theft of a saint's relics, hence its title. There's no magic or miracles here, only human greed, which I found refreshing – an excellent change of pace adventure.

"Avionics Failure" by James Cooke discusses what happens when a Traveller starship suffers damage to its sensors, providing a random failure table to aid the referee in adjudicating the matter. It's not a sexy or groundbreaking article, but it looks useful for ongoing play and that's not nothing. The Travellers comic begins a new storyline, one based on the classic GDW adventure, Shadows. As always, there are lots of fun little bits in the comic. My favorite is the following:

There's yet more Traveller content in this issue, in the form of Marcus L. Rowland's "Tower Trouble." This is a terrific adventure designed for high-skilled criminal characters who are planning a heist on Terra Tower, a beanstalk (as we'd call it today) stretching from Earth's equator to syncrhonous orbit. The scenario is well written, has great maps and referee's advice, and includes pre-generated characters with a lot of individuality. I'm half-tempted to try running sometime as a one-shot, because it looks like fun.

"Monsters Have Feelings Too Two" by Olive MacDonald is a follow-up to an article originally appearing in issue #38. This time, MacDonald wants to emphasize that intelligent monsters shouldn't be one-trick ponies. They can (and should) be used in a variety of different ways within a campaign. This is why MacDonald uses only a sub-set of the monsters available in any given game he referees, since he finds it more interesting to make those he does use multifaceted. I find this hard to argue with and have long argued that games like D&D probably have too many monsters. "Just Good Fiends" by Ian Marsh looks at a related question: what makes a good monster? While Marsh isn't opposed to the idea of introducing new monsters into a game, he does think that every monster should serve a purpose or fill a niche within a game or campaign setting. This is a solid, thoughtful article on a topic that has long been of interest to me.

"Divine Guidance" presents two new oracular magic items for use with Dungeons & Dragons: the Card of Shukeli and Tellstones. The former is a kind of prophetic Tarot card whose face changes based on the imminent fortune of the person who finds it, while latter are paired stones whose temperatures change based on how close they are to one another ("getting warmer ..."). Joe Dever's "Think Ink," in which he talks about a topic of which I knew nothing: the use of drawing inks to tint painted miniatures. Dever's articles never cease to amaze me with the technical knowledge they impart. It's a reminder (yet again) that I know nothing about miniatures painting. Finally, "Gobbledigook" gets a full page to this month's episode, in which we see graphic evidence that "Goblinz never fight fair!"