In light of a recent Pulp Fantasy Library entry, I thought readers might enjoy this write-up of Clark Ashton Smith's sorcerer, Maal Dweb. The description originally appeared in the "Giants in the Earth" column appearing in issue #30 of Dragon (October 1979), written by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay (though I suspect, given his love of Smith, that Moldvay was likely the author of this particular character).

"Giants in the Earth" was an irregular series of articles that appeared in Dragon between issues #26 (June 1979) and #61 (May 1982). Co-written by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay, its purpose was to present notable characters from literature in (A)D&D terms. During its run, more than 40 characters made an appearance, running the gamut from John Carter of Mars to Maal Dweb to Reepicheep and more. While certain authors, like Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber, and their creations receive lots of attention, others show up more infrequently.

I think it's fair to say that Gary Gygax had a very thin skin when it came to criticisms of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game line, even when the criticisms weren't aimed at a book or module in which he had a hand. A good example of what I'm talking about can found in the "From the Sorceror's [sic] Scroll" column he penned for issue #66 of Dragon (October 1982). There, Gygax responds to criticism of Deities & Demigods.

The first edition of Gamma World was published in 1978, but did not receive any official support from TSR until 1981, when the company released both the Referee's Screen and Legion of Gold. What makes the former worthy of discussion is its inclusion of an 8-page "mini-module," written by Paul Reiche III and developed by Lawrence Schick. Entitled "The Albuquerque Starport," it offers not really an adventure but the description of three different locales, each of which could serve as the basis for one or more scenarios on their own, or in tandem. 

As its title suggests, "The Albuquerque Starport" takes the futuristic setting of Gamma World as a fact. Indeed, the mini-module places it front and center, since the three locales it describes are the starport itself, a passenger space shuttle, and a space station in orbit above the Earth. All of these locales include details and elements that hit home that GW's apocalypse occurred several hundred years in our future. Indeed, I'll go so far as to say that "The Albuquerque Starport" is the most clearly futuristic of all the products released for the first edition of the game.

That said, the starport section is probably the weakest in this regard, since it is clearly modeled on what commercial airports were like at the time it was written. There is, for example, a restaurant (with cash register), a gift shop, and baggage claim area. However, in many cases, Reiche made an effort to "futurize" what he describes. Thus, the restaurant is "totally automated" and served by robots, as is the kitchen that serves it ("filled with all manner of cooking apparatus, including a quark-powered cooker, a selenium stone, and a maxi-boron boiler."). You'll still find references to "paperback novels" in the gift shop, as well as paper, pencils, and keys – why not staged I.D. devices? – that reflect a 20th century reality, alongside the robots, broadcast power receiving stations, and nervium-12 anti-theft gas.

The description of the shuttle is short, but, by necessity, it demonstrates the high-tech nature of the pre-apocalyptic world. Aboard the vessel, there are "tri-vid amusement games," a null-grav jump shaft instead of an elevator, "acceleration couches," and similar wonders of the Ancients. Like so many things in the mini-module, the shuttle is fully automated, which is convenient, since it means the player characters aren't required to figure out its workings in order to be able to make use of it. That's both a dramatic contrivance and precondition for their reaching the third section of the mini-module, the space station.

The space station is where "The Albuquerque Starport" tells us the most about the setting of Gamma World. The docking pods of the station, whose floors are covered by "bright shag rug[s]," – a concession to the 1970s? – have posters that advertise "the splendors of the cloud cities of Jupiter, the intra-ring pleasure ports of Saturn, and many other famous vacation spots around the solar system." With that, Reiche paints a picture of a solar system-spanning human civilization that I've always found very intriguing. 

Shortly thereafter, he describes "matter transmitter pads" that "once transported shuttle passengers to the large outbound starships located farther out in orbit," Star Trek-style. The reference to starships is suggestive, implying that mankind had in fact traveled beyond the aforementioned pleasure ports of Saturn to other star systems. This implication is proven to be correct, when the dreaded Canpous plague is described as "an alien disease brought back to Earth by long-range scoutships in the early 2300's." The star Canopus is more than 300 light years away from our solar system. Even if these long-range scoutships were unmanned, it suggests, at the very least, that, prior to the End, humans were well on their way toward exploring the galaxy. 

Finally, the space station section includes "The Moon Survival Store," where "specialized survival gear for travelers going to the moon" can be found – once again implying regular travel beyond the Earth. There are a variety of high-tech pharmaceuticals to be found, in addition to clothing made from "rayon, nylon, dacron, ultron, and other man-made fabrics." None of these things play a significant role aboard the station and are unlikely to be important to the player characters. Nevertheless, they help to paint a picture of a futuristic world – or at least what someone from the late '70s or early '80s might have imagined such a world to look like.

As a kid, I simply adored "The Albuquerque Starport," though I doubt I could have articulated why beyond, "I like spaceships" or something equally banal. Now, as I look at it more critically, I realize that its appeal lies in the way it brings the futuristic elements of Gamma World's setting to the foreground. In addition, it expands that setting beyond Earth and starts my mind wondering, "What happened to Earth's interplanetary settlements and installations? Did they survive the End intact or did they suffer their own catastrophes?" That it does both these things in the span of only six pages of text makes it all the more remarkable.

Also from Dragon #48 (April 1981) is the write-up below, written by Lawrence J. Schick and illustrated by Jeff Dee. Of particular interest is that Schick references elements of the original "Known World" setting that he co-created with the late Tom Moldvay in the mid-1970s (and that would later be incorporated into the D&D Expert Rulebook published in the same year as this article).

In light of a recent Pulp Fantasy Library entry, I thought readers might enjoy this write-up of Clark Ashton Smith's sorcerer, Maal Dweb. The description originally appeared in the "Giants in the Earth" column appearing in issue #30 of Dragon (October 1979), written by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay (though I suspect, given his love of Smith, that Moldvay was likely the author of this particular character).

I'll briefly reiterate what I wrote in my retrospective post of Slave Pits of the Undercity: I have conflicting feelings about the entirety of the "Slave Lords" series of modules. On the one hand, the central conceit of these adventures – taking down a cabal of slavers – is a terrific one very much in keeping with the pulp fantasy roots of Dungeons & Dragons. It's not hard to imagine Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser engaged in such an endeavor. On the other hand, the modules, as published, feel very contrived and formulaic, owing no doubt to their origins as GenCon tournament modules. There's good stuff in all four of the A-series modules, but none of them quite achieve their full potential in my opinion, which is a shame.

That's especially so in the case of the final module in the series, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. Written by Lawrence Schick, the adventure is geared toward characters of levels 4–7, like all of its predecessors, though its introductory "Notes for the Dungeon Master" repeatedly points out that "the player's skill, not the character's level, will determine success." That's because it assumes the characters failed in their assault on the aerie of the slave lords (in the module of this name) and were taken captive. Rather than slay the PCs, the slave lords instead throw them into their dungeons, "totally bereft of equipment and spells." Schick comments on this initial situation as follows:

Many players think of their characters in terms of their powers and possessions, rather than as people. Such players will probably be totally at a loss for the first few minutes of play. It is likely that they will be angry at the DM for putting them in such an "unfair" situation. They will demand or beg concessions. DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY HELP, even if they make you feel sorry for them. Inform the players that they must rely on what they have, not what they used to have, and that this includes their brains and their five senses. Good players will actually welcome the challenge of this scenario. All players will ultimately enjoy the module much more if they out on their own resources, rather than with what hints and clues the DM gives them.

Schick accurately predicted the reactions of my friends with whom I played; they were incensed to have had all their characters' gear taken away. I suspect this reaction was commoner if the module was used as part of regular campaign play, as it was in mine, than in a tournament situation, whose players, in my limited experience, are more accepting of such contrivances. Much more interesting, though, is Schick's insistence that the referee neither give the players any help nor feel sorry for them. "Good players," he intones, "will … welcome the challenge." He was accurate in that prediction as well. Once they got past the initial shock of their characters being tossed, nearly naked and unarmed, into dark, dank, caverns, they started to have fun figuring out how best to survive. 

That's the main reason why I consider In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords perhaps the most interesting of the A-series modules: it does something unique, namely force the players to use their wits to keep their characters alive. Of course, it probably helps that many of the opponents in the eponymous dungeons are fairly weak – kobolds and giant insects of various kinds – but there are still enough genuine threats to keep them on their toes. This is no cakewalk.

And then there are the myconids, for which I have an inordinate fondness. There's just something about mushrooms and fungi generally that I not only find weirdly appealing but that screams "fantasy!" to me. I suppose my boyhood reading of Lewis Carroll played a role in this peculiar fixation of mine. Regardless, I love the myconids, who are not wholly indifferent to the characters' plight. Indeed, if they agree to perform a service to the myconid king, it will reveal to them an easier means of escaping the dungeons. I have always liked the inclusion of neutral factions in dungeons and Schick does a good job, I think, of showing the potential inherent in such encounters.

The conclusion of the module involves a final confrontation with the slave lords amidst a volcanic eruption that is destroying the villains' home base. Like many aspects of the module, it's all rather contrived and, in my opinion, something of an anticlimax not just to this module but to the whole series. Mind you, disappointment is my overall feeling about these adventures. There's unquestionable potential in them, along with a number of genuinely clever sections and elements, but, in the end, the whole winds up being much less than its parts. I can't help but think that, with a bit more work, the A-series could have been truly memorable, on par with the truly great modules of D&D's past. 

In my weekly summaries of the contents of Chaosium's Different Worlds magazine issues, I rarely comment on the letters column, "Different Views." Occasionally, though, there are entries worthy of commentary and, in such cases, I make a post to highlight them. In issue #22 (July 1982) – about which I'll talk tomorrow – there's a lengthy letter written by Lawrence Schick, a game designer once employed by TSR, perhaps best known for White Plume Mountain. Schick was also editor of Deities & Demigods, an AD&D book about which I have generally negative feelings and it's about that book that he penned the letter that appeared in Different Worlds.

Issue #19 of the magazine featured a scathing review of DDG by Patrick Amory. Amory disliked the book even more than I do, saying it was "fit only for the trash can." One might reasonably have expected Schick to have defended the book he edited, but he does not. Instead, he agrees with Amory's assessment and indeed amplifies them. Schick's letter, which I reproduce in full below is remarkable, not just for what it says about Deities & Demigods but how it says it. I can't help but wonder if Schick's feelings were at least partly colored by his experience of having been recently laid off by TSR at the time this letter appeared. That's not to suggest his feelings about the book aren't sincere – I have no reason to assume otherwise – but I doubt he'd have been so forthcoming were he still a TSR employee at the time.

I've long had a fondness for Chaosium's boxed sets, starting with Call of Cthulhu, the first RPG from the company I ever owned. From there, it was all downhill: with the exception of RuneQuest, I soon became a dedicated collector of Chaosium's boxed sets. Among those I treasured the most was Thieves' World, based on the fantasy anthology series of the same name edited by Robert Lynn Asprin. 

The boxed set, first published in 1981, consisted of three books and a collection of maps depicting the city of Sanctuary. The first book, Players' Guide to Sanctuary, serves as an introduction to not just the whole set but also its setting. Kicking off the book are two essays by contributors to the literary anthology, starting with Asprin's "Full Circle," which was simultaneously published in issue #12 of Different Worlds. Following it is "Thud and Blunder," Poul Anderson's essay skewering the excesses of sword-and-sorcery literature and a call to produce better entries in the genre. Rounding out the first book are discussions of the city, its inhabitants, history, and gods, as well as an extensive glossary of names and terms unique to Sanctuary.

The Game Master's Guide to Sanctuary presents a variety of articles on how to use the boxed set in one's campaign. These articles discuss bribery and graft, law and order, and the gods (in greater detail). More immediately useful are the extensive encounter tables, each tied to one of the city's districts. Each district gets its own article, including a map that describes the most important locales. In some cases, there are also maps of individual buildings. Wrapping up this book is a map of the city's sewers.

Personalities of Sanctuary is the third and perhaps most interesting book in the set. Each of its chapters describes the most important inhabitants of Sanctuary in terms of a different roleplaying game's rules – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (by Lawrence Schick), Adventures in Fantasy (by Dave Arneson and Richard Snider), Chivalry & Sorcery (by Wes Ives), DragonQuest (by Eric Goldberg), Dungeons & Dragons (by Steve Marsh), The Fantasy Trip (by Rudy Kraft), RuneQuest (by Steve Perrin), Tunnels & Trolls (by Ken St. Andre), and Traveller (by Marc Miller). The last one is notable, as Miller offers three different ways to integrate Thieves' World into Traveller's science fiction setting. The most interesting of these options is one that postulates that Sanctuary is a computer simulation created for entertainment – a kind of MMORPG for the citizens of the Third Imperium. Concluding the third book is a collection of scenario ideas.

There are three large maps included in Thieves' World: one depicting the whole city, another the Maze district, and the last one the underground areas of the same district. The maps are lovely, as is typical for Chaosium products from this era. 

Thieves' World is an impressive boxed set and I deeply regret that I long ago got rid of mine in a moment of stupidity. I absolutely adore the idea of fantasy cities, particularly those of a shady, crime-ridden sort like Lankhmar or Sanctuary. That said, I can't deny that the set nevertheless has flaws, chief among them being the amount of space devoted to describing all the characters in so many different RPG systems. I'd much rather that the book had provided statistics for only two or three rules sets – D&D, RQ, and T&T maybe? – and then used the freed space to flesh out the city further or expand the scenario ideas instead. Of course, I'd have been even happier if this product had been a complete Thieves' World fantasy roleplaying game using Basic Role-Playing, but I can't really complain in the end. If  only I'd kept my copy … 

In the run-up to the 40th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons in 2014, Wizards of the Coast did a series of reprints of older editions of the game, including some of its most iconic adventure modules. Dungeons of Dread was a book that reprinted all the AD&D S-series modules: Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. As these things go, it's decent enough, particularly if you never owned (or no longer owned) copies of these classic modules. 

More interesting, though, was the foreword by former TSR employee, Lawrence Schick, who offers an overview of the four modules. When discussing the third one, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, he says the following:

Vegepygmies and robots. What more could you need to hear? Let’s go! S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was Gary in full-on funhouse mode, having a high old time mixing elements of Jim Ward’s Gamma World with fantasy to create a rollicking and memorable AD&D adventure. Some remember Gary Gygax as the stern pontiff of AD&D, ruling on what was and wasn’t proper and decrying all heresy. What I remember is Gary the game designer, a mischievous man with a firm grasp on the Laws of Fun, who knew how to offset threat with humor, and who understood that players valued most what they worked hard to earn.

What a lovely tribute to one of the founding fathers of our hobby! For that matter, what terrific advice for referees to bear in mind as they run their own campaigns.

(Thanks to Quinton Baran, who recently reminded me of this passage)

They don't make adventure modules like Lawrence Shick's White Plume Mountain anymore. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing depends greatly, I think, on what one views as the point of adventures in Dungeons & Dragons. Indeed, it might more truly be said that if one expects adventures to have a point, then odds are good you won't think very well of modules like S2. The only "point" this thin 1979 release has is to provide a fun afternoon's diversion, testing your wits against those of its fiendish designer.

White Plume Mountain is what I call a "funhouse" adventure, which is to say an adventure where naturalistic concerns take a backseat to challenging the players, regardless of logic (or lack thereof). Consequently, one shouldn't think too much about the plausibility of, say, kayaking on a river suspended in mid-air by means of magic, because there's little to be gained by doing so. Certainly one's character is no more likely to survive White Plume Mountain's tricks and traps by cogitating on how the evil wizard Keraptis produced such a wonder, let alone why he did so in the first place.

The basic set-up of White Plume Mountain is well-known: the PCs are hired to recover three mighty magical weapons -- the warhammer Whelm, the trident Wave, and the sword Blackrazor -- from the dungeons of the aforementioned Keraptis, said dungeons being carved inside an active volcano. Each of the magical weapons is powerful and intelligent, but so too is Keraptis, who is so sure that no one will defeat the traps and monsters that guard these stolen prizes that he dares them to try -- and in verse, no less!

Looking back on it now, what stands out is how small the dungeon actually is. There are only 27 numbered rooms in the place, but most of them are so formidable, or at least baffling, that one is left with the impression of White Plume Mountain as more grandiose a complex than it actually is. In that respect, it's a bit like The Tomb of Horrors, except that I've never met anyone who, three decades later, is still cursing Lawrence Schick's name the way many do Gary Gygax's. Part of that is that White Plume Mountain, while very difficult, isn't mean. The adventure doesn't feel like it was designed solely as a poke in the eye of boastful players, but rather as a puzzle or brain teaser good-naturedly offered by one friend to another.

That probably explains why I still have such fond memories of White Plume Mountain, even though I am not, as a rule, a big fan of funhouse dungeons. Somehow -- and I'm still not certain how -- Schick managed to present a challenging collection of tricks and traps, many of which will result in the deaths of the unwise and the unwary, and make it fun. I wasn't joking about the fact that I've never met anyone still bitter about a bad run through White Plume Mountain, because I'm not. In fact, I'd wager that we all know someone who has a great story to tell about a character's spectacular death in this module. Heck, we may have one ourselves. That's a rare achievement and one that truly recalls what I liked best about the Old Days, back when one could lose a character (or multiple characters) in the corridors of a well-made dungeon and do so with pleasure. White Plume Mountain reminds me of what it was like when it was fun to die, if the death was "well earned."

Gamers could probably use more well earned deaths these days.

Between 1979 and 1981, Lawrence Schick was employed by TSR Hobbies, during which time he was involved in numerous projects for both Dungeons & Dragons and other RPGs, such as Star Frontiers, which he co-designed with David Cook. I recently had the opportunity to ask him a few question about his time with TSR and more generally about his involvement in the game industry.

1. How did you first become involved in roleplaying?

In college at Kent State University in Ohio; my friend Tom Moldvay came back from a science fiction convention with a Xeroxed copy of the D&D white box rules – albeit missing a few key pages (as we later discovered). Though we didn’t have anyone to teach us how to play, we grasped the idea immediately, and very quickly began making up our own supplemental rules.

2. You're the author of White Plume Mountain, which remains one of the most famous of all AD&D modules ever produced, both because of its many unique puzzles and traps, as well as the presence of magic sword Blackrazor. What were your inspirations in creating this adventure?

White Plume Mountain was written as a sample document to persuade TSR to hire me as a game designer. I just plundered all the dungeons I’d designed over the previous four years, took out the best bits, and cobbled it all together. It worked; TSR hired me, bought the scenario, and published it as a module without changing a word. I’m a little embarrassed to this day by Blackrazor, inasmuch as it’s such a blatant rip-off of Elric’s Stormbringer; I would not have put it into the scenario if I ever thought it might be published.

3. Gary Gygax thanks you by name for your contributions to the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. Do you recall what you contributed to this book?

When I started work at TSR in January of 1979 Gygax handed me this huge, sprawling, unorganized manuscript and said, “Here’s the Dungeon Masters Guide – edit this.” So I did. There were a few things he wanted to include that he didn’t particularly want to write; for those parts he told me what he wanted, and I wrote them. Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of the original DMG at hand – I lost all my D&D stuff in my recent divorce – but I recall writing the Example of Play, some of the advice for Dungeon Masters, and a number of other bits here and there. But it was all under Gary’s direction, and he certainly deserves all the credit.

4. I believe that you were involved in the organization of D&D tournaments for TSR in the early days. Is that correct and, if so, did you see tournament play as an important part of the growth and development of the game?

The early TSR management consisted almost entirely of hardcore gamers who loved tournaments for their own sake and insisted that they be part of every convention TSR sponsored or participated in. So despite the fact that tournaments appealed to a very small percentage of D&D players, and designing for and managing tournaments drained development resources that could have been spent on publishing more or better products, we did lots of them. When I was head of the studio mid-’79 to mid-’81 I tried to make sure that any tournament scenarios we wrote could be repurposed as modules, but they’re two different animals, so we weren’t always successful. The A1-4 series of AD&D modules, for example, were originally written for a big tournament.

I enjoyed tournaments as much as anyone, but I did not, in fact, regard them as “an important part of the growth and development of the game.” I thought they were a distraction from what we should really have been doing, which was figuring out how to reach a broader audience. Eventually TSR came around to this idea, and created the RPGA to handle tournaments and suchlike hardcore community-building work.

5. It's interesting that you called tournaments "a distraction," because that's a view shared by many fans of older editions of D&D. Are there any particular approaches or projects that, in retrospect, you wish had been undertaken, because they would have done a better job of reaching out to a broader audience?

A more professional approach to publishing, instead of rampant cronyism and callous exploitation of the D&D fan base, would have enabled TSR to reach beyond the niche and find a broader audience. D&D would have been able to co-opt computer RPGs and collectible card games, instead of being steam-rollered by them. Ultimately Gygax and the Blumes were unable to transition effectively to the mass market, and thus lost control of their product and brand. I mean, I was only 24-25 years old in those days, and even then I could see where they were going wrong. They were done in by greed and arrogance.

6. You left the roleplaying world professionally many years ago. Are you still involved in the hobby?

My role-playing résumé is long and varied, and continues to this day. Here are the highlights:
- 1979-1981: Game designer for TSR.
- 1980s: occasional scenarios for game publishers (a DC Heroes for Mayfair, a Traveller for GDW), plus articles in RPG magazines.
- 1987-1993: Game designer for MicroProse software, eventually Producer of Role-Playing Games for them, including BloodNet, an Adventure/RPG.
- 1991: Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games published by Prometheus Press.
- 1990-1994 (sideline): Leader of Cruel Hoax Productions, a troupe of six who wrote and produced live-action role-playing games (LARPs) for 50-100 players. Invented Romance rules for LARPs.
- 1995-1999: General Manager and then Executive Director of all games for America Online (AOL); pioneered programming of casual games for a mass audience, while simultaneously pushing early MMO RPGs for hardcore gamers, which included (among many others) the original Neverwinter Nights and Ultima Online.
- 2007-2009: Joined Big Huge Games in Maryland to work with old friends Ken Rolston (Oblivion) and Brian Reynolds (Colonization; Rise of Nations) on a triple-A single-player RPG for Xbox and PS3; did system design and lead narrative design for their (now-canceled) game Ascendant.
- 2009: I have accepted an offer from ZeniMax Online Studio to be their Lead Content Designer on an unannounced MMO RPG, and will be starting there in two weeks.

7. Do you still get the opportunity to play traditional tabletop RPGs?

Sometimes at conventions. I play tabletop RPGs, miniatures games, and LARPs several times a year. But mostly I play console and PC RPGs, because that's what I make, and I need to stay current.