Would you care for a bowl of cream to go with that?

The awfully snarky people at Gamegrene.com have posted the first review of D&D 5th Edition. Here's an excerpt:

"And yes, you heard me right: that's at least a guaranteed level every night. Entitlement is the new word in role-playing, and Dungeons & Dragons delivers. Begone unfairness, imbalance and asymmetry! Everyone is rewarded at the same pace regardless of ability or effort. The reward is playing the game."

I like the review. I like it a lot.

Traveller Tuesday: The Influence of D&D

"Traveller is necessarily a framework describing the barest of essentials for an infinite universe; obviously rules which could cover every aspect of every possible action would be far larger than these three booklets. A group involved in playing a scenario or campaign can make their adventures more elaborate, more detailed, more interesting, with the input of a great deal of imagination."

As soon as Traveller appeared on the local gaming scene, its literary roots were fairly evident. Growing up in Minneapolis, I was relatively lucky in having not one, but two science fiction specialty bookstores in town: Uncle Hugo's SF Bookstore, and Dreamhaven Books (back then known as the Complete Enchanter). So even a cursory examination of the rules provided some clues about the background influences on the game. But the biggest influence on the structure of the game was Original D&D. The quote provided above is a direct parallel to the Afterward of The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures:

"There are unquestionably areas which have been glossed over. While we deeply regret the necessity, space requires that we put in the essentials only, and the trimming will oftimes have to be added by the referee and his players. We have attempted to furnish an ample framework, and building should be both easy and fun. In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rules interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way!"

There are differences in writing style, to be sure. However, this ought not disguise the very clear connection between Original D&D and Traveller. If the "three little brown booklets" defined fantasy role-playing, then the three little black booklets of Traveller defined science fiction role-playing. This parallelism between the two games shows in the break-out of the rules of Traveller:

• Book One: Characters and Combat (D&D: Men & Magic)
  
• Book Two: Starships (D&D: Monsters & Treasure)
  
• Book Three: Worlds and Adventures (D&D: The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures)

To be sure, the match was not exact - but even in the most obvious case, Book Two, starships were very much a "prize" to be sought by player-characters either as a part of the character creation process or through acquisition during play. Starships could also be "monsters" in the form of hostile encounters in star systems.

But the deeper point here is that the perceptive crew at GDW did not see very much value in messing with success. Besides the parallel in structure (which I mentioned earlier), what Traveller and Original D&D had in common was a design that expected referees and players to add their own elements to the game. Put another way, the lack of background was seen as a design feature, not a "bug" or "missing part."

What did this all mean, back in 1977? Mostly that it felt perfectly natural to sit down and randomly generate characters, build starships, and come up with worlds and adventures - just like we had been doing with D&D for several years up until that point. There wasn't any "Third Imperium" - at this stage of creation, rather than designing sandbox fantasy realms to explore, we set forth creating sandbox star systems to explore. If that's not "old school" I'm not sure what is.

The Book of Weird

"Trudge: the slow, weary, yet determined walk of someone who has no alternative but to continue."

This whimsical definition is from Barbara Byfield's The Book of Weird - "being a most desirable lexicon of the fantastical" and therefore of interest to gamers. I ran across a copy when I was a teenager, and found myself taken with the gently satirical and slightly otherworldly tone of this book. Published just over 40 years ago as The Glass Harmonica, it has been in and out of print several times since then.

It's hard to describe the utility of this book. Coming at it four decades later, it would be relatively easy but incorrect to call it a precursor to Diane Wynne Jones' The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Pulling definitions out - particularly the short ones such as the one given above - are tantalizing tastes of the gestalt found within the pages of the book. For myself, the subject of the book hearkens back to another favorite of mine, Hope Mirrlees' Lud-in-the-Mist, but only somewhat. It provides a strong sense of how familiar and yet how strange various elements of fantasy really are, especially in this kind of iconic imagining through the act of definition. You can find out about the differences between churls, oafs, and fools; what an arras is useful for; beaux and their sartorial elegance; and what to do when you have been imprisoned and walled up with a cask of amontillado - and that's just a start.

For old school D&D players, the light and deft touch of this book can be overwhelmed by the usual round of boisterous play, so a referee should be cautious about using The Book of Weird directly in their campaign; it is much better as a background reference (of the sort that should have players waking up in the middle of the night wondering, "now what did he mean by that?"). Over time, I found its best use as one of several touchstone sources of whimsical imagination - so did Garth Nix, interestingly enough - and I suspect you might, too, if you were to get a copy.

Microlite 74 2.0 released

Taking a page from Chgowiz, I am happy to report that Microlite 74 2.0 has been released. This is a derivative of Microlite 20, an elegantly reduced-to-its-essentials version of the D20 system. Microlite 74 is a version that happily recreates much of the "flavor" of older games, such as Original D&D and B/X D&D, using mechanics familiar to anyone who has played a D20 game.

I have to admit to being mightily intrigued by Microlite 74; I almost chose it over Labyrinth Lord for my once-a-week-at-my-FLGS drop-in campaign. A great deal of my interest is centered on just how minimal a system Microlite 74 really is, creating a lot of room for referee adjudication while still keeping a set of simple core mechanics. Matthew Finch has noted that "old school" gaming is less about rules than rulings - I agree with that, and I think that Microlite 74 gets at that issue quite successfully by being as brief and spare as it is.

It is worth noting that Microlite 74 is not "just another retro-clone" game; it, along with Microlite 20, are part of a somewhat different movement about minimalist rules and settings for games. Some of the other examples of this that impress me include Spylite 20, Scions of a Primordial Planet, and Microlite 20 itself. I think there are some interesting implications of such a design philosophy above and beyond "quick and free" - not the least of which is a structural aversion to "railroading" through a minimalist scale and maintaining a focus on material being necessary only as needed. I also think it could allow for truly different campaigns - Scions being a good example - precisely because the focus of creation is away from rules and more on setting. (There's a project I have in mind related to all of this, but I'll be writing about that in a different post.)

Now I can't say I was totally pleased with the release of Microlite 74. The only quibble I have is that I was just getting ready to put together my minimalist campaign using the Microlite 74 1.1 rules, and I just wish the designers could have read my mind and either waited to release 2.0 or done it sooner. :)

Running across old notes: Dungeons & Sorcery

Ever run across old notes for a game or campaign? Ever find yourself wondering, "Where did this come from? What the heck was I thinking?"

That's what happened to me recently. I found some notes on 3x5 cards for something I dimly recall having named Dungeons & Sorcery. Here's an example:

D&S: Weapon Proficiency
Warriors 1 every three levels, starting number: 4
Rogues 1 every four levels, starting number: 3
Clerics 1 every five levels, starting number: 2
Mages 1 every five levels, starting number: 1
Everyman 1 every four levels, starting number: 2
1 per group, 1 per weapon (must precede group), 1 per expertise (must take group)

I think what I was doing here was trying to come up with a system for weapon proficiency, similar to that of the first campaign in which I was really active, and related to AD&D's weapon proficiencies. It was part of a system I was working on by fits and starts, which I had decided to call Dungeons & Sorcery.

As far as I can remember, Dungeons & Sorcery was going to be a kind of proto-retro-clone game, based loosely on AD&D. I remember trying to run a few sessions of it back in 2001 or so, right as 3rd Edition was getting very popular. It went over like a lead balloon at the time. People wanted all that detail found in the glossy new hardcovers, and the unnecessary complexity of the new system hadn't yet made itself apparent.

I think a major reason why D&S did not get off the ground was that I was daunted by the sheer weight of trying to redo all of the old rules, modify them, and then present them in a coherent fashion. Coming across my old notes again leads me to have more respect for Matthew Finch, Dan Proctor, and others who have actually put together various versions of our old game. While I doubt I would actually try to cobble together D&S - but I might try to put together some of my notes into a supplement for Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord.

Review - CITYBOOK I: Butcher Baker, Candlestick Maker

If dungeons are the beginning point of adventure, towns and cities are at the end. After all, adventurers needs someplace to go to rest and recuperate, get magic items identified, and spend all that loot they've accumulated from their perilous journeys into the unknown, right? Recognizing this, the earliest D&D campaigns - Blackmoor and Greyhawk - were not only named for their dungeons but also for their nearby towns and cities.

However, there is little guidance in Original D&D for how to put together a town or a city; I suspect Dave and Gary assumed that was the easy part of running a campaign. I certainly like coming up with stuff for cities and towns, but that's not necessarily true for everybody. Recognizing this, Flying Buffalo, Inc. produced Citybook I as part of their Catalyst series of all-system supplements, and published in 1982.

Citybook I: Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker "...is not a complete city....while the establishments are described in detail, the choice of business included are those a group of adventurers is most likely to have an immediate interest in." Basically, a referee can use the 25 establishments and their various NPCs in whatever way they want. While you could use the book as the framework for an entire city (which would be up to you as the referee to detail completely), it's more likely you would pick and choose what you wanted to include in your campaign. That's certainly what I did for my Southlands campaign, placing two Citybook businesses in Westguard town:

• Skywhite's House of Lavation: Adventuring can be a dirty business, and to wash away the grime of the quest there is no finer establishment in the City than Skywhite's House of Lavation. This includes the plans for a quiet, almost Oriental style bathhouse, the four NPCs associated with it - the brother and sister who own and run it, and the two young musicians who work there, and three scenario ideas. "Those who refuse to take tea have their fees politely refunded, and are shown out with the admonition to return when in a better mood for a proper bathing experience...."
  
• Larkspur the Leach: For the treatment of wounds, broken bones, disease, and other unpleasant legacies of the adventuring trade, the man to see is Larkspur. It might seem odd to include a chirurgeon in a fantasy world where clerics can heal, but it is also the case that someone like Larkspur might know things that a cleric would not. In addition to Larkspur, there's Dame Gerda who cleans his house, and again, three scenario ideas. "He is especially eager to operate on non-human kindred such as elves and dwarves, since he knows very little concerning the physiology of these races." (!)
  

It was actually tempting to add more.

Each one of the establishments in Citybook I is well-detailed but not so much so that a referee can't add their own material. The lack of specific system information makes it easy for a referee to take the relatively abstract descriptions of fighting and magical ability and specify them using the rules of their choice. The book itself is divided into an introductory section, with guidelines for the referee, an article on "City Mastering and Citybuilding," an explanation and key for all maps, and more ideas for referees. Following this, there are:

• Lodging and Entertainment: an inn and a tavern
• Personal Services: eight businesses ranging from Skywhite's House of Lavation to Sleaz's Tattoo Parlor
• Hardware: Five businesses including a swordsmith, a bowyer, and a stable.
• Food Services: three unique eateries
• Community Services: a clocktower and a bellman's service (so who distributes the news in your campaign? Think about it.)
• Spiritual Services: a temple, a mortuary and a cemetery (all those player-characters lost in battle need a decent burial, right?)
• Security Services: a barracks and a jail

...and the storylines and characters included for each of these have suggestions for connecting them to other establishments detailed in the book. The artwork and maps including with all of this are excellent - the maps are nicely detailed, and the artwork is evocative inkwork in black and white. Many of the character portraits are by Liz Danforth, whose distinctive and attractive style can be found in everything from Tunnels & Trolls to Challenge magazine articles for Twilight: 2000 to, well, here.

As you can probably tell, I really like Citybook I. Each establishment is detailed enough to be used "as is" but written to allow for individual modification and further creativity, and presented in an attractive format. If I had a criticism of Citybook I it would be that the backgrounds for each establishment are sufficiently interesting to become a distraction from a dungeon as the focus for player-character attention. But if that's what's wrong with this book...well, that's hardly a criticism.

Rating: five dragons out of five.

Remembering Gary; Thinking of Dave

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I never got a chance to really meet Gary Gygax. I now regret that, if only because he was responsible, along with Dave Arneson, for a significant influence on my life: role-playing gaming. Since Gary died one year ago today, I've taken some time to read the memorials written by other people.

They are heart-felt, touching, and the number of them is astounding.

I was overwhelmed quite quickly by the depth and strength of feeling - and could not help but feel some of it myself. While the memories of interacting with Gary were touching, I also appreciated the reflections that people wrote about regarding role-playing in their own lives. Probably the one I like the most is the advice given by Jeff Rients about how to remember Gary.

So even though I've always known Gary from afar, I've been remembering him today. Which almost automatically led me to think of Dave Arneson, who is still alive and with us yet today. Dave is the other author of D&D; the one who started it all with Blackmoor, and whose association with Gary led to the creation of D&D. As some of you know, Dave and Gary felt out over business matters related to D&D, and that rift never really healed. As time passed, both of them went on to do other things - Gary to write for other systems after having been shut out of TSR, and Dave to teach game design at Full Sail College in Florida. But it must be remembered that it was the both of them that brought us our favorite hobby.

For everyone mourning Gary, let me suggest that you raise a toast to Dave, and let him know that you appreciate him, as well.