White Dwarf: Issue #4

Issue #4 of White Dwarf (December 1977/January 1978) features a cover by the incomparable John Blanche, who would later go on to become of the signature artists of Warhammer, in both its miniatures battles and RPG versions. Its opening editorial, by Ian Livingstone, bemoans the state of the British gaming industry, pointing out that, as of the time of publication, there was only one UK wargames company and none devoted to RPGs. I find this interesting, in light of the fact that Games Workshop would eventually become one of the juggernauts of the hobby and, while it no longer publishes its own RPGs, GW nevertheless remains a force to be reckoned with even in the 21st century.

"Alice in Dungeonland" by Don Turnbull is truly fascinating article in which the author describes eleven "features" of the "Alice level" of "the Greenlands Dungeon," which I can only assume was the "tent pole dungeon" of his home campaign. Equally fascinating is that, unlike Gary Gygax's Dungeonland, which directly translates people and places from Lewis Carroll's famous book into AD&D, the features of the "Alice level" are (mostly) inspired by things described in the Alice stories rather than directly imported. 

Lewis Pulsipher continues his series on "D&D Campaigns," this time discussing "some practical aspects of constructing dungeons and setting up a campaign." He notes that, more so than other articles in this series, it's intended for neophytes and "may not be of much use to veteran referees." Pulsipher is indeed correct in this assessment, as his advice, while completely sound, includes the sorts of things that most of us have reader dozens of times in many places. In fairness, some of this advice might have been genuinely new in 1977 (and, of course, it's always new to those who've never before served as a referee). 

The article entitled "Hyboria" is written by Tony Bath and provides an overview of his famed Hyboria miniatures wargames campaign. Though short, it's a terrific article for anyone interested in the process that led Bath to create his campaign setting. In some ways, it's better than Pulsipher's preceding article, even though it's far less detailed. I was also struck by his conclusions.

What are the lessons of Hyboria? Well, firstly, what you get out of a game is in relation to the amount of effort you put into it. Secondly, a well constructed fantasy soon takes on its own life, and from that point needs only minimal guidance. Finally, if you want to test the limits of your imagination and still keep the whole thing within a logical framework, there is no better medium than creating a fantasy world. Besides, it's fun!

I doubt anyone could disagree with anything he says here.

"Open Box" reviews Nomad Gods by Chaosium, Star Empires and Dungeon! by TSR, and Melee from Metagaming. Of the four games reviewed, Melee – the first part of The Fantasy Trip – is the one that receives the harshest criticism, mostly on the grounds that "there are no really original ideas in this game." The reviewer, Martin Easterbrook, seems to have felt that "anyone who has already adapted rules" would have no need of Melee, which is probably a fair point. It's a reminder, I suppose, that, in 1977, kit bashing of one degree or another was widely assumed; playing a game straight out of the box with no modifications was perhaps unusual, let alone the expectation that would could do so, hence reviews like this.

Don Turnbull returns with "Monsters Mild and Malign," where he talks about the process of creating new and unusual monsters with which to challenge players. He offers three of his own, in addition to citing examples he likes from other sources. More interesting to me was his principle of MERIT – "make empty rooms interesting too." According to this principle, the referee should set up

an array of magical effects, interesting traps, intriguing though valueless pieces of furniture, curious artifacts, new magical items or whatever strikes your fancy and which will present something of a challenge to intruders.

The question of empty rooms and the "best" way to present them remains a much debated matter. I confess that I continue to struggle with it myself, having come to no firm conclusions about it. It's a topic that's been on mind lately as I dive into the design of the main Vaults beneath the city of Inba-Iro in my upcoming sha-Arthan setting. I'll likely have more to say on this matter once I've begun play.

Brian Asbury presents a Barbarian character class that bears many similarities to the one that Gary Gygax would one day include in Unearthed Arcana, as well as many differences. This version of the barbarian is much less physically robust, having only six-sided hit dice (though it does appear to have been written for OD&D rather than AD&D), but, in exchange, it gets a variety of wilderness-related abilities, as well as fearlessness, ferocity, and the ability to catch missiles. I'm not sure I'd ever use the class myself, but I can't deny that it has a distinct flavor that differentiates it from fighting men or rangers. Meanwhile, Andy Holt's "The Loremaster of Avallon" presents an absurdly complex system for dealing with parried and unparried blows that I simply glossed over. I appreciate the value of detail in many areas, but combat is not one that matters much time, hence my preference for keeping it simple. Consequently, articles like this do nothing for me.

"Competitive D&D" by Fred Hemmings continues with the details of several more rooms from his competition dungeon, this time from its fifth level. Several of them are cleverly done and I was glad Hemmings shared them. However, I feel as if they'd have made more sense if they'd been given more overall context, even if it had made the article longer. Still, I remain fascinated by the kinds of dungeons referees designed in the early days of the hobby; articles like this give me a little more insight into the matter.

All in all, issue #4 was a good read. I particularly enjoyed the content that was clearly derived from play and spoke to the though referees put into the design of their dungeons and campaign settings. I hope that we'll continue to see this sort of thing in future issues, perhaps in lengthier and more detailed forms.

Fantasy Gaming Goes Underground

The May 1976 issue of the UK magazine, Games & Puzzles, contained an article by Steve Jackson of Games Workshop in which he explains Dungeons & Dragons to readers who probably were unfamiliar with the game at the time. I found the article notable for several reasons, starting with the fact that Jackson frames D&D as an outgrowth of the fantasy wargames campaigns that Tony Bath ran in the 1960s. Historically, that's debatable, but I can fully understand Jackson's position, especially when writing for a predominantly British audience. He also includes an example of play and a sample dungeon, whose map and brief key appears below.

The dungeon is called "The Dungeon of the Ground Goblins" and consists of twenty keyed areas. As an illustration for the uninitiated, it's decent enough – it's certainly more straightforward than the world's first dungeon map from Volume 3 of OD&D – though the density of monsters in some areas is questionable (e.g. 15 orcs in tiny room 20). Maps like this tickle my fancy, because I'm fascinated with seeing examples of early dungeon design. Even given the intention behind this particular map, there are still lessons to be learned here about the evolution of dungeon mapping and stocking.

Index Cards

In my mid-teens, I started getting "serious" about my playing of roleplaying games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons. It was around this time that I stopped using pre-made settings like the World of Greyhawk and instead created one of my own. This setting, which I called Emaindor, had its own hand-drawn map (of course!) as well as a couple of binders full of setting details I spent untold hours coming up with (or stealing). That's what I mean by serious.

A related project was a catalog of all Emaindor's named non-player characters, from the emperor of Almeria to the proprietor of of the Free City of Zwardzand's most popular tavern. I don't know where I got this idea – probably an article in Dragon, if I had to guess – but it was one to which I devoted a great deal of energy. I wrote up the NPCs on index cards, which I placed in a lovely wooden card file I'd inherited from my grandfather. Each card had the NPC's name, class, level, and other game statistics, along with a brief physical description and information on his connections to other NPCs (or PCs). 

In the end, I produced a couple of hundred of these cards. Making them almost became a game in itself, as I thought about the important and not-so-important people of Emaindor and imagined their lives and activities. Sadly, I'm not absolutely certain what became of my file box. Up until a couple of summers ago, it rested safely in my childhood home. I might have snagged it and brought it back with me to my house but, if so, I can't find it. A couple of years ago, my mother sold that house and moved and it's also possible she has the file box in a small collection of my possessions she held onto. With the world being what is right now, I haven't been able to visit her and so I cannot confirm whether she still has the file box.

I thought about my file box as I read Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign. In Chapter 6 ("Characterisation"), he talks about the importance of establishing the personalities of the leaders of various factions and power groups within a campaign. He adds:

Then for each character I have an index card. These are filed alphabetically under family names so that if I want to look up the card for Ramaos Vanir I merely look in the tray under V. Each card is headed with the name in block capitals. Under this I record first of all his immediate family history, such as "Son of Ban Cruach, Crown Prince of Aquilonia" or "Second daughter to Vakar, Prince of Hyrkania", since this helps to establish the generation and the direct family line... After this is recorded the character, and then follows any information which is added from time to time – the barony he inherited on the death of his father, his marriage to such and such a person, promotion to command a brigade, taken prisoner at the battle of blank; it all helps keep the records straight, and while much of it may never be used, you will be surprised at how much of it can come in useful at times.

Reading that mirrored my own youthful experiences with NPC index files. I was particularly struck by his comment about how even odd, seemingly pointless information can prove useful in the long run. Perhaps unsurprisingly, M.A.R. Barker kept a similar card file of the NPCs of his Tékumel campaigns. Barker was a miniatures wargamer, after all, and had almost certainly read Bath. Whether his practice was directly inspired by Bath, I can't say but that's not important. What is important, I think, is that both these titans of gaming recognized the importance of keeping track of vital – in the most expansive sense – information for the campaign. 

Following their example (and that of my youthful self), I've done something similar for my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign (and the Riphaeus Sector Traveller campaign before it ended), albeit in virtual form. Over the last nearly-six years, I've amassed a large file of all the NPCs the player characters have met or heard of, along with relevant details about them. It's proven quite useful over the years and has, in a couple of notable instances, made my job as a referee much easier, since I didn't need to create a NPC from whole cloth on the spot but could instead pluck a suitable one out of my file. It's a practice I recommend most highly to referees of any game, especially those whose campaigns are open-ended, long-running, and rambling, as mine tend to be these days.

A Father of Miniatures Wargaming?

I continue to work my way – slowly – through the works of Tony Bath, with particular emphasis on his Setting Up a Wargames Campaign. Yesterday, I came across a passage in which Bath is talking about the introduction of a "campaign newspaper" as a way to keep players abreast of recent events. Bath states that

Robert Louis Stevenson was probably the first to produce one of these in the campaigns he waged. His was a very one-sided paper, which continually vilified his opponent, making light of his successes, emphasizing defeats and criticising his personal habits etc. This annoyed the chap so much that he made desperate efforts to capture the town in which the newspaper was situated – after which he hung the Editor with great jubilation and took over the paper, which immediately changed its policy! 

There's a lot to comment upon in this short paragraph and perhaps I'll return to it in a future post, but what struck me yesterday, when I first read it, was the reference to Robert Louis Stevenson and "the campaigns he waged." 

Though I cannot by any means be called a wargamer of any sort, I nevertheless knew that H.G. Wells had been an avid player of miniatures wargames. His Little Wars, first appearing in 1913, is perhaps the earliest published rules for fighting miniatures battles with the use of toy soldiers. Consequently, Wells's role in the history of wargames is widely acknowledged and celebrated. But Stevenson? I'd never before heard that he was in any way involved in wargaming, let alone being one of the first people recorded to have participated in the hobby.

Some cursory digging online led me to an article from the December 1898 issue of Scribner's Magazine entitled "Stevenson at Play" that included an introduction by Stevenson's stepson Lloyd Osbourne. The article indicates that Stevenson began his wargaming around 1881, well before the appearance of Little Wars. Of course, Stevenson never published the rules he used, which were primarily for his own amusement, though, as the linked article makes clear, they were fairly sophisticated. 

The older I get, the clearer my ignorance becomes. I'm always happy to discover new rabbit holes to explore and this is no exception. Looks like I have even more reading to do!

Purely Tactical Problems

Almost all new wargamers start their careers by fighting a succession of single, unconnected battles; this is inevitable since it takes time to get the feel of the hobby, to learn the rules etc. But if a new recruit is really going to take up wargaming, then before very long he begins to feel that something is lacking: that these individual games, though well enough in their way, need some connecting link to make them more satisfying and to give an objective other than just trying to destroy the other fellow's army. In other words, the desire to fight campaigns rather than battles. 

Those words are from the introduction to Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign (1973). Though written as advice for miniatures wargamers, they could, with very few changes, apply equally to players of roleplaying games. This is a topic I've touched on a couple of times recently and to which I suspect I will be coming often in the weeks ahead. 

My experiences at Gamehole Con, though very pleasant, further convinced me that there is a huge difference between playing a single scenario (or even a collection of related scenarios) and participating in an open-ended campaign, to the point where I'm almost willing to say that they're not even the same kind of activity. Playing through Keep on the Borderlands is not a campaign. Playing through Against the Giants, even if you follow through with the Drow modules and make it all the way to Queen of the Demonweb Pits, is not a campaign – though both can be parts of a campaign. 

What makes a campaign rewarding? Why, if you have limited time available for the hobby, should you use time that could be spent in fighting on the table-top in poring over maps and situation reports? The answer is that no real-life general could limit himself to the purely tactical problems of the battle-field, and a campaign is the way in which the wargamer general widens his horizon.

Again: though Bath's words are directed at the miniatures wargamer, they could just as easily have been directed at roleplayers, in particular his belief that the campaign widens one's horizons beyond "purely tactical problems." In the context of RPGs, prewritten adventure modules are, in my opinion, exemplars of such narrow concerns. That's partly why I increasingly feel that such modules, as they have evolved over the decades, are the products of convention culture and therefore quite alien to the original expectations of what playing a roleplaying game would entail. 

I'm far from wholly opposed to prewritten modules, but I much prefer locations-based over plot-heavy ones (never mind plot-heavy series). There's definitely a place for modules in a campaign. I've often used a module as a kick-off for a new campaign, which is why I am so fond of 1st-level Dungeons & Dragons modules. I've also occasionally made use of locales from a module, since it can be time-saving and a way to step outside my own tracks of creativity. But a campaign is more than just stringing a bunch of modules together, as Bath explains:

As your campaign develops, you will find yourself adding new angles to it which, while quite unnecessary from a purely practical viewpoint, can add much fun and interest to the proceedings. The provision of a campaign newspaper, as mentioned later, can add both a touch of humour and serve a useful purpose – and enable players to show off their skill at such diverse things as poetry and propaganda! Keeping a detailed history of the campaign can also be fun, and many other side-lines will occur. The danger in fact is of losing sight amid all these things of your original objective and letting the tail wag the dog!

These are lessons I've come to learn over the last eight years, as I've had the chance to referee and play in long campaigns that have lasted years, most notably my House of Worms campaign. A commenter recently described "long campaigns played with close friends" as "the acme of the hobby" and he is correct. That's the kind of game out of which D&D – and, by extension, all RPGs – emerged and that's the kind of game that its earliest practitioners envisioned and indeed played. We need more of this!

Imagine Magazine: Issue #14

As you can see from the cover, issue #14 of Imagine (May 1984) is an interesting one. The cover illustration is by Bryan Talbot, creator of the comic, The Adventures of Luther Arkwright. Though the comic is highly regarded, both now and then, it wasn't well known, even in the UK, at the time this issue appeared. In his editorial, Paul Cockburn comments on this fact but notes that "After this month, I hope we will all hear more of him again." As it turns out, it'd still be three more years before Talbot returned to the comic and completed its story. 

The Adventures of Luther Arkwright form the core of this issue, with a special section devoted to the comic. Talbot is the author of an article entitled "Firefrost" that presents an overview of the comic's setting and central conflict. He follows it up with a two-page comic that serves as a briefing for a Traveller scenario – "The Fire Opal of Set" – in the world of the comic (and co-written by Talbot and James Brunton). The adventure also includes conversion rules so that it can be used with the Star Frontiers game. 

Ed Dovey presents a very interesting article entitled "Campaign Diaries" that, literally, borrows an idea from Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign by recommending that referees keep a log for tracking of the passage of time in a setting. Dovey uses the examples of birth, deaths, marriages, public events, and weather, but his advice could just as easily be applied to other matters. Speaking as a referee running a multi-year, eight-player Empire of the Petal Throne campaign filled with all sorts of significant events, I welcomed the reminders this article (and Bath's guide) offered. Meanwhile, Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" discusses the utility of NPCs in establishing the details and tone of a campaign. Again, a useful article, even for an experienced referee.

This month's fiction piece is quite noteworthy from a historical point of view. "Featherquest: The Tale of a Dreamer" is the very first piece of published fiction by Neil Gaiman. He would have been twenty-four at the time. "Illuminations" once again provides current game news. Here's the most significant item in the article in my opinion:

The article goes on to mention two other licenses that TSR has acquired: Indiana Jones and Dynasty. While the Indiana Jones game certainly did come out – and was not as dire as memory would suggest – I cannot recall a game based on Dynasty's ever appearing. There was SPI's Dallas RPG and I have a vague recollection of TSR's having produced an All My Children boardgame but not Dynasty. Perhaps the deal fell through? 

"The Imagination Machine" keeps readers abreast of the latest from the world of micro-computers, including a review of a game called City by Terminal Software, which sounds like a precursor to Sim City. There are new installments of both "Rubic of Moggedon" and "The Sword of Alabron" comics, in addition to a letters page and a review of fanzines. "Insane Swords" follows up on Chris Felton's article in issue #12 about making magic items. This article considers what happens when the process of crafting goes wrong and produce a cursed item. Brian Creese continues to look at play-by-mail games in "Chain Mail." 

"The Adventures of Nic Novice" by Jim Bambra and Paul Ruiz seemingly comes to an end with this issue's discussion of experience. I can't say that I'll miss it. There are seven game reviews in this issue, five of them being "TSR" wargames, which is to say, TSR re-issues of classic SPI wargames. The others are Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and Horror on the Hill for D&D. Colin Greenland reviews three movies I've never heard of, the most notable being Invincible Barbarian, which he calls "third-rate nonsense." He also reviews Fred Saberhagen's novel, Empire of the East. 

This concludes issue #14 of Imagine, which I quite enjoyed, though that may have something to do with my fondness for Luther Arkwright. It's intriguing to look at these issues as a microcosm of what must have been happening at TSR UK at the time – simultaneously trying to follow the dictates of the parent company back in the USA while also trying to forge its own path. I'm keeping this in mind as I read future issues in the weeks to come.

More Tony Bath's Hyboria

If, after reading my earlier post about Tony Bath's Hyborian Age campaign, a great place to visit is the Tiny Tin Men blog, which has a collection of useful links on this very subject. For that matter, the entire blog is wonderful. I spent a lot of time there this morning, reading through entries on a variety of posts pertaining to miniatures wargaming. As someone with very little direct experience of this hobby, it was informative (and made me wish I had the time and resources to devote to getting into it myself). 

Inspiration from Tony Bath?

One of my current projects is reading Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign, a classic in the field of miniatures wargaming and originally published in 1973. Not having been a wargamer, of either the hex-and-chit or miniatures variety, I would never have thought to pick up this book. Fortunately, a friend with whom I have regularly roleplayed for nearly a decade now recommended Bath's book highly to me and I am so glad I did. There are innumerable insights to be found within its pages, particularly if you're interested in the prehistory of roleplaying. 

Bath is perhaps most famous for Hyborian Age campaign, set in Robert E. Howard's eponymous prehistoric world. This campaign started in the late 1950s, long before any of the people recognized today as "founding fathers" of the hobby had started down the path that would culmination in the publication of OD&D in 1974. For that reason, I have come to believe his writings on wargaming are of immense value (though others were way ahead of me in this). Over the next few weeks, I'll likely have multiple posts about Bath and his books, but, for the moment, I'd like to focus on just a single section of the aforementioned work, because it's not only fascinating – and possibly useful – in its own right but because it might shed light on the origins of a procedure found in GDW's Twilight: 2000 (and other games derived from it).  

Chapter 6 of Setting Up a Wargames Campaign is entitled "Characterisation" and discusses multiple methods for generating the personalities of the various leaders, both political and military, of a fictional setting to be used for miniatures wargaming. Bath proposes the following:

So, for each person's character you deal out seven cards. The first card dealt will decide upon his or her most outstanding characteristic: a Heart will indicate Good Nature, a Diamond Love of Wealth, a Spade Ambition, and a Club Love of War in a man, Patriotism in a woman. The value of the card will determine the depth of this passion, a high card being very strong, a low card relatively weak. The rest of the cards are used individually, and each has a value of its own

He then enumerates personality traits based on each card. For example, an Ace of the Spade or Club suits indicate a disloyal intriguer, while a Diamond is a loyal intriguer, and a Heart possesses an exceptionally good nature. Meanwhile, a Six indicates laziness in Spades or Clubs or Charm in Hearts or Diamonds. It's a straightforward little means of generating character details and I was immediately impressed with it and the other systems he offers (about which I shall write later) precisely because it does something similar to what I'd been seeking recently.

In reading this section, though, I was immediately reminded of a section in the Referee's Manual of the 1984 edition of Twilight: 2000. In the section discussing non-player characters, it's suggested that

To determine the motivation of an NPC, draw two cards from the standard deck of playing cards. The highest value card is the NPC's primary motivation, the other is his secondary motivation. The particular motive is determined by the suit of the card.

The section goes on to associated Clubs with Violence, Diamonds with Wealth, Hearts with Fellowship, and Spade with Power. As you can see, these associations are very close to those of Tony Bath. Now, one might reasonably suggest that the suits suggest obvious correlations; there's nothing unique about associating wealth with diamonds, for example. That may well be true, but my hunch remains that Frank Chadwick, the designer of Twilight: 2000 and many military simulations published by GDW would have been familiar with Bath's writings and took inspiration from them. Even if I'm mistaken about this, that doesn't change the fact that Bath's system is simple and useful and could be profitably employed, either in its original or altered form, by referees looking for a way to introduce some randomness into even their world building.