White Dwarf: Issue #46

Issue #46 of White Dwarf (October 1983), with its striking cover by Gary Mayes, is one I owned but about which I have few strong memories. I'm not entirely sure why that is, because it's not a bad issue by any means. Were I to guess, I imagine it has more to do with the fact that many of its preceding issues are simply so good that, by comparison, it seems less remarkable. That's actually a fairly common problem during the early '80s when it comes to RPG products more generally: there was a surfeit of good material being published at the time, so much so that it's easy to overlook some of it in retrospect.

Phil Palmer's "Strangers in the Night" kicks off the issue. It's an article devoted to the subject of wandering monsters in AD&D. Palmer's musing on the matter are quite good in my opinion, emphasizing the need to tailor wandering monster tables to the locale to which they're connected, as well as the utility of including random events among their entries. This isn't groundbreaking advice by any means, but it's the kind of thing that gets overlooked, even by experienced referees, so I appreciate his discussion of it.

"Open Box" offers up lengthy reviews of three products, starting with the RuneQuest Companion, which earns an 8 out of 10. Also reviewed is the second edition of FGU's Chivalry & Sorcery. This, too, receives a rating of 8 out of 10, which surprised me somewhat. C&S has a deserved reputation for being quite complex and I assumed that would be held against the game. However, C&S also has a lot of genuinely clever ideas within its pages (e.g. its magic system) and the reviewer felt that those ideas more than outweighed its mechanical unwieldiness. Finally, there's the Mayfair boardgame Sanctuary, based on the Thieves' World series, which received a 7 out of 10. 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" column is very hit or miss with me, in part because the books he reviews vary considerably in content. That's completely understandable, of course. However, it does mean, especially when I re-read these columns, that my interest is often commensurate with whether I've read the books in question. Since this issue's column doesn't include a single book I can recall having read, I'll confess to my eyes glazing over a bit. Apologies to all the Langford fans out there! 

Charles Vasey looks at two fantasy boardgames at some length, Dragonhunt and Titan, both from Avalon Hill. Vasey likes both games, though he gives Titan a slight edge in terms of its design. On the other hand, Dragonhunt seems to him to be more truly fantastical in terms of its presentation and overall subject matter. I own a copy of Dragonhunt, but have never played it, so I can't speak to his claims. I've sadly never set eyes upon Titan, a game that interests me, since it was designed by the late, great TSR artist, Dave Trampier. 

Part 3 of Dave Morris's "Dealing with Demons" is the finale of this series describing demons for use with RuneQuest. It's a very good entry for the same reason that Part 2 was: the demons detailed here are wholly original creations without any basis in existing folklore or mythology. I appreciate the creativity that went into imagining these dark beings, not to mention his enumeration of the books and authors that inspired him. "Worldly Power" by Phil Masters presents a handful of new government types for use with the Traveller world generation system, along with a few adventure seeds that make use of them. This is a perfectly fine article. However, as a Traveller snob, I find most of the material unnecessary, since the existing Traveller government codes can handle nearly all of those Masters proposes without the need for creating new codes.

"The Wizard's Library" by Lewis Pulsipher is a genuinely interesting article. In it, he proposes to look for inspiration for RPGs in non-RPG books. Hardly revolution, you might say and you'd be correct if the books he proposes to use were fiction. Instead, he suggests looking to non-fiction books, such as history, archeology, and architecture books, among others. Like so many things Pulsipher writes, none of this is revolutionary but it's clever nonetheless and might serve as a source of unlikely inspiration for harried referees looking to spice up their campaigns.

Part 5 of Daniel Collerton's "Irilian" presents yet another section of the city, complete with a map, along with an adventure set in this area. The focus this time is on guilds, companies, and societies within the city. There's also a full map of a wizard tower that plays an important role in the accompanying scenario. As with previous entries, this is all very well done and its true value lies not so much in any individual installment as in the piling up of details that lead to a fuller picture of Irilian and its inhabitants. As I believe I mentioned before, in my youth, I found Irilian so well done that I dropped it right into my old campaign setting, albeit under a different name. This is an excellent series and proof of why White Dwarf was such a terrific magazine once upon a time.

"Play-by-Mail Games" by A.D. Young is an overview of computer-moderated PBM games, which, apparently, was a new and interesting thing at the time. Though I never participated in any PBM games, despite my interest, I (again) must confess that this article never got my full attention. That's not a comment on its quality, so much as its age. Neither of the games discussed – Empyrean and Heroic Fantasy – ever crossed my radar back in the day and neither sounds sufficiently interesting even as historical curiosities, alas.

We get more Thrud, The Travellers, and Gobbledigook, which makes me happy, especially the first two comics. "Death in Green" is a D&D/AD&D mini-scenario dealing with yet another secluded rural village that has come under attack by unknown forces. In this case, the forces are a variety of plant monsters – six kinds in fact – that are this month's "Fiend Factory" entries. "Swashbuckler!," meanwhile, is a collection of rules suggestions for spicing up combat in RuneQuest with moves worthy of Errol Flynn. Finally, there's "The Hellwalk Spell" by Lewis Pulsipher. Inspired by Roger Zelazny's Amber series, the spell transports its target to a pocket dimension, where they must engage in combat against random foes. As a one-off challenge, this could be fun, I suppose. However, I think it would get tedious if it were used too often in a game.

As you can see, this is a perfectly fine issue, filled with a variety of different articles for many different games. Unfortunately, with the exception of the latest Irilian entry, none of them really grabbed my attention in the way previous issues' articles did.  Though I stand by the theory I advanced at the beginning of this post, another possibility occurs to me. During this period, White Dwarf was rapidly expanding, adding more content with each issue, including several new columns devoted to other aspects of gaming beyond roleplaying. It could be that the addition of these new pages diluted the perceived goodness of the other articles to such an extent that I no longer saw some issues as being as good as they actually were. I'll keep this in mind as I look at future issues.

Dedications

I'd like to offer my thanks to Rob Conley, who pointed out that the title page of the first edition of FGU's Chivalry & Sorcery includes a dedication by the authors to the Society for Creative Anachronism (S.C.A.). The role of the SCA in the history of fantasy fandom (and, by extension, roleplaying games) is still underappreciated, I think. Since I've never been a member or attended any of the Society's events (though my college roommate went to Pennsic every summer), this is a topic about which I know very little. I'd love to know more about it, though, especially as it relates to the influence it may have had over the early days of the hobby.

An Aside re: Charisma

From Chivalry & Sorcery (1977), p. 6:

CHARISMA

Charisma is the ability of a character to arouse popular loyalty and enthusiasm by the force of his own personality and reflects his ability to command men in battle. It is a natural talent growing out of other characteristics. To find a character's basic Charisma, add his Intelligence, Wisdom, Appearance, Bardic Voice, and Dexterity scores, and divide the total by 5. If he is over 6 feet tall, add 1 point. Add all bonuses to the total.

From RuneQuest (1978), p. 12:

Charisma is a nebulous quality, and increasing or decreasing it is often up to the referee's whimsy. However, the following instances can have some effect:

a. Each 25% skill with Oratory learned increases a character's CHA by 1 point. Maximum of 4 points.

b. Each 25% increase in the use of one's main weapon (after 50%) adds 1 point. No limit to points.

c. Possession of good, showy, magical objects raises CHA by 1 point. Just 1 point is gained here. It does not matter if the character has just one or one hundred showy items.

d. Successful leadership of an expedition (i.e., the loss/gain ratio is satisfactory) can add a point to the character's CHA. A character may roll his CHA as a percent or lower for a gain, or the Referee may have some other criterion.

e. Unsuccessful leadership can lose CHA. A really disastrous expedition can cause the leader to have to make his CHA as a percentage or lose 1 to 3 CHA points. 

White Dwarf: Issue #19

Issue #19 of White Dwarf (June/July 1980) features a wonderfully creepy cover illustration by Les Edwards, which I am certain I have seen before – perhaps several times. Unfortunately, my memory isn't what it used to be and I can't quite recall where else I might have gazed upon its magnificence. If any reader's brain is less addled than mine, I'd appreciate a helpful reminder. 

Ian Livingstone's opening editorial suggests that White Dwarf is doing well and so firmly established in the UK gaming scene that newcomers to it are seeking out back issues. However, he notes that many of these early issues are no longer in print and that, "due to recent increased printing costs," it is not economically feasible to reprint them. Instead, Games Workshop would soon be releasing two compendiums of material derived from early issues, one focusing on articles and one on scenarios. Relatedly, the same increased costs had necessitated a rise in the price of WD – 75p instead of 60p – though four more pages had been added in compensation.

The issue kicks off with Trevor Graver's "Criminals" for Traveller, which presents alternate careers for use with GDW's science fiction RPG. It's a good article in my opinion, though its career format is closer to that of Mercenary than the three little black books of 1977. That's not a damning criticism by any means, but I retain a preference for "basic" character generation over the "advanced" ones presented in later books. More interesting is its approach to ranks, which here are reimagined as "reputation" and map onto the criminal character's notoriety in the galactic underworld (and his worth as a bounty). 

"The Fiend Factory" continues, this time under the editorship of Albie Fiore. Don Turnbull, who originated the column, recently left White Dwarf to take up his duties as head of the new TSR UK. Fiore presents five new monsters, including two varieties of undead horses (one skeletal and one zombie-like). Elsewhere, Stephen Marsh and John Sapienza are the authors of a RuneQuest mini-scenario entitled "Jorthan's Rescue." The scenario concerns a wealthy noble, the titular Jorthan, who has been kidnapped by trollkin and whose wife hires the characters to bring him back alive. Intriguingly, the scenario includes two different versions of the map of the trollkin's lair, one more complex than the other, depending on the needs of the referee. I can't recall ever seeing a scenario that did something like this before, though, as I said at the start of this post, my memory isn't what it used to be.

Roger E. Moore, who would one day go on to be editor-in-chief of TSR's own Dragon magazine, has written "Berserker," a new character class for use with Dungeons & Dragons. The class is very similar in broad outline to the barbarian class we'd later see in D&D's Third Edition, with a focus on "battle lust," which empowers the berserkers attacks. Also included is an option for "berserker clerics" dedicated to appropriate gods of war or physical prowess. Intriguingly, there's a brief discussion of lycanthropic berserkers, no doubt due to the influence of the "bear-shirts" of Norse legend. Over the years, I've vacillated wildly in my feelings about additional and alternate character classes. These days, I'm much more well inclined toward them, which no doubt colors my generally positive opinion of this article.

"Ogre Hunt" by Tom Keenes is a mini-scenario for use with Chivalry & Sorcery. It's a pretty straightforward adventure, consisting of a brief wilderness journey to find the ruined tower where Moribund the Ogre dwells. Said ogre is terrorizing the countryside and so Lady Cynthia is offering a reward to anyone who can slay him. There adventure is nothing special in itself, but I appreciate seeing something written for C&S, a game for which I have an odd fondness, despite never having played it. "Open Box" presents five reviews, starting with Task Force's Starfire (8 out of 10) and Avalon Hill's Magic Realm (7 out of 10). Also reviewed are High Fantasy and Fortress Ellendar (4 and 7 out of 10 respectively). as well as Kinunir for Traveller (9 out of 10).

"Wards" by Lewis Pulsipher is a short article on magical barriers erected by magic-users to protect valuable locations and objects. Pulsipher offers four examples of such wards, including the spells needed to create them. Though brief, it's a clever idea and the kind of thing I appreciate seeing, namely an addition to D&D that doesn't require any new rules, only a repurposing of existing ones. "Treasure Chest" takes an unusual turn by presenting ten different NPCs for use with D&D. Most of them aren't all that special to my mind, but a few, like Fred, Bill, and Charly, a trio of troublesome and reckless fighting men rise above the pack. The issue closes with Chris Harvey's look at the computer moderated postal wargame, Starweb. Articles like this are time capsules of a very specific era, when the computer was a strange new technology and no one quite new what to make of them. 

Issue #19 was a fine one. White Dwarf has truly begun to hit its stride. Bring on issue #20!

White Dwarf: Issue #9

Needless to say, I love Christopher Perigo's cover to issue #9 of White Dwarf (October/November 1979), but then I am a fan of non-equine mounts in fantasy. Ian Livingstone begins the issue with an intriguing editorial. He broaches the subject of "realism" in fantasy roleplaying games in a somewhat negative fashion. He wonders whether this drive toward a "realistic game" serves any useful purpose and indeed whether it comes at the expense of fun and enjoyment. He then muses that "Taken to its logical conclusion, it would necessitate … rolling for the percentage chance of being stung by nettles whilst picking blackberries or bleeding gums whilst brushing teeth." In conclusion, Livingstone concedes, "If people want this, fine, but they should try to force their method of play down somebody else's throat, claiming that they are 'authorities'." As ever, I really have to wonder what was going on in the late 1970s UK gaming scene.

Complaints about the experience rules – or lack thereof – GDW's Traveller are commonplace and have been since the release of the game in 1977. Mike Ferguson's "The Experienced Traveller" introduces a system for in-game skill improvement, if one is so inclined. While I have never had a problem with this aspect of Traveller, I don't object to its introduction in campaigns where the referee deems it appropriate. However, Ferguson's system is odd in that it makes use of percentile dice to determine whether a skill improves after successful use. Traveller uses only six-sided dice, so the use of percentiles seems profoundly off to me, but I'm a purist about such matters.

"The Fiend Factory" gives us nine more monsters for use with Dungeons & Dragons. Most of these did not see publication in the Fiend Folio (unless my memory is poor – a distinct possibility!) and some of those that did saw changes (such as Svarts becoming Xvarts for some reason). I should also note that the feature's habit of using unique, hand-drawn typefaces for each monster's name is frustrating, as it's sometimes difficult to read the names. Part Two of Rowland Flynn's "The Valley of the Four Winds" story continues in this issue and I don't have much to say about it or, for that matter, the next installment of the "Kalgar" comic, which has completely failed to hold my attention.

On the other hand, Albie Fiore's "The Lichway" is well worth your time. It's an excellent trap-filled dungeon, intended to test the mettle of 1st-level characters. Most interesting to me is the presence of several groups of NPCs already present in the dungeon, including one made of man-beasts. The prospect of having to deal with so many mutually antagonistic factions sets this apart from many other introductory adventures, as does its general ambience of death and decay. It's not for nothing then that this is perhaps the most famous adventure ever published in the pages of White Dwarf. 

"Open Box" reviews Superhero 2044, Legions of the Petal Throne, the three Gygax-penned giants modules, and Citadel of Fire. All but the giants modules receive middling reviews (6 out of 10). Following it "Foresters" by Trevor Clarke and Ed Simbalist, which is in fact an extract from the Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook. The article deals with what are effectively Tolkien-style rangers for use with C&S. Meanwhile, this month's "Treasure Chest" offers up seven new "tricks & traps," along with an amusing percentile table of "useless items" (like an Albanian dictionary, a sack of stuffed voles, and a copy of "Greyhawk on 10 g.p. a Day"). There's also a handy chart for quickly generating the ability scores of monsters, should they be needed in play.  

This issue of White Dwarf feels a little thin to me. I certainly observed many pages devoted to advertising, a trend that's been building over the past few issues. I can't say for certain that there actually are more ads than before, but it certainly seems that way, a perception helped in no small part by the largely lackluster content of the issues ("The Lichway" being the primary standout). But, as I have said many times before, this has always been the nature of gaming periodicals. Perhaps next issue will be more impressive.

White Dwarf: Issue #7

Issue #7 of White Dwarf (June/July 1978) represents something of a milestone for the British gaming periodical. Firstly, it marks the start of the second year of its publication. Secondly, it's the first issue to feature a full-color cover (by the ever-amazing John Blanche). In his opening editorial, Ian Livingstone draws the reader's attention to both of these facts – facts he believes serve as "a reminder to traditional wargamers that we (i.e. roleplayers) are a serious part of the hobby and not just a weird, temporary deviation from it." As ever, I find such comments very strange, but then I was never a wargamer (take a drink), nor did I much care about their opinion of what seemed to me to be a related but wholly separate hobby. Mind you, I was a 10 year-old child when I discovered D&D rather than an adult like Livingstone, so I suppose I can be forgiven for not understanding his seemingly interminable concern about the reputation of roleplaying in wargaming circles. If nothing else, it's a reminder that the past truly is another country.

The issue begins with an article written by Ed Simbalist entitled "Feudal Economics in Chivalry & Sorcery." It's an interesting enough piece, especially for those who want to more "realistically" model the economics of the European Middle Ages in their campaign settings. More interesting than its content, though, is the fact that it's penned by one of the creators of C&S. If nothing else, Simbalist's appearance in WD's pages show that, after only a year of publication, it had already begun to attract significant attention on the other side of the Atlantic. "Fiend Factory" offers up nine new monsters for D&D, several of which would later appear in the Fiend Folio. None of those featured could be called "classics," even by the odd standards of the Fiend Folio, though a handful deserve comment. The first is the Rover, based on the bouncing ball from The Prisoner. The second is the Gluey, which was renamed the Adherer in its published FF form. Finally, there's the Squonk, based on the legendary monster of northern Pennsylvania, which the text calls "more of a pet than a monster; perhaps the female D&Ders would take more to this beast than the hard-headed males."

The "Letters" column is notable for one letter, commenting on Roger Musson's article in issue #6. I reproduce it here in its entirety.

One of these days, I'll need to collect together as many Gary Gygax quotes as I can find regarding the matters of "realism" and "heroism" in D&D to see how consistent his position on the matter remained over the years. For now, I'll simply say that, as he often does, Gygax speaks here in such an argumentative and disingenuous fashion that, even if one were inclined to agree with his points (which I mostly do), he makes it hard to do so, lest one be seen as similarly intemperate. I can't help but wonder how different the history of the hobby might have been if the younger Gygax had possessed even a small portion of the equanimity his older self possessed.

John T. Sapienza's "Carrying Capacity" offers a short and relatively simple new encumbrance system that uses a character's Strength to determine what percentage of his body weight he can carry in equipment and treasure. Meanwhile, Brian Asbury provides Part III of his "Asbury System" for experience. This time, he gives readers the means to determine the XP value of magic weapons and armor, based on their types (sword, mace, chain, plate, etc.), bonuses, and other abilities. I can see no obvious problem with his system as such, only that it seems like more trouble than it's worth, especially when the Dungeon Masters Guide already does the work for the referee (though, to be fair, at the time of publication of this issue, the DMG was still more than a year in the future).

"Molten Magic" provides photographs for eight different sets of miniature figures, including those by Ral Partha and Asgard. "Open Box," meanwhile, features reviews for The Warlord Game, The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, Bifrost Volume 1, Lords and Wizards, The Sorcerer's Cave, and Cosmic Encounter. There's also another installment of the "Kalgar" comic strip, which continues to do little for me. I find myself looking forward to the future, when other strips more familiar to me will appear, but those won't, I fear, appear for quite some time still.

Don Turnbull's "Lair of the Demon Queen" presents a "difficult but rewarding section" of his Greenlands Dungeon for the delectation of readers. The lair is a fairly small section of said dungeon but it's quite well thought out, with an elaborate trap that requires deciphering a poem (spoken by statues with magic mouths) to overcome. I simply adore rooms like this in dungeons and I'm ashamed when I consider how much more straightforward my own chambers tend to be these days. In my youth, I'd devote much thought to tricks and traps, not to mention riddles, rhymes, and other bits of fantasy nonsense intended to aid and befuddle the players. Reading this article reminded me of how far I've fallen in the years since. Perhaps I shall have to rectify this in my future work.

The issue ends with "Thoughts on the Proliferation of Magic Items in D&D" by none other than Gary Gygax. As one might expect, Gygax is very much opposed to what he calls "magic on the cheap," something he claims is quite common in "hobby publications" at the time. He suggests that, since D&D is "designed for a long period of active play," the referee would be wise to give out magic items sparingly and with an eye toward ensuring that the game remain challenging over time. He then offers many strategies for separating PCs from magic treasure so as to maintain the appropriate balance. Everything he says here comports with his writings on the subject elsewhere, but, as I commented earlier, his tone is condescendingly off-putting at times and I fear it might sometimes get in the way of what he intends to say (Physician, heal thyself).

Issue #7 of White Dwarf was, by and large, enjoyable to me. It's definitely step up in terms of presentation and quality over its immediate predecessors and it gives me hope that the upcoming issues will be equally enjoyable. 

White Dwarf: Issue #5

Issue #5 of White Dwarf (February/March 1978) features a cover by Polly Wilson. Ian Livingstone's editorial is about copyright laws and their enforcement. The reason he broaches the subject is because several companies (including TSR) have had to remove their Middle-earth wargames and miniatures from the market, owing to the threat of legal action from the copyright holders. What's fascinating is that Livingstone takes the position that "nobody will gain from the strict enforcement of copyright laws." I'm honestly not sure how to take this, because he makes it clear earlier in the editorial that he believes copyright law "rightly exists to protect an individual or company from piracy." 

The issue kicks off with Lewis Pulsipher's extensive review of FGU's Chivalry & Sorcery. By and large, Pulsipher thinks very highly of C&S, in large part because it has a coherent philosophy and perspective, basing itself on a specific period of medieval history and society rather than the generic fantasy seen in other RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. That said, Pulsipher nevertheless opines that there is still a need for a game that combines the "versatility, variety, and simplicity" of D&D with the "clarity and completeness" of C&S. 

"Der Kriegspielers Fantastiques" by John Norris is a review of a series of 25mm miniatures based on the inhabitants of Middle-earth. Norris finds them a mixed bag, with some of the figures being excellent and others not so much. "Monsters Mild and Malign" by Don Turnbull is a collection of ten new monsters for use with Dungeons & Dragons. None of them are standouts, except possibly the Kzin, based on the cat-like aliens from the works of Larry Niven, and even then the only reason I remember it is because of how odd I found its inclusion. A much better article is the third part of Lewis Pulsipher's "D&D Campaigns." In this part, he discusses various aspects of the game – alignment, treasure, resurrection, etc. – that he feels the referee should consider before starting a new campaign. It's a good collection of advice and suggestions overall. However, I do find it amusing when he refers to the "revised rules" for D&D, by which I assume he's talking about those in the Holmes Basic Set (since the Players Handbook hadn't been released at the time this issue appeared).

"Open Box" reviews Book of Monsters, Book of Demons, and Book of Sorcery (all by Little Soldier), War of the Ring (FGU), and All the Worlds' Monsters (Chaosium). Interestingly, none of these products gets a solid endorsement. Instead, most are described as flawed in some way, particularly the Little Soldier books. There's a brief report about the events of Games Day III, a 1000+ person convention held on December 17, 1977. Included with the report are sample questions from a D&D rules quiz. I thought I knew the game's rules quite well, but, reading through these, I realized how little I actually new (to be fair, many of the questions are more about memory than anything else – how many potions are listed in the game? – so perhaps I shouldn't feel so bad).

"Food and Water on the Starship Warden" by Richard Edwards is an article supporting TSR's Metamorphosis Alpha. It's a decent article, providing lots of ideas (and examples) for the referee to use in establishing the ecology of the starship, as well as how to make use of it in his campaign. I continue to be struck by the presence of MA articles in White Dwarf. It's a game I knew so little about in my youth and yet, from the looks of things, it seems to have been quite popular in its time. The first installment of a fantasy comic called "Kalgar" appears in this issue, written and drawn by David Lloyd. Rounding out the issue are three new magic items by Joseph Nicholas and Brian Asbury's new experience point system. The system, which he facetiously dubs "the Asbury System" is based on hit points of the creatures defeated, not hit dice. This enables him to dole out XP to characters based on the amount of damage they do to an opponent. I can see some value in this sort of approach, but, as with most of Brian Asbury's articles in WD, the new rules seem more complex than they ought to be.

To my mind, this issue is a weak effort, compared to some of its predecessors. Overall, I was none too impressed by it, but such is the nature of periodicals. Here's hoping the next issue is better.

Retrospective: Thieves' World

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 … 

Different Worlds: Issue #5

Retrospective: Chivalry & Sorcery (1977)

Normally, when I speak of Chivalry & Sorcery, I'm talking about boxed second edition of the game, which was released in 1983. That's the version of the game I vividly recall from having seen its many advertisements in the pages of Dragon. That's also the version that secretly intrigued me, since it's the one I actually saw on hobby stores shelves. I say "secretly," because many of the older guys I knew, the ones who initiated me into this weird hobby, were really down on C&S, seeing it as unnecessarily complex and too concerned over "realism." So, it was generally best not to admit to having an interest in such a game in their presence -- and I didn't.

The thing is, even though no one admitted to playing C&S, at least no one with whom I had any regular contact, it still got talked about a great deal, much like the Arduin Grimoires. Despised or not (in my neck of the woods), it nevertheless had a big intellectual "footprint." What I didn't understand at the time was that the Chivalry & Sorcery the older guys were talking about wasn't the edition I instinctively associated with the name, but the original one, published in 1977 -- the so-called "Red Book" pictured above. Since I didn't play it and was discouraged from doing so, I never looked into the matter until recently and simply assumed that the version of the game advertised in Dragon was the only one.

The Red Book is a 128-page softcover book whose contents are presented in very small typeface in two columns. As FGU editor Scott Bizar says in his introduction:

The sheer mass of these new rules has made it necessary to print in small type rather than in our usual format, but this saving in pages will cause substantial savings in the purchase price of the book.

Bizar also goes on to call C&S "the most complete rule booklet ever published" and "the length of a novel" in terms of word count. He's certainly not kidding and I think Bizar reveals something very important about the game with his words. You see, lots of people criticize Chivalry & Sorcery for making a fetish of "realism," but I think, if one were to look at it with an unbiased eye, the game's real focus is on "completeness." C&S tries very hard to provide everything a referee might need in running

an all-encompassing campaign game in which dungeon and wilderness adventures were just a small part of the action.

That block quote above is from the first page of the game itself, under a heading titled "Chivalry & Sorcery: The Grand Campaign." There, the authors lay out the origins of C&S as well as their vision for it. My feeling is that it's here that one can really come to understand what this RPG was all about. That section also explains that

Chivalry & Sorcery began innocently enough with a discussion about the vacuum that our characters seemed to be living in between dungeon and wilderness campaigns. In the Fantasy Wargames Society of the University of Alberta a degree of dissatisfaction emerged over the limited goals that were available to our characters.

Thus, authors Ed Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus created a game that answered their own needs for an "all-encompassing campaign." C&S includes all the usual things you'd expect from a roleplaying game -- character generation, combat, etc. -- but it also has rules and discussions of social status and influence, costs of living, enfeoffment, castles, warfare, training, sieges, tournaments, and more. Whether it really qualifies as "the most complete rule booklet ever published" I leave to others to decide, but there's little question in my mind that Simbalist and Backhaus did create an extraordinarily broad and complete RPG, especially for the time period.

All that said, Chivalry & Sorcery is deserving of its reputation for complexity. Many of its rules, especially for combat, are quite complicated, moreso even, in my opinion, than Rolemaster, which is more "chart heavy" than complex. But I also think it's fair to say that the complexity of C&S reflects not only the mindset of its creators but the game's origins as well. Within a few years of the publication of OD&D, there were gamers who wanted more -- more realism, more complexity, more depth. And from those wants were born a wide variety of alternate approaches to fantasy roleplaying, some of which, I can't deny, I find very intriguing.  

C&S is one of those games.  God help me if the old guys I used to know ever find out.

Comments on this post can be made here.

The Ads of Dragon: Fantasy Games Unlimited

I've highlighted ads for Fantasy Games Unlimited RPGs before, but this one, from issue #82 (February 1984) is particularly memorable in my opinion:

I've long felt that FGU had a knack for creating compelling advertisements and this one, for their five biggest RPGs, was definitely attention-grabbing. I played several of these games at various times and, with the exception of Aftermath, still own versions of them all, but none of them ever won my heart the way that other companies' products did. Still, I can't deny that ads like this one make wish I were playing one of them right now.

The Wizard Wears Shades

This is the cover image to The Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook, drawn by Mike Gilbert, which I look at quite often, since the book it graces sits on my desk. I'd never argue it's a particularly noteworthy piece of gaming art, but I've found that it's grown on me a lot in the weeks it's rested on my desk. A big part of its appeal is the wizard on the far left, the one with the skullcap and sunglasses. At first, I thought he was supposed to be a cleric of some kind, but there's nothing "priestly" about his attire. Indeed, his attire is pretty non-descript (though I do wonder what that thing he's got on his right wrist is supposed to be).

So, what's up with his spectacles? I honestly don't know. Eyeglasses existed in the Middle Ages, so it's not necessarily anachronistic to include them, even if the style used in the illustration looks a little too modern. Of course, they look more like sunglasses than simple eyeglasses, so that raises other questions. On the other hand, maybe they're magical lenses of some sort, like those found in Vance's Dying Earth tales, though I don't recall ever seeing such magical items in C&S. I'm not personally bugged by it; in fact, for some reason, I don't find the notion of sunglasses in a fantasy setting to be off-putting at all. I bring this up only because the impression one gets from reading Chivalry & Sorcery is that its authors would be annoyed by such a blatant anachronism.

Regardless, I really like this illustration.

Alignment in C&S

As I plow my way through the first edition of Chivalry & Sorcery, I find myself simultaneously fascinated and horrified by what I read -- fascinated because there are some truly excellent expansions/developments of D&D-derived concepts in the rulebook and horrified because very often the authors take these expansions/developments a couple of steps too far for my tastes. Anyway, one D&D-derived concept they retain is alignment, which, like OD&D, comes in three varieties: Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. Interestingly, C&S explicitly equates Law with good and Chaos with evil, something wasn't done in D&D until the 1981 Moldvay rules so far as I know. The rulebook explains alignment in this fashion:

Alignment should not be regarded as meaning that Lawful and Chaotic characters must immediately attack each other, or even that they have a "right" to do it. It is in fact possible for characters of opposite Alignment to develop deep respect for each other, and friendship is not impossible. Even the most Chaotic of characters will have his code of honour. Alignment is merely a guide to players so that they can build their character's personality in an orderly manner.

There's lots to comment upon here, but what I immediately notice is that the first sentence is phrased negatively: "Alignment should not be regarded ..." That right there is why I have not yet abandoned my initial impression that C&S is parasitic upon Dungeons & Dragons and the culture surrounding it. C&S is implicitly setting itself up in opposition to the way things are done in D&D, or at least the way many players of D&D did things at the time (circa 1977). I won't go so far as to say C&S is unintelligible without first understanding D&D, but I do think it makes more sense within that context.

Given that Lawful characters are noted as "serving the forces of Good" and Chaotic characters are said to "opt for dishonesty, evil, and treachery," I'm not really sure on what basis the authors can claim Lawful and Chaotic characters might develop deep respect for and even friendship with one another. That seems implausible to me, but perhaps I am placing too much emphasis on the thumbnail descriptions of each alignment. As it turns out, C&S has 15 alignments, grouped into the three broad categories of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic.

• Lawful: Saintly, Devout, Good, Virtuous, Worthy, Trustworthy, Honourable.
• Neutral: Law Abiding, Worldly, Corruptible.
• Chaotic: Unscrupulous, Base, Immoral, Villainous, Diabolic.

The distinctions between these various sub-alignments are often very fine, but I must confess to liking them, as they're similar in some respects to the way I handle alignment in Dwimmermount. If you read the descriptions, you'll see that an Unscrupulous Chaotic is someone who "will try to weasel out of any of his obligations or cheat his friends" while a Base Chaotic is one who "will stoop pretty low on occasion, pays lip-service to all of the conventional prattlings about good and decency, and never lets himself be blinded to a profitable deal when he sees it." As I said, these are fine distinctions but, I think, useful ones in getting a practical sense of what alignment means in C&S. Because of these distinctions, I think it possible that certain types of Lawfuls and Chaotics could probably get along with one another without too much trouble, but the earlier equation of Law with good and Chaos with evil only highlights the game's unspoken dependency on D&D for a lot of its foundational concepts.

Oh yes: alignment is determined randomly by a 1D20 roll. 8 out of 20 rolls will result in a Neutral alignment of some sort, 7 out of 20 in a Lawful one, and 5 out of 20 in a Chaotic one.

C&S-ian Naturalism?

Reading through The Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook, I came across a sub-section of "Designing C&S Monsters" entitled "Natural Law." Given my interest in Gygaxian naturalism, I was of course intrigued. The sub-section discusses the role natural laws should play in designing monsters and, by extension, campaign settings. Here are a couple of relevant paragraphs:

No matter how "fantastic" the setting, the basic laws of the universe should apply.

This fact about the nature of the universe -- any universe -- has been all too often lost on many game designers and players alike at one time or another. Part of the problem is that many players themselves are still acquiring a working knowledge of basic physics, chemistry, and biology -- as well as any other relevant science. There will be someone out there ready and eager to interject at this point that "it's only a game". I agree, but I will remind him that role games necessarily and inevitably simulate environments. Players have been too thoroughly conditioned by their own life experiences and have acquired enough knowledge about what happens in their own world to make setting it aside far too difficult. It is too much to expect of players to demand that they accept an arbitrary universe conceived by the Game Master which has natural laws too far removed from those of our real world. Water flows downhill, not up. Rocks do not suspend in midair (unless comprised of ferrous material and buoyed up by an electro-magnetic field). Living creatures can be damaged and killed by physical agencies. These are the facts of science. Why should it suddenly be different in a "fantasy" world?

A Game Master bent on violating natural laws should be required to present detailed explanations of the "laws" of his universe which conflict with those we know prior to playing in his world. Any surprises in this area are simply inexcusable.

Here, I think we very strongly see a difference between Gygaxian and C&S-ian naturalism. The Gygaxian variety is more concerned with verisimilitude than with simulation. C&S, on the other hand, is very much about simulation, as even the short passage above demonstrates. Throw in some high-handed rhetoric about players -- and other designers -- who don't know enough physics, chemistry, and biology and it's very easy to see why I had the impression of the game I did back in the day.

In this passage at least, Chivalry & Sorcery definitely comes across as the game of guys who take it a little too seriously and look down their nose at those who don't share their degree of obsessiveness. Of course, as with many things, that's not the whole story, as is evident even within the "Designing C&S Monsters" section from which I've quoted. Still, there's no question that C&S was one of those games that appealed primarily to those who'd already played D&D and found it unsatisfying, not because it was confusing or poorly written, but because it wasn't a good enough simulation. It's a game that was, in some sense, somewhat parasitic upon D&D, because it depended on dissatisfaction with D&D as an engine for generating its players.

That's nothing new by any means. Just as Benjamin Jowett was reputed to have said that all of Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, so too one might argue that all of RPG design consists of a series of footnotes to Gygax and Arneson. C&S definitely feels that way to me, at least right now, but I reserve the right to change my opinion as I absorb more of these fascinating rulebooks.

Intriguing C&S Quotes

Thanks to the kindness of Victor Raymond, I am now the proud owner of the first edition of Chivalry & Sorcery, as well as its two sourcebooks. In my youth, I only ever saw anyone play the second edition of the game (the boxed set), so having the chance to read the first edition and its sourcebooks will be a treat for me. Expect many more posts about it in the days and weeks to come.

For the moment, though, I just wanted to share a couple of quotes. The first is from Scott Bizar's introduction to the rulebook:

Chivalry & Sorcery is the most complete rule booklet ever published. Its very completeness creates problems in the mass of rules to be absorbed. However, the useful suggestions within the rules for how to run a C & S campaign will more than compensate for any difficulty in mastering the volume of rules.

In his introduction to The Chivalry & Sorcery Sourcebook published a year later (1978), Bizar's introduction begins with the following:

In the summer of 1977, when we first released Chivalry & Sorcery, we believed that we had published a truly complete game that would never need a supplement. That the book you are now reading exists, demonstrates how wrong we were. C & S is indeed the most complete game ever created, but it is an ongoing campaign and new aspects of the campaign are constantly coming to light and need codification. For these reasons we have created the Sourcebook.

Now, on one level, it's amusing to see Scott Bizar attempt to recast his original boast about the completeness of C&S. It's a very easy thing to do, too, since he frequently made such statements about FGU's games (something similar is said in his introduction to Space Opera, for example). On the other hand, pay attention to what he says about C&S being "an ongoing campaign." It's an odd statement on the face of it, but makes more sense when you realize that, as authors Simbalist and Backhaus made clear in the original rulebook, the game is actually a codification of a system created by the University of Alberta's Fantasy Wargames Society to address problems they had with the lack of context for "dungeon and wilderness adventures," which is to say, problems they had with Dungeons & Dragons.

As I understand it, the earliest version of C&S was, like so many early RPGs, a set of house rules for OD&D and the story goes that Simbalist and Backhaus initially thought of submitting their work to TSR for publication as a supplement to D&D. That didn't happen for a variety of reasons (I've heard at least two versions of the tale) and Chivalry & Sorcery as an independent game was born. But the process of house ruling that had led to the creation of this game out of OD&D was still ongoing, even after the rulebook was published in 1977. Simbalist and Backhaus were still playing their campaign and still adding new rules and clarifying existing ones. That's what Scott Bizar was referring to in his introduction to The Sourcebook.

You know what? I find this really appealing. It suggests that C&S was a game that was actually played rather than having been designed solely for the purpose of being sold. It's not a consumer product but a product of passion. That's why I love OD&D's supplements so much (the first three anyway), which feel as if they were the results of someone's having used the LBBs and, through play, come up with new options, additions, and modifications to them. To my mind, that's how an RPG should be developed, not according to a preplanned product schedule created independent of -- or in contradiction to -- actual play. I realize that adopting such an attitude would pretty much doom roleplaying to being a largely hobbyist endeavor, but would that be such a bad thing?

C&S Quote

Thanks to one of my readers, Richard Guy, I now have a copy of the Chivalry and Sorcery second edition boxed set to place on my shelf next to Space Opera. It's a game that's elicited mixed feelings in me since time immemorial, but it's also a game that I've long been interested in from afar. I am sure that the game's emphasis on a "realistic" medieval social structure has a lot to do with my ambivalent feelings toward it. This is a topic about which I'm likely to talk more in the coming weeks, as I delve back into the game (alongside Space Opera -- I am nothing if not a glutton for punishment).

Anyway, while skimming the game over the holidays, I came across a section I'd read before and thought to comment upon previously. It pertains to evil religions and their place in a roleplaying game campaign.

One thing should be noted, however. Depraved religions should not be offered up to Player-Characters as their faiths. This introduces a negative factor into the gaming and has profoundly bad psychological effects on some people. Players who get into demon religion in an FRP campaign sometimes go snake, as the saying goes. The GameMaster bears full responsibility and should be alert for signs of strangeness and then do something about it. The best course is to offer a positive experience, not the weird, bizarre and outright sick.

Never having seen the first edition of C&S, I can't say whether that section was included in it. I'd be surprised if it had been, as the 1983 text reads like it was designed to insulate the game from attracting the ire of Patricia Pulling, who began her one-woman crusade against D&D just the year before. If so, it's an intriguing historical snapshot from the days when tabletop RPGs were faddish enough to elicit public notoriety rather than shrugs of indifference.

12,000 A Month

I've mentioned before Rudy Kraft's interview with Gary Gygax in the premiere issue of the fanzine Gryphon, from the summer of 1980. I was re-reading it over the last few days and I was struck by a section that I'd somehow either missed or just not fully grasped when I'd read it earlier.

Gryphon: Several other companies Fantasy Roleplaying games are doing very well in sales -- Chivalry and Sorcery, for example.

Gygax: Where do you think "very well" is?

Gryphon: Probably nowhere near Dungeons and Dragons.

Gygax: 1000 copies a month is what I heard.

Gryphon: For Chivalry and Sorcery?

Gygax: Uh-huh.

Gryphon: What's Dungeons and Dragons a month?

Gygax: 12,000 a month. That's the basic set.

Gryphon: So the various manuals and the original stuff would add on above that.

Gygax: Oh, sure, sure.

The mind simply boggles at these numbers. 12,000 a month just for the D&D Basic Set, which, in 1980, would mean the Holmes-edited one. And FGU's Chivalry & Sorcery was selling 1000 copies a month? If true, that's simply amazing and further evidence that we're not likely to ever see the hobby achieve a comparable amount of mass market success.

I doubt most RPGs sell 12,000 copies over their entire lifetimes, let alone over a single month (or a single year, as in the case of C&S). I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, I'm generally of the opinion that the mainstream success of D&D was bad for the game, or at least the version of the game I most enjoy, so I don't pine for a return to those days. Barring some unforeseen shift in popular culture, a return is pretty much impossible anyway. Still, it's fascinating to be reminded of just how much of a fad roleplaying was back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Of Magick & Magicians

In my never-ending quest to fill in the gaps in my knowledge of the hobby's history, I've been reading the 1983 edition of Chivalry & Sorcery quite closely. Its treatment of magic (or magick, as it insists on calling it) is remarkable and I suspect I'll be raiding it for ideas in my Dwimmermount campaign.

In any case, I came across the following quote, which really set the tone:

If Magick is a form of knowledge, then the Magician should be seen as a seeker after knowledge. He is not a mere weapons technologist, as presented in some FRP games. He will not serve gold or power hungry individuals. Nor will he act as a heavily armed magical escort for glory-seeking adventurers simply because they need a compact magical S.W.A.T. team to take care of really dangerous foes. He has little interest in gaining possession of the magical devices of other Mages, because he can produce his own. His sole passion is to learn all of the secrets of the Arcane Arts -- the very secrets of the universe as he sees it. He is curious. He has to know the Truth! That Truth will most certainly give him great Powers, but it is in the knowing, not the exercise of Power, that the Magician finds his fulfillment ...

This does not rule out the excitement of an adventure. Only the Magician has some deep motive for going. He stands to learn something new or is attempting to forestall some terrible disaster. He doesn't go for ordinary reasons; for he is not an ordinary man.

I won't speak for anyone else, but found these passages quite evocative and compelling. They're a good example of understanding that magic should be, well, magical and not ersatz technology. The magic-user in D&D, even in its earliest versions, often strays a little too close to being "a mere weapons technologist" and that's a shame, because nothing about magic should ever be so simple or straightforward.