“Today, We Celebrate our Independence Day!”

 

Happy 4th of July!

Oh no!  Weregrog is going to bore us with some political screed about how great/not great/could be great (again) “‘Merica” is.  Well, I won't.

But I do want to talk about one thing and how it relates to this day:  D&D and RPGs.

Yes!  D&D/RPGs are an original, American invention and pastime; more American than (Dutch) apple pie, to be sure.  I think that the magic sauce of values that made this a free country is what makes something like D&D possible – a place where its people (or We the People) are free to have “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” with things like freedom of expression (through play) and freedom of the (game book ) press.  I feel this liberty also engenders the prosperity and leisure time necessary to indulge in frivolities like make-believe elf games, and I find that this is true regardless of how the country overall is doing at any one particular time (the 1970s were not that economically great and Gygax worked on D&D while unemployed!)  Finally, there is the spirit of independence.  And to me, this is personified by DIY D&D/RPGs and the OSR.

All that is worth celebrating!

Speaking of DIY, and since I'm on a Fallout (D6) kick, here's a vehicle for the game and the ‘Lanta Wasteland setting (did I tell you it’s going to feature vehicles?!): the Freedom Chariot.

Freedom Chariot

Move (meters per round/kilometers per hour): 84/60 kph 

Passengers (including driver): 1-2 

Toughness: 4D 

Maneuverability: +3D 

Price: 6,500 caps (unique)

Description: while former Regulator Commander Jessup Dux is no longer mobile, and spends most of his days drinking and swearing rather than working on customer’s war-wagons at Dux Garage, his daughter Maisey is extremely talented with machines (and pretty much runs the Garage these days.)  She has secretly worked on this mobility scooter for her father so that he can take impromptu trips to the nearby settlement of Woodfort, which while close, could still be a dangerous trek due to the many dangers of the ‘Lanta Wasteland.

The Freedom Chariot's reinforced frame is cobbled from various motorcycle and car parts and outfitted with a hybrid microfusion-methane engine, making it slightly more powerful and maneuverable than what one would expect for a vehicle of this type.  The forward area features a cargo basket and attached combat rifle for both long and short-range defense, while the rear platform can be used for either extra cargo or standing room for one passenger.  Rim and tire spikes function to repel flanking enemies, or grind Wasteland vermin and fallen enemies alike into paste.  The American Commonwealth flag is there to remind her father of his famous war-wagon, the General Sherman, and invoke the fear of the Old World into his enemies.

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say…

 …don’t say anything at all.  Or so the saying goes.  We interrupt our normal content to talk about this video highlighting the upcoming book, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1976.  It is a history about the making of the Original game, with scans of the Original books, documents, letters, commentary, and input from game historian Jon Peterson.  I was highly anticipating this book, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

The video features one Jason Tondro, Senior Game designer at Wizards of the Coast (WotC) for D&D, who apparently has been playing since the Original game was around (so you know that he has old school chops, of course.)

Towards the end of the video (around the 38:30 mark,) Mr. Tondro and interviewer Todd Kenreck go into a smug diatribe about how Original D&D wouldn’t pass their “inclusivity reviews” today, and as a bonus, throw a racist, sexist comment about white males from the Midwest, since it is apparently socially acceptable to do so nowadays.  (Calling it like it is.  Political extremists don’t get to redefine these terms to suit their ideology.)

No shi*t!  The criticism was obvious, unwarranted, and ignorant to boot.  The example they use is the fighter class previously being called “fighting-man,” as if it was some deliberate attempt by some insidious, so-called Patriarchy to enforce their sinister will via an obscure, small press wargame in 1974.

Thing is, five seconds on the interwebz can tell you that the term “fighting-man” originates from “Appendix N” authors like Robert E. Howard (of Conan fame,) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars fame,) whose writings inspired the creators of the game (emphasis mine):

“It was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.”

 - Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

“When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.”

- Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword

 I find this is a common occurrence with moralist critics.  They don’t seem to “do the work” (the research work, that is) before vomiting subjective nonsense.  Don’t get me started on those dark elves…

Spoiler alert: they're aliens from a (very good) sci-fi novel, written by a female author.

As far as I know, this did not stop female players from playing female "fighting-men" in Original D&D.  If I was to be cynical, which I’m entitled to be at my advancing age, having this guy on almost seems like an attempt to show a sympathetic character so that OG grogs can find their way to the light and repent for their sin of appreciating or even (*gasp*) loving the older games.  It's weird how WotC talks out of both sides of their mouth on classic D&D.  On one hand, they crap all over its legacy, and on the other, they still want your money for this stuff.  Regardless, this kind of commentary from the current faces of D&D seem to lend credence to the idea that new D&D is for people who never really liked old D&D.  Sad.

Original D&D is, like most things, a product of its time; this we know.  Heck!  It didn’t even pass the moralist Christian purity test back then, either (funny how history repeats itself!)  We don't need to be beat over the head with this information again and again.  Fortunately, the game survived the moralists then, and I believe it will survive the moralists now (and tomorrow.)

Old D&D turned me into a newt!  Burn it!

The new (likely sanitized) D&D books will be releasing sometime later in the year (with at least one delayed for the next.)  This will mark the first time in thirty or so years that I do not want buy the next edition of the game (I even have the 5e books.)  I’m just not interested.  I used to think it was a good thing at least, to support the mainstream game even if you don’t play it much (or at all.)  Now I’m not so sure.  In fact, I’m not sure I even want to purchase The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1974, but I do have a lot of respect for Jon Peterson, and I’d really like to read what he wrote (which I suspect is good.)

WotC may own the trademark of D&D (and associated IP,) and is fully entitled to call the shots about the direction in which it goes, but it has increasingly shown itself to be a poor custodian of the game and its history.  The silver lining is the Original game, its spirit, and classic ways of play can at least continue to live on in some form, warts-and-all, regardless of what happens with the official one, thanks largely to the Open Game Licenses (OGLs) and independent publishers with the wherewithal to use them.   To paraphrase something once said about Gary Gygax:
 

D&D is too important to leave to WotC.

Xi & Xi

BREAKING NEWS

Doot, doo-doot, doot, doot, doo-doot…

It looks like Wizards of the Coast (WotC) might be peddling the D&D intellectual property (IP) to potential buyers like Tencent, a company owned by an authoritarian country that happens to rhyme with the intimate parts of the female anatomy.

I couldn't resist!

This is bad enough, but it’s par for the course in our modern, global economy.  These IPs are valuable assets and companies are hungry for them or eager to offload them when they need cash.  Case closed.

*nom...nom...nom* (AI Image courtesy of Bing Image Creator)

What I’m most worried about though, is what will happen to not so much whatever the current version of D&D is (or will be,) but D&D Classics.  

If you have any classic, D&D print-on-demand or PDFs titles on your wish list, you might want to grab those ASAP, and place them in your (real or digital) vault of treasures, because regardless of how this sale goes (or not.)  It’s clear that major changes are coming to D&D.  

I experienced this circa 2008 when WotC pulled their classic PDFs from RPGNow.  While DrivethruRPG (to their credit) honored most of these when they came back online years later, not everything has been offered, and not in the same format.  For example, my PDF of the Mentzer Expert Set no longer includes the Isle of Dread adventure (which it should!)  The lesson: be proactive when change is in the air.  Don’t be caught with your studded leather breeches down!

What a way to celebrate D&D’s 50th anniversary huh?

 

Update: It seems the issue may be more complicated, where the sale IP in question might just be the rights to video game versions (could it include the upcoming virtual table as well?)  That's what I get for getting into the "news" game.  Anyway, my point still applies.  It's best to be prudent about these things.

Grimdark Swords and Sorcery Campaigns: Tips from The Witcher Series

 I’ve been two sword hilts deep into the video game Witcher 3, thanks first, to the Netflix series, and now the books, which I received last Christmas.  Needless to say...

Also, more Witcher!

It’s got me thinking about D&D and the swords and sorcery genre.  There are more than a few fans of D&D who feel the game doesn’t do the genre of swords and sorcery very well.  Personally, I think this is poppycock, balderdash, and even nonsense.

Nonsense, I say!

Arguably, the material that inspired the game, from Arneson’s to Gygax’s “Appendix N” is 99.99% swords and sorcery.  Later, the setting that the venerable, Orignal and AD&D books imply puts this clearly into practice: humanocentric societies, Vancian-inspired magic, dangerous wilderness, and seedy cities (like Greyhawk) that are essentially love letters to Lankhmar.

But before y’all get your neckbeards in a fluff, you nay-sayers have a point.  The “G” part of RPG, the “crunch”, if you will, sometimes kills the sword and sorcery vibe with things like Tolkienesque races and creatures, dazzling, super-powered spells and magic items, including the restorative powers of clerics and paladins.  Even the nine-point alignment system tends to make things less morally ambiguous, and harder to depict a grimdark world.

Now, GMs can always remove certain races, spells, etc. from the game to fit their vision of swords and sorcery, and this is fine*, but what if you didn’t have to?  What if you could have your cake and eat it too, enjoying your grimdark world of heavy metal slaughter, dark magic, and low stakes, while pleasing your players who always insist on playing pseudo-Scottish dwarves and pretty, ethereal elves?  The setting of the the Witcher series serves as an example.  With just a few things to keep in mind when creating your milieu, the ”RP” part of RPG, or “fluff”, you can do just that.

* and commercially successful.

 

1. The world is a crapsack place and people are horrible (just like in ours!)

The world of The Witcher, while fantastic, is firmly grounded in a time similar to the Late Medieval period (14-15^th centuries.)  A quick look at Lazypedia tells us that it wasn’t exactly a great time to be alive.  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (The Wild Hunt?) are trampling through Europe with wild abandon: Famine due to a miniature Ice Age, Pestilence in the form of the Black Plague, and the Hundred Years’ War, all contributing to massive Death.  A terrible time and place to be in, but wonderful for gaming!

Whee!!!

The world of The Witcher is similarly war-torn and wracked by conflict, showing its grim side effects: ravaged countrysides, banditry, famine, disease, and human desperation.  A common theme the Witcher series is that humans are often worse than monsters.  Characters in the stories and games tend to have dark backgrounds or secrets:

·         A vampire-like monster that plagues the local ruler’s lands is the cursed issue of an incestuous relationship with his sister.

·         An undead creature was the result of a miscarriage caused by an abusive, wife-beating husband.

·         The friendly, local hedge wizard/wise man/pet goat enjoyer is a guilt-ridden patricide.

In your D&D Campaign: Play up the fact that the world is dangerous.  This is not difficult, especially in low-level, old school D&D.  The fact that the game has wargaming roots and the players can, with experience and gold, become warlords with strongholds and small armies implies a war-torn world with little or no central authority.  There is a modicum of law, order, and safety to be found in the 50-mile, patrolled area around a local ruler’s castle, but none past that.  This is supported perfectly by the harsh difficulty of D&D’s wilderness encounter tables.  A typical point-of-light in the wilderness can be easily snuffed out by a humanoid or monster invasion, or even hostile neighbors.  There should be evidence of this in ruined castles and destroyed villages (some the lairs of monsters and bandits) in your wilderness.  Even within the safety of patrolled areas, the men that wear the local ruler's colors are little more than legitimized thugs and bandits themselves.

Major NPCs you come up with should have a dark secret or a terrible story, preferably tied to an adventure hook or location.  Just pick one of the Seven Deadly Sins (pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth,) and roll with that.  Even with alignments, all characters can have deep moral flaws, and even the best are fallible.  You can use the Law/Chaos axis only, or downplay the Good/Evil axis for average people.  For example, the local farmer might try to be Lawful and Good (and he is 80% of the time,) but there was that one time where he couldn’t help sleeping with his friend’s wife, and then left his friend in the woods to die when said friend suffered a hunting accident, knowing that he could then have his way with the wife at any time.  Coincidentally, the friend’s corpse has attracted an entire ghoul lair to the area, or maybe he rose as vengeful undead (or both!)

I killed my parents with a rusty axe because I was hangry (AI image courtesy of NightCafe.)

 

2. Non-humans are a (feared and hated) minority

Much like in the implied D&D setting, the world of The Witcher features non-human civilizations whose day in the sun has long since passed.  The elves, dwarves, halflings, and gnomes are considered second-class citizens in most places, regularly oppressed, and often the victims of terrible, genocidal pogroms.  Some, like the elven freedom fighter/terrorist scoia'tael, are equally terrible towards humans in return, and they might say justifiably so.

In your D&D campaign:  Humans and demihumans typically don’t exist in the same communities, and tend to be segregated when they do (either voluntarily or by local law.)  Most rural humans have never met an elf or a dwarf and just know them from tales and local superstition.  Even if all the player characters are non-human, they will be met with equal parts curiosity and suspicion when in (human-dominated) towns and villages.  Similarly, elf, dwarf, and halfling communities can be highly xenophobic themselves.

If you would rather not deal with the subject of racial prejudice in your game (even in a fictional context,) you can at least make NPC non-humans rare, and give them some strange or negative qualities, quirks, and cultural norms like in the darkest of fairy tales.  Maybe elves are decadent hedonists whose diversions with others amount to cruel (and sometimes deadly) pranks; there is no word for “consent” in the elven language.  Maybe dwarves are just as greedy as in the stories, and tend to waylay those openly displaying gold.  You see, it’s an involuntary impulse where they fly into a frenzy at the sight (or maybe smell) of it.  Have you ever wondered why halfling villages are so peaceful and prosperous in the middle of the dangerous wilds?  What manner of beings must they sacrifice to in order to have those bountiful harvests every year?

Y'ndalla ftaghn! (AI image courtesy of NightCafe.)

 

3. Exceptional people are rare (and also hated)

As a mutant with extraordinary abilities, the titular character in The Witcher (Geralt of Rivia) is, to the average person he meets, not much different than the monsters he hunts.  He faces hatred and disgust wherever he goes as a general rule, except for when the people need him to take care of a (monster) problem.  Even the beautiful sorceresses don’t fare much better.  They might be welcome in high society, as the powerful have need of them, but they are not loved (mostly because they manipulate and meddle in the world's politics.)

Generally speaking, people tend to at best fear (or be in awe) of what they don’t understand, and at worst, excoriate those too dissimilar to them or their community, especially in a pseudo-medieval world.  It’s all too easy to dehumanize those who stand out and the desire to bring them down when they are at their weakest is a strong human impulse (just look at cancel culture today!)

In your D&D campaign: Considered player characters, and classed NPCs as the “one percent.”  The vast majority of the NPCs in the world fall in the “normal human” category, and they know it, deep down and painfully.  They’ll never have the powers, magic, or gold pieces that adventurers have.  It turns out might *does* make right!  Why is that guy over there the local lord?  Because he’s a freaking 9^th-level fighter, that’s why!   You think a 1^st-level magic-user is a big nothing with their one, measly spell?  Consider what one can potentially do once every day:

·         Charm anyone into a friend (or perhaps lover) – you know how far you could get in the real world with this power alone?

·         Cart away a prize sow, year’s harvest, or town treasury quietly in the night with a floating disc of magical force

·         Strike a regular person dead, or seriously injure them with an unerring, magical missile

·         Put an angry peasant mob to sleep

·         Cast a magic shield to fend off said mob’s ire (and pitchforks)

When adventurers come into town, they should be treated with fear and suspicion as the powerful murder-hobos they are.  The local ruler will be will be very interested in tracking their every move (since they are a threat to his power,) and his rivals might consider what part the adventurers can play in advancing their own goals.  The neighborhood good ol’ boys may give a player character fighter a wide berth, but they might gang up on him later just to see if they can take down the fastest sword in the West, especially if they have bellies (and brains) full of liquid courage.  A magic-user could have peasants coming to her for hexes and other magical solutions, only to want to burn her at the stake later (to avoid payment.)  Even the cleric may be openly welcomed by the local vicar while being secretly (and jealously) hated for his saintly powers:  “What makes him so special?  Maybe those powers came from an evil, ungodly source!  I should write to the inquisitors just in case!”  Of course, thieves are never welcome anywhere, and rival thieves least of all.

“True” magic spells and items are strictly the purview of only these rare one-percenters.  Your average NPC doesn’t know anything about magic, and has likely never seen a spell, let alone a magic sword or ring, but has plenty of beliefs, superstitions, and erroneous, common knowledge regarding these.  There should be a plethora of NPC fortune-tellers, soothsayers, hedge-wizards, cunning women, and other grifters and con-men with little to no real power, who are all too ready to prey on these beliefs with expensive charms, talismans, and B.S. “cures” for colic, bunions, rheumatism, broken hearts, and the like.  Even if there is a local cleric that can cure wounds and raise the dead, these limited miracles likely reserved for the ruling family and nobility, hence the high price in gold for these services.  One or two spells for curing disease per day cannot possibly hope to stave off a plague spreading like wildfire through a population (especially one that has no knowledge of germ theory and sanitary practices.)

 

And there it is!  By following the example of the Witcher series, it is easy to include all aspects of D&D, while still having a pretty dark, low(ish) magic campaign in the vein of sword and sorcery stories.  So “toss a coin to your witcher” (or adventures) next time they come to town.  I’m off to win a high-stakes Gwent tournament!

Do I use the Scorch card this round or save it for the next?

 

The D&D Movie I Want to See

 

Being that a week+ case of the 'rona (three-year survivor, baby!) precludes me from hate-watching (or like-watching, if reviews are to be believed) the new D&D movie,  I'm going to give your the dubious pleasure of telling you about the D&D movie I wanted to see if I was God Emperor of Mankind.

• It should take advantage of the current 80-90s (swiftly becoming aughts) nostalgia.  (See Stranger Things and Ghostbusters: Afterlife)
• It should a) acknowledge D&D is a game in some way, or b) be set in on of the myriad D&D worlds of the last 20 years (I think the new movie sort of does this.)  Also, Dragonlance.  I want my Peter Jackson, year-long pre-production caliber Dragonlance dammit!

"This, I Command!" (I'm getting my 80s references confused.  It's the meds, you see.)

 True confessions: I have not listened to the D&D cartoon radio play, Requiem, So I haven't the foggiest if this is at all canonical.  It's my fever-dream, so deal. 

The film begins with a classic scene of a bunch of similar-looking, but not quite, the characters from the D&D cartoon, played by the adult actors in the film.  The acting is really hammed up, over-the-top (read: terri-bad) as the heroes face off with a dragon in front of its hoard.  This is because the whole thing is a game!

 

Cue the now grown-up Thief or Acrobat calling the kids up from their D&D product placement...err...game for dinner.  The crew from the cartoon still gets together every once in a while because of their shared experience.  That shared experience, however, is not what you think.  The hallway has a framed newspaper that reads: "Kids Lost in Tunnels Under Amusement Park Ride Found!" (a bit of a dark Easter egg, from the game's 80s controversies)

Other pictures do the exposition of who married who and what they did: Acrobat + Cavalier (Olympic medalist and real estate developer respectively) and Ranger + Thief (they're your more typical middle class family)

As far as the kids remember, they just got lost in a malfunctioning amusement park ride for a week.  All except this guy...

 

He remembers EVERYTHING

 Played by this guy:

Good old Uncle Bobby didn't grow up as well-adjusted as his peers because of the loss of Uni the Unicron and you know, massive PTSD from living in a D&D world of Satantic nightmare.

I hate to say it, but my sweet, and devout 'abuela' was on to something.

...

 Things get a little foggier from here but I'll give your the highlights:

• Uncle Bobby has an alcohol abuse problem(,but a sweet van.) He storms off from dinner (because nobody believes him) and goes to go drink by the old amusement park (currently being torn down by Cavalier's company.)  This is causing a rift between our world and the D&D world.  The natives could have told you this, if anyone bothered to ask them.  Maybe one of the kids is indigenous and has a grandparent that knows the old stories.
  
• There's a Ghostbusters-like sequence with D&D monsters invading our world: bullywugs at the school, a mail person delivering Netflix (remember those?) to find the mailbox is a mimic.  Hunters and/or park rangers witness an owlbear (lost opportunity for a Gygax/Arneson cameo if they were still around.)

 

"What the heck is that, Gary?!" "I dunno Dave, looks like some sort of owl-bear...Crap!  It saw us!"

• The action continues with the kids trying to escape the monsters, but the parents don't believe them.  Thankfully, Uncle Bobby does and he rolls up in the aforementioned, sweet van to save them.  Unfortunately, they can't leave in it because of rust monsters.
• All right you old Gen Xers!  Get ready for some middle aged tears as a none other than Uni (now a full grown Unicorn straight out of the local Pride Parade) saves the day! Bobby and Uni are tearfully reunited.
• But that's not all!  The kids get their own artifacts and character classes: Bard (for the musician kid), Druid (for the nature-lover), maybe others like Sorcerer or Monk. Once they rescue a curious old man who goes by the name of Dungeon Master, that is.
  
• Once the original crew are reunited with Dungeon Master and their old artifacts, the finally remember everything (via flashbacks: "Look! a Dungeons & Dragons ride!").  The kids and adults team up to close the rift in old caves/mines under the amusement park.
• Don't put a way the Kleenex yet, Xoomer! Barbarian Bobby (looking ridiculous) now gets to ride Uni at the vanguard of a Good Monster army to buy the others time to herd the Evil monsters and close the rift.
• Of course, you can't do anything these days without an after credits scene to set up the next movie! How about this?  Half the kids and half the adults are now stuck in D&D world and our world respectively.  They wake up to see the familiar back of Dungeon Master, who calls them by their class names: "Welcome, Ranger, Thief, Druid..."

 

Now, go and enjoy the real movie!  I'll catch up to you next week *sniffle, cough, gag*.