22 May, 2009

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED around 1981.

Boxed Sets So I was a bit perplexed as to why the S&S collector’s edition didn’t set
MAY 21, 2009 08:54P.M. off the same alarm bells in my head that other old school products do.
Part of it is that I got a kick out of finally acquiring a brand new White
Box, one I didn’t get second-hand. It was almost as if my nearly-40 year-
old self was magically transported back to 1974 and I got to be one of the
early adopters of this crazy new game from the Midwest. I can’t really
call it nostalgia, since I was five years old when OD&D was released, but,
whatever one terms it, I felt an emotional rush of opening the crisp new
box and pulling out its three little brown books and reading them. I
should add that, having had the chance to look over this edition (whose
text is identical to the revised edition), nearly all the quibbles I had about
the original release, which I reviewed last Fall, were swept away. If I
weren’t already playing Swords & Wizardry, I might well consider
adopting S&S as my game of choice instead. Even so, there’s a lot here I
may adopt anyway, since one of the joys of old school gaming is the easy
compatibility of all these variants.

The other part — the bigger part, I think — of why I so fell in love with
this package is that it came in nice, compact, little box. Everything I need
to play the game is right in there and, while there are some expansions to
S&S available, I don’t need them. More to the point, the game contained
within the box is straightforward and to the point, just how I prefer my
games to be. Boxed sets have more or less disappeared from the RPG
scene, with a few notable exceptions, and with that disappearance so too
has succinctness. A box sets a physical limit on just how much verbiage a
designer can churn out for a game and I think the loss of boxed sets has
had a generally negative impact on game design, creating an
environment in which completeness is largely a myth or, at best, a
temporary state of affairs until the next hardcover volume is released in a
month.

In the mail today I received my long-awaited three-volume collector’s

You know why AD&D was released as a series of hardcover books? To
edition of Jason Vey’s awesome Chainmail-inspired old school game,
accommodate the desires of Random House, who wanted to distribute
Spellcraft & Swordplay. As you can see from the photograph to the right,
Dungeons & Dragons in the US and Canada, but which balked at trying
the collector’s edition came as a boxed set that mimics the appearance of
to sell tiny boxed games to retailers. Thus was born a format that made it
the OD&D white box, although it includes a couple of extras, such as dice
easier to sit on a retailer’s shelf and the door was opened, however
and pre-printed character sheets, that were never included with its
slightly, to where we are today. I miss those boxed sets of old. I’d love to
illustrious predecessor. As I’ve said innumerable times on this blog, I’m
see them come back, but I know why they won’t, both in practical and
actually rather negative about aping the look and feel of stuff from the
economic terms. I think it’s a pity, as the joy I experienced this morning
1970s. My feeling remains that, as nostalgic as I am about the old stuff I
showed. Plus, I think a lot of good would come of putting RPGs back in
grew up with, I think it’s a mistake to use those products of yore as
boxes; it might help to remind people that these are games. Crazy, I
esthetic models for contemporary old school products. I’m not talking
know.
about the art so much as the graphic design and layout, which I generally
think has been improved with the passing of the years. Ultimately, I
think it’ll prove a costly mistake for the old school movement if it ties
itself too closely to a narrow set of presentation choices that ossified

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 22 May, 2009

ROGUE FEED

Three Threads
MAY 21, 2009 07:00P.M.

I make no secret of my deep abiding love for the Three Musketeers of

Weird Tales: Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and H.P. Lovecraft.
I consider each of them, in their own ways, literarily significant authors
whose works transcend the limited venues in which their writings first
appeared. But my purpose in this entry isn’t to laud their lasting value as
writers. Instead, I want to briefly touch upon the things each brings to
bear when considering “pulp fantasy D&D,” which is to say, an
interpretation of the game that eschews both the high fantasy of Tolkien
and (especially) his imitators and the “cinematic” approach so in fashion
these days.

H.P. Lovecraft: The Old Gent isn’t mentioned in OD&D, but he does
make an appearance in Appendix N, making him a natural fit for a pulp
fantasy D&D. HPL brings a lot to the table, first and foremost a
counterpoint to exaggerated devotion to Howard. In Lovecraft’s
worldview, human beings are small and insignificant, beneath the notice
the true lords of the universe. Left to its own, Lovecraftianism tends
toward bleakness and that’s not a good feel for a pulp fantasy D&D. but
neither is excessive confidence in the capacity of the average man to
achieve anything of lasting worth.

More than that, Lovecraft acknowledges that there’s a wider world

Robert E. Howard: It’s easy to discern the influence the creator of
Conan might have over Dungeons & Dragons. Howard is the only one of
the Big Three mentioned by name in OD&D, which places him among a
select few authors (along with Burroughs, De Camp, Leiber, and Pratt)
whose acknowledged influence is there from the very beginning. REH
brings not only a certain “blood and thunder” mindset to the game, but,
more importantly, an emphasis on broadly adventure broadly defined.
He’s a reminder that D&D is, at its base, a game of action and
exploration, about overcoming challenges and profiting — and dying —
from doing so.
beyond the petty concerns of mortal men. His awesome cosmicism is, I
think, an important element often overlooked. He makes plain the idea
that there is more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy and, worse yet, those things are utterly alien and, in many
cases, functionally malign. Lovecraftian entities make terrific opponents
and his cosmicism, ironically, helps buttress a powerful humanism when
placed within a larger pulp fantasy context.

That’s absolutely essential to any notion of what a pulp fantasy D&D

needs to be and Howard offers that in spades, not just in his Conan
stories but in all of his major story cycles. That’s not to suggest that the
game can’t be more than that by any means, but it’s nevertheless vital
that we not lose sight of the fact that any “meaning” D&D has is an
emergent property that arises through play rather than being some a
priori property of it.

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 22 May, 2009

This issue contains posts from between

May 21, 2009 07:05a.m. and May 22, 2009 03:05a.m..
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Clark Ashton Smith: The Bard of Auburn isn’t mentioned in either

OD&D or AD&D explicitly and, by most accounts, his direct influence
over Gygax and Arneson was minimal. I think that’s a shame, because
what CAS brings to the table is something D&D desperately needs and
has always needed: a sense of exoticism and mysticism. By this I mean
that all too often even D&D‘s most outré elements quickly become banal,
reduced to a series of game stats that fail to convey the eldritch beauty of
the Other Side or the exhilirating danger posed by meddling with the
forces of magic.

Despite this, Smith grounds his fantasies in reality. By that I don’t mean
to say that he was a Gygaxian naturalist avant le fait. Rather, it’s that his
descriptions are luxuriously sensual and bodily. Unlike Lovecraft, very
few things in Smith’s writings are “ineffable” or otherwise defy
description. The result is a strange literary alchemy that doesn’t reduce
magic to a formula while simultaneously investing it with reality. That’s
something D&D could benefit from immensely.

These then are three threads from which I’ve been trying to weave my
Dwimmermount campaign. They’re all the three threads about which I’ll
be talking more in the coming weeks, with lots of examples of just what I
mean and how others can do the same in their own adventures and
campaigns.