"Imagine the Hell Out of It!"

"No. Giant Ants are diurnal."

I hope I don't embarrass Matt Finch by calling him one of the "fathers" of the old school gaming movement. He created Swords & Wizardry and I called Swords & Wizardry White Box (co-authored by Marvin Breig) the "gold standard" of OD&D clones. But if he's only remembered in the community for one thing, I propose it should be a slogan:

Imagine the hell out of it!

What could better express the OSR, and thus the original promise of paper and pencil adventure games, in a sentence?

The idea is that minimalism in rules presentation and design has a purpose (beyond just saving the author and reader time). If paper and pencil fantasy adventure games are about anything, they're about imagination. But too much descriptive prose, or even too many fussy mechanics can often kill imagination or at least suppress it. Here is a great passage from White Box that makes this point:

There’s not a lot of detail given about the monsters, because the more detail given, the more your own mental image of the fantasy world is going to be locked into a single track. We’re not going to say that giant ants are red, nocturnal, three feet long, and fond of eating Elves. Because in your mind, they might be blue, diurnal, five feet long, and eat only plants unless they’re attacked. Details about monsters toss roadblocks in front of your imagination. Yes, details can also inspire the imagination, but we’re making the assumption that if you’re interested in fantasy gaming in the first place, you’ve got a good imagination that doesn’t need details about the size of a giant ant.

In my view, this is the key to the brilliance of the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the "three little brown books," published in 1974. For example, for each of the monsters in Monsters & Treasure, their actual appearance is rarely described, and when they are described they are never described in much detail beyond the general. Goblins are merely "small monsters," Wights are "nasty critters" and so on. There are a few exceptions, whose rarity, as Finch might agree, in and of itself stimulates the imagination--"Thin and rubbery, loathsome Trolls" being one of the best examples.

Interestingly, much of the implicit description comes in the form of rules mechanics. For example, Goblins, "when they are subjected to full daylight they subtract -1 from their attack and morale dice." In play, this penalty is negligible, costing Goblins a mere 5% on their to-hit probabilities. But what the mechanic is in fact doing is telling you that Goblins don't like sunlight.

Each edition of Dungeons & Dragons introduced progressively more description, which is one of the reasons for the progressively expanding rules bloat. So, for example, the Monster Manual (1977) not only greatly increased the number of monsters, but also expanded each of their descriptions by (I would guess) a factor of ten. And of course most of them also had illustrations.

Now this is not a criticism per se. I like the minimalism of the three little brown books, but there's no question that the original Monster Manual was a brilliant and now iconic product. My point is that a perfectly reasonable sounding desire--why shouldn't we know a bit more about these monsters and have pictures of them?--can in the end, especially by the time you get to even later editions, have unintended consequences. Consequences that are bad.

But there were other, not so innocent reasons why imagination was gradually leeched out of things. One of them was the tendency to increasingly treat the reader as if she were a stupid child. Consider these two explanations of Fighters from 0e and 2e D&D:

0e (1974):

Fighting-Men: All magical weaponry is usable by fighters, and this in itself is a big advantage. In addition, they gain the advantage of more "hit dice" (the score of which determines how many points of damage can be taken before a character is killed). They can use only a very limited number of magical items of the non weaponry variety, however, and they can use no spells. Top-level fighters (Lords and above) who build castles are considered "Barons", and as such they may invest in their holdings in order to increase their income (see the INVESTMENTS section of Volume III). Base income for a Baron is a tax rate of 10 Gold Pieces/ inhabitant of the barony/game year. 

2e AD&D (1989): 

There are many famous fighters from legend: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad. History is crowded with great generals and warriors: El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius. Your fighter could be modeled after any of these, or he could be unique. A visit to your local library can uncover many heroic fighters.

(By the way, the 1989 segment on Fighters is eight times longer than the 1974 segment. The above is just a partial excerpt.)

The 1974 version has no description at all, though the thing about baronies sets a certain tone.

The 1989 version, while on its face encourages a sort of imaginative diversity, almost implies that the person reading the rules has little familiarity with the standard archetypes, or at least needs to be reminded of them.

But if that were the case, why would they be reading the rules or playing the game in the first place?

As should be obvious, I find the whole trend annoying. And it's one of the reasons I wrote the quasi-minimalist clone, Seven Voyages of Zylarthen. It's a game intended in part for children, but I like to think it treats them as adults.

And yes, Zylarthen does itself have a kind of tone, just as OD&D has a kind of tone. And yes, there are pictures--pretty good ones, if I may say. But I would like to think that the tone is not oppressive. The goal is to spark your imagination but also to give it room, so to speak.

From a design point of view, the goal is to be minimalist without being bland--partly because bland is boring, but also because blandness itself can be a kind of imaginative straightjacket.

Finding the right "balance" (if that is even the right word) is not easy. But who ever said it would be?

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Follow Save Versus All Wands on Twitter at the Twitter home of its author: @OakesSpalding

OSR Art Friday: The Adventuring Party

This piece was one of the first published by the artist and game designer Tom Wham, who joined TSR is 1977. It first appeared in the 6th printing of the original 'White Box' edition of Dungeons & Dragons, replacing the section of text that in previous printings had described the Balrog--excised due to legal pressure from the Tolkien estate. It also appeared on the front page of the 1979 bluish 'wizard logo' Character Record Sheets.

Here they all are--the Fighter with his sentient magic sword, the conical-capped Magic-User hiding behind him, the Thief in the process of picking the Magic-User's pocket and the beneficent Cleric (is he trying to gently dissuade the Thief or naively oblivious to his action?). To me, they are united in having an almost maniacal look about them, as if to say, this is what the lure of treasure does to everyone.

Wham would do many other drawings for TSR and later other companies including his own, often combined with game design such as in his brilliant Awful Green Things from Outer Space. Most of his drawings were comical or light-hearted in style but not all of them. He also composed the Monster Manual's Beholder. (Though, now that I look at it again, even that awful creature appears ever so slightly comic.)

In a blog post contrasting his work with that of David Trampier, Matt Finch references the above drawing while aptly describing Wham's contribution:

...Tom Wham's picture is an adventuring party seen from the outside, from the perspective of the gamer looking in. Because let's face it, most of our gaming sessions have plenty of Tom-Wham-adventurer moments in them. Quoting Monty Python? That's the Tom Wham guys. Dancing around the table when your roll for dexterity comes up triple 6's? That's the Tom Wham guys.

Quick quiz: In what fundamental ways does 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons differ from 1st edition? THACO and skills would be possible correct answers, of course. But here's another one:

There are no cartoons in 2nd edition AD&D.

Or at least there aren't in the 2nd edition Dungeon Master's Guide. Contrast this with the multiple cartoons (with captions!) liberally sprinkled throughout the original DMG:

P. 34:

P. 35:

P. 44:

So here's another difference between the old school and newer editions (for those of you still keeping count). The old school had a sense of humor. Newer editions often give off a ponderous air of humorless self-importance, as if to say, 'don't laugh, it will break the spell'.*

Also, prestige classes aren't funny.**

Recently Jon Peterson unearthed and published a sort of variant or possibly even proto-version of Dungeons & Dragons, played in Minneapolis in 1974. Among other things it featured giant carnivorous meatballs. I think many of us would agree that 'official' OD&D was wise not to go that far, though if you wanted more of that sort of thing, there was always Tunnels & Trolls.

However, in the Golden Age of the game, there was a sense (at least at some level) that things shouldn't be taken that seriously, partly because we all were well familiar with how the game was actually played. Despite some of the fantastical depictions in the media--like Tom Hanks and friends sitting around a spooky table that featured candles and crystals--we all knew that in the end we are all just a bunch of pimply kids getting potato chip grease on our graph paper and riffing about Monty Python or Doctor Who in between rolls.

The game was cool. No question about it. But what was wrong with laughing with it and at it from time to time, as well as (on occasion at least) laughing at ourselves?

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*2e was still old school in many ways, and to be fair, I liked much of the art in 2e, but on some things the vibe had already changed.

**Unless you say some of the names aloud to your wife. For the list of over 800 prestige classes I published a few weeks back (stolen from Wikipedia), I stuck a few phony names into it--such as inserting 'Swiss Burger with Bacon' in between 'Swift Wing' and 'Sword Dancer'--to see whether anyone was paying attention. My wife, at least, thinks I'm a funny man.
'Wearer of Purple.'
'That's hilarious. You're a funny man.'
'I didn't make that up. It's one of the real ones.'
'You're lying. You made that one up.'
'I didn't.'
etc.

Game Review: Swords & Wizardry White Box

This is the first in a series of reviews of some of the so-called 'clones' of old school editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Let me first define some terms:

A clone is a game that adheres closely to the mechanics, substance and/or presentation of a particular edition or editions of Dungeons & Dragons such that without the legal protections of the Open Game License and the Systems Reference Document it would clearly be violating copyright law.

A retro-clone is a clone that on the main strives to emulate a particular edition as precisely as possible.

A neo-clone is a clone that uses an edition or editions as a template but is designed to differ substantially from the original.

The original is the edition the clone is, well, cloning.

Now on to the review.

Game: Swords & Wizardry White Box (2009).

Availability: Softcover: $9.99. Hardcover: $18.99. Boxed Set: currently unavailable. PDF: Free.

Status: Neo-clone.

Original: The Three Little Brown Books (1974), or more accurately, the first two of the three--Men & Magic and Monsters & Treasure.

Introduction: Swords & Wizardry (2008) was the third major retro-clone to be published after Labyrinth Lord (2007) and OSRIC (2006). A year later in 2009, Swords & Wizardry White Box was released, authored by Matt Finch and Marv Breig. Unlike other clones, Swords & Wizardry never tried to emulate one particular edition of OD&D. Rather the intention was to emulate a style of play over a particular time period. If Swords & Wizardry as a whole embraced a sort of average of the original 1974 edition + the supplements + Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, White Box was an attempt to dial things back to the minimalist mechanics and presentation of the 1974 version. So, although it's not specifically designed to be a clone of the three little brown books, we'll use those as a point of comparison.

Comparisons with the Original:

1. The first thing the reader notices is that, unlike the original, Swords & Wizardry White Box is extremely well organized and presented. Now, don't misunderstand. I never thought that that was a major fault of the three little brown books. But some do. White Box has an attractive and readable contemporary font and layout. There's a full table of contents for the entire game, and so on.

2. White Box adheres to the minimalist mechanics and substance of the original. There are approximately the same number of items of equipment for purchase, spells, monsters and the rest. However White Box comes in at only about 70% of the word count of the original. This is primarily because most of the material in the third of the three little brown books--The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures--is absent from White Box.

3. White Box maintains the six classes of the original, including preserving the idea of race as class, jettisoned in the later editions. Ability Score adjustments and bonuses are slight, as in the original, but altered somewhat. The confusing 'point swapping' mechanic for the purpose of upping one's experience point bonus, is dropped in favor of giving a +5% adjustment to high wisdom and charisma scores. And an optional adjustments for high or low strength scores is added.

4. Unlike in the original, weapons are given variable damage rolls, though this is done in a simple and elegant way, more like the Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert set than the proliferation of possibilities offered in Greyhawk and even more so in AD&D.

5. Spell lists are very similar to the original with only a few small differences. The number of monsters is approximately the same but includes a greater diversity than the three little brown books. About half are from the original with the rest coming from the supplements or even the Monster Manual. This is a good example of where, to frame it positively, Swords & Wizardry White Box is less interested in historical purity than, well, fun.

Minor Annoyances:

(I will include this section in all reviews, no matter how much I like the game overall.)

1. In a number of places White Box goes out of its way to, in its own words, present 'options for your consideration'. For example, you can give Fighters with a 15+ strength a +1 bonus on attacks. Or not. Or make the requirement slightly easier at 14 or even 13. I used to like this. Now I don't. Do not misunderstand. That White Box, like the original, stresses that the referee and players can and should modify the rules according to taste is absolutely correct and laudable. But, before I do that I want to know what the authors think. After all, presumably they know much more about the mechanic than I do. They thought about it, wrote it and playtested it. They're the authors after all. So while I reserve the right to change things, I have a rational interest in knowing what they prefer.

2. White Box 'rationalizes' certain mechanics of the original, such as the saving throw system. As opposed to the five categories of the original--Save Versus Death Ray or Poison, Save Versus All Wands - Including Polymorph and 'Paralization', Save Versus Rusting, Magical Vibration Attacks or Coughing Fits (okay I made up that last one) and so on--there is only one saving throw number that increases (or decreases) by 1 per level. Different classes get small bonuses on some kinds of saving throws. Parallel to this is a general smoothing out of the attack bonus increases per level. Personally I find chunky and discontinuous increases preferable (for a variety of reasons) and I would rather, say, save versus Dragon Breath than, well, just make a saving throw. It's increases the fairy tale otherworldly vibe for me. But I admit that I might be in a minority on this. I could mention 'descending armor class' but I won't. I don't want to seem too much a curmudgeon.

3. Why oh why do most old school games list all spells alphabetically, as opposed to listing them alphabetically only within the spell levels? Since almost all do it, many must like this approach. I don't.

4. White Box also rationalizes the way magic items are 'assigned' to treasure hordes. Again, when I first read the rules, I thought they were an improvement. Now I think the Swords & Wizardry system is a needless and confusing complication. And without being too ideological about it, scaling the power of magic items found (as part of the official mechanic) is too rational and new school for me.

5. White Box is somewhat schizophrenic as to its audience. In some ways it purports to be an introductory game--with its explanations of what role-playing is, the kind of dice used, and so on. But I can't imagine anyone unfamiliar with these sorts of games simply picking it up and playing it. Again, there is very little material--short of a view general paragraphs--on dungeon design, wilderness adventures or campaign creation. By contrast, the original game had all of that and more (though some would say it was frustratingly ambiguous or incomplete), going as far as presenting detailed rules for aerial combat and sea combat, among other things. Now, in regards to the last two features, I think it fair to say that few actually used those rules. So, from one point of view it makes sense to ditch them. But even if they weren't used, they still (in my view) served to spark the imagination of the reader. This is the sort of world we are in (Gygax and Arneson seem to be saying): the wilderness is dotted with castles where Lords challenge intruders to jousts, Viking longships cruise the coasts, and sieges often feature Balrogs hurling fire over parapets. Leaving that consideration aside and stepping back to the issue of game mechanics, how would novice players be in any position to make informed decisions on the options White Box puts up for for their 'consideration'? White Box is a great system for, say, an experienced referee to use with novice players. But that's different.

Major Triumphs:

1. For a few years, White Box was the only major game in town that emulated the really minimalist approach of the three little brown books. That there is now more competition is not a fault of White Box. It did it first.

2. In places, Finch and Breig precisely and evocatively describe the old school approach in words that have never been equaled:

The rules are extremely short, compared to the multi-paged rule-libraries required to play most modern roleplaying games. Yet this game contains within itself all the seeds and soul of mythic fantasy, the building blocks of vast complexity, the kindling of wonder. The game is so powerful because it’s encapsulated in a small formula, like a genie kept imprisoned in the small compass of an unremarkable lamp.

There’s not a lot of detail given about the monsters, because the more detail given, the more your own mental image of the fantasy world is going to be locked into a single track. We’re not going to say that giant ants are red, nocturnal, three feet long, and fond of eating Elves. Because in your mind, they might be blue, diurnal, five feet long, and eat only plants unless they’re attacked. Details about monsters toss roadblocks in front of your imagination. Yes, details can also inspire the imagination, but we’re making the assumption that if you’re interested in fantasy gaming in the first place, you’ve got a good imagination that doesn’t need details about the size of a giant ant.

I didn't include much of that sort of thing in my own 'minimalist' old school game, partly because I knew I couldn't possibly improve on the above.

3. The writing is punchy, crisp and fluent. And no, that's not a feature of all old school games--even of otherwise laudable ones. And yes, it matters.

4. The PDF is free. It sounds almost condescending to mention that, but it shouldn't be. Finch and Breig don't want to bilk you. They just want you to have as much fun playing it as they (I'm guessing) had writing it. I have no doubt it made a number of old school converts. I know that because I was one of them.

Overall Assessment:

That there are more Minor Annoyances than Major Triumphs is a feature of my review template more than anything else. Swords & Wizardry White Box is one of the best products the OSR has produced. Any clone of the three little brown books must take the measure of it, and will in some ways be measured by it. There are now other options out there that may appeal to slightly different audiences--Delving Deeper for historical purists (believe me, there's nothing wrong with that!) and my own humble effort, among others--but White Box is still the gold standard.

The Towering Castle Beneath the Stormy Night Sky

Pop quiz: match these opening lines to the above games--the new "5e" D&D Basic (2014), Lamentations of the Flame Princess (2012), Swords & Wizardry Complete (2010) and Dungeons & Dragons (1974):

TREASURE and glittering gems; dark places beneath the earth where monsters dwell; magic circles, pentagrams and pentacles; runes of evil import, and iron-banded doors of mouldering oak; wizards of vast power, living in their isolated towers above black seaside cliffs; great-horned demons in their bloody lairs; massive stone idols with jeweled eyes and hieroglyphic pedestals, carved in the distant eons before the young civilizations of humankind; strange and glowing orbs, floating in the air above rusted metal grates leading to deeper levels of the underground passageways…

It is about flying carpets and cursed blades, about hooded priests gathered for unspeakable rites in their forgotten temples; it is about adventure and about perilous undertakings, forcing back the evil creatures of Chaos from the borderlands of embattled civilization; it is about battle-scarred warriors and deadly sorcerers…

Being a Referee is like being an artist, a manager, an accountant, and that crazy old guy that lives in the park that everyone avoids because he’s always talking to himself, all in one. Although hopefully you won’t be talking to yourself. At least not while anyone is listening.

ONCE UPON A TIME, long, long ago there was a little group known as the Castle and Crusade Society. Their fantasy rules were published, and to this writer's knowledge, brought about much of the current interest in fantasy wargaming. For a time the group grew and prospered, and Dave Arneson decided to begin a medieval fantasy campaign game for his active Twin Cities club. From the map of the "land" of the "Great Kingdom" and environs — the territory of the C & C Society — Dave located a nice bog wherein to nest the weird enclave of "Blackmoor", a spot between the "Great Kingdom" and the fearsome "Egg of Coot". From the CHAINMAIL fantasy rules he drew ideas for a far more complex and exciting game, and thus began a campaign which still thrives as of this writing! In due course the news reached my ears, and the result is what you have in your hands at this moment. While the C & C Society is no longer, its spirit lives on, and we believe that all wargamers who are interested in the medieval period, not just fantasy buffs, will enjoy playing DUNGEONS and DRAGONS. Its possibilities go far beyond any previous offerings anywhere!

The DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ROLEPLAYING GAME IS ABOUT storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. It shares elements with childhood games of make-believe. Like those games, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

It's a pretty easy quiz, obviously, for people who have read or played these games or who know a bit about the authors or the historical context. And for anyone paying attention, the point of the exercise should be immediately clear. Only one excerpt uses the term "imagination" (and if you count the variant, "imagine", it mentions it twice) yet the prose in that piece is without doubt the least imaginative (and the dullest and most boring) of the four.

The precise character of the selections differ somewhat of course. One is an attempt to get you excited about the game in question by immediately transporting you into a fantastic world. Another is a sort of self-deprecating and funny introduction to how to "run" a game. The third is an all-over-the-place and quirky piece focusing partly on the historical circumstances of how the game in question came to be created. And the fourth is of course a straight introduction. Are the first three authors Nobel-Prize winning stylists? I don't know. Perhaps not. Who is? But they--Matt Finch and James Raggi--are (or in the case of the late Gary Gygax, were) damn good "amateur" writers who felt it important to start the text of their rules right off with strong, interesting adult prose--even though they knew that children were a big part of their audience (okay, maybe Raggi doesn't write for children, but still). I don't know who the author of the D&D Basic excerpt is. And even if I did spend a few seconds to investigate, I imagine that the opening text to one of the flagship games of a major game company is somewhat of a joint effort. The point is not to criticize or blame any particular person. The author (whether or not the text was modified or overseen by others) is undoubtedly a talented game designer and probably a pretty good writer. (He has a good paying job doing this and I don't. And there is probably a reason for that.) But that doesn't absolve the text.

It's terrible. Boring. Clipped. Unimaginative. It reads like one of those excruciatingly awful high-school history textbooks that have had all the color leeched out to avoid offending anyone and to make it understandable to readers in the lowest tenth percentile, or perhaps a book report written by an intelligent 7th grader who has mastered the rules of grammar, but has no particular desire to make her writing particularly interesting or exciting (it's only a book report).

Well, after all (so the counter-argument goes) it's a mass-market product. There are certain things they have to do and that are expected given the economics and their market niche and the corporate culture that they are a part of, etc., etc., etc. You're naive if you think otherwise. Well, putting aside one obvious retort to that--must all prose intended for the "mass-market" be insipid?--even if that were an explanation or a justification for why it happened, that doesn't change the fact. If you thought my prose was insipid, and I told you that the reason for that was because I was promised a million dollars if I would make it insipid, that wouldn't change anything for you. That wouldn't or shouldn't make you any more likely to buy or even pay attention to my product.

Does it matter? After all, it's only a game.

Yes. It does. 5e D&D Basic asserts that it is at the pinnacle of role-playing games. It builds (so it claims) on the experience gained in the design, writing and play of the previous four editions and three generations, forty years and literally millions of players. Thousands of hours and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone into its development, and the best they can come up with is:

[Dungeons & Dragons] is about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

The dull, completely unimaginative prose is one way that contemporary "D&D" smothers the imagination of its players. There are other ways that it does this, of course. But this as good an example as any.