And Another Thing...

Well, lately, I've been obsessing over my old Dungeons and Dragons games. This was spurred on by the unexpected deaths of the creators of the game, Gary Gygax, and Dave Arnoson.They died a year apart from one another, a few years ago, and since then, more of the early writers and artists have been kicking off their mortal coils, and well, frankly, it's been weird...And not just in a 'mid life crisis, the world is over, we're all going to die' - sort of way...It's weirder because of the Internet.

   

 

Since the 1990's D+D has been going through these radical revisions in attempt to compete with video and computer games (ironically, some D+D like computer games, and their code, were built by TSR people in the early 80's). Anyway, the D+D I grew up with the late 70's and early 80's (the so called Golden Era) has made this huge come back. Partly inspired by all the early edition creators dying, but more importantly, the people that played those games back then have kids today, and they're proudly digging out their old rule books and playing old school D+D with them. It's a freaking explosion.



They have self published game for any version of D+D you could desire. And later this year, Wizards of the Coast ( the company that owns D+D ) is putting out an all new 5th edition of the game - rumors are spreading far and wide that it's going to return to it's early 1974 roots, in an effort to reclaim The Game.



Even I picked up the 3rd edition rules to play the game with my son and his friends when it first arrived back in 2000-2001. Yes, we started with the basic set (pre-rolled Regdar and Lidda live to this day, but Naul wasn't so lucky), and then moved onto the hardback books / rules. The snag we had was when D+D 3.5 was released months later, effectively dismissing the 3.0 rules of the game. Oh sure, it's the same game, but nothing turns you off faster than having to fork over a paycheck for a game you already own. That, and having a 12 year old get overwhelmed with a new layout, format, and expanded rules. But, I should've known better from the start.  

 

The publishing history of D+D is riddled with court cases involving everything from free speech, intellectual property, copyright violations, to hideous homicides. It's ... complicated...There's a fine line that separates compatible with plagiarism, real  from fantasy, and it's one D+D has been struggling with for decades (which also staggers the mind as well). When enough time rolls by, I'm sure we'll get a book that gives us the behind the scenes look at what was really going on back then, but for now, the details are sketchy, and, depending on your perspective, open to interpetation. It's odd...With sooooo much information dedicated to one game, it's amazing how much we don't know about the day-to-day business of the companies in charge, it's past dealings with home (and international) pressures, warring egos, and the such. You can research the bajeezus out of the books they released, and goggle the names of the people involved, read countless interviews and contecture (like this blog) and still come away with more questions than answers. But if you want to know how much damage a cursed, staff of striking + 2, + 3 to magic-users does, we got you covered.



It's not all bad...If my son was 12 years old now, I'd be up to my eyeballs in Pokemon games and Skylander Toys...And that stuff is expensive.










  

 

THREE BOOKS TO RULE THEM ALL

In an effort to start posting again, I've decided to comment on the number of books related to playing (and understanding) Dungeons and Dragons. This seems to be a fairly new trend at the bookstores around here, and I thought I'd give the reader my off the cuff, inside track, (probably misinformed) opinions on a related note. 

 

 

The first thing one needs to know about Dungeons and Dragons (or D+D): There are different general versions (or editions) of the game. Depending on who you ask, there are 4 to 10 (or more) official editions of the Dungeons and Dragons game. Each edition revolves around three main rule books called the Core Rules. Briefly, they are: The Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual. The editions are separated further, by publishing dates, which are further separated by their respective print runs, since Dungeons and Dragon is also divided up into various levels of play (for example, there's a string of books outlining everything from the so-called Basic Version of The Game to the more Advanced Version of The Game). If I had to  spit-ball a timeline, (and keep things simple), I'd say that it breaks down into something like this: 1st edition: 1974-1984, 2nd edition:1985-1998, 3rd edition: 2000-2005, and 4th edition: 2007-2013+. Each version "revises" (I'm using that term loosely) The Game.

 

 

 

Side note: Some people in D+D circles will refer to it as "The Game" because the rule sets can conceivably incorporate every other game ever invented. For example, if you wanted to write a D+D game where one of the players had to win a game of chess against death, in order to save the other players, you could put on a death's robe, pull out a chess board and play, while the other players read / perform a short script you've written out, resulting in some kind of conflict / resolution type scenario (concerning their fates or not), depending on what chess pieces are moved by the player playing against you (dressed up like death). If you lived in Berkley in 1986 (and had enough cocaine), and you wanted to write a game like that, there are rules to help you do that. That's how flexible the rules are. While other cross-gaming techniques have been worked into The Game over the past decades, it's core rules / game designs can easily lend itself to almost any other game. And believe me, this is intentional: Card games (and various types of Gambling Games) have been built into the D+D rules since the early years.  

 

    

 

 

Each edition tries to keep that flexibility, while trying to appeal to a larger, younger audience. As a result, you get these subsets of people who only play 1st edition rules, or 3rd, or 4th editions rules. It may seem odd to the non-gamer, but sometimes you'll run into die-hard players who only enjoy playing the Basic Version of The Game, while another prefers playing the Advanced Version. In the past, there have been fights about which edition is better, which is legit, which is the worst etc. It can get ugly. Even today, the reception for the newest incarnation of the game (dubbed by Wizards of the Coast as D+D Next, or, as the rest of us say, the 5th edition) has been getting mixed reviews around my parts. Some folks are really looking forward to it. Others hate it.

 

 

 

This is pretty typical. From 1984-1994, there were all sorts of off-shoots of the game, and the results were similar. I think it started with Greyhawk, but for me personally, it was when TSR put out it's Forgotten Realm series. When that arrived, my gaming group was split down the middle, between those who played it, and those that would never play it. When they put out the Gothic Horror Version of the game (Ravenloft), some people loved it, others didn't. When it's Science Fiction Version (Star Frontiers, and later, Spelljammer) arrived, some gamers went for the ride, others jumped ship. It's strange, because you don't get this kind of reaction with other games. We all enjoy the occasional game of Crazy 8's, Backgammon, Yahtzee, and Clue etc. But with D+D, it's a love / hate kind of thing. And so, for our purposes, (and as a form of short hand), I'll just say that there are four official editions of "The Game". The other six to eight official editions are off shoots from the main four. Although, on the web, that's debatable. For example, one gamer refuses to buy the Dungeon Master's Guide: Book 2, and Monster Manual 3 for the 3.5 rules, while the other one has them all. 

 

 

 

The other problem: Because there are so many different editions of "The Game", the players are anywhere between 10 to 60 years old. Players usually prefer the edition they grew up with, but they also tend to be a cross-pollinating group of people, and (contrary to the above paragraph) are also into other types of role playing games, which essentially grew out of the flexible rule sets of early 1st and 2nd editions of Dungeons and Dragons. This also proves the old saying: Any role playing game you make is based in the Dungeon and Dragons rule set, so you are essentially playing D+D. Whether you call it 'hit points', or Hits to Kill (HTK), or life level points, it's generally the same thing.

 

 

 

 

In my previous posting, (A Couple Weeks After Free RPG Day), I explained that there are games for every type of genre now-a-days: Western, Mystery (murder dinner train tours), ones based on different types of movies (James Bond role playing game) etc. And how it "ties in" with live action role playing games ( or LARPS : think Renaissance Fairs, Civil War re-enactors) and the "cos play" (costume design) hobbyist etc. And what a strange trip it's been growing up with a pen and paper, dice based strategy game, that eventually turned into actual medieval (pretend) warfare.

 

 

 

And now, on the Internet, there are the 'movers and the shakers' that are trying to keep their edition of the game intact. I'm including myself here, to some extent. Mainly, because they have all of this material they want to post - not for materialistic gain, but rather, for the love of the hobby,(which is semi conscious code for 'freedom of speech' or 'fandom fiction' here). And some of them, love The Game. I mean , I like the game, but some of these guys are really into it. And they have the money to spend on it, because it's not cheap! Each rule book, from each edition, will set you back $30.00 to $40.00 (or more), and that's just for starters. It's kind of like a cult in that way. Once you pay your initial 100 bucks, (and become indoctrinated), your hooked. You'll buy whatever supplemental rule book they put out, at 20, or 30 bucks a pop. Before you know it, you have a room full of D+D book case(s) and your 1000s of dollars poorer. The irony: If you get too depressed and need to take your mind off of things, I may have just the game for you... 

 

 

September to January blogs have been cancelled

 

 

September to January blog postings have been cancelled. These blog postings have been deemed too controversial for younger viewers, older people with heart conditions, and those within the general public that are squeamish, or easily offended.

 

 

The listings themselves have been removed from the Internet, downloaded into a sealed file, and are being held in an undisclosed location. They will remain there for the next 101 years. At that time, these files will be opened, if allowed by the leaders of future generations, for historical interests.


Most of the entries are large rants against the idea of multi-tasking (proven to kill creativity, cause mistakes, and actually wastes more time etc), the huge inequality between the rich and poor, and a lengthy series of articles entitled No Time for Fools and Idiots (although humorous, insightful, and astonishingly concise, parts of the texts read like the ravings of a mad-man).


Needless to say, these entries are not related to role-playing-games, fiction, or movies etc. In an effort to steer clear of a horrendous back-lash, upsetting hate-mail, and abandoning a budding fan-base, higher authorities have intervened in this matter. Hopefully, John will be able to re-focus his efforts in the coming months. But for now, he lies in a self-imposed, recuperative coma. We at the home office are confident that when he awakens, he'll be recharged with a new sense of wonder (related to role playing games). That is, if he wakes up...   

     

  

Thanks For Dropping By...

 

I just want to thank everyone who recently popped over from UNDERWORLD INK to check out my blog. It was nice to get a smattering of funny and encouraging comments - from those of you who took the time to share a personal quip, ask for more information, or just give me the digital thumbs up for blogging on. It was nice to get some feedback. So, thanks for stopping in and checking it out.

 

 

I've been very busy, trying to finish off the Touch of Evil mini game, but as with most things in life, unpredictable events have side trekked my efforts to meet another self-imposed deadline. It's nothing I can really control. When people are counting on you, you gotta be there. Even when you know it's gonna be lame or, worse, a heavy emotional deal. Hopefully, things will be running smoother in another week or two, and I can finish up A Touch of Evil soon. Believe me, as I said to some of you in e-mails, I want to finish it as soon as I can, just because that advertisement has been on the UNDERWORLD INK since March. I agree...very unprofessional. My apologies. I won't be surprised if some of you have written this project off as another example of vapor-ware. I assure you that is not the case.

 

 

No, the reasons are pretty common: I spent the past year working on two larger modules (a wizard's tower and a swamp hag's forest) and numerous side projects. Back in February (2012), fearing I was drowning in stacks of papers and notebooks, Jason suggested I take one of my smaller modules, package it as a mini game, and print it up as a tangential follow up to Zogorion. I had an undead minotaur encounter called A Touch of Evil that seemed to fit the bill : A special random monster encounter list , a self-contained setting, and a series of clever traps. I liked his suggestions, but I had to disentangle myself from a larger modules I was writing at the time (a lengthy tale involving an Invisible Stalker and three earth elementals). Plus, I was trying to think of things that people could down load for free (like Jason's Cosmic Slough single page adventure).    

 

 

When I started re-writing it, I ended up doing what most game designers do at some point in time - and added more stuff. Stuff I had lying around that seemed to work within the context of the game. Then I had a couple of miscellaneous items that I could freely drop into the game (and I did). Six months (and some play testing rounds) later, and I'm closing in on the finish line.


In the meantime, check out this hyper cool piece of animation. I think it's one of the best things I've seen in a while. I think it's part of the new DC's Hour of Power cartoon on Carton Network. It's Batman, Bane and Catwoman in 1930's Shanghai. It's pretty cool. Thanks again everybody.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgywNpVagdM&feature=share

         

In Memory of Joe Kubert

Joe Kubert  Sept. 18, 1926 - August 12, 2012

I thought I'd take a moment to honor one of the legendary greats, and a personal favorite of mine, Joe Kubert, who recently passed away...

A fantastic page from Vertigo's Between Hell And A Hard Place DC2012

Accept no substitutions-Joe Kubert was an artist's artist!

One of my first Joe Kubert comics was a Sgt. Rock annual from 1972. Or was it 73? I can't remember, and my comic collection has thinned out considerably since my days as a nine to twelve year old. I do not have the comic anymore, but...

Back when we lived in Santa Cruz California, my older brother worked at a corner convenience store and they would get a spinning rack or two of comics each month. When he came home, he'd have a dozen comics stuffed into his coat. Plus, he knew older boys who had 'out grown' comics and unloaded them onto us. By the end of the year, we had three or four giant stacks of comics. The stacks were so high, you could sit on the top of the bunk bed, and pull a comic book off of the top of the stack (so, maybe 6, 7, or 8 feet tall), without a fuss. And we had everything! I was reading Amazing Spider Man and Richie Rich and Superman and Detective Comics and Avengers and Sgt. Rock and, well, just about anything else. When I think of having to leave those comics books behind when we moved (my mom did not want us to pack them up, and 'rot our minds' etc) from Santa Cruz to Fresno, I cry a little inside, because I'd be a freaking rich guy in today's comic book market. I shudder to think...

I digress...My brother loved Sgt. Rock and Haunted Tank and all the Easy Company stories. I liked those too, but I was partial to Tarzan, Enemy Ace and the Viking Prince. And later, Tor (of course) ! It's very rare to find a comic book artist that can draw everything, especially wild animals (and WW I and II airplanes, tanks and automobliles, and the fashions of the  time period). But, for me, Kubert's beasts inhabit that twilight area of a realistic looking animal, yet stylized to convey a scary intelligence, or an aggressive vibe. But he could also convey deeper meanings with a pen stroke (bust open any 1972 Tarzan comic book and study the ape's expressions, and you'll know what I mean). Whether it was a giant crocidile, an enormous snake, or some sort of prehistoric monster, it always looked great. His style was unmistakable. His layouts were clean and consice, yet groundbreakingly cool. And nobody did blooming plants, arched trees, and over grown jungles like him. And his street level, big city themed comics (Abraham Stone, for example) were second to none. Forgetaboutit !    

The last Sgt. Rock story I read was 2012's Between Hell And A Hard Place, (with Brian Azzarello), and even though he was pushing into his 80's, (and, I'm assuming, fighting cancer) he still delivered an awesome WW II story. Another one of many. His works still brings me great ideas and wonderful pictures. If you haven't read (or seen) any of his books, I highly recommend you do so soon. Prayers and good luck to the rest of the Kubert family (who are also spectacular artists in their own ways). He was a great man who lived a great life. Let's celebrate his Awesomeness !  

        

Another Day Another Dungeon

There's a ton of mega dungeons out there ! If I was more computer literate and ambitious, I'd take all of those mega dungeons out there on the web and come up with a way to tie them all together in one humongous super mega dungeon! 500,000 chambers, 3,000 underground lakes, 235,000 secret doors and an endless series of pit traps, exploding sigils and dimensional portals. And that's just the first half of the dungeon...The problem with mega dungeons is that they are mega dungeons...So, realistically, nobody I knew ever played a mega dungeon from level 1 to sub level 900...We'd joke about attempting it when we were all retired old guys, and everyone we knew has passed on, and we'd have nothing but time on our hands. Then we'd give it a serious shot. 

As the Advanced Dungeon and Dragon relaunch burns up, I'm in a reflective mood. I know D+D is a unique game. If you can dream it up, then you can play it out. It invites you to make up your own rules to the game, devise your own plot lines and create a sense of place and time, best replicated in novels, films and other games etc. While other games were easier to manage, D+D certainly rewarded repeated playing: in thousands of gold pieces, supernatural powers, and influential prestige. Ya know, things that are near impossible to get in real life.

Since I've been thinking back to those early games with the guys, I'm surprised how much I'd forgotten. Throughout the 1980's, the divorce rate in my neighborhood went up. And some of the families were Brady Bunched - Up, with some new step sons and step daughters, and a new cat or dog thrown in, just to shake things up. In some ways, D+D (and films, TV shows, video games, and comic books) became a common denominator. Ironically, it gave everybody a little more stability in an unstable environment. Because, whatever was happening at home, the tension (or whatever) would spill into the game-and kind of forced some stuff out into the open. Some guys peeled away, others came on board, and a few never left. We'd just kept playing the game. After all, if we didn't find the Sword of Resurrections in time, the Kingdom of Lion Rock would fall to the forces of evil. From that stand point, it was imperative for the team to work together. Even if they didn't like each other to begin with. It sure beat doing homework in your room all night. 


I often wondered something...The groups that rallied against D+D for being a tool of Satan back then...Were a lot of those folks dealing with divorce and mixed families (something we wouldn't think twice about now-a-days, but back then, was a huge 'Kramer vs. Kramer' kind of ordeal). It was not easily accepted, nor was it preferred. And there was a deep sense of anger running through there- looking for someone to blame...I don't know...and I'm not trying to be provocative...And calm down, my parents split up too...and just as I was becoming a crazy-ass teenager too...I'm just wondering... If I was more interested, I'd look into that...maybe when I'm older with more time on my hands...Okay, back to work!    

HG Wells + OPEN SOURCES = The Best Idea Ever!

The open gaming license essentially says "you can use our game to make up anything you want", in a way, it's 'legal plagiarism'. As one lawyer said at the time (I'm paraphrasing) ..."The game is dice and statistical math, how would you regulate that ?" Believe me , they tried to regulate it. All through the 80's and 90's , there were tricky lawsuits related to copyright infringement, and the OPEN GAMING LICENSE was WotC's answer to put a stop to it. Why couldn't they just make it illegal to use the rules? Well, these rules everybody is stealing and changing to make their own game are partially derived from an article written long enough ago to be considered "public domain" ( ie "open soucre" material). This legal snag tends to turn off copyright and intellectual property lawyers. It's an article written by HG Wellls ( and since it wasn't in print for 75 years, it became "public domain"), and legally, is "free". TSR managed to protect the rights to the games, but not the rules, per say, since it's a 'reinterpretation' of this HG Well's article. This is what they call "a gray area".

Back in the 1880's HG Wells (of War of the Worlds fame) invented the "war game". Yes, when he wasn't turning out classic sci-fi novels, he was inventing a new kind of game. He drew up the instructions in an article: basically, a game played with miniature figurines (of soldiers, calvary units etc) and models of castles and towers. Each piece was assigned points and a number of spaces it could move. Craftsmanship of the miniatures is a big fetish here. These are elaborate set ups, with working (doll house like) cut aways, opening / closing drawbridges and so forth. Then you move your men around, and plan (in miniature) large scale 'war games'. It's was a nice diversion to help take your mind off of Jack the Ripper.

Now a days, if you are a hot shot video game maker, and you are hired to make the next Spider Man video ("movie tie-in") game , you already know you'll need to add certain devices to play the game. For instance, the player, as Spider Man, will need a virtual life bar, a power bar, a map or layout of the city, and inventory list of items you need to work through the game. If your running the new Sims game, you need similar stuff. Ditto for those computer games...everything from Civilization to the new Tom Clancy "first person shooter" games. All that stuff, you have to thank, in a round about way, HG Wells. Because it's public domain, anyone can use these "devices". His rules on minature war gaming have been worked into countless games. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.

"So, HG Wells plays with toys...So what?" So, flash forward to the 1950's...Boardgames are huge moneymakers...Sure they've been around for years, but when the mass production apparatus is put into place, they go global. And in a few years, RISK and STRATEGO become hot hot hot! And they are , basically, HG Well's miniature soldier game...for kids! But the game that didn't make it as big were these other games, which added the "alternate history" dynamic to the game. Imagine how the south could have won the Civil War...what would Germany need to do, in order to win WWII...Yeah, well, these games appealed to history buffs...and Gary Gygax and Dave Arnoson were big history buffs. Up Next! NERDS UNITE!