Lord of the Green Dragons

It's Not All Fun & Games...

2011-09-17T03:45:00.000-05:00

Xiaozhai Tiankeng

2011-09-16T14:51:00.000-05:00

LINK #1

LINK #2

Through Whose Looking Glass?

2011-09-13T02:30:00.001-05:00

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.: "Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable."

Samuel Johnson wrote, "Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble."

Faulkner once said, "Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

Einstein once said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world."

Nietzsche wrote, "The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe."

"I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn." Albert Einstein

"If I am what I have and if I lose what I have, who then am I?" German psychologist Erich Fromm

Voltaire wrote, "There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts."

"Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?" James Madison

"The Court Martial of Hiller C. Ranton"

2011-08-30T01:09:00.002-05:00

"The Court Martial of Hiller C. Ranton"

Testimony of the Naval Court of Inquiry regarding the sinking of Captain Ranton's ship, the "Banal."

Transcripts:

Court Record 1. On the morning of 21 August Cpt. Ranton ordered his ship to steer a course through uncharted waters of what is now known as Shallow Bay. The result of this order lead the ship to hit a coral reef, tearing a hole in the Banal's hull. Immediate flooding occurred and the ship sank to its deck. There was no loss of life. The HMS Dragon was dispatched to rescue survivors after receiving an S.O.S. from the Banal. The Dragon arrived at the following scene as described by its officer of the deck, Lt. Commander Gestalt:

"The whole scene was chaos. Naval personnel gazing this way and that, some shouting orders, but most in a mad rush to collect floating objects as fast as they could. I distinctly recall Captain Ranton amid this turmoil trying to organize the mess. He floundered from one group to the next whereat he read from one of the two texts he held separately in each hand. Upon noting the arrival of Dragon he swam to us and we hauled him aboard. Then began the retrieval of the Banal's crew."

In further testimony Lt. Commander Gestalt notes Captain Ranton's demeanor:

"It was one of haggardness brought upon by drink, I'd say. His eyes were focused away from me as I sought to get him out of his wet clothes. He fiercely gripped two books which he intended not to be parted from, but with some gentle persuasion I claimed these, plus a third from his trowser's back pocket…"

Court Record 2. These three titles are hereafter included in the court record as exhibits, E/A, E/B, E/C:

E/A: "How to do Anything, Anywhere, Anytime and Under Any Condition, So Help Me Goebbels" --authors, various; edited and with commentary by H. C. Ranton

E/B: "My Camp" --original author's inscription defaced throughout and signed instead by Captain Ranton as the inditer

E/C: "Mixology Made Easy" --Swill Press, 2002

Court Record 3. Banal Crew Testimonies, abstracts.

1st Mate Noermynd: "It all seemed so strange, you know? We were well read and all, the Captain saw to that with his books. He'd rail on us to learn his ways; he was relentless in teaching us about every contingency, how to expect any course change in anything. I just don't understand how this happened; I really don't…"

Of special note are those testimonies of new recruits, known as Newbies by the Banal's crew:

Seaman Uppend: "Well, with all due respect for the Captain and the officers, I was rightly confused. He and they kept at us newcomers, saying that we had to read what they were reading to really know anything, and not to think, just do, you know? One time I gave a suggestion and one of the officers, well, he looked in this book and said, "'Nope, it's not in here, doesn't apply, get back to duty.'"

Seaman Zerozum: "There was so much pressure on the ship and every one talked the same, I mean, you know, THE SAME, repeating things over and over which I'd never heard at the Academy, but who was I, just a Newbie and scoffed at. "They'd teach me," so many said, and I tried to believe, I did…"

Court Record 4. Captain Ranton's testimony, abstracts.

"I followed protocol. I do it by the book and only the book, so help me…. ah… I do it by the book."

"I taught them by the book, even when we'd foundered I read passages in the water to inspire "My Camp," eh, erh, my crew, that is. Yes. My crew. I followed protocol, I did it by the book. How else is one to be inspired? That is how I was taught, that is how I command, how I teach. By the book and only by the book, so help me… ah, yes…"

When court appointed Navy psychologists were allowed to cross examine Captain Ranton they asked if the first book (E/A) was the book used in heightening crew response. He refused to answer the question, but it is noted that he continued to look at exhibit E/A from then on out while requesting various mixed drinks.

Conclusion: It is the Court's conclusion that Captain Ranton be penalized in full for violations of military code as set forth in the attached rider, Duty Codes Violated. Captain Ranton is hereby discharged without ceremony and remanded to the Naval Care Facility at Long Beach for detoxification to last no more than 3 months. At his request the Long Beach Naval Hospital will provide a detention cell of bamboo for his comfort and ease.

Favorite Steve Jobs Quotes X2

2011-08-28T21:24:00.001-05:00

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

“Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Sir Ken Robinson: On Creativity

2011-08-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

"I think it would be misleading, because the reason is people have to take a personal journey. This is your life, it’s not my life and you have to figure out what you want from it. What we can do, I think, is give people some navigational tools for that trip and some clear principles and examples and some techniques that they can use.

"It’s a two-way journey. The first is, in terms of being in your element and finding your greatest strength, is you have to go inward. You’re a unique person. Everybody is unique, a unique moment in history, and you have to be prepared to be honest with yourself and to spend time with yourself evaluating either the interest you know you’ve got or the ones you thought you would like to explore but never did. The things that you were drawn to, the things that you haven’t yet tried, the things that you would liked to have explored but you never did, the things that maybe you did but you were stopped from taking any further. But you have to do your own map of yourself. The book will have some help for that." Sir Ken Robinson, from an interview here.

His website.

Two Books He has Written:

Save Me From Tomorrow: In Pictures

2011-08-25T22:51:00.000-05:00

“The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed”—Hitler's Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels

Emile and Event Streams: A Moral Viewpoint on DMs and Players as People

2011-08-22T05:56:00.001-05:00

This is my final online post regarding the GM Challenge now raging towards its ultimate conclusion at various blogs. This was noted in a recent topic in which I made my points. However, they were probably not as clear as I had hoped. Such is this medium's lack and much can be lost in translation; but in retrospect I will say that I have read the vast majority of these posts by each contributing author. Whereas Grendlewulf and the fine chap at Gothridge Manor come close to the idea it is my opinion that these still do not go back far enough in the event stream to pin down what I consider to be the most important point.

I will further explain by posing among the commentary some fictitious (though not tongue-in-cheek) examples; for this "Build a Better GM"challenge is certainly beginning to look like a group of older artists, say from the late 1800's to early 1900's, who upon gathering at Paris or Brussels find themselves sipping tea or coffee whilst discussing among themselves their various techniques.

Event Stream

Back drop: A notable art gallery. Seated in one of the viewing rooms are several artists who have a number of their pieces on display and within view. They openly discuss the merits of these and the techniques used in crafting them...

Seurat (to Gaugin): Your paintings jump before the eyes, Guagin! They illuminate even this dull parlor.
(looking sidelong at Van Gogh): Unlike poor Vincent's, which are too dark, I fear.

Gaugin (absently): Ah, but the hand minds the eye's choice in such matters, does it not? True, the shades are darker, and in Paris his works do not sell as well, mostly for lack of appreciation of them I'd say, but they do voice his intent.

Van Gogh (to both): I paint what I feel. I express. And I do not want for others; it is not that I detest light so much as I can appreciate the darker shades, as well. Life is my palette and no other.

Seurat: Yes, indeed, but you miss the greater import of which Gaugin has exposed in part. Impressionism, Vincent, is now upon us. The galleries, the institutes which you despise, they are alive with it! The students, the public and the art sellers, they all clamor for more. You are not adapting to the times; even your brother thinks so.

Van Gogh: Times change as do moods. There have been masters before us and there will be many that follow. I am not concerned with the past or the future, but only with that moment when I apply my brush.

Gaugin: Well said, Vincent; and in that you remain you, Seurat remains himself and I remain Gaugin. Time for some more refreshments. Absinthe anyone?

Note: The 3rd highest priced painting to sell in the world was VVG's last self-portrait: 72+ million dollars. He is notable for being one of the few to resist institutional learning (i.e., conformist views of the time), though he had some institutional training in anatomy/human proportion. Though having great respect for the artists of his time and their methods he stayed to his own course. He did not start painting until he was 20 years of age.

Moral Questions1 (grouped): How best will we as neophyte instructors of RPG teach newcomers who seek learning, and in the broadest possible sense of that term, when we just could be, just may be, be teaching another M. A. R. Barker to be without even knowing it? And who is to say that all players or DMs could not be up and coming geniuses? For as Picasso said:

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

My commentary from the second response in that thread:

Let's extend the process a little further. What if the creative force of an individual gravitates towards more story-telling as they find in that process certain ways to improve latent talents and interests, whether theirs and/or in concert with a group who might share that interest? It is possible by design to create such matter as hereby concluded, say in creating a city and having as the adventuring focus the intrigues of a greater political backdrop therein. This is only one example of the range that is possible within expression; and that cannot be treated as a lump sum technique, but will instead be fashioned according to taste and need as their story unfolds.

..."There are no tricks, no short-cuts." And I mean this generally, as an aggregate that cannot be passed along to a group. If they exist at all it is within the specific confines of an individual who has implemented these according to their creative thrust; and that creative thrust depends on a personalized and very singular story*.

*Note: Easily restated as--"...creative thrust depends on a personalized and very singular approach."

Let me conclude this part by saying that the bolded sentence--If they exist at all it is within the specific confines of an individual who has implemented these according to their creative thrust;--refers in fact to what all of those responding to the challenge have indeed emulated! Each and every one of you has discovered over time, by learning, by challenge, by reading, by thinking, and by many other methods distinct to each and every one of you, you have discovered and brought into being from your experiences 3 creative particles. There was value in that learning, that discovery for you, wasn't there? That is why you can feel assured now in presenting these points. And now you want to pass yours along to "Build" (I suppose that means create) those in an image of it as you faintly understand it. In so doing you hope to help those who supposedly can not help themselves (even though each of you have done so in each and every case, that is, over time you have learned and progressed).

Moral Questions2 (grouped): Doesn't this very combined process expose all too clearly a dichotomy? In implementing this to "indoctrinate" newcomers and thus steer them among the choices presented, is this not channeling them along different paths that each of you took for arriving at your own individual viewpoints? How does this fit within the description and exercise of individuality for newcomers as each and every one of you have experienced for yourselves? If your past experiences and processes have produced for yourselves a heightened degree of knowledge, what are the consequences of not allowing (or foreshortening) that same learning and growth path to occur in others? Do you agree or disagree that only value-added experiences spur growth (if you believe that these two mix, then please refer to the preceding question which I reiterate as my last)?

Continuing Upon the Event Stream...

A short conversation between Socrates and a student, Ancient Greece

Student: Socrates. As you have instructed me, I have a question.
Socrates (nods): Continue.
Student (smiling): Who taught the first teacher?
Socrates (unshaken): Life.
Student (puzzled): If that is true then I need only to learn life; and if that is true, then why am I here and why do you teach?
Socrates: In answer to the first: You have not acquired that path due to indolence, a common human failing. In that lies the answer to the second.

Moral Questions3 (grouped): Are we to assume that every newcomer who is drawn to our creative hobby is doing so only for base reasons, such as: Boredom? Companionship? Lack of anything else better to do? Game-play fun? Or might they have been attracted for some of the same reasons that many of us were? Such as artistic inclination? Creative freedom? Related intellectual pursuits? Broadening of knowledge? The list is endless, of course, in both extremes, so how do we best serve the whole without limiting its parts?

Conclusion: We are dealing with unique individuals; they are not plug-and-play objects easily fitted one after the other into categories no matter what we think is true, or is the "norm," amongst ourselves. We owe it to newcomers and ourselves to be cautious and concerned in the matter of teaching and its methods.

These are the "3" I feel most strongly promote that balanced goal:

1. Each person is different, thus you have an obligation to identify that difference and nurture it in the best way that you can for their benefit. This specific tact will benefit the whole group.

2. That this course is best served by specific approaches rather than inundating each individual with a shot-gun blast of information and choices. This will allow each person the time to grow, understand and communicate their needs and interests, which thereafter can be honed by your participation in a mentoring situation.

3. Through this course you as the DM and your players will grow and excel, not just in the game, but in life as well. It will prepare your players for DMing with a courage they have won, a knowledge they have gained, and all through your patience, perseverance and subtle guidance.

Ending event stream, Master Owl and the Grasshopper

Master Owl: What is best? To serve or to be served?
Grasshopper: They are one in the same, Master Owl.
Master Owl (pausing): How so?
Grasshopper: In either I do my best and appreciate the contentment displayed in the acts
Master Owl: You are wise, grasshopper...

Another Look at Garden of the Plantmaster (1987 version)

2011-08-21T18:50:00.001-05:00

At Fire in the Jungle.

And for those who never got the colorized map and key released in the online version, circa 1996:

Interesting Discussion Starting at HC

2011-08-19T13:46:00.000-05:00

here: http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/

in the topic entitled: Building a Better GM: A Challenge

I interject my thoughts about the base assumption by pointing to a separation of technique and creative force, which seemingly has been lumped into one facet of a "How To?" process. My response is posted there and is quoted below.

You are confusing technique with creative force. There is no "How to" to CF, that is bred at birth, greatly expanded (or not) during childhood, intuitively practiced in later years (or not) and thereafter grown and sustained (or not) by each and every individual.

It is like asking, "How best is it to write?" as I have knowledge of the techniques of writing. The best answer to mastering any such hands-on subject is to do it and therein find your own creative form. This addresses "form" vs "formula" the latter which seems so prevalent in this medium.

Each DM's form will also differ according to the range of material being presented "in each moment," just as different types of stories have varying weights applied to them at different times by the author creating these.Also note the last question of my [recent] interview as this is a better starting point, mastering story, for any GM as far as techniques go, and this too cannot be tricked into being.

Also, this question is being asked in a vacuum. It addresses current DMs (i.e. largely considered as a whole, "veteran DMs") and their thoughts on this as culled from experience but does not, as far as I can see within it, address fledgling DMs, that is, newcomers to the art. While exclusionary, it paints a definite process which was not true for those veterans when newcomers themselves.

The process of learning to DM/story-telling is best discovered in the trenches by creating our own dungeons/locales. This personalizes the experience 100% and builds in layers of confidence, objectivity and other enhancements of a greater type not found in running pre-made adventures. The difference between creating your own story and reading it aloud rather than reading aloud another's.

For the most part many of us were weaned in "Fun House" climes; but whatever the "adventure" environment, one learns rudiments and essentials and these thereafter take root and grow according to the prevailing creative force in every individual as expressed through personal understanding and application, and in differing degrees.

ἐπιτέμνειν

2011-08-17T04:50:00.000-05:00

   "Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main..."

   e.b.

Just Dropping In

2011-08-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

It's always good to say hello now and then.

I have been occupied with rest ever since my return from NTRPGCON 3. I have managed to finish an interview started months ago and that should be published on another blog very soon.

Fight On! magazine will be dedicating an issue to me, I believe it's #14, and Allan Grohe is sending them an article I originally published in Wargames Magazine, IIRC, back in 1977 or thereabouts.

My immediate projects proceed slowly while matching the re-energizing I'm getting from a very demanding personal and health challenging 2010.

North Texas wore me out, however, fun though it always is. The Workshop was a great success and I will run it again next year. The adventure we designed in the six hours participants colluded to do so was DMed by me the very next day , though the players in that might as well have been zombies, instead, as they were frightfully slow, disorganized and made me, tired as I was throughout the entire convention, seem spry by comparison. Hate to say it, but that's the truth.

It has been tentatively named, "The Mad House"; and it will eventually find print through NTRPGCON as an added way of generating income for the convention.

One participant in the workshop said during it, "Wow! I cannot believe what we've accomplished in an hour's time!" They were a good crew; and my hat goes off to them and to David Rhea, Doug's son, who participated at an ever increasing and creative pace as we continued. He wishes to design solid adventures and called the whole ordeal, "Just Crazy!"

That's about it. I will not be posting too much on a regular basis, sorry. The pace I kept up before, coupled with the demands of writing and research, means that I have to cut somewhere. I just don't have the energy for blogs and forums and even my Q&A on DF has suffered due to this. However, that means that I can concentrate on the creative for print, and that has been my only concern for years, so it is not alien to me.

Pied Piper Publishing is no more due to my health. I cannot manage it on all levels. It was a nice run under the imprint; but imprints are just that. I will continue to write when time, health and inspiration combine and allow me to do so.

Find out more when my interview is published; should be very soon.

Good Gaming to all!

RJK

PS--I wish to thank all of you, especially Scottz, for the wonderful articles that you posted here and wish you all continued good luck with your creative endeavors!

Valhalla Rising

2011-07-20T18:09:00.002-05:00

Well, Robilar, wherever you are, I hope your treasury is full and your dragons well-fed.

While you're out perhaps exploring the City of the Gods, I was wondering if anyone hanging about here had any thoughts on the movie "Valhalla Rising." I just saw it and was baffled. I read a few reviews and they're split into two camps -- those who see it as genius and those who regard it as a steaming pile of dung. I am of both opinions, strangely. This is what I wrote in reaction to one of those negative reviews and I was wondering if anyone had an enlightened (and enlightening) take on it -- even if it's a violently negative one:

I enjoyed your review: it perfectly described half of my reaction to this movie. But the other half of me wanted this movie to say and mean something. I actually got invested in two of the characters , One-Eye and the Boy (predictably, I think). I felt the cinematography was breath taking and invested with symbolic meaning – but for the life of me I couldn’t decode it (at least on a first viewing – I don’t know if I’ll give it a second look). The strange thing is that I’m usually pretty good at finding meaning – it’s what I do for a living (teaching and writing about some of the most obscure English poetry ever conceived). I also know a fair bit about old Norse mythology and about mythic syncretism – e.g. the relationship between the stories of Odin (a one-eyed sacrifice) and Christ – but, still, the meaning wasn’t really coming together.

However, after reading some extremely negative reviews of the film (including yours – which I really have no argument with) and a few positive ones (that call it “genius” without really saying why), I started to cobble something together. The violence of that negative reception, is that anything like the violence in the film? Your review isn’t really “violent” per se, but it is frustrated and pissed-off, right? You want the film to say something (like me) and it doesn’t – isn’t that a bit like One Eye? There are interpreters (like the Boy) – various reviewers you might say – and they make guesses at what his meaning is, what One-Eye is doing or thinks or wants – but he’s as mute as a hanged Odin, as mute as this film. People try to enslave, beat, dominate and control One Eye but, like the totally obscure meaning of this film, it/he can’t really be summed up and “controlled” by any one explanation. In the end, One Eye is killed by multiple figures all as enigmatic and silent as himself – multiple meanings that can go in all kinds of different directions (and simply fade into the wilderness). It’s a meta-film, you might say, about interpreting film.

I think this also relates to the mythic syncretism of the movie – how it wants to draw parallels between Odin and Christ, how they are echoes of each other in many ways. As the Chieftain says to the kid in that interminable boat scene, the story of Christ essentially gives you an explanation for who you are and where you’re going: it puts the chaos of experience in order. That’s a fairly interesting take on religious motivations (although it’s been done before). The need to make meaning from a film is the same need that gives rise to religion.

I usually don’t like interpretations such as this because it assumes there’s a meaning (that it’s all about meaning-making) when, in fact, it could just be a poorly crafted movie. I felt frustrated through the whole experience, thinking that I deserved just a few clues about what was going on – but your review got me thinking and I feel better, now. I don’t imagine I’ve convinced you, but I wouldn’t mind hearing from some of the people above who felt they “got it” – I’d like further clarification. I realize that, to the extent that I’ve made any meaning out of this film, it just amounts to an act of faith.

Cold Texts Have Moved...

2011-05-25T12:07:00.000-05:00

The 'droning' continues on its own site:
http://coldtextfiles.blogspot.com/

See you there...

Paradigms

2011-04-27T20:34:00.001-05:00

If you can spare a couple of minutes, please watch this great presentation on Changing Education Paradigms from the RSA. It mentions divergent thinking and multiple solutions...

(Here's the Video Link)

Review - Bennett's Six Medieval Men and Women

2011-01-29T17:46:00.004-06:00

Old School 'D&D' and games carrying on its spirit are really about characters. How they live. How they die. What principles make a brash wizard or a humble fighter go into the dark? Fortune? Glory? The challenge of fighting evil?

Given these questions, which each player and DM answers in their own way, a perennial 'discussion' bounces around the Internet about a character's 'endgame'. What happens when fortune and glory are earned by a character over a course of time?

H.S. Bennett's book, Six Medieval Men & Women, can offer DM's and players some simple and accessible ideas on fleshing out the active life of a hero or heroine and basic treatments for campaign life beyond the dungeon. The book casts a light on the following lives from history (linked below to their Wikipedia articles):

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester
Sir John Fastolf
Thomas Hoccleve
Margaret Paston (Mrs. Paston doesn't have her own Wikipedia page, but the family letters do.)
Margery Kempe
Richard Bradwater (in an ironic twist, the only peasant written about in the book doesn't have a Wikipedia entry. Some things never change...)

It's fair to say that much of fantasy's symbolic language is drawn from medieval Europe, particularly the original World of Greyhawk setting materials and modules which I drone on and on about. From the Greyhawk/Gygaxian corner of fantasy worlds, the personages above and the lives they lead can be particularly inspirational. As the DM is the players true 'link' to the campaign world - not the dice - the way that historical characters interact with the world around them is particularly valuable and should be studied by everyone.

From the book's text on its subjects, a DM can take away much insight:

Humphrey's life gives insight into familial and political connections and the lives of royalty. While most adventurers don't necessarily hail from the 'upper class' strata of a game world, the rise and fall of a nobleman offers useful NPC background info. Humphrey's life suggests the value of characters building connections with the powerful, and his life offers more than a few 'slots' where adventurers 'outside the system' could gain prestige. As a member of the Order of the Garter, it ties in with chivalrous (or nefarious...) orders and how such pledges and allegiances both build stability but are rarely protection against the winds of political change. A peasant can, perhaps, rise above his station by exemplary deeds - a noble is always in the cross hairs of political intrigue and dare not ignore it.
Falstof's life is perhaps the most valuable insight into the 'endgame' mentioned above. What does a fighting man in the service of a lord do with his wealth? At no point in the book are there mentions of strongholds or dungeons to protect huge chests filled with gold. In medieval history, wealth was invested and Sir John spent most of the latter part of his life at a desk managing the wealth and property of his lifetime. It suggests that even for the most 'epic' warrior, the 'endgame' path is one of literacy, management, dealing with subordinates and paid specialists, visiting judges and hiring clerks. In short, everything that a battlefield is not. For those players not willing to 'settle down' or seeking the 'thrill of the hunt', Falstof's life offers plenty of reason to jump at the high level challenges of distant lands, other planes, or expeditions into the unknown. This chapter is a treasure trove for a DM's campaign, and new adventurers can find several opportunities in the service of an aging adventurer trying to keep his stronghold(s) alive and healthy.
Tom Hoccleve's life is perhaps the most antithetical to an adventurer's and yet closest to our own time period: he was a clerk. Note that, prior to the printing press, such clerks were important parts of the bureaucratic machinery of both Church and governments. Interacting with clerks to fetch or deliver documents could be a great 'pre-adventuring' career for player characters, and the bureaucratic background of a kingdom is overflowing with NPC's.
Margaret Paston's life, as expressed in the book, puts the role of wife in the spotlight during the time period in which she lived - a time of great turbulence in England. It is a revealing chapter - showing much more of the 'feminine half of history' that rarely enters into chronicles - and portrays a character of great competence and determination holding a family and their property in her care.
Margery Kempe's trials and tribulations will be a strike against the romantic image of adventuring clerics. She was a mystic and religious pilgrim, causing disruption in many places in her journeys, but keeping steadfast in her faith. She was married and bore fourteen children before being 'chosen' for a path of faith and pilgrimage, so she was not born into fanaticism. Her story and her sufferings along her strange and winding path is good fuel for campaigns that involve different faiths and service to gods. An adventurer without a weapon, and a traveller without a fixed destination, her gifts and the responses those gifts evoked are certainly great material.
Finally, Richard Bradwater's chapter gives us a tiny glimpse into a peasant 'hellraiser' and troublemaker. This chapter's value to a DM isn't just the glimpse - it is the description of the background of courts, grievances, and 'official' interaction between peasant and ruler that is of greatest value. If the 'endgame' of a character is to be discussed, then the institution and maintenance of justice and order through a regular 'court' structure is something worth paying attention to.

Those who can get their hands on this book will not suffer through a dry text - the chapters aren't very long and are taken from a series of lectures. A certain 'condensation' of life is presented and each chapter reads very smoothly and quickly.

Bennett's LibraryThing Link

War and Game

2011-01-21T23:04:00.001-06:00

A FINE SITE <---LINK

The Reality of Fantasy

2011-01-20T01:55:00.000-06:00

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead." -- Oscar Wilde

The Two Daves, the Twin Cities, A Great Site...

2011-01-09T21:46:00.000-06:00

VINTAGE WARGAMING LINK.

Ziegler's The Black Death

2011-01-01T22:16:00.002-06:00

Chance favors only those who court her.

- Charles Nicolle

I was thinking recently about a well known 'elemental temple' and it's fungal demonic 'lady', I started reading about fungi, disease, and planes of existence. I thought about the role that disease could play to an agrarian culture, and how the failure of a single year's crop could send ripples forward that could doom a small village. Life. Death. Poison. Crops. Cycles. Growth without Mind. Panic. Fear. I was lucky enough, in this state of mind, to find a used copy of Philip Ziegler's The Black Death.

There are a few things that truly define the wonderful, beautiful yet troubled abstraction known as Western Civilization. The shift from polytheism to monotheism would be one. The scientific method would be another. The printing press. Seafaring. Electric light to push back The Night.

One of the most significant is the Black Death, or more appropriately, the effects of the Black Death on how we think, how we behave, and what we believe in.

Ziegler's text, written in 1969, offers a comfortable readability and is not a 'dry history book', as the events of the Black Death that are not his primary focus. Rather, the real 'subject' of the book is the Plague's aftermath and impact. Things happened in Europe between the years 1348 and 1350 that were a lot more than just a body count.

The Short Review
Buy it and read it. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history. As someone who 'drones on an on about modules', I strongly urge DM's to read this and consider Gygaxian D&D, and Greyhawk materials, in this time period. A Gygaxian-flavored campaign is strangely like Europe before the spread of the Plague, even though much of the game's worlds fall within an 'ascendant/post-apocalyptic' symbolic base.

Image below from Wikimedia

The Longer Review
Just some brief information from the book's text.

Chapter 1: Origins and Nature - A background of what the pandemic really was, and its three forms (attacking the flesh, blood, and breath). It mentions the ecological disruptions in the Far East, which combined with the Little Ice Age, caused a friendly stage for a pandemic. It is significant that the concept of an airborne disease clouded investigations into the cause and spread of the illnesses during the period, as only one of the three forms was truly airborne

Chapter 2: The State of Europe is a concise look at the stage set prior to the Plague's wrath, and it was already a grim stage. Civilization in Europe had, in a sense, stalled. Climactic catastrophes and conflict over resources were already putting 'the West' in peril. To quote the text:
“The most grave consequence was a series of disastrous harvests. There were famines in England in 1272, 1277, 1283, 1292 and 1311.” which, added to the overpopulation and under cultivation of resources was already a disaster in the making and Zeigler mentions the fallacy of considering the Black Death to be a natural counterbalance to overpopulation like a Malthusian Catastrophe.

Other chapters go into more detail about different countries and how they reacted and are listed below:

Italy
France: the State of Medical Knowledge
The rest of Continental Europe
Arrival in England: the West Country
Progress Across the South
Sussex, Kent and East Anglia
The Midlands and the North of England
The Welsh Borders, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland
The Toll in Lives
The Social and Economic Consequences
Education, Agriculture and Architecture

High Points
Of special note to our context of classic D&D are a few select chapters from the text's coverage of this horrible period of time:

Chapter 5 - Germany: the Flagellants and the Persecution of the Jews covers the inevitable downward spiral mix of faith, desperation, and breakdowns of order. In reading about the Flagellants, you will see echoes of every 'evil cult' that ripples through classic D&D materials, only much more severe. The frightening parts of this chapter aren't the activities that took place during that time (including self-mutilation and attempts at resurrection of corpses) or the Church's eventual suppression of them. The horror is that these weren't 'evil' people at all - they represented a penitent fanaticism and an attempt to create the 'divine miracle cure' by cleansing away sin. In spite of the beliefs of the time, the data suggests that the Church did not fail, overall, to attend to the sick and the poor: records indicate the Church sustained very heavy losses of personnel to the Plague. Unfortunately, as the Clergy represented a pillar of social order that often contained the only educated persons for miles, their absence and dwindling numbers offered fewer hands that could write, fewer eyes that could read, and fewer minds that could inspire.

When even the penitent fanaticism failed, scapegoating of Europeans who were Jewish, Arab, or even lepers became common as lawlessness took hold. The Kosher diet was a very good defense against consuming contaminated meat, and persecution of Jews seen as 'suspicious survivors' swept through many of the areas ravaged by plague. Both of these horrors are useful reading for a game world that takes evil and brutality seriously.
For anyone creating a medieval city, Chapter 9 London: Hygiene and the Medieval City is bound to be of great use to build more detail into the day to day living of the time period, particularly at a time of crisis. London was ravaged. I'll quote from this chapter:

“Not only had many of the efficient cleaners died or deserted their post and the machinery for the enforcement of the law been strained beyond its capacities but also technical problem of transporting something over twenty thousand corpses to the burial grounds had an imposed an extra and unexpected burden on the skeleton force which remained”
In Chapter 17 The Effects on the Church and Man's Mind, Zeigler confronts the real object of his quest: what did the Black Death do the survivors? I offer below some quotes from the text:

“The villagers observed with interest that the parish priest was just likely, indeed more likely, to die of the plague than his parishioners. God's wrath seemed just as hot against Church as against people: a significant commentary on those preachers who denounced all their fellows with such tedious zest. [...] That the parson was mortal, everyone knew, that he ate, drank, defecated and in due course died. Often, indeed, he came from the same village as his flock and had relations living near him to testify that he was but flesh and blood. Yet, with his ordination, surely he acquired too a touch of the superhuman; remained a man but became a man apart? After the plague, his vulnerability so strikingly exposed, all trace of the superhuman must have vanished.”

Unfortunately, like in any crisis, those of heroic nobility really do give their lives for their beliefs, and those that remain are, perhaps, less likely to die to save their neighbor. This affected the medieval Church, in addition to the massive amounts of wealth that were willed to it from wealthier patrons (in some cases, whole families were wiped out, leaving no heirs).

Further, monastic orders took a huge hit during the Plague. While there was a certain safety to 'run for the hills', a monastery's cloistered environs had no hope of stopping certain types of the plague, particularly infected livestock.
In general, much anti-clerical philosophy is borne of this era, and Medieval man felt the Church had failed him. Without free flow of information and record keeping, the isolation of villages from each other meant that any information was hearsay, if any came at all.

Socially, the massive decline in the numbers making up the labor pool caused a massive shift in the relationship between landowner and laborer. This culminated in the Peasant's Revolt, which Zeigler sees as a direct result of this shift. Indeed, our modern definition of 'social unrest' or 'revolt' could be spawned from this.

(On a personal note, I found this chapter to be integral to understanding the spawn of Colonization and the search for the New World (relating to my C1 posts). It's almost like, unable to combat God's Wrath, those that 'conquered' the New World had, in fact, found 'Eden' and committed a terrible revenge against the 'Adam and Eve' that they found there.)

Zeigler as DM?
In Chapter 13: The Plague in a Medieval Village, Zeigler hits what I consider the high point: an attempt to theoretically model a real village during the spread of the Plague. It is classic 'worldbuilding' and presents the imaginary village of Blakwater. A few quotes from the text:

“It was entertaining to listen to the tale of travellers in the same spirit as, to-day, one might crowd to hear the words of an astronaut; but only the romantic or the reckless actually want to go to the moon and the inhabitant of Blakwater was no more likely to want to go to London or to Calais.”

“Though Roger himself made a point of keeping the domestic animals out of the house this was by no means an invariable rule. In some of the houses goats, sheep and sometimes even cows lived jumbled up with the family, spreading their fleas amid the soiled straw and adding their smells to the rich compound which the medieval household could generate without such extra help.”

“[...] on the fringe of the village, a ramshackle hovel provided shelter of a sort for poor Mad Meg; deformed from birth, shunned by her contemporaries and now grown crazed in squalid loneliness. Some said that she was a witch and the children used to enjoy chanting rude slogans outside her hut but nobody seriously believed that she could make successful mischief.”

“With the parson's death and the steward away the steward's clerk was the only villager left who knew how to read and write.”

You get the idea. What happens to these... characters reads like a good piece of background text for an adventure, and yet plumbs the depths of horror in a world without access to the magic that is so integral to tabletop fantasy and its roots in pulp writings.

Connections
The subject of this book relates directly to your gaming for a few reasons:

Gaming and gambling have a long history, but by the 1400's were becoming almost epidemic. Rolling the bones - pitting fate against Chance, became extremely popular in Europe after the Black Death. Gaming continues, but it's interesting that despite the adversity D&D suffered decades ago, no one attacked it as a 'game of chance', even though players really do put their fate in the hands of dice rolls.

While many classic D&D adventures seem like 'natural snapshots', I would submit that, from a historical perspective, they reflect the 'pre-Plague' Europe hovering at the edge of disaster and needing heroes while also being 'post apocalyptic and ascendant'. Is Greyhawk a schizophrenic environment or a conflicted one? I believe it's neither and part of the 'glow' of the classic adventures is, in truth, a dual-themed game world: a place existing before one disaster, but after a previous one.

Finally, note that most of the multitudes that were slain by the Black Death were peasants, raised without education in a time of faith and living in small villages rich with folklore. Did their parents, in an attempt to keep them close to home and safe, fill their imaginations with 'monsters in the forest' or 'goblins in those caves by the creek'? They have no grave markers, and in some cases, no records of their existence. Did they, working the fields by day, dream of being heroes?

If so, then the popular fantasy theme of 'a nobody rising to become a hero' may be something imprinted on us from this terrible period of time. What did a peasant child dream of in 1348?

Are you playing out the dreams of the lost and nameless dead? Are you silently fulfilling their wishes when you role up a character?

Something to think about in a New Year.

On Vacation until The New Year

2010-12-23T04:22:00.000-06:00

And I hope you have as much fun, or more, than I do!

A Really Great Post...

2010-12-16T13:01:00.001-06:00

...On the artist Sulamith Wulfing: // LINK

Games Without Frontiers??

2010-12-10T12:30:00.001-06:00

Old Mattel Commercials +1

2010-12-03T11:13:00.000-06:00

(w/ Billy Mumy)

Plus One

And to think this all started with my brother, Terry Kuntz:

Ooh. Looky Here: "Animated Scarecrow Unit"

2010-11-30T09:31:00.001-06:00

NOW HERE'S A ROUGH BUNCH! I like the lower left one with the jack-o-lantern head. Nathaniel Hawthorne would have been proud!

>>>> http://theminiaturespage.com/news/168189/

"The Olympians"

2010-11-29T23:51:00.005-06:00

THE GOLDEN AGE

By Kenneth Grahame

PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS

"Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut behind me, I can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as to the needs of the flesh, but after that with indifference (an indifference, as I recognise, the result of a certain stupidity), and therewith the commonplace conviction that your child is merely animal. At a very early age I remember realising in a quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity, and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague sense of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and prone to the practice of vagaries--"just choosing so:" as, for instance, the giving of authority over us to these hopeless and incapable creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to ourselves over them. These elders, our betters by a trick of chance, commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy--of their good luck--and pity--for their inability to make use of it. Indeed, it was one of the most hopeless features in their character (when we troubled ourselves to waste a thought on them: which wasn't often) that, having absolute licence to indulge in the pleasures of life, they could get no good of it. They might dabble in the pond all day, hunt the chickens, climb trees in the most uncompromising Sunday clothes; they were free to issue forth and buy gunpowder in the full eye of the sun--free to fire cannons and explode mines on the lawn: yet they never did any one of these things. No irresistible Energy haled them to church o' Sundays; yet they went there regularly of their own accord, though they betrayed no greater delight in the experience than ourselves.

On the whole, the existence of these Olympians seemed to be entirely void of interests, even as their movements were confined and slow, and their habits stereotyped and senseless. To anything but appearances they were blind. For them the orchard (a place elf-haunted, wonderful!) simply produced so many apples and cherries: or it didn't, when the failures of Nature were not infrequently ascribed to us. They never set foot within fir-wood or hazel-copse, nor dreamt of the marvels hid therein. The mysterious sources--sources as of old Nile--that fed the duck-pond had no magic for them. They were unaware of Indians, nor recked they anything of bisons or of pirates (with pistols!), though the whole place swarmed with such portents. They cared not about exploring for robbers' caves, nor digging for hidden treasure. Perhaps, indeed, it was one of their best qualities that they spent the greater part of
their time stuffily indoors.

To be sure, there was an exception in the curate, who would receive unblenching the information that the meadow beyond the orchard was a prairie studded with herds of buffalo, which it was our delight, moccasined and tomahawked, to ride down with those whoops that announce the scenting of blood. He neither laughed nor sneered, as the Olympians would have done; but possessed of a serious idiosyncrasy, he would contribute such lots of valuable suggestion as to the pursuit of this particular sort of big game that, as it seemed to us, his mature age and eminent position could scarce have been attained without a practical knowledge of the creature in its native lair. Then, too, he was always ready to constitute himself a hostile army or a band of marauding Indians on the shortest possible notice: in brief, a distinctly able man, with talents, so far as we could judge, immensely above the majority. I trust he is a bishop by this time,--he had all the necessary qualifications, as we knew.

These strange folk had visitors sometimes,--stiff and colourless Olympians like themselves, equally without vital interests and intelligent pursuits: emerging out of the clouds, and passing away again to drag on an aimless existence somewhere out of our ken. Then brute force was pitilessly applied. We were captured, washed, and forced into clean collars: silently submitting, as was our wont, with more contempt than anger. Anon, with unctuous hair and faces stiffened in a conventional grin, we sat and listened to the usual platitudes. How could reasonable people spend their precious time so? That was ever our wonder as we bounded forth at last--to the old clay-pit to make pots, or to hunt bears among the hazels.

It was incessant matter for amazement how these Olympians would talk over our heads--during meals, for instance--of this or the other social or political inanity, under the delusion that these pale phantasms of reality were among the importances of life. We illuminati, eating silently, our heads full of plans and conspiracies, could have told them what real life was. We had just left it outside, and were all on fire to get back to it. Of course we didn't waste the revelation on them; the futility of imparting our ideas had long been demonstrated. One in thought and purpose, linked by the necessity of combating one hostile fate, a power antagonistic ever,--a power we lived to evade,--we had no confidants save ourselves. This strange anaemic order of beings was further removed from us, in fact, than the kindly beasts who shared our natural existence in the sun. The estrangement was fortified by an abiding sense of injustice, arising from the refusal of the Olympians ever to defend, retract, or admit themselves in the wrong, or to accept similar concessions on our part. For instance, when I flung the cat out of an upper window (though I did it from no ill-feeling, and it didn't hurt the cat), I was ready, after a moment's reflection, to own I was wrong, as a gentleman should. But was the matter allowed to end there? I trow not. Again, when Harold was locked up in his room all day, for assault and battery upon a neighbour's pig,--an action he would have scorned, being indeed on the friendliest terms with the porker in question,--there was no handsome expression of regret on the discovery of the real culprit. What Harold had felt was not so much the imprisonment,--indeed he had very soon escaped by the window, with assistance from his allies, and had only gone back in time for his release,--as the Olympian habit. A word would have set all right; but of course that word was never spoken.

Well! The Olympians are all past and gone. Somehow the sun does not seem to shine so brightly as it used; the trackless meadows of old time have shrunk and dwindled away to a few poor acres. A saddening doubt, a dull suspicion, creeps over me. Et in Arcadia ego,--I certainly did once inhabit Arcady. Can it be I too have become an Olympian?"

Pablo Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

WIKI LINK for Kenneth Grahame

Questions & Answers

2010-11-28T21:51:00.001-06:00

I have noted that some fans who have specific questions about my works, history, etc. have been posting at the Old PPP Forums. Unfortunately I do not frequent them with any regularity and do not wish to continue to post at YUKU as the information posted there cannot be retrieved. Repeat: Yuku traps your information and there is no way of mining it off of the site so far as Scottz and I have determined.

If you have questions please either e-mail me (click my profile here for the e-mail address); or, post your questions on Dragonsfoot in my Q&A section. Though PPP's boards were established in 2002, I have been active on DF since 2004, so there are lots of questions already answered and a lot more to come. If you don't already have an account there it's pretty easy to get one.

Here's the LINK.

Thanks for being great fans, by the way!! :)

Considering Monday? Enjoy A Different Kind of "Song & Dance"

2010-11-28T19:27:00.000-06:00

BROADSIDE #1

2010-11-26T17:35:00.003-06:00

News from the Orlando Skolarlee Review!

In an openly closed meeting, members of the Orlando Skolarlee Review previewed some of their most strikingly striking case studies to date! Here is the minutia of the meeting as overseen by Jimmie Cracked Corn and fellows.

Commentary by JCC unless otherwise noted.

Greyhawk Stonefist Research.

Note an advertisement (left) that I have been studying for the past 2 years. It's an old one from a Pleasure Faire. Did I ever tell you that I never attended it? But I would have liked to. I would have been the guy on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, of course, but that is neither here nor there, now or then. I just like those sort of Faires, of course. Do you like Faires? Please tell me and maybe I'll pen an article or fifteen on them!

But back to my latest discovery! Of course you can tell me if it is a discovery or not, but I sure think it is. I really love discovering things, you know. Don't you? I believe it relates to curiosity the more I think about it. Curious thing curiosity. Don't you think so?

Now for the meat. I just knew that my continuing research might pay off. Note the upper left shield and its heraldry. Seem familiar to you? Take your time, let it sink in; I know I had to as I'm not really a Greyhawk fan, though at times I believe I could be if I tried hard enough, I'm just not sure, you know? This shield just bothered me. Of course I think I mean not in a bad way kinda bothered, but in a good way. You know what I mean, right? Well, I came to the conclusion that this shield, this very shield, may be the start of the inspirational chain that induced Gary Gygax to create Stonefist (please note comparative illustration, above right). There are two shields and two hands, you see. What do you think? Am I onto something? The research continues as we try to find attendees from that faire and see if they can recollect noting a person of Gary's general description in attendance. Stay tuned!

Black Oil Advertisement Linked to Keoghtom's Ointment!

In our endeavor to uncover the facts we are pursuing an anonymous tip that Gary Gygax was indeed influenced to create the magical concoction "Keoghtom's Ointment" from this very information. Research has been slow going as Hamilton is such a common name, and thus locating the family and their sales records for the Midwest region has been fruitless to date. Note that the prime factor here is not so much verifying that fact, but in extrapolating the easily understood matter contained in the phrase, "Healing Liniment." Though a poser, we will provide updates as breaking suppositions occur!

ORIGINAL AFTERWORD

EGG's Afterword in D&D's Volume #3 Reinterpreted in Light of Present Day Facts! Source: OPI News Wire.

According to the Orlando Skolarlee Review they have broken the "code" in EGG's afterword to D&D (1974) and have reinterpreted this in light of present day realities.

EGG's TRUE THOUGHTS From the Broken Code...

"There are no areas which have been glossed in these rules. We have included all the essentials and no trimming is needed by you or your players. We have provided more than an ample framework and no building is necessary for you to have fun. In this light, we urge you to go to our forums, blogs and other fora where you can be guided in what to do next, as everything herein is fantastically confusing and the best way to understand it all is just to ask us or folks at these official sites. Don't just make things up, don't make adventures, ask us first as we have everything you'll ever need! We don't mind answering your questions and love doing all of your imagining for you! Write us and tell about your experiences and opinions as we could always use another laugh on the way to the bank!"

NEWS UPDATE: Due to this revelation the Orlando Skolarlee Review and its subsidiaries ordered the immediate increase in published material, thus doubling and even tripling their FRP adventure titles for the upcoming months. When asked about this, one member was heard to exclaim, "Eureka!"

Apology Demanded By Irate Earthling Regarding Eldritch Enterprise News! From OPI News Wire.

A recent email exchange occurred between Jimmie Cracked Corn and the Adjutant General, U-Duhm Feck, who administers to flea-bitten elders near the Tesherite community of Drakensfuht, sometimes recorded (according to Baron Munchausen) as being located in either ancient day Mesopotamia, or in the Bronx. The transcript of that exchange follows:

U-DF: Your negative slant on this news was less than hospitable to my ears and my elders here have now contracted a case of the hives because of it! I demand an apology for all elders worldwide. Despicable, I say! Utterly despicable!

JCC: Yes, but...

U-DF: Oh. Don't start that outmoded rhetoric with me, Mr. "I Don't Care!" An apology is an apology! A "yes" will do. Keep your But, for now...

JCC: Yes, but...

U-DF: You seem to have a dualistic nature, eh?

JCC: Yes, but...

The remaining transcript was edited by OPI to extract repetitions... END

Orlando Skolarlee Review's Brew of Choice?

Of course it's "Old Judge" Irradiated Coffee! What a silly question! When all of us get together in our secret meetings (otherwise known then as the O.S.S. meetings of choice; see member patch below), we can't stop drinking it! I am thinking of having something similar to this concocted and made available for sale (look to my "What I am Selling/What I am Drinking" menu when it's available). The name will change to "Old Judgmental," though! I like the name, don't you? -- JCC

OSS MEMBER PATCH AND STIR STICK

More Ground-Breaking Research Ahead: Werebear, Irish Deer and Gorgon Origins!

Triumphant news for our quarter! We'll let the pictures speak for themselves! -- JCC

WEREBEAR IN UNCHANGED FORM (very tricky...)

Inspiration for the Irish Deer?

PROTOTYPICAL GORGON?

THE ORLANDO SKOLARLEE REVIEW'S MEETING CONCLUDED WITH A FULL SCREEN VIEWING OF Andy Hardy's Double Life AND WITH THEIR MEMBERS CHANTING A FAVORITE CLUB SONG (APPENDED HEREAFTER).

Some Updates and an Upcoming Interview

2010-11-21T19:19:00.000-06:00

I have lots on my schedule and have been finding it difficult to blog; and though I have a plethora of articles finished and unedited or in various other stages, my writing and design have been taking precedence these days. I hope some other authors can stand in for me, but if not I will post when I can.

Part of the down time will be spent affording time for an interview I recently agreed to do; and this will no doubt eat up a couple or three days while it is started and concluded. The interview will be posted at another blog and I will link to it from here. I am readying for it by rereading the "Sardonic Humor of Ambrose Bierce..." :)

In the meantime I will be posting a new spell I contrived, this towards the end of the week, Andy "Atom" Taylor is doing some art for three projects and possibly more (as of 3 days ago) one of which I will post as soon as Andy has them all finished. The writing on the Machine Level continues and Black Blade Publishing and I have been discussing the cover art and artist for the project. And the "Give Thanks Even Though You May Not Have Done So In Between-DAY" is upcoming and the "Mrs." and I are celebrating by having lasagna shaped as a turkey (kidding), but we are having lasagna. I wish you all well in between and be looking for more down the road.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (pseudonym: Francis Stevens)

2010-11-19T16:12:00.005-06:00

"Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1883–1948) was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States, publishing her stories under the pseudonym Francis Stevens. Bennett wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy." Among her most famous books are Claimed (which H. P. Lovecraft called "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will ever read") and the lost world novel The Citadel of Fear. Bennett also wrote an early dystopian novel, The Heads of Cerberus (1919). ...

"Bennett wrote her first short story at age 17, a science fiction story titled "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar." She mailed the story to Argosy, then one of the top pulp magazines. The story was accepted and published in the March 1904 issue. ...

"Once Bennett began to take care of her mother, she decided to return to fiction writing as a means of supporting her family. The first story she completed after her return to writing was the novella "The Nightmare," which appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1917. The story is set on an island separated from the rest of the world, on which evolution has taken a different course. "The Nightmare" resembles Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Land That Time Forgot, itself published a year later. ...

"Bennett has been credited as having "the best claim at creating the new genre of dark fantasy." As such, Bennett's writings influenced both H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt, both of whom "emulated Bennett's earlier style and themes." As for Merritt, for several decades critics and readers believed "Francis Stevens" was a pseudonym of his. This rumor only ended with the 1952 reprinting of Citadel of Fear, which featured a biographical introduction of Bennett by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. ...

"One of Bennett's most famous novels was Claimed (Argosy, 1920; reprinted 1966 and 2004), in which a supernatural artifact summons an ancient and powerful god to 20th century New Jersey. Lovecraft called the novel, "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will every read"). ...

"Critic Sam Moskowitz said she was the "greatest woman writer of science fiction in the period between Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and C.L. Moore.""

Source: WIKI Article LINK.

LINK to short stories compilation at Amazon.

On the Etymological Sources in Some of EGG's Fictional Names

2010-11-18T10:24:00.008-06:00

In recent discussion with David Witts (in my estimation one of the, if not the only, true researchers and scholars of Dungeons & Dragons and related TSR game historians active today) and Allan Grohe (himself a Greyhawk enthusiast with many years of accumulated knowledge on the subject) the topic turned towards EGG's battle report published in Wargamer's Newsletter #116, "THE BATTLE OF THE BROWN HILLS." This was a Chainmail/Fantasy Supplement battle played by LGTSA members, myself included, in EGG's basement on our constantly maintained 6' x 10' sand table (of which many of those battles, not only Chainmail but also Tractics and others I discuss in depth in my upcoming memoirs; and as played there and as later played at Don Kaye's garage where the table was eventually transferred to in order to make room for EGG's shoe repair equipment).

In going over the text I noted at least 3 interesting names that Gary had chosen, one of which only, out of courtesy to the ongoing research being done, will I post here.

One side has a giant leader named Verdurmir, which I recognized right off, and I actually laughed at the joke-reference EGG was using here:

Etymology of "verdur-" is simply a foreshortened "verdure" meaning "green" or lush.

"-mir" has Germanic and many other cognates, but overall may be translated as "leader," "lord," or grosse (large) or "big," etc.

So we have a giant named Verdurmir whose name means: "Big & Green Leader," or a variation of such.

This is where I laughed at the exposed matter, as the most popular giant in media during those days was of course the Jolly Green Giant.

Once again exposing Gary's proclivity (and creativity) in adapting what was around him into whatever matter he was treating with at the time. It also exposes his tounge-in-cheek manner and disguised punning for which he was famous.

Dave Arneson's Love Affair With Japanese Monster Movies

2010-11-15T10:27:00.002-06:00

My friend David L. Arneson moved to Lake Geneva to work for TSR in 1976. He originally roomed at the same complex as my brother, Terry Kuntz (who also worked for TSR as the first manager of the DUNGEON Hobby Shop). David soon relocated to an apartment on Wisconsin Street .

As I lived on Madison & Wisconsin and EGG still lived on Center & Wisconsin, I would often stop into David's on my way to Gary's house (note map, below).

This was often on weekends, and invariably if I didn't find Dave reading or writing, I'd find him watching his favorite Japanese monster movies. He usually had a big bowl of popcorn and was just laughing like a kid at these things; and in retrospect they were so bad they were funny. Here are some photos and links to the movies that made the designer of so many historical and fantastic games chuckle.

ONE OF DAVE"S FAVORITES, GAMERA THE "ATOMIC TURTLE"

Links @ Wikipedia/Other:

1 2 3 4 5 6

"The Necromancer" aka "The Tale of the Black Forest"

2010-11-14T07:09:00.002-06:00

By Ludwig Flammenberg (pesudonym of Carl Friedrich Kahlert)

Here's a mixed genre fantasy tale way ahead of its time as published in 1794. There was some confusion about the author, his pseudonym and the translator, all explained in the Wiki article.

From the Amazon.com description: "'The hurricane was howling, the hailstones beating against windows, the hoarse croaking of the raven bidding adieu to autumn, and the weather-cock's dismal creaking joined with the mournful dirge of the solitary owl...'"

"The Necromancer consists of a series of interconnected stories, all centering on the enigmatic figure of Volkert the Necromancer. Filled with murder, ghosts, and dark magic, and featuring a delirious and dizzying plot that almost defies comprehension, The Necromancer is one of the strangest horror novels ever written.

"One of the earliest Gothic bestsellers, The Necromancer was first published in 1794, and after more than two centuries still retains the power to thrill and fascinate readers. This edition includes a new preface which reveals for the first time ever the true identity of The Necromancer's author, as well as an original critical essay by Jeffrey Cass, analysing the novel from a modern queer theory standpoint. The complete text of three contemporary reviews and helpful annotations are also included to further enhance this edition."

Amazon Link

Wiki Article Link

"Have Your Cake and Be It Too"

2010-11-11T20:46:00.000-06:00

LINK

Robert McKee Interview: On Storytelling

2010-11-11T04:11:00.003-06:00

Robert McKee is well known as a screenwriting guru, but his emphasis is on storytelling techniques that are applicable to all forms of writing including those used in the RPG industry.

"Robert McKee, born 1941, is a creative writing instructor who is widely known for his popular "Story Seminar", which he developed when he was a professor at the University of Southern California. McKee is the author of a "screenwriters' bible" called Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. Many of Hollywood's active screenwriters claim him as an inspiration. Rather than simply handling "mechanical" aspects of fiction technique such as plot or dialogue taken individually, McKee examines the narrative structure of a work and what makes the story compelling or not. This could work equally as well as an analysis of any other genre or form of narrative, whether in screenplay or any other form, and could also encompass nonfiction works as long as they attempt to "tell a story"."

Source: Wiki Article LINK.

The following interview is 61 minutes in length.

Clark Ashton Smith Part 1: Art & Cover Art Inspired By His Stories

2010-11-10T04:34:00.001-06:00

THE EMPEROR OF DREAMS

"Clark Ashton Smith (13 January 1893 – 14 August 1961) was an American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. It is for these stories, and his literary friendship with H. P. Lovecraft from 1922 until Lovecraft's death in 1937, that he is mostly remembered today. With Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, also a friend and correspondent, Smith remains one of the most famous contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales."

Source: Wiki Article LINK.

North Texas RPGCon 3

2010-11-08T11:01:00.000-06:00

Here are some updates on guests, registration times, and my Workshop I'll be running at the convention.

From the con's website:

"We have 9 confirmed guests attending in 2011: (Erol Otus, Rob Kuntz, Jason Braun, Tim Kask, Dennis Sustare, Steve Winter, Frank Mentzer, Paul Jaquays, Steve Marsh). The lineup includes several of the more important figures in the history of RPGs as a whole and Dungeons & Dragons in particular.

"Game Event registration won't be open until April 15th, 2011! You must register for the con and pay your fee (either daily or weekend) before you are able to register for games."

Here's the direct link to the site: LINK.

And details about my workshop:

SEE YOU THERE! :)

The Art and Illustration of Jack Gaughan

2010-11-06T10:46:00.003-05:00

"Jack Gaughan (September 24, 1930 - July 21, 1985) was an American science fiction artist and illustrator who won the Hugo Award several times. Working primarily with Donald A. Wollheim at Ace Books and later DAW Books, and also Galaxy Magazine during the late 1960s, his simple linear style brought to life unforgettable images of such classics as Andre Norton's Witch World Novels and Edward Elmer Smith's Lensmen and Skylark novels (for which he did two related sets of Pyramid Books covers). His broad visual vocabulary enabled him to render the objects, spaceships and scenes in whatever was presented to him as they were described in the books and stories he illustrated. That was especially an accomplishment as many of these authors drew on their knowledge of very esoteric subjects for their imagery."

Source: Link at Wikipedia

Link at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Protypical Roper? Check out my continuing series on the Origins of D&D...

I Just Love Some of These Old Paperbacks

2010-11-05T01:23:00.000-05:00

Researching Fritz Leiber and Harry O. Fischer: Links

2010-11-04T19:01:00.001-05:00

This is a response to Mark's question in the referring article I posted below. I have no answer for the question. Harry Fischer was born and apparently died in Clarksburg, WV, 1986. Both he and Fritz have WiKi articles written on them.

Other quick links from my own:

http://www.paclink.com/~ascott/me/musfs.htm (apparently defunct Science Fiction Society in Huntington, WV where Harry gave a workshop on Fritz/Fritz' writings).

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/uhsc/00021/hsc-00021.html (Fritz Leiber Papers at the Unv. of Texas).

http://brucebyfield.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/witches-of-the-mind/ (a wordpress blog with a very interesting associated article from a person who did research on Fritz and Harry for his own thesis publication).

http://scrollsoflankhmar.com/ (Great site).

The illustration is from the "Critical Essays" on Fritz, OOP.

Sorry I could not be of more help, Mark.

A Hearty Thank You To "2" Who Sought Adventure

2010-11-03T23:09:00.004-05:00

I was sent a birthday gift by two close friends and associates, Allan Grohe, who you all may know as GRODOG here and there and who is one of the two main forces driving the RPG company, Black Blade Publishing; and David Witts, an Acaeum ancient man of wisdom and possibly one of the best RPG/Game Historians I am aware of (his assiduous and tenacious detail in verifying facts and in updating related WIKI articles in this field are only a sample of his true abilities as a scholar, historian and collector).

And as illustrated by my friend, DCS III: Lankhmar

Well, both of these chummers surprised me quite well, and pleasantly, by sending me a belated birthday gift of the Lankhmar board game--and not only one, but two copies!--which I helped design with Brad Stock, Gary Gygax, Fritz Leiber and Harry O. Fischer (that's right, I had the pleasure of designing side-by-side with Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser!). That was back in 1975/1976, but this amazing gift stirred quite a lot of memories from meeting Fritz and Harry and talking with them at great length at an early GENCON in Lake Geneva.

Two Who "Found" Adventure: Harry Otto Fischer and Fritz Leiber

Now I have more reason to post these memories for those who are interested in such histories. I wish to thank Allan and David (again) for not only being great friends but for stirring so many memories from my aging brain as they have done over the years. It's not a guarantee in life with anything, let alone having dear people who actually care, with or without the gifts behind it all. Especially from "Two Who Sought Adventure." :)

Around the Net in Eighty Ways

2010-11-03T06:31:00.002-05:00

Here are some posts I made at various places yesterday/early today, all with some variable interest no doubt, but at least the ole internet was revolving.

Hey, it's Small Press, Folks... Get over it...

A topic at Dragonsfoot criticizing the Troll Lords for not bringing their product to market fast enough... Amazing what little patience people have for those who work double-time in this industry for literally pennies (If you want the link, ask me), but here are my comments which followed after a few critics of the Trolls had taken their turn (I have published two works through them, and they are swell, well-intentioned people, btw).

"Well, I believe that if you like the products and want to see them then people who are sincere in this regard will wait. Most people try to pin small press publishers (and that is what the majority outside of WotC, Paizo, WW, and a few more) are. They are doing it mostly for the love of it and actually have lives and full time jobs, other personal and professional commitments. Plus, if you have never been a small press operator, then you have no clue. People are not superhuman, especially those who stand and deliver in publishing, which is hardly paid what it's worth for putting in all the extra time and effort at the expense of family, friends and often a social life. Some publishers do it full time with over 100 hours per person a week expended in that regard. Until one steps into those shoes and sees the many pitfalls (and joys) of self-sacrifice, I would not be casting a stone. For in the end, I am sure most small press folks receive veritably nothing for their dedication in bringing something to the light of day that others could not, and while doing it earning nothing in the way commensurate for the endeavor. YMMV."

rob1
Post subject: Re: Castles Keeper's Guide
Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 10:05 am

Envoy of Dragonsfoot

Joined: 17 Sep, 2007
Posts: 260
Location: Northern Viginia, near the District of Confusion.

"As the original person posting this thread, I'm tired of the 'it will be out on....".... Either do it or don't. I would like a CKG but the people at TLG need to get things together IMO. Maybe I won't buy it, take my money other places...."

MajorKookie
Post subject: Re: Castles Keeper's Guide
Posted: Wed Nov 03, 2010 10:22 am

Avatar of Dragonsfoot

Joined: 22 Mar, 2004
Posts: 649
Location: Milwaukee, WI

"Well I can understand frustration, too. Some publishers like to keep the Buzz going. Sometimes they get pinned into release dates by over-zealous fans pressing them for such. Honestly, though, the Troll Lords are decent folks putting out a decent product and not making (I am sure) a lot of cash for their endeavors. If we as imperfect humans cannot give well-intentioned folks a break while they are doing something which mostly derives from a love of the games(s) and a genuine interest in furthering the hobby, as they have done, then who are we, then, and what value are our lone opinions compared to those who strive to make us things we cannot, or will not, make ourselves? I wonder...

RJK"

_________________
"How can we create the literature of the strange if we stay in well-mapped lands?"--Orson Scott Card, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.

http://www.pied-piper-publishing.com
http://lordofthegreendragons.blogspot.com/

@ my Q&A on Dragonsfoot. Rossik asks the darndest questions and often catches me off guard... :)

"rossik wrote:
hi rob!

glad to hear that the machine level is doing fine!

i dont remember if this was already asked, but if so, forgive me for doing it again:

how do you determine PC level for a adventure?
i imagine that you first create the adventure, challenges, monsters, traps, etc, and then the recomended level for characters.

could you share something about your process of doing that?

thanks!"

"Correct. I have an idea going in while designing and choosing the elements of what range (PC level spread) I am crafting it for and then at the end appraise that against the actual whole, thus arriving at the calculation. But keep in mind that I normally craft very challenging adventures where a combination of real thinking, tactics and quick distillations of ongoing elements are paramount to PC survival, so these are no "walk right in" and start bashing away adventures. If DMs have groups that are normally used to less strangeness, less demanding involvement, and to less thinking, then this combined thinking-action-strangeness will start mounting PC attrition very quickly. I write them the way EGG and I DMed/played them 1972 onward in our Greyhawk campaign. The Machine Level will be an extreme example in this case as every situation, monster, etc. is ALL NEW. Repeat: Every instance, every particle, is NEW. With that, its design will push this newness always to the adventure's forefront (where I prefer it to be, or else I couldn't, and wouldn't, write these). Because of this, and depending on each group who plays it, level adjustments (upwards) might have to be made. I am assuming with the final level-range placement that this type of challenging adventure is 1) well known to my fans; 2) is preferred by those who purchase it.

Cheers!--RJK"

@ Timeshadow's (Kyrinn Eis) Blog--my partner in the sublime... ;)

Lord of the Green Dragons said...
"I use the D&D/AD&D "rules" as a framework of mechanics that allow one to insert variations on whatever is expandable and is understood and not so much as a "paint by number" set; so I say experiment and expand, for as long as it doesn't become overly complex and still builds upon the same variable mechanic (which has a very wide range, IMO, if one eagerly experiments outside of pre-conceived templates) it's all good. Did I ever send you the Berserker class I did BitD, K? Maybe I'll post it at LOTGD as it represents what I did in expansion mode; similar in expression to the two evil classes of druids I created for DARK DRUIDS. I like the direction you are taking. Very cool."

Clark Ashton Smith - Collected Fantasies Vol 5 - The Last Hieroglyph

2010-11-02T23:25:00.000-05:00

I recently inquired about this last volume in the series of CAS's collected fantasies (highly recommended for their quality and presentation). Here's what Tomra @ Nightshade Books wrote back:

"I just received the book from the printer and I'll be shipping it out this week. I'm not sure exactly off the top of my head but I'm assuming we printed somewhere around 3 - 4,000. Enjoy!

Best Regards,
Tomra Palmer
Night Shade Books"

It's a go! My order's already in.

Here are the links for those die-hard CAS collectors like me:

LINK 1 Overview order page for all 5 volumes

LINK 2 Order Page for Volume 5

"How now varlet!" quoth Ralibar Vooz... :)

D & D "Origins II Expedition to the Barrier Peaks"

2010-11-01T04:12:00.000-05:00

For those interested in such ephemera, a copy of the very rare MS that E. Gary Gygax and I wrote for the Origins II convention tournament was sold yesterday on Ebay. I estimate that there are still 2-4 more in existence as one each was handed out to those judging this large tournament, plus EGG and I kept ours (mine was since lost).

Here's the referring link, an ending shot, and some photo samples by the seller.

Sold: $1436.12

Gary went on to expand our concepts into TSR's AD&D adventure of the same name. I was thanked for my contributions on the front cover matter.

Delayed: Taking D&D Back to its Future Level: 2 and 3

2010-11-01T01:35:00.008-05:00

I have been diligently working on several projects and researching, typing and ordering when I can the 2nd & 3rd parts for this series article. See below my screen shot of the Word file. The darn thing is at almost 5,500 words and it isn't stopping! I took the screen shot on top of the Machine Level MS partial, which gives you a small glimpse of that, as well.

In between I read several short stories and got an idea for an ancient "Greyhawk-like" fiction piece (some of the die-hard WoG fans may recognize several of the allusions here) which is based on old notes contained in my Red Book concerning an rpg adventure I would have liked to have crafted back in the day if WoG had ever been officially revitalized.

It just caught up with me when I was reading part of Smith's "Marooned in Andromeda" and thinking in turn about Lem's, "The Invincible." Don't ask me for a correlation as I don't have an answer to how these things work with me; I just roll with it. But below is a sample of what I wrote (unedited) and what I have tentatively titled: "Flames of the Suulimen." Now, back to writing The Machine Level. On the plate, the Hack-Horrois... :)

Reading Selections from Smith, Bierce and Blackwood to Stay in the Mood

2010-10-31T18:23:00.000-05:00

LINK

EDITORIAL: Innovation Versus the Merry-Go-Round of the Mind

2010-10-30T02:52:00.001-05:00

I have heard rumblings and, dare I say, didacticism, from some that claim that RPG design from the many companies now publishing compatible material should not be about innovation, that it in some way instead equates to a moment which appears to them to be frozen in time. I will say this in response to those who actually believe this and promote it as truth: It is the MOST patently absurd idea I have ever heard.

If we had thought that way prior to D&D's publication, the MOST INNOVATIVE GAME in the history of games would have never been published. That D&D set a standard to be overcome is a matter of historical fact. The very day that people form companies and cease being amateurs by accepting money for their products they approach the realm of professionals. There is no differentiating; one cannot slide this way or that by whim nor escape their separate truths while embracing either. In rising above the amateur state one must embrace a professional acumen that is always being propelled to the forefront and through which you take a hard look at yourself, your philosophies and your ways and means. If indeed much of what brands itself as emulating the past stands out and proclaims itself as new, then I say: prove it. Prove it like the fans turned amateurs turned professionals did to make something innovative, who strived to continue improving upon that innovation, and who continue to do so today. Embrace professionalism and the future of imagination as the originators of the game did or stop accepting money and remain amateurs--it is not a two-way street of convenience. It's earned, just as E. Gary Gygax and David Arneson earned it.

To true creators, innovators and those individuals with plans of making careers out of their writing and design like I have done, please follow this advice as a saviour-path to it: Flee! Run as fast as you can from such abhorrent thoughts and suggestions that your creative paths are best suited to the past. Separate yourselves from those who do not know or do not care and those who say they do even though in your heart you feel otherwise. Upon the singular plain of your own creative spirit will you find the true expressions of your soul and mind and not in the endless circling caravan of regurgitated thought or upon a merry-go-round of the mind. Divorce yourself from the group; for at that time you will have the complete freedom to express yourself; in that hour will come your best work; and in that serene moment you will arrive at your truth.

**********

"Being involved in the RPG industry as long as you have, surely you’ve collected bits of wisdom and knowledge along the way. Is there any advice you could give to budding game designers?

"RJK: Seriously: Throw out everything you think you know, including the rules. Challenge established norms, redefine what imagination and creativity “really” are, ignore the jealous and the pundits (re: critics), push past the mundane and open up possibilities, don’t close them, no matter how absurd someone says you are, or how off base they say you appear to be. With that, follow the words of my oft-quoted author, Orson Scott Card: “How can we experience the literature of the strange if we stay in well mapped lands?”-- my advice from one of the many interviews I've given.

"If we all think alike, if we all become uniform and bland, we shrivel up and die, and the great process shudders to an end. Uniformity is death, in economics or in biology. Diversity within communication and cooperation is life. Everything your forebears, your ancestors, everything you have ever done, will have been for naught, if we ignore these basic bacterial lessons." Autopoiesis and the Grand Scheme, Greg Bear

"Most of the time I look at my work as an ocean of missed opportunities...My lack of talent & knowledge bedevils me no end... But I realized a long time ago that my art is a race I run alone..." Michael Bair

Taking D&D "Back" To Its Future Level: Part 1

2010-10-24T23:15:00.029-05:00

There has been overwhelming interest in The Machine Level project. Besides my receiving many personal emails of encouragement on it, within a matter of 3 days the very topic stands at #2 for the month! Incredible! And thank you!

I do not attribute this interest alone to it being an original Greyhawk Castle level. The very fact that it prompts the imaginative viewing of a rich RPG landscape little explored is what I feel is the main attraction. In fact Black Blade Publishing had my 6 levels to choose from and elected to lead off with the Machine Level. Why? Why so much specific interest in this subject matter by fans, designers and the publisher?

That is the question I will attempt to answer here; and while doing so I will point back to D&D’s past and into its infinite future. I will expose a little known fact that its relation to other genres such as SF, Steam Punk, Sword & Planet, Planetary Romance, Post-Apocalyptic and other such related matter has never been far and away from the game as originally conceived and played-tested and that this easily included core matter was instead separated into distinct RPG types for commercial reasons only.

I begin the examination with a quote from the introductory article in which I stated: “Even though our genre inclusive game experience was soon to be fragmented into several RPG types—with medieval fantasy claiming sole rights in the original version of the game--this initial segmentation was a weighed choice made for D&D’s immediate commercial introduction only. We had previously felt that the game had more range and infinitely more possibilities than what the lone S&S element produced.”

What we had been play-testing in 1972 was the first role-playing game experience for us; and note that there is a different interpretation of "role-playing game experience" for those who purchased the game as consumers as opposed to those like myself who play-tested and contributed to it. Yes, it was a game in both cases. But moreover this was entirely new to us. It was role-playing. That’s what we keyed on during the play-tests, how to incorporate all imaginative RP elements, not just S&S RP elements. Yes, D&D derived from the Chainmail miniatures rules by way of Dave Arneson’s contribution of the RP element; and seemingly that would be consonant with it being a Medieval/Fantasy "experience" back then for us as it is now for you. But the idea of it being one type or another type was not as strong then as it was to become through its publication and being marketed as a game strictly derived from Swords & Sorcery.

Gary’s foreword to D&D attempts to clarify this apparent division and riddle by extolling the influence of the best selling author of the pulps and perhaps in the entire history of all such related literature, Edgar Rice Burroughs (I will expand on this idea fully in Part 2). David Arneson was so inclined as well, as he had been busy during D&D’s inception taking his players in Minneapolis into “The City of the Gods,” which was indeed the first, to my knowledge, RPG link between Fantasy and SF. More importantly regarding the latter, it was the first coupling of two distinct genres; and in my estimation there is a singularly important thread exposed in the above examples: these point to no other understanding or application of creative form than an open and inclusive one by both of D&D’s original authors and by both of their gaming groups.

Let me present some more examples extracted from my earliest days of playing the PC Robilar, as co-DM of the Greyhawk campaign alongside EGG, as EGG’s DM and finally as his co-author for GREYHAWK: Supplement 1, Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure and other contributions by myself, Gygax and Arneson that I will note hereafter.

The elevator on level 3 (EGG/GrhCastle 1). Seems simple, but the idea is very complex for a supposed medieval society. And it wasn’t magical. Type: SF (i.e., future).

The Black Pudding/Slimes (EGG): This has been examined in depth. It is not the Horta from Star Trek; and as EGG did not have any C. A. Smith books on his shelf (I was to later introduce him to that master storyteller) there was no apparent influence there, so that really leaves such creatures to the beautiful camp movie, “The BLOB.” Type: SF/Horror.

Flesh Golem (EGG): Straight out of Mary B. Shelly’s, “Frankenstein.” Type: SF.

The ANGRY VILLAGER RULE (EGG; OD&D and its play-test): Taken right from the angry torch-wielding villagers present in the movie Frankenstein. Type: Modern day SF.

EGG as DM: Tenser’s trip to Mars, ala John Carter: Nothing more need be said. Type: SF/Planetary Romance.

Dinosaurs (EGG): Very much influenced by ERB’s “The Land that Time Forgot” and Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and in all of their media forms. EGG found dinosaurs fascinating like all of us; it’s just that he never pulled out books on them as he did with Burrough’s fiction, nor did he not jump at a chance to watch such related matter on TV whether it was the two aforementioned titles, or similar. Type: Modern Hollow Earth theory/Lost Civ.

Shambling Mound (Arneson/EGG): From such comic book monsters as the “Swamp Thing,” the “Heap” and the “Man-Thing.” First encountered during our “Journey to the City of the Gods” adventure by myself and Gary and as DMed by Dave Arneson; later incorporated into the MM by EGG. Type: SF/Horror.

Mind Flayer (EGG): Influenced by Lumley’s “The Burrowers Beneath.” Type: Modern day Cosmic Horror.

Phantasmal Force Spell (EGG): Directly extracted from (and bragged about by EGG) ERB’s Thuvia, Maid of Mars where telepathic illusions of (Lotharian) archers fire illusionary arrows and kill those “believing” they are real. Type: SF/Planetary Romance.

Cerebral Parasite/Brain Mole/I.D. (EGG): These are alien creatures of the sort that appeared in different forms in SF, Horror or mixed. Greatest influence was the “Mind Parasites” by Colin Wilson. Type: SF/Space Horror.

Portable Hole (EGG): (1) the name is taken directly from the Looney Toons cartoon, “The Hole Idea.” (2) the bag of holding effect is from Jack Vance's story of "Chun the Unavoidable." [Thanks to Drew for absolutely jolting my memory on these two merged ideas]. Type: SF (modern fantastic invention)/Fantasy.

Bag of Tricks (Kuntz): Straight from the Felix the Cat cartoon, “The Magic Bag.” Type: Modern day Fantasy.

Tharizdun (and “Temple of,”)/Tharzdu’un (Gygax/Kuntz): The latter is based on 1.5 typed pages of my interpolation of Clark Ashton Smith’s Thasaidon and as reworked as an imprisoned Mythos god bent on destroying the planet. Used as a base by EGG to create the former. Type: Cosmic Horror.

Cube of Force (Kuntz): I always loved Star Trek force fields, but its prior influence derives from a great Outer Limits episode, “The Bellero Shield." Type: SF.

Magic Missile and Shield spells (EGG): From Roger Corman’s movie, “The Raven,” possibly one of EGG’s favorites as he always watched it when televised and enjoyed it immensely. Type: Victorian Occult Fantasy.

Giant Ants (EGG). Though one could easily place these as deriving from some fantastic literature of the past if they dug deep enough, the reality is they derive from two modern movies: “THEM”; and “THE NAKED JUNGLE." Type: Modern Day SF/Modern Disaster w/Horror elements.

Carrion Crawler (EGG): Very Mythos like. May be influenced by the pulps and HPL. May be original. Type: Undecided but studying.

Doppleganger (EGG): Similar to a changeling, put consistent with pulp or comic stories of those aliens who imitate forms. It has a strictly alien appearance in the MM. Type: SF/Space Horror.

Cult of Roloc/Mandarin (Kuntz; as per “Bottle City” and unpublished). I took the Mandarin name, his ring and the alien tech he learned/gained straight from Iron Man’s nemesis, Mandarin (see below for my inset drawing of the ring). Type: Modern/Futuristic SF fused with magical and spiritual (Far Eastern).

“Bottle City” mega-dungeon within a dungeon (Kuntz): The container and many inhabitants were influenced by the “Superman” Kandor storyline. Type: Several SF origins.

“Machine Level” (Kuntz): Comprehensive; mostly original, some influenced by strange inventors and their patented inventions. Type: SF/Future.

Ear Seeker (EGG): The “ear wig” out of the Rod Serling Night Gallery episode “The Caterpillar." Type: Modern/Horror.

Gelatinous Cube (EGG): Appears influenced by more Mythos HPL. Type: Horror/Undecided.

Narshuan’s Comet (Kuntz; “Sir Robilar’s City of Brass”): Directly inspired by those great Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers spaceships (see below for inset original mapped illustration). Type: SF/Planetary Romance

“City of the Gods” (Arneson): Inspired by A. E. Van Vogt’s, “Voyage of the Space Beagle." Type: SF.

Narshuan's "Comet"

“Temple of the Frog” (Arneson; TSR “Blackmoor”: Supplement #2): Type: SF/Horror elements.

“Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” (EGG/from initial prepublication Origins tourney adventure by Kuntz): Type: SF/Space Horror.

“Dungeon of Krazor the Mad” (Kuntz): Where EGG (as Mordenkainen) discovered a rocket ship that launched and his PCs teleported out of. Type: Some solid SF elements.

“Fomalhaut” (Kuntz): Alien Mythos planar jump. Type: Cosmic Horror/Weird Fantasy.

Teleport Spell (EGG): Though occurring in many pulp and comic book stories under different guises, the idea was modernized by way of Star Trek’s transporter tech (using the same concept of “materializing in a solid object”). Type: SF/Various related genre takes.

“Church of the Later Day Ancient Ones” (Kuntz): Type: Mythos/Horror Elements/Arcane and Alien Science.

“The Dirdir (Level)” (EGG): Send up to Jack Vance’s Planet of Adventure series novel of the same name. Type: SF/Planet Adventure.

“Monkeying Around” (GrhCastle 2)/”Isle of the Ape” (EGG): Directly from “King Kong,” the 1933 movie. Type: Adventure/Lost Civ.

Lewis Carroll Pastiches (EGG; EX1, EX2): From “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass.” Type: Transplanted Victorian era weird fantasy.

Cosmodius and his orbiting station (Kuntz): Type: Hard SF via a related Cosmic Horror story thread.

“Lost City of the Elders” (Kuntz): Main inspiration by Clark Ashton Smith’s “Empire of the Necromancers” and HPL’s “The Doom that Came to Sarnath,” with other significant elements. Type: Alien Science/SF/Post-Apocalyptic/Cosmic Horror.

The Great Stone Face Enigma of Greyhawk, GrhCastle 2 (EGG): Though EGG never admitted to its source, I always assumed it was at least partially influenced by the Easter Island Moai. Type: Mystery.

The Imprisoned Face in the Floor, GrhCastle 2 (EGG): Directly from A. Merritt’s, “The Face in the Abyss.” Type: Adventure/Supernatural/Lost Civ.

Fu’s Front (Kuntz; City of Greyhawk secret society/assassins): Inspired by Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. Type: Modern.

“Garden of the Plantmaster” (Kuntz): Influenced by Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Garden of Adompha” and the “Maze of Maal Dweb.” Type: Cosmic Horror/Weird Fantasy/Heavy Supernatural.

“The Stalk” (Kuntz): The stalk component itself is straight from “Jack and the Beanstalk”; the shrinking component was heavily influenced by the movie, “The Incredible Shrinking Man.” Type: Elements of Folk-Fairy Tale/SF.

“Circle of “Eight”/The Gygaxian “Golden Horde” (EGG; and as DMed by Kuntz). EGG took this group’s insignia from the “Magic 8-Ball” fortune-telling device so popular back in the day; he patterned the Circle (and the moniker I attached to them) after the Mongols and Genghis Khan. Type: Elements of modern day culture/Historical.

Part 2 is in the works as recollections/writing merge…

THE MACHINE LEVEL: SPECIAL WEB INTRODUCTION

2010-10-21T03:45:00.006-05:00

I finished the essay-introduction for The Machine Level on 10 October. Here it is with some inset images. The latter images, excepting perhaps for Andy Taylor's fine image, above, will not be included in the printed version. Some of the text as used for this web introduction will be omitted from the final printed version as well.

Special Note! Kyrinn Eis (aka TIMESHADOWS) and I are also sculpting a fantasy-sf adventure which I am quite excited about as it includes a very unique creation of mine called the Whools and incorporates her intense and imaginative writing in a shared plot we devised. Not sure as yet who we might publish that one through when finished. But for now, the MACHINE LEVEL!

Prelude: In Dragon Magazine #17 James Ward penned an article entitled, "BOREDOM AND THE AVERAGE D&D DUNGEON." Here is the reverse-highlighted extract wherein he reveals some details on the Machine Level:

Also note that James, a regular player in our campaign then, makes a sidelong reference to my large level he'd adventured on, "Horsing Around," otherwise known as the "Greek Mythos Level."

That gives some historical grounding for the level from published matter. What follows is the full, first draft introduction...

The Machine Level – A Glimpse at the Machinations of Fantastic Fiction in the Original Campaign

A long time before Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was published, EGG and myself had been experimenting with machinery and science fiction in the Original Campaign. Our aim was to always befuddle our ever-wary players and to keep the sharp edge of suspense and expectancy rising within the story. Both of us deemed suspense to be a high mark in adventure storytelling; and it is no wonder, looking back, that both of us appreciated the films of Alfred Hitchcock that we were to watch together quite often whenever they were televised.

The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.

On top of that, EGG and I were both naturally creative individuals whom as co-DMs sought out expansion (and expression) of concepts and ideas as these gathered to us. These ideas were often spawned during game play, by reading a book the night before an adventure, through scouring our ever-growing notes and sometimes were derived from voiced, but errant, surmises on the players’ parts, such as … “I bet it’s a…” …or … “It seems like a watcha-ma-jigger” or, more emphatically, “It’s a (fill in the blank for a monster or situation)!”

It was all fantasy to us and so there were no holds or stops put on the range or type of experimentation used in furthering our stories. To our glee this measure was satisfactory for our gamers. They had not only grown to expect anything from us, they indeed looked forward to change. I sometimes suspect that they knew that we were going to do what we wanted to as DMs anyway and upon that realization also knew that it meant we were having as much fun as they were. And believe me, OUR players wanted us to have fun, for a grouchy DM was in no way wanted sitting across from them at the gaming table!

So before EGG was about sending his son’s PC to Mars, I had been creating for Castle El Raja Key a level with machinery. But it was to be no ordinary level, as it was to soon host EGG’s PCs. His “grouping” of PCs (described in various works related to the World of Greyhawk) were started in my Castle El Raja Key and only by creative transition through the melding of parts ERK and parts WoG did they then root themselves in the latter setting. I soon started co-DMing in the original Greyhawk home campaign; and this became a catalyst, by great urgings from EGG, for moving many of ERK’s original levels into EGG’s and my own 2nd Castle Greyhawk. The Machine Level (also known as EAST 8 in our original campaign terminology) is one such level from ERK that made the transition soon after being adventured upon by EGG and crew. Such luminaries as James Ward’s PC, Bombadil, were to later venture into its precincts.

What is (and was) to be expected within this level? Pure and simple: mayhem. It was designed to continue challenging EGG’s voracious play, so therein is the real clue to its design intent. It was not meant to challenge other players, though it finally did so by its later inclusion in Castle Greyhawk.

But, “Why machines,” you ask? Gary and I would have simply answered back then, “Why not?” This was a time when the literature we read was a mix of many subjects and genres: fantasy, horror, noir fiction, history, military history, science and science fiction. Therein lies a clue to the richness of our adventures, a richness which I often feel is now partly lost to succeeding generations of DMs and gamers. And that is: A story is a story, no matter how you wrench the mechanic to make it fit into a game. Gary and I were well read storytellers. Our players were well read gamers. Storytelling and story “acceptance” was a natural state between its then participant groups.

Even though our genre inclusive game experience was soon to be fragmented into several RPG types—with medieval fantasy claiming sole rights in the original version of the game--this initial segmentation was a weighed choice made for D&D’s immediate commercial introduction only. We had previously felt that the game had more range and infinitely more possibilities than what the lone S&S element produced.

While perusing the DMG’s sections for including different genres within the expanding game, one does not feel that these are hurried attachments of after-matter by EGG. To the contrary, EGG’s up front insistence of Barsoom’s relevance in his original foreword had already paved the way for Hiero’s Journey in Appendix N. This “addenda” was in fact the natural outgrowth of both our realized views as experienced through play, 1972 onward. While EGG honored Jack Vance with his Dirdir level, I did the same for C. A. Smith & Lovecraft with my Lost City of the Elders (which more recent convention-players have experienced and where mutated creatures and hovering metal devices were seen and fled from).

After D&D’s release, Gary and I continued to experiment with SF and other genres, but this time by way of both play and through publication: We were to co-create Expedition to the Barrier Peaks; we encouraged the creation of Metamorphosis Alpha and adventured upon the Starship Warden; there could soon be found my mysterious and wily visitor from the stars known as Cosmodius that Ward’s Bombadil contested with for his vast knowledge of technology; select items of a SF nature were placed at key locations in both our castles; and there would be some inclusions of M.A.R. Barker’s Tekumel “magic” and creatures in the Bottle City level and upon the outdoor. I created many SF-variant creatures and sluiced them into our city, one by the name of “modern man.”

Extracted Cosmodius page from the RJK Collection.

Further, horror would often closely meld with SF and S&S elements to promote a cosmic terror by way of alien locales, their technologies and an ancient, arcane magic, all of which was realized through play in secreted settings (ala A. Merritt, C. A. Smith or Lovecraft). One such place was Fomalhaut, yet another large adventure I designed to keep the adventurers quite curious of their newfound surroundings just prior to terrifying them. As you can note, EGG and I were very diligent in keeping our adventures, and the adventurers, fresh.

These were not meaningless contrivances by us; and neither of us lacked the creative verve for producing solely mundane or earthly elements or situations. We knew the players would not only be intrigued through such imaginative story matter, but they would be wondrous about where it derived from. Through these relations we were promoting story by introducing several elements that good storytellers use: intrigue and suspense.

Because of our openness to elements that could be easily fitted into any storyline Gary and I never lacked for stimulating or compelling story matter. We were both willing and able to include whatever it took to keep the story interesting for the players. And that’s the real answer to the question, “Why machines?” Just as important, and from a design view, this kept us constantly fresh as DMs, as we were always alert to the possibilities of creative inclusion of any type of material, however varied in content.

So. Now is the time to strap on your gear as EGG did back in 1973! And forget your prayers. For upon this level there reside no gods of flesh…

Rob Kuntz

10 October 2010

Select H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

2010-10-20T21:01:00.000-05:00

My opinion of my whole experience varies from time to time. In broad daylight, and at most seasons I am apt to think the greater part of it a mere dream; but sometimes in the autumn, about two in the morning when winds and animals howl dismally, there comes from inconceivable depths below a damnable suggestions of rhythmical throbbing ... and I feel that the transition of Juan Romero was a terrible one indeed.

The Transition of Juan Romero

Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal...

The Tomb

I have dwelt ever in realms apart from the visible world; spending my youth and adolescence in ancient and little-known books, and in roaming the fields and groves of the region near my ancestral home. I do not think that what I read in these books or saw in these fields and groves was exactly what other boys read and saw there; but of this I must say little, since detailed speech would but confirm those cruel slanders upon my intellect which I sometimes overhear from the whispers of the stealthy attendants around me.

The Tomb

Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep.

Polaris

Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.

Beyond The Wall of Sleep

I yearned mightily to enter this fascinating yet repellent city, and besought the bearded man to land me at the stone pier by the huge carven gate Akariel; but he gently denied my wish, saying: "Into Thalarion, the City of a Thousand Wonders, many have passed but none returned. Therein walk only daemons and mad things that are no longer men, and the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city."

The White Ship

But he was unmoved, and cried: "If I am mad, it is mercy! May the gods pity the man who in his callousness can remain sane to the hideous end!"

The Temple

Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species -- if separate species we be -- for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family

Kuranes was not modern, and did not think like others who wrote. Whilst they strove to strip from life its embroidered robes of myth, and to shew in naked ugliness the foul thing that is reality, Kuranes sought for beauty alone.

Celephaïs

*There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.

Celephaïs

But some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze and stone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horses along the edges of thick forests; and then we know that we have looked back through the ivory gates into that world of wonder which was ours before we were wise and unhappy.

Celephaïs

I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness...

From Beyond

Searchers after horror haunt strange, far places.

The Picture in the House

By necessity practical and by philosophy stern, these folk were not beautiful in their sins. Erring as all mortals must, they were forced by their rigid code to seek concealment above all else; so that they came to use less and less taste in what they concealed.

The Picture in the House

I recall that the people went about with pale and worried faces, and whispered warnings and prophecies which no one dared consciously repeat or acknowledge to himself that he had heard. A sense of monstrous guilt was upon the land, and out of the abysses between the stars swept chill currents that made men shiver in dark and lonely places.

Nyarlathotep

Wherefore do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if ye toil only that ye may toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye toil to live, but is not life made of beauty and song? ... Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end. Were not death more pleasing?

The Quest of Iranon

Creativity and Madness?

2010-10-20T20:25:00.001-05:00

"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence-whether much that is glorious-whether all that is profound-does not spring from disease of thought-from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their grey vision they obtain glimpses of eternity.... They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the "light affable."

(Edgar Allan Poe, cited in Galloway, 1986, p. 243 )

"Since the time of the Greek philosophers, those who wrote about the creative process emphasized that creativity involves a regression to more primitive mental processes, that to be creative requires a willingness to cross and recross the lines between rational and irrational thought."

(Maureen Neihart, Psy.D.)

The article is here.

Lord of the Green Dragons

It's Not All Fun & Games...

Xiaozhai Tiankeng

Through Whose Looking Glass?

"The Court Martial of Hiller C. Ranton"

Favorite Steve Jobs Quotes X2

Sir Ken Robinson: On Creativity

Save Me From Tomorrow: In Pictures

Emile and Event Streams: A Moral Viewpoint on DMs and Players as People

Another Look at Garden of the Plantmaster (1987 version)

Interesting Discussion Starting at HC

ἐπιτέμνειν

"Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts: unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main..." e.b.

Just Dropping In

Valhalla Rising

Cold Texts Have Moved...

Paradigms

Review - Bennett's Six Medieval Men and Women

War and Game

The Reality of Fantasy

The Two Daves, the Twin Cities, A Great Site...

Ziegler's The Black Death

On Vacation until The New Year

A Really Great Post...

Games Without Frontiers??

Old Mattel Commercials +1

Ooh. Looky Here: "Animated Scarecrow Unit"

"The Olympians"

Questions & Answers

Considering Monday? Enjoy A Different Kind of "Song & Dance"

BROADSIDE #1

Some Updates and an Upcoming Interview

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (pseudonym: Francis Stevens)

On the Etymological Sources in Some of EGG's Fictional Names

Dave Arneson's Love Affair With Japanese Monster Movies

"The Necromancer" aka "The Tale of the Black Forest"

"Have Your Cake and Be It Too"

Robert McKee Interview: On Storytelling

Clark Ashton Smith Part 1: Art & Cover Art Inspired By His Stories

North Texas RPGCon 3

The Art and Illustration of Jack Gaughan

I Just Love Some of These Old Paperbacks

Researching Fritz Leiber and Harry O. Fischer: Links

A Hearty Thank You To "2" Who Sought Adventure

Around the Net in Eighty Ways

Clark Ashton Smith - Collected Fantasies Vol 5 - The Last Hieroglyph

D & D "Origins II Expedition to the Barrier Peaks"

Delayed: Taking D&D Back to its Future Level: 2 and 3

Reading Selections from Smith, Bierce and Blackwood to Stay in the Mood

EDITORIAL: Innovation Versus the Merry-Go-Round of the Mind

Taking D&D "Back" To Its Future Level: Part 1

THE MACHINE LEVEL: SPECIAL WEB INTRODUCTION

Select H. P. Lovecraft Quotes

Creativity and Madness?

"Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,

Or idlest froth amid the boundless main..."

e.b.