More D&D Comicstrip Adverts from the 80s

As I discussed in my earlier post, I've been re-reading 2000AD in anticipation of seeing the new Judge Dredd movie and I uncovered some adverts from the TSR UK days back in the 80s. 

Here are some more comic strip adverts which I've unearthed from 1986 spanning progs 486 to 494. 

Episode 1 - Village of the Dead (Prog 486)

Episode 2 - The Battle (Prog 487)

Episode 3 - The Swamp Creature (Prog 488)

Episode 4 - Into the Tower (Prog 492)

Episode 5 - Death and Wizardry (Prog 493)

Episode 6 - The Final Enemy (Prog 494)

Star Shadow - D&D Comic Strip Adverts Circa 1984

Whilst re-reading my old 2000ADs I stumbled across a series of D&D Comic Strips entitled Star Shadow.

Commissioned by TSR UK to advertise the Red-Box basic D&D set, each one page strip charts the continuing adventures of Morwyn Starbrow, an Elven fighter mage, and Matt Greyshadow a Halfling rogue.  The artwork is by Tim Sell and story by Graeme Morris.  Unfortunately there are some gaps in my 2000AD collection and therefore gaps in this series so if anyone has copies of Progs 391 and 392, I'd love to hear from you.

Star Shadow Episode 1 (2000AD, Prog 387) - When The North Wind Blows
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Star Shadow Episode 1 (2000AD, Prog 388) - Footsteps in the Snow
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Star Shadow Episode 3 (2000AD, Prog 389) - The Keep of the Frost Giant
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Star Shadow Episode 4 (2000AD, Prog 390) - The Ice Gem
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Star Shadow Episode 7 (2000AD, Prog 393) - Flotsam and Jetsam
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Star Shadow Episode 8 (2000AD, Prog 394) - Upon the Blasted Heath
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Star Shadow Episode 9 (2000AD, Prog 395) - The Betrayer Unmasked
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Star Shadow Episode 10 (2000AD, Prog 396) - Tomb of the King
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The Super Secret Happy Birthday Gary Gygax Giveaway Bundle Extravapalooza!

WOTC reprint
1st Edition Players Handbook

The Secret DM is running a great contest with an awesome prize...

A complete set of WOTCs recently reprinted 1st edition AD&D books!!


and

The chance to have your submission published in a professionally produced digital edition!!


All you have to do is to come up with a 10 room dungeon which evokes the feeling of 1st edition and submit your entry to thesecretdm@gmail.com with the subject line Gygax Contest.

The contest runs until 27th September 2012, so get your designing pens out... I know I will.

10 Reasons Why D&D is better than an MMORPG

Bill Cavalier

1.  D&D doesn't crash hang or lag
2.  D&D doesn't have gold farmers
3.  D&D minions don't respawn
4.  D&D doen't need an internet connection or a subscription
5.  D&D graphics are the best you can imagine
6.  D&D lets you rewrite its bugs yourself
7.  D&D has the best plots you can imagine
8.  D&D doesn't become obsolete, just unfashionable
9.  D&D has an infinite number of hours play
10.  D&D doesn't have cheat codes

Thanks to Bill Cavalier's latest video "The Stingy DM" for the inspiration.

The Ages of D&D: A Timeline v3

By popular demand version 3

Click on the image to embiggen

You can also download a really big version from 4shared.

So what's the point? I hear you ask.  Well, I just wanted to see where I fitted into this whole D&D universe and I have so far come to the conclusions that:

I am definitely of the 2nd Age of D&D, I cut my teeth on 2nd Edition AD&D and my favourite campaign setting is Al-Quadim (precisely because it is the most alien campaign world to most players).  I was a late adopter of 3/3.5 and for me it didn't have the same hold on me as 2nd Edition (for all its failings).  I have played a demo of 4e and am unlikely to buy it given that D&D Next is on the horizon.

The lifespans of D&D editions have become shorter, whether or not this is as a result of commercial pressure, is hard to say as there is evidence to suggest that D&D has always had more editions with shorter lifespans than AD&D and that it has only become noticeable since the 3/3.5 reformation.  In fact I was mostly ignorant of the "Basic" D&D versions for many of my formative years, as my go-to game was AD&D.

More new campaign settings were published during the Second Age than any other and this may account for the slightly longer timescales between editions but also coincides with the Golden Age of Roleplaying, the 1980s. Dragon and Dungeon Magazine have been my stalwart companions along this journey, more so than any "edition" of D&D, and I have taken ideas from their pages and converted them to work in many systems and genres over the years.

D&D as a brand has been "managed" for a longer period of time than it was by its creators.  It is bigger than any one person or team and it will most likely outlive us all (in some form).  I wish Mike Mearls, Monte Cooke and all the other people at WotC the best of luck in what is arguably a truly Sisyphean task and I can say I am excited about the future of D&D under their guardianship.

The Ages of D&D: A Timeline v2

Version 2 of my Ages of D&D timeline.

Click on the image to embiggen

You can also download a really big version from 4shared

The Ages of D&D: A Timeline

When you can't google an image sometimes you have to make it.

Click on the image to embiggen

Levelling up

In his latest Legends and Lore article Monte Cook posits that:

"levels serve as a means to incentivize people to keep playing the game"

Whilst this may be true for the majority of MMORPGs and those time wasting level machines on facebook, it is not necessarily the case for D&D and other level based RPGs.

Levels are a Challenge Metric

D&D 3e introduced the concept of the Challenge Rating (CR) as a device to scale your encounters / scenario to match the levels of the PCs in your group, and before CR, we used a Monster's Hit Die.  However, the constant used in both systems was the PCs level system.  Successive layers of "Customizeable Elements" such as powers, feats, skills and kits have only added to the complexity of character generation and consequently devalued "Levels" as an effective constant.

Players use this metric during play to judge their own survivability and determine their reactions when faced with obviously superior force strength or capability.  For example a lower level party will often resort to non combat means to overcome an encounter if they suspect that there is a high chance that they won't survive.  Being a hero doesn't always have to mean slaughtering the enemy, particularly if a GM has intentionally used the monsters level to frighten or provoke a non-combat solution.

Storytelling Incentivizes Continued Play

In the same way that the storyline of a soap opera incentivizes millions of people to keep watching, the continuation or completion of a plot in an RPG incentivizes players to keep playing.  Although min-maxing and power-gaming exist as styles of play these are generally regarded in a negative light and are discouraged in favour of more positive storytelling or cooperative styles.

Posturing vs Retrospection

Hands up those who've had (or overheard) a conversation before a game session which goes like this:

"My 5th level fighter will kick your 5th level rogue's ass..."

or after a session:

"Remember when I saved your ass by taking out that orc chief..."

As a DM, I know which one I'd prefer to hear my players use.

All I want from 5e is...

This is what happens when you type
"D&D 5e" into Google Images

The blogosphere is abuzz with the announcement that WotC are going ahead with development of the next iteration of Dungeons and Dragons.  Rather than fuel the fires of the edition wars, which would be pointless as I don't play 4e and I don't play Pathfinder either, I thought I'd just throw up a list of what I would like to see in 5e and what would make me as an old skool gamer fast approaching 40 part with cold hard cash for what is essentially a new version of an old game.


1.  Simple Rules to Start With - The concept of a basic game which as you level up gets increasingly complex makes good sense both from a new player/DM perspective and from a sales perspective.  Everyone needs the basic rules to begin with but not everyone needs the Expert/Immortal rules right from the get go (notice how I didn't use those new fangled Heroic/Paragon/Epic Tier names, that's because it's a conceit and it sucks, what's wrong with calling something "an adventure for 5-6 characters of levels 10-15" anyway!!).

Face it, it takes years to become a good DM, there are no short-cuts or training courses you can go on.  We've all put the years in to a greater or lesser degree and the focus of any pen and paper based game should be on DM arbitration.  Too many rules to begin with overloads the casual or newbie DM and makes the game drag for players.  If you want to entice more younger gamers into D&D to replenish the ranks of the old and bold then this is a must.

2.  D&D needs to be cross platform - There are 2 major consoles (3 if you consider the Wii which actually outsells both of the other 2) which are more than upto the task of running an MMORPG / VTT game.  There's also the traditional Mac and PC platforms, which even if you can't put together a full 3D HD Wizzy MMORPG such as WoW, it shouldn't be too difficult to put together an HTML 5 web app which will run on almost anything from the lowliest console to the latest spec kit.  Hire an expert company like Zynga or their competitors to do the dev, they do it day in, day out.

Let's face it the world has moved on even from the 4e release only a handful of years ago.  There are potentially more iPod/iPhone/iPad and Android users in the world than there are console gamers or any other platform specific community and it's getting bigger every day.  A character builder is something that can  feasibly be built for next to nothing and can even be given away as a free mobile app to entice new and old players alike.


Want to support the Organised Play / D&D Experiences / Living 5e communities, fine, let authorised DMs add XP and other adventure rewards online.  These can then be reflected on your character app almost instantly.  Couple it with a web based VTT as above for which you charge players as an in-app purchase to go on adventures and you've got a new funding model for a digital age (this should keep HASBRO happy).

Ultimately choice of OS should not be a barrier to enjoying a D&D online experience.

3.  Miniatures with RFID/Bluetooth - The recent Wii hit game Skylanders has pushed technology that little bit further with their RFID enabled miniatures, do the same for D&D miniatures.  No collectibility, just offer them for sale.

4.  No Subscriptions Please (were British) - I know that PC and console gamers are going to object to this, but I'm afraid that the subscription model of charging for gaming is a bit of a dead dog.  It works in an MMORPG sense as you tend to collaborate online with people you don't know, but in a sit around the table VTT sense I'm not sure it will work as I'm sure nobody wants to tell one of the Players to get their VISA card out or they can't join in.

I don't think I'd be able to convince "Her Indoors" that a subscription for a game I may only play once a week is value for money, but I also don't want, and can't afford, to invest the sort of time one needs to in an MMORPG style game in order to recoup my cash investment.

Ultimately, if the likes of major newspapers like The Times or the WSJ  can't get paywalls to work for them, I can't see how WotC can get it to work for D&D.

5.  Print Pubs with Online Extras - This is already happening in the indie scene as more and more publishers supplement purchases of the dead tree version of their games with a free PDF version.  We're not stupid, we know that you sent the book to the printer as a PDF, don't try to rip us off with overpriced e-books.  Whilst you're at it, give us some promo codes for extras which are only available if you buy the dead tree adventure modules (that are allegedly hard to sell).  Look at the sterling work being done by Worlds of Wonder with their bordgame promo codes.

If a tenth of this ends up appearing in the final release edition of 5e, I may be enticed back, maybe...

I'm a Chaotic Neutral Human Wizard

Been a while since I've done one of these cosmo style tests but everyone seems to be giving this a go, so...

I Am A: Chaotic Neutral Human Wizard (4th Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength: 9

Dexterity: 11

Constitution: 11

Intelligence: 14

Wisdom: 12

Charisma: 12

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn't strive to protect others' freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society's restrictions and a do-gooder's zeal. However, chaotic neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.

Race: Human

Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class: Wizard

Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

Which makes me the Ninth Doctor

I found this Dr Who alignment chart... oooh I'm the Ninth Doctor, Chris Eccleston

D&D is 3rd Greatest Toy!!

Jonathan Ross

Last night's marathon 3 hour rundown of classic toys on Channel 4, presented by Jonathan Ross, saw Dungeons and Dragons see off the electronic revolution and come in at number 3.

A reasonably sympathetic review of the game featured the usual stock footage of contemporary geeks and live roleplayers in plastic ears.  The highlight being a short piece from Ian Livingstone OBE (Co-founder of Games Workshop and CEO of Eidos) and the outing of comedian Marcus Brigstocke as a D&D player.

It was a shame that it's high position in the chart was marred by a comment that the poll was rigged by thousands of geeks, and the show's complete disregard of D&D's influence in other fields like computer games.

There's a rat in me kitchen what am I gonna do?

Well, over here in Blighty the nights are drawing in and the temperature has dropped, consequently I am now sharing my home with at least one field mouse.

I have to admit that, when we came face to nose, I did go a bit girly and shriek like Mammy Two Shoes when she sees Jerry the mouse.

It got me thinking about the classic movie scene when the heroes are going through a tunnel or sewer and a horde of rats comes writhing towards them and how whenever I've set the same scene in my game my players never react like I did when I saw the mouse?  The D20 SRD says that a rat swarm will cause

"Distraction (Ex): Any living creature that begins its turn with a swarm in its square must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1 round. The save DC is Constitution-based."

The problem with this is that I want the players to suffer the effects before they are in the swarm and I want a fear condition not nausea.  Fear also escalates with exposure so a character who fails a fear check (Will save) is Shaken, fail twice and they're Frightened, fail three times and they're Panicked.  I just want 1 roll so I'm going to try:

• Fail by 1-3: Shaken
• Fail by 4-6: Frightened
• Fail by 7 or more: Panicked

This should prove entertaining...

Imagining D&D

Thanks to James Maliszewski at Grognardia for posing the question: "When you think about Dungeons & Dragons, the cover of what product comes first to mind?"

1e AD&D PHB

GW Blue Book D&D

9th Print 1e AD&D DMG

Well, for me it's gotta be the first edition AD&D PHB, and yet I never owned, played or DM'd this version of AD&D.  This cover is deceptively simple and features no heroic action unlike other covers, yet manages to capture essentially what happens in every dungeon crawl.  The Rogues engage in a little post fight thievery whilst the Fighters argue over which way to go next and the magic user leans on his staff exhausted after blowing the last of his spells on a mid dungeon minion.  You can also buy this iconic statue as a dungeon feature for your own games from Otherworld Miniatures.

The first version of D&D I owned was the 1e Blue Book produced by Games Workshop.  Sadly I was too young to really appreciate it, but it did start me out in this wonderful hobby.  Looking at the artwork, although a beautiful piece of pen and ink, it's not exactly evocative of the game contained within and harks back to the artwork of "The Hobbit" with it's  Beardsleyesque detail.

The version that I most fondly remember having spent hours pouring over almost sucking the content dry was the 9th print version of 1e AD&D DMG.  The artwork is quite powerful, suggesting that great secrets lie within and to get to them you must best the sinister figure standing between the doors.  One of Jeff Easley's finest and subtlest works.