Rabbit Pie

This post may be a bit "all over the place," but it's better than the alternative I was contemplating yesterday (something along the lines of a personal existential crisis which seems, mercifully, to be under control at the moment...). I'll do my best to come up with a title by the end.

SO...I was catching up on my "adventure review" reading over at Bryce's blog and stumbled across this little gem in the pile of dross he usually digs through (meaning no offense to Bryce by the way...I find his work of buying and reviewing adventures "so you don't have to" is an invaluable service to those of us interested in adventure design).

"Little gem" is probably too complimentary, for Game of Kobolds; "interesting nugget" probably should have been the term coined. What it is: a 42 page supplement of material that fleshes out the classic adventure module The Keep on the Borderlands with specifically motivated characters and factions interlinked through a complex web of relationships, providing the basis for the type of "blood opera" one might find in George Martin's Game of Thrones.

[this was the impetus for Corbett Kirkley's design; the origin of the product is described in its introduction, which I will let the interested reader dig into, rather than relate here]

[oh, BTW...it's not a "for purchase" product; you can download a copy here if you like. I'm not a scribd user, so Bryce's link doesn't work for me]

As an idea, the thing is more than just "interesting," but its execution is a little meh. My quibbles are about the same as Bryce: definitions aren't tight enough, not enough Keep characters, the timeline/fallout parts need to be elaborated upon. Furthermore, I prefer a more xenophobic brand of humanoid interaction in D&D to this mixture of "fantasy diversity" which smacks of all the kind of [insert derogatory-term-that-isn't-too-offensive-yet-communicates-disdain] found in the most recent versions of the game.

Still, it's not a terrible idea. For one thing, the scenario presented provides plenty of motivation for players' involvement, without forcing them down a particular path. For another, it presents a more unique situation than just hunting bugbear pelts or goblin skulls for reward. For a third thing, it provides a method of interacting with B2's Caves of Chaos that (hopefully) won't result in the immediate extinction of low-level player characters that so often follows from a frontal assault. For a fourth, it also provides a (slightly wonky) justification for why there's this giant horde of rando humanoid tribes living in harmony and practically on the doorstep of this fully stocked human garrison.

Even so, the idea of running it doesn't appeal (to me) very much, nor even the idea of doing a similar supplement for a different adventure like, say, the various factions found in module I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The thing is, much as I enjoy Byzantine politics and Machiavellian machinations, I consider these a particular vice/component of humanity, and would confine them as such. Bugbears and bullywugs and kobolds and orcs? No. I do not look at them as allegorical or surrogate humans. Heck, I try hard not to even look at elves and dwarves as such.

This morning, the idea that dragged my sorry ass out of bed (or, rather, kept me from returning to sleep after my beagles woke me at the crack of dawn) was this idea I have for cataloguing all the OD&D/AD&D monsters so that I cull the list for the specific creatures that function in my campaign setting, especially with regard to "sentient" species. I've pretty much decided that all "goblinoids" (including kobolds up through bugbear) are going to be a single species (of various sizes), while orcs are going to be a race that was magically created, rather than natural. Some sentients (most notably elves) I plan on categorizing as "protohumans," older variations of humanity (like neanderthals) that have since disappeared or become inseparably bonded with "normal humans" through interbreeding, but in general I really want to limit the amount of creatures with above-animal intelligence.

Still not sure what I want to do with dragons: would like to make them (mostly) a vermin-like species. But then, what's the reason for the treasure hoards? Or is that just a myth ungrounded in fact?

Giving a species the ability to reason invites identification with that creature...and I don't want that. I already intend to have multiple human cultures in my setting, each with the potentials for good, evil, and indifference and of course the various human flaws (hamartia, to borrow from Game of Kobolds) that can lead to drama, intrigue, and tragedy.  The non-humans in my campaign are NOT allegorical stand-ins for other races, ethnicities, and cultures...my intention is to create them as alien cultures based on their own biological strangeness, drives, and environments. The default alignment of these non-human cultures (as I intend to use it) will be in relationship to how harmonious they are with needs and desires of human civilization...my campaign being human-centric.

Recently I started re-reading The Hobbit (for the upteenth time), because I had this idea (brought on by my encumbrance posts) of statting out the dwarvish "pony train" that initially sets out from the Shire. Unfortunately, there's little description of their actual goods to be found, save that it is "mostly food" (as one should probably expect). However, getting to the part where their ponies were eventually lost (in the Misty Mountains) I was struck by Tolkien's description of the goblins as a species, in his initial introduction of the creature. He writes in part:

"Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and hard-hearted. They make no beautiful things, but they do make clever many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and other instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light...they did not hate dwarves especially, no more than they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and prosperous; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made alliances with them. But they had a special grudge against Thorin's people, because of the war which you heard mentioned..."

There are two things of especial note (to me) in this description. The first is that these are fairytale creatures, more or less a shadowy version of dwarves, and not analogous to any particular human ethnicity (I left out the part about goblins taking delight in engines and explosions and ingenious machines for killing large numbers of people: inventions pioneered for the most part by Western European cultures).  The second is that despite their brutality, they are not above dealing with other races, including dwarves, with whom (in D&D literature and elsewhere) they are generally portrayed as having an entirely genocidal attitude. In fact, it is only Thorin's people in particular with whom they have an issue, due to a previous war/feud, not any fundamental inter-species hatred.

And this is born out later in the interaction between Thorin and the Great Goblin. The proud dwarf is far more humble and polite with goblin chief than in any of his interaction (later in the book) with the king of the wood elves, with whom he has no family quarrel. Of course, a conciliatory tone might be expected after being beaten and chained and at the mercy of one's captors...but the elves treat Thorin nearly as rough as he still has the gall to give the elf king snark. I personally find this fascinating.

The conversation started
politely enough.

But fascinating as it may be, it doesn't change my outlook: these are two alien species, not "fantasy human cultures." If dwarves have some type of kinship with goblins, it is due (in my world at least) due to their shared, subterranean physiology and culture, not any kind of human-like empathy and compassion for each other as fellow sentients. And with regard to the sea of humanity swimming around the foothills of these creatures mountain homes, they are BOTH a strange and eerie species...however, one rates as "lawful" for being interested in crafting useful items and doing honest trade with surface dwellers, while the other (perhaps because of their shorter lifespan and, thus, perspective) are judged "chaotic" for their raiding, slave-taking, and violent methods. And neither species has any interest in human politics except so much as it might further their (inhuman) interests.

My campaign setting isn't about creating understanding between different sentient species. It's about survival. And I already know which species will (eventually) come out on top, because my setting is 10,000 years ago in Earth's past. The individual actions of player characters can be judged for themselves, but I'm not interested in "decolonizing" my D&D game by humanizing the non-humans. If anything, I want to make sure they are MORE "othered" than recent editions would have them be, standing in for diversity against a homogeneity of Euro-type humanity.

That's not to say that I intend my setting to be all Incan and Charrua and Mayan with cloth armor and atlatl and whatnot. There's a reason I'm using a setting of 9,000 BCE and not 1550. But even within a single region, you can have a number of nations of diverse peoples with various cultures, languages, and ways of life, even with a shared "group identity." I've been watching Padma Lakshmi's Taste the Nation the last week or so and found it to be a fascinating look at my own country and the plethora of cultures sharing an "American" identity. I intend the humanity of my setting to be something like that: a society composed of many different peoples, cooperating as best they can (though sometimes failing due to past wrongs and grievances) for survival of their species.

There will be very, very few monsters (i.e. non-humans) that carry a Lawful alignment.

SO...I've come to the end of my rambling post, and I have no idea what to title it. I guess I'll go with "non-existential crisis" since that's the subject these meandering thoughts ended up supplanting. Or I could call it "rabbit pie" (which would make as much sense), as that's what I plan on baking for lunch. Ooo, I feel like Farmer MacGregor this morning.

Hope everyone's having a good week. Today's pretty sunny here in Seattle.

Failed Fables

Just continuing from where I left off...

It was only a few weeks ago (when was Free RPG Day? A couple days after that) that I was in Around the Table Games in Edmonds and found a veritable motherlode of used D&D game product for sale, including a stack of adventure modules in near mint condition. And they were a wide variety: everything from Castle Caldwell to Queen of the Demonweb Pits to a first printing of Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan to the deluxe World of Greyhawk (not in the box). It was a really astounding collection, a mountain of books showing little evidence of actual play...just years of careful storage until the day some gentleman decided to clean out his closet.

[I asked about the person who'd sold the items...some local lawyer, apparently, and one "definitely older" than Yours Truly]

Needless to say, despite an eye-gouging markup, I acquired a fair portion of the collection, though I restrained myself somewhat (tempting as it was to double-up on copies of books I already own, I felt guilty at the thought of depriving others of the chance to acquire such treasures). Still...a good haul and (for me) more useful items than what I might have picked up at Free RPG Day, had I remembered to show up on time this year.

Mostly more useful, I should say. I'll admit that some items were more about nostalgia than anything else, and it's one of these books that I want to talk about: Carl Smith's 1984 adventure module The Forest Oracle. Designated N2 (the second of the "novice" series, after Against the Cult of the Reptile God), The Forest Oracle was one of the last 1E adventure modules I purchased prior to a hiatus from D&D that lasted more than a decade (my hiatus from "Advanced" D&D specifically has continued up through the present day...about 30 years).

[Jesus Christ! I hadn't even realized that till now!]

I ran The Forest Oracle at least once or twice "back in the day," but somewhere in the mists of time it was misplaced or stolen or tossed (not by my...I'm an absolute packrat when it comes to most things), hence the reason I was willing to shell out $15+ for a good copy. It is infamous in gaming circles, being considered one of the worst adventure modules of the TSR era...if not one of the worst of all time. Google its title and you can find several blog posts and and assorted forum rants describing the reasons why. It IS rather bad, on a lot of fronts, and I can specifically remember some issues when it came to actually running the thing, including an outright mutiny by my players over the "wererat robbery" incident.

[for the curious: players stay the night at an inn, where they are subsequently robbed by wererats. Even PCs setting a guard for the night gets put to sleep by a sleep spell (despite wererats not having access to such magic). It's a really heavy handed method of setting up a really stupid encounter for very nonsensical reasons. My players...who were not what one would call particularly sophisticated...railed at both the stupidity and unfairness of the situation, to the point that I believe we simply scratched it out of existence. If they'd actually read the adventure module, they would have seen the encounter was even stupider than it appeared]

Be that as it may, I adore this module. Despite the poor writing, the linear (often railroad) plot, the nonsensical challenges and pointless encounters...even when I was a kid (and didn't care or notice these kinds of things) and the only thing that mattered was the recommended level of PC (and levels 2-4 was far, far too low for my usual players), I still wanted to own and play the thing. Because stylistically I really dig on the promise their selling.

Just look at that cover. Keith Parkinson's color plates have been some of my favorite over the years, and this one is no exception. These aren't mischievous gremlins, subterranean wretches, nor Tolkien orcs of a lesser variety. No, these goblins are the dark fey of a Grimm Brother's forest, girded for war and sporting hell-colored skin that leaves no question of their evil nature or infernal origins.

And the threat implied by the cover goes perfectly with the themes and plot set out in the adventure scenario (a village cursed, a magical quest, benevolent druids, nefarious gypsies). Even the nonsensical encounters (the grieving nymph with her enchanted lover, the attack in the night by shapeshifting rats) go well with the "fairy tale" theme being presented, as does Jeff Easley's rather charming interior artwork. It's not "high fantasy" (what one might call Tolkien or Dragonlance); it's what I call prosaic fantasy, though of course I'm using the term "prosaic" incorrectly (sorry, I wasn't a lit or writing major). Prosaic actually means "common," "unromantic," or "lacking poetic beauty" and sure The Forest Oracle fits that description. But what I really mean is something delightfully quaint or of an older style, whimsical nature. Give me the word that means that in English and I'll endeavor to improve on my poor vocabulary.

[EDIT (several years later): "bucolic" may have been a better word than "prosaic"]

See, there's been a lot of ink (and blood) spilled over the last few years on the nature of the style of "Old School" D&D, discussions I've contributed to myself in enthusiastic and half-cocked manner. And while there's no denying both the gonzo design priorities and S&S inspirations, there is a LOT of this "fairy tale" style fantasy on display in D&D. Hell, it was what I brought to D&D when I first started playing.

I didn't get around to reading Moorcock and Leiber and Zelazny until I was well into my high school years. But I read a LOT of fantasy fiction even before I began immersing myself in fantasy role-playing: C.S. Lewis (of course), Frank Baum, Lewis Carol, Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, Robin McKinley, and Peter S. Beagle. Tolkien, too, though only The Hobbit (I wouldn't finish LOTR till college). The Brothers Grimm. Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales. Bullfinch's Mythology. Etc.

[true, I was also reading MZB, Asprin's Thieves World anthologies, and McCaffery's Get Off the Unicorn...we'll get to those in the next installment of this series]

Point is, my fantasy inspirations...the stuff of my imagination that was driving me towards D&D...was cut neither from the Howardian/Lovecraftian pulp cloth, nor from its imitators. Likewise, I had yet to be exposed to "high concept fantasy" in the Tolkien LOTR, Sam Donaldson, Terry Brooks, etc. sense...where a band of heroes struggle against some supernatural, mega-evil threat with the fate of a completely fictitious fantasy world hanging in the balance (i.e. the most popular form of serial fantasy fiction for the last several decades...see Robert Jordan, George Martin, Dragonlance, even Rowling's Harry Potter series).

And I don't think Dungeons & Dragons did all that much to dissuade me from that style of fantasy. If illustration and artwork is present to conjure and fire the imagination, many of the most prominent images found in my early D&D books fit right along side my prosaic (commonplace), fairy tale fantasy sensibilities. Outside the original Moldvay Basic book itself, I find a surprising lack of dungeon illustrations. There are few images in the original Monster Manual that depict or even suggest a subterranean setting, save for the Gygaxian "underworld cleaning crew" monsters, and aside from the joke illos (and the serial comic in the appendix on random dungeon creation) the DMG is likewise devoid of such artwork.

[while it's hard to argue against the cover of the original Players Handbook, keep in mind this was the last piece of the AD&D "puzzle" we acquired, instead operating with a combo of B/X, the MM, and the DMG, for a couple years...and when we DID finally get ahold of the PHB it was with the 1983 Easley ("Ringlerun") cover. I didn't see the 1978 cover till I acquired a copy in a used bookstore, circa 1987]

Check out the DMG illustrations on pages 48, 59, 154, and 193. Heck, just look at the cover leaf illos from all the original core books (DMG, PHB, MM): all show outdoor scenes...scenes I'd say deserve to be called pastoral (yes, even the bulette fight) in the light of day. Nothing so mean as grubby explorers in a fantasy Underworld. No one hanging from ropes or prodding cave walls with 10' poles or fighting desperate battles with brutish orcs by the light of torches and lanterns.

And yet those things...those scurrilous rogues who go (largely) undepicted...those are the stuff of actual gameplay, as written. It's HARD to use the D&D system to run games in the style of old fairy tale fantasy...the genre simply isn't supported by the system (let me tell you, I've tried!). A fairy tale druid grove like that described in The Forest Oracle isn't likely to be held in respectful awe...it's simply another lair waiting to be scouted and plundered by an enterprising party of adventurers (as soon as they feel they're of a level sufficient to take it on)! Roadside encounters with sad nymphs and dryads-in-distress are as likely to end in disaster as not, depending on what angle to the players see in helping such creatures. It IS possible to inject the fear and wonder of the mysterious and supernatural into one's game, but it seldom lasts...in the end, what matters most is how readily an encountered creature can hit Armor Class 2 (that's AC 18 for you ascending types).

Anyway, some of us were trying to do this type of fantasy. You see it in other modules of the TSR era (the UK series especially), but none quite so clearly as The Forest Oracle. It may seem like banal, overused fantasy tropes (I mean, it is, right?) but that in itself feels unusual to me. Which is probably why I like it.
: )

R.I.P. Keith Parkinson