How Common Were Long Campaigns?

A topic that I think is worthy of further discussion is the extent to which the contemporary "old school" RPG scene is characterized by varying degrees of hyper-correction to the real and imagined excesses of the subsequent (post-1990 or thereabouts) hobby. For the moment, I want to focus on one area where this hyper-correction might exist: long campaigns. I say "might," because I honestly don't know the extent to which lengthy, multi-year campaigns were all that commonplace in the past, even among the founders of the hobby. Certainly, if you read things like the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, such campaigns were clearly the ideal, at least in some quarters, but what about the reality? Just how common were long campaigns of the sort that I've been extolling for the last few years on this blog?

By most accounts, the earliest version of what would come to be called the Blackmoor campaign appeared sometime in late 1970 or early 1971. Over the course of the next four to five years, Dave Arneson continued to referee adventures set in Blackmoor, with a rotating roster of players (and characters), though there seems to have been a significant amount of continuity during that time period. Gary Gygax's Greyhawk campaign began sometime in 1972 and continued to be played, off and on, throughout the remainder of the decade, again with a rotating roster of players. Then there's Greg Stafford's Dragon Pass campaign and Steve Perrin's one in Prax, not to mention whatever Marc Miller and the GDW crew were doing in the Spinward Marches.

How many of the foregoing were "long" campaigns in the way we've been talking about them lately? Much depends, I suppose, on how you define both terms. For myself, a "campaign" is a continuous series of adventures/sessions in a fictional setting with a regular, if not necessarily static, set of players. I'm sure people could quibble with almost every aspect of my definition, especially since many of the foundational campaigns of the hobby might not qualify under its terms. Likewise, my definition, for all its specificity, is silent on questions as basic as whether a campaign with multiple referees – like the Greyhawk campaign that was eventually co-refereed by Rob Kuntz – is one campaign or two. Then, there's the Ship of Theseus question of how many of the elements of a campaign's beginning must persist over time for it to qualify as the "same" campaign, to say nothing of what constitutes "long." Is length determined by the calendar, the number of sessions, or the time spent playing?

I think these are all important questions, even if we can't easily agree on the answers. Simply asking them is, in my opinion, a good way to fumble toward a better understanding of this hobby, its parameters, and its history. For example, M.A.R. Barker's Thursday night Tékumel campaign would seem to be a paradigmatic example of a long campaign, lasting as it did, with many of the same players, from the late '70s into the 21st century. Though there are no doubt other examples of similarly long-running campaigns, the "Thursday Night Group" is quite likely the highest profile one of which I know. Its longevity and degree of continuity surpasses that of anything Arneson, Gygax, Stafford, or any of the other founders have the hobby ever achieved. That's no small accomplishment, but is it in any way representative of what a long campaign is or should be?

There's also the question of what RPG players in the wider world beyond were doing. How many of them were involved in long campaigns? Depending on how you want to look at it, I was part of either the second or third wave of roleplayers, entering the hobby at the very end of 1979 and beginning serious play of RPGs in early 1980. My friends and I were young – I would have been 10 years old at the time – and, while we knew older, more experienced gamers and were influenced by them, we mostly forged our own paths. For the most part, that path did not include long campaigns. Instead, we flitted from game to game, playing D&D intensely for a month or two, then doing the same with Gamma World or Traveller or Call of Cthulhu, before returning to D&D or whatever other game caught or fancy at the time.

I doubt we were alone in this sort of behavior and I suspect that, as the RPG industry grew, producing ever more games, our behavior was much more widespread than sticking with one game devotedly for years on end. That's not to say we never played a single game for long stretches of time and to the exclusion of others – we did – but these were exceptions rather than the rule, at least until I attended college. Indeed, it was only with adulthood that I succeeded in refereeing a multi-year campaign with the same players and their characters. All the long campaigns I can recall have occurred after I was in my 20s and I sometimes wonder if the level of attentiveness necessary to maintain campaigns of this sort is only possible after a certain age.

So, how common were long campaigns in the past? I wish I knew, if only because I think it's important to understand the history of the hobby as it was rather than as we wish it were. 

Retrospective: Swords & Glory

As early roleplaying game go, Empire of the Petal Throne is fairly well known, if only for the fact that it was the second RPG published by TSR, just about a year and a half after the release of OD&D. EPT is legendary, too, for its price tag – $25 – which was a considerable sum in 1975 (D&D, by contrast, retailed for $10). Of course, what makes the game truly stand out is its setting, the alien planet of Tékumel, one of the greatest works of the imagination in the history of the hobby.

Tékumel stands out in part because it differs in many ways, both small and large, from the assumptions of D&D's idiosyncratic brand of fantasy. Instead, it draws more "from Egypt, the Aztecs and Mayans, the Hellenic Age, Mughal India, and mediaeval Europe," giving it a strong and unique flavor of its own. For all of its virtues, Empire of the Petal Throne didn't wholly do justice to it and so it was perhaps inevitable that there would one day be a "second edition" of sorts, one that might more fully exemplify Tékumel and its rich history and cultural details.

That putative second edition arrived with two boxed sets from Gamescience released under the title of Swords & Glory. The first of these, Tékumel Source Book: The World of the Petal Throne, appeared in 1983 and consisted of a 136-page softcover book and a large, double-sided map in full color. The second, Tékumel Player's Handbook: Adventures in Tékumel, came with a 240-page softcover book, some character sheets, and two polyhedral dice. Together, they constitute an attempt to present a more fully realized vision of Tékumel as a setting for fantasy roleplaying. They only partially succeed in the attempt, for numerous reasons, as I shall explain.

The Tékumel Source Book is a truly wondrous volume. In its cramped columns, whose tiny text is decorated with innumerable hand-drawn accent marks, the reader is treated to an exhaustive examination of nearly every aspect of the setting. The Source Book begins with a treatment of the physical aspects of Tékumel – its solar system, geography, weather – and then moves on to its lengthy history, inhabitants (both human and nonhuman), and the cultures, both large and small, that can be found on one of its continents. Each of those cultures is further described in detail. Everything from family and social structure, religion, entertainments, militaries, housing, and more is laid out in a dry, quasi-academic style that would be severely off-putting if it weren't so compelling. Compared to nearly anything else available on the market at the time, the Tékumel Source Book is masterwork of RPG setting design.

The Tékumel Player's Handbook is far less impressive. Much of it is given over to needlessly complex and detailed treatments of various mid-1980s roleplaying obsessions, particularly in the area of combat. Rather than better grounding the rules in the setting of Tékumel – something that would have been welcome – the reader is instead subjected to discourses on encumbrance, skill development, and height-build factors, among other things. I don't mean to be overly critical of this; plenty of RPGs at the time were similarly punctilious about this kind of thing. However, little of this does much to support the setting of Tékumel, which is the main selling point of Swords & Glory. At least the spells presented in the Player's Handbook do this very well or else there'd be little else to recommend the book.

There should have been a third boxed set that would have presented material intended for the referee, such as monsters, magic items, and other information necessary to use the first two sets as part of an extended campaign on Tékumel. However, that set never appeared and, as a result, Swords & Glory was never really playable in the way that Empire of the Petal Throne was, despite its inadequacies as a vehicle for presenting Tékumel to roleplayers. That's certainly unfortunate, but I reckon that Swords & Glory was already something of a misstep even before it became clear that it would never be a complete game system.

That's the real tragedy of a game like Swords & Glory. What was originally intended as a better presentation of a rich and complex setting like Tékumel became bogged down in minutiae and unnecessary accretions to the point where it likely turned many people off ever giving the setting a fair hearing. While I adore the Tékumel Source Book and its lengthy digressions on the governmental structures of remote tribal peoples and the entertainments enjoyed by the flying Hláka species, they're likely discouragements to newcomers who simply want a straightforward presentation of Tékumel, why it's a terrific fantasy RPG setting, and, above all, what to do with it all. Nowhere does Swords & Glory even approach working toward providing any of this, leading to a game that was probably less read or played than the original Empire of the Petal Throne.

As a diehard fan of Tékumel, I can't help but shake my head at the missed opportunity that Swords & Glory represents. Tékumel is too good a setting to languish in the shadowy corners of roleplaying history. Yet, it's never really had a solid, approachable game version that would be appealing to complete neophytes. Instead, it's been saddled with a succession of ill-conceived and poorly presented games that have only reinforced the false notion that Tékumel is inaccessible to all but a chosen few. What a shame ...

Shock and Betrayal

By now, I assume most anyone reading this will have heard the revelations about M.A.R. Barker. If you have not, I reproduce here a statement of the Tékumel Foundation on the matter:

The Tékumel Foundation Board of Directors wants to acknowledge that our research shows Professor M.A.R. Barker wrote Serpent’s Walk, an anti-Semitic novel that was published under a pseudonym in 1991. We have done our due diligence to ascertain the facts regarding Serpent’s Walk and Professor Barker’s affiliation with The Journal of Historical Review and we believe this needs to be recognized as part of Professor Barker’s past. While nobody today is responsible for the odious views Professor Barker presented in Serpent’s Walk, we are responsible for recognizing this book as part of his legacy.

That this acknowledgment was not done earlier was and is a mistake, and we apologize for that. We have been reaching out to several Jewish organizations to express our outrage over our findings and make our priority to work with them through this issue.

What Professor Barker did was wrong and forever tarnished his creative and academic legacy. As stewards of the world of Tékumel, we reject and repudiate Serpent’s Walk and everything it stands for and all other anti-Semitic activity Professor Barker was involved with.

The Tékumel Foundation has never been involved with or profited from the publication, distribution, or sale of Serpent’s Walk in any way, shape, or form. All of the proceeds from sales of Tékumel-related material have gone and will continue to go to the Foundation and its work, and not to any racist or anti-Semitic organizations or causes, in any way, shape, or form.

Before the public acknowledgment of this by the Tékumel Foundation, there'd been rumors that Barker had pseudonymously written a pro-Nazi novel. When I first heard them, I had no direct evidence of their truth and, honestly, I had no interest in looking into the matter, as it would have required my engaging with websites and ideas I find abhorrent. So I let all thought of it go, assuming that, if it were provably true, the truth would eventually come out – and so it has, along with much worse. Indeed, I now dread the possibility that even more might yet be revealed in the future.

These revelations are all the more crushing for me because, back in the 1990s, I was an email correspondent of Barker. Though we didn't exchange many messages, we kept in touch intermittently and he was always very kind and generous with his time. He patiently answered all my questions about Tékumel and encouraged me in my greater appreciation of the setting. In fact, he gave me some of the best advice I've ever received about how to understand a RPG setting, advice to which I still adhere to this day: "Why don't you go and take a look?" Squaring that man with the one responsible not just for a pro-Nazi novel but who also sat on the editorial board of a publication that advanced Holocaust denialism is difficult to say the least.That it is also indisputably true does not make it any easier to live with and yet live with it I must.

To say that I feel betrayed by these revelations is an understatement. Tékumel has been an important part of my gaming for many years now. My House of Worms campaign, based on Tékumel, has, for the last seven years, been the vehicle for some of the best roleplaying of my life. Through it, I have met many great people whom I am honored to call my friends. Now, a cloud hangs over it all, including The Excellent Travelling Volume, which has been the primary outlet for my creativity since 2014, when its first issue appeared. TETV has been well received by my fellow fans of Tékumel and has, I have been told, been instrumental in making the setting more accessible to newcomers who'd previously been put off by Tékumel's depth and complexity.

I do not regret the time I have devoted to Tékumel, a work of the imagination with few peers. Unlike some, I am not at all convinced that Tékumel itself is a crypto-Nazi work or indeed that it contains anything that advances such a vile cause. Nevertheless, I cannot help but feel betrayed and more than a little conflicted. I have been struggling over the last week to decide just what to say about these revelations. In part, this is because I wasn't – and still am not – wholly sure of my own feelings. Even now, I vacillate between shock, anger, sadness, and despondency. My struggle is heightened, too, by the expectation that, no matter what I say, someone will deem my muddled feelings insufficient to the gravity of the matter at hand. 

I wish it were otherwise. I wish it were easier to disentangle my love for Tékumel from my revulsion at Barker's repugnant other interests. Consequently, I am in no position to judge anyone else's response to these revelations; each of us will have to grapple with it in our own way and on our own schedule. I know of long-time Tékumel fans who have simply decided to walk away from the setting entirely, just as I know others who do not feel that would be the right response, given how much genuine pleasure and joy the setting has brought them, despite the secret villainy of its creator. This latter group takes inspiration from Ted Johnstone, an early contributor to Alarums & Excursions, who famously wrote that "D&D is too important to leave to Gary Gygax." 

Perhaps the same could be true of Tékumel and M.A.R. Barker.

(I appreciate everyone who's taken the time to comment on this post. I am, however, closing comments, since it appears to me that the same points are being made again and again and not much new ground is being covered. Thanks to everyone who shared their thoughts.)

Pulp Fantasy Library: Lords of Tsámra

With a few exceptions, I am not a fan of "game fiction," which is to say, stories or novels that take place within a roleplaying game setting. There are a couple of reasons why this is so. The first is that most game fiction is written not by writers of literature – even pulp literature – but by game designers trying their hand at a new medium and, as such, isn't very well composed. The second, and in my mind more important reason, is that most game fiction just isn't very interesting. I'm actually quite forgiving of hackneyed writing and wooden characters, if the overall story being told is imaginative and introduces me to some aspect of its setting that I might otherwise not have encountered. Unfortunately, that's pretty rare, hence my skepticism toward books of this kind.

But, as I said, there are a few exceptions and among those that quickly come to mind are the novels of M.A.R. Barker, creator of the world of Tékumel. Starting with 1984's The Man of Gold, Barker penned five Tékumel novels. As works of literature, they're of varying quality, but all of them contain compelling plots, memorable characters, and immense insights into Tékumel and its societies and cultures. Indeed, I'd argue that the novels do a far better job of presenting Tékumel to newcomers than do almost any of the RPG materials published for the setting since the appearance of Empire of the Petal Throne in 1975.

The third novel in the series, Lords of Tsámra, offers a good example of what I mean. Originally published in 2003, Lords of Tsámra takes place sometime after the events of the previous two novels in the series, The Man of Gold and Flamesong. The protagonist of the former, Hársan hiTikéshmu, re-appears here, though his role is secondary to that of an entirely new character, Korúkka hiKutonyál. Whereas Hársan is a priest of the gentle god of knowledge, Thúmis, Korúkka serves the grasping god of secrets, Ksárul. As such, he is a very different kind of person – arrogant, sneaky, and suspicious, but also thoughtful, quick-witted, and even brave when circumstances demand it of him. His differences from the more traditionally heroic character of Hársan makes him, I think, a more fascinating character. He's also a terrific window into the society of Tsolyánu, the titular Empire of the Petal Throne, whose inhabitants cannot be easily described in stereotypes.

The plot of the novel concerns a diplomatic mission sent from Tsolyánu to the Tsoléi Isles, to effect a cessation of hostilities between the Tsoléini and the Livyáni, another empire which was simultaneously involved in a wat against a third combatant, the Mu'ugalavyáni. If this all sounds confusing, on a certain level it is, but it's to Barker's credit that the reader is initiated slowly into the complicated geopolitics of Tékumel. It's a good thing, too, because, as Lords of Tsámra unfolds, more elements are added to the mix: a plague, conspiracies involving other-planar beings, and more. There's a lot going on in the novel and its characters are constantly tossed this way and that on tumultuous waves of plot not entirely of their own making. In this respect, Lords of Tsámra often reads like an old-fashioned pulp serial, filled as it is with perilous situations and unpredictable cliffhangers.

What saves the novel from becoming impossible to follow, let alone enjoy, is that, for all the clashes of nations and machinations of hidden cabals, its focus remains largely on the characters. This is the story of great events told from the ground, as it were. Everything that happens is seen through the eyes of Korúkka and his companions, as they navigate the strange cultures first of the Tsoléini and then the Livyáni (and a subculture within them, the Dláshi). Whatever his other weaknesses as a writer, Barker excels at offering his readers a kind of National Geographic-meets-Fodor's approach to the immensely rich world of Tékumel. Nearly every page of Lords of Tsámra describes some cultural detail, geographical description, or historical tidbit. One is slowly initiated into deeper mysteries along the way – some of them very deep indeed – the end of which is a better understanding of and appreciation for the remarkable fantasy world Barker has created.

Assuming that's what one wants out of a fantasy novel, Lords of Tsámra is a very good one; it's probably my favorite of all of Barker's Tékumel tales. That's not to say that the novel doesn't include its fair share of adventure and excitement. There's plenty here to hold the attention of fans of magic and swordplay, imminent danger and narrow escapes. That's not the focus of the novel, however, nor is it where Barker's skills shine. M.A.R. Barker is often compared to J.R.R. Tolkien in that he was a three-initialed linguist who created a rich fantasy setting. Another point of similarity is that, as a novelist, his strengths lie in describing his imaginary world and the varied people who inhabit it rather than on feats of derring-do. Pick up the novel with that in mind and I don't think you'll be disappointed. 

Retrospective: War of Wizards

Reading issue #8 of White Dwarf in preparation for this week's post, I was reminded of the existence of War of Wizards, published by TSR in 1975. Appearing in May 1975, the game is fascinating on a number of levels, starting with the fact that, because of its publication date, it's the first appearance of the world of Tékumel in print. Remember that Empire of the Petal Throne, which is usually taken to be the world's introduction to the setting, wouldn't appear for another few months and understandably so. EPT is a full-fledged roleplaying game, featuring a 114-page rulebook and multiple maps, while War of Wizards is simply a "game of fantastic duels between mighty sorcerers." In terms of content, depth, and presentation, there's not much commonality between the two – and, yet, it's precisely for that reason that I think War of Wizards is worthy of discussion.

Before getting into the specifics of the game itself, I want to devote a little time to its presentation of Tékumel. As most readers probably already know, M.A.R. Barker first began work on the earliest version of Tékumel when he was still a child. Upon that foundation, he then further developed the setting in multiple phases, from the 1940s till the time when was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. I say "versions," because, during each phase of development, Barker's conception of Tékumel changed, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in big ones. An example of a big change, for example, is the use of the terms "good" and "evil" to describe deities who would later be associated with "stability" and "change," respectively. In War of Wizards, though, we see neither of these formulations. Instead, Barker calls the gods the "Lords of Glory" and the "Rulers of Shadow." Purely from a historical perspective, this is interesting to me, as it suggests the degree to which the setting was still in flux within Barker's mind. Rather than emerging fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus, Tékumel grew over time and through play (as all good RPG settings do).

War of Wizards is a two-player game that models a trial by combat between two spellcasters, whether as part of a match in one of the Hirilákte arenas found in most large Tsolyáni cities or as part of a more personal duel. Regardless of the ostensible reason, each player can choose to play either a priest or a sorcerer. The former may wear armor, while the latter have access to a wider array of offensive spells. These combatants are characters each possessing three ability scores rated from 2–200 (achieved by rolling percentile dice twice). The first of these, Physical Strength, functions primarily like hit points. The other two, Attack and Defense Strength, represent pools of points that can be used to power spells. Each spell in the game has a cost and characters can continue to cast spells so long as they have enough points in the appropriate ability score. In a pinch, it's possible to shift points from Physical Strength to the other two scores, but doing so weakens the character, making it easier for his opponent to defeat him.

The game was released in two versions: the first was unboxed and the second boxed. The boxed version included four metal miniatures, supplementing the cardboard counters that are included in both versions. Integral to play is a "board" consisting of 20 spaces that abstractly handle the distance between the two combatants and their spell effects. The board is quite attractive, since it features artwork by Barker along its edges. Here's an example of one section of the board:

I only acquired a copy of War of Wizards fairly recently, so I've never had the chance to play it. Reading through the rules, it doesn't seem like it would be difficult to learn, though there does seem to be a lot of bookkeeping involved. Keeping track of all the points spent and lost, for example, might well be tedious – a common problem in "spell point" magic systems in my opinion – though, with time and practice, it might become less so. Even so, I find this game very intriguing, if only for its presentation of another version of Tékumel, one that's a little simpler and less exotic than that in later versions and yet still much more flavorful and different than the commonplace "vanilla" settings that dominated the hobby then and now. 

Flamesong Returns

M.A.R. Barker's second novel of Tékumel, Flamesong, is available once again, in both paperback and Kindle formats. Of the two Tékumel novels originally published by DAW in the 1980s, Flamesong is by far the more accessible to readers familiar with "traditional" fantasy adventure tales, making it a good entry point for newcomers to the setting. The Tékumel Foundation very kindly asked me to write the foreword to this re-release, which I was happy to do. If all goes well, we'll see new releases of Professor Barker's other three Tékumel novels in the near future.  

Alternate Covers

I have a fascination with the cover art of fantasy and science fiction novels from decades past, particularly the 1960s and '70s, which are, to my mind, a Golden Age for the medium. Relatedly, I also have a keen interest in alternate covers, such as those produced for publication in other markets. In some cases, the alternate versions are better than the originals, while in others they're much worse. A good example of both is M.A.R. Barker's first novel of Tékumel, The Man of Gold, whose original cover was painted by the incomparable Michael Whelan. 

Like most of Whelan's work, it's a gorgeous piece of work. Unfortunately, it has almost nothing to do with the content of the novel itself. Interestingly, when the novel was released in the United Kingdom, it featured a completely different cover.

This cover is only slightly more accurate. Its version of the titular Man of God is at least gives a better impression of its true nature, even if the details aren't spot on. That's much more than can be said of the German cover art.

Whatever flaws Whelan's cover had, it was at least attractive. This illustration not only depicts nothing in the novel, it's also quite unattractive. On the plus side, I find the German title amusing.

Do you have any examples of alternate covers you find similarly interesting (or baffling)?

The Joys and Woes of Fanzine Production

As I am sure most readers know, since late 2014, I have been producing a fanzine devoted to M.A.R. Barker's world of Tékumel called The Excellent Travelling Volume. A little over a week ago, I released its thirteenth issue (available in print here and in PDF here). My intentions in creating the 'zine were twofold. First and foremost, I wanted to promote gaming in Tékumel, one of the greatest and most underappreciated fantasy settings in the hobby. Second, I wanted to participate in an aspect of the hobby with which I had only minimal acquaintance. 

Fanzines were very much alive and well when I started roleplaying in late 1979, but I had almost no contact with them. I've always felt that was a serious gap in my gaming "education," because one might rightly argue that the hobby as we know it today was born and nurtured in the pages of 'zines and APAs. Many influential game writers and designers first appeared on the scene in the pages of 'zines. 

The Excellent Travelling Volume, then, was partially an experiment in trying to understand fanzines from the production side. For the first few issues, I wrote everything myself (generally drawing on material from my ongoing House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign), while Matt Hildebrand generously did the layout and a wide variety of artists – Jason Sholtis, Luigi Castellani, Zhu Bajiee, Stefan Poag being a few among them – bringing my words to life. I'm deeply grateful to all of their help and the 'zine would never have reached thirteen issues over the last six and a half years if it hadn't been for their assistance.

I've always enjoyed writing the fanzine, but that should come as no surprise, because I enjoy Tékumel. What sometimes does surprise people is how much I enjoyed the process of producing each issue – and by "producing," I mean physically. I loved going to my local printer, picking up the issues, and taking them home. At first, I folded and stapled them all myself, but I gave up on that after a while, because the printer could do it so much faster (and better) than I could. Even so, I liked hand addressing each envelope, sticking an issue inside, and then dropping off the issues at the post office. There was something joyous about this process. Over time, I got to recognize names and addresses; I started to feel as if I knew my readers, even though I rarely had any other contact with them. The whole endeavor was delightful and I thought I understood why so many people devoted themselves to producing 'zines back in the day.

Note that many of my verbs are in the past tense. They represent my feelings from the pre-pandemic world. Over the last fifteen months, though, much of the joy I had in the physical production of the 'zine has faded. My printer keeps opening and shutting due to the vicissitudes of local lockdowns. Even when they were open, they were often slow to get things done and made more mistakes than was typical. The post office is even worse: standing in long lines, higher prices, and less reliability. I have had more issues go awry over the last year than I had over the previous five and a half. Assuming an issue doesn't just disappear into the ether, they arrive months late. A purchaser told me that an issue he ordered in August 2020 didn't arrive until February of this year. Others have reported similar delays. 

It's all deeply frustrating and disheartening and I confess that I seriously considered ending the fanzine with issue #12. Fanzines are not a money-making venture. The costs associated with production and mailing are not insignificant, especially if you want your 'zine to look good, as I think TETV does. With the cost of printing and postage rising, I didn't see how I could produce more issues without losing money. That's why issue #13 is being done as a print-on-demand product via Lulu (with PDFs available through DriveThruRPG). 

It's an experiment on my part. I hope that, by offloading a lot of the hassles of production and delivery, I might ease my growing frustrations as well. We shall see if it works. Even if it doesn't and I, for some reason, decided to end The Excellent Travelling Volume for good, I still believe it's been a very worthwhile enterprise. On the most basic level, I've succeeded in producing a lot of new Tékumel material, including artwork. That's not nothing and I'm actually rather pleased by how much I've managed to do with only a small team of people. Beyond that, I think I've gained greater insights into the unique joys and travails of this aspect of the hobby. Indeed, I have so much respect for the gamers of the 1970s who used far less user-friendly and sophisticated equipment to reach far more people than I have. That's a truly Herculean feat and I doff my virtual hat to the men and women of that earlier era. Bravo!

Stress

When it comes to words in fictional languages, how do you feel about stress markers? Do they make a word easier to pronounce or do they make it seem more intimidating, especially if your native tongue does not make much use of them, as is the case in English? 

The words of some fictional languages, like those of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoomian, include no stress markers. Others, like those of M.A.R. Barker's Tsolyáni, are riddled with them by comparison. Because I have become familiar with the pronunciation of Tsolyáni, I don't find its use of stress markers to be off-putting. However, I've heard from many people that, rather than aiding pronunciation, they contribute to the sense that Tsolyáni is difficult to pronounce, which in turn alienates people potentially interested in Tékumel.

I'm currently working on a project that includes names, words, and even occasionally whole phrases from a couple of fictional languages. I ask again: would you find the use of stress markers or other types of notations ("accent marks") helpful or simply discouraging? Do you prefer, for example, "sha-Artan" or "sha-Artán?" 

Fritz Leiber at GenCon

(L to R) Fritz Leiber, Gary Gygax, M.A.R. Barker, Ian Livingstone, Rob Kuntz
(foreground) Steve Jackson (UK)

Earlier this month, I posted an image of an article penned by author Fritz Leiber that appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on September 5, 1976. Leiber recounts his experiences as guest of honor at GenCon IX and, as one might expect, what he writes is of great interest. He begins by briefly recounting the recent history of wargaming, starting with the publication of Gettysburg by Avalon Hill in 1958. (Why he starts there rather than with Tactics in 1954, I am not sure) 

Moving on from that, he speaks of GenCon, the "oldest gathering of tabletop generals in America," which is "held at the pleasant Wisconsin resort-town near Chicago." According to Leiber, the convention's 

newest and most rapidly growing field seemed to be that of fantasy wargaming, where players enjoy the double excitement of being part of an ongoing adventure story to which they can each contribute, along with the regular perils of wargaming.

He goes on to discuss "the most popular fantasy wargame," Dungeons & Dragons, and describes it, along with its co-creator, Gary Gygax. 

I listened in on a game where Gary Gygax, TSR's head, a mustached man of youthful middle years reminiscent of Buffalo Bill, acted as "Dungeonmaster," guiding a dozen or so players in their personae as warriors, wizards, thieves, and priests, variously armed and armored, through a fantasy adventure that began in underground chambers, where monsters lurked, and then burst into a wilderness where there were rivers to ford, cliffs to climb, elephant-like creatures to avoid, and where moving trees pelted them with thorns.

The players could decide whether to flee, investigate and test, or attack, according to their individual natures. A heavily armored warrior went straight forward, swinging a battle axe. A sorceress cast a sleep spell. A roll of dice helped determine the outcome of each action.

I'm fascinated by early – remember: this is from 1976 – descriptions of roleplaying game sessions, especially when they're written by people not involved in the hobby. Leiber's description rings very true to me, but then he was both an imaginative man and someone who'd engaged in proto-RPGs for years. I'm also fascinated by the original art that frequently accompanies these articles, such as this one, which depicts the "elephant-like creatures" and "moving trees" Leiber mentions in his article. Notice, too, the dice at the bottom of the image.

Leiber also recounts a report of a session of Empire of the Petal Throne, refereed by the "mysterious Prof. M.A.R. Barker, a Minnesota scholar of Indian languages and a convert to Islam, inventor of the game, 'Legions of the Petal Throne' [sic] and creator of a fantasy language, Tsolyani, which rivals Prof. Tolkien's Elvish in complexity." The session itself sounds decidedly odd, even by the standards of Tékumel.

"We were following a road through the fog and all we could see were those shadowy black creatures with red eyes," the young man said.

"And then out of the fog these tiny black worms began to fall on us. Wherever they touched flesh, they burned like acid," the girl told me excitedly.

"And then the red-eyed creatures surrounded and killed us, and he had us carried off to the dungeons of his castle where he made a spell and resurrected us from the dead," her companion went on.

She finished happily, "Now he's got to decide whether to torture us all to death, or send us on an almost impossible quest."

Context must be everything, because I have no idea what any of this means, but the participants seemed to have enjoyed themselves nonetheless. 

Leiber ends the article by noting that TSR has just published a fantasy wargame based on his stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, which he and his friend Harry Fischer had devised "back in those primeval days when wargames were an eccentric private occupation." The new game has been updated to "modern fantasy wargaming conventions" and he is happy with the result. All in all, it's a terrific little reminiscence about GenCon IX by someone not directly involved in the hobby but with a better than average understanding of the concept and potential of roleplaying games. Thanks again to Thaddeus Moore for passing this article along to me, along with so many others about which I've written this month.

Identify

Eye Illustration by Luigi Castellani

Original Dungeons & Dragons famously provides no means of identifying magic items beyond trial and error. Consequently, the same is true Empire of the Petal Throne, the earliest RPG set on M.A.R. Barker's world of Tékumel and whose rules are largely derived from OD&D. 

One of the signature "magical" devices of Tékumel is the "eye," ancient technological tools shaped like small, dull gems with an eye-like aperture on one side and a protruding stud on the other. Eyes come in a variety of types, each of which produces a different effect. Over the millennia, certain eyes have acquired traditional names, like the eye of raging power, which projects a powerful beam of energy at its target, or the eye of rising above all, which enables its user to levitate.

All eyes generally look the same, making it difficult to distinguish between them simply by sight. Rarely, one might find an eye whose previous owner has scratched its name onto its exterior and, provided one can read the language in which it's written, that's a great boon. More commonly, though, one must simply test out the eye and hope that its effects are obvious. (High-ranking priests of the Temple of Ksárul possess a spell, called comprehension of devices, that enables them to learn an ancient item's function, but they do not share such knowledge with outsiders)

In my House of Worms EPT campaign, the player characters have acquired many eyes over the years. With the exception of a handful of them, their actual functions remain mysteries, until employed in moments of desperation. Within the first year of the campaign, for example, an identified eye was employed against enemies in the hope it would deal damage or otherwise harm said enemies. Unfortunately – for the players, not for me, since I loved the result – the eye was an eye of departing in safety, which teleports the user and those closest to him to another location designated by the previous user of the eye. This was one of early campaigns great moments, since it led to the characters' finding themselves far from home and having to trek back, overland, to their home city.

The finding of a new eye in the campaign is thus occasionally one of some apprehension and amusement. In our most recent session, several unidentified eyes were discovered among the possessions of slain Ssú sorcerers, their purpose unknown. The player of Grujúng joked among the types of eyes they might have discovered, offering up the following names:

• The Eye of Inscrutable Utility
• The Eye of Unrevealed Operation
• The Eye of Untold Application
• The Eye of Obscure Effect
• The Eye of Mysterious Outcomes
• The Eye of Cryptic Function

Needless to say, we have a lot of fun in our campaign. I'm very much looking forward to our next session, as the characters learn more about the alternate version of Tékumel on which they've found themselves.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 21

Original Dungeons & Dragons famously opened the door to monster player characters, boldly stating "there is no reason that players cannot be allowed to play as virtually anything." On page 21 of the Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax all but closes that door and, in doing so, offers a very clear statement on his belief that "ADVANCED D&D is unquestionably 'humanocentric'." That's a perspective with which I strongly agree, though I suspect it's quite controversial these days (and, to be fair, was probably controversial in some quarters even in 1979). Let's take a look at what he says.

Gygax begins his examination of the topic of "the monster as a player character" by imputing an ignoble motive to any plater with "a strong desire to operate as a monster." He suggests that such a player does this "principally because the player sees the desire monster character as superior to his or her peers and likely to provide a dominant role for him or her in the campaign." This seems like the wrong foot on which to begin this discussion and one that makes it so much easier to dismiss everything he says afterwards. It's a common flaw in Gygax's authorial style, unfortunately.

From there, Gygax makes a subtle elision. The section is ostensibly about allowing monsters as player characters, but he quite quickly moves from monsters to demihumans and humanoids. About the latter, he says that they occupy "various orbits around the sun of humanity." He elaborates in a way that comports with my own thinking: 

Men are the worst monsters, particularly high level characters such as clerics, fighters, and magic-users – whether singly, in small groups, or in large companies … there is a point where the well-equipped, high-level party of adventurers can challenge a demon prince, an arch-devil, or a demi-god. While there might well be some near or part humans with the group so doing, it is certain that the leaders will be human. In co-operation men bring ruin upon monsterdom, for they have no upper limits as to level or acquired power from spells or items.

Gygax goes on to say that humanocentrism simply makes sense.

The game features humankind for a reason. It is the most logical basis in an illogical game. From a design perspective it provides the sound groundwork. From a standpoint of creating the campaign milieu it provides the most readily usable assumptions. From a participation approach it is the only method, for all players are, after all is said and done, human, and it allows them the role with which most are most desirous and capable of identifying with. From all views then it is enough fantasy to assume a swords & sorcery cosmos, with impossible professions and make-believe magic. To adventure amongst the weird is fantasy enough without becoming that too!

For Gygax, this seems to be the crux of it. He saw a need for grounding even in fantasy and believed that humanocentrism was the simplest means of providing that grounding. It's an unusual take on the question, though not wholly without precedent. Gygax seems to have felt that playing a non-human was exceedingly difficult and, in fact, an impediment to approaching fantasy. M.A.R. Barker believed something akin to this, in as much as he felt that very people could play one of a non-human character on Tékumel (which, to be fair, is plausible, given how alien many of them are). 

Gygax further comments that there are very few models for non-human characters to use as inspiration..

When history, folklore, myth, fable, and fiction can be incorporated or used as reference for the campaign, the magnitude of the effort required is reduced by several degrees. Even actual sciences can be used – geography, chemistry, physics, and so forth. Alien viewpoints can be found, of course, but not in quantity (and often not in much quality either). Those works which do not feature mankind in a central role are uncommon. Those which do not deal with men at all are scarce indeed. To attempt to utilize any such bases as central, let alone sole, theme for a campaign milieu is destined to be shallow, incomplete, and totally unsatisfying for all parties concerned unless the creator is a Renaissance Man and all-around universal genius with a decade or two to prepare the game and milieu. Even then, how can such an effort rival one which borrows from the talents of genius and imaginative thinking which come to us from literature?

I doubt many gamers today would be convinced by this line of thought. Even I, who strongly prefers humanocentric fantasy, find it a weak line of argument. I think Gygax's larger point might have been better served if he'd simply acknowledged his preference for humanocentrism and then marshaled evidence, drawn on his own experiences as both a player and a referee, of why humanocentrism led him to prefer human-centered fantasy. 

The remainder of the section deals with the rules-related challenges of allowing monsters as player characters. His concerns seem to be about "game domination" (to use Gygax's phrase), which echoes what he said at the start of this section. If that's his primary concern, I think it's a more understandable one, even to those who are temperamentally inclined to freely allow the playing of non-humans. Like so much in the Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a lot to chew on here, though it's couched in ways that muddle his legitimate points. 

The Emperor is Dead!

(Before your eyes glaze over: this post includes a fair bit of Tékumel talk, but it is not, strictly speaking, about Tékumel. Rather, Tékumel is being used as an example for my musings about a larger topic of interest, I hope, to players and referees of any RPG.)

Victor Raymond recently reminded me of an article that appeared in issue #6 of The Space Gamer (June/July 1976), approximately a year after the release of TSR's Empire of the Petal Throne – which is important, as you'll see. The issue contains an article written by Robert L. Large, Jr., in which he presents a report of a major event from his home EPT campaign, namely the death, at the age of 73, of the Seal Emperor of Tsolyánu, Hirkáne Tlakotáni. The report dwells not on the death of the God-Emperor but rather on the Kólumejàlim, "the Choosing of the Emperor," a ritual by which all the deceased emperor's children, both acknowledged and unacknowledged, contend with one another before the eyes of the Omnipotent Azure Legion to determine which of them will ascend the Petal Throne (while those who lose are ritually sacrificed to prevent the possibility of attempted usurpation and/or civil war). 

It should be noted that, at the time this article appeared, no such event had occurred on "Tékumel Prime," the version of Tékumel that Professor Barker presented to his players. (Hirkáne did eventually die in Barker's campaign but much later and under very different circumstances.) It's also worth noting that there were only three Tékumel sources available when Large's article appeared: Empire of the Petal Throne, War of Wizards, and a single article in the pages of The Strategic Review. Despite this, it's clear that Large had not only made Tékumel his own by extrapolating based on what he had read about the setting in those limited sources but also by introducing elements that made sense to him. He didn't hesitate or worry that he might do something differently than Professor Barker did. In short, he behaved as any good referee ought.

Large's account of the Kólumejàlim suggests that he actually played it out, allowing his players to take the roles of the various claimants to the Petal Throne. For example, the first part of the trials involved an arena duel, which Large notes was handled by means of FGU's Gladiators. Likewise, magical duels were handled by means of War of Wizards. Reading the article, two things struck me. The first is that Large involved his players in determining the outcome of this important campaign event, not as their player characters but as Imperial princes. The second is that the outcome itself was an unexpected one, owing no doubt to a combination of player action and dice rolls. 

Upon completing the article, I knew that, when the time comes for similar events to occur in my House of Worms campaign, I will involve the players too. A big reason why is the possibility of an unexpected result, one I'd never choose on my own. In Large's campaign, the ultimate winner of the contest between heirs was Princess Ma'ín, who has been described as spoiled and whimsical – hardly likely to emerge victorious in a real power struggle. And yet, in Large's campaign, she did and he describes how it came to pass. It's terrific stuff, all the more so because it seems as if the outcome was not predetermined or based on his own wishes. That's how it should be, in my opinion.

As a referee, I have certain predilections and tics that, absent other ideas, tend to impel me toward certain things. I love over-complicated intrigue, with factions fighting in the shadows. I also love magic, mystery, and secrets, which is why so many of my campaigns feature these elements, sometimes to their detriment. Left purely to my own devices, I will almost always develop my campaign in ways that highlight these things. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, especially if the players enjoy it. But, as I get older, I have become more and more convinced that, if one's goal is a long lasting campaign, it's vital that there be surprises and turns that no one, not even the referee, can predict. 

This is part of my renewed interest in wargames and conflict simulations. I remember, back in high school, being obsessed with learning more about "the Game" that GDW used to create the future history that connected Twilight: 2000 and Traveller: 2300. The notion that a game company had conducted a giant, free-form wargame/simulation to help them establish three hundred years of history was so incredibly compelling to me, not least because that future wasn't an obviously predictable one. Whatever flaws Traveller: 2300 had, I appreciated the way that its setting didn't fully embrace expectations, with its diminished USA and Russia and ascendant French Empire, for example. That's precisely the kind of unexpected turns I want in my campaigns too.

I have heard that the war between Tsolyánu and Yán Kór on Tékumel was intended, at least in part, as a way for miniatures gamers to get involved with the setting. Professor Barker was himself an avid player of miniatures wargaming and he fought many battles of this war against his players. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to have allowed the results of those battles to have become canonical in his campaign, opting instead merely to take those elements of them he most liked. I can certainly understand why he might have done this, but, for me, the whole point of gaming out a crucial battle in the context of a campaign is to take its outcome somewhat out of my hands. I know I harp in this a lot but that's only because it's true: the referee is also a player and, as a player, he's as entitled to surprises as his players.

This is why I continue to seek new ways to "automate" campaign events or at least lessen the amount of impact my own preferences have on their outcome. I want my campaign worlds to live and grow somewhat of their own accord and much of the joy I get as a referee is in watching the players interact with the situations and NPCs I've created in unexpected ways. Few people enjoy knowing the ending of a story before they read it. Why should RPG campaigns be any different?

Index Cards

In my mid-teens, I started getting "serious" about my playing of roleplaying games, particularly Dungeons & Dragons. It was around this time that I stopped using pre-made settings like the World of Greyhawk and instead created one of my own. This setting, which I called Emaindor, had its own hand-drawn map (of course!) as well as a couple of binders full of setting details I spent untold hours coming up with (or stealing). That's what I mean by serious.

A related project was a catalog of all Emaindor's named non-player characters, from the emperor of Almeria to the proprietor of of the Free City of Zwardzand's most popular tavern. I don't know where I got this idea – probably an article in Dragon, if I had to guess – but it was one to which I devoted a great deal of energy. I wrote up the NPCs on index cards, which I placed in a lovely wooden card file I'd inherited from my grandfather. Each card had the NPC's name, class, level, and other game statistics, along with a brief physical description and information on his connections to other NPCs (or PCs). 

In the end, I produced a couple of hundred of these cards. Making them almost became a game in itself, as I thought about the important and not-so-important people of Emaindor and imagined their lives and activities. Sadly, I'm not absolutely certain what became of my file box. Up until a couple of summers ago, it rested safely in my childhood home. I might have snagged it and brought it back with me to my house but, if so, I can't find it. A couple of years ago, my mother sold that house and moved and it's also possible she has the file box in a small collection of my possessions she held onto. With the world being what is right now, I haven't been able to visit her and so I cannot confirm whether she still has the file box.

I thought about my file box as I read Tony Bath's Setting Up a Wargames Campaign. In Chapter 6 ("Characterisation"), he talks about the importance of establishing the personalities of the leaders of various factions and power groups within a campaign. He adds:

Then for each character I have an index card. These are filed alphabetically under family names so that if I want to look up the card for Ramaos Vanir I merely look in the tray under V. Each card is headed with the name in block capitals. Under this I record first of all his immediate family history, such as "Son of Ban Cruach, Crown Prince of Aquilonia" or "Second daughter to Vakar, Prince of Hyrkania", since this helps to establish the generation and the direct family line... After this is recorded the character, and then follows any information which is added from time to time – the barony he inherited on the death of his father, his marriage to such and such a person, promotion to command a brigade, taken prisoner at the battle of blank; it all helps keep the records straight, and while much of it may never be used, you will be surprised at how much of it can come in useful at times.

Reading that mirrored my own youthful experiences with NPC index files. I was particularly struck by his comment about how even odd, seemingly pointless information can prove useful in the long run. Perhaps unsurprisingly, M.A.R. Barker kept a similar card file of the NPCs of his Tékumel campaigns. Barker was a miniatures wargamer, after all, and had almost certainly read Bath. Whether his practice was directly inspired by Bath, I can't say but that's not important. What is important, I think, is that both these titans of gaming recognized the importance of keeping track of vital – in the most expansive sense – information for the campaign. 

Following their example (and that of my youthful self), I've done something similar for my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign (and the Riphaeus Sector Traveller campaign before it ended), albeit in virtual form. Over the last nearly-six years, I've amassed a large file of all the NPCs the player characters have met or heard of, along with relevant details about them. It's proven quite useful over the years and has, in a couple of notable instances, made my job as a referee much easier, since I didn't need to create a NPC from whole cloth on the spot but could instead pluck a suitable one out of my file. It's a practice I recommend most highly to referees of any game, especially those whose campaigns are open-ended, long-running, and rambling, as mine tend to be these days.

The Hall of Blue Illumination

M.A.R. Barker's world of Tékumel has been a passion of mine for many years, particularly since 2014, when I began producing The Excellent Travelling Volume. Since late 2016, I've also been one of the hosts of The Hall of Blue Illumination, a podcast devoted to Tékumel. 

As of this date, there are forty episodes to the podcast and, after a pandemic-induced hiatus, we're starting to record new episodes, with an eye toward releasing one each month. The goal of The Hall of Blue Illumination is to "demystify" Tékumel, a setting that is notoriously complex and difficult to get into for those unfamiliar with it. If you've ever had any interest in Tékumel, you might consider listening to an episode or two. I can't promise you'll become as enthusiastic about it as I am, but I hope my fellow hosts and I might at least make it a little less intimidating.

Love and Marriage

The first roleplaying game I ever encountered that included not just discussions of but actual rules for marriage and family life is Bushido. Everything from arranging the marriage to pregnancy to divorce and scandal was covered, each one of which had consequences for the (presumably male) player characters. Though I dabbled in Bushido back in the day, it was never one of my "go-to" RPGs, so I never had the chance to make much use of these rules.

Pendragon, a game I habitually call a "masterpiece" and "perfect," is one of my favorite roleplaying games, despite the fact that I've not had the chance to play or referee it in a couple of decades (though that's about to change, I am very happy to report). I played a great deal of its original 1985 edition – still my preferred one, even after all these years – and one of its signature features is multi-generational play. If one plays through the campaign timeline, one's character will eventually be the son, grandson, or even great-grandson of the character at the start of the campaign and, in order to achieve that, marriage and family are topics of great interest in the game's rules. 

Unlike Bushido's equivalent rules, I have much more experience with the rules in Pendragon and found them incredibly useful in framing the decades-long campaign game for which Pendragon is so well known and rightly praised. The rules themselves are nothing remarkable from a mechanics perspective, but their very existence demonstrates, I think, their importance. I've long felt that you can tell a lot about a game if you examine those activities for which it provides rules. By including rules for courtship, romance, marriage, and the begetting of children, Pendragon tells you precisely what it's about and it's one of the many reasons why I consider it a unique and praiseworthy design.

By placing marriage and family life at the heart of its play, Pendragon also reveals the importance of the larger society in which the characters act. Their adventures resonate in the wider world and have repercussions, both good and bad, for their loved ones and relations. This is in stark contrast to Dungeons & Dragons, where any notion of a larger society is left entirely to the referee's creation. Indeed, there's a story I've heard from multiple sources about M.A.R. Barker's first encounter with D&D, in which he stated, after playing the game for a while, "This is great – but where's the society?" or words to that effect. Professor Barker's question is a valid one, in my opinion, and is reflected in his later thoughts on the nature of RPG campaigns.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, marriage and family are important parts of my ongoing House of Worms campaign. The campaign frame, from which it derives its moniker, is that all the (initial) characters are members of the House of Worms clan, related to one another by blood, though in some cases distantly. Over the course of the years we've been playing, other characters have been added, some of them from different clans. One, Nebússa hiTéshku, is a member of the aristocratic Golden Bough clan and a cousin of the first wife of one of the original player characters, Keléno hiNokór, for example. Keléno has subsequently married two other wives – Tsolyánu is a polygamous culture – each of whom belongs to another clan, creating yet more familial bonds. Consequently, the campaign involves societal/cultural interactions as often as it involves delving into ancient ruins and is all the better for it. Indeed, I'd go so far as to suggest that these interactions are key to the campaign's longevity.

Certainly, there's no necessity that every RPG campaign need go this route and, in fact, I'd argue that they'd be a distraction in many contexts. But, if one is serious about a long campaign,  I can think of few better ways to ensure player investment in it. Anchoring a character into the setting through the bonds of family has proven a very worthwhile approach in my own experience, across multiple games. I'd certainly recommend it as an option to consider when attempting to make a campaign last longer than a handful of sessions.

Saving Throws in EPT

In the realm of roleplaying games, saving throws are, for the most, a distinctly D&D game mechanic. Almost none of the RPGs TSR published during the first decade of its existence included saving throws, not even Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World, whose mechanical debts to D&D are obvious and well known. However, Empire of the Petal Throne, published just a year and a half after the initial release of OD&D, does include saving throws, as we can see.

Though unique to EPT, the chart's pedigree is apparent. Some of the saving throw categories are nominally different and there are fewer of them – four instead of five – but there can be little doubt that they ultimately derive from OD&D. The categories of poison and spells are shared by both, while EPT's paralysis/hypnosis is similar to OD&D's wands and eyes are akin to dragon breath. EPT warriors follow the same progression as OD&D fighting men, right down to the numbers needed for each saving throw category. Magic-users and priests in EPT have a four-level progression like OD&D clerics and saving throw numbers that are almost identical to those of OD&D magic-users, except in the category of eyes, where these classes are better than both of OD&D's spellcasters. Empire of the Petal Throne is sometimes described as a "D&D variant" and, as this shows, there's more than a little truth to that assertion.

More interesting, I think, is the fact that the section detailing saving throws is followed immediately by a section entitled "The Gods, Cohorts, and Divine Intervention." The gods of Tékumel are active in the world and (I think) every rules set created for the setting has included rules for how player characters might invoke their assistance in times of great necessity. I can't help but wonder, in this context, if Professor Barker mightn't have viewed saving throws as minor example of potential divine intervention. In the Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax describes them in these terms, noting that saving throws might represent "skill, luck, magical protections, quirks of fate and the aid of supernatural powers." I may be incorrect in making this connection, but the placement of the discussion of saving throws is nonetheless suggestive, especially considering that D&D generally places them in the section on combat – food for thought, at any rate!

Professor Barker's Solution

 As everyone reading this no doubt knows, Empire of the Petal Throne is one of the oldest roleplaying games in existence, appearing about a year and half after the publication of OD&D in 1974. Perhaps unsurprisingly, EPT draws heavily on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons, to the point where one might not unreasonably call it a variant. There are differences, however, some of which bear further examination, particularly in light of OD&D's perceived mechanical shortcomings.

A good case in point is EPT's treatment of the warrior class, which is obviously modeled on OD&D's fighting man. As yesterday's post makes clear, there's long been the sense that the fighting man (and his descendants) is underpowered when it comes to damage dealing. Various solutions have been proposed over the years, from AD&D's extra attacks against opponents of less than one hit die to 3e's combat feats, and all have merit. In Empire of the Petal Throne, Professor Barker offers his own solution, one that seems to draw, at least in part, from the OD&D FAQ printed in the Summer 1975 issue of The Strategic Review (itself a worthy topic for discussion).

In section 730 of EPT, this appears:

As you can see, as warriors progress in level, they deal greater damage against opponents of lower hit dice than themselves. This begins at Level IV, when warriors rolls twice damage dice against opponents of one hit die. As the warriors gains additional levels, these bonus damage dice not only increase but expand to include ever more powerful opponents. Thus, a Level VI warrior – of which there is one in my ongoing House of Worms campaign – deals three damage dice against one hit die opponents, as well as two dice against 1+1, 2, and 3 hit dice opponents. From experience, I can tell you that's not insignificant and has played a key role in many combats. 

However, Professor Barker doesn't end there. He also includes a "cleave" rule (or perhaps it's an evolution of Dave Arneson's famous "chop 'til you drop" rule), in which damage above that which successfully killed an opponent "spills over" to other opponents of similar sort in range. Again, I've used this rule in play over the course of the last five and a half years and it's been, if not exactly a game changer, a welcome boost to the warrior's effectiveness. Mind you, the lower overall hit point totals of Empire of the Petal Throne – in keeping with pre-Supplement I OD&D – play a role too, making the warrior significantly more durable than either the priest or the magic-user.

Section 730 includes another wrinkle, however, namely:

Thus, both priests and magic-users benefit from the additional damage dice, just not at the same rate as warriors. Given that those two classes also have poorer combat probabilities – identical to their counterparts in OD&D – their likelihood of landing any blow is less than that of a warrior. Even so, they do deal greater damage in combat as they gain levels, just as a warrior does, which somewhat undermines the warrior's battle prowess. I have been tempted to remove this rule in my own campaign, but it's come up so rarely that it hasn't been an issue (the priest and magic-user characters rarely participate in melee, preferring to hang back and employ spells or magic items safely from a distance instead).

Notice, too, that monsters use the bonus damage dice and do so as if they were warriors. This had a greater impact in the early days of the campaign, when the characters were much more likely to encounter creatures of much higher hit dice than themselves (such as the Nshé the ran into while in Salarvyá). Now, with most of the characters fifth or sixth level, it's a rarer occurrence, though still possible, as Tékumel is home to a great many nasty, high hit dice creatures, some of which can be found on the Achgé Peninsula they currently call home. 

Adventure Planning à la Mentzer

 

I've been re-reading Frank Mentzer's 1984 D&D Companion Set, for which I have warm feelings, despite its flaws. While I was doing this primarily to refresh my memory of the rules for dominions and mass combat, in doing so I've come across some very fascinating little bits I hadn't remembered. For example, there's the section reproduced above offering advice on "adventure planning." The interesting bits, in my opinion, occur in the section titled "Rates of Progress."

In that section, Mentzer states that name level characters

should gain a new level of experience for every 3 to 8 successful adventures. More adventures can cause player frustration; fewer adventure can make the game too easy and eventually bore them.

So much to ponder in just a couple of sentences. First, there's the idea that level advancement should occur at a predictable rate. Does this idea exist in any other version of TSR era Dungeons & Dragons? Second, there's the idea that "player frustration" is both tied to a slow rate of advancement – "slow" being defined as more than nine adventures between levels – and to be avoided. To me, that's a strangely reductionist understanding of why people enjoy RPGs. Now, I understand that Mentzer's version of D&D goes all the way to Level 36, so there's probably an expectation of at least some people who play it that their characters might eventually reach that level, which will take time. Does that therefore mean they expect level advancement according to a schedule? I wouldn't think so, but then I share M.A.R. Barker's assertion that a roleplaying campaign is not a casual parlor pastime. 

Take a look, too, at the Adventure Planning Table. The leftmost column is for the number of characters in a campaign, which numbers from 1 to 10. Remember the Companion Rules came out in 1984, just a decade after the publication of OD&D. In my post the other day about large groups, the question of when the shift toward smaller groups became more common was posed. Looking at the chart, it would seem that, whether or not small groups were common by this point, they were at least envisaged as a possibility. A commenter suggested that the shift might have been the result of the game's being marketed more toward children than adults, which I think is plausible. Mind you, I've criticized BECMI as "kiddie D&D," so I might be more inclined toward this interpretation of events than is warranted. Regardless, this whole section is fascinating to me.

What Level is the King?

I remember well when I got my copy of The World of Greyhawk: it was 1982, the same year that The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun was released. I remember that because I justified the purchase of the folio by claiming that I "needed" it as a companion to module WG4, which was (I think) the first AD&D module specifically advertised as being set in the World of Greyhawk (unlike, say, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which, while set on Oerth, didn't draw attention to that fact). I had to justify the purchase because, up until that point, I was a dedicated home brewer when it came to fantasy settings, at least as far as Dungeons & Dragons was concerned. The idea of buying someone else's setting, even if that someone was Gary Gygax himself, initially struck me as odd. I quickly overcame my concerns, in large part because The World of Greyhawk is a terrific product – presenting just enough detail to give the referee something to use as a foundation but not so much that he's drowning in minutiae. From that point on, I became a devoted fan of Oerth and, for a time, shifted the action of my ongoing AD&D campaign there. 

I was especially fond of the entries describing the various kingdoms of the Flanaess. Among the information they provided were the names, titles, class, and level of each realm's ruler. Thus, we learn that the king of the Frost Barbarians is a 15th level fighter, while the Overking of Aerdy is a a cleric/magic-user of 7th/12th level. Indeed, if you spend much time reading the entries – and I spent a lot of time doing so as a kid – you'll notice that the rulers are all at least 10th level and most are in the 12 to 15 range, with some ranging as high as 18th level. At the time, this seemed to make sense to me, since D&D's endgame allowed for the possibility of high-level player characters becoming rulers themselves. Why the wouldn't the king of Furyondy be a 14th level paladin? Furthermore, by making rulers high-level characters, it ensured that they couldn't be easily dispatched by unscrupulous PCs.

As the years wore on, this approach became less appealing to me, for various reasons, and I started thinking about alternative ones. However, it wasn't until I started refereeing my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne that the matter became more pressing. The player characters are now mostly all levels 5 and 6 (which is significant in EPT, given its experience system). More importantly, many of the characters have attained positions of political power within the Tsolyáni colony of Linyaró. Earlier in the campaign, the characters interacted with several politically important and influential NPCs but I never bothered to stat them up, since game mechanics didn't matter in these interactions. As events unfold, though, that might change and I'm not sure the best way to handle things.

What's interesting is that Professor apparently Barker wrestled with this very same problem. The disjunction between power as represented by game mechanics and power as represented by position within the setting is quite acute in Tékumel. The setting's societies are profoundly hierarchical and tradition-bound, where true power flows from sources unlike those represented by the acquisition of experience points and advancement in level. There's no necessary connection between the two: the God-Emperor is the most powerful man in all of Tsolyánu and yet there is no reason to assume he's very high level. Conversely, a very experienced fighter in the Hirilákte Arena might well be quite high level and yet, politically and socially, he's a nobody. This wouldn't be an issue if high level didn't also bring high hit points and generally better ability to survive (though the matter is mitigated slightly in EPT by the presence of an "instant kill" rule not present in D&D). 

Ultimately, Professor Barker's solution was to dispense with levels entirely and create a new game system to accommodate Tékumel better. That system was Swords & Glory and, despite its many flaws, has some interesting ideas to consider on this and other questions. Right now, though, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have you come up with a way to deal with it or is it something you don't worry about in your own games?