The Articles of Dragon: "A Split Class for Nimble Characters: the Thief-Acrobat"

Issue #69 of Dragon (January 1983) is another one about whose articles I have very strong memories. The strength of my memories is bolstered, no doubt, by the issue's remarkable cover by Clyde Caldwell. Caldwell's an artist about whom my feelings are generally mixed, but I've nevertheless got a fondness for this particular piece, which, in some ways, encapsulates the vibe of the dying days of D&D's Golden Age. Consequently, I'll be returning to this issue several times in the coming weeks. 

This week, though, I want to look at Gary Gygax's "From the Sorceror's [sic] Scroll" column, in which he provides full details on the thief-acrobat "split class" that he first mentioned in a previous column. A split class is a specialization path for an existing class, in this case the thief. Provided he has the appropriate ability scores requirements (STR 15, DEX 16), a thief can, upon attaining 6th level, choose to devote himself to acrobatics as an outgrowth of his thievery – in effect, becoming a cat burglar or second story man in criminal parlance.

At the time of this article's publication, this was a comparatively unique concept, one that Gygax claims "has not been expressed before" and for which there is "nothing similar" in AD&D. I'm not entirely sure this is true. As I mentioned previously, the thief-acrobat reminds me a bit of the original concept for the paladin class, as found in Supplement I to OD&D. Likewise, the AD&D version of the bard, in which a character must first attain levels in fighter and thief before becoming a bard, is in the same ballpark in my opinion. Even so, the precise arrangement Gygax presents for the thief-acrobat isn't one we'd seen before.

I liked the idea of the thief-acrobat more in principle than in fact and my friends held similar views. Only one of them ever chose to pursue this split class and the player soon grew bored of playing him. That was probably the biggest problem with the thief-acrobat: it was very specialized and thus of limited utility. This is the kind of class that I could see thriving in, say, an urban, all thief campaign, where each character needs to distinguish himself from his fellow thieves. In a more traditional dungeon-based campaign, I think the thief-acrobat hold much less or appeal – or at least that's how my friends and I viewed it.

When it comes to the question of designing character classes, there are a couple of common approaches, neither of which is without its problems. Dungeons & Dragons began with only a few broad, archetypal classes, like the cleric, fighting man, and magic-user, but soon added many more, each one devoted to a narrower but nevertheless real archetype. AD&D opted for a larger list of available classes, while the D&D line kept to something closer to the original, narrower list. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages and I can easily defend them both.

Had Gygax remained at the helm of AD&D, we would certainly have seen more classes added to its roster, some of which, like the thief-acrobat, would have been quite narrow in their utility. That's not necessarily a problem, but it can add a lot of unnecessary complexity to the game, not to mention diluting the game's flavor. On the other hand, a goodly selection of classes can, if presented properly, increase the game's flavor, with each one revealing more about its explicit or implied setting and the sorts of activities characters are expected to undertake within it.

Whether the thief-acrobat succeeds in doing any of these things is an open question, hence my own ambivalence toward it. Even so, this article sticks in my mind, because, like others written by Gygax at the time, it offered a sneak peek into his evolving vision of AD&D. It was a really interesting time to be a fan of the game and I'm glad to have been around for it.

The Articles of Dragon: "Thieves' Cant: A Primer"

A great weakness of mine is constructed languages. While I can't say for certain – there's always the possibility that something else is to blame – I think it's quite likely that Appendices E and F of The Lord of the Rings planted the seeds of this lifelong fascination. I spent an inordinate amount of time reading those sections at the back of The Return of the King, especially the pages that displayed the Tengwar and the Angerthas. Likewise, when I got hold of The Silmarillion, I paid special attention to its appendix about Quenya and Sindarin names. Along with an old Random House Dictionary of the English Language, whose inside covers had diagrams of the evolution of Latin script, these books pretty much ensured I'd be a conlang nerd for the rest of my life. 

Consequently, I always took great interest in language-related articles in Dragon or other RPG periodicals. Issue #66 (October 1982) featured several of these, all of which left a lasting impression on me. The first, which I'll discuss in this post, was ""Thieves' Cant: A primer for the language of larceny" by Aurelio Locsin. It's a fairly short article that is presented as a document from a fantasy setting detailing the grammar and vocabulary of Thieves' Cant, the secret language of thieves from Dungeons & Dragons. 

Now, Thieves' Cant had, prior to this point, never, so far as I know, been described at any length in any D&D product. The AD&D Players Handbook merely calls it thieves' "own language" and says nothing more about it. I suspect it was on this basis that Locsin formed his ideas about how to approach creating a Thieves' Cant language for use with the game. He wanted to come up with something that had all the features of a "real" language – nouns, pronouns, modifiers, verbs and tenses, etc. – while still being simple enough that it didn't require a degree in linguistics to understand, let alone make use of it.

Of course, that's the crux of it: how were you supposed to use Thieves' Cant? What was its purpose? The article itself, as I said, is short and is presented in a detached, quasi-academic way, as if written by a scholar or linguist from within a fantasy setting, who's now sharing this secret language with the reader. There's, therefore, not even a sidebar or bit of boxed text hinting at how players or Dungeon Masters might make use of this constructed language in their adventures or campaigns. Instead, it's simply described, complete with a section in the center of the magazine that's supposed to be removed and then cut and folded to produce a 32-page two-way pocket dictionary of the language.

Another equally frustrating issue with the article is its very basis. Locsin's vision of Thieves' Cant is of an actual language, with its own distinct grammar and vocabulary, just as Elvish or Orcish would have their own distinct elements. This seems completely wrongheaded to me. Historically, thieves, criminals, and other outcasts have had their own unique ways of communicating with one another – you know, a cant or jargon that's known primarily by other members of group in question. There are innumerable examples of this in the real world and very few of them were created from the ground up by inventing a new grammar and vocabulary. It seems highly unlikely that Thieves' Cant would be an exception.

As I recall, the reaction to this article, both in the letters column of future issues and in later articles about languages in D&D, was not positive. I can't say that I disagree with those reactions. Re-reading the article in preparation for writing this post reminded me of just how weird and ultimately useless it is. I hate saying that, because it's clear Locsin put some effort into inventing the grammar and vocabulary, but I'm still left wondering why? What did he think would be done with the language? Heck, what did he do with the language in his own campaigns? Had he written about that, even a little, it might well have improved the article's utility. As it is, "Thieves' Cant: A primer for the language of larceny" is just an oddity and nothing more.

Fortunately, I have better things to say about this issue's other articles about language.

Level Titles: Fighters and Thieves

Level titles first appeared in original (1974) Dungeons & Dragons, seemingly inspired by the various types of figures available in the "Fantasy Supplement" to Chainmail (1971), about which I may make a separate post later. These titles, in themselves, have no mechanical purpose whatsoever, serving solely as a verbal way to distinguish between two characters of the same class but of different levels. Consequently, they disappeared entirely from AD&D's Second Edition (1989), but were present in all editions of D&D until the Rules Cyclopedia (1991), when they disappeared (though they did reappear in the brief and often forgotten The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game in 1994).

Since I've lately become very interested in the degree of continuity between the various editions of D&D, I thought looking at the level titles of the various classes might make for an interesting series of posts. To start, let's look at fighters (fighting men) and thieves. Here's the level title chart for the former from Volume 1 of OD&D:

 In the AD&D Players Handbook (1978), the list is identical.

However, in the 1981 David Cook/Stephen Marsh-edited Expert Rules, we get this list of level titles, which is only nearly identical. The 3rd-level title, Swordsman, becomes Swordmaster, probably for the same reason the 9th-level title, Lord, gains the parenthetical option of Lady. All later editions of D&D (1983, 1991, 1994) use these same level titles.

Thieves first appear in Supplement I to OD&D (1975) and use the following level titles:

In the AD&D Players Handbook, we get a slightly different list for thieves. Most of the titles are the same, but the levels they're associated with are swapped. We also get a couple of new titles, like Filcher at 6th level and Magsman at 8th level, because Gygax loved obscure and archaic words.

The D&D Expert Set much more closely follows the Supplement I level titles than does AD&D, replacing only Master Pilferer at 8th level with Thief instead (and lowering the level at which Master Thief becomes available).

Of the two character classes examined today, it's the thief that shows the most changes in its level titles between their first appearance in Greyhawk and later versions, though, even there, the changes are small. Meanwhile, the fighter changes barely at all. The same cannot be said of clerics and magic-users, as we'll see in the next post in this series.

Yet More Thoughts about Skills

Last month, I presented a draft of a proposed new character class for inclusion in Secrets of sha-Arthan, the tomb robber. A common question about the class, both in the comments and in separate emails, concerned my inclusion of skills among the tomb robber's abilities. Long-time readers will no doubt remember that, in the early days of this blog, I was a fairly strong opponent of the inclusion of a skill system into class-based RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons. I was likewise an opponent of the thief class introduced in Greyhawk, viewing it as a self-justifying class for which there is no real need.

In the early days of the Old School Renaissance, such positions were pretty common, maybe even normative. This was, after all, the beginning of the re-evaluation of the virtues of Original D&D (1974), when a lot of us who'd either never played OD&D (raises hand) or who had long ago abandoned it in favor of later elaborations upon it, embraced it with zeal. Remember, too, that the OSR grew up amid the wreckage of Third Edition, whose mechanical excesses served as negative examples of what could happen when D&D's design "strays" too far from the foundations laid down by Arneson and Gygax in 1974. And one of 3e innovations was the addition of a skill system separate from class abilities.

Looking back on it now, I can see that my desire to avoid what I perceived as the flaws of Third Edition often led me to rhetorical intemperance. That's certainly the case with regards to skills, though, in my defense, I started to moderate my stance relatively early. That moderation was the result of play, particularly in my Dwimmermount megadungeon campaign, where I came to recognize just why the thief class and skill systems had organically evolved. Even so, I retained a certain wariness about both, since I continued to feel, as I still do, that character skills should never become a crutch for lazy play, which is to say, interacting with the game world solely through the game mechanic of skill rolls. 

That said, what ultimately changed my opinion for good was my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign (take a drink). EPT, as many of you probably know, includes a skill system – the first, I believe, to appear in any roleplaying game. The skill system is certainly primitive by comparison to those in later RPGs, like Traveller or RuneQuest, of course. Indeed, the skill mechanic is vague and not very well integrated into EPT's overall play, but it's there. Consequently, when refereeing House of Worms, I made regular use of it.

What I discovered is that none of my earlier, hyperbolic concerns proved true at all. Skills never dominated play, nor did they encourage lazy play. The players rarely initiated skill rolls as a means to avoid having to think in-character or grapple with a problem presented to them. Instead, they might ask, "Does my character's Scholar skill give him any idea about the architectural style of this ruin?" or "Might my Jeweler-Goldsmith skill give me some idea of the value of this gemstone?" Sometimes, I'll call for an actual percentile roll to determine whether the skill grants the character the requested knowledge or not, but many times I'll simply make a judgment as to whether or not the skill is sufficiently expansive to grant it. Ultimately, the decision of how to adjudicate skills rested with me, the referee.

For me, that's the key. I dislike skill systems that demand a referee do something in response to a player-initiated successful roll. I much prefer those where skill use is a negotiation between player and referee and the final decision of whether a skill is relevant – or whether a roll is even needed – lies with the referee. Maybe that's common sense, but it's not the way I've often seen skill rolls used. Instead, they're more likely to be something a player employs to ensure a referee does (or does not) do a given thing within the context of the game. "I made a successful Stealth roll, so my character can sneak across the room without being seen by the guards" or "I got a success on my Persuasion roll and convince him not to report this to his superiors."

Skills – or perhaps competencies might be a better term – can be a good way for players and referees to cooperate in interacting with the setting and events within it. That's how I've been handling skills in House of Worms and I've taken that experience into Secrets of sha-Arthan as well – or at least I hope to do so.

Secrets of sha-Arthan: Tomb Robber

A tomb robber by Zhu Bajie

 

Tomb Robber 

Prime Abilities: DEX and INT

Hit Points: 1d6 per level 

Starting Possessions: Leather breastplate, dagger, one-handed weapon, tool bag, 3d6 × 5ul

An almost universal custom among the myriad peoples and cultures of sha-Arthan is the burial of grave goods to aid the deceased in his journey to the afterlife. A tomb robber is someone who makes his living by stealing these goods, despite the strong taboos against it. The skills he acquires in these illicit endeavors make the tomb robber a valuable addition to expeditions into the Vaults. 

Alertness

Thanks to his keen awareness of imminent danger, a tomb robber reduces the chance of his party being surprised to 1-in-6.

Skills

A tomb robber begins with four +1 bonuses that may be applied to any of them following skills: Architecture, Climb, Lore, Luck, Search, Stealth, Survival, and Tinker. Each bonus must be applied to a different skill. Every level thereafter, he gains two additional +1 bonuses that can be applied to any of the aforementioned skills. 

• Dead Languages: Because of his familiarity with inscriptions in ancient ruins, the tomb robber does not suffer the usual –3 penalty for attempting to read dead languages.
• Improvisation: If specific equipment is normally required to use a skill he possesses, a tomb robber does not require it. If he does possess the equipment, he gets a +1 bonus to his roll. 

Trap Avoidance

To succeed in his chosen professional, a tomb robber develops a knack for avoiding traps. This knack grants him a +2 bonus to saving throws to avoid the effects of traps. 

White Dwarf: Issue #76

Issue #76 of White Dwarf (April 1986) features a cover by Peter Andrew Jones, whose art has appeared on the cover of the magazine several times in the past, the most recent being a year before, with issue #64. Like his previous work, this cover is quite striking, depicting a hippogriff – a mythological creature not often shown in fantasy gaming illustrations, so it definitely wins points in my book for its uniqueness (though its inclusion here is in reference to the issue's AD&D adventure).

Ian Marsh's editorial notes that the "unannounced demise" of many long-running columns in WD, such as "Starbase" for Traveller, "Heroes & Villains" for superhero gaming, "Crawling Chaos" for Call of Cthulhu, "Rune Rites" for RuneQuest, and, most significantly, "Fiend Factory," a staple of the magazine practically since its inception. Marsh claims that, "with the greater variety of popular games on the market, having a department for each is impractical, and indeed restricts the content of the magazine." Future issues would include articles according to different metrics, such as themes. Issue #76 is the first example of this, focusing as it does on thieves. 

The issue begins with a longer than usual "Open Box" that devotes three pages to its many reviews. The first is ICE's Riddle of the Ring boardgame, which received only 6 out of 10. Better reviewed is another ICE product, Ereech and The Paths of the Dead for MERP (9 out of 10). Chaosium's solo Call of Cthulhu adventure, Alone Against the Wendigo, receives 8 out of 10, while the Paranoia scenario, Send in the Clones, is judged slightly more harshly (7 out of 10). TSR's Lankhmar – City of Advenure, meanwhile, gets a rare perfect score (10 out of 10), which is slightly generous in my opinion, but I can't deny that the product is a good one nonetheless. Two adventures for FASA's Dr. Who RPG, The Iytean Menace and Lords of Destiny, are reviewed positively and, oddly, receive a joint rating of 8 out of 10. Finally, there's Hero Games's Fantasy Hero (8 out of 10). That's quite a large number of products for a single issue – and not a single GW product among them!

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" does its usual thing and I do my usual thing of mostly not caring. More interesting to me is the first of this issue's thief-themed articles, "How to Make Crime Pay," by John Smithers. It's written as if it were a lecture given by a guildmaster to apprentice thieves and it's all the better for it. Smithers presents lots of practical advice on how to handle a wide variety of larcenous activities within a fantasy RPG. What makes the article stand out is that its framing device makes it such that the article is useful to both players and referees without having to shift perspectives or divided itself into different sections. Articles of this sort are hard to pull off, so I'm all the more impressed that Smithers succeeded.

"You're Booked" by Marcus L. Rowland is an expansion of Games Workshop's Judge Dredd RPG, introducing the "misunderstood" Accounts Division of Mega-City One's Justice Department. The article lays out the purpose of Acc-Div, as it is known, and how it could be used within a campaign, with several scenario outlines presented as examples. The division is not suitable for Player Judges, but its inclusion in an adventure or campaign could help to flesh out the Justice Department and add a note of levity, as Judges deal with paperwork and expense accounts. 

"Glen Woe" is a Warhammer miniatures scenario by Richard Halliwell. It's intended to expand upon the material provided in McDeath – a Shakespeare-inspired scenario pack released around this time. Not being a Warhammer player, I can't to much about the quality of the material presented here, only my amusement at knowing there was ever a miniatures scenario based around MacBeth. "Banditry Inc" by Olivier Legrand looks at thieves guilds within the context of AD&D from the referee's point of view. While hardly revolutionary, it nevertheless raises some useful questions about the organization and operation of the guild that any referee should consider if thieves and thieves guilds become important in his campaign.

"Caped Crusaders" by Peter Tamlyn is a three-page article on "running Golden Heroes campaigns," though most of its advice is equally applicable to superhero campaigns using another RPG system. Tamlyn covers a variety of topics and the quality of his advice will depend, I imagine, on how familiar one is with both refereeing and the superhero genre. I judge it pretty positively myself, though I imagine others might find it old hat. "Thrud the Barbarian," "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers" are all here, among a handful of only a few remaining connections to the eatly days of White Dwarf. Since I was not a reader of the magazine at this time, I can't help but wonder how much longer they will continue to grace its pages.

"Castle in the Wind" by Venetia Lee, with Paul Stamforth, is a lengthy AD&D scenario aimed at characters of 5th–8th levels. As its title suggests, the adventure concerns the sudden appearance of a "sky castle" above a desert in the campaign area. There are several things that make "Castle in the Wind" stand out aside from its length. First, there's its vaguely Persian setting, a culture that doesn't get much play in fantasy games in my experience. Second, there's the clever design of the sky castle itself (including its hippogriff nests). Finally, there's the open-ended nature of the adventure itself, which spends most of its text presenting a locale rather fleshing out a traditional "plot" for the player characters to follow. 

"How Do You Spell That?" presents a collection of six new AD&D spells culled from reader submissions. The article is listed as being part of the "Treasure Chest" column, which surprised me, since so many other standbys of White Dwarf were axed this issue. Part two of Joe Dever's look at oil painting closes out the issue. In addition to the usual color photographs that always accompany it, the article also includes a mixing guide for how best to achieve certain results when using oil paints.

I must admit, I found this issue a bit of a slog. I don't know that it was objectively any worse than most issues. Indeed, I suspect it was probably better than many I'd read in the past. Nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling that the magazine has changed and that change has started to sap my enthusiasm for reading it. Of course, I might simply be tired of this series. Slightly more than three-quarters of the way to 100 issues, I hope I can be forgiven a little White Dwarf fatigue. Still, I will attempt to soldier on for a little while longer.

White Dwarf: Issue #45

Issue #45 of White Dwarf (September 1983), featuring a very weird cover by Gary Ward, is an important one in the history of the magazine, at least for me. First, this issue marks the premier of two new comic strips, both of which are very dear to me. Ian Livingstone would seem to agree, since he uses his editorial to announce this fact and urges readers to give the new comics "a chance to settle in." I gather from his comments that not all readers like comics in their gaming magazines, which is understandable, as gaming comics tend to be very hit or miss (mostly the latter, in my experience). Second, this issue also marks the appearance of the very first battle scenario for Warhammer in the pages of White Dwarf. It is an omen for things to come.

The issue kicks off with "Open Box," which reviews Avalon Hill's Wizards. This is a game I regularly saw in game stores but never owned or played. The reviewer, Alan E. Paull, found its presentation somewhat frustration, but liked its gameplay enough to give it 7 out of 10. Meanwhile, Oliver Dickinson gives Pavis 9 out of 10, which is, I think, a little stingy. The older I get, the more I have come to appreciate the output of Chaosium in the late '70s and early '80s, with Pavis and Big Rubble among its masterpieces. Also reviewed are three modules for AD&D and one for D&D: Tomb of the Lizard King (9 out of 10), Pharaoh (10 out of 10), Oasis of the White Palm (10 out of 10), and Blizzard Pass (6 out of 10) respectively. With the exception of Blizzard Pass, I think these ratings are a bit generous, but tastes differ, of course, and I recall thinking much better of the "Desert of Desolation" series at the time than I do now.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" spends most of its space on a lengthy review of C.J. Cherryh's Downbelow Station, which was the winner of the previous year's Hugo Award for best novel (for what it's worth). Langford seems genuinely well disposed toward Cherryh as a writer, but doesn't think this is her best effort. He also does quick reviews of three other books, including Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, which is an admittedly strange book to review in White Dwarf, though "Critical Mass" frequently devoted itself to books other than those that could easily be called fantasy or science fiction. 

Part 2 of Dave Morris's "Dealing with Demons" focuses on lesser demons, describing them and their abilities for use with RuneQuest. The article's main attraction, in my opinion, is that these demons are (mostly) original rather than drawing on real world myths and legends. It's a clever approach to the topic, I think, though they're a good fit for RQ's Glorantha setting is another matter (assuming that was the intention, since the article is silent on the matter). "Gateway to Adventure" by Bob McWilliams is a "cameo" adventure, which is a coinage of McWilliams for "small scenes or themes that could be fitted into an ongoing campaign." In this case, the cameo is about researching an interplanetary transport device – the titular Gateway – that leads somewhere else. McWilliams doesn't provide any information on what's beyond the gate, leaving that to the referee to decide, which is admittedly a little unsatisfying. On the other hand, the set-up is fairly good and it's an unusual one for Traveller, which is a plus.

"Stop, Thief!!" by Marcus L. Rowland is a short article detailing the contents, along with individual weight and costs, of the items in a typical thieves' kit. I personally don't care for this level of detail, but I can appreciate its utility in certain circumstances. Part 4 of Daniel Collerton's "Irilian" is as good as its predecessors. In addition to the usual mix of local businesses, this installment describes the town's guards, bureaucracy, and ruling council. It's packed with the kind of detail that a referee needs if he intends to use a town as regular locale for his campaign. There's also an adventure set in the town relating to religious corruption and false relics – good stuff!

As I mentioned earlier, this issue marks the debuts of two new comic strips. The first is Thrud the Barbarian by Carl Critchlow. Thrud is a delightful parody of Conan and his mighty-thewed knock-offs. Most of Thrud's adventures involve random mayhem and destruction as a result of his penchant for attacking first and then thinking later, if at all. I'm especially fond of his encounter with an Elric clone, but most of his stories are great. Also premiering in this issue is Mark Harrison's The Travellers, which is a similarly broad parody of science fiction, filtered through the lens of GDW's Traveller. If anything, it's even more delightful than Thrud and I simply adored it back in the day (and still do).

"Divinations" by Oliver Dickinson is largely a collection of errata and clarifications to RuneQuest and RQ products. As such, it's only of interest to diehard fans. "Thistlewood" is a Warhammer Fantasy Battles scenario intended for two, four, or six players, plus an umpire. The scenario is a fairly typical "defend a sleepy little village against invaders" kind of thing, but it's filled with lots of charming details and information from the early days of Warhammer, before it became the behemoth of later years, so I find it strangely compelling nonetheless. Of particular note is the fact that the scenario is written by Joe Dever, best known for his work on the Lone Wolf series of gamebooks.

"Fiend Factory" offers up four new elemental monsters for use with D&D and AD&D. The somewhat misnamed "Elemental Items" by Daniel Hooke is actually a collection of eight new magic items that pertain to the para-elemental planes. Finally, "Super Mole" is a gossip column about the RPG industry, written by an anonymous author, after the fashion of Gigi D'Arne of Different Worlds but without the bitchiness. Most of the gossip is ephemeral stuff that has little lasting value, but I did find the section relating to Chaosium and its licensing of RuneQuest to Avalon Hill fascinating. According to Super Mole, Greg Stafford stated that the Chaosium crew simply wanted to design games and had no interest in "printing, selling, credit control," and the more tedious, business-related aspects of producing RPG materials. This is something I've long suspected to be the case (and indeed may have read somewhere else), but it's fascinating to see it stated here so baldly.

Issue #45 is another solid one. White Dwarf has really hit its stride in my opinion, though I am undoubtedly biased, since I'm now well into the run of issues with which I am most familiar. We're not quite yet at the point when I was a regular subscriber, though that will come soon and I'm rather excited to revisit those particular issues. In the meantime, though, I continue to enjoy these revisits to one of the truly great magazine's of our hobby.

Retrospective: Thieves' World

I've long had a fondness for Chaosium's boxed sets, starting with Call of Cthulhu, the first RPG from the company I ever owned. From there, it was all downhill: with the exception of RuneQuest, I soon became a dedicated collector of Chaosium's boxed sets. Among those I treasured the most was Thieves' World, based on the fantasy anthology series of the same name edited by Robert Lynn Asprin. 

The boxed set, first published in 1981, consisted of three books and a collection of maps depicting the city of Sanctuary. The first book, Players' Guide to Sanctuary, serves as an introduction to not just the whole set but also its setting. Kicking off the book are two essays by contributors to the literary anthology, starting with Asprin's "Full Circle," which was simultaneously published in issue #12 of Different Worlds. Following it is "Thud and Blunder," Poul Anderson's essay skewering the excesses of sword-and-sorcery literature and a call to produce better entries in the genre. Rounding out the first book are discussions of the city, its inhabitants, history, and gods, as well as an extensive glossary of names and terms unique to Sanctuary.

The Game Master's Guide to Sanctuary presents a variety of articles on how to use the boxed set in one's campaign. These articles discuss bribery and graft, law and order, and the gods (in greater detail). More immediately useful are the extensive encounter tables, each tied to one of the city's districts. Each district gets its own article, including a map that describes the most important locales. In some cases, there are also maps of individual buildings. Wrapping up this book is a map of the city's sewers.

Personalities of Sanctuary is the third and perhaps most interesting book in the set. Each of its chapters describes the most important inhabitants of Sanctuary in terms of a different roleplaying game's rules – Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (by Lawrence Schick), Adventures in Fantasy (by Dave Arneson and Richard Snider), Chivalry & Sorcery (by Wes Ives), DragonQuest (by Eric Goldberg), Dungeons & Dragons (by Steve Marsh), The Fantasy Trip (by Rudy Kraft), RuneQuest (by Steve Perrin), Tunnels & Trolls (by Ken St. Andre), and Traveller (by Marc Miller). The last one is notable, as Miller offers three different ways to integrate Thieves' World into Traveller's science fiction setting. The most interesting of these options is one that postulates that Sanctuary is a computer simulation created for entertainment – a kind of MMORPG for the citizens of the Third Imperium. Concluding the third book is a collection of scenario ideas.

There are three large maps included in Thieves' World: one depicting the whole city, another the Maze district, and the last one the underground areas of the same district. The maps are lovely, as is typical for Chaosium products from this era. 

Thieves' World is an impressive boxed set and I deeply regret that I long ago got rid of mine in a moment of stupidity. I absolutely adore the idea of fantasy cities, particularly those of a shady, crime-ridden sort like Lankhmar or Sanctuary. That said, I can't deny that the set nevertheless has flaws, chief among them being the amount of space devoted to describing all the characters in so many different RPG systems. I'd much rather that the book had provided statistics for only two or three rules sets – D&D, RQ, and T&T maybe? – and then used the freed space to flesh out the city further or expand the scenario ideas instead. Of course, I'd have been even happier if this product had been a complete Thieves' World fantasy roleplaying game using Basic Role-Playing, but I can't really complain in the end. If  only I'd kept my copy … 

Retrospective: Thieves' Guild

Despite my Hamlet-esque waffling about the merits of thieves as a character class in Dungeons & Dragons, I'm actually a huge fan of the archetype of the thief. From Bilbo Baggins to the Gray Mouser to Cugel the Clever, fantasy literature is filled with innumerable examples of thieves, burglars, and mountebanks as protagonists, so many that it could reasonably be argued that the thief is a much more foundational fantasy archetype than the cleric (but that's an argument for a different time). Consequently, I've long had a hankering to run a campaign in which all the characters are members of a criminal gang in a fantasy city. Not only would this be a lot of fun but it's a set-up that drinks deeply from the literary wells that watered the early hobby.

In thinking about this, I was reminded of Thieves' Guild, a 1980 product written by Richard Meyer and Kerry Lord, published by Gamelords (whom I knew well from their many excellent Traveller books). Intended as "the first in a continuing series of player and GM aids providing rules and scenarios for adventuring in the medieval underworld," Thieves' Guild was not, in fact, a mere add-on to D&D or other fantasy RPGs – though it could be used as such – but rather a complete game in its own right, released as 128 three-hole punched pages in a bag. Its system, known by the rather bland name of the "FANTASY SYSTEM" [sic], is clearly a close cousin of both D&D  (it has levels, for example) and Basic Role-Playing, cribbing elements of both, resulting in something that is simultaneously just familiar enough to be largely intelligible without much effort but just different enough that you need to keep checking the rules to see how various aspects of play are handled. 

Rules-wise, Thieves' Guild is probably most notable in two areas. The first is in its selection of available character races. In addition to the usual suspects of humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits, there are also centaurs, goblins, kobolds, orcs, and pixies. There are also rules for cross-breeding these various races, should one care about such matters. More interesting, I think, are the skills, which, as one might expect, give a lot of attention to those used by thieves. There are also skills for many legitimate professions, quite a few of which have relevance in a campaign set in and around a large urban location. By most standards, the skill system is nothing special, but it's hard not to appreciate that the designers recognized the need to flesh out other professions in order to provide some context to the adventures of thieves. 

Intriguingly, there are no rules for magic in Thieves' Guild. Magic exists in the world of Gateway (as the game's setting is known) but it's not something thieves are likely to know. As in D&D, thieves can attempt to make use of scrolls, but it's a risky endeavor not to be undertaken lightly. More information is instead provided on combat, including various forms of non-lethal combat, since many thieves find it useful simply to incapacitate rather than kill (thereby leaving open the door for "rogues with hearts of gold" and similar characters). Disguises, fencing stolen goods, ransoming prisoners, and similar activities in which thieves might engage also get fair treatments, as do the workings of the Thieves' Guild and the legal system. None of these topics is covered at immense length, but the very fact that they're covered at all is a step up from most fantasy RPGs in 1980.

Where Thieves' Guild really stands out is in its scenarios, many of which are included after the rules. These scenarios are divided into categories, like "bandit," "highwayman," and "cat burglary," among others. In this way, the writers did a great service to referees and players alike, highlighting that the profession of thief includes more than just simple robbery. The breadth of scenario types is quite impressive and the scenarios themselves, while far from masterpieces, are nevertheless engaging. If nothing else, they offer the novice referee models to use in crafting his own, including maps of locations both outside and inside.

I never owned or saw Thieves' Guild back in the day, though I was aware of its existence from many advertisements in Dragon magazine. When I finally did see it years later, I wished I had encountered it sooner, as it's something I would almost certainly have enjoyed. Gamelords supported the line with supplements, each one offering additional scenarios and rules to expand the scope of a thief-centric fantasy campaign. The company also released a boxed set describing the Free City of Haven, another product I would have loved to have owned in my youth and only ever saw many years later. I have no idea how successful or well-received the series was, only that I think it remains a great idea and one I'd like to make use of at some point in the future.

Imagine Magazine: Issue #24

Issue #24 of Imagine (March 1985) features a cover by Ken Kelly and marks the second anniversary of the TSR UK magazine. As its cover proclaims, this issue is dedicated to thieves and, unlike several previous themed issues, almost the entirety of its contents do in fact deal with thieves and related matters. The thief content kicks off with "Criminal Negligence" by Kerry Bateman, which examines the class from an unexpected perspective. Bateman suggests that thieves are misunderstood and maligned in AD&D. The article then talks about what makes the class unique and valuable, as well as addressing common questions and concerns about the class. There's very little world shaking here, but it's not a bad introduction to both the class and this issue's overall theme.

Venetia Lee's "Thieves' Den," meanwhile, is a lengthy and imaginative discussion of thieves' guild, with an eye toward using them in D&D campaigns. I've long had an interest in running an all-thief campaign and this article approaches that subject, along with guidelines for doing so. The Pelinore installment presents the Old Bastion, a safehouse used by the City League's thieves. The installment also provides an overview of the thieves' guilds of Pelinore and how they operate. Chris Felton's "All That Glistens …" discusses scams and illegal activities in which thieves can participate beyond outright theft. 

"How to Sell the Ponti Bridge" is a larcenous short story written by none other than Neil Gaiman, long before he was a world famous, best-selling author. While I'm no fan of Gaiman's work – heresy, I know – I'm nonetheless tickled to see his byline in the pages of a RPG magazine. It's a reminder of just how important roleplaying games, particularly D&D, has been in promoting and popularizing the fantasy genre through which many new writers have come to prominence. "Guilty if Caught" is a mini-adventure intended for an all-thief group, written by Mike Brunton. Actually, it's more accurate to call it three mini-adventures, each one a job offered to the characters by the thieves' guild to which they belong. Chris Barlow's "An Open and Shut Case" examines locks from historical, technological, and game mechanical perspectives. It's a very narrow topic but well done and surprisingly interesting.

"Microreviews" looks at two early computer games, Runes of Zendos and The Wrath of Magra, neither of which ring a bell with me. This month's RPG reviews cover modules for Dragonlance, Marvel Super Heroes, and AD&D. Most fascinating to them, though, is the review of Golden Heroes, Games Workshop's superhero roleplaying game. I owned Golden Heroes based on the relentless advertising of it in the pages of White Dwarf and rather liked elements of its design. The review in this issue speaks well of it, suggesting that it's more complex and detailed than the TSR game, making it better suited for older and more sophisticated players. I'm not sure I'd agree with that, but it's been decades since I last looked at Golden Heroes. Maybe it's time I correct that?

Brian Creese's "Chainmail" looks at playing auto racing games, like Formula One and Speed Circuit, by mail. I continue to be intrigued by Imagine's regular coverage of postal games; it's a window on another age. Colin Greenland reviews Dune (which he liked, particularly its costumes and sets – who can argue with him?), Gremlins (which he didn't like), and The Black Hole (which he openly mocks). He also takes a look at Raymond Feist's Magician, a book that's very contentious in the world of Tékumel fandom, since the invading Tsurani Empire clearly owes a lot to M.A.R. Barker's fantasy setting. I've never read a word of Feist's books, but, from the descriptions, here and elsewhere, it's little wonder that the matter is fraught with acrimony.

"Stirge Corner" by Roger Musson continues to tackle the matter of wilderness travel. In this issue, his interest is on the conflicting demands of what I'd call Gygaxian naturalism – creating a plausible wilderness that follows predictable rules – and one that's at least somewhat "balanced" toward the levels of the characters traversing it. Usually, I find Musson's thoughts congenial with my own. Here, I disagree strenuously with the idea that even wilderness encounters ought to be scaled to the characters' power. I like my wilderness wild and dangerous – and capable of slaying unwary characters who travel through it unprepared. This issue also includes new episodes of all its comics, but, since I never read them anyway, I have little to say on this score.

Issue #24 was a very good one. Its focus on thieves, despite my well known ambivalence toward them as a class, was a true highlight and I found many of its articles genuinely of interest to me. I hope that the coming issues are equally good.

Retrospective: Blizzard Pass

Yesterday's post about solo wargames reminded me of something that I had almost forgotten: that, in 1983, TSR  published the first of two solo adventure modules for Dungeons & Dragons. Entitled Blizzard Pass and written by David Cook, this module is, in broad outline, not all that different from a Fighting Fantasy book like The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Considering the immense popularity of the Fighting Fantasy books at the time, one can hardly blame TSR for attempting to horn in on that market.

TSR's solo adventure modules differed from Fighting Fantasy in two key ways, however. First, and most obviously, they were written for the D&D rules, which are required to use them. Second, and more interestingly, the solo modules didn't simply make use of numbered paragraphs, as Fighting Fantasy did. It also used an invisible ink pen. When you opened up the module, before playing it, you'd see lots of blank boxes scattered throughout the text. As you worked your way through it, you'd use the invisible ink pen to reveal the text hidden in those boxes. Though obviously a gimmick – and an excuse, no doubt, to increase the price of the module – it's not an inherently ridiculous idea. Mind you, at the time, I thought it was yet another manifestation of kiddie D&D and made fun of it. I only had the chance to read it years later and it's not nearly as bad as my younger self would had imagined.

The adventure scenario itself isn't itself particularly memorable, but it nevertheless contains some interesting content, as we'll see. The module provides you with a pre-generated character – a Level 1 Thief – is provided for use with Blizzard Pass, though it does leave open the possibility that you might want to generate your own character. Unfortunately, the text indicates that, if you go this route, you're limited to creating a thief, which is rather disappointing. In any case, the pre-generated character has 18 Constitution, presumably to ensure that he has 7 hit points. That's because the adventure is quite difficult, even unforgiving at times, and your character will need each and every one of those hit points to survive, a fact Cook acknowledges straightaway: "This adventure is a dangerous one, so do not take any decision lightly." Good advice!

That acknowledgment is part of "Guidelines and Tips for Playing the Solo Adventure." Some of the points it offers are so fascinating that I have reproduced the section below for the benefit of everyone reading this post.

Notice that guideline 2 is to "resist the temptation to alter die rolls, for any role-playing game will lose all its excitement and challenge if the players use only the best rolls." I find it hard to argue against this point and I presume most readers of this blog would feel similarly. Guideline 5, meanwhile, states "If you are using a character from a regular game, be ready to accept the character's fate. It must be removed from the regular game if it is slain in this adventure!" That's pretty hardcore, wouldn't you say? I think it's a perfectly defensible position, but I rather expect that very few people abided by it. It's also a little odd, given the limitation on the type of character that can undertake this adventure (thieves). My suspicion is that this is boilerplate text that was reproduced in all the modules of this series (of which there are two), though I can't say for sure, since this is the only one I have seen.

The adventure itself, as I mentioned above, is not particularly memorable, though it's not awful, given that it's a solo scenario. It begins in medias res, with the character fleeing from an unjust accusation of murder. If he's lucky, the character ends up captured and joining a caravan of snow sledges heading toward the titular Blizzard Pass. Because of his skills as a thief, the character is eventually given the option of aiding his captors as the weather worsens and their situation becomes more precarious. Naturally, he soon finds things aren't as simple as that and the real adventure begins, including a means to prove his innocence. 

Like the Fighting Fantasy books, there are ample opportunities for death, both of the instant "You are dead" variety resulting from a bad choice and from bad dice rolls in combat or for saving throws, according to the rules of D&D. Some of the "right' choices are hard to determine, while some of the "wrong" choices actually make more sense, at least to me. But then part of the fun of these kinds of programmed adventures is that they're hard and require as much dumb luck as skill in surviving the situations they describe. In that respect, Blizzard Pass is fine, though nothing special. Its real appeal, I suppose is that, after you've played through it, the caverns of Blizzard Pass can be re-used as an adventure locale, complete with two new monsters. That might not seem like an innovation, but I can't tell you how often I wished that the Fighting Fantasy books had included a full map and key so that they could be re-purposed for a RPG session. 

I know very little about the success or failure of the solitaire D&D modules. I can only assume they sold poorly, or at least not as well as more traditional modules, because there were only ever two published. 1983 is right in the middle of TSR's "experimental" phase, when the company was trying all sorts of new ideas, in an effort to secure and expand D&D's appeal. Like licensed adventures and odd branded items, Blizzard Pass doesn't seem to have advanced that goal significantly and is now mostly a curiosity from the Electrum Age of Dungeons & Dragons. 

Confessions of a Thief Hater

In its early days, one of the things for which this blog was well known was its poor opinion of thieves. I won't link to all the posts from the period between 2008 and 2010 in which I catalogued everything I disliked about the thief class, because there are too many of them, but you can find them easily enough using the search box or the tag "thief." In large part, my skepticism was part of my attempt to understand the three little brown books of OD&D on their own terms rather than through the lens of later accretions to it. Since I had never known D&D prior to the introduction of the class, I felt it was important to see what the game would be like without them. Was D&D somehow "incomplete" with only three classes – cleric, fighting man, and magic-user? Did thieves add something to the game that was otherwise have been missing? I had no idea and strongly believed, as someone trying to peer back into a past I hadn't experienced myself, that the only way to find out was to try and play the game as people had before Supplement I: Greyhawk arrived on the scene.

Was I too strident in my pronouncements about thieves in the past? Absolutely. I had the zeal of the newly converted and I let it get the better of me. Playing OD&D "straight" for the first time was an amazing experience, one that, I hope, gave me a few insights into its history and design, but it also clouded my judgment a bit. That probably explains why I got so much pushback in those days, with people popping up everywhere to defend the honor of the thief class, with some of them doing so in terms that were every bit as forceful as the ones I'd used to denounce it. True, some of the responses were intemperate, to put it charitably, but much of what I wrote was too. 

That said, I did quickly soften my stance, because, as I played OD&D more, my players and I saw that there was a space, if not necessarily a need for a character class like the thief. I was almost certainly recapitulating the experiences of others before me, but that didn't lessen the importance of experiencing it myself. As I said, I'd never played OD&D before and I didn't feel it was wise to make pronouncements about it without having tried it as written. Regardless, I eventually came to accept the thief class, at least in principle and have allowed it in all my games since.

I'm still not 100% sold on the traditional conception of the thief class. I have misgivings, for example, about the find traps ability, among other things, but I am no longer opposed to the very existence of a class like the thief. I presented the beggar recently and I also like the burglar; there are no doubt others I'd also appreciate. I'm still looking for the "perfect" version of the class, but I'm much less obnoxious about my reservations, at least I hope I am. This is a topic to which I'll be returning regularly, as I continue work through it.

The Split Class

Lately, for reasons unknown even to myself, I've been re-reading Unearthed Arcana, one of the last things TSR published under Gary Gygax's byline. I'm on record as disliking it, feeling that it's a product of AD&D's creative decadence, a rococo gilding of the lily that ultimately lent credibility to many of the design decisions made in 2e. But I don't mean this post to be one about what's wrong with Unearthed Arcana but rather something that I think is right about it, or at least that might be right about it.

In this book, Gygax introduces not a new sub-class of the Thief but rather a "split class," the Thief-Acrobat. According to the text, a split class is a "specialist" thief who "leaves off all practices which increase his or her manual dexterity and begins a regimen of physical exercise in order to build coordination, muscle tone, and balance." Thieves who wish to do this must be at least 5th level and possess Strength 15 and Dexterity 16. If those requirements are met, the thief in question ceases to improve his pick pockets, open locks, find traps, and remove traps abilities (and never gains read magic) in exchange for gaining new abilities such as tumbling, tightrope walking, and high jumping. In most other respects, he remains like a normal, non-specialist thief.

What's immediately interesting to me nowadays is how similar in some ways the Thief-Acrobat is to the original conception of the paladin, which was more of a specialist fighting man than a distinct class -- meet certain requirements and you gain new abilities at the expense of others. It's an approach I've been tempted to employ in my Dwimmermount campaign, even though, to date, I've never allowed any classes beyond the cleric, fighting man, magic-user, and thief. Interestingly, this is similar to the approach Frank Mentzer adopted in his own revision of the D&D rules and one of the bits I most like about that rules set. Of course, the Thief-Acrobat is somewhat different, because it uses a different XP table than does the standard thief, a design decision that's defensible but I personally dislike, as it muddies the distinction between a split class and a sub-class.

Still, I find myself attracted to the idea of the split class as a means to create character class "specialties" without having to go the route of introducing whole sub-classes, some of which -- the druid and illusionist come immediately to mind -- involve significant rules additions. Time permitting, I may tinker with the notion of a few OD&D-style split classes and present them here for discussion. I think the split class is one of the more genuinely innovative ideas to be found within Unearthed Arcana and it's a shame it wasn't embraced more broadly in the subsequent history of the game. There may well be a reason why that's the case, but I need to explore this idea a bit more before I can decide my opinion on the matter.

"Holmesisms"

One of the fascinating things about re-reading Holmes is noting that, despite its strong congruity with the LBBs -- specifically the LBBs + Supplement I -- it's also full of idiosyncrasies. In some cases, like the oft-mentioned magic missile spell description, these idiosyncrasies are completely understandable. They're clarifications of ambiguities in the OD&D rules, albeit ones whose interpretation failed to find favor with the powers that be and thus was relegated to a footnote in the early history of the game.

Others, though, are just out of left field. A good example of this are the thief's saving throw numbers. According to Greyhawk, "with regard to saving throws treat Thieves as Magic-Users." However, Holmes treats thieves as if they were fighting men with regards to saving throws. Now, this decision is completely justifiable and, on a lot of levels, I rather like it, but why did he make this change? Indeed, was it even his change or was it something imposed on the rules by Gygax or someone else at TSR? The latter seems unlikely, given that AD&D doesn't follow this logic, but could it have been something that was being considered at the time Holmes Basic was being edited?

There are a lot of "Holmesisms" in the Blue Book. I'm slowly working my way through its 48 pages and cataloging them all and it's really fascinating to see. As I'm likely to say a lot in the coming weeks, the Holmes rulebook is an amazing historical document if you're interested in the development of Dungeons & Dragons.

Musings on RuneQuest Skills

For various reasons, my thoughts have been turning to RuneQuest a lot lately, particularly RQ II, which is the edition with which I have the most familiarity. RQ is a game that attracts a lot of attention from gamers dismissive of the concept of "old school gaming." I presume it's because RuneQuest has both a skill system and a highly detailed game world associated with it, which they mistakenly assume to be contrary to old school design principles -- but that's a topic for another post.

Anyway, while looking at my RQ II rulebook today and I paid careful attention to the skills it includes. If one leaves out combat-related skills, here is the standard complement of adventuring skills:

• Camouflage
  
• Climbing
  
• Evaluate Treasure
• Hide in Cover
  
• Hide Item
• Jumping
• Listen
  
• Lock Picking
• Map Making
• Move Silently
• Oratory
  
• Pick Pockets
• Read/Write Foreign Language
  
• Read/Write Own Language
• Riding
• Speak Foreign Language
• Speak Own Language
  
• Spot Hidden Item
• Spot Trap
  
• Swimming
• Tracking
  
• Trap Set/Disarm

There are also a handful of very specialized skills, mostly pertaining to crafting. Now, when I looked at the list above, what I immediately noticed is that, with very few exceptions, the skills are those I'd associate with D&D's Thief class (even Oratory, which is primary about swaying the emotions of others for one's own benefit), that is, physical/athletic skills and larcenous/"adventuresome" skills. That's not what I was expecting to find.

On the one hand, I suppose I shouldn't have been at all surprised. Despite its subsequent development, RuneQuest in its early days shared a lot with Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, and other fantasy games, where characters were assumed to be ne'er-do-wells in search of fame, fortune, and power by delving into ancient ruins and contending with foul monsters. In that context, the skills make perfect sense. On the other hand, it's still striking to see how different one's perceptions of a game don't always match up to the reality of how the game is actually presented. When I think of RQ nowadays, I am almost always thinking not so much of the game itself but of the game world with which it is associated, Glorantha, and the full-bore Glorantha that only came to pass after many years and many supplements describing it -- the serious mythopoeic Glorantha that seems to have pushed aside the wild and woolly gaming Glorantha of yore.

I'm not sure there are any deep insights to be gleaned here, but I thought I'd share my thoughts nonetheless. I'll have more to say about RuneQuest and the role it plays in the old school renaissance in the days to come.

Latest Thiefly Thoughts

In the nearly two years I've been writing this blog, a lot of (virtual) ink has been spilled about the thief class and its suitability in old school D&D. On a largely theoretical level, I've been more or less firmly committed to the "Just Say No to Thieves" camp, seeing the class as an unnecessary interloper whose presence lays the groundwork for a number of later unhappy developments. But theory that doesn't work in practice is bad theory and, as I've discovered over the course of the Dwimmermount campaign, the notion that the thief class is a priori bad is mistaken, or at least it is often mistaken.

Brother Candor employs a cynical, pipe-smoking woman named Gaztea, whom he hired in Adamas primarily as an information gatherer. However, she's also technically a Supplement I-style thief, which I allowed as an experiment to see whether her presence would affect the game in any significant way. Well, Gaztea has affected the game but not in any of the ways I worried she might. For one, low-level thief abilities are pretty hit or miss, with the exception of climbing walls. Second, Brother Candor and the other characters rely on Gaztea far more for her social skills, which is to say, her underworld connections in Adamas, than they do for her skills in picking locks or finding traps (She's also, of late, taken up the study of ancient Thulian and alchemy, but that's another story).

In many months of play, none of the things I feared about thieves ever came to pass. A big part of that, I think, is because I'm aware of the potential pitfalls and have done a good job of avoiding them. Equally important is that my players, especially Brother Candor's player, keep Gaztea's abilities in the proper perspective. They have the right frame of mind and don't see thief skills as an excuse for non-thieves not to try "thiefly" things. Indeed, I'd venture to say that Brother Candor, Dordagdonar, and Vladimir all spend more time finding and removing traps, for example, than Gaztea ever does.

The example of Gaztea is a good reminder to me of that eternal truth: the play's the thing. I can muster 1001 cogent arguments against the thief class from a theoretical perspective, but none of them are worth anything if, in actual play, the thief class manages to avoid all the dire consequences I "knew" would transpire. My experience also serves as a reminder on the design side of things as well: don't design rules with bad players in mind. Any rule, no matter how well written, can and will be abused by players looking to find a way to take advantage of a situation. I think many (though not all, by many means) of the arguments against the thief class arise from a fear of abuse by players or even referees and, while one should be aware of such things, I think it a grave mistake to make decisions based largely on how a rule could be abused.

In the Dwimmermount campaign, despite my skepticism, the thief class is working, so I'm going to continue to allow it, not just for NPCs but for any future PCs as well. Obviously, every referee must make a determination for his own campaign based on his own experiences, so I don't mean to suggest my stance ought to be universally adopted. Still, I have to admit to some small joy in discovering my long-held skepticism was misplaced in this particular case.

Going Lightly Armored

Supplement I introduces the idea of giving Fighting Men a bonus to their Armor Class based on their Dexterity. While I appreciate Gygax's feeling that he needed to "beef up" Fighters, I have been considering ways to make going lightly armored more attractive to all classes in OD&D. One option I am considering is allowing a Dexterity bonus to Armor Class only to characters wearing leather or cloth armor. Another option is allowing Fighting Men so armored -- and only Fighting Men -- the chance to deal double damage from behind if they surprise their opponent. This would give a tangible benefit to a "sneaky" Fighter but at the cost of heavier armor. I have discovered that, in OD&D, being able to wear chain and, especially, plate armor is a huge boon to survivability, so foregoing that in exchange for the chance to deal more damage under the right circumstances seems a fair trade.

On Traps and Thieves

One of the interesting peculiarities about the Supplement I (and Holmes) thief class is that, while it possesses a "remove traps" ability, it does not possess a "find traps" ability, which wasn't introduced until the AD&D Players Handbook and also adopted by the Moldvay rules. (As an aside, it's worth noting that the Cook/Marsh Expert Rulebook lists only "remove traps" as a thief ability on its class tables, although one presumes this is just an editorial glitch). I surmise that the thief lacked an explicit "find traps" ability, since it was simply assumed they had the same chance to find them while searching as any other character class (1 in 6). Thus, thieves were adept only at overcoming traps once found but lacked any special skill in finding them.

In playing my Dwimmermount campaign, what I've noticed is that what I enjoy most about traps is not the question of whether the PCs will find them -- they generally do given enough time -- but how they go about avoiding them. The players have been very ingenious in the methods they've employed to defeat many of my traps. They've really gotten into the spirit of things, describing precisely what their characters do, often employing common adventuring equipment like iron spikes, 10-foot poles, and rope to sidestep hidden dangers. When they can't do this, they look for ways around the traps, by taking other passages or doors. It's really amazingly gratifying to see and a vindication of my experiment in old school archeology.

Consequently, I'm starting to think that it's not the thief's "find traps" ability that bugs me, but rather its "remove traps" ability. As I said, with only a couple of notable exceptions, the players largely intuit when traps are afoot; perhaps my dungeon designs telegraph the presence of traps too easily. Regardless, I don't find much fun in having the characters harmed through random trap damage because they failed a 1 in 6 dice roll. That's not to say I don't do it, of course. Several hirelings have died in Dwimmermount because of undetected traps, for example, but it's not something I derive any satisfaction from. On the other hand, watching the players grapple with a mysterious trap, trying to figure out what it does and how they might avoid its effects is something I do greatly enjoy, particularly when they figure out how it works only after they've accidentally sprung it.

I'm not entirely sure what all this means just yet. Although Brother Candor's henchman Gaztea is a thief, complete with a "remove traps" ability, we've actually not been using that ability at all, sticking with the traditional method of having the players describe what their characters do to avoid the traps. Even after 16 sessions of this approach, we haven't tired of it and, I think, prefer it to the traditional AD&D/Moldvay method of handling trap removal with a percentile roll. Granted, it means that the vast majority of the traps I place in Dwimmermount have to be explicable, which is to say, I have to be able to describe their components and context in such a way as to enable the players to find a way to defeat them. That's limiting on some level, but it also ensures that I can't produce "traps" that are little more than game mechanics waiting to interact with the "remove traps" ability. Dwimmermount's traps have to work, if you get my meaning.

So, while my stance on the thief class continues to soften, my opinion is still very much in flux and I'm finding a lot of my biggest dislike of the class, purely from a mechanical standpoint, centers around the "remove traps" ability.

Unknown Thieves

I was looking at the guidelines given in the Expert Rulebook for "levels beyond those listed," which offers some advices to referees looking to expand the rules to cover levels 15 and up. In the section describing thieves, it says:

It will be noted that thieves have high chances of success in their special abilities when conditions are favorable for that action. Thieves will therefore gain new abilities requiring greater skill and danger. These will include the ability to climb overhangs, upside down, ventriloquism, powers of distraction, and the ability to mimic voices.

Somehow, I never noticed that passage before or, if I did, I don't remember reading it. I'm not sure what I think about their possible inclusion or how their inclusion might have affected my estimation of the thief's place in D&D. Still, this is the first time I've seen a suggestion to expand the thief's skills in old school D&D beyond the thief-acrobat in Unearthed Arcana, but I do find it very intriguing, if only because it reveals avenues for further developing the class that are consonant with its origins rather than pushing it toward the ninja death commando of later editions.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Cugel's Saga

Jack Vance's sequel to 1966's The Eyes of the Overworld was published in 1983 -- too late for Gary Gygax to have included it in Appendix N. Nevertheless, there's little doubt that Cugel's Saga, like its predecessors, is a "D&D novel," which is to say, a novel whose characters and plot, such as it is, reflect the rambling picaresque nature I strongly associate with the campaigns of my youth. Granted, Vance's characterizations, to say nothing of his dialog, far exceed anything I ever created in those bygone days, but the fact remains that, of all the Dying Earth books, this is the one that reminds me most of the perpetually down on their luck ne'er-do-wells that populated games of yore, not just in my own campaigns but in those of my friends.

Cugel's Saga has a vaguely Sisyphean quality to it, as the title character begins the novel trying once again to make his way home to Almery after having been outwitted by Iucounu the Laughing Magician -- exactly the same predicament in which found himself in The Eyes of the Overworld. This time, though, Cugel seems even more determined to exact his revenge upon Iucounu, along the way acquiring both items and accomplices that he hopes will enable him to achieve his ultimate goal. Consequently, this novel feels somewhat different than its predecessor, even though the overall plot -- more like a collection of vignettes really -- is roughly identical.

To my mind, Cugel's Saga feels somewhat dark, though not nearly as dark as The Dying Earth. Part of that may be because his failures do not sit well with Cugel, making him ever more intent on giving Iucouno his comeuppance. Consequently, Cugel comes across, to me anyway, as a bit more despicable and self-interested than he was in The Eyes of the Overworld -- a fairly impressive feat. He's still amusingly foppish, vain, and convinced of his own natural superiority, but there's a single-mindedness to him now that casts some of his actions in deeper shadow. That's not to say the novel is not humorous, since it is, uproariously so in places. Rather, I wish to point out that, just as The Eyes of the Overworld has a different literary "texture" than does The Dying Earth, despite being set in the same world, so too does Cugel's Saga feel different than The Eyes of the Overworld, despite focusing on the same character.

Nevertheless, Cugel's Saga offers nearly everything you'd expect from Jack Vance at the height of his powers. If the book has a weakness, it's the ending, but then one doesn't read picaresques like this one for the ending; it's the journey along the way that's the true story.