Recent Additions: A Winter's Tale (Part 1)

This particular edition is long. As in broke into two parts long. Over the winter months, games continued to arrive at Grubb Street. This particular batch has a couple stories attached to the entire delivery process. So you get to hear about them as well as the games themselves. I make no apologies (Well, I do, but not to yinz folk).

Further, because I've had these in-house for so long, I've read a bit more than I normally do for initial impressions, so I have more to say about the guts of the product. I have, as they say, opinions.

As a result of all this, the writeup on this got a bit ... long. I have a lot to say about the new arrivals. AND often something about how I buy and receive games. So this time I'm breaking it into two versions. So buckle up. Here's Part 1.

Blue Planet: Recontact by Jeff Barger and Greg Benage, Biohazard Games and Gallant Knight Games Slipcase with two hardbound books; a 328-page Player's Guide and a 358-page Moderator's Guide, 2024, Kickstarter. 

So there's a story here (hey, I warned you). I kickstarted the game and kept up irregularly with their updates over their campaign. One of their updates in early December said that their US deliveries had been complete. I realized I hadn't gotten a copy yet. I checked through the links provided and they said yes, they had shipped it, and yes, UPS had delivered it and yes, here's a picture of it my porch stoop. But I don't remember picking it up and opening it. I assumed porch pirates, and contacted Gallant Knight at the address provided, and they kindly said they'd send me a replacement in January, after they had wrapped up all their deliveries. Which was nice.

Except ...

I HAD received my copy of the game. I got it with some presents I had ordered online for the Lovely Bride for Christmas and without thinking had put it into the closet to be wrapped. Upon discovering that I did have a copy, and it was NOT porch pirates, I contacted Gallant Knight again and told them I was an idiot. And they said, "Don't worry, that stuff happens to us too." But the whole way they handled it was professional, friendly, and, well, nice. Good going, Gallant Knight

Anyway, I LOVED the original Blue Planet from 1997, so I was really looking forward to this one. The original was a testament to hard-SF world-building. Here's the deal - Earth finds a wormhole at the edge of the solar system. It leads to another solar system, which has a habitable world, Poseidon, which is mostly water with a scattering of archipelagos. Settlers are sent out. As they set up shop, the Earth governments collapse under environmental disasters and Poseidon is cut off. Finally, Earth recovers enough to establish recontact. And a slew of new settlers, corporations, and political factions arrive, which puts more stress on the already established human settlers as well as the native life, including what may be intelligent life. 

The new version? All that and more. It is a deep dive (that's a pun there) on the world, its natural history, and the various factors. This is mostly about the world-building - the game rules don't show up until page 265 of the Player's Book. The mechanics are straightforward and have a whiff of old school Traveller to them, but the world-building is the star here. It is a really good setting if you hanker for that hard SF style. 

Flott's Miscellany Volume Three by Thaddeus Flott, Imaginary Alchemist,  by Andrew Devenney, Alisha Forest, Rich Forest, and Bill Spytma, 36-page Pamphlet, Superhero Necromancer, Kickstarter, with fulfillment on Backerkit, 2025. 

These have been a series of pamphlet-sized zines dealing with another world under water. In this case, the Rainy City: a ramshackle town that is the last relatively dry spot in the world. It has its own share of refugees, natives, and weirdness.

And it deals with a miscellany of things, which can be neatly looted for other campaigns - beneficial aid societies, gargoyle lore, and the closest thing to an adventure area that I've seen. It is rules-agnostic, which adds to its portability, but, like Blue Planet, it is about the world-building, though on a much reduced scale. It would frankly make a nice home base in a Ravenlofty Domain of Dread.

Downside? The cost of shipping was an additional one-third of the original cost. Yeah, that's turned into a debit on Kickstarters, in particular for 'zines. And after a few of these, it's probably time to gather everything together under one cove, make an editing/development passe and OGL it for the latest edition of your favorite RPG edition - I'd favor a D5.5/Blades teamup.

Forgotten Realms Heroes of Faerun by Jason Tondro et al, Wizards of the Coast, 192-page hardback, 2025, and Forgotten Realms Adventures in Faerun by Jason Tondro et al, Wizards of the Coast, 192-page hardback, 2025, Alt-Cover editions, both purchased from Midgard Comics, Games & More

I picked up the alt-cover versions at my local comic shop, which also hosts RPG and MTG nights. And  what attracted me to it was the dynamic style of the covers, which were very different from either the traditional 5/5.5E covers, or the previous art-style covers. I think their art-deco design is cool, though I wouldn't want it on every book they release.

And I should note that I paid for these books, as opposed to getting them from WotC. That's cool, too, and they did give me and Ed Greenwood a thank-you in the credits. But just so you know, I'm predisposed to them, but owe them nothing as far as a review. Oh, and they made serious mention of Alias of Westgate, a character my wife and I created for the novel Azure Bonds (still available in your finer used bookstores).

Anyway, one of the graces and the challenges of the Realms has always been that it is so big and rich. Over the years, there have been a lot of game books, novels, computer games and comics set here, and the task of dealing with it may be daunting for a player or DM. We built a lot of it in 1st and 2nd edition, worked over a bunch of it in 3rd and 4th. In 5th edition, WotC swung the other direction, and kept it mostly confined to the Sword Coast, ignoring the rest, which also frustrated people. This version neatly splits the difference. It talks about the major areas in the Player's Expansion (Heroes of Faerun), and then drills down into a handful of locations in the DM's Expansion (Adventures in Faerun) with different flavors of fantasy. Which is a nice way of providing a lot of options to the player without hitting them with a firehose. It also shows off the Realms as hosting different flavors of fantasy - The Dalelands is your standard setup, Icewind Dale leans towards survival horror (man against nature), Calimshan graces the entire Arabian Nights fantasy, the Moonshaes are celtic and fae, and Baldur's Gate is urban fantasy. All in all, a great tour of the kinds of campaigns you may want to run.

Even with picking a few places in the Realms, there is a lot here. Heroes of the Realms covers how all the races/species fit into the Realms (including the ones that showed up most recently). There are a buncha subclasses. backgrounds, and feats. A good chunk on gods (and there are still a lot of them). Stuff to buy, magic, and factions. Opens a lot of doors and options for the players. The Adventures in the Realms book drills deeper into the subsettings I mentioned above, but also sets up particular settings and frameworks for running adventures there. Plus an overarching meta-adventure, more monsters and magic items unique to the Realms. And advice on how to run the Realms. 

And it is really good. One thing I disagree with is their portrayal of the Realms as a higher-level campaign, and its recommendation you start at 3rd-level. I think the Realms is a suitable setting for low-level campaigns that let you grow into your character, and deal with low-level threats, but that's just me.. 

Riverbank, by Kij Johnson, Open Design/Kobold Press, 192-page hardbound, 2025, Backerkit.

The term "cozy" as a genre first showed up for me in mystery novels. The British countryside. The sleepy little town nestled in the farmland. The occasional murder, but it is always a polite murder, lacking a lot of the unnecessary bloodshed. There's still conflict, but it much more mannered. Agatha Christie gets the nod as the mistress of the Cozy, but it has spread far and wide, and jumped the genres into things like role-playing games. 

Riverbank is very much a delightfully cozy RPG (Full disclosure, the designer is a friend and former colleague, the editor is a friend and former colleague, and the publisher is a friend and former colleague - just so you know). All the characters are Animals with a capital A, which sets them apart from the ordinary animals. They wear clothes. They drive vehicles. They pay visits to friends and take tea. They are very British in their outlook, and summon up visions of Winne-the-Pooh, Master Toad, Peter Rabbit, Frodo and Bertie Wooster.  They live alongside humanity, and are treated much better than other members of the Empire were in the early 20th Cent. 

There is conflict and challenge here, but without combat. You may not have gotten an invite or have to chase down a rare toy or have to suffer the visitation of a horrid relation. The key here is to keep a balanced demeanor, measured by a scale similar to Pendragon. Slip too far in one direction and artistry takes over, and you ignore all else to write an opera. Slip too far in the other and you have the urge to shed you civilized weskit and slacks and make a nest or dig a burrow. There's a variety of Animals to choose from, but all Animals are equal, at least in size, and very hobbitish in their demeanor. Yeah, the early chapters of The Fellowship of the Rings is appropriate here as well, where the lads are crossing the Shire and worried about nothing more than Farmer Maggot's dogs. 

The game itself has a couple card decks to handle Betweentimes (actions between adventures) and Hapazardry (random encounters) as well as specialty dice, but neither are required to play the game (they have tables within). And the pieces of these are drifting in piecemeal for fulfillment, such that the card decks showed up after I took the above photo but before I finished this lengthy epistle. 

But all in all, it's a nifty hardback, and my only real regret is that I sprung for the deluxe edition, with its stamped gold foil cover, instead of the regular version, as the art by Kathleen Jennings (who is not at this time a friend or former colleague) is spot-on in capturing the spirit of the game. And a very cozy spirit it is. 

Dragonlance Legends by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Random House, 1114-page Hardback, contributors copy from the Author. 

This is a collection of the second Dragonlance Trilogy - Time of the Twins, War of the Twins, and Test of the Twins, the twins in question being Caramon and Raistlin. This second trilogy followed hot on the heels of the original Dragonlance Adventures trilogy, and broke away from the map-based flow of the original three and charted its own course. There were no game tie-ins at this point, and it represents where the novels took command of Krynn and its future. 

Here are all three books in their glory between one set of covers. In addition, the volume has songs written by Michael Williams, and short essays by some of the original creators, including yours truly. The original stories are now forty (forty!) years old, and it makes me smile to see them available once more. 

Epic Tales (Alpha Playtest Rules) by Stan! Stannex Press, 4-page pamphlet,  2025, Gift of the creator.

This is the last entry of part one, and is a very small one, designed by friend, designer, and frequent youtube host Stan! Brown. Epic Tales is very simple RPG. You choose your Occupation (otherwise called Class), Specialty (what you're good at), Weakness (what you might struggle with) and head off to adventure. That's about it - target numbers of difficulty and how much effort you want to put into the roll (from Lazy to Maximum). You have Action Points to jimmy the odds in your favor. 

And that's about it. It's a simple, straightforward set of rules. Why do I mention it here? Because I want him to expand it out and get to a copy that he feels comfortable running at conventions. 'Cause I think he has something here. So if you see him at a convention, be sure to ask him about it. Not that I'm being evil and pushy about it at all.

And that draws us to a close on the First Part of the Winter of Too-Much-Content. Stay tuned for part 2

More later,

Top Ten

I don't pay attention (much) to stats and traffic on this blog, but we've just edged past 20 years, and I got curious. There have been almost 2500 posts on this blog, and over a million views. Most of the entries have had a very short shelf life, in that people catch up on them in the first couple days, then they go into the archives, never to be seen again by mortal eyes. But the platform does indicate which posts get the most traffic. 

This Spelljammer post is the all-time winner, with 12.5 k views. Spelljammer gets attention every so often (particularly around the new release of the setting), so it has perked up.

Here's a writeup of why I left TSR, which pretty much sums up to disappointment over a project that went south (Mystara), new opportunities, and realizing it was my time to move on.

Another big one is my announcement that I was leaving ArenaNet for Amazon Games. No hard feelings on this one - I had a great time and had a great time at Amazon as well (and now I am at Zenimax Online Studios, working on Elder Scrolls Online, for those who are keeping track).

Here's a review of the 5E Player's Handbook. At the time of release I had a credit as a Design Consultant, but the Design Consultant credits were removed from later printings because of ... stuff. That's cool. I have not been asked in on 6th Edition, and that's cool as well. 

I try to wrap my head around why layoffs for TSR and WotC always seemed to hit around Christmas-time. The image to the appropriate Dork Tower cartoon is broken, but you can still click on the space to call it up. Since the Hasbro acquisition, they seem to have calmed down, and now do layoffs and staff reductions throughout the year. So that's ... better, I guess?

I use this space to work out my own thoughts on stuff, and here's one about Tekumel, in which I try to work through the fact that good things can be created by bad people. Still thinking about the separation of artist and art.

The highest-rated non-game review is a book about games - Playing at the World, which was a detailed treatise on the origin of wargames and RPGs from the dawn of time to my first GenCon. Still an excellent book. Go read it.

This post is a reprise on the earlier post about the product that went south at TSR. It was an overview of the Mystara project that I had to abandon. I gave the original manuscript away to a fan who planned to make it available to others, but they ultimately could not get permission from WotC/Hasbro legal. Ah, well. At least I got the manuscript out of the house. 

Similar to the Spelljammer posting at the top, I did one on Marvel Super Heroes as well, giving a peak behind the process of creation. I did one on the Forgotten Realms as well, but that clocked in lower on this list. 

Finally, the sole political post on this showed up, and this one was complaining about advisory votes on the Washington State ballot. I have no idea why THIS one gets the nod - perhaps it caught an algorithmic wave. Ten years later, the legislature is removing these votes from the ballot. They are supposedly making the information available on a web site, but I'm not seeing any roll-out on this. Knowing what your representatives are voting on is good, but this particular process was just sad.

So what do I get out of this? Well, posts about gaming and gaming history seem to do well. Personal stuff is OK with major moves in my life. Missing are theatre reviews, local politics (mostly), and comments about commemorative quarters. But I'm still going to do them, since, you know, I'm doing this primarily for my own benefit. 

See you folks in another decade, maybe.

More (inevitably) later,

Coming Attractions

 How did the reading go? It went very well, thank you, and I appreciate the actors who read our works. It is good to hear our lines in the voices of others.

Next in the queue, Jim Ward, Ed Greenwood, and I are returning as "The Wizards Three", where we talk about the Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance. Be there or be square!

More later,

Plague Books: The Evolution of Gaming

The Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson, The MIT Press 2020

Provenance: Christmas present, 2020, despite the fact that it went on sale on 22 December of that year. This one is jumping the queue in the reviews, because I have three friends who are already interested in reading it as well.

Review: OK, I'm a fan of Playing at the World, both the book and the blog. PatW covers the history of wargames and roleplaying games, up to about 1975 or so. Elusive Shift carries the story just a bit further, drilling down on the gaming community from about 1975-1980, and the changes that swept roleplaying during that time. In particular, it starts with the fact that the original D&D, the little brown box with the pamphlet-sized booklets, were not called a roleplaying game at all, but rather a wargame. It did not even mention Dungeon Masters*. So how did things change? How did D&D evolve?

Peterson concentrates on the playing community in this book. TSR walks onto the field with statements by Gygax and Top Secret designer Merle Rasmussen, but most of the action is outside the city limits of Lake Geneva, in the fandom and in the myriad of small competitors that sprung up around the initial release of D&D. 

Peterson works from primary sources as well, with the published fanzines of the era, as opposed to the memories of the original participants. That's got plusses and minuses. One great plus is that memories are short and recollections are often shaded by intervening events. The past gets revised and rewritten in the retelling. I cannot remember if our group ever referred to the DM by the earlier term of Referee (even though we had a song called "My God What a Cheap Referee")**

The downside is that these primary sources are they are the words of people who wrote stuff down, which is a vocal subset of the entire playing audience. These were people who had opinions, and for whom examining, expanding, explaining, and defining the game was as important as playing in it. It is valuable information, but there is a lot of personal opinion in there as well.

One of the big primary sources for this information was the late Lee Gold's Alarums & Excursions, an excellent zine that has run from the distant past of D&D to the present. In construction, it was actually a collection of zines - you'd write up your four or ten pages, make copies (often mimeographed) on colored paper, send in the copies, and Gold would assemble and distribute them to the other readers and contributors. I've read a number of copies over the years, but because I did not read them sequentially, I missed a lot. Many writers would respond to things from the previous issues, making any edition of the magazine sort of like coming into the middle of a thread on the Internet, where everyone seems to know what is going on but you. 

Lee Gold created A&E in part because she came out of SF Fandom, and Peterson shows that as a definite split in the early fans - those that came out of SF that were attracted by the subject matter, and those who came out of wargaming, who were playing Avalon Hill games like Panzer Blitz and Gettysburg, writing up Diplomacy 'zines, and playing games at conventions. Each group wanted different things out of roleplaying games and saw different routes forward. From this dynamic came a lot of the early fan-based evolution of D&D

The early TSR designers were mostly from the wargamer side of the equation, but a lot of the longstanding RPG worlds came from the other side - imaginary worlds that used roleplaying as a mechanism to tell their stories - The Forgotten Realms, Glorantha, and Tekumel all had a life before before becoming RPGs. But most of the design team had wargaming blood in them, and while I was an SF fan back in the day, I did come in the door through wargaming. (The Lovely Bride, on the other hand, had her own Federation Starship, the Quetzalcoatl, in high school, so tag her more from the SF contingent).

The book was a tough read for me, primarily because I kept stopping to double-check stuff and think about what my experiences were during this period. I started at the Purdue Wargaming Club in the fall of 1975. We never had a Caller, though my group tended to have a Leader who kept the group together and a Mapper who kept the maps together. We solved problems like how to deal with paladins and thieves in the same party, alignment languages, and the fact everyone wanted to be an dual-class elf.  Oh, and how to handle "Fighting Florentine" which everyone else knows as dual-wielding. I should unearth the old volumes from the storage room and remind myself how much we used and discarded over the years (encumbrance, critical hits, damage locations, segments, weapon speed factors, and unmarked doors that had to be pushed/pulled without a clue to which, just to name a few).

Roleplaying has evolved and continues to evolve. Even the name has been bent and morphed over the years. It has been spelled as roleplaying, role-playing, and role playing (I go with the last because that's what we called it at WotC, but before then I was more hyphenated). We have lost the name to computer games, which at the dawn of time we called CRPGs. Even today, while some arguments unknowing recapitulate earlier discussions, there are new designs that challenge the traditional boundaries of role-playing games.We continue to change, and much of that change occurs on the ground level. The heart of roleplaying at conventions has never been in the dealer's rooms or on the panels, but rather scattered across the gaming tables.

There are a lot of nice, meaty ideas within the book, but here's one that had not seriously considered before now. D&D and other RPGs really contain two separate games - one for players, one for GMs The more I look at that, the more I nod my head in agreement. When I am playing an RPG I am in a different head-space than when I am running it, and my metagame/downtime as a DM/Judge/Keeper is much deeper when I am running a game than when I am playing in someone else's world.

This is a book that is worth hunting down, picking up, and reading. It is densely packed with a lot of info from the time. Go read it.

 More later,

* The term shows up as a single, lower-cased word, "dungeonmaster" in Gary Gygax's introduction to the Blackmoor supplement, to describe Dave Arneson, and as "Dungeon Master" as a proper noun in Tim Kask's intro to Eldritch Wizardry.

** To the tune of "Rosin the Bow"

     We fought a group of Ogre Magi.

     Killed two, let the others go free.

    The lair had a welcome mat in it.

    My god, what a cheap referee!

 

    My god what a cheap referee!

    My god what a cheap referee!

    The lair had a welcome mat in it!

   My god what a cheap referee!

 

Classics Illustrated

So, in my wanderings, I found a site that allowed you to make a cover that looked like one from Penguin Classics or Oxford World Classics, which have very distinctive looks. So I made one, and the result is over on the right. And I thought it was pretty good for five minutes work.

And the universe being what it is, I posted it to my Facebook, and got a lot of response. Some of it was from people who really loved the original book (which is greatly appreciated) and those who played the computer game based on the book (which is also nice) and those wanting to know if it was a real book, and was Penguin about to release on the world the old FR books from decades back.

Which is, alas, untrue (so far as I know it). It is a little amusing, in that, back in the day, Penguin WAS the British publisher/distributor of the books (I don't know when/if they stopped, but I had a number of British editions in the basement at one time). But it would be interesting if some small press picked up all of these old volumes and put them back into print (and, you know, paid the authors).

But as for me, I have taken a solemn vow not to speak untruths, even in jest, nor to taunt people with such tomfoolery. For more about this solemn vow, please click here. 

More later,

Reading the Realms

One of the advantages of blogging as opposed to living solely on the Facebooks is that Facebook doesn't really have a sense of permanence. You put something up, and within a day it is buried beneath a huge pile of other posts.

So, here's a note that I did an interview for the Reading the Realms podcast.  Max and Paula have been reading the entirety of the Forgotten Realms novels, and have had ancient authors such as Jim Lowder and myself in for interviews to talk about our work. True old-school goodness viewed through a modern lens.

Here's the link for the entirety of podcasts on Soundcloud as well.

More later,

The Model of Major Middle Manager

The Red Sphinx by Alexandre Dumas, Translated by Lawrence Ellsworth, Pegasus Books, 2017

Provenance (Or how I came to read this book): I asked for this book as a gift from my Lovely Bride for our anniversary back in February, and she delivered, noting only in passing how massive (800 pages plus) the tome was. I had found out about it on Facebook, where I follow Lawrence Ellsworth. Actually, I follow Lawrence in his identity that gamers may recognize, Lawrence Schick. That would be Lawrence Schick the designer of White Plume Mountain and the current lead loremaster on Elder Scrolls Online. I don't know Lawrence all that well (his tenure and mine at old TSR did not overlap, and we have met maybe a handful of times), but I always liked his work and found the idea that he had translated a "lost" Dumas book was intriguing.

Review (Or what I thought about the entire thing): The book is an unfinished, partially published, manuscript from Dumas. Back in the day, Dumas serialized his stories in Parisian magazines. As a result, his completed books tend to be a bit... long and perhaps even ... rambling. This one in particular was titled The Comte De Moret, and was a bout a figure from the swashbuckling age who was the recognized bastard son of King Henri IV, and therefore half-brother to Louis XIII. Count De Moret was a historical figure, and was involved in one of the other royal brother's rebellions against the crown, and was supposedly killed in a battle against the Louis's forces. He has his own mythos that has grown up over the years, as the "good, loyal son" of Henri.

But in the book, as presented, De Moret is more of a supporting character, and Ellworth is completely within his rights to rename his translation after the true protagonist - Cardinal Richelieu. Yes, those who have seen numerous adaptations of The Three Musketeers think of Richelieu as the bad guy, the scheming spider in clerical red. But Dumas admires him, and presents him, not only sympathetically, but as the hero, the only man who cares about France, even if its king is a fool and his family are greedy intriguers.

Richelieu is, within this book, the perfect middle manager. His boss is a fool, but the Cardinal has gathered together a team of loyal, devoted, and talented individuals to make the entire country work. This is most dramatically shown in a section where, having lost a crucial argument with the Crown, Richelieu lays down his tools and retires to a private life, and the King attempts to do his job. In quick succession, every agent of the Cardinal lays out how dire the situation truly is, how everyone thinks the King is an idiot, and then resigns themselves. Less than a week after his resignation, the King implores Richelieu to return to govern the kingdom correctly. Richelieu is free with his favors, loyal to his workers, and has no fear about getting directly involved to get to the truth of the matter. The Cardinal could write his own business advice book and do a decent TED talk about management.

This is a 21st Cent translation of an 19th Cent book set in the 17th Century. And, though it has not seen much print in English, it feels very much like the shared-world adventure fiction I've read and written, and it makes the case that Dumas is very much an antecedent of popular fantasy as Tolkien or Howard.

To spoil just a bit, the book opens on a professional duelist (dueling is banned in France) who is approached by a hunchback to duel and kill the Count De Moret. De Moret has apparently stolen the affection of woman away from the hunchback. The professional refuses, because he knows the Count as a good man (though not above sleeping around) and the hunchback and his colleagues set upon the duelist with their swords and leave him for dead ( spoilers - he does not die). The hunchback and his colleagues then leave, but one of the colleagues reveals that HE is the one sleeping with object of the hunchback's affections, which results ANOTHER swordfight, in which the hunchback is badly wounded and feared to die (spoilers - he does not die, either). Both duelist and hunchback survive, only to have YET ANOTHER duel while they are both wounded and seated in sedan chairs on a street in Paris.

This entire exchange feels very Realmsian, and could have transpired on the streets of Suzail or Waterdeep. And the adventure fiction of the age can show strong connections with the shared worlds that TSR launched in the 80s and 90s. In this case, instead of a lore bible, the cornerstone of these tales come from the history and legend of France itself. If you are a fan of Ed Greenwood's work, yes, you should check out Dumas in a good translation.

The translation helps in all this. As opposed to a bowdlerized and simplified translation, Ellsworth embraces the passion of Dumas' language and subject, and creates a readable text. This reader freely will admit that there are sections where Dumas deals with history (from a Francophile view of course) that I put the book aside, but quickly returned as the action and plotting picking up again.

So the manuscript is unfinished - the magazine Dumas was serializing it in went under and he never got back to it. Ellsworth puts forth that he had an ending in mind from a short story he had written decades earlier about the count and Isabel, who he is in love with (despite dallying with others) in the earlier section. Set after the battle in which the Count had supposedly perished (Dumas played fast and loose with the truth), the two lovers are reunited by a carrier dove, and have numerous near misses before their relationship resolves.

I'm not so sure. I think Dumas was aimed at this as an eventual ending, but the two texts are dramatically different. The short story is completely epistolary (consisting of letters and diary entries), and the characters more passionate than shown at the start of their relationship/the end of the manuscript. The Cardinal is here in passing, wise and willingly fooled to help reunite the two. Dumas may have been aiming at the facts of the short story as his endpoint, but would have been involved in much revision should he have ever reached it.

In general, this is worth hunkering down and reading, particularly if you are a fan of the old Realms or DL novels. Swordplay, battles, plots, treachery, and the most effective middle manager that France has ever seen. Go read it.

More later,

The Gaming News

GenCon, and its lingering con crud have passed (and for most people I noticed, it was a delayed con crud, moving in two days or even a week after the event), so let me catch up on stuff in gaming.

Let me start with the toughest news first. Gaming legend Jim Ward (Metamorphosis Alpha, Gamma World, my boss for many, many years at TSR) has been in the hospital for the past way too long for a diabetic ulcer on his foot. He's not doing particularly well, but is most worried about losing time on various projects he's involved in. A GoFundMe Account has been set up to help offset his medical costs. Cards and letters also appreciated, and he can be found at:
       St. Lukes

       Select

       James Ward

       Floor 4 28B

      2900 Oklahoma Ave

      Milwaukee, WI 53125

We're all pulling for you, Jim.

The big news that hit right at the end of the convention was an agreement clearing the way for a D&D Movie. The short version: Warner Brothers wants to make a D&D with Hasbro's permission, but has been blocked by Sweetpea Productions, who claims the rights (Though, like all things, it is complicated). The settlement puts Sweetpea as an exec producer (and probably more - we aren't partial to those dealings) and clears Warner to do the movie.

Now, this news, and the mention that it will be set in the Realms, has kicked off a flurry of speculation about a Drizzt movie, or an Elminster movie, or even (yes, in some parts) an Azure Bonds movie, but the best thing to look forward to is a good movie with a good story. The Marvel franchise has not slavishly wed itself to its original books, but instead did films that captured the flavor and magic of the IP without having to lockstep into previous continuity. Have fun, guys.

Speaking of Elminster, his creator, Ed Greenwood, has teamed up with Gabrielle Harbowy to edit the Women in Practical Armor short story collection. Their Kickstarter already made their numbers, but check em out anyway.

Also news out of GenCon was the change of ownership of the venerable Chaosium, home to Glorantha and the Call of Cthulhu games. This is all tied together, because the guys at Rising Moon, who delivered the glorious Guide to Glorantha coffee table tomes are now running things, and Elder Gods Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen are retreating to the background once more. More information here.

In the wake of Gencon, this popped up on Vice of all places. It's a paen to the wonderful weirdness that is D&D. Author Zak S created the award-winning A Red and Pleasant Land, and his thoughts on the game evoke the writing style of Harlan Ellison when the man was doing essays as a regular column.

Over on the computer game side, there is this about writing for games. I have tales of my own, but you're going to have to buy me a beer. The article includes a link to this twine game (sort of a newfangled Choose-Your-Own-Adventure) called The Writer Will Do Something.

Also on the net is your chance to check out Chaldea: War Room. Chaldea was the home campaign of Peter Adkison (you know, WotC and, um, GenCon) and Peter has been polishing up his chops as a film-maker. War Room in the first of his videos.

And finally, a video that turned up a few weeks back from the Guild Wars: Nightfall game in 2006. Originally put together for the deluxe edition, I don't know if it ever shipped with the game, but instead made its way to the net years later. There are a lot of interviews with the old gang (myself included), and all I can say is ... we all look so YOUNG in it.

More later.

F is for Faerûn

Of course, I'm going to do Faerûn. I'm even going to hunt down that little caret over the u.

I've talked about Faerûn and the Forgotten Realms before, since I have been two parts midwife and two parts sidekick in bringing Ed Greenwood's original campaign to the greater world. I think I mentioned before that the planet the world is Abeir-Toril, which is a combination of my own home campaign's name (Toril) and the word "Abeir", which has no history before its creation but served only to put the definition of the world at the front of the Cyclopedia of the Realms. I'd like to say that it was named on a Friday, and I was thinking about getting "A beer" after work, but that would be growing the story more than it deserves. It was plucked from the air.

And it is interesting that years later, the company decided that there were TWO worlds, Abeir and Toril, which they then merged back together to form the 4E version of the world. There are parts of that particular campaign that I thought were smartly done, and parts that made me roll my eyes. The former I will gladly share with you, while for the latter I require that you buy me a beer (see where my mind is going, here?).

The original Realms map, taken from Anthony Larme's website.
Yes, that's me without a beard. And with a thin white tie. It was the 80s.

But I digress. Where did the other names come from? Forgotten Realms is our name for the land, since its inhabitants have clearly not forgotten about it. And indeed, in the "real" world of the 70s and 80s, the idea of a land where monsters battled, heroes lived, and magic was commonplace would seem a little forgotten (In the modern age, where we have Harry Potter movies and former Magic: The Gathering players are bitcoin billionaires, not so much). But to the inhabitants, the largest unit the natives thought of was continental, and that continent was Faerûn.

I had no idea where Ed got the name so I asked him. He in turn replied "I just liked the sound of the word as it came into my head (as a fantasy equivalent of "Home"); "Fair-OON") and then I made the spelling more Celtic and less Disney and there I was:} ). A lot of names come to me that way. Nowadays, with the Net, I've learned to type them in so as to discover if they mean "naughty thing" in some language unfamiliar to me, or are already the name of a district in New Delhi (or just Delhi, or something)." 

And there you have it. The origin of Faerûn. And you think you don't get anything out of this blog. 

More later, 

A Grand Old Time

So this past weekend I went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the Grandcon Convention. Also attending were some other old-school designers, like old friends Ed Greenwood, Tracy and Laura Hickman, and Steven Schend, who is currently a native of this fine community located in western Michigan.

Grandcon was a first-year convention, and I had ridden enough badly-planned convention-bombs down to keep my expectations low (I'm looking at YOU, Alabama). I should not have worried, save for a couple minor hiccups, the convention went very, very well, and the con organizers, Brian Lenz and Marc Specter, were brilliant in both their organization and their ability to adjust to the situation. The convention space was intimate (the Prince Conference Center at Calvin College), but did not feel overly crowded, and the house was reported to me as being in the area of twelve-hundred attendees.

It has been years and years since I have attended a small convention out of town, and I as such I noticed the changes in the types of games played. Ten years ago everyone was playing the latest OGL/OSR/D&D version. Fifteen years ago it was everyone's CCG. Now it is board games that are the cutting edge shown at these conventions. Over the course of the weekend Ed, Steven and I were running games of Lords of Waterdeep for charity, which, I can safely say, stands up to repeated games in its versatility. I also got to play games ranging from prototype (Council) to seeking funding (Cardomancer) to published (Fleet).

I also had the chance to play Sojourner's Tales, and very intuitive and rather brilliant game by Tracy and Laura (Kickstarter still on, and it has made its goals, but still worth checking out). Trace has for years worked on various projects linking the versatility of storytelling with the mechanics of a game, and I think he's got it this time. The game has a board and counters that encourage player competition, is coupled with a overarching story that all players co-operate in. The cool thing is, the story can be changed by downloads to your kindle or electronic device. So you can play a fantasy version (our prototype), then switch out to an SF game or a steampunk version or a holiday version just by changing downloads. This is a cool concept and worth checking out.

Grand Old Men - Me, Steven, Ed, Tracy

Ed, Trace, Steven and I gave two, two-hour panels on worldbuilding, which allowed us the luxury of getting nostalgic about old games, systems, worlds, and novels. And of course, since we've known each other for years, there was an easy give and take in the discussion.

Tracy and Laura also ran their famous "Killer Breakfast" on Sunday morning. I've helped out with this at the dawn of time, holding up signs for the crowd at GenCon, but in the years (decades) since, Trace and Laura have refined it to a multimedia experience, complete with pre-game announcements (starring three of the fours Hickman kids) and musical sing-alongs (gamer versions of the songs from Les Mis, and I discovered that I can cover the material about as well as Russel Crowe). A fine time was had by all.

Ed, Karen, Myself - Nothing But Trouble

For me, this was a chance to see old friends. I haven't had a chance to hang out with the gang in a Real-Life format for practically forever, and the small-con atmosphere gave us time to catch up, since we were not all running around doing events. I got go for a walk with Trace and Laura. I got to visit Steven's house and his lovely wife and fine children. I roomed with Ed, so I have attained my minimum yearly requirements for smutty innuendo. And I also got to see Eric Boyd, a great Realms loremaster from the past. And most of all, Karen Conlin came up for a few days. Those deeply engaged in the Realms will remember her as Karen Boomgarden, the master editrix responsible for the first grey-box Forgotten Realms set that Ed and I created (and who is now one of the masterminds over at Grammargeddon). Yes, it was old-home week up there, and we had a delightful time.

The con organizers were also good enough to set up evening meals for the guests, since the seminary college didn't have a lot of restaurant/bar options ("What do you MEAN there's no bar?") As a result, much alcohol was consumed off-campus, and I got to talk to a bunch of OTHER people, including retailers and other young board-game designers, and got to listen to stories from the guest artists, including Bill Stout, which really, really impressed me (I have some of his art books down in my library) .

Of the area itself, I quickly got used to the the Michigan Uey - where you don't make the left turn at the intersection, but rather overshoot the intersection, then turn around and hit it from the other side, making it a right turn. We also got the chance to see some of  ArtPrize, a huge collection of exhibition and installations which dominates downtown Grand Rapids. In general, it felt like Austin with more acceptable weather (OK, and snowplows, but they didn't need them when I was there).

I had a great time, though when I got back Monday (leaving at oh-ghod-early for Gerald R Ford International with a commuter flight to Detroit), I was glad to see the overcast and rain of autumnal Seattle. I drove down to Pike Place Market to get supplies (bread from the Three Sisters, mozzarella from the cheese shop around the corner, and sausage from Uli's, Concord grapes from Frank's) and encountered a bookseller literally singing the praises of Voltaire's Candide. So yeah, it is good to be home as well.

More later,

FR vs. DL

Over at the SF/Fantasy site Grasping for the Wind former TSR/WotC editor Phil Athans delivers a freaking brilliant article on the differences and similarities between Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms as intellectual properties, with quotes from Ed Greenwood and Tracy Hickman. Go read it.

More later,