Uprising at Buzzard's Gulch: a campaign setting for Monsters! Monsters!

There's trouble on the Reservation.

 Here's something new! There have been a few campaign settings for the Tunnels & Trolls suite of games, but not many. What makes this one stand out is not simply because it has added to the pool but because it is usable with- nay, designed specifically to go with, the Monsters! Monsters! variant of T&T. That makes it a very rare beast indeed.

Uprising at Buzzard's Gulch Monster Rez (Rez, as in Reservation) is a setting guide and adventure seed set in a world (or part of Trollworld?) where humans and monsters live side by side- providing the monsters go back to the Reservation come nighttime. The title uses language redolent of the Wild West  and this puts you right into the zone for this setting. But we are playing Monsters! Monsters! here and the player-characters are supposed to be the bad guys, does that make the humans the goodies? Well, nope. The humans have, afterall herded up the monsters and put them in a reservation, and are exploiting them for their own gain. And now it seems, the monsters have had enough!

So what do you get for your money? Author, Thessaly Chance Tracy and publisher, Peryton Games give you a 93 page setting, nicely illustrated (the cover by Simon Lee Tranter is great), edited by the Troll Godfather himself and a minion called Monkey. The action is set on an island and can therefore be smuggled into most campaigns. There are maps, npcs a plenty, descriptions of places of note, the High City of Hylax, villages of The Rez, bars, brothels, revolting swampy areas that humans will hate but monsters (some of them) will enjoy. There are lists of foodstuffs, potions, diseases, random encounters, tribes of goblins and quite a few wicked and devious humans. As you'd expect there's a little history too. But there's more: new spells, new monsters, new kin and some extra rules for the Monsters! Monsters! game including monster talents and motivations.

The tone of the whole thing is as whimsical as one might expect for a T&T product and with an undercurrent of darkness. You get the feeling this town is gonna blow! There are some really noteble NPCs too. My favourites are Grimlar Steele, a mechanical monster who lives at the castle and Granny Grisstletit, a Madam, business woman of repute and potion brewer on the side.

There's a lot packed into these pages and yet the author hasn't fallen into the trap, as some campaign settings do, of getting bogged down in too much detail and history. Each place is described with brevity. Giving the GM easily enough to go on but at the same time, plenty of room for his/her own take on things.

Altogether, a really nice package and a great addition to the Monsters! Monsters! and Tunnels & Trolls games.

Rob Conley interview

Here's something new for the blog. It's an interview using a simple framework I'm calling the 5W+H Interview...

Who, What, When, Where, Why plus How?

And our first interviewee is man of the moment: Rob Conley, who has just successfully completed a KickStarter for his Basic Rules for The Majestic Fantasy rpg (reviewed in the previous blog post).

Who... is The Majestic Fantasy rpg aimed at?

The Majestic Fantasy RPG is aimed at new and old fans of the classic editions of the original 1974 roleplaying games. It is designed to expand the life of the setting outside of the dungeon and wilderness. This aspect of my campaign came about because I was a referee who let players "trash" his setting. If a referee does that for their campaign, to make it a plausible challenge you need to flesh it out a bit. At first I made do with the barebones listing found in Judges Guild's Wilderlands of High Fantasy and then started to fill it out with material from Harn, Ars Magica, and my own stuff. Eventually, so many players came and went, each doing their thing, that it took a life of it's own.

What.. was the hardest aspect of the design/writing of the game?

Keeping it terse but not so terse that needed information was omitted. Another was the decade long playtest. Making sure I incorporated what I learned along the way. Then designing the presentation and writing it up in a way that was useful for kitbashing. There a tension between describing what I did and making that description useful for campaigns with a different focus.

Why... did you decide to publish your rules?

In truth I rather stick to settings and adventures but when you do physical sales you need a rulebook that you can offer. I am on good terms with most of the OSR publishers but it's hard to coordinate. So I decided to take the additional material I developed and turn it into a rulebook. This started out as a series of reference cards combining Swords & Wizardry and my Majestic Wilderlands supplement and proceeded from there.

When... is the next ('Advanced'?) edition due?

Probably in the fall and it will be the Lost Grimoire of Magic. I will start getting the book into its final shape after the Wild North setting is released.

It will detail the different magic-user classes:

-Contain a complete reference for all the arcane spells.

-Useful topics for playing and refereeing magic-users.

-An adventure about magic-users.

-Details about the various magic-orders.

-How to setup and maintain a conclave, workshop, sanctum, etc for a magic-user or a group of magic-users.

-Referee advice about magic and magic-users.

As for the series as whole, there will be about ten supplements including the Basic Rules. One each for Fighters, Rogues, Magic-Users, and Clerics. Monsters, Magic Items/Equipment, Human NPCs, Non-Human NPCs, and one I am calling the Axioms of Sandbox Fantasy Campaigns Each will be more than what one would expect from a corresponding chapter(s) in a traditional rulebooks as what I plan for the Lost Grimoire of Magic shows above.

It a bit of a gamble as it is a non-traditional approach. I think kitbashing is the norm not the exception. While there will be fans of Majestic Fantasy RPG, I aim to be everybody's second choices for material to incorporate into their campaigns.

Where... will any further campaign material be set, your Majestic Wilderlands or Blackmarsh/Points of Light?

The short answer it will be Blackmarsh/Points of Light. I will be calling the series The Majestic Fantasy Realms.

I would love to continue with the Wilderlands but at this point it has to be made open content or something else done with it in order IPwise for me to start working with it again. Disappointment doesn't begin to cover my feelings about this.

The Majestic Fantasy Realms will have all my original content just with the Judges Guild serial numbers filed off. The foundation was laid with Points of Light as at the time I had no idea that I would get JG license. For Points of Light, I sketched out a loose background compatible with my Majestic Wilderlands came up with different names and went on from there.

How... do you see the product's future?

I think it will be solid seller and many will find it useful. It's not a barebones system as those systems based on the 3 booklets of the original edition are. But it also not as detailed as GURPS, Ars Magica, Mythras/Runequest, Fantasy Age, or 5th Edition either. The closest equivalent in complexity and tone is the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System by Autarch.

Until I get the rest of Majestic Fantasy supplements out it will have a tough uphill battle because of the wealth of quality systems available in the OSR. I also hope that the Majestic Fantasy RPG serves as a good example of looking at what your setting needs and then writing and assembling the rules needed to run a campaign using that setting.

Robert, thank you so much for participating in our first 5W+H q&a session.

Thanks for having me do this interview.

Bat in the Attic Games on drivethru:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/browser/publisher/2993

Rob's blog can be found from here:

https://www.batintheattic.com/

The Wilderlands MeWe group:

https://mewe.com/join/thewilderlandsofhighfantasy

The Majestic Fantasy RPG

Review of The Majestic Fantasy rpg (the basic rules) by Robert S

Conley, Bat in the Attic Games, 2020

Rob Conley has been a stalwart of the fantasy role playing game scene for a long time. Always modest about his achievements his work has been published by major names in the field. However, he is probably best known for his work on the Wilderlands of High Fantasy- creating amazing maps and content for both the Judges Guild and Necromancer Games versions of that setting. His mini setting, Blackmarsh, which he created as a free product for gamers and designers alike, has been used as a campaign basis for Delving Deeper, Swords & Six-Siders, Heroes and Other Worlds and probably more.

For years now, Rob has been playing with his group in an alternate version of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy which he calls, The Majestic Wilderlands. The rules set which he and his group use has been evolving and growing over the years with the campaign. Finally, this rules set is being published and this Basic Rules edition is the first installment.
Taking a lead from earlier starter editions such the Black Box edition of D&D, which takes characters up through levels 1 to 5, The Majestic Fantasy Basic Rules, gives a full rules set to enable the players and referee to run complete and detailed campaigns whilst leaving room for higher level play later. The rules are ultimately based on Original Dungeons and Dragons and are compatible with most, if not all, clones thereof. Matt Finch's Swords and Wizardry is mentioned specifically on the cover and indeed the book describes itself as a supplement to S&W. But make no mistake, this is a complete game on it's own.
But thus is not just another clone. Here, there are refinements and differences which show how Rob has modernised his rules as time and fashions tend to do. For instance, the classic six ability scores (here called Attributes) range from 3 to 23 although the normal human range is still 3-18. First level PCs get max hit points and starting cash is modified by Charisma (nice touch). In this volume we have the classic four main classes but with hints that in the Advanced(?) rules or in campaign supplements, there are more to come. For instance, although Rogue is a class, we are only presented here with the "Burglar" variant and the Cleric here is a "Cleric of Delaquain": presumably there are more cleric sects out there, each with their own specialisms and possibly, spells? (Indeed in his notes for the Kick Starter, Robert has more than hinted at this and there is another 'sect' detailed in the NPC section of the book). We have the four classic races plus Half-Elves. Here is a nod to more modern versions of the game: players of any background (race) can play any class. However, not all professions will be the best choice for each background. Hints at extra backgrounds can be found later in the book by looking at the notes on the cultures of non-human npcs. Look out for orcs, goblins and lizardmen backgrounds in future at least! Old school roots show themselves here- the backgrounds are not balanced, and are not intended to be. Elves in particular are designed to be somethin' else: "created as the shining examples of the potential of life" they are immortal beings, immune to disease and healing twice as fast as other humanoids.
And now we come to more modern twists on the old school warhorse rules: abilities. In this game abilities are not your rolled attributes but a skill system used alongside attribute tests, using a d20 roll. This version of the skill system has but twenty two abilities (although several of these are multi-faceted) ranging from Athletics to Intimidation, Survival to Haggling. These abilities help define or sharpen your character's chosen class. The system is simple and straightforward with one target number. Advantage and disadvantage are handled much like in D&D5e, and there are simple rules on levels or degrees of success/failure. The whole abilities section is only nine pages and feels light and streamlined (so OSR stick-in-the-muds like me don't need to get the heebie-geebies!) Similarly lightweight, but nevertheless there, if you want them, are the combat stunts and tricksie moves that are common in the modern game. Rules for grappling, swapping weapons, dual wielding etc are also present and concisely written. Character's attribute scores can affect surprise, initiative, ranged fire, melee efficiency and more. This has the effect of giving the classes more options which might otherwise 'belong' to different classes. This also means for example the Fighters in this game are beefed up compared with the original game, gaining extra attacks and with more hit points. Being a human fighter in these rules is not a default if your attribute rolls didn't come out too well. Players will actively choose to play one!
The spell casting system has a few extra twists too. Although spells are divided into Arcane and Divine magic, both Magic Users and Clerics need to have spell books to revise from. Both types of spell caster can also perform Ritual magic using their spell/prayer books and the right components etc. This enables spells to be cast without memorising them first. Scrolls therefore take on an extra dimension in the Majestic Fantasy RPG as they can take the place of spell books too precious to take adventuring. Be warned... some creatures in these lands have levels of magical immunity. This extra level of defense is used alongside a standard saving throw. This ability combined with the need to know how many hit dice your enemies might have (for fighters multi targetting purposes) means that players will need to get to know their monstrous enemies in a bit more detail than in other games. Rob justifies this by pointing out that hunters or warriors get a feel for the relative strengths and skills of their opponents as they gain experience with/of them. The final twist I want to mention is one which readers/users of the Blackmarsh setting will have come across before. The mysterious substance called "Viz". This is best described as an element of pure magic. A little like The Force in Star Wars, it suffuses everything, or perhaps more accurately- might suffuse anything. In the Blackmarsh setting it is suggested that Viz came to the world via a meteor or comet strike and became spread around the land and buried deep within it. You can actually dig it up or mine it I suppose. That isn't discussed here. But it's effects are. Viz essentially boosts magic in certain ways the most obvious is that a magic user can physically use up Viz whilst casting a spell and in doing so, the spell is not wiped from his memory. Very handy. Very expensive.
Many of you will have seen the author's Bat in the Attic website and blog. A place stuffed with excellent advice on running campaigns. Rob has cherry picked some choice morsels from there and included them here in the Basic Rules. It's worth saying here something about Rob's philosophy when putting these rules together. He describes the rules as a toolbox for 'kitbashing'. Customisation to you and me. Yes, that's right, the author of the game explicitly states he wants you tear his game up and use it how you will. I can see how lots of things in the book, and especially the advice sections, can be used this way. I could easily swipe the entire Abilities section and stitch it seemlessly into Epées & Sorcellerie for example. However, I'm not sure how well you could run the rules without, say, Viz. But I'm saying that without having played it.
All of the classic monsters are here, lots of treasure (including treasure assortment tables) and magical items. There are some excellent sections on NPCs and information on demi-human and goblinoid types etc which gives you scope to put together detailed tribes of goblins for example, complete with their warrior bosses, sages, shamans and so on. There ready made guards, NPC parties, the local witch, all sorts of good stuff.
The book is rounded off with helpful collections of tables and quick reference guides, combat tables and so forth. Lots of which are also available as free downloads.
The artwork is plentiful without getting in the way. All of it good to excellent. The cover work by Richard Luschek is especially good.
There are lots more lovely little touches I could tell you about- such as rules for using your trusty staff as a vaulting pole! Rob really has done an amazing job fitting all of this into one book. I went for the hardback because that's what I like but it's available in paperback and as a pdf... so what are you waiting for?
Headlines: the Majestic Fantasy rules are a bit like ODD all growed up. But without having it's teeth and complexion ruined by too many candies!

It's Zombie time!

 

Zombies! Brains! Chainsaws! Mayhem in the Mall, Horrors in the Hall, Chaos in the Churchyard. Need I say more? The Zombie Apocalypse is a tried and tested trope in modern culture and Zombie games have been around for a while now but didn't really have a presence until 1999, with the groundbreaking rpg "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" by George Vasilakos, published by Eden Studios.

This post isn't a review of any particular game or a rules set or a specific setting guide, more a collection of musings and advice for anyone delving into this aspect of our collective unconscious.

There are a lot of questions in it.

The first of which is... which rules set should you use for a Zombie Apocalypse game? The obvious answer is the easiest- just choose one of the already published Zombie roleplaying games. But this article isn't about that. These thoughts are for folk who are home brewing or modifying a generic rules set. Personally, I'd go for the OneDice system by Cakebread and Walton (this piece was originally drafted with that system in mind) but the Core d6 system would work as would adapting Swords & Wizardry White Box. Just go with whatever you are happy with, bearing in mind the rest of this post.

So, you have decided which rules to use. Let's get on with the main business. The following steps will help you gather your thoughts when creating your very own Apocalypse. Have fun...

Step 1: decide your setting. This is the first important decision to make. Where in the world your story is set will dictate the availability of things like weapons, vehicles, power, water and sources of food etc during/after the Zombie Apocalypse. It will also affect skill choices for your characters. For example, in the UK, gun ownership is less than 5% of the population. In Scandinavia it is closer to 40% and in the US it is 75%. If your everyday heroes are in rural Vermont or windswept Cumbria at the time of the Apocalypse, you'll have a very different kind of game to one set in Paris or New York. City maps and guides are available on the internet for all major cities as are lists and photos of important buildings etc. You can also make great use of the maps available of the floors of major department stores, museums and even public buildings such as town halls. All great for mad chases or hide and seek zombie style. Having a few of these, and some floor plans of typical houses or apartments ready at hand (Estate Agents/Realtor websites are good for these) means that improvising as you go will be a lot easier. After all, we can all map a few dungeon levels but a whole city is different ball game. Not that a dungeon type area isn't a bad thing. Download maps of the Underground or Subway systems and while you are at it, take a look at the maps of London or New York's sewage systems, fascinating. There is also another option of setting your Apocalypse in another time period. There are some excellent miniatures available for your own remake of Pride Prejudice and Zombies and similarly, space zombies.

Steep 2: decide how the Apocalypse began. There are several models for this in film and literature: a new/alien virus sweeps the world causing people to become blood-crazed, unfeeling and hate-filled but slow and a bit dim before they finally die. Or, an other worldly invasion of microscopic brain manipulating aliens, possibly controlled centrally or even possessing a hive-mind, who take over and slowly kill their "hosts". Or, an ancient evil has been unearthed and is spreading its malign influence over the planet one person at a time. Or, a criminal or terrorist or enemy nation has launched a bio-weapon which has had disastrous and unpredicted  effects (or maybe not unpredicted:Twelve Monkeys). Or maybe, it actually is THE Apocalypse and the Big Guy Upstairs really has had enough this time. With each of these choices, decisions will need to be made about how the zombie making process will occur:- infection, transfer, mutation, mind control or magic? Infection is the classic here and raises lots more interesting questions:- Does the disease progress quickly or slowly? Can infected people be cured? Can the infection be stopped before it takes hold? Is there a vaccine? (We've all been forced in these COVID ridden times to think about this type of thing- a lot). Mind control takes us into Invasion of the Body Snatchers territory (another rich genre I'd like to tackle). Is there an implanted device which is turning people into zombies? If so, can it be removed or neutralised? Are the zombies truly dead? If so, there's obviously no going back. The question to sort out as Gamekeeper is then: how do your adventurers make the zombies stay properly dead? (See step 5 for more on the biology of zombies).

Step 3: decide at what point you are going to set your story- at the very beginning where everything seems normal until... Or, as the Apocalypse is in full swing and characters can't even open a cupboard without a zombie falling out. Or, Post- Apocalypse where the few true human survivors are holed up in out of the way places where no one/thing can find them (like Rhyl or Dudley). Plotting out a rough timeline will help... Z-Day +1, +28 days/weeks/months etc. What will the streets of the cities look like after a month, six months, a year? (A fantastic book: The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, explains what might happen to our human artefacts if one day we all just disappeared). Have the survivors built a refuge somewhere or fled to the countryside? Did the Government send in the army, surround and "quarantine" the city leaving the survivors to fend for themselves? On Z-Day plus 30, did your survivors huddle around a dying radio only to hear that their city was due to be nuked to cleanse the zombie infection from the country? There's nothing like an impending nuclear explosion to inject some pace into your game! Will your characters get out of the city in time? Did the blast fail to happen? If so, why not? Why did the radio go silent?

Step 4: decide on what kind of characters you want. Ordinary everyday folk or a more militarised group such as armed forces or police or even a specialised zombie disposal squad? I would suggest that more fun is to be had by playing very ordinary people with few specialised skills and no weapons skills whatsoever. It may be prudent for each player to create two or three different characters, the mortality rate is likely to be high. Whatever game system you use, if it is skills based, you might want to add a 'Profession' Skill. This would be used to describe the work skills for the everyday professions your Average Joe characters might have: butcher, car mechanic, vet, hairdresser whatever. This skill may be more important than you might at first think as it could be a fun source of oddball ways to survive the Apocalypse: that City Hall Maintenance guy might just have the skills to fix the lift just in time to escape the shambling horde of undead in the lobby. The sports coach is deadly with a 4-Iron golf club. Also, as zombie games are really survival games they often feature resource management systems. How far you want to go with this is another question to answer as you set up your game. But if you do decide to go down this route I would suggest using as simple a system as possible (and a fun one): use Nerf Gun bullets as records of shotgun rounds, pistol bullets etc and have the players hand them over as they are fired. Use individual sweeties/cheesy snacks/biscuits etc to represent a meal for your character, when they eat, your players do. Finally, use shot glasses with your beverage of choice, when your characters drink, so do you. Other visual aids can be fun also: a sticking plaster to represent a first aid kit or single shot of medicine, a ten sided dice used to indicate the percentage which the disease has taken hold of an infected character, slowly climbing each day/hour whatever until it reaches 100%. Gulp.

Step 5: decide on the ecology of your zombies. What is their "life (death?) cycle"? I have already mentioned the possibilities there might be for the progression of the zombie disease (if a virus is your chosen zombie maker) but there are other things to consider. Will your undead slowly continue to decay so that in the end there is nothing left? If so, how long will this take? Do your zombies need to rest/sleep or are there dormant periods or times of the day they avoid? If so, where do they go? Or are your zombies simply normal folk controlled by something/someone else. If so, is this effect permanent or can it be reversed? What effect does this control have on the zombie's body whilst they are "under the influence"? Will colleagues rescued from zombiedom be fatally dehydrated or brain damaged? This brings us the issue of what your zombies eat. Brains of course! Or something else? (not truffles, that would be silly and we don't that do we?). But actually this does need thinking about as it is really a question of motivation. Why exactly are the undead chasing the living? What do they want from us? What do my brains taste of? And how will your zombies finally die?

Step 6: plan some scenarios. Here I would suggest looking at the classic list of the "Seven Basic Plots", a concept our brothers in arms, fiction authors, use in various combinations to craft almost any kind of story. These are:  

1. Overcoming the monster.  

2. Rags to riches.  

3. The quest.  

4. Voyage and return.  

5. Comedy.  

6. Tragedy.  

7. Rebirth.  

Let's look at each in order. Firstly: Overcoming the monster. The classics here are Theseus and the Minotaur or George and that pesky dragon. In our context it could be simply destroying all of the zombies to put an end to the plague but it could also be a battle against the mastermind who started it all: fight your way through the "dungeon" and defeat the "boss". Classic simple stuff. A twist? The "monster" is in all of us.  

Next: rags to riches. The classic tale a poor boy made good, Arthur or Conan fit into this space in a mythic/fantasy setting. In our zombie scenario perhaps more a tale of losing everything to building up a safe position of power in a new world order. Your heroes will create an island of sanctuary for their fellow survivors from which to re-start civilisation. Think "I am legend/Omega man" or "Day of the Triffids". Plots might revolve around the gathering of resources, insurgencies or raids by zombies, the captive zombies you have been experimenting on (to the find a cure) all escape inside your base, lightning raids out of your camp to rescue newly discovered survivors. A twist: the characters make a living by interacting between the zombies and the remnants of civilisation.  

Then there is: The quest. Jason and the Golden Fleece, the Dwarven hunt for the Arkenstone, the need to destroy the One Ring. In our game a desperate search for the cure, for a weapon to wipe out the zombie plague, a place of safety, a person who's blood contains the anti-bodies from which to create a vaccine, or perhaps just a safe way out of the city. Stories here might involve sub-plots: you can't locate X without first finding Y and Z. The gathering together of an expert team could be a series of games in itself. A twist: one of the team is attempting to thwart our heroes' plans for reasons best known to themselves.  

Voyage and Return: Odysseus, Kirk and his bold crew, The Hobbit. Our heroes must venture out into a much changed world to seek fellow survivors, to carry a cure to another enclave across a zombie filled post Apocalypse landscape (anyone read Damnation Alley?). What will they discover? Is the whole world affected? Will they find themselves alone? Are there worse horrors "out there"? Plenty of opportunity here for side adventures and sub-plots as our wandering band come across strange groups of survivors- religious orders, would-be fascist dictators, cannibals, quasi-military institutions, half-zombie hippy communes! Who knows?  

Here's a fun one: comedy. Think Ghostbusters, Dark Star, Bill the Galactic Hero and most of all, Shaun of the Dead. Actually, in my experience, comedy is the hardest genre to roleplay. We all have lots of laughs when we play (I hope) but actually trying to make it funny is really tricky. Games based completely on silliness and puns are great but only for a very short time! So, dark humour works best here. For instance, Denis Jones loves his wife Maureen. When the Apocalypse comes and Maureen is bitten on the hand by an infected child in the supermarket, Denis tries to keep it quiet from his neighbours. As she slowly turns a sickly grey colour and speaks to him less and less, Denis locks her in the bedroom when he goes to work. In the evenings as the alarming news on TV gets worse and worse Maureen begins to get hungry. Denis starts to slip out at night to bump off his neighbours to feed his wife-thing's craving for... brains. A twist: comedy sometimes turns to tragedy.  

And so to Tragedy: King Lear, Oedipus, in a sci-fi/fantasy context stories like the original I am Legend novel by Richard Mattheson, Moorcock's Corum or even the Rogue One Star Wars storyline. But Tragedy isn't just a whole lot of terrible stuff going down. Not everyone has to die. The tragic story is one where the flaws of our hero influence the events with sadly ironic outcomes. There is a certain inevitability about the conclusion. Tragic heroes can be a bit irritating. You just know they are going to make the wrong choice somewhere down the line. In this type of game the Gamekeeper needs to give the characters the opportunity to act heroically whilst getting killed in the act of (just) saving the day. If players have identified a character flaw then the Gamekeeper must work in opportunities for them to role play these out. This kind of game can be very rewarding but needs a skillful referee who can change/create lots of stuff on the fly. A twist: the character's flaw actually saves the day (very tricky to pull off).  

And finally: Rebirth. Think Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White, think Tony Stark to Iron Man, think the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. This one links nicely with Rags to Riches but our hero doesn't necessarily come out rich or a king etc. Just, a better person. So, a coward who turns out to be brave, a greedy hoarder who ends up feeding hundreds of fellow survivors. Like the Tragedy game, players would need to identify a flaw or aspect of their character which would change during the game or perhaps the referee should give them one, after all, we don't exactly choose our personality do we (expensive therapy aside)? Moral choices are what is needed here. As far as an rpg goes, this last plot option is probably better integrated into one of the others. We can't realistically have all of the players turning themselves around from murder hobos into truly decent human beings, that sounds too much Little House on the Prairie and not enough chainsaw wielding brain drinking mayhem!

So there you go. Lot's of questions as promised.

Have fun children and stay away from the Mini-Mart on Romero Boulevard.

The Players Handbook cover, 1978.

David Trampier's original

In June 1978, TSR released the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Players Handbook. 128 pages of mind blowing goodness for 16 year olds like me. We got new classes, new spells, new armour and new weapon types, new rules on... well, practically everything, it was great. But even though AD&D is now in its 5th incarnation, it's the cover of the first ever player's guide which has stuck in the public imagination as the iconic image of D&D.
The famous painting featuring a party of adventurers clearing up after battle and gathering loot, under the bejeweled eyes of a grinning demon statue, was by David Trampier, one of the titans of early rpg art. For reasons best known to themselves, publisher TSR replaced this cover in 1983. But that made no difference to the original's kudos and fame.

Cover for 4e Players Handbook

What I'm going to do here is look at this image to see what it tells us about 'the  game' in 1978, and compare it with some later covers of the Players Handbook (or its equivalent) from subsequent editions.

As an image in itself, the Trampier painting doesn't actually hold together well compositionally. But of course it doesn't need to- it's obviously a book cover design. The right hand half of the image (with the famous demon statue and delvers prizing out its huge ruby eyes) is busier, more dramatic and coloured beautifully. The back cover on the left half of the image is more prosaic with a simple square wall opening through which busy adventurers drag corpses and treasure in a businesslike fashion. There are plain sections on both sides for the graphic artists to place their text.

How are they going to sell those?

But it's what the picture depicts, rather than the composition which is important here. So what have we got? It's a 'typical' dungeon scene. Our heroes have triumphed over at least three lizard-like monsters in what appears to be a temple or large shrine. The huge grinning idol, underlit by the fire in large brazier or stone (?)bowl on his crossed legs, is the most striking aspect of the whole painting and is probably the element which has gained the picture it's iconic status. There are eleven adventurers seen in the image, all engaging in various 'typical' dungeoneering activities. These comprise: at least three fighters, a magic-user, two guys trying to loosen the idol's huge ruby eyes who could be thieves, a figure in the foreground discussing plans who is usually considered to be a cleric, plus four others who are carrying looted treasure or dragging corpses about the place. These could be PCs or henchmen/hirelings. We don't know.

Hirelings clear away the evidence.

What does this tell us then about how Dungeons & Dragons... in this new 'Advanced' form is to be played? Because that is what Trampier's cover to the Players Handbook is for, to draw us in and make us want to be part of an adventure like this one depicted here. Firstly though, it ought to be noted there are no female characters shown here at all (unless the ex-lizards were lady lizards...which would compound the issue!). OK, D&D was and still is, mainly a boys thing, and this was the 70s so par for the course- but worth noting. My first group of players was actually 50/50 male/female for quite a long time and the girls usually played female characters.
Secondly, this is a party of at least eleven adventurers. Groups that size (and bigger) are expected to be relatively common it seems. I think that's probably not the case nowadays. The covers of later Players Handbooks usually include only one or two heroes battling some enormous monster. Note 'heroes' not 'adventurers'. And there are no obvious races other than humans. I find that surprising even for those times. It's possible that one of the two guys carrying chest is a Dwarf- he's quite short and he is bearded. If he is, he's certainly not the rotund, wide-as-he's-tall pseudo Viking, we are used to nowadays. Maybe one of the guys stealing the eye gems is a Dwarf too. Hard to tell. Does this give any clues as to the ratios of humans to demi humans? A new version of this painting would need to show a much more diverse cast of characters.

So I said, if Orcus is your father, who's your mother...

Next: that Magic-User is about as old school as it gets! Well, he could do with a pointed hat I suppose. If the other character studying the map is indeed a cleric, that gives us two magic using types in the party. I guess that would par for the course in 1978. The game was far less magical back then. No-one had cantrips and it was this book which introduced to many, the beginnings of the plethora of magic using types we have in the modern game. So, are any of these folk examples of the 'new' classes? D&D players who'd shelled out for the supplements will have already seen Theives, Paladins, Monks and Assassins etc, but for a lot of players, these were new and exciting additions to the game. The 'cleric' might be a monk, that plate armoured fighter might be a paladin I suppose, but it's hard to tell.
And then there's: encumbrance. I don't know about other DMs who started in the stone age like me, but I never really bothered too much with encumbrance... 'You find 10,000sp in the dead giant's socks.'
'OK, the dwarf will carry it, what else is there?'
So these guys have found three treasure chests and a barrel of something special. No one has even a backpack let alone the ubiquitous 'sacks, large 16cp'. Of course, there could be a mule just in the corridor...(are there mules in 5e?).
I've put the word 'typical' in quotation marks because what was typical for an adventure in 1978, is not typical nowadays. Although a dungeon crawl was back then, not the only form of adventure, it certainly was the most common. In these more sophisticated times, 'adventures' can be more like delves into the psyche or examinations of what it is to be 'human' rather than explorations of the mythic underworld. 

More about heroes than adventurers.

I suppose in the end, all of this speculation doesn't amount to much. But I do think it highlights the differences in the game as it was then, and how it is now. Neither is better but despite 5e's attempts to simplify itself, the multitude of races, classes and general shift towards glossy High Fantasy, really does make it a different beast.