E - the alphabet grinds on!

I have been remiss, real life gets in the way as always, so this post is on the fly because I saw the MM and decided to go for it. 

This means that E is going to be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you!!

Without further ado;

Eagle, giant - if you ever needed confirmation that Gygax was influenced by Tolkien then this is it - carrying stuff ability, friendship with elves and dwarves as well as a penchant to attack evil creatures, what can I say?

Ear seekers - a player f*** you monster, you can just imagine what the original campaigns were like when a beastie like this was a staple element. Avoid.

Eel - three different types (none screaming unfortunately). Why am I doing this, it’s a freaking skinny fish!!

Efreeti - now we’re talking real fantasy. Actually not a brilliant description as it goes, a fairly tough foe and a better servant, though how you get it to grant those three wishes without it coming back later with a friend simply to mess you up is a bit of a mystery. 

Elemental - just read through and got a bit bored, basically a bunch of hit points, though of course a good DM could ramp up the role playing. 

Next up is the elephant, why are we giving out experience points for this?

Elf - okay I admit I am defeated. First mention of the drow then on to Ettin, floating eye and eye of the deep, this has been an ill-conceived idea I feel. Never mind, F next and who knows what fun that will bring?!

( actually I can’t leave it there.  Wow, eyes of the deep are weird, and potentially nasty and of course every DM has had the original idea to have the two heads of an ettin have an argument (tell me I’m wrong, I dare you!)

Until later

Be safe

Carl

My complete published works in White Dwarf

A quick post, actually a rather nice callback to some of my recent missives.

Here it is, the one and only time I made it into print in a gaming

So, one mystery solved, this was issue 89 from May 87 which was actually a bit later than I had thought. That been said I did send this ad in a lot earlier because I was completely unaware that my mum was going to be selling our house, and by the time this got published we had moved. So clearly no luck with me swapping my stuff. This is also strange because I had assumed I was trying to sell up but it turns out I was just trying to get different stuff - also clears up for me what White Dwarfs I need to collect as this tells me I owned 40 onwards - again I could have sworn I had started collecting earlier than this but clearly not. 

Reading through ads in other issues this week I actually saw the request of an Internet buddy in issue 91. It turns out he had rather more luck in his searches than I did, talk about born under a lucky star.

And briefly, concerning issue 89. It had this

That’s right, a review of Heroes for Wargames!! This must be the place I found out about this book, again, I was buying stuff much later than I thought. The review is quite similar to mine, so I know I’m not a complete idiot after all.

The  issue is okay, good CoC item on phobias by Carl Sargent (a genius), the Paranoia Electric Sheep scenario (fun) and Eavy Metal featuring the legendary Phil Lewis - good times. 

Again, a stream of consciousness, hope you liked it 

Carl

D is for Dragon - though not really

I’ve gotten round to reading about dragons in my old MM.  A couple of things have come up and given me cause for thought though the main one is I am NOT going to do an in depth review of dragons. I’m beginning to think the alphabet thing was a poor idea.
But that being said I have read the section and need to make a few comments. Firstly it is completely clear in the monster limit that dragon breath always causes damage totally the beasts total hit point value and not it’s current value. I seem to recall we had loads of arguments back in the day about this, players stating that once injured it’s potential to cause harm lessens. And who knew, it’s all here in the MM, plain as dad and incontrovertible - my god but we were idiots back then. I sometimes think that we weren’t mature enough to play games and enjoy them without it becoming a festival of bickering, bitching and point scoring - teenage boys in the 80s, what a bunch of twats!!

Secondly, read the section on dragon sundial. Easy peasy to do and very worthwhile financially. Why everyone wasn’t doing it is a mystery to me now - the rules and restrictions were right there in black and white High Gygaxian. That been said it’s a bloody nonsense of course, dragons are highly intelligent apex predators, particularly at the higher age categories and should be treated as such. Any DM worth his salt should be playing them as the greatest of bad guys, always ready to flee to fight another day if needs be. If I ever start playing again I will hold the dragon in high respect.

On the subject I can highly recommend the series “Dragons of the North” by Ed Greenwood. It was serialised in the Dragon and later appeared on the WOTC website statted up for third edition. This is how dragons should be. A great look at Firgotten Realms lore as well as insights into the machinations and desires of the Uber-monster, great stuff and well worth rooting out.

Anyway that’s it for now, stay safe in these strange times.

Carl

Heroes for Wargames

A recent Twitter post bought this book to mind.

I brought a copy of this new from a bookshop in Slough, so it must have been quite late in my gaming life. In 1986 I was 15/16 and definitely not as much into this stuff as I had been for for the previous handful of years. I have no clue where I heard about this book but I have a definite memory of really wanting it. (And I remember showing it off to my friend Robbie, who was less impressed than I - perhaps gaming hadn’t gripped him as strongly as it had me, or perhaps he just wasn’t an idiot!!

So what is it? I guess you could say it was a kind of coffee table book showing nicely painted ( Citadel) miniatures. There is an intro from Ian Livingstone/ Steve Jackson that doesn’t say a lot and a large serving of John Blanche/ early Warhammer. It starts with an introduction to RPGs (dull) and then goes to fantasy battles. A bit about figure making then a section on painting - nothing new in today’s world but this must have been quite cool then.
The section on Master Painters is quite cool, who didn’t love THAT John Blanche minatour?

One note about the book that bears sharing is that many of the photos are on a black background so are actually often not that clear, a minor quibble, and my eyes were probably better then.

All of this interspersed with what can only be described as iconic GE art from the mid eighties as well as some crap line drawings of new mini ranges (why?).

To sum up, I loved it 34 years ago and I still love it now, though I’m not really sure why. All in all it should be on every gamer of a certain ages shelf - good fun.

D is not, oddly, for Dragon (or Demon or Devil)

Onward through the alphabet, and I have not been looking forward to this one. So I’ve decided to wimp out and leave the above creatures to their own posts (or maybe I might just ignore them - are Demons and Devils still problematic in 2020?)

Anyway that decision really cuts down the content from 20 pages of my Monster Manual.
So we start at The Isle  of Dread staple, the dinosaur. Five wasted pages. As a father living within a 45 minute drive of the Natural History Museum many of my Sunday afternoons were taken up with dinosaurs and I genuinely have a soft spot for these Terrible Lizards, however the entry for them in the MM was utterly pointless, looking at them it should have said  “dinosaurs, you know dinosaurs, make up the stats as you see fit, big ones have big teeth and lots of hit points, plant eater  ones have lots of hit points and run away a lot. Basically xp factories that any party can easily avoid or defeat, especially if the player has ever watched a Jurassic Park film and shouted at the screen!!

Displacer Beast. A constant in AD&D. Quite a nasty chap with 6HD and good saves. Quite a neat beastie for an imaginative DM to role play.

Djinni (pronounced der-gin by my teenage self). Good aligned and another pretty much unkillable fellow if played correctly - turn invisible, move away at 24”, a quick Wind Walk and hey presto.
Probably one to use as an NPC, giving a bit of semi-Arabic flavour to the right adventure. Capturing one is left to the referee, but I guess a summoning circle and a bit of luck should do the trick, if you can be bothered.

Dog, War and Wild. Okay, every party at first level took it as a plan to buy a war dog at some stage. A good idea as it’s a nasty beast against first level type opponents. Unfortunately Fido quickly gets forgotten and by third level has most certainly gone to the great kennel in the sky - dull.

Dolphin..............,.......................,...yep dolphin.

Doppelgänger- best beast eva!! Should only be played in city adventures, a doppelgänger in the dungeon is basically pointless. Your group has to be able to accept a doppelgänger and your DM should basically be not a vindictive dick otherwise this creature does not go well. However to a mature group they can be great fun - they feature very heavily in the Forgotren Realms and it genuinely works.

Dragonne- vicious beast, nasty attacks and no real reason to be as far as I can tell. The picture suggests it’s a bit “orientally” but I’ve got nothing - sorry.

Dragon Turtle - maritime adventure always struck me as quite deadly if played realistically. Meeting a dragon turtle while aboard ship out of sight of land is a death sentence. Low armour class, massive hit points and huge attacks - the hull of your ship is holed, you’re sinking and you’re in metal armour - good night sweet prince.

Dryad - another creature for the role player. Not worth fighting but quite interesting to the right group. A recent Grogtalk podcast (worth a listen, it’s the Valentine’s Day one) talks about having a PC background involving being kidnapped by a Dryad for 1-4 years - potential fun.

Dwarf - ignore this as a monster, dwarves are PCs and should be treated as such.

That’s it for now, more to follow, perhaps even the rest of the Ds.

SURPRISE!!

C is for “Crikey, instant death no save”

On to C in the Monster Manual alphabet - might give this up before I get to D, which frankly looks like a pain in the arse!!
There are many C monsters to ignore, camels, centipedes and cattle do not get the juices flowing and neither do crayfish or crocodiles; please feel free to read all about them but remember time is a precious commodity.
On to the good stuff, in no particular order - Couatl, a psionic lawful good beast with “from 9-16 clerical abilities” whatever that means. And speaking of psionics, the cerebral parasite, purely intended to annoy those players who insist in mental abilities; take my advise and just ignore that bit of the books.
Chimera and cockatrice. Now these are proper fantasy monsters, nothing new here but as old school as Scottish dwarves who like beer and gold.
Centaur - nothing much of interest here, though for some reason only leaders have shields. (On a related centaur note a Kenzerco Hackmaster adventure, possibly Little Keep on the Borderlands, has a chap in prison whose only crime has been to bring back monster heads for reward  as requested by the local lord - you guessed it, monster heads in question were that of centaurs!!
Carrion Crawlers are another standard in the DMs locker but with 8 attacks each inflicting paralysis they are a TPK waiting to happen.
And lastly, but not leastly, the Catoblepas, a beast of ugliness and general horror. I’ll leave this here —ITS GAZE CAN CAUSE DEATH WITH NO SAVE IF EYE CONTACT IS MADE.  EVEN IF IT LOOKS AT YOU RUNNING AWAY YOU CAN STILL DIE - BLOODY HELL!!

And that’s it for C monsters, and not a Kraken among them

Small ads - end of a White Dwarf staple

Just a brief stream of consciousness post brought on by a quick skim through WD94. A very battered copy of this arrived in a job lot and something caught my eye, perhaps about thirty years too late.
I love the small ads in White Dwarf, it’s always been a place where nonsense was written and deals could be made. Announcement of the deaths of unfeasably named characters alongside ads for early TSR modules abound, some great deals here to be sure ( back to the trusty time machine!)
However what struck me about this issue was this:-

Was this the beginning of the end of WD as we new it? Probably as new fangled Space Marines and a place called Rynn’s world have a heavy presence. Tabletop gaming was certainly starting to usurp the old favourites but I guess that is progress.

However this was actually an issue full of content and well worth a read - Live and Die in Mega City One was the first instalment if a frankly excellent scenario, and worth the price of admission in its own.

One last thing - I don’t have ready access to a lot of my collection but I wonder if anyone can find my only ever time in print in a gaming mag. A young lad called Carl with the phone number Farnham Common 4105 put in an ad selling up his collection. Never worked out though because we moved house by the time the advert hit the press!!

Good memories here as always.

Until next time

Beauty, eye of - blah blah blah

So, the beholder.
Beyond doubt one of the most iconic D&D monsters as well as a total bad-ass.
Much has been said concerning the beholder  and I will be treading very well travelled paths on this but such is life.
I love this beast with a passion, the ultimate bad guy, a lonely megolomaniac with a heart of stone.
If you look at the stat block in the trusty MM many questions could be asked, particularly about the array of hit points and the variable armour class. I’m pretty sure first ed wasn’t really set up for such things but I’m sure organised players could take advantage.  That being said, if I were a beholder with all of these powers (which is a recurring dream of mine!) then I’m pretty sure I would be nigh on invincible, and rightly so. No stand up fights for this chap, even with its slow speed it was absolutely made for hit and run attacks and definitely for fleeing any battle going even slightly against it. With disintegrate and levitation you would never need to be cornered and your home base ( of which you would have several) would be full of murderous traps and such like.

For further reading there have been any amount of articles and books written; I am personally a big fan of the Forgotten Realms Xanathar concept- a crime boss hiding behind layers and layers of lackeys and sops - it should be the finale of a great campaign to finally meet a beholder - my only faint tinge is sadness comes from the fact that they have no moustaches to twirl!!

I’ll leave you with some Beholder art ( better available), from my UK MM and  from my copy of the Greyhawk OD&D book.  Lastly is a photo of a t-shirt available through The Secrey Cabal Gaming Podcast ( easy to find with some google-fu). I love the cabal and recommend their podcast if you like gaming in general. The artwork is by Steve, a talented artist and member of the Cabal crew.
Until next time
Be safe
Carl