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
Friday, 1 May 2020
Tuesday, 21 April 2020
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.
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.
Monday, 2 March 2020
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.
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.
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