Mysteries of the Gods (1977)

Another day of blogging links to other things, as gaming continues to be a trifle slow for a moment before exploding again.

Today, we have Mysteries of the Gods, a 1977 documentary based upon the works of Erich von Däniken and hosted by William Shatner.  I include it here because ancient astronauts are a major part of the backstories of Blackmoor, Call of Cthulhu, and Carcosa, as well as a fair number of modern occult campaigns.

Probably worth watching if you have about ninety minutes to waste.  (Or ninety minutes in which you can do something and have Mysteries of the Gods playing in the background.)

Happy Birthday, D&D!

I've seen a couple of sources placing yesterday as Dungeons & Dragon's fortieth birthday, so we'll go with that.  I celebrated by playing D&D on Saturday; the PCs fought some Carcosan Space Aliens, and then nearly died when they found some Space Alien robots.  (Incidentally, since we're almost finished with the Carcosa dungeon, I'll likely be posting my 4e Carcosa encounters within a couple of weeks.)

Happy birthday to D&D.  I'm sure much more eloquent people than I have things to say on the subject (where's Maliszewski when you need him?), so it'll just suffice to say that role-playing games are fun, and thank you for forty years of fun.

Here are some appropriate links:

Happy 40th birthday, Dungeons & Dragons! (Yahoo!)

When Dungeons & Dragons Turns 40 (Playing at the World)

Dungeons and Dragons Turns 40: 10 Awesome D&D Computer Games (PC Magazine)

Dungeons & Dragons turns 40 (USA Today)

All I needed to know about life I learned from “Dungeons & Dragons” (Salon)

Dungeons and Dragons is 40 Years Old (Daily Kos)

And finally, Out of Context D&D Quotes (Tumblr)

Happy birthday to D&D!

A rare late afternoon post: Happy fortieth birthday to Dungeons & Dragons.

Have an article from The Guardian.  Don't eat too much cake or whatever it is you do.

Some Remarks About Dave Arneson

I've talked about Arneson before, but it bears repeating as this past Saturday marked the second anniversary of his passing.

Presently, my player group is investigating the appearance of monsters in a nearby swamp.  This swamp is known as the Black Moor.

The adventurers were also informed that the weird monsters recently appearing in the swamp have been displacing the bandits that lair there, forcing them to make forays farther south.  They were tasked with, among other things, helping apprehend the bandits.  They were informed that Arneth, the bandit's leader, was to be taken alive.

Upon confronting the bandits, they learned that Arneth was slain by the swamp monsters, but that David, Arneth's son (see what I did there?), has been leading the bandits in his stead.  (Incidentally, this is the same encounter in which the tracker jackers made an appearance.)

Coincidentally, I had neglected the fact that April 7 marked Dave Arneson's passing, so I'm quite pleased that the adventurers made it to the Black Moor on our April 6 session.

Gaming with Mike Mornard

So Rushputin of Warpstone Pile fame informed me of an article that I had to read.

I was not disappointed.

Blog of Holding has a seven-part series on gaming with Mike Mornard.  That links to the first part, and you can proceed from there.

In addition to some thoughts on old-school gaming, the series talks about Mornard's memories of gaming with Gygax and Arneson, but most importantly, it has this little gem I'd never heard before:

Mike gave a fascinating account of a typical early D&D game, with a peculiar detail that I'd never heard before. Gary never used maps or minis: maps and minis were Dave Arneson's thing. Gary ran games in his office, which was provided with chairs, a couch, and file cabinets. While playing, Gary would open the drawers of the file cabinet and sit behind them so that the players COULD NOT SEE HIM. They only experienced the Dungeon Master as a disembodied voice.

Rushputin and I are all for trying this; I don't know if it's something any of us would do frequently, but the idea of the Game Master as a disembodied voice is intriguing.

Also, it better explains the role and necessity of the party caller.  A caller is helpful in old-school gaming just to keep everybody organized (particularly with a large party), but if the DM can't see the players, a caller is essential to avoid confusion.

Anyway, go read the series, would you please?

Some Thoughts on Geoffrey McKinney

So, since I've written a review of Carcosa and a review of Isle of the Unknown, there is some stuff I didn't mention because I hadn't full realized it while reading Carcosa and it didn't really fit into my blurb about Isle of the Unknown.

Geoffrey McKinney has his finger on the pulse of D&D.

This is very specific — I don't necessarily means that he captures any timeless essence of D&D (although, to be fair, he certainly does), or that he betrays a startling grasp of some recent edition.  I mean he truly gets the spirit of the Little Brown Books in a way you don't often see.  This may not be your vision of D&D — hell, I'm not saying it's mine, for that matter — but he definitely understands the exploratory, puzzle-laden weirdness of D&D as codified by Arneson and Gygax.

Understanding those roots are important because they're really the bedrock upon which the hobby is founded.

Plus, he makes magic truly mysterious in a way I've rarely seen in D&D.  Magic is the purview of weird, obsessive forces in World of Darkness and Unknown Armies, but it's all too easy to fall into the trap of "Ho-hum, another magic missile."

It's really something I've been missing in my current delve into D&D, and I'm glad to see it again.

Magic is stranger and more special when it takes the "How far are you willing to go for power?" aesthetic of Carcosa or the "I've been studying one spell for fifteen years at the exclusion of all others so that I am now the absolute master of all trees in this grove" aesthetic of Isle of the Unknown.

Really, it's Unknown Armies for D&D — magic is a strange, idiosyncratic art that pushes those who follow the path away from the common world we know.

Magic envelops you in a cloak of the Weird.

I hope we see more stuff from him in the future, because he's one of those guys on my "Hey, I want to buy your stuff!" list.  At the very least, I hope some of his design philosophy rubs off on the rest of the industry.

Happy Birthday, Dave Arneson!

Happy birthday to Dave Arneson, co-creator of D&D and creator of the oldest roleplaying setting in existence, Blackmoor.

I actually have a shout-out to Blackmoor in Crux of Eternity; the Black Moor is the swamp located in the crater formed by the crashing of the Fatehammer comet, fifty years ago.  The Armor of the Black Moor is a rumored item, supposedly forged from the metal core of the Fatehammer comet itself (but as far as anyone knows, nobody's ever found remnants of the comet itself, which begs the question of how the rumors were started in the first place).

[Editor's Note (1-3-2014): The Fatehammer comet has officially been revealed as the wrecked hull of the Sentinel, an extraplanar flying vessel accidentally brought to the Sorrowfell Plains.  The Sentinel itself is a 4e version of The Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.]

I've never run in Blackmoor, but I dig the setting.  Particularly all the weird ancient astronaut stuff that tends to appear in it (a spaceship crashed near Blackmoor a long time ago, and there are some weird alien devices in circulation).  It also forms the prehistory of Mystara.  Perhaps I shall run a game in Blackmoor, someday.