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Arnold Hendrick (Darklands, Barbarian Prince) Reviews D&D

MRY

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This is so weird and so awesome. It's from 1974. Hat-tip: some dude on twitter, to some blog, to EN World.

"Play in person is usually impossible"!

dnd_review_74.gif
 

Melan

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It is doubly funny because while Hendrick didn't quite get tabletop RPGs (and based on OD&D's lack of proper editing, who can blame him?), Saint Gary also missed the point and went absolute apeshit over the review, writing a response thundering with invective from the hallowed bully pulpit of Dragon Magazine. :lol:

Also note the bitching about prices ($10 for the whole set would be $50 in 2016, and the box didn't come with polyhedral dice).
 

MRY

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Here's Gygax's response:
EDITORIAL

Donald Featherstone once said in WARGAMER’S NEWSLETTER that he believed Arnold Hendrick’s chief talent and claim to fame lay in his “pinching” of Fletcher Pratt’s Naval Wargame – alluding in all likelihood to similarities between Mr. Pratt’s game and the set of rules for naval miniatures authored by Mr. Hendrick. I concurred with what was said in WARGAMER’S NEWSLETTER, and when the good Mr. Hendrick “reviewed” CHAINMAIL in a highly uncomplimentary manner I ignored what was written, for surely most hobbyists could be assumed to be able to read this “review” for what it was worth and in light of Mr. Hendrick’s talents otherwise. As an example of the comments he made regarding CHAINMAIL, the most amusing was his assertion that heavy cavalry was rated too high, imagine! In a period where the armored horseman dominated the field of battle, heavy horse are too strong! Anyway, the learned Mr. Hendrick subsequently “reviewed” DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, again in a very uncomplimentary manner – after all, he had gone so far as to play a game of D&D as a Cleric, completely armed with such edged weapons as spear and arrows . . . Again, this so called “review” was so obviously inaccurate and biased that I ignored it completely, although numbers of letters and telephone calls from irate D&D fans who had read the comments and wished to let me know that the “review” outraged them assured me that Mr. Hendrick would not escape totally unscathed. Eventually the magazine which retains Mr. Hendrick as a “reviewer” did print a contrary opinion – how could they ignore a counter-article written by Mr. James Oden, President of Heritage Models, Inc.? This brings me to the point of this editorial. The axe that Mr. Hendrick has been grinding so loudly and long has been exposed.

Possibly in light of TSR’s success in publishing miniatures rules and games, Mr. Hendrick has decided to begin peddling a line of his own creations. If these creations are as well-thought out as his “reviews”, as learned and clever, they will be rare products indeed. However, being inclined towards fair play, I invite any readers who wish to submit reviews of any of these sets of rules, and as space permits we will publish as many as is possible. Note TSR is not having one of its writers or designers review the products of a competitor. If we receive several reviews for one set of rules we will publish that which is most thorough in our opinion, regardless of what its recommendation is, and as an editor’s note include the conclusions of any other reviews of the same work so as to give all opinions expressed to us from disinterested reviewers. After all, could one expect honest and fair reviews from a source directly connected with a competitor of the product being reviewed? Certainly not. As an author of rules and games I have refrained in the past from reviewing the work of other writers and designers for just this reason. This policy will be continued in the pages of SR, despite less scrupulous methods employed in the magazine which carries Mr. Hendrick’s “reviews”. We will depend on you for product reviews, and when we plug our own staff it will be clearly labeled as an advertisement.

Gary Gygax
I love the heavy cavalry line, if only because it reminded me so much of my nitpicking of Tyranny's historicity. :)
 

nikolokolus

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To Hendrick's credit, if you read the LBBs without any knowledge of the accreted conventions that we take for granted now, it would be nearly impossible to figure out how to play the game just by reading what's there (unless you were a war gamer).

I can't remember where I read it, but I seem to recall a Tim Kask interview, where he was talking about how the game varied wildly in the way it was played from group to group, table to table. This is partly what prompted the Moldvay and Holmes versions, and then Gary wanting to do his AD&D revision (which also had the side benefit of screwing Dave Arneson out of royalties).
 

kris

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To Hendrick's credit, if you read the LBBs without any knowledge of the accreted conventions that we take for granted now, it would be nearly impossible to figure out how to play the game just by reading what's there (unless you were a war gamer).

I can't remember where I read it, but I seem to recall a Tim Kask interview, where he was talking about how the game varied wildly in the way it was played from group to group, table to table. This is partly what prompted the Moldvay and Holmes versions, and then Gary wanting to do his AD&D revision (which also had the side benefit of screwing Dave Arneson out of royalties).

I think his review was pretty fair, even if he didn't really understand what he was reviewing. PnP RPGs are very reliant on the referee unless they play a very tight pre-written adventure.
 

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