Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline Interesting articles in Dragon magazine

Deuce Traveler

2012 Newfag
Patron
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
2,899
Location
Okinawa, Japan
Grab the Codex by the pussy Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
The "How much did Tolkien influence D&D" thing is always so strange. Gygax certainly downplayed it despite all the obvious things he did crib from Tolkien, but I almost feel like it was more as an over reaction to all the people whose idea of fantasy starts and ends with Tolkien. Considering how much stuff was taken directly from various other stories I don't think you can really claim that they retroactively were what stuck. Early D&D is very much the fever dream mixture of a lot of late 60's/early 70's era paperback fantasy/horror/sci-fi.

Gary and others were pretty clear that they were into the high fantasy adventures in Appendix N and were trying to emulate the feel of those books with all their weirdness. But Tolkien was always the king of the genre, so for commercial purposes they had to cater to that large demographic of fantasy fans. Financially, it would be foolish not to do so. But you can tell how little Gary Gygax liked hobbits by how crappy their stats were compared to everyone else. Also, cribbing Tolkien too much was more trouble than it was worth, such as when the Tolkien estate went after TSR and they had to change 'hobbits' to 'halflings'. If you want to see the very weird science-fantasy stuff the TSR staff was into consider that the first licensed setting was Tékumel in 1974. (I fucking love Tékumel, although I only discovered it 12 years ago).

https://www.tekumel.com/

But much to my personal disappointment, lay fans of fantasy didn't want the weird world of Tekumel. They wanted something familiar. The Blackmoor setting did its fair share of trying to keep closer to science fantasy, with its lost technology and the Temple of the Frog. Greyhawk came next as a setting (mostly due to the falling out of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson... may he be remembered forever), and as a sort of compromise closer towards the pure fantasy based on Western Europe that Tolkien fans wanted, but with science fantasy elements like what was found in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module. Even the mind-flayers, which were created later, are closer to science fantasy and weird fantasy than anything Tolkien would create. It was a losing battle, though, as the game grew in popularity and more and more people drove TSR towards a more Tolkien-esque flavor of adventures.

The chronology of DnD settings tells you all you need to know about that trend:
1974: Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne
1976: Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Not TSR licensed, but gets an honorable mention for its influence)
1977: Blackmoor
1979: Greyhawk
1981: Mystara (Like it and its Hollow Earth companion, but stuff is creeping away from the weird...)
1984: Dragonlance (Oh no... this is a troubling trend in the wrong direction... )
1985: Lankhmar (Pretty sure they just did it because the license was available and they were fans.... never really supported...)
1987: Forgotten Realms ... and now we've gone full vanilla.

Now TSR would go on in the late 80s and early 90s to create a slew of campaign settings that were great, but not pushed as the official setting of the game (Dark Sun, Planescape). That was reserved for Forgotten Realms until TSR crashed and burned and 3rd edition used Greyhawk for a few years before Eberron took over. I have a soft place in my heart for Eberron even though the campaign setting felt more like pulp superhero action. Eventually Forgotten Realms made it's comeback though, in all its vanilla glory.
 

Archibald

Arcane
Joined
Aug 26, 2010
Messages
7,869
If you want to see the very weird science-fantasy stuff the TSR staff was into consider that the first licensed setting was Tékumel in 1974. (I fucking love Tékumel, although I only discovered it 12 years ago).

https://www.tekumel.com/

Tekumel is one of those things that I "run into" every couple of years and it looks fascinating to me, yet I never find time to actually get into it and forget about it couple of months later till the cycle repeats itself again. Are there any books or campaigns suitable for people who want to sample it without investing fuck ton of time?
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Gary and others were pretty clear that they were into the high fantasy adventures in Appendix N and were trying to emulate the feel of those books with all their weirdness. But Tolkien was always the king of the genre, so for commercial purposes they had to cater to that large demographic of fantasy fans. Financially, it would be foolish not to do so. But you can tell how little Gary Gygax liked hobbits by how crappy their stats were compared to everyone else. Also, cribbing Tolkien too much was more trouble than it was worth, such as when the Tolkien estate went after TSR and they had to change 'hobbits' to 'halflings'. If you want to see the very weird science-fantasy stuff the TSR staff was into consider that the first licensed setting was Tékumel in 1974. (I fucking love Tékumel, although I only discovered it 12 years ago).

https://www.tekumel.com/

But much to my personal disappointment, lay fans of fantasy didn't want the weird world of Tekumel. They wanted something familiar. The Blackmoor setting did its fair share of trying to keep closer to science fantasy, with its lost technology and the Temple of the Frog. Greyhawk came next as a setting (mostly due to the falling out of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson... may he be remembered forever), and as a sort of compromise closer towards the pure fantasy based on Western Europe that Tolkien fans wanted, but with science fantasy elements like what was found in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module. Even the mind-flayers, which were created later, are closer to science fantasy and weird fantasy than anything Tolkien would create. It was a losing battle, though, as the game grew in popularity and more and more people drove TSR towards a more Tolkien-esque flavor of adventures.

The chronology of DnD settings tells you all you need to know about that trend:
1974: Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne
1976: Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Not TSR licensed, but gets an honorable mention for its influence)
1977: Blackmoor
1979: Greyhawk
1981: Mystara (Like it and its Hollow Earth companion, but stuff is creeping away from the weird...)
1984: Dragonlance (Oh no... this is a troubling trend in the wrong direction... )
1985: Lankhmar (Pretty sure they just did it because the license was available and they were fans.... never really supported...)
1987: Forgotten Realms ... and now we've gone full vanilla.

Now TSR would go on in the late 80s and early 90s to create a slew of campaign settings that were great, but not pushed as the official setting of the game (Dark Sun, Planescape). That was reserved for Forgotten Realms until TSR crashed and burned and 3rd edition used Greyhawk for a few years before Eberron took over. I have a soft place in my heart for Eberron even though the campaign setting felt more like pulp superhero action. Eventually Forgotten Realms made it's comeback though, in all its vanilla glory.

Tekumel is one of those things that I "run into" every couple of years and it looks fascinating to me, yet I never find time to actually get into it and forget about it couple of months later till the cycle repeats itself again. Are there any books or campaigns suitable for people who want to sample it without investing fuck ton of time?
Tekumei.png
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
That was reserved for Forgotten Realms until TSR crashed and burned and 3rd edition used Greyhawk for a few years before Eberron took over. I have a soft place in my heart for Eberron even though the campaign setting felt more like pulp superhero action.

I wish Eberron took over. While it got a good series of supplements, that's more a testimate to 3.5's book count than Eberron being everywhere. Most non-Eberron 3.5 books offer token, at best, advice for using the stuff introduced there in Eberron and much more for FR use.

But yes, Eberron is a pulp setting more than a hardcore fantasy. If you're going have multiple settings, it's ideal for them to be utterly distinct and being a seperate (but related) genre helps a lot with that.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,279
Location
Massachusettes
I remember reading an old Dragon review by Sandy Petersen on Final Fantasy II when it was first released on the NES. He liked it. Was surprised by that. So, no snobbery there for the jRPG systems. Good for him.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,760
Tekumel is one of those things that I "run into" every couple of years and it looks fascinating to me, yet I never find time to actually get into it and forget about it couple of months later till the cycle repeats itself again. Are there any books or campaigns suitable for people who want to sample it without investing fuck ton of time?
Tékumel intrinsically requires a larger investment in preparation, due to it being so far removed from any remotely conventional fantasy RPG setting. The official Tékumel website contains various useful information, including a link to the fifth edition of the rules, which supposedly are lighter and easier to play than past versions.

bethormcover.jpg


I remember reading an old Dragon review by Sandy Petersen on Final Fantasy II when it was first released on the NES. He liked it. Was surprised by that. So, no snobbery there for the jRPG systems. Good for him.
That review of Final Fantasy II on the SNES (it was actually FF4 but the second and third games in the series weren't released outside Japan) appeared in Dragon Magazine #199 (November 1993) two years after the game's release in the United States. In that article, Sandy Petersen awarded four stars to both FFII and the adventure game Day of the Tentacle but only two stars to Betrayal at Krondor. :M
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Thread isn't abandoned btw, I've been going through them slowly just not really finding any interesting articles. Seems like they put a lot of user-submitted fiction work in their earlier editions to fill out the pages.
 

Jack Of Owls

Arcane
Joined
May 23, 2014
Messages
4,279
Location
Massachusettes
Tekumel is one of those things that I "run into" every couple of years and it looks fascinating to me, yet I never find time to actually get into it and forget about it couple of months later till the cycle repeats itself again. Are there any books or campaigns suitable for people who want to sample it without investing fuck ton of time?
Tékumel intrinsically requires a larger investment in preparation, due to it being so far removed from any remotely conventional fantasy RPG setting. The official Tékumel website contains various useful information, including a link to the fifth edition of the rules, which supposedly are lighter and easier to play than past versions.

bethormcover.jpg


I remember reading an old Dragon review by Sandy Petersen on Final Fantasy II when it was first released on the NES. He liked it. Was surprised by that. So, no snobbery there for the jRPG systems. Good for him.
That review of Final Fantasy II on the SNES (it was actually FF4 but the second and third games in the series weren't released outside Japan) appeared in Dragon Magazine #199 (November 1993) two years after the game's release in the United States. In that article, Sandy Petersen awarded four stars to both FFII and the adventure game Day of the Tentacle but only two stars to Betrayal at Krondor. :M

Oh, I got my timeframe & Final Fantasies mixed up I guess. Was still surprised that he really liked it considering all the snobbery against jRPGs from some hardcore fans of the genre. The too-brief stories about Sandy in Masters of Doom were pretty awesome, particularly his early encounter with John Romero at Id and John's stereotypes about Mormons and Sandy's genuinely hilarious reaction and being so cheerful about it. I realized I liked this guy. As for Final Fantasy IV, I played the "Hard Type" version in emulation and was brought to my knees by its difficulty. It was quite a shock going from the American release of Final Fantasy III (VI in Japan) which I breezed through to that. There's something to be about some of these jRPGs. They're not for kids. Or at least not for dumb kids.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,760
edit:
Think this may be him.
He died two years ago. Looks like he eventually went on to work for TSR, a dream job.
https://obits.al.com/obituaries/birmingham/obituary.aspx?n=gary-floyd-spiegle&pid=189397911
RIP bro.
In the brief time he was at TSR, Garry Spiegle wrote adventure module CM2 Death's Ride and two non-D&D adventure modules (Gamma World and Star Frontiers) and also helped develop the Dragonlance campaign setting. There was a lot of turmoil and turnover at TSR in the period, culminating in 1985 when Gary Gygax returned to power only to be ousted in October by Lorraine Williams, who then helmed TSR until the end in 1997.
It seems Garry Spiegle had an even greater impact during the brief time he worked at TSR, since Frank Mentzer, in his preface to the Dungeons & Dragons "Green Box" Companion Rules, not only mentions him as one of four developers of the War Machine rules but also singled out Garry for assistance in developing the Dominion system and for other "numerous" contributions to the three D&D boxed sets published thus far in BECMI D&D.

manz1h.png
 

Bara

Arcane
Joined
Apr 2, 2018
Messages
1,320
Little off topic but speaking of the old rpg magazines does an archive exist for the White Dwarf magazines?
 

Gyor

Savant
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
731
The "How much did Tolkien influence D&D" thing is always so strange. Gygax certainly downplayed it despite all the obvious things he did crib from Tolkien, but I almost feel like it was more as an over reaction to all the people whose idea of fantasy starts and ends with Tolkien. Considering how much stuff was taken directly from various other stories I don't think you can really claim that they retroactively were what stuck. Early D&D is very much the fever dream mixture of a lot of late 60's/early 70's era paperback fantasy/horror/sci-fi.

Gary and others were pretty clear that they were into the high fantasy adventures in Appendix N and were trying to emulate the feel of those books with all their weirdness. But Tolkien was always the king of the genre, so for commercial purposes they had to cater to that large demographic of fantasy fans. Financially, it would be foolish not to do so. But you can tell how little Gary Gygax liked hobbits by how crappy their stats were compared to everyone else. Also, cribbing Tolkien too much was more trouble than it was worth, such as when the Tolkien estate went after TSR and they had to change 'hobbits' to 'halflings'. If you want to see the very weird science-fantasy stuff the TSR staff was into consider that the first licensed setting was Tékumel in 1974. (I fucking love Tékumel, although I only discovered it 12 years ago).

https://www.tekumel.com/

But much to my personal disappointment, lay fans of fantasy didn't want the weird world of Tekumel. They wanted something familiar. The Blackmoor setting did its fair share of trying to keep closer to science fantasy, with its lost technology and the Temple of the Frog. Greyhawk came next as a setting (mostly due to the falling out of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson... may he be remembered forever), and as a sort of compromise closer towards the pure fantasy based on Western Europe that Tolkien fans wanted, but with science fantasy elements like what was found in the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks module. Even the mind-flayers, which were created later, are closer to science fantasy and weird fantasy than anything Tolkien would create. It was a losing battle, though, as the game grew in popularity and more and more people drove TSR towards a more Tolkien-esque flavor of adventures.

The chronology of DnD settings tells you all you need to know about that trend:
1974: Tékumel: Empire of the Petal Throne
1976: Wilderlands of High Fantasy (Not TSR licensed, but gets an honorable mention for its influence)
1977: Blackmoor
1979: Greyhawk
1981: Mystara (Like it and its Hollow Earth companion, but stuff is creeping away from the weird...)
1984: Dragonlance (Oh no... this is a troubling trend in the wrong direction... )
1985: Lankhmar (Pretty sure they just did it because the license was available and they were fans.... never really supported...)
1987: Forgotten Realms ... and now we've gone full vanilla.

Now TSR would go on in the late 80s and early 90s to create a slew of campaign settings that were great, but not pushed as the official setting of the game (Dark Sun, Planescape). That was reserved for Forgotten Realms until TSR crashed and burned and 3rd edition used Greyhawk for a few years before Eberron took over. I have a soft place in my heart for Eberron even though the campaign setting felt more like pulp superhero action. Eventually Forgotten Realms made it's comeback though, in all its vanilla glory.

The Forgotten Realms is not Vanilla, not even close to Vanilla, its got tons of weird shit. Its moons has colonies with Spelljammers visting, its Egyptian inspired empire invented steam pressure engines, Lantan has all kinds of weird magitech. The planet phased together with another planet trading parts of each other, and look up the weird shit that happened during the says of Thunder, one of FRs Japanese built a colony on a living plantworld called Garden, there is a weird demiplane thing that connects all the graveyards on Faerun, there are alien cities of Illithids doing horrifying experiments on people, a flying city of Aboleths, a broken portal to the Far Realms called the living Gate in the Feywild, a history of Elves using weapons of mass destruction to commit gencide, Gods being exiled to Toril while reality and the laws of physics and magic went off the window (seriously read the Avatar series again and tell me FR is vanilla again). Look up the Blade Kingdoms. There is a major space port in the middle of no where in Kara Tur. You have extra dimesional spaces like the Celeatial Nadir. You have magic drugs. You had a dude that was half golem and half human. That is just the tip of the iceberg.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,328
Location
Flowery Land
Gyor
None of which ever get used to impact actual gameplay, unless its part of retardation to explain mechanic changes for a new edition, or exists in western Faerun where 90+% (I only put it that low because of the Underdark) of material is set. I thought Lantan was interesting and looked at the source material for it: Despite less than half a dozen books mentioning them in a real capacity, there's still major contradictions in info (are they prolific traders with an ambassador and temples built exclusively for visitors, or are they so obscure all people know treat it as a mythical land? Did they steal the printing press from Halruaa, or did Gond teach them how to make it?).

Which brings up FR's other major issue: Everything happens in a vaccum unless its part of an edition changeover. Do the the space ports bring in products of advanced technology (Not even Barrier Peaks level shit, but something as simple as blast furnace+puddling Process, which has somehow evaded Toril's grasp despite them working iron for millenia. Hell, you don't even need puddling with all the ways even simple magic can create heat without expending fuel)? Strange new diseases brought by the alien visitors? Rulers seeking alliances? No, they just exist, get used for a single story (if that) and forgotten about. Hell "in the middle of no where" makes no sense. Surely a resource like a fucking space port would cause a city to be built in short order. There should be masses of people clammoring to offer Spelljammer crews food, prostitutes, crew (that they might not even have to pay for given how shit the average life on Toril is and how novel a concept of "go to other planets" is) ect.
 

Gyor

Savant
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
731
The location of the Spelljamming port in Kara Tur is extremely hard to reach.

And I will be the first to admit alot of FR stuff could use more details. Its still not Vanilla at all.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,760
Dragon Magazine #119 (March 1987) introduced the Forgotten Realms to the public with an article by Jeff Grubb, one of the architects of the setting, in which he stated "We quickly set about creating a new campaign which would not only be the home for the AD&D game modules of 1987, but would act as the basis for adventures in the Second Edition AD&D game system." and that "The FORGOTTEN REALMS™ boxed set is the launching point for TSR’'s new campaign world of the same name, in the tradition of the worlds of Oerth and Krynn. It will be the “home base” of the AD&D game universe, and —with the arrival of Second Edition —the home for that as well." From its inception, the Forgotten Realms was intended to be the standard, generic (and bland, derivative) campaign setting of AD&D.
 

Luckmann

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia

I've been chomping through Appendix N for the past few months. So much of early D&D makes so much sense when going through this reading list. Modern D&D feels so self referential compared to the stuff Gygax was cribbing from these authors.
It's a real shame, too. Gygax and friends pulled from a rich literary history intensely tied to their time. Much of this cultural treasure and internal logic has been lost, as as others have simply aped them without understanding the origins - origins Gygax and friends never really explained; either because they didn't really have to or because they couldn't be too specific or cite examples without opening themselves up to potential litigation.

There's no better example of this than "vancian magic". When I was first exposed to D&D (technically via Eye of the Beholder but not in a sense I realized it until Baldur's Gate), it didn't make sense to me that wizards would just be able to use spells of specific kinds once or twice (being more used to mana than anything else). But once you understand it as it is meant to work, that wizards memorize and ritualize these intensively complicated formulas and then sequester them as facets in their minds/souls, expending those kept "charges" by finishing the rituals, it all makes perfect sense. But you don't get that kind of context unless you actually read Vance, and modern D&D doesn't even try to drive the logic home.
 

Gyor

Savant
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Messages
731
Dragon Magazine #119 (March 1987) introduced the Forgotten Realms to the public with an article by Jeff Grubb, one of the architects of the setting, in which he stated "We quickly set about creating a new campaign which would not only be the home for the AD&D game modules of 1987, but would act as the basis for adventures in the Second Edition AD&D game system." and that "The FORGOTTEN REALMS™ boxed set is the launching point for TSR’'s new campaign world of the same name, in the tradition of the worlds of Oerth and Krynn. It will be the “home base” of the AD&D game universe, and —with the arrival of Second Edition —the home for that as well." From its inception, the Forgotten Realms was intended to be the standard, generic (and bland, derivative) campaign setting of AD&D.

The Forgotten Realms has never been generic, bland, or derivative, instead its awesomeness inspired many other settings such as Golarion, Midgard, and so on.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom