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30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of D&D
from the no-seriously-was-it-good? dept.
The inside book jacket explains that "(t)his book is a celebration of that phenomenon (D&D, natch) and a tribute to the millions of players who brought the Dungeons & Dragons experience to life." When I think of tributes, I think of missing-man formations flying over stadiums, of 21-gun salutes, and Taps played on a lone bugle. As a tribute, this book is the equivalent of a handful of cellophane balloons released from the rooftop of a children's hospital just before noon on a Sunday, with Kool and the Gang playing on a cassette deck nearby.
OK, perhaps that's harsh. Or perhaps you really like Kool and the Gang. In either case, I'll do my best to lay out my case clearly, and in the end you can decide for yourself if you think my harshness is justified or not.
The Cover
I walked by this book at Barnes & Noble five times before I noticed it, even though it was laying flat on a table, its cover clearly visible to me. As covers go, it's really not designed to catch the eye. It's a book designed for rogues, or wraiths, muted gold images wrapped within a translucent sheet of white plastic, making the whole thing look like it's being viewed through a heavy mist, or perhaps a Wall of Fog spell. The title, if you read it off as you notice the elements on the page, is something like "Years A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons Of Adventure 30." The "30" in this case is represented by two 8-sided dice -- clever enough but very difficult to read. And why 8s? Why not 20s? Wouldn't that make more sense if we were trying to be clever? (Ed. It's been pointed out since I wrote this that it's actually a d8 and a d10, though my opinion stands.)
Front Matter
The book boasts on its cover that it features a Foreword by Vin Diesel. I guess this is high praise for the 16-year-old set who likes that movie where he drives around really fast, or maybe that one where he plays that criminal with the spooky eyes. I've got nothing against Vin Diesel, and I know he plays Dungeons & Dragons and all, but come on, folks. 30th Anniversary, and there's no place for Gary or Dave in your book? Throw 'em a bone. Hell, Steve Jackson could write a more appropriate Foreword.
For the young folk, "Gary" and "Dave" refer to Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson, respectively, two gentlemen who are peripherally involved in the role-playing industry. And yes, Gary Gygax does have a piece in the book -- but it was written in 1999. Somewhat tellingly, it includes the following statement by Mr. Gygax: "We were in a great hurry to get it done, and I was concerned about editing."
One wonders if the same could be said for this book.
At any rate, after Mr. Diesel's piece is an Introduction by the book's editor, Peter Archer, the brand manager for novels at Wizards of the Coast. His four-page intro is of particular interest for two reasons. First, it lays out the basic history of Dungeons and Dragons, from its roots to the release of Eberron. This history is important, because we're going to hear it retreaded and retold over and over and over again by different authors, and sometimes multiple times by the same author, on the pages that follow.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, his introduction is also some of the only text in the entire book which is grammatically correct, properly and cleanly laid out, and free of typos (at least insofar as I am aware). This book is positively awash in errors. If this were an OGL-released d20 product put on the market by a small publisher, said publisher would be lambasted for their sloppy work. I'm not about to pull any punches here because it's Wizards.
About the Graphic Design
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Listen, I'm not the world's foremost expert on layout and design. Heck, I consider myself a writer by trade, though I do layout at my day job. But it doesn't take an expert to take one look at this book and go "Yeagh."
"Yeagh," here, interpreted as a vomiting sound.
All the basic rules of design are broken for no apparent reason other than to give the book a "hip" or "cool" layout. Instead of being presented with the text at a normal 90 degree angle to the page, every single page has the text skewed to the right or the left, so you have to constantly wiggle the book back and forth, back and forth to read it clearly. And the page numbers are no help. They're little 10-sided dice in the margin on right-hand pages, difficult to read (I didn't even notice they were there until I was halfway through the book) and serving no purpose other than to look cute.
The skewing of the pages left and right, left and right, means that the text is forced to flow in unnatural ways across pages, leading to awkward widows and orphans (when single words or sentences are left abandoned at the top or bottom of columns) and horrible breaks between pages and even within sentences:
"And the best part is that as you defeat more
monsters and gather
more treasure your character's chances to fight
and survive improve."
Flowing text between pages is simple in today's desktop publishing applications. You set up text boxes on each page and then you just paste all your text into the first block. Magically, it flows through the entire document, filling the boxes. Then you just save the document and send it off to the printer. Well, you're not supposed to do that. But that's evidently what happened here. Just a wee tiny little itty bit of nudging could have made this book a billion times more readable. Consider:
"TSR tackled the task of translating the game" (next page) "into the French language."
Why not adjust the leading or spacing a fraction of an inch to bump this back so the entire sentence fits on the first page, avoiding the awkward break? It's easy, really. I do it every day.
"Every staple of fantasy/swords & sorcery fiction could" (next page) "find a comfortable home in the Known World."
This one is even more egregious. At the bottom of that first page, there's a full two inches of space. You could have fit an entire new paragraph there, much less eight words. Come on, guys.
All this comes to a head in the latter pages of the book, when numerous smaller sub-articles by the likes of Ed Stark and Ryan Dancey are interspersed with the main narrative in a confusing jumble, both the sub-article and the main article continuing on across two, three or more pages. This causes the reader to have to flip back and forth numerous times to try and follow the separate threads, with amusing consequences. I think at one point Peter Adkison interrupted himself.
Moving on, there's much to be said of the overall graphic design, and none of it is good. Artwork, lifted from 30 years of Dungeons & Dragons products, is sprinkled willy-nilly with little regard for the subject matter. Some dramatic pieces have their most interesting bits cropped off seemingly at random. Other pieces are just reversed out and pasted on black or dropped behind a red mask, presumably for a "dramatic effect" akin to passing around a bowl of spaghetti when your players discover a pit full of snakes. In a chapter on AD&D 2nd Edition, several 1st Edition AD&D books are pictured. In a chapter on the 2nd Edition Historical Sourcebooks, several cover images are used over and over again on successive pages. And so on.
Color schemes shift from page to page, with any notion of good contrast tossed out the window. Here we have black type on white, then black type on brown, then black type on brown with a gradient from light brown to dark brown, then white on red. Page 189 is one of my favorites. Heck, even the notion of simple reversed text is thrown to the wolves here: compare 208 to 211; same white on purple scheme, different degrees of brightness. No doubt some of the pages even feature black text on a black background, though not having elven blood in me I lack the Darkvision necessary to perceive this strange and cryptic Moon writing.
Even simple things like two-page splashes are handled poorly. Check out pages 196-197 (or rather, try and find them, since they're not numbered) and try and decipher the subtitle mashed into the gutter of the book.
About The Editing (or lack thereof)
I have no way of knowing exactly who's to blame here. As Editor, I could be quick to point a finger at Mr. Archer, but perhaps here "Editor" means that he pulled the material together and strung it out so it made sense, in which case he did a good job. Whoever was responsible for copyediting and layout, however, should have to do this book all over again from scratch, on their own time. Some of the mistakes made here are positively amateurish, others so obvious that it's incredible that they weren't caught before this went to press.
Some examples of typos, poorly-phrased sentences and other gaffes that absolutely should have been fixed by an editor, chosen randomly from about the book:
"My second greatest love however, next to acting was gaming."
"My own campaign world grew out of that original map that I took a half hour to draw. z" (sic)
"...we saw a merchant caravans crossing the desert..."
"I may remembering wrong..."
"1976 was a year of beginnings as the Ral Partha miniatures company appears on the scene."
"using your time in a ways that's entertaining but also enriching."
"Until TSR published that Gary Gygax's home campaign setting back in 1975..."
"We start in town and buy your stuff."
"poured over books" (referring to reading them, not dumping water on them)
"dire straights"
"silly to support two separately game lines"
"hen we released the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons..."
and the best, on page 253,
"Advance Dungeons & Dragons"
Lest you think me harsh, let me point out that these were all things I caught on my first read through the book. I'm not a professional copy editor by any stretch of the imagination, and I make mistakes all the time. But for a product which is made out to be this huge 30th Anniversary Celebration, you'd think someone would actually read through the thing one last time before it went out the door to try and fix stupid errors and clean up grammar. Sometimes Dungeons & Dragons is all caps, sometimes not. Sometimes Dungeon Master is capitalized, sometimes not. This is something a spell-checker could fix automatically had anyone taken fifteen seconds to run it.
Part of the problem (and no doubt, one of the arguments used to defend it) is the fact that a number of the typos and grammatical errors appear in one-page "celebrations" written by various people in the entertainment industry, some well known and others of more dubious fame. "We didn't make the errors," this mythical copy editor might say, "those people made the errors." To which I reply, any editor worth his salt knows that it's preferable to correct typos, fix punctuation and even slightly massage quotes to make them sound correct. No one wants to go down in print sounding like a goober, even if they typed the sentence out that way. They'd be happy you fixed it. We all would. Some of these little one-pagers read as if they were copied out of Outlook and pasted into InDesign without a second glance.
And speaking of stupid editing mistakes and one-pagers, take note of Nik Davidson's contribution on page 98. You'll be seeing it all over again on page 194. How this page got replicated, paragraph break error and all, is beyond me. It smacks of sloppiness, however, as does the whole book.
Which I will now discuss.
Chapter 1. The Adventure Begins
By Harold Johnson with Gary Gygax
As first chapters go, this is one of the worst. In fact, as all chapters ever written go, it's one of the worst, on countless levels.
To start with, the predominant color scheme in this chapter is red and black, which makes everything look as if the layout artist slit his wrists over his work in despair. Turning everything blood red does not make it more dramatic, guys. It makes it more muted and hard to see.
Then there are the stupid typographical errors. The introductory "adventure" is written across a two-page spread entirely in italics, for no other reason than to be in italics. Though the fact that it's difficult to read is certainly in its favor, as it's hardly stellar work, featuring numerous examples of the aforementioned bad spelling, run-on sentences, bad grammar and godawful writing:
"Two were warriors as could be seen by their swords, the dwarven one sported a long beard and held a heavy warhammer. The other two were something of an oddity-- the first wore long robes and carried a slender wand of white ash, his eyebrows were animated as he took in the scene. The other wore a loose fitting tunic and held a thin bladed dagger in one hand as his enigmatic grey eyes took in the setting."
Chris Prynoski's one page "celebration" (page 22) features more bad writing, including an obviously (and badly) contrived "example" of gameplay which introduces the words "fucked" and "piss" into the book for no apparent reason other than to be crass.
"What do you mean, 'What are you gonna do'? Don't I have to roll these fucked-up-looking dice or something? What am I supposed to do?"
"You can do anything."
...
"Okay. My guy pulls down his pants and pisses on the altar."
...
"I'm rolling to see what happens to you."
"Shouldn't I be rolling to see what happens to me?"
"I'm the Dungeon Master, dude."
Riiiiight. Maybe, just maybe, Mr. Prynoski is telling the story sans embellishment, as it actually happened. Even so, it should be up to an Editor to say "You know, this is the one single page in the book where we use profanity, so maybe I should EDIT the page to remove it, for consistency. Since I'm the Editor. And stuff."
Cardell Kerr's one pager, which faces Prynoski's, is fairly coherent, but there are little things that suggest -- like the rest of the book -- that these "celebrations" were all pasted together from emails with little or no editing:
"Wow . . . thinking about it, is almost embarrassing. I mean, kobolds would never ride dragons!"
Other such "celebrations" in this chapter include testaments from Stephen Colbert, Wil Wheaton, Sherman Alexie and Ben Kweller, whose enlightening thoughts include one of the best collections of unrelated sentences in the entire book:
"When I was young, I read a ton of the Dungeons & Dragons Choose Your Own Adventure books. Music's always been my one passion in life. I had piano lessons when I was growing up..."
This first chapter of the book also features sections entitled: "Where Did It Come From?", which reiterates the story of D&D's historical origins; "A Gathering of Gamers," which not only discusses GenCon's beginnings, but also reiterates the story of D&D's historical origins; and "The Birth of D&D," which reiterates the story of D&D's historical origins.
I only wish that they'd included a section that reiterated the story of D&D's historical origins. Alas.
Chapter 2. Worlds of Adventure
By Steve Winter with Peter Archer and Ed Stark
The second chapter of the book is a tour of the main campaign settings that have been featured in Dungeons & Dragons throughout the years. As a whole it's much better written and edited than the first chapter, with more factual and relevant information and less "golly-gee" gushing.
Things begin to turn around when Peter Archer discusses Dragonlance, though he does lead off his retelling of Krynn's development with an interesting bit of time travel, stating that "Tracey Hickman, a Mormon, had returned from his mission abroad in Indonesia in March 1980" and then later that "Laura Curtis had introduced Tracy to D&D in 1997 before he went abroad."
The portions written by Steve Winter are excellently done, this inconsistency leading me to believe that the majority of the book was self-edited by the respective authors, without a final pass-through at the end. Winter's piece on the Forgotten Realms is fascinating, containing anecdotes and information about the creation of the Realms that I was previously unaware of, and his sections on Mystara, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun and Planescape contain similar revelations.
In fact, my only real gripe with the bulk of this chapter are things I've mentioned previously: awful layout (including some truly bad design decisions in the Planescape section, inserting one-page "celebrations" in the middle of the main narrative in a confusing fashion), and the bad editing and inconsistent writing in those same one-pagers. Some of them (Dan Trethaway's, and Feargus Urquart's) are well-written and edited, while others are disjointed (Laurell K. Hamilton's) or somewhat self-serving and seemingly irrelevant (John Frank Rosenblum).
Chapter 3. AD&D 2nd Edition
By Steve Winter
I expected this section to be well-written and informative, as the author, Steve Winter, had demonstrated his ability to do both those things in the previous chapter. I was not disappointed. Here, Winter covers not only the origins of 2nd Edition, but the PHBR Reference Books, the Historical Sourcebooks and the infamous Black Box (aka 1070), which was one of the best-selling items ever (over 500,000 copies worldwide). Winter seems bittersweet writing about these products, recognizing their flaws and respective levels of popularity (or lack thereof). Though not laid out so clearly, this sense of melancholy is a good lead in to the next chapter.
Chapter 4. From TSR to Wizards of the Coast
By Peter Adkison with Ed Stark
This chapter talks about Adkison's view of the merger, from the point of view of Wizards of the Coast, interspersed with Ed Stark's view from TSR. It's an interesting way to present the information, and is informative and interesting. As mentioned earlier, the layout choice to intersperse and interweave these smaller sub-articles through the main narrative makes it somewhat difficult to read, but here it almost seems to benefit the section's two-headed approach.
Sub-sections of the narrative are entitled "How I Became a D&D Fan," "TSR Needed Help," "The Acquisition of TSR," "Wizards of the Coast" and "Building TSR to Last," all self-explanatory as to the sort of content they contain and all interesting. "How I Became" really gets across the wonder of discovery, and "Needed Help" explains in layman's terms how it was that TSR crashed and burned despite record sales. "Acquisition" includes information on Ryan Dancey and the million dollar fax, while "Wizards" and "Building" wrap up the narrative nicely, bringing fact and feeling together quite nicely.
As a whole, this is perhaps the best part of the entire book, though as it starts on page 200 of a 284 page book, it's not really enough to save the whole.
Chapter 5. Third Edition
By Peter Adkison
As one might expect, this chapter covers the origins of 3rd Edition, discussing some of the design decisions that went into its development and covering topics such as the Open Gaming License that modern gamers are probably more familiar with. Though informative, it's bound to be less interesting to most readers since, unlike previous material, it's neither truly historical (it discusses events of the past five years) nor really revelatory. The section also suffers horribly from the poor layout discussed earlier, with numerous sub-articles running alongside and in-between the main narrative. Overall, it's a confused mess, and a slight downturn from the previous chapter.
Chapter 6. Into The Future
By Ed Stark
Really more of an Epilogue than a Chapter in itself, this consists of more graphical content than actual information. Here, computer games, "mature" products like the Book of Vile Darkness and Hasbro's purchase of Wizards of the Coast are discussed in more detail, though not with as much "oomph" as other sections of the book. It all feels tacked on, a feeling exacerbated by the fact that on page 282, halfway through the section, suddenly none of the paragraphs are indented. And then there's this:
"But things remained quiet. There were a few shake-ups, but mostly outside the RPG R&D department. Hasbro didn't interfere with us, and we kept our heads down for them."
And we turn the page and...
Um.
That's the end of the book, folks. That's how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. It's as if everyone just got tired of looking at it and stopped working on it. Appalling.
Credits
As far as I'm concerned, only three people need to be called out onto the carpet on this one:
First, the Editor, Peter Archer. Sorry Peter, but you get a C. I'll grant you that it's not like there's a typo on the front cover but there is, on average, one typo or other error on every page of this book. For every one perfect page there's one with two or three errors on it. The editing is at best inconsistent. The middle of the book is much better, but it's far from perfect, and the first chapter really ruins the mood early on. Since there's no copyeditor listed in the credits, I have to point the finger Archerwards. Maybe it wasn't your fault. But we gotta blame someone, and your name's listed first. But you're not alone.
Art Direction: Matt Adelsperger
Graphic Design: Matt Adelsperger & Brian Fraley
Typesetting: Matt Adelsperger & Brian Fraley
Together you guys get a D. This is really bad. Really. I can sort of comprehend how this was perceived as a cutting-edge art book with nifty crosswise and crooked layout, lots of colors and a slapdash, thrown-together look. I just think it looks sloppy. As an art book, maybe it's quite the achievement. As a celebration of the greatest RPG ever published, it sucks.
The Price
$49.95? Are you kidding me? For this? It's worth half that, and I expect it'll be half that in about two weeks when it winds up in the half-price bin. I'm not about to take my copy back (I can write it off on my taxes since I wrote this review, after all), but I'm not inclined to show it to my gaming friends.
Summary
This book does not make me want to celebrate Dungeons & Dragons. It makes me frustrated and sort of angry that this sloppy product was foisted off on us. So much more could have been done, and so much better. Even if no additional content were added, a cleaner layout with better use of graphics and a single pass through by a copyeditor could have caught most of the mistakes I mention above, and helped make it a delightful read. But alas, no. I see nothing stylish about being random and sloppy. If this were anything other than a Celebration of 30 years of D&D I might be more forgiving, but it isn't, and I'm not. We deserve better.
The middle of the book, especially the portions written by Mr. Winter and Mr. Adkison, are really interesting, fun and informative. But these highlights are dimmed by the broad shadow cast by much of the other material, including some of the more awful "gee whiz" one-pagers and the entirety of Chapter 1.
I'd recommend this book if you're a true fan, a completist, or if you have 50 bucks to spend. I would not recommend you buy this as a Christmas gift for someone else, because really they'll probably be disappointed, and you don't want that. Give them a $50 gift certificate for your FLGS instead. It'll be much more appreciated, and chances are the product they buy with that money will get them a much cleaner, much better edited product than this.
Let's hope the "50 Years of Adventure" book is a little better than this. Assuming we're still reading books in twenty years, of course.
You really could purchase 30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
I'm celebrating by... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm celebrating by... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I'm celebrating by... (Score:5, Funny)
Anybody else reminded of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons'?
"Furthermore, I will now present my 283rd point regarding the ugliness of the font used in printing this so-called monster manual."
Parent
Old School (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting how one would be able to apply all of those same terms to the state of D&D itself ever since, well, second edition came out. Not that there weren't some good rule tweaks, but that's where this "You need 1000 rulebooks to play a basic game" mentality really emerged in earnest. I mean, c'mon, the illusionist's handbook? "You make people see things". The *bard's* handbook? "Nobody plays this class, nitwit."
You enter a 10x10 room. Two orcs are guarding a chest. They leap to their feet as you enter, one orc looks to the other and says "Looks like Dwarf for dinner again", and the other responds "how come we never get any pork up here?". Roll initiative.
Re:Old School (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Old School (Score:5, Funny)
I take offense to your blatant bias against all of us bards. I've played my half-elven bard, Illiariariniara, for 12 years now and I must say it is the most fulfilling part of my life!! And I read the bard's handbook constantly to improve my understanding of my bard. She is currently level 26 and I hope that within a year she'll reach level 27. She can play a mean lute, let me tell you, and will charm the stink off a kobold! haha! Once you really get into character you'll better understand why the 2nd edition is so much better and why bards are so deep. They are the master of no trades but the jack of all but they get in all the sticky situations with the tavern wenches... I'll never forget the first time my bard had sex. So before you go jumping on people about how bards suck, you should try it for awhile and see if you like it!
Parent
Re:Old School (Score:5, Funny)
Yep. You're a gamer.
Parent
Re:Old School (Score:5, Funny)
Warren G-Nome. Coolest Bard ever. I think I got him to level 6 before we finished the campaign and went onto something non-D&D.
As "punishment" for naming my character "Warren G-Nome" the DM said I'd have to actually have a song when I cast spells. So I came up with fresh freestyle rap songs for each of my spells for the first 3 weeks, until the DM realized the one being punished was him. =)
Parent
Re:Old School (Score:5, Insightful)
And the GM simply had a fairly free flowing game tried to understand the skills and abilities of the characters and just worked out a percentage chance of success in his head, and asked people to roll on it for any given action.
In the end great RPGs are made by great story telling. Get in a good storyteller for the GM and rules are almost irrelevant. Get in a bad one and not matter how many rules you add you just have a boring dice game suitable only for pedants who like to say things like "But it says here on page 237 paragraph 4 of the Rogue Illusionists handbook..."
Jedidiah.
Parent
Re:Old School (Score:5, Funny)
story of my life in three words
Parent
Um... I don't think you've gotten over it... (Score:5, Funny)
I may not be a psychiatrist, or even play one on TV, but that sounds *way* too much like you haven't gotten over it.
Re:Um... I don't think you've gotten over it... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Um... I don't think you've gotten over it... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:5, Funny)
Make sure you know how to throw them right. [criticalmiss.com]
Parent
Re:Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I ain't got no physics degree, but I do hate to see someone straining themselves so - try this [google.com]...
Parent
Re:Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:4, Funny)
So was mine - geometry must have been a real bitch for whoever modded it "informative" ;)
Parent
Re:Even made sense to a non-D&Der (Score:5, Funny)
The writer casts "Poor puncuation".
Editor rolls vs. Spell.
Editor fails roll.
The Editor thinks the speeling is a-okay!
Parent
Hire Him! (Score:4, Funny)
Review? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is almost like this review needed to be edited by a third party editor...
Re:Review? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, looking at it as an art book, there really is little worth mentioning beyond what I say in the review. The overall design is a sloppy-looking, crooked affair, and the art (selected from 30 years of D&D products) is used so inappropriately as to diminish its artistic value, with colors shifted, heads cropped off, etc.
Parent
Uh oh... (Score:3, Funny)
In honor of the 30 year anniversary... (Score:4, Funny)
Yeesh. (Score:5, Insightful)
No "celebration of D&D" is possible without mentioning games that existed alongside it - Tunnels and Trolls being probably the most obvious. Games don't exist in a vaccuum, and the push to evolve exists because alternatives exist.
I can't recall that many uses for a D10 in D&D/AD&D. Rolemaster, certainly. Rolemaster is 99.9% percentiles, which makes GMing much simpler. But D&D? Nah. That uses almost anything but!
Character advancement is through many mechanisms and it is entirely possible for a character to reach very high levels with never seeing a gold piece or a single monster. Rare, but possible. This book sounds horribly like the author is a weenie power-player who only does dungeon-bashes against hopelessly out-powered, out-classed foes with GMs who prefer to please their players with vast hordes of treasure than serious game-play or challanging problems.
I'll pit my 20th level hamster mage against his best characters, any day.
Re:Yeesh. (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Yeesh. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Elves don't have darkvision! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Elves don't have darkvision! (Score:3, Informative)
It's a game, get over it. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with the reviewer, a "tribute" without Gygax is absurd.
Bob-
if you really want to know history of d&d... (Score:5, Informative)
Then if you can, get the Dragon Magazine CDROM archive. It has every one of the magazines from #1 to #250 on it in PDF. It's probably one of the best values out there for the money. Great Xmas gift too, btw.
Also, look around used bookstores, online stores, ebay, etc. for the 1981 edition of the Basic and Expert rules. These are the epitome of oldschool D&D, and unlike 1e AD&D, the Basic/Expert rules are quite easy to play. Each book is only 64 pages, and it's not all just rules there's also lots of examples and advice in there. In fact it's quite remarquable that the editors (Moldvay and Cook) managed to cram so much stuff in so little space, and yet still keep it fully understandable by 10-year olds.
Then look around for some of the old Basic edition modules. B1-B5, and X1 (Isle of Dread) are damned fine places to start. You don't really *need* the modules, but they do help set that oldschool tone.
Finally just make sure you got enough pretzels/chips/cheetos and Mountain Dew (or whatever ya enjoy) and grab your dice and graph paper.
That's how I'd celebrate 30 years of D&D. Relive it. Hell, you might even come to like it more than the newer games out there. It definetely has a style all to its own.
Vin Diesel? (Score:5, Funny)
Vin Diesel?!
VIN DIESEL!!!
*searches in his Bag of Holding for the first large, heavy weapon he can lay his hand on*
Re:Vin Diesel? (Score:3, Funny)
> Vin Diesel?!
> VIN DIESEL!!!
> *searches in his Bag of Holding for the first large, heavy weapon he can lay his hand on*
There's no need to sully a perfectly innocent +5 Mace of Encluement on this. Just empty your bag of holding and send to the editor, along with this:
*hands smoothwombat a portable hole*
The editor will do what comes naturally to him, and we'll all be the better for it.
So I'm assuming the celebration is taking place... (Score:5, Funny)
just for kicks (Score:4, Funny)
Re:just for kicks (Score:5, Funny)
"Worst... Celebration... Ever..."
Parent
I celebrate the D&D anniversary ... (Score:5, Funny)
NARRATOR: "Your children, like it or not, are attracted in their weaker years to the occult. And a game like D&D fuels their imagination and makes them feel special while drawing them deeper and deeper into the bowels of El Diablo. This afternoon, the Dead Alewives' Watchtower invites you to sit in on an actual gaming session, and observe the previously unobservable as a hidden camera takes you into the inner sanctum of Dungeons & Dragons."
(Session begins)
Dungeon Master: "Galstaff, you have entered the door to the north. You are now standing by yourself in a dark room, the pungent stench of mildew emanates from the walls..."
Player 1: "Where are the cheetos?"
DM: "Next to you."
Player 2: "I cast a spell!"
P1: "Where is Mountain Dew?"
DM: "In the fridge, duh!"
P2: "I want to cast a spell!"
P1: "Can i get one?"
DM: "YES! You can have a Mountain Dew, just get it!"
P2: "I can cast any of these on the list, yes?"
DM: "Yes, any of the first level ones."
P1: "I'm going to get one, any one else want one? Hey, I'm not in the room, right?"
DM: "What room?"
P2: "I want to cast... Magic Missile!"
P1: "The room where he's casting all this stuff at!"
DM: "He hasn't casted one yet."
P2: "I am though, if you'd listen. I'm casting Magic Missile!"
DM: "Why do you want to cast magic missile? There is nothing to attack here..."
P2: "I'm attacking the darkness"
(laughter)
DM: "Fine, fine, you attack the darkness. There is an elf in front of you."
P2: "Whoa!"
Player 3: "That's me, right?"
DM: "He's wearing a brown tunic, and he has grey hair, and blue eyes..."
P3: "No I don't, I have grey eyes!"
DM: "Let me see that sheet..."
P3: "W... well, the sheet says I have blue eyes, but I decided I want grey eyes!"
DM: "Whatever... ok, look, you guys can talk to each other now."
P2: "Hello."
P3: "Hello."
P2: "I am Galstaff, sorcerer of light!"
P3: "Then how come you had to cast magic missile?"
(laughter)
DM: "You guys are being attacked!"
P1: "Do I see that happening?"
DM: "NO! You are outside, by the tavern!"
P1: "Cool, then I get drunk!"
DM: "There are seven ogres surrounding you."
P2: "How can they surround us? I had Mordenkainen's Magical Watchdog cast!"
DM: "No, you didn't."
P1: "I'm getting drunk, are there any girls there?"
P2: "I totally did! You asked me if I wanted any equipment along before this adventure, and I said no. But I needed material components for all my spells so I cast Mordenkainen's magical watchdog!"
DM: "But you never actually cast it!"
P1: "Hey, roll the dice and see if I'm getting drunk!"
DM (sighs) (rolls dice): "Yes, you are!"
P1: "Are there any girls there?"
DM: "YES!"
P2: "I did though! I completely said when you asked me!
DM: "No, you didn't! You didn't actually say you were casting any spells so now there are ogres, OK?"
P1: "Ogres! Man, I got an ogre slaying knife! It's got a +9 against ogres!"
DM: "But YOU ARE NOT THERE! You're getting drunk!"
P1: "Ok but, if there are any girls there, I want to be able to DO THEM !"
NARRATOR: "There you have it. A frightening look into America's most frightening pastime. Remember that it's not your children's fault that they've been drawn into a satanic cult of nightmare. It's their gym teacher's fault for making them feel like outcasts when they couldn't do a single pull up!"
Re:I celebrate the D&D anniversary ... (Score:4, Informative)
Well, if you're going to quote the entire sketch, then you also need to link to the CG video [rpgamer.com] (alternate, evil IFilm link [ifilm.com]) that the developers of Summoner crufted together just for the hell of it.
Note: Uttering, "Where's the Cheetos," with the same accent and inflection as in the sketch is grounds for forcible expulsion from many gaming rooms.
Schwab
Parent
Shameless Plug - Find your stats (OT) (Score:3, Interesting)
- AD&D to Real Life Stats Calculator [cosmoslink.net]
- French Version [cosmoslink.net]
Try it. Have fun. Be glad you don't fight trolls in real life.cleverly reminiscent (Score:4, Insightful)
We could say the same thing about our beloved game, more's the pity. We've had 30 years of just-barely-good-enough and sub-par and unprofessional and get-it-out-the-door. It's almost as if the book is merely a cleverly accurate reflection of the quality of its subject matter. Almost.
So much more could have been done in our game, and so much better.
Post your funny D&D experiences here :) (Score:4, Funny)
I prepared my ingredient list and handled it to my DM.
Ingredients:
1 long piece of skin to make the straw (yeah you drink by straw)
1 canteen
1 bottle of extra strong glue
8 heavy-duty nails, size "tiny"
The guys couldn't go on. When the DM finished reading the "heavy-duty" part, they all laughed for about a straight minute.
Burning Horse Damage Table (Score:5, Funny)
We did however, have our horses and some very strong men, oil, and torches.
I think you can guess what happened next.
We had the DM in hysterics, trying to figure out if you could sink the vessel by throwing a horse, ON FIRE, at the enemy ship.
Trying to envision such a scene had us all gasping for breath.
PETA would have murdered us, but we thought it was as funny as hell. To this day, all I have to do is get on the phone, call my friend and say "burning horse damage table" -- and that private joke will leave us in stitches....
Parent
I interviewed Gary Gygax in High School (Score:5, Interesting)
I just wanted to point out that he's a very kind-hearted individual and definitely impressed me during my interview.
My own stupid celebration: a business trip to TSR (Score:5, Interesting)
Editing (Score:4, Interesting)
The proof is the debacle that was D20 Modern Weapons Locker. There were so many glaring typos, so many missing tables that you have to wonder if anyone even proof-read it ONCE.
Thankfully, D20 Future isn't so bad. But, something over there seriously needs to get fixed, and soon.
-Erwos
Re:Maybe that's part of the "tribute"... (Score:3, Interesting)
"Back at the dawn of time, my first exposure to D&D was the original pamphlet-style books, and boy were they sloppy."
The Chainmail rules and the first edition books did communicate one thing very well: This game is a work in progress, and YOU must continue its development.
It was aimed at people who had already grown bored with the rules for tabletop gaming with historical battles, and was supposed to help take people with an interest in a fantasy milieu to another level.
That means, Gygax provided u
Re:The Rise and Fall of D&D (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like a lot of old school D&D players share this sentiment that the AD&D 2E ruined the game with all its extra rules and complexity. While I agree with those who say that it was unfortunate that you had to buy hundreds of dollars worth of books to keep up on all the optional rules, I also think that the optional rules gave a lot of opportunities to expand and enhance the game in your own direction. Sure, one could do that with imagination alone, but at a certain point you need rules to mitigate the conflicts between your imagination and mine.
I learned a lot from the optional rules and rulebooks. I learned how to tell a good optional rule from a bad one, and eventually how to write my own rules so that the game I was playing was unique to my group.
In hindsight it would have been nice to have had a forum like the internet back then so that we could explore and create expansions to the game without spending ALL of our allowances on the latest rulebook, but overall I am glad that I wasted my money on them versus some of the other stuff I probably would have wasted it on.
Parent
Re:Fark (Score:5, Funny)
Yes.
"a couple weeks ago"
No.
"but by someone else"
No.
"so I'm going out on a limb here"
Yes.
"to suggest that this guy just plageriazed the review."
No.
Parent
Re:Fark (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Attention seeker.... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. Detailed critiques of published works should be disseminated only when they're positive.
Wait....
If neither Slashdot nor Gamegrene required exclusive rights as a condition of publication, then he's welcome to push his review wherever he wants. There's no point to reinventing the wheel.
So he saved Gamegrene a Slashdotting. Good for him. If you're concerned about him 'trashing' the book on multiple sites, you're more than welcome to write a detailed, insightful, positive review and submit it wherever you want.
Parent