Standing up for D&D's Gen X: 2e (Part 1)

This is part 1 of 2 about 2nd edition. Part 1 will focus on the rules aspects. Part 2 on the nebulous 'culture' aspect of 2e.

Out there in real life, I just about made the cut for an elder millennial. But in terms of DnD generations, I am very much Gen X - The Forgotten Generation. 

Sandwiched in between the cantankerous curmudgeons of the B/X and AD&D 1e old schoolers who from their loftily perched blogs, abrasively champion their refined and sophisticated simple gaming ways and dour-weird piss-bag adventure aesthetics (all hail Erol Otus!)

and the guileless charoppers of 3e that revelled in posting "build guides" on message boards for prestige classes and tricked out feat chains, considered Wayne Reynolds real cool and thought planning out their Conjurer 3/Incantatrix 10/Fatespinner 4 15 levels in advance to be a fine act of character development

Is the un-championed generation X of 2nd edition romantic railroaders and the sad fools who learned their naive D&D at the teat of Frank Mentzer coupled with Larry Elmore's ren-faire art. 

Beloved by all except Erol Otus diehards.
One of my favourites from 2e, but there's a few I like more 

If there is something everyone can agree on, albeit for vastly different reasons, it is to casually shit on 2nd edition from a great height. Like the eldest and youngest siblings who are much too different to like each other, but still find kinship in ganging up on the middle child.

And what's not to hate? It's got kits, XP-for-roleplaying, THAC0, Non-Weapon Proficiencies, Skills & Powers, Dragonlance, Tanar'ri&Baatezu and no harlot table in the DMG. Just about the only thing worth speaking up for is the range of settings produced during this era.

Let me start on a tangent to my main point, by saying that 2e is a straight up superior ruleset to 1e (and 3e, for all the old school reasons I won't go into here). For starters, it was written by Dave Cook. A name even most grognards award grudging respect for his B/X work, though for some reason, all the grognards who lament his unpretentious and succinct prose in the 2e core books as prosaic, have no problem with the very same prose when he wrote the Expert set for the Classic D&D line.

My favourite from the PHB!
It always takes me right into the tavern there with them

The two main rulebooks are much better organised and clearer in their writing, free of Gygax' affected, imprecise and self-indulgent prose (it works great for teenagers I'm sure, and people who were teenagers when they read it, but let's be clear - He was a dreadful try-hard writer who sorely needed a harsher editor) and cleaned up of follies like segments, surprise, psionics, alignment languages, bards-as-prestige-class, monks and a host of other accumulated Frankensteinian gobbledygook.

"But kits! The splat! Proficiencies!"

First of all, there is such a thing as good clean splat. The four volumes of the Wizard's Spell Compendium and four volumes of the Encyclopedia Magica is a smordgasbord extragagavanza unlikely to be repeated in our lifetimes. And 2e gave us that. So there.

Secondly, let's talk about the depravities of Unearthed Arcana before we go into the the "Complete..." series, shall we? The book that gave us: Weapon and non-weapon proficiencies. Comeliness. Cavaliers, Barbarians, thief-acrobats. Gray Dwarves. Deep gnomes. Gray Elves. Wood elves. Wild elves. Valley elves. Dark elves.

Don't try to deny using it, grognards. Unearthed Arcana was one of the best selling supplements of the 1e era. Everyone's dirty little secret.

Hell. The Assassin, the D&D equivalent of the "X-men comics in the 90s" aesthetic, was in the 1e Player's handbook! Complete with an awfully Gygaxian "minimum fees for assassination" table. gargh.

I think the Myrmidon kit granting an extra weapon proficiency slot stands pretty tame in comparison to the excesses of 1e.

The point here being that what grognards eviscerate 2e for, they wilfully ignore for 1e, as if all these things were never even part of the game.

Here is the thing about 2nd edition that most people seem to overlook. 2e had all those parts, but unlike 1e, 2e was modular by design.

This piece utterly fascinated me as a teenager.
Still does today.

Of course all RPGs are, to some extent, modular by nature. Hence house-rules. And TSR D&D has, by and large, always been modular by intent (though Gygax did shamefully try to claim houseruling was not allowed in AD&D at one point). 

But 2nd edition is the only TSR D&D game that is actually modular by design. A lot of the rules in the two core books are actually marked as optional, and clearly so, sectioned off in blue boxes and clear language to make the case. Moreover, every time an optional rule, such as encumbrance, is mentioned elsewhere in the books, it is clearly emphasised as an optional rule. 

It's one of the defining features of the core books (and a philosophy doubled down on through the various supplements) and something that it does not get nearly enough credit for.

"I don't need a book to tell me what to houserule thankyouverymuch" the grognard indignantly growls. 

Sure, no one needs it. I am sure you're an excellent independently thinking DM.

But having it is actually very helpful, because it tells you which parts are integrated into the core of the system (meaning - if you tamper with this, it could have ripple effects elsewhere) and which parts you can rip out without any concern for ripple effects. And 2e posts blue stickers all over the core books on the parts that can easily be dispensed with and explicitly makes sure that where an optional system interacts with another mechanic, said mechanic works fine with and without that optional system. As an example, this is how emphatic the PHB is about proficiencies:

"All proficiencies are additions to the game. Weapon proficiencies are tournament level rules, optional in regular play. and non-weapon proficiencies are completely optional. Proficiencies are not necessary for a balanced game."

If you go through the 2e Player's Handbook, identify all the parts that are explicitly marked as "optional" and take them out, you end up with a system like this:

• 3d6 six times in order for attributes. No Shenanigans.
• Only Fighter, Thief, Wizard and Cleric as allowed classes.
• Easy-to-learn-and-run side-based initiative and combat
• No Weapon or Non-Weapon Proficiencies.
• No Encumbrance
• No spell components
• no casting times
• no weapons vs armor modifiers
• death at 0 hp
• No weapon speed 
• No critical hits
• no individual xp awards
• no training

What you are left with is a lovely restrained game engine whose parts fit together really well. A base game frankly much superior to the patchwork nature of 1e and a solid peer to classic D&D in the solidly trimmed game engine department.

Yes to all the things about this art piece. Fuck yeah, Easley.

What it has as an edge over classic D&D and 1e is its inherent modularity to add to this base. It's easy to add more complexity where you want because the system is designed for it.

Want more classes? They are right there and ready. No fiddling with conversion if you're a B/Xer. And frankly, the classes are just better designed than its 1e counterparts, Illusionist notwithstanding. Want even more? 

Kits is actually a very good way of adding granularity without adding much mechanical crunch (especially if you aren't using proficiencies) - I would even go as far as saying that they do the job just fine of adding variety on top of just the four base classes (is a fighter with the wilderness warrior kit thematically really different from a ranger?).

I have my issues with 2e. It annoys me that they changed the Morale score, which makes running classic modules an extra hassle with conversion. I don't like proficiencies, which is fine as it is optional, but I do like Weapon specialisation as the Fighter's niche and there are no guidelines for how to use those rules without proficiencies (there really should have been. Not that hard to separate out).

But I love the tight base game that is still so very compatible with everything that came before it. And all the options I have to lay on to it from there. And that "tight base game + options" is actually the default lens of the game. How it wants you to see it.

I don't know that it is a better game than B/X, although certainly less ambiguous in its rules. But it is a strong contender to it for the best version of D&D ever made.

I am going to end this post with that mic drop and see you in a few days with Part 2 where we talk culture.

Addendum: Why "Roll under" Ability checks really are the best of checks

My recent meditations on roll under ability checks and rant against the D20 unified mechanic has generated a bit of commentary and further clarified my own thinking on the matter. This post is an addendum to my Using Ability Checks in B/X article, seeking to further explicate why the "Roll Under" ability check truly is the best of ability checks.

Earlier today, during my delvings into the blogosphere, I came across this box from Quarrel & Fable, a Fighting Fantasy spinoff:

First thing that struck me was how similar it was to my proposed resolution for Ability Checks. And secondly, it combined those thoughts with my memories of the old Fighting Fantasy [FF] gamebooks and set my mind spinning into that cross section and how much I always liked the elegant simplicity of the FF mechanic.

The best part about doing a post involving Fighting Fantasy is the chance to showcase some of the brilliant art in the gamebooks

Now, I've given reasons already in previous posts on why I favour the old ability check. Things like:

• It gives mechanical significance to the ability score in and of itself, as opposed to just being a number used to derive other numbers - This is aesthetically pleasing, especially since the ability scores is the most prominent part of the character sheet
• It's probably the most intuitively obvious mechanic in D&D - Give new players a B/X character sheet and sooner or later they will start to wonder if they couldn't be rolling against those scores somehow.
• For B/X, it can do much the same as the X-in-6 roll where ability scores come into play.
• It avoids DCs and fidgety modifiers
• It's a test against one's ability rather than a test of the world's difficulty - And as such is a momentary mechanic that pops in and out rather than a passive constantly available one.

But let me tell you why it really is the best of checks when it comes to resolving tasks: 

It all boils down to the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and how they made task resolution real easy and exciting.

Those who have played it will may have an inkling of where I am going with this already, but I will try and unpack the case for everyone.

The fighting fantasy series were single-player "create your own adventure" gamebooks. It had three stats - Skill, Stamina, Luck. You roll 1d6+6 for Skill and Luck and 2d6+12 for Stamina. Damage goes off your Stamina and Skill and Luck you use to resolve outcomes by rolling 2d6 to match or roll lower than your stat. Everytime you used luck, you lost a luck point (and thus will eventually run out of luck if you overuse it). Luck was mostly used for things that were hard to consciously impact and Skill for everything else, including combat. Very simply game engine really.

Your starting rolls meant your FF hero on average had a Skill score in the range of 7-12. Let's try and translate this to a D&D ability score, since FF uses a 2d6 bell curve vs D&Ds d20:

• 7   = 12
• 8   = 14
• 9   = 17
• 10 = 18
• 11 = 19
• 12 = 20.

Overall, this makes FF heroes quite capable and there will be more very capable FF adventurers than D&D ones rolling 3d6 straight. Fair enough perhaps, given that the FF hero is a solitary adventurer.

I can't speak for others but I generally re-rolled 1s and 6s for Skill and Luck, since I found 7 too punishing and 12 too boring. A skill of 9 seemed like a good baseline for having a decent chance of success to complete the book, whilst still being quite tough and needing to make optimal choices all the way. It meant succeeding on 83% of rolls. Which, at a glance, seems like an altogether high and snugly comfortable score to roll against. There were also never any modifiers to this roll that I can recall. Testing your Skill was Testing your Skill.

Here is the thing: Whenever I was asked to roll for Testing your Skill with a score of 9, I was still shitting metaphorical bricks. There was always a pregnant sense of drama in the air.

It turns out, failing 17% of the time is quite unsettling when you know that the consequence of failing a check can be quite punishing, or at any rate have significant consequences for where you go from here.

And this is where Fighting Fantasy succeeds brilliantly with such a simple mechanic. You weren't tasked with setting a difficulty for rolling when making checks. The baseline for when and how to roll was baked in - If it wasn't a proper challenge with consequences, you did not roll. Anything less than that was simply a decision. The act of making the roll already tells you how challenging this is.

Now of course, there are some variables to consider. The D&D hero will fail more often due to generally lower Ability scores compared to the FF hero's Skill. But he has companions to shoulder the burden with him. And where a failed roll in FF has quite fixed negative consequences ("If you fail, turn to 312"), the more open-ended world of D&D has some scope for creatively working around a failed check.

But the point remains - If you bake the right baseline into the check, you don't need to fiddle with modifiers to establish difficulty, etc. because that is implicit in the act of the roll in the first place. The very act of having to make a check should be more than enough for most players to suck in a bit of air in the dramatic pause that follows such a declaration. It's not quite a Saving Throw, but it lies just next to the Saving Throw's dramatic space. In other words, don't roll for shit that isn't fun and cool.

Make a Challenge Roll against Wisdom to not shit your pants.
Wait, make that a Saving Throw vs Paralysis.

It does requires a sharp conceptualisation of the mechanic, and the baseline of that mechanic, to really unfold. Here is my take, inspired in no small part by the Quarrel & Fable box above, that I call a "challenge roll" to emphasise the baseline:

How Difficulty Class and the D20 engine ruined roleplaying

It seemed revolutionary at the time. 3e came out and made a unified mechanic. Roll 1d20 against a target number to see if you succeed. In combat, AC is the target number. For everything else, it's a Difficulty Class [DC]. That's it. 

Some of those DCs are calculated as a function of level, opposing ability score etc. But what we also got from this system was a way of ad hoc determining the difficulty of something and then simply saying "roll against that target number to succeed". 

In its core form, this is wonderfully simple and intuitive. All you need to internalise is the size of the numbers on a d20 in relation to overall difficulty and then you can resolve basically anything with it.
The part about size of numbers has proven to be a bit of an achilles heel for d20 over the years, but that is a different point I will address further below.

No, the real point here is that there's an unintended side effect to DCs as a unified mechanic. There are other downsides to it as well that I will go into below too, but this first one is the big one. 

It turns everything in the whole gaming world into a mechanical widget. At first glance, one might think "marvellous, innit? It resolves everything." A quantum gravity theory of RPG in one simple equation. But, subtle as it may be, as it turns out this is actually something horribly insidious that tilts the game in a direction from being a roleplaying game to being a board game without the board. 

Ability Score Improvements have been a terrible addition to D&D

This is going to be one of them rants I fear. 

It relates to my previous meditation on the heft of levels across various editions and my recent contemplation on ability checks in B/X, specifically my desire have the unmodified numbers mean something in and of themselves, rather than something purely to derive other numbers from that do have mechanical relevance. In a way, this posts is like a concluding remark on the heft of levels in TSR vs WotC D&D.

To summarise, if the mechanical relevance of ability scores are almost always somewhere on a scale of -3/+5, why do we bother with rolling 3-18 instead of just using the derived numbers to begin with? Why has that never changed? And why do I have a firm impression that there'd be a great outcry if it were ever changed in a future edition?

And it occurred to me that ability scores do have a relevance in the unmodified form, one that has remained across all editions - They are the formative narrative components of the character sheet. In this way, I'd argue, they carry even greater relevance than any mechanical bonuses derived from them. 

They tell the player, and everyone else allowed to see those numbers, something about what that character is like, how they are most likely to solve problems and what kind of challenges they most likely struggle with compared to other characters. Only class and level comes close to defining what a character is like in comparison to those ability scores.

And this is where 3e+ messed all that up by introducing ability score improvements at various levels.

Three player characters that are just as much defined by their ability scores as their class and level.

From a game engine perspective, I can see the sense in it. Ability scores in WotC D&D give more mechanical benefits than in TSR D&D and are far more tied into your general likelihood of success in various tasks. So it makes sense that as you level up, you get a chance to raise those scores, especially the ones you really benefit from in your class. You need them increased to keep up with the game, basically.

The result however, is an entropic principle that is deplorable: As levels go up, all characters become the same. I don't need to look at the character sheets of 5e fighters to know that by 6th level, most of them will have STR or DEX maxed out and by 8th level, all of them will. And then CON, once their main ability score is maxed out. 

Their ability scores no longer tell you anything about that character other than they lived long enough to become high level. As you level up, characters inevitably end up becoming more and more similar. Introducing point buy for optimising 'builds' only amplifies this entropic tendency, ensuring that even 1st level characters end up looking alike and even numbers start showing up far more frequently since those are the even giving bonuses.

It's the reason, I discovered, why my eyes glaze over when I look at NPC stat sheet in WotC D&D. Everything there is basically just a function of class and level, the scores there only to service other numbers. It tells me only how to roll the dice, but little about the character itself.

In contrast, I enjoy studying an [N]PC stat sheet in TSR D&D. Their ability scores, in conjunction with class and level of course, tell me a lot about that character. If they have been successful against the odds, or if solve their problems in other ways than you might typically expect from that class. It makes them interesting, every character unique, in ways that are utterly diluted in WotC D&D due to point buy+ability score increases. 

Another thing, besides point-buy, that amplifies this is the increased mechanical relevance of ability scores in WotC, in terms of derived numbers for other mechanics. 

Before we proceed, I am aware that this may seem like an odd complaint in light of my recent post seeking more relevance for ability scores. To that I would say I sought that relevance for the score itself. Not to have more derived numbers tied into it affecting other sub-systems. Anyhoo....

There is something almost hallowed about that 3-18 number.
It conveys an intuitive impression that can be grokked by just about anyone. At a glance, a STR 15 character is clearly different to a STR 13 one, even though in B/X the mechanical benefits are the same.
It conveys something quite clearly in the fiction of the game. As a narrative modifier it has just the right level of granularity. The score means something in and of itself, even if it speaks more to the fiction than the rules.

The more mechanical benefits you tie into derived numbers based on this however, especially derived numbers, the less significant the original ability score become in and of itself.

I look at a STR 18 character in B/X and what I see is a rare specimen that would stand out in any crowd, someone strongly defined by their physical prowess, perhaps even singularly so. 

I look at a STR 18 character in 5e and what I see is a quite strong character, +4 to hit and dmg and Strength Saving Throws.

In TSR D&D, the score tells a story of the character that just does not happen in the same way in 3e+. There are other things in the foreground of what that score means.  

My advice: Don't use point buy. Avoid ability score increases. You might start to find your characters far more meaningful after that.

Using Ability Checks in B/X

One gripe I have always had with D&D ability scores is - what are they for? Regardless of edition, they are only ever used for deriving other numbers. It would be much clearer if it were simply a -3/+3 stat since that is how it actually gets used. And yet, no one wants that. We all love our 3-18 rolls that we end up never using. It annoys me that such a prominent feature of PCs mechanically means so little.

The exception of course, is the ability check in TSR D&D, introduced in B/X and which achieved peak infamy with 2e non-weapon proficiencies. The mechanic where you actually get to roll against your ability score.

To begin with, let's acknowledge that there are many good old school reasons not to roll for ability checks in B/X:

• Most things that DMs in later editions require rolls for, shouldn't require a roll in the first place as long as the players can describe what they are doing properly - And the ability score should be factored in by the DM in those cases anyway.
• It encourages a binary "Success or Failure" approach to task resolution. 
• There are other mechanics already handling those events (mostly the X-in-6 roll).
• Ability scores should have low relevance to a character's capability compared to level.
• B/X assumes character competence and further down the road of ability checks lies the evil of looking at your character sheet to discover all the things you now can not do and sticking to what it says you can do. 

I basically agree with all these observations and would argue for them as reasons not to have a skill system. That notwithstanding, I want to have ability checks for for reasons of gaming aesthetics - It's one of the most prominent features of character creation and the character sheet. It should matter somehow, in and of itself and not just as a conversion to a different number.  There should be times where having rolled 18 Wisdom for my fighter actually matters mechanically.

Rolling against your ability score is one of the most obvious and intuitive rulings that the character sheet present to you. It belongs in the game somehow. Despite my support for all the observations in bullet points above, I believe there is a measured case for ability checks. Here's two ways I use them:

Make a CHA check to show the world that you are FABULOUS

Ability Check as Failover Mechanic

I call this the "Oh. Really?" roll. Use it in case of:

• Player failing to describe what they are doing properly.
• Players attempting poorly considered things, or failing to use the proper tools or preparation for the job.
• Players attempting foolhardy things that a competent person couldn't normally feel assured of accomplishing.

Basically, whatever could prompt the DM to say "Oh. Really?" can be immediately followed with a "make an ability check then." Make players aware of this guideline too - Ability checks probably means you could have played this one better. 

I believe this is also a nice bridge between those hardliners who insist in player competence over character competence and vice versa,

Make a WIS check to realise you need to level up before seeking revenge against Bargle

The second way I use it is

Ability Check as Cost Determination Mechanic

When players are attempting something that you have already determined will succeed, it can happen that circumstances suggest there could be a cost to it. 

For example, climbing a very difficult surface. The cost could be lost time (always a precious resource when you track time with the random encounter die), broken tools, exhaustion, injury, etc. Or the inverse - even faster than expected, went up real quiet, etc. 

For that, you roll an ability check, not to determine success or failure, but to have a "margin of success or cost." You then use the margin of the die roll against the ability score to inform your judgement of cost or additional success.

In this way, ability scores don't go down the road of gatekeeping who can and can't do tasks or creating binary outcomes from something that doesn't need binary outcomes, but they still inform you how a character interacts with the world based on those scores.

Stunting for Profit in D&D combat

A complaint I've something seen concerning combat in TSR-era D&D is that it is too simplistic. You roll to hit and see if you hit or miss, roll damage die and that is it. There is no room for the kind of creativity that players might want to realise from cool action scenes in movies.

By contrast, later editions allow cool moves to spice up combat. Feats in 3e allowed stuff like bull rushing, cleave, Disarm, Spring attack etc. In 4e, everyone gets a cool move they can execute. In 5e, feats returned and on top of that we get battlemaster maneuvers that let fighters pull off even more stunts like riposte, parry, feint, trip attack and similar (Rules Cyclopedia is guilty of the same with 9th lvl fighters getting access to special maneuvers).

The fatal flaw in this, the older schooler might remonstrate (and I would join that choir) is that the approach to stunts in later editions gates them behind feats and class features. It defines combat in a way that strongly implies that if it's not on your character sheet, you can't do it. 

What modern gamers miss in all this, the old schooler might argue, is that the basic chassis of TSR-era D&D leaves it open to the player to come up with their own stratagems and utilise their creativity.

But here I don't exactly agree. TSR-era D&D itself fails to provide even guidelines on how such creativity might be played out. Are you meant to just add descriptions to your basic attack roll ("I feint the orc with my shield and then slice at his calves" "ok, roll to to hit as we always do") or should the DM be ready for on-the-fly rulings to adjudicate whatever zany stunts the players might come up with? If the latter, there is a stark absence of guidelines to do so.

In Into the Unknown there is dedicated section for how to adjudicate stunts in a way that is freeform and encourages players to play the scene of combat rather just the rules, but also utilises the small selection of leavers that exist in 5e combat (bonus actions, reactions, move, advantage/disadvantage) to give a rules-based impact for such gameplay. But it is rather tied into 5e combat, sáns feats and maneuvers that gate such stunts behind class advancement. So I figured - how would I do this in B/X or other TSR-era games?

I've seen people go with the approach that says that you can stunt (ie. achieve an effect different than damage) by simply forfeiting your damage roll if you hit. It's simple and nice, but I think doesn't really add to the game what stunting should - Something out of the box, raising the stakes to gain an advantage somehow, at added peril to yourself. So here is how I would do it:

I just picked up the original 1e boxed sets for Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms

 30 dollars a pop on ebay from the same seller. Good deal I think.

The Greyhawk set is missing the maps, but I have the sturdier versions from the folio already so no loss for me

I have owned both in pdf for a good while, but having physical copies is definitely different. I have had the 2e set of Forgotten Realms since the 90s and the Folio of Greyhawk since the 00s, so it will be interesting to compare these two to them. I will probably blog on this soon.

Journey Fantasy (or: Clarifying the Nebulous Pull of Dragonlance)

I have blogged several times about Dragonlance in the past. The broad theme I've struck up is that it gets unfairly judged on the railroad nature of its eponymous modules and the straightjacketing nature of its novel series, around which the world seems to revolve. To me, i's a distinct and worthwhile brand of fantasy once you open up the world and look smaller than the grand themes of wars and stopping gods.

It was never really the Heroes of the Lance, or even the War of the Lance, that drew me to the world. It was the more earthy stuff, such as the coming-of-age sandbox in the Tales of the Lance boxed set that enchanted me. Today it dawned on me why Dragonlance had such a strong pull on me as an adolescent and still tugs at my heartstrings today:

Outside the epic tales that steals the headlines, Dragonlance represents a distinct and different kind of gaming fantasy than the rest of D&D - What I am here calling "Journey Fantasy".

What I mean by this term is not the kind of exploration implied by hexcrawling, such as the West Marches, in the Lewis and Clark sense of charting an unknown frontier (usually because Here Be Dungeons). Rather, the kind of fantasy where journeys become ends in and of themselves. Distance here is not a necessary factor. Myth and magic can be so embedded in the local areas that the Unknown and Wondrous may lie just beyond the village, rather than something requiring an expedition to the Deep Wilds.

In Dragonlance (as I envision it, at any rate) a trip to the elven lands beyond the hills can be an adventure for its own sake - To see the elven lands. To encounter wonder, to meet with mystery, magic and the unknown for no better reason than to have such encounters. You don't do it for the riches, to become all-powerful one day, fighting evil or to help the village in danger. These things may occur in Journey Fantasy too of course, but are more side effects of the main motivation - To explore and be shaped by such journeys.

Much of my favourite fantasy art is less about situations and more about scenes and the sense of wonder

In Dragonlance, this is of course best exemplified in the shape of Kender, who have this motivation baked in by design, in the form of Wanderlust. Dragonlance for me is the kind of setting where the heft of an adventurer is not defined by the battles fought, riches won or feats accomplished, but by the sights seen, wonders experienced and mysteries unfolded before one's eyes. 

Consider how significant a part of the hobbits journey it was when they met a troupe of elves on the road and listened to their songs in Fellowship of the Ring. Or their time spent with Tom Bombadil. All of it still inside the Shire even. That in many ways epitomises the kind of fantasy I am talking about.

"You see an enchanting elf troupe coming down the road in the moonlight and gain 5 XP."

I asked an AI to create a D&D setting for me

I went to chat.openai.com and asked the following:

invent a new fantasy world and describe it to me, detailing a brief outline of its history, mythology, distinct characteristics and flavour. It should be a classical fantasy setting with a touch of sword and sorcery, D&D and a little bit of allusion to the middle ages.

Here is what it came back with:

In the land of Eldrida, magic and swordplay reign supreme. This world was once ruled by powerful wizards who wielded ancient, mystical powers. However, a great war between the wizards and the dragons nearly tore the world apart, leaving it scarred and desolate.

The survivors of the war banded together to form powerful factions, each with their own unique culture and traditions. The noble knights of the White Keep, sworn to protect the realm at all costs, roam the land on their majestic steeds. The cunning elven archers of the Wildwood, skilled in the ways of magic and stealth, lurk in the forests and defend their ancestral lands. And the dwarven warriors of the Iron Mountains, master craftsmen and fierce fighters, guard the precious resources of their mountain holds.

Despite their differences, the factions of Eldrida are united in their worship of the gods, who are said to have created the world and still watch over it from their celestial realms. The most powerful of these gods is the great dragon Ashtaar, who is said to have defeated the wizards in the great war and now serves as the guardian of the world.

The people of Eldrida are a hardy and resilient folk, accustomed to the harshness of the world they live in. They live their lives by the code of chivalry and honor, and value strength and courage above all else. Adventurers and mercenaries are common in this world, as there is always work to be found for those willing to brave the dangers of the wilds.

Despite the many challenges it faces, Eldrida is a world filled with wonder and beauty. Its rolling hills and verdant forests are home to a vast array of creatures, both friendly and dangerous. Its cities and towns are bustling centers of commerce and culture, where the brave and the bold come to make their fortunes. And its ancient ruins and hidden treasures hold secrets that have yet to be uncovered.

There is stuff to work with here. I like the idea of a setting dominated and defined by  ancient and powerful factions to keep the world in a safer status quo than in former times. Aka wizard times. On top of that, it seems that the dragons won the war and the dragon god is basically the self appointed protector of the world now. And worship of said protector is basically what unites the factions. 

Are orcs inherently evil? Should they be?

I originally wrote most of this as a reply on Martin Kallies' entry on "Old School Orcs and Horrible Hordes" over on Spriggan's Den. But I have never been able to actually enter a comment there as all browsers on all devices give a "ERROR: JavaScript and Cookies are required in order to post a comment" and he has no contact details to report it. So I hope he sees this, both for the comment and the error report. So I would suggest to go read that first for context and then come back.

The Nebulous Heft of Levels in TSR vs WotC D&D

One thing that weighs favourably towards TSR D&D rulesets for me is the different experience of character levels.

Character levels in TSR D&D just strike me as having far more heft to them, than levels in 3e onwards. 

I remember being much more proud of my AD&D fighter reaching 5th level than I ever was of reaching much higher levels in 3e or 5e. And it's not just due to nostalgia. The achievement felt more significant, as if 5th level in AD&D meant more than 9th level does in 5e. Not only in terms of my investment as a player, but also in terms of what that meant for the character in the world.

A 7th lvl fighter in B/X or AD&D setting is a big deal to my mind. A force in the world. A 7th lvl fighter in 5e strikes me as a somewhat more run-of-the-mill character. The AD&D 7th lvl fighter seems somehow further removed from 1st lvl than the equivalent 3e/5e character,

It's a nebulous impression that is hard to explain or justify. And I am partly writing this blog post to gain some clarity on this. At a glance, a level in 3e+ D&D ought to be more significant:

What's the difference between a 1st level fighter and a 7th level fighter in B/X?
6HD, +5 to hit and improved saves. That's it.

In 1e, at 7th level he would improved his attacks per round from 1 to 3/2 and gained another 2 weapon proficiencies on top of +6HD, +6 to hit and improved saves.

2e is the same as 1e, except the fighter would also have gained 2 non-weapon proficiencies if you use this optional rule.

What the difference in 3e?
6 HD and +6 to hit, an extra attack at +2 to hit. Improved saves, four additional feats and (2+INT)x6 ranks to buy skills with.

In 5e:
6 HD and +1 to Proficiency Bonus (improving saves, to hit and skills). Second Wind and Action Surge at 2nd lvl. Choice of sub-class at 3rd lvl which opens a slew of abilities. An ability score improvement at 4th (or a feat, if you use that optional rule). Extra Attack at 5th. Another ability score improvement or feat at 6th lvl. At 7th lvl another sub-class ability.

The WotC 7th lvl fighters have a lot more going on (even though the 5e fighter has only improved proficiency bonus by 1) at each level. They don't just become better, they become different as they advance in levels.

Yet, my impression of heft does not seem to come down to numbers. A 7th lvl 3e fighter would wipe out 7 1st lvl fighters much faster than a B/X equivalent fight. Yet, a 1e 7th level fighter would probably win much faster against 7 1st lvl fighters than a 5e equivalent.

5e Player Characters
vs

B/X Player Characters

Dragonlance: Age of Mortals re-appraised

 I've blogged about Dragonlance and the 5th Age before.

The post-War of the Lance world was meant to be an open-ended one, but struggled to escape the confines of what was once Dragonlance's biggest asset: The saga of the Heroes on the Lance, which by then had become its most confining burden. 

It seemed impossible to tell new stories of new heroes in a meaningful way - Even the fastforward of 25 years didn't really do much and left the world sort of aimless and floundering in what it wanted to be. 

Dragons of Summer Flame changed all that. It definitively closed the book on the Heroes of the Lance and left a new world, upheavaled by change - Dark knights, a world scarred by warfare and chaos, and of course the departure of the gods heralding the last, longest and eventually brightest age of the world: The long foretold Age of Mortals.

This I felt was actually the kind of open-ended world Dragonlance deserved to be. I thought the introduction of Mysticism was an eminent and flavourful replacement for divine magic in a now-godless world. 

To me, the 5th age was a world that seemed to suggest that now the gods were gone, all the other wonders and mysteries of the world would find space to come crawling out of the woodwork. Including of course the many ones seeded by the gods themselves, who would have known for ages that the age of Mortals would eventually come into being.
Besides being given the open-endedness of shaping the future, I also felt like the 5th Age was more primed for discovery of wonders of the past. This, although not really openly stated, always felt like a key premise for shaping the direction of the 5th age- 

It changed the world from one guided by a strong authorial hand (both novelwise and meta-plotwise) to a a world whose meta-plot was now a sandbox. No one guiding the hands of fate, no tales that have to be told, but plenty of seeds laid out from the deep past for things to unfold. The prescient nudges of the gods laid out before they left could still make their influence felt, but there's no one there to adjust and correct the outcomes from here. Just the mortals making the most of the Age given to them.

I liked mysticism. I liked the dark knights, the Legion of Steel. And individual dragons taking a more pro-active role in the world. And that Chaos had left something new in the world too (obviously with daemon warriors and fire dragons - but also other things less malignant). And new mysteries and wonders emerging like the Herald and the Shadow Sorcerer.

I didn't care for the loss of High Sorcery - Wizardry always struck me as something very appropriate to the 5th age - wizards taking destiny into their own hands to shape the world. And it was a very distinct world-building element, a good engine for storytelling. But I understand why, even if I think it was an objectively bad decision.

And of course, the open-endedness. It still seemed like the world I knew, but given new dynamics spun out of its own past. A world once stuck on its own railroad now re-made to go in any direction from here.

Sadly, it was the 90s. And the creative team taking over to develop the 5th age seemed to have figured "why consider restraint when we can go extreme"?

The main fault was taking the idea of dragon overlords and then turning the knob well past the safety limit. This was already a world ravaged by chaos and recovering from the devastation. Did we really need 50% of the geography altered and an oppressive status quo of godlike beings imposing their will on the land in a way that mortals are helpless to oppose? 

It created a situation that was the very opposite of what the 5th Age was meant to be about. If anything, the new dragon overlords were even more heavyhanded drivers of metaplot than the gods were.

And the new game probably didn't help. I understand why they did it. And truth be told, I thought there was much to like about SAGA. For me, it really did capture the flavour of Dragonlance better than AD&D did. But at the end of the day, it was a rather immature system that needed development over multiple supplements to approximate something decent. I've said before - SAGA 2nd edition could have been an excellent game if it had ever happened.

But its worst crime was that it wasn't D&D. TSR had miscalculated, thinking the gaming fanbase was first and foremost dragonlance fans, rather than D&D gamers who loved dragonlance. This, combined with how the dragon overlord oppression*, created a gaming world that was just too far removed from what gamers recognised as Dragonlance.

*Others will no doubt argue "it wasn't just the dragon overlords, it was all the changes, not least loss of the gods!". But I maintain that if the 5th age creative team had been more restrained, it would still be recognisable as the same world, just better for gaming and telling new stories, being finally free of the straightjacket that was the Heroes of the Lance.

I didn't miss the gods in the 5th age. Not really. Their imprints remain, which is good for seeding a world with adventure. Their active involvement are not an asset to a gaming world. 

If something was missing about the gods, perhaps mysticism could have been re-branded as something like "the power the deities left behind in the souls of mortals", so that there could be Mishakal-flavoured mysticism that connects to those whose hearts emulate her values, same for Takhisis and all the others. That way, you could still have temples devoted to those values and such.

War of Souls for me was a disappointing fanservice reset. The story in the books was poor and the outcome was basically just 'here's the best we could do to make it look more like pre-DoSF - Your gods are back so stop moaning'. The kind of reset that has more in common with marvel and dc comics storylines than the epic sagas of a world like Dragonlance. 

The aftermath felt like the worst of both worlds to me - Something even less recognisable as Dragonlance than what came before. A world that once again didn't know what it wanted to be, but knew what it wanted to resemble and settled for that.

It didn't help that this Age of Mortals 2.0 was wedded to third edition of D&D. I liked the system at the time for what it was, but it felt like shoehorning Dragonlance to make it fit the system.

 

Where is the Companion Guide?

 Every so often, I get questions about the status of Book 6, the companion volume for Into the Unknown. I've mostly said "still in the works", sometimes with quarterly estimates that haven't held up. Thank god I never kickstarted this

So, what has been the hold up?

I feel like at this stage, I might as well give a proper explanation. Basically, for the past 3 years, I've been sick from a tick bite that the doctors weren't able to diagnose. Antibiotics didn't work. For a few months, I could barely walk more than 50m without a break. Getting up the stairs to the 1st floor of my apartment was a struggle. Couldn't even watch a movie or read a book as my mind was so foggy, I couldn't follow the plot. 

Things got a bit better after about 3 months, once I started herbal treatment. I was able to push Into the Unknown out the door because I had the vast majority of the work already done and I was lying home sick every day anyway, so even though I was very reduced in functionality, the sheer amount of time on my hands allowed me to finish.

The I started work part time. And life ever since has basically just been about getting through each week. And on the side, trying to finish my psychotherapy studies I had started the year before and making sure my relationship didn't fall apart. Friends, family etc were all put on the backburner. 

I've sat down with the Companion every so often, but getting through those time consuming work periods to see it done has simply not been possible. I could process a bit of creativity, but all the grunt work of writing, calculating, balancing, etc. was just not doable with the level of mindfog I've been living with. What energy I had for those things I've had to devote to my workplace.

I didn't communicate this clearly at the time, because it was a struggle for me to accept that I was not able to do it. I kept wanting to and found my body and mind just falling short.

So where am I now? Well, I was diagnosed back in June at a specialist clinic. It was borrelia all along, just a type they didn't test for originally. Completed 8 weeks of antibiotics in august. This month I am going to the clinic again for some quite advanced treatment that should hopefully finish the job. But it's not an overnight thing. 3 years of sickness takes a toll on the body and I can't expect to be fully functional for at least 4 months, assuming it is a complete recovery.  

That said, I am doing a lot better just from the antibiotics already. And I am finishing my studies this month as well! Which means time and hopefully a lot more energy should be freeing up in the near future.

I am not going to tell you that I will have it pushed it soon after that. My backlog in life has accumulated a fair bit over the past 3 years. And we're buying a house on top. But I am pretty psyched about what I am able to do again already on a weekly basis. 

And finishing the Companion is, unlike many other projects that become a millstone round the neck after too much delay, something I am genuinely looking forward to completing. It will be a nice confirmation of re-entry into a more active life when it's done.

And I am genuinely excited about the content as well. I think it will be a high level guide unlike most others in the end, whilst still remaining true to the B/X spirit and ItU toolkit.

What does that mean for the timeline? It means it is back on my horizon of projects I want to pursue again at a time where time and energy is freeing up. So in whatever amount of time it takes to finish it in those circumstances.

Here's the cover, btw. I think it sets the tone well.

Forgotten Realms: Old School Redux

I've reviewed the Forgotten Realms as a setting before. To sum up the issues with the setting:

In its present incarnation it's an unmanageable mess, plain simple. The tabletop equivalent of the Marvel universe - Overburdened with an absolute immensity of 'canon' , loads of 'story line' developments that have no relation to gamers, universe-wide 'crossover events', desperate retcons and a handful of mary sue novel characters blazing a trail of shit through the setting that no one cares about. 

WotC have done what they can to salvage the wreckage in 5e. An ill defined event to normalize the wreck that was 4e, move the timeline forward to let the passage of time erase as much of the canon baggage as possible, be intentionally vague about what has actually changed and otherwise just leave the setting the fuck alone, so gamers can walk around without tripping over 'setting lore' at every step. It's ok I guess, as a cardboard background for generic D&D on the shelves.

But as I see it, it began its descent into chaos with their first setting-wide event (the aptly named "time of troubles"). Which was only two years after the setting was first released. So the halcyon days of the setting didn't last long.

But that early setting, best encapsulated perhaps by the original gray box and Jacquay's The Savage Frontier, had a lot going for it. I quite like how it puts takes a Tolkien-esque setting and dumps a fledgling feudal/mercantile Sword & Sorcery civilization into it. There is something to work with here that really captures players' genre assumptions of D&D. But to me, it still needs a bit of work to really accentuate what works and what doesn't. This merits further exploration to me.

So I am going to try and riff a bit to change what doesn't work to my mind and put some stuff in to accentutate the good stuff. I am mostly rewriting some of the history to paint a bit more coherent picture that more properly explains why the modern realms are the way they are today (Cormyr and Dalelands for example, I find make far better sense as successor states of Myth Drannor rather than millenia old minor nations dating back to before Myth Drannor). This itself I find also paints the picture of this Redux well enough.

Forgotten Realms: Old School Redux

First, Ed Greenwood's introduction in the gray box to set the tone for all that follows:

"Most of the area under discussion here has until recently been covered by wild forests and unsettled grasslands. Civilization is still a novelty in much of this world, even the oldest of cities on the Inland Sea, or the founding of Waterdeep, the greatest City of the North, are within the memory of the oldest living elves of Evermeet."

"City-states are common, and nations on the increase as more of the wild lands are pushed back and gathered under a single king or government."

"Finally, the Realms are a land of adventure, and therefore adventurers. It is the time of heroes, when one man of pure heart (or with a powerful artifact) may hold his own against enemy hordes, where legions of evil forces may muster and be destroyed by the actions of a few, where the nations rise and fall on magical tides which mere men can control."

Conspectus

The Realms is  a setting of once-high romantic fantasy, in the vein of Tolkien's Middle Earth, that has fallen into a state of decay from which humanity is emerging as the dominant power. City-states dot the realms as isolated survivor-states of former realms, whilst a growing feudalism and mercantilism is giving rise to an emergent phenomenon in the realms, that may yet prove more influential than what has come before it: Human nation-states.

The state of mankind in the Realms is somewhat analogous to the transition from the post-roman barbaric migrations in Europe to a feudal society (except that Rome here is the elven Myth Drannor and the roaming barbaric tribes are orcs, who simply move on after pillaging, leaving it to the human survivors to build a far more scantly populated post-imperial society than post-roman Europe).

A History Primer

Ancient Times - The Age of Magic
For untold millenia before mankind grew out of barbarism, the elves and dwarves had civilized and tamed the Realms. The first human civilizations emerged in two places:

Far to the south and east from the Heartlands (which is our primary topic), in what is known as the Old Empires. Alas, these lands are so distant from the Heartlands so as to have barely affected them at all. These ancient empires are said to still exist in the far south as crumbling relics, a fossilized monument to a bygone age.

The second starting point of human history, in the Heartlands, begins with Netheril, which arose perhaps sometime just before or just after the the Old Empires in the south.
For millennia, this greatest of magical empires dominated central faerun. Although the mainlands of that empire are now buried under the sands of the Aunaroch desert that spelled the end of it ages ago, it seeded the Heartlands with outposts and infrastructure that would sow the seeds for future human endeavors in these lands. 

The Age of the Orc

When Netheril fell, so did human civilization - Centuries of orc warfare, low populations and scattered points of civilisation meant that mankind survived only in fortified city-states increasingly isolated from each other, and the haphazard and short-lived existence of villages and barbarian tribes across the landscape.

Realms such as Anauria, Hlondath, Illusk and decadent Asram emerged in the wake of Netheril for a while, but none could not stem the tide of orcs, increasing isolation and natural hazard and all eventually left the land to untamed growths and barbarism.

Dwarves also saw their last great realm of Delzoun pillaged by humanoids in the same period. The time after the fall of Netheril belonged above all else to the orcs. And for an age mankind cowered in its shadow.

The Age of Myth Drannor / Age of Wonder

This changed about 1300 hundred years - When the elves of Cormanthor opened Myth Drannor as a haven for all races and erected The Standing Stone to commemorate the welcoming of all good people to the elven woods (this also marks the first year of Drannor Reckoning [DR], the commonly accepted calendar of the heartlands).

Under the protectorate and civilizing influence of the elves, mankind began to flourish. Elves routed the orcs and for five hundred years, the Pax Myth Drannor spanned all the heartlands and kept the the roads safe from the Sword Coast to the Sea of Fallen Stars. From the elves, humans began to rediscover the lost arts of magic and with the threat of humanoids on the wane, began to develop vassal states enjoying the protections of Myth Drannor.

South of the Myth Drannor sphere of influence, in the lands north of the now receding Old Empires, proud city-states had already developed on the Vilhon Reach, and these now prospered further from the rich trade that began to flow from its northern neighbors.

On the Dragon coast, settlers from the Vilhon Reach erected trading posts that would soon grow into cities in their own right, connecting the Inner Sea of Fallen Stars with the emergent civilizations of the Sword Coast.

And on the eastern shores of the Dragon Reach, city-states such as Tantras, Calaunt and Procampur began to emerge in what was once untamed wasteland, opening new traderoutes to the south and east.

Even the harsh Moonsea began to be civilized, buffering Myth Drannor from the savageries of the lands beyond. Fabulous Northkeep was erected there as the first shining beacon of civilization in these lands and proud protectorate of Myth Drannor.

In the Western Heartlands, the storied Kingdom of Man, in truth an alliance of elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes and mankind made in the image of Myth Drannor's Pax, brought the first measure of peace and civilization to these lands since the fall of Netheril.

Even the savage frontier north of these lands slowly began to be settled for the first time since the fall of Netheril.

It was not to last however. When Northkeep was destroyed by dark hordes from Thar, Myth Drannor retreated from the Moonsea area.
The humans of the Moonsea, left to fend for themselves, were forced to become a hard and cynical people to survive. This development is perhaps best exemplified by the rise of the martial city-state of Zhentil Keep, whose Bane-worshipping warriors have since spread across the Realms as the beliggerent and subversive mercenary company named the Zhentarim.

The Kingdom of Man fell to goblinoid hordes in 702 DR, and Myth Drannor found itself unable to assist its vassals with the same strength it had in former centuries.

When demon hordes finally assaulted Myth Drannor itself a decade later, there were no allies left to help. In 714 DR, the grandest experiment in civilization was left in ruins, which to this day are festering with demons and corrupted magics.

The Modern Realms

In the six centuries since the Fall of Myth Drannor (or simply "The Fall"), elves have isolated themselves from the rest of the world in hidden sanctuaries, where visitors are as likely to be shot before questions are asked, as they are to simply to be asked to turn around and leave.
Dwarves remain holed up in the last few fortified citadels they still control of their former great kingdoms, fighting off the humanoids that now roam their ancient departed halls.

It has been left to mankind to try and rebuild civilization. In the heartlands of Cormanthor, a few human successor states soon emerged in the wake of the Fall.

In the very heart of the Cormanthor woods, human refugees from Myth Drannor spead into the vales dotting the ancient woods, finding that their new rural way of life made them too insignificant for evil forces to take notice of. The Dalelands, as they eventually became called, have lived on ever since under the cover of rural and decentralized inconspicuousness. Though elves still inhabit the deeper woods, the dalelander know to stick to their well-throdden paths and villages where most monsters will not go.

On the western rim of old Cormanthor, a feudal society emerged soon after the Fall where, in the image of the gallant elven champion, righteous warriors assumed lordship of the peasant population they protected. The greatest among these "knights" (as they came to be called) they named 'King' and thus was born the kingdom of Cormyr. In the centuries since the Fall, much of what was once deep woodland has been tamed to make way for town and agriculture, but much monstrous wilderness still remain to threaten the fragile communities of this kingdom.

South of Cormyr and the Dales, the trading communities of the Dragon Coast were left to fend for themselves in a hostile world. They've grew into fiercely independent and festering pits of rogues, backstabbing and corruption.

The Vast on the eastern shore of the Dragon Reach soon regressed to untamed wilderland, but less than a handful of human city-states, now left isolated and independent after the Fall, remained as points of light, where mankind could shelter themselves behind its walls against the encroaching spread of chaos.

A few centuries later, in 913 DR, settlers seeking their fortune in new lands away from the now stagnant and quarreling city-states of the Vilhon Reach, founded the mercantile nation of Sembia on the edge of the old Cormanthor woods and its rise has seen proper trade begin to emerge in the region for the first time since the Fall.

In the Western Heartlands, no successor states have emerged in the wake of the destruction of the Kingdom of Man and the land has reverted to mostly uncharted hinterlands, dotted by a smattering of small holds, villages and keeps that spring up, only to be abandoned within a generation or two.
A handful of small city-states and scattering of walled towns are the only enduring signs of civilization here. The most significant of these is the emergent city-state of Waterdeep, which has become the main hub of the Sword Coast. A hope perhaps, that civilization may take root here again some day.

North of these lands lie the Savage Frontier, where civilization ends. Even moreso than the Western Heartlands, the North is an untamed wilderness grown over the ruins of long lost empires such as Netheril and  dwarven Delzoun. It is teeming with orcs, trolls, barbarian tribes and monsters, who regularly descend upon the hapless palisade of villages that eke out short-lived lives in the wilderlands.

Paradoxically, the last unspoiled remnant of Pax Myth Drannor lies in these northern wastelands. Silverymoon, though originally no more than a frontier outpost erected in the finals days of Myth Drannor, has survived untouched, as if frozen in time, from the halcyon days of Pax Myth Drannor and is now famed as "the gem of the north", a sanctuary of arts, lore and magic where people of all races continue to live in harmony amongst its gilded streets, marbled domes and arched bridges.
This is all thanks to its succession of powerful "High Mage" rulers who have protected the city from its savage neighbors since the days of Myth Drannor. The current High Mage is a powerful sorcery queen whose just rule has extended for nearly two centuries.

The Lands Beyond
Where the history of the Heartlands have seen ages of splendor ended by long ages of darkness and something new having to be built on its ruins, mankind south of the old Pax Myth Drannor have had a different evolution of history

The Old Empires to the south, though withered and decayed, still stand as they have since the days of Netheril. As the Old Empires receded from their wider territories, the successor states that sprang up in its wake - the Empires of the Sand and the cities of the Vilhon Reach - have themselves grown now millenia old by now.

Where they touch the borders of the Heartlands, they remind the fledgling realms there that their civilizations are still no more than barbaric upstarts in the eyes of the old kingdoms to the south. And yet, for all  its proud unbroken history, the southlands are stale - Visitors to these land find a sense that their times of prosperity have come and gone and they are merely living out their last ages of decadence and insularity on the shoulders of past glories they can no longer emulate themselves.

In the Unapproachable East, even more exotic successor states to these ancient empires developed. Woodland realms ruled by powerful sorcery queens and witch covens. And dread Thay, the legendary kingdom of the red wizards, where undead are said to walk the streets and slaves toil to build arcane ziggurats and towers of their wizardly rulers.

Setting Review: Primeval Thule (+new setting map)

NB. If you're only here for the cool new map, it's at the bottom of the post.

Primeval Thule is a "sword and sorcery" pastiche setting that takes its primary inspiration from Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft - For D&D. It has books for 5e, 4e, pathfinder, 13th Age and Savage Worlds. Here I will be reviewing the book for 5e.

Despite the strong influence these authors have had on the D&D genre, D&D settings who take these as a primary and overriding influence are rare, so a setting adopting a more purist interpretation of these is a welcome addition. The concept art for the setting certainly makes an evocative intro:

What other settings might compare to such an effort? Setting to one side pastiche OSR efforts (such as Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea), then Wilderlands of High Fantasy has a lot of S&S, but its (delightful) kitchen sink approach means it can not be considered a focused effort for the genre. Dark Sun perhaps is the best attempt at the genre. Not in the least because it is a genuinely innovative and well executed take on the genre as opposed to the pastiche efforts seen elsewhere (note: I love a good pastiche. It's a timeless stable of fantasy - And Primeval Thule being a pastiche effort in no way detracts from its merits. It just means I evaluate it on how well it manages to pastiche). 

Which brings us to the design team: David Noonan who worked on a bunch of D&D books for WotC from 3rd to 5th edition, Stephen Schubert, once lead-designer on 4e D&D, and Rich Baker, who wrote a bunch of 3e books (including the Forgotten Realms setting), wrote some books for the original Dark Sun line and was the lead designer on Dark Sun for 4e. An interesting cast for a mainstream setting effort in a genre that is typically the domain of DIY creators in the OSR.

The setting at a glance

Primeval Thule is a sword & sorcery pastiche that most calls to mind Conan's Hyboria. It is set as a bronze age society in Greenland 25,000 years ago, three centuries after the sinking of Atlantis.

It has all the things you'd expect - decadent city-states, lost worlds, barbarians, corrupt priests and wizards, slaves, savage wildernesses and such. It narrates this in the form of a travelogue from someone from another land. This allows the book to explain also what it is not ("there are no knights here, O king") and frames the callous and brutal nature of the setting as it would appear to a non-native. It is not quite The Wanderer's Journal from Dark Sun, but it does its job well enough.

The book does a good job of describing the lay of the land (which is dominated by jungle and glaciers) and its flora and fauna and how hostile all of it basically is to humans. Reminiscent of Dark Sun (albeit less extreme) and sets the tone in a good way.

Besides a plethora of unnamed lesser gods, there is a widely worshipped pantheon of nine deities of civilisation (half of them evil), who generally oppose the many slumbering Old Ones seeping through the cracks.

Your go to monsters are not orcs, goblins, ogres, devils and demons, but beastmen, deep ones, serpentmen, winged apes, mi-go, moonbeast, Shoggoths, giant snakes, sabertooth tigers, rakshasa, headhunters and cultists of the Old Ones. Your otherworldly critters tend to come from beyond the stars rather than other dimensions (parallel earths are still a thing). I like it.

The bad

I have read some online critiques that it does not do what it sets out to do (which is - properly pastiche the Conan+Cthulhu genre) but I mostly disagree with this. Some of the critiques are put down to inconsistent editing and tone of the setting and others are, imo, simply a product of a much too restrictive view of the genre.

One argument I will address is the presence of demi-humans. Elves I find are quite well executed - They have their home city which is eerily quiet because they are all basically stoned out on drugs. Love it! 

Then there's dwarves, which is less well executed. They are a race of arms dealers and mercenaries who have only one city (and a few wild clans in the icy north), so there is that. And in the bronze age culture of Thule, they are the only ones who know how to craft iron and steel, a secret which they guard zealously (including hiring assassins if they discover thieves or looters wielding steel). Nice touch. And then what? I am missing some attempt here to situate them better in a S&S context. Accentuate their greed, maybe make them incapable of empathy (clan loyalty does the job) and obssessive nature. Guys like these maybe:

"Heard you carry an illegitimate steel sword, guv. That's about to end."

rather than this

This is the picture in the setting book for "Thulean Dwarf".... :(

I don't know... But something more.

And then there are halflings. I don't know what the fuck they wanted them in for. They are described as savage-but-friendly woodland dwellers who prefer to hide from others and are very good at that. A kind of Dark Sun-lite take on them? I don't know what they are doing here. Absent a good new take on them, I'd simply erase them. Outside the player-facing description, they are referenced only very briefly in the atlas, so it's an easy job. If kept, I'd go the Dark Sun route and have them stand in for REH's Picts: short, absolutely savage and hostile head-hunters. Thule has head-hunters anyway, so not a far stretch.

Either way, making any of these a player race seems odd given their rarity and doesn't fit well with the tone of a S&S setting. The kind of races I am looking for in a setting like this is Amazons (sadly absent) and Atlanteans (which we do get). If you must have a demi-human PC, make it a sidebar as a strictly optional rule for those rare groups who come into contact with them.

Though I recognise the inconsistent tone of the book at times (grim and brutal setting... with 'heroes'. Episodic adventure, here's some campaign arcs), they are more cosmetic flaws than anything, easily brushed away and do not significantly detract from the upsides of the book:

The Good

First of all - This is a solid pastiche. It oozes flavor, hits a lot of great notes and you have no problem envisioning Conan having Conan-esque adventures in Thule. It works. What few things I may be missing can easily be inserted.

Besides the overall good execution of the setting atmosphere and depth, the setting stands out as being more than just a tourist guide to the setting as many books of this type end up being, with a strong focus on helping both GMs and Players to get into the setting and make use of it. Make no mistake - This book wants to be used for gaming.

On the player side, we get narratives for 5e - which is basically backgrounds, but anchored in the setting and with a few extra mechanical bennies. An excellent and simple way to get players immersed in the setting from the get go. It's stuff like "Free Blade", "Dhari Hunter", "Katagian Pit Fighter", "Jungle Trader", "Star Lore Adept", "Ice Reaver" and "Sacred Slayer". They all come with nice suggestions for where one might be from and what classes work well with them. All settings for 5e should come with their own background selection like this. It's great stuff. Also, no paladins. Worth mentioning.

On the DM side, there is advice for how to run S&S adventures with an emphasis on episodic adventures, horror, the rare and alien nature of magic,  XP for gold and, bit odd given the emphasis on episodic adventures: suggestions for campaign arc. But whatevs. Having a few red threads running through a campaign is no bad thing in a sandbox campaign either, if the railroad can be avoided.

The rest is there to support the DM at the table and fuel his imagination. No less than 24 dungeons get quick writeups. The Atlas has nice little sidebars on what kind of adventures could be run in each area. Scatterred through the atlas are select maps of dungeons in the region. And the focus in the atlas is generally on "Here's the quick intro to the place, here are blurbs for interesting NPCs to have some fun with and here are adventure locations for you to explore". It's good solid game-friendly material.

I like terse and slim settings that don't burden me with 'canon' and excessive lore. Thule is on the heavier side for a setting book, but its focus is absolutely on the game utility side rather than developing lore and trivia. A top effort in this regard and something that makes it a really worthwhile investment to pick up rather than just make your own setting. It packs the book with info to get your imagination going and develop stuff, rather than encyclopediatically tell what it is all about.

One last thing on the "good" list deserves its own entry:

The Map

My first impression of the map was one of those things that turned me off the setting a bit to begin with. I mean look at this:

In terms of artistry, this is as functional as it gets. Just plain colours, no iconography, barely even any gradients. But when you look at it in detail as a game map, it is marvelous. It does the same thing that I praised the Tales of the Lance map of Ansalon for doing in my review of that map. It fucking loads the map with adventure sites.

What's the deal with Cruel Haddar's Tomb in the Skullthorn Wilds? What is in the Dungeon of the Man-bane in the Semiji Jungle? The Sleeping Fortress in the Valley of the Last Breath? The Caves of Entropic Wonder at the edge of the Serex Glacier? Or City of the Risen Apes in the Kurmanur Wilds?Or Lair of the Thought Eaters in the Sussurian Jungle? Or the Tombs of the Marrow Reavers? Temple of the White Ape? Caves of the Red Plague? Eyrie of the Sky-steeds?

I don't know, we are never told anything about them. But it makes me want to fucking go there and find out. I could go on listing sites; the map is absolutely littered with them. And some of the locations do get short blurbs in the Atlas to get you going.

It's the kind of map that makes me want to run an open sandbox campaign where the players (not the PCs) have full access to the map and can indicate to the DM what sites hold their interest and then the DM can seed the rumours table with these and more.

Fortunately, the basic nature of the official map means that it wasn't all that difficult to separate the different geographical types and legend of the map into layers and re-draw a new map on top of it with just a bit more artistic effort. 

That's right, kids. Never say your uncle Anders doesn't bring you any treats!

Below is the map I whipped up in a day or two, in two versions. A clear one and a more faded 'older-looking' map. They are really big (6853x5514, 37 MB) so you get all the wonderful detail of the map if you want to print this on a giant-sized sheet. I'm printing it on A3 later this week and looking forward to the result, but this could easily take A2 as well.

This is just a preview. Click here to download the full-sized image.

This is just a preview. Click here to download the full-sized image.