In Defense of Gor, Part 3: Gaming on Gor

Now that we've gotten the disclaimers out of the way and taken a look at the history of Gorean influences on the gaming scene, we can finally get to the stuff I've been wanting to talk about. We now know that many individuals in the early TRPG community read the Gor novels and used elements of the series to influence gaming materials. But is there any particular reason why Gor was used as an influence by so many gamers, as opposed to any other novel? I, personally, think there's something to that. Looking deeper into the setting, we can see that the way it's set up makes it very easy to facilitate RPG campaigns, especially those in the old-school milieu.

In fact, after reviewing these things, I am convinced that, had he been born ten years later, John Norman would likely have been an early contributor to the RPG industry. To date, the only official Gor RPG is Postmortem Studios's Tales of Gor, originally published in 2017. We have no reason to believe that Norman ever played an RPG, or even knows what one is. But he was an advocate of roleplaying as a activity in Imaginative Sex, citing it as a natural behavior that one should not be afraid or ashamed of engaging in, and as a safe outlet for desires that would be unethical or impossible in real life. Yes, he's talking about a different kind of roleplaying game here, but it isn't hard to see how he might be intrigued by tabletop gaming if he had been in the circles where it first arose. For that matter, the setting he created shares many traits in common with some of gaming's most enduring settings, as well as the ideals elaborated by those writing on the subject.

Before we begin, though, I would like to include an addendum to my last post. White Dwarf, back when it was a general gaming magazine and not solely a Games Workshop-related publication, used to run a column called Fiend Factory, listing new monsters for D&D, often submitted by readers. Many of those entries would later be collected in the Fiend Folio, making that book and its monsters a part of the British old-school gaming tradition. Issue 49 features a Fiend Factory article themed around insects, and includes stats for the golden beetle, a creature prominently featured in 1968's Priest-Kings of Gor. The entry, submitted by Steven Quayle, specifically lists the novel as its source material. Once again, we have evidence that many gamers of the era read Gor novels and wished to bring them to the table.

Anyway, back to our subject of the day: what makes Gor so gameable?

1. Deep, Readily Accessible Lore

Though the novels are infamously dry and many find the prose unexciting, it cannot be denied that a lot of thought went into the creation of Gor as a setting. Over the course of 38 books, Norman extensively details multiple cultures, locations, and characters, exploring what this world looks like, who lives there, and how these people think, act, and behave. We know how Goreans fight in wars, what their etiquette is like, how their castes are structured, what they eat, and so on. This is the same sort of information that might be found in an RPG setting guide - and because of it, it would be quite easy to run a campaign that feels like it authentically takes place in the same world as the original stories.

In fact, many books in the series focus on a journey to a particular region of Gor; for instance, Tribesmen of Gor takes place in the Tahari Desert, and Explorers of Gor focuses on the equatorial jungles of Schendi. They describe the inhabitants of these regions, some key locations there, and the sorts of things that may be encountered. It can be argued that Norman's focus with these entries is more on worldbuilding than storytelling - which makes them subpar as novels, but quite like a systemless RPG sourcebook, with a narrative attached. Much like the Mystara Gazetteers, these books detail specific parts of the setting and bring them to life, creating a deeper world.

It isn't hard to see how useful this much lore would be for the purposes of roleplaying in the setting. I'm far from the first person to note this - in the 90s, there was a substantial Gorean roleplaying community on IRC, which to my knowledge has mostly moved over to Second Life these days. While, yes, the people here are mostly engaged in a different kind of roleplaying, they still found that the books provided enough material for them to conceivably envision themselves in the roles of characters in the setting - and the same could be said for players in an RPG campaign.

I'm reminded of this post on Erin Hunter's Warrior Cats series, arguing that the series is technically an RPG. Though is is not presented as an RPG, and includes no hard mechanics like stats or die rolls, the setting is detailed and codified enough that one can easily understand how new stories with new characters could be told within the framework of the world - as is evident when one sees the multitude of original characters created by the fandom. Gor is much the same way. Even before it received an RPG, one could argue that the novels provided all the contextual details and dynamics to ground roleplaying in the setting and make sure it was consistent and in keeping with canon.

Of course, the fact that all this worldbuilding is contained in novels (and ones that can prove impenetrable to casual readers) makes for a barrier to entry. Luckily, one should never underestimate the dedication of fetishists. During the boom of Gorean online roleplaying, a number of fan sites sprung up to catalogue the lore of the novels in order for those interested to better understand the setting. In these articles, I've linked extensively to Luther's Gorean Education Scrolls, a series of articles cataloguing various aspects of Gorean worldbuilding originally written for roleplayers. In my opinion, this is the most accessible way to get into Gor, as it presents the relevant setting details without needing to slog through the original context - and it provides plenty of material that would be useful for would-be DMs. It does, however, only cover material through Witness of Gor, the 26th book in the series; more material has been published since. The Gorean Cave provides quotes directly from the text on a number of subjects, but isn't as easy to navigate. There is also an official illustrated encyclopedia released by Postmortem Studios entitled World of Gor; although released in conjunction with the RPG, it does not contain game stats and is targeted at both gamers and enthusiasts of the setting.

2. Highly Non-Flintstonist

One thing we know from all that worldbuilding is that Gor is decidedly not a Flintstonist setting. Goreans do not think, behave, or act like modern-day people do; in fact, that is kind of a recurring theme of the novels. Even besides the presence of widely accepted slavery, there are a number of key differences between Earthling and Gorean society - Luther even has an entire scroll on this. These range from superficial jargon (Goreans say "tal" instead of "hello," and "I wish you well" instead of "goodbye") to characterful bits of background detail (Goreans sit on floors, with free men sitting cross-legged and women and slaves sitting on their knees; we do have a few examples of women sitting cross-legged, and this is seen as a provocatively tomboyish behavior) to things that could impact gameplay or create new challenges (Goreans haggle over prices at stores and do not set fixed prices for items).

With so much detail given to culture and sociology, a campaign set on Gor would provide a great opportunity to immerse players in a truly exotic world, rather than a reskin of their everyday lives. There are many ways this could create enjoyable and engaging roleplaying opportunities. It is true that this sort of thing isn't for everyone; some people may feel intimidated by the thought of portraying a character whose thought processes and the context they exist in are so different from those of the player. And few gamers enjoy having to read a bunch of worldbuilding notes in order to play the setting consistently. Luckily, there are a few aspects of Gor as a setting that make this easier.

3. Historical Parallels

So a Spartan, a Viking, and a Mongol walk into a tavern. They find a table where a Bedouin is engaged in a fierce arm-wrestling match with a Scythian. A samurai is watching from a table where a forest-dwelling amazon lies slumped over drunk. Then a Wookiee gets up and flips his table in a rage.

No, it's not the setup to a very bizarre and esoteric joke. This scene could very well play out on Gor - granted, it would be an unusually cosmopolitan tavern, but nothing says that it couldn't happen.

Gor is a History's Greatest Hits setting, where cultures and locations based on multiple real-life eras coexist simultaneously. Like Howard's Hyborian Age, it's a setting where all sorts of pseudo-historical adventures can take place without anything feeling out of place. In fact, this is justified within the lore of the setting - Gor is a planet located opposite the sun from Earth, and throughout history, the aliens running the planet (it's a long story) abducted humans from different cultures and brought them to Gor, restricting their behavior so that their cultures would stay relatively unchanged over time. Thus, you have a culture descended from the Vikings existing side by side with one descended from Greco-Roman traditions, and so on.

This means that one can get a pretty good idea of what several Gorean cultures are like by perusing the history of the groups they're based on. None of the cultures are an exact match, and some borrow more heavily from real life than others, but there is enough precedent for the different cultures that a newcomer doesn't necessarily need to consume a lot of exposition to get the gist. As a bonus, this also means that if a DM wants to do some worldbuilding of their own and introduce a new culture to their personal Gor, they can do so and have it make sense in the setting - they just need to find a culture Norman hasn't already covered.

They're even being meta
about it now.

4. Isekai

For those not versed enough in weebery, isekai is a Japanese word translating to "other world." It's used to describe stories where the protagonists come from a mundane world like our Earth, but are transported to a new, fantastic setting. It's become very popular in anime in recent years, but the term has also been used to describe classic fantasy stories like The Wizard of Oz or John Carter of Mars.

Gor is also a setting that lends itself to the isekai route. Those same aliens that abducted a bunch of historical people also routinely abduct modern-day humans, on a much smaller scale. Most of the series' protagonists are brought from Earth to Gor this way, usually as slaves, but sometimes for other reasons. This is useful for gaming purposes because it provides an easy excuse for PCs to not know everything about the setting.

A big reason isekai is so popular in anime is that it allows writers to portray fantastic worlds, but use protagonists the reader can relate to. This way, worldbuilding doesn't have to be delivered through long spans of exposition going over things the characters already know. The details of the world can be revealed to the characters at the same time it is revealed to the viewer. From a TRPG perspective, this would also allow for lore-dense settings to be introduced to players without requiring them to do homework in order to portray characters from that setting. A campaign in which the PCs are humans from Earth brought to Gor allows them to experience the world without it seeming weird if they get details wrong or don't know everything. And discovering more about the world can be a source of progression, allowing PCs to better understand the contexts surrounding them and their places amidst them.

This isn't a new concept in RPGs. Empire of the Petal Throne is known for the richly-detailed setting of Tekumel, which also boasts extensive worldbuilding elaborating on its cultures, social dynamics, mores, and customs. Many players have cited this as an obstacle, as they feel like they can't make characters who conceivably exist as a part of the setting without researching the lore. But this ignores how the setting worked in practice. MAR Barker would, famously, begin most of his campaigns where the PCs were foreigners arriving in Tsolyani lands for the first time. That way, they could discover the setting a little bit at a time, just as the players did, and gradually understand more and more of what was going on around them. A player in a Gor campaign wouldn't need to read all the books in order to understand the setting. Their character wouldn't have to know anything more than they did, and there would be established precedent for it.

5. Points of Light

All these points outline how Gor lends itself well to roleplaying. But what about specifically roleplaying games? Well, there's plenty for that as well. In the leadup to the fourth edition of D&D, Wizards of the Coast described the new default setting as points of light in a sea of darkness - a setting that mostly consisted of unexplored, inhospitable wilderness, with a few scattered, isolated islands of civilization. This way, the setting could feature exploration and high adventure, while still containing enough settled areas for parties to have a home base, as well as the possibility to get themselves involved in social intrigue.

It was a term that caught on, and it has been used to describe a number of different settings, with some noting it as the platonic ideal of an old-school D&D setting. It also happens to describe Gor pretty well. The social assumptions of Gor are grounded more in the ancient Greek polis than medieval feudalism. Each city is a self-sufficient unit with its own government, and its people consider themselves loyal to the city rather than to any higher-reaching state or culture. Cities rarely form colonies, and when they do, these colonies usually become independent once they reach sufficient size. This means that Gor does not really have anything comparable to a wide-reaching kingdom with centralized authority, and as such, there is plenty of wilderness in between the cities. This lends itself well to a campaign framework of traveling from a city to adventure in the wilderness, and then either returning to the city or traveling to another along the road, both of which are often seen in old-school games.

This sort of thing.

6. Megadungeons

Another common feature of old-school campaign settings is the megadungeon - a single dungeon large enough to comprise the setting for an entire campaign, often explored over the course of multiple sessions, with the PCs returning to civilization in between. Some of the earliest campaign settings seem to have grown around a single megadungeon and its adjoining city, like Gygax's Castle Greyhawk. Conveniently, there are a couple of locations described in the Gor novels that resemble megadungeons, or could easily be adapted into them.

One of these is the city of Treve, located in the Voltai Mountains, which forms the setting for Witness of Gor. Treve is a heavily fortified city deep in the mountains, renowned as a haven of thieves and cutthroats; it relies on raiding other settlements for food. The city is only reachable from the air, or through a maze of underground passages, narrow crags, and outposts; even getting there entails braving many dangers. Beneath the city is an extensive network of pits, tunnels, and corridors used to hold prisoners, with traps to prevent their escape. Is there anything more OSR than a lawless city of rogues built atop a vast subterranean trap-filled dungeon?

The other is the Sardar Mountains, Gor's holiest site, and the home of the Priest-Kings, the insectoid aliens that style themselves as the god-like rulers of the planet (more on them later). Though the mountains themselves hold cultural importance to Goreans - they are the site of festivals held four times a year where all Goreans may gather to sell wares and settle disputes, and all Goreans are expected to make a pilgrimage there during their lifetime - the Priest-Kings themselves dwell in an underground complex of tunnels and chambers containing strange creatures (including the aforementioned golden beetles) and powerful technology off-limits to the general populace. Surely a campaign involving raiding the Sardar Mountains under the noses of the Priest-Kings could provide plenty of excitement and opportunities for OSR gaming.

I am this entire image.

All in all, I'm not surprised that so many early voices in the TRPG communities embraced Gor - the setting seems almost tailor-made for gaming, especially the sort of gaming that predominated in that era. I have no doubt that more than one DM at the time used the setting for their games. We know such a thing wasn't unheard of - Wilderlands of High Fantasy began as a campaign set in Tolkien's Middle-Earth before the PCs were teleported elsewhere, for instance. Surely people noticed the same points I did and realized how ripe they would be for gaming. And while the Gorean roleplaying community is largely more concerned with the bedroom than the table, a lot of what makes the setting appealing to one circle also makes it appealing to another. In the end, people into RPGs and people into BDSM aren't so different - and we can see that principle at play here.

We're almost done with this series, but before we go, I still have one post left in the tank - one devoted to things I personally find cool about Gor as a setting, now that all the theoretical stuff is out of the way. Until then, I wish you well!

In Defense of Gor, Part 2: Gor in Gaming

This is actually the
most SFW cover I can find.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the reception my last post received, arguing that the infamous Gor novels are worth a look as a source of inspiration for pulpy, sword-and-sorcery-flavored gaming. But I'm not the first person to make such an argument. The influence of the Gor series goes back almost as far as the TRPG hobby itself. It's often been buried, and given the reputation the series has accrued, that may be a deliberate effort on the parts of various rights-holders - but a look into the history of tabletop gaming reveals that there is a Gorean connection behind some surprisingly influential developments, not just in the world of gaming but pop culture as a whole.

There are many seminal works of fantasy literature in the first edition Dungeon Masters' Guide Appendix N, and the ways in which these works influenced the game, its tropes, and its elements have been studied time and time again by people far more qualified to speak on the subject than I. The Gor novels are not a listed influence in any version of Appendix N. Given how they are directly referenced in other works from the same period, as I will discuss later, I don't think this was an omission based on the content of the series or its reputation. Gor did not accrue the image of something taboo among mainstream discussions of fantasy and science fiction until later. It seems more likely to me that Gygax simply didn't read or wasn't a fan of the novels, and thus they don't appear on a list curated by him.

What is known, however, is that the other co-creator, Dave Arneson, was a fan of Gor and did reference it in his work. Quite a bit, actually. To see the Gorean influence on early D&D, we need to start with materials that were written by him - most famously, Blackmoor, the second supplement to the original 1974 edition of D&D. If we really want to get to the source, though, we should look in particular at The First Fantasy Campaign, a collection of rules Arneson used at his table that was published by Judges' Guild in 1977. This is unfiltered Arneson; it reads like the ramblings of a madman, with no real regard to layout or organization, and shoves you right into the material without a proper introduction or preface. It's a bunch of lists, tables, and house rules in no particular order. It seems that editing Arneson's rules was not a priority. So we can assume that the elements he includes do in fact capture his influences in as pure a form as we can get.

It's worth noting, then, that The First Fantasy Campaign has a lot of rocs in it. They're listed as purchasable, they appear in encounter tables, and many cities are listed as using roc cavalry in their armies. One note, in particular, describes a larger variant of rocs called tarns. In the Gor novels, tarns are large birds used as beasts of burden and are ridden into battle; the series' most recurring protagonist, Tarl Cabot, is a tarnsman, ie. one who rides a tarn. What's more, Arneson's rocs occupy much the same role that tarns do on Gor; stats are listed for "war tarns," "cargo tarns," and "racing tarns," all of which exist on Gor. Furthermore, in "The Temple of the Frog," a dungeon Arneson includes in the Blackmoor supplement, mention is made to "landing points for rocs" on the building's edge - many Gorean buildings include ledges on higher floors for tarns to perch on.

Despite a singular reference to tarns being "same as rocs but larger in some cases," the text seems to use the terms "roc," "tarn" and "eagle" interchangeably, listing "tarn trainer" and "eagle rider" on the same list when listing upkeep of hirelings. The ways in which Arneson uses rocs as rideable animals also implies he isn't thinking of the elephant-eating monsters of Arabian mythology. We can assume any time Arneson refers to a large rideable bird, he has tarns in mind. Since The First Fantasy Campaign still uses the terms "hobbit" and "balrog" instead of "halfling" and "balor," it seems unlikely that rights issues were behind this terminology. Most likely, this is the result of The First Fantasy Campaign being generally unedited; there is little stylistic consistency with the book as a whole.

What's more, on the same list of hirelings and their upkeep requirements, Arneson lists separate rates for "male slave," "female (Red)," female (White)," and "female (Special)". While the color-coding of female slaves is not explained in the text, the terminology is taken directly from Gor. There, a "white silk slave" is a virgin, and a "red silk slave" is not. I'm not sure what "female (Special)" refers to here, and frustratingly, Arneson doesn't give any explanation. It might be a reference to Gor's "exotics;" slaves bred to have inhuman traits such as venom (also a woefully underexplored concept in the series), but in the books this phenomenon is not limited to female slaves, and I would think that there would be more game mechanics for something like that. Seems like a good excuse for a random table.

This is a bit of theorizing on my part, but one idea that seems to have originated with Arneson was oozes as a class of monsters, which cemented slimes, jellies, puddings, and the like as a staple of fantasy bestiaries. It's attested to by Gygax himself that Arneson was the first DM to use a black pudding, and many commentators have traced this back to 1958's The Blob, which is certainly plausible, given Arneson's stated love of monster movies. However, I think it's worth noting that 1969's Nomads of Gor includes a delightfully pulpy interlude where Tarl is fed to a living corrosive ooze, kept in a pit in the palace of a corrupt merchant, and must fight his way out. Given we have hard evidence that Arneson read the Gor books, it's quite possible that this creature influenced his creation.

But if I had to pick the one instance Gor was arguably at its most influential, not only on D&D but on gaming and the fantasy genre as a whole, that traces back to Supplement II.

Let me ask you a question. What comes to your mind when I say the word "assassin?" If you read this blog, probably a guy in a dark cloak, probably with a hood, holding a dagger and sneaking up on someone to stab them. Maybe, if you're younger, a white-clad figure doing parkour up the wall of a Gothic cathedral, or Keanu Reeves in a slick suit dispatching a horde of henchmen with cinematic gunplay. If you ask an older person, or someone who knows nothing about fantasy, they'd probably think of someone with a sniper rifle shooting the President from a book depository. Before the 70s, that's what most people would say. The idea of the assassin as a class, with a distinct set of skills, equipment, and associated tropes, owes itself to two things: the meteoric rise in popularity of the pop-culture ninja (specifically the pop-cultural stock character, which has little in common with the historical ninja of feudal Japan), and the D&D assassin class, first introduced in Blackmoor.

Many, citing Arneson's established precedent of drawing from Gor, have posited that this class was inspired by the Gorean Assassin Caste. If this is true, this means that Gor directly inspired an entire character archetype, and that Pa-Kur the Master Assassin has as much of a valid claim to fame as being such a model as Aragorn does for rangers. However, I'm not entirely convinced this is the case. The primary class features of the original assassin class are the use of disguises, which we do not have much textual evidence of Gorean assassins using, and the use of poisons, which Gorean assassins explicitly do not use, as they view it as impersonal and cowardly. There are some links, however. Blackmoor's assassins work in guilds, with temples and a defined structure, much like how Gorean assassins, though termed a caste, are not born into it and instead join such an order, pledging their lives to its service. Also, Blackmoor's assassins gain the right to challenge their guildmaster in a duel at 12th level, and take over the position if they kill them. This could be related to how Gorean assassins are always trained in pairs, with their final task being for one of them to hunt and kill the other in order to be inducted into the caste. Gor may have influenced the assassin class, but I do not think it was the only source.

All in all, looking at both textual and contextual evidence, it is undeniable that Gor was an influence on Dave Arneson in particular, and by extension D&D. However, its influence on the gaming scene didn't stop there, and Gor references continued to crop up in gaming materials.

In terms of official material, Dragon Magazine used to run a feature called "Giants in the Earth," listing game stats for characters from existing works of fiction. Issue #61, from 1982, stats Tarl Cabot, courtesy of Glenn Rahman. What's interesting is that he is listed as Lawful Evil and his misogyny is described as a character trait, but the text explicitly connects this to his upbringing with an abusive aunt, an in-universe explanation for his outlook. This might indicate that at this time, at least with this one author, Cabot was viewed as a flawed anti-hero, not as a mouthpiece for Norman's alleged views, and his outlook on women was viewed as just a character trait, not something assumed to be "natural" in a man. One could argue that Rahman may have portrayed Cabot this way as a means to criticize the novels, but the text makes several allusions to the events of the books as late as Raiders of Gor from 1971, which most people online will tell you is well after the series took on a BDSM tint. If Rahman truly disliked the series, I doubt he would know as much about the plot as he alludes to. Most people bail out by that point. If true, this would support the evidence that it was relatively socially acceptable to read and enjoy Gor novels, even later Gor novels, in the gaming community at this time.

There's something charming in
the naive earnestness of early
third-party gaming mag covers.

Also, Judges' Guild's magazine, Pegasus, published Gor-related gaming content. While I was unable to find any scans, the sixth issue (also from 1982) boasts on the cover that it features an article by Paul Elkmann with rules for kaissa, a chess-like game described in the series. Of note to me is that kaissa would not feature into the plot of any of the novels until Players of Gor two years later - remember that title, we'll come back to it - and even then, the full canonical rules have never been established. It would be interesting to compare this interpretation of kaissa to what we know now. But it also confirms what we know - there were people in the tabletop RPG community in the late 70s and early 80s who openly read the Gor books and used them as a source of inspiration at the table. If the kaissa from the Pegasus article is intended as a minigame as part of an existing campaign, it may indicate that people then were even using D&D or other RPGs to play campaigns in the world of Gor.

What about across the pond? I've long posited the existence of a British old school tradition, linked to but possessing distinct qualities from its American counterpart. There, too, Gor was known and accepted in the gaming sphere. Both Rick Priestly
and Tony Ackland note Gor among the books they read in developing Warhammer in this interview; Ackland in particular allegedly designed Warhammer's war eagles after the tarns, but I was unable to find a source to back up this anecdote. To me, though, the clearest sign of Gorean DNA in Warhammer isn't the war eagles, but something else entirely: the Skaven.

This book walked so
Vermintide could run.

Yes! Numerous people have written on the various sources that came together to form the Skaven over the years. And, while I don't think anyone involved in their development confirmed this one way or another, I would not be surprised if Gor was one of those sources.

You see, in 1984's Players of Gor, one minor character is Nim Nim, a slave who belongs to a race known as "the Urt People." Nim Nim is a fairly minor character, all things considered. He only appears in one book, and we never meet any other Urt People before or since. However, from his example, we do know that such a race exists in the setting, and are described as having hairy bodies, large eyes, narrow faces, a hunched stance, and a habit of travelling in large packs. It should be noted that in Gor's ecology of made-up animals, an urt is a small rodent pest that takes the role a rat would on Earth. Thus, the Urt People are essentially rat people (I should now clarify, for the sanity of my readers, that although Nim Nim is a slave, there is no indication he is a pleasure slave; as I said before, that is not all slavery on Gor is about). They debuted in a book that came out two years before the Skaven first debuted in "Vengeance of the Lichemaster," a Warhammer scenario published in the Citadel Spring Journal.

None of this means anything on its own - there have been many examples of rat people popping up in fantasy. However, the Urt People speak in a particular dialect that includes repeating most things they say twice, much like Skaven are known for doing.

"What do they call you here?" I asked.

"Nim, Nim," it said.

"I am called Bosk," I said.

"Bosk, Bosk," it said. "Nice Bosk. Pretty Bosk. More larma! More larma!"

I gave the creature more of the hard larma.

"Good Bosk, nice Bosk," it said.

I handed it another bit of larma.

"Bosk want escape?" it asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Bad men want do terrible thing to Bosk," it said.

"What?" I asked.

"Nim Nim afraid talk," it said.

I did not press the creature.

"Few cells have table," it said, fearfully. "Bosk not chained."

I nodded. "I think I understand," I said. Not being chained, and because of the table, I had been able to witness the cruel spectacle in the courtyard. That I supposed now, given the hints of the small creature, was perhaps intended to give me something to think about. I shuddered. Much hatred must I be borne in this place.

"More larma!" said the creature. "More larma!"

I gave it some more larma. There was not much left. "They intend to use me in the baiting pit," I speculated.

"No," said the creature. "Worse. Far worse. Nim Nim help."

"I don't understand," I said.

"Bosk want escape?" it asked.

"Yes," I said.

"More larma," it said. "More larma!"

I gave it the last of the larma.

"Bosk want escape?" it asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Nim Nim help," it said.

(I brought this up to Gideon in the comments of a now-deleted post on the history of the Skaven at Awesome Lies, one of the best blogs out there for Warhammer history, and he actually went back and edited his post to mention the Urt People. Alas, he's dealing with technical issues that prevent me from linking that one. So you get the full quote to see what I'm talking about.)

Now, Skaven would not develop these particular speech patterns until later, with the Kaleb Daark comics. But knowing the time frame, and the fact that people at Games Workshop did read Gor novels and considered them an influence, it seems reasonable to theorize that Nim Nim was on the writers' minds when they needed to come up with a distinct speech pattern for a rat-like humanoid. In all other regards, Urt People are nothing like Skaven - they certainly don't seem to be a threat to any Gorean city, and don't appear particularly warlike - but the similarities cannot be denied.

Whether one likes the series or not, it is inarguable that Gor was one of the many sources that informed the early development of tabletop gaming as a community, and the tropes, stories, and settings that grew during this era. At this time, it was not particularly regarded as anything to be ashamed of or to reject, and was mined for inspiration just as much as other works of the genre. Regardless of whether or not we feel this source material is offensive, obscene, or objectionable, we shouldn't bury the truth. I think it's important to recognize that Gor did play a role in the perfect storm that allowed tabletop RPGs to flourish, and that it is a part of the canon of inspirational material that underpinned D&D and beyond, for better or for worse.

But why Gor? Was it simply the fact that the people behind the scene would read any fantasy literature they could get there hands on?

I think there's more to it than that. Gor, in my opinion, is actually a very gameable setting. I don't doubt that in those days, more than a few would-be DMs looked at the books as a source of inspiration, either in terms of the ideas contained within themselves or how they were presented. With its focus on worldbuilding, I can easily see how it would appeal to the same sorts of people interested in the lore of TRPG settings. Even I have a hard time reading Gor lore and not thinking of ways it could drive scenarios at the table. And in my next few posts, I'm going to shed light on why. See you next time!

Lunar Lands Appendix N

Whether you want to call it "6e" or "5.5e" or "One D&D" or "D&D 2024" or "the spawn of Satan," the core books for the most recent iteration of D&D's ruleset have hit shelves. I've had a chance to look at them (and what people online are saying about them), and while I would overall call it a mixed bag I don't have much in the way of strong feelings on, there is one decision I find truly concerning. The venerable Appendix N, of inspirational reading and influences on the game, is gone from the Dungeon Masters' Guide, replaced by a "lore glossary" of terms and characters from existing D&D fiction.

I'm sure you already knew I was going to hate this. It's just another nail in the coffin of what I've been arguing since the very beginning of this blog - that in becoming a brand, D&D has become a corporatized, proprietary Human Centipede constantly consuming, excreting, and regurgitating its own lore, and that the rejection of outside influences will just lead to more homogenized cinematic-universe-friendly slop targeted more at investors than gamers.

But rather than focus on how the sky is falling, I would like to use this as an opportunity to do something positive - to discuss the sources that influenced my approach to DMing and worldbuilding, both in content and in philosophy. I've seen other blogs do something similar, and I suppose that with the death of the official Appendix N, it's time to keep that spirit alive through exploring what an Appendix N for the Lunar Lands might look like. So, in no particular order, here are ten things that shaped both myself as a DM and the Lunar Lands as a setting. I might return to these with more detail at a later date, but for now, here's what I have.

National Geographic

1. World culture and history

Ever since I was young, I've had a fascination with how people live and lived their lives, both around the world and in different eras. I'm of the opinion that no fictional universe can ever be quite as deep or as interesting as the real world - even today, there are thousands of societies with their own practices and cultural norms all around the globe, and I find delving into the subject to be just as rich and compelling as any fictional universe bible. I love learning about how people live or lived on the other side of the world, or in a different age. My approaches to worldbuilding take after that interest, both from a superficial perspective and a more in-depth one.

Obviously, the Lunar Lands is very much a History's Greatest Hits setting, with various regions based heavily on different cultures and eras. Even with the Year of the Gazetteer, I've drawn from subjects as diverse as colonial Mexico, the Saami people of Scandinavia, the Holy Roman Empire, and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In rejecting Flintstonism, I make an effort to portray these cultures as people raised in them would have thought and felt, rather than to use them as dressing for contemporary stories - I enjoy doing the research, and I strive to give the worlds I portray a greater level of immersion and verisimilitude through referencing real-world practices, social norms, systems of governance, and other phenomena.

But on a broader scale, I also take inspiration from the diversity of real-world society to make every part of my setting feel distinct from one another, with all the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of real cultures. The Lunar Lands has ethnic minorities, diasporas, and stateless peoples - real life isn't so clean that you'll get a society where everyone wears hats, and that's it. That's one thing I like so much about this planet, and I want the same for my setting.

2. Mythology and Folklore

Long before I was into anything we'd call "fantasy literature," I was enamored by the various myths and legends of the world from throughout history. As a child, my image of stories of magic, monsters, and the supernatural was more colored by fairy tales and ancient myths than pulp speculative fiction. The iconic fantasy heroes, to me, were Odysseus and Beowulf, not Gandalf and Conan. Of particular interest were the Usborne and Kingfisher books that presented a glossary of gods, heroes, and stories from around the world, with beautiful illustrations that brought these tales to life. When I began running campaigns, I didn't have ready access to modules or setting guides, so these were the sourcebooks I used instead to get inspiration for my next game.

One of my players has described the tone of the Lunar Lands as "more fairy tale than fantasy novel," and that's a description that's stuck with me. I draw inspiration from real-life folklore whenever possible. If a creature in the Monster Manual has abilities that are at odds with what ancient people believed about its namesake, nine times out of ten, the ancient people are going to win out. My gods take human form, meddle in mortal affairs, and are fond of cursing people for arbitrary reasons, rather than passively sitting around rewarding prayer with spells. Add in my Catholic upbringing introducing me to the various saints, miracles, and folk rituals of Europe and beyond, and you have a setting where the fantastic has a more grounded, mythical feel - even if there's room for beholders and displacer beasts too.

I'm pretty sure either
I had this cover,
or my teacher did.

3. The Hobbit

That isn't to say that modern fantasy literature hasn't influenced my setting. Far from it. When I was raised on a diet of myths and legends, it was only natural that I would move on to the works of Tolkien when I was older, and that I would be enamored with it from the beginning. My first exposure to Tolkien's work was The Hobbit, a book that one of my teachers decided to read to us over lunch period, and it didn't take long for me to be hooked.

I've always preferred The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings - the first of the movie adaptations of which came out just after we had finished The Hobbit, in a stroke of good timing - and while I suspect nostalgia plays a part here, I also find the tone, scale, and scope of the story resonates more with me. The world of The Hobbit has a more folkloric character than what would come later. A big part of it, I feel, is that Tolkien is content to just let things happen, without needing to justify it through worldbuilding. Animals talk. Bags talk. People just have magic items lying around. Elves are bothersome tricksters, not wise mentors. There are encounters with strange creatures that Tolkien never attempts to fit into a greater and more cohesive world. I always hate when fans try to explain away the giants playing catch in the mountains as a metaphor, citing that giants aren't mentioned in any other Middle-Earth stories - maybe there are just giants in this world, and that's okay. My setting strives to work in much the same way.

The Hobbit, compared to its sequel, is more concerned with a singular adventure, making it feel more intimate and relatable than a grand sweeping epic where the fate of the world lies in the balance. That's a tone I try to capture with my setting, but I'm also influenced by the structure of The Hobbit. The story is an episodic one, told through a number of incidents along the journey that are largely self-contained. When my players are seeking out a destination, I always make sure to have plenty of interesting locations along the way - whether they be dangers or potential allies and resources. And, just as Bilbo and the dwarves rarely overcome their obstacles through force of arms, I like to encourage players to use clever tricks and exploit their environments to get out of a bind.

4. Swashbucklers and Historical Adventure Fiction

Think Ivanhoe, the various Robin Hood stories, The Three Musketeers, Prince Valiant and similar comics, and their legions of adaptations and derivative works on the big screen. This genre is a bit of a lost art - the latest example I can think of is 1991's Prince of Thieves, unless Pirates of the Caribbean counts - and that's really a shame, because they provide a great font of material for interesting plot points and adventure sites.

The Lunar Lands is a low-magic setting, and I think that a big part of that comes from how stories like these have shown me that you can have compelling and dramatic stories in a pre-industrial setting without needing to throw a wizard in there. My games are full of corrupt nobles, daring escapes, and honorable duels; while there are plenty of conventional D&D dungeons, just as many are literal dungeons, where one will have to fight their way out of a scheming baron's castle, braving guards and traps and navigating passages hidden by clever stonework. Of course, doing all of that and throwing a wizard in anyway is fun too!

A lot of swashbucklers are comparable in tone and character to old-school sword and sorcery tales - something I think a lot of people don't realize, especially given Robert E. Howard considered himself a writer of historical fiction - but without the influence of turn-of-the-century weird fiction, they mesh more easily with a setting that's more grounded in myths than Lovecraftian themes. I suspect my lifelong interest in history made these historical adventures more appealing to me, but there's plenty of material there to be mined by any DM.

5. Wilderlands of High Fantasy

Is this one cheating? In the interests of slaying the self-referential ouroboros of modern-day pop culture, I've tried to avoid sources that came from D&D itself. But I'm going to list Wilderlands here. Not only is it a third-party product so I think I can get away with it, it was a profound influence on my approach to worldbuilding and running games. One of the most important moments of my development as a young DM was when I received the 3.5e Wilderlands boxed set as a birthday present. At the time, I had no idea it was a setting that was almost as old as D&D itself. What I was fascinated by was the nature of the product.

The Wilderlands boxed set - apparently something of a collector's item today - is essentially a big collection of hex maps, altogether covering an area about the size of the Mediterranean Sea, with two books detailing every region described therein, and the various points of interest contained within each hex. There's plot hooks, but no overarching narrative. It's meant to be a sandbox you can drop a party into and have them make their own fun. This was a game-changer, for me. It made me realize the virtues of sandbox campaigns, and how you could seed an area with enough interesting encounters to let a party explore it as they pleased. They might save the world. They might become wanted criminals. They might even carve out kingdoms - all of this was anticipated and expected.

That was the kind of campaign I decided I wanted to run. It also got me thinking of how I could design a setting that was just as open-ended, detailed, and diverse. The Wilderlands has a reputation as somewhat of a gonzo setting, with lost technology and alien races, but I never got that impression from the boxed set, and none of that really found its way into my work. What I saw was that I could do something similar in terms of presentation and game philosophy, and I've never looked back.

6. British old school gaming

I've spoken on this subject in the past. As far as I'm aware, I was one of the first people to posit the existence of a distinct tradition of British old school fantasy gaming on the OSR subreddit, and it got some discussion going in its day. I need to revisit that at some point. But I'm of the opinion that there is a distinct pantheon of British RPGs and related material - the tentpoles of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, and Dragon Warriors, plus related works and also-rans like Blood Sword, Maelstrom, and the material in old White Dwarf articles and TSR UK's books (yes, that includes the Fiend Folio, so the Flumph and the Space Marine are cladistical cousins!). These works have a distinct feel and their own tropes and conventions, and while I am both American and a 90s kid, they've always appealed to me in a way that American games of the era never did quite as well.

While American games took inspiration from pulp fiction, British games had more of a grounding in history and folklore. Flintstonism was downplayed in favor of accurately depicting medieval culture and society, and often there was a greater influence from fairy tales, Arthurian romance, and other more traditional sources. Things were more grounded in mundanity, providing a contrast to the overtly fantastic, and there was a slant toward low fantasy rather than high fantasy, with PCs being desperate rat-catchers and adventures entailing bogus haunted houses set up to scare locals away from smuggling operations. A lot of this paralleled and overlapped with other areas of interest to me, so I consider the Lunar Lands a British old school fantasy setting, in spirit if not by birth. Since discovering Fighting Fantasy, I've also incorporated much of the series' philosophy into my approach to game design. In those books, a clever player can get out of danger or evade a tough fight by taking an alternate route around or using the right item, and I strive to do the same with my campaigns.

7. Dragon Quest

I've spoken on the subject before, but as a child, I played the Game Boy port of Dragon Quest III extensively, and read the strategy guide even more extensively. The game dates back to an era where Japanese RPGs were only starting to meaningfully diverge from their western counterparts, and III wears its D&D influence on its sleeve, with a party of customizable characters, thieves with utility abilities to be used outside of battle, clerics who can wear armor and use weapons (have you ever seen a white mage do that?), and cursed items that can only be removed by seeking a blessing at a temple. Discovering the game at the same time I was discovering D&D was well-timed. Even if I did recognize the box art was done by the guy I knew from watching Dragon Ball Z on Toonami, I could also recognize the two games as being part of the same canon, and they seemed to complement each other. I always just assumed DQ3 was of the same genre as Might and Magic VII on my family's computer, just designed differently due to technical limitations. In my early days of gaming, I tried to remake my D&D characters in DQ3 (poorly), and I ran several dungeons out of the DQ3 Prima strategy guide at the table.

While the Lunar Lands doesn't have cutesy ooze mascots, I do draw inspiration from how DQ3 - and the greater series, now that I've gotten back into it - presents its world. A big aspect of the games that I think gets left out of the conversation is how open-ended they are. While there are some entries that are more story-driven, the stories tend to be simpler and the worlds more open to exploration than a typical Final Fantasy title. Often times, story arcs are self-contained to a single town or dungeon, hitting on the same episodic nature of a hexcrawl, of Bilbo's journey to the Lonely Mountain, or indeed, of the campaigns I run. Furthermore, the settings tend to play things more traditionally than most JRPGs, and despite Toriyama's art, they feel closer to classic fantasy or folklore than to modern-day anime.

I do, alas, regret to inform anyone who's interested in seeking Dragon Quest out nowadays that the series' English releases changed translators partway through its run, and more modern games have rejected faithful translations in favor of just adding in whatever dumb jokes the translators wanted to tell, regardless of if they fit the intended tone. If you want something with the tone my games aim for, avoid anything with Dragon Quest on the cover and look for Dragon Warrior instead. While I use the official title for clarity's sake, earlier English releases, including those of my youth, were released under Dragon Warrior because TSR owned the trademark to Dragon Quest at the time. Which is ironic, because...

8. Dragon Warriors

Yep, there actually was a TRPG out there called Dragon Warriors, and no one bothered to care. This one falls under the umbrella of British old-school gaming I talked about earlier, but I wanted to devote its own section because its influence is just that strong.

Dragon Warriors takes place in Dave Morris's Land of Legend, a setting based heavily on medieval folklore and culture. It's a setting where people invoke the names of saints so that the fair folk won't cause their milk to curdle and their grain to spoil so they'll be able to pay their tithes to the local lord. When I discovered Dragon Warriors for the first time, my immediate thought was somewhere between "Yes! This is exactly what I've always wanted!" and "Oh no, someone beat me to it." It hits the nail on the head perfectly for what I want out of fantasy grounded in history, myths, and legends, and a lot of Legend content would fit into the Lunar Lands with minimal changes. In fact, I've done exactly that.

Dave Morris is still putting out content today - he's working on a new edition of the rules, titled Jewelspider, and his blog Fabled Lands still releases material for the setting in the form of semi-regular zines and adventures, all of which have that deeply folkloric feel that I can't get enough of, and many of which have made it into the Lunar Lands practically unchanged. I'm only somewhat joking when I call the guy my spiritual liege.

9. The Elder Scrolls

You may have noticed that one of the bigger recurring themes in this list is that I like open-world games that encourage and reward player-driven exploration. It shouldn't come as any surprise that I'm a big fan of The Elder Scrolls, a series that makes this sort of thing its wheelhouse. In turn, it's influenced how I think about campaign design. Most of my campaigns have been set up similarly to a typical Elder Scrolls game, where I might have an overarching plotline, but also seed the world with plenty of locations, sidequests, factions, and NPCs that the players are free to explore as they wish, pursuing different leads and affiliating themselves with different parties. If they want to ignore the main quest entirely and just focus on doing missions for the local guild, or clearing out dungeons, or collecting roots, that's perfectly fine, and they can do that as long as I have interesting material to throw at them.

But more importantly, Elder Scrolls was a heavy influence on me for how it approached its world. Before I played Oblivion, my introduction to the series, I had never seen a video game that felt like a living, breathing world - one that I could see people actually living in, with lives and stories that unfold beyond what's necessary for gameplay. A big part of this is how Elder Scrolls handles its lore. There's much more canon information about the setting than is ever encountered in any of the games, with the world possessing hundreds of books you can read - everything from novels to encyclopedias to biographies, and all expanding on the world of Nirn and making it feel like something greater. That was a big inspiration for me to develop the world of my setting to match. The Lunar Lands doesn't have the weirder metaphysical qualities of Mundus - there's no room for a magical space station (yes, that's canon!) in a world of myths and legends - but the philosophy of creating a setting for a game that's rich and detailed enough to stand on its own drove me to the sorts of thinking that led me to make this blog. Even if some of this stuff never comes up in gameplay, I know it's there, and that's enough for me.

10. Touhou Project

Come on, it wouldn't be a Lunar Lands article without something completely out of left field. Out of all the things I've listed today, this is probably the one most unfamiliar to much of my readerbase, so allow me to explain.

Touhou Project is a long-running series of independently published video games, produced almost entirely by a single Japanese man who goes by the online handle of ZUN. They're arcade-style shooters about poorly-drawn anime girls in funny hats firing excessive amounts of lasers at each other. I haven't played a single one of them. My exposure to Touhou instead comes from its large and devoted fanbase. ZUN has encouraged players to produce fanart and fanfiction of his characters - there are over 100 poorly-drawn anime girls in funny hats that have appeared over the course of the series, each of whom has their own distinct personality and unique quirks, and the fans have been so compelled by them that the majority of Touhou-related content on the internet comes from fans. These range from memes to music videos to professionally-produced manga to an entire animated film. There are entire characters who have no dialogue at all, but the personalities and traits fan works have given them have been so influential they've set the model for how they're portrayed in other productions.

But what on earth, you might ask, does this have anything to do with the Lunar Lands? Well, Touhou is heavily inspired by Japanese folklore. The characters and their abilities are all based on mythical beings, Shinto and Buddhist traditions, and urban legends, and much of the series's appeal comes from seeing how these entities are reimagined and how they interact with one another. Very rarely is something created completely out of whole cloth. Though the cultural backgrounds I draw from are different, it's a philosophy I apply in my worldbuilding as well, creating cosmologies and magic systems out of real folkloric traditions and basing characters on precedents found in myths. Another one of my players compared my setting to a European Touhou, and while the anime influences are not nearly as overt, it is something I've leaned into.

Also, tying back to my first point, I do have to credit Touhou with introducing me to the principles of Shinto, and I find the religion's animist traditions fascinating. The concept of regional shrines, local deities, and items that can gain sentience with time have found them into my setting, and I don't think I would've used the term "shrine maiden" in my setting if not for Touhou. Plus, I almost called this blog "Lunar Land Story," so that should count for something.

With that retrospective on the material behind my setting, I would like to open the floor. Let's not mourn Appendix N. Let's celebrate the rich tapestries of influences behind our games and our settings! If you haven't written anything on the Appendices N for your games, I encourage you to do so. I'm not the first DM to blog about this subject, and I'm sure I won't be the last. I'm interested in hearing from you!

An Interview with Lew Pulsipher

 

In researching my post from yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lew Pulsipher, a big name in the early days of White Dwarf and Dragon, as well as the creator of the original bar brawl scenario in White Dwarf issue 11. See here for my initial writings on the subject. With his permission, I've chosen to publish our discussion here.

Lunar Lands: As far as my research has led me to believe, it was you who wrote the first [bar brawl] - assuming, of course, that's the same Lew Pulsipher. I was excited to see that you still had an active presence online, and I felt like it might be of use to gaming historians like me. If it is you, and if you can recall the details, I would like to ask you a few questions on the subject, if you don't mind.

Lew Pulsipher: Yes, that was me, and as far as I know it was the first such for FRPG, though you'll notice from the article that I saw a non-FRPG version of a br brawl and went from there. I tried to turn it into a stand-alone game, but didn't get far enough to playtest it. Now how much I'm going to remember otherwise, 40+ years after, is doubtful. But ask away.

LL: It's nice to be able to hear from someone who was around in shaping the hobby in its early days. Yes, I did see in the article that you had adapted this from a Wild West scenario - which helps point, to me, that this truly is the earliest example of bar brawl scenarios being developed for fantasy RPGs. In that regard, having you as an asset is a valuable one to us historians. This is my first time hearing about you having worked on a standalone game, too! That's quite an interesting what-if. I don't suppose you remember anything about it?

LP: The game was called Troll Tavern. IIRC, Games Workshop asked me to adapt the brawl as a separate game, but they lost interest in it later. It was old-fashioned/clumsy from today’s perspective, I’d do a much better job if I tried it today. Big square grid board depicting a tavern. Like other boardgames, no GameMaster, which made it much more difficult to achieve.

I had to devise parts of a standalone RPG, in effect, to govern movement and combat in the game. Nowadays I have a very basic/minimalist RPG that I’ve tested a few times, that probably derives from all that. It may turn up in a book of reprints of my old articles, if I ever get around to finishing it (both game and book).

LL: As I've discussed, in my research I've found that these articles were published extensively in White Dwarf, and by contrast there doesn't seem to be nearly as many examples in the American gaming sphere at the time - which is why I was surprised to discover, in looking up more information on you, that you're from Detroit! What made you want to publish in White Dwarf, as opposed to The Dragon or another domestic publication? Were you living in Britain at the time, or was there greater cross-pollination across the Atlantic during the 70s?

LP: Born in Detroit but grew up in Ohio, and later in Battle Creek Michigan.

I was researching my doctoral dissertation (“Aircraft and the Royal Navy, 1908-1919”), lived in England three years, married someone I met there in a D&D game. Met Albie Fiore, wrote for Games magazine; and met the GW guys Steve and Ian. It was a natural to submit to White Dwarf.

At one point, GW had the D&D license, and I was writing a supplement for them (similar to the early D&D supplements in booklet form), but then they lost the license.

I did have many articles in Dragon, and other magazines, actually, perhaps tending to be later after I came back to the USA.

LL: Do you know how your article was received? I imagine it must have been quite popular if it spawned so many similar scenarios, and Graeme Davis cites it specifically in his retrospective on Rough Night at the Three Feathers. When subsequent bar brawl scenarios were published, did anyone reach out to you, or get your thoughts on their work? Or was this just something people did without asking any questions? Do you have any experience playing any of the other bar brawl scenarios?

LP: How was it received? Often, authors don’t know, especially when there are no online forums. Some people played some variation at conventions (that I wasn’t involved with), so that’s good. I don’t recall seeing the other versions you mention, certainly haven’t played them. No, no one reached out to me about them - not unusual. Even people who have published Britannia-like boardgames have not reached out to me, not a single one; most don’t even mention Brit in those games.

LL: When I was reading your article in White Dwarf, I was struck by how, despite using D&D rules, it seems much more reminiscent of a wargame, what with having multiple players controlling different sides and giving their orders to the DM independently on pieces of paper. The evolution of D&D from Chainmail is well-documented, but at this point in time, would you say that competitive player-vs-player scenarios like this were still fairly common? Or was this supposed to be more of a minigame built on a D&D chassis, going off of you working on your own game on the subject?

LP: My own game came later. The original D&Ders were from wargame fandom. Some people, including me, always used a square grid to govern movement in encounters. I’ve never been a “theater of the mind” guy, too loosey-goosey. And if you play it as a game, rather than as a storytelling mechanism, it naturally feels like a wargame at times.

I don’t keep track, but I cannot think of many player-vs.-player D&D or RPG scenarios, period. I think that I saw the Wild West scenario, thought it would be interesting to do similar for D&D, and did it, without thought of competitiveness. Not that it’s so much competitive as it is amusing.

LL: I feel like the separation between RPGs and wargames happened later in Britain than it did in the US - Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Fantasy Battle are at least theoretically compatible between each other, for instance, and the first edition of 40k had heavy RPG elements. I don't know if you would know or not, but would you say that there was any sort of regional divide going on? If so, why do you think that the wargaming aspects persisted so much longer in Britain?

LP: Britain has always seemed, to me, to be more interested in miniatures battles than the USA. If you say “wargame” to a Brit, often they’ll think miniatures battles. Say the same to an American, and they’ll think board game battles. The kind of books Don Featherstone wrote were rare in the USA. Perhaps because minis often involve more than two people, while board wargames involve just two, they prospered more in Britain where population density is much higher? Nah, I don’t buy that.

Perhaps because we had Avalon Hill in the USA from an early date, we became wargame oriented? It was a Baby Boomer hobby, here, and didn’t transfer to later generations. Keep in mind, Baby Boomers heard a LOT about World War II (I certainly did, though born six years after it ended).

A big thanks to Dr. Pulsipher for his help in my research on this genre! You can find his own blog here.

A Bar Brawl Addendum

A while back, I posted an article about the forgotten genre of bar brawl scenarios, once a staple feature of White Dwarf. Since then, I've done further research into the topic, and I have more to share.

For starters, a few more examples of this trend. After digging up another post on the subject from Interloper Miniatures, I have discovered that - regrettably - I've overlooked another classic entry in the canon of bar brawls! White Dwarf issue 33 featured another bar brawl scenario entitled Rumble at the Tin Inn, this one for RuneQuest. In addition to showing the breadth of tabletop content that White Dwarf once covered, this gives further indication that bar brawl scenarios were so popular they warranted support for multiple different systems and settings, at least in the British scene. Furthermore, from the scans I've found, Michael Cule, the writer of this adventure, explicitly credits Lew Pulsipher's D&D bar brawl from issue 11, which further points to that scenario being our Patient Zero.

In addition to the other examples I discussed in my previous post, Interloper gives a newer example of the genre in Bust-Up at the Moon and Parrot from Fight On! magazine's issue 11 (fittingly!). I also managed to dig up a retrospective post from Graeme Davis himself, discussing A Rough Night at the Three Feathers. In it, he does in fact cite the trend of previous White Dwarf bar brawl scenarios as inspiring his work, and helpfully names a few more recent examples he's worked on - The Last Resort in Tales of Freeport, Nastassia's Wedding in Pyramid issue 19, and The Edge of Night for third edition WFRP. The latter two use the same setup of a conflict-rife situation with multiple interesting NPCs involved, but move it to different settings by placing the action at a wedding and a ball respectively. I'd be interested in seeing what other situations could lead to a classic bar brawl setup.

If Davis's thoughts on the matter were so readily available, however, it gave me another lead. I decided to go straight to the source and track down anything I could about who wrote these scenarios. In terms of who had an online presence, I could only readily find access to Alan Merrett, one of the credits for Brewhouse Bash in White Dwarf 223, and Lew Pulsipher, the writer of the first bar brawl scenario for D&D in issue 11.

But I was lucky enough to pick their brains, which dug up many interesting details.

Furthermore, I managed to dig up a copy of White Dwarf issue 11 to see the genesis of the bar brawl genre myself. In the introduction, Pulsipher mentions that he decided to base the scenario on a (presumably unpublished) Wild West adventure he had heard of at a Games Day event. So, although we do have precedent for these kinds of games before, the one in issue 11 appears to be the first example of these scenarios in the fantasy genre - something he himself corroborated in my talks with him.

He was not, however, aware of further scenarios being written with his own as a model until I brought it up to him! At the time, it wasn't exactly common practice at White Dwarf to keep writers in the loop of how their articles were received, or to reach out to them when writing derivative works. However, Merrett made it clear that the scenario was quite popular, and that he and others around Games Workshop enjoyed playing it, leading to a proliferation of similar scenarios.

What else immediately struck me about the White Dwarf article is that it appears to play more like a wargame than a traditional RPG scenario - there are only eight NPCs, while 15(!) of the bar-goers are intended to be controlled by different players. Each of these premade characters has their own goals and agenda, some of which conflict directly with those of others, and the adventure instructs each player to write down their actions and hand them to the DM without the knowledge of others at the table. This may suggest why bar brawl scenarios tend to be so chaotic and full of opposing goals, as initially, the roles of the different participants would be taken by players competing against one another.

I find this particularly interesting, because from what I've seen of British gaming, the crossover between wargames and RPGs seemed to have persisted much longer than it did across the Atlantic - for instance, there were at least attempts to ensure cross-compatability of character stats between Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Roleplay, and Rogue Trader notoriously includes many RPG-like elements. Pulsipher's scenario, then, fits naturally into this continuum - a wargame-like scenario using D&D rules (although he emphasized that the idea behind it was more to have fun enjoying the chaos caused by having multiple players involved than to win - which I feel is an admirable goal anyway!). When I spoke to him, he speculated that this may have been a result of the prominence of Avalon Hill leading to board-based wargames becoming more popular in the US than miniatures, or the greater availability of Featherstone books in Europe, but he isn't quite sure about how this came to be himself.

As for the popularity of bar brawl scenarios? Merrett believes that they caught on as much as they did because of the cross-genre universality of a rowdy bar fight. Regardless of what setting you're playing in, there's always room for a bar brawl, and the concept is immediately recognizable. He also posited their utility for RPGs as stemming from the prominence of taverns in the popular imagination of D&D as the starting point to most adventures and as a place to meet patrons, trade, rest, and acquire new skills. To that end, he believed that it was only inevitable that someone would write an adventure centered around a bar brawl - and apparently, among the Games Workshop offices, the idea was popular enough to be recycled multiple times in various forms.

The holy grail of bar brawls?

Not all these examples made it into the pages of White Dwarf. In addition to the unused Dragon Warriors entry I discussed in the previous post, Merrett revealed that Rick Priestly designed a board game version of the concept that was sold exclusively at Games Workshop's in-house bar, Bugman's Bar - and, due to such exclusivity, it's predictably rare today. Similarly, Lew Pulsipher was working on adapting his bar brawl rules to a standalone board game called Troll Tavern, but it never saw the light of day, in part because of the difficulties in adjuciating the chaos that can happen in a bar brawl without a DM.

Regardless, though, his creation definitely cemented itself as an important piece of British gaming history, and the legacy it created is undeniable.

Tomorrow, I'll post the full interview with Lew Pulsipher for the curious. And I'm still working on a related project of my own - so watch this space!