Game Viet Nam

Crypts of Chaos was a D&D dungeon crawl that works on the Atari 2600.  You played a pixel (roughly half the size of the square you played in Adventure) that wandered around a maze ganking monsters and swiping their treasure. 


Like Jamie Mal, I felt that it wasn't very good, but it was D&D-like and playable on an Atari.  That was enough to get me onboard when I was a kid.  The ability to choose between your sword (unlimited charges, short range), wand (limited charges, long range) and magic ring (totally kickass, very limited uses) plus the array of monsters that shalumped down the screen at you made for fun times.  I particularly liked the skull guy pictured above and the one-eyed blob.  Each monster had its own sound effect and the blob's theme really communicated its alien intelligence, cool and unsympathetic.

But what I really wanted to talk about today was the cartridge/box art.  Scroll back up and check it out for a bit if you can't see it right now.  Click for the bigger version if you'd like.  Here are a few observations:

• The sorceress is clearly meant to evoke Princess Leia from the opening scenes of Star Wars.  In the memories of my youth D&D and a galaxy far, far away are inextricably intertwined, so you know I gotta aprove of this.
• Note that the ring on her finger is highlighted.  Given the importance of the magic ring in the game, this is one of those rare examples of the artist actually understanding and presenting the game rather than just knocking out a generic fantasy scene and calling it a day.
• You'd think with Princess Leia right there in the scene that the dude behind her would be a Luke Skywalker stand-in.  Wrong!  He's actually Prince Erik Greystone, the dashing hero played by Jeff Conaway in the D&D-inspired TV series Wizards and Warriors

  Ran just one season.  Featured Julia Duffy as yet another princess named Ariel.

  Seriously, it's this dude.  The hair, the white clothes with gold armor, even the friggin' boots are the same.
• Note how the princess is carrying a torch and so is the wizard coming up on the party in the distance behind them.  I'm getting better at insisting that the PCs are well-lit (heh) but I often forget to return the favor when it comes to NPCs lurking about the dungeon.
• Dig the skull/bat detailing on that column and the lovely vaulted ceilings.  There's always room for more architectural features in a dungeon crawl.
• Also extremely cool: the windows in the dungeon wall just above and below the extended right arm of the sorceress.  They look fairly small.  Dungeons should have more places you can see but can't quite reach (barring gaseous form, diminution, sending the halfling by himself, etc).  It drives players nuts.

Gaze into the eyes of the dragon and despair.

Later most of the party go get drunk at the Blue Rabbit.  Since the only treasure found this expedition was the some measly equipment yanked off the corpse of some pit-slain dwarf, Blixa ends up buying drinks for everyone.  Saira and Father Jack both blow their carousing saves, allowing me to deploy my brand new double secret customized Blue Rabbit carousing mishaps chart!  Huzzah!  Father Jack pisses off the new bugbear bouncers, getting a beating and ending up with a broken right foot.  Father Jack is run by Michael Moscrip, who ran the session where the bugbears were recruited.  Ain't FLAILSNAILS great?  Meanwhile a drunken Saira drunkenly borrows 300gp from the Cornish mafia to drunkenly buy a partial map of the ruins of Dundagel, only to discover it's the map Taurus made this session and misplaced while he was also drunk.

No loot found.  Lots of gold expended.  PCs running for fear of their lives only to be trapped between two monsters.  Pretty much a perfect run from the DMs point of view.

In the comments to yesterday's Gameblog post Hartful asks "What would you recommend must reads from old editions as a DM?"

The original cover.

Like it says in the title, the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide is the first thing you ought to read.  It's the only RPG book I read from cover-to-cover every two or three years.  Not only is the classic Gygaxian prose in full effect, but it's just full of stuff that you can use in any fantasy game, not just D&D: random NPC personalities, gem types, herbs, random dungeon charts, siege engines, castleworks, government types, noble titles, gambling methods, crazy mofo artifacts, ships, potion ingredients, etc., etc.  I have yet to run a fantasy campaign without opening this baby up at least once, no matter what rules I use.  Comparing the 1st edition DMG to the lackluster 2nd edition version really shows the difference between a competent game designer and an actual ludo-genius like Gygax.

Cover of later printings.

The DMG is the reason why I'm so excited about the forthcoming AD&D1 reprints from WotC.  The Monster Manual is only so-so.  If I had to pick a single 1st edition monster book to use for all future gaming this would rank 4th or 5th on the list with the Fiend Folio at the top.  It's main value back in the day was basically "Holy crap! Look at all these monsters!" and "Wow! They do games in hardback now?!"  The Players Handbook is good not great.  Warts and all, the DMG is one of the best texts ever produced by the hobby.  Even if you don't own the rest of the line and have no plan on playing AD&D, you need a DMG.

The other TSR items I would definitely recommend for new DMs especially are the two early adventure modules B1: In Search of the Unknown and B2: The Keep on the Borderlands.  Both have great advice and provide examples of what you can do in your games.  Just don't assume they're the only way to play.

Non-TSR items would be a whole nother post I think.  Maybe tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure someone this weekend blogged about how in the 1st edition DMG section on minis Gygax makes it clear that 3 figures should be able to fit abreast in a 10' corridor.  I have been considering using one square = 3.33 feet for a new tactical display I've been toying with building but I usually use 2 figures per rank in 10' wide corridors. But if someone really wanted to try for 3 I wouldn't object.  It would just be more cramped and possibly more fumble prone.  (You know what I need?   A chart full of non-combat fumbles.  Torches dropped for no good reason.  Stumbles leading to noses broken on flagstones.  Spilled backpacks.  That sort of thing.)

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that to use the AD&D rules as written to determine the number of people in a rank you also have to look in the Players Handbook.  I'm thinking of the Weapon vs. Armor Type chart here and the column labeled "Space Required".  You can only fit one character wielding a Bec De Corbin, Footman�s Flail or Two-Handed Sword in a 10' wide space or two characters using Bardiches, Halberds, Lucern Hammers or Morning Stars.

Sure, you could squeeze a couple of spearmen next to that maniac with the two handed sword, but you're going to feel like a chump if he accidentally whacks you with that big clumsy blade.

I should point out how this situation is just one of many rules where half the info you need is in the DMG and the other half is in the PHB, like how both books have spell sections or to roll to-hit you need the DMG but to roll damage you need the PHB.  Or how the crappy psionics rules in the back of the Players Handbook requires the crappy psionics rules in the DMG to function crappily.

Also worth noting here are the marching order rules in Empire of the Petal Throne: three characters abreast is standard just like in the DMG; four may squeeze in if none of them are fighters; only two may fight side-by-side if one wields a two-handed weapon, except for a two-handed sword.  If you wield a two-handed sword you take up the whole dang rank by yourself.