Rogue Games Tabbloid -- August 4, 2009 Edition

4 August 2009

Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

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Setting the Record Straight

I’m Curious

AUG 03, 2009 07:32P.M.

AUG 03, 2009 01:23P.M.

In my recent retrospective on Quag Keep, I repeated a rumor I’d heard from several people, some of them from friend-of-a-friend sources connected to TSR, that Lorraine Williams one point considered selling off or outright killing TSR’s RPG division and focusing the company on its line of RPG-derived novels. Although the rumor always struck me as nonsensical, and indeed the people who told it to me felt so as well, Williams had a not wholly undeserved reputation of being hostile to RPGs, so I simply took it at face value.

Ask anyone who was a fan of AD&D 2e about the edition’s virtues and odds are good the discussion will very quickly turn to one or more of the multitude of settings published during that era. I readily grant that I have a fondness for some of those settings myself, even though this admission will reveal me (yet again) to be a poseur. What’s interesting, though, is that no 2e booster in my experience has ever lauded the virtues of the adventure modules published during this period of the game’s history.

Recently, though, Mike Breault, an editor at TSR from 1985 to 1989, appeared at the Knights & Knaves Alehouse to clear up what he says are a lot of misconceptions about TSR during his tenure there. He’s also discussed his recollections of Lorraine Williams, which gave me the opportunity to ask him directly about the rumor I’d heard from multiple sources. Mr Breault said that, to his knowledge, the rumor “sounds pretty illogical on the face of it,” adding that “AD&D was about the only things making decent money for TSR” at the time, since “Book publishing is a really low-margin business.”

So, here’s the question: were there any truly excellent modules published by TSR between 1989 and 1997 (or between 1998 and 2000 by WotC)? I ask because, on some levels, what’s particularly memorable about the 1e era are not its rules, but the modules published under its rubric. This is in sharp contrast to 2e, which, so far as I can tell, produced no universally lauded adventures. If I’m wrong in this belief, I’d like to know the 2e modules that deserve a place in the pantheon of great AD&D modules.

So, while Mr Breault doesn’t outright deny the possibility that there was some truth in the rumor, the fact remains that it’s just a rumor and an implausible one at that. Consequently, I’ll refrain from repeating it in the future until I should come across corroborating evidence of its truth. I’m no fan of Mrs Williams nor of the direction TSR took under her, but I think it’s important that the woman be judged fairly according to facts rather than on mere rumor. For what it’s worth, I feel the same way about Gary Gygax and Brian Blume, so I hope no one will begrudge me for retracting my earlier statement. In the end, truth is far more important than scoring rhetorical points.

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The Podcasts I listen to AUG 03, 2009 08:35A.M. I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some I try once, then move on, some I listen to regularly, and would never miss an episode. I have a little iPod Mini (old school one 6 gb memory) which acts like my portable radio. I load it up daily, and listen to it. I’ve been asked in email enough times what I listen to, so here is the current list: • Atomic Array • Brilliant Gameologists • Cranky Geeks • The History Network • MacBreak Weekly

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

4 August 2009

• Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean — (One of my favorite history podcasts. It deals with early Christianity from a historical context and not a religious one. Well worth listening to these lectures, which are very good.) • RPG Circus • Security Now! • this WEEK in TECH • The Tolkien Professor — (A newer podcast which I cannot recommend highly enough, especially if you have a love for all things Tolkien.) • The Voice of the Revolution • Windows Weekly • YSDC: Cthulhu Podcas That is the main list. Not included above are the numerous lectures I listen too thanks to iTunes U. This is one great resources and the amount of lectures I have listened to really help pass many a day. Recently I just finished listening to a fabulous lecture series dealing with Benjamin Franklin (this will open in iTunes).

Like a lot of things in this public, my understanding of “pulp fantasy” is idiosyncratic. I don’t use it as a term of opprobrium, since I adore the genre and read it voraciously, including the works of lesser authors whose ideas and execution are often deeply flawed. While pulp fantasy has a lot of different elements that draw me to it, the one that stands out is its powerful focus on individual wants and desires, thoughts and feelings. The goals of the protagonist — and often his antagonists — are what’s important and everything else are largely obstacles to or consequences of that individual’s peripatetic search for his (typically ephemeral) intensely personal destiny. That’s why I view Moorcock’s Elric tales, for example, as pulp fantasy, even though they’re set against a backdrop of a cosmic battle between Law and Chaos. In the end, that battle is secondary to the battle within the character of Elric to find his place in the world, as it is in most pulp fantasy.

Posted in Life, Technology, thoughts Tagged: podcasts, random thoughts

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Pulp Fantasy Library: The Shadow of the Torturer AUG 03, 2009 08:17A.M.

For that reason, I feel comparatively little shame in dubbing Gene Wolf’s 1980 novel The Shadow of the Torturer a pulp fantasy. This book and its three sequels tell the story of Severian, an apprentice Seeker of Truth and Penitence, which is to say, a torturer. Unfortunately, Severian chooses to be merciful to one of his charges, allowing her to commit suicide rather than suffer, thereby breaking the oath to his fellow Seekers. Rather than being punished with death for his oath-breaking as he expected, Severian is instead sent away to a far-off city to serve as its executioner, precipitating the beginning of the protagonist’s many travels and his growth and development into one of the most interest characters in recent literature. The Shadow of the Torturer is an extremely difficult book to characterize. It definitely occupies a similar place as Jack Vance’s Dying

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR [email protected]

4 August 2009

Earth novels, taking place in a world so far in the future as to be beyond time. Like Vance, Wolfe effectively uses language to convey the decadent antiquity of his setting, Urth. Through a combination of English archaisms, Latinate neologisms, and words of purely of his own invention, the text can sometimes prove hard going. Additionally, Wolfe maintains the fiction that the novel is in fact a mere translation from “a language that has not yet achieved existence,” which, when combined with the unreliability of Severian’s first person account of his activities, creates further levels of complexity and nuance. I read this book long ago and dismissed it out of hand, mostly because I found it impenetrable. Fortunately for me, I read some articles about Wolfe that convinced me I’d missed out on a classic of science fiction and fantasy. I then took my time and re-read The Shadow of the Torturer and very soon thereafter made my way through the rest of the The Book of the New Sun series, very much enjoying it. There’s a great deal going on in these books, on both a dramatic and literary level, and it’s an amazing thing to behold. Wolfe’s talents as a writer are unique; I can think of no other fantasy/science fiction author else who manages to achieve what he does in this series of books. Because of publication date, there’s no question that The Shadow of the Torturer exercised no influence over the development of D&D or AD&D. Even if it had been published earlier, I’m not sure what kind of influence it could have had. Though there are certainly lots of things within it, such as Severian’s sword Terminus Est, that I can easily see some gamers swiping for use in their campaigns, doing so strikes me as far more crass than any of OD&D’s borrowings from Tolkien, the author whose work strikes me as closest to that of Wolfe and even his closeness is limited at best. Nevertheless, I highly recommend Wolfe’s work. It is not an easy read by any means, but it does repay the time and energy spent in working through it, making him one of the few authors I’ve ever given a second chance.

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