Grognardling: I'm Back

Monday, April 2, 2012

I'm Back

Not a lot to say, but I'm back. Have a magic sword:

His father had given him that sword on the eve of his departure from Enlad. He had received it solemnly and had worn it, as if it were a duty to wear it, even aboard ship. He was proud of the weight of it at his hip, the weight of its great age on his spirit. For it was the sword of Serriadh who was the son of Morred and Elfarron; there was none older in the world except the sword of Erreth-Akbe, which was set atop the Tower of the Kings in Havnor. The sword of Serriadh had never been laid away or hoarded up, but worn; yet was unworn by the centuries, unweakened, because it had been forged with a great power of enchantment. Its history said that it never had been drawn, nor ever could be drawn, except in the service of life. For no purpose of blood-lust or revenge or greed, in no war for gain, would it let itself be wielded.

-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Farthest Shore

During my hiatus I've been reading some of the Earthsea books. I wonder why no one ever seems to talk about them in the OSR.

3 comments:

NecropraxisApril 2, 2012 at 8:46 AM
The Earthsea books are some of my favorite fantasy novels. A Wizard of Earthsea would rank in my top ten. The Farthest Shore is pretty good too. The Tombs of Atuan also has some very nice megadungeon inspiration. I still don't think I have read Tehanu though.

I remember seeing a Dragon Magazine article with stats for Ged (they were ridiculous).

Studio Ghibli did an anime interpretation of the series. It plays fast and loose with the plots, but I enjoyed it and felt like it captured the spirit of the world pretty well.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0495596/

I never bothered to watch the Sci-Fi channel live action version because apparently Le Guin hated it.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/12/a_whitewashed_earthsea.html
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TelecanterApril 2, 2012 at 10:39 AM
I came to the stories a little later in life but love them. I think The Farthest Shore is one of, if not the source for the D&D lich. It's different than the fairy tale undying wizards in a darker way.
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John BApril 2, 2012 at 2:53 PM
I like the Earthsea books, but I think it would be hard to recreate the tone of them in a gaming session. One of the challenges of gaming is that it's much easier to recreate the tone and style of mediocre fiction because the writer's voice is less distinctive and less demanding.
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Words of Wisdom from the OSR

When we encountered a trap or a puzzle, we had to work them out for ourselves; we couldn't just "make a Spot check at DC 15" to find what we needed. The longer I am involved in old school gaming, the more convinced I am that that is the crux of the difference between older games and newer ones…[R]olling dice should never be a substitute for individual cleverness and creative thinking. -James Malezewski

OD&D is not and never has been about who is most powerful; it is about teamwork and having fun by overcoming obstacles together. -David Bowman

The point isn't to make role-playing some sort of masochistic experience where it's all suffering and death and pain and failure. The point is, if all these things are real and present dangers, then success means more. -James Edward Raggi IV

OSR cliche: "We don't explore characters, we explore dungeons". Not exactly. I think the idea is more: what thing do you use as rocket fuel until the campaign gets into orbit and goes where it wants to go? I use a dungeon to get there. Freak monsters and puzzle traps are the selling point--but once the campaign gets into orbit it goes where it goes. Different gamers may all end up in the same kind of campaigns but they were sold on getting into that rocket ship for the same reason. -Zak Smith

Referees/DMs/Labyrinth Lords (or whatever you want to call them) are indeed the final arbiter of the rules and have the final word on what happens inside their world; however, each and every one of us who run an RPG have made the choice to cede that control to our players by the very nature of playing the game. If we wanted total control, we would write short stories, novellas and novels, not play RPGs. The dice are the mechanism by which we cede that control – they are the means by which player choices are validated every time they choose to do something dangerous. -FrDave

Enforcing the written rules is a small part of being a good DM. In my experience the players will respect that you want to keep the game moving as long as they are convinced that you are not an adversarial DM. I can smile while giving my players all sorts of bad news. And they don't blink when I run roughshod over their notions of how D&D works. How can I get away with this? Because they trust that I'm there to have a good time with them, not against them. Show that you will call things down the middle, but will give them every chance when you're in a grey area. Let them use and abuse the tricks on their character sheets and the crazy plans they come up with. Then when you kill them they'll understand that it wasn't anything personal. -Jeff Rients