The Thing RPG Ideas – Paranoia, Survival, and No-Win Scenarios

 

Since it's sub zero Fahrenheit here in western NY, (it's about -2 with wind chill -22) I figured this would be a great time for this post given the location of the movie!

Continuing my musings on campaign worlds on the blog as of late, here's a thought: How about a game (and it could work in almost any game system) based on The Thing? Obviously, the horror genre games would work, but in a way it could be derivative of zombie genre as I covered here or perhaps using Twilight 2000? These are just a few thoughts that come to mind.

The Thing is based on the work Who Goes There? (1) (which I'm still reading despite reading two other books currently). It was first made into the movie, The Thing from Another World in 1951; smack dab in the middle of the UFO craze of the 1940s and 50s. Later it would be remade by John Carpenter in 1982 as The Thing with a prequel in 2011. All three are different with the 1982 and 2011 versions obviously having the same story line. While I like all three, the 1982 version is clearly superior.

That the 1982 Thing is a very good movie is an understatement... it's exceptional; and at times very underrated. Underrated in the sense that there are tons of clues scattered throughout and it is very much a mystery movie wrapped in the horror genre. Reading the novella that it is drawn from this is readily apparent. Add to the fact that Carpenter and his team had a long period of time to work on the story (and it shows) there is lots of subtle clues throughout. One such place to browse these clues is the forum at Outpost 31.

For the sake of brevity here, for those not in the know The Thing had an unusually long time before they actually started shooting (something like seventeen months as far as I can recall) and Carpenter admitted they had plenty of time to plan out the plot, which camera shots they would use, etc to far greater detail than he might otherwise have done.

So as an role playing game? Imagine it starts out at a research station isolated in the arctic or antarctic (doesn't have to be the same Outpost 31 although it could be) and the players are confronted with the events as they unfold in the beginning of the movie. Where it goes from there is almost endless but at the same time a nice tidy sandbox. Perhaps a better ploy is to just get into the action as they will most likely already know the story. Add a different cast of characters (the players' PCs) and keep the weaponry minimal. Then again even having high-powered military rifles, the PCs are screwed as they aren't very good against Things (2).

Barring that, how about a Thing has made it to the mainland and Blair's prediction starts playing itself out. It's going to take lots of flamethrowers or nukes once it's too far gone.

In such a post apocalyptic scenario(s), movies like 28 Days Later or World War Z are going to seem like a walk in the park! If Things start reproducing in vast quantities in large human population centers, it's largely game over. Such a game would quickly shift to extreme paranoia and one of ultra-extreme survival. Come to think of it with no recourse but to wipe out 7 billion or so Things it might be an exercise in futility.

That brings up another chilling part of the movie when Blair runs the simulation and after suspecting the intruder organism and asks a simple query:

Probability that one or more team members is infected may be infected by intruder organism? 75% is the response. 

His next query is the truly chilling one. 

Projection: If intruder organization reaches civilized areas... entire world population infected 27,000 hours from first contact.

That's slightly more than three years... 

If a GM uses Twilight 2000 it could add a good twist on the horrors of World War III; dropping some Things into that already horrific scenario? Hell, even just one is enough. That could really mess things up. Of course it could also muddy stuff too much. Perhaps a better solution is to simply use the rules for Twilight 2000 and place it in modern day with the scenario outlined above. The only issue is that there is no really rules for monsters per se in Twilight 2000, so the GM would need to do some work, not insurmountable, but doable. Another thought is use the Savage Worlds system which would definitely keep things moving quickly, but I think with minimal fuss All Flesh Must Be Eaten might be best.

In closing, I think such a game is better for a one-off/short campaign, or rather a series of short episodes as opposed to a multi-year/session campaign. There probably isn't going to be much "winning" if the Thing(s) make it out of Antarctica. It could be a fun/blow 'em up/ go out in a blaze of glory type of deal, but if there was ever a "no win scenario" this is it. Think of the end of the 1982 movie, not much (read: none) hope at the end and lots of question marks instead...

And of course I would be remiss if I didn't point out one of the best lines in the history of cinema:

"No F'ing kidding indeed."

 

(1) Who Goes There? can be found on such online places as the iTunes book.

(2) The Norwegian with the sweet gun was using a Heckler & Koch HK33. Details to the weapon at IMDB is here or the full details on a wiki for weaponry used in movies.

X-Men Days of Future Past - Good, But Still Needs Work

After the craptastic showing that was X-Men 3 (how that piece of shite got a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes I will never know, should be in the negatives...) I had zero hopes that even X-Men: First Class would be good, but lo and behold it was.

So, it was with a bit of trepidation we sat down as a family to watch X-Men: Days of Future Past on Blu-ray after Santa dropped it off over the holidays. I have to say I think it is the strongest X-Men movie since X-Men 2: X-Men United. That is saying a lot as X2 is a damn fine movie. Then Marvel pumps out Guardians of the Galaxy (I am a fan of the classic team but I digress).

Before I go into the movie however it is important to cover the actual story it is based on. Days of Future Past follows (roughly) the same mini-arc of X-Men 140-141. Days of Future Past came on the heels of the epic Dark Phoenix Saga (widely regarded as one of the best comic book arcs of all time) and in some ways is well remembered, but overshadowed by such a monumental previous story line. Issues 140-141 has an adult Kitty Pryde reaching out to her younger self from a dystopian future where mechanical Sentinels rule North America and are relentlessly hounding mutants to extinction.

Kitty is able to avert the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly and thus avert the events of the future timeline, namely the Mutant Registration Act. In a way its outcome is mirrored by the T-850 in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines: "You only postponed it. Judgment Day is inevitable." Since Rachel Summers also comes from that future timeline about 30 issues later, perhaps "Days of Future Past" is inevitable. (NOTE: there are the Days of Future Present and other arcs but these are not the focus of this post).

On to the movie itself: as with most of my objections with the X-Men movies, this one of course focuses on Wolverine as the main character. At this stage I am majorly over Logan. Unfortunately the movie studio is not, so they keep milking it for all it is worth. It is as if they figure a 6 foot 2 actor really portrays a 5 foot 4 mutant well... more likely they figure actor Hugh Jackman will get women to go see this as well... Great we get it, he is the anti-hero... next!

So... with all that said the true star of this movie is the younger Charles Xavier played by James McAvoy who conveys the Professor in an outstanding manner and one can easily see him as the later Patrick Stewart version. From the very first scene as the younger professor he is stealing the show. At first he is walking... which is a bit disconcerting for continuity in the previous movie, but they explain it quick enough. I will not spoil why but they had to do this in order for the story to work given the Professor's prodigious mutant abilities.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the amazing portrayal of Bolivar Trask by Peter Dinklage who is the creator of the Sentinels, 20-foot high mutant hunting robots. It is the Sentinels who hound the mutants into near extinction in the dystopian future that Wolverine is sent from. Peter plays a very methodical villain and is a believable one. Then of course after Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Shaw in

I will not spoil the main premise of the rise of the Sentinels but let's just say they did a great job with the hows and whys and tying it back to a certain mutant.

They did a great job with continuity in the film tying back to X2, for instance a young William Stryker is in Vietnam just like he alluded to in United and the timeline flows well. The clothes, the furniture, etc. Someone however was paying attention to this and did a very, very good job with avoiding continuity errors.

The final battle was well done. When watching it I did notice the rise of tension, the fact that you are left thinking that any minute it is going to go south. The visuals in some respects were jarring, I think it was the weaponry the Sentinels were using that made me notice this. This is probably due to me knowing them first through the comics in the late 1980s then just seeing them for the first time. The Sentinels of the future likewise are "off" to me. The image I could not get out of my mind was that of the machines in The Matrix, bug-like, rather than large lumbering metal giants.

Given the nature of my blog it is not a movie review site, I often look at ways to incorporate it into gaming. I think a mutant campaign would be overdone at this stage of the game, but a dystopian future one would work better. Perhaps a world where every hero is hunted, not just mutants? After all if you are the authorities you never can be too careful right? If going down the road of a Marvel Super Heroes game, I prefer FASERIP, a setting like this would work well.

There you have it, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. Great story, but it would have been better had they used Kitty Pryde as the heroine and had flashback scenes a bit different and grittier with Wolverine in the future timeline.

A Late Roman Campaign Setting for AD&D – The Time of Majorian, Last Hope for the Western Roman Empire

5th century legionaries fighting barbarians.

As I previously discussed here I am going to look at another idea for a campaign world, but this time through the prism of our real world history. This time out I am going to discuss the last great Roman Emperor in the West, Majorian.

As is my wont, before we delve into the AD&D aspects of this let us review a few basics of the historical Majorian to set the stage. I am also going to delve into counter factual history as from there it is a great place to set a campaign.

Much has been written about the other areas of the Empire during the decline of the 4th and 5th centuries. A good example is Jack Whyte’s excellent Camulod Chronicles which starts around the time Roman Britannia is crumbling, the Groan of the Britons, et al. To set a campaign there use the excellent resources for Heroic Britain from Dragon, namely Dragon #257 and #263.

To my knowledge however not much has been written about the last Roman who had a chance to save the Western Empire, Majorian. Certainly not in a gaming sense.

A coin of the Emperor Majorian

Majorian or more properly Flavius Julius Valerius Majorianus Augustus, lived circa 420 – August 7, 461. He reigned as Emperor in the West from 457 to 461 while Leo I was Emperor in the East. At this time the west was in a deep state of decline and the Eastern Emperor held far more power. It is ironic that Majorian’s rise to the imperial office was in that typical Roman fashion: the unresolved chaos of Imperial succession. Rome never properly established a unified method of succession and attempts throughout the preceding two centuries resulted in varying degrees of disaster and success.

At the time of Majorian’s rise, the true power in the West was Ricimer, a Romanized Germanic barbarian. Ricimer was able to overthrow the Emperor Avitus with the help of Majorian and the tacit complicity of the Eastern Roman Emperor Marcian. He initially wanted to replace the office of Emperor fully, but the Senate and Roman aristocracy balked. With the overthrow of Avitus he and Majorian were the two most powerful figures in the west. Ricimer who was friends with Majorian apparently thought he could bide his time with no leader in the west with the tacit approval of the eastern Emperor, but eventually Majorian is elected Emperor by his armies. No matter, Ricimer thought he could control Majorian. Unfortunately for him Majorian showed himself to be a very effective ruler.

It is also important to note the condition of the Western Empire at this time. Through any number of factors the West was disintegrating or near non-existent.

• The West was in dire straits by this time; The Western Empire had lost most of the main provinces: Mesopotamia, Hispania, Gaul and Britannia had been overrun by barbarians and the legions withdrawn resulting in the Groan of the Britons. Barbarians are pressing everywhere.
• Rome is sacked in 410 by Alaric and 455 by Genseric.v
• The late period Roman Legions: The Roman legions were a shadow of themselves and were being pulled from the frontiers often to fight dynastic struggles.
• Most importantly the West's lands by 455/456 is a few provinces in Gaul and the Italian peninsula. This has the practical effects of reducing taxation to a fraction of even a few decades prior.
• Little aid was flowing from the more prosperous Eastern portion of the Empire. Little cooperation was taking place further hampering efforts.

Thus the stage is set for the Emperor; Majorian begins to rollback the barbarians to the point of having retaken large swathes of the traditional Western Roman Empire in a relatively short period of time. In this Ricimer becomes more concerned as Majorian is breaking the cycle of weak puppet Emperors in the West that have been on the throne for decades and thus easy to control.

Now we arrive at that crucial counter-factual crossroads: what if the Vandals do not get wind of the plans of Majorian, Majorian acts against Ricimer before he does or both? It is a tantalizing one that begs a lot of questions and makes for a great campaign world (more on that later). It is Majorian who seizes the initiative and has Ricimer silenced. With this a cowed Senate falls into line.

What then? The Vandals do not get wind of the imminent invasion of Byzacena (area and province around Carthage) perhaps it is reclaimed. This is not entirely unreasonable. Majorian was already showing signs of greatness and pluck. The Vandals who have only recently taken over the area do not as of yet have a firm hold on the territory. So it is that Majorian’s enterprise to Africa bears fruit and with the riches and grain shipments of the area secured, the western Empire is back on solid footing, or at least on better footing than before. As an aside Britain is going to be a lost cause for some time, but is more of an outlier of the Empire anyways.

Looking further afield the Eastern Emperor is in his 50s, Majorian in his 30s. Majorian is a dynamic Theodosius the Great. This is entirely plausible as Leo I was succeeded by Leo II who ruled for only 10 months and then Zeno, neither of which were exceptional and barbarian lineage in the case of Zeno hampered him to a great degree. Majorian is a Roman through and through and a capable one. Perhaps Majorian is skilled enough at the political game to have Leo the Thracian overthrown by the time Majorian is say 40. Now free of the threat of Ricimer, Majorian has at least the opportunity to combine the Empire into one again.

So it is with these assumptions that we have a period ripe for an AD&D campaign: lots of intrigue, political infighting, small scale and large wars/raids, economic chaos and so on. Who wants to adventure in the boring, sedate lands of Cormyr??? The late Roman period offers a wealth of opportunities that a good DM can have a field day with.

In the D&D sense the Roman Empire certainly got the short end of the stick. While the Greeks with their corresponding pantheon in 1st Edition Deities and Demigods have enjoyed support throughout the run of 1st edition and probably earlier, the Romans have been largely not represented. Sure there are a few Dragon magazine articles here and there (like #133) but not much else*. I think in most of the campaigns I played in from 1982-1987 the Greek or the Norse pantheons were utilized but again not in the Roman sense. This changed with 2nd edition for at least we have HR5 - The Glory of Rome Campaign Sourcebook. Some do not like the historical series, but I think they are one of the better products released during 2nd Edition; certainly suitable for game play.

(* Yes I know the Roman gods are largely/mostly based on the Greek, but that is not the point I am trying to make here).

In terms of wizardry and magic a fantasy Roman campaign will be lower powered and certainly not high magic. Superstitions abound and magic could be a powerful force especially in the hands of NPCs but unlikely for the PCs if properly played. Likewise, the campaign is going to be very human centric with next to no demi-human PCs or even NPCs for that matter. Most likely any demi-humans will be thought of as barbarians from the mist filled woods of Germania or Hibernia.

Roman art in Dragon!

To add a fantasy aspect the barbarians at the gates can be swapped for another race. Instead of the Huns, how about hobgoblins as Huns? From the sea instead of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes sweeping through present day Holland and Belgium on their way to England, how about sahuagin? Do not want to go the Roman route? Have the PCs as barbarians on the other side of the Rhine.

Chapter 6 of the Glory of Rome Campaign Sourcebook gives great examples of monsters suitable for a fantasy inspired Roman campaign. With the Empire bordering the wilds of Africa it is entirely possible to have any number of magical beasts along with the steppes of Russia and the wild barbarian haunts of Germania. After all it was said by Aristotle in ancient times: "There is always something new coming out of Africa". The oceans are often thought to hold unimaginable horrors for further sources of monsters.

Of special note the Imperial Navy will not be as great of a force as they were in the preceding centuries so piratical raids are a problem in addition to the aforementioned monsters. The Imperial Legions and the army as a whole are far different as well. They are no longer what one thinks of in terms of the "classic legion" but more infused with barbarian recruits who have been at least partially "Romanized."

A 5th century legionnaire.

They are effective but again a different fighting force than the preceding centuries. More so than in most any other campaign the article from Dragon #154 "For King and Country" would work exceptionally well with the PCs as part of the Roman Legions.

Need further inspiration on a military based Roman campaign? While set in earlier times movies such as Spartacus, Ben Hur and other "sword and sandal" epics can whet the appetite. For closer to the period, King Arthur or The Eagle will work, but is more applicable to Heroic Britain campaigns. On the book front the previously mentioned series by Jack Whyte and others like Eagle of the Ninth can be drawn on for further inspiration.

So, tired of the same old traditionally inspired pseudo Europe circa 1300 campaign? Consider the Late Roman period. In this case it does not quite become the Dark Ages, but certainly can be harsh. Just because Majorian might meld the Empire back together it does not have to be a smooth or pleasant process. Conflict is going to be ever present, political intrigue and backbiting, double crossing is at its height particularly in the Western Empire.

To close if you are looking for a different campaign setting you could do worse. A world under Majorian offers a wealth of possibilities and is certainly going to be action packed and deadly. A dash of counter factual history, some logical inferences and some imagination and you are off and running.

Tell me your thoughts, way off base here or would it work? 

Star Wars Episode VII- The Force Awakens Trailer Thoughts – Likes, Dislikes, and Open-Minded Hopes

Given the theme of my blog its probably surprising to some that I haven't commented on this sooner. To be honest with the part time job and the holidays life was just a tad difficult. Enough excuses, here I go. I'm not going to go into a long, drawn out post about this, but hit the high points.

The likes:

• I really liked the look of the new designed X-Wings. I noticed it the first time through as they skim the water. Their helmets look about four sizes too small, just like Peyton Manning's helmet...
• The Millennium Falcon scene I liked. Others I know did not but I liked the action. Even accounted for the new deflector dish that was snapped off by Lando in Return of the Jedi.
• Also with the Millennium Falcon scene I like the cut to the theme music at just the right time.
• The placement of the villain? In a deserted, dark, snowy forest? Thumbs up here.

The dislikes:

• The droid with the soccer ball? Really?
• Not sold on the "light saber" not even sure its a light saber per se. I put it in the dislike column for now until the next trailer or we know more. It may be that the knowledge of forging actual lightsabers is now fairly scarce. I don't think the wielder is a Jedi or Sith so that may explain it.
• Trying to make the storm troopers seem fearsome. Stop, give it a rest, these mooks couldn't hit the side of a Sand Crawler, oh wait they actually did hit that. These guys got their asses kicked on Endor. "An entire legion of my best troops await them..."- Emperor Palpatine. If these are your best I'd hate to see your worst.

The "I'm not sure":

• The "uproar" of Jango Fett being the progenitor of the clones and thus the storm troopers? I wonder what plot twist this might entail so I'm not upset, more curious than anything else. Then again its not like the Star Wars franchise is internally consistent on points regarding the storyline anyway... For one its never really cleared up as to just how we get from Clones to Storm troopers so who the Hell knows (note I haven't watched the Clone Wars cartoon). My guess is that with the fall of the Empire clones are hard to come by or non-existent, thus John Boyega's character; perhaps the storm troopers are now mercenaries?
• The narration... first time I can think of a Star Wars trailer having narration. It sounds like they got Benedict Cumberbatch to do it, probably while they were filming Star Trek- Into Darkness...

And of course no pop culture moment would be complete if that meme of all memes didn't have something to say. This might be better than the trailer, you decide:

 

In closing I'm going into this open minded. In the back of my mind I can't shake the notion that Disney is going to "Disney it up..."

The New Shadow: A Middle Earth Campaign Setting Idea

One of the things I noodle around with from time to time is campaign world concepts; I sometimes draw maps, jot notes or otherwise brainstorm. So it was in that vein that I came across Professor Tolkien's ideas on New Shadow.

Before getting to the main idea itself consider the story we know: after Frodo and Sam haul the One Ring to Mt Doom and Gollum does his part in the story the tale is essentially over; everything that comes after is wrap up. While I like the Scouring of the Shire it's not vitally important to the story as a whole. While the interaction after the Downfall and the crowning of the King is interesting, it's also epilogue.

Considering the publication history of the Lord of the Rings trilogy the only thing the good professor would (nearly) finish afterwards (in the major book sense) is the epic Silmarillion (published in 1977 four years after his death). I say nearly as his son Christopher had to edit it a lot to make it into a story.

Before the Silmarillion however he contemplated a story about the transience of good and the flawed nature of Man, he called this idea The New Shadow. Again, to me the idea has some merit which he apparently wrote in the 1950's and again near the end of his life in 1968. In this we have the Professor's own words on the matter:

I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless — while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have written a 'thriller' about the plot and its discovery and overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing.

I bring this up because with the proper fleshing out this could actually be a very good campaign world, consider:

• The New Shadow story line eliminates the "War of the Ring Problem" as I call it. It's the issue of THE event hovering over the world. Dragonlance also suffers from this problem. The New Shadow means a familiar world, but not encumbered by the War of the Ring per se.
• A world likewise far enough into the future means that none of the "personages" of the Third Age and specifically the War of the Ring are going to be around with the possible exception of Gimli and Legolas. This is a new, wide open tableau to work with.
• Along with very few if any of the main characters there is going to be very few elves left, and the dwarves retreating further into the mountains. That leaves humans and hobbits. For evil a reappearance of orcs and undead (like skeletons and barrow wights) works for evil.
• Middle Earth isn't all that of a clerical world, at least in the D&D sense. Because of this it makes undead that much more of a fearsome foe.
• The New Shadow Cult could be greatly expanded upon and taken in any number of directions.
• The High King of the Reunited Kingdom is Aragorn's (Elessar) son Eldarion. Going with some of the points above it allows for a great latitude as Tolkien didn't write too much about the Fourth Age. Plus due to his elven parentage through Arwen it's possible to place Eldarion's reign even further into the future. A small but added bonus is he's not "really" in the movies other than the dream sequence of Arwen.

In short, I think a Middle-earth a few centuries after the Downfall could be a very viable campaign setting for your favorite RPG, it doesn't necessarily have to be AD&D, I simply used it as a guide. ICE MERP could work as I think 1st or 2nd edition Warhammer role-play rules would work very well. Clearly overall it needs to be made much more grim for most people's taste but there are some good hooks there to build upon.

I've also since acquired the Lord of the Rings rule set by Decipher heavily influenced by the movies, obviously that would work well. 

For more info on the New Shadow story begun, but not finished by the Professor click here.

For more info on the New Shadow story itself look here. The actual text appears in The History of Middle-earth, specifically the The Peoples of Middle-earth I have only ready excerpts and it is on my list to read this year (at least sections.)

How about you, do you think that a campaign set in the New Shadow would work? 

The Zaniness of "Classic" Roleplaying Games Threads

General

Some of you may have been wondering why I haven't been blogging about Warhammer (or that much in general) as much lately. This is for a number of reasons. One, as I've pointed out on various Warhammer forums my interest in the game is rather low right now. Two, I truly believe that Games Workshop is circling the drain and while it sucks for the people that work there that are going to bear the brunt of it, the company itself I cannot help but blame. The antics of GW now seem to rival TSR in its death throes, should be interesting to watch. (Edit: as of 7-7-26, looks like I wasn't accurate on that one!)

5 RPG Threads of note

I don't normally like to post about the goings on at various RPGs sites, but since it came up in a thread at Dragonsfoot a while back, I thought I'd list my Top 5 favorite RPG threads from around the web. I''m posting them here rather then potentially ruffle feathers elsewhere, hopefully the coast will be clear later? Whats that you say? It never is? Damn.

Here they are in no particular order. 

1. Progressive types getting their man panties in a knot over the political correctness of artwork in nerd...err D&D books. I still shake my head at that one.
2. THE worst D&D module of all time: The Forest Oracle "These men are not acrobats..."
3. Hissy fits about poopy diapers at conventions. (You have to read this start to finish, classic!)
4. Some who threatened to get his lawyer for hurt feelings over his made up, Übermensch class ? Wow, I mean, just wow!
5. Unreasoning Zeb Cook hate * (later the excellent podcast When We were Wizards pretty much dismantles most of this.)

Note * I'm surprised the thread still exists. I thought it had been deleted to protect the guilty. It's amusing on several levels, but the best is the posturing by a certain person who claimed he knew more then the people who were actually there at the time, classic! 

Mike Berualt (aka Zotster) dispelling notions that grognard chapter and verse is built on for decades is impressive.

I should point out, I frequent a number of sites but only post on a few. There are probably even crazier threads out there but these one strike me as comedy gold.

Enjoy?

Going Back to Dragonlance – A Quick Reread of the Chronicles

 

On a whim I decided to reread the Dragonlance Chronicles, starting with Dragons of Autumn Twilight, after buying the trilogy for less than $5 at a local bookstore. Over the years I have shied away from rereading books I originally read as a preteen or teen. I worried they would not hold up, especially after reading the Game of Thrones series at least three times. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The read has been fast. While it is not the best series ever, it was not horrible.

As I write this post I am already onto Dragons of Winter Night and despite knowing the story I am pleased with it. Returning to Dragonlance is the first fantasy I have read (or reread) in at least five years. The closest I had come before this was reading the entire Camulod Chronicles (also known as Dream of Eagles outside the US) by Jack Whyte. I have never been a rabid fan of Dragonlance, but I am certainly not all butt hurt like certain folks on a thirty year jihad of “Dragonlance ruined AD&D!” It was an interesting concept: novels that spawned a series of modules, nothing more.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight was a quick read. I found myself getting immersed in the story and enjoying how fast the chapters went by (time is a premium for me these days). At only 441 pages it was a snap to blast through. Epic fantasy is also something I have not read in a while, so it was a nice change of pace. The authors Weiss and Hickman did a good job of moving the pace of the story along. One thing that struck me this time around is that a number of the characters come across as whiny, particularly Flint and sometimes Tanis. I also cringed when I thought I would dislike Tasslehoff, but I did not find him too irritating. Sturm is a bit of a downer (yes, being a dour knight and all), and Raistlin I found just right, squaring him with my memories (see below).

I am also finding an odd sympathy for Gilthanas, perhaps knowing what is coming. Maybe this is not surprising as my all time favorite character class is fighter/mage (or in 1st edition parlance, fighter/magic user).

Back in the day my gaming group and I read the Chronicles (most of us grabbing the same copy from the public library), but I do not recall any of us rigidly adhering to the books when playing the modules except for maybe Jim wanting to role play the death of Sturm (also see below). I also do not recall if we got that far.

When we played Dragonlance back in 8th/9th grade we only played a few of the modules. One distinct memory I have is of arriving later than everyone else at Jeff’s house, descending to the basement where we were playing, and seeing everyone with a grin on their face. I also remember why I was late and why they were all grinning. First, I had a football game and rushed over afterward, so it would have been the fall. In fact I still had my lower football pads and pants on. I am sure I must have smelled great (gully dwarf?). Second, the reason they were grinning: As I was last to arrive everyone else had already picked their characters. Back then the group was slightly larger than the core of Jeff, Dave, Daryl, Jim, Christian, Tom, Mike, and I. So guess who I end up with by random chance? Raistlin. At first I was not happy, but in fact he was quite fun to play. It was fun to play a sarcastic, scathing mage with a big fighter (Caramon) to stick up for him. Dave may have been playing Tasslehoff and Jim was probably playing Sturm.

After that I cannot quite recall. This also may have been the second time they played through it as I recall. This is a bit murky as they played together as a group when they were kids, at least 5 to 7 years before I joined them.

So there you have it. To reiterate I am not a huge Dragonlance fan per se. It was fun to play, and my personal demarcation line stops right at Dragons of Summer Flame (which is another story altogether). A few Dragonlance ideas have made their appearance in my games and overall I like the concept of the world. As an aside, draconians are a good bad guy, especially when orcs are overdone.

A few years later we returned to Dragonlance for a few all night games at Jeff’s where I played a dwarven paladin of Paladine named Duncan Steelmountain wielding a magical battle axe called "Gutripper" (I still have the character). Dave played a minotaur and Daryl played a human magic user. This is also interspersed with us watching Hellraiser those evenings. Unfortunately there are no notes listing the other player character names. This would have been one of our last 1st edition games right before we switched to 2nd edition.

(Edit: I found the character’s “back story” (and it is horribly written by me) but it does contain most of the names of the player characters from this second Dragonlance campaign. The roster is as follows:)

• Me (Mark): Duncan Steelmountain, mountain dwarf paladin of Paladine (mountain dwarves may be paladins in the Dragonlance Adventure book)
• Dave: Tolon (or perhaps Tolor), a minotaur fighter
• Jim: Zachariah Stormgren, aspirant to the Knights of Solamnia
• Daryl: Siward, a human magic user (no mention of which robe color)
• Unknown player: a kender handler named Gidenan

There you have it. I am reading Dragons of Winter Night now. At 399 pages it should be a snap to read. Light, fast reads these days fit my busy life and these are certainly that.