Throwback Thursday comics: DC's Dragonlance

 

Dragonlance No.1, DC Comics, December 1988

In the fall of 1988, specifically December of '88 DC comics had in its stable of titles classics such as the Legion of Superheroes, Batman (where the iconic "Death in the Family" story arc was in full bloom), Green Arrow and Superman, but also adaptations and retrospectives like "The Prisoner" mini-series, "The Shadow" and of course, Dragonlance No. 1, based on the iconic novels and TSR game modules. 

Besides being a pretty innovative adaptation and start to the DL series when DC had the D&D I.P. (Barbara Kesel wrote in the letters page of the comic that in addition to the Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman classic, DC would also start to publish other D&D titles and adventures.) Dragonlance No. 1 for me personally is a bit of a time capsule of a great time in life, when I was a freshman in college going through the transition from H.S. to the quarter system as an undergraduate student at the UCLA campus.

What's fun and unique about the DL comics from that era is that editorial intended them to be more than a fun series based on D&D, they also had stat blocks and a map of the world of Krynn every fourth issue. Full disclosure, I only own the first two, so I am not really sure if this goal was achieved, to blend the series with a sort of gamemasters' supplemental tool, but through the exploration of this series over 30 years later, I aim to find out.

The first issue features background information on the Clerical Order of Majere with their mostly pacifist monks, lists the comic's protagonist Sturm Brightblade as a lawful good 8th level fighter with a THACO of 14 and with 47 hit points! At the time of the story told in the debut comic, Sturm is coming back from a five-year-long journey to discover his legacy. It also goes into describing why the Solamnic Knights like Sturm have fallen into disfavor in the world of Krynn, which is known by any fan of the novels or modules, but not necessarily well-known information to comic book readers not familiar with D&D in general and Dragonlance specifically. 

There are sidebars also included which describe two magic items presented in the comic: A Medallion of Majere and a footman's Dragonlance, different from the more powerful ones used by dragon-mounted riders. Issue 2 has stats for Lord Soth (with 59 hit points and a THACO of 12) 

The story found within the covers of issues 1 and 2 is a good introduction to the series and features appearances by Lord Soth and an old wizard who should be familiar to any Dragonlance fan. Plenty of action and "Gamerese" as well with the reveal of a High lord's blue dragon mount and a column by the late Jim Ward on the RPGA Network. 

These comics are fantastic and every fan of RPGS, D&D and comics in general should get their hands on them, they are easy to come by in back issue bins and on the web. 

Character age and other game mechanics from 1st edition's DMG

My old 1E AD&D DMG by Gary Gygax.

 

The 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax is a mess! This statement should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows or plays the game of AD&D, or even has some passing familiarity with the core rulebooks which make up the main portion of rules for this system.

I have been playing in a weekly first edition campaign for over a year now and in order to understand the system better, I have endeavored to slowly digest the contents of the core books one at a time, starting with the DMG and moving on to the PHB, for no particular reason in this order, except that I am familiar with the contents of the PHB, which is slightly less hefty that the DMG.

I will do this mostly in an attempt to become more familiar with this book's contents. 

Of course, I say that the guide book is a mess because everyone knows it seems to jump from one topic to the next, in seemingly an endeavor to be as comprehensive as possible. It does a poor job of organizing said content, but I will attempt to digest most if no all of it, skipping around sections and doing my analysis piecemeal, rather than in one fell swoop.

Today I am looking at character age, aging and outdoor movement rates, which is an interesting discussion given the fact this doesn't seem to come up a lot in the modern version of D&D. 

So character aging is a part of character creation detailed in pages 14-15 of the 1e DMG. At the onset of each and every character's creation it is necessary to establish his/her age. There is a table for PCs and Henchmen, both human and non human. They are divided by race and class, while the humans get a table organized by the various classes. For example, I rolled for a half-orc fighter and his age turned out to be 15! Then I did the same for a human cleric and he turned out to be older at 19. 

What are the effects of aging in the game? Well, in the book Gary says the DM must keep track of a character's age after one is established, from game year to game year. The age categories are: young adult (for a dwarf this ranges from 35-50) to venerable 450 max for a dwarf, about 120 at the long end for humans. Calculating these affect attributes with a mature character adding 1 point of strength and 1 point of wisdom every game year.   

Unnatural aging is also common and mostly caused by spell casing or magical mans: casting alter reality for example, will syphon 3 year's from the caster's life, which getting hit with a haste spell would shorten a person's or creature's life span by a year.

This section of the book is followed by disease, which I don't even find fun in real life, so why include it in my game? the Book does go into death due to age. Indeed, the read texts: "Once a character dies due to old age, then its all over." 

The following section expands upon the characters' abilities which were first introduced in the PHB. It starts on page 41 and starts with a discussion of the Cleric's spells. Detect evil, detect magic, light and protection from evil. Light is caused upon the visage or before the visual organs of a creature, it will tend to blind it (rather as if a strong light were placed before its eyes), and this causes a -4 penalty "to hit," saving throws, and even armor class. 

Spell description for each casting class are explained for the DM's benefit all the way up to 7th level. 

A rather lengthy section on adventuring outdoors ensues, beginning on page 47. It is at this point that I need to mention that surveying these game rules as written will allow me to cherry pick those I want to bring into my games and those which I do not wish to use either because they seem cumbersome, are a bit vague, or superfluous or all of the above.  

A map is recommended for use by adventures in the outdoors, the scale being 20 to 40 miles per hexagon, with the GM dividing each large hex into blocks of smaller hexes, 5 across the middle or 5 across each face as desired. This is primary done for determining chance of encounters and they reference the possibility and mechanics of pursuit. 

Outdoor movement rates are given on page 58 of the DMG and procedures for getting lost and exhaustion results from movement without proper rest are also detailed. We will return to other movement rules including aerial, waterborne and underwater adventure guidelines, but after our next post which will further detail PC abilities. 

Emergent story and different modalities of D&D

image courtesy of Patrick O'Neill Riley, Britannica

 I am sorry that I have neglected this blog of late.

My goal for the balance of this last quarter of the year is to update more often with my ruminations and thoughts about the games I am running or am participating in.

These days that means D&D, 5e is still at the top of the mountain for TTRPGs as far as I am concerned and even though I will be taking a more detailed look at Wotc's UA for the new system they are going to roll out next year, or whenever, I have invested heavily into 5e, as have many others and I don't really see myself stepping away from it anytime soon, similarly to how it took a while to transition from 4e to 5e. 

Of course, things have changed a whole lot in the hobby in the last 15 years or so since we bid adieu to 4e and embraced the "new" edition.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. In some ways, some things have not really changed. For example, today I carved out some time to play at my local game store when I found out via text message that they were offering free space and tables at which to participate in regular games. 

When I arrived however, the guy at the counter told me that no one else had shown up, and after his lunch hour he was going to reopen to see if anyone showed up for a planning session. So this illustrates how hard it is to find a regular group initially, which has traditionally been a recurring problem to a lot of enthusiasts of D&D and games of a similar ilk.

Now it is immensely easier to find a game online utilizing digital platforms such as Owlbear and Roll 20, which is exactly what I will be doing tomorrow night as I have been invited to rejoin a group which is play testing the new UA classes and mechanics in a digital format. I engaged in this once before earlier this year before things became too hectic, but now I am carving out some time to do it again before the new system drops in 2024.

Different modalities of D&D and running game sessions

Recently I have become very interested in becoming a better DM for the group I have been running game sessions for now for over a year and a half. We play every other week, which sometimes feels like a lifetime when it comes to immersion and having a pause in the narrative, but in my spare time I was doing a lot of prepping and studying how others engage in this same exercise, trying to run the perfect game session. Nowadays rather than having a strict linear adventure, I am really wanting to run games with a more emergent story. I have learned a lot and will probably elaborate more on this topic as part of a more in-depth blog post.

For now, I will leave by saying, I am not sure who, if anybody, is reading this blog on a regular basis, but to you out there who may have stumbled upon it, welcome. And may the rolls be with you.

I do however want to share with some very interesting channels and forums which expand upon these topics which I find interesting starting with: