Monday Magazine Classics

A Bar-Room Brawl – D&D Style

Lewis Pulsipher

White Dwarf 11

February/March 1979

“For those of you who would like to stage your own D&D bar-room brawl.”

I like mini-games. I like the game within the game of things like this “adventure,” whether it’s a quick gambling mini-game or some kind of simple “climb the sheer cliff without dying” kind of mini-game. What I enjoy is the break from combat or exploration – from the “normal” rules of D&D and similar games.

What’s presented here is a bit overcomplicated by the inclusion of what we would now call a battlemat and tokens (he calls it a board and tokens so...) on which Pulsipher indicates exactly where the tokens should be placed. Okay.

It’s a one-page outline for how to run that bar fight. I haven’t used this in practice, but it LOOKS like it should work out just fine. The rules, such as they are, are pretty scant. Two paragraphs, really, and most of it is just abstract advice along the lines of “standard D&D rules and common sense are used. If an unusual event like a falling chandelier or thrown chair occurs, the result should be figured as seems logical in the circumstances.” Um... thanks?

This really isn’t a scenario or mini-adventure – it’s little more than permission to run a good Old West Saloon brawl in D&D with some stories of how it went down in playtesting.

My whining aside, there are 23 NPCs that can be used for a fun little bar brawl and the board and tokens are a neat addition.

 

Other reviews:

Not a lot out there:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

 

Monday Magazine Classics

 The Hall of Mystery

Don Turnbull

Dragon #21

December 1978

“A section deep in the Greenlands Dungeon.”

Don Turnbull brings another section of his Greyhawk/Blackmoor-esque Greenlands Dungeon to light. Unlike Turnbull’s previous entry on this blog (The Lair of the Demon Queen), he keeps most of the writing direct and to the point, only occasionally straying into commentary like, “Normally the main hall is guarded; in Greenlands the Guardians were two Umber Hulks.”

The monsters here are tough (Succubus, Night Hag, Mind Flayer, Flesh Golem, 4 Trappers, etc.) and the mechanism to “beat the room” will have players puzzling for some time. There’s teleporting to other rooms in this weird monster zoo – and even that mechanism is a trick of sorts... Treasure is frustratingly abstracted (again!). He suggests a monster called a Magic Absorber (From Alarums and Excursions 12...) as another “mess with the players” kind of monster... ugh...

This is another example of early dungeon design. It’s clear that this was played as a game – not as amateur theater or storytelling with dice or as roleplaying a character arc or whatever we do these days. Here’s an environment. Here are the obstacles. Your characters and your brains are the tools you use to overcome them.

So I would compare this to a less developed Tomb of Horrors or a more focused (but still less developed) White Plume Mountain. It’s clearly an artifact of its era – bringing with it all that that implies.

I don’t think I’d use The Hall of Mystery per se. Maybe drop it into something like the above mentioned adventures (because, you know, they aren’t gonzo and deadly enough by themselves...heh) or it could be a fun one shot – maybe at a convention or something.

 

 

Other reviews:

Not a lot out there:

 

https://landofnod.blog/2012/11/10/dragon-by-dragon-december-1978/

 

 

 

 

Monday Magazine Classics

 The Lichway

Albie Fiore

White Dwarf #9

October/November 1978

 “A mini-dungeon for a part of 6-8 1^st level adventurers.”

 One of the early full-fledged adventures, and still highly regarded in the circles in which I move.

 Fiore gives us just a brief paragraph of background, a few notes on running the adventure and four “Rumours gathered by the party in a village tavern.”

 Right away the map inspires me. It’s a conceit of mine that an interesting map elevates a boring adventure. In fact, a good map (and that’s a moving target for me – at least it should look interesting with its connections and features) raises the bar a little on my estimation of an adventure. That is, if I buy into the map, I’m predisposed to enjoy the adventure. Art can do the same thing sometimes for me.

 So, the map gives us a main entrance but several other ways into the heart of the Lichway – and a variety of interconnections as well. Water is used to good effect in the dungeon. The secret doors and the tricks and traps are suitably old-school. They make sense within the context of the dungeon. Notably, there are rival NPCs already here, doing their own exploring, who can become allies, adversaries or just another obstacle to overcome.

 The main monster here is a Susurrus, a strange Fiend Folio monster whose “song” (the sound of wind blowing through its exoskeleton) causes undead to “sleep the sleep of the dead.” One of the first books I bought for AD&D was the Fiend Folio. I thought the Susurrus was a... strange monster (no flumph or flailsnail perhaps, but odd nonetheless). I didn’t see a use for such a creature as this. But the Lichway gave it some purpose. It’s still an oddly specific creature...

 Tiny print and lack of whitespace make this hard to use, but the information is presented clearly enough that I’ve been able to run this with just a read-through.

 Gripes: most of the treasure in the adventure is pretty specific until the “big treasure” which is simply “gold candelabras, gems, jewelry, silver flasks everyday objects, tools, weapons (none magical), etc. (The total value of the hoard is left at the DM'S discretion.)” Dangit! You told me in one room that a “Loose stone in N. wall conceals 88 g.p. and 89 c.p.” but the big treasure is just “You figure it out DM.”

 Like many adventures, I think you’d want a highlighter – or at least a quick summary page of NPCs (there are 14 individuals named if I counted correctly) along with a handful of monsters and undead (well, there’s a lot of “sleeping” undead...).

 

Other reviews:

 

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-read-white-dwarf-from-issue-1.405199/page-6

 

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=22832&p=1208631&hilit=Lichway#p1208631

 

https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/review-white-dwarf-9-lichway-due-diligence/#:~:text=A%20mere%204%20pages%2C%20Lichway,the%20mind%20of%20the%20GM.

 

 

http://rolesrules.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-lichway-white-dwarf-9-review.html

Monday Magazine Classics

 Lair of the Demon Queen

Don Turnbull

White Dwarf #7

June/July 1978

 

“A difficult but rewarding section of the Greenlands Dungeon.”

 

This is what we might call a “drop in” encounter area today. Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just Don Turnbull teasing us with what his clearly-inspired-by Greyhawk and Blackmoor dungeon was all about.

Sprinkled in with the requisite room and creature information are tidbits of design advice and Turnbull uses a conversational tone that makes this a little hard to use. You’ll need a highlighter at the very least to use this. I think I’d do a quick one-page summary.

 “These rooms may be inhabited by guardians of the Queen’s lair – say evil elves which fire arrows at an intruding party. My choice of occupant, however, was the Disenchanter (one in each room). This is one of Roger Musson’s creations...” Summary: Disenchanter (each room) replaced after killed

 So much of the prose here is of the commentary variety “So, to return to the poem...” “As an added incentive, of course, some treasure can be put in...” “Let’s hope they realise the meaning of...”

 There is a long poem (spoken by a magic mouth, of course!) that the PLAYERS have to work out the meaning of to be able to “beat” this room. This whole set piece feels very look how clever the DM can be to me. That’s how we used to play, so I don’t have a problem with it. The content is interesting enough – a little “funhouse dungeon” for me, but it seems to be pretty true to the source material (I hate hate hate disenchanters – they are just magic killers and really would have little place in any true ecology... like rust monsters and luck eaters and... but I digress – Source Material being Castle Greyhawk and Castle Blackmoor).

 As a player this would be fun and memorable. As a DM this would be a nightmare to run as is. I get accused of using too many words when I write adventures – but there’s just so much commentary that it really gets in the way of trying to work out the details.

 And then there’s the dearth of details... “The tombs, marked D, can be designed to suit the taste of the DM. Each will contain a member of the Undead class and some treasure. In my case the Undead were pretty powerful but the treasure in the tombs was excellent and contained a number of useful magical items. In particular, I left a few scrolls around with Cure Serious Wounds spells - the least I could do in the circumstances.” Wait... what? This thing is just over two pages long, with only five areas detailed... and this is the “detail” for one of those five areas...

 The titular Demon Queen does get a full three paragraph treatment, most of which is good role-playable detail. Until we get to treasure... which is rather abstracted, “The treasure (in a box under the bed) was of course very rich. In my room there were coins, gems and jewellery worth a total of 8,300 GP and two very powerful magical items – a Ring of Three Wishes (full, untarnished wishes, of course) and a Rod of Rulership. When added to the treasure elsewhere in this area, the total GP value was 13,700 and there were three scrolls, a Potion of Heroism, a good book and a dozen other pretty good magical items (plus a crocked sword just to add spice).”

 As a glimpse into the history of adventure design and the early days of the big dungeons, this is invaluable. Turnbull give us lots of commentary on what and why – all to the detriment of usability... As an encounter area, it’s okay. Like I said above, I’d make a one-page summary and maybe a handout with the poem (I know the players are supposed to listen carefully and take notes and whatever... yeah, not how I roll.)

 

 Other reviews:

I’m sure there are more, but all I could dig up was this brief comment:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

 

And this:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-read-white-dwarf-from-issue-1.405199/page-4

 

 

 

Monday Magazine Classics

A Place in the Wilderness

Lewis Pulsipher

White Dwarf #6

April/May 1978

 

Pulsipher names this one-page description based on Jack Vance’s The Dragon Masters a “set-up” which “may be incorporated into your wilderness.” That’s a pretty apt description. I’m not sure it qualifies as an adventure (or “scenario” as WD was likely to call them), but it’s got the elements: setting, conflict, hook...

 This very much reminds me of The Wilderlands of High Fantasy from Judges Guild, those paragraph long hex descriptions. Take one of those paragraphs and expand the information to maybe 2/3rds of a page and you get this “set-up.” Bare-bones stats are given for Tracker, Heavy Trooper, Weaponer and Giant, none of whom appear in the previous paragraphs... (I assume “Weaponer” is the “50 rabble at arms,” but that’s just my guess).

 So, we’ve got a human settlement which breeds and trains dragons. There’s maybe a little north of 300 people here: “50 rabble at arms, 10 various specialists..., 8 heavy armoured horsemen..., one sixth level fighter chieftain, 80 women, and 160 children and old people.”

 Treasure is abstracted: “The primary treasure is dragon females... There is also a cache of precious metal and stones as the referee thinks appropriate.” Sigh...

 A paragraph is given to the Dragons, clearly the focus of this “set-up,” with bare-bones stats appearing for each type of new dragon (HD 1+1 to HD 5) with one glaring omission.

 Spider: substitute for a horse

Termagants: smaller than men, intelligent

Blue Horrors: larger, quick, intelligent

Murderers: not intelligent, heavy and low to the ground

Fiends: strong and low to the ground (“low enough to run underneath”)

Juggers: “ponderous and huge” [no stats given, though one assumes bigger than Fiends, so maybe HD 6 or 7?]

 Typical of the era, this is a page of inspiration, not a “complete adventure” as we’ve come to know and accept the idea (and, maybe, abuse the idea). That’s not to say it’s bad or incomplete. It is clearly a product of its time and it is adequate for what it sets out to do. This is certainly something that I could riff off of at the table in a hexcrawl, for example, or throw out as a rumor to the party and develop it further if it was something they wanted to pursue.

 

Other reviews:

I’m sure there are more, but all I could dig up was this brief comment:

https://www.enworld.org/threads/white-dwarf-the-first-100-issues-a-read-through-and-review.325009/

 

And this:

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/in-which-i-read-white-dwarf-from-issue-1.405199/page-4