The mystery of "Direct Magic"

I just noticed something I have never noticed before. There is a spell called "Direct Magic" on p22 of the Greyhawk supplement, with a range of 6 and a duration of 2 turns. There is no description at all (which is why I missed it before, I suppose -- it looked like part of another spell description).

Moreover, even that range and duration are suspect because the ventriloquism spell just beneath it has precisely the same range and duration. In other words, one can only suppose that there was a spell called "Direct Magic" that was edited out or left out. Only the spell title remains (level 1 MU spell).

A mystery!

Has anyone ever mentioned this before on a message board or forum?

Dis-Imperialization of the USA

Joe Bloch made a relatively innocuous post about NASA over on his blog here, that judging from the first few comments might turn into somewhat of a firestorm. In essence, a post about the fact that 42 years ago the USA was pioneering space travel, and that now we have ceded the field.

Although I think this is the first time I've done this, I'm going to post a bit of politics.

The United States stepped up into the role of a global superpower, not so much as a reaction to the imperial aspirations of Germany and Japan, but in response to the rising tide of a communist ideological alliance. And during the period of the cold war, we were doing the right thing. However, it pushed us into the mindset of empire, and the USA is not constituted as an imperial society. The things you have to do as an empire are often fairly horrible -- take a look at Roman responses to rebellion, take a look at British reprisals for Cawnpore, etc. It also got us hooked on the idea that stepping back from world-spanning power represents a decline in the nation.

That's dead wrong. Maintaining an empire is so expensive that it can only be maintained through a tributary economy. You have to maintain a massive standing army, an infrastructure for striking into places you wouldn't care in the slightest bit about if you were just focused on defense -- even a fairly proactive defense.

This is what the USA is facing right now; we are overextended and based on a skewed vision of what American power is, we are unable to back away from Imperial aspirations, activities, expenditures, and entanglements. We can't swallow the idea of backing down to the position of a very large, very strong nation that doesn't have ultimate global power. But I say that's not how the quality of the USA ought to be measured. In fact, we were wisely cautioned by some of the founding fathers to avoid too many foreign entanglements.

It is not a surrender to do what the British did, and downsize our aspirations. We should focus on defense, leaving our striking power to more of an "expeditionary force" model, coordinating that with Canada, the UK, and Australia, together with other key allies. Britain, no longer the Empire, can still hit like the Hammer of Thor when needed ... we could size down to that, or proportionately larger, and improve our domestic quality of living significantly by cutting away the vast size of what we've got on deck now. It would free up money to actually look after our veterans rather than having VA hospitals be the worst of the worst. We could get back into space exploration. Back into pure sciences.

The USA is measured by our country, not our empire. We aren't great leaders in many ways, and we certainly can't stomach what it really takes to be an empire. I'm not saying we should -- I'm proud of us for that.

But the exigencies of 1945-1989 have receded. Like Cincinnatus, it's time for us to return to the farm and tend our own land. We are corrupting and overextending ourselves by trying to hold onto a throne that desiccates and poisons us. It's not surrender to do so, it's a return to normalcy and a return to the policy of looking after Americans.

And being able to get back into space instead of seeing NASA as nothing more than the designer of our spy satellites.

Getting ready for Drawing Day

Since I don't have a space for doing art stuff on my desk (which is crammed with computer and books), every so often when there's a lot of illustration to do I will repair to the kitchen table with pens and paper. It's about that time again, since I need to do several little illustrations for Knockspell and some maps. These excursions away from the desk are a bit of an adventure. When I draw it's a bit like Forrest Gump's saying about life: it's like a box of chocolates, and you never know what you're going to get...

Texas Renaissance Festival (commercializing?)

Although no one else in my family actually plays D&D, we've got a pretty fantasy-oriented family culture. My wife loves the Renaissance Festival and Baldur's Gate, my sons both play Oblivion, my daughter loves Harry Potter. So, if there's a loud crash from the kitchen, you're likely to hear someone shout, "Failed my saving throw!" or something similar.

Every year, we go a few times to the Texas Renaissance Festival, which is a really huge and sprawling renfair. It's the largest one in the country, and I have to admit that it is slightly (not a whole ton, but slightly) more commercialized-feeling than other renfairs I have seen. Granted, that's not many, but I've seen a couple of others.

Anyway, we got the little brochure for this year's festival, which will be in October and November, in the mail a couple of days ago. And I am looking at it with skeptical eyes. There is now a "king" whose picture shows up, like Burger King or some other trademark, on the program cover for each of the themed days of the fair. He's smiling in a pirate costume for "Pirate Adventure" weekend, he's smiling in a great-kilt for the "Highland Fling" weekend, etc. Each weekend has a theme. That's questionable enough, but having the same guy modeling each one has a decidedly "brand name" feel to it that wasn't there back when the covers had crowd scenes of regular people on them. He's front and center on each one, too.

I have a bad feeling about this, although possibly it's just a more corporate skin to it, and the fair itself won't have an increase in the commercial feel. If it keeps creeping closer to Disneyland, it's eventually going to lose us.

Designing monster books

One of the reasons I was asking about the article "How Dungeons & Dragons Changed my Life" yesterday was because I wanted to find this quote from Tavis Allison: "The art in the oldest books is weird and crude and like a medieval manuscript; even when it was new it reeked of some strange past..."

...and the reason I was looking for Tavis's quote is because I'm starting to work on a revised Monster Book for Swords & Wizardry with a lot of new monsters and illustrations. This project is barely on the drawing board, so we're talking serious vaporware at this point in time; this blog post isn't an announcement to drum up interest, it's about some of the first principles involved in writing a monster book.

It's that "reeked of some strange past" which I wanted to think about. There are two ways in which a monster book is read. On one hand, it's a tool for the DM to use in constructing adventures and campaigns. But on the other hand, it has to inspire the DM to do so. These two functions have different, and somewhat contradictory, forms, if we're going to stick with the principle that "form follows function."

For a monster book to be best usable by the DM, it should be flexible in terms of how it says the monsters are used. After all, if a DM wants to have ghouls that are transformed humans rather than actual undead, that's creative stuff, and the monster books shouldn't get in the way of that. A monster book written purely with the goal of being a flexible tool for the DM might offer lots of different alternative descriptions for the monsters, or perhaps alternate stats. Alternatives, alternatives, alternatives.

But there's a problem with alternatives. At a certain point, a raft of alternative options causes the book to become boring to actually read. At every turn, the DM-reader is being reminded that he's reading a game "manual." At no point does he really get that sense that he's got a "medieval manuscript reeking of a strange past" before him. Presenting a monster purely as a manipulable tool for use in a game loses the descriptive magic which makes you want to play the game, or use the monster, in the first place.

This raises two questions in my mind. First is the question of just how "authoritative" to be in the description of a monster. Should one say things like "Super-ghouls are never, ever found except in dungeons?" "Super-ghouls are almost never found except in dungeons?" "Super-ghouls are never found in dungeons unless the DM decides otherwise?" "You, as the DM, may decide where super-ghouls might be found in your campaign?" Obviously these are some very different approaches.

The second question is about theme. Monsters can "feel" like they come from several different genres of literature, and lumping some together doesn't work particularly well if you are aiming for that "strange past" feeling. A "Lasagna Monster" fits well in a sort of gonzo-original-D&D book like Chaosium's "All the World's Monsters," but doesn't particularly evoke a strange past. The TSR books, although they contained some weird monsters, stuck to their guns and avoided letting the books reflect the humor of the actual gaming table too much. It could also mean making some decisions between alternative genre-versions of some monsters. As one example, the OD&D shadow was not clearly described as an undead monster (as I recall). It could have been a Lovecraftian dimension thing just as easily, from the description. On the other hand, AD&D decided to remove it from that ambiguous state, drop the Lovecraft feel, and make the shadow an undead critter. No corresponding monster replaced the lost half of that ambiguity.

I haven't started to make any judgment calls based on these thoughts; but I wanted to assemble the thoughts so I know the shape of the challenge. When you compare a book like "All the World's Monsters" to the "Monster Manual," you see two very different types of books.

Question - where can I find ...

A while ago, several bloggers linked to an article written about D&D, and it had to do with how the D&D generation now controls everything, or something like that. The only thing I really remember about it, and the quote I'm looking for, had something to do with D&D feeling like it was the description of a world that existed. I know that's incredibly vague, which is why I can't find it through Google and need to draw on you guys to figure out what article I must be talking about.

I seem to recall that some people didn't like the fact that it was written for a publication which has political leanings -- liberal leanings, I think.

Also, it's not this article: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/15/dungeons_and_dragons_we_love_you/

The article I'm thinking of was similar, but a lot longer.

Help .....

Design Deskbook 2: Monsters

Several people have been asking me about getting copies of the second adventure design deskbook, which focuses on monsters. Remember, there is going to be a compiled copy of these available relatively soon from Frog God Games, but in the interim I've put up a pdf at lulu. It has a black and white cover, not the original maroon-backed one, and, again, there will eventually be a complete version of all four deskbooks available.

However, if you really want a copy of the pdf right now, and many people have written to me about this, you can get a copy from HERE.