We're up in LA for Thanksgiving this weekend. Today we're not doing the traditional dinner, rather we're going to a shelter in Santa Monica and volunteering to help feed those way less fortunate than we are. I'm pretty excited about going and it should be a good experience for the entire family.

.

• 09:30 Happy thanksgiving to all my friends and family! Stay safe and have a great day. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/dwimmermount-session-23.html

Session 23 was short on action but high on information gathering, which is only reasonable, as the PCs were very much in the dark about many things. Although they had promised Cyrus that they would take him (and his coffin) to Dwimmermoun in exchange for his having helped them escape the catacombs beneath the cabin, Dordagdonar suggested they not follow through with it. This is another area where my implementation of Death Frost Doom differed from the adventure as published: there was no magical component to the oath they swore to do as Cyrus asked. I felt it preferable that the PCs not be bound to keep the promise they'd made if they did not wish to do so, although I was prepared to visit (non-magical) misfortune upon them as a consequence for any duplicity on this score. A magical oath seemed, in context, too heavy-handed a tool and so I abandoned it.

As I said, Dordagdonar saw no need to keeping their promise and indeed saw Cyrus as a threat to be disposed of. During daylight hours, he was immobile and at their mercy. They could easily have destroyed him. This didn't sit well with Brother Candor, who, in addition to be unhappy at the prospect of breaking a promise, felt that even so evil a being as Cyrus had a role yet to play in the world. He was certain that Tyche, as mistress of fate, was teaching him something through this dilemma and so he argued against destroying Cyrus. A compromise was reached, whereby a stake was put through the vampire's heart to immobilize -- but not destroy -- him. The party then set out for Adamas to consult with Saidon, archivist of the temple of Typhon, hoping he'd have some information to aid them.

Saidon was, as ever, happy to see them, particularly since they brought him Thulian spoons -- and a ladle -- they pilfered from the catacombs. The PCs requested access to his library of Thulian history books, hoping to find information about Cyrus. Of course, they didn't wish Saidon to know precisely what they were looking for, so they requested lots of books on a variety of historical subjects, hoping to muddle the issue, in case the old man got a bit too nosy.

Looking through the books, they discovered that Cyrus Haldeion had once been a general of the Thulian empire. He was extremely successful, putting down many rebellions against Thulian rule, and popular. He was also a vocal critic of the cult of Turms Termax, which he believed had bent the empire to serve its purposes rather than the common good. So great was his dislike of the cult that, when faced with a harangue by Hierophant Oriseus, a local Termaxian leader, he slew him in a rage. His actions made him a traitor to the empire and he was executed. Of course, the PCs knew his "execution" did not in fact happen and he was instead cursed with undeath as a vampire and placed within the catacombs for reasons unknown -- perhaps to lead the zombie horde that lay slumbering within them.

Armed with this information, the PCs then chartered a riverboat and took Cyrus' coffin on board. They removed the stake to interrogate him. Needless to say, Cyrus was unimpressed with them, sneering at their betrayal and noting that "honor obviously has lost all meaning since the fall of the empire." Brother Candor asked him to reveal just what he intended to do in Dwimmermount, but Cyrus refused to answer. He said he'd held up his end of the bargain and was at the PCs' mercy. They should either do as they had already promised to do and take him to Dwimmermount or they should destroy him now. He would answer no further questions nor be in any way helpful to them until they demonstrated their good faith.

Cyrus' words clearly pained Brother Candor, who started to feel that perhaps they had done the wrong thing by coming to Adamas. He went to consult Morna, high priestess of Tyche, and ask her advice on the matter. He explained the presence of the zombie horde, its likely movement toward Adamas, and the mystery of Cyrus. Morna had very little advice to offer, suggesting only that Brother Candor do what he felt was most in accord with the Lady's will. The cleric had come to believe that Cyrus would not have been allowed to exist for so many centuries after his natural lifetime if he did not have a role yet to play. He noted his antipathy toward the cult of Turms Termax, a common enemy with the PCs, and soon decided that Cyrus should be returned to Dwimmermount as promised.

Before he could do that, Morna recommended they speak to select members of the Senate of the city to inform them of the situation and ask their assistance. As a member of the Senate, she could get them an audience. The Senate was naturally shocked and horrified to learn of the imminent zombie invasion. Worse still, they disliked the possibility that there might be more such zombie crypts hidden about the countryside, perhaps close to Adamas. Dordagdonar offered to lead a small scouting party to attempt to locate any signs of the horde and to see if they could uncover evidence of yet more crypts. Brother Candor meanwhile wanted to return to Dwimmermount to release Cyrus, as promised. The Senate was none too keen on this notion but agreed as Brother Candor argued emphatically that the vampire could yet be of use if he felt the PCs were trustworthy.

By means of a teleport spell, he knocked three days off his travel to the megadungeon. Once there, he removed the stake and set Cyrus free. The Thulian general thanked Brother Candor for showing him that there was still some glimmer of honor left in this benighted age. The cleric asked him if he knew more about these zombie crypts. Cyrus admitted he did. They were put in place by the cult of Turms Termax to ensure that any who brought down their empire would pay the ultimate price for their arrogance. Once active, a horde would slay all living things in its path and move toward the nearest crypt it could find and active it, so as to add to its strength and numbers. Cyrus opposed this plan and had been attempting to stop its implementation when he slew Hierophant Oriseus. He told Brother Candor the location of all the crypts he knew about -- including two beneath Adamas. With that, Cyrus disappeared into Dwimmermount, saying that he felt he and Brother Candor would meet again some day.

Brother Candor road back to the city-state to pass along what he now knew to the Senate, which had already authorized a large military force to face the incoming zombie horde. Dordagdonar having found no signs of crypts outside the city, he and Brother Candor resolved to lead a team into the sewers and catacombs of Adamas to find the two crypts there and deal with them -- somehow -- before the incoming horde's presence activated them and through the city-state into chaos.

• 10:19 RT @DriveThruRPG: [New Product] [PFRPG] The Genius Guide to the Dragonrider: bit.ly/6rCjqS #RPG #
• 10:34 Go Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown! (Never thought I'd type that...) tinyurl.com/ycn57nl #
• 13:02 @Highmoon Best Buy has the 120 gb PS3 for $299. It's wireless 2 which the 360 isn't. You need to drop another $80 to get wireless on the 360 #
• 18:16 Heading up to LA tonight for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow we're volunteering at a homeless shelter, Friday we have the big dinner with family. #fb #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Tweaks and enhancements

1. In order to improve site security, we've temporarily suspended the ability to change passwords for old email addresses that haven't been used for over six months. For further information and support, please visit our customer care page.
2. We've launched a new mobile site with an enhanced UI at m.livejournal.com. View spotlights, post to your journal, read and post to friends pages, and more, no matter where you roam! Please let us know what you think, since this will eventually replace our existing mobile interface. You can update your mobile preferences on your account page.
3. We've upgraded from Beacon to Facebook Connect to improve dual posting. If you've already signed up for Facebook Beacon, you're good to go. If you wish to update your Facebook Connect setting, visit Account Privacy settings and scroll down to the option labeled: "Send information about my updates to Facebook." You can choose Always or Ask each time. Remember to save (on the bottom left corner of the page). To learn more, check out FAQ 249. While we're on the subject, if you happen to be visiting that side of town, please join our Facebook fan page for a touch of home away from home.
4. You'll now receive the Writer's Block Question of the Day in the body of email notifications. To sign up for Writer's Block notifications, visit writersblock and choose the Watch Community option. Next, update your Writer's Block notification settings by checking the box to the right of "Someone posts a new entry to writersblock."
5. Paid and permanent users can now view, add, and edit Notes of commenters. Notes will appear beside the username of comment posters (instead of stars) on S1-themed comment pages.

Send some lovin' thanks to your friends with our holiday vgifts!

Photos of the week

We're so delighted with the immense talent of our growing, global lj_photophile community that we've decided to introduce a poll. Each week, we'll choose a half-dozen photos (based on user comments and staff feedback) and ask you to select a photo of the week. The winning photo will be announced in the next newsletter. If possible, please limit photo size to 350x350 to ensure that images display properly on friends pages. We want to thank you again (and again!) for sharing your passion.

Check out this week's photo poll and more fantastic user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks for joining us. To our American friends, have a fantastic Thanksgiving. To all of our international neighbors, we'll eat a little extra for you!

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/happy-birthday-poul-anderson.html

Had he lived, today would have been Poul Anderson's 83rd birthday. Anderson is a favorite author of mine, both for his historical fantasies, such as The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions, and for his science fiction works, particularly the Van Rijn/Falkayn and Flandry series. My own SF RPG, Thousand Suns (which I am busily revising), is strongly influenced by Anderson's SF tales, so I feel a particular debt to him.

As you'd expect, The Cimmerian offers up a fine tribute to Anderson and notes some similarities between him and Robert E. Howard.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/on-sub-classes.html

Having been primarily an AD&D player in my younger days, I retain a fondness for most of the sub-classes included in the Players Handbook. As I've immersed myself more fully in OD&D, though, I have come to see the proliferation of sub-classes introduced in the Supplements and The Strategic Review as blurring the notion of what a "character class" is. How to reconcile these two positions?

At present, I consider all classes beyond the original three to be "specialists" and, except in the case of the thief (whose status is still unclear despite years of wrestling with it), very specific specialists at that. I've already talked about how paladins into my setting. Druids are a secret society made up of former clerics of Lawful gods, who now oppose Law and Chaos in equal measure. Illusionists are members of an esoteric school of magic and assassins belong to a hidden brotherhood.

I simply don't like the idea of "generic" sub-classes, preferring instead that they all be tied to some aspect of the setting. I feel this way for several reasons. First, it means that, by and large, most PCs and NPCs will belong to one of the Big Three classes. Second, it means that, if a player does wish to portray a member of a sub-class, he's signing on to a large number of "social" restrictions/demands to make up for his character's increased power compared to members of the base classes. Finally, I genuinely think most of the "standard" sub-classes pretty much demand some kind of in-setting context to work. I don't think the paladin or the monk or even the assassin, as written, are archetypal enough to be used without some hook with the setting I'm using. If a player just wants to play a "holy warrior," he can be a cleric or even a zealous fighting man. If a player just wants to be a guy who kills for money, he needn't be a member of the assassin sub-class, which, to my mind anyway, is something much more specific.

So, I do like and would allow sub-classes. I just think they need to be uncommon and bound to the setting better than they are in baseline OD&D.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/retrospective-space-opera.html

I make no bones about the fact that, when it comes to science fiction RPGs, I was and remain a Traveller man. Traveller was, after Gamma World, my first SF RPG, and the one I undoubtedly played the most. My first professional writing credits were for Traveller and the first game industry professionals I ever met in the flesh were associated with the game (at the 1991 Origins convention in Baltimore, where I had dinner with Marc Miller, Charles Gannon, and the Japanese translators of Traveller). To this day, when I think of "science fiction roleplaying games," Traveller is the gold standard by which I measure all others.

Though first, Traveller wasn't the only SF RPG out there. In 1980, Fantasy Games Unlimited released its own entry into the genre, Space Opera. Rarely has a RPG gotten a title so evocative and apropos, for, unlike Traveller, Space Opera was unambiguously -- and clearly unashamedly -- an "unserious" game. By that, I don't mean it was a jokey or silly game, only that it had no pretensions to being a "deep" game, ripping off, as it did, just about every bit of SF its writers could get their hands on. As you can see from the cover image, this is a game where Flash Gordon, Chewbacca, Ming the Merciless, Barbarella, and assorted aliens can meet in a cantina and go adventuring among the stars without the petty concerns of rhyme or reason. In concept, it's about as coherent as Dungeons & Dragons but, like D&D, it has the potential to transcend its schlocky origins and become its own weirdly appealing thing.

Alas, Space Opera never could reach such heights of gaming enjoyment because its rules were terrible, possibly unplayable. Though written during what I call the Golden Age of Gaming, Space Opera nevertheless evinces a Silver Age obsession with complexity and I dare say "realism." Character generation is a long and tedious process, involving a combination of random rolls, derived attributes, and player choice. Unlike Traveller, where even a fairly experienced character can be generated quickly, doing the same in Space Opera could easily take 30 minutes or more, especially if you're not very familiar with the system. Combat involved multiple rolls for each attack: to hit, to determine where one hits, to penetrate armor, and to determine extent of injuries. Space combat was even more complex -- as were most of the game's systems.

Now, as you should know by now, I don't see anything wrong with multiple sub-systems within a game. Indeed, I am increasingly convinced that one of the hallmarks of old school design, as opposed to nostalgia games, is that they are built upon multiple, separate sub-system that work in unison rather than a single universal mechanic. Space Opera falls down, I think, because its various sub-systems don't work in unison. Instead, they give the impression of a Frankenstein's monster, sewed together from bits and bits pieces scavenged from here and there without any regard for what the end result would be. A friend of mine, who's played more Space Opera than I ever could stomach, suggested that the game was written by a committee of people who were each given a separate section of the game to write and who didn't like each other very much. As it turns out, he's almost right. According to FGU's Scott Bizar, Space Opera was written by correspondence by several authors who'd never met one another; it shows.

Nevertheless, Space Opera a slew of supplements its initial release and 1985. Of these, the Space Atlases are the most interesting, for it's here that you get a sense of the glorious cheesiness of the game's official setting, which I can only describe as "kitchen sink SF." You remember those guys in high school who used to argue about whether the Enterprise could defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer? They went on to write the Space Atlases, where the United Federation of Planets -- yes, they call it that -- can fight Space Nazis, Space Soviets, and the Space Viet Cong/Mongols, not to mention the Bugs from Starship Troopers. There are Vulcans and Kzinti too, along with many other ideas torn bleeding from the bodies of science fiction books, movies, and TV shows.

To be fair, Traveller's official setting is also highly derivative, swiping heaping helpings of ideas and terms from H. Beam Piper, Poul Anderson, Larry Niven, and Jerry Pournelle, among others. But Traveller somehow managed to hide its sources better and its rules were simple enough that you could very quickly get into enjoying the game itself so that its derivativeness faded in importance. Space Opera never managed to achieve that degree of unity, largely because its rules are such a mess. I think that's a shame, because a gleefully schlocky SF RPG is a wondrous thing to play.

Until Monday, December 14th, I'm taking commissions to paint you or your friend as a muscle-bound mutant, blazin' blaster, elastic freak, or any other super hero (villain) you can think of. I'll take your photos and create a one of kind original work of art featuring your new special powers.

A super gift for the holidays.

Your portrait will be a 11 x 17 inch, fine art print, suitable for framing. Cost is $225.

Email me at aaronace [at] gmail [dot] com for more info!

( artwork behind the cut )

Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there.

This is a continuation of yesterday’s post about Shock:, which was itself a continuation of the one about Vernor Vinge’s writing.

So, Diaspora.

(First off, let me note that Diaspora is normally available only through Lulu.com, but Lulu screwed the pooch recently and the title isn’t currently listed. As soon as it’s back, you want to get yourself a copy.  No, it’s not available in PDF yet (and probably not for some time).  I may talk more about that publication of Diaspora some other time, but that’s enough about that for now.)

Diaspora is hard science fiction storytelling built on top of Fate.  (As it so happens, I know a little about Fate!)  At first blush, that’s a weird fit.  As a gaming chassis, Fate can give you plenty of detail to work with, but generally it’s all about characters and character-driven stuff.  Hard sci fi leaves one thinking that hey, maybe you should instead focus your game system on precise models of physics, concern yourself with resource management in the black depths of space, etc.  Which might be true to a limited extent — at that’s the extent to which Diaspora gives it support.  Diaspora knows how to grab onto the attitude of hard SF without shouldering its baggage as well.  Then it takes a cue from Vernor Vinge (among others) and focuses in on the characters.

Read the rest of this entry »

• 11:24 Breakfast today was pancakes made with Sprite. (Bisquik, eggs, oil, sugar, a can of Sprite) Turned out AWESOME! #fb #
• 11:28 @effrenatus Condolences! :/ #
• 16:07 Owen K.C. Stephen's 1st official Genius Guide is now available for download! Check out the Dragonrider here tinyurl.com/yghde5q #fb #
• 18:49 Super Genius Games is proud to announce the latest in a new line of
  products for use with the Pathfinder RPG. The... bit.ly/8KlPdF #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

Tomorrowland: The Art of Aaron Acevedo pdf is now available for sale at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, for your convenience.

Super Genius Games is proud to announce the latest, and first from Owen K.C. Stephens, in a new line of products for use with the Pathfinder RPG. The Genius Guide series of products are short electronic books that feature new templates, classes, spells, prestige classes and/or magic items. For use by players and GMs, each Genius Guide is low-priced and ready to be dropped into your game.

This release introduces the Dragonrider, a new core class designed for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. It is a combat-oriented class with minor arcane spellcasting ability, built around having a mystic bond with a true dragon that serves as a steed.

Dragonriders are heroic figures with the power to bond with dragons, gaining lifelong steeds, companions and allies. This bond is more than simply a close friendship, it is a mystic connection between dragonrider and dragon, creating a permanent link fueled by the arcane power inherent to all true dragons.

You can download it to now here: http://paizo.com/store/downloads/otherWorldCreations/v5748btpy8bia

.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/paladins-of-dwimmermount.html

Lots of gamers make the claim that the paladin class, first introduced to OD&D in Supplement I, doesn't fit well with the other classes. While I certainly see the logic of this claim, it's not one I share. I consider the paladin's pedigree in the game at least as solid as that of the thief and since, as I've discovered, a great many gamers will defend to the death the sanctity of the thief as a "core" class of the game, I think I'm on pretty solid ground here.

Now, it's true that, if one is going to treat Dungeons & Dragons as solely a product of gritty swords-and-sorcery, there's not much precedent for the class. For all my championing of the pulp fantasy roots of the game, even I don't argue that S&S is the only influence on OD&D. From the beginning, D&D's been assimilating all kinds of imaginative literature, to the betterment of the game's "DNA," in my opinion. It's a stronger game for having a more diverse genetic background, although that does sometimes mean its various parts don't always interact well with one another.

The paladin is a good case in point. The uptight, "do-gooder" image of the class is at odds with the way most D&D characters are played. That's part of why I suspect the class has a "bad reputation" with many gamers: a paladin in the party cramps their style. And of course playing a paladin properly is quite difficult, particularly if the referee is going to be a stickler when interpreting the lawful goodness of the character's actions.

My Dwimmermount campaign takes most of its cues from swords-and-sorcery literature. On first blush, paladins wouldn't seem to have a place in the setting. In actual fact, as my players are about to discover, paladins played a key role in the setting's history by spearheading many of the rebellions that overthrew the Termaxian-dominated Thulian empire. The Thulians had a state religion -- the Great Church -- made up of the temples of all the Lawful deities. That religion was subverted by the Termaxians once they rose to power, as Turms Termax had no clerics of his own. Instead, clerics of other gods were devoted to their own gods as aspects of Turms. In this way, the whole Great Church came to serve the cult of the Man-Become-God.

Paladins serve no known god. Indeed, they generally consider all gods to be, at best, merely powerful otherworldly beings and, at worst, demons masquerading as divinities. Paladins serve only Law, which they consider synonymous with Goodness. They take particularly umbrage at gods who claim to be Lawful and yet subvert Law for evil ends, like Typhon. Paladins travel the world singly or in pairs, spreading their particular interpretation of Law and rooting out cults devoted to Turms Termax, which they consider particularly dangerous, moreso even than the temple of Typhon. Interestingly, paladin do not shun those who do not share their beliefs, even Termaxians. Instead, they seek them out and often join their adventuring parties, hoping to use their unique abilities and charisma to sway the wayward to their cause.

No one knows where paladins come from, although rumors persist of a hidden fortress called simply "The Palace," from which they are sent out into the world. Likewise, paladinhood is not something one can aspire to; it is simply something one is. These facts, coupled with their penchant for traveling incognito makes paladins a mysterious group about whom many tall tales and legends have sprung up. Given their rarity and secretiveness, most people have no idea whether any of the stories are true, only that paladins are unusual fighting men, unlike any others in the world.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/spell-levels.html

My nine year-old daughter occasionally plays in my Dwimmermount campaign when she's not distracted by other activities. Her character, Iriadessa, is a 3rd-level magic-user. She's frequently confused by the way that spell levels don't map on to character levels. I have to admit I share her frustrations. Although three decades of playing D&D has made it second nature to say "Oh, you have to be 9th level before you can cast 5th level spells," it nevertheless rubs me the wrong way.

If I had my druthers, I'd probably rework the spell list so that spell level corresponded better to character level, but I suspect it'd take a lot of work to do right and, even then, would somehow not feel right. Anti-intuitive this convention clearly is, but it's such a longstanding one that changing it would probably step over some imaginary line in my brain and push it toward the dreaded category of "not D&D." Funny how that works sometimes.

Harlequin Horizons: A Bookseller's Perspective This is a bookseller explaining why bookstores won't carry/can't afford to carry vanity press-produced books. Basically, if you’re writing to sell books, you need a product that is roughly equal in quality and retail pricing to a traditionally published book to meet the expectations of readers. To meet the expectation of booksellers, you need an attractive wholesale discount, inclusion in Ingram or Baker&Taylor and returnability.

That's just to get a book into the stores. What makes a book sell is when the publisher not only gives wholesale discounts and allows returns (so the stores might actually order it), but pays for the book to be placed face-out in the front of the store in the "new book" tables or racks, where it gets much better visibility. (There was a trend for a while where a few romance writers were asking their street teams to move their books from the back shelves to the front of the store whenever they visited a bookstore. Chain bookstores usually rent out that space to publishers, and if the publisher's rep comes by and find the space they paid for is being occupied by other books, the store can get into big trouble. The solution was usually for the bookstore to immediately remainder any books that had been placed in the front by customers.) Publishers also have sales reps who will be presenting their current list of books to the buyers for the chain bookstores, and talking them into ordering them. Vanity presses don't do any of that.

On that depressing note, happy Thanksgiving to everybody who's celebrating this week!

• 15:52 Played some 4e with the Things. There was a TPK, but it proved to be just a bad dream. Now they're prepared for what's coming. Or are they? #
• 22:56 @AtomicOvermind Hopefully they've learned their lesson. We'll find out tomorrow morning. :) #
• 00:36 Had dinner with @stannex & went over the SGG prod. schedule for the next few months. Lots of products for PFRPG, CoC, and SW coming soon. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/speaking-of-missing-point.html

Here's an animated trailer for something calling itself Dante's Inferno, which, I gather, is based on a video game rather than on part I of The Divine Comedy.

Believe it or not, I do try to be open-minded about stuff like this, but reducing one of the great works of Western literature and spirtuality into a cartoonish -- and no, I'm not talking about the animation -- action movie is a step too far for me. Movies can't even do justice to pulp fantasy, so it's little wonder they'd treat Inferno in this fashion.

Bah.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/nod-from-cimmerian.html

Deuce Richardson, over at one of my favorite blogs, The Cimmerian, has done me an honor by devoting an entire post to my recent column at The Escapist. In his post, Mr Richardson takes issue with my assertion that the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien were not a primary influence on Dungeons & Dragons. This is a topic I've covered before and I know it's a controversial one in many quarters. I will simply reiterate here that my position is not that Tolkien's works had no influence on D&D, only that that influence was largely superficial, restricted mostly to some broad fantasy concepts, which Gygax and Arneson gleefully pilfered.

I don't deny that many D&D staples, such as the demihuman races, for example, are largely unthinkable without the influence of Tolkien. What I do deny, though, is that D&D would be impossible to imagine without the influence of Tolkien. I think a "de-Tolkienized" D&D is quite conceivable and, to my mind, much more philosophically coherent. Even if one doubts the veracity of Gygax's frequent claims about the degree to which the good professor influenced him, the simple fact of the matter is that Gygax clearly misunderstood Tolkien and his writings. He rather famously described The Lord of the Rings as an allegory about World War II, clearly ignorant of both Tolkien's feelings about allegory and that the story the novel tells predates the 1939-1945 war.

Tokien is, in my opinion, simply one influence among many that shaped early D&D. The game, after all, sprang up in the midst of the pulp fantasy revival of the late 60s and early 70s, when books that Gygax had read as a younger person were once again being made available to the mass market. That's why I find it quite credible that authors such as Howard, Leiber, Vance, and Merritt, all of whom Gygax regularly cites, had a far greater influence on him and the game he co-created. (Dave Arneson muddies this question somewhat, as players in his Blackmoor campaign attest to its strong Tolkien influences).

In the post, Mr Richardson also postulates that Merritt's The Ship of Ishtar and The Dwellers in the Mirage had more influence on Gygax than the books I alluded to. I'm willing to concede that point in principle, but I can only say that Gygax himself most frequently cited The Face in the Abyss, Creep Shadow, Creep!, and (especially) The Moon Pool as his favorite Merritt books. Again, I suppose it comes down to the extent to which one is willing to take Gygax at his word. I may be more credulous when sifting through his comments than I ought to be and, if so, I welcome correction. That said, I'm far from convinced regarding Tolkien and I look forward a future post on the subject by Mr Richardson, something he suggests he may tackle sometime later.

Until then.

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-know-youre-old-when.html

... other gamers unironically talk about the release of the D&D Rules Cyclopedia in 1991 as "back in the day."