I’ve decided
-- against my better judgment or business sense -- to move forward on
developing the Basic Fantasy Heroes
roleplaying game; it uses the original Oracle System for combat and task resolution to offer some retro-clone-style
medieval fantasy action with a suitability for new players. Adequately
developed drafts for character creation, combat, and some short adventures have
already made the rounds with playtesters. The obligatory bestiary section
remains among the few chapters yet unwritten, so I’m diving into it with a few
monster descriptions and stats each day to maintain my enthusiasm for the
project, explore possibilities within the game engine, and develop useful text
for a final product.
Working on
my own bestiary I’ve found myself referencing monsters in both the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster
Manual and the Basic Dungeons &
Dragons rulebook not so much to replicate material but to make sure I can
put a more original spin on the classic monsters I’m developing and avoid using
proprietary D&D creations (much
as I have an inexplicable nostalgic fondness for the owlbear…). While I’m
finding some inspiration and direction, I’m also realizing the text of both
those tomes remains a product of their time. Both rules assume readers have a
familiarity with mythological and literary fantasy monsters, leaving the more
thorough descriptions to the sometimes-gonzo original D&D monsters like the mimic, lurker above, beholder, rust
monster, stirge, and owlbear. (I’ll freely admit in this instance the Basic D&D bestiary has more
description than its advanced cousin, but not much more).
Many monster
entries, particularly those for humanoids, focus less on describing a
creature’s physical qualities, behavior, and preferred habitat and concentrate
instead on rules: explaining special combat abilities, noting aversions to
light and ability to see in darkness, percentage chance to wield various
weapons, and outlining the percentages of group and lair composition.
Paragraphs like this one seemed ubiquitous in humanoid descriptions:
For every 40 kobolds encountered there will be a
leader and two guards who are equal to goblins, each having 4 hit points, armor
class 6, and doing 1-6 points of damage. If 200 or more kobolds are encountered
in their lair there will be the following additional creatures there: 5-20
guards (as bodyguards above), females equal to 50% of the total number, young
equal to 10% of the total number, and 30-300 eggs. There will always be a chief
and his bodyguard in the kobold lair. It is also probable (65%) that there will
be from 2-5 wild boars (70%) or 1-4 giant weasels (30%) in a kobold lair; the
animals will serve as guards.
This level
of statistical detail seems offered in the same spirit as the random dungeon
instructions included in the Dungeon
Masters Guide appendices, which enable gamemasters to generate random
dungeon layouts and populate them with the proper level of monsters, traps,
treasure. This more rules-oriented text leaves little room for descriptive
“flavor” text to provide a context for adventuring. The actual “description”
portion of monster entries delves into sometimes tedious extreme visual detail,
such as the one the Monster Manual offered
for goblins:
Description: Goblins range from yellow
through dull orange to brick red in skin color. Their eyes are reddish to lemon
yellow. They dress in dark leather gear, and their garments tend toward dull,
soiled-looking colors (brown drab, dirty gray, stained maroon). Goblins reach
the age of 50 years or so.
I realize AD&D emerged from a wargaming
tradition and thus attribute the attention paid to color details to that
heritage where painting miniatures the correct uniform color remained a point
of pride to many.
I suppose
the lack of colorful description at this time (the “Golden Age of Roleplaying,”
or the early 1980s) seems normal, with brief descriptions focusing more on a
creature’s role in terms of game rules than in what some might call “flavor
text” or “lore.” The lack of non-game-mechanic detail enabled a host of
magazine authors to expound on their own vision of particular creatures in the
numerous, popular “Ecology of…” articles in Dragon
Magazine.
I’m often
amazed re-reading old game books and finding my expectations of contented
nostalgia fall short in the face of what, by today’s game publication
standards, is somewhat less-than-polished quality. Perhaps designers and gamers
became wrapped up in the exciting novelty of the new hobby and paid less
attention to sketchy rules, inconsistent grammar, passive voice, and a
near-ubiquitous use of the future tense in rulebooks and adventure modules
describing any potential situation (something that still creeps into today’s
game writing by “professionals” and “amateurs” alike). Such elements help
define games of that era and serve as a milestone by which we can compare the
nuances and quality that characterize today’s roleplaying entertainments. What
the first AD&D and D&D products create is nothing less
than what publishers produce today, just something of a different flavor and
play style.
Perhaps my
observations about original D&D’s
monster descriptions in a way reflect my own personal preference and strength
for narrative and setting over rules. In my own brief monster descriptions I
focus on physical description, environment, and motivations, all broad
guidelines for use in the game, while the actual monster statistics serve to
describe it in the context of the game rules. I’m seeking to provide the
briefest of descriptions to put the creature in a familiar context within the
game, then give the relatively simple stats and specialties so they work within
the rules framework. I hope to give players the basic setting context and rules
framework for monsters to let them use them as they see fit in their own games;
in its own way original D&D does
this by presenting monsters with a different set of tools.
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