Chronica Feudalis

Indie Medieval RPG
Chronica Feudalis (CF) presents as a translation of a found document written by a 12th century monk. It's actually a rather clever modern indie roleplaying game by Jeremy Keller. Mr. Keller tells us quite openly that CF is derived from concepts he liked in D. Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard, Rob Donoghue and Fred Hick's FATE, and Luke Crane's The Burning Wheel - three of my personal favorite indie RPGs. It is written first person as if the reader is listening to the monk himself describe a role-playing game he and his fellow monks enjoy playing there at the abbey back in merry olde England. Thus presented, CF is pretty well grounded in historic reality, perhaps as would be seen through the eyes of a medieval monk.
CF starts with the word "Imagine", a fitting start to any pen & paper RPG. He goes on to describe a story, "not written by one person, but created in the moment by several people in unison". The vehicle for creating, imagining this story, is the setting or "stage" and a cast of characters. CF uses dice with different numbers of sides, the standard polyhedral dice, to represent character abilities. Characters are created by picking three mentors who have taught you certain skills and provided you with tools for your chosen lifepath(s). Each skill, tool, and Aspect is assigned a separate die value, d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12. This game borrows the "Aspect" idea from FATE which are statements which are true about your character. They can describe skills, character strengths or flaws, beliefs, fears or anything else the player can imagine. Aspects can be invoked to add a bonus die or endured to suffer a penalty. The referee may use an Aspect to compel a character to act and thereby earning a reward, but the player can always decline at a cost.
The conflict resolution mechanic in CF is similar to that of Dogs... A dice pool is assembled made up of a die for each skill, tool, and invoked Aspect up to the number of Vigor points you currently have. Penalties hamper you by requiring the removal of a die. Rolling the dice pool, one looks for the highest score on any die and compares that score to a target number or an opposed roll result. Loss is assessed in terms of Vigor unless the player decides to give themselves an injury instead. Injuries can be physical or emotional and can be invoked for a penalty by the referee similar to an Aspect. Injuries are removed by healing. Conflicts can be combat, a chase, or social in nature. Character advancement is through improving skills by training, experience (using the skill), and learning (succeeding on an advancement roll). Aspects can also be advanced along the dice chain.
CF is a game firmly planted in an historic setting and as such magic is very limited. Witches are described as casting curses (and maybe other "spells"), but there are no white box magic users or wizards in the game. Like the systems that influenced CF's development, the game seems like it would be easy to hack and one could add more magic if desired (perhaps borrowing from a game like Fantasy Wargaming). Likewise, monsters in CF are limited to evil humans and animals, but again there is no reason why the referee can't add to the milieu.
I like Chronica Feudalis despite the fact that I generally prefer more magic and supernatural elements in my game. I feel I can easily add those if I ever referee CF. I do wonder about a couple things about CF, like why given the deceit that it is written by a medieval monk for monks it doesn't have a more detailed mechanic for religion, something akin to a piety system? Again something I might add. I like that CF draws upon other games for clever mechanics that deserve a more widespread audience. I also appreciate that the author, Mr. Keller, has an Open Game License for CF allowing others to publish freely using his system as a basis. That together with his borrowing from and building upon the good ideas of others is the spirit of a friendly (amateur?) hobby that I am eager to support.

Trollbabe

And Other Indie Games
Ron Edwards is the guy who coined the GNS (Gamist, Narrativist and Simulationist) Theory of roleplaying games and also the author of Troll-Babe (the title is actually one word) and other games. I won't attempt to explain GNS Theory other than to say, Mr. Edwards divides roleplaying games into categories based on whether they focus on gaming, narrative or simulation (GNS). Many RPGs are a combination, but one aspect is usually dominant. The indie games Mr. Edwards designs are mostly narrativist. The mere fact that intellectuals such as Mr. Edwards are analyzing and putting forth theories about roleplaying games must mean the hobby has significance; it's a social phenomenon, a real thing!
Troll-Babe is a game about conflict resolution.  Players take the role of the troll babe, a human troll hybrid who can act as a go between for both cultures. The setting is a mythological Viking era, Norse-like world where humans and trolls frequently come into conflict. Trollbabe is set up to be a narrative between the referee and player of the troll babe PC. The story is what develops during play and is not pre-set. Mr. Edwards calls this process "Story Now". Play begins with the referee or "GM" presenting " a pile of story-rich components" including ample opportunity for adversity. Players take turns going one-on-one with the referee while other players take the role of interactive audience.
Rules in indie games are often novel and experimental. Trollbabe uses a rule mechanic called Scale which allows the Trollbabe PC to only make small effects on things at first, but as the game progresses her ability to make larger effects increases or "scales". Eventually the Trollbabe may effect whole societies, continents, etc.
The players each control a Trollbabe PC. The Trollbabe character has one statistic called her Trollbabe Number. It can range from 2-9 and is chosen by the Player. The Trollbabe Number is used to do magic, fight and interact socially by rolling a d10. Magic succeeds by a roll that is higher than the Trollbabe Number, fighting succeeds if you roll under the Number and you roll against whichever is worse to attempt to succeed at social interactions. Impressions are traits which color how people perceive the actions of your Trollbabe and include words for magic such as "human" or "trollish", fighting that is "unarmed" or uses a specific weapon, and social interaction that is "scary", "sexy", "fierce", etc. The bulk of the rules are "narrativist" mechanics meant to allow each player to help create the "story", which is the ultimate goal of the game, to collectively tell an entertaining story.
I find narrativist games such as Trollbabe fun, especially when playing with people who have more skill at such games than I have.
I am also a big fan of reading the works of small independent (indie) game companies, often one-person operations, because I find them entertaining to read and full of interesting ideas, some of which I borrow for use in more traditional RPGs. Indie games cover a lot of topics and include "old school" clones of white box, AD&D and other popular older games as well as games that are completely new and innovative. Some of the titles that stand out for me are Dogs In The Vineyard by D. Vincent Baker, FATE Core System by Fred Hicks and Rob Donoghue and The Burning Wheel by Luke Crane. Many of these indie games are influencing other "big company" designs and I see rule mechanics in 5th Edition, 13th Age, and other popular titles that seem to be going after the same concepts found first in an indie game.
Games like Trollbabe are in many ways quite different from white box. They also share the basic premise that players take the role of a character and through that character experience an adventure during gameplay with others and have some fun. Indie games in general provide their authors a creative outlet for imagination and innovative rules design, something I believe has been key to the hobby from its beginning. They are also shaping the future of the hobby as their clever new ideas enter the mainstream RPGs (did I just say mainstream RPGs?).

The Quest of Thane Tostig

Fantasy War Game
Published in 1977, The Quest of Thane Tostig (QTT) is a piece of British wargaming history whichs gives insight into the hobby as it existed during the late 70's. I can recall the days of miniature gaming when our group freely mixed fantasy and historic elements and identified with individual miniature warriors in a manner we would later call role-playing.  We called it "our personal figure" and it was an avatar of sorts as well as a playing piece in the game. I am assuming something similar occurred around other game tables both here in the midwest and elsewhere. Accounts I have read of the early games that lead up to the publishing of the white box sound similar in many ways. The QTT seems to represent that fantasy based war game that rather straddles the two sides of the hobby, traditional wargames with miniatures and fantasy roleplaying.
QTT is written according to the authors to compliment the Thane Tostig line of miniatures produced by Barry Minot (who cast figures for all the QTT characters and monsters). Emphasis is on a fast moving game and one that can be easily modified to suit the tastes of the players. The Quest is set in an historic England of the year 447, which would be around the time of the first Saxon invasions as described in the opening paragraphs of QTT. In the manner of many of the old adventure stories, the setting document is described as an ancient manuscript which has come to light and which describes the quest of one Thane Tostig and his boon companions as they strive to recover the sword Blooddrinker from the wood and fen sprites. Thane is a Saxon title similar to the "Sir" of a later era and Tostig a common Saxon name as are the names of the other characters, Edith, a wise woman (spell caster), Beowulf, a warrior, Cedric, a smith, Gurth, a spearman, Sigurd the archer, and Infang, Tostig's dog.
The opposition takes the form of the wood and fen sprites, who live in the dank woods and swamps and "delight" in capturing and torturing any humans they encounter. They are in possession of the "all powerful sword, Blooddrinker" which is the object of Tostig's quest. The sprites are assisted by a terrible wood witch and her retinue. Several other quests are alluded to involving the man-eaters Grendel and Grendelham, savage goblins called Scuccas, a two headed giant, winged elf-folk called Scinnas, Myrrdin the wizard, and King Medraut who commands the skeletal ghosts of some Roman legionaries. Tostig's last adventure is against Waerferth, a dragon guarding a hoard. The rules in this booklet only cover the quest against the wood and fen sprites. Presumably other scenarios were planned to cover the remaining adventures.
The rules cover the usual wargame topics defining troop type, movement, combat and morale. Because it is a "fantasy" game there are magic rules for Edith and the wood witch. Keyed maps are included similar to those found in early adventure/roleplaying games and include both wilderness and underground areas. Encounter areas are described much like the usual roleplaying adventure or dungeon.
Combat is simple involving a roll of a d10, a score of 0-5 is a melee hit. If the to-hit roll succeeds roll a d6 and the score indicates how much and to which part of the body damage is taken. Armour (British game!) reduces damage to areas covered. Heroes get two attacks per turn, monsters one. Each miniature/character has a number of hit points (Energy) that vary from 1 for weak sprites to 50 for Thane Tostig. Spells expend energy from the caster and generally heal, paralyze or cause loss of an ability such as armour's damage reduction. Some spell effects are automatic, other require a die score to succeed. A morale failure may cause figures to withdraw from combat.
The QTT and similar games (including Chainmail) were most likely many wargamer's introduction to fantasy gaming. Many players probably moved on to roleplaying games like white box because it's popularity certainly grew rapidly during the '70s. Some in the hobby would continue to seek wargames like QTT with a fantasy setting as evidenced by the popularity of the Warhammer (Fantasy) game released in 1983. At this point, I doubt I would ever want to play a game of QTT, but I find the insight it offers into the early days of the hobby fascinating.

Fantasy Wargaming

A Scholarly Approach to Fantasy Gaming 
Continuing to look at early British RPGs, Fantasy Wargaming (FW), as the title suggests, is an old school product from the earliest days of the hobby when gamers rooted in wargaming were first discovering this new type of game we eventually would call adventure games or role-playing. FW saw widespread availability partially because it found its way onto shelves of chain bookstores and perhaps more importantly, was offered through a popular book club. Therefore even today it isn't hard to locate a copy. I am aware of at least two versions of the book, both hardback.  One is a large, letter sized edition (pictured above) and the other is a smaller hardback with dust jacket showing the same cover illustration.
FW is written by some folks at Cambridge University in England and is clearly a reaction to white box and Tunnels & Trolls, both are mentioned by name as dungeon bound games lacking in realism. FW is offered as their answer to the growing hobby of roleplaying. Bruce Galloway is credited as compiler and editor and my understanding is the work had several contributors. The fantasy wargame is discussed as an outgrowth of historical wargaming using miniature figures, which in the case of fantasy included nonhuman troop types along with individual hero characters. Players tend to identify with such hero figures and when rules for advancement in power are included for the hero who can conceivably take any plausible action during the game, roleplaying is the result.
The authors of FW state history and folklore provide better game material than is found in other games and the early chapters of the book are devoted to making a case for this argument. The historic nature of society in western Europe, especially England, during the dark and middle ages is described in some detail, with a somewhat scholarly approach. The author's attempt to show the middle ages from a medieval rather than modern point-of-view.  That is to say things the people of the time would have believed in such as magic, demons and monsters are presented as real.
The rules themselves are somewhat scattered about the book and it does suffer from a lack of organization (a somewhat common condition of early game products) which also makes it a challenge to describe the game mechanics. I first encountered FW aound the time of its publication (1981), but have only read it, never played it. I do find the historic material on medieval and dark ages societies is informative and useful as a reference. The authors' "unified field theory" is interesting and I have not seen it repeated in any other game to date. Basically the authors argue that belief is what gives magic it's power whether it is of a divine or occult nature. The gods gain their power from sacrifices and worship of followers who believe. Practitioners of magic acquire magic power, termed "mana" in the rules from their belief in it's existence and through performing acts which strengthen their ties to the otherworld/ethereal world where magic dwells. Astrology and correspondences strengthen this contact with the otherworld and help give the magic system of FW a very medieval feel.
The historic basis of FW means that the religions and prejudices which existed in medieval times are drawn on directly for the game milieu. This adds period flavor, but at the expense of some modern sensibilities. FW really has to be approached through medieval eyes to be fully appreciated. Demon and devil worship are part of the rules and PC power can be gained from blood sacrifices. Characters are strongly tied to their father's social rank and upward social mobility is limited. The rules offer three basic character classes, warrior, mage and cleric. Each has several "sub-types" based on social rank. Female characters are limited by historic stereotype.
The magic system lists few spells and the authors claim magic in the historic and folklore sources is so varied in its effects that confining it to lists of spells seems impracticable. Therefore magic is somewhat open-ended and free-form, the player and referee coming to some agreement on effect and difficulty challenge. Magic is divided into passive (divination) and active (sorcery, enchantment and conjuration). Astrology and correspondences are used throughout for flavor. Like the rules for combat and the few listed skills, the magic mechanics are percentile based and involve some math. FW does include what amounts to a universal resolution mechanic in the detect hidden doors table which involves a percentile roll against a difficulty target number which gives degrees of success (partial success, etc.) and is used for nearly everything except combat strikes and throwing magic (not just finding hidden doors).  
The intent of FW is stated as the gaming recreation of medieval epics, romances and legends and not the sword & sorcery or Tolkienesque tales of certain other games. The rules for experience and piety (which fuels cleric "miracles") reflect this goal. There are several mechanics that can be used to both provide incentive and occasionally dictate PC behavior in certain circumstances rather than allow the player total control of the PC and I assume this is an effort to enforce medieval behavior on the character despite the more modern sensibilities of the player. Having some experience as a referee attempting to run such a "realistic" medieval setting, I can understand the author's intent/desire to limit "uncharacteristic" anachronisms in PC behavior. I am not sure how much fun such mechanics will be to the players, however.
The subtitle of Fantasy Wargaming is The Highest Level of All. The authors make various humorous references in the chapter headings as a means to kept an otherwise quite scholarly and serious approach somewhat light-hearted, as befits a game book, and I wonder is this subtitle isn't just more of the same. FW does set some high goals for itself as a book combining fantasy role-play and more traditional wargaming (there are rules for tabletop battles using bases of miniature figures as is common in histroic wargaming) and a fantasy game based on research and empirical evidence more than imagination and whimsy. The unified field theory that runs throughout intrigues me. The authors use it to explain how elves/faerie folk, once widely worshiped as gods, were quite large, man sized and powerful, after the coming of Christianity they shrank in size as human sacrifices and belief in them lessened and they became more scarce and tiny by the Victorian period when they were practically forgotten.

Dragon Warriors

The Ultimate Role-Playing Game
The early 1980s was a peak time for tabletop fantasy RPGs. Word of the new hobby was getting around and affordable, entry level games were helping new gamers of all ages to share in the fun. The first PCs had made their appearance and enthusiasm for tabletop fantasy roleplay was being shared with that platform through the early primitive PC roleplaying games such as Wizardry and Ultima, but the hobby really hadn't yet begun to lose gamers to the PC. The games of the day weren't all that good yet. It feels like we are currently again in such a peak time with the release of the Open Gaming License (OGL), the Old School Renaissance (OSR) and online (virtual) tabletop gaming all giving vitality to the hobby and increasing the market for new products. The internet especially has helped tabletop gamers enjoy the face-to-face game via technology and given the hobbyist at home alone another option other than solo play against the computer or the popular massive multi-player online RPGs.
Dragon Warriors is another British RPG that appeared on shelves in 1985. It is a small paperback that would fit nicely on the retail shelves alongside the then popular solo "choose your own adventure" gamebooks such as the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf series.  Author Dave Morris' Dragon Warriors, originally planned for three books and later expanded to five, offers the hobbyist rules, ready-made adventures and a setting that is both familiar and novel where mood and atmosphere practically drip from Dragon Warrior's pages. The presentation is designed to start the players off with a choice of two character classes, Knight and Barbarian, both classic fantasy tropes and both pure fighting types with no magic to worry about. The magic using classes will be added in later volumes which also include further adventures. The players become drawn deeper into the world of Legend and learn additional rules as they progress through the volumes trying out the new classes in each and playing through the adventures.
Volume One is simply titled Dragon Warriors and contains the basics of play as well as the introductory adventure. Character generation is typical of early RPGs all of which seem to use some variant of the white box system. Dragon Warriors uses 3d6 in order to generate five attributes, Strength, Reflexes, Intelligence, Psychic Talent, and Looks. Other attributes such as Attack, Defense, Magic Defense and Evasion are derived from these five attributes. Health Points start at 1 d6 + 7 and stay reality low in comparison to white box's hit points at upper levels (Ranks in Dragon Warrior). A standard set of polyhedral dice are needed to play.
Combat in Dragon Warriors is a matter of subtracting the target's Defense score from the attacker's Attack score and rolling under that number with a d20. Each weapon does a fixed amount of damage and has an armour penetration die. When a hit is scored the armour penetration dice is rolled and if the score is higher than the armour value to damage is subtracted from the target's Health Points. Dragon Warriors explains how this works with a fun little cartoon! Rules for Magical Defense, moving, exploring, falling, illumination, etc. follows. A bestiary is given for the default setting which is called Legend.
Legend is dominated by humans and the PCs are limited to that race. Elves and dwarves exist, but are more fey and of dubious morality. Legend is a gritty, dark and moody setting thick with historic medieval feel, but includes magical and supernatural elements. The introductory scenario teaches PCs about the world including the setting's feudal society where everyone is obligated to someone. The relationships each PC builds during play are central to adventuring in Legend and the Dragon Warriors game. Players are encouraged to develop their PC into a role they can play, giving the PC a personality of their own separate from the player, a unique backstory and perhaps some goals. There are no in-game mechanics for this aspect of the game, it is just explained and encouraged.
Dragon Warriors is a product of its time and definitely reflects an "old school" approach to RPG design. The format, that of three volumes, each adding rules and continuing an adventure series is somewhat unique in my experience. The setting is a strong feature of the game in my opinion and makes Dragon Warriors one of my favorite non-white box gaming products. The game was originally very hard to find in the United States, but has been recently re-released as a single volume of rules and several adventure books. As for Dragon Warriors being the ultimate role-playing game as it says right on the cover, you will have to decide that for yourself.

Fighting Fantasy

A Good Introductory Game
Puffin Books back in the early '80s published a series of adventure game books under the title Fighting Fantasy. The series was the creation of Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (the British one) who also founded the Games Workshop chain of hobby stores in Great Britain and the game company by the same name. In 1984 the Fighting Fantasy line added The Introductory Role-Playing Game by Steve Jackson to their offerings. Fighting Fantasy, having started with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, a solo adventure gamebook where the reader made choices that led to numbered paragraphs, entered the realm of white box style tabletop role-playing with a referee. An "advanced" edition of the rules would follow in 1989.
The Fighting Fantasy Introductory Role-Playing Game (FFIRPG) takes the basic mechanic of the adventure gamebooks and modifies it to accommodate tabletop group play. Three attributes Skill, Luck, and Stamina define the PC and rolling under one of the attribute scores with two d6 is the basic mechanic of the game. Simplicity at its extreme. There are no classes, no magic spell lists and all skills are lumped into the attribute Skill. The system is so simple and straightforward that today it begs to be modified by anyone familiar with other RPGs. Two adventures follow the rules sections of this thin paperback. A bestiary (Out of the Pit) and world book (Titan) are available separately.
So what makes FFIRPG worth blogging about? Well, Steve Jackson gets it. He understands and perhaps more importantly, is able to succinctly articulate what role-playing is all about, the fun, the mystery and discovery, the humor, the adventure and spookiness that is role-playing at it's heart. The book begins with a very fine explanation of the "idea" of role-playing/adventure gaming; that one player, the referee (or GM as Mr. Jackson says) draws a map and describes the things the players see then asks "What do you want to do?" Mr. Jackson points out that since the entity running the game is a person, the choices are limitless. In language like this, FFIRPG quickly gets to the essence of the hobby.
The GM/referee advice in FFIRPG is quite good. The author states being familiar with the rules is the first task of a GM/referee and very important because the players really don't need to be familiar with the rules to start playing. Learning the rules during play is part of the rookie gamer experience as is eventually mastering gameplay with experieince. The FFIRPG rules do not cover all possible situations, nor should they as the author points out. According to the rules, the ideal GM/referee will have a vivid imagination with which to imagine what is happening and could happen, relay this to the players and build the atmosphere of the adventure. The ability to think quickly is also essential so that the GM/referee keeps the action going and can quickly decide how to determine if the players' actions succeed or fail. The adventure itself unfolds as the players tell the GM/referee what they want to do and the GM/referee in turn informs the players what the consequences of their actions are. There are no winners or losers in role-playing of course and FFIRPG makes clear that the game is a cooperative effort.
The essence of FFIRPG is creative game mastering and this is true of a lot of systems and role-playing in general. FFIRPG sums up the task well. Running the game involves more than drawing the map. Deciding how to determine the outcome of an action, controlling the "flow" of the game, playing the "roles" of various NPCs and monsters, deciding when to use dice or not, assigning odds and adjustments to odds, and the ability to conjure up atmosphere all are described as being essential for the ideal GM/referee. Advice is given for how to handle specific GM/referee challenges such as dealing with bribery, doors, searching, moving silently/hiding, time management and wandering monsters and a number of other topics. All the advice is brief and sound and consistent with "old school" values (including the assumption that we are dungeon delving).
FFIRPG is definitely a product of its time. Even though it is a rules-lite (very lite!) system, Mr. Jackson mentions the desire for realism that was so characteristic of this period in the hobby. "Realism...what would it really be like?", he asks and then offers up his fantasy role-playing game as a way to experience a medieval world setting full of fantastic surprises. It is notable that in this case realism doesn't mean more rules. Through the use of our imagination a certain degree of realistic experience of life in the middle ages is possible. A vehicle such as FFIRPG, white box or other RPG can help facilitate this imaginary journey through time and space to a destination full of wonder and possibility..."What do you want to do?"

Maelstrom

Olde English Role-Play
Back in 1984, at the height of the adventure game book popularity, Puffin Books published a new role-playing game called Maelstrom.  It is the creation of a young Alexander Scott who, according to gamer legend, started working on it when he was a mere school lad. Maelstrom is both innovative, full of ideas that would shortly make their reappearance in other games such as the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and is also a somewhat under-developed release. Despite this, there are many good ideas in Maelstrom and it has recently gotten a renewal on life both as a re-release in it's original form plus companion materials and as Maelstrom Domesday.
Maelstrom is set in Tudor England and as such holds to an historic setting, mostly. It's history more like the Elizabethans would have understood it than what we think of today. Witches and magic have a real presence in the game as do elements of the supernatural, all of which probably seemed quite natural to most folk living in the 16th century. The system uses a roll under percentile dice mechanic referred to as a Saving Throw throughout and like most percentile based games is therefore pretty straight-forward and easy to understand. The nine attributes are a mix of starting value of 30 points and having 50 additional points to add where one likes as long as no more than 20 are added to any one starting attribute. The player then selects one or more "Livings" or life paths/professions for the PC. Some Livings such as Mercenary or Rogue replicate classic roles found in most games, others such as Trader and Professional allow one to play a Fishmonger or an Architect. Each Living both ages the PC and grants associated skill proficiencies. If any of this sounds familiar it's because these mechanics appear again in later games.
Combat is composed of both the familiar and the novel. PCs act in order of their Speed attribute making a Saving Throw roll to hit, the target making a defense Saving Throw to block. If the attack goes through, damage is rolled and after reducing for any armour (Maelstrom is a British game), a wound is recorded. Each wound total remains a separate number as healing is per wound.  The total of wounds is compared to the attribute Endurance and when wounds exceed Endurance the PC loses consciousness.
Magic is a secretive art and can get one burned as a witch if you are discovered to be a practitioner so most magic using folk have another less suspicious Living. Magic spells are cast by drawing on the Maelstrom, a source of magical energy which connects the present with other times and dimensions. The spell is described, no list of spells is given, so casting is a creative process. Once the desired effects are described the referee assigns a difficulty grade between 1, easy, could happen by chance and 5, impossible, defies natural laws. Saving Throws are rolled to determine outcome which can include a Maelstrom catastrophe if high grade magic fails badly. The Maelstrom can also become unstable just by being accesses a lot. The PC's Will score is also temporarily reduced by a d6 roll per grade level. So casting spells indiscriminately is usually discouraged.
The Priest Living provides the character with no white box type spells, but does grant a skill set including preaching (power to influence people), power over spirits (including exorcism) and deliverance, the ability to occasionally receive divine aid in desperate situations. The Herbalist is also a potent Living providing one of the few sources of healing through herbs and poultices, as well as other effective herbal powers. The list of herbs and their descriptions that constitutes the appendix section of Maelstrom is generally well regarded as a valuable hobby resource. Experience in Maelstrom is gained by taking part in combat, receiving wounds, casting spells, and any other special cases the referee deems experience worthy.  Experience allows the player to make an improvement roll to increase attributes and skills.
Maelstrom includes a solo adventure and a referee adventure, both set in 16th century England. Other than some discussion about doing historical research, the two adventures are the only hints the author gives as to how he intends the game to be played. As a game designed to be run in an historic setting, although one where magic works thanks to the Maelstrom and where the supernatural is real, Maelstrom seems a good fit for settings that adhere more closely to an historic model.  The Harn setting immediately comes to mind with it's emphasis on feudal society and relationships and its low magic assumption. The system mechanics are intuitive and easily modified and is generally what I would call "rules-lite". Maelstrom has some nice innovations including the wound system which could be lifted and used in white box or other systems.
Maelstrom has recently received a deserved second chance thanks to Graham Bottley and Arion Games who have reprinted the original volume as well as two new Companion volumes and a Classic Fantasy Toolkit, the latter bringing Maelstrom into the realm of classic fantasy elves, dwarves and orcs. Maelstrom Domesday is a rewrite of the system (again by Graham Bottley, who incidentally has also rewritten the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG) to a Norman-Saxon English setting where players take on the role of investigators of the supernatural in yet another historic setting. Maelstrom Domesday includes more historic setting material and gives PCs a specific job/goal other than "adventuring".

White Box Religion

Clerics & Deities
One of the things about White Box that has always struck me as rather unusual is the inclusion of the Cleric as one of the three original character classes. A number of rule sets which followed hard on the White Box, Tunnels & Trolls, and In The Labyrinth for example, offer only the warrior and wizard options. The cleric class offers a combination of fairly good combat ability with supportive spell casting and therefore gives White Box and later editions of the game a PC option that helps set D&D apart. The cleric is a nice in-between PC for players that want to stand toe-to-toe with the monsters in combat, yet have access to some of the "magic" that makes fantasy gaming special.
Appendix N supplies us with a list of sources (as well as inspirational reading!) that supposedly influenced the white box development and it isn't hard to find certain aspects of the rules which are very similar in form to tropes found in the listed works, such as the paladin in Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. Inspiration for the cleric seems to come more from the historic middle ages, especially the crusader monk/knights of the Templar and Hospitlar Orders. Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson were members of a gaming group called the Castle and Crusades Society, so perhaps that is where the idea for the cleric originates.
Clerics are obviously religious and their magic is divine, both imply the worship of one or more deities who actually exist and who intervene in the affiars of men (at least through granting their clerics spells). This implies a great deal about the default setting/milieu of the White Box (and later editions) and the creators of same. Often in the Sword & Sorcery (S&S) literature of Appendix N the gods seem indifferent to the needs of their worshipers. Seldom do they intervene or make an appearance. The Elric novels of Michael Moorcock being an exception to this (and several other standard S&S conventions). Of course White Box does not explicitly state the cleric need worship a god and for many years I played the game without gods. Clerics in "my world" had all the standard cleric abilities with no stated connection to a deity or pantheon. It seems to work fine that way and was rather more consistent, I thought, with the writers I mostly read in the 1970's (J.R.R. Tolkien, R.E. Howard and Fritz Leiber).
Most published settings, and the latest editions of the game, include a pantheon of deities who are often central players in the mega-plot of the setting. Even other rule systems that do not include a cleric PC class frequently make heavy use of deities. The nature of a setting's deities says much about that milieu and together with character generation, magic system, the bestiary and experience system are major defining elements of a game. The cleric, with or without an accompanying deity, brings an iconic role to the default White Box setting and helps set White Box apart from other iterations of fantasy. For me, the cleric class is like a signature and lasting tribute to the creator(s) of the game and their Castle and Crusade Society. 

Tales From the Fallen Empire

A Sword & Sorcery Setting
I have read, and continue to read, a lot of published setting material, both old and new. I seldom use a published setting as is, but I frequently draw on them when adding to my own settings often adapting it to white box. Tales From the Fallen Empire (TFFE) is one such fantasy setting I recently acquired. It follows many of the standard tropes of classic Sword & Sorcery (S&S), but I feel it is worth mentioning for a number of unique reasons.
TFFE is a S&S setting for Joseph Goodman's Dungeon Crawl Classics Role-Playing Game (DCCRPG). The DCCRPG itself deserves more than a passing mention. It is written with a goal in mind to create rules that can be used for Appendix N gaming. In this way, it actually "predates" white box by focusing on the root stories of fantasy that existed before the white box started to change things. Many titles in Appendix N are of the S&S sub-genre so TFFE seems to be a good fit. The DCCRPG is not really an OGL game, nor really is it an OSR game, though it has elements of both. It attempts to recapture the style of OSR play while borrowing mechanics from the OGL rules. The new parts of DCCRPG include use of additional dice called "Zocchie dice" that have 5, 7, 14, 16, 24 and 30 sides, the "Character Creation Funnel" where 0-level characters turn into PCs by surviving, the "Mighty Deed of Arms" allowing signature moves in combat, "spellburn" where-by magic users burn up their attributes to increase spell power, and "magic corruption" which can occur when magic fails to act as expected. The book is beautifully illustrated throughout with "old style" b&w art and is a pleasure to read (Mr. Goodman uses much the same vocabulary as Mr. Gygax). I like what I read in DCCRPG, but as of yet have not had the pleasure of playing it, having failed my roll to find fellow hobbyists willing to risk catastrophic spell corruption while casting "magic missile", etc.
TFFE has a nice, though somewhat typical S&S background story and setting with lizardmen, creepy alien tree folk and ape-men  replacing the standard High Fantasy trope of elves, dwarves and orcs. Consistent with most S&S stories, the PCs are human - well mostly human. Many come from off-world through various "gates" often brought by fallen powers of old to fight their wars. Some of them such as the tall, blonde Aesir will appear familiar, others are more original. TFFE adds some new classes to the DCCRPG that seem consistent with the S&S feel. One of the notable features of TFFE is the short, but useful Judges' Advice section. The essay is well written and contains a discussion of episodic and serial campaign strategies and a concise characterization of S&S gaming which is grim and deadly, with magic that is uncommon and dangerous, an uncertain morality, a place full of fallen kingdoms, desert, jungle and seas where adventure is always waiting, cults and religions which center on uncaring gods and a political climate ripe with intrigue, all where a bold adventurer can win fame, fortune and glory, or a quick death. A world where, "Life is brutal, gods don't answer prayer and the weak will be trod upon by the bold and powerful."

Sword & Sorcery and Tolkien

Roots of the Hobby
Sword & Sorcery (S&S), as a sub-genre of fantastic fiction, typically deals with the personal adventures of one or two heroes of often dubious morality as they face and generally overcome perils and one or two adversaries bent on doing them, or a beautiful damsel, harm. Seldom is the S&S story about world shaping events or the struggle of good and evil. Often the hero is a rebel, a bit of a scoundrel. Seldom do elves, dwarves or hobbits make an appearance. Those tropes are the stock of high fantasy popularized by J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (LotR) and The Hobbit.
At the time E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were creating and publishing the white box, Tolkien was becoming a very popular author and redefining fantastic literature. Mr. Gygax alleged the works of Tolkien had very little influence on the white box, yet Tolkien properties such as the Ent, Hobbit, Balrog and Nazgul make their appearance in the pages of the original Little Brown Books. I could argue that the popularity of Tolkien's LotR was at least partially responsible for the success of that early game.
Another huge influence on the creators of the white box and it's players were the many writings of popular sword & sorcery, science fiction, and sword & planet authors whose names appear in the Dungeon Masters Guide Appendix N. I had already read a number of the authors whose names are on that list when I first discovered the white box, so sharing in that type of adventure through the means of the white box game seemed a natural extension of my love of heroic adventure stories. S&S stories at the time definitely outnumbered the works of Tolkien (although the imitators of Tolkien are now legion) and perhaps had a greater influence overall on the game's development. Since the advent of white box, it definitely seems high fantasy is the preferred style of play with S&S games ranking a distant second.
While players generally enjoy reading S&S stories, my experience has been there is a preference for high fantasy in play. The nature of magic may account for part of this preference. Magic in S&S is often low-key, dangerous and generally used by the bad guys rather than the heroes. One of the appeals to playing a fantasy game is the inherent "magic", that is real within the game setting be available to them as players. Many players naturally like to use the "magic" themselves through their PCs and the flashier the better! The grim realism of S&S can mean combat is more deadly and players generally dislike losing their PCs. Fantasy races, those other than human, seem to attract players in a disproportionate manner. Elves, dwarves and gnomes frequently outnumber human PCs at the game-tables I have been present at. Saving the world from the ultimate bad-guy seems to hold way more appeal than the often less epic/glamorous adventures more typical of S&S.
White box is characteristic of what generally followed in the hobby since it contains S&S elements within a system that seems geared more to high fantasy play. Games strictly adhering to S&S tropes are rare both in print and at the table, but it isn't hard to identify a bit of S&S in many high fantasy games. The LotR itself, generally associated with the label high fantasy (another sub-genre), upon close scrutiny seems to also contain elements of S&S; the small personal struggles of some characters exist within the context of the larger good verses evil, world in the balance struggle, the rebel is there even if he is of royal (or hobbit) blood, and the dark magic of Sauron definitely has a corrupting influence.
After watching Peter Jackson's LotR trilogy with my old daddy (age 92), he remarked, "So that's what you and your friends have been playing all these years." What could I say, but "Yeah, Dad, that's pretty much it."

Adventure verses Role Play

What do you want in your game?
Reading Five Ancient Kingdom author Jonathan Becker's comments about his creation being an "adventure game" not a role-playing game has me thinking about the difference. The hobby generally refers to role-playing games or RPGs when describing the games we play. Many games start with a description of "What is role-playing?" or some similar topic. Less common is a description of what is "Adventure Gaming"? Herein I offer my (somewhat random) thoughts.
Adventure gaming as distinct from role-playing seems to be a game about adventure, exploring the unknown, getting into conflicts, acquiring treasure and knowledge usually in a fantastic setting all while using one's imagination to visualize the action. The way this is done is with a referee who describes the setting and players who describe what they would like their avatars to do. Dice are rolled to determine the outcome of actions when failure or success can significantly change things. In many ways the adventure game is similar to other tabletop games with the exception that most of the action takes place in the players' minds rather than on a board laid out on the table.
So how is this adventure game distinct from a role-playing game. I think it is in the attitude of the players to their "playing piece" or character. Role-playing outside the game/hobby setting means putting oneself into the role of another person and acting out a situation the way you think that imagined person might do so. In this way, role-playing has much in common with unscripted acting. Many players approach the game from such a perspective. The "character" is fleshed out in their mind to have a distinct personality, beliefs, goals, weaknesses and strengths separate from the player. It makes sense to call play in this manner taking on a role or role-playing.
Many game systems in the hobby can be played while not engaging in such character acting or role-playing. The player may treat the "character" as nothing more than a group of numbers on paper that gives them a "playing piece" or pawn in the game. In such a game little thought is given to the character as a person with a life and personality. The character exists only to do the player's bidding in the game setting (which is really true regardless of how the game is played). Some in the hobby may refer to this style of play as roll-playing referring to the fact that rolling the dice may play a larger role in the game than acting "in-character".
Since the white box, rules have been written for our hobby with many different things in mind. Some seem to favor skill at game play, some favor a more random play where the luck of the dice outweighs any tactical decisions on the part of players. Skill at character design seems forefront in some systems in others characters are rolled for randomly. Yet other systems are specifically designed to support role-play utilizing mechanics and rewards for role-playing the character. All allow for adventure and all allow for roleplay. It is often how play develops at the table that determines where the emphasis in a particular game is placed, though admittedly some systems lend themselves more readily to certain styles of play. Regardless of the rules used, play probably proceeds best when everyone at the table wants the same type of game experience. Helping set expectations might be the real worth of a label such as "role-play" or "adventure game".

Five Ancient Kingdoms

Arabian Nights Milieu
As I sit here enjoying the single digit temperature and snow of a midwest winter I can escape to a hot desert adventure courtesy of Jonathan Becker's Five Ancient Kingdoms (5AK). The game is presented in three digest sized books titled "Men & Mettle", "Magic & Monsters" and "Dragon Master Secrets". Subtitled "Rules for Fantastic Adventures Of Imagination, Danger, and Romance", 5AK is a rules lite fantasy "adventure game" (Mr. Becker avoids the use of the term role-playing) in the spirit of the white box, but definitely not a simulacrum.
5AK offers the player a choice of four hero types which are very similar to white box Hero/fighting man, Magician/magic user and Saint (Shaman)/cleric and with the addition of the Supplement I Thief/thief. The Hero class allows for "fighting style" to be based on the Brute/strength or the Agile/dexterity. The Magician casts spells from a list that feels quite Arabian Nights-y and must make a roll of the dice to do so correctly. The Saint spells are termed "miracles" and also have a distinctly exotic feel about them. Saints may cast a number of miracles per game session rather than per day as in white box. Thieves choose a number of skills to be good at and can increase their bonuses as they level up. Somehow the Thief seems more at home as a player class in this middle eastern - style milieu than thieves do in white box.
All the character classes have unique abilities and feel distinct. Each also has one or more subclasses if the referee/player desires more variety. Leveling is done by experience and classes differ in experience needed in order to level up. Dice in 5AK are exclusively six siders with ones counting as zero allowing for "zeroing out", the automatic failure in 5AK. Generally one rolls two such d6's in 5AK to determine success whether in combat, spell casting or using a skill. A player may elect to "push" certain dice rolls by rolling an extra die and dropping the lowest, but at the risk of greater failure if the roll does not succeed.
The setting is called Barica and seems familiar when compared to our own ancient middle east, but of course with a fantastic, legendary flair. The names are familiar in the way author R.E. Howard used familiar sounding names that were yet different for his imaginary kingdoms and cities. The list of monsters include several from middle eastern mythology such as jinn, as well as more generic monsters (giants, undead and so forth). Monsters have a number of Hit Dice (HD) that work much like they do in white box. In fact 5AK feels familiar even though it's new and unique...just like the names!
5AK takes the idea of a white box adventure game and re-imagines it through a different milieu and different mechanics. There are many parallels, but little direct borrowing. I really like the idea of a mythic Arabian Nights setting and there is no reason why white box could not be modified to accommodate just such a milieu, the ability to do so being one of white box's strengths. Of course I could always just use 5AK with it's fresh approach to game mechanics. 
  

Big Companies, Big Ideas

Amateur Hobby Thoughts
We currently live in an era of big corporations. I realize that when an industry starts out it usually has a number of small start-ups that pioneer the product and that as it matures, it usually results in just a few big companies who often bought out the others. The cola and automotive industries are good examples. At times I think our hobby is another such instance, though on a much smaller scale. The early days saw all the product being produced by small amateurish companies, some became bigger companies and their product reflected that with more professional art and layout, but not always better content. When it was shown that money was to be made, some of the established larger companies on the peripheral released product of their own, often of dubious quality. Buy-outs resulted in fewer companies and the extinction of many product lines.
Generally speaking I have found the small-press, amateurish hobby products to be among my favorites. I find they have an honest enthusiasm, freshness and originality often lacking in the offerings of the established companies. In an industry based on creativity and imaginative design, the upstart often has those qualities to a greater degree than the well established. What small shops lack, polish and scale, I find less appealing than the new ideas presented in their often amateurish products. The exception is good editing. I really appreciate good editing and nothing turns me sour on a product faster than poor editing.
Fortunately the internet has somewhat reversed this trend toward bigger companies in our hobby. The availability of desktop publishing software to aid the designer and downloads and print-on-demand services has opened the field to allow the amateur game designer access to the market in a way not previously available. The so-called indie-press games and more amateur internet-only products are often able to compete favorably with the big companies in terms of quality content, originality and innovation. What they lack in terms of production polish is more than made up for in entertainment value.
Pen and Paper roleplaying games offer the designer an opportunity to put their original ideas forth through writing alone.  Illustrations and maps help to convey the message, but there is no need for a complicated product requiring advanced manufacturing and the associated costs. The ideas are the product and the consumer need only read and put into practice at the gaming table for the transaction to take place. From designer's head to tabletop fun just requires a document. What could be easier? Blogs and websites devoted to the hobby can help get the word out regarding quality products, all for free.
The beginnings of the hobby are quite humble, three amateurish little brown books perhaps marketed from the trunk of a car started it all. The magic of those early days continues to drive the gamer with an idea who uses the internet to put that idea out for public consumption. Not all are gems, but many are good and continue to shape the future of the hobby. A number of innovations appearing in the latest edition of the game are perhaps borrowed from ideas that first appeared in more amateurish publications. A good idea is just that, regardless of where it originates.

Fantastic & Supernatural

Heroic Imaginings
Thinking about Appendix N, the antecedents of White Box and influences on the hobby in general and what it all means. We commonly refer to our games as "high fantasy", "low fantasy", "sword & sorcery" or simply "fantasy". The term fantasy implies escapist fiction and I suppose that is true when applied to the hobby. High fantasy generally refers to world shaping events, Tolkien races and lots of magic. Low fantasy usually applies to less magic and a more realistic, often gritty game. Sword & sorcery is associated with a humanistic, pulpy adventure where magic is perilous and often wielded only by the bad guys. All have an element of the fantastic and the supernatural.
Fantasy games by their nature usually deal with fantastic creatures, settings and/or happenings. The imagination thrives on such fodder and many a referee has enjoyed hours upon hours simply creating such fantastics even before play begins. To be surprised by the creations of another is a major appeal of fantastic literature and games. There seems to be something deep in the human psyche that craves to be entertained by such tales as they represent some of the oldest recorded.
The supernatural holds a slightly different fascination for us. It is often what lies beyond the horizon of sanity and being the curious animal we are, we are drawn to investigate and our imagination fills in the blanks. The unknown, the spooky, and the forbidden call to us in irresistible ways. Again some of our oldest literature contains such elements.
Born of literature, story-yelling and impromptu theater (and a dash of psychology I would add), role-playing borrows heavily from its antecedents and adds to the experience by allowing the participant to live out the adventure by proxy through a PC. The player decisions and actions, through the PC, builds and forms the story which unfolds during play. Through no other medium are we able to experience the same degree of involvement with the fantastic and supernatural, even if it is all taking place within our imagination.
The Tolkien races together with the cleric and magic user classes give white box a default high fantasy feel. The flexibility of white box however allows a referee the easy freedom to change this default setting and create any of a number of alternative "feels". The popularity of high fantasy makes the default a good choice. Over the years/decades I have repeatedly attempted to interest players in more low fantasy and sword & sorcery settings with little success. High fantasy and to some extent, science fantasy (combining high fantasy with science fiction elements) have met with more enthusiastic reception.
The hobby is currently in a state where game systems abound and rules for almost any kind of roleplaying game can be found either in print or online. Regardless of how one prefers to have their tabletop heroics, a system is probably available to support that vision. The would-be referee need only spend some cash and time reading in order to offer his/her players the kind of game they desire. And for those referees who still prefer to design it themselves, many systems are easily modified to support almost anything imaginable by way of gaming. Fantastic, you bet!

Chaos Magic

Alignment & Magic
The White Box groups PCs, NPCs and monsters according to three alignments, Law, Chaos and Neutrality. I personally find this a useful gaming mechanism for determining friends and foes, if for no other purpose. Alignment is often used as a primitive form of guardrails for roleplaying the PC. Playing one's alignment can help define the character and differentiate the behavior of a PC group from that of the monsters. When examining the literary roots of the alignment system, it suddenly becomes much more, however.
Authors Michael Moorcock and Poul Anderson have written fantasy novels which explore the dichotomy of law verses chaos. Law is stability, predictability, stasis, and chaos is instability, unpredictability, change. Law can be rigid and stifling at its worst and chaos can add variety and progressive change at its best. Law can be thought of as scientific, chaos is more magical. Our own real world seems more scientific today, although it retains a bit of magic, I would argue.
In white box there is no real discussion of magic in terms of alignment. Some game material including many simulacrums, discuss magic as being more a force of chaos, at least as it is practiced by magic users.  Divine magic may take on the alignment of the deity from which it originates, or reveal its alignment through the use it is put to. White box classifies certain spells as evil, which can be similar to chaos in some milieux.
While I am not sold on the idea that all magic users are inherently chaotic in alignment, I do like the idea that magic is generally a chaotic influence. Changing things through manipulation of energies, making things happen that "normally" would not, just seems to contain a bit of chaos. I am not willing to argue that laws cannot be applied to magic and the way magic works out-of-the-box (White Box) is pretty predictable, reliable and consistent. If the referee introduces rules for spell failure (which are in Chainmail, btw), and especially a mishap table, then the nature of magic seems to change dramatically toward chaos.
Thinking of magic from the point of view of many sword and sorcery (S&S) stories, magic is often portrayed as dangerous, potentially damaging to the practitioner, and not being something mankind was meant to mess with. Returning to White Box, chaos is the alignment of monsters and bad guys, and the quasi evil chaos of S&S seems to fit this interpretation of magic.  The white box has always incorporated elements from many sources, including sword & sorcery literature therefore I think this interpretation can be a valid one for the game.
On a more abstract level the game itself may represent both a bit of real life magic and chaos...strictly in a good way of course! The fantastic is always a bit magical and invariably contains a bit of chaos as well. A really exciting game can leave the players with a feeling of having experienced both. Ultimately how much chaos is in your magic is a referee decision. Regardless of the chaos or lack thereof, I'm guessing  we all look for a bit of magic in our gaming!