According to Vol. I Men & Magic, "Clerics gain some of the advantages from both of the other two classes (Fighting-Men and Magic-Users) in that they have the use of magic armor and all non-edged magic weapons (no arrows!), plus they have numbers of their own spells. In addition, they are able to use more of the magical items than are the Fighting-Men." Being something of a hybrid between spell caster and combatant, the Cleric fills the need of some players to "have it all". Other FRPGs address the same desire with a similar PC class able to cast some spells and still acquit themselves fairly well in combat. The Tunnels & Trolls Rogue class comes to mind as just such a character.
Clerics as a class say something very profound about the implied milieu of The World's Most Popular RPG. Clerics gain their magic power through a deity or deities. Clerics are religious characters inspired by the concept of the crusading military orders of history, the Templars, Hospitlers, etc. The prohibition of shedding blood in White Box seems to directly speak to this connection. In addition to casting divine magic, Clerics are pretty decent fighters and have unique powers over the undead. According to gamer legend, one of the designers of White box was a fan of the Hammer Horror films of his day and certain scenes of clerics boldly presenting the holy cross and "turning away" undead creatures may have inspired the mechanic in White Box.
Regardless of the origin, the power to "turn", or destroy undead creatures is a defining ability of the class of Clerics and virtually assures that the undead will play a significant part in any milieu created using bog standard White Box rules. Clerics must be aligned with Law or Chaos and those aligned with Chaos are termed Evil High Priests, thus connecting Chaos with "evil", at least when it comes to Clerics. It is strongly hinted that PC Clerics are Lawfully aligned. Clerics early on (2nd level) gain the ability to magically heal wounds and eventually gain the ability to resurrect the dead, both abilities greatly impact the implied milieu of the game. White Box is a game of miracles as much as a game of magic and swordplay because of the power of Clerics.
Contrast this with another early FRPG, Tunnels & Trolls (T&T). T&T has Warriors and Wizards as two of its three character classes. Warriors are expert at making use of armor and weapons in combat. Wizards are experts at casting magic spells. There is little overlap between the two classes and they represent distinct arch-types found in many of the source stories for the fantasy genre of literature. Like White Box, the designer of T&T, Ken St. Andre, decided a character class able to use some magic spells, but also better able to use weapons in combat was desirable. Mr. St. Andre therefore included the Rogue class in early editions of his game. The Rogue is an untutored user of magic, an amateur, who can never equal a Wizard in the use of magic, but has a few spells at their disposal. Untrained natural ability is the source of the Rogue's magic skill. T&T has a default setting, that of its designer called Trollworld in which there are numerous gods, but no divine magic/miracles as such. There are no religious character classes such as Clerics or Priests, Shamans or Druids. The milieu of T&T is therefore quite different from that of White Box.
Clerics have been a part of the White Box from it's beginning and have persevered through the edition changes as one of the principle character classes of the game. Through it all, Clerics have helped define what the game is all about, who the principle players are, what abilities will be key to shaping play including the healing of wounds and disease, resurrecting the dead and turning away or destroying the undead. Many adventuring parties are formed around the leadership of the Cleric, whose Wisdom and access to religious and historic tomes may aid or inspire the undertaking of a great quest. Leaders in the forces of Law and goodness, Clerics naturally seek out the forces of evil and attempt to destroy them. Likewise, Clerics of evil disposition are always plotting some terrible deed and make perfect bad-guys. The result is a very heavy influence on the milieu, one that really only changes if the referee intentionally redefines the Player Character cast by removing Clerics and replacing them with another class.
The above "Cleric" illustration is not from White Box, but rather the later Red Box (still, I bet many recognize it) . Depicted is a cleric named Aleena (you can tell she's a Cleric by her mace!) who helps introduce the reader into role-playing and joins you on your first quest. She is a friendly cleric, seemingly full of goodness (she casts healing on you!). Bargle is the bad guy Magic User in the story shown here about to cast "acid arrow" on our new friend Aleena. Red Box is a great introduction to the hobby written by Frank Mentzer and illustrated by Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley. I ran many a game in the '80s with Red Box sitting on the table as a reference. Honestly, the games were a mix of White Box, the Advanced materials and Red Box, plus a few other ideas I borrowed here and there. It all seemed to smash together pretty well.
No comments:
Post a Comment