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Author Topic: Adventures Dark and Deep  (Read 9938 times)

RPGPundit

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Adventures Dark and Deep
« on: August 29, 2013, 05:51:12 PM »
RPGPundit Reviews: Adventures Dark and Deep
(Players Manual and Game Masters Toolkit)

This is a review of the Adventures Dark and Deep (which we'll abbreviate ADD rather than "AD&D", having seen what the author did there), written by Joseph bloch, published by BRW Games.  This game comes in two books (Players Manual and GM toolkit), which we'll be looking at together in this review, since I think it makes sense, and because my review queue is stupidly long, the price of reviewer superstardom).

So: what to say about ADD? Imagine you had collected for an OSR game a rule-set of AD&D that included everything Gary Gygax ever wrote about the game, all the crazy stuff he put in Unearthed Arcana, stuff he put in Dragon, stuff he shared in private thoughts, stuff elaborated from vague ideas about how to remake the AD&D game, just packing as much stuff as Gary Gygax possibly could.
Now imagine its not Gary Gygax at all, and just some guy named Joseph Bloch.  

That's pretty much what Adventures Dark and Deep is. Or rather, what it would be if you looked at it from the point of view of what the author wants to make his big selling point, rather than what the real selling point of this game is.

Usually, when I write about OSR games I write about two kinds: "Clone" games that try to be a direct unwavering imitation of a particular edition of D&D (which I find useless), and new OSR games that take old-school principles and mechanics and make something that isn't like any old-school game (which I find awesome).  But in fact, there's a very small third class of OSR game: the Quasi-clone (which you could also call the Alternate Universe Clone).  These are those games that ask things like "what could OD&D have maybe been like a year before it was published"? "What if Arneson and not Gygax had written D&D"? "What if D&D had been written by ancient greeks"? "What if Gary Gygax had been some kind of lizard man and D&D had been published in esperanto"?

These "alternate universe clones" are always tremendously annoying, because they're banking on something that didn't actually happen, and almost invariably trying to put on airs that they somehow engaged in some kind of serious scholarship.   There's an implication that somehow the guy writing this is some master historian who's gone out and done some serious investigation and discovered some amazing truth and isn't just pulling an idea out of his ass and then trying to attribute it to Gary Gygax for name-recognition purposes. This usually involves some kind of process whereby they've obtained an old Lake Geneva Laundry slip where someone, possibly Arneson, had scrawled in faded pencil marks "2d4" and from there brilliantly deduct that Arneson had been planning to make a D&D game based on 2d4 rolls instead of d20 rolls, and then somehow write a 250 page OSR book claiming to be "what Arneson would have done".  And along the way implying what a golden age it would have been for gaming had that laundry slip not spent the last 30 years stuck at the bottom of one of the Gygax kids' long-forgotten boxes of National Geographics and Playboy magazines.

Because there's also very often the whiff of "this would have been better", of implying that somehow the D&D that might have been thought up had Arneson had his own company, or had Gygax been mainly inspired by Asimov and not Vance, or had M.A.R. Barker gained superpowers in an atomic accident, or had Gary Gygax run with some idea that Holmes had once claimed in an internet forum he remembered Gygax told him about while snorting coke together 30 years earlier, would have been a far far better thing than the D&Ds that actually did exist.  There's always a tone of being out to damn something.

In Bloch's case, at least, he's out to damn something that a lot of gamers (especially old-school gamers) feel was quite damnable: 2nd Edition AD&D. His big "what if" is "what if Gary Gygax had retained control of TSR and written a 2nd edition of his own"?  Bloch then proceeds to give us a 250 page softcover player's manual, and a 170-page softcover GM's Toolkit, that alleges to be a "possible" version of what that Gygax 2e would have looked like.

Only its not. It can't be. Because it never happened.
It doesn't matter if the author has looked at stuff Gygax wrote speculatively, either at the time (just before getting ousted) or decades and decades later when he was an old man with all the benefit of hindsight and plenty of time to revise his own personal biography.  Because Gygax never wrote 2e. Adventures Dark & Deep is not 2e AD&D written by Gary Gygax. Its a mental exercise by Joseph Bloch that uses "what Joseph Bloch imagines Gary Gygax would have done" as its framework. I wouldn't trust that model if it was one of Gygax's own sons, or a lover, or a protege, trying to write the game; and as far as I know Bloch is just a dude, who I have no idea if he even ever MET Gary Gygax (he doesn't say he did or claim any special relationship to Gygax whatsoever, in the books).  And its not that Bloch is being dishonest about that; he's explicit in stating that these ideas are his own and not that he has some special source of Gygax-penned info about it, its just that I find the whole premise of the Alternate-History-Clone somehow dishonest.  Because really, at the end of the day, Bloch could have just said "here's an old-school game I wrote and its pretty neat", and the end product would have been just the same. So the whole "this is a peak at an alternate history" thing is just a marketing tool.

I'm not even saying Bloch's attempt at pseudo-historicism is wrong; ADD reads like something Gygax MIGHT have done; certainly, the basic premise of "Take AD&D, clean up one or two things, and make it even more complex by adding even more stuff and details to it" follows Gygax's general modus operandi. Again, though, we'll never know; and remember that Gygax's next big game after AD&D was "Cyborg Commando", so its entirely possible that we're way, way better off not knowing.

So that whole rant aside; from here on I'm going to refuse to play along with the whole "alternate history experiment" notion, and just examine ADD as a game, on its own merits or lack thereof.

What we get from ADD is a VERY complete Old-school RPG; I'd dare to say that it is truly more complete a game than AD&D 1e itself.  Out of all the various old-school editions, it is most similar to AD&D 1e, since it uses it as its starting point; I'd go as far as to say that more specifically, you'd particularly like this game if you're a big fan of playing AD&D with Unearthed Arcana and with all kinds of weird ideas culled from old Dragon magazines. What you get in it, in fact, is a very odd variant of 1e with some unusual modifications, enough that it would certainly feel like quite a different game (while still being very recognizeably old-school).

The player's book starts with character creation; you get the standard attributes (no comeliness, thankfully!), and then a listing of the various races: Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-orc and Human.  Some of the races (Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes) include several sub-races (ie. Gray Dwarves, High Elves, Forest Gnomes, etc.) which each have their own particular abilities, level limits and characteristics.

There's a rather long list of classes as well: Bards, Jesters (yes, jesters!), Cavaliers, Paladins, Clerics, Druids, Mystics, Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers, Mages, Illusionists, Savants, Thieves, Acrobats and Mountebanks. All races except humans have certain limitations of which classes they can take, and level limits.

There are also some "advanced" classes, which certain classes are eligible to take after reaching sufficient level: Druids can become "Vates" for example, and Acrobat is an advanced class Thieves can take.

In place of non-weapon proficiencies, there is a "secondary skill" system: characters can gain these skills by the expenditure of xp to gain a skill (fairly clever method!) rather than using the Xp for the standard level-gaining progress. These "secondary skills" are quite different from either the 3e-style skills or the old AD&D secondary skill lists, they are more like special talents. There are choices like Alchemy, armor-making, or charioteer, but also things like bullying (to intimidate people), courtly graces, or espionage.

In addition to the standard character-creation details like alignment, there's also extensive rules and tables for social class, expenses, literacy, family background and family creation.

On the other hand, Weapon Proficiencies in the 1e/2e style are retained.

There are extensive equipment lists in the style of the 1e PHB, but again, with far more detail.  There are things like lists of poisons and retainers.

Combat is likewise AD&D with heaps of additional stuff on top.  AC is descending; there's no THAC0, instead you have large tables with "attack columns" and a large table to determine "chance of hitting a friend while firing into melee".
I'll note that while very detailed, a lot of these rules are very modular, and could easily be ignored, allowing a potential GM to keep or ignore what he likes.  I'll also note that the material in the game is very concise and packed; the entire combat system, which contains a great deal of material, is only about 12 pages long.  You get equally detailed rules on spells and spellcasting; nothing is too out of the ordinary, everything is very close to standard AD&D; its just that the specifics of how to do things (everything from detecting the presence of invisible people, to potion miscibility, to making holy water) is elaborately defined.

There's certainly no lack of spells. Spell descriptions take up 126 pages out of the 250 in the Player's book.

The players book ends with an appendix presenting the Assassin as an optional class, and a second appendix with the weapon adjustment vs. armor type table (also presented as an optional rule).  A third "appendix" is just a reproduction of some of the most important tables (weapons, combat to-hit tables, saving throws, etc).

We move on to the Game Master's Toolkit.  It begins with a considerable section, with many very good random tables, for generating NPC characters, as well as guides for hiring NPC spellcasters.

There are rules for dungeon and wilderness environments, hazards of all kinds, all very extensive.  I don't think I've seen rules explaining how to handle quicksands or volcanos in a main rulebook before, to give just two examples. Rules for various hazardous conditions exist, things like insanity (again, with its own tables). There are rules governing jousts and tourneys, as well as hunts.  There's reaction rules for social interaction.

Next there are treasure tables, which include tables for a vast variety of sundry and common non-magical treasures, a very welcome and useful addition.  You also have rules and guidelines for sales of items.
You get rules for construction of buildings and for ships; including a very beautiful illustration of different types of ships.  I have to admit, in spite of all my earlier criticism, the more I read this the material here, the more I found it to be very worthwhile.

The goodness only follows with guidelines for campaign creation; for setting up different styles of worlds (classic ancient worlds, or subterranean worlds as two examples) and excellent rules on handling the gods old-school style, with a complete list of stats for the entire Norse pantheon as an example. After that a considerable number of pages are dedicated to planar adventures, and then to adventure design in general; and again you get lots of tables of all kinds (including things like "random distance to treasures on a treasure map"!), and spectacular urban tables for determining random shops, taverns, and buildings.  Damn, I'm a sucker for great random tables; a trait I think I share with a lot of other old-school gamers.

Just as the Player's book is dominated by spell descriptions, the GM book is dominated by 70 pages (out of 170) of magic item descriptions; including artifacts, and rules on selling items.

At the end of the book you get an large appendix of even more awesome random tables, including "What are those soldiers doing here?", "what colour is it?", "what do I find in the wilderness?", "what do I hear?", "what does it feel like/taste like/smell like", "what does the acrobat/barbarian/cavalier/cleric/bard/commoner/druid/dwarf/elf/fighter/gnome/halfling/human/humanoid/illusionist/jester/mage/mountebank/mystic/noble/paladin/ranger/savant/thief have?" (yes, one possession table for each of the above!), "what happened in the tavern last night?", "what happened to my henchman?", "what has my familiar been up to?" (seriously!), "what's it a painting/sculpture of?", "what's the city watch doing here?", "what's the villain's motivation?", "what kind of building is it?", "what kind of government do they have?", "what kind of room is it?", "what (common) language is it?", plus an "all languages table".
But that's not all! There's a "what sort of alcohol is it", what sort of book, door, merchant, pet, prostitute, chest, coffin, dungeon corridor, trash heap, wardrobe, evil altar, good altar, tapestry; tables for "what's that (insert every class and some NPC types) doing here?", "what's that wall made of", "whats that weird rain made of?", "who's in the common room of the inn?", "why are those humanoids raiding the village?", and "why does that undead not rest easy?".  I'm blown away.



So in the end, what can we conclude about Adventures Dark and Deep?
First, I refuse to buy its premise, not even a little bit.  But if we forget about that for a moment, what we end up with is a very good RPG designed by Joseph Bloch; an unusual variant of AD&D 1e, for those who want a game with a LOT of built-in material for handling different particularities of play, but all still adaptable and modular in the great old-school style.  Again, if you like the AD&D 1e rules, I can't see you not liking this game.  If you liked or especially if you always WANTED to like Unearthed Arcana (but couldn't because it wasn't good for the game), this rulebook seems to integrate a lot of what UA did in such a way as to make for a coherent and balanced game (in the old-school sense).

Even if you don't want to run ADD, you can still make use of the really excellent material in both books but especially in the Game Master's Toolkit! The latter was deeply impressive.

In a way, what's most perplexing to me is that ADD didn't need the whole song-and-dance number about being the One True 2e found from the Lost Tomb of Gygax. Stood on its own merits, its a worthy addition to the OSR field.

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The Ent

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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2013, 06:46:33 AM »
Great review.

Made me seriously interested in the game (I've read the PDFs before, didn't quite 100% gel, but like other OSR games I first got on PDF and then bought printed I'm sure it's better in book form.).

I mean 2e is "my" edition and this basically does sound like an alternative 2e.

I respect your views on "pseudo-clones" allthough I've liked what I've seen of that genre myself (like say Spellcraft & Swordplay, wich is a very interesting game).

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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2013, 01:44:55 PM »
I wouldn't call this an "alternative 2e", so much as "an alternative to 2e".

Its much more firmly entrenched in both 1e aesthetics and 1e mechanics, but cleaned up and vastly expanded.

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Roger the GS

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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2013, 06:18:14 AM »
In the end the "alternate history" angle is just window dressing - he could have just as easily said "this clones 1e D&D with Unearthed Arcana", right?
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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2013, 02:53:51 PM »
Quote from: Roger the GS;687250
In the end the "alternate history" angle is just window dressing - he could have just as easily said "this clones 1e D&D with Unearthed Arcana", right?


He could have said "this is a houseruled 1e with unearthed arcana and obscure stuff from dragon magazines, cleaned up and presented very well".  Its not just a clone.

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grodog

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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2013, 12:47:11 PM »
Pundit:  in terms of the modularity of the rules, is there much in the way of cross-referencing the implications of adopting the modular rules?---advice along the lines of "if you use this new ADD variant class/rule/monster/whatever in your otherwise standard AD&D game, you'll want to think about X" or "if you use this new X ADD variant rule then if you also decide to use Y or Z new variant rules, consider that their interaction does..."?
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Adventures Dark and Deep
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2013, 02:17:08 PM »
Quote from: grodog;694870
Pundit:  in terms of the modularity of the rules, is there much in the way of cross-referencing the implications of adopting the modular rules?---advice along the lines of "if you use this new ADD variant class/rule/monster/whatever in your otherwise standard AD&D game, you'll want to think about X" or "if you use this new X ADD variant rule then if you also decide to use Y or Z new variant rules, consider that their interaction does..."?


No, I don't think it did that at all. It was pretty much written like an old D&D manual would be written, with no thought to any of that sort of thing.
LION & DRAGON: Medieval-Authentic OSR Roleplaying is available now! You only THINK you've played 'medieval fantasy' until you play L&D.


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The most famous uruguayan gaming blog on the planet!

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Dark Albion: The Rose War! The OSR fantasy setting of the history that inspired Shakespeare and Martin alike.
Also available in Variant Cover form!
Also, now with the CULTS OF CHAOS cult-generation sourcebook

ARROWS OF INDRA
Arrows of Indra: The Old-School Epic Indian RPG!
NOW AVAILABLE: AoI in print form

LORDS OF OLYMPUS
The new Diceless RPG of multiversal power, adventure and intrigue, now available.