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I love this, haha.

I am currently taking a Mythology class at my high school and this is incredibly funny as we just finished studying Marduk and all of that.

Oh man, this book is awesome. I have always loved the simple yet evocative line drawings from this book, which was probably the best-illustrated of its day. Even now, some of those old B&W illustrations do more to call forh imagination in me than some of the full-color, computer-rendered, flashy art they have in RPG books today... Color and shading can cover up so much...

Damn, there I go being a Grognard again....

Congrats on the find, I have many fine memories of this book, but have only been able to score a copy of "Legends and Lore", it's diminished descendant.

Wonderful stuff. My brother and I spent hours debating the way they shoehorned 'historical' gods into AD&D - the whole AD&D alignment thing was wonderfully screwy. We created our own mythos by plundering all the best bits from this book. The numerous instances of breast-baring in the artwork didn't really register then, but now it's suprising to see how sexy it all was. And I didn't get the bit about Aphrodite's clerics until now either

The other great example of AD&D writing from around this time was Ed Greenwood's guide to the Hells. It was a quite amazing piece of work, which described and populated all 9 planes.

And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Which is why I play Pathfinder. If you liked D&D 3.5, you'll like Pathfinder.

Saldiven wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

Which is why I play Pathfinder. If you liked D&D 3.5, you'll like Pathfinder.

Yup, I do play Pathfinder!

Kid is the master of building up the anticipation!

I want Elric stuff!!!

I never noticed until now that while the Greek gods are mostly human-sized, Apollo is 20' tall.

A nod to the old Star Trek episode?

Considering the time frame involved, I'd say that's a good guess!

I still maintain to this day that Erol Otus was the best illustrator for TSR. Great style and his inking technique was awesome.

I do have one thing to add to this thread besides my unasked for opinions about TSR illustrators.

My dad got me a copy of this book when it was first published and it lacked the yellow banner across the top left of the cover.

When it was later reprinted, it was supposed to lack the cthulhu and melnibonean deities but were still included in that print run with the new yellow banner.

All other printings lacked the cthulhu and melnibonean mythos.

Ragnar already gave great links to this back story which explains it far better than I could, I just wanted to point out that those $400+ copies of Deities and demigods are for the original copies without the yellow banner. In fact, they go for far more than that due to the obscene rarity of them (150 ever made? or some extraordinarily low number like that according to an old dragon magazine I once owned). The bannerless deities and demigods are to RPG collectors as to what Action Comics #1 is to Comicbook collectors.

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

You can't be chaotic good? Did they just totally rework the alignment system?

Thor665 wrote:

Gwar! wrote:And of course, in today's "4th Ed" D&D, it's the Nine Hecks, there are no bewbies to be seen and you can't even be a Monk or Chaotic Good :(

You can't be chaotic good? Did they just totally rework the alignment system?

If by "Rework" you mean "Completely and utterly rape to oblivion". They changed it so now there are only 5 Alignments "Good" "Evil" "Lawful Good" "Chaotic Evil" and "Unaligned". Yup, you can't even be a True Neutral Druid. Oh wait, you can't be any form of Druid, because they didn't include them as a base class either!

That's just strange. You're either evil or chaotic evil but it's impossible to be lawful evil? I'm guessing they also reworked the entire concept of how they defined lawful and chaotic.

Chalk it up as another reason I haven't tried 4th edition I suppose (then again it took me something like a decade to come around to 3rd so for all I know in another ten or so years I'll be grumbling about 5th and talking about how sweet 4th is)

Thor665 wrote:That's just strange. You're either evil or chaotic evil but it's impossible to be lawful evil? I'm guessing they also reworked the entire concept of how they defined lawful and chaotic.

Chalk it up as another reason I haven't tried 4th edition I suppose (then again it took me something like a decade to come around to 3rd so for all I know in another ten or so years I'll be grumbling about 5th and talking about how sweet 4th is)

This is why you must return...

Return to the Glory that is 2nd Edition!

Come back to us.

Come back......

Thor665 wrote:Of course this was when leveling up was actually difficult with none of the 3rd edition's XP scaling for encounters that basically means every ten sessions or so you level regardless of your level (and I bet 4.0 is about the same though actually I have no idea).

This is why I don't like the later versions of D&D. I prefer the old school method where gaining a level MEANS something. I only run 2nd Edition, though truthfully, I'd run 1st. I have a nice collection of 1st and 2nd edition books - the two sets are surprisingly compatible - and anything later than 2nd I picked up only in order to play in other campaigns.

The Aphrodite joke above - classic!!! I never caught that, either.

If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

Gitzbitah wrote:If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

I might have to take a look at that...

Hellfury wrote:I still maintain to this day that Erol Otus was the best illustrator for TSR. Great style and his inking technique was awesome.

I do have one thing to add to this thread besides my unasked for opinions about TSR illustrators.

My dad got me a copy of this book when it was first published and it lacked the yellow banner across the top left of the cover.

When it was later reprinted, it was supposed to lack the cthulhu and melnibonean deities but were still included in that print run with the new yellow banner.

All other printings lacked the cthulhu and melnibonean mythos.

Ragnar already gave great links to this back story which explains it far better than I could, I just wanted to point out that those $400+ copies of Deities and demigods are for the original copies without the yellow banner. In fact, they go for far more than that due to the obscene rarity of them (150 ever made? or some extraordinarily low number like that according to an old dragon magazine I once owned). The bannerless deities and demigods are to RPG collectors as to what Action Comics #1 is to Comicbook collectors.

That depresses me. I have a copy without the banner. I did not play D&D as a kid, but liked the art. I cut the pictures out and put them on my walls. Foolish child

Solorg wrote:This is why I don't like the later versions of D&D. I prefer the old school method where gaining a level MEANS something. I only run 2nd Edition, though truthfully, I'd run 1st. I have a nice collection of 1st and 2nd edition books - the two sets are surprisingly compatible - and anything later than 2nd I picked up only in order to play in other campaigns.

I agree, for me 2nd edition was the last true D&D era, everything since is a different game that also happens to be called D&D.

I will say 3rd edition was pretty sweet if for no other reason then they figured out a way to make level draining/aging undead dangerous but not the most horrifying things ever. I can recall once where I, as a 10th level character who was literally only about 200 xp from 11th level, literally turned and ran away when a couple of wraiths showed up.

The other party members were not amused.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:

Gitzbitah wrote:If you're looking for old school gaming in an affordable $16 digital download, look no further than http://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/. They haven't moved to advanced yet, so there isn't a druid but they do have rogues, rangers, fighters, thieves, mages and clerics. It is a refinement of the 4th edition hackmaster system which was itself a combination of the best of 1st and 2nd edition. I highly recommend it.

I might have to take a look at that...

You really should. If nothing else you should read Knights of the Dinner Table. Hackmaster is a slight homage/pastiche of early RPGs and all that was great and bewildering about them. Besides, any game system with Sidewinder and Bouncing Betty Fireballs = win.

As my previous post indicated, I’ve spent a pretty fair amount of time checking out old-school D&D sites recently. I now know more than is in any real sense necessary about every edition of D&D (OD&D, Holmes & Moldvay edition Basic sets, Cook Expert, AD&D 1E, Mentzer-edited D&D, AD&D 2E, Realms Companion D&D, “2.5” Player’s option, 3.0, 3.5, and 4th editions), and about the plethora of retro-clones that have sprung up in the wake of Wizards’ current license (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, etc.).

Every version of D&D (and I know of quite a lot, and have tried most of them) has its own charms. Right now I’m running and playing mostly in 4th edition, but I’ve also recently played 1st ed, OD&D, and Labyrinth Lord. If anyone’s considering dipping a toe back in, I’m happy to field questions and help with recommendations.

PS: Yes, I agree that the alignment business is one of the lamest things in 4th ed. That said, it’s incredibly easy to fix.

Mannahnin wrote:As my previous post indicated, I’ve spent a pretty fair amount of time checking out old-school D&D sites recently. I now know more than is in any real sense necessary about every edition of D&D (OD&D, Holmes & Moldvay edition Basic sets, Cook Expert, AD&D 1E, Mentzer-edited D&D, AD&D 2E, Realms Companion D&D, “2.5” Player’s option, 3.0, 3.5, and 4th editions), and about the plethora of retro-clones that have sprung up in the wake of Wizards’ current license (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, etc.).

Every version of D&D (and I know of quite a lot, and have tried most of them) has its own charms. Right now I’m running and playing mostly in 4th edition, but I’ve also recently played 1st ed, OD&D, and Labyrinth Lord. If anyone’s considering dipping a toe back in, I’m happy to field questions and help with recommendations.

PS: Yes, I agree that the alignment business is one of the lamest things in 4th ed. That said, it’s incredibly easy to fix.

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

In all honesty, (since 4e is the new shiz, so 3.5 redux could technically be called Old Skool) try out Pathfinder, and use the AD&D books as reference material. That's what I do

Alpharius wrote:

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

My advice is to acquire the original books! Why play a pretender when the original books are still out there? I think the hardest part of playing the old system is finding players who are willing to join up. But since players (strictly speaking) don't have to have the materials in order to play (just have a character creation night) you might not have too much trouble recruiting some likewise nastalgic or simply AD&D Curious RPGers!

My group has been playing 2nd for years - and over time, the players have each acquired a 2nd Ed Player's Guide as well as several other items from the era. You CAN use later editions as reference material, but a lot of it isn't really compatible except as background, which admittedly, you can go a long way with.

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Depends on what exactly you liked best about AD&D, and what house rules you had. AD&D is a pretty neat system, and I LOVE the charm of Gygax’s prose, but the editing was absolutely terrible, and parts of the system (like unarmed combat, initiative, and psionics) are terribly broken and/or unclear.

For pure AD&D goodness, I recommend either digging up the original books (with the Gygax prose intact) or picking up OSRIC. OSRIC is actually designed primarily to be a non-copyright-violating clone of 1E, so that people have a reference document and can publish new modules and supplements that are fully compatible with the original. OSRIC itself, however, is functionally identical to 1E, except MUCH better edited and more clearly written and explained. 2nd edition is also extremely similar to 1E, except better explained and simplified a bit, and with a lot of optional house rules included in the books, though usually labeled as such, so you can do easy tweaking.

If you liked AD&D, but want something more comprehensive and consistent, with more stuff explained and spelled out, 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder are all excellent. They codify and clean up a lot of stuff that was really sketchy or unexplained in AD&D, and make monsters and characters all work on a more universal, consistent basis. They also include nice things like a functional magic item creation system. And low-level PCs are not quite as fragile. The weakness of the 3.x games tends to be that they break down and run very slowly at high level. Tons of contingent magical effects, and encounter design for the DM becomes extremely time consuming. But up to around 9th level they’re excellent.

Now we get into the second fictional pantheon (deliberately fictional that is), the Melnibonean Mythos!

If you've not read Michael Moorcock's Elric books go read them now. Or at least listen to the Hawkwind Album Chronicle of the Black Sword. It's OK, I'll wait. They're not very long. Go, go.

OK you're back. The chapter starts with Elric himself.



Ah, Elric the VIII, 428th Emperor of Melniboné. And cutting a fine figure there. Not the best Elric art I've seen but far from the worst. Stat-wise I'd give some more cleric levels but that's just me.

Moorcock originally created Elric as a parody of Conan. Rather than a big, strong, tan, barbarian who kills wizards Moorcock created a sickly, pale, decadent wizard who kills… well everything eventually. His 45hp may not look like much but that's because we haven't see the whole picture yet.



Ah Stormbringer. Probably the only sword ever to have a game named after it. Except for Excalibur of course. And the Claymore. So um, one of the few swords to have a game named after it.

This +5 sword is actually a chaotic evil demon that has chosen to appear in the form of a sword. As Stormbringer himself said after killing all the gods, destroying the world and stabbing Elric himself in the gut - "Farewell friend, I was a thousand times more evil than thou!" Considering that Elric was a demon-worshipping sorcerer from a city that considers torture both a performing and a visual art and went on to (as previously noted) kill all the gods and destroy the world that's pretty damn evil.

In game terms it drains either half your levels or all of them (50/50 shot, no save) and transfers them to Elric as extra hit points and strength. You just get to die and since Stormbringer ate your soul you can't be raised, resurrected or reincarnated (remember, in AD&D, death was at worst a minor inconvenience). But like all great weapons it has a fatal weakness. It can only drain 200 levels before become sated.

I once played a character named Eric of Melbourne who had a sword with a bound water elemental. I called it Drizzlebringer. True story.



Yyrkoon is the jock prince who pushed around Elric when he was a kid and tried to steal Elric's girlfriend and this one time gave Elric a weggie in front of the whole schoolyard. He even got his own rune sword Mournblade. But no one ever named a game after Mournblade. That's cause Yyrkoon sucks.

The rest of the chapter is filled out with some more of Moorcock's fever dreams. IIRC Moorcock did not create the 'chaos star' but he certainly popularized it.



He explained that chaos was the eight-pointed star showing that it encompassed all things but had no purpose or direction. While law was the arrow, one point, one direction, one focus.



Arioch is the god of chaos in the Elric books and pops up quite a bit. Till he gets 2' of cold Stormbringer steel in his gut!



As the King of Melnibone, Elric has pacts with several deities and pretty much just calls up a new one every time he gets in a jam. I like Darnizhaan, not only he is one of the 'dead gods' who ruled before the coming of law and chaos, he's also much too cool to be contained in the little box next to his stats.



Then there are some less-cool creations. Like Vampire Trees. All the power of a vampire and all the mobility of um, a tree.



I include Theleb K'aarna because, let's face it, anyone who can pull off that hat deserves to be remembered.



Whenever the old monster muse went missing Moorcock went to the reliable trick of mashing together two unrelated animals to create the something new. Such a shame that IPR issues prevent the mighty Vulture Lion from joining the dreaded Owlbear and frightful Tigerpigeon among the ranks of the classic D&D monsters.


D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D&D

So with the Ms done you might figure it's now time for the Norse Mythos.

Well you'd be wrong. Because you forgot the Nehwon Mythos!

Where is Nehwon you ask? Nehwon is a world not unlike our own, farther than the farthest star but as close as a dream. Nehwon is also copyright and trademark the estate of Fritiz Leiber and don't you forget it!

Starting the 30s (!!) going through the 80s Leiber's stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser basically created Swords and Sorcery as we know it (including the term Swords and Sorcery). Sure there were myths and heroes, sure Conan beat them to press by a few years but it was Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser who created the inn, the mysterious stranger, the thieves' guild and all the rest. They are poorly remembered now but anyone who winced at those cliches owes them a debt. Leiber created the cliches we mock.

Unlike the Cthulhu and Elric material the Nehwon chapter was reprinted. TSR went on to make several adventures using Fafhrd, the Gray Mouser and their city of Lankhmar. Wikipedia (proof IMHO of man's inherently good nature) even mentions that D&D royalty checks that helped support Leiber until his death in the 90s. Considering how much D&D plundered other people's work to build their IP it's nice to hear that one of their inspirations made out OK.

So who were these first adventurers?



Fafhrd is your typical 7' tall barbarian warrior with his own code of honor and contempt for the so-called civilized ways of the modern man.
"Pants! Pft! We Northmen have no need of your civilized pants!"



While the Gray Mouser is refined and subtle, a thief and a minor wizard. Now I know, look it's the big guy and the little guy, the brute and the brain, what cheese. Well yes. Except Leiber was inventing that cliché 80 years ago. Around the time Bugswarm and I were getting into gaming.

Ah Bugswarm where have you gone? We miss you.

And I would give my eyeteeth to be able to balance a knife like that, talk about cool.

Anyway the rest of the chapter covers some of their monsters and supporting cast.



I love the Gods of Lankhmar. They're mummified wizards and priests kept in a vault in the center of town. Whenever the stuff hits the fan (which in your typical fantasy city is twice a week) the townspeople toss gifts through the door of the crypt and hope for the best. With any luck the Gods will come out and take care of whatever's causing trouble this week. Then they trash the town just to remind everyone not to bother them too often.

Nice.



Ningauble of the Seven Eyes was Fafhrd's magical advisor. Pretty cool-looking huh? This is what you get when you let a professional writer create your mythology instead of asking the local lunatic when he's stoned on mushrooms.

Naturally the Gray Mouser's magical advisor was Ningauble of the Seven Eyes' arch rival - Sheelba of the Eyeless face. They were like the Sharks and Jets of Lankhmar, except y'know seven eyes vs. eyeless instead of Italians vs. Puerto Ricans. Same general idea.

Solorg wrote:

Alpharius wrote:

OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

My advice is to acquire the original books! Why play a pretender when the original books are still out there? I think the hardest part of playing the old system is finding players who are willing to join up. But since players (strictly speaking) don't have to have the materials in order to play (just have a character creation night) you might not have too much trouble recruiting some likewise nastalgic or simply AD&D Curious RPGers!

My group has been playing 2nd for years - and over time, the players have each acquired a 2nd Ed Player's Guide as well as several other items from the era. You CAN use later editions as reference material, but a lot of it isn't really compatible except as background, which admittedly, you can go a long way with.

Mannahnin wrote:

Alpharius wrote:OK, I'll take you up on that!

As someone who played AD&D 'way back in the day' (early 80's baby!), what would be the "best" of the Old School Systems for me?

Depends on what exactly you liked best about AD&D, and what house rules you had. AD&D is a pretty neat system, and I LOVE the charm of Gygax’s prose, but the editing was absolutely terrible, and parts of the system (like unarmed combat, initiative, and psionics) are terribly broken and/or unclear.

For pure AD&D goodness, I recommend either digging up the original books (with the Gygax prose intact) or picking up OSRIC. OSRIC is actually designed primarily to be a non-copyright-violating clone of 1E, so that people have a reference document and can publish new modules and supplements that are fully compatible with the original. OSRIC itself, however, is functionally identical to 1E, except MUCH better edited and more clearly written and explained. 2nd edition is also extremely similar to 1E, except better explained and simplified a bit, and with a lot of optional house rules included in the books, though usually labeled as such, so you can do easy tweaking.

If you liked AD&D, but want something more comprehensive and consistent, with more stuff explained and spelled out, 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder are all excellent. They codify and clean up a lot of stuff that was really sketchy or unexplained in AD&D, and make monsters and characters all work on a more universal, consistent basis. They also include nice things like a functional magic item creation system. And low-level PCs are not quite as fragile. The weakness of the 3.x games tends to be that they break down and run very slowly at high level. Tons of contingent magical effects, and encounter design for the DM becomes extremely time consuming. But up to around 9th level they’re excellent.

OK, *slight* sidetrack - can someone PM me with all of the 2nd edition AD&D books I might need?

I remember the DM Guide, The Player's Manual, Monster Manual I and maybe II... Anything else I'd 'need' to have?

And, it sounds as if I might like Pathfinder too?

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Now we get into the second fictional pantheon (deliberately fictional that is), the Melnibonean Mythos!

More ON topic, thanks for all this KK - a slight favor - I'm trying to see if I want to shell out for this wonderful book, any chance you can list all of the Melnibonean stuff in there?

Or, might I be better off trying to pick up the old Stormbringer games? Hawkmoon and Corum too?

Happy to list it but not scan it both for IPR reasons and because I'm already hurting the spine. I don't mind hurting my copy of L&L but I'd like to keep this book in good shape.

You get:
Elric & Stormbringer
Moonglum
Arioch
Assassinator of the Gods (which as I read it may be the inspiration for the Vrok and the Lord of Change)
Clakar (winged apes)
Darnizhaan
Dharzi Hunting Dog (half bird! half dog! where does he get his ideas!)
Donblas the Justice Maker (god of law)
Elenoin (your token neekid chicks for this chapter)
Fileet - Lady of the Birds
Grahluk (giant apes, mortal enemies of the Elenoin)
Grome - Lord of the Earth
Haaashastaak - master of all lizardkind
Kakatal - the fire lord
Kelmain (savage race from the dimension of Limbo)
Meerclar - mistress of catkind
Misha - lord of the wind giants
Mist Giant
Mordagz (chaos god demoted to mortal status)
Myyrrhn (winged humans)
Nihrain horse (magic horse)
Nnuurrrr'c'c - master of the insect swarm, king with wings
Nuru-Ah - master of cattle
Oonai (shape changers)
Pyaray - Whisperer of impossible secrets (giant octopus god)
Quaolnargn (toad demon)
Roofdrak - master of all dogs
Straasha - lord of the water elementals
Theleb K'aarna
Vampire Trees
Vulture Lion
Xiombarg (chaos goddess)
and Yyrkoon (punk)

It sounds like a lot but only about half have any art and you just get a paragraph or two on each. If you're looking for Elric background I'm sure the Chaosium books are much better (I never owned them but I have no doubt). I played Stormbringer and found it uses one of the 'realistic' combat systems they liked in the late 80s early 90s. So after 1 fight our party was blind crippled and insane and our players voted en mass to play Rifts.

Awesome!

Thanks much for that!

I'd still LOVE to find a good roleplaying game set in Moorcock's worlds.

Mongoose has a new-ish looking Hawkmoon game - I wonder if it is any good...

I should be able to finish the book tomorrow. Any request for the next RETRO REVIEW?

Some I'm thinking of:
Rogue Trader
Leviathan (Kevin Smith mini wargame early 90s)
Mutant Chronicles RPG
Chronicles of Talislanta (crazy RPG early 90s)
Blood Quest: The Quest for Blood (pretty decent 40k comic early 2000s)
Obvious Tactics (pretty awful 40k comic early 2000s)

Requests?

Did you already do Gamma World?