Anybody remember the "Warlock" supplement?

[vic20]

When I was a boy playing d&d in the late 70s, the group of college kids I played with used a supplement called "Warlock". I can't find any references to it on the net.

Anybody remember this? The cover had a dragon reared up and a wizard (err... warlock) on a rocky pinnacle near the dragon's head.

 

[rgard]

When I was a boy playing d&d in the late 70s, the group of college kids I played with used a supplement called "Warlock". I can't find any references to it on the net.

Anybody remember this? The cover had a dragon reared up and a wizard (err... warlock) on a rocky pinnacle near the dragon's head.

Hi, not sure if this is it, I vaguely remember it myself, but I found this entry:

The Complete Warlock
1st ed (1975) The SPARTAN
1st ed by Robert Cowan, Dave Clark, Kenneth M. Dahl, Nick Smith (1978) Balboa, Inc.
This was a variant of Dungeons & Dragons. It which originally appeared in issue #9 of "The Spartan" simulation gaming journal as an article entitled "Warlock: or How to Play D&D Without Playing D&D". It later appeared as a product from Balboa, Inc. It had two supplements, "Warlock's Tower" in 1979 (with new monsters, new rules for thieves, and many new magic items) and "The Warlock Menagerie" in 1980 (with over 100 new monsters and other new material).

Here is the link:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/alphabetical/C.html

 

[Melan]

I apparently own a prepublication copy of it I won on eBay. All in all, not a very impressive game variant IMHO. More information at the Acaeum.

 

[Particle_Man]

Wow, that may count as one of the earliest "Fantasy Heartbreaker" attempts to make a game based meant to be like D&D yet so much better than D&D, that fails utterly to be good in the parts that are not simply ripping off D&D.

 

[grodog]

Some pics for the Balboa 1978 edition of Warlock appear @ http://www.afterglow2.com/Product/Balboa.htm

 

[Melan]

Warlock by Robert Cowan, Dave Clark, Kenneth M. Dahl and Nick Smith.

34pp Loose leaf in folder (1 copy known to exist.)

Published in 1975 for playtesting by the Pasadena Playtest Group, Pasadena, California.

A draft manuscript produced for playtesting Warlock, an alternative to the emerging Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, for fantasy role-playing games. [...]

Wow, I either own the only copy in existence, or there must be more of them around. Because mine is exactly like that picture.

Particle_Man, it is just like that. Instead of correcting D&D's supposed mistakes, the game is just uninspired and soulless. Quite sad, actually. There is - or there was a few years ago - a page on the Net where you could download the... thing... Warlock eventually evolved into. Like many fantasy heartbreakers, it was a convoluted, sad mess full of tables and arcane rules but still devoid of spirit. Oh well.

 

[vic20]

A modern gaming philosophy deconstruction may render the work pitiable, but I can tell you that the fun that we had "in the day" has rippled across the many years and still serves to set the bar for what I want to evoke in my game.

I can't say for certain which elements of that book were actually used in the game. I was only 9-10 years old when I sat at the table, and the only documents I really cared about were the vast world maps (Wilderlands players maps that they had been filling in with ink to reflect their travels), and my character sheet. I think that we used some inheritance tables from Warlock as part of the character generation.

 

[vic20]

Some pics for the Balboa 1978 edition of Warlock appear @ http://www.afterglow2.com/Product/Balboa.htm

Grodog, thanks for that link. My countless googlings have been fruitless, but this is indeed the book that was at the table:

Great blast from the past. Thank you.

 

[grodog]

De nada. There's a lot of folks on the Acaeum forums who are interested in non-TSR D&D books, so if you have other Qs on that front, I definitely recommend registering there to engage the experts

 

[MrTemplar]

I sure do. I was just going through my old games and also Warlock's Tower. There were a lot of fun alternates to AD&D and OD&D back in the day that you could plug and play into your game. We used bits from Arduin (mainly some races like the Phraint, Magic Items and of course the critical hit and fumble charts), the equipment price list and monetary system from Chivalry & Sorcery, and others. Third party content was as important to the hobby back then as it is today,