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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 8307959" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p><em>This is the story of a time long ago</em></p><p><em>A time of the mid-1990s</em></p><p><em>When tabletop RPGs were petty and cruel</em></p><p><em>And they plagued gamers with suffering</em></p><p><em>Only one sourcebook dared to challenge their power</em></p><p><em><a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16920/HR6-Age-of-Heroes-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank">HR6 Age of Heroes</a></em></p><p></p><p>Of course, the above is wildly inaccurate, which is kind of the point; historical campaigns in D&D, in my opinion, aren't supposed to be about accuracy, they're supposed to be about larger-than-life mythic campaigns. I mean, isn't that why the original <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17010/Chainmail-Rules-for-Medieval-Miniatures-0e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Chainmail</em></a> sourcebook had its famous "fantasy supplement" at the end? Because there was a desire to move beyond pure history?</p><p></p><p>Nowhere is that desire truer than mythic Greece, whose tales are among the best-known to us today. From <em>Jason and the Argonauts</em> to <em>The Odyssey</em>, Greek mythology retains a strong presence in the cultural consciousness, and not just in specific epics either; the basic elements of particular Greek gods, characters, and even certain items are all so strongly defined that they can be uprooted and placed into new stories with no loss of understanding. Just look at the <em>God of War</em> video game series.</p><p></p><p>Heck, even purely historical Greek events are well known thanks to works like <em>300</em>, which demonstrate the unbridled fun of painting over history with myth. <em>That's</em> what the HR series should have done, rather than going in the opposite direction. The American Revolution is exhaustively detailed, to the point where I suspect that role-playing it would feel like gaming in a straitjacket, but it looks a lot different when you treat it like this:</p><p></p><p>[MEDIA=youtube]-YbvYtcKhjY[/MEDIA]</p><p></p><p>Ironically, we've seen D&D move in this particular direction before. <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/176913/IM2-The-Wrath-of-Olympus-Basic?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>IM2 Wrath of Olympus</em></a> was a Greek-inspired adventure for Immortal characters in the BECMI rules. It wasn't the only product under that banner to do so, as <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16987/HWR3-The-Milenian-Empire-Basic?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>HWR3 The Milenian Empire</em></a> was also Greek-themed, and it was set in Mystara's Hollow World. It even had an accompanying adventure, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17151/HWQ1-The-Milenian-Scepter-Basic?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>HWQ1 The Milenian Scepter</em></a>. I'd say that the oddly-coded <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202689/M2-MSOLO2-Maze-of-the-Riddling-Minotaur-Basic?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>M2/MSOLO2 Maze of the Riddling Minotaur</em></a> also drove home how the Known World had plenty of Greek influence, but that adventure has never been canonically placed in that setting.</p><p></p><p>Of course, what most people think of when they think of the Greek influence on D&D is the Greek pantheon. They've been around from the very beginning, appearing in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17177/ODD-Supplement-IV-Gods-Demigods--Heroes-0e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods & Heroes</em></a>, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110198/Deities--Demigods-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Deities & Demigods</em></a> 1E, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116010/Legends--Lore-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Legends & Lore</em></a>, <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121101/On-Hallowed-Ground-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>On Hallowed Ground</em></a>, and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130333/Deities-and-Demigods-3e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Deities and Demigods</em></a> 3E (note how the 3E version ditched the ampersand). <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17282/The-Vortex-of-Madness-and-other-Planer-Perils-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>The Vortex of Madness and other Planar Perils</em></a> deserves special mention as well, because of the focus that one of its adventures puts on the Titans.</p><p></p><p>But again, this book takes very little direction from any of these, opting to ground itself when it should have aimed for the very peak of Olympus.</p><p></p><p>If all this sounds a bit rant-y on my part, it's because I picked this one up when I was younger, and I can still feel the echoes of my disappointment. While <em>Percy Jackson and the Olympians</em> hadn't come out yet, that was pretty much what I was expecting; that your characters would have personal connections to the gods, go on epic quests, and perform heroic deeds of legendary scope! But instead, the gods are barely here; contrast this to how they're basically hanging out in taverns in <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17055/OP1-Tales-of-the-Outer-Planes-1e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes</em></a> (even if it is the World Serpent Inn), and you can see why this was such a letdown.</p><p></p><p>Instead, what we get is the typical Historical Reference format: the book opens with your usual historical overview (which, I'll note, is absolutely massive compared to the other HRs; this one goes from 2200 B.C. to 279 B.C., covering almost two thousand years).</p><p></p><p>The available character classes are divided into the familiar historical/fantasy split, and by this point I was already rolling my eyes, because who would ever want <em>less</em> fantasy in their Greek D&D game?</p><p></p><p>I'm going to digress here, because it was when I was re-reading this part of the book that I had a belated realization: this book didn't need to exist. I don't mean that in any sort of mean-spirited way (despite all my complaining), but rather that AD&D 2E (and most other versions of D&D) already have everything necessary to run a Greek campaign. The basic equipment, the monsters, the magic items, etc. are all already present; it's just a matter of disallowing things that break the cultural theme. Make sure no one uses, say, plate armor, restrict non-human races to things like centaurs, minotaurs, and satyrs, make magic items rare in their discovery and unique in their functions, and keep the monsters to things like harpies, hydras, chimeras, medusas (yes, she was a specific individual, but that's not <em>that</em> much of a sticking point) instead of couatls, vampires, ogre mages, and leprechauns, and that's pretty much all you need to do. We didn't need a sourcebook about this; a large article in <em>Dragon</em> magazine would have done it.</p><p></p><p>Even when it mentions these things, I found myself disagreeing with HR6 more than once. For example, it says that the only appropriate undead are incorporeal ones, as a result of never receiving a proper burial. Did the author never see the old Harryhausen movies?</p><p></p><p><img src="https://media1.giphy.com/media/fqhuGEu8KfVFkPEMwe/200.gif" alt="Ray Harryhausen Odyssey GIF by Turner Classic Movies" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Now, to be fair, when the book does introduce restrictions to keep things to a Greek theme, it hits a lot more than it misses. Most classes have kits from their corresponding PHBR sourcebook recommended (and in some cases, mandated), and naturally, these are the ones that evoke a Greek feeling, such as the Amazon or Myrmidon kits for warriors. Thieves and bards have their Open Lock abilities penalized because of how rare locks are in ancient Greece. And of course, the spells that characters can cast are altered quite a bit.</p><p></p><p>That last one deserves some more coverage, as magic is a major component of any D&D campaign. Wizards are restricted to specialist mages, no surprise there, but the book then rules out necromancers, evokers, and abjurers. Necromancers are NPC-only, but the latter two are disallowed altogether; there are only a few evocation spells allowed, and abjurations are completely removed. That last one struck me as interesting; I can see ruling out raising the dead, and flashy <em>fireball</em>-type spells are among the first things to go when lowering the power level of spellcasting, but abjuration? That one's all about the flavor of the campaign, so I can't help but approve.</p><p></p><p>Wizard spells once again have their casting times increased by an order of magnitude, but here we also get specific overviews of spells that are disallowed or altered, covering the PHB, PHBR4, and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17391/Tome-of-Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820" target="_blank"><em>Tome of Magic</em></a>. Also, several spells have their level changed; the gods help you - literally - if you want to make a magic item. Also, much like Mystra in the Forgotten Realms, you better acknowledge Hecate, Greek goddess of magic, if you want your wizard to keep his or her powers.</p><p></p><p>Greek divine spellcasters are another story. These guys (by which I mean clerics; druids are oddly noted in the class table as being allowed (with DM approval in "historical" games) with changes, but they don't ever specify anything particular to their class) have no increase in casting time, comparatively fewer prohibited spells, and while only clerics of certain deities can bring the dead back to life, that's still on the table here. The book flat-out notes that this reverses the dynamic of divine spellcasters being second fiddle to arcane ones, which is another change that I liked.</p><p></p><p>Oh, and this book assigns the new clerical spheres from the <em>Tome of Magic</em> to the Greek gods from <em>Legends & Lore</em>. Hallelujah! Now if only it talked about the use of quest spells in a Greek game.</p><p></p><p>Speaking of the Greek gods, I have to give this book major props: it actually introduces a new god. I don't mean in a brief overview the way HR5 did (though it does do that for the rest of the pantheon), but it actually presents a new, full-page write-up in the style of L&L for Asclepius, god of healing. That has to mean this guy is in the Great Wheel cosmology, right? Here's hoping [USER=6670628]@AuldDragon[/USER] remembers to cover Asclepius after finishing with the monstrous deities!</p><p></p><p>That said, the book is disappointingly low-key in everything else it covers. We get a few new kits, for example, but even the highest-powered among them (the Hero Warrior) is comparatively modest in what it offers. Same for the new magic items. There are guidelines on making monsters like the Nemean lion (and a new monster entry for Scylla), but there's also <em>long</em> overviews of daily life in ancient Greece, complete with pictures of everyday items, clothing patterns, and black and white maps of generic towns. The section covering Greek heroes from the epics has, once again, no stats! They should have called this sourcebook <em>God of Bore</em>, because I can't see this being useful to anyone outside of a few historical recreationists, while the rest of us wanted this:</p><p></p><p><img src="https://media0.giphy.com/media/JW8U2OsBhbfnq/200.gif" alt="video games GIF" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>There's an adventure, almost ten pages long (which makes at the shorter end of full-length, since we've seen AD&D 2E adventures that size in <em>Dungeon</em> magazine before) and with pregen characters, at the end, but it's about competing in the local games. I mean, I suppose saying that your character is an actual Olympian is cool, but I think I'd rather have the Blades of Chaos than an olive wreath.</p><p></p><p>That really sums up everything that's wrong with this book in one sentence.</p><p></p><p><em>Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.</em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 8307959, member: 8461"] [I]This is the story of a time long ago A time of the mid-1990s When tabletop RPGs were petty and cruel And they plagued gamers with suffering Only one sourcebook dared to challenge their power [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16920/HR6-Age-of-Heroes-Campaign-Sourcebook-2e?affiliate_id=820']HR6 Age of Heroes[/URL][/I] Of course, the above is wildly inaccurate, which is kind of the point; historical campaigns in D&D, in my opinion, aren't supposed to be about accuracy, they're supposed to be about larger-than-life mythic campaigns. I mean, isn't that why the original [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17010/Chainmail-Rules-for-Medieval-Miniatures-0e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Chainmail[/I][/URL] sourcebook had its famous "fantasy supplement" at the end? Because there was a desire to move beyond pure history? Nowhere is that desire truer than mythic Greece, whose tales are among the best-known to us today. From [I]Jason and the Argonauts[/I] to [I]The Odyssey[/I], Greek mythology retains a strong presence in the cultural consciousness, and not just in specific epics either; the basic elements of particular Greek gods, characters, and even certain items are all so strongly defined that they can be uprooted and placed into new stories with no loss of understanding. Just look at the [I]God of War[/I] video game series. Heck, even purely historical Greek events are well known thanks to works like [I]300[/I], which demonstrate the unbridled fun of painting over history with myth. [I]That's[/I] what the HR series should have done, rather than going in the opposite direction. The American Revolution is exhaustively detailed, to the point where I suspect that role-playing it would feel like gaming in a straitjacket, but it looks a lot different when you treat it like this: [MEDIA=youtube]-YbvYtcKhjY[/MEDIA] Ironically, we've seen D&D move in this particular direction before. [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/176913/IM2-The-Wrath-of-Olympus-Basic?affiliate_id=820'][I]IM2 Wrath of Olympus[/I][/URL] was a Greek-inspired adventure for Immortal characters in the BECMI rules. It wasn't the only product under that banner to do so, as [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16987/HWR3-The-Milenian-Empire-Basic?affiliate_id=820'][I]HWR3 The Milenian Empire[/I][/URL] was also Greek-themed, and it was set in Mystara's Hollow World. It even had an accompanying adventure, [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17151/HWQ1-The-Milenian-Scepter-Basic?affiliate_id=820'][I]HWQ1 The Milenian Scepter[/I][/URL]. I'd say that the oddly-coded [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/202689/M2-MSOLO2-Maze-of-the-Riddling-Minotaur-Basic?affiliate_id=820'][I]M2/MSOLO2 Maze of the Riddling Minotaur[/I][/URL] also drove home how the Known World had plenty of Greek influence, but that adventure has never been canonically placed in that setting. Of course, what most people think of when they think of the Greek influence on D&D is the Greek pantheon. They've been around from the very beginning, appearing in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17177/ODD-Supplement-IV-Gods-Demigods--Heroes-0e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Supplement IV: Gods, Demigods & Heroes[/I][/URL], [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/110198/Deities--Demigods-1e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Deities & Demigods[/I][/URL] 1E, [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/116010/Legends--Lore-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Legends & Lore[/I][/URL], [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/121101/On-Hallowed-Ground-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]On Hallowed Ground[/I][/URL], and [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/130333/Deities-and-Demigods-3e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Deities and Demigods[/I][/URL] 3E (note how the 3E version ditched the ampersand). [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17282/The-Vortex-of-Madness-and-other-Planer-Perils-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]The Vortex of Madness and other Planar Perils[/I][/URL] deserves special mention as well, because of the focus that one of its adventures puts on the Titans. But again, this book takes very little direction from any of these, opting to ground itself when it should have aimed for the very peak of Olympus. If all this sounds a bit rant-y on my part, it's because I picked this one up when I was younger, and I can still feel the echoes of my disappointment. While [I]Percy Jackson and the Olympians[/I] hadn't come out yet, that was pretty much what I was expecting; that your characters would have personal connections to the gods, go on epic quests, and perform heroic deeds of legendary scope! But instead, the gods are barely here; contrast this to how they're basically hanging out in taverns in [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17055/OP1-Tales-of-the-Outer-Planes-1e?affiliate_id=820'][I]OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes[/I][/URL] (even if it is the World Serpent Inn), and you can see why this was such a letdown. Instead, what we get is the typical Historical Reference format: the book opens with your usual historical overview (which, I'll note, is absolutely massive compared to the other HRs; this one goes from 2200 B.C. to 279 B.C., covering almost two thousand years). The available character classes are divided into the familiar historical/fantasy split, and by this point I was already rolling my eyes, because who would ever want [I]less[/I] fantasy in their Greek D&D game? I'm going to digress here, because it was when I was re-reading this part of the book that I had a belated realization: this book didn't need to exist. I don't mean that in any sort of mean-spirited way (despite all my complaining), but rather that AD&D 2E (and most other versions of D&D) already have everything necessary to run a Greek campaign. The basic equipment, the monsters, the magic items, etc. are all already present; it's just a matter of disallowing things that break the cultural theme. Make sure no one uses, say, plate armor, restrict non-human races to things like centaurs, minotaurs, and satyrs, make magic items rare in their discovery and unique in their functions, and keep the monsters to things like harpies, hydras, chimeras, medusas (yes, she was a specific individual, but that's not [I]that[/I] much of a sticking point) instead of couatls, vampires, ogre mages, and leprechauns, and that's pretty much all you need to do. We didn't need a sourcebook about this; a large article in [I]Dragon[/I] magazine would have done it. Even when it mentions these things, I found myself disagreeing with HR6 more than once. For example, it says that the only appropriate undead are incorporeal ones, as a result of never receiving a proper burial. Did the author never see the old Harryhausen movies? [IMG alt="Ray Harryhausen Odyssey GIF by Turner Classic Movies"]https://media1.giphy.com/media/fqhuGEu8KfVFkPEMwe/200.gif[/IMG] Now, to be fair, when the book does introduce restrictions to keep things to a Greek theme, it hits a lot more than it misses. Most classes have kits from their corresponding PHBR sourcebook recommended (and in some cases, mandated), and naturally, these are the ones that evoke a Greek feeling, such as the Amazon or Myrmidon kits for warriors. Thieves and bards have their Open Lock abilities penalized because of how rare locks are in ancient Greece. And of course, the spells that characters can cast are altered quite a bit. That last one deserves some more coverage, as magic is a major component of any D&D campaign. Wizards are restricted to specialist mages, no surprise there, but the book then rules out necromancers, evokers, and abjurers. Necromancers are NPC-only, but the latter two are disallowed altogether; there are only a few evocation spells allowed, and abjurations are completely removed. That last one struck me as interesting; I can see ruling out raising the dead, and flashy [I]fireball[/I]-type spells are among the first things to go when lowering the power level of spellcasting, but abjuration? That one's all about the flavor of the campaign, so I can't help but approve. Wizard spells once again have their casting times increased by an order of magnitude, but here we also get specific overviews of spells that are disallowed or altered, covering the PHB, PHBR4, and [URL='https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17391/Tome-of-Magic-2e?affiliate_id=820'][I]Tome of Magic[/I][/URL]. Also, several spells have their level changed; the gods help you - literally - if you want to make a magic item. Also, much like Mystra in the Forgotten Realms, you better acknowledge Hecate, Greek goddess of magic, if you want your wizard to keep his or her powers. Greek divine spellcasters are another story. These guys (by which I mean clerics; druids are oddly noted in the class table as being allowed (with DM approval in "historical" games) with changes, but they don't ever specify anything particular to their class) have no increase in casting time, comparatively fewer prohibited spells, and while only clerics of certain deities can bring the dead back to life, that's still on the table here. The book flat-out notes that this reverses the dynamic of divine spellcasters being second fiddle to arcane ones, which is another change that I liked. Oh, and this book assigns the new clerical spheres from the [I]Tome of Magic[/I] to the Greek gods from [I]Legends & Lore[/I]. Hallelujah! Now if only it talked about the use of quest spells in a Greek game. Speaking of the Greek gods, I have to give this book major props: it actually introduces a new god. I don't mean in a brief overview the way HR5 did (though it does do that for the rest of the pantheon), but it actually presents a new, full-page write-up in the style of L&L for Asclepius, god of healing. That has to mean this guy is in the Great Wheel cosmology, right? Here's hoping [USER=6670628]@AuldDragon[/USER] remembers to cover Asclepius after finishing with the monstrous deities! That said, the book is disappointingly low-key in everything else it covers. We get a few new kits, for example, but even the highest-powered among them (the Hero Warrior) is comparatively modest in what it offers. Same for the new magic items. There are guidelines on making monsters like the Nemean lion (and a new monster entry for Scylla), but there's also [I]long[/I] overviews of daily life in ancient Greece, complete with pictures of everyday items, clothing patterns, and black and white maps of generic towns. The section covering Greek heroes from the epics has, once again, no stats! They should have called this sourcebook [I]God of Bore[/I], because I can't see this being useful to anyone outside of a few historical recreationists, while the rest of us wanted this: [IMG alt="video games GIF"]https://media0.giphy.com/media/JW8U2OsBhbfnq/200.gif[/IMG] There's an adventure, almost ten pages long (which makes at the shorter end of full-length, since we've seen AD&D 2E adventures that size in [I]Dungeon[/I] magazine before) and with pregen characters, at the end, but it's about competing in the local games. I mean, I suppose saying that your character is an actual Olympian is cool, but I think I'd rather have the Blades of Chaos than an olive wreath. That really sums up everything that's wrong with this book in one sentence. [I]Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.[/I] [/QUOTE]
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[COMPLETE] Looking back at the leatherette series: PHBR, DMGR, HR and more!
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