TSR's "subliminal" message about PC power level

[Melan]

Jean Wells was one of the first women to write for the game. She wrote "Palace of the Silver Princess," or at least the first version of that adventure, and later appeared on "The 700 Club" denouncing Dungeons & Dragons as "eeevul."

Really? I didn't know that. Depressing, really - I liked Palace of the Silver Princess (the orange edition downloadable from Wizards; don't have the green revision).

It would have been even more depressing if she had been the same person as Jean Rabe. She was simply the least talented designer TSR employed. Literally each and every adventure she wrote was execrable, and in the early 2nd edition era, her stuff was everywhere.

 

[T. Foster]

It would have been even more depressing if she had been the same person as Jean Rabe. She was simply the least talented designer TSR employed. Literally each and every adventure she wrote was execrable, and in the early 2nd edition era, her stuff was everywhere.

Jean Rabe was the head of the RPGA in the mid-late 80s, which is much more an administrative position than a creative/design position, but as such also wrote or co-wrote a lot of tournaments for RPGA play (actually she wrote a bunch even before becoming RPGA-head, and the former is probably one of the causes of the latter). In the early 2E era TSR simply followed the same practice they had in the early 1E era -- meet the demand for modules by releasing a bunch of tournament modules (which have, after all, already been written and 'playtested'), a disproportionate number of which happened to have been written or co-written by Jean Rabe. I'm not intimately familiar with her resume by any means, but I'm pretty sure all of the modules with her name on them were adapted from RPGA tournaments (and were, if you can believe it, actually among the better RPGA tournaments of the era! -- when I look back at early tournaments like S1, S3, C1-2, the A series, or the R series, and then think of all the dreadful tournament modules I played through in the late 80s, I become more convinced than ever that "the Golden Age of D&D" was already over before I ever started playing...).

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Just to bring a note of real AD&D game play to this thread:

Imprimus: There was no "TSR message" regarding stats, other that what I wrote in the
OA/D&D core rules--and I never was TSR per se. Anything else is inferred from other individuals at the company written material

Most players "killed" starting PCs with bad stats.

Players tended to "warm up" their dice, then beginning a stat roll sequence after a low score roll occured.

As PCs progressed, they gained points of ability magically, most often by use of wish spells.

Pregen PCs for a tournament all have stat scores selected by the designer of that adventure.

Many of the Rogues Gallery stats are bogus ones, made up by Brian Blume when the players concerned to give him their PC stats. Amongst others, I know Ernie and I refused, and I believe that Rob did as well.

Fonkin means little fool; hoddypeak means a simpleton or a blockhead.

Beek means to bask in the sun or by a fire; gwenders are chillblanes.

Finally, Gleed Wurp means one- or squint-eyed glance (of the eye) or a stone's throw, so
"Squint-eyed glance."

Anyone that doesn't believe that the designer of an adventure module can have a bit of fun at the expense of stuffy players that take the game, or themselves, or both too seriously can go stand in a corner

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Mycanid]

Mmm hmm.

That's interesting about the Rogues Gallery Stats Gary ... good to know.

I totally agree with you about the names in the G series, by the way.

Thanks.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Howdy Mycanid,

Although the Rogues' Gallery stats are often made up out of thin air, I don't wast to mislead anyone about ehose for my main PCs. I was most carful to addto them whenever I could with whatever means was at hand. so some of them have really high ones after around 10 years of intense, skillful and lucky play

I must note that the stats for Mordenkainen and Bigby in the 'Fantastic Adventure module are also not the actual ones of either PC at the time. Of course as my principal DM, Rob would not publish those without my permission.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Mycanid]

Sorry for the off topic question

Gary - if I may ask one other question?

My favorite early artist in 1e things was Erol Otus. When I came across his character in Rogues Gallery (Valerius) I liked the character sketch of him personality wise and art wise. The question is, did you ever rpg with him (either as player or DM)? If you did, what else can you tell me story wise about this character Valerius?

Also, was there a reason why Otus' character was included in the Rogues Gallery and not any other of the primary artists at the time? Was it simply because he did much of the artwork in the book?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Sorry for the off topic question

Gary - if I may ask one other question?

My favorite early artist in 1e things was Erol Otus. When I came across his character in Rogues Gallery (Valerius) I liked the character sketch of him personality wise and art wise. The question is, did you ever rpg with him (either as player or DM)? If you did, what else can you tell me story wise about this character Valerius?

Also, was there a reason why Otus' character was included in the Rogues Gallery and not any other of the primary artists at the time? Was it simply because he did much of the artwork in the book?

Ciao Mycanid,

Most any query is proper and fair here

IIRR, and I am thinking back some 28 years, I did DM once ot twice for Erol, and I believe that he also played in one ot two of the test sessions of Star Frontiers and Gang Busters GMed respectively by Lawrence Shick and Brian Blume. That said, I have done so much playing and GMing that recalling any but truly unusual/outstanding episodes is not possible. Of course most game sessions are much alike so slip into the morass of the forgotten

I can only speculate why Brin included Erol's PC in the work in question, although at 12th level such a choice was not ill considered. The reasons were twofild: One, Erol worked for TSR, and two, he was the illustrator of the Rogues' Gallery.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[FoxWander]

Holy Crap!!

go lookup the NPC dwarf Obmi from the module.

WOW!!! Forget playing Arrarat or Bigby, I want Obmi's stats.

Strength 18/94 (which would be a 22 according to the 3E conversion manual)
Intelligence 18
Wisdom 18
Dexterity 16
Constitution 17
Charisma 16

I don't know the point-buy cost for a 22 Strength, but if it was just 18 then Obmi's an 81 point-buy character. Of course, he's Fighter 9, Thief 11 so he's probably drunk from a magic fountain or two (or 20 in this case!).

 

[Col_Pladoh]

WOW!!! Forget playing Arrarat or Bigby, I want Obmi's stats.

Strength 18/94 (which would be a 22 according to the 3E conversion manual)
Intelligence 18
Wisdom 18
Dexterity 16
Constitution 17
Charisma 16

I don't know the point-buy cost for a 22 Strength, but if it was just 18 then Obmi's an 81 point-buy character. Of course, he's Fighter 9, Thief 11 so he's probably drunk from a magic fountain or two (or 20 in this case!).

You can have them as an NPC that is facing a team of PC killers bent on having your head

Of course I lopaded the stats to make the vile dwarf a most potent and deadly adversary, just as Sax Rhomer made Dr. Fu Manchu a super-villain. That said, I had to fudge mightily to save him from the crew that took on the fire giants, magic-jarred the queen (Jim Ward's "Bombadil") and generaly trashed the place. They were mostly around 12th - 14th level at the time.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Glyfair]

I will note that I intentionally didn't include NPC stats because they just can't be compared with PC stats. I only want this to be concerned with stats presented as player character stats. Rogue's Gallery & Against the Giants were chosen, not because they are the most powerful (all they may be among the most), but because they were on the top of the stack

Also, while I might be making comments about what I think I see, the intent of this was (and is) to take a look at things as presented and seeing what is there (perhaps a question mark would have been more appropriate in the title), like my Dragon thread.

Yes, much of this comes because I see a lot of comments about "how things used to be" and they don't jibe with what I remember. So, I'm looking back at the more objective things that can be seen. For example, I've seen a number of "in those days it wasn't about having high stats like 3E, we all were expected to play characters with our highest stat being 14 and we loved it" oriented comments, and the record doesn't seem to support those being the characters we were playing (as presented).