Slapstick Humor And DnD

I'm cheating just a bit here, putting the above image and the magic user spell, Fumble, together.  The preceding Sutherland illustration appears on page 11 of the ADnD Players Handbook, while the Fumble spell description appears on page 77.  Combining them in this post helps highlight an important feature of early versions of Dungeons and Dragons: humor.

I've already spent some time on this blog discussing the illustrations of Will McLean.  Will McLean's cartoons graced the pages of the 1979 Dungeon Masters Guide and early Dragon Magazines.  His style of humor was welcome tonic to the too-serious arguments over rules minutia that occurred during Dungeons and Dragon's early development.

What I like most about the preceding Sutherland illustration is the great contradiction inherent in the barbarian's fall: did he truly slip on a banana-peel, and if so, what is the point of the spell-casting wizard's inclusion in the cartoon?  Or did the spell-caster just recently summon the monkey which ate the banana and dropped the peel, which the barbarian then slipped on?

Dungeon Crawl Classics: Cartoons

One of my favorite things about the original ADnD rulebooks and Dragon magazines was the inclusion of humorous cartoons (mostly by Will McLean) poking fun at the tropes and conventions of the game.

Chuck Whelon is credited with the cartoons in the beta version of Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. His cartoons are every bit as much fun as those of Will McLean. You can find Chuck Whelon's blog, where he publishes the cartoons that are to be included in DCC RPG, here.

I'm glad the Goodman Games has decided to include some cartoon humor in their DCC rulebook.

Intelligent Swords

"Among magic weaponry, SWORDS ALONE possess certain human (and superhuman) attributes. Swords have alignment (lawful, neutral or chaotic), an intelligence factor, and an egoism rating (as well as an optional determination of their origin/purpose). These determinations are made as follows:" - Original Dungeons and Dragons, Book 2, Monsters & Treasure, page 27-28

Another feature of old-school Dungeons and Dragons that has been lost along the way: Intelligent Swords.

The possession of an intelligent sword was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you had a powerful sword, with extra abilities that benefitted yourself and your party. On the other hand, there was the possibility of a battle of wills between the sword's possessor and the sword itself.

In ODnD, swords with an intelligence of 7 or greater also had an egoism factor. The egoism factor was the will of the sword. Swords with high intelligence and high egoism had a chance of dominating the possessor, thereby subverting the will of the player to pursue his own objectives. For example, a dominating sword might demand that the possessor encrust it with rare gems and beautiful filigree, fight certain monsters, surrender itself to another more worthy fighter, or mount a quest in keeping with the sword's purpose.

Considering the potential battle of wills between the player and the magic sword, some may wonder whether the advantages outweighed the drawbacks. It should be understood that an ODnD magical sword, possessing the same bonus, was more powerful than those of later editions. See my earlier post on magic swords for a further explanation. Because the advantages of magic swords were considerable, and because many players relished the challenge of owning an intelligent and willful sword, I don't recall an instances where intelligent swords were not retained by the player.

Will McLean Cartoons: Wizards And Their Familiars

Another Will McLean cartoon, this time from page 44 of the 1979 ADnD Dungeon Masters Guide. In the above cartoon, two mercenaries are holding a Magic-user's familiar hostage, and threatening to kill it if the MU makes a false move.

Part of the glorious mess of OD&D and AD&D was the imprecision of the rules. Frustrating, no doubt, to those of us who may have been rules-lawyers, but a tremendous boon to others who wanted to take a germ of an idea and create their own grand experiment with it.

The 'Find Familiar' spell was one of those glorious messes. In the DMG, Gygax writes, "Purposely killing or causing to be killed a familiar is most likely to find great disfavour with the gods...". What specific disfavour that might entail was left entirely up to the Dungeon Master. Did it mean you would have a -1 adjustment to your rolls for the remaining game session? Or perhaps that all similar animals attack you on sight from then on? Did you really want to know what your malicious DM was waiting to spring on you, should you 'accidently-on-purpose' step on your unwanted rat familiar?

Is Dungeons and Dragons A Swords And Sorcery RPG?

Considering that my introduction to swords and sorcery literature came long after discovering Dungeons and Dragons, I can perhaps be excused for failing to note the overt references to swords and sorcery in the D&D rulebooks of the day.

My earliest experiences with Dungeons and Dragons were in the campaigns run by friends of my older brother. Those campaigns were heavily informed by Mormon mythology: my character's name was Archeantus, and the other players had similar Book of Mormon names. I seem to recall us creeping through a cavern in one session, looking for the lair of the Gadianton Robbers.

Thus, my earliest D&D experiences were quite unlike those of you who were emulating the fantasy fiction of Howard, Lieber, Vance, Burroughs, Lovecraft and their ilk.

The earliest reference to swords and sorcery role-playing that I can find in D&D appears in the 1975 Greyhawk Supplement to the Original Dungeons and Dragons game. In that rulebook, Gary Gygax writes:

"If you enjoy fantasy you will never be sorry you were introduced to the swords and sorcery of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS games." - Greyhawk, pg. 3

And in the preface to the 1979 AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, Gary Gygax makes the following remark:

No two (Advanced D&D) campaigns will ever by the same, but all will have the common ground necessary to maintaining the whole as a viable entity about which you and your players can communicate with the many thousands of others who also find sword and sorcery role playing gaming an amusing and enjoyable pastime." - DMG, pg. 8

It may simply be a function of my ignorance of the meaning of the term swords and sorcery, but I don't consider either Original or Advanced Dungeons and Dragons to be a swords and sorcery roleplaying game. Generic fantasy, perhaps. But not swords and sorcery.

There are many reasons I hold that view. Here are two.

First, the inclusion of Magic Users as a playable class seems antithetical to a swords and sorcery game: few S&S stories feature a spell-caster as protagonist, and where they do, they usually pay a steep price for dabbling in the dark arts. Most spell-casters in S&S literature are at best distrusted, at worst, they are the dread antagonists of the story.

Second, few if any S&S tales include demi-humans such as elves or dwarves as protagonists. Where they do appear, they are malicious spirits or fearsome creatures of the earth.

There are more than a few old-school bloggers playing swords and sorcery campaigns, but most have house-ruled D&D to more fully emulate the genre, or are using a different ruleset to capture the feel of swords and sorcery adventures.

The Local Tavern In Dungeons and Dragons

We seldom made trouble in the local tavern in our D&D games. The tavern was our source of rumors and hirelings, and the last thing we wanted to do was provoke the DM into banning us from the local watering hole.

On the other hand, I have heard lots of stories of other Dungeons and Dragons groups engaging in conflict and combat at the local tavern. This Will McLean cartoon from the DMG speaks to that tendency: some players used D&D as an excuse to safely blow off a little steam or aggression by starting an in-game virtual bar-fight.

Old School Monsters: Rust Monster

Here's another Will McLean cartoon from the Dungeon Masters Guide. This time, we have a couple of adventurers encountering a Rust Monster, one of Gary Gygax's unique monster creations. Here's what Gary had to say about the origins of the Rust Monster, from Dragon Magazine, Issue #88 (1984):

"When I picked up a bag of plastic monsters made in Hong Kong at the local dime store to add to the sand table array ... there was the figurine that looked rather like a lobster with a propeller on its tail ... nothing very fearsome came to mind ... Then inspiration struck me. It was a Rust Monster."

Both the Wizard and the Rust Monster have rather bemused looks on their faces. Of course, if I was a Fighter, fully decked in heavy metal armor, I would be fearful of the touch of the Rust Monster too. While the Rust Monster is not a terribly ferocious beast, one touch of its antennae and my armor crumbles to rust. Along with the Carrion Crawler and the Otyugh, the Rust Monster acts as garbage detail in the dungeon, cleaning up all the metallic discards while the other two monsters deal with the dead creatures and other organic waste.

Papers And Paychecks RPG

Papers and Paycheques is a great new fantasy role-playing game. You pretend to be workers and students in an industrialized and technological society. Or so goes the related promotional material.

In point of fact, this supposed preview is another knowing-wink, tongue-in-cheek cartoon by Will McLean, poking fun at the idea of role-playing games. The cartoon appears in the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons DM's Guide. But instead of workers and students pretending to be adventurers, in this cartoon you have just the opposite.

This approach to D&D humor is typical for Will McLean's cartoons: he draws the reader in, by referencing some modern cultural reference, whether it be airplanes, poker, boardgames, mickey-mouse hats, television game-shows, backscratchers, or (in this case) role-players gathering for a friendly game.

Player Versus Player In Old School D&D

Considering that Dungeons and Dragons was a product of wargamers, it should come as little surprise that there was a great deal of player versus player conflict in the early days of the game. Reading through the campaign accounts (certainly the ones being recounted by Gygax and his players) you will find numerous stories of players betraying each other.

The above cartoon from the pages of Dragon Magazine (yet another Will McLean original) shows a couple of adventurers playing poker, with one of the adventurers exclaiming of the winning adventurer, "Don't look now, Wiz, but isn't that a medallion of ESP he's wearing?"

Hunting Ogres With Will McLean

Here's another classic Will McLean Dungeons and Dragons cartoon: this time, he's spoofing on Metagaming's OGRE micro-game.

Two adventurers are standing in front of a sign, "Beware of the Ogre" and one is telling the other: "Boy, after that pair of giants and the nest of gargoyles, this should be a real pushover..."

Of course, the tread tracks from the Ogre (a cybernetic nuke-firing supertank) portend a grim fate for the two adventurers.

Will McLean Humor From The Dragon Magazine

Most of you are familiar with the cartoons of Will McLean, as they appear on the pages of the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, authored by Gary Gygax.

Several of Will McLean's cartoon panels also appeared in The Dragon Magazine. The above cartoon appeared in Issue 24, April 1979, on page 18. The caption reads:

"Y'know, Wiz, when you said the treasure was guarded by two Fighters, I sort of figured you meant Lords or Myrmidons or something in that line."

In the early days of the hobby, it was not unusual to mix historical periods, with tanks existing along-side magic, and science fiction elements cropping up in medieval fantasy. Just look to Expedition To The Barrier Peaks, or Temple Of The Frog, for evidence of this cross-genre gaming.

This cartoon panel by Will McLean ably lampoons that early propensity for cross-genre gaming.

Monty Haul Campaigns And Will McLean

One of the thorniest problems facing the designers of early versions of Dungeons and Dragons was that of the Monty Haul campaign. Monty Hall (for those few of you unaware of the cultural reference) was the host of a game-show called "Let's Make A Deal", in which undeserving, ridiculously-costumed contestants would be asked to choose between three doors, behind one of which was hid a fabulous prize, with the other two, booby prizes.

Similarly, Monty Haul D&D campaigns were those campaigns where players were handed arbitrarily large experience points awards and fabulous treasures by the DM, and rarely faced any risks. Letters detailing the horrors of those campaigns literally filled the pages of early Dragon Magazines.

The above cartoon appeared in The Dragon, Issue 24, April 1979. Even at this early stage of D&D's history, the Monty Haul campaign had acquired such infamy that Will McLean was spoofing it.

More Old-School D&D Cartoons By Will McLean

Jim, of Carjacked Seraphim, reminded me of another classic Will McLean cartoon, this time from page 123 of Gary's DMG.

The adventuring party is trying to decide whether their newly found magic wand allows them to cast the various Bigby spells, or if they have found the fabled +2 Backscratcher.

Humor In Dungeons And Dragons

Perhaps i'm looking in the wrong places, but was seems to be missing from later versions of Dungeons and Dragons is a sense of humor.

In the early days, Will McLean was a cartoonist for the "Dragon Mirth" section of The Dragon magazine. His cartoons also appeared in other TSR publications, such as the Dungeon Masters Guide. The above cartoon is fondly remembered by many: it appeared on page 34 of Gary Gygax's DMG.

I loved Will McLean's cartoons. They captured a gonzo, self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek attitude that was a welcome tonic to players and DMs taking themselves, and the game, too seriously.

Sure, Will McLean's cartoons were the throw-away lines, or the drum-roll-punctuated jokes, of the Dungeons and Dragons illustration universe. But that was part of the fun of D&D: getting together with friends, and sharing some fall-out-of your-chair laugh-fests. Early versions of D&D were that much the better, for having included humor in the game.