John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 46

Old TSR Boardgames (DIVINE RIGHT)

"DIVINE RIGHT is more than just a game. 

It is a work of fantasy literature . . ."

--designers' introduction 

So, with DIVINE RIGHT (1979, sku#1008) and the remaining two games in this series we leave the obscure, games that for the most part made little splash and sank without a trace, for games that were, in their day, successful and fairly well known.

One such was DIVINE RIGHT, written by the Rhaman brothers, Glenn and Kenneth. I lack a complete set, the only original component in my folder being the (20-page) rulebook. The rest is high-quality color photocopy: Box top, bottom, and sides; map sheet (in 8 1/2 x 11 pieces), cards sheet, counter sheets.

For this I have Brian Thaldorp in the Mail Order Hobby Shop to thank. One of the oddities of this relic of the TSR's Hobby Shop  was that apparently it had been part of their mission statement to be able to replace lost counters or rulebooks or cards or the like from games TSR had done that involved counters and similar small, fiddly, easily lost pieces. For the sake of customer service they kept pieces belonging to games TSR had once published, some of which had long since gone out of print, so that they cd help out anyone who wrote in requesting a replacement chit or card. At some point I borrowed the missing pieces for this game and made good-quality copies of it before returning the originals. I wish I cd say I then took the next step of cutting out all the pieces to make the set playable, but as is the way with collections I never got around to it and it just went on a shelf. 

For an enthused tour through the game's virtues, see the following link to a detailed write-up of the game showing a lot of its art and some ancillary material:  clearly a labor of love.

https://waynesbooks.games/2020/03/24/divine-right-tsrs-early-boardgame-with-rpg-inspiration-and-that-beautiful-map-1979/

Minarian Legends 

One reason I never attempted to play this old game lies back in my early days in the hobby, when I had just started first reading DRAGON Magazine.  I was greatly put off by a recurring section related to this game called Minarian Legends that ran for something like twenty issues, an apparently endless stream of background material about a game world I didn't play in set in a world I wasn't interested in. But then I've always been put off by reams of backstory: It's as if Tolkien had written all the Appendices and skipped the stories that made them interesting. To put it another way, I'd much rather take part in a conversation that begins 'tell me about yr character' than 'tell me about yr campaign world.'

It's only now, as I'm getting rid of it, that I'm taking a closer look and gaining an appreciation of what looks to have been an interesting game.  In fact it looks very much like what I'd hoped the Lankhmar game wd be that it fell short of: a game full of quirky elements that seem to have stories behind them.* A boardgame that encourages a roleplaying style of play. 

DIVINE RIGHT (1979) and BIRTHRIGHT (1995)

My own awareness of DIVINE RIGHT comes mainly from having been at TSR at the time of the game's near revival, circa 1994-95. Once a year, TSR r&d staff wd be asked to each produce an idea for a new game world.** This particular year editor Jon Pickens, who had one of the longest tenures at TSR (1980-2000),  proposed revising the DIVINE RIGHT game as TSR's next D&D game world, it having the advantage of a lot of the worldbuilding already having been established. 

After some initial enthusiasm, the idea faltered when it seems like the people who created the game might still have some rights to it. Rather that strike some mutually beneficial agreement, the Powers That Be decreed that TSR wd not use the Rhamans' game, instead instructing R&D (the designers and editors and artists) to come up with a similar but different world. This turned into BIRTHRIGHT --which, ironically, was based on a pre-existing game world, one which designer Rich Baker had created as a background to the fantasy novels he wanted to write.

So in the end DIVINE RIGHT did not take a reappearance (not from TSR anyway; other publishers have revived it more recently).

--John R,

*I'm told Stafford's WHITE BEAR AND RED MOON shares this feature but have bnever played (or indeed seen) this game.

**The last expression of this tradition wd have been when it was turned inside out in the fan contest that led to the EBERRON campaign setting (2004).

Edinburgh Tolkien Event (John Borman movie)

So, Tuesday morning I got to watch a Tolkien event hosted by the University of Edinburgh Tolkien Society. Titled "The LOTR film that never was, it was a presentation about the unfilmed John Boorman LotR script.

Here's the description:

A version of Lord of the Rings where the story of the One Ring is told via dance performance? Lord of the Rings but Aragorn marries Eowyn? Lord of the Rings but Frodo and Galadriel have an inexplicable romance? Lord of the Rings but Saruman is the Mouth of Sauron?

If you want to know what this is all about then join us as we explore some scenes of John Boorman's 1970s screenplay for the Lord of the Rings that was (luckily for us) never made into a real movie.

There was a smallish turnout, possibly because the web invitation gave the wrong time for the event, being an hour off (drat those pesky time zones). But it did include, at least for part of the discussion, Janet Brennea Croft (who's written a v. gd article on media adaptations of Tolkien) and David Emerson.

I'd seen the Boorman script before, but that had been several years ago and I was glad to renew my acquaintance. I clearly remembered some of the scenes that made my mind boggle but others had passed into merciful oblivion. And it was fun to see a group of folks, deeply steeped  in their Tolkien, encountering and trying to come to terms with this bizarre stuff.

My Final Verdict:  

We dodged a bullet. Bad as the Bakshi film is, and as much as purists lamented the Peter Jackson films' infidelities, it cd have been far, far worse. And Boorman proves it.

--JDR 

--current reading: Ordway's TOLKIEN'S MODERN READING

https://www.facebook.com/events/490682752303550?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22search_results%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22bookmark%22%7D]%7D

Old TSR Boardgames (LITTLE BIG HORN)

 So, here's another early TSR game I haven't played, don't own, and haven't even seen. Once again BoardGameGeek offers at least a glimpse of what the box and some of the components look like:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6111/little-big-horn-custers-last-stand

and Wikipedia quotes some comments Gygax later made about the game, including that it was one of several competing games commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the battle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Big_Horn:_Custer%27s_Last_Stand

Still, it's interesting to add another title to Gygax's list of credits.

sku#: unknown.

--John R.

Old TSR Boardgames (WAR OF WIZARDS)

So, one of the nice things about starting this string of posts about TSR boardgames from the dawn of time is that it casts an interesting light on the company's early days. It also gives me a chance to take a good look at old items in my collection that just sit on the shelf, space I badly need for the Tolkien books. And yet another is the discovery of games I not only didn't have but had never heard of.

A case  in point is WAR OF THE WIZARDS, a Tekumel/EPT spin-off from 1975 (sku # unknown). I've never so much as seen this one, but fortunately Jeff Grubb has put up a post on his GRUBBSTEET blog that gives a good idea of what this game is like: 

http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com/2021/02/old-tsr-boardgames-war-of-wizards.html

For a little more information, some of the basics are given at BoardGameGeek

( https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6217/war-wizards )

The main lesson I take away from this one, and from Jeff's observations-- is that it shows TSR didn't really know how to do follow-up product early on. So they experimented with different approaches, took note of what worked and what didn't, and used those lessons to guide their efforts --until the next time, when gaps in institutional memory led to repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

In short: TSR games have never been perfect little bonsai trees but untidy forests that get trimmed back from time to time.

--John R.

A Good Writer's Worst Book

 So, I've just been reading Le Guin's TEHANU, and it's got me thinking about what bad books by a good author tell us.* 

For example there's Austen's MANSFIELD PARK, where she has all the elements she usually uses in a novel but in the wrong combination. Or CSL's THE ABOLITION OF MAN, where he argues in favor of indoctrinating the young. Or one of Shakespeare's bottom of the barrel plays like TITUS ANDRONICUS or TIMON OF ATHENS. Logically the only way to avoid having a 'worst book' is to only write one book. And a given writer's worst might still be v. gd.

But when I tried to apply this line of thought to Tolkien I got into difficulties. MR. BLISS or ROVERANDOM might be serious candidates, but is it fair to include posthumous works? If we do exclude posthumous works, then I don't think there's a genuinely bad book in the fairly short list of books published in Tolkien's lifetime: H, LotR, FGH, ATB, T&L, SWM, RGEO. If I were forced to it I might opt for RGEO just because it has so little Tolkien content, but I suspect those interested in Tolkien's invented languages and invented scripts wd object.

--JDR

--current reading: Ordway, Briggs, light novel

*The inverse phenomenon, of a good book by a bad author, also occurs and is even more interesting, but that's an argument for another day. 

Ordway at the Wade

So, Thursday evening I watched the virtual book launch for Holly Ordway's new book TOLKIEN'S MODERN READING at the Wade Center. They had a three-way set up with Dr. Downing, the Wade's co-director, as host; Archivist Laura Schmidt as moderator; and Ordway as guest. For those who missed it (e.g., anyone in the UK who didn't want to get up in the dead of night) the whole thing is now up on YouTube at any individual's convenience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTyZJi2Eyjc 

Having been on deadline all week I still haven't read more than a fraction of the book in question, so all I can give here are scattered observations and comments. 

First, I'm impressed by her meticulous research. She spends a lot of time at the start of her book explaining her criteria for establishing that Tolkien knew and read a particular book, and it was a major theme of her presentation. A lot of the value of her book is her decision to err on the side of exclusion --if the evidence seems iffy to her, she leaves that item out.

Second, she's better in print than in oral presentation. The book has the advantage of carefully chosen words  in the most advantageous structure, which is hard to beat in an extemporaneous format. 

Third, she's hard on Carpenter. She blames him with having badly distorted the truth by his statement that Tolkien felt English literature pretty much ended with Chaucer.

She is also highly critical of LETTERS for not giving the complete text of each letter. 

She considers Scull & Hammond three-volume set "the gold standard" for its reliability as a resource.

A few misc. points:

--She is certain that JRRT read Newman but cannot prove that he read any specific work of his.

She made some odd remarks on Morris which made me think she was confusing the Romans of THE HOUSE OF THE WOLFINGS with the Huns of THE ROOTS OF THE MOUNTAINS.

Finally, it's dun-SANE-ee (rhymes with rainy) not dUN-sin-ay

--More when I've had time to delve into the chapters that explore specific writers and works.

--John R.

The New Arrival: TOLKIEN & THE CLASSICAL WORLD

 So, today a new book arrived that I heard about from Andrew H.: TOLKIEN & THE CLASSICAL WORLD, edited by Hamish Wms and published by Walking Tree Press (2021) as volume 45 in the Cormare series. This being a seriously under-explored aspect of Tolkien's work despite the occasional attempt to make some headway (e.g. Reckford's 1987/88 essay or Morse's 1986 book) I v. much wanted to see what these folks had to say. So far haven't had time to do much more than skim the table of contents, but I can already tell the first piece I'm going to read: Michael Kleu's "Plato's Atlantis and the Post-Platonic Tradition in Tolkien's Downfall of Numenor", quickly followed by Lukast Neubauer's "Less Consciously at First but More Consciously in the Revision: Plato's Ring of Gyges as a Putative Source of Inspiration for Tolkien's Ring of Power", then the two pieces comparing Gondor/Rohan with Rome/Germanica: Richard Z. Gallant's "The Noldorization of the Edain: The Roman-Germani Paradigm for the Holdor and Edain in Tolkien's Migration Era" and Juliette Harrisson's "Escape and Consolation: Gondor as the Ancient Mediterranean and Rohan as the Germanic World in The Lord of the Rings".

So, it'll take me a while to get to this, but I expect it to be worth the wait.

I wonder if anyone will explore the Trolls/Cyclopes analogy.

--John R.

Tolkien Loved Libraries

So, between my current deadline and time spent sorting out yet more stuff, I haven't made much progress with the Ordway book yet -- though I'm looking forward to her presentation on it at the Wade later this week.

Her essential thesis is that Tolkien read and was strongly influenced by authors who were modern (1850-1970s) rather than medieval. It's a little odd to be told no one thought of this before if like me you're part of a number of scholars who have been working on just that for years. To be fair Ordway is much more nuanced in the book itself than she had been in descriptions of it while it was in the works.

What has caught my eye is the amount of careful research that's gone into this book. For example I learned that Tolkien spoke at the opening of a local library in Deddington, a village between Oxford and Banbury,  as reported by the local paper on December 19th 1956. 

The wealth of books to be found here is food for the mind,

and everyone knows that for the stomach to go without food

for a long time is bad, but for the mind to go without food

is even worse.

("Professor Tolkien's Whimsical Talk", Ordway p.22) 

So that's a new quote, and a nice one, to add to our collections.

More when I've had a chance to read more.

--John R.

Old TSR Boardgames (THE AWFUL GREEN THINGS FROM OUTER SPACE)

So, the only reason I thought I'd have to leave THE AWFUL GREEN THINGS FROM OUTER SPACE  (1980) out of this series of posts about TSR dawn-of-time boardgames is that I don't have a copy.* But it seems a pity to leave it out when I do have a copy of the re-release from Steve Jackson Games (circa 1988), so my remarks will be based on the SJG version, not the original.

AWFUL GREEN THINGS bears a strong resemblance to SNIT'S REVENGE (and, for that matter, SNIT SMASHING) --not surprisingly since these are sibling games, all being creations of the inimitable Tom Wham.** In the case of AWFUL GREEN its inspiration was THE GREEN SLIME,***  its spiritual descendent THE CAPTAIN IS DEAD (2017).

My copy of this game is in good shape and obviously has never been played; my notes say I got it from Dale Donavan in 1999 for $3. Obviously, there's no TSR stock number on this version.

The other Wham games I know of include MERTWIG'S MAZE, published in folio format (and much later, being released in 1988); two of the six games in THE BEST OF DRAGON GAMES collection, FILE 13 (originally 1983) and SEARCH FOR THE EMPEROR'S TREASURE (originally 1981); and, best of all, there was THE GREAT KHAN GAME (1989). Published much later than most of the TSR Wham games and in sourcebox format (one of those slim boxes later used for al-Qadim adventures), this is a melding card game played on a map that serves as a board. This is the only one of the games I've been discussing that I actually picked up when it was still a new game. It's also one among those relatively few of these I've actually played --and greatly enjoyed, by the way.

The sku number is #1044, reflecting how KHAN GAME comes v. much later than the early Wham games that made his reputation. For some reason somebody decided this whimsical and wacky little game shd be set in the FORGOTTEN REALMS, necessitating the addition of 'The Whamite Isles' to the official FR map. This has given this one game a collectability factor for FORGOTTEN REALMS players lacking in SNITS or AWFUL GREEN.

--John R.

*the same problem applies with LITTLE BIG HORN, which I've never even seen, and WAR OF THE WIZARDS --but luckily Jeff Grubb has just posted a good write-up of the latter at  (http://grubbstreet.blogspot.com).

**SNIT'S REVENGE and AWFUL GREEN THINGS even share similar wording in their advice to player's section for the Snits and Green Things players.

***One of the worst science fiction movies ever made, the obvious source of AD&D's dread Green Slime.

Old TSR Boardgames (SNIT'S REVENGE)

So, of all the boardgames TSR put out over the decades without a doubt, hands down, by far the weirdest is Tom Wham's SNIT'S REVENGE (1977).

Like most of Wham's work,* this had originally appeared in DRAGON and was self-illustrated in Wham's distinctive cartoony style. 

Most of the game takes place inside the internal organs of one monster (the Bolotomus), which is being invaded by a number of small, fast creatures (the Snits). The Bolotomus player marshals his or her defenses, sending out Runnungitms (essentially antibodies) to stave off the Snits. The Snits player runs riots inside their foe, kicking things to death.

Notably for such a silly game,** SNIT'S REVENGE has a stellar cast of credits. In addition to Wham's own contributions to 'Design & Art' and Gygax's nod for "Inspirations", "Development, playtesting, and other venerable aid" are ascribed to a who's who of TSR greats:

Rob Kuntz

Tim Kask

Brian Blume

Skip Williams

Ernie Gygax

Dave Sutherland

Joe Orlowski

Mike Carr

Dave Trampier 

and Jeff Dee

Most of these had moved on by the time I came to TSR, the two notable exceptions being Skip Williams (long a stalwart of the RPGA and later driving force behind the 3e Monster Manual) and Dave Sutherland (mapper extraordinaire). But Wham cd still be seen around town sometimes, puttering around in overalls around the Lake Geneva library (I  was told he worked there as a custodian). I was also told that he'd been married to Rose Estes, who wrote a number of the early Greyhawk novels.

Wham was also exceptional in that most of TSR's early boardgames were one offs, the only boardgame TSR produced for that author. By contrast Wham created a number of such games. There was not only SNIT'S REVENGE's predecessor (SNIT SMASHING) but also its successor (RUNNGUS'S GAME). 

One of these games, THE AWFUL GREEN THINGS FROM OUTER SPACE, merits a post of its own, which shd follow in a day or two.

Finally, a few features of my copy of SNIT'S REVENGE are worth calling out. For one thing, it's autographed (on the gameboard) by Wham himself. For another, I got this game in a silent auction at RockCon in Rockford in 1993 but was not its first owner. Not only had all the little chits been carefully punched out but some sheets recording the names and stats of Snits, SuperSnits, and locations set down for some long-ago gaming session by one Mike Burba were inside the box. So I'm glad this game is one that didn't sit pristine on a shelf but got played and, I hope, enjoyed.

--John R.

*By the way, the name is pronounced so that 'Wham' rhymes with 'Tom'

**It says a lot about the game that two and a half of its six-page rules come in the form of a comic strip explaining the cosmology behind the game.

UPDATE:

I forgot to add the sku designator: it's product #5003

--JDR