8 May, 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
REVIEW: Country of Arduin
Map
MAY 07, 2009 01:39P.M.
I’m a huge fan of maps, as you know. Maps of imaginary places are part
of what drew me into fantasy and science fiction in the first place.
Goodness knows I spent a large portion of my younger days drawing
maps of various kinds for use in my roleplaying game adventures and
campaigns. Maps appeal to me both on an intellectual level (for their
utility) and an esthetic ones (for their beauty). They are a perfect
example of the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. A
well-drawn map is of much greater value to me than pages upon pages of
information about a setting. Indeed, I’m increasingly of the opinion that
game companies ought to lavish more time on the maps of their settings
than on the books that detail every nook and cranny depicted on them.
So great is my zeal for cartography that I’ve been known to pick up maps
and map books even for settings I don’t actively use or in which I
otherwise don’t have much interest. A good case in point is the Country
of Arduin map from Emperor’s Choice Games. I own only the original
three Arduin Grimoires and have found them useful as inspirational
material, but I have never run a full-fledged Arduin game and I am not
even certain that I am constitutionally capable of it. Despite that, I won’t
deny that I lusted after it. Now that I have a copy, I can see that my lust
was well placed.
First off, the Country of Arduin map is big. Measuring 2 feet x 3 feet in
1
size, it looks exactly like the map of a fantasy setting should. This is
helped by the fact that it’s printed on a faux parchment that reminds me
of the covers of the little brown books. The map uses only four colors for
its details, which also contributes to its “archaic” feel, as if it had been
hand-drawn rather than produced by means of a computer program. The
map uses an uncial font for its titles and notations. The font is legible
enough, even at very small point sizes, which the map has aplenty. I
found the font slightly inappropriate for its subject matter, though; it’s a
bit too “generic” and stereotypically “fantasy-ish” for the quirky,
individualistic setting of Arduin.
The map, though large in size, covers a comparatively small geographical
area, since the scale is 10 miles to the inch. In practical terms, this means
that the map shows not only expected features like rivers, forests,
mountain ranges, and major cities, but also bridges, sites of interest,
individual mountains, and small towns, as well as inns. One of the most
charming things in volume II of the Arduin Grimoire, Welcome to Skull
Tower, is its comprehensive listing of the inns and road houses of the
setting, complete with their names, locations, owners, and a rating of
their quality. For all the mockery made of the hackneyed “You meet in an
inn ...” intro to many a fantasy adventure, there’s something very right
about the emphasis given to inns on this map. It gives the whole thing
the joyful, convivial air for which all roleplaying sessions ought to strive.
The map is easy to use, with legends and an easy-to-use grid system. I
found it very hard not to be drawn by the map’s many evocative names —
Huddledark, The Great Look What I Found Forest, Village of Eight
Gravestones to name but three — and I immediately began to wonder
what these places were like. I know very little of the Arduin setting
beyond what I’ve gleaned from the first three Arduin Grimoires, so these
names mean nothing to me in and of themselves. Yet, they sparked my
imagination unlike many have in a very long time. Much like maps of the
Wilderlands of High Fantasy, I found the Country of Arduin map to be a
spur to my creativity even without an accompanying guidebook. For me,
that’s the mark of a good fantasy RPG map.
In short, the Country of Arduin map is an excellent product. Although
clearly designed for those who play in the Arduin setting, it has some
utility even for those who do not. Given its price ($19.99), it’s definitely
not an impulse buy, even for cartography aficionados such as myself,
which is a pity, because it’s a great example of a fantasy setting map, one
of the best I have seen in some time.
Presentation: 8 out of 10
Creativity: 8 out of 10
Utility: 5 out of 10
Buy This If: You love well-done fantasy maps and/or are playing in an
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
Arduin setting campaign.
Don’t Buy This If: Fantasy maps aren’t your secret lust and/or don’t
have any interest in the Arduin setting.
ROGUE FEED
James Mishler Does It Again
MAY 07, 2009 12:42P.M.
James Mishler is a font of good ideas and insight. When he’s not penning
lots of excellent Wilderlands materials, he’s producing awesome graphics
to accompany his blog. A case in point is the following graphic,
reminiscent of the alignment chart I first saw in Holmes Basic:
While I’m sure some people will quibble over the specific details of his
chart, I think it very nicely summarizes the main “philosophical” axes of
this activity we call roleplaying. I’d say I’m very firmly in the “High
Adventure” camp, though my exact location within that quadrant varies
quite a lot from campaign to campaign and even session to session. Right
now, I’m much more strongly tending toward the “Gygaxian” than I have
been in my more recent past.
Anyway, I’d urge anyone who wants to talk about this to head over to
James’s blog and do so. I think he’s on to something with this graphic
and it’s well worth discussing.
2
8 May, 2009
ROGUE FEED
FYI Comments
MAY 06, 2009 07:20P.M.
Just a quick heads-up: I likely will not be able to keep up with the pace of
comments here and reply to every one, even those addressed specifically
to me. I wish this weren’t the case, but, with 700+ posts and climbing,
including many old ones that still generate comments months after the
fact, there’s simply not enough time in the day for me to respond to them
and still stay on top of my posts, writing projects, email correspondence,
and real life.
I’m not complaining about the situation — far from it. I’m very pleased
that many of my posts generate such energetic discussion among my
readers and I urge you to continue, so long as you play nicely with one
another. However, I’m going to be more scarce in the comments than I
have been in the past, at least for the foreseeable future. I regret that, but
there are limits even to my endurance.
ROGUE FEED
Retrospective: Isle of the Ape
MAY 06, 2009 02:55P.M.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 8 May, 2009

back to the early days of the hobby, these modules were less focused on a
satisfying dramatic narrative or even world-building, preferring to
concentrate on presenting exciting, action-oriented locales after the
fashion of D&D‘s Golden Age modules.

Yet, in a sense, modules like Isle of the Ape represents a departure from
the Golden Age’s approach, even if not quite as large a one as does
something like Dragonlance. WG6, for example, is explicitly written with
the assumption that the referee owns and uses Unearthed Arcana, as
there are unexplained references to magic items, classes, and rules from
that “unearthly tome” (as the Introduction calls it). Certainly the module
can be used profitably without UA, but the fact that the module assumes
one is using a tertiary rulebook represents a very big shift in the way
modules were written. It likewise marks one of several starting points for
the “everything is core” movement that has, in my opinion, done great
violence to the hobby.

Nevertheless, Isle of the Ape is a very interesting and enjoyable module.

Written for characters of very high-level (18+), it’s quite demanding and
requires the use of equal parts magic, brute force, and wits to be able to
overcome its challenges, most notably the giant ape Oonga, from whom
it derives its name. The Isle is a mini-sandbox, with many interesting
encounters throughout, most of them obviously derived from the Lost
World genre of pulp fantasy. Gygax notes in the Foreword that the
original Isle proved too difficult for his players, who opted “to risk other
fell places rather than continuing to face the perils of the island.” If the
original was anything like the published version, I can believe it. When I
ran it for the mightiest PCs of my old campaign, they also found it more
1985’s Isle of the Ape is the last official D&D module by Gary Gygax
than enough of a challenge. Indeed, some spoke of it as being worse than
published by TSR. That alone makes it fairly significant. Like its
The Tomb of Horrors, because they all expected The Tomb to be a
predecessor in the WG series, Mordenkainen’s Fantastic Adventure, this
deathtrap, whereas they initially just saw the Isle as The Isle of Dread,
module is, at least in part, a throwback to the early days of the hobby,
Mark II, which it most certainly is not.
since the eponymous Isle was a feature of Gary’s own (still-unpublished
at that time) Castle Greyhawk. Though I have no firsthand knowledge to
I have a soft spot in my heart for Isle of the Ape and appreciate its almost
substantiate this supposition, I believe that these late Gygax modules
“retro” feel, both in terms of its inspirations and the way it flew in the
were to some degree a reaction to the Hickman Revolution. I base my
face of the conventions of the post-Dragonlance world. And, for good or
feelings on contemporary articles by Gary in Dragon, in which he makes
ill, it’s also a window into some of the plans Gary Gygax might have had
the case that D&D had become too focused on “story” and that there was
for the future development of AD&D had he remained at the helm of
a need to “start pushing the pendulum the other way” back toward
TSR. Consequently, it feels far more like an artifact from a different age
“action, rather than role playing, ... [as] the major focus of gaming.”
than do many other even older modules, which may explain why I like it
(Issue 102) Isle of the Ape has only the thinnest plot, being mostly a
in spite of its flaws.
romp through an extremely deadly version of King Kong‘s Skull Island,
re-imagined as a demiplane, so, if I’m wrong in this supposition, I don’t
do so without cause.

Remember too that 1985 is part of Gygax’s Cent-Jours, after he wrested

control of TSR back from the Blumes, but before he in turn lost control
of the company to Lorraine Williams. By most accounts, TSR was deep in
debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. In fairly short order, Gygax turned
the company around, shedding personnel and projects that were both
unnecessary and distracted the company from its core competencies.
Books like Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures were products of
this time, being rushed out the door in order to generate revenue to
cover TSR’s financial obligations to creditors. So too were later
Greyhawk products like this one. Written by Gary himself and harkening

3
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
Interesting Bit of Gaming
History
MAY 06, 2009 02:42P.M.
I stumbled across this link, which shows one of the complaints made by
TSR in their lawsuit against GDW and Gary Gygax in 1992 regarding the
Dangerous Journeys/Mythus RPG. It’s a great read, if only to see exactly
how thin TSR’s case actually was. Reading through it, they come across
as petty and vindictive, not to mention arrogant, claiming all sorts of
commonalities between Mythus and D&D without ever once
acknowledging that their own claim of D&D‘s having been the original
source for many of these things is patently absurd. It’s this kind of
thinking that earned the company the sneer “T$R” back in the 90s and
doomed the company to the demise it so richly deserved.
Fascinating stuff.
ROGUE FEED
Graeme Davis is writing for
Colonial Gothic
MAY 06, 2009 12:19P.M.
Though things have been quite as of late, that does not mean we have not
been busy. More on that later, but this post is about what the subject line
says.
Rogue Games is pleased to announce that Graeme Davis has signed on
with Rogue Games, and will be writing two supplements for Colonial
Gothic! Graeme who has worked for such companies as Games
Workshop, White Wolf, TSR UK, Hogshead Publishing, and
Steve Jackson Games, brings a wealth of excitement and ideas to
Colonial Gothic.
“I’m looking forward very much to writing for Colonial Gothic. Anyone
who is familiar with my work will know of my interest in historical
roleplaying, and I can honestly say that no tabletop RPG has piqued my
interest so much since I discovered Call of Cthulhu in the 1980s,”
stated Graeme when asked about agreeing to work with Rogue Games.
Graeme, will be penning two books for Colonial Gothic, one dealing with
the colonies and the other dealing with monsters, both of which are due
out later next year. In addition we are also talking with Graeme about
future projects with us as well.
8 May, 2009
Personally I am humbled as hell to be working with Graeme. He has
some great ideas, a ton of talent, and I cannot wait to see the
manuscripts. This is going to be fun.
Posted in Rogue Games Tagged: colonial gothic, Rogue Games
ROGUE FEED
The Rogues welcome Graeme
Davis to the Fold
MAY 06, 2009 11:52A.M.
Though things have been quite as of late, that does not mean we have not
been busy. More on that later, but this post is about what the subject line
says.
Rogue Games is pleased to announce that Graeme Davis has signed on
with Rogue Games, and will be writing two supplements for Colonial
Gothic! Graeme who has worked for such companies as Games
Workshop, White Wolf, TSR UK, Hogshead Publishing, and
Steve Jackson Games, brings a wealth of excitement and ideas to
Colonial Gothic.
“I’m looking forward very much to writing for Colonial Gothic. Anyone
who is familiar with my work will know of my interest in historical
roleplaying, and I can honestly say that no tabletop RPG has piqued my
interest so much since I discovered Call of Cthulhu in the 1980s,”
stated Graeme when asked about agreeing to work with Rogue Games.
Graeme, will be penning two books for Colonial Gothic, one dealing with
the colonies and the other dealing with monsters, both of which are due
out later next year. In addition we are also talking with Graeme about
future projects with us as well.
Personally I am humbled as hell to be working with Graeme. He has
some great ideas, a ton of talent, and I cannot wait to see the
manuscripts. This is going to be fun.