The Best Halloween Adventure for D&D

On this blustery day, as we await Superstorm Samhain, I thought it would be nice to reflect on one of the most inspiring D&D products ever.  1983's Ravenloft.  I know there is much debate about this.  James Maliszewski gave it a hit and a miss review.  In parts, I agree.  The legendary Sutherland maps, while eye popping and evocative to the extreme, were easier to play in the thinking than in the doing.  Still, it was those maps, as well as the Caldwell artwork, that so caught the spirit the module was trying to convey.

I understand that for some, Ravenloft marks a turn toward a different style of play than the early days.  Since I was never into the game beforehand, that fact didn't impact me.  Yes, I know the story is ham-fisted and riddled with cliché.  Most of what they wrote had that tendency.  But there was an atmosphere to the whole package.  It delivered on the presentation.  The cover screamed Gothic Horror.  And in the end, it delivered.

First, the cover.  Not only did you know what the point of the module was going to be, you still had that wonderful ability to invoke a universal image.  It was 1983.  Frank Langella's Dracula had just come out a few years earlier, but even it still played off of the traditional images of the Count.  For most human beings, if you said Dracula, you thought Lugosi.  Perhaps Christopher Lee.  But that was it.  You still had a common canvas upon which to build an image.  Today you would need to ask 'do we me Twilight Vampires, Interview with a Vampire vampires, Underworld vampires, classic (Universal) vampires?'  Back then, there was a shared narrative that most of market could be counted on for knowing.  Caldwell's art took full advantage of that fact.

Second, the inside cover.  Call me crazy, but I loved the surrounding lands map.  The village and the castle.  Because it wasn't just some scattered bunch of dots representing the village, and it wasn't an X or a square representing the castle.  It was a scale representation of both.  When you looked at the tiny black castle, with its fine details, and then looked at the inside maps, you could imagine seeing what the castle stencil only hinted at.  That's important.  The one thing this game always held for me was the excitement of discovery.  You're in a room with two doors, which one do you take?  You see the small outline of a tower or a little battlement, what is really in those that only the maps show?

Third, the artwork.  I've learned that across the OSR blogs, Clyde Caldwell gets about as much praise as Benedict Arnold used to get in American schools.  And there is some truth to that.  Much of that period artwork is technically wonderful, yet in some ways stale.  Antiseptic.  Clean.  I can't explain it, but it often fails to tap into the same feelings that a Trampier or a Sutherland work could manage.  But in this case, it works.  The back page teaser, written in a much tighter prose than some of the interior text, matches perfectly the Gothic spirit that old Strahd captures in his pose upon Castle Ravenloft.  You really want to know where he is in the castle.  Perhaps it's indicative of that period's artwork that there is no place on the maps that matches the cover.  But that's for another post.

Finally, you have the complete package.  It doesn't miss a trope.  From gypsies to waterfalls to beautifully mysterious forests, filled with mists and wolves, it has it all.  The module touches on everything that a consumer in 1983 would associate with the genre.  For my part, I found playing the maps more difficult, as James points out, than it was worth.  And I completely ditched the sappy love story, edited Strahd's tome, and reworked many of the encounters.  But I left much of the framework.  The old church with sinking steeple, the boarded up village, the leaves blowing about the castle courtyard, the abandoned chapel, the simultaneously foggy and rainy night - why the list goes on!  It was a module that delivered what its packaging promised, and that alone makes it great among a list of greats, and a perfect romp for a drizzly All Hallow's Eve. 

The Monster Manual

It is, IMHO, the greatest RPG book ever published.  I know.  I'm no expert and I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of every RPG book ever published.  But based on those I have seen, and assuming that there aren't others I've missed that would change this boast, I maintain my claim.  Not just because it's the best RPG ever for the sake of RPGs.  But because of the impact it had, and what it brought to the table in the year it was released.

We all know that it was the first hardbound rule book for role playing games.  Not exactly an overwhelming accomplishment  then or now.  Its impact and its quality are beyond just that distinction.  And while I'm sure on a rules level others would argue the point, in terms of overall impact and its contribution to the cultural scenery of the day, I can think of no rival.

To understand what I mean, we must hop in the Wayback Machine and go to 1977, when Lucas had just unleashed Star Wars on the movie going public.  Fantasy/Sci-Fi was about to get a boost the likes of which the genre had never known.  We were heading into the Fantasy Renaissance that would stretch well into the mid 1980s.  And plopped down on bookstore shelves was this little gem. 

Understand, it was the dawning of the national mega-chain.  It was when consumerism was ready to kick into high gear, and our houses, as the late George Carlin stated, were going to become a place for our stuff.  In 1977, believe it or not, most houses I visited were rather sparse.  There wasn't much to own.  A few trinkets here and there. Some decorations.  A record collection.  A few bookshelves.  Tools maybe, and the odd hobby here or there, usually tucked into the basement or garage. That was it.

You just didn't have stacks and stacks and stacks of things.  There were no CD/DVD collections.  Books weren't as plentiful as today.  And there were no chain stores to offer the busy consumer the opportunity to indulge in make believe international art for their homes.  In short, you didn't have as much stuff.  That includes books, magazines and the like.  Kids might.  But you tended to grow out of it.  Unless you were a diehard fan, you certainly didn't have stacks and shelves of fantasy, mythology or other books.  If you were interested in monsters or folklore, a few books here and there.  Some issues of Movie Monsters.  A trip to the library.  That was all.

So when this volume was presented to me Christmas morning, 1982, it was a comprehensive intro to all the monsters and legends I had grown up reading about and watching on the movie shows.  I knew it was a game, since I had seen friends at school playing the game and bringing the book to study hall.  But to have it and peruse the pages was like getting a crash course in tales and stories I'd never heard about.

 

I did not know what an Efreet was.  I had never heard of Dopplegangers.  Even though I loved folklore, in those days you had to be a serious scholar to put forth the effort to find such things.  Werewolves, vampires, dragons sure.  But there were so many more.  The MM became, in some ways, a pamphlet for the Fantasy Renaissance of the age, and was the first thing to pique my curiosity about this game. 

 

The artwork?  In those days it was acceptable.  In these days, I appreciate it even more.  I'll get to that down the road.  But in an age before the Internet, tweeting, mega-stores and Amazon.com, you couldn't do much better for a single book to inspire people.  Oh, it had its detractors then.  Especially by the kids who thought the whole thing of RPGs was banal.  But even friends I had who wouldn't touch a fantasy RPB with a 10 foot polearm would secretly, while visiting my home, grab the book and glance through it.

There are other aesthetic and practical reasons as well.  Some of those reasons hit at the core of just what D&D was then vs. what it is today.  One of the base 'philosophies' I've developed (and I use that word half tongue in cheek), is that the original D&D (including 1st Ed., esp. the first three volumes) was a game based on everything but a game.  Later editions were simply versions based upon the D&D game.  That means something.  It explains a few things.  It also shows how a book that seems so flat and even stale compared to the CGI flash and spectacle today, can nonetheless possess a depth and legacy I doubt few others will ever come close to achieving.