Reading Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser

Now let me spend some time lavishing praise on a truly excellent piece of art: Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser stories, as collected in the Gollancz Fantasy Masterworks The First Book of Lankhmar (which puts together the books Swords Against Deviltry, Swords Against Death, Swords in the Mist, and Swords Against Wizardry -- themselves collections of various short stories and novelettes).


Both the characters and the language are truly an immense joy to discover; they're completely fantastic, even if they have quite a bit of variance from one story to another (not a bad thing; kind of like what people say about the Beatles, you can see Leiber evolving and experimenting with his art form, not just churning out longer hack-work over time). It probably doesn't hurt that Leiber based the characters on real-life models, namely himself and his friend Harry Otto Fischer.

I've written about one of these stories previously, in the context of D&D thieves-reading-magic-scrolls. But I really started with Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser about a year ago with the comic collection by Howard Chaykin and Mike Mignola -- comic artists I admire greatly -- which frankly left me a little cold. The action seemed random, unpredictable, and unmotivated. Fortunately, there is a short 10-page preview of the original text at the back, which itself I found to be electrifying. The answer to this riddle is the immensely strong narrator's voice used by Leiber, with all its flourishes of language, cosmic description, and internal monologues and conflicting desires; much like a movie based on similar books, any adaptation can't avoid losing the essence of the thing, namely the amazing richness of the written word.

Here are a few sections that struck me as particularly memorable from the brilliant, if relatively down-tempo, 1968 short story "The Wrong Branch" (which on the prior point, has almost no spoken dialogue at all). It starts with this:

It is rumored by the wise-brained rats which burrow the citied earth and by the knowledgeable cats that stalk its shadows and by the sagacious bats that wing its night and by the sapient zats which soar through airless space, slanting their metal wings to winds of light, that those two swordsmen and blood-brothers, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, have adventured not only in the World of Nehwon with its great empire of Lankhmar, but also in many other worlds and times and dimensions, arriving at these through certain secret doors far inside the mazy caverns of Ningauble of the Seven Eyes -- whose great cave, in this sense, exists simultaneously in many worlds and times. It is a Door, while Ningauble glibly speaks the languages of many worlds and universes, loving the gossip of all times and places.

And then, during a danger-filled sea voyage:

Near Kvarch Nar they did manage to reprovision, though only with coarse food and muddy river water. Shortly thereafter the seams of the Black Treasurer were badly strained and two opened by glancing collision with an underwater reef which never should have been where it was. The only possible point where they could careen and mend their ship was the tiny beach on the southwest side of the Dragon Rocks, and it took them two days of nip-and-tuck sailing and bailing to get them there with deck above water. Whereupon while one patched or napped, the other must stand guard against inquisitive two- and three-headed dragons and even an occasional monocephalic. When they got a cauldron of pitch seething for final repairs, the dragons all deserted them, put off by the black stuff's stink -- a circumstance which irked rather than pleased the two adventurers, since they hadn't had the wit to keep a pot of pitch a-boil from the start. (They were most touchy and thin-skinned now from their long run of ill fortune.)

And finally:

As they were anchoring in Ilthmar harbor,  the Black Treasurer literally fell apart like a joke-box, starboard side parting from larboard like two quarters of a split melon, while the mast and cabin, weighted by the keel, sank speedily as a rock.

Fafhrd and Mouser saved only the clothes they were in, their swords, dirk, and ax. And it was well they hung onto the latter, for while swimming ashore they were attacked by a school of sharks, and each man had to defend himself and comrade while swimming encumbered. Ilthmarts lining the quays and moles cheered the heroes and the sharks impartially, or rather as to how they had laid their money, the odds being mostly three-to-one against both heroes surviving, with various shorter odds on the big man, the little man, or one or the other turning the trick.

Ilthmarts are a somewhat heartless people and much given to gambling. Besides, they welcome sharks into their harbor, since it makes for an easy way of disposing of common criminals, robbed and drunken strangers, slaves grown senile or otherwise useless, and also assures that the shark-god's chosen victims will always be spectacularly received.

When Fafhrd and the Mouser finally staggered ashore panting, they were cheered by such Ilthmarts as had won money on them. A larger number were busy booing the sharks.

One thing is that Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser stories are the most pitch-perfect representations of D&D play that I've ever encountered; turned around, you could easily argue that D&D itself is basically a simulation of the rogues-from-Lankhmar stories. They are venal, bold and aggressive, sanguine and insouciant in the face of the greatest wonders and outrages, bonded as a team unquestioningly even with a background patter of ongoing, casual dispute.

Another thing that happened is that I adored the language and tone so much that I started reading passages, such as those above, aloud to my lovely girlfriend Isabelle. I completely hadn't noticed it previously, but her observation was that listening to the Gray Mouser was practically identical to just hearing me talk normally (incessantly skeptical, technical-minded, kind of cranky, etc.), and that conversations between the two of them had the exact tone of many of our own ("It's us!", she exclaimed). Apparently I'm being called "Gray Mouser" around here now, for at least a few days.


It's really a wonderful body of work. In particular, the novelette "Stardock" may be the single most perfect, fully-formed and satisfying fantasy adventure story that I've ever read. It's like a perfect little gem (ironically). Highest recommendation.

Dark Knight Rises – 30 Criticisms

What follows is a fairly harsh criticism of the movie The Dark Knight Rises. If you liked it, of course, that's great, and I wouldn't seek to take away any person's enjoyment. However, I personally not been so utterly and shockingly dismayed, disappointed, and even offended by a movie since The Phantom Menace (which compelled me to write quite similar thoughts about it 13 years ago). The plot is stupendously nonsensical, while simultaneously mangling mythology to an enormous degree. I was bored, my girlfriend was bored (almost walked out, which we never do), people adjacent to us in the theater were bored. 

I'll start with a compliment – Anne Hathway's derriere is awesome. Now, on to the rest of the review; 30 criticisms follow. Major spoilers about everything are below.

1. WHAT. ARE. YOU. SAYING?! Like the other Nolan films, we have the Batman gravelly voice problem; and now also Bane digitally distorted, non-understandable (plus no visible mouth to lip-read); plus Alfred constantly sobbing; plus Jim Gordon in the hospital not understandable, etc., etc. We were routinely just giving up on following dialog. Never been in a theater with such aggressive “shushing” from all over, people trying desperately to hear.
2. Nuclear bombs don't remotely work like that (never seen it so completely mishandled). They don't go “unstable” over a 4-month period, but predictable to a certain minute or second countdown-timer. A “neutron bomb” can't be flown a few miles out of a city and be detonated without terrible effects on the people of said city.
3. Why was Jim Gordon still carrying his speech in his pocket days later (to be stolen by Bane)? And it seemed to make very little difference in the end (why would people even believe Bane's reading of it)?
4. So bored with the Robin development. Yes, it's pretty clear this young guy will be Robin – yet there's zero payoff in the film itself. I've gone to a Batman movie, and I'm watching more scenes with this ambitious, fairly vanilla police detective than I am Batman.
5. The “Clean Slate” device makes zero sense. How can you possibly delete all your information from all databases in the world? What about off-site backups? Even a single company can't verifiably delete their own data nowadays because of all the cycling backups they keep.
6. Alfred constantly sobbing. Alfred is supposed to be cool, calm, collected – perhaps more so than Batman himself. Always by his side, and always ready with the needed assistance. Alfred sobbing uncontrollably throughout the film and leaving Bruce is not the right story.
7. Batman quitting. Batman taking a 7-year hiatus, coming back for one fight, and then running off with the Catwoman anonymously is not any variety of the Batman character I know. Batman is: persistence and dedication personified, never giving up, always the last of the DC heroes to go down (see: DC animated universe, Kingdom Come, Miller's Dark Knight Returns, etc.) Having him quit on a regular basis is just not right.
8. Didn't you see the assassin's symbol on Talia's back (in the fireplace post-love scene)? It's right there! I honestly thought Bruce would calmly walk out of that scene and cleverly turn the tables on her. No dice.
9. Frankly, I'm very sensitive to issues of cop corruption, militarization, and abuse. This is common to a lot of mass-market superhero movies, but: honestly, cops would not act like that (with empty hands, charging an army with automatic weapons firing at them). For some reason, comic books can get away with unflattering depictions like the Hulkbusters, or the MRD in X-Men; but the popular movies cannot. In Dark Knight Rises you get this NYPD-analog sacrificing their lives in mass battle. In reality you get: New Orleans post-Katrina.
10. How could you possibly catch all the police in your underground trap? How, and why, would you bother feeding them afterward? How could they survive exposed for months through the cold winter?
11. What was the football-arena scene for? Why spend time on cheap patriotism of a child singing the anthem? Why was the playing field detonated like that? What purpose did the whole scene serve (it was set up like people would be hostages, or arena detonated with them in it – a complete tease)? Was the runner just barely avoiding the detonation supposed to be tragic or funny? Simply nonsense.
12. Copycat theme/plot elements – the cutoff of the island and taking the city hostage en masse seems identical to what happened in the last movie. Here, it seemed very much been-there-done-that.
13. Why would suicidal terrorists wait to blow up the nuclear device? Supposedly they both have a trigger and the unstable bomb will go off automatically anyway. Why wait? Granted you've waited, why then bother pushing the trigger 10 minutes before it will go off anyway? Why keep driving your truck with it and grouse about being directed to where it can be defused? Why not just hit the brakes on the truck, die as you're planning to anyway, and make sure the bomb goes off? Why wait until the last second to flood the underground chamber?
14. How could Batman heal a broken back in 3 months and get back in shape to fight Bane? How could he be knifed to apparent death through the ribs and then just run off and ignore it in the conclusion? Plus, we deserve some kind of tactical explanation for why he loses the first fight with Bane but wins the second (even after crippling months-long injury); we don't get any such thing.
15. The Pit concept is just so awful. In the comics: Ra's al Ghul is an immortal villain because of a magic chemical bath called the Lazarus Pit; he has an assassin daughter he personally raised named Talia; and Bane grew up in a corrupt South American prison. For some reason, this was all scrambled up so that Nolan made “the Pit” this nonsensical prison someplace where both Talia and Bane were born (I had to look up the latter online, it was so unclear). It doesn't make sense that people can't escape; that people are being fed; that there's a doctor; that Bruce can't understand the doctor at first, but within a month he does; or that a female child survived. The most egregious thing is Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) appearing in a vision to Bruce and saying “there are many ways of becoming immortal” before vanishing. Nolan – if you don't want to touch the immortality theme, then just don't mention it; lampshading the fact that you wimped out on it is the worst thing that you could do.
16. Why do superhero movies routinely represent the case that the hero only fought their arch-villain one single time before they died? (See: Batman, Spiderman movies, etc.) Why not allude to a longer career? According to this trilogy, apparently Batman really only had 3 major battles in his entire career before retiring. In fact, the one villain who doesn't die on-screen (Joker in the prior movie) has his grand declaration sabotaged: “I think you and I are destined to do this forever” turns out not to be the case, because with Batman's 7-year exile and then retirement, he never fights the Joker, nor anyone else, ever again.
17. Why does Jim Gordon (old and post-hospital) personally have to be fighting to plant the marker and jammer on the nuclear device/truck (and not anyone younger or more fit)? Why is there no explanation for the detector/marker not working? Why does the jammer have to be directly in contact with the bomb (but not 5 feet away)? How is it that old Jim Gordon survives the several-story truck crash, in the container unrestrained with a giant nuclear bomb clanging around inside?
18. That damned Bat-cycle with the flip-around-sideways wheels so you can make a particular corner or whatever. Physically so absurd and ridiculous. Completely wrecked my suspension of disbelief when that happened.
19. There's an early fight in a bar between Catwoman and a gangster over a deal gone wrong. People start shooting, people run out, a legion of cops are suddenly on the scene, there's someone on a fire escape with a long rifle – and at this point I completely cannot follow who's on what side, or who's shooting at whom, or what the hell is going on. Kind of set the tone for the whole film.
20. The opening-scene attack on the plane is pretty ridiculously overdone. Why would Bane risk himself in that situation? Just have someone else do it, or something. It really seems like all the explosive damage to the plane would make it look like not an accidental wreck.
21. What about Batman's robot leg-brace? Early in the movie, Bruce straps on a brace to his lame knee and kicks a big chunk out of a brick wall as practice; this seems to set up use of that kick in some way (to defeat Bane, or make the jump from the Pit, or something). But no; it's just another abandoned plot thread.
22. It's just so long and boring. One example: As soon as Bruce missed one jump from the pit, I knew we'd have to see a set of exactly 3 jumps. So predictable; get on with it, already. Not to mention that the prior implication seemed to be that you died on the rope if you failed the jump; super-unclear. Why wouldn't people be trying every day, or sinking pitons, if that was a possibility?
23. Why storm the stock exchange? If the point was just to make some fraudulent trades, can't that be done electronically from long-distance these days?
24. If “exile” across the ice is sudden death (such that Jim Gordon literally chooses “death” instead when given the choice), why doesn't anyone turn around and attack the gunmen behind them in a last-gasp resistance?
25. Detonating a bridge does not make a neat 2-foot wide slice slide out of it, leaving the person immediately on the other side of the slice uninjured. Structurally that's not how bridges work.
26. Why Batman makes such a complicated fake-suicide at the end is utterly beyond me. (Nor do I think guns on his copter like that can completely level a skyscraper within a second as happens here.)
27. Really not sure how the board of Wayne Enterprises can be keeping a secret resistance, in their own board headquarters (I guess), when they were so central to the villain's plot in the first place.
28. The subplot with Matthew Modine's (scared/incompetent lieutenant) character was really poorly done and unconvincing, I thought. I suspect that the director is not truly committed to showing a cowardly cop. (See other cop point.)
29. The hand-to-hand fight scenes were really pretty drab and uninteresting by the standards of most Batman movies. Maybe this is partly due to Batman and Bane being portrayed as similar strength and fighting styles, such that they were mostly doing the same thing and having no effect on each other.
30. Using actual, real-life New York City for the long establishing shots was completely distracting and off-putting. We're too accustomed to seeing Gotham as a fictional location with its own geography and architecture; now I'm confused why the government agencies are labeled “Gotham” instead of “NY”.
    
    

Critical Hits Tables

In my OED house rules, I note that I use a set of detailed tables for critical hits or fumbles on a natural roll of 20 or 1. This is something that's been enormously satisfying in play since I started doing it a few years ago; it's actually the only complicated "tablature" that I regularly use in play, out of all the official D&D rulebooks, articles, or supplements that I've ever seen. (My DM screen interior normally showing (1) adventure location map, (2) standard monster stats, and (3) critical hits tables.)

Part of the satisfying nature of it is exactly in how rarely it gets invoked, like, two or three times per gaming session at most. It definitely throws in just the right amount of unexpected "spice" detail that makes combat exciting, unpredictable, and truly dangerous (without generally encumbering the process or the pacing). It throws a very nice curve ball into the standard d20-and-damage combat sequence, yet it's still an objective mechanic (not just DM fiat). And we have yet to see the exact same "special" result twice in the time that I've been using these tables. One of the things I do is, even after a 1 or 20 are indicated, grant the victim a saving throw to avoid going to the tables -- this nicely avoids oddities like high-level fighters constantly fumbling their sword, makes powerful monsters or established PCs difficult to take down by this technique, etc.

I haven't presented the tables here in the past because they're simply straight out of an old Dragon Magazine article -- a submission by the otherwise unfamiliar name of Carl Parlagreco, "Good Hits & Bad Misses", in Dragon #39 (July, 1980). To my knowledge, this is the only classic Dragon article dealing with the issue of critical hits; I think it was a short time after this was published that Gygax wrote one of his screeds, especially pointing out critical hits as a corruption of core D&D play. But I've found them to be extremely satisfying in my OD&D games. (Note that I almost totally ignore the text rules, but use the tables as written.)

Note how nicely this is laid out, from the era when meaty Dragon articles might only take up 2 pages as shown here (I print this out on one sheet of paper for my DM screen). It even has a thoughtful space left for "Notes" for your own refinements to the system. Here's what I have written in mine:

---

• On natural "1" or "20", target saves vs. stone (level + 2) or consult appropriate table.
• Fumbles: ignore indicated Dex checks.
• Liberal interpretations necessary: negate/change unreasonable results.
• Delayed death results negated by application of 3 cure light wounds.
• Undead immune to effects except head crushing/decapitation.

---

Edit 1: Also, consider making the victim roll the d% dice to determine the final critical-hit effect. Holy god, the look of horror on the player's face when they have to do that is unparalleled.

Edit 2: Get a PDF copy extract of these tables here.

Xkcd Wish Log

If you haven't done so already, make sure you read this past Wednesday's xkcd strip titled "Eyelash Wish Log" -- an important case study in things to watch out for!

That is all.

OED Update (v. 1.0)

Over the last few years, I've been posting versions of my refinements to the Original D&D rules under the title "Original Edition Delta", with version numbers of 0.x. Seems like it's finally time to increment that to 1.0, since these house-rules seem to have largely stabilized, and seem pretty satisfying to work with in any of the games that I've run recently. This version is pretty much the same as the last one (0.11), with some very minor wording changes, and the added note that 1 turn = 1 minute ~ 5 rounds, as discussed recently.

Download from OEDGames.com:

• OED House Rules (v. 1.0)
• Player Aid Card (v. 1.0)

Castles & Cutpurses

OD&D Rules for Stocking Castles; Adding Thieves and Their Expected Behavior

Thinking a bit more on my convention game exploring the Outdoor Survival map using the rules from Original D&D Vol-3 (the DM's booklet) -- the following are the rules for stocking Castles (p. 15-16). Note that in these rules the only classes are Fighters, Magic-Users, and Clerics; so for my game I had to think about how to replace the Clerics with Thieves (consideration follows page scans; recall that for me, basins are caves, and buildings are castles):

A few comments: Note that the "occupants" are all either "name level" or "one below name level" in their respective classes (as usual, with Clerics as an outlier: they're either "lawful name level" or "chaotic name level"). Note also the weird wording on fighter/wizard alignment: they're either "hostile to adventurers (die 1-3) or neutral (die 4.6)" -- I read that first option to mean "chaotic", although obviously if your PCs were Chaotic you might as well make the hostiles Lawful for some action-packed gaming.

Anyway, as mentioned above, I wanted to strip out the Clerics and replace them with Thieves (more in-line with the Fighters and Wizards in terms of levels and alignment distribution, in fact). So in the first table, my last two rows look like this:

The monsters I used were almost all from Sup-I Greyhawk, but I think that's acceptable since it's where the Thieves themselves come from (the elves in the top-right are Hero/Theurgists, i.e., 4th-level in each class). For the second table I gave Thieves a 25% chance of having a Magic-User, level 5-8 (same as for Fighting-Men).

Open questions -- Per the text, "Occupants of these castles will venture out if a party of adventurers passes nearby", so as to make certain demands for tribute/treasure/toll, as indicated for each. One question is: What men do they bring with them? -- Initially I presumed just the castle leader himself with the Guards from Table 1, but in hindsight it seems a bit suspect that the castle ruler would jeopardize himself in such way (e.g., instead of using the castle itself for protection; perhaps that's good for the game, or perhaps they should bring a host standard men with them?). Second question is: What should Thieves do for analogous challenge/demands? -- I tried to come up with something, and frankly couldn't see anything in-flavor except for Thief-types to lay in hiding within their castle, hoping to ambush unwary intruders (which seemed to make sense until my PCs went to explore said castle and I had to make up reasons for how hundreds of men could remain hidden at once). Maybe you've got better ideas for those reactions?

HelgaCon V — Outdoor Spoliation

Sandbox Play on the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL Map; Party Configuration and Preparation; A Synopsis of Their Various Travels and Exploits; Final Commentary and Literary Echoes

So for the final game of HelgaCon back in April, Sunday morning, I ran a session of an upper-mid-level  hex-crawl D&D plundering adventure on the old Outdoor Survival map. This was done pretty closely following the guidelines set out in Original D&D, Vol-3 for adventures on said map (p. 14-20; as part of my continuing science experiments to play the original game as much as feasible). The goal is for the party to acquire 100,000 silver pieces worth of treasure in the session --which would be enough to raise the whole party up by one level (under my silver standard sp-for-gp, and ×5 XP rules). I call this scenario Outdoor Spoliation for hopefully obvious reasons.

I did make some alterations for flavor; while OD&D states that pond icons are castles and cabins are villages, I switched it around so that pond icons are caves (with monsters) and the small number of cabins are castles (with various high-level inhabitants). Also, for simplicity I use the movement chart directly from the original game box (instead of the slightly altered terrain adjustments rates in OD&D). Inhabitants of caves & castles were almost entirely generated beforehand by random methods (and wandering monsters could also occur mid-game, of course); I've got the pond/caves on my version of the map numbered with a wax pencil to link up with game notes. Due to my busy spring schedule, I came to play much less prepared than I ever have been for a game -- just 3 pages of handwritten notes, which was downright unsettling for me. Nevertheless, it may have been my biggest hit of the convention, and gave a seemingly pitch-perfect denouement to the whole weekend. For example, see here for the writeup of the game on Paul's Blog.

The Party

I had a very nice, full-sized group of 8 players, everyone well-experienced with D&D or RPG's in general. As usual, I provided a collection of OED-specification pre-generated characters for them to select from, all of them constructed at the 95,000 XP level. They selected a group of 2 human wizards, a fighter, a thief, a dwarven fighter and a halfling thief, with one elf fighter/wizard and another wizard/thief (levels 6-9 depending on class). You can see these characters here (PDF).

These characters were allowed to start with 5,000 sp for any gear they wanted, so of course they all had horses and 6 weeks of food. Several (wizards in particular) also decided to hire a few men-at-arms guardians with missile weapons, and grooms for the horses. This sort of made for a comical logistical snowballing at the start of the session, as some players decided they wanted helpers, then so did other players, then more horses were needed, etc. There was some friendly squabbling over exactly what to set for a limit on party size. (In truth, I actually had my Book of War mass-warfare game within reach, and without saying as much, I was fully prepared if the group decided to raise a whole army and traipse into the wilderness that way; in fact, the starting money was balanced for just that.)

The group was permitted to start at any of the 4 castles (cabin icons) around the map edge, assuming a friendly and allied castle-owner -- they selected the south-central one and proceeded northwards from there. At that point, I started rolling the standard encounter and "lost" checks and moving the group on a per-day basis. (Side note: Until this very moment I always presumed that the lost/encounter checks on Vol-3 p. 18 were on the same die; but then I realized this doesn't line up with the text, and I was rolling 2 dice of different colors each move-turn. Furthermore, note that encounters are technically at the end of a day, while lost conditions are triggered at the start of day.)

The Travels

Below you'll see a map of the group's travels (cabin/castles are indicated on the original map but not the image below; here they're replicated by numbers in circles). Thereafter, a synopsis of their journey is given.

1. This is the castle of the Lawful Necromancer, Thjodolf Crowfoot. He provided initial accommodations and saw the party off on their travels.
2. This cave contained 4 Giant Scorpions, which were engaged with a combination of spells & hand-to-hand combat. One party member narrowly avoided death (had to make a save vs. poison); the group thereafter decided to be more thoughtful in their engagements. Only a small amount of treasure here: 500 gp and 500 cp.
3. This cave at the edge of a mountain spur was the hideout for a band of 7 Ogres. Here the party sent several stealthy magic-using members forward under invisibility, catching the ogres by surprise and blasting them with multiple fireballs. While the ogres were successfully shock-and-awed to pieces, any treasure was liquified and ran into the bowels of the earth. The party decided to be more careful in this regard in the future.
4. This was the stronghold of the Neutral Necromancer, Kaxen of the Rain Castle. He met the party on the plain outside the castle with his apprentice and a charmed manticore, demanding a toll for trespass on his property. While discussing this, one of the party members took the initiative to hit him in the head with a sling stone, at which point he ice stormed the party, and general mayhem ensued. At the end Kaxen and his apprentice were dead, and so was one party member (thereafter resuscitated with the single wish from Halig Redsaber's magic sword). This put negotiations with the other six-score defenders of the castle on a notably sour note, with the party dropping Kaxen's head in the castle with demands for surrender or else face destruction, while the castle-men declared steadfast resistance against such Chaotic marauders. Ultimately Halig found the proceedings distasteful, and got the party to agree to a more reasonable ransom demand, which was met with a magic scroll, 2,000 sp and some gems, and a map to a nearby large cache of treasure (see below).
5. Here was the hideout of a large force of Bandits; 200, to be exact. Advance runners spotted the party coming up the forest trail and the body of the group formed an ambush, with cavalrymen arranged on the trail and scores of bowmen in the trees to either side, which the party then walked into. A wall of fire was effective in forestalling a cavalry charge from the enemy, with fighters dashing into the woods on either side for a general melee. One notable frustration was Yuri the Bull, who charged into the woods on his heavy warhorse, and then critical-fumbled his way into a stout tree branch, knocking his helmet around backwards and blinding him for the balance of the engagement. However, other fighters did more fine-edged work, the party guards returned fire, and a barrage of sleeps, charms, fireballs, and other magic served to break and send the bandits running. The party forced a number of captured bandits into their service and had them show the way to the cave-hidden treasure; and thus they marched away with a force stronger than they started out with, some 50,000 sp richer, and with an effusive forest fire burning gaily behind them.
6. This is the location of a river crossing, at which point the group met Olaf Lancethruster, a Neutral Superhero in full plate armor challenging any who wished to cross the river to a joust. This the party agreed to, under the stipulation that the loser would forfeit all property to the winner, and Yuri went forward to meet Olaf in a glorious joust. (Olaf was a random wandering encounter; at this point I pulled out the jousting rules from original Chainmail.) Unfortunately, on the first hit, Yuri was hit square in the fess pale (center shield), and knocked clean from his horse with a resounding clang. The party decided to pay Olaf for Yuri's otherwise forfeited gear, and they proceeded onward, leaving Olaf happily 5,000 sp richer than he was previously.

7. Here was found Castle Cougar, home of the arch-thief Ketil the Demon and his group of malign robbers and sell-swords. Initially the castle appeared deserted, but when the party investigated by means of flying and ESP they found the whole place well-guarded with hidden men and defenses. After some planning, they came up with an extravagant and detailed plan in which some members would be invisible, a phantasmal force of a far-off marching band created, while thieves scaled the walls, invisible wizards would knock the castle gate open, and then the remaining fighters and men could storm the place with help from various confusion, fear, and sleep-type magic. After a hard-fought battle, this turned out to be successful, with Ketil himself and his chief henchmen cut down in combat, and the other questionable men ultimately surrendering. Here was found some 40,000 sp in treasure -- a good amount, but not quite enough for the party to claim full victory as time ran out. 

Commentary

Granted the relatively small amount of preparation I'd done, and the great amount of freedom on the part of the PC's and the ad-libbing I had to do, this game was a ridiculous blast to play. The thing is: Never in all my years of D&D play have I ever felt more like I was smack directly in the middle of a Vancian Dying Earth or Leiberian Fafhrd & Gray Mouser story -- jaded, wry, roguish, completely mercenary, and bewildering from the outside. I was frequently ducking down behind my DM's screen so as to hide my almost uncontrollable laughter -- particularly as the PC's were threatening to invade a castle of Neutral men, claiming right of seizure after its leader had "blackmailed" them by asking for a toll from their otherwise free movement across its land. Memorably, when the NPC's started calling back heroic taunts against the "Chaotic marauders", the face of one single player fell (Halig Redsaber), and he started basically yelling at the other players for their outrageous behavior -- but when other players suggested that they could let the men live for a mere ransom of 20,000 sp, then he considered it thoughtfully and agreed that was eminently reasonable. That and the fact that no one realized their many fireballs along the woodsy trail had set off a raging forest fire had me in stitches.

Probably the hardest thing to ad-lib in the game was running the open assault of high-level characters against fortresses that I only had a single line of information on each (name, leader, and number of men). Honestly, I hadn't actually expected that to happen when I visualized the game in advance -- although I did think possibly personal combat with the leaders was likely. On the fly, I had to visualize the layout of the castles and administer reasonable defenses along the gates, walls, etc.; that seemed to work out perfectly fine in practice, maybe even better pacing-wise than I'd normally manage, but I think in the future I'd like to have at least one "default" castle layout and defenses on hand for adjudication in that regard, since on my end everything seemed just a bit sketchy, like I was probably overlooking some obvious protections (and see also situational-response notes in 1E DMG p. 105).

At any rate, it's a game I don't think I'll ever forget, and in its random and accidental mechanical way, more successfully transported us all into the "Appendix N" literary tradition than anything I'd experienced before. A really great game, and great play and comments from all the players -- I'd love to do it again sometime.