Old TSR Boardgames (4th DIMENSION)

 So, this one is a bit of an odd man out, being the American adaptation / edition of a previously published English (UK) game. It'd be nice to be able to say that this game about Time Lords was connected in some way with DOCTOR WHO, but no such luck. Instead this is a positional game all about positioning your markers most advantageously; it has echoes of Stratego and Chess

And that's really about it. Perhaps the design has appeal that's not apparent from just skimming the rules and setting up the pieces. Unfortunately none comes across in the two online play-throughs I found on YouTube / Boardgame Geeks. It also has the problem that the gamepieces look too much alike and the board is too small.

One mildly shocking feature of the game is its naming one standard type of move a "suicide".  There's an unfortunate bit of word choice that wd never see the light of day today.

The games' product number/stock number is #5004; it's also a bit later (1979)  than the other games I've been looking at in this string of posts. 

In the end, I get the sense that this game functions better as a piece of set design in, say, an old episode of STAR TREK than being something someone wd actually want to play. Pity. 

--John R.

Old TSR Boardgames (BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES)

 So, this might be known as The One That Got TSR in Trouble, were there not competition for that title (cf. WARRIORS OF MARS). Gygax tells the story in anecdotal fashion:

TSR was served with papers threatening damages to the tune of half a mil

 by the Saul Zantes (sp?) division of Elan Merchandising on behalf of 

the tolkien Estate. The main objection was to the boardgame we were 

publishing, The Battle of Five Armies. The author of that game had given 

us a letter from his attorney claiming the work was grandfathered

because it was published after the copyrights for JRRT's works

had lapsed and before any renewals were made. The action also

demanded we remove balrog, dragon, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit,

orc, and warg from the D&D game. Although only balrog and

warg were unique names we agreed to hobbit as well, kept the rest,

of course. The boardgame was dumped, and thus the suit was 

settled out of court at that.

—CHEERS, GARY (circa 2002) p. 108

Since it'd take a whole separate post if not more to unpack and fact-check Gygax's account  (e.g., Zaentz's 'Tolkien Enterprises' did not represent the Tolkien Estate, though they often found it useful to give the impression that they did), and because I've written about this boardgame elsewhere, all I'll say about it here is that my favorite rule can be found at the bottom of page 5 of the rulebook:

SMAUG VS THE DWARVES 

. . . For this scenario Smaug may only be killed by Bowfire. Note: In this scenario the Dwarves have no Bows.

--Think over that one for a bit. Kobayashi Maru, anyone? 

Maintaining their confusing tradition in assigning stock/product numbers, this game is #F110

--that is, the tenth in their line of boardgames, this time tagged as a Fantasy title.

On a personal note, while I'm vague on exactly when I got most of the games I'm covering in their sequence of blog posts, this one I can be specific on: I got it at Origins in 1995 (Sunday July 16th), that being the only time I ever went to Origins. It cost me $18.95, probably because all the pieces have been punched and ziplock bagged. Finally, I bought it from Crazy Egor -- not just his booth but Crazy Egor himself. *

--John R.

--current reading: three Japanese light novel (the equivalent of young adult fiction).

*I also bought the original boxed set of Chaosium's MASKS OF NYARLATHOTEP at the same time and place, but it cost me $29.95.  It was worth it. And now, all these years later, I'm coming to the end of playing the adventure.

Old TSR Boardgames (COHORTS : Roman Checkers)

So, another of TSR's early boardgames is more significant for its associations than its gameplay. Published by TSR under the name COHORTS: THE GAME OF ROMAN CHECKERS,* it's a reconstruction of an ancient game, the rules for which are lost. The game has different names in different cultures. From a quick survey I suspect some of these are different games now associated together more than is perhaps justified. 

More interesting than the game itself is the fact that it was the work of L. Sprague de Camp. At first de Camp seemed an odd choice to create (or re-create) a boardgame. Then it hit me: one of de Camp's most famous works is his LEST DARKNESS FALL (1939), a Connecticut Yankee novel about a modern-day engineer who finds himself back in Late Antiquity Rome.  If we consider de Camp, who was something of a polymath, an expert in all things Roman, his authoring a Roman or pseudoRoman game makes more sense.**  

de Camp's name appears at the end of the rulesheet and on one of the box sides, which says

COHORTS, THE GAME OF ROMAN CHECKERS,

 has been specially prepared by world famous author L. Sprague de Camp.

The box bottom  reads

COHORTS is the third title in TSR's "Famous Writers Series", 

and this edition of the game was prepared by noted writer L. Sprague de Camp.

The phrase "Famous Author Series" appears in a starburst in the upper right corner of the boxtop.

So, what is the Famous Writers/Authors Series, and what are the other entries in it (presumably at least two, if this is the third one)? I assume the Leiber/Fischer LANKHMAR Game was one, and that the Larry Smith version of Tolkien's BATTLE OF FIVE ARMIES the other.

Finally, for those trying to sort out the seqyence, this game's stock number is #5002.

--John R.

--New Arrival: Holly Ordway's long awaited TOLKIEN'S MODERN READING.

*Thanks to Steve Brown for my copy of this. 

**This was not de Camp's only contact with TSR: DRAGON MAGAZINE reprinted one of the  Harold Shea 'Incomplete Enchanter' stories.

Lankhmar Lore --found

So, thanks to Jeff G's comment on my previous Lankhmar post, I now know where a lot of the questions I had can be answered. Jeff pointed me towards a string of articles about the LANKHMAR Game that had appeared in DRAGON Magazine in late 1979/early 1980.

In all there were seven pieces in this series, all of them written by Dr. Frederick MacKnight:*

DRAGON #30.  p.16-17 (Oct 1979)

DRAGON #31. p.32-34 (Nov 1979)

DRAGON #33. p.12-15 (Jan 1980)

DRAGON #34. p.32-33 (Feb 1980)

DRAGON #36. p.46-47 (Apr 19800

DRAGON #37. p.31-32 (May 1980)

DRAGON #38. p.44-45 (June 1980)

  

MacKnight's claim to fame is that he was the person who introduced Fischer to Leiber. He also played the original version with Fischer and Leiber and can (and does) describe it in exhaustive detail. Unfortunately he rather confusingly describes and discusses the original game ('LANKMAR'), the new game ('LANKHMAR'), and his own proposed re-design of many features of both. Here's what MacKnight has to say (emphasis mine):

I am one of the few people ever to have played the original game of Lankhmar

other than its original authors, Harry Fischer, Fritz Leiber, and Martha Fischer. 

There was also Prof. Lawrence (Larry) Howe of the University of Louisville,

and that is all. Harry owned the board and hadn't had many games-minded

friends since college days.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is learning that Martha Fischer played a crucial role. Indeed, she created the map board, which had a 3D element to its terrain. MacKnight says he was Ningauble and suggests that Martha F. was Sheelba (Leiber and Fischer were Fafhrd and The Mouser, of course). And apparently there was a good deal of roleplaying when the characters came into conflict.

Playing the game took a major time investment of several days --at least a weekend. But in MacKnight's opinion it was more than worth it:

I played the game only three or four times but it was enough to convince me

that it was the greatest, most fascinating game ever invented by man.

In addition, we learn some worthwhile misc. facts:

That the board was six feet tall and three feet wide.

That the map was oriented North / South, unlike TSR's East / West, which had created blank areas that Gygax et al had filled with inserted place-names of their own devising. 

Each square was 1&1/2 inches across. 

The landbridge was twice as wide in the original. 

As for the War Cat, MacKnight sheds light on this when he groups it with mounts:

The beasts are horses and camels. In [the original game] these were represented

 by checkers: black for horses, red for camels. There was also the War Cat, 

represented by a furry button. In [the new game] the War Cat plays no 

active role. He must be too old now too leave his lair!

I admit to being curious whether the original survives and if so where it is now. We know the board was in Fischer's keeping, and that it must have survived intact down to the mid-1970s, when Gygax et al must have borrowed it to work from when creating their stripped down version. The chief reason given by Gygax for not publishing the original game as is was simply cost: the game wd have to be priced at fifty to a hundred dollars, in a day when the EMPIRE OF THE PETAL THRONE box was considered extravagantly expensive at twenty-five dollars.

Nowdays, of course, things are different. A deluxe Kickstarter might well have a good chance of getting funded, assuming the original survives to serve as the template.

--John R.

*MacKnight's first name is given variously as Franklin and Frederick; I'm not sure which is right.

Coda: Fafhrd's Dilemma

Before moving on, I wanted to mention the seventh and last of the pieces MacKnight inflicted on DUNGEON editor Tim Kask, which was unlike the rest in that it was a logic puzzle. Here's a quick summary:

Fafhrd is in a death trap. 

The Gray Mouser has five minutes to disable the trap and free him. 

The person to whom the puzzle is posed asks questions 

to create the scene and reveal what to do to save his partner.

--JDR

Lankhmar Lore

So, I took a look at the LANKHMAR map, cards, tokens, and rulebook in hopes that this might turn up some Lankhmar lore—details about Leiber & Fischer's world from early after its creation that might not have made it into the fiction. There turns out to be very little of this, though what's there is intriguing (see below). The biggest change is in accepting that the Gray Mouser and Fafhrd are here just two of four co-equal heroes (each being one player's character), the other two being Pulgh of Lankhmar and Movarl of Kvaach Nar. Fafhrd leads a Mingol army while The Mouser fights on behalf of the Chosen of the King of Kings (a figure wholly unknown to me).

 

 Now that I've looked through the rules, I'd say the game play must be fairly chaotic,* since there are multiple elements that disrupt each player's plans. The most amusing of these are the GEAS cards. Each player has to draw one of these at the start of each turn, and they represent quests that either Sheelba or Nignauble force that player to go on. That hero has to either temporarily abandon the war and take on the geas himself or delegate it to one of his minions. Typical Geases include

 

• "Go to the Trollstep Mountains to learn the trollstep dance and report back to Sheelba"

• "Go to the City of Ghouls and bring back a Ghoul-friend for Ningauble"

and my personal favorite: 

• "Find an earthworm from Earth's End and bring it to Sheelba".

 

Sometimes Sheelba will lend her boat to help out a hero, Sheelba's boat being another new element.

 

The typical reward for fulfilling a GEAS is to be free of it, but sometimes there's a Reward, with effects detailed on the REWARD card. 

 

The most interesting of these involve an elusive character known as the War Cat, who appears on two of the cards. The War Cat gives out gifts to heroes, but there's no clue of what he, or she, or It might be, though we do know that it lives in a cave (the Cave of the War Cat) on the far west of the map.*

 

1st card. "Go to the Cave of the War Cat and gain your choice of a sword, spear, axe, or bow and arrow"

2nd card. "The War Cat gives you aid in combat: Add +1 to the die roll of the man of your choice (hold until used). Discard when used."

 

So, who or what is the War Cat? In the absence of any other evidence I'd have assumed something along the lines of the Cath Paluc. But in the game it functions as a sort of minor Sheelba/Ningauble --less perilous to approach, distributing lesser reward. The parallel between the names Gray Mouser and War Cat makes me think the Cat is a who, not a what. That visitors are given weapons suggests faint echoes of Scathach, but that's probably pushing it. 

 

Unless of course it's just something Gygax or one of the other mid-seventies re-casters of the game put it in as some kind of private joke.

 

Perhaps someday we'll get a book-length study of Leiber that'll answer questions like these.

--John R.

 

*one good example of this is the Sunken Lands, a land-bridge that submerges at unpredictable intervals, possibly drowning an army crossing the land-bridge at the time.

A Declaration of Consciousness

Well, this is interesting.

I've now finished reading Sy Montgomery's book THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS, the author's personal account of her interactions with octopuses (including some at the Seattle Aquarium). Worth reading, though I wd have preferred less Montgomery and more octopuses.

As part of a discussion of octopus intelligence, towards the end of her book she mentions The Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness, a 2012 proclamation by a gathering of neuroscientists that some animal species --birds, mammals, octopus-- have the "neurological substrates that generate consciousness"; among the signatories was Stephen Hawkins. It's encouraging to see physiology catching up with observational research.

Reading this makes me look forward to the day when, post-pandemic, we'll be able to visit area aquariums again (being lucky enough to have not one but two, in Seattle and also Tacoma).

--John R.

Old TSR Boardgames (The Lankhmar Game)

 So, I like to make lists. For example, years ago when I was at TSR/Lake Geneva, I attempted to create a complete product list. Every D&D/AD&D rulebook and boxed set and module. Every boxed set or module for all the other TSR rpgs, like GANGBUSTERS and TOP SECRET and BOOT HILL.  Every book to come out of TSR's book department --not just all the shared world novels but also the pick-a-path books in their various guises. In the end I didn't quite manage to get everything, but I came pretty close: call it a good faith effort.

And while poking about in the company's history, I became aware aware that TSR had published a number of board games in the early days of the company. By far the most important of these, and the best known, are DUNGEON, Dave Megarry's boardgame encapsulation of D&D, and Mike Carr's FIGHT IN THE SKY / DAWN PATROL. The rest had largely vanished out of the collective memory.* 

Once I was aware these games I started picking them up as opportunity offered. I have eight and know of a ninth;  I don't think there were ever more than ten or twelve in all. Anyway, thought I'd do a few postings for the sake of those curious about this long-ago sideline. 

THE LANKHMAR GAME

Being a big Leiber fan (nobody wrote sword and sorcery better) I was excited to learn that TSR had published a Lankhmar boardgame back in 1976. Leiber fans know that Fischer, Leiber, and a third person whose name I forget created a Fafhrd & Gray Mouser boardgame back in 1937, only about three years after Fischer & Leiber had created the characters. The game, rumored to be of great complexity, thus sounded likely to reveal new information about the characters and their world. 

Imagine my disappointment then to discover that this is not the game Fischer and Leiber created back in 1937, but a modern (1976) redaction from it whipped up by Gygax, Rob Kuntz, and Brad Stock (a name I've otherwise never come across). 

The full credits are of interest in themselves:

Inspiration: Fritz Leiber

Original Design: Harry O. Fischer

Consultant and Co-Designer: Fritz Leiber

Development of Redesign: E. Gary Gygax, Robert J. Kuntz, Brad Stock

Graphics: David Sutherland

Editing: Mike Carr

Special Effort: David Arneson, Brian Blume

Printing: Patch Press Inc., Beloit, Wisc

—this is thus one of the few TSR titles to include a credit for Arneson, albeit an ambiguous one.

The account of why we are getting this game and not the one we wd have expected comes near the end of the rulebook (emphasis mine):

THE HISTORY OF LANKHMAR:

   Most readers will be surprised to learn that the Game of Lankhmar was originally conceived in 1937 and has been played down to this time! It has withstood a rather severe test of time, particularly for a game based on a fantasy concept. Those who have read THE SECOND BOOK OF FRITZ LEIBER (DAW Books, Inc. New York, 1975) will know that Harry Fischer was a prime force in the development of the world of Nehwon, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, etal. Harry conceived the basis for the game also, and he and Fritz developed it into an exciting contest, quite chess-like in its movement and combat systems -- in fact, the original playing board was squared off rather than gridded with hexagons. The result was a spectacular game with a gigantic board, raised terrain features, and impressive pieces with weapons bristling forth; and various newspapers printed pictures of the game and wrote about it over the years. In corresponding with Fritz Leiber the subject of the game was brought up, and soon a three-way discussion of its possible appeal now was underway between Fritz and Harry and Gary Gygax. The end result is the game you have before you.

   Unfortunately there was no way LANKHMAR could be produced in the form that Harry did it in originally, not unless the game could be sold for fifty or a hundred dollars!  And if the form was changed much of its appeal would be sacrificed too. As changes in sone [sic] aspects were necessary anyway, a study was begun to see how the game would be affected by certain other changes as well. Would it be possible to change the board to a hexagonal system and incorporate the latest fantasy conflict game concepts into the original design? If this were possible it was envisioned that what was lost from the original eye-appeal and sweeping movement could be off-set by additions of greater mapboard graphic detail, more realistic combat simulation, and play which brought forth more of the flavor of the world of Newhon. After a long period of development work, Fritz and Harry gave their approval to this version of their game. The original Game of Lankhmar is still herein, but in a format which enables thousands to now enjoy playing the game which was formerly limited to just a few! We certainly hope that you will find it as interesting and informative and challenging as we do. 

three misc. points in closing:

The upper right corner of the box top bears the stock number F 105. If I understand TSR's rather confusing designators at the time,  probably means that this, a fantasy game, is the fifth of their boardgames. 

Since it never saw the light of day, I hope the original is preserved in a museum or special collection. At the very least it'd be nice to see one of those photographs mentioned.

Finally, I didn't know this when I bought the box, but the rulebook inside my copy is autographed by both Fischer and Leiber. Definitely a keeper.

--John R.

*I shd have asked Dave Sutherland but never thought to.