Getting nostalgic for old school Dungeons and Dragons

While surfing the boards today at RPG.net, a Web site devoted to role-playing games, I came across this ultra-cool link.

Click through, check out these fine old-school miniatures by Otherworld, and if you're of a certain shared background, I guarantee that you'll experience an intense bout of nostalgia. I did, as I was immediately (and pleasantly) assaulted with a flood of memories about first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

For those who haven't been following the game's progress, D&D is currently on version 3.5, and by the summer a fourth edition is due for release. Like 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5 before it, fourth edition promises sleeker rules, more options, and more "fun" than ever before. On most days I find talk of new rules and new versions of D&D a good thing, as it represents progression, a refinement of a rules-system that has brought me great pleasure since I started playing circa 1982 or so.

But not today. These old miniatures brought back the countless hours I spent with the old first edition books, aging tomes like the Players Handbook (the one with the gem-eyed, fire-lit, leering idol on the cover, above), and the Dungeon Master's Guide (the one with the three adventurers battling a towering, muscular, red-skinned efreet on the cover, with the fabled City of Brass floating over a flame-swept sea of oil on the back, below).

Role-playing games were simpler back then. Certainly there were rules (and first edition AD&D had its share of them, often byzantine and difficult to find in a pinch due to poor organization in the books), but when we didn't know a rule and couldn't be bothered to look it up, we simply made it up on the spot. Sure, we had impossibly high-level characters and ran "monty haul" campaigns in which +5 holy avengers and Axes of the Dwarvish Lords were scattered across the land, but it was fun.

If this sounds like nostalgia talking, you're right. The games I play now are better, more focused, and more immersive. But I believe that it's more than just fond, hazy memories of childhood coloring my perceptions. Even though later iterations of the game are arguably better--cleaner written, with more coherent rules, and more options that allow for more character customization--first edition AD&D has it all over the later editions in one crucial aspect--flavor. The old books were far more evocative of adventure, of mystery, and of danger. Version 3.0/3.5, despite its superior rules, simply can't compete in this regard.

Here's an example. From the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide, page 7, "Style of play:"

The DM provides the adventure and the world. The players and the DM work together to create the game as a whole. However, it's your responsibility to guide the way the game is played. The best way to accomplish this is by learning what the players want and figuring out what you want as well.

Ho-hum. Essentially all the 3.5 rules are written like this: Dry, text-booky, highly accurate but devoid of color. Compare and contrast with the AD&D first edition Players Handbook, p. 109, "Successful adventures", written by the incomparable Gary Gygax:

Characters with stories related about their exploits--be they cleverly wrought gains or narrow escapes--bring a sense of pride and accomplishment to their players, and each new success adds to the luster and fame thus engendered. The DM will likewise revel in telling of such exploits...just as surely as he or she will not enjoy stories which constantly relate the poor play of his or her group! Some characters will meet their doom, some will eventually retire in favor of a new character of a different class and/or alignment; but playing well is a reward unto itself, and old characters are often remembered with a fondness and pride as well. If you believe that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is a game worth playing, you will certainly find it doubly so if you play well.

If that doesn't make you want to grab a torch, a sword, a 10-foot pole, and head into the underdark, I don't know what will.

If you need further proof of first edition's greatness, go back to that link up above and click on that troll miniature. That menacing, hollow-eyed visage is--and always will be--Dungeons and Dragons to me.

My top five heavy metal albums

Following are my top five favorite heavy metal albums, and the reasons why. These are in no particular order.

One of these days I'll get to writing an obnoxious screed as to why I think metal is one of the great, underappreciated genres of music, and the subject of much unfair scorn and criticism, but not today.

On to the best:

1. Somewhere in Time, Iron Maiden. Blasphemy, you say? What with a catalogue that includes classic albums like Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and Powerslave? Yes, I retort. While hardly a fan favorite (or seemingly a band favorite--Maiden seems to avoid this album like the plague in concert), Somewhere in Time is consistently great all the way through. It has an otherworldly sound and a feel that makes me think of Blade Runner and instantly transports me back to high school (with all its high and low points). There was a time when I wore through two Somewhere in Time cassette tapes from too many listens. There's just something about this album that resonates deeply with me. Maybe it's the whole package--the mesmerizing cover, the distinct guitar synths, Bruce Dickinson at his peak as a singer, the band at its creative peak--I don't know. In the end, I love it because it exemplifies that metal can be a lot more than just loud and fast, and can aspire to art.

2. Heaven and Hell, Black Sabbath. I know Ozzy Osbourne will forever be identified as the one and only lead singer of Black Sabbath, and I'm not saying that assumption is wrong. But for my money, the Ronnie James Dio-fronted Heaven and Hell is Sabbath's best. Neon Knights and Children of the Sea never fail to transport me into a land of dragons and kings, while Die Young, though depressing, is brilliant. The title track is among the finest examples of the soaring heights of greatness metal can reach. Operatic and epic, it ranks alongside Maiden's Hallowed be thy Name in this regard. And Tony Iommi is my personal favorite metal guitarist, with a unique style and a sound that more technically gifted players (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, etc.) can't touch.

3. Screaming for Vengeance, Judas Priest. I hemmed and hawed over a couple of Priest albums before setting on Screaming, which wins out by a nose due to The Hellion/Electric Eye (best metal album lead-in, ever), and hits like Riding on the Wind, Bloodstone, and of course, You've Got Another Thing Coming. Nobody could sing like Halford at his best.

4. Operation Mindcrime, Queensryche. It's a cliche' to call this the best heavy metal concept album ever, but that's exactly what it is--and arguably its the best concept album across all genres of music (though Pink Floyd's The Wall is perhaps superior). While I don't find the story of Mary and Doctor X quite as compelling as I did as a teen, there's no denying that Mindcrime is a brilliant piece of writing. And it's every bit as good musically--Chris DeGarmo's guitar work and Geoff Tate's soaring vocals are artistically perfect. In 1988, nobody could touch Queensryche. This album reminded me of George Orwell's 1984 set to music, and absolutely blew me away.

5. Master of Puppets, Metallica. Metallica was at its high water mark on Master of Puppets (1986), hitting the right note at the peak of their considerable talent. 1984's Ride the Lightning is another extremely good album, though a bit rawer and less artistic. And Justice For All (1988) marked Metallica's creative peak, but I find it though a bit less compelling and more repetitive than Master. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Can Metallica ever again write a lyric like, Mirror stares back hard, kill is such a friendly word, seems the only way, for reaching out again, and be able to pull it off with conviction? No way--there's simply too much (sewer) water over the dam. It's a shame to see how the mighty have fallen.

Honorable mentions: Defenders of the Faith, Judas Priest; Holy Diver, Dio; Nightfall in Middle Earth and Live (2003), Blind Guardian; and every Iron Maiden album ever made (except for the Blaze Bayley era, No Prayer for the Dying, and Fear of the Dark).

American Gods, a review

Warning--some spoilers ahead

****1/2 stars out of five

Part fantasy, part literature, part meditation on religion, part travelogue, part commentary on American culture, part murder mystery, part character study, Neil Gaiman's American Gods contains so many disparate elements that it is nearly indefinable; yet it is undeniably brilliant and nearly succeeds in pulling off all of its grand ambitions.

American Gods is first and foremost the story of a man named Shadow, who at the book's outset is just about to exit prison following a three-year sentence for assault. Shadow's world is soon rocked when he finds out that his wife is dead, killed in a car accident only days prior to his release. Flying home, he is approached by a large, bearded, one-eyed man named Wednesday, who turns out to be none other than Odin the All-Father, chief god of the Norse pantheon (props to those who know the derivation of Wednesday=Woden=Odin's Day). Wednesday hires Shadow to be his assistant in what we soon find to be a coming great war--a Ragnarok, if you will--between the old, dying, mostly forgotten gods of dozens of ancient cultures--Egypt, Japan, India, etc.--and the new "American Gods" of wealth, technology, television, sex, and more.

Odin and Shadow take to the backroads of the U.S. to enlist the old gods to their cause, and soon run afoul of the new gods and their hired guns. After a run-in with the assassins, Shadow goes underground to hide in an (too) idyllic town named Lakeside, a place with a dark secret--Shadow finds that a child has disappeared each year for the last 100 or more years, victims of a hungry, dark god who demands sacrifice. This is the mystery piece of the story.

In the end, we learn that Shadow is part of an elaborate scheme (manufactured by Odin) to get the old gods to join Odin's cause and start the war. Odin hopes for a great slaughter in the battle of new and old gods, a great blood-letting that will deliver the sacrifice he needs to regain his lost power. I won't spoil any more, only to say that Yggdrasil, the world tree, plays a role as Shadow becomes part of legend.

American Gods is an amazing book. Gaiman writes brilliantly about the nature of religion ("a vantage point from which man examines his life"), about death, and about what it means to live and find meaning. The portentously named Shadow is just that--a shadow of a man, a drifter and not a doer, who is representative (and perhaps an allegory) of 21st century man. Without religion or foundation, we drift like pale shadows, seeking answers and firm ground, but find none--especially not in the harsh, new "gods" of technology and flesh and violence, avatars that blaze with great brightness but burn out with equal rapidity.

My only complaint with American Gods is that Gaiman's scope at times feels too broad, and I was left with some questions and some loose ends that weren't adequately tied up. But it's a book that demands re-reading and one that I heartily recommend.

Immersed in Blade Runner

I've spent the last hour or so immersed in the four-disc collector's edition of Blade Runner, released this December complete with director Ridley Scott's definitive cut of the film, plus a megaton of extras.

The four-disc set comes with an attractive fold-out package, with nice scans from the film on the packaging. Each of the four discs is painted with black and white images of one of the four major characters from the film, including Deckard, Rachel, Pris, and (of course) Roy Batty.

Needless to say I'm in geek heaven right now. There's so much to watch here, including the following:

• Disc 1, which contains the final cut, as well as three separate commentaries: One by Scott; one by Executive Producer/Screenwriter Hampton Fancher, Screenwriter David Peoples, Producer Michael Deeley, and Production Executive Katherine Haber; and a third by several art and production folks.
• Disc 2, which contains Dangerous Days, a documentary of the making of Blade Runner, including outtakes, deleted scenes, and all new interviews.
• Disc 3, which contains three complete versions of the film, including the U.S. theatrical cut, the international theatrical cut, and the 1992 director's cut. Each has its own introduction by Scott.
• Disc 4, which contains an "enhancement archive," more than a dozen segments chronicling aspects of production and other features.

As I'm typing I'm watching the final cut with the Fancher/Peoples/Deeley/Haber commentary turned on. This interests me the most as the thing I like best about Blade Runner is its exquisite script (though its rich visuals are of course amazing, especially completely restored and on a remastered DVD). Listening to these four chat about the film some 25 years after its initial release is fascinating. For example, here's their take about why Blade Runner fared so poorly at the box office on its release:

(Deeley): One of the reasons was timing misjudgement. The picture should not have been released in the summer. It was being treated as a big expensive picture for it wanted a summer audience, but it wasn't the standard summer fare. We knew that we were following E.T. by 4 or 5 weeks, but we figured that E.T. would have done its job with the audience by then, and that audiences would have been willing to move on to something much harder, much tougher. Well, that was completely wrong. E.T. just went on and on and on, and we were out of tune with that moment in the market. I think if it had been released as a Christmas picture, it might even have done as well at the Oscars as it perhaps should have done.

(Haber): Apart from anything else, the cinematography, the production design, the visual effects, sound, everything, was overlooked by the academy, which was insane.

(Deeley): It is insane, but it's our fault for releasing it then. You'll remember on Deer Hunter, the decision was made to release it in December, so it came as near to nomination time as possible. And it was still fresh in the voters' minds. This (Blade Runner) had been forgotten. Everyone agrees that it is remarkable in terms of texture. But it was just bad timing. And I have to attribute that bad timing to a desire to recover the cost of the picture as soon as possible, because we had gone over budget, there was more money to recover, and there was not much patience with this. Which was a mistake.

Damn you E.T.!

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien: An illuminating look into the author, part 2

More revelations and other assorted awesomeness uncovered while reading The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien:

Revelation 1: With Barad-dur crashing around them following the destruction of the ring, Tolkien had originally planned to have Frodo and Sam fighting with the last Nazgul on an island of rock surrounded by the fire of the erupting Mount Doom, prior to their rescue by Gandalf's eagle ... in other words, a little more dramatic than the way things turned out (and perhaps melodramatic, which is why Tolkien ditched the Nazgul bit).

Revelation 2: Tolkien had planned to write a final chapter to the Lord of the Rings, a coda of sorts, tying up many of the loose ends by having Sam read out of an enormous book to his children and answering all their questions about what happened to everybody. I would have liked to have seen this myself, but I can see why he ditched it: Stories work best when you show, and don't tell.

Other interesting bits...

I knew that Tolkien read chapters of the Lord of the Rings as he wrote them to his colleagues, a close-knit circle who called themselves The Inklings. But it's cool to hear their feedback. For example, well before its completion Charles Williams said of LOTR, "The great thing is that its centre is not in strife and war and heroism (though they are understood and depicted) but in freedom, peace, ordinary life and good liking." This is something that the intellectually challenged detractors of LOTR who attack the work for its "lack of gore and battle scenes" (and I have heard this criticism a few times, believe it or not) cannot seem to grasp.

We also know from reading the foreward to The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien "detested allegory in all its forms." But anyone reading the tale knows that its far more than just an adventure story. Tolkien himself used the term "applicability" to readers who wanted to draw parallels between the book and contemporary events in Tolkien's time, such as the World Wars.

For example, take the One Ring itself. Many have speculated that it represents atomic power, or more broadly the advent of scientific reason and the subsequent driving out of magic. But I had never heard Tolkien himself weigh in on its symbolism until I read a letter in which Tolkien admits that he had much more in mind with the One Ring than a mere artifact of a forgotten age:

Of course, Allegory and Story converge, meeting somewhere in Truth ... And one finds, even in imperfect human 'literature,' that the better and more consistent an allegory is the more easy it can be read 'just as a story'; and the better and more closely woven a story is the more easy can those so minded find allegory in it. But the two start out from opposite ends. You can make the Ring into an allegory of our time, if you like: an allegory of the invevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. But that is only because all power magical or mechanical does always so work. You cannot write a story about an apparently simple magic ring without that bursting in, if you really take the ring seriously...

I'm only a quarter of the way through this book and its loaded with gems like these. Much more to come.

The Letters of JRR Tolkien: An illuminating look into the author

I recieved a few blissful days off from work this Christmas, and in addition to lots of time with the family I spent a few free hours digging into The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. I'll admit to not having read any dedicated collections of letters in the past, preferring to read works of fiction or traditional non-fiction, with occasional forays into biographies and literary criticism.

But being a personal favorite author of mine, I made an exception for Tolkien. And so far (just 90 pages into a roughly 500 page book), I'm glad that I did.

Tolkien was old-school in every sense of the phrase, and one of his and his contemporaries' endearing traits was the act of letter writing. While I'm sure that personal correspondence has increased with the advent of computers and e-mail, there's just something special about the process of setting pen to paper and writing an honest letter, a piece of paper that you can hold in your hand and read. Paper letters seem simultaneously more formal and more personal (if that's possible), and are certainly more tangible than an e-mail that arrives nearly instantaneously when you click "send," can be just as easily deleted. In fact, I wonder how much e-mail correspondence will ultimately survive.

But back to the matter at hand. Tolkien was particularly voluminous as a letter-writer (at least according to the dust jacket of this book), and left a huge paper trail following his death in 1973, a trail which often leads to illuminating revelations about the man.

Take this letter he wrote to his son, Christopher, in the latter days of World War II (dated May 6, 1944). This was a trying time for Tolkien, who was not only teaching a full courseload at Oxford and spending his few remaining free hours trying to write the Lord of the Rings, but was also subject to constant worry about his son who was in the Royal Air Force helping wage a campaign to defeat Nazi Germany.

Tolkien begins the letter sympathizing with the deplorable camp conditions through which Christopher was suffering (the elder Tolkien himself being a WW I veteran with similar experiences), but then ties it into one of the prevailing themes of the Lord of the Rings:

Your service is, of course, as anybody with any intelligence and ears and eyes knows, a very bad one, living on the repute of a few gallant men, and you are probably in a particularly bad corner of it. But all Big Things planned in a big way feel like that to the toad under the harrow, though on a general view they do function and do their job. An ultimately evil job. For we are attempting to conquer Sauron with the Ring. And we shall (it seems) succeed. But the penalty is, as you will know, to breed new Saurons, and slowly turn Men and Elves into Orcs.

In other words, evil means are often (unfortunately) needed to defeat evil, to the detriment of both the victor and of mankind in general. In this case, Tolkien was referring to how the common soldiers--the Tommies--get ground up in the gears of war, which are set in motion by politicians and madmen.

Later in the same letter Tolkien describes some of his writing process to Christopher:

A new character has come on the scene (I am sure I did not invent him, I did not even want him, though I like him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien): Faramir, the brother of Boromir...

This for me was a fun bit of magic, a glimpse at the divine spark of invention that comes of inspired writing. Actually reading about how a characer like Faramir more or less strode, fully formed like a real person, onto the rough pages of The Lord of the Rings, was inexpressably rewarding. Revelations like this and the one above have made Letters a truly illuminating read.

An about-face on Blade Runner, 25 years too late

Although I still don't own a copy (a lapse that I hope to rectify this Christmas), director Ridley Scott on December 18 released what he finally considers to be his definitive version of one of my favorite films--the science fiction classic Blade Runner, The Final Cut .

As I mentioned in a previous post, Blade Runner was neither a critical nor a commercial success upon its release in 1982. In fact, the critics more or less savaged it. According to the definitive history of the film, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon, it was as if "many of the nation's critics had somehow been offended by the subtlety and care that had gone into this picture."

Among the critics, one Southern newspaper slammed Blade Runner for being "like science fiction pornography--all sensation and no heart." The LA Times warned audiences to not "...let the words blade runner confuse you into expecting a super high-speed chase film. Blade crawler might be more like it." A New York Times critic called Blade Runner "muddled ... gruesome ... a mess." Roger Ebert himself said that "The movie's weakness... is that it allows the special-effects technology to overwhelm its story." There were positive reviews, too, of course, but they were in the minority.

But bad press couldn't keep Blade Runner down. Only with the passage of years, through positive word of mouth, appreciative SF magazine articles, and repeated viewings on videotape (and later, DVD) by a vocal fanbase, did the genius of this film shine through the dark cloud created by its poor critical reception.

Now, 25 years after its release, the critics are all back on board, rank and file, like sheep. I subscribe to the Sunday Boston Globe, and I could barely stifle my laughter this morning when I glanced at a Globe table that compiles national reviews of new film and DVD releases. Every major reviewer in the table--The Globe, Time, Entertainment Weekly, the LA Times, Variety, and more--listed Blade Runner, The Final Cut, as "recommended." Don't believe me? Go ahead and do a Google search--you'll find that there's tremendous praise for Blade Runner from nearly every quarter.

Talk about an about-face. Now that the overwhelming consensus of fans and SF literati have rightly recast Blade Runner in its proper light--as arguably the most influential and best SF film ever made--the critics have hopped back on board.

Alas, it's 25 years too late. The majority of the critics didn't "get" this movie then, and frankly I doubt they get it now. But it's a lot safer to give it their critical stamp of approval now that the tide has turned.

Shortsighted then, and cowardly now.