Links to Dave Hargrave Day Posts and a Bonus Link

These are links to posts by various bloggers for Dave Hargrave Day and a Bonus link that Arduin Fans should enjoy!

Celebrating Dave "The Dream Weaver" Hargrave Day May 25th (This blog)

Time to Celebrate Dave Hargrave Day May 25th

Join me in Celebrating Dave Hargrave Day May 25th

David A Hargrave Day - May 25th

Musing on Arduin – Hargrave Day 2018

Bonus Link

Fear and Loathing in the Arduinian Wilderness

Also links to the passing of Dave Hargrave's friend Paul Mosher

Paul Mosher RIP (This blog)

Paul Mosher friend of Dave Hargrave has Passed On

Paul Mosher Friend and Champion of Dave Hargrave and Arduin has passed

If anyone has links to other Dave Hargrave Day Posts, please let me know so that I can add them to this list.

Erik Guttman's homebrew rules for magic and undead link provided by +Face of Iron

Paul Mosher RIP

Dave Hargrave's good friend Paul Mosher recently passed away. Now much information is available other than this:

Here are Aprel’s words (Paul’s wife):

On Sunday April 15, 2018:
“I wanted to let you all know, that this morning with no fuss Paul quietly slipped from this world into ARDUIN forever. He had not been sick, and it was a real shock…Please let anyone else you think of know.”
On April 25, 2018:
“They have finally signed off on Paul's death certificate and he was cremated last night. I will be picking up his ashes Thur. Hopefully today or tomorrow I will be meeting with the Vet guy and will be getting the arrangements made for the memorial. “

Sadly, I have not been able to locate an obituary for Paul and can only offer my condolences to his wife and family.

Celebrating Dave "The Dream Weaver" Hargrave Day May 25th

Today is May 25th the birthday of the great and fantastic David (Dave) Allen Hargrave who was known as The Dream Weaver and is the Author of Arduin his homebrewed fantasy world that started out as an OD&D campaign world. He passed away prematurely in 1988 at the tender age of 42.

He published the first book called The Arduin Grimoire which was an unofficial supplement to OD&D. Once TSR reacted negatively (and failed to do the wise thing and hire him) he filed the serial numbers off and labeled it a new FRPG - the actual process in making it a standalone FRPG took several years.

The Arduin Grimoire though is the kind of supplement we OD&D players from the early 70's always wanted and TSR always failed to deliver. It is a grab bag full of all manner of strange ideas and uncensored brainstorming of ideas. It has a little bit of everything and there is something for everyone. (TSR almost had its own Arduin Grimoire but failed to deliver it more about that on Dave Arneson Day)

Dave Hargrave had an imagination like no other and he was one of the first of those who were outside the circle of Arneson and Gygax who took the game and really ran with it and did exactly what Dave Arneson would have wanted and that was make the game entirely his own and so Arduin the OD&D campaign became Arduin the FRPG

But that is not what I set out to talk about today. Back in early 1978 when my gaming group got its hands on a copy of the Arduin Grimoire (my friends copy) we used a number of things from it. That first copy of my friends had the D&D reference right in the text. When I finally got a copy they had been removed. The thing that I loved the most about Arduin were the monsters.

DEODANTHS

Deodanths are surrounded in mystery and legend, so much so, that even they themselves no longer know the whole truth!

...evolutionary hybrid of “undead” Elven kind and some other dark and unknown thing.

...a vampire like ability to mesmerize, or charm, opponents. 

...sole Warriors in sword to sword melees, and as Star Corsairs par excellence in spaceship to spaceship battles.

...seldom take prisoners, and those they do capture, they have a tendency to eat...

...some beings will commit suicide before allowing themselves to fail into Deodanth hands!

Deodanths have the natural ability to “time slip” forward in time d3 melee rounds (their space ships...

...only beings able to consistently match Phraints in combat...

That is a limited part of the description of Deodanths when we used them back in 1978-1979 in college.

What is not to love and it opened ours eyes to extending OD&D to space and being able to use anything past, present or future in our D&D worlds and games. Now had we had a copy of  First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson we would have been privy to that, but it did not find its way to us even though it was published the same year. We knew OD&D was an open game, but Arduin and Dave Hargrave opened our eyes to just how open it really was.

PHRAINTS

These insectoid peoples are the decivilized remnants of an interstellar combat unit of the dread Hurakkuu Empire, a race of star Warriors unbeaten in 3,000 years of warfare between the myriad suns of space.

Phraints, having no emotional capacity of their own, cannot understand races that do, so they feel that, logically, they are superior, and should be the dominant species of the cosmos.

The Phraints are best known in combat for their leaping charges which have them throwing their light javelins at the apogee of their leaps, flipping over in midflight, drawing (and swinging) their twohanded swords, and landing behind their startled opponents ready for further action

They are perhaps best countered in combat by Deodanths who can also leap great distances,...

The full description of the totally logical totally emotionless Phraints along with the Deodanths taught us how to play something alien, sometimes completely non-human. We had played different monsters as characters, in addition to the demi-humans. But those where just strange humans. It is when Arduin came along that we took our game to a new level.

SAURIGS

The reptilian race called Saurigs trace their long history back some 600,000 years and more, back to the dread elder race (the reptilian giants called “Kthoi”) that first ruled the world in the dim beginning of time.

They were the servants and drone soldiers of the Kthoi, and were bred for ferocity, tenacity, endurance, and fighting ability. Thus, they were never known for their intelligence or ability to think logically. They just fought, and fought, and fought. 

There were Desert Saurigs and Swamp Saurigs and they hated Phraints, but would team up with Deodanths and Orcs, especially Urukk Hai.

These are the creatures of Dave Hargrave that thought us how to create our own monsters and how to make them unique and special. Having the Arduin Grimoire was the next best thing to being connected to Arneson or Gygax. Since we did not have a chance to play in their campaigns and learn directly from them or their cohorts, having the Arduin Grimoire written by someone that served in Vietnam and who really got the real OD&D and who put it all into words that fully conveyed the excitement was like being there. Even though we had been playing since 1975 and had a pretty wide open campaign, Arduin opened our eyes to widening our vision of what could be.

Thank you Dave Hargrave! Happy Birthday!

Coming May 25th Dave Hargrave Day, the Creator of Arduin

Coming on May 25th, 2018 several of us will be publishing posts concerning the Dave Hargrave. Dave Hargrave the creator of Arduin is the gonzo descendant of Dave Arneson. He took the spirit of Dave Arneson and Blackmoor and created his own unique thing Arduin. He did what Dave Arneson intended for all referees to do. Take what he (Arneson) did and do your own unique thing. Dave Hargrave is one of those that understood and took things his own unique direction. We should all emulate Dave Hargrave in our own unique way. Look for the whole post on May 25th, 2018.

The (Unnecessary) Moral Dilemma Question (An OERAD Offering ) (Original Edition RPG Appreciation Day)

Celebrating Original Edition RPG Appreciation Day on May 5th, 2018. The below is in reference to OD&D specifically and to related games generically.

A recurring question on forums and other places is when Referees DM's and GM's throw in the proverbial humanoid females (mothers) and humanoid children and the question of what players do when they are encountered, especially after a battle and all the male humanoid's have been killed. It is usually stated that the mothers and children were noncombatants, but these children will grow up to be evil and kill innocent people. This is for the purpose of making the players look like bad guys if they kill, but stupid if they do not.

I contend that this is a false moral dilemma that is forced on players by DM's and GM's that do not understand OD&D, how alignment works and whom have failed to define good and evil in their campaigns and how it works in their campaigns. Because players are provided both incomplete and inaccurate information, they are left with trying to make decisions with no good solution.

Now I would like to say upfront that as a Referee and as a Player I have no interest in presenting my players with these types of choices, nor would I want to play in such a game. IRL people sometimes face (are forced into) these no win choices and I can do without such things in a game I am playing to have fun and forget the real world for a while.

As I said, I think these situations arise in games do to some fundamental misunderstandings and ignorance and to be fair because some "DM's" and "GM's" are just jerks who want to play the "Gotcha" game with their players.

1. Some presume that there is an adversarial relationship between the DM and the players. In an old school game nothing could be farther from the truth. The Referee is not an adversary, he is neither for nor against the players. The role of the Referee is to create the campaign world where the game will take place and to present a lot of interesting stuff in that world. The Referee gives voice to all the NPC's. The nature of the NPC's will vary across the entire spectrum of possibilities from close friends of the PC's to bitter enemies of the PC's and the Referee gives life to this whole range of possibilities. So we see that some NPC's are adversaries, but the Referee is not the adversary.

This mistaken and erroneous belief that the Referee is the adversary has wasted more opportunities for fun and caused more players to give up on D&D than any one other thing. It has also lead to the longtime fad of devising games where the DM lacks the authority needed to fulfill his role.

2. This leads into the second misunderstanding that the DM should present the players with difficult moral choices and other emotionally distressing non-fun things because the role of the DM is to be a sadistic dirtbag. Again this is the farthest thing from old school that it can be.

The old school role of the Referee is to provide an environment that can range from a light-hearted romp to dark, deadly, tough, and gritty as each group desires, but will be mutual fun for both the players and the referee. There is nothing in the whole range noted that implies that heartbreaking moral dilemma's are part of the package.

3. The third misunderstanding is how alignment works. Alignment in OD&D is Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic. These are not to be misunderstood as Lawful is Good and Chaotic is Evil, because that is not the case.

There are multiple sides to alignment. First as it pertains to the PC's. Alignment does not dictate player actions - I repeat, alignment does not dictate player actions. How it works is this, you have explained to your players how alignment works in your campaign and what is Lawful and Neutral and Chaotic. So, for example, a PC starts as Lawful and along the way he picks up a Lawful aligned Sword. At some point his behavior starts to become Neutral or even Chaotic. The Referee immediately lets the player know that if this change continues, then his alignment will change. The Magic Sword may balk at certain things or not provide a bonus or even twists out of the players hand as the alignment change proceeds until the player cannot handle the sword. This is a gradual fully informed decision that the player makes for the PC they are running with full feedback. It is not and never should be a DM fiat "Gotcha" situation.

Now as for NPC's alignment is a strong, but not absolute, guideline to the behavior of all monsters. Monsters are able to make decisions and may make odd decisions for their own purposes, this gives them more depth and complexity. Nevertheless, NPC's will generally act in accordance with their alignment.

Now how does Good and Evil come into the picture since it is not part of alignment in OD&D? That is up to the referee. If the referee establishes that all goblins are all evil all the time. Then there is no moral dilemma, when killing goblin children. Because if they are all evil all the time, there will be no non-combatants. Now the goblin child might wait until you are close enough to sink their teeth into your throat, but they will try to kill you. You do not have to set up goblin orphanages.

The PC's regardless of alignment will be Good or Evil as they choose. The NPC's will be Good or Evil or variable along the spectrum of Good and Evil as the Referee chooses. If the monsters are all evil all the time, the players can act accordingly. It still does not mean that fighting is the only option, evil will negotiate and trade at times to suit their purposes.

The players just need to have accurate information about how you are running your campaign, because the PCs growing up in such a world would already know this pretty accurately.

If a humanoid race is all evil all the time and is an implacable foe of civilization, then the PC's know that and there are no moral quandaries. If a particular humanoid race is not all evil, then the PC's should know that and would deal with the humanoids the same as with other humans.

I have run it both ways. If all humanoid monsters are all evil all the time, then do not be a jerk, there is no reason to throw in orc babies and make the players kill them. If the monsters are not all evil all the time, but are much as humans, then throw in a ogre bar tenders and a few other humanoids in your town just to drive home that some of them are good guys the same as some humans are good guys. Bottom line, just give your players the information they need to play the game without unnecessary angst and drama.