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Mazes and Monsters: retro clone

Monday, July 19th, 2010
This entry is part 1 of 34 in the series Mazes and Monsters

There have been a lot of open-source old-school game clones: OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, etc, letting people legally produce content compatible with older games. One game that has been sadly neglected is Mazes and Monsters. Who among us doesn’t have fond childhood memories of spelunking in costume until our friend Tom Hanks went crazy?

Mazes and MonstersWell, not me, because I was never lucky enough to find a M&M group – I had to make do with Dungeons and Dragons. Rona Jaffe’s Mazes and Monsters sure made M&M look intriguing though. Evil creatures! Traps! Descent into madness! Hats!

It’s been suggested that there never was a M&M game – that the Mazes and Monsters movie is an excoriating criticism of a fictionalized version of D&D. If so, it is a dismal failure, because as we can see from the movie, MAZES AND MONSTERS IS NOTHING LIKE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS. Therefore, unless we are to assume that Rona Jaffe and everyone involved in the movie are total idiots who didn’t bother to do the most trivial speck of research, we must assume that the movie is an excoriating criticism of a real game called Mazes and Monsters that I have just never heard of.

Rulebooks of Mazes and Monsters are hard to come by; luckily Rona Jaffe’s movie contains a wealth of gaming detail – enough, I think, to make a workable retro-clone. I volunteer to watch the movie and glean any rules details. The M&M community will have to help fill in any rules gaps with memories and speculation!

My first question for the community: Since the name “Mazes and Monsters” is undoubtedly under copyright, what should we call our retro clone? The suggestions that come to my mind are

  • Mazes and Hanksters
  • Mazes and MOSRIC
  • Rona Jaffe’s Dungeons and Dragons

Vote or leave suggestions in the comments!

Let’s start watching the movie!

Media Uproar

reporter

He sounds a little like Howard Cosell.

The movie begins with wailing police sirens and a be-trenchcoated reporter doing a story about a Mazes and Monsters-related disappearance. Even in his media fearmongering, though, we can find good material for our game:

REPORTER: Mazes and Monsters is a fantasy role-playing game in which players create imaginary characters. These characters are then plunged into a fantasy world of imagined terrors. The point of the game is to amass a fortune without being killed. It’s kind of a psychodrama, you might say, where these people deal with problems in their lives by acting them out.

This is good stuff! Let’s use it for page 1 of our game!
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Posted in game design, legacy D&D, news, other systems, RPG Hub | 29 Comments »

gafiation

Friday, July 16th, 2010

Here’s a piece of vocabulary from Hartley Patterson’s 1977 article in White Dwarf:

Discussing a dead RPG group, he says “They actually got a couple of moves in before handing over to Geoff Corker, who suffered a sudden and total gafiation and killed the game stone dead.”

I’d never seen the word “gafiation” before. Looking it up, I found the term GAFIA:

Frodo gafiating from the Fellowship

Frodo gafiating from the Fellowship

GAFIA (along with derived form such as gafiate and gafiation) is a term used in science fiction fandom. It began as an acronym for “Getting Away From It All”, and initially referred to escaping from the mundane world via fanac. However, its meaning was soon reversed, and thereafter it referred to getting away from fandom and fannish doings. When fans say they’re gafiating, it means they intend to put some distance between themselves and fandom. This can be either a temporary or a long-term separation.

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RPG history: Midgard

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

Issue 1 of the Strategic Review (1975) contains an interesting ad: “POSTAL DUNGEONS & DRAGONS VARIANT, a game which combines D&D and MIDGARD will be handled through the magazine, FANTASIA. To obtain full details, write: FANTASIA, Jim Lawson, …”

I just noticed this for the first time yesterday, and wondered, what was “MIDGARD,” which was compatible in some way with D&D? Was it a 70’s RPG I had somehow never heard about? or was it just a D&D campaign set in a Viking world?

Strategic Review 6, in its ‘zine review column, Triumphs and Tragedies, has this to say about the Fantasia magazine:

FANTASIA TODAY is a “magazine of postal fantasy gaming.” It seems to be based on a massive game, using revised “Midgard” rules. The price varies with the size, so get in touch with Jim Lawson, … Vol. I, No. 6, had an excellent article on herbs and magic, complete with sketches of each herb. The printing, though, which runs from fair to poor, relegates it to the status of MINOR TRIUMPH.

I’d never heard of a 70s Midgard RPG, but then again, I’m not exactly a grognard. I got into D&D in the late 80’s: anything before AD&D and the Red Box is ancient history to me. But, as you’d expect from someone who is drawn to pseudo-medieval fantasy, I like ancient history. Just as mountain peaks gain majesty with distance, so do nerds (even putting aside any majesty-reducing hygiene issues).
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lankhmar linkhmar

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Scrolls of Lankhmar has a nice post about my discussion of Lankhmar and early D&D.

Srith of the Scrolls points out that Pulgh is not the only mystery in the Nehwon mythos in Deities and Demigods. Who is “Cold Woman”, who looks like a sort of Halloween-ghost sheet monster?

Cold Woman has a bizarre list of powers. “This creature is basically a huge white pudding. Her powers include illusion generation…” “Her corrosive secretions dissolve metal at the same rate as a black pudding.” “Cold Woman lures persons into her lair with gems and jewelry, which are scattered about her cave. She then paralyzes them and inserts one of her eggs into the body.” “Her young are known as Cold Spawn.”

I don’t remember any such creature anywhere in Leiber, but I did find this passage from The Jewels in the Forest that I think may have inspired whoever wrote up Cold Woman. Fafhrd rants:

“Oh, by Glaggerk and by Kos!” he roared. “By the Behemoth! Oh, by the Cold Waste and the guts of the Red God! Oh! Oh! Oh!” Again the insane bellowing burst out. “Oh, by the Killer Whale and the Cold Woman and her spawn!”

That’s all I can find: 6 words, “Cold Woman and her spawn.” From that, the author (Ward, or Kuntz, or whoever) presumably spun the rest of the entry: the combat stats, the adventure hook, and the classic first-edition PC-devouring egg attack.

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Posted in news, RPG Hub | 4 Comments »

The Twilight Saga: Escort

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I just saw Eclipse, and it seems like it could be turned into a magnificently terrible D&D 4e campaign.

It’s a high-powered paragon level campaign. In addition to their regular powers, everyone gets to choose a few cool powers from the Monster Manual. However, every adventure is concerned with protecting a level-1 NPC minion.

The NPC, Bella Swan, a) has an annoying personality and b) always acts in the most suicidal way possible. Bella Swan has no standard actions. She can, however, Mark as a minor action. In combat, Bella’s usual strategy is to move adjacent to the most powerful enemy and then Mark two opponents.

Besides fighting their opponents, the PCs must nursemaid Bella: use forced-movement powers to get her out of danger; mark opponents to override her marks; Grab her and drag her out of danger; hide her in a box or a cave, with at least one PC assigned to keep her out of trouble. Oh: concealment doesn’t work very well, though, because all the DM’s monsters always know exactly what square she is in because of her unmistakeable smell. They will also attack her instead of any other opponent.

Actually, maybe Bella’s not strictly a minion. She has 2 HP. When left unattended, she’s always getting Bloodied by, say, cutting herself on a sharp knife. If this happens, the party cleric had better immediately use healing resources on her, because there are more sharp knives lying around the world. (Let’s give Bella another ability: whenever she becomes Bloodied, she immediately Marks all opponents and allies within 5 miles.)

If any PC kills Bella, he immediately gains a level. However, the campaign ends.

Posted in 4e D&D, fluff/inspiration, news, RPG Hub | 2 Comments »

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