The Problem With All of this Gorgeous Artwork

While working on the Monty Haul ‘Zine Project, I’ve been revisiting the aesthetics and materials of the 1980s gaming scene and I stumbled across something that I think is missing from the current version of the game: scale. Especially where the monsters are concerned. This is all the more galling because D&D has never looked better, but for some reason, the monsters have lost some of their oomph, and I think I know why.

Early D&D, from the blue box to the original AD&D hardbacks, featured illustrations that were, shall we say, varied in both tone and technique. A few of the illustrations in the rules were outright jokes, little more than single panel gags. But the various rulebooks, and later the modules, managed to convey a sense of genuine menace in their depictions of classic D&D monsters that are lacking in today’s game.

I’ll give you an easy example: The umber hulk. Classic monster, right? One of the chinasaurs, allegedly. But either way, a thing that only exists in the hallowed halls of D&D. Here’s what the current version of the umber hulk looks like.

A lovely piece of design work by Cory Trego-Erdner.

 Okay. That’s cool and all, but it’s not really hulk-y. And it’s more insect-y, like a mutated praying mantis.Not as chunked out as the original Umber Hulk. Here was our first look at the monster.

The thing about the AD&D Monster Manual was this: all of the artwork was approximately the same size. That means that the dragons have the same real estate on the page as the pixie. That little space. A couple of inches square. And to be honest, from the angle, the umber hulk looks more cute than terrifying. Like a gremlin. The stats said it was large, 8’ tall and 5’ wide, but we really couldn’t picture it.

Then the module The Ghost Tower of Inverness was published. And this was one of the best things about the modules; they almost always featured artwork of a party of adventurers getting the shit kicked out of them by monsters. I cannot stress how useful this was, especially when dealing with things like, well, umber hulks.

Here’s Jeff Dee’s take on the umber hulk.

That fighter? He’s toast. And the umber hulk suddenly looks frightening, and that fighter looks completely out of his depth. Best of all is the scale that he clearly shows. Now you know why it's called an umber hulk and not an umber insect. 

But just in case you aren’t convinced, here’s Erol Otus’ version of the umber hulk encounter.

That’s a three on one fight and it looks to me like someone’s going to bite the dust before that umber hulk is slain. Now that’s a D&D monster. Now I’m interested in sending this against my party and watching them freak out when you show them the picture.

There are many instances where the original art teams got it right. The action scenes give these monsters a context that most of us didn’t have. For a generation of kids, the Monster Manual was the first bestiary we’d ever seen. Dragons, we got. Goblins, no problem. But the owlbear? What the hell was that?

We know now, of course, but back then, it just seemed a little silly. That is, of course, until Jeff Dee (again) showed us what we were really up against.

Side note: This thief is an asshole.

Now whenever I see a fifth edition owlbear, I think, "Nice artwork," and it is. But that's not scary. Not to me. Not like this big-ass-beak, bear-bodied, what-the-hell-man monstrosity scares me. 

And again, I want to say, the artwork in 5e is almost universally incredible. It's technically adroit, with lots of character and excellent design. Maybe the owlbear above isn't my favorite owlbear, but it's not the fault of the artist, Brynn Metheney, who is responsible for some killer work elsewhere in the book. I don't know who is to blame. 

Maybe they think the pop culture zeitgeist has done the heavy lifting for them, i.e. "oh, everyone playing D&D knows about owlbears, so we don't have to define the terms." All I know is, back in the 1980s, I was relying on context clues because there wasn't a place to google "owlbears" and get a treasure trove of information to parse. I was at the mercy of TSR. And sure, some of the early artwork wasn't particularly sophisticated, especially when compared with today's computer-painted graphics, but what it lacked in polish, it made up for in evocative imagery. And when even that failed, there were other illustrations to show you how things might be put into practice in your games. For example, Bill Willingham showed us all how a medusa could get the drop on a couple of characters by hiding her snake hair under a cloak. 

And Dave Trampier showed us why it's not a good idea to try and fight those goofy (and obscure) monsters like the catoblepas. 

Even mundane animals were challenging for a party of adventurers that were foolhardy enough to take them on. 

We, as fledgling DMs, would not have considered herd animals dangerous. Or frogs, or any of the other mega-fauna and seemingly silly things that are crowded into the monster manual and sprinkled throughout the early modules. We needed these illustrations to make sense of this strange new world. Maybe that's not as strong a consideration in 2020, with exponentially more sources to draw inspiration from, but I miss it in the new game, all the same. 

My Unasked-For Thoughts on 5e

Well, they certainly solved the question of
scale. That's a second-level cleric.
I kid! I kid the Player's Handbook.
It's really a third level cleric.

It’s obvious, I think, to everyone reading this blog that I’m currently playing and creating in the fifth iteration of Dungeons & Dragons, or 5e, as the kids call it these days. Part of this was an economic convenience in that it’s what’s out right now, and also one borne of necessity, i.e. that’s what all of the content is aimed at. But it doesn’t HAVE to go down that way, right? I mean, there are a metric shit-ton of Old School inspired systems out there, all using some version of the Basic/Expert edition of D&D or the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Or, if I wanted something insanely commercial, there’s Pathfinder, which is D&D 3.5 re-skinned.  Oh, who am I kidding? There’s no way in HELL I would inflict Pathfinder on anyone. I’m not a monster.

But that brings up another factor: I have been running games for newcomers to tabletop role-playing games. Twelve new players in all, spread over several games and campaigns, each one of them familiar with the subject matter, but have never rolled funny-shaped dice before in their lives. Is the current version of D&D a good “first RPG” experience for newcomers?

Classic Mark Finn: Old School Gaming and the New Shiny

Note: this is a reprint of an old Finn's Wake article from Three Years Ago, But It's Still Prescient Today. 

My rebuilding of my old campaign continues apace. I'm doing it in fits and starts, as I can grab a half an hour or so to myself. I am vacillating back and forth between dusting off old components and bringing them up to new 5th edition rules, and fleshing out 5th edition to meet my campaign's specific needs. For example, in my world, there are five city-states that wield considerable economic and political power. And one of the themes for this new/old campaign is territory expansion, along with warmongering. Because of the emphasis on this environment over say, a Middle Ages King and court, I wrote a background for Bureaucrat. It's a good background. I may post it later. I am working on a background for an exterminator, as well. Another necessary function of city government that could yield an advantage in a dungeon party.

The prettiest goblins ever.

Whilst I was looking over my old notes, drawings, and books, I couldn't help but notice the artwork in the original first edition AD&D books. I know that we consider the early stuff to be crude and unrefined, especially in the wake of what came after. I mean, by any criteria you care to apply, this is a beautiful piece of artwork.

It's well composed, makes good use of light and shadow, employs intelligent color choices, and is well painted and nicely rendered. It's a great piece of artwork. Really nice. And the fifth edition game is literally festooned--gloriously festooned--with hundreds of color plates. We live in an age of bountiful riches, we do.

And yet...as nice as the artwork is, and I don't want to hear any dissent from the lot of you, for it IS nice, I can't help at the same time feeling that the goblins are...what? Informed by popular culture? Maybe they feel like guys in suits? I don't know, exactly, but there's something in this realistic treatment that settles in on my brain rather than opens it up.

Which brings me back to the first edition artwork, and specifically, those artists who contributed so much to the three core books. Diss it all you want, sure, there may have been some pieces that were rough around the edges, but there was something also evocative to the work that I found stimulating rather than limiting. I did then, and I do today.

Here's just a few of my favorite pieces from the books. Granted, these aren't very big; back then, they didn't have to be, the way we pored over every square inch of those pages like they were actual magical tomes.

 I came late to the party where Erol Otus was concerned. His work had a slickness and a stiffness that I didn't understand at the time. Now I look at it and I think he was a genius. This is the standard troll from the monster manual, but drawn in scale with humans and in a setting that would make him infinitely more terrifying. Note the use of texture on the loincloth, the armor, and the hair. Otus was a master at that stuff.

Speaking of texture, this is a frontispiece by Jim Rosloff. He did a lot of the illustrations in the Deities and Demigods books. Remember that amazing picture of Thor fighting the Midgard Serpent? Rosloff. I love this pen and ink treatment here, and the dragon head is also really nice and stylized without being definitive. I mean, we don't really know what color dragon this is. Could be red. Could be gold. It's a mystery. But that's what makes this so cool.

Jeff Dee, along with Bill Willingham, came right after the initial clutch of hardcovers, and they brought a super hero sensibility to their artwork that really resonated with me. I won't post any of Bill's old work because he hates it when I do that, but Jeff is actively trying to recreate his stuff, so good on him.

This piece was unsigned in the Player's handbook, but this is exhibit A when someone says there was no good artwork in the early days of TSR. This is a beautiful penciled piece with dwarven adventurers encountering a magic mouth spell in the dungeon. First of all, look at the cool hallways. Now check out the dwarves. Or are they gnomes? A halfling? I dunno, but it doesn't look like anything I'd seen prior to discovering Dungeons and Dragons.

The new crop of halflings in the 5th edition book look a lot like these fellows. That's probably not an accident.

UPDATE: It was Trampier! See below.

Finally, no discussion of the early AD&D artwork is complete without mentioning Dave Trampier. This guy was a machine, and he contributed so much to the books that you can't really comprehend it all. Small pieces of art, flavor pieces, you name it--oh, and only three fourths of the Monster Manual. Tramp did it all, Jack. And this piece, in the middle of the Dungeon Master's Guide, is a favorite of just about everyone. We join our adventurers in mid-scene, with this guy just riding through town, setting people on fire. What the hell? This guy is a dick! But hey, when you name yourself "Emirikol the Chaotic," you have to maintain a certain standard for yourself.

Apart from that, this piece gives us a lot of contextual clues to help us build a dungeons and dragons town. Brick buildings, flagstones, thatched roofs, covered archway, etc. This town setting that Emirikol is hell-bent of messing up became the basis for the city of Greyhawk, and later, my own towns. I used the Green Griffin as a go-to tavern name so much, they were like a Starbucks franchise in my kingdom.

There was something fun, something evocative, about this rough-around-the-edges first edition artwork. A kind of rustic charm, like woodcuts, that gave you enough information to allow you to understand what you were looking at, but not so much that it supplanted your own imagination.

We're a different world, now, and the production values. Kids these days, with their fancy new roller skates and their Jazz records, have different needs than us old timers. And so, we go for full-color, painted dreamscapes and why not? Now the company can afford to produce such a product. I'll never complain about the upgrades, but for my money, in my secret heart, I still prefer Rosloff's goblins to the new guys.

Playing Games Part 3: Villains and Vigilantes

Jeff Dee, Post-TSR, crushing
it on the game he co-created
with Jack Herman.

There has been, over the years, an incredible debate over which super hero game is the best. It’s a Ford versus Chevy, Coke versus Pepsi kind of thing. I think it boils down to whichever game you were first exposed to is the best one. That is to say, in the end. In the beginning, all you had to do was look at the art for the two major games, Villains and Vigilantes and Champions. Jeff Dee drew giant rings around Mark Williams. V&V looked like a comic book you wanted to read. Champions looked like drawings from the loose-leaf notebook of your really talented artist-friend.

Villains and Vigilantes came into my life thanks to Dragon magazine (the most important magazine in the world, for a while) and the great ad that ran dutifully in every issue for, like, years, with great evocative artwork by Jeff Dee. Now, I recognized both Jeff’s style and his signature as being one of my two favorite artists from TSR. His stuff had a super-heroic-comic-booky style about it anyway, and now here he was, drawing super heroes in a game he co-created. That was all I needed, to be honest. But then I found out Bill Willingham was involved, and that sealed the deal for me. By this time, Willingham had left TSR and was writing and drawing The Elementals for Comico, and it was an indy comics darling. This gave V&V a kind of legitimacy that Champions never had for me and my friends.