Art & Quintessence

 I don't normally blog about artwork specifically. Mostly because I am far from an expert in the matter. I can't draw, I never studied art history or composition, and I'm not a fan of brie (gallery joke). However, I do know when a piece says something to me.

Ah, Daredevil! The best of the MCU.

 

So I'd like to take a moment to share a picture I had bought a print of nearly ten years ago at Garycon and recently unearthed while sorting through some boxes of old comics and such. It's a limited print by Mark Allen who drew the map of Lesserton for our Faster Monkey product, Lesserton & Mor. 

Now, this is by no means a unique sort of scene in fantasy gaming art. We have a party of adventurers looting some dead orcs while trying to open a door. It's practically off the cover of the Players Handbook. What I want to focus on is how effectively this simple image captures the essence of old-school gaming for me.

First off, the setting. It's dark. I don't mean Zack Snyder dark, I mean it looks like the characters can hardly see. There are four points of light within the picture and the rest is shrouded in gloom. The first two are the lanterns, one on the floor and one held so the thief can work. The third is out of frame, just beyond the cleric who stands guard. Perhaps a light up ahead around the corner? The fourth is the eye of giant spider as it sneaks up on the dwarf. The rest of the scene is almost pitch black, with just enough details visible to let us fill in the rest. 

Next, the characters. I've already mentioned some of them, but the composition of the party is nigh-perfect for representing an old-school D&D group of adventurers. There is a Gandalf-esqe magic-user complete with staff and pointy hat. We have our hooded thief, working away at the lock, and a fighter type whom I like to imagine by his somewhat generic appearance to be a man at arms/hireling, fulfilling his role as a torchbearer. There is a stalwart templar-looking cleric with mace and mail, a dwarf with a hefty axe eyeballing the dead orcs (perhaps making sure none are still twitching), and an elven archer lifting a bauble from a corpse. There's a spill of coins on the floor as well.

Obviously, part of the picture's story is easy to see. The party had a fight with some orcs and was victorious. But why are two of the party guarding and why isn't the dwarf watching the stairs? The magic user is speaking, is he casting a spell or admonishing the thief to hurry? Perhaps the party is in a hurry to get through the door and the immediate threat would come from in front or to the right and that's why the dwarf is distracted. True to adventuring form, though, they aren't leaving without at least some of the loot.

Another viewer could be perfectly justified in reading the scene in an entirely different way, and that's fine. But like most art, that's a strength, not a weakness. When I look at this picture, I see a scene whose essence has played out thousands of times at various kitchen tables and conventions over the decades. So when I think about how to sum up the core ideas of classic D&D and fantasy gaming, I believe you could do much worse than to hold up this picture and say "This. This is worth a thousand words."

We live to tell the tale!

We finished our fledgling DM's dungeon last PM and a good time was had by all. It was a nice blend of classic tropes and atypical challenges that put in me in mind of some of my RMAs.

Without going into spoiler-ish details (she is submitting this for the 2012 One Page Dungeon Contest), the premise of the crawl is very simple: A demented nobleman had once created a vicious "funhouse" to torment those who had offended him. The Earl is now long gone, but there are rumors of treasure to be found within. Our group of thrill-seeking 2nd-3rd level PCs needed no more hook than that to head straight off into the woods seeking the place. Suffice it to say we found the dungeon and quickly discovered the real challenge wasn't just getting through it, it was getting back out!

Overall, I was intensely pleased with how we –a group of experienced players– found ourselves challenged. The nature of the challenges we faced were nasty. Many of the "monsters" we encountered were normal, but dangerous, critters like snakes (among others). Because we were trapped in the place, we also faced keeping careful track of things like torches and rations (and water!). Our DM had us use counters like M&Ms for consumables. By the end, our cleric was using Purify Food & Drink on what we'd killed to extend our rations!

There were many fun fights, but extremely scary as some involved "Save or Die" situations. We'd been given a few options to make them slightly more survivable (the option to purchase potions when we were in town, etc.), but we ran as much as we fought: because the goal wasn't combat. She also let us try nutty stuff like leeching poison from a wound after a failed save. Some DMs might not have been so lenient, but we HAD the leeches right there, after all!  Such improvisation and off the wall ideas are a hallmark of fun gameplay, IMO.

In the end, we found lots of loot (more than we could comfortably carry) and –we hoped– the means to get out. We then had a race to the surface where we picked our battles and concentrated on getting out before our rations were gone or we were killed in an unnecessary fight. When we stumbled into the daylight with packs full of swag, we felt like we had really earned it. We'd left more than we took (though we tried to get the most valuable stuff first). No one had quite died, but by the gods, it had been a near thing for all of us, and it made the finish all the sweeter.

This was one of the best classic style, resource-intensive crawls I'd played in for a long time. People who say they want an "old-school" adventure and care about things like rations or encumbrance should definitely look for this one among this year's contest entries. I think if she'd been a little more experienced DM she could have made it even more of a nail-biter, but it's hard to imagine how. So kudos to our GMs first trip behind the screen. Here's hoping to see you there more in the near future!