Thursday, October 26, 2017

Now, there's a bad idea ... (a prelude, maybe)

It's been rough lately. Didn't not feel the urge to write, but who'd read with interest and then some? So I've been thinking, what could I write about. Well. I got that one idea I've been chewing on for way too long now. Might be that bridge is burned for reasons I might not want to touch right now. Thought I'll pitch it first, see what's what ...

Damn, I miss writing here :)

Let's play "find the fail"

All right, all right, I'll get to it. You might be aware of my everlasting love for HackMaster (4e, yo). If not, you know now. I frickin' love that game. Wrote a post about it, too. HackMaster 4e was the AD&D 3rd edition we never got (sort of) and it's how I started playing D&D somewhat serious. They had a shitload of interesting modules out there, 98% of them revisioned versions  of old classics. The campaign we had running back then was The Temple of Existential Evil. Yes, you read that right.

It'd been great fun and I always wondered how the original held up against the HackMaster variant. That's what I wanted to do, going at it chapter by chapter, comparing them, what was changed, what choices made, what's better (imo, of course). Nothing detailed, maybe, but going from the first survey I made, I'll bet you I'll find enough odd, stray observations to keep me entertained for a bit.

And there's just the thing. I started with the first chapter of the Existential variant and got stoked. Believe me, it's good shit. Naturally I wanted to know how chapter 1 of The Temple of Elemental Evil holds up. The cover was what stopped me in my tracks:

Please, find the fail, would you?
Might need to open it in a new window, too ... [source]
See the problem? Bless your heart if you don't. But most likely you'll see it right away. It's the authors of this beauty. Both implicated in acts of harassment. Not charged, mind you (as far as I know there are no criminal charges yet). One's just whispered about, even (a twitter guy saying a dead D&D celebrity was "problematic" that way for TSR back then). Anyway, it's enough to make this a hot topic. No side looks good in this latest flame war and I honestly don't want to share my opinion on this online (as I said in my previous post, I have no dog in this fight). Other than saying that it's all very sad, of course.

However, this is a perfect example why ...

The Temple of Elemental Evil is an undeniable cultural phenomenon. There's a part 2, a revision, a novel, a computer game and a board game. That's almost all media short of having a movie about the damn thing (or TV show? I'd see that, probably) and I might have forgotten some (is there a version for 4th edition? they definitely made ma NWN mod for it, right?). The amount of players having first hand experience with this module one way or another is mind boggling. My bet would be 6 figures, being in the millions would be very likely. Think about it! It got published in 1985, 32 years ago, it's "the grandfather of all dungeon crawls" and ranks high among the best D&D modules of all time. This got some mileage, for sure.

In short, it's legendary for several reasons and if you never care about the authors, their world views or their failings, you can still (and should!) enjoy this. Everyone else? Fuck if I know. But I know for sure, if I would judge everything based on its source, I'd be pretty depressed pretty fast. In a way, it's all flawed for some reason or another.

Here is the thing, though: every now and then an artist might produce something of value despite the short-comings of being human. There's beauty in that, I suppose. There's a lesson, too.

So, how about it?

I really enjoyed DMing this bad boy with HackMaster back then, I enjoyed the book (a bit short on the crawl part, though, if I remember correctly) and I definitely loved the computer game. Reading the original and comparing it with the HackMaster version ... yeah, I'd have fun doing that. But should I do it here on the blog? This begs another interesting question, doesn't it? A classic by itself, if you will: is art a thing in its own right or can it not exist without the author in mind?

I don't even think there is a right answer. Or an universal one, for that matter. It depends, as they say in law school. So I wonder, has it merit in this case? I like to think so, yes.

But what do you guys think? Is this piece of art tainted by the actions of those who made it?

As I said, this may be a bad idea.