"Arduin stuff" Topic
11 Posts
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Mephistopheles | 02 Jul 2008 10:07 a.m. PST |
Another one for the creepy old grognards. Did you give the Arduin stuff a thumbs up or thumbs down. For me, it was a cautious thumbs up. I liked the fact that they could be used as little-brown-book-D&D supplements, with new spells, monsters, magic items and character classes. Also, I liked the fact that they "pushed the fantasy envelope" with a campaign setting that was ultra-high fantasy. I didn't use everything from the Arduin rules, but it was great stuff to pick and choose from. Two problems though: 1. Dave Hargrave's editing, type setting, grammar, etc., was so bad that he made Gary Gygax look like an Oxford Don. 2. There was certainly no lack of bad taste, with such puerile gems as rampant lesbian barbarian rapists. Sorry, if this gets the topic nuked, but I'm not making it up (remember Shardra the Castrator?). So, again, a cautious thumbs up, given the bad editing and silly . |
Farstar | 02 Jul 2008 10:23 a.m. PST |
Had way too much Arduin mixed into my 80's D&D to really ever want to do that again. |
Photonred | 02 Jul 2008 10:26 a.m. PST |
I thought the Arduin "supplements" were puerile crap for exactly the reasons you posted. |
Saber6 | 02 Jul 2008 10:47 a.m. PST |
Ahha! The Ring of Rapid Transit (inscribed BART) Phraints Doom Guards Purile? yep. Used? yep. |
IttyBitty | 02 Jul 2008 11:48 a.m. PST |
A cautious thumbs up for me too. Some interesting stuff, some really strange stuff
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Jovian1 | 02 Jul 2008 12:29 p.m. PST |
How about some of the blatant rip-offs too? Like the Storm Trooper armor in one of the dungeon crawls? And the Blaster? I am amazed that Lucas didn't sue him for those things! I know that Palladium books would have sued! Interesting setting, strange stuff, some good, some bad, and the grammar and spelling – horrific – almost made it a D&D horror supplement. When I played, the GM who owned all of this stuff abused us with it routinely – so a thumbs down for me. What was with the flying sharks? "Land Shark!" anyone?? |
Saber6 | 02 Jul 2008 12:44 p.m. PST |
Occam's Razor was anothe much abused spell. Fumble Tables Critical Hit location tables Those were the days
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CeruLucifus | 02 Jul 2008 1:26 p.m. PST |
I was young enough (or unworldly enough) that the peurility didn't strike me until years later. Some of it was clearly over the top, and it obviously changed the game into a high-power variant, which none of the groups I stayed with were into, so we tended to read all of it but only actually use bits and pieces -- individual monsters, charts and tables, etc. Thumbs up or thumbs down? We were 13-year-olds with photocopied D&D booklets because we couldn't afford to buy them but we forked over our scarce cash for the Arduin books; I'd say that's a vote of thumbs up. Would I buy it today? No, but that's not a fair question; a comparable product today wouldn't have the same impact on the gaming community. A hypothetical modern game book that bears the same potential for impact on today's gaming community? I pobably would buy it, yes. |
Space Monkey | 02 Jul 2008 1:30 p.m. PST |
I loved the Arduin books! They were a great inspiration to my young brain
I was never a 'power gamer' but I was always drawn to the weird and wild. I can't remember ever using anything in them directly/unchanged
but it was such a wacky mixed up place full of color and danger that I couldn't help but be fascinated by them. In my mind's eye Arduin always looked like a black-light poster come to life. |
Andrew Walters | 02 Jul 2008 2:04 p.m. PST |
Quotes from my have-it-right-here "Volume 1" From the monster encounter tables – level 9, roll a 3, you get 1-10 Balrogs. 1st level, roll a 16, 2-16 bubblemen. The Random Fog and Mist Generator gives you random sounds, smells, colors, and visibility distances in never ending combinations. That will teach your characters to never interpret anything as a clue! From the traps table: "Sex change, no saving throw," and "Life draining ray (-1 level per leve of dungeon)." I never played it. I'd use it for inspiration, but not use it whole. Good grief. Better yet, I'd leave on my pile of rulebooks, have them meet one phraint, and then just let them walk in the terror that more was coming. Andrew |
kokigami | 02 Jul 2008 9:28 p.m. PST |
Arduin taught me to improvise as a GM. It said, there are no boundaries that you don't make
Arduin rocks.. |
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