#heroic worlds

[vintagerpg]

This is Heroic Worlds (1991), by Lawrence Schick (of White Plume Mountain fame).

There are a bunch of books from the ‘80s and ‘90s that attempt to catalog and review RPGs and they kind of boggle my mind (the same is true for the similar genre of print paperback tip guides for videogame). Even having lived in the pre-internet era, I don’t understand the rationale for these books from a publishing perspective. Which is not to say I don’t adore Heroic Worlds. I do! It just seems…improbable.

The book essentially amounts to an index of every RPG product produced from 1974 to 1990. It feels a tiny bit like an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (another publication I’ve always been baffled by), except without the prices (though there is a small section on collecting — the advice still rings true today, primarily: be patient!). The listings are interrupted periodically with short essays by a rogues gallery of RPG designers: Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Greg Stafford, Steve Jackson, Jennell Jaquays, Michael Stackpole, Ken St. Andre, Tom Moldvay, Ken Rolston, Sandy Petersen, Erick Wujcik, B. Dennis Sustare, N. Robin Crossby and Greg Gordon. That is a pretty all-star cast of characters talking about tabletop game design!

The main attraction for me, though, is Schick’s commentary. Nearly all of the listings are accompanied by very brief appraisals; they give Robert Christgau’s album reviews a run for their terseness. Schick has a dry wit that creeps into the capsule reviews that soon becomes addictive. And there is just something wonderful about having a period of time captured so exhaustively in a single volume. I don’t think EVERYTHING ever published through 1990 is in the index, but Schick sure makes the book feel like it does. I refer to it constantly for my Instagram posts, it was a constant companion when writing my own book and honestly, it deserves a lot of blame for the size and scope of my collection. Damn you, Schick!

(Repost from April 30, 2020; revised)

[vintagerpg]

This is Heroic Worlds (1991), by Lawrence Schick (of White Plume Mountain fame).

All of these books about RPGs kind of boggle my mind, Heroic Worlds maybe most of all. Who on earth thought that what amounts to an index of every RPG product produced from 1974 to 1990 was something that needed to exist in the world? Like, I don’t understand it at all from a publishing perspective. It feels a tiny bit like an Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (another publication I’ve always been baffled by), except without the prices (though there is a small section on collecting (the advice in which still rings true today, primarily: be patient!).

That said, I adore this book. Schick has a dry wit that creeps into his capsule reviews that soon becomes addictive. And there is just something wonderful about having a period of time captured in one book so exhaustively. I don’t think everything ever published through 1990 is in the index, but it sure feels like it does. I refer to this book constantly.

Oh, and the sprinkles on top: the index is punctuated by short essays by Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson, Greg Stafford, Steve Jackson, Jennell Jaquays, Michael Stackpole, Ken St. Andre, Tom Moldvay, Ken Rolston, Sandy Petersen, Erick Wujcik, B. Dennis Sustare, N. Robin Crossby and Greg Gordon. That is a pretty all-star cast of characters talking about tabletop game design.

And holy crap. I was going to recommend anyone who is interested in the history of RPGs pick this up, but holy wow, it goes for a lot of money on the second hand market. I guess the secret is out.

[princealigorna]

Someone should make a spiritual successor to Lawrence Schick’s “Heroic World”

It’s a great book if you want to learn about the history of TTRPGs, as well as popular systems, but it’s 30 years old. AD&D 2nd edition was still brand new at the time. At this point, while you can find many of these systems online if you look for them, they’ve been out of print for 10, 15, 20, even 25 years. The ones that survived, like Call of Cthulhu, D&D, and Warhammer, are all multiple new editions in. I don’t think Fate, let alone Fate Core, had been developed yet. I think TSR was still producing the Conan and Middle Earth stuff for D&D, so Adventures in Middle Earth wasn’t a thing yet, and Adventures in an Age Undreamed was still decades down the line. I think Vampire the Masquerade was still a few years in coming. Systems like Pathfinder and Numenara hadn’t even been dreamed of yet. Certainly, OSR games like Lamentations of the Flame Princess couldn’t have been conceived because there was no D&D 4e to rebel against. And a system of Zweihander couldn’t exist without the grimdarkness of LofTP to inspire it.

We need a new compendium that takes stock of the modern TTRPG landscape. While still having entries for older systems you can still find material for fairly easily.