|
Post by extildepo on Jan 9, 2017 10:30:33 GMT -6
Hi all, I found this recently in a used bookstore: Swords & Spear: Individual Man-to-Man Combat in Ancient and Medieval Times (Milgamex, 1975. Designer: Arnold J Hendrick) I posted a little more detail about this over on the DF forums . The booklet also includes a "Mythological Creatures" section which is very reminiscent of CM's own Fantasy Supplement. The topic, and scope of the work, as well as date of publication makes me wonder if this was meant to be a CM alternative, perhaps to "cash in" on the growing interest in D&D at the time. (or was it merely a case of parallel evolution?) There is at least one account on the web about the book being used in such a capacity BITD: blundersonthedanube.blogspot.ca/2012/12/of-dice-and-tin-men-maps-and-monsters.htmlI wonder if this product was attempting to fill a void? Anyone aware of the ratio of CM to OD&D sets printed/distributed in 1975? Anyone familiar with the rules? Cheers!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 9, 2017 21:48:29 GMT -6
Arnold Hendrick is/was an English wargamer, and he reviewed D&D in 1974 or early 1975. I leave you to draw your own conclusion.
Also, wargame rules were extremely small print runs and shipping was horribly expensive.
|
|
|
Post by krusader74 on Jan 10, 2017 8:27:19 GMT -6
Arnold J Hendrick wrote uncomplimentary reviews of Chainmail and D&D. You can read his review of D&D reprinted on DF here (you need to scroll about half way down to find it). Gary Gygax wrote a review of Hendrick's review in Strategic Review #3. There, Gygax invites his followers to write (uncomplimentary) reviews of Hendrick's games (maybe the first ever RPG flame war???)... Both Hendrick's review and Gygax's response are reprinted and analyzed on the Bag of Holding blog. There is a 3-part interview with Arnold J. Hendrick on YouTube. Each part is about 15 minutes: From that, you can find out his educational background is military history. And his professional experience is game design: - (Tabletop) Wargames
- Video games (at MicroProse)
- Wargames for the US military
The primary focus of this interview is his video game, Darklands, a 1992 MS-DOS game. But in Part 2, he talks a little about pencil-and-paper RPGs. He mentions his favorite RPGs are: - (Classic) Traveller
- Runequest
(D&D is obviously absent from the list...) He also mentions his friendship with Lawrence Schick and Sandy Petersen, whom he brought into MicroProse as game designers. Quoting from Wikipedia: Petersen, a fan of HP Lovecraft, wrote the Call of Cthulhu RPG in 1981; he also wrote dozens of video games, most notably DOOM. At MicroProse, he worked on Civilization and Darklands (with Hendrick). There was a review of Hendrick's Darklands in Dragon issue #190 (February 1993), pp 56-57. It got 4/5 stars (not an uncomplimentary review)... Hendrick wrote the manual and the clue book. In the interview, he offers to send you a copy, if you don't have one. In Part 3, Hendrick talks about a severe bug in the Darklands endgame, which eventually caused it to become a financial loss for the company. Darklands is available on GOG for $5.99.
|
|
|
Post by extildepo on Jan 10, 2017 12:43:19 GMT -6
Thanks for the info, krusader74 and gronanofsimmerya. Very interesting stuff. I've since read Hendrick's review (some valid points but also a bit strange re play by mail) and Gary's response in TSR#3. It's almost sad how things turned out, since Hendrick was a pretty good designer (that's an opinion). I'd love to get my hands on the Fletcher Pratt rules, just to compare them to later known works.
Cheers!
|
|
jacar
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 343
|
Post by jacar on Jan 10, 2017 20:28:05 GMT -6
So Hendrick did not dislike DnD but rather thought the rules were tough to get through...which to me they were! However, he also did not get the concept of free form gaming.
I rather enjoyed playing Darkland back in the day. He's right though. There were some severe bugs that caused the game to crash on a regular basis. You had to save your progress early and often. Many Microprose games were like that.
|
|
|
Post by derv on Jan 10, 2017 21:58:27 GMT -6
I have not seen or read Sword & Spear, but it may be that this is Hendricks attempt at filling what he perceived as a lack of "explanations and procedures" with D&D's personal combat. It would be interesting to hear how S&S mechanics work and whether they could be adopted in such a way. It's an interesting piece of history either way. While Hendricks review of D&D was not flattering. I never read it as biased or unfair in it's opinion. It simply came across as someone that needed further exposure to the game by others that were more familiar with how to play. He was a war gamer and, as such, may have had some difficulty groking the intent of play. Though, interestingly, I believe Hendricks may be the first person I heard to have made the comparison of play with Korns MWiM. Even Hendricks opinion of Chainmail does not come across as resentful. Many might agree with his assessment of Heavy Horse. Gygax's response in SR takes on a completely different air, on the other hand. extildepo you can purchase Pratt's Naval rules through John Curry's History of Wargaming Project or on Amazon.
|
|
|
Post by krusader74 on Jan 12, 2017 2:50:10 GMT -6
While Hendrick's critique of D&D is uncomplimentary, I agree with extildepo , jacar , and derv that it is neither unfair nor malicious. And Hendrick wasn't the only one with the same issues circa 1974-5. Interestingly, in the foreword to Tunnels & Trolls (1E, 1975), Ken St. Andre echoes two of Hendrick's main criticisms of D&D: Regarding the $10 price tag in 1974: That's about $50 today, according to the BLS CPI calculator. At first glance, that seems way cheaper than 5E (about 1/3rd of the price: $50 MSRP per volume times 3 volumes). OTOH, 5E consists of three hardbound books, 320 pages each, while the 3LBBs are only about 150 pages all together, and a new paperback of that size today retails somewhere in the range $10-$20. Regarding rules simplification/clarification: The game as written assumes players are coming from a miniature wargaming background, and nevertheless leaves even experienced wargamers (like Hendrick) with open questions. The fact that many people (outside Gary's and Dave's circles of players) had difficulty understanding the rules as written makes itself manifest in several ways: - The fact that The Strategic Review and later The Dragon published regular Q&A columns.
- The subsequent publication of rules simplifications (Holmes' Basic) and rules expansions (AD&D). Holmes even states in the Preface: "This work is far more detailed and more easily understood than were the original booklets..."
- All the many rules questions and varied interpretations on this very discussion forum!
|
|
|
Post by vladtolenkov on Feb 9, 2017 16:52:27 GMT -6
Hendrick also designed the Heritage models D&D-like miniature games: Caverns of Doom and Crypt of the Sorcerer as well as their more extensive miniature rules Knights and Magick.
|
|
|
Post by DungeonDevil on Oct 9, 2018 4:15:54 GMT -6
Related to the thread's subject is another work by the same author called ANCIENT WARFARE, a detailed break-down of the contents of which is given here for the curious. In terms of complexity it is much likely closer to WRG's 6th ed. "Ancients" rules than CM, in my estimation.
|
|
arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 229
|
Post by arkansan on Oct 30, 2018 2:00:31 GMT -6
I've got a copy of Sword and Spear I picked up a year or two ago. It's uhh.. certainly detailed, comes across as quite fiddly to be honest. Though I suspect it does what it sets out to do quite well.
The author later went on to work in pc game design and was one of the people behind Darklands, a fantastic and sadly overlooked sandbox RPG set in a Medieval Germany where all period assumptions about the world are true.
|
|
|
Post by Finarvyn on Oct 30, 2018 19:20:47 GMT -6
I don't remember Sword & Spear, but when we didn't play Chainmail sometimes we played a game called Ancient Warfare by Arnold Hendrick (Milgamex Company, 1975), and other times we used SPI's PRESTAGS wargame rules as miniatures combat. Nothing was as good as Chainmail, however, in my opinion.
|
|