So I have always thought the old Arduin books looked kinda neat. I have a little cash to burn and was wondering which ones are worth picking up? I saw that reprints of the first 9 are available as well as PDFs of at least the first three on drivethrurpg. Are they worth the money to pilfer for ideas? I also remember hearing somewhere that at some point they became a playable system of their own, how many of the books are needed for that?
I have the original Trilogy, and the next three from Dragontree Press, and once had The Arduin Adventure.
The little brown books are best regarded as supplemental to TSR-era D&D, although Arduin Adventure (a sort of "Basic Arduin" product) fills in some of the blanks such as references to D&D spells and classes and monsters.
The Compleat Arduin (or something like that) was/is, IIRC, a compendium mainly of the Trilogy and Adventure, with new layout and organization but little revision of the text.
There's a later and significantly different rules set, some bits of which related to combat systems were published before Dave's death in "Revised Arduin, a Primer."
As to whether they're worth the money to pilfer for ideas, I'd say that's ultimately a very personal matter.
Many rules considerations that were notable when first published became less so pretty quickly afterward with the appearance of AD&D, RuneQuest, and so on.
I'm not steeped in the class, spell, monster and magic item lists of AD&D 2E or D&D 3E, but I suspect that someone who is might find the Arduin contributions less inspiring than I did back in the 1970s.
I used the Arduin books a lot in the '70s and early '80s, but I can't remember the last time I actually employed anything from them.
I strip mined them heavily 35 years ago, and there are a lot of RP elements that still persist from them in my gameworld.
I can't, by contrast, claim that -- barring a handful of the spells -- there are any system elements I've used for many years now.
My tattered copies of the original Trilogy have pride of place on my gaming shelf, but Arduin's very much an artifact of the West Coast gaming scene in the late 70s -- that gonzo, very high-entropy era of the multiverses, where characters hopped from one VD&D campaign to another and no one worried about system incompatibility, and 70th level characters weren't self-evidently ridiculous. It introduced or popularized many notions -- critical hit charts, special abilities tables, appearance tables, cross-genre play, fixed hit points -- but there's nothing in it today which breaks any ground. It has a good bit of fascinating setting information that at the time was near-to-revolutionary, but that level of setting info is typical now.
If you wanted to do gonzo 70s-style VD&D, I'd pick it up. If you were looking to read through a time capsule of a significant influence on our hobby, I'd pick it up. If you were looking for a well-designed, cohesive game system that stands the test of time, Arduin isn't it.
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The Grimoire books, judging from the ones I have, look very good for mining for ideas, definitely (I don't know about the later ones, though). Spells, monsters and classes are all very creative. Arduin Adventure I would probably skip, this is a system book meant to replace 0D&D which they couldn't mention any more for legal reasons - not a huge amount of stuff here. Compleat Arduin is a major reorganization to make a sort of playable system, and much more organized, but it (despite the name) drops out a lot of stuff compared to just the grimoires. Arduin Eternal I haven't seen, I believe this is a full system -looking at previews and stuff it looks fairly involved. The World Book of Khaas is systemless and said to be very good, I haven't seen that either though.
If I had to pick I might say Compleat Arduin + the grimoires might be a way to do it, or Grimoires plus the D&D retro-clone of your choice.
Thanks for the info guys, sounds like I will be getting at least the first three books. Would there be much point to the other six or are the first three the best or at least most useful?
The Dragontree books I got didn't send me as much as the Trilogy, but I guess it would depend on what kind of stuff you're after. They featured fewer, longer articles that were more in the way of peeks at the Arduin campaign world: from memory, such things as Roadhouses (and Bill of Fare at Dirty Dorg's), Noble Houses, Assassins Guild (and Poisons), Natural Talent Magic (or Wild Magic, or whatever it was called) ...plus some game-philosophy essays.
I would guess that if the detailed world info type of material is of interest, then the World of Khaas book would be the motherload.
Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;728883The World Book of Khaas is systemless and said to be very good, I haven't seen that either though.
I'd like to know about the Khaas book as well. I never saw it in any store, and considering that the book is
seemingly only available via mail order I find the info about it rather sparse.
It's a book that's supposedly full of maps, but why doesn't the publisher show a sample of his art?
Quote from: Arkansan;728894Thanks for the info guys, sounds like I will be getting at least the first three books. Would there be much point to the other six or are the first three the best or at least most useful?
IDK much about the later books, sorry.
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Arduin is one of those things that always puzzled me. Despite all the hype, it's actually quite ridiculous once you see it.
It's basically an old school Synnibarr. Sure, it has a certain charm, but nowhere near what it's made out to be.
Quote from: JeremyR;728915Arduin is one of those things that always puzzled me. Despite all the hype, it's actually quite ridiculous once you see it.
It's basically an old school Synnibarr. Sure, it has a certain charm, but nowhere near what it's made out to be.
You could readily say the same about OD&D, after all -- a set of rules that if any major player wrote them today, people would laugh themselves sick.
That being said, eh. Those whose tastes run to gritty, low fantasy would indeed likely find it ridiculous -- Arduin is the polar opposite of Harn. (Then again, I expect Dave Hargrave would have found Harn stultifyingly boring.) It is what it is.
Quote from: JeremyR;728915Arduin is one of those things that always puzzled me. Despite all the hype, it's actually quite ridiculous once you see it.
It's basically an old school Synnibarr. Sure, it has a certain charm, but nowhere near what it's made out to be.
Yeah, it was too wacky for me if taken in totality. However, there was some cool useful bits to the original three booklets for D&D. I liked the Hit Points system where it narrowed the gap between high level characters and low level characters hit point totals.
I *love* Arduin to bits, always have - but it is totally gonzo, kind of the "Gamma World" of D&D. It's full of blatant plunderings from *everywhere*, then all munged up in a mega-gonzo-fest of artillery-level magic, *actual* artillery, demons, Elrics, Stormbringers, weird magic rings, whimsical dungeons, the whole thing.
You maybe had to be there. Looking at it with today's eyes, it's a chaotic mess, but I think you can still see its passion, originality, and sheer enthusiasm.
There are two Arduins: the rules, and the setting. The rules in the original trilogy are wildly inventive, improv, inspired, unbalanced, and downright lunatic in places. There are charts you'll never use, but inspired listings of planes of hell, hell spirals, monsters, magic, new classes, all that good stuff. The *setting* as it appears in the trilogy is very evocative - Misty Mountains, Bloody Arduin, Whispertrees, Talismonde, they all conjure up great visions in your mind.
If you can grab the Arduin trilogy *books*, I'd go for it. They're a great combo of inspired rules and evocative snippets of setting. You'll need an OSR ruleset to make full use of them.
Cheers,
Sarah
Quote from: Shaira;730641I *love* Arduin to bits, always have - but it is totally gonzo, kind of the "Gamma World" of D&D. It's full of blatant plunderings from *everywhere*, then all munged up in a mega-gonzo-fest of artillery-level magic, *actual* artillery, demons, Elrics, Stormbringers, weird magic rings, whimsical dungeons, the whole thing.
You maybe had to be there. Looking at it with today's eyes, it's a chaotic mess, but I think you can still see its passion, originality, and sheer enthusiasm.
There are two Arduins: the rules, and the setting. The rules in the original trilogy are wildly inventive, improv, inspired, unbalanced, and downright lunatic in places. There are charts you'll never use, but inspired listings of planes of hell, hell spirals, monsters, magic, new classes, all that good stuff. The *setting* as it appears in the trilogy is very evocative - Misty Mountains, Bloody Arduin, Whispertrees, Talismonde, they all conjure up great visions in your mind.
If you can grab the Arduin trilogy *books*, I'd go for it. They're a great combo of inspired rules and evocative snippets of setting.
I'll second all of this.
Quote from: Black Vulmea;730671I'll second all of this.
Yep, me too!
The trilogy seemed a whole lot closer to the images from Heavy Metal that were dancing in my head... vs. the stuff I saw each month in Dragon.
It was way way way too high-powered for the sort of game I wanted to run but I certainly got lots of ideas from reading it... stole things and made them my own. The wild mix of scifi and magic probably helped expedite my journey out of Tolkienland.
So everybody seems to think the first three books are worth getting, both for rules ideas and for the glimpses of setting.
Personally I have no interest in running a game using an Arduin rules set, I'd just possibly steal some bits of rules here and there, items, classes, monsters, whatever, and add them to my 1st ed AD&D game. I'd also be interested in the setting.
Given that, for someone like me, is anyone recommending picking up any later books for rules gems? Or the recent collected setting book?
Thanks!
(Knew I should've picked up Arduin all those years ago, but at the time I was strictly a RAW -guy. Browsing through those Arduin books back in the game store, I shook my head in TSR-elitism and said, "Not me!")
I'm glad I was never a TSR fanboy... maybe because I knew a few and I'm just naturally contrary.
I thought the later Arduin books moved away from D&D and attempted to be more of a complete system? I haven't looked at them nearly as much as the original trilogy... they seem a bit tame in comparison.
The collections seem to have had a lot of the charm expunged from them as well... probably to make them seem more 'professional'.
So maybe just stick with the first three and use them as an idea bank.
I think the Compleat Arduin is very good as a game - it's very thorough, and has its own system, and is very playable. Mark Schynert did an excellent job. IMHO it doesn't have the charm of the original LBBs - kind of in the way that the Cyclopedia doesn't have the charm of White Box - but they're still very much worth a look at, especially if you're wanting to *play* Arduin.
The Arduin adventure modules (Caliban, Death Heart, etc) are *very* retro and gonzo; stripped down room descriptions which are basically monsters stats + treasure + traps, no real rationale, Monty Haul style. They *do* have a charm, though - they're extremely old school, almost Blackmoor style but turned up to 11. The "Treasure and Monster Cards" they come with are fun - seeing original pics of the Argalanthi and Thaelastra, etc. Pick them up if you can and like palaeogameology. :D
I didn't go a bundle on books 4 - 9 (10?); they have some good bits, but are larger font, chattier, and seem to lack that mad spark of the first 3 books. They're a bit heartbreaker in places. I think it's telling that I read my original trilogy again and again, but books 4-9 not so much.
The Khaas worldbook is a curious one. It's *huge* - but the font is also quite large, so the hugeness is a design feature. The maps are good and serviceable. Some of the setting detail is cool; some of it is a bit vanilla. It's an exhaustive worldbook. Again I've never read it cover to cover, but I do enjoy the occasional dip-in.
The only bug I have with Khaas is a personal one; I believe the continent and world maps are both derived from Dave's original maps (I might be wrong). Those original maps appear to have been drawn on sheets of paper, right up to the edges; so the continent is pretty darn *square*, and so are some of the other continents. It's a bit of a shame - I'm a passionate cartographer, and it kind of breaks the world's credibility for me. I think the whole thing would feel much more realistic if the overall continent and world maps were more realistic (if that's even a thing in fantasy...). If you can happily ignore that (and I'm starting to), then the world book is one of those mad obsessive things that's great to dip into.
The poster map of Arduin's fun. It also has shaky geography issues from time to time, but as it's more of an illustrative map that's more forgiveable, and you can gloss over it. It's cool to see all the places in the book mapped out at last.
Whispertrees is a pretty good adventure. It could have done with a bit of proofing, but I get that the guys are doing it for the love, and it's a good effort.
I haven't seen Arduin Eternal. It's a bit pricey for an impulse buy, but I might go for it one day. It's good the guys are keeping Arduin alive.
My dream Arduin would be to see it as a series of super-gonzo setting books, rules expansions, and adventures for something like D&D. Go max on the flavour and do what made Arduin so wonderful in the first place: go to those mad, bad, blood-drenched, mighty-thewed, cliche-ridden places that D&D never dared. :D
Cheers!
Sarah
I got the Compleat version myself, and I think it's a pretty nice game with lots of fun touches (like the monsters, the way magic weapons are generated, the spells, etc).
I'm pretty certain I'll be getting the pdf bundle of the original booklets though - got my OD&D box last week and I think that OD&D + 70s Arduin sounds cooler than Compleat (allthough Compleat is nice, don't get me wrong); that's what Arduin was made for after all and, not least, OD&D seems pretty much made for gonzo and weirdness and all that, and well, "galactic heroes & demigods" or whatever you call the subgenre is right up my alley. :)
I think OD&D + Arduin Trilogy is the original Arduin experience through-and-through; the impreciseness of OD&D, and its relative lack of rules, give you a lot of mental freedom just to chuck stuff into the mix and make it work, which is where Arduin excels.
You can also do this with any OSR game - but probably OD&D by its very openness and chaoticness is maybe the easiest fit.
Good gaming! :)
Cheers,
Sarah
Quote from: Shaira;731124I think OD&D + Arduin Trilogy is the original Arduin experience through-and-through; the impreciseness of OD&D, and its relative lack of rules, give you a lot of mental freedom just to chuck stuff into the mix and make it work, which is where Arduin excels.
You can also do this with any OSR game - but probably OD&D by its very openness and chaoticness is maybe the easiest fit.
Good gaming! :)
Cheers,
Sarah
Cool! :)
Sarah, I am so glad you have posted in this thread! :)
You have instilled a strong desire to pull out the original three Arduin booklets and go 1970's gonzo!
BTW I only just found out last night about "Arduin, Bloody Arduin", the new Arduin game that's planned - essentially a back-to-basics version, AFAIK d20-based, based on the original trilogy, pretty much The Compleat Arduin but streamlined and with d20 mechanics.
Sounds quite exciting - I blogged about it this morning (http://sarahnewtonwriter.com/2014/02/15/arduin-bloody-arduin-thinking-about-how-it-could-be-done/). :)
Cheers,
Sarah
Quote from: Shaira;731358BTW I only just found out last night about "Arduin, Bloody Arduin", the new Arduin game that's planned - essentially a back-to-basics version, AFAIK d20-based, based on the original trilogy, pretty much The Compleat Arduin but streamlined and with d20 mechanics.
Sounds quite exciting - I blogged about it this morning (http://sarahnewtonwriter.com/2014/02/15/arduin-bloody-arduin-thinking-about-how-it-could-be-done/). :)
Cheers,
Sarah
That does indeed sound very exciting!
Also, very cool blog post. :)