RPGPundit Reviews: Green Devil Face
This is a review of Green Devil Face, numbers 1, 2, and 3; written by (or more correctly put, edited by) James Raggi.
These three "old school" books are in the form of three booklets, softcover, with some very nice images from woodcuts on the front and back covers. Sadly, that's just about one of the only positive things I've been able to think of to say about this product. The interior features no pictures whatsoever, though they do have a few graph-paper style maps of dungeon areas.
I really don't know what to say about these booklets, the first material I've read from Mr. Raggi. They are apparently rather successful among the OSR-crowd. And the booklets, or mainly, volume 1, contains a huge number of in-jokes and references to the OSR-people. To the point that, frankly, if you don't know about the people, forums, blogs, etc. being referenced, you won't find it funny, or even (in many cases) comprehensible.
Volume 1 of 3 was apparently originally published as "Fantasy Fucking Vietnam", which is a term used in the OSR-crowd to describe a preferred style of dungeon-crawling play. Frankly, this is all indicative of the worst aspects of what I find wrong with the OSR ("Old School Renaissance", if you didn't know). Its utterly incestuous, self-referential in a way that surpasses even the Forge, and presents a vision of old-school gaming that is incredibly narrow, rather than celebrating the variety. They have constructed a myth of how it was in "old school gaming" that doesn't match my own memories or those of many others, and that tends to the extremes while ignoring the center.
The background for Volume 1 is as follows, with my own commentary in parentheses: "the village of Erehps-Oglob ("blogo-sphere" written backwards! Get it! How clever...) are in trouble! They used to join their neighbours the D'Footian tribe ("Dragonfoot", get it? Oh, its so delicious...), in worshipping the Mad Mage (Gygax...), who had traveled in their lands years ago".
It goes on; basically, its a dungeon in the form of the "Shrine to the Mad Mage", which has been taken over by the D'footians, and now the tribe of the blogo-sphere-backwards are going to go adventuring there and teach the D'footians a lesson.
So yeah, believe it or not, this is a dungeon about an internet flame war.
I have to give Mr.Raggi points for creativity, but frankly, if you don't go to Dragonfoot (which I don't, mostly), and if you don't give a fuck about the OSR people, particularly the exiles who were banned from Dragonfoot, who are portrayed as the heros here, you really won't get this premise or give a fuck.
There's a nice dungeon map of the "Shrine", which Raggi hints that he designed pretty well at random. There are some moderately dangerous random-encounter tables, which consist mainly of encounters with dangerous D'footians or some gruesome traps. No interesting monsters to speak of.
After that, the rest of the booklet consists of 59 area descriptions of varying length. Some take up more than a page, others just a couple of lines. In some, the description is as short as "Its a torture chamber, be creative". But to be fair, these are the minority, the majority of rooms describe incredibly dangerous encounters and save-or-die style Gygaxian traps that add up to create a massive slaughterhouse for PCs. There's also one or two red-herring rooms; like a sculptor's studio filled with very lifelike statues, designed to make the by-now-very-paranoid PCs convinced that there's a petrification trap somewhere, when in fact they're just statues.
Only, I don't know if I'd fall for that, because its too obvious. Mr.Raggi should have taken it a step further and added an anvil falling on someone's head, ratcheting up the irony in that room. I say this, because most of the "trap" rooms contain traps that do not have obvious hints, but are instead meant to be completely non-obvious and thus deadlier.
Just a few examples: A totally empty room with a door, which looks like it would be a safe place to camp for the night, but if the door is kept closed for an hour the room fills with a disintegration gas that destroys everything inside, no save.
A room with a large toadstool, with gold nuggets under it. Trying to take a gold nuggest causes a gas spore to release requiring a save-vs-poison to avoid instant death. Trying to cut or move the toadstool will cause it to explode, causing everyone within 40' to have to make the same save.
As I mentioned, many of the longer entries contain references to the online forum world, through the OSR lens. One room contains two "Troll Lords", for example, that are piling a bunch of rubble around and claim that they're trying to "rebuild the castle of the mad mage".
There's also a latrine room, it contains a "Urine Weird" (identical to the water weird, but more idiotically sophomoric, I guess).
There are a few clever rooms; there's one that has the "great sage Randorgiga", for example. I must admit my lore-about-OSR-in-jokes fails me at that stage, because I don't know who "randorgiga" is supposed to refer to, though its clearly meant to be an injoke. The Sage answers any and all questions by rolling dice, and consulting a table; the mechanic is to roll 3d12+1970, and the result will be a story about what happened in the Mad Mage's (Gygax's) life at that time. For example, rolling 18, for a result of 1988, will mean the Sage says "The mad mage was deposed of power by the heir of the XXVth Century and struggled with his loss of power".
In other words, sort of amusing to read, but utterly useless. That pretty much describes this whole booklet.
Booklets 2 and 3 are not like number 1. I had expected more of the same, but in fact these two, while very similar to each other, have little in common with the original apart from the name. Instead of a dungeon, what you get are a bunch of traps, which the editor claims are "particularly original or clever"). I say editor rather than author because these traps were not written by Mr. Raggi but rather submitted to him by people online. Booklet 2 has 12 traps, and booklet 3 has 11, if I counted them right. The shortest of these is about half-a-page, and the longer ones go on for several pages, essentially consisting of small dungeon areas with a significant degree of complex deadliness. A minority of these traps include small dungeon-maps of the area. Some have mechanics, many are just descriptions.
To give you some examples, from book 2 we have a room with a Continual Darkness spell, totally dark, and empty except for 2 dopplegangers. Anyone who enters will be attacked by these dopplegangers, who will try to knock them out with their saps (requiring a save vs death ray once grappled, to avoid unconcsiousness), and will then be dragged to a secret room, illuminated, where the dopplegangers will torture their prisoners and take their appearance, one of the dopplegangers going back into the main room pretending to be the PC and then "try to lure the party to their deaths in the dungeons" (the nature of their deaths or the rest of the dungeon of course not being described). I don't know how original or clever that is, really.
To give another example, this one written by Mr.Raggi himself, there is the "hallway that does not exist". Its a corridor that appears to extend for 200'. Anyone who walks down it will notice that after a bit, all the colour seems to start to fade, then objects will become blurrier, then become intangible, and eventually cease to exist. So essentially, this is a trap if the PCs insist on moving forward, thinking that there is some trick to it. Should they stop or turn back, they will live. Its the kind of traps I hate, that punish standard PC behaviour without really giving any reason for being, or a way to resolve the situation other than just not getting into it in the first place.
Another one, from book 3, describes a rare outdoor-trap. When travelling down a path, the PCs encounter a goblin corpse next to a sign warning them about the "red stream". The stream, which they find later, is full of Sea-kittens, mewing and frolicking. Horses which come near the stream will automatically buck off its rider, and its gear will magically teleport on the back of the horse's owner, stuck there (unless you cast a remove curse on it). Anyone who tries to cross the stream will have red liquid spit at them by the sea-kittens, cursing the armor the PC is wearing, and from then on as long as he has the armor on he will have horrific hallucinations anytime he sees anyone eating meat.
What the fuck was Mr.Raggi smoking?! Or is this another clever in-joke I'm not getting?
The title of the last trap in the 3rd booklet is called "This is Seriously Unfair!", which I think might have been a better way to title books 2 and 3 than "Green Devil Face".
In any case, there's pretty well fuck-all here that would be worth using, except in the sense of enjoying reading it if you happen to be an OSR-guy, and even then I'd have trouble imagining myself, were I an OSR guy, paying for this stuff. In terms of practical use, if you are already a hardcore "Fantasy Fucking Vietnam"-style DM, who truly believes in this sort of game play, you might find some of the traps here of some use, though most of it is just so pointless and surreal that I certainly couldn't consider it clever.
I'm sorry to say that all of this has only befuddled and alienated me further from the mentality of the Old School Renaissance. We'll see, as I have some other booklets of Mr.Raggi's to review in the next while, if I find anything more redeemable in those. But honestly, I couldn't really recommend Green Devil Face to anyone.
RPGPundit
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Comments (11)
The title "Green Devil Face" is a reference to the Tomb of Horrors, module S1. In the mouth of the Tomb's Green Devil Face is a Sphere of Annihilation. Yes, these traps are supposed to be tests of the common sense of the players.
As you note in your review, common sense is not very common for PCs.
I've enjoyed Green Devil Face #2 and had hoped to write up a series of rooms from one of my own dungeons as a submission for GDF#3 but I didn't make the deadline. Next time!
The Sea Kitten joke that so eludes you is a reference to PETA's ludicrous idea that fish should be called Sea Kittens in an effort to get people to have sympathy towards the scaly little beasts.
So the PCs get used like thier pack animals get used, get blood thrown on them and freak out when people eat meat.
It is a crappy joke.
I have read Fantasy Fucking Vietnam as something that might be fun to play. In the vien of Alien's with kobolds in a jungle or Full Metal Jacket with orcs or something. This just sounds like somebody read too many Grimtooth's Traps books and decided to write their own.
randorgiga is an anagram of grognardia
I see. Well, Explanation and Zak, thank you!
A correction,
> Frankly, this is all indicative of the worst aspects of what I find
wrong with the OSR ("Old School Renaissance", if you didn't know). Its
utterly incestuous, self-referential in a way that surpasses even the
Forge, and presents a vision of old-school gaming that is incredibly
narrow, rather than celebrating the variety. They have constructed a
myth of how it was in "old school gaming" that doesn't match my own
memories or those of many others, and that tends to the extremes while
ignoring the center.
That describes Raggi, do not confuse OSR with James Raggi. I read many, many blogs and a few other resources most of which would be considered Old-School and several self-identify as part of the OSR. Those attitudes are a minority. Forums are always centers of incestuous self-referentialism. Avoidance is the best cure.
Does the OSR really exist in any meaningful way outside of the Forums/Blogosphere?
@RPGpundit - Does the OSR really exist in any meaningful way outside of the Forums/Blogosphere?
I hold there to be large differences between Forums and Blogosphere.
"meaningful" is very vague and subjective. But this is the OSR I see outside of Blogosphere (I stay away from forums so can't speak to them)
People play, the most meaningful RPG activity there is. They play at my FLGS. You can read about several games as reported in the blogosphere. They play at old school cons http://www.ntrpgcon.com http://garycon.com/ Retro clones, modules and resources for old-school games are being printed and sold in stores by Goodman Games, Black Blade Publishing, and others.
Does any of this get close to mainstream's radar. Nope. But, you don't strike me as a slave to the mainstream, RPGpundit?
Not as such. That would not be any great criticism to me of the OSR; the issue is, directly in this case, an analysis of your original statement; and in the larger sense, with the attitude of the OSR overall.
"Does the OSR really exist in any meaningful way outside of the Forums/Blogosphere?"
It does not really exist in any meaningful way inside the Forums/Blogosphere either. I have been saying as much since forever.
Pundit, this product you reviewed (Green Devil Face) sounds like one of the dumbest products I've ever heard of in my entire life. If it truly contains the stuff you've described, then you must have the patience of a saint, and the fortitude of a billygoat to actually manage to finish reading it. You've convinced me not to pick up this product, and I thank you for the review.
Raggi's random monster book is pretty awesome. It's by Goodman Games. In the intro, he explains his position re the OSR. It's a complete waste of two pages.
The random tables are fantastic, however.