Tales of Jackson: Land of Confusion

 You know how it is. You want to run NIGHT SHIFT. Your players want to play Dungeons & Dragons. Well, my last Jackson, IL adventure shows you can do both!

Hey Look, A Dungeons & Dragons Ride!

This adventure idea began innocently enough back in September. It was September 17, and I noticed that it was the anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons animated series. I didn't watch it a lot back then; I had a job on Saturdays, but when my kids were growing up, I rediscovered it. We picked up the DVD set when the 3rd edition was popular, and I later got the Spanish-language DVD version to help with my Spanish.  I got to thinking. What if my Jackson kids found a "Dungeons & Dragons ride!"

Suddenly I had a very, very evil idea. Or a very silly one.

I loaded some movies into my queue for the October Horror Movie Marathon, knowing they would give me some good ideas. Largely because I had seen so many of them before. And I spent the month in between coming up with the ideas.

So I watched the movies last week and took the early shift in our Sunday game to run my adventure.

Enter the Dungeon

 Essentially, I had three basic problems in front of me. I knew the characters from Jackson were going to be transported to a "Dungeons & Dragons" world. But I needed to figure out who did it (which tells me why), how they did it, and what classes the characters would become in the new world.

I went with the last problem first. My three witches, Stephanie, Faye, and Larina, were easy. Too easy, as it turns out. Since I was using D&D 5.5 Rules-as-Written, I opted for Sorceress, Warlock, and Wizard, respectively. It was perfect. But I kept thinking these three were already powerful enough. So I set them aside and worked on all the other major NPCs/Characters. I didn't know who would take what, so I did everyone.

Here is how it shook out, and the surprises. One thing to keep in mind: I have also been considering a "Class Reunion" Adventure, so I have jotted down some ideas of where everyone is in 1992, 2007, and 2027. That is, if my players don't kill them.

Ami Reed: Ami was easy; she is based on Amiri from Pathfinder. If you recall Jackson's first game, I had a bunch of Pathfinder Iconics minis I was using. Amiri the Barbarian became Ami, the tough girl on the girls' softball team. Turning her back into a barbarian made sense.

Valentino Moreno: Likewise, Val is based on Valeros, the iconic fighter. So, fighter he remains.

Andy Thompson: Anderson is a Sage in the Jackson game, but he takes on his true role here as Bard. He has his trumpet, and when they later go fight the "Dragon Master," he belts out Asia's "Only Time Will Tell." At least that is the player's plan. They love the 80s and queueing up songs on Spotify. Andy is an original character, but from West Haven. 

Rowan McGowan: Rowan has been many things in my games before Jackson. Witch Knight, Protector, Paladin. But Rowan in Jackson has become something different. All those things still describe her, but a surprise later on made me re-evaluate her role. Here, she became a Gloom Stalker Ranger. Why? Because Rowan is all about making sure the creatures of the night have something to fear.

Kyra Bellamy: Kyra was also lifted from Pathfinder minis. She was Kyra, the iconic cleric. Here she is Kyra, the Preacher's Kid, who discovers her own true faith. So she is my Cleric of Light.

Meriko Hayashida: Meriko, Kyra's secret girlfriend, is also taken from Pathfinder's Merisiel, the iconic thief. Honestly, I took Kyra, and Meriko insisted on coming along. She is my thief. 

Tetsuya "Tetsu" Hayashida: Meriko's 12-year-old young brother. NPC at the moment, because I wanted her annoying younger brother to tag along (her mom made her take him to the movies). He is the comic relief and plays the annoying little-sibling trope. He is also a thief.

Benjamin Brown: "Benny" is a new character I haven't talked about much, but I wanted to bring him to the table here. Benny is a lot of things. He works with Faye at "Strawberry Fields." He is friends with Meriko and Kyra. He is the kid who wants to do everyone's star chart and horoscope. He is also the local pot dealer (he doesn't look the part at all, and only his friends know), and he is also my "Gay Kid" from the 80s. I like Ben. He is a complex character and much, much more than a stereotype. In the D&D world, he becomes a Druid of the Circle of Stars. And he has key information. And drugs.  

Note: this should also be the first clue that Darren is not 100% in control here. If Ben were to be transported to a D&D fantasy world, Darren would have been much crueler. Ben comes over not just largely intact, but key elements of his personality are enhanced.

Finally, we get to the two who should have been easy, but let me be honest: these two surprise me all freaking the time.

Candy and Denise are, rather obviously, based on Candella and Duchess from the classic D&D adventure B3: Palace of the Silver Princess. So they should be thieves, right?

Wrong. 

Candy and Denise have grown a lot as characters. I know who they will become when they get older (back to my proposed 2007 or 2013 Class Reunion idea): Candy becomes a nurse because she knows how to help people in times of crisis. Denise becomes a social worker because she stands up for kids and mothers who need someone. The magic of the land sees this. And this becomes the another clue as to what is going on, and not all of it is Darren.

Candance "Candy" Mercer: Candy is still that girl who can climb to the third story of a building to break in, but she is also the girl who stitches people up and gets them back into the fight. She is a Way of Mercy Monk. Her touch can heal or harm. Mercy is even in her name.

Denise "Duchess" Carver: When the kids were pulled into the world the "Dragon Master" wanted to Denise to be a simple serving wench or better (for him) a slave. That didn't happen. Something (someone) saw into Denise's soul, and when she got here, her true self was revealed. 

Denise Carver, Paladin. Oath of Devotion.

She shows up in shining (literally) armor, wielding a sword. I justify this by stating the obvious (well, obvious to the other players and me). Denise wears "armor" all the time. In Jackson, her armor is sarcasm and attitude. When Candy was hurt, she picked up a crowbar and challenged the monster (a zombie) to "fucking come get some!" I don't care if she was a "thief" in another life. Denise is a protector. Denise gets in between her friends and danger. Or as I have said repeatedly, "Denise Carver fucking shows up."

I honestly can't explain how well they all fit their new roles. So now to figure out my other (many) problems.

I have guidelines for all the other major and minor NPCs as well.

The Dragon Master Summons

When putting together my list of movies, it became obvious that I needed a Big Bad, and this was the guy who pulls everyone into his realm. The answer was obvious before I finished my thoughts on it. 

Darren Vale AKA "The Dragon Master"

At the end of Am I Evil? Darren was in a coma. Well, somehow this little asshole managed to create an entire fantasy world in his mind. I cheated and just used a "cartoon" version of Yog. He wanted revenge against all the people who wronged him. So he first traps Stephanie, Faye, and Larina. How? No freaking idea; I am going to use horror-movie logic here and say they were performing some ritual, and Darren had already laid a trap for them. They are trapped in his Realm, and he thought he would get the other characters into his world as well, where he could torment them at his leisure while siphoning off the magic of my three witches.

This solved a lot of problems for me. It kept the witches out of the picture so my other characters (jokingly referred to as "The B Team") could shine. It gave Darren the magic power he needed to power his realm and draw others in.  AND it gave me the key to Darren's defeat.

The adventure in Jackson begins when all the characters receive an invitation to see a new fantasy movie at the Illinois Times theatre at midnight (Yes, cribbed from "Demons"). They are the only ones there. The movie is cheesy but looks realistic, and then a group of orcs jump out of the screen and drag the characters into the movie.

The Realms of Spellcraft & Swordplay

The characters come through, and many of them are much more powerful than I think Darren intended them to be. Candy, Denise, and Ben in particular. There are "copies" of all the other NPCs from Jackson, but they are all caricatures of who they really are. Coach Kurt is portrayed as a dumb jock, despite also teaching AP Calculus and serving as the Honor Society sponsor. Kerri is depicted as an alluring nymph (ok that is not too far from the truth), and Valerie as an old hag, because that is how Darren categorizes women. Thomas Avery is stereotypically gay and predatory. It is all an awful version of Jackson. That's Darren's vision. But there are other tells. 

First, there is no one here who showed up after Darren's coma. Renee is still here, for example, and she left to return to Finland at the end of the 1986 school year. BUT. Moria is here. And more to the point, she is here as a demon-girl. Moria was introduced after Darren, and only four people knew Moria was really a demon: the three witches and Candy. Something Darren would not have known.

Also, the characters are on a quest. To find and free the Three Witches from the dungeons of the Dragon Master. (again, obvious) BUT the names of the witches are The Sorceress (Stephanie), The Ash Witch (Larina), and The Thorn Child (Faye). Again, only four people know that "Thorn Child" was what Faye's aunts were trying to turn her into: the three witches and Ben. Faye works with Ben at Strawberry Fields.

I drop other little clues that only the characters know, but not Darren. 

Somehow Stephanie, Faye, and Larina's thoughts are getting into Darren's world. 

What follows is a really, really stereotypical D&D adventure. I wanted it that way. In fact, I wanted it to almost feel like a parody that was so earnest it became an homage. The Dragon Master's lair was just Module B1: In Search of the Unknown and B2: Keep on the Borderlands.

The party finds the witches and rescues them. Each witch is a separate quest. Doing so breaks the magical hold. So freeing Stephanie, the Red Sorceress, causes social interactions to loosen their magical bonds; all the NPCs remember who they really were/are, and Darren loses control of them. Freeing Faye, the Thorn Child, causes the land to begin to revert to normal. Finally freeing Larina, the Ash Witch, breaks the magical hold. Now the PCs have to confront the Dragon Master directly. Everyone wakes up in the theatre. The janitor wants to know why they are all still there at 3 in the morning. ("Those damn kids!")

BUT I haven't gotten to that in-game yet. My real-world players are just now finding clues.And this is looking like it will be a lot longer than the one-shot I had intended it to be.

What is good about this adventure? The witches are completely sidelined. They didn't have to do anything and gave me a chance to see how the other characters do without them.

Spoilers?

Given the influence of Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, not just on this adventure, but on the genesis of AD&D Larina's daughter Taryn, I did add Taryn (in her Half-elf incarnation) here. She appears to know things and even understands that this is a trap. The players picked up right away that she was different, but I didn't tell them why. My oldest got it right away. In fact, his comment was, "What the hell is she doing here?"

Sorry, Liam, I don't really have a good answer for that other than "fan service." Now I need to figure out how/why she was there.

This game is going to go on much longer than expected, and it is already shaping up to be my proper "Season 2" of Jackson, just not in the way I expected. I had planned to bring in Taryn as a time traveler to return to the 1986-87 school year, but I never figured out why she was there. Other than a 21-year-old Taryn trying to deal with her mom when she was 17.

It will be fun to see where this one goes.

Mail Call Tuesday: AD&D 1st Edition PoD

 Our Sunday game is doing great, 8 years running! We split it up now between the regular 5th Edition game AND this new game everyone wanted to play. AD&D 1st Edition! My oldest is the DM for the 1st Ed games.

So I picked up some AD&D 1st ed books from DriveThruRPG's Print-on-Demand.

Honestly I like these quite a bit. I grabbed a "players bundle" of the AD&D 1st Ed Player's Handbook and Unearthed Arcana. 

The binding is sturdy, and the paper is crisp white, so the text is very easy to read. We already had a PoD set, so I picked up enough for all the players that didn't have their own copies. 

These guys are all in their 20s, so they don't have nostalgia for the original covers like I do and my oldest does. So they are extremely thrilled with these. 

In Search Of... Castle Greyhawk

 I started this post once before, but I am returning to it now. Especially now with so much new Castle Greyhawk material to be had.  I also wanted to do another of my In Search Of... feature.

In Search Of... Castle Greyhawk

Castle Greyhawk has been a quasi-mythical dungeon. It did exist, in one form or another, and was part of Gary Gygax's own D&D campaign. It was rumored to be anywhere between 13 levels, to 70 to 100s of levels. It was merged with Rob Kuntz's "El Raja Key" at some point and made even larger. The full Castle Greyhawk had always been promised to us but only partially delivered. I'll have some links below so you can read more on all of these topics.

The Published Castles Greyhawk

Despite never getting a full and proper publication, many Castles Greyhawk have existed over the years. Some official, others...well, less so, but all fit the spirit of the idea of Castle Greyhawk. I will cover them below with my own experiences.

WG7 Castle Greyhawk

I remember being quite excited about this one. The *real* Castle Greyhawk. Finally! Well...that is not the case, really. I like humor in my games, but this was not a great adventure nor a particularly good "joke" one. There are some good bits here. I loved the idea of multiple levels. I loved the idea of a different author/designer taking on each one. Some of the levels were also fun send-ups of my early D&D tropes like "The Temple of Really Bad Dead Things." Sadly, it all never really worked.

Getting different designers to cover each level was fun in theory. They never connected at all. Some were even so bad that I had my players bypass them altogether. For example, when they got to Level 8, I put a "handwritten" sign (in ketchup, no less) up outside the entryway saying, "Food fight in progress, please proceed to Level 9."  Eventually, the whole thing collapsed under the weight of its own silliness. 

There are some good ideas here. There are some good hooks, and I like the introduction and the first level. Though I do remember some awkwardness in the transitions between levels. One I recall was Level 10, which assumed that you had gone all the way back up to Level 1. Seemed to run counter to the stated reality of the adventure. The maps are good, the art, for the most part, is fun, and again, pulling it all apart to make a bunch of unrelated mini-adventures might be the way to go.

However, I can't help but think that there was a little bit of vindictiveness in having such a high-profile and "bad" adventure carry the name Castle Greyhawk come out in the days after Gary Gygax had been let go.  Given that the previous WG7 was supposed to have been a high-level adventure from Gygax called Shadowlands. There is a lot of evidence against this, but thinking back to 1988 and knowing that Gary had been booted. Plus, at the time, I was connecting with other gamers from all over the state, and we shared our pre-Internet opinions. Well, conclusions, truthful or erroneous, can be drawn, and opinions die hard.

Don't misunderstand me; I know Gary loved a good funhouse dungeon. And really, is this one any more ridiculous than "Tomb of Horrors" or the really awful puns in the graveyard of Castle Ravenloft? This one, however, feels like a bridge too far.  It was too bad, really. I was in the midst of my "Greyhawk renaissance" at the time, and I wanted to consume anything and everything related to Greyhawk, but mostly official Greyhawk material, rather than the pastiche I had built over the years. 

I had a copy, but I lost it many years ago, and I recently reacquired my copy from my old DM's collection. I have the PDF, but I never had a desire to grab a new PoD version. However, I did think about it back in my early days working with Eden Studios, when I read the WitchCraft short story "The House that Dripped Clichés." I wanted to make something good of the Castle Greyhawk adventure. But ultimately, I reasoned I would be better off making my own. Thankfully, I didn't have to.

WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins (2e)

After the misfire of WG7 Castle Greyhawk, TSR had another go at presenting the legendary dungeon in print. This time, in 1990, they gave us WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins, written by Blake Mobley and Timothy Brown, for 2nd Edition AD&D.

On the surface, this one looked like a course correction. Gone was the parody tone, gone were the ketchup-smeared signs, and in their place was a serious attempt to frame Castle Greyhawk as an honest-to-goodness megadungeon. The adventure describes the ruins of the Castle aboveground, and beneath them, three partially intact towers that served as gateways to the deeper dungeon levels.

This felt much closer to what I had always imagined Castle Greyhawk to be. The presentation was straightforward: keyed maps, monsters, treasure, and plenty of challenges. In many ways, it’s a classic meat-and-potatoes dungeon crawl, and for DMs who wanted a usable Greyhawk megadungeon without wading through parody, it delivered.

But there were two problems. First, no published module could ever live up to the myth of Castle Greyhawk by this point. Gamers had been hearing about Gary’s original for over fifteen years, and expectations had grown to impossible heights. Second, the stink of WG7 still lingered. After being burned once, many fans weren’t ready to embrace a new “official” Castle so soon. That left Greyhawk Ruins in a tough spot: serious in tone, expansive in scope, but struggling to shake off its predecessor’s shadow.

I also have to admit, I’ve never been a fan of the cover. It doesn’t capture the sense of awe and menace I wanted from the ruins of the game's greatest dungeon. Inside, though, the content is solid. Twenty-five plus levels of dungeon to explore, each with its own flavor, from ruined laboratories to caverns crawling with monsters. It’s not subtle, but it is dangerous, and it can easily keep a party busy for years of game time.

Looking back, WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins represents the first truly earnest attempt to give us Castle Greyhawk as an actual megadungeon. It wasn’t Gary’s Castle, and it wasn’t Rob’s either, but it was playable, and it kept Greyhawk alive at the table in the early 2e era. For me, it feels like the first step toward reclaiming the myth after WG7, even if it never stood a chance of satisfying everyone’s expectations.

This is another old adventure of mine that was in the collection of my old DM. I think I bought it with the idea that he would run me through it, but it was the 1990s, and I was still finishing up my undergrad studies and likely never got around to it.

Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk

By the time 2007 rolled around, I had already been through the highs and lows of Castle Greyhawk in print. WG7 had left a sour taste, WGR1 had done some course correction, but the mythical real Castle Greyhawk still seemed just out of reach. Then came Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk for D&D 3.5. On paper, this was the one that might finally get it right.

This was a big (224 pages), glossy hardcover and part of Wizards’ “Expedition” series that included Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, and Expedition to Undermountain. These books were meant to be love letters to classic adventures, rebuilt for the then-current edition. And with writers like Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona (names I respected then and now), I had reason to hope.

The book immediately set itself apart from WG7’s funhouse antics. Instead of a parody, it gave us a full-on campaign, a sprawling dungeon crawl combined with political intrigue in the Free City of Greyhawk. Iuz, Zagyg, my ex-girlfriend Iggwilv, and even Zuoken show up, giving the adventure cosmic stakes beyond just “loot the dungeon.” It’s pitched for characters of about 8th–13th level, which honestly felt right. By that point, adventurers are strong enough to tangle with demigods, but not so epic that the whole thing feels like a superhero comic.

The design is ambitious. You don’t just get dungeon rooms mapped and keyed; you get partial maps, encounter tables, and plenty of blank space to make the Castle your own. That’s clever; it echoes the fact that Gary’s original Castle Greyhawk was never static. It was a living, changing environment, tailored to the players at the table. Of course, the downside is obvious: if you're looking for a completely mapped, plug-and-play megadungeon, you won’t find it here. DMs had to be ready to improvise and prep.

I ran pieces of it rather than the whole campaign. Some of the encounters, especially with the new monsters (the aurumvorax got a facelift here, and the cataboligne demon was nasty), were deadly even for 13th-level PCs. My players loved that sense of danger, though — it felt like the dungeon had teeth again.

But did it finally give us the “real” Castle Greyhawk? Well. That depends on what you were hoping for. If you wanted Gary’s original notes, this wasn’t it. If you wanted a megadungeon that was both a campaign centerpiece and a love letter to Greyhawk lore, it largely delivered. It felt like Mona and Jacobs, in particular, were saying, “Yes, Greyhawk matters. Here’s why.”

I remember closing the book after my first read-through and thinking: this is probably as close as we’re ever going to get to a “canon” Castle Greyhawk. Not Gary’s, not Rob’s, but a 3rd Edition interpretation that pulled from the mythos, built a strong framework, and left room for each DM to add their own touch. Say what you like about 3rd Edition, but at the time, respect for Gary was at an all-time high. 

Thankfully, it was not the last word. 

Castle of the Mad Archmage

If Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk was Wizards of the Coast’s official attempt to canonize the Castle for 3rd Edition, then Castle of the Mad Archmage was the fan-driven answer — and in many ways, it feels closer to the dream of a “true” Castle Greyhawk than anything TSR or WotC ever put out.

Joseph Bloch, the “Greyhawk Grognard,” originally released Castle of the Mad Archmage starting in 2009. His idea was simple: if Wizards of the Coast wouldn't and TSR couldn't (because they were gone) give us the real Castle, then he would build one in the old school spirit, level by level, and let people play in it. Later, he expanded and polished the whole into a professional print version through his company, BRW Games. You honestly have to admire that. 

This is a megadungeon in the classic sense, sprawling, multi-layered, with dozens of levels stacked on top of each other. Unlike WGR1 or Expedition, Bloch’s Castle doesn’t pull back. It goes all in. If you want a dungeon that feels like it could go on forever, with weird sub-levels, eccentric monsters, and dangerous tricks, this is it. The DNA is clearly Gygaxian: funhouse elements mixed with deadliness, nods to pulp fantasy, and the sense that anything could be around the next corner.

When I first cracked it open, I remember thinking: “This is what I wanted WG7 to be.” It’s not parody. It’s not restrained to three towers. It’s not half-mapped. It’s a full megadungeon you could run a whole campaign in, or strip for parts if that’s more your style. And it’s very much meant for old-school play, resource management, exploration, and danger at every turn.

Is it Gary’s Castle Greyhawk? No, of course not. But in spirit, it comes closer than most. Bloch captures that sense of scale and unpredictability that the Castle always promised. For me, this book represents what the fan community can do when official channels fall short: keep the torch burning, keep the dungeons sprawling, and keep Greyhawk alive at the table.

Now I am a bigger fan of "Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk" than Joseph is. But I am happy to have both in my collection.

There are several "flavors" to choose from to suit your gaming needs.

• Castle of the Mad Archmage (5E Edition) Digital + Print Bundle
• Castle of the Mad Archmage (Pathfinder Edition) Digital
• MA1 Castle of the Mad Archmage - The Core Levels
• MA2 Castle of the Mad Archmage Level 3 East, The Museum and the Watery Caves
• MA3 Castle of the Mad Archmage Level 4 South, The Gardens
• MA4 Castle of the Mad Archmage Level 9 West, The Brumal Realm

There will likely be more.

Castles & Crusades Castle Zagyg Yggsburgh

When Gary Gygax himself returned to publishing in the early 2000s, hope flared again that we might finally see his Castle Greyhawk the original megadungeon that started it all. Of course, Wizards of the Coast owned the Greyhawk name, so Gary couldn’t publish it directly. Instead, he partnered with Troll Lord Games and released it under the title Castle Zagyg (Zagyg being Gary’s famous mad archmage, his own anagram).

The first product in this line was Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh in 2005. Rather than plunge straight into dungeon levels, this hefty book detailed the city of Yggsburgh, Gary’s version of the Free City of Greyhawk. It was written for Castles & Crusades, Troll Lord’s ruleset that deliberately hewed close to the feel of old-school AD&D, but conversion to earlier editions was painless.

Yggsburgh wasn’t the dungeon itself, but it was meant to set the stage: a living, breathing city that adventurers could use as their home base before venturing into the nearby Castle. The book offered districts, NPCs, and hooks galore. For those of us who had been following the “Castle Greyhawk saga” for decades, it was tantalizing. At last, we had something directly from Gary’s hand.

The plan was to follow this up with the dungeon levels themselves, released as boxed sets under the Castle Zagyg name. A few pieces trickled out, Castle Zagyg: The East Mark Gazetteer and The Upper Works (2008), before Gary’s death in March 2008. After that, the line was discontinued. For various reasons that I don't really need to get into now the line would remain dead for the next 15 years.

In 2023, Troll Lord Games released a 256-page Classic Reprint of Yggsburgh through DriveThruRPG and their own website, making this long out-of-print title available again to fans who missed it the first time. It’s a facsimile edition, preserving the original text and layout; a chance to finally own one of the last projects Gary worked on. Not only that, the maps are by none other than Darlene herself.

So, what we got in Yggsburgh was a glimpse of what could have been: Gary’s vision of the city that would sit at the foot of his legendary Castle. The megadungeon itself never fully saw print. That fact alone makes this one bittersweet. Reading through Yggsburgh now, you can see the connective tissue to Greyhawk, but also Gary striking out on his own terms, freed from TSR and later WotC.

For me, Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh is less about the content (though it’s rich with Gary’s flavor and quirks) and more about the promise it represented. We almost had the real thing. We almost got to walk the halls of the original Castle with Gary as our guide. Instead, we’re left with fragments. 

And the myth grows ever larger.

How to Reconcile All These Castles Greyhawk?

Regardless of what version of Castle Greyhawk you prefer, someone else has a different opinion. How can we have ALL the Castles Greyhawk in a game? 

Well. We borrow from the real world. 

Zagig Yragerne as Ludwig II of Bavaria

Known as "The Mad Archmage," Zagig Yragerne was the builder of Castle Greyhawk. But what if the Mad Archmage had something in common with another famously "Mad" person? In particular King Ludwig II of Bavaria, also known as "The Mad King."  Why was he mad? He built castles. Lavish ones at that.  Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, and Herrenchiemsee. Neuschwanstein is a "fairy tale" castle and is the model for the castles of Disney World and Disneyland. There is even a tenuous connection to Castle Falkenstien here that I might explore later on. 

So what if all the Castle Greyhawks are real? All were built by Zagig Yragerne, and all of them were called at one point or another "Castle Greyhawk?"

Which leads me to my next thought.

Castle Greyhawk as a Pan-Dimensional Altgeld Hall

On five Illinois college campuses, castles were built during the time of Gov. John Altgeld. These buildings are all called Altgeld Hall, and all resemble Gothic Revival Castles. There has been a long-standing rumor that you could take these buildings and put them together to form one massive castle. There is no evidence of this, but it was a powerful idea. Plus, having walked by Altgeld Hall at SIUC for years, it left a powerful image. One too good to ignore. 

What if all of the various Castles Greyhawk are connected somehow? Not like I suggested with the Temple of Elemental Evil (one location that exists simultaneously across multiple realities), but one supermassive structure built in different pieces in different locations. 

What was Zagig trying to accomplish? Was he going to build these different castles and link them? Merge them across time and space? This may explain why WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins and Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk have similar maps in some places but very different ones in others.

Maybe I could tie this into my whole idea of Erde/Oerth/Arth/Urt/Learth/Ærth, where there is a Castle Greyhawk on the various connecting planes, and they are the point of contact. From the Castle's perspective, it is one massive structure; it's just that mortals only see what is on their own plane. Now, are the castles there because the planes are connected? OR are the planes connected because the  Castles are there? 

There is at least some published evidence to this. Erde/Aihrde, the world of Castles & Crusades, has its own Castle Yggsburgh, AND for a time, they were the publisher of Lejendary Adventures. So maybe Erde/Aihrde is what I jokingly refer to as Learth. 

Frank Mentzer gave us Urt, an earlier name for Mystara which is Earth circa 150 MYA. And we know that he was working on the other side of Oerth; Aquaria. It is not a stretch then that there is a Castle Greyhawk on Mystara/Urt too. Those with the knowledge can move from to the next and thus cross realities.  NOTE: I am not going to explain why Empyrea failed here. There are more sites on the net that have gone over that far more in-depth than I will or even want too. 

By this logic, there could be more Castles Greyhawk out there in the D&D multiverse just waiting to be discovered. 

In Search Of the Real Castle Greyhawk

At the end of this long journey through the printed Castles Greyhawk, I keep coming back to the same realization: there was never just one Castle Greyhawk. Every attempt to capture it on paper; from the parody of WG7, to the earnest sprawl of WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins, to the ambitious but incomplete Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk, to Joseph Bloch’s Castle of the Mad Archmage, and finally Gary’s own Castle Zagyg: Yggsburgh; all circle the same mythic source but never quite touch it.

Part of that is simple: Gary’s Castle was never a finished product. It was a living dungeon, reshaped by play, rebuilt after disasters, improvised week after week for the players in his original group. You can’t publish that experience whole cloth. At best, you can give glimpses, fragments, or homages. It will never be the late 1970s in Lake Geneva, WI ever again.

But maybe that’s the true legacy of Castle Greyhawk. Not the maps, or the monsters, or the towers above the Free City, but the idea that the dungeon is never done. It’s always changing, always waiting for the next group of adventurers to descend into its depths. Every version we’ve looked at, official or unofficial, serious or silly, carries a spark of that truth.

Gary himself got closest with Castle Zagyg, and though his death left that project unfinished, what we did get reminds us that the Castle was never about completeness. It was about potential. It was about mystery. It was about a group of players gathered around a table, wondering what lay behind the next door.

So, in a sense, the real Castle Greyhawk has always been with us. It’s in every megadungeon we map, every ruin we stock with monsters, every campaign we launch into the unknown. The Castle is a myth, yes, but it’s a myth that keeps inspiring us to build, to imagine, and to play.

And maybe that’s the best tribute of all.

Links

This is not an exhaustive list, it is the one I used when researching this post. 

• Castle Greyhawk at the Greyhawk Online Wiki
• Castle Greyhawk at Grognardia
• Castle Greyhawk at Swords & Stitchery
• Castle Greyhawk at Zenopus Archives
• Gygax's Yggsburgh (2005) available once again
• Castle Greyhawk at Greyhawk Musings (I especially enjoyed the stuff on the Circle of Eight)
• Castle Greyhawk at Greyhawkery
• Castle Greyhawk Comic
• Greyhawk Grognard, who has forgotten more than I know about Castle Greyhawk
• Posts about Castle Greyhawk
• Posts about the Castle of the Mad Archmage
• Castle of the Mad Archmage 10th Anniversary edition
• Wikipedia
• Castle Greyhawk
• Castle Greyhawk (module)
• El Raja Key
• Gary’s Immersion in Castle El Raja Key: The Four-Way Footsteps, EN World by Rob Kunzt
• Kunzt Bibliography
• El Raja Key Archive
• El Raja Key Archive and the Mapping Styles of Kuntz & Gygax
• Frank Mentzer notes
• Empyrea and  Aquaria, east of Gygax’s World of Greyhawk Setting
• Empyrea at ENWorld
• Empyrea at Dragonsfoot (with the disappointing ending of it all)

25 Years Dungeons & Dragons 3.0

It was Monday, September 11, 2000.

I actually remember it pretty well. I went to my Favorite Local Game Store and I picked up the new Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. I grabbed the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Creature Collection, the first OGL monster book released. I had to wait a bit longer for the official Monster Manual.

That was 25 years ago this week.

 When D&D 3.0 hit the game stores in 2000, I was ready for it. I had been away from D&D for several years and was eager to get back into it. So, D&D 3.0 was the right game for me at the right time. In truth, there is still a lot I love about D&D 3.x, and significant advances were made in terms of game design and lore.  

This edition was new. So new that, unlike the past editions, this one was not very backward compatible. This was fine since Wizards of the Coast (now dropping the TSR logo) had provided a conversion guide. The books were solid. All full color and the rules had expanded to fix some of the issues of previous versions of D&D. Armor class numbers got larger as the armor got stronger, as opposed to lower numbers being better. Charts for combat were largely eliminated, the number on the sheet was what you had to roll against. Everyone could multiclass, all the species (races) could be any class without restrictions, though some were better at it than others, and everyone had skills. 

But the most amazing thing about 3rd Edition D&D was that, aside from a few protected monsters and names, Wizards of the Coast gave the whole thing away for free! Yes, the books with art cost money. But the rules, just a text dump, were free for everyone to download. It was called the System Reference Document or SRD. It was all the rules so that 3rd-party publishers could produce their own D&D compatible material. With these rules, you could play D&D without the books. There was no art and no "fluff" text, but everything was there.

D&D 3rd edition had an good run from 2000 to about 2008. 

I played it quite a bit to be honest and there is a lot about it I still love. It was the game system I used to teach my kids how to play and one I still enjoy going back to. It is also one of the few editions of D&D I never really played much. I was always a DM. So other than a version of Larina and Johan Werper IV, I don't have a lot of characters for 3e. The only time I ever got to play it was at conventions, mostly Gen Con.

I loved the 3rd Edition's multiclassing and, honestly, I loved Prestige Classes. But things got ridiculous at high levels. Ever try stating up a high level character from scratch? But I would still play it if given the chance. 

So here is to 25 years of D&D 3.0. You were not the perfect game, but your were perfect for me at the time.

Why D&D 5.5 (2024) Needs a New Campaign World, Part 2

Last month, I made the claim that D&D 5.5/2024 Edition should have its own campaign world. This generated some very lively discussions. However, more than a few people were confused as to the purpose of that post.

Yes. You can make your own game world. Everyone can. Everyone does.

But that post wasn't about that.

It was about Wizards of the Coast making a new world. A product for sale and a marketing tool. Something to help emphasize and feature the new rules and vision of the D&D 2024 game. A flagship setting that tells the players, “This is what this edition is for.”

So, to be up front, here are the objectives of this post:

To identify what makes the 2024 Edition of D&D 5e different, and what a campaign world should do to support these new rules and views.

So, what should a world for D&D 5.5/2024 look like?

A world that welcomes heroes of every species, that speaks the same bold language as the rules and art? It shouldn't just retrofit old kingdoms, it should feel like the start of a new mythology. Not a museum for nostalgia, but a canvas for discovery.

What is the Point of View of the New Game?

The new D&D game is not the same Sword & Sorcery game rooted in the pulp epics of R.E. Howard, the epic fantasy of Tolkien, or the weird horror of Lovecraft. Sure, those roots are still there, but they’ve become fertilizer for something new. D&D fantasy is now its own genre, just as recognizable and distinct as High Fantasy or Grimdark.

D&D 2024 is Heroic Fantasy, Reforged.

The rules assume you are powerful, competent, and connected to a world that matters. This isn’t about crawling through dungeons looking for 14 copper pieces and a rusty dagger. This is a game where characters shape the world, not just loot it.

And the world they shape should reflect that.

This quote from early in the Player's Handbook (p. 4) sets the tone.

“There’s no winning and losing in D&D, at least not the way those terms are usually understood. Together you and friends create an exciting story of adventurers who confront perils. Sometimes an adventurer might come to a tragic end. Even so, the other adventurers can search for powerful magic to revive their fallen comrade, or the character’s player might create a new character to carry on. No matter what happens, if everyone has a good time and creates a memorable story, they all win.”

This new world is not the Realms. It is not Greyhawk. It is not born of Dragonlance’s epic saga or Eberron’s intrigue. Modules or boxed sets from the 1980s don't hold this world together. It doesn't need to be. It can stand on its own, because the new edition does. This new world draws on all of those, but it is, or should be, its own new thing.

D&D 2024 is no longer just inspired by existing fantasy genres; it has become its own unique blend: a fusion of classic fantasy, modern storytelling, video game logic, and collaborative heroism. Most of the players of this game have never read any of the books in Appendix N, nor do they need to. It's not required reading, it's not homework. 

The 2024 Rules Philosophy: Why This Edition Feels Different

The 2024 edition does not simply revise the math or tidy up the rulebooks. It reflects a new philosophy that reshapes how players engage with the game world:

• Heroic from Level 1: Characters are competent, capable, and connected from the start. They are agents of change, not fragile wanderers.
• Background Defines Destiny: Backgrounds carry some mechanical weight, adjusting ability scores, granting a starting feat, and shaping a character’s narrative role.
• Species, Not Race: The old assumptions are gone. Every ancestry is valid, integrated, and part of the world’s core mythology from the beginning.
• Epic Play Is Expected: Epic Boons and expanded high-level content create long arcs where characters leave permanent marks on the world. Bastions given them a place to grow.
• Rest and Recovery Shift: Revised rest rules and healing mechanics de-emphasize attrition gameplay and resource management in favor of narrative pacing.
• Inspiration & Heroic Dice: The system encourages cinematic moments, rewarding bold choices and emotional storytelling.
• Moral Complexity Over Alignment: The world emphasizes choices, consequences, and motivations rather than rigid alignment tags.
• Collaborative Worldbuilding: Bastions, crafting, and political influence give players tangible ways to build and shape the world around them.

This isn’t just new mechanics; it’s a new gameplay rhythm. The world that supports this edition must reflect these values: vibrant, inclusive, and full of heroic possibility.

A Place for Everyone

Last time, I mentioned that human-centric is no longer the norm. Tieflings, kenku, rabbitfolk, genasi, and goliaths are not "weird options," they are the foundation. We’re not explaining their presence as magical accidents. They are the world’s people. Full stop.

And that means designing a world where they belong from the start.

This is not just a question of species, but of society. The world needs to be built from the ground up as a multicultural setting. Not a monoculture with elves here and dwarves over there, but a place where cities are melting pots, just like our own. Diverse, imperfect, growing, and alive.

The landscape must reflect this (we are not drifting too far afield here):

• Forests for Elves, Firbolgs, and Gnomes.
• Mountains for Dwarves, Goliaths, and Dragonborn.
• Elemental zones, volcanoes, storm-swept coastlines, and crystal deserts for Genasi (and maybe Dragonborn too).
• Planar-infused regions where Githyanki, Tieflings, and Aasimar emerged from divine or infernal events not exiled, not feared, but part of the world’s mythic history.
• Underground realms and deep caverns, not evil hives, but mysterious cultures for Svirfneblin, Kobolds, even Goblinoid societies.

You don't explain these people as oddities or invaders. You explain them as native to this world’s story.

And yes, it must use 'species,' not 'race.' Background and culture shape identity as much or more than biology. This is a world that embraces the idea that what you choose matters.

By everyone, I don't just mean "Characters" but "Players" as well. A new world would not just serve veteran players looking for a fresh canvas; it would provide an accessible, self-contained starting point for brand-new players who are being drawn into D&D through its growing cultural presence.

A Place for Bastions, Magical Shops, and More

Blame Skyrim, Minecraft, Animal Crossing, or Critical Role, modern players want to build. The 2024 edition's rules for Bastions are a direct response to this.

So the world must support that mechanic. Not just as a gimmick, but as a narrative engine.

• Frontier zones and wild lands for players to reclaim and shape.
• Urban districts where old guildhalls, mage towers, or abandoned temples can be refurbished into faction bases.
• Political factions that reward player heroes with lands, titles, or responsibilities.
• Magical areas, ripe for discovery and filled with mystery and potential.

A Bastion isn’t just a stronghold; it’s a symbol of the character’s impact on the world. A forge, a sanctuary, a school, a demiplane, it should reflect the kind of hero, and the player, who built it.

And magic items? They’re not just loot anymore, they’re craft. The world should have rare components, legendary artificers, and magical economies that support the idea that players make as much as they take.  Characters no longer search for a magical weapon, they search for the items, rare and wonderful, to craft this magical weapon. 

A Place for Heroes, Not Murder Hobos

This is maybe the most important shift of all.

D&D 2024 assumes that the characters will be heroes from the start. The world should provide the challenges to allow them to do that. 

In that vein, while the emphasis on alignment is lessened, the heroic deeds of the characters, informed by their backgrounds and motivations, is pushed to the front. 

That means the world must reinforce heroism:

• Villains have goals, not alignment tags. They make choices that harm others, threaten communities, or disrupt the world’s spiritual balance, and heroes rise to challenge them.
• NPCs matter, not just as quest-givers or obstacles, but as people whose lives improve (or suffer) depending on what the heroes do.
  
• Monsters have new and updated lore. A new world needs to feature the unique abilities, behaviors, and updated lore of the 2024 monsters as integral parts of its ecosystems and mythos. Old "evil" species have new motivations, and old "heroic" creatures have new purposes. All of these have to have a place in the world
• Factions reward good deeds not only with gold and magic but with respect, stories, and influence.

When characters act heroically, the world should respond. They gain allies. They inspire others. They become part of the land’s living mythology.

This is a world that expects heroes to rise, and needs them to.

Don't get me wrong here, I have seen D&D 5e characters do things that can be classified as war crimes, but characters are always going to that. This is about the world that the new rules tries to build and how the PCs can build within it. 

A Place Worth Saving

Lastly, the world itself must be beautiful.

Not just dangerous or mysterious, it is those, but also wondrous. Filled with things worth protecting.

• Floating islands with gardens tended by treants and air genasi.
• A continent slowly awakening after a divine slumber, its forests singing with echoes of lost gods.
• Cities built in the bones of giant beasts, their spires crafted from dragonbone and crystal.
• A golden river that flows backward, carrying visions of future destinies.
• Hidden portals, ancient mysteries, new lands still becoming.
• A world that has a unique, even special, place in the D&D Multiverse.

Because players want to care. And caring starts with wonder.

Honorable Mentions

I would be remiss if I did not mention some campaign worlds that can do all of this in one form or another.

Eberron did for 3e what this new world should do for 5e. Can it do all of this now? I don't know Eberron is the world I am the least knowledgeable about.

The Forgotten Realms can also do this. And in many significant ways, it does do this. The Forgotten Realms of the Baldur's Gate 3 game does at least and still balances what the old-school gamers like. Take the questline in Act 1 for example. You need to wipe out a camp of goblins. Mind you, you are not doing this just because they are Goblins. You are doing it because they are worshippers of the evil Cult of the Absolute, bent on tyrannical conquest. If you take them out, then a group of tieflings can get to safety (in theory). The different species and factions don't have to get along in this new world.

We will be getting an updated Forgotten Realms campaign setting later this year.

Points of Light of Nentir Vale tried to do this with D&D 4e, but that had many issues of its own to deal with. That world had a mish-mash of all the previous worlds before it in a grand experiment of sorts, but it never took off as well as I think WotC wanted it to do. 

Mystara does this well. Like the Forgotten Realms, nearly every hex on this world (and in it!) has been explored or at least discussed. But my refrain for the last 30 years has been "Mystara can do that" anytime someone asks if a world can do X, Y, or Z. Mystara can do all of the above. Though there are no Gods in Mystara. This may or may not be an issue for some. Certainly, D&D 5.5 can support this, but players like their characters to have gods. 

Exandria is the world from the Critical Role actual plays and supported by four rule books. This world does in fact do all the above and has a place for all sorts of humanoids in the world.  It even has some gods from all over the D&D multiverse, including a few from Pathfinder. It was more or less custom-made for D&D 5 (2014 edition) by Matt Mercer. It is even mentioned in the new 2024 DMG. Its biggest drawback is that it is very much Mercer's world. Unless something changes, we are not likely to see any more Exandria for D&D 5. Mercer and crew have their new Daggerheart game out now, and they are going to want to support that. 

I like Exandria. I love Mystara, and I have grown to love the Realms. But maybe we do need something new. 

Why a New World Matters

A brand-new setting would do more than showcase the rules. It would define the cultural and creative identity of this edition, just as Greyhawk, Dragonlance, the Realms, or Eberron defined their eras. For new players entering through the 2024 gateway, it becomes their first mythology, one unburdened by decades of inherited continuity. 

A world that says: This is what D&D means now.

Why D&D 5.5 (2024) Needs a New Campaign World

 I am starting this in the early Winter of 2025, but I suspect it will take me a bit to finish it. I want to set up some reasons why the newest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, called the 2024 Edition by Wizards of the Coast and the 5.5 edition by me really needs it's own new campaign world.

I have spent most of this year talking about how you can, and maybe should, try out other games besides D&D 5.5.  But I get why many would not. 

Today I want to take a different track. That D&D 5.5 (2024 edition) should have it's own game world and embrace the changes they have made.

D&D is Becoming Creatively Stagnant

Let’s face it. Wizards keeps returning to the same old wells: the Sword Coast, Ravenloft, Planescape, Greyhawk. Some of it’s great, a lot of it, even. But the nostalgia engine is starting to sputter. At what point does reverence for the past become a chokehold on the future?

Look, I get it. There is 50 years' worth of lore and backstory and things people can do in D&D that rest on what has come before. It would be foolish to think D&D would abandon all of that. That would be the same as DC saying they are rolling out a new comic line that has nothing to do with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. 

But. The overreliance on nostalgia is becoming creatively thin, if not stagnant. I can buy into Iggwilv saying the hell with it all and running off to hide in Feywild. I get that. I can sorta see Bigby being transformed into a gnome or whatever. Hey, the world is weird and weird things happen. Though would it not be better to just make a new gnome character? I don't know.

I will say this by way of example. A while back, I had a 20-something explain to me who Kas was and his importance to Vecna's lore. Instead of being a dick and saying shit like "don't quote the deep magic to me..." I just let them be excited and share something that was obviously new and exciting for them. Maybe that is why we keep going back to the Keep, the Sword Coast, and Wild Space. 

Sure, it’s fun to reimagine Bigby or retcon Kas and Vecna’s ancient grudge. And I love that new fans are discovering these stories and making them their own; that’s part of the magic. But do we really need to keep dragging the same characters through the multiverse like Weekend at Bernie’s NPCs?

Where’s the creative risk? The bold new mythology? The chance to start over without decades of canon stacked like bricks around the game?

The Grogs who loved those settings will puff out their chests (and then cough a lot because, well, we are getting up there aren't we) and loudly proclaim they don't buy "WotC D&D." Fine. Then D&D should be made for the people who do buy it.

A new setting, unburdened by layers of TSR-era geopolitics and decades of novels, would give writers, designers, and players room to breathe.

Human-centric is No Longer the Norm

When D&D began, the assumption was largely a human-centric worldview with some elves, dwarves, and maybe some halflings thrown in. Each edition expanded the selection of species choice. This has largely been a benefit to the game since people can play what they want. But, many of these new options are not well mapped onto the worlds in use. The Forgotten Realms has made some strides to explain why there are dragonborn and tieflings and for the most part that works for me. But it is harder to see all of these folk in, say, Greyhawk. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the sort of thing I feel Mystara does well. 

D&D’s playable species have exploded since 1974. We now have playable angels, rabbitfolk, genasi, tieflings, dragonborn, and more. The world of the player is no longer a human one with some elves and dwarves in the margins. It’s a multicultural multiverse and that is a good thing.

And yet, the game keeps returning to campaign worlds built for that older paradigm.

I am playing a my first ever tiefling in Baldur's Gate 3 now. It is interesting. There are dialog choices that were not there before, most around "will I be accepted as a tiefling?" Larian Studios at least gets some of the issue with adding some new species in lands with a ton of lore that doesn't include them. But again, maybe the Forgotten Realms was just better at this than say Greyhawk.

A new setting could make this diversity the foundation, not the patch job. 

Look how Star Wars does it. Aliens everywhere and each one is more interesting than the last. In movies and TV shows, humans are cheaper to do obviously (no CGI or makeup) but RPGs should not have that limitation. 

D&D 5.5 is Brighter than Previous Editions, And Its World Should Be, Too

The tone of the game is more hopeful. You are not really murder hobos, you are heroes. The art is brighter, too. The world is more escapist fantasy where the Grim Dark is now found in the Non-fiction and Current Events sections of the library.

Characters aren’t just delvers of dungeons or looters of crypts, they’re agents of change, defenders of ideals, aspirants to legend.

You can see it in the art. It’s vibrant, inclusive, and dynamic. You can see it in the rules, as well with an emphasis on collaboration, character backstory, and narrative arcs.

But many of the older campaign settings were built on a darker foundation. Political cynicism, gritty realism, moral ambiguity. That’s great for some stories. But it’s not the dominant tone of 5.5.

I am running an AD&D 1st Ed game on Tuesday nights set in the Forgotten Realms. I mentioned that at the time of the game's writing (1987 CE) and the time I am setting it in (1357 DR) that there were not a lot of the species running around. I said I wanted to keep the spirit of the original rules for this. I compromised and allowed a "good" Drow and a Kitsune. This is what the new players want and why should anyone tell them no?

Let’s give this new era a world that fits its heart and implied vision.

A New Setting Would Be a Statement

The release of a new setting wouldn’t just be a product; it would be a signal. A declaration that this isn’t just another iteration of D&D. That D&D is evolving and ready to explore new myths, new cultures, and new stories, in new ways. Yeah, if you want, you can still go out and commit orc ethnic cleansing if that is your desire. I'll point out that you should stick to the older editions because, honestly, they do that better than the current one.

It wouldn’t negate the old settings. Greyhawk will always be there. So will Eberron and Mystara and the Realms. But just like 3e had Eberron, 4e had the Nentir Vale, and even 2e had Birthright, 5.5 deserves a world it can own. 

Something new. Something bright. A place where all these design choices of the last 15 years can come home and say "this is our world."

I’m not saying Wizards must make a new setting to make 5.5 a success. But if they want to inspire a new generation the way Greyhawk inspired Gygax’s table or the Realms inspired Ed Greenwood’s then they might consider lighting a new torch instead of holding onto the old ones.

Next time I'll talk about what this would could be.

Orcs and Drow, Klingons and Romulans

Today is the release day of the new D&D 5.5 Monster Manual. It does not have "monster stats" for orcs or drow (nor elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, and other playable species). In general, I am okay with this. I can add my own if I want. But the treatment of orcs, in general, seems to have some people bothered. My post on Nouveau Orcs has been constantly in my weekly top five posts since I posted it back in July. It also seems the most noise is coming from a section of gamers who have also bragged about how they have not played any D&D published in the last 10 or 25 years.

Frankly, we are still on the same road that Gygax put us on.

Drow and Romulans

I have mentioned that my wife and I are rewatching all the episodes of every series of Star Trek. Right now (tonight even) we are going to rewatch the classic "The Balance of Terror."  The first time since we rewatched it's alternate-timeline counterpart, "A Quality of Mercy."

The Balance of Terror changed Star Trek forever. We see its effects in the "Reunification" trilogy of episodes, its effects on Star Trek The Next Generation, Star Trek Picard, and Dungeons & Dragons.

I have mentioned it many times here before, but the introduction of the Drow as "Evil (with a capital E) Elves" was a parallel to the Romulans as Evil Vulcans in Trek. It was obvious to me back in the early 1980s when I first played through it, but sadly, that plot point was spoiled for me. I don't know the effect either the D-Series adventures or The Balance of Terror had on those unaware.  Since then, Drow and Romulans have followed a similar development path. 

Both of our pointy-eared races have begun to be more like their good-aligned cousins since their mutual rediscoveries. Relations with the Romulans were beginning to get better even in the time of the Next Generation and practically friendly in Picard to allies in the later seasons of Discovery. Same is largely true for the Drow, save we have not hit the friendly part yet.

I would add that the same relationship and development cycle has become true for Orcs and Klingons.

Orcs and Klingons

When the Next Generation was in the idea stages, creator Gene Roddenberry originally did not want any Klingons in it. The rumor is that the fall of the Soviet Union, the "Evil Empire" of so many decades, prompted him to change his mind and see Klingons as becoming part of the Federation. Good thing too. Klingon episodes were always some of the most interesting ones in the franchise. 

Orcs are taking a similar role to Klingons. Granted, while there are individual good, even heroic, orcs, none have stood out yet like Worf Son of Mogh or Drizzt Do'Urden. But this is the early days of orcs now being a part of our Dungeons & Dragons "Federation."

Personally, I have stopped using orcs as pure antagonists for a long time. I almost always got for undead, demons, or evil cultists of any humanoid sort. Does this mean orcs are off the menu? No more than Klingons were. It is amazing for allies how many battles between the Federation and Klingons we saw not just in The Next Generation, but also Deep Space Nine and Voyager. Discovery even began with a fight with the Klingons that started the Federation-Klingon war.

So really. Maybe it is time to shift away from orcs as always evil. They can still be warlike and brutal, but giving them a little more credit can only make them more interesting. Take Orkworld, for example. John Wick was doing what D&D is trying to do now, 25 years ago. 

Games should evolve. Otherwise, you are just doing the same old thing all the time. And if I choose to say have orcs and drow and whatever as antagonists again? Well. I can still do that.

But maybe, just maybe it is time to see what orcs can add to the game as a culture.

How Wizards of the Coast Really Dropped the Ball on D&D 50

via Hasbro

I am preparing to wrap up my year-long celebration of 50 years of Dungeons & Dragons. 

I have talked about my experiences, I have shared a lot of characters I have used over the years, talked about all sorts of D&D games. I have spent time talking about the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and, as always, Mystara. While I personally feel like I could have done a lot more I am confident in one thing,

I did a lot more talking about D&D 50th anniversary than Wizards of the Coast.

Yes. There was the giant "The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons" book which seemed to please and piss people off in equal measure. There were some 50th Anniversary minis, and yes, the new edition of D&D, which they missed the mark on by having the Monster Manual out in 2025. But in truth, there has been...very little.

Look, I don't like to spend time here on things I don't like. Sure, I could rage about this game or that and bitch and moan and complain. But honestly, we have enough people that do that on blogs and on YouTube, and it is fucking boring. I don't give a fuck about the shit you hate. Tell me about what you love. Get excited. Geek out over a game or a new dice mechanic or something. But I honestly don't care what you think of "those kids today." It makes you sound old and irrelevant. 

But I can't let this year pass and not mention how badly the ball was dropped here.

Wizards has not been having a great couple of years. From the OGL fiasco to sending hired goons after Magic players to massive layoffs and declining quality of their adventures, it would be all too easy to pick on them. I am only going to focus on couple of things though.

50 Years Should Mean Something

Ok. So we had the "The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons" book which was cool and some minis. But what else?

I mentioned the minis. There was also the Quests from the Infinite Staircase which had some great classic adventures updated to D&D 5. But it wasn't released with as much fanfare as I would have suspected.

There was quite a bit of fanfare for the 10th Anniversary, same for when Wizards did the 25th Silver Anniversary Edition. Was I anticipating more? Yeah, I certainly was. Was I wrongfully anticipating more? That I don't know.

How about a comparison.

The 10th Anniversary set included: D&D Basic Rules (Player's Guide and DM's Guide, BECMI), D&D Expert Rules (Expert Rulebook, BECMI), D&D Companion Rules (Player's Guide and DM's Guide, BECMI), D&D Character Record Sheets (1981, BX), MSOLO1 Blizzard Pass (with 2 pens), B1 In Search of the Unknown (Fourth print), B2 Keep on the Borderlands (Fourth print), X1 Isle of Dread (Fifth print), AC2 Combat Shield and Mini-Adventure, AC3 Kidnapping of Princess Arelina, and six dice and a dice crayon. All in a faux-leather slipcase with gold lettering. Essentially, it is an homage and celebration of the Basic-era rules.

The 25th Anniversary set included: Facsimiles of the original modules featured in TSR’s Silver Anniversary releases: B2 Keep on the Borderlands, G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, I6 Ravenloft, and S2 White Plume Mountain. A replica of the original Dungeons & Dragons rulebook. A 32-page book outlining the history of TSR - including a retrospective essay by Gary Gygax. L3 Deep Dwarven Delve - a recently recovered, never-before-released Original Edition adventure by Len Lakofka. A specially created, suitable for framing art print by Jeff Easley. All in a silver slip case. No dice, but a new never before published adventure. 

The 50th has largely been represented by the new rules (5.5), The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons, and Quests form the Infinite Staircase. Fun, but does it really fit the celebration bill? Are these books that will command collector's prices in 10 or 25 years?  I am going to say no.

Where are the Baldur's Gate 3 Tie-ins?

Baldur's Gate 3 was the top-played game of 2023 and 2024. It won every single Game of the Year award and awards in general sci-fi and fiction, and many of the voice actors are now considered up-and-comers in terms of entertainment. It has won BAFTAs, Hugos, Nebulas, and GLAAD media awards. To downplay its success is either to be completely out of touch or willfully ignorant.

Yet. NOTHING for the game has come from Wizards of the Coast. No minis (they are coming out next year), no adventures or starter sets (there is one coming in the Fall 2025, but I can't determine if it has Baldur's Gate material). There are new Forgotten Realms books coming in late 2025. But all of this feels like too little too late.

Now. One could argue that Larian Studios, the creators of Baldur's Gate 3 only within the last few month gave Wizards back the license. But see it is a license. Wizards could have been doing tie-in stuff from August of 2023 when it became obvious that this game was going to be a mega-hit. Look what they did for Baldur's Gate 2 back in the late 1990s. They had Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate out for the game. So much so that the books was actually titled "Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate 2."

I talked about this before. They could have had an adventure or something out. "Love the video game? Continue your adventures here! Take your characters beyond 12th level in the table-top version!"

Spend any time on any Baldur's Gate discussion board, and two things are obvious. First, people LOVE these characters. Secondly, people want more with these characters. 

While this is not necessarily 50th anniversary related, it is undoubtedly a fumble of epic proportions.

They do talk about Baldur's Gate 3 in their upcoming digital tabletop, but again, that is not out now. I am not looking for a huge expenditure of cost here, a one-shot with the characters at first level (Larian already made character sheets for that), or how about Monster Manual-like entries for people to download some of the monsters/NPCs in the game. Larian Studios spent more time and effort on freaking Wulbren Bongle than Wizards has on all the other characters combined.

What Would I Have Done?

To be honest, this is pretty loaded. I have only nostalgia to guide me and no budgetary concerns or stockholders to appease. That being said, I am sure I could come up with some better ideas.

First, Books and sets. The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons book was a good one, but they should not have stopped there. I would have redoubled the efforts to get all the OD&D books on DriveThruRPG into Print on Demand and get them sold. Not everyone will shell out $100 for the making of OD&D, but many will shell out $20.00 or so for a new version of OD&D. They can even use the new "white" covers they all have. We know they have print ready files from the OD&D collector's set they published a while back.

Second, Constant celebration. Wizard should have gone to all the popular actual play streamers and had them run a classic adventure. Vox Machina going through The Tomb of Horrors, get the Baldurs Gate voice actors to go the Caves of Chaos. White Plume Mountain and Ilse of Dread. Make these place names something that the newer generations want to know about.  And honestly while it would not matter if these were played in 5e or not, I would like to have seen some of these groups try AD&D 1st ed. I know Mercer could do it, that is where he started, so let's see some of these big streamers talk THAC0 for a session or two.

Third, Social Media involvement. Yes this means people acting for the company and thus paid, but it still should be done. It gets people talking about the brand AND maybe mends some fences broken by Wizard's recent less-than-stellar behavior. What would they do? How about D&D Trivia to win a copy of "Making of" or the giant art book they made. I am sure they have a few of those still lying around.  OR send out goodie bags to smaller streamers and bloggers to make the case for them. Wizards should have had places where people could tell their stories of adventures of the last 50 years. Friends made, battles won, or lost and what D&D means. Normal people and the occasional celebrity as well. They should have sent people to Cons to record these and play them back on YouTube. 

Fourth, Game Stores. Game Stores still are the heart of many RPGs. So send them material like organized play and host old-school D&D tournaments using AD&D tournament rules. Include prize support. Survive the Ghost Tower with the most points? Here is your special, not-for-retail-sale set of Ghost Tower dice. Provide Game Stores with special items to draw in customers. 

Fifth, Reprints. I know. Reprints are expensive. Distribution is expensive. But I also know that gamers would have eaten it up. A copy of Ravenloft I6 with 50th Anniversary gold trim? Come on, I would have bought that in a heartbeat. Limited run to conserve cost, but make it a Game Store exclusive. Original content. Chose some of the best from all areas of D&D. Yes, Infinite Staircase kinda, sorta does this, but I am talking adventures and books just like the 10th and 25th Anniversary did. 

Sixth, BALDUR'S F'ING GATE. Look, I can't stress enough how much of a missed opportunity this was. While the game is still riding high and will be for a while, each day that goes by is one more day of lost revenue. People have hundreds, even thousands of hours, in this game. They should be able to take their "Tavs" (and honestly, you should know who Tav is) and move them to the tabletop. And when they got there, Karlach, Astarion, Shadowheart, and Scratch should all be there waiting.

I am sure I could come up with more. But I am approaching bitching about level and that means a good place to stop. 

The 50th should have been a reflection on what made D&D so great. Not a litany of missed opportunities or near misses.