AD&D Battle System

[ghul]

Hey, I picked up this boxed set for $5 at my local game shop the other day. Anyone ever use these rules? Wondering if they are good for mass combat, because I have a conflict coming up. At the very least, the little cardboard picture tiles are cool. Should I bother reading these rules? Or are they terrible?

[Scott]

I like the rules.

[geneweigel]

I tossed mine years ago but saved the tiles. If I had read Chainmail before I read that I would have thrown it out sooner.

I didn't really like the minis either (King Arthur and a Dragon Highlord) although I still have all those 83-84 "TSR brand" minis I wasn't a fan of them.( I use the humanoids. BTW, I've never used my complete Star Frontiers minis at all. Good premise but bad followups made me drop that game.)

[ghul]

The rule booklet is not long, so I'll give it a chance and read it.

[GT]

Hmmmm... I have this (a yellow box?) but I don't think I ever ran a large enough combat to use it! ^__^

[geneweigel]

Mine was a big fat red box with one of my all-time unfavorite Easley pics (the one that I always complain about when I go on an Easley rant!)

[Scott]

I had the same one as Gene I think. There was a barbarian-looking guy riding a dinosaur in the middle of a big battle scene I think.

[ghul]

Yeah, some kind of triceratops riding berserker or something. Big red box.

[geneweigel]

Alright, I assume that you wish me to explain my indifference to the cover piece.

Remember the cover of the MMII with a yellowed giant fighting a very small man?

It isn't a fairy as every other D&D fan in creation writes it off as. Its painter/illustrator Jeff Easley's spatial distortion problem. Things appear smaller and bigger with the same intense detail that throws you off. The classic example of this problem is easily seen in his Battlesystem cover:



He's atmospheric but I've really had enough of his muddled "exploded spaghetti sauce background" or "lands of Generic-onia" atmosphere to telkl you the truth. So while I once thought of him as "okay" I now detest his work.

Fair enough explanation?

[Rhuvein]

geneweigel said:

He's atmospheric but I've really had enough of his muddled "exploded spaghetti sauce background" or "lands of Generic-onia" atmosphere to telkl you the truth. So while I once thought of him as "okay" I now detest his work.

Fair enough explanation?

Heh, Gene, I'm going to quote this to Jeff when I see him next time and recommend that he gets you in a headlock and I'll give you titty twisters and mebbe a wheggi!! [He's tall and strong with rippling biceps and hands that will twist your neck!]

And then, I'll hope that Jeff signs some stuff I have that will help me when I retire, *cough*, I mean when I send my daughter to college.

Heh, I need his sig for Morty's Fan Adventure ~ I got several sigs from our excellent fellows who were part of that mod. Frank told me that it is becoming very valuable!! LOL.

;D

[geneweigel]

I was deeply saddened that I missed him as I was finally going to see if he could block a punch in the face...

What?

To test his depth perception!

[Scott]

For the most part, I like Easley's stuff. I'm not really a fan of any particular artist, just the art.

[GT]

I think what I was thinking of above was a boxed module for this system; "H-something"

[geneweigel]

Ack! The Bloodstone series: one more reason to hate the Retarded Realms. Have you ever seen the overpowered diarrhea in there? This is what I believe created all the "Flinty Palls" (my term for the opposite of a "Monty Haul" DM) in reaction to this series. I had another Battlesystem module under the Forgotten Realms called SWORDS OF THE IRON LEGION. What a piece of toilet paper that was. I think I might have tossed it in the trash with the other Realms poop. I don't believe that I still have the last two Bloodstones but I did have them once (I may have tossed them out with the boxed set) but the last one (H4 "Throne of") is the worst.

[GT]

It is of note that none of my Battle System tokens are punched out... I must not have been all that impressed either. I think that it was around this time that I was figuring out that Gary really was gone...

[ghul]

I didn't figure it out until, like 1990. I'd been out of gaming for about 2 years, that post-high school--some college--out drinking--trying to score girls phase of my life. I got invited to play D&D again, and found out there was a new edition I was supposed to buy if I wanted to game with these guys. I was shocked when I saw it wasn't written by Gary Gygax. And I couldn't believe they got rid of half-orcs, monks, and assassins. And how 'bout them demons and devils? Where'd they go? What's next? Dragons?

[geneweigel]

It took years of buying everything for me to stop compulsively buying everything with D&D on it. It was just before Dangerous Journeys that I had stopped buying FR material but I continued getting D&D "doorstops" like the "COMPLETE", "HISTORICAL" and then "COMBAT OPTIONS". It wasn't until I had a mid-90's breakdown over Carl Sargent written GREYHAWK. I started writing nasty letters to DRAGON MAGAZINE which the only surfaced in a positive way in Sage Advice in issue #200 (December 1993) page 106:

In WGR5 Iuz the Evil, the words
“celbit” and “jebli” are applied to
tribes of orcs in the land of Iuz, but
didn’t an earlier WORLD OF
GREYHAWK® products use these
names in a different manner?
Actually, there are no authoritative
definitions for either of these names in
print anywhere (at least none I know
about). Nevertheless, these words are Flan
names for two humanoid races: “Celbit” is
the Flan word for kobold and “jebli” is the
Flan word for goblin. Here is a more com-
plete list of Flan names, courtesy of reader
Gene Weigel of Albany, N.Y.:
Orc: Euroz
Goblin: Jebli
Ogre: Eiger
Gnoll: Kell
Kobold: Celbit
Hobgoblin: High Jebli
Elf: Olve
Dwarf: Dwur
Halfling: Hobniz
Gnome: Noniz
Gene gleaned these names from the
original WORLD OF GREYHAWK boxed set
(TSR product #1015).

You should of seen the letter that that one was from. I wish I had a copy but it was written on looseleaf with giant letters scrawled across the middle:

GET BACK GARY GYGAX!

Years later, around 1996-7, I pulled out the Sargent stuff that I had in a box then browsed through and I just starting ripping it up in a fucking rage then threw itall in the trash. ( I have "yard sale replacements" of those but it was during the 3e era to give me more fuel for the Weigel inferno that hasn't seem to had any effect. I may have to just burn them again. I recycled all the 3e and some D20 books that I had purchased over 2 years (2000-2002) around a thousand dollars worth too because I thought it best to keep this shit off the streets. For the kids... ) It was around that time that I cancelled my DRAGON subscription for good and stopped buying D&D and didn't buy it for four years until I mistakenly thought Gary was aboard 3e and started buying D&D labeled stuff again. Which was a big mistake.