Death Test 2 Prints

The first MicroQuest, Death Test, went through a few different print runs and formats, starting with the first "baggie" edition/print in 1978(?), and went through changes in title format and, eventually, in 1980, a 3rd print in the "crush-box" format was released.

Death Test 2 was released in 1980, corresponding with the publication of the full TFT game system. As such, DT2 was fully compatible with the TFT rules, incorporating monsters from In the Labyrinth, some magic items, and even stats for jobs depending on rank achieved in the Thorsz' army as determined by performance in the dungeon.

There are two distinct prints of DT2. The most commonly encountered one is what I refer to as the "Pink Box" edition, which has the back of the box and the lettering on the front in a distinct pink color, and much of the cover art is tinted a weird green color, to include the skin of the two warriors depicted climbing into a chamber and being attacked by a large wolf. Recently, however, I was able to obtain a different version that hithertofore had only seen in a few pictures online, what I have called the "Orange Box" edition, which has the back and lettering a much better looking (and more distinct when set over the background) orange color and a much more natural color both for the torch light and the warrior's skin. The two prints are shown side by side, below:

(NOTE: I wasn't consistent when I took the 2nd picture - while the top photo has the Orange print on the left, I swapped positions in the second photo showing the back of the box and put the Orange print on the right. Sorry for the confusion!)

Why the two print runs? My guess is that the "Pink Box" is, in fact, a mistake; likely, the print shop screwed up in some fashion (whether due to faulty equipment or misunderstanding is an open question). Assuming this is true, then the next question is why weren't these destroyed and new ones printed? It's possible that time constraints played a role - Howard Thompson probably wanted to release DT2 right away with TFT, and may have chosen to overlook the problem. It is also possible that perhaps the print shop attempted to remedy the situation by offering a steep discount on the flawed print run. Given that HT had something of a reputation for being a cheapskate, this is not an unlikely possibility.

If I ever get ahold of Pat Hidy, I should ask for his comments on the cover art and if he has any recollection of what happened.

Note: There was a rumor that some very early print runs of DT2 were in the original pre-crush box format, with a booklet, counters, and die in a baggie as was done with early Metagaming releases, but this appears to be false.

Fantasy Master's Codex, 1981 - Retrospective

 

One of the perhaps more baffling TFT products was the Fantasy Master's Codex, which reviewer William Barton in Space Gamer No. 41 summed up as follows: "While the index to TFT is quite useful (and should have been released separately at a lower price), what Metagaming seems to have done with The Fantasy Masters' Codex 1981 is too little for too much." Though billed as "THE BOOK OF THE UNIVERSE.... The FANTASY MASTER'S CODEX is a computerized guide to THE FANTASY TRIP, ..." the actual end product fell short. Here is the official description of the item from the back cover:

"THE BOOK OF THE UNIVERSE.... The FANTASY MASTER'S CODEX is a computerized guide to THE FANTASY TRIP, Metagaming's fantasy role-playing game system. It covers all THE FANTASY TRIP items published through the end of 1980. A new, updated codex will be published yearly to incorporate new material. The FANTASY MASTER'S CODEX is the kind of complete reference guide you've wanted and waited for. The Codex contains a complete index of the ten TFT items published through 1980. Also included are lists of Talents - sorted by name and I.Q., Spells - sorted by I.Q. and type, Magic Items - sorted by name, type and cost; Potion & Bombs - sorted by type and cost; Equipment - sorted by type, Jobs grouped by classes, Monsters, Races, Combat summary - including Dexterity Adjustments, and a Saving Throw table. Also included at the end are some answers to commonly asked rules questions. THE FANTASY TRIP has been enjoyed by over 100,000 gamers since its introduction in 1977. It offers a rational magic system and a precise combat system. It has the high degree of internal consistency Fantasy Masters need for more intricate adventures. It is the fantasy role-playing game system most preferred by those desiring intelligent adventures. The publication of the FANTASY MASTER'S CODEX further adds to the system's playability. If you are an active Fantasy Master of THE FANTASY TRIP you'll find the Codex an invaluable play aid. If you're playing some other system the Codex may convince you to change."

Certainly in terms of physical presentation it was disappointing - while the cover was fine, the actual contents were indeed page after page of a "computerized guide" - which in this case was a deceptive way of saying dot matrix printed data, that was difficult to read and parse. The textual deficiencies were compounded by a general lack of clear headings, uniform page numbering (each separate print run had its own numbering, leading to a constant "start-stop" for each section), and descriptions for each section.

What the Codex did provide, however, was a very useful index along with a question and answer section that addressed a few issues that had cropped up in the TFT rules. Was it worth $9.95 (about the price of an AD&D hardbound book at the time, or per an Internet inflation calculator, $27.67 in 2019 dollars)? Well, yes and no. "Yes" from the perspective of "an index was really needed for TFT" and "no" from the standpoint of component quality in terms of readability and defects in the presented data, in terms of poor utilization of page space and occasionally extraneous information that was not really needed.

In origin, the Codex was built around material compiled and submitted to Metagaming by Bill Gustafson, at the time a TFT gamer, who apparently wanted to address the lack of an index (or in the case of Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard, even a table of contents - which seems to be a recurring problem for Metagaming, as not even the Codex featured one!) for TFT. Originally referred to as the "TFT Yearbook" the intention was to make this an annual publication that would "...keep gamers abreast of the latest rule changes, expansions and new enterpretations [sic.]. It will also contain variants and expansions supplied by gamers and game masters" (see Interplay No. 1, "Crossroads: Cidri", p. 8). The released Codex only barely met this goal, in that the bulk of the manual was the index, while the rule changes and interpretations were only several pages and only three new variants were mentioned: the Weakness spell (similar in concept to Clumsiness and Confusion, but for strength), and the Master Vet and Quick Draw talents.

The reason for this, as editor Trace Hollowell stated in the introduction to the Codex, was "Typesetting would have delayed publication and introduced chance for more errors." Which is really quite sensible, but in the end the presentation was so hard to read and took up far more pages than a properly typeset booklet would have done made this, in hindsight, a less desirable approach. And while having space for "...notes or changes which are needed to adopt the material to a particular player's universe" is not a bad goal, it certainly made the Codex enormously larger than it needed to be.

The Codex also has a rather cumbersome page numbering system, wherein each individual section is numbered from 1 to x, the rationale was to make a given location in the document easier to remember. The example given in the Codex was, "Job. 2 is easier to remember than p. 81, if you're looking for mercenary job information." In truth, though, it really makes matters a good deal more difficult. A given section might only be a few pages, and trying to locate that particular section within an 120 page booklet is a challenge, even if it is (theoretically) easier to remember the specific page within that section. In other words, and absolute page numbering schema ultimately is much easier to use, since I can simply look at the table of contents, divine the appropriate page, and then instantly flip to the approximate area in the document, and quickly find the correct page thereafter, rather than hunting for a specific section in a sea of sections.

Perhaps one of odder failings was the fact that the "Book of the Universe" was actually incomplete. For example, dragons are not presented (though 4- and 7-hex Dragonodons from Treasure of the Silver Dragon, which have slightly different stats, are included). Monster order varied from ITL for no discernible reason - while the monster section started with player races, it then went into the nuisance creatures, then plants, then aquatics, and continued on in weirdness. Each section was named M1, M2, M3, etc., rather than giving a more detailed and useful title. And though everything through 1980 was to be part of the Codex, there do not appear to be any references to materials from either of the Death Test MicroQuests, Tollenkar's Lair, or Grailquest. This is especially noticeable with Death Test 2, which had a separate jobs table for survivors of the labyrinth who go to work for the Thorsz. Granted, the lack of Death Test and Tollenkar's Lair materials was probably due to Howard Thompson's vendetta against Steve Jackson, but the omission of Grailquest is more puzzling.

How the Fantasy Master's Codex SHOULD have been released...

• Proper typesetting and formatting was an absolute must. As for concerns about errors, Howard should have invested a little time and shekels into proofreading!
• Proper headings and descriptions for each section.
• Proper pagination
• Make sure all monsters, MicroQuest, and Supplement materials are included and more logically organized
• More new material (talents, spells, monsters) than was presented historically. At least the Harpy (which was mentioned in conjunction with the Weakness spell) should have been given! Adding a section that included full descriptions of all of the unique Treasure of the Silver Dragon monsters would also have been welcome. Perhaps additional maps or other background material for Cidri or Silver Dragon world? Whatever was dreamed up, at barest minimum a couple full pages of new material should have been provided - and more would have been better

Note that the Q&A section was very good, as far as it went, so no changes would have been needed there.

Had a second Codex been published in 1982 for everything added in 1981 (Security Station, Unicorn Gold, Master of the Amulets) an updated index (either full or just a delta to the previous index) would have been a feature, along with Q&A. More new/variant material would have been needed, as well.

In the end, had one been playing a different game system it is difficult to imagine that this poorly formatted Codex would have convinced anyone to change...

Unreleased TFT Stuff: Interplay Issue 9

It's been altogether too long since I've posted - most of it just has to do with life getting in the way, though I do have some other reasons that will be the subject of a later post. But for now I'm going to start posting some drafts that have been languishing for awhile, now...

So, in my post about unreleased TFT materials [Here], I pointed out that publication of Interplay ceased after issue 8, a full six months before Metagaming closed. At the time I wondered why another couple of issues could not have been published before going under, and speculated that the collapse of Metagaming had been building, Howard Thompson's protestations to the contrary in Interplay 8 notwithstanding:

"Without phones rumors were rampant that something had happened to Metagaming Concepts Inc. Our industry seems to revel in bad news about competitors.

With the recession slowly ending and the weaker firms going bye-bye it's time for Metagaming Concepts Inc to plan the future. Products have always been our key to everything."  ('Coming Distractions...', Interplay No. 8)

It is simultaneously amusing and sad to see how that bravado all worked out... It is noteworthy, though, that, on the one hand, Howard Thompson comments on how the industry loves bad news about its competition, but in the next breath talks about "weaker firms going bye-bye" which comes across as "revel(ing) in bad news about competitors."

Until recently, I had not given the matter much thought, other than regretting that the designer's introduction for Conquerors of Underearth promised for in Interplay 9 was never published (along with the game itself of course). However, over on the SJG Forums a certain Steve Plambeck posted details (including a .pdf file) of an article regarding a proposed Wizardry Talent that William Gustafson wanted to include as an optional rule in the upcoming 2nd Edition of In The Labyrinth. In addition, he wanted Mr. Plambeck to write up the talent as an article for the then upcoming issue 9 of Interplay. The full thread is here.

The Wizardry Talent itself seems like an excellent idea; I've had similar thoughts, albeit for different reasons, as mentioned here. However, what really piqued my interest was the fact that here we had a full article that was intended for this issue. Further, I remembered that Interplay 8 had mentioned some articles that were planned for the next issue, thus, in a limited sort of fashion, one could plausibly reconstruct the contents in a limited sense. Here is a list of all the planned material, as attested in earlier Interplay magazines:

• Designer's Introduction to Conquerors of Underearth (mentioned in Keith Gross' Designer's Intro to Dragons of Underearth)
• Designer's Intro to StarLeader: Assault! (mentioned in 'Coming Next Issue' section on the title page of the issue)
• Trailblazer, Helltank, and TFT articles (also mentioned in 'Coming Next Issue' - note that the TFT article reference probably included Plambeck's article. Also worth mentioning is that in Interplay 7 Howard mentioned having so many TFT submissions that, "The problem is that we have enough good material to fill four more issue [sic] right now." Finally, Interplay 6 mentioned getting a designer's intro for Helltank.)

So right here we have a fair idea of what content would have been forthcoming, had the Fates been kinder. It is also worth mentioning that there might have been a designer's introduction to the forthcoming TFT superhero supplement In the Name of Justice, which had been displayed at the HIA show along with Conquerors of Underearth in early 1983, and perhaps some sort of mention of  the TFT MicroQuests Runesword at Regalan and Prison of the Spectral Demon which were also on display.

Going beyond this, Interplay 9 was also possibly going to feature the format changes that had originally been floated in Interplay No. 5, summarized here in the COMING NEXT ISSUE section of Interplay 8:

"Next issue may see the format changes that have been discussed before. The options are, keep INTERPLAY as is at a $2.00 price, go to 48 pages with thicker cover and interior pages for $2.50, or go to very good quality 64 pages at $3.00 but go to quarterly issues." 

This is very interesting, and we'll revisit these format changes again in a bit. But, based on all of the above, I here present a hopefully plausible reconstruction of the Interplay No. 9 cover:

The cover art I selected is actually an unpublished Pat Hidy piece that I won on eBay several years ago. Note also that the border format has actually varied pretty much from issue to issue during Interplay's short run - I chose the last format found in issue 8. And I decided to depict the issue with a $2.00 cover price, though for circumstantial reasons I'll get into in a moment, one of the other format and price options mentioned previous is much more likely to have been the one selected for issue 9.

Now, I'll say right off the bat that my cover art selection is WRONG. Not because of the obvious (i.e. an unpublished piece of art), but rather because I am 99% certain that the cover art would have been a black and white version of whatever art would have been on the Conquerors of Underearth cover. It is to be noted that the Interplay covers for issues 2, 4, 5, 7, & 8 all featured black and white or greyscale versions of existing game cover art (No. 2 - Unicorn Gold, No. 4 - Fire When Ready, No. 5 - Orbquest, No. 7 - Warrior Lords of Darok, and No. 8 - Starleader! Assault), so I'm pretty sure that would have been done here as well. However, since we will never know what that cover looked like (I reached out back in April 2019 to Denis Loubet to see if maybe he did the artwork for CUE, given that a pre-publication copy of CUE did exist and Loubet had done the art for both Lords of the Underearth and Dragons of Underearth, but alas he never responded to me) I chose to sub in a piece that is largely unknown by a different Metagaming artist (and my personal favorite) who did alot of TFT stuff instead.

I'll close this post with some speculation on why Interplay 9 never saw the light of day, even though at least some material was ready to go. The most obvious reason is that Metagaming may simply have run out of money. I've heard rumors that Metagaming stiffed their printers when they went under, and it could be that the funds just weren't there to get anything printed. Another possibility, though, is the aforementioned format changes - in particular going to more content with 48 or 64 pages. It may be that the additional time and work required to get the issue ready may have pushed the timeline to completion out so much as to doom it. Put another way, had they stuck with the same format and amount of content they might have squeaked the issue out. We'll never know, of course, but it is an intriguing possibility.