Origins of the City State and the Wilderlands

[Q Man]

Origins of the City State and the Wilderlands as recounted by Bob Bledsaw (the first)

A group came to me asking me to monitor or judge a game for them which they had tried on four seperate occasions to play. After a brief look at the three books, I pointed out that many of the rules were incomplete and I would have to rewrite much of it before we could attempt a game. I had always loved fantasy and science fiction. Although a stereo systems designer at General Electric with limited free time, I reworked the game and designed a small dungeon located near Weathertop in Middle Earth. Despite the misfit magic, this campaign grew to consist of around eight large hex maps from the Grey Havens to the Lonely Mountains and from the Iron Mountains past Mordor. We experimented with many combat systems and magic systems along the way. I had a gigantic dining room table which was filled with gamers and around thirty or more spectators from the local college and high schools. My original group began to beg me to run a session everynight and even tried chasing me down the road in automobiles when on family outings. Some all night sessions did not end until dawn and the magic system became less Tolkien like over time. To permit the gamers to justify this more Vancian type of magic, I created a gate to the City State of the Invincible Overlord just before General Electric closed the plant I worked at. I will add more on the history of my campaigns later but suffice it to say for now that I have ran several campaigns besides the original based upon the Wilderlands. Lord Dunsany and Fritz Leiber are two of my most favorite storytellers. Naturally, I placed in this world much of what I loved in my extensive library. This was prior to the publication of Greyhawk or any other city for this genre' that I am aware of. At the 1975 Gen Con, Bill Owen and myself sat at a small table where I sold the first City State installment with all four map sections rolled up to prevent creases. I promise more particulars later.

Note the reference to the "three books." First thing he did was re-write OD&D to his own taste to use at the table.

[Q Man]

Link in first post

The pace of action and quality of description is important to anyone wishing to maintain an active campaign. The best rules are intuitive and easy to memorize. Subscribing to the philosophy of kiss (keep it simple, stupid), I devised a judges shield based upon the ruleset then allowed the gamers to roll their own dice. I never viewed myself as a storyteller to guide the gamers through a preconcieved adventure. I tried to maintain the suspension of disbelief by permiting the gamers complete freedom of action. When encouraged to run a typical session at Gen Con, Gary himself was quick to point out that I was not running an "official" game. Critical die rolls for negotiations and so forth, I readily rolled in plain view of all. One of the first things I discovered is that even well meaning gamers tended to remember bonuses and forget penalties. One of the first experiements we tried was to allow gamers to decide which spell they wished to cast in a particular situation with a robust backfire table should it go it be unsuccessful. It was based upon allowing the mage to have a number of mana points equal to his total spells such as 3 points for the one third level spell he could memorize and 4 points for his two second level spells permited and 4 points of his four first level spells permited for a total of 11 points. Thus in a situation in which he needed a simple light spell unexpectedly, he could attempt to cast it without the artifice of memorization per day.

[Q Man]

Judges Guild was founded by myself and Bill Owen (Llangwellan the Blue) from my campaign. It was he and his friends which contacted me with the oriiginal three book set. They had reached me via Dave Petrowsky, my cousin, and the local gaming club. Bill Owen is renowned for running miniature games based upon WWII and his father, Ralph Owen, had founded a chain of hobby stores in Central Illinois (later founding the Franklin Mall and highly sucessful Franklin Travel Agency in Decatur). Bill has a real genius for graphics and helped with the developement of many of our first products including the Judges Shield and Dungeon Tac Cards. Bill and I continue to game together to this day although he is now the CEO of many of his family businesses today. I had asked others of my gaming group to participate such as an out of work printer but Bill took the risk with me. He helped with the paste up on the huge mylar sheet naming every shop in the City State of the Invincible Overlord and consulted some lawyers in his family to make the Crime and Punishment rules. Bill is one of my best friends and stepped aside when his family enterprises began taking much more of his time.

[Q Man]

Craig Fogle played Beorn in my original Middle Earth campaign. He fit the description as Craig is a huge bear of a man with quiet unassuming dignity and a fierce devotion to honor. His barony was filled with creativity and meticulous detail. He married my secretary, Peggy, and has a wonderfully intelligent girl. He is one of my best friends and I still game with him every chance I get. Craig went on to become a Systems Manager and now does computer work for Diamond Star. I wish I knew half of what he has forgotten about computer technology. Craig set up my TRS-80's chaining them together. His good natured laugher and penchant for rolling twenties when needed made him the favorite at most sessions (oh the moans and groans when Craig could not show up).

[Q Man]

Nimrod the Wood Elf of Mirkwood, aka TJ Kater, sported a bushy blood afro and John Lennon spectacles. He was ruddy of complexion especially when excited (about every ten minutes in our gaming sessions). His gusto was harnessed in processing orders with his sidekick, Balin, aka Bill Davis, Dwarf Lord and Shipping Manager. Bill had an unassuming air but his smile povoking good nature hid a sensible commonsense approach to life. I have lost touch with these friends as they moved out of state to obtain employment. Marc Summerlott or Marcham the Noldor Elf was infamous for his stunts of comic relief (such as trying to break a hippogriff by pounding about the head while soaring over the Elven King's Hall), He was engaged to a girl which gamed with us for some time but broke the engagment when Marcham married an princess from a northern petty kingdom for political reasons. Her amazons cut a swath through Prince Marcham's barony before riding off into the sunset. Marc did galley layouts and pasteups mostly. He authored Theives of Badabaskor under my close direction and help. Later he began dating my little sister Debbie without my knowledge then married her. Four fine children resulted and Marc is still one of the regulars at our weekend gaming sessions. Mark Holmer played Gandalf in my campaign from the first session onward when he was not playing in a local rock band. Mark's careful attention to detail became a useful asset to us in the early years and he became my business manager.

[Q Man]

Here's an interesting excerpt from an article by Bob Bledsaw in the "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column in the July 1979 issue of The Dragon:

"Since the inception of my campaign shortly after the first publication of D&D, our group has been adventuring in wilderness as well as dungeons. The play was based upon Tolkien's Middle Earth and encompassed a complete fantasy world where wilderness was as imoprtant as dungeon adventuring. As many players will attest, I in no manner shorted the design of my dungeons, with several sprinkled across the map from the Misty Mountains to the far reaches of Rhun. Some ranged upwards (or downwards) 28 levels, such as the Lonely Mountain, while most dipped a mere nine to twelve levels, such as the Lair of Ancalagon the Black. The time frame was such that the players participated in the Battle of Fornost (and quite a few less notable miniatures battles with no less fervor)."

[Q Man]

Through the Gate

The circumstellar ring has been revered as the Heaven's Bridge by most ancient races of Ghenrek IV as the planets, moons, and even the sun itself travels across the sky upon it. By daylight, it assumes a light blue aspect and at night, it glows silver with tinges of scarlet (since the war of the gods against the Markrabs or Uttermost War). It is speculated that the mass of the ring is responsible for the intensity of the plasma wind given off by the star. The ring becomes golden once every 52 yars for a period of 90 to 96 days due to a sharp decrease in solar storms and sunspot activity. Intelligent lifeforms use this phenomena to mark the end of a cycle and the beginning of new events. Astrophysic specialists predict that the asteroid belt will eventually move outward into the circumstellar ring to precipitate the formation of two additional planets in roughly 13 million years.

The unusual cosmic cauldron that formed this system resulting in four elements not found anywhere else in this galactic spiral arm. Adamantite is an extremely light weight tough metal of a golden reddish hue. Furthermore, adamantite molecules align themselves in response to mental energy in the form of alpha waves by the repeated actions of magicians (more on this later). These alignments seem to both store and focus energy in metallic crystaline lattice structures design by the magicians to achieve unusual results. The term pyschoreactive has been applied to this property. Meithreil is a nearly translucent silver colored metal whose unique molecular structure permits an edge almost monofilament in thickness, is virtually corrosion resistant, and forms a crystalline matrix that ejects other molecules making it near impossible to alloy. Heat treatment yields a tough ductile core able to withstand great stress and strain. Magicum is a turquoise colored metal with a low melting point (244 degrees C) and has an unusual crystalline structure electromagnetic energy to a concentrated form which can be manipulated by the electrical synapses in the brains of living creatures in close proximity. Magicum absorbs heat from it's surroundings, chilling the ambient significantly when this happens. Where large deposits of magicum are located, the efficacy of spells and magic in general is so potent as to indicate that the metal may be the source of all magic (and a significant factor in the geological ice age of this planet). Orichalcum is an extremely dense black metal whose crystalline form permits it to absorb gases and liquids similiar to a sponge, locking them within the crystals. Being rare, it is often overlaid on adamantite weapons to produce especially potent rings, staves and artifacts.

These rare elements were first discovered by explorers from the Alliance of Elder Races which brought many of the shorter lived races to the planet for exploitation prior to discovery of the indigneous races of Dragons and First Men.

[Q Man]

The Alliance of Elder Races was founded by starfaring races of extremely long life spans, up to 1,400 years. They accepted any race that achieved the ability to travel between the stars and agreed to the Ethic Charter. This charter proclaimed that sentient life itself is of the highest value and only the quest for knowledge is worthy as the ultimate goal of any race. They choose to remain hidden from any culture not accepted and developed strict laws prohibiting contact or exploitation of any system wherein a non-starfaring sentient race was developing. Upon finding no sentient life forms on Ghenrek IV, they established four bases and filled them with scientists and engineers from the 255 systems of the Alliance. It was found that shallow craters containing magicum could be found upon every continent and lifeforms of all varieties had adapted to the use of magic in hunting and gathering. Huge gravity anomalies dotted the landscape often resulting in giant flora and fauna.

[Q Man]

The late mythusmage said

Bob's stuff was not that unusual at the time. As long as it sounded good, the heck with plausability.

Gary thought it would be war gamers that took to the new game. Much to his surprise science fiction fandom took it up, and that brought a whole new dynamic to DnD. Epic fantasy was a big thing back then, as were the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs and writers of his sort, though not to the same degree. It was also the heyday of Star Trek fandom, when it was possible to be a fan without some corporate suits dictating things.

It is around this time that Klingons were introduced to DnD.

The fellow was an Aussie by the name of Alan E. Brain (honestly). A contributor to the APA Alarums and Excursions (still being published, by the way). In Alan's campaign kobolds were descended from Klingons. Members of the SSGCLA (Slavic Small Giant Class Liberation Army), they were armed with DKTAs (Deadly Kobold Throwing Axes), and mostly served as back-up to the orcs and goblins (the "elder" members of the SSGCLA).

It was a gonzo time in roleplaying back then, when the goal was to have fun and adventures rather than worry about holes in the rules, and game balance. If your first level magic user wound up on the same dungeon level as a red dragon and a balrog, that was yourproblem, and not the game's. (BTW, I talked the balrog into killing the dragon. Ended up with 8 7th level dwarf henchmen. [They believed me when I said I was responsible for the dragon's death {which I was, in a way:) }.])

The city state and the Wilderlands were a big part of this. You got a brief description and some stats, the rest was up to you. We really didn't do much with it, but the possibilities were still there. Why did we meet ghouls in that alley? What were those orcs doing? Were the dogs what they seemed?

Whether you get the original somehow, or the new version from NG, take the time to explore a bit. Put together a notebook for each neighborhood, each street expanding on what's there. Add schemes and plans; plots, conspiracies, and intrigues. Bring it to life, in your own way. Make it your own. That's what we did back in the day, and the game was so much better for it.

Above all remember, balrogs are sogullible.

[Q Man]

Raliban the Wise would be shocked to learn what he considered the Uttermost War was actually world wide but small in comparison to the actual Uttermost War which occured 45,000 years ago. Raliban relied upon metal tablets found beneath the ruins in a metal chest near the Calendar Obelisk which described the conflict between the Pious and Philosophers which ended around 6,000 years ago. One faction believed the overuse of magic stifled creativity and the felt the salvation of all races depended upon technology and abandonment of the gods. Magic was only to be used in the most dire of cirumstances as it sapped the will to work. The Pious believed in the gods and glorified Magic as the gift of the gods. One passage refered to the appearance of many new gods during this conflict and whole races warred on one side or the other. The destruction of temples, spell books and scrolls was left in the wake of some armies while others detroyed machines, tools and crafting shops of all types. Obviously, the Pious won and all persecution was ended against priests and magic users. The creation date of 12,000 years ago was determined from the interpretation of one tablet which explained that the gods greatly increased in number then with many fantastic and mythological creatures almost simultaneously. It refered also to the Great Dispersal wherein all races were purged, blessed, gathered together, dressed in holy robes of paper, and scattered in small groups throughout the lands (actually done by the Alliance for war protesters seeking a peaceful new world free of technoloical demands and curious about magic at the time of the cease fire)

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Feb 19, 2024 18:09:54 GMT -5 Q Man said:

Origins of the City State and the Wilderlands as recounted by Bob Bledsaw (the first)

A group came to me asking me to monitor or judge a game for them which they had tried on four seperate occasions to play. After a brief look at the three books, I pointed out that many of the rules were incomplete and I would have to rewrite much of it before we could attempt a game. I had always loved fantasy and science fiction. Although a stereo systems designer at General Electric with limited free time, I reworked the game and designed a small dungeon located near Weathertop in Middle Earth. Despite the misfit magic, this campaign grew to consist of around eight large hex maps from the Grey Havens to the Lonely Mountains and from the Iron Mountains past Mordor. We experimented with many combat systems and magic systems along the way. I had a gigantic dining room table which was filled with gamers and around thirty or more spectators from the local college and high schools. My original group began to beg me to run a session everynight and even tried chasing me down the road in automobiles when on family outings. Some all night sessions did not end until dawn and the magic system became less Tolkien like over time. To permit the gamers to justify this more Vancian type of magic, I created a gate to the City State of the Invincible Overlord just before General Electric closed the plant I worked at. I will add more on the history of my campaigns later but suffice it to say for now that I have ran several campaigns besides the original based upon the Wilderlands. Lord Dunsany and Fritz Leiber are two of my most favorite storytellers. Naturally, I placed in this world much of what I loved in my extensive library. This was prior to the publication of Greyhawk or any other city for this genre' that I am aware of. At the 1975 Gen Con, Bill Owen and myself sat at a small table where I sold the first City State installment with all four map sections rolled up to prevent creases. I promise more particulars later.

Note the reference to the "three books." First thing he did was re-write OD&D to his own taste to use at the table.

There's a good case to be made for all Judges to do so!

[Q Man]

In a welcome thread he says

It was always my intention to expand the set of original 18 campaign maps with another 20 to surround the original 3 map by 6 map series. Dave Arneson's original campaign maps are double the size of Judges Guild maps and thus to detail these maps fully in the same scale would require four campaign maps which also means that another row would have to be added across the top of the rectangle therefore necessitating 25 new campaign maps. The original pebble finished light brown campaign maps originally cost me 27 cents printed both sides in dark brown ink. Allowing for the increased cost of this type of printing, the cost now could easily be 40 cents each or $20 for a set of 25 players and 25 judges maps. Due to realistic factors like wholesale discounts, development costs, taxes, reasonable profit, overhead and packaging, this approach seems unrealistic. Most adventures take place within a much smaller area of immediate interest. What if the world were developed at a website digitally where gamers could access the player's maps for a printing of any letter sized area while judges could access the judges maps similiarly? Give me some opinions please.

[Q Man]

Llangewellen the Blue said

Good luck to Bob and NG... I noted that some young people didn't know the history of Judges Guild. Bob & I were the original 2 Judges in our local campaigns -- his was initially based on Middle Earth and mine on Mythological Wales. Since there was 2 of us we needed a Guild to belong to so we started it PRECISELY 26 years ago on 4th of July 1976.

Our goal was to sell stuff that we found helpful in our campaigns. TSR then seemed to look down on play aids for D&D and thought no one would buy this sort of stuff. And I think that they thought we'd gone overboard with detail and ambitiousness. I did several breakeven studies and with $200 investment we bought 4 print runs of the giant (34x44" total size, we couldn't afford printing the map that size and so it was actually 4 17x22") City State of the Invincible Overlord map. We barely got it in time for GenCon that August... I drove up with another friend (Bob was too exhausted to go) and I didn't even have a booth purchased at the con. But I talked them into letting me put my giant map with beautiful toasted Judges Guild banner (Bob was always "toasting" treasure maps with cigarettes and electric burners on his stove) over it. People picked up the little flier offering a subscription to our bimonthly play aids service... or if they wanted the maps unfolded, I offered to give them to them rolled.

As I'd take them out to my Mustang in the alley (the maps were in the trunk) more than one guy asked "Is this legal?" I'd say "No, don't tell anyone." And I figured that that would get them to tell everyone. The cash flow from those initial maps and the first orders that flew home to our mail box allowed us to break even the first week of business. We had our momentary flush of success when I got the call from TSR saying we are withdrawing your right to publish our copyrighted material... unless you pay a royalty. I said "Push us hard enough and we'll fall over, and who will more effectively make your mishmash of game playable & organized?" We negotiated with them for (what seemed like a long time) and eventually got license.

A few more boring stories, we were the first to come up with the stunning idea of alphabetizing the evergrowing list of monsters and print all the stats in shorthand form on a cardboard screen which was 2nd only to the City State in sales and made it much easier to find and ajudicate those pesky critters. GenCon 77 was at the Playboy Club at Lake Geneva and we hadn't thought to bring shopping bags as we had a real booth this time. I got a pile of free laundry bags from the resort and I'm convinced that some of the D&D fans were buying our stuff so they could have a souvenir bag with the Playboy bunny on it! Finally I wore myself out working two jobs and then working in JG full time (80-90 hours week) and got sick. I sold my half of the business to Bob... and I have marveled to this day that Bob can be so prolific of a designer, writer AND game player... all at the same time. I admit that once I'd made my hobby my business, I needed (a different) hobby!

I hope you guys buy lots of stuff realizing that it really pays for just a small measure of the real worth of the remarkable stuff that Bob designed... and I'm sure looks forward to designing for in the future. Me? I haven't played fantasy games since, sorry! But I'm nostalgic about the times Bob would start telling us the story of the latest exploit I missed a session of in his matter-of-fact way... about truly fantastic tales and outrageous incidents of "his poor monsters". Bill O. (or Llangewell the Blue; Bob was Maed Makistakator).

[Q Man]

Back to Bob in the original thread

After a brief period of demands by the prince to share all technology discovered upon the planet and repeated attempts at compromise by the Elder Alliance, an Alliance star cruiser/transport arrived to pick up the Alliance colonists. During this two year period, the Alliance constructed a fortress north of the base constructed to accomodate the large bodied elder scientists (later to be called the City State of the Invincible Overlord when nomadic barbarians settled amoungst the ruins thousands of years later). The Markrab constructed a fortress base within the Valley of the Ancients and immediately attacked the dragon enclaves there (since Dragons were the most abundant indigenous lifeform there were 944 large warrens and over 1,200 smaller warrens). The Alliance protested this act of war against these neutrals but did not know that it resulted from a failed attempt to convince the dragons to attack the Alliance bases being dismantled. The Markrabs destroyed over 70% of the entire population of dragons. Completing the dismantling and demolishing of all tools and machines not worth transporting, the Alliance star cruiser filled up with the colonists going offplanet and the Markrabs began the Uttermost War by destroying the cruiser, all satellite probes, and the Alliance space station. The planet itself was spared devastation as neither side wished to disrupt or destroy the unique ecological cauldron of immense scientific intrest. The fortresses prevented additional landing by either side and were themselves dismantled upon agreement to a ceasefire.

[Q Man]

There can be only one! The faint outlines of a huge rectangle on a sheer flat granite rockface could be discerned upon new moon nights. The sheer size of the ancient artifact resulted in the legend that it was a creation of a greater god. A gathering of sorcerors attempted to harness the power of a summer storm through ritual magic at the base of this godly place. A tremendous bolt lanced down from the thunderhead and struck the surface of the granite artifact. The blazed white hot and the rectangle glowed a brilliant blue. Already shaken to their knees, the sorcerors were thrown to the ground by a deafening clap of thunder and hurricane force winds as a long metal comet streaked out of the glowing blue surface with a rush of heat and disappeared quickly over the southwest horizon. The outline of the rectancle began to trickle down the rock face and the blue glowing rectangle disappeared forever.

[Q Man]

The campaign itself extended over most of Middle Earth although most players set up their baronies within or near the eastern edge of the Mirkwood and one erstwhile Balanor (Mike Petrowsky) took the Lonely Mountain for his own. The clearing of the Lonely Mountain took them 26 levels beneath the surface with an additional 14 levels upward. I created a whole class of Balrogs based upon the color on the tips of their membrane like wings. All of them exploded upon being killed within a few combat rounds. The players took damage dependant upon the class of the demon. There were Green Black, Blue Black, Red Black and uniquely terrible Black Black Balrog. Most dungeons were only 12 or so levels deep while places of importance such as Moria were 24 levels deep. I have not published most of these dungeons although Badabaskor and others are inspired by adventures set in Middle Earth. As far as appearance, it was done in ink and colored pencils upon many huge hexagon sheets slightly larger than d size.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Feb 19, 2024 18:17:46 GMT -5 The Semi-Retired Gamer said:

Feb 19, 2024 18:09:54 GMT -5 Q Man said:

Origins of the City State and the Wilderlands as recounted by Bob Bledsaw (the first)

Note the reference to the "three books." First thing he did was re-write OD&D to his own taste to use at the table.

There's a good case to be made for all Judges to do so!

Doing this myself, as well as my take on Chainmail all rooted in my own setting.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Feb 20, 2024 1:07:04 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Feb 19, 2024 18:17:46 GMT -5 The Semi-Retired Gamer said:

There's a good case to be made for all Judges to do so!

Doing this myself, as well as my take on Chainmail all rooted in my own setting.

Looking forward to seeing that Hexenritter Verlag!

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Feb 20, 2024 2:45:48 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Feb 20, 2024 1:07:04 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Doing this myself, as well as my take on Chainmail all rooted in my own setting.

Looking forward to seeing that Hexenritter Verlag !

One of my issues with bog standard Chainmail is it is rooted in Historical Wargaming and the Fantasy element was just tacked on. Though I like the system, I need a version that feels coherent and yet keeps thing rules-lite and easy to use. Plus, I want to file off the overt D&Disms to better fit my campaign setting. 

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

Feb 20, 2024 3:15:20 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Feb 20, 2024 2:45:48 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Looking forward to seeing that Hexenritter Verlag !

One of my issues with bog standard Chainmail is it is rooted in Historical Wargaming and the Fantasy element was just tacked on. Though I like the system, I need a version that feels coherent and yet keeps thing rules-lite and easy to use. Plus, I want to file off the overt D&Disms to better fit my campaign setting. 

I really want to read that!

[muddywater]

It is funny that so many people immediately when straight to, I can (must) improve/rewrite D&D, WITHOUT, playing it first.