9322 Viking Campaign Sourcebook Review
History has always been popular in intellectual circles; be
it in the form of reenactments, board games, or never-ending debates taking
place at the shops of old book dealers; we are infatuated with our past, and
many of us seek to get as close as we can too it.
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy game, but that doesn’t
stop people from trying to make things more accurate. As soon as it got into
the hands of the consumers, we started to change things. We wanted to see if it
could support a more realistic setting, and it could (as well as a historical
game really can). While the masses were cool with imaginary worlds, those who
had (or would have) sought out historical gaming began to tinker; their goal
was to envision what it would be like to be soldiers in the age of Rome, or
perhaps a knight in a French Court; not only could the system support it, but
it actually provided an even greater challenge to play. Not only can you run an
entire campaign in medieval worlds, but with enough know how and tinkering,
anything was possible. From the prehistoric dawn of men, to the imagined dusk
of our planet, our AD&D books allowed unlimited potential.
There have always been those guys who were experts of a time
period, and could easily twist and shape the settings to fit a specific mold,
but what about the rest of us? Those that don’t have the time to completely
overhaul and customize the basic rules into something useful, or have the
knowledge base to get a decent enough grasp on the world in question; can they
still experience it? Well, one can always buy in. From the earliest
days of the hobby other people started to publish their changes, to the
irritation and chagrin of the games founders. I’m sure that you all know what
resulted from that! So, I won’t go into it.
The first OFFICIAL book to support historical play was the
title, Supplement IV: Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes, which would become Legends& Lore. It had just enough info to get the common man started, and
considering the fact that this book, which wasn’t associated with any other
product in the TSR arsenal, has always done so well, why not do some expanding?
The idea was to create an inexpensive gateway to historical
ideas, and the first cultural entry into the 2e arena was a big one, Vikings!
Of course this has been done before, Chaosism’s game, RuneQuest provided
an excellent world; but that didn’t put any coins into TSR’s pockets, besides,
since the Federal Government said that they couldn’t shut them down, clearly
the only thing that they could do was undercut them, right?
In May of 1991, Product 9322, Viking Campaign Sourcebook
kicked off the Historical Reference Series, it was written by none other than
Dave Cook, the biggest name in TSR at the time, and it would had been really
interesting to see what he could had come up with, however as much as people
love this book, it has some serious issues. The point behind HR1 wasn’t to
provide a new setting. By this time TSR had lots of them to choose from! The
purpose of this book was to be a cheap digest which expanded upon the ideas
found in Legends & Lore; that is it. TSR was making a ton of money
not selling settings, or campaign ideas, but ADVENTURES! That was the primary
focus, and we consumers at the time were totally enabling this behavior; I
remember standing at the D&D shelf and debating if I should buy this book
or a totally forgettable module that I would probably never end up running
anyway . . . unfortunately, I, like many of my compatriots, bought the module
instead, but I don’t think that that really would had mattered. The Green HR
series wasn’t meant to be anything other than a small print run and move on to
the next project as fast as you can. Unfortunately, the small print run has
translated into the collectors market, and as a user of these games I’m not
paying the collectors prices to get $15 of information. It was designed cheap
and it sold for cheap. I never did own it, but I was able to borrow a copy of
it to do this review, so let’s look at what this title has to offer, shall we?
CHAPTER 1:
Introduction
Right off the bat a glaring problem is exposed. Cook wrote
this introduction before the editor got done with making the cuts to create
exactly 15 dollars of content. How do I know this? Well, it is simple: Cook
tells us that he’ll show us how to incorporate this book into other commercial
settings, but he never does; that chapter or paragraph was cut, and instead of
correcting this error, it went right to the printer and nobody ever looked
back.
One can say that it was just a simple typo, but I don’t
think there should be any typos in this chapter. If the writer says that it
provides something that it doesn’t, even something as pointless as how to
incorporate it into Forgotten Realms, it is sloppy and disrespects the readers
who forked over their money for this thing. I know that at the time that this
book was published, it took me almost 3 hours of work at my crummy job to earn
the $15 necessary to buy this book.
The chapter does start the process of telling you about the
real Vikings by addressing misconceptions that many people have, and another
oddity of this book is that it isn’t all that historically accurate; it says
that it is, but what it really is is a chance to play in the fantasy world of Vikings,
which is cool! But one is not going to get a very good grasp on the real world
of the Vikings from a gaming digest, no matter what the author implies,
but it is cheaper than RuneQuest and faster to read, right?
Moving on.
CHAPTER 2: A Mini-Course
of Viking History
This is a very helpful chapter, it is full of specifics, and
it gives laymen a very fast history lesson that is fun to read. It also points
out that this is a game, not a historical reference, regardless of what was
written on the cover (Sorry, I’m being grouchy, but it is irritating). The
timeline takes you from 800-1100, and crams as much material in as they could
possibly get. It at least allows you to have a fun game with a historic feel,
and provides research points to expand on your knowledge base, which is cool!
Starting something like this from the small entry found in the Legends &
Lore book would be extremely difficult, so this chapter functions.
CHAPTER 3: Of
Characters & Combat
I’m not totally on board with this chapter, but I understand
it being included. I think that it is easier to allow the Viking age to provide
its own very high level of challenge, but we can always do this by cutting
back, if the user wants more information than he is just out of luck. I see
this chapter as catering to power-gamers, but that is just me. I can always
ignore things.
In this book, players can get their human characters gifts
by rolling against a table that is full of weirdness, some of it providing good
roleplaying opportunities, and others being either pointless, ruins the
character, or gives the DM even more paperwork to do.
One of the oddities of the book is the race restrictions,
they say you can’t play an elf (okay), nor a dwarf (huh?), but you can play
something called a Trollborn, which is totally historically accurate and not
aimed at power-gaming at all. I don’t get it, but then again I’m no fun.
There were many unnecessary cuts done to available classes,
and the inclusion of a Berserker class which they say is exciting and totally
unique to this book, makes me wonder how long this thing sat on the shelf.
Well, I suppose that since the rules for this class allow the player to
shapeshift into wolves and bears, and have followers that make no moral checks;
this is somewhat different than the previous versions that had actually been
play-tested.
There is some good stuff in this chapter too, I like the
lists of names that it provides, this is something that I always do myself
because I suck at coming up with names on the fly. I also like how they
included a list of Languages that the player can know, or can be used during
play. Little things like that impress me more than Trollborn Sorcerers. It also
gives some suggestions for the DM on how to settle in on a specific location
and time period which is helpful too.
CHAPTER 4: Rune Magic
This is an interesting chapter; it suggests ignoring the 2nd
Edition spells and replacing the system with this one. I do like me some alternative
magic systems! My concern is that this hasn’t been play-tested, but considering
that we like to fiddle anyway, this probably isn’t that big of a deal. This is
a really good idea for the original cover price! Not all that historically
accurate, but considering that there are some really good books and webpages on
the subject of runes, it forms a decent base for the DM to create his own
system.
CHAPTER 5: . . . And
Monsters
This chapter is actually pretty good, sure most of it is
modified monsters from the MM, but sometimes this book goes the extra mile and
gives you a good list of Giant Names, or points out how Dwarfs and Elves differ
from those that we are used to running. Not a bad chapter! They even hid a nice
map of the area in this section, not sure why, but thanks!
CHAPTER 6: Equipment
& Treasure
This is cool, it gives us the ability to eliminate coin
completely, and easily convert it over to the PHB gaming terms. There is
something cool about changing the name of the coins, I’ll do it for a little
bit, and then typically the novelty wears off and we are back to using GP
again. I do like the novelty though!
As far as the equipment is concerned, they
copied most of the PHB equipment and just wrote N/A for the cost; which totally
makes more sense than just offering its own equipment lists specifically
written for this book. Many players enjoy having things dangled in front of
their faces and being told that they can’t have it, it helps with the illusion
by drawing attention to the weaknesses of this specific system which I’m sure
that you will find very helpful when you are trying to convince your friends to
play it.
Now, to be fair, it does give you brand new items which you
can buy: 10 of them. And one of them is a comb. Excuse my French, but WHAT? Is
the comb considered the greatest technological invention of the Viking era?
“Comb: Combs were valuable trade itemsand gifts, simply because they were hard tomake. The teeth were carved from a thin pieceof wood, whalebone or other material. Thissheet was then mounted between two otherpieces of wood, ivory, amber, antler, or otherornamental material to make the handle.Combs were often elaborately decorated withsilver or gold fittims. These were treasures intheir own right.”
Right!
Moving on: Not only do you get this fascinating piece of equipment, but there
is a list of Art Objects, which must had been written later, or the writer of
the book thought that perhaps that comb didn’t belonged here; after all, how
can a Viking fight when he’s got hair in his eyes?
As far as
magical treasure is concerned, once again it lists everything that the player
CAN’T have, instead of focusing on what they can. It does add some decent
magical items that are unique to this title, and are really cool. Why you can
find a Ring of Money, but not a Helm of Underwater Action is beyond me.
CHAPTER 7: The Viking Culture
This is
one of those classic 2e chapters that you either love or you hate. It follows a
year in the life of a guy named Ivan, and through his eyes you learn something
about the Culture, which probably was the real reason that you bought this
book. Once you see how he lived, it goes into explaining the Social Ranking
system, the way of the warrior, addressing female characters (a true bonus to
playing a Viking type character), houses and farms, little maps of typical
buildings, and much more: this chapter is the true workhorse! And was a
tremendous value at the time that it was published! Ignore everything else, and
just read this chapter and you’ll probably be happier.
CHAPTER 8: A Brief Gazetteer
Another
good chapter, this one describes the world as the Viking knew it to be. This is
the actual setting of the game, and is wonderfully done. It is easy to
reference and allows a layman with no previous knowledge to run the illusion of
an authentic campaign.
Also
included were full color maps which increased the value of this title
considerably, even by today’s standards this is nice.
OVERVIEW
The last
two chapters, while valuable, still don’t justify the current market price for
this title. As a product of its time it was very valuable, but you have to
remember that it came out before the internet, owning this book saved you a
trip to the library! It still provides something that is easy to reference. As
a stand-alone item, this simple book did the work of an entire box set, it is
just too bad that it was poorly designed, and terribly edited.
The
biggest failure of this title, believe it or not, is one that I haven’t even
gotten to yet, as it isn’t something that was put in, but something that was
clearly left out. You see a boat on the cover; the boat was essential to life
for these people, and you get a cute little drawing of some Viking ships, but
guess what. You are still expected to use the horrible rules found in the DMG
which do not function. Wouldn’t this have been a great place to put some easy
to use mechanics which allows better ship travel? Clearly this was a lost
opportunity which I feel that this book must be held accountable for.
At the
time of its publishing, I would had given it a B, and I know that people still
really love it, but today I give it a D+ . The mechanics that it does offer
suck, as a gaming book this is terrible, as a setting book there is just so
much wasted space. A lot of detail went into the maps, I enjoy them, but that
doesn’t change the fact that much of this book is filler. If you want to play a
game of Viking style adventure, I would recommend that you skip this title, and
find a copy of RuneQuest.
Monday, February 13, 2017
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3 comments:
Very comprehensive review; thanks! I've often looked into picking up some of this series but have never pulled the trigger.
Thanks Linneman, I've always enjoyed the idea of it. It could had been something special, but they dropped the ball on this one, which is a shame.
Good review.
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