The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I went into a local gaming store this weekend and found this book, Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Essays on Roleplaying, in the new arrivals section. It immediately appealed to me because, frankly, I already own more game systems then I can use in the near future. Any RPG I purchase these days has to be sufficiently novel in some way to peak my interest. But good essays on role-playing, ahhh, now those I can always use.

The book was taped closed in a large comic bag, so I didn't flip through it in the store. The back cover informed me that these weren't just essays about RPGs. These were essays about RPGs written by some of the biggest names there are in this industry. Gary Gygax, Richard Garfield, Greg Costikyan, Marc Miller and more. That sold me on it.

When I got out to my car with it I immediately opened it up. My first thought was that the text was a tad sparse. And at 96 pages, it seemed a little light for twenty dollars. On the other hand, there's the matter of the art. It does take up quite a bit of space -- there are a lot of full page pieces (all black and white.) But, the quality of the art is consistently high (I especially like the two full-page pieces by Bradley K McDevitt.) The only exception to this is that a few pieces (all by a single artist) didn't seem to translate well to the book -- they ended up looking dirty.

The introduction walks us through a little of Jim Dietz's experience as a gamer and how he got to be what he is currently: a game publisher and a high school volleyball coach. Bear with me here. A few years ago the mother of one of his volleyball players died of cancer. The next season (1998) the volleyball team raised money and donated it to the American Cancer Society. Then, in 1999 the team decided to again raise money to help fight cancer, but this time donate it to a something where the effects would be local. Out of this spirit, grew Horsemen of the Apocalypse. All of the essays and art in this book were donated by their creators, and all of the profits from its sale are going to help fight cancer in central Illinois.

Wow. You might get a whole lot more text, and even a color interior, if you spent your twenty dollars on the D&D Player's Handbook instead, but you certainly wouldn't get the satisfaction of knowing that you participated in an effort with many of the giants of the industry to make a positive contribution to society. So, if anything, I'd say this gave me something of a positive bias for this book. Anyway, since there are only eight essays -- and because, from my point of view, the allure of this book is the possibility of acquiring wisdom from established RPG professionals -- I'll give a brief run down of what the essays were, and who wrote them.

The first essay was by Rick Loomis (who published Tunnels and Trolls and Nuclear War.) His is a short piece about cycles in the gaming industry and how we've moved from wargames to roleplaying games to collectible card games. Not the meatiest thing around, but I'd say it was decent.

Second, we had an amazingly short work by Greg Stafford. In enough text to more or less fill up a page, he explains why he based the game Pendragon off of the tales of Sir Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Maybe you'd find this interesting if you're a big Pendragon fan, but I'm not sure that it's of too much general interest. But, like I said, it's only a page long...

Next is Richard Garfield's article entitled Metagames. (I'm assuming most everyone is already aware that Garfield is the designer of the insanely successful Magic: The Gathering.) Now this was the first essay that I could really sink my teeth into. Garfield's notion of a metagame is, essentially, any aspect of the game outside of the rules themselves. It's how the game interacts with the outside world. He doesn't get to go too incredibly deep into the idea of the metagame, but he definitely makes a strong case for the importance of metagame issues, and really gives the reader something to think about. I think this essay by itself ensures the value of this book.

After Garfield was a piece by Greg Costikyan, who's worked on Toon, Star Wars, Paranoia, and probably a fair number of other games. Costikyan argues for the development of critical analysis of games. I liked this one, but I've read a few essays by Costikyan before, and I think I've heard him make this point elsewhere.

Next was an essay by Matt Forbeck. Other than Jim Dietz himself, Forbeck was the only essayist in this book that I wasn't familiar with. Well, let me tell you, it's no mistake that his essay is here alongside the likes of Gygax and Garfield. If you're at all interested in what it's like to work in the roleplaying game industry, you should really read this one. Forbeck goes over his experience as a freelancer, then as an employee at Pinnacle working on Deadlands and Brave New World. This essay was a real eye-opener in a lot of ways. Anyway, I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say he gives some valuable advice. This one along with Garfield's were, in my opinion, the best pieces in the book.

Marc Miller -- creator of Traveller -- came up with another great essay. He talks about how he developed Traveller, how he focused on what was important in the game, and how we as humans relate to roleplaying. I should mention that, for the most part, there weren't too many typographical errors in this book, but this essay has the lion's share of them. There's a phantom umlatted "O" that shows up in a number of inappropriate places in this essay. Anyway, that's really a minor quibble. This was a very good piece.

Next was the man himself, Gary Gygax. Gygax writes about how he created the world of Greyhawk -- the original campaign world for D&D. Though I thought it might have been a little long, this essay had some very excellent parts to it. It really let you look back and get a bit of an idea what it might have been like running one of the first roleplaying campaigns ever. Gygax carries over a theme that Miller touched on a little about how it's important to leave certain things undefined in a game world.

Finishing out the bunch, we had an essay by the editor, Jim Dietz. He discusses how he got into the business and where he gets his inspiration from. Not as rich as Forbeck's piece, but it's a pretty solid piece overall.

The wrap-up

After reading this book through, I'm still not sure why it has the title it does. Nonetheless, Horsemen of the Apocalypse is definitely a book I'd recommend to anyone interested in how this industry works, and what's important in a game. Like I said at the beginning, I did think it was a little thin on text for the price, but knowing that the profit is all going to charity more than makes up for it in my eyes. And, what other products are there on the market that compare to this one? I can't think of any. Of the eight essays presented, I'd say at least five of them were either very good or had some very good points to make. If you play in a roleplaying game and never intend to GM, you might not be able to gleam much in the way of practical information from this book. But for anyone interested in running a campaign, or creating their own games, or even just interested in the industry in general this is quite a gem of a book. I wouldn't think Jolly Roger Games could afford to put out for-charity books too often, but I'd love to see a Horsemen of the Apocalypse II: More Essays on Roleplaying show up in stores.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Essays on Roleplaying
Author: Rick Loomis, Greg Stafford, Richard Garfield, Greg Costikyan, Matt Forbeck, Marc Miller, Gary Gygax, Jim Dietz (Jim Dietz, editor) Category: RPG essays Company/Publisher: Jolly Roger Games Line: n/a Cost: $20.00 Page count: 96 ISBN: 1-55878-240-0 SKU: JOL003 Capsule Review by John Ahlschwede on 09/04/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science fiction Generic	I went into a local gaming store this weekend and found this book, Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Essays on Roleplaying, in the new arrivals section. It immediately appealed to me because, frankly, I already own more game systems then I can use in the near future. Any RPG I purchase these days has to be sufficiently novel in some way to peak my interest. But good essays on role-playing, ahhh, now those I can always use. The book was taped closed in a large comic bag, so I didn't flip through it in the store. The back cover informed me that these weren't just essays about RPGs. These were essays about RPGs written by some of the biggest names there are in this industry. Gary Gygax, Richard Garfield, Greg Costikyan, Marc Miller and more. That sold me on it. When I got out to my car with it I immediately opened it up. My first thought was that the text was a tad sparse. And at 96 pages, it seemed a little light for twenty dollars. On the other hand, there's the matter of the art. It does take up quite a bit of space -- there are a lot of full page pieces (all black and white.) But, the quality of the art is consistently high (I especially like the two full-page pieces by Bradley K McDevitt.) The only exception to this is that a few pieces (all by a single artist) didn't seem to translate well to the book -- they ended up looking dirty. The introduction walks us through a little of Jim Dietz's experience as a gamer and how he got to be what he is currently: a game publisher and a high school volleyball coach. Bear with me here. A few years ago the mother of one of his volleyball players died of cancer. The next season (1998) the volleyball team raised money and donated it to the American Cancer Society. Then, in 1999 the team decided to again raise money to help fight cancer, but this time donate it to a something where the effects would be local. Out of this spirit, grew Horsemen of the Apocalypse. All of the essays and art in this book were donated by their creators, and all of the profits from its sale are going to help fight cancer in central Illinois. Wow. You might get a whole lot more text, and even a color interior, if you spent your twenty dollars on the D&D Player's Handbook instead, but you certainly wouldn't get the satisfaction of knowing that you participated in an effort with many of the giants of the industry to make a positive contribution to society. So, if anything, I'd say this gave me something of a positive bias for this book. Anyway, since there are only eight essays -- and because, from my point of view, the allure of this book is the possibility of acquiring wisdom from established RPG professionals -- I'll give a brief run down of what the essays were, and who wrote them. The first essay was by Rick Loomis (who published Tunnels and Trolls and Nuclear War.) His is a short piece about cycles in the gaming industry and how we've moved from wargames to roleplaying games to collectible card games. Not the meatiest thing around, but I'd say it was decent. Second, we had an amazingly short work by Greg Stafford. In enough text to more or less fill up a page, he explains why he based the game Pendragon off of the tales of Sir Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Maybe you'd find this interesting if you're a big Pendragon fan, but I'm not sure that it's of too much general interest. But, like I said, it's only a page long... Next is Richard Garfield's article entitled Metagames. (I'm assuming most everyone is already aware that Garfield is the designer of the insanely successful Magic: The Gathering.) Now this was the first essay that I could really sink my teeth into. Garfield's notion of a metagame is, essentially, any aspect of the game outside of the rules themselves. It's how the game interacts with the outside world. He doesn't get to go too incredibly deep into the idea of the metagame, but he definitely makes a strong case for the importance of metagame issues, and really gives the reader something to think about. I think this essay by itself ensures the value of this book. After Garfield was a piece by Greg Costikyan, who's worked on Toon, Star Wars, Paranoia, and probably a fair number of other games. Costikyan argues for the development of critical analysis of games. I liked this one, but I've read a few essays by Costikyan before, and I think I've heard him make this point elsewhere. Next was an essay by Matt Forbeck. Other than Jim Dietz himself, Forbeck was the only essayist in this book that I wasn't familiar with. Well, let me tell you, it's no mistake that his essay is here alongside the likes of Gygax and Garfield. If you're at all interested in what it's like to work in the roleplaying game industry, you should really read this one. Forbeck goes over his experience as a freelancer, then as an employee at Pinnacle working on Deadlands and Brave New World. This essay was a real eye-opener in a lot of ways. Anyway, I won't go into specifics, but suffice it to say he gives some valuable advice. This one along with Garfield's were, in my opinion, the best pieces in the book. Marc Miller -- creator of Traveller -- came up with another great essay. He talks about how he developed Traveller, how he focused on what was important in the game, and how we as humans relate to roleplaying. I should mention that, for the most part, there weren't too many typographical errors in this book, but this essay has the lion's share of them. There's a phantom umlatted "O" that shows up in a number of inappropriate places in this essay. Anyway, that's really a minor quibble. This was a very good piece. Next was the man himself, Gary Gygax. Gygax writes about how he created the world of Greyhawk -- the original campaign world for D&D. Though I thought it might have been a little long, this essay had some very excellent parts to it. It really let you look back and get a bit of an idea what it might have been like running one of the first roleplaying campaigns ever. Gygax carries over a theme that Miller touched on a little about how it's important to leave certain things undefined in a game world. Finishing out the bunch, we had an essay by the editor, Jim Dietz. He discusses how he got into the business and where he gets his inspiration from. Not as rich as Forbeck's piece, but it's a pretty solid piece overall. The wrap-up After reading this book through, I'm still not sure why it has the title it does. Nonetheless, Horsemen of the Apocalypse is definitely a book I'd recommend to anyone interested in how this industry works, and what's important in a game. Like I said at the beginning, I did think it was a little thin on text for the price, but knowing that the profit is all going to charity more than makes up for it in my eyes. And, what other products are there on the market that compare to this one? I can't think of any. Of the eight essays presented, I'd say at least five of them were either very good or had some very good points to make. If you play in a roleplaying game and never intend to GM, you might not be able to gleam much in the way of practical information from this book. But for anyone interested in running a campaign, or creating their own games, or even just interested in the industry in general this is quite a gem of a book. I wouldn't think Jolly Roger Games could afford to put out for-charity books too often, but I'd love to see a Horsemen of the Apocalypse II: More Essays on Roleplaying show up in stores. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)