Disclaimer: I apologize for any mistake, convoluted sentence structure and
other assorted "bugs" in the following text. English is not my first language,
and this is the best I can do...
Overview
Heroic Worlds is, basically, an historical guide to Role Playing Games. The
author has assembled an extremely detailed (and, as much as I know, pretty
complete) listing of every RPG in existence up to the first edition date (1991).
The author is Lawrence Schick. Unfortunately I've been unable to discover
details on the life (and current whereabouts) of Mr. Schick. All I know is that
he worked for TSR in the early '80s. He is credited as author of the AD&D module
White Plume Mountain and as editor of the original Deities &
Demigods.
The book is published by Prometheus
Books a small NY publisher. According to their catalog, this is their only
product related to the RPGs (and it's under the "psychology" section, even if
there is very little content devoted to anything remotely connected to
psychology).
The book preface clearly states what is covered (rule systems, adventures and
generic supplements published in English) and what it's not (basically,
magazines, solo games, LARP, boardgames, miniatures and RPG fiction).
After this
you get the usual "What is a RPG section", along with an example of play (1930
detective story, instead of the standard fantasy vignette).
A
17 pages "History of RPG" section follows, dutifully depicting the origin and
evolution of the genre. No big surprises here, and the credit goes (as I believe
it is universally accepted by now) to Arneson for the idea to move beyond the
standard 3d battles and to Gygax for trying to come up with an organized rule
system which helps the referee to be consistent in his decisions.
This
section briefly describes the other main "players" like FGU and the
independent development of SF games like Traveller.
The main section of the book (364 pages!) is taken up by the games listing,
which is in turn divided in themes. Besides the obvious ones (i.e. Fantasy,
Horror, Superheroes), the author covers everything, even the less popular
categories like Espionage, Westerns or Military, while "big" areas like Fantasy
are further split up by sub-genre (i.e. Fantasy games are further classified as
"Ancient World", Arthurian, Oriental, Sword & Sorcery and "Other").
Each section opens with a brief introduction covering the theme and a short
list of the "top" titles in the genre (according to the author). As an example
of this, the top five superhero systems listed are Champions, DC Heroes, Marvel
Super Heroes, GURPS Wildcards and Superworld, even if Wildcards is not a standalone
system, and it is dutifully listed as a supplement in the GURPS section, under
Universal Systems, 354 pages away from this list.
Games in a given category are
listed in alphabetical order.
Each game line is briefly described, followed
by specific data, like number of pages, edition(s) date and format (plus a nice
short "critical" piece) for each and every product in the line, including game
screens and adventure modules.
Whenever possible extra stuff is included, like brief lists of related
products (mostly miniature lines "approved for use with..." or thematically
related board games) which are outside the book scope but are still linked to a
given game line. If a given game line has products which were produced by
different companies, like the Judges Guild stuff for D&D or the Traveller
books produced by FASA, the relevant entries are listed along with the products
of the main publisher, in alphabetical order.
As an example of the details provided for each entry, here is a complete
excerpt for a specific game (I've chosen a rather obscure title, and especially
one which did not have any supplement, in order to save myself some typing):
CRIME FIGHTER
Crime Fighter
Aaron Allston
"TV cop show" police system, map oriented, with counters to move around to
indicate positions of cars and characters. The rulebook includes rules for
character creation, movement and combat, and a "Sourcebook" section giving
background on police procedures and running a campaign. Two introductory
scenarios and five cardstock floor-plan sheets are included.
157-010.1/824-88. Boxed: 64 pg. book, contents sheet, six
cardstock sheets, map, two cardboard counter sheets, dice. Task Force Games,
1988
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As you may see in the example, the bold title is for the game line, then there
is an entry for each separate product, listing title, author(s), brief synopsis,
an ID code (see below) physical description of the product, name of the
publisher and publication date.
The 157-010 part is a code used inside the book, i.e. 157 is the code for
the CRIME FIGHTER line, 010 identifies the specific game title (it starts with
10 instead of 1 in order to leave some space for future updates), while 01 means that it's the first edition.
824 is a three digit code identifying the publisher (i.e. Task Force Games) and
88 is the las two digits of the publication year.
I described this in detail
as a further proof that the original project was probably meant to be something
which could be updated for future editions.
Even if one of the ideas was to
be a guide for collectors, there is no specific entry for prices or relative
values, but sometimes the author cites a product as being "rare" or having "high
value as a collectible" directly in the synopsis.
The book covers more than 250 systems, with over 1700 titles, in total.
Everything is listed in a alphabetical index of titles. Interspersed with the
text there are short pieces by "guest contributors". Here are their names:
Arneson, Crossby, Gorden, Gygax, Jackson, Jaquays, Moldvay, Petersen, Rolston,
StAndre, Stackpole, Stafford, Sustare, Wujcik. Each one offers one or more short
pieces discussing their own games, game design, the
industry and so on.
The pages are illustrated by b/w reproductions of images taken from RPG
products (each one dutifully reports copyright information including the
original source). Other extras include a list of publishers addresses, a
glossary, complete index and a timeline which plots various developments in the
field, from 1974 to 1990.
Would you buy a RPG encyclopedia?
I think that when the book was originally printed this was really a neat idea; I
believe that the author deserves kudos for what he was able to do (especially
considering that the bulk of the work was probably completed way
before the net big-bang). And I'd really like to be able to get an updated edition of this one.
Imagine how convenient would be to have access to these informations for all the
stuff ever produced, and to be able to get updated and revised editions as years
go by.
Unfortunately, even if the preface claims that the book will be updated (and
gives a snail-mail address to send letters and review copies of games) no
further attempt was made to keep it in synch with the RPG market. At least,
nothing I was able to track down through the net.
I understand that this would have been a very difficult task: even considering
that the RPG scene has started to shrink after the Magic phenomenon, adding
another ten years of products would probably overtax the resources of both the
author and the publisher. I may be a little cynical (and perhaps a trifle
snobbish) but I believe that many RPG gamers have little interest in getting
details on the history of the genre, so I understand that keeping this book
costantly updated would have soon proved antieconomical.
Summing up
So, ironically, the collector's guide has become itself a collector's item. It
can still prove somehow useful if you need to check details on stuff you can
find on e-bay, for example, but little more. I believe it to be fairly accurate
(i.e.: I did not find any errors whenever I've checked games I actually own) but
I don't know if this opinion is common among other gamers, so don't buy this
hoping to use it to "win" arguments regarding some obscure RPG trivia.
If you want a copy, the book may still be obtained trough Amazon or Barnes
and Nobles but the price is probably a little too steep if you aren't a die-hard
collector or RPG history buff.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)