Monstrous Discussions: The Gnoll

These guys are just plain nasty, filthy animals, and I am comfortable with this.

Paizo will be launching their new adventure path, Legacy of Fire, later this month, which will have gnolls as their featured villain. With villain names such as “The Carrion King,” I will be looking forward to see how it all fits together. With that in mind, I thought I would step back and review the gnoll and give my thoughts on its development and why I like them.

In the beginning (c1974), gnolls began life as a cross between gnomes and trolls, which is where the name came from. Huh..what? Wait. Gnomes and trolls? Are we talking about small elvish fey and big green monsters mixed together? To be honest, I am struggling with this combination. It’s not quite the classic peanut butter and jelly combination. Are we talking about small green guys with pointed ears, or are we talking about giant green fey, or are we talking about the green goblin? To be honest, I am not sure what this looks like. While it is probably better than the flumph, it still feels a bit like (green?) mashed potatoes to me. By 1st ed, the gnoll had turned into the familiar hyena humanoid, and this version has stayed with us to the present day. So to summarize, in the span of just a few years, we have gone from a green goblin thing to a nasty, filthy humanoid monster, which I will mark down as progress.

One of the issues with the humanoid monster is how do you differentiate it from each other. We have the orc, half-orc, goblin, hobgoblin, bugbear, troglodytes, ogres and the gnoll all occupying the same space. If we expand this category a little more to include just humaniods, one could add humans, drow, and dwarves. If we include animal humanoids, we could throw in lycanthropes, lizard men, beastmen, ratmen, and a host of other critters. From a mechanics point of view, they are all very similar, and I would argue that one can stat them up to look almost identical to each other. So back to the question of how do we make them look and feel different? This is a tough one.

I think in order to really answer the question, one has to understand what exactly is a gnoll. I am going to stick with the newer version of the gnoll, as I like this one better, and I think this is what most folks think of when they think of the gnoll, which is a nasty, filthy animal.

In the gnoll’s most basic form, it is a smelly, stinking, beast like humanoid. What’s not to like? In retrospect, having the gnoll based on a hyena, was brilliant. There are a number of wolf or dog creatures already in the game and in literature, so the hyena-humaniod is similar but different. On a side note, I was reading a fan created dungeon that I think was sponsored by the fine folks over at Enworld, and they had created a dungeon, in which the gnoll barracks had beds. I am not thinking that they sleep in beds, but that is just me.

In first edition, the link between gnolls and demons was firmly established by the presence of Yeenoghu, the demon prince of gnolls. With this link, their alignment as chaotic evil was the natural fit. With the appearance of the D series, the drow took center stage and their culture defined chaotic evil. The drow’s form of chaotic evil is a cruel society in which the matriarchs wield power, and everyone watches their back in fear of an assassin’s blade or worse. Gnolls version of chaotic evil is very different.

Paizo, in their Classic Monsters Revisited book, dedicated a chapter to fleshing out what gnoll culture is like. True to their animal heritage, gnolls are vicious pack animals that live by the law of the pack. Their slant on the gnoll resonates well with me, as it draws on the culture and image of cannibalistic tribes, and the hunter/scavenger nature of the hyena. The flavor hangs together very nicely.

However, after spending some time reading through this, I start rethinking their alignment of chaotic evil. For the most part, the write ups in the various clearly show the gnoll as a pack animal. This feels more like lawful evil to me. Clearly their pack is ruled by the strongest alpha male, and to compare it back to the drow, feels completely the opposite of their culture. Now with this statement, I do not mean to imply that just because there is a stark contrast between the two, the gnolls would be by definition lawful evil. But this pack society with an implied law of the pack, feels a bit like lawful evil rather than chaotic evil. If we extended on this line of reasoning, it would question the categorization of Yeenoghu as a demon prince. Wizards published an interesting article on Yeenoghu in Dragon 364, which is available as a download from their website, that provides some insight into Yeenoghu. While this article is written for 4th ed, there is still some good fluff that can be pulled out and applied generically to any previous version of D&D.

To circle back around to the question on differentiation, I think it’s the link between them and the hyena, that helps to separate them from the other humanoids. Very rarely is the hyena seen as the good guy, and the pop culture view of the hyena is something that can be built upon. The Lion King is an excellent example as the hyenas are the servants of Scar, and are the embodiment of evil. Even their nature as scavengers of carrion brings up images of a savage beast. To be blunt, they are smelly, nasty animals.

If I get a chance to GM with gnolls again, what I would like to do is mount them on dire hyenas that look very similar to the wargs in Lord of the Ring movies. While I have mixed feelings about the depiction of them in the movies, if I take that warg and put a gnoll on it, now we have an interesting mounted warrior to use against the characters. The nomadic gnoll tribe now would have a quick striking arm that could run down characters that try to get away. I like it!

General News Items

This week was a busy week for announcements and such. Enclosed is a quick summary of news worthy items:

1) WotC announces a new GSL.
2) Clark from Necromancer Games announces that he is working on a 4E Classic, and has set up a forum to discuss this on his boards.
3) Paizo announces two new licenses for their Pathfinder line. The first is a compatibility license and the second is a community use policy license.
4) Fight on! volume 4 is released
5) Monte Cook is announcing his new Dungeonaday web site which launches next week.
6) We are getting closer to the publish of The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs, with most of the work being done by Jonathon Jacabs, over at The Core Mechanic. Catch up on the latest news here on the project.

While not everyone may be interested in all these items, I think anything that creates buzz for the hobby is a good thing. As weeks go, this one was a good one for our hobby.

Remembering Gary Gygax – 1 year later

I actually met him at Gencon 2007. He was hanging out at the Troll Lords' booth and I had him sign a couple of items for me. That was a cool moment.

The first D&D book I ever bought was the 1st ed Monster Manual. That book will always be special to me. It’s corny, I know, but it’s still true. I remember when my buddy first bought it, and there was a bunch of us drooling over it. It was one of those, “Wow, this is really awesome” moments. That was back around 1981-ish, and I think I bought my copy about a year later in 1982. Yikes, that was 27 years ago! Looking at that book 27 years later, I can honestly say that one has seen more use than any other D&D book, and it has held up rather well all things considered. Having Gary sign it was really cool. I have to admit that my 1st ed Unearthed Arcana book is not quite as old as my MM, is slightly less used than my MM, and it is falling apart. When I mentioned that to Gary, he had a quick response to that. Some things are hard to let go of, even after 25 years.

I was in middle school when I first started playing, and that was with the Holmes edition, but we quickly moved to AD&D. I had some exposure to the revised Basic D&D and Expert D&D, but at the time, I did not like either one. A good buddy of mine at the time started out playing the Expert rules, but that rule set never caught on with the group that I did most of my playing with.

It did not take long for us to realize that Gary was the co-creator of D&D and that all the AD&D core rule books had his name on the cover. I remember thinking that Gary must be a really cool guy. Since I liked the game, and his name was on the cover, I naturally had a high opinion of him, even though I had never met him. One hears rumors and such, but I always dismissed them. I was wearing rose colored glasses, and I saw no reason to take them off.

Second edition came out about the time I was graduating from High School. I never bought any of the core second edition books. I liked AD&D just how it was. It was not until 1991 that I started buying some of the 2nd edition supplements. I enjoyed Ravenloft, so I bought a number of those products. I also started buying some of the monster books and page packets. The monster binder was an interesting idea. I like the books better, but if I was extremely organized, I could pull the monsters out that I wanted and put them into a smaller binder and have them ready for use. It was not a terrible idea, just a bit different.

It was around 1993 that I first heard that Gary had left the company. One of the folks I worked with was very familiar with the story, and he filled me in on what had happened. To be honest, I did not know what to think. It was as if I was hearing about something happening in a parallel world. Here was a guy who created D&D, then was forced to leave the company, and he did not own the rights to the game he created. My reaction was “What?!?” That can’t be right. It does not make sense. It was like listening to an old record that the needle just fell off of. As it turns out, it was right, and it still did not make sense. Even thinking about it 16 years later, it still does not make sense. How could something so good, end up in such a mess?

As the 1990’s went by, I was more of a collector rather than a player. I bought a bunch of stuff, but I did not really play. I was hearing that TSR was in big trouble. The brand was dying. It was a bad time to be a fan of the game. Then 3rd ed was launched. I remember when it was launched. I remember that WotC put a lot of energy into relaunching the D&D brand. They had to. The brand was circling the drain.

For the first couple of years, I did not pay much attention to 3rd ed. I knew there was a D&D website, and that WotC was updating it on almost a daily basis. But that was about it. It was not until 2002, that I really discovered 3rd ed. I was surfing the net at work, and I found a lot of sites that were supporting 3rd ed, and that there was tons of fan created free material. So I started collecting and reading D&D stuff again.

I am a bit embarrassed to say that between 2002 and 2008, I bought tons of stuff. I probably bought too much stuff. But, most importantly, I started playing again. 3rd ed encouraged me to play again. That is not to say that I liked everything about 3rd ed, but the timing was right for me to start playing again.

That brings me back to Gary again. One of the things that I was pleasantly surprised to see was that the fans of the game were reaching out to Gary, and Gary was making himself accessible to them. Before I met Gary at Gencon, I had traded several message board comments with him. I enjoyed reading his take on what was going on with the hobby, and his own historical perspective on why things were designed the way they were. While he was not interested in 3rd ed, I think he was supportive of the activities that were going on around him. Now I could be totally wrong on this last part, but I think at the end, he appreciated the legacy that he was leaving behind. While he did not own the rights any more, the fans still considered him the rightful owner of the game. I think he recognized that. I can pull just about any game supplement, adventure or rules book and see Gary’s name acknowledged in the credits. Just to prove that, I pulled down the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and on the credits page, one can find the text, “in Memory of E. Gary Gygax.”

While Gary was not perfect, and I think some of his flaws are fairly well known, I think fans are willing to both acknowledge that, and they can still appreciate the contribution that he made. I am not one to look at things with rose colored glasses, and indeed, I like to think of myself as an realist, but in this case I am ok with putting my high-school rose colored glasses back on.

Did I mention that I actually met him at Gencon 2007 and that he signed my 1st ed MM?

Thanks Gary!

4th Edition "Classic" – Necromancer Games

Last week I posted about the Beta testing that Paizo completed with their Pathfinder Role Playing Game (PFRPG). I remarked that this was a significant event, and that I thought it was important for businesses to actively seek feedback from their customers. There are a lot of businesses that claim to put their customers first, but with this open Beta testing Paizo is backing up their claim with action. With that said, there are probably dozens of companies that would like to do something similar to what Paizo did, but lack the resources or expertise to make this happen. I closed with a comment that this maybe the start of something new in this industry.

After posting two blogs on the topic, I suppose I should not have been surprised to see the announcement on Necromancer’s board that Clark wants to follow in Paizo’s footsteps with open playtesting. Clark "Orcus" Peterson is the CEO and founder of Necromancer Games, which was created around the time of 3rd edition. Necromancer’s tag line has been 3rd edition rules, 1st edition feel. It’s a catchy slogan, but it captures what Clark and team were trying to do with they started up Necromancer. They are old school gamers that wanted to apply the same philosophy to the new rules. Were they successful or not, that is probably the topic of another blog, and depending on who you ask, you will probably end up with a different answer.

Now, whether or not one agrees with their slogan, one has to give props to Clark for engaging with the fan base and Wizards of the Coast, and really being an advocate for both. He has always said that he is a gamer first, business man second. This is true as he has a full time gig as a lawyer, and I suspect he is a very good one, and Necromancer is more of a hobby for him. This puts him in a good spot to reach out to fans and to the larger companies. On the message boards, he comes across as someone that cares about were the game industry is going, usually offers well thought out positions with some insider insight. As a result, he has created a significant amount of good will for himself. He is probably one of the few folks that can just call up Scott Rouse and tell him what he thinks about Wizard’s latest GSL, and Scott will actively listen and engage in the conversation.

One of the foundations of Necromancer is to support the latest version of the game, and impart into it old school feel. To a certain extent, this is the theme of my blog as well. In my “What is D&D” series, I posted a bit about adventure types, character roles, and mechanics. One of the questions I was asking in the series was on the topic of evolution and is it good or bad. Clark holds the position that evolution can be good. Mechanics can be improved over time. I actually hold a similar view in that mechanics can be improved, but that not all new mechanics are good. Clearly not everyone agrees with this line of reasoning, which is fine. This is not to say that I would not argue a rule over two at Gencon (or any other convention) over a beverage of choice, but I digress.

Even before the announcement that 4th ed is here, Clark had stated that he would support the new rules. Initially the GSL was delayed, and then the first iteration was terrible, but it now looks like we have a version that is usable. That is not to say that it is perfect, but some of the objectionable sections were removed. My understanding is that Clark was able to get a preview copy of the new GSL, and he deemed it acceptable to move forward on. With a new GSL in hand, Clark is basically relaunching his web site with the announcement that he would be working on his own version of 4th ed, which he is initially calling 4E Classic. It feels like what he is trying to do is come up with a supplemental Player’s Handbook that would a move 4th ed closer the old school versions of the game. As he says, he wants the old school feeling, but with the new tech. In order to accomplish this, he is opening up his forums for feedback on the concept. He wants to run this exactly like how Jason ran it over at Paizo. Since he just announced it, I will cut him some slack on the organization side of things, as I am hoping that he puts some structure around this, and he makes an Alpha document available for review.

While I am not ready to jump right into a 4th ed campaign, I applaud Clark for taking a stab at making a 4E Classic. I have no idea if he will be successful or not, but to be honest, it almost does not matter. He is following Paizo on the path of open play testing, and who knows if other companies will also follow this lead. If this becomes a trend, perhaps we will see WotC open up play testing for 5th ed, when ever they decide to move in that direction. At this moment, I believe that this is a win for the fans of the game, as it means we can have some say in the direction of our game design and development.

As a final thought, I would like to welcome Necromancer Games back into the hobby. They have been very quiet since late 2007, and I suspect that they will be updating their product schedules, and maybe, just maybe we will see something from them come August. In any event, I will be watching them very closely to see how this all plays out.

New GSL is posted

Lots of news to report. But first and foremost, Wizards has posted a new GSL that seems to be more user friendly. While not perfect, this is moving in the right direction.

I will have more analysis on this later in the week. I have another post to make first.