I’d like to start off this week’s installment with a little apology. I’m sick. I haven’t had any sleep in two nights and I’m typing pretty much on instinct. If you look really hard, you can probably see the sneezes between the lines. So, with that in mind, let’s get on with our first real look at Warhamster.

Part One: “Why Warhamster?”

That’s the question I get most often. Well, it’s simple really, and the answer is actually a great way to take a first step into the mind of Joe P. Cottonworthy.

See, Joe’s favorite teacher at the University of MN was Professor Gravenstein (pronounced grahv?en?shteen). Gravenstein instilled in Joe the idea of plagiarism. But Gravey (as the students called him& behind his back) didn’t just limit pagiarism to stealing words - oh no! He was also very concerned with the notion of stealing ideas.

I can understand the impact Gravey had on Joe; I had Gravenstein for Freshman Comp, too. As far as I know, the guy is still teaching there; although he must be at least seventy& maybe eighty& no, probably ninety thousand years old by now. I still remember getting back one of my essays with a big fat “F” on the top. I looked through the rest of the paper, looking for errors. None. I went through the pages, looking for where my argument fell flat. No-where. I took the paper to the front of the class as that gaunt, gray man with the skin as thin as wet paper was packing up his bags, and I asked him why I deserved an “F.”

“You’re paper is very good, Mr. Wick,” he told me. Then, he looked at me with those eyes that looked like burned-out stars and he said with his October breeze of a voice: “But you’re better than ‘very good.’” Then, he walked away. He tossed something else my way just as he left the room.

“You got an F, Mr. Wick, because the first sentence included a cliché. I believe your goal is to become an author one day. Isn’t that correct?”

“Yes,” I said, raising my voice so it could reach his old, deaf ears across the room.

“Authors don’t use clichés, Mr. Wick. They invent them.” Then, he left the room. The moment the echo of his last step faded, the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, dropping golden beams into the room and the temperature went up by five degrees.

“They invent them,” he told me. And it’s stuck with me ever since.

And it must have stuck with Joe as well, because when he designed Warhamster, he decided every last cliché had to go.

And hobbits are a damn fine place to start.

You can call ‘em halflings. You can call ‘em kender. You can call ‘em whatever the hell you want to call ‘em, but at the end of the day, they’re still hobbits. No matter what little tweak you make to their personalities (making them kleptomaniacs, for instance), they’re still Professor Tolkein’s creation, and changing what you call them and plopping them in your game doesn’t change the fact that you stole them. They’re hobbits. They’ve been hobbits, they are hobbits, and they’ll always be hobbits. And they belong in Middle Earth.

Now, dwarves, elves, trolls and orks: them’s fair game. But if you really want to give the Good Professor the respect he deserves, don’t take his most beloved creation, paint it blue and call it something else. At the very least, call it a “hobbit.” Or don’t use it at all.

As you may have guessed, Joe chose the latter path. He chose hamsters. Warhamsters, to be exact. He created an entirely new species of creature; something he could call his own. However, and here’s where the genius of Joe Cottonworthy can be seen for all its glory, he chose a creature that his audience would already be familiar with. He didn’t make his new race a carnivorous half-man, half-plant with pudding for eyes and seventeen different kinds of stomachs and schlep a name like “Qddieundhgb” on top of it. Oh, no. He picked a critter we already know, and gave it some anthropomorphic attributes. Hamsters.

He made his hamsters a warrior race. Kinda like furry klingons. They stand about three and a half to four feet high, have four fingers and opposable thumbs and speak their own little hamster language. They also fight with a “cheechoomb,” which looks something like a sword, but fits better in hamster hands. They have their own warrior code and live by it every moment of every day. They are a noble people, one that can be admired for its lack of biscuit eating, tea drinking and pipe smoking.

And yet, they burrow.

(By the way, Greg Stafford would see Joe’s innovation and follow in his stead. Those Glorantha fans out there already know about Greg’s wonderful duck warriors, the durulz.)

And that, my friends, is why the game is called Warhamster. Which takes care of one third of this week’s column. And so, without any further ado, let’s move on to something of real interest&

Part Two: “Cute Hamsters. How Do the Rules Work?”

Glad you asked that. Let’s take a look.

(However, I want all of you to remember: this is a game from 1979. We’re talkin’ old mojo here. Remember “blue book D&D?” [Not "blue box," that's different.] Remember 1st edition Runequest? Tunnels & Trolls? That’s the time I’m invoking. Keep that in mind.)

With Joe’s “no clichés” philosophy firmly in hand, consider where you go from Dungeons & Dragons. Joe tried to do everything different. It worked in some places, didn’t work as well in others. However, Joe’s design stands out as one of the most innovative in the industry. You’ll see why in a moment.

The Characteristics

Joe used ten Characteristics in his game. The text below comes directly from my 1st edition Warhamster boxed set:

Strength (a measure of the character’s muscles)

Size (tells us how large a character is)

Dexterity (represents a character’s nimbleness with his hands)

Quickness (is how able the character is on his feet)

Stamina (is different than Strength, because it tells us how long he can carry something, but not how heavy it is)

Wits (is “mental quickness,” telling us how fast a character can think)

Education (is how well-read our character is)

Appearance (measures how handsome or beautiful our character is [by human standards])

Social Standing (tells us how well off [financially] our character is)

Luck (is that immeasurable quality of chance that all heroes are born with)

(Back to Wick text. And by the way, Traveller fans will recognize that Marc Miller must have seen that ‘Social Standing’ characteristic and thought it was a pretty good idea. Part of great game design is recognizing when other people do something right and incorporate the spirit of it into your own game. Both Mr. Miller and Mr. Stafford are mighty, mighty game designers. They know a good idea when they see it.)

You begin creating your character by rolling three ten-sided dice for each characteristic. One die is the “hundreds die,” the second is the “tens die” and the third is the “ones die.” You line up the dice the way you want to get the best number and record it on your character sheet.

Then, you move on to your Bonuses. Once all your Characteristics are rolled, you start figuring your Bonsues. Again, original text from 1st Edition Warhamster:

SPEED (Wits+Quick/2)

Speed is your Hero’s quickness during Battle (see Battles, below). When a Battle begins, everyone compares Speed. The highest Speed goes first. The second highest Speed goes second. The third highest speed goes third, and so on down the line.

ACTIONS (SPEED/10)

Based on SPEED, your Hero gains a number of Actions per Battle Phase (see Battles, below) equal to his SPEED divided by 10.

ATTACK (Dex+Str/2)

Your ATTACK BONUS is used during Battles. You may add or subtract your ATTACK BONUS to any roll.

BANTER (Wits+Soc)

Sometimes, a clever tongue is more useful than a blade. Whenever your Hero needs to be witty, he uses his BANTER BONUS.

DAMAGE (Str+Siz/2)

Your DAMAGE BONUS is always added to any Damage Roll that you do.

DODGE (Quick-Siz)

Your DODGE is always subtracted from any attack made against you during a Battle.

HEALTH (Sta+Siz)

Every Hero has a number of HEALTH POINTS. This is the amount of DAMAGE you can take before your Hero dies.

STEALTH (Quick+Wits-Siz)

Once in a while, a Hero must be sneaky. Your STEALTH BONUS represents your ability to move about without being seen or heard.

KNOCKOUT (HEALTH/10)

Whenever your Hero takes an amount of DAMAGE equal to your KNOCKOUT, your Hero is knocked unconscious.

PERCEPTION (Wits)

Sometimes, it’s important to notice small details. Your PERCEPTION BONUS is your Wits.

SKILL (Edu*10)

Anytime your Hero must test his own knowledge, you make a SKILL ROLL. That represents your Hero’s knowledge of the world.

MAGIC (Will*2)

Every Hero is capable of at least a little Magic (some Heroes are capable of more). Your MAGIC BONUS represents your Hero’s ability to make Magic.

(Again, back to Wick text)

See how this works out? There’s no need for skills! Joe’s got the whole thing covered with Bonuses. Wanna do something sneaky? Roll under your Stealth Bonus. Wanna do something witty? Roll under your Banter Bonus.

However, the best part is a little paragraph that follows the whole Bonus section of the book. Once again, the words of Joe Cottonworthy:

If a player wants to perform an action that doesn’t fall under one of the Bonuses above, the HM ["Hamster Master" - JW] can simply ask the player to find the average of two Characteristics and roll under that number. Or, if the HM prefers, he can invent a new Bonus so all players may now know the rule for that situation. Space for Invented Bonuses can be found at the bottom of your Warhamster character sheet.

Reading those words set my mind on fire. The author of the game was letting me come up with my own rules. Right there in the book! Official sanction!

In other words, there was Joe Cottonworthy telling me I was more than just a game master, I was, in fact, an impromptu game designer.

Wow.

And now, for our final trick&

Part Three: “Classes? We don’t need no stinking classes!”

Joe didn’t understand character classes. So, he re-invented them.

Instead of falling under a generic and arbitrary “character class,” Joe did something that changed the nature of the Warhamster world forever. He remembered studying about the guild system in his European history class and decided that it would, in fact, be cool if guilds were an important part of the Warhamster world.

Once again, Joe Cottonworthy (from a phone conversation with me and John Kovalic):

“I was thinking, ‘What would happen if the characters had to choose not just a class, but an entire guild?’ That set my mind on fire. I mean, the idea of a thieves’ guild was already popular, but I was thinking, ‘Why just thieves? Why not wizards and priests and even fighters? Why should thieves get all the fun?’”

And that’s what got him going. Characters didn’t just pick a character class, they joined a guild. They joined a group. Something bigger than themselves, something with authority over their actions. A group filled with politics and loyalty and treachery and deceit& and yes, even backstabbing.

(Sorry. Had to.)

It also introduced Joe to the idea of “dues.” Joe was looking for a way to design a game that didn’t have anything to do with “experience points.” He hated the idea, thought it was half-baked and didn’t really express reality (or even fantasy) in any friendly way, so he decided to do something different.

Instead of awarding players xps, Joe decided that the only way for a character to advance was through training. Yes, there are ways to learn on your own, but the fact of the matter is, self-training only carries you so far. Eventually, you have to get a teacher, or at the very least, a book.

And the only people with teachers and books are the guilds. So, the players go out on adventures, kill monsters, win treasures and bring those treasures back to their guilds. They use that treasure as payment for training. You can learn three things from a guild: 1) Training (advancement in Characteristics); 2) Tricks (wizards increase their Sorcery Bonus; thieves get a Backstabbing Bonus; Fighters learn Riposte, Parry, etc.); and Magic (everyone can use spells to a small extent; wizards use it a lot).

So, in order to learn all this stuff, you gotta pay your dues. (I love double entendre.) You have to pay monthly dues, pay fees for tricks, training and sorcery. The higher you move up in the guild, the more “followers” you get (guys who are loyal to you in the guild).

Part Four: Next Week&

& we take a look at the game system of 1st Edition Warhamster. We’ll talk about task resolution (which you already sorta know about), combat, magic and something called Advanced Training. Lots of fun.

‘Till then, keep your chin clean and make sure you get enough sleep. Otherwise, you’ll be like me: up ’till the wee hours of the morning making soap. Not a pretty sight.

Take care and I’ll see you in seven.