Pre-gen from Frank Mentzer's module, The Needle, 1987.
Pre-gen from Frank Mentzer's module, The Needle, 1987.
I knew this was insulting and gross when I was 14. At the time I didn't know who Frank was, since I only played AD&D. I found this module again when I was going through a box of old stuff and was surprised he wrote it, because I thought it was a pretty shitty adventure.
That whole thing reads pretty crappy.
ReplyDeleteOy.
ReplyDeleteOuch....
ReplyDeleteYeesh.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, what's with the typeface there? Did somebody transcribe it or something?
Paul Vermeren, in the old days, things were done on Typewriter. :)
ReplyDeleteWayne Humfleet I get that, but in 1987?
ReplyDeleteI have this module at home, but this shot is from a pdf. Maybe the conversion changed the typeface. I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteThis is... maybe from play? It's pretty weak all around.
ReplyDeleteMy own 5th level female fighter with super high strength and low intelligence probably looks bad - but she's what the dice gave me (her eating halflings and blowing shit up is entirely my fault, though).
Yep. Also, dot matrix printers sucked if you were lucky enough to be able to use a word processor and printer.
ReplyDeleteIt's a cringe-worthy read for sure.
ReplyDeleteOMG
ReplyDeleteThe only good thing about this is the doses of water breathing.
ReplyDeleteHe was paid to write this
ReplyDeleteFinder is a self-insert character?
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/OjVUpjQ0N1zzv6Gm8zYJKeSEvJnIn75MNnQHWHk3IKQFhBQg6DRUkVBsYhj8M8c0YeGfVaIsoFA
the poor little thing seems to need the attention
ReplyDeleteI think the portrait is the worst part of the NPC, but at least it's not a chainmail bikini.
ReplyDeleteWith the text, if you reversed the sexes so Blondy was male, it'd be a fairly unremarkable write-up of a (low) 6 INT, 9 CHA (average) male fighter. This bio reflects someone fairly dense, with average people skills.
My .02
I want to be part of this hate-train, but Wayne's Books has a good point. This is nothing more than a gender-swapped dumb fighter.
ReplyDeleteIt is a gender-swapped dumb fighter, and that's fine, but I'd also say turning that into a blonde joke is really unfunny. And the creepiest thing is the Blondy/Finder relationship if you read both character descriptions.
ReplyDeleteBut the gender is female, it's not male. This would be like arguing that if I have a racist portrayal of an African American character employed various racist stereotypes, in Top Secret say, it's not racist because if the race had been swapped we wouldn't say it was racist. But the race isn't swapped so...it's racist.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly here too...we don't have a male fighter, instead what we have is a shallow, vapid, valley girl who's too stupid to understand the wise men around her and is focused on losing weight and staying fit. A dumb blond.
The dumb male fighter is usually blond as well, in my past experiences. Or dirty Fabio blond, at least.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read the Finder post though, so there's that.
"repeating herself often to make a point" -this is a sexist stereotype. You'd never write that about a conan type blond dummy
ReplyDeletethe Blondy/Fighter thing is way too close today.
ReplyDeleteIf only she understood him, but he acts dumb all the time!
If he didn't act dumb, what would that sarcastic dwarf say about the attraction dumb Blondy holds for seekritly smart Finder?
He's so misunderstood, sleeping in his church.
Also, note her ideal behavior: polite, patient, tan, healthy, doesn't talk much.
ReplyDeleteEw, just ew.
Also, from the intro boxed text:
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, when you were all novice adventurers, you joined an adventurers' guild known as SMART, the Syndicate of Master Adventurers for the Recovery of Treasure.
I spent my allowance on this, peeps.
This is a vague memory but I think one of the R modules (all written by Mentzer) featured a pregen female monk who ran around doing kung fu in a little cloak and nothing else.
ReplyDeleteNevermind, she has more clothes on than I remember. Until I looked just now I hadn't seen a copy since I was a teenager.
ReplyDeletei swear the image viewing experience on desktop G+ is a train wreck. if anyone else is having problems reading the text in these images i dug around in the firefox inspector until i could unearth complete images of sufficient size to be readable.
ReplyDeleteblondy -> lh3.googleusercontent.com
finder -> https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p3pGifK5QRzKIIcuTyJ2deXPuTGPEscSckGn_1Ml46FJPeB4oHN3OwM8vwV-Ul19ayaMx57LFQSiaJ8=w1440-h1950-no
Those first two sentences. Holy fuck.
ReplyDeleteI mean the whole thing reads like the intro to amateur smut, but those first two sentences are just skin-crawling.
Does Mentzer always write in this childlike way? I thought that was just for the Basic Set (and that made a good deal of sense in that context).
ReplyDeleteRegarding "Blondy": I find it odd that somebody with Str 18 would be so thin.
(object lesson: you can spend decades grooming a genial grandad image and see it evaporate in a morning. I don't think I've ever seen that before - usually people are at least divisive before they acquire a broadly negative rep)
ReplyDeletedon't cultivate an image of a thing, be a thing
ReplyDeletesorry if that's snippy, I hope it's not read/felt that way, Richard.
ReplyDeleteesse quam videri? Funny, I used to hear that a lot but the past 30 years really haven't borne it out as a winning strategy. The rewards are mostly spiritual.
ReplyDeleteNot snippy at all. Just set me thinking.
Casey G. I think you're on to something with the Finder (aka Creeper) character sheet. YEESH.
ReplyDeleteI can't follow the Facebook stuff, are there nested replies or something?
ReplyDeleteYeah, Jay, I'm finding it more telling the more I look at it. It's gross.
ReplyDeleteMentzer was a total sexist douchebag to Stacy about ConTessa last year. It's nigh-impossible to hunt it all down at this point, but it absolutely happened.
ReplyDeletegregory blair
ReplyDeleteLooks like a link to my share of Stacy's post I dug up earlier. Can't see franky's dickishness no more. dunno if blocked or deleted.
His "women only" events become a lot more chilling in light of recent revelations.
ReplyDeleteShit, I've played Blondy. Had fun doing it, too.
ReplyDeleteMy rule of thumb is that if there is only one woman pre-gen character in a stack of pre-gens, she is going to be The Worst Tropes Ever and I should play anything else, even though everyone at tables always misgenders my character when I play men, even when they don't misgender women played by men, and that irritates the heck out of me. Because being misgendered is less awful than playing the lonely woman pre-gen.
ReplyDelete(Actually, and this is only because I'm too polite to chew off my arm and flee, because there is a really high correlation between only one woman pre-gen in a set and a GM that is not going to entertain me.)
I don't see why people pregen fluff. like, you should just make the skeleton and let the player throw the skin over it.
ReplyDeleteA. Miles Davis I prefer that model a lot, or modular pregens, or pregens where you can add a few things but not in a time sink way; it makes a pregen easier to hook into.
ReplyDeleteactually thinking about what info you need in a pre-gen seems like a good idea. All this telling the players about their relationships among themselves.....
ReplyDelete...well, it works in Braunstein, but that's effectively an Agatha Christie story or a soap opera.
you need the mechanics. everything else should come from the player.
ReplyDeleteYeah, good pregens can actually be kind of an art form. I was at one table where one pregen was set up to be an isolationist loner.... Luckily I didn't grab that one, because I like interacting with other players for more than 5% of a session. Me, puzzled, "Why would someone design this intentionally?" I see the trope of brooding loners a lot in young players, but usually GMs like characters to interact.
ReplyDelete