Role Playing Games (Revised 2022)

[Updated 2022.   With "Stranger Things" bringing '80s nostalgia, including D&D, back into mainstream attention, it's time to revisit this topic.]

It all started back in September 1981, when our friend Danton came back to Paris from summer vacation in the US. He got us hooked on a new type of game: the role playing game, with character sheets and strange dice – d4, d8, d10, d12, d20, as well as the common d6. We started off with Dungeons & Dragons for one night and the next day started with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (commonly known as AD&D).

For those of you who know what these are, this will be a nostalgia trip. For others, maybe I’ll be able to clue you in. You create a fictional person – a character – in a make-believe world, with stats (strength, wisdom, intelligence, constitution, dexterity and charisma) and hopefully a few comrades to share the journey (a fellowship) and if you’re really lucky, a good Dungeon Master (DM) with a sense of humor and a good imagination, who understands the rules as well as you do and isn’t an arbitrary SOB. You start off simply and easy, clueless and weak, but after killing off a few weak monsters and grabbing their measly copper pieces, you work your way up to stronger monsters with better loot, and accumulate power, spells, gold, magic items, etc. Yeah, it’s all in your head, so if your imagination sucks, the game will too. But for those of us who could handle it and enjoy it, it was a trip.

AD&D. The most popular, by far.  Generally referred to as D&D, in practice most players are actually playing AD&D, which is the standard version; D&D itself is actually pretty basic and dull compared to AD&D.   It’s closest to Tolkien and Middle Earth, though they called hobbits “halflings” and wizards “magic-users”, warriors were “fighters” (not “sword-users”). The combat doctors were clerics (not “mace-users”) (though no one seemed to care which deity you worshipped and the spells were all the same anyway) and for traps and locked doors, we had thieves (“lockpick users”?). My top character was a 13th level cleric of Thor, with my 2nd favorite a drow (black elf) fighter-magic-user. We played this one for ages, working our way through all the mainstream modules, most notably “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks”.

For all its simplicity and popularity, though, the game was fairly unrealistic and most of the rules were somewhat arbitrary. Automatic parries? No dodge? All your skills go up equally when you go up a level? Rigid classes – fighter/ranger/paladin, cleric/druid, magic-user/illusionist, thief/assassin – with level limits for non-human races? All magic-users and clerics get the same spells? And this business of clerics not using edged weapons, or magic-users and thieves being severely restricted on armor and weapons. Don’t get me started on alignments – good/neutral/evil vs. chaotic/neutral/lawful, and most bizarre, “alignment languages”. Bah. And no one really developed a coherent idea of WHERE this was supposed to take place (e.g. did anyone seriously use Greyhawk?). The most obvious, Middle Earth, was not an option (I don’t think TSR ever got the rights). Swords and sorcery, sure, but very little depth. But we enjoyed it for awhile, at least until we discovered RuneQuest (see below).

Main personal character:  Trumgeld, 13th level cleric of Thor.  

Top Secret. Also by TSR, this time a spy RPG set in contemporary Earth. My guy was a German BND agent who carried an MP40; my brother’s CIA character carried a shotgun. We followed through quite a few modules of this. I recall one adventure where my bloodthirsty comrades literally killed everyone (even those who weren’t on a hitlist) and took everything that wasn’t nailed down, even down to a sack of potatoes (it must be worth something to the agency!). Crazy Top Secret rule: a grenade does 1d10 damage, so it’s theoretically possible to survive a grenade attack at point blank range and get no more than a scratch.

Main personal character:  Fritz Muller, agent of BND (West German intelligence).

Gangbusters. We must have played this TSR game set in the 1920-30s about 15 minutes. Not bad, but too few modules. Also, TSR had this odd policy – completely different than Chaosium – of literally developing an entirely new game system for each different RPG they developed. Because we’re playing gangsters and FBI agents in '30s Chicago means we need a completely different system than spies shooting each other up in the 1980s.

Star Frontiers was the TSR space RPG, which wasn’t too impressive. I suppose the high point was having a race of intelligent amoebas. Cool.

Gamma World. Think you can survive a post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust world? Check this one out. TSR did a decent job of this one. The best part was all the mutations. I had a huge argument with the DM about PST (pure strain humans) being immune to mutation. My top guy was a PST, go figure – the only race without any mutations at all. The weapons were almost as cool as the mutations.

Main personal character: Urchin Clapton, pure strain human

Traveller. I can’t remember who made this one, but it wasn’t TSR. This was an RPG set in space, in the distant future. All the books were small and black, and the whole thing was played with d6, which was unique among RPGs. Unfortunately, the most fun of all was CREATING the character. Developing his (or her) military career until mustering out was more fun than playing the game itself.

MERP. Iron Crown Enterprises (ICE) managed to get the rights to do a Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP) game – and dropped the ball completely. Its game system was indecipherable. Sure, you could really be a hobbit, an elf, a dwarf, a Dunedain, or a Beorning (but not a Balrog...damn!) but why would you want to, where would you go, and what would you do? There were no modules, only sourcebooks. Our friend Myles, usually our DM, quoted the Moria sourcebook: “There are lots of dwarves here.....” Uhh, yeah. And there are elves in the forest, and orcs in the dungeons. Thanks, we’ll take it from there.

Call of Cthulhu. Starting the Chaosium games. Chaosium started off with RuneQuest and did the smart thing of simply re-using its basic system for all the other games it made, with slight variations. This one was based on the H.P. Lovecraft stories and extremely well done. The killer element here was SANITY. In other games you can get wounded or killed (boring!). Here you risked going completely insane – cool! Moreover, this was one system with an amazing array of adventures supporting it. They seemed to put out more than we could handle. Surprisingly, despite dozens of Lovecraft stories to draw upon, the writers managed to develop original scenario plots yet remain faithful to the Mythos and ideas of the stories. My favorite two characters were Charles Marx, a West Point graduate and veteran of “The Great War” (aka WWI); and Muller, a German member of a little known reactionary party known as the NSDAP – who also fought, on the other side, in the Great War (I made him the father of my Top Secret character). This was a game we kept up with, mainly because the support was so fantastic. I’ll never forget that one where the DM rolled a “critical” (.01%) for finding a ladder when we needed it!

Main personal character:  Charles Marx

Stormbringer. Chaosium tackles Elric and the Young Kingdoms, the Michael Moorcock books. Modest support, but still fun. My top character was a Melnibonean warrior-sorceror, Jermyn Relic. Thanks to a module called “Hall of Risk”, he managed to create Demon Armor which was practically impenetrable and a Demon Sword which could do 2d8 + 97d6 damage (far more damage than Elric himself could have done with Stormbringer) – and he was an Agent of Arioch. Maybe he got a little TOO powerful. The Chaos characters had the most fun, and if you weren’t from Melnibone or Pan Tang and at least a sorceror of some sort, you were almost certainly dead meat. My first character, Ozzic of the Purple Towns, did OK, but it was Jermyn Relic I liked the most.

Main personal character:  Jermyn-Relic, Melnibonean Agent of Arioch.

Superworld.  Also by Chaosium.  After "The Boys" maybe we should play this again.  You make super heroes and role play them.  Somehow they get a variety of superpowers, handicaps, and even hero points.  Since it was from Chaosium it shared their skill-based system.  My own character, Necroman, got into trouble for actually killing a supervillain, which I found out the hard way was a no-no.

Main personal character:  Necroman

RuneQuest. Finally. This was, by far, the best of all the RPGs. My high school buddies turned me on to this one, and I loved it far more than any of the others – I was addicted. Chaosium started RQI and II, and Avalon Hill perfected it as RQIII. By now it’s gone through multiple changes since 1986, so the current version could be called RQ VII.  We actually played a brief scenario of this last year with our gaming buddy before he returned to Germany, but changes in the game meant we had to create new characters to do so, and we didn't have time to do much to develop those characters.  

Where do I start? Skills you develop individually – and can master beyond 100%. Anyone can use any weapon or armor – no arbitrary limitations or classes. If you want to be a sorceror and wear full plate armor, or be a priest and carry a sword, go right ahead. Priests worship specific deities and different gods give different spells: combat and death spells from the war god (Humakt), healing spells from the healing god, etc. so you have an incentive to join specific cults, and cult allegiances provide incentives for friendship – or war (and thus plenty of scenario inspiration). The “gods” catalog listed the requirements to join cults, the benefits of each one, and the special spells each one provided – NOT like AD&D where all gods give you exactly the same thing and they’re listed with combat stats as if you’re actually going to meet and fight them. Come on.

Depending on what cult you belonged to, if you mastered (90%+) 5 or more specific skills (usually combat skills) you could become a Rune Lord – and RQIII combined priesthood (reusable badass spells) with Rune Lord for the top combat cults. Becoming a RuneLord of a combat cult was one of the top goals of the game for your character, and when you achieved that status – developing a character from a clueless, wuss of a peasant into a bas-ass death machine (e.g. Luke Skywalker’s transformation from Tattoine farmboy into Vader-nailing black-uniformed Jedi) – you felt fantastic....even though this was a completely fictional character (!). It’s hard to describe if you weren’t into it.

 RuneQuest chucked wisdom as an attribute and substituted size (SIZ) as a quantified number, not merely small/medium/large as in AD&D. The monsters had the same format as player characters, so theoretically you could use any monster as a PC, though as a practical matter the “races” – human, dwarves, elves, trolls, broos, ducks, morocanth (intelligent tapirs), and dragonewts – were the most suitable.

 The combat system alone was fantastic. 10x more realistic AND no less playable than AD&D. Hit points per location (arm, leg, etc.) and not merely general hit points. Armor points to be exceeded by damage to inflict wounds: not this arbitrary nonsense of “armor classes”; you roll to hit and then roll damage to see if you actually penetrate armor. You could get special hits – impales – and critical hits, ignoring armor; and even screw up big time: fumbles. You have to roll to parry or dodge. A parry, if successful, added the armor points of the parry item (usually a shield or a two-handed weapon) to the armor on your body; a successful dodge, if rolled, avoided all damage. There were hit points per location, and you rolled a location when hitting, not merely doing general damage (so you could decapitate someone) and even aim blows at specific locations, strike to destroy a parrying weapon (e.g. shield) or for knockback (to push someone back or over).

Skills were on a percentage basis, from base level (the level of someone with no training or experience), up to 100%, but somewhat oddly, the game let you advance past 100% in skills.  Rolling below the skill number on d100 (usually two d10, one for the 10s and another for the 1s) was a success.  96-100 is always a failure (fumble) no matter how high your skill.  Rolling under 20% of your skill was a special (impaling weapons do double damage), and under 5% a critical (weapon does maximum damage and ignores armor).  Every skill successfully used on an adventure can be rolled to increase, so gradually you achieved mastery (> 90%) in various skills.  As noted you have to roll to parry or dodge.

 Magic: three different types of magic, which theoretically anyone could learn. Spirit (“battle”) magic was the easiest to get but the weakest, but at least a simple warrior could have a healing spell without being a priest. He couldn’t raise the dead, but he could patch himself up. Priests, for their part, do get the most powerful spells, divine magic, including Sever Spirit (death spell) and Resurrection (you can figure that one out). RQIII added sorcery, with its own rules; mainly it made spellcasting very skill-intensive and added wizardry as an art, something which had been missing in RQII. There are even spirits, spirit combat, and shamans.

 Glorantha. RQI & II were based in a proprietary world, Glorantha, with its own races, gods, and mythology. They actually fleshed it out more than Middle Earth (who are the gods of Middle Earth?). While RQIII divorced it, in theory, from Glorantha, nominally setting it in "Fantasy Earth", as a practical matter we only played in Glorantha. The races were well done, particularly the trolls (darkness race originally from Hell, with a sonar that let them see in total darkness), ducks (yes, like Donald and Daffy) and broos (goatlike race of chaos who urinated on everything, could impregnate any living being, even other males, and spread disease). Even chaos was introduced as a concept: a foul, degenerate force of impersonal enthropy which corrupts whatever it touches, spewing bizarre montrosities such as broos, scorpion men (a centaur variant based on a scorpion instead of a horse), jack’o’bear (bear with jack-o-lantern for a head), walktapus (man with octopus for a head....like Cthulhu) and gorps, amorphous acidic blobs. The chaos cults had the baddest spells. Add in chaotic features – bizarre mutations so that no two broos were the same – and you have a recipe for some crazy stuff.

Basically it all came together with RuneQuest, which is why it was my favorite. Unfortunately, our gaming buddies all went off to different places after high school, scattered across the globe: Canada, Ireland (our best and irreplaceable DM), Germany, and combine that with the “wife & kids” deal. As you may suspect, our gaming group was 100% male, except for a brief spell in junior high when I DM’ed a group of female classmates for AD&D for a few weeks (it was fun while it lasted).

Main personal characters:  Necrovern, human Sword of Humakt; Detruncari, High Priest of Dark Truths, Thanatar; Lenyn Frehwynd, Wind Lord of Orlanth; Sweet Leaf, green elf Wood Lord of Aldrya and Light Servant of Yelmalio; Uzzy Uzko, dark troll Death Lord of Zorak Zoran; Dark Zunk, dark troll Karrg's Son of Kyger Litor and acolyte of Argan Argar; Clovehoof Bladebroo, broo Sword of Humakt; Lemmy Atum, tusk rider adept sorceror

Three Red Movies

Despite my staunchly capitalist tendencies, I’m fascinated by the Soviets, Reds and Russians. I’ve read and seen “Enemy at the Gates” (the book/movie about the battle of Stalingrad, August 1942-January 1943) but somehow that wasn’t enough. Nor was the interminable “Dr Zhivago” with Omar Sharif and Obi-Wan Guinness, or the insomnia-curing “Reds” with Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. I wanted MORE MORE MORE! Here are three more obscure ones...

The North Star. I don’t know where i saw pieces of this, but I decided to track it down. It’s on a Neflix DVD with two other movies. It’s a 1942 movie made by the glorious comrades in Hollywood (Stalin’s minions? No....!). The first half of the film shows happy, well-fed Russian peasants (the same type who were brutally murdered by Stalin ten years before) blissfully unaware that a Fascist menace is lurking at the borders. They sing so much I’m wondering if this is actually a musical. Finally June 22, 1941 rolls around, the music stops and the fun begins. The Germans take over their village, while the able-bodied men escape to the forest and become partisans. Eventually the well-equipped, clean-living, and expertly-led partisan group attacks the village and liberates it from the Germans. The Red Army itself is nowhere to be found, presumably retreating big time as Stalin traded space – of which the Soviets had a surplus – in exchange for time. A few people end up as casualties.

 What I find interesting is how clever this “propaganda” is, ostensibly for US audiences in 1942 to persuade them that the Soviets, who until Pearl Harbor were ideologically enemies of the US, suddenly became our friends due to the mutual antipathy for Nazi Germany. To be believable as propaganda, I suppose they couldn’t be TOO hard on the Germans. The Germans come off as very disciplined, very professional, very competent, and even some of the German doctors are “civilized” and not Nazis. The Germans are not complete animals. Interestingly, the Russian doctor chastises the “civilized” non-Nazi German doctor by telling him, “so long as you’re cooperating with your Nazi superiors and obeying their orders, don’t kid yourself that you’re any better than they are.”

 Since the movie was made in 1942, while the war was in full swing, I wondered how they expected to acquire authentic German uniforms and equipment. Sure enough, the helmets are all the WWI pattern steel helmets (1916-18) with oversized decals; the rifles look like Gewehr 98 (WWI) vs. Kar98k WWII models; the machine guns, rather than MG34 or MG42 are the WWI Schwarzlose models. Rather than the modern Wehrmacht of 1942, Russia has been invaded by the Reichwehr of 1934. The Stukas look authentic, as do a few MP40s. Somehow I doubt the Nazi government would have been too cooperative at assisting Hollywood at producing this “gee, aren’t the Russians swell?” movie.

Battleship Potemkin. This is the old 1925 silent movie. (Somehow my mind reads “Potemkin” to read “Pumpkin”, which gives a somewhat different feel to the story...the good ship Lollipop?) The Potemkin mutinied in 1905 (12 years before the Revolution). According to the story as told in the film: their main reason for overthrowing the officers was due to horrible meat (rancid with maggots) and inedible stew. The ship’s doctor claimed there was nothing wrong with either. The men protested that Russian POWs in Japan got better food – and knowing how ruthless the Japanese are, that says volumes about the Russian Navy. The captain ordered the marines onboard to shoot the unruly sailors, but they balked at that, and before long all hell broke loose. They threw the officers overboard, and the sailor who instigated the rebellion was shot by an officer. They brought his body ashore, labelled “shot for soup” ("no soup for you!") and a rebellion broke out in Odessa. Finally the Cossacks were summoned and shot the unarmed protesters on the steps, leading to the famous shot of the baby carriage tumbling down the steps.

Arsenal. No, not about the Premier League team from north London (well featured in the Colin Firth ORIGINAL of “Fever Pitch”, not that crap with Jimmy Fallon about the Red Sox). This is yet another B&W silent film from the early Soviet Union. It seems to focus on an arsenal (arms depot) which was disputed between two major armed groups: Ukrainian nationalists and Bolsheviks. Since it takes place during the Russian Civil War (1917-22) you can guess which side wins. The Ukrainians come off as the bad guys. Lots of Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles and Sokolov-mounted Maxim machine guns.

 I couldn’t really follow the plot (even with Russian/English subtitles) and the constant close-ups of various characters doing nothing at all got old very quick. Probably the most interesting part of the film was elements featuring Germans: both the end of the war (WWI) showing German soldiers in their late war steel helmets, essentially chasing hapless Russian soldiers back home from the front (note: unlike WWII, in WWI the Germans won the Eastern Front war): and a very touching segment where three soldiers – Russian, German, and French – each return home to their wives. The wives (Russian, German, and French) are clutching newborn babies, looking very guilty, and the soldier/husband – presumably away from home for far more than nine months – angrily demands CHTO? WER? QUI? Finally, there was a considerable amount of very unhappy looking people missing various limbs. War sucks – for everyone.

Harry Potter

Now the last book has come out, and the series is over.  Movie #5, “Order of the Phoenix” is out, and I imagine #6 and 7 will eventually be completed as well.  I read all the books and saw movies 1-4.  Overall, what’s the deal?

 Books.  Seven, by now, all written by J.K. Rowling and each title begins with “Harry Potter and the...”

1.         Sorceror’s Stone.  This book introduces us to Harry, his “Muggle” family the Dursleys, Hogwarts, the basic elements of magic, and most of the main characters.

2.         Chamber of Secrets.  More of the same.  Instead of a stone, they find a secret chamber within Hogwarts.

3.         Prisoner of Azkaban.  Introduction to Azkaban (the prison for bad magic people) and the Dementors, the wraith-like guards of the prison.  First glance at Sirius Black.

4.         Goblet of Fire.  The Quidditch World Cup starts this off.  There’s a Tri-Wizards competition between Hogwarts and two other schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang – the first time we ever learn that there are magic schools besides Hogwarts.  Cedric Diggory is the Hogwarts champion, yet Potter is also put in.

5.         Order of the Phoenix.  Introduction to the Order, which operates independently of the Ministry of Magic.  The Order directly opposes the Death Eaters, who are Voldemort’s support team.  A junior version of the Order, “Dumbledore’s Army”, arises at Hogwarts because the Defense Against Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge, is such an incompetent idiot.

6.         Half-Blood Prince.  The Death Eaters grow more powerful, Harry learns more about Voldemort and his “Horcruxes” - soul split up into 7 seperate objects – so defeating Voldemort requires finding and destroying each one.  Harry starts to hook up with Ginny Weasley.

7.         Deathly Hallows.  Harry, Hermione and Ron skip the final year at Hogwarts and spend it trying to track down the Horcruxes while evading Voldemort.  We also learn about the Deathly Hallows, which are a killer wand, a stone of resurrection, and the Invisibility Cloak (which he found long ago).  Finishes everything up, ties up the loose ends, and explains exactly what Snape and Dumbledore were up to all this time.

 Characters

Harry Potter.  The only one known to survive the death curse, which caused his distinctive lightning bolt scar on his forehead.  He’s a celebrity within the wizarding world, shows immense natural talent, but is insecure and would gladly forego the fame and danger.  Despite his fame and talent, he’s not an arrogant prick – though he fails to take advantage of his fame when it comes to getting a date for the prom in book 4.  As he grows older, he grows smarter, better at magic, and a bit more petulant.  As the series goes on it becomes more apparent how important he is and how much of his fate is inextricably tied with Voldemort.

Ron Weasley & family.  Apart from his younger sister Ginny, who ends up at Hogwarts, Ron is the youngest of his family.  They are all wizards, so they take magic for granted.  The father, Arthur, works at the Ministry of Magic; an older son, Percy, is a bit of a self-important ass, first as a Prefect at Hogwarts and then working for the Ministry.  Bill works in Romania on dragons, and marries Fleur (a hot French chick).  And Fred and George are the joking twins, always up to no good – but still decent guys after all.  Ron is Harry’s same age so he forms the closest bond, but all the Weasleys – particularly Ginny – like Harry.

Hermione Granger.  The Muggle-born overachiever.  Her parents were not magical, so she’s got a chip on her shoulder and vastly overcompensates.  She knows all stories and spells.  She comes off as a real know-it-all.   She’s far more motivated than Potter, though it ends up being a good thing.

Neville Longbottom.  The opposite of Hermione.  He comes from a distinguished family of magic but is for the most part (until book 7) a shy, insecure underachiever.

The Malfoys.  Draco and his parents, part of the Death Eater crowd and Slytherin house.  Incredibly arrogant assholes.  But worth what to see what eventually happens to them in book 7.

Dumbledore.  The headmaster of Hogwarts, the kind old wizard, far wiser than he appears to be, very much the Gandalf of this book.  He protects Harry and gives him a remarkable amount of support and assistance behind the scenes.

Voldemort.  The #1 Bad Guy, easily the Sauron of the series.  Originally known as Tom Riddle and involved at Hogwarts.  He’s Potter’s nemesis throughout the entire series.  His fan club are the Death Eaters, mostly scum from Slytherin. 

Snape.  The #2 Bad Guy, well played in the movies by Alan Rickman.  He seems to have it out for Potter (Rickman spits out the name with the same contempt and venom he did with “McClane, Mr. Rambo Cowboy” in “Die Hard”).  A Hogwarts professor, first of Potions then Defense Against the Dark Arts.  He leaves us guessing – until the very end! - about whether he’s with the Death Eaters or not.

Hagrid.  The big, burly, dense but helpful groundskeeper who never found a wild animal he didn’t think he could tame.  He helps out Harry big time and is a sympathetic character.

 Hogwarts.  The magic school somewhere in England.  Supposedly it’s hidden, and reached, by the students, by a magical train called the Hogwarts Express.   It’s split up into four houses: Gryffindor (the bravest, best students – including Potter, Hermione and Ron); Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff (mediocre houses not particularly special or bad); and Slytherin, which have the slimiest, nastiest, most unscrupulous students.  Given that this house seems to only produce evil wizards who belong in Azkaban, I’m not sure why the house should even exist. Naturally Snape was a Slytherin.  The students are assigned to houses by the Sorting Hat and remain in that house for all 7 years – if you don’t like where the Hat sent you, tough shit.  The castle is magic and has moving stairs, magic paintings, secret passageways, hidden rooms, ghosts, and all sorts of crazy shit.  It even has dormitories, though these are not co-ed.  There is no sex in the books, the romance is light and fluffy, and it isn’t until book 4 that the kids even realize there’s a difference between girls and boys. 

            The magic itself varies from simple stuff all the way up to spells causing complete domination, excruciating pain, or even death.  As you can imagine it plays a central role in all the books.  However, it’s never explained why some people have the ability and some don’t – some magical people end up with non-magical children called squibs.  There is no mention of God, the Devil, angels, demons, an afterlife – Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or even oblivion - or even pagan dieties.  The source of magic itself is never explained at all.

 Quidditch.  The make-believe game played on flying brooms.  Actually pretty lame.  They make it into a magical equivalent of soccer, rugby and cricket rolled into one; there’s a World Cup and private teams.  Harry plays on the Hogwarts team for Gryffindor house and is a natural – he plays “Seeker”, a position most like quarterback.  Fortunately Quidditch stops being important after book 4 and they focus on the nasty stuff going on with Voldemort instead.

 The Ministry of Magic.  The magic world has its shadow government of wizards.  The Ministry regulates the magic world and keeps it secret from the Muggles (non-magical people).  Apparently only the top levels of the Muggle government are aware of its existence.  Incidentally, it’s not clear whether the MoM only controls England or has worldwide jurisdiction, as they never mention MoMs in any other country, yet there are schools other than Hogwarts and students from all over the Eastern Hemisphere...which leads to my next topic.

 Americans?   Oddly, there are no American characters in any of the books, nothing takes place in America, the country itself isn’t even mentioned once (I think there may have been some Americans at the Quidditch World Cup), there are no magic schools in America, and for all we’d know from reading the books, the entire Western Hemisphere doesn’t even exist (no Brazilian, Mexican, Argentinian or Canadian wizards either).  I’d say it’s strange, but hey – we’re talking about books about magic. 

 Children’s Books?  Well, it’s no match for Tolkien, Moorcock or Robert E. Howard.  It does get a bit confusing in some places.  But with names like Hufflepuff and calling the non-magicals “Muggles” much of it is lame.  On the other hand, several people die, and the language isn’t completely simple.  It’s more than Dr. Suess.  I’d say they are children’s books, if you define children as “10-13 years old.”   After reading more serious stuff, particuarly textbooks, regulations, or any boring stuff we have to endure as adults, it’s like candy for your brain.  But not corrosive, more like a guiltless pleasure.  By all means, enjoy it.

Engines 101

These are those strange things under the hood of the car – instead of a squirrel on a treadmill (though on some cars it seems that IS what’s pushing the car so damn slowly!). Very few cars have two (Citroen Deux Chevaux) or three (Geo Metro) cylinders, or as many as 16 (very old Cadillacs, with a V16, and the brand new Bugatti, with a W16). Most have 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12. (I won’t even get into rotary engines, as the Mazda RX-7 and RX-8 are the only cars with this type of engine).

Configuration. Either inline ("straight"), V (e.g. V6 or V8), or horizontally opposed ("flat"). The latter is most common with Volkwagen (flat 4 in the Beetle), Subaru, and Porsche (flat six in the 911). VW has introduced a W configuration (two V’s together) and Bugatti uses it with 16 cylinders to put out 1000 horsepower (!). The Sherman tank of WWII had a 30 cylinder engine consisting of 5 banks of inline 6s in a star formation. WWI and WWII fighter planes and bombers often had a radial engine: the cylinders arranged in a circle facing inward.

V8s. These are the kings of performance. Although Chevrolet had a V8 in 1916, the first commonly used and modified was the Ford flathead, debuting in 1932. It wasn’t until 1948 (Cadillac) and 1949 (Oldsmobile) that Ford had any real competition. And in 1955, Chevrolet released its small-block V8, which took the performance laurels away from Ford.

At Ford and Mopar (Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth) the company made a common family of V8s, though with separate small- and big-block variants; Ford alone had 4 different series, not counting Lincoln and MEL engines which dropped out in the 60s. Until 1982 each GM division – Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac – made its own V8s, and Chevrolet, Olds and Buick produced small- and big-block variants.

The top models were the Pontiac Ram Air 400s (I, II, III, IV, and V – the RA II is pictured above) and Super Duty 455 V8s, big block Chevy LS6 454, Buick 455 Stage 1, Olds Rocket 455, Ford 428 Cobrajet, the 426 Hemi and 440 Six Pack made by Mopar, and the AMC 401.

Displacement. Take 4/3 of PI, multiply it by the bore (cylinder diameter) squared, then by the stroke (distance the piston goes up and down the cylinder) and finally by the number of cylinders, and you have the displacement, either in cubic inches (CID) or liters (metric).

Nowadays almost all engines are measured in liters, with CID being talked about only with reference to V8s. Funny, we still use quarts and gallons here in the US, but our soft drinks are sold in 2 liter bottles! Most 4 cylinder engines displace around 1.5-2.5 liters, 6 cylinders between 2.8-4.3, and V8s somewhere from 4.0 all the way up to 8.0. The 6.0L V8 in the newer GTO and Corvette, then has three times the diplacement of the average 4 cylinder engine although it only has twice as many cylinders, and the 7.0L (427 CID) V8 in the Corvette Z06 – with 500 HP on tap – has even more.

Quite simply, the larger the displacement, the more power the engine can put out. Artificial means of introducing more air to the cylinders, such as nitrous oxide injection or super- or turbo-charging, can dramatically increase power and make an otherwise smaller engine act and behave with the power of a larger engine.

Displacement and horsepower gradually increased through the 60s, peaked in the early 70s, then took a nosedive when emissions and fuel economy standards were abruptly imposed by the Federal government, like the cops shutting down a raucous party on noise complaints. After scrambling to master emissions controls, developing EFI systems, and improving ignition systems, the car makers were finally able to satisfy Big Brother that they were doing their job to protect the atmosphere and keep fuel economy decent, and then turned to improving performance again. By the early 90s the horsepower figures (and to a lesser extent, displacements) finally returned to – and then quickly exceeded – those of the 60s.

This can get a bit confusing because some displacements are repeated by different companies. Chevy and Ford both make a 302 (5.0L); Chevy, Pontiac, Buick and Olds all make a 350 (5.7L) – and all 4 are completely different and do not interchange (with the new Dodge Hemi also displacing 5.7L); the same holds true with the 4 divisions’ 400 CID V8s, adding that both Ford and Mopar also make 400 CID V8s; Chevy and Ford both make a 427; Ford and Pontiac both make a 428; and Buick, Olds and Pontiac (B-O-P) all make a 455. AMC shared displacements with Chevy (327), Mopar (360), Ford (390), and Buick (401).

The largest was Cadillac, at 500 CID, but now Chevrolet has crate engines displacing 502, 540, and now 572 cubic inches.

HP vs. Torque. Horsepower is a measure of power over time, but gives a misleading impression of a engine’s street performance. Enthusiasts know to focus on torque, the twisting action which gets a car moving from a dead stop. Just as we prefer to think of 0-60 acceleration vs. top speed, torque is likewise a more relevant measure of real-life daily street driving. In this, V8s tend to shine the brightest. Observe that most 4 cylinder engines, even those with turbo, tend to put out as much torque as HP, whereas a V8 will put out 50% more torque than its level of HP.

Fuel Injection. Until the 50s, all cars were carbureted. A carburetor uses airflow through a venturi to "suck" fuel into an airstream, mixing it through various complicated mechanical subsystems (idle, acceleration, part-throttle, main circuit, cold start up/choke, etc.) to satisfy the engine’s various fuel demands. Carburetors are sized by "barrels" – one, two, and four being the most common, and performance V8s sometimes had six (three two barrels aka "Tri-Power" or "Six Pack") or eight ("dual quads" – e.g. the 426 Hemi).

By the 80s, carburetors were being electronically controlled but also phased out. Nowadays the only gas engines with carburetors are on lawn mowers, motorcycles, and other small devices – and vintage muscle cars. The famous Rochester QuadraJet (GM), Carter AFB (Mopar), and Holley (aftermarket) 4-barrel carburetors are still sold in various forms today for enthusiasts with older cars.

In the 50s mechanical fuel injection made its debut. Patterned somewhat off diesel systems, they appeared on Mercedes, Corvettes, and a handful of other cars. It was never popular and most mechanics had no idea how to service them. Many owners switched over to carburetors out of sheer frustration.

Bendix had attempted electronic fuel injection (EFI) in the 50s, only to be hampered by vacuum tube computer technology. They sold the rights to Bosch, which was able to make EFI a practical reality in the late 60s when transistors – and later integrated circuits – vastly improved computers. VW came out with the first EFI in 1968, Mercedes followed soon after in 1972, Cadillac in 1975, and in the early 80s Detroit and Japan began switching over. By the 90s the transition was complete, even on trucks.

Saabs, Volvos, VWs, Audis and Porsches often use a strange form of EFI called CIS (continuous injection system) wherein the injectors - one for each cylinder - are always open, and engine speed is controlled by increasing the fuel pressure. As odd as it sounds, it actually works pretty well.

The earlier form of EFI on US and Japanese cars was throttle body injection (TBI), which has a device of the same size and location as a carburetor, sitting on top of the intake manifold, with an injector or two squirting fuel for all cylinders. It's not particularly fancy or effective, but it's better than a carburetor. TBI is an intermittent system with engine speed changed by increasing or decreasing the pulsewidth of the injectors - how long they stay on spraying fuel before shutting closed again; the shortest pulsewidth at idle, increasing up to wide open throttle (WOT).

The usual EFI system these days - and used on all high performance applications - is port fuel injection, with intermittent injectors, one for each cylinder. Some are sequential port (injector fires for its cylinder on the intake stroke) others are batch fire (injectors fire in pairs), though like CIS, the batch fire system works surprisingly well in practice, with no noticeable difference in performance vs. a sequential port system.

The latest wrinkle in EFI development is cylinder deactivation, whereby certain cylinders are turned off at idle and part throttle and the full engine only turned on for full throttle – saving fuel without a noticeable decrease in power. Cadillac tried that in 1982 with its 8-6-4 engine, but the technology at the time was not good enough to do justice to the concept, which only recently became practical.

OHV vs. OHC. Overhead valve means the camshaft, which opens and closes the valves, is located in the engine block and uses pushrods and rocker arms to open the valves. Overhead cam means the camshaft is located on top of the cylinder head and operates on the valves directly or through followers. The major deal with OHC is that such engines are believed to breathe better – because they usually have four, instead of two, valves per cylinder – and thus offer more top end horsepower. Certainly many of the performance snob journalists at Motor Trend and similar magazines consider OHV to be obsolete. Yet GM and Mopar have proved with their more recent OHV V8s and V10s that OHC is NOT the only way to make substantial power, and OHV is by no means obsolete.

 There’s a lot going on under the hood, but it’s all fairly simple. And there IS a difference between a 4 cylinder and a V8, as I know every time I step on the gas...and fill up at the Sunoco station.

Summer of '84

It’s summer of 2007, as hot and humid as any other I can remember, and by now I’ve gone through almost 40.  But a few special summers stick out in my memory, and none more than this one: 1984.

 I had just finished sophomore year in high school in Paris, and most of my friends, including my best friend Phil, somehow chose that particular summer to have their families move away from Paris.  Fortunately we got home leave that summer, so we were able to spend about 6 weeks in the US, which for us was like heaven.  The night before the flight home was as exciting and difficult to sleep through as Christmas Eve.

 With our own house rented out, finding a place to stay was a challenge each time we returned.  This time we traded spaces with a family in DC, who had a small house off McArthur Blvd.  I was 15, my brother 14, and my sister was 9, but we were all much larger than the young children this family had, so the beds were all a bit on the small side.  Their “kitchen table” consisted of a booth from a subway car, about as large as the kiddie section of a McDonalds and way too cramped for a normal sized teenager.   They also had air conditioning, but with a huge Chinese bed on the ground floor (!) with really no practical purpose other than to block airflow through the ground floor of the house, the A/C didn’t work too well.   The kitchen had no glasses, only coffee mugs.  Finally, this was one of these Foreign Service families who had travelled all over the world and wanted EVERYONE who entered their tiny Bag End hovel to know it.  They decorated it like a travel museum – “this is where we’ve been!! aren’t we great??” – including the afore-mentioned bed in the living room.  With all the way-too-small crap of the entire house (built for hobbits!) what they really needed was a large, circular door to complete the Middle Earth connection.  Damn travel snobs.  Our own apartment in Paris was 3 times larger – these people clearly got the better end of the swap.  Returning to Paris and our own place was a rescue from claustrophobia. 

 The 1984 Olympics were going on in Los Angeles, and our relatives lived in McLean – in a normal sized house with properly functioning air conditioning and no Chinese bed – so we spent a considerable amount of time there.  We also watched lots of “Mork & Mindy” for some reason (don’t ask me why).  I didn’t pay a great deal of attention to the Olympics, even Mary Lou Retton’s perfect 10, as much because I generally don’t care for the Olympics anyway as for the absence of the Soviet Bloc because of their boycott. Interesting – Romania did NOT join the boycott, but Retton won anyway.  The Romanian women’s team did win the gold for the team competition, whereas the US men’s team won the gold.  For being smart enough to buck the trend (“80 percent of success is showing up” - Woody Allen), Ceaucescu’s gang cleaned up with 53 models, #2 after the US with 174.  The overall consensus even among Americans was that our stellar performance was only because so many countries who usually compete heavily with us (e.g. the USSR and East Germany) were absent.

 Reagan was President, Bush Sr. was Vice-President, and the upcoming November election would feature Walter Mondale & Geraldine Ferraro getting hosed big time (keep that in perspective when we see Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers!). 

 I got my first contact lenses, and had a devil of a time learning to take them out and put them in, but it was worth the effort.

 The trip started with a stay at the Howard Johnson’s hotel in Crystal City, where I got a massive sunburn, with the resulting days of unbearable itchiness.  D’oh!

 We met up with Phil, whose family was living in Greenbelt while they were waiting for their sea shipment to arrive from France; they would eventually move to Sterling.  This was notable as it was the first time we’d ever met any of the people we had originally met in Paris, in the US.  The place they were staying in had a VERY OLD black & white TV with a distorted picture tube.  More “dark brown and yellow” than black & white, and anything round, like an aspirin, looked more like an egg.  (“How do you remember this stuff??”)

 I was also doing lots of reading, in particular devouring, for the first time, H.P. Lovecraft (horror) and Michael Moorcock (fantasy).  We were also heavily into role-playing games at that time, so we got Stormbringer, which was Chaosium’s RPG for the Elric books.  I had bought Judas Priest’s albums Sad Wings of Destiny and Sin After Sin at the PX in Belgium prior to the trip, and Black Sabbath Master of Reality at Henderson Hall here in the US, so those three albums served as a musical backdrop for the horror stories and Elric saga.  Twisted Sister were big at this time, particularly their hit “We’re Not Gonna Take It” with the classic video featuring Niedermeyer from “Animal House” as the nasty father.  More magic, listening to that, reading that, in this stupid little hobbit house. 

 It was a great summer – and I STILL listen to those albums fairly often.  At least NOW I can drive....