Spawn of Fashan

Favorite Of Loonies

You Know, From The Old Munchkins/Roleplayers/Loonies List?

From Usenet?

Get Offa My Interwebs, You Damn Punk Kids!

Dragon 60 came out in 1982. I was still in High School, in an era when people fretted over the President’s age, feared Russian expansionism, dealt with a 3.4% inflation rate, and pundits warned over the dangers of children and teens using computers. So, a totally different era, with nothing in common with our own. Anyway, along with an article on genderfluid elven deities (yes, really, D&D was “woke” in 1982, for some values of “woke”), there was a review of a game called “Spawn of Fashan”, which described it, possibly very snidely, as a parody of role-playing games, based on the extreme complexity, non-existent indexing/contents, unusual tables for individualizing characters, and a bad case of Silly Name Syndrome.

But was it?

In the edition I have (a reprint of the 1981 edition that sold 17 copies at Denvention II), there is a foreword wherein the author explains that while they try to mix humor into their work, the game was not intended as satire. I can get behind that: Earth Delta is not satire, and I try to make it a mechanically solid game that can support extended play and serious themes, if desired, but it also has tumblebleeds, plenty of sarcastic asides and footnotes, and dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark, they shoot bees at you.

That only 17 copies sold is probably why it was nigh-impossible to find a copy for sale anywhere. Apparently, there was also a 1999 reprint that I missed. That edition was spurred by the popularity of references to Spawn of Fashan on the early Internet, mostly in Usenet memes, which took the form of text lists, not pictures. One such, preserved here, includes items like:

Favorite 1920's RPG: 
    *Real Men* play Gangbusters 
    *Real Roleplayers* play Call of Cthulhu 
    *Loonies* play a variant Spawn of Fashan 
    *Munchkins* play anything by TSR
Favorite SHRPG:
    *Real Men* play Champions
    *Real Roleplayers* play Superworld
    *Loonies* play an extremely variant Spawn of Fashan
    *Munchkins* play anything by TSR
Favorite modern day/spy RPG:
    *Real Men* play James Bond, 007
    *Real Roleplayers* play Justice, Inc.
    *Loonies* play an unrecognizable variant Spawn of Fashan
    *Munchkins* play anything by TSR
Favorite King Arthurian RPG:
    *Real Men* play Chivalry and Sorcery
    *Real Roleplayers* play Pendragon
    *Loonies* play an extremely unrecognizable variant of Spawn of Fashan
    *Munchkins* play anything by TSR

(Please note, BTW, that veneration of TSR… sorry, “T$R”… as some sort of gamer-focused, greed-free, etc., business only began after WOTC bought them out, when grognards put on their rose-colored, backwards-facing glasses. When T$R was publishing D&D, it was widely criticized for corporate greed, monopolization, and poor rules design, as well as pandering to Hollywood and appeasing social pressure groups. Nothing ever changes.)

But enough of this! The author’s explanation of their means, motives, and opportunity for creating Spawn of Fashan are not really relevant to the game itself, which is the text we shall be interrogating, ideally under hot lights.

Let’s Get Rolling!

Dice, That Is!

Hedrons!

We get about a half-column of setting info, where we learn that “tens of hundreds” of years ago, no one had coined the word “thousands”. And we’re on the 4th planet of the Extra-Harvest (yes, really) system, that fell to a Terrible War that Was full Of Randomly capitalized Words.

Spawn of Fashan is based on an unpublished epic fantasy series, the Annals of Fashan. Since the worlds players will create are not Fashan itself, but merely like Fashan, they are the “spawn of Fashan”. Well, OK, then. We then get some of the usual criticisms of AD&D, which are basically criticisms of class/level systems in general: All 5th level fighters have roughly the same abilities. (This has become much less true in D&D since 3.0, to be fair.) We then get the usual “our game is more realistic” boilerplate, noting armor penetration rules, fatigue, emotional NPCs, and so forth. It also “succeeds in keeping the rules simple”, something I will be judging as I go.

Fashanistas, Transform And Roll Out!

We Roll Out Characters Here. Not Roll Up.

I Think It Should Be ‘Carryable’, But I’m Not Sure

On the left, the “Terms Used” in this section. This is actually kinda useful. Door Modifier? Probably for “Bashing In” purposes. It’s interesting how long it took for RPGs to just have a general Strength-type check, vs. a door-specific check.

First, I choose the “Area of the World” I want to be in. This presumes a GM has made a map. I’ll use the map in the book and pick “Crumbudz”, in the “Inner Human Habitation Zone”. I also pick my sex, so I’ll go with male, as I suspect this is one of those “realistic” games where female characters are realistically given a lot of realistic burdens/disadvantages, which is why they realistically never got within a hundred feet of the realistic basements 1980s gamers dwelled in.

The referee (me) rolls for PARENTS CHOICE. The player (also me) rolls for CHILDHOOD CHOICE.

(While looking for those charts, I found that if you choose FEMALE, you roll half-dice for Strength, Constitution, and hit points; your advancement for Str and Con are also halved; you increase your Charisma dice by one-half, and you have “Intuition”, which is evidently described under “Destiny” on the “Mental Illness Table”. Hoo, boy.)

Anyway, still looking for the chart. Apparently, it’s the “Boosboodle Inner Human Chart”, which determines my parents’ occupations? I rolled a 95, which is “Warrior”. I’m not 100% sure this is the correct chart, as the rules note that “Misfit” is a possible result, and “Misfit” isn’t on this chart! I then choose a CHILDHOOD CHOICE for my character type. I’ll follow in my parents’ footsteps and choose ‘Mercenary’. This produces a bunch of specific rules and options, such as which tables I roll various attributes on.

Now, I must write down these ten words: “Longing,” “rusted,” “furnace,” “daybreak,” “seventeen,” no, wait…

Strength
Dexterity
Reflexes
Constitution
Intelligence
Charisma
Courage
Courage
Courage
Senses

I am to underline all of them except the last two Courages, which I have done. Yes, you write Courage three times.

Abilities are rolled as 5d6, take the 4 highest, in order. I only roll for the underlined ones.

Strength 17
Dexterity 20
Reflexes 17
Constitution 17
Intelligence 17
Charisma 17
Courage 16
Courage
Courage
Senses 14

I wasn’t supposed to pick my profession when I did; I was supposed to look at Parents’ Choice and Childhood Choice and then pick whichever best fit my stats. The bell curve of 5d6, keep 4 seems to be pretty steep, but my physical abilities aren’t too shabby, so “Mercenary” still fits.

Fleshing Out

The above are the “bones” of the character; now I add the “flesh”, which consists of rolling on several random tables.

Eh, I’ll do this some other time. So this has become a “Part 1”.