Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1984 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on February 23, 1984.

World's Finest Comics #302: Grittier than usual cover this issue by Hannigan and Janson. A yacht full of rapidly decomposed corpses in Gotham is harbinger of a terrorist attack on Metropolis using a kryptonite-based plague. The mastermind demands a high ransom for the antidote, lest Gotham suffer the same fate. Superman barely escapes after having to crawl through the subway tunnels and gets to Gotham where he starts trying to find a cure while Batman does detective work in a race against time. 

The green plague and the yacht full of skeletons are pulpy details, like something out of a Norvell Page Spider novel. Kraft's story presents a problem it takes both Superman and Batman to solve without it being a cosmic-level threat, though Chen's and Marco's art gives the mystery of the mastermind's identity away by rendering him with a look that says "villain" from the moment he's introduced.

Action Comics #555: It's the 25th Anniversary of Supergirl's debut in Action Comics and all Kupperberg and Swan/Hunt got us was an appearance by the Parasite. The baddie returns to Earth, saps Superman's powers as he's wont to do, and traps Supes in an airtight prison with only minutes of breathable air. The ever-resourceful Superman uses the super- hard lenses of his glasses to cut through the side of the container, escapes, and then hypnotizes the Parasite into restoring his super-powers. After he imprisons Parasite, he goes to meet Supergirl, fulfilling the anniversary requirement of this issue.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #19:  Kupperberg and Duursema pick up with our heroes still reeling from the drowning of Khe-Wannatu. There's little time for grief, though, because Garn Danuuth isn't done. He summons the dark god, Thalas, and Arion and the Golden Goddess Deedra must do battle with them. Deedra turns Garn to gold and she and Thalas leave this plane, but poor Arion is left underwater to drown. He's saved by Fawndancer, Wyynde's wife, who has somehow been transformed into a mermaid.

I perhaps don't comment enough on what a unique comic Arion is. It's very much Dr. Strange meets Conan with some elements from literary high fantasy of the era thrown in. I think it has some of the problems of Dr. Strange, like not well defining what magic can do and how it works leading to a lot of "the solution is this thing we've just introduced this issue" and the weaknesses of trying to adapt high fantasy (a genre that traditionally engages in a lot of rigorous worldbuilding) to the comics approach of making it up as we go. It is an interesting experiment, though.

All-Star Squadron #33: Thomas and Hoberg/Collins deliver a split story.  On Earth-X, Uncle Sam and the nascent Freedom Fighters battle a Japanese attack on Santa Barbara only to come face to face with Baron Blitzkrieg who has Hourman in a deathtrap. On Earth-Two, Firebrand and Johnny Quick meet Neptune Perkins, while Starman and Liberty Belle spy on a meeting of Japanese Americans where Tsunami tries to get them to join the Japanese cause. When they refuse, she lashes out, injuring her own father.

Meanwhile, The Spectre is still being held between worlds by the command of the Voice. He tries to get back to Earth-Two but finds his efforts are threatening to draw both Earth-Two and Earth-X together--and maybe destroy them both.

Detective Comics #538: Moench and Colan/Smith bring a mildly amusing follow up to this month's Batman. Collins, Catman's former cellmate, is allowed to break out of prison so he can lead Batman and the police to the loot from his last heist. He steals Catman's costume, and thinks it's giving him nine lives, but it's really Batman secretly helping him out of danger. After a cave in, Batman finds the loot, but Catman winds up in the Batcave, where a weary Batman confronts him and beats the hell out of him.

In a more somber Green Arrow backup by Cavalieri and McManus/Marcos, we get parallel stories of Ollie taking down a gunrunner, Jacaruso, while remembering three years ago how he was to have an interview with a famous musician (heavily implied to be John Lennon) only to have the musician killed in front of him just before. Interestingly, Ollie is referred to as a "gonzo journalist" in this story.

Jonah Hex #84: Hex buys some new guns and heads down to New Orleans on a job to protect the beautiful daughter, Adrian, of a wealthy man from a kidnapping scheme. The girl falls for Hex, naturally, and her fiance is, naturally, not happy about it. They are jumped at Mardi Gras and Hex and Adrian are taken, but ultimately Hex gets them out. The cowardly fiance is out, and now Adrian plans to marry Hex.

Meanwhile, we see Hart and Mei Ling, and Jonah's son who somehow looks about 6 now. Then there's Emmy Lou, still being held captive by the robber, whose advances she keeps spurning.

Nathaniel Dusk #4: McGregor and Colan come to the conclusion, which feels a bit abrupt, but that's not uncommon for the detective genre. Dusk escapes a death by ferry propellor and gets out of the river. He's figured out his friendly corner newsstand owner has been informing on him to the mob. After he confronts that guy, he goes to meet Joyce's mother. She reveals that Joyce was married to an abusive mobster who have never accepted she ran away from him. The blonde goon greets Dusk as he leaves the old woman's apartment, and he's again treated to a deathtrap with an injection of rat poison. After a night in the hospital, he goes to confront the mobster. Blondie accidentally kills his boss in the conflict, then Dusk sets the guy's curly hair on hair in the scuffle. 

Some have complained there isn't a whole lot of mystery here, just "scuffles and chases," which is true, but this is a detective story, so I don't think it's out of bounds. At worst, it's one twist short. I would agree the story is slight for the run time and is filled with action set pieces. It's a level of action more akin to 70s film and TV shows than a reflection of pulp fiction gumshoes, and the ending the first 3 issues on a cliffhanger feels like movie serials. 

New Adventures of Superboy #53: A lot going on this issue, but the first thing to notice is how different Schaffenberger looks under Giella's inks. After their first assault on Earth fails, aliens from Drulok ally themselves with the Superboy Revenge Squad against Superboy, but that doesn't come to a whole lot this issue. While dealing with these aliens, Clark has to deal with Lana making a play for him in jealousy over his relationship with Lisa. Councilman and profiteer Gary Simmons escalates his attempts to keep Jonathan Kent from running for political office by taking a hit out on him.

Ronin #5: I had almost forgotten this series was still going. Anyway, the Ronin and Casey get closer, and she begins to be able to see things the way he does. For instance, Virgo's new robot soldiers appear as demonic samurai. Meanwhile, McKenna thinks he has pieced most of it together: Billy's telekinetic powers were greater than anyone, but Virgo knew. He created this Ronin identity from TV shows he saw as a child. But what's Virgo after, and what's her role? Five issues in Miller has really established his own style and the influence of European comics and Japanese manga seems more subsumed into his vision.

Setting Presentation Again

 Not for the first time, I've been thinking about the best presentation style for setting material. This time it was prompted by re-reading the Greyhawk Folio and noting it's ergodic nature. While I'm partial to the format I used in Strange Stars, it is very picture heavy and probably works better for science fiction than for fantasy. I am fond of the approach Jack Shear took in Krevborna and here's an attempt at the Holy See of Medegia (which I've covered before. Sorry!) presented in a format that borrows a bit from that and a bit from other places like Fabula Ultima and Strange Stars OSR.

MEDEGIA

The Holy See of Medegia

Theocrat fiefdom ruled by a corrupt cleric allied to the Overking of Aerdy

While nominally still the supreme religious authority in the Aerdi lands, the Holy Censor has seen his clerical authority decline with the weakening of the Great Kingdom, even as his temporal power has increased over holdings granted and seized around the city of Mentrey. The Censor remains an ally to the Malachite Throne, if a cautious one, he cares little for the moral or temporal restoration of Aerdy so long as he can continue to fill his own coffers.

Aesthetics: High-spired temples; imposing and stern marble statues of Lawful gods; clergy dressed in finery, the poor groveling for alms outside the temple doors; swaggering mercenaries in livery of the temples, chained debtor in public stocks

Locales: forbidden, hidden library of the Holy See, reliquary with the remains of saints of heroes, secret site to worship chaos gods in the forest

People:

• Spidasa, His Equitable Nemesis, Holy Censor of Medegia. Unimaginative as he is venal and grasping.
• Sister Hildegrund, Imposing, scarfaced former paladin with a vow to aid the poor. Abbess of a hospital in Pontylver.
• Captain Ribaldo Belswagger, Captain of the City Guard, mustachioed dandy who is always looking for a bribe.
• Delienn Goodfellow, Wood elf bandit, Robin Hood-type figure to the rural peasantry.

So with this I was looking to convey the basics of the area so that a DM could understand it quickly and know how to convey it features in game. I also wanted adventure seeds to immediately come to mind. I probably would even suggest some possibilities, but I also want to keep it short. The bit of history paraphrasing the Folio might be unnecessary, but I feel like it helps the entirety of the setting cohere, maybe.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1984 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics that were published February 16, 1984, the week of my eleventh birthday.

Warlord #81: This was the only issue from this birthday week for me that I bought on the stands. I discussed the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and friends move toward a mysterious, more technologically advanced city. She discovered Barasha was educated there for a time in his youth. Lurking nearby, however, is a Qlov scouting party.

Batman and the Outsiders #10: Lightle/Trapani take over art this issue. Black Lightning is a prisoner and meets the woman that arranged his capture: the mother of Trina Shelton, the young woman whose death resulted from his actions. Faced with his obvious guilt and remorse over what happened, Mrs. Shelton begins to have second thoughts about the whole "hiring supervillains to execute someone" thing.

The Outsiders come looking for their comrade. Batman gets into the Masters of Disaster's hideout in the guise of Matches Malone. The others stage a full-on assault. During the ensuing battle, the repentant Mrs. Shelton jumps in the way of a blast fired by Heatstroke, taking the blast meant for Black Lightning. The Masters are routed, and the heroes go home.

Green Lantern #176: Wein and Gibbons/Giordano continue the story from last issue. Jordan's body is in a coma and is rushed to the hospital. Meanwhile, his intellect is trapped inside the Shark's mind, as are the Shark's other victims. The Shark is toying with them before he consumes them, but Jordan still has access to his power ring's energy and manages to hold him at bay for a time. His ring's charge will on last so long, though, but luckily Carol figures out it might help and brings the power battery to Hal's semi-conscious body and coaxes him into recharging his ring. He floods the Shark's mind with green energy and frees all the captives. Then, GL has to stop the Shark from getting more radioactive material in the physical world. In the melee, the Shark appears to die in an explosion.

Meanwhile Congressman Bloch calls the Monitor, unaware Smith from Con-Trol is spying on him.  The Monitor agrees to help Bloch and calls in the Demolition Team. At Ferris Aircraft, Rich Davis and Bruce Gordon are discussing the new solar-engine powered jet. Richard is still having chest pain and dismissing it. Bruce finds a threatening note under his blueprints and assumes it comes from Bloch.

Infinity, Inc. #2: The Thomases and Ordway/Machlan finish off the origin of the team and get them up to the point of their first appearance in All-Star Squadron. While the newcomers argue about their next move, Brainwave, Jr. crashes the JSA setting and gets into a fight with them, leading Star-Spangled Kid to make a decision. He forms a team, Infinity, Inc., and invites the six newcomers Power Girl, and the Huntress to join. After that Ultra-Humanite blasts them, and then the events that lead to All-Star Squadron #25 occur. 

This is kind of an odd way to introduce a new team. Ending a two-issue arc with a sort of "now you know the rest of the story" doesn't really build moment for the next issue and provides a convenient jumping off point. I think it might have been better to start after the All-Star issues and flashback to how they came together.

Legion of Super-Heroes #311: There are two stories in this issue. In the first by Levitz, Brainiac 5 has a showdown Computo, whose mind he's trying to separate from Danielle Foccart's body. He succeeds and gets a new Legion HQ in the process, but he has to blow the old one up first. The story plays lighter than most and Giffen's art brings the humor to the fore.

The second story has art by Colan and Mahlstedt. Wildfire goes in search of Dawnstar, who is still on her cultural proscribed quest for a soulmate. We get to see Dawnstars homeworld and her people, at least briefly. In the end, Dawnstar decides Wildstar is what she is looking for at least in terms of love and friendship, despite his lack of a physical body.

New Talent Showcase #5: The cover feature of this issue is Dragon Knights by Scianna and Scarborough who don't seem to have done anything else beyond this. It's a fantasy that aims at a bit of whimsy, I think, with somewhat cartoony art, but while there may be a kernel of something here it's amateurish. There's a quest in the offing, a brother and sister raised by a wizard must find the Dragon Knights to stop the big bad.

The most accomplished story this issue is "Moon River" a science fiction tale that I wonder if was originally submitted for one of DC's anthology titles and inventoried. It's a clearly Logan's Run-inspired story of a dystopian future, would-be escapees, and animal themed hunters. It marks the debut of Mindy Newell, who will go on to do a lot of work at DC and at First, and Cara Sherman-Tereno, who has a short-listed of credits, but still got work throughout the 80s at DC and First.

We also catch up with Feral Man (Ringgenberg and Carlson) and Ekko (Margopoulos and Lightle). Ekko continues to read like an indie supers title maybe based on someone's Champions campaign with the number of costumed characters it introduces every installment, but it has the most polished art with Lightle's accomplished use of screentone. The primetime supers conspiracy story of Feral Man probably has the better story of the two by a hair (heh), but its art is notably less accomplished.

Sgt. Rock #388: Pretty standard stuff. In the main story by Kanigher and Redondo, a little Arab girl takes a liking to Bulldozer after he gives her some chocolates and warns Easy of bandits robbing corpses of equipment to sell on the black market. When the raiders come after her in reprisal, Bulldozer defeats them in a firefight but is unable to save the girl. The second story by Harris and Lindsey is one of those "impaired soldier scared and alone is guided to safety by a voice on a communication device, only to later find the device didn't work and there was no one there." Sometimes this sort of plot is an implied ghost story, but this one ends with no ready explanation.

Supergirl #19: Linda Danvers is watching TV with her friend when she's startled to see Supergirl on it. She decides to go confront this imposter, but discovers she no longer has her kryptonian powers! Meanwhile, Supergirl keeps having fleeting thoughts of another identity she doesn't quite remember. Ultimately, it turns out that the Linda Danvers is actually formed from the diminutive Supergirl clones that Supergirl depowered a few issues ago. The real Supergirl gets her memory and identity restored and the clone is promised a life of her own. 

Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner deliver a short of off-beat story that, for its unusualness, is one of the most interesting in the series so far. It does share some similarities, at least in concept, with a Spider-Man story by Flanagan/Butler from What If? #30 (1981).

Saga of Swamp Thing #24: Despite the cover, Moore and Bissette/Totleben use the JLA in what amounts to a cameo. The Floronic Man announces his intentions to the world. He's going to have plants pump out oxygen to force humanity to abandon fire or destroy themselves. The JLA debates what to do, but isn't able to come up with a solution that could stop him when he has the Earth's plant-life on his side. Thankfully, Swamp Thing is here to break his arm, then point out that he's harming the Green and is acting just like another human. The plants reject him, and Woodrue is forced to flee, then is captured by the League to take to Arkham. Swamp Thing reveals to Abbie what he now knows of his origin and tells her he is at last happy.

Postcards from the Flanaess

 In thinking about Greyhawk for my recent posts, I've been inspired by Anna Meyer's great maps. Particularly her climate map which has challenged me to consider locations in the context of not just their historical European cultural inspirations, but their often not-European climate.

Ket

I didn't mention it in my post on Ket, but Meyer places it in the Dfa (humid continental) region which would make it like much of the American Midwest, perhaps Nebraska as pictured above.

Perrenland

Greyhawk's Switzerland Meyer puts in the Bsk (cold, semi-arid) Köppen climate region. Something like Denver or Boulder CO would be similar.

Lordship of the Isles

On Meyer's map, these islands fall into the Cfa (humid subtropical) region like the American Southeast or Bermuda. Given that they are in the tropics, though, I wonder if they might be better represented by Cuba or the Florida Keys and be mostly tropical savanna (Aw)

Keoland

Though the U1 describes the area of Saltmarsh being like the coast of Southern England, its location would put it in a climate region Af (tropical rainforest). 

Greyhawk: Ket

Ket sits astride a major route of commerce between the Oeridian East and the Baklunish West. Its people are a mixture of those cultures, though the ruling class is generally drawn from the descendants of Baklunish horse lords. Ketite leaders have sometimes been bellicose in their rhetoric, but one neighbor or the other, but they have seldom sought to impede the follow of trade through the region, so long as taxes are paid. They defend their territory zealously, however.

It is perhaps in the name of balancing their neighbors that the upper classes have adopted the so-called True Faith, a religion of the broad Lawful tradition but distinct from the predominant denominations of either East or West. Adherents hold to the mystic teachings of a succession of five prophets, each associated with a heavenly body and an age in human history. The faithful seek to escape the cycle of reincarnation and ascend to the plane of Law by emulating the prophets.

Wednesday Comics: DC, May 1984 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm reviewing the comics released on the week of February 9, 1984. 

Batman #371:  Moench and Newton/Alcala bring back Catman, who we last saw about a year ago. He's been in an apparent catatonic state in jail for months, but the mention of a cat-related exhibit at the Gotham Museum snaps him out of it. He makes a bet with his cellmate, Collins, that if he escapes, steals the cat idol, and defeats Batman, then Collins must tell him where the loot he stashed from a heist is. If he fails, he will give Collins his Catman outfit which he believes gives a person nine lives. (The comics have always been ambiguous on whether it's truly magical or not. An appearance a few years ago suggested it was, but it's unclear.) Collins takes the bet, and Catman indeed escapes and reacquires his costume. The portrayal of Catman here is a bit crazier than we've seen him before. He sort of obsesses over words with "cat" in them viewing them as signs or omens and using them as clues to lure Batman. Moench goes a bit over the top putting those words in the story.

In the end, Catman is defeated by Batman and Robin. In a twist, Batman pulls victory from the jaws of defeat by using a carved wooden bat when a museum case was broken, so he beats Catman at his own game.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fang plans to fix a boxing match and win big, and Julia answers the phone at Wayne Manor, leading Vicki Vale to erroneously conclude Bruce is back to his playboy ways.

On the subject of Batman, you should check out my recent post on the Flashback Universe linking to O'Neil's Bat-Bible from 1989.

Tales of the Teen Titans #42: Wolfman and Perez arrive at perhaps their most lauded arc: "The Judas Contract." This issue is mostly setup. We see the Titans going about their daily lives: Donna getting ready for her wedding, Cyborg and his girlfriend in the park ice skating, Kory and Donna sparring which leads to Gar picking on Tara and enraging the girl to surprising violence. Someone is taking surveillance photos of them during all this time. Slade castigates Tara for losing her temper worrying the Titans might begin to suspect her, but Tara is sure all but Raven are completely fooled--and she plans to take care of Raven personally.

Elsewhere an unknown woman and young man monitor Slade and Tara's activities. The woman is surprised that she was able to get close enough to Slade to photograph him. She says, "Slade, it's been a long time. But not long enough for you."

Arak Son of Thunder #33: It's not often creators continue a book after their protagonist died, but that's exactly the point where the Thomases and Randall/Maygar pick up. Of course, we know Arak isn't going to stay dead, but he's in the afterlife here, his spirit ascending a mountain to come face-to-face with He-No, god of thunder and his father. He's gets the "how I met your mother" story from his old man, then we get details of Arak's childhood. Many of the Quontauka believed he was the son He-No's enemy, the Serpent, not the thunder god, a suspicion made worse when teen Arak was forced to reveal his recurrent dreams about the serpent destroying his tribe and only him surviving. He's sent to contemplate the meaning of these dreams on a high peak, and while he is gone, they turn to horrible reality as the People of the Serpent attack and slaughter the Quontauka, including Arak's mother. 

He-No gives Arak a feathered mantle and asks him to join him in godhood, but Arak refuses and demands to be sent back to Earth, even if it means that he will die. He-No grants his son's wish, but bars Arak from ever returning to the mountain top. Arak then finds himself alive again in the valley with a feather in his hand.

Flash #333: A trio of disparate people break into the Flash Museum and vandalize it before setting it on fire. Then they report to their mysterious master who releases them from his control, so they return to their lives with no memory of what they've done. Fiona appears to be making progress in psychiatric treatment by getting over Barry. Some criminal types happen to threaten her therapist while she's there, and the Flash has to show up to save her life. The Flash meets with Peter's partner, Cecile Horton who agrees to take his case, but also admits that she hates him! 

G.I. Combat #265: I wonder if DC editorial felt World War II might be holding their war books back. Kanigher at least has shown some desire to branch out. The Mercenaries are back this month with art by Vic Catan, and the trio is captured in North Africa by agents of the French Foreign Legion who transport them to face their punishment as deserters. They wind up escaping in the end, of course. The Kana story with art by Cruz continues his psychic sojourn to the past and so is to all appearances a story of ninja and samurai in feudal Japan.

The O.S.S. story of two master spies (the Falcon and Falke) trying to get the best of each other is in WWII, as is the single Haunted Tank story that sees Stuart's Raiders making good on the last request of their fallen comrade Slim by being his stand-ins as godfather to a child being christened in a French town.

Omega Men #14: Klein takes over as writer with Smith/Villagran on art. Primus is drowning his self-pity in drink, so Tigorr contrives to snap him out of it with a trip to his homeworld of Karna, but an attack by the bounty hunter, Bedlam, cause them to crash. They are forced to trek across the dangerous wilderness to civilization with Bedlam chasing them. By the time they get there, Primus has rallied a bit and returns the favor to Tigorr by defending him to Karna's Supreme Commander.

Meanwhile on Rashashoon, Harpis still isn't better, so they try a frankly bizarre sequence of medical and possibly psychic procedures to heal her. Somehow, she manages to summon back her wings that Bedlam had previously removed.

Star Trek #4: The Exacalibans reveal their plans to Kirk and Kor: They felt their first contest of good and evil left the question unsettled, so they have maneuvered the Federation and the Empire into conflict, so they have a war as data. Kor objects that the Klingons aren't evil, but Kirk tries to get him to stay focused on stopping the war. Kor's crew and Kirk's are forced to an uneasy alliance as they figure out a way to punch through the Excalibans' barrier around Organia. There, Kirk presents the Excalibans with an even better experiment: they can themselves participate in the contest, to experience a clash of good and evil firsthand. They can be "good," and if they release the Organians, they can be "evil." The Excalibans agree, and the Organians immediately attack their former captors, and all of them vanish, apparently freeing the denizens of the own galaxy to chart their own moral future.

Barr has crafted a good story here with a solution that is authentically Trek (and prefigures the resolution of the conflict of the Shadows and Vorlons in Babylon 5 Season 4 in 1997). He also frees up some storytelling possibilities by removing the Organian Peace Treaty.

Superman #395: Maggin and Swan/Hunt follow the Superman formula in this era of presenting a problem and having it look like the villains are going to win, then revealing Superman had more information than he let on. But that aside, the thumbnail review of this one reveals it's craziness, to paraphrase this guy: Some Vikings send Superman into the Dagobah cave in an initiation ritual, then he fights ersatz Soviets (who want to elect a humor writer president of the U.S.) and giant robots.

The villainous compatriots (whose symbol is a hammer on blue) made a device that can bind reality but only with a suitable human conduit, and Bucky Berns just happens to be that person. Superman is aware something is amiss but only have his initiation ritual is able to figure out what to do about it. Then he defeats the villains without ever meeting them and presumably they slink off to plot again. 

Vigilante #6: Wolfman and Patton/Marcos spend a lot of this issue dealing with J.J.'s escape from the cops with a stolen ambulance and getting Adrian to medical treatment. This might be tense and engaging in film, but it's kind of dull on the comics page, particularly when the outcome is known. Adrian, of course, survives and manages to slip the noose the police are trying to put around him. However, Arthur Hall's "profile" of Vigilante spells trouble, as Adrian very much would be on his list of suspects. During Adrian's convalescence we get some flashbacks to his perhaps recruitment by a mysterious woman who also shares his healing power after the death of his family.

While all this is going on, all the mob bosses in the city are called to a meeting where the Controller (flanked by his Exterminator robots which one attendee suggests come from the Monitor) announces that he is, well, taking control.

HarnMaster Kethira

I've long been a bit of the Hârn rpg setting, but recently a I decided to look at the latest iteration of the HârnMaster rpg system, HârnMaster Kethira. It's from Kelestia Productions and came out last year.

I convinced one of my two Sunday evening groups to give it a try. We used the pregens from the free starter adventure they have plus one character I generated, and I ran the group through a ranged and then melee combat just to jump right into the system where it is likely the most complicated.

In brief, HârnMaster in all its iterations is a system very interested in realism and simulation of the lineage of the likes of Runequest and Chivalry & Sorcery.  Like those games it's a skills system, mostly resolving tasks with a percentile, roll-under system. It also has graduated success and several different iterations of how those degrees of success are used. In fact, like other games of this type from the 80s (which is when the original HârnMaster was released), many skills have sort of their own "minigame" in the sense that the resolving rolls may vary slightly (variations on a theme, in general) and the skill-specific results require consultation of a chart table often.

The rulebook is lucidly written and there were very few places compared to other games where the meaning of the rules was unclear or ambiguous. But there are a lot of rules. Particularly for melee combat where there are rolls for attack, defense, hit location and specific area, damage based on weapon type, armor as damage reduction, and then hit location-specific injury and shock rolls.

In the test I ran, the four PCs encountered seven gargun (orcs, roughly). This was admittedly probably more of a D&Dish encounter setup as opposed to a typical Harn one, but it was just a test and one I wanted to take up most of the session time. Mission accomplished in that regard!

The PCs eventually maimed enough gargun that the little guys broke and ran (stumbled or crawled mostly), but they kept getting really lucky morale rolls, so it took longer than it probably would on average. I also probably forgot to include some modifiers or effects in some places that might have made it quicker, but once I started to get the procedure done, if was more the toggling between screens of reference that took up time. It really needs a GM's screen or even better a VTT implementation!

Despite the learning curve and the length of the combat, I do like things about the system and want to run it again. I think it likely works best where combats are rarer and/or shorter, but I think the robustness of the rules support all sorts of other activities from wilderness travel to social activities to crafting.