Snarking The Odyssey (with AD&D)

WARNING: Those of you who are accustomed to pithy political remarks here on Internal Monologue should brace yourselves for a major dose of gaming geekitude.

Here's a link to one "Jamie R." who does a very snarky close reading of Homer's The Odyssey (HT: Mad Latinist via email). I've only read book 1, but it's pretty funny so far. An excerpt:

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men…

Sooooo, he’s in charge, and everybody dies. Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero and his colossal failure. What?

… for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home.

Ah, okay. Well, whaddya gonna do? I think if the Sun God is against you, you’re pretty well fucked. I’m not going to go dig out my old Deities and Demigods or anything, but I’m sure any respectable solar-powered immortal is going to have like 400 hps and a Mace of Smiting at the very least. I’m prepared to grade Odysseus on effort.

Actually, I don't think Hyperion made it into the 1st Edition Deities & Demigods. (His pivotal role in killing off Odysseus' crew apparently did not impress Mr. Gygax much.) That's the one in which the heads of pantheons (e.g. Zeus, Odin) had 400 hit points, so I assume that's the one Jamie R. is referring to. (Hyperion is definitely not in the 3rd Edition Deities and Demigods.)

Even if Hyperion was included in the earlier book, I doubt they'd make him more than a lesser god, so he wouldn't have 400 hp anyway. He could definitely have a mace of smiting, even though such an item didn't actually exist in 1st Edition, or subsequent editions for that matter, if I recall correctly. And I won the AD&D rules trivia contest at GenCon in 1992, so when I say "If I recall correctly" when referring do D&D rules, I'm probably right. There was a Rod of Smiting, and a Mace of Disruption, so perhaps Jamie R. is referring to one of those items, but as the former was particularly useful against golems, and the latter useful against undead, Odysseus would have had little to fear from either weapon, being neither a golem nor undead (his journey to the underworld and subsequent return notwithstanding).

I do remember the 1st Edition Deities & Demigods did have statistics for Odysseus. I think they gave him high intelligence and high charisma, as well as an 18/00 strength. Despite these good stats, he was no match for a lesser god, so Jamie R.'s point that Odysseus was pretty fucked in any direct confrontation with Hyperion is valid in D&D terms, despite Jamie's imprecise memory of specific aspects of the game.

The 3rd Edition version of Deities and Demigods doesn't have stats for heroes, which is too bad, because I think the 3.5 rules could do a better job of capturing what's cool about Odysseus than could earlier versions of the game. He'd certainly have very high Diplomacy and Bluff checks.

Anyway, I didn't find any more D&D references in the Jamie R. piece, but it's fun to read in any case.