OSR 30 Day Probation – 25 to 29

25 Fave Magic Item

A well-played Runesword is without doubt my favorite magic item. I stress “well-played” because all too often rune weapons are run poorly by DMs who don’t want to strip away a player’s agency. Taking Michael Moorcock’s Stormbringer as the model for the runeblade, we see that making the hero a pawn of fate is exactly what a runesword is intended to do. This is why in D&D runeweapons had their own Intelligence and powers the DM was supposed to keep secret from the players and use to undermine and manipulate them. The French rpg Bloodlust actually has the weapons themselves as characters, while even games like Stormbringer and the old Palladium FRPG had better depictions of the duplicity and menace of rune weapons. Basically, if a player is happy to get a rune weapon, you’re running it wrong.

26 Fave Nonmagic Item

Iron spikes, how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways:

Stopping doors for sleep at night

Or opening them to let in light

Dropped down a well to gauge a fall

Tapped in at intervals for climbing walls

For picking locks with DM’s permission

Or thrown to get rust monster attention

These examples are but a few

Of the reasons why I do love you

27 Character You Want To Play in Future

I’ve never sat down and just played a mage. This is partly because I dislike the vulnerability at lower levels, and partly because I find the D&D spell system an unwieldy and Byzantine nightmare. I figure that although my impressions are correct in general, I may have missed out on some insights by not having given the mage its due. I guess that’s my New Year’s resolution – play a mage in the next game of D&D I sit down at.

Whenever that will be. Sigh…

28 Character You Will Never Play Again

Probably a ranger, because although I love the IDEA of the class, the execution always leaves something to be desired. Either his outdoor skills are useless in the dungeon, or he’s out of his element in the city, or on another plane, etc etc. I once played a ranger who was a failed druid, and that is now how I always see rangers – nature lovers who were just not good enough to unlock the mystical bond with nature they needed to protect it.

29 The Number You Always Roll on a d20

Thirteen or twenty, rarely anything in between. Sounds like my life – some unlucky setbacks, no major fails to date, and the occasional big win.

Hoorah!