Old School OSR

Remember the OSR when it started?

When it was nameless?

When you copied and pasted every cool idea or table because you’d be afraid it’d all disappear?

When there were a few cobbled together D&D hacks but no true retro-clones yet?

When the Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope or Chogwiz were your daily reads?

Before anybody had made a dime off the thing?

When people who disliked 4e were considered lame or behind the times?

When rpg.net was still readable?

Before Pathfinder existed?

When Gary and Dave were still alive?

When people wrote as much about Traveler or Stormbringer or GURPS as they did about D&D?

When people fretted about the OGL and what WotC would do?

Not saying anything is better or worse, just remembering a time, like an old fragrance that is lost.

Is it too early to be nostalgic about a movement based on nostalgia?

Anything But D&D ‘March Madness’ Human Blogipede – Day 7

Other blogs can be found HERE.

The questions can be found HERE.

7 What fantasy RPG other than D&D have you enjoyed most? Why?

Looking back on this question, I maybe should have specified mechanics, setting, or whatever. Still, I find it hard to limit myself to just one answer, so I won’t.

Mechanics and setting wise, I’d have to say the old Stormbringer game and Dragon Half, a Japanese RPG I’ve reviewed last year, pleased me the most. Although Stormbringer is a member of the Basic Roleplaying family, it is not exactly the same system as Call of Cthulhu for which BRP is best known, but has certain differences that gave it a lot of unique charm.

First, the game used a series of skill set bonuses derived from the attributes. For example, Stealth skills are modified positively by Dexterity and Intelligence over 12 and Size under 9, and negatively by Dexterity and Intelligence under 9 or Size over 12. Although it was a bit fiddly, it made attributes matter in a quasi-logical way that was nerfed by the pool of points used in CoC and later iterations of Stormbringer, such as Elric! and Mongoose’s version. Second, Stormbringer uses a brutal Major Wound table that rivaled Warhammer or Rolemaster in its capacity to make melee combat feared and avoided, and had us laughing out at the amputations and disfigurements even minor scuffles would provoke. Third, the point-buy demon summoning system was a marvel of mechanical elegance that I found much more graspable than the voluminous and chaotic Vancian magic of D&D, as well as emulating the source material nicely. Finally, it goes without saying that Stormbringer was set in the Young Kingdoms of Michael Moorcock’s Elric series, an antidote to Conan that dominated the fantasy scene for anyone growing up in the 70s or 80s and thus proved a very vivid gaming experience. Add in great scenarios and art (French and Japanese versions are especially beautiful) and the continued popularity of the identical first 3 editions of the game is understandable.

Dragon Half, on the other hand, was based on manga and anime parody of D&D tropes, using a simplified version of the terribly crunchy Sword World RPG. As I’ve mentioned before, the extending of fantasy tropes to their illogical ends (“Ma is a red dragon, pa was a dragon slayer who fell in love with her.”) made the games we played quite hilarious. If questing to revive the Great Dead death metal gods, making terrible puns, and failing spectacularly seem like fun to you, you’ll enjoy doing these things as much as my old group did.

However, for pure fun and playability the old Palladium Fantasy RPG could simply not be beat. It was barely a step up from the LBBs or the original Runequest in terms of art and editing, but was it ever fun. Rolling around Kevin’s gameworld, Palladia, trying to unite humans and wolfen with a motley party of doppelganger assassins, trollish hunters, giant warriors, and gnomish elementalists cured us completely of the vanilla D&D blues of Tolkien races and uninspiring settings, and made Palladium’s rules seem almost unbroken. Too bad the 2^nd edition was a watered down Rifts clone that threw the charm of the old version under the bus.

I’ve wanted to play other games, notably Ars Magica and MERP, but never found the time or players – hopefully Constantcon can make this a reality after my studies finish.

30 Day Dance Finale

30 Best DM

I’ve been lucky enough to have two ‘best’ DMs who show equally how different DMing styles can still make for a great game. Fred was my first long-term DM back in the early 90s, and was a technically brilliant game master. He knew every rule, had the adventure set in his head, and gave us a mathematical breakdown of the chances for every action we proposed. He was so good that I thought D&D a perfectly balanced and coherent system, until the 2000s when I went back and read my old RC to find it was a bit creaky in places. If Fred had any failing, it was that the gameworld as such was just a backdrop for the characters and the dungeon. Towns were nameless as were most NPCs, and served only to give us a place to procure or sell items and stash our booty. I am not sure if any of my characters even had names.

It was the 90’s, and we had no clue what we were missing. I knew lots of groups like us.

Last year I played a few sessions in Justin’s Vaults of Ur, and his style is almost the antithesis of Fred’s. Justin’s gameworld is rich and alive, every character has a name, and the actions of the PCs have repercussions on the web of power relations between groups in Fort Low, the Ruins and the Hive. On the rules side, Justin hand waves, or seeks input from players, or allows votes on houserules. He has also gone through a few rulesets for the same game – from a modded Labyrinth Lord when I played, to Stars Without Number by the latest reports. Justin’s DMing style immerses the players in his world – although I jumped in mid-campaign, I learned the party was intent on traveling to Orc Heaven to rescue the soul of their comrade-at-arms, Ripper. Since I had rolled up an orc, I immediately proposed my character as Ripper’s little brother, Digger, and joined the adventure (which inspired the art that graces this blog).

And I think that is what the OSR gives us (or rather asks of us) – to replay these old games, but add in the life experience and depth we missed when we were young. If you want to become someone’s best DM, know the rules without being a slave to them, and immerse them in a world grown from the seeds of your own imagination and experience.

30 Day Challenge 7 & 8

Lucky 7! What edition do you prefer?

Easy! 4th edition is the best!
The old Games Workshop green cover with the great painting of Elric atop ruins as he destroys the Young Kingdoms. You have some rules clarifications from preceding editions (demon summonings & skills), and it adds in the material from the Companion.

Oh. We're not talking about Stormbringer? D&D? Oh, then definitely NOT 4th edition.

I played 4e once. ONCE. Two hours to build a character. Made me want to cry.

I've read 3e, seems needlessly complicated. The Midnight campaign setting I'd easily poach, though. Damn good. Easily portable to Basic Roleplaying, hell there's even a BRP retroclone called 'Age of Shadow' that tacitly does this.

I played a whack of 2e games back in the day. Lots of fun, and tons of great settings. Planescape is basically the Multiverse. Spelljammer and Dark Sun were nicely gonzo and deserve retro-clones. Mazatlan and Al-Qadim were interesting experiments. You could also play a whole campaign out of the Vikings, Celts, or Rome splatbooks. I dunno why they didn't do one for every major culture's mythos. Even Lankhmar got some adventures & sourcebooks.

Never played 1e - by the time I was gaming in earnest, people had moved on to the cleaner 2e rules.

I started with D&D, but I'll be damned if I know which book. Most probably a mishmash of BX and BECMI.

I'm dying to try Swords & Wizardry Whitebox, maybe with Age of Conan. Peanut butter and chocolate.

I'd have to say my favorite edition is whatever I'm playing at the moment. The differences before 3e seem really inconsequential to me. My recent Labyrinth Lord experiences with Vaults of Ur felt the same as all that came before, and markedly different from the 4e I suffered through. And I'd have to chuck in some houserules (mainly skills) anyway, so it's all good.

8 - Favorite Character You Have Played

Funnily enough, all D&D characters I have played were ill-defined, probably because 'world-building' was never a big thing back in the day. The gameworld in the late 80s and 90s was more like that endless loop of scenery in the background when Scooby and Shaggy were hightailing it from some suited goon - just a means to get to the dungeon.  I noticed how things had changed when I played in Vaults of Ur last year - Justin's gameworld was incredibly vivid and detailed. It takes a bit more player investment and GM work, but I think it is a great development in the art of gaming.

Enough digressions - my favorite fantasy character I ever played was Emile (Eh-meel), deposed King of Wallachia and Bard.

It was in a GURPS Fantasy campaign back in the day. While everyone maxed out fighting skills, Emile was good at rapier, but a master in singing, dancing, storytelling, and just about any other social skills. He also was deluded and believed he was deposed king of the non-existant kingdom of Wallachia, which appeared on no maps. He seduced barmaids and queens, sent minions into dungeons while he lounged around the tavern, and was finally assassinated by a powergamer who HATED the way I subverted the game.

I consider that a thing to be proud of.

30 Day Challenge 1 & 2

I initially wasn’t going to get into this 30 day challenge, but the posts I am working on (2 scenarios & some minis rules) are taking longer than expected, so here goes. I may post 2 or 3 at a pop as I have things to do these days, but it should be good for a laugh.

1)      How did I get started roleplaying?

Although I had read RPGs earlier in the 80s, I didn’t have the mental development (i.e. I was a space case) or the group of friends necessary to get seriously into gaming until the end of the decade. In 1989, I was 19 and had just failed out of uni, was working at a crappy convenience downtown midnight to 8 am to make the measly extra 50 cents an hour for fighting off robbers and serving trannies coming out of the gay bar (NB: no big deal for me as I had solid LGBT friends and went to gay bars myself, but the boss & clerks were homophobes and so I was happy to get the extra money). I had an uber-cool, death cookie girlfriend named Naomi who looked a lot like Death:

Anyhoo, Naomi would disappear every Sunday into a room with three guys for hours, and wouldn’t talk about what went on. Of course, I got jealous and demanded to see what was happening in there. Were they making porn? What was the secret?

They were playing D&D, of course. The girlfriend was a Valkyrie, Mike played a Dwarf, Damion a Wizard. I rolled up my first character and was in.

2)      Favorite Race?

That first character was an Elf, and without a doubt, Elf is the race (or class) I gravitate towards. That sweet combination of fighting and spellcasting is just is so much more compelling than a fighter who is toast against the arcane or a mage who can never get his hands dirty. My first character carried two swords (NB: although the first Drizzt Do’urden book supposedly came out in 1988, it didn’t get to my town for a few years, so not a clone of him, although possibly very Elric inspired), had no name I can recall, was chaotic and got banned from the game after 1) setting loose some bone golems, then locking the other PCs in with them (thank you Haste and Wizard Lock), and later 2) setting afire a library we were looting and escarping before the dry papers created a firestorm taking out the other characters.

Question: Your Most Stolen RPG?

I've had quite a few RPG books stolen out from under me over the years. Perhaps 'stolen' is a bit strong, but they have gotten into others' hands and not back to mine against my wishes, so we'll leave details aside.

My list of most stolen is as follows:

1 Stormbringer 3e, one back in the late 80s, another late 90s. I am still looking for a copy so I can have the scenario 'Hall of Risk', probably the best fit ever for the genre.
2 Call of Cthulhu, late 90s. Less 'stolen' and more 'never returned' plus 'continental drifted away'. 3rd edition I think, with Cthulhu's glaring eye poking through a smashed door. I just bought the latest, and although it has been 'prettied up' by the art department, its prose has conversely lost some of its charm.
3 Robotech (Invid Invasion, Southern Cross and the core book). Palladium is eminently playable with a 'Palladium Patch' of houserules I made back in the day (and may still be floating out there on the internet somewheres), and Robotech can be used for a great BSG / Space Above & Beyond style game. Also, watching the anime was my daily ritual after coming home as a kid.

I am sure I lost others (TMNT, Elric!, GURPS, Conspiracy X to name a few) but they were less memorable or missed than the 3 above.

What about you? Which RPGs have you lost and wished you had most?

Tedankhamen