Addenda-

Race as class, another argument I see both sides of, and agree with both alternately. I prefer the Human-centric implied setting of early D&D, Demi-Human racial classes and level limits help enforce this. I'd actually prefer a completely human world, but most players balk. It seems the Tolkien-esque multi-racial paradigm won over a more Conan-esque setting for fantasy adventure games. I run a lot of “historical” settings, so it really isn't a problem, particularly, for me, but “standard” D&D settings are always multi-racial, and later editions of the game make them the absolute equals of the Human characters.

I kind of like the idea that they are maybe fading races, their age has passed, and they are relics and anachronisms, leftovers from a more magical time; now is the age of man. I can get behind that implied setting and run with it. This also makes racial classes and/or Demi-Human level limits make more sense.

In my Garnia campaign setting this is almost what's going on, the Elves are a defeated species, Dwarves are exiles, and Halflings and Gnomes are not noteworthy enough to have any real history of their origins. Half-Orcs exist, as do Half-Elves, but I came up with a reasonable explanation as to why both Orcs and Elves could breed with Humans, but not with each other. The age of man is certainly happening there, the age of the Orc is impending. Garnia is, other than the Celtic veneer, a pretty standard AD&D setting though. Garnia was designed, from the get go, as a standard AD&D setting, with all the bells and whistles, all the melange that implies.

So I guess what I am saying is that, while I might actually prefer the “standard” D&D racial classes for Demi-Humans, I will not go further than the AD&D multi-class capable, level limited versions; that's where I draw the line.

None of this is new from me, I just need to re-state it from time to time. I argue for racial classes, my wife argues for multi-class capable.

On my mind today.

I recently bought the compilation volume of the first three issues of Knockspell. I was a bit surprised to see that many of the things that I have pontificated about, either in person or in my blogging, are the same issues they were writing about before I joined in on the whole OSR movement; in effect, I have been restating things that were said years before I joined the movement.

This reminds me that I have frequently had the same idea myself and posted about it, as though it were new to me, over and over. Alignment as a faction. Weapon damage by class. There are myriad things that I keep thinking are new ideas I have had that I blog about only to realize that I had had the same exact revelation and spoken or blogged about it, in some cases, years before.

So that's one thing. I also re-fight the same battles in my head over which D&D I prefer. I started with Holmes Basic, which is the last “original” or “0e (zero edition) product, or a separate and singular edition, depending on your point of view. Although I bought, and used, the Cook/Marsh Expert set (The X part of the B/X edition), I had really, concurrently, started playing 1^st edition AD&D. I default to AD&D a lot, despite it's warts (or maybe, in part at least, because of them), so it tends to be my “go-to” version of D&D, or even RPG. I understand that the B/X or BECMI/Cyclopedia versions are tighter, arguably better, versions of D&D and so too is 2^nd edition AD&D, for that matter, but my formative gaming years were spent learning the intricacies of 1^st edition AD&D, so I tend to “go home” when I need to make a snap judgment or consider creating something new. I do this to the point where I had to deliberately set my mind to it when I tried to run a Swords & Wizardry (with Delving Deeper) campaign, so I could try and replicate, to understand fully, the earliest version(s) of the game.

Intellectually, I prefer the simpler, rules-lite versions of D&D. Tim Kask wrote that AD&D changed everything, and he's right, but for more reasons than just rules-lawyers sucking the fun out it. The power level of PCs creeps up, making them more likely to be heroes right off the bat. I can't not think of the AC system running from 10 to -10, rather than 9 to 1 (or 0 maybe? I know “standard” D&D doesn't have negative ACs), for instance.

So I come to the conclusion that AD&D is where my home is, and I just accept it with it's mish-mash of unrelated sub-systems and other idiosyncrasies. I might prefer a bit more “gonzo” a game, genre mixing sci-fi, fantasy and Cthulhu mythos, and that's easier to do with OD&D and it's retro-clones probably, just like it's easier to write publishable adventures for OD&D, but I can make it work with AD&D. I also find that I like more Sword & Sorcery style settings, usually with a historical veneer, and that's not “standard” AD&D either. I guess it was 2^nd edition that taught us AD&D could be used as a toolkit for any genre with it's varied official settings.

So here are the things I prefer in D&D to AD&D:

The 3 point alignment system, simple Law vs. Chaos, and it is really coming from a faction system, good and evil are less relevant (although it can be argued that Law=Good and Chaos=Evil).

Original D&D included, as standard, Robots and Androids, it has extra sci-fi in it's DNA.

Weaker characters, originally everyone used a d6 for hit points, +/- 1 based on class and +/- 1 (maybe) adjusted for Constitution. Later on, I assume with the advent of polyhedral dice, this was re-codified to the -1 classes dropping to a d4, and the +1 classes moving up to a d8 for hit points.

Fewer absolutes because of fewer rules, and that ties in to the belief that the DM is in control. I believe the DM should be an impartial referee, but I also believe that the players should recognize his absolute authority. We played AD&D this way anyway, when I was young, but it's starting to look like a lost art. I think that this comes from the rules heavy nature of later iterations of D&D.

I'll still take AD&D over d20 D&D or later, because, even though the PCs are substantially stronger from the get go than their D&D counterparts, they still don't have the expectation of victory in every encounter. Pre-d20 D&D is lethal, it rewards common sense and good tactics, it punishes those that fail to heed warnings or try to push their luck too far. In my opinion this is better for long term play, and it gives the players a deserved sense of accomplishment.

I took last week off from doing anything RPG related and played Civilization V, as I have not done so in some time. That, in turn, led to me spending a lot of time with modding my Civ game, as is my way. I don't create content for Civ V (yet), there are many talented modders in it's community. I used to mod Civ 4 though, although I foolishly deleted all of my work when I migrated to Civ V. I also mod The Sims 2, mostly flavor stuff, like start up text, or names for NPCs. I have created specifically Norse, Scottish and Roman content to date.

I also recently started playing Panzer Corps, a Panzer General clone, with my brother.

Musing about Gaming Groups

Back in the 1990s I played with a group of people that I (mostly) didn't know from my own neighborhood or school. That makes sense, because I was an adult by then, but it had never happened before, and hasn't really ever happened again for me. I have relatively few people I play RPGs with now, and only two of them, Mike and Chris*, are new to my life. The others are my wife, my son- when he's on break from college, and my old, best friend Darryl- when he can make it down here, less than once per month. I have given serious consideration to joining an online game, but my own personal anxieties, coupled with my desire to GM and my inexperience with the technology, have kept me from trying so far.

But the group I played with in the first half of the 1990s consisted of (and was started by) a guy named Steve that I had played with a couple of times before, six months or a year before he started this new campaign, a couple of guys he apparently found through the local comic shop, Mike and Marty, both of whom worked at the local nuclear power plants, but not the same one. Jamie, the guy that killed my last campaign with an entire evening's worth of negativity about the concept, who knew Steve from growing up, they were neighbors. I actually met Steve through Jamie**, so it wasn't all bad with him. Danny***, who actually got invited to the game by accident because he shared a first name with someone else that Steve mistook him for on the phone. Lastly, Lance, who was an old friend and D&D buddy of mine from way, way back. Eventually the group lost Steve, who burned out on DMing, although he ultimately came back to play after about 18 months or so, and gained Nikki, who I met in college and brought aboard. Mike left when he had to relocate for work, Marty became the new DM when Steve quit, Jamie got kicked out for a while, by Steve, but we voted him back in when Steve quit. A few other people drifted through the group, but none stuck for more than a session or two.

This group was fun for a long while, the first couple of years anyway. Eventually it devolved into a soap opera of pettiness, for which I take my share of blame, but it was good for a time. Now, I don't take the group's break up as a sign that this formation style of a group is doomed to failure, in fact I'd like to see it happen for me again. I have started with how I found Mike, online, now I just have to find more people that can play as regulars, because I don't think that two players and a GM is a viable long term group strategy. One player and a GM can work (especially for short term play), but it seems less workable with two. There is not, from what I can tell, a large local gaming scene; it seems I moved from one part of the boonies to a slightly more populace part; so how do I find and recruit new players? I have put a small amount of effort into advertising the fact that we are gamers to my daughter's new friends here. A couple have expressed interest in playing D&D, but never more than that, and my daughter doesn't seem to want any of her friends becoming my new gaming buddies. I get that, so I haven't pushed.

Do I need to start DMing online just to scratch my world building itch? Can I find enough people in a rural area to play with? I never wanted for gaming buddies until after the year 2000, but since then my game has been more off than on, and mostly with my wife and kids (and my daughter Ashli's friends, but she's a grown up now, doesn't live nearby and is having trouble filling her game up too) and the odd adult friend (usually Leanne, our best remaining SCA friend, and, sometimes, either Lance or Darryl, they don't play together anymore)

* And Chris has only played once so far, she has even further to drive than Darryl.

** I actually had “re-met” Jamie in 1990. His parents had been involved in Cub Scouts at the same time mine were, our parents remained friends, but Jamie was a couple of years ahead of me in school, we never were in the same circles socially. Danny re-introduced me to Jamie the very night he came over to my house and killed my campaign.

***Danny and I met because his dad and my dad were both active members of the local model railroad club. Oddly, I was in Cub Scouts with both of Danny's older brothers, and both of his parents were involved with scouting at the time, small towns, eh? I hung around over there because Danny was into D&D, and his dad (Big Bill) was also a war gamer (hex and counter and WWII miniatures; HO scale, like his, and my dad's train layouts).  

A New Blog...

A new blog. I almost called it a guy blogging about old school games, but thought the descriptor of my age was better, and the one about what type of games was too limiting. I want to point out that this whole gaming blog is mostly going to be about old school, pen and paper role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons, but certainly not limited to them. I will write about other types of games too, but mostly not computer or console games. I spend a lot of time with computer games, but my tastes run to strategy games there, mostly. I also play the occasional board game, and I used to play a lot of hex-and-counter style wargames (or conflict simulation games, if you prefer).

I don't know how often I will update this blog. I am aiming for once or twice per week, but I've fallen short of that goal in the past.

I like pen-and-paper RPGs. I played a lot of AD&D, 1^st and 2^nd editions, and I played 3^rd edition D&D too. I didn't much care for it. I started gaming back in 1980 or 81 with the Holmes Basic set, and I got kind of set in my ways. I played other RPGs back in the day too, even some not produced by TSR :) These days though, I am mostly about the old school games and their retro-clones. The OSR rekindled my interest in gaming. Previous to discovering the OSR “movement”, I had played some old school AD&D (and some Cyclopedia D&D) with my kids, and I played a lot of computer strategy games. Civilization, Crusader Kings & Panzer General were among my favorites. I have some other games I loved that probably bear mentioning, in no particular order, Avalon Hill's Up Front!, Axis & Allies, Star Fleet Battles, Risk, TSR's Dawn Patrol. So I'll probably mention them, and the other games that I wanted to play a lot of but never got around to for one reason or another, like West End Games' Star Wars RPG, or the Pendragon RPG, the Legend of the Five Rings RPG.

I honestly don't really expect to gather any readership, but it'd be nice I suppose. I am mostly writing to get myself back into the habit again, and I might just as well write about the things that interest me from day to day, and that is my gaming hobby.

Currently I am kicking around an idea, really a riff on an old idea I had back in the early 1990s, for a D&D* campaign. The elevator pitch is basically the Roman Empire meets the Age of Exploration- with magic. I like the fantasy genre, probably because I spent my formative RPG years playing mostly D&D; so “with magic” is almost a given. Oddly, I mostly design low magic type settings for my games. I also like history (and majored in it in college) mostly ancient and medieval (my minor was medieval studies) and anthropology; so I tend towards the D&D standard of creating new settings with cultural paradigms I know, Romans, Vikings, Celts, Mongols, et cetera, then tweak them with new geography, different neighbors (including fantasy races), and, of course, magic.

I did a similar campaign with my buddy Darryl as a co-DM back in the 90s. I actually played with the girl who I married for the first time that day, as Darryl ran the inaugural game session, so that would've been about September of 1990. I remember now because I had the idea for the campaign on the flight home from Gencon that year- the only year I ever went. Darryl ran the first game, it went well, then Jamie came along and sucked the fun out of the idea (for me anyway) by talking about how he wanted to play a ½ Ogre, and how a more “standard” D&D campaign would be more fun for everyone. I now know that he was wrong, but at the time, his relentless multi-hour onslaught on my campaign idea crushed my will to run it. We never played that setting again.

This particular time I am riffing on this idea, I am thinking about just using real world geography maybe, then having an alternate history where the Romans hold the west against the barbarians, then (with the aid of magic) expand until they reach the new world. The new world is going to be full of tribes of savage humanoids, which rather invokes the mind set of the Spanish conquistadors I think. Start in the Caribbean, kind of a “safe” zone, then have them expand out like Cortez or Pizarro. I could use all kinds of things like the fountain of youth, or El Dorado as plot hooks and adventures. Sound cool? I am not really sure what to do with the non-human PC races (Dwarf, Elf, Halfling), although I could bring back my old “Sons of Vulcan” concept (from an earlier version of this campaign idea) where all the Dwarves are actually born to Human mothers, and raised by the priesthood of Vulcan. They are all male too- hence “Sons of Vulcan”. Whether it is an actual divine event that some Humans give birth to Dwarves or is just a magical mutation, who knows? Maybe Elves and Halflings then are simply members of tribes from the new world that have allied themselves with the Roman explorers? Why is the western hemisphere full of humanoids? I'd guess some sort of massive magical event “irradiated” that half of the world, and maybe magic exists in the world because of it. Of course, it wouldn't be one of my campaign settings without some sort of chaos rift or other planar manipulation, so that's got to make it in somehow too. My fantasy needs to make sense to me, have it's own internal logic, so I can present the world with some degree of verisimilitude.

OK, enough for today. I have got a cold that's beating me down pretty hard right now, but I wanted to get something started here before we got too deep into the new year.

*Or any other RPG, when I say D&D, it's my mental shorthand for really any RPG, but mostly actually AD&D, 1^st edition, or the B/X variant of D&D, but it might mean GURPS or Savage Worlds, you never know. System is mostly unimportant, but I do prefer D&D and it's derived games, simply because I am most comfortable with the rules. Also, I sometimes use footnotes, so any readers should be aware and prepared.