Change of Mind

  I have talked often about my love for simple game design, there is something to be said for more detailed systems. My original plan for running fantasy RPGs was to try to play D&D as close to as written. I wanted to prove to myself that the rules were viable in their simplicity.  Two retro clone systems seemed like the best fit for this goal.  White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game and Untold Adventures. Both are based on Swords and Wizardry which in turn originates from a rewrite/update of the Dungeons and Dragons white box rules set. Being derived from a such a simple rules set I reasoned that my anxiety over remembering rules would be reduced. Yes it can be easier to run a bit but the lack of depth actually can work against my over all satisfaction. Its a little dull, uninspiring even. And I worried players would be put off. As running a RPG is as much for the players as the game master, this is a problem. I did look forward to creating a setting to explain things like race as class. Opening my players eyes to the elegance of D6 hit points and damage. Rationalizing Vancian magic. There are downsides although. The characters however are a little cookie-cutter assembly line type without any detail. The experience points earned to level up dynamic tends to direct players toward monster bashing to the exclusion of all else. True this can be moderated by XP awards for other things like role playing or exploration. All is not lost, I will simply tuck away those books for another time. Maybe I will do up a few dungeon levels for a random group that comes my way. I still plan to run a D&D based game some time. I have Mazes and Minotaurs, a D20 style game set in a mythical Greek world. I encourage everyone to check it out. Its free to download. Available on Drive ThruRPG.com. 

 Because of my recent tragedy of the lost hard drive, I am trying to collect hard copy of games. Taking advantage of the current GM's Day sales I purchased two game books.  

Sword Of Cepheus -  a fantasy version of the sci-fi Cepheus Engine rules.

 If you had ever thought " I wish there was a fantasy version of Traveller", this is it. I still have to create or adapt a setting but I look forward to trying it out.

Barbarians Of Lemuria - this is a 2D6 system with a rich character creation system. I have kept an eye on this system through several editions but this is the first printed copy I have bought. A full colour book details a robust background setting based loosely on pulp fantasy novels. Included are several adventures which will help start off the players.

 Given he current troubles in the world I don't know if I will get to run or play anything soon. but i can hope. And the new books generate some enthusiasm. 

 

I'm Not New To Old School

I have a file folder of quite a few of my old RPG characters. I was going through it when I came across two classic Traveller characters sheets. I don't always fill out the date of preparation slot on these things but I was glad I did this time.

July 25th 1995. I immediately remembered helping two friends fill out these photocopied sheets for a campaign I was starting up. I had just picked up a used copy of the black traveller hardback book. I didn't have a computer back then. And although I had heard of the Internet it wouldn't have occurred to me that you could get stuff for games from there. So I was planning on running a game with just one book. This was the era of AD&D 2nd Ed skills and powers splash books. Most games at the time seemed to moving towards multi-book systems. So why would I run a game with just one book? And an old game at that. Was I crazy?

No, I was Old School before it was cool. I had realized back then that there was nothing wrong with the original Traveller rules. And there were other advantages. It was cheap, the book cost me 5 bucks I think. It was easier to learn. And it was easier to run. I could run the whole thing with just the book some dice and paper and pencil.

So 16 years ago I was gaming old school style.

I guess you can call me an early adopter.

And now to pay the Joesky tax here is a character sheet, I can't remember where I got it from.

It Takes Place in the Far Future, But Somehow the 1970's

I haven't talked much about other games. I've mainly focused on D&D. My other top favorite RPG is Traveller. I was introduced to the game in high school by mutual friends. Our school decided to ban D&D during the great anti-rpg panic of the early 80's. After speaking to the school board it was determined that they were not banning role-playing just D&D. Could we play another game? Like Traveller , we asked. Does it have demons in it? They asked. No we answered truthfully. Just spaceships and aliens, like Star Wars. Fine, anything just no D&D, they declared. Rather than continuing on with some sort of protest we thanked our lucky stars and got back to role playing. Within a year or two the hysteria had died down and D&D quietly returned to our post curricular activities. Being that it was the early 80's. We didn't notice the tech inconsistencies in the game. The computers that weigh tons, the bulky comm sets or even the total lack of internet and bio-tech. The rulebooks were written in the 70's so they reflect the state of the art of that time. The technological progress that would make these items seem out dated was yet to happen so it didn't bother us at all. But now it does bother me. A bit at least. Mongoose's Traveller and T20 rulebooks are more modern. But I would like to play original Traveller. But its hard to justify the bizarreness of some of the original predictions of the tech level chart from the rulebook. According to Traveller we should be at tech level 10 or at least 9 by now. So where is the laser rifle they promised? Or jump drives, gravity control, fusion power or limb regeneration? How come we don't live in that future? What happened to it? I have a theory. When the US government canceled their ambitious space program in the 70's the scientists and technicians had to go somewhere. They went commercial. How else do could we have got cell phones, DVD players, laptop computers, the internet and GPS? Our technology is small. Little products easily sold to eager consumers. The big stuff like fusion power didn't happen because the focus was elsewhere. What does this all mean to a Traveller campaign? The setting of the game starts in our world and expands out to the far future. So our world didn't evolve into the Traveller future but it doesn't mean that another one could have. A parallel world. Setting the game in a parallel world where technology went a different direction can explain the oddities of the original rulebook. So maybe your character wears flare leg pants. A world more like Space 1999. Where the future is the 70's.

Traveller-O-Rama

In the past few days several blogs have posted about Traveller.
Bat in the Attic, Ratty Ramblings, Tankards&Broadswords, Grognardia and How to Start a Revolution in 21 Days or Less all have posted articles. Some have posted more than one. Looks like we are all thinking about Traveller. Before the internet I thought I was the only one who liked the game. Nice to know I'm in good company.

Inspired to start travelling with Traveller

James Maliszewski over at Grognardia has great post about Traveller. Long live the little black books, huzzah! I haven't thought about running Traveller for some time. I have a metric ton of material scooped from the internet. Nearly 500 megs of files from all editions of traveller except maybe the Hero version. The weight of all that information has blinded me to the simplicity of the 3 LBB's . Like all the old school classics, the original game became overlarge and bloated when the designers tried to answer the players need for more detail. Its not wrong to want more (I did to during that era). But the loss of the essence of the game was tragic in retrospect. James' view that the the original game is the best version inspired me to take a fresh approach to my favourite sci-fi RPG obsession. I looked over my hard copy books ;
-the reprinted books from Far Future Enterprises
-The Traveller Book , 1982 soft cover with the binding failing
-The Traveller Book , 1982 hard cover In good shape (for now)
-two of the LBB's , books 1 and 2
- the Traveller reprint, books 1-3 by QuickLink Interactive
The hard cover I want to keep in the best shape possible and the soft covers binding won't last. In keeping with the old school feel I wanted a minimalist rule book so the reprints are out. I am missing the third LBB and don't know when I will find it. That left the QLI reprint. Looking it over I noticed for the first time that there is no extra material in the book. No setting info just the rules. Damn, I could make my own setting just like the olden days! And since none of my perspective players is familiar with the setting, its all good. Creating my own universe allows me to explain why: the computers aren't as good as we have now, there is no nano-tech or biotechnology and why the guns are not more advanced. And account for any other missing tech item the players think of. So after years of acquiring lots and lots of books, files and programs I'm going to go with just the first 3 LBB's.