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 Author | Topic: OSR Community Starter Game (Read 988 times) |
norse
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Karma: 10 |  | OSR Community Starter Game
« Thread Started on Apr 19, 2011, 6:49pm » | |
After a little discussion on the Holmes Basic board, John Adams posted this on his blog:
http://bravehalfling.com/?p=626
I think this is an utterly excellent plan and I support the venture wholeheartedly. I'm scribbling bits and pieces down at this very moment.
What say you?
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BACKSWORDS & BUCKLERS You can download the rules free from Lulu. "If you like the idea of Blackadder II and Kit Marlowe getting drunk and fighting cultists and Spaniards in the London sprawl then check this baby out" - Jeff Rients |
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foxroe
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« Reply #1 on Apr 19, 2011, 8:15pm » | |
It's perfect. Let's do it.
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-Fox
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Koren n'Rhys
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« Reply #2 on Apr 20, 2011, 8:03am » | |
Sounds like an awesome idea - I'll help if I can!
Thoughts on Dice:
I have to agree with the others that recommend keeping the full dice complement for full compatibility with all the old-school systems.
Dice sets are readily available. You'll be giving these out at cons and gamestores, so it's not an issue to buy them there. Your Borders or Barnes & Noble carry 4e stuff, so the dice sets are carried there as well. And of course you can get them easily online through Amazon and a million gaming sites.
If you want to make the game playable out of the box, you can use any old d6s from home and a chit sheet for the rest. It doesn't need to be heavy cardboard. just another page of the booklet that can be torn out and cut apart. It's a temporary solution - no durability needed, IMO.
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tombowings
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« Reply #3 on Apr 20, 2011, 9:41am » | |
I'm still wondering not do a boxed set. They were popular in the 80s right?
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Koren n'Rhys
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« Reply #4 on Apr 20, 2011, 9:49am » | |
Apr 20, 2011, 9:41am, tombowings wrote:| I'm still wondering not do a boxed set. They were popular in the 80s right? |
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WHY not do a box set, you mean? Cost. We want to hand this thing our for free.
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norse
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« Reply #5 on Apr 20, 2011, 10:41am » | |
Indeed, free or at cost and as cheap as possible (whilst still looking inspiringly snazzy, and synapse-firingly awesome). Boxes are quite expensive. As a board game designer primarily, I have found that the box is often more expensive than the contents it contains!
We also want it to be able to be distributed by anybody who cares too, which means it needs to be easy to print. I myself am considering putting it in a ziplock (got tonnes of the beggars) with some cheap dice, a few character sheets and cardstock reference sheets when I hand them out.
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BACKSWORDS & BUCKLERS You can download the rules free from Lulu. "If you like the idea of Blackadder II and Kit Marlowe getting drunk and fighting cultists and Spaniards in the London sprawl then check this baby out" - Jeff Rients |
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Koren n'Rhys
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« Reply #6 on Apr 20, 2011, 11:30am » | |
OK, the bagged mini-game idea is great.
Question: If we're talking about printing these to give away or sell at cost, is digest sized a better option than letter sized? That allows booklet printing on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper rather than the more expensive 11x17. (US paper sizes, obviously. I don't know that A system from Europe.)
That would certainly simplify things so that anyone can get the PDF printed at their local Kinkos or Staples and we don't need to monkey with a Lulu POD situation.
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norse
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« Reply #7 on Apr 20, 2011, 1:38pm » | |
We could do with several formats. Comic book size is the cheapest to print on demand. I guess digest would be the easiest to print yourself over there in America. Over here in the UK it would be A5. We don't get these kinkos places or anything similar over here far as I know, they might have them in the cities though. Easy enough to prepare documents for all 3 of those, and any others should other types be easier in other countries.
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BACKSWORDS & BUCKLERS You can download the rules free from Lulu. "If you like the idea of Blackadder II and Kit Marlowe getting drunk and fighting cultists and Spaniards in the London sprawl then check this baby out" - Jeff Rients |
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Koren n'Rhys
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« Reply #8 on Apr 20, 2011, 2:12pm » | |
Having those options would be nice, but to do nice layouts in multiple formats will be a hack of a lot of work for whoever does the layout design. We need to start small, with one format, I think.
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aldarron
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« Reply #9 on Apr 20, 2011, 2:33pm » | |
I don't think its a bad idea, but I still can't see any reason this needs to be written from scratch. Seriously, Basic Fantasy is free and open. You could, without much trouble, edit it way down into a starter game of 1 - 3 levels and even put in notes about other games available. I'm just thinking it would be a lot less work.
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norse
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« Reply #10 on Apr 20, 2011, 3:12pm » | |
1 - If we use any one particular game, they will rightly expect to have the name of the game on it. We want something that doesn't represent any one game in particular.
2 - Basic Fantasy has a number of things about it that make it too specific for this. Don't get me wrong, I have half a dozen copies of the game, but I don't think it would be right for this.
3 - Why Basic Fantasy in particular, there are any number of systems?
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BACKSWORDS & BUCKLERS You can download the rules free from Lulu. "If you like the idea of Blackadder II and Kit Marlowe getting drunk and fighting cultists and Spaniards in the London sprawl then check this baby out" - Jeff Rients |
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neilford
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« Reply #11 on Apr 20, 2011, 3:24pm » | |
I like the idea of it being D6 only. I noticed that in the comments to the blog post someone mentioned Woodland Warriors. What Simon has done with creating a D6 only mechanic is superb. WW is going to be my go to game for introducing new players.
- Neil.
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John Adams
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« Reply #12 on Apr 20, 2011, 4:35pm » | |
Marv is going to give us a place to play. What should we call this project?
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norse
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« Reply #13 on Apr 20, 2011, 4:38pm » | |
It's a bit rushed to give the game an actual name, so how about OSR Basic for now?
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BACKSWORDS & BUCKLERS You can download the rules free from Lulu. "If you like the idea of Blackadder II and Kit Marlowe getting drunk and fighting cultists and Spaniards in the London sprawl then check this baby out" - Jeff Rients |
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aldarron
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« Reply #14 on Apr 20, 2011, 8:19pm » | |
Apr 20, 2011, 3:12pm, norse wrote:1 - If we use any one particular game, they will rightly expect to have the name of the game on it. We want something that doesn't represent any one game in particular.
2 - Basic Fantasy has a number of things about it that make it too specific for this. Don't get me wrong, I have half a dozen copies of the game, but I don't think it would be right for this.
3 - Why Basic Fantasy in particular, there are any number of systems? |
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To point one - not necessarily - because, and this in part address point three - Basic Fantasy, unlike all the others, is not a commercial endeavor. It is a free download meant to do pretty much what this project has in mind and more.
To point 2 - you could be right I guess, but I don't know really what you have in mind here. Are you thinking of something really simple like "Holmes other game" we were working on in the Brave Halfling forum?
Point 3 - Why in particular? Its free, well written, and has a completely open game liscence, and it has a very nice introductory section aimed at first time players.
That was my thinking anyway. Mind you, I'm not married to the idea, it just seemed like a ready made opportunity.
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