Sorry for my lack of manners, I overlooked this thread.
Anyway, I'm in my 40's, started gaming when my buddy showed me his holmes box. I went out and purchased the new and shiny Moldvay basic box, thinking it was new art to the same game. We worked out some of our confusion and continued on with B/X, then later went on to AD&D. We also dabbled with gamma world, star frontiers, and car wars.
In my early 20's I disguarded all my gaming stuff and extensive Dragon & Polyhedron collection (except my dice, for some reason I kept them). Now I regret this impulsiveness, but have slowly reaquired alot of the core stuff.
I find myself drawn back to where I started though, with the basic box set. I also miss the days when I was a kid and could walk into my hobby store and see new and fresh gaming ideas on its shelves. It all seemed groundbreaking to me back then.
I am Greg MacKenzie and I started playing D&D in High School back in the 70s. I loved to draw cartoons so I contributed a few to the Judges Guild Journal under the title "The Misadventures of the Erroneous Grog".
The Erroneous Grog was my first role playing character, a first level Magicuser, who had a very short career before duking it out with the baddies and meeting his demise. I was however, mesmerized from that first game onward, and although I have played some later versions of D&D the old game certainly has provided many hours of enjoyment.
I spent a lot of time in the 80s as a Dungeon Master and we played AD&D, the first edition. I am well versed in this set of rules but although the game is more "complete" in actuality the more simple early game, and I mean the three LBBs by themselves are far more attractive to me personally. The players and I kept notes of the campaign which is available from www.busygamemaster.com as a free download along with other related material.
Before any such thing as the OSR appeared, I introduced my teenage children to the original game since AD&D was not to their taste. I think the simplicity of the original D&D game has a wonderful charm which is often missed in later editions.
I was not originally particularly in favour of the OSR movement and the various SRD based clones. They just aren't, and can't be the original game which sadly is unavailable as a reprint. I felt that people were turning their backs on the original game. However, time has tempered my opinions somewhat and I think the creativity which the SRD and OGL have inspired is ultimately a great thing. Certainly the OSR looks back to its roots as an inspiring source.
I myself am well rooted in the early game and still have battered and much used Judges Guild booklets from the days when I first began to play. I could never afford all of them, and the JG output was prodigious, but certain key products such as Tegel Manor, still strongly influence my thinking which is highly irreverent.
From my point of view, the Dungeon is the main point of the game. I never was particularly interested in the outdoor campaign. The recent interest in Mega Dungeons I find somewhat amusing if only from the point of view that I would always create Dungeons of many levels, such as that found under the CISO Cut Throat Inn, or my homage to Tegel "The Mountain of Evermore" in which I have a multiple level Dungeon under Gherkin's Castle.
Over the years my writing has varied from a wild mish-mash to more serious and ordered Dungeons, which must make high fantasy sense. Certainly, now my efforts are more considered, and almost literary, however I feel there is still room for cartoonish and less serious fantasy.
Although I'd often dabbled with game rules, and what DM doesn't, I decided to try my hand at writing a more complete rule-set and the result is the SRD/OGL based Fenris 2d6. Now I fully expect that Fenris 2d6 will not be to everyone's taste perhaps (I don't even try to make it exactly compatible with the old white box), but writing it allowed me a creative outlet for some things I personally wanted to explore in this genre. Fenris started out as a non-OGL 2d6 game to which I made a conscious decision to adapt the SRD material. One challenge for me personally was to remain focused on what I wanted to do and adapt the content of the SRD in that light, no easy task. I found the process to be an enjoyable outlet for my creativity, which still, after all these years seems boundless. I learned a lot while writing, coming to the conclusion that math probably drove D&D toward the twenty sided die. One of the reasons I chose the six sided die was because it is commonly available but I had to learn how to use the 2d6 combination properly.
I usually keep my thoughts to myself. I am an INFJ which lends the thought that I don't quite look at things the same way as others! I keep a notebook handy, as I'm always writing and sketching something or other which eventually becomes realized, certainly there are several new Dungeons in the works at least one of which will make its way into a Travel Stone Adventure.
Heh. Nice to hear from you here, Greg. (INFJ? What's that?)
I'll have to check out Fenris when I get a chance. At the moment, I'm working on a few projects that I hope to eventually incorporate into my 0e/Holmes game folder. This could take a few months.
Heh. Nice to hear from you here, Greg. (INFJ? What's that?)
I'll have to check out Fenris when I get a chance. At the moment, I'm working on a few projects that I hope to eventually incorporate into my 0e/Holmes game folder. This could take a few months.
I do come here regularly, but I don't always log in or post. I noticed I overlooked the introduction page and thought I'd contribute.
INFJ is a classification under the Myers-Briggs personality test. The idea is to match you with a career path that suits your personality. DM is not in there...
Take your time, I've got several projects on the go, including a PDF of Gloomland I've been working toward, right now all I've got is epub and The Keep versions of it.
Greetings everyone, I’m extremely happy to be here!
I hail from a small village in the bleak wasteland of Carcosa North Dakota. I was born in 1973, so I was too young to participate in original D&D the first time around.
My descent into this gaming realm began with the Mentzer Red Box in 1985. After spying it in a hobby shop while my father was looking at model airplanes, I put it on my Christmas list. Later that year it arrived under the tree - my mind was blown! I played solitaire for a year until I could scrape together a group of misfits who was willing to play. The Red Box and a pile of Savage Sword of Conan comics helped me survive many long, cold winter days in a small town world devoid of cell phones, cable TV, and internet.
I started DMing at that point and have been a DM about 90% of my gaming career. Other systems made brief appearances - but the group always returned happily to a form of D&D. We gleefully played a mixture of BECMI, AD&D and 2e as though they were all the same game (gasp!). I had no idea they were considered “different” games despite being different editions.
We dabbled in almost every campaign setting available at that time, but I am particularly fond of Lankhmar, and we adventured there the most. With the exception maybe of “Earthworld” (Atari 2600 anyone?) which was the homebrewed concoction of my 12 year old mind – a cut and paste (read: plagiarism) of the maps in Savage Sword of Conan and The Known World.
I own a 5th printing white box along with Greyhawk, but sadly, have yet to run an OD&D game. I hope to remedy that this year with inspiration from the excellent ideas on this board. A few years ago I taught my daughter how to play RPGs using Labyrinth Lord. Now she's a regular in my ongoing 2e sessions, which include six other players. I have tried the new editions but they just don’t work for me, I greatly prefer the older editions and the other OSR games out there.
I'm also a collector of board and wargames and can be found on BGG/RPGG (mothertruckin) if you’re ever in that neighborhood.
Re: Introductions « Reply #606 on Aug 31, 2012, 10:29am »
Heya gang, I have been lurking around a bit and figured I'd finally pop in and say hello. I don't check out the various forums as much as I'd like these days. I'm familiar with some of the names on here and some of you might be familiar with me. But in any case, perhaps an introduction is in order. I'm 40, an American currently living in Italy and have been a D&D player for quite some time (30+ years). Here's a link to an interview I did with Jennifer Steen of the Jennisodes podcast that kinda outlines a little more about me and what I do and how I got started gaming: http://www.jennisodes.com/podcasts/ostensible-cat/.
I dig all the Old School stuff and have done art for quite a few of the clones and OSR projects and am producing my own old school style fanzine about old school gaming named Delve! Zine. I've been digging through the discussions around here and it's always good to be in the presence of like minded gamer folks. At any rate, good to be here and happy gaming!
I've lurked for a while and found the civil open discussion very interesting. I've gamed since the mid-70's. Started with Avalon Hill wargames and moved toward SPI wargames and Star Fleet Battles before our little group tried AD&D back in 1981. We learned to play by reading the books and were very rule oriented thanks to the wargame background untill we learned to make stuff up as we went.
Joined: Aug 2012 Gender: Male Posts: 3 Location: Cambridge, MA Karma: 1
Re: Introductions « Reply #608 on Oct 4, 2012, 9:32pm »
Hi all,
I'm de-lurking to introduce myself in hopes that I'll end up doing more than lurking!
I'm Aaron & I live in Cambridge, MA. I started playing AD&D sometime around 1985 (as well as GangBusters, Star Frontiers, and TMNT) but stopped around '87 or '88 once I discovered rock and roll. Fast forward to 2004 when I moved to upstate New York and got a group going that started with AD&D and eventually ended up being 3.5 (with an occasional "B-game" of Call of Cthulhu). That lasted until 2007 when I moved back to New England. Some more 3.5 for a few months, then nothing until January 2011, by which time I had become well-steeped in OSR blogs and materials and stuff. Got a game going using the LoTFP rules, and the group's still going strong, though we meet far too infrequently. The campaign's just jumped to world of the Anomalous Subsurface Environment, and I hope eventually to move them to Hyperborea.
Joined: Aug 2010 Posts: 521 Location: The Maze of Peril Karma: 27
Re: Introductions « Reply #609 on Oct 4, 2012, 10:25pm »
Wait, didn't I post here yet?
<ahem> Right, well, I started with B/X in '82, Traveller in '83, quickly followed by RuneQuest with the result that I converted everything I ran to RuneQuest for the next 20 or so years.
I got into the OSR scene through the Mongoose RuneQuest SRDs (producing the D100II SRD which emulates RQ2), along the way re-discovering B/X and first-time-discovering Holmes and OD&D. Now, Blueholme the Prentice Edition is almost done, and here I am.
I am no one. But, I do have some projects in the pipe which might be of interest in the future, if I ever get them done.
Serleran, no one is "no one" in my book. Welcome to the forum, pull up a chair, pour a measure of your beverage of choice, and join-in the conversation. Your input is needed! You're among friends and fellows of the hobby, so if we can help, assist, encourage your endeavors we certainly will!
Re: Introductions « Reply #612 on Oct 8, 2012, 8:11pm »
Hello All,
I'm Centisteed & hail from the Houston, TX area. I was in the 5th grade back in the early 80s when I (or my brother) got the Red Box D&D boxed set. I read all of it & still had no idea how to play the game. I asked my parents & they didn't understand either. It would be a few more years before I understood a little bit more about the game. Later I ended up buying S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, so got thrown for a loop with the sci-fi intermixed with fantasy theme. LOL. I didn't even understand that there was a separate D&D & AD&D at the time. Probably a year or two later I got the PHB, DMG, & MM. Read all of it. Think I understood it but we didn't play too much.
For my area it was always hard to find players & the only guys I could find were too weird for me & I could never gel. I even tried playing games with them after reaching my 20s & they were just weirder, choosing to act out every scene while the horrible DM just made it up as he went along, which happened to be very dull at the time. I hated D&D 2.0 & felt let down by the divergence to do nothing but produce more books, re-doing the rules, especially for something I never played fully to begin with. Also, if I tried to DM, the horrible DM mentioned above would build a PC that would exploit broken rules to spoil the game (God he was an awful person).
So I spent a great deal of my "hobby" being a "Reader" & I've read quite a bit: Basic D&D, AD&D, Star Frontiers, Rifts, several GURPS (3e/4e). I just finished reading Classic Traveller's first 3 books. It's very strange but I was looking up something about Traveller on one of the various Google blogposts out there & found a blog & link to something called "Carcosa", so I was like "What da @#%$ is this???" I've always been a big horror fan & even though I didn't care for D&D 3.0/3.5, when The Book of Vile Darkness was released, I just had to have that. I also picked up GURPS Cthulhupunk at the same time so felt I was in hog heaven.
I had always thought the "satanic" material of D&D & the hysteria in the 80s was something to be cherished, especially later on when you see Vile Darkness coming out..."Reinforcing" the satanic-ness of the early D&D...So when I saw Carcosa, I was very intrigued that it was part of OD&D. I keep imagining that if Carcosa came out back in the early 80s, the Govt fanatics would have had a field day. I got a lot of enjoyment out of watching other kid's parents burn their D&D games while my parents didn't care, nurturing my enjoyment of evil.
Sadly, I never owned the OD&D! I recall seeing it for sale in the various TSR catalogs & I think even in the Dragon magazines but it didn't cross my mind that I should own them. I do have them on PDF, but would prefer to own a set. For Carcosa, my brother bought it for me just around a week ago & it's enroute from Europe. I can't wait to read it & try not to drool on the pages. Ahhh...My D&D Porn.
I don't know if I"ll ever play a game with people again, but I would probably like to do PBP at some point, perhaps with Carcosa. I'm also looking at setting up solitaire games for Classic Traveller, Carcosa (or basic OD&D to start), & a GURPS game, using The Mythic GME and freeware RPTools. I had pretty much given up on pen & paper RPGs until I heard about Mythic & figured that solitaire is probably the only way I'm going to play a game or get well-versed in rules sets & game mechanics.
I've tried a Traveller PBP once but the guy running it didn't really know Traveller. It's better if the DM/GM should have a strong background of the material they are running their game in, otherwise I feel they are being too lazy & the game is not going to move & it didn't & died a horrible death. So maybe one of these days I'll get a good PBP experience as well.
From Carcosa, I was pointed to odd74 & that's how I found myself here, having heard of it in the past couple of weeks for the very first time. This retro-gaming style seems like a very novel idea & before this, I figured that anyone playing even first edition, was nearly non-existent..or maybe it is?
Anyway, thanks for reading & I look forward to reading several posts & learning more about Holmes & all of these other acronyms thrown about on the board willy nilly.
Re: Introductions « Reply #613 on Oct 13, 2012, 4:16pm »
Hi!
I've been an RPG junkie ever since by brother-in-law walked in the kitchen with this bunch of weir booklets back in '77; the funny-looking dice drew me in and I've been hooked ever since.
I've played (and still play in many cases!) OD&D, all iterations of AD&D all the way up through 3.5 (fourth just... ugh... let's not get into that...). Star Frontiers (still play it, in fact), Gangbusters, Gamma World, Top Secret (Rasmussen's... let's not get into S.I.), FASA's Star Trek, Battletech and Renegade Legion, Call of Cthulhu, Elfquest, Elric!, Twilight 2000...
I'll stop; my fingers'll get tired...
Recently we've been incorporating a lot of OD&D into our 3.5 games, swapping out from a canned setting to my 'old' homebrew back when I started DMing back in '81 (full-on conversion is not really an option).
I'm glad to find others interested in the foundations of gaming; more still, who have built a forum to discuss these topics.
So... what else? I'm currently living in Sunny Puerto Rico, I've played around the world and hope that I can contribute something of worth to this forum!
Joined: Aug 2010 Posts: 521 Location: The Maze of Peril Karma: 27
Re: Introductions « Reply #614 on Oct 13, 2012, 8:55pm »
Welcome aboard, Fireangel. It's good to see others looking back on the early editions for inspiration in their modern games - once I'm done with Blueholme I'll be working on producing a supplement for Pathfinder to allow Holmes-style play. I've never been one for edition wars, and I think there is a lot to be learned from all editions. I'm happy to say that this board has been one of the most civilised of the old-school, so I'm sure you'll settle right in.
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