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Post by MormonYoYoMan on May 27, 2017 20:40:02 GMT -6
Hundredth post goes to Mr Dreamer! Who brought the cake?
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jeffro
Level 1 Medium
Posts: 13
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Post by jeffro on May 30, 2017 20:32:46 GMT -6
Long and long ago at YMCA summer camp, I played a very brief session of AD&D using someone else's characters, painstakingly detailed on faux-parchment character sheets. My fellow adventurer crawled inside the mouth of a large, green devil face. And the Dungeon Master became angry that this borrowed character had been killed!
From there I invented my own "playground" D&D, and soon all the other 5th graders were drawing dungeons and running them for each other. I found Moldvay Basic at a Teacher's supply store. Black pocket box Car Wars at a bike store. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles And Other Strangeness at a game store. I've been a games junkie ever since.
My attempts at dungeon mastering were just plain awful, thouigh. When I grew up, I decided to fix that. I ran GURPS Prime Directive at Origins 2011 and online in a play by forum. I ran small Traveller campaigns. I ran Car Wars as a continuing rpg campaign. Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon Matt Finch's tract on Old School Play. I did not have a classic D&D set... and soon ordered Labyrinth Lord. I ran B3 for my kids. I ran Stonehell at a game store. I switched to Moldvay Basic and ran B2, X1, and G1 at a small local convention. I switched to ACKS and then ran Dwimmermount and Sakarra.
Stumbling across PDFs of Fight On! and Knockspell, I was engrossed by the arcana being unearthed in the old school scene. I couldn't get enough of it. But going into a Barnes & Nobel and the only book about D&D I'd see is "Of Dice and Men". Opening it up... it has some pretty good history, maybe. But the gameplay discussed is NOTHING like the sort of D&D I played. And the introduction...? It actually had an INSULT to people that liked older editions.
My blood boiled. I had to do something!
I decided to write the sort of book that *I* would want people stumbling across in book stores, thumbing through to find out what D&D was all about.
So I wrote Appendix N and loaded it up with the sort of commentary that had given me so much mileage at the tabletop and that I had learned from the dozens of OSR bloggers I'd read religiously. Lots of people told me I was nuts. It was too esoteric. Too mouldy. Too out there. Too controversial. Too SOMETHING! I responded by reading more, writing more, editing more, and getting up earlier to work on the project.
The book hit Amazon earlier this year. It went to number one in three categories for several days. In the D&D category it reached #6, behind only the core books for the current edition of the game.
The people that had told me I was crazy were suddenly nowhere to be found! Even better, the number of people discussing vintage games and old books has increased tremendously in my neck of the woods.
Someday people will say it's obvious that things would play out the way they have. But really... nobody saw this coming!
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Post by oakesspalding on May 30, 2017 21:41:13 GMT -6
That's a cool story, Jeffro. Car Wars at a bike store - those were the days!
And Knockspell is fantastic. Fight On! is even better (because it's generally longer). I remember buying the PDFs (because I couldn't wait for the physical magazine) and then printing them out on my office copy machine. I then went to a bar and read for hours while everyone else cheered the Blackhawks. I think Fight On! is highly regarded, but to me, it's the best game magazine ever in terms of content (yes, even beating The Dragon) and pretty d**n central to the OSR. I'm not sure that fact has been stressed enough in the community.
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Post by Michal "Bifi" S. on Jun 1, 2017 3:53:36 GMT -6
Hi everyone!
I cannot consider myself a grognard, being born in 1979 in the communist Czechoslovakia. In 1992 I discovered in my local SF/F store while on the prowl for my usual Howard, Lovecraft, Moorcock or Tolkien fix a Czech game called "Draci doupe" (The Dragon's Den, or DrD for short), which was a "heartbreaker" ripoff of the (I assume) black basic box. The principal author went to the US as a college student immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain and fell in love with D&D. He wanted to issue a Czech translation, but TSR would not even talk to him. I was stuck with the role of the DM.
I started soon frequenting an RPG club which a couple of college guys organised, called "Sharkan". There I got the German translation of 2nd ed. and played it as the main system in several groups for several years, even trying out the Skills & Powers and Combat Options (shudder). But I tended to play tons of other games, too: MERP (German translation), Das Schwarze Auge, Earthdawn, White Wolf games, GURPS, Cyberpunk 2020, WFRP, Call of Cthulhu... We used to buy rulebooks in Vienna and they definitely were not cheap for us, so there was a lot of copying too.
My gaming was revived in 2000, when we were hit by the fad that was 3E. I ran several campaigns, including a one in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved for about 2 years. But ultimately I became dissatisfied with the system and that was the right time to hit the RPG Forge forums and become swept by the GNS model and indie games, which I proselytized for a couple of years in the Czech and Slovak RPG scene. So another whole bunch of games came: Mountain Witch, My Life with Master, Sorcerer (for which I started writing a supplement based on Holdstock's Mythago Wood, but sadly never finished), Primetime Adventures, Barbarians of Lemuria, Red Box Hack, Wushu, Roanoke, Cold City, Lacuna, Cthulhu Dark and dozens of others. I had my share of good fun and the experience with innovative ideas in the indie scene opened my eyes in more ways than one, up until today I integrate various elements into most of the games I play.
2007-2008 I became enchanted with OSR and was an avid reader of James Maliszewski's blog and Fight On!. I played or ran Rules Cyclopedia, LotFP, Labyrinth Lord and Swords and Wizardry for a couple of sessions, but it proved difficult to find players in my (narrativist oriented) milieu. So my plans were more or less shelved, although I was quietly working on a retroclone project tentatively titled "Deep Woods". It was supposed to be B/X reimagined as if the genetic code of the game were not dungeon delving, but exploration of elder forest. The work went slow as other things in my life had priority.
Over the last year I ran the 2d20 version of Conan by Modiphius and it made me want to play old school games even more. I developed my own set of extensive house rules (almost a retroclone), with LotFP, Delving Deeper, 7VoZ and Champions of Zed being strong influences. Also this forum, the Save or Die podcast and Jon Peterson have been a strong motivating factor. The sandbox campaign will be set in the Upper Hungary (region which now is Slovakia) in the late 17th century, with witch trials, Turkish wars, plagues, castles etc. as backdrop. I came up with the idea of a shadow realm connecting through gates all kinds of different worlds and pocket dimensions, so I can plug in all kinds of modules that would not fit the genre/setting. I decided to promote the game through Facebook and FLGSs and recruit new players, confronting them with expectations of play style and social contract upfront.
Besides gaming I listen to a lot of old school black and death metal music, hit the gym semi-regularly. I am a trained political scientist/sociologist. Currently also immersed into the Appendix N literature - and yes, following also Jeffro's blog.
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Post by tkdco2 on Jun 1, 2017 14:15:31 GMT -6
Welcome to the boards, Michal.
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Post by foxroe on Jun 1, 2017 18:31:56 GMT -6
Welcome jeffro and "Bifi"!
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Post by macmorrigan on Jun 25, 2017 22:04:06 GMT -6
Thought I would introduce myself seeing as I whined on Google+ because I could not register. I am Morgan Corey, a near 4 decade veteran of the tabletop, from both sides of the screen. I started when I was 8, with an old copy of 0e and a summer friend and have been at it ever since. Like everyone it seems, I have even tried writing a game or two. I have lurked around this forum for a good while now and the pages of great dialog have been instrumental in the creation of my own "old school" projects. I tend to favor historical fantasy settings in the vein of Pendragon (I believe that counts as "historical fantasy") or RuneQuest's Mythic Britain, etc. I am also a die hard fan of the older D&D systems from 0e to 2e, including Chainmail (which I base a lot of my own work on). Unlike many OSR types though, I have a soft spot for new systems like Fate Core and those like it. I like players who really get into their characters and use lots of depth and detail. I don't mind power gamers (they can be restrained easy enough) or rules lawyers (keeps us honest). I don't believe in rule 0 and I have no problem with Monty Hall (as he always tends to lead players back to more mundane play). So maybe I am not "standard issue", but who is?
Thanks for opening registration again! Morgan
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Post by foxroe on Jun 25, 2017 22:24:45 GMT -6
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Post by Scott Anderson on Jun 26, 2017 3:20:06 GMT -6
Mac, is there a place where we can find some of your game work?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2017 9:55:04 GMT -6
Mac, is there a place where we can find some of your game work? Yes, macmorrigan, I too would like to know if you have a blog or other website or place your stuff is posted.
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Post by macmorrigan on Jun 26, 2017 10:30:54 GMT -6
Check my signature. It leads to a Google+ group where I am developing a Chainmail/0e rule set. I know it's "ask to join" currently, but that is to keep trolls out (nasty beasts!) until development is concluded. More of my work will follow. Come check it out if your interested!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2017 11:44:16 GMT -6
Check my signature. It leads to a Google+ group where I am developing a Chainmail/0e rule set. I know it's "ask to join" currently, but that is to keep trolls out (nasty beasts!) until development is concluded. More of my work will follow. Come check it out if your interested! Joining requested!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2017 11:51:47 GMT -6
Check my signature. It leads to a Google+ group where I am developing a Chainmail/0e rule set. I know it's "ask to join" currently, but that is to keep trolls out (nasty beasts!) until development is concluded. More of my work will follow. Come check it out if your interested! Joining requested! That was quick, thank you! I will take a look at your ruleset.
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Post by swordofkas on Jul 4, 2017 15:09:22 GMT -6
Hi, I've been a lurker here for quite some time. I am going to be 27 years old in a few days. My first exposure to D&D was back in 2008-09 with 3.5. I have played 5e and several OSR rule sets since then. When I discovered OD&D, I fell in love with the rules and mindset behind the product. I have even made my own OD&D White Box by buying the pdfs and printing/binding them myself. I want to get into playing and refereeing OD&D but it seems to be a little difficult to generate interest in my area. Attachments:
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Post by tetramorph on Jul 4, 2017 16:41:06 GMT -6
Hi, I've been a lurker here for quite some time. I am going to be 27 years old in a few days. My first exposure to D&D was back in 2008-09 with 3.5. I have played 5e and several OSR rule sets since then. When I discovered OD&D, I fell in love with the rules and mindset behind the product. I have even made my own OD&D White Box by buying the pdfs and printing/binding them myself. I want to get into playing and refereeing OD&D but it seems to be a little difficult to generate interest in my area. Welcome! Where are you, if I may ask?
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Post by swordofkas on Jul 4, 2017 21:32:00 GMT -6
Hi, I've been a lurker here for quite some time. I am going to be 27 years old in a few days. My first exposure to D&D was back in 2008-09 with 3.5. I have played 5e and several OSR rule sets since then. When I discovered OD&D, I fell in love with the rules and mindset behind the product. I have even made my own OD&D White Box by buying the pdfs and printing/binding them myself. I want to get into playing and refereeing OD&D but it seems to be a little difficult to generate interest in my area. Welcome! Where are you, if I may ask? I am on the east side of Orlando, Fl.
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Post by tetramorph on Jul 5, 2017 6:35:00 GMT -6
swordofkas, I found folks through Meetup in my area. First I found a group playing 0e. Then I offered my own 0e game for a bit. Now I have enough connections for my own off grid campaign. The process took me about four years. Any old school group would potentially be open to 0e. Just look for local gamers playing anything within the TSR era. Good luck!
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Post by owlorbs on Jul 5, 2017 10:56:26 GMT -6
Hi, I've been a lurker here for quite some time. I am going to be 27 years old in a few days. My first exposure to D&D was back in 2008-09 with 3.5. I have played 5e and several OSR rule sets since then. When I discovered OD&D, I fell in love with the rules and mindset behind the product. I have even made my own OD&D White Box by buying the pdfs and printing/binding them myself. I want to get into playing and refereeing OD&D but it seems to be a little difficult to generate interest in my area. Nice White Box! Welcome.
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Post by hamurai on Jul 16, 2017 0:10:21 GMT -6
Better late than never, I'm writing in here too. I'm a 36-years old guy from Germany and I've been playing RPG's regularly for about 20 years. Before that I played the BattleTech tabletop for some years. I think I must have been about 10 when my older neighbour introduced me to role-playing with D&D (can't remember the edition but I believe it was OD&D or 1e basic set) and Traveller. After BattleTech we played Mechwarrior, Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye), Shadowrun, EarthDawn, Vampire (tM/DA) and many different more after that. At the moment my group plays D&D 5 online, with some other games thrown in between (OD&D and World of Dungeons, for example). I recently moved and found some other players and just yesterday we tried a one-shot Feng Shui 2, which was a lot of fun, too.
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Post by tkdco2 on Jul 16, 2017 0:26:03 GMT -6
Welcome to the boards, hamurai!
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Post by scalydemon on Jul 16, 2017 1:06:53 GMT -6
Welcome hamurai. Long may you game.
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Post by foxroe on Jul 16, 2017 4:32:56 GMT -6
Welcome, hamurai!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 30, 2017 20:20:17 GMT -6
Hello. I'm 33 years old and have been gaming for only 4 years, but I've been trying to make-up for lost time.
I'd heard of D&D when I was a kid--mostly from ads in comic books--but it just wasn't something being played in my neck of the woods back in the 80s. I totally missed 3e and 4e, and if the owner of a local game store hadn't introduced me to Pathfinder, I might have missed that altogether. So I got into that, and I very quickly found myself GMing. Then 5e came around and I soon found myself having to study that because that's what the players were interested in. I had only run a few games before I found myself getting tired of it, writing house rules to remedy the parts I didn't agree with. When that document reached 40+ pages, I knew I had a problem.
I've since tinkered with making my own system (dropped that after nearly a year of work), studied other systems, and found myself at the door of the OSR. I studied the systems under that, struggling to make sense of the strange (at the time) saving throws, the low hit points, the simpler classes, and gradually found myself going back into the history of D&D. It was when I read Bill Webb's writings on how his game was designed to challenge the players rather than their characters that I realized I wanted to run that kind of game, and OD&D was the perfect fit: simple, lots of wiggle room to bolt-on any mutations I wanted, and most importantly, it got my players out of the "analog video-game" mindset.
And so here I am, eager to learn and participate!
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Post by tkdco2 on Jul 31, 2017 2:11:23 GMT -6
Welcome, GTIgnacio!
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Post by owlorbs on Jul 31, 2017 9:32:30 GMT -6
Welcome to all the new members.
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Post by rredmond on Aug 4, 2017 8:05:08 GMT -6
Welcome new members! Be well, --Ron--
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Post by distortedhumor on Sept 2, 2017 13:04:26 GMT -6
Can't recall If I posted on this thread or not.
Distorted Humor, same DH as over on Dragonfoot and elsewere. While I am more of a B/X-BECMI-RC fan, I do enjoy the LBBs and the white box as so many questions did not have a standard answer.
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Post by foxroe on Sept 2, 2017 18:54:27 GMT -6
Welcome @gti and distortedhumor! I've been hanging around here for years, and I'm still learning things. It's a great place to be!
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Post by hamurai on Sept 19, 2017 22:39:29 GMT -6
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Post by foxroe on Sept 19, 2017 22:42:58 GMT -6
Welcome, piper! I dislike: drama, so please leave me out of editions wars, picayune rules discussions, or character assassinations of big names in the hobby. I whole-heartedly agree. Fortunately, it doesn't get too bad around these parts - bad apples tend to fall off the tree here.
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