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Post by vladtolenkov on Apr 25, 2008 1:40:24 GMT -6
The following is a link to an indie game which is in development called Red Box Hack which is a Story Game/ Old School Hybrid which owes its inspiration to the Moldvay Basic D&D. It really is just a framework right now, but it IS free. redboxhack.blogspot.com/
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Post by vladtolenkov on Apr 25, 2008 1:27:51 GMT -6
Is that Yor the Hunter from the Future? Its a caveman/S&S type film up until a certain point it becomes Star Wars and they get into laser battles. It is also VERY BAAAD!
I second the Harryhausen films--Jason and the Argonauts rocks!
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Post by vladtolenkov on Apr 19, 2008 10:01:45 GMT -6
I just bought mine on Lulu.
Nice work guys! Old School gaming is alive and well!
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Post by vladtolenkov on Apr 12, 2008 0:56:44 GMT -6
As much as like the Elric books they aren't actually my favorite Moorcock novels. They were the ones that got me hooked though. The War Hound and The World's Pain is probable my favorite single novel of his.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Apr 11, 2008 15:37:13 GMT -6
Okay. . .I'll come out and say it.
Michael Moorcock is probably my favorite writer.
And Elric was my introduction to his work. I loved these books when I was twelve, but (this being the 1980s) I originally read them in the novel series rather than the order they were published in. The violence in the books was undoubtedly one of their attractions. I had read the Lord of the Rings and the Thomas Covenant books by this time, but none of them beat the pure pulpy sword and sorcery goodness of Elric. I was aware of Robert E. Howard, but I hadn't read any of his work at this point. Elric's self-destructive streak I think made him less likeable, but possibly MORE human than Howard's indomitable Cimmerian (which is ironic considering that Elric isn't human).
Moorcock has said that the character's attitude is really a reflection of his own confused and cynical attitude as a young man during the period he started writing them in 1961.
Where the books fell a bit flat for me is when the later books: Fortress of the Pearl and Revenge of the Rose came out. My favorite single Elric work, when I was younger, was the novel The Vanishing Tower. It has a red haired sorceress, a robotic jewelled bird, an army of evil deformed beggars, monsters-a-plenty, and Elric's meeting with two other versions of himself (Erekose and Corum). Great stuff!
Ironically, I think I originally picked up the Elric books because I had seen the ads for Chaosium's Stormbringer game in Dragon Magazine, but I didn't end up buying the game until around 1991 or so (and I still have yet to really play it!) which was long after I read the books.
P.S. Check out my avatar image. It's a nifty Frank Brunner illo. of Elric kicking Chaos ass!
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 30, 2007 23:04:21 GMT -6
I must admit that while I loved Top Secret and played it quite a bit, the original rules were a little too fiddly for my lazy 10 year old brain (the unarmed combat tables were intimidating). I tended to like keeping things simple, and I was too busy having my friends fight hordes of Bond-like baddies to worry about the rules too much.
Top Secret S.I. was a rather different game, but I ended up playing it AND using the rules as written far more than the original. I've still got it and a few of supplements in our storage room. I even have both of the ill-conceived FREElancers supplement (basically an attempt to have a near future campaign setting that tried to incorporate cyberpunk science fiction elements with superheroes (NOT, in my opinion, the best idea in the world).
I also quite liked the combat system (although I do remember PCs being shot in the hands a little too often).
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 7, 2008 17:26:21 GMT -6
Jrients,
BTW I was inspired to stick some White Apes in the dungeon after reading Under Xylarthen's Tower. Nice work there!
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 7, 2008 17:21:36 GMT -6
At one point the characters locked themselves in a room in order to free some of the captured prisoners. The room was filled with ancient torture devices and there were several tables upon which there were various decayed corpses. While Zuna the thief was tring to get the cage open which contained the prisoners, the corpses got up and attacked the party. The party managed to kill the zombies, but it sure put pressure on Zuna to get the cage open!
Yeah, the poor villagers picked a bad spot. I think I was at least partly inspired by the idea of Monte Cook's Ptolus (which I don't own). Which is basically: what would a city be like if it was built on the bones of Barad-Dur after Sauron's defeat? Granted I've opted for a village/town but that sort of scenario always seemed ripe for D&D. Ancient evil living right next door (or just underneath).
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 7, 2008 15:21:24 GMT -6
We're not using variable hit dice so the Thief has 1D6 HD just like everybody else.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 7, 2008 13:12:11 GMT -6
Well I ran my first session of OD&D last night. My friend and I had been monkeying around with using WOTC's new dungeon tiles with the Moldvay rules, but I decided to convert our four characters to OD&D and try out this new Egyptian themed dungeon I'd been working on. And guess what?
OD&D ran great. I used just the Brown Books with the Greyhawk Thief thrown in for good measure.
One thing that was nice was that the monsters were more iconic than in Basic D&D. During one of our early forays with Moldvay the PCs were nearly slaughtered by a mountain lion (I'd rolled it on the wandering monster chart). No mountain lions in this dungeon! The PCs were up to their necks in hobgoblins and zombies.
The adventure involved them trying to rescue some local villagers who had been carried off into the dungeons by mysterious robed figures. The dungeons lie underneath the Black Pyramid of the Sorcerer- Pharaoh Azal-Re.
They managed to rescue two of the captured villagers and returned them home, but they're making another foray next week.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 21, 2008 9:45:58 GMT -6
Calithena,
Have you used this in your games?
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 21, 2008 9:43:29 GMT -6
Fin, Didn't think you were. Another downside, I suppose, is the fun of rolling those dice! But Gary's GenCon method in the second link even gets around that. Nick
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 20, 2008 22:14:02 GMT -6
This occurred to me as well, and you could even expand on it so that these "attributes" could refer to a whole variety of things, but Finarvyn's concern that we'd end up with something that wasn't quite D&D anymore is well justified.
And you know this is EXACTLY the sort of the thing that led to the creation of the rpg industry as we know it. Because what we call "house ruling" is often actually game design. Gygax's assumptions that the players would "make it up" just like he did-- led to lots of people doing just that and sometimes they wandered into places that stopped being what we might recognize as D&D.
And sometimes they were people like Greg Stafford or Steve Jackson.
These observations might better belong in the philosophy section but anyway...
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 19, 2008 2:32:35 GMT -6
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 19, 2008 2:29:27 GMT -6
I was reading a thread at the Knights and Knaves Alehouse and came across the following which was posted by Calithena:
Very interesting stuff. After reading that I felt like I'd gone so old school that OD&D had become an Indie Story Game.
From a design point of view the pre-Greyhawk stats don't really DO very much so why not just dump them? This sort of thing would be perfect for a quick con game or when you want to introduce some newbies.
Whaddya think?
Nick
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 20, 2007 1:18:47 GMT -6
Coffee, you're absolutely right about the shields.
Melee on Barsoom should be shield-less swashbuckling with a rapier and nothing but a weird metal harness or some such.
I'm imagining that ACs for beasties would be assigned not on the basis of the above table but would be assigned (as they are in D&D) based on the overall defensive capability of the creature. Although, I suppose higher HD monsters might have ACs that reflect their increased nastiness. The defensive would work primarily for PC and NPC characters as a way to offset the fact that characters on Barsoom can't upgrade to better armor or protective magics.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 19, 2007 16:07:53 GMT -6
Sorry, I couldn't get the table to space properly.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 19, 2007 16:01:59 GMT -6
I've been thinking about Barsoom and OD&D a bit recently, and I was trying to reconcile the fact that the Martians in Burroughs pretty much seem to be without Platemail, Chainmail, Leather Armor, or even clothes most of the time.
So here's one possible way of dealing with this in OD&D. I realize this isn't going to be to everyone's tastes, but I'd like to hear some alternate solutions as well (Dex Bonuses?? Increased HP?? LET everybody just have crappy ACs??)
Defensive Bonus (subtract from starting AC).
Level Fighter Magic-User Cleric
I -1 -1 -1 II -2 -1 -2
III -3 -1 -2 IV -4 -2 -3
V -5 -2 -3
VI -5 -2 -4
VII -6 -3 -4
VIII -6 -3 -5
IX -7 -3 -5
X -7 -4 -6
XI -8 -4 -6 A shield also subtracts 1 from AC.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 20, 2007 1:39:27 GMT -6
From what I understand the texts of many of the Mars novels have fallen into the public domain (thus they can be posted online for free), but the copywrite issue rears its head because the Burroughs estate has trademarked John Carter (and probably Dejah and Tars Tarkas) as a character.
I'm sure the Burroughs estate would feel odd about giving legitimacy to an unauthorized product like Warriors of Mars as they might be worried that sanctioning it even after all this time might undermine their copywrite.
It's all ugly lawyer stuff. On Barsoom they'd have to go into some stadium and slay anyone who challenged their copywrite.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 21, 2008 16:17:20 GMT -6
Sorry missed that thread.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 20, 2008 23:45:56 GMT -6
Just wondered how many folks here use minis when playing OD&D? Do you just draw stuff out on graph paper? Do you not use any visual representations at all?
I bought some of the WOTC D&D minis and a few sets of their dungeon tiles, and I've been using those with OD&D. Eventually, I'd like to start getting real metal figurines but that can get expensive. . .
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 21, 2008 9:57:25 GMT -6
The original articles about the GURPS New Sun book which appeared in Pyramid magazine were much more inspiring than the book itself. I'm a big Wolfe fan, but I decided to give GURPS New Sun a skip. It feels pretty lifeless and unimaginative which is weird considering the source material is gold.
Anybody ever think about adapting New Sun to OD&D?
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 30, 2007 23:18:09 GMT -6
The Scavenger's Field Guide and the Mutant Manual are essential downloads for anyone playing GW (or MA)!! You can find them in the Generic Gamma World Files section on the PA Forge link above.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 30, 2008 3:42:42 GMT -6
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 30, 2008 2:55:45 GMT -6
Here's what I think of as some of the defining qualities of D&D (all editions):
You kill things and take their stuff.
Your abilities are class based.
You level up.
These are actually a feature of many rpgs but all those games are, on some level, just doing D&D. In my opinion, D&D does this better than just about any other game, but where I feel like the game starts to get away from us is when the goals of the "house rules" stop doing the above. After playing a 3E game several years ago, my gaming group and I realized that D&D works best when you don't try to fight what the game's underlying concept is. Having a wild campaign setting is fine. That's just gravy, but the real meat of the game is doing what the system rewards players for.
One reason I now prefer OD&D is that it feels closest to those underlying goals.
Nick
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 18, 2008 4:07:23 GMT -6
One feature of Classic D&D that annoys many people is the "race as class" element of the game. If you're interested in breaking out of that and having say an Elven Thief then OD&D is a good option (especially if you want something easier than AD&D). Just houserule it !!
If you're the kind of person who wants to buy a car right off the lot without doing a lot of work on it yourself then stick with Classic. However, if you're like the folks here and you like to get under the hood and tinker a bit then you can't do better than OD&D.
Hope that helps.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Mar 30, 2008 3:58:41 GMT -6
And what does OD&D reward players for?
Defeating monsters and traps.
Collecting treasure and magic items.
Anything that gets too far away from that--like say being able to roll up and play the X-men or the crew of the Enterprise is going to run into some limitations. If you can accept that those limitations are just part of the system you'll probably have fun, but I think its those players who CAN'T accept the system's limitations that end up "fighting" the D&D system and then going away unhappy.
What they are doing is really looking for another game.
Nick
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 20, 2007 16:31:06 GMT -6
You may want to check out my thread in the Warriors of Mars section entitled Armor (or lack of) on Barsoom. In it, I propose a defensive bonus system designed to deal with the AC problems of half-nude folk on Barsoom. It certainly would also work for any Frazetta/Vallejo style barbarian folk.
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 28, 2007 16:26:10 GMT -6
I know it's AD&D but my screen name is from Q1 The Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Specifically, the encounter known as "the Night World of Vlad Tolenkov".
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Post by vladtolenkov on Nov 25, 2007 18:07:07 GMT -6
Thanks for the welcome!
One of the things most inspiring about OD&D is how much you HAVE to come up with on your own. House rules are almost a requirement (especially if you're trying to stick to the original 3 booklets).
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