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Post by tdenmark on Jan 26, 2024 16:51:55 GMT -6
Hail and Well Met! My name's Richard, and a few of you might remember me from the pre-history of the OSR when I ran a little magazine called OD&DITIES. I've been gaming since '93, but a combination of circumstances meant that I pretty much stopped for the best part of a decade. Last year I got a campaign going again online (B/X, running the Keep on the Borderlands, just ended) and let's just say I'm back with a vengeance - I'm currently preparing a campaign based around the dungeons from Dungeoneer 1-6, in a setting I'm calling 'Septuaginta Septem'. (Yes, 77, indicating the cut-off point for material I'm using, I've spent the afternoon flipping through Best of Dragon I...) I have all the issues of OD&DITIES, great to have you here! Welcome.
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Post by methuslah on Jan 27, 2024 5:10:16 GMT -6
It's good to be here; I hope to be at least reasonably active in the near future. One of my New Year's resolutions was to give myself more time, and that hopefully means getting a couple of new campaigns going in the very near future.
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Post by richard on Jan 30, 2024 13:17:14 GMT -6
Hi y'all. My name's Richard, from Plano, TX. I started playing ttrpgs about ten years ago, using an ancient copy of RuneQuest that my dad loaned me, and in the years since I've become very interested in ttrpg history and other older systems - especially old D&D editions. Unfortunately I haven't gotten a chance to play or run OD&D yet, but hopefully I can get an adventure or two in once my group wraps up our 5e campaign.
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Post by zornhau on Jan 30, 2024 17:39:46 GMT -6
Thanks for the add! My name is Brooks and I’ve been slowly gathering all of my creative work under the banner of Zornhau Studios. I started in playing RPGs in the late 90s, with a second hand copy of the AD&D DMG — we didn’t even have the PHB, so from the start we were hacking the game just to make it playable — and I’ve been running, playing, hacking, and writing about RPGs ever since. My taste in games bounces between two equally specific, narrow fields. On the one hand, I found myself drawn to very particular styles of character-driven play exemplified by games like The Riddle of Steel and The Burning Wheel. My current long-term project, Sword & Scoundrel is a refinement of and love letter to those games and that style of play. I’m actually quite close to a major update to all of the play-testing materials that have been floating around for a couple years and these will hopefully represent the version of that game that I will, eventually endeavor to kickstarter. Having spent a decade redrafting and revising the thing, I’d like to bring the project to completion and a close. At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been increasingly drawn to OSR in general and early D&D in particular. As my earliest exposures to the hobby came from what amounted to AD&DIY, a lot of the OSR felt like a kind of coming home. Amusingly, the more philosophical arguments of the OSR movement in terms specificity of play-style (See: any given writing proclaiming to be an OSR primer, intro to the OSR style, etc) is in a lot of ways an attempt to address the exact same issues in the hobby as my other favored style of play, with a surprising amount of overlap between the two. A great deal of my writings — particularly on my older blog — were on OSR topics, particularly by way of Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Of these, I had a couple picked up by Knock! Magazine and published in its first issue. I have a couple more pieces that will feature in future issues. Some of that will make its way to my Substack as well, where I write about TTRPG things including both of the above. In the last few years, I’ve been increasingly drawn to OD&D in particular. I’m the kind of nerd who finds rpg design itself interesting, so my interest initially began as a kind of role-play archeology. Over time, I’ve been increasingly impressed the system itself — particularly when combined with chainmail or the different materials from early Dragon magazine articles. As my last few projects have involved tinkering with the OD&D formula, I thought it about time I sought out folks who knew the game better than I probably ever will. And thus, here I am. Look forward to getting to know you all!
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Post by gristlebottom on Feb 9, 2024 22:21:54 GMT -6
Hi All, My name is Pete and I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada, but I am currently living in Vanocouver. I have been an enthusiastic lurker in the Old School online scene since the glory days of the OSR blogosphere, and recently I have decided to step out of the shadows and start communicating and contributing the scene which has given me so much entertainment and inspiration over the years. I started playing D&D at the age of 10 with Moldvay in 1988, quickly moving on to AD&D 1st and then 2nd edition, and then on to 3rd before becoming baffled and disenchanted with fourth edition...so, I suppose, I had a fairly typical grog trajectory Currently, I have a great interest in Chainmail and OD&D. I have four kids, and with the younger two I play Delta's Book of War System, and with my older two I play Chainmail (although my oldest is the real D&D-head of the two). I am running an Old School Essentials campaign currently, which I am posting on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU1S7GAa8KA7-0bZ31L64RQ), although I look forward to creating OD&D content in the near future. I have a million questions and ideas that I want to share with you all!
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Post by hamurai on Feb 18, 2024 9:29:06 GMT -6
Welcome, newcomers!
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arkansan
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 229
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Post by arkansan on Feb 18, 2024 10:14:39 GMT -6
Hi All, My name is Pete and I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada, but I am currently living in Vanocouver. I have been an enthusiastic lurker in the Old School online scene since the glory days of the OSR blogosphere, and recently I have decided to step out of the shadows and start communicating and contributing the scene which has given me so much entertainment and inspiration over the years. I started playing D&D at the age of 10 with Moldvay in 1988, quickly moving on to AD&D 1st and then 2nd edition, and then on to 3rd before becoming baffled and disenchanted with fourth edition...so, I suppose, I had a fairly typical grog trajectory Currently, I have a great interest in Chainmail and OD&D. I have four kids, and with the younger two I play Delta's Book of War System, and with my older two I play Chainmail (although my oldest is the real D&D-head of the two). I am running an Old School Essentials campaign currently, which I am posting on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU1S7GAa8KA7-0bZ31L64RQ), although I look forward to creating OD&D content in the near future. I have a million questions and ideas that I want to share with you all! Welcome aboard!
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CeruleanRex
Flunky
Hello. Thanks for having me.
Posts: 6
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Post by CeruleanRex on Mar 7, 2024 19:49:20 GMT -6
Greetings All, My thanks for having me join you all here. I am Johhny King aka Cerulean Rex. Rex .. Wizard-King ... I mean its my name I was going to do something with that. hehe I am young by some standards and old by others. I started playing D&D in '81. Moldvay. Erol Otus art will just never not be the D&D imagery that gives me this surreal sense of wonder about what this game even really is. I started playing with my best friend in jr. high. We would alternate being each other's DM each weekend. ALL weekend. We each ran our own party of adventurers. After about two years I had played all the classes up to high teens to 20th level, played with just a ton of the magic items, fooled around with most of the spells. Kinda saw it all and decided to get serious and DM for a group of 6 friends. That turned out to be my place, but then I found my DM metor who was better than I. My college years I finally got to play in one of those big games. It was magic. I DM'd a lot through the mid 90's. Stretched the Giants through Drow through Lolth series into 3 years of game play. Great fun with those modules. After that I latched back onto super hero games, and D20 Modern for a while. Was part owner in a game store from 02 to 04. I have played all the editions of D&D except 4th. lol I was so adjacent to the game when white boxes were still around. I am surprised I don't have one from back then. That's ok. I have a couple of them now. I got serious about questing for an understanding of the history of the game and understanding its origin 2018 or 2019. I have been gathering knowledge around Original D&D and the TSR era these last few years. I suspect I am not alone when I say its hard to express what drives that ... this need to get my arms around this thing that keeps calling me back through various periods of my life. I have determined that it is not going to leave the forefront of my attention again. I have lost too many years not pursuing ... whatever it is around D&D that I need to work out. I think it is just to be a part be of some value to those who love it in the best ways that I know how. That's ... a lot, and I don't know if that makes sense to anyone. I have a reverence for the game itself, its creators, how it started, how it has evolved, and what it is to people today. I am especially interested in the D&D that happens these days using boxes and books that are called something else. There is a renaissance of fantasy roleplaying game design that has not been happening in Renton of late. Magic was happening there 10 years ago imho, but not for a long time now. But as for that renaissance, there is something special in that and it is the echoes of the Twin Cities and Lake Geneva, in games that are not Dungeons & Dragons™, but they are ... D&D. That's something that corporate ownership just can't account for. Long live the game designers! I think I might just be rambling now. Be careful asking me to talk. I will. Ok that's pretty much me. The broad strokes, at least, of why I love this game and it's history and its people. Thanks again for allowing me to chat with you folks about it. I hope to add something valuable to the discussion, but for now, I think I should mostly listen to the conversation without worrying about talking so much. Time enough for that once I have a feel for the rhythm of this community. All The Best, —CREX
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 8, 2024 12:04:03 GMT -6
Welcome, Johnny. We have met in person at Gary Con - I played in your session of the Legends tournament last year. I started playing with my best friend in jr. high. We would alternate being each other's DM each weekend. ALL weekend. We each ran our own party of adventurers. That is exactly how I played the majority of the time in middle school. My best friend would only be in our neighborhood every other weekend (divorced parents), and we didn't know any other local kids who played, so we each made our own party and took turns DMing. It's an underrated mode of playing. He actually still runs games for one of his kids that way.
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Post by 200orcs on Mar 8, 2024 17:00:44 GMT -6
Hello everyone, I'm 200orcs.
I've been playing D&D since the early 90s. Have ended up playing multiple systems, mainly DMed D&D with a sprinkling of Shadowrun. As I got increasingly frustrated with D&D 4e, I took a hiatus. I was a D&D 5e early tester, and even though it had a lot of potential with the initial rules, I slowly saw it get increasingly more complex and roll-play vs role-playing.
So off I went searching for something like D&D but more focused on role-playing. I read a lot of systems, and it wasn't till I started looking into D&D B/X, did I realize that perhaps instead of looking at the latest games, I should be looking at older games.
That's how the 3 LBBs came into my life. Suddenly all the things I didn't like, the character creation game, the over inflation of modifiers, the must-have skills all went away.
I love reading perspectives, new ways of interpreting old rules, and it's always nice to see how creatively people homebrew things.
Currently, I'm working on my own heartbreaker that's heavily based on OD&D.
...English is my second language, so I do mess up how I say things, but most of the time it's not a problem.
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CeruleanRex
Flunky
Hello. Thanks for having me.
Posts: 6
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Post by CeruleanRex on Mar 8, 2024 23:17:46 GMT -6
Welcome, Johnny. We have met in person at Gary Con - I played in your session of the Legends tournament last year. I started playing with my best friend in jr. high. We would alternate being each other's DM each weekend. ALL weekend. We each ran our own party of adventurers. That is exactly how I played the majority of the time in middle school. My best friend would only be in our neighborhood every other weekend (divorced parents), and we didn't know any other local kids who played, so we each made our own party and took turns DMing. It's an underrated mode of playing. He actually still runs games for one of his kids that way. Oh this is so cool. I haven't met anyone else who started playing this particular way. I love that he is doing it that way for his kid. It TEACHES you the mechanics like, thoroughly. Do that for a year or so and yeah, you're pretty much primed to DM because you can really see the underpinnings of the game after that. I thought I had you connected to that game session from last year by the way but I was not sure! So glad to find you here as well! If you are going to be at GC be sure and flag me down. I have something for you related to that tournament session.
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Post by cheshiredinah on Mar 18, 2024 21:16:57 GMT -6
Hello, I am from the Pacific Northwest of the US. I played mostly Pathfinder society for a bit in college, which was 1 Edition (D&d 3.5). Recently, I have got into od&d with plans of using it to aid with learning Japanese. I have read all of LLB, and I am currently working on reading "Playing at the World". I have really enjoyed reading into to the history of D&d.
I am looking forward to spending time in this community.
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mouser
Level 1 Medium
Posts: 17
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Post by mouser on Apr 4, 2024 10:51:18 GMT -6
Ya know, I never introduce myself but here at ODD74 I feel like this could actually be a fun thing. I realized over the past few years that I generally like anyone who has played Boot Hill or OD&D, like, yes, sometimes these old-school fellow players can have some character traits that are, shall we say, abrasive occasionally but generally I have an affinity for them. I played a lot of Boot Hill, the boxed set, in about 1984-86. I started my D&D gaming about 1982 with a fabulous DM who had a few of the OD&D books and the AD&D DM guide; he was 11 years old, as was I, and to this day I still think he was the best DM I ever had. I do like the Star Wars forum here--I like the angle where, IIRC, one of the threads envisions how Star Wars could have gone based on how things were looking pre-Empire Strikes Back. I was hugely into the Han Solo books and Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and I devoured any fan speculation that was available around and after the release of Empire, and so I definitely remember how I thought Star Wars was going to go as opposed to how it went. That being said, Return of the Jedi is my favorite Star Wars film by far. That's all for now. It's nice to be here. Edit: I found two threads that were about Star Wars branching off in a different direction based on the expectations set up in the original film: odd74.proboards.com/thread/6142/star-wars-sagaodd74.proboards.com/thread/6136/star-wars
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Post by chuckleberry on Apr 10, 2024 3:18:53 GMT -6
Howdy, all!
I'm Chuckleberry! There's nothing super unique about my RPG journey, especially amongst fellow appreciators of the Old Ways. But I'll give a little rundown for the sake of self-introduction.
I got started with RPGs in my early teens when I got the 1991 D&D black box. My friends and I made the jump to 2e not long after. Edgy teenage me loved running Ravenloft, but I also ran and played in a number of both published and homebrew campaigns.
My family moved while I was in high school and I never got tied in with a regular group. This was very shortly after 3e came out, and I wasn't too keen on 3e. So the FLGS still had some old stock of editions I was interested in. But every time I'd go there'd be less material I cared to peruse, so it never became a regular haunt for me. So my play for most of the early 2000's consisted almost entirely of sessions at Gen Con and my town's local con, Winter War.
From college onward I've played, sometimes regularly, sometimes sporadically. If I'm organizing and running campaign play, it's probably a TSR-era flavor of D&D. But on the player side, I've enjoyed a pretty wide range of systems and settings.
I had trouble getting into online play during the lockdown years; it just didn't do it for me. And my partner and I moved, so when things started opening back up and people started meeting IRL again, I didn't have any play partners. But last month I attended GameStorm in Portland, OR. There I got tied in with some local folks and got invited to some discord servers and it's led to a real resurgence of gaming for me. In fact, last night, for my first time, I played OD&D using the Chainmail rules. And it was a blast. So here's hoping for a '24 full of '74!
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