Wargaming in 1879: The Game of Strategos
Via the comment thread on this Gognardia post.
Talk about ‘old-school’
March 19, 2009RPG instead of Video Games
March 19, 2009Recently, Geek Orthodox has a post up about how a guy DMed for a bunch of 10-year-olds at his nephew’s birthday party, and how awesome it was that they wanted to play an RPG instead of sit in front of the Wii or something.
Over at the Swords & Wizardry forum is a great discussion on this, including talk about whether kids playing 4e is better than video games or not.
I’m inclined to think that it’s FAR better to play more recent versions of D&D than to play any video games. Kids have got to start somewhere, and if that starting point is 4E or CCGs or something else that the old-schoolers frown upon, that’s better than not starting at all. 4E players can be “converted,” but video gamers (in general) would be tougher to bring into the old-school fold. I believe that’s a huge part of the reason that new RPGs incorporate so many concepts of video/online gaming: it narrows the gap and makes it an easier sell.
Recursed Scrolls
March 17, 2009
From the always-funny XKCD.
FSRG
March 15, 2009I personally believe 4E is the first Fantasy Role Scripting Game (FRSG). Given this reclassification, it fits into the established product line of Dungeons and Dragons in the same way that movies also belong to it.
My first reaction upon reading this, of course, was to laugh out loud. That’s pure genius right there, and the fact that it’s true makes it no less humorous. That’s the sort of thing that sometimes makes me say “That’s so funny I nearly blew milk out my nose! And I’m not even drinking milk!”
As you get into the post though, you see that this satirical beginning does not lead directly into a flamestrike on 4E or new-school gamers. It’s merely an observation about how the new game is different than the old, different in such a fundamental game that it’s really a different game.
And really, isn’t that what all the old-schoolers really believe? I know that I don’t certainly think that 3.0 or 3.5 or 4E are wrong or even bad even though they are not right for my personal sensibilities. Most old-schoolers seem to think that the new versions are just a completely different game that happens to take its name and use some of the window dressing from the earlier versions. They (and I) don’t really care for this new, different game, so they keep playing the one they love.
Though I detest the newer versions of the game, and even Second Edition crossed some line for me, I don’t detest the players of those games or the fact that the games exist. I mere don’t want to play them, and I don’t want to play with those who insist on playing them.
Flame wars and holier-than-thou shouting matches aren’t at all necessary, and outright attacks with imagined +5 Holy Avengers on some kids who actually enjoy roll-playing, railroad plots, and two-hour battles against six goblins and a bugbear is not going to please [insert your Paladin’s LG deity here] at all.
(Although unarmed combat might be useful at times. Just don’t make me use the 1E pummeling, grappling, or overbearing rules.)
Comb-Bound Labyrinth Lord
March 14, 2009Here are Kilgore’s Labyrinth Lord books. I used a comb-binding machine at work to punch the sheets. I’d prefer coil-bound, but this is fine for now.
Labyrinth Lord comb-bound full-size and digest
I like the digest-sized books better for game use.
I haven’t picked up a hard cover yet, but I will do so as soon as I can manage it. However, I fully expect that I’ll continue to use the digest-sized comb-bound book while playing.
Understanding Traveller
March 14, 2009Jeff Rients posted two sci-fi fragments last night, the second of which was pulled from this:
Kilgore's Understanding Traveller by GDW
This 16-page (counting front and back cover) pamphlet is the single most important item from my gaming career, because without it I may never have had a gaming career.
One afternoon I was at Don’s Hobby in Mankato, Minnesota, browsing through plastic model kits of warships. This is the sort of thing I did in 1978-1982, and I loved it. Don’s Hobby was great, because it had more ship kits than any store I had ever been in and it also carried model rockets, another hobby of mine. In addition, a magazine rack farther back in the store carried ‘Sea Power’ magazine, and I would spend a great deal of my free time on hot summer days thumbing through the pages of the magazines that I couldn’t afford to buy. (Which was nearly all of them ever.)
Back by the magazine rack were shelves filled with all sorts of weird books and games, and one of the most prominent was filled with a variety of little black books for something called ‘Traveller.’ Now, besides warships and rockets I sure dug sci-fi, and since Traveller was billed as “Science Fiction Adventure in the Far Future”, I picked up a couple of the books and flipped through them. One of them was a thin one called ‘Understanding Traveller’, and it explained the concept of role-playing games in general and Traveller specifically. A drawing of a guy in a vacc suit with what I would later learn was a laser carbine was on page 3, and I was hooked.
Despite the clearly printed FREE on the cover, I distinctly remember walking up to the counter (on those creaky hardwood floors at Don’s) and asking if the booklet was free. It was, of course, and I spent weeks reading and re-reading it. Off of this, I ended up with Traveller as a birthday present.
Several months later, I introduced the game to a friend back from his first year in college, and he returned the favor by introducing us to AD&D.
I didn’t build very many more model ships or model rockets after that birthday.
The image here is of the very booklet that I took home that day in 1982. The crease down the middle is from where I folded it in half to stick in my back pocket so I could bike back to my mom’s place. Every once in a while I get it out and read through it.
Talk about an artifact or relic of the Ancients.
Ultimate Gaming Table
March 13, 2009This is something I’d bookmarked at some point:
Ultimate Gaming Table
We don’t use minitures when we play, so the utility of the tabletop grid would be limited. But many cool features for gaming in ultimate comfort.
One thing I wonder about is if having such a lair has the tendency to limit play to that location. A nice thing about rules-light gaming like the old-school things I play is that you can start up nearly anywhere.
New Look for the Old-School
March 13, 2009Swords & Wizardry has a new homepage design. Very nice.
New Spells Beyond the Black Gate
March 12, 2009Be sure to check out The Cursed Tome of Mar-Karakor and The Cursed Tome of Mar-Karakor pt2 for some good old-school spells.
I’m going to make a clerical version of one for my current campaign:
Robe of Shadows
Level: 2
Duration: 1 Turn
Range: CasterThe caster is draped in writhing shadows, granting a -2 bonus to AC.
It fits an NPC cleric and her godling perfectly.
Greetings
March 12, 2009This is the first post on Lord Kilgore. He promises following posts will be more interesting.
Lord Kilgore 