Old D&D editions and clones - Tunnels & Trolls 1st ed.

Now, some of you might object to that title. Surely T&T is not a clone of D&D, and it surely isn't an old D&D edition!? No, it is not, but it is the first published game inspired by D&D and it fits right in here in the series about how much the old games inspire and engage today.

Those of you who have read or played later editions of T&T should really take a peek at this edition if you get the opportunity! I own the 2013 reprint, which might be available yet. I do not know. Anyway. What's interesting about this game are two things, how it differs from later T&T editions and how it differs from D&D.

I found it interesting that on the first page you get a short summary of how to run a game as a GM, how to play it as a player and even the point of sitting around the table talking get across well. I like it a lot. This little section is actually a fairly good primer of what it's all about. Fun details is that the caller is mentioned, as the "Voicer".

There are many fun small idiosyncrasies in this game, but most of it is in the presentation that is extremely colloquial. Ken even jokes about the illustrations right beside the current paragraph. The rules are fairly easy and smooth and there are not multiple odd subsystems.

I like some of the advice for how to run the game, like the emphasize on house ruling, "this is not my game". It is a hack of another game that grew into its own and it is paying its dues. Then there's the suggestion to put in lot of stuff in the dungeons, since "Nobody likes to mess around in a dull dungeon". Here I think Ken is onto something. The big empty dungeon is something I feel have been overvalued in the OSR conversations. I'm not so sure it was a regular feature of the Old Ways even.  Ken goes on with some other good advice suggesting that all the threats in the dungeon should be avoidable or be possible to nullify by smart players.

Much of the rules is as you'd expect, with the suggestion you start with a horisontal cut away fo your multi level dungeon, and there are rules for reaction rolls and capturing monsters. I also love the fact that there are names to the character levels. A Veteran is someone who has reached 3rd level, by the way. Not first.

Comparing this to modern versions of T&T and there are some differences. Armour is ablative, Saving Rolls are mainly done on Luck and you get XP for gold and deepest dungeon level penetrated.

I would actually gladly pick up those for all editions, liking them a lot. In general, I like this edition a lot. Expanding Saving Rolls into the "meta mechanic" it got later on and I feel you've almost hit the sweet spot for T&T rules. There's a rawness to the rules, but it's brimming with enthusiasm and small snippets of the life in the Phoenix campaign, like how they all have 3-15 characters per player! For me the rules feels like a big smiling invitation to just roll some dice and dive in the deep end. This is another winner. I really want to play this game!

Now I think of freedom and liberty

My thoughts are with all of you in Canada today. Let's not let them scare you into giving up liberties and freedoms. That's what they want!

My condolences to the family of the soldier who was shot, and prayers for others who have been hurt.

A horror classic reborn!

Some of you have probably heard about this already, but I'm mentioning it again, just in case.

It's that classic horror rpg, Chill, that is crowdfunding a third edition!

The publisher have run programs like this before, and the scope is reasonable. I've had much fun with 1st edition Chill and even though this aiming at continuing the 2nd ed I still think this is a worthy cause. There was an attempt a few years back, but that one was not run by anyone able to deliver. It looks far better this time than the previous try.

Since I've already pledged, I've downloaded the quickstart and there are some interesting mechanical tweaks I think could work very well.

There are few games doing non-mythos horror, so go forth and pludge, S.A.V.E. needs your support against the Unknown!

Using Plot Triads for the win

Last night we played Tianxia again. My life is in a very hectic phase, but I have managed to get a 2-3 hour session in now for two weeks in a row. Naturally, when you have limited time you have to use your game prep wisely.

The setup for the episode last time was that the Iron Monkey Escort Company had gotten the prestigious contract to move the Jade Buddha from the Green Heaven Temple to the governor's mansion in the city of Bao Jiang. Since running yet another ambush in the woods felt repetitive, I decided to focus instead on what happened at the end and the beginning of the journey. So, it was to be intrigue and showdown in the temple before they get out the door with the jade statuette.

Having decided that I wrote up a few antagonists. I had a young woman, with a troubled past. Since one PC is a "paladin in training" I knew I could entangle him there. I had an arrogant noble sword fighter who would rankle one of the other PCs, and to make things interesting I followed the advice in the Tianxia book and made a plot triad.The plot triad is a simple but smart idea about always having three way interplays between plot elements. So, the arrogant noble knew about the troubled past, but was honour bound to protect her because of that.

I took that same plot triad idea to the jade buddha statuette. Young woman want buddha, scheming corrupt bureaucrat want the buddha and the PCs are hired to take it from point A to point B without those two getting it.

It turned out this was a great way to get the players to interact with the world, and the characters within it. Thinking about it, just interacting with one character that have a "thing" and you want it, is pretty limiting. Either you get it, or not. The triad turned out to twist that into something that felt complex, and manageable at the same time.It was easy on prep, with just jotted down notes on who where present and who wanted what from whom. All in all, just a sentence on each character. Having limited time for prep, this was perfect. I can really recommend this tool!

What happened was the young woman charmed one PC to let her out of jail after her attempt on the statuette, the the magistrate made his grab for it, and the players got to fight a whole squad of soldiers in the abbot's quarters. They whacked the magistrate, scattered the soldiers and ride off with the buddha, escort company banner fluttering in the wind. Up on the hills were bandits and out there was the young woman, and the mysterious swords man. Very cinematic.

Next time I will just fast forward to the governer's mansion, and set up some new triads. Almost instant drama. It worked wonders for a busy gamer!

Old D&D editions and clones - Swords & Wizardry Core Edition

Back when this whole cloning D&D business started, people felt we needed to have a game like the original. We ended up at least three.

I own the Brave Halfling S&W White Box, Brave Halfling Delving Deeper, S&W Core Edition. I have also put in money for the Champions of ZED crowdfunding about which I have totally given up hope. Curiously enough Delving Deeper from BHP was also a total mess, taking forever to be shipped out. Is there a curse of OD&D clones?

I now took time out to re-read S&W Core, and it was a pleasant read. Matt Finch is repeatedly telling you where there are just some chalk lines on the pavement, and you get to decide if there should be a hole there, or something built up along those lines. It comes across very much as a tool box, and it gave me the same sense of possibilities - that really is the best word - that GURPS always gives me. While GURPS makes me start to wonder where I could plug in that little rule or procedure, S&W is more about laying down groundwork. I do like how Matt suggests things like critical hits and mentions explicitly what common house rules are.

There are some things I really didn't like, and not all of them was things I expected. I have never had any emotional investment in the great AC debate, for example. The AD&D way with negative AC always struck me as typical messy and quirky gygaxism, but nothing I felt that strongly about. Now, on the other hand, it really made me cringe! I looked at it and wondered why on earth they included that, and didn't just stay with the rules in the original three booklets.

The other thing I did find needlessly included, maybe even without being questioned, was the inclusion of so much of the magic items from Supplement I Grayhawk. After almost 40 years those magic items are anything but magical, and feel very cookie cutter. Frankly, they have been for a long time. I own a quirky volume by Rob Kuntz called El Raja Key's Arcane Treasury, and reading that I know there are more to draw from that well. Some of what's in that book really show magical qualities. Magic should be unique.

Anyway, back to S&W Core. There are lot of curious corners of this rules set, like a neat mass battles system! There are discussions about how to design dungeons, and how to reward player characters. All advice is well thought out and since it's all so sensible, and tweakable I almost at once wants to do just that. There's really nothing much in this game that reaches out and grabs you by the throught, but as a basic guideline for OD&D style gaming it's really well written, and engaging. I want to play it, and use it with my own special tweak. This one definitely stands up!

Old D&D editions and clones - Ambition & Avarice

I remember when I first heard of Castles & Crusades, and how the creators talked about how it fused the best of older editions with new. I was never that convinced by C&C, but if any game has managed to fuse the best of old and new, that game is Ambition & Avarice.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this game is how good it looks. The layout it clean and readable and the illustrations opening each chapter is adorable. I mean, the illustration to Introduction is of a ruined structure, the proverbial hole in the ground you go to have adventures. It's where everything start, and the focus of it all, which is what the text say when it lays down the design goals. Everything in this game feels well thought out.

It's fun to see new classes, and new races. Some of them are what you would normally call evil or barbaric, and I like how this game never labels them as evil or NPC only.

Some innovations feels very good, like the saves as inherent to the race, while the classes is more about what you're trained to do. Having some things each class is good at, some things they can identify and some kind of companions are strokes of genius! This makes the class cover so much more, be flexible and the companions makes the game tie the murder hobos to the world. Very good new design, in a very old and traditional way. I also like the way the system of Dungeon Rolls gives you that kind of light weight "skill system" that LotfP has. Since there are lots of class based abilities and the races have lot of different qualities it feels like there so many interesting ways to make your character special, while it's still very easy to generate one and the archetypes you in a class based system are still present. It doesn't get much better than that. The author, Greg Christopher, even manages to sell me on a save system that aligns more with the traditional ones than my preferred 3rd ed. style saves.

What are my reactions to this game then? I guess you have noted that already. This is a game that is a joy to read, and thus it makes you want to play it. There are interesting innovations while keeping a lot of the stuff that is familiar. This is a honed game, and finely cut gem that has taken lots of stuff and really focused on player driven play, within the boundaries of old school gaming, but with lots of possibilities to play just the character you want.

There are a few things that really makes me want to run this game. One of them is the lack of a list of standard magic items. One of the things that so often make the fantastic mundane is the thoughtless reuse of the pieces of wonder Gary and Rob invented for the Greyhawk campaign. In this game both monsters and magic is allowed to be unique and fantastic again.

If more games were as well written as this one, we'd all be better off.

Old D&D editions and clones - B/X edition D&D

In my series going back through old editions and clones I've reached the edition of D&D called B/X, for the "Basic" and "eXpert" books of the D&D rules. I'm thinking of taking a closer look at some other old school games as well, but for now it's the Thing itself, D&D.

First impression is good. This is clear about what it's all about, and how to use the book. This introduction is very clear, and this is what you feel about the rest of this book, very clear.

How do you organize a game book anyway? Many books have been organized like this one, and for a good reason, it is clear and makes a lot of sense. You learn about a how to make a character, his or her powers and then about things you might happen upon in an adventure and how to handle them. Even in the section about encounters the author lists things you might want to do when you encounter a creature, and then in the same order they are listed there's a section on how to handle that eventuality.

The only thing I really find curious about these books, Basic and Expert alike, is how they mention monsters. In the first book they say there's more stuff in the next book, like monsters! Then in the next book they once more mention the next book (never published) containing more stuff, like monsters. It's also mentioned on the back of the books that there are "new spells, magic items and over 100 new monsters". Why not mention how many magic items are in there?

It was fun to see that Dave Arneson's rules about magic swords show up again. I kind of missed them when they were not in the first book. I wonder how different the history of D&D would be if all swords had been that special?

Generally when I read this book I feel "this is a game I could see myself playing". You feel that since it's so complete. There are procedures for stocking dungeons, what to do if they players want to speak to monsters or who will act first when they are surprised. It feels like whatever happens, you're covered. This almost makes me feel like I'm reading 3rd edition, which is usually being slammed for trying to cover it all, with a rule for everything. Maybe it's a matter of how you present it? For me it reads very comforting. I am tempted to run a game just because I know with these rules I could handle anything.

Apart from that, there's very few pieces of really inspiring bits for me. The prose is very dry, and not enticing me into adventure, and the rules have no really quirky and bizarre subsystems you long to try out. Oddly enough, if there's one word for this feeling it must be - dull!

Considering this is the favourite edition for many D&D fans, I guess I just cussed in church! But, I don't consider this a bad game. Frankly, this probably is my favourite edition of D&D. For some reason it really lack some pizzazz, though. It wont make me go "I really want to play this game", but like I wrote earlier I could really see myself doing it, because I find no faults at all with it. Come to think of it, this was the last edition I used to run a D&D game, before it fizzled out and we started playing that newfangled thing, called 4th ed.

There is one thing that mystifies me, though, why do a clone of this game? There's nothing to fix, and there's no fault in its presentation and it's easy to find for sale cheap. Well, not being silly I guess the problem would be it's not in print.

But, My two copies of both Basic and Expert have actually kept me from getting Labyrinth Lord. I never felt the need.

How to write rules for old school games - does it have to be bad?

As I wrote my little piece on Dragons At Dawn, I realized a thing about how to write rules text. There's a trap to look out for when writing retro clones or other games with an old school feel.

Back in the dawn of the hobby, there were lot of things taken for granted that never ended up in the rules. To some people reading those rules 35 years later or so, that leaves room for their own creativity. I think that is the wrong way to see it, if you are writing new rules in particular.

I do not think that there is a development from worse to better, so that newer rules are by definition better than the old. Something that really riles me up is when someone looks down on an older set of rules as inferior because it's older.

But, I do believe we can improve the craft of writing rules. One of the things I think we can do better now than in the olden days, is to write all our assumptions into the rules. I mean, you should strive to make the rules cover all that it is set out to cover. You do not need a rule for everything, but I think those times you don't cover something it is intentional and the base design ideas will make it less of a guesswork to fill in those gaps by your own creativity.

Naturally I can understand and sympathize with those who wants "rulings, not rules". My leanings are for the Old Ways after all. But, there are things worth imitating, and not to.

Dragons At Dawn is a peculiar game. It's trying to faithfully reproduce something where the original sources in many cases are lost. The author even makes it clear that this is a game that demands house rules. So, I will not point out that game as a bad case, but it did make me realize there is a trap out there to avoid. Remember when Goodman Games started publishing the Dragon Crawl Classics? They tried to imitate the look and feel of the old TSR modules, and other have followed. More than one reviewer thought it was cute, but also wondered if not doing something new and you own was the favoured path to tread. I kind of agree.

So, lay down the groundwork and intentions of your rules in the text. Make all assumptions and unwritten rules explicit and then I am confident it will be easier to write, easier to read, and will leave better room for rulings and not rules.