How many clones do you need?

Today I listened to a Swedish gaming podcast, Viskningar från kryptan [Whispers from the Crypt], about a new old school game Svärd och Svartkonst [Sword and Sorcery]. Incidentally, this coincides with a new release of Delving Deeper being talked about. It's interesting, because I felt roughly the same level of interest in both of them. Let's begin by considering the older one.

As some of you might know, that latter game was once part of the train wreck that is Brave Halfling Publishing. But, after having been published by BHP, others have kept developing it, and now have a new version available.

When I heard about that, my first impulse was to groan and turn away. Buy that game? Again? But wait a minute. Haven't I done that before, and cheered my fortune almost every time?

Naturally, Delving Deeper has had a troubled road to walk to get to my door, but I don't think this apprehension about a new version of the game has that much to do with the troubles with the delivery of the last one. The fact that SoS didn't make me look forward that much to its release might be a clue to a general state of disinterest for new old school games, for me.

I have pdf copies of OD&D, LotFP first boxed set, Delving Deeper boxed set from BHP, Swords & Wizardry White Box Edition, Swords & Wizardry standard edition, Dragons At Dawn, Ambition & Avarice, Dark Dungeons, B/X and BECMI, AD&D1 and also multiple editions of T&T and other non-D&D old school games. Guess how many of those I have played? Why should I play them all? Are they all interesting enough on their own? I think most people have probably done like me, but mostly play or or two of them that best suit their taste and personality.

While this might be old news to most of my readers, I have not really had these thoughts sink in before. I've read a blog post about someone who really found one of the games mentioned above really great. I rushed out to buy it, and might have browsed it a bit before putting it on the shelf among the rest. Now suddenly I find myself with doubts. Why do I not at once become enthusiastic for these new game releases? I think I might have reached the point where I say I really don't need any more clones, or retro inspired games.

Since it feels like I have lost some enthusiasm, I'm planning on taking them out one by one and post my thoughts about it. If nothing else it might tell me what it was I found to enticing, and that I no longer can grasp.

Then again, I might already have Delving Deeper, but SoS? Maybe I should just buy, one more, and then call it quits...

Old School Psionics - the final word

As long time readers of this blog knows, I started a project to clone Supplement III since I am fond of psionics. I have reached the end of the road of that project, and it wont materialize as intended.

The fact is that when you delve deeper into Supplement III, you realize that this some of the worst written rules in the D&D canon. The editing is abysmal and the rules contradictory and clunky.

There are two ways to approach this, one is to rewrite it to conserve the feel or the other is to try to untangle the mess and present it the way it was intended. I had intended to do the latter, but I found it was way harder than expected. Partly I guess that comes from loosing all respect for the original after spending some time with it. I also felt the tug to just write my own, but then it would not be a clone.

But, after all those negative vibes I am happy to say that someone have managed to create a set of rules that have that old school feeling, preserve thrust of the original and are clear and lucidly presented. I direct you to the Retroroleplaying blog by Randall Stukey. Randall have written the very cool Microlite 74 and Microlite 75 rules, and those contain a very workable and excellently presented rules for psionics, in the spirit and style of Supplement III.

My project floundered, but at least someone managed to present something instead. My hat off to Randall for his great work.

DragonQuest "retroclone"?

I guess quite a few of my readers have heard of DragonQuest. A certain blogger just these last few days posted about it, and I have gotten some interesting news about the game I decided to share. 

Just a few days ago James Sutton, managing director for RedBrick LLC announced to the DragonQuest community that he have have started to investigate the possibility to try to "retroclone" DragonQuest back into print. He have been in contact with Eric Goldberg, once the lead designer of the game, and he seemed to like the idea as well.

James post was a call for volunteers, and this heralds some interesting times for the game. I will be watching the developments with interest. Since WotC have shown their disinterest in the property by letting the trademark slide, this opens up possibilities.

Looking forward to 2010

I have been keeping quiet for a while now, with the holidays taking all the time for me. For some people, this is the time to meet old friends and play games. I'm afraid most of my old friends I might meet if I go visit familiy, is stuck in the WoW swamp and wont play proper rpgs any more. I love to spend some time with family, but for my gaming needs the holidays really suck. But, now I'm looking forward to the whole of 2010.

This is my dreams and visions for 2010 of what I want to play

Play more T&T
The last year was the year when my T&T campaign really hit its stride. Sadly it was also the year when I had to bring it to a close, since I was leaving Canada. The gears are still turning, and I would like to keep the momentum. 2010 is the year when I will try to play T&T regularly again.

Start a Call of Cthulhu campaign
One of my old friends e-mailed me once a month, when the electronic mailing list for that gaming group sent out monthly reminders. I will try to make something of that this year. That friend have since been swamped by family issues, but his enthusiasm was contagious. 2010 is the year when I will try to start a Call of Cthulhu campaign.

Retroclones
While I have been a enthusiastic supporter of a lot of the retroclone efforts, I still haven't played any. Labyrinth Lord is not that interesting for me since I have more than one copy of B/X already, and the same is true of OSRIC and AD&D. I would like to play some S&W, though, and in a few days we have a session planned. Hopefully I will see more of that this year.

Looking wider I think we will see the OSR publication efforts continue. Today I pre-ordered the S&W white box from Brave Halfling, and I think we will see more interesting developments. With some luck I will at least try S&W WB out once.

Publishing
As everyone knows who reads this blog, I love Tunnels & Trolls. It's not as visible in the old school community as I would like, but since D&D have a huge mind share of everyone playing rpgs it's not that surprising. But, I plan to actually produce more material for T&T in the future, and make it more visible. I have gotten permission from Rick Loomis to post T&T support here and in the fanzines, so I need to get up to speed. I will have less time in the future so maybe I will have to scale back on my other online activity, or learn how to sleep less. We will see how that goes.

I also have a bunch of material I would like to publish in a more tangible form. That now takes up most of my time, and I have been thinking of how to go forward with it. Tax rules and that kind of crap is making my brain hurt, and it isn't very easy to start up a publishing company. It takes a lot of time to write, map, layout and also think about the business end.

To summarize 2010 from this vantage point I'd say, get in touch with me if you need a player! I want to play more games.