RetroRoleplaying: The Blog

Earlier this week I was asked what type of new old school adventure modules would interest me enough to part with what little money I have that doesn't go to basic survival or paying off the huge cancer bills. I looked at the boxes of modules from TSR, Judges Guild, Mayfair Games, etc. I have from the 1970s and 1980s -- that's probably 300 or 400 modules -- (plus modules from old Dragon, old White Dwarf, and old Dungeon magazines) and realized that I would be unlikely to pay the high per page (and shipping) costs associated with old school modules today unless the module was something I knew in advance that I would love as much as Tegel Manor, Keep on the Borderlands, the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, etc. And there aren't many modules likely to do that.

About all I buy these days are PDF copies of magazines like Knockspell and Fight On! (as I can be pretty sure that there will be something in each issue that will be worth the money even if Sturgeon's Law applies to the issue as a whole -- which it hasn't yet) and PDF copies of rules that look interesting. I'd rather have hardcopies, but shipping them is too expensive for me.

Let's face it. I'm a horrible target for publishers. I prefer to homebrew my settings and adventures, I already have more published adventures I can could ever use even if I never created another homebrew adventure, and I have very little money to spend on new material just to support it. While most old school gamers aren't unlucky enough to be in my financial condition, I suspect the majority of us homebrew and already own more published adventures than we could ever use.

This means that as long as we are around, the hobby of playing old school style games isn't going to die even if no new old school material is ever created by the RPG industry. However, if a part of RPG industry is going to survive on publishing old school material, this means they probably need to really concentrate on getting more old school players into the the hobby.

To be honest, I get the impression that a lot of the success of old school publishers thus far has depended on a (relatively) small group of long time old school players buying material they don't really need because they want to support the publication of old school material. I know if I wasn't spending all my disposable income on cancer bills, I'd be doing just that. While this may be great for jump-starting things, it can only go on for a limited time before people burn out on doing this -- especially as more and more companies create old school material and try to sell it. If an old-school RPG industry is going to survive, let alone thrive, they are going to have to find a way to attract a good number of new players to old school play. New players will not already possess 10 or 20 modules (let alone a few hundred as I do), copies of every major rule system out there, etc. and would therefore be a much better market for new old school products than old grognards like me.

Note that I said the RPG industry needs to to that, not the old school hobby. The old school hobby can easily thrive with a slow trickle of new players, it's the industry who need a steady and larger stream of new players, therefore most of the work of getting those players is going to have to fall on the industry. I've recruited seven new old school players over the last year. That fills up my game, so I doubt I will recruit nearly that many this year. I don't need more, but the industry does if it is to have a real chance of thriving.

I just saw this mentioned in RPGnet's Microlite20 thread, I've downloaded and printed a copy. I looks like it has some great ideas and some really genre-appropriate art. Be warned: I thought the TOON version of D&D was great.

Announcing Dragoons20 RPG
"The Cartoon Steampunk Fantasy World of Scallywags and Scoundrels"
Visit http://www.hoppsbusch.com/dragoons20/ to download the PDFs for free.
Based on Microlite20 and adding new humorous mechanics, races, monsters and classes.

I went to bed early last night thinking we had done well but were going to be about $200 shy of being able to completely pay off the lab bill. This morning's email proved a shock to my heart. Almost $1400 in donations overnight, including a couple of donations from people who had donated once before. This will pay off the lab bill mentioned the other day and most of the next largest lab bill -- they will be paid today. I'd like to thank everyone who donated, whether it was 5 dollars or 725 dollars -- every little bit helped. While we did not raise as much money as we did last July when foundations got involved, every donation came from a gamer and every giveaway item will go to someone who will enjoy it. I'd like to thank Jamie G. for making this drive possible with his gift of OD&D goodies to giveaway.

At the moment, I'm not sure if there are any ties. I know there aren't for the first three giveaway items, at least. I'll be contacting folks who are receiving a donor giveaway item or are in a tie this evening. Thanks again to everyone who donated, who spread the word, or sent us their prayers and good thoughts.

One of the main features of modern versions of D&D seem to be complex character builds that delight min-maxers and lead to players who do not optimize their characters being looked down on in some player groups. Old school D&D manages to avoid this problem for the most part by having very simple character design systems that stress the random elements and really have very few choices to optimize -- at least compared to post Player Options versions of D&D.

Reading over CondorDM's Sessions journals reminded me that there is a middle ground. Second Edition AD&D had kits, for example. And while I remember reading a few that looked either way too weak or way too strong, most seemed to provide mechanical variety in characters without leading to the extremes of character optimization I read about in 3rd and 4th editions.

This makes the game designer in me wonder how much (and what types) of mechanical variety for characters one can add to the basics of "old-school" D&D before min-maxing and character builds suck all the fun out of the game for those not into such things? Is it one thing (say feats) or a combination of things (say skills, feats, and ease of multiclassing) or.... I have no practical need to know the answer, but I'm suddenly curious enough to think about it -- and to wonder what others think on the subject?

The Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Cancer Fund Drive continues for a few more hours (technically, until midnight tonight -- but actually, until I get up about 6am or so tomorrow morning[2/16]). For more information on this giveaway and fund drive see this post: Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Available (for Cancer Fund Donors).Lots of donated D&D items to give away in a very good cause.

The RetroRoleplaying message board doesn't see a lot of use, unfortunately. However, if you are at all interested in AD&D2e, CondorDM has posted a couple of session reports from his campaign: CondorDMs Sessions journals.

The Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Cancer Fund Drive continues for a few more hours (technically, until midnight tonight -- but actually, until I get up about 6am or so tomorrow morning[2/16]). For more information on this giveaway and fund drive see this post: Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Available (for Cancer Fund Donors).Lots of donated D&D items to give away in a very good cause.

One of my regular players had relatives in town this weekend and brought his cousin Debra to our Sunday game. She had played AD&D2e in college in the late 1980s and had a great time playing Serge (the NPC sergeant in charge of the hirelings). During breaks in the game we were talking about "old school" threads on some of the gaming boards where many seem to put down old school play as either "nostalgia" or some type of refusal to see the supposedly obvious improvements each new edition brings to the game. It turns out the Debra is a master-rated tournament chess player. She says the same thing happens in chess. A few of the proponents of a variant form of Chess championed by the late former World Champion Bobby Fischer are equally obnoxious about people who refuse to see the "obvious advantages" of Fischer's new chess. I guess all those people still playing the old chess instead of Fischer's new and improved version are playing it out of "nostalgia."

The Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Cancer Fund Drive continues for a few more days (until midnight on February 15th). For more information on this giveaway and fund drive see this post: Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Available (for Cancer Fund Donors).Lots of donated D&D items to give away in a very good cause.

As I write this, there are about 36 hours left in the OD&D Brown Box Giveaway Retroroleplaying Cancer Fund drive (see the Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Available (for Cancer Fund Donors) post for more info. Technically, it ends Monday (February 15th) at midnight, but any donations made before 6am or so Tuesday morning (when I get up) will count.

I'd like to than everyone who has donated so far. There have been a lot of donations, mostly small, but they add up. As I write this post, we are within about $500 of completely paying off one large lab bill -- all out of donations. It would be great if we could pay this bill off completely (its the biopsy on the one-third of my wife's tongue removed during surgery), but even coming within $500 is fantastic.

At the moment, there are a lot of ties for giveaway goodies. As announced, those will be broken by an OD&D quiz that I will email to those involved later this week. Giveaway items should be mailed next week -- assuming everyone who gets a quiz answers fairly quickly. The quiz questions will be on general OD&D/early D&D knowledge. There will no "what is the third word on page 4 of the second printing of Greyhawk" type questions -- as I couldn't even answer post of those. Once the quiz has served its purpose of breaking any ties, I will post it here on the Retroroleplaying blog so everyone can take a crack at it if they wish.

The Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Cancer Fund Drive continues for a few more days (until February 15th). For more information on this giveaway and fund drive see this post: Brown Box Dungeons and Dragons Goodies Available (for Cancer Fund Donors).Lots of donated D&D items to give away in a very good cause.