It Begins
Remember when I said the following? [W]hen a critical mass of people adopt [the lost art of Gygaxian campaign play] for their own table, you can expect a deluge of smart-boy posts from the Usual Crowds staking a claim to have “always known” about the glories of real-time and...
Who Cares What Non-Wargamers Think About Wargaming?
Karwansaray Publishing recently dropped a link to a low effort “scientific study” that used data collected by said publisher to reveal some surprising things about wargamers. Did you know competitive people prefer competition games, and cooperative people prefer collaborative games? You might have thought this, but thanks to the...
More Campaigning for the Best Campaigns
Got another big blog for you fans of old school tabletop RPGs. This time around we’re taking a look at a longish game of ACKS, Autarch’s excellent Adventurer, Conqueror, King. This is another one of those new-old campaigns that takes advantage of certain lost secrets to present a style...
Not the Flex You Think It Is
Continuing thoughts about Rule Zero and yesterday’s post about Theseus’ RPG. Item #1: If you only ever used a third of a game, have you ever really played the game? You might have been playing something, but was it really the game you say it is? How much of...
Grognardia Respawns
After eight years and with little fanfare, new content is up on the site. It’s just a review of some Swedish OSR product for now, but James is a smart thinker, and I look forward to his thoughts on tabletop RPGs. Hopefully we’ll get more fresh content without another...
Campaign Creation – Inspirational Shortcuts and Political Mnemonics
Chris, over at the Hill Cantons has a great post up about Special Snowflakes. Really inspirational stuff. Those of you who run games should take the three minutes to read it, if you haven’t already. he’s quite the muse, that one. Make sure to stick around for the comments...
Old School Skirmish
The best local game shops in town is one of those cramped little shops crammed full of all sorts of odds and ends the store owner has collected over the last two decades. It’s all too easy to while away a full hour digging through boxes of random game...
Moldvay Gems
The cool kids all seem to be raving about the offerings over at dndclassics.com, especially the Moldvay edition of Basic D&D. Being the tech savvy luddite that I am, I scored a hard copy of those rules via eBay. As is the custom, having read these rules cover to...
(Finally) Back to the Dungeon
Over a year ago, I showed you lot a map of my version of the Lost Temple of Laun Phien (link), and we finally got around to playing through it. Last night a small but plucky crew headed out into the grasslands to explore/loot the haunted barrow mound of...
Happy Birthday Alex!
This post is brought to you by my son’s 13th birthday. Everything I’m doing here, I’m doing in preparation for his party in which he and a party of friends will enter a dungeon…and they’ll do it old school. The last decade or so has witnessed countless attempts by...