Wednesday, February 18, 2009

I'm gaming again!

Support your local gaming forum! That's how I got the chance to continue my D&D campaign. And this time I get to do it old school style! It just goes to show that with some patience and courage, you can eventually find a good gaming group. And with luck, this new group will endure for a good while.

I met some of the guys in my group through a tiny gaming convention sponsored by Knoxgamers.org, a gaming forum in Knoxville, TN. In 2007, I had used that forum to start a small gaming group. Once we played through a module, the group dissolved. After that, I was uncertain as to whether or not I'd ever find a game group in my area again. I tried MeetUp.com and the group I organized was successful at first but it eventually fell apart due to lack of regular attendance. But I always paid attention to the goings-on at KnoxGamers.org. And it appears it has finally paid off.

I think that the "old school renaissance" significantly contributed to the formation of this group. I noticed someone on the KnoxGamers forum expressed interest in playing 1e D&D. I posted in that thread, stating that I was interested, too. A few others chimed in and we discussed it off and on for the last couple of months. We finally got to meet each other face-to-face at the little convention that the forum organized. It turns out that some of us had been reading the same old school-oriented blogs. That was encouraging for everyone and it has resulted in my DM'ing an AD&D campaign for the first time in decades.

At first, there was talk of using the Swords & Wizardry rules. I was in favor of the idea. But after some review and discussion, a few of the players noted that those rules seemed too simple. I pointed out that S&W, like the original D&D rules from 1975, was designed to be extremely open-ended for house rules. However, we decided that any house ruling we would make would end up looking like AD&D anyway. I'm still curious about Labyrinth Lord, which is based on the Moldavy rules, and I've ordered a copy from Lulu. (I'm getting the hardcover with the alternate design.) But we decided that we will use OSRIC as a base and the original AD&D rule books as further reference.

I really wish that OSRIC was available in print. I would gladly pay for a relatively expensive hardcover book. PDF files are swell. But nothing beats having a rule book in hand.

3 comments:

Hakdov said...

Gamercon was a lot of fun. You should have stayed for the Cutthroat Caverns game we played.

I also just ordered my copy of LL (from ebay). Another game you might want to check out is Basic Fantasy. It's like a Basic D&D/OD&D/D20 hybrid that plays very much like basic D&D.

Matt C said...

Congrats on gaming again.

So a physical copy of Osric isn't available from Lulu? Thought I saw something along those lines.

As for an AD&D 1E game, I'm waiting for my group's game to resume.

SK Digital Dubai UAE said...

I immediately wanted to use the system to run an adventure or two in my Radical Space setting

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