It's been a long time...

...since I last wrote anything in this blog. I had (and still have) a blast focussing on another passion - Ancient Domains Of Mystery (ADOM). Nonetheless The Fantasy Game keeps popping to the forefront of my mind while dabbling with the planned RPG rules for ADOM and the impending release of D&D 5th edition also resparked my interested in old school gaming.

Getting sidetracked... now the other way round...

Hi everyone! I just wanted to let you know the reasons behind the sudden silence over here at The Fantasy Game: I'm known for having too many hobby interests :-)

Primordial OD&D: A Chainmail fantasy simulacrum

Alan Kesher provided links to work he started on a kind of primordial OD&D. Or as he more appropriately phrased it: a Chainmail Fantasy Supplement simulacrum. Although it's not complete I find this fascinating stuff that I directly added to the references section of 'The Fantasy Game' and will also study over the next weeks.

Enjoy!

The Fantasy Game: A d6 only game?

The past couple of days I have been a bit silent, studying "The Big Brown Book" (also newly added to the reference section), "Epées & Sorcellerie RPG", "Using CHAINMAIL to resolve OD&D combat" and "Forbidden Lore". I mentioned it a couple of times and now I am sure concerning the use of dice in 'The Fantasy Game'.

Epées & Sorcellerie RPG now available

Picking up Nicolas Dessaux' recent comment about the extended reference section of 'The Fantasy Game' I just wanted to point to the most recent post at There's Dungeons Down Under: the Epées & Sorcellerie RPG now is available as a free download from Lulu as well as a print edition. I already added the print edition to my shopping cart  but now need to find some more new releases that make the shipping costs worthwhile. Suggestions welcome ;-) Naturally I also added it to the references section for 'The Fantasy Game' in order to see which inspiration might be derived from it. I'll probably post an opinion about the game soon, too.
(BTW: What font is that in the logo? Love it!)

Opinions about the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG beta release

Now that everyone is talking about the beta release of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG from Goodman Games I felt the need to chime in, too, as I love to look at their upcoming product from a designers and a players point of view. I will try to comment it after a casual glance. My viewpoint will be very strongly 'The Fantasy Game' based as DCC RPG seems to take a similar philosophical viewpoint for its design but a very different technical design route (quote from their website: "Return to the glory days of fantasy with the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Adventure as 1974 intended you to, with modern rules grounded in the origins of sword & sorcery.").

New reference material added: Forbidden Lore & Consolidated OD&D rules

I just added two new references to the references section of this blog:

• Original Dungeons & Dragons Consolidated Rules by Bruce Mohler
• Forbidden Lore by Jason Vey, which nicely describes a way to integrate Chainmail with OD&D - together with the resources mentioned above by D. H. Boggs I will consolidate the Chainmail based combat rules for 'The Fantasy Game'

I'm probably soon going to jump around a bit more in the LBB as I am itching to get to the combat section of the game. The goal here is primarily to have a playable rule set as soon as possible and the combat rules are the most pressing (and missing) part right now. Since I do not have any experience with Chainmail I will have to do quite some research. The goal here will be to present a more or less unified combat ruleset closely matching the intention of Chainmail. More soon...

First layout impression: Abilities

Since I have been writing on the actual rules for some time now I just wanted to give you a quick expression of the layout of a single page: Here's the intro to the abilities in the game.

Minor progress today: Blog alterations & charismatic player characters in the game

Today I only did minor work on 'The Fantasy Game' (it's once more Gaia Gamma time ;-) ). First of all I adjusted the blog design a little bit: The blog description at the top is gone and has been moved into a text box to the right (in order to allow for a more compelling status update structure on Facebook).

Secondly and more importantly I have done some minor work on 'The Fantasy Game', too, despite this being a Gaia Gamma day.

Ability Tests in OD&D

As far as I can see so far (remember - I am reading the LBB from front to back completely for the first time in my life) OD&D does not contain any actual rules for ability tests and the like. This is something I am going to elaborate slightly for 'The Fantasy Game'.

Looking for a name for volume I of 'The Fantasy Game'

I'm plodding steadily ahead with volume I of 'The Fantasy Game'. Yesterday I finished the first version of the first page inside the covers (but don't fret - many other more important parts also have long been written ;-) ) and here it is:

OD&D: A matter of language

Although the past week has been pretty silent as far as postings go I have made some pretty good progress actually writing down more of the rules of 'The Fantasy Game'. Volume I is shaping up pretty nicely. While writing the rules I noticed a thing about the way the rules language has changed from the very early times to more current editions... in a way which to me takes away a bit of the flavor inherent in the ancient rules. I'm not sure if I feel this way just because English is not my native language or if there is more to it but today I would like to elaborate a bit on this observation.

Explanation of abilities and skills (Reading OD&D from cover to cover)

Abilities in OD&D in some respect are well acquainted: strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution and charisma have become landmarks in the way many roleplaying games define characters. At the dawn of time things were slightly different...

Reading OD&D from cover to cover: Abilities versus attributes

In my second to last post about attributes I made a mistake resulting from preconceptions created by later editions of the game: I called strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution and charisma attributes instead of abilities. While this might seem to be a minor point at first I now believe (after some thinking) that it is one of those essential tiny points that really characterize OD&D (and the OSR).

On bondage in OD&D

Todays post will intercept the discussion of attributes in OD&D with some thoughts and questions about how much players and player characters tended to 'bond' in campaigns played in ancient times. And no, I don't mean that type of bondage but the title was too cool to resist ;-)

Reading OD&D from cover to cover: Rolling attributes (part I) starting with an amazing revelation

By now I am well into writing the sections about attributes for 'The Fantasy Game' and I was kind of suprised by the initial statement in the LBB about the process of doing. So much surprised that I was speechless for a moment as I don't remember seeing that statement in any edition of D&D ever... but maybe that is just my faulty memory. The initial statement in the attributes section is:

New cover design attempt

To the right you find another attempt at designing the cover for 'The Fantasy Game': I have replaced the classic knight from the initial attempt with a new kind of knight, who is somewhat more fantastic. In any case the image also is more vivid and dynamic... what do you think?

Personally I have become somewhat accustomed to the classic knight (yeah, I already cal it a "classic" ;-) ). It has kind of grown on me and now I miss it :-) To me the classic knight seems to represent the early days of the hobby in a more appropriate way, even if it seems more Arthurian that alternatives.

Reading OD&D from cover to cover: Changing classes

Before we continue our discussion of elves we look a bit ahead in the rules in order to see what other surprises and detail rules await us. Some might shed new light on certain of the more complex issues we have found with the race descriptions. So next up are the rules for changing classes.

Reading OD&D from cover to cover: Alignment

Alignment is one of the interesting topics that usually raises a lot of controversy. As far as I am concerned OD&D has a pretty good stance on the topic: Namely almost no stance.

Reading OD&D from cover to cover: The races

So next up in our tour through the OD&D rules in the LBB are the character races. Specifically mentioned are dwarves, elves and hobbits. Additionally there are some remarks concerning arbitrary other races. Men are not explicitly explained probably assuming that they mostly equal their real world counter parts.