What’s up, fellow gamers? I’ve been silent lately mostly due to being struck by a plague of sorts. I won’t go into the sucky details, but it’s been a pisser, let me tell you. I haven’t been prolific of late anyway, what with family life and my job kicking it up a notch.
Blah blah blah, whatever, right? Anyway, I wanted to get the new year started with regard to posting, so here goes with some general thoughts and stuff:
1) I need to get the Session 13 report up for my Paragons of Waterdeep campaign. Now that the holidays are over, I’m looking forward to having our game sessions get back to “normal.” Meaning that our group should be able to get together more often again, with a full complement of players. Here’s hoping…
2) I’ve been banging my head against the “edition wall” again, thanks to my old nemesis: gamer ADD. I’ve been obtaining all sorts of D&D editions/clones over the last year or so, and I’ve gone through a merry-go-round of dabbling in all of the stuff. When it comes to yours truly, I think the proliferation of clones only serves to confound me. Perhaps it’s my stage of life, and the inherent lack of time to devote to the hobby. I’ve speculated about all this before, but I don’t feel any closer to a solution. It’s a hard pill to swallow for me, being afflicted with such distractibility. Chalk it up to “bad” nostalgia, perhaps.
The bottom line? I am happy that there are a lot of clones out there, some of which represent rule sets close to the originals (i.e. OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, S&W) and those that could perhaps be considered published house rules (i.e. LotFP, Delving Deeper, ACK, DCC RPG, Crypts & Things, etc.). It makes for a heady mix of options from which we can all pick and choose, until one finds the right rules to suit one’s unique fancies.
For those that can keep a clear head while exploring all of the options out there, godspeed and enjoy! I envy you! But for me, I just find myself going into this house rule “death spiral” that goes on and on. As I’ve said before, my personal requirements make me seek out rules that I don’t have to tweak all that much. For me, that flavor is Castles & Crusades. It does what I want it to do, without me having to spend a lot of time on house rules. And as I’ve been toying with other systems, I find myself house ruling them to make them more like C&C. So I keep thinking to myself “I should just stick with C&C and not waste my time making other games more like C&C!” Ugh, I’m such a spaz.
Your results may vary. Different strokes and all that. I’m not going to go out and yell at people that my way is the one true way, though I’m not shy about telling people how much I love C&C and why I think it’s so great. It’s a solid system that I am proud to use/support, created by some great people. But again, I wish that I could divine the source of my gamer ADD and turn it off for once. I go through spells of it that are really annoying. It takes away from the time I should be devoting to C&C and my current campaign. The struggle goes on…
3) And of course there’s the news that has the blogosphere buzzing: the announcement that a 5th Edition of D&D is/has been in the works (as usual, Akrasia has the news well covered). I signed up for the “playtesting” thing. We’ll see what comes of this. I for one am trying to be open minded. I usually defer to the “giving them the benefit of the doubt” side of things. I would love it if D&D got some of its “cred” back. From reading other blogs, it seems like at least some of you out there agree with me. Of course, there are some of you who think failure is inevitable. I don’t think that WotC could ever create “one game to rule them all” and end the Edition Wars, but from what I’ve read it seems they are aspiring to that very goal. I think they got caught up in marketing-speak madness, which usually makes people spout all sorts of pie-in-the-sky claims. Good luck with all that, Mike Mearls… So, at the moment I’m trying to remain optimistic. But I’m sure that it won’t be good for my gamer ADD…
Ok, folks, that’s all for now. As usual, I will try my best to blog as much as I can in the weeks to come. Happy gaming!
I'm a bit late to this post but better late than never. :-)
ReplyDeleterule sets...that could perhaps be considered published house rules (i.e. ...Delving Deeper...
Having read your thoughts above I don't know if you'll care one way or the other Drance, but DD has been written as a "true clone". On its release, I suspect that those who take the time to compare DD to the original will be of the opinion that it indeed that, thus relegating S&W to the position of "published house rules" (which is not to suggest any sense of competition between parties, just the different intent of the respective publishers).