Siren Song of the Lamenting Princess

I always was a sucker for redheads. Especially grim-faced, sword-wielding, demon-slaying redheads. Heck, I married one.

So, I am one of the growing number of hapless souls to have become ensorcelled by a little game called Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing (aka LotFP). I am sure you know all about it by now, if you are anywhere in the gaming blogosphere. If not, I won't go into the whole history of the game's development, just go here and see for yourself.

Suffice to say I felt compelled to order a copy of this game. Until recently, I hadn't purchased any gaming books in quite a long time. But about a month ago I picked up Troll Lord Games' Castles & Crusades Player's Handbook, and not long after that I got C&C's Monsters & Treasure. I've said elsewhere in this blog that I settled on C&C because, after having delved into retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, and others, I felt that I had to do too much house ruling of those games to get to the rule set I wanted. Upon studying C&C, I discovered that I liked its rule set (i.e. therefore I will only need to do minimal house ruling) and tentatively decided to make it my game of choice for any campaigns I may want to run in the near future. I could now use my precious free time to prepare a campaign rather than struggle to create house rules.

Then I came across LotFP. The game is the brainchild of one James Raggi, a somewhat irrascible Finnish fellow that has become, some might say, quite notorious. He's unapologetically outspoken about his opinions on what the old school renaissance (OSR) is and is not. He's been the source of not a little bit of controversy, especially in recent weeks. Go here for just one example.

Mr. Raggi is brash, indeed. But that's part of his appeal. His gung-ho style can be infectious. And while I don't claim to agree with all of his opinions (for instance, I could care less about a clearly defined OSR), there's much to be said for such a strong-willed, determined gamer who says he wants to develop his own contribution to the OSR and then actually follows through with it.

Ultimately, he won me over. I have to say, he's thrown a monkey wrench into my gears with his game! I was just fine with my Castles & Crusades until you came along, Mr. Raggi! Now you've gone and made me all uncertain about what set of rules I'll be using for my games!

James has, in all seriousness, created what I believe is a solid product. I look forward to getting my copy. Once I do, I'll post a review.

With that, I'll stop my ramblings for another day and get the heck to bed...

I, Gamer: Epilogue

In re-reading my testimonial, it is really glaring how, when I was a kid, I didn’t get any real exposure to the original versions of D&D (i.e. Classic D&D, the versions behind much of the old-school renaissance) before I picked up with 1st Edition AD&D.

Many of the blogs I read are written by guys who started gaming in the 70’s or early 80’s, so they started with OD&D/Classic (aka Basic) D&D. I started in the late 80’s, so my first exposure was to AD&D. I had just a vague impression that something had come before the game I was playing, but no real interest in “going backwards.”

However, I did eventually pick up the Rules Cyclopedia, but that was more out of curiosity and a desire to add the book to my collection (it was advertised/talked up big time in Dragon magazine of course, and I guess the hype worked on me). I never really had any intention of playing it, however.

And for good or ill, my personal Dungeons & Dragons “fate” was to begin my gaming career not long before the appearance of 2nd Edition. I tend to associate 2nd Edition with the decline of my first era of D&D gaming during my teenage years. It may just be my least favorite version of D&D...or maybe not. No, come to think of it, my least favorite version would have to be 4th Edition. More power to those who like 4E, but it's not for me. Like many, I was intrigued with the arrival of 2nd Edition’s numerous (perhaps TOO numerous) settings like Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, and the rest. But I never really found these settings interesting enough to actually use them.

Yeah, 2nd Edition never really felt right. I never truly got comfortable with it, due to what I considered its unnecessary complexity, the move from the Monster Manual to the Monstrous Compendium, and what I considered to be some of the “lower-quality” artwork (I never was a fan of artist Tom Baxa, or at least the art he produced for 2E AD&D and especially the Dragon magazine of that era).

Anyway, this is all just more navel-gazing on my part, so I’ll stop rambling for now. Some of the stuff in this post will be fodder for other posts, for sure. Until then, game on!

I, Gamer: A Testimonial in Three Parts (3)

PART THE THIRD: How Drance Got His Game Back
(Ages 25 to the Present)

 

So, we arrive at my last post in my gaming testimonial. By the end of the second post in the series, I was a young adult in the post-9/11 years, and the terror attacks were a major catalyst in the cessation of most of my gaming activities. By the time I turned 25 I was also heading into a period of personal upheaval with regard to friendships, family relations, and especially my dealings with significant others that would come and go. This era in my life would last for years to come. I won’t go into the details of my baggage, of course. I’m sure you get the idea.

I say MOST of my gaming activities ceased, but I was actually still gaming in various ways. It was just face-to-face, table-top gaming that had totally ceased to exist in my life. And that was a significant source of sadness for me, a malaise that would wax and wane (but never truly leave me) as the years went by.

The primary way in which I got my game on after college was through RPG video games. These, of course, are a good way to get the RPG experience without the need to get together with anyone else. You can have adventures all by yourself. And there were some great games, especially the D&D games like the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale series, and later Neverwinter Nights. But these games are a double-edged sword. It’s a great way to get that dose of adventuring you need, but it’s not really roleplaying in the pure sense. There’s no human interaction, and eventually it becomes a hollow experience. I know that some may argue that MMORPGs like Everquest and World of Warcraft combine video gaming with a “virtual” human touch, but I never saw the appeal of MMORPGs (I’ve heard a lot of horror stories, most focused around veteran players swindling “noobs”). Call me old-fashioned, or maybe just old.

And as I touched on briefly in my second post, I also got into board games and card games that—in greater or lesser ways—emulated some of the experience of roleplaying. Or I would try to inject some type of roleplaying into a game, with varying degrees of success. These games included the Game of Thrones board game from Fantasy Flight Games, Shadows Over Camelot by Days of Wonder, and a game I discovered called “Thieves Guild.” These did a bit to sate that roleplaying desire, but were never really that fulfilling.

Fantasy Flight Games in particular has a good number of board games and card games that seek to emulate the roleplaying experience (like Runebound and Descent) but the cost for these games is, more often than not, very high. Trust me, these games can be very tempting, because for the most part they are very well done with regard to mechanics, presentation, artwork, etc. But I wasn’t about to try to buy all these different games in order to emulate what I used to be able to do with just a couple of books, a few friends, and our imaginations.

It wasn’t until the late Fall/early Winter of 2006 that the urge to roleplay became overwhelming again. But what was I to do? I decided to search the Web for an outlet.

That’s when I came across play-by-email gaming (PBEM). It was a eureka moment, and I set to work almost immediately to get in on the action. It was this decision that truly set me on the path back to the table-top.

I had of course, over the years, seen advertisements in places like Dragon magazine for play-by-mail games from companies like Flying Buffalo. But these never appealed to me in the slightest. The potential time delay between actions/rounds seemed hideous, to say the least. Call me a fiend for instant gratification if you must, but I really would need more immediacy for my gaming experience.

But play-by-email seemed to me the perfect way to ease myself back into roleplaying. It might not be instantaneous, but it would be a heck of a lot faster than play-by-snail mail. I could conduct PBEM games at a leisurely pace, which appealed to me because I knew I would be extremely rusty as a GM and would not yet be able to handle the much faster/instantaneous pace of a table-top game. And technically the “game session” would never end, because the emails from players could arrive at any time of day, seven days a week. There would be no need to get players together in one place at the same time. I didn’t need to stick to my circle of old friends anymore. And the Internet was a good buffer between me and the strangers I would be soliciting to play in my games.

All of this appealed to me…for the time being.

So in January of 2007 I became a DM again for the first time in ages. The campaign was called Wanderers of Faerûn (WoF), and obviously it was set in the Forgotten Realms, my favorite official campaign world. I decided to set the game up as a Yahoo group.

What might be surprising is that for the campaign’s rule set I used a modified version of the Amber Diceless RPG rules. I may have been ready to run a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, but I wasn’t quite ready to actually use a Dungeons & Dragons rule set!

I advertised the game on the Yahoo group called RPG Player Sanctuary and found a great group of players from across the country. I also managed to get a couple old friends to join the game, both of whom were a part of my earliest D&D experiences. This included my old friend Pat, who originally introduced me to the game. This fact in particular made it seem as if things had come full circle in my gaming life.

The WoF campaign went on for over a year, and I can’t describe to you how great it felt to be back in the DM saddle. The game had some great moments, and my six players all did a fantastic job of making our shared adventures thrilling. And my personal roleplaying itch was well and truly scratched.

But by the beginning of 2008 I could already tell things were slipping into oblivion. Certain players were posting less and less. Those who did post were sometimes resorting to one to two sentence posts. Finally, I decided to call it quits in March 2008, and WoF breathed its last.

I tried to start another game in May of that year, using some of the players from WoF, but that second attempt was far less successful, sputtering along for nine months (and we averaged less than 10 posts per month). I realized I was done with PBEM, and this was disheartening. I had put all my hopes into that particular basket, and I was back where I started again: no immediate roleplaying prospects.

Life events swept me up again for the rest of the year. My daughter had been born in 2006, and she hit the feared second year of human life right about the time my son was born in 2008. For the next year and a half, during my free time, I would sometimes flip through my game books and dream of roleplaying. From mid-2008 right up to the present also saw a severe diminishment in my board and card gaming endeavors as well, due to increasing schedule conflicts among my circle of friends. And I hadn’t played a computer RPG in years. I was in danger of slipping into a new period of gaming deprivation…

Which leads me to the dawn of 2010.

The reason my PBEM game used an Amber Diceless rules set was because I wanted a “rules light” game. But towards the end of the PBEM campaign I felt the diceless system was TOO light. I wanted just a bit more crunch to my rules.

Wizards of the Coast had recently released 4th Edition, but I had no interest in the game for many reasons. Taking a look at the rule books, I just didn’t like the feel of the new rules. I also didn’t like the art for the most part, as shallow as that might be. In addition, it wasn’t economically feasible for me to buy the new edition’s books. I had a ton of other gaming stuff at my disposal already. And irrational as it may seem, I was sort of angry at Wizards of the Coast, who seemed more and more interested in the bottom line (especially since they were bought out by Hasbro) than in the legacy of D&D. They had changed their website, requiring users to pay to access information that had been free during the 3.0-3.5 years. I also had bad feelings towards WotC and Paizo for killing my beloved Dragon magazine.

So, I looked at my game book collection for inspiration. I had the three core books of D&D 3.5, which I had bought years before on a lark, during a time when I had gotten curious about what D&D was like in the 21st century. And it was too much crunch.

Sometime in 2008 I had scored a major find on the Web: a PDF of pretty much all the 2nd Edition books (for the life of me I can’t remember where I found it). So I looked into that, but again, it all seemed overwhelming.

Within the last year or so I had also remembered that my buddy Pat had some of our group’s old D&D stuff. Most of that old material had disappeared over the years, but I remembered that he had our copy of the Rules Cyclopedia (which we had bought but never played). I paid him a visit and picked up the Cyclopedia and whatever other random old D&D materials he had. But for some reason I even found myself overwhelmed by the Cyclopedia. Perhaps it was the small type and the sheer volume of stuff it covered, but even this “simpler” version of D&D seemed beyond me.

I started to get frustrated with myself. What the heck was I looking for?

In despair I turned back to the Web, and that’s when I found the old-school renaissance. I started reading blogs about the subject. And I learned that people were resurrecting the old rules and republishing them in new packages. And most of these "new-old" games, these so-called "retro-clones," were available for FREE. I was instantly intrigued.

So started a personal quest to find the right rules for my return to the GM’s chair! I began to refresh my memory about Original/Basic D&D (which I never really played, having gotten my start with AD&D 1st Edition and moving on to 2nd Edition) and delved into the retro-clones. I really seemed to focus on Swords & Wizardry, but after a time it seemed TOO simple. It took me a while to really get back into the mindset of old-school D&D, where there weren’t rules for everything and there were no feats, skills, and the other stuff that had been added into the game since 2nd Edition (reading Matt Finch’s Old School Primer helped out a lot).

So I began attempting to house-rule Swords & Wizardry into my own “perfect” rule set. And I spent a lot of time on this. I made several attempts, and got fairly far each time. But I discovered that I didn't have the time to really do such an effort justice, with all the adult responsibilities of my life. I just didn't have the time I would need, like I did when I was in my teens (and even most of my 20s for that matter). It was a tough fact to confront, but then I realized that I could just search through all the great games people were resurrecting/ producing and settle on one that most closely fit what I wanted in a game. And believe me, I studied them all: Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, even Microlite74 and its ilk.

It turns out that I would settled on a little game called Castles & Crusades for the game I want to run. I know that it's not really a retro-clone (I think). But I feel like, for what I want to do as a dungeon master/game master/referee/castle keeper/whatever, it's the “D&D-esque” game that will allow me to do the least amount of house ruling as possible. So I can focus on game prep and actual gaming. I feel like C&C is "rules light" enough (or I can make it so) and yet has some aspects of more recent versions of D&D (3.0-3.5) that makes it unique. The rumor that it had the involvement/blessing of Mr. Gygax himself is a bonus.

At any rate, I am just happy to have finally settled on a game!

At the same time, I put out a call on the Web (through good old RPG Player Sanctuary) about my desire to meet up with new gamers, since all my old gaming pals had scattered to the four winds. That’s right, I finally overcame my trepidation about playing table-top D&D with strangers. I was at last ready to break away from my association of D&D with just gaming with old friends. Anyway, I was contacted by a guy who I had spoken to briefly in the last year or so with regard to PBEM. He asked if I was interested in joining one of his Pathfinder games, and I've pretty much agreed to do so. And I am very excited about the opportunity. Now, would I ever want to run a Pathfinder game? Probably not. As a GM I know that I want to run something like the older editions of D&D. But damn it, I am itching to get back into the gaming scene, and therefore I have leapt at the chance to join a gaming group. Even if it means I will be playing a more recent edition. Which is more than fine by me.

So there you have it! Writing this testimonial has really been a good experience for me. I’ve been able to finally reflect on my own personal gaming history, and it’s been more of a revelation that I first imagined it would be. Sorry for being so damned verbose, and I hope this doesn't seem too incoherent.

And of course, to those of you who read this, please feel free to share tales of your own gaming histories.

Thanks for reading! And don't forget to read the Epilogue!

P.S. My newfound determination to find new people to game with may even extend to board and card games. Stay tuned…

Poppa's Got a Brand New Header!

So I decided to use my somewhat limited (but ever increasing) Photoshop "skills" to create a fancy header for the blog. I was getting jealous of all the other blogs I read, with their pretty headers. Take a look at the fruits of my labor and let me know what do you think (if you care)?

I got a fever...

...and the only prescription...is GAMING!

I gotta tell ya, I am in a much better mood today! Perhaps it's because I am gathering all sorts of gaming materials around myself. I'm greedily sucking up free PDFs for a menagerie of games, I broke out my old Dragon magazines last night, I'm pulling all my gaming books off my shelves, I grabbed a copy of Keep on the Borderlands from eBay on the cheap...yeah, I'm going insane. Suffice to say I am getting more excited all the time with my personal gaming renaissance. Here's hoping it doesn't run out of steam!

In Remembrance of Dragon Magazine

I'm feeling maudlin today, and I thought about the old Dragon magazine for some reason.

Actually, I know the reason. I'm gearing up to reorganize my basement, a portion of which is my office. I keep all my books, including my gaming stuff, down there. And I have a goodly number of old Dragon magazine issues sitting on the shelves. I've been looking forward to picking up some of those old issues and rereading them, specifically in order to mine potential campaign ideas from them. And the thought of me going back to old Dragon issues and making them useful again, so many years after their publication, is very thrilling to me.

I know the magazine still exists, technically. And it makes me feel good to know the torch is still alight. But it's now focused on 4th Edition, and I don't have any interest in 4th Edition. I know that many will say that even 4th Edition materials could be "converted" for use in other editions, and that's a valid point. But I guess I'm also not interested in the new Dragon magazine because it just isn't the same Dragon that I once loved. And of course that's all just rooted in personal bias and nostalgia.

When it was announced in 2007 that Dungeon and Dragon magazines would no longer be published as print magazines, I was very upset, even though I hadn't bought an issue in many years. I made sure to pick up a copy of the final Dragon issue.

So, let me ask you: Do you have fond memories of Dragon (or even Dungeon) magazine that you want to share? And do you have a favorite issue (or issues) that you remember fondly?

P.S. I never really got into Dungeon magazine. Nor was I a big believer in modules. I always saw it as my duty as DM/GM to create my own stories. I think I'll explore this in a future post...

P.P.S. In digging around for old Dragon cover images, I found this great post at a blog called The RPG Corner. Enjoy!

Regarding the "Edition Wars"

I didn't really want to get into my thoughts on what is often called the "Edition Wars" across the D&D blogosphere just yet, but a recent post (or rather posts, of which these are but two of many) I read has sort of pushed my feelings to the fore. I felt like I needed to repeat here a longer version of what I have posted on other blogs:

I just don't get all the vitriol being bandied about within the fantasy RPG hobby, specifically with regard to Dungeons & Dragons. There are so many people at each other's virtual throats over what is "pure" D&D and other such nonsense. There's fighting over whether or not 4th edition is truly D&D. There are those who feel like the Old School Renaissance has "improved" upon the works on which they are based. There are staunch supporters for every edition of the game, and many of them are not satisfied with just gaming. No, these individuals, for some reason, have taken it upon themselves to champion their favored edition (or retro-clone of said edition) to the point that they attack other editions and/or the people that play them. And I have to say that I am frankly confused as fuck about the whole business. If you have a favorite version of the game, just play it. Period. What's the point in attacking other versions/gamers for what they choose to play?

The point of this blog is that I've been out of the hobby for a while and have decided to get back into it after a long hiatus. I've spent the better part of this year researching and reading all about Original D&D (which I never really played, having gotten my start with AD&D 1st Edition and moving on to 2nd Edition) and delving into the retro-clones. I spent some time trying to start house-ruling different retro-clones (mostly Swords & Wizardry) with the intention of starting a campaign sometime in the hopefully near future. But I discovered that I didn't have the time to really do such an effort justice, with all the adult responsibilities of my life. I just didn't have the time I would need, like I did when I was in my teens (and even most of my 20s for that matter). It was a tough fact to confront, but then I realized that I could just search through all the great games people have been resurrecting/producing and settle on one that most closely fit what I wanted in a game.

I have settled on Castles & Crusades for the game I think I want to run. I know that it's not really a retro-clone (I think). But I feel like, for what I want to do as a dungeon master/game master/referee/castle keeper/whatever, it's the D&D-esque game that will allow me to do the least amount of house ruling as possible. So I can focus on game prep and actual gaming. I feel like C&C is "rules light" enough (or I can make it so) and yet has some aspects of more recent versions of D&D (3.0-3.5) that makes it unique. Believe me, I was happy to finally settle on a game.

At the same time, I put out a call on the web about my desire to meet up with new gamers, since all my old gaming pals have scattered to the four winds. And I was contacted by a guy who I had spoken to briefly not too long ago with regard to play-by-email gaming. He asked if I was interested in joining one of his Pathfinder games, and I've pretty much agreed to do so. And I am pretty excited about the opportunity. Now, would I ever want to run a Pathfinder game? Probably not. As a GM I know that I want to run something like the older editions of D&D. But damn it, I am itching to get back into the gaming scene, and therefore I have leapt at the chance to get back to the tabletop. Even if it means I will be playing a more recent edition. Which is more than fine by me.

You know why? Because in the end, it's all D&D, no matter what name it goes by!

I hate to repeat myself, but I just don't get all the fighting. It's really making me very depressed. Shouldn't we all just be glad at the fact that Dungeons & Dragons is being played at all, that it's survived (and thrived) this long? And isn't it great that people are playing so many different versions of it, be it from the old TSR books, the new WotC books, or the stuff being produced in the retro-clones? Who cares what you play, as long as you are playing and having fun? Isn't that what it's all about?

I'm about to wax philosophical: why does everything humanity puts its hands to turn into this type of petty bickering? Do I have to bring up the "it's just a game" argument as well? Seriously, everybody shut the fuck up and JUST PLAY! Revel in the wondrous variety that has come from that old Gygax-Arneson Ur-game. We should be unutterably happy for those two late gentlemen, because their creation has given so so many people happiness, and D&D has gone forth and multiplied into so many great games, and has inspired so many. No one is doing it "better" than anyone else, no one version of the game is more "pure" than another. All the shouting voices of the naysayers and haters sound like the braying of the stereotypical nerds that people outside the RPG world believe we are. We need to stop arguing over obscure minutia. Here's a revelation for you: No one cares!

So for the love of the game, give it a rest, already! 'Nuff said.