RetroRoleplaying Forum

Feel free to introduce yourself in this thread. Just hit the reply button and tell us about yourself and the rpg systems you like, play, and/or are interested in.

Steve

Play anything ive ot the rules for and a fair few I dont

Currently obsessing over BESM 3rd ed

also obsessing over werewolf and vampire (2bnd  ed) games

I'm Randall -- the Host of this place. I started playing D&D in 1975 when all there was rules-wise was a brown box with three little beige books, the Greyhawk supplement, and a few third-generation photocopies of new classes from some magazine I had yet to see called The Strategic Review. I ran roleplaying games almost every week from 1976 to 1992 or so -- mostly some form of Dungeons & Dragons carefully tailored with lots of house rules to fit my own campaign world in the early years. In later years when the real world of 40+ hour a week jobs intruded on my roleplaying time, I learned the joys of classic D&D (the Mentzer Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters sets and later the wonderful Rules Cyclopedia) and its Known World setting.

With Classic D&D and the Known World setting (or my new Hidden Valley setting), I could run a campaign with relatively few house rules -- well, few compared to the large books of house rules I used for my own world in Original D&D and First Edition Advanced D&D. This let me spend my much more limited time creating interesting adventures for my players instead of spending time creating house rules and my own campaign world. The streamlined, fast play of Classic D&D also meant we could get a lot of adventuring in a single 4 or 5 hour game session -- probably as much as we used to get in those early 12 hour session.

After 1992, it started getting harder and harder to get the group together. We were all older and busier. Instead of weekly sessions, we were lucky to get two sessions in a month. By late 1994, it was over. No one had any time and we just quit playing.

When I heard that Wizards of the Coast had bought TSR and was bringing out a third edition of D&D, I was excited. I pre-ordered the three new core rulebooks from Amazon and read them as they came in. Sadly, I was very disappointed. D&D 3.0 was a rules heavy monster that made character building and tactical miniatures combat so detailed and important that I figured these aspects would overwhelm the game. Instead of feeling like a good fantasy novel, third edition reminded me most of a computer role-playing game -- only one where the players and gamemaster had to all the number-crunching that the computer would normally do behind the scenes.

That wasn't anything I was interested in playing. I put the books on the shelf and went on with my no roleplaying life. I picked up the 3.0 Forgotten Realms setting book because I had always like the setting and enjoyed many of the novels. A friend gave me a copy of the Epic Level Handbook hoping that would get me interested again. It didn't. (The only published version of D&D that seemed top get high level play right, IMHO, was Mentzer's Classic D&D.)

Before I knew it, WotC had published version 3.5 of D&D. From flipping through copies at the bookstore coffee shop, I saw that everything I did not like about third edition D&D had become even more important in 3.5. I never bought a copy of any 3.5 product as 3.5 was barely anything like the D&D I knew and loved.

Late last summer, someone on one of the religion/philosophy message boards I hang out on mentioned that WotC was bringing out D&D 4.0 in 2008. He was upset as he had a couple of thousand dollars in D&D 3.5 books and supposedly 4.0 was going to be so major a change that it would make them all useless. I read some of the material on fourth edition on the WotC site and on EN World. As far as I can tell, 4th edition will be a completely different game being sold under the D&D name because people know the D&D name. From what I've seen, it isn't anything I'd be interested in.

However, while investigating the upcoming version of D&D, I made a wonderful discovery. There were people out there like me who enjoyed the older versions of D&D. I discovered Labyrinth Lord (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.htm), a modern day "remake" of Basic/Expert Set Classical D&D by Goblinoid Games -- made possible by the Open Gaming License WotC started using with D&D 3.0. I downloaded the free pdf of Labyrinth Lord, printed it and read it. Actually, devoured it might be a more accurate description. I was very impressed -- for all practical purposes, Labyrinth Lord was Basic/Expert D&D.

From reading the Goblinoid Games forum, I discovered web sites like Dragonsfoot and the Knights-n-Knaves Alehouse where a number of gamers from my era hung out and discussed old role-playing games. Best of all, I discovered that while the old versions of D&D were out of print, WotC had made them available in PDF format for extremely reasonable prices. As the games were still available, they did not have to die off. I started RetroRoleplaying.com to be a portal to older pre-D20 RPGs. A place where people can see what they were like and find out how people have played them and are still playing them. This is a huge job that may take years to complete, but it's a way I can contribute something to a hobby that has given me a great deal of pleasure over the years.

I've also been running online message areas since the mid-80s. First on BBSes in the 1980s, then in the 1990s a number of years as an assistant sysop on GEnie's Third Science Fiction Roundtable, and more recently as host of a number of incarnations of a web message board, so it seemed natural to create a message board for RetroRoleplaying.

I'm Sylver and, while I haven't played any traditional RPGs, I've sat in on a few and have been involved in a bit of an email RPG with a cousin and a mutual friend. Oh yes, and my favourite computer game is my copy IceWind Dale 2. I tend to play that whenever I've the urge to "kill" somebody or something. ;) :D

I'm interested in learning about RPGs and, perhaps, joining/starting a group in my area. Unfortunately, I don't go in much for PvP and running around and killing everybody and everything that crosses one's path, that sort of thing, so I don't know if I could ever become truly interested in playing.

That's the nice thing about tabletop RPGs as opposed to MMORPGs, PvP is frowned on in most groups (after all, the same people are playing as a team session after session and they are all the players) and the games need not revolve around combat after combat. Older RPGs also tend to make combat quick and abstract so that one can have enough combat to please those players who enjoy it while still leaving plenty of time in a 4 or 5 hour session for non-combat stuff.

I'm Vieva.  I've been playing since I was in elementary school, though I had a few of the rules SERIOUSLY wrong. :D  Made a difference.  It makes a lot more sense now.

And I've always HATED major combat systems - I figure that combat should be something you handle easily and quickly, not the main focus of the game.  After all, when I want to hack'n'slash, I HAVE computer games for that!

I really like gaming systems, but so many of them are rules-bound to the point that the possible stories are limited.  So I like looking around, and I'm making one of my own.  (if it ever gets anywhere, of course).

David, 40 years old from Tasmania, Australia. Got the Holmes rules and B2 on my 13th birthday back in 1980, soon moved on to Basic D&D and 1st Edition, and fell in love. Played up into my early 20s before having a break for 10 years. Got back into roleplaying in my early 30s, firstly with 2nd Edition and soon afterwards 3rd Edition, both of which were ok, but my heart is back with those halcyon days of my youth.

Moved to an isolated rural area about five years ago and became good friends with the farmer up the road. He and his wife have seven children and my hopes of an instant rpg playing group were revived. Now we play 1st Edition every saturday and it gives me a buzz that a new generation has discovered the joy of roleplaying.

Recently been following the whole retro-clone movement and have found it extremely exciting and encouraging. Looking forward to trying these variants out with the group later on down the track (heavily in the middle of a new DM cutting his teeth on ToEE at the moment). Saw Randall's post on the DF forum about his new site and loved what he is doing, so here I am.  ;D

I'm glad to see you here, David.  You are just in time for my first post on the Caves of Chaos project you were interested in when I mentioned it on the blog.

I'm glad to be here, although I feel a bit lonely being the only non-staffer to post an intro.  :)

I haven't actually mentioned that the Forum on Dragonsfoot or any other RPG board yet. I'd like to get a few more starter threads and such in place before I do. Unfortunately, this is all being done around my real life -- which currently includes daily radiation treatments for my wife (week one of seven) -- so it is moving much slower than I would like.  Feel free to invite folks to help. :)

Hi everyone.  My name is Lance, & I've enjoyed D&D since 1991.  I'm 29, happily involved, & reside in the Bradenton/Sarasota, FL. area. 

I've been enjoying this hobby of ours since I recieved "The New, Easy to Master Dungeons & Dragons Game" (Black-Box Edition) & the D&D Rules Cyclopedia for my 13th birthday.

While I cut my teeth on Mentzer, I quickly moved to AD&D2e; this is the system I stuck with for most of my junior high/high school years. 

Several years back, I became pretty burnt out with the hobby in general, so I took a good (3) year break.  Early last year, I broke out my old Rules Cyclopedia, & ran a game for my fiancee & a couple of our friends--It was one of the most enjoyable experiences I think I'd had with D&D in a really long time. 

Within the past year or so, I've discovered OD&D (1974 edition), & have been having a blast with it.  Our very small group plays only around once a month, but we sure have a great time with it! 

Anyhow, glad to be here & look forward to reading & contributing to this forum. :)

Welcome Lance!  There's not a lot here at the moment, but things will pick up after April. My wife has three more weeks of radiation treatment to go through and that is draining me by focusing my life so narrowly on the treatments and their side effects. 


I think the RC is my favorite single version of D&D.  AD&D1e with some house rules is a lot of fun too.


I started with OD&D and it probably shows as I think nothing of changing the rules of whatever RPG I'm running to better fit my campaign. All OD&D campaigns did that. There wasn't any choice. LOL.

Thanks for the warm welcome, Randall.  I hope the treatment goes well for your wife, & I'll keep you both in my thoughts. :)   

Thank you very much! Only two and a half weeks left to go. (Of course, this is when the side-effects are at their worst -- but so far so good.)

Hello to all! I'm Keith, 51 year old from Alberta, Canada. I've been playing since 1975 when a friend of mine noticed me reading "Fellowship of the Ring" for the first time. He then told me there was a game that he ran where I could be the adventurer like in the book. He showed me the three booklets and helped me roll up my first character, a human thief! I've been hooked every since. I moved on to AD&D when it came out and got my own group of players from the church I attended. We had great fun, many happy memories. Unfortunately as you all probably know along came the religious anti-D&D movement and I lost both my books and group in one unhappy, traumatic book-burning. I didn't pick up anything until 3rd edition came out. I'd since moved and had a larger circle of friends some of whom had played 2nd edition. They encouraged me to run them as a group. We had some fun, but 3e had changed things so much it was hard to get the spirit going again. For the last little while I've thrown good money after bad trying to "fix" 3e for me and the players but it's been no good. Recently I found a used copy of 1e and the rules cyclopedia. Some of my players have expressed a retro interest in trying them and I'm currently trying to decide which to run. Decisions, decisions. I'm looking forward to posting here and maybe getting some help deciding.

May you always make your saving roll,
KE

Welcome!



I've recently discovered an OGL fix for 3.x: Microlite20 (http://wiki.greywulf.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/Macropedia/Microlite20). Two pages of core rules that will let you use 3.x adventures and settings without the excessive bloat of 3.x.

G'day Keith

I too went through the trauma of losing my rpg stuff during my christian phase as a young fella, although I whimped out and traded my stuff, rather than allow it to be burnt. It was one of the biggest regrets of my life and it has taken me years to get it all back again.

I spent a year playing 3e, not by choice, but because at the time it was the only gaming group I could find. Although I had fun roleplaying, it didn't have the same magic for me that the pre-2e games had.

As I mentioned in the other thread, one of the retro-clone games might be exactly what your gaming group needs.

Dave   :)

Hi, I'm Andy, and I'm a role-player. :)

I got introduced to role-playing in my early/mid-teens.  That was in the time of AD&D second edition.  I ran a number of hack n slash games with it, and eventually got used to the idea of mixing in a story.  I actually ran a campaign one summer, which ended in a civil war in one character's homeland, over which the party split along different sides.  It was epic, and incredibly cheesy.  It was quite fun, although I'd like to think I've come a long way since. :)

I've tried out a number of games since then, not all need be mentioned.

I'm currently running a Vampire: The Masquerade campaign, which started around 2004/2005.  In fact I'm beginning the final story very soon, which I'm excited and nervous about.  It'll be wierd saying goodbye to the setting and the characters, but we've got some fun stories out of it.

I'm planning to run an Ars Magica campaign next, and I'm hoping to get an atmosphere of medieval saga/epic.  It's still in the stages of early ideas.

I've also been running a few one-off's lately.  Notably a couple of games of 'All Flesh Must Be Eaten', and one Unknown Armies session.  Unknown Armies is currently one of my favourite settings, but one I'm not sure I could sustain in a campaign.  I'm also hoping to run a one-shot of Feng Shui soon.  Any game with cybernetic gorillas can't be bad. :D

Welcome, Andy!


I liked the first and second editions. Loathed the third and haven't played the fourth or fifth. I haven't even seen the fifth.


Feng Shui is fun. It was one of the last RPGs I played in the mid-90s.

I haven't played previous editions.  However, if third is the one that White Wolf did, it sounds bad.  ('you cant fireball me if I dont believe in magic!')  At the moment I suspect the first adventure I run is going to involve stealing stuff from fairies. :D


I had the joy of playing in one session during the late nineties, but I didn't get it at the time.  I'm hoping to get my players into it with a big opening scene.  Plus I run so many investigative/ run away from combat games, the difference should be novel. :)

It was every bit as bad as it sounds. I'm not a WoD fan (perhaps because I was long past teen angst by the time it came out ::) ), and they seems to be trying to merge the two worlds with WoD being dominant. It was just awful as far as I was concerned.


I don't think my old characters would want any part of that. LOL. They had a very healthy respect for fairies -- learned the hard way.

Hi keith welcome to the rolldown

Oh, I plan on taking the consequences in a 'different' route.  That is, I'll let them get away with it briefly, before the Fairy lord sends a bailiff around to present charges. :D  It's also possible tha another player character will have been raised as a page in that court, so it could briefly turn into a fairy legal drama. :D

That a truly scary idea: fairy legal drama. I'd probably have it be barely comprehensible to mortals -- to the point they might not even recognize it as a legal fight until some kind fairy mentions it, just in time for them to mount a defense. ::cackles evilly::

I was thinking of it resembling a 'norma' court just enough for them to be thrown by the differences.  I was thinking of having the opposing lawyer be a troll that the covenant spokesperson has to wrestle with.  If found guilty, they submit to the usual punishment - saving a damsel from a dragon. :D

I like that.

Or maybe save a dragon from a damsel, if I'm feeling quirky.

Hi Gang. This is David.

Happy to be here! I've been enjoying Randall's RRP blog for a little while now. Long time D&D DM here, began with Holmes almost 30 years ago, and quickly moved to AD&D. Played using those 1e books for decades. Played a TON of games in the 80's...Gamma World, Champions, Call of Cthulhu, Top Secret, Car Wars, just to name a handful, but always came back to my heavily home brewed D&D campaigns. Earlier this year I discovered that I wasn't the only gamer who never made the transition into 2e D&D, and after checking out Labyrinth Lord, I decided to go to the source, and made the plunge into 1974's Original D&D. I haven't stopped home brewing and house ruling. I have managed over the past few months to contact all of my old gaming crew from the 80's, and we have out first reunited session scheduled for the end of June. I'll be gauging their enjoyment of OD&D, and if that fails, I'll make a few changes and call it "AD&D".

I'm a huge fan of 1e, and when I "think of D&D", I think of those three hard covers by Gygax. After I read the original version finally, though, I realized it had everything I needed for my heavily home brewed appraoch, and I've just been having a blast fleshing those rules out to suit my campaign.

I think Holmes, Moldvay B/X, 1e, and the BECMI (RC) stuff is all great, though.

Lately I've really had the urge to write Gamma World stuff, but I have so many D&D related projects going already that I haven't branched out into GW...yet.

Anyway, I've a lot of catching up to do as I'm fairly late to the forum here.

Cheers!

Sham aka David

Hi David! Glad to see you here. I'm sorry you had activation problems.

I really think that OD&D with some AD&D stuff is what my group called AD&D bad in the late 70s and very early 80s. We started with OD&D/Greyhawk and just added stuff from later supplements that we liked. Given that the three AD&D books arrived one a year, we treated them like more supplements and added what we liked from them as they were published.

Matthew here. 24 year old Brit deposited in Phoenix, Arizona. Fan of the following (forgive me if I forget one or two games): CD&D, AD&D 1st and 2nd editions, WRFP, MERP, Toon, Deadlands, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, Shadowrun, Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future (even though I've yet to play a game of MF). I'm also secretly a fan of Castle Falkenstein, but don't tell anyone.

I seem to only get along with players much older than myself. Don't know why exactly, but the groups I've played in, I'm always the youngest.

Currently running a LL game with my girlfriend and an AD&D 2nd edition pbp game with some friends.

Welcome!  That must have been quite a change in climate.

I see you are a Boot Hill fan. That's one of the few older RPGs I've never played. For some reason I never could get into western RPGs at all. Which is very odd because I've always enjoyed a good Hollywood western.

I love westerns. I have also yearned for a good western RPG to play for quite some time. As much as I like Boot Hill, it's mostly for nostalgic reasons. I think it's hard to get into some of them because they're so combat heavy and too concerned with the rules for gunfighting, thus the rest of the game suffers.

I had a British minis skirmish game called The Old West (I think) way back when. It was probably the best Western game I've seen. If they'd have just had a roleplaying system for it, it would have been great. It covered so much more than gunfights.

An intro thread!

Greetings all.  I'm Chris Goodwin, and am a frequent poster at the Hero Games boards, an infrequent poster at RPG.net, an occasional poster at Story-games.com, and have just gotten bitten by the retro clone bug.

My first exposure to roleplaying games was in 4th grade in 1979 or 1980 (9 or 10 years old). I was at the public library and saw a group of older guys sitting around a table (some of whom I would later game with). They had a few miniatures and some oddly shaped things it took me a while to recognize were dice, and they seemed to be playing some sort of game except there was no board and they were talking about what they were doing, and only occasionally moving their miniatures around. I was fascinated though completely baffled.

The following year a friend of mine and I were talking at school about this game Dungeons and Dragons, that I'd heard of and only then connected to what I'd seen the previous year. I wouldn't get into it until that summer ('81) when another friend introduced me with the AD&D hardcovers. I asked my parents for D&D and they got me the boxed (b/x) Basic Set. I was playing a mix of the two until, as time passed, we acquired the three hardbacks for ourselves. From there it was Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Marvel Superheroes, Top Secret (via the same friend who introduce me to D&D as well as my younger brother), the BECMI D&D sets, Villains and Vigilantes. I'd also gotten into Car Wars by this time, and had picked up Autoduel Champions (early '85) primarily for the helicopters rules.

Neither the Car Wars superheroes rules nor the Champions autoduelling rules were lost on me, though, and summer of '85 I bought the 3rd edition Champions book and convinced a friend (SuentisPo, if anyone hangs around the M&M forums) to show me the game. Almost simultaneously I discovered a gaming club whose game of choice was Champions. That got me into the other Hero games (Danger International, Fantasy Hero, Robot Warriors... I didn't pick up Justice Inc. until several years later and missed out on Espionage). I also got into TMNT around the same time, later Toon, GURPS, and the Ghostbusters RPG shortly afterward, and Amber Diceless when it came along.  My most recent acquisitions include BESM (2nd edition), Buffy Unisystem, Dogs in the Vineyard, Savage Worlds (all unplayed), and Primetime Adventures and Beast Hunters. 

Of the whole mess, I've played the D&Ds multiple times (basic, AD&D1 and 2); once or twice each of Top Secret, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Marvel Superheroes, Toon, V&V, Ghostbusters, and Fudge (with Steffan O'Sullivan as GM!); TFT a few times; lots of GURPS and Amber; and lots and lots of Car Wars and Champions/Hero System.  Lately I've also gotten into indie RPGs hard.  A

fter a long dry spell of actual gaming I've lately gotten to play Fantasy Hero and red box D&D....which has led me down the path of retro clones.  Several years ago I hit on the idea of trying to retro clone (though no one called it that at the time...) a small fantasy combat board and roleplaying system (*ahem*) originally designed by Steve Jackson, but never actually did anything with it until now; seeing Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, and the others has inspired me greatly. 

Edit:  Oh yeah, as soon as West End Games gets around to freeing up their d6 System I plan on taking a run at the Ghostbusters RPG as well. 

Welcome!


I have this game, find the rules and setting interesting, but can't imagine actually playing it. that's really weird for me.

 
Assuming you are talking about the US Steve Jackson (as opposed to the UK Steve Jackson), you might find the following small PDFs interesting:

Legends of the Ancient World (http://www.darkcitygames.com/docs/Legends.pdf)

Legends of Time & Space (http://www.darkcitygames.com/docs/TimeAndSpace.pdf)

Legends of the Untamed West (http://www.darkcitygames.com/docs/UntamedWest.pdf)

All from the good folks at Dark City Games (http://www.darkcitygames.com/index.php)

Thanks!  :D


I am.


I've seen those, but don't care for them much.  IMO they're a little less than complete.  I'm of the feeling that you should theoretically be able to play the game from a retro-clone; they seem to be treating the property as a dead game, and offering the downloads solely as sort of an excuse to sell their stuff.  I don't want to knock that, but they're also not particularly growing the player base, either. 

It seems to me that the "retro clone spirit" is one of sharing info, which has partly developed by necessity due to the reliance on the OGL.  Dark City aren't doing that at all; the incomplete downloads are free, but their adventures aren't, and one wonders if you can play the game with the free download and the (somewhat expensive) adventure.  I imagine I'm wandering off topic for the Introductions thread, though, and hereby warn myself to not let it happen again. 

I'm Scott.  I post regularly to the OD&D Discussion board, and very occasionally to Knights & Knaves.  I've been playing D&D since 1981, with many detours to other systems.  Recently I've settled on OD&D as my ideal system -- partially, I'm sure, out of a feeling of nostalgia (albeit for an era I didn't experience), but primarily because it's the "lightest" version of OD&D and rewards/demands kitbashing.

My current campaign is an OD&D play-by-post set in the Judges Guild's original City State of the Invincible Overlord and Wilderlands of High Fantasy.  I've just started a blog about the campaign, the Wilderlands, OD&D, and gaming in general.  Game goes live at noon tomorrow.  :)

Welcome to the board, Scott. Good luck with your game -- and congrats on picking up a 5th printing of OD&D at such a good price.