Old-School Gaming

Have you read Matthew Finch's "Quick Primer for Old School Gaming"? If not then I'd seriously recommend it.

Old School?

A weird thing happened over the past couple of weeks since my last article. The more I imagine Taran, the more I am drawn into a mood and feeling that I associate with my first experiences of Dungeons & Dragons... way back in the days of 1st edition.

Yesterday I skimmed through the playtest file for D&DNext, the rules for the forthcoming re-iteration of D&D from Wizards of the Coast. As I read those rules, and later chatted to my gaming buddies about them, I realised that what I really wanted to do is get back to the original experience from more than 30 years ago.

And it's not just a retro reminiscence thing. It feels deeper than that.

"Old School" is the term for a re-exploration of the original fantasy gaming rules played in the style and with the re-imagined rules of the original. In other words, it's getting back to something very close to 1st edition D&D.

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Building A Fantasy, Part 1

Taran Awakens...

It doesn't matter how much I try to push this idea away, it haunts my dreams and gaming. Having had a couple of people express a small amount of interest in Taran, the fantasy world built upon twelve faces of a massive dodecahedron (think "d12"), it's time to really start to develop some ideas.

Sharing...

That being said, the focus on this post is going to be short and sweet: how do you get started on creating a fantasy realm all of your own? My hope is that, if you're into such things, you'll find something useful or at least different here.

In summary, today's post includes:

1. Grabbing a hook for your fantasy.
2. Dodging the big first mistake.
3. Making some basic decisions.

Here goes...

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Apocalypse, Anyone?

A disease broke out among the citizens of a large city in the United States of America.


The disease caused the brain to overproduce the hormones that drive anger and rage in humans, meaning that infected people become highly enraged, aggressive and physically enhanced by the over-production of adrenaline. 


The Rage (as it came to be known) is a highly infectious virus which essentially rewires the brain to bypass the pre-frontal cortex and enhance the amigdala. Initially the virus was transmitted through three means: bites and wounds from infected people, exchange of bodily fluids with a victim, and an airborne variety which the infected dead exude during decomposition.

An Apocalypse For One

This weekend has seen me beginning to respond to the survey results from my players taken a few weeks ago. The main discovery, if you remember, was that my guys have an until now unknown interest in Post-Apocalyptic gaming.

A couple of pressures have helped to forge the beginnings of this work for me:

1. My prep time, speaking as a professional teacher, has become extremely limited.
2. An intense desire to focus on creative story-telling rather than maths.

The result is beginning to unfold in my mind and in a MyInfo file on my PC. So far it's brief, but it's almost enough to begin a game should the opportunity arise... an opportunity I intend to create, one way or another.

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