Swords & Wizardry Taran Edition

Next week we've agreed, as it's the holidays and Queen's Jubilee and all that, to run a one-off trial game of Swords & Wizardry. The thing is that, seeing as I am GMing, I couldn't resist taking the adventure that's being planned and sticking it into the Tal'Daryn setting... aka the second face of Taran, my fantasy meta-setting.

What difference does Taran make?

Well... in the scheme of things, it means that I am developing the setting that I enjoy whilst playing a fun game to try some rules.

On top of that, however, it meant that I couldn't sleep without tinkering with the rules set a bit. Or quite a lot.

In short, I've re-imagined the rules so that they more closely fit my initial ideas on how things will work in Taran. This also implies that, as we play, we can evolve the Taran Edition to suit our needs.

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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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My Fantasy Hack

Today I took the plunge and, using the two heroes I had created for the HackMaster Basic rules that I mentioned last time, ran a combat against a pair of Goblins.

The game was fun, revealed to me the intense coolness that is HackMaster combat, and then... well then...

Then I got to thinking about my own Fantasy Dreams. My musings have taken me to the past, the present and the future.


The Past
I started playing Fantasy RPGs back when I was first getting into Secondary School.

I remember that my Dad had bought a copy of the RuneQuest boxed game (early 1980's?) and that whilst he hated it, I ended up coveting it and loving it. Somehow the mysterious and wondrous world of Glorantha appealed deeply to me.


Soon after, once attending high school, I started gaming with my friend Daniel (and several others) and remember my first fumblings with D&D Basic. We played Traveller too and, eventually, Rolemaster. The latter became the fantasy system of choice for me... and the most memorable game was our 24-hour charity game in which we entered the Mines of Moria.

Looking back I feel an intense yearning for a bygone sense of fantastic adventure in very dark, brooding settings. The heroes were comparatively weak (by today's standards) and there was a deep sweetness in surviving from 1st Level (D&D) or the equivalent (in the skills-based systems).

This is an aspect of the gaming experience which seems to have been left behind... and I mourn the demise.

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