I started playing D&D with the 1st edition of AD&D way back in the first half of the 80s. I didn’t read English very well (and neither did my friends), so we ended up doing what pretty much everyone else were doing with the game: use the rules we understood and ignored/made up the rest.
I eventually grew dissatisfied with D&D as a whole and I moved on to a certain Generic RPG during the 90s, only to return enthusiastically to D&D 3e in 2001. The rest is known history. However, during my 3e period, I got my hands on a copy of the original ‘White Box’ D&D game circa 1974. Excited, and feeling nostalgic, I wanted to have a one shot game with my gaming group so I set out to read the rules…
…only to quit in disgust 10 minutes later, reminding myself that old stuff is often not as good as nostalgia paints it.
I’ve then abandoned my idea of playing Original D&D. When the Retro-Clones came out, I was happy that the Open Game License could bring this to be, but I didn’t explore, remembering my bad experience and focusing on my game of choice.
Fast forward to last spring. While getting ready for Gen Con, Chgowiz said, in half-jest, that he’ll play in one of my 4e games and if I played in his Sword & Wizardy game. S&W is a retroclone of the 1974 D&D rules. As you may know, I loved that game session! I downloaded the game since and found that having re-written everything based on the OGL clears up many of the warts that bothered me about the game.
So when my friend PM organized one of our Geekouts (an all-day, game, food, movie fest) last Saturday, I decided to bring both the Dominion board game and the Quick Start rules of S&W. I hadn’t read the rules much (a quick skim) and I noticed that there was a started adventure, so I thought we might play it if the opportunity presented itself.
Over lunch after our Dominion game, I pitched my friends PM, Vince, Franky and Anne (Franky’s gf) to give S&W a try. Interestingly enough, everyone but PM had played older editions of the game before, so they were all willing to give the game a try. They all agreed!
Roll up the Rim to Win! (Canadian readers get that reference)
Once back at PM’s, I gave each player a set of polyhedral dice and a Character Sheet and they all rolled up PCs the old way, 3d6 in order. With bonus and penalties being, at worst, +/- 1, the numbers really didn’t mean much in that version of the game… until AD&D came and changed all that.
So here’s what everyone rolled:
- PM rolled Mufki, a Human Cleric (Undisclosed deity)
- Vince rolled Ortec, an Elf and he picked Magic User as his class for the adventure, oh and he had only 1 hp.
- Franky rolled Orvat, a Human Fighter
- Anne rolled Aniamo, a Dwarf (Fighter)
Everyone picked gear, including lots of torches, lanterns, 10-foot poles and a grappling hook attached to 50′ of rope.
30 minutes, and we were ready to go!
Onwards to the Old School!
There was no way I wanted to start the adventure with a tavern scene. So after reading the 3 proposed hooks I went into DM mode.
“You are all adventurers, not by trade for there’s no such thing. Rather you are adventurers by default because you have needs, pressing needs that can’t be met rapidly enough with a craft or trade. You like money and you don’t like to work or risk getting imprisoned for it. So exploring ruins for long lost treasure (and relieving your falling comrades of their un-needed worldly possessions) is your chosen path.”
“You all made your way to the town of Akban. The town is not known for anything but rumours talk of treasures to be found in a recently uncovered entrance to the Underworld near the town. There may have been rumours of increased Goblin raids but you are uninterested in heroics, at least not unless there’s fame and fortune to become one.”
“You noticed each other in town, shopping for adventuring supplies and drinking in the same watering holes. so you decided to band up to increase your chances to survive, you’ll work out how split the loot when, and if, you come out…”
And so the adventure started…
I love your opening hook, very old-school!
This should be interesting (sets up lawnchair and goes to microwave a bag of popcorn)
Word Verification – bacon: how very canadian!
Hehe, 1HP mage… I remember those days.
.-= Brian´s last blog ..Hmmm…. don’t know about this… but ok. I’ll Tweet… =-.
Going Old School…I love it. I have to admit that I too have been having some Old School feelings, though my eye is focused on HackMaster:Basic right now. There is something a bit a more streamlined rules set and a 10ft pole that makes you want to inch down a moldy dark hallway, praying you find the pit trap.
BTW– Us border folks, know all about Roll Up The Rim To Win. In fact, I will be hitting Timmy Ho’s in just a few minutes for breakfast, on my way to work.
There’s one game I remember quite fondly and it’s Star Frontier from TSR. If I remember correctly the system was very simple. I’m pretty sure if I would find it in my basement I would be better not to read it either.
Sometimes the souvenir of something is better then the real thing…
@A Paladin: I really wanted my players to ‘get’ the flavour I wanted to have for this game. I wanted to the PCs to be the archetypal pulp scoundrel, not good or evil, just very self-centered.
Oh and I’m glad that you got the Bacon word! ‘grats!
@Brian: Be on the lookout for the fate of that Magic User, they always lead to classic moments.
@Phil: The behavior of the players made the whole game worthwhile, they embraced the setting and the assumption of old School gaming real fast. I can’t wait to write part 2.
@D_Luck: I totally agree with you, except that the re-write seems to have cleared up some of the issues I had with the game. Of course, there are still Save or Dies, Level Drain and the near absence of healing at low levels, but hey… that’s part of the expperience.
In fact, I find playing S&W the equivalent of ‘roughing it in the wild’ for 4e players. I predict that some players will love it and want to re-visit periodically while others will appreciate it but prefer the warm confines of the 4e lodge. 🙂
And then you have guys like PM, who have felt constrained by the numerous rules of later editions and who find the freedom of the older ruleset liberating. He’s been clamoring for another game a mere 3 days after we played!
I think everyone really was in the right mood for this. The classes were randomly chosen and so were the character names. 🙂
Indeed, there are cool, almost magical moments when everyone around the table is in perfect synch and the game takes a dimension beyond what’s on sheets and rules. This was a great game!
So how did it go after it started?
Also-
Roll up the Rim to Win!
-heh, we have Tim Hortons in America as well 🙂 So we also get the reference….at least up north
@Paul: It will all be covered in the other parts… I may end up doing a mini serial this week as I must also prep for my friday game. So this may end up being made of shorter posts than my usual 1200 word blurb.
Chatty,
Funny. I haven’t played DnD much in the last 20 odd years. I tried 3.5 and 4e just to see when they were first released and didn’t enjoy the first and frankly despised the latter.
So while I don’t use the rules right now, I did download OSric and a few others because I like the feel, growth patterns, and gaming mindset better than in newer editions.
I find that in my own sessions and in the writings I peruse, that player-GM synergy seems to be easily reached by this Old-School mentality. A lot of my players (some of which I have kept for over 25 years) mentioned that feel as a positive thing long before there was retroclones.
You seem to be able to run all these games well, so maybe it is not as big a deal. But I look forward to reading about the game you run with this.
-LV
.-= LordVreeg´s last blog ..edited Magic Overview =-.
rock and roll.
Sounds like fun.
I love all versions of D&D and will play them, though I must admit that it’s been way to long since OD&D…
Just so people aren’t held in waiting for nothing, the game ended up being fantastic, easily in the top 10% of my DnD games of the last 26 years. As PM mentions, we were all in a mood to have fun and experience the game as we believed it was meant to be.
@LV: It becomes more and more evident to me that I’m a poly-GM, I can and have had fun with more than one system at the same time. While I love and will very likely play more Swords & Wizardry, I don’t plan to put my 4e books down either as I seek a different experience with that game.
Actually, I though my ploy would be more transparent, I’m trying to grow my readership across editions. Once I have a S&W game running, I’ll return to 1e and Pathfinder…
… just don’t ask me about 2e. 🙂 (Seriously, I have no real beef with 2e, I just didn’t enjoy it as a player… as a DM it was allright, but I played only 2 sessions before moving on to Gurps).
@Dar: I think I may become a D&D poly-gamist… until I give Mouse Guard a try…
D&D poly-gamist!
Hey! Me too!