Howl.

Cheap plagiarism, I know but it gets the point across and neatly illustrates my level of humour. A friend of mine went to great lengths ironing out AD&D 1st edition because he, like me staring down the barrel of 40 years, could never get past the feeling that later editions had, for want of a better term ‘dumbed down’. OK this first edition had more holes than your average teabag, but it was our teabag full of charm and interest and different colours that had developed over time. So off he went to Gygax (RIP) himself and came up with OSRIC. This is the camp were I proudly plant my flag.

I’m currently playing: http://playbycomment.wordpress.com/

Its basic D&D (the only one I could find that wasn’t 3.5 or 4E at the time), but to be honest its all about the characterization and the last thing you need is the game system interfering, and OD&D is really no more than a vehicle.

Online roleplaying is slow, but once you get past that the great thing for me is the idea that you can inform everyone of the thinking behind your actions. Whereas group gaming involves more beer and travel. Its rather like the difference between watching a film and reading a book; one is an ‘all action’ experience, and the other fleshes things out with meaning and subtle atmosphere. With that in mind I can’t help thinking that ‘Cthulu would make a great online game in the right hands?

Still the main reason that a stumbled across this blog was my search for an Old School Traveller online game. But so far this has been a fasinating read. Thank you.

There aren’t hordes of grogs hounding the gaming stores for retro-clones.

It’s all 3E/OGL and 4E, except deep beneath the keep, where the tormented moans of old gamers can be heard on clear nights.

Of the 6 groups I am involved in, one if PFRPG, and all the rest are 4E or non-D&D. I don’t profess to speak for my whole area, but even the meetups, RPGbomb, RPGgame finder, and other online solutions are very quiet on the old school front.

Not that we didn’t pay hommage to what we considered “old school” but what we considered was not even what is remotely considered old school by the RPG Bloggers here… we considered Role Master by Iron Crown Enterprises, or Old GURPS old school. Amongst my peers D&D was a considered a “gateway game” like pot was considered (erroneously) a “gateway drug” in that it was the game 12 year-olds played for a few years until they got tired of it and graduated to a real game. (I know I sound condescending and for that I apologize but that honestly was the gaming environment I grew up in.)

Honestly, until I started following this network I really believed that Level Based advancement systems would be phased out and that D&D 4e would likely not include them in favor of the obviously superior tried-and-true point based xp systems just about every game other than D&D uses. That sounds absurd here, but outside this community I’ve never found anyone who actually likes Level systems in RPG’s, in fact most of the gamers I know will not even consider purchasing a game that uses them.

Joining this network has been an eye opener to me as a gamer, because I come from a community that leaves D&D to teenagers where we believe it rightfully belongs, and to come here where 50% of the community covers nothing but D&D and everyone else knows that to ignore it will seriously impact your traffic stats actually shocked me.

I’ve since come to terms with the fact that this network is a micro community that’s more D&D’centric and focused on Old School than the gaming community as a whole, but I do ponder why this is the case. I think it has something to-do with the fact that WoTC has the Open Game License but otherwise keeps it’s fan-base at more of an arms length. While companies like White Wolf don’t have OGL for writing junkies (that are by extension bloggers) to work with, and they keep their communities mostly self contained.

That’s one speculation anyways.