May be joining the Old School thang.

At ReaperCon this year I played in a game of Swords & Wizardry that was GM'd by Steve Page, an old timer grognard kind of guy. Much simpler than my beloved Hero System, but that's not a bad thing. Pretty fun, especially when a combat comes up and it was "Who's doing what? Everybody start rolling!" 20-sided dice flying everywhere.

So I'd never really heard of the Old School thing, and started looking at some sites and forums, like the Original D&D discussion forum, Labyrinth Lord's forum and web site, and Mythmere Games, the makers of Swords & Wizardry. Lots of activity and effort put into the games by the fans, which is cool.

So after some deliberation I ordered the Labyrinth Lord hardcover and their Original Edition Characters book. (I forgot how much Lulu's shipping was. Choke!) I have some old modules from way back when, including B1- In Search of the Unkown and B2- The Keep on the Borderlands. I've seen a few modules for LL that look alright too so I might have to check them out.

Back when I played D&D it was first edition AD&D, but we used Basic and Expert modules and didn't know the difference. I'll use the Labyrinth Lord/Basic/Expert rules for this whenever we end up playing it. I looked at OSRIC but thought, nah, I played enough AD&D way back when. Let's try something a little different even though it's really the same. Huh?

I know I've done some D20 bashing in the past, but that was after being away from D&D for quite a while. I still like the freedom of Hero, and its' granularity and dramatic realism. There was something fun about that game with Steve though. Not too many options to explain to newcomers, just describe what you're trying to do and roll.The GM decides if you can do it. Different but fun.

So we'll hopefully have some fun with it. I have a bit more planned at the moment for our Avalorr campaign, which could be at a good stopping point in a bit if Mike wants to run a Turakian Age game for a while. We'll get to it.

Why are three dice better than one?

I used to play a lot of D&D back in high school and for a few years after, first edition AD&D to be exact. I also used to read comics, and made some friends through the comic shop I used to go to. My buddy Mike, who plays in the game I'm running now, had been playing D&D with some other guys from the shop and found fourth edition Champions to play a super hero game with. Myself and another friend Dave played in some supers games for a while with Mike as GM. I really liked the way the game played, with the Hero System's touted ability to create any character you could think of. Combat rocked, with lots of options for hand to hand and powers to do just about anything. And the 3d6 used for actions was a lot different.

In the meantime Mike had gotten some other books for Champs/Hero, one of which was Fantasy Hero for 4th ed. "You mean we can play fantasy with these rules too?! My mage can have a sword if he wants, and my fighter can do a whole lot more than 'I hit him with my sword!' ? Well sign me up."

I haven't rolled a d20 since.

Hence, three dice are better than one. Not meant as a slam on anyone's preference's, but it's catchy I guess, right?

Hmm, a blog eh?

Yup.

Why? Because I see lots of other people with them and think "I can do that." Must be the guitar player in me.

Also so I can collect my game related thoughts and hopefully get some input to help make my games better.

Games I play?

Right now I'm GMing a Fantasy Hero game, using the Hero System, with my wife, step-son, and friend Mike. Hero is really the only game I have any interest in playing since I discovered it about 15 years or so ago, and that was thanks to Mike. Actually I was introduced to it a loooong time ago, probably 6th grade, by another kid I went to school with at the time. I had discovered the world of role playing games through Marvel Super Heroes, and this classmate and I started talking games. He tried to get me to play Champions, but my 12 or 13 year old brain thought it was too complicated. Ironic, since now it's the only game I really care for.

I'm not really doing anything with the miniature wargame thing right now, so I'll go over that in another post.

Why am I GMing?

Because somebody has to start the damn game!
I've been playing with a few mini games for a few years now, probably 4 or 5, but I've been wanting to get back into some RP action for quite a while. I don't know anyone around that actively plays Hero, so I finally said heck with it, I'll get a game together my damn self!

My wife and step-son and I have fiddled with some Hero stuff, but not a lot. What little we did was their first RP experience. They were up for a real game though. I called Mike, who hadn't gamed in several years now, and he was up for it. So Yay!! a regular game. Tuesday nights at my house.

I'm a very green GM, still working on ideas and adapting on the fly. But my 13 year old step-son comes up with some very off-the-wall things to do that help me to go in different directions pretty easily a lot of times. And sometimes to get to say "Heh, heh. You walked right into that one!"

The game's going well though, 3 sessions into the campaign. Everybody's having fun. Details in a bit.