Dorkland! Roundtable with C.A. Suleiman

I spoke with White Wolf Developer/Designer C.A. Suleiman on the Dorkland! Roundtable. We talked about his time in the gaming business, working for companies like Wizards of the Coast and Green Ronin on projects like Eberron and Hamunaptra. We talked about his recent work for White Wolf on the Mummy RPG as well as his music.

Time Lord: The "Lost" Doctor Who RPG

In the 90s, back in the dark ages of Doctor Who fandom when the show itself was on a razor-thin path that lead eventually to the cancellation of the program, Virgin Books was doing licensed Doctor Who novels. I am not really a huge fan of licensed tie-in novels, I think that (at best) you have to consider them to be in some sort of weird parallel universe where the characters are almost but not quite the characters that you are used to in your movies or TV programs. With Doctor Who, I think this is an easier pill to swallow because there's already parallel universes that are part of the setting.

The Virgin Books period is marked by quirky and inventive storylines that advanced the story of the (then current) Seventh Doctor. Not as quirky as the BBC Books fiction that would follow (the Eighth Doctor Adventures in particular fleshed out a character that only received one appearance on our TV screens).

But during this period, the people at Virgin Books decided to try their hand at a role-playing game set in the Doctor Who universe that they could sell side-by-side with their novels. It was a great idea that, unfortunately, fell short in a few ways. They didn't really market the book as being an RPG, and since it looked like the novels in their trade dress, some bought this and didn't really know what to do with it, since it wasn't actually a novel. The game also wasn't distributed to hobby stores, so gaming fans of the show weren't really exposed to it either. I picked up my copy one year at Origins. I've run it a few times, in the distant past, and while it has some quirky features it was a fun game to play and run.

Intended as an entry level game, the rules do a very good job of explaining themselves and introducing the concepts of role-playing to those who might not know what it is. The rules themselves are fairly simple, with resolution being based around a 2d6 roll (where the lower of the two dice is subtracted from the higher to get a result that is compared to the difficulty). In the original rules, character creation was minimal preferring an approach where the players play the characters from the show. Seeing as how this was intended primarily for fan of the show I can understand this approach. This is not to say that there was no character creation rules in the game, just that they were perfunctory and not very good. In the free PDF release (linked below) the authors tried to make this option more robust, having learned from talk with players of the game that no one liked the character generation rules.

The game does have an extensive list of writeups of Doctors, Companions, aliens and varies nemesis of the Doctor from the first seven regenerations. It does have the advantage of being written during the period when Doctor Who was off the air, so their writeups weren't going to be contradicted by the show. It is an interesting snapshot of the Classic Doctor Who show in this regard.

After Virgin Books lost their Doctor Who license, the game went out of print. No supplements were every published (and as far as I can tell none were ever actually planned). Outside of the current (at the time of this post) Doctor Who game put out by Cubicle 7, this is my only real experience with Doctor Who role-playing, and probably my favorite of these two. While the current Doctor Who game definitely reflects the New Who era, I think that Time Lord is an accurate reflection of Classic era in RPG form. The original authors (with permission of the BBC) put the Time Lord game out on the internet as a free PDF, back in the mid-90s, and it still floats around out there today. Below I've included links to the PDF of the game, along with two fan-produced supplements that expanded and explained some of the rules a bit better. Check these out, and I hope that you enjoy them.

Time Lord: This is the basic game, as originally published by Virgin Books. The PDF is a no art version, since the authors didn't have permission to reproduce the art from the game.

Time Lord Companion: Originally produced as a text file (yeah, welcome to the old days of the internet), this was eventually turned into a PDF. This has some expanded character creation options, and some character writeups and rule expansions.

Time Lord Journies: (Yeah, I know but that's how it was spelled.) This supplement built on the Time Lord Companion and added a number of new character creation options as well. There are also a number of rules clarifications and expansions, from the viewpoint of the author of this fan supplement.

All three of these files are saved up on my Google Drive, so hopefully there shouldn't be any downloading issues. If there are, all that I can say is wait and try again in a bit. It is a free service, so there are bound to be bandwidth limitations at times.

If this post causes you to run games with Time Lord, let me know.leave a comment here or say something about it to me on Twitter or Google+. I want to hear more about your Time Lord games.

DriveThruRPG's OSR Promotion

From Monday, May 13 - Sunday, May 19, DriveThruRPG is going to be running an OSR-related promotion. For this week 10 of the site's best selling old school games will be eligible for an additional 15% savings with the coupon OSRF711F2. This coupon is only good for one week and only on the products listed here. There are some good games to be found on that list. I can recommend Crypts & Things (a Swords & Wizardry variant) and Spellcraft & Swordplay (an excellent old school styled game from Jason Vey. If you don't have either of these games on your gaming pile, you really should. I don't think that I have to suggest picking up the original D&D Basic Rules to anyone.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Patrick Kapera

I spoke with +Patrick Kapera of Crafy Games about many things on the Dorkland! Roundtable. We discussed the history of the development of Spycraft, how that lead to Fantasy Craft and how designers who'd made a book as big as Spycraft 2.0 could then do something as small as the Mistborn Adventure Game. It was a good talk, and it gave some interesting insights into Patrick's and Crafty's processes, as well as looking at how they approach the development of a new RPG.

We had a slight technical glitch at one point, so just bear with us at that point.

The Mini Manor In Review

I received a copy of the zine-formated module The Mini Manor from +Tim Shorts of GM Games, and promptly forgot that I had intended to blog about it. The picture to the right is one that I took of the cover of the 20 page long, 5.5" x 4.23" inch booklet.

Don't let the size fool you because there is a lot packed into the small package.

Written for Swords & Wizardry, as part of the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day festivities, Tim has crafted a fairly standard dungeon crawl into something with a bit more bite by using the modern sensibilities of the DIY zine culture. And I think that's a very good thing. We need to advance fantasy games beyond what they were like 30 years ago and make them into something that is recognizable by us now. In a way, that is what the dungeon and adventure designers of the 70s and 80s were doing with things like the Judges Guild books, or many of the Mayfair Games materials. It is good to see people making their own, rather than just trying to emulate what has gone on before.

The Mini Manor lives up to its name, this dungeon has only eight rooms to it, but they are filled with an interesting take on monsters and situations. The characters wake up, naked, in a room after a night of partying and the action goes from there. There is a bit of a grindhouse feel to this module, so it isn't for the faint of heart (or the young). This is clearly labeled as a "mature audiences" module, and I think that it lives up to that label. This isn't a tee-hee 13-year old sniggering at naked breasts sort of mature, but the real deal.

I won't spoil the module, because I think people should track it down and experience it for themselves. I may have to spring it on my Demon Codex players in a few levels (it says that the adventure works best with 5th level characters). In addition to the module itself, The Mini Manor has a number of new creatures (stated for Swords & Wizardry but easily adapted to any of the old school games), a handful of new magic items, a new spell and a new race. All definitely worth the price of admission. The best part is that you can get the PDF of this for free, however if you can track Tim down and get a physical copy it is worth the effort.

The Eternal Warrior Is Coming From Valiant Comics

 

I know that people have been asking when this was going to happen (I've had a lot of people asking about it in my social media streams). The Eternal Warrior is coming this summer from Valiant Comics, Greg Pak and Trevor Hairsine. You likely know Pak from his longtime work with Marvel Comic, and Hairsine is a great up and coming artist. Greg Pak gave an exclusive interview to Comic Book Resources about the upcoming book.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Sean Fannon

I talked with long time game designer and industry insider Sean Fannon on the Dorkland! Roundtable. He has worn a lot of hats in the gaming business and we tried to talk about as many of those hats as possible in the time that we had.

We also spent some time talking about his upcoming game Shaintar (he even gave us an advanced preview of the cover art sans tradedress):

It was a good talk and we managed to squeeze a lot of Sean's history and current doings into the interview.

Why I Won't Be Seeing Ender's Game

These are all unvarnished or unaltered quotes from Orson Scott Card:

How dangerous is this, politically? Please remember that for the mildest of comments critical of the political agenda of homosexual activists, I have been called a "homophobe" for years.

This is a term that was invented to describe people with a pathological fear of homosexuals — the kind of people who engage in acts of violence against gays. But the term was immediately extended to apply to anyone who opposed the homosexual activist agenda in any way.

A term that has mental-health implications (homophobe) is now routinely applied to anyone who deviates from the politically correct line. How long before opposing gay marriage, or refusing to recognize it, gets you officially classified as "mentally ill"?

 or

And you can guess how long it will now take before any group that speaks against "gay marriage" being identical to marriage will be attacked using the same tools that have been used against anti-abortion groups — RICO laws, for instance.

 or

No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the same as the coupling between a man and a woman.

This is a permanent fact of nature.

(In another column I will talk seriously and candidly about the state of scientific research on the causes of homosexuality, and the reasons why homosexuality persists even though it does not provide a reproductive advantage.)

There is no natural method by which two males or two females can create offspring in which both partners contribute genetically. This is not subject to legislation, let alone fashionable opinion.

Human beings are part of a long mammalian tradition of heterosexuality. No parthenogenic test tube procedure can alter what we, by nature, are. No surgery, no hormone injections, can change X to Y or make the distinction nonexistent.

That a few individuals suffer from tragic genetic mixups does not affect the differences between genetically distinct males and females.

or

Married people are doing something that is very, very hard — to combine the lives of a male and female, with all their physical and personality differences, into a stable relationship that persists across time.

When they are able to create children together, married people then provide the role models for those children to learn how to become a man or a woman, and what to expect of their spouse when they themselves marry.

When a heterosexual couple cannot have children, their faithful marriage still affirms, in the eyes of other people's children, the universality of the pattern of marriage.

When a heterosexual couple adopts children who are not their genetic offspring, they affirm the pattern of marriage and generously confer its blessings on children who might otherwise have been deprived of its benefits.

And yet if a homosexual couple does these same things it perverts and demeans the sanctity of marriage in the eyes of some. Because:

With "gay marriage," the last shreds of meaning will be stripped away from marriage, with homosexuals finishing what faithless, selfish heterosexuals have begun.

And the ultimate extension of this is that governments who support gay marriage should be brought down through insurrection:

If America becomes a place where our children are taken from us by law and forced to attend schools where they are taught that cohabitation is as good as marriage, that motherhood doesn't require a husband or father, and that homosexuality is as valid a choice as heterosexuality for their future lives, then why in the world should married people continue to accept the authority of such a government?

What these dictator-judges do not seem to understand is that their authority extends only as far as people choose to obey them.

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

One last particularly vile quote from Card (to be found here):

The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.

This is where your money goes when you buy one of his novel, support a movie or comic book made from his books, or any other project that has his name on it. Pure and simple, your money goes to support hate. I don't care what the reasons are, that money supports hate. In my book that makes you just as much of a bad person as Card himself. I don't care if you don't like this, but then the opinions of people who promote or support hate of others because of their gender, ethnicity, sexual preference or pretty much anything mean nothing to me.

I don't want to see Ender's Game and I don't want to hear about your rationalizations.

If you're looking for other articles about this, here's a good one.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Ross Watson

I spoke with designer (and soon to be publisher) Ross Watson about a number of things from his time working with companies like Games Workshop and Fantasy Flight Games on their licensed properties. There is a lot of wisdom in his answers about dealing with licensed properties.

We also spent a lot of time talking about miniatures. It is a pretty well-known fact that I am not a miniatures person, but like the time spent with +Eddy Webb talking about LARPing, I did find it interesting to find out more about an aspect of gaming that I have never engaged with. One of the things that I like about these talks is that I am getting to talk about, and learn about, parts of the overall "stream" of what we all consider to be gaming that I've never dealt with before. Even if it isn't something that I would use in my gaming personally, it is still good to look behind the curtains and see the though processes of others and how they approach their styles of play.

Hopefully this talk will be informative to someone who is an unknowledgeable about miniatures, and I hope that I asked just the right stupid questions.

Whitebox Classes: The Timelord

Every culture on every world throughout time and space have their own myths and legends about the Timelords. Many of these stories hold truths, but as often as not the myths do not tell the whole story. The first species to become "time active" (i.e. be able to move through time and understand its workings) were the people of the planet Gallifrey. Those who use the powers of time, and space, are known as Timelords.

This optional class for your Swords & Wizardry Whitebox games allow you to bring a bit of science fiction (often using the word science loosely) into your games. Don't expect to play the Doctor or the Master, or even many of the other named Timelords of the Who EU, right out of the box. This class assumes someone who has only just recently stolen their own TARDIS, likely inspired by the adventures of the Doctor, and wanted to see the universe as well.

If you don't like the idea of a character who can travel through time and space in your games, then take inspiration from the plight of the Third Doctor and strand them on the game world with a TARDIS that has a burned out dematerialization circuit. The TARDIS can be used as a homebase, and occasionally as a source for tools, but never as a way to find weapons. A Timelord has a 1-6 chance of finding a tool or piece of equipment that they need from their TARDIS.

Level	XP	HD	ST
1	0	1	13
2	3,500	1	12
3	7,000	1+1	11
4	14,000	2	10
5	28,000	2	9
6	56,000	2+1	8
7	112,000	3	7
8	224,000	3	6
9	448,000	3+1	5
10	896,000	4	4

Timelords fight as Thieves.

Timelord Class Abilities

Regeneration: When a Timelord is killed (at zero HP or lower) they do not die, instead they regenerate into a new form. They keep the level they were at when they died, but all of the attribute scores are scrambled. All of the scores have to be changed to a different attribute, once scrambled. The Timelord’s XP is reset to the lowest possible for their level. Regeneration take 1-6 rounds, and interfering with the process will cause the Timelord to be rendered unconscious for 1-8 days.

Saving Throw: Timelords get a +2 to saving throws versus poison, paralysis, or death.

Experience Bonus: The prime attribute for a Timelord is Intelligence. An Intelligence of 15+ grants a bonus of +5% to experience gained.

Benchthumping: A Timelord has the ability to fix a device (technological or arcane) by hitting it, hard and fast, with the flat of their palm. This ability has a 1-6 chance of success. At 5th level, this ability increases to 2-6. On the roll of a 6, the device is broken.

Scientific Knowledge: The Timelord is a master of science and technology. To this end, they have a percentage chance equal to their level plus their Intelligence bonus multiplied by ten to figure out things of a scientific or technical matter. For example a first level Timelord with an Intelligence of 13 would have a 10% of puzzling out some strange scientific matter, while a second level Timelord with an Intelligence of 15 would have a 30% (2 + 1 = 3 x 10 = 30%) of figuring out the same thing. To the Timelord magic is nothing but an unexplained form of science.

TARDIS: All Timelords have access to a type of timeship known as a TARDIS. Those who have gone rogue, i.e. those who have embarked upon a life of adventure, typically have stolen, antique and often malfunctioning ships. In game terms it means that where the Timelord wants to take their TARDIS is rarely under their control, and most often the  referee gets to decide where it goes.

Steffan O'Sullivan's VG (Very Good) Fudge

I was looking for some source files on the Fudge RPG system and, as I usually do when I want to go to the source I checked out Steffan O'Sullivan's (mostly dead and infrequently updated) Fudge Page. While nosing around I found a page that I had never noticed before...a link to something called VG Fudge. It was a very simple variant that SOS came up with for the game, and all that it did was change the Adjective ladder. If you go to the linked page, SOS explains some of his reasoning for making this change...reasoning that I think makes a whole lot of sense.

It's easy to state the change - it's very minor in appearance, though fairly major in application. To put it briefly, in my GMing, I've changed the standard Fudge word ladder to:

• Superb
• Great
• Very Good
• Good
• Fair
• Mediocre
• Poor

That's it. No other major changes. Still seven levels, still easy to remember, still easy to know which is better or worse than any other level.

This was posted in 2011 (which shows how long it has been since I looked seriously at Steffan's website).

He added a level in between Good and Great (hence the "Very Good" name) and took out Terrible as a level. That may not seem like a lot but to someone who has played and GMed Fudge for a long time...that's a pretty big change. Personally, I think that removing Terrible is a much bigger change to the ladder than adding another "positive" level. taking away Terrible decreases, to me at least, the chances of a truly bad result during task resolution and coupled with the addition of the Very Good level (which I admit isn't the best of names) if really brings Fudge games to a whole new (pardon the pun) level. It adds a bit more granularity to the system, which I think is a welcome change to the game and its rules.

I will likely adopt this ladder in my Fudge-based games, although I think that I would probably rename Very Good into something that sounds better. Excellent, maybe? Play with it, and I think that you might find it interesting, too.

Dorkland! Roundtable with Mark Truman

Once again I find myself falling behind with posting my Dorkland! Roundtables here to my blog. Things have been busy the last couple of week, with the build up to the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day, and all that sort of fun stuff, so other things have lagged. Fear not! That doesn't mean that I am ignoring my Dorkland! Roundtables (I do prefer to let them percolate over on G+ and my YouTube channel for a while anyway).

I spoke with +Mark Diaz Truman of Magpie Games, creator of such fine games as The Play's The Thing and Last Best Hope.

We spent a lot of time talking about the impact of Kickstarter on tabletop RPG publishing, and I think that Mark brought up a lot of good points on how to engage a community before, during and after your Kickstarter to help maximize the appeal of attention grabbingness (yes, I just made up that word) of a game. For better or worse, depending on the project, Kickstarter has changed how role-playing games are taken to market, or sold to people in general.

Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day: Let Me Tell You About My Game...

A lot of people are writing today about Swords & Wizardry, and that's a pretty cool thing. You can find an ongoing list of all of the posts over at Erik Tenkar's Tenkar's Tavern (the premier OSR blog nowadays, in the opinion of this non-OSR person). There is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement going on for the game. Today only (April 17, 2013) there are also a couple of sale going on (the links to and coupons for I posted last night) from Frog God Games and the Swords & Wizardry SRD site. I would also suggest checking out the Lulu.com storefront of +Matt Finch, the creator/developer of Swords & Wizardry. It's nice to give him some direct support for the cool work that he has done for all of us with this game. If you go the Lulu.com route, be sure to use the 20% off coupon for April: APRILBOOKS13, and get a discount that doesn't cut into Matt's profits. Show some love for this great system that you can get into for free.

Also be sure to check out the Google Plus Swords & Wizardry Discussion community on G+. It is unofficial, but Matt and some of the people from Frog God Games all post there, and it is a good place to get questions answered from Matt and from fellow fans. There's also a lot of cool new rules discussion and material posted to the group as well. At the risk of sounding egotistical (I founded the Community...total disclaimer), the Community has really evolved into a premier place for talking about the game online. It has started hooking up community members in games too, which is pretty awesome.

Sunday I did a "pre-mortem" post getting a little bit into what got me started down the road of Swords & Wizardry fandom that led, in a way, to today's appreciation happening. A few months back, a conversation between +Erik Tenkar and myself lead to the first Appreciation Day, that time for the Basic Fantasy RPG (another OSR retroclone). Basic Fantasy nearly became the system that I ended up using for my return to running games and my first ever online gaming experience.

Today, I am going to take a slightly different approach for the Appreciation Day than some of the other bloggers. Instead of talking about rules or mechanics, I am going to talk about my first (but not last) Swords & Wizardry game, run via G+ Hangouts on the Air. For the longest time I was incredibly skeptical about running a game online. I just didn't think that it would have the same energy or enjoyment to it. I was so incredibly wrong about all of that. I think that the Google hangouts are a great tool, and for me at least, do a great job of simulating the face to face experience. And considering that our group has a couple of people from California, a Canadian and others scattered around the country...this is a group that never could have happened other than through online play. I have to say that I have made some new friends through this, and developed an appreciation for Swords & Wizardry along the way.

One of the great things about playing via Google+ Hangout is that we can record our games. This may or may not be great to everyone, but your mileage will vary. It is nice to have something tangible (as tangible as electrons at least) that you can point to when people ask question like "So, what is this game and how do you play it?" I can give a link and people can experience the awesomeness of the group in action. Above isn't our first session of our campaign (we had been playing for about a month or so by the time that G+ started offering the Hangout on the Air option), but it was our first recording. It took a couple of weeks to convince everyone that we should a) livestream our gaming and b) put it up on YouTube (yes, that's a link to a playlist of all of the videos that we recorded...including a couple of Lamentations of the Flame Princess games as well) for everyone to see in the months and years to come.

Obviously, mistakes were made during play. I misruled things a few times, but overall we tried to not let things breakdown and we kept playing through things. There was a sort of reverse learning curve to the game, as a couple of the players had to unlearn some of the habits that they picked up from years of playing more recent editions of D&D. The acceptance of an old school game wasn't entirely universal, but I think that the dynamics of the group, and the fun that we were having, overcame some of those things eventually.

I asked the players to comment on Swords & Wizardry and our campaign, and these are the comments that I got from them. First off, I'm going to put Ethel's comment up (she goes by +solange simondsen on G+, which is her Second Life screen name), because she was the reason that I started this campaign in the first place:

I mentioned to Chris Helton one day the OSR gaming he was talking about sounded fun and he offered to start a game I could play in. That seemed like a lark and that was about a year ago, and the gaming group is still going. I had never played any kind of D&D or tabletop RPG, but I’ve always been a lover of games - board games, video games, word games. But that really didn’t prepare me much for what was ahead.

Before the first game, I read over all the rules and tried to make sense of what all the monster tables and lists of spells were for. OK! I was ready… That first night on Google+ I met my fellow gamers and we rolled up our characters. They knew everything; I was completely unprepared. I kept forgetting (and still do sometimes) how saving throws work. They knew all the monster abilities and were blithely arguing with the GM about why they should get a +1 to hit and I was couldn’t really decipher the hit table. In fact, I was having trouble telling a d8 from a d10. Lucky for me, the gamers in our group were some of the most generous, patient and good-natured people you’d ever want to meet. I am still kind of iffy, but after a year of gaming, I’m slightly less of a derp than when I started.

Looking back, I can see pros and cons with starting out with Swords and Wizardry. What’s great about it is also what made it hard for me at first. It is rules light, easy to grasp and simple to dive right in. Being rules light also means, though, that you have to be inventive, bring some background knowledge to the game, and not rely on the book to resolve every question. But having just read what I wrote, maybe that was a positive even for a first-timer. All the discussions about how things could or would work, the stupid mistakes that wound up working out in spite of myself, all the laughing and poking at each other we all did… A lot of that would have been lost if we had been following a more prescriptive system. And that wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.  

So, right from the trenches we see that Swords & Wizardry can be used to make someone with no experience with tabletop RPGs into a gamer. I honestly think that Ethel sells herself a little short, after 30+ of gaming I still have brain farts about what to do and not to do at times (I think our game play videos have plenty of evidence to show that), and she took to gaming like a fish to water. Yeah, there were some hiccups. Gaming, for better or for worse, does have a lot of jargon to it that a new person has to learn and over come, but like she said, I think that the group really came together and tried to help her out and smooth over some of the rough patches. Ethel has even run a few sessions of her first adventure (which you can catch near the end of the playlist of our videos). It only took a short while before she was in there, making Monty Python jokes and acting all gamer-like with the rest of us.

+David Rollins, who played the party Cleric, had this to say:

The thing that affected our play as a group most was the streamlined nature of the rules. There was a lot of room to improvise creatively and use items and the environment in creative ways to increase our effectiveness far beyond our collective hit dice. In Chris' campaign we found ourselves seriously outclassed on a a few occasions but managed to avoid the TPKs with some out-side-of-the-box tactical play that was not covered by the rules. Instead of covering everything the rules left room for creative solutions.

In my case, I played a cleric. With no spells until 2nd level but the power to turn undead my character started as a holy warrior who stepped to the front in the battle against chaos. Spells and turning became something to be called on only in cases of great challenge in battle. With fast advancement my character had multiple hit dice before any other party member giving him the hit points to remain a viable front line fighter even though his attack bonus did not keep pace with the actual fighters in the party. This is a very different animal from the tough casters that clerics became in the later editions. It was a blast playing an uncompromising holy warrior on a mission!

David was also the person who helped mentor Ethel's new gamer. He helped with explanations and patiently explaining things multiple times (if needed) in order to help her out. Plus he also embraced some of my weird approaches to fantasy game worlds, and I think that helped things a lot. David really helped to push my campaign in new directions, when I thought that I was going too far already, by taking some of my weird plot ideas, and weird dungeon crawling ideas, and running with them.

+Josh Thompson, the player of the party Thief, said, in his succinct style:

My time with S&W has shown me that you don't need a complex set of rules to have  complex setting and characters. If anything, the non-intrusive rules have allowed such areas to deepen. Also, the hallways are very cozy.

+Jeremy Whalen who, sadly, no longer games with us, provides a bit of a counter point towards the game. Showing how things can vary within a group. Jeremy provided the muscle to our early adventures, with his Fighter Goreaxe.

I played Goreaxe as a traditionally grim warrior as intent on inflicting harm as on protecting his compatriots and surprisingly enough his family back in town even though we only touched upon that specific aspect when I was with pleading with Chris to spare Goreaxe from a failed save that should have resulted in his untimely but richly deserved death.  "What about my wife and kids? Seriously they need me!" (btw that worked, Goreaxe survived!)

I really enjoyed my role and the system was certainly quick and easy but I think it may have been a bit too streamlined. One specific incident sticks out in my mind.

Early in our campaign we were exploring a dungeon, hot on the trail of the mysterious chaos that threatened the region, when we burst through a door and confronted a pack of lizard men (if I recall correctly). Goreaxe rushed forward and attacked, as intent to kill his enemy as on protecting his party. The initial flurry went well enough but when it came time for our opponents to attack they simply did an end run around Goraxe to hit the soft wizard left behind in the doorway. I objected and sought to interpose Goreaxe in someway but apparently they were too quick for him as. I felt quite impotent as the wizard took the beating that should have been for Goreaxe. Mechanically S&W just didn't’ work that way and it left me, as a player, somewhat frustrated by the oversight. Now to be clear I do not advocate for systems that attempt to codify every eventuality as that is simply not practical. What should have happened? Well I think it came down to narrative and presentation. When I objected Chris simply indicated the rules did not support that and then proceeded to keep the game moving however I was disappointed, and for a few moments, my happiness index fell.

The lesson here, if I may be so bold, is that when systems don’t cover intended character actions, or player desires, it is up to the GM to find a way to handle the situation that maximizes everyone's fun without derailing the session. I moved on after a few moments of irritation because, as a player, my responsibility was to help Chris make the game enjoyable for everyone, not just myself. Also, the wizard deserved a beating.

+Stacy Dellorfano (the first person to join our core band of adventurers) added:

The best thing that I could possibly say about Swords & Wizardry (and it's a good thing), is that I've barely noticed the system, been too busy beating shit up. :)

Honestly, it seems like we mostly came to very similar conclusions about the game and its approaches, and found that it was a style that suited us as a group, once we were all able to get into the mindset and allow ourselves to stretch our muscles. Swords & Wizardry supplied us with a light and flexible ruleset that supported us when we needed it, and also got out of the way when we needed that. I honestly don't think that our game would have been the same, or as much fun for any of us, if we had used a different game. Swords & Wizardry has officially become my go-to fantasy game, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

As a GM, and as a game designer (both hats were worn in our previous campaign), Swords & Wizardry provides a solid, but light, foundation that encourages me to hack it and do with it as I want. That was demonstrated in some of my different approaches to a traditional dungeon crawl, and interaction with the characters and the world. Our next game is going to be based on S&W as well, but we are going back to the Whitebox rules as our foundation. I'm also using the encouragement of the players to hack things a bit more extensively than we previously did. I am adding a skill system to the game (adapted from a Basic Fantasy RPG hack), doing away with the Cleric as a class, and adding other little mechanical bits and pieces. Ironically, during the time that we have been playing this game I discovered and fell in love with the world of the Warhammer Fantasy Role-Playing Game and have started tracking down some of the early edition material for it. While I like Swords & Wizardry as my system, I am finding that a non-D&D type of setting suits me, and my fantasy interests better. In our next campaign, Demon Codex, I am going to embrace a lot of that and turn this game into my game, and then by extension into our game.

It has been a fun road. Not only has Swords & Wizardry introduced my friend to the wonderful world of gaming, but it has also allowed me to meet some great new people and game with them. It has also let me find a community of people interested in this game, and their different approaches have shown me new and different ways of looking at the game. It has also allowed me to meet and pick the brain of Matt Finch (who will be appearing on a future Dorkland! Roundtable). It also led, indirectly I guess, to so many bloggers talking about a great game on this day.

Thank you, everyone, for contributing to a great community and for helping to make such a great day.