Old School Systems Questions

One of the things the OSR was supposed to do (at least in my mind) was free us from the necessity of rules fundamentalism.  Making products for OSRIC for example was allow publishers to make "1st Edition" compatible products without saying "Compatible with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons".
Basic Fantasy seemed close to this as well, but more of a melding of the "Basic" and "Advanced" ideas.

At the end of the day though a product that is compatible for one game should work with another.

In a couple of recent posts from Billy Goes to Mordor (love that blog name) suggests that there is still some form of system adherence in the OSR crowd.
http://billygoes.blogspot.co.il/2013/08/by-numbers-relative-popularity-of-dnd.html
http://billygoes.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-relative-popularity-of-various.html

His numbers, based on his survey came out like this:

1. DCC RPG 32%
2. Labyrinth Lord 31%
3. Swords and Wizardry 28%
4. LotFP 24%
5. ACKS 10%
6. OSRIC 8%

Granted this is limited to people that visit his blog, so not a random sample.  He is very open about his methods of data collection, so I am good with this.

He compares this to relative Google+ groups sizes as an index of popularity.

1. Swords &Wizardry 826
2. DCC RPG 776
3. Lamentations of the Flame Princess 498
4. Basic Fantasy 387
5. Labyrinth Lord 382
6. Adventurer Conquerer King 347
7. Castles & Crusades 303
8. OSRIC 110

Pretty good alignment there I agree.

But this brings up the larger question again.  Are eliminating the necessity of a certain rules system (D&D Basic, Advanced, 2nd ed) just to exchange it for another (Basic Fantasy, ACKS, DCC)?

So when looking for a OSR supplement, adventure or add-on do the clone rules matter to you?

Back in the day we used pretty much everything with everything else.  Still do in fact.

For example I mentioned a while back how you can use ACKS with the B/X Companion or even B/X Companion with Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy.  Those are easy though due to their relationship back to Basic D&D.

What are your experiences? Do you ignore S&W's single save when using the Tome of Horrors with Basic Fantasy?   Do you convert on the fly?

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 5: Favorite Set of dice/individual die

Day 5: Favorite Set of dice/individual die

Unlike many players it seems I am not superstitious about dice.  My current favorite is the ones that I have at the table, 'cause anytime I am rolling dice is a good day.

I do have a few that have special meaning to me.  I have a blue d20 the my oldest son gave me and a steampunk d6 my youngest gave me.  They are favorites cause of who gave them to me.
I also have a clock-face d12 that use for Doctor Who (replacing the 2d6).

My kids' favorite is the d20 of mine that I got mad at and tossed behind our books cases.  They laugh cause it always seemed to roll 1s and no one will ever seeing again until those bookcases are torn out.

White Dwarf Wednesday #78

Big changes are in store for White Dwarf in issue #78.  But first a point of reference.  When I started these so long ago they were meant as a retrospective.  That is going to get harder here on out since I didn't own any of these issues when they first came out and some I didn't even own till I started doing this and found the gaps in my collection.  So that makes a retrospective a little harder to do really.  So instead of out and out reviews or "read mes" I am going to focus on what I know was going on at the time.  These last 20 or so issues might even go by pretty quick if I choose to double up on them near the end.
So let's get into it.

Issue #77 takes White Dwarf to their new address and new team.  The cover is different too. Still the same price, but now it reads "GAMES WORKSHOP PRESENTS" instead of "THE ROLE-PLAYING GAMES MONTHLY".  Not a subtle reminder.
The editorial/toc page is resigned as well.  While Paul Cockburn, late of Imagine is the new editor, it's a familiar name on the editorial, Ian Livingstone.  Said editorial is just saying what I have said here.

Open Box gets a facelift and some color.  Among other things the */10 rating is now gone.
Covered is B/X1 Night's Dark Terror module for D&D and DL11 Dragons of Glory Play-aid for AD&D.  The treat in this batch is a look at Cthulhu by Gaslight by Chaosium for Call of Cthulhu.  This book became something of a Holy Grail for me back in the late 80s.  I loved Victorian gaming even then so this seemed like the perfect game to me.

Dave Langford takes over a redesigned Critical Mass.  Notable is the review for Gygax's own "Artifact of Evil".  Noting that it is nothing more than an adventure writeup and commenting on the "brutalities visited on the English language.

Graeme Drysdale looks into coming back from the dead in AD&D.
Wow. a bad review for Gygax and bringing characters back to life? This is not the Grognard's White dwarf anymore.

The Pilocomayo Project is an adventure for Golden Heroes.  I can't comment on the adventure but the NPC "Powerchord" a rocker turned super could be fun to use.  Mr. Magic is just a poor-mans Zatara.

After that we get an adventure for Judge Dredd, The Sprung Ones.

Fracas is the new rumors or news department.

The rest are mostly ads.

Ok. Not a great issue by any stretch of the imagination.

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 4: Favorite Game World

Day 4: Favorite Game World

Mine is a tie.  My first and nearest to my heart was "The Known World" later called Mystara. But I quickly adopted Greyhawk.  So when I ran games it was Mystara, but playing it was Greyhawk.  Around 1986 or so my then DM and I decided to merge our worlds.  We called "Oerth 3", not very original I know.
Many years later I discovered this map by Chatdemon based on an idea by James Mishler.  It was exactly what I was trying to do.  Plus this map was so much better than mine.

So my favorite game world of all time is Mystoerth!

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 3: Favorite Playable Class

Day 3: Favorite Playable Class

Well this one is no surprise.  The Witch.
I started out playing clerics and paladins which was fun.  I did indeed play the cleric like Van Helsing (all those Hammer films).  But for me the Witch was always the best of both the Cleric and the Wizard with a bit  of dark anima as well.  I wrote my first witch class close to 30 years ago and I am not tired of playing them yet!

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 2: Favorite Playable Race

Day 2: Favorite Playable Race

This one is easy, if predictable. I prefer to play humans.  I just always felt that despite all the perk the other races got, humans still got the best deal.  Plus in the days of AD&D humans were the only race that had unlimited advancement.  Also in the AD&D1 days I liked Dual Classes.  I had a number of characters that started out as one thing and then went on to be something else.  I liked the character building implications.

If I were to pick a second favorite it would be half-elf.

30 Day D&D Challenge, Day 1: How You Got Started

Day 1: How You Got Started

I got started in 1979. I was in "silent reading" and a buddy had a copy of the new AD&D Monster Manual.  WOW. IT blew my mind.  I loved mythology and had already read everything in the library on Greek and Roman myths.  Seeing all the same creatures, plus demons, devils and things I never heard of.
After that I looked for the rules, but to no avail.  It wasn't until I got a hold of a badly xeroxed copy of Holmes D&D.  The rest was as they say history.
Around this very same time I discovered the Hobbit, having seen it recently on TV.  I was in the right place at the right time for this to happen.  Like many my "first" D&D was a combination of Basic and Advanced. Still today that is the same experience I look for in D&D. Also recapturing that thrill of first holding that Monster Manual in 5th grade.