Sunday, January 4, 2009

In which we creep closer to my finally choosing a system

I'm in the mood to run an old school dungeon crawl. The type centered around a village on the edge of a dark forest, with a nasty beast infested swap nearby. No far away, just out of site of the village in fact, is the hill upon which the ruins of the once mighty fortress of the mad Arch-mage Cyclopentaxor. The upper works of the fortress have long ago been laid low, but it is rumored that a nearly endless warren of tunnels and crypts lies below the ruins.

I've reduced my preferred system list to the following:

1. Labyrinth Lord (Basic & Expert D&D clone. Nicely Done and available for free. Mutant Future is a plus here as well.)

2. Swords & Wizardry (Re-imaging of the original 3 brown D&D books. It's free too.)

3. Castles & Crusades (I finally figured out what I don't like about C&C. The book covers. Thankfully the covers are being redone in 2009.)

4. Actual Original 3 little brown book Dungeons & Dragons

5. Savage Worlds (A nice versatile game, but not necessarily the best choice for dungeon crawling.)

Of course, now I need to pick one. Any suggestions?
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4 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 6, 2009 at 6:52 PM

    Do you envision dungeons as being puzzle tests for your players or adventures for your players' characters? From the way you've described the systems, one of the older D&D books/clones might be best: you roll a character, they fight, they die, repeat. I think C&C and Savage Worlds are kind of heavy on story and character, aren't they?

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  2. jrl755January 7, 2009 at 1:00 PM

    I do tend to see dungeons as tests for the players, with their characters acting as their intermediaries in the fantasy realm. This brings up the question of, "what is meant by roleplaying?" I feel very strongly that in the old days it simply meant that you were taking on a role in the adventure, either a fighter, a cleric or a magic user. Your role defined your place in the adventuring party. Actually developing a personality for your character was somewhat optional and varied depending on your acting skills, level of shyness, etc.

    I have absolutely nothing against interesting characters with unique personalities and players who speak in character. I actually quite like it, but then I have no objection to players showing up in costume either. By the same token though, I don't mind if someone wants to be themselves as a fighter. I don't think that people should be excluded from gaming because they are poor actors, or too shy to act. It is after all a game.

    Well, now that I've digressed into an incomprehensible rant, I hope that at least I've answered the initial question. :-)

    And yes, I think that you're right about the older clones fitting better with the dungeon style that I've been talking about. I really like savage worlds and do quite like story driven games. I just find that with my available time, I'm better with a nice contained dungeon.

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  3. MeJanuary 17, 2009 at 11:56 AM

    So, for us lazy slobs who haven't actually read all of those books, what are the differences between them?

    I'm inclined to use rules that can be legally acquired. I have a copy of the C&C rules. S&W and LL can be acquired with relative ease.

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  4. MeJanuary 17, 2009 at 11:57 AM

    I suppose I should also mention that, so long as I'm not dropping $50+ on books each time, I don't mind trying out lots of different systems.

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