OSRIC Notes Session 1:

It all started inside the Smokey Tavern in the hunting village of Oakdale. Our five heroes hear about an ancient mine to the north west about 2 days journey into the forest. The mine has been vacant for many generations. It is a place that has had so many rumors spread about it that no one truly knows the real story. It is because of this news that our heroes equip themselves, buy a horse and a cart, hire a stable boy (to watch over the horse), and head out towards fortune and glory.

The mines are entered and the delving begins. The first battle is a shot out of the blue. The dark and lonely dungeon complex jumps to life with the slamming of a far off door and 5 orcs suddenly running up on the heroes. The battle is quick and the exploration continues. The leading 2 heroes in the marching order fall into a pit trap in the floor. This extra damage prompts the party to abandon their exploration and head out of the dungeon to make camp and heal up. Before doing so, the crazy mage comes up with a plan to desecrate the orc bodies so that it would be impossible to pass by without creating footprints in the blood. Maybe footprints could lead to an idea of who or what else may live in the forgotten catacombs. No a bad idea! After an uninterrupted nights sleep, the heroes enter the dungeon again. A quick search of the orc mess reveals no activity, so in another expression of insanity, the crazy mage decides to cut off the head of one of the orcs and he takes it with him. This confuses the rest of the party, but they know well enough not to question the likes of a mage.

Further exploration revealed more twisting corridors and abandoned rooms. The crazy mage demonstrated the usefulness of the decapitated head he collected by throwing or rolling it down the hallways in an effort to possibly spring any traps. Once they would reach the end of the hallway, the head would be collected back up till the next time. A few more orc battles ensued. One particular battle took place around a festering pile of refuse. The heroes who won their initiave roll ran back past the garbage heap causing the orcs to give chase. Once the orcs were in the right spot, a torch was thrown into the pile of garbage, setting it alight along with the orcs that were following. It was perfect.

Late in the session, the shocking encounter with 2 strange metal statues occurs when one of the fighters searches the northern statue and receives a significant electrical burn. Another battle with orcs takes place in this room, but no one touches the statues again.

Later on, the smell of cooking pork fills the air. The heroes notice that behind a door a group of berserkers are cooking a long pig over a fire. The heroes bribe the berserkers for information about the dungeon. The berserkers add to their map and then insist the heroes leave them alone.

Coming towards the end of the session, our heroes explored 2 more rooms. One was the scene of an ancient battle where a lost spirit appeared causing the mage and druid in the party to flee in fear. The party regroups and decided to try one more door before calling it a day. After quietly trying the door handle, they realize it was locked. One of out fighters decides to smash in the door and successfully does so. The orc captain on the other side was caught by the door shattering surprise and is immediately killed. He possessed a +1 Battle Axe, a gold arm band worth 50 gold, and a pouch full of 100 gold.

The heroes leave the dungeon and head back to town and that is the end of our adventures for the day.

Gameday: What went wrong? What went right?

FYI, this is not a blog about the session events, this is a blog about today's revelations for me and my group. Stay tuned for session notes!

Well, today was the day. The day I have been waiting for. The day where my friends and I put aside the comfortable 3.5 rule set and rolled up new OSRIC characters. We got to our first battle and I laid out the combat rules. There were a few unexpected growing pains. It took a little getting used to and my players were less then happy with the OSRIC combat sequence. Mind you, my group grew up on 1st and 2nd edition D&D, but that was a long time ago. Their most recent experience with a Dungeons & Dragons combat system has been the god-awfully slow 3.5 version. What is there not to like about the OSRIC combat system? The Party Initiative? The Morale rules? It's combat greatness and lickity-split! Well, one issue that my group had was they did not like not being able to pick a target when in melee with a group of monsters. I can see why they would be frustrated. They feel like they are out of control when they can't designate a victim. I get that. Of course, combat is frantic, so after explaining the dynamics of OSRIC combat once more, we continued our day's adventure. We searched every nook and cranney for treasure, fell into a pit trap, and even touched a statue that caused electrical damage to one of my fighter's for 8 of his 10 hit points. It was dungeon exploration at its finest. The day came to an end and we all decided to honestly review what we liked and did not like about the new rule set. I felt for sure that the group would have fallen in love with OSRIC and yet, they only loved parts of it... and the truth is that most of the parts they did like are not even OSRIC specific. First they loved how much more involved the room searches were when we were not rolling towards a DC like one does in 3.5. They also loved mapping the dungeon as we explore it instead of having a map thrown at them to follow. One OSRIC specific rule that my players did love was how you earn XP for finding treasure and not just killing monsters. This rule discourages the "run from room to room killing monsters" type of play. With those three new ideas, my players requested something that I never expected. They wanted to go back to playing D&D 3.5! Only this time, they wanted to go back to playing D&D 3.5 with modifications to incorporate these new things they loved about our OSRIC experience.

How could this be?

I never saw this as a possibility. I came at this idea of trying out OSRIC knowing that it was an experiment and my players may not like it and want to go back to playing 3.5, but I thought the lack of so many rigerous rules would make them feel "free" in regards to roleplaying and they would feel that 3.5 was to big and cumbersome of a rule set. Well I was half right becuase they realized that dungeon exploration is more fun for them when they take an active role in it instead of just walking in to a room and throwing the 20 sided to reveal whatever their search and spot checks will reveal.
After playing today, I realized that there is no reason for me to feel so "bound" to following the 3.5 rules. I can adjudicate them in the same way that I would OSRIC. My game, my rules. Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 has such a vast array of rules to determine every little thing that could possibly happen, that when the time comes to refrence a rule, if I don't know it, I felt compelled to stop the game and look it up. We all know that is a major no no, but with so many tables to refrence, it seems a shame to just make something up when someone else already has. That is where I need to grow as a DM. I can simply make a ruling on the spot and the players have to go with it. Later on we can go back and see if we should or would have wanted to handle it differently. Hell, they even have that written almost word for word in the 3.5 DM guide. Why did I need to play 1st edition just to cement that point home in my head? As far as combat is concerned, we are going to focus on speeding that up too. There are a number of ways to do this, but I don't want to go into it untill I try out the tecniques and know what works and what does not.

So were does that leave us now? Well , my group really wants to try playing 3.5 again, with the modifacations I have mentioned. Will it work? We shall see. Is it "Old School"? In some circles the answer is no. But for me it will be old school once I have that familier fantasy feeling in my heart after a sesson. That is why I am never going to stop hunting the old school RPG.

Gameday Eve

This past week the stomach flu swept through my home; stealing the health from everyone in my family. After a few sleepless nights, I accidentally deleted the first few layers of my dungeon adventure from my computer. I was preparing to run this adventure for my groups first OSRIC game. I blame the flu for this. Had it not been for the flu, I would have been well rested and never would have made a boneheaded mistake like that. A bummer it is, but all is not lost. If this was 3'rd edition, all of my hard work creating the perfect encounters would have vanished, but it is not 3'rd edition. This is AD&D.... err OSRIC. This adventure is going to be player driven. The perfect encounters will be created not by me, but by the luck of the dice and the actions of the players. I did jump over to Amityville Mike's blog and downloaded his StoneHell 1 page templates. I am going to run them. I am very excited to try this older version of the Dungeons & Dragons. I am going to try to apply all that I have learned from all the great bloogs out there in internet world. Stay tuned!

A Matter of Preference.

For my friends and I, this book was the tome of our "Old School". We all had a copy. Some of us had 2. We paid around 20 or so dollars for it. We knew the rules inside and out. Between the 4 of us, we had all the tables memorized. If you are reading this blog then odds are you had some edition of a Players Handbook for some system that you were just as nerdy about.
When we played, I would always play as a Fighter. Now when I think back to those days I wish I made a Magic User. What was my deal with always picking the Fighter anyway? I guess I loved getting in and dealing massive damage with my hands and the deadly blade they were carrying. It was always a Bastard Sword. I would hold it with 2 hands for max damage. I would be proficient with the blade AND specialize in the use of a Bastard Sword and just like that I had a +1 to my attack roll and a +2 to my damage roll.
Now I am about a week out from refereeing my first Dungeons & Dragons 1'st Edition game. I have been reading every forum, blog, and rulebook in order to get my skills as sharp as possible. My goal in this new campaign as I have previously stated is to "try" to capture some of the wonderment of those old days. I know it is a tall order, but I have to try just the same. I recently remembered how rewarding it was to buy a better sword once you found enough gold to go shopping. Remember that? Well in an attempt to simulate that experience, I have limited the starting gold and the items available in the starting city. We will see how that goes.
One feature of the 1'st Edition rules that I like is the basic nature of it. Now I know that I could play the original Dungeons & Dragons and get even more basic and open. I say open because I would have more room to add house rules, but for me I believe 1'st edition will be close to the system we started with so it should not be as much of an adjustment to learn. Boy was 3.5 odd to get used to at first. AC is better going up? Where was THAC0?! But with that being said there are many changes we will need to get used to. One change that I want to touch upon is the fact that there is no Weapon Specialization rule like there is in 2'nd Edition that gives you bonuses to your rolls right from the start. (ok, ok, I am aware of the supplement Unearthed Arcana, but I am talking about the OSRIC rules here) After a bit of thought I have decided that I am going to like the absence of the players getting an additional +1 to attack and +2 to damage. From what I can see, a magic weapon with a +anything added to it was a special and rare thing. I don't want to have a rule in my campaign that steps on the wonderment of a magic weapon. I like the idea that +1 means something again. To me this feels "Old School". Of course I am referring to my personal idea of what "Old School" is. This is especially obvious after our playing the 3.5 edition. I am sure this is a matter of preference.

One more week....

The game that was supposed to take place today has been moved to the same time next week. I was able to get together with 2 of my players and we rolled up an elven Cleric, and a human Druid. We used the 4d6, then removed the lowest number to generate 6 numbers. I am please to see that the rolls were all over the board.... unless you happen to be the only female player. Lady Luck should be her name. She rolled a few high numbers including an 18. (No matter, an 18 won't save you my dear.)
We also have decided to move the game to a proper table setting. We had been playing our 3.5 Edition game around a large coffee table in comfortable sofas and chairs in a living room. In order to provoke a more group-like setting we are moving back to the dining room table. An idea that I read over here at Gnome Stew. I like the idea of everyone sitting close and alert as opposed to laid back and comfortable. At least I think I do. After next weeks game I will review the events of the game and discuss if the table added anything to the game.
I have decided on a few details of the starting city. Here is what I have so far and what the players already know. (Subject to change between now and then of course.)

1. It is not a city, but more like a small hunting village.
2. Located along a main road through a forest.
3. The only weapons for sale are wooden in nature. Hand Axes and Bows are for sale because they are tools for survival in the woods. Non metal armors may be available at first.
   
4. Starting equipment will be determined by the GM. No weapons or armor unless they can be found in the starting city. PC's may have a knife or dagger that they may have owned already before arriving in town. I want to convey the sense of a common person and if fate allows, a real rise to power for the PC's.
5. The dungeon will be a nearby mine that the PC's should be hooked into exploring. The mine has not been in use for a few generations and is thought of as a place of bad omen. Local children are forbidden from playing near the dark hole in the earth for it leads deep under a large hill into untold dangers below.

I have a bunch more ideas, but I do not want to spoil anything before next week. I just can't wait till we get up and running!

Keeping Time

The importance of keeping a record of game time was something that in my youth was overlooked. In those days, we were happy to stick to the hack'n'slash campaign where no door or monster was safe, and there was always adequate food and light available. Sure there were consequences to actions made in the game world, but now that I think of it they were limited to the perils of unprepared for combat encounters. Never did the PC's have to worry about where the next meal was coming from, or if they delved too deeply into the dank realms below to the point where their torches were sure to go out leaving them to a certain "never to be seen again" death.

Now in my studies of the early editions of our favorite hobby, it is clear that the passage of time adds an element that I never knew I was missing. In fact, thinking about the passage of time opens up a whole new world of adventure ideas such as the obvious running out of food while deep underground adventure. The PC's suddenly find that they need to abandon their original quest for a more pressing one of pure survival. What is safe to eat deep underground anyway? The ideas could continue on and on, but my question is simple. How do you keep track? I did keep track of a calendar, but that is not exactly the same as keeping the hours accounted for. Discuss!

UPDATE: A big thank you to Chgowiz for sending me this link to HEYMIKEY.ORG. Here you will find a great set of time keeping sheets that allow you to check off each round/turn as you go. I plan to put these to use in my new campaign.

EDITION WAR!!!!

Or that is what "they" are calling it at least. How do I fit in to all of this? Well I don't think I have picked a side. I am not "fighting" for anything. You see, I have been enjoying playing Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. I love the system. I suffer from being one of those types that prefers and needs clear and concise rules in life. The same can be said about my RPG's. That being said, I also like to be able to fly by the seat of my pants, so I have an attraction to OD&D and AD&D1E because of their intentional ways of leaving the rules vague and up to the reader to interpret. I have recently decided on this "venture" into the world of a new campaign using the first edition rules because of my internal quest to try and capture just a small portion of the nostalgia from my youth. Not because I believe it to be a superior edition, but because I want to capture a glimpse of the good old days. I am not expecting a time machine-like experience, but I have a hunch that the later rules of D&D may be harder for me to use as a catalyst for stirring up that tiny spark of nostalgia that I crave. If my experiment works, then for me, I will know what side of the war I am on.... Maybe I can be a medic or something... I don't want to fight on the front lines. I've got a family man.

Preparing For the First Game

So normally, my idea of preparation is to create a hook and then a series of encounters that the players "need" to get through. I say need because after years of being out of the loop, I have forgotten that D&D is best played as a player-driven game. A game where the players run the show and the DM is there to build the creative fire with the well placed battle, trap,or mysterious bang from down the dark western corridor. My first few adventures while playing 3.5 has been DM driven and as we all know, that is the worst way to play an ongoing campaign, so while anticipating the first game in our experiment with AD&D1E I have decided to do my prep in a more sandbox-like style. Here are the ideas.

1. I want to keep the starting city details minimal so the players can flesh it out.
2. The first adventure is going to take place in a nearby dungeon. An old mine with a forgotten purpose.
3. The dungeon will have a multi-level design where some stairs skip past the immediate level just below and lead to the next level.
4. The area around the dungeon will be lightly mapped out so that there is room to explore, but the details will be left out so the players can flesh it out.

That is the basic approach I am taking for this new campaign. After reading the old editions of D&D I realized that I miss the days when the party needed to worry about the consequences of not having enough lantern oil, or getting poisoned and failing the saving throw. The early editions were pretty unforgiving in almost every way and that makes surviving a reward in itself.

A return to the hobby after 20 years.

Well now that I think about it, 20 years is a bit of an exaggeration. Lets say it is more like 15 or so, but anyway. Gaming for me began with the D&D Red Box back in the late 80's and quickly moved to AD&D Second Edition. Being about 11 years old then, I was amazed at what I was playing. Every Friday night for my friends and I was game night until the wee hours of the morning and then after a few hours of sleep we played all day on Saturday too. Back then the gamers diet consisted of Pizza Rolls or the Little Caesars "Bigfoot" Pizza. We would wash that all down with endless glasses of Sprite and/or Kool-aid. Life was good... Nay... Perfect! If we only knew how great we had it.

Now here I am almost 20 years later. OMG. The days of gaming faded as I grew older. Now with a wife and 2 children of my own I have began reminiscing of the adventuring days gone by and yearning to pick up the sword and light my torch so to speak. It is not like I completely forgot the game. O no. In fact, there were thousands of times where I would be doing some unrelated activity (driving, working, etc...) and I would think of the good old days. I even made sure in the 20 years of my non-gaming life to stop in the Role Playing Game section of my local book store to see what was happening in the hobby while I was growing older. I remember looking at the 3rd Edition books with disgust. As it turns out, I was not angry with the idea of a 3rd edition. I was just angry that my gaming days had died years before.

Well last year in the summer of 2008 I was standing in a Barnes and Noble and decided to take my self-torturing walk through the Role Playing Game section. What I saw that night changed something in me for the better. There standing in front of the Dungeons & Dragons books were 3 teenagers. They were talking Dungeons & Dragons the way my friends and I used to. They were "True Nerds" of the hobby. I even heard them discuss how they were going to stop and get some food on the way home so that they could start their game that night and not need to stop to go back out for some grub. Immediately I wished I was about 12 years younger and going home with them for an endless night of rolling the dice. For me.... that was the turning point. pulling my cell phone from my pocket I dialed my good friend and began putting the heat on him to play D&D once again. Once he gave in the others were a lot easier to convince.

The 3.5 Core Rule books were purchased and a good thing too, because 4th Edition was released a few weeks later and the 3.5 core books seemed to disappear off of the bookstore shelves. After looking it over, I decided I was not interested in 4th Edition because things seemed new enough with 3.5. Our first game was 2 weeks later. We all had a blast. We made sure to play in the dark dampness of my basement, eat greasy and terrible food, and drink a beer or two to help break the stiffness of roleplaying after years of being old-non gamers. Things were looking up...

After a few more sessions however, something began to bother me. I could not put my finger on it. After lurking around a few of my favorite RPG Blogs, it began to fall into place for me... I think. Blogs like Grognardia, and Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog ooze the magic of the old days. (links to both of these blogs are at the end of this post.) The common element is that James from Grognardia and Chgowiz play older systems. 0 edition and 1st Edition. These systems have a "old style" flexible rules system where the Dungeon Master decided the outcomes on the fly instead of having an expansive set of rules that could be used to determine just about any player idea that could ever be conceived... But I think I like that idea. It was comforting for me as a DM returning to the hobby after 20 years to know that my decisions are backed by a set of rules. 20 years away from the hobby has left me feeling insecure to say the least and with 3.5 edition, my thinking is that I won't have to worry about my players not liking my decisions because they will all can be blamed on the rules. Rules are rules and that will be that! Well I am starting to feel for me that type of thinking is wrong wrong wrong. I have downloaded OSRIC. I am going to start from scratch in my campaign, and this upcoming weekend, we are going to test out the 1st Edition rules and see if things are the way I suspect they will be.

This blog is going to be my journal of our game sessions. Two of my favorite bloggers are already doing this for their campaigns so be sure to jump over to...

Grognardia

and

Chgowiz's Old Guy RPG Blog