Tenkar's Tavern: Chaos? Nope, Chaosium

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Chaos? Nope, Chaosium

Over the last week or so Chaosium has been pumping up its selection at RPGNow. From what I can tell, if it's offered at Chaosium's site, its offered at RPGNow too. This means that a lot of the classic Call of Cthulhu adventures are now available. The shame is, except for possibly around Halloween, I have virtually no chance of running this stuff with my extremely hard to corral group.

What I find really interesting is that they are offering the Basic Roleplay Monographs. These are like small print run settings or adventures, such as Agents of the Crown (Victorian) and Aces High (Western). If you are a Basic Roleplay gamer, you options are increased exponentially.

I need to figure out how close the BRP Fantasy rules hew to Runequest 2nd edition. Might be my new Old School backup game...

In any case, I have way to many options to review from Chaosium. Drop a line and let me know what you are interested in me giving a look to. A sense of direction is always nice ;)

4 comments:

MarkCMGJuly 3, 2010 at 9:57 PM
I'd like to read you thoughts on BRP Fantasy when you get the chance to go through it.
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TenkarJuly 3, 2010 at 11:00 PM
I'm working on it Mark... give me a few.
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MarkCMGJuly 7, 2010 at 4:08 PM
Thanks. I see you've gotten the chance so I'll check those out. Gotta prep a game for tonight.
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TenkarJuly 7, 2010 at 8:16 PM
NP. Its not what I expected, but I still liked it.
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Why "Swords & Wizardry?"

Believe me when I say I have them all in dead tree format. I have OSRIC in full size, trade paperback and the Player's Guide. I have LL and the AEC (and somewhere OEC, but I can't find it at the moment). Obviously I have Basic Fantasy RPG. Actually, I have the whole available line in print. Way too much Castles & Crusades. We all know my love for the DCC RPG. I even have Dark Dungeons in print, the Delving Deeper boxed set, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. BOTH editions of LotFP's Weird Fantasy and some dead tree copies of the Greyhawk Grognards Adventures Dark & Deep

I am so deep in the OSR when I come up for breath it's for the OSR's cousin, Tunnels & Trolls

So, out of all that, why Swords & Wizardry? Why, when I have been running a AD&D 1e / OSRIC campaign in Rappan Athuk am I using Swords & Wizardry and it's variant, Crypts & Things, for the second campaign? (Actually, now running a S&W Complete campaign, soon to be with multiple groups)

Because the shit works.

It's easy for lapsed gamers to pick up and feel like they haven't lost a step. I can house rule it and it doesn't break. It plays so close to the AD&D of my youth and college years (S&W Complete especially) that it continually surprises me. Just much less rules hopping than I remember. (my God but I can run it nearly without the book)

I grab and pick and steal from just about all OSR and Original resources. They seem to fit into S&W with little fuss. It may be the same with LL and the rest, but for me the ease of use fit's my expectations with S&W.

Even the single saving throw. That took me longer to adjust to, but even that seems like a natural to me now. Don't ask me why, it just does. Maybe it's the simplicity of it. At 45 52, simplicity and flexibility while remaining true to the feel of the original is an OSR hat trick for me ;)

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Saturday, July 3, 2010

Chaos? Nope, Chaosium

4 comments:

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