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Saturday, March 9, 2013

Time to Pick a System for the Sunday Morning Game With the Old Group (OSR of Course)

Sunday morning is about to sneak up, and I think I've gotten my hold out to finally step away from his stand of "it must be published by TSR or WotC or it isn't legit". Trust me, it wasn't easy ;)

So, the three choices I'll be presenting them are:

AD&D 1e / OSRIC - probably the closest to how we played back in our High School / College days, but with a crapload of house rules I'v gained in the intervening years. Problem is, half the group no longer has access to their 1e books and I suspect the other half no longer remember what's in their 1e books ;)

Basic Fantasy RPG - close enough to the AD&D rules with some modern sensibilities. They can get a new print copy of the rules from Amazon for less than 5 bucks. I could run Morgansfort as is with the minor conversions needed for the other systems on this short list.

Swords & Wizardry - I'd run with the core rules, but allow the players if they wanted, to grab a class from the Complete rules if they desired. Most streamlined set of rules on the list, and may be the best to bring back gamers who haven't played in 16 years nearly to the week (I think our last game was March 2nd, 1997, assuming that was a Sunday - after 16 years, I know the day of the week, as we always games on Sundays, but I can't be sure the day of the month - it was the first weekend of March).

At least all of the options are available in PDF

There you have it - the three choices I will present. I'm interested in hearing your ideas on this. I'm leaning towards S&W, but that might be because with the recent Kickstarter package that arrived, it's my new shiny :)

14 comments:

  1. Of those three I select S&W, to be fair though, I have not really looked at BFRPG. I have owned S&W for years now and have really grown to appreciate how it is laid out and the style of play it generates. In fact, though I really enjoy BareBones Fantasy, S&@ is probably my favorite system.

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    Replies
    1. er, S&W is my favorite system. Damn typos.

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    2. I'm with Matt. S&W (core) s a great streamlined rule set that is free no less!

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  2. All look good to me. I found BFRPG very easy to use to play published adventures written for OD&D to 3.x D&D the only things I really ever had to convert were HP and AC and those i could do on the fly, spells that don't exist in one game are just special abilities or get replaced with a BFRPG analogy. S&W is a quick and lean system that is easy to bolt familiar or fresh elements onto without toppling the house of cards. OSRIC is a good way to play AD&D as many folks played it and doesn't require hauling out 30 year old books you don't want to wreck at the game table.

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  3. I'd choose Swords & Wizardry, given what you've said. Its so rules light that players who've been away from gaming for a long time will be on the same level as those who haven't. It's also free. Most importantly, you can generate characters in 10-15 minutes and just start playing.

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  4. Well, I'd choose Basic Fantasy RPG, but of course I'm biased. A little, anyway.

    As a player, any of the above would work for me.

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  5. Well, with OSRIC whatever they DO remember will pretty much still be the case. But the others are straightforward enough that it may not matter. Me, I'd go with Basic Fantasy, but that's probably because it's MY new shiny. :)

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  6. I'd go with Basic Fantasy since it's the only one I haven't run yet!

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  7. ". I'm leaning towards S&W, but that might be because with the recent Kickstarter package that arrived, it's my new shiny :)"

    This is a good enough reason to pick a system.

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  8. Why not lotfp grindhouse? it's free, familiar, and has a much better skill and encumbrance system than s&w, and good rules for most shit for the dm to read and access.

    otherwise, i agree, go w s&w

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  9. race as class or not is the big question to answer upfront, which will determine the range of choices.

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