Where are we at? A reflection of old school gaming.

It's been roughly about 3 years since a little game called "microlite20" lured me away from the soul-sucking morass that was my 3e Ultima campaign design and back into playing D&D the way I remembered it. In that three years, I've seen some pretty amazing events happen in our little hobby, both old-school-wise and just RPG-wise. I've been wool-gathering on this for a little while (what the hell else are you going to do when you have no power... and it's middle of the night...) (OK, don't go there, ya perverts...) and I thought I'd share some of the mind-lint that I've found.

Old school is cool - but is it because of the "OSR" or because of the failure of 4e/success of Pathfinder? That was a bit of a puzzle for me, and still is. I'm pretty sure that 4e hasn't been the raging success that most at WotC had hoped for - the success of Pathfinder makes it clear that people like what they like and they like what they like and they'll BUY what they like. I'm pretty sure that this whole deal breaks the mold that had been established for the previous 30 years... that there is no other D&D than the official TSR/WotC D&D and thou shalt buy it or thou shalt be marginalized. No longer - Pathfinder said to the 3/3.5'ers "Come home to momma!" and they did. Going back wasn't just a bunch of fat-beards, there was real money, real impetus and a real concept of "going back to the basics."

Now I'm sure the grognards sniff at that.. hell, I did at first. But it's not as far fetched as you might think. You could say that the whole old-school/clone thing beget Pathfinder and beget the whole "go back" thing that people are talking about when they talk about 5e and "the future" but I'm not so sure. There's no doubt that C&C, OSRIC, S&W made a huge mark. Books like Dungeon Alphabet, Stonehell, and others staked out some territory that others have followed in. Yet I can't help wondering if the sheer size and impetus of Pathfinder pushing people "back" also made it easier for people to look beyond Pathfinder to see what else there is... momentum I guess you could say? Anyway, with the successes of the small print stuff, the hobbyist (and hobbyist-to-publisher/published author) path is alive and well. Yet I'm wondering if that path will slow down a lot...

... because there's nothing lately that has jumped out at me with the same intensity that OSRIC/S&W did back in 2009. Now that is completely a personal opinion. You can call me an ass, that's OK, but I found what I liked and wanted in those clones because they clarified and pointed me back to the games I love to play. What I play now is such a mashup of OD&D/AD&D/Holmes/B-X and the clones thereof that I can't call it any one thing. I also can't speak to the latest/greatest stuff - I haven't played nor was really motivated to play LotFP. The latest book that seems to garner a lot of blog attention - Vornheim? - never really piqued my interest and it's not something I'd shell out the hard earned cash for. These days, I've got so many riches from the free stuff on the web and the modules and information from the originals that it's hard for me to feel that "gotta buy it now" need. I suspect I'm not alone in that regard - the vast majority of my players in my AD&D tabletop campaign are very similar.

So I wonder if we're seeing what life would have been like had OD&D/AD&D been released and that was it. OK, so Matt Finch keeps fiddling with S&W Core and that's OK, that's his baby. S&W White Box has hit it's natural "final draft" which I think is appropriate. Anything further would be simply houserules tacked on. OSRIC has reached it's "fin" although we do see people creating supplemental stuff - again, houserules. I think the slow-down is good, even natural because it "feels" right - I've got what I need, I've got what works, I can find just about any additional piece from the "fanzines" of blogs/houserules and whatnot and that's an embarrassment of riches that will fuel a ton of games.

So combined with the "old school is cool", I have this personal satisfaction inside that we're all "set". OK, we could grind over Chainmail and reclarify it. We could even possibly do the same to Battlesystem. For those people who have a 2e love, I know there will be a time when a clone comes out... but in all honesty, I almost want to say "Mission Accomplished" and feel good about that.

Is there a desire for more clones and more clones and more houserules? Oh sure... and I get where that drive comes from. I'm going to keep digging into the old wargaming stuff to get a handle on it and plug it into my campaign, so I think that same drive will continue to get people to dig into the old stuff to mine new interpretations of it. I'm with Jeff Rients in "the more the merrier" although I have a personal belief that at some point, the spinning and respinning will hit an end point. I suspect that with the new movies coming out, we'll see more games about Mars and Hyboria and so on...

I wonder though.. if we haven't taken our best shot and it worked... and now it's just time to enjoy and play games and let those games show the way to where we want to go next?

If you're going to blog...

... be authentic. Expect a ration of shit for it.

So hi, I'm Michael / ChicagoWiz, I play D&D old school style and I'm part of a cantankerous community of RPG blogging bastards, some of which are challenged in the social skills (myself included), so expect to get nailed to wall at some point. Maybe even in extremely painful ways.

I'd advise you to take Raggi's advice to heart. (Yea, imagine me saying THAT. Hell is freezing over.)

#1 - Nobody is your friend (unless you know them as a friend face to face); #2 - they really don't give a fuck about you unless they're your friend; #3 - once you put yourself out there, you're a target; and #4 - expect butthurt when they twist in the knife into the things you care about and put yourself out there about.

#1- #4 are always in effect, but so should your defenses. Don't feel bad if you have to do what you have to do.

The TARGA takedown was a huge kick in the balls and yea, if I ever see the instigator of that shit face to face, probably the first words out of my mouth will be some combination of "fuck", "you" and "asshole" but as far as my participation in the old school blogging/gaming community drama, it's over, done, and I learned my lesson.

As far as someone devoting a blog post to hating your happy ass, been there, done that. Hell, at first I was all up in arms when whats-his-face wrote his little diatribe. I haven't reread it, but it's easy enough find (or he'll be happy to share it with you, I'm sure.)

Now, it's a fucking badge of honor. You can feel the same too. Just be authentic and true to what you feel inside.

And on those days when you're really pissed, just imagine a little bit of this:

Clothe them in scraps (Quickie How To)

I got an email over the weekend commenting on the Otherworld Skeletons I had worked on in February. Specifically, the dude on the left there:

Here's what I wrote about him in March:

I was working on the skeletons (UD1a) and decided to take the advice I read on the Otherworld forums and pin the arms. Unfortunately, my pinning was an utter failure. Either the pin was at a "bad" angle or I didn't have enough in the ball of the arm joint to make a good fit, but I just struggled with all of them. 

One in particular (the spear guard) gave me fits. I was going to put the skeleton standing at attention with a spear/shield, and after 8 times (5 with superglue, 3 with JB Weld) of putting arms on, them not bonding/holding enough and working loose, me scraping clean, regluing, I just had ruined shoulder bones and crudded up arms/sockets. I thought I would have to put that figure away as a ruined one. I was given a great idea to get the shoulders in place anyway I could, then cover the shoulders with a "rotted" cloth. Great idea!After a search around the house for non-embossed tissues or cloth, I found that my box of industrial paper towels work great. So now the model has tons of JBWeld on the shoulders but it will be tabletop acceptable.

The emailed question was, how did I actually make the rotted cloth?

BTW, I apologize for the suckage of the photo. I probably should reshoot my minis since I now know how to use my camera properly for minis photos, later maybe.

Anyway, the recipe is as follows:

1. Grab some tissue paper, paper towel, or something that can stand up to a few dunkings in white glue.

2. Cut/rip the cloth to fit. I had to do this several times to get it to look right. It's easier to do this now than later when it's stiff and painted. If you're making rotted cloth, I ripped it so that the uneven ripped edges would look rotted.

3. Soak/paint it with Mod-Podge or Elmer's White Glue. When it starts to get dry, "shape" the cloth as much as you can so that it dries somewhat in the position you want. I also crinkled mine, then flatted it out so it didn't look perfectly smooth.

4. Repeat #3 if it doesn't feel sturdy enough. The white glue is to hold the shape and stiffen it so that when you paint it, the paper doesn't fall apart.

5. Basecoat/Shade/Highlight. For my rotted cloth, which I wanted to look leather-like, I used DecoArt Mississippi Mud as base, Devlan Mud as the shade and Khahki as a highlight.

6. Glue to your figure. I used superglue and there was enough white glue/paint in the cloth so that it held together nicely. Since it was already somewhat preshaped, it was pretty easy to get it to line up and look like it was hanging on the shoulders.

Easy Peasy and probably not worth so many words, but there ya go.