Winning at D&D

I think deep down, all of us are trying to "win" at D&D.  It's at the heart of min/max behavior, fire giants masquerading as kobolds in Dragon Mountain, and pit traps that contain green slime, skeletons, spikes, and crushing walls (all at the same time).  We say we're playing as a team, or to advance the story, or to develop characters, but really, we just want the magic sword of destroying every monster the DM dreams up.  As someone who has DM'ed in 90% of all games he's played, I want to tell you something.  I'll give you the sword.  But then I'm waking up the tarrasque.

Wizards, Please Reprint This

Dear cool guys at WOTC, 

I see you're reprinting old books.  I like the 1E reprints and the idea behind it.  And it's cool that 3.5E is getting reprinted.  But, please, please, PLEASE, can we reprint the Rules Cyclopedia?  Seriously, TSR never put out a better product than this, and I think it would go great on the shelf next to the new copies of the 1E books I'll be buying. 

Dear OSR guys that love old games,

Go to the WOTC site and take their survey in the article announcing the 3.5E reprints.  It asks what you want to see reprinted from that edition.  It does contain the answer that says "Nothing."  However, the comment section afterward - let's have a write-in campaign for the RC.  I've already done it.  Let's do it, if only because it would be awesome not to have to pay $100.00 on eBay if my copy is destroyed...

Focus and Inspiration

This picture is often how I see myself.  I love old books and old games, and I endeavor to study them closely.  One of my favorite things to do is to compile any game resources I have that are spread throughout PDF files or various books and bring them all together into one file, useful at the game table or just to re-read.  The Bible is a great example of this strategy of cohesion.  Written over several thousand years, it is the ultimate in patchwork storytelling.  It is my newest gaming inspiration, believe it or not.  The tales of heroism, tragedy, and epic battles in the Old Testament are going to be an incredible source of material as I gather together material for a campaign.  I love the sounds of the names from the period and region, and it's as useful as it gets for authenticity.  However, I digress.  What I really want to make mention of are the things you will see posted here, which shall be my starting point to put together my game binder - I call it a binder not because it will be a binder, but because we all identify with heaps of notes in a 3-ring binder.  It's actually going to get typed out by me and hardbound just for my use by the local printer.  One book to rule them all, so to speak.

I will try to post at least three times a month, with a monster, place in my game world, and a people from the game world every month.  My OSR Frankenstein-monster of a house rule system will probably be present in the statistics, so feel free to ask questions if you see something that you don't understand in the stats.  The base is Swords & Wizardry with a heapin' helpin' of BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia, and splashes of Pathfinder ideas attached like a mind flayer to the face of the system.  I'll uncover these house rules as time goes on, and perhaps once I'm done putting all this stuff together I'll slap it into one file for my players in the upcoming campaign to download.  And if you, dear readers, want to check out how it's come, I'm sure I can send it to you when it's finished.  It won't be something publishable since it's going to contain about a bazillion copyrighted works, though, so don't expect another DIY publication from a blogger.  Strictly for table use.

Introduction

Welcome to Hit Adjacent Ally, a blog that will focus on, first and foremost, my interest in roleplaying games of the pen and paper variety, particularly older versions of the World's Most Popular RPG.  My favorite incarnation of the game is easily the Rules Cyclopedia, but I love the modern retro-clones as well, like Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, Dark Dungeons (for the obvious reason - it's essentially the RC), Basic Fantasy, etc.  I dearly love 2E and to a lesser extent 1E, as well.  You'll see my ramblings about all of these and more as time goes on.  Stay tuned, and subscribe!