Well, it’s about time I cleaned up around here.
When I first started this blog, it had a single purpose. It was to detail the every day process of being a writer who was working on his first novel. That novel being published, it seems like as good a time as any to expand the scope here.
Since finishing the first book in “The Roleplayers” trilogy, I’ve become fascinated with a related topic, and that is the resurrection of the Old School Role Playing Game. We’re talking about those early pioneer games, the ones that earned the ire of the Satanic Panic Mothers, the nitty-gritty, down and dirty games that were going on in dimly lit basements with heavily stained carpets and where cassette tapes were playing Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. We’re talking about the late 70’s and the early 80’s. No Internet. Just magazines and mail order.
And throughout the years, while the games never really went away, they became . . . mainstream. Suddenly us geeks had our own show in “The Big Bang Theory.” People could make casual references to “leveling up.” Rick and Morty was so full of D&D references that would would think it had in some kind of partnership with Wizards of the Coast (which in fact, did happen.) And it was all so . . . weird.
There was something missing. The game wasn’t the same. We wanted obscure rules like THACO and bizzare tables for hirelings and above all, the almost certain surety of death in the game. Where’s the fun without it? The original D&D was dangerous! Everyone who played the old game always had a new character sheet at the ready in case their beloved character was impaled with a role of a “1” on the 20-sided die.
That’s why I believe a system like O.S.R.I.C. sprouted up. The Old School Reference and Index Compilation was designed with one purpose: To allow fans of the original Old School games to create and publish new material under the Open Gaming Licence, a magical legal loophole bigger than Bigby’s Hand that allows people to use an incredible array of terms and concepts from the granddaddy of all RPGs, Dungeons and Dragons.
And so we’ve taken up the challenge and formed a group called Crit Hit Games, a group of RPG enthusiasts dedicated to bringing back some of the magic of those old games. It’s an exciting time, and I’ll use this blog to highlight all the fun to come.
Oh, and yeah, that other thing. The Roleplayers II. Those characters have seen stuck in the prologue of the second book for months now. Soon it will be time to move them along to their fates, though they may not like find when they get there.
I hope you enjoy what is to come.