"Keyboards and Bathrobes" the RPG of online RPG criticism and playtest.

Hello and happy holidays.  For this post, we have an old post, somewhat updated, which prosaically expresses my feelings at a particular online playtest I participated in, and several years of involvement with gaming foums; presented, naturally, in the form of an RPG........
Note: if you think you recognize yourself in one of the character classes, you're wrong: it isn't aimed at you...but seek counseling and psychological help anyway.  ....

"Keyboards and Bathrobes"
the RPG of online RPG criticism and playtest.

Introduction.

This is a roleplaying-simulationist construct derived from intensive multi-generational analysis of current and past character simulation critique systems, (or tropes, if you will) developed after extensive playetest (sic) and editing in my tiny little mind; first pseudo published in 1974 as a self published fanzine amendment to the annex of "Ringmail: WRG campaign micro economics for pre-pattern welded armor skirmish games".
This is the 16th edition, and represents a final revision of the game, bringing it entirely in line with its original contents and concepts while also completely updating all mechanisms and mechanics for the 21st century.

Part I 

characters:

You MUST include the following tables or you are not playing the correct game:

Gaming age:
1. Young: too new to gaming to be polluted by the static hidebound conventions of yesterday
2. Young An FNG noob with a big mouth, hopeless affection for the new and shiny and a small to non-functional behavioral inhibition system....
3. Old: a grognard with immense experience and resources, who has great and enduring passion for games, but has seen flash gaming systems come and go, and half assed systems disappoint, rip off and generally discourage the more naive gaming public. .
4. Old: a grognard with fossilized brains, no social skills, neophobia, unmedicated obsessive compulsive disorder and a desire to see only the earliest systems pinned to a board and put under plastic for all time.
5. Just right: an incisive critic, with tremendous analytic abilities, able to accurately dissect gaming systems and suggest elegant corrections for any system, any time, any mechanic.
6. Just right: A bitter antisocial hermit renting space from Parents, who substitutes arguing online about gaming for actual gaming with other human beings, and who is an esteemed magical experts about subjects just from reading the name, or a quick google search.

Character archetemplate Motivational skill package system which isn't simply like D&D crosssed with Runequest and written up for an improv comedy act by a demented lemur. 

1. Bitter Victim:

the designer didn't use your version of character creation, combat and dice resolution systems, despite you repeatededly emailing it to him and every forum multiple hundred times, and knocking on his front door to deliver your ms that the skeptical toadies that insulate him from the real world have hidden from him.

Skill package: Amazing persistence, deep and extensive knowledge of nasty industry gossip.

Power: stupifying stun attack based on long and self involved stories of your unfair defeats.

2. Noble contrarian:

being hated and ignored is a small price to pay for being right; as is research and testing, social skills, politeness and bathing. All failures in these areas are actually you just "being honest , forthright, and Non-PC"....and needing a bath.

Skill package: Absolute immunity to criticism, or distraction attempts based on social skills training.

Power: Derail any discussion with verbose restatements of sophomoric political or philosphical fringe agendas.

3. Expert grand professor of all time space and dimension:

Why do those stupid idiots waste my time with their questions and demands for references ! My huge brain and questionable actual experience with the subject should be and is enough ! Social conventions of polite and rational discourse are just things that happen to other people, and are to be used as exploitable weak points in arguments...
Skill package:

all of em. Seriously. All world knowlege. Immune to any fact based attack.

Power: HyperLoquatious obfiscitory verbiage ; Nuclear sneer.

4. Argument Whore:

being hated, insulted and yelled at is better than being ignored. Especially when ....actually, always. Social maladroitness is in fact what makes me you an unique, and thus superior being. Being unable to be punched over the internet helps too. Otherwise as above, but with less references.
Skill package:

Absolute moral high ground. Truly painful sarcasm and biting personal attacks; immune from same (as with most venomous insects and vermin); cannot actually be punched.

Power. 100 dice froth attack, FGMP-15 level flame attacks
  
5. Attention Whore:

as above, but will also rely on sarcasm, fiction, stupid parodies and even stupider attempts at humor (often self referential), for gaining attention, and distraction from a sobbing self examination of an otherwise pathetic life.
Skill package:

Immune to suggestions that you are not funny; immune to topic constraints; Can spend any amount of attention and effort on somthing that may, just may get a laugh.

Power: stupifying time-wasting thread derailment.

6. Obsessive compulsive worrier:

My anxieties about life can only be calmed by focusing my attention down to a laser-like focus on minor highly technical details of a game, and ten burying the resulting artificial anxieties under a mountain of increasingly hysterical chapter-length posts.

Skill package:

This one. No, over here. THIS one. Look closer. CLOSER. The one that is KEY TO THE GAME! And...andIS IN DANGER OF BEING changed and ruined and broken FOREVER AND THE GAME WILL BE UNPLAYABLE AND RUIN ITS COMPANY FOREVER DAMMIT ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME ??????????
Power: yes.

Characteristics

A list of stats should be chosen, and then either

a. increased tenfold based on exceptional weirdest case analysis or
2. Reduced to one based on simplest possible mechanic analysis and and/or an idiosyncratic clustering method or
III. Decoupled entirely from task resolution in favor of guided player/GM imagery or
D. integrated into task resolution with such stunning, labyrinthine and byzantine complexity that real life task resolution is abstractly simulated for a specific set of circumstances.
xx. Ignored, or rather, abandoned as task resolution is perforce a simulationist trope with reactionary and obsolete gamingist elements (or tropes) , and antithetical to a interactive synergistic roleplaying resolution trope.
0. made exactly the same as in "Spawn of Fashan", only with cooler names....

Characteristic generation:
Roll some dice...it doesn't matter how many, or what type since the stat distributions of all attempts to operationalize characteristics are broken, anyway.

II Experience:

True critiquists (as opposed to simple critics) will find and explicate adequate design commentary regardless of textual content or active assimilation of text ; and , as should be obvious, this applies regardless of previous experience which will guide or, more precisely misguide the active forward looking critiqueist; indeed, one can argue that any attempt to internalize text, let alone operationalize or enstantiate rules structure will hopelessly pollute the necessarily intrusive scalpel of spontaneous commentary in the service of comforting the reader, and so is to be eschewed as a bourgiose affectation and is to be avoided. 

Primary experience level, if such a concept is deemed necessary due to the unsophisticated nature of the players, is determined by the post counts at websites.

Additionally, the total number of responses to a post may be counted if the initial post uses the works “broken , incompetent, stupid,  or fraudulent”. Followup posts with actual obscenities or threats count double; however, exclude all “can’t we just get along” style posts, or actual factual answers to the original post from the count, unless that poster then goes on to later make a threat or quits the site forever. Additional bonuses include being threatened with absolute banning by the admins in an “other topics” or “forum maintainance” thread; causing a thread to be locked or deleted  counts the total number of posts in that thread as a bonus. Provoking similar threats from the owner of the board, company or author of the product under critique allows a bonus equal to the number of words in the specific post, with insults and obscenities counting double. Getting the owner or author  to quit the site is considered a win, and scores experience equal to the post count of the forum in question.

Double the points from websites, blogs and forums one is permabanned from; however simply “leaving forever” loudly and with great finality counts reduce the final score by one-half, unless one almost immediately returns and ignores having “quit forever”.

  

III. Campaigns

 

As all written campaigns deprotagonize and disempower the player, whereas randomized crawlist models make reduntant the gamemaster,  it is advised to avoid a campaign structure entirely, whilst eschewing simpleminded table sandboxery altogether. Similarly, as the actual enstantiation of the rollplaying metaphor hopelessly collapses the value of the Xperience(sic), and enforces aand, indeed makes mandatory, the tyranny of limits, fun and rules, all actual play should also be avoided in all situations.  

The end.

Brickmasters supplement 1: Gruehawk !

Enjoy a break from turgid discussions of the potato in roleplaying with the brainless silliness of the first supplement for the uberlite ultra-old school OD&D inspired Brick RPG: Gruehawk !

Logistical Demographics of the Ancient Wilderness, and other snooze inducers...part VI

Freem is a root/tuber plant, with the edible nodes being about the size of an adult fist. Bright blue, highly nutritious and grown underground until harvest, Freem is able to support twice as many people per acre as wheat. It has allowed the small freehold farms of the eastern parts of the Isle to become self sufficient on about five acres, once a dairy animal is added, and even that is not required.

Yes, it's a potato.

Really, and I’m not exaggerating, the potato was the key to this campaign. Not only did allow me to vaguely justify the cities and population centers, but it gave me the population, politics, culture and history. All from spuds. Or rather, from the original question that was answered by the phrase, “Potatoes me lad. Potatoes”


Population issues and Why they do or don't matter
Okay, so I worry about things like population density and support in a given area – keep in mind I was still in high school when D&D came out, and you have an unfortunate picture of a youngster who thinks too damn much. But, if you’re reading my blog, you probably have a hint that it hasn’t gotten any better, right?
Anyway...
I started with the map, and the simple statement of where the castles and towns were, and the need to place a couple of largish (by medieval standards) cities. While it never really comes up in play, logistics and population: how do all those people eat (and….um, UN-eat) seemed important to the campaign.

And, the fact is, it was both crucial and absolutely a waste of time. No one has ever asked how the hell all those people in that city get enough to eat, and why they have the money to pay for it. Never, ever, not even once. Dammit !

BUT, what it has done for me is to shape the fabric of the world that the players move thru.

See, even with very limited or non-existent reference materials (pre internet, remember? Ooooooohhhhh. Scary. If you think trying to look up medieval demographics in a public school library is easy or sufficient, well……yeah), in trying to answer these questions, the Wilderness survival map became a living campaign. . I thought about the people, the institutes, I questioned the conclusions and started over when I found a new book or fad idea about populations. Looking at population and infrastructure issues, even in a very superficial way got me looking at how the inhabitants interact and live, and how one could fit that into an adventuring milieu. Those led to politics, and technology, and from there to cultural assumptions, and why there was adventuring land.

The goals for this excercise, such as they are, or History in the real world, and why Germans and Irish have much in common
So, first, we have a new frontier – but one full of Ruins, and few if any indigenes (human or otherwise) so, some kind of abandoned island, obviously, BUT; it needs lots of food production (for the cities and towns), and no strong political rule (or the monsters and dungeons get burned out –and the adventurers become brigands), plus a steep drop off in population concentration (to give lots of wild and unexplored areas). So it’s on an island, newly discovered, but not yesterday –say seven or ten generations. In fact, it is like some of the large pacific landmasses, or, more accurately, the Atlantic isles (the Azores, canaries, St Helena, etc, expanded and with ruins added). Next, we have to add intensive agriculture for supporting large cities (the City State, Modron) in a limited area: so it can't be the size of the Atlantic isles, whereas Australia and New Zealand are too big. What works? What historically was a balkanized somewhat wild land that could nonetheless support several moderate cities, several kingdoms (or whatever) and still have untrammeled wilderness?

Well….another Atlantic island: Ireland.


Specifically, the Ireland of Brian Boru and before. However, we need more actually unknown land –and historical Ireland doesn’t provide that. So, assume something the size of Ireland, but only first settled (say) a half dozen generations ago. That should give us the population for the cities, but not the wilderness; see, temperate North America filled up damn fast. So, we need slow trickle immigration, and a factor to allow a medieval based civilization to clump up more than it naturally would, and survive. So, a dangerous wilderness, (and by which dangers I mean more than wolves and rattlesnakes), to make people fort up, and high yield agriculture to allow them to feed lots of people at least at subsistence levels on a little ground. This makes farms smaller, defensible, and self sufficient, even with several generations of subdivision thru inheritance. And we get…..well, shucky darn.  Germany in the 30-years war. The dangers weren’t Orcs, although one can argue that Orcs, being simply bandits, would have been less dangerous than what they had: undersupplied , unpaid but heavily armed armies of a time of religious warfare.

Enter the hero of the opressed proletariat, the Potato
See, economy and trade essentially collapsed in Germany towards the end of that period (due to the wars), and large areas were quite literally made uninhabitable by famine, plague, relocation, scorched earth campaigns, and massacre. What allowed some population base to survive, especially in the face of plundering armies, and also to rebuild and recolonize, (surprisingly quickly), was the potato. It's great for a poor land, and for a survival food – it's hard for the nobles to take as tax, yet feeds the serfs who grow the stuff they do take, and doesn't displace the more desirable products all that much. It turns latifundia and estate/bound serf farming into heavily taxed rent farmers –which, despite what it sounds like, is a big step up. Perfect, really.

We already know it takes less land than wheat; it’s also harder to steal, (being as they are
underground before harvest), and quite heavy for the nutritional value compared to grain agriculture. Their harvest is less time dependent, and they are much more resilient to weather and war effects. Add in the fact that potatoes don't keep or store as well as grains, and you have a survival food that isn't all that great for armies or trade, and one that is almost impossible to entirely swipe or eradicate (anyone ever having grown potatoes knows that there’s always another one somewhere.) Travel and trade in the potato was limited due to spoilage, and the fact that there is no good preserved version of the potato in Europe (like flour, smoking, drying, etc) made sure that the farmers generally ate the potatoes, and sold the produce on the extra land they had.


What this meant for the campaign
So, turning potatoes to Freem and adding it to the Isle, we get the pastoral population areas I needed (the Freem valley, and the cantons and freeholds) with lots of midsized towns, a few cities, a sharply divided demographic, clustered populations (as in post potato Ireland, BTW) and low population density areas outside those areas, dwindling to nothing, due to the short time that people have been there, and the slow spread of population. Farms grow Freem for their own use, but also produce more tradable/transportable ag products to sell. Near the cities we have estates and Latifundia, but the bulk of the food is from small self sufficient farms capable of high surplus production. That demographic has kept any kind of organized unification at a minimum, so lots of small baronies, rather than an evil empire (except where needed for plot). Similarly, no huge outside or local powers contending  for dominance (except as etc).  The wild west, plus Ireland, plus early colonial America, plus potatoes. Perfect !

 Note that while similar to much colonization in the real world, the bulk of the Isle was slowly settled by peasants and serfs, not conquistadors ; until….well, dungeons. Yeah, the other resource of the Isle.
Okay, enough about potatoes, and on to gold next time. Specifically, killing people and stealing their silverware. You know. Roleplaying.

Next: There's GOLD in them thar dungeons !

Histories of the Ancient Wilderness (part V)

I present here the first part of the latest iteration of the backstory for the Isle...From possibly either the late 90's early 00's. The last significant use of it was an extended Tegel Manor run, possibly in 2003 or so when my turn to GM came up in our local group. [Out of character notes will be presented in square brackets thusly]

Introduction and discovery
The history of the Isle is even more unclear than that of the Mainland, while much knowledge and most history of the previous epoch was lost in the interregnum, nothing is known of the Isle before its discovery in NBE 423. With the re-founding of the bright Kingdom in (225), trade and exploration increased dramatically. One result was the discovery of a huge and unknown Island about a weeks sailing to the south east of the Port of Pemboda. There was, and has been no information found about its existence before this date, and it is postulated that the isle may simply not have existed before this time. There is specuation that the Scouring of the Coasts described in the Epic of the Longstrand (probably from -229) may be related to the appearance of the Isle, if one assumes that its rise or appearance displaced the sea that it currently occupies.
The initial landfall was the result of a storm that drove a small group of merchant adventurers off course, and did sufficient damage to the ships to require several months stay before a return could be contemplated. some local exploring was done, and the fishing banks off of (now) Northport [hex 2901] were identified, along with the general excellence of the land for agriculture. Also noted was the fact that it seemed
uninhabited at least as far as a few days march from the initial landing at what is now Faldirk [hex 3101]. Given the lack of trade opportunities, the venturers eventually continued on to their destination, reported their findings to the Mariners guild, and sailed off into obscurity.

First Settlements
What is clear is that knowledge of the existence of the Isle became generally known, more as a curiosity than as a potential resource. What it did seem to provide was the opportunity for a new life free for many refugees of the seemingly endless Slovian wars that erupted in 655. Most took sail in whatever they could build, buy or steal, travelled to the original landing point, and travelled a short distance down river to found Faldirk [Modron from Judges guild]. Most of the refugees had no interest in contact with war torn homelands or in being "returned" to their bound or enslaved status on a lords demesne, so ships were generally destroyed or broken up for lumber on arrival. In time, this secrecy became both required and enforced. Later arrivals were welcomed, helped, supplied and politely but firmly informed that while they could not return, they were free to take what they found inland; given the conditions of the lands they had fled from, this was generally accepted enthusiastically; the few merchants arriving to see if trade was possible quickly were forced to join the settlement, or returned penniless to report a dangerous, anarchic wilderness. The inflow travelled generally moved south east, founding the first steadings of the Freehold and Cantons.

Northport and the Freebooter Shanty Towns
Meanwhile, the seas around the coast became increasingly hazardous with the Long Siege of Pemboda, and essentially destroyed the merchant and fishing fleets of the Pembodan Coasts. The need for a constant blockade of Pemboda required a constant source of resupply, and the fishing banks off of Northport began to provide it, which was originally founded as a Slovian naval base [Verbosh, JG]. As the situation became more chaotic over the next decade, there was constant flow of deserters and escaped slaves and prisoners from Northport to the interior of the Island.

Finally, the descent of the Slovan Navy and the Bright Kingdom and its Allies into outright piracy resulted in the founding of several well hidden pirate enclaves on the South and West coasts of the Island. Once mercantile traffic had been driven away, the Pirates generally turned to longer voyages to newer hunting grounds (such as the Slovian seas), and the southern shanty towns on the Isle were well positioned to support them.

For the next two hundred or so years, until the lesser interregnum, the three areas coexisted largely independently and in ignorance of the others. Escapees from the (eventual) slave fisheries of Northport trickled into the Freem Valley, retired pirates and further escapees into the vales of Grantium, and more and more fled or displaced peasants homesteaded the Cantons. Government was minimal, and land plentiful. And at some point early in the first century, the settlers discover one of the true treasures of the Isle: Freem.

Next up: Freem !

Ancient wilderness Map Part IV

So, to continue, what this became was a framing wilderness where I could put all the cool dungeons and adventures (well, mostly dungeons) I was ran or wanted to run.  So, looking at the Map, you'll find quite a few Judges Guild locations, and some "blackmoor" kind of places. There are some locations from the game Lizards, but the names are well changed: but they are there, for sure.

For me, it really was the first fantasy campaign (FFC, by Judges guild) which guided my thoughts of a wilderness, although it has been suggested by some old players that a sense of whimsy (or possibly brain damage) was what made me cleave to things Arnesonian; probably true, but the environment and atmosphere presented in the FFC has always been my goal.  if I had to describe it, its kind of like much terry Pratchett crossed with catch-22; a loving parody (the Pratchett part) combined with some mean but accurate humor that is interrupted by real world consequences in the midst of a belly laugh....where you go, "HA HA HA...Oh SHIT NOOOOOOO......" (this is the catch 22 part).What the FFC presented was (to my mind) exactly that - a somewhat joking dangerous environment -with lots of very mundane human interactions at all levels.  Also, it was a small kingdom sandbox, which makes it more personal - one can become a king, abeit not king of much...still, that's all there is, so go for it !

As a GM, I'm probably more akin to Pratchett than Heller, (although please note I make no claims as to having similar quality and skills of either author) so I probably err too much on the side of slapstick and post modern irony ("look at us ! We are medieval people played by modern people who act just like modern people who are nothing like us...!) ; but I've always felt that in an RPG, if you can't get yourself killed, you aren't playing an RPG. So, there need to be serious moments -but on the other hand, I've always believed that Serious does not equal Joyless, so there you go. Sometimes getting killed is as important as levelling up; and sometimes, there is no choice but to die well, or at least amusingly.


More later, I suppose. Probably about the history of ReSquIs.

Ancient wilderness Map Part III

As the Isle developed pretty much from the very beginning of my D&D career (1978 or so, for sure) , it accreted different bits of what was available from third party publishers; I say third party, since the support for the original D&D wasn’t ever very deep from TSR, and obviously died entirely after B/X and ADD.  In truth, my buy in to AD&D just about stopped when the DMG came out – it was mined, not adopted – really, from about 1980 onwards, what I ran, and have run was essentially OD&D + Supplements + ADD Monster manual and Players handbook.  Yes, I’m aware that that makes me a hideously Hidebound reactionary…but I always tried and played each subsequent edition thru 3.5 just fine; but for running, my first love was that formula, and probably the long running campaign here has lots to do with that.

As regards to third party stuff, two massive influences were both from Judges guild:  City state and First fantasy campaign.   Both of which I had my grubby paws on very soon after they came out, even though it took hitching along on my parents 3 hour trip to new Orleans for their antique hobby/business so I could go to the Hub, an honest to god big ass hobby and game store.  Wonder if it’s still there?  It was as of 1989 or so.

Right.  To continue: city state introduced the whole city genre, and in my mind glued the D&D game to real Sword and Sorcery stuff – the decadent city adventures.   Plus, it showed how the scope of D&D could be HUGE, and yet also presented a way to keep track of that scope in a vey terse format –which relied on the creativity and imagination of the GM to do the rest.  Sort of empowering, really, but a style that wouldn’t do well in the new TSR adventure format, I fear; still, it needs to be pointed out that the ‘describe everything’ did teach an entire generation of GMs their chops; before, it was very hard to just jump in – a background in miniature gaming and some board gaming as well as lots of odd reading was pretty much required to make an easy start of it.  So, the TSR version of adventures was very democratic in the sense of letting anyone start doing it without a big jump –and discovering a knack they had that they might never have if they’d only had the ‘deep end’ model to guide them.  Honestly, good GM’s are made as well as born.   

So, the Barony of Finstierre is the surrounding land of the city-state – simply marked on the map as ‘the city’, pretty much in the center of the island.  The idea was that the city was a tail that had grown to wag the dog; technically the overlord was subservient to the Baron of Finstierre, but in fact, controlled 90% of the wealth and trade of the Barony, which is otherwise a bucolic, heavily farmed area for providing food to the city.   The city was the main ops area for adventurers, and stabilized the center of the island as an 800 lb gorilla will.  This allowed a homeland for the players to come from or retreat to, and some political games, too.

Interestingly, the JG city-state pushed a very cosmopolitan view on my D&D campaign; for instance, while generally assholes, orcs were often paying citizens, and couldn’t just be killed as evil.  Racial animosity, while real, was subjected to law and order, and mainly expressed as personal animosity.  Prejudice, not pogroms, really; possibly having lived many years in the Deep South was also an influence.  The evil humanoids were more unpleasant foreigners (on the level of pirates, perhaps, or Mongol raiders), but had jobs and nations.  In fact, the quest for “ethnic freeholds” became part of the campaign for a while, especially as the first few orc/goblin characters and NPC’s got to high level.  Thus, we have the Orcish Peoples Republic (blatantly swiped from Greg Costykin’s SPI masterpiece, swords and sorcery) and Kobieshold, both dedicated to freeing orclings from domination and slaughter by non-orclings; It wasn’t a black and white issue at all, not an “everyone is nice given the chance” apologetic for the bad guys, either.  What it meant was that the Orclings wanted to be the oppressors, not the oppressed, plus payback for too many generations sacrificed to dark lords and paladins.  Plus, loot and indolence, helped, too.

More to come.

Ancient wilderness Map Part II

With actual files added !

Click for embiggened and Endetailingizationed version !

My ancient wilderness campaign map.......

So, about a zillion years ago, I started GMing original D&D, and, as suggested, got a copy of the wilderness survival map (mailorder spare part from Avalon hill; yes I was already a profound gamer-geek in 1975).  I copied, messed with, accidentally destroyed, replaced and redrew it on and off for years.  Its most constant use was as "The Remarkably Square Island" allowing me to run dungeon crawls and associated hex crawls in any overall strategic campaign I wanted, or for impromptu pickups with no particular continuity (Grad school period of my life). 
I was dithering about scanning it when I found a rendering of it online recently here(at Bat in the Attic); so I downloaded that, and modified it according to at least one of the incarnations -as L'isle d' Carre, aka ReSquIs.

Roads and baronies added. More details later. BEHOLD !

(see next post for downloadable and larger version )

Brickmasters (of the unknown) rpg: updated and improved but NOT expanded !!!!!

For today, we have a new and corrected version of  BMoTU in pdf format, now including money, magic items, enhanced experience, traps, hazards and healing, and more gimmicks. Still on a single two-sided 8.5x11 sheet of paper, too ! Yes, rules uberlight !

In all honesty, the new sections are very terse, but hey.  It's all on  one sheet of paper, darn it! Those of us with limited attention spans and failing memories (i.e a family and a long commute) appreciate that above all else......well, I do, anyway.

Enjoy !  

Brickmasters of the Unknown !

So, my continuing time over at Lego Universe has convinced mwe that there isn't much need for a moderate or higher crunch set of Brick roleplaying rules -it's basically there online.  However, I have been inspired to do a rules lite version of bricks and basilisks, inspired by searchers of the unknown, a marvelous one page OD&D-lite triumph of style over text by Nicolas Dessaux  HERE .  Plus, bunches of variants compiled HERE ,  and the original thread HERE.

Now, my entry, Brickmasters of the Unkown, really doesn't have much left from either OD&D or SoTU, but the style of SoTU absolutely encouraged me to take a stab at the one-page grail for "brick" gaming.  Alas, as I moved away from the structure of OD&D, I lost considerable implied structure, and I had to fudge it, length wise. The result is a two sided single sheet, but it includes spells, monsters and some stuff about tasks and experience, PLUS a combat system. In truth, it lacks explicit dinosaurs, which is a serious issue, although it also lacks explicit bears, so Stephen Colbert should be happy there.

It was a very interesting exercise boiling ones rules down to an absolute limited size; it certainly had me rethinking quite a few aspects of the game for neccessity wheras even with a short booklet I would have just gone ahead and included some fairly redundant stuff.  Also, it does force clarity of writing -or at least brevity.  It isn't Barkerese or International Science Abstract Gibberish, but I think its a lot leaner than it was.



So, for your enjoyment, Brickmasters of the Unknown !