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(13 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

JimLotFP wrote:

After the death of the wealthy innkeeper of The Grinding Gear, rumors were rampant that he had constructed a tomb that was theft-proof. The traps were devious, the danger more diabolical still.

This bit didn't work too well for me; my first thought was honestly something like: not the tomb of a king, baron, noble, or even merchant, but an innkeeper? How much money could he have? Then I wondered how long he'd been dead for.  If it had been a long time, then the place would be well known as a death trap and they wouldn't exactly be rumors.  But I honestly felt a bit of a letdown when it said he was a "wealthy innkeeper".  I'm also not sure if it adds anything to know that his inn was named The Grinding Gear, before I read that I had assumed it was some particularly fiendish trap in the module.

JimLotFP wrote:

But a warning:

If this adventure does not drain every drop of your blood, then it will disintegrate you. If it does not disintegrate you, it will electrocute you. If it does not electrocute you, it will starve you. If it does not starve you, it still will defeat you in a battle of wits.

Now we're talking! This makes me smile, shake my head, and pull out my wallet.  The rest of the copy that I didn't quote was fine as well, but since I felt it started a little weak I definitely agree with the suggestion to put this bit at the beginning.

I'm inspired by Is This How D&D Is Supposed to Be Played, where James lists the modules he thinks best exemplify D&D.  The rulebooks were full of great ideas, but the game was the campaign the DM and players created, and many people certainly used the modules as a guide for how to do this.

Another aspect of what makes the game is the actual nuts-and-bolts of the game session, so I'm wondering if people have any references that they think are a really accurate example of play. Not a description of what the characters did, but a description of what the players at the table did, that you can read and say "Yes! That is exactly what it's like when we're playing and everyone is having a great time."  Even better if it's a description of play for a module like Death Frost Doom where (as I understand it) much of the play is outside the combat-simulator meat-grinder.

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(218 replies, posted in LotFP Gaming Forum)

I'm 34 years old; grew up in a very small town on the Canadian prairie.  I started playing D&D sometime in the mid-80's with my older brother and a couple of his friends.  We had all the 1e AD&D books but looking back on it the rules we actually played by the most were the B/X D&D books.  Since the books didn't really offer much guidance on how the game was played, and we had no contact with any other gamers, we developed our own style of play.  We basically played it as an episodic fantasy wargame where each player controlled a single character (well, sometimes more) -- maybe this was because we were avid wargamers as well.  Things stopped in the early 90's and pretty much stayed stopped, with a few ill-fated attempts to get back into gaming along the way.

Fast-forward to the present day, and I am co-owner of a small software development company.  One of my partners had played a lot of AD&D, and we got talking about RPG's, which turned out to be harder than expected because we eventually realized we were  talking about totally different games!  Some further investigation led me to the "old school renaissance", and then this site.  There are two things that have made me want to play again -- first, having a chance to read over the OD&D books, something about them made everything 'click' in my mind about how things evolved the way they did.  And second, reading the LotFP blog entries and reviews of Death Frost Doom.  It sounds like fantastic stuff, I would love to find a group to play this style of game with!