Quote from: robiswrong;760587Awesome, thanks.

My go-to systems for that have always been B/X and 1e, but they're pretty clearly evolved systems (NTTAWWT).  A system that takes the evolved goodness and does a design pass on it would be pretty much my sweet spot for games.

You'd have to ask amacris, but my impression is that ACKS is exactly that. And, as I mentioned upthread, it is primarily a B/X derivative.

Quote from: robiswrong;760587I don't think 5e is *really* aimed at that, unfortunately.

No, I agree with you. I intend to pick up the starter set and give it a shot, as I feel like it has lots of potential to be everybody's 2nd or 3rd favourite system, and hence one everyone can agree on playing. I'm also holding out a faint hope that it'll be useable with a raft of my AD&D 2nd edition material with less conversion than ACKS requires (which is, admittedly, not much). We'll see. Even if that works out, some stuff still cries out to be run with ACKS (Birthright, Dark Sun, the Dragonlance saga, and Mystara for example).

Quote from: Old Geezer;760581The only thing I really didn't like was that you are supposed to come up with a "group name" for your group, like the "Invincible Brotherhood" or some such nonsense.  This struck me as a total tone-breaker, being the sort of overwrought emotional crap you get from fourteen year olds who really think it's COOL that their Boy Scout patrol is named "Eagle Patrol."

Thanks for the mostly kind words! It's fascinating to me to see how what we wrote is viewed from a truly Old School perspective. I did not start playing D&D until 1980 (at age 5!) when I was introduced to the game via the Moldvay red box. I do not make any pretension towards being a truly Old School gamer; I am strictly in the "Silver Age" with all of its love for "realism". I was the one guy who liked the Wilderness Survival Guide.

As far as adventuring party names, I guess you're referring to the introductory text in the narrative, where we wrote "As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band." The Bloody Band name arose in play from the fact that the group had such a high death rate - something like 25% of the adventurers died each session in the first few levels. The players morbidly decided to buy red cloaks to hide all the blood stains and the name cynically grew from there. That's the opposite of the overwrought emotional crap you're talking about, I think? That's how all the names in my ACKS campaigns have developed, at any rate. Cynically.

As far as group dynamics, my thoughts on that are in this article on The Escapist: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/8041-Managing-Problems-and-Players
I think collective, competitive, and every-man-for-himself can all be fun ways to play. In the 1990s my groups tended to be much more chaotic and individualistic; groups nowadays (of Millennials?) are much more communitarian. Definitely a culture shift.

QuoteNot to mention when you have character names like "Yrag" and "Robilar" and "Sir Fang" and, Crom help us, "Gronan of Simmerya," if you FORCE players to come up with a "group name," you have nobody but yourself to blame when you get "Order of the Stick." In my college group we would have ended up with "The Hairy Nutted Monster Whackers." Or, more likely, "The Hairy Monstered Nutsack Whackers."

If those are the names of the PCs, then that's the tone of the campaign, and Hair Monstered Nutsack Whackers fits in just fine with Gronan of Simmerya. It would be weird to have silly PC names and serious group name or vice versa.

QuoteThe "One True Band of Heroes" is the exact OPPOSITE mindset of the early years of Blackmoor and Greyhawk, and its inclusion is the single biggest disappointment.

This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....

Quote from: Bobloblah;760593You'd have to ask amacris, but my impression is that ACKS is exactly that. And, as I mentioned upthread, it is primarily a B/X derivative.

Yes, exactly that. I'd be happy to talk about the philosophy behind the design as much as anyone cares to listen, hah.

Quote from: amacris;760594This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....

If you're drawing from a pool of players that may or may not show up on any given week, and each of whom has multiple characters that they may choose to play (or not), then there's no real concept of a static "band of adventurers".  It's "whoever showed up this week, and whatever characters they played".

It's not Alex playing Ashar, and Barb playing Bithina, and Chuck playing Carradan, and Dave playing Darkmagic every week.  

It's that group one week, and then the next week Alex, Chuck, Evan, and Fannie show up and they play Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna.  And the next week you get Barb, Chuck, Fannie and George, and they play Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam.

So, which is the adventuring party that gets named?

Quote from: amacris;760594This is I don't understand. Where did you get a sense of "one true band of heroes"? That is definitely not the tone of ACKS as I run it or wrote it. It's not called "Hero-Liberator-Just King Who Transitions Power to a Constitutional Monarchy"....

"As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band."

I don't have the book to hand, but Chapter 1 definitely states that players are expected to give their "adventuring party" a name.

The very notion of "adventuring party" is what I'm talking about.  As opposed to, "I bumped into Tenser so we decided to go hit the dungeon and try that area on the 6th level to the east of the Pool of Infinite Catoblepas."

By "one true band of heroes" I mean the expectation that there is one group of players who adventure together with the same characters, as opposed to "Tonight it's Rob with Robilar, me with Gronan, Ernie with Tenser, and some NPCs.  Next week it's me with Lessnard, Tim with his Cleric, and my brother with his fighter, and some NPCs."

Quote from: amacris;760594The Bloody Band name arose in play from the fact that the group had such a high death rate - something like 25% of the adventurers died each session in the first few levels. The players morbidly decided to buy red cloaks to hide all the blood stains and the name cynically grew from there. That's the opposite of the overwrought emotional crap you're talking about, I think? That's how all the names in my ACKS campaigns have developed, at any rate. Cynically.

I like that story.

But that's not how the text comes across to somebody encountering it cold.

Quote from: robiswrong;760599If you're drawing from a pool of players that may or may not show up on any given week, and each of whom has multiple characters that they may choose to play (or not), then there's no real concept of a static "band of adventurers".  It's "whoever showed up this week, and whatever characters they played".

It's not Alex playing Ashar, and Barb playing Bithina, and Chuck playing Carradan, and Dave playing Darkmagic every week.  

It's that group one week, and then the next week Alex, Chuck, Evan, and Fannie show up and they play Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna.  And the next week you get Barb, Chuck, Fannie and George, and they play Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam.

So, which is the adventuring party that gets named?

Is this a rhetorical question? It sounds like you just have two parties, one consisting of Allishar, Coorak, Elfdude, and Fianna, and the other consisting of Bithina, Esticar, Florinne, and Gorkam. If your parties change composition so often that a name doesn't make sense...don't name them, I guess? There's not any game mechanics that hinge on naming your party. It's just something my players have always done and the intro story in ACKS was literally straight from the play test campaign.

In the groups I run, everyone has 1-3 characters. Some or all of these players participate in any given session, running 1 or more of their characters. Each dungeon-delve or wilderness expedition typically runs across multiple sessions so you have the same set of characters on the expedition but different players showing up. The characters are all always in the world regardless of whether the player shows up. If you don't show up and your character is in the dungeon or expedition, your character gets played by someone who did show up. If your character dies while you're not there, too bad, you should have shown up.

How do you handle it when all of the characters are committed to something and one or more of the players of those characters isn't around? How did Gary & Dave & OG handle it?

Quote from: Old Geezer;760605"As described in Chapter 1, Characters, characters traditionally form adventuring parties which give themselves colorful names, such as the Bloody Band."

I don't have the book to hand, but Chapter 1 definitely states that players are expected to give their "adventuring party" a name.

The very notion of "adventuring party" is what I'm talking about.  As opposed to, "I bumped into Tenser so we decided to go hit the dungeon and try that area on the 6th level to the east of the Pool of Infinite Catoblepas."

By "one true band of heroes" I mean the expectation that there is one group of players who adventure together with the same characters, as opposed to "Tonight it's Rob with Robilar, me with Gronan, Ernie with Tenser, and some NPCs.  Next week it's me with Lessnard, Tim with his Cleric, and my brother with his fighter, and some NPCs."

OK - I was just discussing this in a different post. How did you handle this situation:

Robilar, Gronan, Tenser, and the NPCs get to Level 6 of the dungeon. The session ends because it's 2AM. The next Friday, Rob and OG are available but Ernie blows you off to go see Godzilla.

The way I handle it is that the next session begins with Tenser, Robilar, and Gronan deep in the dungeon, and either Rob, OG, or the GM runs Ernie's PC Tenser. Ernie gets half-XP for being an NPC if he voluntarily skipped the session, full XP if it was involuntary (sick, stuck at work).

Quote from: amacris;760616How do you handle it when all of the characters are committed to something and one or more of the players of those characters isn't around? How did Gary & Dave & OG handle it?

I could be wrong, but I think he's thinking of more open-table style play. The sessions are self-contained expeditions with those who showed up that night. Similar to this (which is using ACKS, incidentally). You can see their session writeups here. It avoids the problem (mostly) of who shows up on any given night.

No matter who shows up, it's "The Untouchable Trio +1".

I see OG's point, but to me it seems more like the naming of a Free Company from Conan then a "Big Damn Heroes Trademark".

Quote from: Bobloblah;760619I could be wrong, but I think he's thinking of more open-table style play. The sessions are self-contained expeditions with those who showed up that night. Similar to this (which is using ACKS, incidentally). You can see their session writeups here. It avoids the problem (mostly) of who shows up on any given night.

Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...

Quote from: amacris;760626Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...

Good question. Paging Mr. Geezer, paging Mr. Geezer...?

Quote from: amacris;760626Sure. I know Tavis ran that way, too, for his Red Box campaign. But he handled it by insisting that everyone be out of the dungeon by the end of the session and I always had the sense that the old-school guys didn't do that. But maybe I'm wrong?...

You are mistaken, good sir.  The session ended with everyone in a safe place.  About half an hour before the end Gary would say "Time to head back home."

On outdoor adventures, it would be "Tom's cleric got a summons from his temple and rode away" or whatever.

There was no such thing as "story" other than "what happened."  The players present that night were the characters that played.

Quote from: CRKrueger;760622No matter who shows up, it's "The Untouchable Trio +1".

I see OG's point, but to me it seems more like the naming of a Free Company from Conan then a "Big Damn Heroes Trademark".

Right, but WHO is the head of the Free Company?  By that logic, every PC would have their own.

And as I stated above, no matter what the intent was, the way the text reads to a cold reader is that this is, in fact, a mandatory thing.

No, it read that way to you. I read it the first time and got something very different out of it. A far more interesting question would be what someone new to D&D, or even RPGs generally, would make of it...