Quote from: RandallS;281930Have you tried offering to run a one shot session?  As long as people don't have to buy the book to try it, I've found with a bit of work I can drum up enough players to try almost anything once. Heck, I even gave 4e a try in a one shot.

I run frequent one-shots at the flgs, and I have a periodic group who meets mainly to humor me, I think. I also can get folks to play almost anything a few times. I had a little MetaScape (of all things) game going for a while. And I'm getting quite a group around Wooden Suits and Iron Men, a weird little sourcebook for a not-particularly successful beer & pretzels generic, Duel.

I guess what seems odd to me is that my group building strategies are working fine for some games I think are maybe a little sub-par or poorly conceived, but less well for a game I think is nicely put together.

Now--I advocate for people having a good time, and the heart wants what it wants and all that. I want to run games my friends will enjoy. And I have no shortage of opportunities to do that. So everything's pretty groovy. My problem is that I'm generally very good at putting games in the hands of folks that will like them, and the folks I thought would really dig MML don't. And I wouldn't necessarily picked those that do. So mostly I think I'm trying to figure out what it is I'm missing about this game, blinded by affection for it, or something. It's definitely an oddball product.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;281929You like loopy, admit it already.

I like loopy elegance, and if you ever meet my wife you'll see what I mean.

Quote from: Spinachcat;281893

QuoteThe entire idea behind the simulacra is that there is no reason to play another game.

WTF?

I think what Jim meant, but perhaps didn't express accurately, is that these old and old-school systems are perfectly valid, playable, usable and fun systems, with neither more nor less problems than more recent ones.

You know, as opposed to to the usual claims leveraged by 3etards and 4orons that old versions of D&D were somehow "broken", "inadequate", "primitive" or "cumbersome"*.



*This last one I always found especially rich coming from fans of a system where you have to keep a dozen feats and skills in mind and when they stack or not and how they all affect your racial template and ECL and a single small fight lasts hours. And grappling rules. [/OFF]

Quote from: stu2000;281934So mostly I think I'm trying to figure out what it is I'm missing about this game, blinded by affection for it, or something. It's definitely an oddball product.

The guy at the shop showing me his copy of it seemed really excited by it as well. Perhaps it is one of those games that really strike a chord in a few people while the rest of us just don't get it.

Quote from: Haffrung;281773Agreed. Retro-clones generate buzz and a sense of community. However, I'm skeptical of claims that they have grown the pie of old-school players (and by players I mean people actively running tabletop games), instead of simply giving the old-school players who hang out on web forums more stuff to read and discuss. The 'renaissance' in old-school gaming is about internet forum exchanges and house-ruled PDFs, rather than a growing market or community of active players. At best every new ruleset just cuts the same pie into smaller pieces.

I can only offer myself as an example to refute this idea that the retro-clones are not generating new play.  I have not run a regular game since my son was born, but since early in the new year I have been getting together with three old friends every other week to play Swords & Wizardry.

One of the attractions was the fact that rediscovering the Old School vibe allowed me to release my need to over plan everything and just concentrate on what is in front of me.  One barrier to GMing for me now that I don't have the same free time was that in previous campaigns I would want to have everything set out and ready for the players to explore.  With this campaign I just started out by having them name the tavern they hang out in and went from there.  We've completed three sessions and I haven't even named the city yet...and we are having a blast making it up as we go along.

In any case, I am a retro-clone success story, I suppose.  The fact that everyone was familiar with D&D from long association was a plus, the fact that they could download the rules for free was a plus.  I also like that I was exposed to a new view of D&D by having easy access to a version of the 1974 version and through the online discussion that has been generated by the retro-clone movement.  The D&D of my youth was Moldvay Basic, so some of the aspects of the original are fresh to me.  And that is cool!


TGA

Quote from: The Good Assyrian;281973...In any case, I am a retro-clone success story...

Welcome to the club!  

I like DQ and RQ...and I've heard Jason Durall does, too .

Plus, if you want non-loopy fantasy BRP, there's Stormbringer.

DQ is better for skirmish-level tactical detail, rather like TFT. Makes sense, both were created by board wargamers. BRP is better for characters who "are what they are", while DQ (again like TFT) is better for letting players guide character development through expenditure of XP on skills and abilities.

At the time it came out, I was very disappointed with DQ's half-measure approach to deconstructing D&Dish class-based development. Now I like it both because of the active player choice on XP use, and because the skills-as-classes approach simplifies the whole issue of fields of related knowledge.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;282057I like DQ and RQ...and I've heard Jason Durall does, too .

I didn't say I disliked DQ. I just said it wasn't as elegant as the other.

Also, I'm talking system, not setting, but I'm sure you know that.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;281905This is all good and well, but people, you must all wisen up to the awesomeness of the gem in the raw that is DragonQuest.

Seriously, this is a shade of old school that hadn't been on my map until a week ago. Derivative and eclectic at first glance, unique in tone at second. A million little cool ideas and WTFs add up to... I dunno, something special. A deadly environment with a whiff of Vance.

If I had 5000 bucks to sink into a futile project I'd pay Jason Durall to do a rewrite, print 500 128-page hardcovers, sell 200, and use the rest as wallpaper for my non-extant basement.

I agree 100%, I loved DQ when I bought it way back when and I still love it now. I only ever got to play it with my brother, and I've always wished for a revival so I could play in a campaign with a whole group of folks. A retro-clone of DQ would be awesome as hell.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;281905This is all good and well, but people, you must all wisen up to the awesomeness of the gem in the raw that is DragonQuest.
...

I still own my copy from the very early 1980s (the single book SPI version).  It's in pretty good shape, and I flip through it from time to time, whenever I'm visiting my folks.  I still love the whole section devoted to the Dukes, Earls, Princes, etc. of Hell (the section later purged in the TSR version).  I also own one of the modules, The Palace of Ontocle.

I ran it a few times in the early 1980s.  From my recollection: adepts outclassed everyone else, and combat required a tactical board.  So, probably not a game I'd run today, despite how charming I still find the book.

Quote from: Akrasia;282071I still own my copy from the very early 1980s (the single book SPI version).  It's in pretty good shape, and I flip through it from time to time, whenever I'm visiting my folks.  I still love the whole section devoted to the Dukes, Earls, Princes, etc. of Hell (the section later purged in the TSR version).  I also own one of the modules, The Palace of Ontocle.

If you look through the DQ section about dukes, princes, earls of hell (etc) and then at the WOTC Tome of Magic version of the Binder, you may see some eerie similarities. . .

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;282073If you look through the DQ section about dukes, princes, earls of hell (etc) and then at the WOTC Tome of Magic version of the Binder, you may see some eerie similarities. . .

They all derive from the demons found in renaissance textbooks on supposed magic like the "Key of Solomon," etc. For whatever reason, somewhere along the WOTC production line they got changed up so that the Binder has his dark pacts with lovelorn elves and frustrated gnome mathematicians from beyond the grave. Really that was a great puzzle to me. It seems probable that earlier in the project the solomonic demons were going to be used as they stand...some of the ability sets the pacts gave you seemed tied to what the Key claim the demons to be "powerful over."

I recommend getting a hold of De Plancy's "Dictionnaire Infernal" and using the illustrations in question as your basis.

Are you saying DQ and the WOTC book have a common source? I think I did see the Key of Solomon mentioned in DQ, but I didn't know what it was. Those demons are pretty scary, as in Book of Ebon Bindings scary.

Yep. Some of the original AD&D boss fiends come from these sources too, like Asmodeus or Glasya.

Wikipedia says:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_Infernal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesser_Key_of_Solomon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudomonarchia_Daemonum

The Dictionnaire, at least, is easily had on Amazon. Just clicking on the names of a number of the devils will show you its, generally horrible, picture. Here's the Big A, for example.



In the Solomonic hierarchy, Asmodeus only merits a #32. Topping the billboard charts down south is actually Bael, depicted in this not-before-bedtime-kids fashion.

One of the reasons D&D had a problem with religious types in the 80s and TSR pulled the devils + demons from the books in 2nd edition.  They didn't just use vague vanilla-fantasy names for these guys... they used the real deal.