Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Dragon Reflections #52
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tom B1" data-source="post: 8556352" data-attributes="member: 6879023"><p>We managed some D&D campaigns that would run up to 12-15 months (and sometimes the 3-4 month ones were done at a very high frequency so had about the same amount of time involved. But a lot of the products of the time were short campaigns of a month or two (Traveller, Star Frontiers/Knight Hawks, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Champions, Twilight 2000) and there were others that were even shorter (FASA's Star Trek, FGU's Aftermath, Car Wars, Boot Hill, ndianna Jones, Marvel Super Heroes, Mercenaries Spies & Private Eyes, Battletech, Gamma World, Merc, Villains & Vigilantes, Morrow Project). I think the most fun campaigns were Traveller, D&D, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Boot Hill and Champions. </p><p></p><p>The problem with GW for longer term games was you didn't have the world support that D&D gave you (or even Gangbusters or Star Frontiers). The characters were interesting, but the tables were so random that your characters could be very, very odd to understand and thus to really give some depth to them. It lacked the capacity to imbue the characters with enough sense and purpose that D&D did so you just felt like characters were disposable and thin as far as why they were 2'4", had wings, and giant ears... ? </p><p></p><p>If they'd had a sort of thematic character building which would give a collection of related mutations and then the character could kind of feel more than a Frankenstein's monster and if you could have given a bit less caricatured groups and histories, you could have gotten a good basic campaign out of it for 4-6 months I imagine. But that wasn't likely as it arrived. </p><p></p><p>In Star Frontiers, if you had more than just the box set, you got conflicts, you have alien planets, you had multiple somewhat detailed races (Vrusk and Dralasite and Yazarian were distinct and didn't totally feel somehow derivative back then). There were options and you could build a character. Gamma World characters came off as some sort of flawed lab experiment (which could be playable, but only for one player likely... others should have different backgrounds). </p><p></p><p>In Top Secret, you got all the spy books and movies you'd ever seen for ideas to mine. And the world already had depth. (I hated Top Secret S.I. as it wen the way of Bond-esque fictional entities vs. real world stuff). Gangbusters gave you a city and genre gave you how usually different classes could relate and what themes would appear in the game. Boot Hill could lead to great campaigns (one group brought the railroad to the default town and fought range wars and added a spike line to their acreage. You could draw on all the cowboy movies and actual old west histories. (You just had to stop the players from killing one another in a bar fight that turned into a gunfight... because... gunfights!!!!!). </p><p></p><p>But Gamma World just never came with that free context and it didn't build enough of its own in depth and give the character builds enough thematic consistency to feel like a bioengineered race vs. just a random accident in the lab. </p><p></p><p>I think if you got most of the line of stuff from the FGU Aftermath, they had a good setting (two actually, one in Australia and one in the US). The rules were too crunchy... shot? roll on a table and determine you got hit, took x much damage, rotated clockwise 187 degrees, and were knocked down. No, I'm not making that up. The tables give you that, but it was clunky in play. </p><p></p><p>Gamma world needed more attention and a more focus development to make more than a 1 or 2 night diversion.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tom B1, post: 8556352, member: 6879023"] We managed some D&D campaigns that would run up to 12-15 months (and sometimes the 3-4 month ones were done at a very high frequency so had about the same amount of time involved. But a lot of the products of the time were short campaigns of a month or two (Traveller, Star Frontiers/Knight Hawks, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Champions, Twilight 2000) and there were others that were even shorter (FASA's Star Trek, FGU's Aftermath, Car Wars, Boot Hill, ndianna Jones, Marvel Super Heroes, Mercenaries Spies & Private Eyes, Battletech, Gamma World, Merc, Villains & Vigilantes, Morrow Project). I think the most fun campaigns were Traveller, D&D, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Boot Hill and Champions. The problem with GW for longer term games was you didn't have the world support that D&D gave you (or even Gangbusters or Star Frontiers). The characters were interesting, but the tables were so random that your characters could be very, very odd to understand and thus to really give some depth to them. It lacked the capacity to imbue the characters with enough sense and purpose that D&D did so you just felt like characters were disposable and thin as far as why they were 2'4", had wings, and giant ears... ? If they'd had a sort of thematic character building which would give a collection of related mutations and then the character could kind of feel more than a Frankenstein's monster and if you could have given a bit less caricatured groups and histories, you could have gotten a good basic campaign out of it for 4-6 months I imagine. But that wasn't likely as it arrived. In Star Frontiers, if you had more than just the box set, you got conflicts, you have alien planets, you had multiple somewhat detailed races (Vrusk and Dralasite and Yazarian were distinct and didn't totally feel somehow derivative back then). There were options and you could build a character. Gamma World characters came off as some sort of flawed lab experiment (which could be playable, but only for one player likely... others should have different backgrounds). In Top Secret, you got all the spy books and movies you'd ever seen for ideas to mine. And the world already had depth. (I hated Top Secret S.I. as it wen the way of Bond-esque fictional entities vs. real world stuff). Gangbusters gave you a city and genre gave you how usually different classes could relate and what themes would appear in the game. Boot Hill could lead to great campaigns (one group brought the railroad to the default town and fought range wars and added a spike line to their acreage. You could draw on all the cowboy movies and actual old west histories. (You just had to stop the players from killing one another in a bar fight that turned into a gunfight... because... gunfights!!!!!). But Gamma World just never came with that free context and it didn't build enough of its own in depth and give the character builds enough thematic consistency to feel like a bioengineered race vs. just a random accident in the lab. I think if you got most of the line of stuff from the FGU Aftermath, they had a good setting (two actually, one in Australia and one in the US). The rules were too crunchy... shot? roll on a table and determine you got hit, took x much damage, rotated clockwise 187 degrees, and were knocked down. No, I'm not making that up. The tables give you that, but it was clunky in play. Gamma world needed more attention and a more focus development to make more than a 1 or 2 night diversion. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Dragon Reflections #52
Top