Is a more OD&D feel game the natural evolutionary endpoint? Is OD&D actually AD&D?

[rounser]

I feel the same way, it's the DM and flavor, not the rules that make it old school.

Not true enough a statement to be worth making. Many oldschool games can be traced directly in the nature of their weirdness, in joke silliness or way-out-there-ness to the magic items, the monsters, and the spells. When these are reined in too much for reasons of balance, redundancy, obscure corner cases etc as has been done to the nth degree today, a lot of the fun is lost.

Yes, you can use a wrench as a hammer, but why bother when it's not even designed for that purpose?

 

[xechnao]

Lots of ideas are percolating.

So you have characters that they will be approaching dungeons as bards (sages) rather than "heroes" to exterminate all the evil. They will know how to gather knowledge and insight of what is probably going on in the dungeon and they will be making their decisions based on this towards finding out their goal. It sounds to me as Indiana Jones Rock Star. Sounds cool but I think it will be difficult to find any product content that will directly help you with this (especially in the list you have made yourself). I would be searching for products with tags such as "legends", "secrets", generally stuff that will help you build interesting places and groups around the artifacts.

 

[joethelawyer]

So you have characters that they will be approaching dungeons as bards (sages) rather than "heroes" to exterminate all the evil. They will know how to gather knowledge and insight of what is probably going on in the dungeon and they will be making their decisions based on this towards finding out their goal. It sounds to me as Indiana Jones Rock Star. Sounds cool but I think it will be difficult to find any product content that will directly help you with this (especially in the list you have made yourself). I would be searching for products with tags such as "legends", "secrets", generally stuff that will help you build interesting places and groups around the artifacts.

Nah, they are not bards in the sage sense. They don't care about knowledge unless it gets them famous, rich, or laid. Picture a big hair metal band in their heyday. That's what they are shooting for here. Basically 2 of the three guys have had aspiratons of being in a band but they suck at it in RL. So this is their way to do it.

One key thing I forgot to mention is that all the characters have wisdom scores of 8 or less. If roleplayed right, they will always choose the stupid option that gets them into trouble. Al I have to do is throw them a surefire plan which appears to have no risk that gets them some money, or women, fame, or some combination of the three, and they are in.

 

[ExploderWizard]

One key thing I forgot to mention is that all the characters have wisdom scores of 8 or less. If roleplayed right, they will always choose the stupid option that gets them into trouble. Al I have to do is throw them a surefire plan which appears to have no risk that gets them some money, or women, fame, or some combination of the three, and they are in.

I have found that this describes most D&D characters regardless of wisdom scores.

 

[xechnao]

Nah, they are not bards in the sage sense. They don't care about knowledge unless it gets them famous, rich, or laid. Picture a big hair metal band in their heyday. That's what they are shooting for here. Basically 2 of the three guys have had aspiratons of being in a band but they suck at it in RL. So this is their way to do it.

Oh, I got that. I was merely hinting at the dungeon-adventure approach. From what you are describing it should be more that of a sage -in the sense of Indiana Jones- rather than the Barbarian of the Diablo video game that hacks and slashes all moving sprites to clean the dungeon.

 

[Remathilis]

BECMI doesn't need a retroclone--it's got the Rules Cyclopedia.

2E suffers from its strengths in this regard--the great settings are the property of WotC, the openness to customization and making the rules your own reduces the common ground and the potential audience for clones unless you want to redo half the line, and much of the other space is taken up by C&C, OSRIC, et al. Besides, it suffers from having been caught between the opprobrium of the 1E loyalists and the works of Ryan Dancey, Master of d20 Propaganda.

Point. 2e and BECMI suffer from two problems; a.) they are not sufficiently different form 1e and B/X to stand out as unique (compare to the 2e>3e or 3e>4e) and they came much later in the game's lifecycle in the so called "dark times" between Gygax's ousting and WotC's acquisition. A lot of D&D players left the game then, and most (not all) of the people who did begin in those times eventually moved on to 3e (or a d20 variant therein).

Of course, part of a retro-clone's charm is it allows for the production of new material (since it is derived from the SRD, and thus is OGL and free to publish) however, aside from some home-brewed modules, I'm not seeing a giant push to print new OSIRIC compatible rulebooks.

Lastly, I got to agree, 2e got a really bad rep thanks to TSR in the 90's, and BECMI (despite the excellent RC you mentioned) often felt like a separate game and got regulated to kid-brother status because AD&D had the money-makers at TSR (Realms, 'Lance, 'Loft, and the associated novels).

So there you have it; not regarded for the warm-fuzzies of that late 70's/early 80's "red box and crayon-dice" D&D, and not sophisticated to compete against the glut of d20 products 3e+ brought. The forever-doomed red-headed stepchildren of D&D.

but I digress. Something about bards, succubi, and slimey doom?