Retro-gaming

[sjmiller]

A few more non-D&D clones:

DoubleZero is a clone of Victory Games' James Bond 007 RPG. The SRD was released in 2007, but doesn't seem to be accessible anymore. Mostly public domain.

You can find the SRD, or at least the last files available, here. Not sure if it has been updated since last year.

4c is a clone of the original (aka classic) Marvel Super Heroes RPG (the so-called FASERIP system). It was paid for using the "random" model, and then released into the public domain (minus art etc).

This can be found under the name Four Color System and is free from RPG Now and other places.

The others I do not know much about, to be honest.

 

[Treebore]

Last I heard Wayfarer was no longer being offered for free. I found out about it and DLed it days before the "free period" was over. I have not followed up since then.

AD&D 3 is still up and available for free. This one is a "fusion" of various D&D type systems. There are a lot of fusion between 1E and 2E that surrounds a core mechanic called the SIEGE engine, which originally appears in Castles and Crusades. I like it a lot actually.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

would anyone have links to these, having trouble finding some of the clones and not so clones

 

[Treebore]

would anyone have links to these, having trouble finding some of the clones and not so clones

Wayfarer:
Wayfarers RPG

AD&D 3, scroll down to "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Players Handbook"

Castles & Crusades


Swords and Wizardy, Knockspell magazine:

http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/

Basic Fantasy RPG:

http://www.basicfantasy.org/downloads.html

A place to DL OSRIC, not their website, probably linked osmewhere in there, though:

http://www.yourgamesnow.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=362

Fight ON! Old School Magazine, all kinds of goodies, Judges Guild, Arduin, etc... I highly recommend it, especially issues 3 and 4.

http://www.fightonmagazine.com/

 

[Mephistopheles]

I'd seen C&C several times in the past but just ignored it 'til recently. I like what I've seen but was disappointed to find out that they are coming out with a new print, with changes, later this year. I haven't picked up the monster book yet so will wait and get the new one due this month. I do love that they only charge 20 a book (less on Amazon).

I've had no luck finding a physical copy of the C&C Monsters & Treasure book locally; I eventually had to settle for an electronic copy from RPGNow. I'll probably pick up the new (3rd?) printing C&C PH along with M&T in my next Amazon order.

On a related note, I wonder what impact - if any - WotC's cessation of pdf sales of older editions has had on the retro clone business.

 

[Mythmere1]

I've had no luck finding a physical copy of the C&C Monsters & Treasure book locally; I eventually had to settle for an electronic copy from RPGNow. I'll probably pick up the new (3rd?) printing C&C PH along with M&T in my next Amazon order.

On a related note, I wonder what impact - if any - WotC's cessation of pdf sales of older editions has had on the retro clone business.

The removal of the pdfs created a bump, but not as big as the bump when 4e came out. Most of the retro clone material in print is sold through lulu.com.

For example, the Swords & Wizardry storefront is at Swords and Wizardry's Storefront - Lulu.com. In fact, at the moment, Swords & Wizardry is placing first in the Lulu sales competition, if that gives you an idea of the size of what's going on in retro-clones.

During May, print products of S&W are getting a 10% discount if you type MAYCONTEST10 into the coupon code. So if you want to check out a retro-clone in print, or look at the sorts of products that are coming out, now's a good time to pick them up. The free pdf for the S&W core rules can be downloaded from that storefront as well.

 

[Nellisir]

There's also Wayfarers, AD&D 3, Microlite74, and many other kindred spirits that don't quite qualify as clones.

AD&D 3 is interesting - that's the "reimaged" PH & UA, right? Is there anything more than those two books?

 

[Pat]

This can be found under the name Four Color System and is free from RPG Now and other places.

Watch out for the PDF version on Lulu -- it's missing the Master Tables (I don't know about the print version). The version on OneBookShelf (by another publisher) does have the Master Tables included.

 

[Goblinoid Games]

When did this all start, and what is the appeal?

I have a long blog post about this here...

Uhluht'c Awakens: The Old-school "Revival": Origins, Current State, and Future; An open discussion

There are a number of factors. Others have mentioned the "genealogy", but I think there are other important issues. I'll just summarize a few I think are most important. Ironically, the push to associate 3.x with older styles of play served to sort of seed this idea that older play styles are worth preserving. "Third edition rules, first edition feel" pretty much summarizes how the idea of first edition as something positive was nurtured. I see this as one of the main factors for why retro gaming is starting to "leak" out to people who are too young to have been exposed to older games.

As a completely separate component, we have always had communities online that support older versions of D&D. I think that when people saw how the OGL was being used, to create entirely separate and new games, at some point people realized that the system reference documents contained all the IP necessary to emulate older rules, and without having to change a bunch of terms since they were available under license.

I think it's possible that the retro-clones might have languished as oddities were it not for the "first edition feel meme" and two very important events. The first event was our tragic loss of Gary Gygax. As everyone knows, Gary was very active on these boards and other boards. People, and I mean "modern gamers", on these boards knew of him; he was part of the online gaming community. When he died I think the sense of loss only naturally impelled people to revisit Gary's earlier work. There was a surge of old-school oriented blogs, and people also found out when they researched Gary's earlier work that there was already a bunch of retro-clone games out there to be discovered, currently supported, with growing fan bases.

The second event was the release of the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Who knows whether its release roughly coinciding with Gary's passing was a factor, but one thing that does seem to be clear is that a decent proportion of people are choosing not to switch to 4e. All of the various reasons for this I could speculate about, but the final result is that after all these years people are starting to realize that New Edition != More Evolved, or "better."

I'm a big fan of retro console gaming. I Love the NES, SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, etc. However, I cannot deny that later consoles did improve on graphics quality. None-the-less, I still prefer the older consoles because of the game style, and there is a charm to those old graphics!

I bring this up even though I risk confusing the point I'm working toward. The point is that p-n-p rpgs are not like console games. You can't measure "improvement" like you can when you go from 8 bit to 16 bit. Even that, which seems on the surface to be a quantitative improvement, does not necessarily equal a qualitative improvement. With p-n-p games, there is no hardware to improve so that the software can improve. Paper has pretty much been paper for a long time now, so p-n-p games change for cultural, political, personal, and other reasons. The business model that has prevailed for a long time is that the customers must believe a new edition is "needed" so that sales of core books can be revived and all the supplements resold as revisions for the new system, etc.

I'm not criticising that model, it's just business, but clearly that idea is starting to break down. One thing I think is important to say is that, as far as I know, none of us who have released retro-clone games wishes failure on the current edition of D&D. We just want the games we like to be supported; we want to share them, and we don't want them to be left to obscurity simply because at a point in one company's history they were deemed unprofitable. These works are all labors of love.

Anyway, I've rambled all of the place more than I meant to!

 

[Ariosto]

Goblinoid Games: I have checked out GORE, and am pretty favorably impressed. It seems more to emphasize the "basic" aspect than Chaosium's Deluxe BRP, while including some touches of greater detail harking back to RQ. I loved the compactness of the old Worlds of Wonder set (Magic, Future and Super), and GORE gives me a similar "vibe".

Mutant Future rocks like a Diamond Dog, and I look forward to seeing it in due time (i.e., ASAP) irradiating game shop shelves across the land!