[OT] Dangerous Journeys: Who's Played It?

[Sulimo]

I own all the Dangerous Journeys books, but I've never played it. There are tons of good ideas in the books themselves, very inspirational and suitable for mining for other games, even 3e or d20.

However, the rules themselves are...well...let's say extremely detailed. I read through them when I first got the books, and have skimmed them since, but, to be honest, my brain capacity is simply not up to digesting all the info required to play. But that's just me.

I didnt mind it actually, well aside from Gary renaming all the standard conventions like PC, NPC, etc.

Of course, our group likes detailed games. Thats why our main game has been Rolemaster for many years (and still is).

I only ever played a few sessions though, as most of the guys weren't real interested in learning (and buying) another detailed system.

I still have my Mythus stuff in a box somewhere (including Necropolis). At one stage I was converting it to Rolemaster. But as with alot of other things it got put on the back-burner.

 

[Nightfall]

Course it helps when you got three other guys helping doesn't it Scott? Not to mention the blessings of Mister Gygax too.

Whoops! I mean two! I know Clarke worked on some of it, and so did Bill...Or was I imagining that?

 

[mythusmage]

Making it Unique

I didnt mind it actually, well aside from Gary renaming all the standard conventions like PC, NPC, etc.

That was done in part to make DJ unigue, and in part in the forlorn hope it would forestall a lawsuit by TSR. Didn't work.

TSR ended up buying DJ and paying court costs to settle the matter before it came to trial, with Gary et. al. accepting the offer because they were tired, broke, and sick of the whole mess.

Some DJ fans use the traditional nomenclature, but most prefer the Gygaxisms. Including yours truly. Physical Neural Power isn't quite the same as Dexterity after all.

 

[BluSponge]

DJ!

Mythus was great! It came along just about the time I discovered ADnD was *not* the game for me. It took a while to find the right mix, but in the end all the players loved it. My game looked more like Mythus Prime than Advanced, but the beauty of the system was that I could mix all the elements I wanted and not suffer a whit for it.

Parts that always bothered me were the descriptions of Mental and Spiritual combat and the Hekaforge K/S. Everything else was fine. Even Advanced Mythus was pretty easy once you got the core mechanic down and stopped trying to complicate things for yourself. Character gen was, admittedly, a bear, but once you got over that hump, it was a snap.

However, much as I liked DJ. I prefer LA to it these days. Not nearly as much NPC maintenance required.

Tom

 

[mythusmage]

Extreme HP Creation

For real fun try creating a 100 year old SEC 9 White Mage/Priest of Sunlight with all the additional material from Mythic Masters Magazine. Figuring out what he owns by itself can take days.

With Mental and Spiritual combat, and Heka Forging, the problem lies in the fact the Mythusgame was rushed into publication, so a lot of stuff was missed that would have been caught had more time been given to editing and proofreading. Lester Smith (now working with Sovereign Stone Press) was given about three months to work on what turned out to be a million word manuscript.

I'm kinda working on Mental and Spiritual combat, and reconciling it with the Mental and Spiritual combat castings in Mythus Magick,what ideas do you have?

 

[Goodsport]

I also agree with those who've stated that while character generation took forever, the gameplay was actually pretty smooth.

And I really liked (and still like) the Epic of Aerth book/setting!


-G

 

[Henry]

Woo-hoo! Blast from the Past!

Ironically, I just this weekend gave away my Mythus DJ books to a friend in my gaming group. Great idea books, but very difficult to actually run by the rules as written IMO. I just ain't man enough for a Gygax game of that caliber.

 

[T. Foster]

I ran a Mythus game for about a year and a half starting when the books were released. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of work (too much, I eventually decided). The feel of the game was very close to 1E AD&D+UA, but looked at through the prism of an entirely different ruleset -- the end result was the same, but everything that was assumed or abstracted in D&D was detailed in Mythus, and in that regard it felt somewhat like "AAD&D" to us.

There's a TON of good stuff in those books, especially regarding the Laws of Magick and dealing with infernal beings and such, and you can create characters with an incredible amount of depth and backstory (and they're really powerful too -- I judged that a beginning Mythus HP was equivalent in power to an AD&D character of about 10th level). But eventually it all became too much for us -- too much depth, too many options, and way too much bookkeeping. RuneQuest, we ultimately decided, was a better match for our 'desired level of commitment.' Nowadays, a dozen years lower, my desired level commitment is vastly lower, and therefore I can't even imagine trying to run Mythus again, but I still cherish my DJ books, I still use them as idea-mines for D&D (moreso for its intangible 'flavor' than actual rules-elements), and I still consider Necropolis one of my all-time favorite adventures for any rpg (but perhaps that's just because I was lucky enough to play in it with EGG as DM back before it was published...).

 

[Agamon]

Heheh.

Me: "A DJ thread? Let's have a look...zuh, I posted already?"

Forgot all about this. Still have yet to play this game...

 

[BluSponge]

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