Wednesday 23 December 2009

Its all in the Name . . . . .

I really REALLY can't call the set of rules I DM - AD&D, or Castles & Crusades anymore.

The rules I use come from so many different sources (even Mythus and Lejendary Adventures), but they still hold true to the core ideas and ideals set forth by Gygax and Arneson.

Many names get bandied about, OSRIC (Old School Reference & Index Compilation) is dull LoL - the rules are great; but the name is wholely uninspiring to me.

Castles & Crusades takes its name from Gary Gygax's gaming society of the same name.

Mazes and Minotuars ALMOST has it.

Basic Fantasy Role Playing Game - REALLY! Is that the best they could come up with?

Labyrinth Lord - sort of sounds like (and no offence is intended her, what they have done with the rules is great) an underground Gay-Bar . . . .

Swords & Wizardry - again, a valiant attempt that kinda falls short (for me at least).

This of course leads me back around in a circle to not really having a name, its not C&C - I have added in quite a few advanced rules, its not AD&D - as we use the C&C Saves and Combat. I have been using "Advanced Castles & Crusades" (which just sounds dumb when said out loud) as a descriptive term.

One of the guys on the AD&D 1st Ed Forum I am a member on, had the idea of breaking it down into 'Ages' -

D&D to AD&D 1st Ed would be the "Age of Magic", with 2nd Edition AD&D going on from the "Age of Magic" into the "Age of Expansion" as the world became more evolved and developed.

3rd/3.5 would be set after some great cataclism, which changed the world - in an attempt to explain how the world changed and Feats started to work - thus heralding in the "Age of Wonder".

Finally 4th Edition, with its overly developed sense of balance and more 'degenerate' races could be labelled the "Age of Decline".

Personally I hate the idea, as for me and my group nothing was really worth bothering with after the onset of all the 'extra' books from TSR (Skills and Powers being the worst IMHO).

AND STILL I am left without a name - Still more thinking and googling to do.

Keep Rollin'

3 comments:

  1. What about "Mazes & Monsters", as a finger to all those who still decry RPG's as the work of the Devil lol!

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  2. Im actually tempted by this LMAO!

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  3. I'm with what Luke said, anything that 'sticks it to the man' is a good thing IMHO.

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