Revisiting the Wasted Lands
Been doing some cleanup and review of the blog recently. A few of you have doubtless noticed that I've begun posting again, though a bit irregularly. I'm trying to pick that up and get back into a routine. To that end it's also time to start moving away from calling out the assholes in our culture on their douchebaggery, and get back to talking about old school games.
After all, there's always going to be jagoffs, and calling them out on their crap isn't going to make them change. It's really best just to sigh, roll your eyes at them, and move on.
So, I originally started this blog to post thoughts and notes about a house sandbox setting I was putting together called The Wasted Lands. While I never got for with an actual campaign of it (it was supplanted by my Age of Conan Hyborian Age game), there were some really cool ideas in there and I'd like to revisit it.
To do that, however, I had to make it easy to sift through these posts and find the stuff. I was surprised that apparently I had no idea how to use tag labels back in the day. So I spent about an hour and a half this morning digging through all my old posts and adding tags. Now if you want to go back and see the Wasted Lands notes, just click the "Wasted Lands" tag, over on the left, or at the bottom of this post. I can't promise they'll come up in order, but they'll all be there.
At some point perhaps I'll go through and do an index for them, but that's going to be an herculean task and I'm not up for it right this minute.
Anyway, my plan eventually is to get back to working on WL, which will form the campaign setting for the next edition of Spellcraft & Swordplay, which has been in (very slow) development for awhile, now. The new ORCS system will look a lot different than the current version; I'm combining the 2d6 task resolution with a die pool mechanic, and working on point buy for characters instead of class and level.
This may elicit gasps of horror from some of my old school fans out there, but I'm working hard to keep an old school feel in place despite the different approach to character build. I've had some solid comments from my "in house" playtesters, so we'll see what happens.
Wasted Lands itself will also likely undergo a few changes--specifically, there won't be elves, dwarves and hobbits; it's going to be a humanocentric swords and sorcery game. In addition, I may be ditching the concept of gods in the various cultures in favor of the idea that you will be playing the legendary warriors that create the later myths. That is, you'll be playing a northern warrior named Wotan, whose exploits will one day form the myth-cycle of Odin for the Norse people.
Finally, I'd also like to get back (yet again) to my exegesis on AD&D. People seemed to enjoy that and I was enjoying it as well, demonstrating how the original AD&D rules were not as complicated or arcane as people remember them to be.
So there you have it. It's going to be slow in development because between my writing for Troll Lord Games, Goodman Games, and others, plus my day job as a web content writer, I have a great deal on my plate. Bear with me, though, and keep it here. I've been missing the blogosphere lately and am looking forward to diving back in!
After all, there's always going to be jagoffs, and calling them out on their crap isn't going to make them change. It's really best just to sigh, roll your eyes at them, and move on.
So, I originally started this blog to post thoughts and notes about a house sandbox setting I was putting together called The Wasted Lands. While I never got for with an actual campaign of it (it was supplanted by my Age of Conan Hyborian Age game), there were some really cool ideas in there and I'd like to revisit it.
To do that, however, I had to make it easy to sift through these posts and find the stuff. I was surprised that apparently I had no idea how to use tag labels back in the day. So I spent about an hour and a half this morning digging through all my old posts and adding tags. Now if you want to go back and see the Wasted Lands notes, just click the "Wasted Lands" tag, over on the left, or at the bottom of this post. I can't promise they'll come up in order, but they'll all be there.
At some point perhaps I'll go through and do an index for them, but that's going to be an herculean task and I'm not up for it right this minute.
Anyway, my plan eventually is to get back to working on WL, which will form the campaign setting for the next edition of Spellcraft & Swordplay, which has been in (very slow) development for awhile, now. The new ORCS system will look a lot different than the current version; I'm combining the 2d6 task resolution with a die pool mechanic, and working on point buy for characters instead of class and level.
This may elicit gasps of horror from some of my old school fans out there, but I'm working hard to keep an old school feel in place despite the different approach to character build. I've had some solid comments from my "in house" playtesters, so we'll see what happens.
Wasted Lands itself will also likely undergo a few changes--specifically, there won't be elves, dwarves and hobbits; it's going to be a humanocentric swords and sorcery game. In addition, I may be ditching the concept of gods in the various cultures in favor of the idea that you will be playing the legendary warriors that create the later myths. That is, you'll be playing a northern warrior named Wotan, whose exploits will one day form the myth-cycle of Odin for the Norse people.
Finally, I'd also like to get back (yet again) to my exegesis on AD&D. People seemed to enjoy that and I was enjoying it as well, demonstrating how the original AD&D rules were not as complicated or arcane as people remember them to be.
So there you have it. It's going to be slow in development because between my writing for Troll Lord Games, Goodman Games, and others, plus my day job as a web content writer, I have a great deal on my plate. Bear with me, though, and keep it here. I've been missing the blogosphere lately and am looking forward to diving back in!
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