Reactions on Original Dungeons and Dragons Republication

Personally, I am glad they are rereleasing them. It will give a chance for this generation to see how sparse and badly organized a roleplaying game can be. I think $150 is a bit steep, I would have rather seen them released as $5 .pdfs. If you are trying to play OD&D I would ignore the Blackmoor and Eldritch Wizardry supplements, they contain a lot of wild half baked ideas that bog the game down. I think it is a shame they are not re-releasing them with original covers, the purple beholder on Greyhawk was one of my favorites, and Eldritch Wizardry’s full color printing to show a naked woman strapped to an altar, so outré.   I am afraid I don't think of OD&D as one system as every DM I played under had a different method for plugging the holes in the rules. I think they are interesting from a historical perspective, but if you want an actual playable game I would look for Empire of the Petal Throne instead. Similar mechanics (except for EPTs percentile attributes)  , but written in English rather than "chart"ese $11 .pdf at Drivethru rpg.  EPT’s skill system was a great innovation at the time not found in OD&D. I was not enamored of EPT's random spell acquisition system, but OD&D Greyhawk’s percentage change to learn a spell is not better. I think EPT unlike OD&D is a game you can learn from reading the rule book and play. Perhaps I will buy the $150 set,  just to replace the copies of Eldritch Wizardry and Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes which disappeared long ago (and because if I don’t meet quota at the game store the LFR game gets tossed out on the street [We already get bumped to provide more tables for Magic]). However, I am probably replacing the copies in the box with the little brown books I bought for $10 in 1976. I know I am not very constistant in this post. I afraid the teen fan boy love of the little brown books overwelms the rational thought that there are far better values in roleplaying for $150 than this offering (perhaps if the box is maple or oak, rather the dyed red pine I am anticipating it would tip the balance...)

City of Mystery

I thought this was a map of Kome drawn for our Gardasiyal campaign. She-who-must-be-obeyed says, how can it be an Empire-of-the-Petal-Throne city when it has no obvious temple district. She ought to know she drew it. Now it's yours for what ever game needs a city.

Empire of the Petal Throne

Rather than writing a new blog I am afraid I got sucked down the rabbit hole of a thread on the Dragonsfoot forum. However I'll republish my post on Empire of The Petal Throne here:

Empire of the Petal Throne is one of my favorite "Old School" games. Couldn't swing the $25 for the boxed set in 1975 so I bought $10 rules alone. It's very close to Original D&D but the skills are a definite difference. I liked that the rules are more clearly written than Original D&D with fewer holes. Unfortunately the successor incarnations of the rules have been less successful (or well written). Swords and Glory volume 2 is worth picking up. Unfortunately the most recent incarnation Tekumal was a pale shadow of the original. Tita's House of Games has most of the rules sets and supplements available still. In addition to throwing both the Hlyss and Ssu into my D&D games, I have run several short term campaigns in Tekumal. For a culture as strange and complex as Tekumal the barbarian fresh of the boat start seems to be the best way to go. As always I run the world as my own and don't worry about the canonical setting as given in the supplements. Due to an interesting quirk in the encounter tables most parties started the game wandering the wilderness and only entered the dungeons when they where higher level (the exact opposite of the way we played Original D&D). Little play hint: Don't tell the priests of Thumis you worship no gods, they will know you for the Ksarul worshiping bastard you are.

P.S. I liked the Man of Gold[Novel by M.A.R. Barker EPT author] once I got through the linguistic fluff in the first chapter