Comic-Con 2010. Woah.

I last hit Comic-Con in 2003, and every time this week that I said “I was last here seven years ago” I felt like it was a huge gulf. Not much has actually changed about Comic-Con in that time, to be honest; it’s still huge, and the same sort of stuff is still being shown. On the other hand, an awful lot has changed about me in seven years. I started to wonder what 2003 me would think of 2010 me. Y’know, if they could have a conversation. Considering the amount of sci-fi entertainment media on display at Comic-Con, and the amount of geeks willing crazy stuff into existence during the show, it doesn’t seem impossible.

What’s up, 2010?

Nothin’. Sitting in the airport, drinkin’ a… actually I’m not drinking. Just finished the Con. Heading home to San Francisco. I live there now. Well, near there anyway.

Wow! Really? That’s great. How was the Con? Cool, right?

Well yeah, it was cool – I spent it working, though.

Working?? What as? Doing what??

Manning part of the Marvel booth. Showing off a Marvel game I’m working on. I can’t tell you too much, it’ll cause a massive paradox. Suffice to say it’s pretty darn cool.

Okay, alright. But working at the Marvel booth? That must be amazing!

It is, especially considering that they make movies and stuff now. About half the booth, maybe more, was focused on their movies, and building hype for them -

Marvel makes movies???

Alright, let’s not talk too much about the spoilers. What else did you love about the 2003 con.

I got to spend a bunch of time talking to some artists. They didn’t seem to mind me talking to them. I got a few sketches done, too.

Yep, started off a rather ambitious sketchbook as I recall. Turns out sketches aren’t free… but still, that Brent Anderson one is a doozy, right?

Sure is. I loved hanging out with these guys though. I could watch them draw all day, frankly.

Some things never change. Did you enjoy the panels?

Some of ‘em, but some of ‘em, I was just watching them to get to the ‘real’ panels that I wanted to see later on, so…

Well, you won’t have to do that next time. Frankly you won’t have time to do it… you’ll still get to a couple of cool ones, though. Just not the big, crazy, media presentations. Frankly that’ll all be on the web a few minutes later anyway. Or Twitter.

Twitter?

You’ll see. It’ll change your life. Well, sort of.

Okay…

What about the night life? Good times?

Pretty good times. I only knew the guy I came with, so -

Well, that’ll change. You’ll get to hang out with work folk, which is fun, but also with artists and other creative types. It’ll be pretty cool. Although somehow you won’t get to see many of the ‘big’ parties. You could work on that, starting now. Er, then.

Oh alright. I kind of felt like I was tired at the end of every day, though -

Exactly, right? Too tired to party. Well, admittedly, that’s the years adding on…

… sounds like an excuse to me.

It is, kind of. Hey, you’ve got it easy – you can sit down any time you want, go back to the hotel – I’m on my feet all day and my hotel is a mile away!

Cry me a river, buddy. Working the Marvel booth. Living the geek dream.

Alright, okay. I shouldn’t complain.

Nope, you shouldn’t. Also, you shouldn’t blog about it. If you even keep a blog going in 2010.

Point noted. Points, in fact.

I’ve gone every year since 2005, except 2006 (when it clashed with a trip to LA for E3), but every year I attended to officially represent NCsoft. What started in 2005 as a couple of us stuck in a corner trying to flog City of Heroes (without actually selling it) culminated last year in a big ol’ stand with practically an artistic production-line to handle the pencilling, inking, scanning, colouring and printing of player sketches. Without a doubt, in terms of our professional ambitions, Bristol 2008 was our high point. As a fun weekend away for me personally though, this year is the hands-down winner.

Despite that, we definitely fulfilled our primary purpose: to help out Andrew Wildman once more with Draw the World Together. Mat and I couldn’t be happier to help, but as always, there were a lot of people who made things happen.

First and foremost was Mike Allwood, Expo organiser, who gave us the space and time we needed to sketch in. It was no easy feat, as with this year’s Expo being squeezed into the Ramada Hotel (with overspill at the nearby Mercure) it was hard to swing a cat, let alone get half-a-dozen artists to sketch in one room. Mike also ensured that our most generous supporters could get into the Expo, even after tickets were officially sold out. As always whenever I saw Mike over the weekend he was a picture of relaxed calm amongst the chaos, and went above and beyond to help things run smoothly.

DTWT doesn’t really work without Andrew Wildman at the centre of things though – even though he’d say he’s not the most important part! As always Andrew pulled strings, stroked egos and generally hustled to get a great group of artists to sit and sketch. He’s a diamond geezer, as anyone will attest to, and of course he sketched more than a few things on the day too.

Mat and I? We just turned up, really. So let’s kick back with the traditional, chronological, rambling retelling….

Travelling light

As we were paying for our own hotel room, Mat and I chose to head down on Saturday morning and stay one night. Luckily Mat owns his own wheels, so that also cut down our weekend costs considerably. Saying that, it might have contributed to the first, ahem, ‘bump in the road’ of the weekend: getting a flat tyre on the M25.

After a quick, invigorating stop on the hard shoulder where the ol’ teamwork skills kicked straight in to help us change the wheel in PDQ time, we resumed the long drive onwards to Bristol, our old friend ‘Jane the GPS System’ bringing us to the hotel. As we stepped out of the car in the Ramada’s car park, Andrew and Lesley Wildman arrived too, so we all entered the Expo at the same time.

Call it what you like – Convention Fug, or Eau De Fanboi perhaps – but there’s a distinctive smell when you get a lot of con attendees together in an enclosed space. While not distinctly unpleasant, it was very obvious when we stepped into the Ramada’s lobby. That was because everything was already in full swing, with a crowded signing area proving the trickiest part of the small Expo floor to navigate during the whole weekend.

We found Expo management easily enough, and after a trip to Andrew’s room to drop off our stuff (as our own room wasn’t ready) we wandered around for a while, Andrew handing out sketch cards and pads to any artist who was interested in drawing on ‘em for charity. I spied Mike Collins sketching up a storm on one table, so dropped by to say hi; I realised quickly that he, like a few of the other artists, was unaware that I’m supposed to be emigrating. Yes, it can be a bit surprising.

Before too long, we ended up over at the nearby Mercure, the hotel we’d stayed at in 2007 and 2008. This year it was playing host to the Small Press Expo. Little brother to the generally more commercial offerings at the Ramada, the SPE offered the chance for anyone with an indy comic, ‘zine or random product to come and plug it.

After noting that Kevin O’Neill was present, signing and sketching the new volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 1910 (which we said we’d come back to later), we eventually managed to prise Andrew away from talking to Simon Wyatt and friends at the Insomnia Comics stand, and went downstairs to get some lunch. (Simon contributed the fantastic sketch of Donna Troy for our auction you see here – check out his blog and his deviantART page.)

Another pleasant coincidence brought Andie Tong to our table for lunch, so we ate and caught up, with me explaining the boring intricacies of UK-US emigration, and everyone else listening politely. Eventually it got to be ‘about that time’, and we headed back to the Ramada for the so-called ‘Sketch-a-thon’, as Mike Allwood had dubbed it!

More ‘sketch’ than ‘thon’

After standing around being British in our designated room for a bit (hinting strongly that Alan Davis, superstar artist though he may be, needed to vacate the premises… without actually saying so) we got to work with our remarkably meagre resources.

No van full of stock this time for us, no ubiquitous black boxes of ‘stuff’ ready for any occasion. Instead, we ended up getting our Draw The World Together banner up on a wall by ingeniously re-purposing the cords for the window blinds. It was a crazy plan, but hey, it worked.

As if by magic, suddenly artists appeared; and not just the welcome familiar faces of Neil Edwards, Kat Nicholson and Jason Cardy. We had newcomers too; Stephen Baskerville, an old friend of Andrew’s who’d inked his work for many years, took a seat and got straight to work. Lee Bradley sat quietly at the end of the long table and turned out sketches without complaint. We even had David ‘V for Vendetta’ Lloyd for a while, who accidentally ended up facing the door – and as a result, probably just drew his trademark ‘V’ sketch more times than he cared for. But what the hell, every one of them earned us cash. With extra chairs and tables secured, and then with the arrival of Laura Howell to sketch as well, I realised we had more artists (eight!) than we had customers!

Luckily for us, some of those customers (Torsten, Paul, Ben and Rebecca) were regulars, and were ready and willing to donate plenty of money, so pencils flew and pens scratched as everyone got down to business. Unlike the previous couple of years, we had no scanner on hand to capture the sketches, so that meant no colouring and of course nothing I can show to you here (yet). I saw some excellent work though, from all of those involved.

For myself, I got Captain America immortalised by Neil Edwards and a Black Widow by Lee Bradley. I would have potentially gotten more, but my budget only stretched so far – and frankly, I wanted to get sketches from elsewhere around the Expo. For one, both Mat and I had sworn oaths that we would not leave the con without getting a sketch by Andie Tong; after all, we’d waited since BICS 2007!

Time passed, sketches got done, and before long between the amount of artists we had and the lack of foot traffic (our room was well away from the main floor) we had something of a lull, so said goodbye and thank you to a few artists. We rounded up a few more customers, but generally it was a little less intense than previous years. Which was fine with all of us, really; the objective wasn’t to try and top any previous amount we’d raised, but instead to see if the Draw The World Together idea would work with little to no ‘corporate support’, and it seemed to do just fine.

So fine, in fact, that I felt happy to wander off at times, although generally I was going on some errand or other. On one particular trip I dropped by to see Mike Collins again, as I’d been meaning to see if he had copies of A Christmas Carol to sell. (At last year’s show, he’d been working on pages from the book, and I really wanted to read the finished product.) He didn’t have any – but then a little later on another pass, he said “I’ve got something for you” and produced a full-page ‘pin-up’ style image of the Flash. I thought, understandably, he was offering it for auction – but he said no, it was for me. “Because you’re going away.” Chuffed? I certainly was.

A second Mike Collins-related bit of good fortune happened later. A gentleman wandered into the sketch room and asked for me by name; he said Mike had sent him over because he’d said I wanted to pick up A Christmas Carol. Turns out he was Clive Bryant, publisher of Classical Comics. He produced two copies of the graphic novel – one the ‘Original Text’ (ie, all dialogue as Dickens had wrote it) and one the ‘Quick Text’ and asked me to pick one. Taking the ‘Original Text’ (of course) I asked how much I owed him, being happy to pay – and he gave it to me for free! Chuffed? Again, I was. So huge thanks to both Mike Collins and Clive Bryant for making my weekend with their generosity.

When 5pm rolled around we held a raffle to see who’d win the ‘mega-goodie bag’ put together by Mike Allwood; perhaps unsurprisingly Torsten clinched it, which was appropriate given the amount of money he’d donated (and hence the number of raffle tickets he had!). With that done, we put our pencils away for the weekend, and got ourselves ready for the evening’s event… a charity auction!

Auctions for fun and profit

Our organisation for the auction pretty much amounted to “Moving what we have to auction to the room we’re going to auction in”, so we didn’t exactly look slick. Still, we had more people turn up than I expected, even if many of them just seemed to want to look at the art, and not bid on anything.

Regardless, somehow it seemed to work, and later that evening it turned out that we’d made over £200 from the auction alone, which is pretty good considering how many Transformers toys we had… highlights included auctioning a number of the infamous sketch cards (contributed since 2007, only sold once before!!) and also saying goodbye to Boo Cook’s excellent Manticore sketch (hope it looks good in Ben and Rebecca’s house) as well as the Simon Wyatt sketch seen above, which I almost nabbed myself.

Combining the auction cash with the £300 or so we’d made in the afternoon, and we’d made over £500 for one day’s work – which is pretty amazing given we’d just sketched for three hours (with less than the usual crowds!). We were all well-pleased, and felt quite justified in taking ourselves off to the bar for a swift drink.

I was surprised how much I ached when I sat down that night – a sign of encroaching age, I fear, dear readers – and did wonder just how I’d managed this in previous years. Regardless it had been worth the effort for all the usual reasons; getting to watch artists work for charity, raising the money, seeing old friends, and engaging in mindless chit-chat about games and comics and movies. Even better, the always-present spectre of trying to make some money and sell some games was gone, so all-in-all, it was a far less stressful con than previously.

Dinner for 13

A rag-tag group of us quickly formed in the bar, and off we went to try and find dinner. Simon Furman, writer of all things Transformers (amongst others) led the way, and it turned out he was aiming to take us to the same curry house we have ended up in at least twice in Bristol, The Raj. Finding out that was full, however, we crossed the street and got lucky in Myristica, which might sound like a pulp fantasy setting, but actually is another Indian restaurant.

It turned out to be a serendiptious decision however, as the food was excellent, we got our own ‘private room’, and were waited on hand and foot by the attentive staff. It was easily the best curry I’ve had in Bristol (although The Raj was a close second) and made even better by the presence of friends all around. The only slight downside was that Mike Collins and Neil Edwards hadn’t been able to join us, having family and work commitments. This being our traditional Saturday night Expo curry, however, I felt they were there in spirit.

Naturally, with our bellies utterly stuffed with curry, it was only right after we left the restaurant that we’d head back to the Ramada bar, traditionally jammed with comics fans on Saturday night. This year it was actually a little less busy than I’d been used to, but still had enough people at the bar to make getting a drink a very long process.

Gradually people began to drop off to bed, but Mat and I ‘stayed the course’ mostly out of bloody-mindedness than any rational reasoning. We ended up sharing a corner with Paul, who was croaking to an assorted group of UK comics podcasters. When the clock struck midnight however, Mat and I duly decided we’d ‘gone the distance’ and crept up to bed. We’re not getting any younger here, people.

Any given Sunday

The next morning, after a long, leisurely breakfast with Andrew and Lesley, Mat and I had the unusual freedom to wander around the Expo, with no stand beckoning us back after a few minutes. It was kind of weird.

Partially, it was because the Expo was so much smaller this year. A couple of small rooms, a corridor, one big dealer’s room and that was pretty much it; you could get around the whole thing in minutes. So we did, pinpointing stands and artists we wanted to visit later. One notable absentee was Mr Andie Tong, who was nowhere to be seen; Mat and I decided he’d probably fled, knowing we were coming to get our sketches or else. We decided instead to head to the Mercure so we could pick up copies of LOEG 1910 and get Kevin O’Neill to sign – only to remember as we exited the Mercure’s lift that the Small Press Expo was running on Saturday only. D’oh!

A quick about face back to the Ramada, and we said goodbye to Andrew and Lesley for the second time, as they drove off home. Now we were left to our own devices, and duly split up. After some consideration I got in a short line to get a sketch from Dylan Teague, and Mat went shopping. While I watched Dylan create some excellent art and wondered exactly what I’d get him to sketch, in what I can only call an insane coincidence, I ran into my old friend Liam, who was down from London for the day. We chatted for a bit, catching up on the past few years, as I moved slowly to the front of the line.

In the meantime Mat returned from shopping and Andie Tong Watch, telling me that the mysterious man had not popped up on his previous stand. Figuring that possibly Andie had gone home, when Dylan asked me what I wanted to have sketched I suggested Marvel’s Spider-Woman, as I’d been thinking about getting Andie to do the same. Dylan did a very nice job even though he wasn’t too familiar with the character, and I went away happy.

Queuing for Dylan had pretty much taken it out of me, though, and Mat wasn’t interested in queuing himself. Instead I did a bit of shopping, picking up three massive volumes of Judge Dredd reprints for just £25 from the Rebellion stand.

With those in hand we were just about ready to leave – but not before we ran into Kat Nicholson for one last chat. She showed us some sample pages from the adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that her and Jason Cardy are doing for Classical Comics. As most of the time Kat and Jason are colourists, this is an exciting step forward for them. Essentially they’re ‘digitally painting’ the book, with of course the script coming from ol’ Bill himself. Quite a challenge I’d imagine, but they have 10 months to get it right!

Saying our goodbyes, Mat and I headed for the lobby, resigning ourselves to another con without a Tong sketch. “You know,” I said as we headed for the doors, “this is when we’ll run right into him as we leave.”

And who did we run right into? Andie himself, on the phone with Andrew Wildman, trying to figure out how to get his own Draw The World Together donation over to Andrew. This was obviously fate, so Andie immediately promised his first two sketches to us. Hurrah!

What’s the big deal?

You might be wondering why getting a sketch from Andie was a big deal to us. He’s hellishly talented, that’s for sure, but the real truth is that we’d just been too nice for too long.

Andie first turned up out of the blue at the Birmingham International Comics Show (BICS) in 2007, where he wowed us with his work. (In fact, I seem to recall he wowed the other artists quite a bit, too.) However, as was always our policy at shows, everyone on the NCsoft staff held back from getting a sketch done on the day – just so we could ensure that you lot got your sketches first. Sure, our money was as good as anyone’s, but if there were customers before us in the queue, they came first.

As you might understand over the years this was a particularly hard policy to stick to, especially when artists like Andie were drawing their hearts out right in front of our eyes. So more than a few artists graciously did sketches for us outside of shows, including Andie himself; you can see the Aero he did for Chris here, and Mat also got a surprise Transformers sketch at one point. I, however, through fate or luck or whatever, had never ‘gotten a Tong’.

So down Andie sat, and Mat, who already knew what he wanted, ponied up for a full-colour sketch of, erm, Marvel’s Ms. Marvel – with all the money promised by Andie to DTWT. Mat and I happily settled in for the long haul, knowing the sketch would take a while but content to watch Andie work. As always it was a pleasure; confident, fluid lines, intuitive shading and in Mat’s case, some lovely layered colours combined to form a thing of beauty. (Update: added Mat’s scan, left.)

Leaving me to ponder was probably a mistake, however, as we also happened to be standing next to Charlie Adlard’s table (told you it was a small Expo) who was selling copies of a telephone book-sized compendium of The Walking Dead for just £15. Being a sucker for post-apocalypse stories – but an even bigger sucker for monster bargains – I snapped up a copy, leaving me just enough money to get a sketch from Andie, but in black and white.

That just wasn’t going to cut it for Spider-Woman, and besides, I already had a sketch of her from Dylan. Mat suggested Batgirl as an alternative – Barbara Gordon, natch – and Andie went to work, creating a fantastic sketch that I’ll proudly put on my wall next to Mike’s donated Flash.

With both of our sketches completed, we had very little reason to hang around – and little money to spend, anyway. We clambered back into Mat’s car, rolled down the windows, cranked the tunes and set the GPS for ‘Home’.

The last Expo?

As we headed home, Mat bearing the brunt of the driving while I occasionally made a semi-intelligent remark, I didn’t think too heavily about the fact that this may have been my last Bristol Comic Expo. After all, this time next year I’ll be Stateside (Come hell or high water!) and while I’d love to say my new company would exhibit at future shows, I really doubt that’s the case. (But never say never.)

However if this weekend was the last time I head down the M4 corridor towards Bristol, with blues-rock playing and sun streaming through the windows, well – it was a great way to go out. In a way it felt like things had come full circle from where we started; we started as a two-man operation, and to there we returned.

Comic Expo – and comics shows in general – have given me some excellent memories in the last few years, and for that I’m eternally grateful to everyone who’s ever attended a show, drawn a sketch, bought a game or just hung out in the bar with me. Hopefully, I’ll see you at another venue before too long.

For now though, if you’ll excuse me, I have some light reading to get to.

Extra: Pictures!

Thanks to Torsten, who took pictures of the sketching and also a few of the auction, here’s a gallery to enjoy. Thanks for sharing, Torsten!

[Show as slideshow]

About as scrappy and loosely organised as the original roleplaying hobby, retro-clone roleplaying games (or ‘simulacrum games‘ to some) are spreading across the web, gradually gaining converts to their cause: a return to fast-paced, imagination-led roleplaying.

Most of them have a lot in common:

• They’re inspired by the early editions of Dungeons & Dragons.
• They use Wizards of the Coast’s System Reference Document, under the terms of the Open Gaming License.
• Best of all, most of them are free to download, with no strings attached.

Just add dice and you’re ready to play.

Why play a ‘retro-clone’?

You might ask why anyone would want to play these games, when Dungeons & Dragons now has a 4th Edition, and thirty-plus years of recognition behind it.

Well, the reasons are as varied as the players, but for most, it seems to be simple: they want to get back to something that they feel has been lost. Away from enormous rulebooks and mountains of supplements, they want their imagination to take hold again, to run things fast and loose, and to experience roleplaying as they remember it.

While you can easily argue that roleplaying games don’t ‘force’ you to play any particular way, it’s also hard to argue with history and tradition. So if you’re fed up with people throwing rules in your face, or you just fancy getting back to the ‘old school’ way of playing without hunting down out-of-print rulebooks, there’s probably something for you here.

Secret origins

While there may be some people who’ll come to these games completely fresh, perhaps even as their first roleplaying experience, I think it’s more likely that they’ll be introduced to them by someone else – someone who played the original games that inspired these clones.

As one of those people myself, when I first heard about these games, I wanted to know which retro-clone was inspired by which original game. I figured that would help me gauge whether I was interested in using them, based on my memories of the original game, and frankly, I was also just curious.

Unfortunately, most of the retro-clones don’t explicitly state their ‘inspirations’ – basically because of the legal terms of the Open Gaming License, which do not allow them to position themselves as direct replacements for those Other Trademarked Games which usually feature an ampersand in their title. As a result, I had to do some research to determine exactly which game, and which edition of which game, inspired what. (Then I made some pretty pictures to make it really clear.)

As I haven’t agreed to any binding legal license, however, I don’t have to be coy as to what inspired what – even though it’s just that, inspiration. I want to be clear that while most retro-clones use the System Reference Document and will therefore have very familiar mechanics and systems, that does not mean they’re direct copies of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead, they’re inspired and derived from it, and that means all of them will be slightly different from the original… even while they feel very much the same. In other words, my use of an ‘equals’ sign in the pictures below is meant to be interpreted very loosely.

Games inspired by Dungeons & Dragons

Easily the biggest category, and mostly responsible for kick-starting the ‘old school movement’, these games are all to some degree based on Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve ordered them based on which edition they draw most inspiration from.

Swords & Wizardry: White Box

Inspired by: Dungeons & Dragons (1974)

Publisher: Mythmere Games

Download it: Directly from Mythmere Games (PDF file)

Buy it: From Lulu.com, in softcover

Swords & Wizardry: White Box is inspired by the original three-volume rules for Dungeons & Dragons, first printed in 1974 and made available in – you guessed it – a little white box. With no supplemental rules, no extras and no twiddly bits, this is about as close as you can get to the original fantasy game from 35-odd years ago.

A 72-page PDF (only 10 pages shorter than Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules, below) everything you need to play is included, from character creation to spells, equipment and monster listings. The text is well-laid out with suitably ‘vintage looking’ illustrations. It’s also dotted with sidebars including many ‘house rules’ that long-time players will recognise, such as auto-hit on a natural 20, and so on. There’s not too much advice on running a game, except “It’s your game, do what you like” – and frankly that’s probably all that anyone needs.

Compact and brief it may be, but that’s sort of the point. This excellent quote from author Matt Finch’s introduction sums things up:

… this game contains within itself all the  seeds and soul of mythic fantasy, the building blocks of vast complexity, the kindling of wonder. The game is so powerful because it’s encapsulated in a small formula, like a genie kept imprisoned in the small compass of an unremarkable lamp.

Reviews: There seem to be very few reviews, specifically, of the White Box edition of Swords & Wizardry; there are a few reviews of S&W: Core though, some of which I’ve listed below.

Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules

Inspired by: Dungeons & Dragons (1974) and Supplements (1979)

Publisher: Mythmere Games

Download it: For free from Lulu.com (PDF file), or as a Word .doc from Mythmere

Buy it: From Lulu.com, in softcover or hardcover editions

Chronologically, Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules is inspired by slightly later editions of Dungeons & Dragons, and more specifically, supplements for it – however, it was released before the White Box edition seen above.

Using entirely unscientific methods (i.e., my best judgement), Swords & Wizardry seems to be gaining a fairly strong following in the ‘old school roleplaying’ movement, and gets a lot of praise. Publisher Mythmere is also putting their money where their mouth is with ongoing support of the product, so far including a module, a spells supplement and a dedicated magazine called Knockspell. As I’m sure Mythmere would point out, however, Swords & Wizardry is easily compatible with just about all the other games here, so you can use that supplemental material for just about any retro-fantasy RPG.

Swords & Wizardry: Core Rules is a little larger in size than the White Box, being an 82-page PDF. Most of the extra material will be familar to anyone who’s played D&D since 1979, considering the rules are based on those ‘later’ editions. For me, it certainly felt more familar than the White Box, although the differences really are minor. Layout and artwork are again of professional standard, with the cover in particular feeling ‘right’ for an old-school game, mostly because it draws obvious inspiration from the original AD&D Player’s Handbook (appropriately called the ‘Best Cover Ever‘ by Grognardia).

Reviews:

“Return with me to the days of high adventure… The approach is refreshing and the love and care put into the project is obvious. You can’t lose if all you do is check it out; indeed, you might find a new favorite game.” – I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow

“While I’m one of those weird old-school players who happens to like 4th edition D&D, Swords & Wizardry has re-ignited an old smoldering ember in my gaming heart…. it’s nice to go home for awhile to a game that is made for the hobbyist, by hobbyists, just like 0E was.” – Dragonsfoot Forums

Microlite74

Inspired by: Dungeons & Dragons (1974)

Publisher: RetroRoleplaying.com

Download it: Directly from RetroRoleplaying.com or in print-ready form, from Lulu.com

Living up to both the ‘micro’ and ‘lite’ implied in its title at a mere 20 pages thin, Microlite74 nevertheless manages to pack everything it needs into its page count, assuming that is that you’ve previously played some version of its inspirations. These really are skeletal rules; more of a suggestion of how to play than a Bible for your personal reference.

In a way though, that’s sort of the point, as Microlite74 almost spends as many pages explaining the point and principles of old-school roleplaying as it does giving you rules to play with. There are even two pages of suggestions for other games (including all of those I’ve listed here).

While you might want a bit more detail to run a game with, I’d actually recommend grabbing Microlite74 as an excellent introduction to the ideas behind the old-school movement and style of play. You can read the whole thing in a coffee break, and darn it, the selection of medieval-era artwork is quietly inspiring, too.

OSRIC

Inspired by: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1978)

Publisher: Knights ‘n’ Knaves

Download it: For free directly from the OSRIC website (PDF file)

OSRIC, or ‘Old School Reference & Index Compilation’, doesn’t do itself any favours with that name – not exactly evocative of thrilling pulp fantasy adventures, to my mind – but nevertheless, for those of you who want a bit more heft to your game, OSRIC’s got it.

Inspired specifically by the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ruleset (usually referred to as ’1E’ in old-school circles), OSRIC’s aim is to be “nothing more than a tool for old-school writers” according to the creators. What that seems to translate into, according to commentators, is essentially a ‘readable AD&D’. (How ‘readable’ AD&D is in its original form depends on your tolerance for what fans call ‘Gygaxian’ – Gary Gygax’s uniquely ornate writing style.)

As a result, you get a 400-odd page PDF to swallow, opposed to the sub-100 page counts of Swords & Wizardry, with masses of tables, loads of spells, and a menagerie of monsters. Whether 400 pages of rules makes you freak out or fill with excitement, well, your mileage may vary according to your personal history with the Advanced game.

There’s plenty of supporting material available if you want it, with 41 products available to buy online – and let’s not forget, just about everything published since 1978 or so for That Fantasy Game. Considering the size of the rules in PDF form, it seems odd that there’s no print version available, but there’s nothing stopping you from DIYing your own version.

Reviews:

“… this isn’t 1E within the OGL, it’s 1E with prettier tables and an actually readable presentation… OSRIC is good at what it does – making AD&D readable.” – Turbulent Thoughts

“This certainly is the most ambitious retro-clone project yet undertaken, both in its scope and in the boldness of its approach.” – Grognardia

Labyrinth Lord

Inspired by: Dungeons & Dragons Basic and Expert sets (1981)

Publisher: Goblinoid Games

Download it: For free directly from the Labyrinth Lord website (ZIPped PDF file)

Buy it: From Lulu.com, in softcover and hardcover editions (two alternate covers available)

Labyrinth Lord shares a lot with Basic Fantasy (below), in that it’s based upon the D&D 1981 Basic-Expert rules, arguably the ‘last bastion’ of the old-school before those new-fangled red-blue-cyan-black-gold ‘BECMI’ sets. Unlike Basic Fantasy though, Labyrinth Lord is trying to make it as a commercial venture, with the publishers Goblinoid Games working to get the rules into games shops across America, at least. (The rules are still available as a free download, though.) Their aim is to try and ignite interest in an older style of fantasy roleplaying, and while I commend their efforts, I’ve got to say I think Basic Fantasy would look better alongside other modern RPGs.

On the other hand, Labyrinth Lord definitely has the D&D nostalgia factor down pat. I mean hey, look at the title typeface for one thing. It’s also a very accurate recreation of the D&D 1981 rules; apparently you can play just about any adventure or use any existing supplement with it. Everything’s covered in the game’s 138 pages, right down to a sample ‘labyrinth’, the game’s term for dungeons (hence the title), and like Basic Fantasy, it’s got some nice illustrations and a good layout.

Unlike Basic Fantasy – and possibly because I believe Labyrinth Lord came out a little later – there’s not as much supplemental material for Labyrinth Lord, at least not from the publishers. However, it’s frequently mentioned alongside Swords & Wizardry when talking about the old-school ‘movement’, so I’m sure it must be getting played out there. There’s actually a comparison between Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy written on this blog, so if you want to know the differences, check it out.

Reviews:

“I’m very happy with LL. The product is a good one and I wouldn’t hesitate recommending it to newbies just starting, experienced gamers looking for something that allows them more freedom, or those who want to remember what BD&D was like at its best.”- RPG.net

Basic Fantasy

Inspired by: Dungeons & Dragons Basic and Expert sets (1981)

Publisher: Chris Gonnerman

Download it: For free directly from the Basic Fantasy website (PDF file)

Buy it: From Lulu.com in softcover, hardcover and coil-bound editions

Of all the retro-clones, for me, Basic Fantasy is the one that feels most like a ‘modern take on an old classic’. As you can see from the cover, there’s a real attempt here to at least style the game like something you’d see on a bookstore shelf; unlike Labyrinth Lord, it doesn’t acknowledge its origins quite as explicitly. However, the two games do share a lot in common, as they’re both modelled off the 1981 Dungeons & Dragons Basic and Expert rules.

Basic Fantasy weighs in a little heavier than Labyrinth Lord, at 159 pages, but the rules read much the same – especially because they’re in the same typeface! There are some small differences; Basic Fantasy chooses to allow players to combine class and race in various combos, for example, whereas Labyrinth Lord goes with the more old-school alternative of having races actually serve as classes.

Production wise, Basic Fantasy is certainly well laid out, with appropriate ‘old-school style’ illustrations. About the only thing it’s missing is a sample adventure, but this is where the publisher – Chris Gonnerman – really shines. The Basic Fantasy website has over a dozen adventures available to download by a variety of authors. There’s also more than ten supplements available to download, too. Considering they’ve all been written by a variety of people, it’s obvious that Basic Fantasy is enjoyed by more than just the author, which moves it from the realm of amateur publication almost into the professional. The only difference is, it’s all for free; even the Lulu printed editions are not making any money for the authors.

If you want a retro-clone that’s got a bit more to it than the rulebook alone, you definitely want to take a look at Basic Fantasy.

Reviews:

“This is a great fantasy game that captures the feel of the classics, without some of the issues that I always had to houserule.” – Dragonsfoot

“The Basic Fantasy RPG is an excellent game, with rules simple enough to pick up by young children but with enough “meat” for older players to enjoy.” – Random Acts

Coming up next: other simulacra

That’s it for the current crop of D&D-inspired games, but while researching this post I found a few other simulacra of other games. I’ll be taking a look at those in a future post, so stay tuned.

One last thing; a lot of the images of D&D rulebooks above came from the excellent TSR Archive. Visit if you want a trip down memory lane.

However, one thing will be the same: Mat and I will be trying to help raise some charity cash for Draw The World Together, although we’ll be doing the easy bit (Taking your donations and keeping people fed and watered) while our amazing volunteer comic artists do the hard stuff, ie drawing your characters.

On top of the sketching – we also have some fantastic original art that we’ll probably be auctioning, in some ad hoc fashion, over the weekend. If we don’t get rid of something at the show, we’ll auction it online afterwards.

Unfortunately as we left the decision to attend so late this year – blame me for that, with imminent visa interviews putting everything on hold – by the time we said we were going, tickets were pretty much sold out. (The Expo’s moved – for one year only, I understand, to the much smaller hotel nearby, so capacity is limited.) I apologise to all of you who are anxious to get sketches – but fingers crossed, Andrew Wildman will return to Bristol (and other shows) to do the same thing.

As well as trying to raise some cash for DTWT I’m also going to the Expo, well, to see the Expo! I was there in 2004, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and never got to sit on any panels, or spend much time wandering around the hall. So this time, at last, I’ll get the chance.

Last but not least… this will be my last show in the UK for a while. I’m hoping to return later this year (Stay tuned for what and when….) but for a while, at least, this will be my last chance to meet up with You People. You know who you are…. and you know the drill! It should be a lot of fun.

Here’s how this weekend’s going to break down, then…

Saturday

• Mat and I are going to travel down to Bristol, leaving at some ungodly hour
• We’re going to explore the Expo a bit, find Andrew…
• … and set up for Draw the World Together at 3pm
• We’ll have a group of artists sketching between 3pm and 5pm – with others around the Expo sketching for us
• We’ll knock off at 5pm ish, unless we can go on longer – you know we’ll try and drag it out!
• After we hit the bar – inevitably – we’ll end up at a curry house. Suggestions?

Sunday

• Wandering to and fro in the Expo itself, doing the traditional comic convention thing!

If you can make it down there, make sure you come by. It’s a small event so I’m sure it won’t be too hard to locate us!

If you can’t get a ticket for the Expo but still want to come down – to get food in the evening or whatever – then get in contact with me and we’ll sort things out.

(Notice I said ‘think’, because these ideas rarely go anywhere. What I’ve discovered over the last few years is that for me, roleplaying as a hobby isn’t about the roleplaying anymore – it’s about the socialising, and that means my requirements for a gaming group have gotten tougher. To put it bluntly, I have to like people before I can enjoy roleplaying with them. Sounds obvious, I know, but I tend to forget that my best roleplaying memories were generally with people I knew as friends first and roleplayers second; it’s easy to delude myself into thinking that the activity will make me like someone, and that doesn’t happen.)

(Having said that, I’ve got some pretty fun memories of playing games with total strangers, as that seems to bring out the sociopathic side of my personality. Thinking about it, it’s surprising I’m not the world’s biggest online griefer.)

Anyway; this actually isn’t a precursor to me boring you with my roleplaying memories. Some random searches later brought me to a whole host of roleplaying blogs (because of course being supreme geeks, roleplayers are all over the web) and led me to an interesting phenomenon: the resurrection of old-school roleplaying. I mean real old-school. I mean… original Dungeons & Dragons.

Not the ‘red box’ edition of D&D. Not even first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which is pretty much where my memories of roleplaying begin. I’m talking about guys who want to play with the original ruleset, exactly as it was back in 1974. And who were obviously guided by the spirit of Gygax when they came up with the name Swords & Wizardry.

They’re not the only game in town, either. Apparently if your taste is a bit more ‘new school’ then you can play a ‘retro-clone’ of the 1978 ruleset in OSRIC (Old School Reference & Index Compilation!), or even recreate those red box days of 1981 with the cunningly referential Labyrinth Lord.

Understand that none of these games are strict reprints of the original material; instead, under Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game License, they’re a sort of… reimagining? Retelling? Swords & Wizardry describes itself as a ‘newly written description’ of the original rules, almost as if they’ve been told to scribes down through the years and now just written down, or perhaps swapped around campfires.

If you’ve got any experience of the original golden oldies though, like I have, then you might be wondering just why these things exist. I mean, we’ve had Advanced Dungeon & Dragons 2nd Edition, then 3rd, then 3.5 and even 4th last year – although somehow they lost the ‘Advanced’ along the way. I mean, isn’t this sort of like ignoring World of Warcraft’s existence, and recreating Colossal Cave Adventure, claiming it’s more fun to play?

Well yes, and no. The comparison is spurious of course, because any roleplaying game trades in one thing; imagination, which doesn’t ‘improve’ with 3D graphics or an 80-level cap. In fact, the argument goes, your imagination tends to atrophy when you’re shown more and asked to imagine less. That’s basically where the fans behind these games are coming from. Just as modern games have added graphical complexity, modern RPGs have added rules complexity – partially because gamers asked for it, and partially because it means more books can be filled with rules, and then sold.

The idea behind this ‘old school movement’ seems simple enough; get back to basics, where the rules are just a helping hand to let your imagination run riot. When the rules don’t cover something, you make it up. Whether that’s a summation of the ‘true spirit’ of original style roleplaying is for a more learned blog than this to cover, but suffice to say, it’s appealing to a lot of people.

I find all of this fascinating, partially because the idea that people are still clinging to The Rules while playing RPGs seems unbelievable to me. I do feel sort of smug saying this, but I never really got beyond the (apparently) old-school idea that the rules are just there for when you want them, and should be ignored when you don’t. Even when I was 15 I was gravitating towards systems that were rules-lite (Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Marvel Superheroes) after struggling with others that were rules-heavy (Champions, Rolemaster).

Perhaps those who’ve been faithful to Dungeons & Dragons all these years have felt that their faith demanded an adherence to The Rules, whatever they may be, and some of them are finally ‘seeing the light’. (Born again roleplayers?) They seem to be kind of late coming to the party, though; even my casual interest in the pen-and-paper industry over the last few years has shown me that the trend is towards less rules and more storytelling, although that itself seems to be a bone of contention for some.

In some ways this is a massive exercise in nostalgia, but then there’s really nothing wrong with that. Just as I still cling to my original favourites (and have been interested to see ‘remakes’ of those games, too), so ‘old school roleplayers’ want to get back to what excited them about roleplaying in the very first instance; imagination run riot, and rules be damned.

POSTSCRIPT: I found a very workable description of what ‘old school D&D’ should ‘feel’ like back in the Grognardia archives, which is worth reading in light of this. I’ll admit, it makes me pine for something, although I’m not too sure what.

Somehow John managed to cut our two hours of chat down into a relatively svelte 90 minutes, so if you fancy a listen head on over to the Limited Edition site for more info, and to download.

Lots of work related stuff happening right now – both in my actual work and in potential, possible work. When/if any of it breaks I’ll let you know.

In the interim, I’ll try to come up with a few more things to say around here, but honestly, life’s keepin’ me busy….

Limited Edition, the new podcast from John ‘Shuttler’ Nicholson, ex-host of TabulaCast, and his partner in crime Matt, has moved on to Episode 2 – and said episode has a brand new voice in the mix, namely me! Yes, after hearing episode one of the show I thought I could help these ‘babes in the wood’ on the subject of comics and superhero-type stuff, so I volunteered my services.

Did I completely take over? Are they regretting ever asking me to appear? Did I vent my spleen on the subject of NCsoft? Even worse, did I spill precious secrets about Issue 13???

Of course I bloody didn’t, I’m not stupid. I did, however, have a fantastic time talking to the guys about comics, movies, games, and all sorts – exactly the kind of stuff I love to talk about.

So, if you can handle listening to my dulcet tones when I’m not talking about NCsoft related business (well, not much) then get yourself over to YellowSpandex.com as your starting point. That’s John’s podcast-related blog. If you want to get the episode and subscribe too, then go to the VirginWorlds collective page for the show.

Prepare for awesomeness!!!

(Image by Mat 'Snapshot' Keller. Who else??)

It’s on, baby!!!

To recap the entire day’s events in more detail and give you all the info you need…

(Optional) Activity One: Fiery Food UK

This weekend is the Fiery Food Festival in ol’ Brighton, which means a whole host of spicy, flavourful and downright delicious foods will be on display to be tasted, sampled, feasted upon and bought whole to take home. It’s completely free to come along, browse, and enjoy some great food.

Amanda and I have been going to this for the last few years and it’s always fun. So, assuming that it’s not peeing down with rain (and forecast suggests it won’t be) then we’ll be around and about The Old Steine, which is basically the bit of grass between the town centre and Kemptown, from around 10, 11am onwards.

I’d say “Here’s my mobile, come find us” but I won’t have a new mobile before tomorrow, and this is the internet, what do you think I am, some crazy fool who just gives out his mobile?

More details on the event are right here.

Activity Two: Tropic Thunder!!

We’ve been looking forward to this movie for months, and I’ll be damned if some ‘redundancy’ nonsense is going to stop me from seeing it!! So, please feel free to join us after a (probably hot ‘n’ spicy) lunch for the 3pm showing at the Odeon on West Street. (No West Street jokes, please.)

We’ve booked our tickets in the ‘standard’ seating area, so feel free to do so as well. Book either by visiting www.odeon.co.uk or calling 0871 22 44 007, or indeed just turning up on the day – just don’t blame us if they’re sold out….

Not heard of Tropic Thunder? Feel free to get more info on the movie… right here.

Activity Three: Drinking!! Eating!! Drinking some more!!

Movie should probably finish about 5pm or so, and that gives us more than enough time to saunter across town and head for Moksha Caffe, the (in)famous haunt where I spend more time than is probably healthy. But, all that coffee drinking is finally about to pay off, because the wonderful people there are ready to welcome us with open arms.

What’s that you say? A cafe surely doesn’t serve sweet, sweet booze? WELL THIS ONE DOES… including fabulous caffeinated cocktails (which will be available in a 2-for-1 deal for part of the evening), beers, wines, that wonderful Kopparberg Pear Cider that I know I’ll be getting trashed on, and food as well!!

Seriously, they’re going to treat us right.

During the evening it’s quite possible all or none of the following may happen:

• An impromptu quiz, with all questions focused on dead roleplaying game designers we have loved*
• An auction on behalf of Draw the World Together (You better believe it – cash only, please!)
• A Q&A session which will be notable for the amount of ‘Qs’ asked that get no ‘As’

It’ll be a cracker. If you come for one part of the evening, make it this one. Unless that is you’re a complete insomniac, in which case, HAVE I GOT AN EVENING ACTIVITY FOR YOU…

Activity Four: Gaming Until Your Eyes Fall Out

Yes, our old friends at Gamer Heaven (who have moved premises – this is very important to note if you went to the meet we did at the old Gamer Heaven in 2006…) have allowed us to host an all-night gaming lock-in!!

Starting at (about) 10pm, for just £10 entrance fee you can kick back, relax, and play games ALL NIGHT LONG on their LAN, enjoying some City of Heroes (maybe I’ll even do a Task Force!!), Guild Wars, or indeed Other Games from Other Companies. On top of that they have consoles – there may even be some (whisper it) Rock Band.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, by the way: if you’re looking for somewhere to spend the night in Brighton (admittedly, without a bed, but hey, those chairs are soft)… this is your best option.

Check out the Gamer Heaven site here.

That’s it! What more do you need to know?

Oh yeah: where everything is.

Enter Google Maps, baby! Click here for all the local info.

One last VERY important thing

TELL ME IF YOU’RE COMING. I need numbers, both for Moksha and for Gamer Heaven. (If we get enough, we might get the run of Moksha, which’d be nice.)

Either leave a comment below, or if you can’t comment for some reason, send me an email – details are on the Contact page.

Oh no wait, there was one more tiny thing

That image above? Available in LIMITED EDITION POSTER FORM (well, printed A4 sheets…) on Saturday night. We are that shameless!

SEE YOU THERE!!!

Wait: did I say the costumes looked… good..?

Second: Saturday’s looking good, unlike that codpiece. We’ve got a couple of potential venues, all in easy walking distance of Brighton station. Also, we’re going to investigate the possibility of an all-nighter at a gaming cafe, which could negate the need for people to get a hotel, assuming you can stay awake… we should know more on that tomorrow.

Third: Quite a few ‘things’ have landed in my lap in the last 24 hours. All pretty positive. I don’t want to say much more for fear of jinxing, but hey, perhaps your positive thoughts have done some good!

Fourth and finally: Last day is officially Thursday. Signed my papers and got confirmation of voluntary redundancy today, so come early October I’ll have my money… and then will promptly not spend any of it.

Plenty to keep me busy between now and then though – oh yes. Stay tuned.

With The Dark Knight in US movie theaters today (another week for us to wait here in the UK – thanks, don’t tell me) it seems about the right time to release a movie trailer for Watchmen, doesn’t it?

Go see it right now in HD over at Apple. (And thank God it isn’t hosted on Yahoo!.)

Then come on back; I’ll be waiting.

Try and tell me that doesn’t look like a faithful adaptation of Watchmen – at least with the right beats, the iconic moments from the original. I could probably go through and count the number of shots in there that look practically lifted from the comic, but instead I might as well share my favourite:

Yes. Those of you who have read Watchmen will know just who that is and just what happens next… and I won’t spoil it for those of you who haven’t. (But dammit people, this just won’t fly! You’ve got 230 days – pick up a copy! It don’t read like War & Peace!)

Snyder very smartly places that image really near the front of the trailer, letting fans like me know that at the very least, he knows how to film a comic book panel – although to be fair, he already did that in 300. What he also does though, even before that, is give us the big reveal. Up until now the best image I’d seen of Doctor Manhattan was an action figure. Right up front, he gives us the real thing:

That’s so eerily close to the comic.

I can see the next shot in my head: “Jon..?”

But there’s the proof. There is the damn proof. I don’t think you could have gotten closer to the comic image unless you were making an animated film. I am officially amazed by that.

It felt pretty weird watching this trailer, overall. I think we’re about to see one of the most faithful comic book adaptations ever – right down to the background details. What’s fascinating is to see Dave Gibbons’ alternate 1985, which was simultaneously grimy and gaudy, come to life. I’m not 100 percent sure it’s right, here, yet… but some of the details are wonderful. (Rorschach’s mask can briefly be seen ‘moving’ in the trailer; as soon as I saw it, it seemed perfect.)

And damn, can Snyder shoot some lovely imagery.

Roll on March 2009….