Hey, thanks to @Grotonomus, folks are listing the games they hope to play/run in this new year. For everyone’s information, I will be offering, for BSers, as much Conan 2d20 as there is interest (first game announcement coming very soon). I also will offer at least one Cinematic scenario of the Alien RPG (I want to run it first for my regular group, so that BSers can have a more polished experience: it can be pretty roleplay-heavy). There is at least one more game that I am fully capable of offering, but I’m uncertain just what experience those who hope to play it also hope to get out of it. This is Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. The difficulty I foresee with this one is inherent in its D&D nature (everyone is invited to disagree with me here, of course). Whereas Conan 2d20 and Alien RPG have standardized rules systems and typically run in an episodic format, D&D, more than most games, is not played the same way everywhere. AS&SH’s rules are more codified than many OSR games, but, even so, were I to run it, I would prefer to add some house rules (mostly for increased PC survivability at early levels, as one example as to why). But I wonder if this would counter player expectations. Hence, this survey. What do folks want out of AS&SH? Some possibilities:
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Do you want to experience Jeffrey Talanian’s articulation of D&D entirely rules as written?
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Are you rather more interested in exploring the weird fantasy tone of his human-centric Hyperborean setting?
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Are you interested in trying out one of his custom-made character classes (even though Talanian warns that some old school Referees very well may limit player selection to the classic four)?
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Do you want to play in one or more of the “official” Hyperborean adventures for an “authentic” experience?
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Do you want this experience to be confined to a single adventure or session (as with convention play), or do you hope to explore a longer campaign?
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Do you just want to play some D&D, and this seems to be an interesting flavor?
Without anticipating any answers to these questions, one of the approaches I have been considering is simply to run Talanian’s introductory adventure “Rats in the Walls” for interested folks and see where—if anywhere—we want to go from there. Even so, I think even a single, introductory adventure will be a challenge to me, because my own “brand” of D&D, based on Swords & Wizardry, is so engrained in my consciousness and practice that running AS&SH may pose an insurmountable code-switch for me, and I’m trying to gauge how much any latent variation on my part would matter to prospective gamers.
Just some thoughts.
