Friday, October 15, 2010

Old School D&D = Getting Naked


Sorry for the laziness, folks...it's been a lazy day off for me today (well, at least as far as blogging is concerned). However, I got good stuff from last night's game down at Gary's Games in Greenwood. Hoo-boy...it'll probably be three or four posts, which I don't have time to throw up right now. However, some random thoughts:

- Old School D&D (that whole "challenge the player, not the stat block" thang) often involves getting naked...either purposefully, or not (anyone ever play the original Tomb of Horrors?). Aside from the naked encounter that started off the session (a little female frontal), different player characters ended up stripping down to absolute nude on two separate occasions (and a quick strip would have been helpful for a third "near-drowning" incident except for timely help from other party members). More on THIS later.

- I'm like Labyrinth Lord a little less these days...I AM still playing B/X D&D of course, but LL has been present at the table in multiple hands every session, including last night. And it's always particularly jarring when we run across discrepancies between the two systems (more disconcerting because every time I introduce LL to someone, I tell them it's a near perfect duplicate of B/X). I'm not talking about AD&D level spell adaptations, I'm talking about basic magic items from the Moldvay set that function completely different! More on this later, as well.

- I'm getting soft...no one died last night, but four folks (maybe more) got "let off the hook" by Yours Truly. This will be discussed in detail when we get to the actual play posts. Suffice is to say, there were some situations that would have spelled instant death in the past that I let slide. However, if I was guilty of letting a couple folks through, it had more to do with wanting them to survive to the later rooms (and even deadlier dangers!) rather than killing 'em off two encounters into the game.

All right, have to go...I'll post more later!
: )

7 comments:

  1. I just want to make sure i'm clear on this, it is the character, not the player, getting naked.

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  2. Depends on how much a protege of Zak he wants to be.

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  3. Stop helping Trollsmyth justify his behavior. :P

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  4. Given the physical shape and appearance of most players, I hope it is just the PCs stripping down. Did the stripping down involve pillow fights? How much grief did the players give each other over this?

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  5. A southerner would note the difference between "getting naked" and "getting nekkid". The latter being creepier in a rpg session.

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  6. @ Everyone: Jeez, guys...
    ; )

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  7. FYI, the 4E Tomb of Horrors can still force people to get naked. When I tried it out, the whole damn party wound up naked. ;)

    But you do have a point that this used to happen more often.

    We had a near-TPK in my Sunday group's last session. We wound up recovering the Cleric's body but not his equipment. Naked, as you say. Fun times! :)

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