Are there any OD&D players/Refs on this Board

[Larsdangly]

I spent roughly a year (1975/6) using Chainmail to play a game that I couldn't really define but was effectively a solo D&D-esque campaign centered on combatants in a running battle between two groups that lived in a huge home-made castle I had in my room. There were things about it that differed from OD&D (no experience and advancement, other than sometimes promoting a normal person to a hero). But it was definitely a campaign in the sense of tracking the exploits of individuals over a long time. So, I can easily imagine someone running a very D+D like game using those rules.

[Philotomy Jurament]

I started playing D&D (although we didn't call it that, of course) after the Little Wars rules came out in 1913.  Started off as a wargame, but we used our imagination and just ran with it.  I'm pretty old, but hey, it said it was for boys up to 150 (and for the more intelligent sort of girl, too), so I made those words to live by.  I'm pretty old at this point, but I'm not up to 150, so I refuse to shuffle off this mortal coil -- BTB, I don't have to, yet!  (And I still don't even have a brain tumor, although sometimes my wife Laura Anna says it sure seems like I do!)

[EOTB]

What would be most helpful to all the people here would be if Crimhthan can share the time management tips that allowed him to read two full books every day of his life, while working, raising his family, and still managing to keep his 45-year campaign going.

[tenbones]

Jesus Christ... someone gaming longer than Geezer. How is it possible you don't know one another? I thought all the Antediluvian's knew one another?

[Crimhthan]

... but if you wanted more polite you came to the wrong place to post.

If I was concerned about politeness I would stay off the internet. Besides how could you all be any worse than DF or RPG.Net or the KKK of old school forums.

Welcome to the board.

So what were pre OD&D days of your campaign like? After reading the various anecdotes, Playing at the World, Hawk & Moor, etc my impression that there a lot of variations between different groups in how they played so it would be interesting to hear how you managed things.

We had four teams of two players each, and I was the judge. Each team had so much in funds + or - a random amount, which which to buy troops and fortifications and other resouces. Then a random draw for the fantasy monsters. I devised the terrain and created four starting points and then randomly placed the teams. As play went on we gradually moved to each team being able to devise both general orders for the troops and specific orders for the fantasy creatures to adding specific orders for up to 12 individuals of the regular troops who became able to advance to hero and superhero one step at a time. We also made the maps bigger and devised a great variety of ways for the players to reach the actual sand table where the battles took place so that knowing where your opponent was could be a mystery for quite a while. Scouts became very important. We later added crystal balls to the game and a succesful crystal ball check while very difficult to achieve had great strategic value. One of the later adds was to provide a secret cache of resources in each territory that each team had to try to locate first to gain an advantage in the battles. Each cache could be anything up to an including something to bribe an opponent with. Those are a few things.

What would be most helpful to all the people here would be if Crimhthan can share the time management tips that allowed him to read two full books every day of his life, while working, raising his family, and still managing to keep his 45-year campaign going.

I will treat this like a serious question. I learned to read at between 4-5 years old, my parents kept an ample supply of books around and encouraged me to read so I read several books a day throughout childhood and by the 7th grade I taught myself to turn the little voice in my head off and that upped my reading speed tremendously. We did not have any TV in our home (or internet or cell phone) throughout my entire childhood. We did sometimes gather around the radio for things like "The Shadow".  I remember once when I was about 9 or 10 years old, it was really rainy weather and my mother took me to the library and I took out 10 books, two days later I had to talk her into taking me back again. By my teens I had a discreet arrangement with the public library and I was allowed to take out as many books as I could carry at a time, usually about 20-25. Through my working years my reading declined a lot, but still I read a lot since I can read most books of up to about 220 pages in about an hour. I read fairy tales, mythology, myths and legends , folk tales, mysteries, westerns, adventure, science fiction, fantasy, history, science, autobiographies and lots of other things. I spent 47 years on the job, from 18-65, but I piled up big numbers before I left school and I have piled up the numbers over the last 13 years of retirement, but I held my own during my working years. Also you have to remember that a standard paperback used to run between 170-250 pages with anything longer being rather uncommon. The day of the 600-1100 page paperback book is a rather recent phenomena. I count a 600 pager as two books and an 1100 pager as 4 books.

I also remember reading of Harlan Ellison that at the age of about 32 or so he owned over 30,000 books and had read all of them and maintained a writing career while doing so. I believe that there are people out there that work for a living and still have managed to read quite a bit more than I do. I have met a couple of people in my life who could read about three times the speed that I can and then demonstrated that they had photographic memories to boot. I would love to have that increased speed but I would be joyous beyond measure to have a photographic memory with an organized and indexed recall.

I thought all the Antediluvian's knew one another?

My being from Ohio, and not Wisconsin would likely explain it.

[aspiringlich]

Yeah, see my post with this info from DF back in 2007 before I was perma-banned by Steve the Admin there.

What got you banned?

[Crimhthan]

What got you banned?

I was unabashedly old school and championed OD&D. I had ongoing battles with an idiot that was a mod and went by Egg of Coot and several other pseudo old schoolers. And several members of the KKK of old school forums regularly attacked me there and other places. Steve felt it was easier to ban one person than to ban the dozen or so that were starting the fights.

[EOTB]

What got you banned?

I was unabashedly old school and championed OD&D. I had ongoing battles with an idiot that was a mod and went by Egg of Coot and several other pseudo old schoolers. And several members of the KKK of old school forums regularly attacked me there and other places. Steve felt it was easier to ban one person than to ban the dozen or so that were starting the fights.

Unfortunately it took banning a dozen or so to get rid of the one person starting the fights.  

Crimhthan may have found a home here, though.  I don't recall an explicit rule at theRPGSite against sock puppetry.

[ligedog]

Unfortunately it took banning a dozen or so to get rid of the one person starting the fights.  

Crimhthan may have found a home here, though.  I don't recall an explicit rule at theRPGSite against sock puppetry.

The RPGSite welcomes all sorts of outlaws and renegades (with certain exceptions).  At least the sock puppetry doesn't seem to be in support of anything in particular.

[Chainsaw]

The RPGSite welcomes all sorts of outlaws and renegades (with certain exceptions).  At least the sock puppetry doesn't seem to be in support of anything in particular.

Deep cover Crimhthan sock puppet! Get him!

[ligedog]

It's been a long 8 years lurking but it was totally worth it!

[Mordred Pendragon]

It's real easy to get permabanned from RPG.Net, I was literally banned for expressing a different opinion about WoD. I shit you not (though I was pretty adamant about it, which may have led to my downfall). Anyway, that whole part of my life is something I am ashamed of and I'd rather leave it behind, so let's get back to discussing OD&D and old-school gaming.

So, are there any good retro-clones of OD&D worth checking out? I know of the retro-clones but I don't know the specific details as to which clone corresponds to which edition of old-school D&D.

[Chainsaw]

So, are there any good retro-clones of OD&D worth checking out? I know of the retro-clones but I don't know the specific details as to which clone corresponds to which edition of old-school D&D.

Probably worth its own thread.

[Exploderwizard]

It's real easy to get permabanned from RPG.Net, I was literally banned for expressing a different opinion about WoD. I shit you not (though I was pretty adamant about it, which may have led to my downfall). Anyway, that whole part of my life is something I am ashamed of and I'd rather leave it behind, so let's get back to discussing OD&D and old-school gaming.

So, are there any good retro-clones of OD&D worth checking out? I know of the retro-clones but I don't know the specific details as to which clone corresponds to which edition of old-school D&D.

Swords & Wizardry White box edition and Delving Deeper are two closest clones to OD&D that I am aware of.

There are many other old school clones out there and most of them are free to download, so you can compare and use whatever suits your personal tastes the best.

I hope that WOTC eventually puts the OD&D rules back in pdf form. It would be nice to have affordable legal copies of the original material available again.

[Crimhthan]

Unfortunately it took banning a dozen or so to get rid of the one person starting the fights.  

Crimhthan may have found a home here, though.  I don't recall an explicit rule at theRPGSite against sock puppetry.

:rotfl: well if he's banned anyone on my account he has banned a lot of innocent bystanders. The last time I took a look at DF all of the troublemakers and fake old schoolers were still there. In fact it looks like the KKK of rpg forums has staged a coup and taken over since I was banned years ago. As far as sock puppets I am mighty amused that anyone seriously thinks I know enough about computers to create one. There is nothing on DF that I need to login to look at, so why bother.:thanx: