Interest in an Old School Revival (OSR) Dungeon Crawl?
So, I play or GM a number of narrative-intense campaigns across various game systems and genres and I enjoy all of them very much. However, I've recently become interested in the OSR retro-clones of the early D&D games (i.e. Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, OSRIC, Blueholme, etc.) and I'm craving some old-school dungeon delve action.
I want gauge the interest in starting a fast-paced, rules-light, episodic, dungeon delve series of games using the free Basic Fantasy Role Playing system (a modern re-imagining of the 1981 Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D). Here are some proposed details:
- Daily posting for a 6-8 week planned dungeon run. It sounds like a lot but I want your time commitment to be less than 10 minutes per day. I'm not looking for a chapter-long, publication-quality work of prose fiction with every post. A daily post would be two or three sentences describing your character's next action (in appropriately heroic/cinematic terms) and a snip of your dice roller results if you think a roll may be required. The key is posting rate and consistency to keep the action moving.
- A focus on the action. I don't plan to spend any time at the tavern before the adventure. We'll go with the trope that the characters met each other in town and decided to adventure together. The narrative will begin at the entrance to the dungeon.
- Streamlined character RTJ's. I would be looking for a confirmation that you're willing to commit to a few weeks of participation and a character concept of no more than 5 sentences that describes your hero and their motivations. Character creation in the Basic Fantasy RPG is also very simple and quick.
- An expectation that character deaths may occur from time to time. For this reason, I'll ask accepted players to roll up two characters at the start (a primary and an alternate). If the primary dies, the alternate will inherit the XP, wealth and magic items of the primary.
- Episodic action. What I mean by this is that once the first dungeon is finished, those that want to continue can do so with their existing characters (or new ones) and new players will be welcome to fill in any gaps. I'm not asking for a multi-year campaign commitment. Play through one dungeon and then continue, take a break or quit as you prefer. If you sit out one or more dungeons and want to jump back in later, you'll be welcome.
- Open applications. I would be willing to launch new dungeon groups whenever we get enough players to fill out a party.
Those are just some initial thoughts. Please reply if this sounds like something that you would like to participate in!
