HotDC Goes A Different Route

A while back, I had noticed the OSRIC project (linked on the right) and was impressed. On some of the forums, it was debated whether they could really do this, legally speaking. But those guys did their home work. They seem to have done a good job to recreate the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. There's a lot of love out there for that game, and it seems a shame that it is out of print. OSRIC seeks to keep the spirit of that game alive.

I was unaware of a second attempt being made, this one to recreate second edition Basic D&D, or the Moldvay/Cook edition of the game, when I began jotting down notes for my own attempt at doing a game. My first thought was to do what the OSRIC guys did, but with Basic D&D. However, I decided to go a different route, opting instead for a system using six sided dice. But a couple weeks ago, I noticed something that had completely slipped my attention.

We do have an effort out there to recreate Basic D&D, and it's called Basic Fantasy (linked on the right). Except for the decision to make Armor Class better the higher it is, as they do in 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons these days, Basic Fantasy is a pretty faithful recreation. And, it's a free download. The man behind this project is offering a printed version at Lulu, and at no profit for himself. He simply wants a new generation of gamers to enjoy a game that he loves.

In a perfect world, D&D's owners Wizards Of The Coast, a (division of Hasbro) would print the old first edition AD&D and Moldvay/Cook rule books. I know several people who would purchase them. You can download these books over at Paizo's website, for a small fee, but there's nothing like owning an official printed copy. Will that day ever come? One can only hope.

But back to HotDC, I could have gone the way the others had gone, but I wanted to try something different. I wanted to create my own RPG. Eliminating the other five dice is probably not the smartest move, considering how so many people are used to those dice. But, my thinking is that if a non gamer downloads Heroes of the Dungeon Crawl or gets a printed copy and they are new to the RPG, chances are they will have dice from a board game.

I also want to attempt to make a playable game using six sided dice that can prove to be every bit as fun as the others. It will have a familiar feel to the old Basic game, but it will be different as well. The important thing is that I plan to make it easy enough to be able to play within a few minutes. The challenge will be to make it a game that can be played "board game style" or traditional campaign style. As I type this, I'm not entirely sure I can accomplish what I propose, but I am excited about the attempt. It will be fun to find out.