March 21, 2009

Around the blogs...


Wow... it has almost been a month since I did my last "Around the blogs..." Saturday morning schtick. Well, this is not to say that I haven't been trying my best to keep up to date with the goings on around the RPG blogging community. Here's a healthy dose of what I've been into over the last few weeks...you'll notice it centers around one topic really... Old School D&D.

It seems I'm on a OD&D binge. I blame James Maliszewski's blog Grognardia. He keeps reeling me in with his Gygaxian Naturalism, among other things. This then inevitable bleeds over into other great OD&D blogs as well. Heck, this time around I even ended up posting a couple things about OD&D and 4E here at The Core Mechanic.
  1. "Gygaxian Unnaturalism" One of my all time favorite OD&D posts was J.M.'s post about "Gygaxian Naturalism" from last September. Now, he follows up with a response of sorts to the impact his post has had on the RPG community. "Gygaxian fantasy takes place not in a wholly magical world, but instead in a natural world to which magic has been added, which is why magic often gets a great deal more attention in his writings." Jump over to his post to get the full story.
  2. Necromancer Games is going Classic 4E - a mix of OD&D and 4E at the same game table. "Classic 4e--Will It Fly?" at RPG Blog II led me to the announcement.
  3. Since that post, it seems some people have gone ahead and jumped in. Greywulf is running a series of posts "Like It's 1981 All Over Again" parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Honestly, I have rpgenvy. From what I have read thus far, it looks like he is have a blast.
  4. There's been a ton of Get of My Lawn style OD&D posts in the last month. I don't know why the resurgence; but the tone has definitely changed. Donny the DM picked up on this a few weeks ago with "Old School vs. New School - Or how to properly destroy something all profess to love." Not only is this a great post -- that can only center your thinking -- but the comments are well worth the digg as well.
  5. I guess much of the OD&D crowd is looking back, thinking things were better before. Maybe we should all do what Scott did and answer"What D&D Is (To Me)". Maybe with a little reflection on the hobby we might put away the hatchets.
  6. Finally, after reading dozens of OD&D articles lamenting the better days of the hobby, I finally joined in the echo chamber in a weak attempt to bring the two tribes together with "Old School vs. New School: Have we lost our way?". I even made some suggestions as to how we might play nice and how a 4E campaign could be houseruled to play a bit more like OD&D - but that too was met with some gnashing of teeth. At least the ensuing discussions those posts brought on were worth it - heck, I was even honored with a post response by Tales of the Rumbling Bumblers with "4e For Grognards?".
Well that's been about it. Oh, of course I have been also EXTREMELY HAPPY that the Open Game Table anthology has already received a huge number of previews. It literally seems like every time I check my feed reader, my Technorati feed tells me another kind blogger has linked to an Open Game Table post. THANK YOU! Most recently there have been TONS of previews... check them out...

OK.. finally I need to point out one last post. My head exploded when I read it. (for me that's a big complement; its a good thing). Ben Robbins did it again with "Grand Experiments: We’ll always have Lorngard". If you read nothing else -- check out his post at Ars Ludi.

Your head will explode.
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1 comment:

  1. LMPjr007March 22, 2009 at 6:42 AM

    I was just wondering if you had a seen this blog with the concept of creating a Worldwide OGL Game Day? See the blog here: http://lpjd.blogspot.com/2009/03/worldwide-ogl-game-day.html.

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