Something, some memetic brainworm has got me thinking and the caffeine makes my fingers itch. I got Lathan's Gold - TSR's XSOLO 9082 a few weeks back and it opened a whole can of nostalgia. I read about somebody's sandbox hex-crawl (west crawl?) campaign. I found my standby solo game of long-ago, Barbarian Prince, here. (and doubtless I will take up Cal Arath's sword again nigh the end of the day). For a guy like your humble author, out in the woods with little bandwidth and few social contacts that game, solo adventuring reminds me of the early 1980's. At that time, I had Telengard and The Temple of Apshai. When I grew weary of those, I turned to Choose Your Own Adventure (hideously unplayable) and the Lone Wolf series, later.
The rise of computer gaming and the internet has brought thousands of gamers and role-players together instantly and without distance as a consideration, and I kind of dig the whole OSR that has spurted up. Frankly, I don't much like the 3.5 version of AD&D that is very popular where I live. My first "sort of" invite to a gaming group in about 20 years occurred yesterday in the front end of a Staples and although my heart hammered when the guy started talking Call of Cthulhu he said the group's standard fare is 3.5 D&D and my mouth went dry. I can't afford new books after this DCC purchase - the reason I got out of RPGs in first place was the way my group got into powergaming and feats. I dunno. We'll see if beggars are choosers and how the thing plays out.
Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I have been thinking about using Twine as a way to cook up a solo PnP gaming diversion in the style of Lathan's Gold and Barbarian Prince. Sort of a pre-IBM micromanager's dungeon quest. I envision a caravan of Rothe guarded by grim soldiers who quiver at the sounds of the mushroom forests that circle the city of the deep gnomes with whom they trade. Pretty nebulous at the moment, but I drew inspiration from the Lathan's Gold cover (IIRC was prone to almost instant destruction when erased by a pencil). I can offer THIS hideous concoction to the gaming world, on which you may tally and check-mark to your heart's content, should you aim your caravan into the depths of the underdark or across vast sandy wastes.
Cherrios - they count as standard rations, if you're wondering.
Next up: a slithering, ghoulish patron for DCC. Possibly another persistent horror. Both in the style of the Old Ones that haunt Aereth.
Further down the line: A campaign-setting using a mix of Clark Ashton Smith's France, and the Darklands RPG of the early 1990s. Saints as patrons? Of course!
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