My buddies and I that do a monthly-ish geekfest have off and on played pen-and-paper RPGs, but never gotten a campaign to really stick. I’ve given it a lot of thought (I’m generally the game master in these things), and I think it’s at least partially due to the meta-work needed. I’m an old, experienced game master…but at this point in my life, the emphasis has to be on the “old”; it’s been 10+ years since I’ve GM’d a game regularly. I still have all the skills, but they’re optimized for old systems. In the meantime, I keep trying different stuff with my buddies, because we all of course like novelty. Some of these guys are old-school pen-and-paper types, but some aren’t…inflicting a new system on them every 6 months isn’t doing anything for their ability to get into the campaign. So I needed to re-strategize.

(Plus…I gave away my 1st edition rulebooks back in the early 90s. That didn’t help!)

So I finally decided that ideally, if I could replace my old rules and just DM an old-school 1st edition campaign, it’d be the minimum extra work for me, and for most of the players (half of them used to play back in the day). And lo and behold…my co-geekfester Steve and I were out putzing about yesterday, and look what they had at the local game shop:

They didn’t have a Player’s Handbook, but I tracked one down on eBay; no worries. It’s on it’s way. And the Monster Manual isn’t necessary straight off; basic monster stats are in the DMG, and I mostly know them all anyway. Let the gaming begin! This should be fun.

(Aside: I’m one of those old cantankerous RPG-types that thinks even 2nd edition AD&D was blasphemy, so 3, er, 3.5…4th edition was Out Of The Question. Just to clarify. *grin*)