Fitting tribute
Does anyone else think we should start a fund to build a mausoleum for E. Gary Gygax (who died Monday), based on the layout of the Tomb of Horrors? I mean, building a gelatinous cube and the sphere of annihilation would be a challenge, but it would be so worth it. Plus, Lake Geneva could use a tourist attraction. So what if it would kill 98% of the people who went into it.
Image thanks to Mad Irishman, and is probably © Wizards of the Coast
Update: It also appears that EGG’s death is causing a number of people to break out their old, original D&D books to play “tribute” games. I suspect that people might wind up seeing how much better the original was in some ways (worse in others, of course). For example, people who have never played a D&D game that didn’t involve feats may be in for a surprise. It would be cool if this brought more people to the idea that simple rules sets are often better, and bail out on all these systems that are built around micro-rules, such as feats and charms and spells and so on, that really exist as a driver to sell more books.
For those itching for some original AD&D goodness, but who don’t have the books and can’t find them in a torrent somewhere (*cough*), there is an alternative. The Old School Reference & Index Compilation (OSRIC) is an open license version of what are basically the original AD&D rules, legally sanitized to remove “artistic representation” and trademarks owned by TSR Wizards of the Coast. Happy hunting.
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1Adam Says:
March 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Interesting that you bring up Tri-Stat as one of the simple systems — I always thought that while Tri-Stat was simple in play, character generation was so big and open to interpretation that I think many people get discouraged by it, and “mastery of chargen” has a lot of effect on the gameplay.