Picture: Blackrazor from White Plume Mountain (TSR) by Bill Willingham
I recently blogged about the history of D&D here. I have played the game since I was around eleven including all its versions and incarnations.
I recently decided to go back to the TSR era for my next game and was thinking a lot about what I liked about the game, why the newer editions bothered me and how to approach writing for the new games. It turns out that a lot of other people are having the same thoughts and many of them are cerebral and good writers.
So, I'm going to present four models of play or theories of the game that help to illustrate the issues I've been thinking on. They don't represent absolutes and there are many in-betweens.
1) The Eternal Dungeon or Gauntlet Play (here)
James Maliszewski (Grognardia Blog):
2) The Hickman / Dragonlance Revolution (here)
3) The Toolbox, Closed Matrix and the problem of Railroading (here)
4) The Zen of Oldschool Gameplay (here)
I decided on these divisions after reading how other people expressed and ordered them. I'd better link and credit these sources, who did it all first:
James Maliszewski (Grognardia Blog):
Matt Finch's A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
If you then read comments and surf around, you will find a lot more discussion and materials. I have linked the main ones that I found and liked - and that I'm going to borrow from heavily.
