Year's Beginning

Welcome to the year 2015, wherein I seek to fulfill my promise to update Applied Phantasticality with greater regularity. I previously alluded to several projects I would attempt to finish this year. Now I shall unveil the nature of those projects.

Project #1: My Swords & Wizardry White Box variant (the title of which will be revealed when it is ready to be released into the wild). This is simply a codification of the rules I currently prefer to use when I run anything related to Dungeons & Dragons. Whereas I used to run a hybrid of Basic/Expert D&D and 1st edition AD&D, I now prefer a system that is closer to how I have always actually run D&D, which is a lot closer to OD&D. The difference now is that I have embraced the unified saving throw and ascending armor class of Swords & Wizardry. I can't leave well enough alone, of course, which is why I need to present my version of the Original Game with all of my house rules properly integrated. This will make things easier for players and referees alike.

Project #2: Cargoes & Castaways. This is my role-playing game of 19th Century fantastic survival adventure inspired by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Ray Harryhausen. I originally designed it as my entry for the Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day contest, but Blogger had trouble presenting something so large even after I broke it into chapters, so I deleted the posts with the intention of releasing it at a later date as a PDF. I still intend to do this, but the rules need to be revised, playtested, and revised again. Once I do that, I'll release it. If I can find appropriate illustrations, I might even make it available on Lulu as a print-on-demand book.

Project #3: My Empire of the Petal Throne-to-Swords & Wizardry White Box conversion. I hope to do this quickly so I can run it this year as part of the Tékumél anniversary. I'll probably release the rules before they have been playtested in order to get as wide a range of responses as possible. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get a chance to play some games set in Tékumél at BASHCon or Origins this year. I don't even care which system is used. [Edit: Incidentally, literally none of this came to pass, and now I am relieved it didn't. (23 March 2022)]

Project #4: One Page Dungeon Contest? Maybe...

Those are my Big Four OSR projects for 2015. I have other gaming projects in the works, but they are mostly outside the scope of this Web log.