MJ's Gaming Solutions

I showed up for the weekly Champions game, last Saturday, and we didn’t have enough players for the GM to feel a benefit from running the story he’s been carefully crafting over the past several months.

I offered to run Dungeons & Dragons, from the 1974 edition of rules that I’ve been toting around and burrowing through lately.

Fifteen minutes later we had two Fighting-Man characters and a Magic-User character ready to go delving. With a paltry 1d6 hit points each (+1 for the Fighting-Man characters), and 3d6 x 10 gold pieces spent on their armaments, I sketched a quick background for our tale. The players stitched their player characters (PCs) into the story; a tale as old as time - brash adventurers who had grown up together in the same small village - Rivermount.

Most of the time when players asked for details about the world, I pushed back on them to create that piece of OUR world. For example, one player named the hometown during our session. Over the decades that I’ve been running D&D and other RPGs, I’ve learned to lean back - be the adjudicator and the guide and not necessarily the sole architect of the world. This technique worked well last weekend.

For my part, I knew there was a dungeon to be delved, but didn’t know where it was in relation to “home town.” Another player determined that the ruins to be delved were a half day march from the home village. They set out at dawn and arrived near midday. I took note and these things became part of our growing world.

The best part of using such a classic set of rules with such a quick character creation system was that the players began roleplaying almost immediately. There was more role play in this session than I’d seen in many of my recent sessions using newer and more complex game systems.

Throughout the week, I’ve been mapping and adding to the world. Going back to the original rules has been a fun way of reengaging with my beloved D&D.