I’m still getting the technical stuff worked out, so you’ll need to turn your speakers up and I lost the last five seconds or so. But we’re making progress in the right direction. Enjoy!
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Jason’s reading list:
RPGs
D&D 5e Player’s Handbook
D&D 5e Dungeon Master’s Guide
N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God (AD&D; currently DMing)
Star Wars RPG: Mask of the Pirate Queen (currently playing as PC)
Other books
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Playing at the World by Jon Peterson
Recently completed
AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide (3rd read-through)
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For Horror, read the Call of Cthulhu RPG to get a feel for investigation, horror, and sanity. Read the Ravenloft and Masque of the Red Death box sets or the current Curse of Strahd campaign to understand fantasy horror learning more toward gothic.
For medieval or low fantasy, read the Pendragon RPG, Ars Magica, or the original Greyhawk campaign materials.
For high fantasy, read the Sorcerer’s Crusade from White Wolf or Pathfinder RPG, or the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance campaign materials.
For post apocalyptic, read Mutant: Year Zero RPG or Gamma World RPG, or the Dark Sun campaign materials.
For steampunk, read Castle Falkenstein RPG or Victoriana RPG, or the Eberron campaign materials.
For asian inspired, read Legend of the Five Rings or Qin: The Warring States RPG, or the Oriental Adventures book or Kara Tur campaign materials.
For space travel, read Space 1889 RPR or Starfinder RPG, or the Spelljammer campaign materials.
For Humor, read Toon and Paranoia to get a feel for humor in RPGs. Then try playing in a Toon Dungeon at Gen Con or other convention. Such a hilarious take running through a classic AD&D/D&D module while playing a Toon.
I could go on, but you get the picture. There have been AD&D/D&D campaigns that cross many genres.
T.R., you come through for us once more. Great insights!
I just hope at times my decades of AD&D/D&D trivia and minutia that found niches in my brain can be useful for others.
Its interesting, my 1e experience was not a great deal different from my 4e experience, either in terms of flavour or lethality. I needed to create some out-of-combat mechanics for 4e, but most of that was merely adapting existing mechanics to new uses.
I will say if you are having problems with lethality in 1e, and if you are not already aware of it, it is worth having a look at p. 82 of the DMG under “Zero Hit Pioints”. Negative hit points have been a thing for a while.
We’re definitely not having problems with lethality, so much as we’re having problems with LeRoy Jenkins.
Ah, yes, 1e is not an edition for the incautious. Although Leeroy would have died in my 4e campaign, too. I think I’ve killed more characters in 4e than 1e.
I take a lot of inspiration from movies and video games. I ran a DarkSun game and used an inspired story from the Fallout series of video games. Changed Steel Brotherhood to the Bone Brotherhood, etc., also worked in some Mad Max inspired content as well. The beauty of any RPG is the setting is yours to flesh out. The whole “rules are guidelines” applies to everything. What’s important to the players is that the DM remains consistent with rulings as much as story and design.
At my table we call it, what we know and what we don’t know. Once we as a group define what we know, it becomes canon. What we don’t know, drives the story and assist in defining the setting.