Semi-new direction

I'll be taking a different approach to this blog with the renewal.

I'm going to post a regular long essay each weekend, normally Saturday morning. It will be about philosophy of RPGs at some level. Most will be about either what I want to revive from old school gaming back when I started. Some will be about the new school things I think are worth adding to old school.

During the week I'll post shorter bits about the new campaign I'm trying to build. I was going to call it "Old School Take 2" but I think that's mis-leading. While I consider it old school and certainly it draws on my first 5-10 years in the hobby (1978 to mid-80s) I think it will be very different from what most think is old school. I think a primary element of that will be a strong divorce from the main literary thrust of the OD&D era even though I'll retain what I consider key principles of old school roleplaying as opposed to old school D&D.

As an aside, I suspect that difference as much as nostalgia is behind much of the reaction to Carcosa billing itself as Supplement V. To me the differences it has from the other four (as discussed by James Maliszewski) put it in that part of the old school that was breaking away from the literary (and other) inspiration that informed OD&D and early AD&D. While I have yet to obtain my copy (a full review will come when I get it) from what I have seen to me Carcosa may be a vital injection of the rest of the old school into the current old school movement.