Keep on the Borderlands, Modern Gamers, and Small Cons

[Jeffr0]

I ran module B2 Keep on the Borderlands with the redbook rules from the Moldvay boxed set at a small convention for eight hours with a random sample of modern gamers. This is what happened.

Breaking the Ice -- Yeah, I didn't think anyone would show.

Adventures in Time and Space -- I tried out someone else's Doctor Who game.

Goblinoid Genocide in the Caves of Chaos -- How do modern gamers react when faced with the central moral quandaries of early eighties gaming?

The Brief Adventuring Career of an Illustrious Elven Lord -- No, I did not plan for the inevitable player versus player thing, so I just let the players deal with it on their own.

Encountering Jack McDevitt -- Professional writers have a lot good gaming advice.

Wandering Geek Girl Check -- Not what I was expecting.

Game Mastering Panel Discussion -- Wow... modern game masters really are different. I had no idea. Seriously.

The Kobayashi Maru of Old School Gaming -- How you face death is at least as important as how you face life. (Especially in my game!)

The Hobgoblin's Pantry -- Game over, man. Game over!

The State of the Borderlands -- I decided to summarize the overall campaign state so that you can see how player actions impact the game environment even in defeat. Gygax's direction on monster learning is probably his least followed advice, so I really tried to pay attention to that.

Keep on the Borderlands and Modern Gamers -- But what did the players really think...?

Party Size, Game Balance, and Difficulty Level in Old School Games -- This is my response to some criticism of my game mastering choices.

Brain Storming about Resource Tracking -- This is the one area that I really want to rethink and revisit before doing this again.

...

Okay, yeah.

That's not Prime Directive. Based on the turnout to typical Serenity and Doctor Who games, I think people would show up to Prime Directive. BUT... my read of this particular crowd is that GURPS will not help you and could be the difference between having three players and a half dozen. However, after doing these sessions, I think I now grok how to run Traveller or any other wide open sandboxy mega-game. I no longer fear extreme levels of player autonomy. And... I have finally realized my dream of running a mini-campaign rpg thing at a con. I'm not sure what the next thing will be... but I'm getting ideas....

[mjwest]

That was pretty cool! Thanks for posting them.