Forays into Gamism
For years, I played only pen-&-paper games that fell either into the broad category of Narrativism, or into the special class of funny games, such as Great Ork Gods. (Yes, yes, all usual caveats about games not being G, N or S apply, but you know what I mean.) But, lo and behold, I have recently made some forays into gamism, by playing all three editions of Dungeons and Dragons. The results were, shall we say, mixed . Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition , red book, is a relatively easy system. I played a "play this without a GM" adventure together with Jasper Polane. I have forgotten the adventure's title, but it was an official TSR offering, and consisted of exploring an old, abandoned castle in a swamp. The game was hilarious, but for all the wrong reasons. First, the system doesn't really seem to facilitate tactics at all. Character creation options are minimal, and there appeared to be an utter lack of interesting combat manoeuvres as well. Our elf could att...