Dungeons & Dragons simulacrums

Dungeons & Dragons simulacrums are restatements of rule-sets no longer supported by Wizards of the Coast. They are made possible by the terms of the Open Game License and System Reference Document, which allows the use of much of the proprietary terminology of Dungeons & Dragons that might otherwise collectively constitute a copyright infringement.

History

Game simulacra, also called "retro-clones", were preceded by a number of other similar projects that made use of the D20 System, such as True20, Basic Fantasy, and Castles & Crusades, which each presented a different version of the D20 game rules, which used a twenty-sided die to determine important game outcomes.

Role-playing game publisher Matthew Finch was involved in the development of Castles & Crusades, serving as editor of the Player's Handbook, and was the initial author of OSRIC 1.0, which was afterward taken up by Stuart Marshall and released to the public in 2006 as a simulacrum of the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977–1989). The release was met with considerable online controversy, but nevertheless served to prompt another game designer, Daniel Proctor, to write and release Labyrinth Lord in 2007, a more complete simulacrum of Dungeons & Dragons B/X (1981–1982). The following year, Finch announced the release of Swords & Wizardry, ostensibly a simulacrum of the original Dungeons & Dragons game (1974–1977). OSRIC 2.0 was released to the public in early 2009, which presented a more complete version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules.

Many variants have appeared since the original release of OSRIC, as well as restatements of other editions of Dungeons & Dragons and other adventure role-playing games. The games are fostered and supported online by various forums and blogs, sometimes collectively referred to as the Old School Renaissance (OSR), but are also increasingly finding their way into brick and mortar game stores.

Old School Reference & Index Compilation (OSRIC)

Old School Reference & Index Compilation (OSRIC)

Designer(s)	Stuart Marshall
Publisher(s)	First Edition Society Black Blade Publishing
Publication date	2006 (1.0); 2009 (2.0)
Years active	2006-present
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Playing time	Varies
Random chance	Dice rolling
Skill(s) required	Role-playing, improvisation, tactics, arithmetic
Website	http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/

OSRIC, short for Old School Reference and Index Compilation, describes itself as "a compilation of rules for old school-style fantasy gaming...intended to reproduce underlying rules used in the late 1970s to early 1980s".^[1] It is a role-playing game. Although OSRIC never refers to this directly for legal reasons, it is intended to reproduce the rules of the first edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

The legal basis of the project is that rules may not be copyrighted, only the "artistic presentation" of those rules.^[2] OSRIC uses the Open Gaming License and the System Reference Document to create a new artistic presentation of the underlying rules set.

The purpose of OSRIC is to provide publishers with a tool to legally produce gaming materials compatible with the non-copyrightable aspects of the underlying rules set. Gaming materials described as OSRIC-compatible alert potential users those materials may be compatible with the fantasy rules sets of the late 1970s and early 1980s (i.e. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons).^[3]

The initial version of OSRIC was released in 2006. The latest version, OSRIC v. 2.00, was released in 2008.^[4] The OSRIC rules are free to download from the game's site in PDF form.^[5] In June 2009, hard copy versions of the rules became available from the Lulu Print-On-Demand service in 4 versions: hard bound in black and white, hard bound in color, paperback and paperback economy. The book remains available through print on demand, and Black Blade Publishing produced their own hardback imprint in summer 2011.^[6]

Adventure Modules

As of year end 2009, more than seventy-five products describe themselves as OSRIC-compatible.^[7]

OSRIC-Compatible Adventure Modules
More than a dozen distinct publishers have produced dozens of OSRIC-compatible adventure modules.

Rules Supplements

OSRIC-Compatible Supplements
More than a dozen distinct publishers have produced OSRIC-compatible supplements.

Labyrinth Lord

Main article: Labyrinth Lord

Labyrinth Lord

Designer(s)	Daniel Proctor
Publisher(s)	Goblinoid Games
Publication date	2007 (original); 2009 (Revised Edition)
Years active	2007-present
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Playing time	Varies
Random chance	Dice rolling
Skill(s) required	Role-playing, improvisation, tactics, arithmetic
Website	http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html

Labyrinth Lord (LL) is a fantasy role-playing game written and edited by Daniel Proctor and published by Goblinoid Games. It emulates the rules and feel of classic era Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) using the Open Game License (OGL) from Wizards of the Coast. LL borrows its inspiration from the 1981 "red box" D&D rule set revision edited by Tom Moldvay.^[8]

Compatibility

Any adventure written to be played with classic D&D can be run using LL with little or no adjustment. However, there are a few differences between the two games. Rather than being released in separate Basic and Expert boxed sets like the version of D&D that it emulates, all of LL's rules are contained in a single volume. Another deviation from the source material is that characters can advance to 20th level (the 1981 Expert set only included levels up to 14). LL includes most of the same monsters, spells, and magic items as classic D&D, except for those designated as "product identity" by Wizards of the Coast.

Distribution

Goblinoid Games was the first retro-clone publisher to both make most content open under the Open Gaming License (OGL) and create a free trademark license with few restrictions. The material contained in the LL rules is available to others with few restrictions, allowing fans and other publishers alike to create their own derivative material for use with the system.^[9] This is known in gaming circles as the Open Gaming Movement. The term retro-clone was coined by Goblinoid Games to describe its reproductions of classic D&D and other games and has caught on among RPG fans, who now use it to describe the recreation of any out of print and non-supported RPG rules created under the OGL. Besides Labyrinth Lord, other retro-clone RPGs from Goblinoid Games include GORE (which emulates Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest) and Mutant Future (which emulates TSR's Gamma World).

Labyrinth Lord is available as a free PDF download at the Goblinoid Games web site, and hardcopy versions of the rules can be purchased from the Lulu print on demand service and are available in hobby stores through traditional distribution networks. Additionally, Goblinoid Games has announced a partnership with Otherworld Miniatures, who will begin selling a line of official Labyrinth Lord miniatures starting in August 2010.^[10]

Reception

Labyrinth Lord was a runner up in the Indie RPG Awards Best Free Game category in 2007,^[11] and it received an Honorable Mention in the Best Game category of the 2010 Ennies.^[12]

The Escapist recommended Labyrinth Lord in their 2009 Holiday Buyer's Guide. Comparing its tone to 4th Edition D&D's "zany, over-powered sensibility", they wrote, "Labyrinth Lord feels like a Vietnam War movie, where the dungeons are dark, wet, and terrifying, goblins murder all your friends with spiked-pit traps and crossbow bolts from the shadows, and you start to develop a thousand yard infravision stare from the spell shock."^[13]

Labyrinth Lord has been translated in German, with the subtitle Herr der Labyrinthe under the original English title.^[14] Bastian Ludwig made a positive review in Ringbote - das online Spielemagazin published by Pegasus spiele,^[15] and also reviewed Labyrinth Lord material released in German, Die Larm-Chroniken (Morritz Melhem, Mantikore-Verlag 2010).^[16] An Italian translation, subtitled Il Signore dei Labirinti has been published in 2009 under the Goblinoid Games logo.^[17]

Swords & Wizardry

Swords & Wizardry

Designer(s)	Matthew Finch
Publisher(s)	Mythmere Games via Black Blade Publishing and Brave Halfling Publishing
Publication date	2008
Years active	2008-present
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Playing time	Varies
Random chance	Dice rolling
Skill(s) required	Role-playing, improvisation, tactics, arithmetic
Website	http://www.swordsandwizardry.com/

Swords and Wizardry (S&W) developed by Mythmere Games, owes its roots to the original edition (or "OE") of Dungeons and Dragons from 1974. Like OSRIC and Labyrinth Lord, a free version is available for download from its website.

Dark Dungeons

Dark Dungeons

Designer(s)	"Blacky the Blackball"
Publisher(s)	Self-published
Publication date	2010
Years active	2010-present
Genre(s)	Fantasy
Playing time	Varies
Random chance	Dice rolling
Skill(s) required	Role-playing, improvisation, tactics, arithmetic
Website	http://darkdungeonsblog.wordpress.com/

Dark Dungeons, like Labyrinth Lord, is a fantasy role-playing game that emulates the rules and feel of classic era D&D via the OGL, albeit a different edition from that era. The primary inspiration for Dark Dungeons is the 1991 Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia, with secondary inspiration (particularly for the cosmology of the default game setting) coming from the 1989 Spelljammer campaign setting. The name Dark Dungeons and the names of the sample characters (and their players) found in examples throughout the text are used in parody of the Chick Tract of the same name.

Compatibility

Because Dark Dungeons emulates the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia, which itself contains collected and edited rules from the basic, expert, companion, and master boxed sets published from 1983–1985, it is strongly compatible with most adventures and supplements designed for those sets. However, while Dark Dungeons does include rules for immortal level play, those rules are primarily inspired by the 1993 Wrath of the Immortals supplement to the Rules Cyclopedia and are therefore not readily compatible with adventures and supplements designed for the 1985 immortals boxed set.

Distribution

Dark Dungeons is released under a hybrid license. Although all original text found in the work has been placed in the Public Domain, it contains various terms and names that it uses under the terms of the OGL, and those terms and names can only be re-used under that same license. Dark Dungeons is available as a free PDF download at the author's web site, and hardcopy versions of the rules can be purchased from the Lulu print on demand service.

Periodicals

The following periodicals include simulacrum-compatible content:

• "Classic Fantasy Review" by Goblinoid Games
• "Fight On!" by Fight On! Publications
• "Knockspell Magazine" by Swords & Wizardry
• "Old-School Gazzette" by XRP
• "Scribe of Orcus" by Goblinoid Games
• "Zor Draxtau" by Usherwood Adventures

See also

There are a number of free role-playing products which similarly attempt to reproduce the rules and/or 'feel' of early game systems.

• Basic Fantasy is an old-school roleplaying game in the style of Tom Moldvay and Zeb Cook, editors of the 1981 D&D Basic and Expert sets.
• Mazes and Minotaurs is presented as a re-imagining of early Dungeons and Dragons, but based on Greek mythology rather than northern European.
• Mutant Future is a post-apocalyptic science-fantasy game, compatible with Labyrinth Lord.
• X-Plorers is a science fiction space exploration game in the old-school tradition.

References

1. ^ "About OSRIC". http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/a1.html. Retrieved 2007-06-02. 
2. ^ "US Copyright Office". http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html. Retrieved 2008-05-22. 
3. ^ Yourgamesnow.com, retrieved 14 June 2010.
4. ^ "RPGNet Info on OSRIC". http://index.rpg.net/display-generalinfo.phtml?key=system&value=OSRIC. Retrieved 2008-01-03. 
5. ^ "Download OSRIC". http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/download.html. Retrieved 2008-12-30. 
6. ^ "OSRIC". http://black-blade-publishing.com/Store/tabid/65/pid/39/OSRIC-Hardback-print-.aspx. Retrieved 2011-06-12. 
7. ^ "OSRIC-Compatible Products". http://www.rpgnow.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=osric&quicksearch=1&search_filter=&filters=&search_free=&search_in_description=1&search_in_author=1&search_in_artist=1. Retrieved 2008-12-31. 
8. ^ Varney, Allen. "Retro-clones". The Escapist. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/days-of-high-adventure/6415-Retro-clones. Retrieved 27 July 2010. 
9. ^ Labyrinth Lord, Release #3 April 2008, Foreword
10. ^ "Goblinoid Games and Otherworld Miniatures team up!". Uhluht'c Awakens. http://uhluhtcawakens.blogspot.com/2010/03/goblinoid-games-and-otherworld.html. Retrieved 31 July 2010. 
11. ^ "2007 Indie RPG Awards". Indie RPG Awards. http://www.rpg-awards.com/2007/best_free_game.shtml. Retrieved 29 July 2010. 
12. ^ "2010 ENnie Nominees". ENnie Awards Blog. http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/?page_id=784. Retrieved 27 July 2010. ^{[dead link]}
13. ^ The Escapist Staff. "The Escapist's Holiday Buyer's Guide". The Escapist. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/op-ed/6846-The-Escapists-Holiday-Buyers-Guide.5. Retrieved 27 July 2010. 
14. ^ Herr der Labyrinthe staff. "Offizielle deutsche Seite zu "Labyrinth Lord"". Herr der Labyrinthe. http://herr-der-labyrinthe.de/index.php. Retrieved 28 July 2010. 
15. ^ Bastian Ludwig. "Herr der Labyrinthe". Ringbote - das online Spielemagazin. http://www.pegasus.de/737+M5e3b09415f0.html. Retrieved 28 July 2010. 
16. ^ Bastian Ludwig. "Die Larm-Chroniken". Ringbote - das online Spielemagazin. http://www.pegasus.de/737+M57aa271adbf.html. Retrieved 28 July 2010. 
17. ^ Dan Proctor (2009), Labyrinth Lord. Il Signore del Labirinti. Goblinoid games. See also Il Signore dei Labirinti.

External links

• OSRIC site