Reviews of Retro-Clones of OD&D Coming Soon!
Sept 16, 2015 13:32:38 GMT -5
tetramorph and Vile Traveller like this
Post by Admin Pete on Sept 16, 2015 13:32:38 GMT -5
I am going to be posting reviews of clones of OD&D on my blog. I know most of them have been out for quite some time; however, I am going to do a review of several and then give you my take on which ones I like the best and why.
The ones that I am going to review are:
Swords & Wizardy - Whitebox edition
Swords & Wizardy - Core
Delving Deeper
Grey Matter
Iron Falcon
Seven Voyages of Zylarthen
Full Metal Plate Mail
There are others of course; however, I believe that these are a good place to start.
There are a number of things to remember about Retro-Clones. One is that they are based on the Open Game License (OGL) which refers to the System Reference Document (SRD) published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000, of which there are two versions - one based on 3rd Ed Dungeons & Dragons and one based on 3.5 Ed Dungeons & Dragons. This means for instance that when a writer wants to recreate the Original Dungeons and Dragons game as closely as legally possible there are a number of steps they have to take.
One of course is getting legal advice from an experienced copyright attorney to help them stay within the letter of the law.
A second is to go through the SRD and delete everything that is not present at all in OD&D.
A third step is take all the remaining material that is in OD&D in some form and simplify that information into your own words, but as close to OD&D as you can legally go. This is a time consuming and difficult step and is fraught with some peril in more than one way. OD&D is intentionally vague in some areas and has things that can be interpreted in more than one way. Unfortunately when writing your clone those passages are some of the most difficult to work with since you cannot just quote them. So do you use your preferred interpretation or list more than one interpretation or do you attempt to recreate the original indeterminacy with a different wording.
Another consequence of this step is that extreme care must be taken to avoid editing out the things that made OD&D a special game to begin with and these are the same things that by and large are missing from all later versions of D&D.
Another pitfall is that there are iconic monsters and other things that were present in OD&D that are not present in the SRD. This means that you cannot put in a Beholder since it is not in the SRD. That means if you want a Beholder you have to call it something else and have a description that is somewhat different. In addition, you have another decision to make - are you using some or all of the material from one or more supplements?
Then there are Balrogs, Hobbits and Ents. All were present in the first few printings of OD&D, but were pulled from later printings due to legal threats. In addition, there are tables that use Banths, Tharks and other creatures from the John Carter of Mars (Barsoom) books. How do you handle these?
Once you have done all that you can do and have written the best possible Retro-Clone that you could write, you will be criticized for every deviation from the original rules even though you had to create your own presentation of the rules to be completely legal and to comply with the OGL.
The ones that I am going to review are:
Swords & Wizardy - Whitebox edition
Swords & Wizardy - Core
Delving Deeper
Grey Matter
Iron Falcon
Seven Voyages of Zylarthen
Full Metal Plate Mail
There are others of course; however, I believe that these are a good place to start.
There are a number of things to remember about Retro-Clones. One is that they are based on the Open Game License (OGL) which refers to the System Reference Document (SRD) published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000, of which there are two versions - one based on 3rd Ed Dungeons & Dragons and one based on 3.5 Ed Dungeons & Dragons. This means for instance that when a writer wants to recreate the Original Dungeons and Dragons game as closely as legally possible there are a number of steps they have to take.
One of course is getting legal advice from an experienced copyright attorney to help them stay within the letter of the law.
A second is to go through the SRD and delete everything that is not present at all in OD&D.
A third step is take all the remaining material that is in OD&D in some form and simplify that information into your own words, but as close to OD&D as you can legally go. This is a time consuming and difficult step and is fraught with some peril in more than one way. OD&D is intentionally vague in some areas and has things that can be interpreted in more than one way. Unfortunately when writing your clone those passages are some of the most difficult to work with since you cannot just quote them. So do you use your preferred interpretation or list more than one interpretation or do you attempt to recreate the original indeterminacy with a different wording.
Another consequence of this step is that extreme care must be taken to avoid editing out the things that made OD&D a special game to begin with and these are the same things that by and large are missing from all later versions of D&D.
Another pitfall is that there are iconic monsters and other things that were present in OD&D that are not present in the SRD. This means that you cannot put in a Beholder since it is not in the SRD. That means if you want a Beholder you have to call it something else and have a description that is somewhat different. In addition, you have another decision to make - are you using some or all of the material from one or more supplements?
Then there are Balrogs, Hobbits and Ents. All were present in the first few printings of OD&D, but were pulled from later printings due to legal threats. In addition, there are tables that use Banths, Tharks and other creatures from the John Carter of Mars (Barsoom) books. How do you handle these?
Once you have done all that you can do and have written the best possible Retro-Clone that you could write, you will be criticized for every deviation from the original rules even though you had to create your own presentation of the rules to be completely legal and to comply with the OGL.