Venger's Personal Statement On Old School Gaming

Once again we venture into reviewing, Venger’s own personal statement on Old School Gaming, in the form of a game or group of notes tacked together that can be viewed as supplementary material to any Fantasy RPG dedicated to the Old School Philosophy. Once again, special thanks are extended to Venger As'Nas Satanis for providing me with a complimentary copy of this book for the purposes of review.

In a mere 40 pages, it does more than the 1e DMG did throughout its long meandering prose. In fairness, the DMG was the first of its kind, and one still needs the DMG to understand where Venger is going with this product and what it is all about. For what he is trying to achieve a change in the way one might game – if you had been brought up on 3.x or 4e D&D, which seemed to take the “gonzo”-ness

Whereby, cosmic horror mixes freely with grindhouse cinema along with gorefest that is classic sword & sorcery and weirdness of science fantasy. It does have its weaknesses that is embodied in the very thing that makes it great. Namely, that it is very loosely edited and if you do believe that RPGs should be scrubbed from all “-isms” then this is not the game for you. However, perhaps, more egregious lies in the notion of balance. Most RPGs balance out players and game masters with each having a role in creating a world. Here the balance achieved through a titanic struggle in which the dice do play a mediating role but it does tend toward extremism. So, one hand or moment – the Gamemaster can inflict truly horrific situation on the player but a luck of the roll or crooked dice, with a saving throw would allow players miraculously spring back to life with full hit points. I have not heard gaming of this nature since a friend was telling me about her Shadowrun game which was aided by drinking