Dark Albion

Grim Fantasy England
Dark Albion, DOM Publishing, is 277 pages of fantastic setting material for any OSR rule system. It borrows from the historic War of the Roses for inspiration much in the same way that the legends of King Arthur borrow from medieval England for a setting. This appeals to me as a person with an academic background in medieval history and because the real middle ages seem a bit grim-dark what with plague and all. The fantastic side works for me because many of the historic folk of those times are on record as having believed that devils and fey creatures were openly active here on Earth, or at least they wrote about such contemporary supernatural "happenings" as if they were real. Demons caused disease, fey creatures soured milk and stole children and witches talked to black cats and the devil and in various accounts cast hexes and foretold the future.
Dark Albion starts with a map of historic England circa 1450 A.D. and emphasizes forests and stone circles and other ancient sites because these are potential points of mystery and adventure. The setting is only quasi-historic and open to being added to however the referee would like. The politics and personalities of the day, including Mad King Henry and Warwick the Kingmaker, are drawn from history and briefly described in situations ripe for intrigue and war. Religion is monotheistic, but fictional and the Church of the Sun dominates religious life and political power in a way very similar to the historic Catholic Church. In the Dark Albion setting people believe in magic and several forms of magic are described to which the author, RPGPundit, attributes historical precedence, such as astrology, the cabal and alchemy. Dark Albion assumes many characters will be of the fighting men type, but also supports clerics and magic users as PCs.
In an effort to seem medieval, Dark Albion emphasizes social class as a central theme organizing play. Dark Albion assumes a social structure with medieval norms and values which are vastly different from the modern ones which form the basis of our own society and most fantasy settings. PCs have a station in life and players are expected to role-play them accordingly. There is no First Amendment and talking back to one's social superiors is a quick trip to the stocks or even the gallows. Carrying a sword is a mark of nobility and peasants just don't do that unless they want to become outlaw. Dark Albion has a lot of potential as a setting, but requires cooperation from the players in terms of the strict social hierarchy inherent in a true medieval setting.
Dark Albion offers adventure that runs the gamut from tomb raider to spy and assassin. The book is rich with somewhat mundane detail as well as several places of mystery such as ruins, holy sites and burial grounds. The mundane I find particularly interesting because of the opportunity for intrigue and conflict. Knowing that young Richard of York was born three years ago at Fotheringhay Castle near Rutland Forest and with a crooked back makes me wonder about the circumstances of his birth. We are also told Rutland is under the control of an absentee lord who is off studying the "magical arts". I can work with this - add some rumors of fey in the wood, a mysterious murder and start the players off investigating.
Dark Albion is written to be used with most any system, but there are references to the OSR and a section in the back explaining how to use the Fantastic Heroes & Witchery RPG also from DOM Publishing. Fantastic Heroes & Witchery is an AD&D 2e clone written by Dominique Crouzet. RPGPundit has also written Lion & Dragon which he describes as a medieval authentic OSR RPG using some of his ideas from Dark Albion and I believe the two products compliment each other nicely. Dark Albion is robust enough to run as written and promises a gaming experience quite different from the swords & sorcery fare I generally run and I have added it to my list of games I hope to run someday.

Magic in Gaming

...and the Cycle of Creativity
The fictional setting of R.E. Howard's Hyborian Age is a major influence on my long-running homebrew setting I call Dreadmoor. As far as fantastic settings go, the home-world  of Conan the Barbarian could be described as low magic. Low magic because although magic is known to exist, the average citizen doesn't often encounter it, if ever.
J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth is likewise a low magic setting of a slightly different bent. Certainly M.E. is a fantastic place full of magic, but it seems to be more the world that is magical than the characters. With the exception of the god-like Maiar such as Gandalf, who himself only wields relatively subtle magics, casters are rare and this has always posed a challenge to players of the game who aspire to use Middle Earth as a setting.
Similarly, I like to keep magic "magical" in Dreadmoor and to me that means it is rare and unusual outside of the player's hands. There are no magic shops, no village wizard, most priests are not blessed to perform miracles or spells and the average citizen views magic, or "sorcery" as it is generally termed, with some degree of apprehension or fear. This way the players are in control of something unusual and powerful which sets them apart.
Low magic settings appear often in popular media as evidenced by Game of Thrones and Princess Bride. Even Harry Potter can be seen as low magic because the magic is mostly confined to a small sub-culture hidden away from public awareness. Low magic, high magic or in between, I wonder how many settings in today's media have been influenced by the game created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson?
White Box is a flexible system and easily adapted by adding to or taking away from the rules as written. It is also a thing unto itself with an implied setting based on what is included, character classes, races, alignment, monsters and magic. While White Box draws from a number of varied sources for inspiration it has in turn influenced many popular culture developments since its publication. Many authors and film makers to date have cited their experiences with tabletop role-playing as being an influence on their work.

Less is More

Casting of Characters
Whether a player starts with just an array of six attribute sums or with a character sheet full of skills, feats, backgrounds and statements that the character believes are true, the player must breath into the imaginary being whatever life it will have. How each player approaches this element of character development is determined by how they play the game. Do they prefer to preconceive the character, imagining what they are like ahead of time, or discover who the character is through play? How fleshed out do they like to make their character? Are things like height, weight, hair color, eye color and dress important or insignificant details?
A frequent complaint I hear from players concerning White Box characters is that all fighters (clerics or magic users) are the same. Are they? Mechanically yes, they are very similar (magic users less so because of their unique spell books), but thematically they can be as diverse as one's imagination can make them. As with many aspects of old school systems, less can be more.
One of my favorite experiments for illustrating just how different characters can be using just three classes and all being human is to ask the players to imagine a person from a set of six attribute scores. High strength, low intelligence, or average across the board, give them a name and tell me who they are, often using a modern(-ish) setting as default. Now I whisk the characters away to a fantastic medieval setting and assign each a class - Fighter, Cleric or Magic User. Wow, are those characters different and unique!  Every time I have done this, my players have developed well defined characters whose personality shines through during role-play and whose identity is only marginally dependent on the class they choose. I think it illustrates nicely the potential in developing interesting, and unusual White Box (OSR) characters.
Contrast this with a player looking at a detailed multi-page character sheet from a game with a more structured chargen mechanic and they are likely to announce, "This character seems to be good at fighting, library use and picking locks." They are apparently front-line fighters, useful book investigators and handy to have for breaking and entering, but who are they? What do we know about their personality? Perhaps the player will creatively imagine something that connects those seemingly disparate skills together, or maybe they will just play the character and see what personality traits emerge during play.
The nearly blank slate that White Box gives the player on which to develop their character seems to provide more freedom to individualize each character, and although the game mechanics may not reflect each character's uniqueness, the role-play of the player can.

Advantages of Human PCs

Advantages of a Human Centered Milieu
Humans are diverse, unique, complex and ever-changing. No two humans are exactly alike and all humans are dynamically evolving organisms from the point of their birth to that of their death. What could be more interesting to role-play than a human?
The Original Game includes rules for playing humans and the fantasy races of dwarves, elves and hobbits/halflings - incidentally the same races that comprise good characters in the literature of Professor Tolkien whose Lord of the Rings was gaining enormous popularity during the early days of adventure gaming. The problem with role-playing those non-humans is they are archetypes - extreme versions of behavior seen among humans, plus a long beard, pointy ears or hairy feet.
The problem of archetypes is they limit the scope of diversity. Individuality among dwarves, elves and hobbits is severely limited. In order to act like a dwarf, elf or hobbit, the role-player must follow certain agreed upon characteristics of those fantasy races. By contrast, playing a human character opens the entire diversity of the human race for play. The dwarf, elf and hobbit character is frequently played as different from humans in shallow and insignificant ways that contrast with humans who are more interesting by nature. A human character is like us, but is different in personality, motives, morals, habits, beliefs, hopes, fears - really all that makes a character interesting, their character.
Fashion-ears, long beard and short stature, big nose, hairy feet and chubby physique can't really compete. The most interesting thing you can play is a human.
In a milieu where human characters are PCs and all other beings including the good professor's non-humans, are creatures to encounter, beings to give challenges to the PCs, the dwarves, elves and hobbits become more than funny looking humans - they become something of wonder, which is what they are in the source literature. They are the "other", alien, not like us, but perhaps beings we can cooperate with, learn from and grow to respect, even hold in awe. The milieu itself becomes richer for having restricted players to human characters and players can do what they do best - act like human beings.

Exploration, Role-play and Combat

The 3 Essential Building Blocks of White Box
What is White Box, or almost any other RPG? This question can be answered in a number of ways, but at it's core I believe the game we play in all its various forms can be summed up as exploration, role-play and combat.
My father once remarked after watching the Lord of the Rings movies, "So that is what you and your friends have been playing all these years." and although Gary Gygax went to considerable pains to frequently point out the differences between LotR and the game he co-created with Dave Arneson, there are some obvious similarities - the struggle between good and evil, travel and exploration above and below ground and combat using magic and medieval technologies, not to mention the presence of dwarves, elves and hobbits/halflings, which along with men, form the cast of characters to be role-played.
A make-believe world to explore, whether a simple dungeon drawn on graph paper or an elaborate setting worked out in minute detail, before play can happen the referee must create certain maps and details concerning the imaginary milieu to be explored.
Some means of resolving conflict, especially conflict that can turn deadly such as the violence that accompanies many adventure stories. White Box focuses on combat between individual heroes and monsters, but also suggests that at least in the later stages of campaign play, violence may need to be played out between groups of soldiers represented by blocks of figures or counters.
The role-playing is what happens when each player assumes control of an individual character rather than a unit of men. How much "in character" acting is done varies considerably from table to table. Some players speak as though the character is a separate pawn, others assume a "voice" for the character and speak in first person as if they are an actor playing a part in a play. The longer a player controls a character, the more complex the character develops and the more attached to the character they are likely to become.
This is the essential elements of the game, exploration, role-play and combat.

Pathfinder 2e Playtest

The Beyond Part...
I consider myself an old school gamer in rule preference, attitude and style of play. My "druthers" are for humanocentric sword & sorcery homebrew campaigns using original rules, but I am also a realist and know the world has moved on since 1974. I recently took WizBro's newest online survey and am reminded I fall into the "oldest players around" category, and that I still am buying almost everything they publish for 5e. I have no idea how many like me there are, or whether WizBro and company value my demographic, but I am still here, doing my thing, my way and having an enormous amount of fun doing it!
I got the chance this past weekend to referee a session of the newish Pathfinder 2e Playtest Beta system. It is a free download over at Paizo. I prefer a face -to- face game around a physical table and the reality is that it is easier for me to gather a group for one of the newer iterations of the world's most popular RPG, or to find a group to join in with as a player therefore I regularly play PF 1e. I also take every chance I get to referee my old school stuff (LBBs with modified magic rules) and happily did so just the weekend before last.
So why am I making this confession? My players and I had a good time with PF 2e beta and for me, it felt a bit "old school". Now before eyebrows raise, let me qualify that statement with an explanation regarding just what it is about the PF 2e game that felt old school.
Combat was quick and deadly. PF has always ratcheted-up the hit points and relative power level of the PCs and 2e is no different.  The new action economy gives each character three actions per turn and with the healthy to-hit bonuses the first attack probably hits and there is a good chance so does the second, even with the minus 5 penalty. I recall about 10 pts. of damage per successful attack being average. Fights lasted two or three rounds with lots of HP flying!
Healing was limited to the cleric and a potion. Spell slots were used up quickly and the unlimited cantrips seemed more like minor magic than a real attacking force. The playtest monster stat lines are much abbreviated from 1e having eliminated monster feats and I feel like those stat blocks are now almost manageable.
Exploration is mechanically highlighted with different stances such as searching, sneaking, tracking, wandering, etc. determining how the PC is moving about between encounters. Double-time is a rapid, reckless movement likely to lead on headlong into traps and ambushes, yet covers ground more quickly than other exploration modes.
This is still Pathfinder, so its DNA is largely 3.5 and older editions, therefore there isn't a lot of mechanical support for role-playing or shared narrative. Hero Points represent an award for good role-play and can be used to get out of the dying condition, or spend two points and re-roll a d20 check hoping to turn failure into success. Otherwise it's up to the players to describe what the character is doing and to act in-character.
This is a playtest document and some choices may have been narrowed, but the opportunities to min-max characters during chargen seem limited at present. The available classes and races feel comfortable to me meaning there are no warlocks, tieflings  or other "monster" PCs. well, goblins are added to the playable races, but they somehow seem more comical than monstrous. By limiting the available classes and races to those found in old school editions, PF2e feels more like a familiar old game.
If all goes as planned we will game the second chapter in the Doomsday Dawn playtest adventure path this coming weekend. Characters will assume level 4 status and we will get to see how the beta rules handle characters with increased power. At 1st level I found it easy as referee to stay on top of the game, adjusting the encounter combats written for 4 characters to the three players we had. The players stated the tension between feeling challenged and being on the brink of losing control of the combat was one of their positive experiences of the first session. I am hoping, of course, to maintain that level of excitement throughout the playtest.

Adventure Gaming is a Lifestyle!

It's Just A Hobby
With the internet and the popularity of streaming video, viewing people (sometimes actors) playing adventure/role-playing games "live" has become popular entertainment. Online play, organized play, appearances of the game in popular media (Big Bang..., Stranger Things, etc.) and the nostalgia factor all contribute to awareness of and interest in the RPG hobby. Thus the game we play is today arguably more popular than ever. So much so that I might get away with calling it "fashionable". At least in some circles, to say "Yeah, I play D&D"...or at least to admit to watching it being played may mark you as "in the know".
Does this mark a corporate ideal? Is this becoming the effect of "a brand"?
So a gamer tee-shirt and enough knowledge of the game to drop some d20 vocabulary into everyday conversation gets you pop culture cred? Game nerd is hip? (Hipster nerd is a thing?) Where is this heading? Can we call this trendy fashion a Lifestyle, like Harley Davidson or Nike or golf?
What about the gamer who lives in his mother's basement (we all know him) and despite the fact that he is 40+ years old and has no apparent handicap, is not now and never has been gainfully employed? Is he a lifestyle gamer? What about those of us who have been playing the game so long that it adds up to over half our life having been spent pursuing the hobby? Are we "lifestyle gamers"?
What is the difference between hobby and lifestyle? Businessdictionary.com defines lifestyle as:

Lifestyle is expressed in both work and leisure behavior patterns and (on an individual basis) in activities, attitudes, interests, opinions, values, and allocation of income. It also reflects people's self image or self concept; the way they see themselves and believe they are seen by the others.

In contrast "hobby" is generally defined as "an activity (frequently) done in one's spare time for fun". I suppose for some of us it is a hobby and for others it is a lifestyle. For a few it is employment. Perhaps it is a matter of degrees? I am wondering now where I fall in this continuum from hobby to lifestyle?