It looks like I will have about five regular players, with one or two others who may drop in and out from time to time. Most of these regulars are veterans of 3.5 and D&D IV play; I have only one truly experienced old-schooler. (More on him in a moment.)
As I said before, I was really hoping to stick to Race-As-Class and other Labyrinth Lord Core Rules conventions, for part of my mission here is to introduce these folks to the mechanics and feel of old-school play, to keep the game as "Moldvay-ish" as possible. In this I was successful: the group conceded to playing LL as writ. Chargen only took one hour, and that time-frame included a lot of discussion about the setting and some gentle guiding of the new-schoolers through the chargen process. Ultimately I had them roll 4d6 (drop the lowest) in order for attributes, then choose their PC's class. All standard LL core classes were available -- even elves!
The session itself was great fun and The Lost City rules! By the end of the session, the PCs had already met their first faction and started negotiating with them, offering to perform a spy mission against one of the other Cynidicean factions in exchange for food and water. They're off!
Full session report to follow.
Related Note: Another Local Game!
That experienced OSR guy I mentioned -- Cid, who ended up playing the party's cleric, Thorgald Thorgaldson, follower of Ragnar -- is starting his own public game at Boldo's Armory, one of the local Rochester area game shops, this coming Sunday. He is running a custom-hacked d20-Lite type system, and setting the campaign in Jeff Rients' Wessex! (From what he says, he literally contacted JR, asked permission to run a campaign in the setting, and apparently received permission plus some background materials and resources from the man himself.) Here is a link to Cid's Obsidian Portal page for the game:
http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaigns/taoks
Cid was such a pleasure to play with that as of now I am planning to sit in on his Boldo's campaign on the opposite Sundays from my own local campaign. Local RPG'ing opportunities abound!
