The "Sweet Spot" of an Adventure Campaign

My Arandish Campaign 2010, begun last January, has now entered what I consider to be the "sweet spot" of any ongoing D&D adventure campaign: the portion where the player characters are all at least 3rd level, but haven't yet advanced much beyond 5th or 6th level.  From this point until the PCs start hitting the double-digit experience levels, we are in for some really fantastic gaming.

Why?  Part of my reasoning here has to do with the numbers themselves: the PCs have made it past those first few vulnerable levels and are, at this point, somewhat less likely to be instantly killed by, say, a lucky battle-axe strike by a hobgoblin.  Now, to be fair, I am probably something of a "kind" DM, particularly at lower levels; I always reward players for thinking or negotiating their way out of conflicts, and I rarely allow their foes to vastly outnumber them or out-strategize them unless they (the PCs) do something especially imprudent or dumb.  I mean, I let the dice fall where they may, and character death still occurs -- our group has had two PC deaths so far -- yet I admit that I am secretly rooting for the PCs at low levels.  Perhaps I am a sucker for the underdog.

Not so anymore.  Now that the PCs are all at 3rd level and above, I feel much more freedom to hurl more deadly and pernicious monsters and foes at them.  For example, simply perusing the monster listings at the back of my Advanced Edition Companion, I notice some much-beloved creatures in the 5-8 HD range: the hydra, the owlbear, the basilisk, the minotaur, the troll, the cave bear, the remorhaz, the 8-HD elementals. . . . These are the kinds of delightful fiends I can now deploy with reckless abandon, because the party should be (more or less) ready for them.

However, beyond these matters of game mechanics is the realm where my heart truly lies: the ongoing "story" of the adventure and the characters.  Of course, I use that term loosely because I would never reduce an RPG to being the mere recounting of a story; I agree with many other (and wiser) old-schoolers that D&D is first and foremost a game.  But as DM, my role in that game is to provide at least some possible adventure hooks and plots for the characters to pursue, lines of action and exploration that might develop into something like a collaboratively generated "plot" -- and in that collaboration, I get to supply the villains!  So, in addition to the higher-HD monsters listed above, this is the point in the campaign where I get to start introducing the upper- (or at least middle-) management villains, the NPCs who are actually running things and actively plotting to do (horrible, exploitative, destructive) stuff in the game-world the PCs have been exploring.  The PCs will start becoming aware of these key players and, should they so choose, may decide to actively intervene in those nefarious NPCs' affairs -- thus making exciting new long-term enemies!

Of course, that process has already begun -- readers of my session reports are aware that Uncle Junkal has already rubbed some undead entities the wrong way by stealing their mirror, and the PCs in general have pissed off both the lizardfolk of Stonehell and the hobgoblinish Skullface Occupational Army -- but the PCs and I are in for a whole new level of adventure as they start meeting some of the behind-the-scenes string-pullers instead of (mostly) mucking about fighting with the rank-and-file.  THAT is why I particularly relish the sessions immediately ahead -- things are really beginning to get interesting.

At the meta-game level, I am also thinking about and planning for what will happen when the PCs reach level 9 and beyond.  In my earlier AD&D-playing days, nobody I ever played with payed any attention to the "build a stronghold" rules that kick in at the titled levels -- we just kept adventuring around, albeit in increasingly difficult modules (e.g., Q1).  Yet for my current Arandish Labyrinth Lord Campaign, I plan to play it much more "by the book," and therefore will expect my PCs to claim land and erect strongholds starting at Level 9.

On top of that, I am also open to seeing this campaign continue through to PC levels in and beyond the "teens," which is why I plan to use some holiday money I have coming from my folks to purchase JB's B/X Companion -- I need to start planning for higher-level play and -- gulp! -- an ENDGAME.

But that is all a long way down the road, and for the time being I am simply going to kick back and enjoy the "sweet spot" we find ourselves in -- starting next session!

Coolest. RPG. Videos. Ever. = "DM's Discretion"

Over Thanksgiving Break I finally started catching up on some blog reading, and came across a video review of The Dungeon Alphabet over at the Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope.  I missed this post back in July because I was, well, packing up all my worldly belongings in preparation for a cross-country move at that point.

However, I am so glad I went back through the archives and found this little gem, which is merely one installment of an ongoing RPG'ing video series called "DM's Discretion."  The series' creator, "Slathazar," is a disarmingly genuine and charmingly self-deprecating video host who is an unabashed fan of both 1e AD&D and Amazon.com.  And clearly he has an investment in spreading the word about the Old Ways amongst a younger generation of RPG'ers and potential RPG'ers.  A man after my own heart!

Along that line, I admit that some of the appeal here is surely narcissistic -- his guy reminds me a great deal of myself from a long-past era -- but his dedication to the Old Ways combined with his deadpan, ironic humor just KILLS me.

So check out the DM's Discretion Introductory Episode:

Session 22: Back to Stonehell

[Note: Some of the early events of this session report -- up until the party reaches the box canyon housing the entrance to Stonehell -- actually took place at the end of the previous session, but for reasons of dramatic effect and narrative coherence, I saved them for this session report.]

The party awakened in Fortinbras early on the 47th day of their adventures together, ready to head up the slopes of Greystone Mountain and re-enter Stonehell in an attempt to rescue the dwarf Gark and his party, presumed lost or otherwise detained somewhere within the megadungeon's depths.  For this purpose the party -- Hazel (Ftr.-3 / MU-3), Innominus (Clr.-5), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard-3), Dak (Dwarf-3), Yor (Dwarf-4), and NPCs Gorgo (Dwarf-3), Darvey (Dwarf-1) and Garvey (Dwarf-1) -- hired a couple new NPCs -- Marko Halfdagger (Thief-5) and Rolfe the Barbarian (Ftr.-3) -- to aid them in their noble task.

However, before they could even leave town, Brother Albert, one of the Clerics of the Temple of Carcoon, sought them out at the Drunken Yeti in order to inquire as to the whereabouts of Brother Camus.  The latter had not been seen since the night before, when the party accompanied him to Bandit's Knoll to sell off Uncle Junkal's accursed mirror.  The party had last seen Camus leaving the Drunken Yeti, presumably headed for the Temple.   This they reported to Brother Albert, who asked what exactly they had been doing that night, which they also told him.  It turns out that nobody at the Temple of Carcoon (including the high priest) possessed any knowledge of Camus' side dealings in necromantic artifacts, and upon hearing the PC's report, they grew rather alarmed.  Suspecting that perhaps Brother Camus had staged the mirror exchange with the mysterious rodian in order to secretly procure it for himself, Innominus suggested that the Healers of Carcoon begin investigating recent withdrawals from their own treasury.  The Carcoonian treasurer, Brother Norbert, said it would be a couple of days before he could definitively determine whether or not the missing cleric had illicitly withdrawn any funds; the party, having nothing further to contribute, left town in their recently acquired wagon, reaching Greystone Mountain in a day and a half.

Late in the afternoon of their 49th day of Arandish adventuring, the PCs re-approached the box canyon high on Greystone Mountain, to see dark smoke billowing up from somewhere on the south ridge, and to hear the nearby marching of multiple, heavily booted feet.  They set Marko to investigate the sounds; he came back minutes later and said it was a patrol of 14 Hobgoblin warriors, marching in two columns down the mountain -- in broad daylight.  This was alarming news since Arandish Hobgoblins are typically severely debilitated by exposure to direct sunlight, whereas these ones showed none of the expected signs of skin-burning or fatigue.

Pressing on without confronting the daylight-impervious hobgoblin patrol, the party reached the mouth of the box canyon at dusk.  There they observed that the hobgoblin encampment atop the southern canyon wall was even bigger than it was when the PC last saw it seven days before; said camp also seemed to be source of the column of thick, black smoke billowing into the sky.  The PCs entered the canyon as stealthily as they were able.

However, they must have been spotted, for a crossbow bolt whizzed out of the darkness from somewhere on the southern canyon wall and struck Garvey the dwarf.  The party instantly ran for the nearest cover: a cave entrance in the south wall of the canyon.

They found themselves in the middlemost of three interconnected, dark chambers.  Innominus investigated the chamber to the west, finding within six undead skeletons, which he promptly turned.  Meanwhile, Dak and Uncle Junkal searched the eastern chamber, while Hazel turned herself invisible and headed sneakily back out into the twilit canyon.  Yor and the NPCs stood guard at the cave entrance.

Out in the canyon, Hazel saw a troupe of heavily armed hobgoblins descending the canyonside toward the PC's cave; she rushed back inside to warn her companions.

In the eastern chamber, Dak and Uncle Junkal found a central hemispherical cenotaph inscribed with chaotic etchings; the bard studied these writings while the dwarf searched the eastern room's wall mosaics for some sign of secret doors.  A couple of turns later, Dak found a hidden door-latch on the south wall, and Uncle Junkal had deciphered a portion of the cenotaph text that described a "colossus" that "lies beyond the dark ocean."  Meanwhile, Hazel had reentered the complex and warned the party that a hobgoblin patrol was on its way.  Deciding to open the secret door and hope that they could evade the hobgoblins by plunging into whatever chambers lay behind it, Dak pulled the latch.  There was a flash of blue light and Dak took some shock damage, but the door opened and the party fled en masse into a roughly-hewn tunnel beyond.  They closed the secret door behind them.

They soon came to a door, spiked closed from their own side.  They un-spiked it and opened it; three rock trolls bared their fangs at them from the other side.  The party gained initiative; Innominus Held one of them, Uncle Junkal charmed a second, and in the split-second that bought them, Yor slammed the door closed again.  The party re-spiked it and continued further down the rough tunnel.

Reaching a small chamber with a spiral staircase leading up, Hazel -- still invisible -- climbed up, to find herself standing in the middle of a 20' wide underground road, which headed off to the east and the west-southwest.  At the top of the spiral staircase was a a spike driven into the floor with a human skull on top, identical to the one the party saw inside Stonehell during session 18.  Etched into the skull were some words in hobgoblin, which Hazel could now read with the help of her read languages spell: "Area Patrolled by the Skullface Occupational Army.  Stay Out!"  Hazel called for her companions to come on up, then Yor used his +1 Crowbar to pry the Skullface sign out of the rock; in its place the PCs left their own sign, depicting a hobgoblin being sodomized by a kobold.

Heading west-southwest along the road in an effort to locate some alternative entrance to Stonehell proper, the party soon emerged from the underground tunnel.  The road from here westward was cut into the side of a towering cliff; an almost 90-degree cliff wall loomed above them to the north, and a similar cliff plummeted to unseen distances below to the south.  The party was soon approached from the west by a 9-hobgoblin patrol; after a bold and daring skirmish, the party triumphed.  Looting the bodies, they found vials of black oil on almost every hobgoblin; the hobgoblin's breath smelled of it, too. Uncle Junkal found that the oil burned slightly less well than standard lamp oil, and had a more pungent sulfurous smell.  Dak drank a small sip of the oil and reported that his infravision seemed ever so slightly sharper. . . .

To Be Continued. . .

Skype Will Keep Us Together

As I have previously reported, my Labyrinth Lord group is now gaming via Skype.  Four of our players are still on the West Coast (where the campaign began last January), one player is in the midwest, and I, the Labyrinth Lord, am now in northwestern New York state.  Skype is our friend!

 Me in New York state. . .

. . . Hazel's player in the midwest . . .

. . . and the rest of the gang in Oregon!

We use the three-way video conferencing function, which is currently available on a free-trial basis.  The rumor is that Skype will start charging for this particular service in the future, though given how reasonable Skype's rates are for calling landlines etc., I don't anticipate that the expense to our group will be very substantive when / if they do start charging.

I have also used Skype on a couple of occasions to participate in Carl's Mutant Future campaign, also taking place on the West Coast.  Recent schedule changes have made this difficult -- they are starting sessions later, so late that it is too late for me to be awake on East Coast time -- but in theory, I could still be gaming with that group as well, thanks to Skype and a couple of well-placed webcams.

In some ways, I am surprised more RPG'ers don't use Skype in this fashion, especially when I hear folks bemoaning their difficulties in finding other gamers to play with locally and regionally.  Skype eradicates the geographical barrier!  Maybe some gamers simply resist this option because it feels too "weird" or their internet connections are not speedy enough to make Skype video conferencing feasable.  It might also be difficult for those that rely on miniatures and battle maps -- I have no truck with that stuff, our combats are all processed verbally, so no hassles there for us.

Is anybody else out there doing stuff like this?

Belated Session Reports 20-21: Investigations in Fortinbras

When we last left our intrepid party -- consisting of Hazel (Ftr.-3 / MU-2), Innominus (Clr.-4), Uncle Junkal (Rodian Bard-3), Dak (Dwarf-3), Yor (Dwarf-3), and NPC Gorgo (Dwarf-3) -- they had exited the Stonehell Dungeon on Greystone Mountain and had trekked the three days back into the Minochian town of Fortinbras.  Besides selling off some miscellaneous loot and generally re-equipping themselves, the group mainly spent Session 20 fishing around for local/regional rumors and engaging in a most interesting investigation into the nature of Uncle Junkal's mysterious Death Cult mirror.

The mirror episode began with the PCs visiting the Temple of the Healers of Carcoon, the same group of clerics who Raised Uncle Junkal from the dead in a neighboring town some sessions back.  Innominus hired the Carcoonians to cast dispel magic and dispel evil on the sealed iron strongbox he'd been lugging around since he found it in the abandoned Chapel of Korath in Stonehell.  The former spell had no effect; the latter made the strongbox momentarily smoke and crackle with sparks, and reduced its evil emanations slightly.  But the Carcoonians' Dispel Evil spell could not negate the strong evil emanations coming from within the strange, hinge-less strongbox.  The mystery endures.

Next, the Death Frost Doom mirror.  Uncle Junkal brought out the odd mirror he had pilfered from the death cult's cabin, and the priests of Carcoon reacted quite strongly to it, calling it a "cursed abomination" and asking the party to immediately remove it from the premises.  The Carcoonians on hand said they had a holy man among them who specialized in studying necromantic lore; they would send that man, Brother Camus, to the party's inn at dusk to inspect the mirror and to offer what assessments he could.  But they forbade the party from bringing the mirror back onto the Temple grounds.

Meanwhile, the party's dwarves, Dak and Yor, partied at the local dwarven establishment, the King Hargon Inn.  Dak spent vast amounts of gold on booze and prostitutes, permanently endearing him to the King Hargon's clientele.  Yor also drank, but simultaneously kept his ear to the ground for local rumors.  He was particularly interested in discovering whatever he could about the mysterious wagons the party encountered traveling through Fortinbras several sessions back; and on his second day in town, after the evening's revelry, Yor visited the local farmer's market to make further inquiries.  There he learned that local farmers had indeed seen the weird wagons as well, mostly traveling at night, and one local advised Yor about a particular stretch of road where the wagons could be observed passing by each evening.

That evening at dusk, Brother Camus showed up at the Drunken Yeti, the tavern and inn where Innominus et. al. had rented the best suite.  Camus told them that Uncle Junkal's mirror, thought to function as a portal to the undead realms in proper hands, was indeed cursed.  He stated that any object removed from the death cult's property tended to bring dire effects down upon the persons who took it.  The party confessed that they had been especially harried by undead creatures since leaving the death cult's cabin and underground crypts -- recall the ghoul attack in Farn Junction, the mummies and wraiths coming after Uncle Junkal in various areas of Stonehell -- and Brother Camus confirmed that that would be par for the course so long as they kept the mirror.  He offered to act as a middle-man in brokering a deal with a collector of unique evil artifacts; he said he thought he could make the necessary arrangements by the following evening if the party wanted to sell it.  They did.

Later that night the party decided to lie in wait for one of the strange wagons, and after a brief skirmish with its hobgoblin driver and his attendants, determined that the hooded figures traveling with the wagons were enslaved morlocks; hobgoblins had captured them from the nearby mountains and now made them haul these wagons to and from Stonehell.  Innominus used his Speak with animals spell to question the horses about their route after the party killed the hobgoblin driver and caused the morlocks to flee.  The wagon the PCs ambushed, which was headed southbound toward Greystone Mountain, was filled with empty oil flasks of Kaladarian manufacture.  The PCs appropriated the wagon and sold the flasks off the next day.

Session 21 saw the party buying magic items from local Enchanters in Fortinbras and preparing for their meeting with Brother Camus and the cursed-mirror-buyer that night.  Dak and Yor learned while hanging out at the King Hargon Inn that a very popular local dwarf named Gark Steelsnout had recently ventured into Stonehell with a mixed-race group led by a human knight, Sir Boren of Achelon, but that that group had not returned from Stonehell in over two weeks.  Deciding then and there to mount an expedition to seek out and possibly rescue Gark & Co., Dak and Yor recruited two local dwarven brothers, Darvey and Garvey, to join their rescue mission as volunteers.  The rest of the PCs agreed to dedicate their planned return to Stonehell to the cause of locating Gark, and set about hiring a few extra hirelings besides Harvey, Garvey, and old hand Gorgo to accompany them.

That night -- their third night in Fortinbras -- the party was led by Brother Camus of the Carcoonians to a secluded vale south of town called Bandit's Knoll; there they met a cloaked and hooded rodian who bought the Death Frost Doom mirror from them for a tidy sum of 9,000gp.  Brother Camus and the party returned to Fortinbras as the mysterious rodian rode off into the night.  Brother Camus bid them good-night at the Drunken Yeti and headed back to his temple.  The party bedded down, planning to start early for Stonehell the next morning.

To Be Continued. . .

Belated Session Reports 18-19: Yet More Stonehell

At the conclusion of session 17 of Arandish Campaign 2010, Innominus the Cleric and Uncle Junkal the Bard both leveled up, so the party now consists of:

PCs:
Innominus, Follower of Endra (Clr.-4)
Uncle Junkal, Rodian Bard (Bard-3)
Hazel, Human Warrior (Ftr.-3)*
Dak (Dwarf-2)**
Yor (Dwarf-2)**

NPCs:
Gorgo (Dwarf-2)
Harry (Halfling-1)
Uncle Junkal's charmed Rock Troll 

*As of Session 17, Hazel began mysteriously manifesting arcane spellcasting abilities, and is therefore leveling as a Magic-User for the next three experience levels -- thereafter she will multi-class according to the rules in the LL AEC p. 24.

**Dak's and Yor's players missed session 18 but returned for session 19.

And so:  The party began Session 18 (day 41 of the campaign, game-time, and the party's third day in Stonehell) in a small room with a central well wherein they rested for 8 hours.  During the last watch of the night (I think - my notes on this are sketchy), during which Innominus kept guard, a faint scraping sound was heard emanating from deep inside the well.  Investigating, Innominus spotted a stone being pushed out of its place along one side of the well, as if something was tunneling its way into the well from some adjacent subterranean space.  Innominus waked his comrades, and upon peering into the well, the others observed a large piece of stonemasonry get pushed and fall with a splash into the depths of the well, and a ghastly humanoid head wrapped in bandages was now poking into the well shaft from the opening thus created.  A smell of musty death pervaded the air, which the party recognized as likely belonging to a mummy.  As this first mummy crawled out of its hole and began climbing up the side of the well toward the party, a second bandage-wrapped head poked out of the opening as well.  However, sadly for these two mummies, Hazel had a ward against undead she acquired somewhere along the way, and she activated it now.  The mummies were unable to proceed up the well shaft or get anywhere near the party, and were stymied.

The party then headed south, into a section of the dungeon they had never visited before.  After bypassing a dangerous scything blade trap, they came across a spike driven into the floor with a human skull perched on top.  Etched into the skull were some words in a language no party member could read, and an insignia they had seen before: that of the hobgoblinish Skullface Occupational Army. The party proceeded southward with caution.

Soon they came to a partially caved-in section of corridor, and Uncle Junkal persuaded the rock troll to dig through the rubble.  They broke through into a large chamber with a white tile floor and two large 8' pillars encrusted with glowing gems of different colors.  One of the PCs -- my notes don't reveal whom -- stepped out into the middle of the tiled room, only to be struck by a beam of yellow light that made the character feel refreshed and healed.  Close inspection of the pillars --was this Innominus? -- revealed nothing beyond the fact that the "gems" were in fact multi-colored lenses set deep into the pillars.

Proceeding west, the party came to a corridor section with doors on either side -- careful prowling reveled these to lead to rooms of various kinds inhabited by hobgoblins: a kitchen, a small infirmary, a mountain lion wrangler's cat-pen.  Stealthily bypassing these areas, the party penetrated further east, reaching a hobgoblin sentry post manned by three hobgoblin soldiers standing near a wall-mounted gong.  Innominus swiftly cast Hold Person on these three hobgoblin sentries, and NPCs Gorgo and harry began dismounting the gong from the wall.  Thus ended the session. . .

Session 19 opened with four hobgoblin patrolmen approaching the sentry room from the east.  Battle ensued after all four hg's saved vs. Dak's poison, and despite this early coup for the hobgoblins, thanks to some oil-flask throwing by Uncle Junkal and a critical mace hit by Innominus, these monstrous defenders were quickly dispatched by the PCs.  For some reason this battle carried onward into the small hobgoblin infirmary, and Dak (blindly swinging his battle axe) and Uncle Junkal were able to kill the hobgoblin medic and dispatch his two wounded charges without alerting the hobgoblins in the nearby kitchen.

Next, while Hazel, Innominus, and Yor explored a corridor leading south out of the sentry room, Uncle Junkal and Harry the Halfling searched the sentry room for secret doors etc. (Dak was on hand but still blind -- Gorgo and the rock troll stood guard).  The only unusual thing found was a group of strange etchings scratched into the north wall -- no character on hand could read them, but when Hazel returned to the room from the south a bit later, she identified the scrawlings as being an arcane code that listed a numerical calendar date, the word "Mulek," and a mention of something called "the Black Well."

The southern corridor terminated in a floor-to-ceiling bas-relief of a hobgoblinish face with an open mouth -- some careful searching by Hazel and Yor uncovered a secret door inside the mouth.  Beyond was a dark, gloomy room, which Yor entered and searched, only to be instantly attacked by two shadowy, ghost-like figures.  Innominus leaped to Yor's aid, and even Uncle Junkal dashed down the southern passage to assist in the battle.  In fact, the intrepid bard held up the strange mirror he previously pilfered from the death cult's cabin, and while the sight of the mirror did make the shadows flinch, it was ultimately Hazel's and Innominus' combat prowess that laid the two vile spirits low.  In the wake of the battle, the PCs searched the cluttered room, and Yor found a heavy iron strongbox buried under some furniture and rubble.  Then Hazel, Yor, et. al. closed the secret door and returned north to the sentry room.

Once the party was reunited in the sentry room, Harry the halfling, the group's (relatively unskilled) de facto thief was instructed to pick the lock on the strongbox, which he did, only to be pricked by a poison needle trap and instantly killed.  R.I.P., Harry the halfling.

Meanwhile Dak and Yor heard some tapping noises coming from the other side of the west wall of the sentry room.  Yor exchanged brief words with a male voice coming from the other side of the wall; they both spoke in kobold. Yor claimed to be "Mulek" and the anonymous voice told him that "Stanthor perished."

Taking the loot accumulated so far, plus the riches found in the strongbox that cost poor Harry his life -- lots of sp, ep, gp, and gems; a few valuable pieces of jewelry; three potions; and two scrolls containing wards against undead -- the party decided to leave Stonehell and return to the nearby Minochian town of Fortinbras, to regroup, rest, re-provision, and re-equip.  They made the exit from the dungeon and the return trip to Fortinbras without physical incident, though they did see a newly established hobgoblin military camp perched atop the southern ridge of the box canyon that houses the entrance to Stonehell.  But they were able to slip past the hobgoblins unseen and were back at the Drunken Yeti Inn in Fortinbras by the end of the session.

To Be Continued. . .

Edition War vs. Edition Preference, or, Form Matters

Reading James M's recent post about the significance of D&D III in his evolution as a gamer, I was struck by the parallels between his story and mine.  In brief, the narrative runs something like this:

* I begin my RPG'ing career as what would now be called an "old-school" gamer.  I never play (and  to this day have never played) with the LBBs, but get caught up in the hobby in my teenage years with the 1979 Holmes box set and AD&D.  I get out of playing AD&D in the late 80's right around the time 2e is released.  I actually have never played 2e.  I have absolutely nothing against it, having never played it, but suffice to say that my baseline for understanding what D&D is (or "should" feel like for me) is based upon Holmes and 1e AD&D, i.e., skills do not exist in the game. 

*  After many years of playing other RPG systems including a completely homebrewed one, I return to playing D&D a few years ago, in the mid-2000s; the group I join is playing D&D 3.5, soon to become Pathfinder.  I tolerate 3.5 and it is great to be role-playing again, but I never feel "at home" in the system (more on this in a moment).

*  D&D IV is released, and my 3.5 group, after sticking with Pathfinder for a couple more months, switches to 4.0.  I fucking hate it.  I leave that group and begin to lay groundwork for my own campaign using Labyrinth Lord.    

As this mini-narrative makes clear, I am no great fan of 3.5 or 4e for me personally, but let me state at the outset that I am NOT interested in instigating or perpetuating any kind of "Edition Wars."  Ultimately this hobby is about having fun, and I am genuinely happy for those players (including my beloved ex-gaming group -- and I mean that "beloved" earnestly, they were a great group of players) who are getting a kick out of Pathfinder and D&D IV. 

What I want to address, however, is the fact that form matters.  That is, it is not simply enough to have a good group of players or an awesome DM -- though those things obviously matter a lot.  Yet the particular rules systems we choose to play with are every bit as important as the genre, setting, dice, and, yes, group chemistry in determining whether or not a given RPG'ing experience is fun.

Perhaps I am a bit of an extremist here, but if so, it is how I am "hardwired" and I can't seem to do much about it.  The truth is, even though I loved that 3.5 group, and was able to stomach playing in it for a couple years DESPITE my aversions to what felt like unnecessarily cumbersome rules, I NEVER LIKED THE 3.5 RULES, and that aspect of the experience, while not a deal-breaker, did somewhat diminish the fun for me.  What I ended up doing was ignoring / refusing to acknowledge the rules that seemed pointless (i.e., almost everything to do with skills and feats) and charging on ahead as if they didn't matter.  This mostly worked out, but there were many times when I simply wanted to be able to DO something, and would be reminded by other players that I had to roll against some feat or other, or that I couldn't do that thing (or at least hope to do it successfully) because I had no applicable skill.  This was frustrating.  And my general aversion to the 3.5 rules made me always feel like I was trying to move around underwater, that is, there was this big wall of rules that was making things happen sluggishly, in slow motion, again, diminishing the pacing and the fun (for me).

The less said about 4e the better, but my main point is that while I am sure that some DMs do an awesome job of making 4e feel more "old-school" than the (highly tactical and combat-oriented) style of play it seems to encourage, the form still matters -- i.e., different rules sets make different styles of play easier or harder to achieve.  The two evenings I played 4e -- albeit, possibly not with the world's greatest DM -- I was utterly bored.  Part of that may have been the way that DM used 4e as a vehicle, but part of the blame indeed lies with the vehicle itself.  I found little in the assumptions of 4e that excited my imagination or made me want to play it.  On the other hand, when I crack open the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion, or leaf through the booklets in the Swords and Wizardry White Box, I drool.  The rules themselves suggest possibilities get my mind going, get me jazzed to play the game. 

I think one of the points of confusion that leads to "Edition Wars" is the tendency to conflate the form and structure of the rules themselves with the corporation that produced them.  A great many of the anti-4e posts I have read (with some vicarious glee I admit) end up boiling down (at least in part) to a condemnation of WotC, Hasbro, or some combination thereof.  And while I confess myself to be a fan of fringe art, a supporter of grassroots creativity, and open to the idea of "sticking it to the man" etc., I truly have nothing against those companies per se.  Hell, like James M., I am immensely grateful to WotC for giving D&D a shot in the arm and especially for the innovation of the OGL that made Labyrinth Lord et. al. possible.  If Hasbro put out a game or rules system I liked, I would buy and play it, just as I would refrain from buying or playing a shitty or mediocre product that happened to be released by an OSR publisher I love.

So this may ultimately boil down to taste, but my point is that the rules really do matter -- they certainly matter more than corporate politics, and they may even matter more (or at least exert a profound influence upon) all the wonderful, ineffable stuff that contributes to the "feel" of a campaign: house rulings, campaign setting, player inclinations, party makeup, etc.  The rules provide the container for all that great, creative, spontaneous stuff -- they are the form that shapes the substance of our campaigns and our gaming experiences. 

This is why I am a "rules-light" OSR loyalist, and will happily leave 4e and Pathfinder to other types of gamers.