I haven't played D&D, Arcane Adventures, or really any role playing or tabletop game in a while. My wife and I tried to play some Axis & Allies, but the cats decided that wasn't allowed, and knocked it on to the ground. (As a note for any old schoolers who know what Axis & Allies is, I actually have an original copy from 1984 my dad gave me. Probably not really that cool, but definitely cool to me when I was growing up).
Now I've written about my wife a lot, and that's really because she's my partner in all of this. Honestly I feel I might have down played her contributions, in an effort to be self conscious, and not come off as that sort of John Lennon-like guy. Quite frankly I married my best friend, who happens to be just as obsessed with tabletop games as I am. With that said, today she brought up the idea of one-on-one tabletop games. Of course we've played D&D with just the two of us before, and we've played card games, and board games; but she wanted something different.
Specifically she wanted a game where we could both play, and neither of us had to strictly DM or referee. Now we've actually done this before. As I've read other lonely nerds, DM's, and wargamers oft do, I've setup and played games by myself for hypothetical purposes, or to test game mechanics. Naturally when I got into old school D&D via Swords & Wizardry, I wanted to run a test game to really understand the rules before I attempted to referee a game.
Watching me tinker with the new game, my wife asked if she could join in. We made a four character party, and proceeded to raid the dungeon. I'd simply roll on the random charts to determine what was in each room, and I handled the monsters. Obviously this style of play precludes certain elements of mystery, and having to play the monsters, I'd have to read their description and know their weaknesses. My wife's solution is to have a "party leader" and "referee player"; the party leader makes tactical decisions, and the referee player handles the monsters. With this dual role system, one player is free to "play dumb", but still gets to roll for his characters, gain xp, and actually fight monsters; while the other player gets to think out the situation, and actually have the mental challenge. Obviously players would trade roles frequently, or at least every other session.
This was all retrospective thought, as we thought back and remembered we'd already done this. Before reminiscing however, I recalled another game I had looked at that was touted as "GM-less". The Mythic role playing game has a Game Master Emulator (which is available by itself). I went ahead and grabbed a copy of both, as I no longer had them. What I found out was great, the Game Master Emulator can be used with any role playing game.
All of this leads me to how I play and run D&D; pillaging everything. Whether it's other games like Runequest, or TV shows like Hercules, I steal what I can from everything. I'm sure most gamers do this, but I'll outline some of the places I go to, or at least plan on going to to for ideas.
Just as some examples of what I've been tossing around in my mind as sources that aren't actually D&D related, or D20:
-Mythic, obviously, as I've already stated, and particularly for the GM emulator.
-Runequest, which I've been told has some very interesting monsters and environment.
-Elder Scrolls for monsters, environment ideas, and possibly even some mechanics
Now this one is going to be a bit far off for most old schoolers. I know most guys in the OSR, and who play 2E back are usually at least in their 30's, and some are even older. As a rather young guy, I have some fond memories of Pokemon, though just the TV show. I never got into the card games, or videos games, and only watched for a little bit. However everyone from generation is into it, so I'm constantly being bombarded by images of the series. One thing that really sticks out to me, at least with the early Pokemon, is how they'd make great D&D monsters.
A lot of the art for Pokemon is actually pretty good, and while some of the monster concepts are pretty generic or simple, I think they fit the D&D generic. Electric rats, serpent like rock golems, heck there is even a Pokemon that's basically black ooze. With an endless list of monsters, I don't see why it couldn't be pillaged for some interesting, and novel additions to a monster manual. Even some of the other modern shows and games like Yugioh could be used.
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