But for the Grace of God

 If you want to see what I had originally intended Arcane Adventures to look like, check out Blood & Treasure, by John Stater. It is a truly awesome piece of work. It pretty much as everything I wanted in Arcane Adventures: ascending armor class, three saving throws, a ton of simple classes, a ton of converted d20 material, simple feats, and lots of awesome flavor. The blog land-of-nod has some awesome material compatible with the game, and therefore compatible with D&D (old and new school).

As for now, I've played a lot more D&D, discovered a ton of game and materials (particularly cool old school stuff like Adventures Dark & Deep), and my ideas and views have changed a lot since then. Whenever I do make Arcane Adventures, it will probably be a lot different, and my current house rules are very different, and much closer to OD&D.

Blood & Treasure is awesome though. I love playing it, even though I've only gotten to once. In fact, it sets out to do what I wanted Arcane Adventures to do: it acts as a gateway into D&D. Whether it's a new school player trying old school D&D, or a completely new person trying fantasy role playing, it's simple to get and fun to play.

A cool story of how I finally got to play involves one of my really new-school style friends. I've been really wanting to referee a consistent old school games, and while he's okay with playing whatever, he definitely craves a consistent rule set. A gave him a few games to look at, Castles & Crusades, Basic Fantasy, ADD3, and some others I don't recall. He read through a few, unimpressed, and cracked open Blood & Treasure. He was in love.

He immediately started copying out of every blog post he could find with extra material. He's even considering switching to it for his main game. The next night another one of our friends came over, and we ran a quick one shot, set in the Land of Nod. It was a great game, with an interesting, and genuinely unique setting.

Anyway, not much else to say. I have the single book, soft cover copy, printed by lulu. For the price it's worth it: all the rules you need, tons of classes, and a bunch of monsters to kill. Like I said, Arcane Adventures is already looking a lot different, but if you want to see what I originally had in mind, it's pretty much Blood & Treasure.