Once a collector, always a collector. It’s a common nerd trope that I am vulnerable to, but thus far have been able to resist. I don’t have a complete or even large collection of anything, but not for lack of wanting, just owing to practical reasons. Heck I don’t even have a large collection of puppets, just because I don’t have the space.
I am realizing that there is one thing I am starting to collect: projects. I have a number of projects either in process or planned. Ever since turning puppet building into my profession I don’t count that, and I imagine gaming counts as more of a hobby, but even within those parameters I have projects within them.
On the tech side, there’s the “build an RSS reader from scratch” project as talked about on the podcast. Plus my ongoing determination to get comfortable in Linux, tinker with streaming tech, etc. On the gaming side I have ongoing Ironsworn and Starforged campaigns which have turned project-y by me self-hosting an install of Foundry VTT on my Linux server, which took some tinkering, but ended up working well.
Just yesterday I thought of a new project. I’m a Dungeons and Dragon player since the 80s. Absolutely love it, and have largely stuck with it in it’s various incarnations. With the recent development of the OGL 1.1 (which I’m sure we’ll get into on an upcoming podcast), a lot of the faithful are looking to jump ship. Pathfinder never interested me but I’m warming to it as Paizo is likely to be a viable contender for the crown. These days I’m focusing more on TTRPGs that I can play solo since time is so tight, and there are lots of resources to run solo D&D 5e games out there that work well. It’s one of the things that makes Ironsworn/Starforged so appealing: they’ve solved the “no one wants to GM” problem.
But then I thought: what about going back to the well? My first D&D was 1e Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. The rules have been updated and changed a lot since then, but there is an appeal of going back and seeing how it plays today. There is a community of “OSR” (old school rules) players out there, so I wonder if this is something I can adapt to solo play?
Sadly I no longer own the physical books but thanks to the nebulous blob of The Internet I do have good PDF scans of them. I took a fleeting look yesterday and… wow. The rules have really been streamlined. I’d forgotten how loose and nebulous is was in those early days, compared with the structure of today’s D&D.
Still don’t know how far this will get or if this will just be another project for the collection pile that is slowly building, but hey, it’s good blog and podcast fodder.
Now as it’s build stream day, I’d best get this coffee downed. Happy dungeon delving.