Every once in awhile, I get struck with some idea when I’m in bed, half asleep, and after that, my mind won’t rest as it explores the possibilities of that idea. I just had such a moment.

One thing we’ve been talking about recently is to revitalize our pencil/paper/dice RPG experience again, and I offered to GM. So I’m lying there almost asleep (having woken up to hit the bathroom or something), and it strikes me that I could modify the ‘stock’ ad&d d20 rules to emulate some of the rich gameplay that Asheron’s Call has. I’m going to make a few notes here to whet my appetite, and then start opening some documents to get this down more formally.

First, to stress the ‘new world to explore’ aspect of it. Asheron’s Call began with people being teleported into a new world, and immediately enslaved by the Olthoi. I would skip the enslavement part, but focus on the new world to explore part, and not make it quite so hostile right from the get go.

Second, portal magic. As in AC, there will be portals all over the ‘ley lines’ of the world, and into it (into dungeons). Mastering those portals will be a large part of what gets people into trouble in the beginning.

Third, lifestones. I’m still working this one through, but I think a similar function might work well.

Fourth, salvaging and smithing. I wanted to have items be able to break down into components, effectively yielding ‘recipes’ of a sort that the experienced ‘smith’ of that type to use. There would be leathersmiths, weaponsmiths, woodsmiths, etc. ‘Salvaging’, as a skill, would be something that everyone has a sort of inate proficiency in, but would need to be trained in order to not suffer penalties, and to be able to salvage high level items. We’ll see how this works out in the mechanics of it.

Anyway, off I go to investigate this more formally. What a cool thing. *drool*

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