Dudgeon Master: Alar

Status: Ongoing

When I was having trouble getting a new tabletop game going, I started to grumble that it would be a lot easier to get a game going online. Instead of telling me to quit whining, a few friends encouraged me to get to work on starting one. I started poking at notes for a setting and stories, but I kept not doing anything about it, because I couldn't find software I liked to actually run the thing online. Finally, my friend Nick got sick of my inaction and found suitable software. I announced in March 2011 that we'd start play soon. Then I did nothing again for a few months, but the game finally started happening in November 2011.

We played every other Saturday for about two years before (for various reasons) the same set of players began playing Basic D&D instead, moving into my Beyond the Temple of the Abyss campaign.

I kept a journal of game recaps.

System

We're playing Mazes & Minotaurs (Revised), the 1987 (but really 2007) old-school RPG of sword and sandal adventure. The rules are available free online, and you can print it at your local copy center for a few bucks, if you like paper.

Mazes & Minotaurs is a very simple system, with a feel something like early AD&D, but with a lot more "roll a d20 based on your attributes" than that. Characters have six attributes, a bunch of derived bonuses, a class, and that's about it. If you're a really complicated character, you might have a list of spells.

Of course, I also have a bunch of house rules.

We played using two main tools: Mumble for voice chat and Roll20 for maps, minis, and dice. They worked pretty well.

Setting

"Alar" - Vorica Minor
    and Alar

Alar is set in the massive city of Alar, one of the largest cities in the sprawling and powerful Castaigne Empire. In recent months, the city has become more and more crowded with refugees fleeing the mysterious spire that erupted from the earth, bringing with it terrible creatures and a spreading chaos. Alar has been left cut off from the seat of the empire, and the situation has grown even more tense and dangerous than usual as players on all sides – including the player characters – try to use the situation to their advantage.