Monday, April 18, 2011

Old School Thieves' World Goodness from Chaosium

One of the RPGs I wanted to own, but never got a copy of was the old Thieves' World RPG by Chaosium.

While still lacking in that arena, I've come across information from that old set that makes it all the more interesting: AD&D stats for a lot of the characters from the early books! Thanks to whoever that was who typed out all those AD&D stats -- I heard there were other things in there too, but don't gots the actual pages.

Did you know that Molin Torchholder was an equivalent 8th level cleric? That Tempus was a 15th level fighter? That Enas Yorl was a cursed, constantly shapechanging 18th level magic-user? I didn't. And I know that it's not an exact fit, but it's interesting to see someone's take on their conversion to the old rules.

Yes, I agree with a lot of Green Ronin's take on the setting: no alignments, much multi-classing, and so on. But hey, there's something about seeing these familiar characters through a hazy mirror of time and older gaming sentiments.

3 comments:

  1. It is worth noting that this wasn't an RPG, it was a supplement for *multiple* RPG's - from D&D *and* AD&D to Traveller to Runequest (and a number of others).

    I was just given the Green Ronin boxed set for my birthday and it's sitting next to my old boxed set. Never having played 3.? I expect it has a similar "hazy mirror of time and [newer] gaming sentiments" for me.

    D.

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  2. @fluerdemal: Oh, it wasn't? Interesting -- I want it now!

    The GR boxed set? Will check that out too.

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  3. It is an excellent product, indeed. And written by top-notch fantasy and sci-fi writers (e.g. Poul Anderson.)
    Note that the conversions have not been cross-compared, since each designer was tasked with implementing the NPCs in their rules set. So for example, Steve Marsh wrote the Sanctuary characters for B/X, wheares Lawrence Schick wrote the stats for AD&D 1e, and the two sets of stats are really far from each other, which is an indication of how each perceived the setting. In this respect I think the Green Ronin version is superior since, gamewise, describes a unitary vision.
    As a generic source of material however, the Chaosium boxed set is far more accessible than the Green Ronin one, which is almost completely swamped by crunch.

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That's my side of things. Let me know what you think, my friend.