2011/12/31

Darkus Thel


An innumerable multitude of persons grouped together, loudly speaking, a throng endlessly whispering to one another's ear about the same topic (D&D) every day without any feeling of sickness.
This is more or less what the OSR is to me (but i love you all anyway).

I would sooner listen to anyone able to shed light on this game (and explaining to us all how it was possible that it went almost unnoticed for about 26 years) than being forced to read the next thousands boring posts on Dragonsfoot forum which are likely to appear in the next years to come.

I say "almost unnoticed" because in fact it has been played until today, if a third edition (!) came out.

But then, the laughable idea that will surely arise is that it doesn't deserve attention, because otherwise we all would know it very well.
And everything sinks again into oblivion, except for those who care.

Links of interest:

http://www.bluewaterminiatures.com/dtrb.html http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/darkusthel/?v=1&t=directory&ch=web&pub=groups&sec=dir&slk=3991 http://theworldofthelous.proboards.com/index.cgi/ http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-fort-wayne/revisiting-darkus-thel

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here are a couple of quotes about the game that may answer some of your questions:

Gamers in Fort Wayne exist in a weird bubble. There are a lot of them, and they mostly play games called Darkus Thell and Dragonstorm. Darkus Thel has been around since 1975, and is totally unknown outside of Fort Wayne. Most of the players seemed to be women, and they all had costumes. It was odd.

(from here)

I played it at a con once and I couldn't help thinking: why did these guys just remake D&D?

(from here)

While I agree that the topic of AD&D has been done to death on the forums, the forums aren't the OSR. Part of it yes, but not its entirety. However, it's important to remember why people talk about a single subject over and over for 30 years. The simple answer is because they like it.

I think Lewis Pulsipher (one of the most overlooked contributors of this hobby) summed it up perfectly a couple of weeks ago when he explained why he's not interested in designing RPGs:

I can modify D&D, I don't need anything else, so why design one?

(his second comment here)

Philosophical slumber said...

thanks David for the info you provided for DT.

i was going to reply to you, but then it was too long and it resulted in a new post above.

Anonymous said...

Thanks CL, I started typing a reply to the next post but lost internet connection for most of yesterday and so saved it in a Word doc. I'll finish it today and post my reply.

I will just add to my comment about though - people fixate on D&D not because it is the 800lb gorilla, rather it is the 800lb gorilla because people love it. It is important to remember that fact when wondering why so many other RPGs are seemingly neglected.

Philosophical slumber said...

ok, i'm waiting for it then :)

Anonymous said...

Great cover art. I'm curious to see more, but apparently the 3rd edition is out of print. I wonder why they haven't gone to print on demand for things like this. I'd think it would be preferable to not selling any copies at all.

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