The one word prompt for Day 26 of #RPGaDay2019 is Idea.
We all have tons of ideas and a lot less time to make them into reality. I can think of at least a dozen and a half campaign ideas off the top of my head.
But for today's post, I decided to make something new, so I present to all you role-players, young and old, the Challenge Challenge.
No, I'm not repeating myself. I'm referring to Challenge Magazine, the de facto house organ of Game Designer's Workshop (GDW). You wanted a new and different Twilight: 2000, Dark Conspiracy, or Megatraveller article or scenario? Challenge was the obvious first step.
Except Challenge wasn’t a "House Organ" like White Dwarf, Dragon, and White Wolf evolved into, promoting their companies' products exclusively within their pages.
Challenge also housed articles and scenarios for some of the best non-Fantasy RPGs : Cyberpunk, Battletech, Shadowrun, Space: 1889, Lost Souls, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, STAR WARS d6 and a host of other games.
Anyone who's tried to fill out those last issues of their collection of Dragon in the past 10 years knows that postage on grabbing these back issues on eBay are simply horrid. But thanks to drivethrurpg.com, a large collection of Challenge's run is available on pdf for four bucks an issue (on sale as I look at this for $2.99 apiece).
I'm not a fan of pdfs, but the idea of getting a boatload of gaming material for a number of games and genres for less than three dollars? That's given me a crazy idea.
My initial concept was to find the earliest Star Wars (d6) adventures in Challenge and start some framework with a campaign. Three or four dollars for a four hour-plus scenario with your friends seems like a reasonable amount. Finish one issue, move on to the next, with some healthy sandboxing along the way. And here's the greatest thing... players tiring of Star Wars, or certain players can't make it? You have a pile of other items in those issues, fresh to mine, with the systems they were written for, or something newer and fresher in the last 25+ years.
I'm a big fan of dead tree rpgs, but I feel I can get more out of a few odd pdfs of Challenge than I can my latest RPG purchase, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and I'm pretty jacked to run that.
...and if you get through the entire run of Challenge, back issue pdfs of White Wolf are even cheaper.
We all have tons of ideas and a lot less time to make them into reality. I can think of at least a dozen and a half campaign ideas off the top of my head.
But for today's post, I decided to make something new, so I present to all you role-players, young and old, the Challenge Challenge.
No, I'm not repeating myself. I'm referring to Challenge Magazine, the de facto house organ of Game Designer's Workshop (GDW). You wanted a new and different Twilight: 2000, Dark Conspiracy, or Megatraveller article or scenario? Challenge was the obvious first step.
Except Challenge wasn’t a "House Organ" like White Dwarf, Dragon, and White Wolf evolved into, promoting their companies' products exclusively within their pages.
Challenge also housed articles and scenarios for some of the best non-Fantasy RPGs : Cyberpunk, Battletech, Shadowrun, Space: 1889, Lost Souls, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, STAR WARS d6 and a host of other games.
Anyone who's tried to fill out those last issues of their collection of Dragon in the past 10 years knows that postage on grabbing these back issues on eBay are simply horrid. But thanks to drivethrurpg.com, a large collection of Challenge's run is available on pdf for four bucks an issue (on sale as I look at this for $2.99 apiece).
I'm not a fan of pdfs, but the idea of getting a boatload of gaming material for a number of games and genres for less than three dollars? That's given me a crazy idea.
My initial concept was to find the earliest Star Wars (d6) adventures in Challenge and start some framework with a campaign. Three or four dollars for a four hour-plus scenario with your friends seems like a reasonable amount. Finish one issue, move on to the next, with some healthy sandboxing along the way. And here's the greatest thing... players tiring of Star Wars, or certain players can't make it? You have a pile of other items in those issues, fresh to mine, with the systems they were written for, or something newer and fresher in the last 25+ years.
I'm a big fan of dead tree rpgs, but I feel I can get more out of a few odd pdfs of Challenge than I can my latest RPG purchase, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and I'm pretty jacked to run that.
...and if you get through the entire run of Challenge, back issue pdfs of White Wolf are even cheaper.
I have a few issues of Challenge in a box somewhere. I played a lot of MegaTraveller and Twilight: 2000 back in the day, so...
ReplyDeleteThe good thing about PDFs is that they can always survive your purges.
ReplyDeleteHaving looked into 15 years of downloads from drivethrurpg, I sorta wish I could. Nothing too embarrassing, just a LOT of crap.
Delete