Old School Cool

 Just a quickie "tonight" (as long as I post it before I go to bed it still counts). Ran the game with four people. One had only played any kind of RPG once or twice, two have played a reasonable amount of more modern stuff, and one had actually played Basic when that was current. I killed one of them three times, as he tried to loot and murder hobo his way through the dungeon. He had a nice time. I stand by yesterday's post that there's a lot more flexibility in the older, lighter systems. When I run modern stuff and someone says, "can I do X?" the answer is always, "maybe, roll some dice" but a lot of times there's some weird rule for how to do it in like five steps in one of the books. With the older ones, there's a lot less of those. I don't love race as class, but there are a few retroclones that take that out. I'm never sure how I feel about the lack of skill system. On the one hand, it does help differentiate characters (a "thuggish" thief that relies on intimidation, etc. vs a sneaky one), but it does add a lot of rules.

I found Winter's Daughter very similar as GM to how I did as a PC, which is kind of anti-climactic. The basic outline is that the PCs go into a tomb, where they need to solve a small puzzle/riddle, retrieve a ring, and give it to a fairy princess. It's not combat heavy (which is fine), but there's no big set piece for when the PCs win. They make it through a half dozen rooms, do the puzzle (which is pretty binary, they either find the info they need or don't) and then can head to the princess with minimal fuss. They don't really have any reason to care about the princess and her husband outside of backstory, which is iffy in a one shot like this. There's not even much conflict for roleplaying. The princess and knight do want to get married, no one really objects. I feel like it'd work better if they had to convince them to get married, or stop a forced marriage, or something. There are a few other OSE adventures I see recommended as starter sessions, but I might try one of the old D&D box set scenarios, or just brew something myself. We'll see.