Behold!

[Monte Carlo]

Many years ago a friend brought a little RPG box set around called "The Arduin Adventure" which was clearly a sort of bizarro tribute to the original "Grey Box" D&D set. They were written by Dave Hargrave (who is now sadly dead) and they were the sort of mad stuff your brilliant but strange friend might write whilst experimenting with mind-altering substances.

 

To give you an idea of just how cool it was, check out the artwork here, courtesty of the extremely informative Wiki entry.

 

Arduin was crammed with strange ideas, classes, tables and house rules clearly meant to be shoe-horned into a D&D game. It was a strange, niche product then and almost completely forgotten now but I think Hargrave influenced lots of RPG designers. I remember reading the books and spending hours working out what rule would fit in where whilst I created the coolest insectoid assassin character (Phraints, which still have a starring role in my homebrew campaign world along with lots of other little Arduin bits and pieces). Of course, being Arduin, you might just be as likely to come across a +3 Magnum revolver as a magical sword.

 

Hackmaster captures the anything-can-happen fun spirit of RPG'ing back then. The po-faced FR canon you come across now was alien to the game, and Greyhawk was just a campaign map you filled in as you went along.

 

Anyway, check out the Arduin homepage and this, the coolest dungeon map EVAR drawn by Hargrave for a friend shortly before his death. Lancer's Rest.

 

Cheers

MC

[Walsingham]

That looks kinda interesting. BUt we're not really gaming at present since we've a lot of weddings being planned. Thanks for linking it though.

[Laozi]

I'm reminded of the large guy with the horned helmet on Code Monkeys

[Sega_Shaman]

Todd? The viking-helmet-wearing round guy that in one episode meets the creator of D&D?