A Mission, you say??

Hey, all.

Sorry I’m a bit tardy getting this up, but here’s the shiny new TARGA Mission Statement mentioned by Mike in a recent post:

TRADITIONAL

We’re inspired by a “do-it-yourself” style of play rooted in the earliest years of the hobby.

ADVENTURE ROLEPLAYING

We play our games in worlds of wonder filled with imaginary characters.

GAME

We share our games with all comers using original, out-of-print rules, as well as their more modern “retroclones” or “simulacra”.

ASSOCIATION

We do this by providing and organizing a network of resources, ideas, and contacts for all those interested in  playing  adventure roleplaying games with a “traditional” mindset.

We certainly don’t expect to please everybody with this particular focus, but at least we can now say we’re focused! After much discussion, it became clear that what we really wanted to promote was reaching out to those who’ve had little or no exposure to either these games or this particular style of play. Therefore our purpose is to provide resources both for those who’ve discovered something new and aren’t sure where to start, as well as those who’d like (or be willing to) get newbies into their already existing Old School games.

We’ve also created a rather large (and sure to grow) FAQ, soon to be up on the wiki and the website, if not this blog.

Questions? Comments?

Bring ‘em on!

kesher

News Roundup

Black Blade Publishing is now being stocked by Noble Knight Games -  if you can’t find them at your FLGS, try Noble Knights. Black Blade is the publishing company that is adapting some of Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classic modules for 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Expeditious Retreat Press are having their annual sale. This is a great time to pick up some fantastic items for newer and older editions. Brave Halfling Publishing also announced an updated compilation of their “Delving Deeper” series for Labyrinth Lord.

There was quite a bit of “unearthed arcana”  from Gary Gygax being talked about the past fortnight. First, Randall at retroroleplaying.com shared his discovery of some Gary Gygax articles dating back to 1976 in PDF scans of an old wargaming “fanzine” – Liasons Dangereuses. The blog Beyond The Black Gate shared a link to an essay written by Gary in 2001 about how the author Jack Vance influenced Dungeons & Dragons. And from the blog Grognardia comes another discovery of a 1975 article by Gary in a European wargaming fanzine which goes into some detail about the famous Castly Greyhawk and its dungeons beneath!

Another interesting find from the early days of D&D was an interview by the site Gaming Brouhaha about a Dungeons & Dragons summer camp held annually in the early 1980s. The subject of the interview, Ben Robbins, has released more pictures on his site from the camp. Imagine what would have been said if this camp had been in the public’s attention during the D&D hysteria?

If you are a Traveller fan, this will interest you – rare Traveller fanzines are being given away by the Retro Roleplaying blog. The blog’s author, Randall, has a fundraiser going for his wife’s medical bills due to skin cancer. He is giving away some very rare items – take a look at the announcement and help out if you can – it’s for a good cause.