I stumbled across an old post by Skerpsies over at Coins and Scrolls. The post is called OSR: Caves and Props. Basically it is an alternate cave creation system to the one in Veins of the Earth. I loved reading Veins of the Earth but don't think I could ever use it. I should say I don't think I could ever get my players to stay down in that hostile environment for more than a session without collapsing caves behind them and forcing them forward. Caves however, I love the idea of caves.
I also love maps and Veins of the Earth's system is more of a point-crawl. There is an example of a cave map using the system in the Skerpsies post. I like the idea of a point-crawl but damn-it I love maps. So use a real cave map you might say. Well Skerpsies includes a good exa mple of one of those as well and they are so crazy as to make it impossible to describe. That natural result is simplified caves like those in Caves of Chaos that aren't really caves so much as soft-edged dungeons, more like the simple carved caves in this video than caves.
Skerpsies answer is simple and brilliant and three dimensional. I like it but need to do it on the computer. Using Sketchup or something like the old blob-based 3d modeling. Anyway it got my brain racing so I had to post about it so I can find it later.
Pits Perilous has an interesting post called Holmes as a Complete Game, Redux in which he discusses using the old Holmes basic rules to create a game limited to three levels. It was a followup to his post Holmes as a Complete game. I find the idea intriguing. The minimalism is nice, but I'm not sold on just three levels. In the old game you create a character through play, and in this case they are retiring before you know much about them. Still I like the idea and would love it if someone wrote up Endgame rules for those veteran 3rd level adventurers.
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