The power of nostalgia

Arthur over at the most excellent Refereeing and Reflection blog recently wrote about revisiting the Dragon Warriors RPG. This was in response to my gushing about it a couple of months back. He’s given it a second shake, and has reassessed it somewhat more positively.

He says:

“So, I’ll give Uncaring Cosmos their due: they’ve certainly made me sit up and take notice of Dragon Warriors again, and I think there’s something of a case to be made for the game having a significant place in the history of British RPGs.”

I accept a big part of the appeal for me is nostalgia. Back in the early 1990s, Dragon Warriors was such a puzzle to me. It was the first tabletop RPG I’d ever encountered, before I even knew what RPGs were (Games Workshop, which was the most visible pre-internet manifestation of the hobby in Britain, was by then solely focused on wargaming).

I probably picked up the first dog-eared volume of Dragon Warriors in a bargain bin in some second-hand bookshop. I never did figure it out (it wasn’t until Advanced Fighting Fantasy that I would actually try running anything, and I only really figured out how tabletop RPGs worked around 2014).

Nevertheless, I still think Dragon Warriors is a gem of a game. Yes, the art was a huge part of it. There was a strong dark fairy tale / folk horror atmosphere that I think runs all the way through the British Old-School.

More than that, though, I really dig how Dragon Warriors adds extra detail to combat compared to B/X D&D without adding any extra dice rolls. Instead of rolling to-hit and damage, you roll to-hit and armour penetration (with damage being a set amount depending on the weapon used).

It’s still a d20 followed by another polyhedron (typically d6 or d8). However, it effectively separates DEX from armour, allowing a bit more granularity without extra rules complexity.

Anyway, Arthur’s post has prompted me to shake the dust off and get back to blogging. So, ta for that!