There’s some trouble in retro roleplaying land.

I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons in various forms for about 25 years now. It started with a Red Box, an elf, and Ryan Tunnecliffe behind a DM’s screen. This was followed by years of AD&D, in the form of 1st and 2nd editions.

There have been other games, but it always comes back to Dungeons & Dragons for me. There’s something about it, I guess.

Most recently, I have been playing a lot of 4th edition. It’s still fun, but it’s a very different game, that leaves me wanting to re-experience the versions that have nostalgia attached.

Enter Wizards of the Coast, or so it seemed. This week, the core books for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons were re-released. In theory.

In practice, I’ve tried to find them in two different stores that peddle fantasy roleplaying wares, only to find not a sniff of them. I’ve looked on Amazon, and found this, which looks like my old 1st Edition Player’s Handbook from back in the day:

Except that to buy it from Amazon new costs four hundred and forty three pounds. I wrote that out as a sentence, so you wouldn’t think there was a typo or anything.

There’s one more shop to try in London, but I don’t expect to find it here. Guess I’ll have to fly to America to buy these things.

One of the things that I am doing for the new year is creating a new game. This game is meant to be a throwback AD&D game, set in a sandbox world.

This is hard, because I am starting with an empty sandbox.

As a result, every day, something needs to be added to the sandbox. A new NPC, a new place, a new adventure theme, a little quirk that will appear in a random room in a dungeon. Anything to make the sandbox grow each day.

It is interesting to see the range of inspirations that are finding their way into the game — I’m pulling in things from everywhere: Gaming blogs (duh), non-gaming blogs, TV shows, movies. Books, magazines, newspaper articles. There is something in almost everything that can be stolen and placed (strategically) in the sandbox.

It’s also a slow project. When I write out a page in my notebook about a Dwarven armourer in the City of Bridges, I do not know how this character will become important — or if they will become important — during the game. I don’t even know if my characters will ever go to the City of Bridges. Hell, at the moment, I’m not even sure where the City of Bridges is. It’s just somewhere.

As a result, we are wondering how long it should take to build a sandbox.

Perhaps that should read: we are wondering how long it should take to build a sandbox when the builder has a baby. I think that my concentration is being sapped by alternate duties.

The players are going into the sandbox soon(ish), though, so I’d best get all the plastic shovels ready.

Image: Steve Zieser