by Mach Front » Thu Sep 01, 2016 8:13 am
Perhaps my memory is incorrect, but I'm pretty sure that at least the first edition of S&W:WB was available when the S&W quick start was released. Actually, I long wondered why this wasn't continually pushed/championed. I can only imagine that when chogwiz (or whatever that fellow's name is) soon after abandoned blogging and online activity the official Quick Start sorta suffered along with his (unfortunate) absence.
I'm less sure about Tenkar's (albeit noble) S&W:L. Aimed at lapse gamers. Hm. Can't a lapsed gamer 'suffer' through the ease of S&W:WB, S&W Core or even Wanderers' WB?
Seems odd. Many of us now held within the loving arms of the OSR were lapsed gamers of varying degrees/circumstances. I highly doubt any of us (since I've seen it repeatedly since at least around about '07-ish) could/would "come back" and then look at something like, say, S&W Core and just shake their/own heads and say: "Nah. Nevermind. That's too much/too hard." ....and I say this as someone who loves B/X and all of it's 128-ish pages and would never start a totally new game today wherein I had to read and learn as much or even half that. But, coming back to such wherein much or all of it was at least once familiar, even the laziest part of me could handle it or something slightly less complicated/complex/verbose. So, as such I fail to see how WB or Core does not already fill this niche.
I dig the idea of S&W:L in general, but only because I love games like RISUS or Strange Magic or Searchers of the Unknown and not because I need my hand held to get back to something I once knew intimately. I was once big into MERP when I was about 13, soon after getting totally into gaming.
If you wanted me to get back into MERP, just re-release an easier and more straightforward MERP. I wouldn't need a five page super-ultra-light iteration of MERP, ya know?
I suppose I'm more suspect of the niche even existing and actually needing a nigh-kiddie iteration of rules for a game that is already easy and straightforward. *shrug*