Hero’s Journey – Reboot

The other day I was thinking about Hero’s Journey, and what I could possibly do to make it stand out from the other retroclones out there. Naturally, I thought about using different races first. Right now I have humans, elves, dwarves, halflings and orcs (yes, full orcs). So, I started thinking about other “archetype” races that might be a bit less Tolkien-esque. I have several ideas, which I will probably go into at a future date.

Then it hit me that I had started world-building for a story I was writing that was technically Sword & Planet, in the Edgar Rice Burroughs vein of John Carter and Carson Napier. In this story there are several races of aliens, and each one would make a pretty cool D&D-style race, with some tweaking and expansion.

So, now I’m in the process of detailing those out. Once I get their write ups for the HJ rules, as written, I will plug them in place of the traditional ones I have (though humans will remain, but will be called something else).

Then I started thinking about the magic aspect. And I came up with an idea for a different magic system that would be compatible with the OSR rules, but work in a completely different way, all the while keeping the original framework that the original rules had.

This is all pretty exciting for me. But I have to wonder if others would find it so. Basically, it would be OSR D&D style play, with some alternate rules and systems, and non-traditional races. It would still be heroic fantasy, with arcane and divine magic, low technology, and all of the tropes and style available in D&D, but with some new flair.

I’ll probably write it all out in rough form, and then offer it up to some people to read it and playtest it. Heck, I might even be able to rope some local people to help me out on that.