Old school survival kit

[Judging__Eagle]

From what I've gathered from my research into the origins of D&D, and specifically looking up and reading said inspirations; the following would stick out as helpful for a grognard's game:

-Read Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books. They actually portray the aesthetic of fantasy gaming better than many other forms of fiction.

A character is on some quest; and encounters side/delay quests they resolve by means of their personality traits.

They travel with other creatures, permanently or temporarily.

Pick up and use items of permanent or temporary use.

They have all the power of a human permanently; and can potentially learn (if they are powerful and have quested a lot) 1 to 6 physics breaking powers they can "prepare" in their mind temporarily. Memorizing spells doesn't make as much sense as it does in Vance's original work.

-Read "Sword & Planet"; ERRB. Rob "Robilar" Kuntz explained in an interview that Gary Gygax pointed at "Princess of Mars" not "Lord of the Rings"; Also, the original D&D Books had Red, and Green, Martians

-Read H.P. Lovecraft; /and/ Ron E. Howard. The Conan and Cthulhu mythos are a shared setting

-Watch campy B&W horror "Creature Features"; these were key in the development of the "bullshit monsters", and "Find out in game" that is a plague on modern gaming.

[Seriously though; the "FOIG" dogma caught on particularly hard with the larp development community in Southern Ontario about ~20 years ago; and while there are anywhere from 4-6 groups running monthly events for about 6 months of the year; not a single one of them escaped "FOIG" narrative dissonance issues.

I, as a player, am supposed to play a character who is integrated and makes sense in the setting and /act/ like that for 48 hours... but I can't actually know what's going on in the world in order to make that as easy as possible? That's Gygaxian levels of grognard logic.

I barely care about breaking character (apparently a greater sin than knowing what is going on in game) while larping on the regular because my suspension of disbelief is non-existent when my character can't actually know about a setting that they not only existed in, but have /only/ existed in.]

-Having an encyclopediac knowledge of the games rules will help a lot for maintaining your own sanity. Grognards are notorious for breaking the rules of their own fucking game whenever it suits them; and I recall 3.5 games where I had to keep the DM from dicking over the players due to lack of understanding of the rules; while doing the same with players.

[Dogbert]

Steps to avoid playing in the game at all. I've gotten good at this. I'm rarely invited anymore.

Very good stuff, thanks!

Also, after reading the new Umber Hulk entry, unless 5E has no polymorph (or heavily nerfed), seemingly we'll be able to add dungeon tunneling to the list of tools since the entry specifies that tunnels made by them are always safe and never endanger a dungeon's integrity.