Although I mentioned this the other day, my physical copy of “Muster“ by Eero Tuovinen arrived and it’s a far more chunky tome than I expected. It’s about 250 pages, nicely laid out in a fairly large font size. This bodes well for ease of reading but also appears to have some heft of content too.

“Muster” has pointed me back towards my taste for the “wargaming way”. Of course, it is also the play that emerged prior to the publication of Dungeons & Dragons more than 50 years ago. I first explored it when I read Jon Peterson’s “Playing The World” and watched “Secrets of Blackmoor”.

To reiterate, the basics are focused on the Megadungeon concept and the core play cycle of exploring such vast underground locations. These are perhaps more a type of Mythic fantasy, cyclopean depths with treasure and monsters which test the mettle of the brave or foolish.

This approach strips the character down to a handful of mere numbers, equips the erstwhile pawn of the player with useful items, and sends him out to probably die. The style is big on player skill and group cooperation, low on characterisation and play-acting. It’s the way we played a lot when I was 10-18 years old.

I’m looking forward to delving back into the “wargaming way” and seeing what I can create powered by GURPS but utilising this older approach. I sense that there is space in my life for a rules-lite “Simple Dungeon GURPS“-type megadungeon running as an Open Table. Lighter that Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and lower points than most GURPS fans enjoy.

Game on!