Ever since reading The Alexandrian’s posts on the Open Table, I have wanted to create and have in my back pocket such a game. Given my love of the classic megadungeon, I decided to revisit this aim over the past week or two.

At first, the idea was to run a standalone megadungeon game but signals from the RPR community were suggesting people wanted to place the dungeon in Fellmyr – my classic fantasy world created for the school club and now in play face-to-face. Looking at the map, which is beautiful work, solidified this desire.

After some thought, and drawing on Evil Jeff’s timeline of the Elves, I decided it might be fun to place the dungeon in Fellmyr – atop Black Peak to be precise – but also back more than 5000 years in the timeline and giving access via the magical gate discovered below Stone Harrow (as it is now).

To make the game work as an Open Table, I need quick character creation. This means I need to be able to generate new characters at the table inside about 10 minutes. As a fan of GURPS Third Edition‘s “random character creation” rules, I decided to adapt them for GURPS Lite.

I want to generate the vibe of old-school D&D without fiddling around with polyhedral dice. I decided to use GURPS Lite (3e) because I want a lighter set of rules, want to include magical spells, and want to make it free to join in. The goal is to add Basic Set and Magic once the game is up and running for those who want more options.

Here’s a link to my draft Quick Character Creation notes based on GURPS Lite (3e). Things are likely to change as we play but this is a firm starting point for a game that will feel fairly old-school but still be powered by GURPS.

Game on!