This morning I woke up with the crazy idea of running a 100-points Dungeon Fantasy game set in the realm of Karameikos and starting in the town of Threshold. The thought of a low-powered classical adventure campaign powered by GURPS but inspired by my favourite edition of Dungeons & Dragons seems exciting. Let me tell you the story of why…

Returning to classic Dungeons & Dragons in 2016 began when I grabbed out my “red box” D&D Basic Set (1983) and dusted off the “First Adventure” inside the Dungeon Master’s Rulebook. I ran the opening scenario but didn’t enjoy the Class and Level engine of D&D, so we quickly switched to Mythras Classic Fantasy and that game birthed Mystamyr.

Alongside my Basic Set books there was a copy of the Expert Rulebook (1983). Inside that book I discovered the secrets of wilderness adventure with D&D and, when I needed a town map for my Fellmyr campaign in 2023, I remembered the map of Threshold. Inverting that map and using it for the game was trivial but also reminded of the D&D world, Mystara.

Yesterday, having pitched out doing some Dungeon Fantasy powered by GURPS, one of my potential players suggested that maybe using Greyhawk as a campaign setting would provide enough grounding to make a meaningful campaign and give players enough to hang a character concept upon. The problem is that this suggestion left me cold.

Thinking about where to set a Dungeon Fantasy game, I remembered that I own GAZ1: The Grand Duchy of Karameikos (1987). This was the area first given as an example in D&D Expert Set surrounding the town called Threshold. By 1987, it was reorganised as part of the Known World (Mystara) setting for Dungeons & Dragons. Looking through that gazetteer ignited my enthusiasm.

What if we were to set up a campaign within the lands of Karameikos as inspired by that old supplement but run it with the much more grounded GURPS game system?

Certainly Dungeon Fantasy 1 gives, “a common point of reference, so that when the GM asks everybody to create characters for a dungeon crawl, they can do so quickly”. The problem is the other goal of the supplement: “making two-dimensional ‘heroes’ from a non-culture” (p3). Karameikos gives us a broad culture to root the characters within.

I now have a where (Karameikos) and a when (1000 AC by the Thyatis reckoning). The who would be a small group of adventurers at the town of Threshold (further zooming in the where). The why could very simply be looking to do some paid work in or near the town. The how could be getting hired to do a simple job, such as clearing out the Old Mill.

From there, I reckon we could have a bit of fun exploring the world of Mystara in which the Grand Duchy is a semi-wilderness borderland-type area and home for several old D&D modules, such as B1, B2, B3, and B4. The original idea to bind together the classic adventures and give them a unified home world is something that engages me.

Will the group show interest? I have no idea.

It’s a better pitch than, “Hey, let’s run a one-shot dungeon adventure” or vaguely saying, “Shall we delve a megadungeon?” As I get older and realise my preferences, a basic dungeon and wilderness game is an appealingly light concept but I know that long-term play needs an Otherworld with history and culture.

Game on!