I managed to fulfill one of my longtime ambitions over the past couple of years: I learnt how to play ASL. You have to understand, it’s a game I saw when I was relatively young – at Uni? School? I can’t remember any more – and I was astonished that there was this game that you had to buy the rulebook separately from the pieces.

Yes, I know you could consider D&D to be like that, but we rarely played with minis when I was younger. Now, all the time. See where having a job and being interested in the D&D Miniatures line gets you…

So, with the ASL Starter Kits and now a bunch of full ASL modules (and the rulebook), I’ve been playing a lot of ASL. Mostly solo, but I think Randy and I will have quite a few games in the near future, assuming we don’t have the interruptions to our regular game night we’ve been having. Two cancelled in a row? Argh.

Which brings me to my current ambition. Currently unrealistic, but I’d love to do it: Run AD&D for a year, on a near-nightly basis. Yes, that’s right: on almost every night of the year. To have my friends decide to just come around and play D&D, me grab out the current version of my megadungeon (I have a couple), and we just go at it for 2-3 hours. To have PCs die, survive, get famous, hire henchmen, construct castles, do horrible things to other PCs, and otherwise play D&D as it was originally played. Or at least how I think it was played.

Sessions where a single friend would play their PC surrounded by a bunch of hirelings, and sessions where several friends would play at the same time, perhaps competing…

The absolute major problem with this is that I don’t live in Ballarat. Living 30 km away from everyone is a bit of a hassle, especially when a bunch of my friends don’t drive. And 30 minutes drive (there and back) is also a bit much. I’d really need to be in Ballarat, about 5 minutes away from everyone.

The other problem is I don’t know how many of my friends would think it’s a good idea. Of course, some nights I wouldn’t be able to do it because of boardgaming commitments, but I could do the other nights, surely?

And there are people out there who think I hate AD&D and old-school play…