Mazes and Minotaurs
In November 2002, Paul Elliott -- author of various free roleplaying games including the excellent Zenobia -- wrote an article called The Gygax/Arneson Tapes for his Tempus Fugit column on RPGnet. In it, he imagined that Gary Gygax was inspired by Classical Mythology instead of Tolkien-esque High Fantasy, and created Mazes and Minotaurs.
Along comes Olivier Legrand, a French game designer, who decides to actually make the fictional game the column describes with three goals:
- Write a complete game in English.
- Write a game with a genuine old-school, 1970s feel, reminiscent of early D&D.
- Write a game that would be totally coherent with Paul's article.
He did, and released to for free!
Check it out here.
Tropes used in Mazes and Minotaurs include:
- Defictionalization - From speculative column entry to real game!
- Lampshade Hanging: lots of quirks of the D&D game are adressed in the pseudo-historical commentaries like the armor class system, the wargamist quarrels, etc.
- Retraux - See What If
- What If - What if G.G. was hooked on a Grecian world instead of a medieval one?
- What Could Have Been - The entire premise.
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