What is Adventure World?

 I've been asked this question a few times since mentioning to fellow gamer friends and enthusiasts that I've been writing my own game. I suddenly realized how fundamentally important it is to know the answer. Not merely to have some text with fancy font to put on the (eventual) book's back cover, but more of a philosophy to keep in mind when writing the game itself. Without a focusing point, it can be easy to get lost in your creation. "Constraint leads to liberation," is a phrase that comes to mind, which has made it much less taxing to make this damn thing. Before I had become cognizant of this fact, the game was a bit of a Frankenstein. Now, it's a Frankenstein with a purpose.

What is Adventure World?

Adventure World is a game inspired by classic fantasy roleplaying games of the 70s and 80s. But it is not an imitation of those games! It’s an homage to the days of gaming where nobody really knew what they were doing, nor did they really care; they were having too much fun -- that’s not to say Adventure World is lacking in rules or is overly complex (the rules are actually kept to a minimum so you and your friends can get to the good stuff.) but rather it encourages the Adventure Master (AM from here on) and players to fill in the blanks--writing a rule for every situation is both impossible and impractical. The most important ones are all there; however, we at Adventure World Inc. trust you are clever enough to create your own should you find them necessary. The term “Golden Arches-ization of Gaming” comes to mind when thinking about a lot of modern games. That is to say, wherever you go, that game will always be run the same way with the same rules. The experience is analogous to visiting a well known fast-food chain: you can usually expect the same thing no matter which one you go to. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but Adventure World is more about having groups play the game with their own autonomous spirit, much like a mom-and-pop joint off the side of the highway. While some groups might already do this with other gaming systems, Adventure World explicitly encourages this! There are some bits of advice for AMs here and there and example house-rules towards the end of this book, but feel free to add more if you wish . What is Adventure World? That’s really up to you.