A while back I posted some recruitment ads for an Old School Hack test group, and have heard from precisely zero players. So I'm going to take a more proactive approach -- print out the game materials, head down to the weekly tabletop night at my Friendly Local Game Store, and try to coax some of the Magic: the Gathering junkies into a pickup game of OSH instead. (If that fails, a mate of mine is bringing Munchkin so the night won't be a total loss.)

For the setting, I'm thinking high fantasy crossed with pulp-serial archaeological swashbuckling -- I'll pitch it as "Lord of the Rings meets Indiana Jones." The PCs will be explorers affiliated with the Pathfinder Society (some ideas DEMAND to be stolen) operating out of the bustling port of Barsoom, located at the mouth of the Python River which winds through a vast tropical jungle filled with cavern systems and the ruins of an ancient lizardfolk empire. Tech level is roughly on par with the Age of Sail: the printing press, magnetic compasses, spring-powered clockwork and early firearms are available.

If this ends up being just a one-shot deal, no problem. But if the launch goes well, I'd like to keep running it for the weekly game store night so I can play with a bunch of different people and get a wider range of feedback than I could get from just a single group. Instead of running a campaign with a story arc, I would shoot for a cross between the "D&D Encounters" thing that WotC does at game stores and a more episodic sandbox style of play -- each session, we muster players, head out into the bush for a dash of spelunking and/or temple looting, get the survivors back to Barsoom in time for happy hour at the cantina, and wrap up the game for that week. I'd like to give returning players the opportunity to level up and re-use their characters over multiple sessions, but I'd also like to give new players a chance to jump into the fray with level-1 characters alongside the veterans.

But therein lies the rub: OSH as written looks like it's meant to produce and work with a party of characters who are all the same level. I'm not too worried about 1st-level newbies pulling their weight while adventuring alongside 3rd or 4th-level bruisers; vets have more talents and maybe an extra magic item to play with, but the overall mechanical power discrepancy between the early and late Basic Game doesn't look too severe. It's the Awesome Point economics that worry me a bit more: I could quite conceivably draw a group in later weeks that features one or two vets who are close to leveling up and a fresh newbie that has yet to earn and spend his first AP. This could be a problem because the rules say that nobody levels up until the entire group spends 12 AP.

Is there a way to smooth over this problem? I do love the idea of running mix-and-match parties with different character levels; I've heard this was a mainstay of early D&D.