The Core Experience

When "Doctor Who" had its 50th anniversary, the episode that was produced was "Day of the Doctor". When the James Bond films had their 50th anniversary, the film was "Skyfall". In both cases, the entry that was produced was very much an example of the core of the thing - DW was a fairly lore-heavy episode, with multiple Doctors, much shifting between time zones, and a re-statement of the core ethos of the show; JB had the classic lines, the classic car, several key locations, action scenes, and of course the "Bond girls".

When I did my "Gygax Tribute Game" ten years ago (and that's a sobering thought!), I likewise adopted many of the classic tropes, with one no-name character, a Fighter called "Bob" and a second called "Bob Two", a dungeon, deadly traps, and so on. Which was fine, though it suffered for a lack of preparation time - I put that one together over the course of a week, between the passing and the weekend's game session.

For the upcoming 30th Anniversary Game, then, I'll be looking for something very similar in tone, though not quite hitting the same tone.

Some of the elements I'll therefore be looking to hit:

• I want to feature all three of the pillars of the game prominently: combat, exploration, and interaction. Two of these are fairly easy - it's not hard to construct combat encounters, and the dungeon setting makes exploration pretty easy, too. Interaction may be a touch more difficult, but not beyond the wit of men.
  
• I don't intend to put too much emphasis on the name of the game. There will be a dungeon, since that's easy to conceive of; and there will be a dragon, but the dragon won't be a major part of it. In particular, the climactic big-boss fight won't be the dragon. Unless it is. :)
  
• There should be at least a couple of cunning death-traps. I'm inclined to feature one truly deadly "encounter trap", a couple of smaller standalones, and one or two terrain traps.
  
• There will be a riddle, but it won't be absolutely essential.
  
• There simply must be fantastic treasures to be found. However, where many games feature the treasures as the result of the successful adventure, this one will need to include the treasures early on, with the intent that they'll be used later. Otherwise, what's the point - "oh, yay - my character, who I'll never play again, has just found the Ultimate Macguffin, which I'll never get to use!"
  
• And, of course, there will be a call back to the past - whether my gaming past or to the past of the game, I'm not sure. Under the circumstances, the former is probably more appropriate, while the latter is more likely to actually make sense, so I guess we'll see.

And with that, it's time to start building specifics!