Large Play Groups

IntroductionOne of the things that I find really fascinating about the early history of the hobby is the way in which characters existed outside the specific campaigns they played in and could travel between them fluidly. I would have my dungeon, and my buddy would have their dungeon, and our players would swim back and forth between the two tables with the same characters and this was fine, probably, unless you were Gary Gygax (who was allegedly so upset about characters who leveled up to high levels without a commensurate increase in player skill that he wrote Tomb of Horrors).: There are a lot of reasons I think this behavior is worth emulating in the modern day. I'll outline a few below based on my experience both playing and running in such a community (the pickup game culture in Gay Beholder/Big Purp OSR is very amenable to OD&D characters joining from any campaign, provided they're still alive) and then muse about tips for setting up such a community. They'll be referred to in…