The Frilond campaign began sometime in the early eighties and has been, more-or-less, in continuous existence ever since. In its first incarnation, our campaign background was extremely nebulous, and we used the D&D system—the old red and blue booklets with Erol Otis covers. Early players were Kip (Indel) and Andrew (Lord Brandon).
By the late eighties we moved to the AD&D game, and a large group of players brought the setting into focus: Curt (Fingolfin, Malaki), Bill (Terwitt), Kevin (Balthazar), Don (Owen, son of Rowen, son of Roc, son of Rodic), Rob (Laom, Murg), and John (Egdelin/Andolin). This group's great strength was spirited role-playing—rather than detailed rule-knowledge. Conventional dungeon crawls began giving way to more political scenarios. Chivalry and Sorcery also influenced Frilond greatly, and the setting took on more and more of a feudal European flavor. After several successful years of play, the group fragmented and Frilond was quiet for much of the early nineties.
About five years ago, we attempted to revive Frilond, with Curt (Ellich), Kevin (Bishop), and Chip (Hamral). Although we retained much from our old campaign, Frilond had changed—moving further from its wacky AD&D roots and closer to a low-magic, story-driven setting, informed by some real medieval history. We played for several months, but despite our best intentions, the game never gained much momentum, as our sessions were few and far between. Something had to be done, if the campaign was going to be salvaged.
And so, in the summer of 1996, we started an experiment: a mixture of periodic live sessions, interspersed with regular play-by-mail turns. Curt and Kevin began new characters (Valerius and Shakerly), and Jason (St. James) joined. After a bumpy start, the campaign took hold. Frilond has never been in better shape: the play-by-mail turns have sustained our campaign through the often longish periods between our live session. We've worked out many of the bugs in combining play-by-mail and live sessions, and the group has grown to eight regular players. Although we still use the AD&D engine, the campaign has also enjoyed the influence of Ars Magica and Pendragon: games that emphasize role-playing, story-driven plots, and coherent, detailed backgrounds.
We've recently undertaken a new chapter in our campaign. In the fall of 1998 we set up the Frilond website, which houses all of our important documents—making information much more accessable to the players. And last spring we starting playing online games using Internet Relay Chat. This new medium opens up many new possibilities for the campaign, and we're still learning . . .