03/Jul/2015
This is the original fantasy campaign, on which the first work was done 1975/6, on a 'classic' "Dungeons & Dragons" (D&D) dungeon. This was run using the original three books, in the box set, plus 'Greyhawk'. Quickly this expanded into providing a number of resources available to those adventurers who might want to enter the dungeon, and at some point the name 'Rast' was coined, for the "Dungeon Under Rast". The campaign was run mainly at LSUCWS (later renamed LSURAWS), at Loughborough University of Technology (LUT, later renamed Loughborough University), and at various science fiction and gaming conventions.
An important part of the Loughborough RPG culture was the 'Open Dungeon' idea, which was not uncommon in British gaming culture. This meant that (D&D) characters were playable under multiple Dungeon Masters (DMs), with changes being kept track of by the players, on a trust basis, on character cards/sheets. This meant that logically there needed to be a way to enter and exit the different campaigns, and the "Halls of Teleportation" (or "Transportation"; HoT) was an idea used by a number of DMs (also called GMs, or referees). The Rast HoT was one of these, and it was sometimes used by other referees, as a plot device. Between the HoT and the Dungeon a number of trading establishments could be visited, the Alchemist being particularly popular, for healing potions.
It might be worth noting that this was a 'variant D&D', with spells being chosen at point of casting, from the list of known spells, as opposed to 'Vancian' pre-selection, and negative hit points before death, among other changes. There were a number of additional character classes (in the tens) allowed, and a wide range of additional magic items. That the campaign started as an 'Original D&D' one (Basic/Expert D&D was never really used) meant that a number of standard AD&D mechanics were altered, and some spell specifications changed.
By the 1980s D&D was regarded as a less than ideal gaming system, and a number of people tried alternatives. The Rast campaign was converted, mid to late 1980s, to be a Fantasy Hero campaign (using the Hero System 3rd, then 4th, Edition rules), though the D&D side was still used at conventions. Games that allowed any character of vaguely compatible power, using any games mechanics that the GM was familiar with, continued to be run at conventions. While D&D 3rdEd put some strain on this (the GM refused to allow Feats or Prestige Classes that there wasn't access to read the specification of) this continued. No attempts were made to use D&D rules after 3.5 in the Rast Campaign by mid-2015.
This write-up came about due to the work of John Dallman on campaign background for the Rast Campaign, work towards converting the AD&D Spelljamming rules to D&D 3rdEd, and contributions made to the SKP RPG wiki. Preparing things for potential 'Old Guards' distributed gaming was another source.