Mazes and Minotaurs

In November 2002, Paul Elliott - author of various free roleplaying games including the excellent Zenobia - wrote an article called The Gygax/Arneson Tapes for his Tempus Fugit column on RP Gnet. In it, he imaged that Gary Gygax was inspired by Greecian myths instead of Tolkien-esque High Fantasy, and created Mazes and Minotaurs

Along comes Olivier Legrand, a Frenchman game designer, who decides to actually make the fictional game the column describes with three goals:


 * 1) Write a complete game in English.


 * 2 Write a game with a genuine old-school, 1970s feel, reminiscent of early D&D.


 * 3) Write a game that would be totally coherent with Paul's article.

He did, and released to for free!

Check it out here.

This tabletop game has the following Tropes covered:


 * Defictionalization - From speculative column entry to real game!
 * Lampshade Hanging: lots of quirks of the D&D game are adressed in the pseudo-historical commentaries like the armor class system, the wargamist quarrels, etc.
 * Retraux - See What If
 * What If - What if G.G. was hooked on a Grecian world instead of a medieval one?
 * What Could Have Been - The entire premise.