/osrg/ - Old School Renaissance

>has there been a successful fix of the thief class
B/X is fine.

>>52382017
Refluff most any low level adventure.

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>Has there been a successful fix to the thief class

Yeah, mine. Use one universal 'thief skill' number, which goes up every even level. Every even level, including first level, increase the bonus you get to sneak rolls and sneak attack rolls by +1.

Fluff your thieves as Rogues and give them bonuses to ranged and sneak attacks. Make them have enough health and equipment options that they actually want to fight sometimes, or fight indirectly at range if they don't want to wear armor. That's how you fix them.

>And why is it the LotFP specialist
Damn nigga, that's a hella good joke.

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>>52382119
> and why is it the LotFP specialist?

Specialist skills more general than B/X thief skills but true to spirit of original game. All classes get them but only specialist advances. Player chooses which skills improve with each advance in level. d6 based like Gygax intended.

>>52382323
B/X vs BECMI is just the table "stretched" in the latter in the wrong way?

Also, would you import from ADnD the triple/quadruple backstab damage in BECMI?

>>52382323
>>52382017
The Great Glacier has a paragraph of rules for ice density/stability. Dark of the Moon has rules for cold weather, hypothermia, and starvation.

I have never played any of the original dnd b/x becmi and all those names, are they worth playing?

>>52382405
>Damn nigga, that's a hella good joke.

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Is there any video footage of people playing D&D back in the day?

>>52383179
>but none of it's modules are.
DELET THIS
THE AWAKENING IS A WORK OF ART

>>52382746
>B/X vs BECMI is just the table "stretched" in the latter in the wrong way?

Yes, it's the same skill progression as B/X's 1-14 thieves, but dragged out to 1-36, so by the time everyone else is a demigod, you're finally good at ordinary thief stuff. It's just terrible, really.

>>52383072

B/X is great. OD&D is excellent, too, but hard to figure out by itself.

>>52383183

I don't think so, but you can read a lot about early games from folks like Mike Mornard and Rob Kuntz.

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>>52382405
>>52382526
In regards to specialists/thieves I'd keep the standard thief skills but give them a knowledge skill of their choice as a way to distinguish each thief so they aren't all bog-standard burglars while still being rogueish: architecture, history, herbalism, demonology, etc. Which would work like the other thief skills--get the standard intelligence roll, then the thief skill roll if you fail that.
D6 hit die makes them a bit more capable as well.

I've considered giving them a resource "luck points" where they can reroll percentile/skill/attack/saving throws. Not grant them at the start, but maybe the first one at level 5. To represent the almost supernatural luck skilled thieves/rogues have.

>>52383311
It's not exactly OSR, though: not much dungeon crawling, avoiding monsters for treasure, or anything like that. More of the usual story stuff new-school brought in.

2e shed away all OSR modules, and has none of them.

>>52382017
>Any good low-level adventures set in northern climates with a lot of snow and few inhabitants?
I like Frozen in Time if you feel like converting from DCC.

>>52383408
Pretty much all DCC adventures are great.

>>52383408
You could also just play DCC. It's a pretty decent OSR system.

>>52383428
>>52383437
I'm actually just getting started on my first DCC campaign (or rather, it will be a campaign if my players enjoy Sailors on a Starless Sea enough to let me keep going.) My plan at the moment is to run a bunch of published DCC modules until everyone is settled in.

I need an adventure with a blue dragon. Any ideas?
And a setting where thery are common/relevant?

>>52382017
Try Volos guide to North?

>>52383324
>I don't think so, but you can read a lot about early games from folks like Mike Mornard and Rob Kuntz.

I remember some YouTube video that edited together a bunch of news footage and interviews with kids about the whole Satanic panic. There was a doctor who attested to the whole "it causes suicide" thing, then the author spliced in footage showing he turned out to be some sort of scam artist. Does anyone have the video I'm talking about?

And surely in this age of 70s/80s nostalgia, there's D&D-related news or home video footage floating around somewhere?

>>52383324
Thanks. I played BECMI but we played all the classes in varies campaigns, barring that one.
I have only seen them as NPCs. I actually had a fantastic experience with BECMI, especially with the weapon mastery.

What do you think about the x3 or x4 backstab of AD&D? Would do more damage than help?

>>52383527
Volo's Guides aren't really adventures, more like just general guides on what the places are like.

>>52383527
i had an idea for a whole mini-campaign where the party are hired by a local mining trade guild (the 'indigo guild') to take down a clutch of wyrmling blue dragons whose mother had died.

the basic premise would be that they each were following their core instinct to amass a horde, but without guidance or the ability to go much further than the region they were in they were kind of playing it by ear. so one of the dragons would have an army of kobold followers who steal iron from the mine he's settled in near - because it's the most precious thing in that area. another one might be leading some bandit attacks in a forest in the region to amass his horde - but all the trade caravans are carrying food and other essentials from the south, not gold and gems.

the payoff would be that the head of the guild was the eldest of the dragons, and you were being used to murder its siblings and claim the whole area.

>>52383341
The Awakening is literally a dungeon crawl. And the Undermountain modules are part of a subline called Dungeon Crawl.

>>52383527
>I need an adventure with a blue dragon. Any ideas?
Drawing a blank.

>And a setting where thery are common/relevant?
Dragonlance or Al-Qadim?

>>52383681
>Al-Qadim

Al-Qadim has no dragons at all. There was a background fairy tale where a bunch of dragons tried and got scared away by the djinni.

>>52383613

Honestly if I was going to do thieves in BECMI I'd use the B/X advancement for 1-14, then start giving them special abilities after 14. Maybe start a new 14 level progression of more powerful abilities like shadow-walking and stuff.

>>52383695
>Al-Qadim has no dragons at all.
Maybe they immigrated from Faerun

>>52383535

Found it, worth a watch if you're interested in the whole suicide/Satanic panic aspect of early D&D:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yShqF1YSfDs

>>52383330

I think a hunch roll is better.

>Roll 1d20 at the start of each session
>At any point during a d20 roll in the session, you can use that number instead. Only works once.

Basically this is great if you use a mix of roll over/under stuff. If the Rogue rolls a 1-3 they KNOW they can pass any saving throw that comes their way, and if they roll a 18-20 they KNOW they can succeed a critically important attack roll. It gives them the edge of supernatural luck without being too annoying with the rerolls, since rerolls are boring and lame.

>>52383515
It's worth playing. The magic and critical hit tables will slow the game down until you get the hang of them, but playing without them after that will feel bland.

Pick up one of the box sets! Perils of the Purple Planet if you want something more gonzo and Sci-fi, or Chained Coffin if you want something a bit more dark and hillbilly feeling. Both sets have a 0-level funnel and several adventures in them, along with maps and world guides for running an extended campaign in the setting.

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>>52383790

>dat rule

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>>52383613
I like improved backstab abilities for thieves and additional strikes for fighters. Having thief skills that don't completely suck balls would be nice too.

>>52383664
Sounds nice, too bad I like my dragons as solitary lazy animals.

>>52383695
I think I remember something like that, but it was more of a mention ("they live in the desert!") than anything else.

I seriously can't believe there's not an adventure out thre that exploits a giant electric winged lizard. There's a mech / scifi campaign waiting in there.

>>52384004
This is nice.

Fighters, Elves and Dwarves (and halflings?) have multiple attacks if they it with a 2+ in becmi. Looks retarded, but with a magic grand master weapon is relatively easy.

Another way to fix the rogues in BECMI is to allow to strike double (TWF) only to them. Other character can wield 2 weapons but only to parry.

>>52382405
>>52384289
>fix the rogues by having them encroach to the fighter's territory

>>52384319

>Encroach

Nigga you dumb.

In OSR- everyone can sneak, everyone can fight, everyone can support, and everyone can solve puzzles. Certain classes just do it better then others.

Besides, Fighters, Clerics, AND Wizards all have useful combat abilities that the thief lacks. Give them something to make them useful. Makes literally no sense at all not to add in the stealth combat ability like every other secret agent assassin guy throughout all of media that the Rogue is clearly supposed to be.

>>52384319
They can use way less weapons types, have the d4, and no armor.

Did gamma world have rules for robot and mutant plant characters or was that something Mutant Future introduced?

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Reposting my earlier question, can anyone point out any good Illusionist classes?

>>52378014
>Running a hexcrawl and I need some constructive criticism of this map.
The main thing I'd say is use a lower hex scale than 12 miles. It's unnecessarily hard to use hexes that big for travel purposes and the way you've drawn your map (e.g. that valley between mountain ridges in the SE quadrant) implies a much lower scale. (As just one example, alpine valleys tend to be about 3 miles wide at their widest points, so wouldn't even be marked on a 12mile-hex map; you one valley including the mountain hexes would be about 1/6 the size of Bavaria.)

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Should some weapons do 1d10 or more damage?

Old school blog clickbait generator:
http://kellri.blogspot.co.nz/2009/09/burn-baby-burn.html

Here we go!
50-52: Stop picking on [7: Dave Arneson], he’s the most level-headed [19: Narrativist], after all.

Heh.

Way way back someone suggested overlaying multiple hexmaps to create a truly bizarre hexmap. What about overlaying multiple dungeons?

Like for example

>Module A, Area 1. The courtyard of the castle, with a moat and drawbridge
>Module B, Area 1. This is the church graveyard, littered with worn tombstones. 4 Ripper Skeletons lurk on the ground near their empty graves, hungering for the living.
>Module C, Area 1. This large cave is the "welcome area" for the Troll King's guests. It is guarded by two troll wearing chainmail and armed with battleaxes.

Combine that into

>Area 1. This large cave is the "welcome area" of the Troll King's church-castle, with a moat and drawbridge. It is littered with worn tombstones. 4 Ripper Skeletons lurk on the ground near their empty graves, hungering for the living. It is guarded by two troll wearing chainmail and armed with battleaxes.

>that one adventure where you character secretly dies and is replaced by a Doppelganger if you talk to an NPC alone
>that one adventure about a cat apocalypse
>that one adventure where you die get turned into flesh golems but get better
>that one adventure were you become werewolves and/or freeze/starve to death

The more I read it the less Ravenloft seems like "Gothic Fantasy" and the more it seems like "Nightmare Psychedelic/Gonzo Fantasy"

>>52384765

Yes.

When you use the sword of flames against the ice golem, or when you take a potion of giant strength and swing a donkey at someone, or when your artificer buddy makes you a chainsaw sword that gets clogged by gore if you roll max damage with it.

>>52383711
Agree with this, IIRC Cook Expert promised something of this sort, even more explicitly supernatural Thief abilities? I'd do shit like percentile chances of Invisibility (not like that isn't already trivial by level 15 so...), wuxia-type leaping on water, treetops and even walking on clouds (lightfoot skill, or whatever that's called in wuxia?), and contortionist tricks like slipping through a 3" wide gap.

>>52384137
>Sounds nice, too bad I like my dragons as solitary lazy animals.
Rather than the guild head, make it a valued backer of the guild.

>>52383790
>Only works once.
Let them trade reuse the worse number:
Swap a 10 for a 14, then swap an 8 for the 10 later, etc.

>>52385369
>Let them trade reuse the worse number:

But if it's sometimes roll-over and other times roll-under, either extreme could be worse.

>>52384839
>Try to imagine how SWINE would play TEKUMEL and do the opposite.
Can't even say I disagree tbqh, definitely looks like a real baitpost that may have actually been written as well

>>52385369

No. OSR is at its core about resource management and in most OSR games you roll far less often. With a good DM, you may only roll once or twice a whole session.

Your method does not make the lucky power of the Rogue a resource, can lead to abuse/infinite free successes, and makes the game less about the exploration and dungeoneering and more about trying to roll and reroll good numbers.

Good job missing the entire point, numbnuts.

>>52384839
Chainmail is completely broken because of the Descending Armor Classes

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>>52385503
>infinite free successes
>infinite

>>52385503
what about multiplying the time needed at each reroll, even by x5/x10? The third attempts is impossible and the second is at an high risk of random encounter.

>>52384765
Some weapons already do 1d10 damage, like two-handed swords and pole arms. Really though, two-handed weapons like these should do 1d12 or 2d6 damage to make them competitive with a sword and shield combo.

>>52385643

Doesn't work for combat or saving throws. The intention is that it gives the Rogue character an awesome surefire move once per game, and it changes their behavior slightly because they know what they are gonna do with it.

Hell I'd even let them use it as a substitute on a d20 roll, though I wouldn't tell them if high or low is better. Maybe I'd be nice and advise them on using a low roll on a monster checklist but a high one on a treasure table. Lots of possibility here.

How are fantasy veitnam wilderness adventures done in a way that's awesome?

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>>52385703

By making it like actual Vietnam.

>>52385369

I'd let them have an extra one every two or three levels, so they could swap out a die maybe three or four times a session by name level. Combined with the fact that you sometimes need a high die and sometimes a low one, this doesn't seem OP to me, and makes for an interesting resource for the thief to manage during play.

>>52384887
You don't necessarily encounter everything in a hexmap or at least not at once.
It would take more discretion, especially for doors and busy rooms.
Could lead to some neat mashups though.

>>52385141
Name 5 "Gothic" domains in Ravenloft.

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Does pic related seem like a decently designed dungeon?
First time ever trying to make one, myself. Probably gonna fiddle with names of stuff and change numbers around by the time my players actually get to it, but I mostly mean the nature of the puzzles and the layout of it.
It's mostly to introduce the concepts of non-euclidean dungeons to them, so I can use them again later.

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>>52387052
>non-euclidean dungeons
Go read Euclid's Elements some time.
It won't be anything new, but some of the definitions and explanations are fun.
Anywho, a dungeon with a staircase is non-Euclidean. Euclidean just means "on a flat surface."
>so I can use them again later
Bad idea. Explore all concepts fully when you bring them up.
Then don't bring them up ever again, or at least not for the rest of the campaign.

>Does pic related seem like a decently designed dungeon?
Waaaaaaaaay~ too linear. Also really small.

>>52386568
Lesee
>Barovia
>Lamordia
>Mordent
>Staunton Bluffs

Outside of those four it's kinda hard to find. Sebua, maybe?

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>>52387328
>Euclidean just means "on a flat surface.

Well... no.

There are 5 Euclidian postulates. The first 4 are pretty much "set in stone".

1. A straight line segment can be drawn joining any two points.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3. Given any straight line segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All right angles are congruent.

And then you get to the 5th postulate.

5. If two lines are drawn which intersect a third in such a way that the sum of the inner angles on one side is less than two right angles, then the two lines inevitably must intersect each other on that side if extended far enough.

The 5th postulate doesn't /have/ to be true. You can build alternative versions of it where the lines intersect: hyperbolic and eliptic geometry.

Now... imagine you're Lovecraft. Or another writer in the same era, trained very carefully in "classical" geometry. You're told "this is how the world works". Geometry defines the world.

And then some crazy people say "Actually... no. These forms of geometry - of ordering all of space - are also valid."

This revelation took a long time to hit popular consciousness, just like relativity has become slightly more "mainstream" while quantum mechanics is still on the fringes of popular understanding.

But for a while... it was properly horrifying.

>>52387414
>The 5th postulate doesn't /have/ to be true.
I was aware; however, it *does* have to be true on flat surfaces.

>This revelation took a long time to hit popular consciousness,
Popular consciousness flunked geometry. And likes misinterpreting.

>>52387328
>Euclidean just means "on a flat surface."
Euclid didn't even call his geometry Euclidean geometry. The adjective Euclidean is a modern term that has never meant "on a flat surface". The term we use for that is "plane geometry".

>Go read Euclid's Elements
You go read Elements. Books XI - XIII. Solid geometry. That's three dimensional stuff, since you obviously don't understand even basic terms I thought I should clarify.

>>52387414
>>52387592
>>52387648
Can you nerds go debate trivia somewhere else?

>>52387942
>you baptist shit
Still one of my all time favorite asshurt slurs

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>>52387975
Reminds me of this a little bit.

Also, cursing, and curse vocabulary, are excellent to use in OSR games. People won't remember being called a "motherfucker". They will remember being called a "monk whore" or "so ugly you were jilted by a sheep"

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>>52388005
Yes. You are right. This is a very distractable board.

It's not like the OSR thread is running out of posts at a ridiculous rate. We can afford a few tangents.

>>52388135
You invalidated his excuse, whats yours?

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>>52385703
Resource management.
Horror.
Fear.
Player buy-in.
Fire. The Jungle. And an enemy that's at home where you are least comfortable.
Ideological drain.
Death.
Random orders.
Traps.
Wildlife.

>>52388295
Holy shit the feathers make it even more terrifying. Fucking saved and ready to unleash on the group later. Thank you for that based anon.

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>>52388320
It moves faster than your horses. It might hunt in packs.

The smartest ones are natural spellcasters. They can cast Invisibility and Gaseous Form.

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>>52388396
Oh, and Speak with Dead. They interrogate their prey to find where the herds will go, and where they will hide. If they catch a PC or a hireling, they will probably know where the party is going next and will set up an ambush.

>>52388053
>>52279008

I have an unhealthy attraction to Al-Qadim and want to expose my friends to it.

Any tips for newbies to ADnD? Roleplay and general system knowledge is fine, we've played other systems before.

>>52389047
I assume you mean 1e AD&D. Have someone play an assassin, preferably a half-orc. Read up on One Thousand and One Nights, read the setting books several times, etc etc.

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>>52389047
is it to Al-Qadim specifically or just Middle Eastern flavored D&D, if the latter you might want to go give The Nightmares Underneath a look as it's probably one of the finest OSR books to be published last year

>>52389047 >>52389101 >>52389140
http://www.burtoniana.org/books/1885-Arabian%20Nights/

Actually, most of http://www.burtoniana.org/books/ deserves a glance.

>>52389047
>AD&D 2e (I'm assuming 2e because that's when AQ was published)
Don't use NWP. You can just use ability checks if you really need them, modified by a +2/-2 if the PC seems like he would know that based on fluff.

Only use core options at first. Kits will muddy the waters of character generation, especially the sha'ir, the wizard who actually isn't anything like a wizard. "Unlock" more options as they get into the grove.

>Al-Qadim
Make sure they understand that humanoids aren't monsters to be killed on sight.

Also make sure they understand that slavery in AQ isn't Evil as it is in many other D&D settings.

>tfw no dao gf

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So I'm currently working on my own OSR game though I am taking some ideas from other games and editions of D&D. I've decided I need an iconic monster, something like the owlbear to D&D, goblin to Pathfinder, etc. Basically something that can be used on the back cover and some of the inside artwork and stuff.

Any ideas? I was thinking it should be the kobold (classic dog version rather than reptilian) but my fiancee and friends say it should be something else.

>>52383330
As far as luck goes, I was thinking of ripping off Warlock of Firetop Mountain and having the roll 1d6+6 for the luck stat and doing 2d6 roll under for success. The difference being, you can only get back expended luck when you face bad luck seperately. Like falling off a tower you were trying to scale, or setting off a deadly trap. To further keep this in check have unlikely successes automatically drain luck even if it wasn't used.

>>52389101
>>52389140
>>52389194
>>52389291
Thanks, I'll see what I can do for them.

>>52389442
How about Gnolls instead?
Or how about Gryphons?

>>52389442
try half-naked shotas

>>52389291
>Kits will muddy the waters of character generation, especially the sha'ir,
Sha'ir is probably the most tame of the "not actually a wizard" wizard kits in Sha'ir.
Clockwork Mage, Jackal, and Spellslayer all deviate farther.
Ghul Lord and Mystic of Nog are pushing it, too.

>>52389553
How about no? LotFP already gets the creepy shit, let them have that.

>>52389676
>boys
>creepy
also i take back the half naked thing
give them fancy noble clothes

>>52389592
>kits in Sha'ir.
kits in *Al-Qadim

Not strictly OSR related, but I'm working on a module and I want to commission some art.
Anyone here worked with a quality fantasy artist, or can recommend one?

>>52390616
Exactly how much are you willing to spend?

>>52390639
a couple of hundred, depending on quality

>>52390717
Fuck man, what are you wanting to commission specifically? With that much you could get a number of really good art pieces done.

>>52390748
A number of really good pieces is exactly what I'm after
also I'd rather overpay then underpay, art is undervalued imo.

>>52382323
>Refluff most any low level adventure.

Yeah, but the less refluffing it'd need, the better. If it's already based on snow and dark and winter, then that'd be great. If it's set in Icewind Dale as it is, then that'd be awesome.

>>52385287
>and here be our pet, a fucking lightning puking, thunder farting blue dragon
dude...

Is AD&D 2E considered OSR? If you just use the core rulebooks without the optional rules, it's basically the same as 1E, right?

>>52391328
yep, and correct.
though gp = exp is listed as an optional rule and many consider that an important part of OSR-style play.

Do you prefer to give the players experience points for gold right away as soon as they find them, or do you use one of the many Orgy/Carousing rules around the Internet?

What're the best such rules you've seen?

>>52391356

Oh, I was going to ask about whether gp for experience is in the core books, so I guess that covers all of my questions. Thanks!

>>52391356

I guess it's worth asking: do you still give xp for killing things when you're doing gp for xp?

>>52391445
Sure, why not. You don't get so much experience out of monsters anyway, and I give the same amount whether you sneak past them, convince them to let you go, or beat the shit out of them.

>>52391391
The default rule is to give them XP for GP once its brought to civilization. Because I don't like breaking the rhythm, I award XP for GP when its been *secured*.

>>52391670
Yeah, but then they get to spend it on weapons and hirelings and property and shit, essentially getting both the benefits, while never getting around to party hard.

It's important for an adventurer to party hard.

>>52391391
>>52391708
Carousing XP is extra XP. It doesn't replace what you get from gold, it's just a way to burn money + advance faster + create plot hooks.

>>52391708
>essentially getting both the benefit

That's how it should be, although henchmen and property are double edged swords.

While in 3e cohorts don't cost a share of XP and you can have unlimited numbers of them (despite the meme that you only get one and that the player designs the CS, neither is stated anywhere), in AD&D henchmen, besides treasure, get a share of XP, Its already hard to level. The amount of time and effort it takes to nurse a henchman to a powerful status is extreme. While I would never, ever consider arbitrarily killing off a henchman "to add drama" or "so the BBEG can give them a SHIT GOT REAL moment," the fact remains that they're a tremendous investment and vulnerability.

Same with property, there are advantages but are a major weak spot as well.

I don't view hedonism as a universal trait of PCs.

Opinion time:

"If you're running a hexcrawl and feel like it's IMPORTANT to determine where exactly within a certain hex the party is, to the point that you start talking about sub-hexes and hex corners... Maybe then you should just use smaller hex rather than overcomplicating things."

Agree/disagree?

>>52392006

Nothing wrong with having big world map hexes and small local hexes. You can fit a whole campaign into one big world map hex.

>>52392006
Depends on how many of those kinds of hexes you're going to have. If there's just one hex like that, you might as well just draw a map inside of it. If you need ten hexes like that, then I don't think you're doing a hexcrawl anymore.

>>52392006

I don't really see the need for that kind of specificity.

Call me a shit DM, but honestly I think you can get away with just being rough and approximate. "oh yeah, you're along the north ridge. You could get down to the cover of the forest in a few minutes." Keep the rules specifically for moving between hexes.

Without mucking around too much, is the -10 to +10 AC range in THAC0 edition D&D the same as +0 to +20 AC range in positive scale to hit versions of D&D?

THAC0 20 - 10 AC = 10 or higher to beat
AC 10 (+0 AC) = 10 or higher to hit with 0 BaB/to hit (ie THAC0 20)

>>52392076
There are curveballs but that's generally the idea.

>>52392076
Yes except it's more reasonable to say the +10 to -10 scale since -10 is effectively +20 AC. 0 is +10 and +10 is 0 (going off modern AC being 10 default)

Keep in mind in classic D&D a Platinum Dragon was -3 and the highest 'normal' encounter, which would be an AC of 23 (which isn't that high in later editions).

>>52391328
OSR ≠ TSR

The DCC Lankhmar kickstarter is live.

>>52383527
A blue dragon controls a complex plot manipulating the city nobles and the wasteland tribes to control the most precious resource in the desert: water.

>>52392262
>AS&SH 2e Kickstarter
>ACKS Heroic Classes Kickstarter
>DCC Lankhmar Kickstarter

Talk about having too much of a good thing. I wish they'd collaborate to space these out and give my bank account time to recover.

Anyone do a game that had two Prime Material planar campaign settings being used? Not like just crossing over to a new plane, but stuff going on in both and going back and forth.

>>52392592
a) why a blue dragon, and not another one? Actually you could use any intelligent monster instead

b) what does a dragon get out of that? and why? Dragons take, not negotiate.

b) >>52384137
>Sounds nice, too bad I like my dragons as solitary lazy animals.

>>52388025
Mr. 49235416 replied to himself and then screenshot himself.

>>52392844
>what would a long lived and obsessively greedy monster with a superiority complex want with total control over the most valuable resource within hundreds of miles, thereby gaining a stranglehold over the local area and ensuring a steady stream of slaves and tribute from anyone who wants to not die of thirst

Gee, idk.

What's good about Forgotten Realms?
If it's good, what's the best spot to start a campaign for newbies? Some place with abandoned towers and wolves.
Is there a plug&play way to get started? I hate having to read 300 pages of lore before reading/designing a dungeon.

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>>52394052
>What's good about Forgotten Realms?

Good: Wherever you go there's several books' worth of material written about it, so you'll always have as much detail about the location as you would ever need. It's varied enough with all manner of weird shit to see and do depending on where you go. And if you ever get bored of Faerun, unlikely as that is, you can head south to the awesome Arabian nights of Zakhara, east to the samurai/wuxia land of Kara-Tur, or head west to the new world of Maztica. It's pretty great.

In fact I've always kind of wanted to play in a globe-trotting Forgotten Realms adventure.

Bad: That same amount of detail might stifle your own sense of imagination and feel like there's less space for you to do your own weird stuff. There's so many high-level characters running around and it can be hard for your players to ever feel special.

My favorite starting point is the halfling land of Luiren, in the Shining South. It's pretty far away from the usual Waterdeep and Neverwinter and Cormyr, yet it's idyllic and a lot of fun.

>>52389442
>my fiancee and friends say it should be something else
Well maybe they can pick something else for THEIR games then. Go with what you like.

>>52392750
Never done it but I've got some thoughts.
>1. there has to be a reason to go back and forth
What does world A gave that world B wants/needs or vice versa?
>2. Make the worlds truly different
If world A is fantasy Europe and world B is fantasy Asia then all you've done is set up a themepark.
Change the races available on each plane.
Change the classes available on each plane.
Change the afterlife on each plane; maybe one only has two planes (Heaven and Hell) or it has reincarnation
Change the creatures on each plane; one world doesn't have dragons while another doesn't lycanthropes.
Change the magic system on each plane; one uses AD&D default magic while another uses Dark Sun's Preserver/Defiler magic or Arcane Age's Winds.

>>52394052
>What's good about Forgotten Realms?
Some nifty random generators (cf. Calimport and The North)
Bane and maybe Elistraee
The bolted-on settings of Maztica, Kara-Tur, and Al-Qadim
A shitload of kits that can be refluffed for almost any setting
Dracoliches

Any good programs for making dungeons out there?

>>52394895
Do you mean a random dungeon generator, or just a mapping program?

>>52395044
A mapping program. Something that'd make them look like in the old adventure modules.

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>>52392076
Usually, ascending AC games set unarmored AC at 10 or 11 and go up from there, while descending AC games set unarmored AC at 9 or 10 and then go down from there. So really, 10 ascending AC = 10 descending AC. Thus, a 10 to 30 ascending AC range is equivalent to a 10 to -10 descending AC range.

>>52391328

Its mostly the same. There are some rules changes between the two, so if you want the "authentic" AD&D experience, you'll want to use the 1e books, and maybe just pop open 2e for clarification now and then.

>>52394282
Yeah, I've been thinking about DS/BR. My friend would be mostly in charge of BR, I would be mostly in charge of DS. Not committed to the settings to the details so much as the broad strokes. The two settings have a lot of similarities; civilization primarily depends on massively powerful rulers who draw strength from the land and there was a great purging of gods etc., but with a lot of obvious differences.

>>52395136
Dave of Dave's Mapper showed up last thread and his is good shit: https://davesmapper.com

It uses dungeon tiles drawn by OSR nerds so the quality's variable, but many of the tiles are Dyson Logos.

>>52394052
>If it's good, what's the best spot to start a campaign for newbies?
I personally hate FR but you definitely want the Dalelands.They're the original part of the setting and the only one actively developed as a location for classic style AD&D adventuring and it shows in spades IMO.

>>52395525
>https://davesmapper.com

This looks pretty good but holy shit it would require a tutorial. I have no idea what to do or how.

>>52391445
Gygax was doing that as far back as the LBB.

>>52395429
Alright, some thoughts:
>Thri-kreen (except T'keech) might experience chitin rot on Cerilia
>Athasians will want that sweet metal and unspoiled wilderness
>If Athasians get to Cerilia they'll have very little reason to go back to the hellhole that is Athas
>the Awnshelwhatevers will probably try to colonize Athas/trade with Sorcerer-Kings
>Cerilians don't have much to gain from Athas besides psionic items and psionic surgery
>remember that by default psionics can't affect magic and vice versa

>>52396459
Nice, forgot about the Anshwguyigesjians.

Normally I don't think of "adventurers" or "murderhobos" as a real social phenomena in games but the way that you can only plane shift 8 or so people at a time, and transit is only safe for higher level casters, does suggest most people encountering Athasians would be as a group of 8 relatively higher level weird impoverished stinky mutants.

The Sorcerer Kings probably have a big asset in terms of survival once people remember about planar travel, that most parties who could threaten them may be better off going somewhere nice.

There's no real "mass transit" planar travel spells in AD&D, are there?

can anyone recommend a good rules blueprint for name-level and higher keep/kingdom building?

>>52397454

Sine Nomine's book for Labyrinth Lord, "An Echo, Resounding" is the best such IMO. Adventurer, Conqueror, King's got a much crunchier alternative, as well.

No, seriously, how the fuck does Davesmapper work?

The best I manage is to get a bunch of completely random dungeon chunks by the same artist, that I can then maybe flip them around, swap them with one another, and replace them with other completely random dungeon chunks.

Can I make dungeons of my own at all with this thing? Like, actually design dungeons from scratch myself, instead of some semi-random bullshit?

>>52397006
>There's no real "mass transit" planar travel spells in AD&D, are there?
Planar Quest can take 12 and Etherwalk can take 50.
And IIRC you can get any number of people across with Gate.

>>52397615
>Can I make dungeons of my own at all with this thing? Like, actually design dungeons from scratch myself, instead of some semi-random bullshit?
No, sorry, you can flip, rotate and replace tiles but not place them entirely non-randomly from the catalog of tiles, no. I was the guy who suggested the mapper to you and I just didn't realize you wanted full control rather than a fast, good-looking map, sorry.

>>52397731
No worries. I guess I just wasn't clear enough with what I was asking.

Any other suggestions?

Which system and supplements should I use for running weeaboo trash in an OSR style? My group plays Pathfinder and they need their anime to stay interested.

>>52397926
There's an upcoming OSR game called "Break!" that seems pretty weeby.

>>52397926

Man, if only we had scans of the Japanese editions of Basic you could wave at them.

>>52392262

hmph. its going really slow. I want that cloth map. Oh well.

>>52397979
Do we?

Hey, does anyone have Anomalous Subsurface Environment 2–3 or the old Phoenix Barony setting?

>>52398043
There's some pictures of them online floating around.

>>52398576
Oh, yeah. That. I've seen that.
I thought you meant scans of all the text.
Aside from the pictures, there are only a handful of pages.
Mostly pages with tables, IIRC.

>>52397615
Davesmapper is pretty ugly imo. I prefer something more like the hexographer dungeon mapper. There's some decent programs I can link later when I'm not stuck phoneposting at work.

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>>52398631
Dungeongrapher is pretty ugly too.

See the related image? That's all I want, only not random. Everything always tries to add effects and graphics, but once you start on that road, the only way not to end up with a completely hideous map is to just draw the bloody thing by hand.

>>52398712
You're just trying to lay tiles, right?
20 minutes in Python. Write your own.

>>52398753
>20 minutes in Python. Write your own.

You mean in forty years no one has? I find that difficult to believe.

>>52398780
I mean it would be easier to make one than to find one.
If you're hellbent on looking, check github and gitlab?

>>52398712
There definitely is a bare-bones mapper like that. It's called something like Gridmapper, I think.

Try http://www.dizzydragon.net/adventuregenerator/start or http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/dungeon/ for some dungeon generators.

>>52398892
You may have missed the "non-random" bit.

Seriously. They either insist on making it random or making it fuck-ugly. You'd think there would be more tools out there that both indulge those of us that want to design our fucking dungeons at hand, without adding effects and other bullshit.

>>52398869
Gridmapper seems pretty good, though some caves, diagonal corridors, and such wouldn't go amiss as well.

>>52392718
>AS&SH 2e

Any idea on changes to the rules?

>>52398935
>You'd think there would be more tools out there that both indulge those of us that want to design our fucking dungeons at hand, without adding effects and other bullshit.
I actually agree with this, I fully get the appetite for random dungeons becuase that's damn useful when you need something quickly, but I don't understand why there isn't at least one prominent, simple, clean dungeon mapper. Maybe people are just content with graph paper?

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I know AD&D is not the main system of choice to OSR players, but it was the system I grew up with, and the first one learned.

Is there any (good or bad) AD&D OSR game out there aside OSRIC? Do you guys think it would be a good niche to explore?

A ruleset with one page of general rule and the other page with optional rule columns, some even very different from each other?

How would be the best way to AD&D OSR?

>>52398935
>You'd think there would be more tools out there that both indulge those of us that want to design our fucking dungeons at hand, without adding effects and other bullshit.

Pencil and paper, anon. It's the BEST.

>>52399334
>>52399372
Graph paper and a pencil has the fatal weakness that I don't have any way to scan it on to the computer.

>>52399340
Pretty unlikely to ever see, because in its core AD&D is really just a more complex version of the basic D&D. It's -Advanced-, after all.

So making a sinple couple-page general AD&D retroclone would just get you back to Basic.

>>52399399
I may have written poorly. Not a 2-page ruleset, but during the book presentation, literally putting side-by-side the core rule and the optional rules available.

>>52399340
>Is there any (good or bad) AD&D OSR game out there aside OSRIC
Castles & Crusades is AD&D based, but it makes some big changes, including using a unified d20 mechanic, including ascending AC, attribute-modified checks and saving throws, and so forth. It also streamlines and tweaks things a decent bit, so if you're looking for a "pure" experience, it's probably best to look elsewhere.

>How would be the best way to AD&D OSR?
I don't know your preferences, but you might want to look into Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion. It's essentially the options (classes, spells, etc.) of AD&D, but with the more streamlined core rules that you'd see in Basic.

>>52399340
>Is there any (good or bad) AD&D OSR game out there aside OSRIC?

For Gold & Glory
Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion

>>52399340
>I know AD&D is not the main system of choice to OSR players
Not at all true, it's extremely popular in the OSR in general. It's just here that people overwhelmingly prefer B/X.

>Is there any (good or bad) AD&D OSR game out there aside OSRIC?
No, because there are so many 1E AD&D books available, and so much of the value comes from the writing, that it doesn't make any sense to clone it.

>How would be the best way to AD&D OSR?
Just play AD&D, Anon.

>>52399758
>Not at all true, it's extremely popular in the OSR in general. It's just here that people overwhelmingly prefer B/X.

This, I like AD&D just fine, but I always steer people towards Basic, because AD&D is kind of a mess. It's better to just use the bits of AD&D you like with Basic, rather than try to run the whole thing.

About to run my first game of LotFP.
First real OSR game to.
Anyone have any generic suggestions?
My homesystem is CoC but I want to expand.
I've done a bit of prep and have some modules ready to go but just though I should hear from some experienced folks.

>>52399909

Check out the referee guide, it's a little outdated for the latest version of LotFP, but it has a lot of good stuff in there anyway.

Are there any good OSR-themed modules for 2nd edition AD&D, or were they all story-driven and cinematic like they started to be at that time?

>>52400348
The entire Undermountain Dungeon Crawl range.
Web of Illusion (although it's a story-driven and cinematic dungeoncrawl)

>>52392262
>>52392718
Throwing this out there cuz it seems like the thread for it but "The Umerican Survival Guide" Kickstarter is up and running. Essentially turns DCC into gamma world.

What are the differences between the different version of LotFP in the trove? Which one do I want?

>>52401436

The newest ones are the no-art one and the ~33 megs Rules and Magic with the cover art of the FP looking into a freaky mirror pool. The 35 meg rules and magic is the old one.

>>52401436
Deluxe is the first box set, Grindhouse is the second. Rules & Magic is the hardcover book and the newest edition, but Faggi hasn't finished the Referee book yet despite R&M coming out like two years ago. So, at present what you want is Rules & Magic plus the Referee book out of the Grindhouse box.

>>52393349
It was a request from someone else in the thread, so I don't think Mr. 49235416 feels too bad about it.

An OSR-themed game played in DCC and set in the world of Fighting Fantasy.

Y/N

>>52402171
N

Just use the Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e ruleset (and don't pirate because the guy needs money)

>>52402512
Yeah, I just got it all from the Bundle of Holding. Grabbed them because I'm a fan of the books and the setting, but to be honest the system itself isn't that great.

But it seems pretty close to DCC flavor-wise, and I'm a fan of DCC.

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>>52399259
Mostly seems to be added classes/magic items/etc and new layout/art. I'm pretty excited.

I'm casually working on an urban hexcrawl and cant decide how big a hex should be. I was thinking 50 meters a side, but thats like a 6500 square meter hexagon. That seems really really big. A part of me wants to make a hex small enough to traverse in 2-3 exploration turns (after accounting for speed reduction due to shitty terrain) but that seems like I'd need to make a truly massive city map. Thoughts?

>>52382119
It's not really a very OSR thing to do, but I was thinking of giving each body part its own HP amount due to players always wanting to be cyborgs and robots and shit. They're also all obsessed with locational damage, so it makes sense.

Can you guys think of any good way to do this? I was thinking of adding in active defense rolls or something, but that's not the primary concern-- more like what does default limb health look like? As far as I can figure out there are maybe 2 ways to do this:
1) HP Pool based. You calculate a base HP and then modify it based on the part.
Head - 1/2 HP, Torso - Full HP, Limbs - 2/3rds HP
2) Flat Values based around CON somehow + a value.
Head - +1, Torso - +5, Limbs +3.

What do you think, Is this just an ill-fated idea or can it be done right?

>>52402554
system is rubbish, don't know why anyone suggests it
works fine for the incredibly light CYOA books it was designed for, sure, but don't play an RPG in it, that's bloody silly

>>52403118
Hit points are abstract enough of a concept that locational damage really doesn't work well with it, at least in my mind.

I'd suggest not bringing it up at all until they hit zero health - at that point, allow them to decide which limb took the killing blow, with different effects. If their bionic arm got busted, for instance, then they didn't take any hit point damage from the attack at all but instead need to find a way to repair the damn thing later.

>>52403175
I feel ya, though I usually like converting HP to meat points by lowering the values but giving players options by making themselves harder to hit.

I was thinking about something like you suggested, but rolling on a table after they run out of HP (As you can tell we tend to do things Dark Heresy / WHFRP style at my table). There's probably wisdom in that approach, now that I think about it.

Y'know, the Monastery from Adam's Wrath would make a kick-ass creepy dungeoncrawl with a few tweaks.
>that room with all the body parts and failed experiments
>that room with hundreds of holy symbols welded together, some of which are burning/freezing as a sign of divine displeasure

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>>52403118

Are you thinking of something like the original RuneQuest rules?

>>52403118
I think the easiest thing to do is to keep hit points unified, but have damage thresholds for different areas to determine whether you suffer a wound / crippling effect. Maybe say that any hit that, by itself, does 1/4 or more of a person's maximum hit points wounds the location it hits (resulting in something like a -2 penalty for shit that uses that limb, or maybe the worse of 2 rolls on d20 checks you make with it). If a location suffers a wound after already taking one (or if it suffers 1/2 or more of a person's maximum hit points), it is disabled, meaning it's all but useless. Any blow that fails to do at least 1/4 of a person's maximum hit points is ignored for the purpose of inflicting wounds (there is no need to keep a running tally of hit points inflicted to a location).

>>52403435
Yeah, actually-- that doesn't look too bad.
>>52403442
Now that you mention it I recall playing somebody's homebrew that worked kind of like this. Wasn't bad

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really tickled my thinkbox

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>>52403657
Neat.

I'm currently using a weird system. Each player rolls under their Wisdom. If they roll under, they get to act before their enemies. If they roll after, they act afterwards. Some things (surprise, etc) give you a +4 bonus. Some things (giant hammers, quicksand, drunkenness) give you a -4 penalty.

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>>52399909
Talk with your players about expectations, character mortality, how to level up, game tone, and that sort of thing. Just have a nice open chat about what this game is about, what some of the differences from other games you've run with them are, etc.

Ask them if there's anything they really want to see.

>>52403118
>mfw reply got kill somehow

Anyway I was going to suggest something like what >>52403175 said, individual limb hits on each blow don't mesh well with how abstract HP is, but you could use the WHFRP style of not bringing in the tables until someone reaches 0 HP; on that and every subsequent hit, instead of the PC just dying roll for which limb was hit (say D8: 1 Head, 2-4 Torso, 5 Sword Arm, 6 Shield Arm, 7-8 Leg) and then on the appropriate wound table, where the effects can range from "will leave an ugly scar" to "it got chopped off". (In fact you could also have one unified crit table with more vague results, it really depends how you want to roll)

Then you can add in a bunch of wrinkles to that if you want, "critical hits go directly to the wound tables" being the most obvious.

>>52403657
Isn't that exactly how aces & eights and hackmaster work? Second based combat.

>>52403987
GURPS also has second-based combat, no?

>>52403767

>Roll under stats
>ever
>not tying it in with weapon sizes and encumbrance to make it more granular and give a reason to use less effective armor and smaller weapons
>Using a huge +4/-4 bonus/penalty during routine gameplay

Nigga what the fuck are you doing.

>>52404065
>advocating weapon speed factor

Ironic shitposting is still shitposting

>>52404065
>advocating weapon speed factor

Iconic shitposting is still shitposting

>>52404098
I bet all your weapons are 1d6 without so much as a +1 To-Hit vs. Charge to distinguish them.

>>52403987
>>52404036
Are these cool?

What's interesting about second-based combat?

>>52404212
Second-based combat makes for a slightly more chaotic and deadly game. It also screws over casters since a spell would take multiple 1-second rounds to cast.

>>52404091
>>52404098

Don't use speedfactor dumbass. Use the weapon's damage die.

>Roll weapon damage die + encumbrance over certain level and subtract your Wisdom modifier
>Lower numbers go first

It's that easy.

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Reading this "countdown to 3e" stuff is eye-opening.

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>>52404114
>without [ways] to distinguish them.
Close. How much do you owe me?

>>52404212
It helps distinguish shorter and longer actions and helps open a lot more thinking.

Quaffing a potion could take a couple seconds, as would rifling through a backpack, moving from place to place, and differentiate between fast and slow melee weapons as well fast and slow ranged weapons. Weak spells could be cast quickly, stronger ones could take a while. You can have effects that things more vulnerable, like during spellcasting.

Plus it keeps people from having long conversations in the middle of combat.

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>>52404065
>Roll under stats

Please explain to me how this is an objective evil that will make my dick grow wings and fly away.

Also... sure. If you want to make it more granular, go ahead. I don't. Seems to work out pretty well so far. A -2 to Wisdom (for Initiative) while swinging a two-handed sword definitely balances out the larger damage die.

But anyway, roll-under stats. Your sheet has numbers on it from 3 to 18. You have a 20 sided dice. These two things should be /immediately/ related and it's ridiculous that they aren't sometimes.

>>52404486
>Please explain to me how this is an objective evil that will make my dick grow wings and fly away.
Your stats are randomly rolled.

>>52404543
... not who you're responding to, but are you proposing an alternative to that?

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>>52404543
Correct.

This means that some characters will be really good at something, and really terrible at others. Some characters will be really, really terrible at everything. You'll average (without penalties) slightly above a 50% chance.

And this is bad... how?

Is there something I'm missing?

>>52404352

>Road to CoDZilla

Is there a game with modern design and all but with the OSR mindset?

>>52404751

Torchbearer or SHHH Dungeon World

>>52404606
If a low number condemns my character to be forever shit at a number of things, at least have the common courtesy to let me do that to myself.

Or, to put it another way, the more a stat affect, the less it should be left to random chance. That's part of the reason AD&D defaults to 4d6k3 over 3d6.

>>52404751
Possibly WFRP 2e, if you squint hard enough

>>52404810
Both garbage that won't stand the test of time at all.

>>52404847
No. Most of it is just pathfinder and a bad copy of runequest 1.

>>52404751
SenZar, maybe, a little bit.

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>>52404838
>forever shit at a number of things

Chances are pretty good that character won't be around long enough to be shit at more than one or two things.

And no, it's not all about your choices. Otherwise, we'd be sitting around a table playing "slightly difficult puzzles for the mentally handicapped".

If you want a heroic game where progression is implied rather than earned (through chance and skill equally) then sure, do 4d6 or point buy or have stats be irrelevant. For those purposes, it's completely fine.

>>52404606
>And this is bad... how?
Not that Anon, but attributes can have extremely high variance.
One or two very low attributes spells doom (or at least futility).

>>52404978
>WFRP 2e
>is mostly Pathfinder and Runequest
What the hell am I even reading, 1/8 got me to respond I guess

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>>52405048
The variance is... not that variable. It's exactly predictable.

And, sure, having 5 STR and 3 DEX is going to make you a lousy fighter. So don't play a fighter. Play someone who can hang back, avoid tests against your low stats, and try to survive.

And if you don't... well, the other PCs get to loot your body for valuable items (like boots). You contributed.

It also depends on how your tests are structured. If you had to test Int to cast spells or test Dex to jump or something then you're more likely to run into annoying attribute issues. But if some values (attack, base AC, saves) aren't as sensitive to low stats, and the tests against stats aren't incredibly frequent, it seems to work OK.

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>>52405119
>The variance is... not that variable. It's exactly predictable.
This is true.
>>52405036
>Chances are pretty good that character won't be around long enough to be shit at more than one or two things.
And I don't want a 45% chance of *not wanting* my character to be around long enough to matter.

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>>52405178
Based on past data, it's more like a 20% chance per session.

But if that's not your thing, that's not your thing.

Also, what kind of system are you coming from where every check is vs instant death? Seems like you're just being obtuse.

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>>52405200
>Also, what kind of system are you coming from where every check is vs instant death?
What.

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>>52405229
You just said "a 45% chance of not wanting my character to be around long enough to matter"

I mean... either you only want to play characters with good stats, or you don't think characters with low stats will be around long enough to matter.

Which is it? If it's the first one.. you're not suited for OSR games. Sorry. Try Fate or 5E with pointbuy.

If it's the second, you're merely misinformed.

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>>52405262
>or you don't think characters with low stats will be around long enough to matter.
No. You (>>52405036) told that other guy, "it's OK if your character is bad, because most characters die quickly."
To which I (>>52405178) responded, "I don't want to want my character to die quickly."

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>>52405337
>"I don't want to want my character to die quickly."

Then what the fuck are you doing in the OSR thread?

Seriously. Aside from the wargaming threads, this is probably the place with the highest-per character attrition.

Also low stats /may/ make your character die faster, but that doesn't mean you won't matter.

What're you going to do, whine until you get a guy with all stats above 15, and then whine some more when he drinks an unlabelled potion and turns into a baboon? Or, despite his good stats, fails to evade a trap while the Dex 3 paladin somehow scrapes by?

Or somehow find an OSR system where all characters are equally competent at everything, only get better, and rarely fail? Where every check is made against a flat percentage?

I'm not a fan of "you are doing it wrong" but... you might in the wrong thread.

Let's recap. You don't like roll-under because you feel it makes Stats more important, and highly variable, and therefore leads to a greater chance of characters being worse and dying more quickly, right?

Which is pretty much the antithesis of OSR.

Rejoice in your Int 5 Rogue. Delight at the continual failure of the Con 18 fighter to save against poisons the Con 6 Wizard endures without even blinking. And when they die - and they will die - just shrug and roll up another guy. Maybe he will make it.

>>52403987
Well. I have been Playing Aces and Eights, and not.
You roll a d10 at the start of the combat, You add or subtract your speed, Depending on your action it can take Ticks* (Every action happens on 1/10th of a second),
In that 1 year and something campaign The longest gunfight has been 6 seconds

>>52405462
"Player skill," "high lethality," etc. are all about having to *earn* survival.
It's the prize for smart play.

You're telling me, with a straight face, that I should not want the prize and thus, should diminish my effort and sense of challenge for nearly half the characters I generate.

>>52405495
Sorry I said something wrong,
Every action takes different amount of ticks, so Readying your weapon, Pointing it, Aiming and fireing might take a lot of Ticks. While just hipshooting might take a lot less.
You don't roll your dice again until you try to shoot someone.

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>>52404486
>>52404606
>>52404606
>>52405036
>>52405036
>>52405119
>>52405462

Nigga.

When you roll for stats, it's granular and like a various forms of resources. A 9th strength fighter and a 10th strength fighter may have the same modifier, but the 10th strength fighter is still stronger. Even ignoring things like XP bonuses, the 10th strength fighter can take one more point of punishment from stat bonuses, and is closer to getting another attribute modifier bonus from gaining permanent strength or from a magic item/potion or whatever.

The difference is that even a hugely powerful guy with +3 is basically 15% more likely to hit enemies as opposed to using the entire fucking stat, which creates much bigger disparities. Especially for the original point, which was Wisdom governing initiatives, using roll under on a character with 6 and a character with 16 is a whopping 50% difference. It makes characters too different.

The point of OSR is player skill and classes being good at things, not hoping to god you get a bunch of good stats and steamrolling every challenge. Rolled stats are there to sprinkle in some variety.

Roll under stats and saves are a blight. Stop using them. Period.

>>52405034
>SenZar
Is it good?

>>52405495
>The longest gunfight has been 6 seconds

This sounds neat.

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Soooooo....this might leave a bad taste in a lot of mouths here, but I've been retooling LotFP into a 5e style game for my players. See, they're not really gamers, so even 5e is a bit too crunchy for the lot of 'em. They're over the whole meatgrinder, low-power aspect of the OSR. They wanna invest in long-term characters. So I've been working on this. I'm looking for any feedback or advice on how it's coming along.

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>>52405537
Smart play can deal with bad stats. That's what I've been saying. Having bad stats and having to roll under them from time to time is not a death sentence if you play smart. If you play stupid, it's more likely to get that character killed. Doesn't matter what system, roll over/under, bonuses, tiers you're using. That wasn't under debate.

>>52405547
You can use your bonuses for damage or whatever. And if you'd like, you can have a static and unmodifiable Attack stat based purely on level. AC can be based on armour or Dex, so even low Dex characters can pop on some leather and do OK.

But the guy with 9 Str is just 5% less likely to lift a huge door than the 10 Str guy.

Think we're going to have to agree to disagree here.

>>52405716
on the topic of increasing the power of your PC's one option might be to add in ACKS' Cleave rules, also there's some nice stuff in The Nightmares Underneath and Fantastic Heroes & Witchery that might be worth nicking as well

>>52405547
>The point of OSR is player skill and classes being good at things

I thought the point of OSR was to sell knock-offs of B/X with houserules stapled on

>>52404978
>pathfinder

What the hell are you talking about.

>>52405799
That's not mutually exclusive thanks to the magic of the OGL.

>>52405759
>Smart play can deal with bad stats.
Good stats and smart play > Bad stats and smart play,
at least with respect to how much important you want stats to be.

It's not about whether I /can/ make it work, it's about whether I /want/ to.

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>>52405716
Honestly, might want to jump the 5E thing entirely and go for something like Fate Core. If they want rules-light heroics and all that, you can do a very decent and satisfying campaign without having to write more hacks.

On the other hand, your PDF production values are so good I can't criticize it much.

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>>52403442
>>52403501
The only big issue I see is that the extreme range of hit points in D&D can cause problems with the system. With starting characters, virtually any hit inflicts a wound. Meanwhile, high-level characters can become virtually immune to suffering wounds from swords and such. If you use a system like this, you might want to consider using either a slowed hit point progression (like in the pic), or at least a progression in which people start out with significantly more hit points than normal.

Going by the pic, a 1st level magic-user would average 6 hit points, while a 14th level fighter would average 27.5. That means a 1st level magic-user would suffer a wound from any blow that did 2 or more hit points, while the fighter would suffer a wound anytime he suffered 7 or more damage. Looking a 6th level cleric, who can serve as a midpoint for hit points, with 14 to his name. That would set the damage threshold for him at 4, which seems a bit low, unless you want most blows in your game to inflict wounds.

So maybe setting the wound threshold a bit higher would be better? This would result in folks (well, fighters, at least) eventually having thresholds higher than the amount of damage weapons can possibly inflict. D&D's ramping hit points can make things very difficult (even in a system like this, where the progression is drastically slowed), but one potential way out of this is exploding damage dice. When you roll maximum damage, you get to roll again, and add that roll to your damage. This allows you to at least occasionally cross wound thresholds greater than your weapon die's maximum roll. You could then set the wound threshold to 1/3 your maximum hit points, but looking at the 6th level cleric, we see that this doesn't move the needle much (raising his wound threshold from 4 to 5).

It seems to me that there's an easier solution: whenever your character is reduced to half his maximum hit points, wherever he just got hit suffers a wound.

>>52405648
Much better than you might think, given that it's a mid-90s fantasy heartbreaker-ish system that was memed as being terrible once upon a time. Certainly a hell of a lot better than its character sheet makes it look. It's 11 pages long because the designers cannot into compact character sheet layout.

>>52405716
I would just start everyone at level 3. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Can't really dint any of your content though.

And the .pdf looks really nice.
What did you make it in?

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>>52405847
See, thats the one thing I dont wanna do tho: introduce a new system. They grasp LotFP an like it (minus the constant death). Since really only *I* need to know these rules, all they're getting is a slightly modified character sheet.

>>52405949
>It seems to me that there's an easier solution: whenever your character is reduced to half his maximum hit points, wherever he just got hit suffers a wound.
And if you want to make wound less common and more dependent on the amount of damage inflicted, you could say that a wound is only inflicted if 4 or more points of damage are done on the blow that reduces you to half your hit points or less.

If you want to get more sophisticated, you could say that there is a second wound inflicted (or possibly inflicted) when your character is reduced to something like 1/5 his max hit points, or maybe when his hit points fall below the maximum number on his hit dice (so 4 for a magic user).

>>52406027
I waaaaaaaaaas gonna do that, but one of the big things I wanted was better use of magic and more class types. Even as an OSR geek, I still kinda hate the "one spell a day" thing at level 1. We were playing DCC and it was tons of fun, especially the magic, but it also made me miss the mechanics of B/X and LotFP a bit.

It's usually best as a demi-human to take whatever multiclass combo is available to you, but what about human dual-classing? Obviously dual-classing INTO thief is garbage, but what are the actually good dual-class combos (assuming there are good ones)?

>>52406027
Also, I just used LibreOffice

>>52406065
>I still kinda hate the "one spell a day" thing at level 1.
Less of an issue at level 3?
>>52406083
Damn you, and damn your lot!

>>52406109
Hey! LibreOffice is FREEEEEE!

>>52406076
>Obviously dual-classing INTO thief is garbage,
Fighter into Thief can be OK if you make the switch late.
>but what are the actually good dual-class combos (assuming there are good ones)?
Any combinations except Thief/Magic-User gets something for their efforts.

>>52406133
Free as in freedom!
So is Lamport TeX.

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>>52405716
Pic is a good way to reduce the number of times people die.

Also, since -10 hit points is commonly used as a point of death, why are you setting it at -3, which may be more generous than standard Basic rules, but still a lot less generous than -10? Actually, now that I'm reading over your stuff, I guess your poison saves are pretty much death checks.

I'm not sure I understand how casters are supposed to work. They have spells per day fewer than the number of spells they can memorize, but when they cast a spell, if they make a spell roll they retain the spell being memorized and/or don't use up a spell-per-day charge? This doesn't make much sense to me, but regardless, the level of spells that casters have access to seems game-breaking.

>>52405716
> A short rest (1 hr) and rations restore 1hp. A long rest (6+ hours; usually overnight camping) restores a characters HD Roll x level in HP and restores expended spell slots.
You want even badly-wounded people to usually heal up to full hit points with an overnight sleep? Because that's what this will do.

Another route you could go is to give each character a "healing factor" which equals 1 + 1/10 of their maximum hit points (rounded down) With a short rest, a person heals an amount equal to their healing factor. With a long rest, a person heals 1d4 (or maybe just 1d3) times their healing factor.

>>52406229
They use up the spell-per-day charge with the initial "free" use. The spell roll is just a chance to try it again with a chance of permanent failure (ie: cant roll to use it again that day). The numbers are a little wonky, I know.

>>52406321
Pretty much, yeah. The thing is getting a restful sleep while adventuring shouldn't always be a guarantee. There is still chance for interruption that skirts the whole process entirely.

>>52404751
DCC

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Bill warned us
we only had to listen

>>52406645
>fighter/sorcerer/monk
The hell?

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>>52389442
Dog kobolds are good

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>>52406723

>>52406723
how much xp is that?

>>52406694

It can be hard to figure out what's OP without playtesting. One of the reasons Monks are so underpowered in 3e is that the playtesters thought they were "OP," so they kept nerfing them.

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>>52389442

Classic kobolds are dog-FACED, not dogs. They're also scaly and hairless and have horns.

>>52406723

Pic related, man.

>>52406723
Imagine having a dungeon full of those things.

It's great to be a wizard.

>>52406723
>>52407000
TTF pls go.

>>52404978

>WFRP 2e
>Pathfinder

Okay, I'll bite: what the hell do you mean?

Question 1) Does Keep on the Borderlands convert well to Dungeon World?

Question 2) Does anyone have advice for running Keep on the Borderlands (assuming I can convince my players that the answer to question 1 was no regardless of your actual answer)?

>>52407735

It could be done, I'd probably use the Freebooters on the Frontier supplement. I don't think there are any complete scans of it available though, or I'd point you at them. The only scan I've seen is missing vital parts.

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Drunk Panda People Monk Race as Class?

>>52407897
All Wakfu/Dofus classes would make great B/X classes, especially if Godbound was used for the high level stuff.

>>52404606
This is why people are afraid of down-the-line 3d6 stat generation. Attributes in Basic D&D and OD&D should only give a slight bonus or penalty. +3 and -3 at the VERY best and worst but most likely only modifiers as low as +1 or -1 will be rolled.

The rolling of stats isn't what's important, your class, equipment and brains is. Tying more and more mechanics into rolling under stats or similar only manages to ruin characters that could've stood a chance in a campaign even though they had bad luck during stat generation.

Thinking that stats is what should be interesting and important about your character is faulty.

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>>52407897
I run two games, at the moment. The first is B/X with pretty classic stuff. The other is Ryuutama with cute/quirky enemies, a more serious story and animalfolk races.

I've warmed up to animal people in my OSR, and drunk pandas are fine by me.

>>52384575
Gamma World always had these, in fact, its progenitor, Metamorphosis Alpha has these rules too.

How tough are orcs in OSR? I was planning on starting my introductory session in the middle of the action versus some orcs. Would that be too difficult for a party of level 1s?

>>52408201
Orcs are generally pretty strong for a level 1 group, since they usually have something like 3HD. The classic monster in the "orc" genre for level 1's to fight would be kobolds, I suppose, but you can change around stats as much as you want.

I don't really see why you would want to use an OSR system if you want your game to focus on combat though.

>>52408201
Depends on the system.

>>52408296
Yeah, I thought as much. I came to the conclusion kobolds would be better too.

And the game won't be focusing on combat, the players are mostly new to the game, and I wanted to start them off with some excitement - less so "go kill all these guys in the room" and more "oh shit, we fucked up, death is a possibility, best book it." type thing.

>>52408201
I can tell you about Labyrinth Lord with which I am most familiar with: Orcs are the worst. There's always at least 2d4 of them and BtB they always have a strong leader with maximum HP (8) and +1 to damage no matter how small the group actually is. They can also use weapons which includes ranged weapons, pikes and two handers. Don't get me started on orc tribes.

You don't want to encounter Orcs.

>>52408201

A single orc is not meaningfully threatening, though he will be hard to put damage on. In Rules Cyclopedia and 1e, Orcs have 1 hit die each.

The problem is that they generally appear in groups. A GROUP of orcs is going to fuck up level 1 adventurers most of the time. Save it for later.

>>52408344
>>52408360
Labyrinth Lord was actually the system I was planning on running, thanks for the advice, friends.

1) How come 1e and Basic get so much love instead of 2e?

2) What's the general opinion on 2e Planescape as written -- ignoring Torment?

>>52408436
>1) How come 1e and Basic get so much love instead of 2e?
Lots of mechanical character options (kits, etc), more of an epic adventure slant to the modules, and some more new-school advice in the DMG adds up to people crying 'not OSR'. 2e's in a weird grey zone where it's fully OSR if you use the right optional rules, and really really not if you use other ones..

>>52405759
>But the guy with 9 Str is just 5% less likely to lift a huge door than the 10 Str guy.
Whether or notbthey can lift an arbitrary door is, well, arbitrary. But whether or not you can lift a /specific/ door shouldn't be a matter of chance.
You are or you are not strong enough to lift the door.

The guy with 9 strength might be 5% less likely to find doors they can lift but, again, they can or cannot lift the doors.
Suggesting that the 9 strength fighter can lift doors that the 10 strength cannot is shitting refereeing.

That +1 STR gives +5% chance to find lift-able doors, +1 DEX gives +5% chance to find jump-able pits, etc. is shitty world building.
But that's another can of worm altogether.

>>52408436
>What's the general opinion on 2e Planescape as written --
Planescape makes lots of cute references to real mythoi, but 2-axis alignment is garbage.
By extension so is the Great Wheel.
>ignoring Torment?
But Torment (and DiTerlizzi) carried Planescape!

>>52408716
Why not just do away with the 'roll to open doors' stuff and just slap STR requirements (like the 'requires [x] min STR to lift you see in some modules) on things?

>>52405759
>But the guy with 9 Str is just 5% less likely to lift a huge door than the 10 Str guy.
Strength is probably the place where standard attribute checks are the most wanting. If, your instance, a guy with 18 strength arm wrestles a guy with 10 strength, he shouldn't have a 40 percentile advantage; he should outright win. At the absolute most, both people should roll d6s, add the result to their strength scores, and see who comes out higher. That way, a strength 10 guy could get lucky and match a strength 15 guy 1 out of 36 times (leading to either to rerolling until he inevitably fails, or a coin toss to see who wins). But really, I think d4s would be more appropriate than d6s (there a strength 10 guy could match a strength 13 guy 1 out of 16 times), and I could even see just letting the stronger guy win.

As far as lifting gates goes, it seems like that should be a similar situation: roll a die and add it to your strength score, trying to overcome a target number. A d6 seems like a good die to use, but I could see going as high as a d10 if you wanted a situation where a wide range of people could have both a chance to pass and a chance to fail (or perhaps an exploding d6). But most attributes aren't going to have nearly as much consistency in terms of results as strength does.

Regardless, I think attributes should be "fairly" generated somehow, using an array or card draw or something.

>>52406645
>>52404352
Have more of these? I grew up with AD&D, but only learned Engish after 3.0 (and internet sucked at my country at the time to look for such material)

So I've been toying with the idea of making HP be more or less static from the start. Basically, have it be around the lvl3-5 range.
My worry is that level advancement will feel less satisfying then, because if you take out such things, there's not much that you gain on a level up, is there?

>>52409819
Whether you like it or not, higher-level characters can handle themselves in a fight longer than lower-level ones. Their hit points increase because it's more than just physical toughness and how many hits of an axe they can take.

>>52405547
Wait why don't you like save rolls?

>>52409902
Because if you look a medusa in the eyes you're supposed to just die.

>>52409902
I think he means having your attributes be your saving throws, like 5e D&D.

Does anyone have the pdf of Fantastic Heroes & Witchery? I can't find it on the trove...

>>52409969
You don't have to roll. It's nice when avoiding a blow dart though

>>52409819
Use con score as fixed HP and call HP Stamina, that is drained before HP. And make critical hits bypass Stamina. Character is out of combat at HP 0.

>>52410399
That sounds good, but averages in -10 extra hp.That's a LOT. And once you are ko usually it's a matter of you allies taking care of your so why not-

>unconsious at 0hp
>save = wake in d4 rounds; otherwise comma.
>any edged hit kills you (as Sleep)
>if all the party falls, TPK

>>52409819
This effectively removes the low-level basic game. Why not just have the PCs start at level 4?

>>52410134
It's a free download on its own site.

>>52411557
My bad, the pdf in RPGNow is U$ 7,50 though, and I looked there

>>52406645
>monk/assassin
I'll be honest: I agree with almost all of the Billposting but this strikes me as not just a cool class combo but one of the most intuitive as well. And not just because there's always that one guy who wants to play a ninju.

>>52406946
>One of the reasons Monks are so underpowered in 3e is that the playtesters thought they were "OP," so they kept nerfing them.
KEK

Any abilities beyond infravision/waterbreathing/natural armor that a lizard man class might have?

>>52407735
>Question 1) Does Keep on the Borderlands convert well to Dungeon World?
Lord, no.

>Question 2) Does anyone have advice for running Keep on the Borderlands (assuming I can convince my players that the answer to question 1 was no regardless of your actual answer)?
Ask around for the various colored keys to the map of the Caves of Chaos, remember how reaction rolls work, reward ingenuity.

>>52412322
I believe the 1e Oriental Adventures book allows you to play as a monk/ninja.

>>52412398
Something wrong with Dungeon World?

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>>52409077

>>52412431
Literally everything.

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>>52412431

Hoo boy, don't go opening that can of worms, anon. Some fa/tg/uys are triggered by it.

>>52412576
Yeah, well I'm getting flashbacks to trying to recruit from a channel full of D&D newbies, several of whom were also practically Dungeon World fanatics and they were like: "Hey, what does your old-fashioned stupid AD&D offer that DW doesn't have?".

I'd just like to hear the opposite perspective.

>>52412687

Fair enough, as a guy who likes 'em both, I'll type up my perspective for you.
Low level D&D in particular offers a kind of tactical dungeon crawling that you don't get in DW (which emulates more of the mid level AD&D thing, with a more cinematic style of dungeon crawl).
DW plays out as a group of heroes fighting their way through a dungeon that wants to murder them, but its emphasis is on the characters overcoming obstacles by clever maneuvering in the moment and learning from their failures, while in D&D a lot more focus is put on careful planning ahead of time, and management of resources, which is far less present in DW with its abstracted ammo and pseudo-Vancian casting and so forth.
DW characters are tougher and more powerful than low level D&D characters, but generally on par with mid level and higher, so it's kind of cutting out the early level die-in-a-hole parts of D&D and starting at like level 3 or 4. (This is fine by me, I knew plenty of folks who did just that back in the 80s, because dying to your first kobold ambush gets dull after a few years.)

The Dungeon World supplement Freebooters on the Frontier adds a lot of this back in though, powering down the characters and putting even more old-school into the DW framework.

>>52412492
>the entire combat and saving throw system has been tossed into the trash
But is this bad in anyway? I mean, BAB instead of THAC0 is great, and the old saving throw system was a mess (since I couldn't find an explanation for the arbitrally categories). Yeah, 3.0 became what it became, but speaking ill of this?

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>>52409077
I like how one of the selling points was MORE POWER FOR YOUR PC

>>52413143
It looks like the designers saw D&D as a combat-focused game, not an exploration-driven game. This came from the AD&D feel, where exploration it hid in the DMG and so, looking at the PHB, all they saw was mechanics for combat?

Looking this way, 4e is even more away from the original view, even if it is thousands times better balanced from 3.pf

>>52409969
The save is to see if you, while deliberately avoiding your gaze, don't accidentally (or forcefully) look at the medusa's face during 60 seconds of fighting (an activity which requires you look at most things, including part of the medusa).

>>52410256
>It's nice when avoiding a blow dart though
AC covers that...

>>52412369
Detecting slight change in temperature.

>>52412896
>since I couldn't find an explanation for the arbitrally categories
The save categories are pretty dumb, but they're what (not how) you avoid.
From left to right, the save are:
• [avoid outright losing a fight]
• [avoid getting screw in a fight]
• [ignore weakened magic]
• [partial damage against sure-hit attacks]
• [ignore magic]
You save as whichever appropriate category is farthest left.

>>52406645
This is hilarious.

>>52413488
>they're what (not how) you avoid.

This is an important distinction, because switching it around to the 3e wrong way means saves get unnecessarily more complicated.
If saves are based on how you avoid things, then all sources of saving throws get the same number, whether they're a minor nuisance that will be thrown at you all the time, or a serious character killer that you won't face often but that you really don't want to fail.
So now to fix that you need to add in modifiers to make the weak stuff hard to save against and the dangerous stuff easier to save against, so now you've got a section on saving throws and how they work based on your stats, and a new table of modifiers.
But you need to add another section explaining how those modifiers are intended to be used, because you just know some DMs are going to go "wtf? why is the basilisk's gaze so easy to save against? I want my basilisk to be EPIC" and start using the hard saves unless you explain at length on why that's a bad idea.
So now you've got an oversized wall of text made up of saving throws and their explanation, followed by modifiers and their explanation, all to get roughly back to where saving throws originally were. Only now you've added on the "bonus" that rolled stats are once again made more important.

>>52413628
That's all very well, but the original OSR saving throws were usually around the same number as well anyway. A first level thief's saves vary from 13 to 16, a first level fighter's from 14 to 17. You're barely any more likely to save against the instant death effect than you would be against the magic.

>>52413679

I disagree. A 15% difference is significant enough that I wouldn't want to do without it when my character's life is on the line.

>>52413488
>they're what (not how) you avoid.
How this makes sense? I'm really trying to understand it. If 3e is as >>52413628 said, how would be the best way to approach saving throws? Why not make it a bonus to your ability score roll?

>>52412492
>tfw seventeen years ago these guys all looked like sperglords to me while I happily converted, and I now realize they were right the whole time and just understood D&D better than I did

>>52413628
>This is an important distinction, because switching it around to the 3e wrong way means saves get unnecessarily more complicated.
Not necessarily. Just because 3e did a bad job doesn't mean the concept is inherently broken.

>If saves are based on how you avoid things, then all sources of saving throws get the same number, whether they're a minor nuisance that will be thrown at you all the time, or a serious character killer that you won't face often but that you really don't want to fail.
I've always liked the idea of getting the better of two rolls vs. things that kill or permanently screw you. That, by itself, gives you a lot, but if you wanted a more sophisticated system, you could have some spells marked as "easy save" and others as "difficult save". The "easy" save stuff would give you a bonus to your save (better of two rolls, or a flat bonus somewhere in the range of +2 to +5), while a "difficult" save would penalize you similarly. Yes, this would be adding in an extra bit of complexity, but it wouldn't affect most spells, and you could relatively easily trim as much complexity elsewhere to compensate (standardizing and simplifying ranges and durations to some extent). But again, just giving a bonus vs. death and permanently being fucked is probably sufficient.

>So now to fix that you need to add in modifiers to make the weak stuff hard to save against and the dangerous stuff easier to save against, so now you've got a section on saving throws and how they work based on your stats, and a new table of modifiers.
I don't think you need a table for this, and in any case, you get to drop the standard table of 5 values and replace saves with a single value.

>But you need to add another section explaining how those modifiers are intended to be used
Not anymore than you need one in the RAW.

>>52413738
>I disagree. A 15% difference is significant enough that I wouldn't want to do without it when my character's life is on the line.
A 1% bonus is significant enough that you're gonna want it for your character when he's saving vs. a deadly poison, but it adds unnecessary complexity to the game.

In any case, that 3 point difference mostly comes from breath weapons and spells being difficult to save against, and not poisons and so forth being hard. On average, poisons... are only about 1 point easier to save vs. wands... and stone... in B/X. Spells and breath weapons probably average about 1 to 2 points harder than wand... and stone... (with spells generally starting off about half a point easier than breath weapons and ending up midway between them and wands... and stone...).

And really, I don't see any reason why breath weapons need to be particularly hard to save against. A dragon who inflicts half his hit points in damage is still plenty dangerous, after all. So that could easily be simplified and brought down to the baseline of wands... and stone.... So now we really just have 3 categories: poison... which is 1 point easier than the baseline, spells that are maybe 1.5 points harder than the baseline, and everything else which is at the baseline. And rather than have a bunch of fiddly values, why not just have a single category save and give folks a bonus vs. deadly attacks, and be done with that?

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>>52414204

>>52413628
>If saves are based on how you avoid things, then all sources of saving throws get the same number, whether they're a minor nuisance that will be thrown at you all the time, or a serious character killer that you won't face often but that you really don't want to fail.
I'm not a fan of defending 3e, but that's wrong silly. In 3e, saves are bonuses.
The roll works like it's a skill check or some shit: You add the bonus to a d20 and try to roll over a target number (listed in the monster's attack).
That the Spellcaster's/Monster's listed target number scales with /its/ attribute is weird tho.

>>52413856
None of them make sense.
The very concept doesn't make sense.
Saves are a gameist abstraction.
From warming, actually.
To see if your units survive catapults, etc.