/osr/ - The Old School Renaissance

Rolled 17, 16, 8 = 41 (3d20)

>What is your favorite OSR table?
It was a huge set of tables for pickpocketing.
For the life of me, I don't know where to find it.

>>53528598

Rolled 10, 14, 7, 17, 4, 5, 15 = 72 (7d20)

>>53529890 cont.

>>53529755
>What is your favorite OSR table?
Calimport's building generators

>>53529890
Madam Name's Secret Tarts.
Kind of an odd mix of the high- and low-brow there.

>>53529905 cont.
>Madam Flamedeath Thundereye the Huge Keeper of Skulls's Secret Tarts

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r8 my homebrew.

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Does anyone have any interesting (blank) character sheets? Here's a D&D sheet from 1980. I'd like to have a couple of really weird ones, though.

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>>53530229
Weirdest character sheet I know is for 4e.
You can print 500 for $10. (2¢ per sheet)

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>>53530291
That's pretty lit. Thanks.

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>>53529755

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Write me a table for what happens when an MU casts a random spell he finds in a dusty tome without having any idea of what it does.

Getting ready to DM my first game in 10 years. I told myself I'd save some time by having a mostly-random western marches hexcrawl, but now i'm finding myself doing more work with random tables. It'll pay off but boy oh boy is this a change of pace

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>>53530229
Mad Irishman's replica has layers, so you can remove the border and change the background. Plus you can click on the character sketch box to add a picture (might only work in Acrobat).

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Towards the end of the last thread we were talking about bringing up any good adventure modules and other such stuff in the thread, to keep it more alive.

With that in mind, anyone else picked up the Night Wolf Inn? I rather like it, and figure it's big enough an adventure to talk about for a good while, provided I'm not the only one here that grabbed it.

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My GM is letting me do some interesting things in regards to Muscle and Magic in her D&D homebrew.

>>53533125
>Muscle and Magic
Could you elaborate further?

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>>53533365
I have two PCs, a fighter (who has an interesting twist on level progression) and a wizard whose entire deal is modifying and creating life. He gets essence points per level that he can use to do stuff like add poison damage to monster attacks, increase their HP etc.

I'm allowed to swap them out for sessions and XP is earned by spending currency.

I've heard of a super secret print of B/X D&D somewhere on lulu, but I haven't managed to find it.

Does anyone here know anything about it?

Currently making an adventure that involves the party searching for a castle up in treacherous, maze-like mountain passes full of mist, forgotten monstrosities, bandits and sudden cliffs. What do you think would be the best way to do this? I don't really feel like a map (any precise map at least, a general map is of course good) would work very well. It's a big, mazey area you can' treally map like a dungeon.

I'm thinking I should just include rules for searching, as well as a lot of encounters and description of what active opposition there is, and how it behaves if it becomes aware of the characters. And so on. Just general material for playing this part of the adventure more than precise, exact details of the trip.

Thoughts?

>>53529890
Ones that I make up on the fly.

>>53530291
That is a cool idea - also makes me think of a product idea.

NPC cards - Business cards with a random NPC printed on it. Or you could make it with a playing card with art if you wanted to really go high end, but I was thinking buying a box of 500 NPCs where you could just pull out random cards for NPCs.

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>>53534460
Anyone else made homemade DM screens?

Here the one I use for online chat games.

>>53534297
There were the LBBs posted here a few months ago.

Why not just buy it? It's not expensive or hard to find.

>>53534460
A few companies have done these. Paizo do "face cards" that are just pictures.

There was a Kickstarter a few years ago for a set where you draw from different decks to generate a NPCs (names, jobs, quirks, etc.).

>>53533468
Reminder that OD&D characters with good attributes could switch classes (with separately tracked levels) between sessions.

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>>53535089
yes but that doesn't let me play out my master/slave narrative or make 'look what the cat dragged in' jokes

Wasn't there some convertion chart for 5e to OSR or am I remembering wrong? I swear I saw it in the trove.

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>>53530229
This one's neat looking.

>>53534339
I'm just waking up, but I'm thinking if you did a decent sized encounter table, and after each encounter replaced the slot with getting closer to/clue to finding the castle. After enough exploring they'll do enough encounters that they have clues/find the place.

>>53535188
Like
1.Harpy Vagrants
2.Murder of Crows
3.Magma Fissure
4.Bandit King skirmish
5.Nightmare Mist
6.Ogre Guru
7.Donner Party
8.Poetic Rockslide

and after each encounter replace that spot with a variation on 'you see the castle looming closer 4 peaks away' or 'the nightmare mists lead you to a crumbling path'. After you roll X clues, they reach the castle.

Too gamey?

>>53535383
I would say make "Find castle" one of the rolls, even if it is one that is plugged in later.

>>53535432
Yeah, that'll probably keep it from taking too long. I wasn't sure how long/hard you want it to be. You could just plug in 'find castle' instead of clues.

Could anyone help? I have some questions:

- Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps? I feel I'm not creative at all, just shit ideas

- This might be a silly question, but what software do you use to write your stuff? Word?

- Why there are so few AD&D clones? I'm not familiar with AD&D at all, but I'm curious to know why...

- Why there are people still using G+?

>>53535728
>- Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps? I feel I'm not creative at all, just shit ideas
Books, other modules, chatting with players.

>- This might be a silly question, but what software do you use to write your stuff? Word?
LIberoffice

>- Why there are so few AD&D clones? I'm not familiar with AD&D at all, but I'm curious to know why...
AD&D is a very specific ruleset. the one clone does it well. Most come off B/X BECMI or OD&D as it turns out a lot of players loved that.

>>53535728
>- Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps? I feel I'm not creative at all, just shit ideas

Blogs, random generators (there's a shitton), tv shows, books.

>- This might be a silly question, but what software do you use to write your stuff? Word?

I'm very low prep these days so I'm using an actual notebook and a pen complemented with some random tables / encounters and whatnot printed out.

>- Why there are so few AD&D clones? I'm not familiar with AD&D at all, but I'm curious to know why...

As anon above noted, it's a very specific ruleset. It's Gygax's lovechild so much less people want to use it as a base as opposed to clear-cut B/X. Some people import race and class separation but that's it. A lot of people essentially played AD&D as B/X with race and class separation back in the daay.

>>53535728
>Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps? I feel I'm not creative at all, just shit ideas
If it's not your thing, don't worry about it. Just get a reference books. A lot of the classic DM guides have an encyclopedia of random tables. No need to do all the legwork yourself.

The early Gygax DM books from the 70's and 80's were fantastic for this sort of thing.

>>53535728
>inspirations for tables
Write anything, even if it's shitty. You can revise it later.
Consume as diverse a variety of media as you can.
>what software
Lamport TeX
>few AD&D clones
No market. The people who want to play AD&D want to play AD&D.
Houseruled perhaps, but their own. They won't pay for houserules.
>G+
Don't know, but OSR aside: Why there are people still using Facebook?

>>53536083
>Why there are people still using Facebook?
People invested too much on Facebook to leave

>>53535980
Oh, yeah. I pencil most of my prep into spiral-bounds.
I figured they were asking about making nice .PDFs

>>53535728
Read fantasy and adventure stories, watch films, etc. Most of what winds up in video games is hyper derivative.

I write in a rich text editor unless I need some complex layout or pictures in the document (TextEdit on apple).

A lot of OSR bloggers write on Blogspot, which is a google product integrated with G+. I'm guessing a lot of people use Google Plus for "internet friends", and Facebook for people they see often in real life.

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>>53535728
>Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps?
Generally speaking, I ask "What would be interesting?"
My last hexmap (still WIP) consisted of superimposing four separate maps on top of each other.

>This might be a silly question, but what software do you use to write your stuff?
Word. It's relatively easy and once you figure how to fiddle with it you can make some presentable stuff.

>Why there are so few AD&D clones?
I think there are two main reasons. First, the people who are the biggest fans of AD&D 1e are also Gygax-worshippers (cf. Knights n Knaves Alehouse and Dragonsfoot). Second, B/X is really easy to fiddle with using little forethought whereas AD&D requires careful thought, which is big turn-off to both hipster artistes and greedy publishers.

>>53535728
>Why there are people still using G+?
>Why there are people still using Facebook?
Hell, I've used IRC

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>>53529890
>What is your favorite OSR table?
This is probably a bit of a tangent (not being technically RP nor probably old enough to be "oldschool"), but I always thought the Encounters Chart from the original Mordheim was neat.

The gist was that after each battle, the party would make a search roll, and get stuff based on what you rolled. Doubles, Triples, etc would trigger these special encounters. Young parties only got to roll a couple dice, and you'd get more search dice as you leveled your team, so it wasn't even possible to hit the scary endgame shit (eg "The Pit") until deep in the campaign.

Similar mechanics have been used elsewhere with tables that slowly escalate you toward higher results (Injury tables are done this way a lot), but I always thought this particular implementation was very elegant.

After reading up on Speciality Priests I now have the desire for some more diverse clerical spellcasting. I'm thinking that using a Domain system that gives a handful of bonus spells and maybe a special ability like 3.x/PF is the simplest way to go.

>>53529755
Out of curiosity, has anybody on here tried using a current game engine with an old school skin on it? Apologies in advance if this is OSR heresy and would be better asked elsewhere.

We had some new people hanging out a couple weeks back, and on a lark, ran a one off Keep On The Borderlands using Fate. Ended up being pretty fun and (more surprisingly) relatively hiccup free. Ever since then, I've had this itch to write a Fate doc implementing the classic D&D classes, monsters, etc. But then, it's probably already been done. Just need to track it down. =)

>>53536486
I've seen some people OSR-ify D&D 5e in these threads, but I don't think the results are that interesting.

How did you handle the equipment, encumbrance and wandering monsters in fate?

>>53536486
That's odd. FATE and most OSR games seem diametrically opposed.

>>53537697
>How did you handle the equipment, encumbrance and wandering monsters in fate?
So, in our trial session, we just didn't deal with equipment, encumbrance, etc. Ignored it, it was a one-off. Wandering monsters were still done with the tables from KotB and the starter box.

It's definitely something I'd like to look at though. The standard Fate approach is that equipment isn't explicit - you're assumed to have the gear appropriate to your character concept, and it doesn't affect rolls (except as a penalty if you lose it for some reason). Special equipment like your family's ancestral magic sword is handled by taking a Stunt and/or Aspect for it.

BUT gear is part of what defines the "feel" of oldschool games. You can't just leave it out. So I want to do something crunchy with it, just not yet sure what.

>>53537851
I'd say that gear and time rules are more essential to old-school D&D than the combat rules. Definitely try to implement them.

>>53538062
>YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT

Yeah. It's a game of exploration and strategy first, combat second. Taking away encumberance, time records and encumberance severely hinders that part.

>>53538963
I think the problem people have with that quote stems from the word "meaningful". I think the game becomes for fun, more tactical, more of the intended experience, but meaningful just seems too subjective.

>>53539030
It requires context, sure. I've seen it misused a lot (up to and including someone claiming it means you need to keep a fantasy calendar so that people get more immersed in the game), but as far as it pertains to Gygaxian, challenge-oriented dungeoneering, it's solid advise. In that context, removing time constratings makes the game a lot less meaningful.

Of course, if you're not Gygax, or someone who wants to have a game similar to his, where these strategic choices and strict resources are very important for the experience, it's less absolutely true.

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>>53537697

>>53536486
There are a few explicit attempts, to mixed results and opinions. Dungeon world is mostly marketing and doesn't have a lot to do with old school dnd imo, but it did lead to World Of Dungeons and Freebooters On The Frontier, which do a better job of it. Torch Bearer is suppose to be a mechanics heavy, resource management game re; burning wheel, but I haven't looked at it. The Black Hack is arguably trying to incorporate more of the abstraction oriented narrative mechanics for resource management, some of them I think work well, some I like less. Beyond The Wall incorporates playbooks and group world building/character generation (I think from apocalypse world, but that's just by feel).

Being a gm and just riffing on ideas from random tables and procedural generation should work fine for pretty much anything though.

>>53537697 Not 5e specific, but certainly worth a look: http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/2050/roleplaying-games/revisiting-encounter-design

>>53537786
I don't think that's necessarily true. My first RPG was the '81 starter box shown in the OP. I remember it fondly - but the mechanics of the combat aren't what sticks out. The things that define the experience to me are:
1) narrative convention - quest / dungeon / loot
2) mapped dungeons and maps themselves
3) classic classes, races and gear
4) classic monsters and random tables
5) character progression by loot, xp, and levels

I don't think you technically need a THAC0 stat on your sheet to recreate any of that feel.

>>53538062
>>53538963
>>53539030
The time aspect is interesting. Not sure how to implement off the top of my head. I do definitely want that pressure, but in Fate and similar systems the timekeeping is very abstracted.

Player progression is likewise kinda tricky, since Fate isn't really built for that small-incremental-boosts mindset. There was a sorta-kinda skill point based leveling system in the Dresden Files RPG I might try to modify for this.

>>53539232
Cool, thanks for the suggestions. I'll definitely take a look at some of these.

>>53539202
After some googling around, a good solution to the XP for treasure problem in 5E is to halve monster XP and award 1 XP per gp of treasure, divided as usual.

More simplified encumbrance would be nice (adventuring gear weighs 30 lb, done). The only remaining problem is the high/swingy hp and damage values: combat can be just as deadly, but it takes half an hour instead of five minutes.

Plus deadly combat isn't as cool when it takes an hour to make a character.

>>53539243
Really interesting read, thanks for reposting.

Is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard good OSR music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rd3vwwXArMQ

>>53541993
That's actually pretty cool. With a name like that, I was expecting some strummy filk crap.

Anyone know of any scans of translated TSR stuff? I'm interested in German scans and I might put some stuff into the mix too, even with a shitty scanner. They will never sell them here anymore.

>http://critkeeper.site88.net/
I guess this dead page can be deleted from the pastebin.

>>53543262
What was it? Can we have an elegy?

>>53543262
I'm not sure what's going on with that, other parts of the site are still up.

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I want to make a retroclone mini(?) setting/adventure and make it like a bad movie from the '60 to '80. Should I or is too dumb a gimmick? Pic related.

>>53543966
Okay so, I think I need to expand on my idea beyond being 'lolsorandumb, Zardoz is funneh'. Basically, all the setting elements would be shit you'd see straight out of B-movies, especially fantasy and scifi. All the races and monsters and even spells would be described in a way that would help visualize them as a bad movie effect. In other words, if it couldn't have been done in a B-Movie it's not in the game.

>>53543966
>Starring: Darth Traya

>>53543966
Technowizards in giant flying stone heads fucking with post apocalyptic peasants sounds fun. There's a decent amount of psychedelic osr stuff, Misty Isles of the Eld, DCC's purple planet and Narcosia come to mind. I think one of the characters in dcc's comic is a bell bottom wearing barbarian. I find it can get a bit too much, so I'd do it as a one-shot or an adventure someplace that's not part of the main setting personally, but ymmv.

>>53544313
>Misty Isles of the Eld, DCC's purple planet and Narcosia
Thanks for the recommendation, anon. Much appreciated.

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>>53544168
Take it a step farther. The characters are performers on a stage, if they die they walk off and change costumes.
Let them interact with the stage. Let them interact with the audience. Let the NPCs do the same.

Maybe the guy who does all the villain roles messes up a scene by dressing up as a villain from something else.
Maybe one of the stagehands changing out the room is actually an extra dressed as an orc disguise as a stagehand.
Maybe the frequent no-show player gets attacked by their understudy when they finally attend a session.

Just don't diminish the players in the process.
If shitty fireballs can "kill" the rubber-mask goons, they can kill the audience members storming the stage.

>>53543966
zardoz isn't bad though.

>>53544458
This... this is one of the best ideas I have ever heard. Thank You.

>>53544458
>Mad Wizard Sharkespire's Tower
>entering transforms your clothing into theatrical garb
>curses within force you to speak in rhyming couplets
>ethereal pit band follows your party around, heckling
>he watches your progress through the acts of the dungeon, directing, criticizing your delivery of 'lines' and lack of pathos
>finding secret doors and passages between rooms makes him berate you for going off script

>>53544458
What you're proposing is basically Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, the RPG. And that's fantastic.

its odd.

I normally play and design stuff that very standard (Think Tolkien or perhaps a bit Conan).

Today I started on a idea of doing a odd combo on combining Carcosa, Lovecraft, Guardians of the Galaxy (don't laugh), and Anomalous subsurface environment. And for some insane reason I am really loving the results that range from Day-glow humanity, orbital AI's as Gods, to replacing the normal demi-humans.

>>53544458
>>53544852
There's an entire Ravenloft domain based on that concept. Scaena

>>53545024
>Guardians of the Galaxy (don't laugh)
I won't as long as it's not the MCU, DnA, or current version.

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>>53545074
>Originally known for his comedies, his first tragedy provoked only laughter. In revenge for this slight, he locked the audience into the theater and burned it to the ground, earning his darklordship.

>>53545142
I am mostly just borrowing the idea of human races in day-glow colors (that Carcosa also has) and then I replaced halflings with a race called Procyonids who are talking Racoons.

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>>53530229

>>53545024
Sometimes you have to switch it up. The current campaign I'm running is bonkers, but something more low key next time and a little more grounded will be a good change of pace.

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>>53545305
>who are talking raccoons

I like this idea

>>53545305
>I am mostly just borrowing the idea of human races in day-glow colors
I've been slowly ripping off those ideas of near-humans who could be played by dude in makeup you'd see in pre-reboot Star Trek. Somehow that just seem something which you'd see in cheesier fantasy, scifi and scif-fantasy settings and isn't really super alien. It's certainly no more or less alien than elves which are basically just pretty people with pointy ears.

I do wish Carcosa would have fleshed out the thirteen races a bit more, however. Then again I'm quite the sucker for fleshing out humanoid (or at least sentient) races.

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>>53545523
Procyonid

The Procyonid are short bipedal animals that have a resemblance to Racoons. They are smart, hardy, and very good fighters and thieves. While most of them have a good nature, they are by there nature Chaotic and many will do things to entertain themselves in the short term, even if it may harm them in the long term. However once befriended a Procyonid is VERY loyal to his or her friends.

Generally the Procyonid have a very gender based society. Males work alone or in small groups (1-4) to protect turf and earn shiny things to impress female Procyonids. The Females live in small communities (called barrows) to raise the young together, and only deal with the males when breeding.

(Same stats as Halflings per ruleset.)

>>53545698
Right now I have Humans and 7 "Color" races

Augustines (Golds)
Kri (Blues)
Pakka (Purples)
Ikar (Ivory)
Bonesmen (Bone)
Bereet (Pinks)
Drax (Green)

And starting to flesh each out.

>>53545305
>I am mostly just borrowing the idea of human races in day-glow colors (that Carcosa also has)
Then you should use LOSH races instead. Marvel aliens suck, DC's have a lot more variety.

>>53545780
Movie!Drax is more grey, really.

>>53545789
I am not using the Marvel (or DC races for that matter). Just borrowing the idea of human races that look human but just are a odd color.

For example, a quick writeup is stuff like

Bereet (Pinks)

Famous courtesans and dancers, Bereet (or Pinks) have a pink tone to them. They are all female and noted for their good looks (+1 Charisma) but weak stature (-1 to Strength). They do not believe in marriage as other races do, and instead will sign a exclusive contract for up to 10 years. Needing other forms of humanity to provide male members means they are found across almost all nations living with other forms of humanity.

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>Carggites are a race of humanoid aliens from the planet Cargg. They all have the natural ability of Bio-Fission allowing the split their physical form into three independent bodies. The Carggites triplicates possess the exact same emotions, those who don't are considered something of a social outcast, requiring psychological treatment.

>Multiple Personalities: Their is a risk Carggite can develop a multiple personality disorder such as Luornu Durgo. Each of her bodies have their own will and personality.

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>>53545847
Yea, I might change the name. the Drax are based off Gamora then Drax.

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>>53533468

>>53545780
I've got a sort of "adventures on Mars" kind of game on the back burner where the races are all named using obscure color/dye words like mazarine, argaman, cutch, puccoon, etc. I want each race to have one very distinctive thing about it (4 arms, adamantine skin, flexibility/a bit stretchy, etc.), but I'm having trouble coming up with enough stuff that I'm satisfied with.

>Ikar (Ivory)
>Bonesmen (Bone)
Aren't those essentially the same color?

>>53546013
>>53546013
>>Ikar (Ivory)
>>Bonesmen (Bone)
>Aren't those essentially the same color?
Yes, but they do not look the same.

Ikar (Ivory) are bone white with black eyes, live out in the deserts.

Bonesmen (Bone) have clear flesh and you can see their bones though there skin. They are the outcasts and live like gypsies.

>>53543966
The penis is evil

>>53546104
But the gun is good.

>>53546117
My darker brother

>>53546041
Okay. Just checking.

>>53546013
>I've got a sort of "adventures on Mars" kind of game on the back burner where the races are all named using obscure color/dye words like mazarine, argaman, cutch, puccoon, etc. I want each race to have one very distinctive thing about it (4 arms, adamantine skin, flexibility/a bit stretchy, etc.), but I'm having trouble coming up with enough stuff that I'm satisfied with.
That I can understand.

Why I am sticking to 7 "Color" races for now. better to flesh them out then add more then to get too many races that are not fleshed out.

>>53545780
Are there mechanical differences or is it just for flavor?

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So, I'm gonna have my party be show a massive ancient machine below a main Empirical City that scholars, through "archaic tomes", have surmised holds back a "great force". The machine is beginning to falter though, and they fear it's just a matter of time. It's main focus is a black window displaying, flickering orange runes made from light that often spastically garble up.

What this machine is, is a large 70's era computer detaining the explosion of an electronically sealed vault of nukes. Basically pulling a subtle "this fantasy world used to be old-earth" thing that they will slowly begin to uncover. Anyways.

What are some good adventure hooks for helping quell this machine? A Fallout-esque search for some "ancient part"? Magic relics to do...something? I'm kinda stuck on how to make it creative. Good side-quests or encounters?

>>53546191
Some of it is flavor, some of it is mechanical.

For example, Bereet have -1 STR but +1 CHR.
Bonesmen have huge reaction penalties but have infravision.
While say, the Kri and Pakka are more for flavor.

Question: There is supposedly an "advanced" edition of Wizards, Warriors & Wyrms. At least, the manual refers to to such an edition. Does it actually exist? If so, is there an active (free, non sign-up) mirror for it?

Also, I can't be arsed to load up the Mega trove to see if any of the Delving Deeper manuals are mirrored there. (Seriously, it's a bloated piece of shit Web app that takes my goddamn DSL 30 minutes to load. What the fuck, OP?) If you haven't mirrored any DD manuals yet, that might be something to look into. It's a pretty solid retroclone.

>>53546219
How about this.

The party is hired by some priests who have to go delve to carry out the rituals (which is to reset the machine) and as they go in stuff starts to happen.

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>>53546219
Finding sacred punch cards/code scrolls that reseal the autolock. The punch cards were hidden away by an ancient order, reproduced as illuminated manuscript, but internal schisms of the order (one set on unleashing the apocalypse again, the other less into that) and various crusades over time have scattered the copies across the world. I'm riffing on A Canticle For Lebowitz, its a fun old scifi novel worth taking a look at.

How does it detain an explosion though? Seems odd unless you want to do a 70s hitech forcefield.

>>53546553
I like this idea.

Perhaps make it containing anti-matter, so if it fails, it a instant BOOM.

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>>53546287
?

>>53546553
>How does it detain an explosion though?
Details were lost in oration, and possibly translation.
It's not containing an explosion, but there's a cron job waiting to launch all the nukes.
The screen and keyboard are just a terminal. The mainframe proper is deep in the bowels of the dungeon.

The "ritual" is a whole bunch of extraneous shit (playing rogue, etc).
One of the commands involved adjusts the system time.

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In B/X, can a 1st lvl M-U cast a disintegrate spell (6th lvl) if he or she has a scroll with the spell written on it?

>>53546013
I'd say take a gander at Hollow Earth Expedition's Revelations of Mars splatbook. It has colour-coded Sword & Planet aliens and all sorts of cool stuff. You can find it in the PF share thread.

>>53547305
He can't memorize it or write it into his spellbook, but he can absolutely use it off the scroll.
Scrolls are the whole reason high level spells are even provided in the rules.

>>53547305
Yes,

Just that he cannot add it to his spell book or memorize it.

>>53547046
Works fine then. If you don't want a hex crawl you could do the entire missile complex as a dungeon, with the inbred decedents of the staff/techs as different factions competing for the codes, illuminating them, stuff like that. Does have the potential for the players to nuke everything, or fail and have everything be nuked though.

>>53547563 Those are both reasonable outcomes.

>>53547598
I'm usually down for that too, I just remember apocalypse triggers were common complaints about LotFP modules.

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>>53547437
>>53547501
So when level matters (e.g. fireball damage), it is the level of the person who wrote the scroll, not the caster, that is used? Do you have a rule for determining the scroll writer's level?

Since magic-users can't write spells they can't memorize into their spellbooks, that means when they turn 3rd level they don't know any 2nd level spells?

>>53547671 If the goal of your adventure is to save the world, I would be upset if the world ending wasn't an outcome. Holding the world hostage is just kosher.

>>53529755
Do you guys think Arnold Kemp's GLOG system is a good choice for a group of mostly-beginners? To be clear, I (the DM) have a good amount of experience with this kind of stuff, but the group consists of a bunch of newbies plus one opinionated 3.PFag. Would you recommend any modifications to the system, or another OSR system entirely?

>>53547679
>it is the level of the person who wrote the scroll, not the caster, that is used?
Honestly can't remember off hand. That sounds right to me?
>that means when they turn 3rd level they don't know any 2nd level spells?
Yes, that's correct. MUs can copy spells from scrolls or captured spellbooks using Read Magic.
In Bx their spellbook also can't have more spells of a given level than they can memorize.

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>>53547739
Oh hey!

https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/03/osr-glog-review.html

https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/search/label/Tomb%20of%20the%20Serpent%20Kings

In summary, yes. The opinionated 3.5 fellow also gets /one/ free pass once, and then gets a warning. If he tries to system bitch again, despite signing up, kick him. You don't order vanilla ice cream and whine because it's not a coke. He can learn to be a decent human or take a hike to another game. It'll be no fun fo the noobs if you let it ride.

>>53547349
Thanks. I'll do that.

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>>53535728
>- Why there are people still using G+?

I use it to shill my stuff. Stuff I post on G+ gets 300-400 views, if I'm lucky. Stuff I post here gets about 20 views. I like it here because there's good real-time discussion, but G+ is how you track, collate, and scan "what's happening" in the scene.

>Where do you get inspirations for random tables and maps? I feel I'm not creative at all, just shit ideas

History books, caffeine and sleep deprivation, other bloggers, questions people ask on /tg/.

>- This might be a silly question, but what software do you use to write your stuff? Word?

Word or directly in blogger. It's not like I'm formatting a thesis here. Laziness is A-OK.

>>53541993
>Is King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard good OSR music?

Yes.

>>53544852
Also yes.

>>53547679
>So when level matters (e.g. fireball damage), it is the level of the person who wrote the scroll, not the caster, that is used?
yes.

It quite fun to use a scroll of magic missile to bluff your way though something. Which I had a party do.

>>53547949
Thanks. I don't expect too many issues from the 3.PF guy, he was just originally opposed to playing anything other than 3.PF or 5. I think he'll get over it, but thanks for the advice.

>>53545893
Oh hey! She was always my favorite!

>>53547972
*PDF, not PF. Sorry.

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>>53548019
The fuck is that miniature from? I love it.

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>>53549381
http://www.exprofundis.com/exalted-champion-mantigryph-dormant/

Not for sale, I'm afraid.

Are there any other blogposts similar to that one by Jeff Rients with good questions to ask yourself about your campaign world?

Do you guys still play AD&D second edition? What could you tell me about it?
I'm thinking of buying the planescape bundle that driveThru is selling at the moment.
I'm a DM most of the time, and started playing rpg post D&D third edition. My knowledge from OSR is very little, the only thing I know is that DCC rocks.
I usually play D&D 5e and Symbaroum now days. Will I like it?

>>53552640
>Do you guys still play AD&D second edition?
Still my favorite.

>What could you tell me about it?
Sometimes it's debated on whether it's truly OSR or not: it's definitely at the border of the old and new schools, where all of D&D was in the process of transitioning to what 3rd edition ultimately made it. But I personally find that to be one of the bigger reasons to like it: it stands in the middle, so it can manage both, even merging them together in the same campaign. Lethal dungeon crawlers combined with epic high fantasy tales.

It's somewhat higher-powered than the other OSR: high ability scores deal you a great deal more bonuses than they do in earlier editions, and your characters start with more options and powers than elsewhere, allowing you to do far easier time with random encounters. But a whole bunch of the lethal shit from the older editions is still present, so it may not matter much if you're unlucky or plain dumb.

Planescape is pretty good, but it leans heavily towards the story aspect, which isn't typically seen as much OSR: it'll be harder to come up with lethal dungeon crawls that still manage to keep up the unique setting flavor. I wouldn't know if it could work at all, but Planescape has plenty of things to like so maybe it's worth a shot.

And yes, DCC rocks.

>>53552678
Core books only AD&D2e = OSR
AD&D2e with every supplement allowed = not OSR

>>53552717
Makes sense. All those supplements focus on giving more options to the player classes rather than the dungeon crawling experience itself, not to mention the new setting books with their own politics and non-dungeon histories and shit.

>>53546013
>I've got a sort of "adventures on Mars" kind of game on the back burner where the races are all named using color words
Damn, that sounds sooo familiar for some reason. Is this based on something?

>>53544464
>zardoz isn't bad though.
I'm sure you're joking, but... you're joking right?

I used to keep a copy of Zardoz (with a few other choice selections) hidden away in an envelope with an orange "DO NOT OPEN" sticker on it. It's purpose was that, when some uncultured lug would say something like "Spiderman 3 is the Worst Movie Ever Made", I could reach into that envelope and pull something out that would cause him lasting psychic damage... and prove him wrong in the process.

I mean, there's bad movies, and then there's tear-a-hole-in-the-dimensional-fabric-of-the-universe-with-their-vortex-of-suck movies.

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Can someone help me in world-building? I decided to make a background setting for my retro-clone that I'm writing. It will be only generally sketched and suggested in the descriptions of classes, random tables, etc. not some new school gazzetter.

The setting is called the Solar Empire of Cidrinea. It is a mixture of ancient Rome, Egypt, Medieval, it has themes similiar to wh40k and Battletech universe, also some lovecraftian cosmic horror. I need some random tables, fluff (I'm not a writer), world powers and factions (there are already assassin's guild who are religious terrorists, and templars who are defenders of the Emperor.)

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Coins&Scrollsguy, are you here?

I'm reading your thing, preparing to run it this Saturday to a group of 2 complete newcomers and one guy who played like 2 games.

Anyway my question is: did you make basilisk hall yet?

>>53554351
>/d/ The Statue!
I like it, very Conan.

By any chance does anyone have a random nightmare table?

Anybody here play Perdition? I'm really interested in running a game but converting monsters seems like a pain in the ass and I'm not sure what treasure tables would work best. Probably something like Zak S.'s Nested Megadungeon Table but even that would take some serious work.

>>53553088
>so bad it tears open a hole into hellbaddimenson
>pulls everything in
>everything is hellbad now, so zardoz isn't that bad comparatively
easy

>>53554875
Its on my 'too read' pile, but I haven't had a chance to check it out. How far from baseline is it that converting monsters would be hard?

>>53555000
Further than most, there are both mental and physical hit dice, a new stat for Wickedness, magic works with spell pools and the initiative system is different. It seems like it would be a lot of fun to run but I'm not sure I have the prep time I want.

>>53553303
If you look at the big picture, you miss the important picture.
If you don't expect PCs to interact with it early in the game, don't write it.

I would sooner be handed loose threads than a shitty tapestry.
If I have to tie up the loose threads, I have to invest in the setting.

>>53554351
He did, but he won't drop floor 3 until his players finish (they read his posts).

He gave the last guy who asked tips for making the floor themself.
If he doesn't respond to you soon, maybe dig through fireden for that?

>>53557182
nah i'm good, I was just curious. I think if my group reaches level 3 (they won't) i'll give them a XP bonus on the spot and call it an evening. I'm just wondering about how our boy is progressing.

>>53544464
This. Zardoz is awesome. Not for normies. Deliverance and Excalibur, from the same director, are for normies. Those are good cinema too.

But Zardoz is out there, you can see they enjoyed doing it. Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain is also full of condensed good stuff; real, unrefined, magical weirdness, not artsy like Lynch, but primal /tg/ material.

Does anyone actually use homebrew classes?

>>53559121
If no one anywhere did, why would there be so many of them for sale in RPGNow?

>>53559121
Sure, but I mostly use homebrew races for Race-Class systems.

As really the human classes in the RC is about the limit of what you need.

>>53558722
Zardoz was made when high as a fucking kite. Now depending on your perspective this may be a plus...

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>>53554351
I'm back. Thanks!

>Anyway my question is: did you make basilisk hall yet?

Not yet, but I can probably write it up tonight. If worst comes to worst, the next level has the Basilisk Hall, some pit traps, some Skeleton Jellies (ooze covered skeletons, slow but can't be killed), a snake-man wizard lich who is friendly (to people who bring him brains or living creatures), and 2d100 fungus goblins (plus throne room).

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>>53560336
>Skeleton jellies

Nice.

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>>53560418
Like all my good ideas, I stole this one from Arnold K.
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.ca/2013/05/asthmatic-berserkers-and-skeleton.html

They make excellent wandering monsters. Mine killed 2 players.

>>53552995
>Damn, that sounds sooo familiar for some reason. Is this based on something?
John Carter has red martians and green martians and so forth. DC has green and white martians with Martian Manhunter. I think martians being identified by colors is a standard thing.

>>53560509
John Carter is probably where it came from to start with.

>>53560562
I wouldn't be surprised, though I also wouldn't be surprised if the color-based aliens in John Carter were based on earlier tropes (though more modern reiterations could still all tie back to John Carter, of course).

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>>53560748
>color-based aliens in John Carter

I googled "coloured people myths".

I should not have done that. Curse my Canadian sensibilities.

>>53560847
>I googled "coloured people myths".
Ha, ha, ha!

>I should not have done that.
I can imagine.

>>53560847
Welcome to the list.

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>>53560847
>>53560922

Sometimes my naeivity surprises me. I've been on the internet since before it had pictures, but I still make silly mistakes.

I've been working on some Byzantine history/ruler tables. "Wait a minute," I thought, "4chan has a /his/ board. I wonder what they think of the Byzantine empire. I wonder if they're having interesting discussions."

The discussions were... interesting. Not particularly useful, or accurate, or even fun, but interesting. Like watching two ferrets fight, except the ferrets keep shouting "the Turks!"

>>53561198
>"Wait a minute," I thought, "4chan has a /his/ board.
Yeah. Even if you'd get some idiots, I used to enjoy it when we'd sometimes have history threads here on /tg/, and there was usually something of value you could get out of them, so I was kind of excited when we added a history board. Then I actually went there...

Have anyone here ever played Ragnarok Online? I'm thinking of adapting The GLOG to make it similar to RO, so I would:

-separate class level from base level
-add second classes (rank E, F, G and H)
-you have to complete a quest to get your second class
-change attributes to str, dex, vigor (con), int & luck (improves critical)

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>>53562029
>-you have to complete a quest to get your second class
I like this.
>>53562029
>-change attributes to str, dex, vigor (con), int & luck (improves critical)
I'm not so sure about this, but to each their own. Luck always seemed like a weird "stat" to have. The whole darn game is based around luck. Your character is lucky because of actual luck, not a stat.

But anyway, good luck! Post homebrew when done.

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Speaking of homebrew, I've confirmed that ~8% of the Byantine deaths I'm tabulating occurred in the bath.

I'm not sure if that will make bathhouse fetish anon happy or unhappy.

>>53563708
My take away from this is that ~8% of adventurer deaths should occur in the bath.
Not going to say 8% of the dungeon should be baths, but putting 8% of the combat in dungeon baths would be a good start.

And I am sure that will make bathhouse fetish anon happy.

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>>53563952
>Not going to say 8% of the dungeon should be baths, but putting 8% of the combat in dungeon baths would be a good start.

I am building a steam-based dungeon (not steampunk, don't be silly), with bath cultists in togas and ablutionist wizards (who must remain immersed and ride around in walking metal bathtubs).

Deaths are likely.

>>53564291
I forgot about that. Post it, eventually.

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>>53564370
Oh I will. I just don't want to spoil my players (they read my blog, or at least, the smart ones do).

Tonight though, Tomb of the Serpent Kings Level 4 (the final level), plus maybe the Ruler tables.

>run Keep on the Borderlands
>dumb, shitty, boring
>clunky as fuck
>run tomb of horrors with a group of absolute noobs
>OH SHIT, THIS IS THE FUCKING TOMB OF HORRORS I SAW THIS ON (GEEK YOUTUBE CHANNEL) NOBODY TOUCH ANYTHING HAHA ALMOST TRICKED US ANON

Why are so many classic modules fucking crap? The only old DnD modules I've seen people nut over that were actually good were Ravenloft and Isle of Dread.

>>53564457
Village of Hommlet really is pretty great, though.

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>>53564457
The "famous" modules were built to challenge and entertain players who had already done "the dungeons". They expect you to run through a bunch of content first. That content has been lost because it was basic and forgettable and hacked together.

All that's published is "Piano For Advanced Students". There are no beginner manuals.

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Is Endless Tunnels of Enlandin a decent starter dungeon for a group of newbies? I was thinking about stealing a castle map and plopping that on top as another adventure location for double the fun.

>>53564868
Yeah, that sounds fine.
>inb4 Skerples shills

>>53532723
I didn't write but that's because it already exists: http://centralia.aquest.com/downloads/NLRMEv2.pdf

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>>53564868
>inb4 Skerples shills
Oh ho ho, not this time. He didn't ask for a decent starter dungeon for a group of newbies. He asked if a particular module /was/ a good starting dungeon. And since I haven't read Endless Tunnels of Enlandin, I can't really offer any commentary.

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>>53564641

thats a great way of putting it actually

>>53564868
Condescending the opposition is still shilling.

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>>53565248
>Condescending the opposition is still shilling.

>>53565227
Thanks.

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You should have held a Persim Berry.

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>>53565339
>You should have held a Persim Berry.

... but I still don't understand >>53565248

Anyway, >>53546219
Ancient Computer Guy, get any farther with your plans?

>>53565379
>he doesn't want something decent?
>won't give him my thing!
>other thing "might not" *wink* be bad

>>53564457
Could be a lot of things. Some of the old modules aren't that good. I think KotB is overrated personally, and like The Lost City as an intro adventure much more. Could be your players aren't getting it, could be you're running it in a way that isn't working. Dungeon Of Signs did a decent run down of the entire B series. After that the modules get even more hit or miss. Shit was made to sell. But there's some gems in there, and learning how to work with what's there can be rewarding.

Tomb of Horrors was made for convention play to see how far you can get before eating it. The guy it was designed to fuck with beat it first try, gygax could be a petty dick too. Its basically a campfire story told badly that everyone knows the ending too at this point. Or even pretend to have played for nerd cred.

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>>53565460
Sorry, you're saying I'm shilling my thing... by deliberately saying, in response to someone else being cheeky, "I'm not going to shill my thing, it doesn't answer the poster's question."?

What?

Also, what exactly do I get out of "shilling" my stuff? I don't sell it, I don't run ads, and if I wanted to be famous and adored I'd write smut. More views? I get, at most, ~10-20 views from /tg/ a day.

>>53536437
You should probably figure out what Dwarves are in your setting first, and how you're going to have spellcasting be meaningful for them. This might give you some ideas:
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.ca/2016/01/foreign-angels.html
http://buzzclaw.blogspot.ca/2016/12/why-elves-cant-be-clerics.html

>>53565580
>figure out what Dwarves are in your setting
On that note, what odd things have you gentlemen done with Dwarfs in your settings? All I have done is stolen Chaos Dwarfs outa warhammer.

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>>53565248
>Condescending the opposition is still shilling.

What the fuck are you even talking about. I just asked if a certain module was decent for new players.

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>>53565774
I couldn't think of anything interesting to do with them, so I left them out. Instead, there are ant people in the hills playing Ant Fortress and chuckling about dem aphids.

Is an Owlbear an appropriate challenge for a level 1-2 party? I'm looking at the stats and they seem like TPK machines for low level players.

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>>53565945
A party of 4 or 5 people, in most systems, can fight an owlbear at level 1. Remember to consider the action economy. The owlbear can do 1 or 2 things a round. The party can do at minimum 4 to 5.

But if it kills them, it's their own fault for fighting fair.

Also, this is weird non-OSR mentality. Creatures don't have levels or challenge ratings. They just... are. A giant dragon with 400 HP and fire breath can be defeated by 2 level 1 characters, provided they are /smart/ as hell about it.

Guns make you stupid. Duct tape makes you smart.

>>53565774
In my current weird setting they have been replaced by Cog-and clockwork robots who do not eat, but need 3x the drinks (and preferably some intoxicating drinks) to maintain functioning. But it fits that I am going with the Gods are actually orbital AIs who are still trying to carry out there programming, and the Not!dwarves are the servants of a AI who goal was to mine and collect wealth.

>>53566034
Okay, "appropriate challenge" isn't really the right word. I guess I just wanted to know if it was on the same level of suicide as having a group of level ones trying to take on Orcus or something.

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>>53566271
>I guess I just wanted to know if it was on the same level of suicide as having a group of level ones trying to take on Orcus or something.

Provided there's a clear path to run away, and they can employ tactics, then you'll be OK.

If it's just them and an owlbear in a 10'x10' room, people are going to die stupidly.

Subtly encourage them to eat the owlbear.

>>53565945
Bugbears are the low level TPK machines.

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>>53566308
I'm writing up encounters for my dungeon, and the idea I had was an Owlbear lairing in room 25 or 26. If the party plays nice with the Goblins in the eastern rooms, they might give them a heads up about it so they don't stumble face first into it's den. And if the PC's can defeat the owlbear then it means the goblins can ambush them on the way back if they've been bloodied enough.

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>>53566426
So how do the goblins avoid the predations of the owlbear?

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>>53566508
Wolves, fire, and locked doors. It's already taken most of them. Between the owlbear to the east and the undead and traps on Level Two, they're just about ready to abandon the place anyways when the PC's come trundling through. Room 17 is filled with bats and covered in guano and not even the goblins are too keen to poke around there. Which is their loss because then they might find a +1 sword under all the literal batshit, and if they took a look at the inside of the bigass bell that's in the northern niche they'd find the directions on how to open the secret passage to Room 36 and the stairway all the way down to Level 3. Of course any adventurers bringing smoking torches and poking around a giant bell are liable to make a lot of noise and just cause the bats to swarm instead...

>>53564457
>running memepicks based on popular opinions
>not digging out b-list or lesser modules

Screw the Keep, go to the Lost City

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My fetish for the polyhedrals is as great as any anons, but damn if I don't want to generate numbers at times in say a Poisson distribution. If the party encounters a fighter on the road, wouldn't it be nice if a 1st LVL were more likely than 2nd LEVEL, which were more likely than 3rd LVEL, etc., with very high level fighters having a small but non-zero probability.

Such a distribution would be nice for NO. APPEARING as well. To take the 30–300 orcs example, did Gygax realize that a 30d10 roll is 90% likely to be between 110 and 162, and 50% likely to be between 125 and 146? Why bother rolling. And don't we want the low end to be more common than the high end.

>>53564457
Keep on the Borderlands is really only as good as the DM running it.

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>>53566963
Exploding dice?

1d4, explode on a 4. Results of 1-6 are your Level 1 Fighter, 7-11 are Level 2, etc.

Or fuck it, just have your encounter table say "a fighter" and pick the level.

I hate d10, as it's not a platonic solid

>>53567040
This is pretty cool, I honestly have not heard of it before but I realised I've sort of implicitly worked it into some of my random encounter tables

>>53567045
Those alternating faces are sexy as hell though.

>>53567082
you can shove em up your dick hole and have a party. I'd rather play with perfectly shaped solids.

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>>53567040
Exploding dice seem like maybe the best way, but why does https://wiki.roll20.net/Dice_Reference#Exploding_Dice define d4! so it isn't possible to roll a multiple of 4. Sad.

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>>53567045
>>53567082

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>>53567245
Because... that's how it works?

IF 1, PRINT 1
IF 2, PRINT 2
IF 3, PRINT 3
IF 4, SUM(+ROLL [1d4], GO TO START

Results are
1,2,3,5,6,7,9,10,11, etc.

Chances are
1: 25%
2: 25%
3: 25%
5: 25%/4
6: 25%/4
etc.

Anyway, if you care this much about balanced tables, you might be missing the point. Designing a perfect but unusable system isn't great.

Also, I studied history, not programming. Can you tell?

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>>53567232
If you say so. I like Octahedrons better anyways.

>>53565553
>and learning how to work with what's there can be rewarding.
One thing to note in Tomb of Horrors: Every trap has an sign, which stands out, in a handout.
It's a failsafe, in case the referee downplays (or forgets to provide) a trap's clues.

Wasn't for you, in hindsight linking you was rather obnoxious of me.
I was pointing out that the guy I was replying to had linked to you instead of me by mistake.

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>>53567359
I want it to be this:

10 LET SUM = 0
20 LET I = INT(4 * RND(1))
30 LET SUM = SUM + I
40 IF I = 3 GOTO 20
50 LET SUM = SUM + 1
60 PRINT(SUM)

>>53566271
No, Owlbears are worse. You can /talk/ to Orcus.

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>>53567564
You can also talk to owlbears. Most people say "Holy shit, an owlbear," and, later "Augh! My leg!"

>>53566701
>any adventurers bringing smoking torches and poking around
Are likely to learn that guano (and, indeed, most fertilisers (and, indeed, most energy-dense things)) is as explosive as it is flammable.

>>53567600
Even better. A party wipe via explosive turds should make for a good story.

>>53566963
You aren't required (and usually aren't expected) to roll for that.
Of note, but possibly irrelevant, while hexcrawling in OD&D you roll for random adventures (not random encounters).

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>>53567635
Especially when you provide clues, like the goblins fearing fire in a weird way and using slugs and glow-worms instead.

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>>53567232
The planets move about in ellipses, not circles.

Any recommendations for kingdom building and stronghold mechanics?

Other than ACKs. I can't do a survey of mechanics by looking at the same book five times.

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>>53567359
>Can you tell?
Yeah, you used goto.

>>53567585
You can't lease your soul to an Owlbear in exchange for your life.

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>>53567776

>>53567743
An Echo Resounding is the only other OSR supplement I can think of that has in-depth domain management. It's less simulationist/spreadsheet heavy than ACKS.

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>>53567553
https://wiki.roll20.net/Dice_Reference#Penetrating_Dice_.28B.2CF.29_.21pCP

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>>53567787
Regardless, pic.

As an aside, weird that you'd crack a joke without trying to be funny.

>>53567600
Just how explosive/flammable would fresh guano be?

>>53567889
You know how much nitrogen is in guano, right?

>>53567914
At least... three nitrogen?

>>53567914
Tons of it. But are we talking just a relatively small boom, or, like, "mishap at a Mexican fireworks market" levels of pyrotechnics.

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>>53567977
At the very worst, highly aersolized guano could probably form a dust explosion with slightly more kick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHDFDO7YOgM

And I do mean slightly. If you have a bat cave with a drying oven and thirty chinese chemists next to it then sure, you'll get a nice kaboom. Not a fireworks factory kaboom, but at the very least a "knock you back a step" kaboom.

But in guano itself, without refinement? Nah. You won't even get much of a sudden crack-boom. Just a very rapid flash fire that pushes air before it. It's a "slow" explosion, and it releases its energy in a wave (like a bunch of matches taped together), not a killing pulse (like TNT).

Source: am chemist, googled things.

>>53565774
My dwarves are a mix of the ones in the Siegfried legend and Wagners Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Like in Siegfried they're all just stone animated into flesh. Every dwarven civilization has their own king like Alberich, the death of which turns them all back to stone.
One twist that I stole from the Hobbit movies is that any dwarven kings heart is made from an immensely precious gem (ie the heart of the king is the heart of the mountain).

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Tell us about her, /osrg/.

Your homebrew setting.

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>>53568053
>guano itself, without refinement? Nah. You won't even get much of a sudden crack-boom. Just a very rapid flash fire that pushes air before it. It's a "slow" explosion, and it releases its energy in a wave (like a bunch of matches taped together), not a killing pulse (like TNT).


Okay, this is exactly what I needed to know, thanks. Rough draft of the key for that room.

hey anons, a few threads back, someone was talking about there actual play of...Revolution, Revulsion? Some post-apoc sounding OSR, I remember it being R-something, anyone wanna help a brother out?

>>53568180
She doesn't use the Mystara tileset.

>>53568180

The City Fathers:

- Basically Dark Sun's "every major settlement is run by an evil super wizard"
- Except instead of being a wasteland shithole, it's a post WW1 europe but the magical nature of the war means mutants and demons summoned and discarded running around
- The evil wizards are actually generally good to their people and their cities actually prosper as a result
- So sure ten feet outside of the city walls you'll be dead in minutes but inside you've got running water, indoor shitters, a ruling class that runs checks and balances on the wealthy to make sure they don't try to bring back aristocratic ways and so on
it's primarily designed for city crawlers, but I like to fuck with my players as they discover the evil plot of the city father is to train the city watch in non-physical hands off de-escalation techniques
or the dark and mysterious plans for a "hosspittle" where the sick can receive treatment from registered clerics for free

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>>53568218
The issue is the guano /powder/. The moment there's a lot of powder in the air, a torch will set it off.

So collapsing floors, or flapping bats in the dry powder, or running, or ringing a gigantic bell... dust in the air. It coats your lungs. It stinks worse than anything you can imagine. It dries you out. Your tears are knife-crystals in your eyes.

Basically, the "trap" should have 2 bits. 1. if you fuck about and aren't cautious and kick up a ton of dust, after three rounds of "what are you doing", kaboom. 2d6 damage to everyone in the room, break all glass, Save vs Deafness, and auto knocked prone. Explosion will not recur (all the really dry stuff went boom), but some guano piles may burn for hours.

The second part of the trap is the Dire Guano Beetle who lives in the muck. He comes out to encourage the party to panic, kick up dust, and fight.

How do you disarm the trap? Spray water. Steal glow worms from the goblins. Go in blind and hope. Use a cave lantern.
Make it 100% chance if dropped. Fuck 'em. Pit traps are 100%.

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>>53568358
Revised version. If I really wanted to be cruel, and if I wasn't running this for newer players, I'd make it something like a Fire Beetle or Rot Grubs instead.

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>>53567040
>>53567245
>>53567553
>>53567838
Probabilities for a variant of a penetrating d6.

In the first, add 2 to the sum and re-roll on 3, 4, 5, or 6.

In the second, add 3 to the sum and re-roll on 4, 5, 6.

In the third, add 4 to the sum and re-roll on 5, 6.

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I'm 70% of the way though Byzantium by Norwich, and I just now reached the sentence

>The following year he was murdered by a drunken eunuch...

Which has to be one my favorite so far. This Death Table is going to be amazing.

>>53569476
Was the eunuch the next king?

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14573

What's the deal with those OSRIC guys? They are hugely butt hurt over all the innovative OSR stuff. Kinda sad.

>>53570852
They know what they like.

>>53568180
Sword & Sorcery, with a bunch of vestigial empires ruined by Chaos. Hang on, lemme just copypaste a bit:

>So it was that the Great Old Ones left the moon they call Earth for the younger beings, to mankind and the others, much like you'd leave your precious, ancient heirloom in the hands of a toddler. What do you think happened next?
>New kingdoms arose from the ruins. Some were like candles in darkness, that lasted a millennium or more – yet still but fleeting and flickering lights compared to the great beacons that had banished the shadows before their time. And in the end they too fell, giving way to even weaker cinders.
>So now it has been a thousand years since the last great empire of man croaked its final breath and shat its deathbed, and less than a thirty years, a full Titanic cycle, since the latest of the great foreign hosts swept in from the east and did its own part in kicking down civilization. Petty city-states and vestigial kingdoms litter the earth, and outside on the roads spread the lands of a countless bandit lords – and beyond even that, in the dark woods where no sane man would go, in the old ruins long forgotten, unimaginably black things lay in wait for prey.
>This was Nexus – the most civilized, the most peaceful, the most orderly, and the most stable of the great continents in the world. Now knowing this, imagine how bad those other places must be.

Also the world is a moon and the seasons are weird.

>>53529755
I found a table for generating hats. It's pretty funny.

>>53568180

Have a homebrew not-europe. Not particularly interesting but the dwarfish religion was kinda cool I thought. The texts had this sense of being written in different periods serving different religious needs. The Creation myth was written in verse to echo written down oral traditions while all the following texts slowly grew more sophisticated and legalistic.

>>53572333
Post it

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>>53560509
>>53560562
>>53560748
Nah, it's not John Carter. I just realized it's this derivative piece of trash I was thinking about. It's about a martian uprising, and they have a color-based class system where people are genetically engineered to have hair and eye color (and other job-appropriate traits) that match their caste. Red (protags) are miners / slaves, gold are leaders, silver are bureaucrats, grey are soldiers, pink are hookers, etc etc.

The end result is a sorta unimaginative Brave New World / Hunger Games mashup.

>>53560418
>smelly skelly jelly
Cue up the Dr. Seuss Dungeon, Igor!

>>53561656
You'd be infinitely better off on our own /hwg sub. Yes, it's a bit more focused, but people actually research things. A lot. Almost too much, sometimes.

/his is kinda what you should expect. If 4chan is an alternate universe of the mainstream internet, then /his is an alternate universe of mainstream history.

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>>53573274
That trilogy was amazing, like a better enders game.

>>53570852
They are loyal to True AD&D®.

>>53570852
They're just grognards with a superiority complex.

>>53573634
I only read the first one, does it get a hell of a lot better? Because the first entry was the most unoriginal bargain-basement scifi this side of a hollywood summer blockbuster. Almost a copy-paste of hunger games (which itself is fairly derivative).

Or is this just bait?

My players found a magical sword. The sword has no tip, ending in a completely smooth, unsharpened flat head.

It was a spur of the moment thing, since I'm trying to avoid just throwing bog-standard +1 swords at them. I thought something like that sounded intresting. But I can't really come up with something intresting that ties to something like that. Ideas?

>>53575131

The tip is somewhere else in the dungeon. If found, the one holding the sword can command the animated tip, which is basically a self-propelling very wide arrowhead. It can harry enemies, annoy them and attack as a level 1 fighter for 1d4 damage or something like that.

The tip is also a wilful creature that will likely try to fuck things up in some way and get weird, independent ideas about what exactly it should do next. Basically, it makes loyalty checks and stirs up shit if it's not feeling very loyal.

Still, it should be useful enough that they'll want to put up with it instead of getting rid of it. A moving, semi-independent piece of flying metal can be awfully handy for many things.

>>53575131
The tip -is- there, but exists on the ethereal plane rather than the material, so it's typically not seen.

It means that the sword's thrusting attacks are capable of harming ghosts and other such beings.

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Anyone have a copy of Marvels & Malisons to share? It's the 'sequel' to Wonder & Wickedness, which I loved.

>>53575362
Is Wonder & Wicknedness in the trove? Based on the description I'd probably love it as well, but not enough to pay ten bucks for it.

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>>53575510
It's brilliant.

>>53575131
The sword cleaves through hard materials, but gets obstructed by soft ones.

It slices apart most arms and armors, but can barely club flesh.
It's difficult to drag through the air (-2 to hit) unless covered by (embedded in) a "sheath."

It's great for tunneling, but gets caught up on many heterogeneous materials. (straw in bricks, lead in stone, etc.)
Dwarves will pay a Chief Engineer's ransom for it, then dig too deep in the bedrock and release a Demon Lord within 2d4 weeks.

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>>53575131
It's called an executioner sword, it cleaves really well through flesh and bones, less so against harder materials. If you execute an enemy with it, you gain as much health you dealt damage. The more you execute,
you slowly turn into The Executioner, a creature relentlessly hunting for more life to absorb.

>>53575206
>The tip is also a wilful creature that will likely try to fuck things up in some way and get weird
Oh yeah, I remember being a teenager.

>>53575588
>then dig too deep in the bedrock and release a Demon Lord within 2d4 weeks
Ah yes, the critical characteristics shared by all dwarves:
1) Beards
2) Grumpy
3) Scottish
4) Master Craftsmen
5) Always dig too greedily and too deep. ALWAYS.

>>53576580
>5) Always dig too greedily and too deep. ALWAYS.
I'm imagining the Curb your Enthusiasm theme playing as Urist suggests maybe not to dig too deep, everyone staring at him with indignation and disgust.

>>53576641
See, for me it would be the Always Sunny gang, as dwarves, and Frank would interject the cautionary line... and then just shrug and join in after everybody turns to look at him like he's stupid.

>>53576580
>greedily
What would you even extract from bedrock?

>>53576678
Now you have me thinking of Seinfeld
>so I just told them maybe we shouldn't dig so deep
>YOU CAN'T DO THAT!
>WHY?
>IT'S AN UNSPOKEN RULE! YOU CAN'T JUST TELL SOMEONE NOT TO DIG TOO DEEP! Did you hear what Urist told the noble council?
>No, what
>That they shouldn't dig too deep.
>GET OUT! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!
Urist is placing his head in both his hands as the waitress serves mushroom soup underneath them

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>>53576731
Clearly, you are not a miner.

Bedrock just means "the big contiguous pieces of rock underneath the loose soil, gravel and boulders in the surface layers". In most places where I live (northeast US), bedrock is usually encountered somewhere between 4 and 20 feet below the topsoil (although there are certainly exceptions where very deep regolith exists). The vast majority of productive mining occurs below (often far below) this depth.

>>53576805
Has anybody ever tried to do a fantasy sitcom?

I don't mean a comedic fantasy show like Galavant, I mean an actual by-the-numbers formula sitcom with fantasy tropes. Because it feels like a thing that should exist.

>>53564457
>Tomb of Horrors is bad because Tomb of Horrors is so great everybody already knows about it
Your logic is profound and I want to be your Facebook friend.

>>53566426
>I'm writing up encounters for my dungeon, and the idea I had was an Owlbear lairing in room 25 or 26.
This type of thing is perfectly fine. Hell, Gygax himself had a group of trolls on level 1 of Castle Greyhawk.

Just let the party throw rations behind them to distract the owlbear as they flee and you should be fine.

>>53565553
>I think KotB is overrated personally, and like The Lost City as an intro adventure much more
I don't think Keep On The Borderlands is overrated really, I think a lot of us just remember it fondly because it was the first module we owned. It was included in a couple of the D&D starter sets in the early 80's, which is right around when the popularity of RPG's was really starting to boom.

>>53576945
That's the same reason Seinfeld's jokes are bad.

>>53577090
>What's the deal with standup comedy? Did you ever see those guys?
>Just standing there, with their mike, talking all this nonsense...
>They're as stale as airline peanuts!

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I made a thing. Any thoughts or critiques on it?

>>53578425
11 comes before 10.
10 would fit in the page with 9.
I'm not really sure how the incubators work.

It all feels over-written.
Reminds me a bit too much of your haunted temple (with the lovers and the labyrinth).
The map is fantastic.

>>53578824
Ah shit, you're right on the formatting there.

What's confusing with the incubators specifically?

As far as over-written, I got a lot of feedback saying my last adventure needed "more description and whatnot" i.e too barebones. Personal taste wise I dislike "4 orcs and a chest" room descriptions since it feels like, what's the point of downloading a module that I could make myself with a few random tables in a half hour? sorta deal.

Is it too much moving parts in the encounters/descriptions or is it a matter or over long sentences to describe a thing?

>>53579232
It reads like narration, not description.

>Personal taste wise I dislike "4 orcs and a chest"
I'm not going to say, "write it like Stonehell" but that would be my preference.

Ex;


1. Gravel, brush, long shadows. Four 10ft cubes stacked vertically. They read, "Confess your betrayals!" Each who will not or can not are attack by 1d4-1 shadows. The shadows try to pin.

Shadow 2 HD, 0 dmg (1d3 strength drain), 12" mv, fearless morale (or 3 and test morale, in bright light or pitch dark)


2. Jade statues, east to west: Melted, disgusted by 1; Winged, fears 4; Eyeless, pities 3. Chute to room 4 looks like eye, pupil is magic healing tadpole.


3. Narrow tunnel. Telepathic scribbles convey "Worm that you are, crawl." (or "Crawl and know our hate." if read the other way).
Etchings are worth 200gp to the right a professor.


>What's confusing with the incubators specifically?
What happens if you put someone in the second incubator?

>>53579865
I'd worry with that how lots of information would be lost. Things like how the shadow doesn't work mechanically like a monster. It can't be damaged since it's a 2-dimensional plane created by light being obscured i.e a magically enchanted shadow rather than whatever the fuck d&d shadows are, that sorta thing.

As far as reducing the wordiness, maybe go more on the end of stonehall but choose adjectives carefully. Only describe something a bit wordier if it's actually central to the encounter? That could be a way to clue the reader into what the most important parts of a room are more intuitively.

>>53580451
>I'd worry with that how lots of information would be lost.
You can use more detail then I did, but the original detail will either get neglected for improv or (more likely) bog down play.

>That could be a way to clue the reader into what the most important parts of a room are more intuitively.
I tend to write it as: [Overall appearance], [Important things], [Chaff], [Indented stat blocks], [Treasure]
You look to the front for the big picture, you look to the back for details, you only read the middle if you read the whole thing.

>>53580568
Maybe something more like
>A wind scarred gravel hill dotted with brittle brush. The megalith rises from its crest, black stones 10ft or larger balanced 40ft high towards inscrutable purpose. A narrow entrance is on the southern end of the megalith.
It's really sounding like I need to hide this from my roommate until it's ready to publish. He insists on me needing an editor which is true but anytime he finds sentence fragments or sentences lacking determining adjectives; he'll go on half hour rants questioning my intelligence, understanding of reading, ability to write and refuse to drop it until I hide in my room anytime I refuse his suggestion. He keeps bringing up that he's a linguist but dude doesn't even write and I've written 3-4 essays every month for years. Maybe I should bring that up.

>>53580889
You might benefit from making two copies: a copy to read through to come to grips with understanding the details and then a play aid that provides information in a truncated format.

>>53580924
Maybe that would work. One that just explains the ideas in the adventure and another one that's more an actual reference for running it.
I think I have a good idea of what's wrong with the writing of it now though.

I don't know if I'll go with a straight schematic but I think it is a good idea to order it in a sense, get a consistent thing going on in that
[Overall appearance], [Important things], [Chaff], [Indented stat blocks], [Treasure]
sorta format though not so stonehell level dry.

Important thing is I think I'll go back to more how this adventure was originally written and how I wanted to write it in the first place.

>>53581042
I guess, have the more detailed version be what I show to certain people and then have the other version where I don't use the suggestions that keep exploding my wordcount.

>>53530930
where is that from?

Alright, so here's my situation.

I've played roleplaying games before as a player with a great GM, but now I've moved away from that group and have started with a group of friends who've shown interest, with myself as the GM.

I'm very much interested in OSR games and their simplicity, so I've started a basic campaign with these new players who have never played an RPG before. I also like the "You can try" or "You can do anything" approach of OSR games, but there lies my problem.

My players don't try anything, and don't seem to think to try things, they walk into rooms, kill things, and that's about it. They don't try talking to things, or checking for traps, or using tools like rope or lamps, or distracting distant enemies with rocks or stones. No information gathering or recruiting. I've tried giving them examples and setting situations with any number of methods, but it always comes down to brute force. We're about 3 sessions in.

So my question is, how do I help new players feel like they can do anything? I don't want to keep giving "directions" or examples, potentially taking away their control from their characters because they feel they have to do it the way I suggested. What do?

>>53582131
Try throwing some complications into encounters or situations that require some creativity to work around. Especially if there's some reward to doing things in a nonobvious way.

>>53582131

Teach by example. Have the monsters do those things to the player characters.

>>53582131 c >>53560474

>>53582131
Make a dungeon where the monsters are much stronger than the PCs. Give them hints of this beforehand. Design the dungeon to make it relatively simple to get around encounters. Have a lot of things in the room to get the characters to experiment.

>>53582972
That gimmick sounds painful to design, painful to run, painful to play.
Avoiding fights is fine, but you can go and are going overboard.

>>53568240
Heretic.

>>53583252
I suggested it because I imagine that it would be pretty fun. Why would it be painful?

>>53583318
*Apostate.

>>53582131
There's a roguelike (Hero Trap) based on beating this instinct out of people.

The first monster in the dungeon is guaranteed to be something that'll kill you if you try to fight it, but which is really easy to avoid. Like a golem that only moves at half speed. Or a kraken in a lake. Or hieroglyphs that are stuck in the walls.

So I guess steal ideas from that?

>>53582131
Have problems that can't really be solved by combat.

http://goblinpunch.blogspot.ca/2016/03/1d135-osr-style-challenges.html

Also ask them what they're interested in as players. Explain that you give things descriptions and texture so they have stuff to mess with, and its more fun when they mess around with features.

Are you doing reaction rolls for when they encounter creatures? Having them meet things that don't want to fight might help too.

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>>53566310
>Bugbear

I was trying to thing of what would be the perfect races of monstrous humanoids to occupy a haunted castle and I can't believe I forgot about Bugbears.

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>>53584565
The head is all wrong.

>>53585021
I'm sorry, that reminds me of those tasty pumpkin candies that come around every halloween and all I can think about is eating that instead of being intimidated.

>>53584565
I had 4 TPKs as a DM.

1 was the party had really shitty luck and got themselves trapped and died.

the other 3 were bugbears.

>>53582131
>they walk into rooms, kill things, and that's about it.
You're treating them with kid gloves. You need to throw in a enemy they simply can't mop up (or who will kill one or more of them even if they do).

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>>53585021
I only learned like a week ago why jokes about bugbears wearing pumpkins on their heads were so common in early OSR circles.

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>>53586340

>>53582131
Give them a encounter (with warnings) that they can't brute force without losses.

Like a good of bandits they are hired to clear out. Turns out they are were-rats (thus normal weapons do not harm them) and it is a very tough to impossible fight head on. Perhaps raids and wearing them down, or ....perhaps talking to them and realizing they are outcasts and a little payment and they will wonder off to the next kingdom and they PCs get paid.

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>>53586340
>>53586366

Alright so can you guys help me make a post apocalyptic world that is a little gonzo and fun? I just want there to be plenty of scavenging and desperation, but without the back-to-medieval-times thing a lot of OSR seems to do.

Can yall help me build something like Mad Max or Stalker with a little bit of fun injected into it? Something I like about worlds like Fallout or Road Warrior/Thunder Dome is the obvious glee that went into making the world without compromising the sense of a vital need to recycle and scavenge. I just also like guns.

As a side note, outside of a couple really good adventure ideas, I'm having trouble figuring out what I ought to have my players do. Anybody have any good Post Apoc dungeon ideas?

>>53586375
>>53586261
>>53584293
>>53583855
>>53582972
>>53582418
>>53582392
>>53582304
Thanks for all the great feedback guys, I guess this really shows how green I am as a GM, all the ideas are real eye openers.

Leading by example is genius, combat encounters that can't be brute forced, non-combat problems, even those enemies that can't be killed and must be dealt with sounds great. Basically all these ideas sound like things I can incorporate or implement in some way to make situations more varied and increase excitement. I really appreciate all the replies, this is exactly the stuff I wanted to know.

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>>53568180

Yellowcastle, set many hundreds of years before my previous 4e/5e games.

Nothing terribly original--most of my campaigns are about backporting and retrofitting existing concepts to 'make sense'. I just use LEGO flags for punchy iconography. I also use a 'star system' for Clerics instead of gods (since the Gods were Dragons, and they died out millenia ago).

The structure is going to be OD&D+Chainmail, building a story of gathering warbands in a post-crusade declined society. The requisite dungeon will be the Caverns of Thracia (great damn map).

>>53578425

This is fucking brilliant, dude. Well done.

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>>53584565

>owlbear
>it's half owl, half bear

>bugbear
>not half bug, half bear

>>53587112
There's a game called Ruinations that was made by a local anon. It's pretty good, and IIRC has guns and modern tech.

Maybe flesh out what you want more and come back with specific ideas to discuss.

>>53588790
We hit the bump limit for this.

>>53588542
I'll give it a shot.
>flesh out what you want more
I like the idea of players finding garbage and using it creatively. I like dungeon delving and monsters but reinterpreted through a sci fi/modern lens.
I like stuff like people worshiping satellites as gods and managing resources to survive another day. Car chases, raiders, malfunctioning robots, and AIs that remember life before the bad blast.

Really though, I was just fishing for other peoples' good ideas and how I can steal them for my games.

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>>53588825
>reinterpreted
>re
Nah.
D&D predates the fantasy/sci-fi schism.
That's just interpreting.

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>>53588989
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