/osrg/

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LIVE DAMN YOU.

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>>49398869

You have called him, and he comes.

GROGNARD THE BARBARIAN

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Hexcrawl Seed question - What is the fabled weapon coveted by the barbarian tribes?

>>49399194
The Arrow of The Silver Sky Gods
>an unexploded nuclear warhead

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Also, just to confirm - Sunday (today or tomorrow, depending on where you live) at 9:30pm UTC (2:30pm PDT, 5:30pm EST) we'll hopefully be having an /osrg/ open table session, running a semi-randomized B/X dungeon on roll20.

As said before it probably won't be a super regular campaign, more of a side diversion to roll dice and try out things with different GMs, but feel free to swing by and maybe get a chance to vet players to recruit to your own home games.

Join at https://app.roll20.net/join/1649454/svVeGA; if you're interested in GMing, PM Stagehand for privileges.

>>49399194
Golendril- a warhammer present in the folklore of several different tribes in the area. It is said by the barbarians that when the hammer was used by the first of their tribe in the battle against the ones from below it shattered the earth, separating the single landmass into [insert number here] continents.

Hows that?

Anyone know any good Asian-inspired OSR systems/modules/splats? Looking to do some Chinese/Japanese wandering nonsense.

>>49399194
Crow's Feast - The Blade of the Burial Mound. A bog iron sword, twisted into form and darkened by ages of bloodspill and dirt. When stabbed within the buried mound of a dead man, his bones will rise and clutch the hilt. Crows will flood to him, fill his bones, and he will be a servant of the Death God that will slay three men of dishonorable status without question. After these three slayings, he will slay whoever dared buried him in the cold dead ground rather than on the fires that might lift him up to heaven.

>>49399258

Oh yeah, I need to get in there and roll up some stats, and figure out what I'm going to play.

>>49399510
There's a character creator macro set up - make sure to enable macros in the settings menu (after joining the session) and then clicking it will print a nice line of stats. If any GMs are interested in using it feel free to send a PM.

>>49398994
I've actually used the name "Dran Gorg" as a character name before. He was a also a fighter who wore the heaviest armor he could and refused to fight with anything but his trusty Fauchard-Fork

>>49399509
While I don't think you need anything except knowledge to do a vaguely asian game, things that OSR folks did with the theme are pretty good.

Red Tide is a great setting / sandbox generator by Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing). It's not exclusively Asian, but NotChinese and NotJapanese nations are represented, and various tables and spells are flavourful.

Yoon-Suin is an amazing setting toolbox, although the flavour is something Tibetan. But mostly it does its own thing and presents setting solely in tables, which evocativeness just hurts my self-esteem everytime.

I don't think you need specific rulesets, but I looked briefly at Ruins and Ronin and Shinobi and Samurai.

Both games are based on S&W, but the latter has more specific classes and bestiary seemed to be filled with more japanese-themed monsters. Also it has some 4eisms, like author describing classes in terms of their combat role (striker, defender etc.) but it's not like the game became a tactical slugfest that is 4e, there's no mechanics for that.

What is the weirdest, this game doesn't utilize ability scores AT ALL. Seems like your class is the only thing that defines you. Not sure how it works out since I didn't read much more, but at least it piqued my interest.

At last, you can always check out good old Oriental Adventures.

>>49399194

1. A raygun that only charges up once a year

2. A great tusk of the antediluvian mammoth

3. Whip made from strands of hair given by the storm god's daughter

>>49399194
>Skyshouter
A javelin decorated in the old runes that is always warm to the touch and has the faintest of vibrations to it when held. When thrown it flashes brightly and emits a loud crack noise. It has no other powers despite the barbarians beliefs about it, and the tribe that holds it is most often the one currently most powerful over the others. As such, Skyshouter is often fought over as the belief is that a chief who owns it must be the best and most powerful chief.

>>49399258
Hoping this goes well, thanks for posting.

1d10 list of odd shit to find when traveling in uncivilized lands
1 - Hungry pack of 2d3+1 4-foot Terror Birds in a plain of 6-foot high grassland
2 - Loud and pompous band of lost explorers. Well-equipped but dumb as rocks, they blame each other and are almost at blows
3 - Cave-dwelling hermit who can eat memories
4 - Minefield of 4d4 sluggish giant trapdoor spiders, hibernating unless disturbed
5 - Entombed/Trapped Ecophage
6 - Derelict wooden ship, there are no bodies of water nearby and the flag is of no known nation (50% chance something is sheltering inside the broken hull)
7 - Lake of mercury. Watch the fumes
8 - Tribe of Wind God worshipers, engaging in acts of extreme flagellation in their deities' absence
9 - Red magical moss. Smoked or brewed into a tea it produces hallucinations which come to life for their duration
10 - Katamari of skeletons, directed by a plant in the core

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP52b11cLNY
This is dope. Makes me want to space-gonzo the fuck out of the next campaign which is happening never

Help me workshop an Initiative houserule:
The Ref and players declare their intended actions at the beginning of the round before initiative is rolled.
Starting with the Ref, then clockwise around the table. Then initiative is rolled and the declared actions take effect on each character's initiative.

This might favor the players too much, as they get to react and counter the Ref, even though their character's may not be able to tell their opponent's intentions. Plus the Ref doesn't ever get to counter the players. Of course, if the Ref rolls higher, then the counter-actions would automatically fail and the player has essentially wasted their turn. If that is the case, then perhaps that player can change their action on their initiative. Unless they committed to doing some kind of full-round-action like casting a spell.

Thoughts?

>>49402484

Follow your dreams anon and just DO IT! Also top taste in music; if you haven't looked them up already try Conan.

Do you guys ever fudge randomly placed treasure?

I rolled up some treasure last night, first piece of magical equipment in the game so far, but it won't be something the party can use.
I want magic items to be special, should I fudge it to something they will use? Or should I just leave it up to the dice gods for what they get?

>>49404181
If it's a simple treasure, generally I roll it beforehand, sometimes on the fly. Goes for potions and scrolls too. Interesting magic items are usually the written ones though.

Nice, only just noticed that the newer digitial OCR'd scans of the AD&D 1E books are in the trove now.

Does anyone have their digital versions of the other monster manuals and such?

Mentioned in last thread but FOR10 "Warriors and Priests of the Realms" has a scan error in that there is no page 88 but rather two pages of page 89. If someone has a proper scan, could they please post it.

>>49399258
what do i need to play on said open table?
never played before, want to learn

>>49405380
1. create a roll 20 account
2. click on the link to be added tot he game group
3. download the DnD basic 1981 rule-set from the trove on the OP(the folder says TSR)
4. read the rules for play from the basic book (aka: Moldvay B/X)
5. read the discussion topis and homebrew rules
6. create a charatecter
7. wait warmly
8.???????
9. PROFIT

Any modules similar to Death Frost Doom, with its ability to allow the party to screw the game world over?

>>49402704
You could base declaration order off of a stat, this would give it a degree of variation between fights and let the Ref mix things up with the counter/countered thing.

>>49407428
The boxed set of Return to the Tomb of Horrors, but I don't know how difficult to find it is in english.

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How do you handle familiars in your games?

>>49407428
The God that Crawls, provided the players explore enough and don't run away.

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Some OSR dudes (people who made the undercroft and petty gods n shit) are putting together a a module called Crypts of Indormancy. It's supposed to be compatible with LotFP and is "Set in a quasi-Polynesian island chain". Might be cool?

>>49410131
I would buy anything like that from the Straits of Anian guy instantly. I don't know if that is this guy, but the art is immediately attractive.

>>49410256
>Straits of Anian
What's that?

>>49409858
I'm planning on running Death Frost Doom and I'm worried about that same problem, especially because they'll all be level 0 peasants.
I'm thinking I'll say they need to get a Mcgufffian from inside the crypt.
Just far enough inaide that they can push it and release the undead, but not so far that they can't just grab it and run.

Just need to think of what the Mcgufffian should be

>>49398121
I was the guy in the last thread posting about my college D&D club. It was okay, I played some 5e but still had fun because it was with a lighthearted one-shot group.
Anyways, I talked to the club head and he seemed alright with me running whatever the fuck I want.

So, if I want to introduce people to Moldvay, what module should I run?

>>49410583
Dead blog, focused on quasi-Polynesian island chain. Very good stuff there, google it.

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>>49399258
Thanks to all the players who showed up for the /osrg/ open table game. Sorry for the rules mix-ups - all the little subtle differences between the retroclones can get all mixed up in your head when you're running live. Hope you guys enjoyed it, even if the party magic-user ended up burning himself to death with flaming oil.

>>49411384
Any session recap?

>>49411384
I enjoyed the session and was thinking about running my own game. Just to get an idea, how many people would be interested in playing a LotFP campaign ran over Roll20, weekly on Wednesdays?

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Reposting this again.

Anyone have the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Playtest Document 0.1? It's not very big, so if someone has it but doesn't want to scan it, snaps a couple pics I can copy it to a PDF.

>>49399194
Chief's Bite - An immense war club, made of an unknown and extremely strong type of wood, studded with stony protrusions the tribes call "Dragon's teeth", though they share no similarity of shape or texture to any known dragon species. Supposedly claimed as a trophy by the first High-King of the tribes ages ago, after he defeated the greatest chief of the hairy half-men that the tribe's ancestors drove from the land. The weapon is stoutly made, capable of turning steel blades with no damage, and puncturing the most well made of armors. Foes that are "bitten" by the teeth bleed out quickly. Despite these properties, it is more sought after as a sign of power, often being used by whomever possesses it to claim ruler-ship over others. Barbarian legends claim those who truly have a right to the weapon can wield it with one hand, despite it's heavy weight. It was last seen being carried by Skalan the Unrighteous, as he climbed into the ancient mountains of the north seeking a holy place to ask forgiveness of the gods after slaying his children in a rage.

>>49399194
>Coral Fang. A jagged dagger of coral that rests at the bottom of the atoll's foundation reef. Who ever retrieves it will become a cunning killer, but their bones will eventually return to rest under the waves.

>>49411033
The Lost City is my favourite of the basic series, its got a big ass dungeon, a reason for the players to all be there, and enough internal politics and weirdness for them to get into besides just killing stuff. Keep On The Border Lands is classic too, gives the players a home base to plan from if they need.

>>49411613
Interested, but Wednesdays are busy for me.

>>49411490

Rumors of underground city accessible via sewers were investigated by 5 adventurers. Two fighters, a halfling, a magic-user, and a thief.

Upon entering the sewers we found a path to the East and West. After peaking in both direction we find a brass automaton in the room on the east, an 9 giant rats in a room towards the west.

We walk past the golem and it asks us for a password, that we don't know. It warns us of faulty "compatriots" a new path to the north, and refuses to let of travel to the east where many brass pipes were laid. Coast seems clear to the north so we head that way. It wraps around to the west and meets the room filled with rats, but a clever use of Unseen Servant lets us close the door to them.

From here we see a dead orc and an intersection going in all direction. We also hear orc voices coming from beyond a door to the north. We look at the orc corpse laying in a doorway to the west. Not much to it, but the room also has two dead humans, one with a mace and another with a dagger. Our halfling investigated a sconce turned out to be a secret lever and (loudly) reveals a room with heaps of copper coins, 1 necklace, 1 sword, and walls lined with several heavy tapestries.The loud sound alerts the orc voice we heard from the north and we spring to defense.

After a brief encounter we slayed 5 (I think), and one got away. However, in the battle our Magic-User blew himself up with a firebomb. Feeling we were pressing our luck we grab the two items, and as many coins as we can stuff in our pocket. We hear a loud persistent hissing noise and decide to rush out of the sewers, the sound followed us for a few turns but we managed to make it back safely.

All told we made it out with 4,000 copper, 1 magic sword, and 1 unidentified seashell necklace, and the corpse of our fallen magic-user. 37 EXP each [+Prime Req. bonus].

>>49411033
I second the recommendation for Keep on the Borderlands.

>>49415706
I also support using KotB

>>49411033
>>49415706
Count me against - sue me, but I don't think the Keep makes a good first module and is mostly an exercise in nostalgia.

KoTB is an interesting diplomacy exercise and a good example of early choices, but the Caves of Chaos tend to be very dull straight line killboxes that don't really involve any "proper" dungeoncrawling (mostly grinding through waves of mooks in a 10foot wide line) that usually will result in a meatgrinder of PC deaths.

There's just not a lot of classic tactical dungeoncrawling options - there's barely any detours, not very much information about which passage to explore, alternate entrances, or ways around; and barely any doors to bolt closed and obstruct monster movements.

The Caves are rational and realistic as monster lairs go (they're even full of women and children), but that's precisely what makes them not very fun. I'll grant the Keep makes a nice and easy drop-in to any campaign world but the Caves are just not a great dungeon intro.

I think any other module would work immensely better as an introduction. Village of Hommlet's Moathouse works much better as a "realistic" dungeon, while Quasquetron is a nice experience that has a bit of everything.

If you want a big dungeon both The Lost City and Horror on the Hill are much better, with lots of opportunities for careful exploration to pay off and routes that can be chosen to evade encounters.

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>>49415894
That being said I don't think KoTB is completely irredeemable. The floorplans of the various caves (see pic for layout) make a good jumping off point for designing a dungeon, but you need to really break up the "straight line 10' killbox" feel of the original by linking a lot of passages and create more interconnectivity and opportunities for parties to bypass encounters. But that sort of thing is probably saved for later after having run a dungeon crawl or two.

For my German comrades:

Lots of "Das Schwarze Auge" old school books.
http://arkania.ucoz.ru/load/doc/regelwerk/25-2-2

>>49415894
KotB was designed to be an introductory module to get a new DM's campaign up and off the ground. Even at the beginning it says that it expects (and wants) the DM to customize the module for their own game. Don't like women and children monsters in the cave? Drop them. Want more of another? Add them! Want the caves littering the region and not being in one single spot? Do it!

As is, it is still very easy to pick up and run and I'm getting ready to run a modified version of it for my own game tomorrow with some other things in the area besides just the Caves of Chaos (which will be scattered about too) to drop in at any time. Want to go to the valley? Owlbears roam there. The rough hills? Orcs lair there I heard. That weird, collapsed keep? Strange noises can be heard from it at night they say...

>>49416338
>DM to customize the module for their own game
And this is why I think it's not the greatest modules as an introduction. It's an excellent "step 2" for expanding a game world and a good chance for a GM to apply the principles of dungeon design, but in this day and age it's not always easy to find an OSR game that provides a firm introduction for the procedures of play for a GM who has never done old-school dungeoncrawls before.

>>49402704
>>49407590
Slept on it. How about this:
1) Roll initiative first.
2) Each player declares in order from lowest to highest initiative.
3) Resolve from highest to lowest Initiative.

With normal initiative, I've found that rolling low isn't much of a problem as it gives you time to react to the shifting battlefield circumstances. In fact, it is kind of a bonus.
The above should, in theory only reward high initiative. How I see it playing out:

a) A low-init Wizard declares a spell. A higher Init wizard declares a counter spell in response. HighInitWiz makes their counter spell check first and fails. LowInitWiz still gets their spell off.

b) LowInitWiz declares a spell. MedInitOrc declares they are moving and attacking the Wizard. HighInitFighter responds by intercepting and attacking the Orc.
If Ftr succeeds to hit; Orc's action is interrupted and they must instead engage the Fighter all up in their grill.
If Ftr fails to hit; Orc may choose to change their action to engage the Fighter, or continue on to the wizard as planned. Disengaging a melee opponent comes with some kind of penalty, like sacrificing attack actions or AC penalties until their next turn or whatever.
If Orc does the latter; moves and hits the Wizard, then the spell is interrupted and the turn is wasted. Otherwise the spell goes off.

Certain actions are full-round-actions (eg. spellcasting). They must be followed through no matter what, unless they are made impossible before your initiative. Either the turn is wasted or the effort is redirected, etc.
Other actions can force characters lower in initiative to change their action. eg. the successful Ftr interception above. The unsuccessful interception still inhibits the lower Init character, but not completely. Higher initiative is still king because no matter what, you get to affect the lower initiative plebs in some way.

Too complicated?

>>49416600
That sounds fucking great dude, its like an action stack right? First in last out.

It's a pretty intuitive solution. If it turns out to play well I'd even call it elegant.

1d10 list of odd remote villages/hamlets
1 - Preyed upon by fey, will pointedly ignore PCs to the point of violence believing they are some sort of fairy trick.
2 - Aloof but tolerant toward outsiders, they believe they are guardians of an ancient artifact that will be used to preserve the world (it's just a piece of old statuary).
3 - Silent but friendly, the locals have taken vows of silence but will happily communicate non-verbally. If the PCs get one of them to break their vows the rest of the locals will pillory and maim the oathbreaker.
4 - Degenerate, cannibalistic and starving; a curse prevents residents from traveling more than 50 yards from the well in the center of the hamlet. Survivors will try to lure PCs into a trap and are otherwise difficult to reason with.
5 - Full of benign mutants. The natural spring the village is built around is a font of positive energy, spilling over into the crops, livestock and people.
6 - The locals are either quiet and anemic or boisterous and nosy. The hamlet has a symbiotic relationship with a nearby nest of Stirges who clear out the region's virulent pests in the growing and harvest seasons. There is a rotating system of 'donors' and 'peacekeepers' instituted to keep this practice a secret and the settlement running. Not all approve.
7 - Once lorded over by a family of hard but fair nobles who secretly practiced diabolism but now controlled by a grasping royal administrator. Everyone agrees the old system was better, lots of superstitions.
8 - Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery'
9 - Just a normal fishing village. Don't mind the squelching sounds from the basement or all the walleyed children with puffy necks.
10 - Actually a normal fishing village. Some of the locals have heritable Ichthyosis and, in severe cases, sensitivity to sunlight.

>>49411000
It's easier to get players to keep going on DFD, since it's so far away from society. In God That Crawls the goal for many will be to get out of there as fast as possible.

I know a lot of people that use DFD put a MacGuffin in the plant-monster-thing room. Zak Smith put a book there for the players to find for example.

any experience taking out some stats?

I plan on using STR (replaces con in the rare ocasions that con matters) DEX WIS (meaning perception and lore) and SPI (spirit, just for magic and some charisma checks) on my next game.

Chargen is 3d6 in order, maybe swap two stats to allow you customize a little.

Do you think it will break balance too much? Any thoughts¿

>>49418594
I don't think so. Stats in oldschool game impact very little. The main issue with changing them in a game identified as D&D is them being a sacred cow. Courtney Campbell has cut stats down to 4 in his Perdition game and it seemed to work out okay.

>>49418594
Its an interesting take, but its going to require lots of tinkering. You say CON is irrelevant, but if it modified HP in some way then running it off STR seems odd.
Also I don't know what kind of setting you plan on running but it seems a strange to group INT and CHA, two stats that are often opposed in standard tropes, together.

Reworkings of basic stats are always interesting, but I can't help but feel that minor regroupings detract rather than improve. The classic 6 aren't flawless, and if you want to rework them more power to you, but they strike a decent balance so I would encourage you to either rework the system fully or only tweak stat definitions slightly.

Sunless Sea has a nice stat line (Irons, Mirrors, Pages, Veils and Hearts).

>>49419700

I'm doing HPs as everyone having 2d6 at the start, , maybe some more depending on your class.

On the INT + CHA being the same, in my setting magic isn't done by math formulaes, but by an attunement to an inner force, thus SPIRIT. It's useful to impress someone when you are showy or specially sincere; but if you're using manipulation through clever usage of words, you'll roll WIS

>>49418594
The only things you have to keep in mind are 1) how will traditional mechanics work without those stats and 2) one stat might become the uberstat.

For example, let's look at 1). You've chopped out Con. How does (or doesn't) Str work on HP? Maybe it doesn't. Maybe every PC just gets dN HP per level.

2) probably won't come up in your homebrew but it can be a problem. The Fantasy Trip for example made Strength so important that everyone (even Wizards) had to pump every spare point into it.

>>49399194

A battleax. Roughly hewn and very basic in design, it's the last remaining artifact of an ancient goddess of revenge.

Those who wield it while avenging a wrong will find they have the strength of ten men, and unable to die. It currently rests in the hands of the corpse of its last owner, sitting atop a mound of skeletons in the wilderness.

>>49418594
Searchers of the Unknown removes all the stats. A pure OD&D version of SotU would be nice, and I think it would fit very well.

>player keeps rolling a 1 on his d12 hit die

this is getting sad.

>>49421531
The fuck are they playing that gets them a d12 hd?

>>49421546
warrior
DCC

>>49421531
Add a minimum health!

>>49421546
Barbarians in AD&D (and after AD&D for that matter) have d12 hit dice.

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Does anyone here play ACKS? It seems like a really good system to me, but with Roll20 being my primary place where I play, I don't know how I would advertise it there...

>>49421546

Doesn't the Barbarian in AD&D get that?

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Anyone got some good city encounter tables in the vein of Vornheim/Corpathium?

>>49421923
>>49422551

Yes. 2e TCBH, pg. 8.

>>49422432
There's the very irregular open table that just got going in >>49399258; you could try recruiting from there - or you could PM the host if you're interesting in GMing a one-shot or two to get the feel of the system.

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One last reminder that the BFRPG game at Roll20 will be starting shortly

https://app.roll20.net/join/1665230/4UrZzQ

>>49424449
Is the time for this session going to be the time for future sessions?

>>49424777
We'll be working that out real soon. I can't do it Sunday nights or Midday Tuesdays but every other time is good.

>>49413987
>>49415706
>>49415894
Thanks for the replies.

I’ve looked at Keep on the Borderlands a lot, but something about it bothered me as it’s just too open ended for me (which was pointed out). After taking a look at The Lost City, I think I’ll run that. It seems fun, there’s a clear goal and I think players would be able to get behind it. If I get a more steady group (seems like I’ll be doing one-shots/inconsistent player groups for the most part), I’ll probably run KotB to give the players their home base.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

>>49424449
I was thinking about reposting the link but I didn't know if you were still looking for players or not.

>>49417556
Can you elaborate on what you mean by Plant-Monster-Thing?
I can't see anything that fits that description. Maybe the closest i can see is the singing monster that triggers the zombie uprising when you kill it

>>49425256
Game is still wide open as far as I know - think this session was going to be for rolling up characters and finalizing procedures.

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>>49425484
>he singing monster that triggers the zombie uprising when you kill it


Based Raggi, so groundbreaking and innovative.

>>49424449
Does BFRPG use Race-as-Class?

>>49425818
No, it's a race-and-class system.

>>49425816

Go away hipster, nobody cares if your garage band did it first.

>>49425818
BFRPG uses the AD&D system of races having certain class restrictions, IIRC.

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>>49425877
Your edgelord idol is a hack.

>>49426000

>I'm fighting back against the dirty plebs who like things I don't like!

Get bent, dude.

>>49426064
Raggi's shit is for hipsters, D&D 5e is for plebs.

Your waifu is also worst girl.

>>49425713
That is true, this session is mostly rolling characters, figuring out how you all know each other (which would just be a quick thing, nothing major) and then rolling up towards the starting location for the adventure.

>>49426099
>Your waifu is also worst girl.

You leave Aleena out of this, it's between you and me, Bargle!

>>49426210
>Magic Missles Aleena

>>49426223

Noooooo!

>>49426229
>Laughs maniacally then runs away

>>49425484
>Maybe the closest i can see is the singing monster that triggers the zombie uprising when you kill it
Yeah, that's the one. Sorry the description was bad, been a while since I read the module.

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>>49424449
One last bump for this.

>>49424449
what's better for beginners, BFRPG or LL?

>>49427533

Either/or, I'd say. I think I like LL's layout better, though.

>>49427533
Both have their ups and downs, but I would say BFRPG just for it's simple mechanics and adoption of ascending AC.

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Told my players they found an emerald. Deciding they had more than plenty of them, they left it and walked away before I could describe it.

>>49428221
That's a little mean, but not picking up gems is pretty dumb.

>>49428296
In their defense they did think monsters were very nearby. That said, I hadn't even began to really describe it and they interrupted and ran off.

>>49422671
that reminds me that I really should start working on that idea I had for an OSR Mecha system

>>49428547
>OSR mecha system
Sir, I was intrigued but now you have my fullest of attentions.

>>49428547
What type of mecha? Is it more gritty Hawken-esque mechs or Super giant robots?

What's the design rationale behind clerics not being able to cast spells at 1st level in systems like BFRPG and S&W?

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New to OSR here and flipping through ACKS. Is there any reason why, rather than writing out the attack and saving throws for a monster in the actual stat block, the author haves you refer to separate attack and saving throw tables elsewhere in the book? Is it just because older editions of D&D did it that way or does it actually serve a practical purpose?

>>49428852
That's how it was in OD&D/BX/BECMI. They're like fighters at first level but they soon get to cast spells too. It's to offset their being able to turn things right at level 1.

>>49428898

It saves a lot of space and visual clutter, which is nice since monster saves don't get used very often.

>>49428898

It's because older editions did it.

However, now that I think about it, it also means that if you want to use a monster, you have to look up its attack and saving throws, which means you should really be considering how powerful it is compared to everything else you're putting in the dungeon.

>>49428959

Also this.

What is the size of a typical osr party? LotFP and DCC seem to encourage pretty big parties, is this normal across all games?

>>49428900
>It's to offset their being able to turn things right at level 1

Is that really so unbalanced though?

>>49428990
It was a lot easier to get massive groups of players together back in Ye Olde Days, and the simpler mechanics of oldschool games made it less of a headache than it might seem. Beyond the Wall is the only OSR game I've seen where the intended party size seems to be 3 players instead of 4+.

>>49429083
Clerics get to wear heavy armor, turn undead and have better saving throws than fighters (on average) at first level, at least in BFRPG. So holding off on spells for just one level sounds alright.

>>49428990
3-5 players and a GM.

With 6-7 players, you can't do much besides a tournament style dungeon crawl... at some point, you just have too many people around the table to communicate effectively.

Even a group of five is unwieldy if the players aren't focused.

>>49419700
>Sunless Sea has a nice stat line (Irons, Mirrors, Pages, Veils and Hearts).
what, uh... what are those actually for?

>>49426248
I was going to complain about the shitposting, but then it got hilarious.

>>49428900
at level 1, they get Turn. Getting Turn AND a spell at level 1 (and decent armour selections) would give them too much all-round utility.
Personally, I'd give them the spell (which inevitably gets used for healing) at level 1, and introduce turning later on.

>>49429083
>>49429147

In addition he's just as good at hitting stuff as the Fighter at level 1. Being able to throw spells on top of that would just be unfair.

>>49429178
Use a caller, like the older rulebooks suggest.

>>49429178
>Even a group of five is unwieldy if the players aren't focused.

That's why you use a caller. If the players are unfocused then, it's their problem, not the DM's.

>>49429278
don't fighters get a (slightly) better weapon selection, though? Clerics are limited to maces and slings whilst fighters can use swords and bows?

>>49428584
well it's still very early days on this, but I was thinking your Mecha's Chassis Style would take the place of Race(as by default pilots would be human), and Combat Role would take the place of Class

also Stats would work as such; INT, WIS, and CHA are supplied by the pilot(as is the new stat PSY or Psychic), while STR, CON, and DEX are supplied by the Mech(default assumption of the system is that all Combat, and most Exploration is done while inside a Mech)

still figuring out how to best handle mech customization, and what the spell analogues would be(as without spells or similar abilities the OSR framework becomes kinda bland), although I imagine a lot of the more exotic Mecha abilities and equipment(as well as psychic powers of the Newtype sort) will probably work for this

>>49429296
The caller is one of those absolutely brilliant ideas that somehow slipped through the cracks of time. Was infighting among nerds that caused its decline?

>>49428597
more in the middle I'd say, think Universal Century Gundam up through F91 in terms of general Mecha capabilities

>>49428990
Yeah, I think 8ish will do for most OSR modules. The common result of this I see is for players to control two characters. And why not? DMs play more than one character all the time.

>>49429278
That's the only benefit the Fighter gets right at level 1. At least Fighter's level up faster.

>>49429406
Oh, and a better HD too.

>>49429433

And >>49429348

But still if Clerics get spells at level 1 it seems like it's too obvious a pick over Fighter to me.

>>49429488
Fighters pull ahead in HD and attack bonus later on.

I always thought that Clerics should be limited to medium or lighter armor though.

>>49429520
You can always rule that at the table and it would make some sense and actually give a reason for medium armor (Mages = no armor, Thieves = light, Clerics = medium, Fighters = heavy)

>>49429364
I'd say it was the shrinking of the general playerbase and the rise of more narrative focused games that killed the caller. Which is fine by me; outside of a con or a DCC funnel I don't find that number of people playing all at once very appealing.

>>49429351
You could have the spells/abilities be 'maneuvers' something skilled pilots are able to do that the rest can't.

>>49429635
>I'd say it was the shrinking of the general playerbase and the rise of more narrative focused games that killed the caller.

Pretty much this. Games shifted towards small groups partly because that suited the newer playstyles better, and partly because smaller groups were becoming a thing whether you liked it or not as the playing field spread out and thinned out.

>>49428900
>>49429262
I like clerics having a spell at 1st lvl. Then again, I also like turning not being a default feature but a spell too as per LotFP. Even if it was default in my games though, they rarely start with having undead around.

>>49416600
This is really cool; the only potential issue is how to efficiently keep track of what each character/monster declared (since players might subtly change their action in response to new information). Otherwise, very elegant!

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Found a really good blog post about what makes specific OSR settings really *feel* like OSR: http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/09/osr-aesthetics-of-ruin.html

Favorite quote:
>The immense mismatch between [the PCs'] fragile, mortal lives and their huge and ancient surroundings also inspires feelings of awe and grandeur: the aesthetic which used to be known as 'the sublime'. A man bleeding to death in a gutter is pathetic. A man bleeding to death in a gutter in the middle of a pre-human city of mile-high spires combines pathos with sublimity.

>>49428898
You can flip it around another way - almost all monsters use the Fighter saving throw tables - If you print out the saving throw table you can immediately reference any monster saving throw.

You also use them so often that over time you'll have a pretty good idea of what an F4 save means so it ends up being a wash in the long run.

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>fall in love with ACKS at first sight
>shill it for years, knowing that I wouldn't find anyone to run it for me
>former DM gets burned out, wants someone else to run a game instead
>I leap at the chance to run it for my best friends, they seem interested
>put in roughly a month of prepwork, normal new DM stress
>former DM immediately does 5-year-old tier stuff, builds a walking meme of a PC, acts out every time something doesn't go his way, ragequits repeatedly
>crashes the game into the ground within 3 sessions (all cut short by scheduling and rage-quitting)
>They didn't even set foot in the module's dungeon yet.
>decides to quit playing games right as he ruined the campaign
>the other players are demoralized by this
>my favorite system is now associated with the emotional scarring caused by his behavior issues
>players want to try something else

I'm looking for some ways to combine the OSR gritty punk-rock ethos with a love letter to 80s rock in one setting.

Any tips or ideas?

>>49430592
I'm so sorry to hear that anon.

I also fell in love with ACKs at first sight, but I'm a forever DM(dnd 3.5 and 5e) and I hope my group doesn't get discouraged after the first few sessions.

If I ever run a online campaign I will post it here.

>>49430697
So Brütal Legend?

>>49428547
You aren't the only one anon

>>49430718
If it helps you, I'll try to share what I think were some pitfalls of my own experience.

My players also came off a 5e/PF background. They complained to me about not feeling like heroes (they didn't seem to like the idea of recruiting henchmen at first), not having much starting money, and not having enough inventory space to carry potential loot in addition to their starting equipment. They also had a poor set of reaction rolls because the party face refused to converse with any important NPCs (the one who spoke to most NPCs had charisma 10 and proficiencies that didn't apply), and I think their poor results convinced them that level 1 PCs are supposed to be dregs of society and not heroes. Despite excellent performance in multiple combats, they were so scared of violence they never even entered the first dungeon because they saw guards at the door.

If I were to run it again knowing what I do now, I think that I would give the game a running start with an action sequence. Something to establish the main threat, let the PCs flex their combat-muscles and see where they stand in terms of abilities, and also to give some excitement to tide them over through their planning-time and introductions to NPCs. Perhaps they'd be on a caravan to the starting town and get ambushed by bandits or beastmen. That could also give them a chance to recruit some henchmen from the caravan-guards or get other passengers to sing their praises in town.

For Sakkara specifically, I'd put some cover in the first room (perhaps some scattered rocks to hide behind), so that players can feel like they try to do something sneaky, and might not be as spooked by the guards.

>>49431037
what's your idea for it?

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>[loud sighing]

>>49431048
>>49430592
>They didn't even set foot in the module's dungeon yet.
This is really I think a major pitfall that I ran into in my first campaign. I think for OSR games in particular it's important to start your players at the entrance to the dungeon immediately, and screw buildup or realism.

It doesn't have to a big dungeon or a complex one, and it definitely doesn't need to be the main dungeon. Even a small single level ruin with a few relatively easy kobolds is good. It gets the campaign off to a quick-paced start with a nice "in-media res" intro that introduces the emphasis of the campaign and gets everyone to grips with the idea of tracking turns in the dungeon, light sources, etc.

Compared to other retroclones, ACKS PCs are considerably more potent but still remain very glass-jawed. They are very strong offensively relative to other retroclones - Fighters in ACKS get innate damage bonuses and can Cleave starting from level 1. Burning oil is also very potent in ACKS due to the 1d3 splash effect, and hireling access is formally codified. A well-formed party that gains surprise can break a warband of two dozen orcs without a sweat, but will crumple if the orcs get a full round of attacks in.

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>>49431188
Putting it together for a kind of dieselpunk science fantasy game, its essentially rules for fighting armoured targets with both heavy ordinance and small arms (For tanks/mechs/walking battleships) coupled with a list of options and prices should a PC want to purchase, operate and modify their own walker.

On the plus side you can use it to play an all mech party, a no mech party or any kind of blend (its essentially an optional set of rules) and it isn't limited to walkers.
As a result though its kind of clunky and simplistic and is very much a WIP.

I probably wont get to use them much - my first party lineup is shaping up to be all thieves, which should be interesting.

>>49431512
hope you'll share them here when they're in a state you feel worth sharing

>>49431764
I don't have a written up document but I can try and outline the basics - any help would be super welcome.

Essentially the idea is that you can abstract a shell striking armour at a sufficiently direct angle as a roll against AC, and the amount of successful penetration or explosive damage required to reach the interior or spall as hitting a "HP Threshold". Once the necessary ajustments have been made to these values you can roll your standard rolling to hit - rolling to damage against armoured targets.

I know thats a bit nonsensical, so heres an example - our PCs are firing an anti-tank cannon at the side of an enemy tank at a sloped angle. They roll to hit against its ascending AC, which is say 15 (for armour thickness), +2 for the angle they are at (this is GM ruling). If they fail the shell ricochetts, and if they succeed the shell strikes and detonates. The damage of the gun is then rolled (lets say 2d8). If result is over the HP threshold (Usually somewhere about 15) then you roll on a damage table and add +1 for every damage over the threshold that was dealt - higher numbers on the table are more devastating, with most above 6 or 7 being lethal to the tanks operation in some way.

On one hand I like how the high damage threshold means that tanks can only be killed by big guns and rockets, which makes sense. On the other basically everything else is awful.
Thoughts?

>>49431219
is this from Raggi, or homebrew?

>>49431219
Whats up with the fi and eszetts and weird letters?

>>49431377
You can always prologe the session by saying "You are now at the entrace of <spooky scary place>, how did you end up here?".

Then you ask the players to summarize how they ended up there, maybe aided by some tables or leading questions by the DM ("You were told of this place by the gray seer, how did you come in contact with them?").

That way you can establish some important stuff, but it's all just for flavor. It helps set things in the dungeon into a context, maybe they established that the seer wanted something or warned them of something, and some hand waved detail by the DM is given a lot of significance by the players because of how they try to fit it into the stuff they established at the start.

>>49430509
Nice article.

>>49430368
I was thinking about this as well. The best way would probably be to just have a _very_ short declaration that can be done in succession quickly in a matter of seconds like (player 1 has highest initiative):

player 4 (fighter): "I attack the orc shaman with my axe!"
player 3 (cleric): "I bless the fighter to buff his attack"
dungeon master: "The two orc warriors move towards the magic users, and the shaman begin casting a spell towards the fighter".
player 2 (magic user): "I throw an oil flask towards the orcs moving towards me"
player 1(specialist): "I try to sneak behind the orcs moving towards the magic user"

So you leave out all the details and only state your intentions, THEN you get to roll all the dice and describe your actions.

>>49430368
Thanks! And yes, that is one of my concerns. The other being that things can get complicated when the outcome of something early in initiative messes with later actions.

Like say, everyone targets one monster because the party wants it to die. The monster dies after 2 players' turns. What do the remaining players do? I don't think they should lose their turn just for playing it safe.

I think the answer to both those problems would be to make declarations fairly generic, like "Move to target and attack". And have some standard (and simple and fair) procedures for when things would fuck it up.
eg. "if an opponent engages you in melee, you have the choice of changing your action to fight them at no penalty, or perform your original declaration after disengaging (which carries a penalty)."

Or "If your declared target is incapacitated before your turn, you may attack a different one within range or perform a different standard action."

And then you have all-or-nothing type actions like fighting defensively, receiving a charge, taking aim, casting a spell, etc. If something messes with those, then tough titty.

>>49430592
Sorry to hear that. These anons describe good approaches to the game for when you'll have the desire to try again:

>>49431377
>>49432151

I start my games with:

1. quick rolling of rumors and dungeon entrance
2. selection of facts they know and dungeon entrance
3. inside the dungeon in a situation they need to get out of. Just don't make it a possible TPK situation right off the bat.

>>49431219
And here I thought the core book had annoying typesetting.

>>49430697
A bunch of young punks with ridiculous neon mohawks descending into an ancient dungeon in search of their vanished lord, the holy diver Dio.

>>49429147
OD&D clerics who build a stronghold get double the tax income, and free troops! They're arguably the most powerful LBB class.

Speaking of gods, it bugs the fuck out of me that the official OD&D reprints used negative AC bullshit for GDg&H. Yes, there are a couple of intentionally negative ACs in the book, but mostly it's just the layout being ridiculously inconsistent and using colons and long dashes interchangeably. No, a naga doesn't have fucking -5 AC, you idiots. Do you think Daghdha has -2 AC and -300 HP? No, it's clearly 2 AC and 300 HP. But you've "corrected" it to -2 AC and 300 HP, despite both values having the exact same use of a long dash as a separator.

The original has poor design decisions, but most of the ACs are low but positive.

>>49430697
Could you specify maybe? To me 80s rock is pretty much stuff like The Fall, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, and those are bold and / or avantgarde musings on punk ideas.

Do you mean all the glam bands? Something else?

If it's about glam, check out Manic Street Preachers. Guys were living in a shitty Welsh mining town and they combined their desire for glam and theatrics and romance with punky rebellious attitude. All of the gloss was coming from the punk angle, not just to sugarcoat everything.

Apply this lesson to the setting: make it colorful and flamboyant, but also decadent. It needs some shake-up.

Just avoid direct music references please. Get inspiration from it, from album covers and stuff, just don't make a musical out of your game. It's always too cheesy, at least in my experience.

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A handy reference for your games:

http://www.highuintapackgoats.com/faqs.htm

You know, in case you wanted to use non-traditional pack animals. Perhaps you're adventuring in mountainous terrain.

>Goats can easily carry 10%- 20% of their total body weight. Fully conditioned packers can reach up to 25%-30%. A large fully grown wether can easily carry 25 to 50 pounds of gear. That's a lot of stuff, and if you need more you can just add another goat! Good rull of thumb is: The more rugid the terrain, the lighter you pack the goat.

> They are easy to pack for ALL ages, as you need not lift the load very high. Goats, like dogs, bond with humans at a young age and will follow anywhere. In areas not requiring tying, your goats will willingly follow along the trail, browse for his own food and sleep next to your tent or rainfly.

Suitable for dwarves and halflings, not as tall as mules!

>Go Anywhere: Goats can utilize areas that are inaccessible to horses, relieving congestion on crowded trails. They can travel over a wide variety of terrain, including packed snow, downed logs and rock. Anything short of a cliff, if you can get there, so can your goats. Probably with a silly face watching you catch up.

>>49432905
The whole 9 yards of it, with a focus on some of the classics like Dio, Maiden, Journey, etc. I would like to evoke a mood of blasting triumphant 80s rock on a roadtrip through the hell of a ruined OSR world.

>Apply this lesson to the setting: make it colorful and flamboyant, but also decadent. It needs some shake-up.

This is what I want to capture, a world where I can be playing "Separate Ways" at the table as the players bleed out ignominiously and it feels right.

>Just avoid direct music references please.

I don't want it to turn into Jojo. But a world inspired by metal album covers and some of the fantastic lyrical content would be fun.

>>49433258
Dungeon of Signs blog, Fallen Empire setting. It's pretty close to this.

>reading old gary gygax greyhawk stories

>gold coins are golden balls the size of golf balls

.....

what the fuck?

>>49431888
>>49432135
>>49432391

It's a third party book, for LotFP or other OSR systems. He's using archaic letters for "atmosphere" but I think he should have left that for the demon encyclopedia part and just written up the magic system and class info without 'em, because it's pretty annoying to read.
Cool book, though. I like the magic system, even if it's too historical to fit into my setting.

>>49432432

Wrong aesthetic. They should have feathered hair and ripped jeans. Probably some chains here and there. (Ah, memories)

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>>49426210
>His waifu isn't Morgan Ironwolf

>>49434961
Is it all right if I just use Repo Man as an aesthetic source for my next D&D campaign instead?

>Look at those assholes, ordinary fucking 0-level NPCs. I hate 'em.

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>>49435034

Repo Man is always a good choice.

>>49435180
>The guys that make it are the guys that get in their armour at any time. Get in at 3am, get up at 4. That's why there ain't an adventurer I know that don't take speed.

>The life of an adventurer is always intense.

>>49433181
>10%-20% of their total body weight. Fully conditioned packers can reach up to 25%-30%.

How much does the average goat weigh?

OSRIC, Y/N? It looks intimidating.

>>49436955
It's verbose AD&D 1E, so there's lots of good stuff in there. Also lots of bulshit; you have to be a little picky with what to use, just like 1E.

>>49434950
Is it written by Raggi?

>>49437591

No, like I said it's a third party book.

>>49439992
Why isn't there an Aztec OSR setting yet?

>>49440014

No idea. It's getting to the point that I think I should just write one.

And then I can listen to all the people who hate my particular spin on OSR and how they shouldn't have to fix it with house rules.

I might anyway.

>>49424449

Shit game. Should have used a different clone. Hell, any other clone.

>>49431219
Holy mother of fuck is that ugly.

>>49437698
Oh, duh. Sorry!

>>49440077
I always thought that was the only fun certain people get out of OSR.
Scratch that. The only fun certain people get, period.

Not to mention the inevitable 'inaccuracies' in your interpretation of a fantasy civilization of mysterious outer corn god-worshiping people.

You should absolutely do it.

>>49440014
Mechanical nightmare, you'd basically have to throw out the PHB and start from scratch with a dedicated team of writers.

>>49440262
>Not to mention the inevitable 'inaccuracies' in your interpretation of a fantasy civilization of mysterious outer corn god-worshiping people.

"Quetzal-Quest is a work of fiction, and the material therein has no relationship to any real-world people, place, time-period, or culture. Any similarities that may exist are purely coincidental."

Or something along those lines.

>>49440346
Why?

>>49440926
I can't really think of any work which doesn't have that attached, and yet you still have people complaining about historical inaccuracies in their degenerate-stand-in-for-savages slaying simulators.

Basically, cunts gonna cunt.
I like Maizes and Macuahitl or Tequihua if you're looking for names though.

>>49430592
Play 5e.
It's a perfectly fine, fun, and easy-going version of Dungeons and Dragons.

>>49440346

This is not even remotely true.

At most you'd need to write a new equipment section, modify the Cleric and Magic-User's spell lists/make an entirely new class instead, and potentially adhere to some historical realities if you want to capture the "pure" setting (no proper beasts of burden, nothing with wheels beyond toys, etc.).

Everything else is setting info and setting specific monsters.

It would essentially be a setting book/hexcrawl with some tweaks to the regular B/X rules to fit. And that's not even getting into the fantastic stuff like terror bird mounts and whatnot that you could throw in, because you could pull from the prehuman flora and fauna of the Americas to make it even more gonzo.

>>49441196

>Maizes and Macuahitle

I like the cut of your feather mantle, friend.

>>49440346
Why's that? Reminding you one of the closest thing to Aztec setting came out in 1975, it's called Empire of the Petal Throne and it was pretty much OD&D with house rules. Which means OD&D, really, because OD&D without house rules isn't a thing.

Now, without significant rules changes (only various additions and rehashes and stuff), there are certain things in existence. Like a succesful and critically acclaimed Lewis Carroll+vampires setting written by one guy, dreamy fantasy Tibet with slugmen existing almost exclusively in the random tables written by one guy, mythic India OSR game written by one guy and mythic Aftrica OSR game written by one guy. Not to mention WIP projects like making a megadungeon out of ancient crocodile's memory.

"Mechanical" isn't a challenge in the OSR. The only challenge is to get your ideas out. Once you get it out, it'll work with 3d6, fighter-cleric-thief-magic-user like a fucking charm. We'll make it work.

>>49439992
>>49440014
>>49440077
>>49440262
>>49440346
>>49440926
>>49441196
>>49441497
>>49441812
>no mention of Maztica

I know it sucks in many respects but come on guys.

>>49441951

I already know about Maztica (I even have the PDF).

I didn't want to steal it wholesale, and it's from what I remember, really undeveloped and not anywhere near as interesting as reading about the real thing.

You can find the PDF of Maztica here:
>http://web.archive.org/web/20080506030618/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads

>>49442058
Hey, go for it anon! I'd love to see eagle knights facing down a cipactli croc monster with obsidian macuahuitl

>>49441497
Mentions terror birds, not having beasts of burden, and zero wheels.
The design of your cloak composed of various birds pleases me also.

>>49441951
I admit, I suck and did not know of Maztica.

>>49442058
Would you include other city-states in the module, for some flower wars? Regardless, this is an excellent idea and I heartily approve!

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So I rolled up some random dungeons, that I intend to embellish and detail fully, but I came across something strange.
It lists "dervish" as a wandering monster and several encounters but I am not sure what stats to use for that.

Im running Castles and Crusades so should i just use fighters and fluff them as Dervishes? Or are there some stats in an old Adnd book I am missing.

>>49442479

I shall.

>>49442500

I would definitely include other city-states. Nezahualcoyotl and his reign over Texcoco was too damned cool not to base something in the world off of him and the city.

>>49442605
Make it up.
I would totally give them battle trance.

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>>49442854
Im thinking of just using bandits and describing them spinning and swinging their swords.

>>49442793
Poet-Philosopher Monarch worshiping an Unknowable God of Everything is best monarch.

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All right, OSRGentlemen, r8 my half-assed houserules (cribbed liberally from Last Gasp Grimoire, among others).

ATTRIBUTES
- STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA
- Roll 3d6 in order, then swap any two
- If sum of modifiers is less than zero, you can mulligan

CLASSES
- Warrior: can do combat stunts.
HD = d8
Attack bonus = level
Can use light, medium, and heavy weapons, and wear any armor
Saves: bonus vs. paralysis, poison, and other body-focused effects
- Thief: can do sneaky/stealy/stabby/clever gambits.
HD = d6
Attack bonus = three-quarters of level
Can use light and medium weapons, and wear light armor
Saves: bonus vs. area affects and other things that can be dodged
- Mage: can use MOTHERFUCKIN’ MAGIC (as per Necropraxis "Wonder & Wickedness" levelness spell casting).
HD = d4
Attack bonus = half of level
Can only use light weapons, and cannot wear armor
Saves: bonus vs. the arcane
Automatically get spells/level equal to INT bonus; additional spells must be found/looted.

ROLLS
- All rolls (including saving throws) are d20, try to roll under the appropriate ability score ("Target Number" or "TN"). Situational modifiers raise or lower TN.
- For especially difficult tasks, roll under one-half the ability score.
- For especially easy tasks, don’t bother to roll, just narrate the outcome.

(more to come)

>>49443958

(continued)

ATTACK
- Roll d20 under target AC (descending) + your Attack bonus.
- Add STR mod when using a powerful weapon; add DEX mod when using a precise weapon.
- Natural 1 always hits (“ace”), natural 20 always misses. No other effects of “critical” hit/miss.

STUNTS AND GAMBITS
- To do cool shit, feat, roll 2d20 and compare each die to the TN individually. Both under = success, one under = success with complication OR graceful failure (player picks), both over = major fuck-up.
- Fighters get to do combat stunts: things like disarming an opponent, throwing a tapestry over them to blind them, swinging from a chandelier, &c &c.
- Thieves get to do clever gambits: things like picking locks or disarming traps under fire, spotting traps, balancing on narrow ledges, climbing sheer surfaces, &c. &c.

>my idea is that everyone can do basic dungeoneering shit like picking locks and searching for traps, thieves are just better at avoiding consequences.

>>49443958
>>49444129

Oh, and most importantly:

ADVANCEMENT
- All classes have the same XP requirement to level up (I used LL Fighter as a baseline).
- When you level up, roll all of your HD; if the total is greater than your current max HP, use the new number, otherwise stick with the old number.

>>49443958
>CHA
0/10 would not play

>>49442897
>>49442605


Just make sure to to play this on repeat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0M2PFLoVfU

I wish I could find a better version; I actually find this very relaxing.

>>49443958
Why does everyone leave out Cleric?

>>49445377

It's because Gygax based the class on Peter Cushing, Solomon Kane, and Rodney Dangerfield.

>>49445377

Because warrior, mage and thief are the 3 basic elements of adventuring. Healer is a type of mage and cleric is just a warrior/healer.

AM I FUCKING DOING SPELLBURN WRONG?
The party's wizard is too powerful. He just kind of chills and then if the party is ever in any trouble, he spellburns 20 from his pool of ability scores and he has enough to do it two times. Like he just nuked the Emerald Enchanter's entire final encounter and won the entire battle in two rounds. I mean, they got zero xp because they turned that shit into a chump fight, but what the fuq? That seems really powerful, have I been letting them do spellburn wrong?

>>49445377
>>49445526

This.

>powerful, crafty, magical

is more elegant than

>powerful, crafty, magical, sorta magical and also sorta powerful

>>49445554
what system? Side note, you gave them less EXP for doing well, what kind of DM are you?

>>49445579

DCC. And if you slaughter an enemy and it doesnt even get to drop a single PC, then you dont get XP.

XP in DCC is 0-4

0 = nobody died or was hurt, over in 1-2 rounds
1 = there was a minor scuffle
2 = There was a moderate scuffle
3 = people got slapped silly, there was some serious pain here and there, and some spells were lost
4 = someone died is usually the baseline for this

>>49445579
I'd assume DCC

>>49445579

thats how dcc works anon. you dont get experience for being awesome you get it for surviving. the more dangerous the situation the better the xp. if your players walk into a room, trip and stab a god in his only weak point and kill him then all you get is like 0 xp.

probably though, gain fucktons of cool weapons

>>49445554
If he spellburns that hard he gets useless for 20 - 40 days. Further he opens the door for corruption and permanent ability damage.

Doesn't seem OP to me. He can only spike like that if he knows he'll be safe soon and had an easy ride.

>>49445652

how does he open the door for corruption or permanent ability damage

>>49445643
Hm, never heard of that. I'm not super into it. Do you also get exp for cash/loot?

>>49445668
Roll a one. A point of the damage becomes permanent and you get corruption. Not a big deterrent but it's there

>>49445678
Nope, just surviving the adventure.

>>49445678
>>49445702
System uses less XP, so you don't really lose out not getting XP for gold because the numbers are all smaller.

Personally, the way DCC does XP, I'd rather just have leveling based on milestones and not track the number.

>>49445729
I reward 0-4 xp for successfully extracting awkward treasure (fragile, cumbersome, etc) and bringing it sfely back to civilisation. But only that one reward per delve, regardless of the value.

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>>49445554
>>49445668

Give other consequences outside of the actual ability damage. Make him roll on the spellburn table and the player can pick that or come up with something you think is fair. If he has a patron make him roll on the patron spellburn table or make one up.

Each time a wizard uses spellburn there should be an effect that lasts at least beyond the time needed to heal back up. I've considered making epic spell failure cost 25% of the ability score rounded up, not just 1 point across the board. Or something like that. Inevitably though, the wizard fucks everyone over or turns himself into a chicken.

>>49435544
>Advantages
Carry all sorts of gear, greatly reducing the amount of gear you have to carry. Goats can easily carry 20% - 30% of their body weight in saddles and gear (a 200 lbs. goat can readily carry 50 lbs. all day)
But you want at least two goats anyway, probably more.

>>49440014
It's not Aztec, and it's OS rather than OSR, but yo. Tekumel. Amazing setting.

>>49445377
>>49445526
Why does everyone add in thief? Thief was the worst addition to OD&D. Fuck that class, mechanically and as a class role. You fight people, you're a fighting man or a fighter. You sneak around and steal shit? Yes? So? You need to make everybody else worse at doing that, and be a bad fighter, just so you can write the word "thief" on your character sheet? Fuck you.

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>>49446031
I don't mind the Thief being added but it really rustles my jimmies when they cut the Cleric because "lol original 3 archetypes."

>>49446274
>lol original 3 archetypes

I dunno, man, I read somewhere that Arneson had rules for a thief in his Blackmoor campaign very early on, but it never made it into Supplement II.

>>49446332
There was an early thief homebrew floating around one of the playtest groups, IIRC. It got mangled in translation when they built the class for Greyhawk, apparently the original was competent?

Of course, that's just published. There was all kinds of shit in blackmoor, but it still largely focused on fighters and mages, IIRC.

>>49446274
>original 3 archetypes
druid, monk and psychic powers are about as classic as the thief. two of the three are actually better-designed.

>>49446377
>playtest groups
by which I mean the external groups - not gygax, arneson and co, but some of the other nerds they sent early copies to for testing and feedback.

>>49443958
that all seems pretty legit. I'm not sure I like how the magic-user works, though - vancian casting has always been a big part of their appeal to me. Different folks have different tastes, though, and that's OK.

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>>49446332
He did, but there was a major departure between what Arneson was using and what got put in the Greyhawk supplement. Gygax wanted something gritty and purely skillful, something that would fit in a Conan the Barbarian sort of Swords and Sorcery game; Arneson wanted a Thief that was damn near magical, able to either hide in plain sight or merge with shadows and some other crazy high fantasy sort of things. Gygax won out since his supplement got put out first since Arneson was notorious for not getting all of his shit together.

>>49446478
technically the Magical Thief is still in OD&D when it shows up, Gygax just doesn't explain it properly cause he's terrible when it comes to clarity, so most people missed that, which lead to it disappearing by Holmes, BX, and AD&D 1E

>>49446453
I like Vance and Vancian, but some of the early alternatives are weirdly interesting. There was one early period game where you used spell "balls", which you had to buy, including things like "axe balls" which did x axe attacks worth of damage, "light balls" which hurt vampires, healing balls you threw-- sorry, *cast* at party members to heal them, and slave balls, which were basically pokeballs.

I think Blackmoor did something like this actually, and rated mages and kingdoms with appropriate facilities for how many spells they could produce annually?

File: RulesToTheGameOfDungeon.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>49446764
Ah, here we go.

>In the eighteen pages of rules above, we see the first role-playing game condensed down to its most basic
>elements, reinvented by someone who learned by playing rather than studying rulebooks. VanGrasstek first
>encountered the game in February 1974 thanks to Louis Fallert, who had in turn experience d Blackmoor under
>the tutelage of Arneson’s immediate circle in the Twin Cities. Few copies of Dungeons & Dragons were circulating
>at that point, and thus, in the reaction of VanGrasstek’s peers in the Minneapolis science-fiction fandom
>community, we find some of the earliest commentary on the startling innovations that Dungeons & Dragons
>introduced. VanGrasstek at the time had the foresight to commit the rules as he understood them to paper: these
>Rules to the Game of Dungeon, first promulgated in August of 1974.

>There are several reasons why this is an important text for students of gaming to examine. Because the Rules
>descend in an oral tradition from the original Twin Cities Blackmoor players, they capture local variants which
>give us crucial insight into the way Blackmoor was played prior to the publication of Dungeons & Dragons. The
>telltale signs are everywhere: in that monsters are called “baddies,” in the component-heavy design of the spell
>system, in the system of “hits” for armor and shields, in the names of classes, and in the shiftiness of wizards

>>49446771
https://playingattheworld.blogspot.co.nz/2014/08/1974-dungeon-variant-now-for-download.html

There are some contemporary session write-ups here.

>>49446771
Is this really from 1974? This is so bizarre.

>>49446951
Jon Peterson does a lot of great research into these things.

https://playingattheworld.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/rules-to-game-of-dungeon-1974.html

>One of the perennial questions about the history of role-playing games is this: which came second, Tunnels & Trolls or Empire of the Petal Throne? Deciding between the two is largely a question of semantics, of whether you count various small-run amateur publications as releases or not. Fortunately, historians don't need to choose between the two, because Craig VanGrasstek's Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974) beat them both handily. Weighing in at eighteen pages, and released late in the summer of 1974, Rules to the Game of Dungeon seems certain to be the second published role-playing game.

>These "Castle Keep" games became quite popular in Minneapolis in 1974, as contemporary issues of the local fanzine Minneapa document, and many local fans developed their own dungeons, largely unaware of the existence of Dungeons & Dragons. Craig VanGrasstek played in the first incarnation of "Castle Keep," and later ran a dungeon; as the Foreword to his rules observes, there were nine total dungeons based on "Castle Keep" in Minneapolis by the summer. VanGrasstek recognized that there was little standardization among the rules of these dungeons, but he nonetheless hoped to write up an account of the game that would let people outside Minneapolis share in the fun. He therefore created fifty copies for distribution at the World Science Fiction Convention at the end of August 1974, and circulated his rules through Minneapa.

>There are certain elements of his Rules that resemble accounts of the original Blackmoor system, and it seems likely that Fallert informally preserved some Twin Cities practices for play that did not end up in the final drafts of Dungeons & Dragons. Thanks to VanGrasstek, we have a unique window into strongly reagant-based magic systems, mitigiation-based armor and much less formal dicing mechanics.

>>49446972
It's a set of rules written to describe games run by people who played a game run by someone who played in Arneson's club, basically.

Ridiculous levels of telephone going on. It's glorious.

>>49446972
>>49446981
Holy shit. I wonder how roleplaying would have looked like if D&D wasn't republished and stuff like this started to flourish. Insane mutations of games at every table.

>>49447031
Alt-History: Gygax and Arneson fall into Geneva Lake in early '75.

>>49447059
this was yet another senseless death at one of their convention games.
this is what the geneva convention refers to.

>>49447125
Someone stupid with a flaregun~

>>49441088
Probably sometime to do with the separation between crunch and fluff, don't you remember planescape and why it failed horribly to attract DM's? because you've got all this nice creative written lore with tons of unique shit, then your player characters come in a ruin the aesthetic with their forgotten realm spells, swords and shit.

>>49446478
Nope, Gygax got the thief from the Caltech/Aero Hobbies group.

File: Necropraxis Levelless Spellcasting.pdf (1B, 486x500px)

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>>49446453
>vancian casting has always been a big part of their appeal to me

That's actually why I like Necropraxis' Wonder & Wickedness rules... It makes for very flavorful wizards, and spells grow along with them, while still *feeling* very Vancian (as opposed to, say, GURPS spell-points or MtA free-form).

>>49449059
Huh, neat.

>Magical Defense & Spell Duels

>Any prepared spell may be expended to protect one person per sorcerer level from the effects of one spell. A decision to use magical defense must be made before damage or saving throw dice are rolled. For example, a second level sorcerer may expend a prepared spell in order to protect two characters from some hostile magic.

>This makes prepared spells function somewhat like magic hit points, as a potential buffer, and means that sorcerers can absorb a magical assault for a party in much the same way that warriors can serve as physical defenders. It also supports the classic wizard's duel without requiring a separate mini-game.

>The magical defense rules may also be used with traditional leveled Vancian magic. In this case, the number of people that can be protected is equal to the level of the spell expended.

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Has anyone tried a plane-less cosmology? There are some interesting ideas here. The "Ethereal" is more or less a ghostly echo of the real world, while the "Astral" is a means for dream-like travel and conceptual stuff, and for powerful wizards to make their illusionary realms "real."

The other planes, well, demons and devils live in the depths, with fire and magma and brimstone. There may be a tunnel down, but you'll probably have to travel ethereally or astrally, and don't wander into the sealed caverns designed as prisons for ancient creatures. Elementals live in the clouds, the sun, the seas, the earth. Outsiders live outside the crystal sphere. But they're all one bloody great material plane - you travel to reach them, and they're on (or in) the map.

>>49449357
>demons and devils live in the depths, with fire and magma and brimstone. There may be a tunnel down,
or they may be ethereal and live inside the mantle, not necessarily somewhere unaided mortals can even exist. It's not all caves.

>>49449357
I tried a astrolabe cosmology, the "planes" are literal rings that encircle around the planet, my players didn't like it.

>>49449600
I like that one cosmology where the world's a cube, gravity is towards the nearest face, and your entire "prime material plane" is one face of the die. Anywhere else, you either somehow teleport, build a flying ship that doesn't mind travelling outside the dome of atmosphere that supports life on your plane, or go on a really weird dungeon crawl.

>>49446771
This shit is so fucking amazing, like explorer logs into uncharted territory.

>>49446787
I love the one where they have to haul a rowboat full of cheese through the whole dungeon, to trade with talking giant rats across an underground lake.

>>49446771
This is really great, I'm reading through this and things seems understandable outside of Spell Balls, then I read that at rank 6 priests have to sacrifice their son to the Great Spider? What the fuck, where did that come from?

>>49450920
I have no clue, but it sounds far out as fuck.

>>49450920
>The Great Spider, ghod of the fan religion known as Spiderism, notoriously consumes people’s souls when they die. Fallert played some part in the founding of the Spiderist “faith,” along w
ith Al Kuhfeld and John Kusske. As a system element, the Great Spider exists primarily to serve as a check for priests, who must sacrifice sons to the Great Spider or die themselves. Unlike warriors, priests at least get to roll for whether or not they have a son or daughter, albeit no specific chance is stipulated: most likely, the intention was that priests roll two dice, and if they come up doubles, the child is born.
Once born, a child must be sacrificed—but
if the priest goes through with the sacrifice, all priestly abilities are lost, and the priest becomes a starting warrior. This suggests that priests are not worshippers of the Great Spider, exactly, but are nonetheless beholden to its commandments. But apparently even the Great Spider was no match for Herbie Popnecker, as the text here hints—also see endnote 22 above
regarding the “Spider-shaped Lollipop."

A local fandom thing, apparently.

Tunnels and Trolls seems somewhat interesting. Is there anything that I should know before getting into it? How easy is it to homebrew for? How well does it do dungeon crawling?

>>49450920
Spell balls are pretty simple. They're spells, which come in the form of balls, which you throw.

I guess you could go full Tower of Druaga and have them be golf balls, then have an apprentice/caddy pick out the right club for various situations.

http://towerofdruaga.wikia.com/wiki/Melt

>>49451779
https://youtu.be/u1TWzp9CZn0?t=20m30s for reference.

"The 3 rod!"

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=72346

Blackmoor originally had some interesting spell rules.

>The rest is the reason why, as opposed to Vancian magic, you can only ave 1 fireball spell, and 2 magic missile spells etc they had to mix time sensitive components for spells that lasted one day and had to be maintained (maybe keeping it with just enough drops of water per hour) and a high level magic user could maintain more spells per day, and prepare more, without the whole messing up (ie. a MU who tired to take two first level spells in day vs one at first would mess up both spells - too many things at once)

>>49451898
>Over the years I've read everything I could find on Dave's system (FFC, Adventures in Fantasy, VanGrasstek's Dungeon, etc). But, overall, there just isn't enough information available to actually run it. You'd need some sort of list of ingredients for each spells. I'm assuming that this existed at one point (and might have formed the basis of AD&D material components).

>There's also one other thing. Spells didn't have to be made by the magic-user in question, but could be purchased from other wizards. A superior wizard might even be able to make spells that could be used more than once (i.e. have 1d6 charges). In either case, the wizard is spending money (either to buy the spell or buy the ingredients) for every casting.

>There's also some information in the FFC about how many spells a given wizard could produce each month. For example, Ran of Ah Fooh has "a Spell Workshop that turns out one Level I Spell a week and one Level II Spell a month with one Level III Spell a year. These are portable but not reuseable with only a 15% failure rate."

>Finally, spells could also be found as treasure in dungeons. I suspect that this is where spell scrolls come from.

>It does appear that Gary felt Dave's system was a bit too complex (and would require too much space to explain properly) so he simply replaced all the component mixing stuff with Vance's idea of just memorizing the spell.

If I had a time machine but was only allowed to use it for frivolous shit, I'd definitely be all over studying that period.

Haven't played TTRPG's (there's no people interested in the area where i live) but i have a lot of interest, mostly i've read about 5e and the OSR movement.

What do you guys think of this idea?
playing an 5E adventure until making the party lose to an insurmountable evil, but doing so that in the final battle the setting (city, dungeon, etc) gets heavily damage beyond repair.
after that, getting the players into a OSR adventure that makes them discover some ruins of an ancient civilization... and by means of playing slowly making them realize that these are the ruins of the session they played before, eons ago, and they getting key items of their previous fallen PC's so they, one more time, can face evil once and for all...
the key being the 5E adventure more like high fantasy, golden era, and the subsequent OSR more gritty and barebones, like the difference between the ancient roman empire and the early dark ages.

Quick, you've got to write an OSR Cyberpunk game! Which game do you hack, or, if no game comes to mind, what kind of design ethos do you pursue, in addition to the regular OSR and DIY philosophy?

>>49452416
There is an OSR adventure somewhat like this, called Thulian Echoes. Check it out in the trove. I think your idea sounds good but basing it on the PCs losing and changing the style to OSR that quickly might be pretty jarring to the players, they'll probably feel that their freedom gets taken away.

>>49452446
I break out Stars Without Number and its cyberpunk sourcebook, then write my name over Kevin Crawford's.

>>49452517
(or Godbound, that has cybernetics rules (and crazy Exalted shit) (and theological engineering) (and broken shards of artificial heavens))

>>49429178
I ran for 9-11 people for a year.
I ran for parties of 6-8 people most of my gaming life.
Nowaday I run for 3-5 people though, cause most of the people have more important stuff to do.

It's not that hard. You just need serious, interested players and a caller. Serious doesn't mean they're not gonna make monty python joke and be your friends, just that they know when to shut up.

>>49452517
Yeah, SWN would be my first guess, I'm gonna think about that. Thank you for your anonymous approval.

>>49452536
>and a caller
This really matters and a lot of people just overlook the concept. Callers are good and cool, they're the interface between the party and the DM. They smooth things out, they organise, they stop people yelling quite so much. They're basically D&D NCOs.

>>49452558
Agreed. We usually have 3 roles for players.
The Caller, the Scribe (who takes notes of what happens on the players' side so they can remember what happened between session without having to be super dedicated at all times) and the Mapper (which I think is also a role from B/X).

>I have the unique experience of being the sole survivor of the first dungeon adventure in the history of "Dungeons & Dragons", indeed in the history of role playing in general. This is the story of that first dungeon adventure.

http://blackmoor.mystara.net/svenny.html

>On this particular weekend, Dave tried a new winkle for the game. He had been working all week to prepare a map of tunnels and catacombs under the town and especially under the castle.

>To begin the adventure an evil wizard, played by Jim Abler, and his pet balrog, played by John Soukup, did something to Baron Fant (Dave Fant), the Lord of Blackmoor at the time. I don't know exactly what they did, as I was playing one of the castle's guards, simply a man-at-arms in Chainmail with a shield and a sword. After doing his evil deed, the wizard fled into the dungeon under the castle which had apparently been abandoned for many years by the normal denizens of the castle. So, the Baron picked 30 of his men-at-arms and sent us to hunt down the wizard. Among the 30 men-at-arms there were six players, myself, Bill Heaton, Mel Johnson, Kurt Krey and two more whom I can't remember as I write this 30 years later.

>>49452628
>The Caller, the Scribe (who takes notes of what happens on the players' side so they can remember what happened between session without having to be super dedicated at all times) and the Mapper (which I think is also a role from B/X).
This sounds good. I might steal this idea even if I run a non-OSR game, just to take some of the load off my back as a GM.

If I can get my scribe-player to send me his notes after every session, and have the mapper give me pictures of all the maps he draws, then that's going to be very good.

Heh, maybe I could even get a co-DM to play monsters and enemies in combat. I've seen that happen before, and it can lead to some very unexpected developments.

>>49452416
>making the party lose to an insurmountable evil

Railroads are boring.

>>49452446
There are already two Black Hack-derived Cyberpunk games.

>>49452480
what about playing mostly in parallel the two campaigns, and subtly hint in the OSR one that they lose so they can reconsider their plans on the 5E campaign, days of future past style?
that could be a good way to make them change his fate.

>>49416600
>Too complicated?
In my opinion, yes, but I guess it depends on how crunchy you want combat to be, and how much time you're willing to waste in the process. Personally, I like people's actions to occur in an organic order, that way you don't end up with somebody getting disadvantaged by some technicality involved in turn order (where in real life, actions don't occur according to discrete units of time). I suppose that's more of a concern when you only roll initiative once and then stick to it, but the alternative--having to roll and reorder things every round--is cumbersome and obnoxious.

For this reason, I like team-based initiative. One side goes, and then the other. The only big drawback to this is how severely things can shift during the course of a single team's actions. In particular, it means that the team that goes first gets an enormous advantage. It can also make things feel a bit artificial, since the action isn't mixed up.

My solution is to have there be an initiative roll to see if you get to act on the first round. The easiest way to do this is to only have folks on Team A (the first team to act) make this check.* If you make it about a 50/50 chance, that should put the teams on roughly even footing. Half the people on Team A act, giving it an advantage of half a turn. Then all of the people on Team B act, giving it the advantage of half a turn (1 full turn for Team B minus half a turn for Team A = 1/2 turn). Then it comes back around to Team A, which gets a full turn, erasing Team B's 1/2 turn advantage, and putting it up 1/2 a turn. And so forth, back and forth.

*Also fair (assuming a roughly 50% chance of making a roll) is giving Team A the worst of two initiative rolls on their first turn, and Team B the better of two rolls. Of course this can result in some people on Team A acting twice before some people on Team B get to act at all.

>>49452416

I would play that.

>>49452966
>Railroads are boring.

Except when they're rollercoasters.

>>49453395
This lets the PCs to go in whatever order they want on their turn, allowing them to set things up more easily. They won't lose the ability to perform certain concerted actions just because their individual initiatives don't go in the right order.

And if you want things to seem more organic, you can institute the right of retaliation. Simply put, if you target somebody (or are, yourself targeted), the target can take their next turn immediately in response (skipping over their turn when their team is next up to bat, as they've already taken it). Thus, if you shoot your bow at a goblin, at the GM's discretion, the goblin gets to act immediately after you've resolved your attack. This is completely optional though. If you're attacked and you want to wait until your team is up to bat, that's your decision to make.

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Do you map out the areas where your dragons roam?

>>49454548
No, but I should. Time to go map out Europe's draconic ecosystem!

>>49454598
Post results later, anon!

Forsake your false editions, for only True AD&D is the OSR of record. These new "retro-clones" are infested by SJWs and must be purged. The rules of True AD&D are set in stone, set in time, firmly in the previous century. These rules are immutable. There are no house rules, only proper adjudication and interpretation of existing material.

Encyclopedia Magica contained items from all systems. This means that 2E recognizes all editions as part of its grand domain. In fact, there is no 2E, for this part of the header was dropped in 1995. True AD&D will save you from the SJWs but you must allow it to do so. Open your heart to True AD&D, and turn your (ass)cheeks to inferior false editions and retroclones.

For the gold and XP one earns in True AD&D is real. The more who worship True AD&D, the more powerful it becomes. It will grant you spells with sufficient worshipers. As it is within the game, so it is in life.

>>49455236
nah

>>49455342

Just hide dumb posts. Giving them (You)s is giving them the false impression that their post is interesting enough to comment on, and gives their existence some kind of meaning.

After a long, really succesful run, my first-time player finally ran into some disabling misfortune. Didn't kick it, but her character's arm shattered, and there's no real magical healing in the campaign as such. So now, the character is out of action for at least a couple of ingame months. This is a one-on-one game, so effectively that whole campaign is out of order for a few months.

Made me think of the possibility of trying something different. I've been toying with this idea of an urban campaign with more focus on thieving and suchlike. Probably in some sort of a big shithole city that's gone to the dogs and law and order have broken down. Not totally, but enough to make it a pretty wild and dangerous place. It'll likely still have dungeon crawling possibilities (catacombs and shit), but heists and the like would play a big part.

Not sure how well it would work, but I'm feeling pretty inspired. Does anyone have any experience with an urban-focused ODD/OSR campaign? It'd be a change of pace and offer a different kind of experience, so I'm intrested in seeing how it'd go.

Thinking of running an MCC adventure using the playtest rules available.

Put up a post on gamefinder if anyone wants to join >>49455918

>>49455948
>Discord

nope

>>49455461
>muh Lamentations of the Flame Princess

That's how you sound to me. GamerGate.

>>49455980
I don't prefer it but it seems that's what people use a lot. Open to suggestions from mature serious inquiries.

>>49455980

I added a disclaimer

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>>49456227
>>49456245
hai reddit

>>49456365

What's up your ass?

>>49456439
Discord seems to have insulted him in his safe space.

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Hope someone finds them useful!

>>49456634

Nice thanks anon

>>49456634
Nice! Thanks, anon. I'm going to post these over to the roll20 game that is up.

>>49456722
>>49456728

Please share them with your friends if you find them useful. Appreciate feed back or ideas too!

I've been looking for some sort of a satisfactory way to handle death in these games. I mean, death happens, it's just part of them, that's alright. It doesn't bother me that characters are expected to die now and then. The problem I have with it is that I've seen situations where that's basically it. Maybe everyone dies, or maybe one character actually had something going on and that arc just peters off in an unsatisfying way.

I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to get rid of that unsatisfying feeling of pointlessness. Some sort of framing or a mechanic or whatever that means you could still have stories and whatnot that don't have to end with "and then he got randomly killed. The end."

Again, I don't mean that I don't want characters to die. Risk vs reward and threat analyzation is an important part of these games, there's supposed to be an actual chance of failure. Otherwise there's no excitement there. Character should die if the situation goes that way. But I just feel it shouldn't amount to nothing.

The best I've come up with is basically framing it less as just the PCs, and more as a story of a larger organization or group. For example, the struggle of frontier settlers trying to build a town and survive, or whatever. That way, individual deaths might not be so pointless, since you're not looking at it from just that perspective.

Thoughts?

>>49456879
I can't say I've ever felt that way, perhaps i've never had an actual story in an OSR game outside of a small hook that gets characters to crawl the dungeon/place.
Do your players feel the same way? Are you sure you're playing the right game? The example you've given only seems like a temporary solution to your perceived problem. If all of the townsfolk die/get too low to stay sustainable, then the town doesn't get made, and could result in the very same pointless feeling you have now.

However this has got me thinking, if you ever have a handful of character you and your players actually like, a life-after-death session in some sort of limbo/etc place could be neat.

>>49457072

Losing as such isn't pointless. It's not that I don't think there shouldn't be a failure state for a game, a situation where you could go "yeah, this is done, we're done".

Rather, it's the fact that is you're doing sandboxy OSR stuff, there usually isn't one. I mean, if you just pour in new characters to replace old ones (which are going to get replaced often, let's be honest), it's going to result in these situations where pretty soon nobody who actually initiated some sort of a larger goal (Let's explore this dungeon, for example) is actually alive any more. The game goes on and all, but it's this weird situation where there's no reference point but the world itself, if that makes any sense.

I mean, that can be fine. You can have fun busting up a dungeon just as a tactical/puzzle/whatever gamey thing. But in an actual, larger campaign, I like to see something overarching that ties it together. I mean, evidently, there doesn't *need* to be, considering I've been playing this stuff for three years straight, both sides of the screen, but sometimes I start thinking about how it would maybe be nice and reduce the frustration of a bad streak.

So, what I'm getting at is that the pointlessness doesn't come from losing as such. It comes from losing in a way that basically means everything's back down to zero. That's fine as a bigger thing, something that ends the campaign or at least drastically changes things up, but when it's basically a constant process, you sometimes start to wonder about what exactly the point is, in a long-running campaign.

>>49456879

I've always had a contingency plan for TPK which is an epic adventure back out of the underworld. Failing that, don't make the game so dependent on individual characters. I almost always start my campaigns with very little individual character backstory and progress them through things where they get a chance to develop their character naturally. I try to keep track of the random threads that PCs make though so that I can develop those things into points of interest for them later. Players want to be the main character of their own story, but at the same time it's a bit ridiculous to expect a GM to memorize and incorporate 2+ page long backstory's into the game organically. So I feel the method I try to follow is a middle ground between the two.

>>49457168
I may have misunderstood, I'm
>>49457180


I get your question now. That's a good point and my best answer would be that the impatice is on the players to make characters that fit into the story and then your job would be to iron the rough edges. If it genuinely feels like the players themselves don't have any interest in the main quest after losing multiple characters then maybe it's just time for a change of genre/flavor.

>>49457224

Impetus* fug

>>49457180
Oh, trust me, there's no backstory. Actually coming up with an elaborate backstory for an OSR character is pretty much self-flagellation. Most of them are going to die pointlessly. And yeah, that's how it's supposed to go.

The problem, like I said above, is that when every character is changing, it kind of kills continuity. Some character survives longer, gets something going on, and then... dies. That's basically it. Sure, something they did might have impact, but it can get frustrating.

Ultimately, OSR stuff basically is stories about the world, not about the characters. The characters can impact the world, but the world isn't there for them. That's fine. It's what results from how the game plays out. I guess I'd just like for the players to have a more fixed, overarching point in the *world*, something that's not going to go away and also feels somewhat personal. Not just the character, which can be a very, very brief existence.

Something like an actual organization they're furthering through these characters, some faction. To me, that seems like something they could actually rely on not ending up dead. At least not nearly as quickly as individual members of that faction.

File: kingdom.jpg (618KB, 1187x775px) Image search: [Google]

618KB, 1187x775px

>>49456879
>That way, individual deaths might not be so pointless, since you're not looking at it from just that perspective.
This is generally the way to go - for traditional fantasy games, you can try to establish the PCs as part of a larger organization or group. An adventurer's guild, company, or fraternity is cliche but fills this purpose admirably.

Alternately, you can try to start with the domain game from day 1. Most OSR settings imply some sort of magical post-apocalypse (isolated pockets of civilization hemmed in by ruins full of treasure), so a "frontier settler" model isn't bad either - PCs are all part of a group of settlers trying to make it in the borderlands.

AD&D's Birthright setting does this, although in more of a formal kingdom vs. kingdom sort of way. Wolfpacks & Winter Snow has this pretty implicit in the rules as well, you clear caves (essentially dungeons) for human habitation, then attract tribe members which eventually causes you to outgrow your cave, requiring you to find a bigger cave... etc.

>>49456879
I've seen this problem in non-OSR games too. The starting PCs all die to their own bad decisions and the will of the dice-gods, then the campaign gets trashed in a wave of somber butthurt.

I think it's just an issue that arises from the possibility of character death in games being determined by RNG.

>>49445377
I suspect people leave out Clerics because most sword-and-sorcery fantasy doesn't really feature a Judeo-Christian warrior brotherhood, and it takes a lot of reskinning to get the Catholic/Knights Templar varnish off the Cleric; he's much more specific than the Thief.

>>49451821
Now I gotta steal this guy for an NPC party. "Traveling wizard and his wand caddy" sounds like a hilarious encounter.

>>49457168
It sounds like your issue is more with lack of direction in a sandbox game. The easiest solution I have to that is just tell your players, "we're going to play in this setting for x sessions," before play starts. That way you and the players can prepare for an actually ending/last hurrah.

It's also okay to establish that, should everyone be feelin' it, the group can try agree on another finite amount of sessions to keep playing.

>>49458145
Concept-wise I prefer the idea of clerics more like divine magic-users without the martial training, and leave the "armored holy warrior" shtick to fighters and maybe paladins.

>>49456879
>>49458114
I'd say for TPK scenarios - consider a new party in a different part of the campaign world. Or alternately, have them start some time after the old party (if the old party did anything of note, at least), and portray the consequences that resulted from the dead party's actions. This gives players a sense of "hey, we made a difference".

Obviously this works less well if the party gets eaten by giant rats on day 1, but in the case of a TPK for a group that's accomplished a bunch this gives a bit more closure.

File: cavalier.jpg (2MB, 1200x2809px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1200x2809px

>>49458327
>clerics more like divine magic-users without the martial training
In that case yeah, you'd leave out the cleric class and just use a Magic-User with a different spell list instead (or a class like the ACKS Priest).

I do think your point is very good though, any game that has warrior Clerics should not have Paladins; they occupy too similar a space conceptually.

Non D&D video game RPGs (including World of Warcraft) have probably also been somewhat influential in re-shaping what people think of as "Paladins" and "Priests" as well - Warcraft Paladins are much more similar to D&D Clerics.

New thread: >>49458612

I know this one isn't dead quite yet, but I have to sleep sometime anons.

>>49455236
>True AD&D
belongs in the trash.

>2E
then, set fire to the trash.

>>49460065

Come on now, you're taking 8 hour old bait, and that's not even the real True AD&D guy.
Get it together, anon.

>>49422671
>that pic

I've wanted to run a campaign set inside a city-sized giant robot ala Dragonmech. Basically the PCs can hop on board the mech as it crosses its route across the desert and use it to hitch a ride to different ruins. The tangled web of corridors and buildings inside the giant robot can serve as a sort of dungeon crawl of their own