/osrg/ OSR General - Expensive Hat Edition

Torchbearer (is that eaven OSR?): My richest party had a total of one shitty necklace. Due to my missunderstanding of the rules and some lucky rolls, the Dwarf magicly managed to trade it for a plate armor. I guess i'll DM some more and come back.

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Maps. Dark Sun Campaign Setting boxed set, original.

>>50009629
Not OSR, but generally accepted as OSR adjacent.

I like it, but there's 0 chance I'll convince my players to learn the rules for a resource management game.

>>50010374

IMO as long as the GM has a firm grasp of the rules (and they rulebook can be quit unclear sometimes), the players just have to understand the basics.

>>50010543
But the basics in torchbearer are huge even compared to something like DCC. With any D&D variant I could take their sheets away and just tell them what to roll, but in Torchbearer they need to keep counting marks and knowing how to use them, understand the traits and the camp phase, get the rock/paper/scissor combat.

It's inherently more metagamey than D&D, and you can't play effectively that metagame if you don't understand the rules.

>>50010650
Yeah, Torchbearer's an intentionally crunchy game that the players have to put effort into learning.

That character sheet, though.

Good 1-session modules?

>>50010845
also, something that's not tower of the stargazer please, we've already played that one

>>50010845
Death Frost Doom, House of Rogat Demazien, The God that Crawls, start to make your megadungeon so your players can make one-session expeditions into that, why would you need closure after each session if you have a stable group?

>>50010845
I'm dming Bride of the black manse at my halloween party. It's a 4 hour module with a lot of praise. I read it and it's awesome.

>>50010989
Death Frost Doom might be a little tight for one session, especially if the characters are as carefull as they're supposed to be.

God that Crawls is awesome and doesn't get nearly as much love as it deserves.

>>50010845
I personally get little joy from finishing a module. In fact, the few times I rounded up a module because we were through all the material it was kind of an anticlimax. Maybe it's just my DM-ing, but we had way more fun figuring out our way through some underground lair and being surprised with all the twist and turns that came along with it. I guess it's a classic example of how the journey is enjoyed more than the destination. If you feel this might be the case for your group as well, try out Keep on the Borderlands: it's a dungeon crawl sandbox with lost of stuff to work with. There's not a real ending to it, just many sessions with worthwhile exploration.

Does a book/pdf collection of puzzles for dungeons exist? The way that Grimtooth is a collection of traps?

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Introducing a guy to tabletop. He's excited. All he knows of RPGs is from computer gaming.

Do I use LotFP or DCC as an intro?

>>50013205
>do I invite him into airbrushed wizard van, or creepy rape van?

Always go with the airbrushed wizard van.

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>>50013264
Gotta agree.

>>50013205

LotFP is easier to learn. I'd go with that.

>>50013264
The airbrushed wizard van is DCC, but you could also just go with B/X, that's good too. Less silliness. It's still an airbrushed wizard van, but it's one that's been around a few decades and treated well, but worked hard. The wizard is unironically wearing 80s hair because it was painted in the 80s, not because "that's what an airbrushed wizard van should look like."

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Speaking of DCC, anyone got a copy of Tower of the Black Pearl #79.5?

Bumparoni

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Maps.

Dark Sun boxed set, The Ivory Triangle

What's your consideration on determining whether to roll a saving throw or some ability check? I tend to use ability checks for active player actions and saving throw for passive ones. Does anyone else do this differently?

>>50016886
I'm not too fond of rolling for ability checks in general, to be honest! Roll-under-stat has a tendency to make raw stats extremely important, way more important than IMO something static that's randomly generated at character generation should be. They're also, well, static - you can't really have an easy or hard check without fucking everything up due to the swinginess of stats. (Seriously, roll-under-stat makes stats literally twice as important as they were in 3E. Except even more so, since there's no skill bonuses and the DCs are static.)
Attribute bonuses are better but, well, runs into the whole issue of "rollplaying" where you leave stuff to the dice rather than relying on player expertise.

So it's a question of challenging the player vs. challenging the character, really, and I'm more in the former camp.


As for saving throws, that's just giving them an out from bad stuff if they fucked up. Ain't exactly something complicated, although things start to get a bit hairy once you have really specific categories and try to shoe-horn other stuff into them. I think some BECMI thing had you roll vs. paralyzation to avoid being disarmed? And there's the old classic of saving vs. (turn to) Stone to avoid a cave-in, of course, or rolling vs. Wand for various dodging stuff.

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https://www.docdroid.net/FrxCKOl/ruinations.pdf.html

Can I get some feedback on my homebrew Ruinations?

>>50013205
No. Just no.

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>>50016886
Saving throws scale with experience, and ability checks do not. I usually differentiate between both on the basis of "does the character's past experience matter more in this situation, or does his raw ability matter more?"

For a trap it's often the former - more experienced adventurers gain better saving throws and better HP, representing their improved ability at resisting or avoiding things that would outright kill a less experienced character.

For a lot of reasons I also tend to prefer using rolls that depend on experience scaling stats, because the bonuses for raw talent are already built into most relevant areas already (charisma for reaction rolls, attack bonus for strength, etc.).

Rolling directly on your raw attributes I feel is generally very rare, mostly for situations where experience doesn't apply at all.

>>50017882
So do people ever run one shots from here for people interested in OSR but don't have an OSR group?

>>50018354

There was an osrg roll20 thing that ran a couple times recently. I missed the second one, but it's pretty fun.

>>50017414
>Cutting someone's neck with a butter knife
She doesn't fuck around

>>50017414
Name change?

>>50019146
Yeah. The other was a little too meh.

I wanna run a post apocalyptic game and I'm realizing OD&D may not be the system for it, my players wouldn't want to use retainers and I'm not a big fan of them either, and I don't like all the races like halflings and all that that make it feel Tolkien and all that stuff, what do I do? Start making a homebrew? the problem is I really like the way OD&D plays and handles dungeon crawling and other games don't really do that.

Should I check out Gamma World or Metamorphosis Alpha? Or something like White Hack that I can fit to my needs?

>>50022978
Man, trying to play a post-apoc game with od&d and don't even bothering to change the name of the classes is really low effort.

>>50022978
The races aren't really necessary - just have everyone be human by default. (Note also that hobbits are explicitly optional in OD&D - they suck ass, but are included 'just in case anyone wants to play one'.)

Once those are removed, you've mostly excised the Tolkien elements as-is.

Of course, now the question is "what kind of post-apocalyptic setting are you after?"

Do you want something Fallout-esque, where it's all ordinary humans and sci-fi tech? Mad Max, where it's just ordinary humans in a desolated wasteland? Zombie movies, where the world itself is pretty much intact except civilization has fallen apart? Dying Earth, where you've got fantasy stuff but everything is irrevocably fucked forever and you've passed the golden age into a great decline?

The last one is basically what you get if you run OD&D by-the-book, by the way - probably because that style of Black Death-esque setting is great for adventuring in. Note the mass amounts of bandits, the negligent-at-best castle rulers, and the extremely dangerous encounter rates. Oh, and the buried ancient magical ruins and treasures.

Hell, you might notice how a lot of official settings are post-apocalyptic in some way or another - there's a ton of ancient hypermagical Rome-esque empires that have crumbled and left behind ruins and treasure for the Visigoths to loot.


Also, OD&D really requires retainers and it's not like post-apoc stuff isn't often about having a band of survivors, either. Retainers (or henchmen in OD&D, IIRC? The specific term gets swapped a lot in various editions) are backup characters, a force multiplier that makes it so you can actually fight above your weight class, a big group which makes each individual person safer since it's more unlikely that everyone dies to a medusa or that (with Chainmail/AD&D-esque random combat targeting) someone gets focus-fired, and also have the glorious distinction of letting you carry more loot and thus both give an overall experience boost.

>>50023371
It can be a post-apoc fantasy game, anon.

>>50022978
Take a look at Sine Nomine's Other Dust, it's a post-apoc rendition of basic D&D (with added rules for skills, mutations, starvation and radiation poisoning, equipment degradation, repair & construction, and related stuff). Feels pretty close to Gamma World and Fallout.

Maybe it's too crunchy for you, but it can be mined for ideas. It also gives strong support for sandbox play style.

>>50017414
I thoroughly enjoy your game. I made my own personal changes to guns but everything else is very nice. I like that some gear is a bonus to saves and so forth.

>>50022978
See
>>50017414

>>50022978
Play Gamma World, nigga. 1st edition is basically that, man. Even if you don't like that particular setting, it's a fuck ton easier to homebrew into something post-apocalyptic.

Has anyone come up with a way to incorporate the chainmail man-to-man table into OD&D properly? I get that it's a holdover from Arneson first describing his games to Gygax, and from what I've read Gary devised the alternative d20 system to use for his own campaign.

I love the way the table means that there's a purpose to using different weapons against certain armour types, seeing as by the book with all weapons doing d6 damage there's no reason to pick a two-handed sword over a dagger (obviously the GM can make their own judgements such as reach and space required and whatnot, but there's nothing written down).

I like the idea of playing OD&D with just d6s (would have to do something about saving throws too but that's easy enough to swap out), but I can't grasp how you'd use the chainmail man-to-man table when you factor in levels of combatants, or fighting vs. creatures that don't actually wear a type of armour.

>>50024780
What were your gun changes, out of curiosity? I'm always looking for ways to improve it.

What's the best one ?

>>50025789
>I like the idea of playing OD&D with just d6s (would have to do something about saving throws too but that's easy enough to swap out),
You would only need to generalize the "save vs. fireball/lightning bolt": for example, a hero needs 9+ on 2d6 to avoid being killed by a fireball. Also, think of the morale roll as a save. vs fear.

>but I can't grasp how you'd use the chainmail man-to-man table when you factor in levels of combatants,
The most straightforward way is to use hit dice as hit points. Heroes have 4 HD, so you need to hit them 4 times to kill them. So a 4-HD hero and a 1-HD soldier equipped with the same weapon and armor would have the same chance to hit each other, but the soldier would be killed by the first hit.

Also, creatures with high HD could cause multiple HD od damage on sufficiently-low HD oponents (Empire of the Petal Throne does this; a 4-HD character causes 2d6 of damage - thus 2 HD - on opponents of up to 1 HD, to be spread out on a cleave-like attack).


>or fighting vs. creatures that don't actually wear a type of armour.
You could use approximations based on the creature skin; e.g. a dragon would be plate, a troll could be chain or plate, an ogre would be leather or chain. Large creatures could be considered +Shield to account for larger reach.

Or you could add columns to the table based on creature categories (dragon, giant humanoids, giant insects, incorporeal undead, and so on).

Magical weapons could give +1 to the 2d6 attack roll, and/or increase the number of HD of damage. A dragon-slaying spear could function as an ordinary spear except against dragons, treating them as "no armor" and causing 1 additional HD of damage.

>>50025789
>I like the idea of playing OD&D with just d6s
I'm in the middle of making a houserule pdf for this. It will be only for combat at least for now. Saving throws are easy to do with 3d6.

>>50025789
>but I can't grasp how you'd use the chainmail man-to-man table when you factor in levels of combatants, or fighting vs. creatures that don't actually wear a type of armour.
It's much easier to just scrap the man-to-man from Chainmail. It's way too clunky and has too many anomalies to be workable.

In my model melee combat is simultaneous and each creature rolls a number of d6s equal to their HD or fighting capability during a round of melee. Once the dice are on the table, "tactical" decisions can be made. E.g. if you're wielding a sword you can choose to spend any die showing 5 or 6 to parry an incoming hit. As you get more levels and more dice you have more options at your disposal. Different weapons have varying chances to parry and riposte. Some weapons have special effects that can be triggered with dice showing 6.

My goal is to have two systems both using the same armor classifications, one for man-to-man and skirmish and one for mass combat.

>>50027097
Remember that you're mapping a linear probability distribution onto a bell curved one.

For instance rolling 2d6 isn't the same as 1d12, since you're adding the sum of the two d6's giving you more likelihood of certain combinations than others.

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>>50027327
Yeah, the probability distribution of 3d6 more closely resembles that of a d8 or a d10 than a d20.

>>50027865
Oh, cool. It's still possible, you just get really whacky translations. Leveling up and changing your chance to succeed with a roll gets weird with 3d6, since you're moving on a bell curve. As long as you have the same probability it should still give the expected results, however.

>>50027327
Yeah, that's a given. The saving throw table needs some modifications to work with 3d6.

>>50028041
While an exact comparison depends on where you are on the 3d6 bell curve, generally speaking, a +1 bonus on a 3d6 roll is worth about a +2 bonus on a d20.

>>50028069
Still, I really like the idea of using more d6. Feels more elegant somehow.

>>50025789
From what I've been able to tell, it wasn't ever really meant to be used in OD&D - Arneson used it in the beginning, I think, but somewhat quickly (and repeatedly?) went over to other systems. Lots of experimenting behind the curtain.

The bits of the playtest document that were publicized make it look like the "intended" use of Man-To-Man in OD&D was just, well, using the weapon class and initiative rules with the Alternate Combat System table.

Now, if you actually want to use the Man-To-Man table with levels mattering there's an easy solution to that - Fighting Capability. A Curate fights as three men with +1 on one of the rolls, for instance. Monsters fight as a number of men equal to their hit dice, as written in volume two - also, just to round things out, IIRC monsters that appear in the hundreds are supposed to be non-fantastic.

The problem, then, comes with Fantastic Combat - fighting the stuff that doesn't have armor, like dragons or balrogs or ents. Here's where the Fantastic Combat Table comes in, with its associated rules. Unfortunately it's pretty fiddly and requires you to make new lines for any new monsters you want to add (or even the non-chainmail LBB monsters!), but that's what you get when you abandon the ACS' more generic armor class system.

You also need to adjudicate on whether or not non-Heroes can even fight on the FCT, of course.

>>50028382
Chainmail is great inspiration but using it straight up as written is asking for trouble and frustration.

>>50028442
The initiative system seems perfectly usable, at least, as well as the general rules for terrain and mass combat in general.

It's just a little bit funky when you try to use man-to-man in its entirety with OD&D and end up with one guy making ten attacks and then the second guy making forty. You can really see why AD&D made multiple attacks get split up over the round - a guy with three attacks attacking before everyone else, on their initiative, and after everyone else, for instance.

Also, funnily enough, you kind of need Chainmail for some small important details - Wizards having to stand still and not be meleed in order to cast spells, for instance.

>>50028531
Mass combat in Chainmail is indeed surprisingly well designed and quick to use. It's pretty much the only one of the three combat systems that are worth porting over as is.

I think TSR made a big mistake when the d20 ACS was made the default for man-to-man combat. It completely misses the opportunity to use HD as number of attacks.

>>50028691
Eh, it's based off of Man-to-Man since that actually gives you some time between attacks by splitting it up into rounds - if you just use the mass combat rules, fights suddenly get much deadlier for the players as they often can't run away once caught in melee. That's alright in a wargame, as is the one-hit-kill thing, but it's not necessarily something you want for an RPG.

The entire ACS system is kind of modeled after the Fantasy Combat subsystem, really.

>>50028531
>>50028691
I've been tinkering with the way chainmail combat works in relation to OD&D. I've found that using the mass combat system is actually amazing even on a 1:1 scale to quickly handle hirelings, mercenaries, and others skirmishing in the background of the fight. I've run massive company-level fights that way, with the PCs leading a couple dozen mercenaries into a cultist lair and that sort of thing. It lets you handle fights in a way that would be impractical rolling out with the traditional combat system. Also, letting people throw handfuls of d6s as their attacks and mopping up buckets of goons drives home the "heroic" aspect of higher level play very well.

Man to Man is amazing as well, because it overcomes the chief issue I've had in higher-level D&D play for me. Two name-level fighters throwing down should be an epic clash of wills. A furious exchange, rather than a slow widdling down of respective HP. The Man-to-Man thing lets you throw a bunch of attacks based on your combat ability, which makes the whole thing seem much faster and more deadly.

Not chainmail RAW, but it wouldn't be hard to then declare that you could divide up that pool of Man-to-Man dice into attack and defense, if you wanted more nuanced play.

The only thing I find completely borked and unusable is the Fantasy Combat Table.

>>50028893
>Not chainmail RAW, but it wouldn't be hard to then declare that you could divide up that pool of Man-to-Man dice into attack and defense, if you wanted more nuanced play.
...So something like the existing man-to-man parry mechanics?

i.e.
>If your weapon is 2+ longer than the opponent's, you can't parry.
>If your weapon is +1 longer to -3 shorter, you can give up your attack to give 'em a -2 to-hit penalty.
>If your weapon is -4 to -7 shorter, you can either get the first attack OR parry for -2 - if you parry and their roll equals the original hit number, your weapon breaks, but if your parry is successful you get a counterattack. You also get two attacks period.
>If your weapon is -8 shorter, you get the first blow and can parry with -1 and the breakage rule. Parrying does not use up an attack, I don't think. You also get three attacks per round.

The advantage of longer weapons being that you'll hit first on the turn entering combat (pikes, spears and lances always winning on charges) and generally have a better hit chance - since this is a one-hit-kills system, this works alright.

I imagine that it'll need readjusting for use in D&D, since hit points change everything.

>>50029088
Man-to-man's parry rules are ridiculous. For example you can't parry attacks from a dagger with a spear.

It would be damn hard for a dagger wielder to make successful attacks while being at the receiving end of a long spear.

>>50029088
>>If your weapon is 2+ longer than the opponent's, you can't parry.
Depending on how much difference this actually is, it seems incredibly .. well. Not unrealistic so much as false.

I can take a spear and parry a sword. I can take a staff and parry a dagger. The only things that really couldn't parry are either weapons that are so long they aren't meant for individual combat (pikes, mounted lances) or when you're in a situation where your weapon is so much lighter than the opponents it can't get the leverage (a dagger can parry thrusts from all manner of one-handed swords and daggers just fine. It will be significnatly more difficult to deflect a zweihander being swung at you).

Just a reminder that the open table game today is starting now. Message Stagehand on Discord or Roll20 for an invite.

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Can I get a rec for a decent post-apocalyptic 'dungeon' crawl? One that isn't ASE.

>>50030133
Just refluff some of the fantasy ones.
Like, turn The Tower Of The Stargazer into, um... The Silver Well Of The Mole Man!
And instead of being kept alive by magic, he's stuck in a Mr. House-style capsule.

>>50030133
S3 Expedition to The Barrier Peaks?

>>50030133

Is this in response to my question earlier? this is exactly what I'm looking for

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If you're >>50022978
then I recommend this guy right here using either Labyrinth Lord as intended (for fantasy post-apoc) or Mutant Future (for gonzo post-apoc)

I've run it myself with my LotFP/Mutant Future homebrew Ruinations and we had a kickass time, all in all.

>>50030933
Labyrinth Lord was intended for fantasy post-apoc games?
Where has that been stated? I'm just genuinely curious.

>>50031008

he means the module is intended to be run with Labyrinth Lord

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>>50031008
what he >>50031023 said.

ASE takes the standard fantasy classes and puts a post-apoc twist on them, via the module. It's pretty rad and sating my gonzo love until MCC is released.

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Opinions on DESU?

>>50031163
S'alright. It does some neat stuff, but it goes a bit too far off the reservation for me to enjoy it as a proper OSR game. Might be fun for one-shots though

>>50031163

It's pretty popular, SENPAI.

>>50026271
LotFP

Seeing as this thread was pointed out to me when I was asking about Empire of the Petal Throne, I was wondering if anyone here knew where to find scans of books for it.

>>50026101
I'm not too fancy. Just some extra damage here and there. D8 is now 2d4 and so on. Some do exploding damage. I'm a simple man.

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>>50029851
Thanks to everyone who made it out this time - was good fun!

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Anyone interested in 'Crawling Under a Broken Moon' for DCC, I finally have the collected issues 1-16, Character Sheet, and the High Calibre Hijinx issue.

>Basement Nintendo 64

aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56LyMhUkVraTJKUlMhdGN6MDdMMXZ0TmtjMXJmWTBMUjJRbkhkZkpRR0o3TF9ydlJBTENwWTllWQ==

>>50032492
Holy shit, those falling rules really are insane. I should really get to reading AD&D.

>>50031163
I haven't played it, only read it but it looks really cool.
As >>50031261 said it might work best when you don't need or want to bother with a more crunchy system.

>>50032735
It's actually in Unearthed Arcana, which is a collection of alternate rulings and houserules.

>>50033280
Most of Unearthed Arcana is simply Gary Gygax's Official Rules Additions from Dragon Magazine, collected and loosely organized.

They are Official Rules, but only if one runs them from Gygax's articles in themselves, with no extraneous Kim Mohan editorializing. This means that the cavalier and barbarian are not classes, since they are Experimental.

>>50026340
>Heroes have 4 HD, so you need to hit them 4 times to kill them.
Keep in mind that they need to sustain four *simultaneous* hits in a turn to be killed in mass combat/man-to-man; unlike most of the monsters they don't have a pool of hits that gets depleted, just a fixed threshold. Heroes and superheroes are stupidly resilient in Chainmail.

Personally, I wouldn't translate this to "four hits in one round" in D&D, since the turns in Chainmail most closely correspond to D&D's exploration turns and not the combat rounds; instead perhaps a regeneration of one hit/d6 HP per ten rounds for each level would be the best solution. (E.g. a level 5 Fighting-Man regenerates 5 hits / 10 rounds or one every other round; a 3rd-level Fighting Man 3/10, and so forth.)

>>50031562
In the Trove, under TSR -> OD&D -> Modules.

>>50032711
thanks

Do you guys run with 0 hp = dead?

>>50033280
The revised falling rules are more clearly laid out in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, which also limits falling damage to 20d6 (10d6 if falling over a waterfall, which I think might be meant to mean into water), just like the DMG, so the picture in >>50032492 is wrong where it says 43d6 and 53d6.

>>50034791
0 hp = fatally wounded

Succumbs to death after 30 minutes at 0 hp without healing or aid. Players can choose to recover 1 hp at any time by giving their character a permanent injury. I've a chart of some examples I use, but for the most part I let my players decide the injury and the penalty, which I then vet. This is a sort of last-ditch effort to keep your character alive and playable when the party isn't going to be able to get them to safety or heal them in time.

>>50031562
>>50034488
I tossed a bunch of EPT stuff in it's own folder as well. It was, at one point, it's own game. It is currently in both _inbox and under 06_Other Oldschool

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general OSR babby

thinking of trying out first edition. any tips before I dive in? recommended modules?

>>50036813
My tip: play B/X instead because it's actually a coherent set of rules ready to be used as is.

>>50036820
Don't listen to this loser, >>50036813, anything with race-as-class isn't worth playing.

My advice would be to play 2e with the XP for gold optional rules on (and without story and individual XP bonuses), and any other rules you feel like forward-porting from 1e (such as the weapon-vs-AC table). Also remember that 1e supplements are essentially fully compatible with 2e, barring a few minor changes.

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>>50036878
>anything with race-as-class isn't worth playing

Them's fighting words, boy!

>>50036951
Look, even TSR gave it up as a bad idea.

so 1e has nothing going for it?

>>50036784
Thanks a lot anon!

>>50037005
1e's weapon-vs-AC table gives you a much more detailed view of how each weapon fares against each AC (when 1E was first released there was only one way of getting to each AC, UA screwed with that by introducing new armour types), compared to 2e's three weapon damage categories (Slashing, Piercing, and Blunt). Notably, using that table actually gives you a reason to use a 2H sword, which are otherwise hugely overshadowed by all other swords.

The reason to use 2e over 1e is that 2e is more clearly laid out and edited. Gygax tried to imitate Jack Vance when he was writing 1e, so it's a bit harder to parse in some places.

The best way to run AD&D is to use 2e as a base (for ease of reference), and drop in bits from 1e that you like (such as the Dungeoneer's and Wilderness Survival Guides). Almost nobody runs any TSR edition exactly as written, they drop rules in from all over the place.

If you're coming in from newer editions, it might be easier to think of there only being three TSR editions (OD&D, AD&D, and BD&D), and the gradations inside them as more similar to the differences between 3.0 and 3.X than those between, say, 3.X and 4. Even then, it's easier to move material between the TSR editions than it is to move it between the WotC editions.

>>50037005
It has some things going for it. The problem with it is that it's a convoluted mess. It's written by Gygax after all and it's widely known that he simply couldn't write coherent rules. It's not a good game if used RAW.

Whereas B/X for example is very clearly laid out and easy to follow. Basic D&D is also much more abstract in nature than the simulationist AD&D.

If you want to have detailed (and broken in many cases) but convoluted combat rules and other rules aimed at simulationist gamers then go ahead and choose AD&D. Otherwise Basic does everything better in terms of smooth gameplay.

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>>50037051
>when 1E was first released there was only one way of getting to each AC
But that's not true.

>>50037156
Man, I always thought it was UA that broke that table, but I guess it was conceptually busted from the beginning. Should have had it by armour.

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>>50036878
While AD&D does give you more options, Basic is a better product for the stuff it covers. AD&D adds a bunch of unnecessary bullshit and restrictions. It's an expansion, for sure, but one of lower quality than the thing it expands. Whether the trade-off is worth it depends on your priorities, I suppose, but starting with Basic does make some sense, even if you want to move on to AD&D (essentially playing the core game before the expansion).

>anything with race-as-class isn't worth playing.
Race-as-class is perfectly legitimate, especially within the context of a streamlined game like Basic. With 4 human classes and a human-centric setting, it makes sense for each of the 3 demihuman races to have its own class. And even if I think that dwarves and halflings could stand to be a bit more differentiated from fighters, the demihumans are still more iconic as their own classes. You don't just get class X with pointy ears and the ability to see in the dark. With that said, if race-as-class is what you're hung up on, you can play something like Basic Fantasy, which is Basic with ascending AC and separated race and class.

>>50036994
>Look, even TSR gave it up as a bad idea
Rules Cyclopedia Basic still had race-as-class and coexisted with 2e. It wasn't until WotC took over that race-as-class was tossed out.

>>50037005
>so 1e has nothing going for it?
It's got more creative energy than 2e, and is a good source for ideas (especially the DMG). It's kind of all over the place, but it's closer to foundations of D&D.

>>50037230
>Rules Cyclopedia Basic still had race-as-class and coexisted with 2e.
I was referring to the GAZ supplement line, which started offering more classes for the core races.

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>>50037186
Would've worked fine in Basic, though it obviously would've been out of step with the simplicity of the system. Honestly, I think having 10 different modifiers for each weapon depending on the situation is a bit obnoxious in any case, and I'd much rather have something simpler, even if that means unrealistically generalizing in some cases.

>>50037254
Expansions are expansions. Skills and Powers added all sorts of fiddly stuff for 2e that I wouldn't say was part of the care game.

>>50037271
The problem with doing that is you lose the big bonus of 2h swords over longswords, unless you make them C instead of S.

>>50037281
You could always up their damage. I think the move to 2d6 damage was actually a good one.

>>50037274
I'd still argue that it represents somebody at TSR realising that RaC is a shit concept for shit people. But maybe I'm just biased.

For 1e I would hint to take a look at Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion or perhaps Swords & Wizardry Complete. Gygax' AD&D are the worst edited rule books I have. The DMG has nevertheless some independently useful tables.

>>50037294
If I were adding a significant amount of new material for Basic, I would probably introduce additional race-classes for demihumans. But I don't think that's an admission that the basic concept is flawed anymore than introducing new spells indicates that the magic system is bad.

>>50037271
These type of tables always fail horribly when monsters and magical beings come into play. What about small but fast creatures that have 2 AC because they're hard to damage owing to their great speed and dexterity? Why does a sword have a higher chance to damage foes like that than a mace or a spear?

The more I mull over the question of weapon differentiation the more inclined I am to just scrap the whole idea of weapons being different mechanics-wise. D&D combat is highly abstract anyway. When it comes to 2-handed weapons it wouldn't even make sense to go into a dungeon with one. Polearms are meant to be used by cohesive and drilled units on the battlefield, not by single adventurers in dark dungeons.

In my opinion variable weapon damage is an oddity created by Gygax that goes against the spirit of D&D.

>>50037379
They work much better when it's weapon vs armour type, not weapon vs AC.

>>50037379
>Why does a sword have a higher chance to damage foes like that than a mace or a spear?
Brainfart. Replace 'sword' with 'mace'.

I'm going to GM Tower of the Stargazer at a con. Any tips? It's my first con. I set the duration at 4 hours.

-I'm thinking about having a backup dungeon prepared for the possibility that they release the wizard. Which would suck but it could happen.
-I'll give out pregens since generating takes too long for players new to a system.
-If they die I'll let them rejoin with another pregen. I don't think there will be that many interested players here in Germany.
-I'll use LotFP and the module as written. Not even using my own house rules. I don't think it's appropriate for a con.

>>50037379
>Why does a sword have a higher chance to damage foes like that than a mace or a spear?
Because it's easier to make contact with a sword. You're swing it in an arc rather than thrusting at one particular point, and it's more agile because the weight isn't concentrated at the end. With that said, I don't think there is any pressing need to differentiate weapons this way.

>>50037386
How do you represent highly evasive characters with armor types then? Or you don't and just use the table only against man-like creatures?

>>50037401
>Brainfart. Replace 'sword' with 'mace'.
Oh, well a mace shouldn't get an advantage in that case. A creature with a good AC due to being small and dodgy rather than being well-armored should be treated like an unarmored target, not a target in heavy armor.

>>50037428
Give them a size- or speed-based AC bonus as part of their stat block. You know, like the Dex AC bonus PCs get?

>>50037440
Well, that's one way to do it. I don't think adding all this complexity makes the game any better though. It's just more stuff to keep track of without adding much to the actual gameplay.

>>50037525
It depends on whether or not you think that weapon selection is important.

What should I read to get up to speed with all this weapons vs AC stuff?

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>>50037557
There really isn't that much to look at. There's this table in the 1e PHB, and a small section on optional rules in the 2e DMG. I wouldn't get within a mile of either. The 1e version adds a bunch of extra clutter to the game, and the 2e version dramatically rebalances weapons (making slashing weapons suck).

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>>50037571
Here's the 2e table. Note that, for whatever reason, they decided to make a "+2" indicate a disadvantage for the attacker, rather than the other way around.

>>50037557
Bear in mind that incorporating weapon vs. AC mechanics into your game will introduce anomalies and silly edge cases unless they're countered with additional rules amendments and complexity.

>>50037402
I think a good idea will be preparing some more pregens because even with the Calcidius out, clever players have a great chance to set up a trap for him. It's quite metagamey, but in one of my games one of the retainers fucked off to the village and brought new characters as the rest of the crew who were supposedly investigating rumors of another dungeon.

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By the way, anyone used this subsystem for dueling from 2e Combat & Tactics? Looks interesting. Here are the basics.

"At the beginning of each round of a duel, the attacker and defender both secretly choose their strategies of attack, defense, and position. The attack and defense forms are represented by numbers on a concealed die; the attack form uses a d 12 and the defense a d6.

The lists on the dueling plot indicate which forms are available and what effects and adjustments apply. The position symbols are used to indicate how the duelist moves defensively in the round.

To set up a maneuver, each player first takes the defensive die (the d6) and chooses a defense form, then positions it in the space desired. Next, an attack form is selected on the attack die (the dl2). Note that not all attack forms are allowed with every defensive maneuver. The numbers in the position spaces indicate which attack choices are valid with that kind of defensive movement. After all, it's pretty hard to perform a close attack on someone when you're leaping back.

Finally, the attack die is positioned where the duelist anticipates his opponent will go."

>>50038062
It looks like it would take way too long. I'd rather just wing it.

>>50038062
Ugh. This is exactly the opposite of what I want from a role-playing game. Combat should be fast and furious with improvised cinematics, not convoluted, crunch-heavy mini-games .

>>50038077
>>50038214
Dunno. Mini-game for a rare event like a duel seems appropriate. Especially a duel where the first hit decides the outcome, the usual to-hit roll is too quick and creates no opportunity for tension.

Guess I'll try it in some LotFP game given the chance.

>>50037379
AD&D's solution to the whole problem, ported directly from Chainmail, is that Weapon vs. AC only counts when you're fighting something with armor. If you're using a sword and fighting someone in plate with a shield you get a -2, but against an AC2 dragon you're +0.
This is especially relieving for the Monk, who gets a whopping -7 vs. AC2 but doesn't need to worry so much about being unable to fist a dragon - but they don't get the ability to punch things that require +1 weapons, so they need sidearms.

It's for man-to-man combat, in other words.
Note also that in fantastical combat weapons may be better or worse depending on the size of the opponent - against a larger-than-man opponent, a zweihander does 3d6 damage while a longsword just does 1d12.

Also, when fighting weapon vs. weapon, having half the speed factor of your opponent gets you an extra attack. (Contrary to what some think, most of the time speed factor is just an initiative tiebreaker - it's only added to your initiative when you're trying to interrupt a spell.)

Weapon length gives you the first attack on a charge if you've got the longer weapon (so charging against a pikeman is a bad idea), although longer weapons have a certain tendency to have a larger Space Required and thus are pretty limited in small spaces and formations. A zweihander has a Space Required of 6', so in a 10ft corridor you can't have two of them abreast - they fit alongside someone with a longsword (space requrired: 3'), though.
And if you're ever forced into some 5ft kobold warrens, I hope you have a sidearm.

Note that, for example, the Glaive-Guisarme has an 8'+ length but just 1' of required space - it's stabby. The two-hander has a 6' length and needs 6' of space, presumably because of horizontal slices. Some weapons are a lot better in the wilderness than in the dungeon, unsurprisingly.

>>50038062
Looks like someone reread Chainmail's jousting rules and the "Monkish Combat in the Arena of Promotion" article.

>>50038720
>This is especially relieving for the Monk, who gets a whopping -7 vs. AC2 but doesn't need to worry so much about being unable to fist a dragon
Nobody should have to worry about fisting dragons.

>>50038062
This looks like it's basically a shit-up version of the OD&D jousting rules.

Anyway, I wouldn't use it either. I'd just homebrew up an RPS-type dueling system, like the one the first Usagi Yojimbo game uses.

>>50016886
saving throw is for avoiding bad things happening to you. Attribute checks are for everything else.

Does Neo-Classical Geek Revival use a silver standard?

>>50037379
There comes a time in every grog's life when they feel, even if just for a moment, that all weapons doing d6 damage was a good idea.

I'm proud of you.

>>50037254

Those are all strictly one-race racial classes, though. They don't end race-as-class anymore than the Fighter, Thief, Cleric, and Magic User being humans do. You still don't get an Elf Wizard or a Dwarf Thief, because those are the human racial classes.

>>50037294

Yeah, that's pretty biased thinking IMO.

>>50037254
Basic only went with racial classes since, well, it's simpler than OD&D's thing where you technically had both a race and a class but the class selection was limited enough that that wasn't really the case - not in the LBBs, at least, which is where Basic draws most of its base material from.

Races start getting more class options in Supplement I: Greyhawk, where anyone can be a Thief and IIRC both Elves and Dwarves have NPC Clerics. AD&D follows this mold, including limiting Dwarven Clerics to NPCs - you'll also notice how the BECMI dwarf priest in Dwarves of Rockhome only heals dwarves!

Race-as-class wasn't ever really a "thing", it was just a simplification for the Basic line that they ran with. Because Basic and Advanced were never really the same game, to be honest - first just because a bunch changed between Holmes and the PHB, like AC10 being unarmored, and then later because of complicated Arneson-related legal reasons.

>>50037379
>In my opinion variable weapon damage is an oddity created by Gygax
Actually he didn't like it, he had to be talked into it. Mornard mentions somewhere that he helped convince Gary to change the rule, and that he regrets it now.

>>50037051

#1 reason NOT to use 2e... THAC0

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>>50041817

Math is hard!

>>50009084
>What is the richest character/party you've ever had? What did they do with all that wealth?

Whenever my players get to a level of cash that's noteworthy they just sit on it until the game ends or the group falls apart. It's only happened three times but it's pretty disappointing.

>>50042020
Specially when you suffer from Dyscalculia.

Does anyone have By This Axe pdf?

>>50043846

Oh, I thought you were just exaggerating when you called it "#1 reason NOT to use 2e" but in that case, yeah I suppose it would be. Carry on then.

What are some retard-proof, rules-lite, sci-fi systems I can use for OSR?

>>50045283

White Star, maybe?

>>50041817
Roll a D20 and add your bonuses
The DM compares it to THAC0 - AC.

It's extremely simple on the player side

>>50045283
Mutant Future is B/X (Labyrinth Lord) for Gamma World

>>50043846
>Specially when you suffer from Dyscalculia.
Just pop some Tums.

Anyway, THAC0 is just a shorthand notation for the same table system that previous editions used. So if you have trouble with the math, you can still just consult a table or mark down the numbers vs. each AC on your character sheet.

>>50037583
The bonus/penalty applies to the attacker's THAC0, as per the material directly adjacent to the table that you've conveniently not included in the picture.

>>50045283
>tardproof
This is roleplaying's greatest myth. Such a system does not exist. Only YOU can tardproof your roleplaying group.

>>50045485
>Anyway, THAC0 is just a shorthand notation for the same table system that previous editions used. So if you have trouble with the math, you can still just consult a table or mark down the numbers vs. each AC on your character sheet.
The main problem there, IIRC, being that 2E didn't include the tables?

Either way, though, once you do that you've gone away from THAC0 and back to the matrix.

>>50045977
>The main problem there, IIRC, being that 2E didn't include the tables?
>Either way, though, once you do that you've gone away from THAC0 and back to the matrix.

Well, obviously 2e didn't include it because noone can be told what the matrix is.

Games like or supplements for Retro Phaze?

What RPG has your favorite section dedicated to the GM and how to run the game?

>>50045398
And if subtraction is too much work, you can look at THAC0 as the number needed to hit, then roll d20 + bonuses + enemy's AC vs. THAC0.

What's everyone's opinion on the Rules Cyclopedia?

Any OSR with a lot of classes?

>>50050000
nice

>>50050100
y-you too

>>50046156
>because noone can be told what the matrix is.
There is no spoon.

>>50045977
>The main problem there, IIRC, being that 2E didn't include the tables?
I *think* you're right, but I'm honestly not sure. But you could easily use the ones in 1e or grab something on line, or make your own. I mean, shying away from 2e because it doesn't have an attack matrix is like refusing to play a game because it doesn't include a character sheet (unless the game is rules-heavy, in which case not having a character sheet is actually significantly worse).

>Either way, though, once you do that you've gone away from THAC0 and back to the matrix.
At worst it's a minor inconvenience. And if a car's user manual tells you to get in and out of the vehicle Duke's of Hazzard-style through the window, it's a bit silly to turn up your nose at the car, holding out in favor of an identical one with a user manual that tells you to open the door. You can leave the car however you want just like you can do the math of hit rolls however you want. If you've got two sets of two red apples each and the teacher tells you to add 2 and 2 together to figure out how many apples there are, that doesn't prevent you from multiplying 2 and 2 instead. Unless she demands that you show your work, but I always got counted off 5 points for that because I ain't gonna be a part of your system.

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>>50045485

>>50045485
I just don't understand what THAC0 is supposed to represent in the game. I mean armor class essentially means what you have to roll to correctly hit an unprotected area.

>>50050786
It's literally just the roll needed to hit armor class 0. People who say that thac0 is hard are mentally challenged.

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>>50050786
See the numbers in the red boxes? The number you have to roll to hit somebody who is armor class 0? That's your THAC0. From that one number, you can extrapolate the other numbers. Your chance to hit AC 1? The number is going to be 1 point lower than what you need to hit AC 0. Your chance to hit AC 5? The number is going to be 5 points lower than your chance to hit AC 0. Your chance to hit AC 9? That's 9 points lower than your chance to hit AC 0.

So if your character has a THAC0 of 16, then your chance to hit AC 0 is obviously 16. And it's 15 for AC 1. Then 14 for AC 2. Then 13, 12, 11, 10, 9...

>>50034896
>into water
Falling into water from a distance is the same as hitting the ground, so they didn't mean that.

>>50045797
Fair point. I was trying to convey 'the document should be short and easy to read', but then again, 'rules-lite' kind of implies that.

>>50045406
Ooooh, Labyrinth Lord. I've had success teaching people Labyrinth Lord, so, this should be pretty solid.

>>50045393
Definitely going to check this out too!

Thanks for the spoonfeed, m8s.

The real reason that THAC0 is dumb, of course, is that few enemies are going to have AC0 in the first place. Unless you've got some serious AC inflation going on, which may very well be the case.

Now THAC2? That's a much more useful number.

>>50050000
I appreciate it for what it is, as the big one-volume D&D reference book, but it's got some issues.

Its main benefit is that it's easier to reference than BECMI. Its main problem, though, is that it does so by taking all of BECMI and stuffing it into one book - you've got very high-level monsters alongside the low and mid-level ones, and while books like Master had separate sections for monsters on the Material and other planes the RC lumps everything in one place.

You've also got stuff like some dumb rules changes from BECMI to RC, like being unable to move AND attack, or weapon restrictions etc.

But it's also got some neat additions, like grabbing the skill system and magic item creation rules from the Gazetteers.

But it's also lacking all the sample adventures, actual learn-to-play guidelines, and (curiously enough) some of the tournament rules.

And Immortal is completely absent, as well as the artifacts from Master - they got moved into a separate supplement, Wrath of the Immortals, which IMHO is a much worse product than Immortal. Also, more dull and metaplotty.

>>50050786
>>50043846
>>50041817

The To-Hit calculation is actually fairly easy.

If you have a THAC0 of 15, you need to roll a 15 on the d20 to hit an AC of 0.

So, you can express it like this: (THAC0) - (Enemy AC).

Ex. Enemy has AC -4. (15) - (-4) = 19. You need to roll a 19 or better to hit this enemy. If you have bonuses, you can add them to the opponent's AC.

Ex. You have a +3 attack bonus for exceptional Strength. Enemy has AC -7. (15) - (3-7) = 19.

Alternatively, you can roll the d20, and subtract your result (plus any bonuses) from your THAC0 to get the AC you hit.

Ex. rolled a 10, +3 for exceptional Strength. (15) - (13) = 2. So, you'd have been able to hit an AC of 2 or worse.

I've struggled with math all my life, can't do it in my head worth shit, and still manage to make mistakes. I might even have dyscalculia - never been tested. But I managed to pass both Calculus and Trig in college. It took a lot of practice. THAC0 is easy.

>>50051602

The whole point of THAC0 is to have a number you can easily remember and use as a starting point to calculate the ACs you can hit (or as a starting number for the calculation). THAC2 would be just as easy to substitute, but it's not as catchy.

>>50050100
>Any OSR with a lot of classes?
2e, in a way.

>>50050100
>a lot of classes?
I think OSR is not the thing you're looking for.

>>50050100

Basic Fantasy has a fairly good list if you use the downloadable classes.

>>50050000

I really enjoy mine. If I was stranded on a desert island and could only bring one of my RPGs, it would be that one.

What does OSR guys think of Elf? The artist worked in Metalocalypse and there is plenty of references to old D&D editions.
http://elf-comic.thecomicseries.com/comics/first/

>>50050000
>What's everyone's opinion on the Rules Cyclopedia?
It's not perfect, but all in all it's the greatest D&D edition. One book, hardback, decently bound, Basic. I don't know what more I need.

Also, checked.

>>50051894
Eh, personally I (>>50051602
) think the one-book thing is the only advantage it has over, say, BECMI or B/X. I prefer the rules in both of those, especially B/X since it has a less fucked Thief.

Although overall I prefer OD&D because it's a bit wackier, has "bounded math" that actually works, and is easier to homebrew. But it's also got much worse presentation, of course, although I feel it's vastly exaggerated in most non-Eldritch Wizardry cases.

So it's not exactly a clear-cut thing, and I don't really think the Rules Cyclopedia is bad or anything. I'm not really sure that there's any specific edition I'd call the "greatest" one.

>>50051321
>Falling into water from a distance is the same as hitting the ground, so they didn't mean that.
Would it? I know that water doesn't compact hardly at all, so if you hit it at a high enough velocity that it can't displace quickly enough to easily admit your body, you might as well be smacking into earth. But we aren't talking about hitting a solid water surface here. We're talking about hitting churning, roiling water, and I have to believe that would make a big difference.

>>50051649
>THAC2 would be just as easy to substitute
Not really.
"Hey, I'm striking at AC 6. What number do I need to roll?"

THAC0: "That's easy. Just subtract that 6 from your THAC0 and see what you get."

THAC2: "That's easy. Just take the difference between AC 6 and AC 2 and subtract that from your THAC2."

>>50051939
>has "bounded math" that actually works
I'm curious as to what you're referring to with this.

>>50052065
It's mostly just how there's no such thing as an unhittable AC and monster ACs only ever go to AC2.
To quote myself form last thread:
>In the LBBs, the best monster AC is AC2. The best human AC is an effective AC0, conditionally AC-1 since shields don't stack and only apply some of the time. The worst THAC0 is 19, and the only ways to get a melee hit penalty are through the -2 Cursed Sword or the Anti-Cleric's reversed Bless. I think.

In the LBBs, that is. Once you get into Greyhawk and beyond magic shields start stacking with armor and ACs go down to AC-8 or so.

>>50051970

Forgive me, I haven't slept. I was being diplomatic with this >>50051602 anon.

It's less mnemonic, but I don't think it's clunkier since the math remains the same.

THAC2 of 13. Enemy AC 6. (13) - (6) = 7.
Alternatively: 13-d20 result.

THAC(x) - AC (y) is pretty much always going to work out to the minimum number you need to equal or exceed. And THAC(x)-d20 result = AC (y). Always.

I have no idea why I'm defending this or even doing math. I haven't slept, and it's going to be a long day.

>>50009084
>never play OSR before
>get a gig working for a small gaming publisher, adapting their old-school products to 5e
>now they want me to write an original adventure for them
>but only in AD&D 1e

Halp

Why are these monster stat blocks so weird? Why does it tell me that every single monster lacks psionic ability, but it doesn't tell me things like how good their attacks and saving throws are? Is there any kind of equivalent of CR or some other rule of thumb to make sure I'm not accidentally making fights too easy?

>>50052672

Monsters use the Fighter's THAC0 and saves unless the monster description says otherwise.

>>50052672
>>50052706

Also, a decent rule of thumb for monster power is its hit dice. Some monsters with particularly strong abilities (psionics, mage/cleric spells. paralysis, level drain, etc.) will be harder, and others somewhat easier. But in general, their HD reflects how tough and dangerous they are.

>>50052706
AD&D 1E, remember. So monsters use the separate attack matrix on DMG p.75 (and they still use a separate better-than-Fighter matrix in Basic, by the way), and use the character saving throw matrixes on DMG p.79.

There's a few twists with monster saving throws, though: most monsters use the fighter table, with level=HD (and +1 level for every four +1's), and monsters with clerical/wizardly/thief abilities get the better save between fighter and the other class for that level... unless they have no offensive fighting abilities, in which case they just use the table for that class.
Nonintelligent monsters save at half their hit dice except for vs. Poison or Death Magic where they save at their full level.

But yeah, hit dice are everything. It's like 3E but more universal, if that makes sense - a 3HD monster is going to have the stats of a 3HD monster.

>>50052672
Knowing that a monster lacks psionic ability is kind of important if you've got a psionic character in the party and need to know if psionic combat is going to be a thing, but otherwise it's not terribly important and mostly there for completeness sake so they have a consistent format for all monsters. Note also "Special Attacks: None" and similar entries.

Although do also make sure to figure out if you're supposed to write for actual AD&D or if it's some sort of OSRIC-esque legal situation where you can't use the same terminology. Also, whether or not they actually care about having psionic entries in the table.

>>50052767
Okay, I'm assuming that a PC and a monster with the same HD are more-or-less equally matched, so a party of monsters with the same number and HD as the players have a 50-50 chance of killing them all. So I guess I won't do that unless I want shit to get real. Is a single monster with as many HD as one player a more typical challenge? Or should it have more HD than the players so that it can survive more than a round?

>>50052544
>THAC2 of 13. Enemy AC 6. (13) - (6) = 7.
But that's a THAC0 of 13, not a THAC2 of 13.

If you hit AC 2 on a 13, that means you hit AC 6 on a 9.
AC 2 = 13
AC 3 = 12
AC 4 = 11
AC 5 = 10
AC 6 = 9

What's important is how many steps your target number is away from the base unit (AC 0 or AC 2) you're anchoring your system to. The thing with pegging it to AC 0 is that the number of steps something is away from 0 is equal to the armor class, itself. How many steps is 6 away from 0? Six. Duh. But now how many steps is 6 away from 2? 6 - 2 = 4. So now we've added an extra step where we have to subtract one number from another rather than just taking it at face value.

>>50052845
Don't make assumptions that old school D&D works like the hyperbalanced modern revisions of the game. Magic-users for example can't and shouldn't fight for shit but on the other hand they have killer spells like sleep that can wipe out even big crowds in one go.

Old D&D was never meant to be especially balanced against the "average level" of the party. In addition some seemingly harmless monsters HD-wise have very nasty special attacks. HD is not a CR number. It's literally just the number of Hit Dice a creature rolls for determining the amount of Hit Points.

Old D&D is not about wading through combat encounters unlike D&D 3rd and up.

>>50052823
>the most important tables in the game, the ones that tell you whether an attack hits and whether a saving throw succeeds, are not in the PHB at all
>instead they're buried in the middle of the DMG
>not even in the inside cover or something so you can find them easily

Ahh, 1e layout. Gotta save room for those 22 polearms.

>>50053015
It's written by Gygax so it's shit by definition.

>>50052946
Which is why I'm asking. I'm fine with subjecting players to brutal challenges, but I want to be conscious of exactly when I'm doing that.

>Old D&D is not about wading through combat encounters

I could write an adventure with no monsters at all, but something tells me people wouldn't like it. Old D&D isn't particularly good at handling social scenes either.

>>50053044
>Old D&D isn't particularly good at handling social scenes either.
On the contrary, I think it's especially good at such things because it lacks a rigid skill system.

There should be monsters sure, but just don't make fighting monsters the focus of the adventure. D&D pre 3rd edition is not a particularly good combat game.

Has anyone here tried the Target 20 system (https://web.archive.org/web/20160322103210/http://superdan.net/gaming/oed/target20/) for attacks/skills/etc?
It looks interesting and I might try it later for one of my campaigns.

>>50053114
>On the contrary, I think it's especially good at such things because it lacks a rigid skill system.

It has plenty of rules for social influence, like the rules for reaction adjustments, morale and, attracting followers. it's just that these rules make no sense.

>>50053214
>it's just that these rules make no sense.
It's true if you approach the game as a realistic simulation of what would happen in the real world. A lot goes wrong if you try to play old school D&D like that.

The most important thing to remember is that it is a game after all.

>>50053258
You could use that line to justify any kind of bad design.

If it's trying to do something other than simulate reality, that's fine too. But it's such a mess that I can't imagine what it's trying to do, or that it has succeeded at it.

>>50053288
Yeah, AD&D is a mess of a game and shouldn't be used RAW under any circumstance. There are other editions of the game though.

>>50052902

Hmm. You're right. Did I mention I haven't slept?

Just so we're clear: I'm not onboard with the THAC2 idea. THAC0 is clearly better.

>>50052845

They're not. Special abilities are really important to be aware of and keep in mind because a group of ghouls can paralyze the party and then they're at their mercy.

What you need to do, is compare the saving throws of PC classes to the abilities of a given monster and see how often PCs will save successfully against them. You should also compare the monster's AC with PC THAC0, and what the expected PC ACs are with the monster's THAC0.

>>50052823

Yep. I was wrong again. I'm more familiar with Basic and its clones, and with 2e. 1e and OD&D are the ones I know the least about. I think that's enough from me for one morning.

>>50050100
>Any OSR with a lot of classes?
ACKS has a lot of classes

>>50053214
Reaction Rolls and Morale rules, at least their B/X or BECM versions, work beautifully in my experience.

>>50053379
Even has a supplement for creating balanced classes.

Alright, this is roughly what I'm going to do with combat in OD&D.

All rolls are d6. Creatures have stats for HD (the number of hits to kill and also the number of dice rolled when attacking, only PCs have hit points), Defense Type and Attack Type. DT is in other words the minimum roll required on a d6 to save versus each successful attack die. DTs converted from AC are as follows:
AC 9 = Peasant, no save
AC 8, 7 = Light, 6 saves
AC 6, 5 = Medium, 5+ saves
AC 4, 3 = Heavy, 4+ saves
AC 2 = Elite, 3+ saves

Example: Five orcs (1 HD each) attack a PC and five dice are rolled. Two of them end up being successes (see Attack Type below) so the player then rolls two dice to see how many of the potential hits the character can avoid.

Attack Type (also from Peasant to Elite) is an abstraction of a character's skill, experience and weaponry. Peasant is kinda self-explanatory, Light is an average militiaman, Medium is an experienced soldier with good weaponry etc. Minimum roll to make a successful attack for each AT:
Peasant = 6
Light = 5+
Medium = 4+
Heavy = 3+
Elite = 2+

PCs roll a number of dice determined by their Fighting Capability when making an attack. Fighting-Man's AT begins at Medium, Cleric's at Light and Magic-User's at Peasant. Combat is preferably simultaneous. Fuck weapon differentiation and variable damage.

Very fast and simple and works very well even with a good bunch of combatants on each side.

>>50052201
>and ACs go down to AC-8 or so.
Bear in mind DDg&H isn't meant to be read with negative ACs everywhere, it IIRC only has one or two legit negative ACs.

But the fucking idiots at WotC didn't put much effort into the reprint, so lol now it's canon except in cases where it was so obvious even they had to admit that a naga shouldn't be ac 5, not ac -5.

>>50053780
>All rolls are d6.
Hey, you might want to check out Delta's stuff. His Book of War converts OD&D to a mass battle wargame (1:10 figure ratio) and uses single d6 rolls, where one attack represents three OD&D rounds, but IIRC he mentioned at some point in one of his MANY posts on the subject that someone had adapted the basic mechanic back into man-to-man OD&D as a single-d6 resolution system. A pretty brutal one, but hey.

In fact, just look at his Book of War. The absolute core minimum is here: http://deltasdnd.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/book-of-war-core-rules.html but you'll want to look at other related posts for more info (and the design notes, which are important).

>>50053214
>reactions
>morale
>make no sense
???
?
?????

>>50051321
>>50051947
DSG has falling into water as taking 1d6 per 100 feet, if you succeed a Dex check.

>>50054487
Yeah, will take a look. The system I described is already pretty robust for simple man-to-man and skirmish but I still need to come up with a way to handle mass combat.

>>50054763
Oh yeah, I'm not saying you should abandon your stuff and go do another guy's system, just that he's written like a million words about the way he's done things and some of them are interesting, plus he did get D&D into a single d6.

>>50054468
I was more talking about how in the LBBs shields don't stack with armor, both only go up to +2/+3, and monsters only have up to AC2 - while Greyhawk changes things up a bit so that a +5 shield stacks directly with +5 armor so players can get AC -8, and retcons the Golden Dragon to AC -2 and I guess Bahamut only got AC -3, whoops.
But the Will-O-Wisp gets AC-8 because fuck if I know.


That whole DDGH thing is fascinating! I wasn't aware of that, and that actually makes me like the book a bit more.

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Any Germans lurking? I'm making a LotFP char sheet in German and I'm wondering if there is a better solution for "non spell related" and "tinkering". Both sound stupid with my translation.

I grew up on 3.5, can someone explain to me the difference between 3.5 and AD&D, and how OSR differs from current games?

why is OSR superior to it in your opinion?

>>50055262
also, reasons to switch to OSR?

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>>50055157
>>50054468
The problem arises from Supp IV having weird inconsistent formatting for its stat blocks. Sometimes it uses a colon to separate the AC value from the words 'armor class', and sometimes it uses a dash.

>>50055262
Oof, there's too many places to start. For reference, that's somewhat like asking someone to explain the difference between 3E and 4E.

A whole lot of things changed. Especially if you go from 1E core to 3E - no skill system, multiclassing works entirely differently and is more akin to a psuedo-gestalt, the whole LFQW thing is much less of an issue due to reasons that you might have heard about on 3E boards (basically, there were a bunch of restrictions on the spellcasters that 3E threw out because I guess they weren't fun enough), numbers as a whole are significantly lower and in some systems getting a round with twelve damage in melee is significant even at high levels, monsters are designed entirely asymmetrically from PCs, most NPCs don't actually have class levels...

There's a fuckton of differences.

Now, most OSR isn't actually based on AD&D - it's usually based on Moldvay/Cook's Basic/Expert sets, in my experience. This means that it's probably a good deal lighter than what you'd be used to in 3E, and includes stuff like race-as-class and the highest stat being an 18 and giving a +3 modifier.

The biggest difference, though, and why some people play OSR, is that the playstyle is entirely different. GP=XP and whatnot encourage something very unlike the heroic 3E story-based adventures.

>>50055262
>>50055273

>differences between 3.5, AD&D; how OSR differs from current games; why OSR is superior AND reasons to switch to OSR

That's a tall order.

>3.5 vs. AD&D/Basic

Okay, older editions have THAC0, which has a limited form of bounded accuracy built into it because ACs never get better than a certain cap. AC ranges typically between 9 or 10 (being the worst/unarmored) to -10 to -12 (in the case of AD&D 2e dragons and such). This puts AC 0 roughly in the middle, and that's where you get THAC0 (To-Hit Armor Class 0), a handy number you can calculate what AC you hit. Earlier posts in this thread explain THAC0 in more detail, so I won't. They also have five saving throws (Poison/Paralysis/Death, Petrification/Polymorph, Wands/Staves/Rods, Breath Weapon, and Spells).

Classes tend to have few special abilities. This is my opinion, but I think that AD&D/BECMI/OD&D classes are more strongly defined by their abilities than 3e classes because 3e classes tend to have a grab bag of powers.

AD&D 2e had a ton of kit classes, which modified or changed the PHB classes (and some others introduced later) in ways that were either minor, or major - occasionally to the point where the kit class was effectively an all new class.

HD stops granting more HP at "name level", which is 9th. It's also about when classes start getting things like castles and men-at-arms. After this point, HP is a flat number each level, sometimes modified by Constitution, depending on the edition, and the class (Fighters, for example, get a better Constitution modifier to HP in 2e than Clerics, Wizards, or Thieves).

In general, PCs have fewer resources. Fewer spells, fewer HP, and a long climb towards levels because it requires significant amounts of XP. Before 2e, the standard way to get XP was treasure (1 gp = 1 xp). This might seem on the surface nonsensical, but I assure you it isn't.

In older editions, combat was something you wanted to avoid unless you had overwhelming superiority.

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>>50055447
Should probably also mention that AD&D needs a lot more XP to go up levels than 3e, especially after about level 7.

Here's a vaguely intelligible graph. From bottom to top, it's 4, 3.X, 5, O, then A.

>>50055518
> colors used multiple times
> wtfamilookingat.jpeg

>>50055603
What happens when you graph too many columns in LibreOffice without bothering to check graph colours.

>>50055491

>cont'ed

Combat, by and large, at lower levels is deadly. PCs are fragile on that climb up to name level (once they get there however, they're pretty much badasses), and it's often better to avoid a fight entirely and take as much loot as you can get out of the dungeon.

Secondary skills and the Non-Weapon Proficiency system are Roll-Under systems with the skill or NWP's ability score being the number you want to roll under. I'm not a fan of them, but some like it. My gripe is that it makes ability scores too important.

>>50055447

As this anon pointed out, monsters do not share all of the same statistics as PCs like they do in 3e. There's not really any reason to know what a bugbear's Wisdom is in older editions, and there's no real reason to give it class levels either. If you want it to have certain abilities or powers, it does, and you adjust how many XP its worth.

NPCs (if they're non-heroic) are 0-level people. They die easily, and yes, this includes the King/Duke/Viscount, etc. And this is perfectly fine. Normal people are not adventurers, they do not need classes to define their knowledge and abilities. A King (if competent) knows how to govern well, and possibly fight. A peasant farmer knows how to farm and take care of animals, and maybe a bit of carpentry too. 22nd level Commoners need not apply.

>a final word on 2e

2e isn't always considered "OSR". In general, OSR is OD&D, Basic/Expert/Champion/Master/Immortals, and AD&D 1e. I'm not interested in debating whether or not 2e is or isn't OSR. It shares a lot of features with 1e, but there are differences (some of them major).

>Retroclones

Most retroclones, which are hacks/houseruled versions of an older edition of D&D, use B/X (or Basic/Expert) as their basis. They may or may/not use descending AC or THAC0 - and in fact, a lot of them use attack bonus and ascending AC, just like 3e. Some use the 5 saves, others use 3, or even just one.

Keep in mind that this is a generalization.

>>50055518
Leveling in 3.Xe, 4e en 5e is the same for all classes...?Also, please use a log scale on the y-axis. And less plots. Hoe about the Fighter progression for all editions? That should give a good picture.

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>>50055733
>Leveling in 3.Xe, 4e en 5e is the same for all classes...?
Yes, that was one of the major changes.

>>50055714

>Cont'ed

Anyway, some retroclones use Race-As-Class, by which they mean Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings are their own classes (Elf is essentially a Fighter/Mage multiclass, Dwarf is a Tough Fighter, and Halfling is something of a proto-Ranger/Thief hybrid).

Others dispense with this and have races and classes separated. Multiclassing is a feature that non-human races have in such a case - which means they have two or more classes in a restricted combination, and must devote XP to both classes to progress. This usually has the effect of slowing down their leveling, but they do get the best of both worlds. In AD&D, there is the concept of "Dual-classing" which is similar to 3e's multiclassing, but you must meet certain prerequisites (typically ability score based).

As this anon >>50055733 points out, XP needed to level was changed in 3e to be the same for all classes. In older editions, a level 10 Fighter and a level 10 Mage were not exactly on the same power level. I wouldn't exactly call the old XP system "balanced" but having XP be the gauge for how powerful a character was, rather than strictly their level was in some ways a good thing (in that the Thief, a fairly weak class advances faster than the Fighter or the Mage).

>magic items and wealth assumptions

A major difference between older editions and 3e is how wealth and magic items are "baked" into the system. OSR games do assume access to magic items, in that some monsters are all invulnerable to mundane weapons. However, 3e takes this to a whole new level.

If you're playing 3e "as intended" (a dubious notion, I know), then it was assumed that there would be roughly 13 encounters of equal CR to the PC party to level up. A few tougher fights, and a few easier fighters would spice things up, but the XP tables are built around this idea. CR is built around the expectation that characters are receiving a certain amount of wealth (magic items in particular).

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>>50055262
This chart isn't completely accurate but gives a better overview of the different evolutionary branches of D&D.

The major thing to understand is that prior to 3.x there were two product lines that had different rulesets - the "Basic/Expert" line, and the "Advanced" line.

OSR tends to refer to TSR-era rulesets earlier than AD&D 2e, but that depends a lot on whether you want the definition of it as a publishing/marketing term or as a movement - the latter is far more nebulous to define.

>>50055933
Why is RC connected to 3e?

>>50050640
Which vidya is this?

>>50056033
3e was the successor to both product lines. The chart is meant to show which D&D products superseded which.

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Slügs! is now for sale on LOTFP's site for like 55 cents

and will be released as a Pay-What-You-Want PDF over at RPGNow/DriveThruRPG when all the physical copies are gone.

>>50055882
>If you're playing 3e "as intended" (a dubious notion, I know), then it was assumed that there would be roughly 13 encounters of equal CR to the PC party to level up. A few tougher fights, and a few easier fighters would spice things up, but the XP tables are built around this idea. CR is built around the expectation that characters are receiving a certain amount of wealth (magic items in particular).
3E also assumes the Magic Mart(TM), and in fact gives you little else to use your money for - that's quite different from AD&D's "can sell magic items, cannot buy magic items from NPCs" thing.

This also means that magic items are a bit less assumed in regards to having certain numbers at certain levels, and means that what items you'll get is entirely up to the DM.

Or RNJesus - I'm personally fond of the story of the 1st-level OD&D Elf who found a Staff of Wizardry!

>>50056033
Because it's a chart of dubious quality. I also like how B/X is supposed to be a rewritten Holmes rather than yet another rewrite of OD&D, and that the 4E Basic Set is a separate thing rather than just part of Essentials. And has a line from Mentzer. Also, while B/X is by Moldvay/Cook I'm not sure that you get to say that while just showing the Moldvay-only Basic.

The 1E-2E "major rules changes" is technically correct, but when the other ones are OD&D-1E and 2E-3E/3E-4E...

>>50055882

>More on 3e

CR expects that the PCs have the magic items to fight the monsters, which is why if a DM doesn't hand out the goods, things begin to go in a bad way for the melee/non-spellcaster classes. If the DM is too generous with the loot, enemies will be too easy, and spellcasters especially are going to run roughshod over the encounters because, as was revealed by Savage Species - all monsters are balanced against the FIGHTER, arguably the weakest core class.

Worse, 3e was built with the idea of "trap options" to teach system mastery by setting you up to fail. Feats like Toughness are useless to anyone except an Elf Wizard, since it effectively doubles his chances of survival.

And even then, it's not a great choice.

Want to play a Fighter fluffed to be a knight? Well, because of the way the skill system works and how Feats gate off portions of the rules, you'll be incompetent at most of the expected knightly pursuits. You might be good at riding, animal handling, and have Mounted Combat and Spirited Charge - but outside of very few circumstances, you won't get much use of them in dungeons or wilderness exploration. Moreover, you won't be versed in courtly manners, and you likely won't be able to hunt for your food because you didn't have enough skill points to invest in those cross-class Diplomacy, Bluff, and Survival skills.

I guess you won't be impressing highborn ladies with your poetry and falconry skills. You also won't be impressing the Druid's bear companion either, since she's likely a better "fighter" than you are.

Older editions tend to assume a basic level of competence in the character classes. Nothing is stopping you from being a poetry reciting, falconer, survivalist/incarnation of manly virtue because effectively, there are no rules for it.

Though secondary skills and NWPs did flesh out some this stuff, I still feel they did it badly enough that no rules is better than poor rules.

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1e and 2e have very slightly different fighter XP values at levels 5, 6, and 7 (2-6 kXP difference), but the other value are the same, that's why you can't actually see the 2e line.

>>50056144
I would have said 1e-2e fits in that 'rewritten but generally compatible' bracket. Maybe only just, but that describes it better than the other brackets.

>>50056087
It's about friggin' time.

>>50053044
>Old D&D isn't particularly good at handling social scenes either.

>>50053114
Plus the reaction roll and morale mechanics provide the DM with something to base the way that NPCs (and monsters) react to the plans of the party without requiring tons of text about motivations and backstory.

>>50056144
Like I said, it's not the greatest chart but it's one of the few out there that illustrates the Basic/Expert and Advanced split. If you've got a better one I'll gladly use that for future threads, since questions about pre 3.x D&D are pretty common here.

Hey OSR nerds- What do you consider to be essential DM reference stuff you keep on hand? Beyond a list of random encounters for dungeon level/hex-crawl region? What sort of things should I be printing off and keeping in my binder?

>>50056144

>magic mart

Yep. And the Pathfinder GM book actually spells this out about community wealth for settlements. It's explicitly the amount of magic items available for sale.

Which isn't something I'm fond of, but I'm not going to tell people they can't have magic marts in their games. But I won't use them in mine.

>>50056170

>why is OSR superior?

It's simple. There's a lot less to keep track of, and the lighter rules allow for more spur of the moment arbitration rather than memorizing and looking up rules. The rules aren't cut up and placed behind unnecessary "taxes". Monsters are easier to run, and require less mucking around with stats (and yes, I'm fully aware you can fudge monster stats in 3e - but if you're doing that, you're not "playing as intended". Not that I'm saying that's a good thing.).

Treasure as XP puts the focus on exploration and recovery of wealth, rather than murdering everything in sight. Fewer hit points means delving into dungeons or exploring the wilderness are uncertain prospects at best, and cleverness and speed win the day.

Hell, tracking resources (and especially time) are a huge part of the way older editions are meant to be played, and not tracking food, light, and time is in general, making the game easier than it would otherwise be.

>reasons to switch

Less work on the DM side of things. More freedom to fluff your character a certain way without having the rules actively get in the way. An emphasis on exploration rather than the encounter treadmill.

Ironically, it can also require much more prepwork because older editions are not really suited to the sort of "follow the rails" style of adventure that was (unfortunately) popularized by the Dragonlance modules.

This is opinion here, but story should arise from the interplay between character actions, and the NPCs/reasonable consequences of aforementioned character actions. It's not a DM's job to tell the PCs a story, or assign them roles and act as the playwright.

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>>50056332

Despite its poor organization and Gygaxianisms, the 1e DMG is honestly really useful. The random dungeon generator is great.

There's also the encounter tables.

I've included the random dungeon generator, and this blog has some good advice for using it:

>http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2011/03/ad-dmg-appendix-random-dungeon.html

>>50056447
>This is opinion here, but story should arise from the interplay between character actions, and the NPCs/reasonable consequences of aforementioned character actions. It's not a DM's job to tell the PCs a story, or assign them roles and act as the playwright.
This is the essence of OSR and also what new players and DMs almost always get wrong when coming from modern games where they usually have a clearly laid out bread crumb trail to follow.

>>50056231
I should probably note that it seems like the "intended" OD&D post-name level XP is equal to that needed to reach name level - in other words, 240k for Lords, 300k for Wizards, and... 100k for Patriarchs, I guess. (Patriarchs should probably +100k to level 9 and +200k thereafter, but that's just my opinion and honestly you might be better off just using the charts from other editions.)
This "fixes" the thing where, if you just continue with the pattern of the existing levels, Lords are +120k, Wizards +100k, and Patriarchs +50k.

It was toned down a bit in B/X and AD&D. Just a smidgen.

As an aside, you can probably see why the players in those first campaigns never reached all that high levels, and why it was kind of expected to retire your character in their castle and make a new one.

>>50051602
You bozo, so what if they don't have AC 0. I want to hit a mummy with AC 3, my THAC0 is 15 with long bow. I cock a +1 arrow in that shit, giving +1 to the attack roll. So to hit AC 3 I need to roll a fucking 12. But with the +1 I need an 11. How the fuck is that hard? I'll kill you.

Then the arrow does 1/2 damage because it's a fucking mummy.

>>50052946
Don't make assumptions that I haven't memorized Tenser's transformation, allowing my wizard to turn into a fighting-man killing machine.

>>50056332
Oh, there's a bunch of neat stuff. Once you've got the essentials - reaction tables, encounter tables, hit/save tables, quick monster/spell reference tables, copies of the PC stats - you can start going for more fun stuff like random NPC personality tables and, I dunno, AD&D's random disease tables.

Just get anything that you find you need to reference often - monsters and spells are the big ones, obviously. If you want to get really fancy, you could print 'em out on cards and then either use those for randomization and whatnot.

Also useful is stuff to help stimulate your brain when you're out of ideas for improv - hence the random tables. Judges Guild even had some good tables for random wilderness sites, if that excites you.

>>50056700
>Then the arrow does 1/2 damage because it's a fucking mummy.

Lyfe sux.

>>50053379
where i can find more classes?

Quick question about OD&D/S&W Dragons: When using the breath weapon is there a to hit roll + saving throw or do the players just do a saving throw?

>>50057897

There's no attack roll for breath weapons.

>>50057906
I figured that was the case for cloud & cone shaped bw's but wasn't sure about spitting dragons.

>>50057897
Yeah, it's just a save vs. breath weapon.

Note that dragons do damage equal to their maximum HP (as opposed to Basic, where they do damage equal to their current HP), and that succeeding on the save still has you take half damage (MM p.20-21).

As an aside, poison in OD&D is really nasty - even on a successful save it halves your current hit points!

>>50058077
Ahh I see. One of the consequences of a unified saving throw system in S&W is the difficulty of distinguishing different results after a ST is made. In this case, the dragon will still probably kill the pc's. :D

>>50056447
Well said. We should make a small FAQ.

>>50058212
OD&D dragons, especially the old ones, are very dangerous! That doesn't surprise me in the least.

The breath weapon alone is usually enough. The spells are kind of irrelevant in combat, I think, except for Red Dragons with third-level spells - Slow, Dispell Magic and Fireball are scary, but first and second-level spells aren't really any worse than the breath weapons. What are their options: Charm Person, Invisibility, and Phantasmal Forces?

It's really more of a flavor thing, I think.

Also, I just reread it and noticed that Very Old dragons in OD&D are 100+ years old. Hah, how times change. I think I prefer that, to be honest.

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I really like Isle of Dread

>>50059617

I appreciate your sharing Isle of Dread. Thanks.

>>50056144
>Because it's a chart of dubious quality. I also like how B/X is supposed to be a rewritten Holmes rather than yet another rewrite of OD&D,
I don't have the inside scoop on that, but I'd be surprised if Moldvay didn't look at both, and I don't know how you'd symbolically represent while keeping shit simple. So I'm not sure it's wrong so much as it's a simple, easy-to-digest chart and reality is a bit messier.

>and that the 4E Basic Set is a separate thing rather than just part of Essentials. And has a line from Mentzer.
I think it's just try to show how the idea of a Basic, starting set came from the days of yore.

>Also, while B/X is by Moldvay/Cook I'm not sure that you get to say that while just showing the Moldvay-only Basic.
That's another issue with keeping things simple. I mean, maybe you could show a mostly-overlapped Expert book behind the Basic one, but then shouldn't you do similar things for the other editions, which would make things kind of junky (and does that mean showing 9 books for BECMI, or a "mere" 5)?

>The 1E-2E "major rules changes" is technically correct, but when the other ones are OD&D-1E and 2E-3E/3E-4E...
Yeah, it's a question of where to draw the line. It's not as similar as B/X to BECMI, but it's a hell of a lot more similar than 2e to 3e. I think I would've probably put it as green (rewritten but generally compatible) rather than black (major rules changes), but I'm not completely satisfied with either.

With all of this said, one obvious error is that the chart gets the date wrong for B/X.

>>50058212
>One of the consequences of a unified saving throw system in S&W is the difficulty of distinguishing different results after a ST is made.
I don't follow.

Somebody posted a link in another thread earlier today, and it's a pretty good one.
http://hillcantons.blogspot.co.nz/2011/04/character-based-sandbox-campaigns.html

Basically TSR's Top Secret had a system for npc-based sandbox intrigue, where you mapped out relations between enemy organizations and their agents, and players could attempt to tackle it by discovering the links and tracing the foot soldiers back to the men behind the scenes.
It's pretty neat, and a shame that nearly all of the Top Secret adventures skipped that entirely in favor of modules all about storming the baddies labyrinthine HQ, dungeon crawl style.

What do you all use for inspiration or special to features for when you oll special in b/x or LL

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>>50060284

>>50060385
What's difficult to understand about "special to features for when you oll special"? Are you an idiot?

>>50051947
>But we aren't talking about hitting a solid water surface here. We're talking about hitting churning, roiling water, and I have to believe that would make a big difference.

This isn't a place for discussion for fluid dynamics but roughly:

Don't use "solid" even colloquially. That word carries assumptions that are misleading and underpin wrong reasoning.

The water falling in a waterfall is no more contiguous than the stream of water from your tap. It's discrete packets hitting a contiguous surface. The surface of a pool of water is momentarily displaced by a falling drop but quickly restores. Even if a waterfall displaced water and created a void large enough for a human, that just means more distance fallen. The void is going to collapse rapidly and you're back to rapid deceleration.

The particular shape of the water surface is irrelevant. It's approximately flat. If somehow a human was falling so they hit a steep slanting surface like a giant wave it might make a difference but giant waves aren't found in water falls. Giant waves also have large x vel so the human would have to have a comparable x vel for it to matter. The small slopes on waves in a pool of water are entirely negligible.

High divers, whether feet or hands first, reduce their acceleration by having small horizontal surface areas interacting with the water. Falling people hit at random orientations, increasing surface area and thus forces and thus injury.

The difference in density of pool water containing air bubbles introduced by a waterfall is so little compared to normal water as to have little effect on decelerating a falling person and at any rate the air bubbles could be carrying water up with them which would aggravate the deceleration.

Most of the dec of water in a waterfall occurs in the few ms after impact, same for humans. Even a human falls inside the water stream the small residual downward velocity of water in the pool does nothing to mitigate damage.

>>50057867
well first off there's the Player's Companion which adds 19 new classes, and has a system for making new ones, then there's some classes up for download on the ACKS website, and some classes throughout their forums, outside of that the best resource would be; http://www.bythisaxe.co/ which adds a bunch of new stuff

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>>50060950
>The difference in density of pool water containing air bubbles introduced by a waterfall is so little compared to normal water as to have little effect on decelerating a falling person and at any rate the air bubbles could be carrying water up with them which would aggravate the deceleration.
I'm not talking about how aerated the pool is 50' away from the waterfall. I'm talking about the big splashy region right around where the torrent of water is hitting. And there I don't think we should be talking about air bubbles so much as a region where water and air are interspersed, such that there is no one, definable point of impact, but rather an increasing scale of water density as you go from some water splash to a roughly even amount of water and air to complete water.

Also, the water in the pool would be rapidly circulating in the direction of the waterfall such that the difference in velocity between your body and the water you hit would be at least somewhat reduced.

>>50059798
Death rays, poison, wands, stone, dragon's breath, spells & staves have different results once a ST is made in the Original rules. In S&W, no such distinction is made.

A ruling can, of course, be made on the spot, but my point was merely that the rules did not provide for this eventuality.

I managed to merge Death Frost Doom into my World of the Lost campaign via a Nigerian Witch's crypt. Any recs on running DFD?

>>50060284
Are you asking about what happens when you get "special" on b52 room stocking? It's just whatever you want if so. UNLESS you are special yourself.

>>50055286
It does the same for hit points in some places, but no-one reads it as -300 HP.

There are a couple of AC: - that are actually negative, but really, whoever formatted that mess...

I still appreciate it for having gods you can murder.

>>50061552
I haven't looked at S&W in a while but I was under the impression that the ST value was a baseline and you'd save vs whatever the specific effect was. Some classes have bonuses vs certain save types.

In a semi historical late medieval world. To whom do murder hobos pay taxes?

In a walled town should they be asked at the gate where they are from and if they have no real business except adventuring get kicked out or need to pay a toll/tax? Do they write down where the PCs are staying and collect regular taxes?

I even have a lot of material but many crucial questions aren't answered.

>>50066196
Depends On The Setting (TM)

More seriously, though, it's really up to you. If the players are staying long-term in an area, they should pay taxes to the local lord - if they are moving from place to place, they should pay a tax on entering the city gates and whatnot. If it really bothers you, I'd go look up how things worked in the actual late medieval area you're basing things on.

You can also just abstract it away into something like OD&D's "you pay 1% of your XP in taxes each month, unless you've gone and carved out a domain in the wilderness".

>>50064570
>I was under the impression that the ST value was a baseline and you'd save vs whatever the specific effect was.
Yeah, that's correct, but Anon's talking about the *effects* of a successful save -- no damage, half damage, secondary effect or whatever it might be. The normal saving throw system has standard effects for each category; Anon's saying that S&W doesn't. (I wouldn't know myself)

>>50066196

To answer this question, we'd need a lot more information. Who rules the region? When and how do they go about collecting taxes? Is there a major religion that the PCs are expected to tithe to? Are any of the PCs nobility, and if so, are they required to give military aid to their liege lord? Can they get out of that obligation by paying money? Do they own land and have incomes from that? Both can be taxed. Are there any special taxes or laws regarding the recovering and ownership of magical treasures?

Someone hauling treasure out of ancient ruins is going to more than likely end up being visited by an official trying to assess the worth of that income. Most taxes in the medieval period were the actual goods themselves - so, a dairy farm might provide their taxes with butter (though, obviously, a treasure salvaging operation isn't likely to be paying in other but cash and artifacts).

>>50066196
I would frame it more along the lines of where the PCs are keeping their wealth. At some point it's just impossible to carry around their money-

My suggestion is to focus on the feasibility of transporting and moving this wealth. If they're moving around in wagons and caravans- why not just let them be exempt from taxation assessing their wealth? Of course, if it's all loose wealth, there's problems with robbers, thieves, orphans, etc breaking into their caravan. There's questions of loyalty if they're not operating their caravans themselves- why wouldn't mike the torch carrier just make off with an armload of gold coins?

In the case of just transporting the wealth around place to place, I would suggest having taxes just be either a special head tax paid for being able to wander around and not be a serf, kind of like gypsies would have to pay in eastern europe, and also taxation through surcharges on stuff.

If your players keep their wealth in a bank- probably just tax the bank and not the murderhobos- it's more efficient and bankers are less likely to murder your heir and carry your daughter off.

If the murderhobos settle down- well, they're not hobos then.

>>50019547

Aww, I really liked the "Dust Princess" one.

>>50066880
Yeah, it's supposed to be late medieval england. Good questions. Hauling treasure out from somewhere would call in a lot of players like lords, bandits and bishops wanting to take a share.

>>50068283
>it's supposed to be late medieval england.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_medieval_England

Last Gasp is potentially going dark.
http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/

What brave anon wants to go through and get backups of all of the game related stuff (rules, play reports, design nonsense) for the trove? I'd do it myself, but I'm swamped with work at the moment.

>>50068571
why did you post this link? there is one very small paragraph which doesn't say anything substantial.

>>50068604
he posted a document with all his stuff in the last post.

So what's the deal with psionics in AD&D 1e?

>>50069317
Gygax didn't care for it but it was in OD&D so he had to include it.

And then he fucked it up horribly.

I actually kind of like the OD&D version, for all its bad formatting - different classes get different powers, you get more as you level up (but lose class abilities in exchange), you get the psionic attack/defense modes by getting more powers and thus being higher levels means something in psionic combat...

And then Gygax fucked it up by giving everyone the same list, giving you all the attack modes you'll have at the start, and having psionic combat be ten goddamn times faster than normal combat rather than the same speed.

OD&D psionics is an interesting subsystem, albeit so punishing that I'm not sure why you'd want to be psionic, but AD&D's psionics take over any combat they are a part in and make psionic combat even more of a lose-lose scenario than it already was. (In OD&D you can just stab the mindflayer and save your psionic strength points, if you want - in AD&D you're stuck in psionic combat for a long time before anyone even gets a chance to attack.)

Anything in particular you're wondering about?

>>50069448
>Gygax didn't care for it but it was in OD&D so he had to include it.
I wouldn't call the original D&D with supplements added "OD&D".

>>50069605
OD&D+supplements is most definitely still OD&D - using "LBB" to refer specifically to the little brown books is more useful.

Much like you've got Classic Traveller and its LBBs - little BLACK books, in this case - OD&D with and without supplements is almost two separate games.

But either way, though, AD&D is a compilation, rewrite and attempted clarification/standardization of the OD&D rules, including all the supplements and most of the stuff from The Strategic Review as well as some from The Dragon. Some stuff got through relatively intact, but a bunch of stuff got big edits. Psionics and the Bard are the two most obvious ones.

>>50069317
None of it makes sense because it was written by Gygax.

>>50069448
So how well does OD&D psionics bolt onto B/X and the retroclones derived from it?

>>50070168
Decently enough, I'd wager, but the tricky bit is that you'd need actual psionic creatures to make it work properly. The big disadvantage to psionics isn't losing spells or turn undead or henchmen - it's that wandering monsters have a chance to be dungeon level-agnostic psionic creatures instead. Liches and Titans on the first level, etc.

That's easy enough to fix by just giving rules for psionic variants of those creatures, though - for the most part psionic combat doesn't affect nonpsionic creature, so it wouldn't be a noticeable change.

It's also somewhat weak, since characters got a bit of a buff between OD&D and B/X, but it's something you could work with. And it needs work, like a lot of OD&D things.

Personally I'd recommend against it, though, and instead just tell you to scavenge Mentzer's Immortal. When you look at what did and didn't make it into BECMI from OD&D, the big standout is psionics - and once you've noticed that, the rock-paper-scissors nature of power combat and how DDG&H had psionic gods really makes you wonder.
(Rock-paper-scissors is the superior psionic combat system, FYI.)


Also, I should probably mention that someone made a B/X-compatible remake/rewrite/reinterpretation of the psionics rules - PX1 Basic Psionics, IIRC. It's not in the Trove because they sent out C&Ds. I can't vouch for its quality, though.

>>50070386
Thanks, I have the pdf of PX1 but haven't looked at it closely. It does look a lot like AD&D 2ed psionics though. I'll take a look at the Eldritch Wizardry version.

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>>50070451
Just be prepared for horrible editing. Not only does it get interrupted by the Druid writeup, like, thrice, but it's also got important bits spread all throughout the psionics sections. Also, the psionic combat tables are horrible to read through and cross-reference as-is - have this excel table I made some time ago so you can actually see what's good against what and when.

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Most useful sheet for GMs

>>50070553
...A note, since this isn't really obvious: IIRC, the table is going from "what's best for the person using the major header in the table", with blue being the best and red the worst. If you're using Mind Blank then the best thing to be hit by is always Id Insinuation, for instance.

You'll also note that the tables don't line up with the Eldritch Wizardry ones - that's because this is how many points you lose vs. how many the opponent loses, so it takes into account how much it costs to use the modes in question.

Also, it doesn't really take into account ranges at all, nor does it take into account how Intellect Fortress and Tower of Iron Will can be "free" since they're AoE effects.

Feel free to ask about EW Psionics if anything confuses you - it's hella confusing, but I might be able to answer properly. Maybe. If you ask questions while I'm sleeping I'll even make a big effortpost since I've been trying to work through this for a year or so.

>>50070592
Where is this page from?

>>50070660
Awesome this is all super useful. I gotta run to class in a bit but I will probably have some questions this evening.

>>50070690
Tricks,
Empty Rooms,
& Basic Trap
Design
By Courtney C. Campbell

Is there a proper scan of Holmes Basic? The pdf in the trove is fucked up.

>>50071051
>Courtney C. Campbell
from steamband ?

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played a game of S&W yesterday

Decided on Mutant Future for a post-apoc game. Anyone with any experience running it (or Labyrinth Lord and B/x systems in general) have any advice, or tweaks? I'm not saying it won't be good right out of the box, I loved what I've read, but I want to get the advice of people with play experience.

Anybody else tend to waver back and forth between preferring the simplicity of B/X D&D and the autistic subsystem-for-everything 'completeness' of AD&D?

It usually just depends whichever I've flipped through most recently. The way ability modifiers work in Moldvay (just little secondary things like the simplicity of retainer morale) makes me feel like it's so clear-cut that I could a game from memory without needing to pick up the book.

Then I'll flip through the 1E DMG and find an obscure little rule such as where, if a character succeeds on their first attempt to listen at a door, they're 'keen-eared' and their probability actually doubles from then on, or I get some mad desire to use the helmet rules.

>>50075698
remind me about the moldvay ability modifiers

>>50075698
God, yes. I personally prefer to go even simpler and just stick to OD&D's LBBs, but those supplements are really tempting and AD&D beckons with its better-than-other-editions disease table.

Or the table for determining how monstrous troops interact with eachother when you're the Dark Lord leading an army of darkness.

But then I remember the Bard or AD&D's Psionics or various other small things that I don't like that much (+5 armor!), and I go back to preparing for an OD&D game that will never come.

>>50075698

I pull bits and pieces from different sources. I'm not a purist by any means. I like B/X as my base, and I'm willing to use stuff that's mostly compatible or convert if necessary.

My gaming "go bag" consists of Basic Fantasy, LotFP, Carcosa, and the AD&D 1e DMG, PHB, and Wilderness Survival Guide.

I'd bring my RC, but I have a PDF and can just print the stuff I need. The physical copy is for me to read and enjoy.

>>50075698
When I ran LotFP, all I wanted was to switch to DCC, so I did.

Now I want to switch back to LotFP, but I won't do it for the sake of my poor players.

>>50072775
Try the "(Grey Version)", it's a little better, but still not perfect.

>>50075238
how was it?

>>50075698
Yes, but then I actually go and read AD&D and the madness passes.

>>50075724
I just mean the simplicity of

3: -3
4-5: -2
6, 7, 8: -1
9, 10, 11, 12: 0
13, 14, 15: +1
16, 17: +2
18: +3

Which is pretty much the same across all the abilities. As much fondness as I have for the esoteric modifiers from AD&D which are really different from ability to ability, the mathematical simplicity of this and the way it fits 3d6 perfectly just ticks a box for me.

Regarding Charisma for example, base morale is 7 for retainers, and that's raised or lowered by the modifier (ie. Morale would be 8 with a Charisma of 14/+1).

I think my next campaign will use B/X as its core, just with ascending AC for simplicity's sake (though I used to be a descending AC proponent).

Are there any good OSR games to check out if I don't want to play with hirelings/retainers?

>>50076743

Scarlet Heroes amps up player power so you can have 1 or 2 guys do old school modules, rather than the small army of PCs and retainers you usually need.

>>50076743
>>50076785
Scarlet Heros is fairly easy to adapt to a 1 player, 1 gm game as well.

>>50077326

Not what I meant, like a five member party without any hirelings, maybe I'll use DCC

I never understood how important they were in OSR, even in Gamma World you get more and more followers as the game goes on

>>50077326

It's one of the few (outside of indie storygames at least) designed with that in mind even, which I love. Some of my favorite sessions and campaigns have been with just me and another person.

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What are some good modules for Basic Fantasy RPG?

>>50074990
Correct

what are some good non OSR dungeon crawling games?

>>50077571
Morgansfort / Adventure Anthology 1

Almost any module is super easily converted to BFRPG though.

>>50079745
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy? It streamlines things pretty well - it's still FULL GURPS, but without using the more complex optional rules, and with a lot of templates to make handling characters much simpler.

Gears of War, if you like board games.

Tekumel, if you like the classics and don't mind slightly groggy od&d house-rules in the original version. http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/6117 is a good thread. Technically not OSR!

A recent solitaire game I liked a lot was Four Against Darkness. It's from Ganesha Games, but isn't using their usual rules. Pretty fast, and surprisingly fun.

But yeah, RPGs. Runequest. I personally liked Mongoose's Legend for this, because it was published as a small-format paperback and you could get on pretty well with just that and the (small-format) monster book.

Heroes & Other Worlds is my favourite of the Melee/Wizard/The Fantasy Trip-style games, even though it moves slightly out of the mainstream of them. TFT and its clones are a good time though.

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>>50070592
>png
>2016 shygddt

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>>50080075
And for completeness sake.
Both are very useful.

>>50080075
>>50080153
>Courtney
Written by a woman? No thanks.

Kidding. Thanks, you're the best for posting these. Valis is pretty great, and I totally forgot about this stuff of hers.

>>50080183
The author who wrote is a guy. Reminds me of that johnny cash song.

>>50080205
"I'm in love with a girl named Fred"

we need a new thread

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Is there someplace on the net that shows the major differences of the retroclones?

If not, is there anyplace that shows the major differences between Basic Fantasy RPG and other retroclones?

>>50082583
>Is there someplace on the net that shows the major differences of the retroclones?
The problem with that is that there's hundreds of them.

I think I remember one of the "introduction to OSR" PDFs having some chart that compared some, though (with columns like "Elf is a class?")

>>50082583
Listen to this if you want to hear specifics about BFRPG and how it compares to some other clones.

http://saveordie.info/?p=1265

New thread:
>>50082726