Welcome to the Old School Renaissance General thread. >L

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For next time.

I notice how some retroclones only have attribute modifiers ranging from -1 to +1, to make the game be more about player skill rather than character skill.
What do you guys think about that?

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Posted in the last one right before it moved over.

>https://www.docdroid.net/GtTDks6/trm-sample.pdf.html

Looking for some more feedback/advice/input/suggestion on my Thief-based OSR in progress.

What is missing that's important? What would you want to see addressed?

>>50269781
I'm indifferent. I like the 1-3 modifiers because it's a simple way of blending the physical attributes of a make believe character with your own mental skill.

>>50269781
For me, character-building is a player skill. If I wanted to emphasize player skill, I'd actually force them to take a point-buy rather than roll for stats with limited modifiers.

I love OSR games but my experience has been that games with some form of point-buy instead of rolling have resulted in more interesting characters and happier players.

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>>50269879
I've had the opposite actually. Maybe happier players, but when people point buy, they always do the typical high-point allocation:

Fighter: STR
Wizard: INT
Thief: DEX
Cleric: WIS

Random rolling lets weakling-fighters and muscle-wizards and clumsy-thieves and foolish-clerics be more prevalent. It takes people out of their comfort zone and makes them try different angles to obstacles.

>>50269879

Your players a spoiled babies. Random generate everything!

So how do you start building your game worlds /osrg/? From the bottom up? Or do you just start with a town and dungeon and progress from there?

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>>50270923

It's impossible for me to really describe it. I eventually come up with a basic concept, then work at it and combine it with other concepts until it becomes something I can put out in the daylight. By this point I usually share it an occasionally tweak it based on feedback, though mostly I just get impressed or ego-stroking comments because I'm pretty creative.

In the end though I try to do things originally and do a combination of changing the setting to support gameplay and the gameplay to support the setting. It works pretty well.

what special ability should an OSR monk have?

>>50271462
>though mostly I just get impressed or ego-stroking comments because I'm pretty creative.

Nah, welcome to people. I've never once been told something negative about one of my settings, especially true while they're still wip. I have ran some horrendous shit without a single complaint, critique, or even vaguely negative remark.

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>>50271535
Brewery and illumination.

>>50271728
how so?

>>50271652
>>50271462
Creative people are usually their own worst critic. It's one of the reasons I like soliciting anonymous comments on my stuff from places like /tg/ or /ic/ in addition to mentors or peers who are too jaded to give a fuck about being polite. Everyone else gives bullshit critique.

>>50269879
>For me, character-building is a player skill.
This is honestly just a misunderstanding of what's meant by "player skill" in the present context. (That and "system mastery" is one of the most widely hated thigns about 3E in the wider OSR)

>>50272084
Oh no, no no, you don't understand. Truely horrendous shit has come out of me doing things. One of the things that has got me hook on the /wbg/ bug, made the gm/dm I am today is the ability to look back, and learn from my mistakes.

And you'd be surprised, we aren't ic/, still 4chan yeah, I'll give you that.

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>>50270923
Worlds? That's a difficult one. First, you have to be reasonably sure that your players are going to stick with it, or accept the fact that you may be wasting time and effort. On the other hand, if you just enjoy worldbuilding, it's a fun activity.

I put together my favorite setting this way. Here's my step-by-step as best I can remember it.

>1. Pick themes
I wanted elements from the following: Reconquista of Spain, New World, Earthdawn, Fritz Leiber. I took inspiration from those topics and works to inspire the denizens of my world.

>2. Pick locale
Try to select a part of the real world to use as the focus for your adventures. You can introduce more areas eventually, but you need an area that's going to get the most attention at the start. I picked Finland. So, you've got the biodiversity of Finland (Sarmatic forests, Taiga) and then I threw in some more stuff I wanted to include. There's areas that are more like Steppes, and an entire region that's basically the Alberta Badlands.

>3. Fantasy influence
Decide the level of fantasy and sprinkle that in. Your mileage may vary.

>4. People
I made a bunch of interesting NPC's, a few factions and the people who ruled them. This is probably the most important part.

That's what I had nailed down when I started a campaign, and it led to my favorite setting.

>>50270923

I'm about to out myself to my own group hey guys! who lurk/post in /osrg/, but I'll do it anyway.

One of my campaign settings is enormous. Stupid huge. Think Dyson Sphere sized, but has stars orbiting around it so that the continent sized shells that float because of "photonic pressure" (a joke with my brother in law - he asked me once why lasers in scifi knock people down or throw them into the air and that was my flippant answer) and some silly element that is essentially macguffinite.

Around this immense planet are moons, which are themselves planets. They have civilizations of moon men on them, and potentially rocket ships.

Originally, this was my "I'm going to include everything from 3.5!" setting that I was foolish enough to think was a good idea. However, as the years dragged on, I got less and less enamored of 3.5 and started looking back. I found the Rules Cyclopedia, which is one of my favorite books now.

I abandoned 3.5 for OSR and I've been here every since. But I kept the setting because ultimately, it's huge enough that I can make any setting I want within its realm, and it's possible to travel to another setting. They just have some races, some tech, some magic, and a heaping pile of macguffinite to tie them all together.

Each floating continent is its own self-contained setting, and without some advanced magic or tech, the civs on the continents are effectively stuck there. I even have my own cosmology, which in no way features the cosmology of D&D, but with a few flavor tweaks, everything form D&D can be made to fit my setting.

OSR, ironically, made it easier to include everything and the kitchan sink, despite 3.5 having more rules for that stuff.

>>50272410
>OSR, ironically, made it easier to include everything and the kitchan sink, despite 3.5 having more rules for that stuff.
Are you me? I started working on a setting for 3.PF, then dropped it after my group got a little sick of it. I eventually turned it into a LotFP setting, then adapted it for 5e.

It was super helpful making it OSR-friendly, and I really dig 5e as a framework because I run my 5e games as if they were OSR.

>>50272410

>photonic pressure

Sorry, got ahead of myself. The continents are floating on top of what is effectively a neutron star made of the afore-mentioned mcguffinite. The stars and moons orbit that.

>>50272519

>Are you me?

Not unless you just had bowl of chicken noodle soup, a Star Trek mug full of cranberry juice for dinner, and are fighting a cold.

If yes to all three... Something bizarre has happened.

>>50272574
I had potato soup for dinner, got over a cold a week ago and am drinking coffee w/ honey liqueur out of a nondescript mug.

We got real close to a continuity problem there, but I think we're safe.

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Stupid question, as it's probably in there, but is Misty Isles of the Eld in the trove, or am I blind?

Also, has anyone run a game using the Lankhmar setting books?

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>>50271535

Originally I had a sort of idea for my old OSR homebrew I was making where the standard Fighter sort of morphed into a 'slayer' character, who was essentially really good at fighting single opponents and big monsters, and the monk as a sort of sweeping character who took care of crowds easily.

Basically the 'Slayer' Fighter could take a trophy from the biggest monster (HD) he had slain and use it to recruit either lvl 1 hireling fighters or use it to reroll combat rolls with a number of uses equal to the trophy's HD- can only be replaced by a bigger trophy.

The monk instead got a number of attacks equal to the difference between his level and the highest HD opponent in a fight. So if the Monk was level 5 fighting HD 1 goblins, he would get 5 attacks per round. If one of the goblins was a powerful sorcerer with 3 HD though, now the Monk only got 2 attacks per round. This meant defeating the leader of a pack of enemies was the best way to scatter them and let the monks do their thing.

I ran into problems with mass combat and the number of rolls involved, plus the thematic elements of the game eventually changed from the more high fantasy stuff to my more low fantasy stuff, so things like monks got phased out. This is just my personal journey however so take it with a grain of salt.

>>50272613
>Also, has anyone run a game using the Lankhmar setting books?
I wish. As the GM I could force it on my players, but none of them read Leiber and thus the magic would be lost on them.

>>50272661

>haven't read Leiber

The cretins!

>>50271652
>Nah

Well you'd be wrong about that. I see the average quality of content on this board and I know I'm much better then it at least. Not everyone lacks self confidence like you do.

>>50272717
>>50272661

Seriously, I have no doubts that I sound like a shill right now, but the OSR got me into Leiber. Through Leiber, I found that childish feeling of wonder again, and that feeling is pushing me to DM.

>>50272717
I'm a 23 year old recent college graduate. I run a game for my closest friends from college, and I've previously run campaigns for randoms from the FLGS and a different group of friends.

Out of the 12-15 people that I've run games for (all of which were within 1-5 years of my age) I can firmly say that only 2 of them were even remotely well-read, and both of those people are among my close friends. I think two of my old players were actually illiterate, and the rest never read books unless forced to.

Cretins indeed.

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from a world building standpoint, is 9 gods enough for a starter pantheon - they will be central figures in some manner throughout the campaign.. reputation with one god directly influences another, etc.
one per alignment combo... feels trite but easy to emulate the core pantheons .

have them all allocated, named, general ideas, principles.. the basics. any ideas how to spice them up without writing out extensive lore?

>>50272745
>childish feeling of wonder from leiber
I like you.

On the topic of OSR-flavored reading lists that capture childish wonder, If these aren't on your list, try and squeeze them in. I'd also like suggestions, but let's keep to our top 3 to filter out all but the best.

William Hope Hodgson, The Night Land
Robert E. Howard, Solomon Kane
Rosemary Sutcliff, Eagle of the Ninth (fond memories of this from childhood)

>>50272745

I get you. Leiber is weird and familiar at the same time. It's this wonderful blend featuring two friends against the bizarre and fantastic. I don't think I've laughed quite so hard at an event in a story (that wasn't presented as a comedy) as the one with Issek of the Jug.

>>50272755

It took me almost ten years to get my best friend to read scifi. I had to soften him up with fantasy and then some 40k first. It's bizarre to me that people don't read. I can't stop. I'd go mad if I did.

>>50272824

I would add the Book of Skaith by Leigh Brackett.

>>50272872
Same! Seriously, that scene is the reason I'm tempted to play some kind of cleric of Issek or just have his faith show up later.

>>50269936
This is why you don't pick prior to having rolled for your ability scores. The XP modifier is the trigger for selecting a class, the additional bonuses/penalties are just minor conveniences/inconveniences.

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So I'm making a classless,level-less game and have to work on the skill system for specialist types.

This looking good? I think this is a great way to advance in skill growth and coincidentally makes it harder to grow the better you get.

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>>50272894
>I'd go mad
Same, I don't understand it at all. My main dig is poetry and history, but good fiction is a joy to read. When people say they don't enjoy reading at all, it's just.. Bluh.

>>50272755
>>50272894

I'll be honest, it's a full on/off thing for me,either:
> I'm chewing through series of books.
> I'm staring at the same 3 websites over and over again, doing nothing productive.

Granted, so far, today's been one of the latter, as I tend to procrastinate with the studies.

>>50272824
Any interesting contemporary stuff? Admittedly, part of the reason I've stopped looking outside of Leiber is paranoia over "oh, this book's only on the shelf because a critic was bought and paid for"

>>50272759
9 is certainly enough and works well if you're going with the 9 alignment system - this is sort of the approach in say, Dragonlance. I'd actually say 9 is at the upper end especially if you expect heavy interplay between the religions - this already is a lot of interconnections and relationships to think about.

>>50272759
>>50273162
I will say one thing is that having one god per alignment creates the idea of a very neat, orderly, and designed world, so that's something to keep in mind if you do want to go down this route. "Real-world" religions are a lot messier than this - even groups that believe in a supposedly miraculous event still will splinter over it's interpretation.

>>50273127
Contemporary is hard. Most of my favorite 'recent' stuff is from the 80's. Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and Cook's Black Company are some of my favorite in recent memory, but those certainly don't capture -any- childish whimsy.

Similarly, The Buried Giant by Ishiguro was very solid, but it's also grim. Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor was fairly fun as well. Both of those are safe buys, in my opinion.

>>50271535
>what special ability should an OSR monk have?
Nonexistence. It's not a unique ability though, because it shares it with the bard.

>>50273653
No need to be mean anon,if a player wanted to be a monk in your OSR game what would you do?

>>50273683
Not him >>50273653 but I would tell the player "ok dude, roll a fighter and call yourself a monk".

>>50273683
>if a player wanted to be a monk in your OSR game what would you do?
Tell them I will always value the time we had together when we used to be friends. Seriously though, I have no suggestions. Monks don't really fit in very well, in my opinion, so I don't have anything to navigate by. You've looked at the AD&D monk? And maybe new school edition versions for inspiration?

>>50271535
Well, if i winged it, and using LotFP as a basis:

Ability to have two melee attacks Fist (d4) + Kick (d6) per round (one to-attack roll).
Add level to the to-hit roll like a Fighter.
Gift them with STR modifier as Melee Damage bonus.
Access to lvl-1 cleric spells after level-3.
Limit abilities to require Lightly Encumbered.

>>50271535
Like real monks that trained for combat, they gain the ability to use weapons, fight proficiently in armor and... Oh wait they're fighters.

I'm trying to come up with a starting Ravenloft scenario for some 1st level players but I can't think of a thing. Any ideas?

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Sup /osr/, I actually went and made a gun creation guide/list. Any thoughts on it?

>>50274565
What's the point of a wire stock?

Other than that question, it looks like a (cumbersome) but passable system for gun creation. I do like that it all fits on one page. I'm not sure how it would work in practice, and I have a nagging itch that some combinations would be broken in comparison to the rest, but it looks like it would be fun to play around with.

>>50274849
Derp, nevermind, I misread 'load' capacity and got really confused. Now I'm curious why a heavy-duty stock increases the capacity of a gun. Does it hold ammo?

>>50274565
It's weird that a "heavy-duty" stock which confers +1/2 (1/2?) capacity to a gun could earn you a reduced capacity flaw. Or that a heavy-duty stock could make your gun more fragile if you rolled that flaw.

>>50269712
Put /osrg/ in the subject field next time, it makes it easy to just ctrl-f the catalog.

>>50274849
>>50274855

Yeah, the Heavy Duty is supposed to be like heavy weapon version of a basic gun. Like everything is really fat and metallic, compared to a more slim wire or wooden rifle sort of thing.

>>50274865

You're right about that, I need to change that flaw to something else or make you immune to it if you have Heavy Duty perhaps. The fragile thing is fine though, just an error in wording.

>>50273021
This just promotes skill grinding.

What's some good reference material for filling out hexes for a desert hexcrawl?

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>>50275214

What, in the same way that receiving XP for recovering treasure promotes going into dungeons?

>>50275346
Fucking dungeon grinding. I don't allow that shit in my games.

So I have a setting that is entirely urban and set in one city.

Is it better to do a hexcrawl here or a point crawl? Maybe street-crawl or something similar?

>>50269712
I want to run something that isn't D&D or Traveller, but that has well-thought, easy to DM and play rules that aren't too hippie-storygamey and not too crunchy-as-in-90s-trend-to-make-rules-for-everything.

What games do you suggest? Old-School or Traditionnal, I don't mind as long as it's well-made.

>>50276793
Runequest or WHFP maybe?

>>50276826
I never tried 1e Warhammer Fantasy, but I do have a 2e book that is frankly too rule-y for me. Is 1e more "less-is-more" in terms of mechanics?

Runequest...I love Runequest's setting, and have played in it with a lot of games in the past, but I can't work with Chaosium's system as a DM. For some reason I'm just utterly put off by rolling d100 percentile dices for resolution.

>>50276853
When you wrote that you don't want anything that is D&D, did you also mean that you're not interested in any of the D&D retroclones?

>>50276874
I love D&D and its clones, I have spent three years working with LotFP, OD&D, B/X, Holmes, Delving Deeper, etc. I mean that I want to do something else for a change, but I find myself unappealed by most modern "big" games because I miss the freedom of the OSR. So I'm looking for people here who have other favorites aside from the old and new classics that could satisfy me. I'm tempted to go back to Cyberpunk 2013 but it looks a tad bit too crunchy for me now that I'm accustomated to easier stuff.

So yeah, I include retroclones from Castles & Crusades to Labyrinth Lord and neo-clones like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Into the Odd when I say D&D.

>>50276793
The Fantasy Trip, maybe? It's the predecessor to GURPS, but only does warriors and wizards.

>>50276907

So, no D20 resolution, fairly light ruleset. Have you considered Savage Worlds?

>>50276907
Mutant Future
Other Dust
Silent Legions
Tales From the Floating Vagabond

>>50273683
Rules Cyclopedia if I had to. Thought about allowing them in Carcosa but they seem super out of place in a vanilla western fantasy setting. I don't even like the idea of them in Yoon-Suin.

>>50274151
Cleric spells AND fighter attack bonus? Too much. Also, wears the canonical bonus to AC?

>>50278046
>Cleric spells AND fighter attack bonus? Too much. Also, where is the canonical bonus to AC?

>>50278028
My setting is final fantasy 1

>>50278115
>My setting is final fantasy 1

Well, that's a cross you're just going to have to bear, isn't it.

So my campaign right now is tailored to introduce some friends to D&D through LotFP. I made a small mega-dungeon (around 50 distinct locations), with 3 factions. We played 2 sessions so far and they loved it. I've introduced them to all the relevant dungeon crawling rules and procedures (such as light, encumbrance, and the base game mechanics).

Starting from tonight's session I want to introduce wilderness travelling (so overland travelling rules, resting in towns, stocking up in towns, monsters in the wild and some mild exploration). For this I've prepared a small barony surrounding the dungeon. So here is my question; I want to give em some memorable locations, right now I've got:

- The dungeon,
- A bridge between town and dungeon (introduce some taxes on em)
- A small village that will from now on serve as resting point
- A monster lair with the apex predator of the random wilderness monsters (thinking griffin, might go weirder, should be suited for lvl 1-3 at party size of around 6 though).
- a forest region
- a farm region
- a mountain region

Tell me osrg, what are some cool things to add?!

>>50278320
Witch cult amid the farmers.
Fallen dwarf mine.
Freaky elf settlement.
Thieves Guild in town.
Troll under bridge.

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>>50278320
1. Dancing elves/fairies/fae, pic related
2. Secretive halfling village, like a piece of unchanged forest in the middle of a bunch of farmlands
3. Ghost pirates who took the wrong turn and are sailing across the hills

I lost my saved copy of the random, but fair ability score pdf. Anyone got it on hand?

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>>50279228

>>50279302
Thanks a bunch, anon

>>50278320
>A mass grave where something horrible (a one-sided battle, sectarian masacre, religious martyrs, human sacrifice, plague etc) happened. Risk of undead nightmare if messed with.
>Ancient temple to nasty forgotten gods. A small cult maintains the old rites, which are suitably nasty. If the rites go neglected, the gods wake up and bad times ensue.
>Woods where the trees are wrong. Too intelligent, and seething with rage at the flesh-and-blood creatures that cut them down and burn them.
>Somewhere properly holy. Consecrated ground that nasty stuff won't set foot on. Maybe a monastery or reliquary.

Best retroclone for teaching beginners? I was going to got with LL, but Basic Fantasy seems a bit sleeker and more accessible. LL has a big collection of nice looking character sheets, and I'm a bit ashamed to say that it's making me want to play LL more.

>>50278320
>A creepy mansion in the woods, rumored to be haunted and avoided by the populace - which suits the vampiric magician living there just fine, as it lets them focus on their alchemical experiments.
>A forest bridge is guarded by an Ogre, who lives underneath it and demands a small toll from those who wish to pass. Locals tolerate him, as he greatly dislikes bandits of any kind and refuses them crossing.
>A bottomless pit, as wide as the river that disappears into it in a thundering waterfall. Many fell humanoids have carved their homes into the edges, and a great net lets them salvage all that falls.
>An ancient, moss-covered statue of a long-dead king, visible from miles away as it towers above the treetops. If asked by someone wearing the royal insignia, the statue will split the earth with its sword to open the passageway to a hidden treasure trove - those without the sigils will be warned away or removed with force, although the statue is incapable of killing.
>A farmer has chained down the door to their basement, to trap the giant rats found within; they will pay for their removal. Unbeknownst to the farmer the rats are actually wererat burglars.
>A monastery following a vow of silence, secretly a front for a guild of assassins (likewise sworn to silence).
>A blind dwarf and a medusa are having a fistfight while eleven other dwarves cheer from behind a rock.
>The fortress of an Evil High Priest.The Priest is willing to cast high-level spells for adventures - if one pays the tithe, of course. The dozens of guards manning the walls are resurrected dead who were sworn to a year of service, and the spectres patrolling the grounds once refused to pay their debts. For the poor, servitude is a small price to pay for life.
>A viking ship being carried across the plains by two dozen burly norsemen, two of which are arguing loudly about the directions to the closest river.
>A small but deep lake, long rumored to house a fish that actually IS that big.

>>50280562
LL and Basic Fantasy aren't too different from eachother: they're both quite close renditions of D&D B/X.

>>50281215
B-but the character sheets...

>>50281831
Haha, go for it ;)

>>50281831
Nothing wrong with LL. It's more compatible with original material.

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>>50282386
>Nothing wrong with LL. It's more compatible with original material.
I don't think there's any significant difference other than having to switch between ascending and descending AC, and that's really not very challenging.

So a cancelled appointment has unexpectedly freed up tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 18) and I was wondering if anyone would be up for another /osrg/ open table game (playing slightly modified B/X) from 2pm PST/5pm EST/10pm UTC - contact Stagehand on the Discord for questions/details.

>>50278320
having the local apex predator be something they can't kill now could be cool - eventually they'll hunt it down after getting higher level and feel like goddamn kings

>>50277093
d20 resolution and D&D aren't the same thing.
Savage Worlds is too obtrusive for me.

Crawford's work, while amazing, is still D&D with some Traveller trappings. I will check out Mutant Future and Tales, which I have never heard about before, surprisingly. Thanks a lot for your insights.

>>50280562
I used LotFP extensively, but I would recommend Delving Deeper for the *original* flavor.

>>50284388
Numenera? It's simple enough.

>>50284472
I gotta check this one out too, especially since I love ItO. It's got a different system than D&D though, right?

>>50284388
>>50284472
Oh and symbaroum (or however its spelt )

>>50284496
Its d20 roll under. But its a very different system to d&d

I read the CharGen section, and Numenera has too much funky mechanics (expected that much from Monte Cook). I really mean *light* as in, a player can make a character in less than ten minutes the first time he hears about the game.

It's interesting, but yeah, I wouldn't use the system. Too much book keeping.

Symbaroum I heard about cause I'm a dirty frog eater. I LOVE the art. I usually hate french RPGs though, we suck at game design most of the time. So I'm half happy, half worried it might be terrible.

>>50284613
I just remembered there's this weird S.T.A.L.K.E.R-Dark Fantasy norwegian game that's around, I should look around for an english translation, I could run this with ItO.

>>50284613
>Symbaroum
>French
Vad i helvete snackar du om?

>>50284663
Oh nevermind, my navigator led me to believe the game was originally in french. I am stupid to let myself get tricked by a machine.

So Symbaroum IS the Weird Dark Fantasy northern european stalker thing?

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>>50284692
I guess you can call it that. The translation should be finished now, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a pdf in english.

>>50284712
Found one on seven chan. I am currently devouring the illustrations. I really really really love those. I'll plunder a lot from this book, that can be sure.

>>50284744
Hope you enjoy it! I actually haven't checked it out much myself, I find the writing and design of swedish RPGs become a bit samey after a certain point, but that's just me.

>>50284813
Well, I'm the guy who's terrified of any RPG that goes further than Traveller Classic in the way of rules nowadays, so I'm not afraid of its system cause I'm pretty sure I won't use it. I find the setting very appealing though. Reminds me of Wormskin, Dark Souls, Edge Chronicles, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, among other things.

>>50284882
Numenera doesn't have funky mechanics. Just funky names for those mechanics. Its roll under a target number and you increase that target number by expending points. However by your excitement on symborum I'd go with that. Its pretty cool

>>50284507
It's roll over, but still different from DnD.

>>50285070
No, it's roll over a target number. The number is decreases by assets, training, and effort.

Spending effort and counting edge can be a little awkward at first but once you get into it it's very straightforward.

However, character creation, while very simple, can take more then 10 minutes if you want to look all your options over.

>>50285972
>>50286049
Oh yes roll over. Got it mixed up. Haven't looked at it in a while. I guess char gen can take more than ten minutes. Seems like a Odd reason to pass it though. For new players though awkward wording might be enough however.

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>>50276793
How about Mini Six and the D6 system in general? Characters take barely any time at all to create and the mechanics are very easy to grasp. Assign twelve dice to your attributes, then seven skill dice. Get equipment and a name then you're done.

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It is finished. The Retroclone/Simplification/Reminagining/Whatever of Chainmail.

Gonna be testing it out for a bit to see what sort of kinks there are.

>>50286159
It's good for new players but not new GMs.

>>50269797

The layout, job and location generators are dope.

Not sure about having gambits and combat feats as two separate mechanics. Why not just one or the other for both? I haven't done any math to see what different curves would happen there, but I'm interested in why you have it as two.

Only having three saving throws seems like it might make different traps feel too similar. Not sure though, thinking there's going to be more traps because more thieves, but maybe not.

I think its really cool though.

anyone here planning on backing the second edition of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea over on Kickstarter;

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1806106772/astonishing-swordsmen-and-sorcerers-of-hyperborea-0

i'm thinking of finessing monks and half-orcs in LL

specifically half-orc monks and clerics because my players are dildomasters who want to play a half-orc monk and cleric

i'll keep you posted

>>50286412
Awesome! I always wanted to give Chainmail a whirl, but I find it difficult to read through. This might help me on my way :)

>>50276432

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36473/roleplaying-games/thinking-about-urbancrawls

>>50273021
Do it the other way round, they get a notch for skill advancement on failure. That way they fuck up a lot in the beginning but learn something new every time, and later their progress slows down as they become more confident in their skills and really need to push themselves out of their comfort zone to learn something.

Narratively it has a nice effect of the player at least getting something out of a failure (while a success will get what they wanted), so it's not a total bust.

>>50284744
Mind sharing the PDF real fast? I'm incredibly curious now that you mention it.

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Morning, gents. Would any of you happen to have auto-calculating sheets for B/X or Rules Cyclopedia?

>>50288937
Most importantly, though, they shouldn't get to roll if there's no consequence for failing the roll - if they can just keep rerolling skill checks to get the skill up, the system breaks.

Note that the consequence for failing can be as simple as using up a turn in a procedural dungeoncrawl - you don't necessarily need intricate stuff.

Also, well, if there's no consequence for failing the roll then why the hell are you rolling in the first place rather than just letting them do the damn thing?

>>50286630

Thx for posting I backed it.

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So I was in the thread about vancian magic just now and I found this post >>50287995

It made me understand why I have a problem with the vancian magic system. In OD&D and classic dungeoncrawls it makes sense because the session, and the day, is supposed to end once the players have decided that they can't descend any more and have to return back to the surface to rest. In my games, and I'm gonna guess in other peoples games and modern modules as well, the circumstances are often a bit different. A system like the one in DCC has worked much better for me.

What do you guys think?

Here's a thought.
Modern day dungeon-crawling. Essentially, the real world (with hospitals, guns, cops, computers and so on) but with weird magical mazes underground that (for some reason) small bands of desperados go exploring for profit. How would this set up work? Do people think it could be good?

>>50294473
see this;

https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?391379-setting-riff-Voices-From-Below-and-the-Long-Stairs

>>50272519
>I run my 5e games as if they were OSR.

Hey, can you elaborate on this a bit? I love the OSR style of adventure, and started gaming in AD&D2e, but the group I GM for currently isn't to keen on the whole idea. I ran a BX session a couple weeks ago, but I don't think anyone has the motivation to do a whole campaign unless it's 5E.

>>50294066
What's the one in DCC like?

>>50295181

All spells require a spellcasting roll, which affects the degree of success, but also has risks of your character suffering magical maladys and mutations.

>>50295087
Not the anon you asked but a few things I would think of:

Adjust healing / resting mechanics.
Find a way to do XP for dungeoneering
Read all the tips and rules regarding wilderness and dungeon exploration, and infer some kind of logical turn sequence from that to emphasize resource management (light, random monsters, time etc.).

But yea original anon, tell us about it! I am also interested in OSRing 5e.

>>50282932
Open table game is starting in one hour.

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>>50295087
>>50295273

Well I stole this off reddit, and it's pretty sweet for a LotFP-esque encumbrance system. I use Retro Phaze's ammo system and I keep track of light very closely; understanding how darkvision works in 5e is not that hard, but every group I hear about seems to ignore it entirely.

Once you've set those ground rules, the rest of the OSR flavor is up to the DM to enforce. Hex crawls are really good, dangerous dungeon crawls are good, random monster tables, etc. I've also done the old '1gp taken during adventure = 1xp' which sets a pretty good pace in my opinion, but your mileage may vary. 5e is designed so that magic items are -never- needed, and that leaves so much creative room for the DM to make small, situational magic items with lots of flavor. That's a big part of the OSR experience in my opinion.

What else did you want to hear about? I'd be glad to answer questions, though it's not like I'm some professional DM.

>>50295908
What's your general worldbuilding/session prep like? I'm populating a hexcrawl using 1E random tables, but I'm not sure if that's best for a 5E campaign.

>>50294066
Arguably the post you linked just describes how the Vancian magic system was originally meant to function -- you can only refresh spells while studying in town, in between sessions. It's how I've refereed RC ever since I started running it again.

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>>50296385
>Worldbuilding/session prep
I can't speak to everyone because my games are primarily oriented around a couple of things, but I'll give you a rough breakdown of how I spend my time.

First, I REALLY like exploration. I spend a good quarter of my session prep planning out possible locales for the players, what interesting things/creatures/items/ancient buildings/natural phenomena might be found in the area.

Second, I also really like NPCs. I spend another quarter of my session prep figuring out what the various NPCs in my game might be doing, where they are, etc. Most of these are friendly, as my current campaign is centered on a single town. A few are antagonistic NPCs; the Yuan-ti matron who wants revenge on the players, a fey folk colony that is neutral but has been a recurring thorn in my players' sides, and a deranged nature demigod. I plot out how these antagonist forces are moving, and adjust plans as necessary.

So that accounts for about half of my session prep. The other half is usually spent on small math stuff. I figure out the max (I don't bother with a minimum) amount of gold the players could acquire, come up with treasure, art objects, gemstones, etc. and then figure out how much I want to hide or make difficult to retrieve. Considering I don't always know where the players are going to be headed, this all gets rolled up onto random loot tables. Then I spend some time familiarizing myself with monsters I intend to use and tweaking their stats if necessary.

Finally, I do map stuff for fun. I don't count that as session prep because I enjoy drawing maps, and it's always an added bonus rather than an expectation my players have.

>>50295908
Do you use the full 5e character generation process with backgrounds and all, or did you simplify it?

Do you find that relying on random monsters (which messes up the implied expected number of encounters per day) is problematic for the system?

5e seems like it could really work in an OSR game, but I've always had the idea that 5e really is a system with no identity; by catering to all play-styles, it does none exceptionally well. Find yourself in that, or would you put 5e on par with other OSR games like LotFP for the style?

>>50296757
>Full character gen
Yeah, I go the whole nine yards with it, the only tweaking I do is in accordance with the 'background' section, which I helped them tailor to the campaign intro. But that was just having them go through the rules for custom background creation, which is a supported part of 5e.

>Rando monsters
I've never had problems with it. The players know that random encounters are a thing, so they can plan accordingly. It can be punishing some times and lenient the other, but that's all part of the game in my opinion.

>Identity
Its style of play is certainly 'heroic' if I had to pin it down. Hit dice lend themselves to stalwart heroes that can soldier through hell so long as they get a chance to catch their breath. There's something really fun about it, in my opinion, where the players know they -need- to find a place to catch their breath and bind their wounds for an hour.

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What are the best stronghold rules to steal and fit into another retroclone?

>>50297594
probably ACKS', although I'd probably just use that system instead of grafting some of it's stuff onto another system

>>50298226

Aren't those broken though? Somebody mathed them pretty hard in a prior OSR thread and found them kind of messed up.
An Echo, Resounding might be the way to go.

>>50295220
I can dig it. What kind of resources do magic-users have to expend, though?

>>50298558
Depends on the spellcheck. Each spell has it's own table with various outcomes, low being bad and high being good.
An example of the magic missile table - 1 means you lose the spell for the day and either corrupted or a misfire, 2-11 is just losing the spell, 14-17 shoots one missile for 1d4 damage, 18-19 shoots 1d4 missiles, all the way up to 32+ which is 3d4+2 missiles each doing 1d10 damage to a target within 100 miles if you have a physical piece of them (hair, nail, etc.)
Misfires are stuff like the missiles ricochet back at the caster or the missiles all shoot down and blow a hole into the floor under the caster
Corruption is stuff like casters arms turn into the color of his magic missiles or his eyes turn a complete chalky white.

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>>50298425
I wouldn't really say they're that broken, just tedious once you get past a certain scale. There's also a revised approach on the forums from the creators that's a lot more workable.

The numbers are also adjustable, but I find the most useful thing about ACKS is it does provide a good structural approach in thinking about how to handle things in a more granular and procedural fashion than AER, which is much more abstract and relies more on handwaving things into some very broad categories.

Has anyone played Blood & Treasure? It intrigues me, but I can't find a pdf

>>50302249

There's a whole folder in the Trove, if it's still up. Haven't checked in a while.

>>50302260
D'oh, somehow I overlooked it in the Trove. Thanks, anon

>>50296926
The biggest problem I have with OSRifying 5e is the huge importance of ability modifiers. That is something you cannot simply house rule away. Point Buy and stat array feels so not-oldschool.

>>50302469

Hmm. I would've said feats, but yeah, all that unnecessary weight on ability scores is not very OSR either.

>>50302521
Feats are optional. But literally everything is tied to your ability scores, your spell saving throw DCs, how often can you use your various features per day, and most of your competence at skills comes from an ability modifier for least 4 starting levels.

If I had to run OSR'd 5e, I would probably use B/X modifiers and scaled DCs back, something along the lines of this: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7913463/Necropraxis/Necropraxis%20BX%205E%20one%20page%202014-12-16.pdf

https://www.sendspace.com/file/srywvz
Also found this. A whole supplement for OSR'ing 5e. Didn't read it yet so I don't know what the author's approach to it was but probably worth a look.

5E also has some problems with morale checks, if you really want to run it with old-school modules and whatnot - the recommended variant is IIRC a DC15 (or was it DC10?) Wisdom save, which is... weird.

For one thing, it means that monsters with lower Wisdom are more cowardly than ones with high Wisdom, who are more likely to fight to the death. Also, proficiency adding to it leads to weird stuff with the probabilities, especially for nonproficient monsters.

And, well, if I remembered wrong and it was DC10 then you've got the wiser monsters as being unstoppable berserkers who know no fear and will fight until they draw their last breath.

Greeting, I was thinking about running a 'modern' setting dungeon crawl for my group and was wondering of anyone knew of a good OSR conversion. We're trying to avoid d20 modern.

>>50305912
You might want to take a look at Stars Without Number. It's scifi though.

>>50305912
If players don't have magic, I would suggest using LotFP and let everyone play a fighter, with specialist skills bolted on. Then just use monsters as is. Then you can differentiate between the squad medic, designated marksman, sapper, etc.

I don't think guns are a big deal. Assign them some damage and if you like, come up with quick and dirty rules for suppressing fire, heavy weapons, etc. IMO it only gets weird when you get into longer campaigns, or when you have to cram medieval weapons and armor into the same milieu. Action movie logic can carry you for a few sessions, and because PCs are so fragile, they'd be wise to stay out of firefights and do clever things like set mines on their escape path, blow up bridges, ambush enemies, etc.

D20 modern is worse than B/X for anything like "gritty action movie" because it basically tolerates ridiculous shit like a mid level character dropping a grenade at his feet to kill the mooks surrounding him.

>>50304972
I would just use a 1-20 morale score and roll under, or roll a percentile die and just eyeball the chance of success... there's no reason for mechanics happening behind the screen to dovetail with PC rules as long as it doesn't make the GM crazy.

what could be an special ability for an OSR bard?

>>50307465
I've always liked how the OD&D/AD&D Bard could identify magic items from their legends, at least - the fascination ability is probably also worth stealing, although perhaps it needs a bit of a nerf.

Honestly, you could probably just take the OD&D Bard and that would be alright? The 1E Bard is busted to hell and back for all kinds of complicated reasons that people even mathed out back in the day, but the OD&D one is relatively tame.

Also, of course, remember that in OD&D Identify was literally not a spell and in AD&D it was extremely punishing. The Bard's the only way to identify a cursed item without having to handle it or otherwise get creative (e.g. put the possible Scarab of Death in a mule's saddlepack). That's a niche, I suppose.

>>50305912
look up Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, it has some very solid firearms rules, only issue with it is that it doesn't have a Monster Manual section, so you'd need to use the monster selection of a different OSR or TSR game

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>>50308924
While the topic of FH&W is being discussed, I just want to say that I really like the Friar class.

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So apparently the Beer & Barbarians site is down and archive.org doesn't have a copy, and I don't know if it's in the trove, so here's a copy of 'Gone Fishin' ' .

So I'm planning on doing an urban hexcrawl and I feel that investigation or 'gathering information' is probably going to be a big part of the citycrawl structure.

Should I make it a skill, or keep it up to the players?

>>50310459
That depends on how you want to do about it.
At the base level, or if the PC's have no idea what to do, have it be a skill check. Make some rumor tables, or borrow existing ones. Once you've got them on the hook, then you can go anywhere with it.
In my experience, if you leave it up to the players, they will simply assume they know everything.

My first con today and I DMed LotFP:Tower of the Stargazer. Went very good, got GF and a friend to come and 3 other players showed up. I just told them that it's old school style and that means that they could very well die if they aren't careful and that treasure not fighting is the goal. Turns out nobody died and they left with the star crystal, books, wine and the china. The specialist used his 10ft pole very cleverly, which I put in his pregen inventory. Made me really happy considering only one other guy even knew old school D&D. He used it e.g. to stoke around in the room of the stone spider through the metal bars. I had the spider attack the pole and let the dice decide that it hid again in the crack after he smashed it around a bit. They let the room alone after that. They had a lot of fun taunting Calcidius and just left most of the dangerous shit alone. They had just one near death experience when one of them played around with the telescope and it crashed into the ceiling. (rolled 1d10 damage not 2d10, I admit). At the end they decided to not tangle with the force field room after they encountered so many bullshit chests. I planned the session for 4 hours they just took around 3 1/4. This was in Germany so a pretty small OSR community. Fun evening!

>>50310972
Sounds like it was a good time! Did they do anything in the mirror room? That part was the most fun for my players.

>>50312351
They only saw it from afar. They didn't come near. Same with the gold threaded corpse, looked shortly at it and let it be.

>>50308924
>>50306176
>>50305936
Thanks for the recommendations, I'll take a look at them.

>>50310459
do you want the players to miss potentially crucial information due to a bad roll?

>>50315661

Do you honestly think that would be the sole roll to determine a mystery?

Do you honestly think that there wouldn't be extra opportunities to acquire that information?

Do you honestly think I wouldn't have a contingency planned regardless?

I'm not a first time DM. All I asked is if I should give players an easy 'crawl' tool as they go around, or to make them work for it.

Get real.

why does OSR haves this feeling no other RPG can give?

>>50315766

It's literally just due to the design principles that make the game have a different feel then any other RPG.

Really the feeling could be emulated in almost any game, but it isn't because the developers are not trying to emulate the feelings.

The simple mechanic of making all or most XP come from retrieving treasure instead of defeating monsters means players are trying to get treasure and avoid, sneak past, or even pit monsters and other groups against each other instead of fighting them themselves.

>>50315721
And if they fail the rolls at the extra opportunities too? You'll end up giving them the information anyway as your contingency plan, which raises the question why roll in the first place. Solving a mystery shouldn't be about doing busywork until the players have clicked every pixel at the screen. Just give them the hints necessary to solve the mystery and let them draw the conclusions on their own.

>>50315721
the way I do that sort of thing is to let them have a roll as a "backup" chance.
The standard procedure is to ask the players what steps they are taking to investigate (or search for secrets/traps in a traditional dungeon crawl). Shit like "poking the ground with a 10ft pole" "pulling all the books off the shelf and flipping through them". These things can add time, which has its own consequences. Anything that can be discovered by those methods will be discovered.

Those with a searching skill can have it rolled on each turn as a chance to detect anything their stated actions didn't account for.

If all players want to do is roll, then they leave it up to luck to find anything and it is their own fault for not just saying some obvious shit they could have tried.

leveling fast?

>>50315987

As opposed to what, leveling slow?

If you're doing old fashioned DnD where players get a free keep/wizard tower/thieves posse at level 9 then yes, you should level slow. But if you are playing more modern style games or your own homebrew and have less powerful changes per level then yes, level faster.

>>50315766
Depends on what feeling you mean. Aesthetically there are plenty of other games that capture dungeoncrawls, sword and sorcery, and low fantasy.

>>50277193
Vagabond had the best modules

>>50269712
I've noticed some people here use 3d6 for skill checks. Why not check a d20? And is there a way for it to fit in AD&D 2e?

>>50315766
>>50315861
>>50316899

I also think that that feeling can largely be attributed to the resource management nature of OSR games. The actual game isn't only going in and out of the dungeon, but the procedures for going in and out: time is vitally important (turns), as it dictates wandering monsters, how much actions you can take, your light sources etc. It is this really strict focus on resource management that is lost in newer version of D&D I think.

>>50316826
Which edition gives the keep away for free? I'm pretty sure that all of them have you actually need to pay for the construction, at least, if not also clear out the area from monsters. And then the "thieves' posse" and the like come after you've spent all of your hard-earned cash on that.

Was getting a free keep a 2E thing or something?

>>50316899
Yeah. Torchbearer's pretty far from the D&D system, but it handles the procedural dungeoncrawl thing pretty well nonetheless.

>>50317829
That's mostly because very few people in the second or third wave actually played it that way, meaning that they needed to alter the system to fit the playstyle they were actually using. Hence 2E's focus on heroism, 3E's more heroic mechanics, etc.

In modern D&D you play as a hero, rather than playing as just another dude who happened to delve into dungeons.

A lot of that is probably because Gygax et. al. grew up on Sword & Sorcery, while the newcomers to the game in the late seventies-early eighties grew up on stuff like Tolkien. Cugel the Clever is an appropriate character archetype for the former crowd, less so for the latter.

>>50309700
>76-80% A drunk dwarf insistently asks for
directions to the Iron Hills, and then sits on
a doorstep crying maudlinly to himself
regardless of the answer.

This is fantastic.

>>50296742
Thanks for sharing, fun to read other people's processes

>>50309311
This is pretty sweet. Seems perfect for Dolmenwood.

Does anyone have any idea about a potential module I could throw at the players after a TPK?
Like they all get killed and have to fight their way out of hell, or something similarly flavorful.

>>50319545
D&D modules set in hell tend to be pretty high-level ones, for obvious reasons - hell's a high-level environment with high-level foes, usually only reachable by high-level magic.

Also, well, it's generally assumed that if you went to hell when you died you were a pretty bad person and D&D kind of veered away from playing evil PCs at some point. Roughly 2E, I think, when they went full-bore on removing the bad (or BADD) stuff from the game.

Which leaves stuff like Planescape and later OSR products, I suppose, but I don't know if Planescape was big on the post-mortem adventures and I can't think of any OSR modules with that theme. I'd image that that's because permadeath is a somewhat big OSR tenet - it ties into the whole "expendable PCs" thing, with the quick character generation and high lethality and whatnot.

Also, well, you kind of run into the issue of high lethality meaning that your resurrected PCs have a high chance of just dying while in hell.

>>50319545
>>50319743
Although I can't think of any hell-based modules suitable for that theme, that doesn't mean that you can't just repurpose some other module - the Isle of Dread could make for a strange purgatory, for instance, as could many other modules. You could even go with the semi-common cliche of being unable to die in purgatory until you have completed your task (ans ascended to heaven, I guess, although you could change that to an Orpheus-like return to the mortal world).
Really, just look at all those relatively-isolated old-school modules and think "how can I make this a metaphor for purging your sins?" B4 The Lost City is a somewhat natural fit, for instance.

Another problem is, well, that your request is pretty damn vague in regards to level. Are you talking about a low-level party that finds the Caves of Chaos challenging, or are they bad enough dudes to save A Paladin in Hell (roughly appropriate for level 20ish AD&D characters, IIRC)?

>>50310459
Vornheim has a pretty nice system, based on reaction rolls. Characters get a "contact" that they can ask questions of for each level that they gain in the city. Thieves start out with a number equal to their charisma modifier, I think.

>>50316899
which games?

>>50319470
How is Dolmenwood? I'm very interested in it, but there's nothing in the trove.

>>50320994
It's pretty rad. Nice map, although most of the terrain is forest with some swamp and fields. There are three issues of the zine describing it available and they do a good job of presenting the setting and some back story that is open to customization but also provides plenty of stuff to build on. There are only a total of maybe 12 hexes described but there are hints of things that will show up later and plenty of ideas to fill out the map. I've only played one session in it so far and that was with two people but everyone had a really good time and were excited to continue playing in the setting. The pdfs are super cheap and well worth it. The first one doesn't have anything about the map itself (but it does have two awesome race classes and a nice mushroom table).

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>>50286511
Well, I was just going to have the one mechanic that Combat Feats uses, but it's heavily revolved around an attack being included (it's just a rip from DCCs Mighty Deeds for Warriors) and always has 3 possible outcomes: Hit + Endeavor, Only Hit or Miss and Setback.

Gambits on the other hand are just unconventional acts that are usually based on an ability and cant be resolved by a normal skill. They only have 2 outcomes: you succeed or you fail.

I couldn't figure a way to settle on a mechanic for both (and since I want combat to NOT be a heavy focus, having Combat Feats have a different almost 'lucky' mechanic in itself seemed interesting to me).

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>>50319545
There's actually a One-Page Dungeon specifically for this purpose, by Arnold Punch. PDF fucking related.

Is there a game similar to B/x, but updated and expanded on? (aside from lotfp)

>>50322214
Labyrinth Lord? Basic Fantasy RPG?

>>50322214
What kind of expansion would you need?

>>50322317
Crafting rules would be neat, and also rules for running a guild hall type building.

What are some bigger dungeons (around 4 levels perhaps) that have an interesting history for the players to discover through subtle design cues?

>>50322506
ACKS seems like the closest thing to what oyu want, or maybe just BECMI/RC.

>>50322214
BECMI

Would it be difficult to DM OSR modules for only 2-3 players? I've read a lot of modules that I really like but they're usually written for 4+ players.

>>50322897
>>50322736
I'll check them out, thanks!

>>50322915
>Would it be difficult to DM OSR modules for only 2-3 players?
No. Just give them two PCs each. This is actually *better* in a lot of ways.

(Each player gets more "screen time", backup PCs, players automatically take more of a "troupe" than "my alter-ego" attitude to PCs)

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>>50322915
In addition to what >>50322980 says (just give 'em hirelings, man, they're basically Paranoia clones), if you want them to only have one character each it might be worth considering Scarlet Heroes or it's more generic predecessor, Solo Heroes (see attached PDF). It's all about making one character roughly as competent as a party of four, and since some of those old-school modules are written for eight or more players that might be necessary.

On the other hand, there's also a bunch of modules that can be played as a single player. It works best with more sandboxy ones where there's no One True Path that you need to use an entire party's resources for, or a bunch of monsters that you HAVE to fight, but there's a few that can work solo. It requires you to have an experienced player, though, and for you to be prepared for a quick TPK if things go south.

>>50322980
>>50323032
Thanks for the response. We were originally going to have the standard 4 PCs but every time I try to schedule something two of them always seem to back out. I'll get that PDF and look through it and if that doesn't work out I guess I'll just use hirelings.

>>50323147
Or I could try the multiple characters thing, but I'm not sure how my players would feel about that.

>>50323164
You don't necessarily have to pitch it as having multiple characters - in the henchmen scenario, it's just them having a bunch of hired hands/mercs/wizards/whatever who get a share (or half a share, traditionally, since that keeps them exactly one level behind the PCs). The players control the PCs - the DM controls the henchmen, and uses morale and whatnot if they're forced into unreasonable situations.

And if one of them happens to die, well, you've got backup characters already there. Also, "expendable" characters that can check for traps or be healbots or whatever.

This can also help with character generation, in some ways: have each player roll up three characters, name them all, and choose the one they like the best. That character is their PC; the rest are their henchmen. If you want to speed things up even further, just give 'em a bunch of blank character sheets with pre-rolled attributes and let 'em choose the ones that look the best.

This means that the players aren't forced into playing 3d1-down-the-line McGee, but chances are that they'll be alright with having ol' McGee be on the front line checking for traps or being a generally ineffective Fighter AS LONG AS HE ISN'T THEM. Also, he's an added incentive to not die.

>>50271535
I like to go with the monk-as-cleric idea or the warlock-thief variant. Monk abilities are cleric spells. Some, like their unarmed damage and unarmoured AC are 24 hour duration abilities. Low level versions of these spells are equivalent to daggers and leather armour, higher versions become more like swords and chainmail but never as high as plate. Other abilities, like stunning attacks are treated as normal spells.

>>50322214
like 75% of all OSR games are based on BX/BECMI/RC D&D, so you have plenty of choices(ACKS is my personal favorite of them)

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>>50324780
Does anyone have experience of running A Red & Pleasant Land? I'm preparing a campaign with it but I realized that there are a lot of areas that are not really fleshed out and I assume that's because I'm supposed to do the work on that myself, but it would be nice to know how someone else has done it.

>>50324780
holy shit i have to run this for my players. any pro tips for not straight murdering a two PC crew?

>>50325776

You may want to look at Scarlet Heroes, or have the PCs make a full party to control between them+hirelings.

Anyone know how a wizard leveling in DDC is supposed to learn spell? How much work in research would learning a random spell be? A specific spell would be a quest, I get so much. But the random spell confuses me a bit.

>>50326051
gm fiat, i presume. there's only so many ways to rp doing wizard shit

>>50326051
What >>50326191 wrote. Personally I let ´the players pick their spells when they make their character, and after that I roll to see what spell they get once they get a new spell slot. They can quest to find specific spells and/or to get better (or none) mercurial magic.

Will say this as a random aside.

After playing pathfinder, it was so nice to play some S&W and Labyrinth lord. Though now my players are terrified of Barrowmaze...

>>50327655
You know, I've never actually played PF or 3.5. (tho I have played 4e and 5e). Closest I've come is DCC, and that isn't even close.

Is it as terrible as I hear?

>>50328586
The Biggenner box is not that bad over all. Kinda feels like the old red box.

But a simple fight with goblins takes 40 minutes to finish, and that with people paying attention.

I crave the simplicity of stuff like LL or S&W.

>>50321267
Yeah, that checks out. I think having combat feats be less binary pass/fail could make it more of an interesting and rare event if that's what you're going for. you could look at apocalypse world's partial successes, it might work well, I use a variation on them in my homebrew

>>50328586
>Is it as terrible as I hear?
yes
it may even be more terrible
(ironically, I actually really like 4th ed; it scratches the same itch that a good wargame like malifaux does for me)

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Are adventurers in DCC really that strong when one factors in that one level in DCC is more like the equivalent of two levels in most other retroclones? Would a level 1 DCC warrior beat a level 2 LotFP fighter? Would a level 2 DCC wizard beat a level 4 LotFP magic user? A level 10 DCC thief a level 20 lotfp specialist?

>>50331096
Generally speaking yes, but 1 level for 2 isn't a useful metric.

Purely in terms of attack progression level 1 Warrior edges it with Mighty Deeds and crit range, but he has less hitpoints then level 2 Fighter, especially since the latter always has at least 8 hitpoints at level 1. One or two succesful blows will decide this.

10 level Thief completely annihilates 20 level Specialist who's stuck with +1 AB forever and doesn't have additional action die, so Thief's lack of hp isn't an issue. Also Luck Die (and Luck mechanics in general for other classes)

Level 2 Wizard, on the other hand, will probably have the same attack bonus, less hp and complicated spell checks. Level 4 Magic-User has two spells of 2nd level prepared, but we know they will be lost after casting, while Wizard has a chance of retaining the spell and trying again in case an enemy saves the first time.

There's myriad of other rules of course. Initiative and whatnot. But you gotta look for specifics. The power level of DCC is definitely up though.

>>50328586

On the surface, 3.5 seems innocuous. But it has some very bad ideas baked into the system that are damnably hard to tear out without rewriting the whole damn thing.

And if you're going to rewrite it, you may as well play something else.

The core mechanic (d20+modifiers vs. static difficulty numbers) isn't a bad idea in itself. However, the philosophy underlying the game's design leaves something to be desired.

I'd go further into it, but... I don't want to derail the thread

>>50332554
I'd like to read your ramblings on the subject, because I've played 3.5/PF happily for a long time and would like to get another perspective. Maybe put it in a a pastebin?

Does anyone know a good multi-level dungeon with non-standard monster factions? Something like Caverns of Thracis in scale perhaps

Does Maze of the Blue medusa have any verticality going on? The map itself gives me the impression it's rather flat

>>50335137
Well it is, in fact, a maze. So yeah, it's flat.

>>50334938
Caverns of Thracia itself?

Or are lizardmen/death cultists/beastmen too standard? I guess they could be too standard.

Have you taken a look at Jaguay's other big module, Dark Tower? It's got some faction stuff in it as well, IIRC, although I don't remember if there's much in the way of monster v. monster stuff.

>>50274151
Ruins the fighter. Not a fan.

>>50335137
It's flat, but sometimes rooms lead to places you wouldn't expect. It explains it in the book though.

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Does anyone know if there is a Fire on the Velvet Horizon (FotVH) PDF or scan available somewhere? I can't find it in the trove.

>>50337778
There isn't one, and it's on purpose by the writer. You need to get it physical.

>>50338075
Thanks, I'll add it to my next Lulu purchase then.

One of the things I like about OSR is that combat is pretty quick and straightforward. It makes it easy to run big skirmishes without too much trouble.

On the other hand, it makes climactic fights a bit.. dull. What can I do to make a duel between two higher-level fighters interesting? Two level 8 fighters throwing down is just kind of a shin-kicking contest until someone falls down.

>>50338115
Check out "Mighty Deeds" in Dungeon Crawl Classics, or just a generic system for "Gambits". Basically have the fighters be able to do something cool and freeform, but they'll also have to roll pretty high to make it.
And if that doesn't work, use the environment that the duel is going on around. They aren't fighting on just an open field, right?

>>50338115
Hill Cantons has some interesting dueling rules

>>50338115
If you can make the combat something other than a duel, it will get instantly interesting. If they are fighting while racing for something, or trying to get something in particular from each other, the combat stops being "punch me, punch you, repeat".

>>50338115
Well, make sure to remember morale.

(Also, I'd generally advice against climactic fights in OSR in general - the system really isn't made for it, and you can see it. Your example is only one problem - how about the Wizard just casting his one Disintegrate and instantly dusting the guy? Or the Fighter having a vorpal sword and just beheading the guy on the first round of combat? It's really easy for it to become either too long or too short for a satisfying climax.)

>>50338313
>>50338248
The rub is that the setting that's developed is one in which "duels for honor" and such have become a thing. It worked fine when they were all low level and the first person to land a good hit would kill the other guy. Now they are getting up there in level.

>>50338235
I'll have to look it up. On his blog, I assume?

>>50338218
Hrm. Something to tinker with.

>>50333058

Here you are anon. I would go further with it, but I am running against the clock.

http://pastebin.com/65YHbYt5

The pastebin will expire in a month. I may or not put it back up, but I am going to stick it on my blog so I could potentially follow it up. I just didn't want to shill said blog.

>>50338448
>The rub is that the setting that's developed is one in which "duels for honor" and such have become a thing. It worked fine when they were all low level and the first person to land a good hit would kill the other guy. Now they are getting up there in level.
In that case, yeah, you'll have to adjust the system to match the setting.

What are you after? Quickly resolved matches, a la Chainmail's jousting rules, or something more involved, drawn-out and tactical?

Because you could probably easily hack some tactical five-minute RPS+ combat system out if that's what you're after - I kind of like the look of Chainmail's jousts and Monkish Combat in the Arena of Promotion, for instance.

Actually, come think of it, Chainmail might have an answer here: are the duels all to the death, or are they more to first blood or counting hits? Because the latter two could speed things up a ton with minimal system rework.
Not to mention, well, being generally more interesting that duels to the death. A duel to the death permanently removes a character from the scene, after all, while first blood could have a recurring NPC - not to mention, well, a less(?) harsh penalty for PC loss.

>>50338115
Check out the dueling rules in A Red & Pleasant Land for isolated instances of 1-on-1. If the characters are of sufficiently high level that HP bloat makes it take forever think about whether there are other conditions appropriate to your game that might inflict dueling injuries.

Another avenue is environment and protocol. Any fight can be jazzed up if the surroundings are perilous or offer tactical opportunities or if there are social conventions to consider.

>>50269712
>So many blogs in the pastebin
How could someone read so much blogs?

Also, any site where I can find new and important releases? I didnt check OSR for awhile, need to know what I missed

>>50338565
Thanks man. I'd look at your blog sometime. Drop a spoilered link maybe? Or in the temporary email I put in my post (good for 24 hours from the time of this post).

>>50334938
Anomalous surface environment and Dwimmermount come to mind. Rappan also has some very good encounters.

>>50272635
Those are some neat ideas (slayer and HD difference monk) which I'll add to my OSH game. Thanks.

>>50338565
Not the guy you're responding to, but I'd definitely love to hear as much more as you're willing to write on the subject, whether here or on whatever blog you want to shill. I'm a sucker for system design, and I'm always down for more.

how does /tg/ feel about lamentations of the flame princess?

>>50340697

It's probably my favorite retroclone.

>>50337778
Is that another Zak S joint?

>>50341190
Scrap Princess/ The False Machine guy, blanking on the name.

>>50340697
I like it

>>50340697
If you ignore Raggi spilling edge all over the place- it's the most consistently good retroclone.

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Roll Equal-or-Under Ability
vs
DC Checks

Which are better for settling non-combat issues that Skill checks cannot; like shooting an arrow through a nooses rope, or throwing a catching grappling hook while falling?

I'm a little torn. DC checks allow more 'environmental' input. Like, you wanna bend those bars? They're a bit corroded. Roll d20+Str Mod over 10. But if they were brand new, you'd up it to 15.

But then Ability checks are just so simplified.

>>50342492
You could do roll under but change the dice depending on the task. Easy- 2d6 Medium-3d6 Difficult-4d6 etc.

>>50338565
What is this "13 encounter treadmill" mentioned on line 15? I'm not familiar with it.

>>50342492
DC checks are better for larger ranges. Having DCs ranging from 10, 15, and 20 to 25 or more is no issue. Roll-under gets a bit awkward with pluses and minuses that are too big. I mean, it's still functional, but the point at which you're subtracting 15 is the point at which you should probably ask yourself whether you'd be better off using a different system.

For a smaller range of results, typical of what you'd find in a game that doesn't scale like D&D, roll-under is probably preferable as it's comparatively quick and easy. OSR maybe falls midway between these, as it typically has less of a stat power curve than modern D&D (ACs might not go far below 0, if at all, for instance), so it might be a bit more of a dilemma.

But all of that is assuming that you're doing the same basic math, but going at it different ways. That would mean adding your attribute *score* to your d20 roll when using a DC system (either that, or using your attribute modifier when using a roll under system). If you're comparing one system that uses attribute scores and another that uses modifiers, I think the rather significant difference in the numbers between those two systems is the larger issue. An 18 strength gives you a +8 over an average yokel if you're going by attribute score, but only a +3 if you're going by modifiers, and that's a huge discrepancy. A +3 doesn't have that large an impact on a roll. If an average guy has a 50% chance to succeed, you have only a 65% chance. That's doesn't even quite get you to 2/3 coming from 1/2. Meanwhile, a +8 gets you from 50% to 90%.

So I guess the question is how important do you think that your stats should be? If you determine your stats completely at random in the typical dice fashion, you might be better off going with modifiers. Otherwise, somebody who gets lucky with his rolls will have an incredible advantage over somebody who gets unlucky. Imagine a guy whose average stat is 13 compared to a guy whose average stat is 8...

>>50342844

Under the default rules for 3.5, it should take roughly 13.33 encounters of equal encounter level to level up every level. It's the way the CR system and XP interact. It takes fewer encounters if some or all are greater encounter level than the party's level, or more if some or all are lesser encounter level than the party.

It's explained at the bottom of pg. 41 in the 3.5 DMG under "Behind the Screen".

>>50342954
>Imagine a guy whose average stat is 13 compared to a guy whose average stat is 8...
Both scores are equidistant from the average of 3d6 and thus equally as common. On a roll where the common man with a score of 10 would have a 50% chance of success, the unlucky character would have a 40% while the lucky character would have a 65% chance. That's a pretty big discrepancy. But what's probably more important are the characters' highest scores. A character who has an 18 for his highest stat has a 90% chance of success at whatever he's good at, while a character whose highest stat is 13 comes in at only 65%.

If you have some sort of way of balancing stats (drawing cards, using something like >>50279302, adjusting rolls somehow, etc.), then that sort of thing becomes less of a concern. And certainly for some rolls, simply adding a +3 modifier for an 18 stat seems inadequate. You're the strongest man in all the land and you have a 65% chance to accomplish a strength-related task that a common man has a 50% chance to accomplish? That hardly seems right. (Strength is probably the stat where things should be the least flippy though, and if you're arm-wrestling somebody, the stronger person should probably automatically win... either that or maybe you each roll a d4 or d6 and add it to your strength.) For something like combat, I'm perfectly happy with an 18 stat giving you a mere +3, but for things which are more about a naked attribute, not so much...

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>>50343084
I will say that the scalability that a DC system gives you is honestly less necessary if you are basing things on modifiers. Conversely, a roll-under system that uses raw attributes really needs to be able to scale more. So the mechanics of both systems kind of work against themselves.

Personally, I think using d12s with attribute modifiers gives them about the right importance*, but at that point you're adding a completely new system to your game, which you might not want to do.

*For a task an average guy has a 50% to succeed at, an 18 stat gives you the following chances of success under the following systems...
Attribute-based: 90%
Modifier-based: 65%
d12 (modifier-based): 75%

So that's +40%, +15% and +25%

Alright, so I'm gonna be working on an expansion for Scalemail regarding sea combat and maybe edge out towards other stuff like a multiplayer scenario or a solo campaign.

>>50340697

It's so far my favorite OSR game. It dovetails nicely with my homebrew setting because I'm weird in that my main settings are based on France not England, and I like Le Pactes de Loups.

>>50339724
>>50340617

I plan on cleaning up the latest post to be easier on the eyes tomorrow. Bear with me though, I just got a PS4 and Bloodborne as an expected early Christmas present.

http://musingsoftheosrkind.blogspot.com/

>>50338565
no no, shill your blog. I actively want to see the regulars here shilling blogs.

>>50338448
>the setting that's developed is one in which "duels for honor" and such have become a thing
A Red And Pleasant Land has rules for duels, iirc? They aren't to the death but are to 'first blood' or something. I think.

>>50340697
I love the rules, and I love a lot of the assumptions about 'weird' that the game makes; monsters being unique, magic being chaotic and dangerous and so on. That's all really cool.
I just kind of wish that the rulebook didn't have a picture of a girl being fisted to death by a zombie, you know? There's a line between 'dark and weird and cool' and 'what's the most tasteless thing I can think of'.
It's like the difference between Cannibal Corpse and something like Electric Wizard.

But, the game is solid and the modules are very well written. I recommend it assuming you're not going to scare your players with shit like the aforementioned zombie fisting.

>>50342492
well shooting an arrow through a rope would be an attack roll, surely.

I dislike DCs. I much prefer a static pass/fail number for a character (like with saves). If it's oobscenely difficult, then don't bother rolling; it fails. If it's stupidly easy, don't bother rolling, it succeeds. If you really want a bit more granularity, use 5e's advantage/disadvantage system.

>>50344396
I would love it if Raggi made an otherwise complete art-free edition available in print, it's pretty much the only way I'd get a physical copy of LOTFP, as I am not a fan of the art at all

>>50344592

Print-on-demand yourself one?

>>50344396
>There's a line between 'dark and weird and cool' and 'what's the most tasteless thing I can think of'.
The worst part is the latter was the literal justification of the zombie pic. I think he even paid the Cannibal Corpse cover guy to do it. Raggi's big fucking problem is this HEE HEE GOTTA PROVOKE gleeful urge to shock "the normies". He's a pretty talented guy and he has a great attitude to both production values and paying creators, but he shits all over himself with this stuff.

So does anyone have any nice tables for my totallynotstartrek space exploration game? Random encounters and such for the crew and players to come across while they hike across the cosmos.

>>50345652
Have you checked Traveller? The 101 Whatnots supplement series?

>>50345755
No I have not. Tell me more?

So for sure I'm including a first aid skill/ability in my game that lets you stabalize a dying player character, but only to a small amount of negative HP.

However I kind of want to make it a puzzle in a sense with the medical items, since the game is more modern, and kind of want to do something like juggling pain killers, stimulants, blood clotters, etc. I want to do this instead of a first aid kit, but not making it TOO complex.

Any ideas?

>>50345850
so, a scifi larp I went to had a whole subgame for medicine, with a card game where you matched 'solutions' to 'problems as they came up, hoping to reduce the problems; the longer they were open for surgery the more extra problems (on top of the ones you're doing surgery to treat) would show up. On top of this, the rules of the game could subtly alter based on the patient's medical history and health and stuff, but you wouldn't know what was doing what until you actually went in there (although ooc experienced surgeons could often take a guess). I still don't have a full grasp of the system, and only saw it from the player side, but it was one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had because it just /worked/.
Not sure where I'm going with this, except that I can see whole games about medicine actually being really cool.

>>50345850
That's a cool idea, but I have no idea about the actual execution, which seems like the stumbling block.

>>50345652
1d6 Table of Random Planetary Surface Exploration Shit
1 - Gear failure. A vital piece of life-preserving equipment has crapped out, buddy-breathe/jury rig/abandon someone til you can make it to safety.
2 - You misjudged the day-night cycle and the terminator on this planet is fast approaching, find shelter/leave before you cook/freeze.
3 - Score! Debris from a destroyed spacecraft has left behind (potentially) valuable wreckage, roll 1d6: (1) spare parts the PCs require most, (2) crate of half a dozen antimatter rifles, extremely powerful and illegal in most jurisdictions (3) jettisoned black box, (4) scrap and half-ruined parts, may be worth something if the PCs can figure out how to transport it, (5) person trapped in the remains of a stasis field which activated to save them from impact, released they will be confused and grateful, (6) damaged energy cell (leaking hazardous radiation, handle with caution).
4 - Abandoned outpost. Roll 1d4: (1) occupants fell prey to local predator, which is nesting in the ventilation system waiting for it's brood to hatch, (2) built by an automated system designed to pave the way for colony ships, (3) occupants in cryogenic stasis from a tulmultous point in history, will be suspicious of intruders, well armed and provisioned, (4) decommissioned surveying station, empty but useful shelter.
5 - Another exploration crew. May be resentful of the PCs presence, willing to talk shop, in need of aid.
6 - Weird environmental phenomenon. Roll 1d4: (1) giant subteranean plant which only flowers once per century is destablizing the local region, causing earthquakes, (2) electromagnetic interference on comms in a particular cavern system, would be easy to ignore if they didn't feature the voices of the dead, (3) vibrant oasis of life under a permeable bubble in an otherwise barren environ, (4) rare mineral deposit which causes gravity defying phenomenon in proximity, highly valuable but dangerous and difficult to extract.

How do you all handle buying items with starting gold? It seems like that would take a lot of time, which detracts from the 'quick' character creation OSR seems to praise.

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>>50345796
Well, there's a bunch of BITS supplements for T4/GURPS Traveller that have things like cargos (attached) and stuff. They're a list of 101 X's that you can drop into your spacemans game, sometimes with random generation tables, sometimes not.

The BITS range is Cargos, Governments, Lifeforms, Patrons, Plots, Rendezvous, Starcrews, and Travellers, and there's a MegaTraveller supplement for Vehicles.

>>50344396
I really don't like those images you brought either, but I think I dislike them because the art just isn't very good. The shock factor doesn't matter to me but it just looks ugly. If the bad art would be removed then the LotFP rulebook would be nearly flawless for what it sets out to do in my eyes

>>50346485
>brought up*

>>50346028
If you don't want the players to spend time buying equipment in the beginning, just make them either pick or roll on a table for a "pack" of items, like a fighters pack or a hunters pack with stuff related to it.

>>50346028
Not really. You don't have a lot of money to play with and not a huge selection of things to buy.

But one popular solution is a list/random table of pre-made starting gear kits.

What is even in one of those medieval rations? How heavy are tgey?

>>50346918
>How heavy are tgey?
Iron rations are 7.5 lbs, standard rations are 20 lbs.

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What a shocking picture. How can this be allowed? She gets fisted and anally raped to death by these cis scum zombies.
Raggi definately needs to make his stuff G-rated and stop triggering us.

>>50347252
Are you referring to my earlier post? I wrote that I just think the art looks bad. If Yannick Bouchard made it then it probably would've looked awesome.

>>50347252
addendum:
How about you pussies play a RPG which is not about monsters and killing? What do you think happens when a PC gets killed? Do you imagine he just falls over and his soul descends to heaven with white wings?
If something is edgy it's pretending violence is child friendly.

>>50347318
O C'mon, they just don't like the art, that's perfectly valid. If the LotFP book was full of my little pony stuff, the people that love the grim / metal art wouldn't like it.

>>50347283
No, I'm replying to people who reiterate in these threads on freaking 4chan how Raggi is edgy and needs to make his work more child friendly.

>>50347351
Who wrote that? The anons who commented about it just wrote that they didn't like the art. No one wrote that he needs to change it, and no one wrote that he needs to make it more child friendly.

>>50347396
I don't mean you. The Raggi=2edgy4me meme just grinds my gears.
The art quality is very mixed imo. But which art isn't? 5e has horrible art, PF is completely horrible. AD&D has shit looking like child drawings in it.

>>50347470
2e's art is pretty consistently good, though I'm sure I've forgotten something terrible.

>The Raggi=2edgy4me meme just grinds my gears.
But it's something the man himself cultivates, at least somewhat.

>>50347252
>>50347318
there's a whole world of difference between realistic violence and gore, and... that picture.
I mean, I really like how flame princess is depicted missing a leg and some fingers in the art. It's a neat detail that shows us how violence (or getting eaten by blob-monsters, as the case may be) is nasty and messes you up. I actually quite like the picture where FP is getting eaten by the blob monster. It gives a good impression of what the game's about and isn't obviously just going for shock value.
The fisted-to-death-by-zombies picture is obviously drawn in such a way as to be gratuitous and unpleasant; the art is focussed on a chick being held down and dismembered, with a zombie's hand up her cunt grabbing her internal organs. It's just 'what's the grossest bit of art we can think of'.
And, yeah, I find it unpleasant to look at. I think most people do. It's deliberately drawn that way. And in a rulebook that I'm using for reference, and might be one of the first things I show to new players, I don't want there to be some over-the-top gross out art taking up a full page.

But yeah. I don't mind dark stuff, and I don't mind gore. I just want a bit of fucking class. That kind of artwork's just tasteless and kinda offputting, and the game can do better.

yeah, I know you're a troll.I reacted anyway 'cos this is something I've already put a decent amount of thought into.

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Since we're on the topic of LotFP art: Raggi just posted this on Googleplus. Apparently it's going to be featured in the next Free RPG Day book.

>>50347500
So you prefer depictions of violence being pleasant and reject unpleasant ones?
Violence being a pleasant entertaining product for consumption is one of the sickest things in human culture. Violence should be unpleasant and should get an emotional reaction. If not always than at least partly to remind us what we are trying to enjoy here.

D&D is at it's heart a grim dark game about stealing, murdering and "civilizing" the wilderness. Imagining it to be a child friendly fairy tale is delusional. I don't have a problem with people being delusional, everyone is in some way, but acting righteous about it is unbearable.

>>50346960
What are they made of though? How are they supposed to look like? Bread and dried fruits, meat, herbs?

>>50347868
>Bread and dried fruits, meat, herbs?
That'd be the ordinary rations. Iron rations are a WWI thing.

“Iron Ration”

The first attempt to make an individual ration for issue to soldiers in the field was the “iron ration”, first introduced in 1907. It consisted of three 3-ounce cakes (made from a concoction of beef bouillon powder and parched and cooked wheat), three 1-ounce bars of sweetened chocolate, and packets of salt and pepper that was issued in a sealed tin packet that weighed one pound. It was designed for emergency use when the troops were unable to be supplied with food. It was later discontinued by the adoption of the “Reserve Ration” but its findings went into the development of the emergency D-ration.

>>50347868
What he said is bull shit, it's not that heavy. It does take space though. Standard rations are fresh meat/fish/vegetables/fruit/bread. Iron rations are dried and salted.
In some versions it weighs 1 lb. Standard rations do sometimes need cooking equipment.

Some people house rule LotFP rations to take less space than one slot, but what I read from people hiking a lot is it's realistic. You wouldn't have processed stuff like we have today if you play medieval/early modern.

>>50348013
>What he said is bull shit
Check Appendix O of the AD&D DMG.
>Rations, Iron: 75 gp encumbrance
>Rations, Standard: 200 gp encumbrance

Divide gp encumbrance by 10 to get lbs. encumbrance.

>>50348076
Oh, and a note from there:
Many people looking at the table will say, “But a scroll doesn’t weigh two
pounds!” The encumbrance figure should not be taken as the weight of the
object — it is the combined weight and relative bulkiness of the item. These
factors together will determine how much a figure can carry.

>>50348099
So yeah, the answer to the question 'how heavy are they?' depends on what exactly the rations are made of, but they encumber as given.

>>50348137

Not only that, but different encumbrance systems assume different things. AD&D 1e assumes that you're using coin weight notation (cn) as your encumbrance benchmark, which rolls weight and bulkiness into an abstraction.

Other systems assume raw weight, and LotFP just abstracts as much of it away as possible (though I know cavegirl has been abstracting it even further - or at least, that's what I remember from previous /osrg/s).

>>50347863
Yeah, I don't like gratuitously unpleasant depictions of violence. I find them off-putting.
You know, I don't like my entertainment to be unpleasant. I do this for fun, and I don't find looking at pictures of over the top shock horror fun.
I mean, if I wanted to play a tabletop game about bleakness and misery, I'd play Wraith the Oblivion. It's a game that at least puts some mechanical thought into turning the psychological screws. Once you've seen more than one cannibal corpse album cover, though, it's not even shocking anymore, just tasteless.

Plus, you know. If somebody's new to tabletop, and their first experience of the game is leafing through the rulebook and seeing a zombie sticking its hand up somebody's cunt, there's a good chance they won't come back.

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Something I was thinking about while looking at the od&d setting (see >>50324780) map: there's no real big bodies of water, besides the marshes.
What if there was a coastline or inland sea to make it a bit more interesting, to support more watery adventures and maybe a more diverse environment around the coasts? Suggestions as to where to put this?

>>50348178
I think the way 2e does it is 'here's a weight, your GM may ask you how you're stowing it, and increase the encumbrance appropriately'. I'm not sure if that's better or worse, honestly. On the one hand, it removes the bulkiness from the equation unless your GM adds it back in, and even then it's fiat. On the other hand, it does make it much easier to work out if your players are carrying too much weight for what they're trying to walk on.

>>50347863

>grim dark game about stealing, murdering, and "civilizing" the wilderness

I'd say that's only as true as the particular group playing the game. If you consider recovering abandoned treasure to be theft (grave robbing or looting) then sure, that's a feature of the game. But the PCs could also be "It belongs in a museum!" types who want to preserve the history of the Ancient Empire of Long Ago.

Killing is less of a focus of OSR games, since (most) of them provide XP for avoiding encounters and XP for recovered treasure. But, obviously its there, and it wouldn't quite have that edge of danger if there weren't villains in the game world who want to do your party harm.

As for "civilizing" the wilderness, you've got me there. It certainly is about that, but I don't think that's a grim or dark as you make it out to be.

>child friendly fairytale

Hmm. Well, my copy of Tall Tales of the Wee Folk (TSR 9254) begs to differ, but alright.

>violence as entertainment is one of the sickest things in human culture

Actually, I'd disagree. Real violence is the sickest thing about human culture. Fake/imaginary/entertainment violence is a much more appropriate outlet for our animal aggression, so long as we never lose sight of the fact that violence is never acceptable between human beings in reality.

>being righteous about it

People have different tolerances for violent imagery. I don't have the problems with it others seem to, but the only one being self-righteous about their viewpoint is (you). Step down off the soapbox. Roll some dice. Do something constructive.

>>50347252
I don't get how anyone is seeing "fisted to death" here. There's a zombie ripping out her guts and the one in her crotch isn't even making a fist; It looks to me like it's just reaching for some flesh and her pubic bone is the closest path. There's nothing remotely sexual/rapey/whatever about it

>>50348364
>As for "civilizing" the wilderness, you've got me there. It certainly is about that, but I don't think that's a grim or dark as you make it out to be.
Look at the historical analogue of "civilizing" the wilderness: 1. colonialism and 2. utilization of nature, and it is pretty fucking grim dark.

>Actually, I'd disagree. Real violence is the sickest thing about human culture. Fake/imaginary/entertainment violence is a much more appropriate outlet for our animal aggression, so long as we never lose sight of the fact that violence is never acceptable between human beings in reality.
Violence is acceptable between human beings in reality or do you believe in peaceful anarchy? Both virtual and real violence can be ethically acceptable. I do agree that virtual violence can be an outlet for our drive, this just shouldn't be unreflected. I don't see we have much contention here.

Does anyone have a nice and convenient table for what happens if the party leaves a horse or mule close to the dungeon?

>>50348727
I mean I'm all for a philosophy lesson guys, but this barely has anything to do with OSR anymore. How did we get here from a few people not liking grimdark art?

OT: Race and class or race as class?

>>50348836
I always give the "base camp" a wilderness encounter check when the party stays in the dungeon for a long time. That way the wilderness game logic is still in effect, even though the party is in the dungeon.

So if that donkey is left alone and a wolf encounter is rolled because of a triggered check, the party will come back to a eaten donkey.

>>50348859
Race and class, all the way. Means I don't have to worry about writing up a whole new class if I want to add races, plus it feels less limiting, you know?

>>50348875
Holy crap, I was preparing to write up a whole table for that anon but your system is way more intuitive.

>>50348859
I was on board for race-as-class when I started OSR, but I'm gravitating more toward race and class now. Maybe I'll do it like how ACKS did it, but somehow it doesn't have that D&D feel to it and it feels kinda silly to call a elf fighter an "elven moonblade" or whatever.

>>50348875

This is a good idea. I like it.

>>50348859

Agreed, and I prefer race and class, but I don't see any real problems or difficulties with race-as-class, it's more a matter of how distinct you want the classes to be.

>>50348915

I like Basic Fantasy's races, but I think humans need something better than +10% XP.

>>50347655
Is he going to pitch another fit when retailers refuse to distribute this one too?

>>50348956
I can never figure out whether anons in these generals want to crucify Raggi or suck him off.

>>50348182
The issue I have with LotFP is that Raggi's definition of "weird fantasy" seems to mostly be "sexual violence and shock gore". I'm not a prude or "SJW" or anything but I just find it so tacky.

>>50349016
Would you say it's like you went in there expecting Silent Hill, and Raggi gave you Outlast?

What's the overall "tone" of the games you're in, /osrg/ ? Looking through modules, I've seen gonzo fantasy, historic fantasy, the works. So what're you personally playing/DM'ing towards?

Speaking of gonzo fantasy, is Misty Isles of the Eld in the trove? I can't seem to find it.

>>50348994
Eh, I just flip a coin.

>>50348994
Why not both?

>>50349039
That's a very good way of putting it. Or like I went in expecting an Ian Miller illustration and instead Raggi gave me a Cannibal Corpse album cover instead and then told me that if I don't "get it" I should go read Oglaf to understand.

>>50349073
medium magic level (magic is known about and divine magic is generally accepted, but actual spellcasters living within civilization is kinda rare) generic fantasy, with more monstrous races being more "civilized".
there are some orc, kobold etc cities that more or less get along with and do trade with the surrounding generic races. still lots of racial tension.

>>50348901
Thanks. I really always like to think in terms of game logic when thinking of stuff like this, it's what pulled me to the OSR in the first place, because the games focus on having the subsystems needed to effectively resource manage dungeon crawling logically.

It's important for me that the game-world has some kind of logic; when and how random encounters are triggered are maybe the most important part of that. It conveys the danger of the setting to the players, and shows them that time is ticking against them.

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>>50342844
>>50342998

Here, I made a screencap so you can read it yourself.

>>50349572
How often are wilderness encounters rolled though? Once per day?

>>50349898
It depends. Once per day usual trivializes the encounter unless it's much more difficult then normal because the wizard can just blow all his spells and get them back before the next fight. But since your rolling for horses and they aren't moving anywhere, once a day could work.

>>50349898
Depends on the wilderness for me. I do 2x per day, 1-6 chance. AD&D goes up to 6x per day 1-10 chance I think.

>>50348226
Just expand the map outwards - to the north would be a natural fit, since that's where the water's flowing. Probably pretty far to the north, since coastal rivers means civilization and the Outdoor Survival map is the Wilderness.

Do note that you'll probably want the expanded water encounters from Blackmoor.

>>50348182
You make a legitimate point, but ultimately it's a matter of taste. I reject the notion that it's somehow "bad for the hobby" or that such art should be locked away in some 18+ ghetto. The comics code and the MPAA demonstrate exactly how "voluntary censorship" works in reality.

AFAIK you didn't advocate anything of the sort, but there's real people who can't separate the concepts of "I don't like this" and "this shouldn't be allowed to exist/should only be sold out of an unmarked door in an alleyway three miles from the nearest school".

FWIW I think there's a bright side to the depictions--women are always depicted as adventurers getting fucked up while doing adventurous stuff or as powerful villains.

>>50348836
I prefer just having nothing happen to it - having a random horde of 300 orcs skullfuck your pony kind of destroys the idea of the dungeon being dangerous and returning to the surface being returning to safety.

Especially since, well, the wilderness encounter tables have a tendency to be deadly high-level stuff... which makes sense, since they're meant for high-level romp-around-with-an-army play.
But that deadliness means that not only can you not leave a mule alone by the entrance, you can't leave it guarded either - what is your farmboy hireling going to do when Tiamat shows up hungry for a snack? Hell, at some point you start needing to leave an actual higher-level classed NPC (or PC!) to guard the entrance to the fuckin' first level of the dungeon.

No, better to have the entrance to the dungeon be the border between safety and the Underworld.

Not to mention that, well, dungeon expeditions usually don't take that long and chances are that if you roll for wilderness encounters on the donkey you should have rolled up an encounter for the party on their way to the dungeon in the first place (and on the way back from it!)

>>50350815
I go for more of a middle ground.

First, not all encounters are hostile. Especially close to settlements, they're more likely to be benign humans or interesting wildlife or phenomena, not high HD monsters.

Leaving charted paths and going further into the wilderness is when you start running across powerful monsters and warbands numbering into the dozens or more.

Even then, leaving a few hirelings to guard your camp is enough to make a sort of mobile refuge. If you're going deep into the wilderness for any length of time, you basically have to bring "town" with you. The only time it makes sense to be out wandering around hundreds of miles from human territory with nothing but your four best friends is if things have gone terribly wrong, or if you're bringing the ring to Mount Doom.

>>50348653

It's just folks seeing what they expected to see. I'm with you, it's really no different than that bit in Day of the Dead.

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Guys I want to contribute to the Sword & Wizardry community by supplying a proper logo to mark homemade modules as being "S&W compatible". In the S&W spirit, I'm trying to keep it simple, elegant and pure. I was thinking about a bicolor, flat icon with a crossed sword and wizard staff, saying "S&W compatible", a bit like pic related. I'm terrible at photoshop, though... would anyone be willing to give it a try? Credit will be where credit's due, of course.

>>50351171
>if things have gone terribly wrong, or if you're bringing the ring to Mount Doom.
pedantic addendum: if you're bringing the ring to Mount Doom, things have already gone terribly wrong