OSR General

Damn, that new image looks good on the catalog.

>>50763236
What's the weeabooest thing you've done in OSR, /osrg/?

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So how many PC should I be killing per session? I've never killed a character before, and I'm trying to get into the OSR mindset.

I hope it's okay if I repost this, it got in just as the previous thread autosaged.

>as promised earlier I tried to write a table. It's for the anon who was thinking of doing a river game, it pretty much assumes a setting that's a massive, wide river where all the adventures take place. I guess it'd work without much tweaking just for use with an ocean voyage as well. Hope the link works:

notehub.org/knq2g


It's not even that good, I just spent enough time on the shoddy formatting that I don't want to totally waste it

First for True AD&D™

>>50763467
But, Anon, AD&D isn't OSR

>>50763520
Yeah I forgot that only modern copies of it that have been butchered and castrated are OSR. Let's all suck some more "retroclone" teat so we can be enlightened and be further divorced from the Kingdom of True AD&D™

>>50763520
AD&D 1E isn't an OSR? Does that mean, I'm just as bad as a 3.5 fag, senpai?

>>50763822
If you want to get that technical, 0E itself is not OSR.

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As stated last thread, alternate way to do Wizards that keeps in the Vancian/bookish theme.

>Wizard gets number of spell slots equal to level
>All spells now share the same spell level, spell effects are instead 'boosted' by taking up multiple spell slots?
>After casting a spell, you can fill the slot back up again without having to rest but it takes regular time to do so plus other components

Another idea to add to this is a kind of negative 'strain' or 'stress' roll you get when casting certain spells or just over and over, that way you are limited per day without a strict limit, but I kind of like the simplicity of all spells just being however many you want, just prepare them in advance.

>>50763882
Don't forget that in Vance's books nobody ever seems to bring a spellbook travelling, instead they leave them locked up in their homes -- I think both because they're too valuable to remove, and probably too heavy and cumbersome?

>>50763342
gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8

>>50763342
Only shit DMs kill player characters. You just make the world potentially dangerous and let player characters kill themselves.

>>50763520
I keep it simple, any systems that come from the D&D systems made by TSR are OSR.

Yes, I even view 2nd edition (sans splatbooks) as OSR

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>>50763305
I'm still loving this one.

>>50763342
If your players are smart, or lucky, none.

Your goal isn't to kill PCs as the referee, it's to serve as the neutral arbiter of the game world with help of the dice. If your players do reckless shit and get killed, you might have a TPK on your hands. If they're smart and avoid combat, or if they do engage in combat but end up with some lucky rolls and end up slaying an entire room, don't go out of your way to kill them; the world should contain enough dangers that the PCs have no trouble getting themselves killed if they're not careful.

If you create a world with rules and consequences, and enforce those with the help of the dice, it will help to forge a stronger fantasy for the players. Death only serves to give meaning to the world and the actions of the character, to create a respect for the world.

>>50763342
In my two campaigns I ran with experienced players from dragonfoot, over 1 year of play,

23 hirelings died
0 PCs died (but there was 2 near TPKs, one with some bugbears and orcs when the party could not run, and the 20 undead room in Barrowmaze)
And since its OSR, I had one player pass away in that timeframe.

With poor players I had a few times with with one players making it back.

>Want to try running OSR games
>Every time I try to run a game people always lament how restrictive the classes are when making characters
I honestly don't understand this sentiment. At the very least I can use these old adventure modules with the games they do like to play with only a tiny bit of work.

>>50764408
I never understood it, but I am a old fag that likes Race = Class D&D.

>Still want to run a campaign from level 1-36 in BECMI

Has anyone bought Axioms Magaizine from Autarch? Do you feel the content is worth 4 bucks?

>>50764408
By "try to run", do you actually run the game with your players or do you just show them the system and tell them about how it works? If it's the latter, then maybe a one-shot could make them rethink their view.

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So in some of the core rulebooks it states that magic missile 'has a unique appearance to the magic user'. I want to know if anyone here has done that rule and what sort of magic missle effects their players came up with? Sounds really cool as a bit of customization.

>>50764449
>I want to play a dragon
>okay, here's a dragon class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a vampire
>okay, here's a vampire class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a succubus
>okay, here's a succubus class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a elf
>okay, here's a elf class
>what? that's dumb, why can't I be an elf samurai

>>50764684
A little bit of both. I haven't been able to run a game proper in a while, and the complaints do get whenever I try to run something is fairly discouraging.
Interestingly enough the people with the complaints about classes being restrictive are the ones who prefer rules light, narrative games like Fate and Risus.

>>50764756
I feel like every spell should have visuals unique to the Magic-User. For Magic Missile I've seen the normal darts of light, spectral birds that home in on the target, pages from their spellbook flying out to attack, etc.

>>50764843
>I feel like every spell should have visuals unique to the Magic-User.

That's actually something I'm adding in my own core rulebook, which is why I asked for inspiration.

>For Magic Missile I've seen the normal darts of light, spectral birds that home in on the target, pages from their spellbook flying out to attack, etc.

That's great, thanks.

>>50764774
I get sick and tired of players wanting to play fancy ass elves or Scottish dwarves.

>>50764774

Except race-as-class works perfectly for the top three and is fine because you're playing as something objectively nonhuman with strange magic or other special abilities and powers, whose fundamental nature of being is totally different then an intelligent humanoid.

However elves are not some quadrupedal beast like a dragon nor a demon nor a undead creature. They are intelligent humanoid creatures with cultures and societies. Race as class doesn't work for them unless you want to argue that all elves are magical swordsmen, which doesn't make sense. Does their society not have any thieves or priests? No full time magicians? No- this doesn't work because they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions and classes.

>>50764756
One of the 3.5 books mentioned stuff like a demon's face spitting shards or a miniature dragon breathing fire.

>>50764932
It's the pop culture momentum of WoW, you can't fight it.

>>50765010
I kinda prefer ACKs way of doing it. Race-as-class but with multiple elf and dwarf classes.

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>>50765046
I have eliminated dwarves from a few of my campaign worlds.

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>>50765010
>therefore can occupy different professions and classes.

Only provided their culture supports such things, and people who might fit into these classes are liable to go adventuring.
Elves and dwarves who run off with humans to rob dungeons are their species' juvenile delinquents, not proper members of their society.

And why would a human class like priest or magic user properly represent the way elves or dwarves relate to magic or faith? PDF related, it's Beyond the Wall's Dwarven Runecaster, the closest thing Dwarves have to the humanMage.

>>50765010
>Does their society not have any thieves or priests?

Nope. Elves believe that if you want something that isn't yours you must take it by steel or spell. The Elven gods demand physical and magical perfection, not morality and community like the mewling Human gods.

>No full time magicians?

For an Elf to neglect the body in such a way is as grave a sin as if he neglected his soul. In any case, those deviants are quickly put to death.


>they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions

Elves can practice any profession, from cobbler to general, without neglecting their quest for perfection.

This is probably the most boring, generic thing to ask, but does anyone have a good table/pdf/whatever of Adventure hooks and ideas? I wanna run BFRPG so bad.

>>50765010
>they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions and classes.
But do they have the same psychology as humans? I mean maybe humans have priests because they're kinda scared of the gods so they a whole caste of people as divine mediators/negotiators/scapegoats. Maybe other races just don't feel that need to have a buffer between the mortal and the divine so they actually don't have priests.

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What do you personally use ability scores to help modify?

I use;
>Strength +melee damage +carrying capacity +shield bonus to AC
>Dexterity +AC +to hit
>Constitution +Max HP
>Intelligence +???
>Wisdom +Initiative
>Charisma +Reaction +Hireling Morale

Since I play in a game without skill checks and dislike the idea of giving an XP bonus for it, I don't really having anything to grant for intelligence. Language is always an idea but I feel that's really minor, any other ideas?

so how is the black hack? what can you tell me about it?

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>>50763236 (OP)

I made this because I have entirely too much free time.

I'm currently running SWN, which I guess is kinda OSR. Does anyone have any suggestions for cool modules I can slot in here and there or mine for ideas?

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>>50765743
I love it

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>>50765880
Not a true module, but neato. Also, world of the lost for LotFP would be a fine planetary hex crawl for them.

>>50765663
The general consensus is that it's okay-good and that the derivatives are mostly shameless cashgrabs.

The only Hack derivatives I'd recommend are The Petal Hack (free, and I own it, it's kickass) and The Zebra Hack (by the same guy).

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>>50765743

>>50766305
I really wanna check out Rad Hack, just cause I obsess over all thing post-apocalyptic. That being said, Black Hack is *too* simplified for my tastes.

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Being obnoxious again and linking my Thief-centric system for people to test and gimme feedback on. Consider it a mashup of LotFP and DCC.

For people who like the combat-light, the 'Thief' PC series, The Lies of Locke Lamora, the Lankhmar etc...

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

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>>50765743
That's sick af, bro. Nice work.

>my shitbrew may end up with Fighters being OP

I really didn't intend for that to happen.
Basically Fighters get 5e Fighting Styles, instakill on Crits if the enemy is below a HP threshold at 3rd level, Cleave that activates on any kill at 4th, and then the instakill triggers on ANY hit if the enemy is below the threshold at 5th.

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>>50766679
Nah.

- Always Cleave after a successful attack. 5' range.
- Crits to max DAM (or get a sweet crit table like this), not instakill.

>>50766679
>>50766730

>mfw I give fighters an extra attack every level

>>50766926
to be fair, i'm playing off LotFPs thing of only having fighters have advancing AB.

>>50765880
How about a reskinned keep on the borderlands? I've always been curious if the game's advice to shamelessly reskin and rework fantasy modules actually works in play.

You could also use Hard Light, an official SWN adventure. I liked it.

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How come The Black Hack doesn't have The Rad Hack?

Would you allow a conversion of PF's original Scarred Witch Doctor (a Con-based caster) in your games?

>>50767322

No. Not only are MUs supposed to be squishy, but I don't like stat based casting classes in the first place. Not even Int. I'd much rather give them a bonus to magic that is secondary to a direct stat casting bonus.

>>50767182
I've seen dungeon crawls done as abandoned space stations and facilities, it works. Especially with a bunch of angry security/maintenance/war/medical bots, devolved mutant survivors, and raiders hiding out.

And undead, because necromancers and skeletons and zombies are totally valid in space.

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>>50767322
Does he do something unique or interesting that I can't do by just re-fluffing a Magic-User? Or adding a system that allows a regular magic-user to burn HP to power casting? Because I have the latter (along with drugs, ritual implements, etc.), and it encourages high-Con casters to use HP, whereas wealthy ones will use implements, and That Guys smoke all the magic-weed.

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>>50767899

>>50767899
The compressed thumbnail looks so much like a person from a sci-fi movie but I can't for the life of my place it.

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>>50765743
this is absolutely beautiful

>>50766305
do you have the zebra hack pdf?

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>>50768026
I figured it out.

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>>50763974

True, but less powerful Wizards in dungeons facing more threats would need to rememorize them more often.

I also like the idea of spells requiring not necessarily a whole spellbook. Maybe a simple visual key or like engrave the spell on your gauntlets so you can just look down and study it if you need help.

Speaking of spell learning- has anyone read that Last Gasp post about rolling to learn spells that permanently effect them? I kind of like this idea but I'm really hesitant to actually put it in the game, it seems super cool but weird. Anyone use that houserule?

>>50765332
Not only do we have a huge pile of tables, some made here in these very threads, but we also have a huge pile of most released D&D adventure modules. Check the trove in the pastebin.

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Replace regular d20 attack roll with 2d10

Yes or no?

>>50770239
Question: why would you do that? Why roll 2 dice instead of one?

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>>50770249

If you roll a match (ie; 6 and 6 for 12 total) you get to do a combat maneuver, such as attempt to trip an enemy, disarm them, etc.

Every 10 you roll, you deal +1 damage.

Every level, Fighters get another combat die they can throw each round. They can use multiple die into one huge attack, or attack multiple opponents; splitting them accordingly.

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So there's something I don't quite understand. Why exactly are this and the Pathfinder general separate generals? I don't think there's any debating that it and 3.5 are OSR at this point. But I guess it's just that it's the most popular OSR game and it'd be bad for them to dominate this general?

>>50770327
Pathfinder/3.5 hold over some of the tropes and conventions from the earlier D&D versions, but they are play-wise entirely different beasts from the OSR generation of games.

>>50770327
Nothing about 3.x is old school.

>>50770327
wat

>>50770291
>you get to do a combat maneuver, such as attempt to trip an enemy, disarm them, etc.
You can attempt these regardless of what you roll or are about to roll.

>Every 10 you roll, you deal +1 damage.
Doesn't really require 2 dice for something like this.

Also 2 dice make a bell curve of probabilities so armor class would need to be rebalanced as well.

2d10 instead of d20 sounds like fiddly busywork without much real gain in gameplay.

>>50770327
>trolling
Nice try. Just hide this thread if it bothers you so much.

>>50770389

It was just an idea. I liked the idea because it gave fighters more interesting options, smashing all their dice together for multiple sure-to-hit attacks with high damage or splitting them among multiple enemies to hit more of them. It also gives everyone else some interesting options for combat moves, and thirdly I kind of wanted to rebalance the armor anyway- AC scales upwards in this version of combat much stronger so it makes sense to restrict it more and more.

>>50770370
>>50770385
>>50770355
3.x is it's own brand of old school now.
>literally from the fucking 90's
>the system is in it's teens
>literal copy cat system is made to maintain the old 3.x style and keep it going for all eterity for the fans who've been playing this same game for well over a decade
>fandom hold intense hatred for newer styles of RPGs and play that have become popular since then, especially "story games"

It's the exact same thing.

>>50770389
Agreed. It would be better to roll pools of d6 instead, and looking for matches. You start with one die and add bonus ones from level (1/lvl for Fighter, lvl/4 for Wizards, lvl/2 for everybody else) and every match you make counts as a hit that does damage equal to the number rolled x every extra die matching the score i.e. rolling a pair of 3 does 3 damage, three 3 is six damage and so on. This means that at the first level no-one can hit by themselves, but need to help each other (you can give your rolled dice to your allies to use) and finagle advantage from the environment (pushing a foe into a fire generates auto 6, tripping them auto 3 etc). Much more satisfying than rolling 2d10 and promotes teamwork.

>>50770327
>>50770426

Listen mate, I know you are trolling but OSR is a specific type of old school, not just 'old school DnD' by itself. Check the OP post and trove for examples. Specifically, it is about the 0 or 1st Edition of DnD and various retroclones, such as LotFP, S&W, Labyrinth Lord, and many others. There is a strong emphasis on house rules and creativity, as opposed to RAW and supplemental material of later generations of DnD (3.5 and PF).

>>50770239
That screws up the probabilities, but you probably know that already. The main question is whether or not you want people to roll average more often than extremes.

>>50770291
These rule changes on the other hand will make everything go completely crazy, and you should avoid it unless you want level 5 fighters to be spiky-haired animus with glowing eyes disarming one another once per round (it's fine if you do, of course, I'm not trying to judge you). With conventional ACs it's practically impossible to miss if you roll 5d10 to hit, and you're very likely to get doubles or better.

>>50770355
>>50770370
>>50770385
>>50770395
Please don't reply to the obvious troll, attention is what these fags want. Just let it wash past.

>>50770415
I see what you're trying to do but giving high-level fighters pretty much a guaranteed way to score damage every round against a single target is a pretty big change.

>>50764167
Seconded

>>50770426
Perhaps, but in common parlance old school D&D refers to games not newer than AD&D.

Who in this thread is actually in his 30s?

>>50770469
Stop replying to a troll.

>>50770477
I am, started gaming with the red box D&D with my friend as the GM in a local library. Good times.

>>50770477
29 so basically a youngster.

>>50770478
Replying to trolls is the oldest game

>>50770426
3.x is definitely from the new school "diablo-like" category all about numbers and splats and filling your item slots and optimal builds and shit

>>50770532
Diablo is from 1996, for fuck's sake. Old enough to vote.

>>50770426
>3.x is it's own brand of old school now.
No, it's not. It'll become "old school" in another 10 years or so, but it'll never be an OSR. Never.

>>50770477
I'm 25. Grew up on AD&D 1E (parents had all the books). I wish my players would play AD&D, but all they want is this PF and D&D 3.5 bullshit.

>>50765743
Thank (you) for your service.

>>50770477

I am. I started with 3.0 D&D and worked my way backwards, because over time I began to despise the mechanical decisions 3.0 shipped with, and I wondered what older editions did instead (and why 3.0 felt the need to discard them).

Turns out, I liked older editions better, and I eventually got myself a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia. Best D&D book I've ever owned.

/osrg/ converted me to the retroclones. I never want to go back to 3.x, and frankly, I have no taste for 4e or even 5e (I'll play them if someone else is running them, but I'll probably never run them myself).

I do play other games than OSR - but if I want to play D&D, a game I like, I play OSR.

What's the latest version of OSRIC? I'd like to take it to the printer.

>>50770502
But is it OSR?

>>50763236
>>50765743
These are both awesome thread images, I just came here to say that. Keep on grogging...

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>>50770477
>30s

Bwahaha. I'm 42, you damn young pups.

>>50770477
>tfw I'm 19
Maybe one day I can convince my friends to try OSR, but now I only play 5e

>>50770477
I am, but I'm a newbie. Never actually played yet.

>>50765880
Tomb Of The Iron God is easy to reskin as nanotechnological undead and AIs gone amok in the Re-processor Vaults. Or I did anyway.

Also Dead Names for SWN is basically a gold mine of how to take modules and redesign them for sci-fi/fantasy. Just run the trope in the module through the required tables and it should be pretty interesting.

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>>50770477
26. Used to read my Dad's 1e books, tried 3.5 DM'd by relative, had a horrible experience with it, and have rarely bothered with anything newer than 2e ever since.

>>50765621
Usually it’s learning spells, magical research, possibly spells per day and all the stuff that affects only magic-users. You could use it for basic knowledge checks assuming getting this knowledge right now really can save time and / or money. Languages are boring if you're not willing to invest in making them matter. Right on with the Wisdom modifying initiative, did the same thing.

>>50765663
I think there are several key things about it:

* There's practically no innovative rules, it's a compilation of house rules all working towards streamlining. While every OSR work is derivative and looks the same to the average reader not familiar with the subtle changes every author usually makes, Black Hack is transparent because of how minimalistic the presentation is.

* At the same time, it retains main sacred cows. Six ability scores, HDs (also handy «damage based on HD» chart, one of the things I liked), core classes. It's easier psychologically to translate anything D&D into Black Hack than say Into the Odd.

* The word «Hack» just does something to your brain too.

I guess that’s why there are so many derivatives, but I’m not too fond of it. It follows the trend of players making every roll which I don’t care about, misses the point with the linear reaction role, usage die is not that great for everything in your inventory, all of the mechanical weight lies on ability scores etc.

The Petal Hack rules though because I finally got Tekumel after reading it.

>>50771675
22 here, buddy. I did confuse my players at the start, but we started with 5e, switched it after a few months of playing and never looked back. I say take your chance.

>>50771837
>nanotechnological undead
>not proper undead
coward. keep a blessed mace handy for close encounters, mate.

>>50771965
>not necrotech disassembler field
its your funeral

>>50772040
that field generator goes in the head and shaft of the mace, so you can turn nanotech with science while you turn undead with faith while you turn skeletons into shards of bone with strength

>>50772137
>with strength
or to be fair with the strength of your exoplate

>>50772137
i like you

>>50771920
Kinda the opposite of you. 24, started with 3.5, my uncle showed me his AD&D 1e books which got me interested in oldschool. Mostly play Pathfinder and 5e because thats what my groups play. I'm hoping to get a proper B/X or S&W campaign running soon... but having no experience with those versions, not sure which to start with.

>>50772356
Start with straight B/X. There's literally no advantage to most clones, certainly none they don't fuck away with inferior layouts, save shenanigans or bloated gear lists.

>>50771093
No.
That's replying to Otyughs.

>>50765078
>Slack Wyrm

This is a fun comic. Thanks.

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>>50772356
26 guy here. I have played some Pathfinder here and there too, but mostly to humor a friend. I've done S&W White box, and it's alright, Dunno about regular S&W. I have LL, the Rules Cyclopedia, Dark Dungeons, and the B and E books of BECMI. Haven't had much of a chance to use them alot yet, as I only recently got into Basic games. (And my job has been a bitch lately) Always did a lot more OSRIC/1E, and 2E.

>>50772395
I dunno, comparing the LL books and the B/X PDFs, they don't seem THAT different, but then a gain, I am newish to basic like I said. I would just go with what's cheapest. Of course I'm going to get B/X too, bc I love collecting.

>>50772695
>I dunno, comparing the LL books and the B/X PDFs, they don't seem THAT different, but then a gain, I am newish to basic like I said.
He's not saying they're *bad*, just that they don't have any particular *advantage* over B/X (and even LL has some screwy stuff, lke IIRC it gives clerics a spell on level 1, which there are all sorts of reasons not to do). The cost of a printed copy definitely is one advantage, though.

>>50772695
B/X and LL are nearly identical, with minor changes to layout, page layout, art, and that sort of thing.
Starting with either is fine.

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>>50772844
>>50772695

>>50763236
Moldvay Basic!
B/X!

>>50765621
I have intelligence affecting starting gear. It's the 'did you remember to pack candles'? thing, about planning rather than wealth.

>>50763974
>Vance's books

The most powerful of wizards might be able to hold 3 or 4 spells at a time, but each spell is an encounter winner. Magic missile is some weak tea compared to what a real Vancian wizard would be packing.

I'm new to the whole OSR shebang and there's something I can't wrap my head around: what the fuck does % in lair actually mean?

From what I'm getting if you roll say, a Stone Giant in a random encounter table and then roll positive in the % in lair it means that the characters have not just stumbled upon a Stone Giant, but its fucking lair. Is this correct?

I'm trying to run a hexcrawl so this would mean that I shouldn't place monster lairs in the map, instead I should wait for the lairs to spawn through this method, right?

That seems incoherent as fuck. What if a Stone Giant Lair suddenly spawns in a hex bordering a village? Say the characters have been to this village before and there's no mention of a Giant lair in it's whereabouts, only now there is. Does this mean the lair was always there and the villagers were somehow ignorant to it's existence? Or does it mean that the Giants have only recently taken residence in said neighbouring hex?

>>50773267
So do you go with retroactive starting gear, then, or what?

I'm going to guess that you've decided to ditch the resource management/logistics minigame?

>>50773350
It's weak tea compared to Sleep, too, but yes, agreed. I just think fewer but more powerful spells would be a much better direction to go in than the common "boo hoo, my wizard can't cast spells every waking moment, I have to manage my resources" one.

If someone said he was going to make Prismatic Spray a level 1 spell but then only hand out new spell slots every four levels after that, I'd think that was an interesting idea and probably wouldn't fuck shit up too bad; after all, Sleep's at least as much of an encounter winner on the early levels, and deeper down there'll be more than just one hostile mob anyway, so it's not like they can really dive down, kill a dragon and leap back out risk-free. (Or if they can, either you designed the dungeon badly or they earned it.)

>>50773830
no, no. I scale your starting gear off intelligence, not a separate roll.

>>50773768
% in lair means that you actually have the chance to get treasure for that encounter - ordinary non-lair encounters are just a waste of time designed to kill you slowly.

For a stone giant lair, specifically, that means that you've stumbled upon their hidden cave (stone giants are one of the ones that have caves rather than castles, right?).

Remember that the standard five-mile hex is freaking huge, and that the town and lair could be positioned anywhere within those adjacent hexes - the giant could be 10+ miles from the town. It's entirely possible that it's been there for quite a while but the town is unaware of it because it's never gone in that direction, or if it has then they didn't know that a giant was nearby.

Also, remember that in typical medieval times even "plains" are fairly wooded. They're not exactly the great plains of america or sub-saharan africa.

>>50773768
>From what I'm getting if you roll say, a Stone Giant in a random encounter table and then roll positive in the % in lair it means that the characters have not just stumbled upon a Stone Giant, but its fucking lair. Is this correct?
That is correct. That's the idea the stat's designed for.

>I'm trying to run a hexcrawl so this would mean that I shouldn't place monster lairs in the map, instead I should wait for the lairs to spawn through this method, right?
Well, *should*... there's a reason that the JG "one encounter per hex in a big listing" style became and remains popular. If you don't like the potential results of % in lair, you shouldn't use it. That said,

>That seems incoherent as fuck. What if a Stone Giant Lair suddenly spawns in a hex bordering a village?
Besides what you said yourself of the giants just moving in recently (a perfectly reasonable idea), you should remember that the default hexes are I think ten miles across. Even if it's six, that's still a hell of a square footage; you could cram a whole barony in a single hex and have space left over for some woods to get lost in, so "the next hex over from the village" doesn't mean much by default assumptions.

Also, you could get creative with it. Maybe the stone giant was lying down asleep, mistaken for a hill, and has only just woken up hungry after a few centuries' nap? Maybe it came up out of a local cave which turns out to be an entrance to the Underdark if PCs check? A lot of the time, rules like the % in lair one are valuable exactly because they force you to come up with cool shit like this on the fly.

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>>50770477
I'm 35. Got started when my dad's college group did a farewell game of LBB, Dad bought me the Blue Box for Christmas that year in a thriftshop and it turned out to have the first printing of Holmes, brown-cover In Search of the Unknown and Mentzer Basic/Expert inside. I progressed up through 3e over the years and came back to the OSR ~2006 or so. Just couldn't handle 3.x anymore and I was sick of the direction shit was going.

>>50767939
>[More]
Added a skill called Occultism. It's a standard 1d6 LotFP skill. Non-Mages start out with 0 points in it unless they do some background stuff. Mages start at 3/6 and advance as Dwarven architecture skill.

Non-mages with Occult skill can attempt to use a magic device like a wand or scroll (if they can read it) but it backfires on a 6.

Specialists and Mages can also use it to attempt to "identify" magic items with a set of Specialist's Tools (Occult), 100sp worth of reagents, and an hour's worth of work; success gets you a property of the item, failure gets you a plausible, possibly dangerous lie. Botching can set it off or burn charges, damage the item, etc.

Finally, it can be used for ritual casting. You need to have a grimoire in-hand (not just your spellbook), and casting times are substantially increased, but that can still be useful with utility spells.

The following give you a +1 to your skill check (must be before rolling):
• Exotic drugs, intoxicants, or meditations to put you in a properly Chaotic frame of mind
• double casting time to perform even more impressive rituals, draw magic circles, etc.
• Silly/expensive costumes and implements.
• A blood sacrifice (should be appropriate). A Houdoun might do the old chicken-spin and dump 10sp worth of brandy out for his loa.


If you've >failed< to cast, Non-Mages can burn 1d6 HP per point of failure to make it go off anyway. Mages only pay 1 HP per.

You can also burn HP at the same rate to increase your effective caster level.

>>50773768

>% in lair means you encounter the monster in its lair

Yes, actually. That's how it works. Also this: >>50773917. Most monsters (and particularly giants) don't carry lots of treasure with them (who would?).

>incoherent

Part of OSR is being surprised by the die results.

Another factor in your question is how big are your hexes?

If they're 6 mile hexes (area is a little less than ~32 miles squared), that's a lot of room to have plenty of things within the hex, though admittedly, giants are pretty big and would be fairly noticeable.

Common sense wise, yes, you could rule that the giants have recently moved into the area, or locate them in an adjacent hex if you prefer. It's entirely possible for the villagers to have never encountered the giant lair before, if it's at the edge of a hex - though they may know that people occasionally disappear if they stray too far from the village, or that livestock goes missing regularly.

There's also nothing stopping you from populating hexes with monster lairs.

>>50773768
Big ol' article explaining the various interpretations and why.

http://hackslashmaster dot blogspot.ca/2015/07/on-reader-mail-mystery-of-in-lair.html

Basically you've already rolled an encounter, so the % in lair is to dertermine how likely it is to find them in their home/castle/cave/hole where they keep their nice shit. There's some debate as to it potentially meaning how many of a group you encounter vs how many are roaming the hex itself, which might be more appropriate for when you roll 20-120 bandits.

The stone giant lair can be there for a variety of reasons. Maybe its always been there, and the giants are only now awakening from an ancient slumber. Maybe they just moved in, displacing a pack of wolves which has started troubling the village. Could mean all kinds of things.

The article cites some of the straight up best advice in the expert book though.

>"'But I rolled it!' A common mistake most DMs make is to rely too much on random die rolls. An entire evening can be spoiled if an unplanned wilderness encounter on the way to the dungeon goes badly for the party. The DM must use good judgment in addition to random tables. Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party and should be in harmony with the theme of the adventure. - Expert Rulebook, Page X59

ymmv

>>50774033
>Encounters should be scaled to the strength of the party
This is trash.

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>>50773974
<cont>
Finally, any HP the character can't afford to burn can be replaced by ageing a year.

Every use reduces your Skill rolls by 1, and the maximum level is still 6. Once it hits 0, you can't use it anymore without resting or running some extremely dangerous risks, so there's a built-in limit on what even the most beefy, drug-crazed, psycho Mage can pull off with it. I like the element of risk and madness it adds to magic, and my PC Specialists are doing all kinds of crazy stupid shit in-character as they work towards becoming actual Magi.

If you can't tell, the Occult skill is heavily-inspired by Khoura from the Sinbad movies and Johnathan/Ellie (who are both clearly Specialists, not Mages) from The Mummy. I started out making a hybrid Thief/Mage class (Dilletante) to replace the Elf and wound up realizing that most of what I needed was replaceable with a skill.

>>50773768
>I'm trying to run a hexcrawl so this would mean that I shouldn't place monster lairs in the map, instead I should wait for the lairs to spawn through this method, right?
Nah. That just means the players have stumbled onto >a< lair. You should feel free to place new lairs as well. And it doesn't mean the lair has always been there either. You can have the Giant be new in town, plundering and fucking up the village as part of the encounter, either as backstory or after the players arrive. They might hit the village to be told the villagers have found the tracks and lair of a giant, but no-one dares confront it because they're all poor L0 mooks and they're running out of sheep to keep it happy. It doesn't just mean "you've personally stumbled into a giant's cave".
Usually in a hexcrawl, I have a couple slots on the random encounter table which are "The players have stumbled onto whatever's cool in this hex", which helps.


>Incoherent
Yeah, and? So is life. Take it as an opportunity to tell a story, not an insurmountable obstacle.

>>50774114
ur trash

>>50774004

This may also help you wrassle your imagination around hexes and size (bear in mind that these are for the 6 mile hex):

>https://lurkerablog.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/back-to-the-bad-old-6-mile-hex/
>http://steamtunnel.blogspot.com/2009/12/in-praise-of-6-mile-hex.html
>http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/12/packing-stuff-inside-hex.html
>https://stirgessuck.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/searching-a-hex/

*also, I think that number I got for the area may be incorrect, the batintheattic blog states ~31 miles squared, and is potentially more accurate - but I'm too lazy to check right now.

>>50774114

I agree to some extent. Nothing is worse than encountering the same range of monsters every level, without any possibility of encountering lower level monsters/people or higher level monsters/people.

So of the fun is being stronger than that group of bandits, or knowing that the chimara you've just run into can easily kill the party, so you contrive a way to escape it rather than fight it like a bunch of lunatics.

Help, /osrg/

I'm going to start the last campaign I can have with the current group of players, some of them are really good friends. I have about 7 months. I have a terrible case of gaming OCD and can't decide on resources to use.

It's going to be a fairly limited sandbox because I don't want to drown in ambitious ideas and never actually run anything (happens all too often around here). So, are there any modules you consider essential? Anything will do. What I've got so far:

Red Tide + Tome of Adventure Design + various random generators and tables got me covered with spontaneous ideas.

Maze of the Blue Medusa covers megadungeon play. Players got me a book but I don't want it to be a solely megadungeon campaign.

Decided which LotFP stuff I'm using so that's covered.

I feel like I'm drowning in this wealth of material so will appreciate any help. Especially higher level modules.

>>50774185
>Every use reduces your Skill rolls by 1, and the maximum level is still 6

So, the base skill is reduced by one every time you make use of the Occultism skill?

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>>50773954
>there's a reason that the JG "one encounter per hex in a big listing" style became and remains popular.
JG didn't actually do that, though? They still had random encounters with lairs and whatnot, they just also had some towns, castles, islands and preset lairs set out.

Pic related - IIRC red are towns, blue are keeps, green are islands, and pink are monster lairs. (This image isn't very useful in play, but it's useful for illustrative purposes. I kind of wish I had used icons or something back in March when I made this, though.)

>>50765743
bravo anon

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>>50774567
Only for that day. Full rest recovers your strength for the next day. Also, ritual casting can't be done quietly. Basically it's a way to keep the role of the Mage intact, especially since a non-Mage caster can only do first-level spells with Occultism unless they're burning HP/life-force to bump up their caster-level (which makes Summoning fun...).

I'm still experimenting with the skill and playtesting it. But as I said, it's leading to my Specialists, Savages, and Mages doing some hilarious shit and a lot more roleplaying at the table, so I'd call it a success.

>>50774211
one article I've referred back to a lot for hex stuff and worldbuilding is https://dungeonsanddutchovens.blogspot.com/2016/09/an-exercise-in-improvisation-procedural.html?m=1
The d30 Hex Terrain generator is probably the best takeaway from that article, it's good stuff

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>>50774725

That's pretty cool, anon, I think I'm gonna steal that.

>>50763236
Anyone seen rules for a warforged class? Im gonna run a game on eberron.

>>50775507
Never seen any, but a quick suggestion might be Fighter base, AC as plate, yet 12" move, BUT can't wear armor (so no magic armor) or use magical healing (since they're robots); advancement as Dwarf, or if you think the magic healing thing's harsh, just as a Fighter.

Optionally you could let them be immune to poison and such as they level up but personally I would never do that.

>>50775507
>>50775653
Oh, another thing: if I were you I'd absolutely avoid the temptation to make them not need food, water or sleep, or at least carefully work out the consequences. Don't forget that resource management is the backbone of D&D; if you let people wriggle out of needing the resources, much of the challenge is lost.

>>50775785

A quick off the cuff suggestion would be that they need to "eat" metals in sufficient quantities to equal the gp/sp price of a day's worth of rations every day. This isn't perfect, but it could act as a guidepost to a better solution.

>>50775856

One way to handle that is that you need to consume some basic raw materials to handle wear and minor damage. If you don't do so, you'll lose one hit point per day of mild activity, or one+level hitpoints per day of strenuous activity, like combat or travel over rough country.
With proper "food" you'd lose nothing, and maybe regain HP slowly as your body repaired itself?

>>50775856
Dude, I really like that! Alas, I'm >>50775653 and not the guy who asked originally.


For further ideas, how about something like this? "If the Warforged is destroyed (ie. killed), it may roll a save vs. death [this should stack with any houserule about death saves or similar BTW] and, if it succeeds, can be repaired by a skilful armorer. On the other hand, as Warforged are not strictly speaking alive or have a soul, they cannot be raised or resurrected, and if this save fails, the Warforged is well and truly destroyed; even if his parts were used to build a new Warforged, the original's memories and personality will have been obliterated with the scattering of its gears."

>>50775960
>With proper "food" you'd lose nothing, and maybe regain HP slowly as your body repaired itself?
Hm, is it better if the body's self-repairing, or if the Warforged has to actively repair himself or have someone else do it for him? LotFP's Tinkering rolls seem perfectly named for it.

>>50776067

Yeah, maybe so. Perhaps self-repair would require larger consumption of raw materials. Like burn through your rations at double speed to get some slow healing.

>>50775960

More or less what I was thinking, though this doesn't address sleep.

Perhaps a warforged would need 8 hours of "maintenance" downtime to regenerate HP, assuming it has consumed enough raw materials with which to rebuild itself with?

I was also thinking it might be customizable at character creation (though, I'm running on a lot of caffeine, so this might be a good idea, but here goes):

>Standard ability set
>+1 Str or Con?
>AC as plate
>MV 12
>Either Fighter or Dwarf progression
>Must consume a number of gp of raw materials equal to a days rations in order to regenerate
>Must take 8 hours of downtime to regenerate
>Automatically succeeds on poison saving throws, and is unaffected by gases, vapors, and smoke (both harmful and beneficial)

>Alternate abilities?
>Trade [X] AC for ability to operate with only 4 hours of downtime?
>Trade [X] AC for infravision/darkvision?
>Must consume twice the number of gp worth of raw materials equivalent to rations to operate with only 4 hours of downtime

Etc. Ideas only to get discussion revved. I have to be away from the computer for a bit, but I thought I'd at least throw some more ideas down before I left.

>>50776041

I like where this is going.

>>50776067

I like this too. Maybe make an "artificer's kit" that functions similarly to the healer's kit rules that have been in the thread a bunch of times.

>>50770611
>but all they want is PF and 3.5 bullshit
I don't get this. I'd never GM something I knew I didn't like just to cater to the players' shit taste. It's their job to deal with YOUR shit taste, or they can fuck off to another table.

>>50773267
>>50773900
Sounds interesting, post the table please

Wow thanks for all the ideas for warfirgded guys. Definitly makes it easy for me to make something now. Ill post the result later

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i had a theme idea for the guy who makes those cool encounter lists:
various town and village festivals and observances

>>50766488
i just bought 'city of thieves' the old FF book because i'm old and reliving my childhood (just without the beetaing and abuse).

So everyone, this stupid question gets asked all the time! But either way I deserve a chance to ask it too!

So I just got into the OSR world and have been trying to decide which system to run. After much research I want to run Labyrinth Lord. Seems pretty tight.

But I don't really understand AEC. It would seem that a majority of people recommend using AEC to enhance the game. Should I read the AEC only? Or do I need to read LL first then AEC?

Thanks!

>>50775507
there's been a couple out there

>>50777565
>Or do I need to read LL first then AEC?
This one.

>>50777565
>It would seem that a majority of people recommend using AEC to enhance the game.

I always mention it as an option, but I wouldn't consider it necessary. Just a handy way to get the extra bits from AD&D if you want them.

>>50777565
>It would seem that a majority of people recommend using AEC to enhance the game.
I'm not sure that's even true. The form that seems most common is some variant on "pick and choose from it if you feel like the base system's too simplified", especially in the case of race-as-class.

>Should I read the AEC only? Or do I need to read LL first then AEC?
AEC is a supplement to LL, so unlike the cheese it won't stand alone. It's basically an Unearthed-Arcana type thing (but more cohesive, and less incredibly shit).

Do you guys have any methods to make keeping track of time easier? And what heuristic do you apply to decide if something 'counts' as a 10m turn? Eg does players stopping to discuss tactics count for the same time as searching a wall?

Also, any tips for designing traps that give fair warning to attentive players?

t. d&d newfag

who else loves race = class systems?

>>50778129
I like race = classES like in ACKS

>>50778115
Also, how stringent are you guys with measuring distance? Reading through S&W complete, the examples at the end narrate very specific detail of the party traveling 60ft of the 80ft long hallway etc. especially in regards to player detail, is it really necessary to deliver that info to them? Or even bother tracking so heavily? I have the scale sort of worked out in my map but follow it loosely unless it seems explicitly relevant (choke points, splash from firebombs thrown, certain traps etc). The problem is that this results in treating time loosely too which the system seems entirely built around.

>>50778129
it depends on the system, some do it better than others

>>50778197
This. Each race should have access to race specific classes (elves are rangers and spellblades, dwarves are tunnel-fighters and forge-priests, halflings are slingers and gentleman thieves).

So every once in awhile, someone posts a tier list, and usually it goes something like:

BX > BECMI > Holmes > Rules Cyclopedia.

Or something along those lines.

Can anyone explain why?

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>>50778348
Each version of Basic (Basic, BX, BECMI, RC) do things ever so slightly different. Even some of the rules from BECMI to RC are changed/modified but not so much that one would not be able to mix and match between the two.

>>50778197
I do like that idea, or at least, have each class and race some sort of variant class.

>>50778348
Each has there own taste.

Holmes main issue is that it level limited (levels 1-3 IIRC) Been a while since I read Holmes.

BECMI and Rules Cyclopedia are almost the same. It actually a really good system The only issue is that the Thief is kinda nerfed.

BX is just really good. I generally play a modern version of BX (LL) since it does all that you need it to do to have fun.

Though my bucket list is to have a campaign that starts at level 1, and ends at level 36 with BECMI-RC.

>>50778348
BX is a lot simpler
RC lacks somethings in BECMI
Holmes I dunno

So, out of all retroclones so far what are your top five?

1 - Basic Fantasy RPG
2 - Dark Dungeons
3 - OSRIC
4 - Grey Matter
5 - DCC RPG

>>50778509
I've actually been thinking about switching to LL from Basic Fantasy, but the only thing that makes me hesitate is the descending AC. I know I can easily reverse the math, but it just plain bugs me.

>>50778530
1-ACKS
2-LotFP
3-Beyond the Wall
4-Dark Dungeons
5-S&W (White Box)

>>50778551
I grew up with descending AC, so I don't mind it. it would be simple to houserule it the other way.

>>50778530
1. Labyrinth Lord
2. S&W (White Box)
3, DCC RPG
4. OSRIC
5. S&W Complete

Need to try Dark Dungeons

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I'd like to run a Dungeon Meshi style of game using an OSR system (most likely Swords & Wizardry.) I'm not to worried about focusing on food, so much as I want to capture that slice-of-life feel from the series. How do I go about doing that?

>>50777565
Read LL
Then skim AEC, noting anything that catches your attention
Then go back through AEC and read the stuff that caught your attention
Then implement the AEC stuff that caught your attention into LL

>>50778129
It depends on the setting and the system.

>>50778115
>Do you guys have any methods to make keeping track of time easier?
Fuck, I can't find the time-tracking sheet. Someone else give a hand?

>what heuristic do you apply to decide if something 'counts' as a 10m turn?
"Is this a conversation they could be having while walking?"

If you want more flexibility for this stuff, you could use the OD&D rule where players are allotted two movements or one action per exploration turn, and deprive them of only one move if they're chatterboxes.

>>50778214
>how stringent are you guys with measuring distance?
This one frankly is one where you're going to have to make up your own mind. What are you more comfortable with?

I will say that since the time tracking inherent to the exploration turn method is pretty coarse-grained, you can lose a lot of edge fuzz in there. I mean, if it takes ten minutes to walk 120 feet because the PCs are futzing around with so much important shit, does it matter if it ended up being 112' or 133' this turn?

Now *personally* I like to play it quite rigidly and I give players exact distances because it's understood that measuring those is one thing they're doing that makes it take so long to move. I stole the exact style of narration from a short sample of Gygax's I saw somehere (LBBs, maybe?) a long time ago: "you move down the corridor, ten, twenty, thirty feet; there's a door to your right. [brief pause to see if they want to act] Forty feet; a wall ahead, and the corridor branches off to the left and right. You hear sounds as of voices and smell boiled meat from the right." That kind of thing. I'm not exercised with too much description of the slime on the walls and the cobwebs in their hair as they walk. But again, all that's style; and I guarantee there are people here who do it way differently. It'll click, don't worry.

>>50778530
Alphabetical:

Basic Fantasy
Beyond The Wall
DCC
Heroes & Other Worlds
LL

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>>50778755
>I can't find the time-tracking sheet.

This one?

>>50778837
That's the one. Thanks!

>>50778530
>4 - Grey Matter
What's good about this one? I never read it

>>50778837
>>50779037
Oh, I should probably point out that I always thought the instructions were weird as shit; since there are 24 columns with six circles each per block, I just put the first mark wherever the time of day happens to be (e.g. if the adventure starts at 10:30 I mark off the fourth circle in the "10" column after the first turn) and go from there. That way besides tracking the turns spent and the expiration of torches and spells I can tell at a glance what time of day it is in-game.

>>50778742
You should probably make sure they can get resurrected if they're killed. It would be hard to keep a "slice-of-life" feel if some of them get brutally murdered with no coming back.
Other then that it would mostly just be tone and PC interaction.

>>50775248
>>50774725
>>50774185
>>50773974
Shit, forgot the Grimoire rules. They're up on my blog, but the condensed version:

Use the spell research rules to create a Grimoire; both Clerics and Magic-users can make them. Can be decoded by any Occultist using same rules. Takes half the time if they know the language it's in, or have access to Bookspeak/Read Magic. Mages can treat a Grimoire as a Scroll when transcribing a spell, but the Grimoire is not destroyed.
Only Lawful or Neutral characters can use a Clerical Grimoire, only Chaotic or Neutral can use Magic-user ones.

A Grimoire counts as one item for encumbrance purposes >per spell inside<.

In general treasure hoards, Grimoires can be subbed out for high-end scrolls or treasure maps. When rolling a Grimoire, ~10% of genuine ones are Clerical. Adjust the percentage as appropriate depending on the source of the treasure.
Monasteries or other powerful Church libraries and Wizard's Seclusiae have a 25% chance of containing 1d3 Grimoires somewhere on the premises. These often contain divination spells, specific summonings, or other seldom-used magics that are not time-sensitive. Still haven't worked out the table for the level of the contents and whether there are multiple spells inside or not.

Grimoires are often fake, but real ones have a faint magical aura; it's hard to put one over on an experienced mage. Real or fake grimoires of any type usually mark the player as a witch if discovered. Regardless, they can be extremely valuable in the right circumstances; Grimoires are always treated as a Black Market item in civilized areas, and have a base value of at least 5gp (or 250sp) in a Silver Standard system.

>>50779266
>on my blog

Don't be shy, link that shit, man!

>>50779266
>A Grimoire counts as one item for encumbrance purposes >per spell inside<.
Fuuuuuuuuuuuck
That's so *elegant*! Damn! You can even expand that shit to be an item per spell level if you want magic to have a horrible gravity as of a living thing, and similar stuff, and yet it makes sense even just with naturalistic reference to parchments and bindings!

I'm stealing the fuck out of this, is what I'm saying.

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>>50779299
>Don't be shy, link that shit, man!
Eh, 'kay. It's docschottslab on wordpress, though the spam filter tends to get shirty with the actual address.

Fair warning - I post carpentry projects and a lot of wargaming shit there too, and I can go a couple months between posts.

>>50779397
I like the magic having a certain gravity, but ultimately pushing it up to one item worth per spell-level made the players stop using rituals outside their safehouses. It's still a good control if you want to force them to have a book-bearer and/or stay indoors for the ritual casting, though.

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What's a good adventure for novice players with a nice backstory to get them invested? At least in your opinion.

Could be B/X, LL or LotFP, whichever you like the most.

I love the OSR so much

>Gramma World
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/200949

Time to defend a retirement home against a warband of invading orcs or take gramma dungeoncrawling. Intercompatibility is the best damn thing.

>>50779921
>Gramma World
This is without doubt the stupidest thing I've ever honestly wanted to play.

>>50779651
I assume they're diving in a peat bog, but that still looks dangerous as all shit.

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>>50779651
>What's a good adventure for novice players with a nice backstory to get them invested?
It depends. What are you looking for, exactly?

Death Frost Doom is lethal as fuck, and puts the characters into a Faustian bargain with one of the Old Lords of the Earth as they unwittingly trigger the Apocalypse. You start off epic (if you survive) and shit gets weirder as you go.

By contrast, Scenic Dunnsmouth, Joop van Ooms, or Pembrooktonshire are just straight-up weird. There might not even be a "primary antagonist" involved, but there's still a lot for the players to do there, and intriguing clues about the world outside that it's easy for a DM to follow up on. It's suited for a more contemplative, mystery-oriented game. Cursed Chateau is similar, but simpler, more dickish and explicitly a mystery game.

The God that Crawls and Forgive Us are tight, lethal, and scary as Hell. Both have the possibility of unleashing terrifying shit on your campaign world, and both have interesting treasures that hook the players immediately into the surrounding political landscape. These are good horror-themed dungeon crawls fused with an Aliens/Halloween-style juggernaut enemy and massive rewards for the ballsy.

England Upturn'd, NSFW, and Better than Any Man are all looser hexcrawls with fairly short time limits, which inevitably lead to massive change in the campaign world (in one way or another). The players will simultaneously feel helpless, yet also like they're the pivotal element in each case. It's not exactly a railroad, but the theme of each of the modules is "fuck Fate".

>>50779651
It is undead heavy, but Barrowmaze is good to get players used to the deadlyness, and you could easily make it a storyline about dealing with the cultists.

Only complaint about that is that you might need side adventures as hacking undead over and over gets old.

>>50780155
I've been looking through LotFP's adventures and they seem rather fun, but a bit too much on the lethal side of things which could leave them with a bitter taste.
I'm mostly looking for a railroady adventure (at first at least) so that they get a hang of the system's rules while killing monsters and learning how to deal with encounters.
I think I can't avoid thinking about this pathfinder's adventure module called "The Crypt of the Everflame" where the PCs were sent to a crypt in some sort of coming to age made-up adventure by the villagers, just to get there and realize that someone raised the skeletons and killed the villagers that were supposed to make the traps non-lethal. It sounds a bit videogamey, but it could do for a first couple of sessions until they start seeking their own adventures.

>>50780250
I'll check it out, thanks bud!

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>>50779651
<cont>
As far as B/X, I intensely dislike Keep on the Borderlands - it's basically just a monster dispenser, without real tension or interest beyond being a Cuisenart or robbing the Keep.
In Search of the Unknown is a fantastic module, by contrast, even though it's mostly intended as a training exercise for the GM. There are a whole bunch of mysteries inside, dangling hooks, and inspirational asides to play with. For example, my little brother added in a hidden treasure with a puzzle based on the four elements inspired by the infamous pool with the illusory treasure; he also had Roghan and his lover as puppets controlled by his magic sword in their undeath, eternally trapped in their bedchambers by the red cords of fate. I've had the place be a Skaven stronghold, bandit camp, and even the base of operations for PCs who believed themselves to be the reincarnations of the original occupants. They had to clear and recapture it, of course, and nobody could quite remember what they'd been doing right before they left, but..
UK1 - The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh has some problems in execution, especially one of the encounters. It's still a fun Scooby-Doo style haunted house mystery, and much simpler to set up and run than either of the "B" modules. It continues on into some other modules, but all of those assume the players take a very specific path in the first one; if they go off the rails, you're boned.

LL - Don't really play it. Can't give much input here.

>>50780310
>In Search of the Unknown is a fantastic module
I want to run it, but I never DMed before, and the size of the map scares me a little

>>50780310
I looked through ISotU and it looks like tons of fun, I didn't quite consider that that I could just shove my own plot into it if I wanted and make it streamlined for a couple of days worth of adventuring for the players.

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>>50780296
>I've been looking through LotFP's adventures and they seem rather fun, but a bit too much on the lethal side of things which could leave them with a bitter taste.
True. I toned down Forgive Us considerably, and the PCs already had some pretty useful magic items and it still damn near led to a TPK. Scenic Dunnsmouth, BTaM, and Pembrook are much less-lethal than the others, and it's relatively easy to tone down Dunnsmouth in particular (use one NPC at a fixed level, make one very specific decision about the "monster", and you're basically done). That adventure also has a great creepy Appalachian-backwoods vibe if you're into a gothic horror feel for your game, and it's pretty easy to port into a German or English-flavored setting. Plus the mechanics of setup are just plain cool as fuck.

If you're okay writing up some of the stuff instead of just going with a published module, there are a number of critters in the Teratic Tome, Lusus Naturae, or the O.R.C. version of New Petty Gods that basically write short, single-session adventures to hunt them down.

>>50780155
Not that guy but I'm really curious about England Upturn'd. What folder is that in?

>>50779921
God bless the OSR.

>>50778755
>If you want more flexibility for this stuff, you could use the OD&D rule where players are allotted two movements or one action per exploration turn, and deprive them of only one move if they're chatterboxes.
This is great. Do you have the full description of this on hand, just so I can get a better feeling for it? I'd check the pdf myself, but I'm traveling abroad with limited internet

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>>50780547
>Not that guy but I'm really curious about England Upturn'd. What folder is that in?
In the LotFP folder.
Warning: contains gratuitous penis, Schroedinger's Odin, possible aliens, a cool Alignment system, and Sorceror-King John Lackland.

>>50780354
>>50780381
Part of the point is teaching you how to run a somewhat complicated dungeon map, make rulings on the fly (like with the pit trap), and stock a dungeon. If you go with the Rule of Threes (33 percent of rooms are empty, 33% have monsters in, and 33% have traps/tricks/treasures), it's actually a really quick and easy process.

>>50778509
Mentzer is finalizing Official BECMI/RC Thief Errata soon though, the beta is up for your critique.

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>>50780967

>>50780310
>it's basically just a monster dispenser
and why would anyone need more than that? We're playing OSR not some fancy storygame shit. We're here to get treasure and hopefully survive. Keep on the borderlands has an well laid out dungeon, has a wilderness map, and the keep itself is well filled out. It's a great adventure for beginners. Much better for a first adventure for novice players than "will change the setting forever!" stuff. Not saying those aren't good adventures, for novice players? I don't recommend it.


I don't get this tendency nowadays towards super hard horror fantasy vietnam ultra gonzo stuff. None of the adventures in basic are that hostile to players, and they all contain advice saying "feel free to adjust the monsters and challenges to give a fair challenge to your party.

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>>50781004
>fingerwork

>>50770291
>>50770459
>>50770455

I really want to figure out how to do a similar idea for fighting-men, I like the idea of granting bonus hit dice and attacks per level and all that, but without making it quite so powerful.

>>50781082
>super hard horror fantasy vietnam ultra gonzo

I feel that a lot of it is a contrarian attitude toward 3.PF, although official PF stuff gets pretty gonzo too nowadays.

Kind of like how the OSR is somehow simultaneously heralded as "the true GAMER'S rpg without that all story and rp bullshit" and "the true ROLEPLAYER'S rpg without that build and rules bullshit"

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>>50777565
Honestly, just run BFRPG instead. It has enough optional supplements to make the game crunchier and robust. Plus it has race/class division (ala 1e/AEC) and sweet sweet ascending AC.

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>>50781082
>We're playing OSR not some fancy storygame shit. We're here to get treasure and hopefully survive. Keep on the borderlands has an well laid out dungeon, has a wilderness map, and the keep itself is well filled out. It's a great adventure for beginners. Much better for a first adventure for novice players than "will change the setting forever!" stuff.
First-off, dude specifically asked for things that engage the players in an ongoing universe. KotBL is >shit< for that. It's an isolated, almost entirely linear level that might as well be a Golden Axe playthrough. I posted various "introductory" LotFP adventures and explained why each one might be engaging to player characters with different priorities.

Second,
>get treasure and hopefully survive
is in no way incompatible with solving a mystery or facing down an insular, fucked-up village and trying to steal their shit. In fact, "stay alive, jack the dough" is still the primary goal in almost all the adventures I posted. But they also do >other< things, and those things are interesting.

I agree that not everything has to be world-shaking or epic. But neither does everything have to rely on a single 5-mile hex with an endless stream of encounters that vary largely by the number and color of the pixels involved because you're worshipping "simplicity". Especially when, as I noted in the same post, both B1 and U1 are >more fun< and more interesting to run.

>>50781082
>None of the adventures in basic are that hostile to players
So, uh, have you read the wandering monster charts in Holmes, or the sample dungeons in the rulebooks? Because all of them contain traps and lethal encounters. So do the examples of play, like the Ghoul ambush..

>they all contain advice saying "feel free to adjust the monsters and challenges to give a fair challenge to your party.
..which is exactly what I suggested. Especially with Forgive Us.

>>50781361
>Kind of like how the OSR is somehow simultaneously heralded as "the true GAMER'S rpg without that all story and rp bullshit" and "the true ROLEPLAYER'S rpg without that build and rules bullshit"

But both of those are true, for certain values of GAMER and ROLEPLAYER. It's obviously not narrative-mechanic storygame theater hour, nor is it minmaxing muh build number crunching porn. It's kind of a third road between those others.

>>50781551
>that might as well be a Golden Axe playthrough.
Remind me to do a fight atop a gigantic eagle sometime. And statting up those beak monster mounts.

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>>50781551
>Keep on the Borderlands
>It's an isolated, almost entirely linear level

nigga say wat

Alright. I need a good Hexcrawl. I finished up World of the Lost and LOVED it and want to run another campaign length hex.

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>tfw my shitbrew is feeling more like a "lite" version of PF than an OSR game

I mean, I use classic ability modifiers, surprise rules, reactions, and monster frequency but I can't shake the feeling that I've lost my way.

>>50781653
Looks like a line to me

>>50781939
I count at least 47 lines.

What a good dungeon that encapsulates a post-apocalyptic feel?

The idea is that the players wake up from cryostasis pods, and greeted by a skeleton that looks like the one from Rush's "Roll the Bones" video through a ctr screen, and must escape the dungeon with their lives.

>>50781855
That's what adding classes, character powers and other player-facing mechanics does to the game. Rules are for the referee.

First you must understand the idea and design behind old school D&D and only then consider making your own version of it. Unless you want to play Pathfinder of course.

>>50778530
These games aren't really retroclones, with LotFP being the closest to the definition but whatever.

LotFP
Ambition & Avarice
DCC
Monsters and Magic
Beyond the Wall

Honorable mentions for stuff that diverged more from D&D mechanical trappings:

Into the Odd
Pits & Perils
Whitehack
Encounter Critical
Freebooters on the Frontier

>>50779651
LLA001: Blood Moon Rising

>>50781855
It's fine, whatever you enjoy.

>>50781653
This image shows a long corridor with a lot of corridors along it. Some of those segments are connected, some ultimately to explore all of that you need to move along the corridor. It's nice still but it's pretty linear.

>>50773350
>The most powerful of wizards might be able to hold 3 or 4 spells at a time, but each spell is an encounter winner. Magic missile is some weak tea compared to what a real Vancian wizard would be packing.
Nah. The most powerful wizards don't bother casting spells at all, that's why they have bound djinn who they can force to do all the work.

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>>50781855
honestly I'd say you're worrying about nothing, make what you want as long as it's broadly compatible with most other OSR games, pretty much the only thing that really matters when making an OSR game these days, this guy makes a good point about such things; http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.co.nz/2013/11/on-repeat-of-history.html

>>50782717
eh I don't really buy what you're saying is anything actually essential for making something OSR(but then I'm a believer that any definition regarding what's OSR and not is more a vague guideline than any concrete rule)

>>50783147

That's how high level DnD Wizards should be too!

But instead let them swap out spell slots to attune themselves to bound creatures, really powerful magic items, magic cults and so on. That way you can fluff powerful magic users and they won't be wasting all their time deciding what spells to put in their 30+ spell slots every day.

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So I've been thinking about a way to make AC modifiers more interesting.

Basically;
>If you are using a single handed weapon and nothing in the other hand; Add Dex modifier to AC
>If you are using a two handed melee weapon; Add Str modifier to AC
>If you are using a one handed weapon and a shield; Add Con modifier to AC

Alternate ways to do shields and defenses.

>>50782717
But I've actually taken away classes, leaving only Fighter, Rogue (which I also debated axing), and Wizard. And using your logic, Gygax didn't understand the philosophy behind "old school D&D" when he made AD&D.

>>50783115
>>50783213
I guess. Thanks for the encouragement.

>>50783518
I've heard worse ideas.

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I really want to make a blog but I can't think of a good name or layout.

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>>50765010
>race-as-class works perfectly for the top three and is fine
>because you're playing as something objectively nonhuman
>with strange magic or other special abilities and powers
If that doesn't describe elves in your setting, you need to take more inspiration from folklore.

Or ask the referee to play a human with pointy ears. Some fictional ethnicity.

>>50769558
>Speaking of spell learning- has anyone read that Last Gasp post about rolling to learn spells that permanently effect them?
No one else has read that.
>I kind of like this idea but I'm really hesitant to actually put it in the game, it seems super cool but weird.
>Anyone use that houserule?
Please post it.

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>>50784383

Well I was more talking about the general idea of the rules instead of taking them directly, but here's the blog post.

http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/hogwarts-cant-save-you-now/

Essentially the idea is whenever a Wizard learns a new spell, they get some modifiers they more they research it over time, the more money and rituals they spend doing it and so on. Then they roll one (fucking) time and depending on how they roll they can learn the spell at different levels.

They can fail learning so badly they can't cast the spell at all. They can learn the spell just average so they require more resources to cast it like a components. They can learn the spell so well in fact that they can cast the spell without memorization or the juicy one of being able to cast it with just a thought minus the normal spellcasting costs of cataclysm points; and they get a minor physical mark of that spell. Really like that one for the characterization.

Besides the actual spellcasting system (cast a number of spells daily, go over to get cata points, if bad rolls you roll on a big list of things that fuck you up, etc), I like the system of learning spells but I feel it might be a bit too variable and random. Magic Users already have a lot of variation and randomness in what spells they get and prepare, this is just so flavorful that I love it.

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>>50784383
I think he's talking about
http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/cunning-linguists/
or just peruse http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/tag/magic-users-2/
Logan is deeply fucked-up.
And I say that admiringly.

>>50776158
>More or less what I was thinking, though this doesn't address sleep.
Sure it does.

The maintenance/repair takes around 6-7 hours of significant concentration.
Simultaneously keeping watch is not impossible, but cannot be done well.

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>>50784469
>by small manifestations or physical anomalies relating to the nature of the spell.
Reminds me of Spell Special Effects from Philotomy's Musings (p. 40)

>>50783518
That is... pretty good, actually. It constrains you a bit from the narrative standpoint, because it implies that shield guy always takes the punishment and single-handed weapon guy always dodges and so on. On the other hand, using 3d6 in order, it encourages you to pick a useful style and shaves off some mechanical weight from Dexterity.

>>50763313
I'm a far bigger weeaboo than my players are, and I know pretty well what sorts of shows they've watched and what they haven't.

So, I regularly mine the shows they've never seen for ideas, especially for NPC names.

Also an online game I'm playing has a PC playing her elf as an insane yandere and that shit's hilarious and I'm totally enabling him. I'm sorry for his designated victim (a magic-user who saved her from certain death), but it's too funny to shut her down.

>>50780647
>Do you have the full description of this on hand
Like everything in OD&D, the description is hardly what I'd call full. But basically, it's just the regular exploration turn like you see in Basic and AD&D, it's just that the players get to move twice the party movement per exploration turn. Obviously that was removed from Basic because it was considered clunky and unintuitive. (Why they didn't opt to double the listed movement rates instead, I'll never know.)

The full quote (I pulled this from Greyharp so there might be something off in the exact wording, but I'm pretty sure he generally just copied the original text):

>Time and Movement
>In the underworld all distances are in feet, so wherever distances are given in inches convert them to tens of feet. Movement is in segments of approximately ten minutes. Thus it takes ten minutes to move about two moves - 120’ (12") for a fully armored character. Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situa- tions where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed).

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>>50778837
This is a custom-made time tracking sheet I made for my game, which also helps in tracking daylight and sunrise/sunset.

What are the most universal spells for dungeon crawling?

>>50785726
Light is definitely on the list.

>>50785776

Spells like light are really fucking lame though. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing in extra items and hirelings- you'd think the mundane version of that task would be more interesting.

Same reason why you don't give Wizards an easy lockpicking spell at level one.

>>50786034
Yeah, but can your torch burn underwater?

>>50786117

Well obviously not. But half the fun of the game is draining that glowing creature's magic blood into a jar and using it as an underwater glow light.

>>50786034
>Spells like light are really fucking lame though. Kind of defeats the purpose of bringing in extra items and hirelings- you'd think the mundane version of that task would be more interesting.
>Same reason why you don't give Wizards an easy lockpicking spell at level one.

You could apply that thinking to anything magical, though.

"Magic Missile is less interesting that using a bow."
"Sleep is less interesting than singing a lullaby to the goblins."
"Fireball is less interesting than setting a trap using 30 vials of lantern oil and a well-thrown torch."

And it would be all true, but the point is that spells are tools that produce an effect. That effect can be light, an unlocked door, dead goblins, whatever.

You have other, more difficult or clumsier ways of producing those effects. You can light torches, lockpick a door, kill the goblins manually.

It's resource management. Spells are "solve problem X" buttons, and they are very limited in number and scope. The "interesting" part is knowing when to push that button, and when not to.

>>50786034
To be fair, spells are resources too, you can always ran out of them.

Newbie OSR-DM here.

I kind of fucked up because I told my players that 'in the deepest part of the black fortress there is a powerful spell, unique spell that every wizard in the land wants to get their hands on. I thought that the players would give up half way down when the difficulty started to spike.

oh boy.

So now I need to come up with a really fucking powerful spell for next session as the party's magic users decode the book in their laboratory.

Is there any guidelines on how to create spells of X spell level? Because I'm going to need it real soon.

>>50786378
What level of power are we talking about?

'Cos there's a lot of variation, from simple "Literally a nuke" to rule-twisting "DM Control".

>>50786378
make the black fortress deeper

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>>50786034

Well, assuming you're navigating square corridors and fighting X amounts of Orcs in stand-up combat all the time, yes, spells like Light are useless, a torch will replicate them perfectly, and you should memorize Magic Missile instead.

However, what if you're in mines and there are flammable gasses? What if you're dealing with creatures that see by heat? What if the party is soaked? Or underwater?

Some spells are useless only because of Vancian casting and memorizing in D&D, which means that you're always going to memorize the more generally useful Magic Missile, than Light, unless you specifically know that it's going to come in handy ahead of time(which, admittedly, some actual exploring and investigating might actually teach you).

There are, of course, some garbage spells. Why wouldn't there be? But a lot of utility spells are actually useful IF the environment plays a role and you're not just dealing with straight combat all the time.

>>50786409
Plus you can always just go totally insane with that spell and declare that it can be only cast once in a lifetime.

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>>50786378

Stall for time, have enemy assassins and thieves try to steal the book from them, have hostile mages attempt to interrupt the decoding so they can grab the book for themselves.

As for the spell itself, allow it to do something crazy, like permanently altering the laws of physics or creating an entire new species, or some sort of True Polymorph that allows you to take the form of a TRULY badass creature, like a dragon, ALONG with all its racial abilities like dragonbreath and spellcasting, BUT, at a steep price. The material components are stuff like dragon hearts and angel wings, and it ages the caster by 50 years or more.

>>50786427
>ages the caster by 50 years
>but you become a dragon
I know, that's just an example, but still.

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>>50786432

Your age as a dragon is relative to your age as a human. So 50 human years will be close to half of a dragon's lifespan, plus your mage is probably already 25 or 30 years old, so good fun basically playing Dragon Grandpa With Arthritis. Unfortunately your dragon form now has bad eyesight, good luck finding someone who can make dragon-sized glasses, or contact lenses, or you're going to accidentally firebreath your own friends.

>>50786378
This is actually easy.

It's the spell that creates solid clouds where the cloud giants live, or levitates large areas of rock with castles on it.

There have been flying castles in books for a long time. Making a spell that actually allows for their creation would be a very valuable, powerful, and unique spell. Sure, the ritual requires you have a castle on a flat piece of land and takes a day to cast, but that's just details!

It's th

>>50784042

This was a serious post, not just a shitpost btw.

Which are the best OSR published modules?

>>50786410
>>50786427
>>50786448

Listen the point of my post was not to bait and switch my players. I wanted to REWARD them with something actually good, I just didn't want to break the game too much.

I mean I was mostly stealing floors from other modules and dungeons but they saw through my trick. I literally made the 8th floor look exactly like the first floor and imply that the party got teleported back up to the surface. It almost worked until the party fighter noticed that his little pile of goblin heads he remembered building wasn't down here. I want to reward them for how smart they all played with a good spell, not a meme spell or bait and switch.

>>50786409

That's what I'm not sure about. Maybe just throw them a Wish or Resurrection with costs but that's kind of boring.

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>>50786611

It wasn't intended as a bait-or-switch idea, those spells WOULD be powerful, but they wouldn't just be "lol, game broken, time for a new campaign"-power.

They'd first lead to another adventure, DEFEND THE BOOK. Then a second adventure, GET THE INGREDIENTS. And then due to the costs of casting the spell, it'd have limited uses, so the players would have to REALLY decide what change they want to make. Do they want to all be dragons? Do they want to negate gravity and turn their homeworld into a fairyland of floating islands that any scrub can leap between? Something else?

"Consequences to decisions" and "challenges from NPC's" do not amount to "bait and switch."

It would be a "bait and switch" if what they found had ONLY negatives, like the scroll would just conjure up a fucking black hole when read and lol everyone's dead now.

Limitations and costs are ALREADY how powerful spells work. Rewarding them with a "good spell" with no repercussions or limitations to its use is the same as "rewarding" them with a million gold and a dozen vorpal swords, i.e. you've given them some big numbers, but the actual payoff is that you've also ended the campaign and all potential challenge for them. I bet you that your players, if they actually play smart, and enjoy having to think, will get more fun out of a spell that requires careful usage and planning to REALLY exploit, rather than just "fireball but it's a first-level spell and all the damage dice are d12's."

>>50786378
Wish.

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Decided to make this based on talk upwards in the thread.

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>>50786577
>Which are the best OSR published modules?

Of course, you should check my own published module, Arsenal of the Warrior Princess, available on DTRPG for the cheap price of $1.99!

(Sometimes you just gotta shill out)

(Also ASE1 Anomalous Subsurface Environment is REALLY good and worth a check. Just finished rereading it and fell in love with it all over again.)

>>50786577
http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?page_id=844

There's a lot of good stuff on this list. With reviews tied to each module.

>>50778755
>I stole the exact style of narration from a short sample of Gygax's I saw somehere (LBBs, maybe?) a long time ago: "you move down the corridor, ten, twenty, thirty feet; there's a door to your right. [brief pause to see if they want to act] Forty feet; a wall ahead, and the corridor branches off to the left and right. You hear sounds as of voices and smell boiled meat from the right." That kind of thing.
It never dawned upon me to do it like this. It's far too natural and gives you the feeling of actually moving through space.
Does anyone perhaps know where the example comes from?

>>50786378
Just create a spell that destroys the whole world. But don't tell the players.

>>50786611
OK, I wrote this up for you, tell me if you like it:

"Unlimited Power"
Magic-user Level 9
Duration: Permanent
Range: 0
This spell promises unlimited power through ritual, performing this ritual you will need the following:
*18 Combined Levels of Magic-Users
*Treasure Worth 1,000,000 GP
*Sacrifices Totaling 1000 Years in Age
This ritual will take a total of three continuous days to perform, any interruption will bring forth serious repercussions upon all present (death), all Magic-Users performing this ritual must continuously chant the spells words while standing in a blood circle. The one to receive the unlimited power must stand in the center of the circle, the receiver does not have to be a Magic-User. Once completed, the ritual unleashes powerful magic upon the world, tearing a scar into the earth within 10 miles of the ritual casting. The receiver of unlimited power will be elevated to god status and will no longer inhabit the world that he once knew, instead brought to a new world where he or she will be able to shape in his or her own vision.

The scar that rips across the earth will be in about 200 miles in length, and 20 miles in width, and infinitely deep. Anything that falls within this scar will fall forever, doomed to fall for eternity (or until they starve.) The scar may or may not bring forth serious repercussions upon the world, having spawned based off the rituals casting location, it may serious destroy and damage the world as you know it, entire cities, towns, villages, all gone in an instant and none will know why. The scar it self will bring forth terrible powers itself, your setting itself may be transformed into something else entirely with new races appearing and others changing into new beings entirely.

All willing participants of the ritual will feel extremely drained, aging each of them d100 years, but each will be blessed with 2d4 levels of experience(*).

*Not including sacrifices, they all die, of course.

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Pig Orcs yes or yes?

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>>50787349
Yes.

Although I tend to have multiple Orcish subspecies, Pig Orcs, (often called cave or mountain orcs in my games) are the most common.

>>50787349
Only if they're referred to as Porcs.

>>50786611

I applaud your intent to reward your players for smart play.

This anon has good advice, so I'd suggest listening to them: >>50786837

But I'll throw my 2cp onto the table too. Absolutely do let this adventure lead to another adventure. This is the sort of thing that they'll look back on and think was awesome, but it'll be incredibly anticlimactic if they get down down, read the book in one sitting, and become more powerful than [god].

- Who wrote the tome that contains the spell?
- What was the purpose of creating it?
- Was it divinely inspired? (madness induced by an evil or chaotic god, a trial by some lawful god, or a gift to the word by a merciful one?)
- Does the spell conform to normal (1-9) levels, or is it something special?
- What kinds of rituals or ingredients are necessary to cast the spell? (full/new moon, winter/summer solstice, the tears of hags, the youth of a maiden, a soldier's resolve, drops from the headwaters of a particular river, the broken swords of a dozen knights, the first frost, the betrayal of a loyal ally, the forgiveness of a hated enemy, iron from a bearded star, etc.)
- does the spell need to be deciphered? (not simply just the cramped and barely legible notes of an elderly wizard, but in a language long dead, necessitating that the party locate a scholar to translate it)
- On that note, what is the spell inscribed in? A book bound by the flesh of angels, pages woven from their hair and painted with silver inks? Is it chiseled into a black obelisk that seems to drink in all light sources, rendering them dim and dismal? Is it scratched into hammered plates of gold, with illustrations composed of tiny flecks of gemstone? Is the spell a puzzle box that must be solved before it will yield an intelligible formula?

>>50787527

Jesus. I really need to work on my proofreading.

*get down to the bottom of the dungeon
*a gift to the WORLD by a merciful god

>>50764756
Lightning bolts, searing boils, an illusory spectral horse appearing to kick the target in the nuts, etc

Since it's automatic damage, it's pretty easy to fluff it as almost anything, as long as you don't worry about damage types and that sort of thing.

I think it's great when a spooky necromancer's damage spells look different from a playful illusionist's

Has anyone done a conversion from descending to ascending AC with Labyrinth Lord?

>>50788132
Just subtract the target AC from 20. So a monster with AC 5 would now have AC 15.

>>50788132
And to find a class's Base Attack Bonus subtract their THAC0 from 20.

>>50778742
Hey anon are you running this online or irl?

>>50786611
To restrain the power of the spell without unfairly obstructing the PCs, you could say that the spell
>requires a complicated ritual
>can only be cast under proper circumstances ("when the stars are right"). This could be once a month, or once in a millenium
>must be cast in a certain place (an ancient temple on a ley line or whatever).
etc

I agree the payoff will be sweeter if they have to work for it a bit, and it should probably not be cast like a regular utility spell if it's to feel mythic and powerful.

It seems you want something mighty and mythic, but not something that will end or completely transform the campaign world. It also has to be something many wizards would pursue.

>a summoning spell that calls forth a dangerous creature that will inscribe several spells into your spellbook--perhaps it requires a sacrifice for this teaching
>a spell that allows you to enchant an ornate segmented golden tongue with knowledge of all languages, past present and future--you must cut out your own tongue and replace it with the golden one.
>a ritual for lichdom
>a ritual that will raise a huge impregnable tower from the ground, destroying whatever else was in that spot.
>a spell that charms all humans in a 100mi radius for two years. During that time, they will trust and follow the caster as if he were the next best thing to a messiah. At the end of the two years, their infatuation will wear off, and they will judge whether the caster's leadership was good or bad

I also like the flying castle idea.

>>50788549
>a summoning spell that calls forth a dangerous creature that will inscribe several spells into your spellbook
>these spells also summon a creature to inscribe several spells into a spellbok
>guess what they do

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I know "magic dice" aren't very original but fuck it. Here's some minor artifacts I wrote up. I can't decide if I want the Run/Ruin effect to be able to be parceled out among several rolls, or if it has to be used all at once.

>>50787487
It amuses me that when Wizardry fled the US and ended up in Japan, it started calling its hobbits Porklings or something. And made them extremely anime and cute, but it did that to everything.

>>50788183
>>50788260
Alright, thanks. I wasn't quite sure if a conversion that basic was alright or if there were trickier thing I'd have to calculate.

>>50786611
>I literally made the 8th floor look exactly like the first floor and imply that the party got teleported back up to the surface. It almost worked until the party fighter noticed that his little pile of goblin heads he remembered building wasn't down here.
Clever.

Give them something cool at the bottom, too. Perhaps an Ioun Stone that doesn't provide any mechanical benefit, just an ongoing kill-count that they can either silently know or have displayed to others! I remember one short 40K story where Kharn had a kill-counter in his HUD, it worked for him so it could work for you.

>>50789073
The whole story of Japanese Wizardry is interesting.

>>50786277
the main problem is that Light(along with the majority of level 1 spells) is really lame to have if it's your Magic-User's only spell, one of the reasons I'm a believer in giving level one MU's either more spells or give them some unlimited use Cantrips(both Light and Read Magic would become cantrips in this scenario), but then I've never been fond of the "low level wizards suck" thing that most OSR games use, I'd rather flatten the power curve by a lot

>>50787349
yes but like >>50787431 Orcs tend to be variable in appearance so while most Orcs have at least some minor porcine aspect to them, not all have literal pig heads, some look almost human, and there's at least one tribe that were made using Killer Whales and Dolphins instead of Pigs, that tribe is near universally regarded as the most horrifying Orc tribe(yes this is a riff on Orc and Orca being derived from the same root word)

>>50786378
Creates a new species. Full control over their powers, limited control over their society and appearance.
Also reversible. Can be used to kill off an entire species.

>>50788440
Probably online with some friends. Why?

>>50786378
A living spell. It eats other spells, and makes them into part of it's own body. It is immensely powerful, and utterly loyal to the (long dead) wizard who originally casted it. It could be slain, and it's body carved up to make magical items, wands, or to learn any of the spells which it ate in the past.

Alternatively, a really clever wizard could try to trick it into telling him how it was cast. He could then cast his own living spell, gaining a companion who would quickly become a powerful mobile library/self-defending spellbook.

>>50789602
>the main problem is that Light(along with the majority of level 1 spells) is really lame to have if it's your Magic-User's only spell, one of the reasons I'm a believer in giving level one MU's either more spells or give them some unlimited use Cantrips(both Light and Read Magic would become cantrips in this scenario), but then I've never been fond of the "low level wizards suck" thing that most OSR games use, I'd rather flatten the power curve by a lot

A thing I did was giving spellcaster the ability to do "Rituals".

A Ritual takes 1 full Turn and some components (10GP for lvl1 spells, scales up) and lets a spellcaster cast extra spells without having to memorize them.

A spellcaster can do 3 rituals every day (5 on days of full moon or new moon). After completing a ritual, the spellcaster checks INT or WIS depending on what kind of magic he uses: if he rolls under, the ritual works.

Rituals can't be "aimed" so they can't be used for offensive spells, but they're a good idea for trading time and cash for some extra low-level magic when not in a hurry.

>>50786378
What do all wizards want? What stereotypical wizard problems could be solved with a single, obscure but powerful spell?

> a spell that retcons your time at high-school, removing all the horrendously awkward things you did, and replacing them with happy nostalgic things

> a text-to-speech spell, for wizards with poor eyesight and no assistants

> A spell to make a place unfindable, to prevent job-hunters, kings, or other irritating people who want magic done for them from interrupting important research. Knowing the spell allows you to reverse-engineer a spell to find all the long-forgotten wizards towers this has been cast on.

> A spell that forces an enemy to contact you and tell you all their most secret plans, then forget about it. Made by a wizard who was too lazy to learn how to read the future, but wanted to look like he could.

> 'Book-fetch', locates, indexes, and borrows any book, for research purposes. ANY book. Leaves a note for the owner, but books must be returned manually.

>>50786378
Any 6th-9th level spell in the book fits that description. Remember that in OSR games all wizard spells need to be found during adventuring, none of them are just given out by levelling. You're needlessly complicating a very simple matter.

>>50789945
>> A spell to make a place unfindable, to prevent job-hunters, kings, or other irritating people who want magic done for them from interrupting important research. Knowing the spell allows you to reverse-engineer a spell to find all the long-forgotten wizards towers this has been cast on.
Quest for the NEET Wizards. That's a whole campaign right there.

>>50789602
>I've never been fond of the "low level wizards suck" thing that most OSR games use, I'd rather flatten the power curve by a lot
If you make low level wizards more powerful and high level wizards weaker, you'd probably get just as many players complaining "Why can't my wizard do all the cool shit that the NPC wizards can?"
>or give them some unlimited use Cantrips
Giving the party a no-cost unlimited-use tool that they can use without fail to solve multiple problems has always seemed pretty anti-osr to me. Sure it can be fun to come up with unique uses for a cantrip at first, but after that what's stopping them from using light to blind every monster or the hundred other crazy things the PCs can come up with?

>>50789979
>but after that what's stopping them from using light to blind every monster
"The orc is very shiny now. He carves you up and you get to see your blood when he does."

These equipment packs are for SW Complete but you get how they go. I tried to give everyone a melee weapon, some ranged capability (Paladin being the one exception), a source of light and miscellaneous survival gear. Anything I'd be missing?

Assassin

Leather armor
Short sword
Dagger x 3
Light crossbow
Bolts, light x 20

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Silk rope, 50'
Grappling hook
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Mirror (small steel)
Dried rations x 2
1d6x5 GP

Cleric

Shield
Ring mail
Warhammer OR mace, light
Sling
Sling stones x 20

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Hemp rope, 50'
Holy Symbol, wood
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d6x5 GP

Druid

Wooden shield
Leather armor
Dagger
Spear OR sickle (short sword)
Sling
Sling stones x 20

Torches x 3
Garlic, charmed
Wolfsbane
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d6x5 GP

>>50790447
>>50790447
Ranger

Shield
Ring mail
Dagger
Long sword OR spear
Hand axe x 2 OR javelin x 3

Torches x 3
Hemp rope (50')
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Tent
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2

Fighter

Shield AND (long sword OR spear OR battle axe) OR two-handed sword
Chain mail

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d6 GP

Thief

Leather armor
Short sword
Club
Dagger
Short bow
Arrows (20)

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Silk rope (50')
Grappling hook
Crowbar
Pole (10')
Sack (15 lb)
Chalk
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d4 x 10 GP

Magic-User

Staff
Dagger
Darts x 10

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Candles x 3
Chest
Case (map or scroll)
Parchment
Ink
Spellbook
Garlic, charmed
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d4 x 10 GP

>>50790654

Monk

Long sword OR spear
Short bow
Arrows (20)

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Silk rope (50')
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d6 GP

Paladin

Bastard sword OR (Shield AND longsword)
Chain mail

Lantern, bullseye and 1 pint of oil OR Torches x 3
Backpack (30 lb)
Waterskin
Bedroll
Flint and steel
Dried rations x 2
1d4 GP

>>50789688
Literally a scroll of genocide from Nethack. It even works both ways!

>>50789971
Well, there's always research...

>>50781551
>Golden Axe playthrough.
That Sounds like a grand idea for an osr game though

>>50787187
OD&D Volume 3, The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, at the end of the dungeon section and right before the wilderness section.

>>50786378
A spell that summons forth a meteor that completely and utterly destroys everything with a standard hex (as appropriate for your campaign), replacing it with a huge crater. Start out by treating it as a mountain as far as biome goes, I guess, but with a very low chance of encounters.

The spell is a high-level spell on a scroll - they can cast it now, once, or wait until they level up and can add it to their spell book.

Either way, though, now they've got a nuke. There's consequences for using it, consequences for having it, and consequences for making it known (but if you don't make it known, it's not a good deterrent).

Also, well, it's "a powerful, unique spell that every wizard in the land wants to get their hands on." They're not going to stop wanting that just because it's out of the dungeon and in the hands of the PCs.

So what's the most "modern" game design-wise that can be considered to fall under OSR in design aims?

>>50791249
ItO or DESU.

>>50791249

Beyond the Wall, or The Black Hack.

>>50791249
I'd argue for Torchbearer, but I wouldn't make a good argument.

>>50789033
I like these. They'd be great in a Boot Hill/D&D crossover.

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>>50770477
22. I have one group who plays osr, all made up of my dad's friends (60) and their children (my age)

I'd like to dm a similar game, but I can't find many people my age who know about this style, as opposed to 3.pf and 5e. Any advice?

>>50791583

Introduce them with something simple. I ran my players through Exemplars & Eidolons with ten minutes of chargen and one minute of explaining how AC and damage worked. Everybody got it pretty fast.

Shitbrewer here again, how do you guys feel about intentional rules ambiguity?

For example, I'm making a magic book that lets characters merge animals into crimes against gods and nature ala the Owlbear. Then my player's instinct kicks in and I wonder if it affects Werewolves. I can't think of a good reason to say why it shouldn't but if I was the GM I'd say no. Should I say what I would rule, draw attention to the ambiguity and drop it the GM's lap, or just ignore it? I'm leaning toward "draw attention and drop it".

>>50789700
Cause OSR & Dungeon Meshi sounds dope as fuck.

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>>50786378
What level are your players?

>>50791864
There's no real way to actually find every single little ambiguity and cover them all in a concise way, IMHO.

So, really, just include a statement earlier in your article/blogpost/module/system book where you explain how you can't catch everything and give some general recommendations to DMs on how to rule stuff. Personally I'd make it clear to the DM that they should probably talk it out with the player arguing for/against the thing, and then after a decision has been reached note it down somewhere so they can stick to it later.

Rulings, not rules, but have the players help make the rulings into group-specific rules.

>>50791864
What if it doesn't work on creatures that are already hybrids? That way you couldn't mix an owlbear and a shark because the owlbear is already a hybrid of an owl and bear. You then also couldn't mix a werewolf and a crocodile because a werewolf is already a hybrid of a human and wolf.

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>>50787349
did someone say porcinator?

>>50764756
/r/ d20 table for magic missile looks

>>50791864
I wouldn't say that Werewolf is a merging between man and wolf, it's more a man that becomes a wolf. If you merge man and wolf they become "wolfman", not "werewolf".

>>50779205
>>50778742
a big part of duneon meshi and what keeps it light-hearted is that every single adventurer gets to revive as long as their body is found in more or less one piece.

>>50791984
Well, I've already made it work on hybrids and I like the vibe of making some horrible monstrosity by hybridizing hybrids.

>>50791974
Currently Werewolves seem to be the only ambiguity. I'll make a note leaving the decision up to the GM but offering some advice on possible outcomes.

>>50792143
It more of a question of whether you could combine a Werewolf with another animal rather than a normal Human with an animal.