OSR General

I'm shit at coming up with thread topic questions.
Any suggestions?

>>50795906
How to get new people involved in OSR?

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>>50795906
I'd like to find out which retroclones are based on BECMI rather than B/X. Some anon last thread said Darker Dungeons but I'd like to know if there are any others worth checking out.

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>>50795906
how about we start off with something relatively simple;

>what recent OSR relevant purchases have you made?

mine was The Nightmares Underneath, which is an absolutely gorgeous book full of interesting fluff and crunch;

https://redboxvancouver.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/the-nightmares-underneath-rpg/

>>50796042
Do free books count? I picked up the free pdf of Stars Without Number.

Anyone have any good OSR actual play podcasts? I want something to listen to other than the Call/Trail of Cthulhu I've been listening to lately. Need a little change of pace.

>>50796081
>Do free books count?
in this scenario I'm going to say no(except maybe if it's a PWYW product)

>>50796042
I've ordered Broodmother Sky Fortress and Blood in the Chocolate from LotFP. I also ordered the four Wormskin zines. Neither have showed up yet. I also got the pdf for Hubris and I'm digging a lot of the alternate rules and tables in it.

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From last thread; created a d12 starter spells with customizable visual and audio effects. Such as all the talk about different ways to fluff magic missile, great ideas btw everyone.

>>50796101
Then I'm going to need to change my answer to AL 1-5 - The Stars are Falling a series of adventures for DCC.

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Let me ruin this thread before it has begun by forcing my obnoxious magic-system workings up on everyone.

Basically I'm already set on how the actual spellcraft is going to work in my game. Vancian without spell levels, memorize spells freely up to your magician's level- Level 4 Magic User can prepare up to 4 spells. It's great, simple, I like it alot.

However intended in part of this plan was the secondary attribute of magic users; because I enjoy both really weird magic user characters and because I like magic that is more then just mere 'spells', essentially the idea is that magic users can trade in their spell slots as they grow in level to gain other benefits.

These benefits can be permanent magic items they create, powerful bound minions, permanent enchantments on locations or special powers/mutations on their person and beyond. You essentially 'trade in' a universal spell slot to open the door for other kinds of growth.

Example- 6th Level Magic user. He can memorize 4 spells a day. He also has the power to turn into a shaggy black dog at will and his house is haunted and serviced by his ghostly butler.

This very simple example is how magic users can grow organically instead of just forcing them to get more and more spell slots to worry about. How does this sound as a concept?

Things that need discussion and ironing out;
>Is this 'fair' to other classes? MUs have always been the class with the most options so is this excessive? Should other classes be given a similar mechanic?
>Is it alright to hand out weirdness like candy? Should these require quests to complete or is the sacrifice of a spell slot enough?
>Only on level up or can you 'trade in' arcane power whenever the opportunity arises to get a weird benefit like that?
>What happens to the mage who just keeps every spell slot? What about the one who trades all of them in for benefits? Too weird or totally fine character choices?

Has anyone else used real-life occult/esoteric texts as inspiration?
Considering looking for a really nice printing of The Key of Solomon, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, stuff like that.

>>50796359
>Is this 'fair' to other classes? MUs have always been the class with the most options so is this excessive? Should other classes be given a similar mechanic?
Since this system has the possibility of crippling characters if players aren't careful, I wouldn't say that it's unfair. If anything it breeds player skill and intelligence (and intelligence is the wizard's thing) although it seems unforgiving.

>Is it alright to hand out weirdness like candy? Should these require quests to complete or is the sacrifice of a spell slot enough?
If I used this system, I would make it a quest to get the new power/item. It's cooler if they get a reason for why they get the cool thing instead of just, like, suddenly getting it.

>Only on level up or can you 'trade in' arcane power whenever the opportunity arises to get a weird benefit like that?
I'd say do it when the opportunity arises. The game is about questing anyway, so make it related to that. Maybe there could be many places to get these things though, so the players can decide for themselves how to get it. Maybe it can even be added in as an arbitrary encounter in an otherwise unrelated dungeon.

>What happens to the mage who just keeps every spell slot? What about the one who trades all of them in for benefits? Too weird or totally fine character choices?
I don't see why anything else should necessarily happen, or maybe I just don't understand this question.

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>>50796042
>>what recent OSR relevant purchases have you made?
Just got my softcopies of Broodmother and Cursed Chateau, and I'm picking up a couple of Zzarchov's non-LotFP things shortly.

>>50796359
>>Is this 'fair' to other classes?
I would say "yes". If you want, you can fluff it off as spells that continuously suck up part of the MU's capacity for magic.

>MUs have always been the class with the most options so is this excessive?
Technically, it decreases their options by locking them down to a specific powerset, while also reinforcing the whole "wizards are not MU's" thing. I strongly suggest reading the Seclusium of Orphone, if you haven't already, it has some excellent stuff on the difference.

>Should other classes be given a similar mechanic?
Eh?

>other questions
Ultimately I'd set it up to require "spell research" or a special tome (like Golem creation) to actually do it, plus some magical components and time. Alternately, the wizard can pledge their spell strength to some patron and gain a boon, but at the cost of advancing their master's agenda.

Either way it should take time, adventure, and sacrifice, but tying it to something as banal as level-up ruins the flavor of the choice. I believe that answers the "candy" question as well. You should hand it out like cake, not candy.

>What happens to the mage who keeps all his slots?
He's an Archmage, someone jealous of his power and more interested with the minutae of all arcana than with one subset of powers (even if it's technically more "useful").

>The one who trades them all in
He's a fuckin' Wizard now - a magical being, not a Magic-"User".

>Make permanent magic items and bindings eat spell slots, permanently, instead of just taking a long time
I like this a whole hell of a lot. It's a better way of simulating the Wizard pouning a chunk of his soul into something than just shagging his XP total, by a Hell of a stretch. I'm definitely stealing this.

>>50796081
I got you pham. Real Man True AD&D 1E Core Gygax Only DF UK Mod Rules Only G1–3 Giants, Entire Series. These are wizards playing a game of wizards. No memespouting nonsense here. It is ACTUAL play.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/46445073/giants/giants.xml

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>>50797035
Glad to see you in the thread, True AD&D-guy.

Does anyone have an OSRIC/1E comparison like the LL-B/X one?

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Too broken to use? Or alright?

>>50796145
This is neat. Thanks.

>>50797035
Thanks for the podcast, I'll check it out.

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I'm sick to death of rolling d20s. Are there any OSR inspired games that don't use d20s for everything?

>>50798653
What dice do you prefer?

>>50798338
It's so hardcore that it's not even a podcast, it's just hundreds of hours of a real campaign on audio. There was video too but it had to be removed due to privacy concerns. So this turned it into a "podcast" of Actual Play, somehow making it superior to those that seek to make such things.

>>50798653
There are a couple of systems that use a D100 setup.

Threadly reminder that Magic-Users are fine as is. Add in "more useful" magic systems or freely spammable cantrips and you're playing something that's not even OSR anymore.

>>50799801
Threadly reminder that no one should give a fuck about what Anon thinks is """"""OSR"""""" when the entire movement is about DIY rulings.

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>>50798653
Dungeon World

But seriously, I feel similarly. I'd like to write/play (if it already exists) an OSR with a 2d10 roll-under system. Something simple but robust, with a "something really awesome/horrible happens" rule for doubles. (Creates some really exciting moments.)

>>50796359
I like the spells/level thing. I feel like spells still need to have their own levels/circles/intensities/whatever? And if the spell is above your level you have to perform a check and lose the spell or take some damage.

Holy fuck I'm stoned right now

>>50799948
>the entire movement is about DIY rulings.

No, the movement is about bringing back the old-school playstyle, and DIY rulings are but one component of same.

>>50796013
I find DCC to be a real good one to introduce people to.

>>50799801
DCC says piss off.

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>>50800421

It also says "use a phone app to roll dice at your gaming table!"

How do you handle torches in hand? I'm currently using player is using secondary hand to hold it, drops torch to equip shield/go 2 hand; lantern (non bullseye) is assumed to be attached to the belt.

Should the torch go out if it's dropped? I tend to just let it be forgotten altogether, as if it was still being held by the player, with the only penalty is they sacrifice a half-turn (move turn) if they're going to equip a shield or anything else after dropping the torch. Everyone forgets to declare they're picking up the torch after combat anyway. It only really comes up if they run from combat.

>>50798653
I'm making it. Just you wait.

>>50799801

Trimming the fat of the old school Vancian system with something more flavorful and less bulky is not a bad thing.

>>50800777

Check your rulebook. I believe in Basic it goes out on 2-in-6 when dropped.

>>50800630
Or just get some actual dice.

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>>50800630
Or just buy dice from the guy who founded GameScience, who were both one of the first heartbreaker publishers and one of the first groups to put together third-party supplements for OD&D. Which I own quite a few of, I might add. A huge component of the OSR is adapting and adopting what works to modern tools and needs. Like, say, running games online, or using phone apps to reduce the amount of shit cluttering up the table. I enjoy the tactile experience of rolling dice, but you also never have to hunt for a cocked d7 under your table if you're using the phone app.

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>>50800777
I roll a d6. Dropped torches or candle lanterns go out on a 1-3, on a 6 they starts a fire if there's flammables about. Dropped oil lanterns go out on a 1, set a fire on 5 and break and set an oil fire on a 6. Dropped candles automatically go out unless you're in extremely flammable conditions (hay-loft, gasses, dried moss) in which case they have a 50% chance of starting a fire but still go out automatically.
I re-roll each subsequent turn until they're all dead or the fire starts.

Setting down a lantern safely is easy if you're not getting jacked, but there's a reason my party goes for linkboys. Also, one of the Fighters likes to do the Aragorn thing and use his torch as a flaming club in his off-hand occasionally, which I'm okay with (choose which weapon to use each round, roll to see if it goes out or lights the thing you're hitting on impact, otherwise does 1d4 damage like any other Minor weapon).

How do you make a nautical campaign with a focus on exploration not boring? I feel like a random encounter every hex of open ocean would get tedious with no clear destination.

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>>50796042
This is everything recent that I've bought, Nightmares Underneath looks pretty fucking sweet I'll have to add that to my list of things to get.

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>>50799801
>>50800182
any definition of what OSR means is always going to be more of a vague guideline than any hard rules

>>50801649
your haul also looks pretty good

>>50800853
GameScience dice will be rendered obsolete when someone learns to MASHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN polyhedral dice to 1:5000th of an inch tolerances—or 1:10000th to beat the requirements by TWICE.

>>50801649
>Physical version of Carcosa
>Physical version of Vornheim
Fffffffuck, the envy is killing me.

>>50795897
Does anyone have a high res undoctored version of this Erol Otus artwork?

>>50801649
>Those new publications of AD&D
I didn't know there were physical versions of the those, where did you buy them?

>>50799801
My players can get into the OSR mindset in basically all ways but with the magic system, so I personally use the DCC magic system to fix that problem.

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>>50802366
I bought the AD&D books from Amazon for about 35 - 40 USD each. They are very nice, pages and print are great and they have these nice little ribbons attached for bookmarking purposes.

Best / most balanced / fun spellcasting system for osr ? I have given a look at DCC but if you are unlucky you may not eve get off a single spell on a day.

>>50802533
>best
Classic D&D vancian

>most balanced
Classic D&D vancian

>fun
DCC

>Bryce liked Arsenal of the Warrior Princess
Anon, congratulations!

>>50798653
Swords & Six-Siders uses only d6.

>>50802233
Check the thread before last.

I can't figure out what name to use for my OSR blog

>>50804046
Pushing d30

>>50801482
You should give the party a rough large goal to get to. Columbus fucked up his numbers and thought the planet was much smaller, which is how he would get to the Indies by sailing west and ended up coming across America. Once the party is sailing somewhere definite, you can add random and planned encounters on the way.

>>50801482
You don't have a random encounter every hex. You roll to see if there is a random encounter.

>>50801482
>a random encounter every hex of open ocean
Jesus christ, why. Lower the encounter rate a bit - not even AD&D was that bad.

(An AD&D large galley, for instance, is doing 4mph, with an encounter being 5%/day in deep saltwater. So 5%/48 miles, if it's sailing nonstop 24 hours. That's eight six-mile hexes and nine five-mile hexes. With an encounter averaging every 160 6-mile hexes. But then again, when you actually get an encounter your best bet is that it's a fleet of pirates and your worst that it's the kraken or some other sea monster, because the AD&D wilderness is terrifying.)

>>50805040
>5%/48 miles
Whoops, sorry, that's for 12 hours of sailing.

A full day is 96 miles, or 16 6-mile hexes/19 5-mile hexes.

>>50801649
How's Slugs?

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>>50805402
Great! Has 15 different SLUGS! that you can add however you want into your game, all of them are pretty great and really hilarious.

>>50805661
That looks awesome. Do they all have adventure hook generators like that one?

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>>50805718
Most of them are just really interesting encounters unto themselves, here's another from the book, if you like it you should consider buying a copy for your self, I don't know if he is still doing the deal, but I picked my copy up for like .50 cents.

>>50805809
>Slugatron
I guess "Metal Slug" was a way too low hanging fruit.

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If you had to include only one in your setting, would you choose Orcs or Hobgoblins?

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>>50801649
You fucked up not snagging World of the Lost (if you don't already have it)

>>50807345
If we are talking about standard D&D orcs and hobgoblins then I'd go with the latter. Tribal orcs seem easier to replace then militaristic hobgoblins.

>>50807345
Hobgoblins.

>>50807345
Orcs, but that's using the OD&D/AD&D ones where they have fortified villages and caravan trains and whatnot.

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>>50807345
I have gone with only goblins where goblins and hobgoblins being one race. I like the feel and name of hobgoblins more then orcs.

Plz dont trash my homebrew :)

>>50807345
probably Orcs, cause Hobgoblins can be relatively easily folded into regular Goblins as just being a term for larger ones

>>50808185
Like i have in >>50807681 ?

Newfag DM here. What's the fluff for secret doors?

What does it mean for a PC to search the wall? Are they searching for seams and knocking to check for hollowness? Then could a PC not simply describe doing so and avoid the skill check/time loss?

If they're magical, what does that mean? They're purely visual illusions? Does a player reach for stone and instead feel wood? If the door is open, can be feel a breeze of wind through the illusion? Is the illusion dispelled as soon as the deception is understood? Or is it just a sort of hologram you walk through?

Aside from 2E's Spelljammer what are my choices for a setting of fantasy space travel?

>>50808742
>What's the fluff for secret doors?
The short answer is it depends.
>What does it mean for a PC to search the wall? Are they searching for seams and knocking to check for hollowness?
They are basically doing everything they possibly can to discover secret passages. That is why it takes so long for such a small area.
>Then could a PC not simply describe doing so and avoid the skill check/time loss?
Yes, if they happen to describe themselves doing the exact thing necessary to find the secret door.
>If they're magical, what does that mean? They're purely visual illusions? Does a player reach for stone and instead feel wood? If the door is open, can be feel a breeze of wind through the illusion? Is the illusion dispelled as soon as the deception is understood? Or is it just a sort of hologram you walk through?
Once again, it depends. All of those are perfectly valid. If you are running a module and want these questions answered you would have to come up with how the door works yourself.

>>50808943
Settings of Wizardry or Might&Magic

>>50808742
You need to work on your imagination. Just saying.

>What does it mean for a PC to search the wall? Are they searching for seams and knocking to check for hollowness? Then could a PC not simply describe doing so and avoid the skill check/time loss?
Well, I'd let them do it without a roll. Door-finding skillchecks are, at least in my interpretation, just characters simply noticing suspicious detail, like "hey, that tapestry has wind coming from behind it!" or "hey, that bookshelf has weird marking under it, maybe it moves!"

>If they're magical, what does that mean? They're purely visual illusions? Does a player reach for stone and instead feel wood? If the door is open, can be feel a breeze of wind through the illusion? Is the illusion dispelled as soon as the deception is understood? Or is it just a sort of hologram you walk through?
Well, for starters, there are quite a lot of variation in magical doors. Maybe they need a password to be opened. Or some common spell cast at it. Or a special amulet. Or yeah, just illusions. Only you decide(or the writer of an adventure).
Speaking of illusions and what can they do, that's just good old "depends on the setting", really. Though usually that spell mentions immateriality of illusions.

>>50808943
Ninth World from Numenera. The system is dragged into the depths of Monte Cook's personal hell, but the setting is pretty nice for sci-fantasy.
Robot succubi, man.

>>50809130
Even if all the systems Monte works on are shit, he usually makes pretty nice settings.

>>50809150
Well, I mean, Numenera was nice when it was just a corebook, but then they just started publishing books full of equipment, incredibly repetitive character options, and worst of all - finally turning it into his own twisted version of 3.PF.
Dude really needs to learn when to stop.

At least I can steal some fluff and flavour from it.

>>50808534
yeah pretty much

>>50808742
The check is to lessen the impact of obsessive pixelbitching and also introduce some uncertainty since it's entirely possible to miss a secret door. That's pretty important when you've got a megadungeon with multiple groups adventuring in it.

As for how they're hidden, that really depends. Maybe you tweak the ear of a statue to make a bookcase swing open, maybe you poke a particular brick, all the classic secret doors from movies and comic books. Or it's a relatively ordinary door hidden behind an illusory wall. The important bit is that they're hard to find.

Maybe during those ten minutes of searching a 10'x10' area you just never happened upon the correct trigger - that's what happens when you fail the check.

(Also, most of the "secret doors" out there tend to be of the more mechanical sort, for obvious reasons - Detect Magic and various other spells kind of trivialize illusory walls and whatnot.)

>>50808943
If you're into Doctor Strange-level stuff, Mentzer's Immortal set is weird as hell. Probably not exactly what you're after, though.

Pathfinder and 4E also had some stuff expanding on their own weird cosmologies (The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea for 4E, Distant Worlds for Pathfinder), and given that you'd be adjusting stuff from Spelljammer either way they may or may not be worth taking a peek at to nick ideas from. Crunch is hard to port, but fluff is mutable as all hell.

If you're willing to steal there's a bunch of Sword & Planet books out there as well.

And, of course, there's nothing really stopping you from inventing your own stuff. It's probably better, really, since you get to avoid all the baggage something like the Forgotten Realms brings in.

>>50809298
>The check is to lessen the impact of obsessive pixelbitching
To clarify: the reason I'm saying this is because Gygax seems to really have hated when the players just futzed around poking every ten feet for traps and stuff. He gives advice that amounts to, IIRC, "if they waste a bunch of real time of in-game nonsense, ratchet up the wandering monster checks until they stop".

That's not the attitude of a guy who wants players to obsessively poke every single detail in a room or corridor to find a secret passage.

>>50809036
Wizardry and early Ultima were the things I was thinking of.
>>50809130
I might try to steal some stuff from it but Monte's stuff just makes me wince reflexively these days.
>>50809298
Yeah, I think making shit up will have to do. I might use the mini-Spelljammer setting that Polyhedron put out for a start.

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>>50808943
>>50809751
Dragonstar by Fantasy Flight might have something for you.

Is there something like Stars Without Number's factions system for generic/fantasy play? Maybe in ACKS?

Basically something to do between sessions instead of just winging it. "The lizardmen used your gold to buy troops and take over the village" rather than "I got a 5 on the random encounter table".

>>50810067

I seem to recall hearing that someone was hacking those tools for fantasy, but I don't know if anything came of it.

Choose your character
From left to right:

Sneaky Steven (Thief):
+Disappears behind any object completely, allowing perfect stealth
-Nobody EVER notices him

Reckin' Ross (Barbarian):
+Can perform inhuman feats of Strength
-IQ is about that of a newt

Timbo (Magic-User):
+Highest intellect of the group
-Severe social anxiety

Richie Richards (Bard):
+Able to woo any woman in all the known lands
-Doesn't actually like women

Hank (Fighter):
+His gaze turns all who meet it to stone
-He can't turn it off, even in bed

>>50810180
was in reference to
>>50800630

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>>50808742
Oldfag DM here.
So, I also use rolls as a "save" of sorts. Search rolls are what I use for when the players are passively searching for stuff, in the course of normal exploration. Those are at a -1, and done secretly using the pointman's skill. Further negatives apply if the players are doing something that would hamper searching. Savages/Halflings/Elves get similar chances to see hidden trails in the woods, incidentally.

>Players pass a "passive" roll while dicking around
They notice something out of the ordinary (a breeze, hollow-sound, excessive wear/lack of dust in an area) that suggests something is up.

>Actively searching without further details
If the players are >actively< searching, each searcher gets a normal search roll, but it takes a full Turn of work. Passing means they find a mechanism or the actual door, though not necessarily how it works depending on the dungeon. I'll also put clues as to how it operates and let them figure it out. For example, a dungeon I ran recently had a "statue of Death that opens the secret door". I added in that its outstretched hand was worn, and had small chips in the wrist and shoulder. When the party thief found it, they spent about ten (real-time) minutes figuring out that they needed to rotate the palm-up hand to the left and shake hands with the statue to open the door, so I made the whole jaunt take 2 Turns.

If the party fails the roll, they need to spend three times as long searching again, basically blowing the whole hour between WanMo checks and burning a torch or three.

>Actively searching with specifics, or the party has correctly deduced that there is a secret by clever mapping
I give bonuses if the party is barking up the right tree, or just auto-success if they guess the mechanism "close enough" while searching. Fiddling around trying to find loose bricks in the fireplace and the "real" trigger is supposed to be pulling on the candle sconces on either side? You've got that one.

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>>50808742
>>50810375
<cont>
If the party is specifying the >wrong< shit, I'll still give them the location, but not the mechanism, on a successful roll.

>Finally, if I'm running with newbies, younger kids, or people who don't like puzzling out shit: Active searching is part of dungeon exploring. Any player can make a search roll while moving through the dungeon, but the party moves at half-speed. Success means I give them a note with the location of the door and how it works, and give the player a chance to describe how they found it.

>Then could a PC not simply describe doing so and avoid the skill check/time loss?
Not the time loss. That's a critical part of the game - time is another resource they're managing. And depending on how you want to play, pixel-bitching means that if they decribe the wrong thing they're screwed (hence why I'll usually give them "close enough" stuff). I want to encourage creativity, but I >do< mind players trying to evade the mechanical consequences for actions they're clearly taking.

>If they're magical, what does that mean?
Could be anything. Say a magic word and the wall fades out for thirty seconds. Draw a door in chalk and knock along the right section of wall and a magical butler opens it for you. Could just be a hologram covering a real door, as you say (in which case, I'd have the texture be a giveaway). Some illusions are indeed dispelled by a save vs. Magic - at least for the guy who saves - while others are permanent.

You could even go with the Erik the Viking route, where the Pagan Erik and his allies can see the gates to Valhallah, but the Christian priest with them can't see or touch them. That's the kind of thing a Magic-user might do to protect his Sanctum; only people bearing a certain enchantment or alignment could see and use certain doors, though in the interests of fairness they should probably be able to drag party members through on a successful save.

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Has there every been any sort of Cleric type stuff for Wonders and Wickedness?

>>50810874
Doesn't even need to be the same system as Wonders and Wickedness. Just any sort of cool Cleric type system?

>>50796110
>the four Wormskin zines
Never heard of this, can you break it down for me?

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>>50801951
>tfw grabbed the first printing of both
>got the Carcosa cloth map and everything
It's glorious t b h

>>50807345
Hobgoblins, and in fact I usually do ditch orcs. They just feel too Tolkien to me for some reason (yeah, I know it's bizarre that I don't feel the same way about elves and dwarves; I do about hobbits, though. There's something about those two that's just too rooted in Middle-Earth and nobody ever really got them out of it)

>>50807472
This is a really good answer though, I fucking love OD&D for that type of monster treatment. Secretly I believe it's an Arnesonian influence

>>50800182
AD&D explicitly states DIY.

>>50811021
>Secretly I believe it's an Arnesonian influence
I'm not sure that it's so secret, to be honest, although it might also be a Tolkien thing. Goblins have a Goblin King, cave-dwelling orcs are led by ogres, trolls, dragons and balrogs, and village-dwelling orcs are lead by Lords and Wizards...
One can't help but think back to the industrial nature of Isengard and Mordor.

Really, though, it's weird how orcs get so much detail when most other monsters get maybe a paragraph at best. I guess maybe it's an Arnesonian thing.


Interestingly enough, it's not until AD&D that hobgoblins become samurai. OD&D hobbos are just big goblins, with a hobgoblin king and everything.

>>50811220

That doesn't alter my point.

>>50810901

I've read a couple of blogposts about it. The first being Goblin Punch's style- which is literally just praying to your God and getting it to answer you. Basically it's more or less likely to occur based on how in line it is with the God's teaching and domain. As in a God of plants will always help you heal a sacred grove or entangle nature-hating orcs, but will never start a forest fire so you can run away.

Here's the post.
http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2013/12/towards-better-cleric.html#more

>>50811244
I misread your comment.

>>50811220
OD&D is DIY, AD&D is all about unifying the ruleset for tournament play. Hence all the more-or-less subtle hints that you should use D&D if you want homebrew and AD&D if you want an official structured game using TSR's rules.

I remember reading a comment about how Gygax had a hard time finding referees for tournaments since if he got five people they'd have five completely different ways of playing the game.

>>50811253
Thanks so much. This is exactly the kind of stuff I am looking for!!

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Why is this so expensive, who would pay 76 USD for one book?

>>50811243
>Interestingly enough, it's not until AD&D that hobgoblins become samurai. OD&D hobbos are just big goblins, with a hobgoblin king and everything.
pumpkinhead hobbo best hobbo

>>50811403

I bought this book in the UK from Otherworld Miniatures. The book itself is fantastic, but the production quality is really poor. The pages are incredibly fragile and see-through, like those free Bibles made of recycled paper. It's a shame because the artwork is so good, but it's ruined when you can see everything on the other side of the page.

From what I've gathered it was published by a US print-on-demand company called Lightning Press, and Gillespie had a lot of issues with them. I really wish he'd published it through Lulu, whose prices and quality aren't half bad.

Oh well. At least I made up the cost for Otherworld Minis' voucher programme.

Someone that is a friend of bary nakazono from lead edge games (phoenix command and etc..) was talking about him about phoenix command yahoo group and he told he has some books in boxes and he can send the books if you sent him the transportation fee.

>>50798821
Well I prefer audio to video. I can do audio while working and commuting to/from work. It's a little rough, but once I can got into the game it was fun. Hope it continues to be so.

>>50811559
I was gonna say I have several POD books from Drivethru and they're not shitty at all, but they're from Lightning Source, an UK printer.

>>50811294
You'd think that would be the hint you need that the very idea of playing tournament RPGs is completely stupid

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>>50810925
It's some dudes forest setting and hexmap, and each zine is about a different areas and dungeons of the forest. I haven't read it too much but they have a lot of neat tables. There's also a couple new races and beasts.

>>50811403
>tfw I got the hardcover on my country's version of ebay for the cost of the pdf

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>>50811403
Because it's fucking huge, and the PoD services are partly based on the number of signatures involved and the amount of illustrations. It's also priced as though it were a set of modules, instead of a gaming hardback. Towers Two has 90 pages, four adventuring areas, and costs just under 35 bucks. So.. $75 for 250 pages and 12 areas isn't bad. You'd probably pay thirty each for three books that each had a third of the content..

That said, I'm not throwing more money on that particular trash-fire, since I've already spent a goodly chunk of change on it.

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>>50811625
So basically like the old Wilderlands gazetteer? That's pretty damn neat.

>>50796023
Does that guy in back have a laser gun?

>>50811680
Dual wielding laser guns in fact.

>>50811680

Yep. Temple of the Frog, baby.

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>>50811619

I think what happened is that he did an initial print run through Lightning Press and there were all sorts of delays, and then some of those were sold on through Otherworld Miniatures.

My camera isn't the best but hopefully you can see how the art and text is visible through the page. I like to support indie authors and publishers, but I expected more for £45.

If it's a different company publishing them on DriveThruRPG, I hope they do a better job. The book, layout, and art are great, and it deserves a high-quality print.

>>50811534
That's the bugbear!

I'm still not entirely sure why the hell the Greyhawk illo gives 'em a pumpkin head, though.

>>50811837
Oh man, that looks cruddy.
I have a lot of Sine Nomine stuff and it's been Lightning Source since the first release of SWN. It's pretty solid for what it is and definitely doesn't cost $75 a pop.

>>50796042
A Red and Pleasant Land and Scenic Dunnsmouth.

ARaPL is really for my girlfriend because she loves Alice but I will get good use out of it. The price was kinda high for something that I consider fluff but I do not regret the purchase.

I bought Dunnsmouth after checking it out in the trove because it is one of the most innovative things I've seen in the last 5 years. I will gladly support the talent that produces that kind of work. Has Kowolski made anything else like that? An adventure matrix I guess.

>>50811926

From a quick search, I think Lightning Press and Lightning Source are different companies.

I've had good experiences with PoD from Lulu (my copies of Labyrinth Lord and Stonehell look great), but I guess Lightning Press was a bulk order deal for the Barrowmaze Complete Kickstarter.

Luckily I have the PDF since my crappy inkjet printer is better, and the pages in the book are pretty much unphotocopyable.

>>50811924

I've always heard that it was a miscommunication with the artist.

>>50811924
>revealing my low power level in Grognard General
Ah, shit.

So I'm currently running a system where AC is very much a product of class/level and I want actual armors to have different effects.

What are some good ideas? I kind of like the simplicity of black hack where each armor point is just a temporary health point, but I also kind of like the idea of making armors have some sort of 'block mechanic that can add points to a combat saving throw or maybe absorb some damage from an incoming attack.

Maybe something like light armors have better 'blocks' against combat saves, such as getting tripped, where as heavy armors absorb more damage with their blocks?

>>50812030
If it comforts you any, I don't even remember if OD&D hobgoblins got any art.

There's a neat lil' bearded/frothing goblin on M&M p.29, there's a long-eared gnoll on M&T p.10, and I'm pretty sure I've seen an orc somewhere, but I don't know if the hobgoblin actually got anything. Or the kobold, for that matter.

>>50797540
I like it. I'd play with that.

>>50811653
>Pellucidar
basiert

>gigantic Frazetta asses on the women
äußerst basiert

>>50797540

>Attempts to do away with race-as-class
>Arbitrarily limiting class selection of the races anyway
>Hobbits aren't allowed to be MUs of all things, but they can be midget fighters just fine

I don't like it.

>>50803506

I'm so proud right now. Already at work on the next module!

>>50798653
It emulates old Runequest rather than DnD but there's OpenQuest 2.

I've never actually played it despite owning the book, so I can't say how well it plays.

>>50810180
Sneaky Steven. Richie Richards seems the next most tolerable, but I don't want a personality change.

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So I've been working on my 2+d10 combat system for a couple days now from the feedback last threads, and I really like it. I'd appreciate some more ideas.

Basically, whenever you attack you roll 2d10 and add the total; try to beat enemy AC. If you roll any pair, you get to do a combat maneuver. Lets you do things like trip the enemy, try to disarm them, knock off a point of their armor, make the next attack that hits them deal +2 damage. Putting the enemy in a spot such as a trip adds +1 attack die to the next person who attacks them, and these combat moves happen if your attack is a success or not.

If roll any 10 on your attack, you deal +1 damage if it hits. While normally you only use the best 2 of all thrown attack dice, you still get to use any pairs for combat moves and all 10s rolled as +1 damage bonuses to your attack.

Fighters get +1 attack die per level if they choose it; They can throw a bunch of them all at one target, or they can spread them out among multiple enemies to do multiple attacks.

Now that the kinks are starting to work out, I'm curious to see how people like it. Perhaps I need to write up a full document of all the modifiers and such first, and recalculate AC.

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I wish I saw the potential of using Excel as a sort of automatized Character Sheet earlier. It runs as smooth as butter, especially when using LotFP's inventory system.
Would anyone running an online game be in need of such a thing?
Pic related is a tiny snipped. It's a bit of a chimera between different sheet elements

>>50812189
Hope your sales will get a nice boost from this, and I wish you a lot of fun working on the next module!

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Which do you prefer for potential-failure skill checks?

(DCC) d20+Modifier =/> DC Score
(BFRPG) d20+Modifier =/> A level descending number (lv. 1 = 17).
(tBH) Roll =/> Ability Score
Something else?

>>50812550

Does it load in LibreOffice?

>>50812598
I'm not entirely sure. Does LibreOffice support setting backgrounds?

TFW HarmonQuest makes me want to try Pathfinder.

>>50812589
>(tBH) Roll (equal or) under Ability Score, I mean.

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You have ten seconds to explain why you don't use 1d6 for your monster's HD.

>>50813198
Because the book says to use 1d8.

>>50813198
The book says not to.

>>50813198
Because they get however many hit points seem appropriate depending on the encounter, situation and what I'm hoping to achieve

>>50813342
Storygaming SWINE

>>50813198
Because, if I understood it correctly, monsters are supposed to have the same hit die as fighters, so I use 1d8.

>>50813212
>>50813321
>>50813484

Monsters should not have as much health as a cleric or fighting man. They should have as much health as a regular attack would deal, ie d6. That way anyone using a bigger weapon is essentially trying to better guarantee his kills and be stronger against multiple HD creatures, but is less efficient then someone using a sword.

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>>50813484
You have ten seconds to explain why you don't use 1d6 for your fighter's HD.

Best OSR hexcrawls, please? I own World of the Lost and want more.

>>50813779
That's a good argument and I like it. May I ask where you got this information though?

>>50813790
Because fighters are supposed to have a higher hit die than clerics and thieves.

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>>50813862
>May I ask where you got this information though?

I'm just arguing from my common knowledge of OSR. I know a lot of games use 1d8 HD with 1d6 as a 'regular' weapon's damage, which I really dislike.

Basically it just comes down to preference, but I dislike creatures having that slight bit extra HP. The entire point of playing something like a Cleric or Fighter is being a little bit 'ahead of the curve' as it were in terms of your maximum HP. Regular weapons deal 1d6 so it stands to reason a standard HD representing a number of hits should be about the same, so 1d6. Don't forget there are a number of spells that deal d6 damage, like fireball per caster level.

I mostly just really dislike goblins having 1d8 hit points for some reason. Goblins are supposed to be shitty and easy, the only thing that should make them scary is their numbers, not them having twice the HP of the party's magic user. It just bugs me as all. Besides the d6 is the most 'classic' of all dice and the one most people have easy access too. It just feels more legit throwing a handful of d6 to determine the ogre's health instead of rolling the table's one solitary d8. Just my opinion.

>>50813992
Well, I can't argue with any of that. You've convinced me.

I'm going to assume though that a lot of retroclones have a higher hit die for monsters because they want to focus on the idea that players should be wary of getting into a fight. If the players know that the monster they'll be fighting have an equal or higher number of hit points, they won't be very inclined to do battle.

Came back from paying no attention to the OSR to discover that ACKS has like 3 new books suddenly - Lairs & Encounters, Auran Empire Primer and MOAR DAKKA... ahem, I mean Guns of War.

Anyone got them? Any good?

>>50807681
'Das bretty kool m8.

>>50807472
Where can I find this information?

>>50815991
Pretty sure it's just in their write-up?
>http://www.lomion.de/cmm/orc.php

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>>50813198
Too many of their enemies are human. Or at least use human rules. 1d6 is fine for a 0-level Specialist or Fighter, but I'm not blatantly gimping a rival 4th-level party just for the sake of the Bugbear of Consistency.

More-broadly, HP derives partly from the monster's origin and role. For something like a bear, I might give it d12 per level and 3HD just 'cause I'm cussed. Also because I have vorpal and Slaying weapons strip hit dice from enemies, not limbs per se. Not that the players have any of those yet, but you never know. Makes the back end more fun for me.

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>>50817131
here

>>50813992
Interesting. I use a d4 for goblins, but as said elsewhere, I fluff mine as tiny Fae, shadow-critters like the ones Tolkien used in the Father Christmas Letters, or monkeys. Pic related. Although I also had them all look like Felix the Cat in one game.

Other than that, it's pretty much as you say: "regular" monsters get a d8, "tough" ones get a D10, and "walls of meat and death" are a D12.
"Grunts" and "weedy" go down to D6 and D4. But I also try not to use grunts much, other than vermin and 0-level Humans.

How do you feel about MUs being able to alter or even improve spells?

>>50818044
I don't mind alterations. And as long as the improvements also have some sort of downside, sure.

Is this question related to A&A's ink posts?

http://aeonsnaugauries.blogspot.com/2016/12/level-one-ink-formulas.html
http://aeonsnaugauries.blogspot.com/2016/12/level-nine-ink-formulas.html

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>>50818044
That's what the Spell research rules are for. Like, it's an explicit intent in Holmes and 1e. I have no problems with PCs tweaking things, although I do ride pretty hard on the "limitations or level it up" side of the horse.

>>50818435
>>50818842

Alterations make a lot of sense and I like them too, but I'm thinking about improving the spells too. I like the idea though, like finding a rare magic missile that deals +1 damage, or being able to craft it. But obviously there would need to be an upper limit somehow.

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>>50813790
You have ten seconds to explain why you don't exclusively use d6s for hit dice.

>>50813116
There's no Pathfinder-specific elements at all, the show would be pretty much the same with any D&D ruleset. Also it's pretty entertaining, but in no way is an enjoyable game. It's made to entertain other people.

>>50819071
I do.

>>50813342
You can show yourself out of this thread, anon.

>>50813321
Not in the best version of the game.

>>50812550
>Hope your sales will get a nice boost from this, and I wish you a lot of fun working on the next module

Well, for now the new sales have been zero, but from tenfootpole I mostly wanted a honest critique to improve my craft.

I mean, publicity's also fine, don't get me wrong.

>>50820113
Just so you know anon, I bought your module some weeks ago and I'm planning on using it in my campaign. So I hope you enjoy my dollar (or whatever rpgnow gives you per purchase).

>>50821041
it's 70%, so 1.39$, but i'm splitting that with the artist, so it's more like 0.70$.

Still, thank you for your purchase! Please do tell me if you like it and how it goes once you run it.

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http://www.goodman-games.com/downloads/DCCRPGBeta060811.pdf

What do you guys think of funny dice?

>>50821415
I'd rather not, to be honest. Moving over to OD&D's near-exclusive reliance on d20s and d6s was pretty refreshing.

>>50813992
I support rolling mostly d6, since they're the easiest to store in large numbers.
Buuuuuuut

Why does a monster or character need to take a number of turns to kill using a standard weapon equal to its level?

Can't the characters get ahead of the curve by being higher level?

That being said, here's why my game has stupid hitpoints for monsters. I'm talking 10 hp/lvl, no roll.

My players are good at this game, and have established a powerlevel using minmaxing and magic items that is already above the curve. If I don't have monsters able to take more damage than the players, they get absolutely dominated. As it is, the level 7 party (which also has like 10 people, that's part of it) can burn through 200 points of monsters in 4 rounds, despite multiple immunities and good ac. They're clever enough to make something work to hurt it.

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>>50819061

>Spell Improvement
As adventurers explore, they have various alternate means of advancing their abilities beyond simple experience gain. Fighters gain and maintain their equipment. Specialists gain new tools for their crafts, and Mages decode and tinker with spells.

Magic users can work on their spells even when adventuring, such as the downtime in inns and campsites, when healing their wounds or even just gaining inspiration from watching and learning about nature. Each month spent adventuring roll a 1d4, this is the magic user's inspiration. If the magic user is in town or his wizard tower during this month instead roll 2d4.

Inspiration is gained slowly and collected. To change an aspect of a spell, one must collect enough Inspiration equal to the spell's level +1. For example, to change fireball into an frost ball spell it would take 4 Inspiration. Once enough inspiration is gained, the spell can be tested. No matter what kind of spell being altered, the magic user must roll a saving throw vs magic. On a miss, the magic user has botched creating the spell, lost all his inspiration that he spent for it and probably caught his hut on fire. You can spend additional Inspiration at a 1 for 1 ratio when editing a spell to grant a +1 to this saving throw, which is spent if the save is successful or not. If successful, the spell has been successfully altered and can be cast.

Improving a spell requires the above steps but takes double inspiration and 1d4+1 rare materials (each of them a quest or outrageously expensive) to complete. Improved spells can either remove one limitation of a spell (ie; allow unseen Servants to attack) or can simply boost the die size, duration, range, number of targets, or some other factor of the spell by one limited category. The spell's level increases by one up to the possible maximum of 9, in which case this spell cannot be improved again.

>>50821415
A thing I started using recently as a GM is a Fudge die (a d6 with a"+" on two of its faces, a "-" on other two faces, and the last two faces empty.

I use it as a simple randomizer whenever I'm undecided about something or i have to define something that i hadn't predetermined.

Sort of like a simplified Reaction check, in a way. "How is the thing?", and a "+" means "good", while a "-" means bad.

I also have a directional 1d8 (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW) because you never know. Wind direction, scatter for grenadelike projectiles, etc.

Unrelated to dice, but one thing I'm fond of using is a hourglass. I have this nice stylish 1-minute hourglass on a wooden frame that I pull out and flip whenever a PC is taking too long to make up his mind in a life-threatening situation (combat, escape, etc). Puts some pressure on them while still not being full asshole DM "a round is 10 seconds so you have 10 seconds to tell me what you do in it, or I'll skip you".

Plus, by now they're so used to it that I can just show my hourglass as an universal "The DM is telling me that time's up" signal.

Adventurer's Guilds, /osrg/. Do you have them? What have you done with them?

>>50822628
I don't have any, but I'm not particularly opposed to the idea.

>>50822628
I've never seen it done in a way that isn't meta for the sake of appearing clever.

However, there are plenty of
>magical cabals
>crime families
>knightly orders sanctioned by a church or royalty
>foreign mercenaries looking for new contracts

Now I'm tempted to plant a Treasurehunter's Guild that appears legit, but is actually just a club for idle nobles who are just big talkers.
>their collections of antiquities and trophies were purchased from real adventurers
>one of them approaches the PCs to hire them as guides for dungeon tourism

>>50821415
I like 'em.

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>>50822628
Hoping to trade for some copies t b h f a m. Anyone who has Adventurer's Guild modules, official TSR AD&D 2E adventure modules of 16 pages each from the late 90s, post them up.

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>>50823395
Adventurer's Guilds, /osrg/. Do you have them?

>>50822628
Seems like a lazy abstraction.

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>>50822628
>Adventurer's Guilds, /osrg/. Do you have them? What have you done with them?
Only in 18th-20th C games like CoC.
They fund expeditions that come in blithering about cool shit that may or may not be in Antarctica. Let's be honest here, the National Geographic Society was an RL Adventurer's Guild until they went soft

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>>50822628
No. The closest I ever come to the concept is by having small specialist mercenary bands, who are usually hired for a variety of tasks, which can include exploration/delving, things they might do on their own if the chance for treasure seems worth the risk.

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>>50825353

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>>50822628

I feel as though they are unnecessary because the PCs always end up building their own, more or less, throughout the course of their campaigns and characters.

And this isn't an intentional thing either, this just happens as a result of the OSR playstyle. Characters die but the party stays alive. Eventually you have name level fighters with their own keeps to provide defense or small retinues of men, wizards with magic towers that may loan out spells to their apprentices, master thief and his band of lowlives who keep up to date with knowledge and help sell hard to move goods and high-priests with their own churches who can provide healing and remove curses.

Simply keeping your older characters around in the game world and playing in an OSR style makes an adventurer's guild pop up all on its own.

>>50796110
>wormskin
Anyone have PDFs of these?

Also been looking for Wizards Mutants Lazer Pistols

>>50802233
Tineye says: https://tineye.com/search/ea5484b4b24b07e6d2518320aad3bad428dc15aa/?sort=size
https://res.cloudinary.com/format-magazine-production/image/upload/c_limit%2Cw_1280%2Ch_910%2Cf_jpg%2Cf_auto/dungeons-and-dragons-erol-otus-1

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>>50802233
Here you are!

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>>50802233
>>50826042
And there you go :) I'm the original uploader: I'd like to hear what you will be doing with these!

>>50826058

Where did you get these?
I might be doing the back of a B/X custom-made GM screen with them.

>>50826116
Awesome idea :) I got them from a Facebook page were a guy made fresh box scans and photoshopped out all the lettering

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Alright folks, r8 my attempt to improve the Labyrinth Lord Thief.

>Instead of percentile skills, Thieves roll an extra d6 when attempting actions that are considered "thiefy". If both d6s are equal to or less than the target number (1, by default) the Thief succeeds in the action. If only one d6 is equal to or less than the target number, the Thief succeeds, but at a cost (a picked lock might be too damaged to re-lock, or a trap might be only partially disabled). If both d6s are over the target number, the Thief fails.

"Thiefy" skills are as follows:
>Tinker (pick locks, disable/set traps)
>Pilfer (pick pockets)
>Search (find traps, hidden doors, and the like)
>Move Silently (self-explanatory)
>Hide (self-explanatory)
>Listen (detect creatures through doors, &c)
>Climb (self-explanatory)
>Comprehend Language (understand an unknown language)
>Use Magic Item (use wands, scrolls, &c)

The key idea here is that this builds off the existing system for "skills" in Labyrinth Lord, and makes Thieves interesting without depriving other classes of the chance (or necessity) of doing dungeoneering shit. Again, *everyone* can attempt these actions, but they get a flat 1-in-6 chance of success. Thieves are special not only because they can improve these skills (every time they level up, they can increase the target number for one skill by one pip), but because they have the potential to succeed (at a cost) where others would simply fail.

Basically, I'm trying to capture an idea I've seen bandied about in various OSR sources: that (percentile) Thief skills were originally intended to be rolled along side regular (d6) skill checks as a sort of failsafe (this also explains why the percentile skills are so damn low). Moving everything to the d6 is my attempt to simplify things somewhat by extending the existing system of "skill checks" in Labyrinth Lord.

Thoughts? Critiques? Does this seem workable?

>>50826367
Sounds like you might as well use the LotFP Specialist. Then...

Roll 1d6 for the Skill check and another to see the effect: 1-4 is a success with a setback, 5-6 is a perfect success.

>>50826367
>Use Magic Item (use wands, scrolls, &c)
This shit always confuses me. Ok, wand are kind of arguable, but SCROLLS? Needing a fucking skill just to read a bunch of words is... dumb.

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>>50825747
>That pic
I would love to play an OSR game with Armello aesthetics. Sadly nobody in my group likes OSR games.

>>50826562
Nah. It'd be like you assembling a bomb with an instruction manual in Korean.

>>50826591
Then it's just
>Comprehend Language
No?

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>>50826562
>SCROLLS? Needing a fucking skill just to read a bunch of words is... dumb.
Scrolls aren't just a bunch of words. They're a spell - a dimly-sentient plasmic entity - barely imprisoned by carefully-chosen inks in a tanned piece of animal skin, writhing and begging to be released like a wolverine in a beartrap.
Unless you do that shit >right<, Bad Things are going to happen. Either the spell gets away (good end) or goes off Wrong, or you eat a Curse.

>>50826591
More like arming a Claymore and pointing it in the right direction, only you have to use your toes to do everything and it's filled with hundred-year-old sweaty dynamite instead of plastique. Even >Clerical< spells blowing off wrong is bad - you ever seen what happens when magical healing goes bad, son?

>>50826802
My house rule would say scrolls aren't written in an actual language. More like bizarre arcane symbols. Cleric scrolls would be written in the writers normal tongue tho.

>>50826874

My house rule (more "fluff" than "rule", actually) is that arcane scrolls are written in Magic.

Magic is the language that you become able to understand once you cast Read Magic. It's a magical language - THE magical language. It's so complex, intricate and ever-changing that it's impossible to reliably learn as a normal language. You NEED to cast that spell to read it. (the spell connects you directly to some arcane source of knowledge somewhere in the Planes - think Akashic Record - and grants you briefly the knowledge to decipher it.)

Thieves who try to cast scrolls can't actually READ it, but they can "play it by ear". Hearing the echoes of their own voice and the vibrations of the scroll in their hand, they can try and guess if they're doing it right or wrong. Only people with extremely sharp senses and instincts can do this sort of thing, and it's still considered pretty dangerous.

Clerical scrolls, on the other side, are written in Celestial, a divine language that all clerics with a direct connection to the divine can read and understand innately.

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>>50826579

I feel that most people who'd want to play with fluffy animal people and those that want gritty death trap dungeons are mutually exclusive, but I could certainly dig it.

>>50827173
Watership Down's some shit, man.

>>50827173
Check out Ghost of a Tale.

>>50827063
So is Read Magic the only spell that magic users intricately and innately learns, while other spells is just thorough memorization of magic text? Because I kind of like that fluff.

>>50826874
>>50827063
>>50827603

Read Magic is fucking lame. You should have to decode what a scroll or spellbook means, and magic users trap them with all kinds of literal curses in the words scribbled in the margins, misleading information like if you cast the spell it bounces back to the caster instead of hurting others and so on. Even having a spell to read magic is fucking lame, why should it require a spell? Everyone else sees goobledegook but only magic users can understand the formulae.

>>50827173
>I feel that most people who'd want to play with fluffy animal people and those that want gritty death trap dungeons are mutually exclusive
What's the name of that comic with the commando bunny rabbits in Vietnam?

>>50827627
>Even having a spell to read magic is fucking lame, why should it require a spell?
Originally it's so that scrolls don't break the fuck out of the resource management system when you find them in the dungeon. You need to cast a spell to get a spell - or two scrolls, really, since that's what it lets you read, so up to fourteen spells.

See also how Read Languages lets you decipher maps and get tons of relatively free loot.

Basically, you need Read Magic to comprehend scrolls for the same reason Clerics are limited to blunt weapons: the game was just balanced that way.

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Daily reminder that scrolls should not be instant cast one-use spells and should just be a way to easily hold and store spells.

One shot spells should be magical items; glass orbs with flames inside for a magical grenade, a stick that breaks and releases a sleeping cloud and so on.

>>50827636
>commando bunny rabbits in Vietnam
Cat Shit One? Aka Apocalypse Meow

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>>50827636
Ignore >>50828089, you actually got it right on your first try.

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http://character.totalpartykill.ca/lotfp/

Why are all the saving throw numbers completely off from the book?

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>>50828741
Something went wonky. I got this. Looks almost like 0-level Halfling, except for the Breath save.

>>50828741
I just checked all the LotFP rulebooks and I think there are two things to this:
1. The saving throws are modified by the WIS and INT modifiers
2. The creator of the generator has mixed up level 0 and level 1 saving throws when copying the numbers into his code

>>50828741
Alright, I got this. It figures Wis and Int mod into saves and it does use 0-level Halfling saves.

>>50829168
That's not it. The creator got some saving throw numbers right but some wrong because he kept looking back and forth from the book to the computer. He probably, without thinking about it, sometimes looked at the top row for level 1 numbers even though those are the level 0 numbers.

I read a pretty neat idea for different classes using weapons. It allowed all classes to use all weapons, but depending on what class you were, you'd do more damage, fighters dealing the most, and wizards dealing the least. I think I'll implement it since I have a boner for sword-swinging wizards, but I don't want to make fighters obsolete.

>>50829309

I prefer the old 'everyone gets to use whatever weapons they want but only fighters get to hit anything' approach that a lot of modern retroclones use.

>>50813802
NOD magazine has some good ones. Also check out the crowdsourced Hexenbracken, The Kraal and there was something else.
Points of Light is pretty handy, but definitely very generic in comparison to the World of the Lost.

>>50813198
I do. Well, most of the time. I also defaulted all damage to d6, but special weapons and abilities can shift it up and down the dice chain, like arrows and edged weapons will deal one die less damage to skeletons.

>>50829309
Agree with >>50829465. I like Fighters to have the best to-hit bonus and the chance to execute maneuvers is tied to it. But class-based damage is cool too, I just think this variant combines nicely with d6 damage.

>>50829309
I think this rule is in Hubris, but that's for DCC.

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So Fighters get better and better gear as a method of advancement outside of just getting higher levels.

MUs get new spells and can make stuff outside of just getting levels.

What can Thieves/Specialists do outside of just getting levels that makes them interesting and grow?

>>50828379
Did... did you shoop this just now to make fun of Anon? I can't really even understand why.

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>>50830313
Nope

>>50826367
I was thinking something similar, though keeping the percentile skills. Everyone gets a minimum of "thieving" skill (just like everyone can fight to a greater or lesser extent and everyone has some access to magic in the way of class-specific magic items and such), but not only do capital-T Thieves get a failsafe with their own particular skills, but also they get to try using them in circumstances that other classes would find outright impossible. Even a weedy wizard can try hiding from an orc patrol inside a warehouse full of boxes and barrels, but only a proper Thief can pull a Garret-style "I'll stand in this sliver of shadow and you literally can't see me now" act. Also combining Move Silently and Hide in Shadows into a single Stealth score because rolling both for a single sneak fucks up the odds majorly and if you're using percentile skills then you should be able to gauge your odds of success at a single glance.

>>50827603
In my system, yes, all magic users automatically have Read Magic and don't need a book to memorize it. Even if you lose your book, you can still memorize Read Magic.

>>50828379
That bear has some shit, he got crazy eyes

>>50796566
>>50796585

I know it's been a while but thanks for feedback guys. It's been tearing me up a lot but I really like the aesthetic of it. Now I just have to figure out how to let my players know it's ok for the party's MU to trade in his level up to give the Fighter a custom made magic sword of greatness.

As for Seclusium of Orphone, I'm reading it from the Trove right now, thanks.

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I am pretty new to this whole OSR thing and have not run a massive dungeon yet. And I am going to run Barrowmaze.

How in the world do I go about preparing this thing? Do I read through it a bunch of times and just remember? I have no idea where to start to take notes on this entire thing.

Any tips? Thanks!

>>50830313
A man gotta have his fun. And it wasn't meant in a mocking way, I just found the idea of it actually being named that way inherently amusing.

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Almost done running Death Frost Doom.

All in all, I'd say it's pretty over-hyped. I mean, there are some brilliant parts, but mostly it's just a case of near sadist punishment for trying anything.All in all, I'm ready to return to World of the Lost.

Class based damage, yea or nay?

>>50831511
Nay.

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Houserules for LotFP:

- Max HP at lv. 1
- Heal 1HP per restful night's sleep as long as you're 0 HP or above.
- Medicine Skill (requires expendable medkit. Modified by INT.)
- XP for treasure immediately upon finding.
- 3 torches per encumbrance slot. 5 rations per encumbrance slot.
- Typically give M-Us and Clerics a random freebie Scroll.
- Anyone can use a Clerical scroll so long as they can read the language and are on that deity's 'good side.'
- Animal Companions/Familiars: Assigned a Morale/Loyalty score (usually 9). Any command to attack/do something requires a morale/loyalty check.
- Critical Hit & (sometimes) Fumble tables (my players love them)
- Fighters crit on 19-20.
- Intimidate/Bluff/Bribe etc done by d20+CHA mod equal or over a DC.
- Elves get a 1-in-6 passive perception when entering a room to spot shit.

>>50821415
I like them, but then I've always been a fan of unusual dice

>>50822628
depends on the setting, although if it's a setting equivalent to the Renaissance or later than they'll probably be around in some form or another

>>50827173
someone hasn't read Redwall, those books could get downright gruesome at the drop of a hat

>>50831468
Almost done? You mean your group didn't finish it in one sitting?

>>50831784
Or Mouse Guard. HOOT HOOT.

>>50831120
Seclusium of Orphone is actually tragically shit.

I mean not that you can really expect better out of Baker, but... there's like six things in it worth salvaging and the book's 160 pages long. It's a senseless waste, especially the maps which are such shit that you can't even make out what they latter two are even really meant to depict. They're just some jagged lines and gradients.

What's the verdict on Machination of the Space Princess? I want to run a space opera campaign in the near future.

>>50831802
They're fucking slow man.

>>50831885
I personally like it a lot. It'd be my system of choice for a space setting game.

>>50829899

Dungeon World uses it as well. Pretty nifty IMO.

>>50826367
Have you checked out The B/X Rogue
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/166517/The-B-X-Rogue

>>50831885
It works great for space opera. Race creation is very fun.

>>50796042
Sailors on the Starless Sea

Just wanted to try a funnel and it seemed popular.

>>50828053
It's just a coat of paint anyways, but in my mind, every individual casting of a spell is unique.

The formula in your spellbook allow you to "catch" a new spell of a certain type and hold it in your head.

A spell scroll is what happens when you store it on a piece of parchment instead.

Once the spell is released, you still have a roll of parchment with text and symbols on it, but trying to cast from it again is like trying to call a disconnected phone number.

>>50798653
Maybe WFRP?

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>>50826367
It's an interesting idea, but I see a statistical issue. The chance of getting a single success is too high, meaning that at most skill levels, a thief will succeed at a cost as often as, or more often than he will flat-out succeed, and that's a bit screwy. (See top table.) What if, instead, a thief rolls a single die, and if he passes, he succeeds at the task without needing to roll another die. If, however, he fails, he gets to roll another die to see if he can pull off a partial victory--succeeding at a cost. (See bottom table.) That way, his chance at partial success is always lower than his chance at complete success, and he won't be constantly breaking locks, partially disarming traps, etc.

What sort of magic research rules do people like?

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>>50831859
>Seclusium of Orphone is actually tragically shit.
I disagree. As a module? Yeah, a turd. But as a toolkit it's extremely useful, and it's amazing for riffing off of to generate new stuff.

Magic item generation and the basic process of generating a Seclusium are great, especially if you skip the NPC names and basic forms of the items (or take those forms as an inspiration). So the Tryptich result might be a mirror, ikon, book, or folding screen. The Blindfold becomes any sensory-protective apparatus, &c.

Some of the specific ways he puts stuff together in the sample Seclusia is also useful, even if you don't like the things themselves.

>>50800035
>I feel like spells still need to have their own levels/circles/intensities/whatever?
Should be fine as long as every spell is a situational bread winner. Abilities that cost multiple slots might be neat though.

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>>50797035
Just the way I like it. Keep fighting the good fight.

>>50831468
Raggi does love his linear death traps doesn't he?

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>>50833859
Though to be honest, I think that a d6 system is a bit confining, especially with two dice rolls. Two points of difference in a skill takes you from a 31% chance of success to a 75% chance. I think a d8, d10, or even a d12 system would give you a good deal more elbow room.

>>50810576
>>50810375
Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for. Copied down for reference.

>>50824107
Sometimes that's for the best.

>>50831511
Nay. All damage is d6 except daggers are d6-1 and 2-handers are d6+1 with the exception of staff being just d6.

Naturally the hit die is also d6.

>>50832940
Scrolls are supposed to be able to hold several one-time use spells in them. Casting a spell erases just the particular spell from the scroll but otherwise leaves the scroll intact.

Is the DCC Lankhmar stuff somewhere in the Trove and I'm just bad at searching or do we not have it at all?

>>50837420
Is it even out yet?

Even if it is, I think it's probably too new for the trove to have PDFs.

>>50837933
The boxed set is not out yet, but there are 2 adventures and a supplement already released in pdf form.

I'm pretty sure they are older than sutures of the semptress and we do have that one.

>>50834042
I'm fond of the ones in LotFP

>cash and access to the spell is the obstacle, not character level
I think it's lame to restrict magic item creation by level.
>Laboratory and library cost money
Provides a cash sink for the MU character, and requires them to have some kind of home base to do serious research

So it rewards planning ahead, and creates disincentives for murderhobos (if you kill the mayor for a laugh and skip town, you lose a costly investment)

>>50824940
aaaand that's going in my list of 'campaigns I will never get around to running'

What are some good random tables I can use to fill a hex map?

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>>50840008

>>50801649
>you bought the turd book

>>50833859
>>50835420

Excellent points here --- thanks for the tables! To me, the fact that partial successes are more common than full successes (for most target numbers) is more a feature than a bug; it allows the Thief to feel useful/competent without having thief abilities be guaranteed successes.

As far as dice size, I agree that a d6 is slightly constraining; I went with it because it flows nicely from the existing system of X-in-6 chances to spot hidden doors, &c, already present in Labyrinth Lord and other systems. In the future I may tweak the rules to be based on a d20 roll...

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Differing rates of advancement for different classes, and especially level caps for demihumans, have never sat quite right with me. I'm curious: in your experience, are demihumans overpowered enough to warrant level caps? Are level caps effective in keeping them in check? What are some other ways to balance humans and demihumans? Would it be possible to ditch level caps entirely and have all classes use (say) the Fighter's level advancement table?

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>>50841027
It wasn't that they were overpowered, the point was to make them underpowered to discourage players from always picking the special snowflakes and normalizing their weirdness.

>>50841066
Huh, makes sense... IIRC Gygax didn't really like demihumans (being a Howard/Leiber man himself), but had to include them in the rules because his players had just read LotR and wanted to be elves and hobbits.

That said, is there any other way to avoid normalizing demihumans' weirdness?

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>>50841027
Honestly, at this point, I've adopted DCCs method. It's simpler and it's a fair spread across the board. OSR has never been games focused on balance, so wgaf if that level 7 Elf might kickass more than that same leveled ________?

Just last night, during my World of the Lost campaign, after they finished the Death Frost Doom adventure in it, I couldn't help but think "Dragging these pearls and jewels and treasure and shit over hundreds of miles, to safely sell/stow them for leveling.....just to get some extra HP and an extra spell per day/2 skillpoints...seems lame." So I let them advance to level 2. They're happy. My game continues on.

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>>50841027

>balance humans and demihumans

They'd need to have the same number of extra abilities, and they'd all have to be similar in power level - either that, or make it a cosmetic choice.

>level caps and XP advancement

The problem with this is that in order to have level = power, rather than xp = power, is that you're going to have to juice up the Fighter and Thief if they're going to be "equal" to the Cleric and MU. The one thing Thieves have going for them is that they advance faster than other classes. Without this, they're crippled (even more than they already are).

Feats are not the way to go. Weak spells that can always be used are still just weak spells. They also carve up what the Fighter can do and hamper his ability to do reasonable actions a Fighter should be able to accomplish.

Check out the attached. It may help, but it isn't perfect.

>>50841192
I'm not sure, I've been meaning to look into it too. I've just followed B/X until now, but I bet looking towards depictions of and rules for Drow would lead to a few promising attempts at maintaining otherworldy weirdness.

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>>50841263
I'd disagree and say feats are absolutely the way to go. I gave my LotFPs game's Fighters and Dwarves a version of DCCs 'Mighty Deed' die. They love it and it makes them feel more kickass. My Specialists are already to obsessed with avarice to give a shit about combat equality, but goddamn do they tend to be the one's to find the hidden and locked away magic items.

>>50841423

Mighty deeds =/= Feats. I meant Feats in the same way that 3.pf does, and those are cancer.

>>50809232
>Dude really needs to learn when to stop.
Not when him somehow being a 'genius' of game design continues to be a meme.
>Reminder that Cook's work on Planescape was actually the worst part of Planescape.

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>>50841494
Ah, gotcha. I've never played any 3.PF.

>>50841846

I kind of envy you anon. It's colored my whole outlook on PnP specifically, and D&D in particular because it was my first.

Don't go looking to it for solutions. It managed to get just about everything wrong, even though we didn't know it at the time.

Anyone else in love with the elegance of the "treasure for xp" feedback loop. It gives a purpose to play that I feel later editions are lacking.

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>>50841882
It's funny, (I'm 31) and my introduction to PnP was 4e, maybe...4 years ago? I had fun, but it was so...complex.
Then 5e came out and my buddy ran that instead. I liked it better. Still think it's fun for questing and such.
Then I bought DCC on a whim cause it looked so cool. Loved it.
That made me look into OSR and discovered LotFP, BFRPG etc.

I keep my games deadly, but I have to balance Raggi-esque deathfucking with my players having fun quests and actually enjoying their characters and what happens to them. I know that makes a lot of grognards shudder, but it keeps them engaged and more actively involved in the game.

Currently running a LotFP 'World of the Lost' campaign (it was by far the simplest game to introduce my non-gamer table to), but after it's done I really wanna switch to BFRPG with all those sweet not-too-crunchy extras. I think they'll love the Race/Class separation and all the extra classes, races, supplements etc that it has.

>>50841941
I really like it too, and I realized it only after I switched over to DCC.

Is there some history to the Whitehack/the Black Hack business?

>>50841027

I personally prefer universal tables, or just keep track of each players spending. You can save up your money for costly upgrades and gear or you could just go and blow it to get your XP, which I enjoy because it normalizes behavior like buying a hundred goats and giving them to a poor farmer and making him rich, or building architectural follies to get your XP as fast as possible.

>>50841066

Better way to not normalize demihumans? Restrict it to one per party. One person in the party can be a tiefling or a dwarf or a intelligent mule or whatever. That's it, one.

>>50841027
Level caps have never really jived with me either. I understand the intention was to "balance" them with humans and to make people play humans more, but a sad fact of life as we all get older and busier is that rarely a game will hit level caps for anyone unless it's something like a halfling's pathetic Fighter cap (4, usually) So if the intention is to balance short-term potential with long-term development, then you're still shafting human classes with dwarves and elves that get more tricks to play with during a campaign's true play time.

Personally I ditch them. IME people gravitate to humans anyway, and it's not like Magic-Users, Clerics or even capital-F Fighters aren't as bizarre as demihumans to the 95% Normal Men population of a game world. I've also given serious thought to ditching ability score modifiers, but I've been thinking of murderous, musclebound wood elves a lot lately.

>>50826579
What kind of monsters would animal characters fight? I just think it'd be sort of weird to have Redwall-esque characters fighting Beholders and shit.

>>50842836
Humans and their natural predators.

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>>50842836
In Armello there's the banes, which are massive evil birds spawned via the blight. A couple other RPGs I've seen with anthropomorphic characters also had their own versions of goblins and other creatures as well as things like snow elementals. I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to reskin your typical OSR bestiary to make stuff like that.

>>50842836
>>50842928

Creatures of different orders (lizards, birds, amphibians)
Insects & other invertebrates. Wolf spiders act like actual wolves
Predators like in Redwall; good races are moles, mice, otters bad races are rats, ferrets, foxes, etc.
Tiny clockwork toys left over from ancient human precursor race.
undead animal people with weird skeletons?
Shed fur coalesces into stuffed golem thing

How long should it take to prepare spells?

If you are using this method >>50796359 how long should it take to fill a spell slot? One turn seems like the most reasonable.

>>50842330
They aren't related or similar, except that both have a word "Hack" in them and both are fairly minimalistic version of D&D. Whitehack is much more interesting to me.

Red Box Hack / Old School Hack are probably where the naming convention comes from.

>>50841027
>I'm curious: in your experience, are demihumans overpowered enough to warrant level caps?
not at all, indeed this applies to most races that have been given rules in the TSR edition, almost none of them get enough benefits from their race to truly be stronger than 3 of the 4 Human classes(because we all know BX/BECMI/RC Thieves suck) in Race As Class editions, and while it's true that humans are lacking in mechanical benefits in AD&D compared to non-humans, I say just don't worry about it, people always get worked up about maintaining Human superiority in fantasy settings when they forget that the playable stats given are for Player usage, and Player Characters are supposed to be above and beyond normal people even at Level 1

>>50841066
>It wasn't that they were overpowered, the point was to make them underpowered to discourage players from always picking the special snowflakes and normalizing their weirdness.
always felt this to be stupid

>>50842433
>Better way to not normalize demihumans? Restrict it to one per party. One person in the party can be a tiefling or a dwarf or a intelligent mule or whatever. That's it, one.
that's a bit much, but then I've always been fine with oddball parties, closest thing to a restriction I have with them is that at least one party member has to be human

>>50842463
human only settings are boring 99% of the time

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I'm currently homebrewing BFRPG with Fortitude, Reflex and Willpower saving throws instead of the tradditional ones and some roll under d20 skills.

But i dont know witch magic system i like the most or want. I like the simplicity of BFRPG / vancian spellcasting but i also like the mysterious and randomness of DCC spellcasting.

I'm also at a crossroad between a god-less brew with out clerics, i guess i have been playing to much dragonlance...

Cleric is the only class i can't really warp my head around, are they in the game because we need healing or are they there to fill a slot for religious people, because we all ready have a spellcasting class why not just give the magic-user cure wounds as an option?

I guess that a part of what makes cleris so hard for me to understand / accept is that they are the only class that "are" alignment driven, if you know what i mean.

A good fighter will swing his sword, an evil fighter will swing his sword.
A good mage will cast fireball, an evil mage will cast fireball.
A good cleric will cast cure wounds / bless, an evil cleric will summon undead / sacrifice a goat and masturbate to a picture of satan.

Every time i hear cleric i think of this dude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwHjEpHJbtY
Bu having multiple gods and different kinds of clerics feels wrong for me, and having only one god also feels wrong.

Fucking hell i don't even know how i'm supposed to play a cleric or how they function in their fluff when it comes to roleplaying.

Sorry for ranting

>>50843756
I don't think I'm qualified to talk about why old school D&D is the way it is, but I'd say go check out OD&D and read what they say about clerics. If you still don't get clerics after that, try merging the class with magic users just like how many other people in these threads do.
Only somewhat related, but I think the next version of the LotFP rules (which is years away) will remove the cleric entirely, so I'm interested in seeing how Raggi handles that.

>>50843756
The cleric exists because fuck vampires.

>>50842330
I wouldn't even classify The Black Hack as OSR because it's a handwavy plot game.

>>50841494
I don't see anything inherently wrong with feats, apart from possibly making character creation a bit of a chore. I mostly just took issue with 3.pf 's implementation, which was terrible.

>>50844166
In my opinion anything that encourages character building and minmaxing related to that IS inherently wrong when it comes to old school D&D.

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>>50843756
M-U = Powerful Magic + Terrible Fighter
Cleric = Good Magic + Moderate Fighter
Thief = Skills + Bad Fighter
Fighter = Attacking + Great Fighter
Dwarf = Tank + Moderate Fighter
Elf = Moderate Fighter + Weak M-U
Halfling = Sneaky + Moderate Fighter

>>50796359
I love the sacrificing spell slots to make enchanted items/permanent enchantments. I'm definitely going to shoehorn it into my low(ish) magic game.

>>50843756
There's a long discussion amongst OSR writers about Clerics.

From the perspective of mechanics, it's clear that their niche is party support (healing and buffs), fighting undead, and being pretty ok at fighting in general.

History wise, they were included in Gary Gygax's home game as a check against a powerful vampire PC. So yeah, not a terribly compelling argument for keeping them, and their party support niche can be filled with items if needbe.

Having the option doesn't really hurt, but it's up to you whether it's a tradition worth holding onto.

>>50844535
>they were included in Gary Gygax's home game as a check against a powerful vampire PC

Arneson's, actually. The Baron of Blackmoor, Baron Fant disappeared, and later on a vampire calling himself Sir Fang showed up and began wrecking everyone's shit.

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>>50835764
Always glad to help. Keep in mind that I use a pretty broad interpretation of the rules, but it seems to work. By "work", I mean that the players actually remember to use it and it rewards them for getting more engaged, rather than just throwing another dice roll at the table when someone can be arsed.
You'll need to adjust the bonuses for a percentile skill system if you're not using Lamentations. A +1 bonus is loosely equivalent to 17%, but I'd probably just use +/-10-20% for ease of bookkeeping.

Don't forget concealed but not "secret" doors as well - stuff like servant's doors tucked in behind a column or tapestry that's easy to miss just passing through a room, and the classic trapdoor-under-a-rug. Concealed doors remind the party that not everything is obvious and cut the "jungle fatigue" a little while rewarding >anyone< for being careful, not just the Rogues.

>>50839601
I really wish it had lasted longer. Players were members of the Royal Society investigating rumors that the Indian gods were awakening. The plan was to shift over from Call of Cthulhu to Adeptus Evangelion mid-game, since the systems are loosely compatible, and wind up with the players driving bio-organic Evas against Shiva while he wrecks shit in China. Sadly, the whole thing kinda drifted apart due to scheduling concerns before the Reveal.

>>50841941
I like it, along with Carousing and giving Wizards EXP for the money they spend on research and buying cool shit for their library/lab (which rule was inspired by one of my PCs being a nerd who doesn't party, but wanted to spend her cash on shit like a giant stuffed two-headed crocodile, which frankly I had to reward). Now five of my PCs spend all their money on drugs and whores, and two are having a brutal backstabbing competition to see who can build the best wunderkammer in the country. Like, hiring agents to infiltrate auction houses and having duels to the first blood to see who can claim nifty monster parts. It's amazing

>>50841941
It's fuckin' beautiful. It's unironically one of the most elegant rules I've ever seen in a game of any kind.

Players rolling their own dice or the GM doing it for them?

>>50845286
Player rolling because rolling and seeing results keeps the players into the game and it introduces those primal feelings of winning and losing much easier. I will say though that if I rolled all my players dice then things would go way faster, so I do see the value of this method.

What's the ratio of published adventures to your own content in your games? What would you recommend to new DMs?

Is it broken / unbalanced if Saving throws are based on Ability Scores instead of class level ?

We use the card draw (fixated numbers ao all get the same total score value) system when generating our ability scores FYI.

>>50845713

It would put more importance on ability scores (which are mostly static) than level (which improves regularly). This is generally bad because a high level character will mostly have the same saving throws as a low level character, making them more susceptible to death and other nasty effects that usually call for a saving throw.

>>50845708

About 90% mine, 10% not.

>>50845732
Yeah i didn't think about that, great point!

>>50845708
I'm lazy and uncertain so I adapt published adventures for my campaign almost all the time. No idea what's better for new DMs, but it's very taxing for me not to do it with the campaign world I'm doing now that has a lot of overworld travel and sandboxing. If the campaign is more of a classic dungeon crawl then I think making it yourself would be easier and more rewarding.

>>50845286
Players roll for everything except uncertainties (surprise, find traps, move silently, hide, listen)

>>50845749

I'm glad I could assist.

Hey gents, any of you tried out operation whitebox? I have never seen it mentioned here.

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Better Thieves.

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>>50845708
>What's the ratio of published adventures to your own content in your games?
Depends on where the players go and how much I like the module itself..

I write a lot of my own stuff, especially rolling up random NPCs and politics, before I start. I'll also comb my archived campaigns for stuff that I wrote but never got to use and see if I can adapt it to the current campaign concept.

For a hexcrawl I'll throw some appropriate One-page Dungeons into the encounter matrix; they're cheap, easy to hack, and no great loss if the PCs ignore, avoid, or never roll them.

I'll usually throw in leads pointing to a couple of interesting published adventures in early sessions, or outright start them in one if I'm doing a short-shot with a new group. Again, these are low-investment if the PCs avoid them, and I don't have to do much serious hacking beforehand - the first session usually dissolves into PCs being timorous asshats or haring off to do something completely different anyway, so it's easy to make getting to wherever the "adventure" itself is take most of the night once they've made the choice. That gives me a week to really get down and crunch shit up before they go in.

When I'm >running< a module, it depends heavily on how well-written it is. Usually I wind up going through and replacing a lot of the raw coin treasure with something more interesting, adding some "trap" treasure like chandeliers or Rococo beds, and swapping out all the generic "here's a plus" magical items with something weirder. With people like Zak that's not a problem, but with (say) LL or DCC adventures that can take a while. I also convert monsters to be more appropriate to LotFP, and work on politics if there aren't any. I also adjust levels and powers if it looks like the party's getting raped. Finally I reskin it if needed, like in Forgive Us - I changed the names to North African Arabic, tweaked the town, and tied the leads to my campaign world

>>50845708
>What's the ratio of published adventures to your own content in your games? What would you recommend to new DMs?

About 50%/50%, but they're very different 50%s.

I'd recommend, to a new DM:

Read a lot of adventure modules. Focus on the map and the rooms description. Also check the treasure and such, because it varies by edition and assumption (example: in B/X you level up with treasure, but a famous and beautiful dungeon like Caverns of Thracia was written for LBB and has very little treasure).

Narrow your choice down to a few you really like for some reason or another.

Then, shamelessly steal anything of use from them to make your own life easier.

Steal the maps, the rooms, the monsters, the writeups, all the stuff that's hard to come up with on the spot. All the busywork. Everything else, adapt and make up.

"Running" an adventure module doesn't mean you should run it 100% by the book. Change things. Mix them. Consider them mere suggestions.

Think of it less in the terms of "I'm running a module" and more in terms of "I'm using a module". What you're running is your own game. The module is just there to help.


A small aside: this depends on the players, but I think that, if the players KNOW that you're "running a module", they'll be more open-minded and assume less in general. They won't know what's you and what's the module. Generally I find that they also complain and whine a lot less, because if they die to something, you can just say "it's the module that put that there, not me!".

It reinforces the idea of GM-as-referee-rather-than-storyteller that is one of the foundations of OSR, at least in my experience.

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>>50845708
>>50846152
<cont>
Usually the ratio of content winds up being somewhere around 80/20% in a published module, and a lot of that is tying it into a new assumed setting. Overall, the ratio of playtime content is more like 30-50% improv (stuff like wandering the wilderness, fucking around in town, eating pizza, the effects of charts tweaking the adventure, &c.), about 15-25% stuff I wrote beforehand, and the rest is either published modules or stuff I shamelessly stole from published things that weren't otherwise up to snuff.

>What would you recommend to new DMs?
Run a couple simple adventures "straight", then try something like "In Search of the Unknown". It requires you to stock the dungeon and make certain choices about the external world; I highly recommend using Jeff Reints' "twenty questions" blog post to help you with those choices. Practice riffing off of charts and tables; that will help you a LOT at the table. It's one of the reasons I like "Seclusium of Orphone" as a toolkit, despite Anon's blind hatred of it. Whole thing is an exercise in riffing off of random results to get something better than the sum of its parts, and to see how random results can suddenly cohere into an interesting story if you're open to it.

Once you've got some games under your belt, take a look at the Judges' Guild adventure "The Caverns of Thracia". It's masterfully mapped, atmospheric, and hard. Jacquays knocked it out of the park with that one.
Now pick it apart and decide how you could make it fit better with your characters and campaign world. Greek gods can swap with your pantheon, the entire under-earth "garden" area might be better replaced with a gate to Pellucidar or the Maze of the Blue Medusa, that kind of thing. Where can you put in clues about other dungeons or adventures you want to run? How about swapping out a treasure or five for things that will be meaningful to the PCs? What happens when someone tries to make 15t of guano into gunpowder?

>>50846298
>It reinforces the idea of GM-as-referee-rather-than-storyteller that is one of the foundations of OSR, at least in my experience.
While I totally agree this works in practice, I have to say it irks the shit out of me that player psychology works this way.

>>50846342
>While I totally agree this works in practice, I have to say it irks the shit out of me that player psychology works this way.

Eh, you work with what you have. It's not even some particular players' fault, it's just human psychology that works like that.

Thinking about it, it's kind of the same principle as the Milgram experiment: you divert blame from yourself by asserting that you are only a middleman, the executor and not the ideator.

>>50846315
>Anon's blind hatred
I think that's me (>>50831859) you're referring to, so I feel like I should point out that I don't dislike the *concept*, just the execution. I love Vornheim, for instance, which also relies strongly on random results adhering to form a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

You'll note that I described Seclusium as "a senseless waste" and the reason is that it falls down in the execution. It has fuckload upon fuckload of pure repetition of airy, short random tables, which wastes the vast majority of the 160 pages and WOULD waste them even if the ideas were uniformly great. Which I have to say that they are not; many of the ideas are embarrassingly flat.

I mean, yes, I also personally hate his style and that on top of those flaws Baker shit out a ton of smarmy, oafish Bakerism all over the book, but that's hardly a strong generalized accusation against a book *by Vincent Baker* and I'm fully aware of that. Nevertheless, just removing the Baker from the tone of the content wouldn't have resulted in a good work.


Also, why are wizards' seclusia invariably populated by half a dozen fucking cooks and janitors when you get there? Totally thematically inappropriate for a wizard's stronghold even *explicitly named a seclusium* if you ask me; there should be nobody there except magical defenders, horrible experiments, prisoners and similar.


In short, while I certainly do hate Seclusium of Orphone I don't think it's fair to call it a blind hatred. I've bought a lot of LotFP books, and it's the only one that's been a disappointment. There's no comparing it to works like Carcosa or A Red and Pleasant Land; they're worlds apart.

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>>50845708
>>50846152
>>50846315
<even more cont>
As anon points out, Thracia is also a good example of "design swapping". There might be concerns like the treasure ratio that aren't obvious at first, or, as I said, the guano (which becomes much more important in a world like mine - I use firearms extensively).

Finally, there are a lot of published adventures that are just flat-out turds. But even the crap ones can have cool ideas that you can steal; for example, there's a magic sword I really liked in a JG module that's mostly just a series of escalating monster-filled rooms with little to no treasure. There's a cool moon/sun war theme in the design, though.
The item's just a sword with a moonstone hilt that blinds the user when picked up, and hits undead. Inspired by the theming, I tweaked that a bit and dropped it into another module entirely.

Moon's-eye blade:
• Blinds owner to the sun's light. Can still see in moonlight or starlight fine. The character perceives the world as always being in the night from that point on.
• The user is immune to "daylight" spells, &c., as well as the effects of shadows cast by sunlight.
• Can hit any creature that is "ruled by" the moon or in moonlight as though the sword were a +5 magic weapon, though the sword only confers a +1 THB.
• The owner's eyes are replaced by flawless moonstones with jet pupils and irises, worth 50sp each. These remain even if slain. The effect is subtly unnerving; change rolled sixes on any initial reaction check to fives, and ones to twos. They are as tough as stone, but otherwise function normally.
• All effects are removed by surrendering the sword to someone else and receiving a Remove Curse spell. Lost eyes must be healed through other means.

So.. yeah. Hack you some shit. I write down the cool stuff I come up with on 3x5 cards and keep a Rolodex of them in my game room; every so often I'll go back and surf through them to see if anything feels right for what I'm doing that day

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>>50846498
Fair enough. There >is< a lot of cruft and repetition in the module (not to mention random blank pages..), which I called out in my reviews but didn't here. The purple prose and "Bakerisms" come off as Vancian/CAS-esque to me, which helped the mood as far as I was concerned. Then again, it's also why people hate Vance..

Oh, and what the fuck is up with the missing description of the ages of a Seclusium and the shitty maps?
*ahem*

>fucktons of staff
I find that's less of a problem if you don't see them as 0-level Humans and start theming them to the results and the wizard's goals. One guy might have bound spirits doing some or all of those jobs, another could be using Uplifted animals or golems, slaves bound by enchantment to follow their duties even a century after the old bastard's gone and sodded off to God knows where, whatever.

I sort of view it as a pick and a lute, not a medieval music CD, if that makes sense. Still needs drums and pipes to go right, but fun to riff with and sometimes it's all that you actually need in the moment. Also it's a good tool for someone who doesn't need the whole damned CD but wants to learn how to play with the lute specifically.

>>50843756
I'm on the same page as you re: Clerics. The archetype seems much shallower than for the other human classes: mighty warriors, clever tricksters, and arcane sages are deeply rooted in the type of fiction that OSR builds off, in a way that Van Helsing-type holy warriors aren't. Also, like these folks:
>>50843988
>>50844535
>>50844579
point out, Clerics were originally added to counter an OP vampire. Unless a game specifically revolves around hunting undead monsters, I feel like there's no compelling reason to include Clerics.

In my own hack, I'm considering replacing the Cleric with the Mystic, who draws on powers from a powerful otherworldly patron (so basically anything from a priest to a warlock), Their mechanics would revolve around earning the favor of their patron, and rolling to see how well the patron answers their prayers/invocations.

>>50846298
>if the players KNOW that you're "running a module", they'll be more open-minded and assume less in general

I totally get where you're coming from, but I generally find that if the module is front and center, the players tend to think more in terms of "what does the module want us to do?" instead of "what should we do?"

Just my two cents.