/osrg/ OSR General - Can't Stop The Rock Edition

>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
Yes, I like having a lot of classes, and Monks are in the RC

>>51127588
No, I don't like dealing with explicitly Shaolinist class. Not because of "muh medieval fantasy hurr durr" because I run anything but medieval fantasy, it just doesn't work for me aesthetically.

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>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
While I have nothing against them personally, generally no, mostly because they don't fit well into my campaign setting. Wouldn't say no if a player wanted to play one, but I'd have to think how to fit them in. Honestly though, my players tend to file monks under weeaboo and so show no real interest in them.

>>51125506
Thanks, but that's only being sold in watermarked PDF too. I want a printed copy.

>>51127588
Monks? Sure, why not? I guess I'd try to make them a Fighter/Cleric hybrid, not unlike the classic "Elf" class being a Fighter/Magic User hybrid.

Limit them to unarmed combat, staves, clubs, and one other weapon of their choice.

Anyhow, I have to admit that the only reason I'd add them in is my own love of the concept.

>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
Yeah, I like 'em. Like >>51127606, I use the RC, so it's the Mystic, and it's actually not terrible balance-wise. (At least not on low-to-mid)

The main issue I have with them is actually that their unarmed damage ends up being better than swords and spears, which isn't really appropriate to the source material -- I figure the solution is to give them RC Weapon Mastery with either one or all the classic wuxia weapons (sword, sabre so sword again, spear, maybe bolas or something to represent meteor hammers), but I've never worked out something I'm totally satisfied with there. Anyway the open-hand superiority thing is just really typical of 1980s kung fu flicks available in the US, specifically, so it feels dated and off to me (when I was kid it was all about Crouching Tiger, Hero and that).

In any case, although my setting is basically not!medieval Germany I like it when crazy shit invades in small doses, like rayguns, snail-men of the Yellow City and hashish-eater assassins sent by the Old Man of the Mountain to fuck shit up. So kung-fu mystics from faraway !China are fine by me. They probably came lured by the impossible wealth and magical artifacts of Castle Dangerous anyway, in my setting it's unique, like Golconda. Other places in the setting have magic swords too, but not megadungeons.

>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
why not?
If they're in the book, I don't see a reason to remove them.

>>51128288
There's a lot of things in a lot of books. Do you include everything there is to include in your games?

>>51127588
I think I missed the "overpowered rock" meme. Could someone spoonfeed it to me or post a screencap?

>>51128379
Someone was saying an unlimited-use 1 damage cantrip was a bad idea because it could trivialize immobile monsters. Then other people said rocks could do the same thing. Then he argued that that was dumb. It kept going like this for awhile.

>>51128313
I don't remove them.

Uh, I don't mean my way is the right way or the only way, but if it's in a book somewhere related to the current game I'm playing (like, BECMI or ACKS) then I assume everything in those books is fair game for me or my players.

I don't play super broken games like AD&D 2e so I don't have to worry about crazy splats.

>>51128435
lol no that wasn't it.
The cantrip thing may have started it but it sure wasn't the reason for the image.
the reason the overpowered rock became a joke was due to the longass argument about how big a rock would need to be to cause 1 damage (with some crazy dude insisting that it would have to be fist-sized).

Lead to someone posting the katana pasta with fist-sized rock.

>>51128519
That's it. I'm sick of all this "fist-sized rock" bullshit that's going on in the /osrg/ right now. Rocks deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

I should know what I'm talking about. I myself found a genuine rock in my garden and have been practicing with it for almost 2 years now. I can even crush slabs of solid steel with my rock.

God spent years working on a single rock and crushed it up to a million times to produce the finest pieces of soil known to mankind.

rocks are thrice as strong as sling bullets and thrice as hard for that matter too. Anything a sling bullets can penetrate, a rock can penetrate better. I'm pretty sure a rock could easily blow through a knight wearing full plate with a simple throw by a peasant.

Ever wonder why medieval knights never bothered killing all the serfs? That's right, they were too scared to fight the commoners and their rocks of destruction. Even in World War II, soldiers targeted the men with the rocks first because their killing power was feared and respected.

So what am I saying? Rocks are simply the best projectile that the world has ever seen, and thus, require better stats in rocks. Here is the stat block I propose for rocks:

1d12 Damage
Speed * (always goes first)
+2 to hit and damage
Counts as magical


Now that seems a lot more representative of the power of rocks in real life, don't you think?

tl;dr = rocks need to do more damage in B/X, see my new stat block.

>>51128554
Ah yes, rocks. The great equalizer.

I just can't believe people actually care that much about how big a rock should be to do damage.
Who gives a shit if it's one inch or one foot.

>>51128379
This post about how an unlimited-use cantrip that did 1 hp of damage would destroy the game started things off: http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51012685/#51027523

Basically, it was saying that if a monster was immobile, trapped in a pit, or (obviously considerably) slower than you, you could just cantrip it to death, ruining resource management and so forth. From there, it was pointed out that you could just throw rocks at it, which lead to an argument about rock availability and damage. That, in turn, lead to the rock-version of the katana meme: http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51012685/#51029322

>That's it. I'm sick of all this "fist-sized rock" bullshit that's going on in the /osrg/ right now. rocks deserve much better than that. Much, much better than that.

And from there, things just got sillier (a wand of "sling bullets" that just gave you attacks as if you were using a sling was totally broken because, unlike a sling, you could use it if you were trapped in a closet with your enemy). http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/51012685/#51034350

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>>51128669
And then we just sort of branched out from there.

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>>51127588
Troll Gods Issue #2 is still starving for content. You have something, anything send it our way!

>>51128669
This is wonderful

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>>51128737

>>51128669
You know what's been the scary part? I just explained this meme to my friend who's my best player too and he's like "yeah, damage dealing cantrips are pure BS". The discussion just started but I'm fucking scared right now.

>>51129006
I get not liking it stylistically, and maybe thinking it sets a bad precedent, but the doomsday predictions regarding the mechanical power of 1 hit point of damage have been seriously overblown.

>>51129006
just drop the conversation right now
He will fucking bash your head in with a rock

>>51129092
>thinking it sets a bad precedent
This would be my only concern if it had an attack roll, tbqh. Plinking for 1 HP damage isn't a big deal, but it sets up a bad expectation.

Autohit might be okay too but I'm significantly warier of the mechanical effects of unavoidable at-will damage, even if it's minimally low.

>>51129105
He just did. Although we kinda agreed that it's only useful in very specific situations. I wonder why nobody brought up that wandering monsters, time-sensitive goals and the possibility of escape assuming you trapped somebody are still a thing. I mean if you have the time to jolt somebody constantly consequence-free, surely you also have the time to fry them in the lamp oil or something.

Guaranteed damage to armor class 2 monsters without using a spell slot is bullshit no matter how you look at it.

>>51129706
Granted, but you can add a rule it only damages targets on X class or worse.

That being said, a To Hit bonus would be far better than am Auto-Hit.

>>51129625

All that was brought up, it didn't dissuade the guy from continuing to call it overpowered 3.pf cancer.

>>51129706

You have to look at average damage, though, where the cantrip still doesn't outperform regular weapons. 1 damage per round autohit can't keep up with a d10 even when the d10 misses 8 times out of 10.

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>>51128554
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK MY ONE WEAKNESS

>>51128737
Would you be interested in some NPCs?

>>51129706
Let's look at a normal/long sword being swung at a THAC0 of 19 vs. a guy in platemail with an AC of 3. You'll have a 25% chance to hit for 4.5 damage, leading to 1.125 damage per round, which is marginally better than the cantrip. But once your THAC0 improves, or you add in a strength bonus, or you get a magic sword, or you get some sort of situational bonus for flanking, etc., you pull away. What you're really looking at here is a situation that renders starting characters relatively ineffective (if the monster you're striking at has 4 hit dice and 14 hit points, it would take you 12 to 13 rounds, on average, to take it down on your own, which is a bit ridiculous). It's not so much a case of the cantrip being overpowered but of the encounter being outside the range that starting characters are meant to deal with. And there in that niche case, yes, the cantrip really shines and becomes almost as effective as a fighter (assuming the fighter doesn't have a strength bonus and isn't using a two-handed sword, etc.). But then a starting fighter's main claim to fame is his durability; it's really only as he levels up that he begins to really pull away from the other classes in terms of offensive power. Mind you, I understand people not wanting there to be a cantrip you can plink away with over and over, as it changes the feel of the game, if nothing else, but I still don't think it's game breaking.

>>51130769

It's one of those counter-intuitive things that sounds like it should be game-breaking, but when you look at it in detail, it's not.

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>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
Depends on the setting really.

>>51128379
>>51128554
Rocks are the best /osr/ meme

Is the anon from the other thread here, where I asked if he has a group open? My discord is soniciscool3

Sorry for the autism name, man. It was so I could remember since my Skype I made in high school is the same thing

>>51131435

Hey, it's 4chan, we've all got the autism here.

>>51131435
>Sorry for the autism name, man.
>soniciscool3
This post gave me a spontaneous chuckle.

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Witch name combination for the 4 head classes do you guys prefer?

Warrior / Fighter / Fighting-Man
Rogue / Thief / Specialist
Cleric / Mystic / Child Molester
Mage / Wizard / Magic-User

>>51132319
Fighter/Thief/Mage/Cleric.

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>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
Meh?
Nobody's wanted to play one yet, but if they did I'd set up a Zak-style random class for them Start out with Minor Weapons and high HP. On the level up table, give them rolls for penetrating AC, better saves, attack bonus, points in Climb and some kind of ascetic abilities that let them ignore starvation or dehydration for a few extra days. I'll poke at it a bit in my head and post something later if I can come up with a reasonable table.

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>>51132319
1) Magic-user for the class, but used interchangeably with "Mage"/"Magi"/"Magus" and "Witch" in-game.
"Wizard" is a technical term for someone who's got magical powers, but doesn't adhere to the traditional Vancian system. Whether that's because of an Item of Power, Elfin blood, possession, or other crazy shit.

2) Specialist.
I like having "thief" be an in-game job, not an entire class. I also like having the option to let characters make Rangers, assassins, occult dabblers, ship captains, and seige engineers without needing a separate class for each.

3) Cleric, although that's just a convention. I'd probably call them Zealots or Templars if people gave a shit.

4) Fighter/Slaughterer. Gets the point across. I occasionally use "warrior" because I played too much FFXI.

...which is also why
5) I call Fighter/Magic-users "Red Mages".

What's a good progression system for Fighters?

Currently I was thinking of doing something similar to LotFP where Fighters just get +1 to hit each level, but also get a 'free move' ability depending on their attack roll, as in a free combat move on their turn that lets them knock enemies around, attempt to trip or disarm, through sand in their eyes, etc.

At level 1 it would be on a roll of 20 or 19. Level 2 it would be 18, Level 3 is 17 and up, etc. This in addition to the +1 to hit.

Any thoughts on this? I was trying to keep things simple but keep Fighters from being too boring.

>>51132717
>What's a good progression system for Fighters?
More hit dice and attack bonuses.

>>51132717
No moves for Fighters. That's not OSR. Find another goddamn game if you want special anime builds. The Fighter already has the bigger hit die and access to all weapons and armor, and that's really all OD&D needed to make it awesome. All that stupid shit you want to pile up on it is covered within a truly oldschool combat round of one minute.

>>51132816
>All that stupid shit you want to pile up on it is covered within a truly oldschool combat round of one minute.
I agree with this. Many of these newschool homebrews forget that D&D combat is abstract as fuck.

>>51132319
I like "fighting man". It's funny to me. Also I'm gonna be a heretic and say I like "rogue" over specialist and thief.

>Fighting Man
>Magic User
>Rogue
>Cleric


>>51131435
I think sonic is cool too

>>51132816

Jump off a bridge.

>>51132319
Warrior
Specialist
Cleric
Mage

>>51132319

>Fighter
>Rogue
>Zealot
>Sorcerer

If you use anything else, you're doing it wrong.

>>51129922
Sure.

>>51131435
We've all been there, man.

>>51133000
>Dub Dub Trip
Welp, I guess I was right

>>51131435

Listen man, if your name is just something edgy or dumb like 'shadowslayer' then it's fine to keep your old highschool name into adulthood.

But when that's your name? 'sonic anything number?' You need to fucking change it.

>>51132983
Are you seriously reacting like this over one anon who wants to play an old-school system in an old-school way, in the old-school general?

>>51132319
Fighter, Specialist, Mage. Well technically I'd use Magic-User, but it doesn't sound catchy in my language. Also I'm thinking about dropping Clerics as a religious militant class and refluffing them as
>>51132627
Red Mages!

>>51132717
That's fine. If I used something like this I would still use Mighty Deeds but stunting on various natural numbers is okay, kinda like 13th Age.

Although I just kind of wing maneuvers on the fly and everyone's happy, so I don't know why you guys keep coming up with this. Then again anything can get stale.

>>51133068
Wrong. Edgelord names induce cringe exponentially as the time passes, 'sonic' doesn't.

>>51132319
SwordGuy
DickAssThief
RootyTootyPoint'N'Shooty
BustinMakesMeHealGood

>>51133103
Most people here don't want OSR play. They're like those Penny Arcade shitheads that fellate 4E but sometimes drop into a heavily modified Swords & Wizardry where you can't actually die or lose or do anything other than magical tea party bullshit just to "do things like in the olden days." Any anon that actually gives a fuck about how the game was meant to be played all along has to tell these fuckers off every chance they get.

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>>51133284

We have a winner!

>>51132816
>>51133365

>T-That's not OSR! Only my definition of OSR is correct!

Wrong.

Men & Magic is OSR
White and Black Hacks are OSR
LotFP is OSR
Into the Odd is OSR
My game is OSR, your game is OSR

OSR is;
>Resource management, high risk dungeon crawling
>Player skill > Character skill
>Rulings before Rules

OSR is not
>A ruleset
>Race-As-Class
>Sacred Cows

Arguing over what is and isn't 'old school' is fucking sad, can we just go back to sweet homebrew tables and shit?

>>51133751
>OSR is not
>Race-As-Class
B-But this is better than race-and-class, everyone should do this

>>51133808
I honestly don't have a problem with people playing their own way, but it's getting a bit annoying that every general has people coming in asking about "trip/disarm rules" and such, as if it's an assumed part of osr games and osr play. At least understand that many anons here don't play like that, so people being critical against it shouldn't be surprising.

>>51133940

Player wants to trip or disarm. What's the rule? That's what people are discussing. Why is it a problem for people to discuss this?

>>51131435
I'm the anon with the posssible game I'll contact you a bit later today. I gotta go run about. We'll talk.

>>51134014
It's a problem when no progress has been made for several threads. Either make a rule suggestion in a pdf or something and ask people for feedback, or maybe come to the conclusion that adding such rules to an osr ruleset is very hard and maybe not worth the effort anyway when they can just play a more combat-focused system.

>>51133940
>so people being critical against it shouldn't be surprising.
There's a difference between "I'd advise against something like that, as it undermines old school play" and "Find another goddamn game if you want some special anime builds."

>>51134176
There's also a difference between "I understand that it's not typical OSR, but I'd still like to try it" and "Jump off a bridge".

>>51133284
Murderhobo
Sneaky-Breeker
God's Bitch
Arcane Schizophrenic

>>51127588
>Monks, yes/no/why?
yes, although I've yet to really find an OSR Monk class that does what I want with the archetype(but then what I want to emulate is stuff like Fist of The North Star or the first two arcs of Jojo)

>>51132319
Fighter
Thief
Cleric
Magic-User

>>51133103
it's more because that guy said it like an asshole

>>51133751
you're right about OSR having a vague and highly encompassing definition, but I don't think yours is quite right either, honestly the only sensible definition is as such;

a game or book is OSR if it fits into one or both of the following definitions:

1. was published by TSR

2. is broadly compatible with any TSR edition and most other products that are also labled OSR

any other definition is doomed to cause arguments

>>51134014
Balancing disarming is a tricky prospect. What percentage of an enemy's hit points is disarming them worth? If you can freely draw a new weapon without penalty (and actually have another weapon of comparable power), it obviously isn't worth much. If drawing a new weapon takes your turn, then it's not very powerful since you have to use up your turn to *maybe* lose them theirs (if you're ganging up on a single enemy or they don't have another comparable weapon, it may still be worth it).

The worst thing you can do is make disarming generally more powerful than just attacking, because it leads to ridiculous combats where everybody focuses on disarming. Ideally, disarming should pretty much equal all the time (good luck with that), or should be a bit weaker on average, but have certain circumstances where it shines.

One idea is that you need to set up special maneuvers. Like, the enemy has to be vulnerable in some way or they're significantly weaker (on average) than just attacking. Maybe if an enemy misses you by a decent amount, they become "vulnerable". Or maybe you have some sort of expendable resource that you can use to perform special maneuvers. Maybe you earn them in various ways during combat (missing by a single point, making a kill, an enemy rolling a 1 to hit you, etc.) or just start with a couple (if you don't want people to blow them all immediately, maybe they have a chance out of 6 of working equal to whatever combat round you're in, so the longer you save them, the more effective they become). Etc.

But of course, you run the risk of things becoming overly crunchy. If this is the only bit of crunch you add, I think things would still function pretty well, but if you do shit like this all over the place, pretty soon your game is going to start feeling like Pathfinder or something.

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In your personal opinion, how much murderhoboing is too much murderhoboing in OSR?

>>51134232
I wasn't involved in that exchange, but the "jump off a bridge" person was responding to the other person being snotty. If somebody is snotty with you, being snotty back becomes somewhat more justifiable.

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>>51133751
Interesting. But also formulaic.

Here's my definition of the OSR (and feel free to argue, arguing about philosophy is what we pedants do).

• Willingness to hack. Everything.
No Sacred Cows is part of this, but far from the only one.

• "Referee" before "Master". It's not about making things go your way, it's about running a world. Subtly different from "rulings not rules", but part of the same ethos.

• Elegance and verisimlitude before "realism". Rules need to be clean, elegant, and playable, or no-one's going to use them.
I call this the three-by-five card test; if you can't explain it to a reasonable person on one, then you need to look real hard at where you can pare it down. It needs to feel reasonable, even if it's not technically correct, or the players won't go for it. This doesn't apply to tables, just to the rules that adjucate them

• Trust the dice more than the paper.
Fuck your story, don't fudge dice. If you really wanted it to happen you shouldn't have rolled first.

• Resource management.
Well, duh.
What kind of resources change as the characters level up, but they're always handling some manner of resource, and something's always in short supply. By the time you're not worried about torches, you >are< worried about payroll and your social capital.

• Risk. Real risk, of losing things you like.

• Player skill can be patched - but not replaced - with character skills. (AKA "skills as saving throws").
Sometimes, you don't need to roll the dice to know that something works. Sometimes even the smartest player runs up against something they didn't plan for.

• Trust the players.
Occasionally they'll have better, funnier, or otherwise more tone-appropriate ideas about what's going on than the module, or you. Don't be afraid to roll with it. Literally, if you have to - you can always roll a die to see if they're right.

Ultimately the OSR is about building a structure you can hang a tense mind game on.

>>51130769
>THAC0
>numeric AC
>d8 longsword damage
>using the Alternate Combat System, ever

Tb h your math and explanation and everything is great, but it totally misses the mark as you've committed one of the classic blunders.

>>51134493
I think the two snotty comments are on very different levels. One of them at least tried to make a point, the other just urged him to kill himself.

>>51134151

The problem is I've been TRYING to make these rules but every time I post in the thread I get shitters 'muh not osr' trolls who just waste everyone's time and energy.

It's a significant issue in a game. Unless you want to argue that 'all combat actions besides attacks should be given a ruling all the time every time' I think it deserves its own rule.

>>51134497
>tfw no more Dragon Half OVAs

>>51134596
One act of snottiness was unprovoked. That's the difference I see.

>>51134593
You should find the True AD&D guy and argue with him. Somewhere else.

>>51134611
Well, clearly you're also getting replies saying that it looks good. Have you playtested these rules? What are your findings? Do you have any problems with the rule yourself? Something you specifically need help with?
Just posting this over and over here doesn't seem to help much.

>>51134636
True, but while the first one went from a 0 to a 10, the second went from a 10 to a 50.

>>51133284
...you're against female Clerics?

Does anyone know if there's an OSR Game with rules for tanks? Thanks in advance.

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>>51134497
<cont>
Another major part of my gaming ethos is a simple proposition:

The world stills exists without the player characters.

They can alter it. But things don't hang in midair waiting to drop as soon as the PCs arrive. Trees fall, because the damned world hears it even if there's not a character sheet sitting next to it. TSR and JG had a lot of problems getting that, and I don't blame people for following their lead. But for me it's part and parcel of making the players feel like they're involved in a world and not in a play.

It also makes >time< a resource, which is part of what Gary was getting at in his little rant in the 1eDMG. Sure, you track it so you know when torches burn out. But if you leave the prisoners sentenced to death in the jail, eventually they need to get their damnfool heads cut off or it voids the "risk" element of the OSR. Being able to depend on the princess sitting, endlessly on the cusp of ravishment, until the murderhobos show up on the EHP's doorstep is poisonous to the tension that's a core element of OSR games.

>>51134611
How about a simple HD+Str/Dex mod vs eachother ? As a static number.

What about when someone fumbles, an adjacent enemy can perform a free maneuver. If they hit their armor class it works.
On your turn you can choose to do a maneuver instead of attack and on a crit, you succeed. You can also extend your crit range to make it more likely, but you must equally extend your fumble range. Extending crit range to 16-20 also extends fumble range to 1-5. Of course if you fumble then the enemy can try to make a maneuver.
I basically just combined an idea I had with a rule I've never used I saw on a blog.

>>51134726
The Bustin in BustinMakesMeHealGood is in reference to people's faces.

>>51134451
>Balancing disarming is a tricky prospect.
Totally agree. I've thought about this a lot, and what I've concluded is that the best way is to use the dragon subdual rules (no, hear me out). If you attack to disarm a guy (cleanly and not as part of stabbing him in the guts), declare this and do subdual instead of killing damage, that percentile roll, the whole thing. If the enemy fails the percentile roll, his weapon flies out of his hand(s) and he realizes he's been soundly trounced, thus surrenders, like the disarmed bad guy in an Errol Flynn movie.

Has anyone used 5e Backgrounds in OSR systems yet?

>>51134734
There's Tractics, which Gygax name-dropped in the DMG and he worked on a little. it's a tank wargame.

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>>51134757

Nigga. Are you serious right now.

That's an ATTACK. I'm not talking about Attacks. I'm talking about non-attacking combat moves. How is this not clear to you?

Fighter is fighting kobolds along with his Cleric buddy. The Fighter has a sword and realizes the kobolds have a magical enchantment that makes them immune to cutting weapons, so he kicks the kobold towards his Cleric buddy who smashes the kobold's face in.

Was that an attack? No, it wasn't an attack. It was a set up, an extra move. When the party is faced with dangerous monsters and some party members, especially the thieves and MUs, are weaker at combat they need other ways to be useful in a fight. Throw sand in his eyes, try to trip him or hook his shield to lower his AC.

These are not attacks and they are a integral part of dynamic combat. That's the ruleset I'm trying to pin down, but apparently it's not 'OSR' enough. I'm sorry I guess two faggots hitting each other with swords over and over again without moving is 'real OSR', oh yeah? Fuck you.

>>51134297
>including 2E in the definition will not cause arguments
Mufugguuuuuuuuuh come onnnnnnnnn

>>51134908
>These are not attacks and they are a integral part of dynamic combat. That's the ruleset I'm trying to pin down, but apparently it's not 'OSR' enough. I'm sorry I guess two faggots hitting each other with swords over and over again without moving is 'real OSR', oh yeah? Fuck you.
I think the problem is, the amount of things you can do in a combat other then "attack" is so varied that it is almost impossible to create a rule that works for every single situation.

>>51134947
>muh assassins and devils ;_;

Reminder that Gygax himself stated in Dragon that he was going to either stick assassins in an optional DMG section or remove them, just like psionics.

And at least 2e fixed the daemon/demon retardation.

>>51134908
Yeah i was trying to give advice and help you but it seems like you don't want advice, shitpost somewhere else.

>>51134908
>but apparently it's not 'OSR' enough. I'm sorry I guess two faggots hitting each other with swords over and over again without moving is 'real OSR', oh yeah?
Honestly, this seems like more of a problem with your home game than with the system.
One, you can have a bunch of stuff going on around the battle that the players can interact with. If you place a battle in an empty void, then yeah it becomes kind of boring.
Two, you seem to have forgotten morale rules, but a lot of people do I guess.
Three, oldschool d&d really isn't as much about fighting as it is about dungeon crawling and avoiding danger, so having fights shouldn't be the main point anyway.

>>51135086
>Three, oldschool d&d really isn't as much about fighting as it is about dungeon crawling and avoiding danger, so having fights shouldn't be the main point anyway.
Frankly, since combat isn't the main point, I've been thinking it should not take more than one roll per party per encounter to solve. Some Apocalypse World style "roll high and you kill the bads without losing resources, roll low and you get to pick between losing a PC, running the fuck away or missing treasure" single die roll. And yet most OSR stuff still revolves around combat, rules-wise.

>>51134897
I used occupations and such, but not in the 5e way, like with the personality traits tables. They're fine to roll on to get some inspiration without fully investing into the full fledged character.

>>51134908
>anon suggested opposed check
>That's an ATTACK. I'm not talking about Attacks.

You need to pin your autism down.

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Why not give every class a linear bonus but then let them 'trade it in' for in universe special effects of abilities?

ie; Fighter can 'trade in' his normal to-hit bonuses for training with the old man on the mountain, who eventually teaches him (after a quest) how to become immune to cold damage.

This could be a better alternative to 'builds' and similar things, since people tend not to like those.

>>51135171
> I've been thinking it should not take more than one roll per party per encounter to solve.
Seems like way too much abstraction to me but if that's what you want.
>And yet most OSR stuff still revolves around combat, rules-wise.
That's probably because combat is a lot more difficult to arbitrate then role-playing or puzzle-solving.

>>51135171
http://revolution21days.blogspot.co.nz/2012/01/why-d-has-lots-of-rules-for-combat.html

>>51134842
>in reference to people's faces.

I assumed it was in reference to dealing with the undead.

>>51135243
Because the old man in the mountain might not exist at all, and the player should not get to force setting elements for mechanical bonuses.

>>51135351
Yeah undead people's faces.

>>51135351
>>51135365
It was a mixture of busting peoples faces, and also ghostbusting.

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>>51134908
>These are not attacks and they are a integral part of dynamic combat. That's the ruleset I'm trying to pin down, but apparently it's not 'OSR' enough. I'm sorry I guess two faggots hitting each other with swords over and over again without moving is 'real OSR', oh yeah? Fuck you.
You're shitposting hard here, but I'll be nice anyway and mention that in the Greyharp one-volume edition of OD&D there's an appendix (C, in fact) which mentions orcs attacking to grapple a hero because of their numerical superiority (it doesn't say why that makes them want to take him alive, but it would make sense to ransom him or something). Have a look at that and see if attack rolls are still so terrible to you. You can do a lot of shit in combat with just adjudicating on the fly based on attack rolls (with appropriate bonuses and penalties, of course).

Look, I even attached Greyharp so you don't even have to go to the trouble of finding it in the Trove yourself.

>>51135171
The 'combat isn't the point' meme is really weird to me. Yes, low level combat is most likely a death sentence and overall it's abstract but it's still quite detailed, this game has a lot of incentives for it later on and also this integral class called Fighter. At some point his skills are going to be needed.

If it really doesn't matter so much, Tunnels & Trolls does it in a much more abstract way. But the truth is, we want the combat to be interesting, for it to have decision points and it results in various mechanical experiments because there's only so much stuff you can adjucate on the fly until it rubs you the wrong way.

At the same time, putting more mechanical weight onto combat does clash with the core OSR ideas. Just one of the double edged swords this game is so full of.

In-play, how do you justify elves changing class between adventures? I get changing from fighter to magic-user, you can always say they just didn't feel like casting spells the last time - but it really makes a lot less sense that now all of a sudden they aren't feeling like knowing how to use swords and bows...

>WOTC put OG Chainmal up for sale on rpgnow

THE ABSOLUTE MADMEN

>>51135496
I don't interpret it that way, I read it to mean that they choose at the beginning of each adventure which class they're earning XP for this time. Otherwise a bunch of the stuff about armor and spellcasting etc. doesn't make any sense, plus I'm pretty sure witnesses have said that's how Gygax ran it.

>>51131435
soniciscool3, I'll need your digit code.

>>51135358

It was just an alternative to the 'fighter feats' shitposting from the past few threads.

>>51135425
I feel like only in the /osrg/ people could be this nice to a spoiled stupid child.

>>51135496
Race-as-class, but otherwise yeah, what >>51135569 said.

>>51135358
I would assume "the old man in the mountain" would have been put there by the DM along with a number of other hidden masters. Then a fighter could seek them out the way a Magic-User might seek out spells.

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>>51135640

I could see that for an animu/asian inspired OSR game.

>Every time you level up, seek out a legendary master
>The legendary master will always berate you, make you do painful training, and do fetch quests for a while
>Eventually he will reveal secret knowledge, granting +1 to hit or damage and you realized all the chores you did were teaching you a basic kung-fu technique.
>OHH YES WASH THE WINDOWS JOHNNY

>>51135750
I don't remember where I found it, but someone made a DCC monk class that's sort of like this. Once the monk reaches level 5, they need to find and kill other masters to continue leveling. Level 6-9 are gained by defeated the masters of the four winds, and level 10 is gained by defeated the ultimate kung-fu master or something. And once you killed them you took their title.

>>51132319
Weapon-User
Stealth-User
God-User
Magic-User

I will also accept God Botherer for Cleric.

>>51135984
I think that's also similar to how the mystic works in the rules cyclopedia.

>>51134478
I mean, it's inevitable sometimes. Some PCs just wanna watch the world burn. As a DM, it bores me to tears.

>>51135623
It IS race as class. In some versions, the elf class can choose whether to function as a Fighting-Man or Magic-User each adventure. It's one of their traits, alongside finding secret doors and such.

>>51136039
I see, the dude who made it must have taken inspiration from that then.

>>51134478
>In your personal opinion, how much murderhoboing is too much murderhoboing in OSR?

When the party of 4 decides to take on 50 goblins (and 25 female goblins) by themselves because "we have plate mail surely we can grind them down before they kill us" and I have to slowly grind them 1d6hp per round rolling that 19-20 needed to hit a fully armored haflling while they slooooowly kill 0-4 goblins per turn

And of course the goblins roll a "fight to the death" on their first morale check, and the players refuse to run so just slowly
slowly
round by round
see who manages to grind the other party to death (the PCs died btw)

These days I will go full storygame and say "the goblins overwhelm you and kill you, try to not be so dumb next time" and I don't care if that's OSR or not.

>>51135984
>>51136039
It's based on the *OD&D* Monk, from Blackmoor. That has more levels, of course, so you can reach name level before you have to defeat the Master of Dragons, the four Masters of Winds, the four Masters of Seasons and the Grandmaster of Flowers to become Top Monk of Monkulonia.

The masters are based on the tiles from mahjong

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Forgot I made this. MageGuru might have it already. Kept it 8 MB for 4chan. 118 pages of AD&D monsters that didn't get full pages / Lomion / Monstrous Collection 2.1 treatment.

>>51136292
Damn, I really should read the OD&D books. This is just embarrassing.

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So how do you do spells?

Do you like a small list of really customization-heavy, fluffable spells (like magic missile) or do you prefer more concrete, pre-defined spells?

>>51134497
>it's about running a world.
no
it's about running a game. Your "running a world" shit reeks of storygame bullshit.

>Elegance and verisimlitude
It should be fun to play. That's it. Verisimilitude seems like the wrong world for it. The setting doesn't have to even exist. An entire OSR campaign can be run by just going from random dungeon to random dungeon with 0 roleplay without deviating from it being an OSR game.

>Willingness to hack. Everything.
>where you can pare it down.
Nah. Just running basic D&D is fine, no need to change anything, nor is there any need to have this "I gotta change stuff always" mindset. Instead, your mindset before changing something should be
>do I even understand why this rule was made in the first place? Do I have to change it? Would it really make the game a better experience?

>>51135365
undead aren't people

Suggestions on how to introduce three new characters in a gonzo jungle setting?

They're a Druid, Necromancer and Elf, if that helps any.

>>51136593
PCs, I should clarify.

>>51136593
Not sure what sort of specific introduction they need besides "it's a gonzo jungle setting", but sounds like a perfect fit for Xen'drik if you want to incorporate someone else's fluff.

>>51136593
Party finds them in a shipwreck.
Doesn't matter if it there's no sea around, just make it an airshipwreck

it is a gonzo setting after all

>you have just woken up in the middle of a massive airshipwreck in the middle of the jungle. All the other crew is dead. Why were you in the ship? What made you go on a trip?

>>51136557
>An entire OSR campaign can be run by just going from random dungeon to random dungeon with 0 roleplay without deviating from it being an OSR game.

Sounds more like a Pathfinder campaign to me.

>do I even understand why this rule was made in the first place?

The answer is usually "because Gygax said so/got pressured into including it" or because "older editions had it". D&D comes from hobbyist rules, not game designer rules.

>>51136557

You sound like a plebeian who only wants to watch movies or play games 'for the action scenes' or 'for the gameplay' and not enjoy the full course.

OSR is a game, yes. But the worldbuilding, RP aspects, fluff and freedom of player and character choices are all important parts to the whole.

If all you care about is going 'dungeon to dungeon with zero roleplay deviating from it' what don't you just play a videogame? I'm sure there's a few that can sate your wishes.

>>51136593
The party find three statues in the woods and when they touch them they come to life.

The party finds a teleporter and after pressing a couple buttons at random the characters appear.

The characters have been taken as slaves by robo-pygmies and are being sold for relatively cheap.

>>51136659
>Sounds more like a Pathfinder campaign to me.

>dozens upon dozens of random dungeon generators for classic D&D
>the "outside" of the dungeon is only really dealt with in the expert part of the b/x
>plenty of modules that are nothing but dungeons, some of the best ones included
>AD&D 2e is claimed by many to not be OSR due to distancing itself from the focus on dungeon crawling

>somehow think that dungeon bashing is a pathfinder thing
yeah, you're in the wrong board buddy, you clearly don't know anything about any edition of D&D at all.

Seriously though, what part of the oldschool rules hasn't been dissected and thoroughly analyzed? I mean the intent, not each and every specific rule, because that way lies sanity loss (and we have people doing it still). Everyone possessing reading comprehension understands the original game just fine, they might not like some specific rules still.

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>>51136593

The Druid and Necromancer are having a debate about mortality. The Elf is laughing his ass off at the morties.

>>51136704
>If all you care about is going 'dungeon to dungeon with zero roleplay deviating from it' what don't you just play a videogame?

first of all, are you a fucking idiot who can't read?
I didn't say that the game CAN'T have story elements or worldbuilding, I said "a campaign CAN be run". I didn't say that's the right way to do it or the only way.

Second of all, are you really, in the /osrg/ of all places, gonna bring the old "if you want to dungeon crawl you should just play a video game"?
Really? Why the fuck would people play b1 or b2 at all if OSR style dungeon crawling was something you could do in a video game?

My god, I usually disagree with the people going
>Most people here don't want OSR play
and shit like that but if there are actual faggots that think a good old story-less dungeon bashing is not OSR, I don't know what to think anymore.

>>51136905
Does this mean Warhammer Quest and Descent are OSR, then?

>>51136584
>undead aren't people
End the hatred.

>>51136984
Please point in which part of either posts, I said "this is what OSR is:"
I only used the "nothing but dungeon crawling" campaign example as a counterpoint to the guy that said "osr is about running a world."

I'm saying he is wrong, that is not what OSR is because you can easily run an OSR campaign without even thinking about the setting. Are you really gonna say that plotless dungeon crawling is not also OSR?

A beer and pretzels run of B2 or B4 is not OSR? You gotta add a bunch of pointless details about the rest of the world before getting starting "The Lost City" so it's considered OSR?

>>51137120
around ghouls, don't be a fool

>>51136363
I let my players customize the fluff of the spell so long as it doesn't conflict with the mechanics of the spell. I even let them rename the spells to whatever they like, so long as there is a note on what spell it mechanically is for my and their reference.

>>51137121
>and shit like that but if there are actual faggots that think a good old story-less dungeon bashing is not OSR, I don't know what to think anymore.
You're saying that plotless boardgames are OSR. There's no real other way to read what you're saying, skippy.

>>51137147
Wight lives matter.

>>51137180
>plotless boardgames are OSR.
Yes, they are.
A making 4 random characters in b/x and doing a plotless dungeon run is, in fact OSR. It is, in fact, the most OSR thing. It's not the only OSR thing for sure but it is OSR.

>>51137181
Fuck! Beat me to it.

>>51137180
Not that anon, but tactical infinity inherent to the RPGs can be done entirely without the plot, overarching setting and shit. Those things add meaning but it can also be played for its own sake as a test of wit and teamwork in a way that even the best co-op board games can't.

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>>51137228
>It is, in fact, the most OSR thing.

>>51137279
what could possibly be more old school than some adventurers delving in some ancient dungeon in search for fame, fortune and glory (but mostly fortune)?

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>>51137279

I'm starting to think we need a "don't argue about what is or isn't OSR" rule, it's been causing some problems lately

>>51137340
Everyone's hexcrawl gotta start somewhere.

Actually there's a thought. Play Catan, then play an OSR game where the PCs are the thieves, using the resulting board as their sandbox.

I think there is some confusion going on. I'm not saying that "ALL PLOT IS EVIL ONLY PLOTLESS ORC MURDERING IS REAL OSR"

I'm saying that among the various things OSR encompasses, plot is not always necessary.
Hexcrawling doesn't need a plot. It can have one, but it doesn't need one. Dungeon bashing doesn't need plot or a setting. Just grabbing a dungeon module and playing it is fine. Or using one of the many random dungeon generators.

There's a moderately famous forum thread about a guy just doing random dungeons using b/x. The one where the party decided to all be characters from lord of the rings. That thread sparked a lot of interest online in old school style gaming.

If you're gonna say that just playing basic D&D is "a board game and not real OSR" I'm just gonna disagree, because that's retarded.

>>51137308
They're not searching for fame, fortune and glory though. Not anymore that pawns in chess are fighting for their army and liege lord.

But yeah, as dismissive as the "why not play a videogame" line sounds, it seems that's what people really want. A completely impartial referee that never tips the scales for any kind of "story" or other arbitrary outcome but simply calls the rules and scenario as designed. There could be a place for some sort of pseudo-MMO design there, with roguelike mechanics and random dungeon generation.

>>51137359
How would this be enforced though? What happens if someone comes in and starts talking about stuff that very, very clearly isn't OSR? (I'm too tired right now to think of something that wouldn't be considered OSR by anyone)

>>51137426
>There's a moderately famous forum thread about a guy just doing random dungeons using b/x. The one where the party decided to all be characters from lord of the rings. That thread sparked a lot of interest online in old school style gaming.
Do you have a link to this? I've never heard of it.

Can someone explain to me how the chase mechanic in ACKS works?

>>51137448
the, as that one anon put it
>tactical infinity inherent to the RPGs
cannot be done as a video game.

At no point in the current discussion did anyone argue for "completely impartial referee" though.

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Hey /osrg/, I decided to start recording my sessions. The camera died halfway through before the party entered the small dungeon in the city but it has several nights of carousing and the parties first time buying magic items.

Would there be interest from y'all in the recording?

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Why don't you fags fuck off and write some encounters/items/fun stuff instead of shitposting?

>>51137522
https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?676099-B-X-Misadventures-in-randomly-generated-dungeons

this one
there's a second thread but it's linked at the end of this one.

>>51137522
>How would this be enforced though? What happens if someone comes in and starts talking about stuff that very, very clearly isn't OSR? (I'm too tired right now to think of something that wouldn't be considered OSR by anyone)
just ignore them

>>51137563
Thanks anon!

>>51137585
I guess that makes sense. How about if some newcomer shows up and asks what OSR is all about?

>>51137536
Way above you:
>• "Referee" before "Master". It's not about making things go your way, it's about running a world. Subtly different from "rulings not rules", but part of the same ethos.

The idea that the GM does not tip the scales is part of the OSR for people, even if you don't care for it. A computer is is the ultimate in impartiality, even if the "tactical infinity" is lacking (and given people were talking about how abstracted D&D combat is in the first place earlier, there isn't that much in the way of tactics beyond engaging/not engaging - the combat rules do not really support them as written) But to be fair, the "pseudo-MMO" idea was for an actual videogame, not a tabletop game. Imagine something like the modern crop of multiplayer dungeoncrawlers in semi-randomized levels (think Warframe) with permanent loss involved and the GP=XP mechanic. There's gotta be a niche for that kinda stuff.

So, fairly new to this in general, two questions. All this talk about dungeon crawls is making me want to plrun one with my group. Any recommendations? Also, what exactly is B/X and is it in the Trove?
>>51137545
I'd watch it for experience.

>>51137638
>>• "Referee" before "Master".
part of being a referee involves making rulings on what the rules don't cover. A computer can't do that.

You know, one thing I think happens is when I say "dungeon crawling" people are assuming I mean brainless monster slaying, forgetting that an OSR dungeon crawl is not focused on combat.

and that's what makes it impossible to have as a video game. OSR dungeon crawls involves creative decision making. You can't just say "I search for traps". You gotta say how you're searching for traps, how you're searching for hidden doors. How the hell would you have the computer decide if whatever crazy method the player wanted to try to see if there was a pit in the room works or not?

Computers are inherently limited. A DM shouldn't be.]

However, I will agree that there is certainly space for a multiplayer roguelike that actually involves something beyond just killing monsters.

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>>51137645
B/X is Moldvay/Cook Basic. It stands for Basic/Expert, the two sets that comprise the system.

08 TSR / 02 Basic D&D / '81 Basic Rules - Moldvay (Bx)

> Any recommendations?
If you're looking for an official edition of D&D, B/X is what I'd recommend. If you're looking for a retroclone, then I'd recommend something that's based on B/X (Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess), or that might as well be (Swords & Wizardry Core, which is based off OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement, which is what B/X is based off).

>>51137524
>Can someone explain to me how the chase mechanic in ACKS works?

It's a little annoyingly written, as it talks about the chase beginning when combatants "flee on their Initiative numbers" but there's no reference to fleeing under the movement actions.

Based on the later Morale rolls, I think it considers both forms of Defensive Movement to be fleeing. Once you've successfully disengaged, then you're legging it; since both sides will be Running I think they figure there's no point in monitoring movement styles then. If your opponent has a higher move, then unless you can block them off in some fashion they're just gonna catch you. The stuff about making Paralysis saves not to fall over like Mister Fucking Bean is just extra flavor really.

>>51137645
B/X is a meme designed to make you hunt down a bunch of obscure pamphlets and boxed sets in order to attempt to assemble your own ruleset.

TSR 1079, the Rules Cyclopedia hardcover, is what you want since it's "BECM" compiled into a single unified volume and ruleset.

>>51137645
B2 and B4 are usually recommended for bx.
Tomb of the Iron God is another good start.
Tower of the Stargazer can be deadly but some people are into that.
There are plenty of other good dungeon crawls but these were designed for beginners.

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Can I get some sweet hexcrawl maps, like this one?

>>51137426

Your opinion is entirely reasonable. Jumping on the guy for using the phrase "running a world" is less so IMO.

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>>51137932

>>51137916
>Tower of the Stargazer can be deadly but some people are into that.
I meant in a kind of bullshit way.

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>>51137932
.

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>>51137956
I got triggered by the tone of the post desu

>>51137932
here's a hex map of b2 if it helps anyone

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>>51137910

>Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert are "a bunch of obscure pamphlets and boxed sets"

This post is very silly.

>>51137833
Thanks for the explanation. Do you think it's an important mechanic or can I skip it?

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>tfw you love the idea behind OSR and want to referee an OSR game but you can't draw maps for shit and you're too autistic to use someone else's maps.

>>51138110
>Not making the players draw the map as they explore.

>>51138110
Just use the myriad of generators available online, dude.

>>51137910
Trolls please leave.

B/X is literally two different books, not a bunch of obscure pamphlets and boxed sets. If you're overwhelmed by the number two, you really shouldn't be playing D&D.

>TSR 1079, the Rules Cyclopedia hardcover, is what you want since it's "BECM" compiled into a single unified volume and ruleset.
B/X is a grand total of 128 pages, while the Rules Cyclopedia is well over twice that, at approximately 300. It's also formatted more like a reference book than an instructional manual, making it more difficult to learn. Now, you can make an argument that the additional material the RC contains makes it a better system (I actually think the opposite is true--if I wanted additional clutter I'd play AD&D--but it's a defensible position), but trying to make B/X out to be comparatively confusing is simply ridiculous.

>>51138110

Maps are easy, though. And who cares if it looks ugly? You never have to show it to players, you just need to know where stuff is so you can describe it.

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>>51137932
here's a hexcrawl map for the known world AKA mystara aka the assumed setting for BECMI, not that anyone ever uses it when playing that game themselves

>>51138110
there are programs for that you know
You can even steal old jrpg tilesets and use the tiled map editor
http://www.mapeditor.org/

Speaking of hexcrawls...can I get some advice on how to go about creating my own? Recommended books to help?

>>51138085
>Thanks for the explanation. Do you think it's an important mechanic or can I skip it?

I'd suggest there's a near 100% chance of a desperate retreat out of the dungeon, given the OSR intersection of piss-weak starting characters and hideously powerful dungeon encounter rolls. So yes. When I ran ACKS, they fled about 1 session in 4 or so. My take on it was this:

- Remember that in order to disengage you need to perform one of the Defensive Movement actions, and that has to be declared before initiative gets rolled. That's a REALLY fucking big deal. Make sure the players know this part or they'll think they can just bolt any time they like.
- If the monsters fail a morale roll or the players are disengaging en masse with clear intent to GTFO, you're looking at a fleeing situation.
- Have the fleeing party done something to block the opposition? (Left someone behind to "hold them off", closed and spiked the door, set the floor on fire, cast Wall Of Stone,etc). If so, they most likely escape unless their opponents know another way around.
- Otherwise, whoever has the highest movement wins.
- If both sides have the same movement (hope you didn't bring any dorfs, pal) then trace out the route from the dungeon, manage the chokepoints, do monster-giving-up rolls etc as per the book. Otherwise just work out who (if anyone) gets caught and where the fight re-starts.

>>51138461
https://arsphantasia.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/hexcrawl-resources/

>>51138145

Name it.

>>51137625
just give them the definition from >>51134297

>a game or book is OSR if it fits into one or both of the following definitions:
>1. was published by TSR
>2. is broadly compatible with any TSR edition and most other products that are also labled OSR

it's not a perfect definition, but it's the closest thing we have to a definition that's both accurate and has a minimal chance of causing a pointless argument

>>51138461
This is advice for any sort of sandbox game.
>http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com.br/2012/01/on-superiority-of-railroad-method-over.html
the title is ironic
but the content of the post is good

Basically it's some advice on how to avoid having your players getting decision paralysis.

And here is an example of a hexcrawl
>http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com.br/2014/05/frogstar-peninsula-hexcrawl-v02.html#more

>>51138665
http://wizardawn.and-mag.com/tool_world.php

>>51138665
>http://davesmapper.com/

there's also the donjon random dungeon generator (just google that) who has dungeon generators for all D&D editions

>>51138203
And if I wanted players to retire at level 3 I'd play B/X rather than using B/X to inform my application of all AD&D and D&D rules at once as is proper.

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>>51136557
>>51138013
>I got triggered by the tone of the post desu
If it's any help, In the original post (>>51134497
) I meant something along the lines of "The DM is more of an interface than a God" and tried to explain that as best I could. To put it another way, as a DM I think your personal pre-conceptions about the game and "how it should go" (id est, whatever plot you've cooked up) are less important than what actually evolves in-play between the dice, the rules, and the rulings you do need to make.

Does that make a bit more sense?

>Willingness to hack
Overall I have a pretty ruthlessly practical outlook on the game. But (for example) OD&D requires a shit-tonne of rulings and customs to be worked out before you even sit down at the table. It's not as bad as (say) Palladium or Rifts, where the rulebooks are literally unplayable, but you still need to do a certain amount of hacking or the damned thing just plain doesn't work.
Things like Philotomy's work or the earliest Perrin conventions have literally existed since the first days of the game. Every old-school group I've been in, over the course of nearly thirty years, has been full of homebrew and hacked rules. Every. One.
I agree that you should know why the rule was originally there. But that doesn't mean the reasoning isn't silly, or inappropriate to the world/scenario you want to create (Gygax's "Demi-Humans should be mechanically screwed to create the flavor I want" comes immediately to mind)


>Verisimlitude
I'm specifically talking about >rules< here, not the campaign itself. People expect torches to burn out, and weight to slow them down. An encumbrance system like LotFP's isn't necessarily >realistic<, but it accomplishes that goal in an elegant and usable way. It also satisfies a secondary goal - it makes the statistics of the character meaningful to gameplay without necessarily requiring by-the-ounce management of stuff, or being forced to translate the stats into precise real-world terms.

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>>51138461
Use the hex overlays on a map with a 1" = 30 miles or 1" = 90 miles scale and boom you've got a hex crawl.

>>51137625
I found a TSR-published material by Gygax himself from 1974 that goes with OD&D and is referred to by it.

tiny DOT cc/WarriorsOfMars

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>>51136593
>Suggestions on how to introduce three new characters in a gonzo jungle setting?
>They're a Druid, Necromancer and Elf, if that helps any.
Wild Elf? Jungle elves sound like fun, and he could even be a guide.

Druid - Fucked up a tree-step.
All of them: Called there/dropped off by their gods. Or aliens. Or fairies who don't quite understand the whole concept of "home" and got you to the wrong side of the world.
Stepped through some standing stones.
Moongates (thank you, Ultima)
Whipped into the sky in a hurricaine and dropped off here amid a rain of fucking frogs.
Boat blown off course, ran the mouth of the !Amazon and wrecked on a sandbar.
Send by wizarding college/Elvenking/Druidic circle to find a lost exploration/outpost/legendary kin based on recently discovered documents.
Drank bad elf-hooch.

Woke up in crystal coffins, with no memory, in a strange cave. Outside is a vast jungle. Cave mechanisms/magic has failed, but they do remember some skills...

>>51139028
>Does that make a bit more sense?
yeah, sorry I overreacted

>Willingness to hack
Well, I was referring to b/x and most retroclones. In those you really don't need to alter anything, and everything works fine.

>Verisimlitude
to me, the important part is if it works well in the actual playing of the game. The standard by the pounds works for fine, as long as your players are okay with math.

That said, I prefer the ACKS system, because it uses "stones" as a measure of weight, and we all know rocks are not only the best weapons, they're the best system of measuring anything.

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>>51139249
>Stones
That actually triggers me because a "stone" is a real historical unit of measurement, and I'm a historical linguist. So I keep reading it and instinctively going "wait, is that an English stone? Are we dealing with 8, 14, or 12 lb?"

>>51139249
>yeah, sorry I overreacted
No worries, I phrased things badly. The character limit and lack of caffeine this morning didn't help.

>Don't need to alter anything in a modern retroclone
True, but there's a hacker ethos that permeated early wargaming and RPGs. It could just be that I'm part of that older "gamer culture", but I do know the hacker and gamer cultures still overlap pretty heavily even now. Plus you have things like Moldvay telling you to bodge together new classes, or B1 and the original Basic giving you examples of rulings-in-play (drowning trap/hireling rules in B1), and suggesting that you make more stuff to cover what you need, because the rules really won't cover "everything". Hell, the reason I like B1 so much is that it was explicitly made as a DM training tool, not necessarily for teaching the rest of the players.
Well, that and the magic pools, they're some hilarious shit.

I guess what I'm going for is the idea that the rulebook is kind of a half-finished vehicle, a stack of parts, and a toolkit that you use to build something, not the machine itself. Need a motorcycle, you're gonna have to hack the shit out of it, but for most people you're just adjusting the seatbelts and shit to fit the passengers.

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The maps in the widely-distributed Gray Box FR set are culled from other sources (like Bloodstone Lands). Here is the large-scale one from MageGuru's Trove.

I'm having a real hard time deciding what sort of campaign to run next:

Gonzo Fantasy (Magic, Dinos, Lazer guns and Elves!)
Classic Fantasy (Yeah.)
Post-Apoc Fantasy (Ruined Earth but with fantasy Races)
Post-Apoc Earth (Ruined Earth with Mutants & Humans)

Which have you enjoyed running the most? Any suggestions on shit to look at?

>>51139609
RIFTS, all of the above, but OSR

Some anon told me that OSR guys loves charts... So how do you organize your random event charts?
I'm looking for a program where I can have multiple charts loaded and get an event with just a click

>>51139028
>Gygax's "Demi-Humans should be mechanically screwed to create the flavor I want"
I love Gygax, but man that was always one of the most retarded things about the older editions of D&D

>>51139609
all of those sound fun, but I think I have to lean towards Gonzo, especially since you can mix in stuff from the two Post-Apocalypse options you listed(see Masters of The Universe, Thundercats, and Thundarr The Barbarian for examples)

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>>51139022
>if I wanted players to retire at level 3 I'd play B/X

You mistyped "level 36" dude. Basic goes to level 3, Expert covers the remaining levels up to 14, with optional advancement up to 36.

Why are retroclones like B/X companion and B/X adventurer on the TSR folder?

>>51139587
>That actually triggers me because a "stone" is a real historical unit of measurement, and I'm a historical linguist. So I keep reading it and instinctively going "wait, is that an English stone? Are we dealing with 8, 14, or 12 lb?"

Also, does a fist sized rock weigh a stone? Or does it count as a bundle of items? How many fist-sized rocks can a character carry?
These are the truly important questions

>>51139812
I'm assuming because they aren't their own games but rather B/X add-ons.

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Today I will remind them.

What is NOT on the Rules Cyclopedia other than the Immortal set?

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>>51139609
>Which have you enjoyed running the most?
Post-apocalyptic Earth. My longest running campaign ever was in Gamma World. So was my second longest running. You get the advantages of lasers and conventional firearms combined with swords and shit, and you get cool powers in a setting that's more "local" (you aren't talking to Alpha Centauri on your wrist com) and thus more conducive to quests.

>>51135589
#5964 is me discord

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>>51139593
And zoomed in

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>>51139935
Would you recommend me looking into a specific edition of Gamma World or Use Mutant Future. instead? Or wait for Mutant Crawl Classics?

>>51139889
this has always been retarded since it's not like leveled characters are supposed to even be all that common in the first place, and statistically Demi-Human ones would be rarer still(even more so if we go into races beyond the standard set)

>>51139754
>I love Gygax, but man that was always one of the most retarded things about the older editions of D&D
It's not retarded, it's elegant. It discourages a glut of snowflake non-human characters and keeps things humanocentric.

>>51140038
>snowflake non-human characters
Half-elves, half-orcs, are half-ogres are the OG special snowflake racs and they're all human.

>>51140038

If you hated non-human characters that much why not ban them?

Putting an arbitrary level cap on a character class or race just because you don't like it is almost the definition of that DM.

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Using Wands and Scrolls as 1 shot magic items is the absolute worse shit in the world and you are a shit DM if you agree.

1 Shot magic items should be relevant to the function of the spell. 1 Shot disguising spells should be enchanted makeup. 1 use flameblast should be kept in an urn or jar which is opened and heat directed outwards, or a magical match that creates a massive blast of flame in the desired direction when struck. Magic shielding spells should be in the form of little clay shields which fall apart after use, etc.

If you use scrolls or wands instead of the above, you are shit.

>>51140213
Put a ban on things and players will bitch about wanting to play them forever. Make them worthless and they'll drift off naturally. It's elegant.

>>51139957
Request sent. I'm Twixman

>>51140279
Gygax didn't do that, though. He just made them overpowered in the levels everyone starts at and then barred them from the endgame. It's the ultimate trap option.

>>51140025
I've only skimmed Mutant Future and don't really care for DCC's level of crunch, so I can't really give you an informed opinion on this. As far as Gamma World goes, it's always been about the setting more than the rules for me, and I inevitably ended up running the game based more on attribute-checks than the rules-as-written. 2nd edition is pretty much the definitive classic edition though, and should be pretty familiar to anybody who is acquainted with old school TSR rules from D&D. There's a lot I really like about 3rd edition, but it's a half-finished mess as-is, so I'd only recommend it as a source for ideas or as a fixer-upper. I'm really disappointed that 4th edition wasn't a polished version of 3rd.

I've never played 7th edition, but a fair number of people seem to think it's the best thing that came out of 4e D&D. It's billed as zany pick up game though, and I'm not really into the zany. I play Gamma World as a deadly serious sort of thing. Still, it might be worth checking out. There's also a Savage Worlds port of Gamma World in the trove, and what little I've heard about that has been positive.

>>51140483
I've heard the White Wolf take on Gamma World did a good job of making it halfway serious. I can't speak for it, having never read it.

>>51140571
The fluff may actually be good, but I couldn't make it far into the book before revulsion at the crunch (it's d20 Modern-based) made me walk away.

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Ruinations dude here.

I can't seem to settle on a good leveling Mutation scale for the Sullied (mutant) class. Right now, I have 1d4 Mutations (good and bad) happen at lvs. 1, 4, 7, 10 etc... with in between levels having a 3-in-6 chance of more mutations occurring.

Does this seem good? Should the chance scale as well? Should it be a simple +1 each level?

It seems a bit off to have the Wastelander (fighter) and Adept (specialist) be guaranteed some mechanical advancement every level (AB and skills, respectively), but have the mutations largely rely on chance.

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>>51139849
>Also, does a fist sized rock weigh a stone? Or does it count as a bundle of items? How many fist-sized rocks can a character carry?
>These are the truly important questions

Two-handed weapons are one stone
One-handed weapons are 1/6th stone. Weapons that can be wielded either way count as one-handed for encumbrance.

I'd rule a fist-sized stone as a one-handed weapon, so theoretically a character could carry up to his maximum encumbrance (20+/- str mod) times six.

In contrast, sling bullets are about pic related in size, so they get to use bundling rules. You can carry a bundle of 30 sling bullets and have it be 1/6th stone because you can shape a bag of sling bullets, making it more conducive to backpack-tetris than a whole fist-sized rock.

>>51140687
Increasing power / control / uses for existing mutations. Maybe when you level, you get the chance to upgrade a mutation (or possibly get a new one).

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>>51139587
>That actually triggers me because a "stone" is a real historical unit of measurement, and I'm a historical linguist. So I keep reading it and instinctively going "wait, is that an English stone? Are we dealing with 8, 14, or 12 lb?"
"Encumbrance is measured in stone. A stone is a historical unit of measure that varied from 8 to 14lb depending on what was being measured. ACKS assumes a stone weighs around 10lb, but it is left purposefully abstract to represent an amalgam of weight, bulk, and generally [sic] portability."

The image here also uses a stone-based encumbrance system, but with a 14 pound rather than 10 pound basis.

>>51140279

>It's Elegant

It's not fucking Elegant. Elegance implies a gracefulness or neatness in execution. Giving them a level cap is not neat or graceful, it's literally just the DM saying 'fuck you, I don't like your character, you can't go higher then this, fuck you'. That's not elegant.

An ACTUAL elegant solution to making demihumans rare would be to make high stat requirements to having them, as it is already something in the game. If you can only play an elf with a 16+ Dex and 16+ Cha they'll become very rare at the table but be super interesting when somebody plays one. That is an elegant solution, not a level cap.

>>51140687
Also, the slightly updated version from the old one in the Trove.

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

>>51140831
>An ACTUAL elegant solution to making demihumans rare would be to make high stat requirements to having them, as it is already something in the game. If you can only play an elf with a 16+ Dex and 16+ Cha they'll become very rare at the table but be super interesting when somebody plays one. That is an elegant solution, not a level cap.
That just further rewards high attributes ("You rolled well and have bonuses to shit? Great! Now I'll give you more bonuses!") and further penalizes humans (because now characters with high stats will tend to be demi-humans instead of humans). An elegant solution would be balancing the power of demihuman and human races/classes, whether this means giving advantages to humans, giving drawbacks to demihumans, or simply adjust XP requirements.

>>51134908
The problem with your homebrews is that you're trying to shoehorn mechanical tidbits into highly abstract D&D combat which is already so abstract that it encompasses almost everything you're trying to do with your additional mechanical fiddling. Stuff like throwing sand into one's eyes, making kicks and barrel rolls, pushing people around, punching them, shoving people around with shields, pretty much anything imaginable. All that is already in a single attack roll.

You're trying to fundamentally change old school D&D mechanics and that's why your muh homebrew is getting criticism in a thread dedicated to old school gaming.

>>51140660
Would you believe me if I told you Call of Cthulhu d20 is pretty good?

>>51141015
>Would you believe me if I told you Call of Cthulhu d20 is pretty good?
I really don't think that Cthulhu and levels mix. Hell, I'm on the fence as to whether Cthulhu and RPGs mix.

>>51140038
>It's not retarded, it's elegant. It discourages a glut of snowflake non-human characters and keeps things humanocentric.
honestly I've always found Humanocentric settings to be near universally boring as all hell, much prefer racially diverse settings with rules to support it

also I've never really seen much in the way of "Special Snowflake" characters in real life over the years, but then the people I play with aren't assholes and/or morons

>>51141045
Well, "pretty good" is overselling it. There's a lot of wasted space with levels (no, you're not going to do a 1-20 character in CoC, you'll be very lucky to hit even 6) but that's something I think of many retroclones these days. The psychic feats are really hilarious but they're also a big "please fuck me in the face" flag. But still, it's really good when it comes to actually running Call of Cthulhu, regardless of system, and it's packed with good information for a GM. Stuff like the detailed weapon lists got derision back in the day but that chapter also comes with a summary of gun laws in America across the 20th century (you know, actually useful things to know when investigators start loading up) and there's more reasons to have investigators stick together through a game. Really, even if you have no use for the system but are interested in Call of Cthulhu at all give it a read.

>>51136243
>1d6hp per round rolling that 19-20
>he uses dex bonus to armor class
I found your problem.

There should be plenty of hits on your characters if you just swarm them with 50 goblins.

>>51136784
>Everyone possessing reading comprehension understands the original game just fine,
Doesn't really seem to be the case.

>>51136243
>>51141239

With such a large number of enemies, why not give them a free number of hits?

ie; 50 goblins with a 10% chance to hit means you just take 5 hits. While it is true that more or less hits could happen it's better then rolling for them all and you could also argue it is just the goblins working together. No save or anything, just 5 hits of damage to whatever party member.

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>>51139889

>"I do not dislike charactes of non-human stock"

>Gygax_hates_demi-humans.png

>>51140213

Because he didn't hate them? He just wanted to ensure they were not the majority of PCs, and it worked.

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So as to steer the discussion away from all the faggoty arguing;

What are the weirdest classes you allow in your games? What classes do you like to play that aren't standard? What classes or race-as-classes have you made for your own games or just for fun?

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>>51141423
The games I run tend to veer into gonzo territory. I'll allow goddamn near anything. I really don't care.

My roomie sat in on a game the other night and I asked what kind of character he wanted to be. He wanted to be a robot that crashed from space, like the Iron Giant. We were playing B4 - The Lost City using LotFP, btw. So of course I allow it and basically reskin a dwarf and give him laser eyes and he punched through walls and fucked ferrets up and then finally exploded.

As far as race-as-classes that I like, I re-skinned the Halfling to be a Kenku/Tengu crow-man and changed the 3-in-6 Bushcraft to Sleight-of-Hand and just played some China Mieville esque city-gypsy-bastard. But I am a forever DM so that was short lived.

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>>51141525
>and fucked ferrets up

My eyes skipped over the 'up' part of this first time I read it. But I think a ferret man class would be pretty cool as well.

>>51141565
We need literal weasel-people, to be the most dickass of thieves.

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>>51141604

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>>51141389
>I do not dislike charactes of non-human stock

>But they should always play second fiddle to humans, acting as little more than glorified sidekicks, especially if they're PCs.

>>51141423
I'll allow almost anything if it isn't mechanically too broken, and it can be made to fit with whatever setting I'm using

>>51140038
>humanocentric

We already have a word for this. It's "Anthropocentric". Anthropos is greek for human. It's the same root word as in anthropology (study of humans), and anthropomorphism (giving human characteristics to non-humans).

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>>51141722

>implying

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>>51141838

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What sort of classes should you use for sci-fi OSR?

>>51142225
Fighting-Man, Magic-User and Cleric.

>>51142225
Fighter Alien
Skilled Alien
Psionic Alien
Android...uh, Alien

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>>51142242

>Science Fiction
>Clerics

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>>51142458
>false distinction between science fiction and fantasy

What are some nice modules and adventures to drop in my hexcrawl?
So far I've got
>Tower of the Stargazer
>A Single, Small Cut
>Against the Cult of the Reptile God

>>51132717
Check out OD&D with the normal combat rules, Chainmail. Fighters don't need to be much more potent than that.

>>51142585
Has anyone retrocloned a holistic version of OD&D with the appropriate Chainmail rules mentioned in the text?

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>>51142563
I dropped an (altered) version of this into my World of the Lost campaign and it went off awesome. Tiny, but a good night filler.

>>51142563
Deep Carbon Observatory might be a good one

Instead of having overpowered cantrips along with regular spellcasting, let the Wizard just have the overpowered cantrips?

One per level only, learning the spells is much harder then casting them.

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>>51142563
The individual locations in Better than Any Man are actually pretty good. The Farmstead and the Invisible Tower both work particularly well as modular chunks. Scenic Dunnsmouth is a LOT of fun to run and fuck around with, but might not fit your mood. If it does, sticking Death Frost Doom up in the hills behind it is even more fun. Dunnsmouth is fairly easy to hack into another setting with a random name generator, although the Rape Elf and the Spider Cult might be inappropriate for the mood you're trying to get. Still, crazy incestuous drow-cult using the Time Cube's effects to stay out of sunlight would be hilarious.

Right now I can't sleep, so I'm busy plowing through the One Page Dungeons looking for stuff that fits my style - I personally like lairs for magic beasties, towns with issues, and compact weirdness. I kinda let it slip a while back and now there's somehow like two hundred of the damned things I haven't looked at.

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Oh shit, Neoplastic Press (AKA the Teratic Tome dude) just put all their shit up as PWYW on RPGnow. Wellp, time to throw Chandler a couple bucks.

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Somebody requested it last thread, 50 types of beastmen.

>>51143877
as the OR, I have to say that's very nice

>>51143877
Nice! Thanks anon!

>>51139609
Check out Planet Algol. planetalgol.blogspot.co.nz2009/08/planet-algol-history-and-races.html (one of the really early posts and representative)
It's very much in the vein >>51139754 talks about of incorporating your options 1, 3 and 4, yet doesn't FEEL gonzo somehow.

>>51140907
In OD&D (where the demihuman caps were introduced) anon's suggestion actually is really elegant, as high attributes *don't do shit* for the most part (the primes give XP bonuses to their associated class, the secondaries give ±1 bonuses, that's all). Using them as qualifiers for odd classes is actually not a bad idea at all in those circumstances. It's only when bonuses and qualifiers are combined that it becomes a mountain of shit.

>>51141118
I love the psychic feats. I still think they're one of the nicest low-magic/horror magic systems ever.

>>51138110
I can't believe nobody told you to download Hexographer yet. But, do that, though.

>>51143877
These are fucking great. "Rainbow Jaguar" is now the name of my psychedelic ska band.

>>51142563
The Inn of Lost Heroes somewhere along some road.
The Fungus Foress.
Secret Santicore 2014 has really good short adventures.

>>51142563
"A Stranger Storm" from one of the LotFP's referee books.
Pretty short, but may result in minor case of PvP.

Has anyone given Lapis Observatory a read? Is it any good?

>>51144732
http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=3198

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Tell me about Sci-Fi OSR. Does it exist?

>>51145222
Stars Without Number. Then there's Traveller Classic

>>51145222
Cepheus Engine
White Star

>>51145242
>>51145333
Machinations of the Space Princess.

>>51145222
Star Frontiers.

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>tfw wtf
>Armor proper subtracts its bonus from the hit dice of the opponents of its wearer. If the shield's bonus is greater than that of the armor there is a one third chance that the blow will be caught by the shield, thus giving the additional subtraction.
>subtracts its bonus from the hit dice of the opponents of its wearer
So... if I'm reading this right, in LBB OD&D armor doesn't provide an AC bonus at all, but instead HP absorption?

>>51144249
>I love the psychic feats. I still think they're one of the nicest low-magic/horror magic systems ever.
Aren't they cool? Still tied to the feat system, but they're really fluffy and interesting. The actual magic system feels actually more appropriate to Cthulhu with all the ability score damage involved (since d20 CoC doesn't have BRP's POW stat and magic points)

>>51145716
That phrase was probably written with Chainmail combat in mind. It simply means that bonuses from magical protection are subtracted from the attacker's attack roll rather than added to the armor class of the wearer.

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Scope out this hot fire, senpai. Have some projects in mind. Another step toward True AD&D™.

>>51145850
You really think he'd bodge the writing as badly as to say "hit dice" for to-hit roll even though HD is an established term already in OD&D?

Either way, I think I like it better as absorption now that I've thought about it. Prevents magic plate from being unhittable with a dagger in Chainmail Man-to-Man and similar issues.

Is there any OSR material that attempts to replicate the feeling of Japanese fantasy? I don't mean high-flying anime superheroics but rather that atmosphere that came from D&D-through-Wizardry derived stuff from the 80s like Lodoss War.

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>>51146103
Fixed some things. One of many Forgotten Realms / AD&D 1E monsters that never made it to a full monster sheet. It was all there though.

>>51146966
Well Lodoss War is just based on some guy's B/X game, so I guess B/X?

>>51147278
>Lodoss War is just based on some guy's B/X game
Not correct. AFAIK Lodoss was played with the Japanese edition of the Rules Cyclopedia: http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php, see if you recognize anything from the pics...

>>51146437
Hit die isn't quite the same thing in Chainmail as later in D&D.

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>>51147461
>http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php

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>>51147668
This shit is so cool.

>>51147668
Too bad their isn't a PDF of this. I would love to read through it and see what it's like.

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japs take on old-school D&D is always great

>>51143877
Cool stuff man. You should consider submitting to the Troll Gods zine >>51128737 . Even if it's one of the lists you've already made.

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>>51147668
Compare pic related.

A question for LL, etc. DMs:
How important are the "Hoard Class" and "No. Enc." stats to you? I'm writing a shitty adventure that will (re)introduce some monsters and I wanted some opinions.

>>51147822
>Badgerbolds

I was thinking of that too.

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When you're low on players do you prefer to use hirelings, or have people to run more than one character?

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>>51148205

>>51149193
I just scale the adventure to suit the number of party members. I'm also okay tossing in an NPC or two.

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>>51149346
sh-shut up Syous is the coolest!

>>51149521
that's a strange way of spelling greldon

>>51142710
This is fucking awesome. I too am currently working on a hexcrawl. This is the kind of stuff I am looking for!

Thanks a lot anon. If there are anymore that you may have, then I would greatly appreciate it.

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>I use literally Everything in Print, which means if it has appeared in any AD&D or D&D product anywhere, you can use it. For example, you can be a 2nd edition Athasian Half-Dwarf race using the 1st edition Dragonlance Knight of the Rose class. Both Rangers exist, and are seperate classes (Ranger1 and Ranger2, the number indicating edition). Both Bards similarly exist, plus the "Not So Hard" Bard from Dragon Magazine, and the Athasian Bard as well.

>One of the side effects of doing "Everything in Print" is that we end up with three different Psionic rule sets. 1st edition, 2nd edition, and 3rd edition psionics all exist. They operate on different "frequencies" so each is considered non-psionic to the other. (This is very reminiscent of two Tournament Tholians fighting in the Star Fleet Battles game.)

>Thus, a 1st edition Id Insinuation does nothing to a 2nd edition psionic character (as it affects only "psionic creatures", which means "1st edition psionic creatures"), unless the 2nd edition psionic happens to ALSO have 1st edition psionics. I don't have any problems with a character using several psionic frequencies at once, see rules [P2] and [Q0] for rules on what is required of such a character.

>Once you have psionic frequencies 1, 2, and 3, the (obvious) question is: Are there any more? My answer is "yes", and I've added about 30 more psionic frequencies, each with their own rules set. Thus, a character could be trained in frequencies 4, 7, and 14, for example. Details on the other psionic frequencies may be found in the [Q] rules.

http://www.smileylich.com/dnd/

>>51147668
>>51147822
I wonder how hard it is to buy those books now and have them shipped to the US just so I can look through them myself. They look really well done and stuff.

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Can I get some input or suggestion on the Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy campaign I'm slowly building? I know it isn't the most original thing, but I'm not trying to rewrite the genre.

>>51151079
>Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings

There goes any interest I had.

>>51151061
I'd be spending about $300 but I think I might do it just because why the fuck not.

>>51151140
lol. It's post-apoc FANTASY. You could name them anything else, really. I was watching a lot of WIzards.

>>51151061
Ordering anything from Japan is a hassle. Check buy threads in /a/ for help.

>>51151233
Oh, I've ordered stuff before from Japan (including a really nice set of six sided dice that got lost during a move a few years ago), so I know. Still would be cool to have their Basic D&D books to have on my shelves though.

>>51151030
Have we finally found the True AD&D guy?

>>51151030
>>One of the side effects of doing "Everything in Print" is that we end up with three different Psionic rule sets. 1st edition, 2nd edition, and 3rd edition psionics all exist. They operate on different "frequencies" so each is considered non-psionic to the other. (This is very reminiscent of two Tournament Tholians fighting in the Star Fleet Battles game.)

On one hand, that sounds like an intresting idea.
On the other, it's OH SHIT NIGGA WHAT ARE YOU DOING

I don't know if this has any potential, but I made a spread sheet for DMs who want to DJ during their sessions. Public editing is enabled.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pdDGPnttFb5X2WuDHR8fbk_xLM0i50q3nnWQYdCHmAE/edit?usp=sharing

Why is OSR so anti-fudging? Like, is it really so bad, to reduce the damage so a fighter is down to 1hp in a fight instead of dying?

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>>51152161
the fuck kind of selection is this

all you need is dungeon synth and its adjacent genres
best tape right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML0v6RgM3s0

>>51152207

OSR is only as much in favor of fudging as the DM is.

However the consensus on OSR general and 4chan in general is to let the dice fall where they may. That fudging 'robs' the players of meaningful choice and consequence, and especially in an OSR game where things can be very, very lethal giving players more second chances is unnecessary and actually detracts of the appeal of lethal dungeon crawling.

>>51152207
The OSR style tend to focus on ruling fairly and maintaining deadliness, so that's why fudging isn't liked. What's the point of having the fighter survive when the rules and the roll has shown that he should die? Alternatively you can decide not to roll at all and just make a ruling on the damage, that's better than fudging.

I still fudge rolls though

>>51152207
A personal reason is trust. In many OSR games it is easy to die. If I know/think the DM might fudge the number in my favor, how could I trust them to not to fudge a number against me?

>>51152207

That's a big one. Short version:Players need to know that you're impartial or else it takes the game out of it, and robs things of tension, and can lead to charges of unfairness because if you did it one time for one character, are you going to do it every time for every character? If not, why not?
Best to avoid all that and remain impartial. If you want the game to be less lethal, modify the rules, don't start fudging the rolls. Once you've set the rules, always abide by them, otherwise, why even have rules in the first place?

>>51152207
Yes, it undermines system sovereignty. The consequences are far reaching, which is why every GM keeps it a secret so that the black mark is only carried in their heart. The only time it might be forgivable is to avoid TPK, and only if it was your fault as GM fucking up an unavoidable encounter, not due to the player's poor play or "bad luck"

>>51152207
Fudging can become a habit, which can lead to players expecting victory, which can lead to either a boring game when they win or tremendous asshurt when they lose.

>>51147461
>Not correct. AFAIK Lodoss was played with the Japanese edition of the Rules Cyclopedia: http://mystara.thorf.co.uk/jrc.php, see if you recognize anything from the pics...
not true, the Rules Cyclopedia didn't come out till 91 if I'm remembering properly, while the first Lodoss product came out in 1986

also the Japanese version of the Rules Cyclopedia was a multi-volume release that never got finished if I remember properly

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>>51152255
oops I meant to link this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytNp0gikre0

>>51145222
Hulks & Horrors

>>51152207
honestly I have nothing against fudging a result occasionally, but in an OSR context it's best to keep that to a minimum(and assuming your players are playing smartly enough, you won't need to do so very often anyways)

>>51152207
Look at it this way:

If you didn't actually care what the dice were going to say, why did you bother rolling in the first place?

>>51152789
And they say OSR and storygames have nothing in common.