/osrg/ OSR General - Problem Solvers Edition

>>51248471
My players recently managed to hook a grapple line around a Grell, attach it to a statue and shove said statue off the side of the cliff they were fighting on. We all thought it was pretty cool.

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I'm reposting my fighting man advancement.

Does this sound like a good way to advance as you get better as a Fighter? Or is it too simple/boring?

>Get +1 to hit every level
>If you roll a 19 or 20 get a free combat move (ie; trip or disarm) OR add +1 damage to your attack. Range extends every level past first.
>ie; level 2 get 18+, level 3 range is 17+, etc

Goes without saying they get the best HD and saves as well. Working on that next.

The experience points in DCC is boring and it's making my players bored.
I'm thinking of changing the following two things:
>every 1000gp attained (and taken to safe zone) equals 1 xp per PC
>encounters can now give anything from 1 to 10 xp, rather than 1 to 4, with 10 being a very devastating battle and 1 being a battle with barely any danger.
Would this break the game too much?

>>51248725
its okay I guess
most retroclones already do one or all the things you're doing anyway
ACKS version is better (scaling damage bonus, inherent cleave, bonuses to henchmen,etc)
LotFP version is better (only class with to-hit bonus in that game)

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How big do you like your dragons to be?

>>51248877
from small to colossal
depends on age

>>51248725
Rolling to get special abilities seems odd to me, but I'd have to see the abilities and how they stack over time. Does the range 19-20 reset every time they get it or does it just lower as they level?

Why roll for it? Why not just have it happen every few levels? At the moment it just seems randomized for its own sake. Do they get to pick from a list or is the ability gained from a Dx table?

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>>51248877
Depends on the tone of the fantasy
this is a good upper limit, though

>>51248964

On an attack roll dude.

>>51248877
ascalon.jpg

>>51248964
I think he meant that that's a static ability, i.e. "Whenever you attack, on a 19-20, you can also do something cool," but that with every level-up the range off rolls that trigger the ability increases. So, a second level fighter has "Whenever you attack, on an 18-20, you can also do something cool."

>>51248877
Really, the sizes in that pic are a pretty good range for me. 50' long is already starting to push it when it comes to being able to reach the thing with hand-to-hand weapons, so it makes a nice upper end.

>>51249005
>>51249034
oh neat. Would you get to pick before hand, or is it decided by the gm?

>>51249115

No you pick when it happens.

I'm also wishy-washy on including other 'special moves' one could just learn in play, similar to how a Wizard might find a new spell. So you could talk to a mountain guru and maybe he'll teach a move that lets you do a flame slash attack when you roll your special move, but that's just a campaign thing not a game rules thing.

>>51249146
this kind of sounds like feats

>>51249162

Not even close baeB

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Can I get a d6/8 "Cool shit going on in the Wasteland" from you guys? Maybe some Wasteland encounters?

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>>51248471

In a system without magic, how is Wisdom relevant? Should it just be lumped into intelligence?

>>51249575
Some systems use wisdom for other stuff. Which one are you using?

>>51249224
>A blast crater that has been filled with broken tvs, all facing inward, wired together. They occasionally flicker and broadcast ancient signals interpreted by the commercial oracle.
>Massive submarine that has been sealed for generations, the crew's descendents becoming horrific mutant things who obey command chains and chant launch codes in the darkness.
>The local tribal contest of leadership is to construct the best gliding wings from scrap. The contestants battle elements to the top of the 'scraper and see who can glide the furthest.
>A line of ancient wayposts set in the roads wanderers use through deadly sandstorms attached by chains, rope, anything that can be grasped. It is customary to deposit coins at each post for luck.
>Still functioning radio transmission tower with two way communicator. On one side there is a flattened coke can rattling in the wind, on the other are survivors who think its communicating in morse code.
>Adherents of the emancipating blade. Death cultists who attain enlightenment through disfigurement, injury and death. (+1 attack/dmg for each hit/killed, reroll failed moral checks)

>>51249659
Dude, these are fantastic

>>51249162

You know what? I'm pissed, that's it. This is the last straw. Every single time I try to give fighters cool shit people say they are like feats even when they aren't.

So you know what? Fuck you, I'm doing feats now. Get rekt.

>>51249871
enjoy your 3.pf

>>51249871
Just don't ask /osrg/ about anything you homebrew. They'll hate it for straying away from B/X.

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>>51249871

Go, man, go!

But seriously,"Feats" aren't bad, so long as they aren't done badly. Hell, the Warlock thief praised in the last thread is basically "thief feats: the class." And its feats aren't even all that well done, either, they're just not as terrible as 3rd edition, or as over-the-top as 4th.

(I'm not sure what a "Boneteria" is, but it sounds like something Bender would take out a business loan for)

>>51249871
Since we're already being heretical, I'd like to see an OSR game use 4e's approach to powers.

>>51249994
OSRG Dream Game:

Only 2 Classes: Fighter & Wizard.
No skills cause everyone should be good at everything.
Can cast a spell once a week.
D20 for THAC0. Strictly d6 after.
Excel Spreadsheets when noting time, ammo and rations.
If you even mention the Thief you need to leave right now.
No demihumans cause Gygax something something.

>>51250093
The Gray Hack (/tg/hack) when?

>>51249871
>>51250093
Can you guys for real stop being so damn easily trolled? Anon didn't even say feats are bad, just that something reminded him of one. I think that's dumb too, but if people achieve full shitloss over little things like that this thread'll be troll central before long.

TL;DR don't take bait that's barely even dipped in the water

>>51250093
>I only included demihumans because players begged me!
>I only included half-orc because a player begged me!
>I only included psionics because some random dudes begged me!
>I only included the thief because a fan begged me!
>I only included weapon speed factors because an associate begged me!

Really Gygax?

>>51249748
I stole most of them. The sub is from an Ian Watson short story (he writes oddball scifi), the wayposts are from that sicfi movie Soldier (bad but just the right kind of bad), the coke can is from Nevil Shute's On The Beach (depressing but good) and the Adherents of the emancipating blade are from the zen stuff last thread.

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meanwhile in my game
>DCC mighty deed of arms
>max hp at level 1
>fighters have d10, clerics d8, thieves d6, wizards d4 hd
>everybody has an extra HD of hp called "Fatigue" that takes damage first before it going to hp, and can fully recover that endurance whenever out of combat at a rate of 1 per round, because the constant retreats from dungeons due to lack of healing pissed me off when I played back in the day
>weapon skills AND common non-weapon skills
>Luck from DCC

>hired mercenaries will totally go into the dungeon even if they're not henchmen so every dungeon run is more of a vidya RTS style base invasion
>with gunpowder and cannons pulled by horse carriages

on the other hand
>all monsters have max HP for their HD
>every monster has at least one extremely powerful special ability


and the most haram part
I use anime pictures for all my npcs

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>>51249659
>Massive submarine that has been sealed for generations, the crew's descendents becoming horrific mutant things who obey command chains and chant launch codes in the darkness.

https://youtu.be/t2KnRfW0Qn0

The one so down is alive, it is part of my plight
The one inside makes a sign, and keeps an eye to the light

I sense panic overboard - obscure, viscid, sprawling fog
I hear a sonar rumor that says I'm far from the shore
...
Across the ocean of sheer compromise
There is no matrix, not even a guide

The last wave of sanity rolls over my frequency
Skyline under water field - the depths above the high seas

A twilight house keeper, dim-on, dim-off now
A concrete cyclops blinking down his dull eye
Does this code signal something somewhere somehow?
...
Mute island, fish-eye view - circling the border line
No resource, no rescue - stranded, I'm otherwise

The error is perfect, like this sub-effect of my kind
My mind...My Mind!

>>51250230
P good desu.

>>51248877
as >>51249080 notes what's in your pic is a good size range, above that things can get a little awkward, especially if you don't have black powder weapons or certain kinds of magic available

Forsake your false editions and embrace True AD&D™ or the trolls shall fall upon you like locusts and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

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Need help with creating an Encounter Table for a sort of warp space between the spheres of my Space Fantasy campaign.

Maybe take an encounter table for sea adventures and convert to warp?

Pic is the current starting map of spheres for the game.

>>51250489
20d20 space goblins with space short swords, space leather armor, space shields, and 3d10 space copper pieces.

>>51250489
Warp space like warhammer or warp space like star trek? Warp space like something else?

>>51250686
Warp space like Warhammer.

>>51250706
20d20 daemonic goblins with daemonic short swords, daemonic leather armor, daemonic shields, and 3d10 daemonic copper pieces.

>>51250706
If its daemony and fucked up you could make a D%chance of demon incursion based on how much magical/psionic equipment, players, etc. the travelling vessel has. The idea being that demons are attracted to more magical stuff as it is more interesting to play with/eat.

I've got to go to bed, but I want to keep thinking about this. Sort of like a game of chicken, balancing the amount of powerful gear/characters travel, how fast they do so, and how well prepared they'll be for demonic encounters all effecting how powerful/what type the demons are. Probably something with totally HD.

>>51250706

Maybe use the N'Gathau from Swords and Wizardry's Tome of Horrors. They're kind of not-Cenobites, and I figure they're a pretty good stand-in for extraplanar horrors IMO.

>>51250837
>with total hd
yep bed

>>51250837
I'm looking for something that can suit all levels, so things from weird occurances to actual encounters. I look forward to your thoughts, have a good sleep anon.

>>51250849
>N'Gathau
I fucking love cenobites. I right now basically depict my chain devils and erinyes like it.

>>51248877

Between 1-3 out of 5. Any larger, and I feel like you are getting into a creature that can't reasonably be fought. If I'm playing Dungeons and Dragons, I would actually like to see Dungeons and Dragons in my games.

>>51249230

Do you mind if people put in more then one article?

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>>51250944
The "Random Guest" tables in Red and Pleasant Land (ppg 47-51) also work well as demons/aliens/Cenobites. Unholy Guests work better as Cenobites, Uncreated ones are more "vile alien terrors".

>>51248836 No, but it deviates from our dogma, and you should probably leave the general just for considering it.

>>51251203
Those look really good, but im looking for more encounters during travel.

>>51251425
Vanilla DCC XP rules are complete shit and opposed to old school though.

>>51250706
1d3 Demons of Type 1d6 (roll for each)

>>51251425
/osrg/ has dogma on DCC? I haven't seen it discussed in any sense for several threads now.

What are some good complications or features for a character who manages to avoids vampirism? I want my players to have a chance to get out of becoming vamps, but I'd like there to still be some lasting scar to their cahracters.

>>51251647
>/osrg/ has dogma on DCC?
No, but /osrg/ has dogma in general.

>>51251748
Occasional insomnia. Loss of focus when seeing blood. Heart stops beating for a minute, sometimes. Having fluttering, out of body experiences. Waking up atop cold soil after sleepwalking. Dizziness in hours of prolonged sunlight.

>>51249871
I'd rather see heresy and experimentation rather than bitching about what is and isn't OSR like the past few threads, and I'm the kind of person who likes running vanilla games with little to no houserules.

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>>51251748
>What are some good complications or features for a character who manages to avoids vampirism? I want my players to have a chance to get out of becoming vamps, but I'd like there to still be some lasting scar to their cahracters.
Bad:
Rashes when exposed to sunlight or touching silver. Rising gorge around holy symbols. Susceptibility to charm and control spells from Chaotic entities, especially other Vamps or greater Undead. Aversion to mirrors and sunlight. Hunger for raw/rare meat. Some animals (especially cats/dogs and other domestic animals) suffer a minor reaction penalty. Anemia. Lassitude or drowsiness in the day

Good:
Mild immunity or resistance to the effects of other Undead's touch. Better night vision. Slight hypnotic gaze, better reactions from wolves/bats/rats

All effects are cleared with a Remove Curse or Remove Disease. If the character dies while under the effects of the "averted" Vampirism, make a Save Vs. Death or rise as a Vampire Thrall or minor Undead with HD as the character's/

>>51252114

>that pic

What the hell, 1950s?

>>51251758
Well, I don't see how going closer to gp-to-xp deviates from the /osrg/ dogma then.

>>51248836
>Would this break the game too much?
I don't play DCC, but I think you'd have to tweak XP pretty severely to break things. Hell, half the time I've played, the GM just sort of decides when folks should go up a level, and things still run okay. Sure, there's the balance between fighting encounters and avoiding them in favor of just looting to consider, and those can lead to substantially different approaches and game experiences, but even a "kill everything you can" hack-and-slash game plays okay, even if it's not necessarily my favorite way of going about things.

>The experience points in DCC is boring and it's making my players bored.
What specifically do your players find boring about the system?

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>>51252128
>What the hell, 1950s?
I've got weirder, especially from the Victorian era, but a lot of those are porn. Pic hopefully not related.

>>51252875
So last thread we were mentioning books to take inspiration from, and I know this great harlequin novel...

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>>51252938
Throw some space alien dicks, an Apocalypse Button, and a couple magic-user spells in with some of your house rules and see if Jim Raggi will publish it, then.

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>>51253291

>>51248877
1 for low level
2 for mid-tier
3 for upper tier
4 would be a massive high level fight
5 is basically a dragon demi-god

>>51248877
2 for small time dragons that church types make a show of killing every few years.
4 or 5 for the one big/clever dragon that high level characters can barely deal with.

>>51253325
So Canadian.

>>51248471
Help me, OSRG, you're my only hope.

Stars Without Number has a kind of neat mech system, but it's a little anemic for my tastes. Have there been any expansions to it, official or fan made? Otherwise what are some good fairly simple OSR-style games with mech rules?

>>51254453 Here's a thought: write your own homebrew

>>51254464
Not out of the question, but I wanted to see what my options were first.

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>>51254453
>Otherwise what are some good fairly simple OSR-style games with mech rules?
>Fairly simple
>OSR-style
> 'Mech rules
Um..

I mean, we're not ALL insane numbercrunchers all the time, but mecha games kinda tend to attract construction rules and fiddly combat scaling. I suppose you could go with the Xenogears-style "The mecha are just really big versions of the characters with different guns", but if you want to do something like Escaflowne (where PCs and mecha interact on a pretty regular basis, and a Name-level fighter manages to kill several in a handful of rounds of melee combat) you're probably going to have to write your own.

>>51254622
Well, considering the aforementioned Stars Without Number system fits the bill and is really only lacking in options, acting like what's being asked is some kind of impossibility is just silly.

Actually fuck it, I'mma just expand the SWN system and see what happens. Seeing as how the mechs are built almost exactly the same as vehicles and starships in that system it should be a breeze to hack the expansions yeah like anything is ever as easy as it looks for vehicles and starships over to mechs.

Just had a flash of insight and oh my god THAC0 makes so much sense now.
Lets say a character has an Attribute of 12. Instead of saying "your attacks have a modifier of +x", you just say on a roll of 12 or less you hit. Literally your THAC0. Now, then comes the question of "but what if the target is particularly armored or evasive" so now you get a penalty to your D20 roll to represent they are relatively more difficult to hit/damage.
Now instead of giving every enemy stat block some arbitrary AC you only have to give a stat in the special case where the enemy is especially defensive, easing the burden on the DM.
Probably getting this wrong with the specifics but at least I understand the value of it now.

>>51250019
>Since we're already being heretical, I'd like to see an OSR game use 4e's approach to powers.
This is a great idea, maybe I'll do this

>>51254679
>Actually fuck it, I'mma just expand the SWN system and see what happens.
That's the spirit, Anon! You have to playtest to find out if something works anyway, so don't sweat it too much at the desktop construction stage, that's always been my thinking.

Should you only roll for hit points once?

Reroll all HD each level and take bigger result?

Reroll your HP each adventure? Or maybe after a long rest?

>>51255333
>Flashbacks to Car Wars 1/10th second phases
Also Champions SPD

>>51255974
>Should you only roll for hit points once?
I hate this.

>Reroll all HD each level and take bigger result?
I do either this (usually "bigger" result bit, but sometimes just being a straight reroll that could end up being lower) or fixed hit points per die.

>Reroll your HP each adventure? Or maybe after a long rest?
I've never done this, but I could see it working. The only weird bit is if you roll shockingly low or high and suddenly your character's behavior changes with no real fluff basis.

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Speaking of hit points in OSR, do people actually like playing a character, a Wizard usually but any class this can happen, with 1 starting hit point? Seems kind of lame.

>>51255974
I like the Carcosa model (this is the only good part of the dice conventions though, the rest is shit) where you roll your HD before each encounter, leave them on the table, and any damage that fails to take a hit die off you is effectively temporary.

It's a surprisingly big change, though, it affects healing, traps and all kinds of little stuff like that.

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>>51250019
That's...

Not bad? As long as it's not a continually scaling sort of thing. Maybe just at-wills for Fighting-Men?

>>51252299
Thanks for the advice. I can never quite figure out experience in these games it seems.

>What specifically do your players find boring about the system?
The system itself is fine, but I notice that when we played LotFP my players would get a much stronger and more positive reaction to hundreds and thousands of experience points after successful crawls. With DCC you get 1 to 4 experience points per encounter based on the danger of the encounter, and it's not very fun for them to hear either "well you guys didn't get hit at all so that's just 1 xp" or "well you guys almost died and barely escaped with your lives so that's a whooping 4 xp". There's just so many of these encounters that the players have to theoretically slog through to get to a new level, and it doesn't feel rewarding at all, even if the DCC classes generally have a greater power curve than other retroclones.

>>51256064
I doubt anybody *likes* their character being weak, but a wizard only has 1d4 anyway (or in the case of OD&D, 1d6, same as anybody) so it's not much improved anyway. The average sword blow will always shave a wizard too close. You take the fragility in stride, or as a challenge. (This is one of those places where increased distance from the character helps -- instead of being annoying that 1 HP is funny.)

That being said, it's disliked enough that various forms of "max HP at level 1" is one of the most common house rules.

>>51256064
Personally, I like everybody getting a hit point boost at 1st level. The jump from 1 HD at 1st level to 2 HD at 2nd level is ridiculously large anyway. So I might give everybody half of their maximum roll to add to their hit points at 1st level (thus a magic-user gets 1d4+2). A common method, of course, is just to give folks a maximum result on their hit point roll at 1st level (people had been doing this long before 3e came out). Or maybe you just let people roll twice and take the higher result (maybe with doubles indicating face value +1, so that the lowest you could roll would be 2).

>>51256064
Done it once. Rolled on a random table for my start spell and, well, Identify is not the absolute best spell to start with...

>>51250019
That's not real heresy. Try this shit on for size: Make an OSR game out of the Player's/DM's Option series.

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While we're on the topic; my current homebrew HD table

>>51256222
Please give fighters just a +1 at level 10, nobody should have two decimal hitdice

>>51256252

Why? What's the frigging difference?

>>51256262
>Why?
It looks better imo

>>51256262
>What's the frigging difference?
Two decimal hitdice isn't OSR seems to "break" the limits, it's my pet peeve really

>>51256222
What happens if a magician rolls 1 at first level?

>>51256281

Well my pet peeve is ruining as something as smooth and simple as 'the fighter gets +1 HD every level because they are strong' because some fag can't have a 1 next to a 0 on a table.

>>51256319

1 HP.

I am considering a houserule that makes the minimum HP you can have is 2, that way if you ever get hit you can at least pray for a 1. That way Magicians would have a 50% chance to start with just 2 HP, which I think works alright.

I just wasn't sure if giving thieves and clerics the same HD was good, but I kind of like the idea now to encourage thieves to actually fight.

>>51256252
They actually do by the book in LBB OD&D, though. Advancement slows but the book specifies as far as 11 +3 dice and gives a clear progression after that. All Anon's doing is sticking to that, really.

>>51256222
I don't know why you peeled off the bonus hit points from the Fighter table relative to the LBB one though, this is strictly worse advancement.

>>51256322
>can't have a 1 next to a 0 on a table
yeah, I can't. It's something that makes me drop the game, really. I only play retroclones with 9 hitdice limits. But, I prefer different dice for different classes instead of "everyone rolls d6", so every class has that limit, in your case, I can see the reason to use two decimal

>>51256109
So is progression slower or is it just that the numbers are lower and thus seem less impressive? Because if it's the latter, you could just video game-ize it. Instead of giving them 4 XP, given them 400. And then it just takes 100 times as many XP to go up a level. It's a little silly, as there is no practical difference (the extra two digits are just window-dressing), but maybe it would have a psychological effect.

>With DCC you get 1 to 4 experience points per encounter based on the danger of the encounter, and it's not very fun for them to hear either "well you guys didn't get hit at all so that's just 1 xp"
I don't know what the DCC rules say, but I've given out XP by encounter difficulty before, but the PCs don't get fewer XP if they get lucky or play it smart and take little to no damage. The encounter was just as powerful either way; they just did a better job with it. (Granted, on a long-term basis, I might adjust my assessment of what constitutes a difficult encounter, but not on a case-by-case basis.)

>"well you guys almost died and barely escaped with your lives so that's a whooping 4 xp"
Maybe it's just me, but 4 XP in a system where it takes 40 to gain a level is every bit as impressive as 4,000 XP in a system where it takes 40,000. The important bit is how much purchasing power are you getting--what fraction of the way to the next level have you just closed? I'm not disappointed if I get a twenty-dollar bill rather than twenty one-dollar bills, even though I'm only holding one bill rather than twenty.

>There's just so many of these encounters that the players have to theoretically slog through to get to a new level, and it doesn't feel rewarding at all
Are you saying that level-progression is slower? Because you could always reduce the XP requirements to gain levels. Halve them, if you want to be drastic about it (or simply double the XP earned from an encounter).

>>51256351
>I don't know why you peeled off the bonus hit points from the Fighter table relative to the LBB one though, this is strictly worse advancement.

I don't know what that game is, I'm not playing or running that game. I'm making my game, which is why I posted my table and not that game's table. I'm not sure why this is difficult to understand.

Even if you think it's 'strictly worse' for the fighter in this game at the very least the fighter still has the best advancement out of any class in this table, so its irrelevant.

>>51256252
Nah. That would be inconsistent with the rest of the fighter progression, which would trigger my autism. Besides, 10 is actually a more natural number to end things on than 9.

>>51256222
Assuming you're using d6s, then everybody ends up with fewer hit points? What are you doing with things like fireballs, which scale by level and would be rather devastating in this system?

>>51256372
The amount of XP becomes relevant when you take into consideration the loot found = XP gained rule, which is very common in OSR games. Requiring tens of thousands to level will eventually lead to massive inflation in the game world, when the characters end up with more wealth than they could possibly spend from leveling alone.

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>>51256351
>I don't know why you peeled off the bonus hit points from the Fighter table relative to the LBB one though, this is strictly worse advancement.
Relative to magic-users and clerics they actually come out significantly ahead.

Also, the fighting man progression in the LBB makes no damn sense. They must've been drunk when they created it. He goes from 4 to 5+1 to 6 to 7+1? What the fuck is that?

>Hey, you just gain 1+1 hit dice! Now you just gained 1-1 hit dice! Now you just gained 1+1 hit dice!

Make up your damn mind, people!

>>51256429
Yeah, but you could always award XP on the basis of the silver standard... or the platinum standard. Or 1 XP for every 100 gp's worth. Or whatever. That's all easy enough.

>>51256439
>Relative to magic-users and clerics they actually come out significantly ahead.
Strictly worse than the LBB one you posted, that's all. I thought he was modding OD&D, see >>51256431

>What the fuck is that?
Yeah, I'll admit most of those are a bit inscrutable. (The extra HP on level 1 makes perfect sense, though.)

However, it's maximally easy to fix it. Just change "6" to "6+1". (Going from 9+3 to 10+1 is fine IMO since that's where the progression gets slowed down.)

>>51256474
>The extra HP on level 1 makes perfect sense, though
Sure. The other classes start out at 1 HD, and that makes them a bit more durable. However, it is a bit weird that clerics immediately catch up to them at 2nd level, and stay caught up until 5th level. Hell, given cleric's lower XP requirements, that actually puts clerics ahead with respect to hit points until the fighter reaches 5th level.

>However, it's maximally easy to fix it. Just change "6" to "6+1".
Or you could go for a more uniform progression, like >>51256222 did. I actually think the overall progression table there is more elegant,* at least as long as the lower resulting hit points are taken into account with regards to the damage being meted out (not so much in terms of melee weapons, but with respect to spells and breath weapons and such).

*I'm not sure I like going from 1+1 to 2-1 though. I'd prefer to use 1+2 instead of 2-1.

>>51256592
>However, it is a bit weird that clerics
Yeah, agreed. There are similar issues with the cleric with respect to HD and attack bonuses in Basic; taking progression speed into account for those is something they never fully got a handle on, it seems.

Given that the Acolyte sucks donkey balls, though... yeah, I don't know. It works well enough. I guess that's what Gygax and Moldvay thought too.

>>51256372
>So is progression slower or is it just that the numbers are lower and thus seem less impressive?
Numbers being lower is just a minor annoyance. I find progression to definitely be slower, and it's harder to balance since it's based on encounters. So while I could put in enough gold to make it very likely that the PCs level up in any other retroclone, I might have to run upwards to like 50 dangerous encounters before a level happens.

>I don't know what the DCC rules say, but I've given out XP by encounter difficulty before, but the PCs don't get fewer XP if they get lucky or play it smart and take little to no damage. The encounter was just as powerful either way; they just did a better job with it.
In the DCC RAW, experience is given for "surviving" encounters. So I guess the more of a "survivor" you are, the more xp you get.

>Maybe it's just me, but 4 XP in a system where it takes 40 to gain a level is every bit as impressive as 4,000 XP in a system where it takes 40,000. The important bit is how much purchasing power are you getting--what fraction of the way to the next level have you just closed?
I don't have the DCC rules on hand right now, but I think just getting from level 1 to level 2 is something like 40-50 xp. So in the way you likened it to gold-for-xp style games, it would take like 40-50.000 xp to level.

> Because you could always reduce the XP requirements to gain levels. Halve them, if you want to be drastic about it (or simply double the XP earned from an encounter).
I could, and I might. The only problem is that we've played a while already, so the levels and numbers would probably get a bit crazy all of a sudden.

>>51256633
>There are similar issues with the cleric with respect to HD and attack bonuses in Basic
Well, sort of. Fighters are at least getting bigger hit dice than clerics, even if clerics level up first. The attack progressions are fine though. Fighter gets a to-hit boost one level before a cleric does, and clerics aren't a full level ahead of them, so they still get the boost first, by a little bit, at least. Still, if you're saying that fighters should have better to-hit scores than clerics,instead of being the same most of the time (at least until they reach high level), I find it difficult to argue with that.

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The items table in OD&D does not show how much damage each type of weapon does, how am I supposed to know the damage for each weapon?

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>>51257073
Let's see... I've got a table of the OD&D weapon damages somewhere. Ah! Here we go.

>>51257160
B-But, what's the point of 2 handed weapons? And high level fights would take forever with everyone doing only 1d6. Am I missing something?

>>51257160
Saddles are OP, break the resource economy, etc etc

>>51257269
Variable weapon damage got introduced in the Greyhawk supplement. Before that, everything was just flavor. Keep in mind, however, that hit point totals are lower in OD&D than in other editions. Monsters have d6 hit dice rather than d8 hit dice. So really, things should go at about the same speed. (Of course, I think there's a legitimate complaint to be made about how many hits it takes to drop high-level monsters in D&D in general.)

>>51257293
>Saddles are OP, break the resource economy, etc etc
Meanwhile, what's the point in carrying around a large merchant ship when you can do just as much damage with a mule?

>>51257269
>Am I missing something?
The Chainmail Man-to-Man table. In Chainmail combat, you roll 2d6 to hit and the target number is determined by the attacker's weapon and the defender's armor. Two-handed swords are pretty much superior across the board, although higher up the table there's a lot of interesting stuff going on.

The system everyone thinks of as "D&D combat" with numeric armor classes etcetera is actually included in OD&D as an "alternative combat system" for the bizarre case that someone who didn't already know about Chainmail would ever buy Dungeons & Dragons. It's full of weird kludges like importing modifiers meant for the 2d6 system wholesale into a 1d20 context, which I remember an anon in /osrg/ rectifying by recalculating all of them, like a year ago.

>>51256319
You roll a new character, Traveller style.

>>51257553
Oh yeah, forgot to add: this is why combat capacity is listed in Men & Magic as "1 Man", "2 Men" etcetera. On level 2, a Fighting-Man attacks as though he were two normal men, on level 3 he has three attacks and so on. Fighting-Men are beasts.

(The system against monsters is different and ridiculously lethal as written; how exactly you handle that is subject to house ruling.)

>>51257553
>for the bizarre case that someone who didn't already know about Chainmail would ever buy Dungeons & Dragons.
Thats my case, I just downloaded OD&D and I have never read Chainmail before

>you roll 2d6 to hit and the target number is determined by the attacker's weapon and the defender's armor.
This actually seems cool

>>51256389
>Little Brown Books
It's a way of saying OD&D for the people who refuse to mention edition names.

>>51257658
Well, their way of saying base-level OD&D. Because once you introduce the Greyhawk supplement, you've got variable hit dice sizes.

>>51257634
>Thats my case, I just downloaded OD&D and I have never read Chainmail before
That was just a joke about how completely fucking wrong they were at that time about the future popularity of D&D.

>This actually seems cool
It's better IMO, I prefer it. It makes sense that a dagger does the same amount of actual damage as a two-hander once you finagle it into a guy's vitals, but that it's a much taller order to do so in the first place than it is to twat him with a big sword.

>>51257658
>It's a way of saying OD&D for the people who refuse to mention edition names.
I just wrote that to distinguish unmodified OD&D from OD&D-with-supplements, which is basically badly-explained AD&D. That's my usual reason for using it, I'm not against the OD&D moniker as such. It can just mean two seriously different things.

>>51257553
>which I remember an anon in /osrg/ rectifying by recalculating all of them, like a year ago.
Anyone got this? Seems fascinating

>>51257580
Traveller style is just sending shitty characters to the Scout service and hoping they don't make their survival rolls. It's the official suggestion to deal with unacceptable ability scores, in fact.

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>>51257553
>Two-handed swords are pretty much superior across the board
>Two-handed swords
That sure is a funny way of saying psionic Body Weaponry.

>>51257875
>psionic Body Weaponry
Not in Chainmail or the LBBs. If you want to be like that about it, the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O's pretty superior as well.

>>51257363
The tough part is all the monsters that get multiple attacks in Greyhawk.

>>51258262
Got lost in the conversation and thought we were still talking about OD&D. My bad.

>>51255333

Oh god, Warlock, what happened to you over the years?

>>51258966
Bro, it's the Caltech variant. It's got an engineering dork's idea of what counts as "simple math".

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>>51256322

You could solve the dude's problem by borrowing from Traveller and using hexadecimal notation! 7,8,9,A,B,C,D.
Make a special edition PDF just for him!

>>51258966
>From the 90s two Autisms were born:
>"Dramatic storytelling"
>"Realistic mechanics"
>ROLE-PLAYING GAMES THAT KILL

>>51257829

And if they survive, you end up with a pretty strong character. Plus poor stats in Classic Traveller aren't that big a deal for most stuff; only about 25% of skill checks in the book make use of stats, and then it's usually "+2 if your EDU is 8 or higher" kind of stuff. Also a 2 in a stat is just weak, not crippled.
OTOH, low physical stats will mean you have a glass jaw and go down fast in a fight, but everybody tends to go down fast in a fight anyway.

>>51259085
Such a lust for extra rules! WHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

>>51255347
The problem with it, besides being counter-intuitive and not being described very well in the original materials, is that it means you always need to know exactly what your target's AC is. With ascending AC the DM can preserve the mystery for a while if he wants to.

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>>51259246
>With ascending AC the DM can preserve the mystery for a while if he wants to.
THAC0 it tells players *exactly* the same amount of information.

>*rolls*
>I hit AC 4
Judge responds, "hit."
Do they have AC 4? Do they have AC 8?
It's a secret to everyone.

Also, monsters and magic armor notwithstanding, you can tell the AC just by looking.

>>51259085
>>51259210
/osrg/, I'm already a build optimizer

>>51259563
Punished Arneson - A Fallen Legend

>>51259085
>realistic mechanics
>a 90s autism
Son, Chivalry and Sorcery came out in like 1975. And I think the Perrin Conventions were solidified before Greyhawk came out.

>>51259563
>>51259622
Third edition took us to hell, but we're going even deeper!
Kaz, I already play pathfinder.

>>51259707
He told me something interesting. Wizards is pursuing new research. A game to surpass D&D.

>>51259756
Why are we still here? Just to collect XP? Every night I can feel THAC0, reaction rolls, even my hirelings. The rules we've lost, the mindset we've lost, won't stop hurting! It's like they're all still there! You feel it to don't you?! I'm going to make them give back our past!

>>51259382
If your DM handles attack rolls in that exact way. Most of the time it's either "add the monster's AC to your roll," or, if your'e being really old-school about it, "cross-reference your roll and the monster's AC on this table to see if you rolled high enough."

>>51259629

Yeah, it was there from early on, but I would still say that the 90s was when the whole industry really went full retard with it.

>>51249230
I'm sure that wouldn't be a problem.

What are some tricks/quality of life steps you've learned when running or playing OSR games?
In game where you get an bonus EXP for relevant high stats, it's easier to treat it as a reduction of EXP needed to level instead of adding a bonus each session. Another in Basic, rations have 7 uses, so for regular groups you don't have to track rations every single day just the end of weeks.

>>51259382
Or you could just A) describe the armor worn or how armored it appears to be adn/or 2) outright tell your players the AC...

>>51260025
I've used dice as counters to keep track of resources such as arrows and torchlight.

>>51255634
Grab OSR game, bolt on the powers, give no shits of the consequences

>>51254453
kludge battletech into it

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>>51259840
>If your DM handles attack rolls in that exact way.
With ascending AC your DM can still ask, "Do you hit AC 14?"

At the point where you say, "It's a matter of play style" we stop being able to critique mechanics.

>>51260066
>describe the armor worn or how armored it appears to be
That is exactly why I said,
>monsters and magic armor notwithstanding, you can tell the AC just by looking.

>>51254453
Someone wrote up rules for White Star.
https://wrathofzombie.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/mech-rules-for-white-star-with-included-templates-and-modifications/

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Making a homebrew OSR inspired Space Fantasy game. Already have Fighter, Scoundrel, Magic User done. Trying to include a class that has science and engineering skills.

Not sure what unique things they should be able to do besides know a lot about science/machinery. Thought maybe they could craft a couple small explosives daily. Ideas?

>>51260380
>Trying to include a class that has science and engineering skills
Don't make it a class. Make it a character building option that gimps your progression. Maybe do Scoundrel the same way.

>>51260380
It might be best to add a more general class to fill in the blanks, something like an Expert or Specialist. There's all sorts of niches to be filled when you're not dealing with a comparatively limited palette of old timey fantasy adventurer roles. You have your mechanics, doctors, pilots/drivers, scientists (and all of the different kinds of science), scholars, hackers, roboticists, and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting.

It could be interesting to have the three classes you mentioned and then everyone picks from a list to add one other niche during character creation. Either being a standard option that everyone has to take or like >>51260426 said an option that a person can take but has a character advancement drawback.

>>51260426
I suppose I could let characters sacrifice a weapon proficiency for access to a certain skill table..

>>51260544
I feel like option 1 would just make them skill-monkies, but if their combat tables aren't absolutely horrible it may work.

I think maybe option 2 is better. I could allow players to spend their weapon proficiencies on niches. Seems a bit 3.5 ish though

>>51257553
>which I remember an anon in /osrg/ rectifying by recalculating all of them, like a year ago.
Anyone got this? I need this.

>>51260380
They'd be needed to identify technology and to repair things that aren't alive but have HP, like ships and robots. A lot of treasure in such a campaign might be unusable unless there's someone who can repair and/or identify it. If you want to get fancy they could even have rules for making new items out of spare parts, or improving everyone else's equipment by keeping it well-maintained. You could have the engineer take the place of the cleric in the setting if they're also in charge of practicing medicine and/or making medkits.

>>51260974
These are all good points. Kind of like a Druid of technology. Scavenging, fixing, modifying, crafting, identifying strange contraptions, etc. I like it.

>>51260848
>Seems a bit 3.5 ish though
Not what I was going for with that.
I was thinking something vaguely along the lines of:
• start with Engineering, but miss your 2nd and 4th HD
• start with Scoundrel shizz, but to-hit improves at 80% speed
• do both if you're a baller
Available to Fighter and Magic-User, but only at level 1

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>>51257741
>>51260872
I don't really feel like reading through this, so instead I'm going to read Fafhrd and Gray Mouser.
If what you're looking for isn't here, it's probably linked from here:
>https://boards.fireden.net/tg/search/text/%22man-to-man%22%20chainmail/

If you find it, let us know.

Some day I want to run OD&D with Chainmail's troop type combat as the only combat system.

Is there any reason to play OD&D instead of b/x?
Or using a retroclone of either?

>>51261402
Paging LL vs B/X guy.

(And there's still no similar OSRIC vs 1E comparison.)

>>51260974
>>51260380
Presumably fighters in this setting are proficient with guns that are no more complex to use than modern firearms, but maybe there are some mad science weapons that only engineers can use, like tesla coils, plasma weapons, and gravity guns.

To make the magic-user still feel special, maybe they have to double as pilots because you have to navigate by precognition when you're going faster than light. You can't exactly get useful information by looking out the window at that point, since by the time you see something it's already long gone (or you've already crashed into it.)

>>51261402
Irony or novelty.
>Or using a retroclone of either?
If you look at retroclones as "heavily houseruled b/x" they seem like decent starting points.
Especially considering *you'll* be housruling it once things get rolling.

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>>51261402
>>51261455
I am not he, but I come to thine aid regardless.

>>51261461
>have to double as pilots
That's a trap.

Piloting should either be "anyone can do it" or "hire an NPC"
Otherwise, you'll get really awkward play

Forcing parties to bring MUs is also weird

>>51261402
They're different. Ability scores matter a lot less in OD&D compared to B/X. For example in OD&D dex doesn't improve AC, str doesn't give bonuses to attacks and damage and in general the bonuses from ability scores are very minimal.

OD&D with just the core booklets has a universal hit die of d6 and the damage die is also a d6.

OD&D is simpler, faster and looser.

>>51261402
OD&D's got some wackier shit going on in the tables and handles mass combat better than B/X does, which is to say that it handles mass combat at all.

The LBBs also give you a better scaling on attribute scores so CON isn't better on an M-U than it is on a Fighter, and as a player you're only really using two types of dice.

There's a bunch od fiddly little changes, really. If you want something that's easy to read you should probably go for B/X, I suppose.


Also, it's worth remembering that OD&D+Supplements is a completely separate beast that more closely resembles AD&D - Psionics and Illusionists and Meteor Swarms and Bahamut, oh my!

>>51261525
Since you can always just hire an NPC no matter what the task is, there should be a way for a player who wants to be good at piloting to be good at it. Maybe it's a thief skill, or maybe it's keyed off of an ability score?

>>51261461
I like the idea of the scientist only special weapons.

MU as pilots actually fits pretty well lore-wise (MUs in the game get their power by utilizing the reality-warping energy of several massive sentient cosmic masses, so they kinda have to be in-tune with stars and planets). Though making them the only pilot seems a bit extreme.

>>51261534
>>51261518
>>51261471
>>51261534
>>51261562

I'm asking because it seems like /osrg/ shifted from having b/x as "the standard osr game" to OD&D at some point.

>>51261681
The availability of good pdfs for OD&D probably boosted its popularity. It is in my opinion the best version of D&D when it comes to mechanics and quality of gameplay.

>>51261681
Eh, for me OD&D's only value is as a historical curiosity.

>>51261673
Then maybe include an FTL mishap table. Someone "flying blind" without a precognition spell can have a chance of reaching the desired destination without incident, especially if they know that region of space well. Failure means they hit an asteroid or piece of space junk that they didn't see coming, and extreme failure means they end up at the wrong destination entirely. Slower-than-light and atmospheric flight should be pretty easy for everyone and not require a spell at all.

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>>51261793

Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma should be using the verb "affects." The others are using the unusual verb form of effect, (effect is usually seen in its noun form) meaning to bring something into being, but that's okay since bonus xp is created by high scores in those things.

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>>51261534
>Ability scores matter a lot less in OD&D compared to B/X.
Expanding on this:

Strength effects bonus xp for Fighting-Men and (somewhat for) Clerics
Intelligence effects bonus xp for MUs and (somewhat for) Fighting-Men and Clerics
Wisdom effects bonus xp for Clerics and (somewhat for) Fighting-Men
Constitution affects hit points and surviving transformations
Dexterity affects initiative and projectile to-hit

** And the most important stat, **
Charisma affects how many hirelings you can employ, how loyal they are, and how likely hostile NPCs are to attack/talk with you when you meet them


The idea behind Strength/Intelligence/Wisdom is that "how good you are in a fight" is entirely up to your level, but people with more talent perform better with less training (or learn more from less training)

>>51262035
>everyone's playing checkers, but i've been playing chess for years.png
Nice try, goy.

>>51262214
And if you're rolling 3d6-in-order, it's rather unlikely that you'll qualify for bonus xp. Even if you do, it's a 10% difference that does nothing at the beginning of the campaign and makes little difference at low levels in general.

>>51254453
There's Mechwarrior/Battletech, but it doesn't resemble TSR D&D

>>51261793
>>51261911
>>51262214
Dude, how many times did you need to post that?

>>51256431
FYI this an old version of the rules... there is a more current version.

>>51262256
>And if you're rolling 3d6-in-order
And if you're rolling a different method, you'd dump the xp stats for Charisma (and maybe Constitution)

>>51262256
On the contrary, you're unlikely NOT to qualify due to the rules for swapping around Prime Requisites.

I can't find the blog post, but there was an excellent one out there where someone did the math for the probabilities.

If ability scores are so unimportant, why have them at all? Skip the chargen rolling, less hassle to get a PC in play.

>>51262214
>from four to fifty players
>FIFTY
>PLAYERS
Holy
Fuck

>>51262478

Was it Delta? I bet it was Delta.

>>51262552
Yeah, I don't get the people who like ability scores being mostly pointless. Why even keep them around?
The extra time spent rolling doesn't seem worth it.

Just give players a 1 in X chance of getting +10% xp if prime requisites matter that much.

>>51262618
>fifty-one (51) notebooks because everyone needs a notebook

>>51262618
You know, I wonder how much of OD&D's oddities (from our point of view) come from player groups being much larger than commonly expected these days.

>>51262214
>recommended equipment
>outdoor survival
what

>heaviest possible sheet protectors
what

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>>51262416
Exactly enough time to be perfect.

>>51248877
My current campaign is centered around dragons, and dealing with them in every day life. Most are the size of large dogs, but there are a few large as a building, and fewer still large enough to eat planets. I run them as they never stop growing in size, so if they are allowed to grow, they will continue to eat and grow indefinitely forever.

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>>51262731
>outdoor survival

Was a big thing in OD&D, like an unofficial fourth LBB.

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>>51262772
This has more info

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>>51262214
>the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20

>>51262552
Mostly as a role guide.

>>51262772
>Was a big thing in OD&D, like an unofficial fourth LBB.
Eh, less than that. The "unofficial fourth LBB" is Chainmail since it actually has rules that are somewhat critical for running the game - all Outdoor Survival really has is a kickass map.

>>51262214
>Imagination
>Patient Referee
Do they still make these? Or should I look for used ones?

>>51262968

No, it also has detailed rules for, surprisingly enough, outdoor survival.

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On the subject of "how much should attributes matter," I'm gonna share this for an outside perspective. Classic Traveller is very different from OD&D in many ways, but still has a lot of OD&D in its veins, as that was one of the two systems Marc Miller referenced when creating it.

One of those commonalities is a strong emphasis on rulings, though it lacked much guidance on how to do them. This CT grognard reverse-engineered the original skill checks to create these guidelines on how to make a ruling for Classic Traveller that matches up with the official rules.

Interesting bits: about 25% of CT tasks make use of player's attributes, whereas most of them are affected by skills. A small chunk are also altered by other things like the tech level of something. (For example bribery, which is more likely to succeed on worlds with more draconian law levels.)
It's also rare for low stats to have any penalties associated with them. Often you'll get a bonus for having a stat of say 8 or higher, but otherwise, a 2 is just as good as a 7.

For modest D&D changes based on this, I wonder how it would play if you just shaved the penalties off D&D's low attributes? Just say "nope, these aren't a thing anymore."

>>51262676
53 notebooks, because you need 3 referees

>>51263143
Rules that are almost entirely irrelevant to D&D and, well, not what they were intending when they listed it in the supplies list.

Seriously, they went out and outright said that the only reason it was on the list was because the map was a great hex map for impromptu games.

(You'll also note how the one time it's actually referenced in Volume 3 is the time that they throw out all the ponds and change how getting lost works to a D&D version. It's not really compatible without major reworking.)

>>51261681
OD&D and now Chainmail were made available cheaply as PDFs, plus a kind soul linked to the digests on Lulu a month or so ago, so that everyone who ordered will have received theirs now. That's probably what's behind the surge of interest in it.

That and it has some nice rules and subsystems that the future iterations dropped.

>>51264564
>That and it has some nice rules and subsystems that the future iterations dropped.
examples?

>>51264604

Not him, but OD&D has extensive rules for running away from stuff, with tossing gold or food behind you to distract what's chasing you.

>>51264604
My go-to example is the rules for distracting monsters with stuff while fleeing. Other stuff includes weapon and armor being the main determinant of combat between or against regular people as outlined by Chainmail; the rules for castles and their occupants while exploring the wilderness; the various business about employing (charming, subduing, just hiring after a good reaction roll, whatever) monsters; the djinn and efreet that do shit that's actually closer to the Arabian Nights and leave out the wishes and many similar small differences.

In general, there's just a laser focus on running a specific type of game and providing procedures for stuff that might come up during that game which even Basic lacks. If you ask me, it's because of the rules having to such a great extent sprung organically out of actual play and being playtested to hell and back (allegedly the best playtested edition of any tabletop RPG, ever). Tons of this stuff is simply the product of a player's wishes running up against a gap, and that gap being filled with something reasonably fast and simple.

>>51264660
Ha, beat me to it.

>>51262673
>Why even keep them around?
You can still use them for resolution if and when you want to -- roll under is one obvious way, but I also like setting static limits that have to be overcome, e.g. "a total Strength of 20 is required to burst this door" or "any character with an Int of 15 or better can decipher the runes as ancient Garbabblian".

>>51262618
They didn't really expect all those people to play at the same time, though.
If you live in a world where there are no video games, and you're a good referee, you could probably easily run your game four nights a week and have a bunch of different people from a pool of fifty show up each night.

>>51263103
Extremely expensive on ebay, bro. You're better off trying to make your own from scratch.

>>51249871
Ignore grogfaggots who think MUH FIGHTAN MAN MUST BE REALISM.

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>>51262618
>>FIFTY
>>PLAYERS
>Holy
>Fuck
Generally not all at once. A lot of GMS in the early days were running up to a dozen parties through the same general area, with people swapping back and forth between as they were available for a session. Flailsnails is the closest modern playstyle.

>>51262676
Eh, they cost a quarter and I have something like twenty in the library in a crate anyway.

>>51262731
>>heaviest possible sheet protectors
>what
For using with dry-erase markers or (in the olden days) grease pencils, on your character sheets. Common practice in many wargames, even today.

>>51263811
Implying that a Referee only needs ONE notebook.

>>51264660
>>51264811
Holmes basic keeps the "ditch money/food to get away" suggestion/rules.

>>51265348
>Flailsnails
Can you fill me in on this? I only knew of Flail Snails as a monster

>>51264891
>>51265348
It sounds very MMOish in a way, players dropping in and out as their schedules allow.

>>51248692
Can I ask how this looked mechanically?

Or for anyone else: how would you handle this mechanically?

>>51265348
>Holmes basic keeps the "ditch money/food to get away" suggestion/rules

Yeah, but Holmes is not so much an edition of D&D as an intro set for OD&D.

>>51265665
I'd use my modified version of the DCC Mighty Deeds.

Roll normal attack for the grappling hook along with a d6.

- If the d6 is 5 or higher and the attack lands, the feat is successful (wraps wround enemy)
- If the d6 is 4 or less and the attack lands, I'd let it cut its flesh for d4 damage.
- If both fail, the whole effort fails.

Then I'd just have them roll equal or under their STR on the next turn to shove the statue.

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>>51265413
>Can you fill me in on this? I only knew of Flail Snails as a monster
Jeff Reints, the Fight On! guy, and Zak Sabbath started it, as a sort of "rolling convention". Basically it's an agreement to run a specific type of game, where anyone can show up with a character from another FLAILSNAILS game and run it, regardless of ruleset. You as the DM agree not to be shitty about the characters, and the player agrees to let you adjust their powers/items as appropriate for the adventure. Basically, be adults.

The long form of the rules is up on jrients at that one dotcom spot where there are blogs /2011/08/flailsnails-conventions.html

The tone of FS games is a bit gonzo for my usual tastes, but it's been enormous fun over the years.

>>51264660
>Not him, but OD&D has extensive rules for running away from stuff
>extensive rules
you mean a single paragraph for dungeon chasing and 1 column for wilderness chasing

>>51264811
>throw food/treasure to distract monsters
food
10% chance for smart monsters to stop pusuit
50% for semi smart
90% for dumb
cash is the opposite

meh. in an era of "rulings not rules" I don't think that such a common sense rule should be considered amazing enough for multiple people to use as their go-to example as to why OD&D is amazing.

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>>51265665
>how would you handle this mechanically?
Called shot at the standard -4 to wrap the monster. If you hit but don't get the +4, it does 1d3 damage and the Grell can try to yank the fighter off his feet with an opposed Grapple/STR check.

Combined total of (off the top of my head) 20STR to push the statue 10ft/round, or (if it was close to the edge) lever it off with a prybar/topple it. Characters that get hit/stunned by the Grell can't participate this turn.

If the party mage got clever and threw down "Grease" or "Diminish" on the statue (and then dispelled the latter) it'd be even easier.

I'd also have the Grell roll a saving throw vs. Death and if it passes, it's still alive and pissed, but confined for a while (and just took over half of its starting hit points in damage being slammed against the cliff, etc.). If it fails, one dead Grell.

>>51265665
>Or for anyone else: how would you handle this mechanically?
The way I'd run a thing like that is to just let them use a regular attack roll to snare the grell (the entangling substituting for the damage roll), then take one round to tie it to the statue, and however many rounds seemed sensible for them to lever it off the edge. Like >>51265881 I'd set a threshold STR to move the statue, but I'd rule prybars and shit as things that would grant a bonus.

I like it when players come up with this stuff, so I don't like to make it hard with called shots and such. Not saying that to criticize the other guys, just to explain why it'd be relatively easy in my game compared to theirs.

>>51265847
>I don't think that such a common sense rule should be considered amazing enough for multiple people to use as their go-to example as to why OD&D is amazing.
Who said anything about amazing? I used it as an example of a rule that is
• nice
• not in later editions
and those are both claims I feel I can defend.

In this case I first mentioned it as one example of the reasons that someone might like OD&D over B/X, not as a reason OD&D would blow someone's mind. As you say, it's pretty common-sensical, but it's nice to have if you're a newbie referee, or if that sort of thing never occurred to you.

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>>51265757
Oh, and a few more things about Flailsnails/Constantcon that are sort of customary, but not in the "conventions" per se.

There's permadeath. Or at least, you get chucked out in your "home" dimension dead unless your party gets you rezzed during the game where you die. It's kind of a dick move not to try unless your DM doesn't play with raise spells (a lot of us don't)

Most of the DMs run things as a sort of set of parallel dimensions, although (for example) Mandy Morbid and Zak both run games in different parts of their shared world.

I personally only run games in-the-flesh, but I allow players to kick back into their homeworld when they die and have a number of portals/moongates/whatever in convenient places to allow incursions from other realms. One of the more interesting ones was a shitload of Gaxen Kane Goblins suddenly breaking out in the sewers in medieval Paris after a Diabolist fucked up >really badly< and attracting a multi-dimensional cleanup crew. There are still descendants of a few of the refugees from that haunting Europe two centuries later and screwing with my current Wars of Religion groups.

It allows all manner of time and space fuckery as well, and creates a "living multiverse" with a dozen different "gods" that's way more fun than "everyone's in Greyhawk" but only one central authority that dicates everything that happens. Some of the DMs even get together and have conferences about the cool shit that's happened in their realms and tie some stuff together, while players are spreading rumors (and abject lies) wildly.

Plus, if you're playing online you can connect to your own games as a PC to sow paranoia and general lulz if you're into that. Or go off and horse around on another DM's server as an NPC/villain/whatever, which I've done for my brother several times in the past.

How does the whole domain and mercantile thing work in ACKS? Do you have to include it for a complete game? Cause I don't know if my players actually want followers and stuff, just a small HQ of their own for a base.

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>>51266000
>so I don't like to make it hard with called shots and such. Not saying that to criticize the other guys, just to explain why it'd be relatively easy in my game compared to theirs.
Oh, I grok that. I just run a fairly low-magic Lamentations game, so the Fighters usually have a surfeit of Attack Bonus. I include Called Shots and the like 1) to make the Fighters feel special and 2) to give them something to do with the bonus besides, "It's my initiative turn? Cool, I have a 75% chance of doing 1d8 damage, call me again in fifteen minutes. I'm'a go smoke".

It's not so much that I want to penalize them as to give the Fighters ways to burn their main class feature creatively (blinding enemies in a duel with a slash to the forehead carving initials in things, general swashbuckling) without having to tack on a shitload of extra rules. It also scales neatly with level, so a high-level fighter is constantly doing silly shit in combat just because he can.

I tend to slap a lot of situational shit in there if the PCs have relevant skills and ask. So I might, in the same fight, let the Specialist with Architecture get a 5foot/round bonus to moving the statue by sliding it along the smoothest part of the floor. Or give someone a bonus for dumping oil, a Charisma-based bonus to draw the Grell's attention by shouting and throwing things while the Fighter sets up, give the Grell a penalty to its saving throw if the guy with high Climb or Seamanship skill ties the ropes (since he knows knots better), etc.

It helps that I have a really devious son of a bitch in the party, and once he gets going the other players remember they can do weird fun shit too. We had one fight where the enemies (blind psychic cavemen) were ignoring one character's dog - it wasn't sapient. She's a shepherd, so I let her use whistle-signals to control the dog without alerting them. Between the dog, a rope, and some creative application of Arm of Zotz they captured several as curiosities for sale

>>51266477
dude
obviously the players aren't forced to run mercantile ventures and if you just want to build a building, obviously you're not forced to take care of random peasants or to become a lord.

come on this is common sense stuff

>>51266666
If you aren't playing ACKS™ by the book then you aren't playing ACKS™ at all

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>>51266841
no
bad anon
no more memes

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>>51266477
>Cause I don't know if my players actually want followers and stuff, just a small HQ of their own for a base.
Well, at low levels, crashing at the local inn is fine. Hell, that was basically the lifestyle of some officials and military men back in the Middle Ages - you'd move into town for a month and throw someone a few pennies to crash in the loft, or get a warrant from the local Dickhead with a Sword (tm) to go chill and eat at the public house while you did your job, then move on a few weeks or months later.

Anything larger than a safehouse apartment, you're gonna need a caretaker. It's also nice to come home to a decent meal and maybe have a place to stash your wealth, so if you buy a house you're probably looking at 3-5 employees. Not really groundbreaking shit, but still technically followers.

>>51266630
>I tend to slap a lot of situational shit in there if the PCs have relevant skills and ask. So I might, in the same fight, let the Specialist with Architecture get a 5foot/round bonus to moving the statue by sliding it along the smoothest part of the floor. Or give someone a bonus for dumping oil, a Charisma-based bonus to draw the Grell's attention by shouting and throwing things while the Fighter sets up, give the Grell a penalty to its saving throw if the guy with high Climb or Seamanship skill ties the ropes (since he knows knots better), etc.
Top good anon.

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I'm looking for a OSR game or supplement with tons and tons of charts for random encounters, room characteristics, npc motivations, etc.

What do you guys recommend?

>>51267684

Make some.

What are some weird names for a pact made over a place of wealth and power?

>>51267684

Well, there are a lot of those kind of charts floating around, and in the Trove. But if you want an RPG with them in the rulebook, you're probably looking at something crazy like Hackmaster.

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>>51268358

Are games like Merc and Recon OSR?

>>51268539

Can you run Keep on the Borderlands in 'em?

>>51268358
Not good ideas for a pact name, but a Basilica would be a good place to strike it.

>>51268358
>place of wealth and power?
Weregeld.

You (metaphorically, but also literally) make it on top of a corpse.
It's restitution for murder.

>>51268539
This is subterranean fantasy fucking Vietnam, not literal Vietnam.

Semi-related: what non-OSR but still oldschool systems have you used for classic dungeon crawl campaigns?

>>51268630
Not oldschool but I wanted to use All Flesh Must Be Eaten to run a modified Palace of The Silver Princess. I converted the first floor but never finished the rest. Partially because I was in college and had no time, partially because everyone was obsessed with Pathfinder.

>>51268539
>>51268545
>>51268630

Now I want to run Keep on the Borderlands using Recon.

I would tell the players we're playing Recon, and start by having their squad arrive at a firebase relatively close to the DMZ and Laos (think Khe Sanh). Most stuff from the keep is there, just genre-swapped (Castellan = CO, merchants = supply officers). Have them learn about a nearby cave system the VC are using as a base of operations, and send them on a patrol to locate and destroy it.

Then run them through the Caves of Chaos EXACTLY AS WRITTEN. I want them dumping M16 mags into the minotaur, tossing grenades at kobolds, and generally solving problems through application of superior firepower.

>>51269010
Fuck, now I want to play regular b/x, but the equipment tables are all replaced with modern operator stuff
>nightvision goggles instead of torches
>guns
>explosives instead of spells

What do you nerds look for in an OSR blog?

>>51269010
There was some Stargate-like setting where there was a secret blackops project dealing with what was basically a portal to an infinite megadungeon and the military expeditions sent into it. Anyone know what I'm talking about, or did I dream this up?

>>51269010
>>51269063
Sounds like you want to run GATE the RPG...

>>51269169
Not the usual anti-4E/3.pf/2E/anything-after-LBB grog rants. Those turn me off even if the material is otherwise good.

>>51269169
Shitty homebrews and generally useful tables.
Ideally, not in the same post.

>>51269193
>Sounds like you want to run GATE the RPG...
only not shit

I wanna run this but I need some reason for making the players
a) Have access to modern military equipment in exchange for gold
b) are a small group of 6-12 guys instead of being attached to a full army or some other higher power

>>51269217
>Not the usual anti-4E/3.pf/2E/anything-after-LBB grog rants

THIS
I'm fucking tired of seeing those rants. Max-level ciclerjerking

>>51269183
Project Long Stair

>>51269169
Creative content above all else.

Reviews, opinions about rules, political commentary about rpgnet fags and the like is ok as light filler, but if it's just griping I lose interest.

>>51269286
a) gold for equipment sounds legit. Also not traceable, so perfect.
b) maybe have them be a squad that's stationed way out in the middle of nowhere and is essentially forgotten about. I mean, maybe they need to report in to keep their superiors off their backs, but they're basically doing nothing. You could even have them be caught up in some weird political crisis, or guarding something specific. Or whatever.

>>51269342
>maybe have them be a squad that's stationed way out in the middle of nowhere and is essentially forgotten about.
I like this but how do they get supplies?
How about
Just every week or so a supply drone drops some stuff and they have some sort of deal with the quartermaster of the army and they sneak gold into the drone and in exchange they get extra weapons and equipment on the next supply drop

>>51269286
You should look into an RPG called Grunt. It deals with stuff like the chain of command and scrounging gear outside of it, and the NPC squad members are explicitly likened to oldschool retainers and hirelings.

>>51269217
>>51269309
>>51269230
>>51269325
Okay, good. I've done some 1d100 tables and small adventures that I posted on /tg/ and people said I should get a blog, so I went and snagged a domain and decided to start putting out either weekly or twice-weekly content. I don't think I'll ever do long, proper blogposts like the Angry GM or anything, but if people like creative content then I think I might be able to actually have some fun with it.

>>51269476
>Grunt
will take a look

>>51269502
>so I went and snagged a domain
>not even posting the URL
s h i l l
h ? r d e r
f ? g g o t

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>>51267684
Search for "The Secret Santicore". It's an OSR-themed Secret Santa where everyone gives each other D30 tables and shit based on blind requests. There are a couple of compiled volumes.
Vornheim has a fuckload of useful tables, like "I search the body" and the occupation charts. It also has a system for rapidly generating floorplans that's neat and easy to expand.

If you REALLY want to go old-school, find the Ready Ref Sheets in the OSR trove (under Judges' Guild). It's the proto-rules for the Wilderlands campaign, and has a bunch of tables for legal stuff, city encounters, and references for all the OD&D monsters and crap. It's basically an extended DM Screen/house-rule document for the JG guys back in '78-79.

The Role Aids folder is also full of lists of cool stuff. Most of that is listings and fluff, with little or no hard and fast rules (their way of getting around the AD&D trademark issue).

>>51269566
There's literally nothing there yet, you alpha-faggot.

>>51269586
Good stuff, thanks for pointing them out!

>>51259756
Our most secret black hacks...You knew?

>>51250138
When you compile it.

>>51269429
I wasn't imagining they would trade locals and arms dealers. Maybe they're stationed somewhere with a guy who does some unspecified classified work, and he'll get them anything they want for enough gold. Which could imply either that that guy found out about the cave and is using their out of sight out of mind status to become rich, or the army (or some other unspecified branch of the government) knows about the portal to the big U Underworld and specifically lost a little band of guys out there to delve its depths, but not enough guys that word would get out. Both situations I find interesting. Maybe both is the truth even. That guy is supposed to be reporting back, but instead he's off getting richer than he's reporting. Maybe in addition to him they buy some other things off of various cartels, terrorist ground, villagers, etc.

>>51269010
>>51269063
>>51269183
>>51269323
here you go;

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

>>51265178
It's the newfaggots who want realism.

>>51270233
I knew I hadn't dreamed it, thanks.

>>51269309
>I'm fucking tired of seeing those rants.
No one cares about your feelings on 4chan.

Any tables for alcoholic beverages?

>>51262618
Fifty players to take part in the campaign but not all of them at the table at the same time. Games were meant to be open table games back then. On the other hand the rules system does lend itself to running games for, say, 15 players at the table if need be. The typical number of session participants was definitely bigger back then than what is today considered normal.

All of this changed when D&D and RPGs in general became about plots and pre-written stories during AD&D 2e's craze of adventure modules. Also it's nowadays much harder to have so many players dropping in an out of your tabletop games because video games and internet exist.

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>>51270393

>>51270563
Plus that's why they had a caller.

>>51270563
>it's 2e's fault!

Nice meme, but 1e modules shrunk down the recommended group to 6-10 first.

>>51271488
>>>it's 2e's fault!
I never said that. But it really was during 2e that the concept of the DM being a narrator rather than a referee really took off.

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>>51261315
Thanks a lot anon, this seems to be it.

>This is a weapon vs armor table that is, as close as I could (rounding to as small a degree as possible) a d20 version of the Chainmail man to man combat tables.

>I'm thinking about using Chainmail/OD&D style logic for my variant wherever possible, meaning weapon vs armor would be the main factor when fighting enemies remotely like normal people. You wouldn't apply many bonuses (in OD&D Chainmail, if you get a +3 somewhere, that's against just one attack a round, etc). So its not like you'd have much in the way of modifiers other than weapon types. Fantasy combat would be its own thing for the most part.

>For familiarity's sake, its listed along with AC (so while a longsword gets +3 to hit chainmail, you still need a 12+). What I find interesting about this is that the one handed sword is honestly not that bad of a weapon -- the only penalty a sword gets is against shields. Against any enemy in chainmail or less, the longsword is as good as a mace.

>I'm likely to dig out the stats of a quarterstaff from the Strategic Review, but probably not the various bec-de-corbin-guisarme.

>Also what I find interesting is that this definitely, imo, balances the issue with most magic weapons being magic swords. Magic swords are particularly good for fantastic combat, but the bigger weapons really do pack one hell of a wallop.

Was Gygax a grognard?

>>51271599
Arguably yes. He was opposed to homebrewing, opposed to any edition of D&D he didn't write, opposed to removing demihuman level limits, opposed to settings that weren't fantastical medieval Europe, and opposed to roleplaying as anything but "you but fantastical medieval Europe".

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>>51271704

>Greyhawk is fantastic medieval europe

I dunno about that, Greyhawk is fucking weird, man. A lot of its worldbuilding assumptions are closer to the american west than anywhere that existed in medieval europe.

Also most of those other things were opinions voiced by Gygax the Company Man. Gygax the independent was significantly less stodgy.

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>>51271704
This book seems pretty keen on homebrew.

>>51271744
>the american west
Write what you know.

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>>51271771
Eh, I'm basing my views on his Q&A on dragonsfoot. I lot of times it seems to boil down to "well, the GM can do X or Y but it's WRONG, not that I'm telling how to run your game or anything"

>>51271744
I dunno mane, he REALLY likes dem polearms.

>>51271860
Geez, the guy who made the game is telling me how to run the game. What's up with that bullshit?

>>51271905
>the guy who co-created the game that he now hates and shills against is telling me how to run the game that he ruined

ftfy

Anyone done home prints of PDF's before?
I've whipped up a cheap little cover for my b/x home job, and it's turned out pretty alright. Got me inspired to do more.

>>51272459
>>51272570
Relevant to AD&D 2e: How can you declare a system non-OSR when (most of) the non-OSR elements are found in the modules? Does the existence of DL1-14, I6, and I10 somehow reduce the OSR-ness of AD&D?

It's not like /osrg/ doesn't trot out a similar argument whenever somebody shits on LotFP as being edge central.

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>>51271860
>tfw executing prisoners is lawful good, especially if you can make them into good people before you kill them

>>51272580
The core AD&D 2e without supplements is old school, but when you add supplements and implement the gameplay focus on plot adventuring from the various modules, it definitely stops being old school right there.

>>51272658
Though I have to admit that even the core books of 2e have newschool advice and other tidbits in them that really don't belong in old school games.

>>51271941
>he now hates and shills against
why?

>>51271744

Article on this:
http://blogofholding.com/?p=7182

>>51272658
We've discussed this many times before and I don't care to repeat it at length, but the XP rules are fucked enough on their own to put the 2E core books into question.

Not to mention, as >>51272666 says, that the DM-ing advice is straight outta newschool.

>>51272933
>the XP rules are fucked enough on their own to put the 2E core books into question.
They're exactly the same as 1e if you use one of the optional XP sources and not the other.

>>51272765

While original dnd may not be very medieval, I make mine so and enjoy the sort of nobility power struggles and wealth distribution.

Naturally I instead make the free fort or tower at level 10 a gift from the emperor to what are, in his eyes, soon to become rivals. Giving the adventurers land and problems to deal with is a good way of keeping them from going after him when the adventurers feel they've become big fish.

>>51266137
>>51265757
Fuck, man, that sounds like a blast. I'd want to get into this immediately but I'm more used to playing in the flesh. Reminds me of how we used to play back in high school with imported characters and all that.

>>51271557
>I never said that

>when D&D and RPGs in general became about plots and pre-written stories during AD&D 2e's craze of adventure modules.

The "I never said that" defense only works when you don't actually say it, you know.

I was checking ACKS rules for hiring NPC spellcasters to cast spells for you, and they seem way too cheap.
Restore Life and Limb (the revive spell), is a level 5 divine spell, and it only costs 500gp (base price, double for characters from another religion). It seems like the game intends for the PCs to be able to revive people somewhat cheaply.

Is this normal for an OSR game?

Remember that a 6 person level 2 party will have collected on average ten thousand gold pieces worth of loot.

>>51275407
>Is this normal for an OSR game?
I wouldn't say so. I have some sort of idea that the typical cost is five *thousand* gp, but I'll be damned if I can find any source on it at all, so I may just have made that up so long ago that it's fused with the real rules in my brain, like how reading the real initiative rules is always a surprise.

>>51275724
Yup same here in my brain it should be five thousand but i have no idea where this price comes from

>>51272762
Because Gary Gygax's Lejendary Adventure™ is a better game that is also thriving and alive.

>>51275835
Have you actually even skimmed through LA, anon?

>>51269286
I was working on a hack of Song of Swords to be set in what amounts to 80's africa, if the default fantasy setting had advanced to that timeframe. So just have the setting move to the tech level you want and have the PC's be hired muscle given very vague instructions (I heard there was valuable shit in that cave network, go loot it for me). Also, if you run this, I'm down as fuck to play.

>>51275870
I merely repeat the wisdom of Gygax.
I looked through the quick-start and it looked pretty shit.

>>51275870
He's being sarcastic. He's also over a decade behind the times.

Those *are* Gygax's attitudes Anon's repeating, from back when he was selling LA, but when the OSR phenomenon first appeared he embraced it enthusiastically, as the copious FAQs on Dragonsfoot and elsewhere and the various Castle Zagyg/Yggsburgh products demonstrate.

I mean, if you want to say he only did that because the Dragonsfoot guys were saying he had been right about everything all along, fine, but for my part I won't pretend I wouldn't behave the same. I'm almost certain I would.

>>51275870
Yes, once.
There's 3 attributes, it's skilled based and classes, you spend stamina to take actions, ad the terminology is all screwy.
And I think the combat rules might have been shit?

What's the suspected amount of gold for players to earn in their first dungeon?

>>51272580

well, for one thing, you're talking to different people.

>>51276359
I'd say about enough to get most of them to level 2. Maybe stock enough to let the demihumans level only if the dungeon is thoroughly searched and looted?

>>51275724
>>51275774
IIRC, 3e requires a 5,000 GP diamond as a material component. Could be where it's popping up.

>>51276454
That's probably where I learned it from.

>>51276359
>>51276440
How many sessions do your players need to get through their first dungeon? I just ran my first OSR session and I'm not sure how much treasure/xp to give them either. They were able to extract a small chest, but I kept the value of its contents purposely vague.

>>51276509
We haven't run our campaign yet, which is why I'm asking. I don't know if it's in bad form to level them up on the first dungeon, though like >>51276440 is suggesting.

>>51276509
there are guidelines (guidelines, not rules) on dungeon creation on basically every OSR game.
Whichever OSR game you're using should have the instructions on the DM section, usually called secrets, or something.

>>51276553

That's contingent on them getting everything. Odds are they won't get it all.

I'm going to introduce some players to OSR by running them through Keep on the Borderlands.

What are some suggestions to modify the module to make it not as retarded as it looks on paper?

>>51277075
How is it retarded?

>>51276454
Aw, fuck. I bet that's it.

Goddammit, 3E. I thought I'd gotten rid of the last of your viruses.

>>51276509
Depends on your preference and the group. I like small dungeons that can be finished in 1-2 sessions for new groups, about 10-15 rooms. I like whatever for my experienced players.

>>51276553
>I don't know if it's in bad form to level them up on the first dungeon

It isn't.

>>51276359
>>51276509
>>51276553
The short, annyoing answer is it's really all up to you. It depends 100% on what kind of progression speed you want.

A longer answer might be this: it also depends heavily on the size of the dungeon. The rule of thumb for a *megadungeon* often repeated here in /osrg/ is that each level should contain 3-4 times the treasure needed to level up a party of 4 or 5 PCs (or more, if your typical party is bigger) to the next higher character level (e.g. on level 2, the treasure is calibrated for level 2 characters to reach level 3, and so on). However, that presumes the one dungeon is big enough that it could be the entire game, and the idea is for players not to have to scour every square inch of one level to become prepared for the next.

If you have a smaller dungeon of 10-15 rooms or such, it's still totally reasonable to put enough treasure in so that the (or some) characters can level up, especially if you want to book it past the vulnerable level 1 -- but on the other hand you could also decide that that's about 10% of the size of a megadungeon level, so you put in about 10% of the loot of one.

Or another alternative would be to not really adapt the challenges the PCs face to their levels, the same way the wilderness works -- dot low and high level dungeons with corresponding loot over the landscape, and let the PCs figure out how to get past the horrible monsters to the amazing loot on level 1 if they can.

>>51277217
I've only skimmed it, but...

The Caves of Chaos are (mostly) a bunch of separate, linear dungeons of a few effectively featureless stone rooms, all in pretty much the exact same layout.

And the Caves collectively don't make much sense together. It's just a bunch of homogenous, super evil humanoid tribes sitting around in close proximity doing nothing.

So the two major problems with it that pop out to me are:

1.) There's nothing interesting going on. There's no sensible conflict here. The module claims the different tribes don't like each other, but that doesn't seem to have stopped them from peacefully sharing their little mediaeval ghetto so far. It's a setup that defies suspension of disbelief.

2.) The "set dressing" (locations, enemies, and treasures) isn't interesting. The enemies are just generic humanoids that are capital "e" Evil. They hang around in generic caves with only a single path through them that offer no interesting avenues of approach for the PCs. And they're loaded up with generic +1 magic items and other shit that will make the players' eyes glaze over when you try to pass it off as treasure.

It seems like the DM needs to do a lot of work breathing life into this module for it to be something other than "baby's first D&D game." But it's still pretty popular despite that, so I was curious what other people would do to spice it up.

>>51277577
>The module claims the different tribes don't like each other, but that doesn't seem to have stopped them from peacefully sharing their little mediaeval ghetto so far

They're held together by fear and awe of the chaos cultists, but it's still a powderkeg having them all in close proximity to each other. This means players can work to stir up the tensions between the various humanoids and try to get them to kill each other off, or help the PCs kill their rivals.

>>51277577
>"baby's first D&D game."
That's literally what it's supposed to be.

File: 1465239404245.jpg (41KB, 720x341px) Image search: [Google]

41KB, 720x341px

I'm bringing up something from earlier in the thread, but has anyone here actually used the original man-vs-man rules when playing OD&D or the likes? If so, how did it fare?

>>51277075
My suggestion is using Tomb of the Iron God or Grimmsgate which is a KotB homage and it's okay although still far from good for me.

>>51277627
shame that people think intro-level means sterile and boring

>>51277577
>sensible conflict
The conflict is there, if you don't believe it should exist that's your problem. Dungeons don't have to be realistic or "sensible" to provide a fun game. What's next? Gonna complain that there's no way for monster A to get food because of X reason?

>generic humanoids
You want exotic gonzo 3 headed aliens on a first-timers dungeon crawl?

>>51277577
>The "set dressing" (locations, enemies, and treasures) isn't interesting.
If you don't think the dungeon is interesting, don't run it?

>generic +1 magic items
you realize that is how magic items were, and still are in D&D, right?

>>51278115
>>51278141
Hey man, he asked why it was bad, so I told him.

I only came here 'cause I was curious what other people would recommend / had done themselves to improve the module, since it's so highly regarded.

>>51278215
your reasons don't hold up to scrutiny tho. To me you sound like a hipster who came here just to shit on a popular module.

LotFP would have managed the feel it was going for better if it was based on OD&D rather than B/X

>>51278228
"Nuh-uh hipster" isn't scrutiny. Keep on the Borderlands is one of those modules whose quality has been seriously blown out of proportion due to it being so many people's first encounter with D&D or RPGs. It's like the Oldenhaller Contract adventure for WFRP 1E - grogs rave about it but in the end it's an extremely linear adventure (complete with a literal rail road at one point) and, while having some notable factions and set pieces, isn't worth that much praise.

>>51278280
>scrutiny
The posts that quoted your post already did explain why your reasons are bullshit.

See
>>51278115
>>51278141
>>51277612