/osrg/ OSR General - Cosmic Beings Edition

>>52093079
>Do all clerics follow a benevolent power?
Anti-clerics exist, sooooo...

File: Fedora Wizard.png (113KB, 442x423px) Image search: [Google]

113KB, 442x423px

>Do all clerics follow a benevolent power?

No. I don't use clerics. Divine magic is a lie, I'd rather be enlightened by arcane wizardry.

I think it's a lot better when Clerics worship a bunch of different, seemingly at odds gods but ALL of them have magic powers. Really makes the world feel more complicated and alive that way.

File: The Lonely Coast.pdf (3MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 1x1px

It's a setting originally written for PF, but The Lonely Coast seems perfect for a LotFP campaign.

File: iraiddungeonsfortreasure game.pdf (70KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

70KB, 1x1px

I worked on this fun little 'kill puppies for satan' hack to make it a bit like an OSR.

I hope people think it's interesting.

File: 05f1162677.jpg (196KB, 573x428px) Image search: [Google]

196KB, 573x428px

>>52093120
Are anti-clerics clerics?

>>52093079
>Do all clerics follow a benevolent power?
Depends on setting, but considering all clerics hate undeads (and demons) by the TU feature, they can heal and all clerics are humans, the kind of deity clerics worship is pretty restricted.

>>52093480
To oppose cleric you must think like cleric.

Does anyone have Labyrinth Lord Advanced Companion with art? The one(s) in the trove are the free version.

Also, is there a version of LL that combines the basic game with the Advanced stuff? I hate having lots of monsters and spells in different books.

>>52093129
Sounds interesting, elaborate pls.

From somewhere:
>I really have noticed the players reacting to the lower monster xp totals in Classic [compared to Advanced] by trying to avoid fights more.

So, what if you remove XP for monsters?

-rewards only the 'correct' play style
-less bookeeping
-dead monsters still carry individual treasure = XP

>>52093801
>Sounds interesting, elaborate pls.

The goblins worship a slug god who they believe 'creates' all souls and simply 'loans' mortal beings their bodies for a short time before being devoured. They sacrifice their most attractive maidens AND young men to it in an attempt to appease it, because they are so scared of it. The goblins clerics have blackened lips from sucking the acidic juices of the slug gods incarnations.

Humans from Talmora worship Old Gloria, an old spindle woman who waves the tapestry of the world on her wheel. No other Gods exist, it is merely Old Gloria, a simple grandmother to all creation.

The men from the isle of Nald worship not Gods but the movement of plasm in the universe, who they track with star charts and consult every single day. These astrologer-priests view the heavens as divine, a 'step above' the mundane and dirty earth, and they aspire to one day ascend to it. With great effort and sacrifice, some of their number manage to transform themselves into pure energy and ascend, leaving behind the wheel of cosmic reincarnation and becoming nothing more then light blossoming through the eternal universe.

All of these clerics have clerical powers. How can all of these Gods exist as written if they contradict each other? That's part of the fun.

>>52093202
Not into lotfp but this is nice. More like this?
I need stuff with wolves and towers in ruins and borderlands stuff and flawless info delivery, for what I've read so far.

>reading MC10
>"this is a typical D&D encounter"
>9 lines of read-aloud
>"this is a Ravenloft encounter"
>34 lines of read-aloud

Man, I like 2E and Ravenloft but a lot of these writers have no sense of brevity.

>>52093928
DCC sorta does that.
Instead of getting xp-per monster you get 1-4xp for the encounter based on how hard it was for your party. eg. you learn more through hardship.

I don't think it makes players avoid fights though. Probably pushes them to fight tougher stuff. You could conceivably award the full 4xp for avoiding a fight, since that can often be a difficult thing to do. Certainly takes more creativity than drawing your sword, as it were.

>>52094180
writers get paid by the word, yo.

>Frost Warrior
>LVL 2d4+4, DC -2, Speed 6
>Abilities: Armor, Attack (Cut), Bind (vs Con), Flurry
>8 foot tall, appalling armed & armored frozen warriors radiating chill. Their Bind and Flurry abilities go together: when they attack, everyone within melee range has to roll to resist the joint-freezing cold about them.
>Weakness: Saltmelt

Damn Vincent Baker, you do good dee n dee

Does anyone think Darkest Dungeon's stress mechanic would work in D&D?

I've never liked how sanity mechanics have worked in ttrpg's. Taking away control of a character or forcing the player to role-play insanity tends to be awkward/forced at best. But I do like how most of Darkest Dungeon's afflictions and quirks translates to certain courses of action that a character might or will take.

For example, the 'Selfish' affliction. A selfish character has a chance of doing one of the following each round:
Deal stress damage to the rest of the party.
Move to the front of the formation to hog glory.
Move to the back, for self preservation.
Use a random ability (without player input).
Add stress to the party when they succeed (bragging).
Add stress to the party when exploring by making selfish remarks.
Pass their turn in combat, commenting that they've done their fair share of the work or need to rest.
Add stress to the party by insulting another member when they miss/fail.
Steal loot.
Refuse to use their healing skills on other party members.

Think something like this could work, or does it tread too close to removing player agency?
Most of these afflictions can be removed by lowering stress or extended rest at a tavern/church.

>>52094719
If you wrote this up mechanically I would splooge over it. I tried to implement this once in my lovecraftian homebrew game but I gave up. I'd gladly graft a system-neutral or D&D-specific system like that onto something I'm playing.

>>52094006
Is the implication that Clerics are Magic-Users with *even less* understanding of what they're dealing with?

>>52092043
The 'flavour' and 'soul' is all in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
The Player's Handbook is tolerable, but not a good book.

>>52092745
>It's pretty cool to see the roots of it, now I just need to check out OD&D
>even though I'm sure it's even more simple and rudimentary.
LBB is about as complex as B/X, though the "core" rules are a bit simpler.
OD&D proper is almost exactly as complex as AD&D. Worse organization, too.

>>52093129
If you want really unique clerics, Hackmaster 5th edition has about 40 or so faiths, and each priest is essentially it's own unique class, with it's own spell lists, powers, abilities, hitdice, skills, and rituals and sacrifices that they follow.

They also include information about each religion and how they feel about everyone else or how well accepted they are in certain places.

So what OSR uses armor as damage reduction?

>>52091532
>Now that we are at it, what's the best way to give it a try? OSRIC is too big for me (400+ pages...) and my players aren't even used to B/X btb.
Showed up too late to answer this in the last thread but I just wanted to tell you and anybody else who's curious that OSRIC is literally the worst way to try AD&D. Hell, it wasn't even meant to be *read*.

anyone know what happened to EncounterAnon?

>>52096681
The Black Hack

>>52093928
>the lower monster xp totals in Classic [compared to Advanced]
They're pretty much the same up to 9+ to 10+ HD. It's only after that that the AD&D ones ramp up significantly (because the XP curves start to diverge about there).

File: 1471278524163.jpg (455KB, 1300x990px) Image search: [Google]

455KB, 1300x990px

>>52093079
Can someone recommend me some good supplements to enhance my combat? Believe it or not but I found the Player's Option: Combat and Tactics book to be quiet useful and would like to beef up my combat some more.

Also on that exact note, are there any OSR systems that tackle initiative differently? How does it work in ACKS?

>>52096828
Accurate and underrated.

>>52096828
I haven't taken a close look at OSRIC, but I thought one of the points of it was that it was reorganized from 1st ed AD&D precisely so it could be better read.

File: 1303891239718.png (2MB, 3508x2480px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 3508x2480px

>>52086058
>>52088794

Thanks guys. The reason I didn't do "generic" tables is that it rapidly became boring.

>black meat, green meat, jelly meat, ghost meat

Are cool idea, but their generic nature tends to make them... flat. Or completely gonzo.

If you eat a Beholder, you should have some intuitive ideas of the kinds of possible results. Madness and eye lasers immediately spring to mind.

But on the generic red meat table... the results wouldn't be specific. They' just be "bad effect" "death" " good effect". There'd be no specificity. Meat from a purple worm and an aboleth should do different things, ideally.

Plus, it's super easy to write these tables on the fly for most monsters, once you've done a few.

File: Spook_by_xadhoom.jpg (56KB, 800x640px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 800x640px

>>52094180
>Reading Deep Carbon Observatory
>"this is a typical encounter"
>Unsure when encounter ended, or began
>Unsure about everything
>Stare at hands for twenty minutes
>Reread page

>>52094719
>>52094748
Write it, anon.

How the hell is combat even a thing under most OSR rules? Yeah yeah, combat shouldn't be your first choice, be creative and all that, but seriously. Even shitty koboldsgoblins are AC 7 (13), so that even a fighter needs a 12 to hit one of them, and there's always so many more than one. I get that you need to work up to later threats, but how do you even survive to get past the first one? Was every starting party expected to ninja and Home Alone their way through 40d10 goblins?

>>52098037
>Was every starting party expected to ninja and Home Alone their way through 40d10 goblins?
pretty much, in the early days Combat was meant to be a failure state no matter what(which kinda makes having Fighter be a class rather counter-intuitive), I'll admit that's one of the major OSR conceits I absolutely despise

File: 1467942088896.jpg (1MB, 1152x1753px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1152x1753px

>>52098037
>>52098096
It's not so much that fights are a failure state. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight. But if there's any other way to win, do that.

Morale rolls are also a thing. If you casually explode six goblins out of forty, the remaining thirty-four goblins are going to take a moment and consider their options. There aren't many sentient creatures that fight to the death.

Why /should/ one guy with a sword be able to fight 40 goblins at once and win? Where is it written that it's mandatory for that to occur? If a giant rock falls from the ceiling, nobody complains when you get squished flat. People are squishy. That makes sense. Well, people are stabable too.

>>52098144
I dont expect people to be able to fight 40 goblins at all; that's my entire point (also, 40? someone rolled 40 1s and should be playing the slots instead of D&D). There's no way you're exploding 6 goblins at first level. Hell, even the supposed fighter is going to have their hands full with *one* goblin. But the books say 40D10, and you get XP for defeating monsters, so there was obviously some intention that you were going to see combat. I don't expect all 40-400 in a single room, but still, you're going to be outnumbered unless you waging a ten-session guerilla war campaign against one encounter.

Basically what I'm saying is that I literally don't understand how you have any combats at all unless you start ignoring the numbers encountered and things like that. There's a big difference between "failure state" and "utterly impossible except under the most cherry-picked examples".

I'm new to this, so I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm missing something here; that's why I'm asking about it. I keep hearing about how much OSR is free-wheeling and whatnot, so maybe there's a non-rules element I'm missing, but overall I just don't get it. Roleplaying/making up a story so that you don't have to ever fight until you actually can handle it seems to be the antithesis of what people are always talking about in terms of OSR gameplay.

Can someone give a description of a typical 1st-level battle, or point to a link that has one?

>>52098301
First-level battles tend to be more along the lines of 1d6 goblins than 40d10. 40d10's more of a wilderness encounter, the same with 30d10 barbarians and shit like that.

Actually, to pull directly from the 2e Monstrous Compendium:
Goblin: Number Appearing: 4d6
Number Appearing indicates an average encounter size for a wilderness encounter. The DM should alter this to fit the circumstances as the need arises. This should not be used for dungeon encounters.

The wilderness is a dangerous place, Level 1 bunnies should stay in the dungeon.

>>52098503
So you're saying the 4,000 kobolds thing is a wilderness encounter issue? That makes a lot more sense than dungeon horde out of nowhere. Thanks!

>>52098532
Yeah, the 30d10 barbarians thing is a horde appearing on the horizon, not 300 burly dudes hiding around the corner in a 10' wide corridor.

Applying the encounter distance rules is really helpful, especially in wilderness encounters.

File: ariel-perez-mk.jpg (301KB, 1368x1493px) Image search: [Google]

301KB, 1368x1493px

>>52098532
Yeah.

"What's over yonder hill?"
[GM rolls. Looks concerned. Rolls some more]
"Uh... 4,000 kobolds. And a dragon."
"Oh fuck that, we're going the other way."

Also, don't... don't worry about the rules so much. They're just guidelines. Nobody's ever run a game with all the rules. Do what makes sense, not what the book says.

>>52098605
>Do what makes sense, not what the book says.
This should be taken with a grain of salt. While GM fiat is acceptable, players are expecting a set of rules that are logical and follow reason. If you wing it too much or too hard, you risk breaking your PCs' immersion as they begin to question the rules by which their characters live and die.

>>52098144
>If fighting is sure to result in victory then you must fight
Sun-Tzu said that! And I think he knows a little more about fighting than you do pal because he invented it! And then he perfected it so that no living man could best him in the ring of honour!

People also tend to forget about the reaction rules. Somebody with huge Charisma and lucky dice can just walk through a dungeon level going 'Hey Iqbiq, hey Grog, hey Sslanathrax'.

File: 1269318146675.jpg (616KB, 821x1300px) Image search: [Google]

616KB, 821x1300px

>>52098631
>you risk breaking your PCs' immersion as they begin to question the rules by which their characters live and die.

This is very true, but in my experience, the opposite applies. The rules as written break player expectations more often than GM trickery. "Oh, no, sorry, you can't charge that guy, he's 2' out of range." "Oh, sorry, the rules say that Platinum Orcs can't be bargained with, even though your argument was compelling", "sorry, mirrors do not in fact reflect Beholder eye-beams. They do reflect Basilisk eye-beams though."

This is especially important for world and dungeon plans. If the rules say "this 10' by 10' room contains 215 kobolds, 16 kobold sorcerors, and a random potion" you've got to ask yourself... why?

>>52097662
>I thought one of the points of it was that it was reorganized from 1st ed AD&D precisely so it could be better read.
Naw, it was literally only created as a fig-leaf so people could write new AD&D modules using the OGL, and then sell them to grogs who had never stopped playing AD&D. It came as a shock to the creators when people asked for print copies.

>>52098631

>"Sorry anon, there aren't any rules for moving an opponent through inertia, so tackling that guy off the balcony isn't going to happen. You can try to move him with a bull rush, but since there's a handrail, he isn't going to fall off."

This is exactly why there is a difference between fiat and arbitration. I grant you it is occasionally a very fine distinction, but I'd rather allow a player to flying tackle an enemy off of a balcony than slavishly follow the rules as written.

>>52098998
>there aren't any rules for moving an opponent through inertia, so tackling that guy off the balcony isn't going to happen.
You may have chosen a poor example, because you can just use the rules for knocking people off bridges and ledges from the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.

>>52098037
>>52098532
Just to make sure this is super clear here: yes, the "No. appearing" line in a monster description is meant for wilderness encounters only, and wilderness encounters are meant in turn for higher-level characters.

In dungeons, you should use your own artistic temperament to place the monsters, and if you want a rule of thumb or guideline for monster numbers, look at the random encounter table for a given level. In your case, level 1, this will typically be like "1d6 goblins" (and the group may well be a dozen strong, counting henchmen and bearers and shit).

>>52099045

My example was a dig against 3.x, actually. But just because there's a rule for any given example buried in some non-essential book doesn't mean that it's a good rule. Or that it's a good idea to have a rule to cover every occasion.

That way lies madness.

I could have easily said "flying tackle an enemy through a window" instead, if you would prefer that.

Is there any place for a luck stat or fate point mechanic in OSR? Obviously it would invalidate the low level life-or-death struggle unless properly balanced, but if you or your players are those fags that enjoy long campaigns but also like simplicity and have too much pride to play White Wolf games it could work.

I personally think having an OSR-style Dark Heresy/WFRP would be amazing but I have no faith in my skills as a designer.

>>52099205
>Is there any place for a luck stat or fate point mechanic in OSR?
Yes, DCC has a Luck stat and it seems to interact well with Thieves.

>I personally think having an OSR-style Dark Heresy/WFRP would be amazing but I have no faith in my skills as a designer.
WHFRP 1E works great as an OSR-style dungeoncrawler out of the box. You never get above the equivalent of say level 5, though, which might be good or bad depending on your perspective.

File: Black Streams - Solo Heroes (Scarlet Heroes Rules).pdf (808KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

808KB, 1x1px

>>52099205

Not as such that I know, but the attached might suit your fancy.

You can also steal luck stats or fate/hero points from other systems, if you like.

>>52099205
>Is there any place for a luck stat or fate point mechanic in OSR?

Check out Red Sonja Unconquered.

>>52097046
I think the best way to enhance combat isn't through adding additional options and rules from the mechanics side. I think it's to create more interesting and fleshed out environments for combat to take place in.

That means, add things to the place. I have a fight for a first level party inside a tomb, and one of the room has goblins in it. So the goblins knew they were coming, so they heated up some pig fat in pot and spilled it out covering an area like a grease spell. They set up some wooden furniture to give themselves cover, they took advantage of a large deep bronze brazier to cast dim light into the room so they could see well, but all the humans would have an attack penalty, and so forth.

In the next room, that room has stone columns, and the goblins will have knocked down a column to create rubble and cover to give them more time to pelt away at the players with slings and crossbows. It's all about taking advantage of what could reasonably be expected to be in such a place, and maxing it out.

I'm relatively new to this group, but enjoying it. What's the general feeling around posting bits of your own OSR here for review?

>>52093928
I'm actually considering it and awarding XP only for spending GP on anything that's not supplies, hireling pay, or living expenses. Stuff like carousing, bankrolling a town festival, commissioning art pieces, or even starting a business would all be valid for gaining experience.
In my mind, I feel it would open up the door for more playstyles, at least in my solo games. At the very least, the player who wants to own and run a tavern will be able to do it and get money to supplement their experience gain while recovering between adventures.

>>52098727
>this 10' by 10' room contains 215 kobolds, 16 kobold sorcerors, and a random potion" you've got to ask yourself... why?

Because kobold orgies with a potion of levitation and lsd is how kobolds like to get down.

>>52099859
A lot of people their ideas and clones here, the worst thing that can happen is the clone be ignored. But I'm sure someone will reply.

File: Simulacrum - The Cloning.pdf (191KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

191KB, 1x1px

>>52100148
All right, here we go. It's just the character creation stuff, since that's the heart of it.

I wrote up an equal amount of designer's notes to go with this, since we all seem to be tinkerers and I know I appreciate that sort of thing, but I think I'll leave it off for not. But here's the essence:

B/X Heretic Summation: Ascending ACs, 3rd ed saves, higher bonuses.

PRIMARY AIM: To better capture the feel of the
classics of heroic fantasy within the framework of ruleslight adventuring.
BROADER GOALS: Streamlining of nnecessarily complex rules; creating a more flexible character creation process; adding useful combat complexity without meaningfully increasing combat time or creating analysis paralysis; keeping the ruleset relatively setting neutral; actual attention to layout / readability / usability.

Heroic is the key: bonuses are purposely higher (although even with all this, a 1st level warrior totally maxed out only hits a goblin 70% of the time). I just didn't want a million special abilities and counters and at wills and such to go with it.

All armour is just light, heavy, and medium (+2 AC for a shield).

All weapons are broken into small (1d4, only backstabable weapons), regular (1d6), and large (2d6, two-handed) weapons.

Cleric and mage spells all together and split between seven levels.

Thanks for any feedback.

File: Pathfinder Kobolds - Magical Realm.jpg (350KB, 600x779px) Image search: [Google]

350KB, 600x779px

>>52100029
See, now /that/'s interesting.

>>52098037
Varies by edition, but
>>52099139
LBB/OD&D recommends 1 wandering monster per player (rounded to the nearest 3) for successful wandering monster checks.

>>52100014
>on anything that's not supplies, hireling pay, or living expenses
I give ½xp for expenses. Reminds people to recruit monster hirelings when they're overburdened at the bottom off the dungeon.

File: Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands.pdf (5MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

5MB, 1x1px

>>52094149
Raging Swan makes the best OSR stuff that isn't actually OSR.

File: city of tomorrow sm.jpg (302KB, 500x640px) Image search: [Google]

302KB, 500x640px

Anyone have any more recent DCC modules, like the Lankhmar stuff, or anything not in the Trove?

File: diffrences between DND and ADND.png (233KB, 338x316px) Image search: [Google]

233KB, 338x316px

Does this seem like an accurate assessment to you? Source is the Hollow World DM's Guide

>>52101415

It's not wrong. Magic missile in the RC uses d6s, and isn't capped at 5 dice of damage. It just keeps going until level cap.

There's some important differences though, namely ability scores, since the AD&D ones are needlessly complicated and are one of the worst changes to the game.

File: Summon Outsider.jpg (281KB, 900x703px) Image search: [Google]

281KB, 900x703px

>>52101415
I mean, it's not wrong, but it's also not... that important, overall.

>>52093079
>Do all clerics follow a benevolent power?
>benevolent
>power
Pick one.

File: one page adventure island of the lizard god.jpg (382KB, 1052x744px) Image search: [Google]

382KB, 1052x744px

How many of you use some one-page adventures like pic related for your games? I am thinking of using some of these to supplement my LotFP game between modules.

>>52102712
I usually write up my adventures for my current game in a similar format, though nowhere near as pretty and using a lot of shorthand and stuff. It's nice to be able to glance at one a4 piece of paper that has a whole floor of the dungeon on it,

Has anyone run/played Council of Wyrms?
Looks far-out, in a good way.

File: The Tomb of Oddli Stone-Squarer by Roger Carbol.pdf (293KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

293KB, 1x1px

>>52102712
Attached is about the amount of info I like from one sheet adventures.

>>52097914
You'd obviously gain abilities related to the creature, but you'd roll on it's meat table. The meat table is also generic and says something like:
-gain monster's primary trait (stone gaze for a medus)
-gain its primary defense (either AC or a secondary ability)
-gain its speed
etc

Different kinds of meat are simply balanced tables; Blue meat is usually magical critters, so results are more gonzo and hit/miss. Green meat is usually goblinoids so you tendo to gain strength/languages/infravision. Etc.

Your method: you have to 'stat' every monster, come up with creative stuff for each table, and making sure it's not game-breaking. DM has to lookup a index of monsters and then its table.

My method: you have to come up with a way to classify every monster, then write a few tables that are easy to adjudicate on the spot. DM has to roll a few dice and make sense of it based on the context (easier to do on the fly imo).

>>52102712
Dude I fucking love this. The art is fantastic and I'm liking what I'm reading

Not sure if this is the place to ask, but:

Did anyone ever try to use the initiative/movement/range rules of Crossfire with a D&Dish game?

Crossfire is a wargame where you can hold initiative as long as you don't fail a roll; you can keep doing shit more or less forever if you plan carefully. Enemies can react (once), an dif they succeed attacking you they take the initiative.
You can move as much as you want, as long as it's a straight line, and inside one 'terrain type' (game board is heavy populated with tons of different terraint types, think a camo pattern).

For some reason I think this would play very nicely inside a dungeon, once you adapt timed resources like torches and such.

>You dash across the corridor. There's a trap but you succeed a roll and keep moving down the corridor. There's an open door here! Goblins are inside! They have spotted you!
>Goblins react and try to stop you. They hit! You lose initiative; some goblins form a defensive line while others spread around with bows.
>The archer hits!
>The other archer hits!
>The goblin shaman begins to cast a spell.
>The archer missed! The shaman is still casting, and you have the initiative. What do?

How does this sound?

I think I tried this long ago, but never tested it, I think I have a draft in pdf somewhere...

>>52104054
>You can move as much as you want, as long as it's a straight line, and inside one 'terrain type'
So how do you leave a terrain type?

>>52104138
The rules I posted are suuuper simplified and maybe poorly explained, but-
In your next movement. You usually end your move by entering a different terrain, like dashing across a grass field and entering a forest. Crossing an obstacle like a fence takes a move by itself.

This is just to break up movement so enemies can react to you. If you are pinned right after you jump that fence and want to retreat, you're done for.

In my example, the first move would end up by entering/triggering the trap, the second by a successful enemy reaction.

File: DD-Stress.pdf (90KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

90KB, 1x1px

>>52094719
>>52094748
>>52097969
K.
Pic is my attempt at adapting Darkest Dungeon's stress and afflictions to something b/x compatible.

Feel free to punch it up.

>>52104986
aand I just noticed I forgot to number the virtues/afflictions. Whatever.

I tried to strike a balance between afflictions doing something but not taking too much control away from the player. Hence the saving throw.

>>52102712
I love these one pagers and I use the One Page Dungeon Contest all the time. Sometimes they're better than published modules.

>>52105191
Really? Which ones?

I´d love to see a curated list of one-pagers, because there´s just soo many of them they look all the same... And I mean selected both because of the content and the layout, because I feel like half of them weren´t tested or even designed for actual play.

>>52094719
>>52104986
Personally I think that the DD stress system only works because you aren't playing a character in that game, you're playing the town and the full party. With D&D, there should already be a lot of stress coming from the players reacting to the gameplay, so a stress system to simulate that isn't needed.
I'm a bit concerned that this stress system leads to player agency being removed and a frustrating death spiral being created. I think you should keep that in mind as you keep developing your system.

>>52105363
>player agency being removed and a frustrating death spiral
Sounds like the Cavalier.

>>52105363
that was exactly my concern when I first thought of it.
I honestly was only driven to write it from the replies requesting it be done.

But I'm curious if anyone here could workshop it to be less of an agency thief but not require good roleplay. Not everyone can do it, and even fewer can do it without being annoying to everyone else at the table.

>>52105460
I do alignment like that. I don't ask my player for good RP, but I punish them if they act "out of character". Yes, also when the chaotic muderhobo pets kittens.
In B/X you have mechanics for stress already: -1 to all (d20) rolls, cummulative. It's usually applied to all the party at once.

What else do you need? (I'm not familiar with DD or its mechanics)

File: pit-trap.png (74KB, 553x394px) Image search: [Google]

74KB, 553x394px

How do you explain untriggered traps in a dungeon that's seen previous adventuring parties?

>>52105557
>previous adventuring parties managed to avoid the trap or went a different route

>monsters or people in the dungeon reset the trap

>traps reset on a magical timer

>operable thing in the dungeon magically resets traps

>dungeon-time is convoluted, previous adventuring parties are actually from the future

>>52096828
Thanks anon. What would be the best AD&D retroclone, then?

Somebody in the last thread suggested Labyrinth Lord Advanced - I've read a bit and I like it so far, but I read somewhere
>it adds stuff and makes things more complex, but it doesn't give enough to give the AD&D feel; it sits in a spot where it's not Basic, but it's not really Advanced, which is probably the point of the whole operation, but to us felt somewhat "meh".


A different, but very related question: can you play AD&D (or a clone) strictly by the book?
I know D&D folk tends to favor cherrypicking and mix-matching, but I like solid rulesets.

>>52105557
The Dungeon is actual an enormous ancient Mimic, unable to perceive time at a useful rate it sets traps to kill quick moving prey for digestion. The Dungeon Mimic allows various monsters to live inside it in the hopes that they will attract and kill prey for it, only digesting them in times of famine.

>>52105637
>can you play AD&D (or a clone) strictly by the book?
Yes. 1e's made slightly more difficult by Gygax's fancy language, but if that's not a problem for you then it's fine. 2e is easier to read, but it's missing some of the better bits of the 1e DMG, and also doesn't default to gold=xp (though that's an optional rule, along with individual awards and some other stuff).

>>52095994
In which book would these faiths be found?

>>52105855
PHB and Zealot's Guide I-III.

>>52105911
>Zealot's Guide I-III.
Or 1-7, as it is now.

>>52105911
>>52106003
Sorry to ask for spoonfeeding, but I'm not familiar with Hackmaster at all.
Do they have a trove or something?

>>52106060
I don't think so. Hackmaster is basically a parody of the worst parts of AD&D that somehow became a game that people play seriously. I don't think the fanbase is that big though.

>>52106077
Pretty sure there is a trove about, but I don't know where it is. I don't think ZG4-7 have been posted anywhere.

>>52105637
Sounds like you want OSRIC: https://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/osric/osric.pdf

>>52100509
The mixed list of feats that each class can only use half of is sort of messy/awkward. There might be a better way to do that like adding them as class advancement specific options. It seems like you're trying to give mages more to do by letting them wear armour, backstab etc, which is neat, but it will probably work better as other options on their own list just from an organization standpoint.

Why flat 1d8 hd for both classes? What size hd are monsters using? The d6-2d6 weapon damage is interesting, why did you do that?

Being a duellist and a whilrwind gives a warrior an AC of over 18 if they have any dex bonus at level 1. Concentration is obviously a trap shit feat. These might be on purpose, but it does get into obvious ways to min/max builds. Don't like it, wouldn't advise it. ymmv.

Depends on what you're going for but I'd cut/refine the feats/weapon specializations/magic-school abilities and playtest a lot of combat because it seems like you're building the game towards more hack&slash.

>>52106077
>Hackmaster is basically a parody of the worst parts of AD&D that somehow became a game that people play seriously.
Yeah, this. I don't get it either. Hackmaster is a joke that somehow turned serious and professional. I mean they sold a lot of books!

File: old sch hck.jpg (68KB, 580x500px) Image search: [Google]

68KB, 580x500px

Has anyone played Old School Hack?

What are its strengths and weaknesses versus other OSR games?

>>52107014
easy of play?

requesting Heroes & other worlds, will give a dickjob

>>52106999
Nice trips
In hackmaster's defense, their fluff can be rather interesting from time to time

>>52107057
Sadly enough, it was never released in pdf form, so you might be out of luck.

>>52104138
You can move to the edge in one move, then move from there next time. It works pretty well in practice.

>>52107081
>Sadly enough, it was never released in pdf form, so you might be out of luck.
It was though? It's still available in PDF.

File: Cauldron #0 artless.pdf (1MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1x1px

>>52107057
>>52107081
>>52107317
Yeah, the PDF should be on lulu. You can have the starter rules for free if you want them though. Also, own the dead tree version so if you have specific questions ask away.

>>52107081
I read Hackmaster like one or two years ago and i thought it was kind of complicated, like very slow combat

>>52105674

There are more rule differences than just that, look at say, movement, for an example. It introduces base movement rates that cut dwarf, gnome, and halfling movement in half, and swaps out the rules for following a known route and fleeing (5x and 10x movement respectively) in a dungeon for a 3x "walking rate" and some optional rules for jogging/running with CON checks and stuff.

>>52107383
How close is it to the gameplay style that /osr/ prefers, and in which aspects does it differ in an interesting way?
As far as I understood it's both a clone of The Fantasy Trip, and also draws inspiration from Moldvay, correct?

>>52106390
>Why flat 1d8 hd for both classes?
With the blending of classes together down to two, I thought it would be simpler.

>What size hd are monsters using?
I would assume standard, though I haven't got that far. Why?

>The d6-2d6 weapon damage is interesting, why did you do that?
Again, simplification. A giant weapon list full of things that vary by a point or three just seemed tedious. Make the weapons just a few categories, each with a meaningful rules basis over and above damage (backstab and maybe 1st in initiative order, +2 AC shield use, no shield use but more damage), and a guy can then just generally take what he thinks looks cool on his character or works with his preferred fighting style, rather than trying to optimize for an extra point.

>Concentration is obviously a trap shit feat.
Interesting. This is where play style comes in. I'm used to spells being interrupted by well-used minor damage and saw that as valuable; it was never intended to be crap. Any suggestions on how to make it better, in your eyes (maybe allows ignoring 1 pt of damage per caster level?).

>it seems like you're building the game towards more hack&slash.

Not looking for that at all, oddly enough. I just came at it from the same perspective of the earlier poster here noting that a supposed fighter can't hit the broad side of a barn at early levels (hell, even with all the bonuses in my text, a maxed-out fighter hits an AC 14 goblin only 70% of the time, which says something about how bad fighters are early on in D&D; they only hit 35% of the time), and also noting that casters get 20 pages of cool stuff to play with while fighters get little. I just wanted to give them something to do (and break down class roles to better make classic fantasy genre characters). At the same time, D8 HP means you can't just wade into enemies and choose fighting to solve everything; the general OD&D mentality of caution and planning still rightfully reigns.

Thanks a ton for your time.

File: HOW core.jpg (53KB, 212x320px) Image search: [Google]

53KB, 212x320px

>>52107827
>As far as I understood it's both a clone of The Fantasy Trip, and also draws inspiration from Moldvay, correct?
I don't know enough Moldvay to be able to differentiate the parts, but yes.

So, differences from other games:
>4 attributes: ST (Str), IQ (Int), DX (Dex), and EN (Endurance, basically Con)
>NPCs and monsters don't have EN
>attributes start at 8 and players get 10 points to increase them: racial minimums exist but no maximums
>races are pretty simple with ability minimums and a special ability
>no classes in the traditional sense: instead there are Adventurers and Wizards
>Adventurers have an easier time getting and upgrading skills
>Wizards have an easier time getting and upgrading spells
>skill system is roll 3d6 under the relevant attribute + 1 per skill level
>skills range from Fishing to Pole-arms to Thieving
>instead of HP, damage reduces EN then ST
>Spells drain EN then ST
>combat is very crunchy and assumes a hex-based combat map
>armor provides damage reduction
>be default you gain 3 XP when you succeed a test (skill check) so advancement can be quick
>however, your HP pool is pretty static so even if your Wizard learns every spell in the book and your Adventurer is the most skilled pole-arm user ever they can still die to goblins

That's all core, I've got the splats too if you want to hear about those.

Is there any clone that pays close attention to the spell lists: pruning dumb ones, adding better ones, moving levels around to make them more consistent, clarifying the text, etc? I plan to do this, but if it's already been done that would be gravy.

>>52108072
1hd is simpler, but depends on how/what you mean/want by heroic. It makes the magic user more durable, but if you're also trying to make the warrior seem more competent it takes one of the things they're suppose to be good at (being though) and flattens it.

This is why I'm curious about monster hd and weapon damage spread. Do you want combat to go faster by hitting more enemies/damage re feats, do you want damage to be all-or-nothing with D4,D6 and 2D6? The point or 3 at low levels are important, but it seems like you're trying to overcome that by just making the numbers bigger? The gap between 1-6 and 2-12 is very pretty significant. D6 or D8 monster hd will tie into your damage dice. Are the monsters going to have similarly consistent damage?

Concentration only works when a monster rolls 1 damage. Chances are if attacks are already being concentrated their way, one of them is going to do more than 1 damage. You could make the feat stackable, but then it becomes the automatic only choice every time. This is where the mentality of caution and planning comes in rather than adding more rules. Organize your team so your magic user isn't so vulnerable, get them in cover, have a screen of hirelings, etc. That's theory crafting on my part though, which is why I recommend figuring out what you want first and testing/changing a lot.

It seems like you're adding a bunch of stuff that isn't focused and deals mostly with combat options while at the same time limiting/constricting access to combat options in weird ways. While saying caution and planning is primary, your mechanics turn the focus away from that and into planning how to build a character.

If you're worried about 70% hit rates being too low take a look at The Nightmares Underneath. They just have fighters autohit and the attack roll is to do more damage. Its neat but its not everyone's bag.

>>52108072
Not trying to be a shitter, sorry if I'm coming across hyper-critical. I like folding the cleric and magic user into one class but I'd put turning undead into a specific magical school, or put it in the magic user abilities they gain access with a new school.

I like having simple weapon damage, more curious about the size of the gaps and why.

What have you been playing?

>>52108882
Get to the rest of your comments in a bit, but no worries about your critiquing: if people don't want to hear feedback, they shouldn't post. Your stuff has been thoughtful and fair, and it's really appreciated.

>>52107304
Did you try this with D&D, or you mean in Crossfire?

>>52105674
It is, I'm not native and the books are... ugh. Even 2e is kind of messy/dense for me.

>some of the better bits of the 1e DMG
B-But you can't say that and not tell me about those best bits!

>>52106189
As some anon pointed out already, it's not.

>>52111228
but it is

>>52111228
The 1e DMG is one of those books you should read regardless of the system you run.
Just wade through it. Many of the rules are gems, but the best parts are the advice he gives.

>>52108862
>1hd ... makes the magic user more durable, but if you're also trying to make the warrior seem more competent it takes one of the things they're suppose to be good at and flattens it.

Agreed, but I'm okay with that. I'm not just trying to make the fighter more interesting, but the mage too. Looking for a more interesting low-level combat game, and more modularity.

>Do you want combat to go faster by hitting more enemies/damage re feats,

Yes, faster. But also just a general sense of competency for basic combatants. An 18 stat warrior totally focused on offense hitting the weakest enemies in the game 70% of the time: I know they're first level, but if anything this still strikes me as tame.

>do you want damage to be all-or-nothing with D4,D6 and 2D6?

Don't understand you here.

>The gap between 1-6 and 2-12 is very pretty significant.

True, although you foresake a shield (+2AC) for that extra D6 of damage (plus the option to be a duelist for more AC), and PCs are still weak against damage in this ruleset. I thought it a meaningful trade. Do you think it should be D10 or something instead?

Also, I'll check Nightmares Beneath. Thanks for the great feedback so far. If I can ever return the favour, let me know.

Do you think the lethality of oldschool D&D would be more acceptable to people if instead of it being assumed you are playing a special snowflake hero, you are more of an invisible overseer, directing a group of characters that can be easily replaced with new ones.

The campaign isn't so much about a hero's personal story and achievements, but an ongoing chronicle of the over-arching world and the efforts of an adventuring company with their ever-changing roster.

A lot of oldschool play involves the hiring of retainers and henchmen, with players controlling multiple characters. Perhaps if you enforced that, like DCC's character funnel, but at all levels, with players controlling up to 4 PC's each.

>>52112088
Perhaps, but I think the premise goes against the "role" playing part of RPGs, which is why it has pretty much disappeared outside the OSR. The natural thing is to get attached to a character; make him disposable Treazure_Robbah_01, with Robbah cousins 02 through 13 waiting in the wings, and it gets a bit more like a boardgame or wargame. Which is fine, mind you; I guess I'm saying that more than ever, OSR play is about mitigating expectations and shifting people out of a mindset (as you were saying).

There needs to be some kind of useful essay on the topic that isn't full of grog smugness about kidgames, but talks about just how this sort of gaming works both mentally (dehumanize yourself and face to bloodshed, also, avoid combat) and mechanically (you can't hit anything, you can't be hit or you die, you should hire an army of lackeys, prepare for the GM to wing a lot, etc).

>>52112320
I generally don't flesh out characters until level 3.

>>52112385
playing the game is fleshing out characters. Give them a barebones backstory, then the interesting thing about the characters should be what they do through actual play.

>>52112320
yep. Very much agree.

All the pieces are there in the books. The actual mechanics and at-the-table outcomes all encourage a less personal playstyle. But from the beginning the game keeps telling the player that they are role-playing a heroic individual.

"YOU are the HERO" sets the wrong expectation. It makes people gloss over the fact that the adventures tend to be built around a party of adventurers with a dozen or so hirelings/retainers in tow. Then they don't make use of those resources, go in swinging (because I am the HERO) and wonder why they got cut down in the first round of combat.

The major obstacle is switching focus to an overseer position but still letting players know that it is okay to get attached to their little guys, give them names and personalities and role-play situations. And then that it is okay if they die - the game will go on unimpeded.

>>52105557
the Dungeon is in fact a living organism;

http://gameswithothers.blogspot.co.nz/2013/06/other-frontiers-dungeons-megadungeons.html

>>52111440
Okay. Seems more like you want reliably deadly combat rather than heroic. If the damage output is higher but pcs are still squishy. 'A point or 3' is fairly significant and probably worth including options for if you only have 1d8 hp.

All or nothing damage as in 1d6 does 1-6, and 2d6 does 6 or more 70% of the time. You're compensating for this by making the 2ac very significant. There's only two options for warriors go high damage or high defence. Three if you count ranged. Which seems counter to your aim of adding more combat depth. I was wondering if that was on purpose or what was your thought process there. That might make it more a party composition and formations game where you need X high dps warriors, Y high AC warriors and Z magic users.

At that point its more a matter of making sure your options/feats/whatever are more-or-less balanced so the choices are all decently viable. Currently some of them seem much better than others and there aren't enough of them to make for many distinct choices. Its like your goal of making more options while remaining rules light has made less options and added more rules rather than relying on the abstraction of rules be where the flavour and options come in? Like go further with options so they're important if you're going to have them. Where the line blurs there into clutter is to taste tho.

Personally I like more granular weapon damage to give the players more options. ie 1d8 weapon or a 2d4, that sets the tone for the warrior's fighting style. But I do weird shit like weapon tags.

Scarlet Heroes does an interesting thing with damage to mooks based on HD that might help to look at too.

File: vlad the implyer.jpg (134KB, 960x960px) Image search: [Google]

134KB, 960x960px

>>52106077
>>52106999

You're thinking of Hackmaster 4th edition. That was the parody with joke monsters, gonzo classes and hundreds of charts and complexity cranked to 11. 5th edition cut out 98% of the silliness and complexity and is very playable and good.

Once you look at the Hacklopedia of Beasts from 5th edition, you'll see what there is to love about it. Check out the pdf archive thread.

>>52112088
I kind of want to do a 1shot where the players each control a cluster of gremlin creatures, each hit-point is a dood. Healing is them reproducing asexually over time or via magic. Warrior broods reproduce faster and are more numberous than thinkers and magic weirdos.

Have each player make a list of about a dozen 1 syllable monster names, get sort of drunk and have everyone try and infiltrate the keep on the borderlands or something. If a character dies have them wait a bit and a new cocoon/fungus bloom/scumpool etc. forms another gremlin cluster.

>you take 4 dmg
>oh no there goes Snot, Gib, Yurp and Proc!

>>52112844
How's the combat?

>>52111228
Appendix A, the random dungeon generator, for one.

>>52107451
>It introduces base movement rates that cut dwarf, gnome, and halfling movement in half,
Pretty sure that was already in 1e, in the Monster Manual's statblocks

>>52112734
That. Is a /really/ spiffy article.
I wouldn't use it whole-sale, but if I ever do a 'dungeon ecology' setting then I'll riff parts of this.

File: 1488037476-20170225.png (179KB, 684x585px) Image search: [Google]

179KB, 684x585px

>>52113028
Combat is actually the best part. It uses the second based countup system they developed for other games. So you have granularity of action and lots of things happening simultaneously. It sounds complex at first but it isn't. This is one of the few games you can manage very large combats in short periods of time with nothing more than some tokens and a numberline.

Besides that they use armor that makes you easier to hit, but acts as damage absorption, shields that can deflect and absorb some of a blow, and pain which ensures that a single serious blow can end a fight almost as soon as it starts.

Magic has drawbacks with spellfatigue and so forth, so it's remarkably well balanced.

Lastly, like >>52095994 religions are really fleshed out, but the core book only has 13 of the more common faiths as cleric choices. The rest are in the zealot guides which they've been releasing slowly.

>>52112844
But like, wasn't Hackmaster originally from a comic strip that was all about how silly AD&D rules and rules lawyers can be? And the system is extremely crunchy and detailed to the point of insanity? I just don't understand how it became like, an actual thing that people wanted to play rather than giggle at while reading.

File: kills_self.png (123KB, 254x296px) Image search: [Google]

123KB, 254x296px

>>52100779

>>52113485

Yep. But after the fourth edition. it seems they decided to do a proper RPG, and for some crazy reason also decided to call it Hackmaster also, despite the name being by then strongly associated with intentionally-terrible, goofy mechanics. Why? I don't even know.

>>52112088

I've been thinking about making a kind of 1-on-1 Dungeon Crawling boardgame/RPG hybrid.

A player controls a party of adventurers, the other player controls the dungeon and its hazards and monsters.

I've played a lot of Dungeon Crawl board games, but none of them really give me the doom as hell vibe OSR games have.

>>52113485
>>52113616
You're right, it's an unfortunate situation.

This is kind of like Tolkien writing books to have a place where people spoke the languages he constructed. In a similar fashion, Hackmaster the RPG is a game system that was created to be a real version of the game some characters in a rpg comicbook played together. I suspect it is why they wouldn't name it something else, despite the stigma that 4th edition Hackmaster had.

All I can suggest to you is to take a second look, I started running a game of it several months ago, and everyone is having a great time so far.

File: 2017-01-31-1289correct.png (202KB, 720x563px) Image search: [Google]

202KB, 720x563px

>>52103389
Yeah, but it's also... predictable.

>'stat' every monster, come up with creative stuff for each table, and making sure it's not game-breaking

I mean, it's very, very quick to build these tables on the fly, and it's also highly variable. As for game breaking... most of the tables have a 20% chance of Save or Death at /best/. The risk reward ratios are all over the place, and there's no way to tell ahead of time. Maybe Beholder meat is /slightly/ dangerous. Maybe it's /nearly always dangerous/.

But the players sure as hell don't know. They might expect "if I'm lucky, I'll get eye lasers", but the other effects would be a complete mystery.

File: Dissapointed.png (184KB, 350x352px) Image search: [Google]

184KB, 350x352px

>>52113572

>whenever a PC is alone for 1 round with a Doppelganger NPC he is killed and replaced
>don't tell the player that he has been replaced until the module forces them to attack the other PCs
>and by the way all dead PC come back to life after [setpiece]

Hour of the Knife is weird

>>52115206

OOOOH my god, that's the PERFECT way to do a The Thing RPG!

>>52115206
All the Ravenloft modules are weird.

>>52115206
How do you explain the NPC going missing?

File: Bards.jpg (205KB, 1414x1038px) Image search: [Google]

205KB, 1414x1038px

>>52115206
>>52115285
I like "just in time" resolution.

Rather than going "You're poisoned for (rolls 1d6) 4 hours", you say "You're poisoned. At the end of the first hour, roll a d6. On a 1, you're done. The next hour, roll again, adding +1. The next hour, again, but +2." etc. Suddenly, you don't /know/ if the poison is going to kill you.

Or maybe "You return to the party happy as can be." and then later "BUT WAIT. Did the mind controlling amulet actually claim you? Roll your Save"

PC: "But I'm holding the party up by a rope! If I let go, they'll all die."

GM: "Exactly. Now is the /perfect/ time to find out if you've been controlled by a demon for the past few hours."

>suddenly an Egyptian tomb in Russia
>suddenly cat apocalypse
>suddenly cat-themed Egyptian tomb dungeoncrawl

I guess >>52115302 was right. The Awakening for those interested.


>>52115528
In that scenario, the PC (who is now a doppelganger pretending to be the PC) would be the last person to see the NPC (who may or may not be doppelganger pretending to be the PC). IIRC another doppelganger could shift into that NPC's appearance later because lol ESP if it was really needed but the module takes place in a city so there are plenty of place that function as alibis.

File: vampire bat - katie 4.jpg (174KB, 1024x657px) Image search: [Google]

174KB, 1024x657px

>>52114171
https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/03/some-other-classic-snacks.html

More Dungeon Meat!

Time to round up 30 apprentice wizards, feed them Beholder meat, and turn them into an army. And what happens if you ferment Aboleth eye juice?

I'm looking at the OA Barbarian and it seems pretty damn fun
>climb up cliffs and trees
>turn sneak attacks into regular attacks
>stare really hard at stuff to detect magic
>assemble a horde to pillage foolish city-dwellers

File: carrion crawlers are protected ip.jpg (24KB, 836x266px) Image search: [Google]

24KB, 836x266px

>>52116357
>Despite the taste, the meat is surprisingly filling.
1-3 should be the old 1-5
4-5 should be the old 1-5, but keeping the benefits of the meal on a failed save
6-7 no extra effect.
8-9 should keep you fed for two meals time.
10 is fine as is.

>>52116397
What're the differences between Oriental Barbarian, UA Barbarian, and Complete Barbarian's Handbook Barbarian Warrior?

File: tumblr_nuaep9HVSb1s71q1zo1_1280.png.jpg (626KB, 1200x1467px) Image search: [Google]

626KB, 1200x1467px

>>52116495
>4-5 should be the old 1-5, but keeping the benefits of the meal on a failed save

So... Save vs Con. If you pass or fail, you keep the benefits of the meal?

Am I missing something?

And thanks for the comment, but I think it's fine as-is. I guess I meant "surprisingly filling for a creature that tastes like garbage" and not "more filling than steak"

Plus, in the system I'm using, the number of meals doesn't matter. "A good long lunch (1hr) heals 1d6+level HP". It doesn't matter how much you eat in that time, provided it's a good meal.

Hey, /osrg/. What are your thoughts on this topic?

>>52116351

I need psychic powers for city crawling modern fantasy OSR

>>52116759
AD&D and OD&D already have you covered.

>>52116715
>So... Save vs Con. If you pass or fail, you keep the benefits of the meal?
Save vs Con or be queasy and gassy all day; regardless of the save, you're fed.

>>52105557
Kobolds.

>>52116759
Complete Psionics Handbook

File: msPOT3k.jpg (2MB, 1536x3725px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1536x3725px

>>52116735

Shame on you for crossposting bait. But anyway, the answer is, as usual, "it depends."

Is your game a battle of wits, GM vs players, players vs stats, stats vs probability? Is it a game about resource management and strict failure?

Then, to keep things consistent, don't fudge or edit. Try to avoid quantum ogres.

If your game is more about collaborative storytelling, where the rules enable the story but aren't the end goal, then sure, fudge away if required. Don't get sloppy and don't get caught, but do what you want.

But in either case, try not to punish your players for being smart. If they figure out a plot point faster than expected, that's on you. It's your expectations that created the problem.

The main thing is to run a good, fun, and interesting game, whatever that means to you and your group.

>>52116735
Fudging dice is a "no." If you aren't leaving it to chance, don't roll.
Maybe clatter some unmarked dice if you *really* need sound?

Retroactively changing things is also a "no."
Retcons should only occur after OoG discussion and consent with player consent.
Changing details that /haven't been presented yet/ is always fair game (and expected*) tho.
Those details aren't part of the continuity (yet) and the change isn't retroactive.

*that said, expanding on player accomplishments is always better than trivializing them
"you beat the villain!" -> power vacuum ensues OR lieutenant takes command OR people come for vengeance, etc.

File: Murderhobos.png (146KB, 500x679px) Image search: [Google]

146KB, 500x679px

>>52116789
Fair.

Come to think of it, adventurers are pretty greasy by default. Greasy fuckers. Bad diets and bad posture.

>>52116779
>>52116805

Not what I'm looking fir. I'd rather have your ideas. Something game able and similar to 'Push'.

>>52116957
Machinations of the Space Princess also has a psionics system, and I'm pretty sure SWN has one too.

>>52116759
>>52116957
I'd suggest just refluffing the existing magic systems(and make some minor tweaks as needed to the crunch) rather than try to make a whole new system, less likely for things to go horribly wrong

>>52113310
Alright, color me intrigued. I'll check it out.

>>52105460
>>52105513
I'd suggest using stress (and alignment, for that matter) as a carrot rather than a stick. So instead of punishing players for not acting out their quirk/affliction, you give them bonus XP when they let it get the better of them.

So for example, a Selfish character doesn't HAVE to pocket that suspicious-looking skull amulet from the black glass altar... but there's some XP in it for him if he does...

>>52118092
on the one hand, I agree. On the other, I kind of dislike having to use a carrot on my players. Makes me feel like I'm treating them like idiots.

Not sure what the answer is in this case, but it was an interesting exercise to adapt the DD system for the sake of it. Would I use it myself? Probably not. It would need a game built around it, rather than trying to fit it in to D&D.

File: knows what time it is.jpg (53KB, 441x674px) Image search: [Google]

53KB, 441x674px

>>52115550

>>52113485
When WotC published the dragon archive, they didn't have permission to republish the comic. There was a settlement, allowing Kenzer to publish TSR D&D, as long as it was a parody. This is Hackmaster 4 - which is actually a pretty good, playable AD&D clone, as written. (The feeling of "This is a joke, right" isn't much more than AD&D actual)

Fast forward, their joke game is surprisingly popular and they've release some other games using a system they own (and is good). Their license however, is out. Enter 5th edition. Same tone, no need to be required to say it's a joke.

Upthread, someone mentioned Gary's writing style, and how the DMG is one of those books that's worth reading regardless what you play - the HM books are much the same.

>>52118274
Not him but I think it is totally valid. Is rewarding roleplay. The player knows it might be bad, but the character don't.

>>52121050
not everyone wants to roleplay or is good at it, or wants others to roleplay badly just because they'll get a doggy treat for it.

by making it a "save or you have to do it", it allows those who don't like roleplaying to simply roll a dice and point at the dice for their shitty behavior. People accept it more readily if it is a result of rules and rng.

A lot more palatable than "I'm just roleplaying, man" which is the cry of the selfish and disruptive player who wants to fuck with everyone for shits n' giggles. Especially if they are encouraged through xp rewards for doing it. Everyone has to be on board with antagonistic roleplaying for it to work, otherwise you're giving one or more people at the table a bad time which they didn't sign up for.

Make it a mechanic, in the hands of the dice, with clear options to deal with it in-game and people can at least blame the game for a bad time instead of each other.

>>52121159
If you give out the XP reward for roleplaying to the entire party and not just the person playing out their flaws/quirks/whatever, even the dude going 'I'm just roleplaying man' can contribute to the party.

I'm writing a paper / manual about B/X. Sort of like a kickstart-guide on how to play Basic. I go rule by rule, explaining them in practice, within the ethos and play style of the game.
Ideally, a person would pick this, read it (maybe referencing the original text) and start playing.

It's aimed for newbies to rpgs, but also to folk who has experience with modern rpgs and want to approach B/X for what it is (instead of simply adopting it as a simpler 5e).

Any interest in this?

>>52121807
Definitely. The faster people can grok B/X, the better. I'm going to assume that you'll get people here disagreeing with you on the meaning and usage of the rules, but that's always good for the creative process.

>>52121159
Make it a mechanic, but if the players forfeits the roll for the role play option, give XP to all, like >>52121278 said. This way even the priest player will want the thief to steal.

Are there any B/X-derivative games that have a good MP system? I know SWN has PP, but I meant more an MP conversion for regular Vancian spells.

I could make do with Vancian, but I'm sort of toying with a Persona(-esque?) game. Persona's already got traps, monsters, (basically) classes, dungeon-crawling, and hub towns, so I figure the only real "conversion" I need is in the magic system, and an MP system would help that along a lot.

I guess I could write one myself but even then I'd like a base to start off of.

>>52122703
You /just mentioned/ a base to start from. Refluff and tweak the SWN system. Or merely use it as a meter stick well you write your new contented.

File: 1475385011856.png (366KB, 404x474px) Image search: [Google]

366KB, 404x474px

>>52121807
As someone who doesn't have any actual-play experience of OSR style games, I would really really appreciate a comprehensive explanation of how thief skills should work. When should they just be ability checks, or saves? Can other players attempt these skills? How active or passive does they player have to be in describing how they, for example, remove traps or search a room?

>>52123364
You have to read thief skills literally, everyone can climb a mountain, but only the thief can climb SHEER surfaces like the spider-man.

>>52121807
Yes, VERY interested

>>52121807
This is something that would help me a lot. I struggle to explain why I like B/X and OSR games and an in-depth look at the rules would definitely clear up a lot of questions people ask me about it.

>>52123364
>comprehensive explanation of how thief skills should work.
Thief skills go back to Warlock, a dude who was playing an early version of Warlock phoned Gygax to tell him about it.
Gygax said, "the thief class sounds great!" and jotted down some notes.
Then he slipped a modified version into the Greyhawk book.

In Warlock only Thieves could do Thief stuff, lIIRC.
In OD&D anyone can do *most* Thief stuff, but only Thieves can do some of it (b/c of training).
In AD&D only Thieves can do *most* Thief stuff (b/c of training), but anyone can do some of it.
In Basic only Thieves can do (outright supernatural) Thief stuff, but anyone can do the mundane equivalent.

This guy (>>52123392) has the right of it.
Take the writing literally.

>>52123314

"But I meant more an MP conversion for regular Vancian casting."

Did you just not bother to read what I was looking for? SWN's psionic system is radically different from standard spells.

File: swn_charsheets_oneseven.pdf (267KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

267KB, 1x1px

>>52116759
>>52116957

Stars Without Number's psychic class?

Powers begin on page 3.

>>52121807
I was just thinking of doing the exact same thing yesterday, so yeah, really interested, and would be happy to give feedback.

>>52121807

Yes. Very yes.

B/X is clearly written but there are some rules that could do with a bit of elaboration for new players.

When I first read it, I thought the wandering monster and reaction rules were basically optional rules to spice up the game. It wasn't until I played that I realized how important to the whole "loop" of the game they are.

One thing I'd recommend is to explore different alternatives where the rules are ambiguous. The two popular Primers have quite a bit of One True Way-ism going on.

>>52123953
>The two popular Primers
I only know one. Which two?

>>52124423

A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming by Matthew Finch

The Role-Playing Game Primer and Old School Playbook by Chris Gonnerman

There's also The Old School Renaissance Handbook by Brent P. Newhall, although it's more of a list of OSR games plus some interviews.

>>52124494
>more of a list of OSR games
I need this, does anyone here have the pdf?

>>52124762
The pdf you sell is $7, but here's the list:
http://brentnewhall.com/games/doku.php?id=osr_handbook

>>52124762
>>52124831

The PDF is in the trove under 01_DM Resources.

File: 1479715321553.jpg (334KB, 2048x1504px) Image search: [Google]

334KB, 2048x1504px

>>52121807
I'm doing a vaguely similar thing, but writing a "training dungeon" instead.

https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/03/osr-learning-dungeon.html

It's designed to teach OSR mentality to noobs, without explicitly saying anything about style or ethos or tactics.

>>52125009
"training dungeon" guy was "monster food" guy? Neat.
I will check out the rest of your blog some time today?

File: t3_5ntrub.jpg (1MB, 2406x850px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 2406x850px

>>52125052
I am ALL the guys.

I also do Fate Core Star Wars hacks, hard sci-fi games, and classic Rogue Trader games. I'm available for birthdays, funerals, and weddings.

>>52125088
What about birthdays, funerals, *or* weddings?
I rarely need more than one at a time.

File: 1488521166086.jpg (284KB, 650x923px) Image search: [Google]

284KB, 650x923px

>>52125191
You must have trouble when your friends discuss their vacation plans.

"Yeah, I'm going to Spain, Portugal, and Italy."
"At the SAME TIME?! That's impossible! You'd be trifurcated! You're a rascal."

Also, if you want all 3 at once, just wait for the PCs to arrive in town.

>>52125009

>I designed the Tomb of the Serpent Kings as a "learning" dungeon for new players. When you first start up Super Mario Bros, the game doesn't give you any instructions. The first level is cunningly designed to teach you the rules: jump on enemies, pick up mushrooms, look for secrets, get coins, avoid pits. There is no tutorial. The game itself is the tutorial.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I came across this video explaining how Half-Life 2 cleverly teaches how to play the game without just telling you everything:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMggqenxuZc

Since there aren't many rules for players in OSR games, it's nice to see someone doing the same thing with a dungeon. Good dungeon designers seem to do this by habit. There's a deadly trap early on so players know there are deadly traps. There are factions immediately and they're doing something, so players know there are factions (and they can be manipulated). Even the dungeon layout tells players there are multiple entrances, branches, loops, levels, and it's always good to see those highlighted early.

This is a great start, have you thought about fleshing it out into something longer? There are a lot more lessons to be learned (time, light, factions, wandering monsters, to name a few).

>>52125229
This looks like the Kill Six Billion Demons artist.
Is that the Kill Six Billion Demons artist?

File: stepan-alekseev-02-2.jpg (210KB, 960x1280px) Image search: [Google]

210KB, 960x1280px

>>52125431
I designed the tomb as a 3-layer exercise. This first layer is "What is a dungeon like? What mental tools should I use?" The 2nd layer (not posted yet, to avoid spoiling my players) is all about environmental awareness (listening at doors, checking for pressure plates, looking for secret passages, not wasting too much time, random monster rolls, dungeon ecology, how to bypass big fights). The third layer (also not posted) is about dungeon politics, allies, enemies, potions, biiiiiig monsters that are more like environmental hazards, and heaps of treasure.

There will be cowardly goblins and their cavehounds. There will also be a demon disguised as a captured herbalist.

>>52125431
https://youtu.be/ZH2wGpEZVgE

File: WON103-104.jpg (2MB, 1900x1229px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 1900x1229px

>>52125476
It is the Kill Six Billion Demons artist!

>>52122703
>Are there any B/X-derivative games that have a good MP system?
This isn't really a helpful answer, I guess, but no. There are not. People have literally been complaining about Vancian (I'm not saying you are, mind, just that the sum of D&D sperglords over time is very high) since the OD&D box set came out, and that whole time they've been trying to make a balanced MP equivalent and nobody ever has. It's *especially* hard if you want to retain the existing spells and approximate balance with respect to what spells are gained on which level, because to prevent people blowing all their points on one Wish at the first possible level you have to do shit like geometric progression of spell costs *and* MP gain, which in turn means that A) you can't cast more high level spells than you could before, and B) each high level spell you sacrifice the casting of lets you spam piles of lower-level spells, which isn't balanced *either*, and well, you get the idea. Plus, it's a super kludgy and ugly solution; for MP to be worthwhile they kind of have to be gained at a constant rate while the spells themselves have variable costs.

>Each level, your hp increases by one hit die
You know this one.

>Each level, you roll one hit die for each level you have. If that's greater than your current hp maximum, you take it. If not, you only gain 1 hit point.
So a Fighter at level 5th rolls 5d8, and 6d8 when gaining 6th level and so on.

1- Is this good? In theory it sounds interesting but-
2- Anybody can help me understand the subtleties of this? I'm no good with math and anydice has a weird syntax.
I can predict PCs will have a few (both happy and nasty) surprises when rolling hp, but that's it.

How can I become a Lich?

>>52125486
Awesome, looking forward to it.

>>52125492
Thanks, I love this stuff.

>>52125598
Play ACKS™!

File: how do i lich.jpg (505KB, 696x1338px) Image search: [Google]

505KB, 696x1338px

>>52125542
It punishes good rolls and rewards bad rolls. I don't like it.

>>52125598
Pic related

>>52125542
The ultimate result over the long term is PCs getting higher HP on average.

Since you're allowed to reroll all your hit dice each time, but can only go up and never down, *eventually* you'll get a lucky roll, and even if you then plink for 1 HP a couple levels it won't matter, because you'll be lucky again. Of course sometimes you'll just have shitpiss luck the whole nine rolls in a row, but this is very unlikely -- in fact much moreso than when you only roll each hit die one time, since, again, you get do-overs for *every hit die*, in most cases multiple do-overs.

On top of the above, your one lucky roll may well place you far beyond the average -- it's comparable to being lucky on *every roll up to that point*, remember. E.g. if you were insanely lucky and rolled all 8s on your HD on level 5, you'd get 40 HP, which is four above the average HP for a level *9* fighter. Even if you were never to roll better again (a distinct possibility) you'd still achieve 44 HP on level 9, a full 8 above average, and you would've had it for four full levels of play.

This got pretty rambly, but you see what I'm getting at?

>>52125522
I'm not the person you're responding to, but one of the bigger issues I've seen with Vancian magic comes down to resource management, and specifically in regards to how caster power varies according to adventure / day length. If, at mid to high levels, you are running extended expeditions into sizable dungeons, the magic system is designed for you. But things get a bit screwy if you're running shorter adventures. Maybe you just want to run a one-off where the ball gets attacked by monsters. Now, instead of carefully doling out your spells bit by bit, you can blow them all in short order, dramatically increasing your power.

I feel like this can be addressed while retaining the same basic system. A simple limitation of the number of spells you can cast in an encounter or per hour would be sufficient. It's not perfect, but if you can only cast 1 spell of your top two levels, and 1 spell from each other level per encounter/hour, that would at least somewhat constrain your ability to blow everything. That can still have you using something like a third of your spells in a battle (depending on your level), but that's much better than being to cast all of them.

And honestly, I like the compartmentalization of spells, whereby each level is its own thing. It eliminates the issue of trying to balance the power of absolutely every spell against each other (an impossible task to get perfect) and allows each level to be its own environment. For folks who don't like this, the solution might have to be something like a magic point system, but I've sure never seen one that made me happy.

>>52125542
>Anybody can help me understand the subtleties of this?
Average hp at mid- (and high-) levels increases. A lot.
It makes level drain (etc.) much less messy tho.

>>52125598
Ask you referee.
Probably find a thematically appropriate combination spells, then invest resources on research or bargaining with a demon?

>>52125605
Can't fish them up at the moment, but that channel has some great videos on horror games.
Still about vidya, but plenty relevant to tabletop.

>I love this stuff.
https://youtu.be/XWgc20zbRXk
https://youtu.be/2M3WgBaFm4E
https://youtu.be/wu3-BgmiID0
https://youtu.be/KBLuhfTLp5Q
https://youtu.be/1eRDvs72vjg

File: hit dice, roll from scratch (better of 2 rolls at 1st level).png (10KB, 448x300px) Image search: [Google]

10KB, 448x300px

>>52125725
The difference isn't huge though. Here are calculations on those. The systems (other than the RAW) assume you're getting the better of two rolls at 1st level.

>>52121991 >>52123364 >>52123419 >>52123531 >>52123845 >>52123953 >>52125009
TY! I would have never guessed... welp.

>>52121991
I'll be a personal thing for sure, but I try to read and play B/X as RAW as possible.

>>52123845
Cool I'll post snippets here, I definitely could use some help with some parts, specially the implied-only stuff.

>>52123953
I dislike the Primer. It's made for the modern players I mentioned in my post. At least Finch's Primer.

>>52125009
I already gave some feedback on it. Nice initiative but a bit diluted.

By the way, I don't plan to make this about the OSR (or whatever OSR means for you). This is not to indoctrinate or condition folks into a certain play style, this is about understanding B/X, and why it's a very fun (and different!) game when it stands by itself.

And no, I'm not a grog. Just sayin.

>>52125818
>And honestly, I like the compartmentalization of spells, whereby each level is its own thing. It eliminates the issue of trying to balance the power of absolutely every spell against each other (an impossible task to get perfect)
Exactly. This is why every attempt to outdo Vancian in pure playability and simplicity has failed. Gygax himself said (in a letter to A&E) that he had thought of using a mana system and that it was "a better solution", but that he couldn't get it to work. (Presumably when he wrote that, he meant it was an *aesthetically* better solution; again, it's definitely not better in practice.)

>>52125850
>Here are calculations on those.
That's specifically a calculation for d6 hit dice and gaining one per level even on level 10, though. Not that there's anything wrong with it exactly, but it's worth underscoring that the difference is a bit bigger for a Basic Fighter and then a bit bigger again for an AD&D Fighter.

>>52125682
>It punishes good rolls and rewards bad rolls. I don't like it.
Maybe, but as I understand it, it tends to average over the time. It just makes rolling hp a lot more tense and interesting (good imo). Plus that extra hp the others are talking about sounds just fine.

>>52125725
>>52125850
Thanks! This was super helpful.

By the way, how did you come up with that table? I'd love to know the math behind so I can fiddle with it, try different hit die, etc.

Like >>52125934 said, I'm playing Basic, so my PCs are a lot weaker.

>>52125934
In relative terms, there's not much difference, but you are dealing with bigger numbers, so even the same percentage increase yields a bigger absolute deviation.

>>52126002
>By the way, how did you come up with that table?
Monte Carlo method -- ran a bunch of simulations in Excel and saw what I came up with. I don't remember how many I ran for those, but I pretty much never do fewer than ten thousand and usually shoot for a hundred thousand.

>>52125009
To make it less "linear": fix the room order, but unfix the locations. At least for some of the rooms.
The classic, "the first door always leads to the first room, regardless of which door is the first door."

I'm generally against that sort of thing, but yours is /exactly/ the sort of place where it's appropriate.

File: alex-brock-orcyboi2sm.jpg (382KB, 1545x2000px) Image search: [Google]

382KB, 1545x2000px

>>52126188
So the first level is very, very small. If I make it nonlinear, I take away the ability to teach players about pattern recognition and symmetry.

The 2nd level is still fairly linear, as designed, but it has one loop in it. The 3rd level is branched and looping and all over the place.

For this type of dungeon, linearity is not a negative, especially not on the first floor. Remember that this is the first dungeon the players have /ever/ seen, including in video games. You've got to start simple and clear.

>>52126229
From what you were saying here (>>52125486), the second floor seemed like a good place to disguise as "non-linear."

>>52125850
While it's very true that the needle barely moves on the *exact average* score, it's important to note that the *very low* scores become incredibly less likely with the reroll-all method.

For example, take a Basic Fighter with no CON mod who's just reached level 4. His chances of scoring the maximum, 32 HP, are exactly what they were before -- 1/4096. (This is because, in order to do so, he has to roll all 8s on four dice. This is just as likely when the dice are rolled all at once as it is one at a time, once per level.) *However*, with the standard method, his chance of rolling only 4 HP was also 1/4096, now it's 1/1073741824! (That's one in one billion, seventy-three million, seven hundred and forty-one thousand eight hundred and twenty-four. That is, if everyone on Earth made a B/X fighter, it would happen to about seven of us.) The reason is that in order for this to happen he has to roll ones on not just the four dice in front of him, but also on all of the preceding six dice.

This is the extreme case, of course. But it illustrates the principle, namely that the distribution is displaced strongly away from the lowest results.

File: GMG50795E.jpg (341KB, 825x1275px) Image search: [Google]

341KB, 825x1275px

Anyone have a copy of Tower of the Black Pearl for DCC? I have the original version for AD&D, but wanna see what changes were made to adapt it to DCC.

>>52125682
>lose a level every time you die
That is weak

How many of you play at the table, how many of you play online, and how many of you are just here for the threads/books/blogs?

>>52126692
I DM at the table. Usually DCC or LotFP. I rarely, if ever, get to actually play.

File: XP.Values.Ultimate.Edition.pdf (102KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

102KB, 1x1px

>>52094180
Negro, the MC format allowed for an extraordinary amount of front matter. Why would you want it cut out? Would you want the revised XP tables cut out?

File: ekimmu.pdf (302KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

302KB, 1x1px

>>52098503
But does % in Lair mean what percentage of the number rolled will remain in their lair, or does it mean if you roll under or equal to the % chance that all 4,000 kobolds will be in their lair and thus not encountered?

And yes, it's a 2E thing also because Moldvay's monster entries included it.

File: PirateQueen.jpg (68KB, 600x788px) Image search: [Google]

68KB, 600x788px

>>52126841
>an extraordinary amount of front matter

>front matter

You mean boobs?

>>52105674
A distinction between 1E and 2E was only drawn after WotC destroyed AD&D and implemented the inferior editions of today. 2E books referred constantly to 1E hardcovers and other accessories as necessary. By the time it became less common, there was no longer a 2nd Edition (it was called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons alone by 1995).

So use both DMGs and use both PHBs and use all other material. Which edition you use as a base isn't as important as how you support it with other material.

>>52126898
I mean a couple of pages of redundant shit that's in all the MC books, explaining each category of a stat bar and monster entry. At least the Ravenloft MC had some novel material in there rather than a waste of space.

>>52126841
The MC format is good, I love it. I'd even say it is the best monster format in all of D&D.

But I don't need four paragraphs of read-aloud to describe an ogre toll-bridge

>>52126921
Even OA was still getting used in the 2e era.

>>52113891
>>52119910
Fascinating. Thanks for the explanation.

>>52127014
There are multiple references to every single 1E hardback as necessary in 2E. Except maybe the PHB and DMG (strange since the DMG is ultra-necessary). MM1, MM2, OA, Wild/Dung Surv, MotP, GA, DLA, FF.

OA was basically a 2E book. 2E basically started in 1985. Zeb style. If the original, SUPERIOR version by Francois Marcela-Froideval had been allowed to be published maybe things would be different. But Lorraine had to get rid of him—too dangerous, like Frank Mentzer. Gygax acolyte.

File: the_queen_s_return_by_wojciechfus-d6qkb9h.jpg (492KB, 850x1058px) Image search: [Google]

492KB, 850x1058px

>>52126293
The non-linear or "quantum room" idea would work if there were discreet steps you /had/ to learn, one after the other, to progress.

You can't do calculus without algebra, and you can't do algebra without learning basic functions.

Let's imagine the most boring video game in the world. "Dungeons and Derivatives" has 3 rooms, A, B, and C.

No matter, which room the player enter first, it will contain the Lesson of Basic Functions. The next room will always contain The Less of Algebra. The final room will always contain The Lesson of Calculus. It doesn't matter if the player goes B,C,A or A,C,B.

Does this work in a /teaching/ dungeon? No.

Aside from the fact that there the party could split up and enter all 3 rooms at once, there are no concepts in dungeoneering that require mandatory steps.

You don't need to know "some doors are trapped" to learn "some floors are also trapped". You don't need to learn "there are secret passages" to learn "there are factions in the dungeon."

You can also do properly subtle game design. Take the silver ring in the 4th room.

There aren't many paths up to this point.

1. The party ignores the coffins completely (very unlikely).
2. The party opens the coffins, but does not discover that the clay statues inside are hollow and contain treasure (and a poison gas cloud).
3. The party opens the coffins, discovers that the statues are hollow, and discovers the treasure.

If (1), then they will never find the silver ring. But honestly, at that point, you've done something wrong as a GM or set the wrong expectations of your players. Or they're really, really dumb. It's possible.

If (2), then the players will open the fourth coffin, see the silver ring, go "ooh, shiny!", pry it off, crack the statue, discover it is hollow, release the poison gas cloud, and learn there is treasure inside. They'll then go back and investigate the previous three coffins.

Continued.

File: brynhildr_by_flowerzzxu-d98bn3p.jpg (173KB, 987x810px) Image search: [Google]

173KB, 987x810px

>>52127252
If (3), then the silver ring is a sort of bonus reward. By this point, the party should have a plan for cracking the statues without taking any damage. They get an "extra" bit of treasure for being smart.

See how that works? The party learns no matter what, and there were no quantum rings involved. Sure, they could open the coffin in the fourth room first, but that doesn't actually /diminish/ any of the lessons. They aren't structured in a purely linear fashion, even if the dungeon is seems linear.

>>52127097
>If the original, SUPERIOR version by Francois Marcela-Froideval had been allowed to be published maybe things would be different.
Is this actually true? That it was superior and that the publication was "forbidden", I mean. I don't have a great grasp of this but I kinda had the impression that was something Gary claimed in his latter years which didn't have much basis, just to make himself look good and Blume/Williams TSR look bad.

I forget who, but I know at least one person who saw the manuscript claimed it was about as usable as Tim Kask says Arneson's Blackmoor notes were.

>>52127097
>>52127334
>If the original, SUPERIOR version by Francois Marcela-Froideval

http://grognardia.blogspot.co.nz/2011/03/le-samourai.html

>There can be no more than one samurai of 12th level, 5 of 11th, 7 of 10th.

>However, this very powerful type of character possesses numerous inconveniences: his loud Kiai possesses the faculty of attracting wandering monsters.

>He gains levels very slowly and, if he fails in a mission given to him by his lord, he must immediately commit seppuku (hara-kiri).

Looks like kuso to be quite honest nakama-tachi

>>52126868
Whenever you roll a wilderness encounter, you roll 1d%.

If you rolled at or below the monster's % in Lair, you come across the monster's lair.
For large groups (273 orcs, etc.) you'll notice the lair at a distance.
For small groups (6 wargs, etc.) you may or may not.
The lair is home to the entire group, but only population * % in Lair are presently at the lair.

If your 1d% rolled above % in Lair, you find a group out and about.
The size of the group is probably in the monster's write-up or stat block. If not, pull a size out of your hat.
Note that *all monsters in the wilderness have lairs,* so the 16 orc mauradurs probably live within a hex or two of where you met them.

>>52127523
>Looks like kuso to be quite honest nakama-tachi
Suppose hypothetically that I'm not a massive weeb.

Alright guys, I'm introducing players to RPGs tonight. I need a good, simple dungeon crawl that can be done in about 4 hours. Looking for a good mix of combat, puzzles and traps.

>>52127742
B1 In Search of the Unknown

>>52127628
>Suppose hypothetically that I'm not a massive weeb.
"Looks like shit to be quite honest family"

>>52127742
The answer is always B4

>>52127742
Literally we talked about this up thread.
Ask >>52125009, >>52125486 for his dungeon.

He's not dropped the whole thing yet (his players visit 4chan), but if you drop an email address he would probably be willing to send you the whole thing.

>>52127770
>"Looks like shit to be quite honest family"
Thanks, Anon.
Kind of agree, although I think it's actually salvageable if you remove some of the worst weebing out. The katana doing stupid damage gave me a good laugh.

>>52127770
>>52127769
>4 Hours

Who the fuck can run B4, in completion, in under 4 hours?

File: roma-kupriyanov-14.jpg (435KB, 1920x2716px) Image search: [Google]

435KB, 1920x2716px

>>52127796
Yup, I'd be happy to. I can even whip up some maps in a hurry.

It'll be more of a sketch than a full crawl, but it works pretty damn well.

Remember too that at least 1 of those 4 hours is going to be spent on character generation.

>>52127976
but I posted B1

>>52128007
My bad.

What do you think is better?

a) Fewer classes, but those classes have broader scope, with customization that allows for making specific character types.

eg. you choose "warrior" and you can take skills that make you perform like a knight, or a ranger, or a barbarian or a pikeman or a shield bearer or a martial artist or whatever.

b) More classes that have specific function, class abilities and little to no customization.

eg. you choose to be a fighter or barbarian or knight or ranger or whatever.

To me, A is great if you have something very specific in mind. Lets you build exactly what you want. But if you don't, then it looks extremely uninspiring.

B is good if you want to be inspired, because that specific class evokes an archetype. But if the mechanics of that class don't exactly line up with what is in your head, you might get frustrated.

>>52128386 I usually do A, but rather than "provide customization options" it's "solicit homebrew."
I'd say that's "better" (more appropriate) as it's more in line with the OSR mentality (rulings over rules, etc.)

So, I'm slowly trying to learn what the core design and DMing philosophy of Old School Roleplaying are. Anyone care to help some poor noob? What makes a good and what makes a bad random encounter table?

>>52128517
I see OSR as typically doing B though. The core rules might only have the standard 4 (+ racial), but since the rules are all broadly compatible then it allows for the soliciting of "homebrew"; eg. the importing of one of the hundreds or thousands of custom classes published in magazines, supplements and more recently on blogs.

>>52128615
Do you consider Paladins to be their own class? Or variant Fighters?

>>52128630
most anywhere considers them a class of their own (option B).

I can see where they come from and the function they perform. Essentially a fighter-cleric multiclass/hybrid.

What I'm asking is if people think being able to pick one of a hundred classes is better than picking one of 3 then tweaking to suit.

Would you rather have classes a la carte or buffet?

>>52128732
I'd rather eat in the kitchen.

>>52128386
I like Dyson's approach were each class is kind of broad and generic but the randomly rolled sub-class is more specific.

>>52128554
I'm no grog but my general sense is
>don't tailor tables to player levels unless they're in dungeons
>keep the environment in mind; players aren't going to stumble into 10d10 goblin right outside the capitol but they probably will find 3d6 human bandits
>encounters can be non-combat situations
>encounters can be nothing but color and fluff
>encounters can be effects of the environment (mild quakes, loud noise cause by something randomly falling, etc.)

File: Class Pyramid 1.png (3MB, 3154x2493px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 3154x2493px

>>52128386
there's plenty of A already in the OSR(albeit with little or no customization), more along the lines of B would be welcome, especially if it reached the scope of attached pic

>>52128554

This is a neat couple of posts about the philosophy of OSR play:
http://roll1d100.blogspot.ca/2016/08/osr-gaming-referee-agendas.html
http://roll1d100.blogspot.ca/2016/08/osr-gaming-player-agendas.html

>>52128386
I like B more just because it's easier for players to grok. It's easier to just say "you can play a fighter or a barbarian" instead of "you can play a fighter in a barbarian way".

>>52128938
What? Idk what this guy is talking about. This looks out the prologue of a story game or something.

File: TheManse OSR game.pdf (110KB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

110KB, 1x1px

>>52128386

My entire game is built around concept A

>>52129113

Well, yeah, it's basically a modern style approach to explaining how OSR works at the table. Would you prefer 150 pages of High Gygaxian?
Wait, don't answer that, I just remembered where I was.

>>52128554
>>52129113
Sorry, that wasn't helpful for you, so: have you tried reading B/X Dungeons Master Info? It gives you a general approach of things. The introduction of B1 it's a lot more explicit and practical about what happens in a game session.
If you want to know what B/X played by the book does, google for "fellowship of the bling" -- excellent threads where only the default tables in B/X are used to populate proc-gen'd dungeons.

>>52129179
Nah, I mean I can't relate at all with that play style. He's talking constantly about "fiction".

>>52128938
>Build challenges with answers...
God damn. That is awful advice.

Do you guys have a more mythical and evocative name for "specialist"?

>>52129791
How about "Thief"?

Simple, but I think it's effective.

>>52129791

I prefer 'Rogue'. That way there is no connotation for criminality like the 'thief', but also it can imply a bit more on the side of general purpose skills, not just thief skills, and a bit more implication in the name for combat skills.

>>52129791
I always liked that Lord Dunsany calls the thieves (who do stuff very like prying the eyes out of huge idols) in his stories jewelers. (And technically I guess they *are*, too, but they don't get the stones from sellers.)

I know there are plenty of "how to into RPGs" videos, but most of them are either system-specific (and not focused on OSR) or system-agnostic on a surface level (but express ideas about how to play well that don't necessarily mesh with OSR philosophy).

Are there any good videos I can send to someone who watched Stranger Things and now thinks D&D sounds like a cool thing, but hasn't yet been sold on actually wanting to play?

>>52129807
What if I make a "thief" that is only good at hunting?

>>52129824
Doesn't rogue imply a dishonest and illegal lifestyle? Is Indiana Jones a rogue?

>>52129907
So they're jewelers because they hunt for jewels and treasure? That's pretty good. Which story of his is that from?

>>52129997
"Poacher"

File: MAP.png (1MB, 916x1191px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 916x1191px

>>52129791
Steal a language:

Irish/Gaeilge:
>Thief: Gadaí (gah-thee)
>Specialist: Saineolaí (san-yo-lee)
>Rogue/Pirate: Bradach (bra-theKH)
>Ranger: Saoiste (seesh-tche)

>>52128386
Are kits A or B? Because I think they were actually a good idea.

>>52130093
That map is really hard to follow. It's... and underwater tower that you enter from the top? With some caves beneath?
How does 1-5 connect to 1-4? One of the doors? Where do the others go?

>>52130214
Yes, it's a tower you enter from the top that goes under water. 1-4 goes to 1-5 by way of a portal.

>>52129997
>So they're jewelers because they hunt for jewels and treasure?
Well, they're jewelers in the literal sense too, that is they sell jewels. They just... need to obtain them, first. Shady methods? Sure! Why not.

>Which story of his is that from?
Recurring thing. It's in at least "Distressing Tale of Thangobrind the Jeweller", as the name indicates. "Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men" and "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon The Gnoles" are at the very least thematically related and might have the same thing. They're all in the Book of Wonder; Gutenberg link for good measure: gutenberg.org/ebooks/7477

You really ought to read the whole book anyway and it's not that long, so do yourself a favor.

>>52129666

What? It says build challenges with answers, and without. IE when you're placing shit in a dungeon, think carefully about whether or not you intend for this challenge to block the party's progress. And if not, ensure there are multiple solutions placed somewhere else in the dungeon.
It's maybe a little out of place among general play principles, since it's more of a dungeon design principle, but it's an important one anyway.

>>52130006
That's pretty good.

>>52130093
That's cool, but I'd like to have it so players can understand the word as soon as they read it. I guess I should have clarified that.

>>52130273
I'll give it a read. Thanks!

>>52130341
>There's a magically locked iron gate the players have to get past...
>how could they? I guess one of the NPCs has a key...
>and there's a potion of Eat Metal hidden in room 12c.
That's not a challenge. That's an obstacle.

>>52130341
>It says build challenges with answers, and without.

Whatever. It should be:
>Build challenges with rewards, and without.

>>52130633

Sure, if you want to nitpick, I guess?

>>52130691
But the OSR principle it's putting across is that it's okay to have things that the players will not be able to solve with what's readily available.

File: miss-the-point.png (4KB, 400x400px) Image search: [Google]

4KB, 400x400px

>>52130703
>things that the players will not be able to solve with what's readily available.
*things that force the players to act clever.

>>52130703
>with answers, and without
Sounds like he's suggesting a lotfp way of designing adventures: players interact with things, random stuff happens just because.

What you suggest is very gygaxian but not everybody does that.

I don't believe there's such a thing as a "OSR principle".

>>52130762

Yeah, that IS the point, some obstacles don't have to have ready-made solutions around, the players will have to be clever to get past them. Which gives you places to stash special treasures and stuff.

>>52130796
>players interact with things, random stuff happens just because.

That doesn't sound like what he's saying at all, especially in the context of the other bits he wrote.

He's saying design ecosystems in your dungeons and just let players loose in them, to solve problems on their own. Drop down tools that will let them solve any essential problems that are needed to delve the dungeon, but don't just drop the key near the door it unlocks. He's also saying to leave some "bonus" stuff that you don't know how they'll get past, and let them surprise you with their ingenuity. Just don't make that something that stops the adventure dead in its tracks.

You're talking about actions here (>>52131051), but you were talking about resources here (>>52130703).
Either you're incapable of conveying intent (and need lessons on communication) or you've moved the goalposts while doing your best impression of a parrot.

File: hit dice, roll from scratch, chance to get below 3 hp per level.png (59KB, 939x593px) Image search: [Google]

59KB, 939x593px

>>52126472

The tabletop society at my university was low on people who would agree to be GMs next semester, so I signed up. Never GMd much before. I'd very much like to do the Caverns of Thracia, will Swords and Wizardry work well for that (if I use the decending AC rules)? Also, does anyone have any tips for XP distribution? RAW seems to produce very slow level-ups (assuming the given XP values are meant to be split between the whole party).

>>52131255
>I'd very much like to do the Caverns of Thracia, will Swords and Wizardry work well for that (if I use the decending AC rules)?
Sure, should be fine. Just make sure you're familiar with the module and play style beforehand, if you're weak on it. (It'll work fine with ascending AC, too, if you just convert the monsters in the module.)

>RAW seems to produce very slow level-ups (assuming the given XP values are meant to be split between the whole party).
Yes. It's super feeble on treasure for some reason. Anon did a revision of the loot in an earlier /osrg/ thread some time ago, with advice from Anon and Anon. If he still visits the threads I bet he can hook you up with what he did in detail, or you can search the /tg/ archive for "Thracia", I bet there won't be *that* many dud results to sift through.

File: Ooze_Garden__card_version_by_Fyreant.jpg (78KB, 600x476px) Image search: [Google]

78KB, 600x476px

>>52131255
>>52131338
I'm intrigued by Caverns of Thracia, but god the it's such an eye sore to read.

Unrelated: Goblin Punch's take of a mushroom forest.
https://goblinpunch.blogspot.co.nz/2014/10/new-biome-great-rot.html

>>52131338
Hmm, thanks for the advice. I've run a couple (successful) sessions of DCC before, so I feel like I'm not totally unqualified. I'll have a look for the revision tomorrow, and if I can't find it then I guess I'll just roll on a random loot table every time the players loot a set of bodies. I do remember thinking that there didn't seem to be much loot when I was reading the module.

File: Gygax - Master of the Game.pdf (7MB, 1x1px) Image search: [Google]

7MB, 1x1px

>>52131255
Read this...

>>52131338
>for some reason
Gygax.

File: cuttlefinch.jpg (66KB, 800x902px) Image search: [Google]

66KB, 800x902px

>>52131255
...and the 1e DMG.
I was going to attach it, but >8MB.
So fish it out of the Trove.

>>52131167

What? Those are both me, and I didn't move any goalposts, you autistic prick.

>>52131416
>reason
>Gygax
>Caverns of Thracia
>written by Paul Jaquays
>for Judges Guild
Nay, son. Here's one goof you can't connect to your hateboner.

>>52131453
>What? Those are both me,
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt.
>and I didn't move any goalposts,
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/move_the_goalposts
You changed the position you were arguing, to more closely match mine.
Which is fine if you concede points or lose the argument,
but you were doing it to try and leverage "your" platform.
>you autistic prick.
1 out of 2. At least you got something partially right.

>>52131506
>You changed the position you were arguing, to more closely match mine.

I explained that your argument was not opposed to what I was saying in the first place, but in fact you were already in line with what the guy wrote.

>>52131477
Okay, it might be Arneson or Kuntz, but it's still TSR's fuckup. Let me explain:

LBB OD&D does not have a method for working out how much XP a given monster is worth. However, in the section on how gaining XP works, the example has the character gaining 700 XP for killing a troll, which is a 7th-level monster (6+something HD). Since there's no mention of the fact that the troll's special abilities have jacked up its XP value, it was assumed (at least by Jaquays, and probably by many more) that a monster's XP value is 100*its level.

Which is why there's not much treasure on the upper levels of Thracia: The module's assuming you'll be getting hundreds of XP from the monsters.

>>52131532 c >>52131167
>you're incapable of conveying intent (and need lessons on communication)

We were never arguing against "...And challenges without" from the roll1d100 blog. We were arguing against "Build challenges with answers..."
You (>>52130703) tried to prop the latter against the former, then backpedaled after I (>>52130762) posted.

File: The Hoard of the Gibbelins.png (878KB, 797x2594px) Image search: [Google]

878KB, 797x2594px

>>52130273
>They're all in the Book of Wonder;
Lord Dunsany seems to be mostly forgotten these days, but he apparently had a big influence on fantasy writers of previous generations (Lovecraft especially). I wasn't very impressed with The King of Elfland's Daughter, which had an interesting setup but didn't really know what to do for the second half of the story (maybe Dunsany is better at short stories than novels?). I didn't get very far in The Gods of Pegana, which seemed a bit overly whimsical for my taste, but I'll admit that I didn't give it much of a chance. I thought that the Book of Wonder, however, was fantastic. It's a collection of short stories, most of which are essentially fairy tales with a dark twist.

Anyway, the attached image is a story from The Book of Wonder.

File: 1468973102523.jpg (104KB, 677x995px) Image search: [Google]

104KB, 677x995px

>>52131628
>except perchance among the lenders of money, who feared they would soon be paid.

>>52131628
>Some nourishment that common soil has not the huge trees drained there with their colossal roots from both banks of the river.
That is a massively awkward sentence by modern standards.

>>52129791
How about 'Dungeoneer'
Evocative of someone who is equipped with adventuring specific skills.

>>52130101
A bit of both, but leaning toward B, imo.

Classless systems would be the "purest" form of A

>>52131929
That one's not that awkwardly constructed, it's just really long.

File: Moon Goblins.png (2MB, 800x3600px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 800x3600px

>>52131820
Especially considering roots don't nourish.

But I'll do you one better:
>And there was much rejoicing also because men hoped that when he Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, they would shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to the moon, from which they had come and to which they rightfully belonged.

>>52132033
It's still much easier to parse than >>52131820.

>>52131951
<Clause No.1 (independent)> because <Clause No.2 (dependent)>, <Part 1 of Clause No.3 (independent)>, <Clause No.4 (dependent)>, <Part 2 of Clause No.3 (independent)>, <Clause No.5 (independent)> and <Clause No.6 (independent)>.

>>52132043
Your sentence needs a double take, but is still faster to grok.
It's also the less ambiguous sentence.

File: 14688._UY475_SS475_.jpg (23KB, 475x475px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 475x475px

>>52131820
It was pretty awkward then, as well.

It's just the style of his prose and the themes of the time.

Don't bully Dunsany. "In the Land of Time" is a classic and incredibly evocative. You can't understand Kill Six Billion Demons without reading it.

>>52132062
>is still faster to grok.
No.

>>52131598

I have no idea how you can read it like that. Challenges with and without are right next to each other, and obviously should be seen as belonging together, and nitpicking between "resources" and "actions" in puzzle solving is a pointless distinction. Pointing that out is not "backpedaling."

File: roma-kupriyanov-23eeeee.jpg (530KB, 1920x3083px) Image search: [Google]

530KB, 1920x3083px

>>52128386
C) Few classes, with few customization scopes. The stuff on your sheet doesn't matter quite as much as the choices you make and the stuff between your ears.

Except Wizards. Wizards get schools. 2 level 1 Wizards will be fairly different. 2 level 1 Knights will be, aside from stats and starting profession and starting gear, identical.

Seems to work fine so far.

File: Untitled.png (52KB, 704x379px) Image search: [Google]

52KB, 704x379px

>>52132478
To paraphrase a bit:
>>52132478 ⇒ "Sometimes you don't have the tools to solve the puzzle."
>>52131051 ⇒ "Some puzzles require clever ideas."
You backpedaled when someone pointed out what "challenges without answers" meant.

>and obviously should be seen as belonging together,
Perhaps you should read Steven Lumpkin's post again. Aside from tying their names together, they're as different as night and day.
"Build challenges with answers..." ⇒ Refluff locks and keys, block passages with unless nearby items/actions are used.
"...And challenges without" ⇒ Make puzzles without making solutions, but accept any appropriate (and clever!) solutions.