/osrg/ OSR General

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Posting my personal notes and cheat sheets incase anyone else wants to borrow. Contains a couple pages for generic wilderness travel and some combat stuff from LL.

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>>53157415
Just made a couple quick edits for clarity and reposting...

I run games using the most modern rules-light stuff out there (e.g. players make up their skill lists) and I've found old monster manuals, random encounter tables, and dungeon designs to be incredibly useful. Thanks for keeping this stuff alive, OSR community.

>>53156953
>>Your friend took a bag of gold off an altar and a trapdoor spider grabbed him and pulled him into its tunnel.
>>You grabbed his arms, held him up, looked him in the eye as you took the bag out of his hands and let go.

And then you got kicked by the rest of the party because no one would ever trust you again.
You'd have to be a complete retard to continue dungeon crawling with a dude that has proven that will literally leave you to your death.

>>53157740
Right. And you don't play with the bugger who always passes the ref notes about nicking treasure while they're scouting ahead.

>>53157661
Like what rules?

>>53157661
You have no idea how happy that makes me, as someone who writes up shit for this scene every so often.

Like, 7 people from osrg said they frequent my blog in that last strawpoll we did, and it really makes me all warm and cheery inside.

It's all done with love, my man.

>>53158419
It's a few generations of homebrew rules that eventually started as Risus.

I stopped running games because of problems that I recently learned are solved by the West Marches set up. If my new campaign goes well I'll bother to publish somewhere.

>>53157740
The 'friend' might be a hireling.

>>53158678
Now i want to hear more

>>53158774
>tossing your hirelings' lives away without even trying
Time for some negative modifiers on those morale checks.

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>>53158785
Skip to the skills section in the attached for the Risus-based stuff.

This is a few years old now. I later realized that classes could be optional and you could spend levels on items or plot events instead. I'm currently prototyping a completely different combat system.

I'd like to stress that these rules really aren't OSR.

>>53158891
Haha, disregard that. I re-read my old stuff and realized I can explain this so much better now.

A skill can be almost anything. You're not allowed to use skills directly for combat or magic. A skill can be a profession, cliche, actual skill name, description of a useful character trait, whatever. Gem appraisal, catburglary, viking, and fast talker are all valid skills.

You have a certain number of dice that go with a skill. At 1-dice, it's a joke that you think you can do this thing. Two is in-training. Three is the normal amount of skill that a fully trained person has, whatever amount of training is appropriate for this sort of thing. Higher than that is various stages of mastery, getting to the point where you can lean on that skill for things it's not normally considered appropriate for.

To do a skill roll you describe how that skill applies for the thing you're attempting to accomplish. The GM assigns a difficulty based on how difficult that thing is for a person using that skill. Trying to use sewing to make armor is harder than doing that with blacksmithing. The one special rule the GM needs to keep in mind here is that an overly specific skill is always at least as good as the generic version. "Lion tamer" should be treated like "animal tamer" unless the animals are lion-like (or actually lions).

>>53158969
Whoops, last bit: then you roll Xd6 keep highest 3, where X is your skill number.

so last thread I mentioned I was bidding on a lot of AD&D books, that ended up falling through due to being outbid past the point I was comfortable paying for, so my current plan is to just print up a bunch of AD&D stuff through Lulu for my own use, so now I ask /osrg/ if there's anything important I should keep in mind when doing this sort of thing?

>>53159150
>if there's anything important I should keep in mind when doing this sort of thing?
Don't print the whole book, just print shit you're going to need to reference a bunch. Copy/paste or rewrite shit into an easy-to-reference form, and print that.

>>53159168
I'm doing this less to run them and more to just have a version of the AD&D books to own, since obtaining the actual thing at a cost I can actually afford has become a pipe dream for the moment

>>53157740
That would be metagaming and overall bad form, because the characters aren't aware that is is the same player. My advice is not to play with vengeful manchildren jerks who cannot separate IC from OOC.

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Reposting this thing that we got done last thread. Is it in the trove yet?

>>53157523
That's pretty nice Anon

>>53158971
Sounds a bit like burning wheel

>>53160139
It really bothers me that there are paragraphs spilling over to the next page. Especially the first table that is on the first page, that spills over to the next column. It's makes it much harder to read!

Carousing. Or orgies, as they were called.

Party can spend money on getting drunk, sacrifices, clan hoards, philanthropy, and spell research. At least one source adds gourmandising. That's all pretty great.

But what about training and buying really fancy clothes?

>>53160171
I'm not the one who made the pdf, but I guess that the 6th location can be moved down to the 3rd page. I think the whole thing would fit there. The "Featuring" section could have a smaller font size, I think it would fit into one column then.

Right now I'm working on random encounter tables for overland travel. Do you guys prefer your travel tables to mostly consist of hostile encounters with monsters, or do you like having stuff like "traveling hedge wizard" or "religious pilgrims" as social encounters mixed in with the wild hounds and orcs?

>>53161157
The latter. Wilderness is a dangerous place, but it's not all hostile.

Besides, who's to say you couldn't parley with the orcs?

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What are some good OSR modules for beginners? looking for something playable by lvl 1 characters and easy to play and to run as a DM. Basically the OSR version of Lost mines of Phandelver.
could be from original TSR, S&W, LL, LotFP, anything.

take as an appreciation the art version of LL's AEC, because in the trove is only the non-art one.

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>>53160235
>really fancy clothes
Hiring a personal tailor is a thing people do. Get their measurements, get your servant's measurements, go to a theatre show, get a fashion consultation, sketches, fabric imports, fittings, etc. Then get into fights with other rich people about their hat because its taller than yours.

You could probably just get a resource book on costumes from various time periods for inspiration. Maybe a table or two to combine for avant garde fashions.

>>53161157
The second by far.

>>53161892
The classic one are B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands. B4 The Lost City is often recommended around here. Tower of the Stargazer from LotFP is also good, although some people don't like it because it's pretty lethal. T1 The Village of Hommlet is the beginner module for AD&D players. I've sometimes heard that The Wizardium of Calibraxis for DCC is a good starter module.

>>53161892
Tower of the Stargazer, The Lost City (B4), Shadowbrook Manor

>>53161892
Good suggestions already. Just wanted to add Tomb of The Iron God for dungeon crawling. Some neat shit there.

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Does anyone happen to have a pdf of the very old Judge's Guild module, Tegel Manor?

Not the shitty "revised & expanded" version put out by Gamescience in 1989 (that's the only one I can find the in the trove), but the real one from 1977?

>>53156953
>Tigris&Euphrates, or Nile, or Yellow, or Yangtze?
>No Indus

Yellow River a cute. A CUTE!

>>53160139
>>53160171
I think you guys are nitpicking.

t. guy who wrote 4, 5, 8

>>53160235
I award extra XP for fluff purchases on 2 XP per 1 GP spent basis.

>>53161157
The second one. Nothing but combat encounters is for boring video games.

>>53161892
B4 if you don't mind weirdness, Jade Hare if you want something more "normal".

>>53164461
I like double xp for fluff purchases. I'm totally running that from here on out

>>53165051
>>53164461
I do full xp for leisure and half xp for expenses.

I once saw this fan made AD&D 3E system. Anyone have a look at it? Any thoughts about it? Is it OSR?

>>53165747
It's in the trove, so presumably it counts as OSR.

>>53163930
How is the 1989 version so shitty compared to the old version?

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If B&X Anon (hrrr?) is here, I'd like to draw his attention to this delightful document from the trove.

>>53165546
What constitutes "fluff expenses"?

>>53167497
Anything that isn't intended to help you survive or adventure.

Bringing a bum into the murder-pit to carry your treasure is an expense.
Bringing a bard into the murder-pit to write songs as you adventure is leisure.

>>53167693
That's fair. It's also a nice way to make people level up without having to give them an entire boatload of coins.

Guy rolling up a corpathium city, hows that going?

>>53165791

The old one has very terse room descriptions, pure gonzo/"funhouse dungeon" contents, and it's just a site adventure, no plot.

The revision (which, to begin with, is a shitty and unreadable scan if you look for it on google or the trove) has a wall of text for each room, tones down the "gonzo" flavor by replacing some of the sillier encounters with more run of the mill haunted house stuff, and adds a stupid "stop the cultists" plot.

>>53166934

Not that Anon, but that is a gorgeous document and TYVM for posting it.

How much personality do you guys usually give to Hireling NPCs?

How long do Hirelings tend to survive in your games? Any stories of particularly enduring followers, or ones who went out in particularly spectacularly ways?

>>53168595
I usually give them a lot of personality. They tend to be the first to die whenever anything bad goes down. The most memorable my group has had was probably a drunkard called Rug who managed to survive a bunch of shit somehow. When one of our players moved away, we decided that he would join her character on another quest, and that they would return later.

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>>53167983
Some of us have jobs, ya know...

Going Ok. Going to need to edit and rename a few pieces. The overall city is pretty solid though.

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>>53158517
>Like, 7 people from osrg said they frequent my blog in that last strawpoll we did, and it really makes me all warm and cheery inside.
Mwahaha, I have 12! 12! That makes me about 1.7 times as good as you! And by that logic, your e-penis is a measly 2.3 inches long.

But yeah, this community is pretty nice, overall.

why is BFRPG frowned upon here?

>>53170677
It's not.

>>53170771
I don't think I've seen anyone mention it even once.

>>53170861
How long have you been here? I don't think there's much to discuss about it. I use it for one of my games.

>>53170861
It got a lot of talk a while back but like all OSR games their talk rise and fall. Like, when was the last time you heard people talk about AS&SH?

>>53170881
>>53170903
Fair enough

>>53170924
It might become popular here again in a couple months, but right now everyone's talking about GLOG.

>>53170995
GLOG?

>>53171030
https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-glog.html

>>53170499
>Some of us have jobs, ya know...
No need for sass man, was just showing interest.

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>>53170995
>>53171030
You remind me of the GLOG.
>What GLOG?
The GLOG with the power.
>What power?
The power of homebrew.
>Homebrew?
You do.
>Do what?
Remind me of the GLOG.

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>>53171142
>No need for sass man
This is 4chan, the only place where I can get well meaning sass on and not get myself Big Purpled out of existence.

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>>53170995
>>53171030
>>53171080
>>53171178

>May 6th of 2016
>literally over a year ago

Why are you all suddenly only talking about it now?

>>53171478
Because they're hipsters who were late to the party and hope they can now be cool kids by association?

I have a question about gender and polymorph and amazingly it's NOT because of my magical realm

Can someone change genders with a Polymorph spell? A female character wanted to become a deer with antlers, and while I said yeah sure, I'm curious if anyone would have ruled differently

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>>53171478
Takes a bit of time to separate the wheat from the chaff?

Alternatively, in a community this small (28 posters in this thread so far), it doesn't take much to have something "suddenly" start entering the conversation.

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>>53171523
>Can someone change genders with a Polymorph spell?

Absolutely.

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>>53171178

>>53171478
Coins & Scrolls dude started using it, and people like his blog and Goblin Punch, so a lot of people got into it.

>>53171506
You might as well call everyone interested in OSR hipsters.

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>>53172301

>>53172334
>You might as well call everyone interested in OSR hipsters.
Well, a good portion certainly are. Raggi, Zak, Stuart, and Kabuki Kaiser spring to mind.

>>53172684
And you.

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Anyone here a historian specializing in 12th - 16th century Calais? Want to go on an undirected rant about city design, governance, law, and drainage?

>>53172867
/tg/ as w hole is more likely to know than /his/, but not /tg/osrg/

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What kind of resolution mechanic to you usually employ when you need to make a ruling?

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>>53172767
It's part of his wheelchair.

>>53172837
How does disliking pretentious hipster "art" make one a hipster?

>>53172973

My way

or

the highway

>>53172973
Unless modifying a roll to use as a degree of success, I go with roll under.
It makes it easier to think about the chance of success.

>>53172991
It's not that. It's just the fact that you hang out on 4chan posting about old games, have very specific opinions on very specific and popular people in the scene, and act like a faggot shitting up these threads ever so often.

>>53172991 It doesn't, but see >>53172334.
>>53172976 Is he gripping with his talons?
>>53173010 But the highway is lower down.

>>53173042
>>53173042
>you hang out on 4chan posting about old games
Like you.

>have very specific opinions on very specific and popular people in the scene
So no one can ever any negative opinions ever? I don't see you rushing to defend Gygax whenever someone points out how terrible he was.

>act like a faggot shitting up these threads
Yes, heaven forbid I should insult the great Ayatollah al-Raggi (PBUH), Grand Mufti of the OSR.

>>53173106
This is getting so predictable dude. You show here once or twice in the middle of the week, at around the same time, making some snide remark without provocation, and when people tell you to fuck off you go back to that boring "oh so I can't criticize *these* people??" argument.

Get it through your thick skull that people don't care what you think about raggi or zak or whoever you have a problem with in that clique. I can't be bothered to do this dance with you anymore.

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>>53172919
Eh, figured it was worth a chance.

>>53172973
It's usually a Stat-based roll-under test.

Now that the shrieking has died down, I'd like to point out that a) I'm a filthy hipster heretic and b) it works. Your mileage may vary.

>>53173042
>>53173106
Now now, there's no need to fight. There's plenty of room in the thread for people who like all kinds of games. Can't we just get along and be polite, or at the very least civil?

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>>53173106
Insulting anyone, purely for the insult's sake, is shitposting.
Critique their work or find something else to discuss.

>>53171523
>Can someone change genders with a Polymorph spell?
Implying that is couldn't is honestly pretty interesting.
What passage led you to that assumption?

>>53172973
I like to tie things into morale.
Mostly because of how many things I tie into morale.

>>53172867
Well if you don't get anything here I'm sure there's someone in /hwg/

>>53173231
>I like to tie things into morale.
Can you elaborate on that? Seems interesting.

>>53173322
>Sneaking past monsters?
Roll (possibly modified) over their morale.

>Malnourished?
Morale penalty.

>Skipping your once per hour rest?
Morale check or collapse, then a morale penalty.

>Trying to lie?
Arbitration. If I don't have a sense of it, opposed roll-under morale.

etc. etc.

>>53173393
Do the PCs in your game also have morale scores? I don't think I've seen that before. How is it calculated?

>>53173231
>What passage led you to that assumption?
I should have clarified it was Polymorph self, which has all those restrictions on 'blah blah no supernatural/special powers' and it was making me think 'this spell doesn't change SHIT beyond the physical, you're really just yourself stretched into a weird shape

And since you have to pick real creatures, not just 'Okay I will be a quadruped with wings and claws and tentacles and horns' it seems that you don't have free control, so if you were a female and stretched yourself into a deer, you'd still be a female deer and so wouldn't have horns because female deer don't have horns

Then I decided I was overthinking things and went with 'yeah you turn into a deer with antlers' and it didn't matter whether they were a female deer with antlers or a male deer with antlers because neither 'deer with antlers' or 'Level 4 spell changing sex' is something that threatens the cosmic balance of the universe

But Polymorph is a weird spell and I wondered if anyone else had odd rulings for it

>>53173485
Unless the gender you're attempting to polymorph into has innate magical powers, no, I wouldn't restrict that.

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>>53173485
It also says you can polymorph yourself into a black pudding.

Black puddings don't have a gender.

QED...

Also, you are hella overthinking this. I'm sure there are better things to bang your head against.

>>53173527
what am I looking at here?

>>53170903
>when was the last time you heard people talk about AS&SH

Yesterday.

>>53173527
>Also, you are hella overthinking this. I'm sure there are better things to bang your head against.

NO

I MUST OBSESS OVER NON-ISSUES FROM LAST SESSION THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN RESOLVED BY MY OWN ENTIRELY REASONABLE DRAMA-FREE RULINGS

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>>53173553
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmB4DfG-3K4

Make sure to turn on subtitles

>>53173592
>I MUST OBSESS OVER NON-ISSUES FROM LAST SESSION THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN RESOLVED BY MY OWN ENTIRELY REASONABLE DRAMA-FREE RULINGS

This is why I keep rum on hand, for the late night madness.

>>53173421
Base 9, plus or minus 1 (their choice) at high levels.

They test morale as anyone else does.
If they fail and can retreat, -1 to hit and AC.
If they pass and can't retreat, +1 to hit and AC.


Morale also ties into my shitty homebrew's 0hp handling.
You're HD are (secretly) rolled at the start of each fight.
If you're above 0hp and an attack takes you below it, you lose take the damage out of your HD†
If you're at 0hp, each attack deals 1 point to your HD and the rest as -1d6 luck*
You can burn luck in a few other ways, but you die when your luck runs out.

If you fail a morale check at 0hp and opt to retreat, the retreat is automatic (baring extenuating circumstances).
If you pass the morale check but opt to retreat, things are less clear-cut.

†Lost HD are restored at the end of the adventure.
‡Max and initial value of 3d6. 1 point restored at the end of each adventure.

>>53173614
Oh man, I remember hearing a version of this story when I was child. I like how the constellations are outlined on the night sky.

>>53173714
Huh, that's interesting. I don't think I've seen these mechanics before. Did you come up with them yourself or did you get it from somewhere?

How is a game supposed to be balanced when it's expected that different members of the same party will have an AC difference of like 9?

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>>53173830
>How is a game supposed to be balanced when it's expected that different members of the same party will have an AC difference of like 9?

I'm going to pretend this is a serious question>

OSR games rely on a lot more mechanics than just AC. Chief among them is player cunning, the lord of all. Dumb players get fantastic AC characters killed. Smart players can keep a terrible AC character alive.

But seriously, if you don't get that yet, take a step back and do some more thinking and reading and watching.

>>53173830
Fighting is generally discouraged in OSR games.

>>53173614
well I'm going to have to include Ekh in one of my games in the future

we really need someone here in the US to license and release a nice DVD collection of a lot of those old Soviet animations in high quality

>>53173886
That's a really lazy answer. You could use that defend literally anything.
>game for some reason has a class that's just a fighter with d4 health
>"just get good and you won't die idiot"
>>53173928
Is that why almost all the rules are related to it?

C'mon guys don't sidestep the question I'm serious here.

>>53174001
>Is that why almost all the rules are related to it?
If you want to discourage fighting, you gotta make it hard and deadly. The only way to do that is to make rules.

>>53174001
>Is that why almost all the rules are related to it?
http://revolution21days.blogspot.com/2012/01/why-d-has-lots-of-rules-for-combat.html

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>>53174001
>C'mon guys don't sidestep the question I'm serious here.

>>53174038
>>53174025
I'm not interested in your dumbass fan theories about how the games were intended to be played. Don't tell me they wrote all of those rules with the intention of them being unworkable garbage.
>>53174067
Every time I come here with a genuine question you guys always just cringe away without ever giving a competent answer.

>>53174103
fuck off to /pfg/ or /tv/ or /pol/ or whatever cesspool you sludged yourself out of.

>>53174103
Geez, don't tell me you're the resident That Guy who's finally trying some other bait?
Go bother one of the bigger generals or something.

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>>53174103
>Every time I come here with a genuine question you guys always just cringe away without ever giving a competent answer.

Gee, I wonder if that says more about the thread or more about you?

>>53174155
While I agree with his opinion on the fanon of OSR philosophers, he is not I.

>>53174208
I'm glad you're acknowledging your position in these generals, at least.

>>53174172
I think it definitely says quite a bit about the thread honestly. Both responses to the original question were basically "you shouldn't worry if the game is balanced".

I think anyone else would have at least tried to explain why the game they like is good, but all I ever see are these weird half-answers that don't explain anything.

>Guys THAC0 is dumb and there's no reason for it to work that way.
>What are some kind of retard that doesn't know how to subtract?

This kind of shit.

>>53174248
Most people here use ascending AC.

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>"you shouldn't worry if the game is balanced"

"Balanced" is a very, very loaded and nebulous term. It's almost a meaningless question. It's like asking "Guys, why are Wizards bad?" or "Guys, why are bows underpowered?" It's meaningless without context and even with context it's not really an interesting question.

I can't answer anon because his question is designed not to be answers, but instead to stir shit and provoke meaningless debate.

But here we go. Your game isn't balanced because it's not Starcraft. Go play Starcraft.

Done.

>>53174238
I find it good to embrace the consensus.
A shitposter I am, lest a shitposter I become.

>>53174248
Have you considered that maybe your questions are bad?
Forget AC, Hit Dice are much more important (press F to pay respects to thieves with 1d4 hp)

>Guys THAC0 is dumb and there's no reason for it to work that way.
1) DELET THIS
2) that's not a question and you aren't providing reasoning

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>>53173830
Generally because AC is only a mitigation factor. OSR games in the classic dungeon crawl context are ultimately about conservation of resources in the face of obstacles, and ultimately, the one resource that counts is HP (and possibly food/sleep/light depending on what is being tracked).

You can distill almost everything into an obstacle that requires resources to cross. Different classes attempt different strategies for dealing with said obstacles. The Fighter wagers his own HP to get past obstacles (i.e. fighting them or hitting them with something heavy), and gets benefits that tilt wagers in his favour, and usually gets the highest pool of HP and good saving throws to power through any situation.

Thieves get an assortment of percentile abilities (although I've always felt their strength is pretty wretched at a d4 HD; I think AD&D's shifting of rogues to a d6 HD helped them a lot) - Climb Sheer surfaces (deals with pits and ravines), Hide in Shadows (deals with monsters), and so forth.

Wizards are the poorest at direct wagers, but instead get a limited number of slots that provide for very narrow and specific purpose obstacle-removers (Fireball eliminates a group of orcs, Knock eliminates a locked door, Fly or Spider Climb eliminate ravines and chasms).

Clerics work inbetween Fighters and Wizards - their spells revolve around restoring HP and allowing them to make more HP wagers via combat like Fighters.

>>53174386
See everyone, a good answer.
Better than I probably deserve, frankly.

On the other hand >>53173886
>Hey guys how (mechanic) balanced?
>I'm going to pretend that this is a serious question because I know no one would genuinely contradict Gygax's vision.

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>>53174386
>tfw all the cool weeaboo D&D stuff got killed off by shonenshit and haremshit

>>53174436
But you continued your argument by asking why combat has so many rules. That's not needed if all you're doing is simple wagering. You should ask anon why that is.

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>>53173830
>>53174386
Secondly, keep in mind a lot of this assumes an inherent dungeon crawl context with all the trappings. The Vancian limits on wizards mean very little if the party is not being time-pressured by random encounters and can rest wherever.

For better or worse, a lot of modern RPGs now take the dungeon out of D&D, and the distortions that result are quite evident if you look at all the threads complaining about D&D - chances are a lot of them are running far more "epic journey" style campaigns where the strange and sometimes bizarre limitations of early TSR era D&D are not in force.

This is the attraction of OSR for a lot of people - it's not just the rules, but the entire context that the rules fit in.

You already noted that rules discussion on these threads is actually somewhat minimal and analysis of rules structures are near non-existent - most people don't care if you're playing B/X or LL or ACKS or LOTFP or S&W or BECMI or the LBBs or AD&D or any number of innumerable clones, because OSR campaigns are more about content and context rather than specific rulesets.

I've seen two ways of doing roll under stat as resolution:
1) d20 or 3d6 vs. Stat.
2) d6 vs. 3+Stat Modifier (with the rules for values of <1 and 6+ being roll twice with double 1s as success and double 6s as failure respectively).

I can see the value of both. 1) is fastest, roll and compare. 2) isn't much slower and using modifiers over raw stat scores smooths out the weighting of good/bad stats while keeping them relevant (which seems to be one of the main criticisms, outside of "Why are you rolling? Just make something up").

For those of you who use roll under stat as resolution in unclear situations/have strong opinions on it, which sticks out as better?

>>53174537
I am not a fan of roll-under stats in general, mainly because I think it places a very large emphasis on high stats as opposed to experience level (I think stat mod + dice roll + level bonus vs TN is a better system), but if you must I would use the system with stat mods for the reasons you mention - it smooths things out.

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>>53174476

>>53174295
I use Target-20 myself.

>>53174436
>Gygax's vision
You realize this is /osrg/ and we don't actually care about Gygax's vision right? We care about Moldvay's and Cook's.

>>53174537
I like the d6 method the most out of those, though I'd do away with the snake eye/boxcar rules. If they have less than a 3% chance of doing something, and doing something that's important enough to roll for,
they shouldn't be gambling on that 3% chance, they should be trying to come up with something smarter or even something stupider.

(because rolling for trivial things and timewasting is the dark side of rollings, just as powertrips and magical realms are the dark side of rulings)

>>53174951
If you prefer Basic, sure. Some prefer AD&D 1e which was Gygax, other OD&D which was Gygax & Arneson. Others also prefer Mentzer's BECMI, others the RC, and a rare few prefer AD&D 2e.

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Does your world have factions? What purpose do they serve? Do your players give a shit about them?

Where do I find cool traps?

>>53175391
Trove → 01_DM Resources → Grimtooth's Traps
Just try not to use any of that cancer verbatim.

>>53174590
That's a good point. Factoring in experience levels is a good idea.

>>53175010
>If they have less than a 3% chance of doing something, and doing something that's important enough to roll for, they shouldn't be gambling on that 3% chance, they should be trying to come up with something smarter or even something stupider.
I agree, but I'm inclined to think that it's one of those 'solves itself' problems.

>>53174951
It's funny to me that you think that makes you sound any better.

>>53175314
>If you prefer Basic
>>53175568
>It's funny to me that you think that makes you sound any better.
Those are the jokes. I'm mortified that I have to explain that, an utter failure at osr humor on my part.

>>53175667
I thought that was a possibility but I'm never sure with this thread.

>>53175381
Usually
Anything you could imagine and more
Never ever

>>53175687
If you assume the best, you will often be disappointed.
If you assume the worst, you will always be disappointed.

>>53156953
How are these for the three basic rules of OSR/Grognarding

1) Hand over your authority to the DM
2) Improvise more and roll less
3) Expect character death to be fairly common

Consider this:
An OSR game in the Ponyfinder setting.

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I think the problem with Grognards is that they think less rules means less complications, but they are wrong.

A robust rule system is necessary to handle different kinds of player input. Whenever there is a dispute between players and a DM about which way the story should go, (and if you are exercising your characters "free will" this should always happen) there needs to be a framework within the rules for handling it. There will always be unhandled exception errors that will require the attention of the DM, but the more a DM is forced to improvise a rules solution the more likely it is his ruling will not be fair, consistent or even handed. The same basic method of resolving disputes should be used in each similar situation to more or less the same effect.

>>53176004
>3
Only if you play poorly.

>>53176004
You should only be getting killed every ninth or tenth sessions, /blatant/ stupidity notwithstanding.

1) Improvise more and roll less
2) Dungeons is the first word

Does anyone have a big collection of random encounter tables they'd recommend?

The best parts of my tables so far are complete nonsense like:
- cockatrice on a fencepost
- talking cat trying to sell you magic beans (he's a huckster, don't buy them)
- expert assassin has the wrong mark

But there's a lot of room for normal stuff and it'd be easier to cobble together with a good starting point.

>>53171523
Duh yes

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>>53175391
/a

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>>53175391

>>53176067
We get it, we are having badwrongfun.

>>53156953
What DnD version should I use? I'm getting tired of the overly mechanical slugfest that is 3.5 and would like to run a get-rich-or-die-trying hexcrawl, however I have absolutely 0 experience with older editions.

What's the difference between Odnd, DnD Basic, ADnD etc?

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>>53176097
Tons of urban tables in here: http://www.lastgaspgrimoire.com/welcome-to-corpathium/
Good stuff here too: http://antlerrr.blogspot.ca

>>53176262
Moldvay or Mentzer basics will take you from 0 experience to a basic knowledge of the style of game as they are tutorial kinda systems. Not a bad place to start.

>>53176262
>Odnd
Missing rules, historical artifact

>DnD Basic
Smoother, race-as-class

>ADnD 1e
Chunkier, race-and-class, badly organized

>AD&D 2e
like 1e but better organized, has many more optional-ish sub-systems

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>>53176310
>>53176262

I like odnd, but you need to heavily houserule it.

http://www.oedgames.com/OED-v101.pdf

>>53176155
what is this

>>53166934
B&X anon? not sure who you're referring to, but I did plan on compiling the B/X rules into one document. and posted about it here at one point. I completely forgot about that side project due to other things... and I've been busy with other systems and work and such.
I'll try to work on this when I remember, no guarantees it'll be ready in my eyes to be released any time soon, but this book will be a very nice resource. thanks!

>>53176546
n squared is the xp required for the given level
2 raised to the n power is the xp gained per encounter of that level

the result is the number of encounters required to reacha given level. as you can see, it starts out low at 2, actually decreases for a couple levels, and doesn't get extremely high until level 9 or 10. However, after that it rapidly increases to the point that a character may never earn those last few levels.

This is the xp system I used in my games.

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>>53176587
you seem like a mean person

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>>53176262
OK, well I can't post for some reason?
https://pastebin.com/raw/ADWGeMZT

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>>53176262
>however I have absolutely 0 experience with older editions.
Start here >>53176004 and here >>53176089 and here >>53174038.

Also pic related, but take it with a grain of salt.
It was written when that attitude was the only way to recruit people.

>>53176576
This >>53122114 pdf?

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>>53176262
Use the system Lamentations of the Flame Princess.

Run the module "World of the Lost".

It is literally a get-rich-or-die-trying (most likely die) module.

>>53176692
not the same guy, but I'll give it a read. thanks

>>53175667
It doesn't help that you could argue Cook's vision also includes 2e.

>>53176632
Why do so many people forget to capitalise the s in GURPS?

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>>53176780
Why do so many people forget that MAID is a better universal system?

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>>53176820
Tactical Waifu is a better game.

>>53176780
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as GURPS,
is in fact, GURP/s, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GURP plus S.
GURPs is not a tabletop system unto itself, but rather another free component
of a fully functioning GURP (s)ystem made useful by the GURP core rules, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full system as defined by Gygax.

Many dungeon masters run a modified version of the GURP system every day,
without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GURP plus s
which is widely used today is often called "GURPS", and many of its users are
not aware that it is basically the GURP system, developed by the GURP Project.

>>53176853
thanks stallman-sama
now go back to fighting for open sores

Usage dice are a great mechanic. Discuss.

>>53176853
>GURP Project.
It developed from the GUR Project, you inbred cuckbiscuit.

>>53176875
There really is a GURPS, and these people are using it, but it is just a
part of the system they use. GURP is the kernel: the program in the system
that allocates the campaign resources to the other system that you run.
The hex map is an essential part of a tabletop system, but useless by itself;
it can only function in the context of a complete tabletop system. GURP is
normally used in combination with the GURPS operating system: the whole system
is basically GURP with S added, or GURP/S. All the so-called "GURPS"
distributions are really distributions of GURP/S.

>>53176911
I've always found that GURP/S2 was much better. Too bad it's basically dead.

>>53176838
FATAL is a good... I'm sorry, I can't even say it. Forgive me for even bringing it up.

>>53176262
My personal recommendation for retroclones is Adventurer Conqueror King; it provides a very good structural breakdown of "old school" progression. In particular it goes over methods for designing an old school campaign in a systemized way - generating a starting dungeon, seeding it with treasure, all the way up to creating a larger hex region and creating domains to populate it.

Even if you don't intend to ultimately use it, I think it makes an excellent introduction to some of the major methods implied in OSR games.

>>53176067
>which way the story should go
>story
That's why you don't get what OSR is about.

>>53178256
not to mention it makes for a nice bridge between the two since it still allows for a good amount of options when it comes to making a character without bogging things down like WOTC editions often do

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>>53174476
>tfw even Berserk is falling to the curse

>>53174951
All I care for is Raggi's vision

>>53174492
>most people don't care if you're playing B/X or LL or ACKS or LOTFP or S&W or BECMI or the LBBs or AD&D or any number of innumerable clones, because OSR campaigns are more about content and context rather than specific ruleset

yeah, but i'm sure here people will flip their shit and grab the pitchforks if someone mentions doing an old school dungeon crawl on 5e or PF.

>>53178954
I wouldn't, though I would be disappointed in you anon.

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>>53178954
Not necessarily, but we would let you know that neither of those systems support OSR play at all.

>>53178954
Where did this meme come from that everyone here hates when things are done differently? I think everyone knows that they're playing the game differently from everyone else, and any disagreement is just to show their own reasoning. I like to spitball ideas here, because I always get arguments for and against the ideas, which helps me decide on them better.

>>53176587
Cool. I'm no good with math, but it sounds more or less like the advancement in OD&D, just a bit exaggerated.
Mind posting a xp-needed and xp-gained tables?

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>>53170861
It's a solid game but there's not much to talk about other than what already applies to B/X. Unless you want to talk about the modules or supplements, then I'm game.

>>53176587
Do you use this in conjunction with the classic style of xp? Because in that the xp needed for next level is always double of what you had before (up to a certain point), so n would be something like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 etc.

So I'm running a quick and fast session tomorrow. I'd like to run a very straight forward dungeon for 2 players with 5e experience but not much old school. Would be a good idea to roll up about 20 rooms with one of the old d&d dungeon generators and try to stock it with sort of tutorial moments? Teaching stuff like wandering monsters, looking out for traps, finding treasures and interacting with weird shit like green devil faces.

>>53179389
There's a tutorial dungeon going around in somewhere around here. You could also try Stonehell, the Maze of Nuromen, or the first level of Darkness Beneath (which you can find in Fight On! issue 2, I believe).

I've recently discovered DCC The Chained Coffin's Shudder Mountains setting, and it speaks to me on so many levels. As an european player, the usual setting assumptions are at times a bit too tame and boring, and there's just something mystical about these foggy mountains and valleys.

Anyone familiar with similar modules that could be placed in such an faux-appalachian setting?
It seems well suited for overland exploration and hexcrawling, but I feel that placing a sort of megadungeon in there is a bit tougher than it should be.

>>53179413
I fler like the tutorial dungeon was a bit basic and linear for this session. I did read it and it's nice; but I might just stick with stealing from a module and cobbling together stuff from a generator.

>>53179914
>Anyone familiar with similar modules that could be placed in such an faux-appalachian setting?
Parts of Feast of Goblyns that revolve around Kartakass?
Night of the Walking Dead is good if your players ever want to mosey on down to fantasy Louisiana.

>>53163930
>>53168398
I think I might be able to help you. At work right now. I'll check back tonight and post it for ya here (or in the next OSR gen)

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>>53176838
COMMUNIST REBELS wants to KILL DESTROY the NUCLEAR LAUNCH CODES which will EXTERMINATE BALD EAGLES

>>53156953
>Tigris &Euphrates
Always, anon.

>>53178954
Earlier this thread I mentioned doing old school dungeon crawling in something based on Risus. The OSR community is pretty welcoming.

>>53180984
Night of the Walking Dead and Feast of Goblyns are both pretty good adventures, though the Hexad as a whole stinks.
Night of the Walking Dead in particular is really good as far as Louisiana swamp town themes go.
Another good Ravenloft adventure is Howls in the Night, set near a seaside English style village, from there you head into the moors to a mansion. Good stuff.

>>53179389
Just roll one up and play it. There's an instruction to make up some special rooms and lairs beforehand so just go by the book.

>>53178361
Severely underrated post.

>>53174001
Combat sections in old D&D editions fit in one to two pages. That's hardly "almost all the rules".

>>53178361
I've often managed to get a story going even in OSR.

>>53182438
The story is whatever happens in the game.

>>53179158
>>53179242

Xp per level
1-0
2-1000
3-2000
4-4000
5-8000
6-16000
7-32000
8-64000
9-128000
10-256000
11-512000
12-1024000

It doesn't go past 12, and 11 is the level you really need ot get most class abilities (best backstab, high level spells, best ac, etc.)

Experience gained is complicated. I use the following table for xp gained per monster, with the understanding that parties will frequently be fighting 1d6 monsters of around their level. XP is divided up among pcs.

1-90
2-160
3-250
4-360
5-490
6-640
7-810
8-1000
9-1210
10-1440
11-1690
12-1960
13-2250
14-2560
15-2890
16-3240
17-3610
18-4000

However, characters also get 1 xp per silver piece value of treasure they find, which is completely independant of monsters. The goal is to encourage sneaking past the more dangerous monsters. Basically, 1 session will have an average of 1d6 monsters of party level, and 3x that much xp in silver pieces of treasure.

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>>53182407

>>53179095
I'd be interested in seeing a more complete guide to running 5th Edition OSR-style.

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>>53183884

Are the Stonehell supplements in the trove? I can only find the two main books.

If they're not, could someone dump them there?

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Good houserule Y/N?

>>53186200
Philotomy suggests something similar.

>>53175314
>a rare few prefer AD&D 2e
Life is suffering

Does anyone know whether the third or fourth printing of DCC is in a trove somewhere? The one in the default OSR trove is some ancient printing without errata.

>>53186522
What's wrong with AD&D2e?

>>53186757
I think his point was the opposite: he likes AD&D 2e fine but not enough other people do.

>>53171523
Few games go so far as to say y/n, but those all say Y.

Our game has multiple levels of many spells, and the lower alter spell does not. You can change appearance with the next (3rd) and the 5 or 6 allows full sexual change. Another Wizard did this and fathered several kids with a Nymph descended lass. Now that player wants me to do the reverse: bear some kids myself!

Anything I should know about blackpowder weapons?

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>>53188105
Point the hollow end towards enemy.

If it goes "fizzle" instead of "bang" it might go "bang" in a second, so don't point it at your friends or your head.

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The full Chromatic Dragons post is up.

Come get your half-normal, half-weird dragons. https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/05/osr-chromatic-dragons.html

>>53188242

>Orange dragons
>No elemental intelligence and no breath weapon

Kind of lame. You couldn't have made them breath illusions or curses or something?

>>53188105
They used to be manufactured by drilling a hole into a metal cylinder.

>>53188563
Kind of lame. You couldn't have given this feedback when he asked last thread?

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>>53183884
not my work, an anon here posted it, but i thought it was neat

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>>53188563
>Kind of lame. You couldn't have made them breath illusions or curses or something?

Uh... natural instinctive and undetectable shapechanging isn't enough?

You're walking down the road. You see a beautiful woman stuck in a tree. You get her down. She seems a bit... simple, or maybe enchanted. She keeps forgetting how old humans can get, what horses are for, and why you have swords. You bang. It's amazing. Then you make a joke about her not understanding how locks work and she flies into a rage, transforms into a dragon, eats you, eats your friends, and knocks your house down by swinging her tail.

Then she transforms into a nightmarish creature of fangs and blood and hunts your children, just to give them nightmares.

Then she turns into a man, puts on your armour, and joins a knightly order for 20 years.
>>53188608
No worries, not everyone was around.

>>53186757
This >>53186789 is exactly what I meant. I've been playing 2e since it came out and haven't looked back.
I also absolutely love me some 1e T2K, but that's a totally different suffering

>>53188727

I don't have a problem with that. It's just that every other dragon type has a breath weapon and elemental connection, and they don't, so it makes them stick out a bit.

It could be something like a mania or supernatural calming spell, like sleep or mass charm, it could be a breath attack that basically coats everything in illusionary terrain.

>>53188242
Might not hurt to link your unique death article somewhere in that, since it's relevant.

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>>53188970
Eh, the blue dragons don't have a breath attack either. And I don't really like breath attacks for the sake of breath attacks. Nothing really felt thematic. Even charm effects took away from the flaws/vices of the dragon.

Plus, maybe this orange dragon can cast spells. That's honestly more worrying than fire breath.

The breaths themselves are interesting. Red has IR radiation beam or fire elementals. Orange has nothing. Yellow sort of has one, in that it can breathe out allied sand or stone, but it's more or less a carrier and not a breath. Splitting hairs, I know. Green just oozes acid. Blue doesn't breathe anything. Indigo lets its lighting elemental lover/children loose out into the world. And violet shoots UV radiation.

So basically: 3 "I carry elementals in my stomach" 2 "I shoot heat" and 2 "I just eat people".

>>53188914
Oh right, fair point.

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>>53189097
You picture is deprecated, it's been proven that dragons had feathers.

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>>53189223
Oh, I know.

>>53186522
In just a few more years 2e will be big again, just wait.

2E SHALL RISE AGAIN!

>>53189223
why hasn't that tail been cloned yet
hurry up already

Maybe I'm just dumb or something, but all the editions of early dnd seem the same.

How is 2e different then 1e? Is it literally just race and class being separate?

>>53189555
Race and class were separate even in 1e.

But yeah, they were pretty much the same thing for the most part, only that 2e was more streamlined and easier put together, with THAC0 and all. The rest was tweaking of the rules, changing a few numbers here and there, and adding a whole bunch of new options.

>>53189555
2e expands NWPs (and puts them in the core books instead of splats), relates several core rules to boxes labelled "optional", and gives wildly different advice to players and referees.
But yes, those editions are very similar. c >>53176632

>>53189574
2e was better organized, it sure as falling rocks wasn't more streamline.

Is Blood in the Chocolate anywhere in the trove? I haven't been able to find it.

>>53189732
here's the location;

>03 OSR Games-> Lamentations of The Flame Princess-> Adventures and supplements

>>53188242
Octarine dragon image 10/10

>>53159351
Late reply but
>That would be metagaming
>literally watched him drop a companion to his death
It would be metagaming to continue trusting him just because he is controlled by a player instead of an npc

anybody in the discord?

>>53156953
Is there a guide on what needs to ve written down for a game to be playable?

I have my own osr homebrew that i use to dm a jagged alliance campaign and id like to make it available for others but there is so nuch shit i havent written down because i just use the rules from other osr games.

For example i just realized i never explain how to make a skill check becuse im just using the rules from a different game.

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>>53190163
Oh, you're going to like the next city post then. It's full of medieval art of weird stuff.

anybody looking for players?

>>53190684
I'm looking to DM/playtest some of my recent dungeons.

So I want to merge an OSR hexcrawl with 5E D&D and Apocalypse World fronts and moves.

Any campaign design tips ? Am I high ?

Need ideas for natural shelter types. I'm designing a hexcrawl and it is one of the keys. So far, I have: 1. Shallow cave (50% inhabited)
2. Large hollow tree (50% upright, 50% fallen)

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>>53190821
Drop feats, restrict the classes and archetypes by race, decrease the XP gained by monster kills by 1/4 and award XP for also avoiding fights with said monsters, 1GP=1XP once spent or used, and I can't say anything about Apocalypse World since I've never played it.

I have attached the best hexcrawl I could that should help you.

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>>53191440
And here is a beastiary to go with it (though it also has monsters that appear in other adventures and some of these are not up to par/equal with their final 5e writeups).

>>53191440
Awesome thanks

Hey /osrg/, I have a question.

So I sort of have had an interest in RPGs in general for several years, but outside a few Call of Cthulhu games I never got to GM. The CoC games were in high school and they mostly consisted of us dicking around.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I stumbled onto /osrg/ and found the PDF for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and decided I could run it with some houseruling and a homebrew setting.

Then, both yesterday and today, I got a few of the guys (all of them being 100% new to RPGs) and got them to play. We had a blast both times.

Now, here's the problem. I realized today that I've been running the game like a modern game rather than an OSR game. Everything the players do is determined by just the dice rolls, they are pretty OP, and none of them have died (though they have gotten close). I realized that the only reason I picked LotFP was because it seemed so much simpler than the modern games.

Should I just migrate over to something like 5e? Am I a bad OSR GM who's better suited as a modern GM?

Thanks for your input in advance.

>>53191636

It's cliche but if you're all having fun you can't be doing that badly.

I'd suggest you stick with it and just ramp up the difficulty / slowly introduce less of a reliance on stats and dice and more on what the players are actively choosing to do. This is partly to do with being new as it is to being particularly suited to any style of play as dice are a lot easier to fall back on than the myriad of options and consequences just roleplaying things out can bring.

By all means try out other systems too , you learn lots from playing different ones , but don't scrap what you have in the process or do it because you feel you're doing it wrong as you're not.

>>53191636
You have had pangs in your conscious bad enough to confess some seemingly non-existent sin to the internet in hopes that you will be guided along some 'correct' path? If you had fun and you don't want to change anything then don't change anything. If the system you are using is to your liking, I don't know if switching over to 5e will achieve much but disrupt play as you learn more rules, buy more books, etc. 5e is pretty simple as it is so it likely won't be worth the change unless you were to start playing Pathfinder or something.

>>53191830
GM guilt is real son. We need a support group.

>>53190296
>basic mechanics
>how to make characters
>how characters do stuff that needs specific mechanics
Take a look at a game you think was well written, see how they organize their content and go from there.

>>53190821
You might be crazy, but I do that too without the 5e part. Fronts work pretty much as is. Have some motivations, goals, horrific appearances, etc. and update them as players do stuff. Take a look at dungeon world/freebooters/perilous wilds for more dnd specific decent ideas

I just converted the partial success 2d6 range to stat mods with a +3 cap, and +1 for every 4 levels and use it for anything skill roll related. I kept attacking and magic flat. Seems to work fine. I keep the gm move list as good inspiration for intermittent fuckery. I ask the players a lot of questions and go from those too.

>>53191819
Thanks man. This really helps a lot.
>>53191830
>If you had fun and you don't want to change anything then don't change anything.
Yeah man, you're right. It's just that like this anon said >>53191869 GM guilt is real.

When rolling monsters encountered, is the 'lair' number the amount that is found in the entire lair, or per encounter within the lair?

>>53192537
You roll percentile dice to check whether you find them at a fortified location, or out without treasure.
It (and No. Appearing) are only intended for use with hex crawling, not for when dungeon delving.

>>53192537
Ah! But a houserule I've seen here a few times is, multiply No. Appearing by %Lair to check how many are actually in the lair.
If encountered outside the lair, portion the excess into several groups. then the party finds one of the groups.

Not sure how well that plays, but i seems neat.

>>53192577
I'm using Labyrinth Lord and is specifically talks about the 'Number Appearing' as being relevant to dungeon crawling. A second number is given in parenthesis and is said to be the number appearing in their lair OR in the wilderness. That last bit confuses me a little. Aren't lairs only found in the wilderness? A lair cannot be a labyrinth, can it?

>>53192877
Liar = where they live
Wilderness = outside of where they live, innawoods or wandering around in what THEY would consider the middle of nowhere

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>>53192877
Lairs are (extremely) small dungeons unto themselves.
Sounds to me like it's just being pedantic.

>A second number is given in parenthesis and is said to be the number appearing in their lair OR in the wilderness.
This made me look at the LL book, and unless I'm missing something, LL doesn't even have % In Lair?
I guess whether the monsters have traps or don't have treasure is the ref's choice?

>>53191418
A few ideas:
3. Shell of a large beast.
4. Giant (hollow) puffball mushroom.
5. Abandoned (?) giant wasp nest.

>>53193014
Not abandoned. They're all ghosts. Or at least ethereal.
Wizards man, only once.

>>53192975
LL doesn't have % in Lair, though they do have 'Lair' class treasure hoards and such, so I suppose they just assume that the referee will make that call. Doesn't matter to me anyways as I'm establishing all monster lairs on my map before I even begin the hex crawl.

Would you draw a map of a monster lair? Or should it not consist of more than one or two rooms?

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>>53193164
Anyways I've made this. It's supposed to be useful in populating a hex crawl (not on-the-fly, mind you).

>>53193164
One or two rooms for monstrous animals, actual complexes for intelligent monsters.
If you keep extra setpieces handy (to slot into improtu dungeons, or whatev) you can use one as a lair, otherwise just scratch down terrain and a few rooms.

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>>53188642
That was mine. I updated it a bit.

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>>53193420
And it's character sheet.

>>53191636
LotFP is a great system to use.

What I had to do with my players, all of whom were new to RPGs, was stress that what they said and did was often more important than what they rolled. De-emphasize the shit on their sheet and reward clever gameplay. The person rolling 'Search' or 'Stealth' a hundred times a game is far less likely to succeed as someone who thoughtfully puts out a plan of action and tells me. (ie: i rip up this floorboard; I cover myself in mud and climb a tree).

Some will get it, and some wont.

I'm failing horribly at tracking down a pdf of Champions of Zed. I'm also blind and stupid, which makes it a little harder. Can anyone help me out?

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>>53194194
It's less than $8, so when you're done looking at it you really should consider buying it.
>I'm also blind and stupid,
I noticed. The first page of googling "Champions of ZED" links a scribd page with a full pdf.

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>>53194194 >>53194397
Though on the topic of Arneson, anyone know if the Dalluhn Manuscript is available on the web?

>>53191636
There's nothing wrong with running a "new school" campaign in older editions or things similar to older editions.

The "old vs new school" style does have distinctions, but its a hippy frou frou recruiting/marketing gimmick first and a major distinction second.

>>53194397
I found the scribd page too, but my garbage tablet can't display it. I'm actually most interested in seeing the world-building rules - are they worth looking at?

>>53194506
>somebody wrote more than 30 pages on the provenance of a probable dev version of D&D in the style of an academic report
Next thing you know you'll be seeing courses of D&D being taught at university.

>>53194888
Isn't that already being done tho?

>https://youtu.be/DLw5b70OJH8
When was the last time you used a revenant?

>>53191636
I have the opposite problem of this guy. My group is still new and only familiar with Pathfinder, but as a DM of over a decade I'm tired of running the heroic high fantasy and I want to run a more old-school focused game, with exp rewards being smaller and more of a focus on resources as rewards rather than raw gold, where magic items take time and months of preparation and rare materials. Am I trying to fit a square peg in a round hole? I do want to change systems but this is only our second campaign. If it was up to me I would be running AD&D 2e but I want to introduce that once they've caught on to how homogenized and restrictive 3.PF is despite all the options available.

>>53195154
Start them early. Alternate systems for a while (separate campaigns, ofc).
If they have exposure to other systems, they will not 3.pf's shortcomings.

Not necessarily quickly. But eventually.
Forcing them to notice 3.pf's shortcomings will make the resent *you,* not the system.

>not
*notice

>>53195194
In our first campaign they noticed very quickly how easily problems are solved with magic. One player made a wizard, found a guide online and basically started solving more and more problems with magic. When he mentioned he found a guide the rest of the group found guides and realized they were all "supposed" to be taking the same feats outside of some niche roles. For this one I'm abating that by not allowing full casters to slow that down with less spells/day. Part of it was my fault, I tried introducing more mage-unfriendly obstacles like antimagic fields or enemies that can use silence, then that player began wondering aloud why he was getting specifically countered lately. He is not in this campaign, thankfully.

Also, apologies if this isn't exactly OSR-friendly talk, I'd ask /pfg/ but their general images and recent posts on the front page make me wary.

>>53195258
>apologies if this isn't exactly OSR-friendly talk,
Doesn't bother me at all deebly concerned you use the front page tho.

>"supposed"
This is more a failure on your part than on That Guy's.
At the point where your player's impressions changed, you should have sat them down and discussed expectations with them.

>>53190684
What days and times would you be good at? Any system preferences?

>>53195258
Can you post a link to these guides? I'm honestly clueless about this videogamey stuff you're talking about.

>>53198273
Not that Anon, but I've seen that stuff before. Google "[classname]'s Handbook"
The OotS forum is down at the moment, but that's where most of it lives.

>>53184689
>>53190821
>>53191440
I've considered a few houserules to slant 5e towards a more OSR playstyle, since none of my friends are too keen on playing "Some obscure 1980s-era AD&D clone" (their words).
>Monsters give no XP, experience is only gained by recovering treasure and bringing it back
>Skill proficiencies are removed and instead replaced with ability score proficiencies or background proficiencies, both options from the DMG.
>Gritty rest variant from the DMG, along with the Healer's Kit dependency
>I'd say no to feats but my players like them.
>Darkvision only allows races with that attribute to see dim light as bright light.
>Outlander background changed so as not to be a free food cheat.
>Morale rules from the DMG

Of course this is just me spitballing ideas right now, haven't actually run a game with these rules in effect.

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>>53198703
>Some obscure 1980s-era AD&D clone
The fools literally asked for OSRIC, so give them OSRIC.

If you're feeling generous, run Dragons at Dawn instead.
It's a 1970s era OD&D clone, but I doubt they'll notice the difference.

>>53195154
You can't run Pathfinder as anything other than high-magic heroic fantasy. To even attempt is both madness and torture.

>>53198858
Can you give me a rundown on this thing? Sounds *very* interesting but poorly organized.
>Scores are 1-10, rolled 2d6-2
>Ascending AC, but any AC beyond 10 is negative
>Defense value is not AC and not Attack value
Wtf is going on here?

Posted this in /gfg/ but I figured there'd be more of a all for this sort of thing on here.

>GM/Player
GM

>Time/Zone
Weekday evenings, CST

>System
0e DnD, probably in the form of White Box Swords and Wizardry.

>Voice or text
I prefer text, but if enough players want voice, I'm willing to be flexible.

>Contact info
kbalanera on Skype

>>53172867
I'm not specialized in 12th - 16th Calais, but I would love to hear an undirected rant about it.

>>53164461
PDFanon here, I was kind of annoyed with how stuff spills across pages too, but fixing it would require either A) lots of random white space, B) tweaking the font size at random, often to sizes that are probably too small, C) rewriting some things entirely which feels rude, or some combination of the three.

Thank you for contributing to it, though!

>>53200050
>Can you give me a rundown on this thing?
It's a retroclone based on what's known of Arneson's original campaigns.

>>53201005
Yah, that's on the intro. I mean about the mechanics and stuff, this doesn't look like D&D at all.

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>>53200746
Made another edit based on >>53160171. It's frustratingly close to fitting the entire key on one page, but I think this is probably the smallest font size I can use that isn't illegible.

>>53201572
Wrong quote, meant >>53160818

>>53201572
You need to start doing some rough edit to make it fit. Remove unnecessary words. Make them as short as they can be.

>>53198858
>>53201005
>Wizards are humans who create spells in laboratories and throw magic. Wizards gain advantages in all mentally based Saving Throws. They receive a +1 at level 4 (hero) and a +2 at level 8 (superhero) to all Saving Throws vs. Brains and all spell saves vs. Constitution. Wizards can see in the dark as if in daylight and can cast Wizard Light, Lightning bolt and Fireball spells at will.
>Wizard Light, Lightning bolt and Fireball spells at will.

>>53156953
How difficult would it be to run DCC with just one player and one GM?

>>53202804
Those require a save, or they pass out for 2d6 turns.
Letting them see in the dark is pretty bullshit though.

>>53202866
Very easy.

>>53203041
>Very easy.

Any tips?

It would be much appreciated.

>>53203154
>Any tips?
Let the player play several characters.
Do you need tips on how to run DCC or how to run it with one player?

>>53203154
Either give them multiple characters, or start them with hirelings, or plan your dungeon so that all fights are reasonably avoidable.

>>53203206
>>53203222
>multiple characters

Isn't that basically a given in DCC already?

>>53203237
It is a given in funnel adventures, but it seems as if you're generally supposed to play one character in the actual adventures. It doesn't matter though, DCC is purposefully vague with that kind of stuff.

>>53164461
>Yellow River a cute. A CUTE!
When shes not literally on fire because of all the pollution.

I bet you think the ganges is adorable as well, what with all the dead bodies being forded down it.

>>53204524
Not that guy, but Hey! Plenty of rivers are on fire!
From context, he meant the Yellow River civilization.

Do you listen to music while you prepare materials for your campaigns, and if so, what kind?

Do you think it helps you get into a specific mood or mental space when working on your campaign? In other words, does it help crystalize a solid Intent in your mind for how your game will be?

>>53205281
I listen to music virtually all the time, because anything is better than silence, and since my mind tends to heavily associate music with whatever I'm doing at the time, I end up developing soundtracks for any games I play in or run. Most of the time they don't even actually fit the game's themes.

For instance, in the game I'm currently running, a fairly gritty OSR thing, I tend to listen to Twilight Force:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODSYZKyVpKo

For the book I spent three months writing and recently finished, I mainly listened Blind Guardian - but that one's sword & sorcery so I feel it fits better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IAT06unls8

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Do you prefer your magic more autistic, rigid and based on defined categories (elements, schools like abjuration/conjuration/evocation, etc.) or more abstract and 'spell just does this i dunno lol' kind of magic?

>>53206217
The former fits OSR rather better, I feel: it binds wizards down a little, limits their powers. I only really do the latter for little things, cantrips and things like >>53186200

>>53206217
Abstract, at least from the player's perspective.

In character, it might be autistic? But that's strictly in character knowledge. And probably questionable knowledge, at that.
Regardless, no point in dwelling on the details out of character. That would be autistic.

>>53206248

The latter is actual OSR magic though. It's loose spells which just do *thing*.

The former idea of series and schools of magic is more elemental magic systems or Unknown Armies kind of stuff, not Vancian fire and forget magic spells.

there's any link where i can read the differences between the most popular OSR games? im pretty new to rpg's and i find appealing to learn a simple system, but really don't know how to choose between LL, S&W, ACKS, etc

>>53206880
Old School Renaissance Handbook in the DM resources section of the trove has that

>>53206974
i'll go for it. in the meanwhile, what could be the recommended system to learn if you're totally new to RPG's?

>>53207026
Regardless of your choice pick AD&D, it's would be best to read through BE of BECMI.
Those books aren't good for looking up rules, but they ARE written to teach new players.
>>53206880
Labyrinth Lords is B/X near as by-the-book. It's like OSRIC, insofar as it only exists to cheat licensing fees.
ACKS is some dude's houserules for B/X, mostly for the (admittedly, weak) gameplay near character retirement.
Swords and Wizardry has a few versions, I assume you're referring to the liberally clone of OD&D?

>>53207136
>ACKS is some dude's houserules for B/X, mostly for the (admittedly, weak) gameplay near character retirement.

Not that guy, but what is weak about gameplay near character retirement in B/X, and is there anything one could do to strengthen it short of playing ACKS?

>>53207197
Post-name level and strongholds are wishy-washy because (a) you were expected to turn in your character around level 10 or so and (b) name level / strongholds were only in OD&D because >muh CHAINMAIL, so post CHAINMAIL they recieced minimal attention.
>and is there anything one could do to strengthen it short of playing ACKS?
Retire your characters before it becomes an issue, or lift rules from a system/version/something else entirely/shitty college essay. Or houserule it by yourself, if you enjoy reinventing wheels.

Is anyone else having trouble accessing the trove? For me it gets to "decrypting folder" and then just refreshes.

>>53207136
well, i would like to know the differences between whitebox, core and complete S&W

I want to introduce my group to OSR (currently playing 5e), because I'm getting tired of newer systems.

I've been lurking in these threads for a few weeks, reading different rule sets (LotFP, ACKS, S&W, LL) and I think I'm going to run LotFP, I like its tone the most and the mechanics seems simple enough.

The one thing I don't like are the saves, though. Having 5 of them to cover those different situations seems weird, like a forced holdover from B/X. Is there anything I could replace it with? Either by changing the way saves work or wholesale replacing the save system is LotFP with something else?

>>53207271
Would running things using Companion/Master from BECMI rules make things better?

>>53207313
White Box to Core to Complete is essentially OD&D to OD&D + supplements, with a little bit of AD&D added in for Complete.

>>53207321
Swords & Wizardry has a single number for saving throws, with each class getting bonuses to certain categories.

>>53207338
Or on that note, I've heard of a supplement called B/X Companion. Has anybody read/ran it, and what did you think?

not exactly OSR, but if i wanted to do some sci-fi dungeon crawling, metroid style, should i be good with stars without number?

>>53207321
>I like its tone the most
You can bake a tone into mechanics, but LotFP certainly doesn't.
>and the mechanics seems simple enough.
Excepting S&W White Box, it has the simplest mechanics on your list.

>>53207870
>but if i wanted to do some sci-fi dungeon crawling,
Absolutely OSR. Our systems (or imitated sources) predate the false dichotomy of fantasy and sci-fi
A LOT of contrived OD&D dungeon rules only make sense with "sci-fi" banalities.
>metroid style,
Non-OSR suggestion, but I've heard reskinned All Flesh Must Be Eaten captures metroid's tone well.
>should i be good with stars without number?
Stars Without Numbers is just B/X with good system-agnostic interplanetary tables in the back.
Not much to say on it for sci-fi dungeons, but any OSR system handles that quite well.

>>53207949
i forgot to say that by metroid i refer to the atmosphere of the NES and SNES metroids rather than the newer games.

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>>53207321

>>53208027
>i refer to the atmosphere of the NES and SNES metroids
So do I. Though the feel didn't really change 'til Prime 2.

Would a shadowrun OSR work?