/tsrdnd/ - Comfy TSR D&D

>What is the best way to enjoy the classic style of play and/or modules?
I couldnt agree more with but for one small exception:
I use a tablet for all my written material as it saves on printing cost... i play a shitload of 2e, and ive got all my spell compilations in binders for everyone to use; setting info, proficiencies, a few meme classes weve toyed with... all of those are printed already and it wasnt cheap to do in color.
Also, for wizards they get updated spellbooks printed off with full spell descriptions.

Yeah, I don't think that's a huge deal for the GM to use that stuff, though it can be nice to have hardcopies. A binder full of notes doesn't crash or lose internet or run out of charge.

For me it's easier to find stuff on PC thanks to ctrl+f

That's a possibility, but in addition to 'wasting' a lot of paper & ink (and being less easy to work with, seriously, One Note is amazing. Can't find something? ctrl+f!), it still sucks on the prep angle, since not everything is finished every session and many things are constantly improved and expanded as the campaign goes on. Also having books on PDF makes finding the rules for a spell or something 10000x faster

Depends on the players, IMHO. One of my guys brings a laptop, takes notes with it and doesn't get distracted.

>Do not reward players with Happy Fun Ball. Happy Fun Ball should not appear on any treasure table. Do not cast any scrying magic on Happy Fun Ball.

I prefer Zim Desktop Wiki for prep/planning, myself. But maps and such either get done in pencil, or get printed out and stuffed in a binder.

What? Are.... are you ok? I wasnt bitching, and im not home to start a thread. Calm down duder

Same. I tend to be cobbling together stuff from a lot of different sources and books, a lot of which would be impossible or obnoxious to get physical copies of

Today I will remind them.

Try getting copies of 2e shit, damn.

>not just printing it out and putting it in a binder

You think I'm made of money? Ink's expensive, yo

I really like looking through old ass TSR shit, things like that time Gary made an artificer-lite class for OD&D

What are some sources for very early (1974-1977) fan zines in old shitty typed up booklets?

Dude, inks expensive, especially if you're going the colored route.

If you want rules, get the closest retroclone and POD

Maybe archive.org but I'd imagine most would be in old yahoo groups and geocities pages

It's not as cool as having the actual book. I prefer having the PDf

Somebody posted the El Raja Key Archive recently in the PDF share thread, it's a bunch of Rob Kuntz's old notes and stuff.

You guys into DCC?

REMINDER: DO NOT ENGAGE /osrg/ POSTERS. HIDE AND IGNORE.

Hey, fuck you, man. Why won't you stay in your own shitpost containment thread? Take your 3aboo trash and get

>Rob Kuntz

hehe

>or if its open season on neutrals by everybody else

You have to remember that the exemplars of neutrality, druids, were batshit insane sociopaths.

How do you feel about Ravenloft?

It's okay, I guess. Some of the modules are a bit railroady, but I'm more forgiving of that when you're doing horror. "No jumping off the scary train" is A-OK, IMO.

Its not a bad setting. I always wanted to return to the mechanic governing fear and give it a good once over. Its one product i dont have in print. I cant remember what the actual mechanic was, but i remember it being akin to a saving throw.

The module was fun

The setting is aight

How do you guys describe dungeons? Some modules have such big dungeons that I think I would be lost trying to keep track of PCs location

With words

Seriously though, just describe the room literally. "You enter a 30 by 30 room, there is a table in the middle with an apple, and two orc corpses surrounding it".

The players should be mapping the entire time

A couple of questions about running B2

1. I have less than the reccomended players needed to play. I know that on the roll20 old school session each person had 2 characters, but that seems like a hassle, and like it would severely slow down levelling up. Would it be alright to just run it with 3-4 people, and have them get hirelings? I also know there's the Cleric in the keep that can help them out

2.The module has a map, but no rules for exploring it. Advanced has wilderness exploration rules, but only for hexes, not for square grids, and I thought that Keep on the borderlands was only for Basic anyways. What do I do?

3.How strict should I abide by the rules?

4. Kinda unrelated, but are there any good actual plays / video game adaptations of B2? I'd like to watch / play through them so I can get a better idea of the module

Thank you guys so much

...looking at the picture, what exactly is GLUG? Googling it returns some guy's half-formed homebrew.

It's a reference to the GLOG, a gross game that took the rules for OSR games and then jumped the shark a few times houseruling stuff.

>GLUG
A parody of the GLOG, which is guy's half-formed homebrew

1. That, or set up an "adventurer bank"
2. A square is ten feet and PCs move ~30 feet so they advance ~3 squares when they hustle
3. It's easier to loosen strict rules than tighten loose rules
4. No idea

>adventurer bank

Please explain friend

The term is from DCC but the concept is far older. Basically, there's some area that for some reason is crawling with potential adventurers so that replacement PCs can be introduced both quickly and logically.

What would an example in B2 be?

Hirelings still suck up exp if they delve with the PCs and even worse, the share of the exp they gain is cut down in half.
So you are wasting way more EXP with hirelings.

A merchant caravan or religious pilgrimage.

...

Or the tavern at the Keep. As-written it has a 10% chance to hold a 'wandering' adventurer who's willing to sign on with the party for a share of the loot; just fudge the numbers to add some more candidates.

...

Don't they only get half a share of exp though? So the PC's would get more. Or do they get a full share, but only half counts torwards XP?

The second is correct.

How does an one way secret door work?

Probably the same as a one-way door, except you need to find it first.

>Don't they only get half a share of exp though? So the PC's would get more.
This is correct.

This guy is an imbecile. This has never been the rule, in any edition, and is just meaningless grimderping to disincentivize hirelings for some reason.

Does anyone here use Holmes over B/X or BECMI?

>Does anyone here use Holmes over B/X or BECMI?
I play neither, but I find Holmes the most interesting, no idea why though

We ran a holmes campaign about 4 years ago. For feel not because we thought the rules were superior. Used variable damage instead of the dagger rule tho.

>The term is from DCC
False TSR

Yeah, that one

Got anymore?

No, but the trove has a few.

>Racial limits
>Elf 4/6
This is not how it works in Holmes

>For feel
What did you mean by this?

Are you illiterate? See page 21 and 22 of the Basic(Maldvay) book.

"Retainers, however only receive 1/2 the experience a PC would, because they were taking orders and not making decisions on their own. Retainers may be awarded more than their agreed upon portion of the treasure and thus gaining more experience than normal."

See? Please re read the book any time you spout shit, re read the first sentence in case you have any doubt "however only receive 1/2 the experience a PC would" if a PC normally receives 100 xp from his 100 gold share a retainer will only get 50. I guess some people don't learn reading comprehension in elementary school.

Again, just give them another PC, it's nothing hard to handle, just roll em up, even Moldvay recommends this method in the book.

What if you only give them half a share?

So why would you ever get a hireling? You're not only wasting experience, you're also risking them running away

There is objectively no reason to ever get a hireling, just get another PC

hirelings are a solution intended for higher levels when you are looking at domain level play, as suggested in the book.
You may also want to hire people to stay outside the dungeon and take care of your mules and shit or have an specialist as part of your retinue(beast handlers, sages, blacksmiths,etc).

They are useful, but if your goal is to level up quick I would set them aside, and yes nothing stops you from playing more than one character, it all depends on how you want to play.

Fuck forgot my image, the point of giving players a character is to force some sense of attachment to it, players sending retainers to their doom may feel no remorse, but sending "their" characters makes them think twice, this is mostly advice for newcomers, if you have experienced players you might do what ever you want in the end.

Well to begin with you would need to negotiate it with the to-be-retainer, as a DM I would probably impose a-1 to the reaction roll to hire one if the players told him he was gonna get less treasure with no other form of compensation(up front payments, not actual need for delving, etc.).
You could also lie and only give them a half after the adventure, but that would drop their morale big time and if it caused the retainer to leave you, he might spread rumors about bad treatment. (this has all been taken from the basic rule books)

>Are you illiterate?
>See Maldvay
kek

...

Why is 2e art so good lads?

They spent lavishly on artists for their box sets and stuff.

Diversity of style

Women are pretty OP.

Fuck.

*blocks your path*

Man, 2e Thri-Kreen were so cool