/osrg/ OSR General - Miniature Giant Space Hamster Edition

In my experience, a lot of them get super buttflustered if they can't play their fursona, and generally would rather erp/spend as much time as possible trying to be cute and cuddly

Granted, of course, there are exceptions, but the exceptions are generally the people who you wouldn't recognize as a furry anyways.

Forgot to add to OP, but free Godbound is here:
drivethrurpg.com/product/185959/Godbound-A-Game-of-Divine-Heroes-Free-Edition

Weak bait, user. We don't really care about furries here.

At times like these I feel like it's worth referring to what the books say to figure out what the author was thinking.

OD&D
>A spell to detect evil thought or intent in any creature or evilly enchanted object. Note that poison, for example, is neither good nor evil.

Holmes
>A spell to detect evil thought or evil intent in any creature or evilly enchanted object. Poison, however, is neither good nor evil.

B/X
>This spell can be used to detect evil intentions, or evilly enchanted objects within 120' causing the creatures or objects to glow. Actual thoughts are not detected; only the "feeling of evil". The exact definition of "evil" is left to each referee, and players should discuss this point so that all are in agreement; "Chaotic" is not always "evil". Poison and physical traps are neither good nor evil.

AD&D
>This is a spell which discovers emanations of evil, or of good in the case of the reverse spell, from any creature or object. For example, evil alignment or an evilly cursed object will radiate evil, but a hidden trap or an unintelligent viper will not[.]

B/X is probably the most relevant one here.

>Would detect evil just make the cleric's vision completely red?
Nah, but everything within 120' would get a funky glow going on.

It's worth remembering that Gygax was the author of B2, and he wasn't exactly using three-point alignment at the time. It's mostly just flavorful description to warn players that "yo, this shit is dangerous as all hell".

Honestly, I think the problem is that people just say furry when what they really mean is faggot. Furries just have/had a lot more faggot overlap. Which is too bad because it makes selling an Ironclaw campaign a real bitch generally.

So evil things are only detected as evil if they will do something bad to you if you interact with it?

>"Chaotic" is not always "evil"
I find this funny because LotFP's Detect Evil is straight up said to basically just be "detect chaotic"

Has anyone actually run one of Dyson's maps as a DM or player? How did it go? Any advice?

Well, that's the answer you get if you ask a lawful priest.

No, I mean, the spell literally only detects Chaos
>“Evil,” for purposes of this spell, is an in-game colloquial term. It should properly be called “Detect Chaos.”
>This spell allows the caster to know if anything that is within his field of vision (or on his person) is Chaotic. For the purposes of this spell, Chaotic is defined as, but not limited to, undead creatures, any extra-dimensional or extra-planar creatures that are not specifically Powers of Law or angels, any creature with innate magical abilities (including Magic-Users, but not Clerics), artifacts, symbols, or sacred places dedicated to evil gods, and supernatural creatures incapable of being good.
>Mortal creatures, physical objects not directly connected to evil deities, traps, poison, or places where great atrocities have taken place are not considered Chaotic or evil for the purposes of this spell.
>It detects supernatural disturbances, not ill intent or foul deeds.
>Curiously, this spell does not detect magical items or effects.
>The reverse of this spell, Detect Good, detects Law instead of Chaos.

Yes, and Clerics are agents of Law. The spell detects the enemy.

Evil things AREN'T evil unless they have evil intentions in some way.

Remember, B/X doesn't have "Evil" as an alignment. Neither do BECMI or early OD&D, for that matter. You're either Lawful, Chaotic, or neither - and regardless of what you're aligned with, you can still be a murderous asshole or pacifistic saint.

It helps that the only spells that are specifically restricted to Law and Chaos are the Cleric's. Lawful Magic-Users can curse the fuck out of people all they want. Magic-Users have no sense of right and wrong, mechanically speaking.

LotFP takes a somewhat different stance on the whole alignment thing, IIRC?

So what exactly does Detect Law detect, then?

Hey there OSR! I've been seriously updating my own homebrew here and reached a good point.

Fearsome Gods changes;
>Setting changes, no longer bronze age
>Human, Vanara racial changes
>Class name changes, no longer edgy
>Complete magic system overhall; now magic users get magic dice and 'arcana' or passive magic abilites. None of them have been added yet.
>Saves have been cut in half to 3 double-stat based saves, each class improves in one on odd levels but get a specific save bonus to a category (combat, hazard and magic respectively) on even levels
>experience is no quantified

Hope anyone who is interested in my game enjoys the new stuff, now I just need to write down some spells and arcana and we'll be good to go!

> hobbit rabbits and rabbit halflings
Should I channel Watership Down and kill 'em horribly?

>So what exactly does Detect Law detect, then?
I would imagine Clerics or other beings with innate divine powers; extra-dimensional beings that are Powers of Law or angels; artifacts, symbols and places dedicated to lawful gods; and supernatural creatures that are incapable of evil.

>Black Hack

So I think everyone is in agreement that it's pretty good but how do people feel about all these splats getting pumped out by 3rd parties?I mean, two cyberpunk versions (Cyber-Hacked and Mirrorshades) and the Cthulhu Hack (including a splat) are priced higher than the default game. I feel like this may be the next big RPG bubble.

Higher chance of special snowflake syndrome and sperging out. There's some cool ones out there but they're few and far between. I ran BFRPG with a furry group and everyone played something different than their fursona. Dwarves became dogfolk, elves were cats, and halflings were rabbits. It did mean the party became a lot less humanocentric but they got a lot more into roleplay than if I had enforced the traditional demihumans.

What is the best megadundeon, and why?

Blue Medusa. Because it looks nice and coherent, and I haven't played it yet.

Alright, I'm understanding the spell better now.

Just to make sure, a thing can only have evil intentions if it is conscious or if it's magic, correct?

Channel Beatrix Potter instead.

I like the idea of Castle of the Mad Archmage, since it's basically a fan version of Castle Greyhawk - literally so, in the free version.

It bugs the hell out of me that they intentionally made the staircases not line up, though.

That's up to you as a referee, I'm pretty sure.

Again,
>The exact definition of "evil" is left to each referee, and players should discuss this point so that all are in agreement

So chat a bit with your players on whether or not a wolf wanting to bite you is evil.

Zombies and living statues and whatnot tend to fall under "(evilly) enchanted objects", I think? Make sure to discuss what "Evil Intentions" means in that case - does the caster need to be actively malevolent in their aims, or is it just whether the spell is evil, or what? What about the stereotypical out-of-control golem? If a gargoyle stands guard and intends to harm trespassers, does it glow?

It's really important to talk with people so you're all on the same page, I feel. It's not really something where the authors can list everything down in the book without either taking way too much space or going the 3E route of making alignments absolute and critters [Evil]. (Not to be confused with Evil or evil, which are two separate but related terms. The Venn diagram between them is weird as all hell.)

A lot of shit we complain about Tumblr today, furries did ages ago.

I'll take a look at that, thanks. Is Castle Whiterock any good?

It's huge and can/will take players to about level 15. However, some of the locations, NPCs and quests are not quite aligned right (can't quite remember off the top of my head but one quest says to go to one room about halfway down but you actually need to go to another room slightly deeper). Basically, read it, reread it, rereread it and then give your players a more proper adventure hook to delve into it and plumb its depths.

Alright, so it's mostly up to me. Still, I'd like to ask how other people in this thread would handle this situation:

Say that there's a magic object that hurts you if you touch it. It should probably detect as evil. There's a switch next to it that makes it so that the object "switches off" so it doesn't hurt the person touching it anymore. Does it still detect as evil in this state?

>magic object
>activated by a switch that is not part of the object

I don't understand.

The direct inspiration for the question is the glowing walls in the Tower of the Stargazer. If you move through them while they're activated, they shock you. If you've put a couple of switches in the right order, they don't shock you. They are undoubtedly magic.

>Does it still detect as evil in this state?
Depends on whether or not you want it to, to be perfectly honest. You could have it detect as "less evil", perhaps, to show that it's "off"; you could have it literally not glow at all, to leave it unambiguous (raises questions regarding whether or not the magic is still there, however); or you could have it keep showing up as "evil", which is fairly unambiguous in whether or not it's still an evil artifact but now ambiguous on whether or not it's actively harmful.

Use whatever you want to use - it's not hard to come up with arguments for any of the options.

Yes, but are they EVIL magic?

>You could have it detect as "less evil"
According to what other people wrote before, stuff either pings as "evil" or "not evil".

>Yes, but are they EVIL magic?
Sorry, I forgot to mention that we're rolling with the "intention to do bad thing = evil" idea in this situation.

In any case, what I mostly wanted to know is how you anons would do it. But thank you for the ideas.

> how you anons would do it.
Explosive Runes are not Evil. But Explosive Runes written with blood of virgins on a skins of toddlers, that will try not only kill you, but to suck your soul out - are.

I.e. Evil objects are not Evil because they hurt you. They've are Evil because been made by Evil out of Evil, with the explicit purpose of doing more Evil.

>Sorry, I forgot to mention that we're rolling with the "intention to do bad thing = evil" idea in this situation.
Well, that's a bit of a problem then innit? 'Cause "bad thing" is hella nebulous.

At a risk of getting philosophical here, let's say that you've got a person going through the classic trolley problem. The trolley's hurtling towards five unsuspecting victims, and they have the opportunity to pull a switch to instead divert it towards fatally wounding a single pedestrian instead.
If they pull the switch, would Detect Evil ping 'em? What if they don't?
What if they have a grudge against that one guy specifically, and figure that they might as well take the opportunity? What if one of the five unsuspecting victims is the Zodiac Killer, and they know this, and this is their one chance to take him out?

Alternatively, let's say that you've got a cop. A wizard cop. This cop wants to secure a location, so they set up a magical electric fence - you touch it, it zaps the fuck out of you.
While setting up the fence and hence harmfully trapping the fuck out of the place with full knowledge that this could hurt someone in the future, will Detect Evil ping the wizard cop? Will it ping the fence?

This kind of shit is why you need to talk with your players. Also, why alignment debates rapidly degenerate.

Well shit, I agree with you. This stuff is confusing and that's why I asked about the spell in the first place.

I guess I'll just talk to my players.

Has anyone ported Thri-kreen over to Basic or OD&D?

>OD&D
Shouldn't they be pretty easy to just directly port over?

Like, I'm pretty sure that you could literally just run them with their AD&D write-up and things would probably be fine.

It should be for some games but not for others

I can't find a game of ACKS, Labyrinth Lord or DCC in my area. I have a choice of 5e or Pathfinder. Which am I more likely to find amenable as an old school gamer?

5e by a long shot. It's not old school, but it's a lot closer than PF.

>I can't find a game of ACKS, Labyrinth Lord or DCC in my area.
What about Swords & Wizardry, Basic Fantasy, Castles & Crusades, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Delving Deeper, Microlite74, Dark(er) Dungeons, OSRIC, OD&D, Holmes Basic, B/X, BECMI, RC, AD&D or 2nd edition AD&D?

Those neither.

Then make one.

C'mon man I found 2 b/x variants in like 10 seconds.

ode2bd.blogspot.com/2009/05/bx-dark-sun-more-thoughts-on-races.html

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?702749-B-X-Dark-Sun-and-Psionics/page3

First 6 results on google.

Question: For monsters that have more than 1 attack such as an Owlbear (2 claws/1 bite), do you roll for each individual attack to see if they hit or do you roll once and they all hit?

Each one is an individual attack, so you roll for each one.

Any request for encounter lists, item lists, dungeons, class writeups, creatures, anything? I'm looking to stretch some creative muscle.

Some vegetation-based monsters/traps a-la Assassin Vines?

What about trying your hand at a megadungeon level map? Something relatively close to the surface but not quite there, third level or something. That might be an interesting challenge, mapwise.

5E really depends on the DM. There's a lot of things you can tweak, so it could just end up being 3E 2: Electric Boogaloo: Now With Plot-Based XP or it could be something more 2E-esque.

Ask the players and/or DM before joining, perhaps? Or just show up for a session and see if it's interesting.

Otherwise, though, isn't exactly wrong. Maybe try to bring up interest in OSR in your area by DMing a game?
Do note that this could leave you locked into that role, though.

...

Thanks.

Does anyone have the Birthright Campaign Setting for AD&D 2nd Edition????

Check the Trove. TSR->Settings->Birthright

>dragonsfoot.org/php4/archive.php?sectioninit=FE&fileid=409&watchfile=

>A compilation of questions and answers from Gary Gygax, compiled from the Dragonsfoot forums in to one easy-to-access file.

>211 pages

Discuss

What the fuck? Was he hoping it would be compiled into a new Unearthed Arcana? Still, wish he was alive so we could get his thoughts on the new edition and all of the OSR material that are springing up around his and Arneson's works.

>his thoughts on the new edition and all of the OSR material

I personally wonder if Gygax would hate the OSR for its emphasis on mechanical simplicity. Throughout his career he seems to have progressed to crunchier and crunchier rulesets (AD&D 1e, Mythus, etc.).

> Discuss
Some things are not meant to be known.

How do y'all handle ambushes and sneak attacks against the PCs? I'm thinking of introducing a "notice save" for such situations.

What's wrong with using the surprise roll?

This.

How should I handle dark elves that will be similar but not samey to the ones widely seen in most D&D settings? Running a DCC game.

A semisubmerged marine dungeon with giant crabs of various sizes + levels of intelligence, in addition to other marine-type enemies and dangerous seaweeds, corals whatever. Also, playable crab-men race-as-class.

Reminder that kobolds look like this.

I had bought In The Shadow of Mount Rotten a while ago but I just gave it a good read. It's good stuff. Imagine Beyond the Wall only everything is awful and everyone hates you.

Try Mystara Shadow Elves or Eberron Drow?

A Ratbold is fine too. I just hate 3.5 Scaliebolds.

What OSR titles or settings do you guys think are more conducive to a GM that doesn't like RPing dialog? I like describing the players senses, layering tension with traps/monsters, and describing the effects of the players actions. I have no interest at all in role playing the speaking parts of "town people" or other random NPCs. I prefer leaving the in-character dialog to the PCs speaking to each other.

Obviously dungeon crawls are good for this, since they're (usually) far-removed from civilization. What other OSR titles/settings do you thing are a good fit for my GMing style?

Hexcrawls maybe? Like Isle of the Unknown. That one has some social encounters but it isn't detailed so that stuff is mostly up to the DM.

>2ebolds

Why was 2e obsessed with making everything a kind of goblin?

He made some stuff for Labyrinth Lords, IIRC?

Also, from what I've heard his con games towards the end were mostly just OD&D with some houserules.

Damn, that's a tall order. Well hopefully this keeps you sated for now. It's an aquatic encounters list.

My players are riding back to the city to party and get new quests this week.

Tell me /osrg/, what are the aristocrats up to this week?

He wrote Castle Zagyg for C&C, but who knows if he actually played it.

Roll 1d6
>[1] The aristocrats are signing on fake/funny wills that indicate their property and wealth is going to their pets, an apple tree, their luxury furniture, etc. One of them died during this and it has become legally binding; people are rushing to find a Druid willing to cast awaken on a rose bush so it can split the inheritance.
>[2] Mystery Plays where each member of the aristocracy plays a roll in a mask. The best actor recieves a great gift, but a long standing tradition indicates that if a low born manages to sneak his way into the theater and win the competition he by right of acting skill becomes nobility.
>[3] One member of the nobility has employed three orcs/gnolls/other always evil creature to serve as overdressed body guard and to prove they can master the evil creature. A young maiden was also just murdered in cold blood in town. The two events are very closely related.
>[4] One eccentric nobleman has decided to pay all of his servants in his own paper money he has begun to print- worthless except on his estate and in his own store. The servants are desperately trying to sell the money to anyone else despite its worthlessness, but a few items in the store are actually cheaper then if bought with silver.
>[5] Two emaciated nobles sit across from each other, they have been doing this since the party left the city, not sleeping or drinking or eating. It is said they are engaging in a battle of the minds, but in secret both of them don't want anybody to know they can't actually perform psychic combat.
>[6] There is a magic item available to the first person who can trade in a more interesting one. Up for grabs is a boring but useful magic item (+2 sword?). Trade something less useful but more entertaining to the noble to get it.

1d6 aristocrat plot hooks:
1: They're playing cruel games where they make blood-bets on the outcomes of slave fights
2: The town is abuzz with news that the chief magistrate arrested Lord Quinnsavyr on accusations of black magic. He would like to hire the PCs to enter the dungeon under his house and quietly remove any evidence of his experiments.
3: BEER FESTIVAL. The Brotherhood of the Ecstatic Bottle are in town and all the noble houses are eager to show off their house brew (while also discretely sabotaging their neighbors, of course).
4: Civil war. Two scions of the Great Houses have eloped together, setting off a chain of ancient rivalries and obligations requiring nearly ever noble to pick a side (as each House blames the other for the disappearance of their son). Masked servants stalk the streets with slender knives, and there's good money to be made in bodyguarding for the next few months...
5: The nobles are holding ante-feasts in the town square, preparing and then discarding entire multi-course meals as a show of ostentatious wealth.
6: The Paolu Race begins in a day - each family fields a horse-golem which races through the city's districts until their arcane charge wears out and the golem returns to clay and dust. Think NASCAR levels of obsessive engineering, weird barely-even-horse-shaped creatures (with hidden weapons, natch), mid-race sabotage attempts, etc....

#6 makes me think of that Red Paperclip guy who traded from a paperclip up to a house. I'm imagining a giant bazaar of people wheeling and dealing, desperately trying to sell each other on their shitty items to move up the ranks (and there's no currency allowed, of course). Maybe where you end up determines your social standing for the next year, and people are bartering positions in town (magistrate, mayor, etc.)

Stealing #2 for my next random unmotivated dungeon crawl.

Are there any scans of Castle Zagyg?

Anyone have the cleaned up, errata-updated, non-scanned version of 1st Edition Metamorphosis Alpha?

This version:
drivethrurpg.com/product/50526/Metamorphosis-Alpha-1st-Edition

1d6
1 - A foreign religion has suddenly become popular with nobles. It may or may not be a front for Fiendish cult.
2 - Two Noble houses have declared enmity. Other houses are being drawn into the conflict via family pacts, etc.
3 - A major noble house has gone bankrupt. The economy is a shaky state (high prices, shortages on staples, etc.)
4 - A nobleman has been implicated in the murder of a local peasant celebrity. Class tensions are escalating.
5 - A local Priest from an aristocratic background has begun denouncing the aristocracy for abuses.
6 - Two nobles are holding a contest to see who can be more debauched.
7 - An old adventurer has recently been granted a title. He is causing a commotion amongst the nobility for his lack of decorum.
8 - A drunken noble accidentally vomits all over a PC (chosen at random, Dexterity check to dodge)

Anyone have Woodland Warriors? It's supposed to be based on Swords & Wizardry.

Neat.

Is anyone playing a retroclone right now (not in, at this moment, but currently)? If so, which one?

I'm running Xplorers (uses Original D&D rules with a Traveller/Space Frontiers flavor) and Mutant Future (uses Basic D&D rules with a Gamma World flavor).

I love old artwork like this. It's just an unexplained rapey wolfman.

That sounds really fun. I always liked Star Frontiers and have been planning on stealing Dralasites for a game.

How do you handle secret doors? Do you only allow the players to search once, or do you allow them to continue until they succeed? If you decide to search for a few hours of in game time do you allow automatic success?

Basic Fantasy RPG.

Tell me more, this sounds interesting. I might want to do something like this in the future.

They can search however long they want. Wandering monster checks will continue, however.

I don't let rolls or skill checks dictate if a hidden door is found. The players have to describe to me exactly what they're doing to trigger the hidden door.

About which one? I run original settings for both. X-plorers only has a single page dedicated to the setting. It's intentionally left up the the GM.

Mutant Future is just tiding us over until Mutant Crawl Classics comes out. MF is a fun system, but I like how MCC handles mutant powers better.

>people still unironically post that shit in 2016

did i click on reddit instead?

Playing baldurs gate 2 made me want to pause my D&D4e campaign start a campaign already on level 6 on some classic D&D. I've played tons of campaigns back in the day both basic and AD&D but never made it out of level 3.

But I can't decide between going basic D&D using the expert rules or going AD&D2e. I don't really want to learn a new system for a (probably) short campaign so I come to you expert grognards.

which do you recommend for mid level play, D&D expert or AD&D2e?

My preference in Basic, but it really depends on what you're looking for. AD&D is more detailed. It has more classes, more spells, more races, more moving parts. I'm okay with most of that, but it also adds a bunch of needless fiddly stuff. It adds percentile strength. It adds separate system shock and resurrection survival scores (they're always just 5% points away from each other until they start scrunching up over 90%--why bother?). It adds race and gender minimum and maximum ability scores. The spells have more unnecessarily scaling parts and are generally more involved just for the sake of being more involved.

Simply put, I think that Basic is a much better product for what it covers. It's just a question of whether it covers enough for you. But I will say that if you're looking for a short campaign, the more limited options Basic affords is probably less of a consideration, as you won't wear them out.

If, however, you end up wanting more, I'd recommend checking out Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion. Labyrinth Lord, itself, sticks very closely to Moldvay/Cook Basic, and the AEC seeks to reconcile AD&D's options with Basic's simpler, more streamlined core rules. It doesn't go quite as far as I'd like it to in toning down the excesses of AD&D, but it's hard for me not to see it as improvement. In any case, there are really no surprises with the system, and it should all be very familiar if you're at all acquainted with Basic and AD&D.

I think I'll go with basic after all.
I'll take a look at this LL advanced edition companion, and see what it adds, thanks.