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What are the must play OSRs?

i have already played basic fantasy

ACKS, DCC, OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, LotFP, Castles & Crusades Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyborea

Basic Fantasy isn't that great compared to other early D&D clones, and the author is a major sperg. I mean, to such a degree that I actually feel compelled to bring it up at all. I would recommend literally anything else over BF.

I like LOTFP but its not for everyone

You are in a minority, I can tel you that. How is he a sperg? His game is basically BX with ascending AC and separate class/race but is otherwise a good and solid game.

What are the best OSR blogs and podcasts?

Alright, guys. I've left my blog to rot for a while, but I want to get back into posting at least semi-regularly, and I'm looking to go for a more OSR-vibe than I previously had.

What kind of OSR content do you guys want to see? Settings, mechanics, more random tables, whatever - what do you think the OSR needs more of?

random tables

random food tables.

Though houserules and settings are always welcome... actually, though we all will probably say random tables I think most of use enjoy anything and everything that can grease our creative gears.

I totally have a few of those!

Random Tavern Delicacies and the now-infamous You Found Some... Meat table.

My players are never happy when I whip that one out.

I end up having to deal with food a great deal, especially since I have two players who have gone full Dungeon Meshi on me.

AD&D has more options, and restrictions, and stats, and fiddly rules. And generally speaking, I think the extra stuff it has up on Basic isn't as well put together, though I'm sure some would beg to differ. But while I think the weapons and armor lists are excessive, I do appreciate the expanded number of classes and spells AD&D has (even if the added classes tend to be derivative and AD&D makes most of the spells--even the ones it shares with Basic--more complicated). But all old school D&D is built on the same core system, so it's pretty easy to port things from one edition to another.

With this in mind, Moldvay Basic (B/X) makes a great foundation on which to build, as it's nice and streamlined. The one big issue you might have with it, is the race-as-class approach, where "elf" is a class just like "cleric" or "thief". I used to think that was dumb, but I've grown fond of the idea over the years. It makes demihumans more distinctive, and given the small number of classes in Basic, and the idea that the world is human-centric, it's about the right number of classes to devote to demihumans (3 out of 7 are demihuman race/classes). There are, however, retroclones of Moldvay Basic that split race and class, like Basic Fantasy, for instance, so you have options as far as that goes.

But if you prefer a more involved, AD&D-based approach, there are games that streamline it and reduce the amount of clutter it has. Labyrinth Lord's Advanced Edition Companion is designed to give you the options of AD&D on top of Basic's simpler, more streamlined foundations. It frankly doesn't go far enough in its simplification for my taste, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. Castles and Crusades also streamlines AD&D, but it does it by using the unified d20 mechanic of new school D&D (without the same math built on top of it though), and by liberally tweaking the rules.

But things aren't nearly as confusing as the number of games and editions out there might lead you to believe. There are a lot of games out there that are "Moldvay Basic, with a tweak to [X] or [Y]", for instance. So it's clusters of related games that you can choose from on the basis of whether you want race-as-class, ascending AC, single category saving throws, or whatever. Though as I was saying before, it's pretty easy to port things from one system to another, so if, for instance, you wanted to use Swords & Wizardry's single-category saves, you can just drop them into Basic Fantasy, for example. (If you wanted to use them for a game with race-as-class, you'd have to figure out what to do for the demihuman class, but asking here in the OSR thread would probably get you some help about that -- I'd say have elves use the fighter progression and halflings and dwarves use the paladin progression).

Hey, you should always put "OSR" in the text or title of the opening post, so that people searching the catalog for "OSR" can find the thread.

To be fair, I found this thread by typing OSR in the catalog search.

Sorry. I meant to but started chatting with my roommate and absentmindedly submitted the thread. Won't happen again, I hope.

Yeah, it shows up if you use Veeky Forums's search (I guess the title of the image registers) but if Control-F the catalog page, it doesn't.

S'okay. I wasn't fussing--just trying to inform you in case you were unaware of the reason to do that.

that's one sweet map. I know it's WotC, but where is it from?

One of the Dungeon Magazines from the 2000's before 4E and Pathfinder being a thing. Paizo made an Adventure Path for Greyhawk that used the Isle of Dread (which pissed me off because the Isle is so dear to my heart as is Mystara).

Driftwood Verses is coming out early next year and it looks like a really neat setting

For some reason I can't access the trove. I just built a new PC and I could get to it fine on the old one, but MEGA is stuck on decrypting folder data. Anyone know what the problem is?

Its the 13th century, you could just have 'read latin' and it would be a big deal.

Take a look at Dark Albion if you haven't. Its 15th century so still too far forward, but there might be something there. What about the 13th is specifically important to you?

For a wide range of stuff +Beyond The Wall for well integrated collaborative character and hex-map generation, Into The Odd for pickup and go games, The Black Hack for the new hoteness that might actually have some cool ideas, and Stars Without Number for scifi traveller update but uses classes which sometimes bugs people.

False Machine, Goblin Punch, 10ft Pole, Dungeon Of Signs, 1-page dungeon contest, Last Gasp Grimoire, Dieing Stylishly, +1 Sword... I'm sure there's more. Find a few you like and follow the links.

Inspirational stuff, be it maps, random tables, encounters to plug into/steal for hex crawling, interesting magic items. In depth discussions of homebrew mechanics if you're up for laying out why you made them and how they worked out in play. Art helps even if, or sometimes especially when, its rough.

Those are all solid options! And I can do some seriously rough art, when I have the time...

The only issue I have with encounters is that you have two choices - make them accessible but generic, or make them cool and unusual, but limit their useability.

I tend to err towards the generic, but I'm thinking about making things a little weirder and seeing how that works out.

I think, might be wrong, that we have tons of generic options already. Might at well make it weird and interesting. Minimum it'll be fun to read. Making it weird but still portable seems like a delicate art for sure tho.

Do you guys like running wilderness exploration? Do you do hexcrawls or do you just map out a region the size of a dungeon or two?

I really want to learn how to make interesting or original monsters.

Monster Hunter is a good example of what I'm going for; but I have no idea how to copy it.

Trying to tailor it around Edward Longshanks and the fourth Crusade.

Anyone have the Troika! pdf? It just came out a few days ago I think. It's pay what you want/free but I don't want to make an account to go get it.

I want to balance ability scores more. Dexterity gives a bunch of neat bonuses in most games but charisma and constitution give like one bonus at most. How to fix?

As DM or game designer?

Make checks for things like traveling or carrying a heavy load rely on CON, throw in diseases and poisons and other hazards more commonly. Implement a fatigue system like Warhammer 40k rpgs buthe based on CON.

>As DM or game designer?
As both I guess? I want to make a better system for my players.

>Make checks for things like traveling or carrying a heavy load rely on CON
But then Strength loses one of its advantages.

>throw in diseases and poisons and other hazards more commonly.
I'll probably do this.

>Implement a fatigue system like Warhammer 40k rpgs buthe based on CON.
I'd rather not further complicate the system with more mechanics like that.

Dark Dungeons is available for free on its creator's website, IIRC.

Constitution is actually reasonably powerful. A +2 dexterity modifier might multiply your chance to hit with ranged attacks by 120% (going from a 50% to a 60% chance to hit) and reduce your chance of being hit by a similar amount, but a +2 constitution may multiply your hit points by 157% (that's what it does, on average, if you have d6 hit dice). That's fucking huge. And sure, dexterity tends to get the most skill check usage of any of the attributes, but constitution can affect plenty of checks or saves for things involving stamina, health, remaining conscious, and resistance to things like poison (depending, of course, on how you run your game).

Charisma, on the other hand, is kind of a bullshit score unless you're using hirelings, retainers, followers and such, which many people don't. If you are, then it can affect their morale and the maximum number you can employ. If you aren't, then you can do what I like to, which is to drop the stat and base any reaction rolls purely off a person's background and character description. Then again, I've also combined intelligence and wisdom into a single stat, so maybe this alteration on a scale you'd be uncomfortable with.

Charisma is ridiculously good. Reaction checks and the whole henchman number+morale thing adds up to a lot. It can literally make you win a fight before it starts.

Constitution also has the thing where it might literally double your hit points depending on class. It's "just" one bonus, but it's one hell of a bonus.

Dexterity, meanwhile, gives... AC, ranged attack bonus, and a bonus to individual initiative. Yeah. It's a bit powerful, but it's easy enough to "solve" by just going with group initiative - compare Strength's +hit +damage to nuDex's +hit +AC.

For ability scores that do jack shit, though, there's always Intelligence (Prime Requisite that gives bonus languages) and Wisdom (Prime Requisite that gives bonuses to saves vs. magic.)

How do you feel about 4E sticking it into the Feywild as some kind of weird disappearing island located where the veil of reality is thing and 5E sticking it in the middle of Faerûn's Elemental Plane of Water?

Not who you're asking, but:
4E made some really cool and interesting changes to previous lore, and had some cool ideas of its own.

That wasn't one of them.

Make Wis = Initiative and give each positive modifier point of Intelligence add +5% exp.

Boom, done.

I see your points. So how do we fix intelligence and wisdom then?

>+5% exp
I'm not the person you're responding to, but I always thought that bonuses to earned experience were one of the more obnoxious things in old school D&D. Of course, I'm also in favor of undifferentiated experience point requirements (there are plenty of other ways to balance out the classes).

His site is down it seems. I grabbed it and other things he did and uploaded them. So if Dark Dungeons is not yet in the trove, whoever manages it can grab DD here and add it to the trove I too just started looking into OSR because of the Lamentations Bundleofholding. And LotFP really seems neat for a start. Very easy to digest, not at all complex.
But you have not bestiary, but you can easily make them yourself, and use them sparingly, to make monster encounters more memorable.

>Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyborea
Im really a sucker for Conan-esque stuff lately. Is that in the trove? It doesn't load for me at the moment, so I can't look myself.

Well, like someone said last thread, d100 tables can do both on the same table. Simply give unusual encounters less space. Maybe a range of three values, as opposed to 10-15 spaces for regular encounters.
Like, 1-15 Gobbos (mayby even more space for them), something something, 96-99 Something Rare, 100 Dragon

Good job breaking magic-users, man. Remember who's going to have high intelligence.

Personally I don't think they're broken in the first place, especially if you're not playing so that you can choose which stat goes where. One stat being better than another doesn't actually matter if there's no way to actively choose that stat at the detriment of others.

AD&D did it better than Basic, I think - rather than putting the bullshit -20% XP penalty in, they just disallow you from playing characters with shit stats for the class in question. And also lets you choose what stats are good in the first place, unless you're playing 2E in which case oh shit nigga.

The XP bonus is a nice feelgood thing, I feel, but I understand that it has the weird thing where a carrot you don't get feels like a stick.

Well, I subsumed wisdom into intelligence, doubling the application for the score. That's a big step, though unless you do a lot of attribute or skill checks, that still it kind of weak. The combined score could potentially cover both languages know and saving throws though, so at least that's something. I like spreading my saving throws out though, essentially making them a bit more like the fortitude/reflex/will saves of new school D&D, though without the bad math, and with all the attributes playing a part, including strength (pic is from Rules Cyclopedia and is similar to what I'm talking about).

A lot of people would consider it sacrilege, but I actually like players to have a limited pool of "talent", which operates sort of like fate points, if rather limited ones. Basically, you can spend them to boost your rolls in various ways. An easy way to do this is that spending one point of talent ahead of time lets you take the better of two rolls, and spending two points of talent after a roll lets you reroll it (though you're stuck with the new result and you can't spend any more talent on that roll). Personally, I find that rerolling doesn't really fit with D&D as well, so while I'm okay with the "spend 1 talent to get the better of 2 rolls" thing, I rather prefer to limit the back end a bit, and have it be "spend 1 talent to add a single point to your roll after seeing what it is". That way, it only applies to rolls you almost made, and represents your extra focus carrying you through (you can call it something like "follow through").

So I have intelligence modify that number. You get something like 4 talent points plus your intelligence modifier. When you recharge them is up to you. You could have them be a daily thing, like spells, or you could have them trickle back somehow (maybe after every fight or short rest, you roll a d8 vs. your maximum number of talent points, and if you roll equal to or under the number, you gain a point back).

Anyway, even if you kept wisdom and intelligence separate, they could both modify talent. That's assuming, of course, that you wanted to add something like that to your game.

If you have wisdom (and nothing else) applying to all saving throws though, that's at least decent by itself. It might not measure up to something like dexterity, but it's more useful than intelligence. With that in mind, you could let wisdom stand on its own and have intelligence and charisma modify talent (assuming you don't really have henchmen in your game, leading charisma to be weak).

But keep in mind that if you don't let people pick where their scores go, having precise balance between the attributes is less important.

Oh, and I tend to base the number of talent points characters get on whether they're casters or not, something like: casters get 2+modifier, partial casters get 3+modifier, and noncasters get 4+modifier. Actually, my system is a bit more complicated than that, with caster intelligence modifying the number of spells they get instead of modifying talent, but that's an easy way to go about things.

I'm doing some houserules atm. One of the things I'm doing is trying to make ability scores less important for combat and more important for adventuring in general.

To that end, ability scores only modify the following:
STR: number of items per encumbrance point (LotFP encumbrance rules)
CON: hit dice type (max d12)
DEX: Initiative dice type (max d12)
INT: Languages known at chargen and chance to know/learn new languages. This is only as important as the DM makes it. I intend to make it important.
CHA: Base hireling morale. Number of re-rolls in negotiations (a reaction check-like houserule).
WIS is gone and replaced with LUCK. LUCK gives points that can be spent on re-rolls, advantage and a bunch of other shit.

All of these are important to any adventurer, imo. However, STR might be important to fighters wanting to wear platemail and use 2h weapons. INT is useful for M-U's, as spellbooks are likely to be written in ancient/dead languages that need translation before they can be used.

All of the combat and class ability related modifiers will be in the actual class options. So you pick a fighter if you want to fight good and you choose the fightiest fight options for the fighter if you want to be the fightiest fight mans that ever fought. But you don't need an 18 STR to be that fightiest fightmans.

Is TroveGuy hovering around? I remember asking about Blood & Treasure PDFs a while back, but found a source - thought you might like to know

mega.nz/#F!GgZGlKAY!MRRUIHUqlPNXS58UTppRIQ!uow22KQC

So strength and dexterity are gutted, but constitution stays as powerful as it ever was?

That looks pretty good.

define gutted?
Removing damage bonus from STR and letting class abilities handle it means that rolling a high STR don't mean you should be a fighter. Now you can be a wizard with high STR and you aren't being "sub-optimal" (I use this argument because you consider losing a +3 to hit/damage as "gutting" an ability). The high STR wizard can carry around more potions and scrolls and spellbooks and maybe even wear a little armour. The high STR /anyone/ can make use of that benefit and feels the disadvantage equally as much as anyone else.

As for DEX, dex was pretty much required for all characters. Everyone wanted it. Now it is good, because you act faster in combat and everyone wants to have the luxury of choosing when to act (delayed actions), but it isn't required for all characters to not get hit.

And CON? More ways to kill a PC than just HP damage.

The idea is that all abilities are important and desirable for all characters - not just specific classes.

The only one that is a bit iffy is INT. But I'm going to try and make a point of making languages matter.

It's a comparative thing. In RAW, constitution is competitive with strength and dexterity in terms of power. You took the biggest advantages away from strength and dexterity, but essentially let constitution be. Now, maybe that puts strength and dexterity more in line with something like intelligence, but it leaves constitution towering over the rest.

>And CON? More ways to kill a PC than just HP damage.
There are, but no other way happens with nearly the frequency that hit point-related death does. Basically, there are two options. Either constitution is dramatically weaker than strength and dexterity in the RAW, or it's dramatically stronger under your rules. And I really don't think it's underpowered in the RAW.

>More ways to kill a PC than just HP damage.
Like with the spell-based saves that the characters now no longer get a wisdom bonus towards?

Removing the AC bonus from dexterity also makes hit points from constitution that much more important, since you're going to be hit more often. And hit less often. And do up to half the damage you used to do.

I hope you bake those bonuses into the classes themselves, is what I'm saying.

Seems like what he wants to do. See:
>All of the combat and class ability related modifiers will be in the actual class options.

>>All of the combat and class ability related modifiers will be in the actual class options.
Y'know, I think I said this some threads ago, but if that's the case then constitution giving hit points and dexterity initiative dice really shouldn't be a thing. Don't go half-way with it.
Fuck, moving hit die size and initiative dice into the classes themselves wouldn't exactly be revolutionary unless you're stuck in, I dunno, 1974. It also lets you force the bit with wizards being squishy, fighters tough and thieves fast without falling back on the soft encouragement of Prime Requisites.

Hmm, I dunno.
How effective you are with a weapon is mostly dependent on how well you trained with that. And that's kinda what classes represent, is it not? What you have trained. That's why I think moving attack bonuses to the class makes sense. Though, I'd admit that training with a weapon would probably result in a high dex.
How much blows you can take however is mostly up to your physical build. If you pit Köksal Baba (or hell, even myself) versus Hafthor Björnsson, there's no way köksal (or I) can train to take hits better that Hafthor. So having that in con makes sense for me, too.

But from a game design point, I guess you are right.

>I'm running a zero fantasy campaign set in 13th century England need help on what I should replace the thief ability "Use Scrolls" with.
Feels like you're starting at the wrong end here, user: can you tell us something about what you've done with classes in general, first? It's easier to come up with good ideas that fit into your system if we know what the system is.

Gonna differ with the others here and say that one of the points of OSR style is that the exact system doesn't matter so much, so there's nothing really like a must-play. Most of the big clones/variants available are pretty much just Basic bundled with the author's house rules, and you pick your favorite bundle.

The only real must-play I think there is is OD&D. If you like OSR you really should try out the pure, uncut stuff some time, just so you know how it handles.

etc.

Here's an idea of how to reduce but not eliminate CON's affect on hit points, but it requires you to switch to all d6 hit dice progressions, like OD&D used.* See pic. Then, you'd use the following scheme for CON affecting hit points...

+1 mod = reroll 1s
+2 modifier = reroll 1s and 2s
+3 modifier = reroll 1s, 2s and 3s

-1 mod = reroll 6s
-2 mod = reroll 5s and 6s
-3 mod = reroll 4s, 5s and 6s

In all cases, you would keep rerolling as long as you kept getting results inside the reroll range. This method halves the effect of constitution on hit points.

*I don't think this is a sacrifice at all, as I find it to be a superior system to variable size hit dice. It means that a constitution modifier will always affect you by the same percentage, rather than a +1 modifier meaning approximately half as much for a fighter as it does for a magic-user with variable size hit dice (a +3 modifier increases a magic-users hit points by 120%, while it only increases a fighters hit points by 67% or 54% depending on whether we're looking at Basic d8 HD fighters or AD&D d10 HD fighters).

Forgot pic.

So, on a whim I searched YouTube for "fudging dice rolls" and watched a number of YouTube videos discussing it, and not ONE person said, "Hey, fudging dice is cheating your players." Not one opposed doing it. Every single fucker basically said, "hey, just do what's thematically appropriate," and one person said he just plays audio of dice rolling behind his fucking GM screen and then makes shit up. Though this was also the guy who said that player agency doesn't exist and every GM railroads like hell, but some are better at hiding it.

Jesus Christ.

Try Dungeon Crawl Classics. It's at least worth reading.

So, I'm the user who was talking about a setting where the planet itself is an unconscious god that hates the people who live on it, and aberrations like Illithid and so on are manifestations of its restless dreams.

I was thinking of doing the following:
>take Swords & Wizardry Complete
>use LotFP's encumbrance system
>add psions (humanoids who are in some respect touched by the mad dreams of the earth itself, and who manifest powers as a result)
>remove clerics (the only god who would grant them spells is dead)
>remove magic-users (I don't care for Vancian magic and their role can be filled by psions)
>paladins get Turn Undead (but it shares "slots" with the paladin's healing ability, such that if a paladin can heal once per day, and turns undead, that healing has been used up)

Or you could do something like this:
+1 mod = 1s become 3s
+2 mod = 1s become 5s
+3 mod = 1s become 7s
-1 mod = 6s become 4s
-2 mod = 6s become 2s
-3 mod = 6s become 0s*

*You must end up with no less than 1 hit point per hit die after you tally up all your dice results.

Under this method, each +1 modifer adds 1/3 of a hit point per hit die, on average.

Well, I don't know anything about psions, but it sounds like an interesting game. Are paladins really much more thematically appropriate than clerics though? Maybe you should have some sort of healer / witchdoctor / witch to fill the role. Or give healing to the ranger, who heals using herbs and shit.

The idea was that paladins would get their power from sheer force of will and refusal to succumb to the grimdarkness of the setting's cosmology, but some kind of folk healer might make sense. Good idea.

There's an argument to be made that it's a tool in the toolbox man, not substantively different from any number of other things the GM changes on-the-fly without the players' knowledge.

I personally think it's too much trouble, runs the risk of overuse, and robs me of the chance to be surprised by an outcome on account of me just being able to veto it. It also de facto makes every PC death into GM fiat, because if you reserve the right to save them when you feel like it, then when they die it was because you decided to let it happen. It takes away that buffer of irresponsibility that random chance provides.

But I can see how another player might not share those views. They might argue that random chance is a tool used to create tension and provide fun, and there are some things that might happen randomly that are just shitty and boring for everyone involved. They might say that the rules are there as a framework to assist in cooperative storytelling, not to constrain the narrative, and while the players don't have the ability to prevent that kind of stuff, the GM does. It could be argued that it's not only acceptable, but maybe even a part of the GM's job to keep the game running by vetoing results that hinder fun rather than help it.

Of course, then you have to start deciding what counts as "fun" and what isn't, and you're walking a fine line between "modifying outcomes for the betterment of the game" and "this is my pillowbox where no PCs are allowed to die."

Shrug.

I get what you're saying. My problem wasn't that some people are okay with fudging dice. It was that there wasn't a single person who argued the opposing viewpoint, even in the context of specific games/systems/styles of play, and that on the contrary, most seemed to take it as a given that all DMs should and do fudge dice on a regular basis, to make sure things fit the DM's vision for the game.

Last thread there was some debate about what weapons a cleric should be allowed to use based on them overshadowing fighters if they could use magic swords. Given the above debate..what if we just said that any class could use any weapon, but based the damage die on their class?

The mace is the holy weapon of a holy man. Swords are for amateurs

>what if we just said that any class could use any weapon, but based the damage die on their class?
It's slightly trickier than that as magic swords outshine other weapons. They're more common and you're more likely to find a more powerful one. So there's a bit more to it than just the 1 point of average damage difference between a sword and a mace. Still, I'm okay with your idea in principle. What if you democratize magic weapons (so you're just as likely to find one weapon type as another) and fighters gain some sort of added bonus from magical weapons? Like, they double the damage modifier or something. So a +1 sword in a fighter's hands becomes +1 to hit and +2 damage. Granted, you'd see an overall upwards shift in damage output, but give the way hit points increase in D&D, I don't think this would be a big issue.

Go with the weird OD&D interpretation where you can use whatever the fuck weapon you want, it's just that you can only use a certain subset of magic weapons.

Of course, this leads to the problem of encroaching on the weak ranged monopoly the Fighter and Thief have. Also, it gives the magic-user the option of just plinking away with a crossbow from the back row, or alternatively run around with a zweihander.

It also depends greatly on the system in question - in OD&D this would actually matter since zweihanders have impact on initiative and give to-hit bonuses, for instance, while in B/X it would either not matter at all or be a +3 damage bonus.

The Fighter can't use the Cleric's Staff of Healing, and the Cleric can't use the Magic-User's Brazier of Summoning Fire Elementals, so why should eht Magic-User be allowed to use the Fighter's Chaotic +2 Lifestealing Sword with Flight and Detect Gems and Detect Secret Doors?

So would you just put a cap on the size of damage dice you could use while keeping the weapon damages the way they were? Like a longsword is still a d8 weapon, but in the hands of magic-user, it can only do d4 damage? that would mean that while a fighter would do d8 with a longsword, he'd continue to do only d4 damage with a dagger.

Or were you thinking each class would do X damage regardless of what weapon they were using? Or maybe something in between, where each class had two or three different damage categories for light/medium/heavy weapons?

What kind of OSR game would be good for someone who wants dungeon crawling but without stupid shit like traps and puzzles? What if I just want encounters with monsters, either indigenous or marauding, and 'traps' in the sense of crumbling staircases, cave-ins and bad air?

Play any game and just don't put any traps and puzzles into your dungeon? I don't include them very often, myself, because they either don't make much sense or seem like they should be reserved for special occasions.

Torchbearer, perhaps?

Thanks

>His site is down it seems
No he changed sites. Google "Gurbintroll Games"

> The mace is the holy weapon of a holy man. Swords are for amateurs
Unless you go with the discussion in last thread in which A) Clerics should basically be crusading knights instead of priests in armor, in which case it makes as much sense for them to use swords as maces or B) you're literally a priest of anything that isn't NotJesus in which case the "don't shed blood" thing is nonsensical.

> They're more common and you're more likely to find a more powerful one.
Admittedly, this isn't a problem for me simply because all of my magic items are more or less unique hand-placed things. Very, very rarely do you get a +1 in a game I run, so the default random table results aren't something I have to worry about.

Giving a fighter more of a bonus from magic weapons might be something to think on though.

>So would you just put a cap on the size of damage dice you could use while keeping the weapon damages the way they were?
The most.. consistent route would probably be have a "small" "one-handed" and "two-handed" damage for each class. Then it wouldn't matter what weapon you were using, just if it was small, one-handed, or two-handed. for the fighter, it might be d6, d8, d12. For a cleric, d4, d6, d8. The magic user might be d3, d4, d6. You could probably fine-tune that if you really wanted, but you get where I'm going.

I don't think I've ever had a "Chaotic +2 Lifestealing Sword with Flight and Detect Gems and Detect Secret Doors" in a game I've played or ran, but if the only kind of restriction built into it is the fact that it's a sword, it wasn't a fighter-specific item to begin with. Thieves can already use it in Basic. If you are playing AD&D, then the fighter is already sharing it with rangers, bards, and so on.

Yes, but he doesn't have direct downloads there. Only links to dtrpg. And for anyone who doesn't want to make an dtrpg account I uploaded them to zippyshare.

Happy Gary Gygax day.

What are you doing to honor the father of our hobby?

prepping for a short little adventure to introduce my friends into OSR

I love wilderness exploration, most of the rest of OSRG rather enjoy it as well it seems. As to your question I have always done a mixture of the two you just said, hexcrawl with certain areas mapped out dungeon like.

Joining the OSR

Good man.

Welcome to our cozy corner of Veeky Forums. We have a magazine and shit.

To be OSR does it specifically need to be based off some early version of D&D or just any old school RPG? Like would RQ2 be considered OSR?

>I don't think I've ever had a "Chaotic +2 Lifestealing Sword with Flight and Detect Gems and Detect Secret Doors" in a game I've played or ran, but if the only kind of restriction built into it is the fact that it's a sword, it wasn't a fighter-specific item to begin with. Thieves can already use it in Basic. If you are playing AD&D, then the fighter is already sharing it with rangers, bards, and so on.
I was just stringing together a bunch of OD&D sword options, but lemme go through the B/X ones (way more boring) - when I say "Fighter", try to mentally add "and Thief, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling";

>20% chance of Sword, 5% of Misc. Weapon
>65% of Misc. Weapons are fighter-exclusive

>Most Misc. Weapons are boring +X to hit/damage

>There's a 40% chance of a vanilla +1 Sword, 3% +2, 2% +3
>32% chance of +1 sword, +2/3 vs. X monster type
>4% chance of cursed sword
>19% chance of sword with magical effect (e.g. flames, light, charm, drain life energy, wishes)

>All swords have an alignment - 65% Lawful, 25% Neutral, 10% Chaotic
>handling does 2d6 damage to opposite alignment, 1d6 to adjacent

>34% of swords are intelligent enough to tell you their powers, and have extra powers
>Primary powers are usable mostly at-will, generally detection spells as well as thief/demihuman detection skills and treasure (i.e. XP) detection
>4% of primary powers roll on the Extraordinary table, also available to ~10% of swords in general
>Extraordinary powers are 3/day, but include everything from healing and temporary quad damage to teleportation and flight and illusions

>5% of swords also have a Special Purpose, those being to either slay a specific non-Thief class or a non-Neutral alignment or monsters in general
>When used for its purpose,
>Lawful swords paralyze
>Neutral swords give +1 saves
>Chaotic swords petrify

>Sometimes, intelligent swords will try to mind control you. They do petty shit.

Some people will argue that things like Traveller and RQ should be considered OSR because of the "Old School" part of the title, but in common usage it refers to the TSR-D&D family and games that are based on those.

> When I say "Fighter", try to mentally add "and Thief, Dwarf, Elf and Halfling";
There are only seven base classes in Basic. If you name one of them, and it's supposed to also represent another four, then you aren't arguing about exclusivity at all. If five out of seven can already use it, then it's not an issue of exclusivity. Fighters were already competing for use of said magic item with 57% of the potential classes.

If you want fighter-exclusive magic items to make up for the fact that there were cleric or magic-user exclusive magic items, then add some, as I'm not sure they exist in Basic by default anyway.

>There are only seven base classes in Basic.
Wrong - there's four classes in Basic. Dwarves and Halflings are literally just Fighters with some extra bits stapled on - hence why the first level of each is "[RACE] Veteran". Elves are multiclass Fighter/Magic-Users, hence them ending up as Elven Wizard Lords.

Thieves intrude on the Fighter's niche, but they do so in a relatively inoffensive way - you see, they don't actually get any magic items of their own. The mundanes get to share the special weapons, while the Cleric gets his staves and the Magic-User all his exclusive shit.

Also the thief is a garbage class only liked by subhuman scum that should be wiped from the face of the earth, but that's mostly for unrelated reasons. There's not a bone of originality in that class - it doesn't even have all of its own tables, it just (fittingly enough) steals them from other classes.

Either way, though, giving a magic sword to a Cleric is a different deal than giving it to a thief. You see, the Thief has a d4 hit die and leather armor. A Cleric with a sword is literally a Fighter with slightly lower numbers and spells.

is there a way to play-by-post?

Is Maze of the Blue Medusa in the trove yet?

Probably? What specifically are you asking for?

There's a ton of forums out there of various quality that have built-in dice rollers, so all you need to figure out is how to handle mapping and whatnot and how to get it all flowing fast enough that the pace doesn't get fucked.