OSR General - Nehwon Edition

>Is character death really that big a part of OSR?

Yes?

I mean when 1 hit can take you out and there is no fate point/action point kind of shit.

Really though if you don't want characters to die, then just don't kill them off. There are better systems out there than an OSR or D&D derivative if you want capital H heroic characters however.

This kind of stuff always confuses me. I feel like people come to OSR threads looking for something not OSR, or that they're somehow missing the point. I guess I just think of the challenge of death at low levels a feature, not a bug and when I don't want that I have a fucking library of other games that do those thing.

Troll Gods now has an official obituary columnist. We'll be running a regular column in each issue of the 'zine dedicated to the memories of OSR characters who have died spectacularly, heroically, or.. pathetically.

Feel free to submit characters for inclusion. If you're feeling froggy, you can write up your own obituary for submission, or you can send us some information on them and how they died. Either tell a story by green text or just give us the rundown. Pic related is what we have in mind. Make sure you give enough names/places/etc we can work with to make it seem legit.

see

>did you ever post the PDF of your game?
It's up for sale on drivethrurpg, and everything?

Also, reposting to the new thread.
>Why does OSR need such a complicated mishmash of unrelated systems?
why do so many games insist on resolving everything with the same system?
Remember, in an OSR game, you ideally don't use the mechanics that much at all. When they *do* come into it, it's as a 'roll the dice as fast as possible so they don't interupt the game' sort of way. So your different mechanics are what's best for the individual thing they do. For example, saves are just a binary pass/fail. You either roll that 14+ or you don't. Making them more granular adds nothing to the game. Meanwhile, rolling to hit wants to be harder/easier depending on the armour and other defences of your victim. So you get d20+mods compared to armour class. It's a different system, but that's fine because the two don't really overlap.

This system looks legit. Gonna give it a couple plays and if my group has fun, I might buy a physical copy.

Also, I'm working on an MA in anthropology and know a little bit about Neanderthals. One cool thing worth mentioning is that they invented a very strong adhesive that allowed them to attach a spearhead to a shaft VERY effectively. If you ever make a supplement or anything that goes into lore and such for a setting, that might be worth throwing in there.

So I've been reading the Platemail combat rules from the list of retroclones linked in the pastebin, and I think I've fallen in love. The dueling system feels like Song of Swords, tactical with a hint of gambling, without SoS's bajillion and one forms of attack and modifiers for weapon used versus armour type and so on. Does anyone know of any system that uses chainmail/platemail for combat, but something more like S&W or B/X for general rules? If that doesn't exist I might as well hack it together myself, but if I can save the trouble I'd like to.

You basically just described the project I'm working on.

How does Platemail compare to Chainmail?

Also, what if you just took S&W Whitebox and used Platemail for combat in the same way the original White Box used Chainmail?

As far as I can tell Platemail is a sort of update/revision of Chainmail to make it straightforward to understand, but I haven't actually read Chainmail so I can't be sure. I'm not totally enamoured with the Platemail combat, because it feels too much like a wargame, I want to rip out the duelling system specifically.

How are you going about it? I just started thinking about it tonight, and had some vague idea that anthing that would normally add/subtract from your to-hit number for S&W would add/subtract one from your combat pool for Platemail.

> add/subtract from your to-hit number for S&W would add/subtract one from your combat pool for Platemail.
Very similar approach on my end, though I started the project as an OD&D Sword and Sorcery hack, then it became a chainmail hack. Then platemail stuff got added on.

Idle musings here, how would you handle the "fighters get multiple attacks per round vs 1hd or less monsters" thing? Just off the top of my head I think letting the fighter use their full combat pool against each monster could be amusing, but that just seems a little too unfair. Maybe you get like 1/3rd or 1/4th of your pool per monster?

I'm working off the Chainmail idea of multiple combat systems. If you're fighting multiple 1HD monsters, you're using the troops system because you literally count as multiple combatants. That's technically not just fighters, either. Anyone who has multiple HD fights that way (but like in chainmail/OD&D, not everyone gets an extra HD every level).

So are you mostly using the Chainmail combat systems as they are with some modifications to make stats feed into the combat pools properly?

I've modified the actual tables and such quite a bit, but they started out as chainmail combat systems.

Right now things are handled with
> Troops (the quick skirmish system)
> Dueling (the more advanced man-to-man based system)
> Epic combat (which is basically a modified version of normal D&D combat for use against giant monsters and things)

That seems like a pretty decent way to run things. Personally I'm inclined to use duelling for most everything, but I like a little more crunch in my games.
Also, how are you handling hits/consequences vs the more standard hit die/hit points of pretty much everything else. I like the hits/consequences, but I feel like it makes first level characters even more vulnerable to a single lucky hit.

Dueling is fine for a one-on-one fight, especially between tougher characters.

If you have a half-dozen mercenaries with you, and you're leading a raid against a dozen or more orcs and there are other people in the party though.. The troop system makes that silly easy to handle. Dueling all of them would take ages.

> I like the hits/consequences, but I feel like it makes first level characters even more vulnerable to a single lucky hit.
Current build gives playes HP. Hits deal damage rolled at the end of a round. against 1HD opponents a hit is just a kill. In a duel, against multi-HD opponents or in epic, I use HP as normal. All HD are d6s, all hits are d6s.

That seems like a good way to do HP that's simple and straightforward, but I feel like it loses a lot of the flavour of the consequences table. Does that ever come into play for you or did you scrap it?

Where can I find the rules for Platemail?

I've toyed with it, we're playing a pretty rapid-fire pulp sort of setting. Sword and Sorcery stuff, flashing blades. Rather than fool with the table in combat, we just let them go. If a player is reduced to 0HP we have a table currently entitled "How Fucked Are You?" which is a bunch of stuff that can result in anything from maimings and amputations to death.

taxidermicowlbear.weebly.com/dd-retroclones.html

The very first link on the page will take you to an online pdf of Platemail that you can download. I found the link in the useful shit pastebin in the OP.

Thanks. I'd read the OP before but never thought to look for a clone of Chainmail before now.

Sounds like the warhammer roleplay critical hit tables. Those things are a treat.

>Is character death really that big a part of OSR?

Not if the players know what they're doing and use teamwork: Wizards in the back, tanks up front, etc.

Oh, and in OSR, you have this RLY KEWL optional character save that you don't see in later editions. It's called "running away."

>why do so many games insist on resolving everything with the same system?
Because it's simpler. It also feels like each thing is part of the same game.
>Remember, in an OSR game, you ideally don't use the mechanics that much at all.
That just begs the question of why there are several different mechanics instead of one single mechanic
I'm not talking about granularity, I'm talking about simplicity. People keep saying what amounts to "OSR works this way because it works this way". Saves in modern D&D are pass/fail. The Skill system in LotFP is pass fail. Hell, hitting is pass/fail. You could make all of LotFP work off of the same mechanic as the skill system and it would be more elegant than four different systems.

>Is character death really that big a part of OSR?
People seem to tell me it is.

>I feel like people come to OSR threads looking for something not OSR
It doesn't help that every time I've come into these threads, I get like six different impressions of what "OSR" means.
>Literally only dungeon crawling
>Sandbox adventure games
>Archaic D&D clones
>Heavy roleplay exploration games
>light roleplay word puzzle games
>Meatgrinder dungeon crawls
>Exploring (and creating) settings
>Rules light games that aren't necessarily D&D clones
Half the time it sounds like OSR is just a retro pixel art indie game version of Tomb of Horrors and other times it seems like pulp heroes wandering and looking for trouble.
And some people have said OSR is a *way* of playing games while a lot of people also say that it's literally just D&D retroclones using the exact same mechanics as if this was the tail end of the seventies and change was evil and all modern games are dumb and for babies.

Like... I like some of the things I can piece together, but apparently I need to put up with d20s and losing 1d4 Investigators per round.

I mean, I'll admit I haven't read much if any pulp, but I don't think Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser were threatened with utter death at every corner, except in that pulpy "tune in next time to see how our heroes escape from certain death!"

You know this is the attitude that makes people find OSR insufferable, right?
"New games are so LAME, back in my day we knew how to play RIGHT!"
Nevermind that the impression I get from these threads is that OSR characters are disposable. Shouldn't even give 'em a name until level 3.

But more than that I find that most of the complaints that OSR acolytes have about modern games tend to miss the mark and be things I haven't ever really experienced. Hell, I've done a tactical retreat in Dogs in the Vineyard, and that's a storygame.

>Half the time it sounds like OSR is just a retro pixel art indie game version of Tomb of Horrors and other times it seems like pulp heroes wandering and looking for trouble.
I keep forgetting to mention that I looked into these threads because I want to play basically something with an old school Final Fantasy feel. The SNES ones. Tactics Advanced at most.
I'm pretty sure the first few are based outright on D&D as much as could be. The third one even basically has Vancian magic, although instead of spell slots, it treats it as different MP for each spell level.

>it's literally just D&D retroclones using the exact same mechanics as if this was the tail end of the seventies and change was evil and all modern games are dumb and for babies.

I'm confused why liking old school D&D means I think all modern games are dumb and for babies.

Really it seems like more of a comment about how modern D&D tends to encourage giving experience for killing enemies, even going so far as to suggest an experience budget and a recommended number of encounters a day. Though if you have even a moderately decent GM he'd give out experience for dealing with or bypassing the monster without murdering it.
Plus it's entirely possible to play in an OSR style in a more rules-heavy game, my paladin in 13th Age ends up running away from encounters more often than not, but that's mostly because the monsters my friend comes up with end up terrifying, from bone horrors to mechanical beetles that spawn from statues singing classical music with their screechy, distorted voiceboxes.

> You know this is the attitude that makes people find OSR insufferable, right?
Are you the same guy who was in the last thread making it a point to tell people you don't want to try OSR because some dude you'll never game with had an opinion you don't like?

Bruh. Why are you still here? Why are you hanging out in a thread of a game you don't want to play with a culture you clearly can't stand?

Because these threads always seem filled with things like and the post from last thread that my ST linked, which was some guy in a totally for real conversation with some modern game neckbeard talking about how LotR was best (but he'd only seen the movies) and how he almost went into a conniption when the cool suave OSR gamer told him how much better LotFP was. I'm editorializing, but that's kind of how it comes off when I see posts like that.

Plus one of the first OSR materials I read was a book positing that modern gamers had lost their way and didn't know the TRUE SPIRIT of gaming. Which is apparently mediocre to poor mechanics and lots of trying to figure out what the DM wants you to know.
And, judging from Grimtooth's Traps, arbitrary death, but I'll assume that's not every OSR game.
(I'd be surprised if anyone used these things)

Don't get me wrong; I don't even like D&D and the closest I get to it was over a year ago I went to Pathfinder Society because my friend is a Venture Lieutenant or whatever. They handle levels in a better fashion of "you level up after three sessions" as opposed to the weird ass "every monster fills your XP meter" shit. I don't even LIKE level based systems to begin with (which is why "OSR is only D&D clones" is disappointing)

(Isn't 13th Age just a D&D clone? I saw it at free RPG day, saw the stats, and passed over it. Apparently that pamphlet also had Night's Black Agents, so fuck me)

I mean, it's not like the old school games are much better, in that loot is your experience, so you're encouraged to steal everything not nailed down. Sure, you don't have to murder, but you're still going to be a greedy little shit (which is how most of the traps in this book work).

That's not what I said at all. I even explained what I meant, but you didn't understand me regardless, so I didn't bother trying again.
I said that getting into this community is not very easy if the people in it are shitty.

1. That user didn't tell him LotFP was better than LotR. LotFP is a game and LotR is a book/movie series.

2. That user didn't even say OSR was better than new games. He just defended D&D (in the abstract, which means he could have been talking about 5e) from someone who seemed to think "narrativist" games were the best and anything else is badwrongfun. This is unfortunately an attitude as common as (or more common than) the one you're worried about.

As far as , I will say that OSR tends to be more about struggling to survive in dangerous situations than being der uberbadass, but there's no reason you can't enjoy both.

If you want something closer to Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser or Conan, play with the Scarlet Heroes rules. Basically it makes it so you can play with two PCs or even one and still handle everything if you're careful. So suddenly, while combat is still dangerous, when you do fight, instead of four party members plus hirelings taking on the four orcs, it's one or two, and it's still roughly equal. Feels more like being a pulp hero, definitely.

If you don't want to play a game focused on overcoming challenges by being careful and strategic, then I will say OSR probably isn't your best bet, but that isn't meant to be dismissive or shitty. I love plenty of games that are absolutely nothing like D&D.

>and other times it seems like pulp heroes wandering and looking for trouble

More like this, only they have their own goals and interactions with each other & NPCs, etc.

It's organic. Instead of the DM cooking up a story for the players, the players look for trouble and it inspires the DM, "Okay, here's what happens as a result. . ."

As the campaign goes on, their storyline expands "organically," because they own it. The DM doesn't have to add much to it. The story grows itself. The player's group collaboration does most of the work. Lazy DMing? Sure, but my characters don't have to be forced to immerse into my milieu. I don't have to entertain them. They entertain each other, and I do the work of "judge" and "NPCs." And when the players are involved, yes, it's really work and I'm very engaged in it. At the end of the game, I'm mentally exhausted.

>You know this is the attitude that makes people find OSR insufferable, right?

Maybe because you were reading too much into the actual statement?

>Nevermind that the [purely subjective and potentially triggered] impression I get from these threads is that OSR characters are disposable. Shouldn't even give 'em a name until level 3.

^Fixed

It's not like that. It starts out where they're all exploring very carefully. Everything's dangerous, so they're more cautious. My current campaign has been running a very long time, and only 2/8 characters died.

The sense of immersion and realism comes from a genuine sense of consequences for foolish actions, instead of feeling like one is the main protagonist in a novel, and will never face anything truly fatal.

>I will say that OSR tends to be more about struggling to survive in dangerous situations than being der uberbadass

Yes. At first. But then, after awhile, you actually earn being an uberbadass.

That's why grognards hate. Pathfinder and the like are all handed to players on a silk pillow. I read on a blog somewhere, "Yannos, it's best to start everyone out at 5th, so they feel cool." Why? It ruins the true heroes' journey to success.

Don't you ever wonder why they flit from character-to-character, always bored; looking for the next thing? Well, there you go.

>I'd say just watch Star Trek: TOS and rip it off shamelessly along with any other ideas you have.

And use Starships and Spacemen if you're doing that. It's a pretty good OSR-ish totally-not-Star-Trek game.

>1. That user didn't tell him LotFP was better than LotR
I meant "LotFP is better [than thing neckbeard likes]".
Also, I don't think D&D is good, but that has nothing to do with narrativist games. I'm still not even sure what that would entail.

>If you don't want to play a game focused on overcoming challenges by being careful and strategic, then I will say OSR probably isn't your best bet, but that isn't meant to be dismissive or shitty. I love plenty of games that are absolutely nothing like D&D.
It's not that I don't want my players to be careful or strategic, it's just that I'm not fond of the 20 questions style of game or skills that don't really have anything to do with my character's abilities (or worse, everything is an average roll).

I mean, I tend to play nWoD/CofD and all my plans for games tend to not be the kind of thing OSR seems intended to "fix". Getting into a shootout is rarely if ever a good idea. You don't have a lot of health, you'll stay injured for a long time, and chances are if you do kill someone, it'll leave you with both emotional scars and a body.

At this point I'm tempted to just play an OSR inspired fantasy walkabout in CofD instead of dealing with systems I don't like.

The only "inorganic" game I've ever been in was Pathfinder Society Organized Play, which was intentionally designed to be pick-up-and-play one shot missions with random people (so there's rarely any opportunity for intercharacter interaction in the long term). Of the games I've run, the only time I've dropped something (as opposed to let it go on hiatus and die an ignominous and withering death, like all online games) is when the players did something to turn the game into something I didn't want to run. No plot survives the players, as they say.

Again, maybe I've just never played games that OSR is intended to "fix".

>The sense of immersion and realism comes from a genuine sense of consequences for foolish actions, instead of feeling like one is the main protagonist in a novel, and will never face anything truly fatal.
I honestly can't stand this belief that "genuine sense of consequences" has to mean fatality. That's exactly why these characters feel disposable to me. No one gets scars, they just die. As a challenge to you, next time one of your player's characters dies, don't make them roll up a new character. Have them get healed, maybe by some pretty lass. Trim off some of their HP, reduce their Con, give them a -2 whenever it rains, whatever you feel like. Just don't jump to "death is the only consequence".

Or, have a situation that doesn't threaten them at all. Threaten their followers, their friends, their families. Threaten their property and whatever lands they have. Hell, threaten their intangibles. Face. Honour. Social status. Privilege. Reputation.

Generally people want to start at 5th level because lower than that and they barely have the things that make their classes interesting, and characters tend to be incompetent at everything.
Although frankly I'd start at level 3, since by level 7 the game starts to break down. But then again I spent time thinking of how to make a Pathfinder E6 hack that's not level or class based before realizing that dealing with M&M would work better.

>That's why grognards hate. Pathfinder and the like are all handed to players on a silk pillow. I read on a blog somewhere, "Yannos, it's best to start everyone out at 5th, so they feel cool." Why? It ruins the true heroes' journey to success.
>Don't you ever wonder why they flit from character-to-character, always bored; looking for the next thing? Well, there you go.
eh sometimes people don't want to go through the grind and want to get right to being badasses, nothing wrong with that(heck Dark Sun had players start at Level 3 by default)

That user didn't even talk about LotFP. At all. At no point in that post did LotFP even come up. And I wasn't saying that you are one of those people who shits on everything that isn't a narrativist game. I said that user was just saying that it isn't wrong to like D&D.

>20 questions style of game
You're going to have to explain to me what that means, because I'm lost.

>skills that don't really have anything to do with my character's abilities
Skills weren't even in D&D for a long time.

>or worse, everything is an average roll
Ideally you wouldn't roll all that often. Most stuff is about making good decisions so you either don't have to roll, or are in a good position when you do, such that the DM is willing to give you a better chance to succeed.

As far as things like scarring characters rather than killing them, an user was talking near the end of the last thread about a chart that s/he uses which, when a character reaches 0 HP, randomly determines whether they died or lost a limb or are scarred or fine or what.

But given that, 0e, which I would say 75% or more of OSR is designed to emulate, was about traveling through the wilderness to scary holes full of monsters in order to steal their shit, it's difficult to be like, "If you don't make the right choices while you're here, you and your wife might have a falling out."

In some cases you could have things like, "You've been called upon to protect your town. Should you fail, or perform less than admirably, you will be shamed." But then you have the issue of the DM creating a story for the players.

Easiest way to sum up OSR from an OSR enthusiast's POV. Take Batman as an example.

- We're playing Batman: Year One. We like the character development and building the history from the day we 1st roll up the character. They think strategically. They form (not invent) deeper bonds with the other PCs/players, "We've been through the shit and came back again." Every item they have tells a story.

- They're playing Dark Knight Returns. Players are passively entertained as-if in a movie theater. And the DM will protect them if they get into any real trouble. In this case, "DM" should stand for "deus [ex] machina." The end.

>I honestly can't stand this belief that "genuine sense of consequences" has to mean fatality.

It doesn't always have to mean fatal. You're confusing OSR with CoC.

>No one gets scars, they just die.

Sorry, no Advanced Trauma Unit in my dungeons. It's hazardous, filthy, and infected. And if the cleric is doing their job, it's really not a problem (really). The party ends up with a running sense of healthy danger.

>eh sometimes people don't want to go through the grind and want to get right to being badasses

Exactly. It's lazy, and I'm not apologizing for it. Yeah, Dark Sun was where it was beyond going downhill.

>Just don't jump to "death is the only consequence".

Wow.

The argument is not for "death is the only consequence." Usually, the grognard goalpost is way *waving* over there, instead.

It's more, "Actual death can be a real consequence." And not because the DM arbitrarily says so. They just don't want the players thinking they're going to have a nice lazy choo-choo ride where they always end up better than when they started.

>You're going to have to explain to me what that means, because I'm lost.
"How big is it?"
"Does it look like there are any strings I can cut?"
"I move the pieces carefully, does anything happen?"
"So are the pieces interlocking or what?"
"What shape are the pieces?"
"Can I pick it up?"
"Is it connected to anything?"
I'd much rather make a perception check and have the ST tell me what I see, rather than "it's a thing" and then I have to piece out what they mean by that. I'd rather get told what I'm looking at and work with that.

>Most stuff is about making good decisions so you either don't have to roll, or are in a good position when you do, such that the DM is willing to give you a better chance to succeed.
I'm on the fence about this, but I prefer to have skills, and I don't really like the "everyone has 1 in 6 chance" skills of LotFP. I want my character's traits to matter. That doesn't mean I want to rollplay, but it does mean I want some sort of meaningful mechanical system. And failing 5/6 of the time unless I'm a Thief just doesn't feel good. Especially when that means there's a whole class dedicated to "you aren't useless at life". But then again, that gets into my dislike of level/class based systems, and the inability to be decent at things or good at others without having to force your character into a strict archetype.

>Scars
I don't like charts, but that seems fine. I just hate "death is the only consequence", which feels hollow and video gamey, if anything. I play roleplaying games because I want to roleplay. It's hard to roleplay when my warrior dies to a housecat.
>Dungeon crawling, stories
See, again, I can never figure out just what OSR is *for* because everything conflicts. Someone in the last thread was talking about how they don't have stories because "interacting with the NPCs" is what creates stories, but here you're saying its just... dungeon crawling and no other people around so you don't care about a reputation or anything.

>no other people around

Hey, monsters are people too. Especially if you roll well on reaction tables.

>You're confusing OSR with CoC.
The rest of your post is about how deadly dungeons are.
There aren't even rules for infections, and this is clearly a world with magical healing, so the only thing necessary is for the character to get out. How are you talking about working towards being a badass but you have a problem with characters pushing on while injured? That's a thing that literal real people have done. Hell, they made it into a Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

>Exactly. It's lazy, and I'm not apologizing for it. Yeah, Dark Sun was where it was beyond going downhill.
Or maybe people just don't want to play the same kind of games you do. Level 5 is hardly badass from what I've seen of Pathfinder (which I presume modern D&D is simular enough to), but you're competent and have more options than "I hit it with my sword" and you're threatened by threatening things instead of housecats.
Do you think Exalted players are lazy for playing Exalts? Are you trying to tell me that the only "real" game is crawling through the mud while playing Dante Must Die mode? Also, isn't Dark Sun notoriously deadly and bleak?

I've literally never heard a "grognard" argue in favour of non-death consequences. In fact, that D&D players often seem to think -10HP is the only consequence that matters is one of the reasons I'm not fond of it.
>They just don't want the players thinking they're going to have a nice lazy choo-choo ride where they always end up better than when they started
Is it really fair to accuse people of moving the goalpost when you're shoving all this straw around?
This is what I mean: People in these threads treat OSR as the only REAL gaming, and everything else is for babies and railroading

"You aren't going to die" does not mean railroading. It means that they're going to have to actually *live* with any consequences, and won't be able to just brush off problems with character death.

Also, what do you think "grognard" means? Do you think it's just "a third edition Dungeons & Dragons fan"?

It's an old French word for Grumbler, used in Napoleonic times for the old soldiers. It eventually got picked up by wargaming and hobbygaming for people who prefer the older original wargames and tabletops, often refusing to play newer editions.
You know, like an OSR fanatic. This thread is full of grognards.

Is there a LotFP class that lets me seduce the monsters?
All those half-races in D&D have to come from somewhere.

As far as that last part, I don't mean that you're never around people enough to care. I mean that you spend enough of your time in the wilderness or otherwise off adventuring that much of the time, it doesn't make sense that your relationships and reputation and such CAN be under attack.

That doesn't mean they never can be, or that it wouldn't be inconvenient to be seen as a coward or something. I just mean that a good chunk of the time physical harm is going to be the biggest concern.

Like let's say I decide to go explore. I come across a small town where an elderly farmer's adult daughter has been kidnapped by orcs or something. We go rescue her, and I get injured. I spend several weeks at their farm recovering, and the farmer's daughter and I start to become closer. But he doesn't want her marrying some ragtag adventurer. So now my goal in life is to save enough money in his travels to settle down and keep her comfortable for the rest of her days, in hopes it will change his mind.

But then I travel on. Now I'm this lovestruck traveler, and when I'm in my worst moments, not sure I'll make it out, the hope of returning to her. Story via interaction with NPCs, but while I'm off on this other adventure, the threat to my relationship and the threat to my life are one and the same.

So definitely there are NPCs and you interact with them, and story comes from that, but it also comes from your character reacting to challenges of the more "sword and sorcery" variety, which often means scary monsters and deadly traps.

(part 1/2)

(cont'd)

One of my favorite examples is a story where Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser are haunted by the ghosts of their lovers they aren't over. They go to these two wizards who tell them to steal Death's mask and in exchange, they'll either return their lovers to life or make them forget they ever existed. On the way, they travel through the land of the dead and come face to face with their loves who tell them to go home and forget them. Still they press onward. Ultimately the mask is broken in half, so the ghosts are exorcised but they don't forget them.

But now that the mask is gone, the two ghosts, who had been terrified every day in the afterlife, can look on Death without fear.

This is adventure and daring and going out into the dangerous wilds, but it has a great deal of heart and comes from the characters' relationships to NPCs.

>People in these threads treat OSR as the only REAL gaming, and everything else is for babies and railroading
I love OSR, and am also the OP in (part 2/2)

>As far as that last part, I don't mean that you're never around people enough to care. I mean that you spend enough of your time in the wilderness or otherwise off adventuring that much of the time, it doesn't make sense that your relationships and reputation and such CAN be under attack.
I'm just saying that it's another aspect of getting mixed messages from the thread. Some people seem to run tense political thrillers in fantasy worlds or whatever. Other people run straight up stereotypical fantasy dungeon crawls.

>I just mean that a good chunk of the time physical harm is going to be the biggest concern.
See, that feels like a playstyle, not even anything inherent to the system. Why do you need to adventure? Why can't you stay in a city? Why can't you do social things? Why can't you form a gang and be the second biggest organized crime boss next to the king himself?

>I love OSR, and am also the OP in →
I'm not saying it's everyone, but man, it's present. Like the guy calling other people grognards.

I want an OSR magic system that's like Harry Potter, but you can make weird shit like a vase or scarf a magical focus.

How do?

>Some people seem to run tense political thrillers in fantasy worlds or whatever.
You CAN do that in OSR, because the system tends to be fairly light so you can do whatever you want with it. But it definitely isn't what Gygax/Arneson had in mind, since they awarded XP on the basis of "treasure recovered from dangerous locations and brought back to civilization." Which isn't to say that it's wrong or anything. Just that OSR -tends- to (as in, amount of time/attention) be focused more on the adventure stuff.

>Like the guy calling other people grognards.
Yeah, that guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, since grognards would be like, the people who refuse to play any RPG made after 1982.

>magic system that's like Harry Potter
Why would you ever.
Also, Harry Potter's magic is literally just "you wave your wand and say the words and it happens".

Like I said, the problem is that no two people seem to agree on what "OSR" even means.

So, you don't like D&D. Guess what? OSR is basically D&D. However, you get XP from treasure recovered from dungeons. Monsters give you very little XP for the danger of fighting them. It's often better to bypass them, negotiate with them, trick them, or do anything else except fight them. Occasionally you'll be forced into a decision to fight or retreat, and generally you want the odds overwhelmingly in your favor.

I would check out the oWoD Dark Ages line, or see if there's anything for nWoD that fits the bill. You could easily run an OSR-like game in a setting with the serial numbers filed off. I've done it before (using the oWoD).

>skills

The less skills there are, the better. If you want your character to be good at weaponsmithing, my response as DM would be "Okay. You can make weapons in a reasonable amount of time given access to the tools and materials."

There are no social skills beyond the NPC reaction roll, because in OSR, you're supposed to tell the DM what you're saying to the NPC (or even better, say it in character).

Personally, I despise Diplomacy/Bluff/Persuasion ala 3.pf. As written, it essentially "wins" social encounters, and even with a liberal dose of common-sense, you still get buttmad players who don't like being told that no, in fact, the king does not let you marry his daughter just because you're charming.

You know what I gather from all your posts, both this thread and the last? You need a competent DM to run an OSR game for you, so you can understand what its like to play.

All of this theorycraft isn't going to do you any good. You're mostly just derailing the OSR thread with "why isn't OSR like [game] I like?"

Look, if you don't like the games we play, and don't like the style we play them in, why not contribute to the threads involving games you do like? There's a CofD/nWod thread up, and maybe that's more your style.

>I would check out the oWoD Dark Ages line, or see if there's anything for nWoD that fits the bill.
I hate oWoD; there is a Dark Eras book that just came out for CofD, though. I might have the players be Proximi from Mage 2e (like knock off Mages) and run something that's basically Final Fantasy 1 ("My daughter has been kidnapped, I need to hire morally ambiguous vagrants to get her back!")

Also, I like there to be enough skills. That's a very vague way of putting it, but I don't like too few because everyone is samey, but I don't like a fucking billion skills, like GURPS or whatever does. I'm also liking that more systems are making non-combat mechanics more interesting and meaningful.

>You know what I gather from all your posts, both this thread and the last? You need a competent DM to run an OSR game for you, so you can understand what its like to play.
I'm in a game run by the creator of Wolfpacks & Winter Snow. I'm giving it a try.

I'm also explicitly trying to find something new. I don't *want* to run the same game all the time.
But at the same time while this is closest to what I want, apparently what I want is doing it wrong.

Cavegirl might have been right: The best system is the one I make myself.

No one is going to agree on what OSR means, beyond a clear descent from D&D, specifically OD&D and B/X.

Did you know that OD&D has rules for running domains, armies, siege weapons, and the like? The Rules Compendium has all of that in it, and more. ACKS (Adventurer, Conqueror, King System) focuses more on that domain aspect than other OSR games do.

The game is, in its "basic" form, so easily modded (or hacked) that it can be contorted to run anything you'd like it to. If you like skills, you can add them (I personally don't, as I feel I made abundantly clear ).

If you don't like classes, I direct you to Mutant Future, which you may pillage to your heart's content. Based off of Gamma World, D&D's mutant cousin.

Ultimately, different people get different things out of the game. They play differently than me, and I can only offer you my particular experience with it. The same goes for the other anons who haunt this thread.

>Ultimately, different people get different things out of the game. They play differently than me, and I can only offer you my particular experience with it. The same goes for the other anons who haunt this thread.
I'm going to be honest that really makes it hard to understand the point of these threads other than arguing with people like me and asking for this or that hack.
But at this point I'm just talking to talk. I'll check out Mutant Future.

>hating oWoD

I don't know what to tell you on that. I'm not even sure I care why, since this is an OSR thread, and that would just derail it further. My recommendation was mostly for gear and setting information that could be ported over to nWoD rules set. The Dark Ages Companion in particular was good because it contained a lot of historical information that could be used to add detail to the setting.

>skills

We'll just have to agree to disagree. There was a time when I wanted skills for everything, but I've found it to be unsatisfying.

>game you make yourself

This is very true. Give the OSR game you're in a good run, and learn and read a bit from other OSR games. Basic Fantasy RPG, S&W Complete, and Labyrinth Lord all have free PDFs, and you can take a look at what makes them tick and compare the numbers.

My personal exploration was finding out that after a decade of 3.5... I didn't like it anymore. I still wanted to play D&D, but not that particular iteration, so I started to dig backwards.

Ultimately, that led me to the Rules Cyclopedia, which is OD&D. And eventually that led me to OSR. I cherry pick from various systems to run the games I want to run. Domain management from the RC. Suggestions and tables from the 1e AD&D DMG. The Wilderness Survival Guide. LotFP as a base. Races and multiclassing from BFRPG.

My personal game is not the same game that others in this thread are playing. But the common lineage is OD&D and B/X, and that's the lingua franca that we share.

>There aren't even rules for infections,

1st ed. AD&D DMG says there are.

>so the only thing necessary is for the character to get out.

No. Many OSR groups make multiple trips back and forth; clearing out one section at a time.

>How are you talking about working towards being a badass but you have a problem with characters pushing on while injured?

The DM doesn't have a problem with anything they choose to do. They can either push on, or go back to town. My group has done both lots of times. Quite often they debate (in character) whether or not to push on, and it adds another layer of drama to the session.

>Or maybe people just don't want to play the same kind of games you do.

I've played both.

>Level 5 is hardly badass from what I've seen of Pathfinder

That's because power creep.

>but you're competent and have more options than "I hit it with my sword" and you're threatened by threatening things instead of housecats.

I see you've never been kicked by a wild horse. I have. That is a threatening thing.

I see you've never been chased by a pack of wild dogs. I have. That is a threatening thing.

I see you've never been surrounded by 3 normal sized men, beat to the sidewalk, and then kicked in the ribs and stomach. I have. That is a threatening thing.

Sometimes people actually die after a single punch to the head. That's how we play.

And you only think you have "more options." In the older games, you really could do anything you want. The rule is, "Don't say no, but rather determine difficulty." After 2nd Edition, the DM has to say, "No, you have to be 5th level to do that." I played a gunslinger in Pathfinder. I tried to cauterize a wound with my pistol, and the DM was like, "You haven't earned that feat yet." Seriously, wtf? That's limiting the player.

>Do you think Exalted players are lazy for playing Exalts?

My question would be, "WTF are you even working towards?" There's so much story fodder they've ignored for what amounts to a divine soap opera. At least from what I've seen.

>Are you trying to tell me that the only "real" game is crawling through the mud while playing Dante Must Die mode?

No, you're reading your own biases into what I'm writing (again). I'll just refer you to my previous posts.

>Also, isn't Dark Sun notoriously deadly and bleak?

Only the aesthetics. Seriously.

>I've literally never heard a "grognard" argue in favour of non-death consequences.

Well, now you have. Only the consequences are much the same as failing to wear a hardhat in a construction zone, etc.

>Is it really fair to accuse people of moving the goalpost when you're shoving all this straw around?

Loaded question. I've played a lot of Pathfinder too. It's designed to railroad, and you know it. And not just Society or the demos either. All of it, man.

And if you are a self-aware DM, you can run Pathfinder to work-around all the railroady bits, but it takes a lot more work. That, and you can't do anything imaginative unless you actually earn the skill/feat. "Well, you can (sometimes) try it unskilled." But then why not all of them then?

>You aren't going to die" does not mean railroading.

It does mean "predestined to succeed or at least break even if you warm a seat for a few hours," which actually is a railroad. Yes. You might as well have a tabletop board out on the table showing everyone where they will end up.

>You know, like an OSR fanatic. This thread is full of grognards.

Right. Because, "If it ain't broke. . ."

Since you're giving me history lessons, then you know the real reason why new editions are released? It all started with Lorraine Williams. You don't have to take my word for it. Then when MTG turned into a cash cow, they had to do the same with published RPG books.

Completely unnecessary, and cuts into your miniatures budget. ;)

>Like the guy calling other people grognards.

I wear the label with a badge of pride.

>So, you don't like D&D. Guess what? OSR is basically D&D. However, you get XP from treasure recovered from dungeons. Monsters give you very little XP for the danger of fighting them. It's often better to bypass them, negotiate with them, trick them, or do anything else except fight them. Occasionally you'll be forced into a decision to fight or retreat, and generally you want the odds overwhelmingly in your favor.

I forgot this part. This is a very good point to make, since subsequent editions kind of forced you into thinking that you had to slay monsters all the time.

>There was a time when I wanted skills for everything, but I've found it to be unsatisfying.
I said I don't want skills for everything.
Also, that's basically what Dark Eras is, albeit I don't think there's one for specifically the Dark Ages. Which seems like an oversight. Still, there's Neolithic Mage/Werewolf and other eras that really make it seem like one of those books that'd go along side all those GURPS books that people who don't actually play GURPS have because of the setting and info.

>But the common lineage is OD&D and B/X, and that's the lingua franca that we share.
See, the thing is that I keep seeing people say that OSR doesn't have to be OD&D. But at the same time I rarely see any examples of that. Can you give me some? Games that are OSR, but not OD&D based. That's what I'm looking for.

>No. Many OSR groups make multiple trips back and forth; clearing out one section at a time.
Well, that may be, but if your leg is broken your primary concern isn't when you're coming back, it's how to get out. And none of those threatening things are a housecat. Sometimes people die after a punch to the head, yes. But trained fighters and scoundrels shouldn't.

>And you only think you have "more options." In the older games, you really could do anything you want
user, just because you've had shitty D&D experiences doesn't mean that's how everyone's gaming goes. When I say "more options", I mean mechanical framework for doing interesting things. In many cases, things that it wouldn't be physically possible to do without some sort of magical thing or training. Using the OSR game I'm playing as an example, a Wendigo doesn't get spells until 2nd Level.

>You know what I gather from all your posts, both this thread and the last? You need a competent DM to run an OSR game for you, so you can understand what its like to play.

Seconded.

>All of this theorycraft isn't going to do you any good. You're mostly just derailing the OSR thread with "why isn't OSR like [game] I like?"

I get the same impression. I will try to be patient though. Maybe he's trolling. Or maybe he's trying to figure it out. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. For a little while, at least.

Really, it's 2nd edition's fault.

>Non D&D OSR game suggestion

I actually did. Mutant Future.

>My question would be, "WTF are you even working towards?" There's so much story fodder they've ignored for what amounts to a divine soap opera. At least from what I've seen.
And? Again, you sound like you're saying that the only valid type of game is a gritty brutal game where you're always on the edge of death and common animals can kill you.
I mean, you're asking why people would want to play a game where you get to be Conan and Hercules and heroes of myth. Hell, "a divine soap opera" sounds appealing. What previous post am I supposed to read when you're literally expressing confusion at why people would want to play high powered games?

>It's designed to railroad, and you know it.
No it isn't, and this is a terrible argument.
>It does mean "predestined to succeed or at least break even if you warm a seat for a few hours,"
When you read a book do you honestly think "this character isn't going to make it"? When you play a video game--no matter how linear or open ended it is--do you think "I'm not going to succeed"?
No one I know plays games to learn whether they'll pass or fail. They aren't playing because of Point A and Point B. They're playing because of everything in between. Also, my entire fucking point was that "failure" is not synonymous with "death".
For fucks sake I'm far from the best GM in the world and I could make a game of playing unkillable immortals have interesting and meaningful consequences, yet for every other GM you've got to go to Death or it's just railroading bunnyfarming kid gloves.

They release new editions because it is broke.

>Or maybe he's trying to figure it out
I am trying to figure it out. I mean, at least on the face of it this is what I want. But, again, doing what I want (Final Fantasy I inspired rescuing of absconded heirs and traveling through haunted woods aimlessly until you get to a town and it turns out to be the one you were looking for) seems to be badwrong because...

Ah. Downloaded it, but haven't looked at it yet. I'd definitely just be pilfering mechanics, instead of using this weird post apoc thing.

>Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma
>Level
>Armour Class
>Saving Throws
user did you lie to me? This looks an awful lot like D&D...

>Well, that may be, but if your leg is broken your primary concern isn't when you're coming back, it's how to get out.

Not all the time. You've got a real two-dimensional assumption of what goes on in other people's games. Some dungeon encounters are with other good guys (whoa!!!), and they can give aid where necessary. . .

"You encounter a group of lawful good dwarven miners."

OR. . .

DM: "The wall collapses inward, leading to a well with a bucket left floating at the end of a rope."

Players: "We decide to climb the rope."

DM: "When you reach the top of the well, you find that it's in the backyard of a nunnery."

My group then decides to "pin" those locations for future reference.

>And none of those threatening things are a housecat.

That's because you were forcing an exaggeration. All the examples I gave are "mundane" 0 - 1st level encounters.

>Sometimes people die after a punch to the head, yes. But trained fighters and scoundrels shouldn't.

Trained fighters and scoundrels die from punches to the back of the head a lot.

quora.com/Martial-Arts-Can-a-human-be-killed-by-a-single-punch-or-kick

thesun.co.uk/archives/news/1105310/man-killed-pal-with-single-punch-to-the-head-after-drunken-horseplay-went-tragically-wrong/

Note the date on that last one.

You sir, have an underdeveloped sense of your own mortality.

>When I say "more options", I mean mechanical framework for doing interesting things.

Which are limited by the skills and feats section of the book. Please do try to keep up.

>Using the OSR game I'm playing as an example, a Wendigo doesn't get spells until 2nd Level.

What system claims to be "OSR" and still allow you to play a Wendigo with level advancement?

>divine soap opera

I'm not saying it was good, but OD&D had the Immortals line...

>new editions

2nd edition AD&D was released specifically so that they didn't have to pay Gygax royalties after they'd edged him out of his own company.

>Final Fantasy

Run it. Use phoenix down and easily accessible healing potions. I don't care. I doubt anyone in this thread actually cares that much. You could even convert the vancian spell system to an MP powered one.

Make OSR into the game you want to play. That's the beauty of it.

>captcha

Getting real sick of storefronts...

Yah. Really. Pretty much. . .

>Lorraine Williams

. . .all her fault.

It has levels, but no classes. Read it. You'll see what I mean.

>captcha

Real, REAL sick of storefronts.

Hey, 2e still has XP for gold (as an optional rule), and you still don't get shit in the way of XP for monsters.

I blame 3e.

>OD&D
You mean BD&D 3e and 4e.

It's only an option for Thieves. Trust me, I've looked it up recently.

You might be right. I've never looked at Immortals (only by reputation), and I'm really unclear on some of the early D&D editions. It was... a mess.

>And? Again, you sound like you're saying that the only valid type of game is a gritty brutal game where you're always on the edge of death and common animals can kill you.

No-no. You're forcing an assumption on your part.

All forms of theatre and/or fictional storytelling run on the same raw fuel: Conflict. This doesn't always have to be deadly conflict, or even violent conflict. The goal is to keep as many avenues of potential conflict open. That's your fodder for storytelling.

A campaign where you're playing gods is probably fun for a few sesions, but it would get old quickly, because every challenge has to be at the highest cosmic level.

It's easier to find fuel for say, Spider-Man or Daredevil, but alot more difficult to keep it interesting if you're playing Eternity or Dark Phoenix.

>You've got a real two-dimensional assumption of what goes on in other people's games.
This started with someone saying that die in the dungeon because there's no healing. I'm not sure what his digression about going in and out of the dungeon was all about, to be honest. My point was about how there are consequences that are more interesting than death.

>You sir, have an underdeveloped sense of your own mortality.
And you want to play in a game where everyone is made of fragile plastic and are using rare mishaps to justify it. A skydiver recently landed without his shoot and survived.

>What system claims to be "OSR" and still allow you to play a Wendigo with level advancement?
drivethrurpg.com/product/181454/Wolfpacks-and-Winter-Snow
I spent the first session poking around in a cave while everyone else gathered up flying snow scorpions for dinner after the Mystic botched a magic roll.

>2nd edition AD&D was released specifically so that they didn't have to pay Gygax royalties after they'd edged him out of his own company.
Wasn't he involved with both 3e and 4e?
Either way, there were editions before 2e, and D&D is far from the only game with multiple editions.

>A campaign where you're playing gods is probably fun for a few sesions, but it would get old quickly, because every challenge has to be at the highest cosmic level.
Maybe you should actually look at Exalted.
Although there are games of even higher power level than Exalted. And people have quite a bit of fun playing it.
In many ways, Exalts have more avenues of conflict than LotFP characters, because they have more agency in the world.

>It's only an option for Thieves. Trust me, I've looked it up recently.
Check page 47, bottom of the third column ('89 version), or page 69, bottom of the first column ('95 version).

Immortals is the 5th box set of BECMI (Basic '83), and has a Rules Cyclopedia equivalent in the Wrath of the Immortals box set.

>I mean, you're asking why people would want to play a game where you get to be Conan and Hercules and heroes of myth.

I'm not asking that at all. Were you abused by a grognard as a child?

We play Conan when he's just starting out. Like, the first 30 minutes of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Then we take it from there.

>No it isn't, and this is a terrible argument.

You're merely asserting, wereas I've seen evidence from the actual rules.

>When you read a book do you honestly think "this character isn't going to make it"?

If I wanted to read a book, I wouldn't be playing OSR. Do you understand now?

>They aren't playing because of Point A and Point B. They're playing because of everything in between.

In a warm blanket of assumed safety, yes.

>Check page 47, bottom of the third column ('89 version), or page 69, bottom of the first column ('95 version).
These page numbers are for the DMG, I should clarify.

>I'm not saying it was good, but OD&D had the Immortals line...

True, which IIRC, Gygax and Tim Kask both criticized.

youtube.com/watch?v=X9vECzikqpY

>2nd edition AD&D was released specifically so that they didn't have to pay Gygax royalties after they'd edged him out of his own company.

Exactly. It was about money, and nothing else. Not because "Da system must've been broke."

It was always evolving from day 1.

Okay, that's a fair argument.

>It was about money, and nothing else.
I imagine Dave Cook thought it was about cleaning up 1e, to make it easier to use.

He was not.

3e and 4e were developed under WotC after TSR was acquired.

I have the '95 version, and I'm not seeing it. There's only Table 31 and 32 (Creature Experience Point Values, which lists XP per HD, and Hit Dice Value Modifiers, which doesn't say anything about treasure).

But, on pg. 70, under Rogue on the Individual Class Awards it lists:

Per gold piece value of treasure obtained 2 xp

>Immortals

I see. I knew that Immortals was pre-RC and that Wrath was the Immortals for the RC.

Oh, and
is what I see happening in later editions. I go to cons and have more than one FLGS in my town. That's why they're laughing so hard at the absurdity of it all. That's why they're not immersed. That's why they get bored with it so easily.

Sure, you could chalk it up to, "All those DMs are just retarded." But I think the systems facilitate the behavior. The rules become the enabler.

>Harry Potter's magic is literally just "you wave your wand and say the words and it happens".

That's true, but the type of spells and general power level is really good for dnd, minus the killing curse and shit like that.

I would use something highly utility based, spells are more disabling then offensive in combat. Plus change up the magic system so it is tied to the objects, destroying the objects or something will lose that wizard his spells until he can repair them.

The only problem I have with this system is I find it hard to justify magic items and equipment in dungeons if Wizards make their own. Maybe tie it to a crafting system.

It's the very last paragraph of text on that page, next to the 'AC0 or lower' and 'Blood Drain' bits of Table 32. I've circled it in red.

In the original 2e DMG it was in its own blue box, so people would actually notice it was there.

Ah. Okay. I'm just blind (tired, should be sleeping, but.. insomnia).

I'm glad to know it's in there though.

user, you were literally expressing confusion at why people would want to play such games.
>My question would be, "WTF are you even working towards?" There's so much story fodder they've ignored for what amounts to a divine soap opera. At least from what I've seen.
Not everyone wants to play Conan just starting out, and not everyone wants to play him from the Ahnuld movie. Some people would rather have a story about a competent hero than yet another coming of age story about a neophyte. You said yourself that stories are about conflict, well, not everyone wants the same conflict over and over.

What rules railroad you.

>If I wanted to read a book, I wouldn't be playing OSR. Do you understand now?
Do you understand what metaphors are? For someone who keeps telling me I'm projecting or reading too much into things you've said or this or that, you sure are one strawman building motherfucker. I have literally listed off several examples of how to make a game interesting and have consequences beyond the loss of life, but you're still making the argument that my games are taking place "in a warm blanket of assumed safety". And you're also still making the argument that danger needs to be inherent, even as you said not all conflict needs to be physical!
How about a better analogy: When you go into a haunted house, do you actually expect that you're going to die? No, you go in knowing that nothing can actually hurt you, but that doesn't mean that it isn't thrilling and frightening all the same. The question you should be asking yourself is not "will I be able to walk through without dying", it's "what will I experience as I do".