/osrg/

someone needs to convert DCC into a less clunky system. Less use of funky dice bullshit, less charts in general (except maybe the magic ones?), and so on.

It won't break the game. Set the spell ranges at 10th level as default.

In some ways, 2e spells are less powerful than B/X spells (magic missile isn't capped on damage, for example).

lord of the rings

awesome. This way I don't have to buy any new books or anything.

While AD&D spells tend to include more moving parts (scaling ranges, more qualifiers, etc.), they shouldn't be too far out of line with Basic stuff, power-wise. The larger selection of spells might boost player power and versatility, but if you're just using them for enemies, that's less of a consideration.

Not of you don't publish it

>I feel like the standard spells in the basic book are boring.
Speaking of this, how important do you guys think detection spells like Detect Magic, Detect Evil, and Detect Invisible are? Obviously, they could be really useful in some situations, but they're not very dynamic, interesting spells and the circumstances have to be right for them to come into play.

And while we're at it, what do you guys think of the Basic selection of spells overall? Even if you were going to keep it to the same limited number of spells per level, would there be things you'd swap out for more interesting stuff from AD&D?

So I could put it on a blog without issue? I'd imagine that taking all spells (like 60% of the DCC book) and put them online might annoy them.

>Detect Magic, Detect Evil, and Detect Invisible

Detect invisible is the only thing that might be useful there.
Detect magic should not take up a once-a-day slot. It should just be something wizards could do by concentrating or something. It's 99% of the time.

There isn't really a lot of Clunky dice use, Mostly for wizard that rolled good on mercurial effect and two weapon fighting.
Also, removing the charts of criticals fucks with the Warrior, which by the way I think its the best fighter in OSR I have seen so far.

>It's 99% of the time.
accidentally deleted the rest of the sentence
meant to say

>It's 99% of the time useless.

at level 5 (or 6?) every character uses clunky dice to make a second attack

and I'd say that just by virtue of having mighty deed of arms the DCC fighter is the best OSR fighter.

I dunno, it makes sense in a dungeon-crawling environment that being able to immediately spot the valuable magic gear or traps or other magical stuff on sight is unbalancing. It makes finding the best loot in the hoard trivial, and invalidates a lot of trap and spell and device obstacles.

and yet it pales in comparison to the usefulness of a sleep, magic missile, shield, armor, and like every other level 1 spell.

If a spell it's too useless to occupy a once-per-day slot, and to useful to be at-will, it needs fixing.

Yeah, try getting to level 5, I have been having a 2 years campaign and there has been only two characters reaching over level 5

Castles & Crusades changes Detect Magic and Light to level 0 spells, and does the same with the AD&D spells Dancing Lights, Mending, Message, and Wizard Mark. Does anybody disagree with any of those moves?

makes sense to me.

>Level 0 spells

Like at-will?

>massive D&D hiatus
>now playing 5e
>try to get players out of 3e mindset
>"I roll to find traps"
>"you don't need to roll"
>rolls anyway

graaaaaaaaaagh

follow-up:

>"I want to use my medicine skill to see if I can determine what killed him"

>"you don't need to roll for that, you can judge by the paw prints and wounds that it was wolves"

>"I want to use my nature skill to see if I can tell if the paw prints are normal sized or exceptionally large"

>"you don't need to roll, these paw prints are much larger than a normal wolf's"

I'm trying to train them.

New hexcrawl seed for a new thread:

What is the nobleman's interest in the dungeon the PCs are going to? (does not have to be a literal dungeon but something of the rough type)

What about continual light? It's definitely a useful spell to cast... once... maybe twice in your life. But after that, it's pretty useless to you. Especially in a game like B/X, where the number of spells you know equals the number of spells you can cast per day, it wastes valuable space.

>and yet it pales in comparison to the usefulness of a sleep, magic missile, shield, armor
Not disagreeing about detect magic, but I'd argue that some of the spells you listed are too powerful for 1st level. If we try to make every spell competitive with the strongest at that level, we end up with significant power creep. Sleep would be worth it as a 2nd level spell.

>Yeah, try getting to level 5
lol, exactly what I was going to say. I've been running DCC for about 2 years now and the highest I've ever seen is level 3. It's an extremely deadly game. People like to say it gets "too easy" once clerics come into play because of how they can save you if you drop below 1hp... but what do you do when the cleric is the one that drops? What is the person that is incapacitated did so by falling into a pit trap?

I don't have my DCC book in front of me, but I remember an entry mentioning something like 1 in 1,000 player-characters reach level 3.

>Like at-will?
No. They work like all other levels of spells. You just start out knowing a bunch of them.

Some systems like 3.x for example give a number of spell slots specifically for level 0 spells.

Its not 1 in 1000 player characters its more of a 1 in 1000 in the normal population of a city.

>but I'd argue that some of the spells you listed are too powerful for 1st level.
Sleep is indeed too powerful for first level compared to other first level spells. Though I'd say charm person is just as powerful.

As an aside, I believe it is first level specifically to give 1st level wizards a bone. I know Veeky Forums has been traumatized by powerful spellcasters, but being a wizard in OSR is really fucking hard
>no hp, no armor, worst weapon selection
>very very few spells per day
>levelling up takes forever
>almost no game ever even reaches level 5 to get third level spells

Yeah, 1st level wizards are pretty vulnerable, but I'd rather they have more spells than one super powerful one that they might not start off with anyway. Take the C&C progression here for instance. Whether or not you start them off with two 1st level spells, having 4 0th level spells at your disposal really pads things out.

Hmm. Not bad. I may use this progression.

I kinda like what they did in DCC. Wizards are like most of those things you said, but they get all their spells as longs they don't fail, and if they fail they can sacrifice attributes to get them back.

I like the spell progression there. I'm gonna have a look at castles and crusaders I think.

I remember when I first read that I was like "... well, wizards are going to be OP as fuck in this game." But then I ran it, and holy shit do wizards end up rolling a lot of corruption, lol.

I also like how in DCC magic is described as terrible and rare. Like if wizards see each other, they will duel to the death so they can get the other's spell book.

Castles & Crusades has an issue with caster supremacy at higher levels due to their broken saving throw formula. Essentially, it starts off difficult to make saving throws and doesn't get any easier. There's a really easy fix, which is to add only half your caster level to the spell's DC, but it's something to be aware of.

He's sending the PC's off to rescue the children kidnapped by a sinister cult. The sinister cult that he is secretly a member of. He doesn't expect them to actually succeed, and has hired thugs to ambush them on the way there.

I really love DCC Spell Duels. Probably my favorite mechanic along with Feats of strength.

Wizard on the right's problem? He's not fancy enough. If he'd step it up like the other guy he might win a few.

I just played a 5e game where the players rolled for almost EVERY action, with the DMs approval. Shit like:

>I'm with 2 people I don't recognize, rolling perception so I can look at them.

Worst of all they all rolled to handle player-to-player interaction. One of the players wanted to ask my character questions, so he rolled intimidate. He gets a nat 20 and the DM tells me:

>You can't tell any lies now when he asks you questions.

That game made me die a little inside, especially since half of them were game design majors.

My only problem with DCC its clerics, they are cool and powerful and their mechanic feels different than the wizards.
But I don't think the God, Cleric relationship ideas were fleshed out.
Also, why do clerics get summon undead but not wizards?

>Travels by dragon propelled throne
>Solid color scheme throughout all possessions
>Badass focusing dagger
>Not fancy enough

Nigga please. That asshole on the right has socks only a golfer and is obviously more bard than wizard.

>That asshole on the right
on left?

So how come he's beating dragon dude, huh?

The nobleman had a younger brother. In his foolhardy years, he and his brother actually went to that dungeon. Monsters ensued and the nobleman abandoned his brother.

He wants to recover his brother's body without knowledge of his indiscretion spreading.

1d4 interests the nobleman has for the dungeon

1. It is his ancestors tomb, and it's gone out of control with ghosts. Needs to be fixed or else great shame falls on the family name.

2. He wants to recruit the beast within, so it can help him in the coming uprising.

3. The dungeon will serve as a fine mine, but the rust monsters have to be taken care of first.

4. The inner circles of noblemen have talked up the dungeon because of some crazed explorers wild tales. Every nobleman wants to be the first to send a successful team inside and find the holy grail that is said to be there.

Are these being compiled anywhere?

/x/ skinwalker threads

I am planning on running a LotFP game. I haven't run an OSR game before, but it looks pretty fun.

I have a couple of questions running it however. Specifically, how many retainers or back up characters should I let each player have? Would letting each player make two characters be all right?

>how many retainers or back up characters should I let each player have?
There are rules for how many you can have, it's based on charisma.

>Would letting each player make two characters be all right?
Assuming the player group is standard size, that seems fine. Just make sure the difficulty is correct.

Also bear in mind that extra characters/retainers get shares of the XP, so the more they bring, the slower they'll level.

As many as you're comfortable with, honestly. Retainers are largely a player's hassle but you need to remember that you're in control of reactions those NPCs might have. The more retainers, the less control you have cause you can't really be bothered to roleplay say 8 retainers, you have other stuff to deal with. So most of those guys will fade into the background until directly adressed.

Generally 2-3 retainers is okay for me. That should be enough to cover back-up characters for now. If your party is smart enough, they probably won't have TPK or more than two deaths simultaneously.

With a large party I'm just making sure that we know who's in front, who's in the back and when players insult their hirelings or speak about them as if they're cannon fodder I just make sure that affects morale and increases possibility of backstabbing when they get to treasure.

In fact, LotFP only uses charisma to modify initial chance of hiring and morale. No limitations for their numbers.

So I should recommend that they take retainers in the first place, but otherwise let them follow the rules pertaining to retainers? I will cap it at about 2 retainers a player then. Thank you very much for the advice.

Really? I must have gotten that mixed with some other system then. Dunno how that happened.

That sounds good user. Good luck!

I'm keeping it down to one question, one thread (and trying to post the question early in each new thread) so it won't be too difficult to trawl archived threads for each question. If a second issue of Troll Gods goes up these could easily be a page or two.

Yeah it almost seems like Spellcasters and Patrons have a closer relationship than do clerics and their gods.

And the Disapproval feels like random punishment time.
It does force you to proselytize and look a lot more clerical, but still.

>the Disapproval feels like random punishment time

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make crazy through endless d100 tables.

>1. It is his ancestors tomb, and it's gone out of control with ghosts. Needs to be fixed or else great shame falls on the family name.
Make this the Tyrfing plot IMO.

Y'all have been a help in figuring out this stuff- So maybe someone can break it down for me. What's the point to hirelings? Not the retainers, hirelings like cooks, torchbearers, etc

Charisma cap is a Basic D&D thing (probably in OD&D and AD&D too but slipped my mind honestly) and LotFP is well, based on it, so it's easy to mix both up. No probs.

There's a description for most of them in the LotFP rules, but I'm pretty sure they're there for when players become so awesome they start commanding armies. Who's gonna feed the army? And torchbearers are for when all players want their characters to hold cool things in both hands.

Hirelings = retainers, btw. You're probably taking about a difference between henchmen which are basically sidekicks and hirelings (retainers). I think hirelings only eat up your gold in the form of wage while henchmen also share XP (correct me if I'm wrong folks)

Torchbearer is super-important, because you need someone to keep light up all the time while you're fighting.

Other guys can be super important when you need to get a large amount of treasure ouf of the dungeon fast.

LotFP is very good at explaining all types of hirelings and making each type useful for something. Check "Retainers" in the core book. It also doesn't have henchmen.

Since we're on the topic of hirelings, when should I check their morale? The start of combat?

Ah whatevs, here's some examples from LotFP:

>Scholars reduce the amount of laboratory time
needed for any magical research by d4 weeks
per project. They must be present for the entire
project, and paid by the month.

>A teamster is an expert at efficiently packing
animals and preparing them to haul cargo (or
pull vehicles) over long distances. Teamsters
alleviate some of a pack animal’s encumbrance
and lessen the chance of vehicles breaking
down while traveling.

>Craftsmen include carpenters, masons, metalworkers, tailors, and other such types that take raw materials and make finished goods. Each craftsman hired will specialize in only one such trade, but an estate can hire one general craftsman to work as a handyman.

Some retainers are good for dungeon delving, some are good for when you actually acquire property.

An as mentioned, they are also an easy way to provide you with a back-up character when crawl goes wrong,

This is what Basic does. I've personally never played with retainers, but even if I did, the limits seem ludicrously high.

Whoops, fucked my quotes up. Pardon.

Generally, yeah. I don't check morale for mercenary-type retainers if enemies are humans since combat is their job. I check morale whenever some fucked up thing emerges. Also when somebody dies during a fight, that goes for both sides.

>I think hirelings only eat up your gold in the form of wage while henchmen also share XP (correct me if I'm wrong folks)
B/X doesn't have henchmen, but retainers/hirelings get 1/2 experience. Not sure how AD&D does it.

Here's the B/X stuff on retainers, which addresses some of the issues being discussed here.

I am working on an overhaul of lotfp atm. Including a lot of the mechanics i like from DCC (and other systems/osr products/blogs). One of my mandates is to trim as much fat as possible. If a mechanic is clunky in play, it gets pared down as much as possible.

Threw in a little thing for LotFP, folder "Adventures and supplements". It's pretty much system neutral, but aesthetically very close to Last Gasp's Cörpathium.

Common things you can do with the various "non-combat" hirelings are things like reducing maintenance or upkeep costs for troops. You can also mine other retroclones for ideas as well - ACKS has a number of rules regarding using hirelings to produce equipment or the like.

since when does finding a trap not require a roll?

That's how it is in systems that focus on player surviving by cunning and finding the traps themselves.

Ascending AC and BAB

OR

Descending AC and THAC0

Descending "attack throw" from ACKS.

ascending AC and BAB
I never understood the nostalgia boner for descending and thac0.
Why the fuck does a +1 sword give me a -1 to thac0?
At least ascending is consistent.

Ok this is a bizarre request, but once upon a time I saw an old school supplement that had "rules" regarding the Great Old Ones, such as Hastur, and listed effects if you said their names/activated their stuff etc. Anyone have any idea what that could be and where I could find it?
It included tables with byahkees if that helps any?

>Start new job
>Meet a pretty cool guy that's into TRPGs
>"You wouldn't happen to like OSRs, would you?"
>"Oh Es, what?"
>"Retroclones. Clones of the original editions"
>"Oooooh. Well, I started D&D with 2nd edition......MAN SECOND EDITION WAS SHIT"
>"THAC0 too much for you?"
>"Oh god, THAC0!! GOD, THAC0 WAS SHIT. MAN, OLD EDITIONS WERE SO BAD"

It hurts, /osrg/. I did at least tell him about Castle & Crusades after he told me he was super into Pathfinder, and he seemed pretty interested.

Because you're trying (T)O (H)IT (A)RMOR (C)LASS (0).

The closer you are to AC 0, the closer you are to godliness.

Deities and Demigods? Its got cthulian stuff. There's also Carcosa, its got a lot of random tables. Might be in Realm Of The Crawling Chaos, or that bestiary of Cthulian stuff for osr that got posted a while back.

Sometimes its how they were introduced to a game that makes all the difference. That being said, depends on what parts of 3pf they're into. If its character builds you're fucked.

bump

Ascending, obviously. It's more intuitive imho.

Traps in OSR play should have some rough detail of the cause and effect at the very least. If players take actions that would allow them to detect the trap before setting it off, then no roll is required.

The classic example is advancing slowly and tapping the ground to see if it's steady - such an approach would definitely reveal a pit trap that's covered by a cloth or possibly pre-emptively set a trap off that acts via pressure plate.

Find Traps can alternatively be played as a "sixth sense" saving throw (the thief steps into the room and knows something's up), or alternately can be handled as an ability thieves can invoke instead of any specific action (tapping with a pole for example might be noisy and draw monsters, for example, or the players might be worried that there are traps this approach won't reveal)

>Why the fuck does a +1 sword give me a -1 to thac0?

Add it to your die roll, not your THAC0, dude.

THAC0 - d20 roll (+ mods) = the AC you hit.

I run traps like this.
I ask the players to describe a standard exploration procedure. If whatever they describe would detect or prevent a trap then it is so.

Searching skills are used as a backup that i roll on the player's behalf that allows them to notice anything that their procedure didnt account for.

THAC0 is consistent, you just don't understand the math.

Another user already laid out the acronym, so I'll just explain the math part.

Let's say your THAC0 is 15, and an enemy has an AC -2. The math works like this:

15-(-2) = 17. You need to roll a 17 or better to hit them. That's it. You're just doing subtraction instead of addition. If they're unarmored (AC 10 in 2e):

15-(10) = 5. You'd need a 5 or better.

Let's say you have a +3 longsword and you're fighting that AC -2 guy again:

(15)-(-2+3) = 14. Or,
(15-3)-(-2) = 14. Works out the same, but it's less complicated to add the plus to their AC.

Attack bonus is just THAC0 reverse engineered. I feel it's easier to explain to newbies, and is superior for that reason. But it's not actually superior just because it's a positive number.

Started with ascending AC and BAB. Can't see any reason to switch. If I started with THAC0, I dunno what my position on it would be right now. Also sorta like Target 20 variant, where you just add enemy's AC value to your roll and it's gotta be 20 to hit him.

So what is the forge document skill even about in DCC? Does it ever come into play in any of the modules and is it really that important to dungeon crawling?

Even if its in the name, in DCC dungeon crawling is not the only thing that you do, specially if your dungeon crawl was one of those mega dungeons with a city next to it, most of the time the city is big enough for you to need to forge shit.

Also, it could be an artifact from basic dnd.

Are there any examples of this being used in play in and old-school way? Is it used by players to get them out of jail and to get an invitation from the king and stuff like that?

I think there's plenty of opportunities to use forged documents if you're into that but making it a simple skill isn't all that interesting. Making it one of possible ways to get somewhere or get out of somewhere is probably better.

Looking for Wayne Rossi's (Semper Initiativus Unum) DUNGEON CRAWL-ZINE