/osrg/

All factions have some kind of leading NPC that is present (but for one faction this is a sleeping / malformed dragon who they worship, so he's hard to get at.). Good call on the monsters fighting each other!

Do you think B/X saving throws make sense? LotFP changed pretty much every thing in B/X which was unnecessary but kept the saving throws with only slightly changed names.
I don't know what to think about that. I don't see much rational in their names. I actually think 3.X and 5ed make more sense while C&C's has mechanical problems and S&W's is just oversimplified.
Is there any good explanation for the five STs to make sense? What do you do with it?

I suspect the biggest reason is that OSR games are generally not very attractive to the younger generations. Also this . OSR games don't cater to power gamers and number fiddlers like the character build focused modern games. For some reason, in my experience, people who enjoy those kinds of games are often not very familiar with the concept of empathy.

>Also this
Meant this .

They make sense in OD&D, at least - saves vs. dragon breath are used for one thing (dragon breath), but that one thing is an AoE instagib-via-massive-damage effect. Saves vs. Poison/Death Ray are the easiest save, and are basically "save vs. unavoidable instant death effect". Saves vs. Stone are to protect you against the Medusa/Cockatrice/Basilisk/Gorgon, and is harder to resist than some others since petrification is better than death. Saves vs. Wands are easier than Saves vs. Spells, which are for every single spell out there that isn't a death ray of some sort.

The problem only really comes once you start introducing saves vs. effects outside of those, and have to shoehorn them into it - BECMI Fighters rolling saves vs. Death Ray to parry and rolling a save vs. Stone to avoid a cave-in and whatnot.

Having a multitude of saves also gives you some more ways to differentiate the classes, like having Clerics be better at resisting Death Rays (and thus Patriarchs better against Evil High Priests), Fighters being better at Dragon Breath, and Magic-Users being better at Spells.
I think S&W does this by giving classes bonuses to specific saves, though?

Part of the point of the five saving throws is that there's some wiggle room as to what might fit a particular saving throw.

Spell saving throws tend to be harder to make, but certain spells use the Petrification save or the Death save which is easier to make. The Death save is also used for death effects from monsters, and also as your poison save.

If we were using 3e saves, a lot of "save or die" stuff would be relegated to Fortitude, which screws over all the classes that have poor Fort saves. In Basic (I'm looking at my RC, so bear with me), no class (aside from the Dwarf and Halfling) has more than 2 point difference on their Death saving throws.

Personally, I think the 5 saving throws make the classes more likely to survive rather than less, and I'm not in favor of the single save in S&W because it loses some granularity in my opinion.

>2 point difference*

*to start/at 1st level, is what I meant. Some classes progress their saves rapidly, others in fits and starts.

>Spells and Breath Weapon

Moreover, take a look at the Spell and Breath Weapon saves. In 3e, most damage dealing spells save vs. Reflex, as do most of the Breath Weapons.

This hurts fighters a great deal in 3e, since they're unlikely to save for half damage, whereas as they attain higher levels in the RC, their Breath Weapon and Spell saving throws improve at a rapid pace.

Basic D&D (and even AD&D) have little to no ways in which for magic-users to make their spells harder to save against, which means that as characters get higher level, spells become less and less of a hindrance.

Contrast this with 3e where spell saves are keyed off of a relatively low advancement which is competing with a wizard's ability score increases, the spell's level, and any feats or special abilities the wizard has gained in addition to normal leveling.

Personally, I prefer saving throws that actually make your character harder to kill, rather than 3e where you're in an optimization race and starting from a position of disadvantage.

Yes, you could condense the 5 saving throws down to 3. It would lose some granularity, or make Magic Wands more powerful, or the Death Save less effective. I'm not really in favor of those solutions, but you're welcome to try them out.

Yes, but it's really just nostalgia or interoperability that saving throws are named like they are.
Dragon Breath come on, how often does a character save vs. that. There should be meaningful names and descriptions and some sense why certain roles fair better in some of them. And I don't understand the progression. Look at the M-U he's already the human class who needs most XP. That means he's good at making spell saves at lvl 1 and lvl 19. He's pretty shit at all other levels. Doesn't make any sense does it?

I agree with you and I'm aware of the pitfalls of 3.X. I, too prefer the old school way. What I said was that the rationality behind it and the description and explanation suck. This should be more intuitive while still differentiating classes and saving throws and make them better at saving at higher levels.

Question for the thread. How do folks track time in their games? Especially for dungeon crawling. I'm thinking in terms of wandering monsters and such. Do you track movement rates and exact distances or is it more free flowing, referee's whim? Discuss.

Believe me, I'd love it if there was an in-depth explanation for why they progress at the rates they do. But there isn't one that I'm aware of.

I have no "nostalgia" for any of this stuff. I started with 3e, as I mentioned here . The magic-user isn't that much worse than anyone else at Spell saves, but the progression just jumps in fits and starts, and for a few levels in each category, MUs are worse than thieves or fighters.

As for interoperability, certainly. If your intention is to make a game compatible with older versions of D&D, you'll likely want to keep that game's categories and numbers.

Ultimately, "fixing" the saving throw categories is going to be a mess. You could probably do away with Wands, Spells, and Breath Weapon. Collapse that down to a single save. You might even be able to collapse Death and Paralysis to another save. So, you'd end up with two saving throw categories, one which is easier to save with, and another which is harder to save with.

But what would you name them? Physical Save and Magic Save? That's disingenuous because some spells and effects would necessarily need to use the Physical Save (death, ghoul paralysis, etc.) and others would need to use the Magic Save (damage spells, charm, etc.).

Personally, I don't mind the categories, and I think they're evocative of the sort of world that the rules are trying to construct. A place where dragons are so dangerous their breath gets an entire saving throw category to address it.

...

Generally, there's a dungeon exploration speed, and the turns are 10 minutes. You check for wandering monsters every ten minutes, and generally searching takes increments of 10 minutes. Picking a locked door takes 10 minutes. The party can travel at the speed of the slowest party member in 10 minutes. Etc.

this is delightful

Simple and effective. That's what makes OSR great.

A lvl 3 fighter in plate wants to run away from a fight. He wants to cross over a dark chasm where just a small tree is lying. Let's say 10 ft over the chasm. The tree will probably not crack but it doesn't look very easy too cross in a haste.
Is he rolling and if yes what is he rolling (in which system)?
After him a slightly overburdened Thief/Specialist in leather and an unarmored M-U are crossing too, all lvl 3, is it the same resolution?

I don't think any OSR system will give you rules for situations like that. Instead you have to make a ruling on the spot.

If you want to keep it really simple and fast (and you should), just decide what odds each character would have crossing the chasm and what are the consequences of failure and then roll a die for each of them. No mechanics needed, just some common sense and a random die roll.

Love the LotFP solution here:

Let him roll Climb (1 in 6 base chance), give him a bonus to his range for how easy you judge the tree crossing to be.

This. But, I'd only have him roll if he's trying to cross in haste. Otherwise, it just eats up time.

Honestly to tie situations like user described to a mechanistic skill system is really not necessary. But each to their own I guess.

I know, that's why I'm asking. What's your on the spot ruling?

I want to add to myself that BTB LotFP sees the climbing resolution as something for unencumbered characters. But I see the analogue of crossing and climbing, and would just rule that being encumbered in this situation is a penalty on your success range (maybe -1 on the range for each point of encumbrance).

I agree if there is no combat going on. Then it just takes up a turn. But the situation described really means that a roll effects the outcome of the combat, and that is why I would rule like this.

All unmentioned factors are insignificant.
So he and his friends all roll 1d6 and fall if they roll 5-6?

>home brew, pmuch LoTFP+blackhack
>roll under dex with penalties if encumbered, same for everyone
>give everyone the opportunity to ditch gear down the chasm before rolling to lighten encumbrance
>a falling character clings to the side with one hand while the monsters peruse close behind just to see what the other players do

The one I described. If there's a chance for a failure and bad stuff happening, roughly gauge the situation for each character taking their attributes and whatever is relevant into account and then just roll some dice.

Full on sprinting away from combat in the dark? Doesn't seem to unreasonable. Might give him a save if he falls to see if he catches himself.

LotFP p.17 "The Specialist must be unencumbered to use any
of the class abilities involving movement or suffer
a one point skill penalty per level of encumbrance."
BTB it's only for the Specialist.

LotFP p.31 "Characters (except Specialists) must be unencumbered to make this attempt." This is under the climbing heading. We may have found a contradiction in LotFP

How I would do it (I use frankenstein'd DCC)
No roll if he takes it slow.
If going with haste, roll d20 and add level and dex bonus. If over 15 he makes it.

No my bad not a contradiction. The book just doesn't allows non-specialists who are encumbered to make the attempt.

Skill systems like the one in LotFP are inherently contradictory. It should be called Thief Magic to make more sense.

Oh yeah, and if he has armor then give a negative modifier for that. Same if he's carrying a lot of stuff.

See , no contradiction, just me reading bad.

I don't know about that claim by the way. I really like the way LotFP presents the adventuring "Skills". It works in my mind, and gives a nice basis to judge how long action take or what kind of chances characters are looking at under pressure.

Right, the fighter would just fall in btb LotFP if you decide it's a climb check (Plate=encumbered).

LotFP or BFRPG? Which do you prefer?

LotFP

Trivia: Raggi played BFRPG before he wrote LotFP.

See, this is why I don't like skill systems. Instead of first trying to figure out what skill to check, one could just simply decide on a target number and roll a die.

>I don't know what to think about that. I don't see much rational in their names. I actually think 3.X and 5ed make more sense while C&C's has mechanical problems and S&W's is just oversimplified.
3.x has mechanical problems too (and C&C's problems are easily fixed by adding only half a caster's level to his spell's challenge levels.)

As far as S&W goes, each class has something it's good at, which seems like all you really need. Since modifiers tend to be modest in OSR, you could easily do single category saves modified by Dex / Con / Wis in a similar fashion to Ref / Fort / Will.

Pic is my attempt to convert B/X to a single category system, while staying relatively true to the existing probabilities. Most classes have something they're good at and something they're bad at (elf has nothing it's bad at, and magic-user has nothing it's good at). Truthfully, I think it's a bit convoluted, and feel that S&W's bonus categories make a bit more sense than the classic saving throw divisions. But even if you were going to keep the same categories, I think the table could be simplified by playing around with things a bit: most classes have a bonus to death rays and poison, for instance, so maybe you could just say that death rays are easier to save against across the board.

>but that one thing is an AoE instagib-via-massive-damage effect.
Oh yeah, it's damage equal to max HP. Dragons tend to have quite a lot of max HP past a certain age, although still nowhere near as much as in later editions. The OD&D example of play for a group attempting to subdue a dragon ends with them all dying when it breathes on them (but they'd've gotten it, had it survived).

God, I love OD&D LBB.

What's your resolution for the initial question? And don't chicken out like this guy >All unmentioned factors are insignificant.
I.e. regard abilities all as 10 e.g.

How does ACKS play without feats and the extra stuff on top of it?

Chicken out?

>What's your resolution for the initial question?

>Chicken out?
Exactly. Still didn't answer the question. The only thing you said was that the fighter >probably< makes a roll. But I'm not arguing with you, if you can't or don't want to give a specific answer I don't force you.

I don't follow you. If the DM deems the situation roll-worthy, then the player controlling the Fighting-Man makes a roll. If not, then a roll is not needed.

What I'm talking about is making rulings as a DM.

Funding for a couple years has been gathered for Last Gasp, but it'd probably be worth it for some sort of ordered compendium to be made of the site's stuff. "Last Gasp of the Flame Princess", LGotFP, as it were.

>I don't follow you
Come the fuck on. I was asking what you let the players roll if you're the DM, if you let them roll at all.
We got:
1)Roll under Dex
2)D20+level+Dex (DCC)
3)1 in D6 climb skill -encumbrance points (LotFP)
4) Perhaps some roll (Your answer)
Do you tell your players at the table, "hey guys perhaps roll something."?
1-3 answered my question 4 didn't. I'm feeling a bit trolled here.

Speaking of compendiums and stuff.
I was on the Hill Cantons blog the other day, reading an old entry on construction rules, and it directed me to his google docs thing to download a more complete set. However, when I got there, it wasn't there. Apparently he removed all the stuff concerning his domain game in preparation for a proper release in his "Borderlands" sourcebook, but that seems to have turned into vaporware.
Does anybody out there have copies of the Hill Cantons domain game stuff he released way back when?

I have a compendium that I posted just now, but I deleted it because I realized it has someone's name watermarked on it. If you give me your email address then I can send it to you.

2-in-6 chance of springing the trap, as is semi-standard in OD&D. Being armored up doesn't give a penalty because they don't really need to be punished for that - it's already pretty rough with the encumbrance penalties to movement and, well, possible loot.

Seriously, if it's a fighter in plate they'll have one hell of a time running way from whatever's chasing them - most monsters are usually more in the 9' movement section than the fighter's probable 6' move speed. But then that's what turning passages and throwing away shields/helms/loot is for, I suppose.

More generally I also like to assume that the characters have some degree of competence, although I'm also not really fond of trying to rely on character skill rather than player skill.

Hey nevermind. What do you know, I managed to find both compendiums without watermarks.

...

Most of Veeky Forums's sub-boards vary wildly in terms of "board culture", mostly because they attract different kinds of people - and these cultures do change over time as people stop posting and new posters come on board.

Veeky Forums in general is pretty middle or the road; the sort of things you can bait the userbase with are very, very specific to the hobby and generally require some time spent lurking which gives it some resistance to quick memes.

It is worth noting that generals and whatnot tend to act as "sub-sub-boards", so you'll not only have a different board culture in Veeky Forums vs. /v/ but you'll also have a different culture in, say, /osrg/ vs. /4eg/. Because the generals for specific games and game genres attract different people, and in some cases the ways the games are played are so different that they encourage different ways to go about discussing things - /osrg/ has a lot of homebrew shit, while /4eg/ has more optimization stuff since that's what those editions encourage.

Yeah, thanks, but unfortunately, neither of those have the domain game rules that were supposed to be packaged in the third collection, Borderlands. The two compendiums that have been released are like miscellaneous rules.

Not him, but it was pretty obvious was he meant. He doesn't use character stats. He basically makes up a percentage chance and rolls on it behind the screen.
So, closest to number 3

>I was asking what you let the players roll if you're the DM, if you let them roll at all.
And my answer was
>roll a die
That's a d6, d10, d20 or whatever you like as a DM. Use whatever die that gives you a desirable granularity and assign a target number. It doesn't matter what die you use if the probabilities it produces are fitting.

>Do you tell your players at the table, "hey guys perhaps roll something."?
No. I tell them for example "Alright, what you're trying to do seems very hard given the situation so I'll give you one-in-six chance to make it. Roll a d6 and let's see what happens."

Is there a retroclone using chainmail's battle systems?

desu, 1d4chan brings in too many TV Tropes/SB newfags

We get this question like every other thread. Here's something to get started:

pastebin.com/4uhcDXX8

Give me your edits/additions and lets include this in the OP next time.

>LotFP
>PC power relative to other retroclones is very low. Publishing line features many modules with an emphasis on historical scenarios or horror.
I'm not sure I agree here. On 1st level we have minimum HP we have minimum summed ability modifiers. Casting is more difficult, no blaster spells, no BAB progression for non-fighters. But - summon on level one, you can research any damn spell you want at any level, fighters are not worse than any other system. Specialists can do their shit reliable if they specialize.
All in all not a higher power level but I'd say not significantly lower.

Good point about the Specialists. I was thinking in terms of pure brute force - I guess an LoTFP party is probably a little better at subtlety.

Veeky Forums is one of the more chill boards in general, takes a lot to rile us up compared to other boards usually

Any good supplements for The Black Hack? I'm liking the Race Hack but I'm wondering if there's any that stand out.

I remember seeing an image that said that a good recommendation for understanding Law was Three Hearts and Three Lions, for understanding Chaos you'd read Stormbringer (or some other Elric book - I don't remember which!), and then for Neutrality you'd read... some other book I don't remember. By Vance, I think? Maybe?

Does anyone have the image, or at least know the name of the last book?

Rad-Hack looks pretty cool.

quests

What are the OSR with this features?:
Ascending Armor Class
Race and Class separated
More than the 4 basic classes

...I think Swords & Wizardry covers that? IIRC it's based more on AD&D than Basic, so there's Druids and stuff. Also, ascending armor class and a single saving throw.

Assuming that I'm not confusing it with one of the other retroclones.

Basic Fantasy Role Playing Game
BFRPG

the base game only has 4 classes BUT it has additional class PDFs you can download.

All of its stuff is free and if you want print, you pretty much pay the cost to have it made (dirt cheap)

A very good introduction to OSR imo

basicfantasy.org/downloads.html

That'd be the Dying Earth, specifically the Cugel books, Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel the Clever. Cugel the (self-titled) Clever doesn't care about cosmic battles, he wants to get paid and get laid and get out before her husband comes home.

I shifted my games fairly early from B to LotFP and I haven't noticed that much of a drop in power. Granted, I don't make Turn Undead a spell and I give bonus spells for ability scores but all in all there hasn't been an uptick in character deaths that wasn't related to players doing dumbshit.

What are some downsides to bfrpg?

Alright, I'm finally getting back into DCC. Originally blew it off due to the crunchiness and tables, but I learned to stop worrying and just enjoy the insanity.
Now, what I really want to do with it is design a megadungeon around the system. I just wanted to ask people for some system-specific pitfalls and considerations that'd have to be kept on mind? What'd be the system's strengths and what'd be its weaknesses when it comes to the megadungeon format

I was about to go on a whole rant about how Cugel is clearly Evil rather than Neutral, but then I realised we were talking about the Lawful-Chaotic axis, not the Good-Evil one.

Fuck.

Even so, I don't know if I'd fit him into the Evil end of the nine axis set. He's close, but I dunno. He's definitely selfish and amoral, but is too lazy and disinterested to really be Evil with a capital E, if you ask me.
He doesn't usually set out to hurt anybody, just appropriate their stuff (which they obviously have too much of) to the less fortunate. (IE himself) It's just that things always go wrong, and then people get rude and start doing nasty things, and then he has to try to get revenge on them for their cruelty.
He's less evil, more petty and shortsighted.

He's the kind of evil that could actually work in a mixed party of PCs.
Capital E - Evil never made much sense in the context of PCs anyway.

Yeah, I'd agree. But then I never thought the nine-segment alignment worked too well anyway.

To review eyes of the overworld:
killed a sprite for splashing him, sold a woman into slavery, tricked a man into selling his treasure for a worthless magi balm that got him killed, bribed priest to trick pilgrims into following him (dying to a man), raped a woman, awakened an ancient evil which destroyed a village, tricked village to killing an innocent man so he could take his stuff, attempted to extort dying foes

He cares about absolutely no one hut himself. He is waiting for the right time to use whoever he meets. And by use, I can mean kill, sacrifice, rape or ruin.

He's Chaotic Evil. Capital C, capital E. He's just an affable chaotic evil.

Formatting is kinda ugly? It doesn't do anything special with the Fighter? There's really not anything major that I can think of.

I suppose so. But almost everyone he meets is a similarly nasty person, so it's pretty easy to feel like they deserved it.
The Dying Earth books are largely just a long string of seeing assholes get what's coming to them. Sometimes it's Cugel delivering it, sometimes it's Cugel receiving it. But it's always great.

Do you listen/watch any RPG podcasts or videos? Do they play an OSR game?

>tries to rob a wizard
>wizard casts a spell that has him picked up by a roc and dumped halfway around the world

>eventually gets back, steals the spellbook, tries to cast the spell on the wizard
>gets picked up by a roc and dumped halfway around the world

Working on a Beyond the Wall hack. Has anyone played an OSR/D&Dish game that gives players an Attack score instead of a BAB modifier? I'm considering giving players an Attack of 10+their class' BAB, and just having them roll under (as with all other checks) to see if they hit shit. If the monster's particularly fast, they take -2 to Attack, if it's slow, +2, and just give armored monsters a few points of DR. Is this a stupid idea?

Should explain some other elements. Basically, I'm trying to unify everything to use a roll-under d20 and get rid of modifiers as much as possible. I'm going to be playing with RPG newbies, so I'm doing my best to cut out as much cruft as possible.
>No saving throws. Warriors get a Fortitude skill, Mages get a Willpower skill, and Rogues get a Reflex skill (skills in BtW grant +2 to a stat before you make a check)
>No XP, just group levelling (GP=XP makes no sense in the genre BtW is trying to emulate)
>AC replaced with Defence. Quick players cause penalties to monster's attack rolls, players wearing tough armor get damage reduction.
>Fixed HP per level

Yeah, I'd say LotFP powers up PCs slightly if anything -- faster BAB progression for the Fighter than in any other OSR game I can think of, HP minimums, capable Specialists all adds up. Frankly I'd suspect that whoever said that about PC power was hard gay for Magic-Users and only compared those.

>What'd be the system's strengths and what'd be its weaknesses when it comes to the megadungeon format
You could do a really Gygaxian thing of having several of the magic patrons be imprisoned in the dungeon itself.

A weakness is DCC isn't really very well suited for any long term game and that would include exploration of a truly megatic dungeon.

>He's less evil, more petty and shortsighted.
He's pompous, vain, self-aggrandizing, cowardly and prideful at the same time, and relentlessly cruel to anyone he feels has slighted or wronged him in the least. I'm not sure what more he's supposed ot need to qualify for the big E.

Dark Albion Funnel Adventure: Friday November 04 10:10PM GMT+8 (9 hours from now)
Link is app.roll20.net/join/1762692/2nzqqA
Let me know if you're interested, cos I think thing's will go a lot faster if we make your characters beforehand.
Also, full disclosure: I'll be DMing without a mic since I haven't purchased one yet.