/osrg/ OSR General

I think it's limited sufficiently by the material costs.

Copying spells into your spellbook costs money and time, and depending on your adventures, you may not be able to take them all on any given expedition.

Once you have a small library of grimoires, you can't burn down the town and flee on horseback unless you want to abandon all that investment.

You can carry all your stuff around in a gypsy wagon, but at some point, a secluded, guarded base makes more sense.

And it takes time and gold to back up a spellbook.

Additionally, there's this excerpt from Tarnhelm's Terrible Tome (last I checked it was pay what you want on DriveThru - would post mine, but I'm not sure if it has a watermark or not).

My personal suggestion is to alter them to taste. My personal changes are:

>Wand uses: 1d6+1 character level (recharges on rest)
>Can be used with zero charges, but risks breakage on 1-in-6
>Breakage causes backlash damage
>Charges are used in lieu of the HP system, and casters can use the wand's charges to cast cantrips (BFRPG 0-level spells) beyond their normal daily allowance
>This replaces the minor magic ability of wands
>Optionally, when the charges run dry, the caster may cast with HP instead (at the DM's discretion) to avoid the risk of beakage

Would help if I posted the excerpt...

>captcha

That's not an airplane. That's a glider you befuddled, infernal piece of software.

Anything good OSR wise on Amazon?

Is Harn and Harnmaster OSR?

Probably not, I don't think? I know fuck-all about Harn (I think it's spelled Hârn?), but I've kind of gotten the impression that it doesn't really have much if anything to do with the old-school D&D playstyle that the OSR echoes.

Like, just being an old game doesn't make you OSR. Teenagers from Outer Space isn't OSR. Shadowrun isn't OSR. GURPS isn't OSR.
(All those games, and Hârnmaster, are from the same time period - the late eighties.)

Is there any way to implement a system to handle both armor and evasion as viable ways of avoiding damage that doesn't include armor soak?

Armor-as-DR, armor-as-hit-points, Shields Must Be Splintered, dodging-as-saving-throws, armor-as-saving-throw...

What exactly are you after?

Sure, it's called AC. Dexterity represents evasion and armor represents well, armor. You can probably clarify a bit.

For LL: The Inn of Lost Heroes is a great one-shot but I missed my chance to run it at Halloween.

>NGR is rarely spoken of, and I'm curious if there's worth to it

I'll comment on it briefly a bit later. Still not sure what my final opinion is, if any.

>Sure, it's called AC. Dexterity represents evasion and armor represents well, armor. You can probably clarify a bit.
Right. Dex only gives up to +2 bonus, making evasion AC at best base+/-2. This is not a lot, and in effect makes best possible dodging equivalent to second cheapest armor choice. I'm wondering if a heartbreaker wouldn't be improved by offering a viable evasion/dodge mechanic, as an alternate path to armor, but the simplest solution - turn dodge into AC and make armor soak up damage, doesn't feel right to me.
>Armor-as-DR,
that's soak for each hit, right? I'd rather avoid it
>armor-as-hit-points,
soak with limited amount of HP?
>Shields Must Be Splintered,
shields breaking in lieu of hp loss?
>dodging-as-saving-throws, armor-as-saving-throw...
Those seem straightforward and interesting. I'm putting them on the list.

>On a related note, relating to the cantrips thing; how about granting the MU a prestidigitation class ability; allowing them to do minor magical effects x times per day.
I see no reason to restrict the amount of times such a minor ability could be used, but then I'm the sort who prefers their Magic-Users to be as magical as possible from the very beginning(the concept of a Level 1 MU having just one spell a day and then being completely useless afterwards from a mechanical aspect has always been one of those "Sacred Cows" D&D has that I've despised and found nonsensical, same with all the restrictions and limits non-humans have in TSR D&D/AD&D)

BFRPG's Cantrips aren't bad, but are still too weak overall in my opinion

BFRPG and several of it's supplements/adventures, also Fantastic Heroes & Witchery

I was thinking about that originally, but looking at it, I thinking starting the characters at first level gives them a semblance of that horror movie "invulnerable until they make a horrible blunder or need to be killed to teach a moral lesson" vibe.
I see your point, though, and it's definitely gonna take more tinkering to get the whole thing down perfectly.

>that's soak for each hit, right? I'd rather avoid it
Armor reduces a certain amount of damage per hit, yeah. It's the big popular alternative, but it's got some weird little verisimilitude issues.

>soak with limited amount of HP?
Armor just straight-up gives you bonus hit points, yeah.

>shields breaking in lieu of hp loss?
The typical houserule is that you can have your shield be destroyed to negate an attack, yeah - I don't like it, personally, but it's somewhat popular. I think it's supposed to be an attempt at making shields more useful? I've seen variants for helms and whatnot as well.

>Those seem straightforward and interesting. I'm putting them on the list.
If you don't want things to stack up TOO much, you could just have a separate armor and dodge save. This lets you get more individual bonuses or whatever without just stacking everything onto one roll that balloons out of control.

Also, IIRC B/X gives up to +3 AC from Dexterity and Greyhawk/AD&D gives +4AC (meaning that leather is equal to plate, but twice as fast), so I'm not entirely sure where the +2 number comes from. Are you looking at the initiative bonus, or is this a different system?

>If you don't want things to stack up TOO much, you could just have a separate armor and dodge save. This lets you get more individual bonuses or whatever without just stacking everything onto one roll that balloons out of control.
That was something I considered, but rolling twice in addition to the attack seems inconvenient in actual rel life tabletop
>Also, IIRC B/X gives up to +3 AC from Dexterity and Greyhawk/AD&D gives +4AC (meaning that leather is equal to plate, but twice as fast), so I'm not entirely sure where the +2 number comes from. Are you looking at the initiative bonus, or is this a different system?
I actually forgot that in D&D dex bonus stacks with armor, which is something I'm having some trouble with; jumping around dodging hits while at the same time wearing a ton of metal to take the hit in case you miss, which is where my whole conundrum stems from: I'd like to split the two approaches into different paths from a certain armor weight on.
Then again, maybe the most elegant solution would be to not fuck with it, take dex bonus to AC as written and maybe make armor that thieves can't wear negate the dex bonus?

I got the +2 number from LL I think. I'd been looking at LL and DCC for the base of /my heartbreaker/

>maybe make armor that thieves can't wear negate the dex bonus?
This is what modern D&D does. Medium armor limits dex bonus to +2 and heavy armor doesn't benefit from dex at all.

Looks like I reinvented the wheel. Time to call it a night

Which Encumbrance System is better? ACKS or LOTFP?

something more fantasy?

Instructions unclear. If the game needs to cross some sort of fantasy threshold for you to think of it as fantasy, I can't help you.

LotFP

No, Hârn is turbo new school with rabies. It takes the assumption of "realism as the desired product of rules" seen in early new-school games like Chivalry & Sorcery and Runequest to the bizarre extreme of actually succeeding at it fairly well (in most games of that ilk, Runequest itself being a great example, the attempt is a total failure and just leads to a different kind of preposterous, I know a guy who calls it "SoCal realistic"). However, like those (and indeed almost all new-school games before storygames -- maybe we should start calling them Type I and Type II games or some shit) it totally lacks any meaningful structures, incentives or systems to make it inherently compelling or anything but aimless as a game -- the DM is called upon to effectively construct or substitute himself for a large portion of the, uh, OD&D-equivalent system? That is if we define a "complete" system to cover everything early D&D covers, there's a big hole in these games and Hârnmaster is no exception in that regard.

Effectively the reason is that the creators didn't know there was anything missing, because they themselves had already learned to play and had certain root assumptions about roleplaying deeply ingrained. An odd thing about old-school D&D is that it seems to have produced tons of these sorts of players, players who did on some level understand the incentive cycle but didn't grasp it intellectually AT ALL, to the point of being unaware that it even existed, and who then went off to write other games where it did not exist and get frustrated when people complained about the absence, because "it's obvious how to play it". It's weird and from my point of view I can't really understand how people could read D&D, learn D&D, and completely miss this existing, let alone its importance. But they obviously did.

Been looking for an OSR game or material that allows for continuous procedural dungeon generation with great detail and elements that go beyond a mere monster encounter or treasure.

Donjon's generator is decent, but I'd prefer something with more entertaining stuff, such as rooms with inverted gravity, talking animals, random shops, etc.

I want to try something like that because I need to learn how to improvise, so this could be a fun exercise to do with my players.

Your best bet is to probably compile all of your favorite ideas on a 1d100 or more table and roll them whenever you need to.

I'm guessing you also want something like dungeon 'themes', so you may roll an area and get 'egyptian' theme, so the enemy table becomes mummies and anibus guys and the traps become sun-reflecting burn mirrors?

There is a non-OSR book from the 80s or 90s called Central Casting: Dungeons. It's a random dungeon generator that's likely more fully featured than the one in the 1e DMG. I'm not sure how successful it is however.

I couldn't find it on drivethrurpg, and it's fairly expensive on Amazon for the physical book, but it has been out of print for several decades at least.

Alright /osrg/, I'm gonna do a 1d100 chart.

The first reply to this post determines the topic of the chart.

Late night city encounters. If someone comes up with a better topic, feel free to dump this one.

Modern fantasy OSR updated again- added in Psionic powers and mechanics. I haven't touched up gun design much though I am considered adding in an 'ammo type' category and keeping receivers unrelated to ammo type to make guns even more creative and customizable.

I found it on scribd, let me see if I can rip it off and post it here

1/4 of the way done. This should be a fun list.

Don't go to too much trouble -- I've got a PDF here. Uploading now.

>25 encounters in 20 minutes
Unironically what
That's goddamn fast, son!

Here's a preview. I hope you weren't expecting anything super detailed.

And here we go.

Central Casting: Dungeons
mega.nz/#!5Edl2LSA!b1tghyIpWHQL1zymyKW-kkKfhbI9EvVgr5a5uxnjlYU

I'm not even the guy who requested it, I have no expectations at all in that regard. I just expected the creative part to take longer, even for short points like that you have to come up with the ideas, so...

danke based user

>I think it's supposed to be an attempt at making shields more useful?
Perhaps, though one could (and probably should) just increase the bonus that shields give you. A shield should really make a much bigger difference. Of course "shields will be splintered" is also dramatic, and can make the game more colorful. Still, it is a bit meta on the part of the player, so I can understand why people--old schoolers in particular--would be a bit iffy about it. I'm semi-iffy about it, myself.

>Armor reduces a certain amount of damage per hit, yeah. It's the big popular alternative, but it's got some weird little verisimilitude issues.
Does it? You have to be careful or you'll fuck things up mechanically, making it almost impossible to hurt heavily armored targets with light weapons, but that's just a matter of getting the numbers right. What are the issues with verisimilitude?

>I actually forgot that in D&D dex bonus stacks with armor, which is something I'm having some trouble with; jumping around dodging hits while at the same time wearing a ton of metal to take the hit in case you miss
People in plate armor can still run, even if they've got a bit more inertia. And even if they couldn't jump back at all (which is obviously not the case), they could still turn their bodies and guard themselves with their weapon. Realistically speaking, it seems like the effectiveness of dexterity should be reduced by some percentage when wearing heavy armor. Maybe each point of dexterity is worth half a point or something. But I think it's clear that having an 18 dexterity is still going to give you an advantage over a guy with a 10 dexterity. Of course, reducing your Dex bonus by percentages is obnoxiously mathy, and so probably not ideal play-wise. So maybe something like is a necessary simplification.

>I got the +2 number from LL I think.
Labyrinth Lord goes to +3

Best/easiest way to run an OSR game as a play by post?

Thanks for the topic suggestion, user. Enjoy.

r-r-r-rolling

>"An entire city block has disappeared"
Plot hook suggested and a whole campaign idea appeared in my mind. Good job

>These encounters

Fantastic job user

Rolled 39 (1d100)

For the armour/ AC talk I know of a easily portable substitute. Its from a system called Dragonwarriors. Basically weapons deal set damage, and have a penetration die. Armour is valued at 1-5 and the die rolled after a hit have to exceed the armour value. If the roll doesn't exceed you deal no damage.

I dislike rolling for armor because it doesn't represent your character actually doing anything. Rolling for weapon to-hit and damage? "How skillful and powerful was your attack?" Rolling for armor? There's really nothing that isn't a big stretch.

Oh and I'm looking for more psychic powers, if anyone has ideas. Besides mind reading, I'm still working on that one.

>The best parts of AD&D?

New monsters. I was tempted to say the separation of race from class, but Gygax botched that by setting level-limits too low (or just not coming up with a more elegant way to handle what he was going for there).

Progress so far on the naval warfare expansion.

This is great stuff.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I enjoy making stuff.

more like generic fantasy haha

Well if you insist, Runequest 6 / Mythras + Classic Fantasy supplement to emulate the most generic things about D&D is probably what you seek.

>Gygax botched that by setting level-limits too low (or just not coming up with a more elegant way to handle what he was going for there).
Speaking of that, what do you guys do about the power of demihumans and/or multiclassing in whatever edition of D&D you play (whether Basic or AD&D)? Are you satisfied with level limits? Do you ignore level limits, and if you do, do you compensate for removing this limiting factor in some way? Do you have some better way of balancing out demihumans / multiclassing?

I'd like to ignore level limits, but humans need a leg up to compete with demihumans (specifically to compete with elves). I'm not satisfied with BFRPGs 10% XP bonus. It's not enough, and is moot when PCs are the same level in one-shots or at max level.

I'll let /osrg/ known when my thinking cap has produced an answer I'm okay with sharing.

I'm the guy you responded to, and demihumans have always left a very foul taste in my mouth mechanically speaking. I honestly prefer to ignore them as an option, having always found them to be rather tacked on to the system and kinda out of place for a sword and sorcery feel.

>but humans need a leg up to compete with demihumans
completely unnecessary, seriously it's ridiculous how much people overthink when it comes to humans being dominant despite other races getting better stuff, just DM fiat it to be the case and be done with it, no one is going to notice or care, and if they do then they're probably the sort of overthinking tool who's no fun to play with in the first place

we really need to keep in mind the MST3K Mantra when it comes to fictional settings more often, it'd reduce these pointless and idiotic arguments by a lot

>kinda out of place for a sword and sorcery feel.
eh I'd say that subgenre of fantasy has never really been a good fit for D&D anyways, not to mention most S&S settings I've seen are mindbogglingly boring in most respects, many of them are so lacking in actual fantastical elements you might as well just go full non-fantasy historical setting and be done with it

>many of them are so lacking in actual fantastical elements
Would you like to tell us what you consider fantastical?

Hmm. It's really more of an issue of incentives. If there are no level limits, then there's no incentive to play humans, since they inherently get nothing, and have the shortest lifespan of the B/X races.

Alternatively, I suppose you could take away dark/infravision, listening bonuses, attribute bonuses, and other skill bonuses and then race would simply be appearance and (possibly) a lifespan difference.

>eh I'd say that subgenre of fantasy has never really been a good fit for D&D anyways

Good God or Nature, are you bloody shitting me. Sword and Sorcery was a considerably bigger influence on D&D than Tolkien ever was. Howard's and Lieber's stories especially.

> most S&S settings I've seen are mindbogglingly boring in most respects
What are you reading? The most popular of that genre (Conan, F&GM, Vance's stuff) are crazy fantastic.

I think he means that they're lacking in dudes with pointy ears running around.

Can anyone identify the Tentacled Eye from the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion? It's not the beholder.bI suspect that it's another renamed monster.

Just a custom rendition, I reckon, although I'm not an AD&D sage by all means.

What is the best "OSR" way to deal with abstract ranges?

I'm making a RPG Maker game and can only work with rows. Default are 3: front, middle and back, for PC and NPC.

My idea is to make reach weapon something viable not only for the fighter but also for the rogue and enemies without neglecting front row sword and board combat.

Are we talking missile weapons here, or exclusively melee?

Everything. I thought:
Front row: Melee, reach and close spells.
Middle: reach, ranged and spells.
Far: ranged and spells.

But I don't know if reach at front row should allow attacks on the enemy middle row or not. Default requires the front most row to be defeated before (melee) attacking the others.

It seems like reach weapons are more typically fighter than thief weapons. You don't often see thieves depicted with pikes or halberds. And since you probably want your fighters on the front line owing to their durability, it doesn't seem like reach weapons will see much use unless they can be used to circumvent the enemy's front row.

Honestly, given that setup, I'd probably forgo reach weapons and give different ranges for spells, thrown weapons and bows with ranges something like:

melee -- 1 row
thrown weapons -- 2-3 rows
spells and bows -- 2-5 rows

I might even make spells only go up to 4 rows so as bows have a special place.

With reach weapons, maybe I'd do something like this:

standard melee -- 1 row
reach melee -- 2 rows*
thrown weapons -- 2-3 rows
spells and bows -- 2-5 rows

*makeshift attacks at 1 row? (reduced damage and/or to-hit?)

Quite interesting. Will look further into. Thank you.

What the hell are you talking about. How are Vance and Moorcock a "subgenre of fantasy has never really been a good fit for D&D anyways"?

>just DM fiat it to be the case and be done with it, no one is going to notice or care, and if they do then they're probably the sort of overthinking tool who's no fun to play with in the first place

In a good game, the rules delineate the setting. Read that document on the "implied setting" for original D&D written by Initiative One.

"The rules say X, but the setting is Y. Don't think too much about it" is counterintuitive, because if the rules say X and yet the setting assumes Y, you HAVE to think about it. So if your rules say "demihumans are dominant" but your setting fluff says "humans are dominant", you can't just brush it off with a "don't think too much about it."

Good games are the ones where fluff and crunch go hand in hand, or, better yet, where the crunch implies fluff.

I've been cooking up my own OSR game and I've got to ask which is better;

Create a BUNCH of really interesting though somewhat specific classes
OR
Create VERY FEW select and very branching or customizable classes?

Either is okay. It depends on the execution, really. I would just not go overboard with either the number of classes or the number of customized branches.

What's the sweat spot for you then?

Sorry to give a noncommittal answer, but it really depends on the way the game is put together. The important thing, I think, is that everything is easily graspable and folks aren't lost in a sea of details. One advantage when it comes to OSR is that a lot of the concepts are already familiar--everybody knows what a fighter, thief, wizard, and so forth are--so you can probably get away with a bit more complexity than otherwise. On the other hand, the OSR approach tends to favor a relative simplicity when it comes to character building, so it's probably a wash.

For what it's worth, my homebrew retroclone has 13 classes, including fighters, barbarians, rangers, thieves, wizards, druids, clerics, and race-as-class elves, half-elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings and half-orcs (paladins and assassins are potentially in the works) with some pretty limited customization within each. I'm toying around with giving a variant of many of those classes that are basically a footnote below them to tweak X, Y and Z to get the variant (wood elves are like high elves but have lighter armor and more druidy spells). Beyond that, I could see maybe adding a half dozen classes on top of that if I had something in mind, but not a whole lot past that. I don't want things to be too difficult to sift through. I'd like people to be able to glance over the list, absorb everything, and have a pretty good idea what everything's about just from reading the names.

Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, and Thief as archetypes with plenty of customization or subclasses is my choice.

Right now i'm experimenting with a bunch of very specific classes. Race-as-class seems to be the best for this, but haven't decided yet. So the idea is to take specific mechanics of some modern edition class and distill its essense into something laser-focused like LotFP class. Basically the approach of Goblin Punch, he seems to design classes around certain gimmicks he was inspired by, although I'm not half as good as he is. Trying hard to avoid class bloat and limit myself to 10-12 options some of which are going to be discovered in play so this is my setting-building exercise too.

I'm very fond of archetypes for broad classes, 5e really shines in that regard, even though the base classes get pretty redundant from the OSR point of view.

Repeating my request for Peaks and Valleys: Among the Dwarves. I wasn't able to pick it up back when it was PWYW.

I'll admit I wasn't talking about actual S&S fiction, just S&S RPG settings

I still want to see an OSR game(or supplement for an existing one) some day that has a similar array of classes

actually come to think of it, one could use ACKS' class creation system from the Player's Companion(especially if we add in the extra content from Axioms Issue 1) to do that pretty easily

Speaking of settings, is there any good Appendix N inspired setting book?

Appendix N is kind of ridiculously broad, y'know? It's just a list of books that Gygax liked and found useful for inspiration and whatnot.

But, well, you've got Conan rubbing shoulders with Amber and Bilbo. Three Hearts and Three Lions alongside Stormbringer. The High Crusade alongside Sign of Labrys, The Dying Earth, and Hiero's Journey.

Also, well, by its very nature I suppose Greyhawk is Appendix N-inspired? The original set, that is, back when Gygax was writing it.
And, of course, stuff like the Lankhmar setting books.

Opinions on Mazes & Minotaurs?

It worth playing just for one of the modules.

I don't know, but I"m having flashbacks to that Oglaf strip.

>Heh. Snake tits.

Best Snek coming though.

(Seriously, she be a baddass boot hill person.)

On the topic of S&S RPG settings, what would make a settng primer interesting for you OSR enthusiasts to read?

I don't imagine many people would just play in a setting that I write out, but I enjoy reading stuff for inspiration. If it had, say, a few interesting NPCs and areas, a decent hand-drawn map and a few interesting factions, would anyone read it? 5 pages max, no giant tome.

If it only 5 pages, it will be read at least.

I'm thinking about converting my Beyond the Wall campaign to a grittier system, since combat isn't really explained in BtW. Any recommendations, and how would I go about it?

after the rolls, discribe the battle
if anyone is major wounded, roll for infections and other issues. even if it infected wounds won't heal.

Lower the magic level.

For example, here a simple infection wound table I am building for a low magic grim setting.

If after the battle the PC is at 50% or less of their starting hit points (and allow for immediate post battle magical healing, by potion or spell), they make a infection roll.

Infection roll is the following.

Roll vs. Con, if the roll fails, the would becomes infected.

A infected wound means that without medical attention (Herb lore or magic) the wound will not heal. At the end of 24 hours or at the next time the party rests (whichever is sooner.) have the player roll again vs. Con.

If it passes, the infection is removed and the wound can begin healing. If it fails, it becomes Seriously infected. and the PC loses 1 HP a day while seriously infected.

On rest/24 hours check it is rolled again. If passed, it goes to "Infected"

If failed, it becomes "Gangrene" unless medical help is attended to in 24 hours the PC will die.

Cure disease will remove infection.

what are the best Forgotten Realms modules?

Ruins of Undermountain is probably the most impressive, at least.