OSR General

As stated last thread, alternate way to do Wizards that keeps in the Vancian/bookish theme.

>Wizard gets number of spell slots equal to level
>All spells now share the same spell level, spell effects are instead 'boosted' by taking up multiple spell slots?
>After casting a spell, you can fill the slot back up again without having to rest but it takes regular time to do so plus other components

Another idea to add to this is a kind of negative 'strain' or 'stress' roll you get when casting certain spells or just over and over, that way you are limited per day without a strict limit, but I kind of like the simplicity of all spells just being however many you want, just prepare them in advance.

Don't forget that in Vance's books nobody ever seems to bring a spellbook travelling, instead they leave them locked up in their homes -- I think both because they're too valuable to remove, and probably too heavy and cumbersome?

gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8

Only shit DMs kill player characters. You just make the world potentially dangerous and let player characters kill themselves.

I keep it simple, any systems that come from the D&D systems made by TSR are OSR.

Yes, I even view 2nd edition (sans splatbooks) as OSR

I'm still loving this one.

If your players are smart, or lucky, none.

Your goal isn't to kill PCs as the referee, it's to serve as the neutral arbiter of the game world with help of the dice. If your players do reckless shit and get killed, you might have a TPK on your hands. If they're smart and avoid combat, or if they do engage in combat but end up with some lucky rolls and end up slaying an entire room, don't go out of your way to kill them; the world should contain enough dangers that the PCs have no trouble getting themselves killed if they're not careful.

If you create a world with rules and consequences, and enforce those with the help of the dice, it will help to forge a stronger fantasy for the players. Death only serves to give meaning to the world and the actions of the character, to create a respect for the world.

In my two campaigns I ran with experienced players from dragonfoot, over 1 year of play,

23 hirelings died
0 PCs died (but there was 2 near TPKs, one with some bugbears and orcs when the party could not run, and the 20 undead room in Barrowmaze)
And since its OSR, I had one player pass away in that timeframe.

With poor players I had a few times with with one players making it back.

Yep, you're the cancer.

Nice T$R shilling, famigo.

git out

Are you one of those from the OSR bait thread? Please fuck off, we have better shit to discuss than this.

>Want to try running OSR games
>Every time I try to run a game people always lament how restrictive the classes are when making characters
I honestly don't understand this sentiment. At the very least I can use these old adventure modules with the games they do like to play with only a tiny bit of work.

I never understood it, but I am a old fag that likes Race = Class D&D.

>Still want to run a campaign from level 1-36 in BECMI

Has anyone bought Axioms Magaizine from Autarch? Do you feel the content is worth 4 bucks?

By "try to run", do you actually run the game with your players or do you just show them the system and tell them about how it works? If it's the latter, then maybe a one-shot could make them rethink their view.

So in some of the core rulebooks it states that magic missile 'has a unique appearance to the magic user'. I want to know if anyone here has done that rule and what sort of magic missle effects their players came up with? Sounds really cool as a bit of customization.

>I want to play a dragon
>okay, here's a dragon class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a vampire
>okay, here's a vampire class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a succubus
>okay, here's a succubus class
>whoa, sweet!

>I want to play a elf
>okay, here's a elf class
>what? that's dumb, why can't I be an elf samurai

A little bit of both. I haven't been able to run a game proper in a while, and the complaints do get whenever I try to run something is fairly discouraging.
Interestingly enough the people with the complaints about classes being restrictive are the ones who prefer rules light, narrative games like Fate and Risus.

I feel like every spell should have visuals unique to the Magic-User. For Magic Missile I've seen the normal darts of light, spectral birds that home in on the target, pages from their spellbook flying out to attack, etc.

>I feel like every spell should have visuals unique to the Magic-User.

That's actually something I'm adding in my own core rulebook, which is why I asked for inspiration.

>For Magic Missile I've seen the normal darts of light, spectral birds that home in on the target, pages from their spellbook flying out to attack, etc.

That's great, thanks.

I get sick and tired of players wanting to play fancy ass elves or Scottish dwarves.

Except race-as-class works perfectly for the top three and is fine because you're playing as something objectively nonhuman with strange magic or other special abilities and powers, whose fundamental nature of being is totally different then an intelligent humanoid.

However elves are not some quadrupedal beast like a dragon nor a demon nor a undead creature. They are intelligent humanoid creatures with cultures and societies. Race as class doesn't work for them unless you want to argue that all elves are magical swordsmen, which doesn't make sense. Does their society not have any thieves or priests? No full time magicians? No- this doesn't work because they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions and classes.

One of the 3.5 books mentioned stuff like a demon's face spitting shards or a miniature dragon breathing fire.

It's the pop culture momentum of WoW, you can't fight it.

I kinda prefer ACKs way of doing it. Race-as-class but with multiple elf and dwarf classes.

I have eliminated dwarves from a few of my campaign worlds.

>therefore can occupy different professions and classes.

Only provided their culture supports such things, and people who might fit into these classes are liable to go adventuring.
Elves and dwarves who run off with humans to rob dungeons are their species' juvenile delinquents, not proper members of their society.

And why would a human class like priest or magic user properly represent the way elves or dwarves relate to magic or faith? PDF related, it's Beyond the Wall's Dwarven Runecaster, the closest thing Dwarves have to the humanMage.

>Does their society not have any thieves or priests?

Nope. Elves believe that if you want something that isn't yours you must take it by steel or spell. The Elven gods demand physical and magical perfection, not morality and community like the mewling Human gods.

>No full time magicians?

For an Elf to neglect the body in such a way is as grave a sin as if he neglected his soul. In any case, those deviants are quickly put to death.

>they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions

Elves can practice any profession, from cobbler to general, without neglecting their quest for perfection.

This is probably the most boring, generic thing to ask, but does anyone have a good table/pdf/whatever of Adventure hooks and ideas? I wanna run BFRPG so bad.

>they are thinking beings like humans and therefore can occupy different professions and classes.
But do they have the same psychology as humans? I mean maybe humans have priests because they're kinda scared of the gods so they a whole caste of people as divine mediators/negotiators/scapegoats. Maybe other races just don't feel that need to have a buffer between the mortal and the divine so they actually don't have priests.

What do you personally use ability scores to help modify?

I use;
>Strength +melee damage +carrying capacity +shield bonus to AC
>Dexterity +AC +to hit
>Constitution +Max HP
>Intelligence +???
>Wisdom +Initiative
>Charisma +Reaction +Hireling Morale

Since I play in a game without skill checks and dislike the idea of giving an XP bonus for it, I don't really having anything to grant for intelligence. Language is always an idea but I feel that's really minor, any other ideas?

so how is the black hack? what can you tell me about it?

(OP)

I made this because I have entirely too much free time.

I'm currently running SWN, which I guess is kinda OSR. Does anyone have any suggestions for cool modules I can slot in here and there or mine for ideas?

I love it

Not a true module, but neato. Also, world of the lost for LotFP would be a fine planetary hex crawl for them.

The general consensus is that it's okay-good and that the derivatives are mostly shameless cashgrabs.

The only Hack derivatives I'd recommend are The Petal Hack (free, and I own it, it's kickass) and The Zebra Hack (by the same guy).

...

I really wanna check out Rad Hack, just cause I obsess over all thing post-apocalyptic. That being said, Black Hack is *too* simplified for my tastes.

Being obnoxious again and linking my Thief-centric system for people to test and gimme feedback on. Consider it a mashup of LotFP and DCC.

For people who like the combat-light, the 'Thief' PC series, The Lies of Locke Lamora, the Lankhmar etc...

>docdroid.net/GtTDks6/trm-sample.pdf.html

That's sick af, bro. Nice work.

>my shitbrew may end up with Fighters being OP

I really didn't intend for that to happen.
Basically Fighters get 5e Fighting Styles, instakill on Crits if the enemy is below a HP threshold at 3rd level, Cleave that activates on any kill at 4th, and then the instakill triggers on ANY hit if the enemy is below the threshold at 5th.

Nah.

- Always Cleave after a successful attack. 5' range.
- Crits to max DAM (or get a sweet crit table like this), not instakill.

>mfw I give fighters an extra attack every level

to be fair, i'm playing off LotFPs thing of only having fighters have advancing AB.

How about a reskinned keep on the borderlands? I've always been curious if the game's advice to shamelessly reskin and rework fantasy modules actually works in play.

You could also use Hard Light, an official SWN adventure. I liked it.

How come The Black Hack doesn't have The Rad Hack?

Would you allow a conversion of PF's original Scarred Witch Doctor (a Con-based caster) in your games?

No. Not only are MUs supposed to be squishy, but I don't like stat based casting classes in the first place. Not even Int. I'd much rather give them a bonus to magic that is secondary to a direct stat casting bonus.

I've seen dungeon crawls done as abandoned space stations and facilities, it works. Especially with a bunch of angry security/maintenance/war/medical bots, devolved mutant survivors, and raiders hiding out.

And undead, because necromancers and skeletons and zombies are totally valid in space.

Does he do something unique or interesting that I can't do by just re-fluffing a Magic-User? Or adding a system that allows a regular magic-user to burn HP to power casting? Because I have the latter (along with drugs, ritual implements, etc.), and it encourages high-Con casters to use HP, whereas wealthy ones will use implements, and That Guys smoke all the magic-weed.

...

The compressed thumbnail looks so much like a person from a sci-fi movie but I can't for the life of my place it.

this is absolutely beautiful

do you have the zebra hack pdf?

I figured it out.

True, but less powerful Wizards in dungeons facing more threats would need to rememorize them more often.

I also like the idea of spells requiring not necessarily a whole spellbook. Maybe a simple visual key or like engrave the spell on your gauntlets so you can just look down and study it if you need help.

Speaking of spell learning- has anyone read that Last Gasp post about rolling to learn spells that permanently effect them? I kind of like this idea but I'm really hesitant to actually put it in the game, it seems super cool but weird. Anyone use that houserule?

Not only do we have a huge pile of tables, some made here in these very threads, but we also have a huge pile of most released D&D adventure modules. Check the trove in the pastebin.

Replace regular d20 attack roll with 2d10

Yes or no?

Question: why would you do that? Why roll 2 dice instead of one?

If you roll a match (ie; 6 and 6 for 12 total) you get to do a combat maneuver, such as attempt to trip an enemy, disarm them, etc.

Every 10 you roll, you deal +1 damage.

Every level, Fighters get another combat die they can throw each round. They can use multiple die into one huge attack, or attack multiple opponents; splitting them accordingly.

So there's something I don't quite understand. Why exactly are this and the Pathfinder general separate generals? I don't think there's any debating that it and 3.5 are OSR at this point. But I guess it's just that it's the most popular OSR game and it'd be bad for them to dominate this general?

Pathfinder/3.5 hold over some of the tropes and conventions from the earlier D&D versions, but they are play-wise entirely different beasts from the OSR generation of games.

Nothing about 3.x is old school.

wat

>you get to do a combat maneuver, such as attempt to trip an enemy, disarm them, etc.
You can attempt these regardless of what you roll or are about to roll.

>Every 10 you roll, you deal +1 damage.
Doesn't really require 2 dice for something like this.

Also 2 dice make a bell curve of probabilities so armor class would need to be rebalanced as well.

2d10 instead of d20 sounds like fiddly busywork without much real gain in gameplay.

>trolling
Nice try. Just hide this thread if it bothers you so much.

It was just an idea. I liked the idea because it gave fighters more interesting options, smashing all their dice together for multiple sure-to-hit attacks with high damage or splitting them among multiple enemies to hit more of them. It also gives everyone else some interesting options for combat moves, and thirdly I kind of wanted to rebalance the armor anyway- AC scales upwards in this version of combat much stronger so it makes sense to restrict it more and more.

3.x is it's own brand of old school now.
>literally from the fucking 90's
>the system is in it's teens
>literal copy cat system is made to maintain the old 3.x style and keep it going for all eterity for the fans who've been playing this same game for well over a decade
>fandom hold intense hatred for newer styles of RPGs and play that have become popular since then, especially "story games"

It's the exact same thing.

Agreed. It would be better to roll pools of d6 instead, and looking for matches. You start with one die and add bonus ones from level (1/lvl for Fighter, lvl/4 for Wizards, lvl/2 for everybody else) and every match you make counts as a hit that does damage equal to the number rolled x every extra die matching the score i.e. rolling a pair of 3 does 3 damage, three 3 is six damage and so on. This means that at the first level no-one can hit by themselves, but need to help each other (you can give your rolled dice to your allies to use) and finagle advantage from the environment (pushing a foe into a fire generates auto 6, tripping them auto 3 etc). Much more satisfying than rolling 2d10 and promotes teamwork.

Listen mate, I know you are trolling but OSR is a specific type of old school, not just 'old school DnD' by itself. Check the OP post and trove for examples. Specifically, it is about the 0 or 1st Edition of DnD and various retroclones, such as LotFP, S&W, Labyrinth Lord, and many others. There is a strong emphasis on house rules and creativity, as opposed to RAW and supplemental material of later generations of DnD (3.5 and PF).

That screws up the probabilities, but you probably know that already. The main question is whether or not you want people to roll average more often than extremes.

These rule changes on the other hand will make everything go completely crazy, and you should avoid it unless you want level 5 fighters to be spiky-haired animus with glowing eyes disarming one another once per round (it's fine if you do, of course, I'm not trying to judge you). With conventional ACs it's practically impossible to miss if you roll 5d10 to hit, and you're very likely to get doubles or better.

Please don't reply to the obvious troll, attention is what these fags want. Just let it wash past.

I see what you're trying to do but giving high-level fighters pretty much a guaranteed way to score damage every round against a single target is a pretty big change.

Seconded

Perhaps, but in common parlance old school D&D refers to games not newer than AD&D.

Who in this thread is actually in his 30s?

Stop replying to a troll.

I am, started gaming with the red box D&D with my friend as the GM in a local library. Good times.

29 so basically a youngster.

Replying to trolls is the oldest game

3.x is definitely from the new school "diablo-like" category all about numbers and splats and filling your item slots and optimal builds and shit

Diablo is from 1996, for fuck's sake. Old enough to vote.

>3.x is it's own brand of old school now.
No, it's not. It'll become "old school" in another 10 years or so, but it'll never be an OSR. Never.

I'm 25. Grew up on AD&D 1E (parents had all the books). I wish my players would play AD&D, but all they want is this PF and D&D 3.5 bullshit.

Thank (you) for your service.

I am. I started with 3.0 D&D and worked my way backwards, because over time I began to despise the mechanical decisions 3.0 shipped with, and I wondered what older editions did instead (and why 3.0 felt the need to discard them).

Turns out, I liked older editions better, and I eventually got myself a copy of the Rules Cyclopedia. Best D&D book I've ever owned.

/osrg/ converted me to the retroclones. I never want to go back to 3.x, and frankly, I have no taste for 4e or even 5e (I'll play them if someone else is running them, but I'll probably never run them myself).

I do play other games than OSR - but if I want to play D&D, a game I like, I play OSR.

What's the latest version of OSRIC? I'd like to take it to the printer.

But is it OSR?

These are both awesome thread images, I just came here to say that. Keep on grogging...

>30s

Bwahaha. I'm 42, you damn young pups.

>tfw I'm 19
Maybe one day I can convince my friends to try OSR, but now I only play 5e

I am, but I'm a newbie. Never actually played yet.