OSR General - Christmas Eve edition

To be fair, that actually works pretty well with vancian magic.
Take drugs -> develop drug resistance -> be able to take more drugs(aka more spell slots) -> Bam! Crazy hardcore junkies - No sense of right and wrong!

New combat system.

Base AC is 9
Armor comes in 3 levels;
>Light Armor grants no AC bonus but grants +2 to combat saves
>Medium armor grants +1 AC and -1 to combat saves
>Heavy Armor grants +2 AC and -2 to combat saves
If you are using a shield, add your Con bonus to AC
If you are using a one handed weapon or duel wielding, add your Dex bonus to AC
If you are using a two handed weapon you don't get a bonus to AC, but add strength mod to damage

Roll 2d10 to attack. If you roll multiples, use the best two
Every 10 you roll on your combat die grant +1 damage

If you roll doubles you can put the enemy in a spot which either grants +1d10 to next attack roll, +1d4 damage (if unsuccessful this is wasted), reduce enemy AC by -1 or puts them in a spot such as a trip, disarm, blind, etc. The second option grants a combat save. If you roll triples, add +2 to combat save difficulty, quads is +4, etc.

Fighters get an additional attack die every level.

>r8 my homebrew

Here's a list of cantrips I appropriated / modified / invented. Regardless of your level, you can cast 4 cantrips per day.

I feels like it's going to be pretty easy to get hit and hit foes.

I'd like to think the curve of using two dice means hitting higher AC is harder. Fighter types will be doing more beefy damage and combat moves, which fits them well.

Well i see no problem with it but remember that it's a double edged sword, you will give more dmg but also take more dmg.

I am interested into crossgenre modules like Expedition to Barrier Peaks and Temple of the Frog.
There is any recent material dealing with high-tech/sci-fi elements appearing in a sword & sorcery world?

I liked the initial idea of different mods to AC, but as for your other changes...

There's sort of two approaches to D&D combat: easy to hit, lots of hit points and hard to hit, few hit points. Generally oldschool D&D falls in the latter category, while modern in the former, although any D&D does the first one on high levels.

A lot of the tension of low levels comes from the swinginess of d20. Once it connects, somebody is probably dead. And If you don't adjust hit points, lethality on both sides will be pretty staggering.

From what you've written and assuming B/X modifiers, maximum possible player's AC is 14. I don't know how do you deal with monsters, but I assume it's something similar. It's incredibly easy to hit the average AC, and
>Fighters get an additional attack die every level
statistically turns Fighter into an unstoppable murder machine as early as level 3.

Various stunts on doubles are okay, but all the other changes are problematis to me.

Also I don't like armor modifying saves, but then again I'm not sure what do you mean by "combat save".

Misty Isles of Eld, Anomalous Subsurface Environment. Dungeon of Signs blog has brilliant short adventures related to ASE too.

I really want to make an OSR setting (using my homebrew blend of ACKS and Dark Dungeons) that is developed from a starting frame and then building out with gazeteers for each major region. Only problem is that I cant figure out how many of those I want/need. I keep bouncing between 13 or 16. How many nations/regions do you think would be good for a region approximately the size of New England plus New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland Ohio and West Virginia combined?

Also Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has some of that 70's "mix sci-fi and fantasy" vibe. Treasure tables have rayguns, stuff like that.

Not really feeling like doing math right now, but this has been my holy bible for setting design for the past several years:

www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

Thank you, noble anons.
I know that you can always rely on the civil OSR posters.
You are awesome and I wish you a merry holydays and happy new year 2017.

So what was the deal with old school D&D stuff describing damage with range rather than die, like for example writing "2-12 damage" rather than "2d6 damage"?

I think that it simply was that the standardized dice notation we use today hadn't been invented yet.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. When was that invented anyway?

...I'm not sure, actually. We need some True AD&D History Scholars here.

As far as I can tell, AD&D (1978) doesn't use it, but B/X (1981) starts to introduce it by using both notations side by side:

"Damages are always listed in the order of the attacks. For example, a cave bear has 3 attacks (2 claws and 1 bite); its attacks will do damages of 1-8 (1d8) points from each claw and 2-12 (2d6) points from the bite. This is listed as 1-8/1-8/2-12."

So, somewhere in between. Maybe discussed in a zine?

Maybe Moldvay came up with it?

I would suggest starting smaller. I know all too well the desire to make a huge sprawling setting right out of the gate, but you'll get a better handle on your setting if you focus on a relatively small area, and develop the mood and atmosphere by running a campaign in it.

Let neighboring kingdoms be a single sentence sketch for now.

Hilariously unbalanced.

This, but the wandering monster is a demon/transplanar critter with 1d8*[spell level] HD.

>True AD&D History Scholars
I wonder if True AD&D user knows the answer?

It's really entirely up to you; that's an area slightly greater than modern France. On the one hand, France is one country now; on the other hand, pic related is a map of the Holy Roman Empire in the year 1400.

Similarly, in the earlier middle ages especially, just because a realm had one "king", that didn't mean it was recognizably a single nation or that the barons were supremely obedient. In many cases, like Burgundy during long periods, even when areas were nominally parts of a larger nation they were entirely independent in practice anyway.

Maybe, but there's no proof of that. This is really a neat bit of history trivia I'd like to know.

True AD&D user has a direct line of access to the Gygaxian Record. He knows everything.

This, but I also think it's because when OD&D was first published, there wasn't widespread awareness/availability of polyhedral dice (cf instructions for making number spinners, and so on).

Also, I'm pretty sure the "3-18" notation persisted into at least parts of 2E AD&D (the Monstrous Manual, maybe?), because that's what I started out with and I remember having to work out die-throw bounds in order to make sense of it.

Lastly I think the "3d6" notation was almost certainly coined in some fanzine, I'd probably say Alarums and Excursions if I had to guess. Let me check my copy of PATW to see if it says anything about it.

Update: the book let me down, but the blog came through:
playingattheworld.blogspot.co.nz/2013/08/the-origins-of-dice-notation.html

Footnote: I am not True AD&D. That guy's weird.

>The purple prose and "Bakerisms" come off as Vancian/CAS-esque to me, which helped the mood as far as I was concerned. Then again, it's also why people hate Vance..
I love Vance, though. As far as that goes, I think the main flaw of the prose is that it doesn't manage "Vancian", although that's an extremely hard thing to do which I would probably only credit Arnold Punch of being capable of, in the present OSR scene. What aggravates me about Baker and the way he writes is more like a pervading smarm which I think might be the product of a bunch of indiegamers sucking his dick and calling him a genius all the time: he presents pretty mediocre ideas but speaks to the reader as though they're groundbreaking. He'll sidebar a "have you thought of THIS?" bit where the "this" in question is something obvious that anybody who's run two sessions has obviously done, he gives refereeing advice that's plain bad, etc. There's also the obviously political-but-with-plausible-deniability shit he keeps inserting; I genuinely like stuff like "androgynous kabbalistic vat-being" in games, but that doesn't mean I'm too stupid to tell when I'm having shit pushed on me for ideological reasons, or that it doesn't annoy me.

In contrast somebody like Zak writes in a much more down to earth "hey man, what do you think of this? Might be cool, right?" tone about stuff that's *mind blowing*.

>Oh, and what the fuck is up with the missing description of the ages of a Seclusium and the shitty maps?
The ages of the Seclusium is a prime example of Bakery fail, if you ask me: I think that shit's deliberate. Notice how he mentions the name of each phase at least once, but out of order, and they all have "evocative" names? From reading it (and reexamining it just now) I'm convinced he's trying to do a "fruitful void"/terse-information style letting you infer the rest, sort of like how Wilderlands of High Fantasy works. He just picked the exact wrong space for it and also just can't pull it off *at all*. Because he's not good.

On the other hand the shitty maps are for real a mystery of our time. If he wants us to fill in and detail the rooms in Orphone's seclusium, why is the central tower a three-millimeter-wide dot? And who made the decision do make the other two maps unusably vague? Was it Raggi? It seems to contradict every principle of his designs and typical quest for top quality, though. Or Baker? If so, what did *he* think he was achieving?

True AD&D will provide the answer, but only if one spends 5 minutes per spell level praying for the answer. True AD&D will grant you spells, and spell out the answers to your questions.

One will find modules with damage listed in range form. Check old AD&D 1E modules for such. Publications in Dragon Magazine may also opt for this method. It's a decidedly "old school" manner of dice range nomenclature that required knowledge of the game in order to parse. So the oldheads would use it in order to force users of their content to know what they're doing. Could get somewhat hairy when there was a strange bonus or penalty to the dice...6–21 damage per attack, go.

What's weird is thinking that xdy notation came a decade after Gygax went Hollywood and advancing it as a theory.

Best of Dragon Magazine #3 has a bunch of cantrips in it.

>hollywood
Dungeons and Dragons 3 by Uwe Boll when

>What's weird is thinking that xdy notation came a decade after Gygax went Hollywood and advancing it as a theory.
Yes, that would be weird if anybody had claimed it.

Where did they, though?

>thinking about splitting lycanthropy into two separate curses, one causing mental transformation and the other physical
>looking though Dragon issues
>find an article form the 70s that did this

Felt nice, like I was connecting with the author across almost 40 years because of a silly elfgame.

>6–21 damage per attack, go.
3d6+3

>In contrast somebody like Zak writes in a much more down to earth "hey man, what do you think of this? Might be cool, right?" tone about stuff that's *mind blowing*.
Truth. He has his own quirks I don't like (obsession with crystallized Time, anyone?), but holy damn. As for Baker, I'm kind of used to "HOLY SHIT you guys, have you ever tried basing things off of the characters' professions?" Arrogant stoners are kinda a given in the OSR biz..

I'm also evaluating Seclusium in a vacuum - I'm not really familiar with Baker's other work (nor do I particularly care to be). I just enjoy the utility for rolling up stories, places, and magic items. Based on the conversations I've had about it with other OSR folks, Seclusium is kinda like the new Ghostbusters flick - a solid "6.5" in a world where people are demanding it get a "10" or a "2" based on their opinions of its meta-elements.

>If so, what did *he* think he was achieving?
I suspect it's in imitation of B1, that "teach you by filling in the blanks" thing. But by abandoning the first map it kind of obviates the whole process, since there's no example to work from with the second and third Seclusiae.

I also know Raggi was pressed for time when they were doing the book [pic related], since Brockie was still kicking at that point and it was one of the first things to come out of the crowdfunding campaign. They needed something to show that they were working on our product.Seclusium happened to be the thing that got thrown under the "it's publishable" bus. And it was. Just not as good as it could have been with more polishing and someone to fill the 15 blank pages or pull a couple pages of repetitive bullshit.

>I'm pretty sure the "3-18" notation persisted into at least parts of 2E AD&D (the Monstrous Manual

...

I let my players use these at the table.

This is...really good. I love it.

I think he was just saying that the old style was left over in some AD&D products long after it had been superseded, not that XdY notation *originated after 2E*.

Does anyone have a good AC chart for converting between rulesets? I had one and can't find it.

Why haven't you re-fluffed elf the racial class as a magic swordsman?

>Expedition to Barrier Peaks and Temple of the Frog

Speaking of these, how easily would they transfer over to a game of Mutant Future?

Probably easy as hell since both use descending AC. MF characters do have waaaaaay more HP than standard characters at their level would, however.

Me too. Sadly I don't have anyone to use it with. At least the art is really personable and fun to look at.

>MF characters do have waaaaaay more HP than standard characters at their level would, however.

There are rules for running MF characters as more like B/X race/class characters in the back of MF.

What is the best module for a first time DM? Newbie players, too.

Does anyone have DCC #87 'Against The Atomic Overlord'?

Tower of the Stargazer.

You'd need to adapt it but I really like A Dark and Stormy Knight it's a 3.5 adventure.

Anyone made custom classes for LotFP?

Old school modules would be appreciated (pre 1990).

>Anyone made custom classes for LotFP?
Savage.
• HP, XP as Dwarf.
• Add Con bonus to all physical saving throws, subtract it from Disease and Magic throws
• Assorted social penalties in "civilized" areas. Basically, more intimidating but likely to get treated like an animal/property/curio than a person. Which can be advantageous when you're infiltrating..
• Automatically speaks a Pidgin trade-language and native language, regardless of intelligence.
• The Savage also gains a +1 to learn languages, but must roll separately for literacy when checking for knowledge at normal skill level.
• In multi-national parties, pick another player to be your partner. They automatically speak your native language, and will generally be treated as your owner/handler in public situations.
• Large list of taboos to choose from. No serious mechanical penalties, most of the time.
• Starting skills: Bushcraft/Seamanship and Stealth 3 (as Dwarf Arch. skill)
May swap for Occult and Physic 3. Witch Doctors suffer additional penalties if they break taboos.

I just don't like "berzerkers" being all the barbarians out there. This fits the Pacte Des Loups [ youtube.com/watch?v=VmbC2XZWZA8 ] mold so much better. If you haven't seen the flick, it's one of my favorite OSR movies; even has a dungeon crawl in it. It's up there with The 13th Warrior and Witchfinder General on the list of films that make me want to play D&D RIGHT THE FUCK NOW WHERE ARE MY DICE.
Note: contains incest, occultists, and a whole shitload of French politics. It's still pretty great.

Any of the first 4 basic series seem like a good place to look then.

I've only used B4 The Lost City tho. Its straight forward, but has lots of stuff for the players to get involved in faction wise. Its got a good reason for everyone to be there (starving in the desert), and sets up a megadungeon if you want.

Alternate idea; Fighter gets BONUS combat die equal to level minus enemy HD, while they also have 3 as a base.

So instead of just having 7 die to throw around at level 5, they would only get 7 versus first level enemies. Then against enemies of the same or greater level, back down to 3.

Or could just keep them at 3 fighting die but give them +1 damage per level or something.

Added a teensy update to my Ruinations homebrew.

>docdroid.net/FrxCKOl/ruinations.pdf.html

>Brotherhood of the Wolf
>shitload of French politics
Explain. Are you just referring to the historical setting of the frame story in the Revolution or what?

>my shitbrew almost has enough content completed and converted to be playable

The OGL is a lifesaver.

Hair braider

Ran out of space there.
Anyway.

Savages Save as a Fighter.

I wanted to get something as iconic to 15th-19th century literature as the Specialist/Mage/Knight Templar/Soldier are. Both occult dabblers and Witch Doctors seemed better served by making a skill available to Specialists or just using Mages than by a new class. Same goes for the mad scientist/alchemist. Even pirates are basically just giving a Fighter or Specialist some Seamanship/Climb skill and cutting them loose. But The Chewbacca? Now there's something I can get behind. Plus it fits everything from Bedouin to Coast Salish.

...Also I'm stealing the Musketeer class and maybe the Kenku from that pdf.

Which I have mostly abandoned to work on The Rogue's March

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

Rolled 49 (1d50)

And crap. I've forgotten how to roll. I'll only make a second attempt before giving up.

It's set before the Revolution by a good ways., during the early French and Indian Wars/pre-Seven Years' War. There's a bunch of political maneuvering in the film between the main characters, the antagonists (of which there are at least three) and within the French court that are important to the story. It's harder to get the full significance of some of what's going unless you're familiar with the era's political landscape. It's still a lot of fun without the knowledge, though.

Do you prefer your thieves/specialists to explicitly and specifically be thieves or do you like it when they are more generalists or can learn multiple skills?

>It's set before the Revolution by a good ways
The main story is, sure. That's why I specififed the frame story, where the Marquis d'Apcher in his old age writes down the true story of the Beast so it'll be preserved, before leaving his house to be killed by the Jacobin mob.

>There's a bunch of political maneuvering in the film
Right ,so you were referring to the plot itself, then I'm on the same page with you. I thought you meant that the film contained references to contemporary French politics of the time when it was made. You know, some shit about Chirac or something.

Prefer explicit thieves. I know the LotFP one is praised for making them broader, but personally I don't like that part of it at all. Not only because I don't know of any good reason why sage skills should be handled by the same system as a quasi-supernatural ability to conceal oneself in a mere shadow, but it also *removes* that very quasi-supernatural nature to make the skills merely mundane boosts to rolled abilities that everyone has, which I consider SAD! and LOW ENERGY!, and it also conflicts with my preferred playstyle of normal hiding etcetera being a case of narration.

On top of that I feel like generalist stuff detracts from the Thief archetype, which is really strong in sword-and-sorcery fiction.

(Oh, and by the way, what's up with the Flame Princess supposedly being a Specialist canonically? She looks like an obvious Fighter to me. Did she just sink all her points into Backstab or something?)

>The Charisma (Cha) score measures a character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead.

This implies that high Cha entails high self-confidence, which entails stronger willpower. But:

>Wisdom (Wis) describes a composite of the character's enlightenment, judgment, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition.

Willpower seems like the odd man out in the Wis tent. I've half a mind to shift some of the high Wis bonuses to Cha instead.

>Le Pactes des Loups

My melanin enriched brother. My homebrew campaign (that I've mentioned several times in /osrg/ is inspired by a combination of that movie and my fascination with the Aztecs. The main country that most of the action that has taken place so far is more or less fantasy France.

I have two Specialists in my game. One is a full blown thief, with points in Sleight-of-Hand, Tinkering and Stealth etc. The other is like, a Relic Hunter. Lotsa points in Search and Languages, Climbing etc.

But LotFP specifically states that hiding is NOT a supernatural ability.

Hiding typically is handled no-roll via narration ("I quietly hide in the wardrobe furniture-closet as I hear people approaching down the hall.") with Stealth rolls coming into play only when hiding somewhere risky (under a simple table, in a shadowy corner etc).

>But LotFP specifically states that hiding is NOT a supernatural ability.
That's what I said.
>it also *removes* that very quasi-supernatural nature to make the skills merely mundane boosts to rolled abilities that everyone has

Ah, my reading comprehension is shit today.

really makes you think

I see it as Cha is entirely external, governing all social interaction - the only you way you get a sense of your charisma is through the reactions of others. Wisdom is entirely internal and the intuitive/emotional counterpart to intelligence.

Anyone have these?

Finch - Demonspore
McKinney - Beneath the Ruins (LL)
Gillespie - Barrowmaze
SlaughterGrid (OSRIC)
Wormskin #1-4
WIZARDS MUTANTS LASER PISTOLS! VOLUME 1
F3 – Many Gates of the Gann (AD&D)
Moldvay - Palace of the Silver Princess
In Search of the Unknown

Huh, that's an interesting piece of history. Pretty funny how he didn't just make some tables to explain the concept even better.

Do you think I could share scans of my favorite Dragon articles on my blog without getting bullied by WOTC?

Merry Christmas, /osr/.

Enjoy this little gift.

If you like it, please consider buying it on DTRPG to support yet another OSR module writer! (and attached artist)

Thank you user! I'll look into the very slight conversions I will need to make this work in my game! Happy New Year btw

Same! this was designed for B/X and LL, by the way, so I trust it's going to be easily convertible.

Thanks amigo!

Blend of Dark/Darker Dungeons, ACKS and a few houserules but yeah, all I'll need to do really is flip the AC's so that they scale up instead of down it looks like.

Do you use cardinal directions when describing a dungeon ("in this room, you see doors on the north and east") or relative ones ("in this room, you see doors front and right of you")

Cardinal if players know them (the entrance of the dungeon faced north and all walls and turns are 90 degrees, or they have a compass-like device, etc).

Usually relative.

Usually relative, sometimes cardinal if it's easier to describe and if the PCs should be able to know it.

To keep a long story short, I ended up making a homebrew with my group that reduced all the classes down to just 3; Fighters, Experts, and Magicians.

The problem is that naturally the Wizards have lots of different options for what kind of character they want to make, as do the Specialists with their various skills. But then we have the poor Fighters who just linearly advance.

What are some alternate methods of making Fighters grow with level, preferably with player choice involved that doesn't boil down to feats or 'builds'? I don't think anyone hates linear fighters but it feels kind of boring if not downright unfair every other character gets to be special except the guy with the sword.

You can add weapon specialization, from various places (BECMI, RC, AD&D 1e, etc.). The temptation to allow other classes to specialize must be stamped down hard, however. Allowing everyone to specialize just makes the Fighter redundant.

So don't do it.

Fully agreed, and I'd also recommend that not use the level-1 rules from Weapon Mastery, but give the Fighter basic proficiency with every weapon on level 1. Otherwise Fighters get strictly worse to start with and then progress toward being heavily locked into one or a few specific weapons, which is an asspain.

Actually, it's enough of one that I'd recommend heavily houseruling the entire weapon-slot part of the system. But that might be beyond user's desired scope.

What's essential reading for someone who wants to homebrew a psionics system?

5e fighting styles? It's what I'm using.

>Allowing everyone to specialize just makes the Fighter redundant.
>So don't do it.

...At no point did I specify that other classes get to specialize into combat roles. How does a thief specializing in devices, ancient languages, or tracking make a fighting man redundant?

Weapon specialization was an alright idea and choice I had, but I also kind of dislike it. What if I want to include weird ass weapons like a pet slime on a rope or throwing-anus as cool things fighters find lying around? It just seems annoying. I don't really differentiate weapons based on type anyway beyond their damage die, so I'm not sure what the point of forcing people to specify into swords/axes/maces would be besides just to annoy fighter players.