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>Previous thread:
THREAD QUESTION:
>What's the worst module you've ever ran/played?
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First for Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.
>
These are all valid questions though.
>Why THIS cave specifically? Is there something here that they're looking for?
>If the Goblins really are as terrible as the King says why is he sending murderhobos in to clean house? Is the King in league with the Goblin? Are we being set up?
>We may need food and water, where do the Goblins store theirs? Wait, they've got barrels of wine and crates of food? Where'd they get that stuff?
>Is the cave strangely clean? That might mean that the Goblins just got here. Is the cave dirty? Then either the Goblins are slobs or they're planning on relocating soon.
Seriously. Are there GMs in here who DON'T prepare answers to questions like those, or who are so bad at improvising they can't just throw off an explanation and work with it?
Apparently you can't expect a GM to be able to answer any of those, you have to explicitly give all the answers in the module, or it's a bad module, I guess?
I agree with the sentiment. While the dungeon's logic can and should often override real world's logic, the consistency is there for players to base their decisions on. Consistency feeds into the player's skill because it allows for pattern recognition. That's while I do like random stuff, I mostly use it sparingly to spice up the firm base I cooked up and throw people off a bit.
That's not in any way autistic nitpicking. Also my players usually love to nitpick all kinds of shit except the world's logic. I still strive for it in because even if they don't fixate on the world's logic, they still use it.
The problem isn't really the questions.
The problem is constantly pointing out things without even considering the DM's answers, just to get a sense of satisfaction that you're smarter then the DM.
I wouldn't mind if a player asked me these things if they actually wanted useful information.
Well, I guess if it's a module I'd feel different. It ought to be in the module, because the module was written by (presumably) a GM, who ought to anticipate at least the broad strokes of most of those questions.
I always get nervous running modules because I worry that improvising something is going to create an unforeseen logical inconsistency with something else in the module, though, so it might just be that I personally don't like modules because I don't like running them.
I'd hate it if the module gave all the answers.
I wouldn't like a few of the answers, and would change them.
But I wouldn't make notes, trusting myself to make the same (or similar enough) answer each time I see the question.
But I'd inevitably slip up and use the original answer part of the time, leading to confusion.
Unless you're running a wilderness module you can't just point to a random part of the map mid-game and say "yeah they shit here and store their food there"
I mean "Food Storeroom: Moldy bread and salted meats stored in crude barrels", "Mushroom Caves: Fungi sprout from every surface. Main source of Goblins' food. Non-poisonous but taste bad", "Common Latrine: Unspeakable stench. Pools of filth contain all manner of disease" aren't herculean efforts of writing.
>The problem is constantly pointing out things without even considering the DM's answers, just to get a sense of satisfaction that you're smarter then the DM.
Nice projection.
...
The GM's answer to everything.
>You don't know. ;^)
Or, if they're feeling cheeky
>Yeah, that IS strange, isn't it?
>Unless you're running a wilderness module you can't just point to a random part of the map mid-game and say "yeah they shit here and store their food there"
Well then you're eventually going to forget something sometime in your own dungeons, and if you can't make it up on the fly then the dungeon's going to seem illogical.
>Nice projection.
Just be glad you've never had players like that friend.
>>Yeah, that IS strange, isn't it?
This is the best response, because not only does it prompt the players to investigate, it also gives you a few seconds at least to come up with an explanation.
The answer to all of these is
>because were playing a game. Who cares?
user has a child:
>Daddy, why did the cow jump over the moon?
>It's just a stupid song, who gives a shit
>now go to sleep, Daddy has to design some 15x15 rooms with orcs in them
You do realize that you just implied that nitpicking every little thing about everything is a childish thing to do, right?
Because that's what you just did.
Making interesting dungeons and having them be realistic are completely different things.
A dungeon full of nothing but goblins with perfectly logical layout might end up boring as fuck.
Meanwhile a dungeon full of different monsters with zero fucks given to whether they would logically be neighbors might end up much more fun to delve into.
That one got me good.
These threads have been a mess recently. And that saddens me, for /osr/ was the best general on the site for a long time.
That's one way to read it, if you're reaching. Another way to look at it is that people who say "it's just an x, who gives a shit?" have lost the sense of wonder and inquisitiveness that is instinctual to most children, as well as the very basic ability known as "suspension of disbelief" integral to enjoyment of most fiction, especially fantasy fiction.
In other words, I'm not calling "nitpickers" childish, I'm calling you an stodgy old faggot for implying that asking questions must be a) irrelevant and/or b) an attempt to show up the GM, as opposed to an essential part of TRPGs.
>A dungeon full of nothing but goblins with perfectly logical layout might end up boring as fuck.
Can you give me an example? Because a dungeon full of goblins is likely to wind up pretty interesting: as somebody else has already illustrated, having a "realistic" dungeon means you're going to have to include more details: a specialized room for storing/preparing food, a latrine, sleeping quarters, etc. If your dungeon is still boring after your players have the options of booby-trapping the toilet or exploiting the presence of a boiling cauldron, then you have bigger problems.
Its not an open camp though.
An actual realistic dungeon with goblins would be one fight at the entrance (realistically theres no way for a party of 6-12 to sneak by a well guarded cave entrance) and the just combing the various places for no treasure at all (realiatically a tribe of govlins would have very little of value) with maybe 1 or 2 primitive traps before reaching the chamber with the women and children and the last battle. Assuming they didnt run away trough the other exit.
Can we just talk about OD&D and Chainmail rules instead? I'm trying to get into the old rules and I find them kind of fascinating.
What's your favorite part about OD&D? Your least favorite? What are some good non-official supplements for it?
>a specialized room for storing/preparing food, a latrine, sleeping quarters
>toilet
>boiling cauldron
Your goblins are pretty advanced for a bunch of green vermin living in a hole in the ground. They sound more like people, which would make me hesitate to kill them and take their stuff.
How about you guys go and make another thread about this? This is just bait at this point.
>"realistic"
An actual realistic dungeon with goblins doesn't exist because there are no goblins and no D&D-style dungeons in reality. The only person who's been arguing for realism is you. Everyone else is arguing for internal logic/verisimilitude/consistency.
It's still better than 99% of Veeky Forums threads. I've only opened three other Veeky Forums threads today and two had someone calling for the extermination of the mentally handicapped. Another had one calling the OP a "blue-pilled cuck."
Veeky Forums was a mistake.
"Toilet" is a euphemism for "a place to shit," derived from French. I believe it originally referred to perfume. I hope you didn't think I meant to refer to a flushing toilet of the sort invented by Mr. Crapper. And a cauldron isn't really that crazy, it's just a big pot.
Polite sage, because has a point: we're not exactly discussing systems, here.
>toilet is a euphemism
How exactly do you trap a hole in the ground they pee into, then? (This is assuming they bother with a hole in the ground, they're goblins after all)
>internal logic
There's no reason for that to get in the way of dungeon design either.
You guys keep trying to strawmen "not having internal logic means boring corridors with a single monster in a square room" but that's not the case.
A monster guarding an idol that is on top a mechanism that triggers a rolling boulder is interesting in actual play. But logically, how did the monster get there? Why is it guarding the treasure? How does the trap still work after all this time?
If we follow this logical consistency meme you can't even have something as basic as traps on places where there are unintelligent monsters because surely they would have triggered the trap already.
My favorite part of OD&D is that it gave birth to B/X and other, better systems.
It's not a binary "gonzo shit without rhyme or reason or plan the movement of every atom since the setting's Big Bang-equivalent" choice, for fuck's sake. Stop fucking strawmanning everything to shit and back. There's room for "here's a dungeon have fun" and "this is why this dungeon makes sense" along the spectrum without going full autismal at either end.
Personally, I want to boobytrap the shit out of the goblins' toilet, with rocks.
Could you expand on what you think B/X and other systems do better than OD&D?
my favorite part of OD&D is that it gave no fucks to internal consistency or logic. Yes, every random fighting man on a keep WILL challenge other fighting men to a joust. Every wizard will cast geass and make you go search for random treasure. There are "superheroes" served by griffins, dinosaurs wander the swamps, there are a bunch of evil high priests just chilling out in evil churches and so on.
My favorite part of OD&D is that you can pinpoint the exact blog posts people get their 'personal' opinions from.
initiativeone.blogspot.co.nz
>If we follow this logical consistency meme you can't even have something as basic as traps on places where there are unintelligent monsters because surely they would have triggered the trap already.
Yes, and? Just make the traps fashioned in such a way that whatever monsters there are wouldn't set them off.
>pit traps in a room full of giant bats
>traps that light you on fire in a room of elementals or other fire-resistant creatures
>arrow traps in a room full of skeletons with arrows sticking out of their ribcages
You can even do this to cool effect, e.g., a room involving a remarkable lethal trap is suspiciously empty of monsters.
I honestly don't understand how you wouldn't do this. Do you generate your dungeons exclusively by rolling on tables, with no modification?
Not exactly a trap, but en.wikipedia.org
>It's not a binary "gonzo shit without rhyme or reason or plan the movement of every atom since the setting's Big Bang-equivalent" choice
No? Then why do you guys keep doing the "15 by 15 guarded by an orc" and "long corridor with a dragon in a closed room at the end" as the examples of not-having internal logic?
This argument started because someone said that b2 has no internal logic and thus is bad. Bullshit, it states a reason as to why the monster are there, that is more than enough. Anything extra is pointless nitpicking.
I see, so you see this internal inconsistency and illogicality as a benefit to the game?
So did one of the most famous Sengoku period warlords in Japan.
en.wikipedia.org
If fucking ninja can lie in wait in cesspools to stab a motherfucker I don't see why PCs should be kept from having the chance.
>"15 by 15 guarded by an orc"
I did that one by way of a joke, for the record.
That's all internally consistent, though. "Internally consistent" doesn't mean "realistic."
you do realize that just last thread someone posted a pdf about it?
It's why I even bothered making that reply.
Still if that guy is wrong, go ahead and correct him. Saying "oh you got your opinion from someone else" as if that was automatically a bad thing is rather petty.
>Yes, and?
And I'm not complain about great modules or limit my own dungeon creation just because of a meme.
OSR in general has the issue of people yelling at each other solely because they draw their opinions from elsewhere instead of actually reasoning things on their own. Some threads ago people were actually arguing that Gygax ran Raggi-style pseudo-Lovecraftian games full of tentacles and monsters and sanity-blasting magic instead of what's actually written on OD&D. So yeah, it is worth calling out when people present the opinions of others as their own.
>That's all internally consistent, though
how do the dinosaurs survive? Why aren't the lawful clerics (who outnumber the chaotic clerics and are all united under a single church unlike the chaotic clerics) destroy their enemy clerics? How can any sort of commerce or farming happen in such a dangerous land? How did they even manage to build castles in the middle of a monster-infested wilderness?
It's not consistent as soon as you nipick it apart.
This: Disagreeing about dungeon design philosophies is cool, but being a douchebag about it is not.
There's plenty of room in the thread for differing opinions, let's just keep 'em civil.
>Some threads ago people were actually arguing that Gygax ran Raggi-style pseudo-Lovecraftian games full of tentacles and monsters and sanity-blasting magic
Weird, I don't remember that at all. Are you sure you're not mischaracterizing someone else's opinion, because there's been a lot of that going around lately, and it needs to stop.
>, it is worth calling out when people present the opinions of others as their own.
only if you point out when those opinions are wrong.
Otherwise you did nothing about actually changing their opinions.
>How do the dinosaur survive?
I don't know, what's threatening them? I'm sure if there are dinosaurs there are things for them to eat.
>Why aren't the lawful clerics (who outnumber the chaotic clerics and are all united under a single church unlike the chaotic clerics) destroy their enemy clerics?
Perhaps it has something to do with the danger of the wilderness, which, it's worth mentioning, has things like dinosaurs in it.
>How can any sort of commerce or farming happen in such a dangerous land?
>How did they even manage to build castles in the middle of a monster-infested wilderness?
Very carefully. Or, re: castles, the castles were already built before the area was as infested with monsters as it is now. Or, an ancient magic-user used magic to build the castle very quickly.
Even without those answers, the setting remains internally consistent. There are dangerous beasts and hostile humans. I'm not going to repeat myself anymore about "realism."
>how do the dinosaurs survive?
By eating other dinosaurs. Or by the sheer will of the dinosaur god.
>Why aren't the lawful clerics (who outnumber the chaotic clerics and are all united under a single church unlike the chaotic clerics) destroy their enemy clerics?
It's an interlude after their last big war 50 years ago.
>How can any sort of commerce or farming happen in such a dangerous land?
cf. Medieval England
>How did they even manage to build castles in the middle of a monster-infested wilderness?
Maybe the monsters built them.
>Very carefully.
bullshit. That's the same sort of non-answer as going "how do the dungeon monsters get food? They eat each other" that doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny. The number and power of the monsters in the area would quickly render any sort of human habitation uninhabitable.
Every farm would have to be walled, and even then with the flying monsters it wouldn't be enough.
The only race that would be capable of living there would be dwarves with their underground bunkers.
No, and fuck you for arguing in this poor faith. I can't find the post right now but it was in the context of magic and where on the spectrum of Final Fantasy commonplace vs Summon Cthulhu (another spectrum discussion, funny that) should be.
What kind of response are you trying to get out of this in a thread about old school systems about weirdos going into dungeons and fighting dragons?
Please just make another thread.
Welcome to the Keep on the Borderlands, where you don't go outside those walls if you know what's good for you, peasant.
>What kind of response
That internal consistency is superfluous and necessary for a fun dungeon/setting.
I'm the one arguing in poor faith, because I don't recall that discussion of how Gygax ran things as remotely resembling that shit you typed?
I'm not the one implying that that guy upthread is somehow wrong just because he shares an opinion with a blog somewhere.
At one point you have to check if your setting passes the Madlands test.
For reference, Madlands is a GURPS gonzo as fuck setting where, among other things, seals talk, you can reason yourself into a shade of a being by thinking on how gonzo stuff is, or gods can smash you up the head so hard that now you have no head and your face is in your torso. As it turns out, Madlanders (the local, mostly unmutated humans) barely eke out a Bronze Age living, have some brutal customs just to survive (if a newborn baby even looks like it will grow into becoming an elf, smash it against a rock and kill it - elves are fucking dicks) and would gladly move elsewhere but all the good, non-gonzo land has already been taken by other people. Madlands is still a playable setting, but it's not a place where towns and cities where PCs can easily unload loot will
>hat internal consistency is superfluous and necessary
*unnecessary
*will appear. Forgot the last word.
Well you probably won't get it, and if you do you still would have clogged the thread with a completely uninteresting argument.
Make another thread.
No, you're arguing in poor faith because you're saying the choice is between fun and "pointless nitpicking", where any question about how things are or came to be is moot because that's how the module was written and it cannot be argued against.
>implying I said any of that
>That's the same sort of non-answer as going "how do the dungeon monsters get food? They eat each other" that doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny.
No, it's a joke answer with a grain of truth. It's not realistic, no, but it's still internally consistent: monsters are encountered outside civilization. Walls would probably be present, but it's very much of a handwave to say that, for example, pterodactyls aren't interested in whatever mediocre food could be found in the tiny hamlets of civilization.
It also means that a village could come under attack by a monster they can't deal with, because monsters are unpredictable, and the PCs could be tasked with defense. Or, on that note, a powerful PC-class character protects the general area, as all classes of higher levels were capable of doing in older editions (by establishing a stronghold of fighters, for example).
>meme arrows
>the choice is between fun and "pointless nitpicking"
>this module is shit because of internal consistency
>bullshit, you don't need that shit for a fun module
your questions are in fact, pointless nitpicking.
>calling greentext meme arrows
Several threads ago someone posted some things for fighters tentatively called feats wherein every level the fighter would get something such as a special combat maneuver, +s to hit or HP or AC, etc. I remember it was posted with a picture of a tengu if that helps. Does anyone have those feats written down somewhere?
no
it was shit and not old school
go play pathfinder
Was this it?
archive.4plebs.org
Eh, they were pretty bad.
>get +1 damage to all weapons OR heal 1 hp if you gamble/fuck/pray
Also this, it's catpeople, not tengus, though.
Thank you! Yes it is. Wonder where I got the tengu pic idea...
Some user shared his Tengu class for LotFP but that was another user.
Just read on some blog maze_of blue_medusa is cool dungeon with awesome ideas.
Does thi general support the idea? Is it worth the read to if i want traps inspiration?
>Tengu class
can you share the pdf?
I definitely support the idea. It's one of the best dungeons I've ever seen. It's even fun to pick up and read casually. It's a great source for inspiration, and if you don't plan on running the dungeon you can just pick and choose what you like and put it in your own adventures.
>I always get nervous running modules
My advice is to treat them the exact way the OSR treats rules: as a base to homebrew on.
But, Chesterton's!
How would classless (Or just a sort of Adventurer/Wizard split) character creation that doesn't make players pick from a list, and keeps it fast and loose instead, while being still in the spirit of OSR work?
>Can we just talk about OD&D and Chainmail rules instead?
T b h I think we should just kill this thread and start over, it started out shit up and it seems unlikely to get better from there, but yes, I would gladly do this, here or in a new thread.
My favorite part of OD&D is probably that it covers exactly what you need and only what you need, adds some evocative stuff like monsters and castle inhabitants to give you ideas, and then lets you get on with it. (If you mean specific rules, then probably the use of Chainmail combat, I like that more and more.)
My least favorite thing is probably the insane unclarity in the LBB, or again if I have to choose a specific rule, the equipment, especially the weight of coins and the insane cost of some things. (1/10 lb. of gold for one bulb of garlic? You can buy a suit of plate for 60 bulbs of garlic?!) I would've liked it better if Gygax had done his research better, or if better books had been available to him or whatever the problem was.
The first time I posted the idea it was with a Tengu bird man thing. That was the second time.
I've since parsed the list down to a most succulent and useful list, which I am currently using.
FIGHTER FEATS
>Add +1 to hit and get a free combat move like a trip or disarm on an attack roll of 19 or 20. Extend the range by +1 (ie, 18, then 17) and get another +1 to hit each time taken
>Add +1 to hit and damage with a specific type of weapon. Axes, swords, greatswords, spears, etc. Maximum bonus is limited by the quality of the weapon.
>Add +1 AC, up to maximum AC. You can take off some armor and keep the same Armor Class. You could eventually fight as though max AC even when unencumbered and without a shield, etc.
>Gain Parry move- sacrifice your attack to increase one targets AC by +1d6 for this round. Each time taken you can cover another person with this
>Gain Cleave move- Whenever you kill an enemy make another attack on an enemy. You can chain deaths +1 times each time you take this
This is the complete feat list I've got in my rulebook right now, I hope I haven't missed anything obvious.
>parry
>cleave
>combat move
all of these should just be things any fighting man can do from the start.
speaking of blogs where I get my "personal" opinions from
here's one that's very relevant to this thread
> I am against the idea of rationality in dungeons.
>People often misinterpret this statement to mean that 'funhouse' design is the only design. That is incorrect. What it really means is that for the purposes of actual gameplay, dungeons should make thematic sense, not literal sense.
>There's this idea that every corner of every adventure should be exhaustively unearthed from 3.5. If that's the case, then you end up with this 'fridge logic' moment where you're like, "Wait, what the hell do the Owlbears drink, and how do the ogres ever make it past the Sphinx?"
>But that's not what a dungeon is, see? A dungeon is what's past our realm of static steadfast sanity. It's on the other side, made of dreams, nightmares and horrors. You cross a threshold to enter and beyond, nothing remains the same.
>But that doesn't mean it can't have resonance. Things can still have reasons for existing. They can still follow logic, twisted and dreamlike as though it may be. But the logic and the dungeon never ends. It can't be explored, fixed or finished.
>So, really, worry less about it. (...)
"worry less about it."
I support this post. I also support people who like to figure these things out, so long as they're cool with people who don't.
Well anyone, including non fighters can do combat moves by just giving up their attack. It automatically works, enemies just get a small save chance. Fighters with that move just get a free one whenever they roll the big numbers.
>Cleave
>Parry
You're absolutely right, which is why you can start with one at first level if you want, then next level you can round yourself out or specalize. Fighters with lots of special moves are high level fighters, in my opinion.
I do want to find something to replace weapon specialization, but I kind of like having two options to increase to hit so it's common, and giving players the option of just getting +1 damage on its own might be too good. Hmm.
my suggestion
remove all the static bonuses.
Instead work on a "weapon skill" system where you put all your static bonuses into.
>x weapon gives bonus to attack and damage over time, other x weapon gives bonus to ac and attack, and so on
and then have the "feats" just be the cool maneuvers. This way you don't have to choose between mechanical bonuses and cool stuff
This. If you want to be a Maliszewskian Naturalist, go for it. Not my jam, but have fun.
Interesting idea. I just remember hearing a long time ago how weapon specialization is bad for Fighters, but having weapon style like that is kind of interesting. Thanks.
If choosing a single weapon is bad, then make the "specialization" points go towards a fighting style.
Like two-handed weapons, sword and board, flying daggers, 2-cool4-1-weapon and so on
1d100 table guy here, gonna do one tonight. First response to this post gets to pick tonight's theme.
Things the local heavy metal fan keeps putting in his games.
Is there a Chainmail OGL? Could one make a Chainmail retroclone without risking a lawsuit?
Heavy Metal-inspired.. Things it is.
No, but here's a neat fighter advancement thing:
dndwithpornstars dot blogspot.com/2012/06/alternate-fighter-for-like-d-and-stuff.html
I agree, /osr/ is the only reason I still come here. No point in even lurking if threads will just devolve into pedantic arguments and shitposting.
Oh yeah, I remember that.
The vice healing one was broken as shit.
You got infinite full-heals between fights.
Garlic is a rare and expensive import.
>When you hit a creature with an attack, you can mark it, whenever the creature attacks anyone but the you, it receives -2 to hit bonus on attack rolls. You can only have one mark at a time.
Thoughts on this fighter ability? I may drop the -2 and use the Adv/Disadv system from 5e
But garlic is an invasive weed that grows in even the shittiest soil provided sufficient water
Isn't that the fighter mark from 4e?
>Could one make a Chainmail retroclone without risking a lawsuit?
Nobody cares. TSR is dead and CHAINMAIL is out of print.
WotC owns the rights, IIRC. But I doubt even they remember.
To generalize your question a bit,
>Could one make a [...] retroclone without risking a lawsuit?
People get away with it all the time.
Maybe a wizard killed them all off? Rare and expensive
Yes, but you shouldn't have said this, now everyone will shit on it saying it isn't OSR