Welcome to the Old School Renaissance General thread.
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>Previous thread:
THREAD QUESTION:
>How common are magic items in your games? What percentage of them are weapons?
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ded magazine lol
I tend to make them a bit more common but either 1 use or complicated to use.
>Glass Bottle Demon from Tower Of The Stargazer
>Oxide Tiger aka rust monster digestive gland that can be used to rust stuff
>Brain in a jar from ancient star people that can be consumed for flashbacks and a random psionic ability
>Dagger with multipart blade that does double damage backstab but 1/6 chance of impelling to backstab friends
>Shield that shows the body of whoever is facing it floating dead in a river that gives -1 to opposing moral checks but also reaction rolls if its out
I knew I had made my own version but when I saw the other guys, with the better presentation, that more then one person had done it. Obviously.
Hopefully they work well for you. I see value in both systems desu.
Continuing last thread's theme of a pseudo feat list for classes, what would a rogue's special abilities be?
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• The Baron's jester is secretly _____
• _____ have been falling from the sky.
• Adventurers one table over just returned from ______
• The town _____ and the gates have been barred!
• A foreign Magic-User was hired by _____ to fix the fēng shuǐ.
Provide at least one more template with any answers.
>a gaudiophage, it needs you to laugh so it can feed
>dead and wounded birdmen of the upper kingdoms
>a fungeon, foam padded safe dungeon themepark
>desires novelty to incorporate in their illusionist magic rituals
>the ill-fated demigod who seeks to avert their fate
The black prowed ships bring ______ to your shores
>The Baron's jester is secretly [the baron's older brother, and rightful owner of the Baron title.]
>[Very small Slimes the size of marbles] have been falling from the sky.
>Adventurers one table over have just returned from [prying a the fangs out of a giant bat.]
>the town [folk have starting growing extra faces and fingers] and the gates have been barred!
>The foreign Magic-User was hired by [the rat catcher] to fix the fēng shuǐ.
• Local archivist found _____ back in storage.
• Last night at the pig festival _____, and the tanner's handsome son is to blame.
You my nigga.
Random question for my OSR game.
Is it bad to make your setting pitch rhyme?
Ok, now I'm almost embarrassed to ask, but is there a mage one?
>The Baron's jester is secretly [one form of the trickster god, and this is what he does when he wants to chill out]
>[Pieces of the sky] have been falling from the sky. [And the holes in the sky reveal that there's something behind it]
>Adventurers one table over just returned from [the final resting place of the negapharao, and they're unwittingly spreading a curse on the whole city]
>The town [is being swallowed from the inside by the rat-king] and the gates have been barred!
>A foreign Magic-User was hired by [the king, cursed with the ability to sense true perfection] to fix the fēng shuǐ [of the entire realm].
Oh, and I was supposed to post another template too. Very well.
• The prince has secretly been dealing with ______, which has now led to _______.
I had to introduce a "Fungal Jungle" the other day.
The prince has secretly been dealing with Fungal Jungle, which has now led to his betrothal to the spore queen.
>what are some of this threads favorite helmets?
i have to admit i love the weird total impractical helmets
>Under the Starless Sky and atop the empty bastions of years gone by. Delve deep and fight, do you really think you can outlive the Night?
I shortened it as much as I could and I tried to pick relatively standard words. Anyone have any feedback or feelings on initially hearing it?
>The Baron's jester is secretly [smarter than anyone else at court, and working secretly to promote the well-being of his beloved friend the Baron against the same's own moronic nonsense]
>[Astronomers] have been falling from the sky. [It's a fascinating story, and would be quite a funny situation if it weren't so gruesome when they hit]
>Adventurers one table over just returned from [looting the neighboring town, and are mow fortifying themselves in a castle ruin up in the mountains a league or two away]
>The town [was looted by adventurers] and the gates have been barred!
>A foreign Magic-User was hired by [The Celestial Bureaucracy, via his dreams] to fix the fēng shuǐ.
>The black prowed ships bring [the invasion fleet of the Bleak Elves] to your shores
>Local archivist found [drunk] back in storage.
>Last night at the pig festival [five local girls got pregnant, causing a looming inheritance crisis in the village], and the tanner's handsome son is to blame.
• Something has gone terribly wrong and the beer is full of _____, every last barrel.
By the way, how do I change to old-fashioned captchas? These are increasingly annoying. I'm pretty sure I read there was a way?
_No. I wanted to make one but couldn't think of anything good. That fantasy OSR game is mostly a dropped project at this point, it's getting dusty on the shelf.
rhyming stuff is dope, there was an osr blog doing monsters based on louise bogan's poetry. I forget which one.
Neat. I'd do it a bit different but I'm a wanker.
>Under starless sky atop,
>Through empty bastions, dark and dry
>Delve deep, struggle, fight
>Try as you may to outlive the night
check the expanded setting in the bottom right
Thank you, I appreciate feedback and will consider how to make it better.
I just read Lovecraft's The Nameless City, so I've got thematic rhyme stuff on my mind.
>that is not dead which can eternal lie
>And with strange aeons even death may die
Its also a really evocative description of an ancient ruined lizardpeople city. Guy had a lot of cool words for old ruins that I'm going to loot for my own games.
>check the expanded setting in the bottom right
The only options I see are
>Disable keybinds
>Don't spoiler images
>Open threads in a new tab
>Thread Watcher
>Use drop-down navigation
Is something fucked about my browser settings?
Wait, shit, nm, I suck. I was looking on the catalog page in another tab like a fucking retard.
Shamelessly begging here, but If any kind user has pic related, and would be willing to send a copy to this burner email, it'd be very much appreciated.
1-3 magic doodads per dungeon. Not necessarily portable or useful.
Most 'traditional' magic items are charge based.
Name Level MUs, 12th Level MUs, and Name Level Dwarves each get a chance to make permanent magic weapons (etc.)
But high-level characters are rare, they don't all do it, and the items aren't magically durable, so...
>The Baron's jester is secretly [the Baron.]
>[Giant spider webs] have been falling from the sky.
>Adventurers one table over just returned from [the bar themed dungeon in the tavern's cellar.]
>The town [has been magically transposed into a foreign city] and the gates have been barred!
>A foreign Magic-User was hired by [the trees] to fix the fēng shuǐ.
>The black prowed ships bring [vengeful Sloth-Men] to your shores
>Local archivist found [a book of Ancient Curses] back in storage.
>Last night at the pig festival [the Baron died of no mere earthly cause], and the tanner's handsome son is to blame.
>The prince has secretly been dealing with [not!Arab Djinn from the Plane of Earth], which has now led to [jihad earthquakes.]
>Something has gone terribly wrong and the beer is full of [vinegar], every last barrel.
• The world-hoping mathematician and fencer worships the God _____
• The Necromancer geases the party's Cleric to retrieve _____
Ayy! How's this?
c ?
Which system does each class best? I dig DCCs Warrior and LotFP's 'Thief'.
Dude, I'm fine with you making these posts and all, but you've been asking for months at this point and the pdf is only 3 bucks on drivethrurpg. You probably could've made that money working for an hour instead of posting for months.
>The world-hopping mathematician and fencer worships the God [Arithmetrax of the Direct Path, praying to find the straightest, swiftest routes both for passing between worlds and pushing his blade through his enemies.]
>The Necromancer g[r]eases the party's Cleric to retrieve [the relic fingerbone the latter has concealed with extreme care.]
No dice.
I've only asked three times total over the course of like two weeks. It's a popular book I guess.
>weird total impractical helmets
Speaking of, were helmets with antlers on them ever a real thing?
Typically, the reason helmets, armor, and shields were as rounded as possible was to deflect as much of a blow as possible and transfer as little energy into the person under the armor.
This is why maces, warhammers, and similar weapons had surfaces designed to catch on armor and transfer as much energy as possible.
Horns on the helmet would add weight without offering any real protection, as well as making it less likely for a weapon to deflect.
Lastly, in the midst of a battle someone could grab the horns from behind and drag or throw the individual, or hold them still for a split second to get a more accurate shot to their neck with a dagger or similar weapon.
It's also why some warriors would shave their heads so no one could grab them by their hair and slit their throat.
All these things make horned or any other odd helmet unlikely.
All that said, Vikings raiders typically didn't fight stand up battles, and didn't stick around to fight any stiff defense if it materialized. They focused on quick terrifying strikes on poorly defended villages, farms, and monasteries during a very superstitious period in time. Anyone dressed as some sort of beastman attacking in the middle of a night could definitely terrify an opponent and get a quick and easy kill.
The Baron's jester is secretly [the Baron's mistress.]
[Bloody giblets] have been falling from the sky.
Adventurers one table over just returned from [the distant Space Past.]
The town [is throwing a Gate tournament] and the gates have been barred!
A foreign Magic-User was hired by [an enemy nation] to fix the fēng shuǐ.
The black prowed ships bring [cargo cults] to your shores.
Local archivist found [] back in storage.
Last night at the pig festival [the entire world was destroyed], and the tanner's handsome son is to blame.
The prince has secretly been dealing with [undead fairies], which has now led to [immortality. NOBODY can die].
Something has gone terribly wrong and the beer is full of [barrels], every last barrel.
The world-hoping mathematician and fencer worships the God [of Geometry, Geometron. But he's also being tricked to serve a demon.]
The Necromancer geases the party's Cleric to retrieve [the fairest maiden in all the land.]
• The book of spells is titled, _____
• _____ have been making crop circles to _____
• Orc raiders demand _____
I am also working on Wizard and Rogue versions of that, but the work is going pretty slowly due to my laziness.
>Rogue before Cleric
The Cleric is at least in the pipes, right?
Perhaps calling them "Wizards" was a bad choice.
I am planning to bundle clerics with magic-users, with minor differences based on origin of their powers.
In that case I've either exaggerated the amount of times you've posted in my head, or someone else is asking about it too. Anyway, keep asking if that's what you want. I'll keep an eye out for a pdf as well.
This user is not a Celt. He doesn't know that the practical is not what you go into battle with, its the fabulous.
>The Baron's jester is secretly have been falling from the sky
>Adventurers one table over just returned from the town and the gates have been barred!
>Local archivist found back in storage last night at the pig festival, and the tanner's handsome son is to blame
L-lewd!
Here is an example of my attempt at that sort of thing (pic).
Slap it on top of B/X or LotFP or whatever.
Warning, may contain references to other houserules.
• The Necromancer greases the party's Cleric to retrieve _____
>The book of spells is titled, 'have been making crop circles to Orc raiders demand'
The Necromancer greases the party's Cleric to retrieve his keys from a crack in the wall. Only a properply lubricated person can fit in it, after all.
What's all this grease about?
The arbitrary geas was supposed to be an Underworld and Wilderness Adventure reference.
Anyone got the ACKS book Lairs & Encounters?
Is it worth buying?
Have any of you actually played/ran any of the more arty adventures? Deep Carbon Observatory, Maze of the Blue Medusa, etc.
They seem like a lot of fun for the GM to read and look at the illustrations, but how are they at the table?
Relatively common for adventurers. I don't like pseudo-Cthulhu "weird" magic items.
Havent played them but if you can present them decently, they seem nice.
Here's a video of some guy playing online with his group through Maze of the Blue Medusa, seems to run smoothly enough: youtube.com
>Anyone got the ACKS book Lairs & Encounters?
No one has that..
>Is it worth buying?
Everyone wants it.
I do rare traditional magic items with the occasional quirky weird shit. I want every magic sword to be Excalibur or at least Caliburn tier and what not.
>I want every magic sword to be Excalibur or at least Caliburn
Aren't those the same sword?
Dude give me like an hour and I'll see if I can buy a copy. But I'm concerned that it'll be watermarked.
Caliburn is Excalibur before Lady of The Lake upgrade
Who is in the right?
Who has better taste?
I think the second guy is more correct by RAW.
I also think RAW conveys the idea that alignment languages are supernatural gifts from the forces of Law and Chaos, granted to allow their champions to identify and communicate securely with each other, hence why you forget them the moment you shift alignment. If you stop being chaotic, old Arioch gets pissed at you and revokes your ability to speak the language of Chaos.
What are some good counter offers a camp of raiders could offer PCs to betray a settlement? Post-Apocalyptic, for clarity.
2nd pick of the loot; after Boss, of course.
But well welllll before the rank-and-file pick it over.
Maybe this is a dumb question, since the whole point of OSR is to ressurect old school d&d.
Are there any OSR games that do spellcasting differently than the pseudo-vancian system?
I really like what I've read out of the OSR stuff so far, but I've always desired a more rules-light/narrativist magic system.
DCC does it different, but maybe that's what you mean when you say "pseudo-vancian".
There's also a book called Wonder & Wickedness which is all about a different magic system. I haven't read it myself so I can't give any more details.
Oh, and there's this very improv-like and randomized magic system in Maze Rats. That game is also very rules-lite so it might be up your alley.
The Black Hack
Heroes & Other Worlds (spells from HP)
Dungeon Crawl Classics
Thanks, I'll check them out.
>since the whole point of OSR is to ressurect old school d&d.
Sure, but it's also to tweak, modify, and alter old D&D in new ways, while trying to keep sight on the things that make old d&d work. So that's a good question.
...
(I am )
Admittedly, I should clarify - it isn't the Vancian style of magic I take issue with, it's the D&D style "You can cast X level Y spells per day" and "here's an entire chapter devoted to exactly what sort of spells you can cast."
I would much rather have some sort of "I want to cast a spell."
"Okay, make an Intelligence Save" or something like that, modified by how powerful the spell is.
>I am
I could tell by context; but when needed, a great place to stick that is the name field.
I was just posting that because I happen to like Vancian casting thematically. But alright,
>Here's a mechanical argument:
The point of vancian mechanics is just that spells are a resource, like items etc.
It's a very OSR way to do things because of the resource management subtheme.
You could refluff it in plenty of ways, scrolls per day (MUs 'tie up' the magic until the scroll is used are stingy about passing them out incase they get lost), etc.
Poor rules for memorization/travelling spellbooks can muck up the scarcity, but... budgeting resources is part of Dungeon Delving and Hex Crawling.
...
DCC and LotFP both have drawbacks for casting spells (the Summon spell in LotFP is a classic example, since it means a level 1 spell can end the world). I can't remember off the top of my head how Vancian they are.
For what you're saying, you might want to look into Dungeon World. It still has the "you know spells X, Y, and Z" system from D&D, but that led to people creating alternative playbooks that are more in line with other PbtA games:
drivethrurpg.com
(the Mage playbook is free and linked here)
>Raggi will never make that new Referee Book
Beyond The Wall and Wolfpacks And The Winter Snow do more ritual based magic tied to locations. They're probably worth looking at.
Wonder and Wickedness has already been mentioned but it sounds like what you want.
Freebooters On The Frontier has a neat table where you mad libs a bunch of words and those are your spells to interpret.
There was someone's blog that gave lists of words the mages would know and could combine, each level gaining new words and larger vocabularies. I forget who though.
>There was someone's blog that gave lists of words the mages would know and could combine, each level gaining new words and larger vocabularies. I forget who though.
Dude, that sounds AMAZING. If anybody can remember what that is, it'd be awesome.
It's most likely top priority after he's finished his backlog. Veins of the Earth is coming out any month now, and then there's that vagina magic book. Unless Zak finishes his drawings for the amazon viking book, he'll probably get to work on it after those two.
>since it means a level 1 spell can end the world
I thought you could only summon things with HD up to twice your level?
Amazon Viking book?
It's a book about the heavy metal amazons in the north of Zak Smiths campaign. They haven't decided the name of it and Zak isn't finished with the art.
I'm already excited for it.
Northern amazons in corpse paint
Fail your casting save, roll a 20 for form, roll a 10 and get World Under Water. If you're deep underground, it's probably okay, you'll just kill the underdark. If not, look out:
>10. World Under Water
>Instead of summoning a creature,
>a portal was opened to a dimen-
>sion of infinite liquid. Whether this
l>iquid is something mundane like
>water or something more exotic is up to
>the Referee. The sea level will begin to rise
>immediately, worldwide, at a rate of 10' per
>Turn until the water reaches a level 50' higher
>than the caster was when the spell was cast.
>Once it reaches this level, it will drain away at a
>rate of 1d10 feet per day.
Well fuck I misinterpreted that as above the current sea level which is still crazy bad.
>The Baron's jester is secretly [the Baron's leige's jester].
>The Baron's jester is secretly [the head Vampire].
>The Baron's jester is secretly [a foreign Magic-User who was hired to fix the fēng shuǐ].
>[Dying angels] have been falling from the sky.
>[Artificial satellites] have been falling from the sky.
>Adventurers one table over just returned from [two tables over.]
>Adventurers one table over just returned from [the day after tomorrow.]
>The town [was sealed within a book of spells] and the gates have been barred!
>A foreign Magic-User was hired by [the Highpriest of the God of Misfortune] to fix the fēng shuǐ.
>The black prowed ships bring [wereseals] to your shores
>Local archivist found [dead] back in storage.
>Local archivist found [an apocalyptic prophecy, dated for last week] back in storage.
>Local archivist found [the lich's True Name] back in storage.
>Local archivist found [a book/portal to another world] back in storage.
>Local archivist found [a foreign Magic-User fixing the fēng shuǐ] back in storage.
>The prince has secretly been dealing with [the Cult of FJAFJKLDSKF7JKFDJ], which has now led to [Phase Spiders killing and replacing petty officials].
>The world-hoping mathematician and fencer worships the God [of Dance.]
• The dwarven elder needs _____ to complete his Magnum Opus.
Found another of the new re-formatted monsters
>The dwarven elder needs [an elf] to complete his Magnum Opus. [How embarrassing.]
Excellent. I love this sort of thing. I hope you guys don't mind if I steal some ideas.
Infinite sadness.
>pseudo-Cthulhu "weird" magic items
is there a list of those somewhere?
The fuck do I do with Fire Giants? Where does it make sense to put them?
Volcanoes and anywhere with geothermal activity and/or portals to the elemental plane of fire.
Anything you do with giants/humanoids.
Anywhere dry.
>Infinite sadness.
What kind of feats would you even give a Wizard?
It would either have to replace their spellcrafting ability entirely, or somehow allow them to do it.
What are some good resources for maps? Besides Dyson's work.
In a 10x10 empty room
Anyone ever run this?
Is 5e worth a damn?
My players tend to enjoy more character options whilst I enjoy the simplicity of OSR rulesets.
Where can I meet them half way?
>The fuck do I do with Fire Giants?
I'm going to plug my blog:
buzzclaw.blogspot.co.nz
tl;dr dying race of semi-religious marauders in lost cities
I like proficiency bonus, the saves, and advantage/disadvantage. I feel that backgrounds need some polishing.
Well I guess I ought to put all my cards on the table. I'm doing this same thing but more to my tastes-- I'm designing starting abilities so that the players have several choices for neat feat-like things, but can only pick a certain number based on their class (Fighters get 2, Rogues get 3, Wizards get 1). I'm also getting rid of Vancian casting and making each individual spell a skill that you roll for that has its own rules.
Admittedly, the abilities I came up with for wizards are either lame or overpowered. For example I gave them what is basically the Jedi Mind Trick that they can use once per day, which is cool but OP, and also the ability to levitate. I also have the option for a stat-boost in INT which is lame and dumb.
>Is 5e worth a damn?
It's 3e done right, but that's still a far cry from OSR.
>Where can I meet them half way?
OSR. Make and offer them lots of homebrew options.
While you're at it, try and solicit homebrew requests.
Play ACKS if you want actual character building in an OSR game. It has psuedo-feats and everything.
From what I can tell, BFRPG is my best option for character customization; divided race & class, multiclassing (for elves), and all the extra classes, skills, etc in the supplements.