/osrg/ OSR General - Keeping Things Casual Edition

So I've been changing how gun rules work for Garden now, splitting up the Receivers and Munitions for the next edition. I also added a new one.

Trouble is; does anybody here have any imput on the changes? Does it feel better or worse to have an additional choice or does it fail to add anything important? I sort of wanted each category to have similar abilities as the old set receiver system.

Part of the fun of the new changes was so you could do nonsense like make a revolving shotgun or break action pistol, but I'm not sure if it really adds anything of value. All the gun stocks, barrels, and flaws are the same for now.

yeah I'd have to say the new system looks better

So I played with this idea a little while back in other threads, but I'd like to get some good feedback on it now.

Basically; I have a minor gripe with OSR games. Essentially everyone in a class is 'good' at doing one particular thing, but everyone else CAN do that thing, it's just the one class is the best at it.

Fighters are the best at fighting, but everyone can fight. Clerics are the best at healing (having healing spells), but everyone can heal (first aid skills and/or magic potions and such). Thieves are the best at sneaking around, but everyone can do it.

The problem them comes to the MU and the Cleric's more spontaneous spells; NOT everyone can do these things. I sought a way to eliminate this issue while keeping the classes in place.

Basically I want to create a sort of basic, low end magic item shop that functions as a useful 'magic' resource. For example, *anyone* can go into a magic item shop and buy a blasting wand that shoots little fire sparks, and anyone can use it. Little villager kids could use it if shown how. BUT the Wizard is the best at it, and gets the most out of it. Up to an including being able to getting more powerful versions of magic effects from the items, manipulating spells effects, or even conserving and getting more charges from them then anyone else could.

How does /OSR/ like the idea? I think a magic item shop like this fits really well if you're going for a high fantasy aesthetic and feel to the world. I don't think it detracts anything if people can go buy little cosmetic magics, love potions, and ghost banishing chalk from the crazy old man at the edge of the village- it's just the way the world is.

Personally I would still give MUs something a little unique; a magic power ever other level for instance, something similar to a beneficial mutation or supernatural language. Being able swallow a fire and spew it at people or growing claws would be a unique and more interesting way to develop your Magic Users. Thoughts?

Best hexcrawls?

(other than Carcosa, Isle of the Unknown and World of the lost, which I already know about and own).

X1 Isle of Dread

Why? What makes it good and worthy of being "best"?

It was the first and it did it fairly right. Open ended enough to let the players wander, enough hooks for good quests, NPCs you could meet and fight/befriend/fuck, dangerous monsters from one end of the map to another and a building knowledge that a great evil lay at the center of the island the more one gets to know the people and their history.

And the center of the island is really interesting in that the BBEGs are there doing their own thing but what is they are doing? Summoning ancient demons? Cursing the islands inhabitants? Trying to tear asunder the veils of reality? All of it was up for the DM to decide and it was packaged in with (almost every) copy of the Expert Set! Easy to get hold of, easy to read, lots of things to intrigue and decent enough to let people do their own thing.

Okay, I need some advice.
To keep that same "LIfe is Suffering" feel of roguelikes in my system, I've decided to eliminate levels and have each class have a set of skills that they select 4 of when they do character creation, with their racial bonuses and rare items to supplement them. As a bonus, if they make it to a shrine, they can swap out class skills if they want.

The main problem is that I feel like I've gone a bit crazy with all the items that can be attained. There's the "standard items" which are basic weapons, armour, spells, techniques (essentially skills for non-magic classes), rings, and misc. items. Then I decided to add food, weapons for each race and class, and "classless" skill (basically TMs that allow you to mutliclass) .

Almost to compensate, I've made the monsters horrifically strong, given staggering penalties to eating spoiled food, basically "classless" skills for only the monsters, merciless traps.

Should I worry about the balance or no?

I had a quick look at the Isle of Dread map. Interestingly, it is about 1/3 larger than Carcosa/IotU.

I went ahead and compared these hexcrawl maps. With some other stuff for fun:

Isle of Dread: 56x37 6mi hexes (336x222mi)
Carcosa: 25x16 10mi hexes (250x160mi)
Isle of the Unknown: 25x16 10mi hexes (250x160mi)
World of the Lost: 29x18 5mi hexes (145x90mi)
150mi "Region" hex: 30x25 6mi hexes (180x150mi)

Skyrim (lore): 58x58 6mi hexes (121,000 mi^2)
Skyrim (in-game): Fits in to a single 6mi hex.
Europe: 223x346 6mi hexes (1339x2076mi)

I have no life.

anyone knows of a rules summary for LOAFP ? im very new to this OSR thing and some rules seem... very light or not explained at all. Like the rulebook for LoafP is just .. nothing. After dealing with a lot of rules for 5e here it seems im missing something. I could not find the rules for critical fumble or success for example. Help pls ?

>Goddammit, there was a great campaign setting I downloaded a while back. Can't remember it's name or system, but it was metal as fuck and still kinda goofy in the Conan way. I remember there were bird people that lived in the mountains of that sparks anyone's memory.
user, if you ever remember the setting, please let me know

What was the design process behind turning the single saving throw of S&W into the split up throws in LL? I'm writing a heartbreaker (mostly out of historical curiousity) and I am wondering if this is something I should care about. Did Gary care about saving throw distinctions?

I'm usually against ye olde magic shope, but that's because I find low levels of civilization and post empire collapse suits how my group plays better.

That being said, I also have a lot more one-use magic items by refluffing scrolls whenever they come up as something anyone can use, and tend to have more things like that as treasure.

What? LL isn't an outgrowth of S&W.

LL is a clone of Moldvay's Basic\Expert rules. S&W is also a clone, but a loose one -- consolidated saving throws is something Matt Finch wanted.

And, essentially, what he did was average out all the saves per level for each class.

I'm putting together a B/X doc. Everything is a copy-past from the original books, edited when Expert overlaps with Basic.

The only changes so far are for simplicity and consistency:
-All rolls are explicit: it says 2d6 instead of 2-12
-Charisma has a -3 .. +3 range like the other abilities, because:
-Simplified character generation. One table to look up your ability modifiers, a few sentences explaining where to add that number.
-Ascending AC, classes have a to-hit bonus in their level tables. No to-hit table lookup during combat. Original values included for compatability.
-Turn undead is a die roll instead of a table lookup (math is pretty accurate!)
-Thief skills are given in "x in 6" instead of %. Math is not super accurate (but feels good!).
-Monsters have simplified stats (think MotBM) and explicit loot rolls, instead of a treasure type lookup.

Anyone interested in the pdf?

Oh, and S&W started as a loose clone of the three OD&D books, plus Greyhawk. It's picked up material since then.

S&W WhiteBox was a result of Marv Breig (Fin) taking S&W and stripping it down into something closer to just the three OD&D books.

It doesn't do those. If you want to houserule criticals and fumbles you can. Some people like them, some don't.

Are there specific things you want to do that aren't covered in the rules? It will probably come down to making a judgement on what modifiers to apply to an attack roll, skill roll, ability roll, or not rolling because its fine to just do and move on with the game.

Here's a basic reference sheet.

>>naked
>>We had lots of spare change
>>We were thieves, so we stole

So where did you, uhh, keep all your arrows, coins and stolen goods, if you were all naked?

I didn't know that, interesting. I'll keep the split throws then. I never actually played any of the old games, just retroclones, so I thought S&W copied an earlier version of DnD, then LL copied one edition later.

I'm curious now. What clones have resting rules? I think LL does, but it's very close to BX.

I think user means unarmored.

If you keep the simplified/houseruled bits as optional, and the layout is pretty and functional, I'd pay for that.

>work on my modern fantasy version of OSR
Did you check out Weird Adventures already?

>-Turn undead is a die roll instead of a table lookup (math is pretty accurate!)
I need this, I hate depending on that stupid table. Somebody?

interested af

I am interested in seeing a pdf of this as well.

Just have magic rituals that can be cast from grimoires, etc.

Yes, your fighter can cast a fireball but only if he completed the 9-hour ritual requiring the blood of a salamander beforehand

I just read through DCC and am in love. Does anyone here run it or have experience with it?

>What system are you playing right now? How's it working for you?
OD&D and about to start a new thing because I finally got a copy of Outdoor Survival and am in fucking love with that map, finally owning a full-size copy in person.

That's a nice map you've got there. You make it yourself?

Are you doing the OD&D Setting thing?

>Skyrim (in-game): Fits in to a single 6mi hex.
Magnificent.

Seriously though, even though it feels compressed as hell in-game, it still demonstrates ways to hide shit all over the place if you disregard the lore scaling and just use it to get a feel for hex size.

Using the rules for reading the map in The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, yes. Using the specific write-ups off that blog, not really, but they're in the back of my head.

>hex size
The Yoon-Suin guy had a really good post on his blog about this, "In praise of the 1-mile hex" or something like that, about exactly how stupidly much terrain is in one hex of various sizes.

Oh right, I remember that.

monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/being-illustration-of-contents-of-1.html

I use six mile hexes myself, but that's because it's so easy to justify adding and changing stuff in them - a one mile hex may have a ton of stuff, but it's harder to have fairly significant things that you just didn't run into before.

Yeah, makes sense. I use five-mile just because it's the standard in OD&D and the nice travel speed table's adapted to it. (I don't really get why Basic opted to use the *more* complicated method of giving overland travel speed in miles and leaving hex size to the referee -- typical case for simplifying there if you ask me)

It's still useful to remewmber just how much is in there, though, like how most baronies would fit in one hex of that size (contrary to the bizarre empty-America-based fief clearing rules).

As far as I know, TroveGuy (also running the 'Zine) doesn't lurk the threads anymore so it's probably not him posting those. That being said, if a second edition was to be compiled they've stated in the Discord (back in January) that they would need more content (Maps. Dungeon rooms. Puzzles. Cool monsters. Plot hooks. Magic items).

That's true, but S&W's interpretation was much looser. The single saving throws were also attempt to keep it divergent enough to avoid lawsuit from WotC

5 mile hexes displease me. I mean having everything in neat fives and tens pleases me greatly, but for actual gameplay I find 6 better, because multiples and fractions of 6 are nicer to deal with.

It's also basically 5 miles so I can just pretend the map scale is 6 miles per hex instead of 5.

>Should I worry about the balance or no?
Nah. If you do, just know that it's very difficult, and you're going to miss a bunch. Find out idealy how powerful your characters are supposed to be (are they No Name Joe, Samwise, Boromir, or Gandolf? then make sure the other classes are about the same). Even if you WANTED it balanced in a very detailed way, that's the last step you take in making your own game. Moreover that's what play testing is for.

Bunnies don't eat carrots. They eat grasses and their own partially digested shit.

Hey gents, any of you know which Dragon zines have articles related to B/X? Mostly I am looking for interesting classes and such so I wouldn't mind any suggestions for fan made ones too.

I use kilometers instead. So 6 miles = 10 km
Feels good. Same size, but doesn't trigger my autism

Oh, nice! I've got that old D&D box peeking down at me from my bookshelf. Keep on the Borderlands and shit? "Wacky" uncle gave it to me and my bro when we were kiddos... good stuff.

Your math is sketchy as fuck. It turns out hexagons aren't squares.
Two 6-mile hexes top to bottom are 12 miles vertical.
Two 6-mile hexes diagonal to diagonal are NOT 12 miles horizontal.

It's easiest to find the square-footage of one hex, then multiply by you hex count.
I'll spare you some trig:
• 5-mile hex: 20.651 sq. miles
• 6-mile hex: 31.177 sq. miles
• 10-mile hex: 80.603 sq. miles

>Isle of Dread: 64599 sq. miles
>Carcosa: 32241 sq. miles
>Isle of the Unknown: 32241 sq. miles
>World of the Lost: 10780 sq. miles
>"Region" hex: 23383 sq. miles
>Skyrim (lore): 104880 sq. miles
>Skrim (game) < 31.177 sq. miles
>Europe (yours): 2405600 sq. miles
>Europe (actual): 3931000 sq. miles

>Charisma has a -3 .. +3 range like the other abilities,
Please don't.
>Thief skills are given in "x in 6" instead of %. Math is not super accurate (but feels good!)
Please include the originals as well.

>Ascending AC, [...] Original values included for compatability.
Anyone who cares will have done the math in their head before reading ahead to your compatibility blurb.

I'd suggest two versions, one where you don't change anything and another with those slight edits. And might as well also make the raw document public too for people to make their own edits.

Hey! I told you that in confidence, you promised you wouldn't tell anyone!

I don't know about that, but I know about this:

pandius.com/becmicls.html

It's not a plain copy-paste to merge both books. It's streamlined where possible, trying to stay close to the original.

Example:
Ability Score Adjustments
[...]
Clerics can lower Strength or Intelligence to raise Wisdom.
Dwarves and Fighters can lower Intelligence or Wisdom to raise Strength.
Elves can lower Wisdom to raise Strength or Intelligence.
Halflings can lower Intelligence or Wisdom to raise Strength or Dexterity.
Magic-users can lower Strength or Wisdom to raise Intelligence.
Thieves can lower Intelligence or Wisdom to raise Dexterity.

A lot easier to use, right?

>Thieves
Maybe. I actually don't mind the %, but the x in 6 chances are consistent with the rest.
And it makes no fucking sense that a thief finds traps worse than every other human at 1st level.

>AC
Tempted to keep the originals, since they are piss easy to convert on the fly.

>Charisma
Why? I know reactions rolls are a bell-like curve, but I hate how Cha is different to all other abilities (even Int goes up to +3...)
And Str goes up to +3 and is added to open doors...

>it makes no fucking sense that a thief finds traps worse than every other human at 1st level

Only if you don't give him the other human's chances first, then apply his thief skill like a saving throw if he misses.

By the book, "Thieves have special chances" to do shit.
Besides, two rolls for one thing goes against the game's design. You succeed or fail, and that's it. If you want to try again come back again when you gain a level.

>Basic has better rules, but AD&D has better modules

Do you agree with this statement?

Ye,s wit hthe caveat that AD&D's modules aren't acutally that good either, and it's a close-run thing. IMO the best module is G1 because it's effectively just a lair -- and a great illustration of what a giant lair might look like, natch -- which you could dump in anywhere. S3 is great as well and for much the same reasons -- but B4 especially is a great module too.

>Thieves
If you view thief rolls a saving throw on top of another roll, the numbers get a bit better. Of course, it's irritating to do things that way, but if you combine them into a single roll (like this table, which uses a 2-out-of-6 basis for normal folk), thieves should be more playable.

As far as X in 6 skills go, I guess it makes advancement easy, since each point counts for a lot, but there's not much elbow room in there. A 50% chance to succeed at something honestly sucks, and there's only two levels above that that aren't automatic success (or verrrry near it, if you do the whole "reroll if you get a 6, and if you get another 6 you fail" thing with a skill of 6). Also, it means that you can't include attribute bonuses if you want to. d% skills are admittedly more granular than you need, but I've always felt that d6 skills weren't granular enough. d10, d12 or d20 skills all seem more appropriate. But that's just, like, my opinion, man, and lots of people apparently disagree with me.

I don't want to make things easier for thieves.
I want to make things easier for the DM (and maybe the players).

With x in 6 I don't mean that you advance by a 16.6% each level; I mean that the original percents have been rounded up to the nearest 1/6 and expressed as a x in 6 chance.
I said I wanted to be close to the book - I'm streamlining, not houseruling.

Do it as 2d6, you can get smaller margins of alteration.

Tempting. It would look decent next to Turning.
Shame that I'm already doing Turning on a d6...

Actually if you take away the turning table and the thief table, everything in the game is a d6 roll, except saves and attacks - the "big" rolls, so to speak.

The word pseudo real world cultures and racism without actually being racism really put me off. No thanks.

No. That's bad, it defeats the entire purpose.
>Magic becomes knowledge based instead of item or charged based
>Le ritual magic which is boring and shite anyway, ritual spells should only be for cool spells not generic attacks
>one time purchase instead of an industry
>Less flavorful and interesting then weird rods or little trinkets activated for spells
>No innate reasons in this version that give magic users and edge
>Requires literacy to be common enough in setting for this to work
>etc.

What? How does that prevent it from having e.g. good firearms rules to loot?

I don't like the setting.

I don't like the aesthetic.

The entire first post was about CREATING games and settings, not using other ones.

It's not what I'm looking for. Stop asking.

Sadly no. I have made some of the maps for the game, but this one was too good to pass up however.

Opinions on Field Folio? Is it useful or just a relic? Best bits?

How long do you think it should take a party to travel the length of an average hexcrawl? Assuming normal unencumbered movement speed of say, 30mi per day (being generous).

Not how much it is based of existing hexcrawls. But how much you think it SHOULD be in terms of game balance and interesting logistical decisions.

24miles/day unencumbered
18
12
6 when very encumbered

2 wandering monster checks, day and night

[insert travel minigames here, like getting lost, foraging, and such]

50x30 6-mile hexes have enough room (46766 square miles) for dozens of campaigns to reuse the map.
But if you make the map any smaller than that, your PCs are going to mount an expedition off the edge.

>Magic becomes knowledge based instead of item or charged based
Grimoires are items, as are the corpses of Salamanders

>ritual spells should only be for cool spells not generic attacks
Nice opinion (You)'ve got there

>one time purchase instead of an industry
Industrial magic item production is shit that springs from 3.PF

>No innate reasons in this version that give magic users and edge
Yeah, there's no advantage over having spells refresh, not having to do hours-long rituals for 1 spell, and not needing rare esoteric ingredients

>Requires literacy to be common enough in setting for this to work
No? Not everyone needs to know how to read. PCs are default literate in almost every ruleset.

>PCs are default literate in almost every ruleset
Unless your int is crap, most DnD rulesets assume or state you can write/read

Posted this in /wbg/, suggested that I post it here too.

This is a 5-page toolset I cooked up space exploration games, with stuff like Stars Without Number in mind. It lets you populate a space map with stuff like nebulas, star clusters and supernova remnants to give space some color. All d10 based, with pictures included of the various objects you can encounter.

You sir or madame are a scholar, gentle(wo)man, and paragon of virtue.

>Grimoires are items, as are the corpses of Salamanders

Except the grimorie in this instance stores the knowledge of the spell. If the salamander is all you need to cast the spell + the knowledge, then the ability to cast spells comes from an arbitrary ritual deemed by "the universe" to work, as opposed to a more logical energy or item based magic system. I don't like this methodology for spell casting as it raises a lot of needless questions; why does the salamander work?

>Nice opinion (You)'ve got there
You're right, it's my opinion and my setting. However I can also argue that it's objectively stupid as well. If people dance around and do a ritual to cast a fireball, how would this ever be useful? It wouldn't, it takes too much time and precision to cast a spell you'd normally need in a split second time frame. Secondly, it's dumb to imagine an attack from a ritual like that taking place. What do they dance around, then motion with their arms or staff and the fireball flies out? Ritual attacks can be cool but they need to be channeled (ie; while you're chanting the target keels over in pain) or based on more mystical laws (ie; voodoo doll)

>Industrial magic item production is shit that springs from (edition I don't like)
Not only are you contradicting yourself as this is entirely an (opinion), and then trying to harken my idea to an edition nobody is allowed to like to give weight to your arguement, but you then imply that 'industry' means 'industrial'. Magic is a HEARTH industry, still made by hand and still made from polished semi-precious stone rods, you can still buy it, but that doesn't mean it's mass produced or le factories pumping out fire ball wands for soldier xd shit that I also hate in a lot of fantasy as well.

I could go on, but I keep hitting the post limit trying to explain. Instead I'll just say you obviously don't understand why I wanted the original idea in the first place so your opinions are not going to help me.

Worth for $25?

No idea what the condition inside is like, but some of the covers look pretty worn

Sure, if you're getting the lot for $25 it's worth it. Paying that for use copies of a PHB and Moldvay Basic is a pretty good deal. You could probably flip those brown-book splats for at least a fiver each if you wanted to go to the trouble, too.

Pretty sure Moldvay Basic is '81, not '80.

Is the '91 rule book Black Box Basic? I don't honestly know much about that, but I understand it's a starter set for Rules Cyclopedia (Basic) that covers levels 1-5. That might be interesting. Not sure how it compares to Moldvay Basic.

Anyway, the shit I'd be interested in would be PHB and Moldvay Basic (too bad there's no Expert set to go along with it). A chance to look over Black Box Basic would be neat too. I'd consider the other books shit to flip through to get ideas, and wouldn't personally value them at more than a couple bucks apiece. So that means 6-7 dollars apiece for Moldvay Basic, Black Box Basic, and the PHB (or $10 for the hardback PHB, and $4-5 for the other two). That seems pretty reasonable.

>Is the '91 rule book Black Box Basic? I don't honestly know much about that, but I understand it's a starter set for Rules Cyclopedia (Basic) that covers levels 1-5.
Not him, but you're correct. That dragon is from the Black Box edition of the RC starter; there's also an earlier starter box which has pic related for a cover.

Oh hey, I was planning on doing something like this.

But seriously, I need some psychic powers that aren't shit for my modern fantasy OSR

To be clear, i mean how many days/weeks/months(!?) Do you think it should take a party to travel from one end to the other.

Completely ignoring actual movement rates, existing practices, etc. Just what you feel would be a good amount of time to spend if the party wanted to get from one end to the other without stopping (8hrs travel/day).

>magic
>logical
Fuck off back to 3.PF

>However I can also argue that it's objectively stupid as well. If people dance around and do a ritual to cast a fireball, how would this ever be useful?
Yeah, it's not like wizards are explicitly supposed to be casting long magic rituals and waiting until the last second to complete them. Dumbass.

How easy is adapting the Temple of Elemental Evil series to Basic? I've only read through the first module and it didn't seem so bad.

Except magic SHOULD BE logical, it just follows the laws of symbolism and mystic tradition as opposed to physical or chemical laws.

>Yeah it's not like Wizards cast long ass rituals until the last second to complete them
You call my magic ideas lame because they're logical and yet you use a literal rules lawyer style magic?

What happens when a ritual is interrupted? It just keeps going forever until completion or an arbitrary 'sleeping' stage? Fucking retarded. One of the absolute worst styles of 'magic' system.

I like how you claim that my magic is logical and that I should fuck off to 3.PF when you're using one of the absolute worst, least mystical, least interesting magic systems of all time.

However I could tell long ago you were a shitty troll with bad opinions, so it's irrelevant. GTFO, and don't come back.

Not that guy, but wew lad.

Anyone up for discussing whether or not Clerics know all cleric spells automatically, as vaguely related by the LBBs, and whether or not there is the clerical equivalent of the spell book?

I like the idea of clerics carrying around their holy book / stone tablets / memorizing the vocal history of everything, either in hand literal-bible-thumping style while they mace some faces.

I am attempting to decide on which part of the OSR I am going to jump into and I am very tempted by the Rules Cyclopedia.
Now, Dark Dungeons is based on the RC, but how close is it really?

What's the best version of Basic DnD?

B/X

Why is that?

>Anyone up for discussing whether or not Clerics know all cleric spells automatically
Does anyone actually disagree that they do? Or think it would be Infinite Hell if they had to locate old prayer books and hagiographies before they could perform their miracles? "Ah-ha! Here's the prayer of St. Dunstan against the devil's afflictions [Remove Curse]!" seems perfectly legit to me.

I do prefer explicitly Catholic/pre-schismatic priests as Clerics, though. Maybe it works out differently if you want to have priests of Ra and shit, but then again maybe not. I suppose they literally wrote things they called spells, when I think about it.

Not him, but I'd say it's about as well built as OD&D, but much cleaner and easier to read, learn, and understand.
Its dungeon crawling game structure is tight, and everything fits together with it nicely.

Magic-Users tell the referee, "I'm using these spells."
Clerics are told by the referee, "you're using these spells."

They can make requests, but they don't get the final call.
And they don't need to name spells in their request, the referee can hand them spells appropriate to the adventure.
They can also receive "bad" spells (or less than their standard allotment) for acting against their God's interests.

What are some of the best old school modules for starting a level 1 campaign? Need inspiration

Tomb of Horrors.