/osrg/ OSR General - Monster Party Edition

So does anyone have a quick tutorial for CritKeeper?

I am a regular GM for my own OSR group but would also someday like to play in something but I'm too racked with anxiety to play over something like Roll20, so Critkeeper seemed the right kinda platform for me since it seems text focused. Do a lot of people run stuff on it?

I made some custom renamed and tweaked starting spell list here, with an emphasis on showing players how they can fluff their spells and make their MU unique without relying on mechanical differences.

I think it's quite good myself.

Player skill, not player character skill.

What's CritKeeper?

Wouldn't this also count out interesting PC personalities and roleplay?

Spellslayer for B/X

HD, advancement and saving throws as a MU.
9INT and 9DEX required. Both are Prime R.

+can use leather armor, daggers, staff, short sword
+thief skills
-can't use MU-specific items
-can't prepare spells from a book, but instead you get:

1st level
+detect magic once/day
OR
+spell slay. on a successful hit, the target caster saves; on a fail they can't cast spells for 1 day per Spellslayer level

2nd level
+Shield once/day
OR
+Alter self once/day

3th level
+Blind once/day
OR
+Dispel once/day

etc etc.

Each level you also get to choose ONE from a previous level (so you can stack uses/day for your fav spells).

Y/N?

True, but OSR is also about compatibility. Being able to take things printed for one OSR system and import them to another is one of the best parts of the OSR. There's decades worth of stuff that you can use, all ready to go.

The chat based OSR game thing in the OP Pastebin.

Does this need to be it's own class? Is there something stopping you from just using the kit?

I'm writing an urban dungeon crawl and could use some sewer encounters. Any ideas?

I've already got ghouls, trolls, all manner of rats (mentally connected to an insane rat king), slimes and jellies, ghosts, treasure hunters and trash looters, giant spiders in war with the rats, and special encounter: roll on the outer planes chart instead (the ancient temple down here was knee-deep in weird blasphemous shit).

bring a ten foot pole

...

Three reasons: simplicity, B/X compatability, and balance (with B/X classes, and specially with the very-low-power MUs).

Only if you don't have any skill.

This. Being mechanically simple only prevents the character from being mechanically interesting, which is the least interesting way of being an interesting character.

Ah, • Take out pick locks (they get Knock)
• Take out climb walls (they get Fly)
• Add Silence 15' to their spell options
• -10% move silently to compensate
• -10% hide in shadows? (they get Blind, Scare, and Forget)
No need to slow thief skill growth though, since leveling at MU co rates already dies that.

I've argued this at my club for so many years but only now have I seen it articulated in such a concise way.

I mean I understand that, I'm just saying that player skill instead of character skill would mean you'd need to directly involve yourself in the game, instead of letting your character do it. Wouldn't this break what character they might have?

Nah, you'd end up replacing all skills for spells (hide>invisibility). I like it better when it's complementary.
I also like that you do thievy stuff constantly, but magic stuff occasionally - otherwise you'd end up only doing thievy stuff x times/day (and thief skills are already a one-time roll in B/X). Makes sense?

They get something like Silence in the pdf posted above, but I didn't found it in my spell list so I just shoved a Dispel in there.

Actually, scratch that:

Min. 9 INT, 9 DEX (both are Prime Req.)
HD as MU, xp as MU
Saves as Thief (v. Spells as MU)
+can use leather armor, sling, dart, staff, dagger, jambiya, knife, and short
sword
+permanent Detect Magic (MU spells only, no magic items, natural wonders, etc.)
+Knock once/day/level
+find/remove traps (as half Thief %, or full % v. magic traps)
+pick pockets (as Thief %, filches spell components if available)
+Silence 15' while moving silently (as Thief +10%)
+hide in shadows (as Thief %)
+gain 1 spell/day from this list
+pick 2 more each level up
• Alter Self
• Armor (min. level 3)
• Blind
• Burning Hands (min. level 3)
• Dispel Magic (min. level 2)
• Fly (min. level 5)
• Forget
• Shield
• Unseen Servant
+all spells can be cast in Silence 15'
-otherwise, they're loud as balls
-can't use any magic items

Alright, so I know Dragonlance is often hailed as the setting that ruined everything. But is it possible to run a LotR / Epic Fantasy inspired game while still being OSR approved?

Maybe, but I think it's a poor fit for the system. I think there are a lot of systems better suited to that sort of thing now - I hear Burning Wheel does an excellent job once you get over the steep learning curve.

Yeah, Burning Wheel's pretty great for it.

In general OSR is about having a lot of dungeon crawls, stealing a lot of gold, the most heroic of heroic fantasy. It won't do high fantasy so well.

here again.
The GM had to drop. Anyone here want to take over? Put a post on gamefinder:

what's the status on the trove?

does /osrg/ have an opinion on spelljammer?

TroveGuy's missing. Nobody seems to have imported it to their Mega. Nobody's stepped forward to rebuild it.
I'd do it but I already run too many archives

No, but I like it. It's a shame how no one ever explains the setting well.

if you have a copy, i'll host it. i can post my private email and you can direct email me the link and i'll mirror it

Take one youtube.com/watch?v=vV-nOQzb6S8

Add a cup of Star Trek.
Add a drop of Fallen London.
Star Wars, Alien, Predator, and other sci-fi themes of your choice optional but strongly recommended.

Mix in a Sword & Sorcery bowl. Sprinkle lightly with D&Disms turned inside-out. Add a half-cup of D&D settings. For added flavor, add blackpowder guns.

That's because it's a bad setting.

i bought it for twenty bucks last year, but i've never read it because i've heard it represents the worst sins of 2e

I suppose being created to spite Lorraine Williams would do that.

The sins of the system are not the sins of the setting. It's a fun read. It's not high art or anything, but as long as you avoid the strident 2e bits and the excessive mechanical focus, you can draw some pretty fun stuff out of it. I'm fond of the Elven Armada specifically for being a big ol' slap in the face to the concept of Elven Superiority.

Spelljammer is fantasy Age of Sail.
Not sci-fi. It's only ostensibly in space.

Most mainstream Sci-fi may as well be fantasy though.

Sadly I deleted it because the other archives I was running needed space. I kept meaning to make a second account and mirror the Trove, but there was always something else more important to be done.

You're not wrong, but that doesn't justify calling Spelljammer sci-fi.

I don't think anyone called Spelljammer sci-fi.

I've been working on a world lately that I'm going to be developing as the players move through it using a Hexgrid. But I want to figure out stuff like tone and rules of the world figured out first.

What makes a good OSR world and setting?

Should magic be inordinately rare or fairly common? I've been going for rare overt magic, common subtle magic for that one

How many humanoid races is too many? Should I stick with the basics or go all Mos Eisley Cantina to sell the strangeness of the world? I was looking through random tables from Judges Guild stuff and similar products and it all had a lot of variation in humans alone that were strange.

Other questions I haven't thought to ask yet!

You're about right with magic: I like to do it that way too, with few wizards and few magic items, but plenty of strange fey shit and unexplained phenomena.

With races, I'd suggest starting the game with every character and everyone around them as humans, then eventually as they arrive to some wretched hive, suddenly drop in all the weirdness: bring in the elves, the orcs, the Wilderlands blue people and hawkmen, just drown them to that shit!

That way it'll be strange and unusual for players -and- the characters.

where does the osr obsession with hexes come from? is there any situation where hexes outperform a grid?

Pretty much all of them. Grids are irregular and absolute shite with distances whenever you go even remotely disgonally.

I use them for traveling the countryside and other macro tasks. But other than that I usually have square gridded area maps, rough sketches, or none at all and narrative combat it.

I didn't call Spelljammer sci-fi. I said you add sci-fi elements and themes because it's a wild mix of common sci-fi themes and concepts (the Scro are straight Klingons, but as orcs) and Age of Sail.

Honestly just show somebody Treasure Planet and say "OK, but all the robots are golems and the ships run on magic and there are wizards."

That's pretty much all you need.

That seems like a good approach, mirrors the Hero's Journey too with the meeting of all the weird folk as a "Crossing of the Threshold" I really like it.

Shut your whore mouth.

Make sure to have the first thing they meet be two antagonizing monster watchmen.

But open your whore pussy.

They aren't the adventurers they'd be looking for.

Some ideas I really like, some I think are dumb, pants on heads retarded cosmology and world builder's disease trying to make everything fit together. Works better if you salvage the parts you like rather than trying to take it as anything cohesive.

So are you talking about Spelljammer, or AD&D?

AD&D as a whole has the best cosmology ever and I'll fight anyone that claims otherwise.

>consistency and internal logic is a disease

Okay, what? When did this stupid meme start? I mean Spelljammer isn't a shining beacon of consistency or internal logic, but where the fuck did "worldbuilder's disease" come from and why are stupid people trying to pretend like internal logic is a bad thing?

Not him, but as far as I understand it, "worldbuilder's disease" isn't about logic and consistency, it's about fetishizing those things to the point that your world starts to feel less real and more like a theme park with all the natural corners meticulously rounded off.
See pic related for a satire.

How do PCs find treasure? (in B/X and family)

The so-called Unguarded Treasure. As I understand it, btb PCs are -always- poking at shit with the 10' pole -- if there's something and it's not Secret, they find it.

This is a bit arcadey, like pacman: move in maze, get shiny, avoid baddies. But I sort ot prefer it over asking for a roll constantly...

When I think about it, I feel the Avenger does a better job of being a "villain fighter" or black knight than an Antipaladin

Antipaladin is too blunt for my taste, like it's literally just the fucking opposite of the Paladin. Not that I'm saying everything has to be deep and complex, but I feel like Avenger makes a perfect evil knight character who has monsters do his bidding, like Kane from Shining Force or something. It's just like a classic evil warrior tempted by the forces of chaos without literally being "DEMONS AND UNDEAD AND DEMONS AND UNDEAD AND DEMONS"

How do you guys feel about antipaladins and avengers?

The majority of unguarded treasure is secret treasure.
Otherwise monsters would have nicked it ages ago.

I just leave it lying around. Depending on the treasure of course. Most of it would be in a chest tucked away in a corner, perhaps under a bit of rubble or hidden by an intelligent monster.

IMHO Half the fun of OSR is creating non-combat challenges around actually getting the treasure. It's in a heavy chest, how will you carry it out? It's NOT in a heavy chest, it's just a bunch of coins on the floor, do you have something to carry them in? The treasure is a single but fragile item, or several items that are only worth anything in a full set so you have to make sure not to lose them.

Speaking of which; would it be too asshole-DM tier if I made all the coins in my setting porcelain? Kind of random, but I wanted a rule where whenever you take blunt damage like from a hammer or a fall, the damage you take is multiplied by 10 and you lose that many coins.

>I made all the coins in my setting porcelain
That porcelain had better be fine enough to see through.
>would it be too asshole-DM tier if
No, but you're on the right track:
If enough breaks at once, the haunted bone ash collectively forms a wight.

Not that guy but after like 13 years of people trying to make their settings super complex with incredibly logic based magic systems and explanations for the origins of every monster, sometimes I just want shit to exist or happen for unexplained reasons to let my imagination go wild.

Like magic and fantasy have just stopped feeling magical and fantastical now that everybody is thinking up fucking novels to explain the most mundane shit in their setting.

Let your players come up with something creative instead of spoonfeeding them cookie-cutter options?

Nah, lots of treasure is simply concealed. Some is obvious, some not.

Cool idea, but let them have the XP anyway -- you get the XP (fun) but you don't have to think in what to spend all the extra cash (boring). 10/10.
Broken coins have use as coppers, to pay for ale, tip barmaidens and the likes.

Damn right.

>Let your players come up with something creative instead of spoonfeeding them cookie-cutter options?

Nah this wasn't for players, I was just looking at the Avenger from Rules Cyclopedia and thought "man that works better as a classic archetype than the blackguard ever did".

Thoughts on the EX modules? I own Dungeonland and I just picked up Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, but I've never had a chance to run or play either.

How did you get characters to level 9?

I never get to run the high-level modules because our games and player groups implode by 3rd level.

Like I said, I've never had a chance to run or play either one.

I've never gotten a party to level 9. I got them because I'm a bit of a collector and I dig Lewis Carroll.

I just wanted to hear general opinions on the modules.

>magic stopped being a plot device and started having rules

I mean, on the one hand, sure, I can get behind that. Mythology is cool and we like mythological magic. I am all for "Odin did a thing, it doesn't need fucking spell levels, you moron."

On the other hand, Jesus Christ does it make me angry when somebody uses magic as a shorthand for something "just because." Yeah, I don't need reams of paper to explain everything in the setting.

"lol it's magic who cares it's fantastical" is just as bad as "too much explanation." One is a lazy fucking crutch, the other is too much work into a relatively minor detail (unless the nature of magic literally drives the plot, in which case, okay).

Magic should be internally consistent and have its own rules, but if those rules are too strict and become "laws" then it's just a fancy word for fantastic science.

Instead of spells scaling with caster level, or scaling if placed into a higher spell slot like 5e does it, I purpose spell research rules to allow players to actually find and/or make spells that are more powerful then normal.

Use Magic Missile as an example. Deals 1d4 damage and cannot miss. It doesn't matter what level you are when you cast it, it doesn't get bonus die to its attack. But you could research or find a more rare form of magic missile, which is Greater Magic Missile which deals 2d4 damage for instance.

This essentially gives the Wizard character the same sort of equipment-based drive as the Fighter, and you could also tie in other aspects. It's powerful, but you can lose it. Make rules that basically say you can't just copy spells from a spellbook easily, it's too dangerous or mystical for that. So instead the magic user may lose their good spells with their spellbook in case that happens.

What do you think? Interesting gameplay change?

Sounds like kind of a hassle with fairly little worthwhile in it.

I'd do the opposite, in fact, and make all spells a lot more powerful when cast by a higher-level wizard, like how DCC does it.

Except that removes the mechanics for Wizards to build up their grimoire. Level 20 Fighters should be good at fighting in general, but it's the magic items they find that make them really strong even if its something they could lose. In the same way, Wizards should have to venture to find rare and powerful spells that can be lost, but offer advanced magical powers.

Wizards are already supposed to delve to find magic spells but once they learn it they will always have a copy of it back at home base pretty much, so it becomes a permanent part of their character instead of a rare resource to be treasured.

Xorn cleric
Xorn magic-user
Xorn thief
Male Human Fighter

Josh, you suck.

...wouldn't they eat all the treasure?

>the one dude not playing a meme character is somehow the one that sucks

Sounds like the intro to one of 'those' harem animes.

Every party needs a straight man.

>Post your monster PCs!

Feels like I post these guys a lot, but here we go again.

They're fun. Tito just lost a leg and all his remaining dignity though.

Pretty neat. I'll post some notes in a bit.

Did you add Fuzzy since last time? I don't remember him when I last saw this image.

Funny coincidence but I sort of wanted to make sheepmen a beast race in my setting.

Ayyyyyyy..... ?

>Not sure if you want to use camp followers as the terminology. That generally implies prostitutes and possibly carters who want to sell extra supplies to an army.

That's pretty much exactly how I use it. You think the a party of 5, with 2 or 3 henchmen and 15 or so hirelings, is going to go into town for everything? To hell with that. Someone's going to turn up with meat pies, beer, and genitals for sale or rent.

Sorry, missed your post. I'm working on it, but the party took a sort of weird route exploring it, so I may need to make a few adjustment. They've stopped checking my blog though, so I think I'm OK to post it soon.

I'm working on a "What does the Elemental Want" post at the moment, so it might not be ready until Friday.

Fuzzy has always been in there. It's the same image.

I tried not to include "conventional" species in the table to avoid the (inevitable) furry/Welsh/etc. jokes. So far it's worked because my group doesn't know what furries are. Veeky Forums has not been so kind.

>furry

Honestly I find it just embarrassing to everyone involved that this sort of an accusation is still brought up, like it wasn't created by the worst cesspool of the Internet more than ten years ago.

Whoever still uses the term, ironically or not, point at them and laugh.

And carry on with your awesome game.

eh going with mindset definitions instead of system ones never ends well(it's too subjective to be of any use), much prefer this definition;

A game or supplement is OSR if it's one or both of the following;

1.) an edition of D&D(or AD&D) published by TSR Inc(certain other games published by TSR are also counted)

2.) is broadly compatible with any TSR edition and/or anything else calling itself OSR

or to TLDR it;

>A game or supplement is OSR if interchangeable with OSR and TSR D&D.

t. furry

On a scale that small, I can't really see it.
1 or 2 hirelings selling shit on the side, maybe. But not people following just to sell.

Thanks. I'm just pleased my blog is regularly getting tens of views. Tens!

...

Fair enough. I imagine any prostitute or carter who's getting regular business won't mind following at a safe distance, assuming they're getting good deals, treated fairly, and there's little chance of them getting murdered in the night by monsters.

A dungeon is like a gold rush town on a miniature scale. The PCs will have more money than they know what to do with. A whole secondary industry can spring up near a rich dungeon find. If you're a traveling pedlar, why not set up shop for a few days or weeks and earn ten times your usual pay? If you run a brothel in town, send one of your girls out with a guard or two and rake in the tips.

The economics are skewed because the PCs are pulling a month's wages out of the ground in an hour.

Plus, there will be people looking for alternative entrances, if the dungeon is known to have treasure in it.

Also a good reason to set up a proper camp. Band together for safety. Pickaxe salesman, assayer, soothsayer, torchmaker, and prostitutes, all together in the same little camp.

If one were to combine the best elements of all the TSR editions of D&D into one quintessential OSR retroclone; what would those elements be?
List by edition.