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Discussion Topic:
• What is the /correct/ way to do Saves?
>What is the /correct/ way to do Saves?
Saving throws were originally just a stroke of blind luck that saved you when you should've died. To simulate this, just roll a simple d20 and try to get over a number specified by the DM depending on the situation.
No death or breath weapons, no fortitude or will, just a simple saving throw.
Maybe he meant that one would be bad because of a dump stat?
And I think the 3.0 did of *how* to avoid is more instinctive. Maybe a flat bonus where you add the relevant modifier and class modifiers, instead of a good/bad progression?
>What is the /correct/ way to do Saves?
Single category, possibly getting a bonus vs. a particular category depending on class, and modified by your attributes. You get a bonus vs. deadly effects.
Thus, a 3rd level wizard might have a saving throw score of 14. He's saving vs. poison, so he gets the better of 2 rolls (bonus vs. deadly effect) and applies his constitution modifier, if any.
I could use some advice /osr.
Situation # 1
One of the stones in the corner making up the floor of the room is loose, but there's a barely visible seam that could be spotted. Underneath the stone is a hole dug out of the firm dirt, where someone hid a small sack of coins.
Should finding it be simply a matter of chance/roll? Some sort of declaration? Should they specify they are searching the ground? How much time is necessary?
Situation #2
There is a secret door in a tomb, where the sarcophagi of a knight is hidden. The door can magically be opened by saying the right phrase (written elsewhere in the tomb in a language that one of the player characters is literate in).
Besides that there are two large statues. One of them has a seam in the arm, and the arm can be lifted up and click into place. The base of the statue can also rotate. Words elsewhere in the tomb help indicate as such. If the arm is lifted and the statue rotated, the door will magically open.
Lastly, the secret door can be noticed by knocking on all the walls to notice one is hollow, or by examining the room to notice that there is a slight breeze from a crack along the ground where the door is located. One of the characters has a pickaxe and can just break through the thin stone wall through brute force.
I thought this was enough methods to allow access to this place without it being too frustrating or too easy. Most of my players are new, and one of them found this incredibly frustrating. They eventually got through it, but I could use some advice on how to properly present challenges and puzzles that can engage my players without making things too easy or impossible.
Situation #3
Tied back to #1, All of the goblins in a particular tomb carry a little goblin bag full of detritus and a few copper coins. The goblin leader has some items on him, but no coins. Is this enough of a clue to indicate they're hidden somewhere in the room? Once again, my players didn't notice.
I like the simplicity of this.
>Situation # 1
If they say they look in the corner, mention the seam.
If they say they search in the corner, their 10' pole dislodged it, water pooled at the seam, etc. etc.
No need for a roll, they find it (or get a clue) immediately.
>Situation # 2
This sounds /very/ generous on your part, two concern though:
• were their clues as to /where/ the door was?
• did they /have/ to find the room to progress?
>Situation # 3
That doesn't indicate it at all, but you don't need to indicate it so...
Generalities then specifics.
Have you talked to your group about giving descriptive explanations of what they're doing? Have you brought up searching as a concept, but one that requires elaboration? Are you giving 1-2 sentence rundowns of rooms that have enough evocative meat for the players to grab onto? Sometimes making this explicit as an expectation and method helps new people. What were they frustrated about?
#1/3 I'd describe the room and do an X in 6 depending on who's looking, how they look, if they know about architecture, dungeons, racial abilities, etc. Was it obvious that the goblins should have more loot on them then they did? That probably requires some elaboration because sometimes you just don't roll treasure if you're random generating monsters. Something like a rumour about goblins looting a caravan, or a less hostile dungeon inhabitant telling them about it for a bit of the loot, stuff like that.
#2 Was the tomb of that Knight or was it just some random side bit? If they haven't found the tomb of the knight the tomb is named after/rumoured about/etc. then they should probably know to keep looking for hidden stuff. But if they're new you might need to explain that to them. Even things that seem basic like 'if there's a breeze in a dungeon, its probably coming from something and is a good way to find things you can't see directly'. Sounds like that was a good range of ways to find it though. I'm a softie and would have added a tapestry of the statues depicting them doing something that the statues can be moved into position of just to provide extra hints. Maybe the party investigating the town or nearby lorekeepers for legends about the place to let them know about secret vaults.
All that being said, sometimes people just don't notice stuff. If they're stuck, have them review the evidence at hand. Let them know you're not saying things just for colour, its for them to mess with, check out, etc.
>were their clues as to /where/ the door was?
Not particularly besides there being the statues, and the fact that there was some sense in how the layout of the tomb was structured, and due to how we play, I drew them a map as we played.
>did they /have/ to find the room to progress?
Definitely not. They were in there to rescue a prisoner held by the goblins and they did that fine.
There being one ransacked and desecrated sarcophagi room, and there also being a second hidden and untouched sarcophagi room was just to create a more interesting place, and a place to find more loot, and a roleplaying opportunity to decide whether they should tombraid the remains of a human knight.
>but you don't need to indicate it so...
I place lots of things which can reward players who are perceptive and pay attention, but they're hardly necessary or critical or anything of the sort.
I've talked to them about how I want them to do searching, I also want them to be engaged in interacting with the environment instead of just rolling dice.
I describe rooms in significant detail, (a good 4 sentences typically, including as many senses as possible), and answer any questions they have. I personally hate having misconceptions about a place as a player, and I try to avoid that as much as possible as a GM to ensure nobody loses suspension of disbelief.
>What were they frustrated about?
The statue. They never tried to rotate it until I fed them some more hints.
>who's looking, how they look
I gave the dwarf extra info about the stonework, and the thief extra info about what to expect in terms of traps and secret doors.
Nothing about the tomb was random rolled except some of the treasure items.
They never asked around the village about the local tomb, just about the local forest. They ran off almost immediately to track down the goblins and the girl.
Thanks for all the advice both of you. I'm still new to all this myself, but I'm trying to improve.
I haven't played in perhaps 6 months and am prepping for a game with 2 players on saturday. I feel way in over my head setting up a small town, wilderness and dungeon even though its totally doable prep.
Any words of encouragements? Or just a favorite random table?
What's the best way to run play-by-post in this day and age?
I kinda like the split between magic and non-magic throws. Just a touch more granularity.
>There being one ransacked and desecrated sarcophagi room, and there also being a second hidden and untouched sarcophagi room
To crimp off ,
>If they haven't found the tomb of the knight the tomb is named after/rumoured about/etc. then they should probably know to keep looking for hidden stuff.
the desecrated sarcophagi where clearly labeled as "not the Knight," right?
Through forums. Are you looking for anything specific?
Hmm, actually in retrospect I'm not sure it was clear. But the premise was very much the tomb of a knight, and a separate one for his squires and retinue.
Let's try to change the names of the B/X saves so that people stop getting confused.
Here are my suggestions:
vs Death Ray or Poison: vs Swift Defeat
vs Magic Wands: vs Weakened Magic
vs Paralysis or Turn To Stone: vs Wyrd Effect
vs Dragon Breath: vs Surefire Hit
vs Rods, Staves or Spells: vs Magic
From what I've read, OSR seems to be balanced around a larger group of players, anywhere from 6-8.
But fuck, it's a nightmare to get all my friends organized for this, would it still be as enjoyable with a group of 4 or so people who take hirelings?
It sounds like you did fine. If they don't find all the stuff that's okay. I'd even keep the secret room for later, have local bandits set up in the tomb a few months after the players clear it out. Takes a bit for people to get into how to play.
I realized none of my players thought about rotating things unless they were round. Seriously. Round card table in the thieves hideout? The figured that out in a short amount of time. Turning a statue on a square block, they didn't even think of it. To be fair, thieves are sneaky so they might have been more suspicious there, but it was funny.
Side note, we have a good time with the players drawing a map as they go. It might not be 100% accurate but its neat to look at and compare to yours later. Gets them thinking about their environment more as it requires transcription to a different medium.
Don't over prep. An index card with a few interesting features and a few ideas for npcs is fine for a small town. Put a d6 random encounter table for the forest and that should do it. I found the tables/appendixes in the back of the dmg actually pretty helpful. There's a lot of neat shit there.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just make sure that whatever little you prep really is stuff you think is cool and is stuff that your players can react too. They'll give you ideas as soon as they start to speculate about whatever weird stuff you present them really means, so you'll do fine.
You could play it so people have hirelings or 2 characters each
Lots of people play with less. Remember the group can hire mooks, mercs, hirelings, goons, etc. and/or have players control more than one character more like a wargame.
>What is the correct way to do saves?
Have a single saving throw number that levels slowly. Each glass gets a bonus to specific instances of when you'd use a saving throw.
For example;
>Fighters get bonus to in combat saving throws (such as vs dragon breath or when tripped by an orc)
>Thieves get bonus to hazards (traps, exploding toadstool field, pools of acid laying around in the dungeon, falling, etc)
>Wizards get bonus to magic and spells, such as illusions and sleep
>Clerics get bonuses at save vs death and other soul-related magic.
That's just like how B/X does it, except that there are five numbers instead of one so that there doesn't have to be a bunch of calculating going on in the middle of the game.
>DM makes you roll up an AD&D 2e PC
>tells you to hold off on the name and bio
>makes you make 3 Int checks and 3 Wis checks
>pass 2 and 1 respectively
>DM hands you 3 index cards
>2 have "cognitive memory" and 1 has "emotion memory"
>"city; church visible; beggars yelling"
>"road; leads to home; passes near grain"
>"fear; knife slashing air; smile"
>hands you pic related and another character sheet
Would you be pissed off or intrigued?
>a larger group of players, anywhere from 6-8.
Today, I will remind them.
>It sounds like you did fine.
Thanks, I was worried because my last serious GM experience was a decade ago, this was a brand new game to all of us, and 2 more people showed up than I had originally planned.
I had also overprepared and was rusty in improvising on the fly but my players didn't mind too much about it being a simple western style adventure, rescue the girl sort of thing to get the campaign started.
>Takes a bit for people to get into how to play.
Yeah, I think we got over the worst part of the learning curve, and it will be a lot more smooth sailing from here on. Also helps that there's one less player now.
>I realized none of my players thought about rotating things
Yeah, I like puzzle elements or thought experiments so I'm definitely going to keep trying to put them in there, and after discussing it with the players, they like the idea too, but perhaps need a bit more leeway about how specific the actions need to be taken. It's always tricky because I have no playtesting, I just have to throw a lot of options and clues and hope one of them sticks.
>good time with the players drawing a map as they go
Yeah, I agree. For this particular scenario the tomb was really only just three rooms, (plus the hidden fourth one behind the secret door), so there was no real need to map it out except for them to understand the areas they were fighting the goblins in. They also liked how I had the goblins use a small cauldron of heated up grease/pigfat knocked over onto the ground as a sort of impromptu trap/environmental hazard right as they ran to engage them.
>up to 50 players
wtf
I'd be intrigued but I wouldn't play it as long as that "15% chance to start randomly killing" rule isn't removed.
Well, it recommends having closer to 20 players per referee. Between simpler gameplay and having a caller, I suppose it was manageable.
Back in the day they would have practically the whole gaming community in town come over to play.
They mean up to 50 players for an entire campaign, not 50 players playing at the same time. There would be several groups that would do their own thing in the campaign world.
Don't fall for the ruse.
Realistically, what this meant was that you all went to someone's house. And there were for example actually 3 GM's. The best GM ran the game for the highest level players (5-8 players) in one room, the second best for the mid level guys in another room, and the third guy ran for the low level guys in a third room.
All of these campaigns were technically interconnected in one overarching gameworld, it was only 'dungeons' which were semi personal and unique to a GM.
Is that Cleric asking the Thief for a tithe of what he steals?
It's only professional courtesy.
Each one needs their own 3-ring binder.
I like it, but as said, was (clumsy) done.
Maybe combat/environment/magic?
>5-8 players
Are you sure? 'Cause I've read that they often had 10, 15, or more players at a table in those days.
>Oh yeah that's just how B/X does it
>Except not at all
That's what I described though.
I gave Clerics a more mystical/magic one to make them feel a little unique, but I don't even use them in my games so its irrelevant. My games literally go combat/environment/magic so that's fine.
Maybe in a game store or a convention designed for it.
And while I'm sure there are and were exceptions and somebody will bring them up, in most peoples homes, you just can't sit 15 people comfortably in a single room. So people would just play wherever there was space. What this often meant was multiple games running simultaneously.
It also meant that groups weren't necessarily static like we imagine them. People showed up when they could, and played all day together. But next weekend it might be a slightly different group. There's be a lot more mixing, and a degree of recruitment.
Like, rumors would be heard of some giants to fight in such and such place, or some group was defeated in this area by demons, and if you were high enough level some other player would ask you to join him on his adventure.
>Except not at all
How does it do it then?
Any of your Magic-Users ever try to rig a competition? How'd it go?
If you're really curious, and have the patience to listen to this.
Here's a proper old school DM having a conversation with another DM who enjoys that sort of thing about how the game used to be once upon a time, or at least that how it was in that particular corner of the country.
Holy shit that is some nice production quality, that's nice to see from people in this hobby.
I don't agree with all of Matthew Colville's advice, but he puts out loads of nice content.
>I don't agree with all of Matthew Colville's advice,
For me, especially the part where he recommends you just start from scratch without using any premade settings or adventures.
>but he puts out loads of nice content.
I've watched most of his videos, and it actually inspired me to start running a game again. I am
>I am
Name field, broski.
Panda People Drunk Monk Racial Class when?
When you post content.
Starting from scratch and making a campaign setting is easy, when you've done it a dozen times over twenty or thirty years. I would never recommend it to a new gamemaster. There's a lot of garbage modules and things to avoid, but it's still way better than trying to do everything from scratch.
>vs Death Ray or Poison: To avoid Instadeath
>vs Magic Wands: To Avoid Artifact Magic
>vs Paralysis or Turn To Stone: To Move at all
>vs Dragon Breath: To Run
>vs Rods, Staves or Spells: To Avoid Spells
A Wakfu/Dofus-esque world is still probably the best way to do race-as-class to me.
>Everyone starts human
>Depending on what god's tenets you ascribe to, your physical appearance changes
>This also affects your physiology and special abilities
I'd play an OSR game with classes similar to the World of Twelve's.
>vs Dragon Breath: To Run
Can you explain this one? Running isn't really what I associate the breath weapon save with.
Yeah, I thought that was off, too. vs Dragon Breath IMO is all about dodging area effects.
>Running isn't really what I associate the breath weapon save with.
Breath weapons are explosions. And what do action heroes do in movies when stuff blow up?
They run.
I converted a PF monster to 2e and I'm not entirely sure why.
I associate that save with stopping part of the blast with a shield, etc.
cause while Pathfinder is a mess in terms of rules, it actually has had some decent ideas when it comes to monster concepts
Well, PF has a chunk of good monsters. A great many more could afford being converted.
youtube.com
What editions are these supposed to portray?
Saving throws don't really come to play in these situations at all: either the shield is magical and it blocks the whole thing, or the shield is normal and you'll die.
Or you pass your save and block enough of the breath to take half damage.
Anybody can save, even when naked: save vs breath is area of fx
Any good adventures set up in the northern climates? Ice, snow, frozen mountains, etc.?
Dark of The Moon
Jaunt: Blood in the snow
When you Save v. Breath, your position on the board doesn't change.
>What is the /correct/ way to do Saves?
I have yet to see a system that improves on the original saving throw system.
It should, though.
If the adventurers are unlucky they find the demogorgon suckling when they enter chamber D. The chance is 1 in 13.
You can purchase a special die for this roll but in a pinch have a player draw from a deck of cards with a jack indicating a suckling incident.
I've seen this dungeon posted a dozen times. I've always wondered about it everytime.
How many hitpoints does the demogorgon normally have? What is he doing in this dungeon? Why does a demon have a mom? So many questions.
>How many hitpoints does the demogorgon normally have?
200.
>What is he doing in this dungeon?
A lovely picnic with his mother.
>Why does a demon have a mom?
The same reason Grendel did.
But really, none of these things ever made any sense in the old OSR. Shit was wacky and weird and utterly nonsensical. I suspect this dungeon attempts to capture the same sense of magic and wonder, and in my opinion succeeds wonderfully.
It's a lovely little dungeon that I've run several times, always to a delight of all parties.
I always used modules and adventures, and really want advice on how to get off the training wheels and create something from the grounds up. It seems incredibly intimidating.
I literally just found his channel yesterday and it's like "yeah this is pretty good." Most is stuff I'm already aware of but his one vid about types of players where it's two categories: players and spectators really struck a chord
>none of these things ever made any sense in the old OSR.
Depends a lot on who you played with. If you followed the interview upthread, the guy says most DMs came up with backgrounds for their dungeons and stuff, but the players never really cared, as they were always too caught up in the novelty of the experience to give a damn about background details like that.
Just start off by making a small frontier town, put down a couple of things for the players to do, and then just run with it.
>and create something from the grounds up
Start by drawing lines, mostly in loops.
A whole bunch of lines.
Then make a flowchart of rooms (following the lines).
It's OK to add extra rooms (small loops or branches) at this point.
Then, draw a map that matches the flowchart.
At this point, how the rooms connect actually matters.
Pick a theme for the dungeon, if you haven't already.
Give every 9th or 10th room something of note, a trap, a monster, treasure, whatever.
Maybe crack open the Gygaxian DMG to help with ratios.
Draft up a Wandering Monster table for your floor/section.
Add 3d4 connections in/out of the floor/section (to the surface, further down, a tunnel off the side, whatever).
And bam! you're done with the section.
Give any dungeon 3 sections to start with.
And then for more practice, four or five more dungeons.
whats the difference between 2e and all the osr?
The OSR tends to be based on older and more basic versions of D&D, with great many less rules and usually races as classes.
What could a radical Illusionist research?
What sort of things (aside from mirrors) would they have lying around their lair?
That's /osrg/, the OSR scene as a whole prefers AD&D to B/X.
Narrative.
K'yu stones.
Yeah, but all the retroclones and other new systems are based on B/X and the others, and AD&D only has OSRIC and maybe Castles & Crusades.
Yeah, but plenty of people play the originals, and retroclones are a mark of discontent.
Tapestries
Prisms
Crystal prisons
Seer stones
Paints and paintings
Weird looking animals in cages (may or may not be illusions)
Fake windows (each window shows a different outside)
Indoor rainbow
Indoor weather
Indoor forest
Indoor ocean
Huge wardrobe
Things bigger on inside then outside
Projector screens
Fairies in bottles
I don't really get why everyone wants to make the illusionist their own class though.
I'm not sure if that's right. Most blogs seem to deal with houserules and musings for B/X, and most retroclones stem from B/X, BECMI and OD&D.
I don't get it either, but I did it, so we're stuck now.
I've decided the touchpoints are going to be the study of light (the way elementalists study the elements), bad science, wrong theories, and mirror universes/dimensional travel. Should make them more interesting.
Thanks. All good ideas.
I wonder what happens if you crossbreed a real animal and an illusory animal?
Probably just because the illusionist was once its own class, and they feel like keeping on going with the tradition.
Personally I'd rather go the other way and make all specialist wizards their own classes.
Though if I had to pick just one specialist to turn into its own class, I'd rather go with necromancer than illusionist.
>I wonder what happens if you crossbreed a real animal and an illusory animal?
Probably nothing, as illusory animals are not real and therefore neither is their genetic material.
But if you did somehow manage, then I guess you'd just get some manner of a permanent semi-shadow illusion.
That's basically what I'm going with. 10 specialist Wizard types: Animist, Biomancer, Drowned, Elf, Garden, Illusionist, Necromancer, Orthodox, and White Hand.
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca
Seems like it has lots of room to be objectively terrible and bad. But eh, at least there's room for everyone.
Maybe that's how you get Blink Dogs?
>What could a radical Illusionist research?
A totally simulated illusion pocket dimension. Imagine TNG's holo deck (with safety protocols off because wizards have no sens of right and wrong)
"I've created illusions of all of history's greatest villains! But I haven't told them they are illusions. And I've locked them in this one room. Don't worry, I've locked it with this large, extremely obvious lock."
>and retroclones are a mark of discontent.
That's a very weird position. Retroclones are a collection of people's houserules, and games tweaked for specific things.
I like some of your spells and the reimagining of the Goblin Punch classes, especially the Animist which I want to play now but...
I think you missed the points. The different Wizard schools aren't really meant to be different classes. They are all Wizards, each being able to cast spells and shit, but they are whacky weird traditions. The fear of drowning and going to hell isn't some class feature of the old Goblin Punch drowned Wizard, it's a quirky cultural trait. I think you missed the point here.
>I wonder what happens if you crossbreed a real animal and an illusory animal?
Fully real and fantastical creatures, which have different forms and powers from the perspective of different onlookers.
You might see a small cockatrice, where your partner sees a sheep covered in eyes.
It pecks at your partner's knees, as... they raise their shield to the sky then burst into flames?
Oh no, it's staring at you! Save v. Death.
My brother made this for my old school campaign I'm running, and we're extremely excited/pleased with how this turned out! Have you guys got any cool custom stuff for your campaign?
They're all based around the same core class - the Wizard template/magic system surprisingly isn't that variable.
Also, my Drowned Wizards deviated pretty hard from Arnold's. They share the name and some of the spells and that's about it. Mine are the survivors of not-Atlantis. The ocean loves them and wants to claim them if it can. The entire ocean is stalking them. They'll get their own writeup eventually.
They all play like the same class, more or less. They're based on the same template. They have to deal with the same problems (spells per day, no extra hp and no armour, fear of other wizards coveting their spells), but each school has a few perks and a few downsides that make them feel different and synergize with each other or the entire party.
If you crossbreed them it will create a normal animal with some weird but natural strangeness, like an usually large or small size, weird coloration, pattern that seems to be a simple, ability to walk on two legs for a long time as a trick, and so on. Kind of like how humans breed with fairies and demons to make MUs.
>The different Wizard schools aren't really meant to be different classes
Nor is druid, nor rangers or paladins, nor bards. For the record.
Alright.
And just in case you didn't notice; you fucked up the doom table with the Garden Wizard. Not listed under its own category, it runs into the mishap table. Just FYI
I like this. But it's only a Save vs Illusory Death (which is quite convincing for a few minutes, and may involve illusory valkyries and/or illusory hell)
I wasn't aware humans bred with supernatural creatures to get MUs. I thought that you just got... weird shit.
MUs have to go to wizard school.
Also, I can understand demons wanting to get it on with humans. What are faeries getting out of the deal?
>I wasn't aware humans bred with supernatural creatures to get MUs. I thought that you just got... weird shit.
Different strokes for different folks I guess. In some settings humans aren't really too good at the magic thing, obviously any human that can do magic is a bit of a freak.
>Also, I can understand demons wanting to get it on with humans. What are faeries getting out of the deal?
They like to have sex?