/osrg/ OSR General

How does one run MotBM? There's no empty rooms, no corridors, mostly no doors...?
Am I supposed to inject 'normal' stuff in between?
Can it be run with a small 1st level group using B/X? Because it looks plain impossible for BX characters, in general.
And random 'encounters' HAPPEN each turn, it's not a 1/6 chance... it's more like a 50%...

>There's no empty rooms, no corridors, mostly no doors...?
Well, that's kind of the definition of a maze. Just describe the room they're in and the exits. If they come closer to an exit, they can peak and see parts of what's inside. This may actually help with informed decision making.
There are some corridors here and there, but it's kind of expected that rooms are corridors in their own right.
>Can it be run with a small 1st level group using B/X? Because it looks plain impossible for BX characters, in general.
4th level and beyond would be rather safe. If going in with lower levels, expect a LOT of caution. I ran it with 1st level characters, and it worked. They just need to know what they're in for. The context of this place being magical and otherworldly helps them enter that mindset though.
>random encounters
The chances aren't that big actually.

best method to kick off an osr campaign?
a) Party meets in a roadside tavern with a handful of hooks to choose from.
b) Party is shipwrecked.
c) Party arrives at the borderlands of the new frontier with the goal of exploring uncharted lands and making it safe for colonisation.
d) Party is at the entrance to a dungeon. Go.
e) Players are given a brief overview of the world and a handful of starting regions to choose from. They decide where the campaign begins.

Party is already inside of the dungeon, middle of 1st level, room with no (visible) exits. Go.

Also, they don't know about this place or how to exit, and need to figure out everything by poking around / reading / bribing / interrogation -- makes up for good osr playstyle, and you can put clues for what's coming in the campaign, knowing they will look for any info they can get.

how do I stop fiddling with my houserules and actually start a campaign?

so I'm doing a thing in the apocalypse and I'd like loot tables. I got something for trash.

anyone have any post apocalyptic/scifi/modern loot tables?

...

For the math savvy-
What's the difference between 3d6 and d6+d4+d8?

Play B/X, or better, black box. Unless it's something vital, make houserules as you play only, with the players' input.

$ odds 3d6
3 0.004629629629629629
4 0.013888888888888888
5 0.027777777777777776
6 0.046296296296296294
7 0.06944444444444445
8 0.09722222222222224
9 0.11574074074074074
10 0.125
11 0.125
12 0.11574074074074073
13 0.09722222222222222
14 0.06944444444444445
15 0.046296296296296294
16 0.027777777777777776
17 0.013888888888888888
18 0.004629629629629629

$ odds d4+d6+d8
3 0.005208333333333333
4 0.015625
5 0.031249999999999997
6 0.05208333333333333
7 0.07291666666666667
8 0.09374999999999999
9 0.10937499999999999
10 0.11979166666666666
11 0.11979166666666666
12 0.109375
13 0.09374999999999999
14 0.07291666666666666
15 0.05208333333333333
16 0.03125
17 0.015625
18 0.005208333333333333

So, simply a bit more weighted towards the extremes? A slightly 'softer' bell curve?

If so, why isn't more used for chargen? It seems to inflate the +2 and -2 chances a bit, without affecting the averages or extremes too much...

we can increase the chance of extremes a bit more:

$ odds 2d4+d10
3 0.00625
4 0.01875
5 0.03750
6 0.0625
7 0.08125
8 0.09375
9 0.1
10 0.1
11 0.1
12 0.1
13 0.0937
14 0.0812
15 0.0625
16 0.0375
17 0.0187
18 0.0062

Who's this and what did he do?

Thanks! That's interesting, but makes the 9-12 range a flat chance.

But seriously, why not roll d4+d6+d8 for ability scores? It's a very small change but something about rolling three different dice sounds satisfying.

Maybe I'm tired of seeing hundreds of PCs with either 0 or +-1, very occasionally a +-2.
I'd rather do this than fiddle with the score-mod table distibution.

Take only a small number of things you want to change, change them at first and go from there. Otherwise there's too many moving parts that fuck with each other. Use most house rules as a way to fix or change a problem that comes up in gameplay. Its not going to be perfect first time and you're not going to learn how to make better rules if you don't play.

Most players don't care about .125 vs .1197916 anyway. Its neat to think about, but while you're playing or making characters no one gives a shit. Especially for generating stats.

chance of a positive modifier by chargen method

$ odds 3d6 | awk '$1 > 12 {sum += $2} END {print sum}'
0.259259

$ odds d4+d6+d8 | awk '$1 > 12 {sum += $2} END {print sum}'
0.270833

$ odds 2d4+d10 | awk '$1 > 12 {sum += $2} END {print sum}'
0.3

$ odds 2d3+d12 | awk '$1 > 12 {sum += $2} END {print sum}'
0.333333

> muh ability bonuses are rare +1 is a big deal osr sacred cow philotomy musing

Thanks again. What do you use for this?

> muh ability bonuses are rare +1 is a big deal osr sacred cow philotomy musing
Not sure what do you mean with that. I mean, I know it's something superfluous, but if the group asks for a change I'd rather say 'then roll this instead of 3d6, it makes a small difference' instead of butchering chargen/reinventing the wheel.

Do your PCs quest to find who stole the rest of those Hindu Gods' arms?

...

>Can it be run with a small 1st level group
Almost none of the encounters are outright hostile.
So yes, you *can* run it for 1st levels. Not a good idea, but it works.

LATEX, like said. But Scribus is also really, really good. Like, almost adobe good.

scribus.net/

>What are the gods like in your games?

Only presentation of gods I've liked are:

1. Dark Sun, best gods are no gods (but close enough)
2. The Elder Elemental Eye & the Dark God (I like Gygax's POV of them being entirely separate, though Tharizdun could still trick people by masquerading as an entity of elemental cold)
3. Monstrous deities -- gives a good way to upscale humanoids etc., and its very in theme for S&S to face off against horrid subhumans with weird powers and sometimes even their avatars.

If you players say "i want more character options/feats etc..." what do you do?

> What do you use for this?

Unix command line tools. Source code for "odds" is here: github.com/weatherspud/dice-notation

> Not sure what do you mean with that
Philotomy is original osr high priest, but it has been many years since he rent his clothes, took down his website, and went to live in the wilderness. Has he been forgotten?

How to write new classes for OSR game?

Question too general: rephrase.

What do you want to accomplish?

Also, steal ideas wholesale.

>What are the gods like in your games?

We've got the Authority. He didn't create everything, but he did put it all in order. He's pretty much Yahweh, but without temporal omniscience and some sort of limits on his omnipotence.

Heathens worship all kinds of things through. Some of them worship elementals, or the stars, or leftover spirits from Creation who are properly godlike, or gods they created from magic.

Depends on the system. Generally speaking, you need to make an archetype with strong thematic focus like the Mirage Archer who has archery skills and minor illusion magic.

Give them a strong core identity, try not to rehash the same mechanical and thematical niche under the different name.

Examples of good OSR classes: FLAILSNAILS classes.
Examples of bad OSR classes: Rangers, Paladins, Inquisitors, Bards and other jack-of-all-trades scum.

>Paladins
goblinpunch.blogspot.ca/2016/06/god-throat-paladins.html

Depends on how you do them.

Of course, but I really view paladins as more of a calling than a specific character class.
Now Arnold did the same thing any good OSR class, something very specific. Also paladins make for better NPCs, since paladin players are especially insufferable in an OSR context most of the time.

>any good OSR class needs

Pardon me.

Not letting them speak does seem to limit the insufferable do-good-ness thing that always brings down a party of murderhobos.

Also, giving them an Ambiguous Divine Mission. That helps a fair bit.

But as antagonists or NPCs, they are truly excellent.

I dunno, paladins, rangers, and bards certainly are way better than garbage like thieves and halflings, the former of which make the game worse by their inclusion.

Imagine the game is dividing into a series of minigames.

You have the Combat minigame. Everyone has something they can do in Combat. Wizard blow people up, Fighters chop them apart, etc.

You've got the Sneaking minigame. Thieves and Rogues do quite well here, but, in most OSR systems, don't dominate it completely.

But then you get minigames like Trap Disarming and Lock Picking. These are /completely/ dominated by the Thief/Rogue in some cases. Literally nobody else can do it. Other systems just say "disarm traps using common sense, and no, you don't get a skill for it."

But then you've got the Outdoors minigame. Foraging, hunting, tracking, and survival are dominated by the Ranger. It's the core of their class. It's the most important thing. Therefore, anyone else who is equally good robs the Ranger of their "one cool thing". It's wasted design space.

Similarly, social engagements /can/ be dominated by the Bard archetype. It's the core of their class too.

>paladins, rangers, and bards
>better than a thief
>thief makes D&D worse
kek

now it's when you confess you don't understand thief skills, yes?

Personally I prefer the method "okay, what do you want to play that you don't feel is available in the basic classes? Okay, Barbarian? What kind of barbarian, like a berserker or a sneaky guy in fur pants? Okay, here's a ten-level progression, take it or leave it."

I.e. rather than having a big fat book of choice paralysis, create class variants off the cuff on request.

That does require a certian level of genre awareness and experience though.

You can use a table (or a weighted table, like the one here), to help indecisive players.

>now it's when you confess you don't understand thief skills, yes?

Nah, I understand the revisionist meme that, despite Gygax never commenting on it and no books suggesting it, that its totally an extra chance.

The real problem with the thief is that once you introduce him, you force the game into spotlight territory. Instead of traps just being an organic part of the campaign, now you have to devote an arbitrary chunk of time to one player alone and baby him.

If you don't have genre awareness and experience, don't make a new thing. Learn how the things you have work first.

>revisionist meme

That's silly. Authenticity has no bearing on validity.

Regardless of your opinion of the folks who claim that this is how it was done in those early games, it's still a way to interpret the rules that both makes sense, and makes the thief a valuable addition to your party.

>What are the gods like in your games?
There are no gods in my game

If I started running something again, I'd probably have Immortals, because neither big government pantheons like in FR nor vaguely godless settings like Eberron interest me now. A bunch of former adventurers achieving immortality or something like 13th Age icons are probably the way to go for me.

Canadian bi guy who did some stuff for LotFP. Runs Dungeons & Donuts tumblr blog. On good terms with Zak and cool DIY D&D kids. Does cartoonish simplistic art. Develops a woman-centered OSR game, Snow Witch, Shield Maiden. I think that's about it.

That sounds like more than enough for the usual suspects to hate him with a burning passion.

Oh, It's the guy who draws himself with that ugly fucking clown nose.

>Literally nobody else can do it.
Rules-as-written, find/disarm traps only works on SMALL traps.
That's poison needles in latches, explosive runes in books, etc. etc.

Simple shit that's readily bypassed (wear gauntlets, skip those lines, etc.), but that are a pain to describe looking for.

Can I get some opinions on this?
It's a small, cold, dungeon with constructs and disarming/stealing and stuff, designed for a smal low level party.
I'm stuck coming up with loot and encounters to make the place interesting without flooding it with critters - it's supposed to be a puzzley dung, not a fighty dung.
Also, idk if there's a good pacing, it may need some rooms moved around.

Don't go overboard, chum, I don't think anybody hates him with or without a passion. He's just kind of a chump, not a touch on False Patrick, Arnold Punch or any of those guys.

Anyone played/read Goblin Punch's Arnold's GLOG? How is it?

>If you don't have genre awareness and experience, don't make a new thing. Learn how the things you have work first.

Sorry, should have been more clear. I meant the players. It's hard for players to suggest classes if they haven't played this kind of game before. It's worse if they haven't played video games either.

The suggestions I got were... memorable.

Reading it now. I like it already.

I like it quite a lot. I wrote a basic review here: coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/03/osr-glog-review.html

The classes are great. The magic system is great. The entire thing is disorganized as hell and requires a bit of hacking to get it functional.

Will you make a blogpost about the spells you converted recently?
Additionally, any advice on converting spells?

>I meant the players. It's hard for players to suggest classes if they haven't played this kind of game before.
Personally I feel that that's a good reason for them to stick to the basic classes. If a player doesn't even have enough familiarity with fantasy/S&S literature to suggest character types, the base classes are invaluable for giving a direction.

Also, I would never allow players to suggest rules or powers, just what character types or monsters they wanted to play. Mechanics are all on the referee and at his discretion.

The cleric ones? It's in progress now.

Advice for converting spells:

At least one thing needs to be based on [dice] or [sum], but ideally, no more than 3 things or it gets confusing.

4 [dice] effects should be really, really good. The range alone might do it for some spells. A 10' cone and a 40' cone are very different.

Read through that list of 100 spells and see how I've made some spells variable in different ways.

Otherwise, just go nuts. They might be unbalanced and weird, but since they are also randomly rolled and limited use per day, it's not likely to break anything.

So my current OSR setting and game features a modern fantasy game with gonzo psychic powers, gun play, monsters, and super technology. It's pretty fun.

However my problems comes in with trying to create good combat encounters. Guns in this setting are meant to be pretty dangerous but unreliable (jam pretty often), and basically everyone has them. My problem is that most gangs in the city will have guns and will be using them against party members, which could end up killing them a bit too fast, even for an OSR game.

How could this be fixed? Make gangster guns a little weaker or just make fighting them less common? ie; plan more monster fights then gangster fights?

So the "gravity reversal" thing needs to be explained more clearly, both in terms of its effects on the party and on the map.

>Gravity-flipped weapons have disadvantage (or -4) if the wielder it’s not

Should be "is not" or "its wielder is not".

>There’s d8 seeds of Inverted Demon Trees, that grow to their full size in d4 hours."

Should be "There are d8 seeds of Inverted Demon Trees which grow to their full size in d4 hours"

But those are minor nitpicks. I like it. I like the traps and the gimmicks and the map. Nice work.

what rules are you using for Guns, currently if I were to use them I'd probably be using the ones from Fantastic Heroes & Witchery

I have a custom ruleset.

Thanks, I'm not native and stuff like that really helps.
>gravity
Cool, will do. I wasn't planning on stuffing each room with "And if a PC is gravity-flipped..." but I guess I still need to dedicate a lengthy item description for this.

I don't think it needs to be lengthy, but I think it needs to be clear what's gravity flipped and what isn't. And what the ceilings are like. And fall damage.

>The main entrance resets gravity with a nasty sound as living things cross it. This doesn’t work with objects, constructs and the like (gargoyle included). This is important to remember, since gravity-flipped things will be repelled from Earth and fly away if taken out.

This is the main section that needs to be clarified.

Thanks a bunch.
I'm reading through it and like a lot of things. I have two worries though:
1) The whole contested roll resolution system is a bit finicky and I will probably replace it with "roll under or equal; the closer to the target number, the better" with the addition that difficulties just mean you need a higher roll.
Attacking someone in platemail(armor 16, used here as difficulty 6) would mean you need to roll below your attack rating, but above 6 to hit. Rolling up the exact number of your attack rating would be a crit here then.
This'd eliminate player math, and I can keep difficulties secret
2) The wizards feel weak. I love the spells and the magic system itself, but as far as I understood, they only get 4 spellslots, with the added option of continuing to cast with potentially dangerous consequences. That seems rather weak compared to the martial classes that get many toys to play around, on every level.
Am I wrong here? How did this work out for your group?

How do you feel about alignment languages? In my game, alignments are cosmic forces rather than personality types (LotFP style), and I'm considering adding alignment languages.

From a fiction standpoint, I think it might be cool for a magic user to be able to naturally talk to fey, while a cleric would easily understand an angel.

Is this a good or bad idea?

1) The whole contested roll resolution system is a bit finicky

It works very well once you get used to it, but it does take about 20 minutes of adjustment.

>and I can keep difficulties secret

Ah, yes, there is that.

>2) The wizards feel weak.

Wizards get to ID magic items for free (which is handy). The goal is to have /all/ of their spells be as good as Sleep, ideally.

Wizards don't feel weak in play, but my group doesn't have a baseline to compare them against. If your group is used to 3.5 - 5E Wizards, they will feel very underpowered. But remember, Wizards still have an Attack of 11 (so they're as good as anyone else at hitting people with swords), and they can wear armour (if they can afford/loot it).

The "Mishaps/Dooms" section comes in when you start casting higher level spells. There's a cost to doing impossible things.

The dungeon seems a bit claustrophobic, but I dig the "puzzles."

Random Encounters (2d4):
1. 2 tetrahedrons attacking an octahedron.
2. Balor with alzheimer's. Owes... someone, a favor.
3. A lost tridrone, meant to serve as the Balor's minder.
4. Talking skull. Answers most questions, but gives bad advice. Makes a ruckus if you avoid a fight.
5. 1d12 illusory goblins.
6. 1d12 goblins, 1d8 of which are illusory.
7. A deafening roar. Save or go deaf. If rerolled, any deaf save or become treacherous.
8. MU (lv.9) with late stage boggie pox.

>Treasure (1.2)
The lie detecting ice parrot *is* treasure.
Also, there are some research notes.
Most of the atelier's reagents have spoiled, but many are salvageable.
>Treasure (3.2)
Pink sand. Holds together and acts like iron in the dark.
Flakes apart but malleable as balsa wood in the very dim (and less effected by magnets).
If you can see hairs on your arm, it's bright enough that it's just sand.
>Treasure (8)
TWENTY (20) pounds of opium, two jars of high end tea leaves (1 is spiked with opium), 85gp (mostly in copper), and a tapestry worth 200 silver.

>Mecha-octopus (2)
20hp (2HD), THAC0 8, AC as Plate, 1d4 damage, checks to disarm on a hit (or pin, if disarmed)
>Living statues (4)
12hp (4HD) for stone and 14 hp (3HD) for ice, THAC0 as master, AC as master with a shield, 1d6+1 damage (or as weapon), immune to non-magic weapons, ice statue rolls fire damage (given or recieved) twice and takes the larger value.
>Frost Vegetal Zombie (5)
As vegepygmy, AC as chain. On death, all within 5' save or get frostbite.
>Grabby hand (6)
As crawling claw, but pick pockets as a Thief (lv.3). Attacks (and soots) in rounds where the pick fails.
>Ice golem (10)
Together they fight as an ice mephit, alone they fight as ice fundamentals.
>Inverted demon tree (11)
Fights as two Mecha-octopus, but 65hp.

The dungeon seems a bit claustrophobic, but I dig the "puzzles."

>Random Encounters (2d4):
1. 2 tetrahedrons attacking an octahedron.
2. Balor with alzheimer's. Owes... someone, a favor.
3. A lost tridrone, meant to serve as the Balor's minder.
4. Talking skull. Answers most questions, but gives bad advice. Makes a ruckus if you avoid a fight.
5. 1d12 illusory goblins.
6. 1d12 goblins, 1d8 of which are illusory.
7. A deafening roar. Save or go deaf. If rerolled, any deaf save or become treacherous.
8. MU (lv.9) with late stage boggie pox.

>Treasure (1.2)
The lie detecting ice parrot *is* treasure.
Also, there are some research notes.
Most of the atelier's reagents have spoiled, but many are salvageable.
>Treasure (3.2)
Pink sand. Holds together and acts like iron in the dark.
Flakes apart but malleable as balsa wood in the very dim (and less effected by magnets).
If you can see hairs on your arm, it's bright enough that it's just sand.
>Treasure (8)
TWENTY (20) pounds of opium, two jars of high end tea leaves (1 is spiked with opium), 85gp (mostly in copper), and a tapestry worth 200 silver.

>Mecha-octopus (2)
20hp (2HD), THAC0 8, AC as Plate, 1d4 damage, checks to disarm on a hit (or pin, if disarmed)
>Living statues (4)
12hp (4HD) for stone and 14 hp (3HD) for ice, THAC0 as master, AC as master with a shield, 1d6+1 damage (or as weapon), immune to non-magic weapons.
Ice statue rolls fire damage (given or recieved) twice and takes the larger value.
>Frost Vegetal Zombie (5)
As vegepygmy, AC as chain. On death, all within 5' save or get frostbite.
>Grabby hand (6)
As crawling claw, but pick pockets as a Thief (lv.3). Attacks (and soots) in rounds where the pick fails.
>Ice golem (10)
Together they fight as an ice mephit, alone they fight as ice fundamentals.
>Inverted demon tree (11)
Fights as two Mecha-octopus, but 65hp.

Juicy af.

>tapestry worth 200 sil-
Do you have a blog?

I want to run a game again. Fairly standard OSR, maybe geared a bit toward the autistic spectrum since that's who I'm dealing with. I need to limit myself to 5 pdfs not including tables and maps and such to run a game because my eyes are dying from reviewing all the options. Core rules are LotFP or whatever. What would those pdf be?

Has anyone here played in The Wilderlands of High Fantasy?

What's a good starting location for beginners?

Use Microsoft Word, plop some pictures in, save to PDF.

Prep belongs in spiral notebooks.

So post it.

Do not listen to this man. LATEX, Scribus, or Adobe InDesign are basically your only options.

Using Microsoft Word for good page layout is literally cancer.

...

You're better off using Microsoft Powerpoint, if you really want to be contrarian.

True, but hard to share on the internet.

Is Moldvay or Holmes Basic better?

>using microsoft powerpoint
>not using software designed to actually do publishing and page layout

I'm not the one being contrarian; you're an idiot.

Reading comprehension, user.

infamous Holmes rule:
> Light weapons such as the dagger allow two blows per round.
> The heavy two-handed sword, battle axe, halberd, flail,
> morning star, and most pole arm can be used only once every
> other round.

He's saying the industry standards of LaTeX, Adobe InDesign, and Scribus, are not worth using. They are industry standards for a reason.

What is Weapon Mastery?

He's saying that if you don't want to industry standards then you're better off with PowerPoint than you are with Word.

Where do people tend to recruit for games online? Roll20 doesn't give me shit.

Dragonsfoot maybe?

Thinking of playing with the Thief and Cleric classes for a personal game. What are some neat things people have done with the classes to make them fit better in the original Fighting Man-Magic User dichotomy?

> Roll20 doesn't give me shit.
Anyone on Veeky Forums could tell you to only use roll20 when your already have a group.
The Discord linked in the OP has a gamefinder channel? It's not very good tho.

Thief-Acrobat and Church-Militant.

>The Discord linked in the OP has a gamefinder channel? It's not very good tho.
What's wrong with it? Is there anything I could do to make it better?

That sounds unbalanced, but it does make the Thief not-suck really well.

Not him but why on earth is hair trigger a flaw.

I've been unable to game for a while, but I've been constantly purchasing TSR & OSR stuff over the years. I think I can put aside some time now to get an actual game started.
Obviously I want to put all that money I spent to good use, so I'm just going to throw everything I've got into the campaign world.
I don't want to get too bogged down in prep, otherwise the game will never get off the ground. What do you guys think would be a good way to present it?
Knowing the people who will likely play, I think they'll go along with any premise and suspend their disbelief when it comes to things like zap gun wielding Carcosian Orange men existing in the same hex as a generic european middle ages keep.

Can I get away with filling a randomly generated 6 or 30mi hex full of some low level module content and building out from there on the fly as they players explore?
What kind of world could I at least somewhat plausibly justify as having wildly different aesthetics existing beside each other? I was thinking something gonzo-ish like a Masters of the Universe's Eternia type world. There is no way I'm going to be able to run a straight faced euro-medieval political game, but I think I could get away with a pulp science fantasy world like MotU or Dark Sun.