>Acid Pigeons
>Range: 0'
>Duration: 10 turns
>Effect: Creates 1 of more acid pigeons
> This grows 1d4 Acid Pigeons (www.lomion.de/cmm/pigeacid.php) from a handful of gastroliths and some vinegar.
> The pigeons are permenant, but will only follow orders for the duration of the spell.
Trove (etc.): pastebin.com
Looking For Group: discord.gg
Blogosphere: pastebin.com
In-browser tools: pastebin.com
Prior: >Discussion:
When was the last time you played AD&D™?
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I never played AD&D, I started with 5e
Okay, so I'm probably going to be running a game during a month-long study abroad trip this summer.
It's probably going to be OSR, since the books are light (or electronic!) and I don't especially want to haul my 5e stuff across the Atlantic and back.
My options right now are:
Beyond the Wall
B/X (My usual go-to, but it's kind of brutal for first-timers. I do have books, tho)
BFRPG (I've got three books and it's pretty flexible, but also a little on the B/X side of brutality)
Does anyone have any suggestions or alternatives? I'd run Flame Princess but it's a little 2edgy for the given crowd (which might include a professor's kid), and I kind of want to go for a more "pure" (if you can call a retroclone that) D&D experience.
Also, including the shitty OC I sort of abandoned work on a while back due to a lack of playtesting and time.
LotFP is just Bx.
The system anyways, the modules have "AESTHETIC"
But the modules run in Bx. No conversion needed.
They run in AD&D with almost no issues, even
So you want a game that is simultaneously true to the real D&D experience but actually isn't because the real D&D experience is too lethal?
How good is OSR at doing a story-first game? I like having lethal systems and to be frank narrative focused games tend to not be very lethal but I really run things off the cuff combat wise and tend to prepare more for the story and the characters backgrounds and such. Could I run an OSR game with that style of among?
Shit being too brutal is easy to fix, at least if the ultimate concern is people getting dead too easily. Max hit points at 1st level. You don't die until you reach -10 or -level or -whatever. Maybe you get some sort of saving throw to avoid your fate whenever the game says you're dead (see pic). I mean, you're practically doing it wrong if you don't change something when playing Basic, and make the game your own.
Dungeons is the first word because Dungeons are what the game is about.
A lot of people like to throw around the term, "emergent story" but they only say it to avoid driving prospective players away.
You can do a story in OSR,
it can even by an Epic Fantasy story,
but if it takes you away from the dungeon
the game will not hold up.
Plan your story accordingly.
>but it's kind of brutal for first-timers.
Not sure what you mean here.
First timers to OSR? Sure.
First timers to RPGs? No.
Set expectations properly, and keep iterations times down.
>but if it takes you away from the dungeon, the game will not hold up.
Then why do Fighters get an army and a castle at 9th level?
Well, OSR games don't have a lot of noncombat rules to get in your way, so you can pretty much effortlessly do whatever the fuck you want to, as long as that's what you're looking for. If you want more rule structure to hang your story on, that could be problematic.
Doing either a 1d100 table or a few monsters tonight.
Any requests?
Holdover from when D&D was a splat book about raising funds for wars.
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca
If you've got a medieval setting, you should consider adding the Plague. Not just a plague, but THE Plague, the big one, the one that changes everything. Shows up once every few hundred years. The last time in 1918.
Featuring useful tables, medieval art, and brutal rules for dying in a ditch.
I'd like to see a d100 table of slightly magical but otherwise completely mundane/useless equipment like "magical broom that sweeps one square foot of floor repeatedly" or a list of odd baubles and pieces found in a wizards lab.
Environmental predators. Things that attack during blizzards, sandstorms, rainstorms, earthquakes, forest fires, and floods only.
Not even really disagreeing with you but
>Dungeons is the first word because Dungeons are what the game is about.
This seems like sort of dumb reasoning. "Dragons" is in the title and no one assumes you need them for the game to work.
So how do you fluff up your spells and magic systems? I really like the more crazy and personal methods of Sorcerers, and somewhat dislike the traditional Vancian system in fluff, but I do like the Vancian mechanics for dungeon crawlers.
So how do you present the whole "prepare spells X number per day and each spell does Y" in a settings fluff?
...
That KKK member looks so dejected.
Are PDFs of Wormskin or any other Necrotic Gnome stuff in the trove? If not, does anyone have a copy?
The tunnel to true AD&D is supposed to look like a penis, right?
That's exactly the fluff I don't like about Vancian casting, and want to change.
But that's how it works. Wanting it to change is wanting something different entirely.
I like to think that it's a place to put your treasure and an army to guard your treasure, so you can go to new dungeons with even more treasure in it.
Of course because people who make it to "True AD&D" are dicks, right?
Wizards: Spells are magic ferret-spirit-things. They can live in your gun-brain, and you can shoot them at your enemies. They can also live in your spellbook (jail) or in the wild (very bad for everyone). You can crossbreed them and train them. You can also get a higher calibre brain-gun that has more chambers for bullets as you get better at being a wizard. Once you fire a bullet, it wanders around for a full day before going back into its cage at night.
Paladins: God talks through you. You can't speak, but He can, and he can command rivers to flow backwards, rocks to shatter, or people to fall over dead. Say too much and your head explodes from the stress.
Summoners: You know the true names of a few powerful but really, really weird spirits. They show up to help you for a few hours per day. They won't stay longer because some other Summoner needs them and calls them away from you.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Spells are actually thrown by artificial satellites, left there by ancient dinosaurs.
All spells fall from the sky, you can't cast spells in a closed room (etc).
The satellites, being 80s mainframes, are slow as balls.
There are very few wizards, because they all have to share system resources.
Spell slots are just time-cards.
Excellent work.
Are you guys aware of how much /osrg/ looks like /sprg/?
I ask because I misread it and was like "cute and honest."
Pretty much.
Look. People know what to do in a blizzard. Get to shelter. Get out of the wind. Build a fire.
But what if there's a tiger after you? Do you risk the wind, blindness, and white whirl of snow, or do you stay in one spot and let the tiger get you?
What if it's not a tiger? What if it's something like a deep sea gulper eel? The deep ocean and high mountain passes have a surprising amount in common.
We should really just call it /osr/.
OSR stuff works fine for story focused games, honestly I find they work better then 90% of "Narrative games" just on the virtue of the rules being unobtrusive and not utter shit.
>honestly I find they work better then 90% of "Narrative games" just on the virtue of the rules being unobtrusive and not utter shit.
This, seriously,
Bumping this for feedback and complaints.
It's interesting and well-written content, but I'm not sure how you'd use a lot of it in a game were Cure Disease exists.
> complaints
Half the party sitting around while the other half gradually fails saving throws as their only means of recovery doesn't seem like much of an adventure unless you do something more with it.
>but I'm not sure how you'd use a lot of it in a game were Cure Disease exists.
>Spells like cure disease will cure the Plague, but will not grant resistance. You can still be reinfected.
You'll run out of spells eventually, even if you are a cleric.
>Half the party sitting around while the other half gradually fails saving throws as their only means of recovery doesn't seem like much of an adventure unless you do something more with it.
Pretty sure nobody's going to be sitting around. Also, compared to just a straight up Save vs Death that poisons and pit traps have in this type of game... it seems like this provides more story opportunities.
You can go on an adventure to find a cure. You can abandon your friends and they can seek revenge when they recover. You can flee the plague in the morning and infect a new village (oops) at nightfall.
Plus, at 1d6 Con drain per Save failed, you'll average 3 days of illness. Much less if you're fighting or running. Much, much less.
Why on earth is Lemon Demon suddenly coming back? I got Kitten is Angry stuck in my head the other day despite not having thought about it for years, and now they're fucking everywhere.
it's literally just one dude here tho
Hasn't just been here, though.
Anyway, anyone else use the Catholic Church in D&D? I may play on Outdoor Survival, but the main human religion is literally catholicism, because I'm lazy and find it funny. The pope's waaaaay off-map though.
>Anyway, anyone else use the Catholic Church in D&D? I may play on Outdoor Survival, but the main human religion is literally catholicism, because I'm lazy and find it funny. The pope's waaaaay off-map though.
Yup. I even wrote up a Generic Cleric and a Generic Religion.
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca
coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca
Lemon Demon's been pretty big for a while since he rebranded himself as Neil Cicierega. Mouth Moods went viral. And then people started dredging up his old stuff in a sort of feedback loop.
I had no idea that was the same guy. thanks, /osrg/.
Not a fan of those either. I'd really prefer something else.
The wizard's union is really strict about wizard's services.
And the wizard's union also manages the wizard afterlife.
So most wizards aren't to keen on breaking union rules.
Any cyberpunk OSR in the trove?
>Not a fan of those either. I'd really prefer something else.
Ok there big chutes, not to be hostile, but write it your own damn self. You've been spoonfed two portions. You're going to have to walk over to the buffet if you want thirds.
Breach contract, and your Demon claims your soul.
But you're welcome to try. So carefully note which spells are spent.
>death check
Why not just use the literal Save vs. Death
MUs have multiple hearts.
And livers.
And esophagi.
And pancreases.
And so on.
Name level MUs have multiple brains.
MUs are quick to grow new organs.
They need to be.
Spells cost an arm and a leg.
How do you people actually manage to sit down and design a dungeon? Every time I st down, draw 4-9 rooms, get disgusted with it, and end up trashing the whole thing. Rinse and repeat. I'm this close to just stealing some maps online and re-stocking them myself.
Make a point crawl, THEN add rooms.
Here's my process:
1. What is your goal?
Before you put pen to paper, think. What do you want to accomplish? Is this dungeon adversarial, pitting the players against the GM in a battle of wits? Is it exploration-based? Is there a mystery to uncover? Will the dungeon rely on classic tropes, or invert them in new and exciting ways?
2. Is this dungeon designed for experienced players or new players?
New players don't know the tropes. Experienced players open doors like some sort of obsessive-compulsive SWAT team. Plan accordingly.
3. What is the core identity of the dungeon?
Some examples: tomb, false tomb, wizard's tower, ancient prison, chase sequence, castle, mansion, crashed spaceship, mine, stronghold, temple. This core identity will inform your game choices. If you want to put something in the dungeon, it has to be tied this identity in some way.
4. What's the Scale?
How long should it take to explore the dungeon? An hour? A session? An entire campaign?
Diagraming
Grab a pen and a piece of paper. Draw a circle with "surface" in the top. Then start adding other circles with ideas you've come up with. This might take a while. Feel free to come back to this sheet over and over again as you think of new ideas or get rid of old ones.
For example, if you're working a wizard's tower, you might have circles that contain things like: alchemy lab, experiment cages, weird telescope, animated pants, skeleton butler, wand testing room.
Remember to come back to the core identity of the dungeon. Everything needs a reason. It doesn't need to be a very deep reason, but it does need to have one. If you really want to include a snake pit in your wizard's tower, think about why. Maybe the wizard really liked snakes, and used to take his ring of snake friendship and nap in the pit on cold winter nights. Cool, now you've got an item to add to the dungeon along with other clues (plush snake cozy in the bedroom, a fondness for slippers and mittens, etc.)
Once you've got a bunch of circles, draw a line from the "surface" circle to the first room/concept/idea you want your players to encounter. Work you way, circle by circle, until you've got a plan.
Practicalities
Remember that the dungeon was once used for something (unless it's a gygaxian deathtrap). People don't like hauling barrels of water up ten flights of stairs or dodging giant swinging blades while trying to visit a temple. If your dungeon was once inhabited, where did the inhabitants:
1. Bring in supplies and food
2. Prepare food
3. Eat food
4. Store supplies
5. Sleep
If your kitchen is six levels below the main entrance and only accessible by a 5' wide hallway, you need to explain why.
The sass from this post killed my sides.
Mapping
Before you start, close your eyes and imagine a typical room from your dungeon. What does it look like in your mind? If you're going to map an imaginary space, you need to be able to wander through it.
Unless you're playing online, keep your designs simple. For a really small dungeon, graph paper with 1 square = 1' might work, but the traditional 1 square = 5' or 10' is also handy. It's much easier to say "the room is 20' long and 30' wide. Your entrance is on the north side, 10' from the west wall." than it is to say "The room is a sort of blobby pear shape, with a wiggly end here and... oh, I'll just draw it for you." Alternatively, you can draw a map and cover it in sticky notes. As the party explores, they can peel off the notes to reveal new rooms. Make sure to add false notes and sections to conceal secret rooms.
Start with a sketch. On graph paper, outline the main entrance. As you add rooms, remember to think about their purpose and relationship, and link them accordingly. Look up some building plans and steal ideas. Don't worry too much about the layout at this stage, but get the core rooms down.
Take the wizard tower example. You started off thinking about a circular tower with 5 levels and a basement, but realized that circles are hard to draw. You therefore decided on a square tower, but with lots of little rooms sticking off, and a slight lean to the whole structure. The first room on the main floor is the entrance hall. You decide that your wizard used to receive many visitors, so there's a foyer (for waiting in line) and then a small consulting room. Everything here is designed to look impressive and magical, but it's all mostly junk and coloured glass.
>Why not just use the literal Save vs. Death
You could, if you're looking for something that scales and are okay with it favoring some classes over others, but speaking for myself, I'd want to set its parameters. If you're looking to alleviate low-level deaths, Save vs. Death may end up having a lower success rate than you want it to have. Conversely, at high levels, it may have a higher success rate than you want it to have, especially if casters have access to magic that can bring people back from the dead.
How different do you want it? A straight up new system for magic users, or just new fluff for how vancians do their thing?
Anyway, that's the draft bit of my "How to Design a Dungeon" post that I'm still working on. Hope it helps.
>Everything needs a reason. It doesn't need to be a very deep reason, but it does need to have one.
Now this is an issue that not everyone will agree on. If you're running gonzo fantasy for example, not everything needs to "make sense". A wizard might have a pit of snakes in his tower just for shits and giggles.
>If your kitchen is six levels below the main entrance and only accessible by a 5' wide hallway, you need to explain why.
You really don't NEED to explain anything. Sweating over these simulationist details might be a factor in why you have problems accepting your own dungeon designs. Just don't try to overdo it. Remember it's all for fun and games.
Magic is struck from good intentions. When spells get minted or the day drags on... mages, like all men, grow sour and tired.
I have never had a campaign that included dragons be considered bad.
>Now this is an issue that not everyone will agree on. If you're running gonzo fantasy for example, not everything needs to "make sense". A wizard might have a pit of snakes in his tower just for shits and giggles.
>You really don't NEED to explain anything
Absolutely. There's a whole intro section I didn't post that goes over "here are the different styles of design, here is mine".
You can very easily build an entire dungeon with tables and generators and it'll be just fine. The 4 styles I have listed are
1. Immersive (posted, design is based on real-world practicalities and themes)
2. Gonzo (design is based on theme first, fun second)
3. Referee (design is generated randomly, GM has little control, but design is "fair" and "balanced")
4. Anti-Dungeon (design is generated with an overall goal in mind, but the goal is on a meta level, not an in-game level)
>Sweating over these simulationist details might be a factor in why you have problems accepting your own dungeon designs.
Oh right, and Iam not
btw. I've got no problems accepting my dungeon designs, using this method. All you need is graph paper and caffeine.
>Skerples being THIS MAD from not liking his not!Toadslingers magic
He can do him, and you can do you. And we can all get along and brainstorm.
In other news, isn't dead yet.
Asked this last thread, but I thought I'd ask again. Has anyone here played Boot Hill 3rd Edition? How is it? I'm really jonesing for a Western RPG.
Not mad, just sassy. This is my natural level of sass. And I'd be more inclined to brainstorm if the guy was a little more forthcoming in the ideas department. Just watching him go "nope, another!" like some welsh aristocrat inspecting his evening sheep isn't doing it for me. The man isn't even posting images.
>But all of this is only half the equation, the player half. The other half is the GM half: how do you get them to pick up the setting and wield it like a battleaxe? (Or a warhammer.) Gary Gygax gave us the answer. And then he immediately hid it from us. The answer is the Random Encounter Table, or Wandering Monster Table, or Random Dungeon Generator, and all those other wondrous time-killers in the back of the DMG. By stocking those tables, paying some attention to the probabilities, and adding modifiers here and there, you create an immediate, accessible method for GMs to understand your setting in the most visceral way possible: by co-creating it with you. They only have to read the setting bits they've generated, and they have a story and an adventure.
>Ken Hite
>GM has little control,
That's not how random tables are supposed to work at all.
Especially for tables you've made, altered, or done to death.
"The referee filters the table," is being generous. "The table pads the referee."
If you see something better while your eye wanders to your result, you go with that.
If reading something on the table gives you a better idea (that isn't on the table), you go with that.
If you feel like you know what the result should be, you don't even roll.
>That's not how random tables are supposed to work at all.
It is if you're acting purely as a referee in a Players vs System game. You're there to make that interaction go smoothly. In most games absolutely, you're right. But if you're running a tournament style map, your job isn't to GM. The module as written does most of that. Your job is to deal with things the module doesn't cover, populate stuff according to the tables given to in the books. That's how you ensure "fairness". You take yourself and your desires out of the equation. You're like the banker+rulebook reader in Monopoly.
Does that sound unfun to you?
Well, then you can see why it's not that common of a style anymore. It's almost completely the opposite of how most modern GMing is done, and personally, that's for the best.
Wizards are petty nobility from the Land of Dreams.
Spells are their vassals, and act like hirelings in all respects.
Casting a spell "wakes it up," back in the Land of Dreams.
>if you're running a tournament style map
I can change any detail I'd like if I'm running the Tomb of Horror.
Probably should, too. It's way too linear.
It's not, "if you're running a tournament style map" it's, "if you're running a game for a tournament."
And, "if you're running OSR in 2017" then you're not.
#
>and caffeine
Are you plagued by the dual sensation of thirst and needing to piss?
It took me /forever/ to realize that wasn't a normal human experience.
Also, go to bed. I don't know your timezone, but I know it's late.
Ok let me explain this again.
There are (IMO) 4 main styles of designing/running dungeons. You seem to be posting like there's only one, and telling me that there's one right way to do things. Quit it, you. You're missing the point.
The 4 styles (IMO) are:
1. Immersive. This has some of the styles you're describing. The GM designs based on a) the real world b) intuition and c) maybe some curated tables. This is the style most people use. Some of them go full ecology, some don't.
2. Gonzo. The focus isn't on immersion and design, but it's on fun and colour and theme instead. More curated tables. This is more of a "goal" difference than a "method" difference compared to Immersive.
99.99% of the stuff in these threads is one of those 2 styles.
3. Referee. This is the style you're beating your head against. There is NO GMING AS YOU KNOW IT in Refereed games. You act as the mediator between the module and the players. You don't get to pick SHIT. Roll on tables, build or generate rooms, keep it fair. You get to explore the dungeon with your players because NOBODY knows what's behind the next door. The downside is that you don't get to design anything. This style exists. It's out there. Maybe you don't like it but too fucking bad. If you want a list off flavours of candy you don't get to bitch about "pickle chili" being included (yes it's a real candy flavour).
4. Anti-Dungeon. Raggi.
And we're done.
So:
>I can change any detail I'd like if I'm running the Tomb of Horror.
GOOD YAY CLAP CLAP CLAP NOT THE POINT.
>You don't get to pick SHIT.
Arneson and Gygax both pulled monsters out of their asses to deal with problem characters or players, tables be damned!
Exactly! It's like these styles are idealized tropes, where real gaming falls somewhere in the areas between them. Almost like an Alignment system, or politics, or virtually anything else. Doesn't make the ideals less real.
Plus, the real Referee crowd seems to be new-school revivalists. Like any new converts, they've taken things to fanatical levels. So it goes.
>When was the last time you played AD&D™?
Yesterday.
>When was the last time you played AD&D™?
Never because BECMI is the true patricians game.
>Never
If you've never even tried it, how do you know it sucks so bad?
By the smell of the neckbeards who crouch before their tomes, drooling for another sentence of gygaxian prose like an opium addict in his den, glaring at the collected masses and trying to proclaim themselves the true inheritors of D&D with no knowledge that it was little more than a cash grab by the very man whom they venerate.
In all seriousness, I'm just not keen on the separation of class and race though I do wish the races in BECMI could gain some more levels. In my games I house rule they can all get up to level 15 though it takes large amounts of XP to do so.
Different fluff for vancian magic.
Are there any big books of diseases and disease rules anywhere, or is the 1st edition AD&D DMG the closest thing to this?
what exactly is your xp total, and how MUCH xp do pcs gain from per session at those levels?
your best bet is finding a detailed blog post lol :)
I try to design my games to referee style
Exept /I/ write the modules. As in, I prepare things ahead of time, with random tables that I put a lot of work into, and hten I use the tables for monsters, treasure and traps.
>Beyond the Wall
Is very good, but it's not really pure D&D, what with it being all folklore-y.
Still, could be cool. Especially if you use the chargen system.
If you're worried about lethality, make sure your players are encouraged to get hirelings, and lots of them.
That way you've got meatshields, and even if one of the PCs kicks it they can take over a hireling and play them
goblinpunch.blogspot.ca
And I just wrote a thing on the Plague, if that's useful.
When did initiative become the first thing one does in combat? In B/X some actions have to be declared before initiative is rolled, like moving out of combat and casting a spell. Why did that seemingly disappear?
Not sure. People probably liked knowing their order before making their actions known.
I run 2nd edition AD&D, and I typically have my players roll initiative at the same time along with all their other rolls. It works well enough.
>goblinpunch.blogspot.ca
I don't care much for the gonzo disease spirit fluff.
All spells are actually scrolls.
MUs paint them from their blood, and sustain can only sustain so many of them.
Scrolls found in dungeons are spells that have either gone missing or outlasted their MU.
So if a magic-user dies, his body will immediately shit out all the spells he had memorized?
No. They don't memorize spells, they carry scrolls. When they die, all the scrolls they carry continue to work.
If they lose the scroll, they can't write a new one in that "slot" until the scroll is used or otherwise destroyed.
>skin scrolls
Magic is more than just the weird, the sort of things that wouldn't happen in real world. Magic has no rules. Magic is chaos. Magic is a piece of irrationality and utter illogicality brought to a realm of logic and reason from which it seeks to escape.
When a wizard memorizes a spell, he snatches some of this chaos and stores it to his head. As a result he himself becomes less a part of this world. High level wizards only barely touch the same realm as their companions. Possible benefits include resistance or immunity to normal weapons, for how can they be touched if they're barely here? Some of the many drawbacks are detachment issues and lack of empathy, even utter madness.
In case of more scientific worlds, a wizard such charged will come to conflict with all science and technology. Put him against a computer and the machine will fry and the wizard will have pounding headaches. A powerful mage stuck in a high-tech city could easily kill him as the chaos in his head struggles with all the reason and logic around it and tears him apart from within.
If a wizard is slain violently and unwillingly, those spells will tear out of his body and rip it apart. In case of low-level wizards, or those that have nearly exhausted their spells in their final bid to escape death, it will simply rot and decay their body to a skeletal husk, if that. If a powerful wizard with his head full of chaos ever dies, the resulting explosion can wipe out everything around him and leave a permanent scar upon the earth.
But if the wizard embraces his end and chooses to go peacefully, his body will simply disappear. Remarkably few mages ever do this.
Hey /osrg/, non-regular here with a question I figured you guys would have the answer to.
People complain all the time about the newer editions of D&D (and similar games) not having sufficient rules for "crafting." People want to brew potions, people want to construct magic items, and people take issue with there not being full tables and shit to do so.
But I'm pretty sure AD&D didn't have any crafting tables, or rules for building armor, and from what I've read most OSR games don't either. You guys seem to get along just fine without it. How did AD&D historically handle the wizard who went "hey I want to brew a potion of x," and how do you deal with it in these newer games?
I'm a GM at the end of his rope who has players refusing to shut the fuck up about every system I run having crafting rules that are either "insufficient" or "too restrictive"
How did you deal with this in the "good old days"
This sounds silly until you realise you can stab the enemy wizard in the fireballs.
AD&D did in fact have some tables and rules for that. Dunno about Basic.
OS crafting is generally pretty minimal - it's 3e (and the dreaded viiiiidya) that made crafting a major thing, although you could probably find anything in late 2e.
Man, now I miss Vanguard. That was a clusterfuck of an MMO, but three different levelling tracks (and quest-lines) for combat, diplomacy (a card game) and crafting (crunchy! failable! minigame!) was good fun.