/osrg/ OSR General - Awful Luck Edition

So I built a quick demo "6D Weather" map using this system

whatwouldconando.blogspot.ca/2017/04/five-dimensional-weather.html

Each day during winter, you roll a d6 and move the arrow in that direction. If you hit a "square" facing (up, down, left, right) on the edge, you stop and repeat the previous day's weather. If you hit a diagonal edge, you slide up or down.

Here's an example for 7 days.

Day - Weather - Roll
1 - Clear - n/a
2 - Heavy Snow - 2
3 - Snow - 6
4 - Hurricane Blizzard - 2
5 - Heavy Snow - 4
6 - Blizzard - 2
7 - Heavy Snow - 4

Thoughts? Players can start to predict the weather more easily. Build a bigger chart with some "black" squares to direct flow, and you can get all 4 seasons onto one. It's also more intuitive and quicker than using linked tables. You can trace the weather too.

That's really good. I toyed with a similar concept for adjudicating shifting terrain during chases rather than having to make a flow-chart of options.

Ooh, that's a smart idea. I like these visual tools. I'm considering using a chart like this to map out the progress of a grand and pointless War as well.

What's appealing about OSR to you? Why do you play/run/brew it?

It's bog simple. It's brutal. It encourages interaction with the game world over interaction with numbers on a sheet. There's also something satisfyingly exploratory about reading up on all the weird shit people do with it.

-My players asked for a "classic D&D" experience.
-There's lots of creative content out there
-The community is generally pretty nice
-It's easy to homebrew and hack. Trivial, in fact.

It's not the only thing I run, but OSR games are pretty satisfying. They're also light. Not quite beer and pretzels, but way less work than my usual games, because I can rely on classic tropes or random generation without any issues.

Crystal spheres floating in the aether. Too big and empty for a hexcrawl.

large amounts of DM fiat and secret rolls are treated like a feature, not a bug like in later editions

The PLAYER attitude for OSR is in general is both invested in the game but also laid-back. Players interested in OSR are less likely to be shrieking rules lawyers or self-insert powerfantasy/magical realmers.

Also what said.

>D&D in Space.

Just found this, might be useful: whatwouldconando.blogspot.ca/2016/05/lamentations-of-star-princess-classes.html

just you

Right. How detailed should I get with these spheres?

I want to emphasize the D&D in Space aspect and I want space to be very cosmopolitan, but something like Spelljammer expouses that each sphere is like a campaign setting of it's own. I don't exactly want to go into that much detail, but something like one or two points of interest seem a little sparse.

This is literally just Ars Magica. What are you doing.

>1e DMG despite 2e books otherwise
Shit, are these an /osrg/ poster's books?

Still, great haul; 1e DMGs are always worth it. I remember the arms and equipment and castle books being decent too, and Thieves is the best Complete Book hands down.

Congratulations, user!

There's always this from the blog of holding guy. There are some notes about it on his blog.

No, it isn't. Ars Magics uses a stamina based system with flexible levels. This one uses the core of how Ars Magics spells are organized and created for spontaneous magic but uses a preperation system for more OSR style gameplay.

What would a jelly-like, bright blue potion in a charred glass bottle do? What would it do after it were exposed to magnified starlight for seven hours?

Who made it?

A bored, enterprising viscount's son who stole the recipe from a solitary alchemist. He unfortunately is not educated in alchemy or herbalism and took the recipe too literally. He intended to sell them in some foreign city.

Either that or the upstart coven of witches who killed him and moved into his wilderness estate.

You fool! That isn't a potion at all, it's a highly dangerous magichemical concoction!

It's a fire retardant potion that makes whatever it infuses with not only immune to fire, but potentially from the heat and light of fire as well. Exposing it to starlight would probably agitate the concoction, perhaps changing it to an alternate version that applies to starlight instead of fire.

If you drink it though you'd never get warmed up by a campfire again, but +2 to stealth rolls around fire-based light sources.

Favorite spell slots per level?

I'm partial to LotFP just because you end up getting 9 1st level spell slots which is always the largest number of any spell slot. Pleases my autism.

Oh shit, that's better than what I had.

Thanks, stranger.

You could just steal the random star system generation from Stars Without Number and tweak it for a fantasy bent.

Anyone have Sixteen Stars for Stars Without Number? How is it?

ayyyy that's my thing!
As a reward for making me feel like I did a good job, behold a sneak peek at my latest house rule update.

Only difference I'd make to LotFP is to change things so you get just one extra spell slot (of any level) per level.
The levels where you gain a first AND a third level spell slot are a big jump.

Albeit LotFP's been moving towards a Wonders & Wickedness all-spells-are-first-level thing for a while.
The playtest doc has Magic-Users with one spell slot per level. Simple.

I'm debating how I want to roll for treasure. I don't want to fiat everything. Options:
>Prerolled: cleaner, faster during play
>Rolled during game: possibly more fun

I'm also debating what system and charts I want to steal. II thought I'd like LL+ACE, but I'm looking at S&W Complete now and it's much much simpler and enjoyable looking, and for instance 25% of potions being healing instead of LL's 2% seems useful.

What do you use, fellow GM's?

Space is poisonous and no known magic can protect you for a whole journey.
Freight is guarded by slaves, robots, or the undead; but more or less thrown in the right direction.

Merchants (and their escorts) get everywhere by portal.
But the portals tend to be at the bottom of dungeons.

>Running Village of Hommlet
>Lareth casts Hold Person and catches the entire still surviving party
>But... the snake that the cleric tamed earlier is not a Person
>Bites Lareth for 1 damage
>Lareth fails the poison save and dies

Potion Miscibility.

mithrilandmages.com/utilities/LLTreasure.php

I generate a couple of hoards with that site and pick the one that makes the most sense.

Tenser wields the first OSR:

"At 3rd level when facing off with an Evil 5th level mage I asked to join him and turn to Evil with him. He laughed stripped me naked and released me on the 3rd level to die. I made it to the surface. Took a rock in hand and set an ambush on another low level wandering mage. This stocked me with a new outfit, but I truly missed my now missing paralyzation wand."

Noice! You don't get the credit you deserve.

>What is your favorite curse?

The curse of plenty.
"May you never lack bread and meat to eat, wine to drink, gold to buy, nor heirs to honor."

>But... the snake that the cleric tamed earlier is not a Person

Snek did good. Gave bad man a bit with the nippers.

Speaking of curses... anyone else reading this?
bato.to/comic/_/comics/badluck-r21214

>>Prerolled: cleaner, faster during play
>>Rolled during game: possibly more fun

Bit of both. I'll set the value of coins and jewelery and other "obvious" valuables, but magic items and esoteric treasure are rolled.

So i've been expanding my knowledge of OSR style games. Reading new ones and all that. I've finished Lamentations of the Flame Princess (quite good. sick encumbrance). DCC (excellent wierdness but the funky dice are just not to my liking). ACKs (good with solid domain managing. unfortunately could use some more wierdness/crazyness in the rules for me). Glog (Good with excellent thought but a bit too... wild for me without more thought/refining on my end). I'm thinking about giving swords and wizardry a go next. Any recommendations Anons?

Read LBB before you read S&W.
Read Holmes before you read LBB.

Read the OD&D supplements at some point.
Read the Judges Guild stuff when reading the supplements.

Ugh, gavelkind has caused me enough trauma, I don't need more heirs.

I've been using this but i've found the results rather sparse and the consequence of too many empty spheres. This is based on his method of generating star maps the same as generating dungeons.

Some barren systems are fine, but this method gives too many.

It also doesn't account of Ptolemaic cosmological models, only Copernican, let alone the stranger possible sorts in Spelljammer.

Any suggestions to tweak these rules to accommodate that?

There is this concept of the air envelope around a ship in Spelljammer, and that air quality is dependent on breathing population. This suggests that it's more cost effective for freighters to have golem and undead workers on them, as they don't eat or breathe. I like to think the most common undead in space is not the wild flesh eating sort, but a deckhand.

The "poison" was meant as a tongue-in-cheek cancer joke.

I'm quite familiar with Spelljammer, but I thought we were discussing not!Spelljammer.
The idea was to keep it dungeon focused, but still allow PCs (or NPCs) near-planet space piracy.
I suppose you could make the ships large. Just remember that OSR handles best in dungeons

>This suggests that it's more cost effective for freighters to have golem and undead workers on them,
If we are talking about actual Sprlljammer, then (a) air availability is only a concern in The Phlogiston and (b) undead are awful for the air.
They'll never bring the air envelope to lethal conditions, but they'll bring them really close really quickly.
>but a deckhand.
I forget the exact details, but Spelljammer also has them be shit deckhands.

One thing undead /were/ good for is operating outside of air envelopes.
In some of the sketchier parts of Wild Space undead "mines" lie in wait to board ships.
They're left over from the Unhuman Wars, IIRC.

>we were discussing not!Spelljammer.

We are, I just like the imagery of commercialized undead and golems. I know that undead were poor for the air envelope but I don't recall them ever being poo deckhands so long as they are controlled and commanded by a necromancer or intelligent undead.

It also sort of fits with what changes im making cosmologically chiefly Replacing the Phlogiston with an Astral Plane/Limbo equivalent. I haven't decided entirely if I want to keep the access to gods and their priest spells in Spelljammer, or let priests have full access to their spells and have gods dead or absent. If the gods are absent or dead, there is a bunch of wayward souls with nowhere to go. Enterprising wizards would make use of them.

>The idea was to keep it dungeon focused

More in the sense that the spheres are mapped out like a dungeon, and you could take a dungeon map and convert it into a star map. My onlyproblem with this is that it results in too many empty spheres for my taste. It makes sense in regards to a dungeon, but as a crystal sphere in a map it seems like a waste of space.

There will be plenty of actual dungeons though too.

hey guys, i would really appreciate some help, do someone of you know the best way of buying the hardcover version from Dungeon Crawl Classic in Europe?

until now i found just this website:

gameslore.com/acatalog/PR_Dungeon_Crawl_Classics_RPG.html and a 60 euros copy in amazon.de,

well, thanks in advance

Fill these rooms, osrg

Another place to get it is leisuregames.com/products/dungeon-crawl-classics-role-playing-game-hardcover
Goodman Games don't really seem to care much for Europe. You won't find it cheaper than the places you've already found probably.

1: Supply depot in the mountains far from civilization, used by travelers in need. Contains iron rations, waterskins, horse feed, arrows, warm clothing, and anything else appropriate for wilderness survival. A sign urges travelers to take only what they need and leave behind their own surplus.

Occasionally new supplies are brought in without anyone knowing from where.

The secret door to the rest of the rooms is hidden behind a curtain wall. No one ever needs curtains in the wilds, so they haven't thought of removing it.

1: Empty, used as a campsite previously.
2: Empty, heavy tracks in ground showing heavier foot traffic leading to room 4.
3: Encounter: treasure room, guarded by poltergeist.
4: Empty: living quarters and access to forest. Outer wall has giant face carved into rock that asks for a password.

-- Bandit Table --
Type
1. Human, ritual face brands mark them as outcasts
2. Goblinoid, serving a higher power in the region
3. Goblinoid free agents, armed with high-quality steel
4. Were-fox clan, focused on stealthy robberies and avoiding combat
5. Dryads and satyrs, their forest destroyed by druids
6. Exiled prince and small retinue

Schedule
7am - 9am
- Morning preparations, always in hideout

10am-4pm
- Reconnaissance, 50% of force remains in hideout

5pm-7pm
- 25% chance of Raid!! (0% of force remains in hideout) else return from recon and waste rest of day

11pm - 6am
- If raid, gone until morning.
- If no raid, night watch. 10% of force awake, others asleep

Goals
1. Gold (Require 5,000gp for nefarious purposes)
2. Gold (Require 1,200gp to pay off their own bounty)
3. Kidnapped noble as leverage
4. Assassinate local despot

thanks man, do you know if the one from gameslore.com is the hardcover version? is a little cheaper than in your link

Here's a 1d100 magical trinkets table.

occultesque.com/2017/05/1d100-magical-trinkets.html

Thinking of doing something with spellcaster lair rules, or weird magic tables and rules. Would a hex-oriented table be useful; local wizard refuge and rules for how it influences the nearby x number of hexes?

1: Thief's safe home. Does not know about troll.
Bricked passage to 2.
4th level Thief (laying low)

2: Troll's dining room. Nice table. Silver silverware. 10d4 half-eaten corpses strewn about the floor.
Covered (tapestry worth 200 silver) and bricked passage to 1, hippy bead-curtain to 3.
Trolls arm and flank growing into new trolls. They fight as goblins.

3: Sunlit room, carved into giant troll corpse.
Smaller troll (double HD), kept in a state of near death. Normal sized troll sleeping.

4: Empty room, low ceiling (crawl).
Exit is 20 feet up.

I can't say, but it's very possible that it's the softcover version. When the 4th printing rolled out, they decided to print and sell softcovers first since hardcover production took longer than expected. I can imagine that a lot of stores just got softcover versions because of that.

Your stuff is great, man. I stole most of it for my current Lotfp game.

I like hex tables, so sure!

Does anyone have some good "generic medieval" urban random encounter tables?

Alternatively, I'm running a game set in Elderstone coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/05/osr-building-city-first-section.html
tomorrow. If you've got ideas for stuff to add or improve, I'm all ears.

Guy who did your pic also did 1d100 city encounters, though they're night-specific I guess.

occultesque.com/2017/01/1d100-late-night-city-encounters.html

>Skerples was MS Paint user all along
Buy a nicer house.

There's defo at least 3 MSPaint anons because I know I've made some of that trash and I'm not Skerples, I think.

Oh. Buy a nicer house.

...

>Skerples was MS Paint user all along

Lies and slander. I just post images more or less at random.

Still useful, thanks!

>house
lol

Also, you've summoned me. Give me a class request, that I might return whence I came.

>I'm not Skerples, I think.

At this point I'm not even sure. But I'm pretty sure I've never created any mspaint classes.

They don't even fit in the system I use.

And the supplementary package that was released with the hotfix.

youtube.com/watch?v=xwhU_ZIDqsM

If you use a jump drive type system, you skip over the fact that space itself is really boring, and can make whatever rules you like about what systems can be jumped between. I normally see it portrayed as a graph, which I'd treat like a hex crawl (the only difference being that the number of ways out of your "hex" isn't always six).

Your wilderness, then, is the fact that many systems are uninhabited and sometimes there's giant space bugs. Or maybe whatever you use for fuel is easily located but invariably underground so you need to land frequently.

fuck, again with the lemon demon stuff

okay, it's extra fucky this time.

Need some help populating these here hexes, /osrg/.

Mostly, I need helpful guidelines for coming up with location encounters that provide both gameable & varied content.

>53x34
Put on dot on the party's hex.

Running a West Marches game, the party is operating from White Moor, the site the deep road terminates from the east-west, but I've had parties make their way to the shifting wastes over the peaks of sorrow.

A lot of my hex locations have been placed between fort White Moor and adventure locations (usually mega-dungeons) so I didn't have to populate massive amounts of hexes beforehand. They're just getting kind of same-y.

I have a lot of puzzles & difficult encounter sites with considerable rewards, also fantastic & bizarre landmark. But again, I'd like help with other perspectives.

What's the difference between a West Marches game and a regular hexcrawl? Is it just the rotating players, or is there more to it?

Rotating players, player scheduled and player driven adventures usually decided upon out of game.
. arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

In Skyward Sword, the final dungeon (Sky Keep) has a layout that you can manipulate through sliding block puzzles.

This seems like a neat idea that would probably jive with the OSR, has anyone done something like it?

Blocks of Quox, in Fight On! #6, sounds pretty much exactly that.

It's a fun adventure with a cute twist in the end. I ran it for a friend of mine once and we had a good time. Go check it out.

Never did get an answer for this

I am the user in the last thread who got a bunch of AD&D and AD&D 2E books for next to nothing. I told an user that I'd post a full shot of my haul, so here it is.

The softcovers are all basically as new. The hardcovers range from damaged covers (esp the edges) with great interiors to great covers with great interiors. Nothing is missing pages, marked up, or damaged internally.

Anyway I was excited at my luck and I hope that nice user sees this. OSR is always the best thread on Veeky Forums.

the Knight of the Living Dead thing I thought was a module but it's actually a really beefy illustrated CYOA book with inventory management, basically. I'd never heard of Catacombs books even back in the day so I guess that's why it was not on my radar.

Been playing the first Zelda (second quest for the very first time, drawing maps & taking notes) with my best bud. There's a lot of ideas from that game that could translate very easily/effectively to tabletop.

There was, IIRC, a dungeon in Oracle of Ages called Moonlit Grotto which was composed of multiple levels all full of empty space. About two-thirds of the way through you destroy a central pillar and the building collapses, with the floors slotting into each other's empty spots

I've been thinking about how to include that in a dungeon for a while. I don't know what the appropriate aesthetic would be, though.

Like any video game, Zelda isn't really an exception to this, but there are a lot of progress bottlenecks that can't really be cleverly circumvented, which may be fairly limiting to a TTRPG. But I think a degree of this is admissible in a dungeon environment, I still love this idea of "Jaquaying" the dungeon as a superior method of design with puzzle elements that are more self-contained and not necessary for completely exploring the dungeon.

(Always super relevant/interesting link)

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon

What spells would you add to a starting spell list for MUs? Which are the most essential?

Holy shit, where did you get those? Craigslist? Used book store? I'm jealous. Especially the 2E books. The only one I would add to that would be the Elf Handbook because muh Archer class kit.

How large of a dungeon can be explored in a single 4-hour session?

I'm switching from 3.5 to something where combats go really damn fast and I don't have a good sense of what can be accomplished with the time freed up.

That depends entirely on how quickly your players make decisions.
Combat may be faster, but investigation and discussion take up the free time.

What's on your list so far?

My last play session with some people new to OSR had 5 rooms lasting an entire session. A lot of time you can speed that up with explicitly empty rooms, as well as asking players what their decisions are when they start dabbling.

>What's on your list so far?
Magic Missile
Curse Enemy
Transport Loot
Magic Guide

I know I had more but I can't remember them now. What spells should I be using? Would prefer more balanced spells.

how much work are you willing to do because i recently heard about people doing some effort and porting the DCC magic system over altogether for a lot more varied, costly, interesting magic experience... spells and all.

maybe someone already has the stat porting available somewhere, idk, but it was an intriguing idea to me.

[Hold Portal] (or [Wizard Lock], if you're generous) or [Protection From Evil]
[Nystul's Magic Aura]
[Forget] or [Darkness]
[Know Direction]

Write at least 3 sentences of fluff for each spell.

Trying to make a dungeon out of a Wizard's tower, so lots of vertical floors that are quite small, but having trouble not making it linear as fuck. Anyone got ideas? I'm thinking teleporters, maybe?