/osr/ - The Old School Renaissance

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>Old Thread
>Thread Questions
Who's your favorite old-school fantasy artist?
Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?
Who's your favorite OSR artist?

Other urls found in this thread:

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/06/osr-table-of-camp-followers.html
paperspencils.com/2011/11/30/puzzling-obstructions/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Somebody post the half-rakshasa.

It's hard to say, I like a lot and in the same time I don't know the artists names.

Some artists I like are:
Larry Elmore
DiTerlizzi
Zak S
The guy who made ACKS core classes art
The guy who made ACKS Player's companion classes art
The guy who made S&W covers art
Scrap Princess

These are just the ones I remember right now though, there are a lo of great OSR artists

>Who's your favorite old-school fantasy artist?
Frazetta.
>Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?
DiTerlizzi.
>Who's your favorite OSR artist?
Mullen.

>
I disagree. ToB does them quite well, by giving the classes worthwhile options at all levels of play that increase their tactical depth and utility.

It's certainly better done than basically any OSR combat maneuver mechanic I've seen, where their idea of gameplay depth for fighters seems to stop at "ask the GM, lolz."

Hot on the heels of the Fighter post, here's a very, very useful table of 1d100 Camp Followers.

I've wanted a table like this ever since I started running OSR games, and now, I finally have one.

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/06/osr-table-of-camp-followers.html

There was a combat maneuver system in a game called Hyperborean Mice that I quite liked. Scoring a critical success in that game allowed you to claim a combat bonus depending on the type of weapon you were holding. Combat bonuses included bypassing armor, distracting opponents, grabs, stuns, and also weapon specific combat bonuses such as pinning someone with a blade to the throat or pinning a target to the wall with an arrow or thrown dagger. Something like that I feel could be ported to an OSR game without much fuss and might bring about a bit more excitement to combat without bogging it down.

What do you guys think of having weapon damage scale by character level? I realize that this would change the game a bit and that magic weapons already partially achieve this, but I'm looking for a way to make high-level hand-to-hand combat more immediately dangerous. So here's a preliminary scheme I was thinking of.

level 1-2 = d6 damage
level 3-4 = d8 damage
level 5-6 = d10 damage
level 7-8 = 2d6 damage
level 9-10 = 2d8 damage
level 11+ = 2d10 damage

very light weapon (dagger) = roll an extra die, drop highest
light weapon (short sword) = roll a single die
standard weapon (longsword) = roll an extra die, drop lowest
heavy weapon (greatsword) = like standard weapon, but add twice strength bonus

So if you've got a 7th level character with a longsword, he'd roll 3d6 for damage and drop the lowest die.

Using this scheme, an 11th level character with a normal longsword and no strength bonus would be inflicting almost exactly 3x as much damage as either a 1st level character in this system, or a normal longsword's d8 in the RAW.

Seems kind of pointless to me. You don't get much of a HP bloat in OSR games anyway.

On average, a monster takes 1 hit from an ordinary longsword per HD it has. Low-level monsters go down in a few hits, but high-level ones might take a dozen. Now, some of this is compensated for by the fact that high-level characters have a better chance of actually hitting their targets, but combat is still slower. Not only that, but a single sword blow starts to feel piddly at a certain point, something this would address.

Were I to do this, I think that I would reduce the rate at which to-hit scaled, if it scaled at all (maybe you'd start out with a THAC0 of 17 and it would increase in 1 point increments, rather than 2 point increments).

Well thought-out system, but I don't think it's very necessary in osr games. They're already pretty lethal. I'd prefer to see this in new-school games

I just got my hands on pic related, what does /osr/ think about it?

I already do this for Fighters.

Every odd level, Including first level, get +1 to hit.

Every even level, get +1 damage.

Fast, brain dead easy. Just half your character level round down for damage, round up for to hit. Plus it's a pretty powerful bonus.

it's pretty good overall, if a bit more humanocentric than I prefer, but that's more personal taste than anything relating to the book's actual quality(seriously it really bugs me how 99% of all OSR settings I've seen are either human only or so human focused that non human races might as well not exist in the setting)

>seriously it really bugs me how 99% of all OSR settings I've seen are either human only or so human focused that non human races might as well not exist in the setting

That's how it should be, though.

>That's how it should be, though.
I heavily disagree, nothing necessarily wrong with humanocentric settings, but we need more diversity in setting concepts in the OSR movement

An example of how you could go with a static to-hit and use scaling damage instead to increase the melee effectiveness of high-level characters.

Yeah, that achieves about the same thing, though I kind of like increasing the die size rather than just giving a bonus to damage as the range of damage isn't constantly shrinking in proportion to average damage output, and it keeps things "clean" such that the only pluses will be from strength or weapon enchantment.

I'm considering doing an anthro majority setting.

I guess it depends on how you view the other races from the beginning.

If you've just got various animal men or such, that're made mostly equal in all ways - mechanically and fluffwise - from the beginning, then it can work out and can make the setting feel more fantastic and diverse, though in my opinion it can also serve to numb you to it and make the truly awesome shit stand out far less, not look all that interesting by comparison at all. But, again, a bunch of animal men running around would harm this far less than some more obviously fantastic creatures or situations, let alone magic being everywhere and freely available.

Elves and dwarves and such, painted as alien and elder yet in practice ending up just being humans with pointed ears and beards, not even any more powerful or strange, are right out. Those guys should be rare.

Dungeon Crawl Classics has the Feat of Arms die or whatever it is for the Fighter. Been a while since I played it but IIRC it starts as a d3 at level 1 and improves in size, with a 2+ roll meaning you can both abstractly fight (inflicting damage) and concretely perform some kind of combat maneuver whose magnitude is relative to the size of the number you rolled.

The fighter's deed die in Dungeon Crawl Classics deals with this problem as well: it adds a random number to both attack and damage rolls, starting with 1d3 and ending to 1d10+4 by 10th level, ensuring that fighters pack a pretty huge punch on higher levels.

Go rustle up some stuff on Lombardy or Merovingian France. They got up to all kinds of goofy hijinks back then, like kings riding around with their whole court as a giant posse paying surprise visits to deadbeat nobles not paying their taxes.

>Who's your favorite old-school fantasy artist?
Frazetta. Is there even another one?

>Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?
I really like Jeff Dee's cartoony art, but I have to say Tramp anyway. The PHB cover's too iconic.

>Who's your favorite OSR artist?
Rich Longmore's art on Carcosa is the best executed suite of art and the best fitted to its product in the entire OSR.

It's great, except that the trade rules have terrible math problems to the point of being unusable. Unfortunately.

>either human only or so human focused that non human races might as well not exist in the setting
>the literal nexus of the setting is a city primarily inhabited by slug men, where all others are low class

It's not humanocentric at all though. Animal races like the slugmen make up a huge part of the setting. Elves and dwarves aren't very common, but they shouldn't be

If you rotate the little hexagons 30 degrees, the distance across the big hexagon is necessarily an odd number of little hexagons; not nice imo.

>Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?
Clyde Cauldwell

>, if a bit more humanocentric than I prefer

Fuck off. Just fuck off. You pro-star-wars faggots need to piss off. Most settings should be human centric. Why? Because humans are the most populous race. Having this SJW bullshit where there are 90 races to pick from, is fucking autistic. Admittedly od&d is also autistic garbage due to the race-as- class . That's like making d20 modern and having a nigger class. But still, most settings that are good are humancentric and it should stay that way. Fuck the kitchen sink bullshit. I put up with the shitty OSR rules to get away from that shit.

>we need more diversity
Dropped.

Get the fuck out you worthless furry degenerate. 3.5 and pathfinder are for you, not OSR. Get the hell out. I'd prefer if you drink bleach but that'll never happen. I hope on day you realize you are a fucking mentally ill piece of shit and tie the rope, but until then I'll settle for you not shitting up OSR threads which actually have rich and engaging settings due to not indulging the bullshit of the likes of you. 5e does, and now there are rules where if you want to play a tranny or a faggot the DM not only has to let you, but has to let you role play your sexuality or else he's a fucking white make and neds to be locked out of the flgs for being so problematic .

You seem upset, user.

Anyone got Vaginas Are Magic yet?

>Who's your favorite old-school fantasy artist?

Frank Frazetta

>Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?

Dave Trampier,.followed by Erol Otus

>Who's your favorite OSR artist?

Maybe Jeremy Duncan.

I really want some feedback on these spells. Seem like a good selection at first level? About roughly even power levels and all that?

Nobody says OSR to me more than Erol Otus.

Do you think you're being funny?

Being able to refill spells at a turn a pop means the spells need to be a lot weaker than refilling spells once/day to stay balanced.

Based on that premise, they seem alright to me. Or at least alright enough to bother playtesting to double-check, depending on how wizard power works.

>Who's your favorite old-school fantasy artist?
>Who's your favorite old-school D&D artist?
>Who's your favorite OSR artist?
Easley; pic related.

...

lol. How embarrassing this would be for you if you were to say this anywhere you weren't anonymous.

>If you rotate the little hexagons 30 degrees, the distance across the big hexagon is necessarily an odd number of little hexagons; not nice imo.
Not the same user, but what's wrong with that? Isn't it good to have an unambiguous middle hex?

How does one run a city adventure, OSR style? I haven't seen a lot of great modules that focus on having the city as the center of the players exploits.

Politics between trade guilds, noble houses, street/dock gangs, and any organized religions. Some creeping internal threat (traitors waiting to let in an enemy army, guilds working with gangs to murder nobles and pin the blame on a rival guild, that sort of thing,) it's easy to do. Karak Azgal, an old whfrp 2e adventure, was basically that. Lots of politics above ground in both the outer human settlement and upper dwarfhold, then the depths of the monster haunted ancient dwarven halls.

There's Vornheim, but you probably already know this

Seconding Vornheim. Even if you don't use the city as-is, the urbancrawl and generation rules are great.

C S I O
S
I
O

Oh I know. I just need to find a good text to nick stuff from. It's a harder criteria than I'm used to dealing with.

A guy last thread had it.

Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks.

"When they were dead, Clovis received all their kingdom and treasures. And having killed many other kings and his nearest relatives, of whom he was jealous lest they take the kingdom from him, he extended his rule over all the Gauls. However he gathered his people together at one time, it is said, and spoke of the kinsmen whom he had himself destroyed: 'Woe to me, who have remained as a stranger among foreigners, and have none of my kinsmen to give me aid if adversity comes.' But he said this not because of grief at their death but by way of a ruse, if perchance he should be able to find some one still to kill."

Hrm... Brehaut's translation is a bit dense for this, and the original text would be hell to use. I'm not sure... wait, there's a penguin translation of the Historia Francorum?

Oh this could work! The same translator also did Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, so I can easily mash the two together if I run out of text...

A katana would cut through the armor easily though

Hypothetically, what if the blade were only folded 997 times?

It would be very painful.

Anyway, I'm writing a post about sharpness, plate armour, and atomic-bomb-building monks. It's very much in the WIP stage.

I'm going to bump this for the morning crowd. Veeky Forums's been asking for this kind of table for a while.

Hello, fellows. Apologies for the sidetrack I'm taking.

Fa/tg/uy and /rpgm/aker here, looking for advice.

I want to try (just try) to emulate OSR in RPG Maker (no, I'm not using the RTP, going for a more realistic approach instead of the chibi jRPG aesthetic), but I'm having a dilemma.

I'm an AD&D player and have a couple of really awesome modules that I played at the time, but obviously if I use them in the software I can't sell the game once finished, but can sell the assets made.

And every idea I have of an OC module (that would allow me to profit on the game itself) is just trash compared to the golden modules of old.

How to solve this? Should I keep trying to recreate my favorite modules and profit on the assets or make my own campaign to profit upon (and then the assets would be free - one or another, I don't want to charge for game & art).

> Isn't it good to have an unambiguous middle hex?
It is, but I was thinking about the arithmetic involved in computing traveling distances. And now I think the arithmetic is worse than I originally thought.

For traveling distance we want the distance between opposite sides of a hex. I'll just call that distance the "hex width".

In the first map (CHS) the width of the big hex is 25 times the width of the little hexes. If the little hexes are whole numbers, so are the big hexes.

In the second map the position of the sides of the big hex is not completely clear. If we draw lines that split the difference between the outer and inner angles, the width of the big hex is 2 × sqrt(3) times the width of the little hex.

In the 2nd map either the big or the little hexes must have irrational width. Fa/tg/uys don't like fractions, much less irrationals, so it seems like a problem.

>

I've never seen an Americana setting get off the ground, but they always seem to plan that as a class.

If he recognized it, he wouldn't have asked.
City State of the Invincible Overlord

>fold it up to almost once

here's a (You) for your efforts

Yeah, right at the end bit.

Rogue and other rogue-likes (or rogue-lites) are the closest things to AD&D. The "golden modules of old" are supported by your nostalgia, not their actual content. Read some modern reviews of these older modules and they'll show all the seams.

Write OC. Figure out what lessons you want to teach. Map it all out before you start. Focus on pacing. Don't get bogged down with details. Polish a hundred times. Your first 10 attempts will fail.

So how has your Free RPG Day been? Did you pick up any books?

I picked up the DCC quick start at my FLGS, and I talked to the clerk about the event. Apparently it isn't exactly a return investment, even though people buy other things at the store during the event. They weren't very hopeful that it was going to continue. I hope that isn't the case with other stores too.

Any other OSRfags eat butter plain?

Local didn't order anything but still advertised it as free rpg day. Also said it cost too much and didn't generate extra revenue. Wanted DCC and VAM.

So you only like humans because they were Gary's favorite race.

Gygax was a fucking cocksucker who didn't know shit. If he lived today he'd probably run FATE where everyone died in one hit. Killing off characters to make his erect peener feel big, was the only reason he DMed. You can tell this if you read his books, he got off on being all big and powerful because it was the only way he could feel good in his dead-end fucking job and life. He was a fucking awful Dungeon Master, the Tomb of Horrors should be enough evidence of that. I don't know why anyone uses "Gygax did it" as an argument for anything. That's like "lol well Mussolini did it so it can't be that bad" while unironically slobbering at his grave. Just stop. Just fucking stop. Nothing Gygax did is special, he was just in the right place at the right time. He invented D&D which is now unequivocally one of the shittiest RPGs out there, yet still survives due to brand recognition and hordes of normies and roasties who don't know any better because D&D is the only RPG they know of.

Do not ever use Gygax in an argument again. Not only is it ethos-based bullshit which is not an argument because this is not a goddamn debate about a higher field of learning, but also he was a fucking terrible RPG player, a control-freak of a DM who pretty much singlehandedly created the meme of adversarial Dungeon Master, and sounds like a huge douchebag to boot. He did not know shit about DMing or storytelling and if you use that as a justification to cheat at your own game, retcon shit, and fudge rolls, just because YOU, a shitty dungeon master just like your worthless hero, cannot structure a game or adventure properly, then you are the lowest fucking form of human scum and I feel sorry for anyone who gets invested in any campaign you run.

I'm sorry I shit on him, I hope I didn't hurt your feelings too much.

>butter plain

Like... with a spoon, right off the block?

>He invented D&D
Now you're thinking of Arneson.
>which is now unequivocally one of the shittiest RPGs out there,
Also has nothing to do with Gygax.

>He did not know shit about DMing
The plentiful gems in the AD&D DMG disagree.

>I'm sorry
y tho.


And everything else is on point.

No, I can't say I've ever eaten just butter. Even while in the back country, having lost our packs to a bear, we didn't eat the butter plain. We spread it on salted wheat thins. It was awful.

Anyway...

wut

Nah, slices from a knife.

And just to be clear, it's salted butter. Unsalted butter is unpalatable.
It has merits as an ingredient, but has no business being a food or condiment.

>D&D which is now unequivocally one of the shittiest RPGs out there, yet still survives due to brand recognition and hordes of normies and roasties who don't know any better because D&D is the only RPG they know of.
I hate this meme

5e isn't unequivocally shit, but it's hella lackluster.
4e isn't actually D&D. It's the best are child of the vast are child of CHAINMAIL.
3.5 is unequivocally shit. 3e is equivocally shit, plus a chore to run well.

He's right about normalfags, mind you.

Sorry to continue the derail, but how's 3e better than 3.5e?

Did they have anything for free or any events or anything?

>4e isn't actually D&D. It's the best are child of the vast are child of CHAINMAIL.

What

You'd better be fucking sorry. Stop replying to bait.

Decent. Stopped by the LGS, said hi to a few people, didn't pick up anything. I'm now eating ~6lbs of freshly picked strawberries while copying passages of the Historia Francorum into an excel table and listening to the Bloodborne OST. Life's pretty good.

Has anyone read/played Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works? Is it worth my time?

French fine dining trained chef here, so basically yeah. Turn everything into a sauce by mounting it with butter too.
>salted butter
fuck that tho

*bastard child of the bastard child
Sorry.

It's a remake of WotC's miniature game, which was itself loosely based on their short-lived CHANIMAIL efforts.

DM advice wasn't cancerous.

Some events but not sure if it was different than any other weekend.

You can legit add butter to god damn spaghettios and it tastes like something worth eating. Butter is some kind of miracle ingredient.

I dunno about plain butter straight from stick to mouth guy though. That might be too far.

I'm thinking of popping this in game puzzle on the players in a session sometime this year. It's going to be a fill-in-the-number-to-open-the-door-to-fight-the-vampire-maiden kind of thing. One of the players sometimes DMs, and he started uses these puzzles, so no mercy. i'm wondering whether I should allow three guesses, or inflict fatal consequences after one bad guess.

I just did. Holy shit did I not realize that it would be hardcover. It is pretty nice for something you get on free RPG day. Overall fun book, but I am not sure if I would ever use the magic system.

How do this even work, in-universe? It is written on the door with a pencil next to it?

> How do this even work, in-universe?
Open for suggestions, but the choose-the-numbered-door and tell-it-to-the-sphinx options have been done.

I kinda hate how you gave fancy names and cool fluff for the 'seals' to a bunch of mechanically routine spells. I don't think 'spellpower' is as interesting as you hope it well be.

The seals are great though.
I would much prefer it is the spells had no stated mechanical effects and were JUST described via their seals.

Ignoring my unasked for fluff shit I think Protection from Hexes and Dangers is a bit of a stinker but that could be a playstyle thing- I'd prefer trying another spell to let me bypass having to make a save at all than +3 or 4 to a save.

I agree on the bypass a save thing, it was just easier to use spellpower for easy growth, maybe it should be changed to duration. I like that idea.

However; as for your other part I don't really understand. How can you describe a spell JUST with the seals? The seal is a purely cosmetic version of a spell, giving it a theme to the numbers so they aren't just vague mechanical effects is the idea.

Letting Wizards describe the spells with purely seals would be like what, freeform magic? I don't really understand what you mean. Unless you're saying each spell should have its own fluff, which the whole point was that you have these different fluff versions of spells so you can pick the one you like for your Wizards spellbook.

Hexagonal table with 6 plates )5 silver, 1 golden), each with a number of small round spheres (1, 7, 19...) The last plate (?, golden) is empty. On a second hexagonal table there is a jar full of those spheres. The door have a golden hexagonal button.

If pressed and the incorrect number of spheres is on the golden plate, said spheres shoot in all direction, causing damage as if a frag grenade. The higher the number of spheres, higher the damage (

That sounds terrible, but only because you sound hellbent on checkpoints.
If you /insist/ on getting those puzzles solved, read
>paperspencils.com/2011/11/30/puzzling-obstructions/

Really though, make sure there are ways to bypass the puzzle.

>Putting 91 doors in a room.

>Letting Wizards describe the spells with purely seals would be like what, freeform magic?


Maybe not entirely free form but basically yeah. I think something like your 'summoned animal covered in saddlebags' for a seal would be more interesting if power points made it go from dog-human-horse-elephant-whale size with power with all the disadvantages and advatages of being a weird bagbeast would be cooler than your treatment of the seals described as 'purely cosmetic, enjoy yer 4+Z weightpoints'

Which may not be your style, but I'm just sayin- the seals of your spells struck me as cool, the actual mechanics did not.

And that seems at odds with your intended 'no spell levels'.- shouldn't Conveyance be a big deal if you cast it with loadsapower and not just 'ho hum it's like tensers floating disk cast by a high level dude'

>And that seems at odds with your intended 'no spell levels'.- shouldn't Conveyance be a big deal if you cast it with loadsapower and not just 'ho hum it's like tensers floating disk cast by a high level dude'

The idea is to make Wizard progression more linear. Instead of 'get a higher level spell slot at X level, which lets you cast both MORE and STRONGER' spells, this system instead is more about a linear upwards Wizard who just gets a few more spells and a little stronger as they go up in level, without spell levels to bog them down their spells just get better over time as they level.

I do understand what you mean now. It seems like you want a more evocative spell system, something with more specific spells instead of the generalist spells I'm making up. It's just a real bitch to balance and make an easy 'basic' wizard spell starting list if you start right out the gate with the Bagbeast spells. Also, I'm somewhat intentionally trying to make the Wizard 'boring' so it doesn't steal all the ideaspace and thunder from the other classes, you know?

I understand what you mean now though, thanks for the feedback. Maybe rare Wizard spells will have more specific and interesting spell power growths? I need to use the system in practice first, and we can see if weirdness goes from there. Thanks.

>Also, I'm somewhat intentionally trying to make the Wizard 'boring' so it doesn't steal all the ideaspace and thunder from the other classes, you know?

To jump off of this- how does OSR make playing a fighter not the boringest shit when the clerics get to talk to demons and ancient gods, wizards get to do magic shit, and thieves get to go for 'stealth' missions? My party has pretty much abandoned fighters and I can't say I really blame them.

When you run into three random encounter patrols of goblins you'll really appreciate the fighter who can cleave kill them all without expanding any resources.

Caldwell and Elmore, easy.

Give them special attacks if you want to go for more high fantasy or animu fighting magic style fighters. They start with one special attack at first level.

When you declare a special attack, roll to hit an enemy and add your level. Even on a miss, you still deal 1d4 damage.

On a hit, you deal normal weapon damage + your level.

You may use your special attack once per adventure.

Encourage your players to name the special attack, and they must also scream it whenever they use it. "One Thousand Daises on a River" is an acceptable name. "Cleave" is not.

They may gain more special attacks by training with elusive masters, who are usually simple hermits or gardeners that live far away from everyone. The character has to complete a few weeks of training there at least, and will typically endure many bruises and pride-smashing insults from their master until they learn. These special attacks can do more incredible things, like blow steam that deals damage to enemies in a cone, or let the Fighter jump 30ft into the air like a trampoline. You still have to name these though.

>"One Thousand Daises on a River" is an acceptable name. "Cleave" is not.
>They may gain more special attacks by training with elusive masters

I'm sold- this should work pretty great with my campaign.

>FATE where everyone died in one hit

trying this hard

...

I like the way LotFP handled it, by making fighters the ONLY class that gets an improving attack bonus, plus unique/better combat maneuver options (parry, etc.)

Newfag here. Picked up Dungeon Crawl Classics' quickstart rules at free rpg day. I've heard a lot about DCC and I know it's one of the more popular games to come out of the OSR movement, but this is my first time reading its.

"The Funnel" seems like a really neat idea conceptually, and I know that it's what DCC is famous for, but I'm a little bit confused as to how it interacts with more long-term campaign play. I understand that you put a bunch of 0-level nobodies through the meat grinder with 2-4 characters to a player, and the survivors become the pool of potential PCs once everyone gets a level at the end of the adventure. But how do players create new characters if their PC dies after "leveled" adventuring begins? Does he take 4 unleveled commoners into the next dungeon the rest of the characters with class levels go down into?

Upthread some people mentioned DCC's fighter die thing too, which was pretty good and served a similar purpose.

The book doesn't really specify, so it's really up to your best judgment. Any of the classic methods work. Taking over for a henchman, generating a new character of arbitrary level (the game provides guidelines for wealth of new level 1 characters for example), generating a new set of funnel guys, it's all good pick your favorite.

Your party keeps a constant retinue of unlabeled commoners who help carry the treasure, check for (and trip), backstab the PCs if given a reason, and die covering retreats.