/osrg/ Old School Renaissance General Yog-Sothoth Edition

It works fine if you accept that the players would never be able to actually win against the cosmic horrors. At best they'd be able to defeat the servants of the Great Ones and set them back a few hundred years, but ultimately the entire thing is futile.

It's actually pretty good for OSR because even the lesser-tier Old Ones could cause a party wipe if a cult manages to partially summon one. High-danger, impossible odds, nasty big baddies with nasty servants.

ACKS.

Has anyone used the pointcrawl or pathcrawl system in their games? How is it?
hillcantons.blogspot.com/2012/01/crawling-without-hexes-pointcrawl.html?m=1

detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/04/pathcrawl.html?m=1

>What is it, in particular, that you object to about Vancian magic?

Is "I'm a hipster and want to do something different just cuz" not good enough?

I'm toying around with doing spells per rest using poker chips. In effect, shit would be arranged so you'd get fresh chips after each battle / chapter / rest, which you'd spend to cast spells. In addition, you'd have either one or two daily chips that you could throw in anytime to boost the level of the spell you could cast.

A White chip would let you cast a 1st level spell. A Red chip would let you cast a 2nd level spell. A Blue chip would let you cast a 3rd level spell. You could combine any two chips to boost the level (a White and a Red is 1+2 = 3rd level spell), but you couldn't combine more than two chips at a time. The exception to this would be Black Chips, which are your daily chips. They work like White Chips (1 level) but can be freely combined without worrying about the 2 chip maximum. So you could combine 2 White Chips (the maximum number of chips you can combine) and 2 Black Chips (which ignore the maximum) to yield 1+1+1+1 = 4th level.

All spell levels would need to be shifted up 1 level in order for this to work, with 1st level spells becoming 2nd level spells, and cantrips becoming 1st level spells.

Everything is showed in the image, with the red values shifted back down a level to enable an easy comparison with RAW. Under "possible spell level combinations" something like 2,1,1 would mean that (ignoring your daily Black Chips), you could cast a 2nd level spell and two 1st level spells in any given chapter/encounter/between-rests period.

>It works fine if you accept that the players would never be able to actually win against the cosmic horrors.
I disagree with this, I think Carcosa is one of the best ever treatments of Lovecraftian horror and definitely the best OSR one, and that's clearly structured such that the PCs can potentially defeat the cosmic horrors (McKinney has remarked that the potential ultimate goal for a Mount Voormithadreth megadungeon could be to drop a Space Alien nuke on Shub-Niggurath putting an end to it and thus making the exinction of all Spawn just a matter of time).

Promised a fellow user in the previous thread to post a link to my custom OD&D Single Volume Edition cover:

drive.google.com/open?id=0Bz8VPki6Gto3SGN5elQtN0ZHcms

Did you put it on Lulu yet? And will you share a link when you do?

Could someone kindly explain how ODND combat works please, I'm trying to understand what the fuck the combat reference table is.

OD&D has several combat systems. The main ones being the man to man and fantasy tables from Chainmail and the Alternative Combat System that went on to just become regular combat

May I ask someone to explain to me the regular combat (Ie alternative that became regular?)

It's just D&D combat.

There's a D20 roll that you make and depending on your hit dice/level you look at a cetain part of the table under your targets AC. If it is higher than that number, you hit.

>Could someone kindly explain how ODND combat works please
Alright. There are two systems: the faggy "Alternative Combat System", which became the regular D&D combat rules. You know how this works, but on the other hand it sucks and you should avoid it.

The other system requires the medieval minis wargame Chainmail. The combat reference tables are in the back of that book. Chainmail itself contains three resolution methods:

>Mass Combat
Troops have a type and melee combat is resolved by cross-referencing troop types on the Combat Table (much less obnoxious than it sounds), then chucking some dice. The roll is with Xd6 depending on numbers (for example, some Heavy Foot attacking some Light Foot roll one die per man to attack). Mass Combat is super simple, but not very detailed.

The troop types (e.g. "fight as Light Foot") specified for humanoid enemies in Volume II refer to this type of combat. The Fighting Capability listed on the class level charts are also relevant here; for instance, a level 5 Fighting-Man counts as five men (of the type appropriate to his equipment; mostly this will be based on armor, but e.g. wearing plate and wielding only a dagger will mean you attack as Light Foot but defend as Armored Foot) in Mass Combat.

(to be continued)

>Man-to-Man
Now we're cooking with gas! Man-to-Man combat is pretty granular and takes armor and weaponry into account. You should use this in most cases when humanoid enemies are fought; only when there are droves of enemies (or in a special case I'll mention later) should Mass Combat be preferred. This type of combat references the Man-to-Man Melee Table, which is on the page after the Combat Table at the back of Chainmail. Attacks are rolled with 2d6 against a target number determined by cross-referencing the attacker's weapon with the defender's armor type. (Ideally, the player will write down the attack line for his weapon.)

Again, higher-level characters get a number of attacks in Man-to-Man combat equal to their Fighting Capability ("# Men") each round.

(to be concluded)

>Fantasy Combat
Heroes and monsters use this type of combat; armor and weaponry is irrelevant except when/if magical. As before, the attacker and defender types are cross-referenced on the Fantasy Combat Table, which gives a target number to hit with 2d6. Crucially, you get only *one attack* per round regardless of level if fighting in this type of combat!

Only higher-level characters can participate in this type of combat, however; this is the purpose of the other part of Fighting Capability. When Fighting Capability is listed as Hero, Superhero or Wizard, that entry on the table is used to determine the character's attack and defense, as modified by any bonus or malus given in the table. (For example, a Swashbuckler fights as a "Hero+1", thus he gets +1 to his rolls to hit, and enemies must roll against a target number 1 higher than listed in the table.)

You'll notice that the first access anyone gets to Fantasy Combat is the Swordsman or level 3 Fighting-Man, who fights as a "Hero-1". This leaves a gap, of course: how do lower-level PCs battle large or inhuman monsters, if they encounter them? The answer is that they have to fight them in Mass Combat, which is appallingly dangerous. Monsters have their stats for this listed in Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement, which is part of the book; OD&D Volume II often references this.

To give one example, an Ogre is a relatively weak monster in Fantasy Combat, needing an 8 or better to hit a Hero and requiring a 9 or better to be hit by the Hero in turn; however, in Mass Combat they fight as six Heavy Foot, allowing them to roll up to six dice each round, hitting on sixes and depending on the opponent, perhaps fives as well. On a good roll, then, an ogre could wipe a first-level party in one round; a crucial role for Hero-types is actually to tie such foes up in Fantasy Combat to deprive them of their crazy potential for mass violence.

What if a Hero fights the ogre along with a bunch of low level guys? Or do they have to fight separately?

>PDF: the issue of TSR with the combat example in it; forgot to add to last post

As I understand it the Hero and the ogre are locked in Fantasy Combat until one side breaks or is slain. The normal men might also be allowed to assault the ogre in Mass Combat at the same time depending on the referee's judgment; arguably, however, ruling that that's permitted would also imply that the ogre can choose to attack the low-level guys instead of the Hero, in which case they're liable to be devastated and probably ought to stand back.

>there was that guy with the dark souls one a while back that people liked a lot
Anyone got a copy of this magic system? This seems fascinating, just as a curiosity.

Do you fellows know of any good resources for creating ocean and island hexcrawls?

nvm, found it

Alright here it is, a write up of all those classes on that 100 class pyramid thing. Obviously none of these will be balanced at all, but I hope you find it interesting.

And here's the pyramid.

Mana and mana costs?

And lemme guess - level 9 spells cost 9 mana?

Grab a page out of FFTA2's book and use a fluctating mana system; it's by far the most dynamic approach and keeps things relatively balanced.

If that is what you want, sure

Vancian magic is just a method of cost. Mana is just a different method that is easier to mathematically manipulate.

>Has anyone used the pointcrawl or pathcrawl system in their games? How is it?

I haven't used it on purpose, but if you think about it any wilderness crawl is technically a point crawl. Everything that's just vague "you see some trees" is the connecting lines and anything with an actual description (a landmark or adventure site) is a point. So in that sense I've used pointcrawling and it works great. I'm not sure how it does when it comes to abstracting smaller locations like dungeons, though.

No resources but I can point to a problem you'll need to address: the ocean is all vague non-space. On land you can throw in a landmark every couple hours or days to keep people oriented, but on water it's just "you see water in all directions" for days at a time.

Reading up on how constellations work may be useful for using them for landmark purposes or else expect to abstract pretty much all of the actual sailing to "we head east" -> roll dice to check accuracy -> "you sail for five days and wind up at an island".

Holy fuck, dude! That's a hell of a job.

I have some questions about chump shit though if you don't mind: why did you put Warrior as 100 instead of 00 as in the pyramid? It's a bit jarring to find an obvious warrior class right at the end instead of at the beginning where it "belongs" in some sense. Also, when you say "once per day equal to your level", that's supposed to mean "a number of times per day equal to your level" or "once per day per level", right?

The warrior being 100 is supposed to be so if you roll a 00 on the die you know it's technically 100, despite being at the 0 position on the pyramid as the quintessential 'warrior' type.

I don't really understand your second part. It's once every day equal to your level as the limit of times you can use your powers. 3rd level characters can use those powers 3 times a day, and so on.

>I don't really understand your second part.
The issue is that "once every day equal to level" is really weird grammar, and makes it unclear if you mean "[level] times/day". From your reply I take it that that *is* what you mean though, so that's fine.

That's a good point, thanks. I'll try to learn a bit about constellations and navigation.

Has anyone used this table before? How did it go?

Are the dolmenwood zines somewhere in the trove? Couldn't find them anywhere. See also, green devil face 6/7?

Does anyone think the LotFP aging rules are ridiculously harsh for humans and halflings? "Save vs. Paralyzation every year or permanently lose a point in an ability score, penalties at 10 and 20/30 years later" sounds like it would just turn people into useless lumps of walking cancer rather than age them.

It ties in with the LotFP theme that adventurers are fools who die in many many ways.

>How do you feel about "lovecraftian" monsters and themes in an OSR context?
By lovecraftian do you mean "horrible barely-described thing that mows through people and makes the PCs question their place in the cosmos" or "DUDE TENTACLES ROLL FOR SAN LOSS LMAO"

>LotFP is edgy shit
mind = blown

>By lovecraftian do you mean "horrible barely-described thing that mows through people and makes the PCs question their place in the cosmos" or "DUDE TENTACLES ROLL FOR SAN LOSS LMAO"
Either

>DUDE "PSYCHOLOGY" LMAO
See I can do that too

>Carcosa
What system is the module for and where do I find it?

Well, actually there are already a lot of old Cthulhu books, and a lot of the scenario within them were basically written by D&D authors who ended up creating some weird stuff, between Dungeon crawler, more or less good investigation (or just plain bad) and many different things from today.

So it really depends on what you really want to means by talking about lovecraftian monster and theme in an OSR context, is it truly with the D&D beginning in mind or also with the beginning of CoC ?

Nevertheless, I think it could really work with the D&D context, if you set the global tone of the setting around it : the players will never truly face the cosmic horrors, but their shadow will surround everything. In a OSR way (well, as I understand it), players must be able to defeat everything, even if it could mean fleeing only to come back later, so they might just fight cultists and lesser otherworldy entity, but there must be a feeling that they'll never be able to stop everything, that all their doings might be pointless.

There are two versions. The first is an independent OD&D supplement and the second is a LotFP conversion with some changes and higher production values. You can find them in the trove.

Sounds interesting. First thing to do is playtest it. Preferably with a powergaming ubermunchkin at hand to really stress it and find where it can break.

>fuck I really want 5E but I'm broke since I don't have a job
>I know! I'll just buy a bootleg version of an older game and see how it goes...
>well that was underwhelming, maybe I'll try another one
>well that was underwhelming, maybe I'll try another one
>well that was underwhelming, maybe I'll try another one
>well that was underwhelming, maybe I'll try another one
>well that was underwhelming, maybe I'll try another one
>cycle continues until he's spend more money than he would have on 5E
>fuck! I've spent so much money on all these shitty games, I should have just bought 5E
>I know... I'll pretend online that they're the best thing ever and hopefully convince myself that I didn't waste all my parents' money on dumb bootleg copies of a clunky piece of shit game from 40 years ago
and that's the story of literally everyone who frequents these threads

Google "wavecrawl" there's a blog out there that did up some reasources on it.

It takes about 2 seconds to pirate 5e.

Yes, this is absolutely correct. Now go away.

>Often this book will instruct the Referee to roll dice, but will not specify what sort of dice to roll. The two most obvious examples are hit dice (whether for characters or for monsters) and dice to determine damage in combat. In such cases, the Referee should roll on the following table to determine which dice to use:
That's a fucking joke, isn't it? That sounds incredibly unplayable.

Not the guy you replied to, but still, he has a point (and you too) that there is basically two big sides in "lovecraftian horror", the one that is focused on a more psychological approach, which most of the time will deal with heavy investigations and interactions with npc's, and not a lot of fighting : it's the classic lovecraftian setting, and the one which is more "pulpy oriented", where you're basically Indiana Jones mowing throught armies of cultist and making the pyramid of Gizeh collapse on an avatar of Nyarlatothep (it could be called the "pulp lovecraftian"). And those two styles are completely fine (and you can even mix them a bit).

The big problem is that a lot of DM who want to play lovecraftian oriented games want to do the former but end up doing the latter, or qualify their pulp approach of being "lovecraftian", which is historically more related to the "classic" way.

Either way, a bad DM may manage to do some fun stuff with the pulp side, even if it's a TENTACLES LMAO, while a bad DM trying hard on the classic will just ends up with a cringy campaign (and a DUDE "PSYCHOLOGY" LMAO)

>tumblr
HAHAHAHAHAHA

It's not a joke, he likes to roll fistfuls of dice. That said, it's mathematically pointless to randomize the damage dice as it just comes out to the same average anyway, so just roll 1d8 for all damage dice and randomize hit die size at the beginning of each encounter; that way you get the swinginess with almost none of the clunk.

I agree with you. I just replied like that to show how basic his opinion is.

Not a joke.

Holy shit this sounds awful.

That's Azathoth, not Yog-Sothoth

Still ain't no turbobear

>implying I have ever paid for a single rpg
>implying 5e isn't garbage

>Players want to spend their ill-gotten gains on building a road 5 miles through a swamp to the megadungeon.
>The swamp is pretty deadly with the wandering monster table including things like wyverns and manticores at the high end.
>They have enough money to hire the workers, engineers and mercenaries to protect them. (damn, non-retainer mercenaries are cheap)

How do I adjudicate this in a fair way without needing to roll for several weeks worth of wandering monsters and combats?
My players seem to think this will be a cakewalk if they just pump enough troops into it, but I feel like it has the potential to be a logistical nightmare and money pit.

I know but the actual yog-sothoth picture I was gonna use was too small and from the PF wiki so I switched it up with whatever else at the last second

Do you guys usually play in a premade setting or your own?

Third party chiming in here.

I think the divide is even simpler than that. Stuff like new wave OSR from Raggi's crew or DOOM (except the third game) is for people who like bloody body horror because it's metal as fuck.

Lovecraft and his ilk are for people who DON'T like bloody body horror because it's metal as fuck.

No matter which approach you take, if you present tentacled demons to the former group they are gonna go Old Man Henderson while the opposite is also true.

>They have enough money to hire the workers, engineers and mercenaries to protect them. (damn, non-retainer mercenaries are cheap)

Non-retainer mercenaries are for fighting wars, not monsters. They didn't sign up for this tentacle shit.

>Go to /5eg/
>Muh Eldritch Blast
>Muh warlock turret
>Muh Rolling for stats
>Muh caster supremacy
>Muh feats
At least here Skerples makes OC

Thanks for the (You)s again as usual. I'll be back next thread as well.

Don't forget the bitching about Mearls and circlejerking about how homebrew is universally terrible if someone tries to post it

Sir, I'd like to say that I am truly appalled by you trying to shit up even /osrg/ with trolling. It's one of the last places on Veeky Forums, in my mind, where we don't get any of this edition war bullshit.

You are proving me wrong, making me sad, and making the place much worse for very little benefit for yourself. I hope you see sense and stop.

Thanks for the (You). And the tears, actually, faggot.

>How do I adjudicate this in a fair way without needing to roll for several weeks worth of wandering monsters and combats?
That depends how much you want to piss the players off, really. Sinking the base for a long-term stable road into a swamp is, realistically, incredibly time consuming, like "might as well just drain this entire fucking thing and make new farmland out of it" time consuming. So, if you want to run it true to life it's an almost literal money pit. But playing it that way will almost certainly frustrate the life out of the players.

That said, I certainly think it would be reasonable for most solitary monsters to avoid the large numbers of men and loud noises that a road building effort entails, so maybe just roll once a week on a "shit that happens" table? I'd design the table to have about 20-25% nothing, then fill the rest with anything from "dissatisfied local lizardmen who know what you're up to stage an ambush" to "the infill in a previously constructed segment collapses and halts construction for 1d4 weeks as the segment is reconstructed and buttressed, at normal weekly construction expense". Thievery, unexpected obstacles at the front of the construction effort, surveyors getting snatched by a pteranodon or huge vulture in broad daylight and eaten, you could throw all sorts of shit in there.

This isn't really true, the mercenaries just won't follow you into dungeons. It's clear from context that you're supposed to be able to use mercenaries as help in clearing hexes as a baron, for instance, and likewise that in the course of ordinary wars they'll face monsters on the field of fantasy battle.

Reminder: ignore obvious trolls, do not reply to troll posts. Hide and report.

French Guiana simulator

You could just create one big "events" table, add a worker/fighter rebellion/leaving, things becoming harder as they progress, failing ("all this portion of the road collapsed, this part of the swamp might not be able to allow construction...")... Also they might encounter a sacred site (priests then heard of it and come to ask to stop the contruction), a local tribe that start to steal stuff or destroy the road overnight, things like that...

>admitting to a report
R*******.

Snitches get stitches.

>threatening to stab people, through the internet

Ring of Feigned Retardation
Cursed Item
This Ring appears to be a helpful device such as a ring of protection +1 but is in reality curse. Every hour the GM rolls a secret save vs magic for the wearer. On a failure, the wearer will blurt out the most inappropriate and infuriating things at the worst times, only to respond with "I was merely pretending" if confronted. Every time an outburst occurs, the wearer's Charisma is reduced by 1 point; this reduction remains as long as the ring is worn. Removing the ring requires a remove curse spell followed by amputation of the finger upon which the ring rests. Merely amputating or destroying the ring finger does nothing.

Have any of you played OSR in a Middle Earth setting?
Shut the fuck up unless you're going to contribute to the thread.

If you're talking about Scrollcasting, hi! That was me. I made some mild edits to the system - largely, I gate off every spell of 5th level or higher to once-a-day in order to prevent the wild power disparity that comes from being able to spam multiple 5th-on-up spells..

Shouldn't it reduce intelligence? After all, pretending to be retarded to get people riled up is a sign that you may be actually retarded.

Who said anything about the internet?

I've already looked up your ip address. I know where you live. If you report me I will find you.

>Shut the fuck up unless you're going to contribute to the thread.
Original content is always a contribution.

What was so original about it, mate?

I don't recall a cursed ring that forces its wearer to say stupid shit. Do you?

Unless you can prove me it's taken directly from some other source, quit getting your panties in a twist and maybe post some original content of your own.

Doesn't sound very original. Sounds like just another throwaway item a shitty D&D would make for his retarded players. Thanks for the (You)s though, mate.

Ok, I'm awaiting your arrival.

>Removing the ring requires a remove curse spell followed by amputation of the finger upon which the ring rests. Merely amputating or destroying the ring finger does nothing.
I'd say this is going a bit too far. A Remove Curse should always remove a curse, without needing to chop bits off yourself. Rather, casting Remove Curse OR amputating should be effective, especially since the accursed's friends are likely to very quickly warm to the idea of maiming him anyway.

Yeah, that's a bit more global view, and a true one. But I still think the distinction I've made hold : I have a friend in my actual group (and a really good roleplayer) who played some Cthulhu with another DM, and he ended up following the pulpy way, because the DM was turning all the game toward this point (even if he apparently didn't wanted to) : too many encounters, one big railroady trail of clues, interaction with npc pretty limited...

I just feel that, even if (as you said) the players are playing a huge part in turning the game (and they can do it alone, even without the dm), the DM is also really important. Playing "classic" CoC is not that easy, and you can fall quickly into several traps.

Human, Sperg
No. Appearing: 1 (thankfully)
Climate/Terrain: Rural and Urban/internet
Frequency: Very Rare/Common
HD 2
No. of Attacks: 0 (see below)
Damage: 0 (see below)
AC: 8
Special: Sperg out
Treasure: Probably some weeb shit or something
XP: 1

The sperg resembles an ordinary but boring (effective Charisma 6) human until someone triggers its rage. Everytime someone does something, make a reaction check for each sperg. If hostile, the sperg spergs out, attacking as a werewolf.

...

Well part of the trick with Lovecraft is understanding that everything is equally irrelevant. The cosmic horrors are just as weak as the mortals, just weak in a different sense - they're big and scary to *us* but the laws of physics and the universe still win, because nothing has plot armor or a purpose, and everything is doomed to be ground under the heel of the cosmos.

That said, Dream-Quest is some good fantasy. I've been reading the cycle and it's tight. I wish more Lovecraft fans would focus on the Dream-Quest and less on the Cthulhu stuff.

>spergs are a form of lycanthrope
Wouldn't this mean that anyone wounded by a sperg becomes a sperg themselves? Actually I guess that's pretty accurate...

>Have any of you played OSR in a Middle Earth setting?
Middle-Earth isn't all that suited for OSR games, starting by the setting's magic being completely misrepresented by a vancian system, it generally being a pretty "gritty" and not very fanciful place once you zoom out from the greatest heroes in history to the point that it would completely break the setting to have a bunch of sword & sorcery transplants running around, and the only "dungeons" around being the nigh-impenetrable dwellings of the dark lords. Also, no real cleric equivalents.

Well, they might just leave after a fight against a "nope" creature, like "well, it was ok 'til this dark and warm fog, which turned all the people wandering into it completely mad. I'm paid to kill stuff, but this thing last night... We can fight something we can't hurt, sorry but my men and I are leaving"