/osr/ - Old School Renaissance

I hear good shit about Castle Amber, but haven't run it.

>I recommend "In Search of the Unknown"? I recently ran through it, and even though the map is insanely complex
Too complex for me

choose one:
Where is the discord link?
or
How many coins and scrolls links will we see this time?

I choose the second one

Ah okay. Yeah that's basically what I'm doing except I'm probably a little stingier with information than that. For example an elf might know what the etiquette for speaking at an elven noble court is, but a human or dwarf wouldn't unless they were an ambassador.

Whats your favorite magic system?

>Too complex for me
>Explicitly designed as a beginner dungeon

Spell systems that are either abilities or simple rolls. Or maybe something classless with spells just being items or general effects anyone can learn.

DCC.

I have a question about level 0 funnels. Do you just use any old dungeon with them? Or should you use something smaller? Most dungeons seem rather big to run through with 20 odd level 0s. Do you level the survivors past a certain landmark? Please enlighten me.

It was badly designed

Vancian.

Anyone could share Castle Oldskull? huge adventure generating tables, deal of the day on dreyvethroo, but me poorfag...

Reposting my stuff.
RUNES - short little splat about runes.

Keep for Sale from Dungeon (or was it Dragon?)

I need to see more about the miracles or rituals but unlike most one-page D&D attempts I'm not disgusted by it.

VILE VENGEANCE OF THE BEES - low-level adventure.

DUNGEON PLANET Preview Edition - part of a megadungeon.

Generally speaking, any 1st-level adventure can be run for 0-levels but I expect 75% casualty rate. In practice, it's better to design an adventure for 0-level PCs. Leveling occurs after they escape from the dungeon with sufficient treasure or they kill the "boss" of the module.

Are there any treasure generators that are suitable for a silver (or copper) standard?

For Maze of the Blue Medusa, what assumptions does it make about AC? As in what is the standard AC in the module, and is it roll under or over?

Maze of the Blue Medusa is for LotFP AFAIK. It's ascending and the unarmored AC is 12

I think that he module was published independently of LotFP, but looking at the module itself that seems to be right. I was just confused because the preface only talks about HD rather than AC. Thanks user!

Why can't you just divide treasure found by 10 (or 100, or 1000) based on your standard?

Well if unarmored cannibal critics have AC10 and a giant animated stone hand has AC18, what do you think?

use some common sense and DIY attitude, both(?) of you, yikes

Is that compatible with realistic prices for goods?

What I mean is, for example (I haven't seen generators with this, so it's a little contrived) if you generate an ingot of gold, that's 50 gp in my system maybe. Dividing that by 10 would give you an ingot of gold that's worth a 5 gp, which isn't really realistic since you can get 50 gp worth of gold out of it. Now, for gold it's simple enough to just say instead of an ingot of gold you get an ingot of silver. But for things like gems?

>realistic
Realism is a meme. Consistency is all that matters.

Pretty sure they write something about that in the beginning of the book.

It's system agnostic (in so much that its for any old D&D retroclone really) but it appears to use ascending AC with unarmored at 10. So if you are playing using LotFP I would add two to each AC, most other games just leave as is. The Monster's to-hit bonus is also equal to their HD and a few other basic's about their stats are on page xi

I know it isn't really OSR but how do people feel about classless games with stats?

Seems pretty simple and fun. If you roll high strength, you'll just play a fighting style character. High wisdom? Healer. And so on.

I'd rather have a statless game with classes, honestly.

Why is that?

Not arguing, honestly just want to know why.

>Can someone explain the Scrap Princess meme to me?
You know the kind of people who can convey a Thing with just a few lines? Scrap is one of those people. They have art. Possibly capital-a-Art. It skips the whole "this is a drawing of a bird" and just says "BIRD" to your brain.

But your mileage may vary. I totally see why it's divisive.

So the end result is that unless it's a topic like GLOG that has dedicated retards who sperg out every time it's mentioned, you only hear from the people who like it. That's the best way; but it does mean you can't use it as a basis for estimating popularity.
Exactly. It's just... stuff.

I think we've gone over this before but
>HP is awful. I don't think HP only based on CON is a good idea.
It's amusingly swingy, but honestly, the swingyness of the Death and Dismemberment table cancels it out. Most of the deaths in my games would have happened if the PC had 2HP or 50HP.
>Convictions
Agreed. I chucked 'em.
>Good night's rest restores all HP, lunch restores HP
It's very useful to help PCs track rations and time. It avoids the "10 minutes of adventuring, 2 days of healing" thing. And it incentivizes creature comforts and eating weird meat.
>1 save
You could think of all the Stats as Saves (ala the Black Hack) with Save as the value for stuff you could only escape by fate or luck
>roll a natural 1 on your death and dismemberment and gain HP? No thanks.
Yeah, I got rid of that too.
>obsession with scars?
IDK man, Arnold loves scars and poop.
>SPELLS. It's basically the "annoying postmodernist blogger" thing.
That's the fluff, not the GLOG, but we've been down this road before.
>"diseases are caused by petty spirits"
Worked pretty well in real life!
>monster sheet uses weird symbols instead of something sensible
Agreed SO MUCH. Man, what was he thinking?

>capital-a-Art
Audibly fucking keked.

>What skill system do you prefer and why?
Skills that are mostly professions or hobbies or background knowledge.

If you have it, you a) Know Stuff (the GM will just tell you if you ask, or the GM will ask if anyone has the skill and tell them)
b) Can Do Stuff (like make basic items or write letters or whatever).

If there's doubt, or if failure might be interesting, the GM can call for a roll against Intelligence (or another Stat if another stat could also apply, player's choice)

(I haven't ever found a crafting system that feels right, so fuck it, PCs aren't ever going to be fantastic at crafting. So it goes.)

No social skills, no lying skills, no sneaking, hiding, or trap-disarming skills. Lock-picking and pick-pocketing sure, but the rest is all stuff like Cheese-Making and History and Courtesy.
Probably none. I'm busy reviewing and editing the latest adventure I wrote, so I probably won't post for a few days.

Probably.
Realistic is silly. Just go with consistent and quick and easy to estimate.

>Audibly fucking keked.
Weird shit gets qualified as Art. I am not the one to adjudicate that mess.

(For the purposes of OSR games, Capital-a-Art is worth 100x more than regular art to a discerning buyer. You need the Art or History skill to tell them apart, and if you fail the roll, you might think the deranged scribbling of a drunk orangutan are Art. The worrying part is that you still might be right.)

>You know the kind of people who can convey a Thing with just a few lines? Scrap is one of those people
That's highly circumstantial and depends very much on frame of context. He's good at that, because consciously or unconsciously he can take the most characteristic element as judged by your and his respective frame of context and distill his drawing down to that.

So /osrg/, how do you tie together a dungeon?

I've already got a good enough explanation or the 'why' a dungeon exists, and why they players are going in.

But then I reach a snag. When you have a dungeon, several long stone featureless corridors and rooms with different monsters and traps; what should you do to tie them together? Some kind of elemental theme? Change some of the designs a bit? I'm looking for suggestions.

>So /osrg/, how do you tie together a dungeon?
use a rope

The theme should spring from the why. If it's a tomb holding a demon, put it demons and demon-worshipers, if it's a decommissioned golem storage put it golems and creatures that could live off them, etc.

>It's very useful to help PCs track rations and time. It avoids the "10 minutes of adventuring, 2 days of healing" thing. And it incentivizes creature comforts and eating weird meat.
Well, that explains why your players ate bugbear. Although in my experience at least in the (non-OSR) game I play in, it's usually not too hard to get people to eat weird dungeon monster as long as it's not too far off. I think they've eaten roast giant spider and ankheg at the very least.

That said, I don't really like the idea of incentivising that with free hit points. Makes it too easy in my opinion. I'd rather use --- say --- you get your hit points back when you sleep, but you get reduced hit points for certain things like not eating.

>dedicated retards who sperg out every time it's mentioned
I mostly just think the garbage fire meme is funny
though it is an apt description

As someone with the Art skill: Nah, Scrap's art is pretty much just scribbling.
I don't hate it, it has its own aesthetic. But there isn't a great deal of technique going on there.

See that I get, but right now I'm having trouble decided.

So far my dungeon only has two kinds of enemies; weird porthole zombies (glass window shows their heart, this is to test my new called show homebrew rules. Basically smash window with blunt weapon and stab with sharp for instant kill) and ghostly wraiths. I could switch one or more of these out.

Sounds like the dungeon theme is "weird undead experiments", in which case I'd steal stuff from Resident Evil.

>Well, that explains why your players ate bugbear.
NOT REALLY
They each had 5+ rations when 2 of them ate the owlbear. They... just wanted to see what would happen.
>. Makes it too easy in my opinion.
Despite these rules, I've had 10 PCs die so far, give or take. It doesn't really help.

I fill up encumbrance slots for not eating instead. Fatigue is mean. It means you can't loot as much... or carry all your gear... or, eventually, your weapons.
Experts are simultaneously the worst and the best at judging Art.
Plus, Scrap's put on actual gallery shows and sculpture stuff as I recall. The RPG thing is a side business.
Ok, so who put these guys here and why?
What do they do in the off-season?
What was the dungeon for, originally? Who built it? What were there needs?

You don't need to build a whole ecology, but you should at least have stuff be plausibly living together.

>Scrap's put on actual gallery shows and sculpture stuff as I recall.
People have literally shat onto canvas and put it in gallery shows. That doesn't make canvas-shitters "real artists" or better than classically trained artists. That fact that you always post classical art instead of post-modern shitscribbles speaks to the fact that you only admire Scrap because of his (her?) larger connection to certain OSR grandees you personally admire.

Owlbear makes a lot more sense, actually. I'd be a bit skeeved out by eating bugbear.

>I fill up encumbrance slots for not eating instead.
¿Por qué no los dos?

I need some examples of OSR games with custom classes akin to the Elder Scrolls series. Anyone willing to help me out?

>Experts are simultaneously the worst and the best at judging Art.
Which leaves who exactly?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater of surreal or abstract art. And I can't say Scrap's stuff isn't distinctive, especially alongside Patrick Stuart's writing.
It's just... only unusual by virtue of having the audacity to just scribble shit rather than by having any particular technical ability.

B/X

>¿Por qué no los dos?
Double jeopardy, I guess? The PCs are already in plenty of jeopardy.
>Which leaves who exactly?
No one. Maaaaaybe history.

>That fact that you always post classical art instead of post-modern shitscribbles
Most of the post-modern scribbles I've got saved aren't really applicable to OSR tropes.

The futile grind of existence, the meaninglessness of connection, the impermanence of any enduring legacy... aren't really tropes for OSR games.

But if you insist, I can switch...

>The futile grind of existence, the meaninglessness of connection, the impermanence of any enduring legacy
>implying any of those things are exclusive to post-modern art
>implying classical art hasn't expressed those very themes better already
lol

Nah man, I'm just saying I've got classical art and modern generic art folders full of all kinds of stuff, but most of my postmodern stuff /I have saved/ isn't OSR applicable.

Got to read the whole post, user.

Have you SEEN the map of that dungeon though?

I want to run a rogue like solo game for myself where pic levels are 1 to 5 and character progression is quick,say 10 encounters(fight,trick,trap) to go up a level.As far as magical treasure is concerned is a 1 in 6 chance per encounter of finding magical treasure too high or low?Note I am playing solo a bit like the Dungeonrobber Flash game.

...

...

You should sort out how you're doing xp first, that's going to determine how the ratio of encounters:advancement there is.

Treasure for xp? Monster fighting? Both? From that you can figure out what class/level progression you're using and build a table that gives you about that much xp requirements.

>I want to run a rogue like solo game
Well first you shou-

>for myself
-ld just play the Endless Quest gamebooks .

I obtained physical copies of the PH, DMG, MM, and Fiend Folio for AD&D 1E. Is this all I need to run a 1E game?

You need Unearthed Arcana too

>using Unearthed Arcana
lol?

I did find a copy of Unearthed Arcana, but it was written all over, so I passed on it. I'm trying to avoid buying them from eBay since they're overpriced compared to the prices at the used bookstores I go to. Are there any particular parts that are needed that I can just print out for now until I find a good copy?

PH, DMG and MM are all you need.

>You need Unearthed Arcana too.
No, you really don't. There's nothing wrong with getting it and plundering it for ideas, but it's a bit of a mess, and it's completely unnecessary to run a 1e campaign.

>he doesn't specifically buy the written-in copies to meditate on the nature of human mortality and how entertainment allows us to form connections with other across time

baka desu family

You might want to consider getting the Monster Manual 2 as well. You don't need it, but it gives you a wider range of monsters to use, and isn't as... peculiar as the Fiend Folio.

Okay, thanks for this bit of info.

I like my books cleeeean.

I have my eye out for it. I found the FF for $2, which is why I have it but don't have the MM2.

Basically, the Fiend Folio is different people's pet monsters, so they tend to be a bit weird, and have more powers and shit. There's nothing wrong with that, but they're mostly special things as opposed to base-level monsters, which means that, in my experience, the Fiend Folio gets comparatively little use.

Speaking of Fiend Folio, it's kind of weird that all the OSR hipsters don't know about the other White Dwarf monsters. They put out some interesting stuff.

I think that the FF has better art than the MM, but that seems to be all it really has going on for it.

>tfw nobody cared about my goblin classes

I would like to make more, but I'm not sure what creature/race to do next. Maybe Gnolls?

Nobody cated about my OC either.
It's a bit gimmicky and I think it'd work better as a full-fledged goblin game rather than a splat.

I care!
I am just way too busy to read all the OC and offer comments right now. :( But I do skim it.

>It's a bit gimmicky and I think it'd work better as a full-fledged goblin game rather than a splat.

That was sort of the intention. You have a Fighter, Rogue, and Offensive mage. The filth goblin isn't much of a 'cleric' but it can kind of turn 'clean' beings by how disgusting it is and could sort of help the party avoid damage by crawling into the sewer/dumpster first. Kind of fitting for a goblin 'support' class.

That's just because 1. It's player oriented rather than referee oriented and 2. It's rather niche. If you made a dungeon, hexcrawl, random tables, or mechanics and procedures you'd have a wider audience rather than "oh hey goblin classes". I think the only noteworthy idea here is deciding classes based on lowest stat. I think everything else could be easily imagined and could be come up with by someone who wanted to make a goblin class. If you are gonna do Gnolls make the classes something people couldn't come up with in less than 10 minutes on their own.

The original map does have a "fill in every grid square on the grid" feel. A Dragonsfoot user named Mike re-did the map so that it retained the described rooms but removed much of the map's complexity. It's worth checking out as it improves B1's utility a lot.

Does anyone else feel like all the skill systems in osr games are lacking? Thief skills feel really limiting to other classes, and I'm not a fan of how inflexible 1d6 chances are. Is there anyway to fix this? Even new games like lotfp dont seem to be fun to use.
Obviously you shouldnt be rolling skill checks very rarely but all the systems ive read seem like poor afterthoughts stapled on

SeeSkills are just Stuff you Know or Stuff You Can Do. No social skills, no trapfinding skills. Most of the time you autopass unless failure is interesting.

Speaking of the GLOG, I've been fancying it for a while now and I've been wondering if my own little hacks/houserules are any decent.

Specifically I really liked this post on using Luck Points and a much simpler Skill system, though I'm wondering if anyone ran with it/a more experienced GM with a keen eye notices any issues with it. One thing I may change if it gets too ridiculous at later levels (assuming my game gets there) is make it so you only regain LP when you sleep.

goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2017/02/mechanics-discussion-luck-points-and.html

Other house rules I've considered is getting rid of Defense (seems like a pointless addition IMO) and allowing mass multiclassing. Basically they can choose A B C or D versions of the Templates at leisure and mix and match as much as they want. I feel like the whole class bonuses and abilities that are entirely based on how many Templates of a Class you have would be enough to discourage Frankenstein monster classes, while at the same time allowing players a little more customization.

user why are you posting pictures of Pathfinder books in the OSR thread?

Fiend Folio's art is generally more offbeat and interesting. The Monster Manual's art varies from good quality to something a 3rd grader scribbled on the back of his Social Studies workbook.

Your hack is starting to sound like my hack

If I want to play a mostly mundane rogueish type that uses tactics and alchemical/otherwise mundane items accompanied by a crossbow, is OSR the sort of thing I'd want to look at?

How do you feel about this magic system? I'm using it tomorrow for my game group and I'd like to iron out and kinks while there is still time.

If you play with a cool OSR DM, then yes.

If you play with a bad OSR DM (most of the ones ITT) then you'll be told you are a THIEF with PERCENTILE SKILLS and told anything else is special snowflake REEEEEEE

Do you know of a good DM that'd be willing to take on a player?

I've finally escaped the fucking hellpit that is Pathfinder, and I'd like to give OSR stuff a shot again. I did a bit of S&W a while back, and it was nice, but the group I'd been with sort of just didn't like it for some reason.

For reference, if you're familiar with the series The Chronicles of Siala, then Shadow Harold is basically what I'm talking about here, minus the PLOT weirdness about being a Shadow Dancer and the whole Master's thing.

Don't be so butthurt. It's a fact that RPGs draw in autists.

Anybody have any photos/scans of hand-written character sheets? I'm curious to see how other people handle writing out their character sheets if they don't use premade ones.

Castle Ravenloft is unrealistically huge -- which is fine and even good, since it's in a shadow dimension of yada yada ruled by the guy who owns the castle, but it's hard to defend a regular-size castle as a dungeoncrawl on its own, so there aren't many. The ones I know exist are disappointing TSR products, like Castle Caldwell (one floor laid out in a totally boring and implausible way) and Castle Amber (better content but still only one floor and no real appearance of a castle, it's more like a château).

Looks pretty mechanically solid, and while it doesn't have wild and wacky spells, at least I can see using them all.

I don't think Warning is a good spell as it steps on thieves's toes and I'm not sure when you'd 'cast' it.

One thing that might become an issue is wizards who have cast some spells already just sitting there fizzling their action away each round hoping to roll high but that's partially just players being dumb so I would not worry about it unduly

There are two of room 26..

It would probably see some use in a "No, John. You are the dungeon dwellers" campain, if I ever gonna have one.