/osr/ - Old School Renaissance

I have noticed that most adventure reviews on the internet don't actually review material that they actually played.

So I decided that I will start reviewing adventures after I have played them, and give advice on what people should do with the adventures.

However, I want the reviews to be concise. What type of things do ya'll like to see in a review? And what do you find most useful in a review?

It's all bullshit, I just like making shit I enjoy look like old D&D books.

Superior gonzo post-apocalypse setting coming through.

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I like the look of this

You should try some MCC. I just ran it last night and it was the shit.

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I'm working on a homebrew campaign setting that I've been creating for nearly a year now... I originally was going to create my own system to play it as well, but decided instead on using a basic OSR model with custom races/classes.

It's inspired by TES, M:TG, Glorantha, human mythology, the D&D multiverse, and a number of other sources.

I'm avoiding standard RPG/fantasy races. There are enough dwarves, elves and halflings running around. I'm shooting for something more unique and engaging.

Also, the world itself is inspired by an apocalyptic short story I've been working on. So that's another thing, too.

I wish this was a real thing. :(

> What have you been cooking up user?

Just add this to LotFP or B/X or whatever.

A d6 table of different origins of rust monsters. I'm stuck at 3 though.

Sadly we are just going have to deal with the fact Morrowind is the odd man out of the TES games.

Anyone here heard of whitehack? Anyone play it?

A summary/pro-con list near the start, plus whether or not you recommend it. Then go into detail.

Shit like always

What the group was, what you changed in the module/why, what your table notes were. How many sessions it took, what went well, what didn't, what went as planed/explained by the model, what didn't. What you would do differently next time, what could have been made better.

Oh neat. There was a blog that was trying to work in elder scrolls magic types recently. Might be workable.

>What have you been cooking up user?
Steal the Pope is in playtesting right now, so that's going pretty well. Otherwise, I'm slapping together a revised GLOG hack.
Bah. There are very stealable bits.

This dungeon is immensely silly but it's also an excellent use of the Sphinx. Good job.

>What type of things do ya'll like to see in a review?
How much work is needed to go from adventure to play? Specifically, what do I need to print (unless the modules say what I need to do), an if that actually works.

And yeah, format should be something like
-What the module is (1-2 sentences) and who made it
-A short pro/con list (could be an actual list or 1-2 sentences)
-Your overall impression (1 sentence)

And then go wherever you want.

What I want out of a dungeon reviewer:
+Length of adventure
+How lethal
+Rating of the puzzles: Puzzle presence, difficulty, and points for cleverness
+Rating of story
+Rating of lore. (How well the dungeon presents any latent backstory that an NPC cannot explain to you, points awarded for subtlety)
+Rating of monsters and NPC backstories in the area
+Layout of the dungeon and how difficult it is to map
+Layout of the information of the dungeon and presentation overall.
+Insistence on playing the dungeon as-presented. No on the fly modifications or spot checks, run the adventure EXACTLY as is. There's no point in a recommendation if someone tells me they changed an aspect or two.
+Multiple play sessions with completely different parties, and possibly different DMs. Since every group is different, it would be nice to get averages, but this is the most "wishful thinking" want of them all

What I don't want:
-Ratings of the physical medium. I don't care how good quality the book is, just the info
-Ratings of the art work. Unless it's exceptionally superb or so bad it gets in the way of readability, it doesn't matter.
-Waxing philosophic about interpretations of the story or it's meanings
-Comments about something "problematic" or bad/laughable without proper explanations why
-Recountings of sessions with no proper reason. If you need to talk about how much of a mistake a design element is or how good it is, that's fine, but I don't wanna hear about your party or their story.
-A reviewer that has a million house rules to fix things. Again, no point in getting a recommendation if problems arise from standard play
-Unclear or clever rating systems. I should just be able to look and get a firm idea of what to expect, instead of trying to determine what "I give this game a PIRATE SKULL!" means

Why do all of your dungeons come off as a cross between a dungeon, subway, and shopping mall?

OC

No "The gods exist because the cleric gets miracles when he prays to them"?

I love the trombone. And the magic pillows seem like something they looted from a noble's house. Sir Cosby of the Holy Wood, maybe.

what software does one use to make maps and pages like this?

Or any "because X exists arguments." I mean, someone had to make bananas.

More session reports:

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/09/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-session-8.html

In which the party invests money, avoids danger, and considers their future. The Paladin is also cheated out of a vast fortune.

So this mighy be a dumb question, but how do you use the custom maps (like the ones in TotSK) in your game? Do you just draw the whole thing out onto a game map? Or do you print it out or something?

For TotSK, I describe the rooms and have one of the players draw the map. They get stuff slightly wrong, which adds to the charm. They can also add notes.

For some adventures where exploration is less important, I might hand out a blank map with unlabelled rooms, but most of the time, the players draw their own map as the game goes on.

I've got a printed copy for my own use, with note and extra marks (like where corpses are, what traps were discovered, etc.)

>The map is critically important to information about the game
Do what says. Describe the room, give measurements and direction, and let them draw it on their own. Do not correct them unless they make a painstakingly obvious error.

>Map isn't important, but players need a physical reference to remember rooms because players r dum
Sticky notes. Write down the name of the room, maybe draw the shape of them, and then slap them down on the table and move all the player pawns there.

Does anyone have any charts or tables for furniture prices? My adventurers start out living in a dingy tenement house as a home base and I want to give them incentives to spruce up the place.

Do you use all demihumans, pick Judy one type and stick with it? I don't see why you'd need kobolds AND goblins for the weak crafty guys, then gnolls AND orcs for the barbarian humanoid guys when they could more or less fill the same role.

I add them in on an as-needed basis.
Goblins are the generic default amorphous mass of low-level gits. There are weird cave cannibal goblins, militant goblins, goblins with cities, goblins with gunpowder, and goblins that have been mutated, altered, bent, stretched, and morphed to make better soliders or servants or whatever.

Kobolds are dragon-created fawning servants. Goblins are dumb but enthusiastic. Kobolds are smarter but neurotic.

Not sure if orcs or gnolls are in the setting yet. Probably not gnolls.

Basically, pick an ecological or sociological niche and chuck a race into it.

GLOG hack of my own because I love memes (and low HP games are my fetish). I've ran into an issue however:

How do I determine the Attack rating of a monster? Half their HD+11? I can't remember anywhere in the rules or on the blog that clarified this.

Also would like advice on how to run a no map/little map usage game. I'm a filthy plebian who got introduced into hobby via Roll20 with a bunch of eurofags long ago, so the concept of playing without a detailed map sitting in front of you is kinda alien to me. Namely how to adjudicate movement and such.

Alasy, trying to make a simple Death and Dismemberment rule. Suffering horrible fates from a table is all well and good (Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader/etc were my shit) but I feel like it would slow down combat every time a character starts to get their shit pushed in. I'm feeling something like once a player is sent into the negatives they roll a d20. If they roll under their current number of negative hit points they die. If they pass they suffer an injury that lowers CON and another stat by one until the injury is healed. Negative HP players also reroll the d20 every round there after to see if they die or not. Injuries also raise the TN by 2 so a heavily crippled character may have to pass a TN check of 9 if they drop to -1.

If I wanted to make it more punishing I'd probably make it so this roll is just a straight CON check than a roll under, but I feel like CON is too essential as is in GLOG.

>I can't remember anywhere in the rules or on the blog that clarified this.
I just eyeball it.

Some really shitty things have 8 or even 6.
Most stuff has 10.
Things that are competent fighters have 12.
Things that are scary as fuck fighters have 14.
Things that are scary, competent, and powerful have 15 or even 17.

>but I feel like it would slow down combat every time a character starts to get their shit pushed in
it doesn't. It also gives a "down" player something to do (rolling to remove Fatal Wound). It's really quick.

>pick Judy one type

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a quay and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
It's rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
It's letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

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This literally caused me physical pain to read, I just want you to know that.

How does morale work? Is it 2d6 or 3d6?

Maybe it wouldn't matter so much if you didn't treat different races as one-dimensional caricatures. I bet you're white.

Alright, I finally finished a dungeon. Once belonging to a cult of worshippers who followed a minor deity of the physical heart, who promised to preserve the followers heart for the afterlife.

Please rate.

^ And the writeup.

I'm trying to write a setting from scratch, which I've never done before. What I'm having trouble with is figuring out how the government works. I want the towns and cities to be governed independently, sort of like a republic, I guess, and I want there to be a feeling of lawlessness outside of towns and cities, but I also want there to be a royal family that are descended from the original settlers that would be the main authority, but I don't want them to have absolute power, either. What kind of government does this sound like? How should I handle this?

Close enough to a republic that I doubt anyone will correct you.

Mabye have the nobles have knights or other mounted men that roam from town to town acting as the law? Dogs in the Vineyard style?

You might consult a book or two on building strongholds. It will give you a general guide on how much it costs to build one. Other than that be careful not getting bogged down in minutiae and turning the game into a RPG version of The Sims (TM).

Sounds a bit like a constitutional monarchy to me.

No, binary success/failure. I actually want the game to resemble old-school stuff. There is a hint of storygaming in it, but I'm trying to avoid the Dungeon World meme. I just like 2d6 because it condenses the bonuses and penalties.

benis in m2

In my game, goblins are essentially bobcats that developed opposable thumbs, bipedal locomotion, and basic tools. They're agile, have keen senses, and reproduce like rats, but aren't actually that bright.

Kobolds actually have a discernable culture with mythology and genealogical records and stuff, and, more relevant to players, are relatively intelligent and have some grasp of logic/tactics/engineering/etc. They're just as easy to manipulate, just not with the same approach as with goblins.

That said, I stick to hordes of lesser demons to fill the standard "kill the women and salt the fields" barbarian niche.

At least in B/X, it's supposed to be 2d6. 3d6 would produce encounter after encounter of spineless cowards.

> Shit like always
but no bathroom jokes in this one

> This dungeon is immensely silly
I wanted the spirituality that Star Trek V: The Final Frontier achieved

> a subway dungeon
good idea

> cleric gets miracles when he prays to them
and our sessions are invariably resolved by deus ex machina—also strong evidence I think

photoshop maybe I will upload a screencast

You also failed to account for "I talk to my god all the time. He's a pretty chill guy."

sphinx transports you to padded cell

is there a back catalogue of these saved somewhere? google drive/imgur album or something?

I love this concept. I hope you'll post it here when it's ready.

How would you make a Cyberpunk OSR work?

By Attack rating do you mean the penalty to a PC's defense roll? For a map lite game, are you running it in person or online? Ate you using a map or not not one at all?

Needs more loops! But honestly, it just seems small.

This is a good start. It's d20 based but there are some solid basic concepts that can be OSRified.

This is another basic conversion. At 7 pages it feels incomplete but it is OSR based.

I'm running a Star Wars game using a modified version of BFRPG.
In a traditional 20-level system, what level would you put the following characters:
>Darth Vader
>Boba Fett
>Han Solo
>Chewbacca
>The Emperor
>ANH Luke Skywalker
>ESB Luke Skywalker
>RotJ Luke Skywalker
I'm ONLY using feats from the movies, so no FTL reaction speeds or anything silly like that from the comics and whatnot.

Oh, also, forgot to mention: I'm ignoring the prequels entirely, so Vader and the Emperor only have feats from the original trilogy.

I'd be... very cautious about your approach. Star Wars is space opera. It operates under a very different set of assumptions compared to OSR games. BFRPG might not have all the tools you need to run this kind of game. I'd try something like Fate Core instead.

Giving Vader a "level" almost completely missed the point. He doesn't run on rules, he runs on plot.

>Giving Vader a "level" almost completely missed the point. He doesn't run on rules, he runs on plot.
Yeah I agree, I was trying to think of a way to make him unkillable while still not giving him the ability to simply wipe out all of the PCs in one round. High-level characters like him wouldn't come into play until way later in a campaign.
Boba Fett, Han Solo, Luke, etc., could work in an OSR system, I think, as long as they're used sparingly.
It's more of a challenge to the GM than the system, I think.

>It's more of a challenge to the GM than the system, I think.
I think Fate gives you a lot more tools to manage this as a GM than BFRPG.

There's also a /swg/ where this sort of thing has been discussed to death, so that might be worth checking out

Thanks, I'll check Fate out.

This might come in handy.

Thanks mate, I'll take a look!

What artists have been inspiring you lately?

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Kentaro Miura

>Player's PC gets brutally murdered by a monster
>Rolls up a new character and gets much better stats than his old PC.

That's a win-win situation really.
As DM I get to cackle maniacally and while the player is sad about dying he at least gets a consolation prize out of it.

So, Courtney Campbell's Treasure table looks really great and if someone asks for a treasure table, they get recommended to use that one. Understandably so --- it's got way more interesting stuff than a lot of other ones.

But...

How exactly are you supposed to use it? Like if I have a room which is supposed to have a treasure of approximately 35 gp in it or something, how do I generate what is in that treasure? Am I just missing something?

>Instead of adding HP per level, CON grants soak points
>In each combat encounter, you may absorb up to your Con modifier in damage points for free from any attack that hits you
>If you have a negative Con modifier, instead you take additional damage the first time you are hit, damage bonus equal to your Con's negative modifier.

How do you feel about this?

Haven't fucked it, even though I should. But this is how I'd do it.
>figure out if your campaign is low, medium or high treasure based on how you want characters to level
>make from that base average treasure unit either by party average level or monster HD
>for each treasure horde roll on the horde size, base value table
>roll types of treasure per unit
>roll for details of each unit
>divide total value between units based on details so it matches up intuitively enough

youtu.be/zlLKC-93vYQ

Do you still have base hp but it doesn't advance and Con as soak?

Just found these bandits and I really like how patchwork they are.

>I put on my mspaint vision crystals
>everything is the same
nice

Interesting. I like it.

Though I'd probably make every hit take the additional damage from low Con, not just the first.

Excellent taste.

Random people on tumblr and DeviantArt

Hey hrrr, if you still lurk these threads, do you have a more recent edit of B&X? All I have is a copy from late March.

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It's cool but it's slooooow.
What
Said works. Or just steal bits and write a much faster version. Or eyeball values.

coinsandscrolls.blogspot.ca/2017/09/osr-caves-and-props.html

I made a thing about 3D caves.

I've been thinking of an alternate generation system for stats. Only focus on the modifiers.

Roll 3d6 as normal. Then count each roll of one as -1, each roll of 6 as +1, and everything else as zero. Cancel any negatives and positives out, and the final modifier is your stat by itself.

Same odds of getting a +3 or -3, but I'd imagine a plus and minus usually balancing out. What do you think?

Hey guys. It's me. The 5E guy.
I just want you guys to know I've retired from my awful ways. I've seen the light. I actually do own BFRPG and I browse these threads everyday. I also have never played 5E. You guys have answered a lot of my questions with helpful information and I appreciate it a lot.
In my quest for self-improvement I've decided to spare you guys from my barrages. I will use that energy more productively and aim that negativity to other boards that deserve it like /tv/ because it's full of redditors.

Circle jerk shitposting is still shitposting.