/osrg/ Old School Renaissance General

>Yoon-Suin is indian
really?

Against the Wicked City is clockpunk 18th century central Asia.

I know it has other influences besides just Indian mythology but they were the only ones I recognize.

Indian/China

South Asian apparently. It has Tibet and all sorts of elements from that region.

So call me a casual or whatever the fuck-

But I really want to run an OSR game without specific mapping or exact measurements for things. Like instead of 10 ft hallway I'd rather have the dungeon just be split into rooms and say "ok you leave the mirror room and now head to the balcony room, which is overlooking the skeleton room..." etc.

How much does this fuck up the OSR gameplay loop of most games?

>How much does this fuck up the OSR gameplay loop of most games?
Nothing at all

As long as you attach measures of time to this, it won't. If you ditch time you ditch a lot of other submechanics that have important purposes.

It's "important" because it give the players a sense of time management
Also because you get to say, "10... 20... 30 feet"

If you keep measurements handy in case anyone asks and you use a more abstract time system, that should go fine

>But I really want to run an OSR game without specific mapping or exact measurements for things.
Players (and you) will lose spatial awareness of locations. Fireball may become a lot more useful. AOE spells will act fucky. By not considering scale you open yourself to Dark Souls 2-tier map farts.

medieval european fantasy is the starting point, so most stuff diverges only a bit from that.
That said, there's a LOT of variety in terms of tone and setting.

Wait, what in the everloving fuck is going on? I've been away for a bit doing real-life nonsense, like using this sucker to assemble things. Orkiest tool ever.

I was none of those things. I've never read any of the Conan series, so I don't really have an opinion.

Why does osr hate demi-humans? What's the reason for human supremacy?

Thy don't: it's a Gygax thing. A significant number (a majority?) ignores that rule.

...

This still doesn't explain it! What was post >5250433 even about? Also, that was... April? Wow, time flies. Anyway, I don't think I was being serious. I don't actually pretend to be multiple people; there's enough weird shit in the world without talking to yourself online. And I definitely didn't stat Conan. No image replies, you'll note. And no sentence that go "clause comma clause".

3rd party archives are a friend to all channers, my brofessional broseph broski
boards.fireden.net/tg/thread/52530287

Well huh. Anyway, I still don't know what the fuck is going on, but that seems about right.

I like it because medieval history is fun and has tons of stuff to steal, but I've run all sorts of game and all sorts of settings. It doesn't really matter. There's a strong cyberpunk trend in OSR, along with a sort of gonzo "Dirk Gently meets Mad Max" theme, and a Fantasy Foreign Parts thing people like. Plus a bit of clockpunk/steampunk/blackpowder-and-Sharpe's-Rifles's punk or whatever.

What do you think of a system where magic users get to cast a number of spells per day equal to their level? And being a magic user requires intelligence of 15+? How dazzling should spells be to compensate for this? Should wizards be allowed to do infinite prestidigiations, 1d3 damage spells, and open / close? I like infinite cantirps in pathfinder but I feel like there should only be 2 or 3 cantirps or else shit gets broken fast. I'm making an OSR homebrew , a very short one to use for a west marches campaign to try to wean my group off of pathfinder. Some anons recommended AcKs last thread and I've been looking at that. I feel like I want to include weapon style feats that only work if you are wielding an axe for example, and would provide very minimal benefits but would scratch the average pathtards itch for mechanical customization.

> I still don't know what the fuck is going on
You should be fully in the loop now.

This would be really cool if you were selecting munitions for a war game.
But that sounds incorrigible with normal dungeon/hex crawling.

Nope. Must be having one of those days.
Depends on how fast and consistently you level, and the power of spells, I suppose? It does simplify things.

I like having a few simple but mostly useless "at-will" cantrips, just to see how players use them. No damaging spells or anything - if you want to damage something and you've used up all your spells, you've got to fight. That's the risk-reward play of being a wizard. No stabbing from safety.

Minor cantrips are things like:

-You can instantly comb the hair of any creature you touch.
-With 10 minutes concentration, you know the location of the nearest toad.
-You can make a loud "bonging" sound, like a bell.
-Target fruit is peeled.

Etc. Really fringe, flavourful, but kind of useless stuff. Then actual spells are tools to solve problems, like "kill that guy" or "overcome this obstacle."

Also, man, read first, homebrew second. You've barely started your research journey. Let the mechanics take a back seat. Just read everything, highlight and bookmark, and then worry about making it all work later.

Medieval time is best time. Though I tend to like to situate my games in a Pike and Shot kind of tech where muskets are starting to come into their own, but just still aren't advanced or easily produced enough to completely dominate the battlefield. One of my current players loves to run around with her pistol but has to sizable chunk of her revenue into buying powder and shkt and getting it tuned up. After a few bad hauls she's had to resort to using a crossbow for most enemies and saving her pistol for the big stuff.

I do wonder if there is an example of an OSR game with automatic weapons. I think it's better to stick to the intended swords and sorcery for most systems but most of my gaming group isn't into medieval fantasy at all.

>I do wonder if there is an example of an OSR game with automatic weapons.
One of my players built a gatling wand out of 3 discount untested wands. It fires 1d6 shots per round (1. Spell A, 2. Spell B, 3. Spell C, 4. Spell A and B, 5. Spell B and C, 6, Spell A, B, and C). It's very, very dangerous. Such is the price of innovation.

>Must be having one of those days.

You gotta try and unpack your ideas a little there, buddy.

RE: Magic. Sure, why not? Any replies you get here are going to be largely opinion anyway.

For what it's worth, I think stat requirements are dumb, cantrips are okay (I give my wizards innate, minor magical powers), spells-per-day equal to level won't feel that much different at low levels anyway but will probably get tricky if your game goes to higher levels because making high level spells more "dazzling" will just mean players only spend their spell slots on those spells.

But the only wrong answer to what's acceptable is the one that hinders fun OSR gameplay. You needn't feel beholden to orthodoxy, as long as you have a clear intention for how your change will meaningfully affect gameplay at the table. I'm doing just fine, and I removed spells-per-day entirely.

What system do you play? I've been idly wanting to bring firearms into my game, but haven't really bothered to see if anyone's written up decent mechanics / prices for that stuff already.

...

>I do wonder if there is an example of an OSR game with automatic weapons.
I'm working on one. Modern day occult criminals exploring the network of sewers and subway tunnels below the city.
Think modern day LotFP meets the lower-tier WoD stuff meets CoC meets heist movies. Weird urban fantasy, basically.

For sci-fi does /osrg/ prefer Stars Without Number or White Star?

Hulks & Horrors, bro

I use a combination of some zine on how to implement them along with Small but Vicious Dog's pricing and weapons. In normal range they ignore -4 armor AC, farther than that it's -2 armor AC. They also roll double and keep the higher result (like 2handed weapons in my system) for damage and generally do high damage, Pistol does d8 but has short range while a musket has range equivalent to a crossbow and d10 damage. There's also a cheaper Blunderbuss that is a lot more affordable, more range than the pistol, but does d6 past normal range and requires double the amount of shot and powder for one use.

Hasn't popped up and the players don't really know about it but rifling does exist in the universe. I'm debating the exact effects on it however. Either it'll bump up damage by a die type, or increase range by 50%, perhaps both. But each time the gun is fired the Critical range increased by 1 until the user spends a turn cleaning the barrel out.

I kinda like this balance. Originally SBVD's firearms ignored ALL armor in normal range but did shit far away. -4 is still pretty potent and having it still have penetration in longer range is good, but the change also makes it so that Plate is useful and even Chainmail is worth it since at normal engagement ranges it'll offer some degree of protection.

God damn, it's even green.

>I do wonder if there is an example of an OSR game with automatic weapons.
Weird Adventures has this, I think?

That sounds like a railroad adventure which is definitely not OSR.

I think the user just meant that in response to the characters saying where they wanted to go based off of previous locations they visited, not that the GM was determining their path.

What about wandering monster checks, ranged combat, chases etc?

Also without measuring distances for corridors a dungeon that has many loops and branches becomes impossible to navigate. If you don't track time and distance you take a huge chunk of player agency out of the game and replace it with abstract GM fiat.

Hola my nerd friends, i want to begin a new campaign world with my old players of yonder, may i ask for your help to find in what sumplement or rulebook are the best rules to randomly create a new hexmap?

thanks in advance

Either you or somebody else with the exact same question already got an answer a couple threads back: there are no particular well-known rules for randomly generating a hexmap. You'll have to look at blogs for people's homebrew rather than in print books. It's assumed that you'll want to draw your own since it's fun, or else you can get a non-random premade hexcrawl like the Wilderlands of High Fantasy.

well, i remembered some sort of oficial rules in the spirit of the random dungeon generator from the ad&d dungeon master book. Thank you anyway.

gnomestew.com/game-mastering/tools-for-gms/a-randomized-hex-crawl-generator/

Well, I recommend you take a look at the aforementioned Wilderlands. It's in the Trove in the Judges Guild folder, and it's good stuff.

melancholiesandmirth.blogspot.com/p/procedural-generation-of-hex-crawl-world.html

Neat, thank you for sharing.

Shouldn't be a huge deal. Just make sure that you still keep track of time and you have a nodemap of the dungeons, etc.

Biggest issue is probably spells. If you can figure out a way to do AOE spells with theatre of the mind then you're good to go. I've been looking for that sort of thing for a while.

already taking a look at both of the recomendations, thank you very much

>randomly create a new hexmap?
Hexographer but I would advise you not.
Instead, sketch an actual map. On paper, in photoshop, whatever.
After it's drawn, photocopy (etc) it and lay a hex grid over it.
The terrain of each hex is the first that applies:
>Road, Wetland, Forest, Grassland, Desert, Highlands, Mountains

The exact dimensions of rooms, precise distances, etc are DM side mechanics. Players shouldn't find them unless they take out a tape measure (which eats up a lot of exploration turns).

>we want to march to the city of Avalon
>by your reckoning, that will take three days in good weather if you take the old trail. There should be ample fresh water but no villages to buy supplies.

If you're in a dungeon or you buy a map, then you have access to distances.

>The exact dimensions of rooms, precise distances, etc are DM side mechanics. Players shouldn't find them unless they take out a tape measure
...Do you realize that the reason PCs move so short distances per turn in the dungeon is that they're assumed to take fairly precise measurements as they go?

I'm working on a theory here.

Can it be said that DnD lost its "Old School" feel when 3rd ed. came out and can that be attributed to WotC porting the aspect of system mastery from MtG to DnD?

I just got this badboy.

It's everything I wish MCC would have been.

There's two aspects to old school: mechanical and playstyle. The mechanical changes were 3rd ed, yes, but the playstyle had shifted some 15 years before that (mid 80s).

I think it started losing it with Dragonlance, and whenever players realized that they could just use the system for heroic storytelling and that it works kind of alright.

D&D started losing its Old School feel with Supplement I: Greyhawk. Begone ye false grogs.

...

> I think variable weapon damage is a misstep
Updated draft. I didn't remove variable weapon damage completely, but did add an alternative called "weapon adjusted combat" on p. 14.

So one thing I'm considering. How could you get M-Us to feel less like Vance and more like Black Company? You'd be able to Prestidigitate and cast Thaumaturgy or something at will, probably. Illusions and trickery are the bread and butter.

In the books, anything more complex than fooling rubes, they end up trying to figure out "how" to do something.

How do you reckon that would get modeled as a class?

What do you guys think of class based damage? I'm warming up to it. It works well in play, especially if you have all monsters roll 1d6.

At the start of combat, and every 10 rounds, roll ⌊level*(level+1)/2⌋d12 spells on the 1st level Illusionist list.
You can use ONE (1) of those spells over the next 10 rounds. No need to pick until you cast it.

Full access to scrolls. Use of spell research rules to manufacture scrolls.

A thing I like about CHAINMAIL, is that non-magical weapons and armor are irrelevant on the Fantasy Combat Table.

Been using this to expedite stat rolling.

/OSR/

>Having to use a formula.
>ever

It's just triangular numbers.
Wait shit, I intended for the inverse of those.
That ought to be ⌊(sqrt(8*level +1)-1)/2⌋
Those floors are meaningless as is.
At any rate, it's a precalucated number.
Put it on a table if the pattern eludes you.

1 . . . . . 1 ||| 11 . . . . 4 ||| 21 . . . . 6
2 . . . . . 1 ||| 12 . . . . 4 ||| 22 . . . . 6
3 . . . . . 2 ||| 13 . . . . 4 ||| 23 . . . . 6
4 . . . . . 2 ||| 14 . . . . 4 ||| 24 . . . . 6
5 . . . . . 2 ||| 15 . . . . 5 ||| 25 . . . . 6
6 . . . . . 3 ||| 16 . . . . 5 ||| 26 . . . . 6
7 . . . . . 3 ||| 17 . . . . 5 ||| 27 . . . . 6
8 . . . . . 3 ||| 18 . . . . 5 ||| 28 . . . . 7
9 . . . . . 3 ||| 19 . . . . 5 ||| 29 . . . . 7
10 . . . . 4 ||| 20 . . . . 5 ||| 30 . . . . 7 etc

>implying story isn't a natural byproduct of the rules

>story
>rules
Fuck that, the GAME is most important.

Procedures to add some SPOOKYNESS to your games!
melancholiesandmirth.blogspot.com/2017/10/dreadful-foreboding-procedurally.html

...

getting real tired of these /skerp/ generals

where else can I find non-masturbatory posting about designing osr stuff

There hasn't been a coinsandscrolls link in this thread yet

Or really any links to blogs in general,

Wrong. A Hero doesn't require an enchanted to hit a dragon.

You can, at any point, join the discussion and design some 'non-masturbatory' OSR stuff. But it's obvious you're just here to troll, so why even bother posting?

Speak in human talk.

Enchanted weapon, I should have said. On mobile... A Hero-type doesn't require an enchanted weapon to hit a dragon.

This is pretty cool. I've had a Gothic Horror game idea on the backburner for a while, this would fit right in with it.

Never said otherwise.
But if you're rolling on the FCT, and your gear isn't magic, then your choice of gear has no impact on the result.
A Hero with No Armor and a Dagger is equally matched against a Hero with Plate Armor and a 2 Hnd. Swd.

There's Dark Places & Demogorgons.

Any hard and fast rules for determining line of site for hexcrawls?

Yup. It's amazing.

I stick to "within 3 miles" because otherwise you have to keep topology on your map and do trig every move.
I suppose you could precalculate line-of-sight and include it on your hex keys, but that sounds like wasted prep.

I agree with that for open plains, farmland, and other largely flat areas, but for hills, forests, mountains?

If you want to give an extra tile on hills if hills or mountains aren't in between and an extra tile on mountains if mountains aren't in between, be my guest my dude.

How do you split up and award experience to your players? I've seen several interesting ideas on the web on how to go about doing this but I would like to hear what worked best in actual play.

By their own loot distribution.

Add up all the xp for killing monsters (which isn't much, honestly) and then add that to the monetary value of the treasure they've hauled out of the dungeon. Divide that by the number of people that helped, including NPCs but excluding hirelings, and award them an equal share of the experience. Retainers start at level 0 and advance at half the speed until someone dies and takes them over.

Biggest thing I'm worried about is if the party is able to find landmarks/sites of interest in forests or hill hexes. I don't want to rely on anything too abstract.

You roll for those on a table.

How many of your players do you think would get cancer and die?

prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf