/osrg/ Old School Renaissance General

Welcome to the Old School Renaissance General thread.
Some of us only go to blogs sporadically.

>Trove:
pastebin.com/raw/QWyBuJxd
>Tools & Resources:
pastebin.com/raw/KKeE3etp
>Old School Blogs:
pastebin.com/raw/ZwUBVq8L

>Previous thread:

Can the mythic underworld exist side by side with advanced technology?

Is the engineer class the logical solution to the thief conundrum?

Other urls found in this thread:

orbitaldropkick.tumblr.com/post/168327850286
orgasmocerebrale.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/rafus-grievous-wounds-pulp-fantasy.html
youtube.com/watch?v=tnhEdBG1fDI
twitter.com/AnonBabble

So, I just read that the creator of ACKzS is racist, and has ties to the white supremacist movement. Thoughts?

>Can the mythic underworld exist side by side with advanced technology?

I don't see why not. Feels very turn of the century and 1800s ish, safari by the technologically advanced humans into magic africa and all that.

>Is the engineer class the logical solution to the thief conundrum?

No. The solution to the thief problem is to remove non-support casters[/url]

a) I'm fine with using the work of shitbags as long as I'm not endorsing them with money
b) the trove exists
c) source?

But those of us who go to blogs sporadically already know what resources are on the blogs.

you don't have to support a guy's cause to enjoy their work, user. Possibly every single rpg creator (or other human beings) has a deep weird conviction that would horrify you

I agree with both of you, I've just never seen it mentioned around here. I'll see if I can find some stuff later about it.

>Can the mythic underworld exist side by side with advanced technology?
If the mythic underworld IS advanced technology then yes.
Powered doors that open only for recognized creatures, security systems that eliminate intruders, etc.

Whoops, meant to respond to .

>So, I just read that the creator of ACKzS is racist, and has ties to the white supremacist movement. Thoughts?
that's not quite the case, the issue with ACKS(at least for some people) is that one of the owners of Autarch(the publisher) used to be involved with The Escapist, and thus was involved with the whole Gamergate concept

personally I think ACKS is a good enough game that I can ignore that, but I can understand why some people don't like it

...

Not to mention if it is a problem for some, An Echo Resounding exists as an alternative.

So is there some site full of these, or...?

Why do people dislike the Thieves % based skills so much? It's the complaint I hear about the most (besides the asinine 'Thieves were a mistake' shit). It's no different than any other dice roll vs a number.

Autism? Also if you treat it as a simple roll that's either "you pass" or "lol you got caught" then the starting percentages are terribly low. Treating it more like a saving throw fixes that problem, though.

>Oh, right, and starting as a little dragon. Riiiight.
I never codified it, but here's a basic idea I had for playing as a dragon;

>Fighter HD
>uses 1.5x Elf XP requirements(replace Elf with whatever class in your system has the highest XP requirements as needed)
>has natural armor equivalent to Chainmail at level 1(which improves as it levels)
>teeth and claws count as a 1d6+1 weapon(damage improves from leveling)
>can use a Breath Weapon 1dX+2 times per day(with X being equal to level), Breath Weapon varies depending on selected dragon type
>can glide an unlimited distance(can fly starting at Level 5)
>is able to Cleave if that ability is in your system(if Cleave has HD restrictions, Dragon characters ignore those)
>upon reaching level 6 Dragon characters can learn spells like a Level 1 Magic-User(or equivalent class)
>require triple the amount of food that human characters do
>can't use regular weapons or armor(or any magic items designed for use by a humanoid user), can acquire specially made weapons and armor at quadruple the regular price
>Dragon characters are Large size(about that of a very large horse) with all the advantages and disadvantages that entails(Dragons reaching larger sizes happens at a time scale beyond that of almost any regular campaign)
>Dragon characters can't hire Human or Demi-Human Hirelings, Henchmen, Mercenaries, or Specialists(they can do so with Monstrous Humanoids and intelligent Monsters, but that is both rarer to find and will be either more expensive or the quality will be worse)
>Dragon characters can't have domains or strongholds populated by Humans or Demi-Humans(they can have them populated by Monsters and Monstrous Humanoids, but that both costs more to establish and maintain, and you get reduced income from it)


I'm sure this needs a lot of additional tinkering(probably should drop them getting spells for one thing, or at least more heavily restrict the spells they can get), but I think it'd work

they appear here first because the reputation this thread has for quality original content

Oh, and also, I think people wrongly blame the Thief for the appearance of the AD&D skill proficiency system. But the Thief's abilities are an unrelated class feature, whereas the shitty skill system grew directly out of the Fighter's weapon proficiency system. IMO that means it's more the fault of Fighters and the guys who wanted to individualize every Fighter with more mechanical stuff they could tweak, than the fault of the humble thief.

So, I just read that the creator of Vornzheim is a cuck, and has ties to the social justice warrior movement. Thoughts?

There is nothing wrong with Social Justice.

Mmmm...I'm gonna take the bait. It depends on your definition of cuck, but as a porn star, I'd say no. He definitely has ties to the social justice movement, but not so much to the SJWs.

Or let's take into account that the Clerics 'Turn Undead' is basically a skill system.

>Thoughts?

What are some good ways to implement demihumans into a historical real-world setting besides the old "They were once mighty civilizations that have since fallen." I was thinking about having them basically be the denizens of real countries.

Elves: Wales
Dwarves: Scotland
Halflings: Isle of Man

>Elves
>Welsh
>Not French
But seriously, Russian dwarves work too, or Orcs if you're more after the historical, with the mongols and all. Why Russian? One of my player's family's from Russia and just decided to make her dwarf character have a Russian accent. I liked it so much, I ditched the stereotypical Scottish one. Plus, they fit the hardy dour gruff people better than the scots.

>elves as welsh

Don't you think that's offensive to Elves?

I know Tolkien based a lot of Elvish tongue off Welsh, plus its an oft forgotten country, hah.

Russian Dwarves is actually way cooler than Scottish. I might use that.

Orcs in my campaign were gopniki. Elders were Vatniks. 11/10 best country to pull stereotypes from.

Haflings are Romans post fall of Rome.
Gnomes are Romans pre fall of Rome. They turn up all the time because they were way into time travel.
Dwarfs are Vikings. Also Russians.
Elves are celts, obviously.

Humans and Orcs are the same thing.
They don't take well to the sun in foreign countries. There are many contradictory explanations for this.

Can I play a half-sheep half-elf?

One of these?

Dwarves are Mexican: Short, hearty and hairy.
Elves are French: Pompous, self absorbed and gay.
Halflings are Canadian: Outdoorsy and smoke a shit load of weed.
Orcs are American Blacks: Constantly angry and always trying to start shit.
Gnomes are Japanese: Short and pretty good at inventing shit.

Someone posted an old zine's Dr.Jekyll/Mr.Hyde class a while back. That seems appropriate.

Is that chart supposed to reflect the races, or is it just a coincidence (minus the blacks, because why would the flame princess ever be black?)

>the /pol/ posting in this thread

This thread is starting off pretty shit. Give me a suggestion for a random table/encounters instead.

Just coincidence, but that is hilarious.

Signs that The Fey are nearby. Bonus points if you make multiple for different environments besides the boring spooky forest.

10 weirdos the PCs can meet when traveling.

10 ways user can get thicker skin and not be such a little bitch.

Merchant caravans.

How does /osrg/ feel about letting players branch out their classes AFTER playing as them for a while; such as a fighter being knighted to become a knight-type fighter, or conferring with dark powers to become an evil witch-blade?

I've considered doing it on occasion for fighters > paladins. I've mostly decided not to because then paladins are essentially either impossible to get or too easy.

But it definitely has precedent in Druids in... RC? and Bards in AD&D.

10 weird and wonderful companion animals

Ehh, I just take his shit from the Trove.

Normally I'm not the kind of person to get overly political with my purchases, but he really is tied to some scumfuck awful bullshit (mainly Milo who I personally despise for a number of reasons) and honestly I pirate 99% of my RPG materials anyways so it's not like I'm making some special effort for him specifically

Who gives a shit? Fuck off.

...

OSR or No Sir, you decide!

Second'

Not OSR.

Looks like it might have an interesting idea or two though that could be stolen.

>posting an "early access" unfinished copy
>complaining that it's a "half baked" turd when it literally isn't finished
>Posting something not OSR related by an author Veeky Forums doesn't like in order to get (You)s and get your gay little hivemind to agree with you

Stop baiting.
Stop shiting up the thread.
Kill your self faggot.

My setting:
Elves live in enchanted forests and the Fey Plane.
Dwarves live under mountains.
Halflings are Cagots.

Social justice is an immoral, fascist concept.

There is nothing about it that isn't wrong.

>Posting something not OSR related
Tell that to Abbadon.
orbitaldropkick.tumblr.com/post/168327850286

What's your favorite OSR or OSR-like system thats not a retroclone?

Would run LotFP or AS&SH. Would play DCC.

...

fighter sub-species

How do you guys memorialize dead characters? I'm thinking of printing a list. One of the original starting 5 characters of my game just died, leaving just 2 other characters who made it from session 1 to session 12, and bringing the total number of dead characters up to 6 or 7.

It seems like it's trying to impose a boardgamey structure on old-school dungeon crawling. Sort of like a PnP Darkest Dungeon or something.

It's definitely not orthodox OSR in any way shape or form, but I could see how it would be "inspired" depending on your definition of inspiration; it seems to be a hardcore resource-management based dungeon crawler, which is also what a lot of old-school D&D emphasized, so even if it's dramatically different design-wise it's not like he's taking something that has absolutely nothing to do w/ OSR games and calling it "OSR-inspired."

I don't know, it doesn't exactly seem like my kind of thing but I'm sure it has some alright ideas. I don't really care enough to spend extended amount of time thinking about it. Doesn't seem to be worth getting supergalactically assblasted about but then again this is Veeky Forums

...did he used inspired twice in one sentence?

To be fair, he recently lost his thesaurus. He has no words to describe how screwed he is.

DCC.

Does Basic Fantasy count?

>>Dragon characters can't hire Human or Demi-Human Hirelings, Henchmen, Mercenaries, or Specialists
That seems like a weird restriciton. I like the idea of dragons hiring human lawyers and bribing local barons. When you are nigh-immortal, money-loving, and dangerous, playing politics is required.

This sounds cool!

Also, thank you to the user that posted about death and dismemberment using a deck of playing cards. Google didn't want to find an Italian blog though!

Won't let me post link cuz fuck hiroshimoot. Look up "orgasmocerebrale playing cards death and dismemberment"

orgasmocerebrale.blogspot.co.nz/2013/05/rafus-grievous-wounds-pulp-fantasy.html

You need a little hobbit magic.

Thank you friend.

How do you handle tracking characters' fame and renown?

Just tie it straight to level.

If the thief problem is “everyone used to be stealthy until they made a class that specialized in stealth, which de facto made the other classes less stealthy” then yeah, an engineer would be cool. Would they roll percentile based skills or get limited uses of tech per day, like a magic-user?

A simpler fix is just to not interpret the thief's skills to mean that everyone else is useless at stealth.

My DM has small paper skulls he affixes to the front of his DM screen with tape, the size, color and orientation of the skull indicating if it was a death in combat, by trap, by own stupidity, by party member or even a TPK.

not truly OSR(at least by the System definition), but one can definitely see the OSR inspiration in it

That doesn't really help, you know.

>What's your favorite OSR or OSR-like system thats not a retroclone?
kinda depends on the exact definition of Retroclone

>That seems like a weird restriciton. I like the idea of dragons hiring human lawyers and bribing local barons. When you are nigh-immortal, money-loving, and dangerous, playing politics is required.
I'm basically going with three ideas regarding this restriction;

1.) few Humans or Demi-Humans outside of fellow adventurers are normally going to want to deal with a Dragon directly

2.) was also thinking that PC Dragons are generally young enough and "stupid" enough to not really grasp the social norms needed to manage Human & Demi-Human minions

3.) it's basically a way to help balance how strong on a personal level a Dragon PC would be in a low level party(at least initially)

4.) the fact that Dragon PC's can recruit Monsters and Monstrous Humanoids as minions(in fact I forgot to mention it, but I was thinking that Dragon characters would get a huge bonus to reaction rolls against intelligent monsters) would give a party with a Dragon character a new avenue to approach monster encounters

anyone else have any thoughts on my Dragon class idea before I try to formulate it into something more concrete?

Lets say anything ranging from OSRIC to LotFP. Basically anything thats just D&D but with some house rules.

Not just Druids. BECMI Fighters can, at name level, pledge themselves to a church (becoming either a Paladin or Avenger, depending upon the alignment), to the throne (and become a Knight), or to Druids (from Dragon Magazine, and become a Druidic Knight). They can also just remain Fighters, whether wandering men-at-arms or landowners.

Fighters and Neutral Clerics are really the only classes that have such drastic changes, and even then by the time the Rules Cyclopedia was released Druid had it's own progression from level 1, instead of the previous 9th level starting point. I mean sure, there were the Seven Secret Crafts from Gazetteer 3, Principalities of Glantri, but those were structured completely differently from these "prestige classes".

Sure it does. That's the whole deal with the titles for each level. Reputation is part of level, especially at name level.

I mean, not that user but I definitely wouldn't pay for shit from a literal white supremacist.

No, it really doesn't. I'm not concerned with being able to tell whether a higher level character is more well-known than a lower-level character, because all else being equal that's patently obvious.

I'm concerned with questions like "At what point will people from a town the characters have never been to recognize the characters? And how far away does it need to be before their fame will start to decrease?" and "At what point are the characters the kinds of people that a noble might offer work to?" because my model for it right now is lacking.

>I'll try roleplaying
>go to con with mindless railroad dnd 5e "adventure league" session that is just a series of scripted 'balanced' encounters
>"hear is your printed out character with the approved bonus items to bring to more league games"
>into the trash it goes
>go to rpg meetup, everyone only plays 5e or Pathfinder
>play in mindless railroad Pathfinder game where lvl 1 characters forced to ambush a lvl 14 wizard. Doing well (because grease still makes people trip) until quicken invisble, force cage on self, teleport away (because the cage only allows teleport to get out).
>mention that sometimes players should run away from superior threats, DM says "yeah, I'm trying to teach my players that but they don't get it"
>DM and players at meetup have never heard the term OSR
>"here is our approved magic items that you can bring to our living campaign games"
>into the trash it goes

Damn, new school sucks.

Oh give it a rest plebbit, its CURRENT YEAR everyone is a white supremacist

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
At name level, your reputation always precedes you.

If it's that important to you, just write a map from level and distance to days until known.

>>My DM has small paper skulls he affixes to the front of his DM screen
I love this. Pic?

>I'll try restaurants
>go to fast food place at the airport
>it's expensive, noisy and there's no room
>damn, eating out sucks.

If you build it, they will come.

How many xp are nightmare vision googles worth?

A 1d10 table people on Veeky Forums derailing threads by going on /pol/ witch hunts. Oh wait, it's just (You).

Enounters one might find in the sewers of a millenia-old, overgrown city

Hirelings with one-off classes.

1: Giant rats
2: Goblins
3: An ooze or something
4: Dirty water
5: Excrement
6: Regular rats

...

How do you prefer your dungeon layouts? Spread out with long hallways, or rooms more clustered together? Big rooms, small rooms? Natural caves or artificial chambers?

>a literal white supremacist
Do we know that for sure, or is it just like RPGPundit where he's just right of center and grouchy at 3rd wave feminism. Either way ACKS is overrated and I pirated it anyways.

I like rooms kinda clustered together. Lots of branches and more difficult ways to get into rooms, stuff where it's a challenge to get through one way but it rewards the players with a potential ambush or whatnot.
A lot of times though, I find that just making a realistic structure can end up with interesting gameplay of it's own since very few large buildings are linear in the way poorly made dungeons are.

Whatever gets you to level 4. youtube.com/watch?v=tnhEdBG1fDI

Good. Makes me want to buy ACKS even more.

I'm partial to Jaquay dungeons, both in terms of layouts and in terms of ideas.

Caverns of Thracia is a good example, where the enormity of the place allows levels to frequently intersect and drop in elsewhere, with pocketed 'areas' to explore. Maps are invaluable but treacherous, and the caverns' complexity makes return trips and new areas more interesting than simple square rooms. Rooms are densely layered--rarely is a hallway "just" a hallway.

Whitehack, or Hackmaster 4E if that counts

Its just scuttlebutt, pay it no mind.