/skerples/ OSRGeneral

>Fat Wolves
OK.

>They entered the cave for the thrill of discovery, to achieve what had never been done before. Each one desired to out-do the others, and all who came before. What perilous adventures would they find in those horrid depths? It was death. By the flickering light of their torches, with the smoke stinging their eyes like the wild beasts stinging their flesh, they too were extinguished. Having fallen awkwardly, broken and mangled, feeling the life drain away in the dark, they too discovered what it is like to be murdered to death in a cave by a monster.
That's nice, but why idn't the fact that they've skulls as heads mentioned until the very end of the monster entry on another page?

>contributed 2 (3?) areas. Hint: there the ones with 2e stuff.

thicc

What's the deal with castles and crusades?

In closing, Nightmares Underneath was a mistake.

>Sanctuary - mini-setting/starting area for your weird settings

>Hell Metro - a 0-level adventure and micro-ruleset for weeb games

The earliest(?) commercial attempt to hack 3.5 into something oldschool. Small but loyal fanbase, never got a larger audience.

Gary liked it. KnKA did not.

>Runes - mini-splat, kinda sucks

>VILE VENGEANCE OF THE BEES - adventure

>KnKA
F
Where will I go now to enjoy the salt of grogs enraged by fucking normies and hipsters who don't respect AD&D (of which there is only one edition)?

I'm pretty sure this is from 2017.
>100 classes by The Manse
Sages are a mistake.

>dump a bunch of stuff so I cab dump it all again before the end of the week
Does it really need to get dumped twice?

Nah, it probably doesn't. I was kind of thinking I would get three replies at most and would have to ask again for several threads, but there's already a sizeable chunk of stuff being dumped here. I might put it all in a mega folder and link it though.

...

...

What skill system do you recommend to me? I want to steal sonething like the one in ACKS

>What skill system do you recommend to me?
Why would recommend something bad to you?

>/skerples/

I can't tell if OP is venting butthurt, or encouraging it in others.

Has anyone ever developed a sort of sliding scale or guideline on how powerful spells of each spell level should be?

I know they are more or less done by feel or randomly distributed in many published systems, but I want to know if there are any guidelines anyone has made, even if its just homebrew stuff.

Well designed games use Mechanical Turk. Pairs of spell descriptions are presented to the Mechanical Turkers, who are asked to choose in each case the "more powerful spell". The spells are then placed in a directed graph. A topological sort is performed. Finally the the spells are divided into levels.

Why do you think skills are bads?

is there a catchphrase or meme I can use to express my displeasure with OP

thoughts?

>I dunno, to make them useful at all levels?
Precisely. Sometimes, the rate of return isn't very even. If a spell lasts [sum] rounds and you only need it to last like 3 rounds, then there should be some benefit for investing MAXIMUM WIZARD POWER into it.

Good luck.

I'm sorry, that's not true. I ran the initial ideas for it by /osrg/ and based it on common questions people were asking - and are still asking!

I remember this. Did you make any edits, or is this the same PDF?

-_-

The Monster Menu-Alls were pretty fun to write and they've been very useful at the table. Dungeon Meshi antics are still killing more characters in my games than you'd strictly expect. One of them just got mind-powers by drinking aboleth eye fluid.

Also, for holiday cheer, here's an old familiar carol: youtube.com/watch?v=SL0lPcNwRqQ

So I meant to reply to this earlier; sorry it took so long.

I think this is a cool idea and it's really well executed. Your writing is clear and your layout is crisp. But it feels... weird. Like you're winking at your players a little bit, saying "this is a Starter Zone."

It'd be like an NPC saying, "Oh my no, you must be at least Level Six to attempt to storm Castle Rippenoff!" It might be true, but it's conveyed in such a weird way. Does that make sense at all? It feels like it's bending the fiction a little too hard in favour of mechanical control.

Still, the layout and the flow of ideas from section to section are really sharp.

What post did you get that gun from user?

I just got Tabletop Simulator on steam. I wanna play some OSR shit on it, but everyone is just running PF/5e games. Any of you people have this?

I want more this is awesome user

Sadly, it was a one-shot submission to the 2015 one-page dungeon contest, and I'm not sure the author has done anything else.

I have it, but is it really good for rpgs? Isn’t something like roll20 faster where you just type/click to roll instead of fiddling around with 3D dice?

Roll20 has never been very intuitive for me. I watched some dudes play a 5e game and it honestly went smooth.

not him but it's a possible piece of starting equipment in The Nightmares Underneath if your character ends up being on the lowest wealth/Social Class tier, the thing is while it is a good item, TNU uses flat weapon damage(in this case what your class's Hit Die type is), and also if you roll that than it's potentially your only item, so there is some balance present

Thanks for the feedback. I wanted it to be familiar yet cloying, like an overbearing relative's house that you're eager to leave. Sanctuary's supposed to feel quite artificial both as an impetus to adventure (living as peasant sucks and somebody HAS to clear the dungeons), an impetus to leave (I'm tired of sacking the Keep on the Borderlands and visiting the same five settlements), and an impetus to change Sanctuary if the party really wants to (because it's actually a horrible place to live).

See

Ok guys, weird question. I'm working on a different take on metallic dragons.

I've got most of them figured out but I'm stuck on Antimony. What the fuck is an antimony dragon? Anyone out there done enough alchemy to know why antomony's on the list of planetary alchemical metals?

(It's used in kohl, the eyeliner stuff, hence the image.)

Merry Christmas

>Pliny the Elder also made a distinction between "male" and "female" forms of antimony; the male form is probably the sulfide, while the female form, which is superior, heavier, and less friable, has been suspected to be native metallic antimony.
Sexual dimorphism?

>The popular etymology, from ἀντίμοναχός anti-monachos or French antimoine, still has adherents; this would mean "monk-killer", and is explained by many early alchemists being monks, and antimony being poisonous.
Fedora-tippers or anti-alchemists?

>Inhalation of antimony trioxide (and similar poorly soluble Sb(III) dust particles such as antimony dust) is considered harmful and suspected of causing cancer.
Cancer breath weapon?

Antimony is a friction reducing agent, something that softens and yet adheres to other materials to make them less likely to damage other materials and allows them to retain some flexibility without frangibility (bullets, solder, and ball bearings, for example). It is also acid resistant despite it's low Moh's hardness of 3.

>Sexual dimorphism?
I was thinking of that, or some sort of conditional shift between forms.
>Fedora-tippers or anti-alchemists?
I figured it was just accidentally toxic. Prolonged contact kills but the dragon doesn't know or refuses to accept this.
>Cancer breath weapon?
I'm trying to go with a "effect inducing" breath weapon for each type (based on the inversion of the 7 virtues). So Gold, which is associated with Kindness, breathes/causes/induces Paranoia as its breath attack.

I've got Antimony paired with Chastity.
I'm considering making antimony dragons capable of absorbing metal attacks (because antimony alloys and mixes so well with other metals).

>I'm working on a different take on metallic dragons.

Care to share?

I currently see no point in using them beyond their more interesting mechanics than chromatics.

Is it? It's not on the Wikipedia list... What planet does it correspond to? Either way I'd just take something from its etymology or something.

>Care to share?
Can't; still working on it. It's in way too rough a shape to post. It'll be a blogpost eventually.
>I currently see no point in using them beyond their more interesting mechanics than chromatics.
Like I said, I'm going in a very different direction than the classical dragons. My chromatics are fairly far off the norm too.

Earth.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_planet#Alchemy
Not like the alchemists were particularly consistent...

>Paranoia is the opposite of Kindness
>pointlessly changing iconic creatures instead of making new ones
That isn't how it works at all, Skerp.

>pointlessly changing iconic creatures instead of making new ones
I find the existing ones really boring, that's all. If I had a really strong nostalgic connection to TSR dragon mythology/ecology, I'd probably keep them, but I don't. I'd rather use stuff I find interesting. Pretty sure I'm not alone in that.
Also, what do /you/ think is the opposite of kindness? Shitposting?

Well, there you go. Use earthy stuff. Maybe a dust storm breath weapon or something. Or they can control earth.

>I'd rather use stuff I find interesting.
Just because you think making elves into arboreal acid-farting octopi with a culture modeled on the Aztecs is interesting doesn't make the act of radically changing elves in such ways a good idea. Let elves be elves and let arboreal acid-farting octopi with a culture modeled on the Aztecs be arboreal acid-farting octopi with a culture modeled on the Aztecs.

>kindness
Unkindness, which is basically shitposting IRL.

>Paranoia is the opposite of Kindness

If kindness is a warm feeling of compassion towards others, paranoia is a fear of them. It works for me. Medieval monks and alchemists were all about making associations like that.

Agreed. The names should make the associations of the thing clear. In this case, the relevant word is "dragon". Flies, scaly, hoard, breath attack. The rest is all individual fluff, personal taste, and design choices. As long as the core idea is present in a way the players can use, you're good.

Reminder that compassion is the most violent of the big five personality traits.

This is a good idea. You can have this, it's a Cleric alternative I wrote ages ago, I meant it for Troll Gods actually, but never quite finished it -- I never managed to get the deformity table to where I was happy with it.

notehub.org/s4lud

(Sorry about Notehub looking like absolute shit design wise, I remembered it being black text on white background, but I needed something with markup instead of just pastebin raw text shit)

Merry Christmas, /osrg/!

I am doing D6 + Attribute to get 5+. That's my default for OD&D if I am using the S&W scale of -1 to +1 for stats.

That's not earth, that's the holy hand grenade!

Or a hat.

Did he bend that, or does the cross have a hinge in it for storage?

Tiny hinge for portable orthodoxy.

>this would mean "monk-killer", and is explained by many early alchemists being monks, and antimony being poisonous.
God dammit, Wikipedia. "Anti-monk" doesn't mean "monk-killer", it could just as well mean "wards off monks" (like garlic does vampires) or "destroys one's monkliness", and since it's a cosmetic, that last one's probably what the people who hatched the folk etymology meant.

So, , the antimony dragon should obviously be tied to beauty, seduction, succubuses, that kind of thing. The thing where antimony has male and female forms fits with that as well.

It's hinged, but it's not for storage. The hinge is literally there for that exact purpose he's using it for in the gif: so the cross won't catch on shit when he gets in a car or carriage.

Stat me, /osrg/.

Update: I figured out how to make a crude PDF version. Note that it's extremely crude.

That's actually not a badly done pdf.

I've never heard of anyone playing in campaign using a set of light rules or B/X clone for more than 4 or 5 sessions. Are they really made just for playing modules?

SANTA

Number Appearing: 2-5
Armor Class: 5
Move in Inches: 12
Hit Dice: 5
% in Lair: 40%
Type or Amount of Treasure: C

Creatures of horrid visage and disposition. Santa will attack whatever they see and fight to the death. They deliver a "hug" just as a Werebear, for example, as well as great damage from beak, tooth, and claw. A large male will stand 8' tall, weigh 1,500 pounds, and have claws over 2" long. Bodies are furry, tending towards feathers over the cranial region, and the skin is very thick.

Interesting class user. May steal for LotFP

I have been in multiple.
You'd be surprised what it's like outside the pathfinder wasteland.

This question may be dumb, bear with me.

What OSR product offers the best framework for running a West Marches game? I think they would all work fine, and I can just add in mechanics for navigation and veer, travel, foraging, tracking, camping, wilderness encounters (also encounter distance) and site discovery. But I’m also curious if any games have most of that in place already. It would also be a bonus if different classes and characters of varying levels are able to contribute. Expect most dungeons to be small and thus probably not have wandering monsters, and one expedition to fit into a single session.

Or should I just use 5e and make navigating and foraging a survival roll?

>I’m also curious if any games have most of that in place already
Yes, it's called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1dt Edition. Real obscure, you've probably never heard of it.

I’ve certainly never read through its entirety. Thanks

Well, what are you after when you say "west marches"? Are you talking about the original pointcrawl, or adapting it to a hexcrawl or something?

Most of the usual suspects already have rules for getting lost, travel and random wilderness encounters (near-universally including encounter distance, AFAIK), with some more having rules for foraging and tracking. Camping and navigation I'm less certain of, since the former is generally just given as a number of nighttime encounter checks and the players telling the DM which direction they're going while he secretly rolls for getting lost and walking the wrong way.

In any case, isn't wrong. The DMG has most of what you need. If you absolutely need it, the Wilderness Survival Guide has some infamously punishing wilderness hazards (the old joke is that you'll die of exposure before you reach the dungeon - I'm unsure how much of that is truth and how much is just memes, though).

5E's probably a bad fit for this, anyhow - especially when a Ranger can just trivialize most of it.

I'll skim through the DMG a bit to point out pages of note.

>I'll skim through the DMG a bit to point out pages of note.
It's the Appendix after Random Dungeon Generation, IIRC

Barring the sass remark, for exploration I actually really like Zweihander's take on it, and it's flexible enough that it can be ported to other systems.

Essentially, three of the party members pick a "role": guide (reads the trail map, ensures that the party stays on the correct path), survivalist (keeps watch for ambushes and surprise attacks), and scout (moves ahead of the party and keeps an eye out for obstacles the party will encounter.

Alright, here.

p13 has rules for contracting diseases. Useful mainly for catching malaria in jungle adventures etc.
p47 onwards is the main chapter for outdoor adventures. It's followed by aerial, waterborne, underwater, and planar adventures.
p58 covers movement speeds.
p87 has brief notes on climate & ecology.
p105 is only barely relevant, but has a goblinoid variant on the infamous PHB racism table.

The Monster Manual is also relevant, of course, with the main thing of note here being % In Lair - the chance that a random wilderness encounter will be with the monster's lair. Basically, you have a 80% chance of running into bandits who are just out and about and a 20% chance of running into them while they're within their bandit camp (and hence actually have treasure).

p173 has random wilderness generation, but this isn't all too useful for a West Marches game where you'd presumably know what the lay of the land is. It's great if they go off the edge of what you've prepared, though, and in that case p169's random dungeon generation is also useful.

Perhaps more usefully, p182 has tables for random outdoors encounters.

That's just like how Dungeon World did it, though the roles were Trailblazer, Quartermaster, Scout.

I'm not sure how finished it is, but why not download the art free documents of B/X Essentials - edit them as you wish into a pdf with your image for the cover, and then you know, let me know how it turns out.

This is actually really solid. I've been looking for an alt-cleric that handled healing well, this could definitely work.

I can't say I have, but that's because my campaign is pretty new. I will say that the party hasn't bothered actually "finishing" any of the dungeons I've sent them at.

If you want other people's campaigns, there's always Ten Foot Polemic's. tenfootprecis.blogspot.com/

I think even OD&D has most of what you want covered, actually. Not the foraging, tracking, camping parts, but everything else is pretty much in there IIRC.

Young's game is run in LotFP, but that's close enough.

How well would 1d100 roll under skill system for brp fit into osr?

Would that make score bonuses irrelevant?

>Well, what are you after when you say "west marches"? Are you talking about the original pointcrawl, or adapting it to a hexcrawl or something
Maybe I’m misremembering, I thought the original was a hex crawl. What I’m after:
>hex crawl with secret DM map in 6 mile hexes, though players may find treasure maps and make their own maps (imprecise)
>each hex is stocked with at least one lair/ruin/tomb/settlement/landmark etc.
>hexes are grouped into regions/biomes that share an encounter table
>a stable of players/PCs available in a safe town, each session a different party composition makes a journey into the wild
>parties say which direction they want to go, and a roll determines whether they veer off that direction
>rations are tracked so someone will probably want to forage/hunt
>no overarching plot, but a variety of interesting stuff to pick from and missions that change between sessions that you can take or leave as you choose
>treasure to be found, discoveries to be made, and clues to be pieced together about the region’s history (some of which unlocks greater treasures)
>pockets of danger and secret chambers abound, but ignoring them doesn’t break anything
>the world is persistent, players’ actions change the region, and if everyone ignores a given problem/task it’s liable to get worse

Merry christmas

How do you all feel about 4d6-4 instead of a D20?

>Maybe I’m misremembering, I thought the original was a hex crawl.
Nah, it's a point crawl. This is the original, by the way, not the later youtube whatsits:
>arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/

For all you posted AD&D and similar sound like what you're after. I'd personally recommend having less crowded hexes, but that's just me preferring Wilderlands of High Fantasy to Isle of the Unknown and its ilk.

B/X could probably run it as well, but it's a bit less robust on the wilderness bits (mostly due to lacking % IN LAIR). I could probably run it in OD&D as well, but that's a bit more arcane a task and would require bringing in additional houserules and whatnot for stuff like foraging. (Maybe the Ready Ref Sheets have something on that, I dunno.)

ASCII conversions of maps was p good. I still haven't found anyone who's collated a dropbox/imgur file/whatever of the blue and white mini dungeon levels that get posted here.

Well, let's consider the case of the 1st-level PC. THAC0 19.

Chance to hit AC:
2: 20% vs. 2.7%
4: 30% vs. 9.72%
6: 40% vs. 23.92%
9: 55% vs. 55.63%

If your (roll-over) target number is 11+, 4d6-4 is making you a whole lot less capable. If it's 10-, it's making you somewhat more so.

If your (roll-under) target number is 9-, you're better off with the d20. If it's 10+, the d6s.

It's somewhat strange, really: it heavily penalizes low-level characters when it comes to attack rolls, but makes their saving throws better. The opposite applies to high-level characters, although you need to be quite high level indeed for the attack bonus to kick in consistently in a meaningful way.

I can't say that I like it. It feels really inconsistent in the knock-on effects on the system, and I suspect that it would just drag things out in a system that's historically fast and also make being the underdog suck even more than it already does.

...

Yeah, I know the streamed show was not the original. I guess the core things it took were the size of the player base and the danger gradients/pockets concept. The original article doesn’t really make explicit what kind of crawl it was.

I thought they mentioned it at some point in the articles, but apparently not. They confirmed somewhere that it was basically a pointcrawl, IIRC.
There's some sorta-allusions to the idea here:
>arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/81/grand-experiments-west-marches-part-4-death-danger/

Anyway, it's not that hard to run it as a hexcrawl. It's a bit harder to corral players to interesting places and more likely for them to get horribly lost, but it'll probably end up being roughly the same.

>I thought they mentioned it at some point in the articles, but apparently not.
NAYRT but I just wanted to tell you I also have a strong memory of a map or something being shown and him explaining that he mostly went by "exploring this named region", "obtaining maps", and "known landmarks" in a pretty abstract way.

Runequest did nothing wrong.

The SST map gave me a chuckle.

Fucks up probabilities. Use 2d10 if you want more of a bell curve.

Is there anywhere where I can read transcripts of old D&D sessions? Not modern sessions of OSR games, actual sessions from TSR era is what I'm looking for

Not a transcript of what the players and DM said, but you might be interested in the Rythlondar Chronicles.