/osrg/ Olde School Renaissance General

Alright, I never thought I'd have to ask this but my dad bought me all of 5e's core books (he paid 75 cents). I've been in these threads long enough to know that trying to OSRify the mechanics is a Sisyphean task but I have two questions.

>Are there any FREE 5e modules that appeal to an OSR sensibility?
>Are there any GOOD guides to converting TSR D&D/OSR modules to 5e?

I'm asking because a cursory google search brought up a whole lot of "REMOVE ALL CONTENT NOT IN MODERN RULEBOOKS" and A "MEANINGFUL GAME CANNOT BE RUN WITHOUT STRICT ADHERENCE TO ENCOUNTER-BUILDING RULES"

BECMI but whatever

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>Are there any GOOD guides to converting TSR D&D/OSR modules to 5e?
Tales from the Yawning Portal has some TSR modules and Tomb of Anihilation is a hexcrawl

Trying to prep a simple quintessential d&d dungeon for some buddies try out d&d with has really got me in the fatigue. Why is it so fucking hard to just cook up a basic adventure?

Why not just run a module?

Save categories are pretty easy to change but you’ll probably have to eyeball the DC. DMG has some guidelines for trap stats. For monsters just find the closest equivalent existing monster.

As for modules, I’ve heard good things about Tomb of Annihilation, it’s got a hexcrawl. Curse of Strahd is supposedly less combat-heavy. The Yawning Portal has ports of classic adventures. Dunno about free adventures, if I need a oneshot I write my own stuff.

That's a pretty good question.

1. Social interaction
2. Exploration
3. Optional tricks
4. Optional combat

I find it more satisfying when things tie together in ways that arent immediately obvious, and combats aren’t forced but can be solved by other ways like trade/negotiation. Also some toyboxes for the players to collide with. And since one-shots are limited for time, add a trap in the middle that you can use or remove to adjust the runtime

Is this for a general adventure or a dungeon crawl in specific?

A general one-shot structure that hits all the spots. I like to use it because you do some RP to warm up, then do exploration to maybe get some clues (really the tricks are part of this phase), and finally a fight - because it’s expected, but depending on the group they can always solve it another way. Social/exploration/combat are the three pillars of D&D, though obviously OSR will emphasize the second more than the third.

>not using medieval public domain art

So how do I keep players from using all their spell slots immediately and then resting to recover spell slots without using time constraints, it's getting contrived that my players are always under a time crunch

You know monsters?

Now make them wander

The only time that's ever worked was with FH&W and Dark Albion. Otherwise it just looks cheap and out of place.

Sorry, I thought I was posting in 5E general, wandering monsters don't work in 5E, I prefer OSR though

still cant find raggis creature gen in the trove, any help?

Okay does anyone know of any Psionics homebrew for DCC?

Isn't there UX03 or some shit? It's on OBS and Lulu

Genuinely curious in what circumstances wandering monsters don't work

>medieval

The problem with 5E is that a full rest only takes a day by default which means as long as you're players survive the wandering monster it didn't actually do anything, there's a optional rule in the dmg to slow down the rate at which people heal but at that point I would rather just play a different game

Your*

Of course they do, fucking 5e starter set’s last dungeon has wandering monsters.

Do people restore all lost HP after a full rest or something?

Yes which makes wandering monsters meaningless unless they're so powerful that they consistently threaten a TPK

Monsters rebuild their strength and eventually start retaliating against nearby town and killing NPCs or sending out(significantly tougher) groups to exterminate the PCs before they get wiped out.

The objective might not be under a time crunch, but wait too long and a rival party will take all the good stuff and thank the party kindly for clearing out most of the rabble.

Have the monsters fortify in the time the players went and rested. The more often the players rest, the more the monsters have time to prepare for a second attack.
Or if they're done to only a few and can't defend themselves anymore, they might pack up all the treasure and leave the dungeon.

>5e paladins are mechanically closer to B/X clerics than other paladins
Literally what did WOTC mean by this.

Don't forget that most XP in 5e comes from fighting monsters, so wandering monsters are less of a deterrent than a loot piñata that walks right up to you to be hit.
In OSR fighting a wandering monster uses up your resources and give you slightly more than jack squat.

Have smart monster be proactive to disrupt the characters rest.

Have kobolds toss flaming oil on them at night. Have them trow pots and pans full of rocks down nearby hills to make a racket and make sleeping impossible. Have them lead newly woken bears towards the camp.

Any reasonably smart monster/s would take measures to keep spellcasters from resting and regaining spells. This restores the resource management aspect of the game and forces the players to take precautions or waste time travelling back to town. (a town which I hasen to add, can still be attacked. If the monsters feel they have the upper hand.)

Huh? Even B/X gives xp for defeating monsters.

I also hate how almost every class has access to magic through archetypes

Then make wandering monsters give pathetic amounts of xp, like 10% of normal.

How?

Ditto for treasure.

yeah but monster xp is pitiful compared to treasure xp. If I remember right, about a third of your xp comes from monsters at first and then drops to around a fifth by level 3.

Or just don't play 5E, there are plenty of games better for dungeon crawling

What exactly do you mean by "a third of your xp?" It's not like you're only allowed to gain a certain amount of xp from killing shit rather than "liberating funds."

Would anyone play an old school 5E hack? Archetypes are neat and monsters tend to be more interesting

You just tend to get more experience from treasure than from monsters since monsters don't give much experience. There are guidelines for how much treasure a dungeon should contain but I can't think of off the top of my head what that would translate to in treasure to monster exp ratio

...

In B/X, the math works out so that monsters tend to give roughly three times as much XP from the treasure their guarding than from killing them. Hence why Moldvay wrote the "75% of XP comes from treasure" thing.

Note that this isn't completely true for other editions, where it varies a bit more. OD&D has it go up to 90% from treasure at some levels, I think, and down to 50% or something. I dunno how things work out in AD&D, I'm still working away at that Excel sheet in the background.

So this is a thing I'm working on. It's going to be hell to actually figure out what the purpose of all the rooms are, but perhaps that exercise could be left to the players.

I also need to figure out some good way to make it into a proper graph map, because holy shit those mines extend out a bit. And figure out what types of encounters you'd meet, but that's probably not too difficult to figure out - ghosts of burning dwarves, looting goblins, cackling demons in the deepest mines, and the occasional pissed-off elephant.

Cannibal dwarves are always fun. Broken stonegolems prehaps? There is a storytime from a few years back in the archive.

It's Boatmurdered.

Any DF storytime should be easy to mine for ideas.

Things in improbable cages. Menaces of spikes. Fine engravings. Masterwork cheese.

>It's going to be hell to actually figure out what the purpose of all the rooms are

Read the original thread. Most of the rooms have fairly mundane purposes, Save for the lever room where all the levers to everything is but none of them are marked and one of the levers will flood the fort with boiling steam.

I like them! It allows for customizing your character while still in the B/X rules. The tables can be a bit overwhelming at first, but after more inspection I think it's fairly easy to understand.

Yes? I meant that other Anons have had the idea of using it as a dungeon before and one of the runs resulted in a storytime that is archived.

Yeah, but cross-referencing everything is going to be a pain. Especially for the guys who didn't post many images.

Also, I'm pretty sure the map I have isn't the final one? The gecko is missing a hand, at least.

Oh, I didn't know that. I'll check that out, thanks.

7200 xp
Okay, in B/X a party of four humans (fighter/thief/cleric/MU) needs a total of 7200 XP to reach level 2.
Goblins are a commonly seen level 1 wandering monster, and are reasonable for a level 1 party to fight and not be murdered, so we'll use those. They do carry a little treasure, so they're better than what you usually get, but let's be generous.

Goblins have 1-1hd, and

The gecko was never finished due to running out of gold and live dwarves to cart it out there. If memory serves.

Interesting, I wonder how this compares to milestone experience, I feel that is how the majority of 5E games are played

You could probably find the save file floating around. Using that you could just check what each room is used as.

I don't know, advantage is cool but otherwise there isn't much I like about 5E other than how easy it is to get a game for plus it wouldn't even technically be OSR

Thoughts on this attribute-based saving throw system? I’m more looking for GLoG shills or imperatives to leave the thread with archaic phrasing than actual substantive advice.

Roll under 4+half HD rounded down+either Dexterity, Constitution, or Wisdom modifier. -2 on saves that would immediately kill or inflict a similar effect upon failure.

>-2 on saves that would immediately kill or inflict a similar effect upon failure.
Wait, does this mean that they're easier or harder?

>I’m more looking for GLoG shills or imperatives to leave the thread with archaic phrasing than actual substantive advice.
Whuh, why do you want advice from opposing factions? It's a F/R/W save system, so...blech. It also seems kind of convoluted.
>just use the GLoG, it has one save blargetty blarg blarg
>false osr enthusiast, get ye gone
Seconded, that's ambiguous in a roll-under system for anything.

Attributes are not a class feature, they don't go up as you level. Making them increase opens a big old can of worms.
Also it means putting more mechanical weight on a descriptive component that is beyond the players control, meaning you have more reason to stop rolling stats and start point buying, which slows down chargen, which makes high lethality a problem, etc., etc., etc.

>How would you do drow in B/X?

You could use a stat array instead of pointbuy, plus pointbuy doesn't really increase character gen by too much as long as everything else is the same, it does mean people will just default to the optimal stats for a class though

>Attributes are not a class feature, they don't go up as you level.
Unless you are a disciplined chevalier!

Also, increasing stats as you level works just fine if you also add in occasional permanent stat drain. It more or less cancels out.

Also, roll-under stats for tests, where stats were rolled in 3d6-down-the-line fashion, has worked out completely fine for my games. Proof is in the playtesting.

Easier. Perhaps I’m missing something. How would a negative be anything but easier with a roll-under system?

>it also seems kind of convoluted
The idea is to replace 5x20 tables for each class with one mathematical expression. I haven’t playtested this, but it cuts a lot of memorization/referencing out of homebrewing monsters. I have, however, compared this way to the tables in B/X and LotFP. Generally speaking, assuming a modifier of +2 for a given attribute, it’s about even with B/X and slightly more forgiving than LotFP.

>it does mean people will just default to the optimal stats for a class though
Unless you also roll your class! (or roll based on your highest stat)

Or play with people who don't really care about being perfectly mechanically optimal... or even near optimal. One of the major things I like about OSR gameplay is the emphasis on choices mattering. You might not be fucked if you roll poorly, but you are definitely fucked if you make poor decisions. And anyone, regardless of stats, is capable of making good decisions.

Why does the bird have fucking teeth?

Would you care to address how adding half HD doesn’t cover that?

It's part goose?

The smaller the number you're rolling under the harder

Oh, my mistake. -2 to the result of the roll.

Ah, well it does. I missed the "half HD" in the equation. Carry on then.

Geeseknights huh? Aint fucking with those.

Worse. Heard of owlbears? That thing there is an owlgoose. Looks like a juvenile.

All the murderous focus of an owl with all the murderous frothing rage of a goose.

What else did they cross owls with?

>How would you do drow in B/X?

Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I like it. I'll have to remember that idea for if I ever figure out how to do something like that. Provides randomness without needing a GM to keep things hidden until the party gets to it.

Why would you actually bother playing it? 5e and 4e are the kind of things you buy used just so that you can complete your collection but never actually play because you'd rather play a fun game.

Too obnoxious.

>5e and 4e are the kind of things you buy used just so that you can complete your collection but never actually play because you'd rather play a fun game
5e is the most fun edition since B/X

>Are there any GOOD guides to converting TSR D&D/OSR modules to 5e?
How about the 5e conversion guidelines WotC put out? Mostly consist of "turn down the monster numbers a bit, update monsters like X, run module as normal".
media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DnD_Conversions_1.0.pdf

>Why would you actually bother playing it?
I think it's important to several systems. There are some things that 4E and 5E do very well and some things they do absolutely terribly.

It's like having a well-stocked toolbox. Sure, you can get away with just a hammer and an adjustable wrench, but why not test out a few other tools while you're at it? You might find they come in handy. There's always stuff to learn, even if all you learn is the details of your dislike for something.

4e is obviously tactical combat, but what does 5e do very well, pray tell?

>but what does 5e do very well, pray tell?
I think it does the character-driven, adventure as a non-allegorical heroic journey style game very well. It's got less mechanical cruft than 3.5 and does the same kind of thing (which, let's face it, is what D&D means to most people these days) in a very smooth and polished way.

It's not perfect, but if I was asked to run a game about capital-A-Adventurers saving the world from capital-E-Evil, it'd be one of my go-to choices. It's like a fantasy version of modern marvel movies; explosions, wisecracks, popcorn, and not much mental effort.

The main thing with 5E is that it's easy to find a game. Advantage and archetypes are interesting but not worth playing the game for

Attract hipsters and e-celebs

>what does 5e do very well, pray tell?
It's the best edition if your group has people who prefer different editions

>Attract hipsters and e-celebs
Sorry user, we have met the enemy, and they is us.

>It's the best edition if your group has people who prefer different editions
And a limited vocabulary to express why. It's a safe bet if you can't communicate what you liked about a past edition/system/game.

>Attract hipsters and e-celebs
So 5e is OSR?

I've never seen more blue/green/purple hair and shit tier beards at my lgs until 5e came out.

I plan to use public domain art for my OSR project. There is some fantastic quality public domain art out their.

I really prefer the 100 xp per HD rule (so I guess 50 xp for a goblin) since it boosts lower level characters more than it does higher level characters, and makes it so that people can actually level up in a couple of sessions.

Those goblins should have a reasonable chance of murdering you every time you fight them so, feels fair to actually give out some quantifiable amounts of xp.

There are better options for that kind of thing though, so much of 5E's design is based around dungeon delving despite it doing that poorly that it's just a mess all around