/osrg/ - Old School Renaissance

Welcome to the Old School Renaissance general discussion thread.

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

>Previous thread:
Draw a bandit's lair.

Other urls found in this thread:

dmsguild.com/product/177273/Julindas-Gauntlet
nyaa.si/view/994267
autarch.co/blog/political-power-personal-power-or-why-julius-caesar-had-70-hit-points
youtu.be/gH0A9-A9x-I
twitter.com/AnonBabble

>Draw
nah

Thieves: Arguably the best thing to happen to D&D.

They paved the way to the class-wide skillset, which actually created a simple resolution mechanic as opposed to the arbitrary Ability Score roll-under (cause Ability Scores shouldn't be important, remember?) or random, fluctuating use of d6, d20 or % dice. The LotFP Specialist and skillset is perfect proof of this.

It's not the Thieve's fault that players are retarded and fixated on only trying what their character seemed good at.

reminder that thieves were a mistake

Thieves were always good. The real problem started with the magic user.

By creating a "puzzle solver but with limited resources" class, you just made the thief seem like a shitty alternative, and only useful for when the MU runs out of spells.

By removing the Magic User or removing their ability to solve puzzles by snapping their fingers, you've made thieves not only necessary to the party and relevant, but a fun and enjoyable class that specializes in the obstacle overcoming and puzzle solving part of dungeon crawling.

>puzzle solver
have you SEEN the Men and Magic spell list?

Whuh? MUs came /before/ thieves.

>Draw a bandit's lair.
I have a photograph!
Just kidding, but now I wonder if someone has a White House dungeon module. Pls no NSArerino, is joke.

I wanted to run a LotFP game for some RPG newbies. Would Tomb of the Serpent Kings work as a first time dungeon? I am hoping that it will be easy enough to finish in one sitting. Also, for new characters, what would be some good equipment load outs to recommend? Would rations, weapons, armor, rope, torch, and specialists tools/holy symbol if need be suffice for starting toys?

>White House
Shouldn't you have posted Congress?

Reminder that fighters and M-U/wizards are generic classes. Your setting should have martial and magical classes that reflect it instead of slavishly aping Gygax.

Would you be interested in a "retroclone" of 2e that incorporates WOTC's official pseudo-3e rules?

What have you done for your homebrew to make that the case, user?
It's a good first time dungeon, but it's by no means a one-session thing. Your equipment list looks good, however.

Is there anything else that I should look at for a one session deal? I just want to get their feet wet and see if they would be interested in a more elaborate dungeon crawl later down the line.

Do you /need/ to reach a conclusion in one session?
Leaving them hanging is a more genuine experience, and it tempts them to continue.

The blog trilemma adventures has plenty of one page dungeons that could easily be run in one session.
But also this

Fair enough. We will get where we can in a few hours and I will see if they want to keep going a week later. I will look at Trilemma though, as they sound like fun reads.

Don't change the saving throw system

Have players roll on this chart for starting equipment. It's been my saving grace at character generation. Usually I replace any mention of Plate armor with Chain, tho.

This is also a great table specifically for LotFP. I don't do the die-drop shit tho, I just roll 2d6 for Occupation/Equipment and then individually roll for the Melee, Ranged, Rations and Armor.

That is really fucking useful actually. I have wanted a good set of pre-set load outs, and this should work for me. I may calculate encumbrances for these as well, just for future reference.

Oh, for outside of school spells, it takes 8 casts before your MD come back. If it's inside your school or you learned it via a sufficiently weird method or you're really obsessed with it or the GM forget, the MD come back normally.
Correct. Or emblem spells by looting.

No limit to spells learned over your entire career. The spell list given is just the spells list you roll on to learn "naturally" as you level. 10 spells per spellbook (safely), 20 dangerously.

I kinda tossed that bit out, desu. It seemed silly, given that the spells are level-less. Emblem spells are the ones everyone, even peasants, identify with your school and go "ooh, fancy!" They're your calling cards. Learn them and you've Made It.

Because I changed Arnold's rules. You can't roll and 11 or 12, but you can pick them at Level 4 if you want to.

Aww yusss.

What sort of calamities have you inflicted on casters who tried to cram their spellbooks chock full of spells, or plan to inflict?

My party dipped their toes into level three when I ran it.

Random crossbreeding, accidental casts while loading, sentient spells, novellamentals, etc.

Enough to worry them when they see me ask, and enough to make them not do it. They're learning. Slowly.

>I am hoping that it will be easy enough to finish in one sitting.
>Skreplek's own players are still exploring it and that's pretty much his entire campaign

What is your favorite setting and why?

Fug. I remember seeing another dungeon posted in one of these threads with a snake mummy and a coffin that had poison gas when you opened it, and it was less than 10 rooms I think. Does anyone know what I am talking about?

My homebrew, for obvious reasons.

Out of official published ones, though, it's the original Wilderlands. I can't call it perfect, but it does a damn sight more right than any other published setting.

Floor One of TotSK. It gets more complicated with every floor. First floor is a straight shot, with four cubby holes with coffins, ending with a trap and then an encounter with three mummies.

It is a good dungeon to start with, it teaches that player lives aren't sacred.

If you don't mind a linear dungeon, I quite like Julinda's Gauntlet. It required a little fixing for OSR from 5e, but the timeloop element amused my players

dmsguild.com/product/177273/Julindas-Gauntlet

...

Yeah that's definitely Tomb of the Serpent Kings, only what you saw was just the first floor. It's fine for an intro game, though, since if the players want to keep playing there's an obvious hook to continue from.

To be fair, they're now on to extra innings, as it were. I've added on a looooot of extra content, including an entirely new level and connections to the Veins of the Earth.

A sensible group of seasoned players could clear the whole thing in 4x 3 hour sessions. My group... just kept coming back for extra stuff, bad plans, etc.

It's fun though! Don't regret it at all.

That sounds like what I will go for then. They will do the first bit, find the secret entrance (Which is apparently exposed) and opt to keep going.

That's...not what I was getting at. You're right that this thread should be about OSR stuff and there's nothing /wrong/ with other things. But, it's all the "this bit of the OSR is the one true way to play and all others are substandard" that I'm referencing.

Is there a version with less possible plate-including loadouts? plate is really expensive in B/X dunno why it appears so much in this tables.

Just roll a d8 instead and only use the left hand column. That or like I said, replace Plate with Chain.

Thieves should have a few specific specialized skills that do NOT depend on player skill. Pickpocketing, etc. They also should be the only ones able to disable complex mechanical traps (i.e there's more to it than just sticking clay in the arrow hole.) Just like only rangers should be able to follow tracks of a certain difficulty.

>AC
Should ascend anyway, only reason for descending AC is if you are trying to trick yourself into bounded AC / atk mods which as dumb as the Max Brooks Zombie Survival dude telling you to only use shitty old bolt action rifles to prevent yourself wasting ammo.
>Level Limits
Are stupid. Just have escalating XP costs by level and the problem will solve itself without inelegant hard caps.
>Monks and Assassins
Monks shouldn't even be part of OSR games IMO. They ought to be a prestige class.
>chargen
Sure whatever.
>Exceptional Strength
Also fine.
>initiative
Also fine.
>combat rounds
Ten seconds is the best imo. One minute combat rounds were always unrealistic, when have you even seen a movie fantasy battle that lasted more than a few minutes? In what part of lord of the rings did it take Aragorn a full minute to kill an orc?
>Spell bonuses
Bonus spells are shit, and that table in 3.5 was overcomplicated as fuck.
>Critical hits
A nat20 should be an automatic hit to prevent "I equip a shield and the goblins can now literally not hit me" math glitches. It should also allow the damage dice to "explode" (if you roll max you roll again and add) but it shouldn't be any extra damage by itself.
>spontaneous conversion
Out-of-combat healing needs to die, but spontaneous conversion is fine with me as long as it takes a 10minute ritual to switch the spell over.

>ironically hating SKUB: The Anime™
Have you tried getting the references?

Have your PCs been involved into actual war? Have they survived mass battles?

Nothing ironic here. I don't know anything about it except it's some anime thing with a Skyrim reference, whoop de doo.

Give it a shot, you're on an anime site.
nyaa.si/view/994267

Only in 5e if you are interested i can tell

Go for it. 5e has mass combat rules?

>nyaa.si/view/994267

Well, that was terrible. That opening theme raped my ears, and the rest was a bunch of lame sketches full of references to video games and other dumb shit. It felt like late season Aqua Teen Hunger Force for total weebs.

Fuck that, give me some giant robots and massive space laser battles in my anime.

Yes. Though their children may or may not be. This article is essentially why.

autarch.co/blog/political-power-personal-power-or-why-julius-caesar-had-70-hit-points

Doesn’t side initiative make combat super swingy?

It is for the first round. You can reduce the effect by having only half the winning side go in the first round. Then from there on out, no side will ever be more than 50% up on the other at any given point.

You could check out Tower of the Weretoads. Its got a well lain out map for reference that might help you out gming and seems otherwise well set up for a one-shot and/or intro. Only thing I can tell it lacks is a few factions for the players to interact with, but that's easy enough to fit in.

>lain?
laid? Made? Made.

Lain seems fine.

>he got this mad at shitposting: the anime

That’s weird. Is that RAW in some system or did you come up with it? How do you decide which 50%? Why not just divide each side in half and roll initiative for each half-side?

Asked in the previous thread, but it sank a quarter later, so will ask again.

Not really OSR question, still... I'm having a walk down the nostalgia lane with AD&D 2nd edition, particularly the Forgotten Realms and Sword Coast region. Is there any good 2nd ed. adventure with a sound balance between monster-bashing, intrigue and exploration set in that part of FR?

What if groups of monster-killing mercenaries & adventurers are worshiped like the heavy metal bands of the 80's??

This is the most D&D thing I've read in ages.

posting a weeb adventure in a weeb thread

In my games, thieves are the ultimate scouts and tricksters, and their abilities are so good as to be nearly magical in nature.

>Climb: needs no tools, can climb nearly anything.
>Open Locks: changed to Mechanisms. As long as the thief carries a small kit of thieves' tools, he can disable mundane or even magical traps, locks or devices (though failing on a magical device spells disaster). Basically fantasy hacking. Also, he can carry a big and heavy Toolbox, which allows him to spend some turns attempting to fabricate some kind of simple device or trap. These are cobbled together from spare parts and will fall apart in a few hours or minutes.
>Find/Remove Traps: changed to Sense Danger. By spending a turn studying a surface, location, object... he can see or touch ("I attempt to Sense Danger in that chest, or in that forest one mile away, or in that wall) he can determine whether it is a good spot for ambush [basically likelihood of being attacked there] OR whether it contains a trap (Y/N question, so you could know there's a trap in the room, but not where, or spend a lot of time examining each part of the room individually)
>Move Silently: not much has changed, allows you to move in complete silence; undetectable as long as you are not seen.
>Hide in Shadows: works as invisiblity; you have to be unseen or have some sort of concealment (even if it is minor) to start. Breaks if you go somewhere where it's utterly impossible to hide (e.g. can't HiS through a plain in broad daylight, but you could through heavy rain, or in a crowded street, a shadowy alley...).
>Backstab: improved damage.
>Detect Noise: Can stop to listen for a turn, get daredevil-style listening (can hear even the heartbeats of their enemies, or get an idea of the shape of the room) in 10xlevel ft cone, hear whispers on five times that. During combat they may spend a round to listen, getting echolocation (5/10/15/20ft for L1-5, L6-10...) for that round if they succeed.

Ok, I can’t be fucked to track initiative anymore, so here’s what I’m gonna do. No surprise rounds, if you surprise the enemy, your side goes first, vice versa for monsters. IF neither side gains surprise, THEN roll for side initiative. Swingy or not. Balance be damned.

...except surprise chance is tracked individually, isn’t it. FUCK

So how would you do it, then?
I thought of doing it the 2e way (with the Combat & Tactics thing of Grand Mastery and all that crap), and when dealing with "similar" weapons you get 1 level less of proficiency. Others get 2 levels less, up to Proficiency at most.

Might as well include the SCOTUS, so we can have all three branches.

You're supposed to roll initiative every round, too.

This is how I do it:
>Surprise rounds
>Each player rolls their initiative + speed factors, henchmen have grouped initiative with their controlling player.
>Monsters have group initiatives.

>You're supposed to roll initiative every round, too.
I’m using LotFP, I don’t think it said anything about that. Dunno about B/X, haven’t read it.

>So how would you do it, then?
I () would just increase the Fighter's to-hit and damage bonuses generally if I found those lagging on higher levels. I simply wouldn't use any kind of specialization or focus rule, because I want players to react with "ho shit, this halberd is magical", not "bah, I don't have halberd spec, throw it in the henchman pile".

If I wanted to use special abilities from the RC weapon mastery table, I'd just grant them to all Fighters on specific levels. Oh, and all of this applies to the demihumans as well, of course.

>it's a "thieves are so good they're magic" episode
Thieves were a mistake.

What is the appeal of Scrap Princess's "art"? Is it just because he is cheap to pay to make art for OSR material?

The scribble style gives a kind of urgency that isn't as obvious in old-school style art, save for stuff like Erol Otus pieces. Unlike Otus, it only really works in dark or horror fantasy OSR stuff.

Hence, why her best work was for VotE.

In a dungeon at least, Veins gave an elegant solution.

Torches take up a hand, but the person who is holding the torch determines initiative order for anyone using that torch light

Does anyone here do reverse declaration of intent style initiative?

Do people here do natural healing as 1 HP per day, or something else?

How would the game change if you did Lvl+CON HP per day?

I have a feeling my group would rather start at a level than do the level 0 funnel in DCC with multiple characters. Should I run a level 0 character with all 4 PCs at level 1? Is that balanced enough?

They should adapt to the game rather than adapting the game to them.

I'm currently working on a low level module wherein stopping The Evil Cult(tm) from their Evil Ritual(tm) results in the town mutating horribly because they've been reaping the benefits of the Dark God(tm) for years. The delay should be just long enough for the players to get back to the local tavern, the only "safe" spot, in time for some Evil Dead shit to start occurring.

The intention is a Lamentations style "Weird and dark" without it being full of BS traps, instead relying on being outnumbered by strange mutants that get back up, Jason Vorhees style.

I'm kinda running out of steam on the after the "Defend the Cabin" bit though. Any ideas?

Wandering monster rolls. Why are you preplanning the story?

I don't think it would change much. It would make natural healing scale with level, which is what frustrates me the most about the idea. Tougher people shouldn't take longer to get to maximum fighting capability than weaker ones, if anything, they should be faster. It can get weird because MU's heal up faster than fighters, but you can justify that by saying the wounds MUs take are trivial because d4 hit dice and anything that knocks out a fighter's hit die is a long lasting wound.

I use a bunch of low powered healing boosts that require resources. Bandages (very stackable) can heal 1d4 hp after a battle but can't bring you above what you had before you started the fight. Eating food also heals you, and the fancier the meal and the longer you spend making it awesome, the more hp it restores.

I agree with your sentiment, the whole funnel idea never really appealed to me, however, it _is_ a crucial part of what makes DCC, DCC, as pointed out. I think you have two options, a) spread out the lvl 0s, b) set up some dynamic difficulty shit.

>Spreading out
Basically the "paladin in a barrel," tweak the module so you have lots of chances to introduce new characters pretty fast. Inform the players and make sure to impress upon them that this is a funnel-only thing.

>Dynamic difficulty shit
Find an excuse for the monsters to call reinforcements. If things are looking dire for them, because the module was designed for a mob of lvl 0s rather than 4 lvl 1 PCs, the monsters call for reinforcements or haul out some disaster machine that makes things worse for both parties.

Or...you could just not run a funnel and start with a normal adventure.

I think I'll ask them what they think of the funnel and give them a choice, I know one will like it I'm just not sure if everyone will want to play multiple characters roleplaying wise.

Not particularly preplanning the story, just stacking the deck.

There's several hooks to get people into town: A recent landslide revealing old tunnels, rumors of a hidden spring that grants immortality on the mountainside, the "crazy" tavern owner importing water by caravan, et cetera.

When they get there, seems like a regular town, but a girl's gone missing and the tavern owner offers to pay you to fetch her. Some intrigue, some investigation, most importantly some time pressure so the PCs don't just go "Eh. Not my problem".

I'm trying to leave it open to the players as to what comes next, but there are certain facts rooted in the gameplay expectations that the players do not alter: namely
>The cult exists
>The cult needs to perform a sacrifice
>Not performing the sacrifice causes mutation to the villagers
>The tavern keeper knows/knew something was up and prepared accordingly.

The problem is coming up with enough content after the players get involved.

honestly I just do full heal on rest* since I don't conflate HP with actual physical injuries for the most part(at least for PC's, it's a bit more variable for monsters)

>It would make natural healing scale with level, which is what frustrates me the most about the idea.
You mean it frustrates you to heal only 1 HP, or that a fighter heals a smaller portion of their hit die, or what? It’s a bit messily phrases.

It frustrates me that a fighter heals a small portion of their hit dice, yeah, that was "a bit messily phrases."

I'm thinking of running Dark Sun in some OSR system, but I'm not sure which yet, and just renaming Fighter and MU as Gladiator and Psion and calling it a day.

Or I might homebrew a psionics system and slap it on top of the whole thing and make the MU a defiler instead. Don't know how to go about that though.

Map out everything, and I mean everything. All the houses, the shitty excuse for an economy, secret hideouts, tunnels, as much as possible. Make sure to keep it all gameable. The advantage of this is that the players will be less likely to catch you off guard, plus the sweet satisfaction of pretending to panic as they go to an unexplored area and then whipping out a map. This /should/ give you some ideas as you come up with it.

If you don't get any ideas with that, figure out what happens if the players stumble into those four facts. What will they do if discovered? What precautions will they take to make sure the sacrifice isn't interrupted.

I think your problem is that you've screwed up where you want to put the bulk of your module. "Defending the Cabin" seems like a final bit, except for maybe "FLEEEEEEEEE." Spend more time fleshing out the investigation, maybe allow for a few skirmishes with the cult?

IIRC in actual dark sun the only differences between defilers and preserves were that defilers sterilized the enviroment up to a certain radius any time they cast a spell, and defilers leveled up absurdly fast (I think faster than any normal class). Preservers were just the normal magic-user

>mfw spent 3 days designing the toilet in the local pub and none of the players used it

And by sterilising you mean "turns plantlife into fucking ash" and also hurts living things in the radius like hell. The faster progression was the "take the easy way to power but kill Athas whilst doing it" path.

>mfw I designe the entire genealogy of the local noble family for players to find out and link to the greater mystery of the campaign and they wasted two sessions on teaching the local goblins how to run a dungeon properly
Bros...

What happens if the players say "fuck it" and just run away?

...

youtu.be/gH0A9-A9x-I

If you want it to play quick, from my own experience you have to keep room descriptions pretty brief.

The noble family hires a militia to take care of the goblin-lovers. Time to put the dungeon to the test.

No experience, that's what happens.

Yes it haves but i didn't use them, it went like this

Players go to a city of elves were they accidentally kill a lot of elves and start a huge fire, elves were tired of adventurers and humans so they decide to start shit and attack the human religious city, so there are like 4 human generals the party goes with the one that is fighting in the vanguard in a forest near the city, so it was a little like Vietnam were all the elves were hidden and shooting arrows at the party, one lost an eye another lose an arm, but finally they defeated all the elves in that forest

Hey, /old/, what do you guys think is a good number of rooms and expected hours when designing a dungeon? For sizes small, medium, large and mega.

Also, I'd like to know what you guys think of pic related. It's my second attempt at designing a dungeon.

S on walls are secret and/or trapped doors. The dungeon has three levels: first, second and underground, but I didn't know how to represent that.

The characters are hired by a duke to guard his house while he's away. But, at the same time, the duke's nephew wants to hire them to steal a deed to an estate in a faraway land, which is hidden in the secret chamber.
In the oubliette a demon is bound to an iron pillar. The duke has double-crossed him on a contract, keeping him as a source of power and advice; but the contract is also hidden in the secret chamber and, if the characters destroy or alter it, the demon will be set free with a vengeance.

What do you guys think? What can I do to make it more interesting, in the layout, premise or ideas for the rooms?

A module where the characters are on the dungeon's side and have to take on superior forces with grit, traps and terrain advantage would be pretty cool, no lie.

That's accurate, yeah. But in the setting everyone hates magic and they don't understand the difference between defiling and preserving, so they just hate every MU and call them defilers. The renaming is just thematic for play in the setting.

My real issue is psionics. Psionics are big in Dark Sun, but I'm not happy with any psionics rules I've seen, and I don't really want it be its own class because A: it would just be another wizard and B: Psionics are so common in Dark Sun that most people have some talent for it without actually taking levels in a psionic class.

What is dragonlance about? is it any good?

There are other dungeons, no big deal.

It's something you really should think about though. There's some railroad-y "but thou must" subtext in the whole scenario.

Have you ever been in a house? there aren’t just random gaps like that.

>no scale
>no shading to distinguish halls from negative space
>no caps