/osrg/ - Old School Renaissance General

Are there any JG products set in Altanis?

Where in your world did you place the Caverns of Thracia?

Pretty neat, but I'd have to adjust it for my table. Seriously, he gets a 1% chance on his Lore skill at level 1? Here I thought thieves had it rough.

Because they're trying to show how hard and cool they are by totally not even caring about trolls, you guys.

Can you explain to a newfag what's exactly going on with the other thread and how it's a false flag?

drivethrurpg.com, but they pay you to download as long as you play it and upload a session report

I don't know that it's a "false flag", but it was made four hours before the old thread rolled off the board, and instead of one of the stock OP images (which helps people find the thread) it has a near pornographic anime image of the type usually used in troll threads.

They did this before a few days ago and I scrolled right on by without looking because it didn't even register as an /osrg/ thread to me, I instantly assumed it was a shitposting fetish thread like Veeky Forums gets lately, which I think is the idea -- to cause people to overlook the thread and assume there isn't one up.

Did you report the porn thread? You can get it deleted if enough reports are submitted.

>asking someone to announce reports

>implying mods come to Veeky Forums

Just ignore it, it'll die off.

Okay, setting aside the meta nonsense, does anybody else know of any bard or bard-like classes for Basic?

The name ”quasi-class” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but this looks like an interesting mechanic. Anyone know what sources the Confessor is based on?

Gotta remind people that this can be done.
/osrg/ can be saved if people still give a fuck and don't give into SJW trolling.

>>>/global/rules/10

The first thread breaks no rules.

There's a mod who hangs out in /twgg/

Yeah, I hear "quasi-class" and it brings to mind a hunchback. (A hunchback class would probably be pretty useless outside of a bell tower and OP inside one.)
But yeah, the confessor is really neat, thanks for pointing it out, I was only looking at the bard. I believe it comes from those terrible Terry Goodkind books. Sword of Truth or something like that.

The original bard from the Strategic Review is meant for OD&D, it works fine. (There's a post on the OD&D forum at Dragonsfoot up right now where you can download a nice writeup of the bard, ranger, and illusionist as an OD&D style booklet).

There's a basic bard for BFRPG. There's a basic bard in JB's "B/X Companion" by Running Beagle Games (check the trove) and also probably a bard in Barrataria's "Companion Expansion" (again, check the trove). IIRC, of these three, only Barrataria's version is a proper spell-caster resembling the AD&D bard.

In my own games, I use the cleric class, take away turning undead, let them use edged weapons, and give them a percentile chance to identify magic items. Instant bard.

What do anime pedos have to do with SJWs?

Guess who's trying to make OSR more "anime"

Anyone have a copy of "Stars Without Number Revised Edition"?

And I don't mean the free version, I mean the complete book.

>There's a post on the OD&D forum at Dragonsfoot up right now where you can download a nice writeup

Sounds really cool, but it looks like you have to PM the guy to get it, however. Don't know why he wouldn't just drop it on a file hosting site.

You mean the second edition? Hang on, I'll upload it.

Here we go, SWN 2e, the revised edition, on send space:

file/u9plbl

Wow, thank you so much!

Fear of legal action since it's technically piracy.

Yeah, I suppose you wouldn't want to risk having your real name attached to it. I forget what it's like not to be anonymous on the internet sometimes.
Someone should strip his name off (if he was dumb enough to put it on there) and stuff it in the Trove.

How do you add something to the trove, anyway?

Figure out who's running it right now, and wake him up. Alternately, somebody else could set up their own copy, but Mega has reduced new accounts down to 15 gigs, so if you didn't sign up before last december or so, you can't store the whole thing.

>tfw captcha is wrong and tells you to try again

What, are billboards not street signs now? Make up your damn mind, google!

Anyway, the Strategic Review is in the trove (under "Zines"), issue 201 has the classic D&D bard. That's about as official as it gets.

Thanks, user!

>product uses OGL
>author doesn't designate Product Identity or Open Game Content

>product uses OGL
>only mechanics are Open Game Content

>product uses OGL
>everything is Product Identity

I'm trying to not steal from people but they aren't making easy.

What's the difference between Open Game Content and Product Identity?

You can get sued for using Product Identity.

Whether or not the author is a booty blasted faggot content to stand on the shoulders of giants.

Oh, okay, that makes sense then.

But that doesn't. Sounds like it would be funny if I was awake enough to get what you're saying, though.

OGL in its purest sense allows anyone tl redistribute any cotent, in part or full, with thr stipulation that origial authors be credited for their work. "Game identity" is supposed to be the defining aspect of a game, the seed of creativity that sets it apart. In practice, it became the gaming equivelent of screaming ORIGINAL CHARACTER, DONUT STEEL. Anyone who hides their entire game behind "game identity" is just using the giants of oldschool gaming to sell their product while hiding behind licenses make them feel important. "Standing on the shoulders of giants" using the popular work of someone else to push your work, hoping that association will make your material seem better through osmosis.

Get woke.

Ah gotcha.

>Get woke.

No way, dude, it's like 2am here. I'm getting unwoke as soon as possible.

I have a question about some old D&D material... is this the best place to ask?
I would like to know if the Creature Crucible books were all heavily tied to the Mystara setting, or if they could be used for generic settings.

stop it with the fucking absolute shit anime porn you fucking retards

Will a cleric, casting inverted Sticks to Snakes, automatically win against a Medusa?
Can an evil cleric make a normal forest into a Snake Branch Forest (albeit short-lived)?
Can a cleric turn razor sharp stick-like claws of a driad or ent or any wood creature into snakes? Will it help?

Serious question:
Is 2e not considered osr? I know it sounds like im shitposting, but i swear im not. Ive played 2e since it came out and frankly never moved on from it. If i wanted something different, i play a different rpg (admittedly an old one... twilight:2000 1e comes to mind). Seeing as how 1e and 2e are basically the same thing, whats the big deal?

tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=4002

He’s going in hot

Its almos identical to 1e but some neckbeards are butthurt because of the railroad modules that came out for it (and not having Gygax).

Its ok I like 2e too.

Some people see the shift towards more story-based adventures at the time, in addition to a few rule shifts, and the eventual skills & powers stuff as evidence that 2e isn't really old school. And as a spiritual distinction, I don't necessarily have a problem with that (though it's pretty subjective), but it's like saying that your favorite rock group isn't the same band after they released bad album. Lineup changes aside, they obviously are the same band, technically speaking, and you don't literally mean that the band that put out the album you hated is unrelated to the one that released the previous album.

All TSR editions of D&D use the same core system, and are relatively interchangeable as a result. This puts 2e squarely into the "old school" category with OD&D, Basic and 1st edition AD&D if we're looking at any method of classification that isn't highly subjective.

Thanks for the non shitpost replies. Much appreciated.
I agree that the railroad modules were bad for 2e, but what about all the faggotlance stuff that spanned both editions? Isnt that the absolute worst example of railroad adventures there is? At least from this period?

Forgot to add: skill and ability checks (read:proficiencies) started with the outdoor/dungeoneers survival guides ... and OE if i remember correctly

Hint: those that claim that OSR is only this or that are absolutely retarded

I definitely count 2e as old school, but there's an argument to be made as far as rules creep goes. Nonweapon proficiencies were in 1e supplements but 2e core, and 2e introduced skill packages and so forth in its supplements, moving it further along. If this trend had continued, the a TSR 3e would've had skill packages in the core and gone further afield in its supplements.

>Anyone who hides their entire game behind "game identity" is just using the giants of oldschool gaming to sell their product while hiding behind licenses make them feel important.
Just ask Wizards. Call of Cthulhu d20 breaks the OGL flagrantly but since they made it themselves no one cares.

A good while back I made myself an alternative-alternative combat system for 0d&d. Instead of messing around with charts from men and magic and supplement 1, I have this all-encompasing system that takes into account all possible, past, present, and future modifiers, weapon, and armor types, and restructures the combat a little, to not play like ping pong.

The way it works is simple, and i'm quite happy with it (which is why I'm shamlessly posting it) - even solves the issue of rolling for HP at level 1 and playing a fighter with 3 hit points as a result (I just roll damage as per the supplement 1 chart versus HP whenever the "wounded" result comes up).

and the system in question:

Melee combat is a contested roll of 2d6. Higher of the two rolls is the Attack Die, lower is the Damage Die.

Combat Advantage (momentum, higher ground, support, etc.): Roll 3d6 instead of 2d6, and discard lowest roll.
Edge (better equipment, skill, physical conditions, etc.): +1, +2, or +3 attack modifier at GM's discretion.

For multiple combatants versus one, add 1d6 for each extra combatant, and discard all but two highest rolls.

Winner of contested attack roll calculates damage as Damage = Weapon Damage x Damage Die versus Armor Class.

If the Attack Die roll is a natural 6, the attack is a critical hit (use the Critical Damage value instead).

Weapon Type: Weapon Damage/Critical Damage

Light: 1/3 (knife, dagger, improvised)
standard: 2/3 (sword, axe, mace, etc.)
Heavy: 3/4 (longsword, pole axe, etc.)

Armor Class:

shield only: 4 (5 with helmet)
helmet only: 4 (5 with shield)
light armor: 5 (6 with helmet or shield, 7 with both)
heavy armor: 7 (8 with helmet or shield, 9 with both)
plate armor: 10 (11 with helmet, no benefit from shields)

Additionally, a helmet grants +1 AC vs critical hits, a shield wins draws (unless both combatants have one).

If calculated damage is greater than Armor, target is Wounded. Else, the target is Dazed (grants advantage).
If already Dazed, target is Stunned (grants advantage, and edge). If already Stunned, the target is Wounded.
After 1 round of not being attacked, Stunned combatants become Dazed, and Dazed combatants return to Normal.

Overpower:
After winning a round of combat (or getting a tie), a fighter may declare an attempt to overpower the other.
Resolve the combat as usual, except instead of checking damage against armor, compare the Damage Die scores.
If the winner's Damage Die score is greater, the target becomes prone. Otherwise, they continue to struggle.
Prone combatants grant advantage, and edge, and any attacks against them automatically become critical hits.

>Popular rules additions getting revisions and added to the core rules as options
And this is bad how?

Regardless, it's pointless to discuss an hypothetical TSR 3e; it never happened and never will. What's important is the OneTrueWay-ists no-true-scotsmanning their way into alienating an entire edition that is almost identical to 1e and plays the same. It's retarded, and only serves to create aimless controversy.

Any tips of some basic tenants of OSR game design?

I've found the various rules sets are good to understand how things work mechanically differently but say little about how to actually design and run a game.

I'm sure this all makes very good sense to you, but it seems very fiddly to me. Keeping track of which die is the attack and damage die in particular seems like it would get annoying. I also don't particularly like the dazed->stunned->wounded thing. It feels verty arbitrary to me. If your goal was to make every hit meaningful I guess you suceeded, but at the same time that feels silly to me. Sometimes you whiff and your attack does nothing. Sometimes you're fighting a brick shithouse who blocks your blows with no visible fatigue. Just my two cents.

>Light: 1/3 (knife, dagger, improvised)
>standard: 2/3 (sword, axe, mace, etc.)
>Heavy: 3/4 (longsword, pole axe, etc.)
That progression is incredibly steep. Normally a longsword does 80% more damage than a dagger. Here it does 200% more. It seems like a 2, 3, 4 progression would work much better, if you could get the math right, anyway.

>And this is bad how?
I think you missed my point. I'm not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying that there is a progression. If you repeated the process with another half dozen editions, you'd likely have a radically different product, even though each time you could just point out that all they're doing is bringing supplemental material into the core books.

For that, don't look to the retroclones: look to TSR's stuff, esp. 1e DMG.

Oh, yes, perhaps you're right.

Been a while since I read them but I didn't think so.

>whats the big deal?
Anger at T$R for kicking out Gary/DL & FR being popular & successful

Outside of this thread (eg on Dragonsfoot and K'n'KA), most OSR people see the end cutoff of the Old School as being the publication of the Dragonlance series of adventures. 2e is after that point, and although it's very similar to 1e ruleswise, all of the rule changes or additions are contrary to old-school style play, and the spirit in which 2e is written (effectively, to cater to ebin fantasy fans; the Dragonlance sequence was immensely popular) also contradicts the original style.

I'm telling you because you asked, but I won't discuss any of this; it invariably unleashes massive shitposting in /osrg/ because the 2e nostalgiafags on Veeky Forums decided they live here now and get assmad beyond belief whenever someone says 2e isn't OSR.

>I would like to know if the Creature Crucible books were all heavily tied to the Mystara setting
Nah, I don't remember them being that at all. I've always understood them as just the Monster Manual/Fiend Folio equivalent of BECMI.

>Dragonsfoot
Yeah, but they have a 2e section.

>K'n'KA
Rabid Gygaxites to a man (unless you're talking about his post-TSR work). They also say that the OSR is nothing but a bunch of False (A)D&D Enthusiasts.

Remember to design interactive environments, not stories.

The first several years of GMing 3e for me was almost entirely "hallway" dungeons, where you start at one end, maybe take an inconsequential detour, and then get to whatever I wanted you to find in the first place. This is bad, lazy GMing, and I knew it at the time, but didn't know how else to approach it.

I now try not to create designs with a "solution". They're an environment with ecologies and behavior inside.

Yeah...
Part of that is because that's what the books give out.

Nice band analogy, user. I'm with you on that. 2e is OSR by the only objective measure, it's just a bit out there thematically, and you have to be aware of what was changed if you want to do an OSR style game in 2e. Like how the dungeon exploration is 10x faster than earlier editions, which will put your dungeon crawl into easy mode. Fine if you're down for that, as long as you know what's up.

>tfw seeing a picture 25 years later makes you realize where Eye of the Beholder got its drow sprite design from

What do you guys think of this?

textfiles.com/rpg/adndmods.txt

>Dungeon crawl 10x faster
Honest question: what are you talking about?
I've just looked at the 1e and 2e PHBs:
>1e: unencumbered human moves 120' per 1 minute round
>2e: unencumbered human moves his Base Movement Rate (12) in tens of feet (120) in one minute.

You're mixing up two different things. Dungeon exploration in OD&D/Basic/AD&D is 120' per turn, not per round. 120' per round is combat movement.
A turn is 10 minutes, a round is one. Waaait a second, didn't 2e shorten the length of a round, too? I gotta dig out my books.

2e may or may not have shortened the round, but it explicitly says "your movement rate in tens of feet in one minute"

57609160
>The obsolete concept of "class"
Quit reading there, take your troll attempt and GTFO

how do I make my players fear my dungeons/wilderness?

Why do you want them to fear the dungeon?

desu it's hard to understand what Gary's saying here

From the 1e PHB:
>The movement distance in the dungeon is 1" to 10' over a turn of 10 minutes duration while exploration and mapping are in progress.

From the 2e PHB:
>When a character is moving through a dungeon or similar setting, his movement rate corresponds to tens of feet per round (rather than the tens of yards per round of outside movement). It is assumed that the character is moving more cautiously, paying attention to what he sees and hears while avoiding traps and pitfalls.

So yeah, the basic dungeon exploration unit is moved from the 10 minute turn to the 1 minute round. (And no, 2e does' nt shorten the round, it's still one minute) And 2e is still like "it's sooo slow, because you're mapping" even though it's now so much faster.
This is well suited to consuming premade modules at a nice profitable pace, since your party can potentially cruise through a big cool-looking dungeon in a couple of sessions now, but it sucks if you're building your own, because they'll hit the edge of your prep in no time.

Resource management.

Town is safety. You can rest there, resupply. Find companions and hirelings and anything else.

Roads aren't safe, but they can be relied upon. In the shadow of town, or a fortress, you can almost pretend safety. You can make camp by the road, maybe even come across other travellers. Maybe an occasional bandit group attacks you, but in general even at night you must only make the mildest of precautions.

Wilderness is not safe. Camping in the woods invites trouble. A fire will stave off beasts, but might attract something worse. This is were the fey wander, where the orcs plot, where the dead walk. Sleep with one eye open, and be prepared to drop everything and flee.

Dungeons are never safe. To sleep there is death. The dungeon is an enemy, trying to kill you as sure as the slavering creatures within. Danger is always lurking. Every door is stuck shut. Step careful, or you will never leave.

>since your party can potentially cruise through a big cool-looking dungeon in a couple of sessions now
I never thought of it like that. Doesn't it take about the same amount of IRL? I got the impression that the content and narration is about the same, but in 2e characters are assumed to move at a quick hustle, like a team in a heist movie.

I guess I thought the difference was mostly in how quickly consumables were used up, and how often wandering monsters were encountered.

I'm not sure about the 1e thing. It feels like he's trying to refer to Movement Rate with the 1", meaning that 1" of Movement Rate corresponds to 10' of movement. The fact that he says that combat movement is 1/10 that for each round seems to support what I think. Also, it seems that it would be awfully slow. I mean, even 2e's movement is slow; moving 10 feet to a SINGLE INCH in ten minutes is a bit ridiculous, even if you're measuring every step of the way. 10 feet is like what, three steps?
Besides, the 120'/minute isn't a 2e thing. It's clearly defined in B/X.

>Doesn't it take about the same amount of IRL? I got the impression that the content and narration is about the same
I think he's saying that 10x the time means 10x the random encounter checks, and so presumably 10x the random encounters. That would take more time, but it honestly feels like needlessly padding the adventure.

Basic (pic related) AD&D, and OD&D are all more or less the same after you do the inches-to-feet conversion.
You move 120 feet in a round in normal movement speed, and 120 feet per TURN in exploring the dungeon. This includes moving silently, mapping, examining the surroundings, looking for obvious pitfalls and stuff like that.

2e is the outlier among them because exploration speed is now your old normal movement speed.

Oh fuck, you're absolutely right. It even says so clearly in the picture I posted. Sorry for being so obtuse.

Yeah, 120'/turn feels more in tune with the game (for example, every time you move you roll for random encounters, it's convenient). It does seem pretty slow if we're talking realism. If my math is right (which I wouldn't really trust right now) that's 0.24 km/h (or 0.14 mph). I get that you're supposed to be carefully mapping and looking for danger, but that's pretty slow. Meanwhile 2e's comes to ten times that speed, which is a reasonably slow walking pace.

Holmes puts it nicely:

>A fully armoured man can move 120 feet per turn at a cautious walk. Each turn takes ten minutes (scale time, not actual) in the characters' magical universe. In the players' universe arguments sometimes develop and a turn may take considerably longer!

Yeah, it's an abstraction that takes into account moving about, talking (in low whispers of course), examining dungeon features, all that stuff. If you're just moving from a to b in the dungeon your speed is faster, though how fast depends on which rule set you're using. I think AD&D is 5x explore rate, I forget what OD&D uses, and -- I should have looked while I had it open -- I think Basic just has the normal running rate, 10x.

What's wrong with Castles and Crusades and how could the issue be addressed?

>Too 3e
>Playing a different game

3e actually does some good stuff; it's just that it also does enough bad stuff to ruin it.

>3e actually does some good stuff
It got rid of THAC0, that's it

>It got rid of THAC0, that's it
The standardized central mechanic is nice and affects shit like thief skills as well as attacks. I'd much rather have d20 rolls than % checks for thief skills. Now, 3e's skill system is flawed but not because of the d20 mechanic. (Also, I approve of the saving throw categories, even if 3e completely botched the math on saves.)

>The standardized central mechanic is nice
Get ye gone.

>want to write a 3-monster mini-bestiary with 2e-style MC entries
>get one finished
>get writer's block for the other two
Should I just make tiny Basic-style blurbs instead? This is going to be OGL anyway so I can always go back and enhance the entries if I get later inspiration.

If it's good for attacks, why isn't it good for other stuff?

>Should I just make tiny Basic-style blurbs instead? This is going to be OGL anyway so I can always go back and enhance the entries if I get later inspiration.
I mean, sure. Why not? If it's a choice between sticking to your ideals or actually getting something done, it's hard not to favor the latter.

so, I'm of the opinion that having thief (or ranger or assassin, etc) skills work mechanically like saving throws will 'feel' more elegant while being functionally the same. Thoughts?