/osrg/ - /osnorcg/ - Old School, New Options, Real Challenge General

Previously discussed, but nah. The time and planning aspect of "6 hour hexes" is too appealing.

Plus, point crawls feel like journeys between interesting things. Hexcrawls feel like exploring a world where everything is interesting. Driving vs walking.

You could have encounter tables for color-coded segments?

Hexcrawls are pointcrawls.

I have an encounter table for:
1. Each territory (so there's one for Illithids, one for Archaeansm etc.)
2. A generic encounter table for each depth (light grey, mid grey, dark grey). The deeper you go the weirder the monsters get.

cavegirl (or anyone else, really), got any good advice on publishing stuff through DriveThru? I think I've got it... but there might be some hidden trick I've missed.

Suggested carousing table(s)?

Not really, it's pretty self explanatory. Then again my strategy is largely 'upload and hope', so I'm not the best to go to for advice.

>Does grit double as morale?
I mostly use it as a stamina equivallent, but that's a cool idea.

>Then again my strategy is largely 'upload and hope', so I'm not the best to go to for advice.
Nope, seems like you're pretty much the perfect person because that is also my strategy.
>I mostly use it as a stamina equivallent, but that's a cool idea.
Seconded.

jrients.blogspot.ca/2008/12/party-like-its-999.html

oh! dtrpg lets you buy adverts on rpg.net - buy them, they help.

I'm very much not a fan of ads, but I'll consider it.

>what's yer point?

I don't hex or point crawl. How could I have a point?

Ah, but do you catan?

Never could get into it, no.

*tsk tsk*

Everyone and their niece has seen the screencap. And even if I didn't get it wasn't funny out of the blue, is what actually happened, you could assume you amused lurkers.
Unless a joke is actually pertinent to the conversation, we don't need a confirmation handshakes.

Fair point. Now that I have erred, I shall attempt to return to topic.
I'm not exactly sure how you're doing the math here, admittedly, Logan's math kind of confuses me too, but an MU can only have a max of 7 flesh, 4+3. It also depends on what's critting them, and how you're handling crits. Basically, more context is needed to evaluate the implementation of flesh and grit in your system.

What is objectively the best retroclone?

What is your objective?

Beyond the Wall

Armor functions as damage reduction using the three basic armors of B/X (leather, chain, plate) as exemplars of light, moderate, and heavy armor categories. Shields make it 2 points harder to hit you, and two-handed weapons are correspondingly increased in damage. Wizards can use light weapons like short swords and hatchets. Clerics are restricted to using just a few weapons that vary according to their god. Demihumans and clerics are restricted to chain mail or lighter armor.

What's your favorite monster from Fire on the Velvet Horizon?

Should I give my players a map that I uncover as they explore, or should I let them map themselves? If they do map themselves, how do I make it easier for them to draw?

Playing games and having fun

I saw last thread we were talking about best intro modules, and there was some discussion on Tower of the Stargazer. Is it a good introduction module? are there better ones? What's the best intro modules? are there guides to running stargazer?

I've been thinking about this recently too. Physically that seems cumbersome but you could probably do it with scraps of paper or sticky notes. Depends on if you want to be able to video game map it. Personally I wouldn't so they don't have an idea about where the edge of the map is.

I usually let them map themselves, which got a lot easier when they stopped trying to map to scale and just wrote approximate sizes in the areas.

But they've recently acquired a map of a manse they're breaking into so I think I'm going to draw up an in character map that won't be 100% accurate.

River surgeons. Sweet, simple, and you can fit them in most settings. That or Thug Bugs

I think that all random encounter tables with beasts should include a % chance of the thing being ridden by Thug Bugs.

I think Tower of the Stargazer is just fine.
I did write a module that most /osr/ regulars have seen before that's deliberately designed to be an introductory module, with a sort of guide built into the module's structure, because people kept asking for one. It's free and people like it.

Failing that, even a quick search of the archives will turn up loads of suggestions.

Have you tried using Poker as social lubricant?

Have you tried using lubricant while you socially poke 'er?

The Complete Warlock (the earlier one that's mostly just OD&D).
There are better retroclones, but they don't stand out from the originals.

If the game is about exploration and discovery of the wilderness (i.e. you’re actually using consistent travel rules and have stocked the map with stuff), then it shouldn’t be easy to map - they would have to draw their own inaccurate map, and only find out major mistakes by using it to navigate again later.

OTOH, if you’re not using hexcrawl rules, and all the interesting stuff happens at key locations, then just show them a map

For me, wandering monster checks, reaction checks and morale checks are a big distinctive feature of oldschool play, so I’d use something that has sentient monsters.

Oh, wait, were you talking dungeon or wilderness?

There are probably better introductory modules, but I sure can't think of any.
>are there guides to running stargazer?
You don't need one. The module is very straight forward and tells you how to run it.
It tells you well actually. You could have no previous RPG experience and run it decently.

Anyone got any suggestions for a random table, emcounters, monster write up, themed spells, etc.

...

”Who/where can the rumors about the dungeon be learned from in this vague unimportant town”

Terrain PoIs

Werid question time: Does anyone know what system Gary played the most during his final years on planet Earth?

Holy shit Sons of Kyuss are nasty.

>ps. fear aura
>ps. they travel in groups

Has anyone played a game with one dm and one player? How did it go? What system did you use?

Didn't he still play three white books w/ house rules for years? Don't know if it's the only system he played tho

Do you guys use crits?

Nope

So I want to play Lamentations of the flame princess, but I'm a bit confused about which book to pick up. There's seperate books for rules and magic, there's a "Grindhouse edition", there's one with both Rules & Magic, and there's a referee book. What do I get? What's the most modern?

I think so, his house rules being the ones compiled here: cyclopeatron.blogspot.nl/2010/03/gary-gygaxs-whitebox-od-house-rules.html

Yup, but it's just max damage.

>Ability scores rolled as best 3 out of 4d6. Arrange scores to taste.

>PCs start at 3rd level.

>PCs are unconscious at 0 hp

>Gary IDs most magic items immediately

Who knew Gygax liked playing Soyboys and Sorcerors

There's gotta be a way to shorten that. But I feel "town rumors" might be a little too vague.

Rules & Magic. Grindhouse is the outdated version of the game, the referee book is just a book of referee advice, conversion guides etc.

Not me, but my GM said he ran Dungeon Crawl Classic with one player. That player played 15 characters. All of them died from one trap. Rockslides aren't nothing to scoff at.

I've been trying to come up with a BECMI/RC campaign, one that will hopefully run for a few years IRL, and have been thinking of stuff for anyone who'd want to play a demihuman past level limits.

For those who don't know/care, each demihuman race has a special relic they can use to make magical items related to their race, as well as some other neat shit. Now, the Elf gazetteer gives rules for advancing as more of a wizard, which is tied to their relic, the Tree of Life, and I'm ok just straight up using those rules wholesale. Halflings have what's called the Crucible of Blackflame, almost like anti-fire in that it sheds shadows instead of light, and burns cold, not hot. A seemingly throwaway section of the Halfling gazetteer says that in rare moments, they can absorb the Blackflame into themselves. That idea, plus a small article over on Pandius, has me working on a modern warlock-style advancement for them ("eldritch" Blackflame blasts and the like).

For dwarves, however, their gazetteer offered playing as a dwarf cleric from level 1, gave them a 20% exp penalty, and threw all kinda of restrictions on them, like "don't let non-dwarves know you're a cleric". All in all, it's shit. So, considering the connections to the clan relics the other races have for their alternate advancement, I was thinking of a dwarven forgemaster. However, outside of making weapons and armor considered to be +1 higher when wielded by them, and a loose idea of being able to modify weapons and armor on the fly (i.e. give them abilities like flaming, icy burst, ethereal, etc), I'm not really sure what to do with them. Even if I stick with the on-the-fly mods, is that a permanent alteration to the item, or temporary? What abilities can they add, and can they learn additional ones as they level? Stuff like that.

Padded (AC 8, cloth)
Chain (AC 6, chain)
Scale (AC 4, chain)
Banded (AC 4, plate)
Plate (AC 2, plate)

I include similar types of armour in these sections. For example, scale includes things like lamellar, while banded includes breastplates, brigandines, laminar, etc, and padded includes pretty much anything sewn together.

Shields give -1 to AC. If the armour is made of a magical material, that also gives -1 to AC. Without taking into account dexterity and size (which I haven't decided whether I'm using), AC ranges from 10 to 0.

Each AC also has a designation of what type of armour it is, because I use weapon type vs AC. Thus there is a difference between banded and plate other than price.

Don't map for them. Part of the challenge is mapping effectively.

I have. My player runs 4 characters at a time. It works. It's a little more board-gamey that way though, since there isn't any interaction between the characters. If there's a specific question you have feel free to ask.

that said, the ref book is full of surprisingly good advice. If you can afford it or pirate it it's totes worth it.

Should I give my M-U read magic as a cantrip? Kinda weird the guy who does magic can only read magic twice per day, and only with preperation

That actually doesn't sound half bad to me, but if you're making it a cantrip, why not make it just an innate ability? It's not like it'll be impacted much from being a spell. This is also what I do, but I make it hard to cast spells you've just randomly picked up from your travels rather than researched yourself.

There really is no way to do hexcrawl in post 2e is there? Random encounter tables with set "ranges" of level become meaningless after a while because the PCs can effortlessly defeat them and expend almost no resources in the process, and if they do magical / inherent healing means the battle will have no consequences. Whereas at least in an OSR system a group of 8th level fighting men who run into a goblin ambush might suffer wounds that hinder their capabilities in the sun g on later.

Am I correct in this assertion? How do I make regional hexcrawl encounter tables that adjust for this?

>all that text
>TL;DR whatcha think of this forgemaster idea

I think it fits the dwarfy archetype. I would just replace the dwarf class with your higher level alternative.

You could start giving them mythic powers, like the ability to forge living creatures, war machines, or unbreakable chains (for binding gods of course).

But you might want to consider whether it's worthwhile to expand the game that far, rather than retiring the rare character and making them an important NPC. You'll surely have low level characters mixed in because of character mortality. And as they level up, you have to choose between letting them level up into powerful demigods, or face diminishing returns, where each level only grants a couple HP.

Maybe when a dwarf hits level 14 or whatever, they go into a dwarf fortress style mania, where they must retreat from the world for a year and a day, and if supplied with the proper materials, they come back with a world changing artifact.

>Stat the Osnorc
HP 1 but plays the character anyways

>Sons of Kyuss

Neat. What are you looking at that statted these guys?

lomion.de/cmm/kyussson.php
Aren't they in Tome of Horrors too?

>There really is no way to do hexcrawl in post 2e is there?
There is - the Kingmaker adventure path for Pathfinder is one, for instance, although it's deeply flawed in various aspects. I would highly discourage running one in 4E since the system isn't exactly suited for it, but 3E at least has some modicum of support.

>Random encounter tables with set "ranges" of level become meaningless after a while because the PCs can effortlessly defeat them and expend almost no resources in the process,
There's multiple ways to handle this. 3E, for instance, outlines two general worldbuilding styles: in one the encounters are generally scaled to the PCs, and in the other the encounters are what they are and if you go to Ogre Hill at first level then you're going to meet some Ogres.

There's definitely a point where the encounters become routine, but that honestly goes for any system with strong progression. An option here is to just... not play at those levels. For 3E, I personally think the best way to get something approaching OSR in style is the E6 system (tl;dr: level 6 is the level cap, each 5,000XP after that is +1 feat.)

>and if they do magical / inherent healing means the battle will have no consequences.
See, this is a weird one. 5E would obviously require you to swap over to the 1-week long rest variant, but 3E is kind of stingy with healing when the players aren't abusing Wands of Cure Light Wounds and the like.
You'll have to curtail that somehow - the easiest method, perhaps, would be removing the ability to buy magic items?

>Whereas at least in an OSR system a group of 8th level fighting men who run into a goblin ambush might suffer wounds that hinder their capabilities in the sun g on later.
As opposed to a group of 9th-level Lords who probably won't suffer any wounds but might lose a handful of mercenaries?
Or, you know, how the goblins have bad enough THAC0 and damage output that any wounds could be healed by Patriarch (including death)?

festivals and observances

> Clerics must be Lawful. Elves and Magic-Users must be Chaotic. All others are free to choose their alignment.

Oh so the band named themselves after an obscure D&D monster, rather than someone naming a monster after the band? Cool, I never knew they were into D&D. But I'm not too surprised, they were some weird, creative, and interesting dudes.

youtube.com/watch?v=B7Ske2eKX2g

>having a +4 bonus to AC from high ability scores
Absolutely disgusting.

I never know what to do with genies, they only seem to suit an Arabian Nights sort of setting.

I has the idea of making the Dao crystal headed beings that speak in crystalline chimes and harmonics.

>Am I correct in this assertion?
I think it's pretty flawed in some ways.

>How do I make regional hexcrawl encounter tables that adjust for this?
Well, let's take 3E as an example since it's such a clusterfuck. Assign each hex, or region of hexes, an average CR. Make the actual tables swingy fucks - a CR5 region averages CR5, but there should be some CR1-3 cakewalks in there as well as a CR10 "run away" encounter. Base the average CR on the average number of monsters.

If you allow the players Leadership (you probably should, although make sure to stick to NPC classes), remember that the CR they can take on theoretically increases by 2 with each doubling - and and an encounter level equal to their level is assumed to be relatively easy, with difficult ones only being +2 or higher.

If you go with E6, don't make the most difficult regions CR6 - make them more, like, CR10 or 12ish.

I dunno, man, you need to work a bit but there's definitely ways to do it. I can't say much about the quality, though.

2e characters are not generally much stronger than the equivalent ones in B/X or 1e.

The original West Marches game was run in 3e (or maybe 3.5). The author actually said the detailed system was critical to the success of the campaign, because it gave the players an objective understanding of the gameworld. The wilderness got more dangerous the further they traveled from the home base.

Trivializing or reducing the danger of low level foes has always been a feature of the game. It's fun to get to level 4 and just smash the threats you used to run away from.

IOW, the experience may be different, but there's absolutely nothing about a hexcrawl that prevents you doing it in 5e. "Hexcrawl" is just a way for the GM to organize the map, and perhaps procedurally generate some material.

Yeah, innate sounds better. It's not like they can pick up some dusty ass scroll they found and cast time stop immediately, I would still have the time commitment / money for making / understanding scrolls, it just means they don't have to waste a spell slot on what's frankly nothing more than a tax

+4 bonus for ability scores that are magically high. As in, either you have a magical item or you drank from a magical spring to get it that high. And +4 is the maximum bonus, whether your ability score is 19 or 39.

It's not entirely a tax, it all depends on how you're prepping stuff. If your characters are likely to find new spells, then having read magic rewards the MU who chooses to prepare it by letting them just add it to their spellbook which is otherwise extremely limited. In both cases, MUs find it hard to learn and cast new spells they wouldn't have gained through their normal level progression, it's just different ways of going about it. My players aren't exactly the brightest (they're clever, but there's no way they'd grasp the "weirdness" of the MU, and one of them was VERY adamant about being a wizard) so I switched to the other method so they wouldn't screw themselves over with their own stupidity.

Osnorc (AC 6 (10); HD as weakest party member; MV 90' (120'); #AT 1; D 2-16; SA instinctively tell HD of PCs; Save F1; Ml 9; AL N)
No.Appearing 2-50 and 1 MU-type*, plus 1 MU-type per 20 osnorcs. Focus on weaker PCs to boost their HD.
*carry 1 scroll per spell an MU of the same level as their HD could memorize

"Hooks"

>As opposed to a group of 9th-level Lords who probably won't suffer any wounds but might lose a handful of mercenaries?
Still a loss. Still something the PCs will have to contend with. And if they were loyal followers then that's actually a problem.

I see what you mean, though. Epic6 is really neat and one of my favorite ideas for 3.5 (low level 3.5 has been my favorite gaming experience). Pathfinder has witches and all these extra class features that let them heal a ton more. And obviously 5e is a lost cause without the long long rest rules, which I would use.

Anyway, that's solid advice. I'll see if my group is open to e6 3.5. I also like what the other user mentioned about how leadership can "buff up" the party level. So the "hard areas" will be CR 10 to 12 and that's as hard as it needs to get. Brings the game into more focus.

I still feel like a 10 level OSR game would be better, esp. since it'd be much easier to homebrew monsters (it has X hit dice and these are its special abilities. Bam. Done.) and I could even stat them out on the random encounter table.

I dunno, I'll have to think about it, but you've given me good insight.

Only at conventions.

Lejendary Adventure™

Just remove it entirely. Read Magic is a spell tax.

In my games, there's nothing inherent about spellcasters that makes them able to read magic and there's nothing inherent about magic scrolls that prevents them from being easily read. MUs, however, have the theoretical background to be able to understand what it is they're reading, whereas for someone without any ability to cast spells it's like reading scholarly articles about a hard science subject you know nothing about. On the other hand, though, many scrolls and spellbooks are written in languages other than what you might speak. If nothing else, the various classical or magical languages.

Though I don't actually consider scrolls any different from spellbooks besides having fewer spells on them.

>posted with a name
Ballsy.

Look at it this way: Read Magic is a downtime activity at low levels. At high levels, it's a resource.
But you do you. Honest to god, it would barely change play.

She's a regular here, newfriend. Creator of Wolfpacks and Winter Snow.

I know. She also advocated copyright infringement in a way that can be traced back to her.

You have proof that's her?

No she didn't

I confess: I, cavegrill, did the bad thing.

>Read Magic is a spell tax.
Only in more modern D&D where it's required to learn new spells. In OD&D, for example, it acts as an important resource limiter on scroll usage.

Returning it to that level works better, I think.

I am cavegirl, and so is my wife!

Hey shut up, I'm trying to maintain plausible deniability in case I ever do something similarly foolish

>In OD&D, for example, it acts as an important resource limiter on scroll usage.
But scrolls already are limited.

Hope you have a lawyer.