/osrg/ - Old School Revival

Don't reply to bait, friend. I appreciate the backing, but hide and ignore.

>I've never seen any alternative magic system motivated by gameplay concerns
I've seen a few which want to make magic a risk-reward balancing act, where the game is in pushing your luck until something dreadful happens. Which is an interesting take compared to vancian resource rationing. Honestly, I think both can work in the same game.

And, frankly, vancian makes perfect sense if you actually explain it properly. 'Spellcasting needs a lengthy ritual, but you can also pre-cast a spell and hold it suspended for when you need it' isn't hard to grock.

You're going to have problems with just these simply because there's no monster manual. If they have that at the shop, you should probably get it.

>I don't know if adnd is good or the black hand of Lorraine Williams christianity already fucked over the game at that time.
AD&D is great, if a bit more finicky than Basic. If you're worried about the black hand, though, that's definitely the most Williamsized edition you've got your hands on: the reworked 2E published late in TSR's lifespan, with new, less good illustrations. I personally prefer the red second tone over the cyan in the original 2E, though.

Anyway, if you want the best version of AD&D you're looking for the PHB with a cover like in the OP pic, DMG as pic related and non-orange spines. It won't be cheap, however.

thx for the info. Well, gotta try to get the monster manuals I suppose. I will look for manuals you tecommend though. Did williams affect the rules and game function, or only changed artwork and minor controversial things?

I do like push-your-luck as a game mechanic. Not necessarily well-fitted to a long-term game, though, or at least that's the problem I keep seeing in the ones I read. I think the core issue is very hard to deal with, is that the player will kind of inevitably treat the *individual spell* as the PYL game because it feels crucial in the moment, which means the character ends up getting blown out comparatively fast.

Still, I agree it's not a bad base mechanic, and it's probably a better metaphor for how spellcasting works in the average novel than mana points are.

>vancian makes perfect sense if you actually explain it properly
I agree that it makes sense (and I even prefer Vance's own way of looking at it where you half-forcibly cram the spells into your head), but it doesn't match many popular fantasy stories at all -- none but Vance's own AFAIK -- which is what people don't like about it. That's more or less what I meant by "what Vancian magic says about the setting".

It's explained extremely well in the Dying Earth, the spells are basically described as being alive, your forcing them into your brain and they want out, so when you cast a spell the spell entity leaves your brain, it takes a fuckload of effort to actually keep them there and its even hinted that overtime they subtly warp a Magicians brain.

>Did williams affect the rules and game function, or only changed artwork and minor controversial things?
I'm not sure how much of it I would attribute to Lorraine Williams personally, but 2E changes quite a few things from 1E, some of which grogs regard as crucial for the old-school feel. Notably the XP rules no longer primarily reward looting treasure, and movement speed in dungeons is made ten times as fast (this is probably because in the old editions, the distance you can move in ten minutes according to the rules is kinda nonsensically slow, but it's an abstraction for gameplay purposes and includes all kinds of mapping and shit). If you want to get at that real almost wargamey old-school style of play, you can still use 2E (it's much, much easier than trying to adapt 5E to the same purpose, for instance), but it won't help you out much.

Well, guess that I'll study the rules and try to run some games, and decide from there. Thank you for the info.

That's probably your best bet, yeah. Now that you have these books, you should find out whether you like the game at all before splurging on even more books (except that MM -- be hard to try the game out without that). If something frustrates you or you don't understand how it works/why it is a certain way, just come back and ask.

In AD&D I need help understanding the Domain system.

So when you settle a domain, 100 miles from the nearest border or town, you secure all territory in a 20-50 Mile RADIUS from your stronghold.

Then you individually clear out each 1 mile hex of the that 40-100 mile diameter, but only the surrounding 20-30 miles around the Stronghold needs to be patrolled constantly, all else needs a weekly visit.

How do you find the time to map everything out in 1 mile hexes and how can you fit multiple realms in a game if each name level fighter with a domain rules an area the size of Wales?

This is particular for Greyhawk as the map is done in 30 mile hexes and there is not clear way to tell if 100 mile diameter territories overlaps, in fact the closeness of settlements mean that territory will always overlap.

And how do they scale? I don't actually own the books, I was just curious if it was the same as 5e or 3e's systems.

The TL;DR: The game was written by Americans, and not only that but Americans in 1970s Wisconsin. Their idea of overland scale was completely fucked sideways.

Discursive additions: Gygax had no intuitive grasp of the size of Europe or medieval logistics and didn't realize he was effectively asking you to personally pacify a version of Aquitaine riddled with giants and manticores. This is one reason D&D sometimes gets called "Wild West with a medieval veneer", everything kinda assumes a humongous, lawless land, empty save for some beasts and roving bands of savages. There's also no evidence that he personally ever used those particular rules; in the older rules you just... well, hang on, and I'll quote OD&D Vol. III in a separate post.

Anyway, the point is don't use those rules, they're excessive and silly. Mapping everything out in 1-mile hexes isn't *too* rough if you just put a terrain glyph in each one, though; you could probably do a map of France at that scale in an afternoon, albeit a very boring afternoon.

So should i just assume each personal Domain occupies the inside of one 30 mile hex with some rough no mans land on the borders?

I'll try to grab the 2 MM if I can, there were some other books too but can't remember which ones. I will go check again and ask if they are worth it.

What if you actually like Vancian/D&D magic but just dislike all the spells?

What design goals would you set out with if you wanted to rewrite the whole fucking spell list?

>Another advantage accruing to those who build their strongholds in the wilderness is that they will gain control over the surrounding countryside. Clearing the countryside of monsters is the first requirement. The player/character moves a force to the hex, the referee rolls a die to determine if there is a monster encountered, and if there is one the player/character's force must remove it. If no monster is encountered the hex is already cleared. Territory up to 20 miles distant from a stronghold may be kept clear of monsters once cleared – the inhabitation of the stronghold being considered as sufficient to maintain the monster-free status.

These rules are for 5-mile hexes, as specified elsewhere in the rules; you'll note in particular that you only NEED to clear the hex containing the castle itself, all else is optional to expand your domain. Also, there's no need whatsoever for any upkeep, and the die roll is presumably meant to be a normal encounter check, for which the probability is never more than 50% in the case of the most infested terrain types.

OD&D generally has much more manageable rules for this type of thing, which look much more like they're derived from actual play experience -- even though the size of this domain is still ridiculous by medieval standards. You could almost certainly switch this down from 5-mile to 1-mile hexes (with a corresponding reduction of the maximum control radius to 4 miles) without harm and get something more credible that way.

>I don't actually own the books, I was just curious if it was the same as 5e or 3e's systems.
Oh, I see. Well, first off our Trove has PDFs of I think all the core books, so if you're curious you could start there. (I guess I should've mentioned that to as well, come to think of it)

Second, spells scale as in 3E in terms of the basic principles, so a fireball does [level]d6 damage, etcetera; they're just not unbalanced to shit due to magic-users working substantially differently.

>€
False American RPG Enthusiast, get ye over the wall.

> D&D approximates most spells from fantasy and folklore
> user hates all of them—will write better list from scratch

Hard to say since it's a hypothetical about having preferences I don't have, but maybe making it more like actual Dying-Earth Vancian magic? No spell levels, no spell scaling, high-level wizards can memorize 5-6 spells and super high level ones don't bother memorizing anything because they're bossing sandestins around instead? Could be captured genies and ifrits in D&D, I guess.

The Third Puissant Somniferous Charm would pretty much just be Sleep but affect any creature, for instance, and the caster could just as well have The Excellent Prismatic Spray as a starting spell which cuts fucking everyone into ribbons. It would mean low-level spellcasters were more of a threat to high-level monsters, but it's an open question how much that even matters in practice -- you can memorize one spell, you have two hit points, are you going to go directly to level 11 of the dungeon? And what will you do there with all the staying power of candyfloss in the rain? And casting Sleep on a bunch of kobolds would be the same as always, so...

Of course, all these changes would make magic-users even more of glass cannons. In gameplay terms that might be suboptimal.

>D&D approximates most spells from fantasy and folklore

one of the things I've done with wolfpacks (and am doing with esoteric enterprises) is to combine vancian and 'push your luck' casting. You can cast vancian spells safely, but you always have the choice to try for more, and when you do, it can blow up on you.
I think that works better when a failed spellcasting roll results in /complications/ rather than just damage. That way, a magician fucking up all over the place drives events forwards and gives the party stuff to do.

>It's explained extremely well in the Dying Earth, the spells are basically described as being alive, your forcing them into your brain and they want out, so when you cast a spell the spell entity leaves your brain, it takes a fuckload of effort to actually keep them there and its even hinted that overtime they subtly warp a Magicians brain.
Ironically, this is also how ArnoldPunch's glog wizards work. I really like it, even if it is a meme at this point.

I think magic is best when it doesn't just feel like a list of cool powers that you can rattle off one by one, personally. OSR games tend to live or die on atmosphere, and the spells a character has access to can add a lot to that.

>After twenty years of fucking around with alternative magic systems

Care to share some of your wisdom?

>False
what a pretentious offense sire

Boy, reading really is fundamental, huh?

Want some really basic wisdom not from OP? people who claim D&D wizards are inhumanly overpowered compared to other RPG's have never played any other system.

Infinite cantrips.

Is it wrong to put (mini)dungeons on encounter tables?
For example 'I rolled an 87, the PC's see a Wizard's ruined tower' on the horizon.

Or at least, they've never played other systems the right way.

I still dislike D&D's quadratic wizard problem. I really enjoy the idea of a Wizard just being someone with a lot of magical knowledge and items instead; everyone just being a fighter or something as some people have suggested. But I understand why some people may want to start out as a smart magic dude.

It seems to me Gygax knew exactly what he was doing. He was not making a medieval simulator, he was making a fantasy adventure fiction simulator, and for that, a vast wilderness left by the collapse of a once great civilization is eminently more gameable than a patchwork of polities where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting yet another village that belongs to some lord.

Vance doesn't explicitly spell out levels, but there are differences in the power of spells and the difficulty of holding them. Cugel could initially only manage one or two of the lesser spells, after all.

>they've never played other systems the right way.
That's a whole other problem, you very quickly realize if the system doesn't place hard limits on a players abilities they WILL purposely break the system.

The amount of people you see running a thousand Geas' and focus's in Shadowrun is ridiculous.

American with no sense of scale here. So you're saying when my barbarian, Genghis Khan, reaches 9th level, it is unreasonable for him to clear an area the size of Wales?

Well obviously because in medieval Europe, any region like that would already be claimed and full of villages and people!
(He's operating on the false premise that D&D's setting was supposed to be based on medieval Europe, and therefore Gygax/Arneson just got it wrong.)

You can, but personally I'd avoid things like ruins, towers, or most other above ground structures that can be seen from a distance. It implies that a very distinct landmark wasn't there before you rolled it, and that opens up all sorts of questions.

NAYRT but that is more of a practical gameplay concern than an issue of not being able to do it.

Genghis Khan united the mongol tribes to build his empire, which in TTRPG terms may already be enough to fill up a years-long campaign that mostly revolved around intrigue and mass combat. Unless you're playing with something like 20-mile hexes, recreating almost any major historical empire will be practically impossible simply because the game probably won't last enough to do it.

Also, as a related issue, that kind of game is better served by playing a literal wargame to do it

It's probably fine increasing quantity and quality at the same time because they level slower.

youtu.be/xECUrlnXCqk

Where's the issue? You roll it, add it to the map key, then say "in the distance, you see..."

Would it be OSR if instead of wizards as a player class, the player magic-user is a sorcerer?
Inherent magical abilities, but because of that it is not learned. You can still use scrolls to channel magic but you can only freely cast spells you gained on level up.

This also appeals to my race-as-class sensibilities. You are genetically a magic-user. All adventuring elves are the elf class, all adventuring dwarves are the dwarf class. All magic-using players have magical ancestry, explaining why they went from weak human to suddenly slinging fireballs in a matter of weeks.
Similarly I would replace the fighter class with barbarian or brute or something. You're not just a human fighter, you are a special genetic/divine case that makes you very good at killing shit.

>Would it be OSR

Sure, you're not breaking mechanical compatibilty, just tweaking things to suit your table. OSR encompasses a lot of things.
That said, I feel like you're narrowing the classes from broad archetypes to specific ones. But a lot of people seem to want to do that, so I suppose it's a matter of taste.

Neat as a setting detail, but then you get into the question of why all these borderline superpowered supernatural caste individuals are flocking to dungeons to drop like flies

Hey /osrg/, is there a good standard for converting descending AC to ascending? I want to thieve monsters from other games and books to use in Wolf Packs. Base AC is 10, if that helps. I'm not sure if the piecemeal armor in WP&WS fucks up the scaling.

Also, are there any good system/setting neutral bestiaries out there? Already heard of Fire on the Velvet Horizon.

If it's an utterly trackless wilderness, then yes, there's no big issue.

Things get more complicated if the characters have passed through that hex before. Why didn't they see it the first time through?

If you're in civilized territory, how come nobody has mentioned this huge landmark?

If you're in open country, how did you not notice that tower from the next hex over, or see it in the distance when you were in the mountain pass with a view of the whole region?

I don't think any of those circumstances would ruin the game, but sandbox play is at its best when players can make informed decisions using real world common sense.

Also, it ends up making "normal" people look like helpless shmucks if they can only ever hope for 1d4 hp. I mean, the abstraction already breaks down by itself, but you get a situation where common rats are more effective warriors than about 1/4 of the population

>Inherent magical abilities, but because of that it is not learned.
Classes are abstractions. You can fluff an MU like that easy.
>everything else you said
I want wotc to go and stay go. it would probably work

>Why didn't they see it the first time through?
Hexes are big. They didn't go that particular path.
>If you're in civilized territory, how come nobody has mentioned this huge landmark?
Peasants don't really go anywhere beyond their farm, the roads to a trading town, or the trading town itself. People who explore the wildeness are rare, and the people who would have historical records of it's existence have no reason to talk to the players about it unless it's a quest hook.
>If you're in open country, how did you not notice that tower from the next hex over, or see it in the distance when you were in the mountain pass with a view of the whole region?
This is where it gets a bit tricky. Maybe wizard towers and dungeons ( which are just submerged wizard towers ) have enchantments to hide them from view so less people disturb them?

There's no helping some people.

>If you're in civilized territory, how come nobody has mentioned this huge landmark?
They probably have. It might be IC knowledge already. Just mention the rumors when they find it.

>Actually using the D&D Wizards v Sorcerer distinction

It's honestly one of the most rage inducing things that ever caught on. I am so fucking angry that "wizards learn magic, sorcerers are born with it" caught on. Not only is it retarded in the first place; there is no significant differences between the classes in any edition in terms of their spells, so what's the fucking point.

BUT

On top of that. It's literally. Literally fucking wrong.

In almost all mythology and non D&D fantasy; Wizards are people born with magic powers. Half demons, half fairies, half gods. Sorcerers are people who manipulate fate and make demons do magic for them like King Solomon, which would make them the type of magic user who LEARNS who to use magic despite not having magic on their own.

I fucking hate this retarded shit. God damn.

>Hexes are big.

How big are your hexes? In a 3 mile hex, the horizon line is on the next hex. A tower will be visible almost everywhere unless you're under tree cover, and then all it takes is climbing a taller tree to see most of the hex. Hills would work, though.

*6 mile hex

Excuse me, just woke up.

All you'd really need to do is bullshit a reason why you wouldn't have noticed the feature before now.
Crumbling tower? In a grove of dense trees, only now are you close enough to realise the shadows are stone.
Mine/dungeon entrance? In a deep gully you almost fall into before you notice it.
Overgrown temple? The architecture is so overgrown it seems more like a tree than a pillar from a distance, only up close do you notice that it is stone, not wood.

Is this the 'ascending AC is not OSR' meme, or some other flavor of autism?

Just see the difference between an armor's AC and the game's base AC, you don't need a table or anything unless you really want to. In that case, the LotFP referee book has a handy one with all the common AC styles. I think your case would be S&W Ascending.

Obviously check all the TSR bestiaries if you haven't already

No, that's not what he's implying at all.

20-DAC=AAC

Leather armor is descending AC 8, right? 20-8=12, so it gives you ascending AC 12.

I always suspected ascending AC people were too dumb to math. This is like first or second grade stuff.

Reposting this since I came in very late last thread.

Kobolds: Lizards, Dogs, Goblins, Rats, or Dwarfs? Why?

That's awesome but awfully specific.

Scaly lizard-rat-dog things, as per the 1e illustration. I like them to be weird hybrid chimera guys.

>I always suspected ascending AC people were too dumb to math. This is like first or second grade stuff.
D&D went completely to shit after ascending AC was added, complain all you want but it got rid of 2 types of people.

1) Too stupid to do basic math that isn't only.
2) People not willing to put an "effort" to learn when rolling high is good or low.

Broad market appeal is a fantasy that only happened pre internet when choices were vastly limited so having very basic displays of effort to enter a game are essential to keeping a game healthy and not a cesspool of idiots that range from disinterested but not willing to leave to so dumb they think they're the best at participating in a game while absolutely ruining it for everyone else.

>Half demons, half fairies, half gods.
That's a lot of halves.

I already did! To wit: repress your autism and just play. The system is good.

Is there anything particular you want to know about WHY other systems don't work as well?

>Half demon
>Half fairy
>Half god
>All outta gold
>Coming to a dungeon near you this summer
>Max Wizardman!

>Is it wrong to put (mini)dungeons on encounter tables?
Nope, but I agree with the other guy that very noticeable things that stick out from the surrounding terrain should probably be prepped and/or only rollable the first time the hex is entered.

user, Ascending AC happened concurrently with other events which, let's say, may have affected the D&D community more. And if you are too "dumb" to use descending AC, as in you are literally uncapable of performing the math needed to use it in a game context, you are too dumb to play fucking 3e and likely all subsequent editions. It's a quality-of-life change.

You can certainly handwave things like that. My position is simply that it's far more interesting when players can obtain useful information and make decisions based on it.

If hidden castles can appear at random (and they've always been there), then why bother chatting with the locals, hiring a local guide, or seeking out high ground to survey the area?

If major landmarks show up as random encounters, then you can end up with silly
>investigate rumors of treasure
>head towards adventure site three hexes distant
>halfway there, you stumble across a much more interesting site that just happened to slip everybody's mind when you were investigating the local lore

Of course you might get away with this in any given game session, and it'll be fine. But in principle I think it cheapens sandbox play. Similar to the "quantum ogre" problem.

Request from last thread. Methods of gaining info on a dungeon in a town.

>It seems to me Gygax knew exactly what he was doing.
That can certainly be argued, and it may be a superior way to approach the rules in any case, but I would point out that it doesn't change any of the other stuff. If anything, that means D&D is even more Wild West with a coat of medieval paint, and the OD&D rules are definitely still more manageable in actual play.

>So you're saying when my barbarian, Genghis Khan, reaches 9th level, it is unreasonable for him to clear an area the size of Wales?
Alone with his 2-5 companions, or together with his ~100 mercenaries? Yes.

If your barbarian, Genghis Khan, reaches 9th level and obtains 120,000 mongol followers, he can clear whatever size of area he wants. But that's beyond the scope of the D&D rules for baronies.

I think he wants examples of systems that didn't work?

If you're playing in a setting where towns are beacons of civilisation in the ruins of an older empire, I don't think it's too weird to stumble across a mini dungeon that nobody knows about on your way to the dungeon everyone does know about. If you're playing something closer to actual medieval europe the surprise dungeon seems questionable, I agree.

What you guys can tell me of planescape? is it any good?

>My position is simply that it's far more interesting when players can obtain useful information and make decisions based on it.
I can understand that but I don't think it applies here. You don't have the time to invent rumor and tid-bit. Have the IC act of deciding what to do next run parallel to the OC act of asking your players what you should prep for the next session.

TSR fragmented their market super hard with settings to make a quick buck in a desperate straight and wanted a 'crossover setting' to fighter the problem.
But the people in charge of it REALLY hated their boss and we got Spelljammer. It was quickly axed.
Planescape was made as Spelljammer's replacement. It was also made to appeal to World of Darkness players, in an attempt to bring them back to D&D.

It has good art, it had a good video game, and it built off good earlier content ("Manual of the Planes" and "Tales of the Outer Planes").
That's... all I can say about it that's good. Planescape is really, truly awful.

Based mansefag. You're on the blogroll of my heart.

Trying to flesh out my campign with some INTRIGUE and NPC ACTORS WITH GOALS. Anyone know good inspiration for rival families of nobles?

Thanks my dude.

thats a shame i was looking for a game about heroes travelling different worlds like the ultima games

Modules, I mean, if possible. But I’ll also take random tables or essays

I picked up the box set from a used book store years ago, because I remembered drooling over it as a kid. I didn't find much gameable material. FWIW I've always found the default D&D cosmology pretty dull.
>there's a plane of fire
>fire creatures live there
>there's a plane of water
>It's like, full of water and stuff

The premise is that there's a city-plane called Sigil that acts as a crossroad between countless worlds. Whatever you're imagining now is more interesting than what they actually published. The writers took this subject and execute it in about the most predictable and paint by numbers fashion, basically just taking a bunch of standard D&D shit and whirling it up in a blender.

To be fair, 1/3 and 2/3 of a race works (mostly) perfectly fine if you have time travel.

oWoD rip-off trash

Maybe crib Ravenloft?

Yeah, that's Spelljammer or Ravenloft.

I don't think it's a geneological claim. It's just a way of calling Gilgamesh great, right?

I wouldn't ise Spelljammer for that either. Visiting other settongs honestly feels like an afterthought there.

Ravenloft doesn't have the right tone, but the sort of travel they want is baked into the setting.

Planescape doesn't really work the table; even the people who wrote it couldn't get it working, It's more of a art book that happened to translate extremely well to a video game.

Just do that.

A lot of the boxed sets require a lot of prep to actually run them anyways. Just use them as inspiration to make your own thing.

The bigger difference between Wolfpacks and other OSR systems is that the game's built assuming that PCs don't get improved to-hit chances over time. Other than Hunters, nobody gets more +to hit as they gain levels.
What this means is that, for most PCs, the formula to hit is just d20+attribute modifier. So, the ACs are built around this, whereas for other games the ACs for stronger monsters assume you'll have improved hit-chances and maybe magic weapons by the time you fight them.
Honestly, the best way to convert AC is by eyeballing it.

Hi >Raggi.