/osrg/ - Old School Rennaisance General

PCs can't have crafting skills in my games, they can only buy (or help them in something else to get) potions from NPCs

The same as most of my rulings and what not... i pull them outta my ass and hope for the best.
I also use an archaic netbook from like 97 regarding medicinal plants and what not

That's just the autism talking, user. Relax, it don't matter.

>can cause hideous mutations and side-effects due to its supernatural origins, yet it's noted as being massively popular with nobility and no one bats an eye
More to the point, if this kind of shit is relatively normal then how the fuck is the setting still close to actual history?

You know how people have problems with how spells like Raise Dead, Speak With Dead, Cure Disease et. al. because they completely warp a setting just by existing? (e.g. the "help, I can't have murder mysteries in D&D because they just asked the victim whodunnit" problem. cf. "the king was assassinated, but he's fine now")
Having spells like those (and various Magic-User spells as well, of course - you can't solve the issue just by removing the cleric) in a historical setting *and still having the setting be mostly identical to the real world* is ludicrous!

We can expect fantasy to be fantastical, but similarly we expect history to be historical. If Neutralize Poison is a thing, how does any king die by poisoning? If dragons and griffon-knights and flying fireballing wizards are a thing, why are castle walls still the primary defence? If the vizier can mind control people, or the local priest cure the plague... how does that not fundamentally change history?
I mean, fuck, what about the basic question of "why aren't magicians the ruling class"?

Magic fundamentally alters a setting once introduced, so introducing it to real life and having everything be the same (without some Urban Fantasy "magic is already real, it's just secret" excuse)? Yeah, that just weird me out.

I've been trying to build a map to use with An Echo Resounding. I kept feeling it was too crowded, since it calls for 4 villages to a city and then ruins and lairs besides. Then I re-read and saw that it's meant to be used with a fucking ENORMOUS map. Does anyone have experience using those rules? Does it not get unwieldy?

Never used that reaource. As ive stated millions of times: i wing it and put stuff where and when i feel like it

>What are the Pros and Cons of a historical real-world setting?

Pros:
- Literal centuries of inspiration to pull from

- Not a lot of explaining needed unless you're doing something obscure

- Familiarity with the setting may lead to investment

- Setting building is done for you completely and utterly

Cons:

- Setting building is done for you completely and utterly

- There will ALWAYS be a "um ackshualy" player who will correct you every single fucking time daniel

- How far do you stray from history? When does your game turn from historical real world to alternate history?

- Many historical settings are already done completely to death (European medieval, historical east, American frontier etc.)

In the end though, do what ever is the most fun

What OSR is best for doing a CoC style game? I want to do something lovecraftian, but people tell me that CoC is outdated

Four villages can fit into a single hex with a small city.
I would just have villages be a minor feature of a hex, like a gas giant on a Traveller map.

There's Silent Legions, one of Kevin Crawford's less well known works. It's literally made for Mythos stuff.

But why the starting blocks?

--> But if you're worried about the chocolate, it's easy enough to retroactively justify:
Nobles make a game of feeding pieces to servants, important people only eat confirmed 'safe' remainders.

>Only do it if you are a major history buff and practically an expert on the relevant time period already.
>if you get some famous cultural icon wrong, that's you being an ignorant asshole
>There will ALWAYS be a "um ackshualy" player who will correct you every single fucking time daniel
Do you guys play with really autistic people? Its a game. One of the selling points of OSR, imo, is that you don't have to nitpick and justify everything all over the tuck. Just have magic. There are hobgoblins with pike formations and HUGE PANTS, the seashells whisper secrets when immersed in salt water, etc. Call it alternative history, loot what you want, skip over what you don't.

this guy gets it

D&D ain't the real world, friend.

I can already see what flavor of skub we're fighting over in this thread

Then make a new one.

Then make magic rare, secretive and utterly frowned upon by the world at large as evil. Yah you could talk to the dead, but what if everyone assumed that sent their souls to hell?

>Corruption of Champions
>Kevin Crawford

Course not, but a look at the real world can help him grasp the scale of a hex.

Call of Cthulhu, silly person.

is not OSR.

Are you okay, user? Your reading comprehension seems badly impaired.

He was asking for an OSR system to run a CoC-style game in, because he'd rather not deal with the CoC system.

>Then make magic rare, secretive and utterly frowned upon by the world at large as evil.
That'll work, but it takes more effort than your typical LotFP module or whatever.
It's also basically the standard Urban Fantasy excuse.

Hey man, can we hold off on the pentagram for future threads?

Totally understand that most here are probably atheists, but some of us are not. Pentagram is totally cool in a game/in context, but it's not necessarily something I want to associate with. As the banner of OSRG, it feels like taking part in this thread implies my support of the symbol.

Have always found the OSR crowd to be inclusive, just want to stay part of the discussion. Thank you :)

>What are the Pros and Cons of a historical real-world setting?
Pros: real-world material is abundant and easy to mine
Cons: you need to do a lot of research. Someone might call you on it. You can't fudge reality (or a published setting).

>Plus, a lot of vital gamist OSR concepts like dungeons are difficult to justify in real-world settings at the best of times, even if you do play in a time period which isn't extensively recorded
That too. The tropes of real life and D&D do not overlap often.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram#Western_symbolism
Oh hey, look at that, it's Christian symbolism and you fell for yet another piece of Victorian nonsense.

"I don't want to associate with Metal album covers" is fair, but something, something, lamentations.

As a metalhead atheist fan of LotFP, I gotta say that's fine by me

Sure, but it makes for gameplay that isn't really representative of the standard OSR setting, which I feel is where the game truly shines.

Of course, this is a christian board

Ok, I'll bite. What /specifically/ association is the issue here? Is it the satanism?
Because, and I'm sorry if nobody informed you, the whole "Satanic Ritual Abuse" thing was a myth. It never happened. Satanists in the 70s and 80s were just an edgy weird fad thing. It became a paranoid evangelical fantasy, a loathsome bogeyman that could be fought and defeated. It's all just... hyping yourself up imagining terrors. Worldbuilding threads that ruined lives, basically.
patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2013/11/26/and-all-his-works-and-pomps/
patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2011/12/10/satanic-baby-killers/

>More to the point, if this kind of shit is relatively normal then how the fuck is the setting still close to actual histor
the inquisition (or equivallent) stamps out magic, which is reasonable because magic in
LotFP is some nasty shit.

>- There will ALWAYS be a "um ackshualy" player who will correct you every single fucking time daniel
Luckily I have you to game with anybody who's as much of a prehistory nerd as me, so normally my powerlevels are greater. I have CITATIONS DANIEL.
Also, including fantasy elements lets you just go 'yeah but it's different to actual history' without too much in-depth thought.

Any will work, desu, so long as you don't want sanity rules. LotFP has some pretty CoC-appropriate modules.

I kind of want to point this user at Venger Satanis and watch what happens.

>Satanists in the 70s and 80s were just an edgy weird fad thing.
Still are, really.

Well, he's not in the market for that setting/gameplay, is he? Silent Legions should do what he wants, pretty well.

Finally! I get to actually /shill/ a thing!
rpgnow.com/product/233069/Kidnap-the-Archpriest

That's right, it's done. You can go buy it now for real money that I will get (some of). If you liked my other stuff but think this is meh, consider buying it anyway. If you hate me, buy it so I can spend money on liquor and drink myself into dissipation and ruin.

Oh, sorry, I was responding about the villages in hexes, not the other thing. Wasn't really clear, that's my bad.

>Still are, really.
Yeah, but now they're more like a tongue-in-cheek semi-political movement. They're like the Rotary Club for the separation of Church and State.
>I kind of want to point this user at Venger Satanis and watch what happens.
They would probably have a sensible and productive discussion and possibly learn something.

>14.2 MB
You sun of a bitch.

*son

I got my editor to make sure it was juuust over 8MB.
This way the art looks crisper too.

How can armor be de-emphasized mechanically? Simple AC bonuses tied to levels is one way, what else?

>You can go buy it now for real money that I will get (some of).
Hey speaking of which, you've shot yourself in the foot.
The effort of going through an online checkout is taxing enough that almost anyone willing to bother is willing to pay $10.

But why?

serious question, what are you aiming for by removing armor "selection" from the game?

Give people a defense value that depends on their skill, maybe their dexterity, what they’re wielding (including shields), and make armor reduce the damage you take but no lower than 1.

>The effort of going through an online checkout is taxing enough that almost anyone willing to bother is willing to pay $10.
I want this to be a delightful surprise for the money you pay, not a "yeah, this was worth about $10". I'd like this to be the extra onion ring in your fries, the extra nugget in your box.

Because I sure as shit ain't breaking even on this one. I wrote it for love, not money.

AC is set by class. If you're a fighter, you're allowed Plate, so you have AC as if in plate (regardless of what you're actually wearing). Same for thieves in leather, etc. Actually /wearing/ armour is purely cosmetic.

Have AC and move speed be set by class. e.g. Fighters are AC2/6", Magic-Users AC9/12", Thieves AC7/12". (Change it for shields if necessary.)

Basically just what Scarlet Heroes does for variable weapon damage except for armor instead.

For a prolific artist who draws one thing, I'm amazed at how far and how often houtengeki gets off model.

Idle wondering, actually. Plus armor selection really only boils down to the heaviest armor your class allows and you can afford aside from special circumstances like trying to swim that PCs don't face often.
By skill you mean what, their attack table?

No one's going to remember how much they paid for it.

That's actually kinda neat, I should give this a try sometime.

Yeah. You could probably do with slowing down the progression, but people who fight well should be better at defending.

No ones going to pay for it either.

If it sells like hotcakes, I'll put up a Deluxe Signed Collector's Edition in a year or two. All the Kickstarter kids are doing it.

What can you guys tell me about Frostgrave and about The Fantasy Trip?

Not much. Frostgrave is a Mordheim-inspired skirmish game, while TFT is a ruleset built up from a couple of arena skirmish games (Melee and Wizard) and the direct ancestor to GURPS.

That combination worries me.

If Godbound is any reference it will be a huge awkward letdown.

I have not actually read Godbound. Are there any bits worth stealing?

NAYRT. Godbound is pretty cool IMO. So your mileage may vary.

I can forgive that, Houtengeki still makes some of the best softness out there.

To make this related: what good rules are there for monster hunting? Not in the "kill monsters for XP" sense but in the "kill monsters for their juicy bits that you can sell to interested parties (and gain XP in the process)" way. Dragon liver and beholder eyes and whatnot - instead of monsters having loot, they are the loot themselves.

>: what good rules are there for monster hunting? Not in the "kill monsters for XP" sense but in the "kill monsters for their juicy bits that you can sell to interested parties (and gain XP in the process)" way. Dragon liver and beholder eyes and whatnot - instead of monsters having loot, they are the loot themselves.
My players eat dead monsters to get superpowers. Success... varies.
These rules are pretty good for food costs: occultesque.com/2017/07/eating-good-in-dungeonhood.html

Wolfpacks and Winter Snow has a lot of that. I mean, you're cavemen, so collecting gold coins is right out.

I've been thinking about this due to Monster Hunter as well. You have to remove some parts of the monster (tail, cyclops eye) while its alive to be used for magic, otherwise the parts of the monster can be used to upgrade gear or sold. You could get xp equal to monster HDx100 or 50?

Where would I get started on researching prehistory? Kind of a silly question, but I've always liked the idea of prehistory settings but I actually know very little facts to draw on.

I too thought Godbound was a letdown, though I didn't read it too heavily. But one thing I did like from it was that the deities dealt HD damage instead of HP. If I were running a deific campaign I'd at least use that probably.

...Then again, Exalted was a bit of a letdown as well, so... Maybe it just goes with the genre.

>You have to remove some parts of the monster (tail, cyclops eye) while its alive to be used for magic
This game gets crueler and crueler every time I hear about it!

>Where would I get started on researching prehistory?
Well, I'd start at the beginning...

I'll admit, I smiled!

Monster Hunter only sorta works that way. See if you use a greatsword or other sharp weapon and cut the monsters tail off, you get a free "carve" or material drop from the tail. When you kill a monster, you get 3. But if you kill a monster without cutting off its tail, you still only get 3, making this weird thing about how you get more materials for slaying the monster after cutting off its tail.

For that reason, I was inspired to create a sort of system where monster parts only have magic when they're alive, and so you have to target attack that body part to gather it. Cyclops eye is a good one, maybe troll skin, tails of many different creatures, beholder tongue?

>monster parts only have magic when they're alive
-Aboleth eye juice
-Brain mole (eaten whole, live)
-Orc balls (they grow back fast so do what you've gotta do quickly)
-All demon parts (they vanish when the demon dies)
-Doppelganger skin

>Have always found the OSR crowd to be inclusive
Get bent

>Where would I get started on researching prehistory?
You should see how many historical documents you can find.

At least it's not thematically inappropriate anime.

Best of Dragon 3 has a bit about carefully removing and treating dragon hide to make magic armor, iirc.

Check out this new, patent p[ending Exalted style houserule: All characters get 1 attack/level against foe of equal of lesser HD. Fighters can substitute attacks with 10 attacks against 1 HD men types.

Thank you for your insightful and fascinating commentary, it adds a great deal to this general and you are a boon to the thread for including it.

Maybe when they roll for damage the number they roll is just how many people they kill.

Anyone got a table of Vision types? You know, aside from Heat Vision and Meat Vision.

What is this, 3:16 Carnage Among The Stars?

Dragon Warriors had:
Normal Vision: see well with light, impaired by low light, useless in darkness.
Dark Vision: see well in darkness, impaired by low light, useless with light.
Elfsight: see well with light and low light, only slightly impaired by darkness.
Gloomsight: impaired by light and darkness, see well in low light.
Panoptical: see well in all conditions.

Go fuck yourself.

Map so far. I want to go for a sort of "failed" colony that a minor fiefdom has had issues with civilizing, the only known structures are several ruined keeps around the floodplain around the large lake and several old roads.

Does anyone have the map like this which shows what each Wilderlands culture is derived from?

I saw it years ago but i can't find it, it looked a bit like this and it had titles like "Romans but Purple" over different regions.

It would be really useful to explain to my players what each region is like and how "Gonzo" the setting is.

?

Setting specific.

user with the shitty hexmap from yesterday, I ended up remaking it completely so I could use it with An Echo Resounding. Pretty much the only things that survived were the dragon volcano, the haunted swamp (though it's now a marsh) and the mountain range. Tried to make semi-believable rivers. The northwest of the map is now an arid steppe, besides the dragon.

I put a badland there for funsies and to give the biomes more variety, but I don't know what in special will be there. Maybe I'll take a cue from Dragon Ball and put dinosaurs as random encounters there.

I used the same icons for towns, cities and ruins through the map. Anything else is either a Lair or a Resource (I picked different icons for all of them to make them easier to distinguish).

It is setting specific. Just not the setting you wanted.

I live to please.

youtube.com/watch?v=4hfy2Auauj0

Not just carves, you get more rewards for breaking parts.

Has Gary's teaching bereft you? Dinosaurs belong in swamps.

Good point, would aliens be an acceptable substitute?

Newfag here. I am interested in rules-light, exploration/interrogation gameplay instead of strict plot point campaign. Where should I begin? I'm very casually acquainted with AD&D 2E but otherwise my knowledge of oldschool is nonexistent. Please help and thank you

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