/osrg/ - Old School Renaissance General

>What is your favourite OSR game
It's BFRPG

I'm ordering some POD stuff from Lulu, I want to get my money's worth on postage - anything good I should grab while I'm here?

Thanks for the image OP. Jesus Christ why are some people so butthurt about death camps.

>best OSR game
in descending order my top three

BFRPG
Labyrinth Lord w/AEC
Castles & Crusades

Cool new meme.

Clerics only get one spell per day for two reasons. One is that their XP requirements are really low --- their "level one" is really a level 0. Second and more importantly is that Clerics have access to healing, which alters the balance of the game when you get it.

>What is your favourite OSR game

Mine. What's the point of OSR and the OGL if not to make your own exactly the way you want it?

Anything with ascending AC is objectively not OSR

In order to be OSR, you need to actively be emulating D&D, by having ascending AC you are going out of you way to specifically make sure you are NOT doing so

>Mine. What's the point of OSR and the OGL if not to make your own exactly the way you want it?
But I want the true D&D experience

Hey /osrg/, ideas on how to introduce more white supremacist themes into my sessions?

>What is your favourite OSR game

Go fer yer gun or Stars without Numbers

Same as .
False OSR enthusiast, get ye gone.

Play ACKS

I've never seen anyone on Veeky Forums have a positive opinion on Castles and Crusades. What do you like about it? Everyone says saves are fucked and the siege engine screws checks up pretty quickly as you level.

Write long and angsty blog posts about how orcs, kobolds, and goblins are all actually a stand-in for black people and thus adventuring parties are by default medieval Einsatzgrupen.

mein nigger

Is Maze Rat's any good? Is it worth anything?

>nonweapon proficiencies
FOE, GYG

(OSR adjacency intensifies)

Speaking from experience here, if they start doing that, you are failing them as a DW DM. On failure you are supposed to make a move, and it should hurt. The XP they get for failing a roll is supposed to be a consolation prize to take the sting out of what happens next.
Players who "roll dice for unimportant shit" will quickly get themselves into trouble if you're doing it right, because on the one hand you don't let them roll dice if there's no possible threat, but at the same time you should always be watching for potential Exciting Outcomes! at the back of your brain, what the Apocalypse engine terms "think dangerous."
Remember this phrase: "On a 6-, I'm gonna tell you what happens, and you're not gonna like it."

...

>DCC

But he asked what your favorite OSR games are.

ASSH
Heroes and Witchery
DCC

I mean, I hate the system, but it does answer his question.

>Making your own game
Okay, I think we can all agree this is NOT OSR

The only rules that in and of themselves make or break a game's OSR status are the dungeon movement rules.
You can crib them straight from D&D and still not be OSR, but if you do not include (or overly distort) them then all other rules be damned you cannot call your system OSR.

Play MYFAROG

It doesn't really "work", it's a assemblage of hacks the author thought were cool but doesn't have a cohesive whole that ties them all together.

The intended audience is 5th Graders and it's strictly less cohesive than Into the Odd.
You might like it and you're welcome to try, but I won't endorse it. Many of the tables are good though.

BFRPG all day. It's my favorite because its free, simple, awesome, players love it, books are cheap if you want that. Good community behind it.

What a dead horse.

What do you guys think of Castles & Crusades?

Include thinly-veiled stand-ins for leftists, like people with banners that say "Orcs Welcome" or "Orc Lives Matter" marches, despite the orcs being typical orcs and attacking and pillaging the town.

It keeps getting back up, though.

I've never read it and have no original thoughts about it.

If you don't like it and want validation, I could shitpost? It'd be a echo tho

>I know Vornheim and others give you tables and guides to create/run a city, but what about adventures that map out locations in a city and ties them together?

Vornheim actually contains three of them, one of which ties in nicely to Maze of the Blue Medusa.

While I'd agree that the movement rules are an important part of the old (pre 2e) TSR design, it doesn't really matter if some system changes or removes them, because those rules are encapsulated within the core rules and won't have any direct effects on content produced for the system, so it means I can still use their content in my system of choice, or use other OSR content in their system -- with the understanding that it may change how things play.
White Lies is an OSR espionage game, it doesn't really need the slow "crawling through the dark" exploration rules (though it includes them as an option) but that doesn't matter -- anything made for it is totally usable in B/X, provided you want your fantasy characters to get transported through time, and you could easily have your agents end up in the Keep on the Borderlands, no conversion necessary.

It's fine for what it is, but it's far too simple.

What do you think of weapon/spell speed factors?

They're clunky.

It's terrible

I like them in concept, but not so much in practice. They don't really seem to add much to the experience in exhcange for all the extra effort of tracking that shit.

I'm curious to know which rules specifically you mean, and why they're so important. The time scale connected to it? The distances involved? Something else?

I like giving small, fast weapons a distinct niche other than backup for when characters lose their main stuff, but speed factors aren't much popular outside of 2E fans, I've found.

Distance per time and wandering monsters per time aren't too important, but the resulting wandering monsters per distance is a huge deal. Also things like listening at doors.

It doesn't matter, that's a playstyle concern, not a compatibility one, which is just bait for
>muh one true way
arguments.

It exists and like three people play it.

How many interesting locations should there be in a small hexcrawl?

Seventeen.

I'd place one "main" location per hex, even if it's just a landmark, and one or two minor, possibly hidden locations.

>2E fans
Im 2e till the day i die, but i have NEVER used weapon/spell speed, and ive never used weapon type vs armor type modifiers or anything else like that.
I also still use a d6 for initiative, houseruled all the initiative modifiers for 2e.... come to think of it, id have to say im 1.75e more than 2e.
I dont care, ive had the same group for years

ACKS, LotFP, BFRPG and S&W:Complete

I mix and match shit from all of them into my abortion of a game.

Is Psathyrella one of the 12 Medusa sisters mentioned in Vornheim?

ACKS sounds funny, it's like you're saying ACK cuz you're suprised

Roughly 3/4 the number of hexes, or so, and some of them should be things like roads and landmarks and cities, while others should be hidden like lairs and dungeons. It's important to have empty rooms in dungeons and it's just as important to have empty hexes in hexcrawls.

So I'm supposed to have about 30 different locations or so?

OD&D reprints?

Heroes & Other Worlds + the adaptation of Raedwald
I show my False OSR self out forthwith

FLGS is basically giving away a ton of old TSR modules/supplements. I nabbed about a dozen modules and stuff like the Conan supplement for about $10. I was just going to download the B/X books or even 1e and run that, but it seems like everyone here suggests/runs Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry.

>I like giving small, fast weapons a distinct niche other than backup
You can only attack targets that you are grappling with unarmed strikes or small weapons.

Also, daggers can be thrown.

Done.

"everyone here" isn't really playing any singular system, most are running a homebrew system with components hacked together from those suggestions.

>everyone here suggests/runs Basic Fantasy, Labyrinth Lord, or Swords & Wizardry
That's just because they're legal and free.

Ideally, sure, but you can get away with much less early on and just fill it out between sessions.

Fire on the Velvet Horizon
Yoon-Suin
Deep Carbon Observatory
Creature Compendium
Dark Dungeons

>chickenscratch crayon artwork

lel

Also dirt cheap if you want the physical copy.

BFRPG and Whitebox: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game are like $5 and $7.

Night Wolf Inn

>knocking Scrap's art
It does what it's supposed to do and does it in a way that fits the tone. Better than the "art" for most modules and games out there.

>Old AD&D modules

Use either OSRIC, Fantastic Heroes & Witchery or ASSH for AD&D shit

Or if you're a piece of shit casual like me, Labyrinth Lord AEC

I like it, though Veins of the Earth's work is much much better.

Been working on this for a while. Conversions of 3.pf monster to pseudo 2e but usable for all OSR systems.
>Burrowers (gnome/umber hulk hybrids)
>Cave Giants
>Kongamoto (much love for Nyambe)
>Merrow (the 5e version which are basically super-mermen)
>Miasma Serpents (re-fluffed behir that's really deadly)
>Avesa Rakshasa (off-shoot that doesn't cast spells but can possess people)
>Tunnel Brutes (OGL alternative to Umber Hulks)
I wanted to go full 2e with the fluff but I hit a writer's block so I nixed it. I can always revisit it some other time.

But user, I'm not creative enough, nor do I have the time to write 30 seperate areas, presumably with maps, one every four weeks or so

My players eat through content like sons of whores, usually skipping every single little side things. And when I don't give them a clear objective and let them do something more open world, they complain they don't have enough direction

>OC

Thank you user

Beef boy watches over you

Who said you had to write them all? Steal stuff from other places. Grab one page dungeons and stuff them in somewhere. Drop old modules on the map.
And remember that some of those ~30 locations are just gonna be stuff like landmarks that can help with navigation, or obstacles that players will have to navigate around, and other stuff you don't need to spend much time on.

Remember that one user last thread who threatened to translate the 5e feats into OSR? Well fuck you you can't threaten me, I'll do it to myself.

Alert
Your gain a 2-in-6 / 5-in-20 bonus to initiative rolls
You are never surprised.

Durable
You regain double the usual hit points from resting.
When you roll for maximum hit points gained on level up, any roll of 1 counts as a 2.

Great Weapon Master
When you attack with a two-handed weapon, you can take a -5 penalty to the roll. On a hit, the attack deals 10 extra damage.
Whenever you kill a target with a two-handed weapon, you can make an additional attack.

Healer
You can spend healing herbs to heal another creature for 1d6 hit points. A creature can only benefit from this once per day. Healing herbs can be collected while travelling with an appropriate roll (base chance of 1 in 6 chance per day of travel).

Heavy Armor Master
While wearing heavy armor (plate), you reduce the damage you take from physical attacks by 3.

Fuck, in my rush to post I forgot to pretty up the tables.

These would be cool magic items.

Magic Initiate
You learn one 1st-level spell of your choice. You can cast it once per day.

Observant
You gain a bonus of 1-in-6 / 3-in-20 / 15% to search rolls.
You can read lips.

Resilient
Increase one ability score by 1.
Gain a permanent bonus of 2 to one saving throw category.

Savage Attacker
When you roll damage for a melee attack, you can roll twice and take the higher damage.

Sentinel
You can receive a charge with any melee weapon.
If you receive a charge and the attack hits, you deal maximum damage and the target loses its attack this round.

Sharpshooter
If you spend a round aiming a ranged weapon, the attack deals double damage if it hits.

Shield Master
If you hit with a melee attack, you can make another melee attack against the same target using your shield (d4 damage die).
You can add your shield's AC bonus to saving throws vs. breath weapon.
If succeeding on a save vs. breath weapon causes you to take half damage, you can choose to take no damage instead if you are using a shield, but this destroys the shield.

Skulker
When you miss with a ranged attack while you are hidden, you don't reveal your position.
You gain a bonus of 1-in-6 / 3-in-20 / 15% to stealth rolls.

Tavern Brawler
Increase your Strength score by 1.
Your unarmed strike damage increases by one die size.
When you hit with an unarmed strike you can make a grapple attempt against the target.

Tough
You gain a bonus to your maximum hit points equal to your level.

War Caster
You can cast a spell even if you have taken damage in the past round.
You can cast spells even if your hands are full.

>Remember that one user last thread who threatened to translate the 5e feats into OSR?
Don't the AD&D OSR's already have weapon mastery and proficiency slots? they function almost identically to feats.

...

>Sharpshooter
>If you spend a round aiming a ranged weapon, the attack deals double damage if it hits.

Seems not worth taking. You can do two shots in two rounds, or one shot with double damage, which is just putting all your eggs in one basket roll-to-hit-wise.
Maybe if it gave you a bonus to hit, too?

I assumed a system where aiming for a round gives other benefits (bonus to hit, increased chance of hitting your intended target when firing into a melee)

>any frog guy user is named ________
Can you explain SAMAC to me? Is it just a THAC0 joke?

THAC0 is 2e terminology and will get you sued.
FG&G's THACO is a silly acronym (To Hit A Combat Opponent)
SAMAC is my own autistic way to reconcile the informative nature of THAC0 while remaining lawyer-friendly like THACO

>any
*angry
Though I guess I really meant violent.

Ah. Not under OGL. Got it. What does OSRIC say?

Huh, I can't decide whether she was dumb, or just bored and fucking with the customers.

OSRIC seems to use to-hit.

I may have been the first to post the angry frog but I'm not the only one.

Hey, /old/, how do you plan the duration of your sessions? How do you set your expectations for how long a puzzle/encounter will take?
Also, how do you keepp things "on schedule" once you're at the table.

What tone does this fit?

Players get 15 seconds to declare what they are doing, 15 seconds for in character dialogue, and 30 seconds for any rolls or math that needs to be done.

Each player gets 5 minutes of overage time a month. Each second past your allotted amount goes into your overage. If you use up all 5 minutes of overage and continue to take longer, you are banned from my table for a year.

4 hours max. I start looking for a natural ending point half an hour before that. Breaks every 1 hour.