Welcome to /osrg/, the Old School Renaissance General! Here we discuss editions of Dungeons and Dragons from the TSR era, as well as retro-clones of those editions and other games and material compatible with them.
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How long have you been playing or running OSR? How has your play style or DMing style changed over the years?
Give me your spiciest new magic system ideas.
We don't force stories into our games. Things happen in the world. Each character has a personality and a point of view. The PCs and the GM act scenes out.
I don't understand the new concept of "roleplaying" people use, they aren't playing a role, they're emoting. I've seen newcomers think "roleplaying" consists of describing every single action with a paragraph of text.
Players cast using their HP, but there's also martial casting so a fighting man can use hp to jump farther and hit harder. A thief can cast to raise his lockpicking chance.
I'm running Basic Fantasy RPG for a couple of people soon because of the very fast char creation rules. How valid / flavorful would be a houserule to give early magic users the following, self-crafted item: a wand of force which is (and I don't know which one):
>a regular attack you have to aim and which deals 1d4 dmg
>a spell that always hits akin to magic missile but which deals 1d3
The reasoning here is that early game wizards throwing knives and slings kinda lacks flavor to me, but I don't know if such an item would be against the spirit of the OSR, esp. since by design it would have infinite charges and not encumber the mage.
It's a treacherous meme that has somehow crept into the hobby to mislead newcomers into creating shitty 'quirky' snowflake characters thar "need" to have intrincate, "original" one page long backstories.
This same poisonous thought leads to DMs thinking that every single location, NPC or encounter needs to have super complex motives, plots, descriptions, or backstories.
It's all false. The reason every single RPG enthusiast comes to the table is not for the story. The interaction between the different elements in the world and how it changes over time in unexpected ways because of them is what is interesting.
it's okay, i guess, you're just replacing knives and slings with something with a more magical flavor without it having any real consequence on gameplay, balance etc.
>a spell that always hits akin to magic missile but which deals 1d2
This may be of use to you.
I like it. It makes use of HP being treated as stamina/exertion, and also adds another layer to resource management.
It's barely usable for lower levels, though.
>How long have you been playing or running OSR? How has your play style or DMing style changed over the years?
Tried to run it couple of times, but my team bailed on me for no reason.
Only played it once (with another team), and now I can't wait for the next session. It fits perfectly with my tendencies to poke around scenery, making use of it, and being paranoid about everything.
You should learn from Garry's mistakes, don't reinvent when you can refluff, why don't you just give them a "Wand of Holmes' Magic Missile".
>Wand of Holmes' Magic Missile
I googled it and I couldn't find it. I'm afraid I don't get it.
I thought of giving the magic user some starting scrolls or charged wands with actual spells, though. I'm really liking as well.
It's magic missile that requires a to-hit roll.
1d6, ranged attack roll.
It would benefit from a separate pool, but as is would allow hp to be a resource that even the most savvy danger-avoiding party could use, at risk.
Monte Cook pls go
>everyone is a caster edition
Monte's equivalent of this is actually better designed, in OD&D terms basically casting a spell requires a 6 on a 1d6 roll, but for every HP you burn it lowers the requirement, burn 1 hp? requires 5-6, 2 hp burn, 3-6.
Better design isn't the exact question though. It's always about simplicity vs design outcome for OSR. I'll agree that his version is very elegant, but is it simple enough to be used in OSR?
I ran 3.x for two years after being in a B/X campaign for a year.
I found Basic Fantasy via an amazon link for some old 3.0 books I bought and enjoyed the read. Been an OSR fan since. It's really changed how much I care about rules and made my games in Non-osr titles a lot less bumpy.
It definitely wouldn't work, It'd radically alter the class dynamic.
Is there a precedent for how much damage dynamite does?
Yellow Slime
2 HD
5 AC
Move 60’ (20’)
# Attacks 1
Leap: 1 point of damage. On a roll of 20, slime is partially swallowed; victim saves versus poison or convulses for 1d6 rounds.
Morale 10
Save 15
Treasure Type O
Alignment Neutral
Non-Intelligent
# Appearing 1d4
Explodes for 2d10 in 20’ if it suffers damage from fire or electricity. It is attracted to heat and often shut in barrels near mine tunnels.
If you went this route a better implantation would be a modified DCC opposed spell check system; d20+ int mod + whatever system you wanted including HP burn or just CL. vs spell level + spell complexity.
Use DCCs.
Do you guys think WFRP2 is suitable for OSR style adventures? System is quite lethal and the combat actually requires subterfuge and tactics.
It's not D&D so it should work well. Also you will have fewer burgers showing up.
>Garry
You again!
I live in Poland, where WFRP is already a sanctified system which can do no wrong, but people play it as a super srs game of WoD and refuse to acknowledge it has pretty neat rules for tactical combat because it's for D&D simpleton fags, so I want to take it on a spin with something more original than dark misery porn.
Ergo, no burgers.
Isn't this literally just GURPS spellcasting?
WHFRP is the best non-D&D system for playing in the old-school style. I prefer 1E, but either way, yes.
>people play it as a super srs game of WoD
What the FUCK? How do you get there from "this career only exists so I could draw a caricature of Bryan Ansell"? The intro adventure is a dungeoncrawl in somebody's basement, for Christ's sake!
I pdf'd Cavegirl's D, D&D for personal use, but might as well throw it up here.
System seems really solid. Hopefully I can goad my players into playing something other than 5e.
Thanks for the system, Cavegirl
>OSR style adventures
Dungeon crawling? you'll have to homebrew the fuck out of the magic system.
How so?
Not exactly new, since I've posted this before, but... spell casting using poker chips.
Essentially, each act/chapter/between-short-rests-period, you get a certain number of poker chips, which you can cash in to power your spells. A white chip lets you cast a level 1 spell (which is actually a cantrip, because all spells are bumped up a level to work with this system). Spend either two white chips or a red chip and you can cast a level 2 spell. Spend a blue chip, or a white chip and a red chip and you can cast a level 3 spell. Etc. The only trick is that you can't combine more than 2 chips (though you can use a higher level chip to cast a lower level spell, if you really want to).
So: White = 1 level. Red = 2 levels. Blue = 3 levels.
In addition, you've got one or two per-day black chips, that are each worth 1 level (like white chips), but which ignore the limit on combining chips. So they let you boost your spell power once or twice a day.
As for the actual spells you cast, you'd have a list of spells known and would check each off as you cast it. You'd only gain those spells back after a night's rest, though you could optionally cast a checked-off spell by pay for it as if it were one level higher than normal (causing you to put another check mark beside it, making the next casting of it one level higher than that).
Here's one I just thought of. Haven't put any effort into developing it yet, though.
No max spells per day (only max spell level), and no preparation, but all spells require material components. Often these material components are some combination of rare, valuable, requiring significant preparation or craftsmanship, large, or heavy. Or have some other drawback to them. Sometimes spells require rituals, or other such things, as well.
Pros:
>resource management
>freer magic
Cons:
>freer magic
>may be overpowered if you aren't good at limiting component access
>WHFRP is the best non-D&D system for playing in the old-school style. I prefer 1E, but either way, yes.
I'm curious - why would you play 1E over 2E in this case?
>All the recommendations I've gotten so far have had the exact things I asked them not to have.
I mean, I gave you suggestions for balancing classes to accommodate a unified XP progression () and provided a way to reduce the number of saving throw categories to 3 or 1. Systems like Basic Fantasy, Swords & Wizardry, and Lamentations of the Flame Princess offer ascending AC (or you can just convert it from descending AC, like in the pic here).
As for prime requisites, why not just ignore them? If you just don't like mucking around with earned XP, and want to get fancy then you could have prime requisites do something funky based on your class:
magic-users = cast spells as if your caster level were 1 higher (but still get the spells and spell slots appropriate for your actual level).
clerics = better of two melee damage rolls vs. undead or unholy
thieves = treat thief skills as if you were 1 level higher
fighters and demihumans = when you roll maximum damage, roll another die and add it to the result (only do this once, and if you roll max on the second die, you "go bust" and it adds zero to your first die)
>adventurer blocking dragon's breath with his shield
NOT
OSR
Seriously, are there actual rules for this somewhere beyond fluffing a successful save vs breath?
There's the d20 Modern SRD:
>Dynamite
>1d6 in a 5ft-burst
>Additional sticks can be set off at the same time if they are within the burst radius of the first stick, increasing the damage and burst radius of the explosion. Each additional stick increases the damage by +1d6 (maximum 10d6) and the burst radius by 5 feet (maximum 20 feet).
>It’s possible to wire together several sticks of dynamite for even greater explosive effect. Doing so requires a Demolitions check (DC 10 + 1 per stick). If the character succeeds on the check, the damage or the burst radius of the explosion increases by 50% (the character’s choice).
The fuck are you guys going on about?
It's called a fucking Role Playing game, you play a goddamned Role
I agree that those people that come to the story with a page long backstory should shove it up their ass, you really shouldn't come to the table with anything more than a personality and MAYBE a sentence to describe who you are (A peasant looking for a better life, A disgraced noble looking for redemption)
Getting involved in your characters makes the game much more fun than just playing some nameless fuckwad. When you get invested in characters, it makes their actions that much more meaningful, instead of just bodies to throw at a problem (shit my character died, who cares just roll up a new one they'll be levelled in a session anyways)
>Isn't this literally just GURPS spellcasting?
There's like 8 different spellcasting systems in GURPS, you'd have to specify
Unless you're talking about the base magic system, in which case no it's not like that (though there are rules for burning HP instead of FP)
They're the ones that hold the platonic ideal of OSR gaming as contextless dungeon crawls with replaceable, indistinct characters. No one cares about Melf, only what Melf lets the player do in the game.
Thank you user, muchos smooches to you
Art has to be OSR now?
I mean, that's fine to play the game like that, to each their own, but don't bash on other people for playing a game how they want.
I understand that type of play at the first few levels since you'll be going through characters like nothing else, but I think by the time you get to a higher level they should have SOME sort of backstory
>d20 rules
Should I say it?
This looks fine though, maybe there's other rules in something like Masque of the Red Death but this should do.
I just don't like practically any of the changes in 2e. It's hard to point to a single thing and call it the culprit; everything from the new art to the change in how magic works just puts me off the update.
He did this thing called "Telling a joke" user
Try looking it up some time
>To the change in how magic works
What changes?
Specialist mages? Cleric spheres?
Vancian Magic really hasn't changed over the years
Even my poop is OSR, fucko. Gritty and resource-based.
I feel like there's a magical Shield vs. Dragon Breath kicking around in some book somewhere, but that's obviously the wrong approach.
Shields are criminally underrated in D&D as it is, so giving some bonus like halving the effect of a breath weapon before the roll (possibly at the cost of the shield) seems perfectly fair to me. It's not like it'll come up often.
I don't know, user, I own 1E and I really want to like it but there's basically nothing I'd use from it over 2E. Mayyyybe the magic system if I was running something more generic rather than Old World adventures. To each their own I guess.
He's talking about WFRP, user.
>It's called a fucking Role Playing game, you play a goddamned Role
That is literally not how it works. It was originally called a "Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaign" and later, "Fantasy Adventure Gaming". Sadly that last one has a very unfortunate acronym, so it never caught on. Roleplaying or role gaming only showed up in early fanzines, and it was used to denote that you only played one role or character, rather than the commander of a side or unit, as in wargames. It has never been and should not be used as a reference to acting or psychological role-play. That shit is unfun faggotry, and if you like it you can join an amateur theatrical troupe.
Ah, stale copypasta.
>That shit is unfun faggotry
What did he mean by this?
>It was originally called a "Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaign" and later, "Fantasy Adventure Gaming"
Yes, when it was first released
Luckily we no longer live in 1974
There's a reason why fanzines, and eventually TSR themselves adopted "Role Playing Game"
If you want to play a wargame, play a wargame
>To each their own I guess.
Exactly. (I don't even like the way the Old World went in WFB, so them updating the setting was a negative to me as well)
>Should I say it?
SRD-tan is the MILF (GILF?) of the OSR family. She might be eccentric but you should treat her with kindness!
>implying I store pasta on my phone
>Luckily we no longer live in 1974
Why are you even in this thread
I want to know if you actually believe this
I know that 90% of posts on Veeky Forums are ironic, but I just need to know
Like, if your friend invited you to a game and he gave his character a personality in game, would you get mad at him? If he talked in character would you leave?
>If you want to play a wargame, play a wargame
But I am playing a wargame. It's called D&D.
>Why are you even in this thread
Because I want to live in 1980
Because Poland's early RPG environments had a little bit of WFRP, a little bit of D&D, and gradually introducing a whole bunch of new systems and environments, but there has been a silent war between proponents of WFRP and D&D because WFRP-fags thought that D&D was a kiddie system that should be scoffed at because every game boils down to just hacking and slashing and mindless gameplay which isn't "true roleplaying".
After a while a vocal group of reactionists simply started declaring that everything to do with action is verboten, and WoD / CoC started getting popular, so the "Inner Turmoils of a Young Altdorfian Ratcatcher" became a popular trope. Magia & Miecz went from posting simple modules that were about fucking up cultists and greenskins in various environments to introspective adventures about roleplaying a group of lost Old World soldiers dying from cold in Norsca with little to no dice-rolling involved. To this day many WFRP grognards over here tend to emphasize the deep, mature and dark stories that the system allowed; very little is there about a sense of fun. Having a dungeon crawl in WFRP is considered "wrong" here.
How is it, any good?
How do I play a game similar to the SaGa games for the Gameboy? I feel like OSR systems would be the most well suited for that type of game, especially with race as class and all of that
How do you fix naked dwarves and firearms, though?
I wouldn't get mad and leave, I'm not a sperglord. But if the flow of the game was disrupted by emoting and in-character talk, I'd politely decline future invitation. There's not a lot of room for that in a dungeon expedition anyways.
Think of my preferred playstyle as Arneson's Blackmoor, where the characters were just their players' self-inserts, name and all -- Sir Jenkins, Baron Fant, Marfeldt the Barbarian and so on. Boom, act like yourself and you're emoting perfectly.
Oh yeah, it's also known as Final Fantasy Legend for non-weebs
Yeah, it's fun! I recommend it. Cheap too, like five bucks on Lulu.
Okay, and you're allowed to do that with similar minded people and have fun?
But why is everything you don't like "unfun faggotry" ?
Christ that sounds obnoxious. I get that it's mostly one of those dumb social effects, but it really seems like maybe the Polish translators or whatever missed the practically omnipresent bongidic humor in the game?
>But why is everything you don't like "unfun faggotry" ?
Because this is Veeky Forums, and nobody can stop me.
No, it's actually because I hate how roleplaying as a hobby has become associated primarily with this amateur-fantasy-novel shit. I think those people should fuck off and take the charops with them so the rest of us could go back to being understood as a popular form of tabletop wargame.
That's very nice, but don't count on finding many adherents to your contextless board game style of play here. Maybe with your personal playing group, if you even have one.
Is Mutant Future a good retroclone of Gamma World?
Also is there a retroclone for Boothill?
Sorry to say, your way of gaming lost out years and years ago friend.
Wargaming still exists, don't worry
If you stopped being such a grump, maybe you'd be happier
>Is Mutant Future a good retroclone of Gamma World?
No.
>Also is there a retroclone for Boothill?
Tombstone, it's on rpgnow.
>No.
Why?
>Why?
It's not actually a clone of Gamma World, it's just an LL shitbrew like Starships & Spacemen or Apes Victorious..
Has anyone played using just the LBB and maybe a supplement or two?
I'm considering just saying fuck it to all the AD&D and new D&D shit and just using OD&D from now on
As in how is it different
Mutant Crawl Classics does a modern take on Gamma World best.
>bongidic
What does this mean?
I give +2 on breath weapon saves for guys with shields. Simple enough. Shields might be fucked afterwards though.
>Shields
>Good
no
Spears should be much stronger than swords, it's ridiculous that spears are so underpowered in D&D
>Longer reach
>Impaling instead of slashing
>Can be use one or two handed
>Easy to learn and use
>Point bit break off? You got yourself a staff bud
>Incredibly cheap to buy and manufacture
>Has anyone played using just the LBB
Yes. LBBs and Chainmail combat. It's fun as shit but you have to homebrew a ton. If you enjoy that it's a blast.
Of or pertaining to britbongs and their ways.
Shield Shall Be Splintered or however the fuck that rule is called?
Ignore one attack completely at the cost of your shield.
Grorious Nippon Spears
Is SSBS an actual TSR rule or an OSR invention?
I'd give them 1d12 damage when wielded one-handed and 2d10 when wielded with two hands.
It's a really old houserule. Sooo... somewhere inbetween?
In the form it is now, name and all, it's from someone's blog post.
Am I allowed to have fun while playing games made after the 90's?
You can, but it has to be the right kind, and you have to check in with the Fun Board weekly for verification.
why not you're allowed to shitpost in our thread
Has anyone played through Ruins of Adventure, the module that's vased off of Pool of Radiance?
Also, are you supposed to use it with 1e or 2e?
Anyone familiar with Whitehack? I’m trying to find a system to run a game in