This thread is for the discussion of TSR-era D&D and its various clones and derivatives.
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Topic for discussion: What's one thing you really dislike about OSR games?
How few of them there are.
The OSR label.
The over adherence to tradition, almost blindly so. Ascending AC is tight. Skills too. You fukkin grogs.
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>How many of them there are.
>What's one thing you really dislike about OSR games?
For me, it's the severity of the power increase, and in particular, hit point bloat and the way casters gain ever higher level spell slots (and eventually multiple ones at each leveling). I would love it if D&D had less than half the power difference between low and high level. I think it would be much more manageable.
The puritanical side of the fanbase.
I just want to go on weird fantasy adventures and hexcrawls and shit without getting screamed at by grogs.
I don't even really care for most OSR systems , I just like the modules and charts and ideas and such.
The only thing I really dislike about OSR games is how people who don't play them think they're all about hacking and slashing, kicking he door in and killing monsters.
I agree about ascending AC. I like skills when it's just "you get a handful of things your character is better at than most, for flavor, and when you try to do them, you have better odds than you otherwise would," but players just suggest them and the GM says yes or no, rather than selecting them off a list.
Provides the benefits of skills without the downside of everything becoming about what's on your sheet.
Yeah, you can't beat the modules coming out of the scene. Stuff that blows WoTC out of the water.
You really think 4 pips free to assign +2 per add. level makes the specialist horrible, while the mage has a single fucking spell per day?
Grogs will be grogs.
What sort of weird adventures are on your mind?
Supplementary trove user was nice enough to provide for us a couple threads ago:
v0l@
/r/gxk98efr
Not him but I love the Lamentations modules. Not for playing using the system, but for mining things to use in Delta Green
Anything you have a greater chance of failing than succeeding is pretty terrible. But I agree that starting magic-users get screwed. I like the idea of at least giving them several cantrips to give them some shit to do. Still, LotFP does make magic-users more formidable than normal in a number of ways, by improving their hit points and removing weapon and (to some extent) armor restrictions. I guess the thing is that LotFP doesn't even address the one-and-done issue of starting magic-user spells, while it implements a new skill system for thieves that nevertheless falls short of the mark.
>Cape Choad
Oh dear...
You can do ascending or descending AC. Either one is still OSR.
>skills
Only if you're a thief/specialist.
>reee fuck those guys who actually started the OSR and make 90% of the content they won't let me talk about my favorite shitbrew!
who are you quoting
I like a lot of the LotFP stuff like Doomcave or Better Than Any Man, or stuff like Vornheim, Stonehell, Barrowmaze, or Lapis Observatory.
I also really like weird, less directly usable 'art' stuff like Veins or FotVH or Blue Medusa. I'm a sucker for weird crazy stuff
Himself.
I personally like introductory sessions that have a God of War style intro to them. As in, the player characters (with a lot of help or readily-available resources) should take down something really big and scary and dramatic, which of course leads into another adventure after the fight.
An "in media res" situation, such as a massive battle where the enemy brings out a war mammoth or T-rex, or where the characters are helping defend a keep and the enemy employs a gigantic weaponized siege tower. I've already done it before, having the ship my players were sailing on get attacked by a kraken and needed to cleverly use the ship's cannons to take it down.
Consider: Post apocalyptic Lake Erie.
Has anyone here actually run Maze of the Blue Medusa? I'd be curious to hear about any actual play experiences.
No one, he's just trying to start a fight. Ignore him.
Further consider: the unhallowed abyss that opens under Santiago, Chile in the 19th century.
> I like a lot of the LotFP stuff
> Stonehell, Barrowmaze
Labyrinth Lord
>Lapis Observatory
System neutral
Yeah I know. I tried to throw in " or stuff like" to separate them from LotFP
>Post apocalyptic Lake Erie.
How would you tell?
This I don't get.
I think that works fairly well for heroic games. For more mundane games, I like the "tell me why" method. Tell my why you'll go into this tomb for gold. Tell my why you're in prison.
>This I don't get.
store.steampowered.com
Probably the demons pouring out of the salt mines
>tfw you think you've figured out how to brew your ideal retroclone but you don't have one of the PDFs you need
JUST
What's the brew's recipe? Maybe we can help.
Yeah, shout it out. I like helping with clones.
Hello, friends. For the False OSR Enthusiasts among us, I have created /diydnd/ general.
Please come here if you just want a comfy thread where you can talk about fun games without some asshole sperg telling you it's NOT OSR.
Your continued efforts to split the thread user base are commendable, user.
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>Veins not useable
>literally whole system for mapping individual cave dungeons and mapping cave regions
okay user
>What's one thing you really dislike about OSR games?
There's literally nothing dislikable that applies across all or most OSR games. Things I dislike when they appear in OSR games are skill systems, excessive, fiddly rules for common things like combat and spellcasting, and especially attempts to fuck with the saving throw system, which are universally ill-informed and motivated by some sperg twitch about making character sheets look tidy or similar.
Swimming it shit is pretty bad
Surfing on shit is pretty rad
Lighten up!
Care to give us some examples plus reasons why making saves tidy is bad?
I've been reading through Dark Dungeons and it got the gears in my mind turning regarding descendants of player characters. What set this off is how once a character is rather high level it's likely that they will come to nobility, royalty, or even ascend to godhood.
So I thought about king's blood, demigods, and the old "no you shall be greater" line of Hector. Is there a preexisting mechanic for children inheriting a portion of the parents xp? This allows the descendants of powerful people to set up lineages with divine ancestors, or actually makes the aristocracy better than ordinary men.
Would you drain this xp from the parent, or not? Maybe a roll of some sort for the child to gain 10%, 25%, up to 50% of the parent's xp upon conception? Would the child have access to all their power, or a chunk and they grow into the rest like Hercules or Superman?
I'm sure someone has done something like this before. Heck it might be overlooking it in a book.
pic technically related?
Skills are shite. They are either narrative roadblocks when you fail, or are stupid "I try again" shit 90% of the time. Or, like in the case of 3.5 with the ridiculous modifiers or 5e with the ridiculous "lmao nat20" culture (not even the game's fault honestly), you get this point where the game is just a joke because you can literally roll a check to crawl up someone's ass-hole. I like rolls to detect ambush because those have an immediate effect. Same with noticing a secret door. But the whole "roll a perception check to see the ship on the horizon oh you rolled a 3 well then nothing happens" stupidity is just that: it's stupidity. Skill checks are overused even by good DMs and it just bogs the game down. It also gives the players weapons to use against the DM. "Haha I have a +40 Jump check and the book says I can literally jump around the city like a grasshopper" well that's stupid as hell. Don't get me wrong I enjoy "wacky" moments once in a while but it really detracts from the tone of the game overall. That's not to say that skills are bad but you need to understand that they need to be well-used and honestly I'd ditch most skills altogether. Certainly most skill checks.
>Skills are shite
>That's not to say that skills are bad
uhh
I mean to say "not entirely bad." I also meant to say "skills are shite for an OSR-style game."
>"lmao nat20" culture
critical role is really stupid. It has been given more credence to natural 20 fetishization than anything else. The players treat the game like it's Cards Against Fucking Humanity and act like that's the best way to run a system. People drool over Matt Mercer's DMing style but honestly anyone who is decently well-read can pull off those descriptions. I know I certainly do on a weekly basis, as does one of my GM friends. Yeah, 90% of people are shit at GMing, but that doesn't mean this dumb-ass is a gifted savant. His gunslinger homebrew is atrocious, leaving aside the fact that guns do not belong in D&D end of story, it is just terrible mechanics-wise. This show is basically the roosterteeth "listen to grown men chuckling autistically into 5000 dollar microphones with a bunch of retards shouting over each other as the hysterical assperger laughter reaches its crescendo" experience. Why the fuck would you want to watch these people play their shitty boring campaign when you could go out and do it yourself? Is it the tits on the girls? None of them are very hot and honestly they are all terrible actresses, every time I hear their voices I want to kill myself. I cannot even describe how much I hate this shit. Here's the thing: I've seen a few comedy shows of people playing D&D. It was hilarious. Critical Role is just fucking stupid, partly because they are trying to actually play and they make a huge deal out of their stupid fucking campaign. But, the problem with these comedy shows was that people started expecting that out of their normal games. They expected RPGs to be funny. Not just naturally humorous, they want to rape the campaign for any potential it has. And these chucklefucks have read a load of "D&D stories" on imgur and reddit so they think that's how it is. So we have these fuckers derailing our campaigns every time we let a new person in.
What does /osrg/ think of Lamentations of the Flame Princess? I picked it up at a hobby store a week ago and it seems like a nice little Basic clone with some interesting changes.
Like the system, hate the writer.
Lots of neat ideas undercut by being up it's own ass.
It's pretty sweet, yeah. I like the modules, too.
>tfw someone replies to you with your own copypasta
ok
It has some good ideas, but isn't that good for generic D&D fantasy. If you're doing the thing that LotFP is built for, that's not a problem. Mostly.
Give the Meduza a fucking unicorn. She has been a virgin for more than 20 000 years, she totally deserves it.
Also, make her mobile within the Labyrinth, give players a chance to interact with her on relatively peaceful terms before they meet Green or catch a glimpse of all the treasure in her boss room.
Please stop going to Veeky Forums
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get the garbage out, be a high quality hombre
I don't like going there. It's a shit. I just end up there.
I found Three Hearts and Three Lions interesting for its influence on D&D, but not terribly enthralling as its own thing. Then again, I'm really not a fan of portal fantasy.
Same, t bh. The only guy I was surprised to find better than his reputation was Leiber, that is some real good shit. Howard lives up to his reputation but not much more, CAS has some good stories and most of the rest of the Appendix N stuff is more interesting as D&D study than as reading for its own sake.
Leiber, though. Damn!
What is the "OSR playstyle"?
I dunno about you, but the more Vance I read, the more I appreciate what the guy can do. I'm not surprised Gene Wolfe is a fan.
What about Dick Wolf?
Moorcock is sick as heck tho
>I dunno about you, but the more Vance I read, the more I appreciate what the guy can do.
I can respect that, it's a bit too cheerlessly amoral for my tastes but I get it.
Moorock is overrated edge OTOH
what about him?
there's a whole lot of cool ideas to harvest from LotFP modules, even if you don't like the heavy metal tone they shoot for. As far as the basic skeleton goes, it's competent. Close to b/x but streamlining stuff that needed streamlining.
How would you run a Law & Order OSR campaign?
>cheerlessly amoral
I wouldn't say that, the Cugel stories in particular are one long string of bad people getting what's coming to them, often in humorous or ironic ways.
Vance's humor can be pretty oblique, though. I caught a lot more of it on later readings.
Welp, someone's gonna post it.
>he heavy metal tone they shoot for
Do they? Never noticed it.
>As far as the basic skeleton goes, it's competent
People say it falls apart at higher levels.
>streamlining
FOEGYG. Behead those who would defile B/X
>Vance's humor can be pretty oblique
Faucelme returned, shaking his head in puzzlement. He seated himself in his chair and resumed his reading. Cugel came up behind him, looped the rope around his chest, again and again, and it seemed the rope would never exhaust the coil. Faucelme was presently trussed up in a cocoon of rope.
At last Cugel revealed himself. Faucelme looked him up and down, in curiosity rather than rancor, then asked, "May I inquire the reason as to this visit?
"It is simple stark fear," said Cugel. "I dare not pass the night out of doors, so I have come to your house for shelter."
"And the ropes?" Faucelme looked down at the web of strands which bound him to the chair.
"I would not care to offend you with the explanation," said Cugel.
"Would the explanation offend me more than the ropes?"
Cugel frowned and tapped his chin. “Your question is more profound than it might seem, and verges into the ancient analyses of the Ideal versus the Real.”
Faucelme sighed. “Tonight I have no zest for philosophy. You may answer my question in terms which proximate the Real.”
“In all candour, I have forgotten the question,” said Cugel.
The Conan stories were different than I expected them to be, both for good and for ill. They were more Lovecraftian than I expected them to be, which I enjoyed, but they were so pulpy that there was almost no character investment, which made it hard for me to care much about what was going on (and Conan, himself, is a boring-as-shit protagonist). Howard's world has a cool vibe, but the actual stories left me wanting.
> CAS has some good stories
Clark Ashton Smith? He's not actually in Appendix N, is he? Regardless, I've only read a couple of his stories and have been meaning to read more.
>the rest of the Appendix N stuff is more interesting as D&D study than as reading for its own sake
If you haven't yet, check out Lord Dusany's The Book of Wonder. Some really evocative short stories in there, usually with a dark twist, which I quite appreciate. I read The King of Elfland's Daughter, and found it comparatively disappointing. It has a cool set-up, but then doesn't know what to do with itself and kind of meanders around until it ends. With reading more, I can't say or sure if that's an indication that Dunsany is better at short stories than novels. That's another author I need to get around to reading more of.
I'm also a big fan of H. P. Lovecraft, at least when he's "on": At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Out of Time, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Colour Out of Space, etc.
I quite enjoyed reading the core Elric saga back in the day, though it could be that some of what it does would seem trite in today's day and age.
I've started reading several Philip Jose Farmer books, and the only one that kept my interest was Dark Is The Sun, but that's honestly one of my favorite books. The prose is nothing special, but the post-post-post-post collapse world is wonderfully colorful and should be required reading for anybody considering a Gamma World campaign. ebook: mega.nz
>Never noticed it.
It's found in the modules, more than the core book. (Though the art in the full version has quite a lot of it. Raggi hired some of his favorite metal album cover artists, and they did.... interesting things.)
>People say it falls apart at higher levels.
That's arguably true of all D&D, though.
continued
I enjoy the unpredictability and creativity of Vance, but can never really sink into his stories. As for Leiber, I only ever read one story and it was okay, but didn't leave me wanting more. I should probably give him a bigger chance though.
Nothing I've read of the other authors from appendix N has been more than okay, though there are a number I've never gotten around to at all.
Can you run an OSR/Old School game in a system that's not in OD&D's direct lineage?
Yes.
How?
OSR doesn't have a monopoly on lethal dungeon crawls focusing on player skill, for one, there's torchbearer, though it's a bit artificially difficult. It all depends on the game you want to run and the system you want to run it in. So...context would be appreciated unless you're just trying to egg me on into a fight, in which case, fuck off.
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>the Cugel stories in particular are one long string of bad people getting what's coming to them
That's kind of the problem, for me. The thing about Fafhrd and the Mouser is that they're basically good guys with good appetites and a zest for adventure, so you can cheer for them.
Partly it was theoretical, but I'd like to adapt several modules to GURPS and BRP as those are my favored systems. Not sure how well it'd work out but I'd like to try to translate the essence of old school to those
Would you rather watch basically bad people succeed or fail?
>Clark Ashton Smith? He's not actually in Appendix N, is he?
Oh, maybe you're right. Him being cited as an inspiration for D&D by Gygax probably confused me then.
Just use the adventures with the system of your choice. 95% of the time it'll be really easy to convert to whatever system you enjoy. I'm actually running Stonehell in 5e and my players are having fun. Of course, I would have liked to have run it in Labyrinth Lord, but my players wanted a more modern edition. Despite this, I'm still urging them to map out the place as they explore it, utilizing reaction rolls and morale for open-ended encounters, and keeping track of time for supplies and wandering monsters. It works well enough.
It's not really that binary. I would rather watch bad people fail because they got BTFO by good people, not because everyone's bad and they reduced society to a reciprocal shitmachine.
But even when Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser get suckered out of their gains by bad people I enjoy that more than just watching bad guys. Sympathetic picaros are one of the best things in literature.
Nope, he's not.
It's interesting that Fredric Brown is on there. He did a little sci-fi (most notably the story that would become the Arena episode of TOS--the one with the Gorn), but most of his output was (first-class) mystery/thriller stories. I'm not aware of him ever doing fantasy.
>most notably the story that would become the Arena episode of TOS--the one with the Gorn
I wrote a Master-of-Orion-on-paper game and GM'd it for a dozen or so friends a zillion years ago, and Kirk Fist was one of the Galactic Wonders your empire could research; it made your marines death machines. Can't beat that double axehandle.
I like the fact that they matched the over-the-top showiness of kirkfu with the nonchalance of the vulcan nerve grip. I guess Nimoy realized he was never going to out-Shatner Kirk, so why even try? For all its faults, classic Trek really was awesome.
>not because everyone's bad and they reduced society to a reciprocal shitmachine.
If you don't want to see that then why are you here?
That's a neat point. Spock was basically John Entwistle to Kirk's Keith Moon.
And yeah, TOS rules. My wife had never seen any Trek, and so I resolved to show her all the best episodes, and I was really taken back by how many of them were TOS rather than TNG. I think TOS packed in more good stuff in three seasons than TNG did in seven.
Now I want some hokey kung-fu rules for an OSR game that occasionally wants to get all Big Trouble in Little Hommlett.
The idea that it's acceptable for classes to be shit in combat in exchange for being good at other shit (also the reverse). Fuck that noise, especially in a game supposedly based on pulp fantasy.
Also the fact that OSR games are fucking terrible at emulating pulp fantasy without major modification.
Once upon a time you were a Fighting Man or a Magic-User
Which is better, but still the roots of the issue.
I'm not a fan of the idea that everybody has to be good in combat, myself. Might as well take the Fighter out and have everyone be a wizard.
I sort of see what you mean, but it would be difficult, from a pure gameplay perspective, for everyone not to be able to contribute in some meaningful way. Otherwise combat becomes something like the decker phase of a Shadowrun game, where one type of character gets to do things and the rest watch and at best cheer from the sidelines. If something is a core part of the game, a regular occurrence, it needs to offer a role for everyone, "realistic" or not.
That's fine, keep doing what you do, if it works for you and your group and all that, but I feel that in a game where combat is by far the single most time consuming part of anything (yes, even in old systems) where you'll see the most mechanical interaction, having any class be dead weight at this point is unacceptable and short-sighted. I could handle the alternative if combat were a single roll or something.
Supplementary trove room. Updates or suggestions on what to get are encouraged. This is not a cleaning service, just trying to consolidate missing stuff.
v0l@
/r/gxk98efr
Nothing to request, just want to thank you.
The Cthonic Codex would be cool.