Welcome to /osrg/ – a center for pre-WotC D&D and all things related.
>Trove:
pastebin.com
>Tools & Resources:
pastebin.com
>Old School Blogs:
pastebin.com
>Previous thread:
If players run into the same group of monsters multiple times, do you keep rolling reactions?
Generally it isn't the same particular group because there's a pool of certain monsters in the dungeon.
Of course, if that's clearly an intelligent faction and the negotiations assuming any went well and there's a reasonable chance of communication between monster groups, I tend to add +2 to players reaction rolls for the next encounters. And it's the opposite if things went poorly, assuming again, a reasonable chance of communication. If they devastated an enemy's squad and covered their tracks well, no reason to modify new reaction rolls.
C&C, Myth and Magic, Heroe Journey or what other OSR with "more" player options?
Ambitions & Avarice. Very underestimated thing, although it doesn't have monster manual. But then so doesn't LotFP, it's OSR, who cares.
Fantastic Heroes & Witchery adds quite a few options across several different genres(I'd have to double check but I believe it has at least 20 classes in it), and also infamously has 666 spells included
The Nightmares Underneath has 12 classes(8 core, 4 optional in the appendixes), and it's supplement The Nameless Grimoire adds 9 more(and increases the core book's 100 spells to 666 as well)
Blueholme Journeymanne Edition only has the 4 classic classes(plus the option to dual class as any 2 of them at once, which effectively makes for 10 classes), but includes some basic rules for playing as races outside the standard bunch(hypothetically any monster in the monster section could be played as, although the game does state that Medium & Small sized Humanoid races work best, but does also give an example for what a Level 1 Dragon character would be like)
ACKS gives a ton of options(including a really good class creation system in it's Player's Companion supplement), but it gets a lot of discussion in these threads already so someone else can go in more depth about that
Pars Fortuna is interesting in that it uses Race As Class, but doesn't include regular Humans or standalone versions of the 4 classic classes, instead giving 12 unique races to play as(the author's NOD magazine has a couple more race-classes sprinkled over several of it's issues, and he's supposed to be doing a Revised edition this year so the number could potentially change up some more)
Blood & Treasure has honestly way too many options across both of it's editions(as well as NOD magazine, and the Bloody Basic spinoff line) for me to reasonably list here(not to mention compatibility with Pars Fortuna's stuff since they're by the same guy)
Basic Fantasy RPG has a lot of options if you count all the fanmade content hosted on it's site and forums
there's more out there, but this covers most everything I own in Print that is both OSR and has a lot of PC facing options
Which systems handle encumbrance, rations, and travel time the best?
I want logistics to be a pretty big component of my next game and most systems are terrible at it.
For encumbrance, rations and light, unironically, Torchbearer. But the tricky part here is dealing with Torchbearer.
Travel rules, well, Journey rules are good in The One Ring.
In OSR? They're all more or less the same. With encumbrance, people who don't want to bother much use LotFP or variations of thereof, people who do use spreadsheets. You could also for a middleground with measuring stuff in a historical stone unit or coins.
I also recommend like Hazard System from Necropraxis blog which handily or awfully, depending on your perspective, unites all kinds of oldschool resource management in a gamey but simple and intuitive way.
Torchbearer for all its flaws actually has a great system when inside a dungeon
The only reason I hesitate to use it is because of overland travel with vehicles and what not. I feel like the TB system of "we assume you have like 50lb of stuff on you anyway" becomes very vague.
I will look into The One Ring, haven't read it at all. Thanks
had any of you a download link for Torchbearer? it seems to be ausent from the Trove.
First off, it's not.
Second, there's a pdf share thread.
Small updates for the trove are happening but won't be for a little while, about four days.
There's a lot of Frog God Games and some missing DCC material you can find in the pdf share thread, soon to be added. In case something OSRish comes up there, I would appreciate notifying me here with the keyword 'AFOE' or whatever, as I'm going to be a bit busy to scroll the whole pdf share thread and active vola rooms.
I need something to replace the Delay weapon mastery effect for axes and bows. I'm running Scarlet Heroes and PCs always go first there so abilities fucking with initiative won't work. Any ideas /osrg/?
>encumbrance
Moldvay
>travel time
Cook
What are some good beginner adventures? I've only played 5E, but I've got pdfs of OD&D and AD&D, and I'd like to run a game.
Keep on the Borderlands
Thanks, friend.
Check out the thread before last - lots of answers
Tomb of the Serpent King
Tower of the Stargazer, The Shadowed Keep
Too many FOEs ITT
B4 The Lost City
The Village of Hommlet
I use slot based encumbrance which is negotiable before we start adventure. Boxes for torches and rations/water. Silent digital flashing timer behind my DM screen for torches/lantern oil. It’s totally capricious on my part but it serves its purpose of creating drama as the party runs low on resources.
google.com
>Check out the thread before last - lots of answers
Should we write a FAQ?
>Should we write a FAQ?
No, because some Raggidrone or DCC shill or GLOGster will take control of the project and turn it into propaganda for their pet system.
fair point
I don't know. I doubt it'd take much to just list a bunch of good low-level adventures.
Oh user, you have way to much good faith in the OSR community.
Finished the first issue of my DCC cyberpunk hack/e-zine, for anyone interested.
>drive.google.com
But then we can't justify bitching at newcomers for not knowing the massive and growing arcane taboos and rituals of this general.
Very interested in this. I love Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 but don’t like the rules for either game (esp SR).
>for not knowing the massive and growing arcane taboos and rituals of this general.
They aren't exclusive to these generals or new to OSR, we've had the exact same "arcane taboos and rituals" since at least 2008.
>How did your last session go /OSRG/
Party cleric had a quickdraw contest with a vampire mage. The cleric was armed with a Wand of Illumination, the vampire with Lightning Bolt.
The cleric lost, was fried.
Any good example of a megadungeon that would be plausible in a low-fantasy setting? I know that people have objections to "realism" in fantasy RPG's but my group will often take exception to this kind of thing.
A good megadungeon usually starts to look like all sorts of messy and weird even in a low-fantasy setting.
How can we support this?
It's probably feasible if you have multiple ecosystems merging into each other. The easiest example would be a cave system opening in some kind of barrow hole.
Wireless net running was a huge mistake for SR to retcon imo. Getting to a specific physical node to hack into a system was a primary plot hook and is quintessential to the origins of the 80s genre. I will gladly buy this product. Is the art contained in it legally useable if you were to sell or give away this on drivethru?
Mythic underworld that starts corrupting an ordinary underground structure? I think that's how Stonehell is set up, anyway.
I promise not to, but I promise not to write it either, so it's a moot point.
I think a list with absolutely zero commentary would work best. Let people search it themselves.
Oooh! Pretty.
Did you play excellent gunslinger duel music first?
Barrowmaze is plausibly low-fantasy for the most part.
Really though, if you've got a specific ideal, just take a real world area and adapt it. Catacombs, valley of the kings, Rome...
>Did you play excellent gunslinger duel music first?
The final showdown music from For a Few Dollars More.
The catacombs of Paris and Rome, Turkish and Iran underground cities, etc. are all real life megadungeons.
>The final showdown music from For a Few Dollars More.
Aww yeah.
The art appears to be an issue. It’s just stuff the author found online and he says so on the 1st page. These is a really cool idea I could see finding traction with the wider DCC community. But it can’t be legally distributed via mainstream channels with the pirated art.
>But it can’t be legally distributed via mainstream channels with the pirated art.
Isn’t that the very definition of cyberpunk chummer/chombatta?
Not really. That's just undercities.
Actual megadungeons would go several floors lower down, at the very least, and they'd get all sorts of unknown and weird and scary. Few sane people would descend there - certainly no tourists.
It's only four levels, but The Caverns of Thracia could work.
'Satania' is a French comic book with an interesting, semi-scientific (if not holding up under scrutiny) explanation for having a huge, sprawling cave system complete with unique flora and fauna.
Imagine the deep sea. We have only explored a fraction of that. There are species down there that defy what was, until their discovery, accepted truths of biological life.
Now Imagine that, but under the earth rather than under the water. How much do we really know of the deepest places of the earth?
>Honestly you could have intelligence 4 and just be really autistic about adventuring stuff, dangerous and capable within dungeons and under grave peril but almost incapable of taking care of yourself in civilization.
>If players run into the same group of monsters multiple times, do you keep rolling reactions?
Nah. In practical terms, unless circumstances change, the attitude of the monsters/NPCs shouldn't change, and if the circumstances DO change, then normally it will be obvious how that affects attitudes.
>not using partial successes in your game
What are you, gay? Stupid? A mediocre GM?
Anyways. Thief skills I’m considering.
>Pick Locks
As long as he has a set of lock picks on hand, a thief can pick any lock he encounters by spending one turn fiddling with it. Picking the lock in this way is a slow process, but it allows the thief ample opportunity to examine the locking mechanism and locate any traps that may be present without triggering them. A skilled thief may wish to expedite this process, and he may do so by testing his pick locks skill. A success indicates that the thief has picked the lock without expending a turn, so deft are his movements. However, a failure indicates that he has failed to pick the lock, and, working in such haste, he has most assuredly triggered a trap (if the lock has one) and damaged his lock picks. In either case, the thief may make immediately test his find/remove traps skill as a sort of “saving throw” to avoid the nastiness of the trap, success indicating that he has reflexively identified the trap and disarmed it.
Why is there such an aversion to answering questions? I love answering questions.
Answering questions is maybe a third of why I come here. Sometimes, when you do it, people say thanks!
Chop the maps into pieces and stack them.
How did your last session go /OSRG/?
Burgers, take your box set and go play in another thread.
It's a forever free, non-commercial hack/zine/supplement. So no print or DTRPG or anything. Just sporadic releases.
>There are people who think Race-as-Class isn't GOAT
Bunch of idiots
>b-but what if I want to play an elf thief/dwarf mage?
Why do you want to play an elf thief? Just play a fucking thief or mage you retard.
Why are people so attached to fictional races when they can just play a human and fill the same fucking niche?
You are right, and furthermore present your own side of the argument in an admirably mature and well-restrained way.
>Players found a rare magic item
>PC is a raging alcoholic and wants to start next session in a tavern
>DM declares PC drunkenly bragged about finding said item
>Local criminals mug him and steal it
>Session revolves around recovering it
Is it bullshit if I pull DM power and tell player what his character did?
They like to roleplay being drunk dumbasses, but nothing comes of it usually.
Yes, it is bullshit. Put your DM powers to work making their drunken escapades miniature adventures.
There are no valid arguments against race-as-class.
Anyone who wants to play a demihuman in a niche that the demihuman doesn't cover can just play that niche in non-demihuman flavor and lose nothing.
What are some good alternate race-as-class archetypes besides dwarf-cleric, dwarf-fighter, elf fighter-wizard, elf thief-wizard, halfling thief, and halfling fighter?
dwarf monk
elf whoremonger
halfling assassin
So I started playing RPGs in late-1st Edition AD&D times, soon carried over to 2nd. I have zero nostalgia for this stuff, care to explain why you guys do?
Does anyone use poop monsters or are they just a meme?
The Jeff Rients carousing table bothers me for this reason. People say OSR is about player agency, but there's a lot of stuff like "whoops! you lost all your treasure!" and "haha, now you're part of a cult!"
I get the idea that drunkenness removes agency, but it's kind of a bullshit way to remove agency from the player.
Hey, I already said you are right.
I disagree with everything you stand for, but the ACKS demi-human classes are a good compromise.
I started playing RPGs in the 3e era and I have zero nostalgia for this stuff. I just think it's neat.
It's not nostalgia (or at least, not entirely nostalgia). The older games do things that were abandoned by later games. For some that's good; for us that's bad.
I like the Halfling Outrider from Beyond the Wall. Basically dude with a pony whose prior job was to patrol the outskirts of the shire. Gets a special pony as a starting thing.
I started playing with 3e. If I should have nostalgia to anything, it should be that - but I think it's garbage and instead vastly prefer OSR.
Sometimes nostalgia has nothing to do with it and something simply is better.
>Players reach a rest stop village along the Great Silk Road
>What happens there?
Like what? Mathematically it's probably worse than 3.PF, and I am in here shitting on d20 from a simulation standpoint at least a few times a week, so that's bad.
ACKS has d20 skills, economics, and a forum.
Same poster, I mean, yeah a lot of times the fluff was better in TSR stuff, but why the systems?
Are any of those in the trove? I've not seen them
Having multiple race-as-class archetypes or the specific archetypes I've chosen?
You are blind, my friend. ACKS has an entire folder all to itself.
It's not a bloated and barely functional mess, for one.
Both. For example, ACKS has the Dwarven Vaultguard (Dwarf Fighter) and Dwarven Craftpriest (Dwarven Cleric). Which is strange when you consider that demihuman races are already variants on the main classes, but whatever.
I still don't really get that 'mythic underworld' business. It really feels like it needs to be fleshed out more to not just seem like a weak justification for game mechanics
Why, though? They are basically the exact same thing as human classes. What's the difference between a human fighter and a dwarven vaultguard? How does it let the demihuman races maintain their niches or nonhuman mystique?
Yeah, but that's not something that makes things good, it's just table ante to not be terrible. Don't believe memes like "Shadowrun is unplayably complicated," man.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat as you. It's just "how can I layer some ad-hoc justifications for some pretty gamey shit".
It's a shorthand for a variety of ideas, but I'll tell you how it works in my setting. There are a whole bunch of dead gods lying beneath the world who were really nasty in life. Their corpses radiate influence and warp reality around them. I don't use it to justify the gamey mechanics you see in OD&D dungeons, but to explain how such fucked up ecosystems can survive deep underground.
You're kind of right, hence why I just gave you a fleshing out, you gotta tweak it to how you want it
Demihumans shouldn't have niches. They're basically just humans in culture and form. Makes zero sense that they can't be another class, especially when classes are as basic and archetypal as 'thief' or 'fighter'
Well yeah ACKS does but the others seem more obscure
A tight gameplay loop, incentivization to interact with the world in clever ways rather than just using a thing on your sheet to roll your problems away, a sense of danger and mystery at early levels giving way to a sense of power and importance at higher levels, an emphasis on giving players the ability to decide what obstacles to tackle and how.
Old D&D (and B/X especially) knows what it is and does what it sets out to do splendidly. As opposed to new D&D which tries to be everything and fails.
>They're basically just humans in culture and form
Then I'd say you are doin' it wrong.
What's another cool term for "Priestess"
How do you do it, then? How do you make elves and dwarves genuinely alien, while still keeping them human enough to be relatable and playable?
And isn't all that a little pointless if in the end they just boil down to a fighter/mage and fighter anyway?
I don't hate 3e, I've in fact defended it multiple times in these thread, the difference? individualism, every character is treated as a self-reliant heroes established on haste, your character can probably figure out a way to do anything completely invalidating the purpose of classes.
It's a POV thing in some cases. For example, fewer options for character creation is seen as giving a boring and limited ruleset by 3.5 players, and wonderfully freeing by old-school players. No feat chains, no trap options, no needing the drawing my sword feat just to draw swords. Now what you can do is limited only by your situational awareness, imagination, and dialogue with the DM (which if you're from the Frank Trollman school is akin to being held hostage by the DM, but you can't solve stupid).
The combination of the Reaction Chart, Morale rules, and gold for XP creates an entirely separate playstyle than later games, one focused on negotiation, trickery, and stealth rather than "slay everything you encounter because it's there to be farmed for XP." Encounters play out radically different. If you try playing old-school encounters as you would in new games, you will die and think the game is immensely unfair, when it's only that you were unable to question your assumptions of what monsters "were there for".
Greater acceptance of death and risk thereof leads to a very different playstyle, as you can imagine. You probably don't have a hero/plot shield (you might a bit, because you can run a more heroic OSR game, but I wouldn't say that's the prevailing tendency).
Modules or not, old-school gaming is much more freeform. Players often do what they want, rather than being force-fed the adventure. If you've ever played a sandbox style game, you know this creates a completely different experience at the table compared to a plot-heavy game. Curiously, people who argue for a Trollman-style view of the players being at the mercy of Evil DM always seem to ignore this part.
LFQW could still be a thing, depending on how you argue what that means, but it's not even remotely as bad as later editions for several key reasons.
I also wouldn't say it's mathematically worse than PF, if only because there's a lot fewer math points to abuse.
Vestal
>does what it sets out to do splendidly
How so?
>A tight gameplay loop, incentivization to interact with the world in clever ways rather than just using a thing on your sheet to roll your problems away, a sense of danger and mystery at early levels giving way to a sense of power and importance at higher levels, an emphasis on giving players the ability to decide what obstacles to tackle and how.
But there are other things that provide that without the statistically silly conceits of a Midwestern high school dropout's shoddy knowledge of statistics or over attachment to baby-boomer pulp fantasy and Tolkien.
I mean, I personally think most RPGs do it wrong. You really, really can't make rubber forehead races inhuman if they're player races, since behavior is all they've got to differentiate themselves and I doubt most players even outside of OSR want to try and role play your elfs who don't have a concept of personal choice and responsibilities.
Most OSR house rules are standard in RuneQuest or GURPS. Makes you think.
>They're basically just humans in culture and form.
If they are you fucked up.
>Makes zero sense that they can't be another class, especially when classes are as basic and archetypal as 'thief' or 'fighter'
Because an elf is an elf.
If you want to be a thief or fighter play a fucking thief or fighter. Rulebooks aren't setting manuals. Elves fulfill a specific gameplay purpose. Go back to 5eg if you want to play a demonspawn paladin of justice.
OSR is for playing dungeon crawls, not roleplaying about how your snowflake is different
ACKS has some pretty great rules for creating new classes and racial classes, but is there anything for how to create new races? How would you go around to doing that?
I noticed in the Lotfp book there are no rules for attack of opportunity. is this lack of AoO in other OSR games?
Again, none of that stuff is specific to Gygaxian TSR.
I REALLY REALLY hate 3e, for the record.