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Carcosa has mechanics for ritualistically raping and murdering little girls (available to players no less), Lamentations of the Flame Princess is similarly stupid in its "grindhouse edition" artwork and both are published (and one is written by) by James Edward Raggi IV, who among other things denounces creativity as a worthy endeavor and calls you a moral coward if you happen to think that ritualistically murdering and raping little girls in your game is kind of lovely. And that's basically all I want of him in this thread.
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Aug 15, 2012 21:04
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Interestingly enough, the original version of Carcosa was available in a expunged version where all the rapemurder was less lovingly described - by all accounts, it read more like ordinary Chaosium Call of Cthulhu evil ritual stuff. Which can admittedly still be pretty squicky.
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Aug 15, 2012 23:13
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Bob Quixote posted:Huh, thats actually pretty cool. I'd imagine it would get expensive playing like that though since Heroscape is out of print.
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Aug 15, 2012 23:18
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VacuumJockey posted:Yes - but luckily I still have oodles of the stuff laying around! Besides, it's not that pricey. Huh, that is pretty drat cool! I should see about getting some off ebay and maybe doing some of that 3d TFT with my group, it would be an interesting change of pace.
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Aug 15, 2012 23:54
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Carcosa has mechanics for ritualistically raping and murdering little girls (available to players no less), Lamentations of the Flame Princess is similarly stupid in its "grindhouse edition" artwork and both are published (and one is written by) by James Edward Raggi IV, who among other things denounces creativity as a worthy endeavor and calls you a moral coward if you happen to think that ritualistically murdering and raping little girls in your game is kind of lovely.  Done and done. Sorry I asked. Not going to bother reading the non-mechanical bits, then. Yuck! Thanks for the warning!
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Aug 16, 2012 09:25
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Hey if anyone was wondering why any of the RPGs are in the categories they are in, check Fatal and Friends, it has your answers. For example this is why DCC is listed where it is;DCC posted:Abandon all presumptions, ye who enter here.
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Aug 16, 2012 21:54
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That's pretty grognardy, but it still doesn't trigger my gag reflex like Monte Cook's forward in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Everything seems tame in comparison.
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Aug 16, 2012 22:25
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My impression is that Joe Goodman has a very clear idea of how he likes his D&D, and wrote DCC to conform to his personal preferences. He's very open and upfront about why it's designed the way it is and how you're supposed to play it for maximum enjoyment. Admittedly DCC is not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game either. It's a dungeon-crawl RPG aimed at a distinct segment of roleplayers, and I applaud the author for communicating his intent so clearly. That intro right there tells you what DCC is about in no uncertain terms. And say what you will, but there's no rape in DCC. :0
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Aug 16, 2012 22:40
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VacuumJockey posted:Admittedly DCC is not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game either. It's a dungeon-crawl RPG aimed at a distinct segment of roleplayers, and I applaud the author for communicating his intent so clearly. That intro right there tells you what DCC is about in no uncertain terms. I'm going to come down from my lofty new school throne and say that if your game requires more than 6 kinds of dice, and has individual spells that require more than 3 steps to resolve you have made a bad game. But you are definitely right, it is not as bad as Carcosa or LotFP/
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Aug 16, 2012 22:57
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I dunno man, I'm not too worried about the dice - a lot of us old farts actually like weird dice! Besides, it's no longer uncommon to see people using various smartphone apps for rollin' them bones. As for spells needing more than 3 steps to resolve - that's new to me. I was under the impression that DCC spells required a form of skill/success roll to determine how well - if - you pulled it off, another roll for effect/damage, and maybe a third roll to determine weird magic stuff, depending on how well you aced/fumbled that initial success roll. If there's even more rolls than that, yeah, that's a bit excessive, even for me. Though I must admit that when you say "bad RPG", I'm thinking more along the lines of FATAL or Wraethu. VacuumJockey fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 09:16
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The part of DCC that I actually kinda like is the idea of funneling a bunch of level-0 characters to get to the actual campaign. I wouldn't want to do it in any serious campaign I wanted to run, but playing it like D&D Paranoia might be a good time.
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Aug 17, 2012 09:32
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I haven't checked on LotFP in 3 years but it's disappointing to see the guy totally stick his ego into the work. The original version was a good extension to the 0E rules that actually made it into playable game that didn't feel completely generic. I guess he got pissed off about people calling it a "retroclone", and defenders of LotFP will bite your head off if you dare call it that, so it turned into something completely left field with this lovely "Grindhouse" thing. If you asked about monsters or magic items the conversation turned into "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO."VacuumJockey posted:I'm mostly a BECMI and AD&D man, so I can't really tell you much about what S&W is like in play compared to OD&D. FWIW it's supposed to be 99% restated OD&D with much better organization and layout. In any case, the core rules are available for free so you can always check them out. It's difficult to say because 0E was never a concrete thing as it relied on Chainmail for its combat and supplementary rules. S&W and Labyrinth Lord are closer to Holmes Basic which is essentially a revision of 0E to appeal to people who weren't wargamers. al-azad fucked around with this message at 13:15 on Aug 17, 2012 |
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Aug 17, 2012 13:06
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VacuumJockey posted:I dunno man, I'm not too worried about the dice - a lot of us old farts actually like weird dice! Besides, it's no longer uncommon to see people using various smartphone apps for rollin' them bones. Using regular dice to fill in the gaps of the dice-chain works just fine, though I recommend printing out a one page how-to reference sheet for everyone. After a couple of sessions it'll be second nature. VacuumJockey posted:As for spells needing more than 3 steps to resolve - that's new to me. I was under the impression that DCC spells required a form of skill/success roll to determine how well - if - you pulled it off, another roll for effect/damage, and maybe a third roll to determine weird magic stuff, depending on how well you aced/fumbled that initial success roll. You're right. That's pretty much how spells work in DCC. There's also the possibility of Mercurial Magic on each spell, but those are determined as the character first learns the spell and the effect never changes. Of course in the case of a serious fumble, the caster has to roll for corruption, but that's not something that happens constantly. If it does, then the caster probably won't be around for much longer anyways.
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Aug 17, 2012 13:29
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Red_Mage posted:I'm going to come down from my lofty new school throne and say that if your game requires more than 6 kinds of dice, and has individual spells that require more than 3 steps to resolve you have made a bad game. Hi, Winnie here. I am going to stay on my throne and say this derail would be best continued in FATAL and Friends or grogs.txt where the merits of Carcosa or LOTFP can better be discussed without loving up an otherwise good thread with discussion of what belongs here or what doesn't. Perhaps if they win their case in those threads they may return here, to this hallowed ground. One could even start their own thread for them, perhaps! I realize this is an arbitrary and somewhat imperious distinction but honestly those two games are both lovely and both advocating for and complaining about them is annoying. DCC is cool still, tho. I like those modules and they are prolific and honestly if you are running this sort of thing they are a pretty good resource if you want that sort of old rear end module.
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Aug 17, 2012 13:43
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Yeah, I don't actually want to discourage people from discussing DCC (even if my personal reaction to it is "ahahahaha"). Just be prepared to live with some jibes about d7s and unironic character sixpacks.
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Aug 17, 2012 13:57
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In the spirit of staying on track, I'll distract you guys with this observation on ACKS: I think it's the D&D clone where mages are the least overpowered. The characters in my ACKS hexcrawl are still fairly low level, but the effects of minor tweaks like cleaving for all non-mages, and a small damage bonus for fighters has certainly been noticeable.
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Aug 17, 2012 14:21
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ACKS is in my must try list as I was obsessed with the name-level landholding part of the game. If it makes it into a truly playable feature I might explode.
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Aug 17, 2012 17:19
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We haven't gotten that far yet, but the rules for it look pretty decent. The designers notes over at Autarch go into some detail about the endgame. Also, there's this blogpost, which you might find interesting.
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Aug 18, 2012 08:48
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Got another clone to add to the OP: Blood & Treasure. From my cursory scan of the Players Tome, it looks like a decent SRD clone - the author's clearly picked his favorite parts of the editions preceding 4th. Personally, I'll be mining it for spells for my ACKS game.
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Aug 24, 2012 11:41
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If we can talk about non-D&D old-school fantasy games, is anyone familiar with Swordbearer? I have had it for a about 2 years now, and have not had a chance to play it yet, but it really is a neat game system, old school in many ways (published in 1982), but ahead of it's time in others. To give it a bit of description, it's classless and level-less, and skill based, with very few attributes, except for Mass, Strength (same as mass, for humans,) Agility and Intelligence. A PC would specialize in 1 or 2 skill spheres, (like Fighting, Magic, Town, or Stealth, for example,) which would give them bonuses to learn skills in that sphere, but not restrict you from learning other skills. Social Status was very important, as it determined what kin d of equipment you could not only by, but be seen to have, and rising in that could be a major goal for players. Money was abstracted, similar to Reign or d20 Modern, and directly tied into Social Statue with rules for debt, major purchases, and so forth. Encumbrance was also abstracted where a player could only have 10 items beyond basic clothes, minor armor or tools, but would include weapons, major armor or equipment, or servants or men-at-arms. Magic is interesting, begin based on different elements, similar to Chinese alchemy, where each element would have dominance over another, in a circular chain, and would require mastering skills for, and collecting "nodes" of each element. The spell list for each element isn't super big, but had a pretty good variety and tended to avoid generic "off-the-shelf" magic. There is Spirit Magic too, which involves killing creatures and people to get "nodes", and is a bit more complex, and also generally assumed to be frowned upon by most people. I think it's one of those games that either run as is or with a bit of tinkering can stand up to modern fantasy games, especially if you want classic fantasy adventure similar to what D&D provides but with a much different flavor. It's a shame it's so unheard of, with almost nothing about it on the internet. There are a lot of other cool things about it too, if people are interested in asking.
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Aug 27, 2012 03:48
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Dr. Sneer Gory posted:If we can talk about non-D&D old-school fantasy games, is anyone familiar with Swordbearer? I have had it for a about 2 years now, and have not had a chance to play it yet, but it really is a neat game system, old school in many ways (published in 1982), but ahead of it's time in others. It was a very sophisticated game at the time, and if it had just been developed more it might have been a hit. More stuff in the core book, a flashier presentation and some splat and setting books would have helped. I really liked the magic system, but I haven't had a chance to use it. You should write it up for the Fatal & Friends thread, it's obscure as anything in there (and I'm busy with Traveller).
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Aug 27, 2012 05:02
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Everybody speaks well of Swordbearer but sadly I've never tried it. You can still buy it from FGU too!
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Aug 27, 2012 08:18
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VacuumJockey posted:Everybody speaks well of Swordbearer but sadly I've never tried it. You can still buy it from FGU too! Man their website sucks. $10 for a PDF of Swordbearer isn't a bad deal, Dungeon World was a much better value (and the retroclone you should be playing). Bushido is a pretty good samurai RPG too, it's worth checking out. Holy poo poo, Bunnies and Burrows is still technically in print. http://www.fantasygamesunlimited.net/category/Misc-11/rec/10
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Aug 27, 2012 08:58
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I think that FGU and Palladium are now the only old-school RPG producers still around.  Edit: Maybe Steve Jackson too, although I'm not sure if GURPS qualifies as proper old-school. I dunno, really. 
VacuumJockey fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Aug 27, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 15:33
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Chaosium is also still publishing like it's 1986, and that seems to be working for them. Is there a writeup somewhere on Swords & Wizardry? It was promoted in that Reaper kickstarter, so there is probably going to be a lot more interest in it soon. Is there much to set it apart from the other old-alikes?
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Aug 27, 2012 16:07
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VacuumJockey posted:I think that FGU and Palladium are now the only old-school RPG producers still around. GURPS derives from The Fantasy Tripm which in turn derives from a hex-based skirmish game called Melee. Melee had two stats, STR and DEX; INT was added next year in Wizard, which included such gems as multi-hex monster counters. Dragons were up to 7 hexes in size. Wizard is also notable for introducing the "roll to disbelieve" when confronted by something that might be an illusion. On top of that, SJG has kept Ogre in print since 1979. They're as old school as it gets. Edit: Marc Miller is putting out a new Traveller edition this year, the first edition came out in 1979.
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Aug 27, 2012 18:10
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Yeah, you guys are right about SJG and Chaosium - they're pretty old-school, although strictly speaking the Fantasy Trip/Melee/Wizard was published by some other, now defunct company. But Ogre packs a lot of old-school cred, as do Car Wars. Would Games Workshop qualify? Although they're all about minis today, they used to publish WFRPG and the Judge Dredd RPG too...
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Aug 27, 2012 20:17
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VacuumJockey posted:Yeah, you guys are right about SJG and Chaosium - they're pretty old-school, although strictly speaking the Fantasy Trip/Melee/Wizard was published by some other, now defunct company. But Ogre packs a lot of old-school cred, as do Car Wars. And White Dwarf used to be a fantastic general gaming magazine. Don't forget they wrote the Fiend Folio too, they're old school RPG as hell.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:19
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moths posted:Is there a writeup somewhere on Swords & Wizardry? It was promoted in that Reaper kickstarter, so there is probably going to be a lot more interest in it soon. Is there much to set it apart from the other old-alikes?
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Aug 27, 2012 20:50
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That looks like it will be useful, I was more hoping for a quick overview. I saw some other people asking about what made it stand out from the crowd earlier in the thread, but maybe I missed replies.
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Aug 27, 2012 21:43
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moths posted:That looks like it will be useful, I was more hoping for a quick overview. I saw some other people asking about what made it stand out from the crowd earlier in the thread, but maybe I missed replies. Swords and Wizardry is a strange beast. It cherry picks from all the books released on 0e but it's closer to Holmes Basic in design than 0e as it was written. It has the three original character classes but they all use linear HD progression (0e had a strange stacked progression). It uses varied weapon damage and newer spells like magic missile from the later supplements, but it doesn't include any of the new character classes like monk and thief. They released a "White Box" edition which tries to be more true to the original spirit, but S&W's biggest problem is that it completely lacks the wilderness rules from 0e! And this is big because that was an entire book on adventuring. People like to say 0e was "rules light" but it wasn't, it was pretty drat heavy. Getting lost, being chased, naval combat, wilderness and underground exploration, how dungeons and monsters behave (the dungeon was treated almost like a living creature), building strongholds, and mass battles: those were all there from day 1 but S&W completely ignores them. To me, S&W is too bare bones to enjoy even though the developers have often compared themselves to 0e's "barebones-ness" as a positive feature but in truth they completely cut about 50% of the rules. Labyrinth Lord is a clone of Basic/Expert but it has all the wilderness stuff S&W leaves out and it feels closer to 0e both in spirit and by the rules. e: After some research, the new edition does finally add wilderness rules. I haven't looked it over but I can call it a proper 0e clone now. al-azad fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Aug 28, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 22:50
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mllaneza posted:It was a very sophisticated game at the time, and if it had just been developed more it might have been a hit. More stuff in the core book, a flashier presentation and some splat and setting books would have helped. I really liked the magic system, but I haven't had a chance to use it. You should write it up for the Fatal & Friends thread, it's obscure as anything in there (and I'm busy with Traveller). I've only really browsed FATAL and Friends a little bit., I'll take a look there and start writing it up for the thread, it's a game that deserved a wider audience.
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Aug 28, 2012 06:50
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I just wanted to thank everyone for their initial help with 1e. We've played three sessions now and everyone has had a lot of fun with the system, I even mostly figured out initiative and combat as written thanks to ADDICT. It's also forced some of my players who are very used to relying on skill rolls and checks into more creative solutions to problems (a highlight was in how they defeated a fire-vent trap that was activated by motion, one players suggested they move the iron chest from the previous room over it and use the chest as a bridge, I allowed it). I'm sure we'll go back to a more modern system eventually but we're having a lot of fun with this and I'm having more fun DM'ing this than 3rd or 4th (I even bought the deluxe reprints when the chance came up at a con recently along with Fiend Folio). The only system that's beaten this in fun for me was Paranoia. Also the random dungeon generator is the best drat thing ever and I have no idea why they didn't include it in subsequent editions.
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Sep 3, 2012 15:47
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Hellequin posted:Also the random dungeon generator is the best drat thing ever and I have no idea why they didn't include it in subsequent editions. I think that 4e's Dungeon Delve had something like it, but it's been a long time since I've seen the 1e version.
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Sep 3, 2012 16:02
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moths posted:I think that 4e's Dungeon Delve had something like it, but it's been a long time since I've seen the 1e version. I have that book, and it doesn't actually generate the dungeon, it generates the NARRATIVE of the dungeon.
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Sep 3, 2012 16:17
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You're right, I just checked myself. I'm sure I saw something in 4e about random dungeons near a bit about playing with no DM. Was that DMGI/II?
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Sep 3, 2012 16:43
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Neito posted:I have that book, and it doesn't actually generate the dungeon, it generates the NARRATIVE of the dungeon. If you're going to do that, you should be using How To Host A Dungeon. Break out your graph paper, pencils and dice; then get ready to find out what really happened in the legends the Bard won't shut up about.
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Sep 3, 2012 17:07
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Hellequin posted:Also the random dungeon generator is the best drat thing ever and I have no idea why they didn't include it in subsequent editions. All the dungeons you'll ever need in one link. 
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Sep 3, 2012 18:17
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So I guess I'm playing Labyrinth Lord? Can anyone tell me where it differs in any way from B/X or B/E? Here are some of the houserules? STATS:
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Sep 7, 2012 03:33
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JohnnyCanuck posted:So I guess I'm playing Labyrinth Lord? Can anyone tell me where it differs in any way from B/X or B/E? I like your houserules BTW.
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Sep 7, 2012 13:04
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