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Previous thread (thanks to the late Rulebook Heavily): https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3495106 What Do We Discuss? The OSR (Old-School Renaissance) was originally an attempt to move away from the tonal and mechanical changes of 2nd edition and later and get back to D&D as its original designers intended it to be played--as opposed to how it was actually played, which varied wildly. Since then the concept of OSR has drifted into "vaguely rules-light vaguely fantasy game". Broadly, this thread covers any pre-3rd edition version of the Dungeons & Dragons rules, as well as the phenomenon known as retroclones (see below) and OSR gaming in general. Later editions are well covered elsewhere: 3rd edition thread: here (dead; nominally continued in the Pathfinder thread). 4th edition thread: here. Retroclones? Although D&D is a set of interrelated copyrights and trademarks, the base mechanics of the game can't be copyrighted. Combined with the release of the Open Gaming License (OGL) and accompanying d20 System Resource Document (SRD) in 2000, creators were free to copy the bits they liked from the various older editions, maybe add in something newfangled, and publish the result as their own totally original donut steel game. It also meant that fans of older editions of D&D could publish third-party products designed to be used with their favourite base version of the game. Why Bother? Old-school D&D is not less-evolved modern D&D. Instead, it offers a different play experience altogether, one that focuses on player scheming and DM rulings rather than rules mechanics ("rulings, not rules" is a common, if somewhat deceptive, mantra). Compared to later editions, the rules are extremely simplistic (and somewhat hodgepodge). There's almost no focus at all on character builds/optimization. This could easily strike players of later editions as too barebones/inconsistent to bother with, but has the advantage of very fast character creation, fewer rules arguments, far fewer unexpected game breaking rules synergies, and often a much lower page count to wade through. Gameplay tends to be fast, loose, more improvisational, less plot-directed and more player-directed, with a focus on treasure gain rather than automatically being heroes or killing everything in sight (though combat is definitely not ignored). Additionally, the OSR community is putting out the best adventure modules and supplements in D&D today. Items like Hot Springs Island, Veins of the Earth, Peril on the Purple Planet and many others beat the pants off of anything WotC is releasing. If you’d like a list of excellent OSR adventures, see here: http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?page_id=844 What Old Editions of D&D are we Talking About? Glad you asked! OD&D / Original D&D / 0Ed / Brown Box / White Box / Little Brown Books (LBB) (1974)  This is the very first one, the thing that started it all. Written by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, with input from their gaming groups, this game was an evolution of the Chainmail wargame ruleset, but instead of commanding a bunch of units you’d command a single individual. The initial release was a box with three little booklets, featuring an extremely vague ruleset. Notable supplements include Greyhawk and Blackmoor—also the oldest supported settings for D&D—and Eldritch Wizardry, the reason why to this day we keep getting supplements for psionics (a reasonably common element of SF and fantasy from the 50s to the 70s) that no one ever uses. TSR was formed to publish these rules. ”Basic”: Holmes (1977) / B/X (1981) / BECMI (1983-86) / Rules Cyclopedia (1991)      Though it sold like mad, OD&D was successful in spite of its layout and clarity, not because of it, and this confusion led to wildly divergent playstyles and rules interpretation in the early days of the game. Soon it was realized that some sort of introductory product that took OD&D and its supplements and made something understandable out of the mess would be a good idea. This would become broadly known as the “Basic” line. Basic went through a ton of revisions over the years. The first version was by Eric Holmes (and is usually called Holmes for this reason). The original intent was for it to be an introduction to Advanced D&D (being written at the same time). Holmes is the closest to OD&D in style than any of the other offshoots, though it only covered levels 1-3. However, the Basic line diverged away from AD&D pretty much immediately: Holmes was abandoned for a new release by editors Moldvay and Cook of two box sets, Basic (also for levels 1-3) and Expert (for levels 4-14). This release is often referred to as either “Moldvay/Cook” or “B/X”, and is the most popular to use as a base for retroclones because it succinctly covers what most people will use for play and leaves out a lot of the increasingly edge-case cruft. While AD&D piled on the options and complexity, B/X took pains to streamline and cut (for example, race and class were combined for all non-humans, so that instead of Elven Mages you just had Elves, which were all spellcasters). As such, it's a much simpler game than AD&D. Since Basic was intended not just to introduce people to D&D but to the hobby in general, B/X was re-edited in 1983 by Frank Mentzer to be clearer to people who'd never played any RPG at all. This new line had five box sets—Basic (in the famous red box they printed by the millions that was available in every department store), Expert, Companion, Master and Immortals—and its own setting (The Known World/Mystara, no longer officially supported). This line is commonly referred to as either “Mentzer” or “BECMI”. The rules for the BE part are 99% identical to B/X. However, the C and M sets added more and more stuff, so that by the end of the line you had a ruleset that rivalled AD&D in size. The BECMI line culminated in 1991 with the release of the Rules Cyclopedia, which gathered together four of the five sets (no Immortals) into a single big hardcover, made some revisions, and was released at the same time as a new Basic Box in 1991 (referred to as the Black Box; not pictured). This (and another 1994 box redo) signalled the last hurrah for Basic. Though Basic (in its Red Box form) was the best-selling version of D&D ever produced, it was essentially non-existent through the rest of the 90s, and was officially killed off when WotC bought TSR and released its single unified 3rd edition “Dungeons & Dragons”. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons / First Edition / 1e (1977)   Arneson sort of went away early in the history of TSR, and a few years later Gygax wrote his own update: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This is the definite Gygax edition, purple Jack Vance-based prose and all. A far cry from the sparse OD&D, AD&D was jam-packed with all sorts of rules, corner cases and crazy additional detail, like pages dedicated entirely to the minute differences of various polearms, jokey cantrips (like one that created a little fire with the magic word Zip-Po), completely inexplicable poo poo (the original Modrons, Druids who get to go to the Seventh Dimension which is not detailed anywhere in the game, Lovecraftian Bard class rules), outright contradictions, dense two-column formatting, haphazard editing, and one of the most (in)famous grab-bag supplements ever produced, Unearthed Arcana. In many ways this is the gold standard by which most D&D is judged, the origin of a lot of the game’s legacy. This edition was second only to Basic in terms of sales and success. There's a separation commonly drawn between late 70s 1st ed and the 1984+ 1st ed (which had more railroaded/plot-heavy adventures including the birth of Dragonlance, as well as supplements adding proto-skill systems and an increasing number of class and rules options in the form of Unearthed Arcana and the various hardbacks that followed), sometimes seen as essentially proto-second edition and the end of the old-school in D&D. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (1989)     This edition was published a few years after Gygax was maneuvered out of/left TSR, and thus is the first D&D to ever be called a betrayal of his legacy. Second edition excised things like demons and devils due to the 1980s satanic-panic thing, and also cut a great many things out of the game in general (Gygaxian prose, half-orcs, assassins, monks, most of the Unearthed Arcana stuff). What it gave us instead was an explosion of variant settings. Beyond old standby Greyhawk and the railroad adventure land of Dragonlance, we now had the increasingly NPC-heavy Forgotten Realms (which steadily eclipsed Gygax’s Greyhawk in this period as the pre-eminent D&D setting), grimdark psionic Dark Sun, gothic horror Ravenloft, hippos in Ptolemaic space Spelljammer, outerplanar Shadowrun/WoD-lite Planescape, the kingdom management of Birthright, Arabic Al Qadim, Aztec Maztica, and even licensed settings like Diablo. While clearer and easier to use than 1st, the tone of the game markedly changed. Gone was the murderhobo sandbox style of play, replaced with one of heroic adventure played out via heavily plotted scripted adventures; this reflected the stylistic shift in adventure module design that had been taking place in TSR throughout the 80s, especially from 1984 onwards. The main method of gaining XP in 2nd ed was changed from finding/stealing gold to defeating monsters and getting story rewards, which led to a very noticeable change in playstyle. Dungeon exploration movement speed became literally 10 times faster, and wandering monster checks also dropped by two-thirds, which made it easy to race through dungeons. Skill systems were introduced. Encumbrance became optional. As such, while the base structure of 2nd ed is extremely similar to 1st (there's tons of subtle differences, but it's more of a re-edit than anything else), the tonal shift brought about by what rule and adventure design changes there were has often led 2nd edition to be considered not really old-school by OSR fans. The “Black Book” version (1995) was distinguished by the thick black borders around its new cover art and the “This is not AD&D third edition!” essay at the front. It’s also been called v2.5, though it’s exactly the same rules as the 1989 printings: just re-laid out to make it easier to read (hence the expanded page counts). However, it received a series of optional supplements in the same black-border style that added a ton of broken options, and these tainted the view of the re-release and are what really created the feeling that this wasn’t the same as regular old second ed. This re-release was also the final gasp of TSR as a company, as dodgy business practices led to it collapsing and being bought out by Wizards of the Coast in 1997. Though the base rulebooks for 2nd ed sold in volumes that most any other game company could only dream of, it was the least successful of all D&D editions and never viewed as old-school by the original OSR crowd (which was concerned with playstyle just as much as it was mechanical compatibility), and so has been largely passed over in the retroclone explosion. Retroclones and their Ilk                 Retroclones came about in the mid-2000s, in the days when older editions were no longer in print and not available legally in PDF. BFRPG and OSRIC (2006) are generally considered the first, with Labyrinth Lord (2007) and Swords & Wizardry (2008) completing the big four. A zillion more followed on from there, and over time they became less concerned with cloning a particular ruleset precisely (since that after all had been done) and more about introducing spins on a particular rules base. If they still hew close to a particular old-school ruleset then they still tend to be referred to as clones, however, even if not cloning anything per se. Initially retroclones were merely frameworks to allow the publication of new supplements for the particular edition being cloned, rather than games in and of themselves. For example, OSRIC (a 1st ed AD&D clone) was not originally complete as a game, because it was never originally intended to be played. The OGL allows you to use tons of D&D concepts, but one of the things it expressly forbids you from doing is making any direct comparison between what you make using it and any WotC trademark (such as “Dungeons & Dragons”). So, OSRIC was only supposed to enable people to write new adventure modules that would be “compatible with OSRIC”, which everyone would understand really meant “compatible with 1st ed AD&D”. The legal niceties having been observed, people could start enjoying new product intended for AD&D. However, OSRIC did such a nice job cleaning up the unholy mess that AD&D 1st ed was that people clamoured for it to be completed, and so it was. In those days there was less certainty that WotC wouldn’t sue the pants off people (like TSR was infamous for), so OSRIC made a very few and minor changes to the 1st ed rules over and above what the OGL called for to help make it legally distinct; most retroclone authors nowadays don’t bother, as WotC has never seriously reacted to the retroclone movement in a legal sense. There’s a lot of clones, and more appearing all the time. I’m only going to cover the biggest ones; even then, that will be plenty. For a more thorough list, see Taxidermic Owl Bear's list, and Ynas Midgard's list. The links at TOB are not all up to date, so if something appears dead that you’re interested in, try googling it to see if it just moved. Retroclones of OD&D and Holmes Unlike B/X clones, which tend to vary based on the mood, genre, or playstyle they're attempting to capture, clones of OD&D wildly vary mostly due to mechanical reasons. This is because the vague text of OD&D left a great deal of room for interpretation and because each of that edition’s five supplements radically changed the game (well, okay, Swords & Spells might not count and hardly matters, but still). When combined with issues of the Strategic Review magazine, which had OD&D writings by Gygax, you can assemble wildly different games from this base content (for example, thieves or no thieves, psionics or no psionics, small or large stat adjustments, spells level 1-6 or 1-9, etc). Swords and Wizardry Whitebox: A cleaned-up version of the LBB. Core: As above, plus the Greyhawk supplement. Complete: First three books plus select supplement info from the entire line. Basically lightweight AD&D 1st ed. Light: Free four-page fast-play S&W. Continual Light: 20-page super-stripped-down alternate version of S&W, with some fluffier advancement rules. (The S&W link is to an archive page, because for some reason they've taken down their single portal page. Alternatively you can go here, which has most of the base S&W line, supplements, and detail on each product on their individual pages.) Crypts & Things: A sword & sorcery adaptation of Swords and Wizardry. Delving Deeper: A 3-LBB clone, with an emphasis on emulation accuracy backed by a hefty scholarly effort. For Coin and Blood: A S&W clone, modified to be more lethal, designed explicitly for grimdark campaigns. Full Metal Plate Mail: Another 3-LBB clone. Iron Falcon: A 3-LBB + Greyhawk clone, from the maker of BFRPG. Microlite74: Like Swords & Wizardry, an OD&D clone in three different versions with scaling complexity. Ruins & Ronin: A variant of S&W Whitebox, designed for medieval Japan-style adventuring. Seven Voyages of Zylarthen: OD&D minus clerics in a new setting, with the usual series of additional small rules changes and edits on top. White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game: A variant of S&W Whitebox, with the changes listed here Whitehack: 3-LBBish, but modernized. Blueholme: The most well supported Holmes clone. Most people either choose OD&D or B/X to riff off of instead. Mazes & Perils Deluxe Edition: The other big Holmes clone. A little less faithful than Blueholme, but with more stuff. Retroclones of B/X and BECMI Adventurer Conqueror King System: Aka “ACKS”. B/X with proficiencies, more classes, and a unique focus on world economics and the D&D “endgame”—the 9th level+ part where you gain titles, holdings, followers, and other world-affecting bits (aka domain play)—that most games brush over. Has its own forum and lots of support. One of its founders worked for a long time for Milo Yiannopoulos, so if that bothers you then this is not the game for you; in this case, the non-ACKS supplement "An Echo Resounding" offers players an alternate method of handling domain play. B/X Essentials: A 100% accurate clone of B/X, divided into LBB-style booklets. Re-edited and re-released as Old-School Essentials. Basic Fantasy (BFRPG): An early work, predating even OSRIC. Not a direct clone of B/X (though that was its main inspiration) but a re-edit of the 3.5 SRD to make it old-school. Has lots of sourcebook support and a forum. Everything is free, it’s constantly updated, and print copies are available at cost. Essentially B/X with ascending AC, race and class separate, gold for XP reduced to optional, and buffed clerics. Dark Dungeons: A Rules Cyclopedia clone. Labyrinth Lord: The original B/X clone. Like OSRIC, it makes minor changes for legality reasons. Despite its age it doesn’t have a lot of support direct from the creator, because like OSRIC it was more intended to allow for stuff to be created than to be its own thing, and the author has had personal issues. But there’s tons of 3rd-party support for it (mostly adventures). Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Fairly straightforward B/X clone rules-wise, with an emphasis on toning down the egregiously fantastic (no fireballs and lightning bolts, for instant). Marketed as in support of weird tales-style games in a Darklands-style Thirty Years War European setting, though ruleswise it does little to support this. Creator James Raggi goes out of his way to publish unique modules instead of Kobold Raid #30672, though which are good (generally seen as the early ones) and which are empty outrage / gore / fetish bait will vary wildly depending on who you talk to. Notable supplements include Broodmother SkyFortress, Carcosa, Death Frost Doom, Tower of the Stargazer, Veins of the Earth. Carcosa is noted as being especially grimdark and offensive, while others dislike the gory art of the main rule book (though the free PDF version is artless) or the creator/publisher's back-and-forth stance on Zak S / being a Jordan Peterson fan. Once quite big, it's largely faded to the background in the past few years. Wolfpacks & the Winter Snow: Late Ice-Age caveman adventures. Very nice departure from the usual fantasy tropes. Retroclones of AD&D 1st and 2nd Editions OSRIC: The granddaddy of them all. A straight 1st ed clone (minus Unearthed Arcana). Adventures Dark & Deep: An attempt to create a speculative Gygax-headed AD&D 2nd ed. Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea: Huge-rear end sword & sorcery clone. Three editions, the first being a box set and the second and third enormous 600+ page hardcovers (the third just being called "Hyperborea"). For Gold & Glory: Straight 2nd ed clone. Hackmaster: As it pretends to be a sort of alternate universe AD&D, its first edition was called "4th edition". It's a semi-gonzo take on 1st ed, based on the popular Knights of the Dinner Table comic. Its newest (5th) edition went off to become more of its own thing. 5th Edition Backclones There's been a recent burst of people attempting to take the 5th ed SRD and hack, chop, and optional-rule their way to an old-school experience. I don't think any of them work very well that I can see, but the demand is clearly there and maybe you'll feel differently (or have players who won't try anything unless it can be sold as related to 5e): 5e HARDCORE MODE: As extreme as a day-glo BMX. Actual in-depth reviews have not been favourable. Deathbringer: Four-page collection of mods to 5th ed, rather than a complete game book by itself. Dungeonesque: Red box AND little booklets. Reviewed rather harshly as cramped, overpriced, and with minimal changes to the SRD. Five Torches Deep: 48 pages, landscape format. Into the Unknown: A five-booklet release. Olde Swords Reign: A new one; too new to say much right now. The Hacks Old-school D&D was never really rules-light except in comparison to the editions prominent when the OSR kicked off, namely 3rd and 4th edition. All the same, "rules-light" has become an OSR meme and has led to the creation of a lot of popular rulesets along those lines. They tend to be lean and mean, as little as one page in length. They typically achieve this by cutting away most everything the older OSR games contained that gave them fidelity to old D&D, and so are not very popular with the old guard but are extremely well regarded in other circles. Microlite20: A “rulings not rules”-style d20 streamline, one of the first of its kind. Searchers of the Unknown: A D&D variant that's just one page, this is the other big originator of this approach to the OSR. See also Swords & Wizardry Light and Continual Light. The Black Hack: 20-page highly-influential ultralight. Second edition raises it to 30 pages. Bluehack: 24-pager based on the Black Hack but with a Holmes emphasis. Cairn: 22-pager derived from Knave and Into the Odd. Knave: Ben Milton's seven-page ultra-light. Second edition coming soon. Maze Rats: Ben Milton's twelve-page ultra-light. Close Enough There are several games that are mechanically and/or stylistically close enough to various versions of old-school D&D (or its themes) that many are comfortable inviting them to the party. What differs most of them from strict retroclones is that they don’t base themselves on any single D&D ruleset, instead taking a grab-bag of rules from many editions and often mashing those together with the author’s own ideas. These include, but are not limited to: Beyond the Wall: Designed for low-prep games, focused on young heroes leaving their villages and venturing out into the wild, inspired by Ursula K. LeGuin. Blood & Treasure: Stealing bits from pretty much everything before 4e. Castles & Crusades: Predating all the clones, C&C is heralded by many of its fans as a spiritual successor to AD&D. Dungeon Crawl Classics: Built on a 3rd edition skeleton, DCC is essentially old-school nostalgia filtered through an exaggerated Fantasy loving Vietnam lens (e.g. character creation involves playing the survivor of a pool of lambs you generate and lead to the slaughter). Over and above the gonzo rules (spell mishaps! mutations! tables for everything! D7s and D16s!) and resulting playstyle, it’s notable for its extensive module support (nearly a hundred adventures, which tend to be linear but a few of which are some of the best in the field). The emphasis is on sword & sorcery action/adventure rather than old-school resource management. See also Mutant Crawl Classics, for a Gamma-Worldesque version. Fantastic Heroes & Witchery: An all-editions-D&D knock-off, with the added benefit of having classes for planetary adventure, a la John Carter of Mars. 666 spells! Into the Odd: A very popular rules-light take on some of the themes of old-school D&D. Low-Fantasy Gaming: Another rules mashup, this one focuses on (spoiler) low-magic settings. Not a big following, but lots of support by its author, and a good sandbox medieval England setting--the Midderlands--that goes with it. Mazes & Minotaurs: An Ancient Greece/Ancient D&D mash-up. Tomb of the Bull King is a superb module. Mutant Future: Combines classic D&D playstyle with a futuristic post-apocalypse. Pits & Perils: A rules-light fantasy engine (original rules) modelled on the look of OD&D. Scarlet Heroes: An OSR game by Kevin Crawford designed to allow you to play through old-school modules with just one player. Be a one-man wrecking machine. Spears of the Dawn: African-themed OSR game, also by Kevin Crawford. Bonus level: See a list of science-fiction OSR games here. Some Useful Blogs & Forums The Alexandrian: Theory. Ars Ludi: More of a storygame blog actually, but this links specifically to the now-legendary West Marches series of posts, which is pretty much *the* modern guide to understanding and running an open-table sandbox game. Beyond Fomalhaut: Reviews, adventures, and resources. The Blue Bard: Writer of interesting modules also records the experience of running a by-the-book 1st ed AD&D campaign. Coins and Scrolls: A heavy medieval focus. Delta’s D&D Hotspot: Lots of in-depth mathematical and historical examination of OD&D. Dragonsfoot: Forum covering 2nd ed and earlier. Superb amount of resources, including free adventures, lots of archived posts from various ex-TSR members including Gygax, and so on. Dungeon of Signs: Recently defunct, but with good theory and resources and some great free adventures. Dyson’s Dodecahedron: Resources, including awesome maps. Elfmaids & Octopi: Resources. False Machine: Theory, reviews, angst. From the writer of Deep Carbon Observatory, Veins of the Earth, and more. Goblin Punch: Resources. Grognardia: Great in-depth stuff about old-school gaming. Considered one of the foundational bits of the OSR movement. Strongly recommend trolling through the archives. Hack & Slash: Theory. Jeff’s Gameblog: Theory and resources. Knights & Knaves Alehouse: Forum covering 1st ed and earlier. Monsters and Manuals: Theory and resources, from the creator of Yoon-Suin. ODD74: Forum devoted solely to OD&D. Its main forums can only be viewed by registered members. Philotomy's Musings: An archived collection of musings from respected OD&D player Philotomy. Robe of Useful Items: Resources. Amazing resources, with particularly fabulous random generators. Formerly Wizardawn. The Ruins of Murkhill: Another forum primarily dedicated to OD&D. Tenfootpole.org: Adventure reviews, with OSR play being his gold standard. Has gone through literally every issue of Dungeon (the poor bastard), and some 1,500 adventures in all. Tenkar’s Tavern: OSR RSS and drama aggregator. Zenopus Archives: The premiere resource for Holmes Basic. Xotl fucked around with this message at 08:44 on May 4, 2023 |
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So, this link list is mostly for my benefit but maybe it'll be of some interest to you guys too. Er, apologies to mobile users. Dec 2012 I get most of the thief skills, but I didn't understand how "Hear Sounds" (or similarly Notice Secret Door for elves) What happens when there is a goblin party on one side of the wooden door and the thief puts his ear up to the door? And what happens when the fighter does it? OtspIII posted:One option is to make it a time thing. Anybody can listen to a door, but most people take a long time to be sure--they aren't good at it, so they have to spend some time double-checking and making sure they weren't imagining anything. Specifically, it takes a full turn. Thieves and elves just do it instantly. Same deal with, like, unlocking a door--anybody can do it with some time, but thieves can just have it done in the time it takes to ask them to do it. This method works best if you're using wandering monster checks based on time, though, otherwise it's kind of a bad deal for the thieves. May 2014 DalaranJ posted:Trip Report: Caverns of Thracia Apr 2015 DalaranJ posted:So, here are some ideas I've been batting around for Into the Odd exploration. I don't know that I'd bother using them in a one-shot, but after running a couple times I've been considering doing a campaign. May 2015 If you were going to alter the number of ability scores in D&D to any number between 1 and 8 how would you change them? gradenko_2000 posted:I would probably do something like: Feb, 2016 Does brown book OD&D have ability rules for fighting-men, or are they implied by the title 'hero' or something? I can't find anything in here that describes cleaving against monsters with less than 1 HD. Maybe that wasn't until a later version. gradenko_2000 posted:The short answer is that the "multiple attacks against creatures with 1 HD or less" ability does not show up in the Three Brown Books explicitly. Mar 2016 I'm still a bit confused about OD&D combat works since I don't have access to chainmail. Does the fighter basically get 1 attack per level? How many attacks does a 'hero' or 'superhero' get? How many attacks does a 'wizard' get? How does 20 to 20 combat work? How does 20 to 1 combat work? gradenko_2000 posted:Basic Rule: Mar 2016 Alright, I have a bit of a radical hypothetical. What is the benefit of attributes in a retroclone? Why aren't there any (that I know of) retroclones which eschew attributes? Evil Mastermind posted:Because retroclones are copies of D&D. D&D has attributes. Therefore... I'm not particularly interested in D&D aside from the fact that it happens to have a long and storied history of making games that are (at least supposedly) about a sort of gameplay I am interested in playing or making. So, if one somehow knew about RPGs while simultaneously knowing nothing about D&D and wanted to make a game that was about either fantasy overland travel or underground exploration, then conceivably that game might not have a mechanic similar to attributes? I mean it probably would, because attributes are an extremely easy to come up with and understand gameplay conceit, but it might not? gradenko_2000 posted:There's some value to "having stats, period" insofar as it's an at-a-glance measure of relative power in a particular area of specialization, especially in the case of games that advocate a d20-roll-under-attribute task resolution system (This conversation is very long and multiperson if you have archives.) May 2017 Alright, I've got some more design questions. These ones are about Wizard spells. What do you see as the pros and cons of the following spell casting possibilities for a class. 1. Spontaneous Casting (i.e. You choose your spell from your list at the moment you cast rather than at the beginning of the day). 2. No direct damage spells in the spell list 3. You can only memorize each spell in your list once (i.e. You can't memorize three sleep spells only one.) 4. Using power points instead of slots I'm not going to use all or maybe not even any of these options, but I would like to hear your thoughts. gradenko_2000 posted:Spontaneous Casting May 2017 What's the rationale behind thieves being so bad at the things they're supposed to do at low levels? And conversely, why is climbing walls so easy? Emrikol posted:My theory has always been that the thief is a joke class designed to generate amusing anecdotes. Jul 2017 New question. What would the consequences of replacing the standard random encounter rule with this new one? Old rule: Every turn, roll 1d6 and if the result is 1 than a random encounter occurs immediately. New rule: When entering a dungeon, or after a random encounter ends, roll 1d6 to determine the number of turns until the next random encounter. Right, the goal here was to reduce the incidence of back to back encounters while ensuring that they occur over the long term. 1d6 obviously doesn't work for this. I was considering 2+1d6, but looking at the math I may go with 1+1d10. gradenko_2000 posted:I actually really really like this idea, especially if you could tell the players what the result was (not all the time?) so that there's a definite sense of urgency. Certain actions could drop the counter (making noise!), while other actions could increase it (taking out a barracks!) AlphaDog posted:Counters and tracks are really great for older style dungeon crawling. Sep 2017 I was going to ask a question about a specific resolution mechanic I wanted to use, but I think it would be more interesting if I ask this question instead. Let's talk about task difficulty. Early D&D basically doesn't have this concept. If there's a door, it's a door. It's lock is just as effective, it's just as easy to kick down, and as easy to listen through as any other door. At some point, I presume people decided that this wasn't 'realistic' enough and said, "Okay, but that metal door will hurt your foot so you take a penalty.' Or perhaps they compared the resolution to combat rolls and said "We aren't these things similar?" 1) When was task difficulty first introduced? And why (if you can speculate)? 2) What are the ramifications of resolution without task difficulty? 3) What are the ramifications of resolution with task difficulty? al-azad posted:1) It's tricky to nail down. It was there since the original box set with the "stuck doors" rule. It got more complex with the introduction of the thief and I believe the first true skill system showed up in Dragon Magazine. But I believe it was 3E that actually implemented the difficulty class/target number system. In previous editions the challenge was based on the individual's skill. One person could have open lock at 1% and another at 50%, and then it would be modified maybe +20% for an easy lock. 2E's suggested method, provided you didn't use the optional proficiency system, was based on your saving throws e.g. save vs. breath weapon was keyed to dexterity and acrobatics. I can only assume they changed this the same reason they got rid of THAC0 and combat results tables: it's easier to modify a flat number. Halloween Jack posted:1. AFAIK, variable task difficulty was a situational thing until 3e. The first skill system was the Thief's skills, of course, the second was the BECMI Basic set (which I believe also codified roll-under-ability-score as the default resolution method), and the third was AD&D2e. If I'm correct, before 3e having an extra-tricky lock or extra-heavy door would be up to whoever was writing the adventure module. The BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia skill system would prescribe specific penalties for specific situations in its writeup of the skills; for example, you take a +4 penalty if you try to use your Riding (Horse) skill to ride a griffon. I think AD&D2e was the same, plus the resolution mechanics could be different for different skills IIRC. gradenko_2000 posted:Before I get into the meat of my response, I want to draw a distinction between "dungeon-relevant task resolution", and "everything else". Great posts, thanks. So, in short every option that D&D has used looks like: Arbitrary fixed, like NPC reaction or kick down door Class Level based, like Hide In Shadows or attacking Attribute based like There's Always A Chance Then slightly later? we have attribute modification We begin to see the concept of difficulty modifcation And the end result as of 3rd ed. and later is that everything gets massed together into attribute mod + class level compare with difficulty (Ugh.) (This convo is real good too.) Oct 2017 What modern ready ref sheets exist? It occurred to me due to discussion in the general chat that the only ones I can think of are GreyHawk and City State of the Invincible Overlord and those are both 30 years old. LashLightning posted:Holmes Archive has put one together for Basic D&D but it's no where as intensive as the Judges Guild one. Jan 2018 Here’s another existential D&D question for you, presented with as little biasing as possible. Why is cleric a class option? whydirt posted:Almost everything in D&D can be attributed to an early design quirk that got cemented into the game through inertia and appeal to tradition. This is a thing that I just thought up today, and once you realize that it immediately stops working after the first four classes you can see that it is a retroactive explanation of reasoning for classes, but I still think it bears out at the very beginning of D&D even though it wasn't intentionally designed this way. Each class tells us something important about what D&D is about as a game. The fighter tells us that D&D is about killing, or more generously, about war. The wizard tells us that D&D is a game about fantasy and magic. The thief tells us that D&D is a game about 'getting paid', or that it is picaresque in nature. The cleric then, tells us that D&D is about more than that. It's about character beliefs and ethics, and sometimes it can be about the struggle between gods, or between people and the gods. Jan 2018 Halloween Jack posted:I don't mean Weapon Mastery, I mean your defense stat being based wholly or mostly on what kind of armor you wear, and the class division based on that. Oh, this is real good. I'm going to use this. Apr 2018 Okay, here’s another fun D&D existential question for you. If the default setting has a bunch of high level wizards and knights, and the characters are essentially graduated dirt farmers, why are the characters the ones finding unplundered ancient treasure? Serf posted:more than likely there was a recent apocalypse or at least a civilization decline that left behind a lot of poo poo to go and grab. high-level wizards and knights are probably too smart or busy to go poking around in every old tomb or crumbling castle for weird poo poo Halloween Jack posted:Here's the best I can do: Wizards, in accordance with the later Dying Earth stories, are a bunch of rich weirdos with their heads up their own asses. They're playing around in their laboratories, or hanging out at their wizard gentleman's club getting drunk and eating spotted dick, or doing a Wooster & Jeeves schtick with their weird monster servants. Lords and Patriarchs are making income by taxing the peasants, and are busy building castles and fighting each other honor and more money, typical rear end in a top hat knight stuff. gradenko_2000 posted:The unplundered (but possibly not ancient) treasures are from wizards and knights who have died and left their holdings abandoned. Apr 2018 DalaranJ posted:
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May 28, 2018 22:36
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The thread name is good.Xotl posted:Reserved for future playstyle post. Here, this should do it, Megazver posted:PRINCIPIA APOCRYPHA: Apocalypse Engine-style Rules And Principles For Running OSR Games
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May 28, 2018 22:38
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Is it too late to stump for additions to the OP? I'm still very much dipping my toes into all of this, but I got into it via Goblin Punch appearing in my RSS reader one day: http://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/ Sort of in the same vein as False Machine.
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May 28, 2018 23:43
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Yeah, that's definitely a good one. Will add now.
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May 28, 2018 23:50
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Two blogs I follow have recently posted about the alt-right in the OSR. I know ACKs is run by Milo's manager. I know James Raggi posts about Varg. What else is there? sources: https://axesnorcs.blogspot.com/2018/05/i-dont-know-bad-of-alt-right-problem.html http://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2018/05/goodbye-and-good-luck.html
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May 29, 2018 02:19
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*OP says no OSR politics* *Stumbles into page 1* "Hey guys, how about those regressive shitlords and their bad politics?!?"
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May 29, 2018 02:31
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Do you guys think the greater druid community would be for or against nuclear power plants? I think the relatively low footprint of uranium mining compared to fossil fuels means that fey creatures with any intelligence ought to be on board.
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May 29, 2018 02:33
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alg posted:Two blogs I follow have recently posted about the alt-right in the OSR. Pham Nuwen posted:*OP says no OSR politics* Also, Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Do you guys think the greater druid community would be for or against nuclear power plants? I think the relatively low footprint of uranium mining compared to fossil fuels means that fey creatures with any intelligence ought to be on board. Druids would obviously be into wind power via harnessed air elementals, duh. Also also:  No OSR Politics
Xotl fucked around with this message at 02:41 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 02:38
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Sorry, the OP was really really long
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May 29, 2018 02:57
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Fair enough, no worries.
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May 29, 2018 02:59
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Do you guys think the greater druid community would be for or against nuclear power plants? I think the relatively low footprint of uranium mining compared to fossil fuels means that fey creatures with any intelligence ought to be on board.
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May 29, 2018 03:12
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I would think the elemental plane of fire should be able to power steam turbines quite handily. If that's not in Eberron I'd be loving shocked.
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May 29, 2018 03:17
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Pham Nuwen posted:I would think the elemental plane of fire should be able to power steam turbines quite handily.
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May 29, 2018 03:20
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if we are going to close off discussion on "OSR Politics", which is perhaps understandable for being non-germane to the thread, it would behoove us to actually acknowledge that these people exist and are shitcocks, rather than contributing to the Missing Stair problem.
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May 29, 2018 03:33
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alg posted:Two blogs I follow have recently posted about the alt-right in the OSR. I know ACKs is run by Milo's manager. I know James Raggi posts about Varg. What else is there? You'd do well to ask this in the industry thread, as little as the OSR has anything to do with the industry. gradenko_2000 posted:if we are going to close off discussion on "OSR Politics", which is perhaps understandable for being non-germane to the thread, it would behoove us to actually acknowledge that these people exist and are shitcocks, rather than contributing to the Missing Stair problem.  There's a good reason my OSR discussion remains solely in this thread.
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May 29, 2018 03:44
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No, I don't think it would behoove us, because there's other places that could be and are used to talk about OSR drama, and it's naive to think that we would be able to talk about it without things spiralling further down the well. If politics are important enough to you that you have to vet your elfgames for ideological propriety, I can respect that even if I don't understand it, but it's on you to do the checking and you can and should do it on your own. It's irrelevant to gaming discussion. Take it to RPG.net or G+ or any one of a number of blogs, please, just as the last thread asked everyone to do and people for the most part did just fine. Xotl fucked around with this message at 04:08 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 03:50
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I can understand not wanting to "derail" the thread with a discussion about it, but I cannot in good conscience abide by a complete rejection of the issue's existence. I will be tagging out of the thread. DalaranJ, I appreciate the kind recollection of my old posts.
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May 29, 2018 04:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:DalaranJ, I appreciate the kind recollection of my old posts. No, thank you. And thanks to everyone else who contributed to my discussion even if I didn't quote you. E: I have some more questions coming up after having purchased Hot Springs Island, but I thought I'd wait a day or two to spring them.
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May 29, 2018 04:14
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gradenko_2000 posted:I can understand not wanting to "derail" the thread with a discussion about it, but I cannot in good conscience abide by a complete rejection of the issue's existence. I will be tagging out of the thread. Yo your posts in the last thread were always erudite and interesting, thank you.
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May 29, 2018 04:16
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I'm sorry to see you go, gradenko, but do what you feel you need to. Hopefully you change your mind at some point.DalaranJ posted:E: I have some more questions coming up after having purchased Hot Springs Island, but I thought I'd wait a day or two to spring them. I have copies of both books, so ask away whenever.
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May 29, 2018 04:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:if we are going to close off discussion on "OSR Politics", which is perhaps understandable for being non-germane to the thread, it would behoove us to actually acknowledge that these people exist and are shitcocks, rather than contributing to the Missing Stair problem.  I don't care how good a product is; if the creator is a terrible person I want to know so I don't give them any support.
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May 29, 2018 04:26
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Evil Mastermind posted:
I understand not wanting it to turn into pages long screeds, but not being able to go "Hey, writer X actually runs a Nazi website on the side" is, uh, bad.
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May 29, 2018 04:37
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I know we had discussed things like Tenkar bending the knee in the old thread so I didn't think it was any different in this thread. I've been threatened on G+ in the past for even bringing up diversity so no way was I going to ask about those posts there. And trade games as a subforum is pretty anti-OSR that I've seen so I don't really discuss it outside of the old thread and this thread. I can respect the rules of this thread but I too think it's important to point out known shitheads
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May 29, 2018 04:49
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Evil Mastermind posted:I don't care how good a product is; if the creator is a terrible person I want to know so I don't give them any support. I get that. But why not go and find out, then? Why the need to drag it here as well? I didn't introduce a new rule to the thread; I only copied one over (that I heartily agree with and that people seemed fine with at the time). Nothing is stopping anyone here from going to one of several gaming places and finding out all the juicy drama and scumbaggery X dev is up to lately. Everyone here who is inclined to hate Zak or Macris or Raggi already knows about them and has made that decision; no one posting here is going to go "What do you mean that Macris is a shithead: why wasn't I informed?" G+ devolves into this horseshit constantly, as does RPG.net, and it's never just "one small post". There are blogs to follow with an interest in OSR drama. There's our own industry thread specifically intended to cover stuff like this. No one can pretend that this is an unexplored topic. Quite the other way around; this thread could be the one place free of that cruft, instead of following exactly what everyone else--including this forum in another thread--is already doing. I'm no mod, and I'm not interested in being the guy at odds with everyone at the expense of good conversation, so if everyone is set on this then I'll stand aside and edit the OP to match, but I don't get how anyone thinks it will be an improvement. Xotl fucked around with this message at 05:05 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 04:53
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I've definitely seen the topic come up in the industry thread, I think it'd be nice to keep it there instead of here or the 5e thread.
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May 29, 2018 04:56
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Should probably change some of the word choices in the OP to be less beating about the bush about it/playing coy and just be honest about who's a shitheel and who isn't. "Infamous Zak S" carries the wrong semantics for who he is and what he done, it's like when people call a gunman a "frustrated individual". He'd embrace "infamous". Not everyone's gonna come to this thread having taken the prep classes on Fantastic Dickbags And Where To Find Them 101, folks come around here to dip their toes into the waters of knowledge. If you wanna call a moratorium on the recurring flag-waving okay and I get that, better an admission of problems than 400 new posts about the same poo poo, but just like at the very least acknowledge the basic criticisms of notable people up front with "we've said all that needs to be said at the moment, there's somewhere else we can argue this, this is more about the games than anything else".
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May 29, 2018 05:08
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So the OP kind of makes 1e sound a little weirder, a little more murderhobo, than 2e... Is there really that much difference? I have always had a soft spot for the monk, for instance. How tough would it be to drop a 1e monk into a 2e game?
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May 29, 2018 05:09
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Hostile V posted:Should probably change some of the word choices in the OP to be less beating about the bush about it/playing coy and just be honest about who's a shitheel and who isn't. "Infamous Zak S" carries the wrong semantics for who he is and what he done, it's like when people call a gunman a "frustrated individual". He'd embrace "infamous". Not everyone's gonna come to this thread having taken the prep classes on Fantastic Dickbags And Where To Find Them 101, folks come around here to dip their toes into the waters of knowledge. If you wanna call a moratorium on the recurring flag-waving okay and I get that, better an admission of problems than 400 new posts about the same poo poo, but just like at the very least acknowledge the basic criticisms of notable people up front with "we've said all that needs to be said at the moment, there's somewhere else we can argue this, this is more about the games than anything else". I put "infamous" because, in following from my previous post, everyone I know of that posts here is already aware of who he is and what he does, and has their own personal feelings about him. More detail just seemed at once redundant and breaking the thread's own rules. But I'm willing to be more upfront if people think that would actually be helpful. I'll go and do that now. I'll also link to the industry thread so that people don't think I'm trying to shut them down or what have you.
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May 29, 2018 05:14
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Xotl posted:I put "infamous" because, in following from my previous post, everyone I know of that posts here is already aware of who he is and what he does, and has their own personal feelings about him. More detail just seemed at once redundant and breaking the thread's own rules.
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May 29, 2018 05:21
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gradenko_2000 posted:I can understand not wanting to "derail" the thread with a discussion about it, but I cannot in good conscience abide by a complete rejection of the issue's existence. I will be tagging out of the thread. This is a really really massive overreaction in my opinion, as I think we can all agree that the "No OSR Politics" request isn't meant to ignore the problems surrounding certain figures in the community, it's just to avoid having the thread get clogged up by something that has been discussed a ton in the past and doesn't really need to be talked about again unless something new comes up
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May 29, 2018 05:46
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Pham Nuwen posted:So the OP kind of makes 1e sound a little weirder, a little more murderhobo, than 2e... Is there really that much difference? I have always had a soft spot for the monk, for instance. How tough would it be to drop a 1e monk into a 2e game? It's a bit weirder. Psionics are corish (main book, but shuffled off to an appendix). The Bard is an incredibly bizarre multiclass experiment. There's coverage of disease, and a random harlot subtable, to give two examples of the sort of extra detail you'll see. It's written in a very baroque style throughout. Unearthed Arcana really introduces the most changes from 2nd, since almost all of that was cut from 2e core (thief-acrobats, cavaliers that start at -2 level, etc). But while Unearthed was always controversial, it was much more widely adopted than, say, the v2.5 Options books or any one Complete Book of X that 2nd ed had so many of. Gameplay wise, the base rules are quite similar, so much so that you'd have little trouble doing what you asked with a monk (though 2nd ed had one or two versions of its own you could use instead). (The addition of skills in 2nd also heralded a big change, but that's something I want to cover another time.) As for murderhoboness, that's trickier: - In terms of the *core rules*, counter to the standard anti-grog view the older 1st ed is less murderhoboey. I can't emphasize enough how much the moving from gold as the primary source of XP (the 1st ed way) to monsters as the primary source (the 2nd ed way) really changed the dynamics of play. What players were rewarded for pursuing really shifted. Naturally combat was much more encouraged by a game that said that the best way to progress was to kill things. Gold for XP was still present, but it was optional only. There were also story-based XP awards introduced, but they were minor. - In terms of *modules*, 2nd ed is less murderhoboey. This is because of the shift in module design I reference in the OP. For people writing their own adventures this was irrelevant, but for the big market that scooped up modules, their games would be transformed as module writing was transformed. Look at something old like B1, B2, or B4: very open sandbox style stuff, where the players have a lot of freedom to tackle things. Look at the S-series: all dungeons of varying sorts, with a high lethality focus. Yes, they were written for tournaments and so the lethality was purposely exaggerated, but if you have thousands upon thousands of non-tourney players buying and playing them, that can't help but shape things. In all of these you're getting little to no read-aloud box text. Setup for the adventure is often as little as a paragraph (and that includes backstory). But around 1983 you see a marked shift. Look at something like the Dragonlance series, or Desert of Desolation, or Ravenloft, and you'll see what an official adventure was changing very rapidly. Railroaded plots where the PCs must do X and if they don't then the module forces them to start to appear (even popular favourite B10 has a bit of this). You also start seeing NPCs with plot armour that can't die before they're "supposed to", longer and longer blocks of read-aloud text, and longer backstories. The stories are increasingly centred around heroics, rather than looting: save the town, save the princess, save the kingdom, defeat the ultimate evil, save the world. A character's dungeon exploration movement speed increases noticeably in 2nd ed IIRC (another small change that could really affect play), but that hardly matters because the game hardly seemed to care about dungeons anymore. Something like the D-series just wasn't being published any longer, except as repackagings. So while this evolution happened under late 1st ed's watch, it was solidly in place for the writing of 2nd and informed the design of it and most of its supplements, which people are referring to as much as they are the core rulebooks when they refer to an edition. Things like Night Below, Nightmare Keep, Dragon Mountain, or Ruins of Undermountain were outliers in a much larger catalogue. I should do up a module comparison to give a better, visual-based evolution of module design from 78 to 98. Xotl fucked around with this message at 17:55 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 06:00
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Do you guys think the greater druid community would be for or against nuclear power plants? I think the relatively low footprint of uranium mining compared to fossil fuels means that fey creatures with any intelligence ought to be on board. They would be anti-lightwater and pro-LFTRs obviously. Also wind and sun and steam. So easy. "Summon radiance elemental" "Summon air elemental" "Summon fire elemental" "Summon steam elemental" "Summon various mephits"
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May 29, 2018 07:55
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Xotl posted:or any one Complete Book of X that 2nd ed had so many of
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May 29, 2018 07:59
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FRINGE posted:These were in very wide use in every group I ran into. Me too, but that's why I specified any given one. The line was so large (16 books over six years, not including the setting-specific ones) and so varied in quality and power (for example, compare the Complete Book of Elves with the Complete Thief's Handbook) that it didn't have the same effect that the single Unearthed Arcana did. You could count on running into them in general, but you couldn't be sure of seeing them all.
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May 29, 2018 08:08
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Complete Book of Humanoids is a book that would have been so much better if it hadn't made most of the races it included pretty much useless thanks to the combination of class restrictions and level restrictions(the latter is something I absolutely despise when it's used in systems where Race and Class are separate) But then I've always preferred my fantasy to be jammed full of oddball races prominently(heck the first D&D novel I ever read had Draconians be the viewpoint characters) drrockso20 fucked around with this message at 08:40 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 08:38
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I keep hearing that OSR adventures are amazing but every one I've read is garbage and boring? They all seem to fit in the category of A) boilerplate sword and sorcery poo poo with maybe a dash of Lovecraft if you want to call your game "weird"* or B) A classic children's tale but with violence and loving. Like, the OP asserts that the OSR's adventures are way better than WotC stuff but I haven't found an OSR adventure that's even close to engaging as something like Tomb of Annihilation or Red Hand of Doom or whatever. Even Paizo's overblown adventure paths have a bunch of ambition. The only adventure I've seen that even had mildly engaging elements was Better Than Any Man with the broad Wurzberg setting even if it was slathered in Raggi's wannabe artist provocateur bullshit. I know I'm being belligerent here but honestly I'm happy to be proven wrong with some good recommendations! I might not be particularly interested in OSR systems but I'm happy to nick stuff I like and run it with a system I enjoy. Preferably nothing written by shitheads.
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May 29, 2018 08:52
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I'd love to get into this but it deserves a thorough answer because once again it touches on the subject of fundamentally different playstyles between old and new school, and I'm heading to bed. I can't be sure if you think the ones you've seen truly suck, or if you're used to a different style of play than what OSR gaming provides and so are bouncing off of them due to a clash of expectations. In case of the latter, I'll leave this here for now as a sort of chaser: http://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=4214 Extremely enthusiastic review of a new module by an OSR-centred reviewer. The guy has given out 4 perfect scores in his 1,500 reviews; this gets one of them. https://princeofnothingblogs.wordpress.com/2018/05/01/review-mines-claws-princesses-5e-3pp-holy-oldschool-holy-grail-batman/ Equally enthusiastic review, again by an OSR reviewer. Note what qualities the two are remarking on when they talk about what makes it good. Now read this guy's take on it for a completely different (modern) view. Ignoring the quibble about age-appropriateness, you're still dealing with a fundamentally different set of criteria. http://www.wizardslaboratory.com/review-of-mines-claws-princesses-adventure/ Lastly, the module is pay what you want, so get it and consider it for yourself. What do you think about it? http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/240094/Mines-Claws--Princesses I'll cover some of the better OSR modules (say, Deep Carbon Observatory, or Fate's Fell Hand) and why I think they're great later on.
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May 29, 2018 09:13
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Xotl posted:I'd love to get into this but it deserves a thorough answer because once again it touches on the subject of fundamentally different playstyles between old and new school, and I'm heading to bed. The first two reviews seem to just be mostly "the module has interesting room descriptions" which yeah, I think it does a decent job of, while engaging in a lot of the hyperbole poo poo that makes the OSR community super off-putting to folks who don't think slapping some houserules onto OD&D is some kind of pinnacle of the hobby. Having looked at the adventure I basically have to agree overall with the last review. Like, the adventure seems like a serviceable update on something like Keep on the Borderlands, I'd certainly run this before that, but it doesn't change the fact that in terms of substance it's nothing that hasn't been seen before. It's fine. Edit: Also lol at the comments being full of folks being mad that the guy didn't give this one full marks including Venger "I'm an adult man who calls myself Venger Satanis" Satanis. Saguaro PI fucked around with this message at 10:47 on May 29, 2018 |
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May 29, 2018 10:11
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