Old-school D&D/Retroclones: (Rolls the die, but it doesn't matter what the result is)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Old-school D&D/Retroclones: (Rolls the die, but it doesn't matter what the result is)

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

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.

Edit: I guess I never went into what actually happens. I'd probably describe it like your fighter description: you can hear a few figures in the room, maybe some muttering in a goblinish tongue. Remember that some monsters, like inactive undead, don't make any sounds at all.

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:

* Reduce stats to just STR, DEX and INT, perhaps add PER(sonality) if the campaign really warrants a mechanical representation of a face/charismatic character

* Three true words/phrases/statements about your character

* Combat revolves entirely around the attack roll vs AC dynamic, even for a Magic-User. A Fighter would fish for attack roll bonuses or mechanical effects through brute strength. A Rogue would do so via sneakiness and subterfuge. A Magic-User would do so by applying/targeting magical weaknesses, such as elemental opposites. I would however rule that the stat that contributes an attack bonus isn't locked in to the class. If the Fighter says he's a Fighter that adds his INT to his d20 instead of his STR, he can.

* Skill checks would still just be d20 vs a DC, with bonuses based on the applicable stat and an applicable true statement (and perhaps the class counts as a statement by itself?). The DM can also use the "opposite implication" of a true statement to justify a high DC/roll penalty

* Saving throws would be similar to skill checks: "a boulder is coming at you, what do you do?" and the player comes up with an active solution (I dodge out of the way, I blow it out of the way) or a passive solution (the boulder will smash on the sheer toughness of my chest)

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.

The long answer:

In The Strategic Review, Volume 1, No 2, Page 3, you get the following passages:

quote:

A super hero, for example, would attack eight times only if he were fighting normal men (or creatures basically that strength, i.e., kobolds, goblins, gnomes, dwarves, and so on).

quote:

Note that he is allowed one attack for each of his combat levels as the ratio of one Orc vs. the Hero is 1:4, so this is treated as normal (non-fantastic) melee, as is any combat where the score of one side is a base 1 hit die or less.

Cross-referencing this with the level titles in Book 1 - Men & Magic, page 16, a "Superhero" is indeed a level 8 Fighting Man and a "Hero" is a level 4 Fighting Man.

...

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:
If the target has more than one hit die, the Fighter (and any other creature) can only attack (it) once per round, at any level, no matter what

Additional attacks based on the Man / Hero / Super Hero titles in the Fighting Capability column:

1. If your Fighting Capability is Man, then you can attack once per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less
2. If your Fighting Capability is 2 Men, then you can attack twice per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less
3. If your Fighting Capability is 3 Men, then you can attack thrice per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less
4. If your Fighting Capability is Hero, then you can attack four times per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less
5. If your Fighting Capability is Super Hero, then you can attack eight times per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less
6. If your Fighting Capability is Wizard, then you can attack two times per round if you're fighting creatures of 1 HD or less

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...

Like, I'm not being (overly) sarcastic. The whole concept of most retroclones is "keep the old rules alive".

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

There's also some value to "random rolling of stats" as far as providing character idea fodder and quick character creation, provided the numbers are tuned to produce playable characters no matter what.

But Evil Mastermind is largely correct that keeping the same six attribute score names, and keeping a 3 to 18 range, and keeping that particular range of attribute modifiers, is really just hidebound traditionalism. Like, even Dungeon Crawl Classics' level-0 character funnel is just a form of AD&D's Method IV ability score generation:

Except you have to go through a Darwinian process of winnowing down the sets you've rolled rather than picking the one that you like best and starting at level 1.

Don't get me wrong, that Darwinian adventure can be fun as heck, and it does accomplish the stated goal of preventing CharOp by brute force, but real innovation here is the Luck mechanic and aknowledging that the level-1 OSR adventurer is actually frail as poo poo and you need a small army of them.

You're probably going to have attributes no matter what. Even GURPS as a heavily skill based game still has attributes so that the skills, and the untrained tasks, have a base value to work off of. Even Risus has "attributes", even if they're on the scale of "Big Hulking Bruiser 4" and that could mean an entire panoply of core competencies, but as a core building block of game design, you're going to have them.

Might and Magic, Ultima, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Legacy of Grimrock, Final Fantasy, Jagged Alliance, even Out of the Park Baseball all have "attributes" in some form of another.

It's just that they don't use D&D's particular way of expressing them.

(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

There's an argument to be had in the "ease of learning" between spontaneous casting and true Vancian casting. Personally, I think it's a wash, but I would consider spontaneous casting to be easier for newbies since it's far more versatile.

No direct damage spells in the spell list

Can't say I'm in favor of this. Direct damage spells are some of the easiest ways to connect with the game, and most of the problems of D&D casters is when they're using not-direct-damage spells. If anything, I would consider "all direct damage spells" to be a better deal, if you could come up with enough different damage gimmicks.

You can only memorize each spell in your list once

If you're not using spontaneous casting, definitely I am favor of this + true Vancian casting. It forces people to get creative with their spells.

When I ran a B/X oneshot about a month ago, I didn't want to stick the M-U with a single spell for the entire adventure, so I gave them the entire level 1 spell list, with the proviso that they could only use them once each. It went fairly well - the very first thing they used was Magic Missile, for fairly obvious reasons, but as the game wore on and their spell list become smaller and smaller they started doing things like using Tenser's Floating Disc to get up to a grating to sneak past some guards.

Using power points instead of slots

This is even more versatile than spontaneous casting in that it effectively allows you to trade spell slots across spell levels. It makes casters even more powerful in that regard. I don't know that I would ever use this, because all it does is exacerbate some of the problems of D&D casters, and any solutions to the caster problem is fairly well separate from whether I use power points or not.

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.

Track game time on them so everyone can see how much time they have until whatever thing happens (eg, Find Traps runs out).

Use them for chase scenes. Escape type actions move the PCs along one space. Defensive type actions stop the monsters moving along. PCs escape if they reach the end of the track before the monsters catch them.

Use them for "heat' like GTA game, with more actions or more obvious/loud/violent actions increasing heat and hiding, waiting, etc decreasing it. Have it affect random monster checks and the general preparedness of the opponents. Interact with your time track so that hiding means your buffs run out and your lamps burn down.

Use one you move once per session to show how far, in general, the bad guys' plans advance. A PC victory will stop the increase or even move it backwards. A PC failure will make it move faster. If PCs do nothing, then it moves some small amount ahead. Have this interact with other things, like if it's above 6 (or whatever) it increases the minimum/starting heat of all areas.

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.

2) The DM ad-hocs scenarios. Some RPGs encourage a "yes, but..." approach so given enough time you'll always be able to kick a door down but you wake up the whole dungeon. This ad hoc approach seems to be the preferred method in the early days considering entire monsters were created to gently caress with players who had a contingency for everything ("I run my fingers through the grain of the wood, knocking, licking, and smelling for anything out of place" "the door is actually a monster and eats you").

3) You create a binary situation. You either succeed or you don't. There's also a disconnect between your character and the game world. E.g. you, the player, know you roll poorly on your stealth check but your character believes they're hiding well. The DM is supposed to make these rolls on your behalf but that means half your skills are now being rolled in secret by the DM who is also making opposed rolls in secret and it's kind of poo poo. On the other hand, this system allows for passing things you couldn't reasonably fail at. The "take 10" or "take 20." Given enough time with no pressure, there should be no reason you couldn't chop down a wooden door. In an ad-hoc system a DM can become too literal. "The key was in a secret latch under a seamless, perfectly flush tile that could only be discovered by someone of elven lineage on the full moon while dancing the jitterbug." Yeah, or I can roll against DC 20.

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.

2. Like al-azad said, what constitutes "success" is more implicitly subject to the DM's common sense based on the situation. A STR check vs. a regular door forces it open, whereas with a portcullis you just lift it up enough for the rogue to slide through, etc.

3. You now need balanced task resolution. From the people designing D&D. Good luck, buddy!

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".

OD&D didn't really have any formal task resolution mechanics at all. The general assumption is that you either "talked it out", or the DM just used whatever roll of the die they wanted, adjusted the way they wanted. There are a few references to how Elves can detect secret doors, but no hard rules.

When you get to the Greyhawk supplement, you do get some task resolution mechanics, but they're Dungeon-Relevant. Roll a 1d6 to open doors, roll percentiles for the Thief skills, that sort of thing. They only ever covered stuff that you were expected to do while dungeoneering, but haggling in a town, talking to the king, and whatever other esoteric dungeon puzzle solutions your players might have come up with were still up to talking it out.

Holmes's Basic Set (1977) largely continues this model, with rolling a 1d6 to open a door and succeeding on a 1 and 2, along with Thief skills, and so on, but of course only extending to the first 3 character levels.

Moldvay's Basic Set (1981) finally introduces a "generic" task resolution system - you're still expected to use d6's for doors and percentiles for Thieves, etc., but you have that one paragraph of "There's Always a Chance" that lets you try anything, and success is from rolling under your corresponding attribute with a d20. This is also where task difficulty is first introduced, as the DM is told that they can attach as much as a +4 or -4 modifier on the roll to make it easier or harder.

Mentzer's Expert Set (1983) has a slightly different take: he mentions using different dice instead of the d20, such as a 3d6-roll-under, or a 4d6-roll-under. But the core concept remains the same as far allowing players to attempt things that aren't covered by the rules.

This is also where you start to see the reason behind why task difficulty was introduced:

It's a sop to "realism" and inter-character balance.

Moving on to AD&D, the core of AD&D 1e didn't have generic task resolution. You still had door bashing and Thief skills, but like OD&D+Greyhawk, it was all only dungeon-relevant task resolution. There was a thing called Proficiencies, but it was only for weapons.

It was Oriental Adventures that expanded the system to account for "general" tasks. There was a list of skills, and you spend your Proficiency slots on them, and then if the DM wants to make it into a contested roll, you'd roll a d20, and ~~you'd succeed if you rolled equal to or higher~~ it's not actually clear how Oriental Adventures defines success or failure ~~than the listed base chance of success~~.

It's worth noting that the raison d'etre of this system was to allow the game to model artistic and peaceful skills as it pertained to the Oriental setting. Like, you would take proficiency in Masseur or Paper-Maker to impress the Shogun or some poo poo. It still wasn't generic - they were still putting in stuff that was only relevant to the game's objectives, it's just that the game's objectives had changed.

Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide further expanded on the system by defining Proficiency Checks as d20-roll-under checks against a corresponding ability score, plus or minus a modifier:

So for Animal Noise, you'd roll a d20, subtract 1 from the result, and succeed if the result is equal to or lower than your Wisdom. Animal Noise would be used to imitate the sound of an animal. Fungus Identification, with its +6 modifier, would be very difficult to pull off even with a high INT character.

In both cases, the DM is allowed to append their own circumstantial die roll modifiers to the checks, and the rules themselves describe such things as your Weaponcrafting check being helped by working with magical or otherwise really good materials.

AD&D 2e ported over this system as part of the corebooks. The PHB actually lists them as "Optional", and there are long passages explaining why it should be optional for most games/groups, but as the game-line wore on, you'd have this situation where so many more Proficiencies and uses for them are piled on in supplements that you couldn't really avoid it anymore.

And finally we get to 3rd Edition and the d20 system, which should be familiar enough to you that I won't go into the details of it save for a key design flaw: switching to an ascending system suuuuucked because they never capped the loving thing.

The relative elegance of the Proficiency and roll-under system of AD&D was that you always had a pretty good idea of your chance to succeed, and you always had a pretty good chance of succeeding, and "allocating skills" was only a thing you did once every few levels, and taking a proficiency meant that you were pretty good at that thing (moderated by your attribute score), forever. Sure, the DM could attach a +8 modifier to make the check well-nigh-impossible to pass, but they'd have to be a real dick about it.

In contrast, 3e skill checks could go as high as the DM (or the module-writer) wanted. Yes, there were guidelines based on physics such the door-bashing DC being based on the door material, or the Balance DC being based on how slippery the surface is, but it's doubtful that anyone really paid close attention to the darn things (unless you were using a pre-written module). It was also really book-keepy, and you had to come up with more and more reasons to need to keep sinking points into poo poo like Intuit Direction, which contributed to even more skill inflation and more book-keeping and characters being unreasonably limited in their capabilities and it's all a big mess.

The biggest distinction I would personally draw from all of this is that while TSR-era did include the "task difficulty", it didn't try to go into too much detail over why certain things needed a modifier, and it didn't specify that certain things always needed to be modified.

By leaving things to a d20 roll against a range of ... 8 to 16 (realistically speaking), you could play an entire game without ever really needing to use a modifier and things would still shake-out okay.

This lets the DM focus on whether or not a roll is required in the first place, without having to think about assigning a DC that's too high or too low, and that, to my mind, is a huge advantage in terms of facilitating play.

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.

Although, the sheets seemed to be more of a beta version of what would be the Dungeon Master guides, so people nowadays just compile their own lists of pages from the guides that they find useful at the table. Perhaps a new 'Retro-Clone Reference Sheet' could find it's place in the market, or something.

Edit: New Big Dragon Games did make the d30 DM and d30 Sandbox Companions, which fit much the same place as the Ready Ref Sheets, but make use of the d30. (Or a d3 followed by a d10 if you don't have the sillier of the silly dice that we all know and love)

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.

The easiest house rule is probably to just assume each class is wearing the best armor they can wear. (Or second best, and they have to put on heavier than usual armor to get the best possible bonus, if that's appropriate as it is in say Tekumel.)

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.

Neither group can be arsed to go into a dungeon and live on iron rations and stale water and risk being gibbed by some gently caress-you trap they forgot to plan for. They're done with that. That's for poor assholes with a 10' pole and a dream. Assholes like you.

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:

Okay, I'm going to talk some about Empire of The Petal Throne, which has been rebranded as , Tekumel: The Empire of The Petal Throne, under the correct assumption that no one will ever find it otherwise.

# ¿ May 28, 2018 22:36

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 10:23

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

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

# ¿ May 28, 2018 22:38

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

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?

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

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.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 03:44

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

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.

# ¿ May 29, 2018 04:14

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Alhireth-Hotep posted:

Hey Xotl, this is a loving callout. Now can we denounce the lovely pieces of OSR and make defending them socially unacceptable? That goes way beyond Zak S, but if him being exposed again is what it takes to make it possible to have a slightly-less-lovely OSR space online, that's a loving start.

gently caress you.

You quoted the exact Xotl post that caused me to stop posting in this thread.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2019 18:28

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Thanks, I hate it. Actually this is one of the most interesting posts in awhile. Trying to interpret OD&D is definitely an arduous task.

1. What sizes of engagements are these rules intended to resolve, is it anything under 20 �men�?
2. When OD&D says to use the combat charts from chain mail, which are the referring to? Is it all the way down and then the death result is now �roll 1d6 damage� instead?
3. What the hell is a weapon class?

# ¿ May 12, 2019 23:28

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

LatwPIAT posted:

1. Who knows? Chainmail suggests the Man-to-Man system be used for "small battles and castle sieges", and D&D Vol. 3 says the Man-to-Man system should be used for all land combat, air combat, and naval boarding actions - which as far as I can tell is simply all combat, period! - though considering the amount of legwork I had to do to make sense of the rules when there's more than two people involved in a melee, it's not all that suited for any battle involving more than two characters!
2. As far as I can tell, yes!
3. All melee weapons in the Man-to-Man system in Chainmail have a Weapon Class. This ranges from 1 for a Dagger to 12 for a Halberd. A lower class means a shorter, faster weapon, while a higher class means a longer, slower weapons. The difference between the ATTACKER's and DEFENDER's weapons' Weapon Classes can be thought of a measure of speed and reach. Reach tends to give an advantage in the first turn of combat, while Speed rules afterwards.

As much as I hate the additional complexity, I do like the idea of modifying initiative based on weapon type, and possibly weapon breakage.

al-azad posted:

This also backs up Arneson's style where PCs are military leaders with multiple squads of mercenaries and warriors that would remain behind when the PC enters the dungeon.

It was dumb in star trek too. :v:

al-azad posted:

2. An additional point, stronger creatures inflict multiple kills per attack. So a creature that deals 3 kills is the equivalent of 3d6 damage.

This is particularly unclear in OD&D if you don't have access to chainmail (which I don't). But I did find it spelled out a little better in Tekumel.

# ¿ May 13, 2019 04:27

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

I�m a big fan of �Both players are no longer friends with me for unrelated reasons.�

# ¿ Nov 27, 2019 19:47

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

al-azad posted:

I mentioned before I got a sweet collection of D&D box sets from the 80s and the basic set had some sweet maps in it. Unfortunately there were incomplete keys but they may be in the other boxes I haven't combed through yet.

So here are some of the maps from little Stewie (name altered to protect his identity), New Jersey resident, age 11-14, grade 0-8 according to his filled out survey card. He owns the Basic and Expert set, the original Dungeon! board game, and some player aids. This was all likely a 1982 Christmas gift, both sets purchased together for $14 bucks at Toys R Us (does this seem low???).

There are a few cultural artifacts here: a little slip of paper where Stewie and his friend Derick competed in a Pitfall competition on 12/28/1982. Stewie came in second with 48,472 points and 5 minutes left and Derick 48,672 points with 7 minutes left (the goal of Pitfall is to collect 114,000 points of treasure in 20 minutes but contact with certain obstacles deducts points). My favorite non-gaming piece of memorabilia is a handwritten note to Stewie's mom asking her to call into the local radio station to find out what time the radio drama of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back will be airing.

All the juicy bits are character sheets and stuff so one of these days I'm going to scan those, edit out the names, and post them because it's a treasure trove of how people really played D&D back in the day.

A private pitfall competition or some sort of public contest? Pitfall was an activision game, so I think you could send in for the patch if you got a score of 40000 or better.

More on topic, on old maps I always see people make these maze areas. How the hell did they run those? Seems like it would be tedious.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2020 19:38

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

If you�re playing a close to the original game like OSE, what do you do about the badness of the thief class?

# ¿ Jun 12, 2020 16:30

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

drrockso20 posted:

Raise up the starting percentiles for Thief skills by at least 15, possibly as much as 30

If I iron out the skill bonus acceleration around 6, which I admit is a very non-early D&D thing to do, I get:

code:

Level CS TR HS MS OL PP HN
1     85 40 35 45 45 45 2
2     86 45 40 50 50 50 2
3     87 50 45 55 55 55 3
4     88 55 50 60 60 60 3
5     89 60 55 65 65 65 3
6     90 65 60 70 70 70 3
7     91 70 65 75 75 75 4
8     92 75 70 80 80 80 4
9     93 80 75 85 85 85 4
10    94 85 80 90 90 90 4
11    95 90 85 95 95 95 5
12    -  95 90 -  -  100-
13    -  -  95 -  -  105-
Bonus -2 30 25 25 30 25 -

Which I think is pretty satisfactory.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2020 01:30

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

whydirt posted:

My main issue is that I don�t really need Yet Another Basic D&D Variant built from the ground up. Just give me the setting-specific rules as modules to plug-and-play.

SEACAT lives in the nebulous area between presenting a couple pages of variant rules from base D&D and building a whole new game that stands apart from D&D. It�s neither fish nor foul and in the uncanny valley of retro cloning.

SEACAT is a complete system, the problem is that the system isn�t actually fully described in UVG. And last time I checked it wasn�t fully written down in Luka�s blog either. So, you can�t really get that far with a system that only fully exists within Luka�s brain.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2020 14:48

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Verisimilidude posted:

My favorite map design is probably found in the Dark Souls games, with very vertical-centric maps that utilize space well and permit a player to find shortcuts that also help make the world feel organic. I wanted to reach for this via this new map technique.

This is the sort of thing I've been trying to figure out for awhile, thanks for the ideas.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 15:15

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Someone tell me about Mighty Deeds of Arms. I'm familiar with the system I just want to know how it works out in play. Does it slow things down? Does it need to be weaker or more powerful compared to the other DCC classes? Does it fit the setting well?

# ¿ Nov 28, 2020 20:33

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

I find myself increasingly drawn to 'toolbox' design in RPGs.

e: Which I suppose is natural for people that like rules light games.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2021 06:58

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

aldantefax posted:

Are there any systems which deal with the concept of "meaningful lasting damage" from encounters, either from fights or dungeon crawling? I'm thinking of things that are put onto a character sheet that are like 'gained disadvantages'. Ideally, I'd have something like this tied to a specific beneficial character trait but it's still a disadvantage, like "burn scar from unholy fire, will never heal, but alerts to the forces of darkness nearby", or something like that.

Electric Bastionland has a scars system and you only increase your max HP by using it, but honestly I feel it�s the weakest part of the system. I�d rather create custom scars based on what weird creature you�re taking critical damage from then use the generic table.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2021 22:43

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Does anyone have opinions about Lorn Song of the Bachelor?

# ¿ Jan 21, 2021 06:50

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

aldantefax posted:

If you are a new DM then take the leap that attack = strike to kill,

It's not a leap, taken literally the only creature that can be dealt nonlethal damage is a dragon.

aldantefax posted:

Anyway, if dying is unfun and a product of bad design, new OSR games and retroclones should do away with it, right?

This is impossible because the bounds of what is considered a retroclone are generally agreed upon to adhere to the Old School Manifesto which as one of it's tenets expects character death. By contrast, two heartbeakers which I am poaching the approaches to death in my current designs, Torchbearer and Strike!, mostly eschew death within combat.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 06:58

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

mellonbread posted:

Do you have a copy of this manifesto that we've all allegedly read and agreed to? Google turns up an unrelated martial arts manual.

Hmm, I thought there was a more recent version in google drive that was being community updated but I can't find it.
I suppose I must be thinking of this document? https://www.lulu.com/content/3019374

e: Ah, it's here: https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html

Again, can't be as influential as I thought if no one knew what it was.

DalaranJ fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 1, 2021

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 03:01

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Sax Solo posted:

Though I'm in a game now where PC death is impossible. PCs just get auto-revived at the start of each session/time jump. We can still fail missions, and it's still rules-light-high-sim, so maybe it's not 100% OSR but it's still pretty far away from modern D&D.

Oh, well, I�d love to hear more about this since I�m designing a similar system. How does this part of the game work, and what do you feel are the strengths/weaknesses of such a system? What do you think is important to making a game that removes the threat of death to work?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2021 18:18

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Jackard posted:

I'm running Skycrawl using Fate Accelerated, just finished our second session last night. An interesting boardgamey-type roleplay but I haven't used all of its systems yet and already have to warn against the money system, it really bogs down the game.

I�m a big fan of the components of that board game, too bad the board game itself sucks. Always wanted to run a campaign with them, I think those doubloons are in my gming kit still.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2021 05:43

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Gatto Grigio posted:

Ah yeah, I checked with Chris McDowell and he said it will take the Bulky and Deprived rules from EBL but will be otherwise unchanged.

I like that ItO is kind of being Basic to EBL's B/X.

Lord Yod posted:

I only recently started getting into OSR games and have been picking up some OSE books. Just flipped through Carcass Crawler and am really excited about playing a vulcan or a jedi. They seem cool! I think I'm missing something about the Mage, though, are you intended to just find/craft scrolls a lot?

Yeah, the Carcass Crawler content is so good that it's hard to imagine keeping up this level of content.

As for the mage it seems like a 'warlock' style class where you just get to do a bunch of level 1 and 2 things as many times as you please. But compared to magic-user it does seem objectively weaker. (except for the hit die increase, I guess?)
I'd probably make sure to provide more usable arcane treasures when using it.

TK_Nyarlathotep posted:

I didn't /see/ the class features mentioned for Fighters, but I also was only skimming.

In the listing it says take abilities at level 1, 5 and 10, but someone upthread said 'every even level' and I think that might be the right level of generosity.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 20:42

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

I know at one point someone wrote a blog post that attempted to break down the experience 'cost' of all of the b/x classes attributes to determine how level up cost discrepancies were determined. But I sure don't remember who did this or when, does anyone have a link to that post?

# ¿ Sep 5, 2021 18:31

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Arivia posted:

you probably mean this https://breeyark.org/building-a-more-perfect-class/

Erin Smale (the author) has expanded it into the B/X Options: Class Builder supplement on DTRPG if you want a revised/updated/expanded version of the same.

I did. Thank you.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2021 19:33

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

It looks like you have to get the box set to get the Lankhmar rules, am I understanding that correctly?

# ¿ Nov 24, 2021 01:23

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Shanty posted:

This is probably the umpteenth time this has come up, but how do you sell Thief skills to players?

On the face of it, they look bad. 20% chance to move silently? Sure, let me sneak through this room with a 1 in 5 chance the monsters just turn around and clobber me.

I saw a bizarre argument in a video about this recently. They suggested that the purpose of thief as of AD&D was to allow non-humans to gain more hit dice than their level cap, and that was why only non-humans could multiclass freely.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 17:22

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Shanty posted:

What are you doing for the Deed dice if you're planning to avoid the zocchi set?

If you�re okay with stopping at DCC level 4 equivalent deeds you can just double the die size, success starts at 5: d6, d8, d10, d12

# ¿ Jan 20, 2022 07:37

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

If you�re using Bastionland �enhanced� is done by adding a advantage die, I�d probably make the special effect occur on doubles in this case.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2022 16:24

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

So, I was looking at Old School Essentials (based on B/X) and noticed something unexpected.

The wizard spell slot chart looks as I expected:
1
2 [2500]
21 [5000]
22 [10000]
221 [20000]
222 [40000]
3221 [80000]
3322 [150000]
etc...
I would have expected cleric to be similar with maybe one catch up level since they have 0 slots at level 1, but it instead looks like this:
0
1 [1500]
2 [3000]
21 [6000]
22 [12000]
2211 [25000]
22211 [50000]
33221 [100000]

I know this is the same chart as OD&D, I believe this was 'corrected' before RC, is there a reason for this odd progression? I'd welcome speculation.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 00:34

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

A Strange Aeon posted:

Clerics level up much faster, is that what you're pointing out?

This is certainly a factor if you're going to compare them to magic users, but they also gain both 3rd and 4th level spells in a single level and 5th level spells the level after.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2023 05:42

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Halloween Jack posted:

That's about it. The big draw for me is the d6 based skill system, which is easy to steal and port into other things.

There's a version of this system in carcass crawler issue 1. Although to be fair, I imagine you can probably find multiple implementations of it for free reading OSR blogs.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 06:14

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Nickoten posted:

Anyway Break!! RPG is out and it is a surprisingly good game built on a Moldvay D&D skeleton. I did not expect it to be so comprehensive. My one big complaint is that it�s missing treasure tables or treasure seeding advice � really anything for helping the GM distribute cash and items. It doesn�t have to do it the B/X way but it should do something.

Other than that, very clean essentially OSR ruleset that I think will be easy for new GMs to learn the game from. Its GM section is pretty thorough (aside from the above issue) and clear.

I'm having trouble finding it for purchase anywhere, including on their own storefront. I assume this is backers only for the moment?

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Isn't BrOSR just the Brazilian OSR scene? What am I missing?

Is there a Brazillian OSR scene? I would like to know more.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2023 18:07

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Nickoten posted:

My fault, looks like it actually is only out to backers.

Quite alright.
It may be that you could get the pdf from preordering on backer kit now, but I�m willing to wait a couple weeks.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2023 19:37

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 10:23

DalaranJ: Apr 15, 2008; Yosuke will now die for you.

Halloween Jack posted:

OSE is lauded because it's a very attractive, well-organized, and clear presentation of the original rules. (I remember an inverview with Norman where he was talking about how "level" can mean several different things in D&D and how confusing it is.) The rules are still the rules, and yeah, these are all issues people have with old rules.

It drives me crazy that he fixed a bunch of typos but didn�t change, what is to me an obvious typo, Thief Level 6 hide in shadows score.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 22:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Old-school D&D/Retroclones: (Rolls the die, but it doesn't matter what the result is)