Trove: https://mega.nz/#F!3FcAQaTZ!BkCA0bzsQGmA2GNRUZlxzg!jJtCmTLA
Stuff & Shit: http://pastebin.com/FQJx2wsC
What module do I run for people who've never roleplayed before? I'm a big fan of LotFP and DCC, but any system is fine.
>>46641003
LOTFP crunchwise is friendlier for newbs
BFRPG if they they are cheapskates or are easily offended by LOTFP edge
>>46641003
This has got to be the most common post in OSR threads, and there are a LOT of posts that get repeated in every thread.
>>46641239
Cool answer dude
>NORMAL DOORS: Doors in a dungeon are usually closed, and are often stuck or locked. A lock must usually be picked by a thief. An unlocked door must be forced open to pass through it. To force open a door, roll Id6; a result of 1 or 2 (on Id6) means that the door is forced open. The roll should be adjusted by a character's Strength score adjustment. The number needed to open a door can never be less than 1 nor greater than 1-5.
Wouldn't this make it harder to open a door? Adding the modifier would make the chances of a roll being 1 or 2 much more unlikely if not impossible?
>>46641784
You're misunderstanding this to a degree that seems intentional. You know the adjustment obviously works in the way that makes sense, not the way that doesn't.
>>46641784
In old school D&D, you pretty much need to look at each roll from the stand point of whether a plus or a minus would make it easier, and invert your bonuses accordingly (or add your bonus to the target number rather than to your roll).
>>46641976
I'm new to OSR games, and pretty much DnD in general. So for +1 strength bonuses...you actually use a -1 on doors?
>>46642009
I'm not aware of an OSR game that has general "strength bonuses." Instead they have a table for strength adjustments that tells you exactly what score on dice you need to open doors by what score you have, etc. There is no core mechanic before 3e.
>>46642030
In Moldvay, an example row on the strength table is:
>+ 1 to hit, damage, and opening doors
>>46642030
he's talking about modifiers.
>>46642009
no. you add it. it adds a dice number/pip to hit that makes you successful. if a normal character can open a door on 1 in 6 (on a d6), a person with +2 STR can open it on 1, 2, or 3 in 6.
>>46642009
>>46642074
You have to remember that old school D&D developed pretty much organically, and as such, it doesn't always have a consistent, coherent approach to things.
>>46643375
Here's the compiled equipment sheet that goes with it.
>>46643416
Realized I linked an out of date copy. Ahem:
Been making a bunch of stuff for an upcoming B/x campaign. I took the original necropraxis "Random OD&D starting equipment" and customized it for B/x, adding additional tables for the race-as-classes. Dwarves now get slightly dwarfier weapon selections. Elves get slightly elfier weapon selections. Halflings can't randomly roll weapons they can't hold.
Our current game lets you either roll randomly for gear or roll 3d6x10. If you take the random roll, you have a chance at getting some nicer gear than you'd normally be able to acquire.
Ignore my blog link. The post won't go up until tomorrow morning anyway.
>>46643556
Saved.
>>46642220
yeah, in this case you'd add the positive bonus to the score needed to open the door, going from 1-2 to 1-3, rather than adding it to the die roll.
Working on an AD&D funnel adventure (0th level schmucks, cue Zero to Hero). It's going to take place in an undead infested keep.
r8 my first encounter
>Small underground lake
>chest high water
>thick stake on the bank with a 20' rope tied to it
>2d6 zombie crocodiles
>challenge is to get to the other bank, where there is a rowboat
In my mind, there are a few ways to go about this
1) Lure the zombie crocs to the bank one-by-one to be killed
2) Have someone swim slowly, so as not to disturb the zombie crocs which react to movement and bring the boat to the other shore
3) Shimmy along the sides of the cavern (Strength check)
Is this unfair or cruel?
>>46644490
How will they be tipped off about the zombie crocs?
>>46644520
There will be human skeletons on the shore with damage from a powerful bite. A character with a more outdoorsy background might recognize it as a crocodile.
Rumor already has told them about the restless dead haunting this keep.
>>46644566
Seems fine to me. Are all the wildlife in the area undead, or were these made for a specific reason?
>>46644631
Only the things in the castle. There is however, a sort of corruption around the keep that makes it desolate (no bird song, etc).
The zombie crocs exist as a first line of defense and alarm for the 1-3 ghouls that live in the basement.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoplatonism#The_One
So, I was thinking of using something vaguely based upon this as the source of cleric magic in a Basic Fantasy setting. But the sticking point I'm having is explaining why clerics would be limited to maces, slings, and staves with this (nor do I wish to change that detail of clerics). The best explanation I can come up with is that these weapons all embody the one in their simplicity and purity of form and function. Does anyone have any alternate suggestions that might work?
>>46641981
No.
>>46645327
Yes?
Are there any OSR games with more advanced/granular weapon rules beyond "Sword" or "1H Melee"? Maybe ones that have armor as DR?
Is Godbound OSR?
Is Stars Without Number?
>>46645676
Yes. Godbound is meant to be compatible with pre-3E D&D. Same with SWN
>>46645650
Take a look at AD&D 1E sometime. Weapon length, speed factors and armor adjustments galore. It's not quite as complicated as you could make it (hello, every single fantasy heartbreaker) but it's more than, say, 3E.
I know that there's a armor-as-DR variant for BECMI in one of the later Gazetteers (Dawn of Emperors), so it wouldn't surprise me if there's also one for 2E.
>>46645650
AD&D and AD&D-based games are going to have more types of weapons at the very least. You may also have such things as reach, speed factors and (obnoxious and almost universally ignored) to-hit modifications for each weapon vs. each individual AC.
>>46645768
Reach I like the idea of. Not so much something that makes me have to pause the game to reference tables for though.
>>46645688
oh yeah, and yet despite them both being relatively popular I don't see them discussed much in this thread.
Although Godbound is pretty weird, since in trying to be OSR-Exalted, it also went halfway into being 13th Age in some respects.
Cool game though.
>>46645650
I don't know of an OSR game where armor reduces damage, but here's my system. Pic shows how little the damage per round changes when you convert to this system from the default one in Basic.
>Increase the damage of attacks by 1 die level (d4 becomes d6, d6 becomes d8, etc.). Just add a flat +1 where this is tricky to do (2d4 becomes 2d4+1).
>Determine your chance to hit according to a base AC of 7 (regardless of whether you're playing Basic or AD&D) adjusted by everything *except* armor type (dex mod, shield, even pluses from magical armor). AC now means "avoidance class" but can still be referred to as Ay-Cee.
>For every 2 points your armor improved your AC in the rules-as-written, you instead get a damage reduction of 1. In Basic D&D that means:
>unarmored (AC 8-9) = DR 0
>leather (AC 6-7) = DR 1
>chainmail (AC 4-5) = DR 2
>platemail (AC 2-3) = DR 3
>Under normal circumstances, any hit inflicts a minimum of 1 point of damage.
>For monsters and such with exceptional armor classes, you might want to consider capping DR at 3 or 4 and representing any remaining points in the ordinary to-hit reducing fashion. Or not. Who's to say it doesn't make sense for a dragon turtle to have 5 points of DR?
>>46645783
>>46645768
>and (obnoxious and almost universally ignored) to-hit modifications for each weapon vs. each individual AC.
Goddammit, just apply it to the hit matrix and write it down on your character sheet. At which point you just need to know what type of armor the opponent is wearing and then can literally just roll and see if you get higher than the number on your sheet. It's not that difficult.
Now, if you're using THAC0 it's just plain obnoxious. But THAC0 is obnoxious in general.
There's some actual issues with the AD&D Weapon vs. AC tables, but that's more because of the added armor classes that mean that there's multiple different types of armor+shield for every number rather than each one being unique.
Also, of course, Greyhawk fucked the tables up to begin with by doing a direct one-to-one conversion of a 2d6 table to a 1d20 tables because Greyhawk is a big fat mess.
>>46645831
The impression I get from following the dev is that it didn't start out as being OSR-Exalted, but then at some point before the kickstarter he decided to pander and market to the Exalted crowd.
>>46645841 continued
>Special effects that occur when a monster hits you are a bit tricky, as heavier armor previously reduced their ability to hit you, and therefore their ability to affect you. Here are a few ideas of what you could do to remedy the issue:
>Don't do anything. The effect still occurs anytime you are hit. This will disadvantage heavily armored characters, and advantage lightly armored ones a bit, but it shouldn't significantly undermine overall game balance. You'd just need to keep in mind that creatures with special effects that occur on a hit are more dangerous, overall. (If there is a saving throw vs. the special effect, however, you might consider allowing people to add their armor's DR to their saving throw.)
>Apply the special effect only when the damage rolled exceeds your armor's damage reduction (which is to say, you suffer at least 1 point of damage before applying "1 point minimum" rule). The effectiveness of this will vary according to how much damage the monster inflicts, but should be a relatively elegant solution in most cases. It works best if a monster does at least d6 damage (after increasing their damage by one die level), so you may want to nudge damage upwards in cases where they do less than that.
>You can institute a separate armor roll on a d8. Anytime you get hit, roll a d8. If the result is equal to or less than your armor's DR, the special effect does not apply (just as if you had been missed). This is consistent, but inelegant, as it adds an extra roll. You could always apply the previous method, and use this one for fringe cases that are problematic (such as a ghost that inflicts no damage with its touch, merely aging you).
>>46645848
Having to have a hit matrix for each weapon is obnoxious. They payoff for the extra level of bullshit you have to go through is simply not worth it. Of course that's just, like, my opinion, man.
>>46645854
Well, it helps, but all the 'overt' Exalted stuff is more in the deluxe edition, not the free version - things like the 'exalted conversions', the martial arts, and the power armor.
The rest is building upon and refining Exemplars & Eidolons, which is also free. And giving it a setting.
>>46645841
Oh, I should explain that the percentages in the picture represent the damage per round done in the alt system as compared to the rules as written. So when it says longsword vs. leather at 13 THAC0 is 102%, that means there is a 2% increase in damage per round under the alt system.
>>46643556
that's fucking cool. Saved.
>>46645020
this depends heavily on the culture you're putting your game into. That said, a variation on 'they're pauper weapons' might work?
>>46645020
I can't really help you there. I restrict my clerics to a few thematic weapons based on their god's sphere of influence.
>>46644490
> >2d6 zombie crocodiles
>>46644566
> There will be human skeletons on the shore with damage from a powerful bite. A character with a more outdoorsy background might recognize it as a crocodile.
Meh.
Unless players are conditioned, they will not make the connection. Have 2-3 PCs for each player - that's my suggestion.
>>46645854
> The impression I get from following the dev is that it didn't start out as being OSR-Exalted, but then at some point before the kickstarter he decided to pander and market to the Exalted crowd.
E&E was made as an example of RPG product formatting, but people liked it, called it OSR: the Exalted and demanded expanded ruleset. So he made it.
>>46644490
>Is this unfair or cruel?
Nah, that's fine. It's a funnel adventure, people are supposed to die. I'd probably not leave any hints at all except the meta hint that it seems too easy to just swim over and get the boat. Then when a guy gets bitten in half by the crocs, that's the hint to the survivors.
>>46645650
Why would you even want armor as DR? It's less realistic and it doesn't play well. Genuinely curious here.
>>46646909
I think it's actually more realistic, and plays better. Armor shouldn't make it harder to actually hit you, and damage reduction can still represent glancing blows.
>>46646927
I don't know what SoS is, but probably, unless it also has a previous step of checking whether you even hit the armor. Daggers were in common use against plate armor *because* if you get to grappling a plated guy, it's the easiest weapon to punch into the gaps in the armor with.
So yeah, unless it uses both armor-as-avoidance and armor-as-DR, it's unrealistic.
>>46646973
>I think it's actually more realistic
Well, it's a shame your mind rays don't change reality, then. Tons of people inRPG history have had that brainfart, "but armor lets you soak damage! It's DR!" and then made games where the outcomes of fights, various weapon matchups, just don't make any damn sense.
>Armor shouldn't make it harder to actually hit you
Yes it should, that's literally what armor does, it's a thing that's between you and weapons that makes it harder to hit *you* instead of it.
But I take it from this that if you are that Anon upthread, you don't have some intriguing new reason for wanting DR armor. Which I guess answers what I really wanted to know. Thanks!
>>46647014
Triggered through Armor? That's new
>>46646909
Leaving aside the realism argument, which is debatable, it plays much, much better. When dividing the attack process into two steps, it's instinctive to make the first part whether you hit and the second part how much damage you do whether you hit. Look at it this way:
Armor as DR:
Did you hit?
If you hit, how effectively did you hit?
Armor as accuracy reduction:
Did you hit effectively enough to inflict damage?
If you hit effectively enough to inflict damage, how effectively did you hit within that range?
That second one is a mess. And during actual game play, it tends to come across like the guy in platemail is the dodging-est motherfucker around that you just plain can't hit.
>>46647043
Not really. I've always been triggered by DR armor, since the first time I bought a Basic Roleplaying derivate and realized that daggers couldn't do enough damage to ever hurt a guy in plate.I call it PTSDR.
>>46646979
>Daggers were in common use against plate armor *because* if you get to grappling a plated guy, it's the easiest weapon to punch into the gaps in the armor with.
I'm just going to point out that armor-as-accuracy-reduction does not make people use daggers vs. plate armor, so your argument is imperfect at best.
>>46647048
>during actual game play, it tends to come across like the guy in platemail is the dodging-est motherfucker around that you just plain can't hit.
Your mind's eye's just myopic, bro. I don't think anybody else has ever looked at a failed roll against high ARMOR CLASS and gone "damn that boy can jump!"
I remember your weird instinct claims from previous /osrg/ and also remember you got taken to pieces by a helpful anon last time you broke them out, so I won't waste time on a rerun of that.
>>46647014
>Which I guess answers what I really wanted to know. Thanks!
faggot
>>46647048
>Leaving aside the realism argument
What do you think would do armor realistically? Games tend to go with either damage reduction or a static defense.
>>46647083
To follow up on this, you could do DR armor with a minimum of 1 damage on a hit, and maybe ignore armor on a maximum roll, which would occur with a dagger more often.
>>46647083
Well, nobody starts out using them IRL either, so that's fine. I admit there's a flaw in the grappling rules, though -- people should go to ground more often. (IIRC most editions of D&D allow free use of daggers in grappling, but that might just be a false memory from my own group always using that as a houserule without needing to say it)
>>46647105
>faggot
Whoreson! But no, I actually was curious if you? had some cool new reason for it. I'm not opposed to invention.
>>46647059
>PTSDR
I like you
>>46647099
>I don't think anybody else has ever looked at a failed roll against high ARMOR CLASS and gone "damn that boy can jump!"
I know more than a couple people who are very reluctant to play D&D primarily because they absolutely hate the way AC makes the game play. And your tomfoolery aside (yeah, I said it: tomfoolery), it's actually a very common complaint. And keep in mind that nobody came in here and told you that you were an idiot for playing armor-as-accuracy-reduction or even criticized it until challenged on the subject, so before you call somebody else a faggot like you do here >>46647105, you might want to consider that the faggot is you.
>I remember your weird instinct claims from previous /osrg/ and also remember you got taken to pieces by a helpful anon last time you broke them out, so I won't waste time on a rerun of that.
Then you're remembering wrong, because that never happened.
>>46647115
This actually sounds workable, really.
>>46647192
>before you call somebody else a faggot like you do here >>46647105, you might want to consider that the faggot is you.
Try to pay attention. That was another Anon calling ME a faggot.
>>46647229
Way to disregard the rest of the point.
I know you fellows are busy with armor arguments, but can anyone give me some advice on how to count torches in LotFP?
Because I'm not sure if having 10 torches on hand would cause 2 encumbrance points or not?
Similar question about rations.
How to count these things in?
What's the difference between standard rations and iron rations?
>>46647242
>I'm not sure if having 10 torches on hand would cause 2 encumbrance points or not?
I don't have the Rules & Magic book, just the Grindhouse box, but that's how I understood it, yeah, two points of encumbrance. It makes intuitive sense to me, ten torches is a pretty thick, unwieldy bunch even if you tie them together.
>>46647229
Oh. Well, mea culpa then. I apologize for mischaracterizing you. I was apparently dividing my attention between too many things.
>>46647262
In real life iron rations were tinned shit that lasted for a long time and that British soldiers carried in their belt in WWI, for emergencies. It was called "iron" because the tin cans were steel cans at the time. In-game, I think it was originally meant to describe the same thing, rations that didn't spoil but were relatively unpleasant to eat (so presumably hardtack, salt beef and so on in a D&D world), but eventually it seems like it became "extra strength rations", especially in the computer games that used them.
>>46647262
The standard ones are wrinkled.Iron rations are lighter and less prone to spoilage, being things like dried meat, trail mix and so forth.
>>46647289
Not too sure how to feel about this. It sounds a bit weird, considering I always ignored encumbrance,
but on the other hand, this forces the party to work together and divide the load.
>>46647348
I don't doubt it sounds goofy, if you're used to ignoring encumbrance. But encumbrance is one of the trinity of mechanics (encumbrance, strict time, wandering monsters) that makes old school dungeon exploration tick; I really recommend trying it out. Not because I'm 100% convinced you'll see Jesus, but because it's really worth trying that style and seeing if it's for you.
>>46647396
Actually sounds pretty damn awesome, I'm just double-checking so I don't freeze at the table.
>>46647083
Funnily, enough, both Chainmail and Greyhawk had daggers be shit at hitting armored opponents but then exceptionally deadly if that same opponent was prone on the ground.
Which AD&D then erased and replaced with a universal +4 against prone. I think. People talk about OD&D's bad organization a lot, but at least it's badly organized in a small amount of pages - AD&D is hella dense.
>>46646198
Each player is going to have 3-4 PCs
>>46647892
Then you don't need skeletons. Maybe a few bones on the coast.
After all, crocodiles don't "eat" prey when they find it, but drag it down to the bottow of the lake/river before eating it.
>>46647960
I was kinda going for a fantasy vietnam feel. The players are kinda like soldiers wading in a chest high rice paddy, when suddenly one of their number goes down from a booby trap.
>It's highly lethal dungeoncrawl
>"It ain't me" starts playing
I've been thinking about modifiers to stats. Rather than requiring minimums and maximums for a class or race, or giving bonuses or penalties, how about using the following method:
For an attribute that you'd expect to be 'good' (such as dexterity for a thief, or constitution for a dwarf) you roll 4d6 and take the best three.
For an attribute that you'd expect to be 'poor' (such as strength for a halfling or intelligence for a fighter), you roll 4d6 and take the worst three.
You'd get as many 'good' and 'poor' stats, so it averages out.
On top of this, if you roll 3d6*10 for starting money, you could have this roll for cash be good (for richer races/classes) or poor (for poorer races/classes).
This way, attributes will probably roughly match what's expected for your race or class, but aren't pushed outside the normal 3-18 range, and you /can/ still get characters with unusually good or bad attributes compared to normal- it's just less common.
I'm not sure if this works well with the 'bonus XP for high attributes' thing. Probably not.
>>46648460
I can see the merit of it. One of the things I actually like about the 3d6 method though is that I often don't decide what I'm playing until I see my scores. It also has the tendency to leave me with stat arrays that I wouldn't have chosen for myself or thought to have chosen for myself. You get away from that thing where martials don't bother with charisma, wizards don't bother with strength, etc.
Your system will work, but I have a suspicion you'll be seeing ability score allocations that look more like point-buy allocations. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it's not something I'd use.
(That said, I always thought class and racial minimums/maximums were dumb and promptly ignored them, so I can certainly see where you're coming from)
requesting more one-page dungeons, plz.
I was thinking as a house rule to b/x to make certain first level spells that no one ever uses "cantrips", able to be cast by a wizard as long as he passes a save vs spell or perhaps a intelligence ability check, not sure which yet.
The spells I'm thinking of making cantrips are
Hold Portal
Read Languages
read magic
Ventriloquism
I'm also thinking of maybe making protection from evil a cantrip but maybe it's too powerful for that?
what do you guys think? Too overpowered?
>>46648660
I was initially thinking about it as a way to be able to make 'dwarf wizards' or what have you. So a dwarf PC might get good constitution and wealth, poor dexterity and charisma. You then roll up a dorf stat line, and pick a class.
>>46648785
Depending on your edition, dwarves might not actually be allowed to be wizards, unless you're throwing that out too. If you do, they should probably lose their crazy magic save bonuses.
I get your point, though.
Okay, so.
I've been seriously considering putting my stuff up on drivethroughrpg, on a pay-what-you-want basis. That's WP&WS and a couple of smaller games I've knocked up over the years. Of course, to do that I'd need to do stuff like proofreading and making sure there's no copywrite issues with my illustrations and stuff.
Basically, can anybody think of any issues I'd need to take care of before I'm set to publish properly? Anybody have experience with similar stuff? Advice for actually putting a product out there?
(also, I did myself a logo: going to call myself Dying Stylishly Games, which I think fits the ethos).
>>46648972
whoops have a logo.
>>46645768
>glaive
>bill-guisarme
>fauchard-fork
>glaive-guisarme
there was a point where the guys making this table should have stopped.
>>46648733
You know what those spells actually do, right?
Hold Portal means that a monster cannot chase you, or that a room is "safe" from wandering monsters for 2d6 turns. Or just that you can't be ambushed from behind, which is a big thing.
If you give it for free to the Wizard, don't expect a monster to walk through a door ever again.
Read Languages means that you can decipher treasure maps. Y'know, the things that 25% of scrolls are. The ones that lead to tons of treasure and magical items.
This spell is less useful than in AD&D, where it was just straight-up 25% of ALL magic items, but it's still useful. Seriously, look at those Expert tables. "Location of 3 magic items, 1 scroll, and 1 potion" in particular. You'll need to fight a monster, probably, but damn.
Read Magic lets you actually use scrolls you find. You get to figure out what two scrolls are so that you can use them later - this is a pretty big one, really, since it's potentially allowing you to swap a first-level slot for a sixth-level spell. Or tons of spells, since each scroll can have multiples.
Making this "at-will", even with a check, means that you have now removed yet another of the sometimes ignored limiters on the M-U's power. Good job.
Also it kind of infringes on the Thief since they're the one that get the at-will 80% languages/90% magic thingy.
Ventriloquism is a weird one - it's something that would perhaps be terribly overpowered as an at-will (or nearly so) ability, but it's also a pretty situational spell?
Like, it's one that you'd expect enemy wizards to use more often than players. Except that once they get Invisibility the players will probably start looking at it differently, and it also works fairly well in the general non-fighty style that B/X encourages.
Also Prot/Evil is ridiculously useful and I don't even know why you're considering it for this. The "cannot be attacked by summoned/created critters" thing alone is worth it.
>>46649231
It's a conversion of a chainmail expansion Gygax wrote in one of the early Strategic Review issues since, IIRC, someone complained about the entirety of the field of weapons being lumped into "pole-arms".
Although it might just have been Gygax being a huge historical wargaming nerd. It's definitely from a TSR article, though, the same for the bo/jo sticks. AD&D is mostly just a compilation of all the scattered OD&D material that they thought was worth reprinting, I think.
Also, you'll note that there's still some restraint - there's notes in the first table that the entry for "Partisan" includes the Bohemian Ear-Spoon, that "Scimitar" includes cutlasses and tulwar and whatnot, etc.
I think those might actually have been expanded upon as their own thing in Unearthed Arcana, though.
>>46648972
>pay-what-you-want basis
From what I heard that doesn't work out well. Look up what Kevin Crawford has written up on publishing indie RPGs.
>>46649267
>hold portal
you're right. It's more powerful then I really thought.
>Also it kind of infringes on the Thief since they're the one that get the at-will 80% languages/90% magic thingy.
I forgot that the thief gets those abilities.
>Also Prot/Evil is ridiculously useful and I don't even know why you're considering it for this. The "cannot be attacked by summoned/created critters" thing alone is worth it.
Prot vs evil is because I'm used to newer D&D and didn't realize how good it was on b/x
I guess it was a bad idea after all. Thanks for helping me figure it out!
Does anyone have experience running a OSR game with a rotating cast?
I'm planning on starting something similar, and would appreciate some more experienced Referees' input.
>>46648972
>Dying Stylishly Games
Really good name, props
>>46649428
>I'm used to newer D&D and didn't realize how good it was on b/x
I'd recommend running it as-is for a bit before making any changes - it's always important to know what the things you are changing actually do before you mess with them!
Some of the stuff that looks like a problem might turn out not to be, while some of the stuff that doesn't might be huge problems.
>>46649554
No, I have been running b/x for a while, it's just that I never looked at prot vs evil properly. To me it was "+1 saves -1 to enemy attacks" and I never noticed the "enchanted (summoned or created) creatures can't enter the circle" bit.
I think I'll mention it to my players, and it'll probably see more use now.
>>46648972
That would be amazing!
I have never published myself, but from what I've seen, it's not a hard task to do.
Best of luck!
>>46649554
As someone coming from newer editions of DnD, I can confirm this.
A lot of things seemed archaic and dumb, but worked surprisingly well in practice.
Afterwards I did homebrew some things, but not to retrofit it to be more akin to modern editions, but mostly to steamline some things (like stealing LotFP's encumbrance system)
>>46649656
speaking of LotP, does the "clerics get a spell at level 1 instead of 2" make a big difference?
>>46648972
I'm going through a similar process right now. Roughly, here are the things you need to work out as a whole (you may or may not have done some or all of this already):
> Give yourself a web presence somewhere. A blogspot will do. You just need a home that someone googling your things will come across. It will also give you a platform to post news and updates on whatever you're working on (as well as hosting stuff for the games - character sheets, etc)
> Check into whatever your OGL requirements and other licenses might be. Figure out if you want to offer any of your work under licensing.
> Get playtesters and feedback. Spread the free copies of your game anywhere you can. Look into G+ for networking. You'll find communities for RPG devs, OSR stuff, and other places that you want to reach out to.
> Consider setting up orangebox to track your downloads
> Acquire or produce art, if you can budget for it.
> Either get someone to professionally edit your piece, or have a couple relatively intelligent friends/volunteers specifically read through your release looking for typos and other errors.
> Seriously, get more playtesters. Always more playtesters. Your game can never be tested enough.
> If you can afford it, look into having someone do professional layout. If you can't, learn the basics yourself and ask for feedback on how your book is laid out in terms of aesthetics, clarity, and usability.
> When you have enough people involved, start a G+ community/reddit/whatever for the project.
> Then throw the whole thing on Drivethru or consider adding a patreon.
>>46648988
Great name. Love the illustration.
As a designer, I'll just offer the following suggestion: Make the letters bigger. For a logo you want soemthing that will work the size of a postage stamp and on a business card. When you print that logo small, your thin letters will disappear. I'd keep the actual layout exactly where it is, but upscale the DSG to fill the space in the middle.
cont..
>>46649759
It makes it an abomination.
>>46649785
>>46648972
>>46649348
> pay-what-you-want basis
> From what I heard that doesn't work out well.
You're not going to make a lot of money on it, no. But you will get exposure, and you're going to need that to build the following it will take to be able to actually sell games later. Your real money will come when you start making print copies and running kickstarter. Look at the LotFP business plan. They wind up giving their games away for free (albeit without art) and then make their real money on selling the printed copies and running kickstarters. Some designers also run patreons and the like in addition to it.
When you're first starting, building an audience is the most important thing.
Good luck, and keep us posted.
>>46649759
I somewhat feel like it gets balanced out by Turn Undead being turned into a spell.
>>46647242
Wait, are rations also counted per-ration? If yes, I've been doing it wrong as I've been calculating them per-week.
>>46649904
Which is simply awful. It's like Raggi intentionally did everything he could to make clerics suck.
>>46650223
To be fair, turn undead in a lot of editions is basically a Save vs Death for the undead. This is so bad that a lot of the powerful undead are actually given immunity to it, because the designers even recognize how lame this winds up being in practice.
Given how undead-heavy LotFP is, it makes sense to make clerics be more judicious in their choices of spells... and having access to healing magic at level 1 is crazy useful.
>>46650223
Would houseruling the spell progression + limited free turn undead be a good idea?
>rolls up LotFP equipment on random table
>4-5 encumbrance points
>can't move
Holy crap, people weren't joking, this is brutal
Am I doing this wrong?
>>46650352
Yeah, I totally understand why Raggi did clerics like that -- it's hard to do that weird horror vibe he's going for when the cleric can just go "lolnope!"
So, Starting my first game of b/x today.
I think I got all the rules right, but the combat rules is a bit badly organized. So I fear I may have missed something.
Other then the fact that it is group initiative, is there any particular difference in b/x combat order to say D&D 3.x?
I mean, there's a bunch of rules on whether you go with spells or move and stuff, but essentially, it's "side with high initiative --> Side with lower initiative ---> Start over"?
Or did I get it wrong?
>>46650586
Fighter:
Chainmail, Rapier, Torches x5, Oil Flasks x5, 50ft rope, Grappling Hook, 10ft pool, Backpack, Two sacks, bedroll, waterskin, tinderbox, seven iron rations == 33 items (if you count the oversized items and chainmail as 5 normal ones) which is 6 encumbrance points
Specialist:
Specialist's Tool, Spear, Torches x10, chalk x10, paper, mirror, crowbar, Backpack, two sacks, bedroll, waterskin, tinderbox, seven iron rations == 25 items which is 5 encumbrance points
Insane. I need to dump all items.
>>46650223
>>46650352
desu I don't really like how they made all the classes. I mean I get that they wanted to make fighters unique, but that just ends up making the non-human races even terrible.
Elves are just magic users that take forever to level, with a bit more staying power, dwarves are shittier fighters that only serve to be big hp tanks, and halflings are so pathetic I feel sorry for them. Why does everyone (including moldvay and mentzer) hate halflings?
>>46650678
I actually like the halflings, they're great at staying alive. They're like the newbie class.
>>46650653
Why the fuck are you carrying all that without a pack animal?
>>46650678
this guy >>46650752 has it right. Halflings (and to a lesser extent dwarves) are really good at Not Dying, which makes them great for new players. Plus the halfling's 5/6 stealth and the dwarf's extra encumberance are pretty neat.
I'd agree that elves are kinda boring. They need a niche beyond 'MUs that level slower but are less fragile'.
>>46650653
Bring a mule to carry your shit.
I went camping with pack horses once, and it was fucking amazing compared to backpacking
>>46650837
>>46650947
Random chart + level 1
Pack animals are expensive
>>46650599
>but essentially, it's "side with high initiative --> Side with lower initiative ---> Start over"?
>Or did I get it wrong?
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Honestly, I tend to ignore the order of operations (missiles then spells then melee) because I don't see much point in it when your entire team is going to get to go before your enemies. Letting people go in whatever order they want makes the game flow better.
>>46650994
Have a shared mule
>>46650653
Maybe sub in the superior ACKS encumbrance system. It works in much the same way as the one in Lamentations, but ACKS is by people who actually know how to make a game that works.
>>46650653
Besides what the other guys said about pack animals: why does all that shit need to go into the dungeon? Who brings an entire sheaf of torches -- five hours' light -- into one smelly basement they want to explore? Leave that shit outside, go in with spear, tool, tinderbox, two pices of chalk, three torches, and a backpack containing only the above and sacks.
>>46650678
A few things worth noting.
First, everyone starts with +1 to hit.. which makes everyone in the game better than your normal human by default. The wizard is a better swordsman by default than most of the people on the planet, who are level 0 and get no modifier to their d20 roll.
Because only the fighter goes up in AB over time, you don't have to deal with AC bloat in the system. Plate armor is basically always awesome as armor, rather than that crap you wear while waiting for your first magical armor to drop. The encounters are weighted accordingly.
Elves and Dwarves are both pretty in combat even without the ascending AB. They get the extra combat options that fighters get, and they both have better saves. Dwarves can carry more stuff (meaning they get away with heavier armor) and have way better saves, as well as dorfstuff like stonecunning (architecture in game). They also get more HP, which has been mentioned before. Elves aren't quite as good as MUs as wizards (less starting stuff) but I'm pretty sure they can cast in armor and get a bunch of other stuff.
I've played a ton of LotFP. Believe me, none of the above are lacking. In fact, if anything they outshine the fighter entirely until about 5th level, when the fighter's bonuses have begun to stack so sufficiently that he comes into his own.
How much LotFP have you played?
>>46650678
>>46651277
> Why does everyone (including moldvay and mentzer) hate halflings?
I can't speak to mentzer, but in LotFP halflings are -amazing- at what they do. They get a bonus to AC, bonus to ranged combat.. they start off with an amazing sneak and bushcraft skill and the best saves in the game. They aren't meant to be front-line fighters, but they are ridicuously good.
I don't know why you think Moldvay hates halflings though. They are basically fighters with a slightly smaller hit die, better saving throws, better ranged attacks, a bonus to armor class, better initiative, and an invisibility power that can be used in full plate armor. The only drawback is that they have to use "short" weapons - short swords, short bows. You could make an argument about the level advancement cap (level 8) but I can count on one hand how many games I've played in my life that hit name level, and those sorts of things are the first rule DMs usually handwave anyway.
Halflings are ridiculous in both of those games.
How can I differentiate bows and crossbows, in an OSR game where ranged weapons get bonus to-hit AND damage from DEX? And still have it be somewhat balanced? I'd like a high STR bowman to be able to outdo an ordinary crossbowman though, in exchange for investing in dex+str.
Thing about this is that XBows (and muskets) end up vastly outclassed because of reload speed. Even if I don't have STR add bonus damage in addition to DEX.
Bow: If 9-12 STR, add +1 damage. If 13+, add +2 damage.
Shortbow: 1d6
Longbow: 1d8 STR13
Warbow: 1d10 STR16
Hand Crossbow: d6
Pistol: d6? (d8?) 1 Reload, will have less range than a light crossbow at least.
Light Crossbow: d8 1 Reload
Heavy Crossbow: d10 STR9, 1 Reload
Musket: d12 2 Reload
>>46651277
Everybody in B/X starts out at THAC0 19, so that's the same across systems. Actually no, lamentations has base ac at 12, vs B/X's ac 9, so a 1st level in basic is a better fighter than in Lamentations.
>>46651478
Okay, I'll roll with it, but that doesn't do anything for any argument about comparing classes within LotFP to each other or the world within that system.
>>46651478
THAC0 19
As in, you roll 1d20+1 by default and have to meet or exceed TN20? Like in Godbound?
>>46650599
You're also supposed to state intentions at the beginning of the round before rolling for initiative, but that accidentally got left out of all editions of Basic. It's even referenced in Mentzer's Immortal set but that's pretty much it I think?
This is a very important rule if you ever want magic-users to be interrupted.
>>46651528
As in "to hit AC0, you need to roll a 19". To hit an unarmored opponent, you roll 1d20 and try to roll 10 or higher. If you have a high Strength (or Dexterity for range), or some racial modifier, you add that to the roll.
Armor class goes from 9 (unarmored) to 2 (plate+shield) and beyond (magic armor), and the to-hit tables are tables rather than attack bonuses.
Attack bonuses only came around in 3E, I think - 2E dumped the tables but still used THAC0 as a number that you were supposed to math with.
>>46647014
>Tons of people inRPG history have had that brainfart, "but armor lets you soak damage! It's DR!" and then made games where the outcomes of fights, various weapon matchups, just don't make any damn sense.
Runequest called, said you're a tasteless fag. Then GURPS sent me a text message saying you don't know what you're talking about and should probably stop.
Why does literally every one of these threads turn into "hey, I like OSR and would like to change this one thing" followed by endless responses to the effect of "no, the way it was done in (insert my favourite OSR game here) was the one true way, and (Gygax/Moldvay/Mentzer) was tapping into the divine wellspring of game design when they tacked this mechanic on to the ass-end of the game to solve this specific issue?"
>>46652074
He's right, though. The core mistake is assuming that armor makes you harder to hit. Instead, it makes it harder to land a "meaningful blow." Look at HEMA sources.
In real life, a dagger or a sword will not penetrate plate armor. I am never in a million years going to be strong enough or capable enough to cut or thrust through your plate. Instead, the way you fight a man in plate armor with a knife or a sword is to find the gaps in their armor and thrust into their armpits, groin, elbows, etc.
A system where plate armor would reduce the amount of damage taken is going to cause as many problems as it is perceived to solve. I hit you with my sword and you reduce X amount of damage -- well if it I do any damage, did I cut through your plate? That seems weird. Or is it the blunt trauma that gets through? Sure, let's go with that. Make sure you count that as blunt damage if your system cares about the difference. What about daggers? I should be able to get a killing blow in with a dagger if I can get you in the armpit, or otherwise significantly fuck up your day if I catch you in the groin, elbow or knee. That's how they actually did it.
To be "more realistic" your system then has to be able to handle the idea of trying to bypass armor.. which then immediately starts to look like "the better their armor, the harder it is to hit in a place that does damage.." and we're back at AC as written.
Now, you could easily turn around and say "Sure, that makes sense for swords and daggers, but what about maces and hammers?" Well yeah, they should. Which is why the original combat system was based on chain mail, which did exactly that. The problem is that when the alternative combat system took off as the popular one, bits of it got left off and ignored. Which is why the AD&D1e/2e versions were pretty terrible.
>>46652377
I think Song of Swords does it well. It IS possible to brute force plate with a good weapon, but only if you roll a good amount of DoS and have a nice amount of strength.
But the game has a lot of hit locations, so attacking through gaps is a perfectly viable thing.
The issue with D&D is that you can't move from there being one big body of hitpoints.
>>46652427
I've been following up on Band of Bastards as well, and they do the same thing (including the .. "cut to plate becomes blunt damage").
The "big body of hit points" thing actually isn't so bad if you use something like the chain mail armor v. weapons chart. I've been having a blast with it.
>>46652126
>(Gygax/Moldvay/Mentzer)
To be fair, I think the man-to-man rules from Chainmail might have been written by Jeff Perren. Also, you forgot Dave Arneson on that list. And Cook/Marsh. And Holmes.
And that's not even half of them.
As for your question, it might be because there's a certain undercurrent of primitivism that seems to be close to the center of the movement?
>>46652427
>The issue with D&D is that you can't move from there being one big body of hitpoints.
Hey, be glad that D&D didn't follow up on Blackmoor's hit location system. That shit is hilariously lethal.
For example, there's a 15/20/25% chance to hit a humanoid's head from the front/side/back. The head has 15% of your HP. Feel free to calculate that.
>Destruction of the head or chest areas will cause instant death.
Also, you have a cumulative damage tracker in addition to that so you can bleed out from many small cuts.
Very RuneQuest in some ways, yet without the armor-as-DR that makes that usable. Wouldn't surprise me if it inspired Steve Perrin.
>>46652494
>The "big body of hit points" thing actually isn't so bad if you use something like the chain mail armor v. weapons chart. I've been having a blast with it.
Eh?
>>46652126
I think that a lot of people in the OSR movement are really interested in solid understanding and explanation of these games, which is why we frown on what seem to be changes based on kneejerk reactions. Especially when you've lived decades worth of fantasy heartbreakers (or 3E) that all tried to do these same things with equally little understanding of how the system they were changing actually worked, this kind of thing is just "great, fuck you, nobody gives a shit" material.
If you don't understand why people shoot down your ideas, then chances are you aren't really here for the OSR. A lot of people seem attracted to it because it seems hip and a little rebellious, when in actuality it's more like a bunch of classics majors arguing over late 19th century translations from Latin.
>>46652126
Because the entire purpose of the threads is for legacy thinking and old school revival. The old ways are specifically what these threads are about, so some people take offense when others suggest changing or innovating on the standard OSR formula.
HOWEVER I am not of that camp, I like the OSR playstyle but am not necessarily married to its ruleset. I enjoy modern day minimalism and game flow in my OSR, thank you very much.
>>46651063
Checked it out. Basically the sane thing, but items get bundled?
>>46652992
And I think the numbers work a little better in play than those in LotFP
So how does the encumbrance system work in LotFP and ACKS, anyway?
I know that BECMI does the whole "everything has a distinct encumbrance" thing, while B/X follows OD&D in that only weapons, armor and treasure have encumbrance and the rest is pretty much filed under "Misc. Items, 80enc", but how do those two games handle it?
>>46653232
For LotFP check out the book. It's basically "each item (or bundle of items) takes up a line. Every 5 lines you have a point of encumbrance."
>>46652074
Are you high? Like actually chasing some form of dragon? Runequest and GURPS are the two classic examples of where armor as DR is shit and doesn't make any sense. Runequest in particular quite possibly represents the *literally first time* anyone ever had that particular brainfart and thought he was being more realistic when he wasn't.
>>46655108
I dunno, RuneQuest came out in '78. The Player's Handbook had been out for a year, and OD&D for four. It wouldn't surprise me if there's something in The Dragon or one of the various zines that were active.
Not that it'd be easy to find a copy of those early zines. I had a hell of a time tracking down pdfs of Pegasus, let me tell you that. And that was an issue in the twenties!
I know for a fact that there isn't an armor-as-dr thing in The Strategic Review, at least, so that's a thing.
>>46648335
What does this mean?
>>46655777
Subterranean fantasy fuckin' Vietnam, son.
>>46650599
here
finished my first game of b/x on b2 caves of chaos. 3 players, each playing two characters.
First, death count:
12. Including a total party wipe to an ambush of goblins.
They went to the caves about 6 times.
Latest party made an alliance with the hobgoblin chief and killed the goblin king for him, with the result of the goblins on the south caves being annihilated. It's now hobgoblin territory.
Death toll might have been bigger if I remembered the damn pit trap at the kobold entrance.
Players were amazingly lucky on wandering monsters, didn't manage to trigger even one.
What I have learned today: Mapping is hard. I'm not sure if I should point out when the mapper made a mistake or not.
Reaction rolls can lead to some of the best roleplaying.
Love can bloom on the dungeon
Goblins are the true chumps of D&D. Kobolds are way scarier
Slimes are fucking terrifying (one of the pcs got dissolved by one)
Magic users who choose their spells poorly are pretty useless.
>>46652636
The man-to-man rules were originally published in Domesday Book as "Whose Rules Are These?" because Gygax had lost the author's name.
>>46655736
Tunnels & Trolls, 1975
>>46656551
> Domesday Book
I've seen reference to this before, but I am forced to assume from the context they aren't talking about the 1086 Liber de Wintonia.
What does the Domesday Book refer to in the OSR world?
>>46645676
>>46645892
>>46645688
I've run a few sessions with the deluxe edition and it's played well, so far. The Gift and miracle system have played smoothly with Effort working as a limited resource.
It's faction system is much lighter crunch wise then the SWN faction system, and it makes more sense, because PC interaction can affect factions in MUCH bigger ways.
One of my favorite systems is the Dominion system, which you earn for doing heroic/godly things. You can then spend Dominion enacting changes related to your Words on the world, building artifacts/creatures, making structures, to making Teleportation Nexuses and Challenge Towers(Two things my players are making) to test the worthiness of mortals. Really anything is reasonably possible, it just costs a certain amount.
The system has been a blast so far
So /osr/ general, I've been trying to figure out exactly how to write up my own homebrew game rules and stuff in a pdf document.
I want it to look somewhat nice and clean, but I have no experience in graphic design. Also; what format is the best for roleplaying games? Two columns?
>>46657069
If you're writing for 8.5x11 pages, then you want two columns and a font size no smaller than 10. Don't worry so much about the fancy stuff right now. Most people will be forgiving as long as they can actually read what you're doing.
>>46655736
>I dunno, RuneQuest came out in '78.
Yeah, as a print game, but the Perrin Conventions that it was based on were for OD&D. I won't swear that they were codified before Greyhawk, but it's touch and go there.
>>46656953
"The Domesday Book" was Gygax's local gaming club's journal/zine. They were playing medievals, so I guess they figured that was cute.
>>46657497
Is there a copy of any of that floating around anywhere?
>>46657582
I'm guessing that would be improbable. The issues themselves are rare as hen's teeth, that zine went out to like ten local Wisconsin people or some shit.
Is he right?
>>46658467
No. He's just one of many who forget the meaning of the last letter of the "RPG" acronym.
hint: It's not "grenade".
>>46658467
I immediately lose any respect to anyone who talks about RPGs in terms of "scenarios" and "the storyline".
It's a game of pretend, not high art. You want a story, go write a damn book.
>>46655800
I'm quite literally using VC booby traps as inspiration for some low level adventure material
>>46658712
I fall in between the camps. When I'm not doing OSR dungeon crawls, I'm playing narrative-heavy story games. Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel are among my favorites, right up there with Moldvay Basic and Lamentations of the Flame Princess. They are two very branches of the gaming family tree that serve very different needs and interests.
I don't really get why so many people die-hard advocates for one or the other when they both have such interesting things to offer.
>>46658891
even in those high narrative story games you're not writing a story, or following a storyline. You're still playing a game.
No RPG that I know of actually forgets the "game" part of it, it's more like some players and writers that forget it (that's how all the heavy railroady adventures come about).
I don't mind realism, narrativism, simulationism, or whatever, I do mind when some faggot goes to say "this tabletop game of pretend isn't realistc/whatever enough therefore it's bad" as if it was a fact that everyone would agree.
>>46658467
>>46658712
>>46659016
I partially agree with the picture's argument but not entirely.
For starters he implies that an adventuring party having all different people of various skillsets wouldn't work together, which I frankly can't believe. Why is a group of all mages, all warriors or all thieves more believable? In fact, having a few members of each specialization makes a lot of sense!
About the bottom part of the dungeon design though, that is absolutely correct. Monsters living so close together really is very absurd and feels very video game-y, which I've never liked. That's why dungeon design should feel more organic and pierced together. For example, goblins are in this area of the caves. They've been domesticating giant rats as food sources and mounts, but a few escaped in the area. Now you have an explanation as to how giant rats and goblins live right next to each other. Otherwise, the creatures of the dungeon should be separated or have some kind of weird military-treaty thing going on in the case of intelligent monsters.
How do I make leveling up feel more substatial for my players. While it's nice getting more HP and an extra spell or better skill rolls, how can I make it really feel like a monument for them (without breaking the game)?
>>46660947
>Increased social presence with each level, invitations to various guild or noble organizations as skill increases
>Short description of how the character feels as they level up. "You feel your muscles tightening" or "You feel the power of your magic growing", etc.
Another method could be to try and do something like condense multiple levels together? So instead of there being a level 2, you just take all the stats, health, spells and skills you would have gotten for level 2 and 3, and fuse them into one. Maybe make the level cap half of normal, up to level 10, using 2 level tiers each, or up to level 11 since level 1 would be the same unless you buffed it too.
This way each level is much more significant then the last.
Any tips for AD&D? It looks a bit more complicated than D&D Basic and nonetheless the transition will be a bit rough. I'm using Labyrinth Lord along with Advanced Companion, which is pretty much Basic with a modern spin on classes. How hard is it to adjust?
>>46661569
I guess my first question is actually "Why?" I actually started with AD&D and as I fooled with it more I found a lot of the material superfluous. It seemed easier to use B/x and graph on the stuff I wanted after the fact.
The best advice I could give is take some time to really read both the PHB and DMG. .and then make a conscious effort to figure out what you're using and what you aren't. AD&D was basically OD&D with all the options put in one place, so there's a ton of material there.
Start simple and build up as you need it.
>>46652377
>it makes it harder to land a "meaningful blow."
I understand the logic of it, but it doesn't play well (see, for instance, >>46647048). And in a game with giant monsters it's all the more problematic, because you end up with giant-thrown boulders that bounce harmlessly off your platemail, elephant tramples that glance off your chainmail, and dragon turtle bites negated by your leather armor.
>I hit you with my sword and you reduce X amount of damage -- well if it I do any damage, did I cut through your plate?
Adventurers shouldn't be crawling through caves and dungeons in full gothic plate in any case, even if it does exist for use on the battlefield (and that's far from a given). And if we can rationalize people being harder to hit on your attack roll as blows glancing off armor, why can't we rationalize damage reduction as the added difficulty of striking at weak spots in the armor?
>To be "more realistic" your system then has to be able to handle the idea of trying to bypass armor.
I agree with this, but one does have to make sacrifices for speed and playability. Still, I could see a simple system whereby a grab one round sets you up for a stab in a weak spot of your opponent's armor the next round. More simply, you could, as previously mentioned, have a certain damage roll bypass armor: either a maximum roll, or possibly a minimum one (which would give you an additional damage roll that ignores armor). Either way, it's something that would happen with daggers more often than swords.
>>46662769
> you end up with giant-thrown boulders that bounce harmlessly off your platemail, elephant tramples that glance off your chainmail, and dragon turtle bites negated by your leather armor.
Dragon turtle is actually fine, as we can come up with the same plausible reason why a bite failed to meaningfully puncture your leather armor that a mace failed to break your ribs through it. It's the difficulty of landing a meaningful blow - part of that is the armor, part of that is the hit itself.
Elephant and rock-throwing giant are both examples of things that I'd personally run as saving throws for the same reason you'd roll a saving throw for a rock-slide. Your armor won't do shit.
>Adventurers shouldn't be crawling through caves and dungeons in full gothic plate
Agreed, but such is the genre, even in Runequest and similar.
> why can't we rationalize damage reduction as the added difficulty of striking at weak spots in the armor?
If a dagger always does d4 damage, and plate always has a DR of 4, then a dagger will never do damage to a dude in plate. In history, we know that people used daggers to finish each other off in plate. We also know that longswords specifically targeted gaps in armor in the same fashion.
So to fix this, you either need to have a system for bypassing armor, or you have to bake into the system the idea that the better your attack roll is, the more damage you will do (thus making you better able to overcome the armor). Either of these basically boil back down to "armor makes it harder for you to land a meaningful blow," but in a more complicated fashion.
Cont...
>>46663015
None of this is badwrongfun, but I don't see the advantage in a D&D style game. It's not inherently more realistic, which is the usual motivation. They are both abstractions taken in two different directions. If I wanted to play a game with a heavier combat focus, I could see the benefit (I'm playtesting Band of Bastards now, which actually does something similar and works pretty well), but for a D&D game where the fights are fairly quick and dirty (at least at the low levels I usually play) it doesn't seem like an advantage. If you're running a game with more of a combat focus, or that's an area that's really interesting to you, more power to you.
>>46663015
>Dragon turtle is actually fine, as we can come up with the same plausible reason why a bite failed to meaningfully puncture your leather armor that a mace failed to break your ribs through it.
Except that dragon turtles are so big they sometimes get mistaken for small islands and their bites do literally 10x the damage of a mace (10-60 rather than 1-6).
>Elephant and rock-throwing giant are both examples of things that I'd personally run as saving throws for the same reason you'd roll a saving throw for a rock-slide. Your armor won't do shit.
That does, however, have to be seen as an inherent weakness in the system. With armor as DR, on the other hand, it works out fine without having to bring in an entirely different system. It's just that the DR of your armor is insignificant compared to the amount of damage being inflicted.
>If a dagger always does d4 damage, and plate always has a DR of 4, then a dagger will never do damage to a dude in plate.
Okay, but that's up there with standard platemail giving you -20 to be hit. It's a matter of a terribly designed system. If you look at >>46645841, for instance, it has the DR of platemail at only half that of a dagger's maximum roll (3 vs. a d6) and has any normal hit inflict a minimum of 1 point of damage in any case. (I personally don't think it's worth the added step, but if you wanted results that were kinder to lighter weapons, you could have armor's DR be a rolled value rather than a flat one.)
>So to fix this, you either need to have a system for bypassing armor, or you have to bake into the system the idea that the better your attack roll is, the more damage you will do (thus making you better able to overcome the armor).
Critical hits could help on this. Similarly ignoring armor on a maximum damage roll, or possibly a minimum one (with a reroll).
>>46661569
Is there a specific reason you want to move to AD&D? If the answer is no, just don't do it.
>>46663015
>Either of these basically boil back down to "armor makes it harder for you to land a meaningful blow," but in a more complicated fashion.
But only in certain, clearly delineated circumstances. And that means that your dodgy thief with an 18 dexterity doesn't play the same way in combat as a guy with an 8 dexterity and platemail. And for the purposes of special effects and improvisation, you know when a blow actually connects without having to go through an additional step every time. And when the GM says "you hit" or "you miss", you know that's literally true.
>>46663024
To me, the psychology of play is the more important thing. Well, that and the way that, in my experience, armor-as-accuracy-reduction tends to lead to more detached combat unless the GM is really on the ball.
>>46663298
>>46663368
To follow up on these a bit...
It doesn't really work for D&D, but I've always like the idea of armor as "the best of two damage rolls" to "the worst of two damage rolls". That way, any reduction in damage is (roughly) proportional to the amount of damage the weapon puts out. So, for instance:
Unarmored = better of 2 damage rolls
Lightly Armored = single damage roll
Heavily Armored = worse of 2 damage rolls
You could even stretch things out a bit, though at a certain point things start getting a bit fiddly.
Uarmored = 2 damage rolls added together
Minimally Armored = best of 3 damage rolls
Lightly Armored = better of 2 damage rolls
Moderately Armored = single damage roll
Heavily Armored = worse of 2 damage rolls
Very Heavily Armored = worst of 3 damage rolls
>>46663298
> Except that dragon turtles are so big they sometimes get mistaken for small islands
Sure. I was thinking of something else.
You're branching into a whole different issue that really isn't about armor one way or another, but of about scale of the conflict.
A creature that is the size of a small island and that has a bite that huge already breaks the system's ability to talk about "realism" in any appreciable fashion. If you want to be realistic, it's a save vs death. Dealing HP damage creates the situation where it's possible for your character to be bitten by a creature the size of a geographic feature and not be instantly dead or consumed. If we want to worry about versamilitude reflected by mechanics you're going to be far more hard-pressed to explain how your character shrugged a blow that hit for 60 points of damage than I'm going to be worried about whether we arrived at that hit by DR or AC. Now you're stuck with figuring out how you both WERE hit by a giant monster bite AND didn't cease to exist.
> That does, however, have to be seen as an inherent weakness in the system. With armor as DR, on the other hand, it works out fine without having to bring in an entirely different system. It's just that the DR of your armor is insignificant compared to the amount of damage being inflicted.
Except that when you consider the situation, either trampling by an elephant or hit with a giant's boulder, you're dead regardless. If you're not dead regardless, then you have the above fiction (which is way more immersion breaking than how we got there). There's really no need to have a situation where you need to roll damage in the first place. This is why saving throws exist.
Now if you're arguing to remove saving throws entirely, you can absolutely do so, but that is one of those core pillars people recognize as "D&D" for better or worse. You've at that point started drifting out of the realm of "OSR compatible" or whatever.
Cont from.. >>46663584
>>46663368
You're not wrong.
> But only in certain, clearly delineated circumstances. And that means that your dodgy thief with an 18 dexterity doesn't play the same way in combat as a guy with an 8 dexterity and platemail. And for the purposes of special effects and improvisation, you know when a blow actually connects without having to go through an additional step every time.
I've never actually had any problems with this. Particularly if you use a chart with hit matrices. You can tell what AC you would've hit. If it's better than 9(ish, adjusted) then you would've been stopped by the armor or shield. I actually do this already when I factor in how I describe things to my players. If someone wanted to do something that wasn't going to affect armor (for instance, throwing a flask of oil) we always assume it's AC9, because that's unarmored.
> And when the GM says "you hit" or "you miss", you know that's literally true.
I can't say I've ever had that be particularly important for me. Either I'm dealing damage, or I'm not. If I'm DMing, I already take armor into account in my descriptions anyway. I can see how it might be a handy artefact to have, but not one I'd want to rewrite the system for and convert all of the existing material for.
> To me, the psychology of play is the more important thing. Well, that and the way that, in my experience, armor-as-accuracy-reduction tends to lead to more detached combat unless the GM is really on the ball.
It's an abstract system, and it's kind of meant to be. Which is fine.
Actually, this whole discussion reminds me of a trollsmyth post:
http://trollsmyth.blogspot.ca/2012/04/of-combat-acrobatics-and-not-so.html
cont..
>>46663698
>>46663368
What you and I are looking at/for is two different sets of expectations. Because for me the focus of the game is on exploration and sort of a fast-paced action, I'm perfectly fine with the abstraction as it is. There is a solid rationale for why AC works the way it does, and I'm happy enough to visualize it. This is also partly because trying to make one aspect a better simulation typically draws other things into question (like how one survives a bite from an island-sized turtle to begin with, given that if you have 61HP, 60 damage might as well be 6 damage in terms of how it affects your character).
You seem to have a desire to capture a more blow-for-blow realistic model of combat, which is absolutely fine. I get that fix out of other games (like I said, I'm testing out BoB now and before I was playing The Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel), so I'm not as worried about it in my D&D.
>>46641003
Tower of the Stargazer.
I used it on a pair of complete noobs, no experience in roleplaying games, and they did pretty well, with two TPK but they cleared the dungeon in four hours. Pretty fun times.
>>46658467
I disagree about his point about adventurers, but I agree that an areas in play should strive toward having consistent logic. It doesn't matter too much though.
>>46645768
>>46645879
Cool opinions, breh. I don't actually understand where you people are coming from. Is it just that you look at the picture, see a lot of numbers, and your brain shuts down? Or what?
When you pare down the numbers, you'll quickly realize there's only a few ACs that show up and only a few weapons that show up. Likewise, typically only one AC will show up an encounter. Against NPC types, only a handful of ACs will be present (almost certainly AC 2 for enemy fighters and clerics, 8 for thieves, 10 for wizards).
The level of complexity is absolutely nothing compared to, say, figuring out the area of effect of a fireball, which targets took which damage, etcetera. Or to GP/XP/etc.
>>46663584
Minor nitpick: the island turtles are probably Zartans. Those inflict like 1-100 damage.
Dragon turtles may be mistaken for very small islands but they are not at all geographical feature type beasties any more than Smaug
>>46663368
>To me, the psychology of play is the more important thing.
You gotta remember that all arguments about Your Feelings are going to be just that, Your Feelings. Remember that Your Mileage May Vary. I personally find the opposite, that the rarer, more meaningful, hits stir the passions more.
>>46658467
This guy is myopic in the extreme.
First paragraph is a roleplaying opportunity.
Second paragraph is a worldbuilding opportunity.
I don't think roleplaying is the right field with someone with such a lack of creativity.
>>46659016
Hear hear.
I am also grievously annoyed by the equation of "storyline" and "realism" that elitists often have. What the hell? The needs of deforming an RPG experience into a storytelling experience, and the needs of deforming an RPG experience into a "realistic" experience, do not equate to one another.
It reminds me of the failed theory of game-narration-simulation.
>>46665258
I was specifically talking about the logical breakdown into: "Did I hit?" and if so "How well did I hit?" And also the way this plays out in combat where "you miss" means literally that rather than "you fail to hit him effectively enough to inflict any damage". And yes, a good GM can compensate with description like "you fail to land a solid blow, and your sword skitters harmlessly off his breastplate" but I've never played under a GM that does this 100% of the time, meaning that we're talking about merely reducing the issue rather than dispensing with it. And in games where the players, rather than the GM, illustrate the effects of their own actions, you're absolutely doomed, as there is no way all of them are going to be on the ball about this sort of thing.
So what I'm talking about is trying to avoid a distancing from the action, which, in my experience, hurts immersion. It's the guy in heavy armor playing just like the guy with high Dexterity in light armor, and the mechanical process of combat encouraging people to compartmentalize and visualize things in a way that runs counter to the way they're supposed to be happening.
Obviously, I can't argue that your emotional preference for armor-as-accuracy-reduction doesn't exist, but I am making a more nuanced point than just "I enjoy things this way, so it's better."
>>46665353
>I was specifically talking about the logical breakdown into: "Did I hit?" and if so "How well did I hit?"
Yes. And like I said, any arguments that are wholly based off Your Feelings > My Feelings are going to be inherently self defeating, as I can turn it around and say "Ah, but My Feelings actually > Your Feelings."
>a good GM can compensate
But you don't need to compensate. There's zero to compensate for.
>So what I'm talking about is trying to avoid a distancing from the action, which, in my experience, hurts immersion.
And we're back to Your Feelings > My Feelings, to which I say, the actual truth is My Feelings > Your Feelings.
You may find it more "realistic." I myself do NOT envision someone attacking at a full plated knight with a sword (short of a claymore) and it ever being "well, you sort of get shanked." Nor do I ever envision firing a bullet at a guy in a flak jacket and thinking, "well, the bullet penetrates your body half as much." I don't know what half of getting shanked is. The vest is either going to stop the bullet from going into your body or its not (and no, two bruises do not equal one penetration), and the full plate is either going to make the sword be deflected or, more rarely, it will find a way to slip between the plates.
>but I am making a more nuanced point than just "I enjoy things this way, so it's better."
Well... the nuance appears to be "I *and a majority of players* enjoy things this way, so it's better." Or to be more fair "I *and a majority of players* will find *greater verisimilitude* (and therefore enjoyment), so it's better."
To which the proper answer is "no u."
>>46665411
But you see, consider the method of the book and hammer. If I place a book on your chest and hit it with a hammer, you take significantly less injury than you would if I hit you straight in the chest with the hammer. This is obviously DR in action.
>>46665411
I'm mystified as to what sort of argument you think wouldn't just boil down to My Feelings > Your Feelings then. Should we just stop discussing RPG mechanics entirely and just post pictures and links? Isn't most debate on RPGs going to boil down to preferences when you generalize things broadly enough, as you have done? We're sure as hell going to be curtailing a sizable area of discussion if we can't discuss things where preferences are involved.
But even if we accept your notion that everything here just boils down to preference with nothing else of merit, I'll remind you that this entire debate was set off by >>46646909, where somebody said that armor as DR doesn't play as well. So if you're really committed to your position, maybe you should focus on correcting him. But I imagine that you simply found yourself struggling for a way to address the individual points of this debate and just reached for "that's, like, just your opinion man" as a way to invalidate them and stalemate the discussion. Debate the points until that gets you nowhere, then argue that the whole discussion is invalid.
>>46665486
>This is obviously DR in action.
And yet neither the attack of the hammer nor the defense of the book is similar to anything seen in remotely serious combat.
Only thing I can think of are unarmed strikes and some of the shittiest of blunt weapons, which in say 1e fare appropriately horridly against heavier armor.
>>46665607
>Isn't most debate on RPGs going to boil down to preferences when you generalize things broadly enough
I responded to a post *about preferences*, no boiling-down or reduction required whatsoever.
>and just reached for "that's, like, just your opinion man"
I didn't "reach" for anything. I responded to a post in which he was putting forth that the feelings given were the active ingredient.
>Debate the points until that gets you nowhere, then argue that the whole discussion is invalid.
Mm, no, I chimed in on one point (the feelings that damage reduction gave him vs armor as deflection). Don't know where you're getting off to.
>>46665753
>>46665607
And if you like, we can switch to discussing the merits of combats with fewer vs combats with more hits to get the same results.
>>46665659
>nor the defense of the book is similar to anything seen in remotely serious combat.
A pocket bible is known to have stopped bullets in WWI.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2739338/The-Great-War-Soldiers-saved-pocket-Bible-whistle-camera-Incredible-stories-three-heroes-cheated-death-revealed-time.html
>>46656365
Reads like you had fun.
>>46663368
>And when the GM says "you hit" or "you miss", you know that's literally true.
But this is nonsense anyway, since each attack roll isn't just representative of a single swing.
You just seem to have severe problems visualizing shit in general, like you wedged yourself into this one weird reading of things and refuse to get out.
Why not do what warhammer does and have armour provide a save against the damage. So, you roll to hit and for damage, and then make a roll to see if the damage glanced off armour and does nothing. Weapons like hammers that are particularly effective against armour might reduce the save.
If you use flesh & grit (and if you don't, why not?) then perhaps a failed armour save results in the damage going to flesh, whilst a passed armour save means it goes to grit.
Just a thought.
>>46666151
It was pretty fun. Gonna have another game today. Back into the caves of chaos!
>>46667609
So you take the whole attack roll vs. armor number and turn it into attack roll vs. hit number and armor roll vs. block number? That turns a single roll into at least two. I'm not really sure what to think of that.
At that point, why not just do like some games do and have it be an opposed test with attack roll vs. block/parry/dodge roll?
I guess it might be worth remembering that D&D's system is from a naval wargame (hence the binary pierced armor/didn't roll and binary sink-or-swim hitpoints) and were instituted since Arneson's group disliked the "instant death on hit" thing that was present in Chainmail. (When applied to individual characters that they care about rather than armies of figures that they don't, basically.)
Personally I'm fine with D&D's system since it's relatively simple and "heroic" (due to the lack of death spirals), but that's just me.
Also I'm thinking of eliminating player damage rolls entirely for my OD&D hack so maybe I'm not really one to talk.
>>46667752
>Also I'm thinking of eliminating player damage rolls entirely
sounds unfun desu
>join osr game
>railroady as hell
Come on now
>>46667909
Hey, they still get to make attack rolls and stuff.
It's just that rather than doing 1d6 damage to an enemy with 1d6 hit points, you do 1 hit to an enemy that can take 1 hit.
>>46668197
I see where you're coming from, and it can certainly work (technically, chainmail works that way. you do hit dice damage, instead of hit point damage)
I do thing that for the player, it's interesting to have variable damage.
Question is, what about crits, if the system you're using even has crits.
>>46668009
These "type 2" guys who don't really care about the play style and just want the mechanical simplicty seem to be becoming more and more common in OSR as it gains interest from 3.X types. Ironic, of course, but it's not like there's a risk of re-losing the style, so personally I don't care much. Must be annoying when you look for online games, though, yeah.
>>46667470
>But this is nonsense anyway, since each attack roll isn't just representative of a single swing.
I far prefer the Basic approach where a round is a handful of seconds rather than the minute-long AD&D round where "lol, you fuck and around and do a bunch of shit we're not going to talk about for, like 50 or 55 seconds."
>>46668447
>I far prefer the Basic approach where a round is a handful of seconds
But in Basic an attack roll *still* doesn't represent one swipe.
>>46668624
It does in every game I've every played in. I mean, there may be some set up, feints and whatnot in between the blows you roll for, but you're rolling to see whether a distinct strike hits. I mean, when you shoot your bow, it's not like you lose 3 arrows for every time you make a roll to hit.
>>46668696
>It does in every game I've every played in
you've been playing wrong in every single game then
No RPG is dumb enough to imply each individual attack roll=1 swing. Because that is far too constricting, and makes no sense most of the time.
>>46668756
>you've been playing wrong in every single game then
When people describe their attacks in your game are they not describing, you know, one actual attack? It's kind of hard for them to describe a bunch of back and forth, because they would have to take liberties with what their opponent does. So while there might be filler between the important blows, where you jockey for positioning and make some probing strikes, you aren't actually rolling for them. And again, what about bows? If each attack roll actually represents a succession of attacks, why aren't you expending multiple arrows for each to hit roll you make with your bow?
>>46663368
You really should check out The Riddle of Steel anon.
>>46668756
uh, except that is what they're implying.
>Fighters getting second attacks and shit later on in levels supports this.
>Dual-Wielding attacks support this (second attack with a negative mod).
>>46641003
The B series seems to be a fan favorite. B3 or B1 get mentioned alot.
>>46668849
First of all, I don't understand how you mind is unable to understand that the abstraction is different when dealing with ranged attacks and melee attacks. Like really, do I really have to say it?
Second of all, no one cares about "taking liberties with the opponent", the DM does it when he's describing, the player does it when he's describing.
>>46668696
It's literally in the rules. Before multiple attacks got introduced, one round equaled multiple strikes
>I mean, when you shoot your bow, it's not like you lose 3 arrows for every time you make a roll to hit.
This is a good point though. I still like the dice mechanic somebody here introduced as a meaningful alternative.
>>46668932
>First of all, I don't understand how you mind is unable to understand that the abstraction is different when dealing with ranged attacks and melee attacks.
Wait. So it's so obviously stupid if you do it with melee that no RPG would use that method, but it makes such perfect sense with missile attacks that it's incomprehensible that I wouldn't immediately grasp that? Why? Why are they done differently? If it makes sense to do ranged attacks like that, why doesn't it make sense for melee? And when I try to do some funky melee attack, like tripping a guy or dropping onto his back from the ledge I'm standing on, am I not rolling for a specific trip attempt or drop attack? Or are you saying that I'm actually trying to trip him over and over, or I'm trying to drop onto his back multiple times?
>>46669041
melee attacks and ranged attacks are so different I don't get how you would expect them to be abstracted the same.
Like, do you even understand what abstraction means? It doesn't have to be the same for every case. Attack rolls are abstractions because actual combat is ridiculously complex.
Do you think fighters are just standing still taking turns while swinging their weapons?
Or that when the turn ends, a person just stops where they are?
>>46669041
While I agree with you that the other anon could have answered more calmly, and less accusingly, it's a clear edition differences.
Some editions had a clear distinction between multiple attacks, and others didn't. In such games, you always threw multiple strikes in that 6 or 10 or 60 second interval, but the attack roll determined if one of the strikes was meaningful enough to cause a real injury.
In such a system, the expectation is that, when using ranged weaponry, you need the extra time to steady yourself, take aim, and shoot.
It doesn't make sense if you compare it to the likes of ADnD which used multiple attacks, but if you look at it as an isolated example, it makes sense.
>>46669086
Are you the same guy getting triggered by DR?
Because you seem like an ass getting worked up over nothing all the time.
Had a bad day at work?
>>46669112
I get mad at people being stupid on the internet
it's a curse
>>46669094
Like I said, I'm not a huge fan of minute-long rounds, but even there I'd suggest that while you are often making multiple attacks during that time, you're only rolling for a specific one of them. Otherwise trips, drop attacks, charges and so forth don't really make sense. But I'm not very invested in that particular argument, because I'm not invested in AD&D. But our present debate at least theoretically applies to Basic, as it traces back to this post >>46668624. And even there I'm willing to concede that there is probably some stuff going on between the attacks you roll for.
>>46668322
>Question is, what about crits, if the system you're using even has crits.
It's basically just a simplified statless OD&D, so no crits there.
>>46669267
Ah, now I get what you mean.
Yeah, you're right there. You technically roll if only one attack hit, and the other ones are just there as flavor.
On the other hand, one might make the argument that damage dice may simulate multiple attacks hitting. In tgat case it'd be rolling to see if at least one attack makes it through the opponent's defenses
>>46669267
>>46669683
Personally I like to fluff this up a lot, especially basic and multiple attacks.
Basic attacks with a dagger, shortsword? A flurry of fast stabs and cuts, still dealing 1d6 damage.
Heavy claymore with multiple attacks? You just make a massive swing, killing four goblins in one might cleave.
I personally like OSR as you don't have to incorporate things like cleaves, mighty strikes, parries and stuff can all be added to the same mechanic, so you don't have to worry about 'builds' or balancing as much, which is great for a home brewer like me.
I don't know if it will work for you guys but feel free to try. For two different groups I've DM'd so far I've had them stumble across a room filled with treasure and one cute little black cat, the cat notices the PC's instantly and tells them to leave its treasure alone or they will suffer consequences.
The fun I have had out of it so far is that some PC's will refuse to kill the cat (and with the first group they turned on each other because one of them killed the cat).
The cat it self is magical and will come back to life eight times (nine lives, duh), but every time somebody would kill it I described it being very gruesome and brutal, so the ones who wanted to keep it alive would stop the other players to protect it from big bad adventurers.
>>46670871
Nice. Like the Guardian Familiar.
>>46670976
Exactly! I read it from a Dungeon magazine and I loved it!
>>46655108
Confirmed for not knowing shit about either. They both wind up with more detailed, realistic combats than any edition of D&D.
You're a fag, and you need to stop spouting off shit you know nothing about.
>>46652726
This understanding you take about is just standard after the fact justification you see in any old fandom. You see it in the Doom fandom with people arguing its design was a work of subtle genius (which in Doom's case, may be closer to the truth than it is with any old school D&D, since Carnack at least was a technical genius). The fact of the matter is it's just fanboy dogmatism of the exact same variety that leads people to trying to shoehorn everything into 3.5. It's a game, there's no subtle genius at work, and there's nothing about D&D (any version) that can be described any better than "basically functional." These are not elegant, well thought out systems; they're cobbled together kitbashes.
You're like the gaming equivalent of those sorts that claim Platonism has all the answers to the modern life, only whereas Plato was in fact a genius of a philosopher who has since been superseded, Gygax and Arneson were not that in regards to game design, who have also been superseded.
>>46671220
I don't know about GURPS but its definitely accurate for Runequest. Detailed, sure. Realistic? Hell no.
>>46671329
>The fact of the matter is it's just fanboy dogmatism
>who have been superseded
Nah. The genius people refer to with regards to old D&D products isn't anything mystical... its that there's a marked difference between RPG products designed by and for gamers aiming for what works, and RPG products whose primary aim was marketing.
>>46671467
Listen.
I like DnD. But knock it off. You're being a faggot.
>>46671508
Interjecting with a single small post to respond to a giant block of self absorbed pretentiousness is being a faggot? Yeah, nah.
>>46671508
>>46671329
Don't feed the trolls
>>46649449
> Does anyone have experience running a OSR game with a rotating cast?
You mean Salt March style?
>>46671543
>self absorbed pretentiousness
Not a single thing was said about myself in that post, you fucking imbecile. If criticism is pretentious, then I'm happy to be that. The worship Gygax and Arneson receive is fucking inane, and the only good points of the OSR scene are the points that take some strides to actually innovate with the base mechanics and attempt to improve upon the sloppy, haphazard design.
>>46671329
There's a lot of subtle stuff in the really old editions, although it could be argued to what degree it's intended. A lot of the things I find the most fascinating with OD&D got changed with the first supplement, after all.
For instance, and this is something I've posted about in these threads from time to time, but in the LBBs it's really difficult to be completely unable to hit someone. The highest "effective AC", so to speak, is AC -1 - +3 Armor and shield. One third of the time that'll be boosted to AC-2, but for the most part AC-1 is it.
The worst THAC0 you can have is 19. There's only three things that can reduce your attack roll (beyond magic armor); a low dex gives -1 to ranged attacks (so THAC0 20), making you unable to hit the guy with ranged weapons; a reversed Bless spell gives -1, but that MIGHT have the same "doesn't stack with armor" thing that Protection from Evil has; and a -2 Cursed Sword, which is the only one that can actually make hitting an AC0 target impossible (since it can mind control you to stop you using other weapons).
I doubt that it was intentional, but I kind of like it.
And then Greyhawk comes along the next year and makes armor and shields stack to AC-8.
>>46671686
>Not a single thing was said about myself in that post
A rant about people who don't enjoy the homebrew mechanics of such luminaries as Virt, cumgoblins guy, and presumably yourself is indeed self absorbed, in that its all about how your feelings are hurt because someone trashed on your favorite new mechanic one too many times.
Its easier to sell your pet mechanics in these threads if you demonstrate an understanding of why the original mechanic existed (as opposed to going "that's stupid so I'm changing it" as is the absolute norm). Basically, don't be socially retarded.
I love Runequest's crazy-ass setting, but seriously, the rules are practically the poster child for "awful fantasy heartbreaker" created to "fix" D&D, by people who didn't understand what they were fixing.
It's like the first major example of that long-running series of tragedies called the fantasy heartbreaker, with clunky "realistic" rules sitting right alongside worse caster supremacy than even 3rd edition.
Do people role-play less in old-school/OSR games?
Speaking in-character, doing flavourful actions, that sort of thing?
I know with RPGs every group is different, but these games and modules seem a lot more lethal and focused on dungeon crawling or wilderness exploration. So is fleshing out a character, giving him a backstory, a voice, a personality, etc. less common, since he can easily die on level one of the dungeon?
>>46671785
It's not a rant about how people don't want to accept homebrew mechanics. It's a rant about how people venerate Gygax, Arneson, etc. as though they were divinely illuminated prophets of game design, rather than a couple of geeks tacking shit onto their system. You don't need to understand why a mechanic exists to know it's not good, just like you don't need to know how a meal is made to know it tastes like shit, you fucking cretin. All this teleological bullshit is just after the fact justification cooked up by fanboys to paint oldschool D&D as works of sublime mastery to assuage the fact they're butthurt about WotC throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
>>46671797
>sitting right alongside worse caster supremacy than even 3rd edition.
THANK you. At least if 3e makes Whore: The Class, there will be some sort of (lame and easily duplicated by spells, magic items or skills) mechanical justification for playing it.
>>46671797
You've never actually looked at Runequest six, have you?
>>46671865
Nope. You're implying they finally fixed it? I'll have to take your word on that. What'd it take, 30 years? 35?
>>46671834
Why do you even bother posting here if all your going to do is insult people and bitch? Go have some fun and relax dude, you need it.
>>46671834
>You don't need to understand why a mechanic exists to know it's not good
You may want to know why a mechanic exists before telling people it sucks.
You could also get farther in these threads if instead of selling your pet mechanic by insulting what people like, you just flat out announced "I'm changing X to Y in my games because I like it" not "X to Y because the old way is dumb."
>you fucking cretin
Its interesting that you've been hurt so badly by people not liking your pet mechanics that you can't stop lashing out.
>to assuage the fact they're butthurt about WotC
Mad about WotC? The only thing "thrown out" by WotC was 2e, which had become an unplayable mess; the core of which was reprinted. The only reason there's an OSR movement at all as we understand it is because WotC made it kosher to do this sort of stuff with OGL. So you're way off mark.
>>46671865
Sixth is the only edition I've ever read and it does indeed have catastrophically worse caster imbalance than 3.x.
3.x: Here muggles, have a shiny consolation prize. You're stuck in tier 5 hell but at least you might get a shiny toy like dungeoncrasher.
Runequest: You want shiny beads? You want us to actually put effort into muggle classes? Fuck you, here have a soulless list of class skills. Hey warrior monk, your limo awaits.
>>46672116
Ah, so this IS just like all those other times in the past thirty years that I've been into RPGs, where some guy tells me Runequest is great now, and then I find out it's still terrible. I kind of expected as much.
It's a shame, the setting is so awesome.
>>46671830
I won't speak on anyone's behalf but I just role play it based off the alignment I ended up with and go from there, maybe a personality will emerge if I play long enough but I mainly play for the thrill of adventure.
>>46672179
I believe the revolutionary change (again, this is mere speculation because I don't care about researching how worse prior edition were) is that weapon properties are now in the game, but I found them to be gimmicky and lackluster. Those are the concessions thrown to muggles.
>>46671830
I would generally argue OSR is more roleplay focused than most RPG.
What it is not focused on is backstories (level 1-3 is your backstory) and character builds.
As far as roleplaying is concerned, less tends to be more. I universally find there to be more intraparty interaction in OSR stuff than in most other RPGs.
>>46671830
It largely depends on where you are in the character's development.
The biggest difference between OSR and something like Burning Wheel is that the latter is intentionally "story first." It's supposed to be about creating plots and different stuff that crafts a narrative, so having deep and compelling characters from the beginning aids that immensely. The fluff from the story helps inform any kind of rolls of the dice.
OSR is exactly the opposite. The story is not the goal but the byproduct of play. Characters aren't given a lot of definition at the beginning because they are supposed to develop over the course of play. My level 1 character probably only has a single line of backstory "a red-handed barbarian from the hill-country," but as we play the game I'll make more decisions and do more interesting stuff and that will develop the personality organically. By the time you get a couple levels under your belt, you've developed the character whole-cloth through play. The saying I've heard for this is "Backstory is everything that happens before level 4."
>>46671830
>>46672274
Since this post might be dangerously smug and superior sounding, I'm going to provide explanation.
RPGs, for whatever reason, tend to be about from zero to hero. I genuinely don't know why this pattern persists as a given across basically all things. Even stuff in which you start out as perhaps totally awesome (Exalted, Rogue Trader) still starts you off in a borked position compared to a high level character.
I only really consider the vague tendency in OSR for you to not bother fleshing your character out much to be the way to do it well.
You don't know what the character is going to be like, so why make a huge mission statement on the character before he's first roleplayed? I find it much better to get a grasp on the character over the course of four sessions or so.
As far as 'less tends to be more,' this is another subjective call. But what I mean is that OSR tends to lead towards scenarios where it is the PCs, not the NPCs, who are the active forces in the setting, and so NPCs are reacting to them, rather than the PCs reacting to NPCs. Emergent storylines are the best... in my opinion.
>>46672274
>(level 1-3 is your backstory)
>>46672341
>The saying I've heard for this is "Backstory is everything that happens before level 4."
That's a super interesting way of looking at it. Thanks!
>>46672449
In my experience it makes for different kinds of characters. For some reason, Call of Cthulhu does the same thing for me; your character Bjorn (or investigator) isn't a special someone when he starts out, but after slaying your first ogre (or surviving your first cult encounter), you are now Bjorn, Ogre Defilier of Merryhill (or Bjorn, that raving lunatic who keeps going on about interdimensional monsters).
That's not to say different system where you define a certain background are bad, but the narrative constructed is different, it feels more as if the narrative is a by product that happens to be really awesome.
>>46672518
forgot a bit. Different kinds of characters as opposed to games where you establish a background beforehand.
Like, being Bjorn the Ogre Defiler before you start play is less substantial in my experience than when you actually defiled that ogre during play.
>>46672412
>I genuinely don't know why this pattern persists as a given across basically all things.
Perhaps it's because of the feeling that you need meaningful progression, which for obvious reasons means that high-level characters are more on the "hero" side of the scale?
I think I've seen that avoided in some RPGs with either no progression or horizontal progression rather than vertical - that is to say, you get more stuff rather than getting better at the stuff you have.
The whole zero-to-hero thing might also come from how a whole lot of RPGs are trying to ape other media in one way or another and zero-to-hero is pretty popular in those stories as well.
I think the stories without "zero-to-hero" tend to be ones that either don't have it as a relevant concept (e.g. romcoms) or stories that take place during such a short period of time that it's not relevant there either.
Although even good romcoms have a thing where the characters have a slight "zero-to-hero" in how they become better PEOPLE by the end of the movie, I guess.
>>46672555
Amen to that. Having a thing written into your backstory is less meaningful to the group as a whole than having that same thing play out in-game.
>>46672518
>>46672555
I play a lot of Burning Wheel when I'm not doing the OSR thing. It's definitely interesting how the two approaches work in comparison. There is a definite appreciation you get from an OSR style character development, where you start off as kind of a blank and your backstory is stuff that happens in the game. You feel like you've earned it, and it's usually things that you wouldn't have guessed or intentionally created anyway.
On the other hand, BW satisfies a whole bunch of other itches. The depth of the lifepath system and creating your characters together as a group does some really cool things. Having built those characters together, you establish a history for them. The lifepath thing is brilliant as well because it leads to you building a history that feels meaningful before you begin to play. Once you begin, the beliefs, instincts, traits, and even just the skills you picked up along the way wind up informing a lot of RP. I get the same sort of feeling from session one of a BW character that I do from an OSR character that I've been playing for several levels in terms of "knowing the character." It does have a slightly different feel to it, though. Not better, not worse. Just different.
Either can work and be extremely satisfying, but what I think makes BW work is that you wind up creating the background of your character mechanically and in some detail. Even better if you make it as part of a group character creation session.
I don't think the same thing would work at all with a game that didn't have such an in-depth character creation system.
>>46672743
>I think the stories without "zero-to-hero" tend to be ones that either don't have it as a relevant concept (e.g. romcoms)
Well, tons of actiony stuff is absent zero to hero (in terms of power level) progression stuff, really. A lot of times its "we need this badass guy" with no real power progression.
>>46672412
> RPGs, for whatever reason, tend to be about from zero to hero. I genuinely don't know why this pattern persists as a given across basically all things. Even stuff in which you start out as perhaps totally awesome (Exalted, Rogue Trader) still starts you off in a borked position compared to a high level character.
We inherently crave progress. We want to feel like we're going somewhere and getting something. We want to accomplish things. Some people are fine with those accomplishments being purely in-story, but most want some kind of mechanical progression.
Zero to hero is the quintessential human story. It's the monomyth. D&D actually follows the most classical expression of that story - a character starts with basically nothing, goes off into dangerous territory, comes back a hero and becomes king.
>>46674337
Pauper->hero->king just refers to the social angle, though -- which could very well be present regardless of whether you started off housecat tier and became capable of killing a god later (and if you think D&D housecats are tough, most people legitimately cannot win fisticuffs vs a cat in nwod as they have an 80% chance of missing, 10% of inflicting 1 bashing, and a 10% of critically failing).
