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I'm working on playing ACKS with the remastered Wilderlands of High Fantasy! I made an executive decision to size all hexes up to fit the six mile hex template (made more sense given ACKS assumes a scale of 6 miles to a hex). However, the map sizes comparative to what ACKS wants for constructing a region are somewhat larger, so I think I shall need to work on rescaling how many interesting features there are.
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Sep 12, 2014 17:51
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Dude, keep me updated. I've been trying to tackle wilderlands for a while. It's so daunting.
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Sep 12, 2014 18:51
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I so broken down and bought the Rules Cyclopedia. It seems smaller than I expected though. Does roughly 300 pages with a black dragon on the front about to wreck up a dude on a horse sound right?
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Sep 12, 2014 23:37
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TheSpookyDanger posted:I so broken down and bought the Rules Cyclopedia. It seems smaller than I expected though. Does roughly 300 pages with a black dragon on the front about to wreck up a dude on a horse sound right? Yes. While the book itself is small, what you'll soon realize is that the text itself is dense as gently caress. Three-column layout with an 7- or 8-point font.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:42
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TheSpookyDanger posted:I so broken down and bought the Rules Cyclopedia. It seems smaller than I expected though. Does roughly 300 pages with a black dragon on the front about to wreck up a dude on a horse sound right? http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic?it=1&filters=0_0_44828_0_0 Sounds about right.
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Sep 12, 2014 23:42
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Evil Mastermind posted:Yes. While the book itself is small, what you'll soon realize is that the text itself is dense as gently caress. Three-column layout with an 7- or 8-point font. Yeah, and there is very little art relative to a modern RPG book, especially in the monster section.
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Sep 13, 2014 00:38
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Babylon Astronaut posted:Dude, keep me updated. I've been trying to tackle wilderlands for a while. It's so daunting. To begin with, I had people generate 3d6 style with 3 columns - the other 2 columns could be used to create backup characters (I generated henchmen as they were hired). They started out right outside of the City State of the Invincible Overlord in a ramshackle "Adventurer's Guild". To start the game, the party did the classic "hey who are you guys why are we here, well, let's have an adventure!" I generated about a page of thematic rumors and flavor bullet points for the players to digest: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13Ni9LFKVxZo-c0kejNMTLZ6WrJUKyYUHh2Gp1iL_pbs/edit?usp=sharing After deciding by party consensus, they headed out to Darkfield after getting some brief directions from the Guildmaster. Since it was by road, it only took a half day, so they arrived by nightfall. We did some roleplaying and called it a session - soon it will be RATS IN THE BASEMENT. I highly recommend purchasing the remastered maps that are separate from the remastered box set. The remastered maps fix a few naming errors and provide a full color map with a numberless hex overland, and a separate map with a GM key. I cropped the map to remove the border and loaded into Roll20, so now players can hop in to see labels of places they've heard of (but nothing around them) in addition to the hexes they have already explored - all 3 of them! Because the scale in Wilderlands is not that beholden to the setting, sizing up to a six mile hex is eminently doable without worrying about scale. On the "grand tactical" level, this would likely be expressed as adding some padding around the hex sides as is most appropriate based on description (even then, I doubt it's actually needed).
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Sep 13, 2014 02:08
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I'm curious, aldantefax - how did you decide what was the right amount of rumours to present? One for everything immediately relevant in the setting, or? I'm trying to get a grip on this sort of play since the project I'm working on is a hexcrawl in of all things Pathfinder. So while I've got the rules (including Pathfinder's own hexcrawl rules) and a good portion of the setting down, I'm looking for general tips and resources on running a hexcrawl. Any recommendations? I was going to check out ACKS and maybe the 1e DMG but beyond that I'm not sure.
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Sep 14, 2014 06:56
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Personally, I would recommend some old rear end Judge's Guild products, specifically ready ref sheets. B-2 keep on the borderlands is a great example for handing out rumours, true or false. New Wilderlands is probably better, but old wilderlands is daunting as gently caress. It's huge maps, a key to the hexes and tables galore. Just hard to run imo, and I dig hexcrawls. Welsh Piper has a decent primer: http://www.welshpiper.com/hex-based-campaign-design-part-1/
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Sep 14, 2014 07:04
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So I'm a playing in an ~18 month game of Blood and Treasure with a group of 5-8 players. The GM is looking for for a recommendation for a older A/D&D style game, to cut over to for an existing game. We've been mostly playing dungeon crawl-y type things, though dungeon can be big forest or whatever as required. The party are between level 6 and level 8ish. We're starting to have a few issues with system, mainly with the spells. B&T has big problems (in our experience) with how the spells work amongst other things. GM has been whipping out 3.5/pathfinder to to resolve disputes, but it's not super satisfactory. The end result is that there is a huge pile of house rules, and as the various effects begin to interact things are becoming a mess. Plan B is re-write all the spells, but that's a ton of work and the GM isn't super keen on it, so he's thinking of cutting over to a new system: What he wants:
He's considered (in his words)
Thinks he's not interested in (again his words):
Anyone got any suggestions? Spear of Dawn lept out at me, but it's probably an too an abrupt tonal shift. ACKS might be a bit to much rule-y. I have less faith in the rest of the parties desire to read a rulebook than perhaps the GM.
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Sep 14, 2014 10:29
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Arivia posted:I'm curious, aldantefax - how did you decide what was the right amount of rumours to present? One for everything immediately relevant in the setting, or? For rumor generation I did it by proximity from the starting location. I wanted to generate rumors and flavor bits that were important to the most immediate nearest settlements - in Wilderlands, Darkfield is a major agricultural staging point for the City State by its entry, and it's also about a half-day away from the City State. Perfect for a beginning group of adventurers to explore as a jaunt then come back (maybe with a few less party members for their troubles). Other rumors that are basically job postings are also rated as such - though, "out of depth" danger can also be lurking nearby. As far as rumors go you can generate them on the fly or via a bulletin board such as I have. I think three to five rumors per area is fine, keeping in mind that you're generating them because you want players to explore in that specific reason. Since hexcrawl is player-driven (in that they can go anywhere and do whatever there) it's important to give players something they can immediately designate as a goal along with some rumors and mysteries that they can go and explore whenever. Babylon Astronaut is correct in that there are tons of rumors that you can generate via old Judges Guild products - check the Treasure Maps line for examples of site-based randomly generated rumors and non-finished maps you can give to players as a handout. Using this proximity-based concept, the only rumors that players hear about are the ones in their area that they can action on. After a few adventures, it's likely that I will update the rumors sheet with more information or write completely new rumors.
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Sep 14, 2014 21:41
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:
Try looking at Labyrinth Lord or Swords and Wizardry. If not, straight 2nd ed AD&D is still a lot of fun and easy to use.
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Sep 15, 2014 00:53
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:So I'm a playing in an ~18 month game of Blood and Treasure with a group of 5-8 players. The GM is looking for for a recommendation for a older A/D&D style game, to cut over to for an existing game. We've been mostly playing dungeon crawl-y type things, though dungeon can be big forest or whatever as required. Has he considered Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Its crunchy with a neat spin on the magic system and seems quite fun
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Sep 15, 2014 02:45
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AxiomOnline posted:Try looking at Labyrinth Lord or Swords and Wizardry. If not, straight 2nd ed AD&D is still a lot of fun and easy to use. As I noted, he'd looked at those two and isn't that excited for.. reasons. Not actually sure why will ask and clarify. Edit: He thinks AD&D 2nd ed does the same stuff and may as well play that instead. quote:Has he considered Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Its crunchy with a neat spin on the magic system and seems quite fun He's a fan of DCC and thinks some of the modules are neat, but doesn't want to cut an in-flight game over as the tonal shift and (to a lesser extent) mechanical jump might be to much. Like the new character meat-grinder (which you don't have to use obviously) really sets a very different tone than perhaps the higher fantasy we have been tooling around with to date. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 03:18
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Has he considered/seen Whitehack? It unambiguously qualifies for all the things he wants and is still a pretty straight take on D&D.
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Sep 15, 2014 05:31
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Is Whitehack available as a PDF? I feel stupid paying $10 for someone to print it for me. (And I own way too many books already.)
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Sep 16, 2014 02:11
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moths posted:Is Whitehack available as a PDF? I feel stupid paying $10 for someone to print it for me. (And I own way too many books already.) Not yet. In this thread the author mentioned plans once they optimized it for tablets and various other devices, but it looks like that's still in the works. On a similar note, I've been sort of delving into OSR blogs and message boards. Which ones would you recommend checking out that I haven't covered? SOrry if this has been brought up before elsewhere. I've heard good things about The Piazza and OD&D ProBoards (although registration seems disabled) in regards to community stuff. Grognardia is good from a historical perspective, and Jeff's Gameblog has some cool ideas although he updates very slowly. Bat in the Attic's cool for its sandbox articles, although I haven't looked at the other ones much. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Sep 17, 2014 |
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Sep 17, 2014 23:24
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I've been reading Dreams in the Lich House and Dungeon Fantastic a lot lately. Both blog's play reports of their various megadungeons are really interesting to me for some reason. Lich House also has some pretty cool world/megadungeon creation tips.
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Sep 18, 2014 02:49
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Aside from OtspIII, has anybody tried their hand at making a from-scratch hexcrawl setting for ACKS using the rules in the Secrets chapter? I have some vacation time coming up and I think rather than go outside and enjoy having some time off I'm going to give that a go just to see how practical it is.
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Sep 18, 2014 21:13
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Is there any retroclone that doesn't have characters starting as just plainly unfit for adventure? Don't misunderstand me, I am a big fan of low-level play. But I also think rpgs are fun when characters are at least good at something. One guy likes to smash, one guy to use diplomacy, one guy to blast enemies. As a DM I supply to each his own and everybody is happy. But when I look at retroclone rules, man it just looks like an infinite grind. ACK fighters don't even start with a bonus to attack or damage at level 1. Who wants to be that guy? Here's the kind of game I'd like: * Starting point where characters can at least do one thing well * Low-magic, slow progresion or anyway no power creep like any pathfinder campaign after level 6 * Skills that are simplified, like roll under relevant stat and be done. * Gp as xp. Love that idea. * Plenty of options. I have a pathfinder group I'd like to experiment with, but they really like the pathfinder "catalog" of powers, customizations and so on.
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Sep 20, 2014 13:23
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No retroclone is going to match Pathfinder's options. They spit them out like crazy, in multiple books a month even. ACKS for example has plenty of options with the Class Compendium, but they don't match Pathfinder remotely. I'd almost suggest 2e for the other bullet points (and it has a lot of options) but I'm not sure if there's an xp for gp framework. There's plenty of retroclones where you don't suck at level 1 - Darker Dungeons, S&W, whatever - but at least the ones I'm familiar with don't fit what you're looking for.
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Sep 20, 2014 14:06
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I'd definitely agree with Darker dungeons for how skills work, though as Arivia said, you'll have a very hard time finding an old school game with tons of options (not counting Kits from AD&D 2nd Ed, where you have loads of options but you pick them at character creation). If you feel brave enough to use an entirely different setting from the norm, Spears of the Dawn might be worth your time - it combines the best bits of old school D&D with the best bits of old school Traveller, and the setting is Fantasy Africa, based off of African myths and legends. Spells go up to level 5, with the ability to transform someone into an animal, the ability to make their own shadow attack them and the ability to put them into a waking coma among the most powerful. There's a pretty good write up of it on the current FATAL and Friends thread.
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Sep 20, 2014 15:34
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Your best option is to just start them at level 3. At level 1 you generally suck.
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Sep 20, 2014 22:40
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My interest was piqued by a particular argument in the Next thread that supposedly one of the justifications for a Fighter lacking any sort of 4E-type martial ability in older D&D/BECMI was that he was supposed to gain lots of followers at higher-levels to make up for it. How was (or, if in present, how is) this played out? Do the followers get their own turns or is there systems to sort of aggregate them? Are there any retroclones that have particularly fleshed-out systems for this? How they're statted/equipped, how they level-up (if at all), how the Fighter picks them up and/or when does his followers replenish, and so on. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 09:10 on Sep 21, 2014 |
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Sep 21, 2014 09:07
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ACK is basically just a bunch of tables about followers and strongholds. Also I distinctly remember a lot of rules about it in the DM book for AD&D
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Sep 21, 2014 14:16
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gradenko_2000 posted:My interest was piqued by a particular argument in the Next thread that supposedly one of the justifications for a Fighter lacking any sort of 4E-type martial ability in older D&D/BECMI was that he was supposed to gain lots of followers at higher-levels to make up for it.
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Sep 21, 2014 17:40
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Also weapon proficiency.
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Sep 21, 2014 17:45
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And multiple attacks that didn't require standing still!
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Sep 21, 2014 17:51
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Yea, besides the fact that you can impale a dude or knock them out for hundreds of rounds, it solved a fundamental issue: your damage and AC scaled as you leveled. There weren't 4e style powers, but your golfbag of weapon mastery served pretty much the same function.
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Sep 21, 2014 17:51
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Payndz, you don't have PMs, so I have to ask here: I'm planning to run a game of There's Always A Chance * Can I confirm that Alpha 4 is the latest one? I got it off this list of retroclones * Thoughts on Fighters supposed to be having better saving throws than everyone else, if TAAC just derives them from attributes? * Rules Cyclopedia is what I should be referring to for the "OG", right?
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Sep 29, 2014 02:49
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The original game is Moldvay Cook B/X. That's the Red and Blue boxes from the 80's.
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Sep 29, 2014 05:10
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gradenko_2000 posted:Payndz, you don't have PMs, so I have to ask here: That was something that didn't really make it through; saves are only kinda-sorta like they were in the original, and I didn't factor class differences into them. Fighters could get +1 on all saves if you wanted, I suppose - maybe I should add that to an Alpha 5 version! No - like Babylon Astronaut said, it's based on B/X (Moldvay/Cook). Let me know how the game goes!
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Sep 29, 2014 08:24
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Thanks for the response! We finished our first session a little after I made that post, one of the players made a Fighter and another a Wizard. Character creation was super-easy and we were done in 10-15 mins, although I house-ruled that they'd automatically get 13 for their STR and INT attibutes automatically and only have to do the 1d6+7 rolls for the rest since that's what they'd be wanting anyway. We played for about 2 hours, where I set them up to help some colonists in not-New England, taking some inspiration from Ross Payton's The New World campaign. Some cattle had gone missing and they needed to find them. I set up some tracks for them to follow out of the colony and into a forest, where they ran into a goblin party. I was giving them the opportunity to try and parley but the Fighter was impetuous and just attacked, and they ended up discovering a goblin camp, at which point they raised a militia, attacked the camp and burned it down, but the cattle were never there in the first place. We ended the session with them trying to figure out their next step, since the Wizard figured out that they could have handled that diplomatically and there was really no direct reason to attack the goblins if they had nothing to do with the cattle. As far as gameplay, the Fighter really liked the cleaving attack and battle cry abilities, using them in all three encounters I had set-up. I was planning to use Escalation Die, but it ended up not really mattering since the combats didn't even get to more than 3 rounds, even with 6 goblins at a time vs the 2 PCs. For the spell Flame Finger, and other spells that specify an (INT) attack roll, AC is still supposed to matter, right? A 15 INT Wizard attacking a -3 Goblin needs to roll a 12 or lower for his 1d8 Flame Finger damage to go off? This ended up not really mattering at all during the game as the Wizard made both of his INT rolls. I made them do rolls for things like WIS to detect tracks and notice ambushes, STR for intimidating NPCs, INT for being able to figure out some kind of rudimentary communication with a goblin captive, and CON to keep up and run after retreating goblins. That last one was a 'crit' of a natural 1 and I told the Fighter he ran supernaturally fast and ended up running ahead of the stragglers. One bit of prep I did was to use Wizardawn to dump a monster list (Labyrinth Lord's, to be precise, but I double-checked to make sure that the stats were the same) and convert all of the AC, attack and morale values ahead of time. We have another session scheduled for Wednesday, so that should be good. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 12:23 on Sep 29, 2014 |
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Sep 29, 2014 10:00
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I have been wondering about the Mentzer Basic Rules and the boxed sets that followed it. Master rules had the portion where you are introduced to these insane multipart quests that can be completed to become a immortal. Did the Immortal rules or Gold Box make any sense? Idea of playing gods sounds kind of neat but I haven't really heard anything about it.
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Oct 2, 2014 14:29
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Sabbatron posted:I have been wondering about the Mentzer Basic Rules and the boxed sets that followed it. Master rules had the portion where you are introduced to these insane multipart quests that can be completed to become a immortal. Did the Immortal rules or Gold Box make any sense? Idea of playing gods sounds kind of neat but I haven't really heard anything about it. Gold Box was absolutely bonkers, and I think used trig to build your character. It was point buy, but crazy-go-nuts point buy. Wrath of the Immortals was supposed to simplify this, but I never owned it.
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Oct 2, 2014 21:09
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I believe Mentzer has admitted that the Immortal rules weren't intended to be easily playable, but that he wrote them because of popular and company demand. People wanted the gods to have stats, and TSR knew it would sell.
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Oct 2, 2014 21:37
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Wrath of the Immortals is playable in a sense. It's kinda nuts to actually play because you prepare spells as a 32 level magic user and a 32 level cleric and you have at will immortal spells so it is a book keeping nightmare with little pay off.
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Oct 2, 2014 22:20
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Speaking of ACKS I was still hoping to try that, especially some of the stuff in the Companion, like that one lizardfolk race/class. Or a self-built class combining some of that and the dwarf fury class. If I could ever figure out how to work that class creation thing. Actually there are a couple of Retroclones that I want to try. But no one ever seems to be running PbPs of them on the forums. Also I was surprised to find an SRD for Swords and Wizardry.
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Oct 2, 2014 23:06
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This is just a reminder that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition is still King poo poo of fantasy RPG mountain and you should all be playing it. http://www.purpleworm.org/rules/
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Oct 3, 2014 14:56
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Silhouette posted:This is just a reminder that Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 2nd Edition is still King poo poo of fantasy RPG mountain and you should all be playing it. It's what I grew up with; though, we used to do AD&D 2e + AD&D 1e DMG random dungeon generation rules for a fairly lengthy campaign. It also involved me rolling up a Paladin with a natural 17 Charisma who used a 2-handed sword and got strong enough to ride a giant crab.
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Oct 3, 2014 19:47
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