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Dungeon level is actually pretty well paced. You can hack it with a small, martial only party if you know what you're doing and it gets much easier with a more powerful party.
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Oct 21, 2014 10:16
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Don't know where else to post this but... What are these and why should I be buying them right the gently caress now?  
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Oct 21, 2014 18:41
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Toshimo posted:Don't know where else to post this but... http://www.dndlead.com/grenadier/2000s.htm Apparently if you scour they can be had from $35-80 a set depending on condition and completion. mango sentinel fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Oct 21, 2014 |
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Oct 21, 2014 18:45
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Bundle of Holding has an "OLD SCHOOL REVIVAL +2" special right now (until the 19th November-ish) with a bunch of good stuff, including Labyrinth Lord, Dyson's Delves and Death Frost Doom 2:e!
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Nov 13, 2014 16:14
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Scarlet Heroes is also part of that bundle and I highly recommend it. It's tailored for one-DM-one-player gaming, but if you remove the Fray Die rules (and also possibly change the damage rules back to normal) you end up with a perfectly straightforward OSR game that also has a 13th Age-style skill system and a shitton of (East Asian-themed) world creation tables.
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Nov 13, 2014 16:20
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waqii posted:Bundle of Holding has an "OLD SCHOOL REVIVAL +2" special right now (until the 19th November-ish) with a bunch of good stuff, including Labyrinth Lord, Dyson's Delves and Death Frost Doom 2:e! Um...yeah... Seriously, though, the River Knife stuff is really good, open-ended adventures. Evil Wizards in a Cave in particular, since it's a very well-written mini-sandbox.
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Nov 13, 2014 16:42
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Any of you guys familiar with Tim Callahan's Crawljammer material for Dungeon Crawl Classics? I'm a big fan of his comic book criticism, like a rereading of everything Alan Moore had done up to that point, or a series that examined the issue of a comic immediately prior to an iconic run, such as the issue of Iron Man that came right before Demon In A Bottle, the Drunk Tony story. DCC! IN! SPACE! seems pretty appealing, but I'm unsure about the zine format. Is it worth it? Are the DCC zines pretty good in general?Halloween Jack posted: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. A combination of this and thinking that Immortals would be better handled with different rules. He said if he had his way, Immortals would have been a completely different game. Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 11:31
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Lightning Lord posted:Any of you guys familiar with Tim Callahan's Crawljammer material for Dungeon Crawl Classics? I'm a big fan of his comic book criticism, like a rereading of everything Alan Moore had done up to that point, or a series that examined the issue of a comic immediately prior to an iconic run, such as the issue of Iron Man that came right before Demon In A Bottle, the Drunk Tony story. DCC! IN! SPACE! seems pretty appealing, but I'm unsure about the zine format. Is it worth it? Are the DCC zines pretty good in general? I have a friend who buys all the DCC zines and loves them. I bought this crazy Metal Gods one with a random gang generator and a funnel that's basically a Fantasy Warriors (the movie about gangs). It is wonderful and the profits went to help homeless people. I don't know much about Crawl Jammer specifically, but the other stuff this Tim guy has done sounds worth checking out, so thanks for that!
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Nov 19, 2014 14:40
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A Strange Aeon posted:I have a friend who buys all the DCC zines and loves them. I bought this crazy Metal Gods one with a random gang generator and a funnel that's basically a Fantasy Warriors (the movie about gangs). It is wonderful and the profits went to help homeless people. I played in a couple of con games this weekend with the creator of that zine, Adam Muszkiewicz. He is good people. Metal Gods seems like it actually accomplishes what Raggi tried to do with Lamentations: create fun RPG material based on metal album covers. My concern is that I have a small child, and if he gets his hands on the zines, that's it for them! He seems to respect bound books though, weirdly enough. Here's links to Callahan's writing I'm talking about The Great Alan Moore Reread & Before They Were Famous Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Nov 19, 2014 |
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Nov 19, 2014 15:32
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Beyond The Wall, a B/X retroclone, has updated and is on sale for $4. It's a three-class game, very basic, with some fun character background and village generation mechanics.
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Nov 19, 2014 16:09
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Lightning Lord posted:I played in a couple of con games this weekend with the creator of that zine, Adam Muszkiewicz. He is good people. Metal Gods seems like it actually accomplishes what Raggi tried to do with Lamentations: create fun RPG material based on metal album covers. My concern is that I have a small child, and if he gets his hands on the zines, that's it for them! He seems to respect bound books though, weirdly enough. Uh, that Alan Moore re-read is the thing I've always wanted but didn't know existed. Thanks, dude--this blog is going to eat up my blog-reading time until I get through it all. For zines, surely you could put them in a folder or something, right? Maybe I underestimate the abilities of a small child to get his hands on stuff he's not supposed to! Changing the subject, my friend bought me the first four Hex Crawl Classics from Frog God Games for my birthday, and I'm super psyched to check them out. I love the old JG stuff, and just crib ideas for the old school campaign I'll run someday, and the Hex Crawl Classics seem ideal for borrowing like that. Also, thanks to whoever above mentioned the Bundle of Holding--my Old School folder on Google Drive needed more PDFs I might never get around to reading...
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Nov 19, 2014 22:55
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Silent Legions went live about a day and a half ago, now. I don't think it's been mentioned here. It's the latest by Kevin Crawford/Sine Nomine, this time focusing on how to make your own cosmic horror sandbox. Looks like really interesting stuff. Pretty much a no brainer if you like his goods. Already funded and approaching the first stretch goal, but it can only get better if more people show up.
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Nov 20, 2014 12:33
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Just a request, but can we change/explain Dungeon Crawl Classics in the OP better than "ahahahaha?" Being right above the "nope" entry which contains Carcosa might cause lots of folk to get a negative impression of it. Apologies if this conversation was had before, but as this thread gets new posts from time to time bumping it to the first page, I think that DCC deserves better. It's a gimmicky game with some wonky mechanics, but I wouldn't put it on a similar level as something genuinely offensive like Carcosa.
Libertad! fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 21:15
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So I think I've finally amassed more than one other person who's interested in some old school D&D action. A while back I settled on S&W and I am looking at the three rulesets: Whitebox, Quick Start and Full Rulebook. Can someone who has more than a single game's DM'ing experience recommend one over the other for any particular reason?
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Nov 21, 2014 21:32
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Libertad! posted:Just a request, but can we change/explain Dungeon Crawl Classics in the OP better than "ahahahaha?" Being right above the "nope" entry which contains Carcosa might cause lots of folk to get a negative impression of it. Apologies if this conversation was had before, but as this thread gets new posts from time to time bumping it to the first page, I think that DCC deserves better. It's a gimmicky game with some wonky mechanics, but I wouldn't put it on a similar level as something genuinely offensive like Carcosa. DCC also has some really bangin' art. It's definitely a "not-for-everybody" type of game and definitely laugh-worthy in portions in how ridiculous it is, but that aside it's a fine game with a lot of stuff that's out for it aside from its goofy dice.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:33
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Southern Heel posted:So I think I've finally amassed more than one other person who's interested in some old school D&D action. A while back I settled on S&W and I am looking at the three rulesets: Whitebox, Quick Start and Full Rulebook. Can someone who has more than a single game's DM'ing experience recommend one over the other for any particular reason? The quick start is just an abbreviated version of the White Box rules, as in it only goes up a few levels. The White Box is a clone of the original/0 Edition/three booklet D&D. It has much simpler rules, such as 1d6 +/- 1 for all weapons and far less emphasis on the value of attribute scores. The Complete Rules is a clone of B/X / Rules Compendium D&D, with much more fleshed out rules. You've got varying damage dice, more classes like the Druid, Monk and Paladin, and more high-level and out-of-dungeon options. I guess it depends on what you're looking for in your old-school gameplay. White Box is simpler and is much easier to pick up and play, whereas the Complete Rules are more representative of what (we think) D&D was.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:48
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gradenko_2000 posted:The quick start is just an abbreviated version of the White Box rules, as in it only goes up a few levels.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:38
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Gasperkun posted:Silent Legions went live about a day and a half ago, now. I don't think it's been mentioned here.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:59
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Lightning Lord posted:I played in a couple of con games this weekend with the creator of that zine, Adam Muszkiewicz. He is good people. Metal Gods seems like it actually accomplishes what Raggi tried to do with Lamentations: create fun RPG material based on metal album covers. My concern is that I have a small child, and if he gets his hands on the zines, that's it for them! He seems to respect bound books though, weirdly enough. Sorry to quote you again, but I just finished the Alan Moore re-read and it was great. Then I discovered he ALSO has a series where he reads Appendix N, which would be super appropriate for this thread: http://www.tor.com/features/series/advanced-readings-in-dungeons--dragons So, thanks again for the heads up!
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Nov 21, 2014 23:29
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I run DCC regularly and it scratches all the itches I had regarding table top RPGs. Feel free to ask me anything.
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Nov 22, 2014 04:05
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obeyasia posted:I run DCC regularly and it scratches all the itches I had regarding table top RPGs. Feel free to ask me anything. Any cool stories? How does the fighter's MIGHTY DEEDS thing work out in practice? How do you find the Luck rules working out?
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Nov 22, 2014 04:41
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LeSquide posted:Any cool stories? I've played in a series of one shots for DCC a long time ago. To answer your second question, the fighter in the game liked the mechanic because it allowed him to imply "narrative" penalties on his enemies to make his attack rolls more fun. For example, we were fighting a giant with a cat head and a octopus tentacle for his left arm. The fighter ran underneath it and used his mighty deeds to wound its leg enough to knock it down. This reduced the monster movement which helped me, the wizard, get to a safe distance since the creature had ambushed us. Then, on his next attack, he temporarily blinded the beast to reduce its chance to hit us. Then, after I failed my magic missile spell like a chump which made me realize I had to be more careful with my spells, he pushed the drat thing off the mountain. It didn't kill it since we weren't too high up, but it gave us time to push a boulder off the ledge (it was a big boulder so we had to work together) onto the beast since we got to treat the time before it got back to the battle like out of combat. The boulder did it in. To answer your third question, I personally am a little meh on the luck rules, but they work really nice on halflings. I don't like the permanence of it all, but the halfling in our group liked it since he gets them back. Also, in one of the one shots, we got a halfling with high luck who basically acted like a "luck generator" for the group. As for cool stories, I do love the time we were fighting the boss of an adventure. The boss had an annoying magic item that made him duplicate every time he died. So, I decided to use my patron's, Azi Dahka, Reap the Whirlwind spell. We were running with the "roll mercurial magic when you first cast the spell" thing (don't know if that was a house rule) for the game. I get the effect that makes you fall unconscious for an hour if you fail a fort save unless someone wakes you. I failed the save, but my sandstorm applied just enough of a penalty to the wizard for the thief to steal that annoying wizard's amulet so the fighter could finally end him. It felt like a good team effort. Covok fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 07:19
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gradenko_2000 posted:The quick start is just an abbreviated version of the White Box rules, as in it only goes up a few levels. Paladins are the shittyest class in d&d though. They completely supplant fighters, are always annoying and restrictive to group with, and are just too superpowered. I've been DMing and playing this system for over three years and we are only just now considering adding rangers to the basic fighting man, cleric, magic user, thief lineup. The basics accomplish everything on there own and there is no point in adding a class unless it adds something to the game; tracking and scouting ahead of the group is pretty fun though.
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Nov 22, 2014 07:49
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LeSquide posted:Any cool stories? Deeds of Arms are great because it eschews the need for feats and the like. Its an all purpose ability. You call your shot, and if you roll well enough (30% of the time initially), it triggers and something cool happens. I love it because you have to be creative and use your brain to consider the monster and your surroundings for something cool to happen. Luck is also cool because it helps with decisions like "Which party member does this ambush target first," and it also helps dictate how likely you are to recover from a mortal wound. It makes "burning" you luck to give you roll bonuses a really important decision.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:54
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CountingWizard posted:Paladins are the shittyest class in d&d though. They completely supplant fighters, are always annoying and restrictive to group with, and are just too superpowered. Now that I think about it, the idea that Paladins are better-Fighters but can only retain their better-than-Fighter-ness by being goody-two-shoes is probably where all the horror stories of DMs engineering all sorts of bullshit to make Paladins fall comes from. The game is practically telling the DM that he has to try or else this guy is going to really throw off the balance of the campaign. obeyasia posted:Deeds of Arms are great because it eschews the need for feats and the like. Its an all purpose ability. You call your shot, and if you roll well enough (30% of the time initially), it triggers and something cool happens. I love it because you have to be creative and use your brain to consider the monster and your surroundings for something cool to happen. That mechanic and spellcasting's "roll d20+INT+level to beat a DC of 10+[spell level * 2]" seem like really nice ideas all by themselves - the former to give the Fighter a lot more agency without having to implement a lot of rules (as you said, without needing to use Feats) and the latter as yet another alternative to spell slots (aside from spells-cost-HP or a spell point system) gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 21:30
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gradenko_2000 posted:Now that I think about it, the idea that Paladins are better-Fighters but can only retain their better-than-Fighter-ness by being goody-two-shoes is probably where all the horror stories of DMs engineering all sorts of bullshit to make Paladins fall comes from. The game is practically telling the DM that he has to try or else this guy is going to really throw off the balance of the campaign. Pretty much. For some reason most GMs see it as a challenge, or as something they're supposed to try and do. I remember on GM from way back being proud because he had a paladin fall for going into a burning house and pulling people out, because that was technically "breaking and entering".
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Nov 22, 2014 21:50
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Thing is, the Paladin isn't a bad class; it's just an easy class to play badly (though it does in part depend on the GM, as some GMs will make you fall for the pettiest of reasons). When you consider how high the stat requirements are to play one, and how they're required to be basically decent people (as opposed to murderhobos), the additional power they get in exchange seems about right.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:02
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hectorgrey posted:Thing is, the Paladin isn't a bad class; it's just an easy class to play badly (though it does in part depend on the GM, as some GMs will make you fall for the pettiest of reasons). When you consider how high the stat requirements are to play one, and how they're required to be basically decent people (as opposed to murderhobos), the additional power they get in exchange seems about right.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:10
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Evil Mastermind posted:I remember on GM from way back being proud because he had a paladin fall for going into a burning house and pulling people out, because that was technically "breaking and entering". That is the exact sort of stupid petty bullshit that would cause me to walk away from a game and never return. I mean, you could spin it into a whole adventure where the Celestial Bureaucracy has hosed up and filed form Xc-215 (infraction of local law, by Paladin) was filed instead of Xc-215(b) (infraction of local law, by Paladin during performance of duties specified in and cross-referenced to form Ph-04*) and everyone has to go and sort it out. Because it's a fuckup, instead of the Paladin losing all his cool poo poo immediately, it's working but it will cut off as soon as the form is properly filed and the process is processed, which should be in 7-14 business days. How fast can you get to the local planar branch of the Central Powers (Divine) Processing Office and fix poo poo up? If this branch's Recording Angel has mulfunctioned, then what else has gone wrong? Is it a malfunction at all, or is something malicious happening? But it wasn't like that at all, was it? * Ph-04 (Performance of heroic act, standard, Grade D, by Paladin. See appendix E(ii) for the Heroic Act grading scale)
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Nov 22, 2014 22:38
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gradenko_2000 posted:While I agree in the context of older D&D, it sucks when DMs are still in the "must make Paladins fall" mindset even when you're playing a game where Paladins are just another class that's intended to be balanced at the same baseline level as all the others.
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Nov 22, 2014 23:43
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Well, I can understand putting obstacles in front of the paladin because a character who has to abide by a moral code OR ELSE is only interesting (or worth having in the first place) if he actually does have to obey the moral code. But for some reason people always take it way too far.
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Nov 23, 2014 00:57
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AlphaDog posted:I mean, you could spin it into a whole adventure where the Celestial Bureaucracy has hosed up and filed form Xc-215 (infraction of local law, by Paladin) was filed instead of Xc-215(b) (infraction of local law, by Paladin during performance of duties specified in and cross-referenced to form Ph-04*) and everyone has to go and sort it out. Because it's a fuckup, instead of the Paladin losing all his cool poo poo immediately, it's working but it will cut off as soon as the form is properly filed and the process is processed, which should be in 7-14 business days. How fast can you get to the local planar branch of the Central Powers (Divine) Processing Office and fix poo poo up? If this branch's Recording Angel has mulfunctioned, then what else has gone wrong? Is it a malfunction at all, or is something malicious happening? I am imagining an epic campaign where a paladin falls for an unjust reason, gets [i]Atonement[i/] cast on him for a fee, and then fights his way to the Celestial Bureaucracy (figuratively and literally) so that he can get a refund in the name of justice and righteousness. Upon completion of the quest, the character is awarded with form letter of apology from Shang Ti, complete with rubber-stamped signature.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:42
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How your DM treats paladins is a good litmus test for whether you should ever play in his games ever.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:23
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Mormon Star Wars posted:There are a lot of reverse-engineered BECMI class creation rules. In addition to Dragon Magazine's article on it (in the May 1986 issue, thanks Piazza!) there's this: Don't know if this has been posted before, but Mormon Star Wars posted this over in the 5e thread. Thought it seemed pretty cool. Don't know if the math is 100% legit, though.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:40
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:How your DM treats paladins is a good litmus test for whether you should ever play in his games ever. Just emptyquoting this.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:43
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Tell you what, if someone writes a really good overview of DCC, I'll link to that post in the OP.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:50
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quote:OneThousandMonkeys posted: Arivia posted:Just emptyquoting this. Fix'd for old-school D&D flavor.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:52
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Rulebook Heavily posted:Tell you what, if someone writes a really good overview of DCC, I'll link to that post in the OP. quote:This game, I think, should not be good. Its not a tight clever set of rules-modifications from regular D&D, like “Lamentations of the Flame Princess”. It is instead a big mess of changes, with several questionable parts: the weird dice, the incomplete items lists, the added complexity in every kind of task resolution, the very complicated rules on magic (including the extremely complicated patron rules and spell-duel rules). There are all kinds of individual things about it that are just problematic.
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Nov 23, 2014 03:49
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jigokuman posted:Why is it that bad D&D always inspires the best stories? What I described was pretty much the plot of one of my old 2e games. Weird poo poo happening all over, and the reason is that the local branch office of the Celestial Bureaucracy has "gone wrong" and all kinds of weird poo poo* is happening and pretty soon the end of the world form (form Zz999) is going to finish being processed. * Clerics being granted Magic Missile instead of Cure Light Wounds, Paladins falling for no reason, dudes who were supposed to be reincarnated just not dying, dudes who were supposed to go to Heaven being reincarnated instead, etc. I'm not enough of a dick to gently caress with PCs abilities, but there was a very clear "7-14 business days" timer on the adventure after they figured out what was happening.
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Nov 23, 2014 08:27
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My pdf copy of the RC doesn't have natural healing in it. It's 1d4 hitpoints for every day of uninterrupted rest in the 1994 version, right? The pdf from dndclassics is apparently not that version. Edit: Also, I'm a loser and made this out of boredom. It's probably poo poo. Covok fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 08:31
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