|
Darts. A dart specialist is a good guarantee that a wizard will never cast.
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2015 19:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
remusclaw posted:I don't mind a switch to ascending AC, but the single saving throw thing changes up the class balance too much for my taste. For one they gave magic users better saves than fighters. who are tied with dwarves for the worse saves at the highest level.. In my experience, having a single saving throw makes things much more flexible, since you can just throw in situational modifiers without having to decide which save(s) it should apply to.
|
|
#
?
Sep 28, 2015 09:20
|
|
|
Not sure where else to ask this but, about a month or two ago I was bored at work and browsing through stack exchange (at least I *think* it was there) and I came across a description of a sort of super simplified, just let the adventurers adventure D&D style game. I can't recall what it was called well enough to pick from the list in the OP of this thread if it's even there, but I can distinctly remember that there were no melee rounds, turns, etc. It was just: player does an action, rolls for an outcome which is either Complete Success, Partial Success or Failure. IIRC, people on these very forums were coming up with descriptions for what those 3 outcomes meant in a given situation. I liked it because it sounds like it didn't get bogged down in rules and constant dice rolling for everything, etc. Does anyone know what I'm thinking of? Thanks in advance.
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2015 17:28
|
|
|
You're thinking about Dungeon World. The SA thread for it: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3540201
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2015 17:33
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:You're thinking about Dungeon World. That's the one. Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Sep 30, 2015 17:51
|
|
|
I have been running Darker Dungeons on IRC for the past two months and it's been going decently but I feel like the combat and skill spreads are somewhat suspect. I am aiming to get around this by accelerating the experience track significantly rather than throwing more monsters at the party up until they get up to a reasonable power level and have a few weapon feats. Rules Cyclopedia is tough!
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 00:22
|
|
|
HaB posted:Not sure where else to ask this but, about a month or two ago I was bored at work and browsing through stack exchange (at least I *think* it was there) and I came across a description of a sort of super simplified, just let the adventurers adventure D&D style game. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 04:31
|
|
|
aldantefax posted:I have been running Darker Dungeons on IRC for the past two months and it's been going decently but I feel like the combat and skill spreads are somewhat suspect. I am aiming to get around this by accelerating the experience track significantly rather than throwing more monsters at the party up until they get up to a reasonable power level and have a few weapon feats. Rules Cyclopedia is tough! If you don't mind, could you share some of your experience with running games through IRC, particularly the how? And I think the explicit skill system is one of the things that Darker Dungeons adds that wasn't in the original RC, so it's possible that that's why it's a weaker part of the game.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 04:41
|
|
|
You didn't know about this?
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 04:42
|
|
|
 Nope. I never make it out of the shallow-end sql/c# stuff I need to (hopefully) figure out what someone else broke so that I can yell/pass it along. But now that I know it exists... 
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 04:57
|
|
|
aldantefax posted:I am aiming to get around this by accelerating the experience track significantly rather than throwing more monsters at the party up until they get up to a reasonable power level and have a few weapon feats. Rules Cyclopedia is tough! RP being some number (times) level for trying to match the game tone. (If that doesnt apply to the way youre doing it then skip it.) Class bonuses can be (some version of) the 2e stuff. Fighters get X (times) HD monster fought. Mages/Clerics get X (times) spell levels constructivley used. Rogues get X (times) skills constructively used. All classes get Y (times) useful-uses of non-weapon proficiencies (or equivalent). Goal bonuses: You made it past the guard room (any way possible) and reached the [thing]. +xxxx XP divided between party. All put together it can encourage everyone to work on goals and playing skills instead of "kill everything", unless thats against the spirit/type of game youre doing. Either way it adds some XP while still letting players feel like they are doing things to get it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 05:04
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:If you don't mind, could you share some of your experience with running games through IRC, particularly the how? We have a dice bot and we all just pile into a chat room and roll dice and chat. Someone usually saves the raw session logs as a Pastebin and a player has volunteered to do replay notes so that people can get up to speed if they miss a session. Because the system does not explicitly require a tactical map, you can get by with describing fuzzy combat. The trick being, of course, to reduce the amount of combat encounters to notable planned encounters - wandering monsters and whatever would be an 'unnecessary combat' would be better served by having different encounters instead. Since we have a mostly light-hearted theme going on it is not really a big deal - I award RP and session experience, and I am probably going to implement an experience pool award so that people can bank experience and share it among the party for people who do not level particularly fast, like the magic user (4000 XP to level 2 is pretty murderous). Pretty much everything that can award XP, I'll award it, but since our sessions are about 3 1/2 hours long there is only so much progression you can get done at once.
|
|
#
?
Oct 1, 2015 18:14
|
|
|
I've got six interested players for an RC game on roll20! A co-worker and two friends, one of whom is bringing his wife in and both have a co-worker who wants to try it. We're gonna do Palace of the Silver Princess because it's free. Found some nice re-drawn maps online too.
|
|
#
?
Oct 2, 2015 00:35
|
|
|
I'm actually really interested in learning 1st and 2nd edition D&D, I've played 3rd 3.5 and Pathfinder, but even though I've never played the first two editions they feel nostalgic to me. Most likely its because all of the media I consumed about D&D were those earlier editions, before I actually got a chance to play the game in collage.
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2015 18:49
|
|
|
Warboot posted:I'm actually really interested in learning 1st and 2nd edition D&D, I've played 3rd 3.5 and Pathfinder, but even though I've never played the first two editions they feel nostalgic to me. Most likely its because all of the media I consumed about D&D were those earlier editions, before I actually got a chance to play the game in collage. AD&D books, especially the DMG, feel like tomes of arcane knowledge because they're full of Gygax's weird rambling advice. The DMG and PHB are probably worth picking up just to read if you have a nostalgic interest.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 11:36
|
|
|
Actually Warboot, 1st edition AD&D isn't the first edition of D&D, it's preceded by both OD&D/0e(and it's supplements) and Holmes D&D and had the Basic/BX/BECMI/RC version of D&D sold alongside it for almost the entirety of it's existence(Basic D&D is also a better game than AD&D in most respects in my opinion, there's a reason most OSR games that directly base themselves on a TSR edition use either OD&D or Basic as the base rules, not to say that AD&D is a bad game or anything, although Basic is definitely more beginner friendly and easier to modify for one's needs)
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 11:58
|
|
|
Oh hell yeah, if you want to play an old D&D get the Red Box Basic set, it's goddamn awesome. I somehow read that post as "I want to read old D&D".
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 12:10
|
|
|
That one fellow finally finished and compiled a Quick Start Beta for Heroic Age of Tekumel: http://joyfulsitting.blogspot.com/2015/10/heroic-age-of-tekumel-quickstart-rules.html
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 13:57
|
|
|
Warboot posted:I'm actually really interested in learning 1st and 2nd edition D&D, I've played 3rd 3.5 and Pathfinder, but even though I've never played the first two editions they feel nostalgic to me. Most likely its because all of the media I consumed about D&D were those earlier editions, before I actually got a chance to play the game in collage. If recorded play is your thing, Roll20 has a series of Moldvay Basic being DMed by Adam Koebel (co-writer of Dungeon World). It's currently ongoing once a week. Watching it is what got me interested in finding this thread, even though I've never played any older editions of D&D, either. Adam does talk a little bit about the legacy of the game when various rules or quirks come up, but mostly it's just them playing a system that he clearly loves. incogneato fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Oct 18, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 17:54
|
|
|
incogneato posted:If recorded play is your thing, Roll20 has a series of Moldvay Basic being DMed by Adam Kobel (co-writer of Dungeon World). It's currently ongoing once a week. Watching it is what got me interested in finding this thread, even though I've never played any older editions of D&D, either. Adam does talk a little bit about the legacy of the game when various rules or quirks come up, but mostly it's just them playing a system that he clearly loves. Thank you for the neat find. Watching it right now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2015 20:01
|
|
|
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1409961192/dcc-rpg-4th-printing?ref=hero_thanks New Kickstarter for the 4th printing of DCC. The new cover is excellent. Most of the new stuff is in the stretch goals.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 01:18
|
|
|
alg posted:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1409961192/dcc-rpg-4th-printing?ref=hero_thanks Specific major changes compared to the current?
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
aldantefax posted:Specific major changes compared to the current? Largely the same. quote:The content of the fourth printing is largely similar to prior printings. The interior is very similar to the third printing, with some corrections of typographical errors, minor errata, and updated ads in the back. There is a new low-level adventure by Harley Stroh entitled The Abbott of the Woods, which replaces the short adventure The Infernal Crucible of Sezrekan the Mad. And there are a few pieces of new interior art where we missed white space on the previous three printings.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2015 04:02
|
|
|
I found a document on the internet called The Lost Handbook, which is a collection of old Dragon Magazine and Strategic Review articles from the AD&D 1e era that provides background commentary on D&D, as well as enough new additional and variant rules to be a sort of second Unearthed Arcana all by itself, except it's a 500-page tome. One of the articles, for example, is by one Len Lakofka and proposes streamlining the attack roll matrices to provide +1 to-hit per level as often as possible, so that you're never "jumping" 2 THAC0s at a time. Consider the Fighter attack progression: Original AD&D on the left, the new attack progression on the right:  And a similar treatment to the Magic-User:  In this case the M-U still isn't gaining +1 to-hit per level, but that's because the progression was already slower than that to begin with. There's also articles covering how to assemble PCs beyond first level, spell variant rules such as Magic Missile with a saving throw, or even what to do with Druids beyond level 15. Nothing new here if you have a long enough memory/big enough collection of all this 70s/80s publications, but it's an interesting read for someone who wasn't even alive at the time.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2015 12:10
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:I found a document on the internet called The Lost Handbook It looks like this used to sell on Lulu but is not available anymore. Where did you find it? EDIT: Found it! dropbox permalink MagnumOpus fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Nov 5, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2015 17:51
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:One of the articles, for example, is by one Len Lakofka and proposes streamlining the attack roll matrices to provide +1 to-hit per level as often as possible, so that you're never "jumping" 2 THAC0s at a time. I'm not sure I get why you would do that with attack but not do the same thing with saves. I always assumed they made it chunky for some arcane reason that only they understand. oldschoolgames.txt
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2015 15:11
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:I'm not sure I get why you would do that with attack but not do the same thing with saves. The second half of that article is does precisely that to saving throws!
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2015 15:15
|
|
|
I ran the first session of a Rules Cyclopedia game last night and I'd say it went OK! We used roll20 since everyone was in different cities. I was using the original Palace of the Silver Princess module. Everybody was first level, which kept things simple but also meant people pretty much did their basic attack and left it at that. We had a fighter, an elf, a cleric, a thief, and a mystic who kept loving poo poo up with a pike. The annoying thing about the original Palace of the Silver Princess module is that they have a lot of rooms that just say "you decide what goes here" and the players managed to hit mostly those and other rooms that had descriptions but nothing of interest or value. Still, they fought 3 orcs, 5 skeletons, and 3 bandits (all random encounters, like I said they didn't find a single "scripted" encounter). The cleric got knocked to zero HP at one point but they found a healing potion earlier, which revived him.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2015 15:28
|
|
|
MagnumOpus posted:It looks like this used to sell on Lulu but is not available anymore. Where did you find it? The editorials and the letters column alone makes this worth reading. So...much...Gygax. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2015 21:23
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:The second half of that article is does precisely that to saving throws! That's what I get for posting before reading it. Pham Nuwen posted:I ran the first session of a Rules Cyclopedia game last night and I'd say it went OK! We used roll20 since everyone was in different cities. I was using the original Palace of the Silver Princess module. What did you do for mapping in roll20? I just slapped a map in the background and used the fog, but I was wondering if there was a way to allow the players to do the mapping.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2015 01:43
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:That's what I get for posting before reading it. I found a really nice map online, but the guy just drew in secret doors like regular doors so I had to put it on the GM layer. As the characters moved, I'd draw in the next 30 feet or so of hallways--I used a Surface Pro 3 for the game, so I could just grab the stylus and sketch. It worked reasonably well. I have a good bit of homework for the next week, such as: figure out what that scroll they found was, figure out how "read magic" works for an elf, figure out how exactly thief skills work, make sure I'm doing combat right, populate the empty rooms in this stupid module, and try to figure out how to make the players do more than "I attack with my sword!". We have a cleric but he didn't even try to turn undead when they fought skeletons... but then, nobody's a very experienced player.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2015 01:48
|
|
|
Pham Nuwen posted:I found a really nice map online, but the guy just drew in secret doors like regular doors so I had to put it on the GM layer. As the characters moved, I'd draw in the next 30 feet or so of hallways--I used a Surface Pro 3 for the game, so I could just grab the stylus and sketch. It worked reasonably well. I learned that roll20 lets you use the map on tablet only if you're a premium subscriber. If I end up doing a game that actually relies heavily on the mat, I might consider something like that - used to, I loaded up tactical maps on a TV since we played in my living room for 4e.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2015 02:00
|
|
|
You can put the map into the GM layer, so that you can see it but the players can't, and then have them draw the map directly onto the screen - that's how Adam Koebel's been handling it in his twitch series, at least.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2015 03:07
|
|
|
Pham Nuwen posted:I ran the first session of a Rules Cyclopedia game last night and I'd say it went OK! We used roll20 since everyone was in different cities. I was using the original Palace of the Silver Princess module. Allow the avenger class from becmi when the fighter gets to name level. It is the best class in D&D. You should probably use dark dungeons as the reference document. Its free, better organized and has slight errata like, an unworked stick of wood was a better weapon than a mace in RC. There is so much good material for RC D&D out there.
|
|
#
?
Nov 8, 2015 10:55
|
|
|
Cross-posting from the RPG Deals & Steals thread: Bundle of Holding have revived their Old School Revival Bundle, which is available until 22nd of November. $4.95 gets you Swords and Wizardry plus Eldritch Wizardry and Monster Book gubbins, a retro-clone of 0e D&D, Tomb of the Iron Gods, a 1st level module, the first chapter of Cyclopean Deeps, an underground campaign by Frog God Games, Demonspore, a 3rd-6th level module and finally the OSR Toolkit, a custom collection of a variety of free stuff - No-art versions of Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess, both retro-clones of 1e D&D, two guides on "Old-School Gaming" - Philotomy's Musings and Quick Primer of Old-School Gaming - One-Page Dungeon 2013, a collection of One Page Dungeons from a contest, first issues of Knockspell and Dyson's Dodecahedron, fan-zines for OSR and finally a .zip file of various printable graph paper that DMs/Players would find useful. Beating the threshold (right now just under $13) gets you Adventurer, Conqueror, King, another 1e D&D Retroclone, Stonehell Dungeon, a mega-dungeon, Vornheim: The Complete City Kit and two LotFP modules, The God That Crawls and The Monolith From Beyond Space and Time. Note that there were also One Page Dungeon competitions for the years 2012, 2014 & 2015, and some different folks did a competition back in 2009, all free, and there's seven more issues of the free zine Dyson's Dodecahedron. Also, they've announced that they'll be doing a Old School Revival Bundle +3 LashLightning fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Nov 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2015 00:31
|
|
|
Babylon Astronaut posted:Start using weapon mastery now. It wasn't in the master set because it is for high level characters, it's for players who have mastered basic D&D and can handle the more complicated weapon system. People won't be using their basic attack, they will be pulling out nets and throwing bastard swords and using blow guns and poo poo. We're actually using weapon mastery, and I even allowed the fighter to go "skilled" on something at level 1 despite that being against RAW... which may come back to bite him when he finds he sucks at everything else. I think I just need to remind them what else they can do, maybe make up a little list for everyone with all their possible actions, like so the elf remembers she can cast a spell (can an elf cast a spell at level 1? I forget). Is it easy to convert over to Dark Dungeons? We're working from PDFs anyway so it's not like it would change the flow much. Are there attacks of opportunity in RC? Can two characters occupy the same 5-foot square? I was allowing them to move through each other's square at no penalty, but didn't let them share a square.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2015 00:41
|
|
|
Dark Dungeons is basically the same thing, except with a better layout.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2015 01:24
|
|
|
Gods, I dit it, I finally caught up with this thread...*whew*. First of all let me say, you guys are awesome, and reading this thread has been a goldmine for someone like me, who only knows ODnD and BECMI from hearsay. Seeing as I am currently GMing a small Ambitions&Avarice game with my core players, a lot of the ideas you guys took will go into that game, because stealing a good idea is better than creating something half-baked yourself, right? On the half-baked note, reading so much about OSR inspired me to start writing my own little Sword&Sorcery OSR game which I already asked about in the Game writing thread where they basically told me only you guys can help. You see, I feel that in trying to create something unique or special while getting that feel of OSR, I may have moved too far away from what made an OSR game an OSR game. My little attempt at game writing can be found here. In the meantime, perhaps trying to speak to the core audience themselves, I am currently looking for a few daring people that would help me playtest it in a PbP game I´ve opened up in the game room, just in case any of you are interested.
|
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2015 01:45
|
|
|
Pham Nuwen posted:We're actually using weapon mastery, and I even allowed the fighter to go "skilled" on something at level 1 despite that being against RAW... which may come back to bite him when he finds he sucks at everything else. I think I just need to remind them what else they can do, maybe make up a little list for everyone with all their possible actions, like so the elf remembers she can cast a spell (can an elf cast a spell at level 1? I forget). Dark Dungeons is 100% compatible with RC. The big change is that it has an unusual way of doing initiative that Frank Mentzer came up with that didn't make it to print. I really like it, some might not because you need to roll every round. It will make the game "go slower" but only because you are adding tactical depth, which IMO is the whole point of playing. I think it also makes the game more fair so you can actually try to murder the PCs more often as a DM. I don't think there are any sort of opportunity attacks outside of something like a fighting withdraw. The DD version of initiative kinda makes them redundant. I let the fighters have 2 skilled, 2 basic start with, the demi humans get 1 skilled 1 basic, thieves are banned, and spell casters get 2 basic. Study red box basic cover to cover. It has so many optional rules that change entire resolution systems. My favorite is using an increasing number of d6's you have to roll under the ability score with to represent difficulty. It's dead simple and not as swingy as a single d20. It works really well because it scales better during the late game where you are turning into a ball of energy and flying at the speed of light throwing moons into planets and planets into suns. Babylon Astronaut fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Nov 10, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 10, 2015 02:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:13 |
|
|
The new Bundle of Holding is a new OSR bundle. Base ($6): Slumbering Ursine Dunes (pointcrawl minisetting with a very Slavic theme), The Gnomes of Levnec (a low-level comedy adventure), Strange Stars (a retro/transhuman sci-fi setting), Weird Tales (D&D meets 30's pulp) and its "player's guide" Strange Trails. BtA: Owl Hoot Trail (D&D meets westerns), Fever-Dreaming Marlinko (weird fantasy city setting/adventure), Beyond the Wall (young adult fantasy), and Red & Pleasant Land. I highly, highly recommend getting at least the base collection. I own Strange Stars, and it's amazing. It manages to be a complete, inspirational, gameable sci-fi setting that mixes a 70's feel with modern sci-fi in only 32 pages. It's rules-agnostic, but it has OSR and Fate Core supplements coming out soon-ish.   
|
|
#
?
Nov 11, 2015 20:55
|
|