Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Older D&D and Retroclone Thread: From OD&D To 4E

Sax Solo: Feb 18, 2011

quote:

What I know for a fact is that I'm ditching XP tracking altogether from my solo B/X game I'm running for an online friend and just giving him levels whenever it feels like it'd make sense.

Yeah, I think experience points for monsters is not a good basis for advancement. I've never used it in any D&D game I've run.

The most long running and successful D&D campaign I've played in didn't have experience points at all. Characters bought levels with gold, abstracted out as training and study material etc. (See also I think Jeff Rient's old idea that gold=XP, but only if you spend it frivolously.) It worked great. Progress felt earned, and a lot of metagaming was removed, or transformed into recognizable greed. Advanced characters still wanted money, not just for their own advancement (which was semi-capped anyway), but also to bankroll their own adventures. Low level groups tended to get missions from NPCs, like, "go into this dangerous area; report what you find; we'll pay you $$ now and $$ each when you get back. (Spoiler: mission goes FUBAR.)". Higher level groups were after big scores in dangerous places, or other kinds of moral or knowledge-seeking missions with low payout.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 16:58

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:05

Humbug Scoolbus: Apr 25, 2008; The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.; Clapping Larry

I stopped XP tracking the last Arcana Evolved game I ran and just gave the players levels on appropriate plot beats. It worked great.

# ? Feb 7, 2017 17:58

Glorified Scrivener: May 4, 2007; His tongue it could not speak, but only flatter.

Finally got my DCC box a few days ago, went hunting for my name in the backer credits page and found these;

Anyone want to fess up?

# ? Feb 8, 2017 05:30

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

I almost did, but chickened out.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 06:02

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

So ... I guess what I'm saying is that even in a game where you're randomly rolling for loot, you should still have magic equipment buyable for gold. Perhaps it's not going to be 3e-style "everything is available (if you can find a rich enough city)", but at least a situation where the player will never be lacking in the bare necessities.

This was standard in our 2e games. Sometimes the temporarily rich party would spend a session/adventure finding and trekking to whoever/whatever had some gear for sale. Then theres always the small town smithy that "has a couple" of adventurer cast-offs available for a nice sum. (This is an easy way to make sure that at least a couple magic pointy sticks are in the group. If you love random rolls it still works, it just means that the low level characters emegency backup is a +2 dagger (or whatever) to deal with nasty beasties, while their main weapon is a different-whatever.) Generally wizard specific gear was not so easily available, but that worked fine. They usually wanted to beg/borrow/steal scrolls to add to their books rather than items.

If your players dont like exploring/talking much, theres always the generic traveling magic item dealer I guess. Who of course stalks adventurers just finishing their latest murder-and-pillage weekend.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 07:03

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Humbug Scoolbus posted:

I stopped XP tracking the last Arcana Evolved game I ran and just gave the players levels on appropriate plot beats. It worked great.

Yeah, in games with fixed level progressions across all the classes I usually just do away with bean-counting experience points altogether and just let everyone level up when it feels narratively appropriate.

However, in B/X and other older editions of D&D the different classes progress at different rates and this is, arguably, part of the game's balancing mechanism. So, while I can easily get rid of XP tracking in the solo game I'm running at the moment, in the other B/X game which I'm running for a group I still need to track XP, even though I might start awarding it somewhat more arbitrarily than 1 GP=1 XP.

I've been thinking on this more: allowing for +X weapons and armor to be bought with gold alleviates some of the uselessness of gold, but only partly. The problem still remains that not only are magical weapons with something on top of their plusses more interesting, they allow for more interesting scenarios. B/X has all sorts of cool abilities you can put on your +X weapons and armor which come with fun and oddly specific rules, like the reflection ability for shields which allows you to reflect the light spell or to be used as a mirror while fighting monsters with gaze attacks (i.e. you can use the shield as a reflective surface to safely look at the monster while fighting them), or stuff like the climbing ability for missiles which creates a 50' length of rope attached to the arrow when fired upon an object. That poo poo is cool and I want to encourage stuff like that (and when doling out magic weapons and armor I've made sure that they have something on top of that +1 to make them interesting).

Secondly, the problem still remains that some of the game's classes are more reliant on magical weapons and armor than others. If you make that stuff available on the market it gives Fighters, Dwarves, Elves and Halflings (and to a certain extent Thieves and Clerics) something to spend their cash on, but because Magic-Users don't need any of that poo poo they still end up hoarding all their cash. Making wands and scrolls available on the market would alleviate that, but would cause it's own set of problems, where the Magic-User can now become even more versatile, and Magic-Users already become plenty versatile when they make it out of the lowest levels.

Like, the thing is that Magic-Users don't really need magic items to survive at higher levels: they have their spells. Same with Cleric: you take away a Cleric's magic weapons and armor, they've still got their spells. Fighters and other similar classes absolutely need magic weapons to take part in certain challenges.

I wish there was a single elegant solution to all of these nagging issues. I still enjoy the hell out of B/X and none of this is absolutely game-breaking for me, but it's just one of those weird little frustrations that I have with, well, most editions of D&D really.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 12:24

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Ratpick posted:

However, in B/X and other older editions of D&D the different classes progress at different rates and this is, arguably, part of the game's balancing mechanism. So, while I can easily get rid of XP tracking in the solo game I'm running at the moment, in the other B/X game which I'm running for a group I still need to track XP, even though I might start awarding it somewhat more arbitrarily than 1 GP=1 XP.

I think this may have come up before, but when I ran AD&D, I did "milestone leveling" by giving every player so many thousands of experience that would let one* of them level-up.

The XP scaling is set such that no two classes ever have the same XP-to-level, anywhere, ever, although you can have situations where you'll gain enough from an adventure for more than one class to level up at the same time.

This lets you preserve the structure of "uneven leveling" without having to bean-counter individual XP awards.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 12:58

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Trey Causey has released the Stars Without Number rulebook for his Strange Stars setting. You do need the Strange Stars generic setting book to use it, but since it's a pretty great setting that's not really a drawback.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 17:09

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

gradenko_2000 posted:

I think this may have come up before, but when I ran AD&D, I did "milestone leveling" by giving every player so many thousands of experience

This is the way to do it. I like adding fiddly bits, but always use this as the root of what gets handed out per session. (Even if its not enough for a level, it still preserves the class balance, as you mentioned.)

Ratpick posted:

I've been thinking on this more: allowing for +X weapons and armor to be bought with gold alleviates some of the uselessness of gold, but only partly.

At some point its alright if the characters essentially become "rich people" as long as that doesnt bore you or them to death. Maybe they buy land(s). Maybe they like having a sack full of platinum that lets them do generous (economy ruining) things everywhere they go (or act like assholes and bribe their way out). Maybe they develop expensive (bad?) habits.

# ? Feb 8, 2017 18:22

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

On a completely different topic, to help alleviate some of the sting of Magic-Users sucking so hard at low levels I did what I think AlphaDog suggested and gave him an at-will magic blast with the exact same stats as a dart. We also recommended he buy lots of lamp oil and toss around molotov cocktails when he wants a chance to deal more damage (and IMO a molotov cocktail should deal at least some splash damage even when it misses).

That gave me an idea for a Magic-User who saves his precious spell slots and throws darts and burning flasks of oil in combat while shouting "Magic missile!" and "Fireball!"

# ? Feb 9, 2017 20:24

unseenlibrarian: Jun 4, 2012; There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

In AD&D, Melf' the M. Elf's minute meteors had a material component of an oilsoaked ball of rags, so I always figured that was how some of the low level spells literally worked.

# ? Feb 9, 2017 20:27

TheBlandName: Feb 5, 2012

Ratpick posted:

On a completely different topic, to help alleviate some of the sting of Magic-Users sucking so hard at low levels I did what I think AlphaDog suggested and gave him an at-will magic blast with the exact same stats as a dart. We also recommended he buy lots of lamp oil and toss around molotov cocktails when he wants a chance to deal more damage (and IMO a molotov cocktail should deal at least some splash damage even when it misses).

That gave me an idea for a Magic-User who saves his precious spell slots and throws darts and burning flasks of oil in combat while shouting "Magic missile!" and "Fireball!"

This would be genre appropriate with the Conan short stories as the inspiration. Sure some of the magic was actually magic that went unexplained. But some of it was chemistry or stage tricks that neither Conan nor the endless parade of soldiers willing to die under his command personally knew about.

# ? Feb 9, 2017 20:39

alg: Mar 14, 2007; A wolf was no less a wolf because a whim of chance caused him to run with the watch-dogs.

Got my group started on Barrowmaze tonight with S&W complete and they loved it. Two hirelings died already so I guess I'm now part of OSR!

# ? Feb 13, 2017 04:39

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

Ratpick posted:

That gave me an idea for a Magic-User who saves his precious spell slots and throws darts and burning flasks of oil in combat while shouting "Magic missile!" and "Fireball!"

"Bigby's Forceful Hand, motherfucker!"
*punches orc in the face*

# ? Feb 13, 2017 12:51

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Comrade Koba posted:

"Bigby's Forceful Hand, motherfucker!"
*punches orc in the face*

Hell, I could make the "Magic-User" a Monk or a Fighter somehow specialized in punching and this idea would still work, although at that point it'd be going into The Wizard territory:

edit: *throws net* "Entangle!"

Ratpick fucked around with this message at 13:40 on Feb 13, 2017

# ? Feb 13, 2017 13:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Do not wanna see his grease spell.

# ? Feb 13, 2017 15:11

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

My players want to do an OSR D&D adv for the next session of Godbound so they can feel like gods wadding through pathetic mortal trials. Any suggestions?

I should mention they are going into a "hellhole." A center where yokai pour out

# ? Feb 18, 2017 22:40

Devorum: Jul 30, 2005

I've had the itch to run an "old school" type game for a while, so I picked up DCC on a whim yesterday, and I'm in love. I knew basically nothing about it going in, but the guy at my FLGS spoke highly of it...and I'm so glad I listened. It's the first time in a long time I've been excited to read a gaming book from cover to cover.

# ? Feb 19, 2017 15:55

Evor 3: Feb 19, 2010

Devorum posted:

I've had the itch to run an "old school" type game for a while, so I picked up DCC on a whim yesterday, and I'm in love. I knew basically nothing about it going in, but the guy at my FLGS spoke highly of it...and I'm so glad I listened. It's the first time in a long time I've been excited to read a gaming book from cover to cover.

DCCRPG is flat out awesome. I'm twisting some old school Arduin up into it for a gonzo campaign.

# ? Feb 20, 2017 08:27

dwarf74: Sep 2, 2012; Buglord

DCC is pretty brilliant, and I feel like I made out like a bandit on the Kickstarter.

# ? Feb 20, 2017 19:03

Covok: May 27, 2013; Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

dwarf74 posted:

DCC is pretty brilliant, and I feel like I made out like a bandit on the Kickstarter.

I didn't have money for that kickstarter :cry:

But, yeah, despite the odd 4e rant, that KS looked awesome. I said before and I'll say it again, DCC is a great game because it recognizes that the way people thought games worked in the 70s wasn't how they actually worked so they, instead, made a game that was how people remembered games were like back then, not how they actually were. Leads to an OSR game that is surprisingly original and gives the Fantasy Vietnam experience many look for in the OSR.

# ? Feb 20, 2017 19:06

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

I started the hobby with Rolemaster of all things and even though I've moved on to lighter games since I still have a soft spot for games with big old charts. DCC seems like a perfect combination of old-school D&D with that sort of thing.

It also probably explains my irrational love for Hackmaster as well.

Speaking of DCC, I can heartily recommend both the Dungeon Alphabet and the Monster Alphabet. They're two of my favorite supplements for old-school games, and both of them are largely system neutral (although the Monster Alphabet has one table that has results referring to the miscast tables in DCC and DCC modules). Most of the stuff from the Monster Alphabet is just ways to reskin old monsters (like reskinning a dragon as a giant chitinous insectlike creature) but there's also tables for slightly altering the mechanics of monsters (for an example, turning the aforementioned dragon's breath weapon into a swarm of BEES!).

# ? Feb 21, 2017 09:31

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

EDIT: More on topic, I am somewhat softening a lot more to DCC. My main issue was always the lack of robust DM support, but I think have enough OSR (and even d20/3e) resources to fill that in. It was invaluable to recognize that DCC's progenitor was Goodman Games's 3e-era "old-school"-type adventures where you were supposed to run with the generic Warrior/Expert/Adept classes.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Is there a retroclone that:

* is in a standard D&D fantasy setting
* uses ascending AC/target20
* has a built-in skill check/task resolution system (even a rudimentary one, such as d20-roll-under, as opposed to old-school D&D not mentioning it at all)

So I asked this question a while back, and I just recalled an answer to it: Spears of the Dawn

The theme/setting is African, but it's still very much playable as a dungeon crawler. The introductory adventure included with the book actually is a straight-up dungeon crawl, albeit you are exploring a mastaba.

The attack roll resolution is Target20 based

There's a dedicated skill system based around 2d6 rolls, adapted from Stars Without Number

And it doesn't have the super-powered hero rules from Scarlet Heroes and its relatives.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 09:39 on Feb 21, 2017

# ? Feb 21, 2017 09:37

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

I just cannot get past the "Doth thou heartily wisheth for Larry Elmore to bloweth a load on thine face?" intro.

# ? Feb 21, 2017 14:50

Ratpick: Oct 9, 2012; And no one ate dinner that night.

Halloween Jack posted:

I just cannot get past the "Doth thou heartily wisheth for Larry Elmore to bloweth a load on thine face?" intro.

Um, excuse me, the aesthetic of DCC is clearly more inspired by Erol Otus than Larry Elmore and furthermore
:goonsay:

# ? Feb 21, 2017 15:00

90s Cringe Rock: Nov 29, 2006

Elmore is trash and, like most later TSR elements, not proper OSR old school. :colbert:

The A in AD&D stands for "actually trash."

*dives into a pile of gazetteers*

# ? Feb 21, 2017 16:31

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

90s Cringe Rock posted:

*dives into a pile of gazetteers*

# ? Feb 21, 2017 16:57

Aniodia: Feb 23, 2016; Literally who?

90s Cringe Rock posted:

Elmore is trash

*dives into a pile of gazetteers*

See, I grew up with the Mentzer BECMI line, and I loved the poo poo out of the cover art for them. Now yeah, I'll admit that's more or less the only fantasy art of his I like (because Dragonlance is just such utter poo poo), but those got 9-year-old me playing D&D back in '94. The jury's still out on if that's a good thing.

Now Otus, on the other hand...

# ? Feb 21, 2017 22:16

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

The weird thing is that I don't like Elmore but I like Caldwell; the colour and shading just makes that much of a difference to me.

# ? Feb 21, 2017 22:20

Silhouette: Nov 16, 2002; SONIC BOOM!!!

Aniodia posted:

(because Dragonlance is just such utter poo poo)

fight me

# ? Feb 23, 2017 19:31

Lightning Lord: Feb 21, 2013; $200 a day, plus expenses

Halloween Jack posted:

I just cannot get past the "Doth thou heartily wisheth for Larry Elmore to bloweth a load on thine face?" intro.

Honestly just get the gently caress over it if you're inclined towards this kind of gaming. Having hung out with the entire DCC crew it's 100% a joke.

90s Cringe Rock posted:

Elmore is trash and, like most later TSR elements, not proper OSR old school.

The A in AD&D stands for "actually trash."

*dives into a pile of gazetteers*

The Gazetteers while superb books that often had great interior art by the likes of Stephen Fabian had covers by Clyde Caldwell, who while dece when he worked for TSR (Honestly I love his Pool of Radiance/Ruins of Adventure cover art) is easily the scummiest and trashiest of the 80s Painterly D&D artists. Dude pretty much draws nothing but butt art on commission now, his days of having an art director rein him in and lean his work more towards rad jeweled swords, cool statues and monsters is long over. I will never forgive him for depicting the shadow elves as drow on GAZ13 either.

Everyone knows the coolest of those guys was Keith Parkinson anyway.

Aniodia posted:

(because Dragonlance is just such utter poo poo)

The litmus test for whether or not you Actually Like Dragonlance is to look at the Time of the Dragon material and if Roman Empire Minotaurs and plains entirely made of glass with zero of the baggage of the Chronicles don't inspire you, you actually hate Dragonlance.

Halloween Jack posted:

The weird thing is that I don't like Elmore but I like Caldwell; the colour and shading just makes that much of a difference to me.

Yeah despite his Butt Nature now his color sense is decent. But that's why I like Parkinson, dude was really good at that.

Lightning Lord fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Feb 23, 2017

# ? Feb 23, 2017 22:23

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I ran a short dungeon romp, The Tomb of Sigyfel, using the Scarlet Heroes rules and it worked out pretty well: the Magic-User player got to within 1 HP of death in a fight with six skeletons, but pulled out a win at the last second. There was also a fight with a Ghoul where the Magic-User's ability to shoot their Fray Die at any target came in handy, as the Ghoul was otherwise a 2 HD creature (with 3 attacks per round and save-or-be-paralyzed).

I thought the saving throw system was also really intuitive: player rolls [2d8 + character level + ability modifier + relevant traits], and the DC is [9 + HD of creature causing the save], which makes it really easy to process.

We're going to keep going, and I'm looking forward to using the various DM tools to generate adventures on the fly.

# ? Feb 26, 2017 03:39

Simian_Prime: Nov 6, 2011; When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.

I'm running the classic D&D module Castle Amber in the Game Room using World of Dungeons if anyone's interested in joining some French Castlevania-style shenanigans.

# ? Feb 26, 2017 09:30

FRINGE: May 23, 2003; title stolen for lf posting

Simian_Prime posted:

I'm running the classic D&D module Castle Amber in the Game Room using World of Dungeons if anyone's interested in joining some French Castlevania-style shenanigans.

I will happily read along!

# ? Feb 26, 2017 12:58

Byers2142: May 5, 2011; Imagine I said something deep here...

gradenko_2000 posted:

I ran a short dungeon romp, The Tomb of Sigyfel, using the Scarlet Heroes rules and it worked out pretty well: the Magic-User player got to within 1 HP of death in a fight with six skeletons, but pulled out a win at the last second. There was also a fight with a Ghoul where the Magic-User's ability to shoot their Fray Die at any target came in handy, as the Ghoul was otherwise a 2 HD creature (with 3 attacks per round and save-or-be-paralyzed).

As the player in this, I found that even though I was playing solo I didn't feel overwhelmed. It was definitely tense (freaking skeletons!) but I felt completely in control of my own destiny.

Part of that came down to traits being flexible enough in skill checks to be useful in situations where a solo mage would be at a disadvantage; for instance, quietly opening a locked door being aided by my brother and I sneaking into the back of taverns to raid ale as a kid.

I should also point out that gradenko helped a ton by being a generally awesome DM and rolling with me when I would come up with ideas not easily covered by the rules. Definitely a great example of using simple mechanics and GM creativity to make quick rulings on the fly for complex situations, something I've always thought should be a cornerstone of an OSR game.

# ? Feb 26, 2017 14:20

Aniodia: Feb 23, 2016; Literally who?

Silhouette posted:

fight me

Dragonlance introduced loving Kender.

# ? Feb 26, 2017 19:41

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Dragonlance's system of magic alone is hilarious and the most D&D thing ever, more D&D than anything Ed Greenwood could put together. A sorting hat figures out whether you are good, ambiguous, or evil, and then the evil wizards are not only allowed to exist at all ever, but in the middle of a city with a haunted lawn. This is the 200th dumbest thing about Dragonlance.

# ? Feb 28, 2017 12:05

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

dont even fink about it posted:

Dragonlance's system of magic alone is hilarious and the most D&D thing ever, more D&D than anything Ed Greenwood could put together. A sorting hat figures out whether you are good, ambiguous, or evil, and then the evil wizards are not only allowed to exist at all ever, but in the middle of a city with a haunted lawn. This is the 200th dumbest thing about Dragonlance.

Don't forget the chart in the Dragonlance Adventures book where you were actually expected to mark the position of Krynn's moons with counters on a track, and adjust wizards' powers based on where their particular moon was.

Covok posted:

My players want to do an OSR D&D adv for the next session of Godbound so they can feel like gods wadding through pathetic mortal trials. Any suggestions?

I should mention they are going into a "hellhole." A center where yokai pour out

Keep on the Borderlands. Cave after cave full of humanoid hordes.

# ? Feb 28, 2017 16:47

Evil Mastermind: Apr 28, 2008

Selachian posted:

Don't forget the chart in the Dragonlance Adventures book where you were actually expected to mark the position of Krynn's moons with counters on a track, and adjust wizards' powers based on where their particular moon was.

Did they actually do that? Because if so I am loving amazed that there were two RPGs that pulled that horseshit.

(The other, unsurprisingly, was Torg, which had two books that actually thought people would care about the positions of the stars and/or planets.)

# ? Feb 28, 2017 16:54

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 06:05

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

(This is, I think, from the 3.5 DL book, but the original chart was in the 1E DLA book.)

# ? Feb 28, 2017 17:15

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