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Comrade Koba posted:If you want to give ACKS a try without giving money to nazi shitbiscuits, there’s always easily available Especially since due to it being in past OSR Bundle of Holding offerings it's easy to find DRM free copies of it Well that and there being an OSR general on 4chan's /tg/ board that has a very well maintained "Trove" of OSR stuff
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Nov 1, 2017 22:54
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. It’s one of the most pirated retroclones, by the looks of it.
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i have made a helpful guide to alexander macris
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Nov 1, 2017 22:57
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I got it from the bundle, myself. But that was before he went full nazi, iirc. That bundle also had spears of the dawn, stonehell, and vornheim, iirc.
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Nov 1, 2017 23:11
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dwarf74 posted:I got it from the bundle, myself. But that was before he went full nazi, iirc. Are we not supposed to like Vornheim because that dude everybody hates wrote it? I remember enjoying that book, I thought it had a lot of neat original ideas in it.
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Nov 2, 2017 01:09
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A Strange Aeon posted:Are we not supposed to like Vornheim because that dude everybody hates wrote it? I remember enjoying that book, I thought it had a lot of neat original ideas in it. Zak's work is generally quite good. He is also a gigantic rear end in a top hat.
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Nov 2, 2017 01:20
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A Strange Aeon posted:Are we not supposed to like Vornheim because that dude everybody hates wrote it? I remember enjoying that book, I thought it had a lot of neat original ideas in it. absolutely yes. His Maze of the Blue Medusa dungeon literally has a bunch of SJW parodies as monsters that you're supposed to kill
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Nov 2, 2017 01:25
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gradenko_2000 posted:absolutely yes. His Maze of the Blue Medusa dungeon literally has a bunch of SJW parodies as monsters that you're supposed to kill Out of curiosity, where?
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Nov 2, 2017 12:33
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gradenko_2000 posted:absolutely yes. His Maze of the Blue Medusa dungeon literally has a bunch of SJW parodies as monsters that you're supposed to kill Because by 2017 the second one of those doesnt seem that weird. The first one is of course a very bad sign for their outlook.
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Nov 2, 2017 12:44
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zak s is a serial harasser come the gently caress on people
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Nov 2, 2017 12:46
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I don't own the book, and I can't dig out the quote from another thread where someone pointed it out, so you'll have to take my word for it (or not) that there's a caricature of what the author thinks of his critics somewhere in there.
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Nov 2, 2017 12:48
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FRINGE posted:Like its making fun of civil rights activists, or its making fun of professional internet outrage jockeys? One of these things exists and the other is a fabrication of the alt-right. You know in your heart the answer.
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Nov 2, 2017 13:15
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RubberBands Hurt posted:I could stab him in the kidneys though, would that help anything? No, just tell him it's his wife's responsibility to pay her medical bills, and it would be better to let her die than continue to be a leech on society. gradenko_2000 posted:absolutely yes. His Maze of the Blue Medusa dungeon literally has a bunch of SJW parodies as monsters that you're supposed to kill Wait, I thought Zak S just did the map and Patrick Stuart did all the writing and stocking.
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Nov 2, 2017 13:21
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Sax Solo posted:No, just tell him it's his wife's responsibility to pay her medical bills, and it would be better to let her die than continue to be a leech on society. lmao both libertarians and nazis advocate for a dog-eat-dog society that kills people who won't or can't debase themselves to capital in order to survive. macris supports people and policies that will continue to hold a knife to his throat in order to maintain his wife's survival
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Nov 2, 2017 13:27
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Serf posted:zak s is a serial harasser come the gently caress on people Why do people keep having to be reminded of this when it seems like there's some new poo poo every loving month from that douchebag.
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Nov 2, 2017 14:02
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Fuego Fish posted:Why do people keep having to be reminded of this when it seems like there's some new poo poo every loving month from that douchebag. It's like eating at Chick-Fil-A. You can boycott it because you know what causes they will support with your money; you can go there and feel guilty; or you can eat there, and afterwards donate to the Trevor Project or some other worthy pro-LGBT cause.
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Nov 2, 2017 14:40
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https://twitter.com/dril/status/473265809079693312
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Nov 2, 2017 14:49
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In the spirit of "don't eat at a Chik-Fil-A altogether because there are multiple other fast-food chains offering fried chicken", the current Bundle of Holding includes Sine Nomine's An Echo Resounding, which is a set of domain management and mass combat rules that'll allow you to run both without having to partake in ACKS.
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Nov 2, 2017 14:56
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I didn't realise some people's willpower was so weak they can't help but throw their money at reprehensible scumbags, simply because they just gotta have a lovely-rear end elfgame splatbook or some loving mediocre fried chicken.
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Nov 2, 2017 14:58
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gradenko_2000 posted:In the spirit of "don't eat at a Chik-Fil-A altogether because there are multiple other fast-food chains offering fried chicken", the current Bundle of Holding includes Sine Nomine's An Echo Resounding, which is a set of domain management and mass combat rules that'll allow you to run both without having to partake in ACKS. Fuego Fish posted:I didn't realise some people's willpower was so weak they can't help but throw their money at reprehensible scumbags, simply because they just gotta have a lovely-rear end elfgame splatbook or some loving mediocre fried chicken.
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Nov 2, 2017 15:41
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Fuego Fish posted:I didn't realise some people's willpower was so weak they can't help but throw their money at reprehensible scumbags, simply because they just gotta have a lovely-rear end elfgame splatbook or some loving mediocre fried chicken. "Hmm, yes, I see, those are all very good points, HOWEVER there are no *actual* rules for genocide in the Complete Alt-Right Handbook, therefore we shouldn't judge." 
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Nov 2, 2017 16:01
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Megazver posted:Out of curiosity, where? In my brief look through, there's a gallery of art and some quasi-undying critics of that art - Zak seems to be one of those "It's not my fault that you are simply too stupid to understand the greatness of my art!" types and so these critics are his worse nightmare, querying the quality of work in the gallery by means that Zak obviously feels is unrelated to the work, but Zak is clearly misunderstanding or just doesn't know about various concepts of "Death of the Author" and so on. Also, Zak still browses this forum, or at least the Fatal&Friends thread, looking for stuff to moan about for his blog so incase he sees this thread - Hi Zak! 
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Nov 2, 2017 17:08
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LashLightning posted:In my brief look through, there's a gallery of art and some quasi-undying critics of that art - Zak seems to be one of those "It's not my fault that you are simply too stupid to understand the greatness of my art!" types and so these critics are his worse nightmare, querying the quality of work in the gallery by means that Zak obviously feels is unrelated to the work, but Zak is clearly misunderstanding or just doesn't know about various concepts of "Death of the Author" and so on. Ehhhhh. Making fun of art critics isn't exactly unique to ZakS or alt-right or whatever. He's an rear end in a top hat on the internet enough times that there's no need for this desperate reaching.
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Nov 2, 2017 17:59
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Megazver posted:Ehhhhh. Making fun of art critics isn't exactly unique to ZakS or alt-right or whatever. He's an rear end in a top hat on the internet enough times that there's no need for this desperate reaching. replace "rear end in a top hat" with "abusive harasser who riles up hate mobs to drive his enemies off the internet and then keep them hounding those targets for years afterwards" and yeah you're about right
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Nov 2, 2017 18:01
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There's stuff like a living gem lion with an inferiority complex, that will keep asking you more and more questions so it can interpret what you say negatively and freak out and attack you. I'm inclined to think that this is more likely about a beef than some abstract lampooning of art history as a discipline, but I'll be damned if I'm going to wade through endless blogs and G+ posts and whatever to try and suss it out. I can't remember it or find it, but I know there's an OSR module out there that takes a shot at Troll Lord Games by having a room with two "troll lords" who keep heaping up garbage saying they're trying to rebuild the great wizard's castle.
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Nov 2, 2017 18:11
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Halloween Jack posted:There's stuff like a living gem lion with an inferiority complex, that will keep asking you more and more questions so it can interpret what you say negatively and freak out and attack you. I'm inclined to think that this is more likely about a beef than some abstract lampooning of art history as a discipline, but I'll be damned if I'm going to wade through endless blogs and G+ posts and whatever to try and suss it out. Honestly I would assume that was Patrick Stuart making fun of Zak.
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Nov 2, 2017 18:28
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Halloween Jack posted:I can't remember it or find it, but I know there's an OSR module out there that takes a shot at Troll Lord Games by having a room with two "troll lords" who keep heaping up garbage saying they're trying to rebuild the great wizard's castle.
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Nov 2, 2017 21:10
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I started running a campaign using The 52 Pages and it's pretty great. It has a WHFRP-like system where when you reach 0 hit points, you're fine actually, except now everything's going to crit you. I cut my teeth on WHFRP so I love it. I decided to let PCs just heal their HP fully after combat for free, because I like the dirt farmer power levels, but I don't like dirt farmer survivability. There's other resource clocks besides magical healing anyway, and besides, nothing says "time to leave the dungeon" like getting your foot cut off. In another system I'd probably just set HP at first level = Constitution score. I love the rules-lite-but-high-sim of older D&D, but oof I hate its explore/rest cycle. I don't really like 4E, but they made a good choice putting healing surges front and center as the exploration clock. My favorite system is from a weird old houseruled-beyond-all-recognition D&D game I played in for a few years, where spell casting was limited by magic toxicity. Casting a spell or using a magic item raised toxicity. If I cast a healing spell on you, we both gain toxicity. So it's both mana points and a healing limit. The limit was high, like 10 full strength spells, no memorization. But the kicker was toxicity only went down one spell's worth per night's rest. Sleeping in the dungeon wasn't even a thing that needed to be discouraged. It worked really great and made the drama fit about the length of a game session. (I should mention magic was overall weaker than D&D, but also more available to non-pure-casters as scrolls and dinky disposable items like potions and 3-charge rings; casters didn't dominate at all, though every group would want a healer.) I'd like to hack that kind of explore/rest cycle into the rules-lite older D&D systems I prefer, somehow.
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Nov 3, 2017 00:19
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FRINGE posted:Without knowing anything about them thats actually kind of funny. Yeah, was that an example of how his assholeness gets into his products or what? Because without knowing industry stuff, it's an interesting encounter that works entirely at face value.
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Nov 3, 2017 15:51
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A Strange Aeon posted:Yeah, was that an example of how his assholeness gets into his products or what? Because without knowing industry stuff, it's an interesting encounter that works entirely at face value. i don't think jack was giving that as a zak-specific example, and furthermore the content of his products is not the issue
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Nov 3, 2017 16:09
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Yeah, it was definitely not him, I just thought it was a funny (if extremely petty) example. I've heard that the quality of Troll Lord modules declined, but Idunno. I don't really get into OSR modules.
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Nov 3, 2017 16:37
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People have been passive-aggressively writing their hangups into their RPGs since the Arneson's Egg of Coot and Hargrave's Stafford's Star Bridge.
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Nov 3, 2017 16:45
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gradenko_2000 posted:People have been passive-aggressively writing their hangups into their RPGs since the Arneson's Egg of Coot and Hargrave's Stafford's Star Bridge. I know about the Egg of Coot, but what's Stafford's Star bridge?
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Nov 18, 2017 15:41
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LeSquide posted:I know about the Egg of Coot, but what's Stafford's Star bridge? It's a spell from The Arduin Grimoire, a very early "3rd-party" OD&D supplement by David Hargrave, notable for having a poo poo-ton of tables and charts, gonzo rules, and a very early critical hit system. Like a lot of such works, it was essentially a collection of houserules from Hargrave's own experience DMing his own games of D&D It was supposed to have been published by Greg Stafford's Chaosium, but AFAIK he pulled out at the last second because Arduin's content was kind of haphazardly assembled. Hargrave had to resort to other means to get Arduin published, and he wrote in a magical spell called Stafford's Star Bridge that would create a bridge of rainbow light across gaps, but "can be keyed to support any single type (or more), letting all others fall through selectively" as a reference to Stafford letting his deal with Hargrave "fall through".
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Nov 18, 2017 15:52
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gradenko_2000 posted:It's a spell from The Arduin Grimoire, a very early "3rd-party" OD&D supplement by David Hargrave, notable for having a poo poo-ton of tables and charts, gonzo rules, and a very early critical hit system. Like a lot of such works, it was essentially a collection of houserules from Hargrave's own experience DMing his own games of D&D I'm actually impressed that it became a usable, interesting spell!
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Nov 18, 2017 18:41
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Alright, I've decided to try something new. For the last few years I've mostly just been running my megadungeon "Palace of the Sun King" for people, and I'm at the point where I want to use what I learned from it for something new. I have a pretty hard time getting a regular group together (pretty much nobody I know has a reliable schedule, so hitting a rhythm is real hard), so the vast majority of the running I do is for first-time groups--one of the schools I teach at has a Games 101 course where one of the recitations is to play D&D, so I get to do a ton of running people who have never played the game before through the basics. This means that I've had a ton of people running through the same basic starting areas of the dungeon, and doing a bunch of communicating with each other via written messages on doors/running into signs of what previous groups got into/etc. I want to make a dungeon that's built explicitly around that sort of asynchronous inter-group contact! Also if I can find a way to make restocking make more sense it'd make this style of play way easier. So tonight I'm running my first session of Temple of the New Gods. The backstory is that some miners were digging and found a strange divine diamond, which offered godhood to the miner who picked it up. The miner accidentally accepted and became the first god (Arthur, God of Pranks) in a new pantheon, and suddenly the mine itself starts twisting in shape, with strange priest-monsters spawning to guard from intruders and wondrous treasures springing up from the dreams of the new god. Another miner escapes and spreads word of what happened to a nearby village. Basically, there's a mysterious diamond hidden somewhere in the dungeon, and every time the PCs find it one becomes a god and the dungeon grows a new wing/new types of monsters/etc in their honor. The megadungeon starts out at a mere 20 rooms, but can grow organically as people play more--which also means I have less of that awful feeling of having made hundreds of rooms of dungeon but only ever had people interact with, like, 10% of them. Everything in the dungeon, barring the original setup, is also meant to be kind of directly drawn from player action and inputs--the personality and history of each new god will have a big impact on how their areas are designed, and restocking rooms is going to be very responsive to what the players did to unstock them in the past, so you should be able to get a glimpse of other groups styles' even if you never interact with them directly. But also I'm just kind of going hard into dungeon features that give people glimpses of each other. Dead players come back to life as monsters. Monsters you interact with but don't kill evolve over time based off the interactions you had with them. There's a hall of paintings showing things that have happened in the dungeon. There's a skull in the wall that tells you who the last person was to die in the dungeon and how they died. I'm making sure to list paint as a default piece of adventuring gear so players can write messages for each other. And then the world itself is just going to be super low-power outside of the dungeon. No spells even exist past the first level, but there are NPCs in the dungeon inventing new ones and leaving their formula laying around as treasure. There are basically no magic items outside the dungeon, so retrieving the weird magic tools that spawn in the dungeon becomes the big treasure focus. Less gold coins and more magic plates that keep food placed on them forever fresh and warm, where the items are mostly just meant to be sold but if the players can find a use for them that's even better. XP is going to come from spending money, so the goal is to let the PCs be real big movers and shakers in the outside world and sort of shape/build the non-dungeon parts of the game with their spending habits. I'm going to ask players to start rumors about what they saw in the dungeon at the end of each session, so that I can have a big player-made rumor table I can use to seed adventure ideas to new teams with, and probably do a bunch of stuff like giving new groups map-fragments from groups that got further than them to keep things interesting. I don't really know how this is going to go! It seems a little ambitious, but I'm super excited by the prospect. Anyone else have any ideas for other mechanics/habits I can do to reinforce that whole "different groups of players shaping the same space" feel I'm going for?
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Dec 9, 2017 21:22
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There's an OSR/Dungeon World kind of game called something like The Shadows Underneath by the Red Box Vancouver guy. It has an expanded section on how your PCs can spend their cash. An art-free version is available on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow.
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Dec 10, 2017 16:34
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LashLightning posted:There's an OSR/Dungeon World kind of game called something like The Shadows Underneath by the Red Box Vancouver guy. It has an expanded section on how your PCs can spend their cash. An art-free version is available on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. Are you referring to The Nightmares Underneath? If so it seems really cool, though I haven't been able to play it.
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Dec 10, 2017 19:52
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Nickoten posted:Are you referring to The Nightmares Underneath? If so it seems really cool, though I haven't been able to play it. Yes, The Nightmares Underneath. I even have a dead tree copy of it but I'm a goon and I'd suffer death than actually look around my apartment for it. While the game's overall theme is a bit different (it's more about a lot of extra-dimensional dungeons that pop up in hidden places due to human misery rather than a singular, legendary megadungeon - plus there's sanity effects and characters will just retire if they get enough cash, etc) it does have a bunch of 'rules' you could use for investing in businesses and such, or make the surrounding town not hate you because you're the latest bunch of murderhobos to pitch their tent in their town.
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Dec 10, 2017 23:47
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What's the 2e retro clone that was done by a goon? For Gold & Glory?
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Dec 16, 2017 16:07
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Hypnobeard posted:What's the 2e retro clone that was done by a goon? For Gold & Glory? Yes.
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