|
Ok, taking a look at the rules cyclopedia... Weapon Mastery is very good and cool. It's surprising considering how anti-fighter 2e, 3-3.5, and 5e are.
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 19:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:12 |
|
|
It's weird how weapon mastery was kind of forgotten by history. I don't think I've ever seen a retroclone that did something along those lines.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:12
|
|
|
As near as I can tell, a lot of stuff from the Basic line was thrown overboard for basically political reasons. Or you might say it was just a matter of taste.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:13
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:It's weird how weapon mastery was kind of forgotten by history. I don't think I've ever seen a retroclone that did something along those lines. I think everyone agrees that it's neat, but also a trade-off between complexity vs. results. I think if you're making a retroclone you probably feel that there's better ways to make fighters good than to require a pile of humongous tables and a lot of per-weapon effects (I know I did when making mine). Plus the system can really bog play down when you've got guys getting into deflection wars.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:23
|
|
|
You all should just play Fite Knight. Truly the best retroclone.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:28
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Ok, taking a look at the rules cyclopedia... Weapon Mastery is very good and cool. It's surprising considering how anti-fighter 2e, 3-3.5, and 5e are.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:28
|
|
|
Xotl posted:I think everyone agrees that it's neat, but also a trade-off between complexity vs. results. I think if you're making a retroclone you probably feel that there's better ways to make fighters good than to require a pile of humongous tables and a lot of per-weapon effects (I know I did when making mine). Plus the system can really bog play down when you've got guys getting into deflection wars.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:29
|
|
|
It's really not that complex (mostly it's damage increases and simple X/turn abilities), it's just that the way they presented it makes it look more complex than it actually is.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:30
|
|
|
You could certainly make Weapon Mastery a bit more elegant, but it's so much more interesting and engaging than most retrogames' attempts to make fighters more interesting. Mostly they just give them some abilities that are copypastes of low-level 3e feats.slap me and kiss me posted:You all should just play Fite Knight. Truly the best retroclone.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:32
|
|
|
It can be fun as all hell, and I agree that it looks far worse than it actually plays.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:35
|
|
|
Halloween Jack posted:You could certainly make Weapon Mastery a bit more elegant, but it's so much more interesting and engaging than most retrogames' attempts to make fighters more interesting. Mostly they just give them some abilities that are copypastes of low-level 3e feats. Nothing special, yet. One day though!
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:41
|
|
|
One idea I've had for an updated weapon mastery system is to kind of mix it with a PbtA-style tag system, and let players create their own weapons. Then each weapon type/modifier has its own bonuses. Like, weapon "parts" could be blade (can parry/disarm), axe (reduces armor), hammer (stuns/pushes), or chain (entangles). Each of those would have their own mastery levels. Then you could have modifiers like heavy (adds pushing) or reach (for polearms).
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:49
|
|
|
I like the idea of being defeated by a Victorian Englishman's opinion on the bi-metallic question (that's a level 3 opponent!). Is there any interest here in discussing people's homebrews? Like about 9/10ths of all OSR players i have one of my own, and I like going over other peoples', but I don't think the game workshop thread here is really interested in old-school mechanics and ideas.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:53
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:One idea I've had for an updated weapon mastery system is to kind of mix it with a PbtA-style tag system, and let players create their own weapons. Then each weapon type/modifier has its own bonuses. I'd be pretty interested in seeing this done up.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 20:54
|
|
|
are there newbie traps in the cyclopedia? Should I be wary of players playing an Elf or a Mystic or something? I apologize if I'm making GBS threads this thread up with basic questions - is there a wikicyclopedia I could look at for "how to use this right?"
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 21:01
|
|
|
Mystic has a problem where all its stuff scales evenly, so it's bad for most of the life of a typical Basic campaign and then becomes demigodlike.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 21:03
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:It's weird how weapon mastery was kind of forgotten by history. I don't think I've ever seen a retroclone that did something along those lines. The game that was closest to this is, surprisingly, 4e. I have seen a couple of games with fighter exclusive intimidate moves though, like TAAC.
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 21:10
|
|
|
Xotl posted:Is there any interest here in discussing people's homebrews? Like about 9/10ths of all OSR players i have one of my own, and I like going over other peoples', but I don't think the game workshop thread here is really interested in old-school mechanics and ideas. Yes. Emphatically yes. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 21:18
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:Yes. Emphatically yes. Always Be Postin
|
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 21:21
|
|
|
Okay. I wanted to see how far I could strip the base class structure of D&D down, and then add "modules" on top of that to build as many D&D character types as possible right out of the gate. So there's just the warrior and the mage. It uses feats, but only in that it was recognizable terminology: they're basically the things that let you turn your warrior or mage into a ranger mage or paladin or what have you, rather than giving you the ability to trip people or gain +2 HP. You can be a battlemage, or a warrior with a bit of casting. Thieving is available to anyone who feels like devoting resources to it. For warriors, you get to pick one of four fighting styles: free bonuses that point towards the sort of fighter you see the character as being (e.g. naked barbarian rushing through foes? Whirlwind. Legolas? Sniper.) This lets you build fighter archetypes without needing yet more classes. I also fully embrace the idea that HP are an abstraction. As such, the fighter just simply gets more damage as they climb levels. People get better at enduring/fighting on as they climb in levels (more HP), but a higher-level fighter gets better at cleaving through those abstracted defences. As for mages, I've broken all the spells up into the classic 8 schools that first appeared in 2nd edition. You get two to start. You can pick two more to start, or the ability to specialize, or the ability to actually fight in combat. The net result is that the closer you are to the classic robed useless-in-combat wizard, the more arcane ability you have. It also means that every mage is going to be different, because at best each mage only starts with access to half the spells in the game. I've strictly segregated the spell list so that each school has exactly three spells per level, so no one school is obviously better than the others: you'll need to think about what you want to do instead of just taking Evocation, Transmutation, and Conjuration and calling it a day (the no-brainer schools in most editions). The other major thing is recognizing that most old-school modules assume you have a party of 6-10 players (go ahead, check their intros or covers). I think a lot of the reputation OSR play has for lethality is based in this, because 8-10 player games are nowhere near as common nowadays. So I've deliberated upped the abilities/HP etc of characters based on the assumption that people will only have 4-5 players in their games. Makes it much more feasible/realistic for the sort of playgroups you'll actually have at your table. It's still bloody lethal though compared to 3rd ed and forward, but if you don't accept that you wouldn't be reading this thread. There's lots of little things I'm pretty happy with, but the above is the key stuff. Xotl fucked around with this message at 06:52 on May 28, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 15, 2018 22:06
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Thanks for all the advice on BECMI. I guess my follow-up question is: why would it be a good idea to play BECMI instead of something like Torchbearer or DCC or any of the other retroclones? What does it have going for it that other editions and retroclones don't have? This, to me, is the best encapsulation of why you should try playing this game:    That's the entire game, right there, from left-to-right, in less than a page. It's that straightforward, that easy-to-learn. Impermanent posted:Ok, taking a look at the rules cyclopedia... Weapon Mastery is very good and cool. It's surprising considering how anti-fighter 2e, 3-3.5, and 5e are. Evil Mastermind posted:It's weird how weapon mastery was kind of forgotten by history. I don't think I've ever seen a retroclone that did something along those lines. Weapon Mastery gets all the press, but BECMI also had Fighter-specific abilities. Multiple attacks, or perhaps what we might call cleave:  Power attack, but a much stronger power attack!   Parry:  and a disarm move that's a lot stronger because the Dex score for a monster is always 11, and the weapon can be irretrievable, or will trigger an opportunity attack othewise  (a retreat is defined in the Basic set running away, which lets the attacker get a free attack on the one retreating, and the one retreating loses the shield AC bonus, and the attacker gets a +2 bonus)
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 04:36
|
|
|
Assuming that both options are on the table, is there really any reason to go with the Rules Cyclopedia over the Dark Dungeons retroclone?
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 05:15
|
|
|
gtrmp posted:Assuming that both options are on the table, is there really any reason to go with the Rules Cyclopedia over the Dark Dungeons retroclone? https://rpggeek.com/thread/926652/differences-between-rules-cyclopedia-and-dark-dung That's the differences between the two. If you like them, go for it. I think the layout on DD is worse that the Cyclopedia, thanks to the ultra-small spacing between columns (and the RC was already not the most simple book to navigate).
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 06:36
|
|
|
The physical version of Dark Dungeons is better to read. It's a gargantuan book with clean, black ink on white. For me, I like actual BECMI the best. If you read through the pamphlets, and use the RC as a reference book like they intended, you don't miss out on anything. The box sets aren't that critical though to be honest, you wouldn't know the difference besides the writing tone. Immortal box set is worthless. There are good rules to pilfer from the rules cyclopedia too. Use RC's "Adjudicating things not covered by the rules" rule. Roll a number of d6's commiserate with the challenge, try to roll under your ability score. This lets you get rid of the rogue and mystic, they are loving terrible. If the game has a newbie trap, it's the rogue. The most busted character is the avenger. A good fighter will put their 2nd or 3rd best stat in charisma and break the game at level 9. Don't ever believe the myth that because weapon skills came out in the master box set that they are only for higher levels. If anyone says that poo poo, tell them the book itself says that they are stupid. Write your weapon skills on your character sheet. Use a pencil and just update them when they get better. That and a hit array will make it incredibly easy to play. I have the paragraphs gradenko_2000 posted glued to my DM screen. A couple printed out rule paragraphs, a d8 to do hit dice on the fly, a magical time tracking paper plate*, and an encounter table should pretty much cover it. In modules and such, monster entries are short stat lines you can have handy; learn to read them. *paper plate, with a brad in the middle, holding a clock hand. You draw the clock and color in the times for encounters, new torches, new oil lamp, and you can track spells and poo poo with stickers. The best D&D resources are those made by you, to suit your playgroup's needs.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 07:14
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Ok, taking a look at the rules cyclopedia... Weapon Mastery is very good and cool. It's surprising considering how anti-fighter 2e, 3-3.5, and 5e are. 2e fighters were death dealing monsters. Weapon specialization and weapon mastery were in 2e. As were weapon styles and style specialization. They were also the only class officially allowed Exceptional Strength. (Str damage applied to thrown weapons, and high quality missile weapons, as well as melee weapons...) People invented a myth that 2e and 3e were similar sometime during 4e. They are completely different games. BECMI/1e/2e are very similar. Ironically I started writing this earlier this morning then left to work without saving it: With only a little effort one thing about BECMI/1e/2e is that you have access to all of the published TSR material - all of it. There is a loving lot, and some pretty great things. You will be swimming in modules/adventure ideas and hooks without having to pull up anything totally from scratch. The translations between those three sets are minimal (compared to the utter mess WotC created that lead to 3e and then again to 4e). The most jarring one is probably race as class becoming race+class.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 07:27
|
|
|
Xotl posted:As for mages, I've broken all the spells up into the classic 8 schools that first appeared in 2nd edition. You get two to start. You can pick two more to start, or the ability to specialize, or the ability to actually fight in combat. The net result is that the closer you are to the classic robed useless-in-combat wizard, the more arcane ability you have. It also means that every mage is going to be different, because at best each mage only starts with access to half the spells in the game Xotl posted:The other major thing is recognizing that most old-school modules assume you have a party of 6-10 players (go ahead, check their intros or covers).
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 07:32
|
|
|
gtrmp posted:Assuming that both options are on the table, is there really any reason to go with the Rules Cyclopedia over the Dark Dungeons retroclone? I, for one, wouldn't be able to run Dark Dungeons without constantly being distracted by the flavor and theme of the excellent game Darkest Dungeons, which is not normally the RPG themeing I'm interested in.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 14:30
|
|
|
FRINGE posted:With only a little effort one thing about BECMI/1e/2e is that you have access to all of the published TSR material - all of it. There is a loving lot, and some pretty great things. You will be swimming in modules/adventure ideas and hooks without having to pull up anything totally from scratch. I started playing in 1982 or so. We barely even acknowledged a difference between the stuff that came out for D&D and AD&D. AD&D was - to us - just a big content add-on that we ran using BX rules. We used the classes & races & spells from AD&D, and then just freely mixed & matched adventures, monsters, and supplements as we saw fit. (Because as everyone is saying, BX and BECMI had an infinitely cleaner presentation on how to play the game. And while we saw the attack and save matrices in the DMG, it barely registered that AD&D had its own complete set of rules until probably 2e.) Most of the differences are so minor they don't even warrant a conversion - like clerics not having spells at 1st level, or AC only going up to 9. e: gtrmp posted:Assuming that both options are on the table, is there really any reason to go with the Rules Cyclopedia over the Dark Dungeons retroclone? That link from RPGGeek is solid. dwarf74 fucked around with this message at 14:41 on Mar 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 14:38
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:I, for one, wouldn't be able to run Dark Dungeons without constantly being distracted by the flavor and theme of the excellent game Darkest Dungeons, which is not normally the RPG themeing I'm interested in. DMing with the Darkest Dungeons narrator voice would be a hell of a treat if you keep it up Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment ...
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 14:42
|
|
|
Man, the Piazza is migrating servers just when we need it most.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 14:54
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Friends: Sounds like the PDF is a bad scan, so I'd wait until somebody in the reviews gets their print-on-demand copy to see how it looks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 18:36
|
|
|
Thanks for the torrent of useful information and tips over the past few pages - it's really been excellent and is hyping me up for this game! I have one more question - how would you recommend balancing encounters / published resources for an adventuring party of 2 or 3 players?
Impermanent fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Mar 16, 2018 |
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 18:38
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Thanks for the torrent of useful information and tips over the past few pages - it's really been excellent and is hyping me up for this game! I have one more question - how would you recommend balancing encounters / published resources for an adventuring party of 2 or 3 players? Oldschool D&D recommends a party larger than 2 or 3 characters, unless you are making your own adventures.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 18:47
|
|
|
Pham Nuwen posted:Sounds like the PDF is a bad scan, so I'd wait until somebody in the reviews gets their print-on-demand copy to see how it looks. I have one, and yeah its not the greatest scan, but its not terrible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODUPtNiBxx0&t=310s has a comparison.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 18:49
|
|
|
dwarf74 posted:Multiple characters per player and/or judicious use of henchmen & hirelings I also proportionally reduce the size of every encounter. Like with 2-3 players maybe halve the size of every encounter group. That isn’t a ver old school appropriate response though, I suppose.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:05
|
|
|
Dagon posted:I have one, and yeah its not the greatest scan, but its not terrible. The problem is they just updated the scan again two or three days ago, and apparently the update is worse than the original. They've added hyperlinks, and the cost on getting a POD copy dropped significantly, but the scan quality is noticeably blurrier.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:10
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Thanks for the torrent of useful information and tips over the past few pages - it's really been excellent and is hyping me up for this game! I have one more question - how would you recommend balancing encounters / published resources for an adventuring party of 2 or 3 players? That's a very small party. Almost nothing published is really going to support that: the standard assumed size for these games is 6-10 players. I assume you're writing your own adventures? If not, you'll need to dial down the majority of the encounters in any module you use. You may want to use the Retainer/Hireling rules in order to bulk up the party, if you don't mind the extra NPC baggage. Balancing is another issue, in that OSR gaming generally rejects the idea of balance as seen in modern games. While modules from those days (and their modern OSR counterparts) don't ignore the concept entirely (e.g. you won't find a lich in a second-level module), parties can easily stumble into something that will slaughter them if they are so foolish to treat every encounter as a combat encounter--especially in wildnerness encounters thanks to wandering monster tables--and the idea is that the Reaction Table (i.e. talking) and general party cleverness (or just plain the willingness to run) gets them out of the situation. Also, there's no Challenge/Encounter Rating-type system for these old rules. Remember that XP comes from getting money in these games, not from killing monsters (yes, you do get XP from combats, but it's quite small compared to the amounts from treasure, doubly so compared to later editions).
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:31
|
|
|
Impermanent posted:Thanks for the torrent of useful information and tips over the past few pages - it's really been excellent and is hyping me up for this game! I have one more question - how would you recommend balancing encounters / published resources for an adventuring party of 2 or 3 players? Buy Scarlet Heroes, this is literally what it's for. It goes at the other way, by empowering heroes such that 1 (or two or three) can handle an adventure intended for a larger group. http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127180/Scarlet-Heroes
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:36
|
|
|
DalaranJ posted:I also proportionally reduce the size of every encounter. Like with 2-3 players maybe halve the size of every encounter group. That isn’t a ver old school appropriate response though, I suppose. Thats totally fine, and what I would do as a starter. When youre more comfortable with the systems then you can tweak more things. Impermanent posted:I have one more question - how would you recommend balancing encounters / published resources for an adventuring party of 2 or 3 players? Do some mockup fights by yourself with some scratch paper and some dice. Old DnD math becomes very easy to "feel" since it is strictly bounded. Youll get an idea for how often the players will get smacked, and what that means. Youll see how fast the players can kill the monsters, and what that means. You will want to bias towards "a chance that they can kill things within the first round or two" for a while so that the table tension is "getting hit is bad" as opposed to "death is bad". That lets the game go on more easily while keeping them careful. (To clarify: at low levels a couple hits can kill a character, so after they see their buddy go unconscious the first time they get unlucky they will "get it" (hopefully) that they want to kill everything attacking them ASAP. Once you know that balance then you can doctor the encounters to keep them in that range. Like "what are the odds of the mage hitting when throwing a dagger (against that enemy/AC), thats about 2 pts of damage, what are the odds of a fighter hitting with their sword, thats about (uh, I forget in basid, lets call it 4 or 5)... etc.)
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 5, 2024 22:12 |
|
|
For me, old-school gaming is not about rejecting balance per se, just rejecting that the game will be built around set-piece challenges. Bypassing encounters entirely is encouraged, and it's not on the DM to put a big neon sign reading "This is not intended as an encounter" on the dragon or the lava field.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2018 19:45
|
|