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I don't think Warhammer Fantasy RPG is a "reaction to D&D" at all, but it's similar to Runequest in the sense that it uses a D100.
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Jan 24, 2024 23:36
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I don't think of WHFRP 1E as rules-heavy. It has some tables, and the rules are ridiculously wordy, but the underlying system is dead simple. The crunch is extremely shallow. There's hit locations but not really. There's no derived stats. Skills are like: blah blah blah you get +10% to an ability check. Etc. It's pretty clean and fast in my recollection. Attacks miss a lot though. The book is bloated and tonally messy, trying to include everything, but IMHO it's strongly low fantasy horror with generic lip-service towards D&D-ish heroic fantasy. The adventures put it clearly into the low fantasy horror zone, and they're very "trad"/plotty/railroady (Death on the Reik notwithstanding). It predates 2E by a little bit but I think it's fairly similar in that it's carrying around a lot of crud that it doesn't seem to know what it's for, really, because, look, just go chase the goblin into the sewers to get to the next part, okay? So in the sense that it's "early trad" I'd say that makes it not old school -- but labels are just for fun I'm not your mom. I guess you could argue it's old-school because it's adapted from a wargame lol, but WH is soooo low-sim it kinda doesn't count IMO. (Interestingly WHFRP is not really concerned with its wargame heritage at all; I don't remember any notion in it that gameplay will resolve with some kind of pitched battle with PCs acting as heroes with some squads helping them out. --ie, kinda 2E-ish trad.) The most resonance it has with the OSR is its low-fantasy horror aspect, and there have been OSR BXish adaptations to the WHFRP world: Small But Vicious Dog, and Ten Dead Rats.
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Jan 25, 2024 09:26
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KingKalamari posted:I always thought it counted as OSR. I mean, Zweihander often gets categorized as OSR (At least in the places where the creator hasn't been banned for being obnoxious) and that's a pretty by the numbers WFR retroclone. Most people seem to regard it as being a strictly D&D exercise, but personally I think we should count all attempts at celebrating, aping, or resurrecting 80s design as OSR. Shadowrun 1e retroclones are OSR!
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Jan 25, 2024 11:13
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gurps is OSR
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Jan 25, 2024 16:47
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mellonbread posted:I don't think Warhammer Fantasy RPG is a "reaction to D&D" at all, but it's similar to Runequest in the sense that it uses a D100.
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Jan 25, 2024 17:14
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4e is osr (good)
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Jan 25, 2024 17:30
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thotsky posted:gurps is OSR
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Jan 25, 2024 17:32
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Ongeons Sand Ragons
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Jan 25, 2024 17:35
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Onerous Sand Rangoons
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Jan 25, 2024 18:51
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Edit: Wrong thread. Has anyone ever seen a system where it costs, say, one minute per GP to buy an item? So you can walk into a store and buy a prybar instantaneously, but a horse takes all day and a house takes a week?
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Jan 25, 2024 19:04
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sasha_d3ath posted:Onerous Sand Rangoons live crabs Jack B Nimble posted:Has anyone ever seen a system where it costs, say, one minute per GP to buy an item? gotta go to the DMV; gotta do closing paperwork (interesting idea)
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Jan 25, 2024 20:42
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mellonbread posted:I don't think Warhammer Fantasy RPG is a "reaction to D&D" at all, but it's similar to Runequest in the sense that it uses a D100. I think if it's a reaction to D&D, it's a reaction to GW losing their rights to license and distribute D&D products from TSR.
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Jan 25, 2024 20:53
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Jack B Nimble posted:Edit: Wrong thread. I vaguely remember there being something like that in Deadlands when ordering from Smith & Robards, if you wanted one of the insanely expensive and/or complicated devices it took longer to get shipped.
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Jan 25, 2024 22:05
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PeterWeller posted:I think if it's a reaction to D&D, it's a reaction to GW losing their rights to license and distribute D&D products from TSR. Whoa whoa what now? I'm gonna need to hear more about the alternate history we almost had with this.
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Jan 25, 2024 22:19
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GW shifted from a manufacturer of stuff for tabletop board games to a TTRPG and wargame company in the late 1970s when it acquired the UK distribution rights to D&D products from TSR. The company's initial success was basically built off of their licensing deal with TSR, but it fell apart when Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone backed out of a deal to merge the company with TSR. When Tom Kirby took over as general manager in the mid-80s the company shifted its focus to Warhammer and the rest is history
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Jan 25, 2024 22:45
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Yeah I was thinking it's a pretty quick way to to represent the many ways in which the more expensive purchases are complicated. The object of the purchase may not be immediately available both in the sense that it may not be located either with the seller or even centrally located at all (yes I can sell you a wagon load of flour. No I don't have it with me) but also in the sense that you may not immediately know where to buy, say, a warhorse or a house. The object may also require a degree of customization or even manufacture - you don't buy plate mail off the rack I'd imagine even relatively simple armor, saddle bags, etc may require some retooling to make sure they actually fit you perfectly. I'm familiar with the availability system from Warhammer RPGs but I like how this system doesn't require rolls and scales easily. You could eat up an hour or two in the morning preparing for an adventure, or require days or even weeks to outfit a small army. It'd probably be a good idea to limit the purchasing "time" to ten hours a day and maybe even rationalize it something more like 2 hours per 100 gp or something, so players don't need a calculator for every trip. Also the actual time vs money ratio would need to, you know, make sense, but that's something you can work backwards from based on your own price list.
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Jan 25, 2024 23:13
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90s Cringe Rock posted:4e is osr (good) Not really though there is a fully compatible clone of 4e available now called Orcus that looks interesting PeterWeller posted:I think if it's a reaction to D&D, it's a reaction to GW losing their rights to license and distribute D&D products from TSR. Definitely this KingKalamari posted:GW shifted from a manufacturer of stuff for tabletop board games to a TTRPG and wargame company in the late 1970s when it acquired the UK distribution rights to D&D products from TSR. The company's initial success was basically built off of their licensing deal with TSR, but it fell apart when Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone backed out of a deal to merge the company with TSR. When Tom Kirby took over as general manager in the mid-80s the company shifted its focus to Warhammer and the rest is history Yup definitely a very interesting What If there
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Jan 26, 2024 00:09
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Kidnap the Archpriest has a system where different rarity tiers of purchases take different amounts of time to purchase. That's an adventure with a tight clock, though.
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Jan 26, 2024 08:09
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PeterWeller posted:I think if it's a reaction to D&D, it's a reaction to GW losing their rights to license and distribute D&D products from TSR. And then 40K was primarily a reaction to them losing the license to make official 2000AD minis.
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Jan 26, 2024 08:43
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Wasn't Blizzard's Warcraft supposed to be in the Warhammer universe but they couldn't work out a deal with GW?
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Jan 26, 2024 13:35
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Basically, yeah. It's funny looking at the Big Pauldrons in all the generic fantasy art that followed in the wake of WoW and tracking the chain of derivative inspiration for that design element directly to 40K lifting from Judge Dredd.
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Jan 26, 2024 14:41
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Almost caught up on 3d6 DTL  after having started it back in the fall. What other osr actual play podcasts do you recommend?
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Jan 31, 2024 00:48
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FastestGunAlive posted:Almost caught up on 3d6 DTL 3d6DTL is the best I've found by a wide margin. I tried looking for actual plays of OSR modules a few years ago and found them super depressing. The first, whose name I forgot, was them 'playing' Hot Spring Island for three episodes, but something like 80% of episode two was them complaining about how woke the new Star Wars movies were. I think I listened to an episode of Fear of a Black Dragon, which seemed much better, but which also didn't grip me at all. That all was a few years ago, though. Blogs on Tape is great, but not at all Actual Play--it's literally just reading out the best OSR blog posts in podcast form. I just started 3d6's Arden Vul campaign when it was mentioned in this thread a few weeks ago, and I'm loving it so far. Most of the AP podcasts I listen to are very polished and produced, so it's a breath of fresh air listening to one where the first episode consists entirely of going half way up a staircase, and where they've lost 2 characters in 6 episodes after defeating 0 monsters. The whole sequence with the plants where they couldn't roll over a 5 for like an hour straight was just absolutely brutal and gripping. I don't know why I love it so much, but I really do.
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Feb 2, 2024 20:57
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It's funny you say that, because I tried watching that 3d6DTL Arden Vul series and the fact that I realized they were still talking about going up a staircase like an hour into the thing made me turn it off out of abject boredom lol
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Feb 2, 2024 21:23
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It has its low points (any time they go back to town and spend forever milling about) but it really is great.
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Feb 2, 2024 21:42
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Yeah the staircase bit was kinda rough because one of them had a laser focus on trying one specific thing, but hey, sometimes that happens in games. The pace goes up quite a bit after like episode 2 and they start doing actual exploring.
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Feb 2, 2024 21:50
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OtspIII posted:the first episode consists entirely of going half way up a staircase
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Feb 2, 2024 22:06
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FWIW my SO ends up hearing whatever I'm listening to, snatches of books or podcasts or whatever, and 3d6DTL doing Dolemen Woods has ranked quite highly, surprisingly so. I know for me, personally, the first time they encountered a monster/combat told me the campaign would have exactly the tone I wanted, I hope I can run a similar game soon. I also think it's notable that you don't have to go too far when playing a deadly rpg: the GM is never cruel and is even fairly permissive in what leeway he allows for inventive actions, he just rolls the dice in the open and, y'know, you might die. I know a lot of DMs in person who SAY you can die in their games, but then it suspiciously never once happens in a whole campaign. I'll also say the GM has kind of a drab monotone when describing and narrating but then when he voices an NPC he comes alive. It may be a half hour or more in Dolemenwood before the first NPC opens his mouth and my interest in the stream jumped noticably then.
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Feb 2, 2024 22:22
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Halloween Jack posted:This is precisely why I don't do "Okay, tell me exactly how you're disarming the imaginary mechanism of the imaginary trap."
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Feb 2, 2024 22:35
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The Arden Vul campaign starts slow, especially since they abruptly jumped to it from a really good spot in the Dolmenwood run, but it picks up.
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Feb 2, 2024 23:04
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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/arts/jennell-jaquays-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SU0.VLFY.CdovUFTK6b3t&bgrp=c&smid=url-share NYT obit for a TSR artist and designer whose name I didn't recognize but I know some of the art gift article so it's got a bunch of cruft
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Feb 2, 2024 23:11
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Halloween Jack posted:This is precisely why I don't do "Okay, tell me exactly how you're disarming the imaginary mechanism of the imaginary trap." To be more clear, it was a very tall staircase (I think they got something like 750' up by the session's end) and had a decent number of side-stops along the way--they met a ghost, almost fell off a ramp to their deaths, found a potential safe camp, learned about some nearby monster lairs, and discovered a secret that they're currently (where I am) using to make inroads with the movers and shakers of the nearby city. Like, the exploration and the investigation is the game. I'm on episode 8 and they only just now actually went into the main dungeon, but everything they've done so far has felt like setup. There's been a lot of "they aren't ready to use this yet, but this feels like something that'll be fun and relevant later on". It's slow, but even the slow parts have been pretty interesting. It also helps that I'm reading the module as they play--seeing the gap between module text and how stuff actually plays out is super interesting from a design perspective. It reminds me a bit of The Apocalypse Players, a Call of Cthulhu actual play podcast that I've been listening to lately. If you just recap what happened in a 3-episode run it sounds really uneventful (three people have to land on a lighthouse island because the beacon went dark, they look around the lighthouse and find signs of violence, then some fish people show up and they run away), but it's all about the investigation, the slow unfold of information, and trying to think through what the consequences of what you're learning will end up being.
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Feb 3, 2024 00:06
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Empty Sandwich posted:https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/01/arts/jennell-jaquays-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SU0.VLFY.CdovUFTK6b3t&bgrp=c&smid=url-share Extremely influential in the entire RPG world, in addition to Judges guild, she did a lot of art for West End Star Wars, including the Mos Eisley and Cantina maps.
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Feb 3, 2024 03:41
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alg posted:Extremely influential in the entire RPG world, in addition to Judges guild, she did a lot of art for West End Star Wars, including the Mos Eisley and Cantina maps. Also wrote some really great and complex character background tables in 3 books covering fantasy, sci-fi, and modern settings for Task Force Games. You basically have books of tables like Traveler chargen, they're really fun reading. The series is called Central Casting.
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Feb 3, 2024 14:52
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Has anyone ever tried "shifting" rolled stats? Like you roll 9 STR 11 CON 8 DEX 13 INT 10 WIS 11 CHA And you could shift it to 11 STR 9 CON 11 DEX 8 INT 13 WIS 10 CHA or 13 STR 10 CON 11 DEX 9 INT 11 WIS 8 CHA By pushing all the numbers down the row to the next stat and wrapping the last around? IDK why you'd do this, it just occurred to me today as a possibility when I was making some backup characters for my EE game.
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Feb 3, 2024 19:08
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I like that as another possible solution to 3d6-down-the-line problems
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Feb 3, 2024 19:23
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I'm getting mixed up between various RPG threads but someone somewhere posted this excellent talk by Josh Sawyer / rope kid where he does a deep dive on stats it's nominally about Pillars of Eternity but he focuses enough on D&D that you don't even have to know PoE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvyrEhAMUPo
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Feb 3, 2024 20:22
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Of all the things to see today, I didn't expect to see an OSR game referenced in a Jimquisition episode about Silent Hill. CW the video deals with very poor handling of heavy subject matter of suicide in a video game. Libertad! fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Feb 7, 2024 |
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Feb 7, 2024 06:16
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Libertad! posted:Of all the things to see today, I didn't expect to see an OSR game referenced in a Jimquisition episode about Silent Hill. My buddy and I played that last week and it's not necessarily TG related, but it is worth noting that we wanted our money back from the free game before we even finished it.
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Feb 7, 2024 13:20
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EGG, Jr needs a heart transplant. if I understand his last post correctly his care team has reversed course and decided it's too dangerous to give him a pacemaker and told him he might have a year left he's apparently booking games so now's the time to go hang with him or go to one of the Lake Geneva conventions
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Feb 11, 2024 14:13
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