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long-rear end nips Diane posted: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. FRINGE posted: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.)
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Mar 16, 2018 19:47
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Halloween Jack posted: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. Years of video games means that I, and the people I play with, tend to want to "clear" dungeons. We get used to the idea that each dead orc is worth 10 XP, and completing the quest is worth 500 XP, so if we kill all N orcs along the way to completing the quest, we'll get 500 + 10*N XP. Gold-as-XP almost fixes that, as long as you make it clear that regular monsters have basically nothing of value on them (my high school friends would have still hauled out 50 iron daggers plus the skins of all defeated enemies). Maybe next time I do a game, I'll refrain from stating where XP comes from, just "Bob gets 800 XP this session". There's a new game store within walking distance of my house, and they apparently do game nights Tuesday and Thursday of every week. If I wanted to try running a one-off OSR thing there, what would you guys recommend? RC with pre-rolled characters? Beyond The Wall's character generation is pretty neat, but I've only got the PDFs and wouldn't want to share watermarked PDFs with randos.
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Mar 16, 2018 19:57
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Although Scarlet Heroes is designed for 1-2 people playing modules designed for 4-8 people, it can also be used as martial options and general player empowerment.
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Mar 16, 2018 20:14
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Pham Nuwen posted:There's a new game store within walking distance of my house, and they apparently do game nights Tuesday and Thursday of every week. If I wanted to try running a one-off OSR thing there, what would you guys recommend? RC with pre-rolled characters? Beyond The Wall's character generation is pretty neat, but I've only got the PDFs and wouldn't want to share watermarked PDFs with randos. I wouldn't recommend the RC because it's only a one-shot. It's going to be harder claiming that this is a slimmed-down, quick and dirty system if you're slinging a fatass tome with you for one game, and 75% of the stuff in it won't be relevant anyways, unless you're starting at higher level. I'd recommend just bringing the Basic book if you have a copy. That also has the bonus of the nostalgia factor: that screaming red will instantly bring back memories for a lot of people, perhaps making it easier to draw people to the table. Pre-rolled characters: if you want to ensure they have certain attribute scores or class mixes, sure. Otherwise it's not a big deal, since it only takes five minutes to roll up a B/X character anyways.
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Mar 16, 2018 20:37
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Xotl posted:I wouldn't recommend the RC because it's only a one-shot. It's going to be harder claiming that this is a slimmed-down, quick and dirty system if you're slinging a fatass tome with you for one game, and 75% of the stuff in it won't be relevant anyways, unless you're starting at higher level. I'd recommend just bringing the Basic book if you have a copy. That also has the bonus of the nostalgia factor: that screaming red will instantly bring back memories for a lot of people, perhaps making it easier to draw people to the table. Is there a good place to buy printed copies of the Basic book? PDFs are fine and all but it's nice to flip back and forth in a pamphlet.
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Mar 16, 2018 20:45
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I'm afraid not: no POD option is available yet (though I assume one would be coming, since they're working on POD in general), so ebay is your only bet that I'm aware of.
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Mar 16, 2018 21:05
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Pham Nuwen posted:Years of video games means that I, and the people I play with, tend to want to "clear" dungeons. We get used to the idea that each dead orc is worth 10 XP, and completing the quest is worth 500 XP, so if we kill all N orcs along the way to completing the quest, we'll get 500 + 10*N XP. Gold-as-XP almost fixes that, as long as you make it clear that regular monsters have basically nothing of value on them (my high school friends would have still hauled out 50 iron daggers plus the skins of all defeated enemies). Which, I mean, you want your face to be sticking out of an owlbear helmet, cool. But stop dragging around a bunch of dead wolves, it's gross.
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Mar 16, 2018 21:22
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Halloween Jack posted:I thought I was the only DM with this weird problem of players wanting to skin everything to make a hat out of it. Reminds me of one of the first games I ever played in, one of the other players decided it'd be funny to collect the testicles of every goblin we killed for whatever reason
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Mar 16, 2018 21:31
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Halloween Jack posted:I thought I was the only DM with this weird problem of players wanting to skin everything to make a hat out of it. Owlbears? Wolves? No man I'm talking orcs, drow, EVERYTHING.
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Mar 16, 2018 21:31
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dwarf74 posted:Also, if you're used to modern D&D, you will be absolutely stunned at the whiff rate for most attacks. Like, a 1st level character with no attack bonus other than like +1 from his stats will only hit AC 4 (totally reasonable chain+shield) on a 15+ on the dice. With 1 attack. Yeah, and thats also one of the fun things. New games are more "low level characters hit low level monsters around the same rate higher level characters hit higher level monsters". In TSR DnD you go from "cant damage poo poo" to I HIT EVERYTHING AND IT DIES. Im exaggerating, but the difference in a BECMI-2e fighter between 1st and 10th level is very drastic, and AC is on a strict scale, not a relative-to-level one. Wizards also have to be played differently. They have to know that they can die in a single round pretty much forever. They have to decide to hide behind people, and sometimes delay or skip doing something so as to not attract attention if the not-weak people are elsewhere.
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Mar 17, 2018 01:54
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Do any low level 2nd/3rd one shot adventures exist for new players? I'm going to DM an adventure for some new players, and im looking to hook them with a well written fun one shot that kind of encapsulates D&D and roleplaying for them. Any suggestions before I go to the comic store?
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Mar 17, 2018 14:20
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DalaranJ posted: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. Some day, I'll finish the follow-up, YAMIAT (You All Meet In A Tavern), which is still BX compatible while doing away with to-hit rolls entirely, and has sub-1-minute character creation. Some day...
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Mar 18, 2018 00:08
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Firstborn posted:Do any low level 2nd/3rd one shot adventures exist for new players? I'm going to DM an adventure for some new players, and im looking to hook them with a well written fun one shot that kind of encapsulates D&D and roleplaying for them. Any suggestions before I go to the comic store? Its been years since I looked at it, but I think Hommlet might be runnable as a one-shot? You might have to put some training wheels on them though, and may need to script out the specific path/plot you want to use. (Also just looking for links I saw several links to this as pdf, for what thats worth.) http://www.creightonbroadhurst.com/gm-advice-why-is-the-village-of-hommlet-so-awesome/ http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/village-hommlet http://www.dmsguild.com/product/17067/T1-The-Village-of-Hommlet-1e?it=1 https://www.amazon.com/Village-Hommlet-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0394511859 quote:But once you strip away the rosy tint of nostalgia and the halcyon glow of the adventures of yesteryear what makes the Village of Hommlet so awesome? quote:A Few Firsts. "Village of Hommlet" was the first TSR adventure to depict an urban locale: Hommlet takes up almost three-quarters of the module. Judges Guild had begun depicting City-State of the Invincible Overlord (1976+) building by building a few years earlier, but this was a first for the actual producers of D&D. "Hommlet" garnered lots of acclaim, and this was probably why: It started to depict a world wider than just subterranean adventure locales, and it was as much about roleplaying as fighting. If they like playing this is also the prelude to The Temple of Elemental Evil.
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Mar 18, 2018 00:22
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Payndz posted:God drat, someone remembers TAAC. I'm genuinely honoured. TAAC was my first-ever long-form campaign, so it holds a place very dear to my heart.
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Mar 18, 2018 02:11
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Isn't ToEE kind of a bog-standard dungeon crawl? Anyone here start with Hommlet, but then make the Moathouse related to another adventure like Caves of Chaos or something? The Hommlet module is also like 20 pages or something, it seems pretty directionless. Scanning over it, I'm not sure how you could push the players to go into the Moathouse. I have been working all weekend though, so maybe I missed something important. E: Follow-up question: any visually nice, simplistic ad&d character sheets? I love the ones that make you list # of siblings and birth rank and henchmen, but I'm looking for something visually cool and straightforward. Any recommendations? Firstborn fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Mar 18, 2018 |
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Mar 18, 2018 05:34
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Payndz posted:God drat, someone remembers TAAC. I'm genuinely honoured. It's high on my list of games that influenced my style after Apocalypse World and Into The Odd. Either #3 or 4. It's certainly the reason I gave The Black Hack short shrift.
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Mar 18, 2018 20:11
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I'm sorry for not chiming in earlier to say that if I was trying to get people to run old-skool for the first time, TAAC or a similarly light game would be my first choice.
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Mar 19, 2018 02:19
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What's TAAC again?
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Mar 19, 2018 05:20
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There's Always a Chance!
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Mar 19, 2018 05:24
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Halloween Jack posted:I'm sorry for not chiming in earlier to say that if I was trying to get people to run old-skool for the first time, TAAC or a similarly light game would be my first choice.
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Mar 19, 2018 09:42
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The link in that thread is a 404; is it available somewhere else?
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Mar 19, 2018 16:00
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Oops, sorry. Try this link. I didn't want to link to a site widely known for  but in this case the game is free anyway.
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Mar 19, 2018 16:07
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Here's a link to TAAC from my own Dropbox. drat, I can't believe I originally put it up back in 2013! Out of interest, the gist of its sequel's combat system is that rather than trudge through the "I roll to hit... and miss" [does nothing for five minutes while everyone else has their turn] routine of B/X and every other version of D&D, you just roll your Damage Die: every attack roll causes some damage, even if only 1HP. If you beat the target's (ascending) AC, you add your class's damage bonus to the result, otherwise you just deliver the result. Fighters use a d10 (going up to a d20 at higher levels) for their damage, while wizards only use a d4. I've been noodling with it for now literally years, and it seems to work okay. Really just need to work on tweaking the numbers to have something solid that's still B/X compatible with a minumum of conversion, and I can finally put together all the other ideas for the game around it! EDIT: compared a simple 4 PCs vs 5 orcs BX fight with the new system. 13 rolls to play out the latter - 36 the former, with 15 'misses'. It's definitely a lot quicker to play! Small Strange Bird fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 19, 2018 20:32
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redacted
Firstborn fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Mar 21, 2018 |
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Mar 21, 2018 00:47
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I'm putting together a "Western Marches" style campaign and I'm curious if people have any suggestions for good modules that drop nicely into a larger setting.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:11
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Old school dungeon crawls work fairly well - they tend to have a lot of places to explore and no real story tied to them beyond their history. Pretty much anything written for Moldvay Basic is probably a good option here.
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Mar 21, 2018 22:44
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Zurui posted:I'm putting together a "Western Marches" style campaign and I'm curious if people have any suggestions for good modules that drop nicely into a larger setting. Deep Carbon Observatory would probably be a good choice
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Mar 22, 2018 00:59
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I just started a WE-style campaign myself a couple months ago. I'm gearing up for some heavier elements of it soon, but to get it started I combed through the entries of the One Page Dungeon Contest. I made a little folder of the ones I liked that were appropriate to my campaign, organized them by the level ranges, and have been using them as "rumors" for the players to follow up on. Each new character gets a new rumor to bring to the group, leading to a one-page adventure, with a few scattered across my starting map as "random encounters". I've also grabbed the adventure An Overwhelming Sense Of Loss as a first "proper" adventure, and given them the overall goal of finding the location of the Lost Dwarven City therein. They just found the location a couple sessions ago and are waiting to gather enough of themselves together to tackle it.
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Mar 22, 2018 03:05
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Yeah, the one page dungeons are an embarrassment of riches for a plug and play dungeon.
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Mar 22, 2018 12:30
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Zurui posted:I'm putting together a "Western Marches" style campaign and I'm curious if people have any suggestions for good modules that drop nicely into a larger setting. Just quietly put Death Frost Doom (only use the Revised version) somewhere on a mountain in the corner of the map and mention, off-hand, that there is a precious MacGuffin to loot there. Other LotFP modules that you could slot in are Tower of the Stargazer, Forgive Us, A Single Small Cut and The God that Crawls. Also, the Inn of Lost Heroes. Have the heroes stop by a couple of times with no shenanigans, then when they notice that hey, last time the inn was in a different hex, snap that trap shut. Megazver fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Mar 22, 2018 |
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Mar 22, 2018 23:50
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Got my physical BECMI today, it's nice. Not really seeing an issue with the scan quality but I'm not a big publishing quality person so I wouldn't know what to look for. Just noticed that it explicitly says you can't haste yourself to cast extra spells a turn, game continues to own.
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Mar 23, 2018 01:15
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Impermanent posted:Got my physical BECMI today, it's nice. Not really seeing an issue with the scan quality but I'm not a big publishing quality person so I wouldn't know what to look for. Just noticed that it explicitly says you can't haste yourself to cast extra spells a turn, game continues to own. BECMI, or Rules Cyclopedia? I'd love to be able to buy a physical copy of the individual BECMI booklets but didn't think there was a source. If it's the Drivethru RC... which is no longer POD but $25 for a softcover book... I'd be interested to hear when you ordered it, if it was POD or not, how much it cost, and maybe some pics of the individual pages if you have time!
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Mar 23, 2018 01:38
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Pham Nuwen posted:BECMI, or Rules Cyclopedia? I'd love to be able to buy a physical copy of the individual BECMI booklets but didn't think there was a source. If it's the Drivethru RC... which is no longer POD but $25 for a softcover book... I'd be interested to hear when you ordered it, if it was POD or not, how much it cost, and maybe some pics of the individual pages if you have time! Oh yeah is the RC. when they first put it up you could get a pod for 13 bucks plus PDF. I'll take some pics later if you are interested.
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Mar 23, 2018 08:01
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Impermanent posted:Oh yeah is the RC. when they first put it up you could get a pod for 13 bucks plus PDF. I'll take some pics later if you are interested. pictures would be most welcome, as I've seen some not-good feedback about the quality
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Mar 23, 2018 08:07
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I never cared for the layout and organization of the individual BECMI books. They're probably good for teaching the game to kids, but as a reference I'd much rather have the Cyclopedia.
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Mar 23, 2018 16:16
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I got a copy of the RC PoD (right when it went up- not the crummy PDF). It's not super high quality - the text can be a little blurry. I wonder if a black and white copy would be better. It looks like printing black and white on an inkjet in the 90s. I can try and take pics tonight.
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Mar 23, 2018 16:19
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I never cared for the layout and organization of the individual BECMI books. They're probably good for teaching the game to kids, but as a reference I'd much rather have the Cyclopedia.
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Mar 23, 2018 16:25
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Halloween Jack posted:I never cared for the layout and organization of the individual BECMI books. They're probably good for teaching the game to kids, but as a reference I'd much rather have the Cyclopedia. Post so nice, he made it twice. Edit: is this SA loving up? The two posts are like 10 minutes apart
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Mar 23, 2018 19:14
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I don't think I typed or copypasted the exact same wording twice. But I'm not editing either post. Could be a mimic.
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Mar 23, 2018 19:24
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Here's barrowmaze from PoD. Here's RC from PoD 
alg fucked around with this message at 13:05 on Mar 24, 2018 |
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Mar 24, 2018 01:16
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