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Someone mentioned a system where it was harder to die at low levels, but you would end up with some kind of terrible wound that would basically make you an NPC. Can someone tell me more about this? It sounds interesting!
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Jul 30, 2014 15:09
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That sounds pretty great, actually! How easy would it be to port that into a retro fantasy game? It seems pretty easy to just drop in. Also, I've been gathering ideas and tables and notes for running something old school, but I could use some advice on what basic system to use. I have the cyclopedia, first edition, second edition, both basic boxed sets (the ones with the B modules), Hackmaster 4th, and DCC. I'm not opposed to grabbing something else if it makes sense, I just want to be able to plug in the hundreds of classic inspired ideas, tables, monsters and treasures with minimal fuss. One player won't like any of these options, so I'm just going to invite him to not participate; he's one of those char ops people and I doubt he'd be capable of having a good time, but the others would probably be okay with whatever.
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Jul 30, 2014 16:44
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ACKs does sound really interesting--I'll probably grab the PDF for the wound table and to read about the different systems you mentioned. It seems a little too in depth for me to run straight; I like the idea of a functioning economy and everything, but knowing how many mercs are available based on the wealth class of surrounding hexes seems a little beyond what I'm willing to do. I've played a few DCC funnels and ran it briefly--the aforementioned player basically delivered an ultimatum saying he wouldn't play it anymore after 5 or 6 sessions, and I didn't fight him about it, even though my brother was really into it. I haven't read much of the main DCC book, but I'll start doing that now. My one concern with DCC is that the magic system seems very different from other retro games, so I'm not sure how easy it would be to use the vast amount of random material I've amassed. Though I suppose the game isn't meant to be balanced, so it shouldn't matter too much. I have the other domain thing coming in the mail--"An Echo, Resounding", I think. I really liked Stars Without Number and someone had recommended it earlier in this thread, so I thought it might give me some ideas for how to use the different domains to organically stir up the sandbox. Anyway, I really love this thread--tons of great information here. Reading the 5e thread made me want to post an insane grog essay so I stopped reading it and discovered this one! On a different note, I've been listening to the Roll for Initiative podcast, and it's alright. Are there some other ones out there that I should be checking out?
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Jul 31, 2014 00:09
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hectorgrey posted:Stars Without Number is pretty awesome. I actually wouldn't mind seeing a fantasy port for it, because I reckon the mix between old school D&D and old school Traveller works quite well. Yes, I know there's Spears of the Dawn (which is loving awesome), but I meant something closer to how Stars Without Number works, only in a fantasy setting. Probably wouldn't be too hard; you just need to work out what tech levels different weapons and armour would be, redo the weapons skills, and remove the skills that don't make sense (possibly adding a few from Spears of the Dawn if they make sense). The classes work as is, though the backgrounds and training packages will need updating to reflect changes in skills. Port in money and prices from Basic D&D, and you're probably all set. I don't remember--are the SWN tags for random planets sci-fi specific, or are they general enough you could just tailor them slightly to come up with hooks for random settlements, lairs, and dungeons, if you were doing a fantasy version?
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Aug 2, 2014 18:23
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Evil Mastermind posted:SWN is also the Bundle of Holding deal for the next two days or so, and you can get the game and all the bonus stuff for about $20. Are all those books full of random tables and stuff that could be used for other systems? I'm doubtful we'd ever play SWN as written; I tried to get someone to run it but he just used the tags for his ridiculously complex home brew.
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Aug 2, 2014 21:08
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Lightning Lord posted:So have you guys heard about the currently being kickstarted DCC product Peril on the Purple Planet? It's a planet fantasy hexcrawl that started as an adventure, but is being basically turned into a mini-setting boxed set. So I don't come off as just advertising something I'm really excited about, let's talk about some cool resources to help enable old school science fantasy gaming. I'd say Jack Vance's "Planet of Adventure" series would hold a ton of inspiration, if you've not read it. Most of his work, actually, would probably fit the bill for good ideas to swipe for a science fantasy game.
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Aug 4, 2014 01:55
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Just an update, we’re going to go with a DCC funnel, then switch to Rules Compendium; probably just using the backgrounds from DCC, but the combat and other stuff from RC. I still need to get the ACK pdf and check out that wound table, but RC seems like it will work. I asked the one guy who I didn’t think would want to do old school at all if there was any old school system he’d be interested in trying, and he said RC, so that should be fine. It’s compatible enough with all the OSR stuff I’ve been compiling and there’s some quirky, interesting stuff in the rules that I like. Such as, the fact that 9th level magic-users can build a tower, and then a dungeon underneath it, where, after the first floor of the dungeon has been completed, if they leave an unguarded entrance, monsters will start moving in, and that magic-users do this on purpose for experiments or to make contact with monster races. It’s just such a weird idea and says a lot about the implied setting, I really like it. I did get AER and it is really awesome. Looking forward to using that hex program to generate a map and then use the AER rules to come up with some regions. Speaking of hex maps, I know there’s several blogs that go over the creation of them, but is there an example somewhere of how to actually run them in play? The drill-down method seems kind of cool—where you have the larger scale map, then blow up an individual hex at a smaller scale, with more details. But then do you sort of use that blown up map like a board in a board game? How much of the smaller scale map is visible to the players, or is it just a blank one and you describe the current and adjacent terrain types from your master map, and they fill it in with colored pencils or whatever? I like the idea of that kind of exploration—but not sure the best scale for it. And some landmarks they’d be able to see from a distance, like a tall tower or the beginning of a forest, or a mountain. I guess those things I could fill in on their blank map before handing it to them, if they’d be visible. But the moment to moment of filling in a map seems like it’d be fun, especially with the risk of encounters, and giving the PCs landmarks so they have agency to pick the direction they want to head off in. Or rumors that something they seek is in a certain large scale hex, with some clues, so they have to search around the small scale hex for it. And interesting descriptions of terrain, especially with the AER stuff for potential resources or ruins they might spot a few hexes away and note down to check out later. Just not sure the best scale to do it at, or how to actually run it at the table. Like, should the scale be they can travel 2 normal hexes in a day, or 1, or 6? And then how many small scale hexes should they be able to travel? Should the time scale go to turns at that point? I kind of really like the idea of them searching small scale hex by hex for something, marking it off on their map once they’ve searched a spot and not found the dungeon entrance or whatever; and then maybe they find something else instead. It's confusing because everything I've read about hex maps is basically "Hexes can be 8 miles, 24 miles, or 36 miles" or something similar, where it's not very clear why you'd choose one of those scales over another. Something that’s been becoming more apparent to me the more I read older rule sets is the notion of time as a distinct measurement. That the players have a turn where they accomplish something, then they take another turn, then I check for random encounters, then their torch burns out after so many turns, then they have to rest 1 turn in every 6, etc.—when we’ve played before, there wasn’t that sort of economy, so outside of combat, things were just pretty vague as far as time tracking went. But it seems to me that if the players are aware of turns as a resource, that the more difficult to cross terrain has mechanical effects, that resting after every encounter has potential disadvantages, that they can move so far each turn in the dungeon, then a lot of old school dungeon exploration and hex crawl stuff sort of clicks into place for me. Someone mentioned Dwimmermount—is that actually coming out? I always liked reading about that campaign on Grognardia—did he actually write it up? Speaking of, I like that blog—turned me on to some good pulp fantasy and science fiction. Oh, and not really old school (except in a historical sense) but this really got me imagining what a dungeon would be like. Seems like it would be a really cool setting for an adventure. Talk about a true dungeon: http://sometimes-interesting.com/2014/05/09/derinkuyu-the-underground-cities-of-cappadocia/
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Aug 12, 2014 22:47
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Not sure this is exactly the right thread, but can anybody tell me about all the early imitations of DnD? Stuff like Tunnels and Trolls and Rolemaster? There's a huge gap in my knowledge of fantasy role playing--I'm just curious what these other games did that DnD didn't. What prompted this is an ad in White Dwarf 18 for Tunnels and Trolls that says "Are you roll-playing instead of role-playing? Tunnels and Trolls is the answer!". White Dwarf 18 has a cover date of 1980, and T & T is advertising its 5th edition already, so it's gotten me curious.
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Aug 25, 2014 23:38
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dwarf74 posted:It is amazing, and I'm glad he tries to fairly present the facts. Well, poo poo, I guess I'm backing this! Thanks for the tip--never would have heard of this project otherwise! e. Holy cow, even looking at the table of contents, I'm blown away. This looks really, really awesome. A Strange Aeon fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Aug 26, 2014 |
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Aug 26, 2014 02:24
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Lightning Lord posted:Any of you guys familiar with Tim Callahan's Crawljammer material for Dungeon Crawl Classics? I'm a big fan of his comic book criticism, like a rereading of everything Alan Moore had done up to that point, or a series that examined the issue of a comic immediately prior to an iconic run, such as the issue of Iron Man that came right before Demon In A Bottle, the Drunk Tony story. DCC! IN! SPACE! seems pretty appealing, but I'm unsure about the zine format. Is it worth it? Are the DCC zines pretty good in general? I have a friend who buys all the DCC zines and loves them. I bought this crazy Metal Gods one with a random gang generator and a funnel that's basically a Fantasy Warriors (the movie about gangs). It is wonderful and the profits went to help homeless people. I don't know much about Crawl Jammer specifically, but the other stuff this Tim guy has done sounds worth checking out, so thanks for that!
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Nov 19, 2014 14:40
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Lightning Lord posted:I played in a couple of con games this weekend with the creator of that zine, Adam Muszkiewicz. He is good people. Metal Gods seems like it actually accomplishes what Raggi tried to do with Lamentations: create fun RPG material based on metal album covers. My concern is that I have a small child, and if he gets his hands on the zines, that's it for them! He seems to respect bound books though, weirdly enough. Uh, that Alan Moore re-read is the thing I've always wanted but didn't know existed. Thanks, dude--this blog is going to eat up my blog-reading time until I get through it all. For zines, surely you could put them in a folder or something, right? Maybe I underestimate the abilities of a small child to get his hands on stuff he's not supposed to! Changing the subject, my friend bought me the first four Hex Crawl Classics from Frog God Games for my birthday, and I'm super psyched to check them out. I love the old JG stuff, and just crib ideas for the old school campaign I'll run someday, and the Hex Crawl Classics seem ideal for borrowing like that. Also, thanks to whoever above mentioned the Bundle of Holding--my Old School folder on Google Drive needed more PDFs I might never get around to reading...
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Nov 19, 2014 22:55
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Lightning Lord posted:I played in a couple of con games this weekend with the creator of that zine, Adam Muszkiewicz. He is good people. Metal Gods seems like it actually accomplishes what Raggi tried to do with Lamentations: create fun RPG material based on metal album covers. My concern is that I have a small child, and if he gets his hands on the zines, that's it for them! He seems to respect bound books though, weirdly enough. Sorry to quote you again, but I just finished the Alan Moore re-read and it was great. Then I discovered he ALSO has a series where he reads Appendix N, which would be super appropriate for this thread: http://www.tor.com/features/series/advanced-readings-in-dungeons--dragons So, thanks again for the heads up!
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Nov 21, 2014 23:29
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AlphaDog posted:This won't help Power Ambient, but if you enjoy the idea of B2, you should check out the Hackmaster module Little Keep On The Borderlands. It's one of the coolest mini-sandboxes I've ever seen, and it was a blast to run (for that style of play). If you're into oldschool sandboxy-dungeoning it'd be worth buying just to read. Unless it's super expensive or something now. I've been curious in general about all the Hackmaster versions of classic modules. What are the main differences? Are they generally better? It's easy enough to exclude the Hackmaster specific stuff to use for any other old version, but is there more going on in them than just adding honor and what not?
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Dec 16, 2014 14:12
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I found these really cool 2nd Edition Random Encounter decks that I didn't even know existed at a game store in Michigan when I was visiting my in-laws over the holidays. They're an official TSR product from the early 90s, and each set has hundreds of these index cards with encounters on them. I haven't even really dove into them yet, but the handful I looked at seem interesting--one involved a dog that follows around the party in this small town that's actually a dragon in dog form who sort of looks out for the town. One was these 4 dirty looking gnomes hanging around a fire outside a cave passing a bottle back and forth and having a jovial time; they invite the PCs to share the drink with them, and if they do, it turns out it's a potion of Diminution, so the PCs will shrink to half size if they drink it. It turns out the gnomes are evil giant-sized Spriggans, so when they drink it, they just look like normal Spriggans, so they can beat the poo poo out of people passing by I guess. One had the PCs wake up unable to make any noise, no longer casting shadows, and with an odd compulsion to go in a certain direction. If they do, they arrive at some weird wizard who was experimenting with Shadow Magic or something. Anyway, they seem pretty fun and idiosyncratic, with enough meat on the bone to improvise and customize them, and there's so many of 'em. Certainly beats things I've found like the Book of Encounters that's basically just a dozen mini adventures. And of course 2nd Edition is pretty painless to convert to a retroclone. I love this kind of thing, so I was ecstatic to find this product I never knew existed--really made my holiday!
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Jan 13, 2015 03:05
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AlphaDog posted:I lost mine somewhere between the 90s and here. They were (are) pretty neat products, although I recall that there were a few dumb/sameish cards. Yeah, I suspect they'll be some crap in there, but it's nice to just pull a card out and work with it. I mean, the original random encounter tables were basically just 1d8 Bugbears, and these have to be more interesting than that. I also got the set of magic item cards at the same shop. I thought instead of rolling on a treasure table, I could just grab some cards out of the box and hand them to the players. All the rules and stuff are on the cards, so it should be fairly painless. I actually have all the 2nd Edition spell cards as well, so I thought those would be cool to hand out as scroll treasure.
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Jan 13, 2015 04:49
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I'm going to be running a DCC grinder for my brother and his friends; anyone have some recommendations for a good module?
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Mar 8, 2015 03:10
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Covok posted:Anyone know where I can find a decent amount of decent or good AD&D pregens? I have to run a tournament in the system on Saturday. There was an actual product that had hundreds of pre rolled stat lines for NPCs which wasn't all that useful really. One of the best I've seen is the Old School Encounter Reference, something like that. It's hundreds of pages of great random tables and has numerous npc stats based on class and level if I remember correctly. What level 1st edition PCs are you looking for?
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Mar 26, 2015 17:12
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AlphaDog posted:Hackmaster 4e (the first one) deserves a mention here. It's a "parody" of AD&D but it's playable and fun if everyone's on board with the kind of meta-roleplaying that goes with playing an over-the-top AD&D clone. And I'd recommend the comic that spawned Hackmaster, Knights of the Dinner Table. The comics are 90% hilarious tales of dysfunctional gaming groups with a large cast (eventually) of people who take role playing too seriously while the tone plays it straight, as though these players didn't lead broken lives and massive city wide campaigns were the norm.
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Mar 30, 2015 04:59
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gradenko_2000 posted:I was reading through the original Chainmail rules today and found that owing to spellcasters in that game acting as fantasy field artillery, it did not use Vancian casting at all. That's super interesting. I'm surprised I didn't know about that already, it seems ripe for a Grognardia post, but I don't remember one about it. Like the person above me said, that mechanic is prefect to be implemented in a retro clone. I like how you could try to cast anything, but your success rate is low for the stuff way above your level. Also I like the delayed partial success; seems ahead of its time and more consequential than a half damage result or something. And it doesn't get into DCC level idiosyncratic tables for each spell.
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May 1, 2015 21:24
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I've been reading Ovid's Metamorphoses and it has some interesting stuff in it. I'm sure most of you are familiar with Greek myths, but some of the language this translator uses is just really inspiring. Anyway, what I thought might interest everyone is this passage: ...and Minos contrived to hide this specimen in a maze, a labyrinth built by Daedalus, an artist famous in building, who could set in stone confusion and conflict, and deceive the eye with devious aisles and passages. As Maeander plays in the Phrygian fields, a doubtful river, flowing and looping back and sends its waters either to source or sea, so Daedalus made those innumerable windings wander, and hardly found his own way out again, through the deceptive twistings of that prison. It basically describes a dungeon, which I thought was cool. And speaking of dungeons, I've been re-reading the RC because I'm going to transition my group's DCC funnel characters into RC once they get to first level, and there's a really strange idea about what wizards do when they get their own tower at level 9. They're apparently known for building dungeons underneath their tower, and leaving at least one unguarded entrance, to attract monsters to live there. Like, this is a known thing wizards do, and sometimes the people in the region get upset because the neighborhood wizard is basically inviting monsters into the area, who I guess are just naturally attracted to dungeons. It's such a funny idea to be a foundation of a setting, but it's also very flavorful and goes some way to explaining the concept of why dungeons are a thing. The demihuman relics are also a really unique, kind of weird touch in RC. And how the spells work slightly differently than I remember--like, how Cure Light Wounds can also cure paralysis, but if you use it that way, it doesn't heal any HP. And how Protection from Evil prevents enchanted creatures from touching you. I never played Basic or Expert, so maybe those were standard, but coming from 2E, some of the details are quite interesting.
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May 8, 2015 03:26
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Yeah, I've never worried too much about a dungeon actually being a place with rooms with obvious purposes and a layout that made sense. Like, a ruined castle looks like a castle but dungeons tend to be the sprawling complexes known to us from computer games and early modules; it never seems like a great use of time to figure out why a room was built where it was as opposed to having a justification for its contents as the PCs explore it. And a layout interesting to explore. Of course, some rooms with interesting features make sense to pursue that line of thought, like a room with a bottomless pit or something.
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May 8, 2015 13:02
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I just use one of the myriad random dungeon generators to find a layout I like, or use one of the 1 page dungeons and tweak it. There's dozens of 1 page dungeons that are a great size and variety, perfect for quick application. To stock a dungeon, there's a hundred random generators you could use on Abulafia for details, and that one guy who does all the d12 tables has tons of rich content to borrow and build out from on his blog. Even if you build one yourself from the DMG tables, I don't think you're going to end up with something better than you could get from a random online source. Or just design it without depending 100 percent on tables, though I find I can be more free style creative in designing the room contents, and creating the actual dungeon structure itself doesn't scratch any itch for me, hence using online stuff for the basic map.
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May 14, 2015 13:24
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remusclaw posted:When I was still pretty heavy into the OSR stuff I was directed to this site where the blogger Kellri had put together some very nice PDFs for various dungeon design things. The Blog no longer has working links, but the blogger seems to have put them up on the following Dragonsfoot thread. They are for AD&D, but considering how compatible pre WOTC D&D is you should be able to find some use for them. They are linked on the third post down. The fourth one is probably the best of the lot. CDD4 is a fantastic document. I actually got it printed as an actual book because it's so useful at the table. It's also great for generating basically anything, from treasure to ship cargo to random encounters in the astral plane to quests and things a magic statue might do. Highly recommended.
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May 14, 2015 20:36
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Elderbean posted:Has anyone here used Stars Without Number, any pointers? Our GM used the planet tag system to populate a galaxy to good effect, but he didn't use any of the other stuff, so I can't vouch for it. It's hard to go wrong with Crawford's stuff though.
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May 27, 2015 21:21
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I've always thought knowledge checks would be more interesting if the player didn't know how well or poorly the roll went; the DM should know all there is to know about the creature or situation in question, and has the power to make whatever he wants to be true at the table true anyway, as long as it's consistent. There's no reason to be loyal to the notes he wrote before the session if something more entertaining can happen if the creature turns out to be weak against fire and the DM didn't note that before the encounter. So if the player wants to know if his character knows anything about a weird creature, let's say, it'd be a common opportunity for a knowledge check. As long as the player knows the consequences of rolling well or poor, and can make a decent guess at the probability for both, having the DM roll and tell the player what their character recalls about the creature seems fun to me, since it prevents the impossible to avoid metagaming that occurs when you roll a 5 on your knowledge check and either the DM says you don't know anything about the creature or tells you something you know isn't true. But if a player knows they have a roughly 10% chance of learning something false, a 60% chance of learning something useful, and a 30% chance of learning nothing, I think they have enough information to make character decisions based on what the DM tells them after he makes the roll. Obviously you could play with the %s, vary it by setting and character background or base it off of combined intelligence and wisdom or something. But I think the basic idea is sound and helps avoid metagaming.
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May 29, 2015 14:13
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The thief in general is sort of interesting, since it wasn't among the very first classes, though now it's obviously a given in any kind of fantasy adventuring party. I don't remember where I read this, but it was some grognard's recollection of playing a game with some founding DM (maybe Gary?) and a player saying "Well, I want to be a thief!" and the DM just saying "Well, steal things, then."
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Jun 1, 2015 00:14
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On the thief as the first class built for the dungeon, I always wondered how that would play out. Like, almost all dungeon creatures see in the dark, so if the thief was meant to hide and sneak ahead of the party to scout stuff out and find traps, he couldn't be carrying a torch around with him, since it would alert all the monsters that someone is coming. So he'd basically have to see in the dark, but humans don't get that ability. Picking locked doors and stuff makes sense still, but it was never clear to me how you handled light sources in dungeons. You have to be a lot more creative to get those surprise rounds, I guess.
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Jun 1, 2015 16:55
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Kilo147 posted:I found a full core set of 1st Edition AD&D plus modules and poo poo. Talk me into/out of starting this up. D&D is super fun, but you're really jumping in the deep end. Have you never role played before or just somehow never played a flavor of D&D?
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Jun 13, 2015 04:12
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Kilo147 posted:I bought like, $250 worth of first edition poo poo, and I want to run a campaign. Eventually. Being a DM speaks to me. After reading through Tomb of Horrors, I was set on it. Goddamn, I love Tomb of Horrors. You seem really enthusiastic, which is great! Do you know who your players will be? Role playing, more than most hobbies, depends a lot on the shared ideas of the participants. If you're super into running one thing and your players are lukewarm or have other ideas, you create a lot of bad conflict before you even get started. Tell us about your group or potential players! That'll help us give you the best advice on running.
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Jun 13, 2015 15:18
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Analytic Engine posted:Does anyone have a text dump for spells, monsters, or items in 1st/2nd/3rd/3.5 ? All the online SRD pages I've found are HTML and I'm trying to avoid scraping/parsing. There's a really cool app for android that compiles all that kind of thing for 3.5. It's relatively easy to get the gist of what something does, even if there's a bunch more info that you wouldn't use in an old school game.
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Jun 14, 2015 14:17
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I've been really enjoying Abulafia lately, so I thought I'd share a link to a generator I added. http://www.random-generator.com/index.php?title=Questions_and_Consequences Its basic purpose is to simulate a really crazy 0-level funnel for DCC while making use of a bunch of cool generators other people built that I liked. The idea is the DM would read one of the questions, and then the players decide among themselves which of their characters does the action implied in the question. The DM would then read the consequence to the players and move on to the next question. Sometimes the 0-level dies right away, sometimes he or she finds a cool treasure or gains a new power, sometimes they get a "DM IOU", like a treasure map, and sometimes there's just some bit of lore or setting building that can serve as a hook for the character and the DM to take in whatever direction he or she wants. There's over 50 questions and each question has at least 4 consequences, with several having an additional 4 that branch out if a specific one gets rolled. Examples: Who looked under the loose stone in the bandit’s tower? You find a small leather pouch. Inside are 6 of what appear to be wedding rings, of various styles and ages. Who pulled the arrow from the dead lion? When you touch the arrow, you get a vision of a grim far future where there’s only war. If you shoot the arrow at someone, they will be sent there. Who pulled the lever in the third chamber of the Frenzied Caverns of Invisible Torture? A magical current jolts your muscles. You can either lose one strength and gain one agility, or lose one agility and gain one strength. Anyway, thought I'd share since I know some people like DCC and it worked out pretty decently at the table when I did a much rougher version to get a player caught up to the others. Also, Abulafia is a great site and there's some really amazing content there, if you haven't surfed around it before.
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Jul 9, 2015 00:59
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Evil Mastermind posted:That's one of the things that bugs the hell out of me with the OSR crowd (apart from the "we already made this game, please stop reinventing the wheel" factor). The idea that not having rules is somehow good design and not the embodiment of the Rule Zero Fallacy. What is the Rule Zero Fallacy? Never covered that in my rhetoric class.
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Jul 14, 2015 19:22
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Interesting, I hadn't come across that concept before. But I guess in my own gaming experience I'd be hard pressed to name any rpg we've played 100% rules as written; even when we played 4E, there were house rules to make skill challenges better and fix broken math with level progression or something, and 4E is probably the game with the most explicit rule set I've ever played. Reading the AD&D DMG, I'd be shocked if anybody played it 100% RAW as well. I guess my question is that you prefer there to be rules for things, even if most people won't ever use them? Or just that not even including rules for stuff is lazy design and shouldn't be defended as 'freeing' or whatever?
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Jul 14, 2015 19:49
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Babylon Astronaut posted:The first Undermountain box set is incredible, and I think the realms are a silly place. The cards it came with are gold. You can fill any room in any dungeon at the speed you are describing it with the dungeon cards. Can you describe the cards more? That sounds pretty cool and I enjoy most of the 2e card products, like the encounters, the spells, and the treasures.
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Jul 16, 2015 13:51
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Ratpick posted:My friend had the AD&D 2e revised rulebooks, this was at a time when the only D&D I'd played was 3e, and through hearsay I'd heard lots of exaggerated rumors about silly rules in older editions of D&D. Chief among them was the fact that Clerics could only use blunt weapons. Imagine my surprise when I read the 2e PHB and realized that there was literally a note saying that Clerics dedicated to different gods might have different weapon proficiencies. If I remember correctly, a cleric wasn't supposed to 'shed blood', hence the sword restriction. Of course, bashing someone's brains in with a mace being spiritually okay is a very legalistic way of interpreting the prohibition against shedding blood.
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Jul 18, 2015 14:43
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Man, this thread is great for learning weird trivia! The game balance reasoning makes a lot of sense, though I feel like magic swords never bled into any of my home campaigns. It's clear from all the Appendix N stuff that magic swords would be a big deal, too, though the only one springing to mind is Elric's, as far as intelligent swords go.
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Jul 19, 2015 01:06
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remusclaw posted:White Plume Mountain, Blackrazor is the non-union version of Strombringer. It's a cool idea, I've just never played in a game that did much with item personalities. It seems like an npc the players can just shove in a bag or ignore, and coming up with good npc motivation is hard enough without having to imagine what a sword with no actual agency wants. There was a really memorable Knights of the Dinner Table arc with an evil sword called Carvin' Marvin, though that strip never seems like it would translate well to the table. Are there other examples of intelligent swords in the fiction that inspired Gygax, or did he just run wild with Stormbringer?
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Jul 19, 2015 04:43
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The Encyclopedia Magica books are wonderful. They even made an insane random treasure table in the fourth one that has you roll d1000. I picked up the spell ones at a local con and enjoy them most for the very specific spells, like making a ladder out of smoke. There isn't as much history and lore as for the magic items, but there's enough weird magic spells that they make a good breakfast or bathroom read. I should track down the priest set; my wife's dad (and gave to me) had the 2nd edition wizard spell card set and hand printed out and pasted onto note cards all the priest spells too, but I think the compendium probably has more exotic spells.
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Jul 22, 2015 03:19
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FRINGE posted:Yeah, the same for max spells per level/int, max spells per book, and rolling to successfully understand new spells. Yeah, I might be making this up but I recall reading some version of DnD where the wizard rolled for each spell in a given spell level to determine if he could EVER learn that spell. Seems to offer more variety between wizards at the cost of less player choice I guess. I've always been tempted to just abandon the notion of knowing spells permanently at all and adjusting the treasure tables to provide scrolls more often. So a wizard is the only class that can read and cast from magic scrolls found randomly but can never have a book to memorize from permanently. Would force inventive play and resource management (is this the encounter I should use my last Sleep spell in? I don't know when I'll find another) and would let me use all the 2nd edition wizard spell cards I have as treasure handouts.
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Sep 1, 2015 13:35
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gradenko_2000 posted:The DMG for AD&D 2nd Edition is now available on DTRPG, completing that edition's corebooks. I like that interpretation you described of determining if you can ever learn a spell, assuming you find it in the wild. That's what I was thinking of. I never understood casting from a scroll in the first place because copying it into your spell book is a million times more advantageous unless you already knew the spell. Is the point that casting from a scroll gets around the level limits or just allows you to cast more in a day than your given number of memorizations? Like I'm level 3 but find a level 5 spell on a scroll and my choice is to copy it into my book and wait many levels to use it or to cast from the scroll one time? Or do you have to meet the level requirements even on a scroll? I just never experienced wizards who could cast a handful of spells a day having a bunch of same or lower level scrolls to get around the per day casting limit, but maybe that was their intended use? tl;dr: Under what circumstances would a wizard cast a spell from a scroll?
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Sep 1, 2015 16:43
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