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aldantefax posted:How is that curve vs. d20 or 3d6? 3d6 tends to make more average rolls and d20 is pretty variable, so I can assume that 2d8 is the middleroad of the two.  2d8 is very close to a 3d6 - 1.5. For tabletop gaming, 2Dsomething is close enough to a bell curve that you're not really going to notice, so it's not really a middle road, more like a 90% towards one side road.
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Aug 28, 2016 14:34
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gradenko_2000 posted:The latest entry on my blog deals with an exploration of the history behind THAC0. Now I miss the copies of Alarums & Excursions I lost some years ago.. Grognard type comments: I feel your post gets a little derailed into the Target20 thing, and loses the thread from the 1E matrices, to THAC0, to BAB, to 4E scrapping BAB but creating proficiency bonus, to 5E combining everything into the proficiency bonus and also there's a bunch of advantage/disadvantage crap now. Maybe it wasn't your intention to really chronicle that, I guess. Also FWIW, the Delta Target20 stuff starts in 2007 not 2009. I feel pretty sure he originated it, but I sent him an email to ask.
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Nov 1, 2016 10:48
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quote:What I know for a fact is that I'm ditching XP tracking altogether from my solo B/X game I'm running for an online friend and just giving him levels whenever it feels like it'd make sense. Yeah, I think experience points for monsters is not a good basis for advancement. I've never used it in any D&D game I've run. The most long running and successful D&D campaign I've played in didn't have experience points at all. Characters bought levels with gold, abstracted out as training and study material etc. (See also I think Jeff Rient's old idea that gold=XP, but only if you spend it frivolously.) It worked great. Progress felt earned, and a lot of metagaming was removed, or transformed into recognizable greed. Advanced characters still wanted money, not just for their own advancement (which was semi-capped anyway), but also to bankroll their own adventures. Low level groups tended to get missions from NPCs, like, "go into this dangerous area; report what you find; we'll pay you $$ now and $$ each when you get back. (Spoiler: mission goes FUBAR.)". Higher level groups were after big scores in dangerous places, or other kinds of moral or knowledge-seeking missions with low payout.
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Feb 7, 2017 16:58
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Reading this thread and skimming through the 52 pages -- now I've caught the retroclone tinkering bug goddammit 
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May 17, 2017 05:27
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Liz Danforth's drawings are a strong pro imho. (Probably this is a nostalgia-tinged opinion.)
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Jun 21, 2017 04:07
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fog boar posted:If we look at other early games in this vein of design, like VanGrasstek's Rules to the Game of Dungeon
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Sep 24, 2017 13:55
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RubberBands Hurt posted:I could stab him in the kidneys though, would that help anything? No, just tell him it's his wife's responsibility to pay her medical bills, and it would be better to let her die than continue to be a leech on society. gradenko_2000 posted:absolutely yes. His Maze of the Blue Medusa dungeon literally has a bunch of SJW parodies as monsters that you're supposed to kill Wait, I thought Zak S just did the map and Patrick Stuart did all the writing and stocking.
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Nov 2, 2017 13:21
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I started running a campaign using The 52 Pages and it's pretty great. It has a WHFRP-like system where when you reach 0 hit points, you're fine actually, except now everything's going to crit you. I cut my teeth on WHFRP so I love it. I decided to let PCs just heal their HP fully after combat for free, because I like the dirt farmer power levels, but I don't like dirt farmer survivability. There's other resource clocks besides magical healing anyway, and besides, nothing says "time to leave the dungeon" like getting your foot cut off. In another system I'd probably just set HP at first level = Constitution score. I love the rules-lite-but-high-sim of older D&D, but oof I hate its explore/rest cycle. I don't really like 4E, but they made a good choice putting healing surges front and center as the exploration clock. My favorite system is from a weird old houseruled-beyond-all-recognition D&D game I played in for a few years, where spell casting was limited by magic toxicity. Casting a spell or using a magic item raised toxicity. If I cast a healing spell on you, we both gain toxicity. So it's both mana points and a healing limit. The limit was high, like 10 full strength spells, no memorization. But the kicker was toxicity only went down one spell's worth per night's rest. Sleeping in the dungeon wasn't even a thing that needed to be discouraged. It worked really great and made the drama fit about the length of a game session. (I should mention magic was overall weaker than D&D, but also more available to non-pure-casters as scrolls and dinky disposable items like potions and 3-charge rings; casters didn't dominate at all, though every group would want a healer.) I'd like to hack that kind of explore/rest cycle into the rules-lite older D&D systems I prefer, somehow.
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Nov 3, 2017 00:19
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Hypnobeard posted:Which OSR game has the best mage spell list? I'm specifically looking for flavorful but kinda limited, so that mages don't turn into 3e Batman. (This is for the magic systems in SWN Revised, if it matters.) From the weirdo DIY part of the OSR, you might get some interesting ideas from this roundup of ideas based on GLOG's wizards.
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Jan 26, 2018 01:10
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Neutralize poison and cure disease at experience level 3 is nice. IME it's a popular class for shrewd players who like to whine about being in a dungeon I guess.
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Mar 14, 2018 04:05
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DalaranJ posted:Players can choose two alignments Good and Evil. I like this less than law and chaos, but it's probably tied pretty close to the setting. Thanks for the effortpost. I guess they've moved to Stability and Change now? Stability and Change are better descriptors than Good and Evil. On the other hand the 'Change' deities are prettttty loving evil.
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Apr 29, 2018 19:19
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