>>97958153
>Do you have any special rules for handling strongholds in your games?
I'm working on a simplified version of the ACKS II rules for that.

Henchmen question.
What do they do with thier share of treasure? I think they should be able to buy personal adventuring gear but my GM says it basically vanishes into the ether.

>tq
Use AKCS

>>97955324
I want you to torture them for the worthless info, so that I can change your alignment in secret and when I kill your character I can describe to you how the devils in hell are torturing him slow.

>>97955932
Gary played his fighter Yrag that would ride around with horse archer mercenaries and kill everyone and invade Rob Kuntz’ dungeon with his whole army.
Gary was a munchkinesque power gamer.

>>97958360
>my GM says it basically vanishes into the ether.
Your GM is retarded. After paying for their living expenses (by the OD&D, AD&D, or ACKS rule) they decide what to do with their money. Controlling player gets a say if he so wishes, DM has the final word.

>>97958524
Nothing "munchkinesk" or "power gamer" about that, they were in a wargames club for fuck's sake. That's par for the course.

>>97958886
>munchkinesk
Meh
Not sure why I spelled it retarded.

started with OSE, thought it was cool enough, but i've just read through OSRIC for the first time and my god, something about these rules speak to me on a level that OSE never did, i don't really understand why though

>>97959155
yuck! try labyrinth lord instead

>>97958874
Well he is saying they save, spend or send it all away instead of doing practical things like buying a horse or restocking torches.

File: serpent-lands-map-4-blackhex.png (1.38 MB, 7200x7200)

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i really like Dyson Logos. i think his maps have suffered since going digital, but he has vision problems so i can't blame the dude. some stuff is even clearer in 1-bit monochrome (i mean, you don't get any more contrast than that!)

but fuck me WHAT IS UP WITH HIS HEX MAPS? why does he NEVER PROVIDE A SCALE OR KEY? we all get that 'S' is a secret door or that a couple of cattails means swampland, fine, with you.

https://dysonlogos.blog/2026/04/13/the-serpent-lands-hex-map-4/
this is a nice map! but you zoom in and suddenly there are monoliths and cities are always blocks of rectangles trapped inside hatching and WHY IS THERE A CARNIVAL WITH A FERRIS WHEEL?

some nerd is going to say 'the map is enough. the image itself should inspire the DM.' well i say mapmakers should provide a key, a scale, and a version of their map with numbered points of interest (which you are obviously free to ignore).

>>97959505
It's just the usual bad DM habit of removing tools and options from the players because he doesn't appreciate what they can do.

I think it's fair for henchmen to refuse buying common disposable like torches, given they only earn half a share. Their leader should be magnanimous and pay for that himself. But like PCs save up for their own strongholds and labs and libraries, I think it's perfectly fair for henchmen to do the same. They'll establish their own smaller strongholds eventually, and become vassals

>>97960161
I used to like Dyson a lot as well, but now I think the cool art is wasted on the fact that you can't share it with players. I'd rather draw my own, which also makes sure players cannot come across them by chance.

>>97960467
oh fuck off you stupid bitch
>having to actually lose money on your emplyee's pay, thats a tool being removed!!!
torches are dirt cheap anyways, fuckhead.

>>97960467
They receive a half share because they don't have management or leadership responsibilities while also receiving a wage.

Can someone link me the guide you all like about constructing dungeons? The one that looks like it's in a word document. Maybe it actually is a google drive link. Goes over building a dungeon with loops.

is there a published archipelago hexcrawl around? real piratey-like. oogabooga degenerated savages, ancient ruins, white sand beaches and dark jungles and the like. ideally a volcano and/or lawless port city

>>97961116
Have you tried Secret of the Black Crag?

>>97961116
yes
>>97961072
jelqing manual

>>97961072
Here
https://ia601802.us.archive.org/28/items/a-quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/Actual_Dungeon_Mastering.pdf

Also holyshit Straits of Anián updated.

Is Dolmenwood any good? some of my players are interested in it.

>>97962095
Assuming your players are interested in it for its gritty dark fairytale tone?
Check out the uncensored version rather than the published one.

>>97961116
X1

>>97962095
For many it was a big disappointment with respect to what we expected from Wormskin. Some people to have run it complain about tonal fatigue. Too many fairies, too much Disney crap like not-Nottingham Village.

https://torchless.substack.com/p/setting-boundaries-the-ruin-that

Besides the tonal issues discussed in the post above, it has other flaws such as a density of encounters per hex that is excessively high.

You might still like it. It's possible that some of the reactions wouldn't have been as negative if the expectations hadn't been as high.

>How I run traps and secret doors.
Need some feedback.

I almost never hint at the presence of traps or secret doors: It's up to the players to decide whether they want to invest time into searching for them. I use the DMG rules on time to search, so doing relatively extensive searches is feasible.

I also avoid narrative search procedures: If players try to describe to me how they search for traps, I just roll a die. I'm not very imaginative when it comes to these: The vast majority of my traps that aren't pits are just pressure plates, for instance. And secret doors often are just abstracted, "you find a secret door" followed by "you find the way to open it".

All of this makes my secrets more of a "push you luck" boardgame mechanics than an exercise in deduction.

This having been said, I do try to place them in places that make architectural sense. So the dungeon layout and/or how the room is stocked might be an indication that a trap or secret door is likely to be present, and a search warranted. For example, a room with an unguarded treasure, or a dead end in a corridor, are more likely to have a trap or a secret door, respectively.

Additionally, I am relatively generous with map treasure. If an important area of the dungeon is hidden, there's likely a map to it somewhere.

Is this style suboptimal or acceptable? My players have never complained about non-telegraphed traps, but they have learnt to play from me, so perhaps they have low standards?

>>97962493
>>97962739
Ahhh ok good to know. I’ll look into the uncensored version. Some of my players really like the more morbid brothers Grimm fairly tale elements, folk horror, and Dunsanian fantasy, and weve been playing OSE for a while. The thing with the witches is especially stupid, makes no sense to change that.

>>97961995
brother I need no help in jelqing, got it covered
>>97962043
thank you

>>97962043
>Also holyshit Straits of Anián updated.
For the unaware
https://straitsofanian.blogspot.com/2026/02/ignore-all-previous-instructions.html

>>97962800
Not how I do it and wouldn't find it very engaging but if its working at your table why not, shold be mostly fine as long as the secret door isn't a required discovery to keep playing dnd tonight. Some people run it more like a board game.
How often do they discover secret doors and traps vs how many are there?

AD&D 1e is FOEGYG and not OSR.

>>97963460
>How often do they discover secret doors and traps vs how many are there?

Corridor traps: Very rarely. But if the trap is very deadly, I might give some indication such as a corpse or a smell of gas or something like that. So it's usually just some damage and they move on.

Room traps: Often. They know to search if the room has a treasure in plain sight, and might give it a shot if empty.

Secret doors: They eventually find most of them through a variety of methods, depending on where they are located. Like I mentioned they know to search dead ends, but otherwise they'll usually find one only after they deduce that it must be there from other clues, like dungeon layout or
>We just killed the goblin king and he has no treasure? There has to be a secret room!
Many of the remaining ones they'll eventually find thanks to a map. We all seem to find it satisfying when a secret door is discovered a few rooms or even a few delves later rather than the first time they come across it.

>>97962800
>>97963460
Do you guys care about the difference between the traps that haven’t been triggered by monsters vs the traps that are being reset by monsters to defend themselves? The former should only appear in sealed rooms that haven’t been occupied by monsters, and the latter should generally be accompanied by monster ambushes, especially if they aren’t excessively lethal (there is no point in resetting and re-hiding a pit trap of chute trap if you don’t plan on taking advantage of the incapacitated intruders).
The self-resetting trap is classic, but those come in two varieties, “corpses advertise its presence” and “monsters clean up after it”. And if monsters clean up after it then it’s an ambush point.
Orphaned traps are one of those sacred cows, players are used to them, but they don’t affect player decisions so they’re basically just bookkeeping.

>>97963875
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be assuming that traps do not reset themselves.

While you are of course free to run your dungeon like that if that's your preference, the (unwritten but inferrable) traditional approach is, generally speaking, that traps do reset themselves, just like doors open easily for monsters but not for PCs, and they close unless spiked.

Those that don't are usually more the exception than the rule.

>>97964114
>>97964114
Or perhaps I misunderstood what you meant here:

>The self-resetting trap is classic, but those come in two varieties, “corpses advertise its presence” and “monsters clean up after it”. And if monsters clean up after it then it’s an ambush point.
Corpses just vanish in my dungeon. There's no need for an explanation. So no, just because there's no corpses, doesn't mean it's an ambush point.

Either way it seems that there's an underlying assumption in how you do things that's different from mine.

Or perhaps I'm just sleep deprived.

>>97963755
Lol okay maybe on planet retard

>>97963327
>IOUN (Ego 12, Int Superhuman, AL Chaos). IO #1, UNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUN IOUNIOUNIOU the beginning NIOU. NIOUNIOUNIOUNI 1 in 6 OUNIOUNIOUNIOUNI OUNIO enslaved creatures UNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOU intelligence. NIOUNIOUNIOU NIOUNIOUNI NULLITY, OUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUN d20 spell levels IOUNI OU. NIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUNIOUN -4 to any Ego checks against it.

lol, what is this, NuSR artpunk bullshit?

>>97965254
ah'd reckon its a fancy-schmancy way of conveying the unknowable. IOUN's true power being so arcane you cant even parse it as anything more than quadratic-bits given audial form.
Kinda like them there derro what are up out the veins of the earth

>>97963615
>>97962988
This fake hillbilly accent retard thinks that a filename is timestamp. Or that text overlaying an image is a timestamp.

Try again, "jethro" but actually include a timestamp.

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>>97965444
>the unknowable
Like "how do I use this at my table!"

>>97965527
...yes?

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Hello /osr/, BXnewfag here, the campaign slowly proceeds and we've reached the point where the group wants to scavenge and explore the catacombs under the capital. There are certain publicly known as well as secret entrances to the catacombs. And those are also kinda interconnected or leading to deeper places (picrel). I also want to keep them somewhat open ended and generic deeper down, if they feel like classic dungeon diving. On the other hand the first few floors at the entry points I already have key descriptions as I do with dungeons (GFC's method). Now the players are on a quest to find old portal stones for an inventor who works on portals but instead of entering the catacombs through the cathedral where said stones are mainly found, they just entered with no further information through the cemetery where they encountered other weirdn stuff.
My question is for preparing tomorrow's session, what's a good way to generate/flesh out or run longer distances like the catacomb maze under my city. I was thinking of doing it in properly scaled hexcrawl and run it a little like a wilderness with a few dungeon elements at key points or random encounters.
If you guys have any ideas or resources, shoot at me, thanks!

>>97965704
the wilderness is just a massive dungeon, so a massive dungeon can be ran like wilderness, yes.

Hope this helps, and FAG on!

>>97965715
makes sense, I think this will help massively with preparing the bigger layout and I can reserve the gritty generation for actual deeper parts or dungeon elements.

This is probably also the smoothest way to run other planes whenever the party decides to take a trip down the outer planes for instance.

>>97958153
Not sure if this is a silly question, but is there a 1e, b/x OSR equivalent of 5etools out there somewhere? Really just wanted it for easy monster statblock searches, maybe loot tables, something like that

>>97965982
the OSE srd is pretty good for BX

Do you guys stock a whole hexmap for a game before starting a game or just run a starter dungeon?

>>97967399
It depends on how keen I am to get the game going vs. how keen I am to flesh out the setting. Kind of a nothingburger answer, but it's the only truthful one.

>>97967399
Not sure what you mean by "whole" hexmap, but yeah, I always have a hexmap, since players are free to do whatever they want.

>>97967399
I was running an OSR side game for my group and made a town with a mega dungeon, 2 side dungeons, and had done around 200 rooms total between the 3 of them, when one of the players got a debility from his character going to 0 hp, and decided the game was "too stressful" and didn't want to play it anymore. And without him that only left 2 players and the enthusiasm died from then. Also schedules changed so we didn't really have need for that game anymore.

So yeah I would just run a starter dungeon until you have a few sessions. I like there to be multiple options for starter dungeons though.

>>97967475
I was thinking of advice from a blogpost I read that said to just use a 10x12 tile hexmap to start with.
>>97967524
That puts things into perspective. I kinda wanna try running OSE but my friends haven't played an OSR type game before.

A buddy of mine is gonna be running "OSE advanced Fantasy" He has three other players also interested. Should I join? I've played the base version of OSE. is Advanced any good?

File: DwarfElevation.png (906 KB, 3026x850)

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I was thinking about Dwarf Fortress today and how I could use picrel for hexmaps.

For the uninitiated, the leftmost is the actual worldmap, the middle is the elevation map, and the rightmost is the cliifs/gradient map.

The way I do hexmaps is by taking a bunch of layers on GIMP to let me toggle on and off things like political shading for baronies, or to set the scale from 6 mile down to 1 mile with an increase in detail. I could in theory add a layer for height as well to help inform visibility distances between hexes and what can be seen from a vantage point while hexcrawling. My main issue is that I am unsure of what a good way of displaying this would be. You can see on the middle image that there's a fairly subtle gradient between some of the colours used which would be bad if I wanted to easily reference a specific hex with a real altitude number, but the alternative is to have sharp colour gradients on the layer which would translate to significant height differences between each hex to the level that vantage points wouldn't work unless all watchtowers were 100 ft+ tall. If I wanted to do purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red-black for height with blue being sea level would it be wiser to have each colour change be 500 ft or so or to have it so the change goes <0-0-100-100 and then end up with really flat mountains? I could also maybe do some sort of band of a border color to indicate when the scale resets but that concept is still being workshopped.

>>97968201
>>97967573
Stop wringing your hands nervously and just play the fucking game!
My God you people need to be handheld and called throughout every single step, even finding the books and reading them!

Curious about what the game will be like if you play it? Just fucking try it don't bother asking us if you should or shouldn't.

My god why are you people so feckless and milquetoast???

>>97968337
Learn how to format your posts you fucking bozo

>>97968356
It's late where I am but you're still right. I have brought much dishonor upon my clan and will seek to rectify this the only way I know how. But while I wait for the mall to open up so I can buy a katana could you let me know your thoughts on the questions asked within the post, poorly formatted though they may be.

>>97968351
I am prepping and reading shit but I didn't think there was any harm in asking that question. >>97967524
Was a valuable response for example so w/e.

>>97968386
While I am a big fan of flat top mountains (I live next to the largest Mesa in the world), you still need properly tall mountains, so if you are going to finish off the color scale with black at the highest, then you should come up with another scheme to overlay onto black to indicate continued progression.
For each, progressing up in altitude:
-black with red dots
-black with red pluses
-black with downward slashes
-upward slashes
-double slashes
So on.
Thanks for taking my criticism well, I hope this helps.

>>97968410
>But I didn't think there was any harm!
There's also no harm in just trying the game

>>97968482
My original post had nothing to do with whether or not I should try it I just included it in my reply that I'm planning on trying it you sperg.

>>97968498
It doesn't matter which post is yours, stop worrying about whether or not the game is good and just play it and find out for yourself. Ezpz

>>97968507
you're retarded

>>97968511
many such cases!

>>97968511
>I'm going to spend time hemming and hawing over whether or not the game is good instead of just trying it for myself!
This is you. This is how retarded you sound.

>>97968543
You're a retard with no reading comprehension.

>>97968570
Ignore him, it's probably just our local schizo recycling phrases that upset him (and which he doesn't understand and can't wield properly) to try to shit up the thread.

>>97968570
You posted about not being sure if the game was good or not, this is a fact.

I'm telling you to stop worrying about it and just try the game out for yourself.
If this is too difficult for your brain to parse, then there is nothing I can do to help you.

can you fuckers stay out of todd

>>97968597
Can you take a hammer and break your own face with it, please?

>>97968597
>The retard that's constantly trying to start shit between your thread and ours is bothering my thread
>Clearly this is your fault and not the retards
Maybe /todd/ should be renamed /toddler/ given that's the level you seem to be working on?

>>97968618
>>97968626
I'm sorry for my outburst. I won't bother you again

>>97968675
Know what? Thanks for the apology, it's cool.
Just remember next time; it's not you fucking with us and it's not us fucking with you.
It's one little shit that won't flush who is stinking up both our threads.

>>97968675
I apologize too then bro. Sorry for being a dick. We are both being constantly fucked with by fishfag and it's making us all agitated.

Fuck that loser

>>97968201
There's hardly a difference to Classic besides new spells and classes. There is an option to split race and class, as they should be.

>>97968201
OSE Advanced just adds a bunch of poorly conceived player options. I'm not sure if it's because the author doesn't understand the OSR very well, or because the author understands very well what will make the most money.

>>97968410
>I didn't think there was any harm in asking that question.
There wasn't. It was a reasonable question. There seems to be one particular anon in these threads who's always salty, you're better off ignoring any response that's just 200% mad.

>>97967524
That sucks, but it's not like the time you spent creating a setting is wasted, you can use it with the next group.

>>97967573
>just use a 10x12 tile hexmap to start with
At a 5 or six miles per hex that's a good size to begin with.

>>97968201
>A buddy of mine is gonna be running "OSE advanced Fantasy" He has three other players also interested. Should I join?
I would.

>I've played the base version of OSE. is Advanced any good?
"Advanced" is just a shit marketing term, since it ignores most of the important rules from the real deal (AD&D), and it has a few retarded player options. Hopefully your DM is good enough to put his foot down and stop that bullshit. If he does that it's a good game, although still B/X at its core.

>>97968337
>I was thinking about Dwarf Fortress today and how I could use picrel for hexmaps.
D&D is not a videogame, and DF is not a best practice for a D&D game.

>For the uninitiated, the leftmost is the actual worldmap,
Those are not hexes. Do a hex map per the rules, with the terrain used in the rules, so you can play a game of fucking D&D, not analog Dwarf Fortress.

>the middle is the elevation map,
What faggotry is that? You don't need an elevation map.

>and the rightmost is the cliifs/gradient map.
What faggotry is that? You don't need that either.

>The way I do hexmaps is by taking a bunch of layers on GIMP to let me toggle on and off things like political shading for baronies, or to set the scale from 6 mile down to 1 mile with an increase in detail.
More non-D&D faggotry that's literally useless at the table. Make a fucking hex map with the standard hex types so you can play by the rules, with the players making their own hex map on a blank sheet of hex paper as they explore.

>I could in theory add a layer for height as well to help inform visibility distances between hexes and what can be seen from a vantage point while hexcrawling.
More useless faggotry.

>My main issue is that I am unsure of what a good way of displaying this would be.
Doesn't matter. You're wasting your time. Stop reinventing the wheel and use the consolidated procedures that have been working for over 50 years.

>>97969145
This anon may sound angry, but he's trying to save you from wasting a whole lot of time faffing about when you could instead get things done and start playing.

>>97968778
>I'm not sure if it's because the author doesn't understand the OSR very well, or because the author understands very well what will make the most money.
Norman clearly understands B/X very very well. He also clearly understands the market and marketing equally well. Whether he understands AD&D deeply enough we'll never know, since he is only using "Advanced" as a marketing term.

>>97969165
Unironically thanks for explaining where I'm coming from. I'm not always very diplomatic.

Killing monster gives ZERO experience points.

good/bad?

>>97969198
Perfectly fine. Monsters are a minor source of XP anyway and doing away with monster XP saves on bookkeeping.

>>97969231
>Monsters are a minor source of XP anyway
That really depends on the monster. The really dangerous ones with special abilities can give substantial amounts, and removing that will make higher levels noticeably harder.

>>97969291
>removing that will make higher levels noticeably harder.
Meh, you can just give out slightly more loot. Bump all hoards by like 10% and you're back in line with progression.

>>97969198
>Good/bad
Indifferent

>>97969198
Why do you want to do that?

>>97969313
>>97969231
>Let me just alter the system so that it requires less bookkeeping, except now I will have to do extra bookkeeping!
Retard
>>97969198
The fact that you have to ask this demonstrates that you do not have mastery of the system enough to start altering it

>>97969590
Wrong assumptions also give zero experience points, apprentice.

>>97967399
I tend to start with the dungeon and what amounts to the adjacent hexes fairly fleshed out.
A rough map of the areas past that works fine for
>here be dragons and blasted ruins
>to the east, an expanding empire
sort of stuff that gets filled in more later.

>>97969198
Bad. It shifts emphasis too strongly in the direction of the meme which will lead to either slower progress or monty hauling.

>>97967399
Call me crazy but I tend to do 3 maps.
A big world map that covers anything that might come up, a middle-map of the local area with some broad strokes of locations that they might find via rumours, then the dungeon map of the first dungeon.

Kind of fixes the starting area in my mind, while also giving a larger map that I can broad strokes.

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Right lads, hear me out.
How would you feel about reversing the danger involved in the wilderness vs dungeons?
Make low levels more about being merchant caravan guards, escorts for travellers, mappers, ect, before building up into delving the depths of terrible, ancient ruins and so on?

It's something I've been thinking about since late last year when I made a throw away comment in one of these threads about a theoretical "Caravan Phase" which'd introduce players to known trade routes, important NPCs, help them find dungeons, ect.
Naturally still keeping things wide open enough that players have their choices on where to go and what to do by having various groups they can work for (or being able to set off on their own with goods, a map and their steel balls), ect.

>>97970022
Don't really want a day job simulator.
Undermines the entire points of light exploration premise, gets into why there are dungeons at all if its easy to get logistics to them and established trade routs/economic and military capacity to destroy the dungeons and lairs.
Removes the excitement of exploration and replaces it with routs.

>>97970031
It's a fair cop. The thought likely came from;
https://arbrethil.substack.com/p/adventurer-colonist-king
This and from Traveller, which has a very solid foundation in exploration.
I'll likely play with the idea some more, maybe try running something for my table and see if they like it given they've been enjoying Traveller.

>>97970047
Yeah, Traveller has a very different concept of the game world, power level, exploration and economics than osr d&d. Not bad, just notably different enough I'm not sure it transfers well.

>stunted manchild advertises himself as a great dm, he reads so much fiction and he has so much system mastery
>His homemade adventures are literally just ripoffs of existing modules, or playing out the stories of his favorite marvel comic books

Like finding a grifter IRL

>>97970022
You seem to have a very fundamental misunderstanding of the game itself, so I'm not even going to bother picking this apart, I'm just going to tell you that you're wrong.

>>97970345
Welp, that needs a story to fill in what actually happened anon.