Welcome to the Old School Renaissance General, the thread dedicated to first-decade, Gygaxian D&D, its faithful modern clones, and content created for use with them. Later editions (2e and newer) should be discussed elsewhere. Broadly, OSR games encourage a tonal and mechanical fidelity to Dungeons & Dragons played as intended by its creators from 1974 to 1983 — less emphasis on linear adventures and overarching metaplots and a greater emphasis on player agency. If you are new to the OSR, welcome! Ask us whatever you're curious about: we'll be happy to help you get started. We also have two excellent beginner guides created by Anons with feedback from the thread that you can check for help: >n00b DM's Guidehttps://pastebin.com/EVvt6P0B>n00b Player's Handbookhttps://pastebin.com/XALkXkV0 >Troves, Resources, Blogs, etc:http://pastebin.com/9fzM6128 >Need a starter dungeon? Here's a curated collection:https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94994969/#95006768 >Previous thread:>>98163653>Thread QuestionWhat's a monster, magic item, or spell that's been used in an unorthodox, funny, or creative way at your table?
>>98208810>What's a monster, magic item, or spell that's been used in an unorthodox, funny, or creative way at your table?A friend of mine's PC got swallowed by a Purple Worm and promptly opened an Instant Fortress inside of it. There was a big discussion about whether only the Purple Worm should get the 10d10 damage from it, or the swallowed PC as well. Can't remember if the DM allowed a save or what in the end, but the PC survived.
>>98208837>things that didn't happenThat said, how would he not take the damage? Best case scenario he's crushed between the worm and the expanding fortress and gets hurt before the worm can be.
>>98209279Not sure how I'd rule it, but a case could be made.DMG:>It requires but 1 round to cause the fortress to spring up, but the person or persons nearby must be careful not to be caught by its sudden growth, or else they will sustain 10-100 hit points of damage.>The door will always be facing the owner of the device when it becomes a fortress, and it will open and close instantly at his command.Does the fortress spring up with an open or closed door? If it springs up with an open door, you could argue that the character is yeeted inside the fortress through the open door.If it springs up with a closed door, since it takes a full round for it to spring up but the command to open or close the door has an instant effect, the character might have the time to make the door open before the fortress is "complete".Again, I'm not pushing for a specific interpretation, just saying that I can see some DMs ruling it favourably.
>>98209454I see what you're saying, but I think that's an untenable interpretation. If the user just gets flung through the open door/can open it as it grows, then he wouldn't need to be cautious.Another funny thing about Anon's fake story is that the damage from the Fortress springing forth typically wouldn't be enough to kill a purple worm.
Someone asked about Stonehell in the open OSR thread, so one of your solicitors directed him here and said you had 3 DMs running Stonehell and posting play reports and maps. Do you though? I think the last person to post a play report was the BFTPG guy 2 threads ago (and he said the game was ending). I was just going to link the guy directly to the relevant posts/discussion but I scanned the last 2 threads and didn’t see any.
>>98209522>the damage from the Fortress springing forth typically wouldn't be enough to kill a purple wormArguably it should deal more damage if it springs up inside of you rather than next to / over you. But it's 10d10 damage no save anyway, so it's not bad either.
>>98209522>the damage from the Fortress springing forth typically wouldn't be enough to kill a purple wormHe never said it was. What is with you man?
Anyone have a system they like for running psionics in B/X?
>>98208593Page 23 for retainers iirc.Suggest low levels should not use them.
>>98209942I change "no retainers above the level of the player" to "no retainers at or above the level" and just make first level players hire level 0 townspeople.
>>98209690The AD&D one is completely compatible. You could also take a look at the one by Courtney Campbell, Hack & Slash publishing.
>>98210014>level 0 townspeopleThose would be hirelings, though. Retainers / Henchmen are classed.
>>98209942Page 21>USING RETAINERS: Retainers are often used to strengthen a>party which is attempting an extremely dangerous adventure. It is>recommended that the DM not allow beginning players to hire re->tainers. New players tend to use retainers as a crutch, letting them>take all the risks. If a dungeon is very difficult, the DM should let>players have more than one character apiece before using re->tainers, at least until players are more experienced. Hirelings are>experts which can be hired by the characters. They are more suited>to higher level campaigns and are explained in the D&D EXPERT>SET.It's not about character level but player experience, according to Moldvay.I completely disagree, by the way. Never two PCs at the same time, and Henchmen are 100% fine from day one and level one.
>>98209547Yeah, I could definitely see this, but as written it's a kinda comical situation, the worm just ends up looking like one of those pythons that swallowed a deer.>>98209562I didn't say he said it was, it's just a funny note.
>>98209690Personally, I like the psionics system in Carcosa. It's simple and straightforward; you might want to increase the chance of gaining the powers, though.
>>98210131What do BECMI and Holmes basic have to say on this? That always struck me as such a specific piece of advice
>>98210131>>98210975I don't know about what the boxed sets say about number of PC expectations, but the various adventures published at that time tend to be tuned around "6 to 8 player characters." As I don't expect 7+ player tables to be normal I think we can suspect that they were expecting 3 or 4 players each with 2 characters to be a norm.
>>98210975I don't know, but if you look it up and share it I'd be curious to know. Not that I'd take Mentzer's advice on much if anything.
>>98210975>>98211075>>98211088Mentzer Basic only offers an interesting difference from Moldvay Basic in saying retainers do not get a share of the gold, only their wages.Modules printed around that time, B5 and B8, both recommend taking the pregenerated characters from the book along as NPCs if your party is not up to the recommended count.
>>98211404>retainers do not get a share of the gold, only their wageslolwut
>>98209545Check the archive for "SotB" and you'll find some of mine. Haven't recapped in a couple weeks, game is still going.
>>98210069Where exactly do you think you're getting this information>>98211622Eotb is a shit head and I hope somebody rapes him to death and then turns his skeleton into a xylophone
>>98211622Never gets old.>>98211915Chill, Frank.
>>98211915>Where exactly do you think you're getting this informationWhat's with the dickhead way of asking the question?
>>98209545>Do you though?Yes. There's the SotB Anon, a second Anon who's not the SotB Anon, and a third Anon who's the one who shared the maps that SotB Anon is using in his campaign.Why would we lie about something like that? You're the ones who are having fake discussions all the time, we don't need to do any of that.
>>98211915>Eotb is a shit head and I hope somebody rapes him to death and then turns his skeleton into a xylophone>t. F. Mentzer>no wait, call me Frank M.
>>98212192So you're wrong, and refuse to admit it. >What's with the dickhead way of asking the question?stop acting like a pussy redditor and provide a source or fuck off with your misinformation
I'm trying to get my friends into OSR with B/X, because nobody in my group can agree on a system or DM they like, and I like how rules light it is. Unfortunately they suck at mapping, and it's stressful trying to describe it to them. I'm thinking about just trying to make it into a point crawl, or make a blank map, or something, and eyeball the distance they move for stuff like torches and wandering monsters, but I'm still new so I feel like the lich of Moldvay is going to appear and beat me to death if I do.
>>98211622qrd on the pic?
>>98212420EOTB asked some critical questions about a project Frank Mentzer was doing (specifically that it looked like vaporware IIRC which is obviously was) and Mentzer tried to light him up via DM but blew it to an extent which... well, you can see it in the screenshot. It's basically a feeble nerd version of the Navy Seal copypasta.
>>98212402Practice makes perfect.Make everyone watch the GFC mapping video - https://youtu.be/prijsOI3xWsMy players collected maps of Stonehell are such a great artifact of the game to use & look back on.
black box book is so good bros
>>98212658He did eventually launch a kickstarter for this project (Empyrea), and it crashed amongst absurdly ambitious goals (many systems supported at once, 250K dollars sought). I'm kind of surprised he never tried again aiming for a more reasonable amount.
Gave my players some back up characters, and they finally managed to make their way through most of a dungeon tonight. Only had like two niggers die too. Mapper did a really good job as well.
posted a few days ago about hexes and working on my hex map. while rewarding, the process is tedious and time consuming; flipping back and forth through multiple books, rolling dice, and writing down everything into my notebook started to drag. long story short, I experimented with claude. now, essentially the entirety of the "sandbox generator" book has been made into generators that work with a few clicks. I'm here to offer the finished products if anyone wants them they are very useful, and frankly, I'm impressed that I could feed the AI the book PDF and simply describe what I want. it even generates dungeons complete with maps. inb4 screeching about >AIit's still copied into my notebook by hand, it just saves a lot of time.
>>98212325Hi Saltanon
>>98212402>Unfortunately they suck at mapping,Their problem, not yours. Disabuse yourself of the idea that whether PCs succeed or fail is your responsibility and part of your job as the DM, you're not playing 2e/WotC D&D.>and it's stressful trying to describe it to them. Git gud at describing maps. Watch this video:https://youtu.be/prijsOI3xWsAnd all other videos by GFCDND>I'm thinking about just trying to make it into a point crawl, or make a blank map, or somethingAbsolutely fucking not. B/X is a literal game for children, learn to play it.You'll fuck it up in more ways than I can count if you turn dungeons into point crawls. There's so many important elements to mapping correctly, such as inferring the presence of secret doors from the presence of negative space, or dealing with tricks.
>>98212880The fuck is that
>>98213277Excellent. Post mapper's map pl0x
>>98212325>>98213608>Hi SaltanonShould have added >NTAYRTand>he's right
>>98213242>I'm kind of surprised he never tried again aiming for a more reasonable amount.Two reasons if you ask me: #1, he was envisioning it as this grand hype project that would firmly establish him, writer of the most popular D&D book, as the undisputed lord of the OSR and $250 was just intended to be the initial buy-in, the lowball opening goal of his three-million-dollar runaway success, and #2, he saw it as his long-awaited cash-in. If he couldn't have those, what was the point of all the hard work?
>>98213277Nice one, Anon! There's one guy ITT who's adamantly against multiple PCs for some reason but for my part I've never had a problem with it, on the contrary. Running more than one PC helps snap some players out of a "muh protagonist" mindset too which is a bonus.
>>98213629Either he means the black-cover B/X omnibus (but in that case "box" makes no sense), or he means the rulebook from the "Classic D&D Game" starter box that was meant to go with the Rules Cyclopedia. There were two editions of that starter box, one was black, and the book goes up to level 5.
>>98213722>There's one guy ITT who's adamantly against multiple PCs If you mean "in the same party", that's me. (Not sure I'm the only one, though). I absolutely do encourage players to create more than one PC, and the fact that I use STRICT TIME RECORDS pretty much forces them to do it eventually anyway.>Running more than one PC helps snap some players out of a "muh protagonist" mindsetThat's very true, but you don't need to have them play multiple PCs at the same time in the same party to obtain that effect.
>>98213608>>98213642Hi, retard. Still can't provide evidence of your claim?
>>98213604What books did you feed it?
>>98213604I'm not 100% sure I understand what it is that it does and how it does it, but I'd be extremely curious to take a look.
>>98213835>>98213856it was fed "sandbox generator", picrel. had it create 4 different generation tools:general hex contentsettlementsassorted gens dungeonsthe dungeons one is rough and will take refining, but i am limited in my progress since it's the free version. it's ultimately "good enough" since there's a lot to work with and correct myself. there are better dungeon generators, but it was more a test to see what it's capable of doing with just html.https://files.catbox.moe/xpo2go.rar
>>98213741>If you mean "in the same party", that's me.Yes, I mean at the same time. I even considered adding an aside that I didn't mean troupe play, but I figured it was obvious from context and I'd just be blabbing pointlessly.
>>98213941That's fine, I'm just a bit anal about it, as you've noticed already.
>>98213893>it's the free versionYeah, I've tried to do stuff like this using the free versions of Gemini and ChatLGBT, but they invariably hallucinate, take shortcuts, insert stupid bugs, and so on.In fact, looking at the Dungeon generator, it's clear that it has completely hallucinated how it's supposed to work. I'm not talking about the square maps of the individual levels, but what the book calls "areas", see picrel. There should be six areas each with a multi-level dungeon, and connections between the areas. This one instead created six "levels" of random levels sorted in a random order, with no connections between them.Getting Claude to do what Sandbox Generator actually tells you to do would be a daunting task. Again, I'm talking from experience here.In my experience you have to really hand hold the LLM through the process. You need to design the architecture of the application, and feed the LLM one tiny task at a time, like writing a single method, and check for it. It can handle a handful strongly related methods at the same time as long as you double check everything, but if you try to get it to work on such a huge project it'll start not only hallucinating, but deleting whole sections of the project, or even adding stuff you never asked.Don't get me wrong, it can be used to speed up programming, and I have done it in the past already with good success. But you still have to do a lot of thinking and check everything it does step by step, insulting it as needed.
>>98213893>>98214026And on the square maps...- It's colour-coded in a way that's not human-readable because it's all subtle shades of parchment. And rooms have edges around them of three different colours for which there's no legend.- It has a bunch of rhombi but it doesn't say what they represent.- Doors don't make any fucking sense: Apart from the fact that it isn't clear what walls they are supposed to be on, there's a bunch of rooms with no doors leading into them, like #9 and #25.And the fun thing is, if you tell the LLM to fix these things without hand-holding it through the process but just giving it high-level directives, it'll start hallucinating more, deleting random pieces of code, and stuff like that.LLMs are just unable to handle this kind of project, and I strongly doubt that they will be any time soon without a radical change in technology (that would make them not LLMs anymore).
>>98214026NTA, I've never used any sort of generative AI myself but I see people compare it to working with an unpaid intern, is that accurate in your experience?
>>98214088>I see people compare it to working with an unpaid intern, is that accurate in your experience?No. It's much, much, much worse.
>>98214026>>98214066oh yes, as I said the dungeon generator is quite bad, but I gave it little more direction than uploading the entire PDF, and saying make a generator tool using the dungeon section, ignoring megadungeons and/or dungeons connecting to other dungeons. still found it rather impressive with such little direction. the other generators it made work as intended(and are vastly simpler in scope). might see what I can get it to do to refine the dungeon gen, but all I really cared about was the hex and settlement gens. the npc and other ones turned out alright too
>>98212402>Unfortunately they suck at mapping,The map doesn't have to be prefect. It just has to be functional enough for the party to understand where they are in relation to other areas and how long it takes to move around. Most party facing mapping can be a point crawl unless you're really into hidden rooms you can only find by counting tiles. >and it's stressful trying to describe it to themWhat sort of stress or issues are happening there? Post a map you've used and how you described a few rooms and the movement between them. Its a practice thing.
>>98214066>And rooms have edges around them of three different colours for which there's no legend.NAYRT and I haven't even tried the tools but you seem to be wrong about this, since the legend for the edges is shown at the bottom of your own screencap.
>>98214066This is pretty bad. I think the diamonds mean an entrance to another level that is a stair? If I need a quickly generated dungeon, donjon is still a lot more functional.
>>98208810Amazing session in OD&D+grayhawk+chainmail low-to-no-prep campaign! Party (lvl 2 dwarf fighter, three m-us, a cleric and a hobbit thief +two fighters) got to the dungeon and took care of a party of orcs who got there from a lower level. the thief managed to open the tomb of a hero level skeleton and its minion skeletons. Party fighters got flattened but otherwise the fight went smoothly and they got their first +1 sword and 4000 gp worth of loot.Then they got geased by an evil wizard to get a spell scroll up north.
>>98214829>the legend for the edges is shown at the bottom of your own screencapThe edges at in the legend don't seem to match the edges. Look at rooms 3, 9, 6, and 8: I see four different colours there (three shades of brown) which is more than in the legend. Unless some rooms are actually rectangular corridors, which would make matters even worse.
>>98214955Cool what do you use at the table to compensate for your almost-no-prep? Wilderness Hexplore or something like that?
>>98215095>Look at rooms 3, 9, 6, and 8: I see four different colours there (three shades of brown) which is more than in the legend.You mean 3, 4, 8, and 9 presumably, since 6 is off on its own to the left. And it seems straightforward to me: 3 is a trap room, 4 is a special room, 9 is a monster room. 8 has the baseline border and that makes it an empty room.
>>98215162You could be right, but then there should be an empty room entry in the legend.
>>98215180Quite possibly, but I could easily see a human mapper also deciding that it was obvious that if a given room didn't have any of the possible types of content, it's necessarily empty. Personally I wouldn't even bother to number empty rooms, but anyway.In any case this is academic since the map is, as noted, shit anyway. Those doors and stairs(?) are horrendous.
>>98215294Numbering empty rooms is necessary for restocking. Sure, you can add numbers later, but then they will be all over the place instead of in a semi-reasonable order, like by areas, or left to right top to bottom.
>>98213721>didn't get funded>didn't get to sex up all the femalesMentzer...
>>98215391answer me then.
>>98215415>The question was what are the differences between BECMI and RC.Off the top of my head: Removed the thug, made the mystic a playable class instead of an NPC-only class, added "general skills", removed 99% of the Immortals set and changed the 1% that was left in drastically, added alternative XP progression to allow Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Mystics to reach level 36.Most of these actually make the RC worse than BECMI, which was already a mixed bag to begin with. There's also the issue that the BE example of play are much worse than the B/X ones, and there's practically none at all in the RC. This is why we recommend Anons learn to play on B/X instead, although a few rules could be ported from BECM into B/X safely.
What B/X retroclone should I buy in print to get the most authentic B/X game, WITHOUT buying the print on demand of the actual B/X books?
>>98216410OSE-Classic is an extremely faithful retroclone of B/X, go for that one. You should still read the examples of play in B/X, though, because they are much better than the OSE-Classic ones. But for reference at the table OSE-Classic is a far superior book.
>>98216410The alternative is to get the BX Omnibus for free and have it printed by Lulu
My players acquired some property in town and now want to turn it into a store that's a front for a smuggling operation. Anyone know of any rules for adjudicating this? I'm thinking of coming up with a basic system to calculate monthly profit vs. loss, with situational bonuses and penalties based on what's going on in town and who they hired to work the store. I know ACKS might have something for this but I run a pretty orthodox BX game so particularly spreadsheety solutions might not be the best for my table.
>>98217074If it is in ACKS it would probably be in the system for hijinks and that is a pretty deep subsystem you cant just pull out.
>>98216410Having fun > authenticity
>>98217074>basic system to calculate monthly profit vs. lossIf you want to DIY the system and need a reference, ACKS assumes that the typical investment returns 33% per year, that's somewhere between 2% and 3% per month depending on whether you do compounding interest.If you want to know how ACKS handles this, read on.ACKS II RR pages 383-386: Passive investment is a reasonably quick and abstract system, but still generates some variance and interesting situations. Since it's a front for a different activity, you could adjudicate the store itself as a safe business establishment. And perhaps the smuggling operation could be abstracted as a second, separate, a riskier passive investment (a commercial expedition, although strictly speaking it's not really that), with the players choosing how risky they want it to be.As you can see on page 383, 3% per month corresponds to a risky investment, and risky investments are all annihilated eventually (2% per month as you can see in picrel), which is why they need to have multiple operations to diversify and drastically reduce the risk of total bankruptcy in any given month.Alternatively (and more orthodoxly), Smuggling is a hijink, see RR 361-365. But that's heavier on proficiencies out of the box, so you'll have to make some minor adaptations. So this second option would involve a shop front as a standard passive investment plus smuggling as a separate hijink.
>>98217074How big is the town and neighbouring areas?What are they smuggling? How big a smuggling operation are we talking about here? What are the penalties for smuggling and how much full harness does the local lord have?What other factions in the area are competition? How much do you want to adjudicate smuggler stuff? I'm lazy so I'd do something like >players get to gamble X gp per month on smuggling.>play blackjack, no fancy rules like insurance, splitting, etc. one hand for the whole party >min and max bets based on level and local economy so you don't fuck up your game world >after bets and hand is resolved roll 2d6, +1 for successful betting, +2 for natural black jack, -1 for loosing, -2 for busting. > 6 or less, strong negative event based on local factions, characters have to sort out a problem or face consequences > 7-9, mixed event based on local factions, characters have to solve a problem >10+, positive event based on local factions, characters get a nice things for once Yeah yeah foe gyg. If you're not going to make a spread sheet this is fast and gets the ideas across without having to muck about too much in a way that's thematic and players can easily understand. Feel free to convert 2D6 to X-in-6 or % or whatever as suits your needs.
>>98216877Have it printed at Staples or Office Max so you can get it ring bound
>>98216871>You should still read the examples of play in B/X, though, because they are much better than the OSE-Classic oneslol people cargocult this "the play examples are so good bro!" thing to a ridiculous degree. There are like, two, and they're not really that representative, it abstracts actual play quite a bit.
>>98217074Third Kingdom Games' A Guide to Thieves Guilds has decent and low complexity rules for this kind of stuff, and it's targetted at OSE.
>>98217403t. Bargle
>>98217403Well the new OSE is supposed to have its own examples of play. Hopefully Norman doesn't fuck them up and we can just stop having this discussion.
>>98217425>t. Bargle
>>98217134I'll check that out, thanks>>98217191Really appreciate the writeup and page references; I'll take a look.>>98217268All the details are known to me. Don't need to clog the thread with specifics about my home campaign but yeah I like the idea of a minigame. Although I already have a lot of gambling (a la Appendix F in the DMG) in my campaign since I threw a ton of gambling halls and betting rings in my setting. Might do something similar but go in a non-blackjack direction.>>98217412Never heard of this but I'll check it out. My players have been doing a lot of work with the thieves guild recently so this will probably be of use to me.
>>98216410I do not understand. Why not just play the origibal game if you want the authentic experience?
>>98215101The rules themselves. Just rolling the tables for encounters. For the wilderness and dungeon maps I use the ad&d dmg generators. I have started to fill out the wilderness map on my spare time with the odnd rules for encounters to fill it. It makes it a bit faster to play at the table than rolling everything on the fly, eventhough it was fun to just see what happens. Still very minimal prep. Just marking the map with whatever monster is on the hex and figuring the rest when it becomes relevant. If a dungeon becomes a focus for the players I prep it a bit more and put some thought in the encounters (hero level skeleton for instance).
What do I tell story fags that wanna go off on solo adventures and like do stuff outside mechanics. Like seduce x to steal all their gold.
>>98218421I always start every campaign with a simple statement about how this is a collaborative game. I point out that just as it sucks when you miss a bunch of turns in a row in any other type of game and have to sit there while everyone else actually does something, making everyone sit around twiddling their thumbs while one guy runs off to do his own thing for 20 minutes or more sucks for everyone else. I then promise that the group will never be penalized in terms of gameplay for avoiding what otherwise would be a logical but lengthy solo effort.I've never had a problem with a group once I've laid it out in black and white for them. Try just framing it the right way; make them relate to how boring it would be to not the star of the show but the one watching the star.
>>98216410Just play BX, what the fuck is wrong with you
>>98218498Hmm. I'll try and sling something similar to them next time.
>>98218498Oh yeah, and thanks for the reply
>>98218421>Like seduce x to steal all their gold.First option: "No." Second option: Whoever they try to seduce is either uninterested or not falling for it. The trick is don't tell them at the table, tell them it will be resolved during downtime between sessions. Next session (or after three sessions) tell when it didn't work.Third option: During DOWNTIME, not at the table, resolve it with with no "roleplaying", just one single roll (x-in-6, d20+Charisma, whatever) and either give them the gold (no XP) or put them in jail (and hence time jail) for a few months = roll a new character and play that one until game calendar catches up. You are keeping strict time records, right?If they try to break their friend from prison, same procedure. Do it during downtime between sessions, off the table, one single roll, if they succeed he's free but they're banned from the town if they fail they're all in jail (and time jail), roll up new characters and play those until the game calendar catches up. You are keeping strict time records, right?
Do you guys do liquid fireballs or no? I grew up using them but it's a pain in the ass
>>98218826>liquid fireballsWhat's that.If you mean fixed volume per the PHB, yes. That and item saves are necessary to balance the otherwise broken spell.
What size hexes do you think this map uses?
>>98218965looking at the river and bridge I have to imagine these hexes are under 1 mile
A few days ago I said I'm going through the magic items in the DMG, OSE-Advanced, and OSRIC, and making comparisons. I keep hitting on a bunch of cases in which OSE-Advanced is much more faithful to the DMG, while OSRIC makes completely unnecessary shitbrewing changes. Here's the latest one: Robe of Blending. Finch not only drastically increases the chances of being spotted and removes a requirement for a minimum of 15 Intelligence or 10 HD/levels, but he also makes up a new power wholesale, a gaze attack.To be clear: I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong about changing the rules of the DMG. What's wrong is marketing a heavily house ruled book as the most faithful to AD&D, which is false, and saying that it's only to avoid copyright issues, also false given how OSE-Advanced is much more faithful.
>>98219035I actually kind of like that OSE-A simplified the chance to detect, but there's no note stating that the chance to observe is cumulative, such that a 10th level MU with 15 int should have a 2-in-6 chance. I wonder if they declined to do that because the math doesn't line up as well that way. That's at least more valid a reason than>muh copyright
Playing B/X - How do you go about creating "boss" monsters? Sorry I don't know a better shorthand term, I swear I'm not a storyshitting railroader.Context: I flavour Goblin society like an ant nest. Everyday goblins are worker drones (but still behave as your classic chaotic pest monster). The Goblin Queen is a giant grub that constantly lays larvae and can influence nearby goblins with pheromones.If I'm not supposed to use the party level as a guide for scaling I'm not sure where to start. Judging by the Dragon stat blocks I guess 8-10 HD feels close.One 1d12 slam attack, nearby goblins gain +2 to hit and damage?
>>98219213you kind of answered your own question. as someone relatively new to osr(<2 years of playing), what I have come to realize is that monster stats are "realistic". by that I mean, the monsters encountered, especially those hand-picked for a dungeon or encounter, are statted as you would think this monster should be in the context of the game world. the party size, strength, level, etc has nothing to do with the monster stats/abilities/attacks. just like you said, check out other monsters to help gauge the appropriate power level of the monster in question. if the party stands no chance in a straight up fight, the stats should reflect that, but more importantly, the players should get that sense when they see the monster and it's described to them.
>>98219213Before designing "bosses", check out the AD&D Monster Manual. For many humanoid monsters in particular it will give you an idea of ecology and organization of the enemy forced. For goblins it will tell you about the goblin bodyguards and their chief (I think that's the word they use). You can refer to B/X as well, as B's goblin stat block will tell you about the goblin king. Try to use primary sources to get a feel for what the game is expecting before you start designing shit yourself.Mind you, I've got no problem with your concept of goblins-as-ants serving their queen.
>>98218379So you do Appendix A for drawing the hex/dungeon but OD&D for the actual stocking of monsters and treasure?
>>98219278Damn, Goblin King & Bodyguards will have to be the blueprint. Good advice.If I want this faction to be a serious threat it is just going to have to be with quantity over quality. I suppose I should refer to restocking rules to try and calculate the birth rates.
>>98218805>You are keeping strict time records, right?I can't imagine playing without them honestly.
>>98219333You can also refer to other monsters if you wanna scale up your queen. I think the goblin king is only on par with a hobgoblin. If you want her to be stronger, you could compare her to an Ogre instead, but I think bumping her all the way to 8+ HD is a bit much, even if you have her fight as a weaker monster. It'll turn what you probably intend to be an exciting brawl into a slogfest. Made a similar mistake back in my 3e days giving my first boss encounter 4 HD and plate+shield lmao.There's plenty of tools available in the rulebooks so I encourage you to scour them for information, especially the AD&D books. Gary hid a lot of (sometimes contradictory) niche rules and advice everywhere.Also you'll notice that the presence of kings or leaders tends to give small bonuses to morale or to-hit. I think +2 hit and damage(!) for all her guards might be pushing it if your PCs are somewhat low level or lacking in magical equipment.
>>98219213>If I'm not supposed to use the party level as a guide for scaling I'm not sure where to start.You scale by dungeon level. What you need is a gradient of danger, with deeper levels = more danger, and then the players are the ones who have to decide how deep they want to go.>Judging by the Dragon stat blocks I guess 8-10 HD feels close.In B/X, a Goblin King has 3 HD. Jumping to 8-10 is a lot, particularly because goblins are usually met on the first level of a dungeon. Hard to tell if it can work or not without looking at your dungeon as a whole.>One 1d12 slam attack, nearby goblins gain +2 to hit and damage?Either take a monster with the same number of HD, or a similar monsters with fewer HD. Statistically, TOTAL damage roughly scales as +2 per extra HD, and AC roughly scales as +1 (bonus) per extra HD.So if a Goblin King has 3 HD, AC 6, and deals 1d6+1 damage, a 9 HD Goblin "Emperor" might have AC 6-(6/2)=3 and deal 1d6+1+(6×2) = 1d6+13 damage, which you could distribute among multiple attacks. 1d6+13 is 16.5 damage on average, which is about 4d6 or 5d6 damage, so you could have it attack twice per round for 2d6 damage each.This is just a ballpark, but it's usually a good starting point. In fact, if you compare this Goblin "Emperor" with a 9 HD Stone Giant, you see that the Stone Giant has AC 4 and only deals 3d6 damage, but it also has a special attack throwing boulders up to 300' (!!!) for 3d6 damage, which kinda compensates for it.
>>98219375>I can't imagine playing without them honestly.Based
>>98218965>What size hexes do you think this map uses?it looks like fuckin'.... five meters or something. I don't understand why someone would use a hex sheet for a map this granular.
>>98218965Id assume 3 miles or something and the icons aren't to scale. But they deliberately drew the river, so I'd have to assume this is something in terms of tens of feet and theyre in a marsh.
>>98218144Sounds like you'll figure it out but for what its worth the details and specifics are what help make the ruling and neat shit we make more functional, inform why the mechanical choices are made and give other anons ideas about what to do. Its harder to make things here because pdfs are forbidden which has really killed a lot of the creative aspect of this place. Fucking sucks. I just went with blackjack because its fast, familiar risk-to-reward and gets this idea across. Let us know what you end up doing.
>>98219455Forgot to tell you the first time around. While I prefer more systematic stuff, I wouldn't call blackjack foegiggy
>>98219535>that time I had the same idea about black jack as gygax >good >that time I had the same idea about hookers and blow as gygax >less goodFunny how that works sometimes.
>>98219213I mean... it's just a question of how hard you want the queen to be to beat. Do you figure on it being a threat that level 1 PCs have to retreat from so the goblins restock over time, until they reach a level where they can ratfuck her and get rid of the infestation once and for all? Or are you thinking of it more as the equivalent of the goblin kings already statted in the books: a tougher leader goblin? IMO this is the type of question you should ask yourself. What's the creature's purpose in your dungeon design?
Is Gygax's twelve-inch movement for infantry wrong? Should it have been six inches instead?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm6opciOwJM
>>98218965Imagining that the icons are just symbols and not actually to scale, I would say that this is a 2-mile map. Any chunk of seven hexes could be interpreted as 6-Mile a hex-flower.
>>98219955From this point of view, and this is a bit of pet peeve of mine, I do think that the 12" scale is not great and a bad conversion, rather than merely a holdover, from Chainmail. Here's why.In Chainmail, the movement rates are the same as in AD&D, so 12" for light infantry. However, the chainmain rules were developed and playtested using 40mm miniatures, that 1.5 inches. This means that, relative to the size of the base (which would also be 1.5 inches), the movement rate would have been 8 bases, not 12.When you scale that down to 25mm, that is closer to the most common standard for miniatures, both in the 1970s and today, a distance of 8 bases becomes 8 inches.Also worth noting that B/X's 40' movement per round for light infantry also corresponds to 8 "bases" when you consider the implied 5' scale for combat in Moldvay's Basic. I think Moldvay quietly fixed the error in AD&D and OD&D, although nobody noticed except for yours truly.So my conclusion is that the idea distance light infantry should move per round in combat should be 8 spaces (bases or squares or hexes or whatever), not 12. Essentially, in AD&D you should multiply all movement speeds (and bow ranges and so on) by 2/3 for combat, if you're using miniatures or a grid. Which is easy to do because they're always multiples of 3". Or, alternatively, you can just use the B/X speeds on a 5' grid.
>>98220194>chainmainThe Chainmain runes?
Hey guys. Just wanted to do some self-promotion. I finished the OSR Catgirl book. You can get it now on DrivethruRPG. It's 3 bucks and has 3 + 1 classes, like 10 magic items, a monster entry, a map, some campaign ideas/guidelines. 32 pages in total. Just like my other product, it can be found on the Trove, but I'd appreciate it if you could buy it so that my metrics go up.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/572099/the-osr-catgirl-nine-lives-of-adventure
>>98221115kek good on you.
>>98221261That 100% was some of the inspiration. "What if I made this real?"
>>98221115>same person who published the dark elf bookUnfathomably based
>>98222040<3
>>98219379I could lean into the idea of a slogfest by having the Queen as a 9AC sack of HP with no attacks, play it by the book by having a Goblin King & Bodyguards defending the Queen's chamber. The party ranges from levels 2 - 4, having a steady stream of normal Gobs rushing to defend the 6HD Queen with +2s feels right. It should be fun actually if I introduce cleave rules for Fighters like I’ve been wanting to.Otherwise I could handle the slaying of the defenseless Queen as a simple (out of combat) affair after the Party wins through layers of Goblin defenses. She could die slowly though and frenzy the hive with her death throes.I did scan the DMG for advice on homebrewing monsters but didn’t see anything at first glance.>>98219407This whole situation came about after some Hexcrawling (full disclosure: I am SotB anon). We had a Goblin PC for a while so I repurposed the Abduction of Princess Sylvia from B9 into a quest rumour: a Juvenile Goblin Queen was abducted by Humans. After the party rescued the “Princess” she was brought back to establish herself in the Bandit Hideout from SH supplement 1. What this means is that the upper levels of Stonehell are now crawling with Goblins - which is dungeon level appropriate.But the Goblin hive exists apart from the Dungeon, perhaps outside the level/difficulty paradigm?>scale by dungeon levelIs it necessary to bury the Queen under several levels of goblin caves in order to justify her high HD?>>98219767>a question of how hard you want the queen to be to beatIt can’t be about how hard I want it to be, that would be designing an encounter. I want it to be consistent with the rules.
>>98222419>Is it necessary to bury the Queen under several levels of goblin caves in order to justify her high HD?Doesn't have to be physical vertical levels. Some dungeons achieve the equivalent of "levels" with East-West gradients, for example Barrowmaze, that is all on one single level.But even in this case, what you want to avoid doing is going directly from "room with two goblins fighting a giant rat" to '"room with a 9HD queen and twelve bugbear bodyguards". There needs to be some kind of escalation of danger.
