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:>>98234882>Thread Question:How common are large-scale battles in your games?
>>98264675>How common are large-scale battles in your games?Alas, less common than I'd like. Admittedly part of it is because the players remain at mid-levels, but I would still have enjoyed doing more of that sort of thing.
>>98265268Mass battles should already be happening in the mid levels, though, with hundreds of humanoids as a typical wilderness encounter.
>>98265394Like I said, I would have liked that too. As a practical matter, though, circa level 5 my players are not hiring any bands of mercenaries.
>>98265503There's ways you could bring the mass combat to them, e.g. by having an army of humanoids besiege and/or storm the Keep on the Borderlands. It might mean forcing the players' hands if not done correctly, which I'm not a fan of, but if it opens their minds to a whole new style of play it might be worth contemplating.
My group wants to try anti-Gygaxian OSR games. Which should I play? DCC? Shadowdark? 2E?
>>98267104you should send all your players to conversion therapy to make them straight again. also, go yourself.
>the thief misses the tripwire hooked up to 4 crossbows>2 go on him and 2 on the dwarf>The miss the dwarf and get huge hits on the thief >-2 HP>the good news is he will survive >the bad news is he took a bolt to the nutsIf magic to fix this didn't exist it would have been kinder to let him bleed out on the ground.
I was looking the king-conan trove and I'm getting a bit confused with all the systems to "simulate" Conan the barbarian.What is the osr recommendation to play in a Conan setting?I want something lightweight with the minimal work to adapt spells and mechanics pertinent to the setting.
>>98268555>What is the osr recommendation to play in a Conan setting?Unironically dnd
>>98264675>How common are large-scale battles in your games?Running 0e on top of Chainmail, so I suppose the answer is "every chance I can get."
>>98268555If you want to level, 0e clone of your choice. If you want to amass followers, Chainmail clone of your choice.
>>98268555Personally I'd recommend Jason Vey's Age of Conan, which you can find on https://grey-elf.com/. He's already done the work of converting OD&D to a more Conanesque feel for you.
>>98268555Depends what you qualify as the important parts to simulate of Conan.
>>98268555You said "lightweight" so mentioning ACKS may seem counterintuitive, but the shaded magic system in the Heroic Fantary Handbook can be ported over and arguably fits the Conan theme better than the vanilla Vancian system of D&D.Basically each spell is categorised as "white", "grey", or "black", and using non-white spells gradually changes your alignment and twists your body and soul.There's even a couple special rules to make magic more Howardian and less Tolkieniesque, see picrel.
>>98271327>Heroic FantaryHow ~ZOZ is that?
>>98272063What the fuck's a zoz.
>be me>run Tomb of the Serpent Kings and Keep on Borderlnads for a few frens on OSE>they liked it and fun was had but both campaigns ended>our yearly trip is coming up>two of them if I will be running somethingAnd so I come here. I'd like to ref for them but I'm not really sure what. My first tought was "Evils of Illmire" but recently I was thinking about mixing "Horror on the Hill" and "Doom of the Savage Kings" which I don't really know how to go about.If yoy have any advice anons it would be much appricieted.
>>98272103
>>98272256Stonehell is the best module of all times. Castle Xyntillan and Khosura are also great. I think Barrowmaze is very good too.>Evils of IllmireNice, but the fact that it has no dungeons, only lairs, is a weak point. Perhaps you could add one of the dungeons above to it, but not sure how well it would work given that it has a bit of an investigative/ticking clock component, which will compete for attention.>Horror on the HillCrap.
>>98272302Ah, right. Forgot all about that for some reason.
>>98272103>t. Newfag>>98272256Horror on the Hill is kinda "D&D: the rollercoaster", so for your purposes it might actually be really good. It's not really a great module as such, but as a one-shot for people who don't necessarily play or know much classic D&D it's honestly one of the best choices out of the classic TSR modules.>>98272323Khosura is better than Stonehell in every way. Xyntillan is better in every way except brevity/ease of prep. None of the three really work well as a one-shot since they're massive. (Unless there's a good chance of continuing to play regularly if the group enjoyed the one-shot, then they're p. cool.)
>>98272426FWIW Evils of Illmire is wholly unsuitable for a one shot as well.Xyntillan is pretty heavy on the NPCs, handling the whole fucking family might be a bit daunting for a new DM, and many of its secrets are well hidden even from the DM, so one may easily find himself presenting puzzles to players he doesn't understand at all, which might STILL work, but it might be stressful.Khosura's intrigue and politics on the surface may also be a bit tricky to handle for some DMs. Others will have no problem with that, maybe, but it might easily become a distraction from delving. We've had new DMs recently complaining that their players were theaterfagging in town instead of heading into the dungeon.I usually recommend Stonehell first because it's much easier to run.
>>98272578I didn't know anything about Ilmire so I didn't say anything about it, but accordingly, I can easily believe that.The NPC thing in Xyntillan was what I meant by "ease of prep", the work of figuring out how to juggle all the characters. I'm not sure which puzzles are hard to find out for the DM though, do you have an example? I must have missed those entirely.As far as Khosura goes I can ony say I read it very differently, the politics read to me like just a set of excuses for delving the undercity. In any case there should be no problem starting a one-shot there the way Melan started his own original Khosura campaign: with the PCs being dropped into the Pits of Lamentation for crimes unspecified, and forced to band together to escape.
>>98264675I've never run anything at the true wargame scale, even large skirmish--anything that requires some sort of alternate rules consideration. But I mean to change that for this campaign, so I guess we'll see how it goes. I have one player seriously interested in their character eventually being a commander of that sort.
My games have only ever reached levels 3-4. How do I play long enough to hit domain level?
>>98273314Just start there lol.
>>98273314Open table, game goes on even if players come and go.>>98273689Gaaaaaaay
>>98273314That depends on why your games end, doesn't it? Players dip? You lose interest? You move every six months to evade the US Marshals?
>>98272619>I'm not sure which puzzles are hard to find out for the DM though, do you have an example? I must have missed those entirely.The Chanson, were you able to figure out what each line refers to?
>>98274780I... look, not to be a cunt, but the items are literally listed on page 95 before the Chanson.
I've used many different methods of generating names over the years. I've used tables and books and even AI bots.None of them even come close to fantasynamegenerators.com. Why is that?
>>98275277For some, it's just a curated listhttps://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/scripts/elfNames.js?For others, there seem to be conlang generators with simple phonotactics.https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/scripts/hellhoundNames.js?
>>98264675>How common are large-scale battles in your games?A lot less common in the current campaign than I'd like. Carcossa is in this weird state where there could be large skirmishes between the different coloured humans but as soon as anything monstrous shows up everyone's getting raped, which is hard to run with things like Dragon Rampart or others because it seems like most wargames have tried to shift away from herohammer era big monsters murdering everything and the older games are more about block formations which don't fit as well with Carcossa's tribal warfare technobarbarian setting.
>>98273705That's a promising idea. Would new players start at the levels of the party then?>>98274387Players dip, mainly. Scheduling is a fucking bitch.
>>98275929>Players dip, mainly. Scheduling is a fucking bitch.Then I'm going to agree with the other guy, run an open table with at least twice your minimum acceptable number of players in the player pool. If people dip more or less permanently, add new blood.I would not allow new PCs to start above level 1, but that's got to be up to your own taste, ultimately.
>>98275844I not going to say this is anything like a one-stop solution, but dragons in Chainmail are immune to normal combat. You could take a look at how Chainmail solves huge monsters and work out your own cthulhoid roster from there, maybe.
>>98275929It's not just a promising idea, it is the intended arrangement for old D&D. Handing out free levels is not a normal part of it, discourages the people who worked to get those levels. You also have to disabuse yourself of the modern idea that there is "the party" -- there can be more than one. The party for today's session consists of whoever showed up to go out on an expedition. Make sure they wrap up the expedition at the end of each session unless you know everyone's coming back.
>>98275929>Would new players start at the levels of the party then?There's no "the party", but multiple parties forming and disbanding all the time. Players have multiple PCs and decide which to use on each session that they show up for.All characters start at level 1.
>>98276028>>98276001>>98276071I remember reading you're usually not supposed to have parties with a difference of 5 or more levels, which is why I was concerned.Thanks again for all the advice!
I really like this book, I feel like it does a very good job in generating content for maps, but I have a question. It has rules for ocean generation too, but how do you determine when you come up on a body of water? It doesn't include the edges of land where the land meets water? How do I determine when a hex starts the ocean?Am I missing something obvious? Is there a quick rule I can use to do this? How should I go about generating land masses?
>>98276084Cook's advice here is pretty solid, and you probably also noticed already that he hedges his basic admonition considerably – it's "not a rule"; the "guideline will not apply at all times". And indeed, bringing low-level characters on high-level expeditions was done pretty often back in the day, since it levels those novices very rapidly – which is one common use case for the rule that you can't gain two levels from one session/adventure; otherwise, low-level characters would get blasted up in power by the loot a high-level party can expect. That said, Cook has a point that it's not ideal for gameplay; the lower-level characters' players will be sidelined pretty inevitably. But you'll see that Cook also takes for granted what Anon outlined earlier: that people will have more than one character, in no fixed party. Thus if you have a first-level Magic-User and I have an 8th level Assassin, I should simply make a new character, or employ my Assassin's level 3 henchman as a PC.
>>98273705>>98276071Why not have some players with high level characters then? Works for my open table games
>>98276084>I remember reading you're usually not supposed to have parties with a difference of 5 or more levelsNot sure where you got that from, but not your concern as a DM, since that's up to the players: Each player oses one of his PCs of his choice on any given session.
>>98276357Because the goal of D&D, the way you win at the game, is to gain levels through good play. If you give out levels you kill the goal of D&D.
>>98276178Or, I guess in general I'm asking how do I determine if a hex is actually just water? What rules should I use to determine where the sea begins?
>>98276424>Because the goal of D&D, the way you win at the game, is to Have fun with your players. See attached, from Moldvay's Basic set.
>>98276460>Have fun with your players.Gay.
>>98276441Haven't used it, looks like you're just supposed to roll an ocean biome section in 5 hex chunks and tack them in wherever. They're hexes so you can overlap them as you see fit if you want coastline inside a flower section. >2mile hexes ew What did you make so far?
>>98276304This makes sense.One solution I may adopt if the group who show up are mostly high-level and we've got a very low-level or even fully new player, is to have the new player generate a character at 4 levels below the highest leveled player. So if we've got, say, a 8th level Cleric, the new player starts at level 4. But I will try to simply group together close-ish parties so as to not have to do that. Thanks again for your patient and considered responses, anon!
>>98276474>tack them in wherever.See, that's the problem. I don't want to just tack them wherever. I want there to be a procedure for where I should attach them. Like, I don't even want to start generating ocean until I know that there's an ocean there in the first place.This book has been useful, but it's annoying to determine where roads, rivers, or bodies of water might go/be connected.>2mile hexesI watched a video where someone explained that the reason this book does 2 mile hexes is so that afterward you condense those hexes down to 6 mile hexes. It's filling those 6 mile hexes with things because it's also trying to generate minute details like village layouts and things immediately outside of town.>What did you make so far?I've just made a couple of hex-flowers. I have a town, a dungeon, some hills, and a forest. Nothing of note just yet.
>>98276508> I don't want to just tack them wherever. I want there to be a procedure for where I should attach them.Here anon. >so that afterward you condense those hexes down to 6 mile hexesThis is the opposite of how I would do. Making the main hexes, then zooming in as needed but ymmv.
>>98276547That's a good way to determine where to put the ocean once it's generated... But how should I go about determining whether to generate ocean in the first place?
>>98276559Something like this for the outer hexes when you're generating what's adjacent. I don't know how much Sea you want so you'll probably have to fiddle with the X:10.
>>98276577When I think about it for more than 2 minutes that's a bit of a mess and doesn't work with the D6 hex side. Could just decide a flat percentage you want to work with and roll it per main 6 mile hex, then roll 1D6 to figure out where. Gets into complications of how many Sea hexes are adjacent, which will need some thought otherwise you'll end up with a lot of lakes.
>>98276577Ah. What I'll do is, when I get to the edge of one hex-flower I'll roll a d10. On a roll of a 1 I'll begin an ocean, and on a roll of anything else it's land. (Then if I'm making an ocean hex-flower I'll reverse it. On a roll of 1 it's land, on anything else it's ocean.)Thanks anon.You wouldn't have any thoughts on how to generate roads and river would you? (I mean their direction and whether the split as they continue.)
>>98276587Yeah that should work out. I tend to just draw roads between places and not worry about how they fit in hexes, same for rivers just coming from mountains towards lakes or seas. Could do the same sort of 1D6 orientation every X hexes though and adjust the frequency of orientation change based on how twisty you want them to be.
>>98276412>Not sure where you got that fromWell, he did post his source, Infographic Anon: it was the passage from Cook Expert he posted in the post you replied to.
>>98276484Happy to help, Anon! It's what the general's here for.
>>98276603Thank you again, anon. You've helped me out quite a bit. They seem like obvious solutions in hindsight, but for some reason I was stumped...
>>98276587NAYRT but you can't really procgen rivers by rolling for them, they'll move all over the terrain in absurd ways. Rivers are a consequence of the terrain. They start at high altitudes and move downward insistently, taking the path of least resistance to the lowest available point. So, once you've generated the topography, you should have your rivers right there.
>>98276460The D&D game has neither losers nor winners, it has only gamers who relish exercising their imagination.That's such a bad take from Moldvay.First of all, it's shallow and it doesn't say anything: The goal of most if not even all games is to have fun. If you say that the goal of a specific game is to have fun you're saying practically nothing.Secondly, it's false: The very notion that we give XP for gold because it incentivises players to go into dangerous places is predicated on knowing that what players want is for their characters to level up. If players didn't want their characters to gain levels, they wouldn't be interested in experience points, and if they weren't interested in experience points, XP for gold would be moot and we wouldn't be giving it out.Thirdly, Arneson didn't buy you dinner for having fun, but for reaching 20th level, because that's pretty much what winning at the game meant.>>98276606>Well, he did post his source, Infographic Anon: it was the passage from Cook Expert he posted in the post you replied to.oops-a-daisy
>>98276665M'kay... So a good rule of thumb sounds like whenever I have low land or villages, that I should just think about considering bodies of water there... And that mountains tend to flow down from mountains into valleys towards oceans.
>>98276645No problem, sometimes having a sounding board for ideas helps a lot even if its simple things in hindsight. Post what you made when you're happy with it, always neat to see people's maps.
>>98276707>Post what you made when you're happy with it, always neat to see people's maps.+1
Doing a hit die based grapple homebrew for OSE. But I kinda wanna shop around for more grapple rules. Any suggestions?Adnd grapple frankly feels too complicated specially when you have multiple parties involved.Right now what I'm looking at is just rolling based on a cumulative hit die and doing a point buy of effects based on how high it succeeds.
>>98276804Off the top of my head. OSR: besides the DMG grappling rules, you have the OSRIC 3.0 rules (of course they're different from the DMG ones...) UA, and ACKS II ones.Non-OSR: grappling/throwing/overbearing rules that you might take inspiration from include the ones from Melee / The Fantasy Trip and HârnMaster. There's also the ones from Rolemaster but they suck ass and they are not easily portable to OSR games. (Yes, I know that the Rolemaster rules say otherwise, but it's a hill I'll die on.)
>>98276804The simple grappling rules in the Strategic Review are still my favorite ones.
>>98277495The ones implicit in an example? What was it, with orcs?
>>98277769That's right. It's in issue 2 – before the hack I would've just posted the PDF, but...
>>98276955>>98277495Thank you for the replies guys I'll look into these.>UAYou mean unearthed arcana?
>>98276955>Yes, I know that the Rolemaster rules say otherwise, but it's a hill I'll die on.kek
>>98276772>>98276707This is what I've generated so far. (I'm going to use if for my B/X Solo game. But it also might come in handy for a campaign later on.) I'm sorry if you can't see it well, apparently my phone is about to die.This map is to a six mile hex scale. I made up some additional rules and tables to help populate the map (Or in some cases, keep from over-populating.)In the center of the map is a small farming village called Falgrave, which sits on rolling hills. The only road out of town leads east through some marshlands. To the west is only wilderness. In the distance to the north stand some shadowy mountains. To the south is Jonheid Forest, which skirts the Mountain that shields the civilized world from the Barbarian village.Speaking of the Civilized world, Falgrave does trade with the nearby trade city of Butcherton, which is ruled by Count Vidrid of Bloodwood Castle. Curiously, the northern marsh-road features a tower on the side of the road which is supposedly home to a powerful sorcerer named "Tasper the Terrible", yet no one has ever seen him.A couple hours' walk over the hills to the north, there is a dungeon that the locals call "The Hellish Chamber". Teenagers will often dare one another to see how close they'll stand to it's entrance, but no one in living memory has actually ventured down the hole. A half-day's journey to the west, the furthest anyone's really been is the old cemetery, which is where most people guess that Falgrave must have got it's name years ago. In that region there's a lair of pesky kobolds. They occasionally cause a bit of trouble every now and again, and that's usually when a band of young adventurers strike out to cull their numbers.This seems like a great place to start an adventure.
How likely are dragons to fall for old 'donkey with 20 flasks of lantern oil that we will be setting on fire when it approaches' trick?
>>98278165Dragons are immune to fire, Tard-kun. Please stop posting your low quality bumps in this thread.
>>98278294>Dragons are immune to fireWhy would you go on /osrg/ and tell lies?Monster Manual, page 30
>>98278294It's not a fire dragon brainlet.
>>98278366Fire dragons aren't immune either, smartyman. See the MM clipping above.
>>98277964>>UA>You mean unearthed arcana?Yep. It has its own grappling rules, much simpler than the DMG ones.
Could someone explain the exact difference between pre-3e and post-3e dnd?
>>98277874I've baked an infographic on it.The part on multiple attacks is quite interesting. It seems to be saying that there are TWO reasons that the Hero gets one attack per level against the Orcs: (A) that the strength ratio is 1:4 and (B) that the Orcs only have 1 HD anyway.So this would seem to imply that a Superhero (8th level Fighter) would get four attacks against Ghouls (2 HD). And, possibly, that a Hero would get two attacks!It's interesting because this is essentially the house rule in Castle Xyntillan: Fighters can attack as many HD worth of enemies as they have levels. Except it seems that Magic-Users and Clerics would get this two, albeit at a lower rate.>>98278874On the off-chance that you're not fishfag trolling but just a genuinely confused tourist, the answer is in the n00b DMG linked in the OP.
>>98279015>Except it seems that Magic-Users and Clerics would get this two*would get this TOO
>>98279015Nice, Anon! I would probably remove both occurrences of "level" from the blue text as by my reading it's keyed to the HD directly. It seems obvious that a Magic-User is meant to have the grappling ability of his HD/fighting capability (these are strongly connected in the class tables) rather than his numerical level, or he would somehow be nearly twice as good at grappling as at any other combat task.The purple is also an extremely interesting catch; I never noticed, but in fact it's unambiguous as written: 1:4 ratio OR one side being 1 HD means normal melee.Your open question about monsters is adressed by Chainmail and a passage in Volume II, page 5:>Attack/Defense capabilities versus *normal* men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll.
>>98278874No, those aren't relevant categories. It's pre-2e and post-2e, as the OP text indicates.
>>98279651Misstyped, you get the gist
If I'm doing a sandbox and rolling typical encounter dice. How many player characters should I have at the table to balance it out?I heard the games balanced for 6-8 players, and just want to be sure this is right.
>>98278057Solo gaming isn't for me but looks comfy as fuck. Good amount lairs and if the portcullis symbol is dungeons you're set.
>>98279725>I heard the games balanced for 6-8 playersCould be, I've never run it with that many, 3-5 around level 3-4 each with some hirelings as baggage train and a few henchmen has been more typical. If you look at the wilderness encounters in the dmg, take a look at the basic forest encounter and see what percentage of monsters are quite strong, usually its things like 2% chance of trolls or 1% chance of basilisk. It doesn't have to be 'balanced' around being able to defeat those monsters. Remember encounter distance, reaction rolls and other means like bribing a monster with food, fleeing, etc.
>>98279659>MisstypedNah, you're looking to keep your trolling rolling with plausible deniability. But if I'm wrong, well, like Anon said, look in the noob DM guide. It's a good document.
>>982797251 Character with 2 or 3 henchmen and 6 or 7 men-at-arms hirelings should be enough, or you could sneak around solo like Ser Robilar.
>>98279725>I heard the games balanced for 6-8 players, and just want to be sure this is right.It is, but also "balance" is kind of the wrong concept to approach it with. By level 5 those 6-8 characters should have at least a couple henchmen between them, quite possibly 1-2 each, and it's not at all outside the bounds of reason that they'd hire sixty or so mercenaries to travel with them. Wilderness encounters and procedures, essentially, are meant to be able to cope with both this possibility AND the possibility of 1-3 characters of that level pushing forward comparatively swiftly and stealthily through the wilderness. I don't remember off the top of my head whether Basic has a full complement of these rules but certainly in OD&D you already have rules for party size and travel speed/evasion probability.
>>98279616>I would probably remove both occurrences of "level" from the blue text as by my reading it's keyed to the HD directly.You're right, I'll replace it with level/fighting ability.>The purple is also an extremely interesting catch; I never noticed, but in fact it's unambiguous as written: 1:4 ratio OR one side being 1 HD means normal melee.I've checked around the web and I see that that point has been discussed, for example on ODD74. I think I might adopt that rule, both in B/X and AD&D.>Your open question about monsters is adressed by Chainmail and a passage in Volume II, page 5:Right, but I was wondering whether one should apply the same rule with the "alternative" combat system, which is not obvious a priori. What do you think? Either way, I'll have to add that quote in my next iteration.
>>98279725>How many player characters should I have at the table to balance it out?You shouldn't. The DM has no responsibility to balance things, the world is what it is, and the players have to decide what they are willing to risk.
>>98279616>>98279927New version. Happy to edit it further if anybody has tips, catches typos, or finds the reference in Castle Xyntillan.
>>98280150>the reference in Castle XyntillanAt a quick examination of my copy, I can't find this rule in the front matter of Castle Xyntillan, where I would expect to find it (specifically it seems like it would be somewhere on pp 15-16). I wonder if Anon hasn't confused it with some other work by Melan, like Khosura.
>>98279927>Right, but I was wondering whether one should apply the same rule with the "alternative" combat system, which is not obvious a priori. What do you think?Oh! This one is hairier. Per the OD&D books, in Alternative Combat everything just gets one attack (except for the Fighting-Men vs. 1-HD exception, which we can see from AD&D remains in force). However, the Strategic Review example seems to suggest the possibility of it being otherwise; since it uses d20 attack throws and AC the inference is clearly that the ACS is being used, but then it discusses "normal (non-fantastic) melee" as well the ratio rule which does not appear elsewhere. So there's some sort of hybrid combat operating here, and it may well be that large monsters should be allotted the same capabilities.Fortunately, the only really good reason to run OD&D is that you enjoy making these determinations yourself, so an excessive specificity in the rules isn't really needed or even desired.
>>98280317The rule is definitely there in Castle Xyntillan, at least implicitly: Just ctrl+F "distribute attacks", and you'll see that even monsters get it!
>>98280317>>98280317Khosura doesn't seem to use the rule at all, on the other hand. At least it's never mentioned in the stat blocks.
>>98280787Is it maybe just a Swords & Wizardry rule, then? I can't find it in the Xyntillan book itself at any rate.>>98280804True, Khosura page 18 specifies as the first in the list of optional rules that "carryover damage" replaces Fighter multiple attacks.
>>98280987>Is it maybe just a Swords & Wizardry rule, then?Definitely not. But I'm pretty sure I remember Melan saying somewhere that the rule is from a Hungarian RPG.>Khosura page 18 specifies as the first in the list of optional rules that "carryover damage" replaces Fighter multiple attacks.Yep, and it is MUCH weaker than any form of multiple attacks:>Carryover damage: When fighting groups>of opponents below or at the character’s Hit>Dice (e.g. 8 cavemen), damage remaining>after a killing blow is transferred to the next>target. This replaces the Fighter’s multiple>attacks, but is available to all classes.
>>98280987>>98281031>But I'm pretty sure I remember Melan saying somewhere that the rule is from a Hungarian RPG.Found it! Melan himself said so on plebbit.>By the S&W standard rules, only for 1 HD and lower.>In playtesting Castle Xyntillan, we were using Dungeons and Companies, a slightly different Hungarian S&W variant, which allows Fighters to use this ability on opponents above 1 HD. It gives them a slight power increase, speeds up combat, and makes Fighter-classed opponents "visibly" different from regular monsters. I decided to include it in the stat blocks - it is up to you to choose how to run the module.>The morale/retainer guidelines are also from the same game.https://old.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/f08y7z/question_about_stat_blocks_in_castle_xyntillan/fh25qrs/I also double checked, and not all monsters get that "distribute attacks among X HD of opponents", only those that are "fighter-like" in Melan's eyes, like animated armours.
>>98281061Good find, Anon!Melan's other post clarifying it seems worth taking note of as well:>The former interpretation is what we have gone with - for example, in yesterday's game, Giacomo, a 5th level Fighter was fighting Baldassar Boccole, a pirate captain (4th level Fighter), and could also attack one of the captain's flunkies (1 HD opponent) in the same round!>Note that the ability does not grant the power to attack one opponent multiple times, so Giacomo could not attack the flunky five times.
>tqMy players actually just had the first large battle of the campaign. They reported the existence of a Hobgoblin hideout to the local lords and led their own mercenaries alongside the crown's forces. The battle went incredibly well for the heroes, and only a few allies were slain. One player even led the vanguard with a charge of severely outnumbered heavy footmen directly into the heart of the Hobgoblin's forces. They were quickly surrounded but held their ground as the crown's forces flanked the enemy. During this, a smaller flanking force attacked the back line of the Hobgoblins. A question regarding all of this; how should I grant XP to the players who participated in the battle? I wouldn't be splitting the XP to hirelings who can't gain class levels, but at the same time I don't think the party should get experience for killing nearly a hundred Hobgoblins either. Is there something in the DMG that I have missed?
>>98281130I'm really tempted to adopt this rule because it does pretty much what ACKS cleaves do, but it's much faster and it plays better with mass combat as well.
>>98281190>>98281130Interesting. I've been using the Fighter attack progression stuff from Grey Elf and my players have been enjoying it. Namely, fighters make one attack per HD against monsters of less than 1 HD (distributed to any of said monsters withing range of the attack routine), and fighters gain an extra attack, starting at 3rd level, against any monster with 1/2 their HD or less (rounded down.)
>>98281182I kind of... it's not BTB but if they performed valorous feats like that charge and prevented severe casualties on their side I would personally lean toward granting the PCs XP for the full number of slain hobgoblins anyway.
>>98281420They definitely deserve XP, but I'm trying to decide how much, exactly. It's not a huge issue in this particular instance as the party also found treasure in the dungeon on the same day before heading back to town, enough that they'll all likely level up and a few will probably have to stop 1xp shy of the next level. They dragged out 20000 coins worth of loot at a snails pace from the second floor with six characters and only triggered wandering monsters twice, easily handling both situations. They were harangued by friendly Kobolds at one point and bribed them with a fistful of gold hucked in the opposite direction as they passed through. Easily their biggest haul of the campaign so far.
>>98281851Eat shit, retard. We're not doing that.
>>98281182ACKS has rules for this.
>>98282227>commanders get absolute blingidum levels of XP for one engagement>regular schmucks get MAYBE 75 XP per battle, meaning you have to survive over 25 battles to be a veteranOkay, I'm starting to believe the claim that what Macris really wanted was to encourage mass battles and that the economics were just a side effect.
>>98282353>meaning you have to survive over 25 battles to be a veteranSorry, I correct myself: meaning you have to *win* over 25 battles to become a veteran, just surviving a losing battle gets you nothing.
>>98282353>what Macris really wanted was to encourage mass battlesI thought everybody knew that?
>>98282353Regular soldiers also get xp from looting the enemy dead and from sacking cites but that wasn't what anon asked about
>>98282353Also a regular soldier only needs 500xp to become a veteran so they just need to win 6 battles and get some loot.
>>98282508Oh shit yeah, you're right – I somehow had a big tard moment and forgot Veteran is level 1.
>>98272843If I could offer any advice; you likely don't need any sort of alternate rulesets for large scale battles. The AD&D rules are perfectly suited to mass combat. Just remember that ranges are in tens of yards rather than feet when outdoors. Lump units together in groups of ten or more, use averaged damage and HP. It's pretty intuitive.
>>98279750I was pretty skeptical myself until I tried it during downtime at work. It's pretty cozy. Worth doing at least once.
>>98283044This
Does Detect Evil work on invisible beings? In other words, is their glow invisible?The question is both for O/A/B/X D&D (where I think it's just unspecified) and for ACKS II (which is at least contradictory).In ACKS II the spell is called Discern Evil. The description of the spell makes no mention of hidden or invisible creatures, but the Wand of Foe Discernment, which claims to work as the Discern Evil spell, says that it does allow to see them. That contradicts the rule that magic items and spells work the same way in ACKS II.There is a somewhat similar situation in AD&D, where the Wand of Enemy Detection explicitly allows to detect invisible, ethereal, astral, and hidden creatures. But in AD&D there is no expectation for the Wand of Enemy Detection to work the same as Detect Evil.
>>98284253Given that the "objects within line of sight" wording is repeated in the wand description immediately before the passage about it showing hidden or invisible enemies, I think you can take for granted that Macris doesn't intend for the two statements to contradict. Presumably the intent is just that the power doesn't let you see foes through walls, for example.
>>98284291Good point. It's worth noting that the Wand of Magic Discernment (Detect Magic) explicitly does not work on invisible creatures.
>>98284253>>98284291>>98284377I suspect Macris might just carried over the wording from ACKS 1, which in turn took it from B/X and AD&D, and never noticed the contradiction.Can someone ask on the Discord and report back?
>>98283453I've tried it, its not for me. I get why people like it and have gotten a lot of use out of various oracles and generative methods but mixing those with live humans who aren't me has the unexpected and interesting stuff I play ttrpgs for. 2 players is okay, 3-5 seems to work best for me.
>>98284380Not those anons, but what contradiction? "Line of sight" and "visible" are not synonyms for each other. Something can be within your line of sight (which is about location) and yet be invisible.
Is B/X good for grid based combat? Is AD&D better for that?
>>98285519Yes, and yes
>>98285485>what contradiction?You cast Discern Evil, or use an item that casts it. There's an evil creature within range, but it is invisible. Do you see the red glow?
>>98285615NTA but I would rule yes if its within line of sight. As already stated, LoS isn't the same thing as visible. With the wand explaining >>98284253the red glow and that it is the spell Discern Evil, it seems fairly clear cut. >discern victim kek
>>98285635Leave the LOS thing aside, it was a red herring. The fact remains that the spell says nothing about revealing invisible things, while the magic item does. Is it an omission in the spell, or an error in the magic item?Your ruling is fair, but I'm not sure that it is what Macris intended.
>>98285675>Leave the LOS thing aside, it was a red herring.No, its pretty clear. Especially if Macris was a mass battles oriented guy. No idea if that's true, don't read the guy's diary just going off what was said up thread. If this is that case he would know what LoS means and be using it specifically given his penchant for specific language. The fact remains that the magic item specifically says it operates like the spell and describes seeing a glow in ways that are in accordance with the spell description. I think it would have been better writing to put it in the other order, but in all likelihood the spell was written before the item and they didn't go back to resolve it there but instead made an ad hoc fix. All that being said, no reason you can't just ask the guy. iirc there's a discord. Might also be an email somewhere, small indi game makers are usually pretty happy to answer questions about their games. In game, the ruling being that only one member of the party can see the glow of the invisible creature is interesting to navigate. They would have to describe, in combat, where it was to their fellows. The creature might quickly discern who is spotting and try and target them, lot of tactical meat for a combat there.
>>98285158That's fair. And agreed; 3-5 good players locked in and playing well is hard to beat.
>>98285675Macris has already answered the question on discord, albeit in regards to the Sensing Evil proficiency. Basically, the glow is too vague to fully negate a creature's invisibility, but I guess it will inform about its general location.
>>98286872Well fuck there it is. My bad if you're playing ACKS raw. I am defiantly not doing that though. The glow seems more like a wide area effect rather than an outline even for a creature if Character B can be standing in it.
>>98286872Ah, great thanks! I had thought to check the proficiency as well, but then I forgot to do it. Can't say it's made it much clearer, though: What do you actually tell the player, "there's a red glow in that corner, but you can't see what the source is"?
>>98287016>What do you actually tell the player?From how its worded and explained I'd go with something like >The red glow of evil radiates from the corner or add that its moving if the creature is moving but I tend to err on the side of giving the players a bit more information to keep the game rolling.
>>98287016I'd say the glow is to dim to reveal much of anything, so unless you get in torch range, you can't make out much. Though I'd give clues through the glow description.I'd say it acts like a shroud, so depending on the source it could be low for an item on the ground, high for a standing creature and cover a larger area for a sinkhole of evil.
What do you do when a PC dies playing a module intended for characters above level 1? Do you have them roll a character and level them up to the lowest appropriate level?
>>98287587I just start them at L1 if they are making a new character or take over a henchman, hasn't been an issue so far but there hasn't been a huge level gap. If I were in a pinch and the module had pregenerated characters I might throw in one of those, especially if I was running the module as a short campaign of its own but that's not my normal approach.
>>98287587I don't have players play a specific module, they play in a campaign and they can go wherever they want and do whatever they want. They can create as many PCs as they want whenever they want (within reason), and they always start at level 1. Each session, the players decide which one of their PCs take.I would run everything exactly the same way if I were to force players to go into a specific module and stay there. Multiple PCs per player, use whichever one they want each session, every PC starts at level 1.
>>98280787>Scimitar or Glaive-guisarmeI get that scimitar is used in place of fachions, but it still makes my pubes hurt that they don't just name drop the falchion for real
>>98287793The messer?
>>98287727That's the way. It also helps to make the world more organic to have places that are obviously beyond the capabilities of the present party rather than "Now that everyone is 6th-8th level, there's a module that I'd really like to run."There is definitely room for some of that, though. Drop a rumor on the table that leads into a module you're interested in running. If a party shows up and immediately has to retreat from the first encounter, then the satisfaction of returning to conquer the modules is higher
>>98288047That too. Falchions and messers are basically the same sword in function, though falchions often had hits constructed more like an arming sword.
>>98264675Ok so what do you do when a random encounter gives a magic user? How do you decide their spells? Roll randomly for each spell? Just pick the ones you like?
>>98288520I roll and then I curate. For first level spells I use the classification in the DMG
>>98288520Pick if I don't have time, roll if I do. It's good to have a few magic users' spellbooks rolled and ready to drop in if you need one. And it never hurts to roll up the wandering monster contents before the session. If your players are extra trying with your attention, then you can do what I have done with some groups, where I do the wandering monster rolls for the session in advance, like a weather forecast for what's in the dungeon next session.
>>98288370You mean the dussack?
B/X question: can you cast charm person on a humanoid under the effect of someone else's charm person?
Is Dungeon Crawl Classics an OSR?
>>98289324if you have to ask, the answer is no
>>98289324Is it a direct copy of 1st edition? Then no.
>>98288923No. Those came significantly later than the historical periods that OSR style fantasy models.>>98289652Kill yourself. I ain't no 2E is osr kid, but OSR is so much more than 1E's coke-fueled purple prose. BX and OD&D are both objectively more OSR than 1E.
>>98289324Fucking of course not, do you know how to read? The op of this thread clearly says what is osr
>>98289753> its faithful modern clones, and content created for use with them. That sounds like DCC.
>>98289694>OSR is so much more than 1E's coke-fueled purple prose. BX and OD&D are both objectively more OSR than 1E.So it looks like you already understand what three games (and those derived from them) are OSR, so why exactly are you posting about DCC and crying when you don't get somebody sucking your dick over it?
>>98289760LOL and in what fucking way is DCC a clone (let alone a "faithful" one) of odd bx or 1e?Please, show me some examples, I would love to see this
>>98288520Generally, the random encounters in a dungeon are already keyed ahead of time so I have a spell list made for them when I'm prepping the dungeon, same if there's a chance of NPC party adventuring in the wilderness. I have a few lists of spells for different things made with foe tables for ancient weirdness spells rather than commonly known ones I just go through in order and roll more when it looks like I'll need them.
>>98289694>BX and OD&D are both objectively more OSR than 1E.Nonsense, they're all equally OSR. Knock it off with this spergy fake edition warring.
>>98289324Nah. Typical case of an "OSR-adjacent" game, in this case a heavily modified 3e intended to convey a sense of gonzo old-school adventure/fantasy. IIRC Goodman himself doesn't consider it OSR, so...
>>98289324>>98289652>>98289760>t. false flagging fish fag
>>98289817Based retard getting deleted for his off-topic shitposting>>98289806He wants to false-flag a "purity spiral" argument again.
My players purposefully make a lot of bad decisions based on what their "character" would do.What uh... What do I do to address that.
>>98290087Play the game. Hopefully they learn the lesson eventually. They do realize that despite personality traits, adventurers are all categorically greedy, and competent? They should be in dungeons, making smart decisions.
>>98290087What were the decisions and how was it explained? Did they died? I've semi regularly encountered new to osr players testing the fence to see if their character can actually die. I just run the game and let it fall where it would, tends to work out. Don't pull your punches.
>>98289972Right, hence "fake".
>>98290137Agreed.
>>98289760maybe on planet retard
>>98290297eh this is an overly reductive take. Part of the dungeon exploration was to get away from the wargame side a bit. Making fun voices for dramatic effect has always been part of the game, it being mixed in with goofy references to self inserts or other people like the Egg of Coot was always there. Going full blown renaissance fare larping gets in the way of gameplay but trying to make it into a board game misses out on a lot of the emergent and creative player choices that osr is good at.
>>98282227ACKS is off topic b/c it is not a faithful retroclonefor many reasons but specifically in regards to coin weight, which breaks the entire>find treasure -> get the treasure to safetygame loop
>>98290114Most decisions are just either Noble Cleric or Greedy thief.And yes people died a bunch.One guy at the table keep bemoans this shit because they keep getting "set back". Others that make these decisions bemoan when the other guy does such.On the one hand I like people doing stupid shit making interesting things happen, on the other hand people are starting to blame the game or me for this. But it definitely feels like people are purposefully setting themselves back due to "character" stuff, and things are turning into a cycle of failures or scraping by. It makes for an interesting dynamic. However 10+ sessions in, the players are still level 1
>>98290450>However 10+ sessions in, the players are still level 1Ow. Might be able to get around players making the same sort of dumbed-to-death decisions by adding a random personality trait to new characters. I've been using this one for ageshttps://gofile.io/d/NqIZOKfor PCs and NPCs. Its simple, gives them something to work with and might help aim away from defaulting to dickassthief mode. Alternatively telling them to knock it off and play smarter, maybe pointing them to the successful players section of the phb could help. Holyshit I miss being able to directly post pdfs.
>>98290425Fuck off
>>98290425>which breaks the entire>>find treasure -> get the treasure to safety>game loopHow so? Not an ACKSfag. I've been using slot based encumbrance and the ad&d dmg's treasure stocking and it seems to work fine. Its a pretty robust loop.
>>98290422>eh this is an overly reductive takeNAYRT, but it's an overly reductive take in a play-theoretical sense, yes. It's not necessarily a bad thing for Anon to say to his players who have the opposite problem, however; he's not trying to teach an academic course on roleplaying games, he's trying to course-correct his table.
>>98290576You're replying to a troll. Please don't.
>>98290586>he's trying to course-correct his table.I think people exaggerate the course corrections for emphasis or as a meme and those exaggerations get taken too seriously which ends up fucking over actual gameplayers so its worth talking about a bit to elaborate on and demonstrate the deeply contextual and adjudicated gameplay osr shoots for.
>>98290576ACKS vs. AD&D 1e: Fighter Coin Carrying Capacity (Unencumbered)• ACKS: Up to 5,000 coins (5 stones × 1,000 coins/stone) for a standard fighter before encumbrance. Very generous; Strength adds a bit more. Gear counts in stones too, but the system favors big treasure hauls with minimal slowdown.• AD&D 1e: Far stricter and Strength-dependent. Average fighter (STR 8-11): ~350-500 coins unencumbered. Strong fighter (STR 16-17): ~800-1,000+ coins. Exceptional STR helps more. Uses pounds/coins (10 cn = 1 lb) with tiers for weight + bulk.Summary: ACKS lets fighters carry ~5-10× more coins unencumbered than AD&D 1e, making looting/exploration easier and faster-paced. AD&D 1e is more realistic/granular but bookkeeping-heavy.THANKS GROK!!
Dis nigga never played ACKS before.Fighters cary basically no treasure because armor costs a lot of encumbrance. In practice the una armored spell casters or actual mules are what is carrying treasure out of the dungeon.
>>98290675Says the retard that has to play a baby game for incompetent fools unable to read the DMG and play real OSR.p.s NOT YOUR BOGEYMAN!! ;)
>>98290669It doesn’t matter, they still get 1000s of coins more than AD&D or B/X. It’s a literal baby game for 3e queers that want to pretend to be OSR.
>>98290705You don't know shit about Gygax and you don't know shit about D&D. You're literally too low IQ to get ACKS. Embarrassing, sad, and brown. Stick to 5E and Daggerheart, kid.
>>98290641>Uses pounds/coins (10 cn = 1 lb)This is the insane part really. Nothing realistic about that. But that level of realism isn't a strong concern of mine. So I'm still not clear on how that breaks the gameplay loop.
>>98290724>Bluhbluhbluuh T_Tkeep crying ACK-Shill tranny. B/X kiddies have more grit than you.
>>98290738>acks is for trannies!>acks is for children!>BX is for big kids!eat either meds, or a shotgun, please.
>>98290725It doesn’t matter, we TRVSR Gods follow the tenets of Gary (play be upon him), not the infantile babyisms of Macris, the king kiddie. OSR is pre-wotc, so that means no skills and no feats, sorry ACK-Shills… Remember that BFRPG is not OSR because Gold for XP is optional, so by the same metric ACKS isn’t OSR for trivializing Gold for XP to baby levels.
>>98290769nice false-flag attempt, retard. just fuck off already.
>>98290675I'll bitewhere is the error? Is it not true that characters in ACKS can carry almost up to 10x the coinage compared to B/X or AD&D?>>98290725realism was not a design goal of D&D> I'm still not clear on how that breaks the gameplay loopdo you play OSR games?are you familiar with concepts like XP for gold? encumbrance, movement speed and wondering monsters?
>>98290769Completely wrong. Macris is the acknowledged spiritual heir of Gygaxian D&D. You can't speak about Macrisian ACKS without simultaneously speaking about Gygaxian D&D. You don't know what you're talking about and you don't know shit about OSR. You've never read the literature, you don't know the history, and you sure as hell werent there to watch it happen
>>98290778holy fuck youre retarded
>>98290789>>98290793>no argumentsl o fucking lI recon it is customary to accept your concessions
>>98290769Trying too hard mate. I miss True AD&D™ anon. At least they were able to talk about a game they played while being a parody. You pretty clearly don't. Go back and look at the bfrpg discussions, it was largely that it is an osr game, just does weird things with the xp/gold set up people didn't like. >>98290778Yeah, you can't explain how it breaks a gameplay loop because it doesn't. Its a different distribution and not one I'd use but you actually have no idea.
If you are not going to holistically examine an encumbrance system but autistically focus on a single item type there is no point in discussing anything.
Come the fuck on, people
>>98290802theres nothing to argue, youre a bad-faith troll who has been at this for years. Youre pathetic like those dying dogs in the TV commercials
>>98290844>they are always giving false info about AD&Dwould love to see one example of this, thanks
>>98290844I'm always one for watching someone shit on ACKS, but you need to cool it a little bit.Just stick to "it's a shit game" and not "only baby-brained retards like it."
>>98290835Yeah, just report fishfag posts for trolling and move on. You should know by now, many years in, that he's literally insane and thus immune to being convinced of anything through boring human processes of logic and discussion.
You are too dumb to understand the game. We will keep laughing at you however.
>>98290809>different distributionwhat the fuck are you even talking about?>Yeah, you can't explain how it breaks a gameplay loop because it doesn't.before we start this discussion I need to know what you know and understand on the topic in questionso my questions are only naturalfor example if someone has been playing plenty of OSR games and old-school D&Dthey would know that you get XP for gold as 1 to 1they would also know that B/X characters are limited to 1600 coinsAD&D characters are limited depending on their strength but to a similar degree, with "normal strength human" allowed to carry up to 1500g.p.both of which are below the 2k required to levelup a 1 lvl fighterobviously getting treasure out of the dungeon into a safe place is highly incentivized and is a pretty important part of the game.do you leave the treasure to return to later? do leave someone to guard it? do you start hauling it to the exit in batches?ACKS breaks that because a [single] character can carry thousands of gold piecesthis basically makes ACKS incompatible with classic modules
>>98290738>muh ACKShillsKill yourself, Fishfag.
>>98290769The Feeblest Attempt Of All Time™
>>98290769>OSR is pre-wotclmao you can't even help yourself when you're trying to pretend to be a caricature of usOSR is pre-2e, fag.
Yeah no one cares. Make a torchbearer carry it or bring a mule.
>>98290981ACKS shills and fanboys have been an annoyance to regular /osrg/ anons for like a decadehere is a pic of general annoyances from 2018https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/60339887/#q60352846
>>98290961>>98291022Will you please just go away if you hate it here so much?>archive link...did you link the wrong post? That's just a generic funny /osrg/ bingo.
>>98290972You're still not describing anything that breaks the gameplay loop, they're still delving, returning with gp for xp. The ratio is not great for what I want, but don't play it then?
>>98291009who are you replying to??
>>98291035He just doesn't get it. He's posted that same bingo before as proof that "2e is not OSR" used to be a debatable claim (notice it's in another square, obviously because it used to get said so much, but he thinks it's evidence in favor of his schizo alt-history).
>>98291042I literally did>obviously getting treasure out of the dungeon into a safe place is highly incentivized and is a pretty important part of the game.>do you leave the treasure to return to later? do leave someone to guard it? do you start hauling it to the exit in batches?>ACKS breaks that because a [single] character can carry thousands of gold pieces>this basically makes ACKS incompatible with classic modules
>>98291035yeah that's the pointprevious to last on the second row
>>98291089None of that is broken by being able to take more treasure. That's it really. There's all sorts of bad takes in osr games. Use the parts you want, ditch the parts you don't. You've got to learn to lighten up a bit and crusade less.
>>98291022shit
>>98291156Never read Narnia or the Hobbit? Are you for fuckin' real?
>>98291156
>>98291166Had the them read to me when I was in gradeschool but don't think it counts, my memory of them both are fairly minimal. Teacher even sang the songs in the Hobbit, she was cool.
>>98291189I kneel. Is Dunsay a meme or worth it?
>>98291190Okay, that's fair.
>>98289768>Everybody is the same personKill yourself harder
>>98291213Dunsany is extremely worth it IMO, one of the true greats, but you want to not start with Pegana, which is a classic mistake people make. They bounce off it, go "IDGI" and then quit trying, it's like when people try reading Clark Ashton Smith in chronological order. You have to be a particular kinda guy to do that, otherwise start with Hyperborea. Same with Dunsany, start with The Book of Wonder.
>it is easy to get treasure out of a dungeon in ACKSYou know this fag has never even tried to play ACKS. I have been posting play reports in this thread and the 2 times we able to make deep forays into the dungeon we were either barely able to cary out all the low value per stone treasure or the second time we had to leave a bunch of treasure behind and or group drags 4 mules down with us to carry stuff.
>>98291104>design intent was that carrying treasure is limited>game literally breaks that design intentsome anon on the internet>None of that is broken by being able to take more treasureare you for real?tell me what color is the square in my picrel? just want to test if you can agree with me it's black >There's all sorts of bad takes in osr games. Use the parts you want, ditch the parts you don'tthat's all dandy and all but the scope of this thread has been made pretty specific.>the thread dedicated to first-decade, Gygaxian D&D, its faithful modern clones, and content created for use with them.I'm not saying ACKS is a poorly designed gameHowever you do not go into a 3e thread to discuss 5e, that is off topicand it's pretty clear the design intent is in opposition to first-decade Gygaxian D&Dif anything this coinage issue alone takes ACKS away from the realm of faithful clones and into some other category
>>98291238obviously it can be accounted for by placing bulky/heavy treasuredoesn't change the fact it is simply incompatible with a lot of classic modules due to breaking the design intentyou know because the author made the module for the limitations of classic D&Dalso doesn't change the fact that this alone makes ACKS not a faithful clone and thus off topic in this thread
>>98291281>are you for real?You need to crusade less. Trust me. You're not even typing anything comprehensible anymore, its not mentally healthy to be stuck on things like this. >>98291306See, like this. You are given actual evidence that it works and you just type right past it. Get it together anon.
>>98291312thanks for confirming you literally can't agree with me black is blackalright then I'm not spending anymore time on someone who is not going to argue in good faith
>>98291312>I can see what he's doing but I should reply anyway in case other people don't!Stop replying to it plz
>>98291224>Same with Dunsany, start with The Book of Wonder.Thanks well read anon.
>>98291325Why are we under an obligation to agree with you about anything? This is the mania talking anon. Don't give into the voices. >I'm not spending anymore timeI bet.
>obviously it can be accounted for by placing bulky/heavy treasureThat is literally what the JJ tells you to do in some cases. For example raider type monsters like gnolls or brigands should only have about 30% of their treasure be coins.You would intuitively know this if you actually played the game.
>>98291281please fuck off
>>98289054I was thinking that it might be interesting if you weren't able to. Otherwise players could charm a wizard NPC's lackey out from under him.Which at first thought sounds cool, but they probably would have no way to know that's what they'd done. Which I think could be a shame.
>>98291669>caught between two best friends
>>98291429sure you can go around that, I literally said thathowever that doesn't help playing classic modules and that doesn't nullify that this makes it NOT a faithful clone> For example raider type monsters like gnolls or brigands should only have about 30% of their treasure be coinsI checked that gnolls have treasure G, that's listed as having 2000 gp value on averageand I then calculated that the average coinage of type G is roughly 1500 gp. So either you are wrong, or the books are inconsistent on top of thatPSyou seem to be struggling with 4ch interfaceif you want to reply to a post you need to click the post No.if you don't want to reply to a post then don't
>>98291695that include magic items?
>>98291695>I'm sooooooo dune with this!
>>98291711I see you are new to old-school D&D, I'm glad I can educate you!typically magic items are never included in average value in classic D&D (or faithful retroclones) treasure tablesbeing that ACKS is not a faithful retroclone I'm not sure in regards of ACKS specificallyhowever while I didn't calculate the value of gems/jewelry a ballpark estimate would place a coinage+gems/jewelry total at roughly stated 2000 gpso my guess is ACKS doesn't include magical weapons in average value as wellhowever this is irrelevant to the discussion because magic items either do not count towards XP (e.g. B/X) or are waaay more value dense compared to coinage, so magic items would not help >>98291429 anon reinforce his argument, I think he meant something else, like bulky/heavy items>>98291730are you saying it's a same-anon? I don't think sowhat's your evidence?
Looks like the thread has forgotten all about how to deal with fishfag. Reminder NOT to reply to him except at the most with one liners telling him to fuck off. Do NOT engage with his schizo theories and trolling. Report and move on.
>>98291281>>98291784You dumb nigger.
>>98291784>ur talking about ACKS?>heres some retarded sophistry!fuck off
Are the B/X pdfs in the osrg trove the best versions to use if I want to send them in to get a printed copy with ring binding on them? Or is there a better quality one I should look for?
>>98291898It's the best one I know.
>>98291898NO use the Lulu BX print files
Hello /osrg/,I came here a couple of months ago to ask for some advice about running a game at a summer camp and got some answers from a couple kind anons, I had very little details to work with from the camp until today so I come again now that I know better.All in all I won't have much time to run any game and the best that I can hope for is two 90 minute sessions in two day and maybe two more 45 minute ones later in the week before switching to a new group.All that said, I'm thinking that I should probably just run it as an extra long one shot, lost city and keep on the borderlands are options, I also have experience with hole in the oak. (I guess a good one page dungeon is also an option but I'm not too familiar with many of them).I'll be running it using BX, won't bother going too much into the rules with the kids and just let them try out whatever ideas they might have, I'll print a stack of pre gens and that's about it.I'm not sure how to deal with character death since it's going to be a group of close to ten kids aged 8-10.I don't want to soften anything too much but I'm not sure how to balance that out with the need to make sure they all have fun.would be glad to receive any suggestions you guys might have about a module or how to go about this. If all goes well I'll post a game report once the sessions actually take place.
>>98292372character death dosent matter. run my 1 level lair (soon to be expanded) and IRL cull the weak players (use the lake and mesh bags)
Have any DMs here run Stonehell?
>>982923728-10 kids age 8-10 at once is going to be hectic. I'd go with B4 or Hole In The Oak, the keep is going to get them sidetracked immediately. Have replacement characters immediately available like in left 4 dead in cells you add to the room as needed. All pregens and maybe something a bit light hearted or goofy about them in their inventory or on their sheet so its clearly cartoon violence might help. When my in-law's kids were younger I got a bunch of chocolate coins as treasure to hand out as they got loot.
What is "Method V" for character generation?
>>98292730Wanna rephrase that into a proper question?
>>98292372I agree with >>98292578, you need to prune any extraneous stuff hard and start them at the dungeon so they stay focused.As for the character deaths, you could do a sort of dungeon gauntlet if you wanted, with just a big stack of PCs on index cards, draw a new one when yours dies and he joins in the next room. Really lean into the grinder. I don't think that's really compatible with something like B4 though.Truthfully, I think it's going to be really challenging to run the game under those circumstances, but good luck!
>>98292730It's a new method for generating AD&D characters that showed up in UA and that sucks, basically. I don't know where you saw a reference to it exactly but I wouldn't waste much attention on it.
>>98292561yes, and?
>>98292561At least 4.I've just clocked 34 weeks of running it myself.
Should I invest in some dice? I have just been using random.org on my phone as dm and it has annoyed my friends. I just feel like dice are a form of cheating because they're not truly random and I can rig the outcome with a special throwing technique
>>98292561Is there something specific you want to ask about Stonehell? It would be easier to respond to you if we knew what exactly it is you want to know about. Vague, general questions are apt to get very nondescript replies.
>>98293206>because they're not truly randomThe effect is small enough with any halfway decent dice that you're much more likely to falsely convince yourself of a bias than actually spot one.> and I can rig the outcome with a special throwing techniqueCan you though? And why would you? And who cares, unless you're running a casino. If you think one of your players is doing this, get a dice tower
>>98291429hey anonso do you have any numbers to back that up or is >>98291695 correct?
>>98292730Roll 9d6 down to 3d6 for each of 7 stats, comeliness included, in order that depends upon the character class you hope to play. Not guaranteed to get you the class but vastly improved.Comparing method V to 3d6 in order.Cleric 99% vs 74%Fighter 99 vs 67Illusionist 44 vs 0.4Druid 74 vs 3Paladin 31 vs 0.08Ranger 49 vs 0.1Gotta be careful there, couldn't possibly let your players pick a class they want and then play it. Would break the game.
>>98293206>Should I invest in some dice?The game is meant to be played with dice>dice are cheating (somehow)??? Go get your brain scanned and just play the game, man
In O/A/B/X D&D, cursed weapons cannot be discarded, through a variety of effects, sometimes not completely clear or specified: Some weapons just teleport the owner's hand in combat, others cannot be discarded, although it's unclear whether the inability is psychological or physical in nature.In the cases in which the weapon can be put down at least momentarily, what happens if the weapon is stolen? Does the curse transfer to the thief, or does it stay with the previous owner until slain?
>>98293283>Comparing method V to 3d6 in orderThat's a baroque comparison since the AD&D standard is 4d6 drop 1, arrange to taste.
Some time ago there was a guy working on a Carcosa campaign, or reworking the magic system of Carcosa in general.I've been away from these threads for a while, anyone has info of them? Did they share anything? I'm starting a Carcosa campaign in the near future (I've been off for a while now), wanted to know more of anon experiences while I'm at it.So anons do you have anything to share about Carcosa?
>>98292855>>98293215I'm thinking about running it. I've never run a megadungeon before and I was wondering if anyone had any tips, whether it's a good choice for the first one, etc.
>>98293206>Should I invest in some dicekill yourself first you fucking retard
>>98294808are you an experienced BX DM?
>>98293587>Sword + 1, cursed, performs in all respects as a + 1 weapon, but when its wielder is faced by an enemy the sword will weld itself to the characters hand and force him or her to fight until the enemy or the wielder is slain.>Thereafter, the possessor can loose, but never rid himself or herself of the cursed sword. No matter what is done, it will appear in his or her hand whenever an opponent is faced. To be free of the weapon, the character must have a cleric exorcise it.Generally I'd say the curse does not transfer to the thief. Might be interesting to have an exception if the thief uses the sword to kill someone having a save vs magic or its his curse now.
>>98294808so why not ask for that instead of some asinine hand-wringing? Fuck sakes your pathetic
>>98294839Yeah, although I've actually run more OD&D than b/x.>>98294874lol chill.
>>98294906>lol chillNo, get smarter and more confident and just ask your questions instead of shuffling your feet like a child scared to ask for dessert FFS
>>98294594My Carcosa game's on hold for the summer. iirc there were at least 2 of us for a bit running it. I write out my notes in long hand so I haven't much to share, but wasn't the one reworking the magic system. Significantly increasing the quantity of rituals available on scrolls in treasure at least got them into circulation. Having a decent cluster of castles, forts and such helps a lot for hex crawling, there's various settlements all over the place. It was made with the idea there would be some central large settlement like City State of the Invincible Overlord, I made my own settlement and left the city itself as a dungeon in the middle of the lake but we didn't get there. There's some pdfs of supplemental material like the Carcosan Grimoire I found helpful. The rolling HD every encounter didn't do it for me.Overland travel encounters can be extremely dangerous. 10 mile is not my favourite but it was interesting to try. Felt too zoomed out. The hexes are quite sparely keyed so you're going to have to do a lot of the work. Doesn't bother me but I found it needed more prep than other campaigns I've run. Describing some of the more violent sexual content can be challenging, even when everyone is on board with the concept it can get different when you're digging into details. Not against it, but it was notable.
>>98294906This >>98294874 >>98294966is a persistent troll. You can ignore them.
>>98294970So each time a scroll would be found you would put a ritual?For the city on the lake is inhabited by humans or what?Regarding filling hexes and such or for the castles do you have recommendations?I know how to generate dungeons quickly, but for those other things not so much.
>>98294986More worthless wringing. Why are you people so afraid of actually having thoughts and opinions? Why are people so lacking in confidence that they think they need to ask for soft permission to discuss a module?>>98294906Next time, instead of wasting space, try asking your questions ahead of time. As for stonehell, yes, I have ran it multiple times. Use my maps.LEVEL 1 ALL QUADS - DM FACING
>>98295136Using the DMMap -- with the method of your choice, (i use colored pencil, but MSpaint spraycan works well), assign a color to each faction, and color in the rooms they occupy. Then, color lines between their rooms to determine their paths and turf borders. Then, using symbols, mark on the DM map where treasures/traps are. This will make things A LOT easier to digest and use on the fly. (PICREL IS STONEHELL LEVEL 1 ALL QUADS -- PLAYER FACING)[note: do not give them this map, this is just a reference image, with all things like traps and secret door removed.]
>>98294808>>98294906It's a solid choice for a first megadungeon, it's very easy to run due to being very clearly formatted and having reasonably brief keys. Personally I think Khosura is the better dungeon, but it's definitely not as extremely user-friendly as Stonehell.Also, I second what the other anon said about disregarding the seethenigger.
>>98294873If the mechanism is teleportation that's a fair ruling.If it is psychological compulsion, one could even have both the thief and the original owner be obsessed by the item.
>>98294808Many think Stonehell is the best dungeon ever written. A common approach is to place it on the B2 map in place of the Caves of Chaos, or, if you want to have both, somewhere nearby. A map was shared for that, you ought to be able to find it in the archive.(Also ignore our resident troll, we're happy to help.)
>>98294594>Some time ago there was a guy working on a Carcosa campaign, or reworking the magic system of Carcosa in general.I vaguely remember this guy, but I don't recall the specifics of what he was doing. Either way, I don't think he ever posted anything like a completed house rule document, no. I'm sure I would've saved something like that. And then of course, the site imploded and we lost PDF, so...Anyway, Carcosa is cool, and I agree with Anon that you really do have to be aware that the (completely unstated) design intent is that there will be one large civilized city where you can use gold, buy gear etc. – Carcosa itself in the original, but if you like you can do like Anon did and put it somewhere else.
>>98295258Personally I was thinking of making Carcosa itself something like the city of brass, a super magical place which is not for humans and seem another human place the big hub for selling and trade.What did you guys did for the city itself?
>>98295102I just started putting scrolls and scraps of rituals in treasures on top of whatever else I rolled. There's so many of them and they're so all over the place in terms of requirements it seemed like the only way to have players find out about them other than picking explicit >tonight I'm running quest for the ritual of Geometries of the Labyrinthine Spaces but that felt too railroady. The city on the lake is a ramshackle tent city and cult hub with a bunch of mostly human but different colours competing for the favour of the King in Yellow. Let me have a place to trade gold, treasure, etc. a rumour mill and some intrigue. The city of Carcosa itself I haven't made yet, thinking its a higher level dungeon, maybe similar to the Garden of Ynn setup so its constantly shifting. >hex ideas I used tables from The Ashen Void (artfag setting book but has good stuff in it), DM's miscellany wilderness and adjusted it to be more mythos like on the fly. Used the urban exploration tables in Scarlet Heroes for the cult city around lake Hali.
>>98294594>, or reworking the magic system of Carcosa in general.Tell us more
>>98296777It wasn't me, but some other anon I somewhat remember, unfortunately.Personally I'm about to add some sort of sorcerous "special abilities" basically they get the equivalent of a (*) as ACKS would say, using non damaging spells, they can cast this thing once each month/season/whatever, depending on how strong the spell is.Example: they can cast Chaos (from Lamentations) once a month, but they need a focus item that costs 3'500mo and they can get older as usual.Those of another area can cast Bestow Curse, once a day, without any special items, but they may get older as usual.Others can cast Hold Human, once a month, they don't get older, but have to cannibalize a whole human to make the recharge work.These powers are usable only by the sorcerers of a certain zone, those of another area get another power etc.>>98296491Alright thanks for the suggestions, I'll see if I can find some pdfs for free of those.Besides, I've read closely some hexes and in some of them there are stones and things which give you the possibility of learning a ritual, so even without having to hunt other sorcerers you can learn something.
>>98296491Nta, but that's neat and I like your pic.
>>98297699>there are stones and things which give you the possibility of learning a ritual, so even without having to hunt other sorcerers you can learn something.Its more about area coverage. A party is going to be travelling 2, maybe 3 hexes a day. They're 10 miles hexes so the internal area is huge. So it seems a low chance to just run into the stone, so really if they're looking for it it should take longer or you're doing some sort of low chance roll to randomly find it, and compare the number of rituals to the number of random learning locations and how much the characters are going to travel. Doesn't add up. Gets even less likely when the creatures the ritual effects are so specific and the requirements are so specific, too many things to line up without extra inclusion I found. Scarlet Heroes should be in the osr trove, maybe the DMs Miscellany. The D30 Sandbox Companion is good if you like sparse exploration prompts. Ashen Wastes might be in the nusr one, don't look at it much.
Coming in with an actual question. It's less a rules question and more an interpretation question, but it's possible so campaign-defining I want some opinions.Party is between 9-11th level, and are going after a mind flayer lich, whom they've fought before and barely lived through the experience. A really major recurring bad guy. The party has a vacuous grimoire available to them; it's the 2nd one they've recovered, and they learned from the first one what they are and how they generally behave (the book disguises itself next to other books), so even though Identify doesn't work on books, they've positively ID'd this one.So their plan, as it stand, is to functionally use Telekinesis (or a similar effect) to fly the grimoire in front of the lich and flip open the book. They know that reading even a single word from the book activates the curse, so they are reasoning that you can't really NOT read something that passes directly in front of your eyes, even if you don't consciously do so.So my question here is whether or not to let this work. It's not an imminent issue; they're in the planning phase. The VG entry does state that if a character "opens the book and reads a single glyph therein" the book eats their brain. So the lich wouldn't be opening the book, right? But being able to get a free "read" of the contents of a magic book is also a bad precedent to set; the whole point of not being able to ID them is a risk management game, and this would bypass that game entirely for the future. It's also a great fucking plan, and this is exactly to sort of off the wall shit I love players trying to pull off...but it's a chump way for a lich to go out at the best of times. What do you lot think on this? Would you let it work or not?>I'm thinking yes, and resolve it like a gaze attack and if the attack "hits" the grimoire goes off, but I'm willing to hear other opinions
>>98298799>The VG entry does state that if a character "opens the book and reads a single glyph therein" the book eats their brain.Its just a bit of int and wis damage. I think a save vs gaze is fine, they're not actively reading it so an extra layer makes sense.
>>98298726>Its more about area coverageWell that is a thing as well, it's pretty bothersome to find them in the natural order of things, making it an adventure by itself.I'll consider adding some scrolls like you proposed, maybe allowing learning some spells by eating a sorcerer brain or stuff like that.>Ashen WastesNo I didn't find it there, well it's fine I'll live without.
What are your favorite magic items to give to low-level characters?I'm running some 5e players through their first OSR game, a oneshot combining Saltmarsh and Zenopus, and I want to give them some memorable magic items.
