The revolution is over, we won. Lets play

I'm keeping this one short.

The OSR is over and we can cheerfully declare total victory.

I mean Hasbro is reprinting Old School material and even writing new AD&D modules (Amazon here) !

Added to the collection is an all-new fifth adventure -- A0 Danger at Darkshelf Quarry -- that you can use to kick off an AD&D campaign that pits a group of adventurers against the evil Slave Lords! Module A0, designed for levels 1-3, sets the stage for events that unfold throughout the remainder of the "A" series.


All that remains is some more recruitment (the ongoing eternal goal for all gamers) and some more play, lots more play.

See you at the party.

Monte's Leaving WOTC, my take

Hearing this makes me a lot less interested in 5e.

If a designer I know is quality is willing to turn down contract work with a prestigious employer on a prestige product in this job market over matters of opinion that bodes ill for the solidarity a project this scale needs.

Now there are going to be some quality people on board no doubt but losing Monte is not good at all

Old School Doesn't Mean Being A System Purist

Let me give you an example.

Much as Peter Dell'Orto over at Dungeon Fantastic is doing I am currently running an old school styled game using GURPS 4th edition.

Its a sandbox with lots of freedom of action, high trust in my players and it covers 3 of the 4 Old School Zen Moments as envisioned by Matthew Finch.

* Rulings, Not Rules
* Player Skill, not Character Abilities
* Heroic, not Superhero
* Forget “Game Balance”

Only the second is deemphasized a little via the mechanics of the game. Its throughly old school run in the style I have run games in since Rune Quest II mumble years ago.

And yet the same games shows rules grafts from Buffy (Drama Points and Static NPC rolls) 3X D&D (take 10) and 4e (my combat cheat sheet) and uses throughly modern GURPS 4e (an excellent system BTW)

Is its still old school?

Heck yeah. And my players, many new to RPG's are loving it too.

Folks, what makes a game old school is less rules and system (most older D&D games after all were a hodgepodge) but you and your players.

Secret Doors and Puzzles in D&D

Big Purple has a discussion of this going but other than the reappearance of Old Geezer (the young fella at Gygax's table and a RPG.net legend) its not an exciting discussion.

My impression of secret doors and puzzle traps and all that is simple

These serve much the same purpose as unlockable content and puzzles do in computer games. Its a reward/another thing to do if you play it over again (with another group or by returning to the area later) or if you are clever about it.

Politics, a facet of D&D I really like

No not pseudo feudalism or projecting modern issues into the game. No ,I like that the default assumptions allow people to earn the right to have their own kingdom, to earn power and to use it for ends good and ill.

Unlike Supers games which are pretty much still directed by the Comics Code Status Quo or Modern Fantasy's Masquerade or the impossibility of real in game change in modern games, D&D and its sibs lets you use the power you have earned. Charm the king, slay the tyrant heck be the tyrant, be the tyrant of a 100 worlds . Its an enormous field of possibility.

These days most people don't chose to partakeor really know how but thats changing . Given the release of stuff like Kingmaker (for Pathfinder) and Adventurer Conquerer King, its pretty clear people are starting to realize how much fun this can be. Good for them I say and go conquer something In the Name of the 5 Stone!

Confession: I don't think Feats are all that great

This is an odd confession considering I just finished the 1st draft of a great big book of Combat feats for 3x but there we go.

1st, some feats are just plain boring and are utterly mechanics driven. Skill focus is a pretty uninteresting feat and while say Combat Casting is mechanically useful, it too adds little fun to actual play.. Its more of a resource tax that adds little zing to the table.

Many other feats, combat meta-magic and such in my opinion feats serve more as breaks on what character can do and mostly to doll out the awesome rather than encourage it in abundance.

Let me give you a few examples.

Feat Chain #1

Cleave

In 3x , roughly this feat lets you take another attack if you drop a creature in a given round. Once. That is if you have the prerequisite buy in.

Following up after this is Great Cleave (like Cleave but several times a round) and in various supplements and house rules a whole chain (Supreme Cleave lets you take a 5 foot step and even seen Trail of Blood letting you use your full move)

This is good and fine but why not simply give this all fighters thusly ..

Any time a Fighter (maybe of of L3 and up if you like) drops a foe, he may take a free swing on any foe within his reach up to his move.

This is roughly equal to giving a fighter the entire Cleave feat chain (including the variants) but so what? Unless the character is fighting a horde of minions or something (which in many editions gets him 1 attack per level!) all it does is give him a chance to shine every so many battles which is a fine thing.

Now a fully concede that feats do allow any class (even a Wizard if thats what you want) that has the stats to do this things, and in game where there is some erosion of niche protection this can be a good thing. However its not that hard to do for other games, either with a small XP hit as a custom class (for the Thief , the Ranger or whatever) or with some kind of Gift system.

let me show you another chain,

Feat Chain #2 Spring Attack

This chain requires 2 prerequisites (Dodge and Mobility) and basically allows a person to attack once at any point in their move. Later feats in the 3.5 Players Handbook 2 allow extra attacks to be taken with some penalties.

I have two word for that. Complicated & Boring. As I see it, mobile combat is fun and it makes more sense to allow anyone to moved and attack if they like, especially in older editions where they are unlikely to have a ton of attacks.

The same thing applies to the various feat chains for things like Bull Rush and Disarm and Feint and such which now (as for Ultimate Combat which I saw a peak at while it was under construction and up on the PFSRD) has chains to allow you the privilege of making one of yor attacks a trick or bull rush or something . As I said Boring.

Instead of limiting these things, once you have a good rule you ought to encourage more of them. Rather than static combat or move into combat than attack, why not have mobile swashbuckling battles with thrown cloaks and slams and grapples and shoves and more

If extra attacks by weapon specialists or two weapon fighters are an issue, just jot down a note like.

Weapon Specialists and Two weapon Fighters gain extra attacks with various weapons. Such attacks may only be used to attack

Simple concise, clear.

And yes the same things apply to creating magic items (any caster of the appropriate level should be able to do it) and if fitting Metamagic feats. I mean really, if you want say maximized spells in your game just make them use a slot 3 levels higher. Quickened spells, 4 levels higher and so on.

Doing this will allow a lot more variety and is still resource limited by either ones to hit bonus or spell slots thus preserving balance.

What's you old school heresy ?

Well my heresy is ascending armor class (AAC) . It makes a lot more sens for a great AC to be 30 rather than negative 10.

While I'll play with THAC0 (I love me some 2nd Edition) AAC is faster in play, more logical and simpler to use.

Now don't get me wrong I have no trouble managing THAC0, I mean after all its 1st grade math, but its simply not as good as ascending armor class in any meaningful way.

That being my heresy, whats yours?

Less Squamous Frog Gods and More Faerie Queens Please

Just a short rant

I love Sword and Sorcery and cut my teeth on much of appendix N. That being said the hobby, old school especially has become so infatuated with Weird Fantasy that its sucked much of the juices out of it.

And yes sure there are some very cool original materials out there , not the point. It seems like our social decay (and yes US society at least is in fact desperately sick) has entered into a sick feedback loop.

These days I'd be hard pressed to to see a supplement that speaks of wonder, awe, terror and anything on the comprehensible, normal human scale. Instead our angst feeds us a steady diet of ancient moldering forgotten ruins and enough Lovecraft inspired material that it borders on pastiche.

When we don't get that we get more 70's style material that was seemingly influenced by way too many hallucinogens.

Well I think its time for a change and for us to look our other roots, the Hobbit, Grimm's Faerie Tales, Kathryn Briggs, Myths , Folklore, Ivanhoe, Horror. stories of swashbuckling daring do and even more modern things like Labyrinth, Stardust, Pan's Labyrinth. Legend ....

So yeah less squamous frog gods and more faerie queens please

Some Thoughts on Moving Away from Tolkien

Via Lament of the Flame Princess and Grognardia

from THOMAS

THOMAS:

I read the back cover and hated the rejection of the concept of "hero" ala LotFP. It deliberately discourages the ideas of nobility, self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, honor, etc. Better to be non-committal philosophically, and let DMs create the tone they want. Game designers are trying to give their games a nihilistic bent, which I think is a mistake.

Sure, not purely for nihilism's sake, but the section on alignment demonstrates that good/evil are merely ideas or opinions. This makes all ethical ideals baseless, including valuing life and respecting others. The cosmology chosen in the alignment section leads to nihilism, which leads to the mercenary spirit, contra honor, nobility, heroism. Honor and nobility become opinions without base, no more intrinsically good than dishonor and evil. That cosmology stinks, and it is too bad that it is accepted by default.

I think this game, and LotFP, are both trying to make their games more unambiguously conformed to the nihilistic sorts of literary inspirations (e.g. Lovecraft). In other words, they are "purging" so to speak other works from Appendix N (Tolkien). AD&D was less committed to this nihilism than these two newer games.

And you know I think the man has a point. I have no issue with scruffy S&S (love me some Howard and Leiber) but I am kind nonplussed with the whole Cthuloid horror idea and I'd like less of nihilistic stuff like the flavor text for the Speak Dead Spell (via James Raggi from LOTFP Grindhouse)

People that were decent, honest, innocent, or will be anxious to answer questions and remain on Earth for as long as possible. They have learned that the afterlife is nothing, simply a void with no effective consciousness and no sensation but for the numbing awareness of passing time. They know that being alive, even inside a rotting corpse for the briefest sliver of time that leaves them in agony as the decay of their physical form leaves every nerve transmitting unrelenting pain, is better than being dead. Cads, scoundrels, and heretics, on the other
hand, were pleasantly surprised to not find eternal torture waiting for them in death. Only
the vicious and undeserving find this peace in death, and they will be furious about this peace
being disturbed. This allows them a saving throw versus magic to resist answering questions.

and HP Lovecraft and maybe a bit more Tolkien ,Stardust , Legend and Excalibur.

And yeah sure its possible to go far into 2e territory and try to forget the S&S roots of the game to try and bowdlerize out the darkness but its also possible to go to far the other way and forget heroism as well.

JMO here but the next retroclone ought to embrace this other way a bit, more faeries and witches and a lot less squamous frog gods.

Old School Requires a Different Type of Player

This might be a bit controversial to some but in my opinion, traditional adult non hack and slash old school play requires a different skill set and different attitude to play than more modern play styles.

Its how shall I say a bit more geeky in that its lack of rules clarity requires more attention to detail in the dungeon (sometimes obsessive amounts of it) and a bit more imagination at the same time.

Modern games still reward brains and skills in play but those skills are more about optimizing and us of resources than imaginative choices.

Now mind I am not claiming it brings home the fun better, only that it was a nerds game in ways that modern games are not.

This is why that some players can't /won't /don't transition from new to old and that others simply don't get why its fun.

Different strokes for different folks as it were.

What games are you regarding as Old School or OSR

I admit my descriptions are rather idiosyncratic as I deliberately exclude high complexity games such as Space Opera. They certainly are old school, part of the "realism" movement of that early period but they aren't my focus. This also rules out GURPS (whose 1st installment Man to Man came out in 1985) and Champions (which came out in 1981) which I see as Archaic Modern, in that these games still are played widely today with surprisingly little rules drift

An old school game is a table top roleplaying game with light to medium rules complexity released in or before 1985 and is either out of print (save via retro-clone) or whose rules have changed considerably since that period to the point where early editions lack compatibility with the modern game of the same name (FREX Dungeons and Dragons)


My list includes

1- OD&D (and its retro-clone Swords and Wizardy)

2-AD&D (and OSRIC)

3-B/X/C/M/I (and Labyrinth Lord )

4-Cyclopedia D&D qualifies as well, though released in 1991 is contains essentially only material from games that qualify) and Dark Dungeons does as well since its mainly a darned good retro-clone of Cyclopedia

5-Adventures Dark and Deep as its thematically a lot more old school than new

6- The Fantasy Trip (and its retro-clones)

7- Most of the TSR books (Gangbusters, Boot Hill,Star Frontiers)

8 -Basic Roleplaying /Call of Cthulhu et all. These games are on the high end of the complexity line but they changed little enough that I had no trouble playing Mongoose RQ when I hadn't played a BRP based game in a couple of decades.

9 - Tunnels and Trolls and its cousin Mercenaries Spies and Private Eyes

10- Dragon Warriors just makes the cut (1st book out in 1985)

11- Fighting Fantasy

12 Traveller. Another game on the high end of the complexity limit but that is certainly old school too.


Honorable mentions go to Castles and Crusades, for trying to bridge the Old/New Gap, AD&D 2e a system I dearly love and in whose early days , was certainly quite old school and GURPS, who probably deserves to make the list but just doesn't pass the "feel" test.

I'd be interested in any y'all think deserve the list that I overlooked ...

Antother Old School Vid Reply to Testubo57

Nice, pleasant and solid.

Play what you like, indeed Samwise7RPG , indeed

My least Favorite Class: The Bard

This is by far my least favorite class as outside of middle and late second edition I have yet to see an version I really like.

Through I heard good things about them I have never seen the 0e Dragon Bard, Labyrinth Lord or the Swords and Wizardry takes on the class

The AD&D 1e Bard was a rules bending , prestige class like piece of crud no one I know played. Total crud ...

and the 3x Bards while playable not only suffer from having their own spell list with many unfitting spells but they have an annoying "buff" method. I do like the concept of inspiring people, the implementation left much to be desired in the book keeping department ...

Now the Pathfinder Bard is a bit better, its easier to use the "Performances" and they are a lot more versatile however the annoying resource issue is still there . Also while the .alt Bards are pretty cool but IMO it still suffers from the spell list problem. Its not bad, its just not quite what I needed ..

Now of all the Bards, I'd say the 2e version was most interesting, there were a wide range of very interesting .alt bards in the form of kits and late on, the generally hateful Skills and Powers supplement, redeemed itself a bit and became a pretty good tool kit for all sorts of concepts, including Fighter/Mages.

Also , importantly it used exactly the same magic system as a Wizard so the magic issue was done away with. And yes there were Bard spells. Nothing stopped Wizards from learning them and that was how it should be....

Now if I were designing a Bard I get rid of the spells and make it more like the Marshal from the Miniatures Handbook. Buffs would be immediate broad based and not require tracking rounds per day.

I don't know if they'd have magic (probably not) but if they did, the spell levels would align exactly with Sorcerer or Wizard and be interchangeable with whatever the class was ...

Well that my opinion anyway...

If you have a most disliked class or some thoughts on the Bard, fire away

My one big rules peeve with D&D especially old school

This is actual easy. Everything else is pretty simple to fix. My biggest peeve is the lack of good low magic item options.

I'd really like to know just how much bonus to AC to give in lieu of magic armor. Thats pretty much it.

Open question: What are your least favorite types of magical items?

For the me that has to be the "mega charged" items like staffs and wands. I find them unbalancing, a bad flavor fit and an annoying resource to track. In play it seems like either the players will use them with abandon blasting everything in sight or horde them for fear of running out of charges. Neither is exactly what I consider fun

Instead I find items like the Rod of Thunder and Lighting or some version of Ebberon's Eternal Wands far more interesting and balanced.

Now this dislike does not extend to "old school" games where items are rare and the wands can be recharged. In those cases its more of a signature item like the White Queen of Narnia's Flesh to Stone Wand or something like that.

Also dare I say, game balance is really not part of old school design and as such, the extreme power really does not matter that much.

Feel Overwhelmed ? Try Rolling Back?

I also wanted to mention that G.M.s who feel overwhelmed with all those options and all the min maxing and who have cooperative players can of course roll back to something like Osric , White Box or Swords and Wizardry.

This returns power to the G.M. and away from the rules set and yet handled carefully still provides plenty of fun options for players.

If for some reason you do run low on ideas or get tired of the spell list or something don't forget that much of the OSR stuff and many of the not too expensive OOP like the old 2e Spell Compendiums are there for you to mine. Many of the blogs also have free content a-plenty. You'll find some those on my blog list and in other sites links of course.

Now maybe a I sound like some back alley peddler but hey, first hit is free. Try an OSDR game of your choice tonight and you and you players may find the relative freedom to be a heck of a lot of fun.

Who know you may never go back.

Oh and PS:

When it comes out, buy my stuff anyway. I need the folding green. ;)

Two and Half Major Things Old School Games Don't Need

Just my cranky opinion.

#1 The cleric class.Cleric spells are fine but Van Helsing and turn undead belong in Hammer horror films and activist deities belong in Greek Myth. My D&D can do without them.

#2 Alignment. Just say no to objective morality and know alignment and maybe even detect evil, especially if it works on people. However if you must have alignment factions the old school Law/Neutral/Chaos axis is about as much as you need. Law for Cities and Order, Neutral for just getting along and Chaos for Caprice and Disorder.


and # 1/2 The Thief. Old School Games do need some means of adjudicating common adventuring tasks like opening locks and climbing walls. Whether its wall climbing Cimmerians or Burrahobbits they are very much part of the cannon. And while I don't mind a class that focuses on that sort of thing these abilities do not need to be exclusive class powers. After all anyone can sneak, hide, backstab or climb even a stodgy old wizard.

Confession 5:Options I Do Like

I will admit there are some options I really do like,in particular interesting monsters, cool spells and neat magic items.

These things can add to the fun without being burdensome.

As a player I don't mind choosing from bigger spell lists, getting new toys and fighting monsters I never heard of either.

Confession 4: I Don't Like Options that Much

I can hear the gasps from all the Pathfinder players out there but I still have to confess, I don't like massive numbers of options in my D&D all that much.

I don't care much for dozens of classes, thousands of prestige classes, complex fiddly skill systems and endless hordes of detailed cruft.

As a DM all that is its far too much to keep track off, sort, balance out and to fit into a game world. Sure I can simply say "no." but I am an old softy and I hate to do that. Its also easier to just have a short list with enough abstract flexibility to make a concept work. Gladiator ? Fighter with lens Knight ? Fighter with lens etc etc ...

As a personal example, my campaign list for "allowed 3x classes" for Midrea, just names, allowed variants and where they are located is nearly 6 pages long. That doesn't cover any prestige classes either, just core classes. Eek!

Frankly thats too much and its not adding to my fun.

Its no better for me as a player either. It just ends up being an exercise in min-maxing and frustration .

Now in defense of 3x/Pathfinder its nothing new , I felt this way about most kits and many rules options back in 2e too.

In my opinion the trick is to have "just enough" and if you'll forgive a bit of a tease my background and lens system does this without adding much complexity ..

Opinions Wanted: Suppose we limit spells even further?

Just a thought experiment ...

Suppose we limit spells to those that have little to no effect on the material world, illusions, buffs, a few physical spells (TK maybe) , healing that converts HP to subdual damage, divination, that sort of thing.

What kind of game does this create?