the roots of the rpg hobby

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/checkmypants on 2023-09-20 00:57:49.

I'm running a game for a couple of friends using Black Sword Hack, and the first session ended with the PCs staring down a long, dark passage into the earth. I had planned for this to lead into TotSK, but am curious if there are any other published dungeons that I may want to use instead.

Some additional info: One player is pretty experienced; he's been playing in my other, weekly group for about 4 years and has a good mind for ttrpgs. The other is very new to RPGs (a few 5e sessions, and two sessions of DCC that I ran) but is starting to wrap his head around it, especially the differences in play between an average, casual group playing 5e and more OSR games like DCC and BSH. The PCs had a little foreknowledge about what might be awaiting them via the visions of an old seeress, but nothing more detailed than machines boring a hole into the earth and the revealing of some scary, inhuman faces from the gloom.

I had wanted to use TotSK for its intended purpose of teaching the table the basics of old-school play, and because I needed a dungeon full of inhuman enemies and remnants of an ancient culture. This is to be a pretty sandboxy game, using a homebrew setting, so I'm not too worried about needing to change the flavor of published material to fit my game. Ideally any suggestions don't involve much extra content like settlements and whatnot--a straight-up, short-to-mid-length dungeon would be great. Just curious if the community has any cool recommendations!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Peredur_91 on 2023-09-20 00:48:28.

Hey beautiful people,

I know we’re all familiar (and if you aren’t, shame on you) with the Appendix N of D&D - a list of classic fantasy and sword n’ sorcery literature that can be profitably read for inspiration and ideas. Examples might include Robert Howard, HP Lovecraft, Tolkien, Lieber, Le Guin, Norton, etc. You might have your own personal Appendix but the content would be very similar - tales of adventure, magic and derring-do in pre-modern settings. More than likely most of them will be Problematic nowadays for a variety of reasons.

But I wondered what books you would select for an Appendix N specifically geared towards creating an understand of and appreciation for the Medieval Era in Europe (Appendix M, maybe?). This could be in the form of history, primary sources or fiction. I’m looking for a specific kind of medievalism - books that really help immerse you in that strange cultural stew of savagery, learning, superstition, piety and chivalry that dominated Europe from around the 11th century to the beginning of the 16th. Knights, peasants, castles, saints, popes and friars - the good stuff.

I thought I’d select three books from my own Appendix to give you an idea-

The Journey Through Wales by Gerald of Wales. A 12th century Welsh priest records his observations while traveling through medieval Wales while preaching the crusade. Gerald records just about every story he hears - local miracles, possible encounters with fairies, bloody Welsh-Norman vendettas and everything else. Invaluable as a primary source and highly entertaining.

England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings by Robert Bartlett. Bit of a dry title but don’t let that put you off - Bartlett covers the legal practices, religious beliefs, superstitions, warfare and social life of England in a particular time in history in such depth and with such an eye for detail that you almost feel you’ve been there yourself by the time you’ve finished.

Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman. During the Hundred Years War a disgraced knight has to escort a little girl across a practically post-apocalyptic France savaged by disease, deserters and war. Oh, and the devil has just unleashed the armies of hell to make war on God and end the world. Magnificent horror-adventure that combines some truly horrific scenes (the Bit With the Statues will haunt you) with a convincing (to my mind) portrait of real holiness amid utter devastation.

What would you select for your own Appendix M?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/PixelCaldera on 2023-09-19 22:29:36.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/andrenovoa on 2023-09-19 21:35:21.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/ObjectLess3847 on 2023-09-19 19:28:40.

Hoard treasure types. I'm a little confused as to what to do with them- are they only for lairs? Do all these monsters with type A-O treasures just have hoards with them?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/zardakthedave on 2023-09-18 23:29:19.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/SlimeProtege on 2023-09-19 15:48:06.

I'm hosting a blind player this week and wondering if there are any tools already existing or things people have made to help show maps and such to them, the only idea i can think of is creating a cardboard 3D map of the dungeon for them to use.

The system i'm using is rules lite (DURF) and everything else is easy to convey, and i happened to have a set of large dice with easy to read sides already its just this.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/pagaron on 2023-09-19 14:50:06.

Hi,

(correction: an enemy's location)

I was wondering how you handle your adventure when the characters attack a location and are able to neutralize a few encounters before stopping. Then, the characters leave to recover or may hide inside the dungeon.

How do you handle the location?

Do you have a random tables to share?

I use a simple yes/no oracle (d6 with modifier +-) and ask those questions to get an idea how they handle this situation. Other factors: the level of intelligence and organization, and after how many days does the characters come back.

• are they defending the base?
• are they patrolling?
• do they gather in 1 room?
• do they add defences?
• do they interrogated others residents of the dungeon?
• is it the chaos (leader kills subordinates and name new ones, they are fighting among themselves)?

thank you!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Brittonica on 2023-09-19 13:25:21.

Delve 3 begins with a series of forgotten chambers encased in unnatural snow and ice.

Is this truly the tomb of the mythical Marius Tricotor?

Oaths are spoken and prayers proffered in these dreadful frostbitten halls.

Video:

Audio Podcast:

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/RealmBuilderGuy on 2023-09-19 13:12:11.

I’m looking for a recommendation for a megadungeon to plop into my OSE setting. Which would you recommend?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/ParadoX810 on 2023-09-19 04:49:28.

Hey! Here are the quotes from the books.

• Swords & Wizardry Complete Revised, p. 104

The age category indicates the dragon’s hit points per die and how much damage the dragon’s breath weapon inflicts, given as points per hit die:

• Very young dragon: 1 hit point per hit die; 1 hit point per die inflicted by breath weapon.

• OSE Advanced Fantasy Referee's Tome, p. 44

Breath weapon: Can be used up to three times per day. Unless noted other-wise, all caught in the area suffer damage equal to the dragon’s current hit points (save versus breath for half).

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my interpretation from the books, and that makes me wonder some things.

Do dragons always deal damage equal to their full hit points in S&W while they do damage equal to their current hit points in OSE? For example, a 1/40 HP dragon in S&W will deal 40 damage with their breath weapon while a 1/40 HP dragon in OSE will deal 1 damage with their breath weapon?

Also, was it like this in OD&D vs B/X? Finally, which one do you guys think is more fun for the players?

Thanks!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Anatexis_Starmind on 2023-09-19 01:03:13.

Any thoughts on how to weave in Saints and Gods (Lawful or otherwise) in Black Sword Hack?

I like the relic magic system in Knave - perhaps something like that?

Is this a terrible idea to bring into BSH games - letting Law and 'good' type saints give powers to PC's? What kind of downsides make it not an 'easy win' button. Spending Doom dice?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/CaptainKlang on 2023-09-18 05:44:38.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Beekanshma on 2023-09-18 23:18:02.

I'm currently reading through a fun OSR Zine called Kingdoms which is about playing through generations of warrior god-kings that hunt big scary monsters and navigate the politics of their lineage. Its most brutal starting scenario is you wake up at the dawn of humanity on a random hex with nothing but a torch. A monster is approaching 10 minutes out, sent to snuff out the light. Surrounding you are 3 fearful lowbloods each. If the players put out their torches they will be killed by the supernatural darkness in a few turns. I absolutely love the concept, and I'm fine with a few attempts failing due to bad luck or poor choices. But I have very little experience with the OSR gaming mindset and I have no idea how the PCs would survive this scenario ever!

The monster in this encounter has between 0-2 armor and 60-80 HP, varies from dumb to intelligent, and is faster than the PCs. Players have 3d6 HP, 3 stats and a couple random bloodline traits like 20 ft darkvision or wings that can fly for 1 minute, fists do 1d3 damage without any traits and I'd rule that torches do 1d4 damage. Lowbloods die in one hit and must make a difficult Willpower check to enter combat.

The one advantage in a fight the players have is that the monsters are not truly sentient and follow an attack pattern when challenged directly, and if the part of them that they use in that pattern is destroyed they are stunned whenever they try to use it.

I just can't wrap my head around how the PCs could survive this encounter, and I would have no advice to give them if they were stuck! What sorts of strats would you pro meat-grinder players pull? GMs, what sorts of rulings would you make and what information would you volunteer to make this encounter interesting and fun?

Or is this scenario so unfair that it doesn't even qualify as a challenge, and I should look to the softer intros when I run this instead?

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/appcr4sh on 2023-09-18 15:36:41.

Hello all!

I'm designing a kind of a MegaDungeon (kinda because I'm not designing the entire, but only were the player are going) and I want to put a Dragon in that dungeon. The objective is not to make a boss fight but just happens that the path of the players is near the Dragon's Lair.

Ok, I just would like to know, from you guys that had Dragons on your campaigns, what spells do you used to use?

Basically that Dragon would be a Red Dragon.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/DeadJoe666 on 2023-09-18 22:47:22.

I've been playing in a GLOG game for about a year.

We use Skerples' Many Rats on Sticks. I noticed it had an Elf Wizard (which doesn't necessarily have to be an elf) and decided to make a couple classes to go with it.

A Warrior class and a Wanderer class. Both are meant to evoke OD&D and Chainmail ideas of elves, but still match up to the Many Rats rules. Hopefully that comes across. Templates were taken from a variety of sources.

The Elf Warrior I've been playing has been cool so far, although we don't get a ton of loot and are only at template B after a year of play! (He has been possessed by a magic sword for months though.)

Anyhow, critiques are welcome.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/thirdkingdom1 on 2023-09-18 21:38:20.

As many readers of the Roundup might know, I opened a brick and mortar retail store this summer with a couple of other people, and last weekend had a really neat experience. There was apparently a zine Fest in Charlottesville that I wasn't aware of. After the festival, Jamie Douglas, a zine author based in Richmond, stopped by the store. Unfortunately I wasn't there, but they dropped off a couple copies of their works and later reached out to me on Discord. As it turns out, I had promoted some of their most recent works: Water Hoard Honeypot, an entry into the Vaults of Vaarn jam, Exton, a mini-setting, and more. It was a really neat completion of the circle, making a connection (however much removed by my absence) in real life that had its germs in this Roundup (as a sidenote, you can check out Jamie's itch page here!).

I'm not sure why, but releases last week were a little light. I've included what I found and thought looked interesting.

• mothteeth has released Freeform Solo Role-playing (a Guide), which is pretty much what it says on the tin: it doesn't focus on mechanical rules for solo gaming, but instead presents guidelines for the actual role-playing aspect of solo play.
• Sanction is being funded on Kickstarter. It's an interesting-looking universal system based on the Dee Sanction rpg. The idea is that it can handle a wide variety of genres and settings, and the plan is to release a number of genre supplements as stretch goals.
• Champions of the Goblin Market is also raising money on Kickstarter. It's a 0-level DCC funnel that features weirdness and role-play instead of the straight on grinding associated with a lot of funnels.
• Speaking of DCC, the Balladeer is a new class for DCC that brings in bardic influence for a class that helps to buff other PCs.
• I knew that Matt Finch had started up Mythmere Games to republish Swords and Wizardry and other books; what I didn't realize is that they're also partnering with Luke Gygax to release material for Luke's setting. The Eye of Chentoufi is written by Gygax and Matt Everhart, and is a desert-themed adventure for a party of 6th to 8th level characters, while the Heart of Chentoufi is a sequel to it and a GaryCon exclusive.
• The folks at Red Ruin Publishing have released a new free supplement for Dragon Warriors. Day of Legends: A Record of Times Past is a record of a Dragon Warriors Convention. They've also released Issue 11 of their zine, A Casket of Fays (also free).
• Ziggurat of the Blood God is an adventure written for OSE written for 4th level characters and set in a jungle.
• Written for 1e, with a host of well-known artists and plenty of extra material (such as a short cookbook with recipes from the inn featured in the module), The Village on the Borderlands is a detailed sandbox adventure.
• New High Score is an adventure for Dark Places and Demogorgons, Bloat Games "kids on bikes" setting written with the OSE ruleset and designed to emulate Stranger Things-style games.
• Cthonic Crawl #2: Monsters and Merchants is the second issue of a DCC-themed zine. This issue features ten merchants and ten monsters that can be dropped into DCC or other OSR-style games.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Lixuni98 on 2023-09-18 21:09:38.

Greetings everybody!

For those who don't know me, I have already worked on free Dark Sun and Spelljammer conversions for Old School Essentials, two projects for which I am deeply proud of and thank everyone for the support and feedback.

I am currently doing the works of assembling the drafts for my next conversion project, a source document for East Asian Fantasy for Old School Essentials, based on the known ad&d supplement, Oriental Adventures.

After getting familiarized with the original books (both 1e and 3e), things have gotten a little bit more complicated, as I can safely say these books are a mess that would absolutely not fly today. For those who may not have read them, Gygax got inspired by pop culture regarding east asia, like Martial Arts movies, filled with kung-fu, ninjas, samurai and many other stuff that make for very good and fun entertainment, but in a setting book that claims to cast light into East Asian fantasy... Yeah, it's not good at best, stereotypical at worst, even the name is controversial (Oriental seems to have a negative connotation nowadays, for some reason). Glaring problems come from the classes it introduced, the races, the honor system and more or less the lack of depth from its supposed source material (Kung Fu Movies rather than true mythology).

I do think, however, that the concept is perfectly viable, should one just improve on its concept. Me myself have been gotten familiarized with lots of eastern asian mythology (the original works), but turns out that a small big problem has came up (no pun intended), and it is that Eastern Asia (As defined a the lands of China, Tibet, Mongolia, Korea and Japan) is HUGE, but like extremely huge, enough for these four countries mentioned to be so different, both in society structure, myths, heroic achetypes, etc; that it would be very hard to put into a single rpg book, and I would like to ask you all about what type of approach should I take to make an effective rendition of Oriental Adventures, as well as any input, feedback or guide I should consult to make it, if you are willing to give it.

Nonetheless, I hope and would like to receive all feedback I could get, as this could be my most challenging work so far. Thanks for all the support

View Poll

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/DoItDreamer on 2023-09-18 18:07:10.

Hey all, wanted to give a heads up that Floating World Comics distributes Hollow Press books to the US and other parts of the world. They have Vermis I in stock (in store and in web store). If you haven’t gotten one yet I suggest you do now!!!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/wilderness26 on 2023-09-18 15:27:41.

I'm running a west-marches style game that I've populated with a bunch of modules I like, and one of the groups found the Temple of 1000 Swords (Swordlords Publishing). They managed to make their way through the dungeon to Gladio, the very blood-hungry god of swords, who, as per the book, issued them a quest to "kill 9 people with swords in 9 days or die". I think this is hilarious and great, and two of the three characters failed their save against this geas. I love how flavourful and perfectly inconvenient this quest is and the players are having fun with it too. They are about 5 days in, having to forego properly resting up, and have killed 7 out of 9 people (managed to find a bandit hideout where they could feel somewhat okay morally about it) and it looks like they will complete the quest in time.

When they return to Gladio he will reward them, but I also want him to issue another inconvenient, sword-related quest. This is where I'm struggling to come up with ideas, as I don't want them all to be kill X people in Y days with swords. One idea I had was that every week, one of the characters must engage in a 1-on-1 sword duel to the death. Each week that they fail to arrange and engage in such a duel, they will take cumulative penalties.

I'm curious if anyone else has ideas on what follow-up quests Gladio could issue? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Joethelawyer on 2023-09-17 22:59:18.

Tim Shorts of Gothridge Manor fame joins us for a special post-Shirecon Firepit Show. We talk about our experiences at the Con, the state of gaming, and share stories of games long past.

Enjoy!

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/MembershipWestern138 on 2023-09-18 10:49:52.

Hi, hope it's OK to post this (it is really as a response to seeing a few posts about wanting a character creation tool). I found this site

I personally love it. And I use it to generate characters but then I'll actually write out the stuff on a paper character sheet. Just found it so quick for new players.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/WizardThiefFighter on 2023-09-18 08:22:09.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/Terrible-Red-Dragon on 2023-09-17 23:45:59.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/osr by /u/qlawdat on 2023-09-17 21:18:43.

I have realized that how I have handled mapping so far in my GMing career has been by describing the room for the players, and then drawing it out for them. Doing the mapping for the players. I find I tend to gravitate towards having a fair amount of rooms that are not squares/rectangles. I have been pondering the idea of getting the players to take a more active role in mapping for my games and I was wondering how people in the community handle mapping if your dungeon has a lot of rooms that are not so clearly full of 90 degree angles? Things like cave systems, maps with versatility or elevation changes, very long corridors where exactly measuring it's length would be time consuming (measured more in travel time than feet), rooms that are blob shapped, etc. For these kinds of rooms I would expect explaining where things like doors and features are would be time consuming to verbally describe but that the character would be able to quickly visually assess. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.