Hot answers tagged osr
30
Reprising and revising a list I originally posted on RPGGeek:
Swords and Wizardry - White Box is rules compatible (mostly) with classic D&D whitebox with some nods to Moldvay compatibility (namely, racial classes as options); S&W Core is actually AD&D 1E mostly compatible. Both have an "BAB & ascending AC" option. Knockspell is the house ...
28
Swords & Wizardry is an OGL port of the original, 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It also includes select rules and classes from the three official OD&D supplements. There is also the "White Box" version which is a strict implementation of the original core box. There are various commercial versions of S&W and S&W White Box, as well ...
27
In general in play they were ignored or just treated as an abstract language with no further comment.
As to where they came from, here's an answer from Gary Gygax on Dragonsfoot!
As D&D was being quantified and qualified by the publication of the supplemental rules booklets. I decided that Thieves' cant should not be the only secret language. Thus ...
26
This totally depends on how the trap is designed! As the DM, you are the authority to which you should appeal. If you think of it before the thief starts messing with the trap (and therefore not yet indicating to you how they're approaching it and possibly biasing your choice), then you can just decide what kind of trigger this trap has.
However, if you ...
19
The progression went like this
Chainmail was a set of rules for
wargaming with miniatures.
People wanted to fight the battles
they read about in Lord of the
Rings, Conan, and other fantasy
novels of the time. So the Fantasy
Supplement was added.
Dave Arneson was inspired by David
Wesley Braunstein game to create his
own version. He used the Man to Man
and ...
18
Remember that encumbrance is limited, and it determines movement rate.
That 100-cn difference between chainmail and plate armors is equivalent in encumbrance to an entire week of food, or 200 arrows.
Extra ammo or faster movement may make the difference between success and failure in an adventure.
Be 10% better protected in the occasional fights that ...
15
I tend to use something like Tarot cards for things like this. One to three cards for a location, major npcs or sometimes even player characters. One just to give a general feel of what might happen. Different decks normally have slightly different pictures. Sometimes looking at the card will give me inspiration, sometime the reading of a card. The suit of ...
14
They are defined on p97 of the Dungeon Master's Guide
Concealed doors are doors hidden in some way:
Behind a curtain
Covered with plaster
Trap door under a rug
A PC can normally find a concealed door just by checking his surroundings well.
Secret doors are portals that look like a normal wall to the naked eye. Typically it takes more effort to ...
14
Here is the AD&D first edition version.
First, it depends on whether you are talking about the clerical or mage version. The clerical Darkness was actually the reverse of the Light spell. The PH makes no mention of how it affects infravision or ultravision... only the duration and area of effect.
Now the Mage spell, Darkness 15' radius, does state ...
13
Play, write or referee one of the older editions of Dungeons and Dragon. Older edition meaning every version of AD&D/D&D prior to D&D 3.0. Although some will quibble on AD&D 2.0.
Some may talk about play styles but if you survey everybody that you could remotely include in the OSR. The only common thing you can say is that "They play older ...
13
It is a D&D style fantasy setting where the adventure results from the conflict arising from the clash of culture, religion, and society.
The book itself is meant to do two things, first it is a collection of my house rules for Swords & Wizardry and all editions based on the original 1974 roleplaying game. second it is an overview of the Majestic ...
13
One of the biggest reasons for wearing Chain Mail was the price. Since starting cash was random, at first level, you might not even have enough cash to buy Chain Mail without borrowing from your friends. Once you had the cash for Plate, there'd be little reason to go back. Also, as others have said, some classes were limited specifically to chain (the ...
13
I think the Role Playing consequences of wearing plate armour greatly outweigh any game mechanics. Depending on where you are if you wonder about a town wearing a suit of full plate then people are going to think that you are ready for a fight, heck it takes half an hour to get into the stuff.
Chainmail, especially a chain shirt can be slipped on like a ...
13
Combat in the old-school systems is immensely faster. Yes, there are also fewer interdependencies between actions than in WotC-era editions, which reduces the amount of tactical wrangling over what each player should do; but even apart from a simpler choice of actions, everyone taking actions at once just vastly simplifies the process of getting the round ...
13
Yes, yes it will.
I do have experience with BFRPG. It's a very tidy clone of Basic D&D with some nice mechanical bits from d20, but it's still very much BD&D at its core. (I have experience with that too.) Judging what feel and style of campaign you're going for by your question and comments, giving full XP for gold will level them too fast:
The ...
12
The primary reasoning for this is because of Gygax's study of anthropology.
Priests during the dark ages often favored staves and other blunt objects that could be used more for policing and self defense against other weapons than actual harm. Thus if used properly they would not cause bleeding (directly) but maybe severe bruising or a broken bone.
EDIT ...
11
Apparently there was an entire book on the topic of Krynnspace. There's since been a fan book updating that material. The Dragonlance FAQ confirms the connection. So Krynn looks pretty accessible, assuming you want that in your game.
11
Yes. in my experience both Basic AD&D and OD&D (1st and 2nd) run faster than 3e/3.5 and 4e and indeed PF.
Why?
Combat
Extra feats, manoeuvring and counting squares, attacks of opportunity (and trying to avoid them) adding up multiple bonuses from powers/abilities (bards songs, situational, etc) all work to slow down combat. Yes the to hit DC's are ...
10
The closest is probably Richard Graves’ The Mad Demigod’s Castle, available on Dragonsfoot. It doesn’t write up the ruins, but it does write up level 1, and contains connections to the various Castle of the Mad Archmage levels.
10
A quick look at Gygax's polearm list and any good historical reference to polearms will tell you that Gygaxian design was far less concerned with history than the appearance of history. He makes distinctions that really aren't, and goes well into "overclassification."
Likewise, "Plate Mail" is a completely bogus term. Mail means chain; nothing else is mail. ...
10
Well... let's see what Mr. Moldvay said to do... as, when I started, that's where we started from...
Moldvay Method
Lots of references like this:
Find concealed doors: search 1 turn, 1 on 1d6 chance
For other stuff, Moldvay gives several options, but the first is figure out the percentage chance.
Then he goes on to suggest basing it off of an ability ...
10
ACKS has removed the "Identify" spell but it has replaced it with explicit mechanics to identify magic items in other ways.
p210 of ACKS: "Sages and other characters proficient in Magical Engineering or Loremastery can identify common or famous magical items simply through their knowledge of such things. Potions may be identified by sipping them, or by ...
9
OSR is, for me, defined by gamers, games or publishers adherence to one or more of the following traits:
playing or supporting one of the "old styled" games, such as D&D editions from the '70s, Tunnels & Trolls and so on
concentrating more on players' skills and ideas than PCs' skills
having a small body of rules, privileging rulings instead
it's ...
9
You're thinking of Unearned Arcana, first published in 1985:
Unearthed Arcana contained the Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat, as well as new material for existing classes and races, race variants such as the High elves and Drow as PC races, new spells, new weapons, weapon specialization rules, and the infamous Comeliness ability score.
9
The answer is provisionally sort of. It grew out of historical miniature wargaming, but it is more complicated then that.
There was an article written by: Paul La Farge Sept. 2006, "Destroy All Monsters", that can answer this question better than anything else I know.
Go here to read the article here: Destory All Monsters
There is more information here ...
9
Usually (in all the 1e and surrounding games I ever played in starting in 1984 sometime) it was done via:
DM fiat. "I go fishing!" "You catch a fish," or alternately, "Morkoth attack!"
1a. Fiat guided by character background. "I go fishing!" "You are a wizard's apprentice that has never been outside the tower. You don't catch anything," or alternately ...
8
You're going to get a ton of answers on this.
To me the single largest defining characteristic is DIY. This doesn't mean you don't buy modules or settings but that they are things to mine for creating your own world. I got involved in the OSR when it sparked my creative side and reminded me that there was a time when playing in Tom's D&D game was as ...
8
Choosing a ridiculously over powered race is important. There is no level adjustment in 1E
Svirfneblin, Drow and Derro all gain innate spell casting powers, numerous bonuses and magic resistance! Dragonlance Minotaurs gain enourmous Str and Con.
The first edition Bard is also tasty... but I can't beleive no one mentioned Psionics. Stupid and arbitary ...
8
If it makes a difference, I would point out that there are two Retro-Clone versions that have print editions available:
Dark Dungeons - This is essentially a Rules Cyclopedia version of the BXCMI (Basic / Expert / Companion / Master / Immortal rules, which were the various boxed sets back in the day). I've looked over the PDF, and the bound edition is ...
8
I don't think there's a quick fix, but I do think it's something you can do on the fly once you've got some practice. The idea is to used the 3.5 material as a guide for what to put into the game rather than as a (more, or less) strict recipe for the adventure.
For fights, it depends on how you run your AD&D. If you don't worry about encounter balance ...
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