TheRPGSite

I've stated often I'll play almost anything, but it's hard to get me to buy.  SC asked me to start a separate thread.

I like lots of different settings and genres; my love for OD&D did not influence my decision to buy WEG Star Wars d20, frex, because they're different games.

Also, I got into this in the pre D&D years of "Tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what dice to roll and what happens."  That's still how I like to play.

OD&D continues to be my go to "generic fantasy" game.  I'd use Pendragon for an Arthurian game, because, well, Pendragon; I love Malory almost as much as Greg Stafford does, and the whole "traits and passions" thing is genius for that.

A friend refs The Fantasy Trip and I have fun, but I'd never buy it even if it were available, and I'd never run it.

I bought Fantasy Hero in the mid 80s and both ran it and played it a while.  It has one really huge thing I like in that you can use skill points in so many different ways; combat is a lot of fun in that game.

However, making characters is a fucking nightmare, and designing shit for your world is too; rather than just saying "AC 3 5+2 HD 1-8 dam plus blah blah blah special attack" it takes a lot of work.  And magic makes it even worse.

Mostly, though, I grew disenchanted because I reached the point where combat took TOO long.  I don't want to spend half an hour, or even fifteen minutes, killing a dozen goblins.  FH is great for one on one fights with major opponents, but doesn't work for other kinds.  Since I want to play an exploration game where you can encounter things randomly, this is a problem

Fantasy Trip suffers from much the same problem, with the addition of the maps and counters.

I have reached the point where I don't WANT the combat to be the most important part of the game.  OD&D gets most combats over in a matter of a few minutes... even pretty big opponents don't take that long.  And that's what I want these days.  When the Fantasy Trip combat map comes out and the counters start getting put down, I just groan any more.

I bought Champions because it was the first superhero game that really worked well, and somebody locally was very enthusiastic about running it.  We played for over ten years.  Again, I've reached the point of feeling like it's too complicated.  I'll play if somebody creates a character for me, but frankly I can't be arsed to do all that work.

I bought Atlantis: The Second Age because I love the idea of Atlantis.  If I'd realized it was just another sword & sorcery setting I wouldn't have bothered.  I wanted lost cities beneath the waves an' shit.

I bought "High Medieval," but found the tone of the writing so annoying I gave up after five or six pages.

Setting matters to me a lot more than ruleset, which is why I haven't bought any newer editions of D&D since AD&D 1st ed.  I didn't even buy the Fiend Folio because I figured "if I need more monsters I can just make them up."

I'm a huge Star Wars fan so I bought WEG's SW d 6.  I loved the first edition and think the second edition revised was full of bad ideas.

I bought SW d 20 because again, somebody was running it, and you really can't play that game without the rules, unless you have a really good referee.  I bought a bunch of shit for it and finally got tired of the rules bloat.  I bought SW SAGA because it looked like another game was going to start up again, but never did.

I bought pretty much everything FASA ever did for Star Trek.  I loved that game.

I'm a firm believer in "This game is fun for me, why should I give you money for your version of Star Trek/Star Wars/Generic Fantasy/Superheroes/etc."  And frankly, most game companies do a really really shit job of selling their products.  "It's New!  And it's a Game!" really doesn't do it for me.

Old Geezer, you have played OD&D and (if I have read you correctly) Dungeon World. How do these two games compare to each other (Are they even comparable ?)

And also (I know that I can have the answer elsewhere but I am interested in your answer) how different is OD&D from basoc D&D/ AD&D 1 ?

Quote from: yabaziou;789684And also (I know that I can have the answer elsewhere but I am interested in your answer) how different is OD&D from basoc D&D/ AD&D 1 ?

OG may answer in due time.

My experience with the various early D&D incarnations has led me to the conclusion that no other version of the game is as conducive to the survival of characters rolled 3d6 in order, than OD&D (3 LBB ONLY-no supplements).

Basic and AD&D are very close mechanically but only in the original 3 booklet game can you roll 3d6 down the line and no matter what you get, still feel like you have a playable character that doesn't suck compared to what you could have rolled.

Likewise there is no need to worry about qualifying for a class, anyone can play any class they choose. Of all the D&D systems, OD&D is the friendliest to the player in that the luck you have during the generation process has the least amount of impact on your success during actual play.

One point where I definitely agree with the overall tone of OG's comments is that fantasy roleplaying games are much of a sameness when you are sitting at the table and everything is ticking along nicely. And that game you are playing, whatever you call it, is pretty similar to the form of D&D most people play when you start with something basic (OD&D, B/X, 1E with the bumps filed off, etc.) and add the most obvious house rules.

The trouble comes when the game isn't ticking along nicely. It might be because someone in the group is being a dick, but more often its because the DM had a brain fart and picked or wrote a rules set that gums up the works.

The problem with most fantasy roleplaying games (and I would say the biggest problem with the hobby as a whole) is that a large slice of publishers want to spend their time re-shaping rules and aren't good at it. It is such a waste of creative energy. This week I've been running Stonehell and reading Barrowmaze. If you know how great these are, imagine what a fucking waste of time it would have been if these authors had spent their energy foisting yet another dreary rules set on us.

That said, I think there is a simple reason why so many people do this (and have always done it): Gygax and his collaborators were genius at defining the half dozen principles that guide table top fantasy roleplaying, and hit the nail on the head when they defined 'flow' of the action — the mix of exploring, chatting, fighting, scheming, building castles, etc. that makes up the game. But they were simply shit at nuts and bolts rules. Yell all you want; it is obviously true and not worth arguing about in detail.

Because of this, the only way to play in the late 70's was to follow the principles but make up the rules. You might say 'rulings not rules', but that's a bit of a dodge because in practice every group I've ever seen settles on some common mechanics that are their most common 'rulings', and these mechanics are effectively that group's rules. If you inspire a bunch of creative, literate people with an idea but they have to make up the rules, most of them will eventually conclude that once their house rulings have taken shape they have actually invented a new game. They didn't. They are still playing D&D. But they call it Tunnels and Trolls or Runequest or The Fantasy Trip or whatever.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;789697Likewise there is no need to worry about qualifying for a class, anyone can play any class they choose. Of all the D&D systems, OD&D is the friendliest to the player in that the luck you have during the generation process has the least amount of impact on your success during actual play.

Why bother with so much of the mechanical process, then, and why not just let players say "this is what my guy's like, and he is a fightyman / wizardyman", or let them choose their own attributes?

If some players like playing the same sorts of characters of and over again... well, unless it's actively harming a game, whatever. Let 'em carry on.

Quote from: Larsdangly;789707But they were simply shit at nuts and bolts rules. Yell all you want; it is obviously true and not worth arguing about in detail.

This is only "obviously" true for those who prefer a less abstract game. If you are a gearhead who enjoys complex mechanical games then OD&D will seem to be a shit game. To those who appreciate and enjoy simple and abstract games, OD&D is a fine game.

So, not so obvious.

Could the rules have been presented more clearly?  Certainly.

Quote from: Ladybird;789708Why bother with so much of the mechanical process, then, and why not just let players say "this is what my guy's like, and he is a fightyman / wizardyman", or let them choose their own attributes?

If some players like playing the same sorts of characters of and over again... well, unless it's actively harming a game, whatever. Let 'em carry on.

The mechanical process takes about 30 seconds and part of the fun IMHO is not knowing what you will end up with.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;789711The mechanical process takes about 30 seconds

That doesn't mean it is worthwhile, that means it is quick.

Quoteand part of the fun IMHO is not knowing what you will end up with.

For some players, yeah (And if you like random characters, great, that's enough reason for you to roll). For others, no... and if...

Quotethe luck you have during the generation process has the least amount of impact on your success during actual play

...then the attributes wouldn't have much of an effect on the character anyway, regardless of if they were rolled or picked or just not bothered with.

iPad's giving me shit today so I can't quite cut and paste the relevant passages of Larsdangly's post.

Lars, I disagree with some of the specifics — I adore random character generation, especially with systems like D&D, BRP and Traveller THAT combine randomness and choice; and I think Gygax, Armeson &co. were far better designers than most of my generation of gamers usually gives them credit for.

I'm inclined to agree that Sturgeon's Law is in full effect when it comes to game design, and that some corners of the Internet do cultivate an unhealthy fixation with exegesis of rulesets.

However, I feel the folks writing OSR game's generally do a pretty good job of hacking the TSR D&D chassis into new and interesting games, provided they have something specific in mind.

ACKS does a great job of smoothing out the numbers for a "hardcore simulationist" D&D with an eye towards movers-and-shakers high-level play.

DCC cranks the gonzo up to 11, crunches the power curve, and generally lays out a neat framework for gonzo, flashy, heavy-metal-album-cover D&D.

AS&SH treads some of the same ground as DCC but with a laser-like focus on the horror and Fantasy yards of the Weird Tales trinity (HPL, REH, CAS) and a ruleset that hews much closer to the Gygaxian classics (OD&D and especially AD&D 1e) albeit supplemented with a plethora of new classes and monsters, plus an amazing setting.

SWN is the most flexible SF hack for D&D out there, especially when the supplement line — covering cyberpunk, transhumanism, post-apocalyptic, space fleet battles, interstellar arbitrage trade, you name it — is accounted for.

Hulks & Horrors takes a different route to SF D&D, eschewing flexibility for a built-in setting with plenty of falir, and OD&D/S&W for BX/LL as a base.

I'm 100% positive you can find plentiful counter-examples, but I named these because I feel they feature genuine good design, in that a lot of thought and care went into each of these games to make sure they got to crank out the tabletop action we expect of them, under the aegis of the hobby's lingua franca that is TSR D&D.

TL;DR — I wouldn't dismiss OSR rulesets so readily. I wouldn't discourage anyone from writing one. But yeah, more setting and adventure modules would be nice.

I thank you, Exploderwizard, for sharing your insight about OD&D with me (I also thank everyone who made futher posts about OD&D). I have no knowledge of OD&D or even its existence until recently. I used to think that basic D&D was the first D&D.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I bought Champions because it was the first superhero game that really worked well, and somebody locally was very enthusiastic about running it.  We played for over ten years.  Again, I've reached the point of feeling like it's too complicated.  I'll play if somebody creates a character for me, but frankly I can't be arsed to do all that work.

If you looking for recommendations.


You might want to take a look at Icons sometimes. It skill base and flexible but not detailed obsessed as Champions. Uses a 1d6-1d6 system so it a bell curve similar to Champion. The general mechanics is a die roll plus bonus greater than or equal to a target. The appeal is in the fact that has the same range and high level design of Champions except way less detail. It really easy to come up with rulings on the fly.

I believe this is what the Pundits uses for his Golden Age campaign.

Also you may want to look at Fudge and Fate family of games. Fate focus more on the narrative side of tabletop roleplaying. Fudge is more traditional.

Both are free to download. Both rely a lot of ruling on the fly, both are NOT number heavy. However they do uses the Fudge/Fate dice although they give alternatives to use.

I used them in lieu of GURPS/Hero System it works well with not a lot of fiddling. The downside is that +1 or -1 is a significant bonus in these Systems.

They are also free to download and check out.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;789697OG may answer in due time.

My experience with the various early D&D incarnations has led me to the conclusion that no other version of the game is as conducive to the survival of characters rolled 3d6 in order, than OD&D (3 LBB ONLY-no supplements).

Basic and AD&D are very close mechanically but only in the original 3 booklet game can you roll 3d6 down the line and no matter what you get, still feel like you have a playable character that doesn't suck compared to what you could have rolled.

Likewise there is no need to worry about qualifying for a class, anyone can play any class they choose. Of all the D&D systems, OD&D is the friendliest to the player in that the luck you have during the generation process has the least amount of impact on your success during actual play.

Besides the inflated importance of attribute scores, later versions jack up monsters with bigger damage rolls and multiple attacks.

Quote from: Ladybird;789708Why bother with so much of the mechanical process, then, and why not just let players say "this is what my guy's like, and he is a fightyman / wizardyman", or let them choose their own attributes?

No reason, but likewise why bother making it hard on someone who wants to roll up a character?

Quote from: Phillip;789729Besides the inflated importance of attribute scores, later versions jack up monsters with bigger damage rolls and multiple attacks.

There are still multiple attacks in OD&D. A fighter is capable of this when fighting creatures of 1 HD or less, as are monsters that do more than a die of damage.

An Ogre does 2 dice of damage on a single attack. Being 4 hit dice (thus equal to a hero), the ogre can instead attack 4 times for 1 die each when fighting creatures of 1 HD or less, which includes 1st level clerics, and magic users but not fighting men who are 1+1 HD.

But yeah, AD&D started jacking up the multiple attacks AND the damage ranges, but OTOH, most classes got a HP bump too.

Actually, the folks in Phoenix  called their game D&D until it was time to publish, when they called it  Tunnels & Trolls. Along with Dave Hargrave, who published his Arduin rules as a D&D supplement, they got lawyer letters from They $ue Regularly demanding expurgation of all mention of the seminal work. You can tell by the typeface in later printings where Dave complied with white-out.

Nonetheless, there is a point at which a game becomes quite its own thing, just as D&D was more than merely Chainmail redux (or even  just Arneson's elaborations on the Gygax/Perren rules).

Quote from: Exploderwizard;789734There are still multiple attacks in OD&D. A fighter is capable of this when fighting creatures of 1 HD or less, as are monsters that do more than a die of damage

.
Those are house rules, the second of which  I don't recall having seen before. The basics of the first are sometimes inferred from Monsters & Treasure reference to adapting monsters  to the Chainmail battle system, and the Chainmail Fantasy  Supplement references (Hero-1, etc.) in Men & Magic. Replacing "against normal men" with "against 1 HD or less" could be a back-port from AD&D, except that specifies less than 1 HD. (Personally, I treat orcs as equivalent to n.m.)

QuoteAn Ogre does 2 dice of damage on a single attack.

I seem to recall it getting just a bonus pip or two, not a second die, but don't have the book handy.

QuoteBeing 4 hit dice (thus equal to a hero), the ogre can instead attack 4 times for 1 die each when fighting creatures of 1 HD or less, which includes 1st level clerics, and magic users but not fighting men who are 1+1 HD.

As mentioned above, that looks like a house rule, not even what was actually stipulated for use with Chainmail. I'm quite sure it is not mentioned in the Alternative (D&D standard) Combat System. By somewhat different means, you'll get a big damage boost in Empire of the Petal throne, but D&D Supplement I (Greyhawk) is more to the point.

QuoteBut yeah, AD&D started jacking up the multiple attacks AND the damage ranges, but OTOH, most classes got a HP bump too.

I'm talking about Supplement I: big difference with a troll, or anything that gets claw/claw/bite (or hoof/hoof/horn, or whatever) vs. a single attack for 1d6. Also,  heavier hits from, e.g., giants - and HD as well scaled up to fighter (d8) level. Also, you've got orcs with an additional pip swinging swords with an additional pip vs. Magic-users starting with a pip less (albeit half a pip higher on average at  other levels).

Quote from: Phillip;789739They $ue Regularly

Holy shit, this takes me back.

Now there's a blast from the past.

I do not want this to devolve into yet another God damned fucking stupid ass argument over stats.

Stats in OD&D are neither totally irrelevant nor totally dominant.

Deal with it.  There is this little thing called "nuance" you may want to consider.

Now shut the fuck up about it.

Dammit! You kids cut that out! Now you woke up grandpa from his nap again and he hasn't had his first beer today so he is cranky.

It's interesting this thread came up, because I've been thinking lately how incredibly fed up I am with minutiae in RPG's. When I was planning our current campaign, I was going to go Microlite-20, mainly because all my experiences with it had been fun. As a system it just...gets out the way. But....we started talking about systems, me and the other two GMs, and BFRPG came up.  At first, I thought, "HEY! This is GREAT! Even better than what I had in mind."

Until...

...discussion of add-ons...We went from running the game according to the core to running the game with something like 15 supplements figuring in (with some of those supplements having parts we DID keep and some we didn't).

Why does this happen? Players. Players want to have pages and pages of options listed, even though most of them have little bearing on anything they may actually play. It's like they have to have that stuff out there to feel "special," because, evidently, playing your PC memorably isn't as important as designing and mechanizing your PC to make them memorable (well, let's just say significant). And all the while, I keep thinking, "Shoulda stuck with what I first suggested."

It's my fault, really. I let myself get led into the splatbooks and pseudo-options and extra crap some folks just can't seem to play without. I should just said, "No, we're going light, light, light, because I don't want to have rules discussions about damage-type versus etc. I just want to play."

My fault....never again...I DL'ed the d20 SRD for permanent use. I have M20. I have the free core of BFRPG. I own LL and S&W. Those are the games I'm gonna play from here on out. Because everything else just seems like self-aggrandizement. "System mastery" can suck it. I just wanna play.

Thank you, guys ! Now, OG is all grumpy and moody and will not answer my questions ! ^_^

Quote from: estar;789727If you looking for recommendations.


You might want to take a look at Icons sometimes. It skill base and flexible but not detailed obsessed as Champions. Uses a 1d6-1d6 system so it a bell curve similar to Champion. The general mechanics is a die roll plus bonus greater than or equal to a target. The appeal is in the fact that has the same range and high level design of Champions except way less detail. It really easy to come up with rulings on the fly.

I believe this is what the Pundits uses for his Golden Age campaign.

Also you may want to look at Fudge and Fate family of games. Fate focus more on the narrative side of tabletop roleplaying. Fudge is more traditional.

Both are free to download. Both rely a lot of ruling on the fly, both are NOT number heavy. However they do uses the Fudge/Fate dice although they give alternatives to use.

I used them in lieu of GURPS/Hero System it works well with not a lot of fiddling. The downside is that +1 or -1 is a significant bonus in these Systems.

They are also free to download and check out.

Well, that CHAMPIONS game has died long ago, and nobody else wants to run superheroes.  I certainly don't, so I have no reason to look at anything.

I played a one shot of FATE.  It works okay, it was fun.  But I thought the whole "compel" system was rather metagamey, even for me.

But honestly, I'm not looking for any new games.

Quote from: yabaziou;789756Thank you, guys ! Now, OG is all grumpy and moody and will not answer my questions ! ^_^

Oh he will, but now there will be farting and the tonguing of pee-holes.

Quote from: yabaziou;789684Old Geezer, you have played OD&D and (if I have read you correctly) Dungeon World. How do these two games compare to each other (Are they even comparable ?)

Not really compatible, but they play very similarly... that is, "Just tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what dice to roll."  I could run an OD&D game using DW with very little effort.

Quote from: yabaziou;789684And also (I know that I can have the answer elsewhere but I am interested in your answer) how different is OD&D from basoc D&D/ AD&D 1 ?

It's very different from AD&D 1 in terms of size of rules, but AD&D was used by a lot of people including me as books of supplemental stuff to be added to our D&D games.  The system itself changed only trivially.

I never saw Basic so I can't comment.

Quote from: CRKrueger;789758Oh he will, but now there will be farting and the tonguing of pee-holes.

I don't mind since it is a part of the OG's experience ! ^_^

And thank you, OG, for your answers !

Quote from: The Butcher;789714iPad's giving me shit today so I can't quite cut and paste the relevant passages of Larsdangly's post.

Lars, I disagree with some of the specifics — I adore random character generation, especially with systems like D&D, BRP and Traveller THAT combine randomness and choice; and I think Gygax, Armeson &co. were far better designers than most of my generation of gamers usually gives them credit for.

I'm inclined to agree that Sturgeon's Law is in full effect when it comes to game design, and that some corners of the Internet do cultivate an unhealthy fixation with exegesis of rulesets.

However, I feel the folks writing OSR game's generally do a pretty good job of hacking the TSR D&D chassis into new and interesting games, provided they have something specific in mind.

ACKS does a great job of smoothing out the numbers for a "hardcore simulationist" D&D with an eye towards movers-and-shakers high-level play.

DCC cranks the gonzo up to 11, crunches the power curve, and generally lays out a neat framework for gonzo, flashy, heavy-metal-album-cover D&D.

AS&SH treads some of the same ground as DCC but with a laser-like focus on the horror and Fantasy yards of the Weird Tales trinity (HPL, REH, CAS) and a ruleset that hews much closer to the Gygaxian classics (OD&D and especially AD&D 1e) albeit supplemented with a plethora of new classes and monsters, plus an amazing setting.

SWN is the most flexible SF hack for D&D out there, especially when the supplement line — covering cyberpunk, transhumanism, post-apocalyptic, space fleet battles, interstellar arbitrage trade, you name it — is accounted for.

Hulks & Horrors takes a different route to SF D&D, eschewing flexibility for a built-in setting with plenty of falir, and OD&D/S&W for BX/LL as a base.

I'm 100% positive you can find plentiful counter-examples, but I named these because I feel they feature genuine good design, in that a lot of thought and care went into each of these games to make sure they got to crank out the tabletop action we expect of them, under the aegis of the hobby's lingua franca that is TSR D&D.

TL;DR — I wouldn't dismiss OSR rulesets so readily. I wouldn't discourage anyone from writing one. But yeah, more setting and adventure modules would be nice.

This is where I part ways with the OSR. If all the OSR represents are new and innovative ways to slap D&D character rules onto a different genre, then it is missing the true unique and fun playstyle of old school games - it just shows that the OSR can do nothing more than "D&D in ____________".

Quote from: jeff37923;789763This is where I part ways with the OSR. If all the OSR represents are new and innovative ways to slap D&D character rules onto a different genre, then it is missing the true unique and fun playstyle of old school games - it just shows that the OSR can do nothing more than "D&D in ____________".

For every Stars Without Number, there are like 50 Delving Deepers.

Quote from: jeff37923;789763This is where I part ways with the OSR. If all the OSR represents are new and innovative ways to slap D&D character rules onto a different genre, then it is missing the true unique and fun playstyle of old school games - it just shows that the OSR can do nothing more than "D&D in ____________".

Fair enough. The OSR represents just a fraction of the RPGs I enjoy.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789757Well, that CHAMPIONS game has died long ago, and nobody else wants to run superheroes.

True. Generations of playing murder-hobos makes being heroic problematic for some of my local players. Most fun Superhero experience I've had the last 5 years is with SUPERS! It's exceptionally light and simple, but does the genre --especially "street level" and slightly higher -- pretty well.

Oh, it's not that so much as nobody wants to put in the work.  I loved the Avengers movie, but I'd rather run D&D than a superhero game.  My crew gets superheroes, we just would rather do other things.

I admittedly haven't played many Supers games (BESM, M&M, read-not-played-Marvel Heroic, Brave New World), but of what I have, I genuinely prefer MSH. It's fast, it's entertaining, it's adorably clunky, but it works.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789744I do not want this to devolve into yet another God damned fucking stupid ass argument over stats.

Stats in OD&D are neither totally irrelevant nor totally dominant.

Deal with it.  There is this little thing called "nuance" you may want to consider.

Now shut the fuck up about it.

For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789800For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

Stats ARE less relevant in OD&D, since mods are smaller. The mechanics are less dependent on folk running around with their penis-envy 16 (+3)'s in every stat. Let's face it -- player agency in a game with a narrator/ref is always gonna be an illusion. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing the GM doesn't allow you to do, either way. It's ALL "mother, may I." Any decent GM can take player agency and funnel it right where they want it to go. Now, if a player REALLY doesn't want to answer to anyone, they should play a board game, say, Carcasonne. Then they won't have to ask permission to play a tile somewhere, or answer to anyone (well, outside answering to the rules set, which, evidently is "who"  a pretentious twat like that would rather have running their game anyway).

Quote from: cranebump;789806Stats ARE less relevant in OD&D, since mods are smaller. The mechanics are less dependent on folk running around with their penis-envy 16 (+3)'s in every stat. Let's face it -- player agency in a game with a narrator/ref is always gonna be an illusion. You're not gonna do a goddamn thing the GM doesn't allow you to do, either way. It's ALL "mother, may I." Any decent GM can take player agency and funnel it right where they want it to go. Now, if a player REALLY doesn't want to answer to anyone, they should play a board game, say, Carcasonne. Then they won't have to ask permission to play a tile somewhere, or answer to anyone (well, outside answering to the rules set, which, evidently is "who"  a pretentious twat like that would rather have running their game anyway).

And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

In my experience, it's fun to DM UNLESS...I have players who expect everything to be resolved a dice roll, and they just can't get off that tack. Then I've got got problems. The players expect to have "23 ranks of skill X" instead of devising and executing a plan. They want their math to solve their problems, rather than their minds.  Because so much of old school game interaction isn't strictly mechanical. It's so non-mechanical that I'd argue agency for players is, in a sense, much greater than in a rigidly codified rules set (take 3.5, for instance), because players interact with the scenario more often, and make actual proposals, because they can't solve a problem with a dice roll (and, yeah, this approach may lead to "mother may I," but I'd rather have my GM's [who are also my friends] listen to me then make the call, rather than point to rule Z and go, "Nope!").

That's the beauty of it, when it works -- in the absence of a specific mechanic, human beings step in and think their way through it -- this may include some negotiation with the referee, sure. It may mean the ref throws a flag on me. But at least I'm playing with other folks and not the mathematical conundrums of weapon X with power Y with maneuver Z.  

Mind, I'm not saying this is YOUR preferred way of doing things. I'm just sort of free associating.

OD&D is a fantastic game — better at face value than pretty much anything that was created by re-writing it. And its formal rules are a blasted wasteland of nothingness mixed with (something often ignored by the philosopher kings of the OSR) bizarrely specific and mechanically complex bits. That is the dilemma.

Hating it is shallow. Deciding it is useless to you as a DM means you don't understand what it says outside of to hit modifiers and so hit points and so forth. Arguing it is a flawless gem is equally fatuous. And the notion that the DM was supposed to arbitrate all action is a good description of the traditional practice but not the content of the books. The books are filled with ridiculously arbitrary rules you are supposed to follow.

So, its a complicated subject. It is rare to hear anyone say anything specific and insightful about it. Which is odd given that it is essentially the original statement of the core idea of the hobby.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

People who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789800For fuck's sake. Stats are always relevant. Without stats, you don't have game mechanics. Without game mechanics, you don't have a game. Instead, you have a group of fatbeards circle-jerking each other around a table....telling each other stories.

Without at least semi-solid game mechanics, player agency is an illusion.

"Mother May I" is not a fucking game; it's an exercise in fellating the DM.

The middle called, it feels bad because you're excluding it.

Quote from: Ladybird;789712...then the attributes wouldn't have much of an effect on the character anyway, regardless of if they were rolled or picked or just not bothered with.

The attributes may not have much of an effect on the mechanics of characters, but they can still have a massive effect on the characterization of characters. It also means that 18 strength and 8 int wizards (and vice versa for fighters) are just as viable as the reverse, which opens up classes to stat arrays, and therefore potential characterizations, that are never seen in newer versions of D&D because they aren't "viable" characters.

Quote from: apparition13;789848The attributes may not have much of an effect on the mechanics of characters, but they can still have a massive effect on the characterization of characters. It also means that 18 strength and 8 int wizards (and vice versa for fighters) are just as viable as the reverse, which opens up classes to stat arrays, and therefore potential characterizations, that are never seen in newer versions of D&D because they aren't "viable" characters.

This old argument always drives me batshit crazy because it is so obviously a rationalization for a badly written couple pages of rules.

Stats didn't exist at all in Chainmail - a perfectly playable game that is really little different from OD&D if you choose to play it that way. So, you should think of stats as a mechanical complexity no different from skills or feats or any other extra goo-gah that's been tacked onto the game since 1970-whatever. They are not essential pieces of a game having the structure of D&D.

So they should only be bothered with if they are useful in some way. As it stands, they don't really mean anything that couldn't have been covered by saying, 'think of some words that describe your character, like smart of strong or puny, and try to remember them'.

You don't have to be a build-a-bear tweeker to think it is stupid for a game to make you generate numerical stats that have no effect on the game. So, people make up rules for what they do. And so it begins...

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;789809And this is why OD&D is utterly useless to my needs as either a DM or player. I find that game boring beyond all earthly belief, and the quasi-game mechanics it possesses do not simulate the "reality" I desire, nor does it enable the player agency that I want it to.

Maybe OD&D plays better than it reads, but it reads awful. I could be biased by the shitty art and layout, but probably not. I'd be open to playing in an OD&D game, but I would never DM it.

I'm curious as to how you define player agency.

For myself, OD&D provides some of the best player agency to be found in rpgs. I measure player agency by the amount of impact my decisions at the table during actual play have on the game. OD&D features few if any mathematical formulae for task resolution. This means that my input as player during the actual game matters quite a bit. I am engaged in the game and interested in exploring the presented world because I can have an effect on it as a player.

In a 3.5 game which supposedly features greater player agency, I am less engaged with the game and more engaged with the mechanics. If, as a player, I know that everything comes down to the brass tacks of beating a target number with a roll, all my agency is bound up in character building, not actual play. Once all the factors have been synergized to maximize bonuses at what I want my character to excel in, my input as a player is largely done.

I can technically still engage with the setting but it has much less impact on actual events. That DC whatever is still staring you in the face and you must beat it in order for anything relevant to take place.

The player can easily be replaced with a die roller app.

Once my contributions at the table start to diminish in importance, my interest in what's going on follows soon after.

How again is player agency considered greater in such a game?

God damn it.

Since the stupid fucking "stats" argument appears to be going to happen anyway, here.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So&p=15784375#post15784375

Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again."  -- J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

OG, quit beating around the bush and answer the goddamn question: do you like old assholes or not?

Quote from: Old Geezer;789825People who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

  Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

Quote from: Old Geezer;789926Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

Too many dicks are banned from TBP. Create a new dick just to post there again? Nope, just as it was with Bewitched, you just can't switch dicks midstream. :p

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;789933Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

Meh.  I don't care what people do around their own tables.  I care when people talk shit about a game I happen to like, especially when they put it in semi objective terms.

Some people don't like OD&D.  Then they probably shouldn't come into a thread talking about it.

1) Anybody who's been here for more than a few weeks and has the brains of a planarian knows I like OD&D.
2) I started this thread to talk about things I like.
3) This then would include OD&D.
4) If you don't like OD&D, why are you here?

Generic you, not specific you.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789952Meh.  I don't care what people do around their own tables.  I care when people talk shit about a game I happen to like, especially when they put it in semi objective terms.

Some people don't like OD&D.  Then they probably shouldn't come into a thread talking about it.

1) Anybody who's been here for more than a few weeks and has the brains of a planarian knows I like OD&D.
2) I started this thread to talk about things I like.
3) This then would include OD&D.
4) If you don't like OD&D, why are you here?

Generic you, not specific you.

That makes perfect sense. But you'll still end up with the irritation of people like me who play and love OD&D but are quick to point out its warts.

Quote from: cranebumpIn my experience, it's fun to DM UNLESS...I have players who expect everything to be resolved a dice roll, and they just can't get off that tack. Then I've got got problems. The players expect to have "23 ranks of skill X" instead of devising and executing a plan. They want their math to solve their problems, rather than their minds. Because so much of old school game interaction isn't strictly mechanical. It's so non-mechanical that I'd argue agency for players is, in a sense, much greater than in a rigidly codified rules set (take 3.5, for instance), because players interact with the scenario more often, and make actual proposals, because they can't solve a problem with a dice roll (and, yeah, this approach may lead to "mother may I," but I'd rather have my GM's [who are also my friends] listen to me then make the call, rather than point to rule Z and go, "Nope!").

That's the beauty of it, when it works -- in the absence of a specific mechanic, human beings step in and think their way through it -- this may include some negotiation with the referee, sure. It may mean the ref throws a flag on me. But at least I'm playing with other folks and not the mathematical conundrums of weapon X with power Y with maneuver Z.

Mind, I'm not saying this is YOUR preferred way of doing things. I'm just sort of free associating.

I absolutely don't understand why you believe having ranks in a skill prevents you from devising well-thought and elaborate plans. That is not my personal experience....at all.

Quote from: LarsdanglyOD&D is a fantastic game — better at face value than pretty much anything that was created by re-writing it. And its formal rules are a blasted wasteland of nothingness mixed with (something often ignored by the philosopher kings of the OSR) bizarrely specific and mechanically complex bits. That is the dilemma.

Hating it is shallow. Deciding it is useless to you as a DM means you don't understand what it says outside of to hit modifiers and so hit points and so forth. Arguing it is a flawless gem is equally fatuous. And the notion that the DM was supposed to arbitrate all action is a good description of the traditional practice but not the content of the books. The books are filled with ridiculously arbitrary rules you are supposed to follow.

So, its a complicated subject. It is rare to hear anyone say anything specific and insightful about it. Which is odd given that it is essentially the original statement of the core idea of the hobby.

Quote from: Old GeezerPeople who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

Oh, I understand it....but I simply reject it.

Quote from: Old GeezerThe middle called, it feels bad because you're excluding it.

To hear that statement coming from you (of all people) is hilariously fucking ironic. I've read your posts many times, and the middle ground is definitely not yours.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;789917I'm curious as to how you define player agency.

For myself, OD&D provides some of the best player agency to be found in rpgs. I measure player agency by the amount of impact my decisions at the table during actual play have on the game. OD&D features few if any mathematical formulae for task resolution. This means that my input as player during the actual game matters quite a bit. I am engaged in the game and interested in exploring the presented world because I can have an effect on it as a player.

I really hope I don't have to keep defending the fact that I find OD&D to be a festering pile of shit.

"Player agency" means the player can have his character attempt to do what he wants when he wants, and have the game mechanics give him some basic framework of support when he attempts to perform an action....so that the DM does not arbitrarily fuck him over, and also....so that things seem plausible. I won't use the word "reality", in order to avoid the inevitable shit-flinging bullshit posts I'd inevitably read.

Now....do I think that all or most DM's are power-tripping assholes? No. But there are lots of DM's out there who are not great at what they do, and they do need guidance. Although I will say that many of the old-school dragonsfoot crowd (and its sisterhood sites) seem to have a higher tendency towards power-tripping, one-wayism assholishness that drives a shiv through my cold black heart.

For the record, I absolutely don't think that game mechanics have to cover every eventuality, but I do like it when a rules set is robust enough to cover a number of mundane tasks that my players might attempt to do.

In my opinion, OD&D fails at this....but even more unforgivably, it's just fucking boring.

It's not coincidence that the lion's share of both the rpg market and hobby has summarily rejected OD&D....and moved onto other games. How many people are playing it now? Not fucking many. If it weren't for the fact that it's the "first rpg", and written by "His Holy Gygaxness"....then OD&D would have been a very minor curiosity quickly forgotten by us unwashed gaming masses. But then, that's how these matters play out. It was first, so it's artificially elevated by the "Grognard Elite".

Quote from: ExploderwizardIn a 3.5 game which supposedly features greater player agency, I am less engaged with the game and more engaged with the mechanics. If, as a player, I know that everything comes down to the brass tacks of beating a target number with a roll, all my agency is bound up in character building, not actual play. Once all the factors have been synergized to maximize bonuses at what I want my character to excel in, my input as a player is largely done.

I can technically still engage with the setting but it has much less impact on actual events. That DC whatever is still staring you in the face and you must beat it in order for anything relevant to take place.

The player can easily be replaced with a die roller app.

Once my contributions at the table start to diminish in importance, my interest in what's going on follows soon after.

How again is player agency considered greater in such a game?

Different strokes for different folks.

D&D 3.5 is certainly not perfect, but it definitely is a robust rules set that gives the reader much more guidance than OD&D on how to adjudicate both mundane and complicated tasks.

Is 3.5 far more complicated and unnecessarily cluttered than I would like? Yes.

But does it come much closer to allowing me to run the campaigns I like, and allow my players greater agency (and guidance) when they attempt to perform tasks? Fuck, yes.

I can tell them (for example):

"This is what happens when our two characters attempt to craft a masterwork longsword together."

No headache, no bullshit, there it is.

It might not be a fantastic crafting system (nor is it all-encompassing), but it works.

What crafting system does OD&D have? I'll be fucked if I know.

A game that gives us game mechanical guidance on this matter (and many others) helps to provide player agency.

"Mother May I" is not player agency. It's just another way of saying:

(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTnnfhrVh1ZOLKjYze07UJodmzRXKhl2bfiXJsw-VOORi7eyRwOYQ)

That type of game doesn't interest me.

Quote from: Larsdangly;789881This old argument always drives me batshit crazy because it is so obviously a rationalization for a badly written couple pages of rules.

My favorite rpgnet thread: Let-s-Roll-3D6-in-Order-6-times-and-see-what-we-get (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?663047-Let-s-Roll-3D6-in-Order-6-times-and-see-what-we-get-))

My first post is number 73; that's why I say they are really useful for characterization, and why I find them inspirational. There isn't any rationalization of rules on my part going on there.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;790000..so that the DM does not arbitrarily fuck him over,

Don't play with assholes.

Conversation over.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;790000In my opinion, OD&D fails at this....but even more unforgivably, it's just fucking boring.

There are no boring rules sets, only boring players.

And I am now convinced that you came into this thread knowing damn well I like OD&D and you just wanted to spread shit and troll.

Therefore, have one limited-time-offer gold-leaf-edged personalized hand-signed engraved invitation to tongue my pee hole.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;789933Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

Let go of your hate, it's making you stupid. ;)

And my "Tongue My Pee Hole List" is now up to 36.  And every time I add another poster, my world becomes a slightly better place.

Hey, OG, have you finished your book yet?

It's a fallacy that a game with less rules is going to be less consistent then a game with more rules, unless it's tournament play, and even tournament wargames have judges for god's sake.  So interpretation and changes are always going to happen.  Rulings will occur.

Rulings become rules.  OD&D isn't a game meant to be played without provided rules, it's a game meant to be played with each GM making his own rules where the authors didn't provide them, or the GM doesn't like them...like every other RPG in existence. Ever.

Personally OD&D doesn't do it for me.  But even when I played Basic or AD&D, or even 3.5 or god help me full-blown RMSS, I never played it RAW.  In those systems I replaced existing rules with mine instead of making up my own, but in all those cases, my rules were rules that stayed consistent and weren't depending on whether I was constipated that day or whether the character had a hot chick for a player.

If you're bothered by a GM making up rules where none exist, you're playing the wrong game.  If you're bothered by a GM doing something like assigning a penalty on the fly based on existing rules and his own judgement, you're in the wrong hobby.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;789933Should I start placing bets on whether it will be you or Pundit who issues the first "Convert to Old School, Leave the Hobby, or Die" fatwa?

You only get to join the cool kids club, once you have a fatwa issued against you. ;)

Quote from: CRKrueger;790008If you're bothered by a GM making up rules where none exist, you're playing the wrong game.  If you're bothered by a GM doing something like assigning a penalty on the fly based on existing rules and his own judgement, you're in the wrong hobby.

One of my players actually tried to accuse me of cheating a few weeks ago. I was like, no, I'm in charge of the rules calls, not you. You play, I games master, we good.

And anyway, if there was any cheating going on, it was when I gave her a free gun and ammo (I actually gave every player a special thing, so it was all kinda fair).

Quote from: Larsdangly;789820Hating it is shallow. Deciding it is useless to you as a DM means you don't understand what it says outside of to hit modifiers and so hit points and so forth.

First sentence: golden.

Second sentence: fatuous.

I don't like OD&D and didn't take long back in the day to replace it with a homebrew, but "hating" it is stupid.  It's a game.  If you don't like it, no one forces you to play it any more than you're forced to play canasta, Duke Nukem or mumbly-peg.  Others liking it and playing it take nothing away from you.  OD&D didn't kick your cat, spit in your teacup or sleep with your spouse.

That being said, it took all of fifteen minutes for the first gamer to decide, "I can do this better" and proceed to do so.  There are only a zillion other RPGs out there, and the overwhelming majority of gamers play one or more of those, instead of OD&D, which rather suggests they find that those games are an improvement on OD&D.  It's a variation on my .sig; it's not that we're unable to comprehend OD&D, it's that there are games that better suit our preferences.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789825People who can't understand a game written for grown ups shouldn't play it.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789826The middle called, it feels bad because you're excluding it.

Holy crap, these are consecutive posts, yet?  Come on, man, get some consistency here.  

And given since no one "owns" threads here, WTF?  You didn't slap an [OD&D] tag on the thread title, and you have been known, strangely enough, to speak on other issues beyond "I Love OD&D."  That being said, dude, if you want a forum where no one can advance an argument you don't appreciate without your permission, start a blog.  Sheesh.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;790000"Player agency" means the player can have his character attempt to do what he wants when he wants, and have the game mechanics give him some basic framework of support when he attempts to perform an action....so that the DM does not arbitrarily fuck him over, and also....so that things seem plausible. I won't use the word "reality", in order to avoid the inevitable shit-flinging bullshit posts I'd inevitably read.

Now....do I think that all or most DM's are power-tripping assholes? No. But there are lots of DM's out there who are not great at what they do, and they do need guidance. Although I will say that many of the old-school dragonsfoot crowd (and its sisterhood sites) seem to have a higher tendency towards power-tripping, one-wayism assholishness that drives a shiv through my cold black heart.

For the record, I absolutely don't think that game mechanics have to cover every eventuality, but I do like it when a rules set is robust enough to cover a number of mundane tasks that my players might attempt to do.

Got it. The game you are playing cannot make the assumption that adults are playing it. There must be safeguards for the sake of the children.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;790103Got it. The game you are playing cannot make the assumption that adults are playing it. There must be safeguards for the sake of the children.

Some frank critiques  can't help but seem put-downs to some people because when we get down to it,  some behaviors simply are  dysfunctional. Bad sportsmanship, antisocial rejection of the norms and even essential purpose of the affair, bad faith in communication, paranoia toward others founded on being untrustworthy oneself: These are personal failings, not failures of game design.

Manufacturing jobs in a metal fabrication shop - or a textile shop, or whatever - are simply  not what early gamers had in mind as the subject of fantastic adventure. That's why they did  not even think of filling pages with rules for such things.

Now that somebody somewhere has come up with a rule for everything from breast size to stenography, does it follow that every basic handbook should bloat to Congressional Budget dimensions?

I think not. Let those who want it get it, without depriving the rest of us - which probably includes the majority of  ordinary  game players - of pastimes that don't require the kind of work from which we are in fact seeking a pleasant relief.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789926God damn it.

Since the stupid fucking "stats" argument appears to be going to happen anyway, here.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So&p=15784375#post15784375

Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again."  -- J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

Pee holes aside, that was a hell of a fun thread to read.

A bit OT: oddly, almost no one ever played a thief in my old group; granted, this was 75-79, and out in podunk florida, so greyhawk was still quite new, and xeroxed lbbs were the rule, but still.....I'm trying to remember any straight thieves, and I can't . Some nonhumans took split levels, but they always played them as (say) dwarves with benefits. ( bad mental image, there, sorry).

Quote from: Phillip;790156Some frank critiques  can't help but seem put-downs to some people because when we get down to it,  some behaviors simply are  dysfunctional. Bad sportsmanship, antisocial rejection of the norms and even essential purpose of the affair, bad faith in communication, paranoia toward others founded on being untrustworthy oneself: These are personal failings, not failures of game design.

Exactly.

Quote from: Phillip;790161Manufacturing jobs in a metal fabrication shop - or a textile shop, or whatever - are simply  not what early gamers had in mind as the subject of fantastic adventure. That's why they did  not even think of filling pages with rules for such things.

When Gary read the part of EPT that lets you be a weaver or an armorer, he said "who cares?"

What was Conan training to be?  Conan the Librarian?  In the movie Daddy was a blacksmith, but did little Coney ever get trained?  Conan the Embroiderer?  Conan the Slosh Pusher in a Slook Mill?

In OD&D it takes 2000 XP, which means pretty much 2000 GP, to hit second level.

If I need a saddle, I can buy a fucking saddle.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789926God damn it.

Since the stupid fucking "stats" argument appears to be going to happen anyway, here.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So&p=15784375#post15784375

Start at 662 and end at 719.  And if you want to continue to wave your dick around about stats, do it in that thread.

"All this has happened before, and it will all happen again."  -- J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

Lizard: "If  there's a 1-in-380 chance of getting an 18..."
Bren at RPG Net: "Nit picky point, it's 1/256."


Old Geezer in post #719: Gevalt.

I love OD&D...but my OD&D is my own and may be quite different than your OD&D. And that's why I love it. FOR ME, rulesets that allow me to tinker and customize to my vision of the setting are among my most favorite.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I've stated often I'll play almost anything, but it's hard to get me to buy.  SC asked me to start a separate thread.

Thank you OG!

BTW, did you ever come across a pirate RPG called CRIMSON CUTLASS? It was written by George "Red" Rahm and Conrad Hilllmer back in the 80s. Small print run, but amazingly great stuff.

Here's my semi-review from ancient times:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_5225.phtml

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675Also, I got into this in the pre D&D years of "Tell me what you want to do, I'll tell you what dice to roll and what happens."  That's still how I like to play.

Me too. I am happy to trust that a good GM and good players will make the game the most fun possible. It's all about getting that good crew.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I bought Fantasy Hero in the mid 80s and both ran it and played it a while.

That was back when Hero games was in San Mateo, California (south of SF and north of Silicon Valley). Our local game club was the go-to playtesting for them and I got to playtest early versions of Fantasy Hero and Autoduel Champions. Much fun at the time, but oy vey, I can't imagine playing either every again because of the complexity.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I bought Champions because it was the first superhero game that really worked well, and somebody locally was very enthusiastic about running it.

What were your thoughts on Villains & Vigilantes? Heroes Unlimited? We played lots of V&V, but I never had a copy until a few years ago. When I read the actual game, I couldn't believe how much our GM had houseruled our game into something so much better than the nigh-incomprehensible mess that was early V&V.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I didn't even buy the Fiend Folio because I figured "if I need more monsters I can just make them up."

The AD&D Fiend Folio is my favorite "monster manual" because it was darker, more gonzo and creepier. FOR ME, its my gold standard of what I want in book of monsters.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675I bought pretty much everything FASA ever did for Star Trek.  I loved that game.

FOR ME, the FASA system had to be beaten with a stick to make Star Trek work and in later years, we just used D6 with the FASA splats.

Quote from: Old Geezer;789675And frankly, most game companies do a really really shit job of selling their products.  "It's New!  And it's a Game!" really doesn't do it for me.

Marketing in the RPG world is painfully bad.

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433I love OD&D...but my OD&D is my own and may be quite different than your OD&D. And that's why I love it. FOR ME, rulesets that allow me to tinker and customize to my vision of the setting are among my most favorite.

That was the original point, indeed.

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433BTW, did you ever come across a pirate RPG called CRIMSON CUTLASS? It was written by George "Red" Rahm and Conrad Hilllmer back in the 80s. Small print run, but amazingly great stuff.

No, and it's too bad... I actually have a copy of the game "Flash Gordon and the Warriors of Mongo" by FGU, so I have some pretty obscure stuff!

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433Me too. I am happy to trust that a good GM and good players will make the game the most fun possible. It's all about getting that good crew.

It was in the late 70s that I first realized that the rule set was the least important part of the whole thing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433What were your thoughts on Villains & Vigilantes? Heroes Unlimited? We played lots of V&V, but I never had a copy until a few years ago.

We played once or twice.  The random chargen of the first edition gave you a game where one person could be playing Superman and the next is playing Arthur from "The Tick".

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433FOR ME, the FASA system had to be beaten with a stick to make Star Trek work and in later years, we just used D6 with the FASA splats.

Again, it's all about the group.  I probably played five or six different campaigns; finally I got one where all seven of us (bridge crew plus ref) all had a compatible vision of what "Star Trek" was.

Quote from: Phillip;790240Bren at RPG Net: "Nit picky point, it's 1/256."

I'm a mathematician. I can prove multiplication. I can't always do multiplication. ;)

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433FOR ME, the FASA system had to be beaten with a stick to make Star Trek work and in later years, we just used D6 with the FASA splats.

We used the character generation rules and the source material. We extremely simplified the combat and other rules or just flat out ignored them. I'll echo that the main source of fun for that game were the people who were playing it and their characters.

Quote from: Old Geezer;790664Again, it's all about the group.  I probably played five or six different campaigns; finally I got one where all seven of us (bridge crew plus ref) all had a compatible vision of what "Star Trek" was.

Ok, now that sounds like an entertaining road to go down.  What was the compatible vision and what were some of the more outrageous incompatible visions?

Seconding CRKrueger's question.

Quote from: CRKrueger;790702What was the compatible vision and what were some of the more outrageous incompatible visions?

I find Star Trek hell to run at conventions because of how incompatible fan visions of ST can be, and don't start with the Series Wars issues of which ST is the right one to emulate.

In my ST D6 campaign, I actually ran using the Star Fleet Battles universe and the limited canon found in the early SFB books.

It became a Wild West Star Trek as competing empires were trying to score colonies, protect them and expand their territories across space.

BTW, there is a great Star Trek GM in the Bay Area named Kris Miller who runs the CelestiCon conventions. Kris solved the Gordian Knot of running ST at cons by running Mirror Universe with an all evil crew of the Next Generation Enterprise. Picard with a Fu Manchu stache! It worked brilliantly and amazingly made the players more coherent and more active in roleplaying and oddly, almost more authentic to Star Trek in a weird way.

Quote from: Spinachcat;790817BTW, there is a great Star Trek GM in the Bay Area named Kris Miller who runs the CelestiCon conventions. Kris solved the Gordian Knot of running ST at cons by running Mirror Universe with an all evil crew of the Next Generation Enterprise. Picard with a Fu Manchu stache! It worked brilliantly and amazingly made the players more coherent and more active in roleplaying and oddly, almost more authentic to Star Trek in a weird way.

That sounds amazing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;790817Picard with a Fu Manchu stache!

The laws of Trek physics demand in no uncertain terms that all possible ST universes explode before the awesomeness of this.

Also, all this talk of Star Trek gaming makes me even more frustrated that Prime Directive for Mongoose Traveller is still vaporware.

ADB's 20 year old macs and floppy disks are better then the latest PCs though...really. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Old Geezer;790664

Quote from: Spinachcat;790433BTW, did you ever come across a pirate RPG called CRIMSON CUTLASS? It was written by George "Red" Rahm and Conrad Hilllmer back in the 80s. Small print run, but amazingly great stuff.

Here's my semi-review from ancient times:
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_5225.phtml

No, and it's too bad...

Here's more info about a later incarnation of the system of Crimson Cutlass:

http://rpggeek.com/thread/1055827/brief-overview

Crimson Cutlass became Barony, which became Rogue Swords of the Empire and Arabian Seass Tales.