What is it? I'm impatient and want to open my presents now!

Is it Dragonlance Done Right? A more approachable domain management elder game? Pogs?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;923853Is it Dragonlance Done Right?

Adventure Paths and linked chain of adventures is one of the least developed in regards to the OSR. Lot of room for folks to try out alternative approaches. Even have a few ideas myself one I call the mega-wilderness based around this map I made for one of my campaigns.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]446[/ATTACH]

Quote from: estar;923859Adventure Paths and linked chain of adventures is one of the least developed in regards to the OSR. Lot of room for folks to try out alternative approaches. Even have a few ideas myself one I call the mega-wilderness based around this map I made for one of my campaigns.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]446[/ATTACH]

Awesome, but if you do publish it, I think we're just about full-up on Gonzo.  A little less 4th wall Heavy Metal wouldn't hurt the OSR at all methinks.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;923853Is it Dragonlance Done Right?

Quote from: EstarAdventure Paths and linked chain of adventures is one of the least developed in regards to the OSR.

Won't some people (not me) say "OSR adventure path" is an oxymoron though? I was often given the impression that the OSR was a firm reaction to the twin evils of heavy rules and overbearing plot concerns.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923866Won't some people (not me) say "OSR adventure path" is an oxymoron though? I was often given the impression that the OSR was a firm reaction to the twin evils of heavy rules and overbearing plot concerns.

And you are correct, hence my stress on exploring alternatives. If you do it like Paizo and Wizards you probably won't have the success you are looking for and feel like you did get much (money, usage, and praise) for the work you put into it.

But is the Paizo adventure path or how TSR linked G1 to 3, D 1 to 3, A1 to 4, Dragonlance, etc the ONLY viable ways of doing this? My feeling it isn't. The only to be sure if for people to experiment and see what happens.

For example the Boxed set is a possible product format for publishing in the OSR. Due to several people trying it, we have several example of what it took. It turned out to be barely doable but with severe gotchas the biggest of which it is very labor intensive.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923866Won't some people (not me) say "OSR adventure path" is an oxymoron though? I was often given the impression that the OSR was a firm reaction to the twin evils of heavy rules and overbearing plot concerns.

I am not the best example of an OSR person, but I think adventure paths were what caused me to go back to stuff like Hexcrawls. I vividly remember getting so frustrated with the whole adventure path thing, I picked up the 1E DMG and grabbed a bunch of hex crawl modules because they were so opposite what was going on at the height of 3E. I imagine 'adventure path' would get a similar reaction from a lot of people.

Again I kind of have one foot in OSR and one foot in newer games, so I may not be the typical customer here, but I think if they found a way to do adventure paths that were not like the old 3E and Paizo adventure paths, then it might have some traction with me. But I'd be pretty skeptical of any product that said "Adventure Path" on the cover. I've pretty much ignored Pathfinder because that seems to be their go-to model for adventures. My frustration with adventure paths was it basically felt like there was no reason for me to not just hand my players my notes at the start of the game instead of running it. I also associate adventure paths with some of the silliness of crafting adventures around CR and Encounter levels.

I'd be curious though what Estar had in mind here because I doubt he is saying they should just do what Paizo did.

Quote from: CRKrueger;923864Awesome, but if you do publish it, I think we're just about full-up on Gonzo.  A little less 4th wall Heavy Metal wouldn't hurt the OSR at all methinks.

It not a gonzo setting. I think it great that people write gonzo products but it not what I do. I deliberately choose to use stereotypical names as part of how I design, plan, and run my campaigns and write my products.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;923853What is it? I'm impatient and want to open my presents now!

Is it Dragonlance Done Right? A more approachable domain management elder game? Pogs?

I want it to be gamebooks. I really wish someone would bring those back.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923868I'd be curious though what Estar had in mind here because I doubt he is saying they should just do what Paizo did.

No I would not emulate Paizo. The problem I have right now is that I am still in the middle of exploring these issues. So it hard to come up with a short pithy description of how it would work. What I can say that my gut and my experience tells me it is possible and it will require jettisoning some traditional "how to write a rpg adventure" maxims.

Right now the starting point is the structure of my Scourge of the Demon Wolf scaled up to cover a larger region and a longer span of time.

1) The players are presented with a situation,
2) There multiple ways of resolving the situation,
3) it needs to be in a form that can be readily published and usable by people who want just to have fun with their hobby.

From Scourge, and the other two sandbox adventures I been working, playtesting first is essential to writing these things. Through repeated playtests you will see patterns in how people handle the situation. That will structure how you write up the actual product.

With Scourge I was able to do a sandbox adventure in 32 pages*. Not sure how many pages the mega wilderness will take.

Through playtesting I found that there patterns to how people resolved the situation. This allowed me to pepper Scourge with useful advice. Recently I playtested Scourge using D&D 5e and one group found a completely new way to resolve the adventure that didn't involve interacting with the village at all.

Since the mega-wilderness is more of a campaign, the playtesting is going to be a challenge. Right now I have parts of it playtested through game store events and convention games. My current plan is to try something on-line with Roll20.


*Yes Scourge is 72 pages however the last 40 pages are a supplement covering the locales of the adventure in a LOT of detail. That was a marketing decision on my part to give people two reasons to buy the product. You don't need to read the supplement to run the adventure and I stress that in the intro and again in the intro to the supplement.

Gamebooks as in solitaire adventures?  Interesting thought.

What about Battlesystem?  There's some division between 1e and 2e but the OSR is definitely capable of running in a dozen directions at once.

I've always thought it was ridiculous that TSR let the mass battle game slip through their fingers.

Personally, Battlesystem 2e is my preference but that's about the only place where I favor 2e.

Quote from: TristramEvans;923871I want it to be gamebooks. I really wish someone would bring those back.

You should check out the Fabled Lands gamebooks if you haven't already.  They are supposed to be open ended.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;923868I am not the best example of an OSR person, but I think adventure paths were what caused me to go back to stuff like Hexcrawls.

Well, I'm not part of any "rebirth" because I never stopped playing OD&D the way I always played it, but I agree.  All I can find where I live are some guys doing Pazio adventure paths, and Crom's hairy nutsack, do I hate them.  They are to me everything that has gone wrong in RPGs.

Quote from: TristramEvans;923871I want it to be gamebooks. I really wish someone would bring those back.

Gamebooks are alive and kicking. Last year there was even one up on KS illustrated by the original Fighting Fantasy artist. Theres also a yh-groups mailing list dedicated to gamebooks.

Fabled Lands was allready mentioned and another is DestinyQuest.

Quote from: David Johansen;923874Personally, Battlesystem 2e is my preference but that's about the only place where I favor 2e.

I prefer Battlesystem 1e. I really want to figure out the math behind its master table because it elegantly aggregates the result of dozens attempting the make the same roll (to hit or damage). Closet I come to figuring how to turn a binomial distribution to a table.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]447[/ATTACH]

I use 2d6 because the results of a binomial distribution follows a bell curve.

Because of that master table Battlesystem can be used with just about any edition of D&D.

http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/Battle%20Machine

Quote from: estar;923881I prefer Battlesystem 1e. I really want to figure out the math behind its master table because it elegantly aggregates the result of dozens attempting the make the same roll (to hit or damage). Closet I come to figuring how to turn a binomial distribution to a table.

Have you looked at how BECMI's War Machine rules handled mass combat? The whole thing covers a mere 3 pages in plus 2 pages of optional rules C and a one or two more pages in M.