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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Woud love to see a more focused hexcrawl book with a full page for each hex and then some general information about the setting and more pages about a few interesting locations such as dungeons. Sort of something in the middle between a hexcrawl ad a focused module.

Quote from: Omega;923879Gamebooks 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.

There are also plenty of gamebooks available on tablets, with Inkle's new version of the Sorcery games from Inkle being the most notable. Many of them are just the same as a book, while the Inkle ones keep the basic ideas of a gamebook and expand the idea in ways that a book couldn't handle.

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

+1, but they are coming back, including new ones being written:).

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. 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.

And +1 to that, except I'd probably reach for Mythras or Traveller instead:p.

Quote from: RunningLaser;923877You should check out the Fabled Lands gamebooks if you haven't already.  They are supposed to be open ended.

They're great, or at least the first one (the only one I've tried) was;).

Quote from: Omega;923891Have 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.

Yes but that a more verbal "ok the two armies meet here what happen" approach. I used GURPS Mass Combat in the same way when I ran GURPS campaigns. Mind you I know there more to it than that.

For classic D&D games I like to use miniatures and actually fight out the battle. Battlesystem 1e is highly effective at handling hundreds of combatants yet still use classic D&D stats 'as is'. Way better than Battlesystem 2e.


One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Orcs Slain
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2013/08/one-thousand-four-hundred-and-fifty.html

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Quote from: Baulderstone;923894There are also plenty of gamebooks available on tablets, with Inkle's new version of the Sorcery games from Inkle being the most notable. Many of them are just the same as a book, while the Inkle ones keep the basic ideas of a gamebook and expand the idea in ways that a book couldn't handle.

Gamebooks on tablets are awesome. I played Warlock on Fire Mountain and it was pretty good. Kept track of stuff and everything well worth the $4 price (now $2)

Quote from: Daztur;923893Woud love to see a more focused hexcrawl book with a full page for each hex and then some general information about the setting and more pages about a few interesting locations such as dungeons. Sort of something in the middle between a hexcrawl ad a focused module.

That probably what my idea will turn out to be.

An uber rules heavy set with 162 races, 377 classes, weapon speed charts that rate out to decimal spaces, and massive, linked encounter maps, where the adventure path looks like a set of rail tracks.:-)


(I don't really see where the movement about what's behind can go ahead, except maybe what is already being presented here--scenario maps. And more electronic shit, apps, and so on).

Quote from: Daztur;923893Woud love to see a more focused hexcrawl book with a full page for each hex and then some general information about the setting and more pages about a few interesting locations such as dungeons. Sort of something in the middle between a hexcrawl ad a focused module.

I have wished for this as well.

The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Quote from: Teodrik;923931The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Not sure what you mean by Lord Dunsay in the context of the other authors you mentioned. But I always focused on the adventure caused by the clash of religion, politics and culture. You might want to check out my Majestic Wilderlands if you haven't yet.

Quote from: estar;923934Not sure what you mean by Lord Dunsay in the context of the other authors you mentioned. But I always focused on the adventure caused by the clash of religion, politics and culture. You might want to check out my Majestic Wilderlands if you haven't yet.

Nor was I, but more Dunsany inspired stuff would be cool.

Liked your map by the way. It looked very gameable.

Quote from: estar;923934Not sure what you mean by Lord Dunsay in the context of the other authors you mentioned.

Elements from stuff like The King of Elflands Daughter by Lord Dunsany would mesh quite well with stuff like Farmer Guiles of Ham and Lost Tales by Tolkien, and Mallory's The Death of Arthur. Now sprinkle with GRR Martin for some down-to-earth geopolitical grit(warring domains, courtly intruige, backstapping vs honour) of the mundane in contrast to the more dreamy long-ago-elf-land-chivalrious stuff. Along those lines was what I pictured in my head.

I would love to see some well thought out random encounter tables. I picked up "the mother of all.." but it's 3.x focused and somewhat... odd. I don't want random as in "look mom I fit all the monsters from all the books into it!" random. I want "this is a good mix of creatures and monsters you would find in this terrain, broken down by commonality and HD."

I'm going to be rolling my own for a mega-dungeon thing I'm setting up for Castles and Crusades, but it's some work ya know? I would pay good monies for one ready to rock for me. Yes I've seen the one in the Engineering Dungeons booklet, but I want more variety and themes (not just creatures but events, chance meetings, weather, etc.). Also, something Airhde specific would be fantastic!

I think well-detailed hexcrawl/sandbox "adventures" with ready-to-run encounters, plot-hooks and NPCs would do well. This kind of prep is time-consuming and I believe there is a big market for it.

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. 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.

I completely agree. Adventure paths turn me right off, because I dont want to be stuck in a pre-made story by someone else for the next 20 levels. I feel like they remove that freedom to wander/investigate what you like - that is the major advantage D&D style games have over other forms of entertainment. AP's put me off Pathfinder and now 5e too, because it's all wotc is releasing  (phandelver excepted - that was a good intro set - and dont get me wrong, there are some good third party 5e stand alone adventures). I personally think the future of OSR is in sandbox settings and GM material to support that style, but that woudl include some linked adventures - just not wholescale APs.

Quote from: trechriron;923944I think well-detailed hexcrawl/sandbox "adventures" with ready-to-run encounters, plot-hooks and NPCs would do well. This kind of prep is time-consuming and I believe there is a big market for it.

I am currently writing this kind of "sandbox setting" book for Low Fantasy Gaming. Hoping to release it end of this year, but it's a bit difficult to gauge time frames.

Quote from: Psikerlord;923950I am currently writing this kind of "sandbox setting" book for Low Fantasy Gaming. Hoping to release it end of this year, but it's a bit difficult to gauge time frames.

Playtest it multiple times. Note the results, that will define what you need to write about.

Quote from: Teodrik;923931The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Again, this sounds like that "Dragonlance done right" suggestion from the first post. The idea sounds intriguing, but the well established challenges and pitfalls are daunting.

If one wanted to tap into the OSR spirit of such a project I suppose one possible first step would be trying to figure out the exact point in TSR history where the old location-based adventure designs gave way to the railroad-heavy Dragonlance era and see if there are any clues as to why it turned ugly and if anything could be salvaged. I would guess the original Ravenloft module marks the turning point.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923958Again, this sounds like that "Dragonlance done right" suggestion from the first post. The idea sounds intriguing, but the well established challenges and pitfalls are daunting.

If one wanted to tap into the OSR spirit of such a project I suppose one possible first step would be trying to figure out the exact point in TSR history where the old location-based adventure designs gave way to the railroad-heavy Dragonlance era and see if there are any clues as to why it turned ugly and if anything could be salvaged. I would guess the original Ravenloft module marks the turning point.

There never a turning point outside of a few exceptions like Keep on the Borderlands most of the modules were polished tournament dungeons. The difference is that after Ravenloft the scope changed to be more expansive and focused a lot more on the roleplaying rather than puzzle solving.

My own wish is for the term OSR to divorce itself from being an advertising gimmick term that means only D&D in _____.

There were a lot more Old School games out there that people had fun with besides D&D.

Quote from: jeff37923;923963My own wish is for the term OSR to divorce itself from being an advertising gimmick term that means only D&D in _____.

There were a lot more Old School games out there that people had fun with besides D&D.

Probably the main reason for the OSR is that D&D became a completely different game over time. Fans needed to break out on there own to continue playing the same game. Other major games of the 70s don't have an need for a movement.

By the time the OSR was really rolling, BRP/RQ and Traveller were both available in editions that were both reasonably compatible with earlier materials and also OGL. BRP has sprouted plenty of variants like Mythras, OpenQuest, and Renaissance, with more variants in the works. Chaosium just reprinted RQ2 for people that want to stick with the old classics. There is an abundance of choice and support.

The Traveller groups I follow on G+ are active with plenty of good material. Seems like a healthy scene on the whole with regular fan made materials and third party supplements.

These games don't have the violent divide between Old School and New School players that occurred in D&D.

I guess it would be interesting for more examination of games that have largely been left behind, but that was never what the OSR was. At core, it was people who played pre-3E D&D and wanted to keep playing it.

If I were going to try and resurrect interest in an early non-D&D game, I would want to stay away from the OSR label. It is so strongly associated with D&D by now that it would give a false impression of what you were trying to interest them in.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923958Again, this sounds like that "Dragonlance done right" suggestion from the first post. The idea sounds intriguing, but the well established challenges and pitfalls are daunting.

If one wanted to tap into the OSR spirit of such a project I suppose one possible first step would be trying to figure out the exact point in TSR history where the old location-based adventure designs gave way to the railroad-heavy Dragonlance era and see if there are any clues as to why it turned ugly and if anything could be salvaged. I would guess the original Ravenloft module marks the turning point.

It's worth remembering that most early D&D location-based adventures are their own limitation. This week, you are going to explore this dungeon. If you don't go in the dungeon that your DM just bought, there is no adventure. It's not like we had unfettered freedom before story-based modules came along.

D&D is actually a tricky game to build a wide open hexcrawl for. It has an enormous spread in character ability from high to low, and the monsters have a similar spread. It's one reason D&D tied monsters to specific levels in a dungeon. The deeper you got, the bigger the risks. You avoided going lower until you were ready. Hexcrawls are more chaotic and players can easily stumble into a TPK or a series of fights that are too easy and too light on treasure.

I'm not saying D&D can't do hexcrawls, just that they are a challenge. They can be a little easier to pull off in games where characters have less of a steep power curve.

I think this is part of the reason why D&D modules tended towards a single location targeted at a small range of character levels. Adventure paths are just another way of making sure that characters only encounter monsters that are well-matched towards them. Personally, I am on the side that find adventure paths boring as whole. When I GM, I don't want to know everything that will happen. I want to see where the players take the story. In an adventure path, I know all the major plot beats from the start.

Quote from: estar;923952Playtest it multiple times. Note the results, that will define what you need to write about.

Thanks Estar, I shall - just a heads up, your last 2 links in your sig are giving 404 errors (?)

Quote from: RunningLaser;923877You should check out the Fabled Lands gamebooks if you haven't already.  They are supposed to be open ended.

Quote from: Omega;923879Gamebooks 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: Baulderstone;923894There are also plenty of gamebooks available on tablets, with Inkle's new version of the Sorcery games from Inkle being the most notable. Many of them are just the same as a book, while the Inkle ones keep the basic ideas of a gamebook and expand the idea in ways that a book couldn't handle.

Cool, I'll have to check those out.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923958If one wanted to tap into the OSR spirit of such a project I suppose one possible first step would be trying to figure out the exact point in TSR history where the old location-based adventure designs gave way to the railroad-heavy Dragonlance era and see if there are any clues as to why it turned ugly and if anything could be salvaged. I would guess the original Ravenloft module marks the turning point.

Ravenloft was an awesome module though and still exploration based. The idea was pretty sound too: a living villain who has his own goals and does things (sometimes reacting to choices the players make). I don't know exactly when things changed but going by my memory of things, I think if you look at the Ravenloft line you can sort of see where that idea goes south though (not as sure about the other settings like Dragonlance). You still had a lot of solid adventures early on. They were not pure hex crawls, there was more focus on stuff like role-play and interesting developments, but you still had a kind of sandbox aspect to them. Feast of Goblyns explicitly tried to ape the living adventure concept (and I think for the period it came in, it did a good job). There were other good adventures like Castles Forlorn that came out as well around that time. At a certain point though, story started to really become king (I think as Vampire gained traction TSR felt a lot of pressure to make stuff feel more highbrow). So you started seeing things in the line here and there that were much more railroady, and in one egregious case I remember, they had an NPC that flat out couldn't die for story reasons (not he was magically invincible and couldn't die, but the text straight up said don't let the PCs kill this character). The module The Created had this for instance (and it was built around a very specific concept and flow of events). It was a shame too because there was still some cool stuff in the module itself. So if you look at Feast of Goblyns, there is a whole thing in there where they lay out the most likely course of events, but they pretty explicitly state, this is just the most likely way things happen and the PCs could go in any number of directions. It is also much more based around exploration with a region map, two city maps, and a bunch of manors and dungeons. At some point though you started seeing things like having scenes or acts instead of chapter titles. But it wasn't like everything just changed suddenly in 86, 90 or even 92. There was still kind of a mix in the modules and setting material.

Ravenloft also strongly eschewed the Dungeon early on (but it backtracked on this later). Not that dungeons didn't exist there. Ruins and crypts had a place. However the dungeon was pretty quickly supplanted with monster hunts and investigations (if you read the Van Richten books, that is pretty much what those were all about and they were kind of at the heart of the line). Those were quite workable as concepts and they didn't demand that you do an adventure path or follow storyline if you didn't want to. Every so often I go back to Ravenloft and I've found that drawing more not the Van Richten line, ignoring the silliness that comes up in stuff like Created, is a pretty easy way to avoid some of the problems in late 80s, 90s TSR material. And you can still mine the line for good things. Feast of Goblyns and Castles Forlorn are still quite useable (though you might want to snipe an element here or there).

Estar's Scourge of the Demon Wolf adventure is a pretty good example of this kind of blend of monster hunt and investigation in my opinion.

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

Working on it...

Quote from: Ratman_tf;923853A more approachable domain management elder game?

An Echo Resounding doesn't do it for you?

Quote from: estar;923859this map I made for one of my campaigns.

Please, please publish this. Never enough hexcrawls!

Quote from: Daztur;923893Woud love to see a more focused hexcrawl book with a full page for each hex and then some general information about the setting and more pages about a few interesting locations such as dungeons. Sort of something in the middle between a hexcrawl ad a focused module.

Yes!

Quote from: Teodrik;923931The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Another great thought. Beyond The Wall is a step in the right direction.

Here's another one: converting new school game premises to an OSR framework. Case in point: Godbound. Seriously considering an OSR-powered Rifts remake using S&W and Kevin Crawford's opus (SWN, Other Dust and Godbound).

Quote from: Psikerlord;923987Thanks Estar, I shall - just a heads up, your last 2 links in your sig are giving 404 errors (?)

Thanks it should be fixed now. Looks like Goodman Games reorganized their website.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924032living adventure concept

Aight. I think this is a great take on Dragonlance Done Right. Ravenloft is a neat adventure because it sets up a lot of interesting encounters without expecting any canned resolutions. Whereas the Dragonlance modules pretty much do. (Go here, get the disks, fight the dragon, pregen characters are the expected party)

Quote from: The Butcher;924034An Echo Resounding doesn't do it for you?

I actually don't have it. :o

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;923958Again, this sounds like that "Dragonlance done right" suggestion from the first post. The idea sounds intriguing, but the well established challenges and pitfalls are daunting.

If one wanted to tap into the OSR spirit of such a project I suppose one possible first step would be trying to figure out the exact point in TSR history where the old location-based adventure designs gave way to the railroad-heavy Dragonlance era and see if there are any clues as to why it turned ugly and if anything could be salvaged. I would guess the original Ravenloft module marks the turning point.

Was was actually more thinking about an open sandbox hexcral(or point-crawl) setting with the elements I mentioned. Not an adventure path DL style.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;924038I actually don't have it. :o

It sounds a lot like what you're looking for. DTRPG link. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/99063)

Quote from: The Butcher;924053It sounds a lot like what you're looking for. DTRPG link. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/99063)

Yeah, I googled it when you brought it up. I'll have to give it a look-see.

The OSR could use one giant master living index of what's available.  There's so much out there.

I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.  No laundry lists of super-weapons, 30 different types of construction materials, super duper advanced powerplants, multi-crew cockpits, weird melee weapons, especially no Clans, none of that.  Five houses, a bunch of periphery powers, factories barely able to keep up with battlefield losses, just bring all that Road Warrior in Space goodness back and leave all the cheese behind.

It would be interesting to see someone take the next step and re-examine the post-Gygaxian, pre-WotC era of *D&D with a similar eye to what works, what doesn't, and how to revive it and make it closer to what it was trying to be. However, I don't know that the current OSR community is the right place for that kind of re-examination.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924032At a certain point though, story started to really become king (I think as Vampire gained traction TSR felt a lot of pressure to make stuff feel more highbrow). So you started seeing things in the line here and there that were much more railroady, and in one egregious case I remember, they had an NPC that flat out couldn't die for story reasons (not he was magically invincible and couldn't die, but the text straight up said don't let the PCs kill this character).

Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;924060I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.  No laundry lists of super-weapons, 30 different types of construction materials, super duper advanced powerplants, multi-crew cockpits, weird melee weapons, especially no Clans, none of that.  Five houses, a bunch of periphery powers, factories barely able to keep up with battlefield losses, just bring all that Road Warrior in Space goodness back and leave all the cheese behind.

Classic Battletech was in print as of I believe 2 years ago? New company, new minis. It may still be in print.

Quote from: Omega;924117Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

   That would explain why TSR went so all-in on hardcovers in the last two years of its existence, which is reportedly one of the things that caused the collapse. A couple of other things I remember hearing from people who were there at the time:

   1. The novels sold really well--better than the gaming stuff, in many cases.
   2. At the end of TSR's life, there was a 'firewall' established between Books and Games to keep them from talking with each other, even when both were working on the same world. This explains some strangeness and discontinuities in some of the last TSR/first WotC novels and game material.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;924060I feel like classic 3025 era Battletech should be the next OSR push.

So that is what I'm supposed to do with the Mecha rules from Stars Without Number.

Quote from: Omega;924117Something to keep in mind is that Loraine saw herself very much as a literary bastion. Hence why TSR branched out more and more into books and bought out Amazing Stories. So there may be a correlation not with Vampire, but instead with Dragonlance and TSRs boss. Dragonlance sold well and Loraine liked writing efforts. So more story driven and linear modules may have gotten the greenlight more. Or people were trying to recreate the success of Dragonlance and thats what kept getting submitted and approved.

I don't know. I just remember at the time, sensing that a lot of the stuff I wasn't thrilled about them introducing in Ravenloft seemed like it was a response to Vampire. But I was just a fan buying the books.

Quote from: Teodrik;923931The OSR haev seen its fair share of lovecraftian stuff, gonzo/weird, horror/gore, pulpy, pure retro etc. Something I really hope to see one day would be something that draws heavily from Birthright, Pendragon, Tolkien (but not necessarily LotR), Lord Dunsany and a bit of Martins GoT.

Have you checked out Dark Albion?

Quote from: RPGPundit;924287Have you checked out Dark Albion?

Not yet. But I was under the impression its more on the grimdark side than I had in mind, since I have heard many refer to it like Warhammer Fantasy in War of the Roses. But it is on my list for future of  purchases on drivetrhurpg.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;924119That would explain why TSR went so all-in on hardcovers in the last two years of its existence, which is reportedly one of the things that caused the collapse. A couple of other things I remember hearing from people who were there at the time:

   1. The novels sold really well--better than the gaming stuff, in many cases.
   2. At the end of TSR's life, there was a 'firewall' established between Books and Games to keep them from talking with each other, even when both were working on the same world. This explains some strangeness and discontinuities in some of the last TSR/first WotC novels and game material.

Lorraine was skimming money off TSR by producing the Buck Rogers collection hardbacks. She drew royalties from all that. But worse for TSR was that they were bleeding themselves out trying to catch onto the CCG/collectible craze and like alot of publishers it dragged them down or accelerated an allready ongoing collapse.

1: Theres been claims of it. But mostly just by Weiss and Hickman. I saw them do that one myself so its not just a story. How well the books did is anyones guess. TSR pumped out alot of books covering a pretty broad range. Even stuff for other peoples games.

2: Thats not a rumour either. At least two writers for TSR at the time that I knew well, because they were also customers, related some of the quirks of writing for product or just writing for TSR at all. And its not just a policy really. Tie in books are very often in development at the same time as the upcoming game. That goes for quite a few companies. Sometimes elements of the game change even as the writer is working on the novel or the books prepping to go to print. That hasnt changed with WOTC.

But TSR did give alot of writers a start either straight up for novels or in Amazing Stories.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924130I don't know. I just remember at the time, sensing that a lot of the stuff I wasn't thrilled about them introducing in Ravenloft seemed like it was a response to Vampire. But I was just a fan buying the books.

My personal favorite in this regard was the module Adam's Wrath, which expected the GM to suddenly kill the party one way or another (the main suggestion was an unwinnable, inescapable fight) right at the beginning so they could then 'surprise' their players when they were brought back to life as Frankenstein monsters. I can easily imagine this went down very poorly at more than one table.

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 certainly would.  I'm no OSR partisan, and I'm firmly in the camp that I'd rather drive a modern car than a Model T, but sheesh -- I'd think that going commercial and seeking to Improve It All would be the death of OSR.

I think where the OSR could see a lot of improvement is in presentation. Not just art and layout, since arguably some of the most beautiful products come out of the OSR, but in the way gameable data is presented.

Raggi/Zak tried some of that with those drop-tables, but I want it all to go a step further.

Personally, I am doing very OK with Judges Guild-style descriptions. Very bare bones. I hate having to read long texts about the peculiarities of an obelisk, or the rotten smell in an ogre's cave. I'd rather have simple descriptions, written in flavour, but presented in a streamlined fashion.

If there's a conspiracy in the kingdom, don't write paragraphs about it, present it in a pyramid. If the map has points of interest, highlight them, link them graphically, accentuate hidden shortcuts, write travel distances right next to them, if there's random encounters, mash those tables directly with the monster entries and illustrations.

Text has its place, but I would like more "show don't tell". Of course, this is usually more expensive if done right.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;924306My personal favorite in this regard was the module Adam's Wrath, which expected the GM to suddenly kill the party one way or another (the main suggestion was an unwinnable, inescapable fight) right at the beginning so they could then 'surprise' their players when they were brought back to life as Frankenstein monsters. I can easily imagine this went down very poorly at more than one table.

They did something similar in From the Shadows, where the adventure doesn't start until the party has its heads cut off. A lot of these things were cool as possibilities in those eventualities (I.e. If there is a TPK in Lamordia, Mordenheim might turn them into Flesh golems). Adam's Wrath actually had done cool stuff in it too. If you ignore the railroads in the modules many have nice locations, threats and scenarios. But those heavy handed develops really stand out if you go back to them.

I might do some reviews of the modules. I am going to run Feast of Gobkyns again this month and may just go ahead and to the whole Hyskosa Hexad. If that goes well, could also do Adam's wrath.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;924306I can easily imagine this went down very poorly at more than one table.

I didn't pull that one on my party but I did run From the Shadows as written and that didn't go over so well. However the worst reaction I got running a Ravenloft module was the rain lightning in Thoughts of Darkness if I recall.

Quote from: BedrockBrendanAdam's Wrath actually had done cool stuff in it too. If you ignore the railroads in the modules many have nice locations, threats and scenarios.

This is true.

Quote from: BedrockBrendanI might do some reviews of the modules. I am going to run Feast of Gobkyns again this month and may just go ahead and to the whole Hyskosa Hexad. If that goes well, could also do Adam's wrath.

I'd love a play report of the Hexad.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924331However the worst reaction I got running a Ravenloft module was the rain lightning in Thoughts of Darkness if I recall.

I'm not familiar with the details of that one.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;924336This is true.



I'd love a play report of the Hexad.

I will have to see how the Feast of Goblyns goes first (since I am running two campaigns and this is a special 1-3 session Skype thing). So trying to schedule it with my players now.

QuoteI'm not familiar with the details of that one.

It has been a while, and I lost my copy of the module unfortunately so I need to track it down again, but as I recall it was something like save every round (or maybe every minute) or take a bunch of d6s in lightning.

Oddly enough I found myself provoked into retro-cloning Traveller this weekend.  I don't know why.  There's really no need for it and I have games of my own that I like better.  Still, I've written up stuff for running Star Wars using Traveller recently and it got me thinking about how to do it.  I mainly want it tighter and with fewer tables and a little more flexibility.  I also want to avoid getting sued so there are things that I gloss over to avoid copying tables outright.  I'll post it on the game design forum for people to tear apart.  Mostly a result of poor impulse control and frustration with the glacial pace at which the T5 update is coming I suppose.

Quote from: David Johansen;924356Oddly enough I found myself provoked into retro-cloning Traveller this weekend.  I don't know why.  There's really no need for it and I have games of my own that I like better.  Still, I've written up stuff for running Star Wars using Traveller recently and it got me thinking about how to do it.  I mainly want it tighter and with fewer tables and a little more flexibility.  I also want to avoid getting sued so there are things that I gloss over to avoid copying tables outright.  I'll post it on the game design forum for people to tear apart.  Mostly a result of poor impulse control and frustration with the glacial pace at which the T5 update is coming I suppose.

The Cephus game engine (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/186894/Cepheus-Engine-System-Reference-Document) is 100% open content. The original Mongoose Traveller SRD can be found here (http://www.traveller-srd.com/).

The advantage of the Cepheus SRD is that it is written as a complete RPG so you can use that as template and cut and paste what you need.

heh...thanks for that, I'm not really surprised.  I'm maybe 50 -80% done mine anyhow and it probably drifts a little farther from CT given my own preferences.  Even so, it's the project that interests me.  What I might learn from the process anyhow.  It's not like I expect people to play my games or anything :D

Quote from: estar;924359The Cephus game engine (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/186894/Cepheus-Engine-System-Reference-Document) is 100% open content. The original Mongoose Traveller SRD can be found here (http://www.traveller-srd.com/).

The advantage of the Cepheus SRD is that it is written as a complete RPG so you can use that as template and cut and paste what you need.

Thank you for the Cepheus link:)!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924342It has been a while, and I lost my copy of the module unfortunately so I need to track it down again, but as I recall it was something like save every round (or maybe every minute) or take a bunch of d6s in lightning.

Damn.

I'm guessing the objective was to drive the PCs underground and into the waiting tentacles of the mind flayers.

I should try that with the kids at the store.  They're always running away from adventure so they can terrorize the peasants.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;924369Damn.

I'm guessing the objective was to drive the PCs underground and into the waiting tentacles of the mind flayers.

In fairness it was in keeping with the domain's flavor, but Bluetspur was always a strange domain for the core.

So here's a link to what I've done with Traveller so far.  http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?35353-Cloning-The-Big-T&p=924377#post924377  

I expect to get space combat, ship operations, some standard ships and vehicles and robots, and equipment done before I let it slide into the abyss.    I'm also going to do a 3 dimensional nested hex map.  Weird, I know, but people are always complaining about the flat space aspect of Traveller.  I stepped up and refused to call the UPP letter substitutions "hexadecimal" so I might as well keep on pandering to the whining masses who don't get Traveller ;)

Quote from: David Johansen;924379I'm also going to do a 3 dimensional nested hex map.  Weird, I know, but people are always complaining about the flat space aspect of Traveller.  

It a pain in the ass and add little to nothing to gameplay. And this is coming from a hard science fan who worked with the raw Gliese data and newer star catalogs.

What 3D Mapping boils down to is a series of links and branches. The canonical example is the near star map for 2300AD.

This cool looking complicated map

[ATTACH=CONFIG]452[/ATTACH]

What that amounts to in actual play is this

[ATTACH=CONFIG]453[/ATTACH]

By all means crunch your 3D data. But for the love of God have mercy and present the final version as the second drawing not the first.

The best program to deal with 3D mapping is Astrosynthesis by NBos (http://www.nbos.com/products/astrosynthesis).

For my Majestic Stars campaign, I have four major routes outward from the Solar System with numerous small branches and loops.

This is not what my players will see

[ATTACH=CONFIG]454[/ATTACH]

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924342It has been a while, and I lost my copy of the module unfortunately so I need to track it down again, but as I recall it was something like save every round (or maybe every minute) or take a bunch of d6s in lightning.

I've got that one (but not the rest of the series).

What happened is theres ample warning of a storm coming. And also warning from either observation or NPCs that the storm in un-natural in nature. So like a normal thunderstorm they know they should likely take shelter. But since this IS Ravenloftland well... haste is ever advised. ahem...

The start at least has some branching paths based on what the PCs did initially. And so I think a player would have to be a bit fucked up mentally to think of that sort of freedom of action as a railroad. The module is linear in that it has a progression from A to B. But there is some freedom in how you get there. (and at other points not so much freedom due to the constraints of the situation).

Thats though about all I recall as never got to run it. I believe its part of an ongoing campaign quest so it makes sense to be more focused?

Quote from: Omega;924412I've got that one (but not the rest of the series).

What happened is theres ample warning of a storm coming. And also warning from either observation or NPCs that the storm in un-natural in nature. So like a normal thunderstorm they know they should likely take shelter. But since this IS Ravenloftland well... haste is ever advised. ahem...

The start at least has some branching paths based on what the PCs did initially. And so I think a player would have to be a bit fucked up mentally to think of that sort of freedom of action as a railroad. The module is linear in that it has a progression from A to B. But there is some freedom in how you get there. (and at other points not so much freedom due to the constraints of the situation).

Thats though about all I recall as never got to run it. I believe its part of an ongoing campaign quest so it makes sense to be more focused?

I haven't run the module since about 1993 I believe. But they were not mad because they thought it was railroady. I just remember them being mad over the lightning (but don' recall exactly how much damage it did and how frequently it fell). The adventure itself was pretty good. It also a really necessary module for me because to that point I had no idea how to run Bluetpsur.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924437I haven't run the module since about 1993 I believe. But they were not mad because they thought it was railroady. I just remember them being mad over the lightning (but don' recall exactly how much damage it did and how frequently it fell). The adventure itself was pretty good. It also a really necessary module for me because to that point I had no idea how to run Bluetpsur.

Quick lookup. The PCs have 1d4 + 5 or 10 rounds to get to a cave. The lightning starts striking close, but harmless, on round 3. Rounds 4-6 are a save vs Wands or Get struck close enough to take 8d6 damage. (save for half). Each round after 7 the save vs being hit is at a cumulative -1 (-4 max).

What I didnt like about that segment was that the DM was told to roll for the NPC, but that the NPC would never be hit. Even if caught in collateral damage the NPC would be rendered unconcious, not killed. I understand that its necessary to keep the NPC alive to move the adventure along. And it IS Ravenloftland after all so weird coincidences may not be so coincidental. But it just felt like there should have been alternatives instead of shielding the NPC.

Otherwise all the little tricks and mind games in the module are well played overall.

Quote from: Baulderstone;923976D&D is actually a tricky game to build a wide open hexcrawl for. It has an enormous spread in character ability from high to low, and the monsters have a similar spread. It's one reason D&D tied monsters to specific levels in a dungeon. The deeper you got, the bigger the risks. You avoided going lower until you were ready. Hexcrawls are more chaotic and players can easily stumble into a TPK or a series of fights that are too easy and too light on treasure.

One thing I've personally done (and tried to promote) is the idea that hexes in a hex crawl should be leveled just like dungeons. That hexes nearby civilization would be similar to a first level dungeon and the further you go away from civilization, the more dangerous (i.e. higher level) the hexes become. This allows the party to, effectively, choose the danger/reward level of the area they wish to explore by how far deep into the wilderness they are willing to go.. I've gotten lots of push back for this idea.

One things I'd like to see from the OSR is a rethinking of how adventures are structured. Instead of making a giant map with lots of stuff in it, divide the dungeon into a stack of one-page dungeons that can be linked together as the DM sees fit. Allowing the DM to leave out any parts that he doesn't like and insert new dungeon sections seamlessly into a purchased map.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;924780One thing I've personally done (and tried to promote) is the idea that hexes in a hex crawl should be leveled just like dungeons. That hexes nearby civilization would be similar to a first level dungeon and the further you go away from civilization, the more dangerous (i.e. higher level) the hexes become. This allows the party to, effectively, choose the danger/reward level of the area they wish to explore by how far deep into the wilderness they are willing to go.. I've gotten lots of push back for this idea.

Huh. Seems like a good, and intuitive way for the players to gauge their risk.
One could do the same with terrain type, or named terrain. Swamps are more dangerous than plains, and the Swamp of Giant, Evil Alligator Men would be even more dangerous than a generic swamp.

Quote from: Teodrik;924302Not yet. But I was under the impression its more on the grimdark side than I had in mind, since I have heard many refer to it like Warhammer Fantasy in War of the Roses. But it is on my list for future of  purchases on drivetrhurpg.

It isn't really grimdark. It's like WFRP only in that it copies the real Europe (only much closer than WFRP does). It's more a humanocentric dark fantasy (mostly based on real perspectives and legends of the medieval era; even the demon-summoning system is inspired by the real methods used at the time).  Its general style is closer to Game of Thrones than Warhammer.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;924373In fairness it was in keeping with the domain's flavor, but Bluetspur was always a strange domain for the core.

What's it like? I have no prior knowledge of the place.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;924780One thing I've personally done (and tried to promote) is the idea that hexes in a hex crawl should be leveled just like dungeons. That hexes nearby civilization would be similar to a first level dungeon and the further you go away from civilization, the more dangerous (i.e. higher level) the hexes become. This allows the party to, effectively, choose the danger/reward level of the area they wish to explore by how far deep into the wilderness they are willing to go.. I've gotten lots of push back for this idea.

One things I'd like to see from the OSR is a rethinking of how adventures are structured. Instead of making a giant map with lots of stuff in it, divide the dungeon into a stack of one-page dungeons that can be linked together as the DM sees fit. Allowing the DM to leave out any parts that he doesn't like and insert new dungeon sections seamlessly into a purchased map.

I'm with rat man I like this idea, and frankly it rather makes sense in my mind.

Quote from: David Johansen;924379I'm also going to do a 3 dimensional nested hex map.  Weird, I know, but people are always complaining about the flat space aspect of Traveller.  

Quote from: estar;924385It a pain in the ass and add little to nothing to gameplay.

This. Oh, so much of this.

Honestly, I've found through trial-and-error with gameplay that Classic Traveller and Mongoose Traveller 1e hits that sweet spot of complexity for players and most referees. While there are some very vocal members of the Traveller community like Constantine Thomas who want more science and accuracy in their game, they are a minority and tend to be only on the internet. The ones who engage in actual play and not just forum/blog rants aren't looking for any added complexity in a game they want to have fun with. I like complexity, but had to come to terms with the fact that while I'd love things like 3D space - it just tended to turn off most players as being needlessly complex.

Quote from: jeff37923;925393This. Oh, so much of this.

Honestly, I've found through trial-and-error with gameplay that Classic Traveller and Mongoose Traveller 1e hits that sweet spot of complexity for players and most referees. While there are some very vocal members of the Traveller community like Constantine Thomas who want more science and accuracy in their game, they are a minority and tend to be only on the internet. The ones who engage in actual play and not just forum/blog rants aren't looking for any added complexity in a game they want to have fun with. I like complexity, but had to come to terms with the fact that while I'd love things like 3D space - it just tended to turn off most players as being needlessly complex.

Thomas' maps are cool and I've always wanted to use the awesome Exoplanet app (http://exoplanetapp.com) as a gaming aid/prop of sorts.

That being said, I see how it adds up to a ton of work for little return. Diaspora even goes one step further and collapses all starship movement (both travel and combat) to a single dimension — i.e. linear distances. Which sort of makes sense with both the FATE system and the implied setting.

Quote from: kosmos1214;925391What's it like? I have no prior knowledge of the place.

The surface is a wasteland and at night the lightning storms raze the whole zone pretty much. About everything is forced belowground in subterrene cities and tunnels. Befitting an illithid controlled domain. Bluetspur  is built on subtle psychological assault. Fear, paranoia, distrust, and madness. As well as body horror.

Quote from: jeff37923;925393This. Oh, so much of this.

Honestly, I've found through trial-and-error with gameplay that Classic Traveller and Mongoose Traveller 1e hits that sweet spot of complexity for players and most referees. While there are some very vocal members of the Traveller community like Constantine Thomas who want more science and accuracy in their game, they are a minority and tend to be only on the internet. The ones who engage in actual play and not just forum/blog rants aren't looking for any added complexity in a game they want to have fun with. I like complexity, but had to come to terms with the fact that while I'd love things like 3D space - it just tended to turn off most players as being needlessly complex.

I can't stress enough that when it all said and done what 3D mapping amounts to a bunch of links and branches tying together stars that have travel routes between. So you can be "realistic" in your star mapping there is just a more friendly way of presenting the information rather than as a bunch of dot with X, Y, Z coordinates.

Quote from: The Butcher;925395Thomas' maps are cool and I've always wanted to use the awesome Exoplanet app (http://exoplanetapp.com) as a gaming aid/prop of sorts.

That being said, I see how it adds up to a ton of work for little return. Diaspora even goes one step further and collapses all starship movement (both travel and combat) to a single dimension — i.e. linear distances. Which sort of makes sense with both the FATE system and the implied setting.

I recommend Celestia (http://celestiaproject.net/) .

Quote from: Omega;925397The surface is a wasteland and at night the lightning storms raze the whole zone pretty much. About everything is forced belowground in subterrene cities and tunnels. Befitting an illithid controlled domain. Bluetspur  is built on subtle psychological assault. Fear, paranoia, distrust, and madness. As well as body horror.

Thank you!

I think the next step will be increasingly unorthodox extremes of creativity within the boundaries of the Old-school landmarks. I look forward to what people try to do with it. Though as we get more unusual, there's bound to be more flops.

Re Traveller, I always just said Jump Space maps onto only two dimensions of travel. We're already positing an unknown FTL dimension. Ascribing that kind of characteristic to it isn't even a stretch, and as noted makes play much easier.

Has anyone done steampunk OSR yet?

Quote from: hedgehobbit;924780One thing I've personally done (and tried to promote) is the idea that hexes in a hex crawl should be leveled just like dungeons. That hexes nearby civilization would be similar to a first level dungeon and the further you go away from civilization, the more dangerous (i.e. higher level) the hexes become. This allows the party to, effectively, choose the danger/reward level of the area they wish to explore by how far deep into the wilderness they are willing to go.. I've gotten lots of push back for this idea.

Most GMs do this already, but some won't admit it.

I agree with the idea in concept. If really nasty monsters showed up around town, they would eat the town. Since the town is there, that must mean whatever meager militia exists has been enough (so far) to keep the town safe.

But there is a lot of online pushback for gaming purity that doesn't reflect real table gaming.

Quote from: Psikerlord;927375Has anyone done steampunk OSR yet?

I think Troll Lord's Victorious (https://www.trolllord.com/tlgstore/#!/Victorious-The-Role-Playing-Game/p/70254197/category=11639159) is close. Add in Amazing Adventures and you can easily pull it off.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;924780One thing I've personally done (and tried to promote) is the idea that hexes in a hex crawl should be leveled just like dungeons. That hexes nearby civilization would be similar to a first level dungeon and the further you go away from civilization, the more dangerous (i.e. higher level) the hexes become. This allows the party to, effectively, choose the danger/reward level of the area they wish to explore by how far deep into the wilderness they are willing to go.. I've gotten lots of push back for this idea.

One things I'd like to see from the OSR is a rethinking of how adventures are structured. Instead of making a giant map with lots of stuff in it, divide the dungeon into a stack of one-page dungeons that can be linked together as the DM sees fit. Allowing the DM to leave out any parts that he doesn't like and insert new dungeon sections seamlessly into a purchased map.

Quote from: Spinachcat;927378Most GMs do this already, but some won't admit it.

I agree with the idea in concept. If really nasty monsters showed up around town, they would eat the town. Since the town is there, that must mean whatever meager militia exists has been enough (so far) to keep the town safe.

But there is a lot of online pushback for gaming purity that doesn't reflect real table gaming.

I'm not sure why there would be pushback.   Unless you mean Level 1 of a dungeon is for Level 1 PCs, Level 2 of the dungeon is for Level 2 PCs, One hex from the town is for Level 1 PCs, two hexes from the town is for Level 2 PCs.  That regimentation is kind of silly.

Saying as you go from town to Farming Plains, to Wildlands, to Wild Forest, to Deepdark Forest, to Undead Hills to Devil's Heart Mountain the level should change and that there shouldn't be a castle of Frost Giants 4 miles from the Shire, that's just logic.  Of course the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs weren't far from the Shire, but everyone knew not to go there. :D

I don't particularly want players to know "this is a level 5 Hex", but knowing roughly stories of some things that come from there, if possible, is fine.

Quote from: CRKrueger;927384I don't particularly want players to know "this is a level 5 Hex", but knowing roughly stories of some things that come from there, if possible, is fine.

Of course, if you did have everything laid out in hexes, you could plot "Zones of Civilization" that would effectively reduce the encounter level of surrounding hexes, and the farther you got from any civilization, or closer to a Monster Lair, that would have an opposing effect.  As players hexcrawled across the lands, taking out lairs, building and fortifying forts, towns, etc... they could gradually push back the frontier organically through actions.  Kind of like how the Deadlands games do Fear Levels.

I don't know whether the "Chainmail-inspired games" count as the "latest step/Next step that is just beginning", but I sure am happy they are there;).

Quote from: CRKrueger;927385Of course, if you did have everything laid out in hexes, you could plot "Zones of Civilization" that would effectively reduce the encounter level of surrounding hexes, and the farther you got from any civilization, or closer to a Monster Lair, that would have an opposing effect.  As players hexcrawled across the lands, taking out lairs, building and fortifying forts, towns, etc... they could gradually push back the frontier organically through actions.  Kind of like how the Deadlands games do Fear Levels.

Of course, ACKS has mechanics for this. :)

Well, guidelines for laying out civilized vs borderlands vs wilderness zones, how those affect the frequency of random encounters (slightly buggy rules IMO), and how much work it is for PC domains to *change* these civilized/borderlands/wilderness zones. Including Chaotic PC domains populated by beastmen. Technically, if I recall correctly, what the rules change is the *frequency* of encounters, by orders of magnitude, rather than their level, but you should also have an idea of how much force is available in a civilized domain to interfere with a monster incursion once it's discovered.

Quote from: trechriron;927381I think Troll Lord's Victorious (https://www.trolllord.com/tlgstore/#!/Victorious-The-Role-Playing-Game/p/70254197/category=11639159) is close. Add in Amazing Adventures and you can easily pull it off.

Hmm excellent must check it out!

What works for me is treating levels like apex predators. There is a not a lot of them because if there were they would starve and soon there will not be a lot of them again. The same with people at the top of power pyramid for good guys and bad.

Conversely a lot of low power creates can challenge high level characters if they have the numbers. Which I also do. Also there are things going on that the PCs care about where it doesn't matter if you can kill everything within the room and beyond it still doesn't fix the problem.

Doing all this things and more means that I really don't have to work about scaling hexes or dungeons. The main challenge is to make sure that the players have ALL the information they SHOULD have in order to a make informed decision. If there a doubt on my part, I err in favor of more information not less.

Even then players make all kinds of mistakes anyway. But because of the above the player in general can see in hindsight exactly where their plans went awry which help with accepting that I made a fair ruling and not pull some arbitrary shit out of my ass.

I have a feeling that at some point the current movement in the OSR — making retroclones and variants of old games — may saturate or creatively burn itself out, and the community may shift its focus to a greater emphasis on playing actual original versions of those games, putting publishing energy into new dungeons, settings, etc. You can see the leading edge of this nibbling at the corners of the OSR market: Goodman Games' reproduction of Metamorphosis Alpha and the Judges Guild archives; Wizards putting out hard bound versions of some of the old pastel modules; whoever owns the rights to Runequest putting out a sort of 'evolved' reprint of the 2nd edition core book. The publishing rights for these sorts of projects might be complicated in some cases, but I think there will come a time when a significant slice of the gaming community simply prefers them enough to overcome that activation energy.

I find that the above prediction about "burning out" unlikely. Just look at how successful the Mutants Crawl Classics KS was, and it's among the games whose mechanics are the furthest from the original games:D!

OTOH, I find it quite likely that we'd see new reprints of old titles, since even I have the OD&D books and some supplements by now;).

Quote from: Larsdangly;927481I have a feeling that at some point the current movement in the OSR — making retroclones and variants of old games — may saturate or creatively burn itself out, and the community may shift its focus to a greater emphasis on playing actual original versions of those games, putting publishing energy into new dungeons, settings, etc.

With most of what the OSR under the Open Game License it is subject to the whims of what the creators are interested in. That the truism here. That and the fact that low barriers to entry as a result of PoD and digital technology means the trend to more diversity not less. So we will see everything, new retro-clone, new setting, new reprints of old material, new adventures. There will be trends as a result of some people doing a thing that sparks similar ideas in others. But eventually they will all be subsumed in the general churn of creativity that goes on.

For example right now I am writing my own retro-clone. I am doing it for several reason none of which has to do whether I think it going to be the popular thing to do. I just think it will be popular enough to make it worth doing.

• Swords & Wizardry has spotty distribution for stores. Since most of my stuff are supplements for Swords & Wizardry this makes it difficult for me to sell to game stores. And yes I talked to them about it, and yes they tried, and yes they mean well but the situation is such that it doesn't work out.
• I created more rules material in the seven years I released the Majestic Wilderlands. Enough to make my own RPG that is distinct from the rest.
• I am well aware that there are two dozens well-done retro-clones out there. So I looked at the history of publishing RPG core rules and elected to publish it in a different way. Hopefully it will be enough to generate sales beyond the crowd that likes Rob Conley's stuff.

#1 is why I am doing this project, #2 gave me the material to make it something more than just a copy somebody's work, and #3 is what will set apart from the rest.

What is #3?, I am going to release it as a half-dozen supplements plus a quick reference product. Standalone each will be a Swords & Wizardry supplement with rules, stuff (spells, items, monster, etc), and some short adventures and locales. Combined they will be the Majestic Fantasy RPG. The adventures and locales will flesh out the Majestic Wilderlands as well as providing ready to run content.

I think this is a good bet in that most people kitbash for their campaign. So I will get the people who like the extra stuff about wizards and magic in the Lost Grimoire of Magic as well as the people who like my RPG. The big difference with stuff like Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire or the OD&D supplement that it is less stream of consciousness and more deliberately planned as part of a whole.

Now all of this would not be anybody list of "What Hot in the OSR". However the low barriers to publishing means the major investment here is my time. Even that is mitigated by the fact that 80% of this is work I already done for myself while playing. Most of my time is spent editing and filling gaps that weren't important in a weekly campaign but are important when you try to explain to somebody what you were doing a weekly campaign.

I am not throwing this out to illustrate that what I am doing is a "thing" but rather to illustrate a process that every OSR author to date has gone through. While details and goals of the steps that Zak S, Raggi,  and the Pundit went through to get their projects out there are very different than mind, fundamentally we are all doing the same thing. Taking advantage of material released under the OGL, thinking of interesting things to do with it, writing it up, and getting it published. There is no master plan, only what each author thinks is important.

Which is why I say to anybody bitching about the OSR, OK go write and show how the rest of us are doing it wrong. I did that to Pundit and the result is Arrows of Indra. His experience with Indra led to Dark Albion. If you think the OSR needs a new direction, then make the product that you think should be the new direction. That the only test that matters in this niche of the hobby.

Shouldn't the next step for the OSR be to sign a big sneaker deal?:-)

Quote from: Omega;923891Have 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.

War Machine was our default way of handling large battles and we were running 1e. I have Battlesystem 1e which is elegant. I've used it for when I wanted more detailed battles that I could play out with miniatures. I've used the thing in combination with the Buck Rogers XXVc RPG ship combat rules and run fleet vs fleet scenarios. Good times. I think the War Machine is good if you want a quick resolution. I like Battlesystem because it can work in combination with Character combat. It really depends on how detailed you want things to be. Battlesystem reminded me of Squad Leader and in fact one of my friends ran a battle in Thyatis and used Seige of Jerusalem to resolve it. That was a lot of fun.

The argument of page size is totally relevant. War Machine is effective and economical. If you have a war and you want it resolved now that is certainly the way to go. In fact, I'd perhaps embed those rules in a game where war is a major backdrop, but the focus is still on individual action and intrigue. Perhaps another way to go would be to take Battlesystem and make it modular, and have those modules (like sheets for units) be used as options. You could have stats for an army that are vague, or you can get more specific. I think it really depends on the tone you are trying to establish in the game.

I'm rather disappointe the OSR hasn't resulted in the publishing of any notable huge megadungeons yet of the kind that seemed to be discussed/worshipped quite often in regards to the OSR's patron saints.

Quote from: TristramEvans;927999I'm rather disappointe the OSR hasn't resulted in the publishing of any notable huge megadungeons yet of the kind that seemed to be discussed/worshipped quite often in regards to the OSR's patron saints.

That's something I'd like to see, too.

Quote from: Psikerlord;927375Has anyone done steampunk OSR yet?

I wrote this one : A Society of Unlikely Gentlemen (http://livresdelours.blogspot.fr/2016/08/a-society-of-unlikely-gentlemen.html).

Quote from: cranebump;927598Shouldn't the next step for the OSR be to sign a big sneaker deal?:-)

This is the funniest post of the thread. Out of nowhere comes this. :D

They could try tournaments. I'm not sure if people still have groups vs. groups. No, I don't mean they dress in gear and go duel. I have no desire to watch a bunch of us middle-aged men trying to fight. Now were we able to use some chicks from them women football leagues you'd be on to something. ;)

I acn only really think of three Megadungeons (as in could be used for years of play) from the old days, Castle Greyhawk, Undermountain and the Jakallan underworld of Tekumel.  Two of those are constructed and run by insane and insanely powerful mages (one of which is a demi-god) and the Jakallan Underworld is specific to Tekumel.  Whether Big Rubble or Temple of Elemental Evil are large enough to count as a megadungeon is arguable. All of the classic megadungeons possess a very specific rationale and reason for being.

AEG had the World's Largest Dungeon in the d20 era, which most definitely was a megadungeon but I heard it sucked.

The OSR has produced Rappan Athuk, Anomalous Subsurface Environment, Barrowmaze and, of course, Dwimmermount.  Dwimmermount is probably big enough to qualify as a megadungeon not sure about the others. If there's another one, let me know.

The problem with a megadungeon is in it making some kind of sense (that's why gods/demons/aliens/insanely powerful mages are usually involved). There's also making a surrounding area, mapping and plain old designing a gigantic dungeon.  It's practically it's own subgenre of D&D fantasy, and, as Jmal found out, not easy to do, and as a lot of his backers found out, not easy to do well.  The Autarch Bailout I heard, however, produced a good product.

I can see why someone doesn't want to specialize in a megadungeon, but I expected more Setting Worlds.  Not explorations of theme, genre and Trope, but someone's version of Greybox and the FR supplement Realms.

Quote from: CRKrueger;928022but I expected more Setting Worlds.  Not explorations of theme, genre and Trope, but someone's version of Greybox and the FR supplement Realms.

As in "Majestic Realms" ("that's what I did with the official FR"), or an original setting with the scope of the Grey Box?
"The Grey Realms"?

Quote from: TristramEvans;927999I'm rather disappointe the OSR hasn't resulted in the publishing of any notable huge megadungeons yet of the kind that seemed to be discussed/worshipped quite often in regards to the OSR's patron saints.

Do you mean more megadungeons? There is Dwimmermount (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/133746/Dwimmermount-Labyrinth-Lord-version). And it is open content to boot.

Quote from: estar;928031Do you mean more megadungeons? There is Dwimmermount (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/133746/Dwimmermount-Labyrinth-Lord-version). And it is open content to boot.

Dwimmermount unfortunately got lackluster to horrible reviews a top the controversy of its release. I've heard Autarch did as decent job as they could patching it up, but it ultimately is not the sort of gaming prouct one would call 'notable' outside of the context of James Mal's fall from grace and the Kickstarter debacle.

Goodman Game's Castle Whiterock is the best megadungeon I've seen. It has all you really need; hidden level, secret entrances, lots of level variety, an underground city, chaining method of plot hooks to keep the players moving every deeper, and even an art book full of handouts and dungeon images.  Unfortunately, it came out right at the end of the d20 fad and so it didn't receive much publicity.

Since it's for 3e, it isn't part of the OSR. But, then again, neither am I so that doesn't bother me.

There's a ton of good OSR megadungeons out there (and probably 100 forum threads compiling them, so no one needs us to recite them all here!). My favorites in play are Rappan Athuk and Barrowmaze - both are ginormous underground sandbox sorts of settings, full of creative, fun stuff, and quickly get out-of-control dangerous, so you won't have to deal with a bunch of smug players who strip the dungeon back to the wall studs their first time through.

But, of course, the only real megadungeon is the one you make yourself. That was supposed to be the whole point of this ridiculous hobby, so why not give it a try?

Isn't Benoit Poire working on a super duper OSR megadungeon with some Gygax spawn?
He also posted a whole series of articles (http://http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21636-Advice-on-building-a-megadungeon-and-a-campaign-around-it) here on how to design such a thing

Quote from: Simlasa;928062Isn't Benoit Poire working on a super duper OSR megadungeon with some Gygax spawn?
He also posted a whole series of articles (http://http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21636-Advice-on-building-a-megadungeon-and-a-campaign-around-it) here on how to design such a thing

Link does not work.

Quote from: jeff37923;928072Link does not work.

Try this ...
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?21636-Advice-on-building-a-megadungeon-and-a-campaign-around-it

If one were to remake Vampire: The Masquerade 1E as an OSR game, how would one do it?

I always saw Vampire 1E as sort of having a foot in each realm, being both the very last "Old-School RPG" and the progenitor of the "New-School RPG's". Now, Vampire's later editions such as Revised Edition (a metaplot-ridden and overrated mess) are New School as fuck, but I can see a lot of old-school influences in the 1E corebook softcover from 1991, as well as some of the 1E supplements (Chicago by Night, The Hunters Hunted, The Players Guide, Milwaukee by Night, and adventure modules such as Ashes to Ashes, The Succubus Club, and Awakening: Diablerie Mexico), so I could see one doing a remake of VTM 1E with an OSR mindset while still keeping the Clans and Disciplines, and some of the earliest 1E lore (as the clans are essentially D&D-styled character classes in all but name), but jettisoning the remainder of the metaplot and avoiding any Revised Edition materials like the plague.

A lot of people define Vampire as the beginning of the New School, but I see early Vampire as an Old School game that became New School later on, ripe for a bootleg OSR treatment (it'd have to be personal use only though, as White Wolf doesn't have an OGL).

Quote from: Doc Sammy;928100If one were to remake Vampire: The Masquerade 1E as an OSR game, how would one do it?

I always saw Vampire 1E as sort of having a foot in each realm, being both the very last "Old-School RPG" and the progenitor of the "New-School RPG's". Now, Vampire's later editions such as Revised Edition (a metaplot-ridden and overrated mess) are New School as fuck, but I can see a lot of old-school influences in the 1E corebook softcover from 1991, as well as some of the 1E supplements (Chicago by Night, The Hunters Hunted, The Players Guide, Milwaukee by Night, and adventure modules such as Ashes to Ashes, The Succubus Club, and Awakening: Diablerie Mexico), so I could see one doing a remake of VTM 1E with an OSR mindset while still keeping the Clans and Disciplines, and some of the earliest 1E lore (as the clans are essentially D&D-styled character classes in all but name), but jettisoning the remainder of the metaplot and avoiding any Revised Edition materials like the plague.

A lot of people define Vampire as the beginning of the New School, but I see early Vampire as an Old School game that became New School later on, ripe for a bootleg OSR treatment (it'd have to be personal use only though, as White Wolf doesn't have an OGL).

I'm surprised that no one has whiteboxed or osr'd something like Vampire and called it Trenchcoats & Katanas or something.

Quote from: RunningLaser;928322I'm surprised that no one has whiteboxed or osr'd something like Vampire and called it Trenchcoats & Katanas or something.

There would be 13 classes;).

Mexican Gangster, called "Witch" by some for some reason
Woodsman...woodsvamp...violent hippie vamp, please!
Fishmalk
Blood Wizard
Annoying Aristo
Aristo With Weird Accent
Shadow Monster
Ugly Vamp
Art Critics
Hashishin Vamp
Gypsy Con Vamp
Corrupt Gnostic Vamp
Cosa Nostra Vamp

Who's going to write it:D?

Quote from: RunningLaser;928322I'm surprised that no one has whiteboxed or osr'd something like Vampire and called it Trenchcoats & Katanas or something.

Two reason, because there isn't a set of open content that anywhere close to how any editions of World of Darkness worked. And most of the appeal of the various WoD was the specific setting. With D&D being a mishmash of public domain fairy tales, fantasy, and legends, it was easy for other publisher to tweak it with their own formula and mechanics. Vampire and later WoD was a largely original take on the mythology of the various monsters. Yeah you had Anne Rice's take on vampires as the starting point for VtM. But all the stuff on houses and the like were pretty original.

The upshot is hard to make a clone that White Wolf wouldn't stomp on or feel hopelessly bland in comparsion.

Which is probably why when people approach horror in the OSR they opt to go with weird with a lot of Lovecraft in most cases.

Now Urban Fantasy like with Dresden Files type stuff could be fertile grounds.

Quote from: estar;928352Now Urban Fantasy like with Dresden Files type stuff could be fertile grounds.

Skyscrapers & Sorcery is kinda close. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/170607/Skyscrapers--Sorcery-White-Box-Rules)

Quote from: RunningLaser;928322I'm surprised that no one has whiteboxed or osr'd something like Vampire and called it Trenchcoats & Katanas or something.

Yeah. That would be (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanmacklin/katanas-and-trenchcoats-retromodern-roleplaying). Ridiculous (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3883/Ryan-Macklin/subcategory/7796_22966/Katanas--Trenchcoats).

Quote from: trechriron;928463Yeah. That would be (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanmacklin/katanas-and-trenchcoats-retromodern-roleplaying). Ridiculous (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3883/Ryan-Macklin/subcategory/7796_22966/Katanas--Trenchcoats).

Heha!  Ok, looks like we are all set there!

You know, I know that story games are a hot button and all, but surprised that no one has just modded the d20 system using the ogl or srd or c3p0 and hacked it into a story game.  Change up the classes to reflect the broad character types in a story, mod armor class into story class or something.  Heck, you could even do story based feats and what not.  Eh, probably a dumb idea, but whatever:)

Quote from: Larsdangly;927481I have a feeling that at some point the current movement in the OSR — making retroclones and variants of old games — may saturate or creatively burn itself out, and the community may shift its focus to a greater emphasis on playing actual original versions of those games, putting publishing energy into new dungeons, settings, etc. You can see the leading edge of this nibbling at the corners of the OSR market: Goodman Games' reproduction of Metamorphosis Alpha /QUOTE]

Quote from: AsenRG;927483I find that the above prediction about "burning out" unlikely. Just look at how successful the Mutants Crawl Classics KS was, and it's among the games whose mechanics are the furthest from the original games:D!

OTOH, I find it quite likely that we'd see new reprints of old titles, since even I have the OD&D books and some supplements by now;).

Goodman games has also published a shuttle load of new content for Metamorphosis Alpha. It's great to see new stuff being published for an actual old game, not just a retro-clone.
Now that OD&D, AD&D, RQ2, and many other of the old games are returning to availability thanks to pdf and POD, maybe we will see new content for them. There is still the issue of licensing, as most of them are not under  OGL.

Interestingly many of the backers of Mutant Crawl Classics are also members of the Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World online communities. MCC is quite far from the original games in mechanics, but something in its spirit catches us.

I hope to see more new games with old school spirit.
Dan Proctor of Goblinoid Games has recently published Ape Victorious a gleefully '70s Planet of the Apes inspired game based on Labyrinth Lord. It is sort of what a Planet of the Apes RPG published in the B/X days might have looked like.

Under the Moons of Zoon offers wicked old school Sword & Planet gaming, including the need to make most of it up for yourself. It is a short booklet.

The Middle School is starting to revive as well ... Fat Goblin Games has the license for Castle Falkenstein and has just released a new supplement. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/194571/Castle-Falkenstein-Curious-Creatures)

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;928492The Middle School is starting to revive as well ... Fat Goblin Games has the license for Castle Falkenstein and has just released a new supplement. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/194571/Castle-Falkenstein-Curious-Creatures)

The middle school renaissance preceded the OSR. Retroclones  of 90s systems were huge online in the early aughts.

Quote from: DavetheLost;928485Now that OD&D, AD&D, RQ2, and many other of the old games are returning to availability thanks to pdf and POD, maybe we will see new content for them. There is still the issue of licensing, as most of them are not under  OGL.

In the case of the old TSR stuff the easiest way to go for Wizards would probably be to bring the older editions into DMs Guild, which would allow third party content. It would be neat to see stuff actually made for D&D/AD&D explicitly, even if it was just ported over from another OSR. The advantage would be mostly that DMs Guild lets you use a good amount of Intellectual Property for the product, so you could have Mind Flayers instead of giving them balls and calling them something Ood.

Quote from: DavetheLost;928485Dan Proctor of Goblinoid Games has recently published Ape Victorious a gleefully '70s Planet of the Apes inspired game based on Labyrinth Lord. It is sort of what a Planet of the Apes RPG published in the B/X days might have looked like.

I must get a print copy of that. I really enjoy Labyrinth Lord and Starship and Spacemen was the first game I ever backed online.

Quote from: TristramEvans;928512The middle school renaissance preceded the OSR. Retroclones  of 90s systems were huge online in the early aughts.

Great news! Love this game.

Quote from: TristramEvans;928512The middle school renaissance preceded the OSR. Retroclones  of 90s systems were huge online in the early aughts.

Huh. Didn't know about that. Any extant examples?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;928492The Middle School is starting to revive as well ... Fat Goblin Games has the license for Castle Falkenstein and has just released a new supplement. (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/194571/Castle-Falkenstein-Curious-Creatures)

Thank you for posting this. Glad to see the Great Game getting some love.

Quote from: The Butcher;928551Huh. Didn't know about that. Any extant examples?

First one that comes to mind, Under a Broken Moon was a great retroclone of the Over The Edge game system, adapted to the world of Thundarr the Barbarian.

There was a crapload of D6 adaptations, seemingly covering every 90s IP imaginable, from Buffy to Highlander. I'm sure a lot of them can still be found linked on John Kim's site.

Technohol did the first FASERIP retroclone I know of, well before 4C, Icons, or Green Dilly's game, with Transformers, GI Joe, and various other cartoon adaptations.

Like FASERIP, Star Frontiers got a few, but this was undercut by the original game being made available for free in pdf online.

BESM got a few online parody clones, such as the adult-orientated "Big Breasts, Small Waist".

Thrash started as a Streetfighter RPG retroclone until growing into something much, much crazier.

DoubleZero and Classified are both retroclones of Victory Games' seminal 007 James Bond RPG.

There was a number of Traveller retroclones.

ZEFRs is a retroclone of TSR's Conan game.

Mutant Future is a Gamma World retroclone (not sure of which edition, though).

Those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are dozens more if one starts digging.

Mutant Future is a fusion of GW 2e and 4e for the most part. With some original stuff added in. At least that's how it feels to me.  Go Team Spidergoats!

Quote from: RunningLaser;928477Heha!  Ok, looks like we are all set there!

You know, I know that story games are a hot button and all, but surprised that no one has just modded the d20 system using the ogl or srd or c3p0 and hacked it into a story game.  Change up the classes to reflect the broad character types in a story, mod armor class into story class or something.  Heck, you could even do story based feats and what not.  Eh, probably a dumb idea, but whatever:)

True20 had class options where you could play a "gestalt" like character representing one of the classic heroic archetypes. :-D

Quote from: trechriron;928596True20 had class options where you could play a "gestalt" like character representing one of the classic heroic archetypes. :-D

The Companion had some great rules for making your own character classes.

Beyond the Wall has good rules for mashing up elements of the three core classes to create new multi-class characters. She t's done Chinese menu style, with a few abilities from one class and a few abilities from another. Add in the character generation play books and you get story archetypes from coming of age YA fantasy and life path character history. All on a D&D chassis.

Quote from: DavetheLost;928603Beyond the Wall has good rules for mashing up elements of the three core classes to create new multi-class characters. She t's done Chinese menu style, with a few abilities from one class and a few abilities from another. Add in the character generation play books and you get story archetypes from coming of age YA fantasy and life path character history. All on a D&D chassis.

Yeah, but the playbooks of BtW are much better at capturing the elements of fantasy than the D&D mechanics are at conveying the same message by themselves;).

Quote from: RunningLaser;928477Heha!  Ok, looks like we are all set there!

You know, I know that story games are a hot button and all, but surprised that no one has just modded the d20 system using the ogl or srd or c3p0 and hacked it into a story game.  Change up the classes to reflect the broad character types in a story, mod armor class into story class or something.  Heck, you could even do story based feats and what not.  Eh, probably a dumb idea, but whatever:)

How many story games are open content? In my few dealings they come up as very possessive and protective of their original IP. There nothing wrong with that but you are not going to get a big happy group of people freely sharing and swapping content by doing that.

Get to get something like the OSR going you have to have

1) Shared content
2) Enough people willing to play the game
3) Enough people willing to create the content
4) A low barrier to distribute material either commercially or non-commercially.
5) There isn't an existing community serving the fans of the game effectively.

And for the record that #5 why Runequest and Traveller did not take off among DiYers like the OSR did despite the fact there is open content material for both. And the hobbyist that have much drive in both communities were often roped into freelancing for the commercial publishers or IP holders.

While it too late now, if Wizards had a Community Content program for classic D&D circa 2005 it would have killed the OSR before it got started.

Quote from: Krimson;927808War Machine was our default way of handling large battles and we were running 1e.

I was a big fan of BECMI, but the war-machine mechanics were always way too complicated for my tastes.

I made something a lot closer to my own level of comfort in the mass-combat rules for Dark Albion.

Quote from: RunningLaser;928322I'm surprised that no one has whiteboxed or osr'd something like Vampire and called it Trenchcoats & Katanas or something.

Hah! That's a great title.

Quote from: trechriron;928463Yeah. That would be (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanmacklin/katanas-and-trenchcoats-retromodern-roleplaying). Ridiculous (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3883/Ryan-Macklin/subcategory/7796_22966/Katanas--Trenchcoats).

Huh. What d'you know? It exists!

Quote from: RPGPundit;929397I was a big fan of BECMI, but the war-machine mechanics were always way too complicated for my tastes.

I made something a lot closer to my own level of comfort in the mass-combat rules for Dark Albion.

It's not too bad. Mind you there was little choice at the time unless we used something like Seige of Jerusalem which we did one time. I prefer Battlesystem 1e because of how well it integrated with Melee combat.

Quote from: Krimson;929406It's not too bad. Mind you there was little choice at the time unless we used something like Seige of Jerusalem which we did one time. I prefer Battlesystem 1e because of how well it integrated with Melee combat.

True that it was one of the only options at the time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;930368True that it was one of the only options at the time.

Actually I've been thinking of Battlesystem and War Machine recently. Battlesystem in particular because of how it works with things on the character level. I used this to my advantage once in a mass combat that too place in Thyatis, since my friend likes running games there (same guy who did another Thyation battle using Seige of Jerusalem). My character was a Centurion Officer and a level 13 Fighter. As I recall the rules had three melee rounds per mass combat round, so my Centurion spent the battle running around killing snipers and officers. Hell, I used the thing to run fleet vs fleet battles in conjunction with the Buck Rogers XXVc RPG which was based on 2e rules. That was... amazeballs. Yeah that's the word.

I've also had amazing fun playing Battletech/Mechwarrior is a straight RPG, as well as Battletech on it's own. So what I was thinking is that it would be nice to see something like Battlesystem/War Machine for the OSR. I say this before searching to see if someone hasn't already done it. I like mass combat. I like tactical combat games. I've always run RP heavy games knowing that sometimes you need The Big Fight. Seriously, you can get away with all sorts of plot if you give them a big fight and loot every so often. :D Something mass combat is great because then characters can act like officers and have units under their command that they can direct and without giving them powerful magic, you can give them a force which lets them feel powerful. Of course, if they make stupid decisions you can crush them. Battlesystem also works for naval battles.

Or, sometimes in your gameworld, a major battle occurs that you as the DM want to happen. Sure you can arbitrarily decide the outcome, but I prefer to play it out and see what happens. And if I can get my players to take control of the forces in the battle then they feel like they are part of establishing history, even if their characters are not directly part of it. I just like mass combat.

Battlesystem? pfaw! real old school players use Knights & Magick!

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwqoV_-oZtk/T2AfZS5_k8I/AAAAAAAAAqU/Lj8wXIEZdck/s1600/Knights_And_Magick.jpg)

Quote from: TristramEvans;930398Battlesystem? pfaw! real old school players use Knights & Magick!

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwqoV_-oZtk/T2AfZS5_k8I/AAAAAAAAAqU/Lj8wXIEZdck/s1600/Knights_And_Magick.jpg)

I found that one years ago:)

There's a reprint of Knights & Magick you can get jfyi.

Knights & Magick is so New School. Old School gamers use Swords & Spells. Hard Core OG use Chainmail.

Quote from: RunningLaser;930427I found that one years ago:)

There's a reprint of Knights & Magick you can get jfyi.

Yeah, I purchased the hardcover from LuLu. Its a fun system.

Quote from: DavetheLost;930431Knights & Magick is so New School. Old School gamers use Swords & Spells. Hard Core OG use Chainmail.

Chainmail doesn't really have the support for fantasy outside of D&D, and D&D's fantasy isn't geared towards large battles. Haven't heard of Swords & Spells though, will have to look that up.

I was of course making an edition wars joke based on release dates. ;)

Swords & Spells was the OD&D mass battles supplement it was a yellow covered booklet the same size as the other OD&D booklets. I remember it used single figure casualties, and iirc D&D mechanics. I lost my copy decades ago and have not been able to find a replacement.

IMHO there are better mass combat fantasy wargames than most of the RPG addenda.  I'll have to check out Knights & Magic, I missed it the first time around.

Quote from: TristramEvans;930398Battlesystem? pfaw! real old school players use Knights & Magick!

(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZwqoV_-oZtk/T2AfZS5_k8I/AAAAAAAAAqU/Lj8wXIEZdck/s1600/Knights_And_Magick.jpg)

Quote from: TristramEvans;930571Yeah, I purchased the hardcover from LuLu. Its a fun system.

Cool I'll have to think about picking up a copy.

Have to say I  have no familiarity with Knights & Magick.

I'd like to go back to the first posts of this thread...

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

Quote from: estar;923859Adventure Paths and linked chain of adventures is one of the least developed in regards to the OSR.

Quote from: estar;923867But 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. (...)

For example the Boxed set is a possible product format for publishing in the OSR.

I don't think that boxed sets are feasible for a market segment that has to rely on PoD.
Boxes are expensive to produce and ship. They were a marketing (or rather, distribution) tool in the heydays of TSR. Boxes exclaimed, "I am a GAME" on the shelves of toy stores.
Today's OSR customers don't need that.

Tristram's wish for more gamebooks lead to this:

Quote from: RunningLaser;923877You should check out the Fabled Lands gamebooks if you haven't already.  They are supposed to be open ended.

The Fabled Lands model, with its regional gamebooks that have pointers to all other books, and lead-ins from all other books, sounds more like a feasible solution.

Instead of an adventure path make it an adventure net.

Imagine the 12 Dragonlance modules, each describing its location/region, with a timeline of events, triggers ("if character x arrives with item y, then...", "if location/module z was cleared before, then..."), and future developments ("if NPC x survives he will flee to location/module y or z, depending on circumstances", "The blue Highlord will learn of the events after two weeks, the red Highlord after three weeks"), and rewritten to be played in any order.
(Although the publication order would at least suggest one order of events.)

Bonus points if each module worked as a stand alone, location based adventure/problem because that product type is the heart of the OSR.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;931766Instead of an adventure path make it an adventure net.

Imagine the 12 Dragonlance modules, each describing its location/region, with a timeline of events, triggers ("if character x arrives with item y, then...", "if location/module z was cleared before, then..."), and future developments ("if NPC x survives he will flee to location/module y or z, depending on circumstances", "The blue Highlord will learn of the events after two weeks, the red Highlord after three weeks"), and rewritten to be played in any order.
(Although the publication order would at least suggest one order of events.)

Sounds good _in theory_. In actuality, it sounds like a monumental pain of bookkeeping. YMMV ;)

Quote from: Tod13;931784Sounds good _in theory_. In actuality, it sounds like a monumental pain of bookkeeping. YMMV ;)

Yeah, I like things to be active in a sandbox, but I'm happier either moving things around myself, possibly using something like the faction system in SWN or just using roleplaying decisions on what I think the major NPC are up to. I'm fine with some conditionals and timers, but having a bunch of them scattered between a dozen books and all interlinking sounds rough.

It isn't a bad idea though. What I consider to be a painful level of tracking is someone else's idea of GM bliss.

Quote from: Tod13;931784Sounds good _in theory_. In actuality, it sounds like a monumental pain of bookkeeping. YMMV ;)

I guess it would be a monumental pain in writing, taking into account every contingency from other modules.

The "bookkeeping" part I envision more as a list with checkboxes in the introductory paragraph of each module, as well as at the end (surviving named foes, NPC travels to ________).

Or even better, the original DL5 was a primer on the setting and the storyline of the first modules. The "done right" product could have a flowchart/network of the campaign, a relationship map of locations and events where the DM could track his results.

Wasn't Frog God's Splinter of Faith series an adventure path with more old school sensibilities? What did they do differently? I've never seen it, Frog God has a catastrophic distribution.

I keep meaning to get started on my DCC-setting-based book, but I haven't yet been able to get my head around how I want to frame it.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;931766I don't think that boxed sets are feasible for a market segment that has to rely on PoD. Boxes are expensive to produce and ship. They were a marketing (or rather, distribution) tool in the heydays of TSR. Boxes exclaimed, "I am a GAME" on the shelves of toy stores.
Today's OSR customers don't need that.

1) The boxed set has been done multiple times and the process is well documented. It neither easy or hard, it is a choice with advantages and consequences. For the most part it is not done not because of cost or even the assembly of the product but because of how much a pain in the ass the shipping is.

2) The advantage of the boxed set is that it takes multiple books, posters, and accessories and packages them into a complete unit.

3) More boxed set will be seen when print on demand game board companies like The Gamecrafter (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/) offer better printing options.

Quote from: Tod13;931784Sounds good _in theory_. In actuality, it sounds like a monumental pain of bookkeeping. YMMV ;)

Well the beauty of the OSR is that outside of the personal time invested, it is inexpensive to try something different in terms of product format.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932107I keep meaning to get started on my DCC-setting-based book, but I haven't yet been able to get my head around how I want to frame it.

Could you teach me how to run your campaign? If the answer is yes, then make the book about that approach.

Dark Albion in one sense a straight up history of a fantastic place. The same with Arrows of Indra. Given your background it was probably straightforward for you to write. However the DCC RPG campaign seems to be more about how you run it as opposed to the setting.

In a sense that what  was Vornheim is. There were details on Zack's setting but what made it was unique was his explanation on using random tables to drive the campaign along with other tidbits and advice. That everything was part of a coherent whole.

Do the same for your DCC RPG campaign. By all means include setting info, stuff (monsters, magic items, etc.) But focus on what you do to run it and it do it from the standpoint of a teaching a fellow referee how to run it.

Quote from: estar;9321483) More boxed set will be seen when print on demand game board companies like The Gamecrafter (https://www.thegamecrafter.com/) offer better printing options.

That's an interesting prediction. I had expected we had largely seen the demise of boxed sets.  I would be very curious to see what a box-set revival ends up looking like.

Quote from: estar;932150Could you teach me how to run your campaign? If the answer is yes, then make the book about that approach.

That's EXACTLY the challenge that has me writers-blocked on this one. Because it's not like Albion or AoI.  So much of what makes the Last Sun setting is the way we've played it.  But I've always sort of despised books that dedicate a huge section to "GM advice".  
Even so, I get the feeling I'll have to go that route in some way; maybe in part by doing some Yoon-Suin style random-tables approach, and in part by doing some kind of manifesto on "Punditesque Full Gonzo".

QuoteDark Albion in one sense a straight up history of a fantastic place. The same with Arrows of Indra. Given your background it was probably straightforward for you to write. However the DCC RPG campaign seems to be more about how you run it as opposed to the setting.

I'd say one-third is the setting and its weird elements and themes. That's the easy part.
A second third is the style of how it is run, that full-gonzo style. That's a lot harder.
The third part is the group themselves, and the dynamics of the group, that's the part that would be almost impossible to convey because it's about the people.  It's a bit like the BBC trying to do Top Gear without Clarkson, May and Hammond.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932991That's an interesting prediction. I had expected we had largely seen the demise of boxed sets.  I would be very curious to see what a box-set revival ends up looking like.

The limiting factor right now is shipping and handling not the affordability of actual production which is in the hundreds of dollars. Kickstarter only made it easier to raise the low amount of capital.

But Print on the Demand games would solve the handling issue and push the capital cost down even further. The cost being the fact that the PoD outfit would take a chunk out of the list price. However you have to weigh that against the publisher places on his time.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932996That's EXACTLY the challenge that has me writers-blocked on this one. Because it's not like Albion or AoI.  So much of what makes the Last Sun setting is the way we've played it.  But I've always sort of despised books that dedicate a huge section to "GM advice".

When I did the Majestic Wilderlands supplement, I didn't want to do a World of Greyhawk style setting book. But.. I know the type of information that Greyhawk presented will need to be presented in some way. My solution was to make just ONE section of the supplement just that a WoG style travelogue. However I then used to the other two section to show how all that worked in terms of Swords & Wizardry.

I related this not so much for the stuff I actually did but for the process I used to arrive at what I did. You don't like how GM advice was presented in the past. However GM advice is what needed in this supplement. So perhaps the solution is to give the advice anyway but then use the rest of the product to show how that advice works in the context of the DCC RPG and your setting. Along with presenting any tools you used during the campaign.

So that way the entire product is better than something that is just GM advice.

Or you may have something come to you out of left field resulting in something like Zak's Vornheim. Something unique. I didn't have that kind of inspiration when it came to writing about the world of the Majestic Wilderlands so I instead focused on SHOWING how it worked and also keeping it as terse as possible.


 

Quote from: RPGPundit;932996Even so, I get the feeling I'll have to go that route in some way; maybe in part by doing some Yoon-Suin style random-tables approach, and in part by doing some kind of manifesto on "Punditesque Full Gonzo".

And the good thing is that you are looking at the GM advice with skepticism. You are not just saying "well my GM advice is going to be better than anybody else.". I am confident that when put into the position where there is really no better way than just write a GM advice article that you will actively try to avoid the pitfalls and format it as best as you can.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932996A second third is the style of how it is run, that full-gonzo style. That's a lot harder.

Yes that going to be one of the tricks. A similar issue I faced when I was trying to avoid writing just another setting travelogue.

Quote from: RPGPundit;932996The third part is the group themselves, and the dynamics of the group, that's the part that would be almost impossible to convey because it's about the people.  It's a bit like the BBC trying to do Top Gear without Clarkson, May and Hammond.

One thing that the military does is have after action reports. My gut feeling that something similar would be useful for referees to learn off of other referees. Now what happened in the military is that the format was standardized and refined over decades. There is a similar deal with case law in common law countries. A report on the what, where, who and why of how your campaign unfolded and what your players were doing may be useful if presented the right way in a terse format.

The goal with such a report would make the reader go "Oh I get why that happened and why those rulings were made to handle it."

Obviously you will be cherry picking the most interesting or useful bits.

I would love to have seen something like this for a Fate campaign. It probably would made my playtest a lot more informed.

Quote from: estar;933109Or you may have something come to you out of left field resulting in something like Zak's Vornheim. Something unique. I didn't have that kind of inspiration when it came to writing about the world of the Majestic Wilderlands so I instead focused on SHOWING how it worked and also keeping it as terse as possible.

See, to be honest, I don't think Vornheim is actually a very great product in terms of explaining Vornheim. It's good for some cool random tables that are very interesting for some semi-weird D&D play, but there's very little about the actual setting that's really 'there'.  
Majestic Wilderlands has some amazing mods to standard D&D which is very cool, but I also wonder just how much it really impresses the setting of the Wilderlands as a place. It does TO ME, but that's because I already knew the wilderlands. But reading it I kind of questioned whether someone who had zero prior knowledge of the Wilderlands would actually grasp much of it as a setting from the product.

If I was to think of a product that WOULD do what I think you're talking about here, the one that would be the gold-standard for this, I'd say it'd be Yoon-Suin. It doesn't present the standard setting material in a straightforward way, but through a series of encounters and random stuff does a spectacular job of impressing just what the deal of the whole setting is. It's amazing in that sense.


 

QuoteAnd the good thing is that you are looking at the GM advice with skepticism. You are not just saying "well my GM advice is going to be better than anybody else.". I am confident that when put into the position where there is really no better way than just write a GM advice article that you will actively try to avoid the pitfalls and format it as best as you can.

As a rule, I'm skeptical of ALL "GM advice".  Not just in the sense that in almost all books that have a chapter of GM advice that chapter is totally useless, but in the sense that 90% of books, there isn't a real need for "gm advice" at all.
I can count on one hand the number of RPG books I've read where the GM advice chapter was both good and needed.

QuoteOne thing that the military does is have after action reports. My gut feeling that something similar would be useful for referees to learn off of other referees. Now what happened in the military is that the format was standardized and refined over decades. There is a similar deal with case law in common law countries. A report on the what, where, who and why of how your campaign unfolded and what your players were doing may be useful if presented the right way in a terse format.

The goal with such a report would make the reader go "Oh I get why that happened and why those rulings were made to handle it."

Obviously you will be cherry picking the most interesting or useful bits.

I would love to have seen something like this for a Fate campaign. It probably would made my playtest a lot more informed.

Well, curiously, the format of my DCC campaign updates (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?29376-DCC-Campaign-Log) follows that kind of style already.

Quote from: RPGPundit;934117I can count on one hand the number of RPG books I've read where the GM advice chapter was both good and needed.

I'd be interested in your list, short as it may be.

Quote from: RPGPundit;934117See, to be honest, I don't think Vornheim is actually a very great product in terms of explaining Vornheim. It's good for some cool random tables that are very interesting for some semi-weird D&D play, but there's very little about the actual setting that's really 'there'.  
Majestic Wilderlands has some amazing mods to standard D&D which is very cool, but I also wonder just how much it really impresses the setting of the Wilderlands as a place. It does TO ME, but that's because I already knew the wilderlands. But reading it I kind of questioned whether someone who had zero prior knowledge of the Wilderlands would actually grasp much of it as a setting from the product.

I was new to the Wilderlands when purchasing Majestic Wilderlands. Apart from a minor objection, it definitely presented the setting as a place, to me.

Yoon-Suin I'm still reading, but I'm not so sure I'd rate it higher than the Majestic Wilderlands in terms of clarity.

QuoteAs a rule, I'm skeptical of ALL "GM advice".  Not just in the sense that in almost all books that have a chapter of GM advice that chapter is totally useless, but in the sense that 90% of books, there isn't a real need for "gm advice" at all.
I can count on one hand the number of RPG books I've read where the GM advice chapter was both good and needed.

I'd need both hands, and possibly the legs, but that's still less than 10% of the total books.
Of course, it only confirms my pet theory that 90% of everything is crap, including 90% of all GMing advice, so I can only say things are working as expected:D!

When Greg Stafford did Pendragon Vth Edition, he included "Designer's Notes" where he talked about what he was trying to achieve and how he tried to achieve it.

I wonder if THAT would be more useful to referees than "Referee Advice."  Sure, you don't HAVE to run the game the way the writer intends, but I think it's useful to have some idea of what the writer thought they were doing.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;934173When Greg Stafford did Pendragon Vth Edition, he included "Designer's Notes" where he talked about what he was trying to achieve and how he tried to achieve it.

I wonder if THAT would be more useful to referees than "Referee Advice."  Sure, you don't HAVE to run the game the way the writer intends, but I think it's useful to have some idea of what the writer thought they were doing.

It would be a good idea if more people started doing it, indeed;).

I believe 'next step' in the OSR movement is to focus on other RPGs asides D&D, written with a Creative Commons License. There are a slew of niche tabletop RPGs that really need some love. This is what I am trying to achieve with ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (http://grimandperilous.com).

Shadows of the Demon Lord is a deep stab at a post-apocalyptic, dark reflection of WFRP, with a steady blend of D20 and stock D&D heroics to help new fans swallow its oddities.

4C System is an adaptation of FASERIP.

Mutant Future is Gamma World.

Legends of the Ancient World is the retroclone equivalent of The Fantasy Trip.

GORE is a retroclone of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying.

These are the sort of OSR products that get me excited.

So, this raises the question of whether a game has to clone an existing game to be 'old school' or whether it needs to simply reflect the ethos.  Do we really need a re-write of KABAL or MISSION?  Though, if any game ever needed a re-write...

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934186I believe 'next step' in the OSR movement is to focus on other RPGs asides D&D, written with a Creative Commons License. There are a slew of niche tabletop RPGs that really need some love. This is what I am trying to achieve with ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (http://grimandperilous.com).

Shadows of the Demon Lord is a deep stab at a post-apocalyptic, dark reflection of WFRP, with a steady blend of D20 and stock D&D heroics to help new fans swallow its oddities.

4C System is an adaptation of FASERIP.

Mutant Future is Gamma World.

Legends of the Ancient World is the retroclone equivalent of The Fantasy Trip.

GORE is a retroclone of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying.

These are the sort of OSR products that get me excited.

I second this opinion. I think we've played out the extent of the D&D clone-o-sphere. I think the future is in reproducing more niche systems as well as setting content for cool worlds. I'd also like to see more games designed in an OSR spirit without hewing so close to being a clone.

Quote from: Arkansan;934205I second this opinion. I think we've played out the extent of the D&D clone-o-sphere. I think the future is in reproducing more niche systems as well as setting content for cool worlds. I'd also like to see more games designed in an OSR spirit without hewing so close to being a clone.

There is nobody to appeal too to make it happen. A lot of people don't get that the OSR is a bunch of independent efforts and classic D&D has the largest mind share. D&D dominates for a variety of historical reasons. Traveller has about half-dozen independents who are serious about publishing using the OGL material publish original setting. Runequest has a similar number as well. Every other game is lucky to have one or two folks trying to support it.

I realize that I sound negative but it really about the numbers. You want stuff then you need people willing to write. To get people willing to write you need to build big enough of a base. The good news is that if you do get it going then the fact it open content means it won't be shut down arbitrarily. It will keep going as long as there is interest.

Now where the OSR 'as is' will help in the fact that much if it is collaborative in nature especially on the "How to get something out there" department. Individual may not be interested in publishing for say GORE but they certain will help you get your idea for GORE out there with advice.

Quote from: David Johansen;934192So, this raises the question of whether a game has to clone an existing game to be 'old school' or whether it needs to simply reflect the ethos.  Do we really need a re-write of KABAL or MISSION?  Though, if any game ever needed a re-write...

Since the mid 2000s there been a large number of people interested in playing the actual rules of various classic D&D editions. And a bunch people, including myself, who had some success in publishing products that interests this group. However you label them, this group exists.

And the OSR is based open content, which means, because of digital technology, if you have an idea there nothing but your willingness to put the time in to make it happen. So if you decide that by god the world needs another B/X Clone there will be another B/X Clone. If you are disappointed that there isn't couple of thousand sales well that because there are a bunch of other B/X Clones you are competing against. But if your goal is a couple of hundred sales, then that might be doable. If a couple of hundred sales is worth your time then the project is worth doing.

I tell people that if they think they can get a 100 sales within a year then likely they will feel that was time well spent.

Quote from: estar;934222There is nobody to appeal too to make it happen. A lot of people don't get that the OSR is a bunch of independent efforts and classic D&D has the largest mind share. D&D dominates for a variety of historical reasons. Traveller has about half-dozen independents who are serious about publishing using the OGL material publish original setting. Runequest has a similar number as well. Every other game is lucky to have one or two folks trying to support it.

I realize that I sound negative but it really about the numbers. You want stuff then you need people willing to write. To get people willing to write you need to build big enough of a base. The good news is that if you do get it going then the fact it open content means it won't be shut down arbitrarily. It will keep going as long as there is interest.

Now where the OSR 'as is' will help in the fact that much if it is collaborative in nature especially on the "How to get something out there" department. Individual may not be interested in publishing for say GORE but they certain will help you get your idea for GORE out there with advice.

To play devil's advocate: when has the OSR ever been overly concerned with money? The vast majority of OSR products are a labor of love that have little monetary yield. Some wither on the vine and die before conceptions (re: most RPGs on Kickstarter); some become beloved single releases (Whitehack); and some go on to become massively popular (LotFP).

In my case, I have 1,266 backers for ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG on Kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grimandperilous/zweihander-grim-and-perilous-rpg), not including the additional 466 from CrowdOx (https://app.crowdox.com/projects/grimandperilous/zweihander-grim-and-perilous-rpg). That's a lot of support for an OSR product, particularly for an RPG that's not even in print yet. I would reckon most are Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (http://grimandperilous.com) fans. However, I also labored over the past 5 years building a fanbase through Facebook by using Google Adsense, SEM/SEO, homegrown, organic content placement on forums and strategic content placement on free downloads sites. I attribute some of ZWEIHÄNDER's success to my marketing background, but also a love for the source material and recognition of a gap in the OSR market for a WFRP pseudo-clone/retroclone/loveletter/whatever someone wants to call ZWEIHÄNDER.

Perhaps my situation is an anomaly; maybe I was fortunate to take advantage in a time where Warhammer was left to rot by GW. I guess my point is this: my experience doesn't have to be the exception to the rule. And frankly, with the gut of D&D OSR products, you've gotta do something different to capture the audience's attention, as it's already fractious as-is.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934302To play devil's advocate: when has the OSR ever been overly concerned with money? The vast majority of OSR products are a labor of love that have little monetary yield. Some wither on the vine and die before conceptions (re: most RPGs on Kickstarter); some become beloved single releases (Whitehack); and some go on to become massively popular (LotFP).

It not mostly concerned with the money and you are right the vast majority of the work is a labor of love. However the addition of being able to paid no matter how minimal is a tangible form of feedback that keep people producing longer than they would otherwise. Downloads, views, and comments are nice but a bunch of willing to put down cold hard makes an impression on most. And based talking to folk, a 100 sales seems to be the number that leaves people pleased that they made desired impact.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934302Perhaps my situation is an anomaly; maybe I was fortunate to take advantage in a time where Warhammer was left to rot by GW. I guess my point is this: my experience doesn't have to be the exception to the rule. And frankly, with the gut of D&D OSR products, you've gotta do something different to capture the audience's attention, as it's already fractious as-is.

Opportunity is a factor the OSR certainly benefited by the 4e debacle and the Wizards' takedown of their PDF. But the thing is that you thought it through and were able to take advantage when the opportunity arose.

Yup when it comes to making anything classic D&D and taking advantage of the OSR you need to think different to get people's attention. For various reason I want to be able to sell my own rulebook. But there are dozens out there. So I came up with something that different but still serves as the rulebook I need.

Oh, I already wrote a retro-clone.  I lean towards other systems than D&D for the most part.  Still, I don't think my design style is so much old school as mid eighties simulationist.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934186I believe 'next step' in the OSR movement is to focus on other RPGs asides D&D, written with a Creative Commons License. There are a slew of niche tabletop RPGs that really need some love. This is what I am trying to achieve with ZWEIHÄNDER Grim & Perilous RPG (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (http://grimandperilous.com).

Shadows of the Demon Lord is a deep stab at a post-apocalyptic, dark reflection of WFRP, with a steady blend of D20 and stock D&D heroics to help new fans swallow its oddities.

4C System is an adaptation of FASERIP.

Mutant Future is Gamma World.

Legends of the Ancient World is the retroclone equivalent of The Fantasy Trip.

GORE is a retroclone of Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying.

These are the sort of OSR products that get me excited.

I'd agree, but it's happening already. Does it count as a next step?

Quote from: David Johansen;934192So, this raises the question of whether a game has to clone an existing game to be 'old school' or whether it needs to simply reflect the ethos.  Do we really need a re-write of KABAL or MISSION?  Though, if any game ever needed a re-write...

DCC is a prime example of a game that is not a clone, and it's by far not the only one.

Quote from: Arkansan;934205I second this opinion. I think we've played out the extent of the D&D clone-o-sphere. I think the future is in reproducing more niche systems as well as setting content for cool worlds. I'd also like to see more games designed in an OSR spirit without hewing so close to being a clone.

You mean, like Savage Worlds, Barbarians of Lemuria, Crimson Blades and the like?

Quote from: David Johansen;934341Oh, I already wrote a retro-clone.  I lean towards other systems than D&D for the most part.  Still, I don't think my design style is so much old school as mid eighties simulationist.

There should be clones of those games, too! Besides, I find those two are closer than many people give them credit for;).

What if you did a mini-box with a scattershot of mini-quests? They may add up to a whole, but for the most part it is introductory to the mini-box. At the end of each mini-quest have an ABC (good, bad, weird) 3-path suggestion on where to take those quest consequences from there.

Then you could have an adventure module that take one or two mini-quest dots, and their 3-way suggested "endings," and extrapolate them out into new mini-quests. That way the brain fried DMs can just pick up the mini-box and run with any of the consequences straight into a 3-path adventure module. If one's completely fried they can even randomize the choice of ramifications.

It's basically creating Outrun (the racing game) branching paths. Like Choose Your Own Adventure without a whole bunch of death options.

If GMs have trouble after a two-part setup getting the campaign ball moving, well, hopefully they learn something on their replay? :rolleyes: Or you could milk them dry with more branching modules off of each node... :D

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934302. . . a gap in the OSR market for a WFRP pseudo-clone/retroclone/loveletter/whatever someone wants to call ZWEIHÄNDER.

I call it 'not-OSR.' (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/03/osr-v-osr-reply-to-eric-tenkar.html)

It's just another retro-clone trying to hang from the OSR's hairy, sweaty nutsack as a cheap marketing ploy.

Quote from: AsenRG;934467You mean, like Savage Worlds, Barbarians of Lemuria, Crimson Blades and the like?

I haven't engaged with the other two but nothing about Savage Worlds has me feeling it's 'OSR spirit'... where are you seeing it? Is it the wargame element?

Quote from: Simlasa;934575I haven't engaged with the other two but nothing about Savage Worlds has me feeling it's 'OSR spirit'... where are you seeing it? Is it the wargame element?

Wargame element, a focus on having allies, brutal combat where even a high-level PC might be one-shotted (it's just unlikely), a focus on tricks, a high level of randomness, being inspired by pulps, you name it;)!

Quote from: AsenRG;934467Does it count as a next step?

.

No, its the previous step. The OSR is a late development of the overall retroclone renaissance that started in the early aughts.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934555I call it 'not-OSR.' (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/03/osr-v-osr-reply-to-eric-tenkar.html)

It's just another retro-clone trying to hang from the OSR's hairy, sweaty nutsack as a cheap marketing ploy.

Yikes! :eek:

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934621Yikes! :eek:

Black Vulmea is just getting his Internet Edgelord on. I've never seen Zweihander make any allusions to being a part of the OSR, and the OSR is the johnny-come-lately of the retroclone movement anyways, the hairy nutsack hanging off the internet retroclone movement's giant cock.

Quote from: AsenRG;934576Wargame element, a focus on having allies, brutal combat where even a high-level PC might be one-shotted (it's just unlikely), a focus on tricks, a high level of randomness, being inspired by pulps, you name it;)!

Maybe... but I didn't notice any of that while I was playing it... well, the 'pulp' bit... depending on how you want to define 'pulp'. No one had hirelings, combat didn't seem 'brutal' at all (no PCs died in well over a year of playing... except one time where I refused to spend Bennies to save mine).
To me it seemed like it had a lot of built-in mechanisms to make sure the PCs came out on top... which doesn't seem all that OSR to me.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934578The OSR is a late development of the overall retroclone renaissance that started in the early aughts.

Please, share with us the origins of the retroclone renaissance in the "early aughts."

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934630Black Vulmea is just getting his Internet Edgelord on.

There're a lot of long words in there, and I'm naught but a humble pirate.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934630I've never seen Zweihander make any allusions to being a part of the OSR . . .

Look at the quote to which I responded.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934630. . . and the OSR is the johnny-come-lately of the retroclone movement anyways, the hairy nutsack hanging off the internet retroclone movement's giant cock.

Whew, is it hot in here, or is it just me?

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934630Black Vulmea is just getting his Internet Edgelord on.

Am I the only one who keeps thinking that's a compliment??

Zweihander absolutely deserves a good ribbing [and kudos to him for being a good sport], but I am looking forward to playing a demo of his Fauxhammer.

But listen up peeps, Zweihander's relentless evangelism paid off in $62k kickstarter. If Zwei can make a distribution plan work, we may be looking at a not-D&D retro-whatever that gains mainstream attention in the FLGS.

Zweihander, do you have some kind of OGL or other 3rd party license for your game?

Quote from: Spinachcat;934642Zweihander absolutely deserves a good ribbing [and kudos to him for being a good sport] . . . (emphasis added - BV)

I'll second that.

I think you might be able to argue FASRIP as one of the earlier retro-clones.  The Star Frontiers community also might be considered one of the earliest fan movements to support a dead game.  To the best of my understanding Castles and Crusades lead to disputes that lead to the creation of OSRIC.  So C&C might be a candidate, especially when it comes to D&D though, one might argue that Arduin, The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game, and Thieves World in particular were D&D clones to a fairly obvious extent though not particularly retro when they were published.

As to my own work, the first version of Dark Passages was a deliberate attempt to state what I consider the core concepts of D&D as much as a game in and of itself.  The objective was to build a coherent one book D&D similar to a combined Basic / Expert set.  The stat modifiers were inspired by Gamma World first edition and the class building system base on the one in the AD&D second edition DMG.

The second version was an attempt to create a more modern game that 'broadened the sweet spot' and provided incremental benefits each level.  In practice I was never quite happy with it.  Though I ran it a fair bit when my store first opened as it's an introductory level game (which was sorely lacking in the market at the time IMO) and I could afford to give copies away as they cost me two bucks.

The third and unfinished version is less recognizably D&D and aimed at running tabletop mass combat, warband, and realm management games.

Why does that matter to this discussion.  Well, I'd consider the first to be an example of an OSR game, it's clearly a D&D legacy clone.  The second is more like third and fourth edition and properly a neo-clone, an attempt to update and improve D&D and not OSR.  The third is more like Lamentations of the Flame Princess or Dungeon Crawl Classics, clearly inspired by D&D but going its own way and thus a fantasy heartbreaker in the proper sense of the term.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934641Please, share with us the origins of the retroclone renaissance in the "early aughts."

Feel free to google any and all of the following...

Encounter Critical, Mazes & Minotaurs, Under A Broken Moon (Over The Edge Retroclone), ZEFRs (TSR Conan Adventure Game retroclone), G-Core (FASERIP pseudo-clone), Double Zero (Victory Games' 007:James Bond RPG retroclone), 4C (another FASERIP retroclone), Mutant Future (Gamma World retroclone), Legends of the Ancient World & Heroes and Other Worlds (The Fantasy Trip retroclones), GORE (BASIC roleplaying retroclone), Terminal Space & 'Go Fer Yer Gun' (Boot Hill retroclones), Thrash (Streetfighter RPG retroclone), Covert Ops (Top Secret pseudoclone)The Singularity System (Traveller Retroclone), SF2000 (StarFrontiers retroclone), Cepheus (another Traveller retroclone), A.R.M. (TORG retroclone), Lances & Labyrinths (Tunnels & Trolls retroclone), Blood, Guts, and Glory (Rolemaster retroclone), Openquest (Runequest retroclone), etc etc...

Quote from: Spinachcat;934642Am I the only one who keeps thinking that's a compliment??

It wasnt really an insult, Ill say that much

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934641Please, share with us the origins of the retroclone renaissance in the "early aughts."

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934652Feel free to google any and all of the following...

Encounter Critical, Mazes & Minotaurs, Under A Broken Moon (Over The Edge Retroclone), ZEFRs (TSR Conan Adventure Game retroclone), G-Core (FASERIP pseudo-clone), Double Zero (Victory Games' 007:James Bond RPG retroclone), 4C (another FASERIP retroclone), Mutant Future (Gamma World retroclone), Legends of the Ancient World & Heroes and Other Worlds (The Fantasy Trip retroclones), GORE (BASIC roleplaying retroclone), Terminal Space & 'Go Fer Yer Gun' (Boot Hill retroclones), Thrash (Streetfighter RPG retroclone), Covert Ops (Top Secret pseudoclone)The Singularity System (Traveller Retroclone), SF2000 (StarFrontiers retroclone), Cepheus (another Traveller retroclone), A.R.M. (TORG retroclone), Lances & Labyrinths (Tunnels & Trolls retroclone), Blood, Guts, and Glory (Rolemaster retroclone), Openquest (Runequest retroclone), etc etc...

Google tells me none of those (or at least the dozen or so I actually researched) were in the "early oughts", with the earliest being 2006.

Quote from: CRKrueger;934657Google tells me none of those (or at least the dozen or so I actually researched) were in the "early oughts", with the earliest being 2006.

Google tells you wrong, the majority were prior to 2003. I know that because 2003 was when I left rpgnet for a few years and then came back to find it....well, what it is today.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934652(...) Mazes & Minotaurs, Under A Broken Moon (Over The Edge Retroclone), (...).

I wouldn't call UABM a retroclone, it's more a setting/genre hack.

But while researching the year of M&M's genesis I found an info that I didn't know, namely that Olivier Legrand didn't come up with the "what if" scenario himself. He wrote the game as a reaction to an RPG.net column: The Gygax - Arneson Tapes (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/tempus12nov02.html).

I found that via an RPG.net review (https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12092.phtml), which contained another interesting thought:

Quote from: Sérgio MascarenhasDoes M&M rules meet Olivier's criteria? Yes, systemwise the game has a genuine old-school feel and it is totally coherent with Paul's article. If there's something I can default M&M at this level is the next: D&D was an outgrowth of minis wargaming. At the time – I am sure – there were several competing rulesets for this hobby. If I was Olivier I would have tried to get a real late 60s, early 70s minis wargame (other than Chainmal, of course) and worked the system from it. As far as I can tell that's not what Olivier did but that's understandable (I have no idea where I would get such an old piece of wargaming archaeology either). To be honest I can't default Olivier on this, it's just that... it would have been even more fun.

(Emphasis mine)

What were those competing rulesets, and which ones would have been suitable for hacking an RPG from it?

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934555I call it 'not-OSR.' (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2013/03/osr-v-osr-reply-to-eric-tenkar.html)

It's just another retro-clone trying to hang from the OSR's hairy, sweaty nutsack as a cheap marketing ploy.

That's your point of view, which you wrote as an as we're to Erik of Tenkar's Tavern. In this case, however, I tend to agree with the opposing view. Since you agree all the games you list yourself are retroclones of old games, I see no value in drawing an arbitrary separation line between clones of older D&D editions and clones of, say, TFT.

Quote from: AsenRG;934669That's your point of view, which you wrote as an as we're to Erik of Tenkar's Tavern. In this case, however, I tend to agree with the opposing view. Since you agree all the games you list yourself are retroclones of old games, I see no value in drawing an arbitrary separation line between clones of older D&D editions and clones of, say, TFT.

Except that system has been shown to matter. A fan of B/X D&D is going to be looking for stuff and products that target that specific edition first, other classic edition second, and then other old school games third. Where stuff like TFT comes into play is that people are not one note wonders, they like to play different games so they may pick up a TFT clones to play something different. And if that happens then he will be looking for TFT products to use with it. My Scourge of the Demon Wolf isn't going to be the at the top of his list when he plays a TFT campaign.

And to stress it is not a binary situation. It a spectrum. The further you are away from classic D&D get become that harder to get a view, download, or sale from the OSR as a whole. Eventually you get to the point where you are in the same boat as anybody else with a novel RPG. Forced to do the groundwork to build an audience for what you are interested in or what you are publishing.

Quote from: Spinachcat;934642Am I the only one who keeps thinking that's a compliment??

Zweihander absolutely deserves a good ribbing [and kudos to him for being a good sport], but I am looking forward to playing a demo of his Fauxhammer.

But listen up peeps, Zweihander's relentless evangelism paid off in $62k kickstarter. If Zwei can make a distribution plan work, we may be looking at a not-D&D retro-whatever that gains mainstream attention in the FLGS.

Zweihander, do you have some kind of OGL or other 3rd party license for your game?

I welcome the ribbing! :cool:

The Forbes article about ZWEIHÄNDER (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/08/23/five-really-cool-tabletop-games-on-kickstarter-right-now/#5cd9db027017) drew a ton of attention to the game from a major Midwest FLGS distribution company. We have a deal in the works for brick & mortar stores, with details to follow after the holiday.

And yes, we are releasing ZWEIHÄNDER (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) under Creative Commons License, with an option for publication through Grim & Perilous Studios. The creators of Eclipse Phase was my biggest influence here on this piece: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

Quote from: estar;934693Except that system has been shown to matter. A fan of B/X D&D is going to be looking for stuff and products that target that specific edition first, other classic edition second, and then other old school games third.

No doubt, so?

QuoteWhere stuff like TFT comes into play is that people are not one note wonders, they like to play different games so they may pick up a TFT clones to play something different. And if that happens then he will be looking for TFT products to use with it. My Scourge of the Demon Wolf isn't going to be the at the top of his list when he plays a TFT campaign.

I've got to disagree with that, since Scourge of the Demon Wolf is an adventure I happen to have read:D!
See, there's mechanics, and then there's the attitude towards playing RPGs. To me, it's much more important that the module, setting or other supplement be written with the same expectations I have...because then it is going to be useful, even if the mechanics are radically different.
Conversely, if the module, say, assumes enemies are always within your challenge levels, you always find the loot and the loot is exactly what you need to defeat the next encounter (not talking about Scourge of the Demon Wolf, here)...well, I don't really have an interest in doing all the work I'd need to in order to make it work. Even if it's already mechanically compatible with what I'm running, that's going to be more work.

QuoteAnd to stress it is not a binary situation. It a spectrum. The further you are away from classic D&D get become that harder to get a view, download, or sale from the OSR as a whole. Eventually you get to the point where you are in the same boat as anybody else with a novel RPG. Forced to do the groundwork to build an audience for what you are interested in or what you are publishing.

Of course it's a spectrum.
But I'd rather use LotFP historical adventures with GURPS than try and re-work some GURPS adventures I've seen.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934695I welcome the ribbing! :cool:

The Forbes article about ZWEIHÄNDER (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/08/23/five-really-cool-tabletop-games-on-kickstarter-right-now/#5cd9db027017) drew a ton of attention to the game from a major Midwest FLGS distribution company. We have a deal in the works for brick & mortar stores, with details to follow after the holiday.

And yes, we are releasing ZWEIHÄNDER (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) under Creative Commons License, with an option for publication through Grim & Perilous Studios. The creators of Eclipse Phase was my biggest influence here on this piece: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

That's a great idea, if you're asking me;)!

Ahhh, now I understand the confusion . . .

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934652. . . 'Go Fer Yer Gun' (Boot Hill retroclones) . . .

. . . is that you haven't the first clue what a retro-clone is.

Good to know.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934711Ahhh, now I understand the confusion . . .


. . . is that you haven't the first clue what a retro-clone is.

Good to know.

:rolleyes:

While I may not personally read every game and verify if it is in fact a retroclone, pseudoclone, retrovamp, or any other such variation (especially in regards to "Boot Hill" Jesus, I couldn't think of a game that makes me go flaccid with disinterest faster), the distinctions are meaningless in regards to a commentary on the overall trend. In other words, the point you're attempting to sidestep is that the entire "re-do/recapture/re-release with my personal special snowflake houserules" RPG movement is something that began a long time ago (basically once the internet became mainstream and the publishing barrier disappeared from the hobby), and the OSR is an outgrowth of that.

But then, you're not an idiot. You already knew that my point had been made when you made your flippant response based on a pedantic nitpick.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934713While I may not personally read every game and verify if it is in fact a retroclone . . .

So in offering those up as examples of retro-clones, you either outright lied or had no idea what you're talking about.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;934713You already knew that my point had been made . . .

Your point is as bullshit as your examples.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934720Your point is as bullshit as your examples.

Ah, I see, you're trying to "win" the conversation, even if it means being intellectually dishonest. Pity, for some reason I expected better of you, though perhaps I simply viewed the time you were a regular on these forums before your return through rose-tinted glasses.

Anyways, you've succeeding in getting me to cease caring what you think, so any further elucidation on my part would be a waste of both of our time.

Or to put it in words you can understand through your no doubt constant agony due to the size of whatever implement it is  you've managed to lodge up your rectum...

Go fuck yourself, you disingenuous cunt

(https://media.giphy.com/media/i6TQUuiT5hjSU/giphy.gif)

Quote from: estar;934693A fan of B/X D&D is going to be looking for stuff and products that target that specific edition first, other classic edition second, and then other old school games third. (...)
My Scourge of the Demon Wolf isn't going to be the at the top of his list when he plays a TFT campaign.

Maybe I am special that way but I hardly ever used a module with the system it was written for.

When I GM'd longer campaigns my players were well-versed in the product catalogue of the system: In my two AD&D campaigns were players who knew the whole TSR back catalog (but were oblivious to the rest of the hobby). In my Midgard campaign all players save one GM'd their own Midgard campaigns, knowing all official stuff down to fanzine content (but despised D&D for being "a mindless dungeoneering game"...), etc.

So I learned to look for thematically fitting material of fringe systems (Dragon Warriors, Ars Magica, LoreMaster) or magazines no one read in Germany (Tortured Souls, Casus Belli, Complete GameMaster, Dungeon Magazine...).

Your Scourge would have been perfect for my Midgard campaign.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934730Maybe I am special that way but I hardly ever used a module with the system it was written for.

You're not that special, I know a few people that are doing the exact same thing:).

Write damn games you fucking like to play and stop yanking your microscopic peeners over attaching some sort of label to them.


* sets thread on fire *
* pisses on the ashes *

Gronan, do you really want to delete something like 90% of all RPG forum threads on Internet:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;934745Gronan, do you really want to delete something like 90% of all RPG forum threads on Internet:D?

Why not? That still leaves 450% overlap. :D

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;934742Write damn games you fucking like to play and stop yanking your microscopic peeners over attaching some sort of label to them.

OG, as a student of history, you ken better than most that understanding How We Got Here matters.

So put away your lighter and use the urinal, and please, watch your aim and remember to jiggle the handle when you're done as I don't want to be in there for an hour with the mop again.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934730Maybe I am special that way but I hardly ever used a module with the system it was written for.

Sure, I said before the default is to kitbash the campaign together. The problem that I face that people are picky about what they PAY to kitbash with. And yes I get people buying Scourge and my other stuff to use with non D&D games all the time. But it not where the majority of my sales comes from. Now for the free downloads like Blackmarsh there is a lot more non D&D gamers from I can tell. But even then plurality are from classic D&D hobbyists.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934730So I learned to look for thematically fitting material of fringe systems (Dragon Warriors, Ars Magica, LoreMaster) or magazines no one read in Germany (Tortured Souls, Casus Belli, Complete GameMaster, Dungeon Magazine...).

Your Scourge would have been perfect for my Midgard campaign.

Appreciate the compliment. I do the same. I use a lot of Ars Magica and Harnmaster stuff with the Majestic Wilderlands myself.

I am not arguing against kitbashing, or saying it doesn't go a lot. Only that it doesn't suffice to rely on that when you are trying to sell. From the publishing angle the OSR label helps to alert people that you are targeting one of the classic editions of D&D or you doing close to a classic edition like Stars with Numbers or White Star.

From a hobbyist angle for downloads, it means that you are dealing with stat lite material that probably has a lot of content for the page count. So if you are running GURPS or Fantasy Age, you can easily spot where you need to put in  work fleshing out NPCs and creatures. As opposed to 3.5e/Pathfinder where the stat blocks dominate the page count.

I am not THE authority on what the OSR is or isn't. I can say that it is centered classic D&D hobbyists. The more your work (either for sale or just download) is from that center the less appeal it will have to that group on average. There are things you can do to overcome that if you think what you have really fits. For that I recommend studying what Goodman Games did with Dungeon Crawl Classics.

And the best part is you don't have to believe me, anybody can try it and see how far they get. Either they get the views, downloads, players, or sales or they don't. That the challenge I laid in front of the Pundit. That Taliban he rails against doesn't exist and there literally nothing stopping him from get his work out there. And I was right. And he did by doing his own thing with a pair of semi-historical fantasy setting rules/supplements.

Even at it most commercial the OSR and its open content foundation puts no barriers in front of a person getting his stuff out there. If it of use to a classic D&D campaign, and I use 'of use' very loosely here, then an OSR audience can be found.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934759OG, as a student of history, you ken better than most that understanding How We Got Here matters.

So put away your lighter and use the urinal, and please, watch your aim and remember to jiggle the handle when you're done as I don't want to be in there for an hour with the mop again.

1) Okay, if we actually discuss it like adults.

2) Hey, I know how to aim.  If I had ever missed my mother would have wiped it up with me.  Even my wife admits I know how to aim that thing.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934667What were those competing rulesets, and which ones would have been suitable for hacking an RPG from it?

Great question!!

Gronan, pour out thy brain upon us!

And somebody should ask Chirine as well!

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934695We have a deal in the works for brick & mortar stores, with details to follow after the holiday.

Major congrats! That's awesome news!

BTW, have you looked into a UK partner as well? I imagine the home of WFRP might have lots of potential fans.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;934695And yes, we are releasing ZWEIHÄNDER (http://warhammerfantasyroleplay.com) under Creative Commons License, with an option for publication through Grim & Perilous Studios. The creators of Eclipse Phase was my biggest influence here on this piece: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/

When is that happening?

I have a few Warhammer convention games I've run many times over the years that might be fun to publish.

...and I KNOW that I don't have to ask you to keep us posted!! :)

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934667I wouldn't call UABM a retroclone, it's more a setting/genre hack.

But while researching the year of M&M's genesis I found an info that I didn't know, namely that Olivier Legrand didn't come up with the "what if" scenario himself. He wrote the game as a reaction to an RPG.net column: The Gygax - Arneson Tapes (https://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/tempus12nov02.html).

I found that via an RPG.net review (https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12092.phtml)

Check this old page from the original Mazes & Minotaurs website for the whole story:

http://storygame.free.fr/how.html

Quote from: Spinachcat;934796Great question!!

Gronan, pour out thy brain upon us!

And somebody should ask Chirine as well!




Major congrats! That's awesome news!

BTW, have you looked into a UK partner as well? I imagine the home of WFRP might have lots of potential fans.




When is that happening?

I have a few Warhammer convention games I've run many times over the years that might be fun to publish.

...and I KNOW that I don't have to ask you to keep us posted!! :)

My recollection of that era mostly relates to the other side of the pond where there were a couple of trends in wargaming toward more personal identification with the little lead guys on the table.

One was personality driven campaigns, where battles occurred not in isolation but in a broader context, and the context was driven by personalities. E.g. Tony Bath's Hyboria and to some extent Charles Grant 's Lorraine. There were books and articles about both, but they were very DIY campaigns, and the rules were basically "big battalions" tabletop rules.

And then there was the skirmish gaming trend. Tabletop battles in which each figure represented only a single individual. Many, many rulesets developed, for many periods.

Both approaches still exist, and can be a lot of fun, but none can be hacked into an rpg, really. Or if you did, you'd be inventing rpgs. Which has already been done. That's  what happened in the early 70s.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;934667What were those competing rulesets, and which ones would have been suitable for hacking an RPG from it?

It looks like

War Games Rules 1000 B.C to 500 A.D (Ancient War Games Research Group, 1969)
War Games Rules 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D. (War Games Research Group, 1971)

Both by the same British group and the only medieval wargames published prior to Chainmail.

Outside of Medieval wargames there were a couple of Napoleanic rules, naval rules, and a World War 2 game called Angriff.

An alternative would have had been developed out of somebody personal rules.

Quote from: AsenRG;934669. . . I see no value in drawing an arbitrary separation line between clones of older D&D editions and clones of, say, TFT.

The value is, as estar notes, in knowing that OSR games have as their origins pre-2e D&D, not TFT or MSH or James Bond 007.

OSR was self-selected by the publishers of those early retro-clones and, more importantly, the modules produced for them to represent their work as a return to playing older editions of D&D. Because they were successful and well-received, they generated buzz which jock-sniffers decided to cash in on by labeling any old re-tread 'OSR.'

Personally I think 'DIY D&D' is preferable to 'OSR' or even 'retro-clone' for most of the 'third-wave of the OSR.' In my experience, they are far closer in both philosophy and feel to EotPT and Arduin Grimoire, the first DIY D&D games, than they are to the retro-clones. Returning to the path less traveled, the one blazed by Doc Barker and Mr Hargrave in the Seventies then allowed to overgrow, may be the coolest thing to come out roleplaying games in the last decade.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934871The value is, as estar notes, in knowing that OSR games have as their origins pre-2e D&D, not TFT or MSH or James Bond 007.

Estar also noted that within the D&D-based OSR you need to know what edition you're going for. IME, converting between different editions might be harder because the superficial similarities might trip you up:).

QuotePersonally I think 'DIY D&D' is preferable to 'OSR' or even 'retro-clone' for most of the 'third-wave of the OSR.' In my experience, they are far closer in both philosophy and feel to EotPT and Arduin Grimoire, the first DIY D&D games, than they are to the retro-clones. Returning to the path less traveled, the one blazed by Doc Barker and Mr Hargrave in the Seventies then allowed to overgrow, may be the coolest thing to come out roleplaying games in the last decade.

I totally agree with that part, however;).

Quote from: Black Vulmea;934871Personally I think 'DIY D&D' is preferable to 'OSR' or even 'retro-clone' for most of the 'third-wave of the OSR.' In my experience, they are far closer in both philosophy and feel to EotPT and Arduin Grimoire, the first DIY D&D games, than they are to the retro-clones. Returning to the path less traveled, the one blazed by Doc Barker and Mr Hargrave in the Seventies then allowed to overgrow, may be the coolest thing to come out roleplaying games in the last decade.

While I agree you your sentiment, from personal observation it has been notoriously hard to change everybody usage of OSR. Of course you are free to try and many have. Personally I am not going to change because OSR only gets your foot in the door to get a person to look. Everything after that is on you. Whether you wrote something good to download, view, or publish. Whether you comes across as personable. Etc, etc,

After the spectacular shitstorm that was TARGA around 2009, I think, there never been another attempt to organize any kind of OSR brand. The closest are the occasional interesting logo that crop up every few months. Even things like the Swords & Wizardry Creative Guild get traction. What been more important is how friendly the trademark license is for a given clone. With Swords & Wizardry it amounts to writing all your AC like this AC 7[12]. And that it. A lot of OSR publishers don't bother or more commonly do think of putting out a separate trademark license. A few do like the author of White Star. When done right get people excited around making stuff for that particular clone/supplement.

That pretty much how formal the current OSR is. Not very.

Quote from: AsenRG;934882Estar also noted that within the D&D-based OSR you need to know what edition you're going for. IME, converting between different editions might be harder because the superficial similarities might trip you up:).

I think it a make a small difference for fans of AD&D. But outside of that OD&D, B/X, BECMI, RC, and the galaxy of retro-clones that surrounds those editions are sooo close to each other that nobody really cares. The exception are stuff like ACKS where there are hobbyists interested in products that take advantage of their domain rules. Writing something that works for White Star and something that works with Stars without Number, or works with Spacemen and Starships also a small point of different as while all are D&D based science fiction RPGs, they each tackle different sub-genres. But again while there is a distinction is a very small one.

The best policy is to be friendly, don't be a dick on other people's forums, answer questions, and be reliable in terms of quality and production times.

Quote from: estar;934865It looks like

War Games Rules 1000 B.C to 500 A.D (Ancient War Games Research Group, 1969)
War Games Rules 1000 B.C. to 1000 A.D. (War Games Research Group, 1971)

Both by the same British group and the only medieval wargames published prior to Chainmail.

Outside of Medieval wargames there were a couple of Napoleanic rules, naval rules, and a World War 2 game called Angriff.

An alternative would have had been developed out of somebody personal rules.

WRG rules were mass battle rules where each fig represented like 100 men (I forget the number exactly), so I think it would have been a bigger leap to hack an RPG out of them than it was with chainmail.

There was also Tony Bath's wargame rules that were played in the late '60s. Bath's games, I think, included some of the forerunners of RPGs like using a referee to adjudicate situations the rules didn't cover, introducing story elements into wargaming, and the continuous campaign.  I'm not sure how big of an influence they were on roleplaying however.  Also, Like WRG, Bath's rules were still a mass battles game that never made the jump to one character per player which came naturally out of Chainmail.

... of course I'm not the expert in this category.

Using a referee for a wargame goes back at least to the 19th century, and maybe the 18th.

A much better candidate than the WRG rules would be the Old West Skirmish rules written by Mike Blake, Ian Colwill, Steve Curtis. The first edition was published in 1970, and you can get a look at the 3rd edition, published in 1975, here:

Old West Skirmish rules
 (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18154/old-west-skirmish-rules-1816-1900)

I played games with these rules before getting 1st edition OD&D. These rules were near as dammit an RPG right down to having individual characters, gm'd games, and a campaign setting, the main difference being that you played out an encounter as a full-on tabletop wargame, and then one of the players would move the story on to the next battle by coming up with a narrative and a new scenario for the other player to take part in.

I'm pretty certain that both Gary Gygax and probably Dave Arneson were aware of the Old West rules before they published D&D. Gary Gygax used to write letters and articles for Donald Featherstones 'Wargames Newsletter' magazine at the same time that it featured articles about the Old West rules and some really rather great battle reports of games played using the rules. Donald Featherstone went on to write a book about skirmish wargaming, which was published in 1975. You can see details of a more recent edition here:

Skirmish Wargaming (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-Featherstones-Skirmish-Wargaming-Curry/dp/1409223892)

Wargame Newsletter also published its own rules sets, several of which were similar to Chainmail in complexity and style of play. The rules were first published in the mid-late 60s, pre-dating the WRG rules mentioned earlier. They included Tony Bath's ancient and medieval rules sets, which were (I believe) used to run his famous Hyperboria campaign, which is the subject of how to set up a Wargames Campaign. If you haven't seen this book, it is well worth tracking down, because t included several proto-roleplay type mechanics used to generate the personalities of leaders of the armies taking part in the campaign.

Some info on a reprint of the Wargames Newsletter rules can be found here (http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/wargamers-newsletter-rules.html) and How To Set Up A Wargames Campaign here (http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/society-of-ancients-and-tony-bath-and-john-curry/tony-baths-ancient-wargaming/paperback/product-15463540.html).

Quote from: Glazer;934978A much better candidate than the WRG rules would be the Old West Skirmish rules written by Mike Blake, Ian Colwill, Steve Curtis. The first edition was published in 1970, and you can get a look at the 3rd edition, published in 1975, here:

Old West Skirmish rules
 (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/18154/old-west-skirmish-rules-1816-1900)

I played games with these rules before getting 1st edition OD&D. These rules were near as dammit an RPG right down to having individual characters, gm'd games, and a campaign setting, the main difference being that you played out an encounter as a full-on tabletop wargame, and then one of the players would move the story on to the next battle by coming up with a narrative and a new scenario for the other player to take part in.

I'm pretty certain that both Gary Gygax and probably Dave Arneson were aware of the Old West rules before they published D&D. Gary Gygax used to write letters and articles for Donald Featherstones 'Wargames Newsletter' magazine at the same time that it featured articles about the Old West rules and some really rather great battle reports of games played using the rules. Donald Featherstone went on to write a book about skirmish wargaming, which was published in 1975. You can see details of a more recent edition here:

Skirmish Wargaming (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Donald-Featherstones-Skirmish-Wargaming-Curry/dp/1409223892)

Wargame Newsletter also published its own rules sets, several of which were similar to Chainmail in complexity and style of play. The rules were first published in the mid-late 60s, pre-dating the WRG rules mentioned earlier. They included Tony Bath's ancient and medieval rules sets, which were (I believe) used to run his famous Hyperboria campaign, which is the subject of how to set up a Wargames Campaign. If you haven't seen this book, it is well worth tracking down, because t included several proto-roleplay type mechanics used to generate the personalities of leaders of the armies taking part in the campaign.

Some info on a reprint of the Wargames Newsletter rules can be found here (http://vintagewargaming.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/wargamers-newsletter-rules.html) and How To Set Up A Wargames Campaign here (http://www.lulu.com/gb/en/shop/society-of-ancients-and-tony-bath-and-john-curry/tony-baths-ancient-wargaming/paperback/product-15463540.html).

There you go. Thanks!

And I believe that that M.A.R. Barker even used a chargen system for NPCs in his own Tekumel campaign that was based on Tony Bath's method

Part of what makes research on this difficult is the fact that house rules were so common.  For instance, somewhere in my archives I have a British wargaming magazine from 1971 or 1972 that has a set of gladitorial combat rules in it.

I'd bet a dollar that those rules were never published elsewhere.  Publishing and distribution was expensive and difficult.

And in that article, the author talks about being inspired by other gladiator games.  Skirmish wargaming was already well known by 1971 when I got into wargaming, it's just that so little of what was happening in the wargame hobby was ever professionally published.

Tony Bath's Hyboria campaign rules would be interesting as a basis

Quote from: Tristram Evans;935029Tony Bath's Hyboria campaign rules would be interesting as a basis

Yeah. And his series of articles titled as I recall "Hyboria, The Campaign that Grew" makes entertaining reading too.

It isn't quite an rpg as we understand it now, more of a wargame campaign, but I guess you could treat it as an rpg where all the characters have political power and the players are all playing the "domain game" (against each other)

Quote from: Zirunel;935037Yeah. And his series of articles titled as I recall "Hyboria, The Campaign that Grew" makes entertaining reading too.

It isn't quite an rpg as we understand it now, more of a wargame campaign, but I guess you could treat it as an rpg where all the characters have political power and the players are all playing the "domain game" (against each other)

FWIW,  that was exactly my impression from reading it a couple months ago.