Quote from: Maese Mateo;748535Never played it.

It's not easy to find old school gamers in Argentina. I'm trying to start a Dungeon Crawl Classics game online, but so far I only have one interested player.

See, if you lived in Uruguay you'd be able to get all the Old School you like, live!

Quote from: Larsdangly;748518Yeah, whenever I make home brewed games I re-imagine clerics as either some form of wizard or some form of fighter, depending on what they like to do in the game; the thing that makes them special is a social role as a leader in a church, and perhaps access to some sort of miraculous powers. I don't really like them as an alternate spell caster class.

The only clerics I like are Rune Priests from RQ. Frankly I don't think you need anything but fighters and MUs.

Quote from: Larsdangly;747736First off, I'm confused by the OP. I just re-read OD&D yesterday and there are definitely morale rules in the first book!


Anyway, I think the biggest thing I would change if I had a time machine and the psychic ability to control the minds of game designers would be the way the 'alternate combat system' works. If you ever play OD&D using Chainmail combat, you will find that fighting men become very powerful as an offensive force in combat within a few levels. By level 4 or 5 they are mowing down common foes and can stand up to powerful beasts. Keep exactly the same character with exactly the same stats, HP and equipment but switch to the 'alternate combat system' (d20 vs. AC, etc.), and your fighter is not significantly better at delivering attacks than he or she would be as a magic user or cleric, and has barely advanced from the start of play. It is kind of shocking when you crunch a few numbers in your head (or better yet play Chainmail!). If I had to guess I would say it wasn't totally intentional - they just wanted something that ran faster and didn't require a copy of Chainmail and this is what they came up with. You could argue that a huge driver of the re-engineering of the game in 3E and 4E was an attempt to finally restore the original dynamic that a moderate-level warrior in Chainmail is actually really tough.

Agree with this. Chainmail based MU, casts fireball. Chainmail based fighter, is a fireball.

Quote from: Kiero;748743I don't know what you're smoking, but I couldn't give a toss about "social justice".

That thread rather aptly demonstrated why I think most fantasy settings are shite compared to using history itself.

Have you tried Harnmaster? It would be trivially easy to use for a purely historical game. Of course dying from infection is a real threat, so it wouldn't meet your "no non-humans, real historical settings are better, and PCs must be super-special" criteria, since it only covers the first two.

Quote from: Kiero;748743That thread rather aptly demonstrated why I think most fantasy settings are shite compared to using history itself.

Because people and cultures in Earth's history didn't fervently believe things and seek to get those values universally imposed/accepted?  

Quote from: Spinal Tarp;748480Plenty of things I would've begged Gary to ommit/change/add but if I had to choose just one it would be to not include Clerics.

When this thread started I couldn't think of a single thing but then this post came up.

Quote from: apparition13;749053Have you tried Harnmaster? It would be trivially easy to use for a purely historical game. Of course dying from infection is a real threat, so it wouldn't meet your "no non-humans, real historical settings are better, and PCs must be super-special" criteria, since it only covers the first two.

I think I played someone's Harn game briefly. But I've already bent B/X/ACKS to historical quite neatly, so I don't need a new system.

Quote from: Ravenswing;749122Because people and cultures in Earth's history didn't fervently believe things and seek to get those values universally imposed/accepted?  

Because history has a depth and relevance fantasy settings can only dream of. When I go away and research stuff for a historical game, I'm adding to my knowledge of real things, not just filling my head with fictional garbage.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;747964I like to believe that if Gary knew that so many non-wargamers would play D&D, he would have incorporated the rules into OD&D and removed references to chainmail, making OD&D a complete standalone game

OD&D also points you at Outdoor Survival for outdoors stuff.

As for things Id want to see changed?

Get rid of halflings.

Quote from: Kiero;749513Because history has a depth and relevance fantasy settings can only dream of.

... of which your players don't give a damn.

This is a common fault of gamers, especially gamebook authors, who love to spell out complex histories, timelines and events going back centuries or millennia.  But very few players care.  With very few exceptions, no one gives a damn that (say) Empress Lynessia III was the last monarch of Vallia to personally lead troops in war, winning the decisive battle of Fourth Council Rock against the Avanari 174 years ago.  What's interesting to some of them -- and by no means all of them -- is that the empires of Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies and have a turbulent, heavily militarized border, and that the last full-scale war was seventeen years ago.

Or take another common situation: Big Nation conquers Smaller Nation, rules it as a colony for centuries, brings in immigrants with their own way of worship, most of whom settle in a particular province of Smaller Nation, and permanent sectarian friction ensues, especially after the colonial power pulls away.  Lots of scope for plots there.

Now sure, you could call that Northern Ireland, or the Indian subcontinent, and there are hundreds of books and thousands of articles of depth.  But how does that affect play?  You could put that into two or three paragraphs, at most, for all the players will care, most of which discusses those cultural practices one side favors that pisses the other side off and the terrorist groups seeking to push things their way.

Quote from: Ravenswing;749530... of which your players don't give a damn.

So what; they're not the ones running the game. It gives me a lot of neat details I can pull out when relevant to make the setting much richer and more engaging.

Quote from: Ravenswing;749530This is a common fault of gamers, especially gamebook authors, who love to spell out complex histories, timelines and events going back centuries or millennia.  But very few players care.  With very few exceptions, no one gives a damn that (say) Empress Lynessia III was the last monarch of Vallia to personally lead troops in war, winning the decisive battle of Fourth Council Rock against the Avanari 174 years ago.  What's interesting to some of them -- and by no means all of them -- is that the empires of Vallia and Avanar are traditional enemies and have a turbulent, heavily militarized border, and that the last full-scale war was seventeen years ago.

Or take another common situation: Big Nation conquers Smaller Nation, rules it as a colony for centuries, brings in immigrants with their own way of worship, most of whom settle in a particular province of Smaller Nation, and permanent sectarian friction ensues, especially after the colonial power pulls away.  Lots of scope for plots there.

Now sure, you could call that Northern Ireland, or the Indian subcontinent, and there are hundreds of books and thousands of articles of depth.  But how does that affect play?  You could put that into two or three paragraphs, at most, for all the players will care, most of which discusses those cultural practices one side favors that pisses the other side off and the terrorist groups seeking to push things their way.

You've just illustrated the same issue you edited out of my quote, it's fictional bollocks. I care much less about that than I do enriching my knowledge of things that actually happened and have bearing on the real world.

(shrugs)  What I left out of your quote was the part having nothing to do with gaming.  If what you're saying is that you prefer to stick with real history because you only have so much headspace, and because your real interest is in becoming a better and more informed historian?  Fair enough, those are worthwhile goals.  They just don't have jack to do with gaming, and it's silly to pretend that they do.  It's all about your amour propre.

Quote from: RPGPundit;748978See, if you lived in Uruguay you'd be able to get all the Old School you like, live!

I'll take that as an invitation to contact you if I visit Uruguay on my vacations.

Quote from: Kiero;749513Because history has a depth and relevance fantasy settings can only dream of. When I go away and research stuff for a historical game, I'm adding to my knowledge of real things, not just filling my head with fictional garbage.

History: Fiction or Science?
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources

http://www.amazon.com/History-Fiction-Science-Chronology-No/dp/2913621058

Under the Black Flag
For this rousing, revisionist history, the former head of exhibitions at England's National Maritime Museum has combed original documents and records to produce a most authoritative and definitive account of piracy's "Golden Age." As he explodes many accepted myths (i.e. "walking the plank" is pure fiction), Cordingly replaces them with a truth that is more complex and often bloodier. 16 pp. of photos. Maps.

Under the Black Flag


Most things, are in fact fiction, right up until the time someone makes it a history. So history is fiction, redefined. For example...

The United States didn't exist, at least, not until the colonies successfully rebelled against the crown.

At one time the United Kingdom didn't exist. First it was a loose collection of barbarian tribes, Then it was a Roman Province, Then it was a divided kingdom, one part Celtic-Roman, the other part Saxon. A kingdom that was relentlessly invaded and raided by Vikings, then invaded again by Normans, kinfolk to those original conquered Celtic-Romans remaining in Briton, who were now also part Saxon as well.

When the last King, Henry VIII, of the original English/Celtic Bloodline, The Tudor Kings, died out, they in turn were replaced by the Stuarts, a line Saxon/Celtic Kings from Norther Briton... who were in turn replaced by fullblood Saxons... in 1701 King George I succeeded the last of the Stuart lineage, Queen Anne. King George I was a Saxon from Hanover, Germany.

Still the United Kingdom, was not united. It wouldn't be until King George III came to power in 1760 that the United Kingdom would be considered United, although multiple rebellions broke out in both Scotland, and Ireland, and a lasting peace was not achieved until, 2005.

Sadly although the peace lasted, the United Kingdom did not. They have bent the knee as a charter member of the European Union in 2009, and are no longer an Independent nation.

European Union

Studying history is to study fiction. It's a study of fiction sponsored by the men with the most, or best, swords and guns, ...but not necessarily the men who value truth, although from time-to-time, they are indeed one and the same.

You've been reading the Daily Mail too much.

Quote from: GameDaddy;749935
History: Fiction or Science?
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources

http://www.amazon.com/History-Fiction-Science-Chronology-No/dp/2913621058

We are getting way off topic here but this book is considered seriously fringe by historians.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;749940We are getting way off topic here but this book is considered seriously fringe by historians.

Probably not the best example... just one of the first that I was able to find. I've done research and investigations myself that examines evidence that is far older than the eleventh century CE, and found both reliable, and repeatable results... so some of the claims of the book are off, right from the start.

The others... the fictions that became history as part of the pirate lore ...and the fictional United States that became real, and the fiction of a United Kingdom, that was, in fact, only united for a total of fours years during the entire last two Millennia...

How is that off-topic?

Quote from: GameDaddy;749942How is that off-topic?

I dont see what it has to do directly with RPGs or OD&D. It feels like a politcal/social science/psuedo-history discussion to me.