Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Ghostse]

So dumb question I have to ask, right? For those of you who played D&D BX/BECMI and AD&D 1e/2e, did you guys really play D&D the way the OSR movement says it was meant to be played? I keep hearing about how their way is the right way to play D&D, yet I also hear people from Dragonsfoot claiming that’s BS.

I'm curious as to what you feel OSR says is the right way?
Because there are 1:1 time faggots trying to twist Gygax's "rigorous time tracking is important" and "Players shouldn't take 10 minutes to respond to a situation they'd have less than 10 seconds to respond to" to "Gygax said all games need to played in real time!"
There are also people who feel if any characters survive to max level of X/E (and would require moving to the C) the GM hasn't done his job.

For me the general thing that makes OSR is Abilities-not-skills, the very real possibility of PC death, and the shift in story telling from a Ballad to an Epic; that is, it isn't the story of how Xanadathear the Teifling, the first one in his family to go to college and how he is dealing with his bisexuality and gender fluidity went on a fabulous adventure to learn how to be a barista, its the story of how Noteleks the Dread Necromancer was finally defeated, including the several brave heroes who fell in the attempt. And in rare cases, its the story of how Baron Thorgar the Fierce fought his way into the landed gentry.

Sure, levels 1-3 were still incredibly lethal because a single arrow from a goblin archer taking cover behind an overturned table would one-shot half the classes available

Unless we're doing a "Welcome to B/X; you are already dead, learn to accept it" intro where the point is to teach 5e players "You can and will die", generally I start my players out at Lvl 3.

They don't want to learn a new system, as if it takes months to learn a new system

I have two issues with learning a new system:
Either the system is so simple & shallow it might as well be a narrative game (or the resolution mechanics are effectively random chance) or it actually has decent depth but I will never, ever find anyone else to play it.

Ok, I've got a 3rd which is often they are written by permatriggered danger hairs and I don't want to play their gay soy shit.

It described 3e and onwards as having "combat as a sport" where it was much more likely for the parties to fight head on and "fairly" since they could afford it.

My primary issue with Combat as War sort of games is the players who like to do all the usual bullshit will A) spend far, far too long on their Home Alone house, and B) melt down when the tables are turned.

3.5 people are willing to try other systems because the crunch of 3.5 was enough that most systems with moderate to extensive crunch weren't immediately off-putting.

I think the main thing I've seen with 3.5 players is
1) 3.5 was in the D20 golden age when there were a ton of D20 system games and 3.5 Donut Steel setting games, or even just Pathfinder. 3.5 is wonderfully flexible, and everyone's 3.5 GM homebrewed SOMETHING, so having the rules changed from what's printed in the book is not a foreign concept. And since 3.5 is such an encompassing system, you can take general 3.5 concepts and with little exception map those other systems' mechanics.

2) Anyone still entertaining 3.5 is a grog or grog-spawn from people pre-trigger warning days. This generally means they aren't sheltered snowflakes and are willing to actually try something new.

 

[AnOminous]

2) Anyone still entertaining 3.5 is a grog or grog-spawn from people pre-trigger warning days. This generally means they aren't sheltered snowflakes and are willing to actually try something new.

This. Plus if Gygax said something it was probably right. And anyone who hates Gygax is automatically wrong.

 

[MaxPayne]

So dumb question I have to ask, right? For those of you who played D&D BX/BECMI and AD&D 1e/2e, did you guys really play D&D the way the OSR movement says it was meant to be played? I keep hearing about how their way is the right way to play D&D, yet I also hear people from Dragonsfoot claiming that’s BS.

It's mostly bullshit. Gary did a lot of Q and As over the years at dragonsfoot. If you take a look through the answers I think it shows a loose amd flexible play style.

PVP

Attacking other PCs was never encouraged in my campaogn or in tournaments I ran...except of the other PCs were acting in a hostile and aggressive manner. Once my fighter PC, Ytag, was adventuiring with the PCs of son Ernie, Rob and Terry Kuntz. Ir was in a Dave Arneson dungeon, and Dave allowed fighters to use wands, so Yrag had a Wand of Lightning. Rob's and Terry's PCs were threatening mine because i had the most treasure, began a whispered conspiratorial planning session. I warned them to cease that, but they ignored the warning. I 'bolted both, the got into a melee with the pair. Ygag eventually dropped both of them, as Ernie's PC watched...hoping to end up with all the loot from the three in combat. The elven watchers in the dungeon put Yrag on trial, but the verdict was justifable homicide. What an odd adventure session That was the last time a PC of mine ever fought a duel to the death with another PC of the party.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=23153&start=330

Character death and retocons

Hi Driver, With the campaign set as it was in the vicinity of the city of Greyhawk, getting brought back to the land of the living wasn't much of a problem, only costly, very costly. All of the major PCs bit the dust one way or another--petrified as was Mordenkainen, poisoned as was Bigby, etc. Wish items were greatly prized and carefully hoarded, reserved for use in such extremis. On the rarest of occassions a particularly ill-fated adventure would be chalked up to a collective bad dream.

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11762&start=150

Rules

Rules lawyers are a pain in the butt How often I have ignored my own in the PHB, DMG, and more recent systems' core rules books would make a rules lawyer's head spin. As if one can not amend one's thinking due to experience and to simplify the complicated … To adhere to rules that do not further the game enjoyment is contrary to the purpose of the whole. The game must be entertaining and enjoyable. … To know when to ignore the rules in favor of the game is problematical for many GMs it would seem. The axiom, circumstances alter cases, is quite beyond those who do not understand the reason for the play of an RPG. … One must indeed know one's subject thoroughly before setting out to personalize (and "improve") upon it. Otherwise, as you note, the results will merit failure.

Indeed! As a matter of fact the DM can do whatever he wishes, assuming that his player group generally agree and do not abandon the campaign because of such alterations

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=15314&start=90
: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=15314&start=300

That dosent sound like the highly lethal style of gaming that OSR purists revere.

 

[Red Dragon]

That doesn't sound like the highly lethal style of gaming that OSR purists revere.

That's because the majority of these so called "purists" are no-game losers or anti-woke faggots. They don't like to play, they're just in it to be part of the contrarian bandwagon.

Also, the newly converted are always more fanatical than the old believers. I think a lot of these purists never played anything before D&D3.5.

 

[Gingervitis]

I hate how I can’t just reply to you.

Character death and retocons
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11762&start=150

That gets me wondering how that works. How much does it cost for a revival from the local church? I assume the cost of material components are part of it, but surely the church would add cost of labor to it. And if the PCs can’t pay, could the church ask the party to perform a task for them instead?

PVP
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=23153&start=330

And this raises more interesting questions. Like, what does his group do when he has lawful and chaotic party members (or in non-0e/BX speak, good vs evil) in the same party? And for that matter, what about when one player is interested in playing as a paladin, who up until 2e could only play with lawful (BX and 0e) or good (1e) party members, and another is interested in playing as a thief?

These are all questions I’d love to ask Gygax, but for some reason he hasn’t been answering anyone’s questions in a while.

 

[Gingervitis]

This. Plus if Gygax said something it was probably right. And anyone who hates Gygax is automatically wrong.

Well, what if Gygax said, “I was wrong about everything and you should hate me?”

Checkmate, atheists. :^)

 

[BlazikenLover]

Have any of you played Mythras? If so, what can you tell me about the system?
I read some of the rules ages ago but could never get a game going, I thought rolls getting half of one stat and half of another as a modifier was cool but don't recall much else.

 

[Sayer of the N-Word]

That's because the majority of these so called "purists" are no-game losers or anti-woke faggots. They don't like to play, they're just in it to be part of the contrarian bandwagon.

Also, the newly converted are always more fanatical than the old believers. I think a lot of these purists never played anything before D&D3.5.

Prewritten OSR modules are really not all that different from what you see for 5e, and the GMs who homebrew those systems take level, balance, and survivability into account to a far greater degree than they like to claim on their forums and Facebook groups. I suspect that they would hate true old school dungeon delving or hexcrawls, where characters risk death but usually survive because players have the freedom to avoid unwinnable situations and don't have to worry about straying from an adventure path.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

The last 5e campaign I played in we lost to an aboleth. We just treated it as a TPK and rolled new characters. Eventually we had to face off against our old PCs which had been enslaved.

Session 1: There are reports of undead in the sewers. Investigate and, if able, destroy any you find.
Session 2: Orcs are disrupting trade with raiding. Locate the camps and if you can bring back a few heads, there's a bonus.
Session 3: Greetings, new adventurers! Orcs are disrupting trade with raiding. Locate the camps and if you can bring back a few heads and the remains of the previous adventurers (or at least the ones that were also part of the city guard) there's a bonus!

 

[Adamska]

2) Anyone still entertaining 3.5 is a grog or grog-spawn from people pre-trigger warning days. This generally means they aren't sheltered snowflakes and are willing to actually try something new.

This is true. Even the most reluctant to shift players in my gaming group enjoy a couple of other games outside of it.

Prewritten OSR modules are really not all that different from what you see for 5e, and the GMs who homebrew those systems take level, balance, and survivability into account to a far greater degree than they like to claim on their forums and Facebook groups. I suspect that they would hate true old school dungeon delving or hexcrawls, where characters risk death but usually survive because players have the freedom to avoid unwinnable situations and don't have to worry about straying from an adventure path.

Most of them just copy 5e in general since it does most of the lifting for them honestly. Especially if they focus mainly on the lower levels where the system is better able to be played.

Oh yeah, fun fact: one of the biggest reasons that 5e is jank is because during dev time they kept waffling on power brackets during design. Each batch of four levels was supposed to be a tier, with an ability score improvement being the signal that you're about to exit to the next bracket. You were supposed to get a new class feature to tell you when you hit that next tier.

They fiddled with it to try to hide it, which is why some classes had subclass features earlier, and they fucking gave up by Tier 4 since they ran out of ideas and couldn't be bothered. Also fun fact: Rest was a last minute add on to 5e.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

It's like they were trying to copy the level tiers from Savage Worlds and did it poorly. Which... I find unsurprising.

By rest, do you mean the short rest/long rest mechanics?

 

[Neo-Holstien]

I am going to be playing a pathfinder 2e campaign, I was wondering if Rogue Ruffian was the best choice for a Militia type character, someone who uses light armor and is generally better at looting a village than defending it, also I want feed back on my build.

 

[Adamska]

It's like they were trying to copy the level tiers from Savage Worlds and did it poorly. Which... I find unsurprising.

By rest, do you mean the short rest/long rest mechanics?

Short rest was shat out at the last minute since they fundamentally did not get that the long rest covered adventuring just fine. They then shat out abilities that exploited that last minute add on.

Also 5e was supposed to have proficiencies with damage. They axed it to avoid high lethality at low levels. Oh, and the designers were too retarded to just axe HD and have you take the average result. They loathed rolling HP, but were too fucking stupid to just make it average.

 

[Tom Bombodildo]

Oh, and the designers were too retarded to just axe HD and have you take the average result. They loathed rolling HP, but were too fucking stupid to just make it average.

That's really funny to me. Pathfinder Organized Play doing average for each new Hit Die in character progression convinced me to institute that in all my games almost instantly. PCs end up with slightly more HP than they would otherwise (while also removing unusually weak or beefy PCs) so you can be a little rougher with them on the combats. And character death feels more legit if it's a character they designed without having been fucked over by random chance in some aspect of creation or progression.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Oh, and the designers were too retarded to just axe HD and have you take the average result. They loathed rolling HP, but were too fucking stupid to just make it average.

Pathfinder Organized Play doing average for each new Hit Die in character progression convinced me to institute that in all my games almost instantly.

I remember getting shit on for this years ago in the thread, but I remain convinced that there's a lot of legacy rules that designers should bite the bullet and just cut already, but are too cowardly to make the commitment for risk of pissing off the player base.

The 3-18 attribute scale being a key one. It made sense when you rolled 3D6 for stats, but is just bloat that confuses newbies in 5e and PF2. They should just have the bonus.

Another thing they should revamp are spell levels. Either have spells correlate to character level, or make spell levels a letter like Cantrip, Level A, Level B, Level C, etc. Again, it's a pointless anachronism that does nothing but introduce needless confusion.

But if I were to really get unpopular, any kind of multiple roll abilities or spells should be done away with. Roll to hit, on a hit roll to save, then roll damage is ridiculous. That's not one, but three chances for the spell/ability to completely wiff. I think so many players lean on magic missile, scorching ray, and fireball so much (though fireball can fall into this camp as well) is because they're more reliable.


This is why I defend things like Knave's slot based inventory, or PathFinder 2s 3 action system. These are almost universally great changes, and I've yet to hear a compelling argument against them. It's either nit picking or complaining that it was different from 3.5.

 

[The Ugly One]

Roll to hit, on a hit roll to save, then roll damage is ridiculous.

I don't think there are any 5e spells that work this way. Never say never, but I can't think of any.

Players like magic missile, scorching ray, and fireball because they're easy to understand. Point finger, zap, do damage. The value of something like Fear or Silent Image is less obvious.

 

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

I remember getting shit on for this years ago in the thread, but I remain convinced that there's a lot of legacy rules that designers should bite the bullet and just cut already, but are too cowardly to make the commitment for risk of pissing off the player base.

This is more or less this criticism that the famous "Fatal and Friends" review of Pathfinder levied most of the time; that the game copied way too many legacy rules from 3.5, instead of just cutting them where they made no sense, thus copying all of the worst aspects of that era of D&D and not really improving upon it at all.

 

[Ghostse]

I remember getting shit on for this years ago in the thread, but I remain convinced that there's a lot of legacy rules that designers should bite the bullet and just cut already, but are too cowardly to make the commitment for risk of pissing off the player base.

The 3-18 attribute scale being a key one. It made sense when you rolled 3D6 for stats, but is just bloat that confuses newbies in 5e and PF2. They should just have the bonus.

Another thing they should revamp are spell levels. Either have spells correlate to character level, or make spell levels a letter like Cantrip, Level A, Level B, Level C, etc. Again, it's a pointless anachronism that does nothing but introduce needless confusion.

But if I were to really get unpopular, any kind of multiple roll abilities or spells should be done away with. Roll to hit, on a hit roll to save, then roll damage is ridiculous. That's not one, but three chances for the spell/ability to completely wiff. I think so many players lean on magic missile, scorching ray, and fireball so much (though fireball can fall into this camp as well) is because they're more reliable.


This is why I defend things like Knave's slot based inventory, or PathFinder 2s 3 action system. These are almost universally great changes, and I've yet to hear a compelling argument against them. It's either nit picking or complaining that it was different from 3.5.

The problem with 3-18 attritribute scale isn't the scale, its how they use it. Score attributes shouldn't scale linearly and only matter on evens, they should scale. B/X, you could only get a +3 max.
Anyway, they keep it for backwards compatibility.

I saw a 2d6-roll-under system where there was no HP, you just took stat damage. There was a risk/reward between doing things between sessions (i.e. get drunk to gain charisma, but run a risk of losing intelligence; gamble to increase perception but risk having no money for gear, do drugs to temporarily boost stats the next mission, but risk taking permanent damage/addition)
Anyway, you had pips you filled in to track going up bonus levels that roughly followed the bell curve of 2d6; going from 2 to 3 only took 1 pip, but going from 11 to 12 took a lot - but that almsot meant going from 11 to 10 meant taking a lot of damage.
(I can't remember the name or too much about about it, I think it was a heist game. Didn't go any further with it because it really prioritized a good character creation roll, made seriously injured characters worse-than-worthless, and it looked like it was going to lead to failure cascade situations)


Pathfinder's action system has the same sort of issues 4e's does - which is while it works great mathematically, it feels rather unsatisfying in play.

I don't think there are any 5e spells that work this way. Never say never, but I can't think of any.

I think he might be talking about counter spell. But I recall some 5e spells that got a save before damage, but that might be me mixing some things up. I try to remember the least possible about 5e.

Short rest was shat out at the last minute since they fundamentally did not get that the long rest covered adventuring just fine. They then shat out abilities that exploited that last minute add on.

5e's rests are one of the few mechanics about 5e I like. I like the rolling HD to recover HP on short rests, and the long rest only replacing half the HD pool. That and advantage I like to steal whenever possible.

I'm not going to argue with you that WotC fucked it up how it plays with all bullshit skills, feats, and spells that remove any actual tension with using it, but the concept is good.

That's really funny to me. Pathfinder Organized Play doing average for each new Hit Die in character progression convinced me to institute that in all my games almost instantly. PCs end up with slightly more HP than they would otherwise (while also removing unusually weak or beefy PCs) so you can be a little rougher with them on the combats. And character death feels more legit if it's a character they designed without having been fucked over by random chance in some aspect of creation or progression.

For pathfinder/3.x/4/5, I always go with static HP/averages and point buys. There is too much that goes into building character in those systems to waste everyone's time with getting fucked by random chance. (Or just as often "Um yup totally I rolled over 16 six times in a row when I was building this. Definitely. And look, so did everyone else") The most I've done for random chance on stats for those systems in past.... decade and half or so is have players roll on a point buy array chart to give them the scores they will assign to their stats.

For B/X, provided its not pregens I go with 7 3d6 or 6 4d6, drop the lowest (or if I'm feeling nice, 26d+6, reroll 1s and 6s keep the 2nd result) but otherwise suck it up buttercup since character gen is about 40 seconds, and having the player come up with character backstory that explains their janky stats is the only time their higher brain functions engage during the process.

 

[AnOminous]

For B/X, provided its not pregens I go with 7 3d6 or 6 4d6, drop the lowest (or if I'm feeling nice, 26d+6, reroll 1s and 6s keep the 2nd result) but otherwise suck it up buttercup since character gen is about 40 seconds, and having the player come up with character backstory that explains their janky stats is the only time their higher brain functions engage during the process.

With old school D&D I'd usually do 6d6 take top 3, plus let you assign the scores to the attributes you wanted. And if it still really sucked you'd get a do-over. I also just automatically gave level 1s max HPs and stuff like that, to avoid the "entire party gets wiped by feral cats" scenario.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

I do 4d6 drop lowest with the option of a Mulligan if you get something that is truly trash but you must accept the second result. I had one player get solid scores, Mulligan and then get hot garbage.