This rectangular, rose-red flatweave rug is so worn, sun bleached and threadbare that it barely manages to cover the 5' × 8' patch of floor beneath. However, anything placed under it seemingly disappears so long as the rug can cover it wholly. Even if a treasure chest sits on the floor below it, the rug will appear to lay flat on the ground. It could cover a corpse, but a person would have to lay down in order to be magically concealed. The rug won't muffle sound or hide light, nor will it offer protection from damage; a teacup beneath the rug will shatter under foot. If it is disturbed, including by anything beneath it, whatever it covers will reappear.
Monday, August 29, 2022
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
One Rando's Thoughts on Using Lycanthropes
Beoric, with whom I have never shared discourse and don't know from Biblical Adam, made a comment I appreciated on one of Bryce Lynch's reviews:
There are 3 reasons to use a lycanthrope in a module:
(1) they are hidden, and the challenge is to figure out who is a lycanthrope;
(2) the risk of the curse of lycanthropy, which drives play if somebody might have been infected;
(3) you want a regenerating combat opponent and the party is too low level for trolls.
“Wererats in the sewers” defaults to (3), and is overdone and not that interesting to begin with. The curse has been sufficiently nerfed in 5e that it is really not much more than an inconvenience, so (2) is no longer a serious option.
That leaves (1) as the only remaining option that has any potential to be interesting at all. Which clearly should not take place in a sewer, since you need sufficient non-lycanthrope humanoids around for the lycanthropes to blend in. You could have an encounter with wererats in a sewer, disguised as public works workers or some such, but if *everyone* is a wererat in disguise then no wererats are really in disguise.
It will necessarily have a strong social element. The Thing is a better example of this than most werewolf fiction.
Monday, June 20, 2022
The Death of the Old School: Skill Systems
The following is an excerpt from an excellent article, "A Historical Look at the OSR — Part II," written by Keith Hann and published here: http://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/2021/02/a-historical-look-at-osr-part-ii.html
The Death of the Old School—Skill Systems
System-wide skill systems (as opposed to those associated with a single class, like skills for the thief, which debuted in 1975's Supplement I: Greyhawk) were an early game design innovation. They first showed up in 1976 in FGU's Bunnies & Burrows game, but are better known to most through their implementation in Chaosium's popular BRP rules system, starting in 1978 with RuneQuest. Skill systems have some core downsides. They add more rules to the game, imposing a comprehension tax that makes it take longer to learn (and to leaf through the book during the game when you're in search of a rule). And, as with any character option added, they make characters take longer to create, as players want to go through everything available and make informed choices. All the same, there are numerous games that utilize skills well, and if done well they can provide a useful means of differentiating characters and defining their capabilities: this is not an article claiming that there is no role in game design for skill systems.
But to understand why they matter from a specifically old-school perspective, it's important to realize that, when a player wanted to do most anything in the game prior to this point, they usually had to negotiate with the DM for how to do it: was it possible, if so what would it entail, how long would it take (for time was a vital currency in old-school play) and finally, how would it be resolved mechanically (e.g. roll 1D6, 2D6, 1D20; Gygax favoured percentile). A player would a) in general have to describe what they were doing (even if often this was just a very brief description), and b) tend to leave things that were assumed to be outside their grasp to NPC specialists (“why would I know anything about alchemy?”). Tasks were arbitrated on the fly by the DM, with those that came up often enough typically given answers that progressed to the status of house rule. Each group could handle things in their own preferred fashion. With skill lists, even if optional, players tend to look to these as official implementations and want to use them in that fashion, greatly reducing the scope of rulings.
Skills also almost inevitably shift the playstyle to what one might call button-based gameplay. Players no longer feel the need to describe what they’re doing, because the relevant skill check (or its kissing cousin, the attribute check) allows a shortcut. To pick one example, every old-school ruleset back to OD&D had a basic X-in-1D6 roll search method for secret doors, but this existed side by side with a narrative approach to actually finding the door that could entirely obviate the need for a roll; see p. 13 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures and pp. 97 and 99 of the 1st edition DMG for a good example. As time went on, the roll aspect came further to the fore, while the narrative angle retreated to the background. B/X was happy to run with a declaration of intent followed by a roll (p. B21 and B60), as was Mentzer, largely ignoring the narrative element. Eventually we wound up with a universal application of “I make a Search check”, with the narrative element abandoned entirely.[5] This broad tendency is so powerful that even with there being a caveat right in the rules of “X roll shouldn’t take the place of roleplaying or logic”, you still have people just shortcutting to rolls, because people are naturally lazy.[6] To return to the question I opened with, "what sort of gameplay does this rule create?" Here we see a mechanic slowly but surely changing the face of play.
[2] “The Transition Starts Now,” Dragon #99 (July 1985).
[3] The first reference to 1.5e I can find is from 1995, in the rec.games.frp.dnd usenet group.
[4] I'm not including the 1st edition DMG's Secondary Skill system here. This system, which gave a character a pre-adventuring career (e.g. farming, sailor, teamster, hunter, trapper), and a broad knowledge base derived from this, featured no rolls or special abilities. It was "up to the DM to create and/or adjudicate situations in which these skills are used or useful to the player character." This system would be featured as an option in 2nd edition as well, alongside the NWP system.
[5] The common OSR approach to secret doors, as epitomized in Matt Finch's influential A Quick Primer, largely follows the AD&D and earlier approach, but as we have seen, it was not the only method used in old-school play and there has been some pushback against Finch's depiction as overly reductive or even anachronistic. See this Alexandrian article for a 2009 example of such.
[6] Another good example of such includes the D&D/AD&D thief, whose skill-based set of abilities lent itself well to button-based gameplay ("I search for traps"—*rolls*). See also this article on "hidden skills" in B/X, and Grognardia's overview of the thief's role in D&D. At the same time, for those who find the traditional OSR interrogative approach to be an exercise in pixelbitching, cutting to the chase with a simple mechanical solution can be very freeing. Similarly, placing the burden of estimating risk vs reward and the mechanical execution thereof on DMs relied on the DM being good at doing that on the fly, and many were not, easily leading to frustrated players and relief at having something codified by professionals (though one look at the procedures in the Survival Guides made it clear that professionals did not always get it right). Again, we’re largely speaking of how approaches can differ and change, rather than always contrasting right vs. wrong.
Saturday, April 16, 2022
Solo B/X Game
If you know me from the OSR Pick-Up Games Discord channel, you know I've been talking about doing a play-by-post hex crawl for a long time. This is it!
It integrates the full version of Wyvern's Roost (not released) which includes surrounding lair dungeons/caves.
Very early stages. No title yet!
The form/layout is inspired by Grave of the Green Flame.
However, I've spent my whole life playing game books (like Lone Wolf) and Choose Your Own Adventures, not to mention my first D&D (BECMI/Black Box) included a solo adventure as well. It's how I learned to play D&D as a child!
Heck, it's also how I learned Pathfinder/D20!
Growing up and throughout my adulthood, I have always loved all the different styles of solo games, and there were a lot of them.
I hope to make one that's really fun, really simple, and really interesting to play, not just once, but repeatedly!
Friday, December 31, 2021
The Eight Mantras of OSR Gaming
Considering several sources and my own experience running and playing games on the OSR Pick-Up Games Discord server for the last two years, I have created a list of the (currently) eight mantras of OSR-style gaming I most frequently hear and repeat:
1. Imagine the Hell out of it.
2. The OSR is rulings not rules.
3. Play worlds not rules.
4. The OSR is a mindset, not a rules set.
5. The OSR is problems without prescribed solutions.
6. The answer isn't on the character sheet.
7. Combat is a fail state. (I dislike this one. It's become dogma.)
8. The OSR is the players' story, not the game master's.
Here's to another year of OSR gaming!
— Stripe
Thursday, October 28, 2021
Raven Familiar
Black, glossy feathers. A cunning stare. A raven. It knows its master's name and its master's name for it. If commanded, it will fly to his home, wherever it understands that to be. It flies without stopping 50 miles in an hour.
For a master who shows plenty of appreciation in the form of treats and baubles, it will also fetch small objects no heavier or bulkier than a silver teaspoon. It will sometimes steal shiny trinkets and secret them in places only it can find. Of course, anything it steals, it justifiably owns. It takes payments and trades, but never gives.
Like all ravens, it keeps watch for danger. It can take high perch and caw, wretchedly, upon the approach of anything a natural raven would find worthy of scorn, like huntsmen, lumberjacks, and riders. It also caws at restless spirits to tell them to return to the realm of dead.
It detests Mother Nature, her children, and her worshipers. It greatly prefers the roofs and steeples of the city. It eats whatever it wants and is not afraid to make itself an uninvited guest. It never defiles its own nest or makes a mess when perched on its master's shoulder or forearm, but it enjoys targeting those who annoy it.
It will defend its master with beak and talon inflicting 1-3 points of damage. A flying raven gains a bonus of + 2 on its first "to hit" roll against any one opponent due to its speed. It has three hit points, but those come at the expense of its master's maximum. If its master dies, so does it.
Saturday, September 4, 2021
Presto's Hat of Conjuration
Usable once per day, any non-living object the conjurer can imagine may be pulled from this hat so long as he can recite a magical poem describing what's desired. It takes one round to recite the poem while waving one's hand in a circular motion around the up-turned hat. The inside of the hat will begin to glow with mystical energy.
The poem must be spoken aloud in a firm voice. It must consist of at least two verses that rhyme. The use of nonsense words such as "abracadabra" will increase the likelihood of backfire or failure. The conjurer may only use a specific poem once in his lifetime. It must come from his or her own inner creativity; repeating a poem heard or read elsewhere will automatically fail to produce any effect.
On the next round, the conjurer reaches inside and pulls out whatever the hat delivers.
Whatever is pulled from the hat vanishes into thin air 2d12 hours later.
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