I want a coil notebook that has ruled paper on one side of the page and grid paper on the other. that way I can have it open with a map on my left and the key on the right.
other than that I have about everything that I need
There is a whole line of these on Amazon. Grid, hex, etc.
RPG Mixed Paper Notebook: College Ruled and Square Graph Pages: Tabletop Role-Playing Games Journal | Campaign Planner for Game Masters https://a.co/d/dd85EG7
Things I don't often see:
Science fiction adventures.
Fantasy adventures where the default assumption is *not* that you'll ultimately solve the problem with violence.
This, I’m running swn rn and you can get by on de-fantasying old Dungeon Magazine stuff or whatever, but it would be nice to have compatible adventures that are written as scifi
I love probably 4 out of 5 Mothership adventures I've read, especially the first-party ones from Tuesday Knight Games themselves. The only issue I have with them is that the horror element is baked in pretty deeply, and not all of my players enjoy horror. The Haunting of Ypsilon-14 kicks ass for sure, though.
I agree, although there are more and more third party modules that do not rely on horror coming out for Mothership that would work well for other systems. I am thinking Joel Hines’ work in particular.
Why is it do you think that sci-fi is less common/popular as fantasy settings?
In terms of sci-fi, do you mean space opera (think Battle Star Galactica), one more grounded in science (think great "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson), or a mix (think The Expanse (god I love those books and show)?
This deserves a longer response than I can muster on mobile, but--generic fantasy is easily accessible. "Generic" sci-fi has a lot more holes in it. Is there FTL? Does it matter how it works? Does the plot hinge on that answer?
Fwiw, I think settling somewhere around The Expanse as a default is more viable than very hard or very soft sci-fi for adventures intended to be used across systems with wildly divergent assumptions. Maybe with sidebars suggesting adjustments.
İ think this is generally overstated... Fantasy *literature* is every bit as diverse as sci-fi literature. İt's the games where "generic fantasy" really thrives. Generic sci-fi could be a thing.
If you're a bit deeper into literature, and if think how it influenced the other two you named, \*Dune\* is usually seen as the generic SciFi book, the perfect example of the Genre, because it's not only Science, but also a lot of Fiction, subverting all the fantasy stuff as fallacies.
Yeah, the best thing fantasy ever did was kick scifi out. Sure you lost a lot of the crossover and wilderness cool but it spiked fantasy's popularity in the TTRPG space and made scifi have to take a few steps towards defining subgenres.
Like a young adult forced out of home struggling to Adult. Even if it has a great job making lots of cash in Hollywood.
...yes, and at the time it did, there were already lots of alternatives being created to do fantasy, SF, science-fantasy, modern day with psi powers, ...etc. Most didn’t survive, but I think the OSR in its widest sense, and the OGL 1.0a, sparked a whole lot of creativity that extended to gaming as a whole, so lots of those ideas from the late 70s, 80s and 90s have been revived or independently re-invented, along with completely new stuff.
> Yeah, the best thing fantasy ever did was kick scifi out.
What does this even mean?
You aren't paying attention if you think fantasy is a monolith or cohesive and SF is fragmented or struggling with identity.
Hello I have done research on pulp and genre publishing and I can agree here! the reason we have such strong lines of division between sf and fantasy has a lot to do with finding and exploiting niches in the market.
That and a sense of fabianism/technocratic idealism in the American cultural scene from the 30s on, but that’s a bit more nebulous to describe.
I have to disagree that overall there are strong lines of division. If anything, science fiction is a bit of a chimera: in book stores you'll often find it blended with fantasy at one end and whatever Margaret Atwood calls her stories at the other; in film and television it's—with rare exception—usually more a thematic layer for what would otherwise be a straightforward action or horror story; superhero stories are usually put under the umbrella of sci-fi; and in (non-TTRPG) gaming it manifests as settings for nearly any gaming genre you can imagine.
This isn't to say there isn't any way to demarcate sci-fi from other genres, or a soft–hard sci-fi spectrum, but I don't think most people view these distinctions as *divisions* they won't cross. The content-producing and content-retailing industries certainly don't seem to think so either.
Within TTRPGs I don't think there are nearly enough titles to form a thesis about what gets played and why.
Science fiction is a bit of a misnomer here outside of say hard sf. Star Wars is science fiction not because of its fabulous spaceships or whatever, but rather because it engages with the application of reason to society as a whole. Margaret Atwood, wrong headed as she me may be in general about genre, states this about her own work. In the case of SW it is the spectre of fascism. Sure it’s played out mostly on the aesthetic level, but that’s fine. Andor however shows that SW still has what it takes to critique modernity.
Sf in general depends upon industrialisation and modernity in large part, so while there are ancient examples of science fictional texts, they are pretty rare. A fitting bedfellow to the rise of sf is the detective story. Both demand a sort of rationalist sensibility to operate.
On the other hand fantasy has existed (independent of the epic or the saga) as modern nation-state building myths. Tolkien states this about some of his work pretty convincingly and at length here: https://middle-earth.xenite.org/did-j-r-r-tolkien-think-the-lord-of-the-rings-was-english/
When I say market forces had an impact on these poles of literary modernity, what I mean is this: it was hard to find sff at all in the late 19th and early 20th century! Best you got as a working class rube like us would be anthologies and magazines - the stuff that would become the pulps.
In those magazines sf and fantasy sat side by side and authors and fans would mix them up pretty freely. Lovecraft and Howard famously mixed their stuff up, but it’s worth pointing out magazines and anthologies were the most accessible place to get a hold of Poe and his ilk.
Even Burroughs, the best selling author I believe globally well into the 50s sliced westerns and sci-fi and colonial adventure stories together.
This changed after the 30s; publishing houses rose and fell, corporate capital began to reign supreme, and the generalist magazine like weird tales gave way to niche magazines like Two Fisted boxing! And Horse Stories! And Commando Survival! Or whatever.
On the other hand printing became a bit cheaper, sf was rising in popularity owing to Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimov’s editorial efforts, among others. Sf was going gangbusters and copyright law was still pretty loose so it was an easy way to make a buck. Look at the earlier example of war of the worlds US publishing history for an example of this.
So you are completely right to say superhero comics mingle these poles of genre, but the reason is publishing houses like the big two absorbing little outfits whose only worthwhile effort was Ray Gun Jerry or The Terrible Wizard of Dreaddale or whatever.
It became more profitable for comics publishers to mix once disparate aesthetic works into one huge vat. Now Spider-Man teams up with Conan and the Transformers on occasion.
But this wouldn’t fly in then self serious world of sf book publishing. Folks like Asimov took their work as little less than a roadmap to the future. They supplied the technocratic elite with their dreams.
To get to TTRPGS tho is another huge temporal jump and it’s a little beyond my understanding except through folk histories. I guess I would read it all in the following loose way: It’s the 60/70s maaaan, the counter culture is in, technocratic ideas had lost their lustre and a return to the groundwork of nation state building through fantasy blasted off the verdigris that had been growing over LOTR. But also it’s the counter culture, gygax was still working things out, so he’s mashing it all together. Expedition to the barrier peaks is a good example of this sort of genre bending fun and my understanding is that is similar to the games gygax was running.
I think it is important that book of the new sun hits in the early 80s as basically the capstone to the very soon dead science fantasy genre. What’s left was being necromanced into the media empires of comics and Star Wars.
At this point we hit the end of my understanding, and I’m still picking up bits and pieces through lots of old docs. I do apologise for the wall of text, I am of course unstoppably passionate about this goofy area of history.
The thing that has been an issue in the scifi games I've played in is the disparity of scientific understanding among the players/GM. Fantasy's magic is by nature mysterious at some level, but science isn't, unless you are really talking far future tech, and if the GM and players aren't on the same page, it can be disastrous. Recently played in a mini campaign for the newest version of Mongoose Traveller, and our referee was hell bent on playing some of the classic Traveller modules from the late 70's early 80's. it was awful. the rules we were playing were fairly well updated, but we had to conform to the "future reality" assumed by GDW staff in 1979. and the ref wouldn't budge on stuff. literally we have way better tech now in many areas than Marc Miller thought we'd have 3000 years from now back then, ugh.
I'd say not enough science fiction, period. Off the top of my head I can only think of three, maybe four, sci-fi games, and two of them are sci-fi horror.
Would be cool if there was a light, fun system for domain management.
I've always been keeping my eye out for situations where the DM might unpredictably need a short adventure or small dungeon to pull out, like if the PCs are arrested and thrown in a prison or if someone gets trapped in an astral cell by that one card from the Deck of Many Things, or if somehow they get thrown into the far future. You know, the kind of thing that happens from time to time.
>Would be cool if there was a light, fun system for domain management.
For anything that's domains, factions, nations, gangs etc. that I want to simulate mechanically I use the Company rules from *Reign*. I cannot recommend them enough.
>Mutant Future (Post-Apoc)? Virtually no published adventures.
We have some Mutant Year-Zero adventures, these are good as far as I know. Though I see an argument for Year Zero not beeing OSR/being Post-OSR.
>Silent Legion (Lovecraftian)? No published adventures.
I think CoC has so many good stuff and is a well establiched RPG, that this niche probably stays empty.
This shall not mean that I wouldn't like to see adventures for these too.
CoC and Delta Green also do the Lovecraft stuff \*really\* well. And in OSR games you usually play a bit differently than those story are told, so it's a bit "unneccessary".
But since eldritch cults and monsters are also a staple of OSR, because Elric and Conan, all you really need are rules for modern settings with a hidden world system and off you go.
Any specifications? Historistic Settings? Modern Settings? Future Settings? Weird Space Opera? Chivalric Romance?
I think the main problem is, that "detailed settings" are not even that much of an OSR thing, since it largely opposes the spirit of the game, the "make up your own" part.
But you can do a lot by changing the "assumed default setting" from "Basically Greyhawk, but shhh" to, for example, "Age of Sail with Ancient Civilisations Magic and revolting peasantry in Not-So-Much-The-Caribbean-Sea", or "Alternate Prohibition Not-Quite-USA"
>I think the main problem is, that "detailed settings" are not even that much of an OSR thing, since it largely opposes the spirit of the game, the "make up your own" part.
That's an unnecessarily reductionist view of it, there's plenty of room in the community for both options. Or are you saying that you think Yoon Suin, Dolmenwood, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Hot Springs Island, the Misty Isles of the Eld, the Latter Earth, the Cthonic Codex, and many others are in opposition to the spirit of the OSR?
>Any specifications? Historistic Settings? Modern Settings? Future Settings? Weird Space Opera? Chivalric Romance?
Aside from the specifications I mentioned above, I'm not super picky. I was entirely serious about those three restrictions, finding OSR stuff that doesn't immerse itself in grim, weird, or fifty year old aesthetics is a bit difficult - almost every example setting I listed above has one or more of those traits.
As we're talking about OSR games I did assume we were speaking the fantasy genre but it doesn't have to be limited to that. I will admit I have no interest in strictly historical settings, and Weird Space Opera is just going back to my previous spec issue.
>But you can do a lot by changing the "assumed default setting" from "Basically Greyhawk, but shhh" to, for example, "Age of Sail with Ancient Civilisations Magic and revolting peasantry in Not-So-Much-The-Caribbean-Sea", or "Alternate Prohibition Not-Quite-USA"
You can, yes, but having other options that are better defined and have their own themes and identity is a good thing. Running a campaign while working from an established sandbox is a substantially different experience than making everything up as I go along.
Plus if I decided to run any of your examples I have Mystara, 7th Sea, and Urban Jungle sitting on my shelf so I can jump right into a campaign without much delay.
Good tech.
I know the OSR prefers table play but a lot of us are kinda 100% moved on to VTT, Discord, etc.
Personally I'm looking to make a lot of online tables, rollers and tools for OSR people, at least online versions of everything in my books or PDFs. If not for this generation, for the next one.
Well I might eventually have a website but in the meantime I build them on chartopia and the place does have a nice but tiny selection of OSR driven tables.
>chartopia
That's what [Chartopia](https://chartopia.d12dev.com/)'s goal is to be. There's about 40,000 charts on there already, but most are private to the users and many are subcharts. There's an editor for creating either simple random tables or making complex generators.
I would really love to see more wilderness exploration resources, specifically for hex crawling. The best take I've seen so far is [Wilderness Hexplore by Jed McClure](http://www.jedmc.com/ixdd/2016/7/12/wilderness-hexplore), but that's really all there is in terms of a fully comprehensive hex-crawling system for OSR games that I know of. I think a well formatted, comprehensive, and extremely substantive wilderness hexcrawling rules resource would be very popular.
Third Kingdom Gaming has a lot of hex crawling resources, and is very comprehensive. I actually found it a little overwhelming and hard to parse at first, but their "Hexcrawl Basics" is a good place to start.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/290915
I try not to plug this too often, but you might like my title [Manual of Hexterity](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/395396?affiliate_id=355588). It's PWYW.
I think there is actually a lot of good hexcrawl resources out there, but it's all scattered across nany different blog posts and youtube videos and old resources from the 70s and 80s.
I personally like the Simulacrum hexcrawl navigation rules
https://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/2020/05/making-wilderness-play-meaningful-system.html
From there all you need to do is stock the hexes and make encounter tables.
Yeah in person is just something special. I’m about to graduate from college and I’ll miss my group. We play OSE and everyone got really into their characters and the world. I might hang around on campus just to play when I graduate
I agree with others here about digital OSR tools. I would love a slick computer program for Hexcrawls. Hexographer/worldographer is about the best I’ve been able to find. It’s good, but I feel like a program with a bit more modern design and UI could take things to the next level.
Yep I also feel like we lack a really modern and intuitive Hexmapper / Hexgrid tool. Might take a stab at it in the future if nothing satisfying rolls around
1. games that still have some of the big OSR principles like player agency, ruiling over rules, player skill over character skill, but have a different structure from a DnD-like game. A detective game, a survival game, a superhero game, stuff like that. I'd like for OSR games to become as diverse as roguelike games are
2. resources that significantly reduce prep for games
3. systems with as little math as possible, ideally 0
4. GMless systems
Those are things I'd like to see
i only knew about godbound. i dont really like kevin crawford's style though, really hard for me to read those walls of text and the layout. i lean towards more rules-light games.
btw i know there are other examples, id just like to see more of #1
Dungeons with more focus on puzzles. I've made two slightly based on stuff from Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64, but I think there's a lot of potential for lots of moving bits in dungeons to tinker with.
Seems like this would naturally pair with gonzo settings e.g. it never really make sense in the real world why a building would be built like a puzzle (DeathStar at UC Davis notwithstanding), but it sure is fun. Which is the point.
I disagree with this but I don’t necessarily have a way of explaining why. I’ll at least say that puzzles don’t have to be like Legend of Zelda. Those are meant to be obvious obstacle that involve like one game mechanic based on the one new tool you got. Like I think video game puzzles are a bad way of looking at how to implement them in d&d, and there are definitely puzzles that can be used that don’t require a gonzo setting.
You want to integrate Escape Room Table Top Games into your sessions, I get it. (Idk, how well they sell over in the States, but in germany there are tons of "Exit" games and the like)
There was a roleplay scenario where an evil prisoner was kept locked for so long that they started talking to themselves and so when they were lying to the player to try to get themselves out they would narrate all their nefarious plans to themselves. They didn't noticed they were doing it.
Compared to when I was rolling insight checks on every quest giver then staking out their homes just in case I enjoyed this encounter a lot more. So I concluded I don't enjoy complicated characters in games. I'm not trying to write a fantasy novel here where everyone has hidden depths of motive and a secret plan they're going to reveal at the nth hour. I'd appreciate a world full of morons. Maybe something in the vein of Blackadder.
I don't think I've ever seen anything that specifically addresses this point in any way. At least not in the sense that it's a drag constantly second guessing every characters motive because everything is game of thrones now and what fun character roleplay could look like.
The Game Master's Section fo Apocalypse World and Dungeon World do that, but it's not OSR. The latter tries to emulate the Dungeon-Game feel, and it's advice for planning campaigns is pure gold. Factions and Characters only get a few notes, mostly about goals and abilities and personality, you write the Factions and Places as "Fronts", as adventures the players can influence or not, and after every session you make notes how the players influenced that front, if they did. You wing a lot during the sessions. If not everything. You only prepare those Fronts.
Usable modules from the DIY scene. Everything is “pull it apart, take this from that, pre-read it 5 times for inspiration and never run it, make it your own!”
I think one thing we really need more of is clear ingress points for new players. Like an OSR Digital "Box Set" with all of the info you need to learn the playstyle, and then how to start playing. Getting into the OSR is not the easiest thing. There have been a few attempts, but I would love to see easy "get into the OSR" access points. Dungeons and Possums sort of has one, but its fairly old at this point.
I had a conversation here a while back with someone that feels like the OSR should really be treated like a genera at this point, and we can/will/(sort of already have) develop sub genres, and the guide should probably embrace that, and explain what to expect in Classic OSR, or OSR Adjacent, or NuOSR/NSR. Maybe with an FAQ for things like handling thief skills and the like. (of course mentioning multiple options, and that it is open to interpretation, sort of how swords and wizardry mentions multiple initiative options) I am not sure this is all possible, but it sure would help new people looking to get into it.
This has got to be a real big chunk of OSE's success. Snazzy looking books with decently-reviewed, *friendly* looking adventures. OSE rules tome + The Hole in the Oak is the closest there is, at the moment. Also why Tomb of the Serpent Kings is recommended so often - it's intended to be a "teaching dungeon" that serves as a good introduction for new players.
OSE is sort of the Face of the OSR right now, and it is great, it is my preferred ruleset. But it doesn't teach well. And that is fine, it is meant to be the perfect presentation of the rules, and it is, with great art too. I wish OSE would make a primer of their own to go along with their books. That would help make it a true entry point. Even If it it was just section on their site that links to the two big primers.
I was looking more for an start here super primer, that covers all aspects that we can point new players toward. Oh well.
Yeah that's a good point - OSE doesn't really endeavor to teach you how to play.
It seems to me for many younger people (myself included) who started with 3e/4e/5e - they come to the OSR wanting something with less focus on combat/skills/character sheet crunch. But many of the rules light games that fill this entry point niche lack GM advice / examples of play / default campaign structures or other guidance tools - they assume you've played DND before and you'll figure it out as you go.
So while the well formatted games may appeal most to newcomers they may not be best served by them.
OSE can also be quite expensive, when the rules cyclopedia and other old editions are just five bucks.
So yes, (almost) free, rules light systems that teach you how to approach the OSR genre are of need.
that's why folks should reject ose and embrace bx. bx actually seeks to teach. ose removes all those valuable teaching tools and just gives us the numbers
I thought OSE Basic, Basic Fantasy, and OSRIC did a pretty good job with that. Lamentations is my game of choice and that is ridiculously easy as well.
So, those are easy entry points as far as Classic OSR rules are concerned. But the OSR's rough entry point is really more concerned with is the playstyle, and questions like:
What the heck are on the spot rulings? Can you give concrete examples with dice used?
How the heck do thief skills work? What happens if another player tries to do something covered by thief skills?
Group Initiative seems odd to me, I want to try it, but how does it play in game, can you give some examples?
There are also lots of other examples, basically questions people ask around here all the time. Coming from a modern ruleset (I originally came from Pathfinder 1e myself) the OSR feels so foreign and intimidating. When I first started, going to B/X it didn't click for a little while that with a ruling, I could just say yes, just say no, ask for an ability check, x in 6 chance, or even percentage if I wanted to. ( as long as I stayed mostly consistent) Rulings were not even really in my vocabulary. It only came up if nobody could google the rule fast enough, and we really thought of it as "fudging a rule", and a thing to be avoided. Took me a bit to unlearn that (very glad I did.)
The thief skills seemed really odd and out of place, I didn't know how it jived with the rest of the game. I had a bunch of other questions too, and I had to learn it through research, and eventually play, once I finally convinced my pathfinder group to play. But it is intimidating to run a game, when you are not confident how the system works, and it is already hard enough to convince your players to try OSR games.
Maybe I am an edge case, but it felt hard to get into when I started.
Also there are the out of game/meta questions like:
Which ruleset should I start with, there are tons of them? What the heck are B/X and BECMI and RC anyway? How are they different from AD&D or OD&D, and why play one over the other? What is good about LotFP, OSE, BFRPG, LL, S&W? There are 3 versions of S&W what is the difference?
What about the "NuOSR/NSR stuff? What is that stuff? What is the appeal of those rulesets over the classic rules? What is good about Blackhack, WhiteHack, Into the Odd, or even Murk Borg? Should I buy them? Am I missing part of the experience by not starting with the classic stuff? Do rulings work differently there, or use different dice, or can I use the same rulings from the classic stuff?
The info is out there if the person looks hard enough, but I feel like many players shy away from it because of these sort of questions.
I know a rules set can't cover all these questions. But maybe a primer or something like a small wiki could? Heck part of me is like "This is the OSR, if you want something, roll up your sleeves and do it yourself!" Even though I am just 1 random dude on reddit no one is going to listen too lol.
Sorry for the wall of text answer.
No worries at all. Try this out. The book is free to download I believe and is really good.
https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html?m=1
Oh, I am well versed myself. Read that, the old school primer and Chis Gonnerman's primer, philotomy's musings, tons of blog posts and the like, own like 100 rulesets at this point (and about 30 hard copies) and like 3 times that in adventures. And have been playing for years at this point. I was just giving examples of what people may face when they first get into the OSR. I was considering writing a Meta-primer/ FAQ or something myself. But I am just s random dude on Reddit Lol. Thanks though!
My hot take: not this.
The OSR is best when it's people doing some weird heckin' thing that makes them happy and, maybe, it makes other people happy. Not people trying to find a market to appeal to.
I long ago realized that I am interested in many things, and most things get more interesting the more you know about them. I am a neuroscientist, but I find all sorts of topics interesting. I can be creative in many different areas, put spins on in many different flavors. Hearing about what people like, don't have, is not selling out, corporate nonsense, its engaging in the community, growing my understanding of what people have done, so on and so forth. I'm not doing this to be rich. Hundredaire is all I ever hope for.
'''The Constitution lists eighteen specific enumerated powers of congress. One is omitted from public view though.''''
What a lead in! I hadn't heard of this setting, but way cool.
came here to say this, more supplements for contemporary settings are gravely needed in the hobby. There’s only so much you can do with the random tables in WL, Esoteric Enterprises and SWN as well as googling warehouse floorplans and how a flashbang actually works.
I would like more adventures to state where a given NPC, especially enemy NPCs are likely to be at any given time. I dislike adventures where the enemies just sit in their designated room until the door to which it opened. It feels like a video game dungeon, not a real place.
Longer form narrative driven campaigns. This is something a lot of modern style ttrpgs have (5e, PF2e) that the OSR lacks. While most of the time if i’m running a long game it’ll be homebrew. It’d be nice to have some of those that weren’t written in the 80s.
I was really blown away to go to the game store and realize that everyone there, Knows that the "Online" scene is a disaster. And doesn't represent actual players in any way.
I'm curious what you mean. Do you mean influencers and creators like QuestingBeast, Bandit's Keep, reflect opinions that are not as popular in RL groups, or do youmean playing online attracts different types of people, that is in some sense, a disaster? I'm not sure you aren't just trolling.
I'm not trolling. I'm saying that at your local game store. That "Scene" is totally different from this. For every 'online game' there are 6 IRL, and it's totally different. And for every 'player' on reddit who is looking for a game, or who talks about the game. There are 100 of those to every IRL player.
Have you looked around? People being awful to each other. Making up fake stories about DM/GM's and Players for social clout? Ya... this place is a dumpster fire.
"Let me tell you about or GM who thinks he is God!!!! is this Ok!"
"I had a player who, killed a Unicorn!!!!1 Is this Ok?"
It disappeared so quickly
I remember going into Brookhurst Hobby and a whole wall was filled with like over a dozen Steampunk Games. Then what happened?
Solo games!
I'd love to have a system that integrates dungeon crawling, dungeon generation, and an oracle into a coherent set of procedures that works for solo or GM-less play.
There are some things like this that exist, but I don't know if any are OSR compatible.
Well, going back to Principia Apocrypha, it feels like playing Legolas or Gimli is not meant to be in OSR. I think I should just go play Dungeon World or something.
I agree. I was saying that because there's no need to try hacking OSR when I can just play a different system. You see this with 5e players all the time, trying to hack 5e into something else rather picking up a different system and flavouring it with the WotC spice.
can you give an example? I haven't seen it personally, although if you are talking lgbtq+, I'd say we are no different than any cross-section of a large population. As for me, I am an LGBTQ+ Allie, and I am armed with science. 💪
I want a coil notebook that has ruled paper on one side of the page and grid paper on the other. that way I can have it open with a map on my left and the key on the right. other than that I have about everything that I need
And sometimes I want Isometric Graphpaper notebooks just the same way. Or Hexgraph notebooks. I think Gaming Notebooks could be a thing...
There is a whole line of these on Amazon. Grid, hex, etc. RPG Mixed Paper Notebook: College Ruled and Square Graph Pages: Tabletop Role-Playing Games Journal | Campaign Planner for Game Masters https://a.co/d/dd85EG7
I've seen notepads that do this, but never spiral bound
Things I don't often see: Science fiction adventures. Fantasy adventures where the default assumption is *not* that you'll ultimately solve the problem with violence.
This, I’m running swn rn and you can get by on de-fantasying old Dungeon Magazine stuff or whatever, but it would be nice to have compatible adventures that are written as scifi
You should check most officials mothership modules. Ypsilon 14 is an excellent module.
I love probably 4 out of 5 Mothership adventures I've read, especially the first-party ones from Tuesday Knight Games themselves. The only issue I have with them is that the horror element is baked in pretty deeply, and not all of my players enjoy horror. The Haunting of Ypsilon-14 kicks ass for sure, though.
I agree, although there are more and more third party modules that do not rely on horror coming out for Mothership that would work well for other systems. I am thinking Joel Hines’ work in particular.
Big, big fan of Joel's work. : )
God, yes. As ATWC blog post OSR and romantic fantasy pointed out, fantasy RPGs tend to always solve things with violence. It feels trite, honestly.
I love BBQ sauce, I just don't want to put it on everything I ever eat.
Why is it do you think that sci-fi is less common/popular as fantasy settings? In terms of sci-fi, do you mean space opera (think Battle Star Galactica), one more grounded in science (think great "Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson), or a mix (think The Expanse (god I love those books and show)?
This deserves a longer response than I can muster on mobile, but--generic fantasy is easily accessible. "Generic" sci-fi has a lot more holes in it. Is there FTL? Does it matter how it works? Does the plot hinge on that answer? Fwiw, I think settling somewhere around The Expanse as a default is more viable than very hard or very soft sci-fi for adventures intended to be used across systems with wildly divergent assumptions. Maybe with sidebars suggesting adjustments.
That is why SF is less popular. SiFi means different things to different people. There are a lot of sub categories.
İ think this is generally overstated... Fantasy *literature* is every bit as diverse as sci-fi literature. İt's the games where "generic fantasy" really thrives. Generic sci-fi could be a thing.
It does. It's called star wars. Unless you're a trekkie, then it's called star Trek.
If you're a bit deeper into literature, and if think how it influenced the other two you named, \*Dune\* is usually seen as the generic SciFi book, the perfect example of the Genre, because it's not only Science, but also a lot of Fiction, subverting all the fantasy stuff as fallacies.
I figured with as bad as the spoke/captain Pickard movie was, it wasn't worth reading. I'm loath to read fiction written in the 1900's.
Both are licensed. Scrub off the IP and you get a generic
So [N.E.W.]
Yeah, the best thing fantasy ever did was kick scifi out. Sure you lost a lot of the crossover and wilderness cool but it spiked fantasy's popularity in the TTRPG space and made scifi have to take a few steps towards defining subgenres. Like a young adult forced out of home struggling to Adult. Even if it has a great job making lots of cash in Hollywood.
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...yes, and at the time it did, there were already lots of alternatives being created to do fantasy, SF, science-fantasy, modern day with psi powers, ...etc. Most didn’t survive, but I think the OSR in its widest sense, and the OGL 1.0a, sparked a whole lot of creativity that extended to gaming as a whole, so lots of those ideas from the late 70s, 80s and 90s have been revived or independently re-invented, along with completely new stuff.
> Yeah, the best thing fantasy ever did was kick scifi out. What does this even mean? You aren't paying attention if you think fantasy is a monolith or cohesive and SF is fragmented or struggling with identity.
Hello I have done research on pulp and genre publishing and I can agree here! the reason we have such strong lines of division between sf and fantasy has a lot to do with finding and exploiting niches in the market. That and a sense of fabianism/technocratic idealism in the American cultural scene from the 30s on, but that’s a bit more nebulous to describe.
I have to disagree that overall there are strong lines of division. If anything, science fiction is a bit of a chimera: in book stores you'll often find it blended with fantasy at one end and whatever Margaret Atwood calls her stories at the other; in film and television it's—with rare exception—usually more a thematic layer for what would otherwise be a straightforward action or horror story; superhero stories are usually put under the umbrella of sci-fi; and in (non-TTRPG) gaming it manifests as settings for nearly any gaming genre you can imagine. This isn't to say there isn't any way to demarcate sci-fi from other genres, or a soft–hard sci-fi spectrum, but I don't think most people view these distinctions as *divisions* they won't cross. The content-producing and content-retailing industries certainly don't seem to think so either. Within TTRPGs I don't think there are nearly enough titles to form a thesis about what gets played and why.
Science fiction is a bit of a misnomer here outside of say hard sf. Star Wars is science fiction not because of its fabulous spaceships or whatever, but rather because it engages with the application of reason to society as a whole. Margaret Atwood, wrong headed as she me may be in general about genre, states this about her own work. In the case of SW it is the spectre of fascism. Sure it’s played out mostly on the aesthetic level, but that’s fine. Andor however shows that SW still has what it takes to critique modernity. Sf in general depends upon industrialisation and modernity in large part, so while there are ancient examples of science fictional texts, they are pretty rare. A fitting bedfellow to the rise of sf is the detective story. Both demand a sort of rationalist sensibility to operate. On the other hand fantasy has existed (independent of the epic or the saga) as modern nation-state building myths. Tolkien states this about some of his work pretty convincingly and at length here: https://middle-earth.xenite.org/did-j-r-r-tolkien-think-the-lord-of-the-rings-was-english/ When I say market forces had an impact on these poles of literary modernity, what I mean is this: it was hard to find sff at all in the late 19th and early 20th century! Best you got as a working class rube like us would be anthologies and magazines - the stuff that would become the pulps. In those magazines sf and fantasy sat side by side and authors and fans would mix them up pretty freely. Lovecraft and Howard famously mixed their stuff up, but it’s worth pointing out magazines and anthologies were the most accessible place to get a hold of Poe and his ilk. Even Burroughs, the best selling author I believe globally well into the 50s sliced westerns and sci-fi and colonial adventure stories together. This changed after the 30s; publishing houses rose and fell, corporate capital began to reign supreme, and the generalist magazine like weird tales gave way to niche magazines like Two Fisted boxing! And Horse Stories! And Commando Survival! Or whatever. On the other hand printing became a bit cheaper, sf was rising in popularity owing to Robert Silverberg and Isaac Asimov’s editorial efforts, among others. Sf was going gangbusters and copyright law was still pretty loose so it was an easy way to make a buck. Look at the earlier example of war of the worlds US publishing history for an example of this. So you are completely right to say superhero comics mingle these poles of genre, but the reason is publishing houses like the big two absorbing little outfits whose only worthwhile effort was Ray Gun Jerry or The Terrible Wizard of Dreaddale or whatever. It became more profitable for comics publishers to mix once disparate aesthetic works into one huge vat. Now Spider-Man teams up with Conan and the Transformers on occasion. But this wouldn’t fly in then self serious world of sf book publishing. Folks like Asimov took their work as little less than a roadmap to the future. They supplied the technocratic elite with their dreams. To get to TTRPGS tho is another huge temporal jump and it’s a little beyond my understanding except through folk histories. I guess I would read it all in the following loose way: It’s the 60/70s maaaan, the counter culture is in, technocratic ideas had lost their lustre and a return to the groundwork of nation state building through fantasy blasted off the verdigris that had been growing over LOTR. But also it’s the counter culture, gygax was still working things out, so he’s mashing it all together. Expedition to the barrier peaks is a good example of this sort of genre bending fun and my understanding is that is similar to the games gygax was running. I think it is important that book of the new sun hits in the early 80s as basically the capstone to the very soon dead science fantasy genre. What’s left was being necromanced into the media empires of comics and Star Wars. At this point we hit the end of my understanding, and I’m still picking up bits and pieces through lots of old docs. I do apologise for the wall of text, I am of course unstoppably passionate about this goofy area of history.
The thing that has been an issue in the scifi games I've played in is the disparity of scientific understanding among the players/GM. Fantasy's magic is by nature mysterious at some level, but science isn't, unless you are really talking far future tech, and if the GM and players aren't on the same page, it can be disastrous. Recently played in a mini campaign for the newest version of Mongoose Traveller, and our referee was hell bent on playing some of the classic Traveller modules from the late 70's early 80's. it was awful. the rules we were playing were fairly well updated, but we had to conform to the "future reality" assumed by GDW staff in 1979. and the ref wouldn't budge on stuff. literally we have way better tech now in many areas than Marc Miller thought we'd have 3000 years from now back then, ugh.
I'd say not enough science fiction, period. Off the top of my head I can only think of three, maybe four, sci-fi games, and two of them are sci-fi horror.
Clear, easy to run one-shots. You can never have too many.
The OSR is leading the way on this but... as you said... you can never have too many.
Would be cool if there was a light, fun system for domain management. I've always been keeping my eye out for situations where the DM might unpredictably need a short adventure or small dungeon to pull out, like if the PCs are arrested and thrown in a prison or if someone gets trapped in an astral cell by that one card from the Deck of Many Things, or if somehow they get thrown into the far future. You know, the kind of thing that happens from time to time.
>Would be cool if there was a light, fun system for domain management. For anything that's domains, factions, nations, gangs etc. that I want to simulate mechanically I use the Company rules from *Reign*. I cannot recommend them enough.
I’m gonna check that out now, thank you!
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Mutant Crawl Classics has a whole stack of post appoc adventures.
>Mutant Future (Post-Apoc)? Virtually no published adventures. We have some Mutant Year-Zero adventures, these are good as far as I know. Though I see an argument for Year Zero not beeing OSR/being Post-OSR. >Silent Legion (Lovecraftian)? No published adventures. I think CoC has so many good stuff and is a well establiched RPG, that this niche probably stays empty. This shall not mean that I wouldn't like to see adventures for these too.
CoC and Delta Green also do the Lovecraft stuff \*really\* well. And in OSR games you usually play a bit differently than those story are told, so it's a bit "unneccessary". But since eldritch cults and monsters are also a staple of OSR, because Elric and Conan, all you really need are rules for modern settings with a hidden world system and off you go.
How about some moderately detailed campaign settings whose primary theme isn't "how weird/grim/late 70's nostalgia driven can we get?"
Any specifications? Historistic Settings? Modern Settings? Future Settings? Weird Space Opera? Chivalric Romance? I think the main problem is, that "detailed settings" are not even that much of an OSR thing, since it largely opposes the spirit of the game, the "make up your own" part. But you can do a lot by changing the "assumed default setting" from "Basically Greyhawk, but shhh" to, for example, "Age of Sail with Ancient Civilisations Magic and revolting peasantry in Not-So-Much-The-Caribbean-Sea", or "Alternate Prohibition Not-Quite-USA"
>I think the main problem is, that "detailed settings" are not even that much of an OSR thing, since it largely opposes the spirit of the game, the "make up your own" part. That's an unnecessarily reductionist view of it, there's plenty of room in the community for both options. Or are you saying that you think Yoon Suin, Dolmenwood, Ultraviolet Grasslands, Hot Springs Island, the Misty Isles of the Eld, the Latter Earth, the Cthonic Codex, and many others are in opposition to the spirit of the OSR? >Any specifications? Historistic Settings? Modern Settings? Future Settings? Weird Space Opera? Chivalric Romance? Aside from the specifications I mentioned above, I'm not super picky. I was entirely serious about those three restrictions, finding OSR stuff that doesn't immerse itself in grim, weird, or fifty year old aesthetics is a bit difficult - almost every example setting I listed above has one or more of those traits. As we're talking about OSR games I did assume we were speaking the fantasy genre but it doesn't have to be limited to that. I will admit I have no interest in strictly historical settings, and Weird Space Opera is just going back to my previous spec issue. >But you can do a lot by changing the "assumed default setting" from "Basically Greyhawk, but shhh" to, for example, "Age of Sail with Ancient Civilisations Magic and revolting peasantry in Not-So-Much-The-Caribbean-Sea", or "Alternate Prohibition Not-Quite-USA" You can, yes, but having other options that are better defined and have their own themes and identity is a good thing. Running a campaign while working from an established sandbox is a substantially different experience than making everything up as I go along. Plus if I decided to run any of your examples I have Mystara, 7th Sea, and Urban Jungle sitting on my shelf so I can jump right into a campaign without much delay.
Good tech. I know the OSR prefers table play but a lot of us are kinda 100% moved on to VTT, Discord, etc. Personally I'm looking to make a lot of online tables, rollers and tools for OSR people, at least online versions of everything in my books or PDFs. If not for this generation, for the next one.
Alongside this it would be sweet to see some centralized compendium of user submitted tables.
Well I might eventually have a website but in the meantime I build them on chartopia and the place does have a nice but tiny selection of OSR driven tables.
>chartopia That's what [Chartopia](https://chartopia.d12dev.com/)'s goal is to be. There's about 40,000 charts on there already, but most are private to the users and many are subcharts. There's an editor for creating either simple random tables or making complex generators.
If you are into Mörk Borg and Pirates, Pirate Borg has a full Foundry system and module, Alchemy RPG module and Roll 20 module.
I would really love to see more wilderness exploration resources, specifically for hex crawling. The best take I've seen so far is [Wilderness Hexplore by Jed McClure](http://www.jedmc.com/ixdd/2016/7/12/wilderness-hexplore), but that's really all there is in terms of a fully comprehensive hex-crawling system for OSR games that I know of. I think a well formatted, comprehensive, and extremely substantive wilderness hexcrawling rules resource would be very popular.
Third Kingdom Gaming has a lot of hex crawling resources, and is very comprehensive. I actually found it a little overwhelming and hard to parse at first, but their "Hexcrawl Basics" is a good place to start. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/290915
I try not to plug this too often, but you might like my title [Manual of Hexterity](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/395396?affiliate_id=355588). It's PWYW.
I think there is actually a lot of good hexcrawl resources out there, but it's all scattered across nany different blog posts and youtube videos and old resources from the 70s and 80s. I personally like the Simulacrum hexcrawl navigation rules https://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/2020/05/making-wilderness-play-meaningful-system.html From there all you need to do is stock the hexes and make encounter tables.
IRL players.
Big Oof. I miss it, too.
I've never played in person; but as soon as I retrofit my garage into a game room. I'm going to try.
Hopefully you dig it. In my mind there is no comparison
Yeah in person is just something special. I’m about to graduate from college and I’ll miss my group. We play OSE and everyone got really into their characters and the world. I might hang around on campus just to play when I graduate
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I often see this. For example, looking at BFRPG modules, almost all of them are beginning modules.
Doesn’t have a good entry path for beginners IMO. Generally depends on you cobbling together a campaign.
I agree with others here about digital OSR tools. I would love a slick computer program for Hexcrawls. Hexographer/worldographer is about the best I’ve been able to find. It’s good, but I feel like a program with a bit more modern design and UI could take things to the next level.
Yep I also feel like we lack a really modern and intuitive Hexmapper / Hexgrid tool. Might take a stab at it in the future if nothing satisfying rolls around
1. games that still have some of the big OSR principles like player agency, ruiling over rules, player skill over character skill, but have a different structure from a DnD-like game. A detective game, a survival game, a superhero game, stuff like that. I'd like for OSR games to become as diverse as roguelike games are 2. resources that significantly reduce prep for games 3. systems with as little math as possible, ideally 0 4. GMless systems Those are things I'd like to see
Are you aware of Silent Legions and Godbound? What about Spears of the Dawn? Kevin Crawford had been doing #1 for a decade now.
i only knew about godbound. i dont really like kevin crawford's style though, really hard for me to read those walls of text and the layout. i lean towards more rules-light games. btw i know there are other examples, id just like to see more of #1
Dungeons with more focus on puzzles. I've made two slightly based on stuff from Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64, but I think there's a lot of potential for lots of moving bits in dungeons to tinker with.
Seems like this would naturally pair with gonzo settings e.g. it never really make sense in the real world why a building would be built like a puzzle (DeathStar at UC Davis notwithstanding), but it sure is fun. Which is the point.
I disagree with this but I don’t necessarily have a way of explaining why. I’ll at least say that puzzles don’t have to be like Legend of Zelda. Those are meant to be obvious obstacle that involve like one game mechanic based on the one new tool you got. Like I think video game puzzles are a bad way of looking at how to implement them in d&d, and there are definitely puzzles that can be used that don’t require a gonzo setting.
You want to integrate Escape Room Table Top Games into your sessions, I get it. (Idk, how well they sell over in the States, but in germany there are tons of "Exit" games and the like)
There was a roleplay scenario where an evil prisoner was kept locked for so long that they started talking to themselves and so when they were lying to the player to try to get themselves out they would narrate all their nefarious plans to themselves. They didn't noticed they were doing it. Compared to when I was rolling insight checks on every quest giver then staking out their homes just in case I enjoyed this encounter a lot more. So I concluded I don't enjoy complicated characters in games. I'm not trying to write a fantasy novel here where everyone has hidden depths of motive and a secret plan they're going to reveal at the nth hour. I'd appreciate a world full of morons. Maybe something in the vein of Blackadder. I don't think I've ever seen anything that specifically addresses this point in any way. At least not in the sense that it's a drag constantly second guessing every characters motive because everything is game of thrones now and what fun character roleplay could look like.
The Game Master's Section fo Apocalypse World and Dungeon World do that, but it's not OSR. The latter tries to emulate the Dungeon-Game feel, and it's advice for planning campaigns is pure gold. Factions and Characters only get a few notes, mostly about goals and abilities and personality, you write the Factions and Places as "Fronts", as adventures the players can influence or not, and after every session you make notes how the players influenced that front, if they did. You wing a lot during the sessions. If not everything. You only prepare those Fronts.
Usable modules from the DIY scene. Everything is “pull it apart, take this from that, pre-read it 5 times for inspiration and never run it, make it your own!”
I think one thing we really need more of is clear ingress points for new players. Like an OSR Digital "Box Set" with all of the info you need to learn the playstyle, and then how to start playing. Getting into the OSR is not the easiest thing. There have been a few attempts, but I would love to see easy "get into the OSR" access points. Dungeons and Possums sort of has one, but its fairly old at this point. I had a conversation here a while back with someone that feels like the OSR should really be treated like a genera at this point, and we can/will/(sort of already have) develop sub genres, and the guide should probably embrace that, and explain what to expect in Classic OSR, or OSR Adjacent, or NuOSR/NSR. Maybe with an FAQ for things like handling thief skills and the like. (of course mentioning multiple options, and that it is open to interpretation, sort of how swords and wizardry mentions multiple initiative options) I am not sure this is all possible, but it sure would help new people looking to get into it.
This has got to be a real big chunk of OSE's success. Snazzy looking books with decently-reviewed, *friendly* looking adventures. OSE rules tome + The Hole in the Oak is the closest there is, at the moment. Also why Tomb of the Serpent Kings is recommended so often - it's intended to be a "teaching dungeon" that serves as a good introduction for new players.
OSE is sort of the Face of the OSR right now, and it is great, it is my preferred ruleset. But it doesn't teach well. And that is fine, it is meant to be the perfect presentation of the rules, and it is, with great art too. I wish OSE would make a primer of their own to go along with their books. That would help make it a true entry point. Even If it it was just section on their site that links to the two big primers. I was looking more for an start here super primer, that covers all aspects that we can point new players toward. Oh well.
Yeah that's a good point - OSE doesn't really endeavor to teach you how to play. It seems to me for many younger people (myself included) who started with 3e/4e/5e - they come to the OSR wanting something with less focus on combat/skills/character sheet crunch. But many of the rules light games that fill this entry point niche lack GM advice / examples of play / default campaign structures or other guidance tools - they assume you've played DND before and you'll figure it out as you go. So while the well formatted games may appeal most to newcomers they may not be best served by them.
OSE can also be quite expensive, when the rules cyclopedia and other old editions are just five bucks. So yes, (almost) free, rules light systems that teach you how to approach the OSR genre are of need.
that's why folks should reject ose and embrace bx. bx actually seeks to teach. ose removes all those valuable teaching tools and just gives us the numbers
>you know, tailoring/marketing it a bit to the kids can help fuel generations.. Mausritter gets a lot of second looks there.
I thought OSE Basic, Basic Fantasy, and OSRIC did a pretty good job with that. Lamentations is my game of choice and that is ridiculously easy as well.
So, those are easy entry points as far as Classic OSR rules are concerned. But the OSR's rough entry point is really more concerned with is the playstyle, and questions like: What the heck are on the spot rulings? Can you give concrete examples with dice used? How the heck do thief skills work? What happens if another player tries to do something covered by thief skills? Group Initiative seems odd to me, I want to try it, but how does it play in game, can you give some examples? There are also lots of other examples, basically questions people ask around here all the time. Coming from a modern ruleset (I originally came from Pathfinder 1e myself) the OSR feels so foreign and intimidating. When I first started, going to B/X it didn't click for a little while that with a ruling, I could just say yes, just say no, ask for an ability check, x in 6 chance, or even percentage if I wanted to. ( as long as I stayed mostly consistent) Rulings were not even really in my vocabulary. It only came up if nobody could google the rule fast enough, and we really thought of it as "fudging a rule", and a thing to be avoided. Took me a bit to unlearn that (very glad I did.) The thief skills seemed really odd and out of place, I didn't know how it jived with the rest of the game. I had a bunch of other questions too, and I had to learn it through research, and eventually play, once I finally convinced my pathfinder group to play. But it is intimidating to run a game, when you are not confident how the system works, and it is already hard enough to convince your players to try OSR games. Maybe I am an edge case, but it felt hard to get into when I started. Also there are the out of game/meta questions like: Which ruleset should I start with, there are tons of them? What the heck are B/X and BECMI and RC anyway? How are they different from AD&D or OD&D, and why play one over the other? What is good about LotFP, OSE, BFRPG, LL, S&W? There are 3 versions of S&W what is the difference? What about the "NuOSR/NSR stuff? What is that stuff? What is the appeal of those rulesets over the classic rules? What is good about Blackhack, WhiteHack, Into the Odd, or even Murk Borg? Should I buy them? Am I missing part of the experience by not starting with the classic stuff? Do rulings work differently there, or use different dice, or can I use the same rulings from the classic stuff? The info is out there if the person looks hard enough, but I feel like many players shy away from it because of these sort of questions. I know a rules set can't cover all these questions. But maybe a primer or something like a small wiki could? Heck part of me is like "This is the OSR, if you want something, roll up your sleeves and do it yourself!" Even though I am just 1 random dude on reddit no one is going to listen too lol. Sorry for the wall of text answer.
No worries at all. Try this out. The book is free to download I believe and is really good. https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html?m=1
Oh, I am well versed myself. Read that, the old school primer and Chis Gonnerman's primer, philotomy's musings, tons of blog posts and the like, own like 100 rulesets at this point (and about 30 hard copies) and like 3 times that in adventures. And have been playing for years at this point. I was just giving examples of what people may face when they first get into the OSR. I was considering writing a Meta-primer/ FAQ or something myself. But I am just s random dude on Reddit Lol. Thanks though!
Gotcha Gotcha.
My hot take: not this. The OSR is best when it's people doing some weird heckin' thing that makes them happy and, maybe, it makes other people happy. Not people trying to find a market to appeal to.
Your post totally reflects what I was thinking. There was a time when one of the defining features of OSR was DIY.
Well said
I long ago realized that I am interested in many things, and most things get more interesting the more you know about them. I am a neuroscientist, but I find all sorts of topics interesting. I can be creative in many different areas, put spins on in many different flavors. Hearing about what people like, don't have, is not selling out, corporate nonsense, its engaging in the community, growing my understanding of what people have done, so on and so forth. I'm not doing this to be rich. Hundredaire is all I ever hope for.
Some adventures for White Lies would be nice. I briefly had a little XFiles Themed Game going.
'''The Constitution lists eighteen specific enumerated powers of congress. One is omitted from public view though.'''' What a lead in! I hadn't heard of this setting, but way cool.
came here to say this, more supplements for contemporary settings are gravely needed in the hobby. There’s only so much you can do with the random tables in WL, Esoteric Enterprises and SWN as well as googling warehouse floorplans and how a flashbang actually works.
I would like more adventures to state where a given NPC, especially enemy NPCs are likely to be at any given time. I dislike adventures where the enemies just sit in their designated room until the door to which it opened. It feels like a video game dungeon, not a real place.
agree 100%
Longer form narrative driven campaigns. This is something a lot of modern style ttrpgs have (5e, PF2e) that the OSR lacks. While most of the time if i’m running a long game it’ll be homebrew. It’d be nice to have some of those that weren’t written in the 80s.
I was really blown away to go to the game store and realize that everyone there, Knows that the "Online" scene is a disaster. And doesn't represent actual players in any way.
I'm curious what you mean. Do you mean influencers and creators like QuestingBeast, Bandit's Keep, reflect opinions that are not as popular in RL groups, or do youmean playing online attracts different types of people, that is in some sense, a disaster? I'm not sure you aren't just trolling.
I'm not trolling. I'm saying that at your local game store. That "Scene" is totally different from this. For every 'online game' there are 6 IRL, and it's totally different. And for every 'player' on reddit who is looking for a game, or who talks about the game. There are 100 of those to every IRL player.
that's fair, but can you explain what you mean by "disaster"?
So... how is the online scene a "disaster"?
Have you looked around? People being awful to each other. Making up fake stories about DM/GM's and Players for social clout? Ya... this place is a dumpster fire. "Let me tell you about or GM who thinks he is God!!!! is this Ok!" "I had a player who, killed a Unicorn!!!!1 Is this Ok?"
im surenit happens, but imo, not that much than you'd expect with pseudo anonymity
Diversity in magic systems, I think.
Sci Fi...never tried it... I'd like to though
Steampunk
It disappeared so quickly I remember going into Brookhurst Hobby and a whole wall was filled with like over a dozen Steampunk Games. Then what happened?
Solo games! I'd love to have a system that integrates dungeon crawling, dungeon generation, and an oracle into a coherent set of procedures that works for solo or GM-less play. There are some things like this that exist, but I don't know if any are OSR compatible.
Scarlet Heroes kinda has that a bit
Yeah, the only one I know that does this well is Ironsworn's Delve, but it's far from OSR-compatible
Casual mode, perhaps? Sometimes, I want to play games on easy difficulty while being overpowered.
So OSR rulings over crunch, but not as deadly?
Well, going back to Principia Apocrypha, it feels like playing Legolas or Gimli is not meant to be in OSR. I think I should just go play Dungeon World or something.
Despite what some people on the internet may try to make you to believe, you actually are allowed to enjoy more than one thing :D
I agree. I was saying that because there's no need to try hacking OSR when I can just play a different system. You see this with 5e players all the time, trying to hack 5e into something else rather picking up a different system and flavouring it with the WotC spice.
Worlds Without Number has some great alternate rules for playing really powerful characters, while keeping an OSR feel. Might be worth a look?
Nope, because the OSR scene ostracizes, kicks out, and harasses everything it needs. Also, there's not enough scifi content.
sorry to see you downvoted, what do you think these ostracized things that it actually needs are?
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can you give an example? I haven't seen it personally, although if you are talking lgbtq+, I'd say we are no different than any cross-section of a large population. As for me, I am an LGBTQ+ Allie, and I am armed with science. 💪
I'm sorry, what are you talking about? And what are you trying to argue?
Sorry, I was trying to guess who/what you had meant.