So What Kind of Old School will you Run?

I'll probably run a couple of classics by younger players (early 20's) have never tried, B1, X1 that kind of thing using one of the many cool systems.

As for what system I just don't know. The OSR has an such embarrassment of riches its awful hard to choose.

I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it

Lets Play 20 Questions

Like a fair number of other OSR bloggers I tend to eschew the latest memes.

However Brendan's 20 Questions are quite good so here are my answers and good show Brendan.



Ability scores generation method?

Two Methods

#1 4d6 drop low with option for rerolling lousy characters

#2 Set stats to class minimums than roll 4d6 drop lowest in order, use roll only if higher.


How are death and dying handled?

KO's at 0, dead at -con


What about raising the dead?

Banned usually.

How are replacement PCs handled?

Worked in as appropriate

Initiative: individual, group, or something else?

Players Choice

Are there critical hits and fumbles? How do they work?

Nope. However a 1 always misses and a 20 always hits.

Do I get any benefits for wearing a helmet?

Under construction.

Can I hurt my friends if I fire into melee or do something similarly silly?

Only if you miss in which case compare your to hit roll -4 vs friends AC to see if you hit.

Will we need to run from some encounters, or will we be able to kill everything?

Run. Run. Run Away or sneak when you can.

Level-draining monsters: yes or no?

Nope. I prefer 3e methods

Are there going to be cases where a failed save results in PC death?

Not sure.

How strictly are encumbrance & resources tracked?

Somewhat Strictly in D&D . Its part of the fun. In other games, not much at all.

What's required when my PC gains a level? Training? Do I get new spells automatically? Can it happen in the middle of an adventure, or do I have to wait for down time?

Happens automatically during downtime. This includes automatic spells as well.

What do I get experience for?

Facing Challenges and Spending Loot.

How are traps located? Description, dice rolling, or some combination?

Combo

Are retainers encouraged and how does morale work?

Up to the players. Usually BtB.

How do I identify magic items?

Wizards get this as a class ability as do Clerical types for "holy" items

Can I buy magic items? Oh, come on: how about just potions?

This depends on the game. Usually in Auld Skool I make them work for it . Potions and one use items can be bought however.

Can I create magic items? When and how?

Spellcasters can create items in downtime. What they can create will depend on their level.

What about splitting the party?

Sure. I am pretty good at managing this if I do say so myself.

Old School Design Rants #1 Old School is not a layout or editing style

This is a little series of sorts about old school game design. Mostly personal rants and ideas I think will improve future OSR design.

Rant #1

You do not have to duplicate the poor quality editing and layout of the old games to be old school. As long as your game supports the basic GM centric, high trust, use your own brain not the rulebook set up its old school no matter how its laid out.

Something I am working on for Old School

I have been working on something for my old school-heart-breaker-retro-mutt game in lieu of a having skills system

1st Everyone is also assumed to have basic adventure skills (swim, ride, climb, tie knots) and such. When needed these are handled with attribute checks.

2nd I use an adventuring task system ala Lament of the Flame Princess to handle things that are part of an adventure and a non combat challenge. This includes Thieves Skills for example.

3rd Everybody has a "Background" which is where they came from. This is L0 (level 0 adds to L1 in my game) and gives them some basic knowledge outside of adventuring Its somewhat similar to a "secondary skill" from AD&D mixed with the L0 stuff from DCC

4th and last each class has a lens which determines how a person was trained. This is something like a 2e Kit A couple of fighter examples might be Archer, Gladiator, Brawler. These will eventually give special abilities and grant knowledge and such based on attribute checks.

An example, a human fighter might look like

note this assumes 3-18 score. Its meant to be compatible with older editions and to be honest have not fallen far from the tree

Strength 16 (rather good) +2
Wit 10 +0
Luck 10 +0
Dexterity 13 +1
Constitution 13 +1
Fellowship 13 +1
Perception 10 +0

Level 1
Human
Corean Peasant
Fighter - Mercenary Archer

Adventuring Tasks
not listed

Gifts (2, 1 bonus for being human)
Not listed

HP 16 (how this is calculated, average dice+con for a human (5 on a d6) + fighter max and con (10 on a D10 +con) )

AC 15 (padded doublet, shield, dexterity)

Gear
not listed but will include armor, shield, weapon


I have not quite gotten to "to hit" yet but y'all can see the general idea.

So what do you think?

What's you old school heresy ?

Well my heresy is ascending armor class (AAC) . It makes a lot more sens for a great AC to be 30 rather than negative 10.

While I'll play with THAC0 (I love me some 2nd Edition) AAC is faster in play, more logical and simpler to use.

Now don't get me wrong I have no trouble managing THAC0, I mean after all its 1st grade math, but its simply not as good as ascending armor class in any meaningful way.

That being my heresy, whats yours?

We Explore!

In the old school we explore

Dungeons

The Wilderness

Fantastic Cities

Wondrous Ecologies

Monsters

Characters

Game Mechanics

and more ...

Its not one of these things, but all of these things. No matter how We play, and its We, not a bunch of squabbling cliques, We Explore , together....

L0 Characters Variant HP system

One of the better under appreciated rules in 2e was the alternate hit points for L0 characters. Rather than a standard d6 or a measly d4 ala B/X , NPC's got hit point based on their lifestyle.

I found this suited my vague ideas of verisimilitude better and added a tiny bit of boost where needed.

You'll notice below than Men at Arms have more than 1 hit die. This is intentional as it prevents fighter bonus attacks (I use doubling ala 2e) from being used against them.

My version of the chart with average HP in brackets looked something like this

D3 (2) small children

D4 (3) Highly Sedentary People (scholars, some seniors etc)

D6 (4) Regular Folks (merchants etc)

D8 (5) Laborers (including blacksmiths and farmers and the like)

D8+1 (6) Men at Arms (these are the regular folks with combat training and gear that make up most Medieval armies , not full time professional soldiers who are Fighters)

Three Reasons the OSR rocks today

#1 Maturity

Many of us old Grogs are nearly the same age as Gary, Dave and the others. This gives us an adult perspective that leads to better gaming IMO.

#2 Experience

Most of us are experienced gamers and as such have learned from our mistakes and have been able to improve the game in ways that were impossible "Back in 1982"

#1 Generosity

The OSR is the one of most generous bunches of people I have ever seen . Our little community has tons of great stuff shared free for the asking, just for the love of sharing. Not only that we share what we have learned and are able to improve from dozens of people, not just the few guys we game with .
Its like a "best of" a dozen gaming groups. So we not only share knowledge, we also share our core rules . Doing this can bring in new blood (like me at one point) and make old school gaming available for anyone with an interest and a computer . Its an incredibly cool thing to be part of .

If the OSR is so good why did we give it up?

Well not of all us did of course but for those of us who gave it up here are 5 reasons why.

#1 New Fads. Like any hobby fads come and go and people, even geeks want to be on the bandwagon.

#2 Boredom. Yes, a lot of us got tired of that play style, especially he crude hand and slash so many of us played.

#3 Drift. A lot of us drifted into 2e and changed bit by bit. Early 2e was very old school but as the rules bloat was added, we just adopted it.

#4 Fatigue. Good old school gaming is tiring work. Newer games require less mental horsepower and just using whats provided spares time and energy real life may have claimed for other things.

#5 Lack of ability to use what we had. Hey, we were young than, not like the adults who designed the game, guys as old as many of us old-grogs. As kids we simply didn't know the best ways to use what we had.

My take on what the OSR is about

There has been a lot of talk on what this tiny little thing of ours actually means.

I'll throw my hat in the or give my $2 (inflation and all that) and suggest what I think it is.

#1 Nostalgia.

#2 Reclaiming Imagination. Older forms of the game relied very much on the players and DM's imagination, sometimes to a degree where even mediocre support material was a relief. It was ideas you didn't have to come up with. What I think some of us are seeing is that the newer games (like 4e say) are so systematized and structured that they are a child' puzzle rather than a toolbox for adults. All the flavor is provided and while that has its upsides (fast prep with lower work) its sucks some of the joy out it.

#3 Reclaiming Ownership . The older less rules intensive systems belonged to the group more than anything else. More than just a few house rules it was a sense that this was "Your Groups D&D" not "the 3.5 rules"

#4 Reclaiming Judgment. Matt Finch in The Quick Old School Primer calls this "Rulings not rules" but that implies a bit more of an adversarial "I wear the Viking Hat" relationship than I like. Judgment is simply relying on your own calls,both as GM and as player "why not try that" Modern games seem overly systematized for that style of play and for some thats a detriment.

What games are you regarding as Old School or OSR

I admit my descriptions are rather idiosyncratic as I deliberately exclude high complexity games such as Space Opera. They certainly are old school, part of the "realism" movement of that early period but they aren't my focus. This also rules out GURPS (whose 1st installment Man to Man came out in 1985) and Champions (which came out in 1981) which I see as Archaic Modern, in that these games still are played widely today with surprisingly little rules drift

An old school game is a table top roleplaying game with light to medium rules complexity released in or before 1985 and is either out of print (save via retro-clone) or whose rules have changed considerably since that period to the point where early editions lack compatibility with the modern game of the same name (FREX Dungeons and Dragons)


My list includes

1- OD&D (and its retro-clone Swords and Wizardy)

2-AD&D (and OSRIC)

3-B/X/C/M/I (and Labyrinth Lord )

4-Cyclopedia D&D qualifies as well, though released in 1991 is contains essentially only material from games that qualify) and Dark Dungeons does as well since its mainly a darned good retro-clone of Cyclopedia

5-Adventures Dark and Deep as its thematically a lot more old school than new

6- The Fantasy Trip (and its retro-clones)

7- Most of the TSR books (Gangbusters, Boot Hill,Star Frontiers)

8 -Basic Roleplaying /Call of Cthulhu et all. These games are on the high end of the complexity line but they changed little enough that I had no trouble playing Mongoose RQ when I hadn't played a BRP based game in a couple of decades.

9 - Tunnels and Trolls and its cousin Mercenaries Spies and Private Eyes

10- Dragon Warriors just makes the cut (1st book out in 1985)

11- Fighting Fantasy

12 Traveller. Another game on the high end of the complexity limit but that is certainly old school too.


Honorable mentions go to Castles and Crusades, for trying to bridge the Old/New Gap, AD&D 2e a system I dearly love and in whose early days , was certainly quite old school and GURPS, who probably deserves to make the list but just doesn't pass the "feel" test.

I'd be interested in any y'all think deserve the list that I overlooked ...

Real Life Level Titles

Yes this is kind of tacky as its about female drug cartel assassins but still I was taken by the almost D&D-ish aspects of the set up.

The original article is here

but this is the relevant part

Men, they do it for fun, because they enjoy killing, it makes them feel like big sh** Screw that. Us women, we get into this for the money. Well at least that was the way it was for me. That we get into this for love, that’s bullsh**. Like I was saying: I got into this when I was twenty years old. At first I was a “cleaner,” I mopped up vomit and blood. After I was a messenger and a gopher, and from there, I moved up to a “condor”—I hunted down the enemies. Then I was a “lynx”—I abducted and tortured people, and from there I became a sicaria [assassin]. That’s the way it went down, vato. Since then, I’ve been a killer.

What struck me most aside from the violence, which is an unpleasant part of human nature is how
D&D the whole thing was. As the lady in question gained experience through violence, her skills improved and her guild, in this case, the cartel, trusted her with more difficult work. She even had a title at each stages.

L1 Cleaner
L2 Messenger
L3 Gopher
L4 Condor
L5 Lynx
L6 Sicaria (Spanish for Assassin, name level basically)

Its kind of sobering to think how when we play more unscrupulous characters how close we are to playing these kids of people. Now mind , I am not making a moral objection, here I am not TSR circa 1989 or anything. And to be frank, being bad has its attractions just as much as being good at least as long as its fiction anyway.

So you want to be an Old School Player?

Here are a few simple tips.

#1 Use your imagination.

You need to think on your feet, outside the box and beyond the sheet.

#2 Trust your GM

Modern rule sets stress rules for most things you encounter or do. Old School however is about rulings not rules. In such a situation a good old school player needs to trust his GM. If the GM doing a bad job,of you have every right to deal with it like an adult , leave the game or whatever you need to do and of course a bit of grumbling is a grognards privilege but push to shove, the GM's word is law. Deal.


#3 Explore the world.

Its not a static world or a railroad (a few adventures accepted) and its not a video game. Feel free to explore, poke and prod and treat the world like its a living place, suggest things that might be there and more. Of course you shouldn't do this in a way that takes away other peoples fun but old school games are exploratory. So get out there and explore.

and the last and most important rule

#4 Be Excellent to the Other Players and the GM.

The Video IvanMike Referenced

This is a solid video I happen to disagree with but its well thought out and deserves a shout out to Tetsubo57.

My relies to this video are

#1 Whatdya Mean "We don't need to play them. Speak for yourself bud ;)"

#2 Absolute consistency is overrated.

IvanMike gets the OSR ...

Saw this on Big Purple and for those of you who don't want to go there, here is an excellent video from someone who gets the OSR very well ...

Things you can learn by being an Old School DM

You can get learn a lot from being an Old School GM and as odd as it seems the social skills I learned at the table have come in handy many times at work and in real life.

And in case anyone asks, you absolutely can learn these with any game and edition but I think that the looser nature of the rules and the social expectations of the games and maybe the era, pushed me farther in that direction than say had something like 4e existed than.

Bluntly,sometimes like life my calls weren't fair, I couldn't just download the latest greatest (so I had to improvise) and I had to deal with the fallout from those choices. In short I had to lead.

Over the years I learned to give orders, make my decisions stick, have confidence, social acumen, good organization , people management , how to keep a group happy and on track and how to think on my feet.

Sure there were other places I could have learned those things but nowhere that would have been as much fun.

Right now if you can convince you players to go along (especially the younger ones who are more conflict adverse) and to be a player or a Judge (or a DM or a Ref) and
to game game it old style, all of you may just learn something about yourselves.

Fast Prep: Another strength of the old school games

A picture is worth 1000 words -- so a simple minimal stat block

Old School (roughly everything before 2e) from the Swords and Wizardry Monster Book

BLINK DOG
Blink dogs are pack hunters, intelligent and usually friendly to those who are not of evil intent. They can teleport short distances (without error) and attack in the same turn – in most cases (75%) a blink dog will be able to teleport behind an opponent and attack from the rear (with appropriate bonuses).
Blink Dog: HD 4; AC 5[14]; Atk 1 bite (1d6); Move 12; Save 13; CL/XP 4/120; Special: Teleport.

From the 3.5 SRD same monster trimmed slightly for brevity

Blink Dog click to see monster
Size/Type: Medium Magical Beast
Hit Dice: 4d10 (22 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: 40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +4/+4
Attack: Bite +4 melee (1d6)
Full Attack: Bite +4 melee (1d6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Blink, darkvision 60 ft., dimension door, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +4
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 17, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 11
Skills: Hide +3, Listen +5, Sense Motive +3, Spot +5, Survival +4
Feats: Iron Will, Run, TrackB
Treasure: None
Alignment: Usually lawful good

The blink dog is an intelligent canine that has a limited teleportation ability.
Blink dogs have their own language, a mixture of barks, yaps, whines, and growls that can transmit complex information.

Combat

Blink dogs hunt in packs, teleporting in a seemingly random fashion until they surround their prey, allowing some of them to take advantage of flanking.

Blink (Su)
A blink dog can use blink as the spell (caster level 8th), and can evoke or end the effect as a free action.

Dimension Door (Su)
A blink dog can teleport, as dimension door (caster level 8th), once per round as a free action. The ability affects only the blink dog, which never appears within a solid object and can act immediately after teleporting.

Smaller stat blocks mean more space for creativity and shorter prep time.

Ownership, a great strength of the Old School Games

One of the biggest things we don't think about when it comes to the strengths of old school games are our binders of house rules and worlds and such.

For those of us used to comprehensive, carefully designed rules sets, pages of rulings and rules can see like a burden rather than an asset.

We they certainly can be but that "simple rules, personally customized" aesthetic that makes up most of the old school, the custom monsters and classes, and yes even the hastily jotted down rulings and sometimes ill thought out ideas that circulated from group to group offered something special that we see less and less of modern rules rigorous games.

Pride of Ownership.

It was your campaign, you world (or version of published world) and your D&D warts and all. Thats a powerful incentive to play and to love gaming even more. It even tightens social bonds in the group sometimes as groups had lingo and rules onlt they, the elect few.

It wasn't all good of course, some rules sucked or were arbitrary or unfair and some groups grew insular and stale but simply and back in the day it gave a lot of us fun.

Old School Guy #2 Genric the Soldier Mage

This guy is a bit of a hack designed to allow a player to have a human fighter/mage and to show what being flexible with the rules can do. He was made with the Hill Cantons material weakly documented. Doh!

Genric was born to a large family in Dyr whose Father, the Village Reeve died early. As his mother could not feed him during the time of the Potato Plague she sent to live with cousins in Mada.

As a young man he was conscripted by the military, however when the unit attacked his kin-folk he participated in the Great Mutiny and this ended his attachment. Now no longer part of the service and still feeling a lust for adventure, Genric has taken to the road with his new companion Kael.

Genric
Human
Magic User 1


S 14
I 16
W 10
D 13
C 14
CH 12


Background Skills
Soldiering
Basic Forestry


Gifts
May wear leather or elven chain and cast spells
Fight as Thief with Thief Weapons
D6 Hit Die
Fast Advancing (+10% to XP)

Note
Genric advances as a Magic User but do to his abilities requires an extra 10% XP per level.

HP7

Gear
2 sets clothes (free)
Hygiene Basics (free)
2 daggers
Backpack, two small sacks, bedroll, water skin, tinderbox, and one week of iron rations , five torches, five oil flasks, 60 ft. rope, grappling hook, wooden pole
Light riding horse with tack
Spellbook

35 GP


Background Stuff
3rd child
government Official (+1 cash)
Dad was Reeve who died
Ma could not handle raising gave to guardian a very distant cousin
survived plague outbreak
conscripted but mutinied

A couple of Old School Guys #1 Kael

These guys were made with Labyrinth Lord in mind and using some of the cool background generators at Hill Cantons and a smidgen of my under development house rules.

Kael is the second son of a traveling merchant whose mother died in childbirth. Kael and his family served the Duke of Aven for many years till the Duke was outlawed. During this time he was fostered by the Duke in Exile. Quite recently he was injured in magical attack on the fortress and as a sid effect of this seems to have developed a second sight. Now a man grown, Kael has decided to do some exploring and see if his gifts can help him find a fortune of his own.

Kael
Human Fighter
L1

S 13
I 10
W 10
D 10
C 17
CH 13

Background Skills
Trader
Animal Handling
Courtier

Gift
Elflike Senses: 1-8 (d12) Spot Secret Door 1-4 (d12) Spot other 1-4 (d12)

HP 10

Gear
3 Sets Clothes (free)
Hygiene Kit (free)
Chain Armor
Sword
Arbalast
20 Bolts
Backpack, two small sacks, bedroll, water skin, tinderbox, and one week of iron rations
10 oil flasks, lantern, shovel, two caltrops, whistle
Dagger
Pony with Tack
50GP

Background Stuff
second child
merchant (+1 Gear ) Long Distance
dead parent (+1 Con)
crime political dissent (+1 CH)
served patron (+1 CH)
'survived magical disaster (+1 Con)
Choice +1 ST
Choice +1 Int