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Post by cadriel on Sept 22, 2008 15:07:40 GMT -6
One of the things I've been looking for heavily is a wider variety of monsters than those presented in Monsters & Treasure. I think that a good dose of alternate monsters is one of the things that ought to distinguish a real "old-school" game from a game that stays inside tamer boundaries. So I'm creating this thread for people to post:
- Original creations; - Adaptations from literary sources; - and OD&D conversions of other games' creatures.
Any way you want to slice it, please share your monsters. I probably have enough for the session I'm running tomorrow, but I really want to start putting more unique creatures in my dungeon.
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Post by cadriel on Sept 17, 2008 9:08:39 GMT -6
I am pretty sure in our group, I think we decided it affects both friend and foe. However, i know that we agreed that sleep gets a saving throw. I will double check with my Ref' (unless he posts first.) We've been running it as - Sleep requires a save, and can affect friendly characters inside its radius. For the record, Magic Missile is a Greyhawk spell that I'm not allowing - it's a shift in tone if you don't have it IMO, sort of like not having thief skills in the game.
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Post by cadriel on Sept 17, 2008 9:01:35 GMT -6
Actually something of my own update on this front. I communicated with Lee Gold and was able to get photocopies made at a reasonable per-page cost of the first 20 issues of Alarums & Excursions. I received the copies last night, and have been looking through them; there's a lot of campaign summaries, which I'm interested in giving a thorough read through to see what I can glean about old school play styles and innovations. It's very exciting, particularly because the magazine was very clearly a work of love, typed onto mimeograph sheets by enthusiasts to share in the world of gaming. This is the true, positive sense of "amateur."
One of the things that has stood out to me is that Gary Gygax had a letter in issue #2 where he was vocally against any kind of standardization in the game. He agreed heartily with a quote in A&E #1 - "D&D is too important to be left to Gary Gygax." It's very interesting to see reaction in non-official channels in the very early dawn of gaming, and as the "old school renaissance" marches on I think this is a spirit we need to keep alive.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2008 9:18:59 GMT -6
I know at least one fanzine dedicated to the old ways that's still running, in addition to A&E... I'll buy any issue of FO! you guys put out, it's great work. But since you're not doing it on a schedule I'd like, such as weekly, I'm interested in other fanzines, especially ones that were going on BITD and show trends and ideas that I can use for inspiration. Or steal and put in my game notebook.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2008 7:32:11 GMT -6
One of the things that's been on my mind lately has been the secondary streams of information for OD&D that were around at the time -- the fanzines and APAs, and most especially Alarums & Excursions. I have no old copies of any of them, though, and I'm very curious to get more information. What was going on in the magazine end of things, particularly in the years before AD&D and the really mass explosion of gaming? Is there any way to track down old copies of A&E and similar magazines, whether print or online? I know of the A&E website, but it only lists back issues into the 80s. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2008 5:29:26 GMT -6
I've actually been curious about this game. How much stuff is there in C&S that can be stolen for D&D -- between fluff and crunch -- without going down the legendarily detailed route that C&S itself went? Monsters, spells, character types? Is there an edition it'd be worth tracking down for reference, or is it really just philosophically incompatible with OD&D?
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Post by cadriel on Aug 18, 2008 12:53:04 GMT -6
I like that idea -- you can consider it stolen.
Now, how would you go about determining the alignment of the weapon? I could see two ways, one nicer than the other to the players. The "nice" variant is that the weapon takes on the alignment of the person wielding it, so your lawful Fighting-Man's sword becomes lawful in alignment. The not so nice way would be that the weapon takes depends on the creature slain.
Creature is Lawful: roll 1d6. 1-2: Neutral; 3-6: Chaotic Creature is Neutral: roll 1d6. 1-2: Lawful; 3-4: Neutral; 5-6: Chaotic Creature is Chaotic: roll 1d6. 1-2: Neutral; 3-6: Lawful
I kinda like the second variant. You could do a simpler version of this, where the die roll is only used for Neutral creatures, and Chaotic creatures make Lawful weapons and vice versa, but I like having a better chance of the weapon being neutral.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 15, 2008 21:09:12 GMT -6
2) In that vein, I'd also like to see modular encounter areas. Small groupings of dressed rooms that can be plugged into just about any dungeon or area. I can't second this one strongly enough. I realize there's a certain desire to present dungeons as fleshed out, thematic and often multi-level, but I think -- especially for old school play, and most especially for those of us with a megadungeon in the works -- that small theme works would be more useful in the long run. Instead of an adventure focused around your new monster, give me a few rooms that feature it really well, and I can plug in to the level I'm working on. If you have three great tricks you want to share, put them in room excerpts that I can add on to my dungeon. It's a sad dungeon that can't fit another great idea in its levels, and that's what we're looking for from the classic module style dungeon in the first place. A book of great megadungeon areas, 1-5 rooms each, would be the distilled perfection of a gaming resource. Of course, new monsters and magic items, spells, character classes, races, and the like are also appreciated. But those have been done; a really good product of areas for the dungeon designer hasn't.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 15, 2008 8:30:43 GMT -6
I also got FO #1 and 2 last night, and I'm thoroughly impressed and inspired. I'm planning to scour the dungeons for good rooms to add to my own design, and maybe later to use the other various & exciting details to flesh things out.
All the info about Dave Arneson's games was particularly inspiring. The whole attitude taken there -- the rules as jumping off point -- is really getting me to think about changes and differences I might want to make a part of my ongoing gaming. It's not so much the specific rules changes, which are his style and not mine, as the atmosphere of using them as I see fit. It's one of those things that is mind expanding.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 14, 2008 9:47:31 GMT -6
It's nice, but I would ask for one small change. Philosophy and OD&D probably should be in the Original Dungeons & Dragons section rather than the General section. It's a great forum and I would rather not see it at the bottom of the list.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 13, 2008 15:31:20 GMT -6
I haven't, but the game Dying Earth from Pelgrane Press includes spell writeups that are fairly easily imported. I just found this and I'm thinking of making a key of Dying Earth style names for various and sundry existing D&D spells. Sure, it's a Fireball or Hold Person, but why not get a little more into the whole Vancian magic angle?
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Post by cadriel on Aug 13, 2008 11:16:05 GMT -6
It's been a while since I've read the Dying Earth series, but I've got a campaign notebook that this is going into when I get home tonight. Has anyone else done a game write-up of any of the other DE spells? Not that I won't do them myself if need be but I think D&D really could use a set of 'em to flavor things up.
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Post by cadriel on Aug 12, 2008 12:17:47 GMT -6
Monsters & Treasure, p.36: "Bag of Holding: A sack-sized magical bag which will contain 10,000 Gold Pieces as if they were only 300. Objects up to 10' length and 5' width and 3' height may be stuffed into the bag, but the weight equivalent, regardless of the weight of the object, then becomes 600."
By the book, the OD&D Bag of Holding isn't really the same as its AD&D cousin. This leaves the OD&D DM latitude to make up the details as he or she sees fit -- obviously a plus. (This is really the beauty of OD&D, isn't it?) I like the idea that a Bag of Holding contains magically generated extra space, a sort of warping of reality. Violating the bag's integrity could create a case of explosive decompression as the spell is broken, the space that was magically generated ceases to exist, and the items within the bag suddenly have to fill their "real" volume and weigh their "real" weight. Of course, your Bag of Holding may vary.
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Post by cadriel on Jul 28, 2008 20:42:00 GMT -6
When I'm populating dungeons, I typically pick a few rooms that I want to have something specific in them, and then populate the rest from the charts either in Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, or (more often) from the revised charts in Greyhawk. I find that this winds up putting a lot of centipedes and spiders and the like in your games, as well as giant rats, giant toads and giant ants. But Monsters & Treasure is pretty vague about what it actually means, and I guess that was on purpose. Still, I'd like to hear how folks here tend to run these encounters -- can a 1 HP centipede still do d6 damage? Can it do any? Are they really that vicious? What about spiders? And giant toads, that's just weird. I'm looking mostly for ideas and interpretations here. (And, if you've ever been killed by a centipede, the story as well.)
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Post by cadriel on Jan 17, 2008 5:26:30 GMT -6
I don't think that's the way I'd interpret it, although catching one's spouse would more likely cause some damage rolls... to the Postman! Seriously though I think it refers to an adventurer's ability to handle living in a harsher climate, or extreme weather conditions. I mean a fighter with a high Constitution is going to be hardy like Conan, not Caspar Milquetoast! Well, obviously the fighter's hardy -- but think about it, the "adversity" has got to be pretty rough if it has a 10%-40% chance of killing an average person. Maybe it's things like a night you have to spend at below -40 Fahrenheit or above 110, getting hit by lightning or drowning. These are the things that come to my mind. Fin's choices also make sense and sound like a good way to combine the logic of static saving throws with high Con characters.
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Post by cadriel on Jan 16, 2008 8:42:14 GMT -6
So as I was reading through Men & Magic last night, I noticed the following entries in the ability score table:
Constitution 13 or 14: Will withstand adversity Constitution of 9 - 12: 60% to 90% chance of surviving Constitution of 8 or 7: 40% to 50% chance of survival
But I haven't seen any text that clarifies this in the 3LBs. "Raise Dead" hints at it but doesn't explicitly refer to these chances. What do you use these ratings for? (I'm asking in the "in your game" sense, not the "what's the right answer" sense.)
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Post by cadriel on Dec 30, 2007 19:37:37 GMT -6
The biggest differences aside from those already listed, IMO:
- OD&D stats don't matter all that much. 18 is definitely better than 15, but it never has any direct, measured impact. OTOH, in B/X a 15 is +1 and an 18 is +3. This places a very heavy mechanical importance on high stats, which is alien to OD&D.
- B/X D&D has better defined demi-humans as well as the thief. The level of definition of elves, dwarves and hobbits/halflings in B/X D&D is much higher. And nothing in OD&D (without supplements) is anything like the thief.
In terms of feel, I think the big difference is that OD&D is the sketch of a system; it's some tools, not a complete game. B/X D&D is a "completed basic" version of D&D that is much more fully fleshed out and runs right out of the box. I think an "OGL OD&D" project should be very clear that it's a "make your own system" kit, a framework, and not a completely detailed game.
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Post by cadriel on Dec 30, 2007 5:17:22 GMT -6
Thinking about it, I really prefer the "alignment is a side you're on" interpretation. What springs to mind is the Elric series, where Elric is aligned with Chaos not out of his own personal moral code or a reflection of some absolute morality, but instead because Chaos is the force in the cosmic struggle that his family's traditional allies have been on. I think it's more appropriate and evocative for a game than the interpretation that it's just a measure of your own personal morality. It's fitting for a fantasy game that the philosophical difference between Law and Chaos is a real thing, about which there is a cosmic struggle, and something that can find you some unexpected bedfellows. (It also puts a spin I like on the paladin as a sort of "commando of the Law side" rather than a simplistic good guy.) I would also say that I don't see the conflict as particularly good vs. evil; some "evil" creatures may simply be playing out a part in a much bigger tapestry, while human-scale evil tends not to be involved, or could take any side.
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Post by cadriel on Dec 28, 2007 5:56:06 GMT -6
By way of saying hello: It was, in fact, an old school Christmas for me. My (wonderful!) girlfriend tracked down copies of "Men & Magic" and "The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures" for me, along with a copy of the "Monster & Treasure Assortment"; and I promptly eBayed a copy of "Monsters & Treasure" and Supplement I. It's wonderful to be able to page through physical books that you can bring to the table. (Somebody really needs to get permission to do a quality reprint...but I guess it'd be competition for the "real" game these days. )
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Post by cadriel on Dec 28, 2007 6:14:24 GMT -6
I figure I might as well send an introduction...
I'm probably one of the younger of the "old guard" gamers...I was born in 1981, and got into D&D as an idea around 1993-1994. Back in "the day" (a few years earlier) I improvised games like this with a friend around a Monopoly board, using dice and chits to fight monsters from video games like "Dragon Warrior." I started playing with the "big black boxed set" at the end of 1994 (literally, New Year's Eve) and soon went on to AD&D (by then it was, of course, second edition).
In high school, I went old school in more than one way. First, I began to migrate my games backward, buying the 1st edition rulebooks and using them in preference to the "modern" ones, although I still incorporated chunks of 2nd edition material. Second, we also played the old Marvel Super Heroes game, which is still one of my favorite supers RPGs.
In college, I went into other games, and was generally unhappy with the direction 3e had gone, and then roleplaying became more and more sporadic. I've played a variety of things, and recently I started a Castles & Crusades game -- but I wasn't really happy with that system or the direction my game was going. So I started looking back at my 1st edition rulebooks, but more and more the online OD&D community has caught my eye. The simplicity of OD&D, and the notion that it's really what you make of it, really has started to appeal to me. So I'm eager to give it a go, and hope to get something going in the near future.
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