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Post by robertsconley on Jun 3, 2008 20:56:34 GMT -6
I am looking at the various threads on making a retro-clone for OD&D. I feel that the issues get side-tracked on the issue what set of D&D rules should be in a ruleset.
The real issue is what products are you interested in being made?
Whether for profit, labor of love, etc, when does a product become less useful to you as a DM or player of OD&D?
We already have a excellent magazine being published Fight On! What else do you desire?
The more we know about the consensus of the group/market on these two question the better the chances of getting stuff into people's hands.
My own personal interest (and talent) is in cartography and Judges Guild/Traveller style gazettes w/ numbered hex maps. As well as detailing cities, towns and other settlements.
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Post by greyharp on Jun 3, 2008 21:09:09 GMT -6
For myself I would like non-campaign specific adventures that I can insert into my game with a minimum amount of tinkering.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 3, 2008 21:26:48 GMT -6
I would also be most interested in generic dungeons, towns, castles, and so on that could be inserted directly into my own campaign.
I would prefer that the statting-out of the NPCs and monsters be minimal and generic enough to fit pretty much any old edition rules set. Heck, it would be easy enough to generate a simple doc explaining how to quickly convert AC and such from one edition to another.
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tank
Level 3 Conjurer
Posts: 58
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Post by tank on Jun 4, 2008 9:22:36 GMT -6
I would also be most interested in generic dungeons, towns, castles, and so on that could be inserted directly into my own campaign. I'd like to see these things as well. My campaign is centered around a megadungeon located in a wilderness area, so I'd be interested in buying books that include some "special" dungeon encounters, neat underground or above ground locations that I can drop in, some neat traps, and that sort of thing. A "Book of Lairs" product with OD&D-specific flavor would be a nice addition.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 4, 2008 9:53:43 GMT -6
And puzzles! My players like a "thinking" adventure a lot, but it's really hard to put together adventures with puzzles to solve that aren't too easy, too hard, or just stupid.
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Post by dwayanu on Jun 4, 2008 9:54:16 GMT -6
I find gazettes of that sort handier if it's easier to pull bits out of the larger context to drop into my own campaign. Of course, such modularity can be at odds with creating a product that has the richness of being "more than the sum of its parts."
The original JG Wilderlands, GDW's Spinward Marches, and the World of Greyhawk folio come to mind as examples of products that are easy to "plug in" to an existing setting because they're not too loaded with detail. If a smaller, more detailed module could fit as easily into Greyhawk or the Wilderlands (e.g., the city of Carse from Midkemia), then it's a good bet.
Contrasting examples would include Glorantha and the Forgotten Realms. Those settings are more like whole separate campaigns in themselves.
I don't know how many share this view, but I prefer not to get "stat blocks" for anything I can look up in the rules at hand. New monsters and key NPCs are obvious exceptions.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 4, 2008 10:00:40 GMT -6
I don't know how many share this view, but I prefer not to get "stat blocks" for anything I can look up in the rules at hand. New monsters and key NPCs are obvious exceptions. This is a really good point. We could duck most of the OGL issue entirely if products were done mostly in a descriptive manner. Only a few key NPCs and/or monsters would need to be statted, and probably the more minimal the better. Individual DMs would be able to fill in the number details....
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Post by makofan on Jun 4, 2008 10:02:19 GMT -6
Amen.
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Post by philotomy on Jun 4, 2008 10:29:05 GMT -6
I don't know how many share this view, but I prefer not to get "stat blocks" for anything I can look up in the rules at hand. New monsters and key NPCs are obvious exceptions. I share that view. I use the three brown books, with no Greyhawk, so stat blocks are usually off, for me, in any case. (Heck, even the Monster & Treasure Assortments use the Greyhawk hit dice, attacks, et cetera.) I tend to roll monster hit points at the table (and use the dice to track them, as suggested by Zulgyan, I believe).
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Post by ffilz on Jun 4, 2008 11:39:49 GMT -6
What I'm looking for:
#1. A solid restatement of OD&D that maintains as true as possible to the original rules but includes at least the Greyhawk supplement. This restatement ideally would either include alternate text to support various readings of the original text, or preserve the ambiguity in the original text. My desire for this isn't to avoid having to buy the PDFs, but to use as the basis for preparing a concise rule book for my game, that I can edit in my house rules and such. As such, the restatement ideally is in a word processing document format rather than a PDF.
#2. An online community to share ideas.
#3. A publishing vehicle to collate the best of those ideas. Fight On! is one such excellent vehicle. I'm also looking forward to grodog's publication on old school dungeon design.
I am not particularly interested in modules or campaign settings. New monsters and magic items are welcome, but are easily part of #2 and #3.
Frank
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Post by pjork on Jun 4, 2008 20:08:16 GMT -6
I don't know how many share this view, but I prefer not to get "stat blocks" for anything I can look up in the rules at hand. Another one shares the view.
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Post by geoffrey on Jun 4, 2008 21:44:29 GMT -6
I hate stat blocks, too. For AD&D, I prefer listing only hit points. For OD&D, I wouldn't even want hit points listed, since some OD&D DMs use d6 for monster hit dice, some use d8, some use Zulgyan's very cool method, etc.
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Post by geoffrey on Jun 4, 2008 21:52:01 GMT -6
The real issue is what products are you interested in being made? Whether for profit, labor of love, etc, when does a product become less useful to you as a DM or player of OD&D? We already have a excellent magazine being published Fight On! What else do you desire? The more we know about the consensus of the group/market on these two question the better the chances of getting stuff into people's hands. I have two main interests: 1. honest-to-goodness megadungeons that have been sitting around in notebooks for 20+ years. I prefer hand-drawn dungeon maps to any other sort. 2. Short, old-school campaign settings. The best format for them is that of the Wilderlands. Whether I use them or not, I find them inspiring.
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Post by ffilz on Jun 5, 2008 11:06:16 GMT -6
Seeing what Geoffrey said, I should amend my "no modules" statement. I would love to see old mega-dungeons. I think I would have some interest in seeing short campaign setting write-ups. Back in the Day, Different Worlds had a neat article series where they got various industry people to write up their campaigns. They were pretty neat to read.
Frank
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Post by foster1941 on Jun 5, 2008 11:44:29 GMT -6
Single rooms or small connected series of rooms that can be plugged modularly into an existing dungeon, containing interesting and unique encounters, puzzles, traps, enigmas, etc. -- the kind of stuff that requires actual creativity, not just stuff that anyone could roll off a table. For example, Rob Kuntz's "The Original Living Room," or the sample encounters in TSR's 3 Dungeon Geomorphs sets.
Anyone can draw level maps and fill in the basics (standard monsters, standard treasures, standard tricks and traps) but those "special" areas that require actual creativity and cleverness are harder to do, especially in bulk (coming up with 3 or 4 might not be so hard, but 20 or 30 is a lot more difficult). Personally speaking, logic puzzles, riddles, complicated Rube Goldberg-type setups, and such are especially hard for me to come up with on my own, which is frustrating because as a player, and when GMing modules, this tends to be my favorite kind of stuff, what really makes the game for me.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2008 11:59:27 GMT -6
I want materials that don't have to fit into someone elses world but I can use for my home campaign game.
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Post by ffilz on Jun 6, 2008 13:07:21 GMT -6
I'd like to second Foster on small dungeon sections. Even if you can't drop the map in, a small focused dungeon section like this is great for ideas.
Another example of this idea was a portion of Don Turnbull's Greenland's dungeon was published in an early White Dwarf (somewhere in the issue #1-4 range if I recall).
Also, small dungeons may sometimes be able to be plugged into a larger dungeon. Got a 3-10 room dungeon scenario for 4th level PCs which has as it's entrance a descending staircase? No problemo. I can plug it into the 4th level of my dungeon as a sub-level.
Frank
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Post by havard on Jun 6, 2008 13:28:38 GMT -6
My own personal interest (and talent) is in cartography and Judges Guild/Traveller style gazettes w/ numbered hex maps. As well as detailing cities, towns and other settlements. I think these things would be quite interesting Havard
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akiyama
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 103
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Post by akiyama on Jun 6, 2008 18:12:27 GMT -6
There don't seem to be very many city based adventures around; I'd particularly appreciate ones that can be set in any generic fantasy city.
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Bard
Level 3 Conjurer
The dice never lie.
Posts: 87
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Post by Bard on Jun 7, 2008 15:45:31 GMT -6
When I first visited Knights and Knaves Alehouse, the first topic which I saw, was about the changing of the fighter's HD from d6 to d8... First I laughed, then I read the topic, and then I understood, that it's a very good thing that there is a website, where veteran DMs talk about my favorite game's every rule, their different versions, and the rules' meanings... So I, talking about retro clones and what would I really like to read, is a series of essays, where somebody examines od&d, ad&d, bxd&d, rc, ll, osric, even c&c, and compares every rule, what are the differences, and what the differences mean in the long run of playing. What direction they are taking the game. This would be in my opinion "the" rule book for the "modern" DM, if he wants to understand the philosophy behind the rules.
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Post by Haldo Bramwise on Jul 8, 2008 9:36:31 GMT -6
This is a very interesting discussion that I am giving a great deal of attention.
I like the idea of products without stat blocks so that they can be used by any old-school game and "flavored up" by the DM. I also like the idea of generic locations - town, wilderness, dungeon that can be quickly incorporated and adapted to any campaign.
I'll keep paying attention to your suggestions.
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 8, 2008 21:03:56 GMT -6
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Post by Haldo Bramwise on Jul 9, 2008 5:35:18 GMT -6
Hey, that looks great. Got an ETA on it?
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Post by robertsconley on Jul 9, 2008 6:55:26 GMT -6
Hey, that looks great. Got an ETA on it? August hopefully before Gen Con
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Post by Random on Jul 21, 2008 20:22:30 GMT -6
I'll second (or third or fourth or whatever) a collection of puzzles.
I'm usually pretty good at coming up with at least one really good puzzle, but if I wanted two, I just might run out of juice.
Suggestions for traps are cool too. Sometimes we all need a little help devising evil ways to kill people.
Also, I think a generic descriptive approach to writing adventures would be for the best. I tend to put all the monster stats on a separate sheet away from the room descriptions anyways.
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Post by longcoat000 on Aug 15, 2008 11:17:14 GMT -6
There's a couple of things I'd like to see: 1) Some sort of new random dungeon generator. I liked the one in the old 1E DMG, and the one TSR came out with for 2E was actually quite useful. I know that DMing is about creativity, but sometimes you end up staring at a blank piece of graph paper for a couple of hours and nothing inspires you. 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. 3) Generic, self-contained modules. I don't need any meta-arcs or deep storylines. I want something that I can drop into any campaign I choose to run without having to remove or change fifteen pages of exposition and NPC dialogue. 4) Random encounter and dungeon dressing tables. Heck, it would be easy enough to generate a simple doc explaining how to quickly convert AC and such from one edition to another. First thing I'd say to do is see if there's an equivalent item or creature in whatever edition you're using. If not, then here's the quick & dirty conversion for OD&D - 2E to 3.X - 4th. OD&D to 3.X+ (Base AC - OD&D through 2E AC) + 10 = 3.X through 4th ACso to convert OD&D AC 7 to 3.X+ AC, it's (9 (OD&D base AC is 9) - 7) + 10 = 12. If you were going with BECMI - 2E, it's (10 - 7) + 10 = 13, because their base AC begins at 10 instead of 9. Likewise, converting OD&D AC -3 to 3.X+, it's (9 + 3) + 10 = 22 To convert from 3.X+ back to OD&D - 2E, use the following formula: 10 - (3.X through 4th AC - Base AC) = OD&D through 2E ACSo to go from 3.X+ AC 12 to OD&D, it's 10 - (12 - 9) = 7. 3.X+ AC 22 to OD&D is 10 - (22 - 9) = -3. This is really only good when you're converting monsters over. If you're converting something that's actually wearing a type of armor (plate, chainmail, etc), use whatever the proper AC is for the armor worn for your edition and adjust for attributes & magic (if you're adjusting to anything but OD&D. If you're going to OD&D, just use the armor, subtract magic from the attackers HD, and give attribute adjustments the finger ;D). For funky armor types that don't exist in a particular edition (chain shirts, banded mail, half plate, etc.), redress them in the closest approximation for your edition. Studded leather & hide is leather. Chain shirts, scale mail, splint mail, and banded are chainmail. Half plate is treated as full plate. Shields are shields.
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Post by robertsconley on Aug 15, 2008 19:55:46 GMT -6
Phase One completed of my master plan Points of Light should be at your FLGS.
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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 driver on Aug 15, 2008 21:15:18 GMT -6
Congrats, Robert! Looks great.
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Post by coffee on Aug 17, 2008 1:42:34 GMT -6
Phase One completed of my master plan Points of Light should be at your FLGS. Well, not anymore. I got the last copy (unless they were hiding some in the back!) But don't worry. I told the guy as I was paying for it, so they should be re-ordering soon. I haven't read the whole thing in any great detail, but from what I have read (and the maps I've drooled over...), it's a real winner. I already have about half a dozen ideas for encounters or dungeons or whatever. Now I just need a group! Rob, have an exalt for such a great addition to the field of old school material.
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