Incline OSR Games - Official thread

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Also: how do you guys feel about merging/gutting some stats in order to... I don't know, streamline them a little bit. Like combining STR and CON (Might), keeping DEX and INT as they are, combining WIS and CHA (Resolve)? That way I could have 4 stats related to 4 saving throws, with bonuses and penalties.

 

[HeroMarine]

Doesn't sound that bad, imo.

 

[udm]

Don't know if you guys can help me, but, aside from gridcartographer, there are good mapping tools out there to map dungeons? Tabletop wise, not necessarily pc game wise.

Yes indeed. http://pyromancers.com/dungeon-painter-online/
The paid version is pretty cheap, and it's really easy to make stuff once you get the hang of it (read a couple of tutorials, etc.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/592260/Dungeon_Painter_Studio/

Adding on to what nikolokolus said...

MapForge: https://www.mapforge-software.com/ (the dev Heruca posts in Gazebo occasionally)
Dungeon Builder: https://hobbyte.net/
Arkenforge: https://arkenforge.com/

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Good news: I can finally sit down and finish the "Characters & equipment" part of the setting. The bad news? I'm still somewhat torn between having a human-centric world, with different races being somewhat alien but scattered here and there, or creating at least SOME racial options. Of course, by "racial options" I mean race-as-class, I considered going the ACKs route for a moment (different races having two classes available only to themselves), but that creates an unnecessary amount of bloat and fucks a little bit with the Pillar stuff I described earlier*.

So far, I've boiled the list of available race-as-classes to 4 and don't want more than that:

• not!elves, associated with the Pillar of Wood - ranger-druids on PCP, loosely inspired by Dunmer houses (Telvanni in particular), with society based on backstabbing, politicking, slavery, and in-family cannibalism. Would come up with their own set of spells, unavailable to regular wizards;
  
• not!dwarves, associated with the Pillar of Earth/Iron - I really don't like the theme of dwarf characters in OSR, which basically boils down to "fighter, but with better saves". On a spectrum Gimli-Dwemer, I'd go with the Dwemer, with tonal architects instead of axes and autistic levels of logic instead of "hearty, stone-y, little folk". In other words: lots and lots of schematics, with fighting taking the backseat. Good thing I had notes about not!Artificer ready;
  
• undead, associated with the Pillar of (surprise, surprise) Bones - the setting isn't as grimdark as it started as, so I wanted some genre-bending** race to throw in. The undead (at least the self-aware ones, which prefer the term mortally-challenged) are treated as a rather unfortunate branch of humanity. Comes up with an innate ability to speak with the dead and some minor ways of avoiding death;
• shapeshfting, vampiric snakefolk, associated with the Pillar of Flesh/Blood: basically what I said about "Shaper" in my earlier post. In-universe, they deal with all manner of fucked-up things, including (but not limited to) drugs, pheromones, proto-cloning, and cosmetic surgery.

* one way of fixing it would be to associate each race with different Pillar, but that creates another set of problems - eight Pillars is something I set in stone a long time ago and don't want to throw it out. Rearranging things, renaming them - yes, removing them entirely - no.
** I know that the term lost some of its meaning lately, but I really like the idea of playing as a conscious undead a la Emperor Zombie.

As for level limits - yeah, they are, sadly, unavoidable if I want to create some sort of balance, even though I don't really like them that much (most campaigns don't even go that far as to make them really matter, but when they do, they can become hard to handle). I'll probably cut the class progression at 1 million XP, so all humans will reach xx level, with race-as-classes limited to... 12 or somewhere around that, I don't have the table at hand.

Thoughts?

 

[Morblot]

The not!dwarves would probably have the technology to take over the world if they felt like it, but they're constantly reinventing the wheel (even literally) and trying to improve their designs, causing them to not actually achieve anything. Or at least that's what came to mind after reading your description. ("You like this full-automatic crossbow? Wait until you see the next revision!")

I like the races, except for elves, because elves are always lame. No amount of cannibalism will make them cool.

Still, speaking of cannibalism... Would they get some of the powers of the relatives they eat? Kind of like how in VtM diablerie makes vampires more powerful?

I'm not a big fan of level limits. Maybe include (in the GM section) some short guidelines on how to remove them? Just add a mention that doing this will unbalance the game to wash your hands of the responsibility.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Flesh/Blood

I kind of feel flesh blood and bone pillars are redundant, honestly.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Still, speaking of cannibalism... Would they get some of the powers of the relatives they eat? Kind of like how in VtM diablerie makes vampires more powerful?

That was the point, actually, at least on paper: spells known are the most obvious example of powers, with an added bonus of climbing up the social ladder. Still, I can already see it being a complete mess to balance and "social ladder" can move dangerously close to narrative shit.

I like the races, except for elves, because elves are always lame. No amount of cannibalism will make them cool.

Dunmer aren't
But I'd absolutely agree they bring nothing that can't be recreated with human societies and moving elves into the "unintelligible, bizarre fae-things" territory.

I'm not a big fan of level limits. Maybe include (in the GM section) some short guidelines on how to remove them?

I was thinking of going Rules Cyclopedia route - you either 1) gain experience past the level limit, but gain no benefits outside of combat moves/spells/whatever, or 2) level up as usual, but all the XP costs are doubled.

The not!dwarves would probably have the technology to take over the world if they felt like it, but they're constantly reinventing the wheel (even literally) and trying to improve their designs, causing them to not actually achieve anything.

Not necessarily true in the world full of mages, warrior-mages, and everything in between, with wizards capable of turning you into a pile of volcanic ash - it's somewhat close to MAD when it comes to weaponry, both mundane and magical.

Spoiler

Unless the dwarves build a giant, space-bending mecha, then it's all out the window

I kind of feel flesh blood and bone pillars are redundant, honestly.

Maybe so, but when it comes to specialist mages I'll take Necromancer over Illusionist any day of the week.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

I like the races, except for elves, because elves are always lame.

Replying again, but I've been thinking about it for a while and I have to agree - no amount of tinkering (making them savages, arcane scholars, cursed race, slavers - it's all been done to death) will make them unique and immune to deviantart levels of derp crawling in. This pretty much settles the idea of my setting being humancentric, with various races being either myths, concepts, or closer to tleilaxu.
I'll still, however, implement them in my deliberately cheesy project I work on on the side - evil-focused campaign/setting agnostic system, closer to Dungeon Keeper than WoD.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Ok, this is pretty much my last post pre-final draft, I'll finally sit down and compile this shit into a reasonable format. I've cut out a lot of stuff since I have a feeling that both mechanics and setting were becoming somewhat bloated. Here goes.

Characters:

• Brute: typical Fighter, with big weapons, big armor, and big bonuses to hit. I'm somewhat on the fence about giving him various combat maneuvers as he levels up. On one hand, I like the idea of referee ruling in/out whatever you please; on the other, it depends a little too much on the referee - Fighter might be as powerful as you please but only as long as you agree on the power level. If your referee is somewhat unimaginative (OR WORSE YET - autistic rules lawyer), you're done. Maneuvers wouldn't necessarily be something big or gamebreaking, just the regular "deal +2 dmg, but receive -2 to attack value", "-x to attack value, but make your enemy bleed", or "-4 to attack value, but disarm your opponent", stuff like that;
• Scoundrel: a combination of thief and assassin, nothing to see here, really;
  
• Delver: your usual ranger stuff, but I made him a counterpart to Scoundrel's urban skills - you can "magically" disappear in the wilderness, track opponents, survive on your own, the usual. On 1st level, gains access to "favored enemy" and receives +1 to hit and damage against it. Every 4th level, you can either a) increase the bonus by additional +1, or b) pick another enemy (for example, an 8th level Delver would have +2 to hit and dmg against constructs and +1 to hit and dmg against elementals);
• Weaver: Bard, with Loremastery stuff thrown in for good measure. Gains access to spells focused on calming enemies, buffing allies (and himself), with the theme centered around glorious battles. NO pickpocketing, NO opening locks, fuck that. Receives bonuses to hit normally reserved for Clerics - I'll explain why later;
  
• Arcanist: a mage, plain and simple. However, you must save or forget the spell you've cast. On natural 1, you suffer a consequence with severity and complexity depending on the spell and associated school of... thought, for the lack of better word. Gains access to specialization option, which gives you additional spells and bonus against miscasts of one school, but you have to sacrifice two others;
• Cleric: this is probably the biggest departure from regular OSR stuff, so much so, it's better just to list the changes:

• they don't receive regular bonuses to hit (Weaver took those)...
• ... but they have something called "favored weapon" (sometimes "weapons"), which depends solely on the chosen god, which allows them to gain increasing bonuses to hit ONLY with those weapons. Otherwise, they are pretty much fucked. In some extreme cases, you might be excommunicated for using restricted weaponry;
  
• no unified spell list. In fact, they have very limited amount of spells since I really, really, REALLY hate the idea of Clerics being able to do all the stuff - turn undead, heal wounds, bless allies, purify water and food, giving unimaginable handjobs, what have you. As with weapons, it depends on the chosen god;
• the pantheon is... well, it's thematic, I'll put it that way. It's implied that gods aren't really gods (as in walking in the clouds or living in your referee's magical realm), but fractured remnants of pre-unnamed catastrophe AIs, with "domains" based on either internet (called simply the "Web" in the setting - after all, pushing all the useless shit aside, it CAN be the hub of human knowledge... or the only one we really know about) or what they were designed to do in the by-gone era. The Emperor, for example, is a god of order and stability, mixed with some fucked-up ideas about what Rome was about and what Romans really believed in (somewhat less edgy version of FNV's Legion or at least closer to design documents than what we see in the game) - if you choose him, you may use swords and javelins, and your spells are limited to temporary personal and group buffs. Paleo-Authority, on the other hand, allows you to magically mend wounds and treat poisons, but you can't use ANY weapon, you are basically relegated to the healer route, now shut up and do your job. Totally not the not!Christianity mixed with new age crap, oh no, no.

Mechanical changes:

• no changes to stats. Merging them together won't work - the only one I'd remove is wisdom, since merging STR with CON makes it way too powerful of a stat, and charisma at least has some uses. I don't use the bonuses to saves from wisdom, anyway, but it determines maximum level of clerical spells and provides a bonus to xp gained;
  
• ultimately, I went with S&W unified saving throw - it's such an elegant solution, I'm amazed it's not more popular. Each character gains a bonus against specific effect (Delver is naturally resistant to poisons and radiation, Weaver gains a bonus against magically-induced suggestions and charms). There are, however, rules of converting it to either 5 saves or 3 saves;
• skills are resolved by rolling d20 - the idea of rolling d100 for some, d6 or 2d6 for others, with d20 somewhere in-between simply fucks with my mind. The only thing resolved with 2d6 is turning undead, a mechanic limited to one particular type of cleric (followers of "Boatman"). Each character has a 10% chance to succeed at any skill - less than 1 in 6, sure, but I find it an elegant solution to things.

I guess that's really it? I don't want to change TOO much since it'd create a clusterfuck of conversion rules and become a total waste of time - at this point, it would be better just to bolt the setting to an existing ruleset (probably Lab Lord). There's a bunch of optional rules (give 1st level characters max hp, different ways of stat rolling), but they already exist, so I won't list them.


Next up: factions. Oh, boy, they're a big deal already.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Newsflash: fuck clerics. I'm replacing them with Gadgeteer* and merging some cleric-related ideas with wizard/arcanist. Yeah, I started playing Wiz8 again.

Hit die: d4, gains 2hp/level after level 9.

Equipment restrictions: can't use armors heavier than light, two-handed melee weapons (outside of staves), and can't dual wield without usual penalties. They can, however, freely use one-handed melee weapons and ranged weaponry, including complicated multi-barreled meta-guns and paleoblasters.

Prime Attribute: Intelligence* (+5% bonus experience for 13+, +10% for 16+).

Saving throw bonus: Gadgeteers gain +2 bonus to saving throw against non-magical explosions and chemical effects.

Special abilities:

• Blueprints**: just as Arcanists are all about different spells, Gadgeteers are all about blueprints. While everyone can, given enough time, funds, and knowledge, eventually craft some items, Gadgeteers are the only ones that can do so, seemingly, on the fly. Doing so, however, requires a successful skill throw, directly related to one of the three categories: explosives, mechanics, or chemistry. As long as the components aren't destroyed or unusable anymore (after all, there's only so much sulfuric acid you can travel with), the Gadgeteer can attempt crafting again. The amount of blueprints you can carry with depends on your Intelligence***.
  
• Jury rigging: at 4th level, Gadgeteers gain an uncanny ability to fix any mundane item with items just remotely similar. No more extended cog hunting to fix your nuclear-powered clockwork spider drone! Fix your Basher's advanced heavy armor with just a few pieces of junk lying around! At first, this ability has 50% chance of succeeding (11+ on d20) and increases by 10 5% each level, up to 90% on level 13. The Referee may deem some items broken beyond repair or impose additional penalties due to time restrictions.
• Monkey wrench!: at 2nd level, Gadgeteer can disable a piece of working machinery with just a few clicks, jabs, and knocks for 1d6 rounds. Requires a full round to complete.
• Establish laboratory: should the Gadgeteer reach 10th level, he/she may establish a laboratory (preferably in a secluded location -- while common folk think Gadgeteers are useful on their own, spontaneous explosions aren't). In about a week, it will attract 1d4 aspiring 1st level Gadgeteers, focused on their own experiments and coming up with more blueprints for your character to use.

* INT in my system is now a measure of education, IQ, deductive skills, and so on, not "this is how good you are at being magic-man". I renamed WIS to "Resolve" simply because of it, which is now a Prime Attribute for Arcanists/Magic-users.

** these can be really anything. Granted, the three categories are somewhat arbitrary, but they work so far -- if you enjoy Arcanum, some things should be familiar. "Chemistry" combines various things from medicine and chemistry, "explosives" are self-explanatory, and "mechanics" combines everything from gun-smithing to traps and constructs.

*** I'm leaning towards the system where the amount of spells/blueprints/songs known/memorized is equal to (respectively) RES/INT/CHA + level. For example, a 2nd level Weaver with 10 CHA can memorize songs which amount to 12 in level. This doesn't mean much, really, since you'll get your spells/songs/blueprints randomly and the usual "non-vancian" shit still applies. I just enjoy this level-agnostic stuff too much, I guess.

EDIT: I'm retarded and can't into numbers

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

I'm torn between two settings I want to focus on (since the main mechanics are pretty much set in stone already):

• bizarre, Jodorowsky and Numenera inspired setting, with a lot of weird shit, sometimes simply for the sake of being weird. Neoplatonian philosophies on top of faction dedicated to honing their martial skills across time and space (basically, a race of cosmic monks who keep their knowledge in digestible crystals and can fuck you up in no time), with more primitive tribes roaming the land;
• somewhat more "comfy" setting - a world where life in various taverns, towns, castles, and hamlets is basically fair and nice, but everything between them is populated by... well, weird shit, from kobolds, gnolls, and fae, to ancient not!Koschei liches. Somewhat more focused on slice of life stories, where PCs take the roll of messengers, border guards, and trail blazers. Oh, and winter is a HUGE deal - not only because of scarcity, but also because aforementioned weird shit comes to life. A cross-breed between Moominvalley and Mouse Guard, but lethal in its own way since it's osr we're talking about

Thoughts? I think I'm at the creative crossroads here and everything's been done to death

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I'm torn between two settings I want to focus on (since the main mechanics are pretty much set in stone already):

• bizarre, Jodorowsky and Numenera inspired setting, with a lot of weird shit, sometimes simply for the sake of being weird. Neoplatonian philosophies on top of faction dedicated to honing their martial skills across time and space (basically, a race of cosmic monks who keep their knowledge in digestible crystals and can fuck you up in no time), with more primitive tribes roaming the land;
• somewhat more "comfy" setting - a world where life in various taverns, towns, castles, and hamlets is basically fair and nice, but everything between them is populated by... well, weird shit, from kobolds, gnolls, and fae, to ancient not!Koschei liches. Somewhat more focused on slice of life stories, where PCs take the roll of messengers, border guards, and trail blazers. Oh, and winter is a HUGE deal - not only because of scarcity, but also because aforementioned weird shit comes to life. A cross-breed between Moominvalley and Mouse Guard, but lethal in its own way since it's osr we're talking about

Thoughts? I think I'm at the creative crossroads here and everything's been done to death

I like 2 better.

 

[HeroMarine]

Thoughts?

Your stuff is too weird to me.

 

[Merlkir]

I'm selling "Maze of the Blue Medusa", "A Red And Pleasant Land" and "Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy RPG" - if any Europeans are interested and don't have them yet:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274009783044
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274009798243
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274009813090

 

[Siobhan]

HumbleBundle sale. $18 for over 1GB of content, including Rappan Athuk, Hex Crawl Chronicles, and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/old-school-fantasy-roleplaying-books

 

[nikolokolus]

HumbleBundle sale. $18 for over 1GB of content, including Rappan Athuk, Hex Crawl Chronicles, and Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/old-school-fantasy-roleplaying-books

That's a pretty good deal. Frog God makes some decent supplements, but the best of the bunch is probably Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea (FWIW, the Castles & Crusades stuff will make your eyes bleed if bad grammar and poor editing bother you).

 

[Curratum]

I don't usually pay for digital stuff but Frog God are great guys, so maybe pitch in? The books on the list are great too, I've flipped through the majority of them. I personally don't find them usable as they tend to be waaaaaaay too verbose for my taste (I'm more of a Stonehell kind of guy) but there's a lot of people out there who do use them so... At worst, they're an amazing trove of ideas to steal and most times - a fun read as well.

 

[catfood]

Swords and Wizardry is also a great B/X clone that has lots of support for it. I like that it features a phase based combat system and also both an ascending and descending armor class system for both normal persons and autists respectively.

Btw, do you know anyone that has ever completed Rappan Athuk? That thing is yuge!

 

[Melan]

That's a good deal. Actually, it may be too much good stuff. Rappan Athuk alone could take over a campaign (we dipped into it back in the 3.0 days, and it was already immense). Likewise, Fight On! and Knockspell have enough ideas to stock two campaigns and then some. AS&SH (of the boldest acronym ever ) is not too shabby as a swords & sorcery take on AD&D, and S&W is a good modernisation of OD&D. And there is some underrated stuff there - The Fane of Poisoned Prophecies is quite excellent, and rather hard to come by in print.

 

[pakoito]

Has anyone run any of the microgames such as Maze Rats or Knave? I'm starting some P&P noobs on one of them (or a mash of the rules I found on reddit)

tl;dr Classless. Challenges are 2d6 + modifier vs 10 + modifier, combat is 2d6 + attack vs armor (6 base + equip), equipment slots are 10 + STR. Spellbooks are 1/day and take one equip slot.

 

[Morblot]

Has anyone run any of the microgames such as Maze Rats or Knave? I'm starting some P&P noobs on one of them (or a mash of the rules I found on reddit)

tl;dr Classless. Challenges are 2d6 + modifier vs 10 + modifier, combat is 2d6 + attack vs armor (6 base + equip), equipment slots are 10 + STR. Spellbooks are 1/day and take one equip slot.

No, but I've considered them every now and then. Please tell us of your experiences afterwards.

 

[Dwemer Puzzle Box]

Has anyone run any of the microgames such as Maze Rats or Knave? I'm starting some P&P noobs on one of them (or a mash of the rules I found on reddit)

Please tell us of your experiences afterwards.

Can't say for Knave, but Maze Rats is pretty fine for what it advertises itself as - a barebones, introductory-level rpg, with folk unfamiliar with RPGs in mind. It goes pretty too far for my taste into the "barebones" territory - the whole ruleset has, like, one or two pages total; some people absolutely love the magic system used in it. Also worth mentioning is the fact that it uses 2d6 instead of d20 as its main mechanic - a big plus for some people, but then again, why not tinker with some PbtA stuff?

 

[pakoito]

Some crossposting: what OSR stuff should I get from DriveThrough? https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/whats-worth-getting-from-drivethrurpg.130042/

So far I have the One Page Dungeon Compendium 2018 Tenth Anniversary Print Edition in the basket.

 

[nikolokolus]

Some crossposting: what OSR stuff should I get from DriveThrough? https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/whats-worth-getting-from-drivethrurpg.130042/

So far I have the One Page Dungeon Compendium 2018 Tenth Anniversary Print Edition in the basket.

The Wormskin zines by Necrotic Gnome are great (as is Gavin's B/X clone Old-School Essentials). Anything from Hydra Cooperative (Slumbering Ursine Dunes, Fever Dreaming Marlinko, Misty Isles of the Eld, etc.) is usually great.

I guess a lot of it comes down to what you're looking for; rules, supplements, adventures, settings, whatever. If you need recommendations for adventures, Bryce from tenfootpole.org is probably a good place to get insightful, brutal, unvarnished, reviews that spare no feelings. Most of the ratings on Drivethru feel like bullshit half the time -- the number of 4.5+ star reviews attached to real dreck is embarrassing.

 

[pakoito]

High bang-for-buck adventure books like compilations, tables, and short adventures; or self-contained rulesets or settings.