Search results

Hmm. The Dragonlance modules (and the market success of Hickman's earlier works, like Rahasia, Pharaoh, and Ravenloft) is often viewed as a dividing line nicknamed the Hickman Revolution, marking a transition in TSR itself from more game-oriented modules to more story-oriented modules, with...

Just a quick side note, there were several posts discussing Saunders and Imaro earlier in the thread (between posts 181 and 248, for example).

Sure, lots of subjective opinions and different perspectives. The movement was already being discussed as a movement two years before the first retro-clones, though. That's just objective reality.

There's some good data in that, but also some misconceptions. I came in about ten years earlier than that person, and definitely 2007-2008 was an inflection point, with a big explosion in the blogosphere in particular launching then and continuing for several years. Big linchpin OSR blogs like...

Remember, too, that the WotC editions have all contained instructions that not all encounters should be balanced per the level of the PCs. They all suggest that at least some portion should be weaker, opportunities for the players who kick butt and feel powerful, and some portion should be...

I always marvel a bit at how long descending AC held on. Gary mentions in the 1979 DMG that it was retained for backwards compatibility and due to players already all being used to it. And then 2E held onto it, again, just for compatibility! We should have had ascending in the late 70s...

Half a gram of sugar a year is pretty hardcore. An Oreo has 14. A 3" diameter apple averages 19. One can of Coke is about as much sugar as two apples.

AD&D lightly implies that it's limited to melee "Back stabbing is the striking of a blow from behind, be it with club, dagger, or sword." (PH page 27) The original OD&D description just says "By striking silently from behind the thief gains two advantages". (Greyhawk page 4) B/X also uses a...

Sugar is fine in moderation. The one I drink doesn't have sugar, and I average less than a can every few days, so that's not doing me any appreciable harm either.

I agree (though I don't want to be drowned in detail). If I'm buying a module I'm paying for someone else's creativity. Someone to give me ideas I wouldn't have necessarily come up with on my own. If the writing is good, it will also enhance my own improvisations and steer them in new and fun...

TBF, expectations about keeping PCs poor were largely set by Gygax's extremely influential advice in the 1979 DMG. The modules and XP charts expecting PCs to acquire tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of GP in treasure were in constant tension with Gary's instructions (and black and...

Daði? Yes, and some modern adventures (like the official ones for OSE from Necrotic Gnome) deliberately structure area descriptions in layers like this, with broad details at first glance and nested/indented further details for when the players ask about/examine something specific. Others...

I suspect you're right. In the different context he might describe it more as Not For Me, although that's not always within his shorthand idiom, when in review or rant mode. In this 2016 interview he retroactively describes 2010/2011 him as being a jerk, so it seems like in retrospect he was...

Right. Combat was either very simple or you get into challenging judgement calls if the DM is put on the spot to invent a fair ruling for a special maneuver. Yes, there is definitely an art and a science to it. Sometimes even a good room NAME can give substantial help to the DM in improvising...

It's a good piece. Before I followed the link I was going to link to @Gus L 's 7 Maxims of the OSR post, which breaks down several of these shorthand phrases and explains their origins and where people go wrong with them, ...and then I saw that the author linked to that right up front. :LOL: I...