Search results

I'm sure anyone who is on a discussion forum dedicated to a specific product is as highly invested in all aspects of that product.

How experienced are your players? I don't think the level of complexity will be much of a problem for very experienced players who know the rules and can make swift choices. New players, or players that are uncomfortable with rules complexity might have more trouble with increased options.

This looks like an amazing bundle! Bought it right away

The implication here is that consumers never have a basis to criticize CEOs, and if they do it's just uninformed "complaining." Or, hear me out, maybe consumers have a right to advocate for themselves, and that's not just whining, but actually helpful for keeping corporations somewhat in check?

"I'm a wizard and I like spellbooks 🧙‍♂️🤓"

The set of references in the review are really interesting: Blades in the Dark, 13th Age, and Pathfinder Remastered (in terms of amount of complexity). Part of the review makes it sound like something Trophy-adjacent. But with more 'real' dungeon maps? Sounds interesting, but also sounds like...

Maybe every successful hit prompts a saving throw vs [insert bad effect]

The reason he backed off was because of said "angry mob." And remember, this is someone who laid off 1100 people while taking home millions in pay. I think it's reasonable for people to look askance at the ethics of the situation, even if it's the norm for our hyper corpo society.

FKR stands for "free kriegsspiel revival," and it's complicated but it basically suggests that whatever rules there need to be in an rpg can be minimal and/or GM-facing, so that the players are just acting diegetically as much as possible without the abstraction of mechanics. Here's Ben Milton...

I have Down We Go, but have never played it. I think at a certain point I just searched itch.io by the tag "FKR" and downloaded as many free games as I could. Those are all games that might benefit from the procedures in a game like Errant, but are themselves not procedure-heavy. A lot of...

I feel like the Old School Primer and especially the Principia Apocrypha helps with orienting people towards the expectations of OS play. Granted, it's different from having procedures, but I do see a lot of people get directed to those texts to transition in mentality to OS play.

It does raise the question about whether 5.24 will still be as accessible for new players. I have doubts, because it does seem like the added player options are more for 5e veterans than for players new to ttrpgs. But then maybe other quality of life improvements will make things easier.

One thing that’s clear from the OGL scandal is that one limit to corporate greed is an active consumer base that loudly criticizes anti-consumer behavior. I don’t think Chris Cocks was expecting the level of criticism from fans or the level of opposition from smaller developers. And no doubt...

I think the reaction roll is different than a persuasion roll, in that it happens right at the beginning of an interaction, so as to set the mood of the encounter. It doesn't necessarily resolve the task, though I suppose it can be used that way (if you want to do that, you could say that the...

I noticed that part too...that didn't make sense to me for his argument. But maybe it's just that saying a game is "about" something is a misleading simplification. 5e, for example, can be said to be "about" combat in that so much is invested in the combat mini game. Yet 5e combat still...

I really do think this is a fundamental difference between OSR and trad playstyles. In fact I think the biggest "houserule" to make a 5e game more OSR-ish is entirely on the DM's side, and that's to stop calling for so many rolls. Rather, players have to manipulate the fiction of the world to...

I think the core of the question is whether you are willing to play with limited options. Are the multitude of character options what makes the game fun? For me, that can add to the fun, but it's not the most important thing. I'm more interested in the setting and the plot, and I can make my...

I voted Mark of the Odd games, because they get at the core or OSR as a playstyle. My favorite of those is Mausritter; even if you are ambivalent about the theme (you play as a little mouse), the game design is actually really perfect. I'm also a big fan of Whitehack. And of course, as every...

I just wanted to say I'm huge fan of your blog and adventures! Essential reading for running OSR games

Started with Black Box Basic and Rules Cyclopedia then 2e. I got back into the hobby around 2013 with 3.5 and then 5e, and played a good bit of 5 over years, but felt something was missing. Returned to dungeon crawling with The Black Hack and Mork Borg and then all the rest of the OSR. My...