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So I hear you one OSE - I think it's a useful game text, but I also think it came a bit too late ... It originally designed at the beginning of the end of the G+ era. That is to say when OSE was written there was a fairly strong consensus in the largest part of the OSR that B/X was the...

Absolutely, I think it would take a lot of prep to run Arden Vul no matter what. Even if the keys were streamlined in whatever one's preferred method is there's still so much dungeon, so many factions, so many interactions and so many connected details to the thing that it needs to be understood...

Hashing out what the OSR is or isn't is an impossible task. Personally I've been involved in the OSR and now Post OSR since maybe 2011 (at least that's when I started blogging). Personally I don't take a rules based approach to defining the OSR. I see the OSR as a RPG scene that started...

No - they tend on the longer side for what they are - very late TSR - but that one is exceptional. To some degree I have to forgive Arden Vul for this. Unlike a lot of other mega-dungeons it goes all in on Jaquaysian archeological complexity ... and it largely succeeds. It's a pretty amazing...

I tend to agree the difficulty is 1) keying complex rooms and 2) Keying simple rooms in less standard spaces. E.G. "4 orcs arguing about what's on the menu" is likely functional for a room in a stone dungeon beneath the ruined castle when orcs are your basic "evil monster-men". It won't work...

I've been thinking a lot about keying again... perhaps it's my day job moving into highly restricted forms of informational writing, perhaps it's the One Page Dungeon Contest rolling around again, and perhaps writing dungeon keys is just something I find comforting. I wrote a post about it...

"I adopted the rules I'd done earlier for a Civil War game called Ironclads that had hit points and armor class. It meant that players had a chance to live longer and do more. They didn't care that they had hit points to keep track of because they were just keeping track of little detailed...

We do know that bows were frequently mentioned in "viking sagas" and found at many Northern European sites. They tend to be single stave bows that are fairly long and mentions of war bows (such as in Olafs Trygvasonar's sagas) tend to emphasize heavy draw weights and use at sea. A fair amount...

On of the things I try to avoid in thinking about RPG mechanics, especially combat ones, is stuff that seems cool, or is too specific, or too hyped. I think of this as the "Katana Issue" or more historically maybe "Gygax's Spear"*. The basic problem I see is the urge towards simulation (not...

The one I use is "if you roll under a 5 on the to hit - regardless of any bonuses etc - you do full damage to an ally". It's bad enough that people avoid it most of the time, but also will do it when things are tense. I tend to think of light crossbows and throwing axes/knives as the dungeon...

I don't but since no one fires missile weapons other then throwing knives and axes more then once usually (the rules for firing into melee are harsh ... but fair I think). I would likely in a game with more missile fire. Not exactly sure how though.

It doesn't matter if Tolkien's dwarves cast spells... This whole discussion reminds me of "Gandalf is a 7th level Magic-User tops" sort of claims. Tolkien's books do not follow any D&D system and can't really be laid on top of them very well, and despite Elric or Cthulhu getting stats in the...

Personally I like to keep things a bit less granular and more abstract. I privilege location and placing over initiative and speed. My approach to rank/file and flank combat is here: https://alldeadgenerations.blogspot.com/2023/10/dungeon-skr.html Usually in dungeon crawls this ends up with...

So giant mega dungeons need a large amount of variety and factions. While ancient may tower of the mad elder god wizards is certainly a reasonable start, if this is going to work as a mega dungeon you'll need more then decaying cyclopean stone halls, undead and various failed experiments...

I mean BFRPG is fine as far as I know. It's a BECMI or B/X clone from the first wave of OSR retro-clones like Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and OSRIC (an AD&D clone). I understand it does a few things different then the originals but other then that I've not heard much about it beyond...

My own impression is that as the OSR recedes into memory (or ages into senility - whichever descriptor one prefers) it becomes harder to identify. It has so many offshoots and sub communities, but lacks core shared cores spaces now. To me this is a sign that the OSR is no more... but others want...

That has been my experience as well. My suspicion is that Yochai, like myself and many others in the Post-OSR, doesn't like a small group of creators who hold extremist and bigoted political views. Most of them are also banned in many "OSR" spaces, and Yochai will ban people for intentionally...

I don't disagree, I think the possibility of this kind of play and some mechanics to support it exist within OD&D, but they are incomplete. My assumption (or how I'd run OD&D as a wargame) is that the player wouldn't control a single character but a domain - including several leveled PCs. So...