[Old school] I can't deal with inventory

[TiQuinn]

This gets to the thorny question of what "OSR play" is. I imagine lots of people would agree with you, and lots of people would very much disagree.

Yeah there are whole parts of that game that are built around the idea that you need hirelings like porters, pack animals, or Tenser’s Floating Disk in order to solve these problems. Knowing that you can just discard them is an advanced DM mindset - because sometimes you can’t simply discard certain rules without changing the way the game plays. For instance, I’ve heard people complain about the amount of treasure in early AD&D adventures. Part of that is dependent on the idea that treasure was integral to XP advancement and that you couldn’t simply carry it all easily. If you switch to story based XP, or XP solely from monsters, suddenly that extra treasure can be a problem. But who’s to tell you that? That comes with hard learned experience.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Conan also bought roast beast and the love of ladies of negotiable affection!

I thought he might, but it has been a while and I have not read them all, I do remember him feasting and being in company, so to speak, but not specifically the payment.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I don't recall Conan doing any explicit paying for company. But I think it's pretty clear.

 

[Basic Expert]

This gets to the thorny question of what "OSR play" is. I imagine lots of people would agree with you, and lots of people would very much disagree.

I've always taken Old School Rules systems to be adaptations and derivations of OD&D, Holmes, B/X and BECMI. These might be direct retro-clones that attempt to adhere closely to the rules (ala OSE) or be comprehensive remakes (ala Shadowdark).

There is a huge amount of latitude even within this narrow definition. You have everything from the ultralite resource-focused Knave to the more heroic explorations of Kevin Crawford like Scarlet Heroes or Godbound.

For me, the charm of OSR games is its DIY nature. Sure, a lot of these games are intentionally designed for low-powered murderhoboes to die ingloriously in a hole for want of a torch. That doesn't mean you have to play that way or that you're doing it wrong if you do it differently.

"But that's not the way they did it in 1979!" is a false notion. People played a lot of different ways in 1979, just as they do now. And, even if it were true, you don't have to follow suit if you don't want to. I promise you EGG won't haunt you and, if he did, ask him to roll up a character and join in.

 

[Reynard]

I've always taken Old School Rules systems to be adaptations and derivations of OD&D, Holmes, B/X and BECMI.

I wasn't talking about rules.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I really like a lot of the ideas behind recent streamlined old-school games like Into the Odd, Mausritter, Shadowdark, Liminal Horror ... but one thing that really doesn't work to me how they tend to put your inventory front and center, often linking it directly to health/wounds. I just never found it fun to deal with equipment in RPGs; as a GM, my approach has been "if it makes sense, you have it on you." I theoretically understand the fun in it, but whenever I'm playing, the whole thing just totally disappears from my mind - for me, it's a chore part of RPGs that I always strive to minimize. However, these systems treat equipment as one of the most basic building blocks of an RPG session, which, for me, is a really big disconnect. Does anyone know problem? I'm just interested if I'm the only one out here who totally gets 80% of these games and is totally stumped by that 20% equipment focus.

I felt the same way about encumbrance -- ooh, quick, let's all track weights at the table, that'll be fun! -- but I like slot-based encumbrance, as it abstracts it enough to make it easy to manage. And in games like Shadowdark, 5 Torches Deep, Torchbearer or Knave, what you are able to carry matters, especially when it's supplies like torches.

So the really old school inventory issues sucked, but the new approaches, in my mind, are pretty close to perfect.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't recall Conan doing any explicit paying for company. But I think it's pretty clear.

At the very least, ladies knew hanging around a rich and increasingly inebriated Conan meant a chance for some of that money to come their way, assuming someone didn't start firing crossbow bolts in his direction.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Imho fantasy is a gear genre, so for me fiddling with inventories is fine, it’s part of the game play.

And since I use Savage Pathfinder these days, I’m also fine with players sacrificing a Bennie (metacurrency) to find rope or whatnot in their backpack if they lack it.

 

[overgeeked]

What's LFQW?

Linear fighter, quadratic wizard.

It’s what people call Monty Haul refereeing when specifically applied to handing out wizard spells like candy.

 

[overgeeked]

It’s one of those things that I like the results but hate tedious paperwork involved to get there.

I like that encumbrance rules can maybe eventually push hard choices about what to keep and what to toss in dire circumstances. That can be tense and fun. All the paperwork required to maybe, someday get to that kind of in-game story beat can go hang.

Even the lighter OSR/NSR rules variants all seem too tedious to bother with. I love me some Tetris, but no, I don’t want to play backpack Tetris.