Sell Me on OSE

[overgeeked]

Sorry but where is it written the format? For that price i assume theseare pdfs but i could not find the info ...

The Humble Bundle? PDFs.

Re to the topic: is OSE more or less collectable than the previous edition (entitled "B/X essential")?

What do you mean? Will they be worth gobs more money in a few years? Not likely.

 

[overgeeked]

On dungeons: I don't want to do a mega dungeon, but I still want PCs to explore in the traditional manner. One thing I am thinking of is that all of the ancient burial tombs are far more extensive inside that the mounds or cairns would suggest. Maybe the first two or three chambers seem "normal" but as you go deeper it starts to expand and change. There is some mystical effect-- maybe based on the land, maybe religious, I haven't decided -- that turns the tomb into a kind of mini heaven or hell based on the nature of, deeds and sins of the one buried within.

Something like this would let me do very different isolated dungeons while not having to rely on the IMO boring 5 room model.

Thoughts?

That sounds a lot more fun and interesting than most dungeons. Maybe give the PCs ways to learn about the person buried there to prepare for what might meet them in the underworld.

 

[kenada]

On dungeons: I don't want to do a mega dungeon, but I still want PCs to explore in the traditional manner. One thing I am thinking of is that all of the ancient burial tombs are far more extensive inside that the mounds or cairns would suggest. Maybe the first two or three chambers seem "normal" but as you go deeper it starts to expand and change. There is some mystical effect-- maybe based on the land, maybe religious, I haven't decided -- that turns the tomb into a kind of mini heaven or hell based on the nature of, deeds and sins of the one buried within.

Something like this would let me do very different isolated dungeons while not having to rely on the IMO boring 5 room model.

Thoughts?

You could grab one of Necrotic Gnome’s adventures and use that as source material for your dungeon. Other than Halls of the Blood King (which is excellent but not really a traditional dungeon), they’re all supposed to be pretty good. I’ve also run Winter’s Daughter (good but short) and plan to start Incandescent Grottoes sometime soon.

Edit: To address your question more directly, I think you have an interesting concept. If you want to avoid just having a 5-room dungeon, I’d suggest paying attention to and following the stocking procedures. Dungeons in B/X are meant to have empty rooms.

 

[Voadam]

On dungeons: I don't want to do a mega dungeon, but I still want PCs to explore in the traditional manner. One thing I am thinking of is that all of the ancient burial tombs are far more extensive inside that the mounds or cairns would suggest. Maybe the first two or three chambers seem "normal" but as you go deeper it starts to expand and change. There is some mystical effect-- maybe based on the land, maybe religious, I haven't decided -- that turns the tomb into a kind of mini heaven or hell based on the nature of, deeds and sins of the one buried within.

Something like this would let me do very different isolated dungeons while not having to rely on the IMO boring 5 room model.

Thoughts?

That sounds like a fun premise.

I am a fan of the premise in Nightmares Underneath where dungeons are manifestations of Chaos and Nightmares sending incursions into reality through manifesting mythic underdark dungeons that grow.

"The justification for dungeoncrawling in this setting is that adventurers are raiding nightmare incursions, to find the treasure that keeps an incursion anchored to the physical world. Once the treasure is looted, the incursion is destroyed, and the adventurers profit. Individual creatures made of nightmares can be killed, but as long as the incursion exists, it will continue to spawn more."

"There are procedures for creating nightmare incursions, the creatures that stalk them, and how they grow larger and more dangerous the longer it takes adventurers to deal with them. The rules also include procedures for creating ancient ruins that may or may not be plagued by nightmares."

I played a paladin monster hunter in a game where I felt it was my duty to plunder dungeons to combat Chaos incursions using this type of setup and it was a lot of fun.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's some conceptual overlap between the Nightmares Underneath dungeons and the living dungeons from 13th Age.