Sell Me on OSE

[kenada]

The latest printing of the boxed sets also changed the organization of the books a bit to make them easier to use at the table.

 

[Reynard]

::casts Raise Thread::

So I finally failed my save and purchased OSE last night: the Advanced Fantasy rulebooks, plus the Tower Silveraxe adventure.

Give me your top 5 tips for running OSE. Note: i started playing with BECMI, have played B/X and AD&D a bunch, but it has been 20 years since I ran Old School D&D in any serious way.

 

[Monayuris]

I've been running B/X and other retro clones regularly for about 10 years now.

Here's my tips...

1. Use the Reactions rules. - B/X and OSE can be very deadly if combat is commonplace and frequent, especially at low levels. The Reaction rules are key to mitigating some of the deadliness. Encourage players to parley and use the Reaction Roll mechanic to determine the reaction of the monsters. The most common outcomes of the Reaction roll allows the players some way to avoid combat or at least choose if they engage in combat. In most cases, combat should be a choice available to the players.
2. Use Morale Rules - monsters will not always fight to the death, and there are situations where a monster will make a morale check and fail and run. If a monster fails and runs, have the monster run and consider it a WIN for the players. Don't always have running monsters come back to ambush later or come back with reinforcements. Consider breaking morale to be the same as a combat victory.
3. Use wandering monster checks in the dungeon. When you implement advice 1 and 2, they aren't so bad. But you need the constant pressure of potential encounters to build tension and provide challenge and risk. This encourages decisiveness and keeps the pace moving.
4. If you use followers and retainer, let the players run them as additional character's. Some DM's run all NPCS, I'd let players take them over. If you need to, you can override a player's action with a follower if it is too abusive.
5. When dealing with traps remember that dungeon movement rate is very slow. It assumes careful movement. I'd give players a chance to notice pits and traps or at least describe hints of their existence. Its more fun to know there's a trap but figure out how to overcome them that to just be forced to seemingly randomly have to make a save or take damage. Also (and this is general advice, but very important in OSE/B/X) remember that players rely on you for their knowledge of their environment. If they seem to be doing something profoundly stupid, its probably because your players misunderstood something you said. Clarify your player's intentions and assumptions before letting them do something dumb.

 

[thirdkingdom]

I've been running B/X and other retro clones regularly for about 10 years now.

Here's my tips...

1. Use the Reactions rules. - B/X and OSE can be very deadly if combat is commonplace and frequent, especially at low levels. The Reaction rules are key to mitigating some of the deadliness. Encourage players to parley and use the Reaction Roll mechanic to determine the reaction of the monsters. The most common outcomes of the Reaction roll allows the players some way to avoid combat or at least choose if they engage in combat. In most cases, combat should be a choice available to the players.
2. Use Morale Rules - monsters will not always fight to the death, and there are situations where a monster will make a morale check and fail and run. If a monster fails and runs, have the monster run and consider it a WIN for the players. Don't always have running monsters come back to ambush later or come back with reinforcements. Consider breaking morale to be the same as a combat victory.
3. Use wandering monster checks in the dungeon. When you implement advice 1 and 2, they aren't so bad. But you need the constant pressure of potential encounters to build tension and provide challenge and risk. This encourages decisiveness and keeps the pace moving.
4. If you use followers and retainer, let the players run them as additional character's. Some DM's run all NPCS, I'd let players take them over. If you need to, you can override a player's action with a follower if it is too abusive.
5. When dealing with traps remember that dungeon movement rate is very slow. It assumes careful movement. I'd give players a chance to notice pits and traps or at least describe hints of their existence. Its more fun to know there's a trap but figure out how to overcome them that to just be forced to seemingly randomly have to make a save or take damage. Also (and this is general advice, but very important in OSE/B/X) remember that players rely on you for their knowledge of their environment. If they seem to be doing something profoundly stupid, its probably because your players misunderstood something you said. Clarify your player's intentions and assumptions before letting them do something dumb.

Addressing this point. I like to run games where players control a number of retainers and actually build retainer "trees" (with their retainers having retainers of their own, etc). My typical rule of thumb is that when a player is controlling the main PC all retainers are run as NPCs, but in instances when a retainer is acting on their own the player gets to control them as an actual PC.

 

[overgeeked]

To reiterate three very good points above. Always use reaction rolls, always use morale rolls, and always use wandering monsters (not just in the dungeons). For basically the reasons stated above. But they also apply to overland travel as well. If the players want their character to reach the dungeon or adventure sight as well-rested as possible, they will actively avoid pointless combats along the way, but they will have plenty of opportunity to role-play, fight, and explore if they want to before reaching the dungeon.

It might help to pass around the Principia Apochrypha.

Principia Apocrypha: A New Expression of Old School RPG Playstyle Principles

Principia Apocrypha is a new, free Primer for OSR and other Old School Style RPG Gaming in the form of a collection of Apocalypse World-s...

lithyscaphe.blogspot.com

My points would be.

1. Don't house rule until you've given the game as written a fair shake. Create characters as per the rules. Follow the procedures of play. Roll some checks for the players when their characters wouldn't know the outcome either way (secret doors, traps, etc). While not as tightly wound as modern games, the designers did know what they were doing and elements will interact with each other in unforeseen ways. Get used to the game first, then if you feel you need to make changes, hack away.

2. Follow the procedures of play. Roll to get lost. Roll to forage. If the party wants to hunt for food, they stop traveling to hunt. Players declare their actions at the start of the round. Casters can either move or cast spells. The procedures are there to both show you how the game is supposed to be played, but also to minimize adversarial refereeing. You're not deciding to put monsters in their path when they're already near dead, it's been an hour and the PCs are making noise, so it's time for a wandering monster check. It's not you deciding that a warband of 37 orcs happens to be on patrol, it's the dice making that determination. As such the world is dangerous and if the players want their PCs to survive, they have to play smart.

3. Keep track of time and resources. Older D&D games are very much resource management games. Time, food, water, spells, torches, oil, hit points, weight carried, etc are all resources to keep track of. It can be a lot at first. But it's worthwhile as it leads inevitably to hard choices. How long do you push in the dungeon with dwindling supplies? How much treasure do you pack out considering you still need to carry your arms and armor, food and water, etc? Do you toss food at chasing monsters in the hopes they're hungry and will leave you alone? These are the kinds of hard choices that make these games so interesting.

4. As often as possible, roll in the open. Some checks you'll need to keep behind the screen to avoid meta-gaming (secret doors, etc) but as much as you can, roll where the players can see. This avoids even the hint of adversarial refereeing. Wandering monsters, roll in the open. What the monsters are, roll in the open. Number appearing, roll in the open. Attacks and damage, in the open. Etc. You're not out to get the PCs or the players, you're following the dice.

5. Encourage the players' creativity. The biggest draw, for me, for older games is they are so light on rules and so deadly that they practically beg the players to get creative. So not only "let" the players get creative, but actively encourage it. More often than not, the players being creative will get them out of far more problems than combat or rolling dice will. Keep things grounded in the world you're using, but if some wild idea could work, give them a fair shot at it working. Description should always beat rolling dice.

 

[Voadam]

1 Be aware that there are not a lot of default mechanics for things like social interactions, mostly just the reaction roll and charisma adjustments to that roll. Be ready to roleplay interactions and have NPCs/monsters make reactions as seems reasonable for those specific NPCs and the specifics in the situation.

2 Be ready to describe things evocatively and make judgment calls. A lot of old school play was skilled play about players coming up with solutions based on descriptions rather than having characters designed mechanically well for the situation. Often this meant resolving things with no die rolls at all but based on a player's description of their actions and the DM's knowledge of the situation and the DM's conception of what seems reasonable.

3 Be aware of the fragility of characters. Death at 0 hp. Save or Die. Low hp for a long while. Few healing resources.

4 Be aware of the low resources, particularly at low level. Poor chances to hit, really low percentage thief skills, limited one shot spells per day.

 

[Mannahnin]

I generally agree with the prior posts, but I do usually use a couple of simple house rules:

1. Max HP at first level. Just this little durability boost helps a bit. I've also considered the Petal Throne-style "Re-roll all your hit dice every time you level" approach but never played a full campaign this way.

2. As an alternative to the book's take on Sub-Par Characters (you can ask the DM to re-roll if your ability scores suck) I like the "flip" method. That is, roll 3d6 in order, but you may optionally flip the set by subtracting all values, in order, from 21. This still means most characters will be pretty average, but turns cruddy ones into strong ones, and gives the player a choice of two sets without requiring any re-rolls.

3. I really like including spell acquisition rules, which are an optional rule in OSE for M-Us and Elves. I think it's much more fun to play those characters if you can acquire spells from scrolls and enemy spellbooks, not just from leveling up.

Another piece of advice for DMing I'd give is from Moldvay, that the pace of advancement should, at least for the first few levels, see surviving PCs gaining a level once every 3-4 sessions (thieves and clerics likely a session faster, elves slower). While the players' choices and their luck will have a lot of say in this, it's incumbent on the DM to make sure that enough treasure is available so it's at least possible for them to level that fast! When designing dungeons/adventure sites, be sure to place at least a couple of bountiful hoards/stashes of major coin/gems/jewelry per dungeon level, and not just use random stocking for treasure. Random stocking is intended to be used to flesh out the balance of a level, AFTER you've placed a couple/few hoards, cool monster lairs and/or special/magical rooms that you deliberately design and place.

 

[overgeeked]

One of my favorite house rules for old-school play is to award XP for gold spent instead of gold found. This makes it far more like a Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, and other sword & sorcery stories. Fighters can spend on training, magic-user can spend on magical research, thieves can spend on bribes, clerics donate to their church, etc. And of course, there's always drinking and carousing. It also just makes more sense. If you're a brave adventurer and you barely survived one dungeon crawl...why would you ever do that again if you're sitting on a pile of gold that will let you live comfortably for the rest of your days? You wouldn't. So, XP for gold spent and now the PCs actually have a reason to go out adventuring again.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yes, Carousing is another rule I commonly use, to soak up excess treasure and help PCs advance a little faster. The usual way I run it is as follows:

After any given adventure, a PC may choose to Carouse, wasting money on wine, fine foods, parties, charming company, music and revelry. Roll 1d6 and multiply by 100. Spend that many GP and gain that many XP immediately. I normally also then have them roll a save vs poison. On a failed save, I roll on a table for some amusing complication or misadventure. Most of the time these are just color, though sometimes they may present a problem or an adventure hook. Here's an example table:

 

[Reynard]

Question: I want to use my AD&D 2E Monstrous Manual for monster stats. What pitfalls should I look out for?