Good Old Days! (Private) (Inactive)

Game Master Edeldhur

Equipment 4d4 ⇒ (3, 4, 2, 4) = 13 130gp.

Helaman’s character here… it’s a WiP so don’t worry if things don’t match right now.

Not worried ;)

Just waiting to hear from Darcy on whether she would like to ‘take control of her story’ and link up with some of the characters already created, or if I should take the lead.

Planning on getting us moving earlier next week.

Would any of the other characters be interested in tying their stories to Darcy? She would have needed help to make it here from long away, and adventurers along the way would be fun to retrofit into the gameplay.

You can read the spoiler on the previous page to see what she's here for if you are interested in merging backgrounds.

Cordelia would probably be inclined to travel with Darcy. Still need to nail down her exact background.

Calhoun might travel with her, just to get away from his people mostly. His 'disfigurement' would make him a reluctant and reclusive friend, but having traveled with you for some time, he probably feels most comfortable with this group...and he would probably wish to stay together rather than try to head out on his own!

Still buying kit but got plate armor because his AC sucks otherwise. I rolled decent starting money so may as well enjoy it.

He’s a caravan guard, body guard and standover man who is frankly an idiot. Anyone can build him into their background. Probably a good match for our other fighters background.

Darcy is not easy to like. She says the wrong thing most of the time and isn't prone to good hygiene. She appreciates energetic companionship... but usually has to pay for it one way or another. Her combination of terrible social graces, and unwise decision making makes being around her difficult at best. She is however tough and extremely nimble and has a gift for recalling knowledge of experiences in life, so fortune follows her to a certain extent even if she's usually not included in the rewards.

I initially imagined Arwulf coming to Grimmsgate straight from Darkwell, and thus, alone, but perhaps it makes more sense if he left a little while ago, and recently had been in the same employ as Woyzeck, and agreed to leave with Woyzeck to, in a sense, ensure that Woyzeck a) did actually leave (“Hey, Woy, let’s you and me go on an adventure! Find our own fortune!”) and b) didn’t go on to do anything incredibly stupid, either then, or thereafter (“No, that is paint. Don’t drink any more!”)

Arwulf gets along with most people, right up until he burns down their community hall because it was made out of wood or sets fire to their bedroll for insulting his friend.

At this point it seems Darcy might have a merry band of Calhoun, Cordelia, Woyzeck and Arwulf.
Just leaves Eric’s wizard and Black Dow’s Mr Sly.

I initially imagined Arwulf coming to Grimmsgate straight from Darkwell, and thus, alone, but perhaps it makes more sense if he left a little while ago, and recently had been in the same employ as Woyzeck, and agreed to leave with Woyzeck to, in a sense, ensure that Woyzeck a) did actually leave (“Hey, Woy, let’s you and me go on an adventure! Find our own fortune!”) and b) didn’t go on to do anything incredibly stupid, either then, or thereafter (“No, that is paint. Don’t drink any more!”)

Arwulf gets along with most people, right up until he burns down their community hall because it was made out of wood or sets fire to their bedroll for insulting his friend.

At this point it seems Darcy might have a merry band of Calhoun, Cordelia, Woyzeck and Arwulf.
Just leaves Eric’s wizard and Black Dow’s Mr Sly.

I love it. I’m in.

Okay Lewill Deray is finished now. As for how he knows the party he would gladly travel with the rest of you to Grimmsgate -safety in numbers you know. As for why he is heading there he is not as forthcoming. (aka still working on BG).

Just a note to say I like the direction we are heading in - really digging the character’s crossed paths.

Just a note to say I like the direction we are heading in - really digging the character’s crossed paths.

I know the direction: South. Toward a little situation called Pearshaped. In a flaming basket filled with idiots and forgetful gemthieves. I do…worry….

Old School GM Obermind wrote:

Just a note to say I like the direction we are heading in - really digging the character’s crossed paths.

I know the direction: South. Toward a little situation called Pearshaped. In a flaming basket filled with idiots and forgetful gemthieves. I do…worry….

Sounds better and better and definitely more and more old school.

Sorry been lax of late - combo of "post covid return to workload" and the storms here in NE o' Scotland.

Will look at getting Mr Sly converted over in some capacity. Loving the utter motleyness of this crew lol.

Picking his teeth with a grubby knife, Ārwulf leans on a handy fence railing somewhere between breakfast and Grimmsgate. He looks around. He could have sworn Darcy and Calhoun were right behind him when he went behind a tree to make water. Cordelia and Lewill too. Woyzeck? He’ll be getting into a fight…somewhere…

What this group really needs is a….fixer. Arwulf’s belly grumbles. Again.

Lets double check our roster, shall we?!

OSW: Fighter - Ãrwulf Stenn (done)
Eric Swanson: Magic User (done)
Daniel Stewart: Ranger - Calhoun (done)
scranford: Rogue - Darcy Sparrow (done)
Brainiac: Cleric - Cordelia Jerrell (done)
Black Dow: Assassin - Slyghov Fell (almost done)
Helaman: Fighter - Woyzeck (basically done)

I think we are in a good position to get things going - we do not need everything fully nailed down to start moving, so I will try to get a post up today or tomorrow.

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In the meantime, I have been re-evaluating my decision to run the game using OSwR (spoke with the creator and whatnot :D), and I am not sure anymore it was the best choice, mainly because of what scranford said about conversions some posts back.

OSwR is not a straightforward plug from 5e nor from S&W, and neither here or there was not exactly what I was looking for. In terms of ease of gameplay, we (I) might have been better served by Core 5e or S&W, but I am not going to waste any more time on it.

Just get it going, best we can do atm. It isn’t perfect but it will do.

Definitely. Lets get going - post is up!

Here. I was going to run an interrogation of the concept a few days ago, as I was wondering a few things.

Firstly, I’d like to ask everyone what they expect from “oldskool” gaming? And if they can, their own personal definition of which rules best gave that feeling back in the day. Or random thoughts on OSR in general.

I began playing sometime around ‘82. My brother convinced me to play a Halfling because “at level 10 you can…..” something or other. At that stage I had no idea what a “level” was, but being an astute humanoid I nodded eagerly. The party was my brother (elf), me (halfling) a neighbour (elf)and our neighbour’s mum as the DM. The adventure was B2 Keep on the Borderlands and even better, our neighbour’s mum was also using the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide. For a Basic Dungeons and Dragons module. To this day I wonder what she made of it all. Another highlight was the small mistake of a missing space or two in the Minotaur’s treasure that resulted in looting *millions* of gp. Good times. Obviously a mistake. As well as Halflings not exactly being able to reach 10th level. In Basic. Which was what we were playing. Right!?!

To me, as a player and DM of mostly 1e Advanced DnD, that’s my benchmark for “oldskool.” Basic and then Expert was fine at first, or if we wanted to play a simpler game with newer players, but with all the options of ADnD, why bother? ADnD wasn’t *much* more complicated than Basic/BECMI (and I never even played the CMI in BECMI) but it did overflow with options, especially if you were an avid collector of Dragon or White Dwarf or other gaming magazines. I never got a chance to play Warhammer FRP, and to me it seemed to come out around ADnD2e, and so isn’t oldskool in terms of rules, but from what I’ve seen feels more oldskool in theme and approach.

There’s a fantastic cartoon in the back of an old Dragon magazine where two simply drawn, simple human Fighters are talking to two rather more detailed, grim, multi-beweapon’d fighters, one of whom may be a half-orc. The basic dudes are saying something like “I guess you guys are Advanced, huh?”. It pretty much encapsulated the feeling’s of the systems. Simple vs detailed.

Having missed the early iterations of a lot of Judges Guild and early Basic and before gaming I didn’t feel the change into “newer” Advanced DnD. To me, ADnD is really old and primitive. Sure, it’s where 90% of my face to face gaming happened, but I’m happy to move on. But it is and was my oldskool. We had giant parties with retainers and hirelings and faced palpable and tangibly evil threats where messy concepts like biological determinism didn’t exist. Mostly - I was still making Orc characters and Centaurs and Lizardmen and other homebrewed weirdo races much to my brother’s endless chagrin. Or to be more precise, GMPCs.

Because even then I yearned for something…broader. To a certain extent it is being a younger brother and thus a little quixotic. My brother, though he read as widely as (if not more than) I did in terms of fantasy and scifi revelled in Tolkien and heroes and sagas where I was a little more broad in my tastes, at least insofar as what I wanted to play.

To pare this nostalgia back a little, a case in point:

Swords and Wizardry feels like a hack of ADnD. Old Swords Reign is most definitely a hack of 5e but one that seems to hearken back to Basic *not ADnD*. I guess it fits the designer’s definition of oldskool. Not exactly mine, or the one I want to focus on.

The moment we swapped from S+W to OSwR we lost: races (Half-orc, Half-elf) and classes (ranger, monk, assassin, paladin). That necessarily not only changed the types of story we could tell, but also the game world and how we interacted with it. By simply changing the ruleset. Which kinda blows my mind. To be honest, OSwR feels half baked. The general feats vary in power considerably, and feel like the designer threw them in there as a “hey, here are some powers, but you can totally use them if you want or make up a bunch of your own, with no guidance from us as to how to balance them”. And S+W felt too much like going backwards anyway. At this point, my “oldskool comfort zone” might as well be PF1. ;)

Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m totally down to play OSwR, but it does feel more akin to Basic than ADnD and the reason I prefer the onward iterations of the “DnD” RPGs is that they become more nuanced and offer more options. Sure they become more *complex* but I don’t find it overly taxing, and the options can easily be dialled up or down depending on the DM or campaign. I’ll be happy to run Greyhawk in PF2e by limiting ancestries and archetypes that don’t fit my vision - I’m just as happy to run a monty haul gonzo kitsune, hobgoblins and whatever those weird floating stone thingies are campaign are as I am to run a gritty low-magic “humanoids of old” campaign. But having a wider ruleset at least gives one the options.

So: what is your oldskool, and what rules best embodied that “back then” and now?

(And again: I’m really happy with this game, and these characters and players (and obviously indebted to Obermind for running this and for initially bringing this all to life). I’m happy to stay with OSwR, but I’m just as happy to switch systems when we level up. Or reach another milestone. But I don’t have DnD5e, and am resistant (not dead set against, just…resistant) to playing it on principle because of how shonky WotC are - even if OSwR kinda is 5e. I’m guessing there might be an SRD?)

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this!

Just yesterday I was having a 'similar' conversation with the group I have been playing TTRPGs my whole life. Even though some have moved to other countries, we remain friends, have kept in contact all these years, talk almost daily in Skype, and still meet up with each other for dinner and/or drinks (both online and in person when it is possible). However it has been a very long time since we have actually played RPG together, with several 'failed' attempts at playing online, PbP, play-by-email, etc.

Of course the main reason for this ís Real Life as usual - some in the group have smaller kids (I am the odd one out - I started earlier on that road, and I am happy now that I did), and that obviously takes up a lot of their time and focus. Which means that either I prepare something for us to play, or there is no gaming session. So very recently we came up with the idea of embracing this fact and simply try playing sessions which are mostly improvised.

All this brought us to a quid pro quo about what system to use, and specifically from my side to the whole 'old-school gaming' considerations and discussion. Curiously, it seems I have again settled on Olde Swords Reign.

I started playing RPGs (not counting the Fighting Fantasy books) with the Basic Boxed Set from BECMI in 1992 - With those rules we played everything we could get our hands on, which was unfortunately not much at the time. But somehow I managed to buy B1-9 and Horror on the Hill, and that kept us going for a very long time. I am not sure if we ever got into the Expert Rules - I think we bought them (though I don't have them with me) but then one guy from our 'originals' group showed up one day with the AD&D2e Player's Handbook and it blew us all away immediately.

We played the heck out of that edition! We played the same stuff we had played using Basic rules, we played individual adventure modules, we played Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and a LOT of Planescape. We even played Rappan Atthuk back then when it was still part of the Sword & Sorcery System from Necromancer games (though never much further than 5th level or something like that). We were not sure about all the rules and rulings, we had no one to go to and ask for clarification, no vast www to check for alternate skill, proficiency, or weapon mastery systems, no earlier edition books apart from those Basic booklets (never got my hands on an original AD&D book). Yet we played and played and played. Then delved into Skills and Powers, and kits and other stuff, but that would make up for a completely different story.

Many years after we went into D&D3.0 and 3.5, but into a much lesser extent - we had all grown up and developed a myriad of other interests, distractions and responsibilities. We were still marveled by the possibilities of 3.5, and we still played a lot, but with all the new additions I now (retrospectively) realize it became more a balancing act and combo of different moving parts to create the 'best' character, than an exercise of imagination. 3.5 was the home for some of my most beloved characters - a Druid of Silvanus and a Wizard Acolyte of the Skin. But it was also the first time I followed someone else's build guide to create a character.

Then came a very short period of D&D4e (still think we did not give it enough credit) - like many we embarked on the '4th edition is crap' warpath, and starting diverging into other systems - mainly lots of GURPS, and some Vampire the Masquerade. We played lot less RPG during this time, instead playing collectible card games, mainly VTES.

I don't remember how I (re)discovered Pathfinder after that, but it started around 2012. I got deep into it, became a PFS Venture Captain (or was it lieutenant?) in my area and played it with consistency in organized events, PbP, and online with my same TTRPG group. I discovered PFS is not for me, and have had increasingly less chances to play face to face, or even online, so most of my RPG has been reduced to PbP in some shape or form, either forums based (this one and others, but I keep getting back here) or on Discord (a more recent discovery).

My incursion into OSR is VERY recent. I think I wasn't even aware such thing as a retroclone existed until.... I don't know. Late last year, early 2023?

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All of this to say what? To say that I am more and more convinced that when someone says 'old-school', my mind immediately races back to my AD&D2e days, and the way we played the game back then. BUT I am also more and more convinced that while I would gladly and without hesitation play in any game with an older ruleset, that is not the kind of game I want to DM. After some thought, and after much digging around the OSR, I 'think' I have reached some conclusions:

- I really like discussing games, that much is obvious - rules, strong points, weak points, settings, systems, you name it :D

- I am not crazy about the lack of 'features' afforded by the earlier editions of the game (one of the reasons I more inclined to OSwR vs S&W);
- But I do think this lesser amount of features lends itself to a more imaginative style of play;
Example and reasoning: Just yesterday I was comparing a Fighter from Rules Cyclopedia (BECMI basically) with a D&D5e and a PF1e Fighter, and the differences are obviously glaring. Earlier Fighters had WAY lesser features (no feats, no imbedded archetypes, or second winds, or anything like that) compared with the recent editions. By comparison I looked at a 5e Fighter, and your path is all there, drawn before you, from beginning to end with some 'options' thrown in. Same thing with PF1e (just look at all the threads saying - you want to be a maneuver focused Fighter, then you NEED to go this route = these feats + this trait + this obscure splatbook). When I was playing AD&D2e (before the 'kits' came out), if I wanted to be a Pirate, or if I wanted to be a Swashbuckler, or whatever, I had to focus on mine and my DMs imagination - we grabbed that same chassis, and through our brain power and ideas, turned it into a Swashbuckler - a monster of Frankenstein made of imagination, houserules decided by the DM on a spur of the moment (you now have +1 to dangling from chandeliers specifically, or you now have +2 when gathering information in town because of your contacts in the brothel, or you now have gained proficiency with this weapon because you have been forced to use it for 4 sessions, etc, etc), and other suggested by the player him or herself. Even more so than that, the path was not all laid bare before you - you could become ANYTHING really. Or at least that is how it felt. I don't think it feels the same with the way D&D5e and PF1e is built (maybe for some grognards the approach is the same because it has always been like that, but not for most others), and it is one of the reasons making me prefer OSwR vs 5e for example;

- I am not crazy about the enormous amount of DM adjudication which is required by older game systems;
- Conversely, when they started trying to implement more detailed frameworks, things got REALLY messy sometimes (Weapon Mastery, non-weapon proficiencies, are all things I find kind of confusing or meh);
- So I like having a framework for game mechanics, but I don't want it to be too constraining. This has been said many times over by others more eloquently than me. I want players to say what their characters want to do, and not be tied down by what it says on their character sheet. But I also want to have a 'consistent' framework for us to agree on the decision whether the attempt is successful or not, and keep it for the future;

- I didn't particularly like the lack of 'tactical' options in the old school games (at least in D&D). Fighter attacks, next round attacks, then attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks. Gets old really fast;
- So I want a game which offers tactical options framework, but I am not in a position where I can DM a game which needs a tactical map to resolve every single combat encounter, and that 'kinda' throws PF1e out the Window for me (otherwise I would probably run PF1e Core);

I think there was more stuff, but I got lost in my own wall of text. So I stop now :D

Now for the sparring with OSW! :D

The moment we swapped from S+W to OSwR we lost: races (Half-orc, Half-elf) and classes (ranger, monk, assassin, paladin). That necessarily not only changed the types of story we could tell, but also the game world and how we interacted with it. By simply changing the ruleset. Which kinda blows my mind.

You can always play as a Human re-fluffed as an Half Orc, or an Elf or Human re-fluffed as an Half-Elf, but I am not going into that. I tried creating an Half-Orc for OSwR (just the crunch) - it took me 10 minutes. Is it perfectly balanced? Doubt it. Will it break the game? Doubt it ;)

Regarding classes, I am going to disagree with you OSW - you may have lost the 'formal' class in the rules, but there will always be Rangers, Monks, Assassins and Paladins in the world. Calhoun is no less a Ranger because he did not take the 'Ranger' class, is he?

The general feats vary in power considerably, and feel like the designer threw them in there as a “hey, here are some powers, but you can totally use them if you want or make up a bunch of your own, with no guidance from us as to how to balance them”. And S+W felt too much like going backwards anyway. At this point, my “oldskool comfort zone” might as well be PF1. ;)

I am inclined to agree with the Feats varying in power - lets see how it plays out ingame.

For me I had been reading about this new phenomenon called Dungeons & Dragons and was super excited to see the launch of Basic D&D at my Gateway Bookstore in the local mall. (Late 1977) I then proceeded to talk one of my friends into becoming the DM and convinced several friends to join us. After about 3-attempts and 3 TPK's everyone kind of lost interest and I didn't play again until AD&D 1st Edition was released. We then found a local group that actually played in the old City Courthouse for several years (It was so cool to have the DM sit in the judge's chair and us to gather all around).

This was my first exposure to actually playing an Old School game... though at that time it was New School. We had a fantastic time and I still have some character sheets from my favorite characters. The feeling we got playing this game and discovering monsters for the first time... What? a bear with an Owl'd head... and I believe that feeling of discovery is what we are all trying to recapture by the OSR revival. Unfortunately, that sense of wonder will be very difficult to recapture as we've already experienced many of the challenges, so they are not nearly as exciting as they were the first time. It's not the rules system we miss in my opinion it's the sense of wonder.

Times changed, people moved, I got divorced and moved to Florida, and only had sporadic gaming experience, but I became an avid collector. I was the National Sales Manager for a company and travelled the US. I always searched out the game stores wherever I was and searched the "used games" section building quite the extreme collection. Many times, I had to find a postal store, and send back the box full of books I'd bought from my trips, so I became more of a collector than a player. I skipped 2nd edition, (Though I went back recently and played in it... and hated it). Played a little Earthdawn with a local group, but with my travel schedule it was difficult to play.

Fast forward to the launch of 3rd edition. I had a new non-travel job and jumped in with both feet. I spent a significant portion of my income on buying everything 3.0 and 3.5 had to offer and started gaming with one of my current groups. We dipped into some other systems... BRP, 7th Seas etc. but kept coming back to 3.5, though it was becoming so bloated and out of control it was not always a pleasant experience. Then came the debacle of 4th Edition. We tried...we really did. I was at Gencon for the release event... but it seemed to us, and still does, that this was simply an attempt to make my favorite RPG into a pen-and-paper World of Warcraft. That's not what we wanted, so we wandered in limbo for while till Pathfinder came out.

That became the game of choice for all the groups I ran/played with for many years... then it became almost too bloated to play, much like D&D 3.5 did. I loved and still do the lore, and Golarion, but the game lost me, and when D&D 5 was released, I became its biggest proponent. After many years I will still play 5.0 with a good GM but have no desire to run it. I detest the adventures that WoTC releases and don't have the time to develop my own adventures. Plus, the fact that the whole striving to get advantage or disadvantage became the main goal for every session, and things began to get stale. So once again we drifted off into the wasteland of try many different systems till, we find one we like.

One of the favorites of my longest tenured groups was "Shadows of the Demon Lord". It was just familiar enough to bring back memories of the Old School games with enough differences to bring back the excitement of the unknown. The problem was its extremely Dark Themes and setting made it difficult to sustain long term. My players still talk fondly about it, and hopefully the newly kickstarted Shadow of the Weird Wizard will fulfill the same role with a more traditional fantasy feel. Another recent Kickstarter I backed is Dolmenwood based on the Old School Essentials game engine. The pre-releases I've seen so far seem to be a good mix of a simple system with added options and a different approach to the game world/monsters which I also am excited to try out. Which brings us to what I play now.

When Pathfinder 2 came out I got the core book and leafed through this massive intimidating tome, and quickly saw some of the terminology and wrongly assumed it was much like 4th edition, so it went onto the shelf with the thousands of other games I own. This year I because so disenchanted with 5E that I broke it out and started reading it again. I watched / listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts and you-tube videos and decided to give it a try... and I love it. The sheer number of options, and the ability to spend your (3) action economy in so many ways spoke to me. And the balance... exquisite. If something seems off when playing / running read closer and you'll find out something you're doing wrong. This is all I have the desire to GM at the moment. Sure, it is more eloquent with gaming maps, but at least there are additional options when viewing the map, and removing most of the opportunity attacks has made the battle grid enjoyable again.

My players are having a blast since I know the system so well and am excited to run it. I believe the problem many have with it is trying to make it play like other previous d20 systems. You have to start over with a different mental approach. So after that long and probably boring summary I'll answer the question... What constitutes Old School?

There are many different answers, but the critical one is this. With AD&D we had to play as a heroic group instead of a group of heroes. If you didn't protect the wizard in early levels, you wouldn't have his necessary punch at higher levels. You had to strategically plan your actions as you didn't have many. The problem was it requires so much DM interaction and decisions that it becomes difficult to abjugate.

Pathfinder 2 answers all my requirements for the game. It's got a balanced set or rules, and a setting I'm familiar with and love. The monsters while maybe familiar in what they are behave differently enough that you have a sense of wonder and foreboding when you encounter them in this system... and most importantly it's back to working as a Heroic Group instead of a group of heroes... and that to me is what constitutes a return to the Old School feel of gaming.

Since we already have another character with the Forgetful hindrance, I'd like to re-roll with the GM's permission or change it to an adjacent entry from my previous roll.

Since we already have another character with the Forgetful hindrance, I'd like to re-roll with the GM's permission or change it to an adjacent entry from my previous roll.

Sure Cordelia, go ahead!

Alright, I'll go with the adjacent entry, Fear of... and choose spiders! Some good old-fashioned arachnophobia. :D

And I just realised I posted in Gameplay with my OSW alias…d’oh.

Also, Ārwulf isn’t off looking for a cow to tip over right now, and will accompany Darcy to the Temple. After all, there is *no* inn…

Also, Ārwulf isn’t off looking for a cow to tip over right now, and will accompany Darcy to the Temple. After all, there is *no* inn…

No inn... How can this game be anything remotely 'old school'? Shame on all of you. Specially on the DM!

@Obermind: sure, Arwulf’s really a Landpirate, but he doesn’t have any abilities. And Calhoun only has the scouting his Background might deliver. But they aren’t exactly outlined beyond “you’ve kinda got the skills the backgrounds suggest”. Seems like it leaves you as the DM with a lot of adjudicating to do. But I take your central premise that the imagination is set free to run wild without the constraints of rules. Like the old story of the kid asked which he likes better TV or Radio: “Radio. The pictures are better.”

@Obermind and scranford: Thanks for your trips down memory lane. Very cool to learn where your gaming came from. And you both talk a little bit about something I missed after I initially posed my question and wanted to addend: “oldskool” is probably more about the approach than the ruleset. The feel and themes. Concepts like some monsters are way beypnd your capacity to combat. Or my favorite: there really is no reason why this hill giant is in this room next to a ki-rin’s chamber on the third floor of this dungeon. Yay!

@ Obermind - perhaps we could adopt Helaman’s “combat maneuver” concept from his Old Skool game. If I remember rightly you pose something you want to do instead of just deal damage. If your roll is successful the opponent them either accepts the outcome of your proposal or…I can’t remember the rest. I’ll go find it.

@ All - let me know if all of this musing is getting a bit much. Perhaps to clarify the discussion thread we might keep the OSR discussions in spoilers and then the housekeeping/game related stuff in general text?

I would suggest checking out the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming. That short document basically nails what OSG is all about.

@Scranford: You are almost convincing me to give 2e another try. Maybe when OSW runs it ;)

Well I just got the Rusthenge adventure for 2E, levels 1-3. Happy to run it for you all if you want.

Damn you Brainiac! Do you accept noobs?

Yes, that would be the idea, to give you a good experience with the system. :)

Damn you again! And please count me in with some sort of ‘basic’ martial character :)

Oh yeah!

Yep, I’d be in for Rusthenge. I am liking the low-level adventures for PF2e so far. Or at least the system and the interaction thereof…

I created a discussion thread so those interested can start creating characters.

I didn’t know Shadow of the Weird Wizard was a thing. Missed it damn it.

Will join the PF2 game as well. Not a big fan of the system BUT I like a good group and a good GM

Will finalise equipment etc today

Those equipment prices suck and make no sense. Battleaxe costs 3gp, same as a dagger. Bow is 25 or 40gp… 20 arrows are 10gp…

Wow. Work swallows me up for a day and you lot go ape in the posting stakes.

I got into this bizarrely beautiful hobby of ours by chance. Growing up I was, first and foremost, a comics geek. Marvel was my go-to but UK sci-fi was my mana - specifically 2000AD.

Cue Judge Dredd boardgame being released in 1982. Cue me getting it for my birthday... except some of the pieces were missing... so my mother marched back to Aberdeen's FLGS to get a replacement. What she returned with wasn't Old Stoneyface. He was out of stock, but the good keeper of said FLGS suggested I might like a game called Dungeons & Dragons... more specifically the 1981 Basic Set. Cue a life spent on Mystara, Greyhawk, Ravenloft and a wealth of places between... (I thank that nameless sage daily lol)

Expert, Companion and Master sets were our teen diorama for godlike adventuring. AD&D brought more choice and an intro to Dragon, White Dwarf, Imagine and a plethora of 'zines long forgotten. 2E was dabbled in, but by then MERP (ergo Rolemaster & Spacemaster) and WFRP turned our heads. I moved from player to DM/GM as no-one else wanted the gig. Cue a series of GMPCs who more and more became storytelling agents for my ever grander mechanisms.

3E brought me back and from there 3.5 and PF1. Which brings us back to here and the question of what is Old School.

As we've demonstrated above - trying to rekindle that lighting in a bottle feeling we all had in halcyon days means very different things to us all. Is there a system that encapsulates that? Likely not, perhaps the bones, but some will have enough house rules and variations that constitute a pick'n'mix that fulfils most of the players.

I feel 5E and ergo OSwR gives that plethora of choice. I have amassed tonnes of 5E variant materials for low-fantasy, grim dark, home-brew settings etc. I'm not into Wizards own stuff but there are some incredible 3PP material there to be mined, then hammered into the shape I desire for my game.

PF2 I've tried to play a couple of times... I really wanted to like it, and every time its just felt "flat" and too refined. Now there is likely the same amount of PF2 materials and home brewing to sate my quest, but right now I'm not at that Scanford level of zen yet, so 5E and its retro-clones it is.

For my Night Below retread a 5E conversion exists, which cuts down on the admin. I've converted over some monsters to OSwR and they seem to work well in terms of crunch.

Regardless I've went on far too much.

Still in the process of creating my assassin. Making him a dwarf now, as every party needs a dwarf right? Plus an assassin who sees in the dark makes sense... but Darcy has the obnoxious rogue angle covered so will need to have a good think on what I end up with. May have a total rethink, but typically when this mindset kicks in with me, its a sign that my concept is kaput and best to start from the drawing board.

I'll try and get whomever/whatever finished by the weekend, but if I've missed the bus then no worries either as the discussion here is more than worth the ticket admission :)

Yep, I played a bunch of MERP and a tiny smidge of Rolemaster too. Those ICE Middle Earth region books/adventures are incredible. I was always into the odd books like Rhudaur and the indigenous folk in South and Far Harad - that featured more Pukél-men. I tried to play a Wose (yep, again, GMPC) but my brother’s favorite character was a Rohir and the straw-heads and the Onodrim don’t exactly get along….

We’re just kicking stones around Grimmsgate, I’m happy to wait along for ya BD.

And no, not every party needs a dwarf. Though when I was a very wee lad I did, sadly did I make a party of seven…dwarves. All Thieves, Fighter/Thieves, Assassins, Cleric/Assassins etc, with names like Killem, Cuttem etc. So silly.

All dwarf parties are fun

Yep, I played a bunch of MERP and a tiny smidge of Rolemaster too. Those ICE Middle Earth region books/adventures are incredible. I was always into the odd books like Rhudaur and the indigenous folk in South and Far Harad - that featured more Pukél-men. I tried to play a Wose (yep, again, GMPC) but my brother’s favorite character was a Rohir and the straw-heads and the Onodrim don’t exactly get along….

We’re just kicking stones around Grimmsgate, I’m happy to wait along for ya BD.

And no, not every party needs a dwarf. Though when I was a very wee lad I did, sadly did I make a party of seven…dwarves. All Thieves, Fighter/Thieves, Assassins, Cleric/Assassins etc, with names like Killem, Cuttem etc. So silly.

(Sheepishly shelves plans for Dag Stabbit, the crotchety dwarf assassin :)

Yeah ICE materials were a class apart in terms of depth of info - from NPCs to topology. Have all the SpaceMaster books and supplements and they are Dune level in detail (apt given how it essentially that universe reimagined). Epic stuff - Middle Earth made real. Hear ya on the Púkel-men, always wanted to play one.

Always plenty of room for crotchety pc’s keeps the GM on their toes. The sad thing is she’s not wise enough to know she’s not charismatic…

@Black Dow - seeing as you waxed a lil lyrical on your ADnD love for Half-Orcs, Obermind brewed up their stats upthread…

I have added an updated and (slightly) modified version of the Half-Orc to the Campaign Info tab now.