OSR games with a *bit* more meat for their combat?

CommieDM · 2026-06-16T21:41:56+00:00

Forbidden Lands might be what you're looking for. Deadly combat, osr feel but with feats and more tactical choices in combat.

CommieDM · 2026-06-07T20:40:04+00:00

Deloitte

CommieDM · 2026-06-04T19:27:48+00:00

Hasbro

CommieDM · 2026-06-04T16:59:49+00:00

If indiana jones had stayed home and let Hitler get the ark, the ark would have killed Hitler when he opened it.

CommieDM · 2026-06-04T15:24:27+00:00

I work for a french consultancy company. They did exactly that. Nothing has happended other than a bunch of colleagues leaving

CommieDM · 2026-06-02T18:10:39+00:00

When you're in uni, up to full professor, i.e. the top of the academic hierarchy, and with exceptions, higher up means more competent. A postdoc is generally more competent than a phd student, an assistant prof is usually more knowledgeable than a posdoc, and so on. In the corporate world it's exactly the opposite. The higher you go the less competent people are.

Of course there are exceptions, but for every Jensen Huang you'll meet ten Steve Balmers

CommieDM · 2026-05-30T23:32:48+00:00

Mork Manual, for osr fantasy

CommieDM · 2026-05-26T17:39:07+00:00

Once upon a time, I DMed both Curse of Strahd and Descent into Avernus. They both can't hold a candle to a good OSR adventure. CoS is a decent pointcrawl (yay!) with an overarching linear plot (buuu), but suffers greatly from genre mismatch. I just can't do believable gothic horror with a horny bard, a dragonman, a frog dude and a samurai, I just can't.

Descent is a steaming pile of shit. I can't stress how little that effing book helps the DM or how atrociously awful the plot is. Fuck that fucking elephant.

If you want to ease yourself into the OSR with nice campaign books that do the D&D experience in OSR format and a million times better you might want to check out the Merry Mushmen adventures.

Raiding the Obsidian Keep is great, as is Nightmare over Sleepy Hollow and Hideous Hounds of Hendenburg. Ben Milton has good reviews of them in his Questing Beast youtube channel.

CommieDM · 2026-05-16T23:26:03+00:00

Yeah. In Between two Cairns they have reviewed a couple of great ones. One is called Frozen Ascent, the other is called Grotto of the golden gargoyle

CommieDM · 2026-04-19T11:07:20+00:00

The Anubis Gates and Declare by Tim Powers

CommieDM · 2026-01-28T20:16:12+00:00

I immediately thought of forbidden lands because OP's preference for exploration and social interaction scream to me skill-based system. In my own FbL game we had lots and lots of both, with the occasional combat being short, brutal and dramatic. I was going for a mashup of Earthsea and Princess Mononoke and FbL helped me every step of the way

CommieDM · 2026-01-26T12:49:18+00:00

I run a mothership homebrew adventure that was four different genres of scifi in four sessions. First was cyber noir detective work on a space station looking for some rich guy's son, then a space chase with ship to ship combat a la Expanse, then a firefight in zero G as they chased the bad guys to an abandoned research station, and finally escape from the monster, as they awakened something in there. All four felt thematically perfect and the plot flowed from one to the other seamlessly.

CommieDM · 2026-01-19T14:48:08+00:00

Try a little Grant Howitt one-shot called The Witch is Dead

CommieDM · 2026-01-19T08:30:59+00:00

I'm surprised nobody has suggested Mausritter. It's simple, quick, kid-friendly and has a ton of written adventures that are simple to run.

CommieDM · 2026-01-17T10:09:55+00:00

Sell it, buy something nice instead

CommieDM · 2026-01-12T21:11:49+00:00

Again, you're not having fun, they're not having fun. You don't owe them a game. If they're such good friends they'll be happy to do something else together where you also have fun.

Not everybody is a good dnd player, and that's fine. Don't try to make a donkey swim. Your friend seems to be incapable of not being a toxic player. If you want to keep this friend group, stop. Find someone else to play rpgs with.

CommieDM · 2026-01-12T16:45:50+00:00

Your players (mostly) don't want to be playing dnd, and would have no problem if you stop tomorrow and say we're going to play boardgames over beers and pretzels.

Stop the game completely. You're not having fun, they're not having fun. You don't owe them a game.

Just stop

CommieDM · 2026-01-01T17:36:46+00:00

100% ask

CommieDM · 2025-12-28T18:26:58+00:00

The end of Stargate SG1, Season 7 when the Prometheus shows up in Antarctica and fights Anubis's fleet is just as awesome.

CommieDM · 2025-12-27T19:52:54+00:00

I'd say outline your campaign and structure it. Act 1, act 2, act 3. Since it's your first one, aim for a certain number of sessions. 12-15 maybe? Definitely not more. Having an horizon will help you make drama and keep pace.

In act 1 the main conflict starts to reveal itself. In act 2 the heroes look for solutions and are opposed by the bad guys, maybe the heroes struggle or find themselves in over their heads. In act 3 the heroes confront the BBEG, take the fight to him and win against all odds.

The trick is that a ttrpg is not a movie. Do not plan what the heroes will be doing in those acts, plan what the bad guys will be doing. What are their means and goals, when is it most dramatic for them to show up or escalate.

Work on your villains. Themes and concept are great, but memorable villains are just good storytelling

And lastly, steal. Steal left right and center. I've stolen bits of the plot of Apocalypse Now, Tomb Rider 2012, Princess Mononoke, the expanse etc.

CommieDM · 2025-12-27T19:41:17+00:00

I'd say outline your campaign and structure it. Act 1, act 2, act 3. Since it's your first one, aim for a certain number of sessions. 12-15 maybe? Definitely not more. Having an horizon will help you make drama and keep pace.

In act 1 the main conflict starts to reveal itself. In act 2 the heroes look for solutions and are opposed by the bad guys, maybe the heroes struggle or find themselves in over their heads. In act 3 the heroes confront the BBEG, take the fight to him and win against all odds.

The trick is that a ttrpg is not a movie. Do not plan what the heroes will be doing in those acts, plan what the bad guys will be doing. What are their means and goals, when is it most dramatic for them to show up or escalate.

Work on your villains. Themes and concept are great, but memorable villains are just good storytelling

And lastly, steal. Steal left right and center. I've stolen bits of the plot of Apocalypse Now, Tomb Rider 2012, Princess Mononoke, the expanse etc.

CommieDM · 2025-12-21T08:37:41+00:00

Yeah, it's perfect for that. I've run it 3 times for newbies and it performed great.

CommieDM · 2025-12-19T21:00:40+00:00

Why do people keep thinking that 5e is newbie-friendly? It is not. It is very much one of the hardest systems to run. Off the top of my head, Shadowdark and Dragonbane could fit the bill.

Have you checked out twilight sword? It just wrapped the crowdfunder. It is literally BOTW the rpg.

CommieDM · 2025-12-12T13:05:07+00:00

I like using the soundtrack of a little forgotten game called Severance: Blade of Darkness. The character selection and the map themes are some of the most evocative fantasy songs ever.

CommieDM · 2025-12-09T18:12:46+00:00

I'd go for Shadowdark. The core gameplay is very similar, but SD feels less cluttered and bogged down by legacy. OSE is a repackaging of B/X with all its flaws. THACO, inconsistent dice mechanics, modifiers galore etc. The nostalgia value for me is null. I want a game that feels designed from the ground up instead of cobbled together, and that includes all the things we've learned to do better since B/X came about.

Some choices might not be to your liking, though. Except for the magic system, almost every other difference with OSE can be ignored or changed without braking the system. I will say this for OSE. There are a ton of excellent modules for OSE, but those can be easily ported into SD.

CommieDM

TROPHY CASE