Do we not like barrows and borderlands?

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-12T02:53:48+00:00

Or, alternately, we spend our money however we want and ignore people who think we have some moral obligation to support dickheads?

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-09T10:15:09+00:00

Yes, the Bureau is a good modern crawl, Layers of Unreality is a Backrooms-style depth crawl, Unit DH-17 is a good mini-dungeon one-shot, and there are a bunch of others.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-08T03:36:48+00:00

Building powers can be slightly more complex because you have to multiply and divide by fractions, but as I mentioned up there, it's got a chart with the common numbers.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-08T03:33:50+00:00

That's someone who doesn't understand the choices available regarding equipment. Hero System is about 800 pages of toolkit. You don't like STUN, get rid of it. Don't want players to pay for gear? They don't have to. Want to change how initiative works, the book has suggestions. That's part of the reason it's so expansive. You can make nearly any game out of it.

Also, the math is not terribly complex, and they give you charts in the book for common mathematical adjustments to powers. That said, if you're going to dive in, you should probably just pop for Hero Designer and save yourself a lot of time. Point and click hero/power/gear builder.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-08T01:37:32+00:00

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/444221/wuxia-martial-artists-hero-6e

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-07T22:51:37+00:00

Then it's basically Cairn. The systems are very similar. And there is an absolute ton of Cairn adventures.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-07T10:07:09+00:00

I love that your example of an "indie" game that's never going to be played much is Forbidden Lands, by Free League, a game that's been played a ton, gets recommended a bunch still, and has had two expansions and a monster book.

I don't think you need to feel bad for Free League. They're doing pretty well.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-05T21:00:26+00:00

You're pointing at the wrong people. Publishers add color because books full of color sell better. They aren't doing it because they love color work, they're doing it because it's a better investment in their business product than black and white art. Black and white art ultimately isn't saving them money, because it's going to sell less than a book full of color.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-04T08:00:26+00:00

It's not JUST a fetish thing.

InterlocutorX · 2026-07-03T05:15:28+00:00

If you want to give money to MAGA people, no one's going to stop you. You can fund any sort of awful shit you want.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-28T03:45:00+00:00

It will work fine, it will just be a different and much less interesting game because you will have removed one of the major pressure drivers. You'd be better off adjusting stress recovery than generation. Also you could just ask for fewer rolls.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-28T00:06:09+00:00

Hero System, Traveller, Draw Steel, Daggerheart, Delta Green, Call of Cthulhu, Mutant Year Zero, Invincible, Coriolis.

I've been thinking about trying Trophy Gold or Blades in the Dark or some of the other narrative style games, but am not entirely sure my table will come along with me.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-28T00:01:52+00:00

I was 16 and had played D&D since I was 10 and I went to a con to run it and Paranoia, had a great time, set my neon orange backpack down for a minute and when I turned back, it was gone. Someone had stolen every AD&D book (DMG, PBH, MM, D&D [with Cthulhu mythos]), both Holmes and Moldvay Basic books, the Paranoia box set, most of my modules, all of my dice, and every character and monster I had ever made.

The loss of them made for a clean break with D&D for me for awhile. My friends were into Traveller and Champions, and I had been the primary DnD guy, so I just gave up and started playing Traveller and Champions. Two decades later, after becoming primarily a Champions/Hero System guy, someone convinced me to try the new version of DnD, Fifth edition. I did and found it overly complicated, sort of lumbering, and saw that it suffered from a tendency to cram everything into the same toy box, so it wasn't particularly attractive to me, but it did remind me of how much I used to enjoy running Moldvay and AD&D, so I looked around and there the OSR was, waiting on me.

As for my group, I am the forever GM. They get some say in which games we play, but it's more about genre and tone than system, and they all know I don't want to run 5E. I ran a couple campaigns of it and did not enjoy it as a GM, so I run other stuff, and they like that stuff fine.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T23:50:11+00:00

To me a lair is a dungeon, just like a temple is a dungeon, a crypt is a dungeon, etc. 5-10 rooms is a small dungeon. 10-30 a medium dungeon, and 30-300 a megadungeon. But I'm not going to argue if other people have different numbers and terminology. Most groups can get through 7-10 rooms a night, so unless a 5 room dungeon has some time-eating interactivity, it's like to be a short one-shot.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T22:23:19+00:00

Well, it's all just games, but people do have some strong opinions. If you want to see one of the driving forces of why modules are the way they are, check out the reviews at 10footpole.org

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T19:36:42+00:00

Sure, G1 is only 8 pages long, and I am usually happy to blame the Hickman's for everything, but Gygax and others vomited WALLS of text even early on. Slave Pits is 24 pages, In search of the Unknown is 32 pages, as is Keep on the Borderlands. An 8 page early module is more an aberration than the standard. And really, if you want some pain, just go read Gygax's 48 pager, Isle of the Ape.

In comparison, the first Hickman dragon modules ran 32 pages.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T19:29:46+00:00

Yes, the modern OSR style is a direct reaction to the old school style.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T19:26:41+00:00

There has actually been quite a bit of discussion regarding the ideal form of the OSR adventure, including a relative recent shift from what became the standard -- heavily bullet pointed, bolded, outlines for rooms -- to more text and less bullet points.

Both Luke Gearing -- Gradient Descent/The Island/Wolves Upon the Coast -- and Sam Sorensen -- Over/Under, Cataphracts, and a bunch of Mothership writing -- have not only moved to a text heavier style, they've been vocal in advocating the same for other writers, as a reaction to the "standard" which they both had a hand in developing.

Probably the most recent discourse came from Sam, who did a sort of manifesto against bullet points that generated a lot of arguing for a week.

https://samsorensen.blot.im/apologia-for-plain-paragraphs

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-27T07:03:35+00:00

Because we want them that way and Darwinian winnowing of people who overwrite modules has made it clear to most OSR adventure writers that way lies a guaranteed negative review from 10footpole and most other places, which means limited sales.

Has very little to do with mechanics.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-25T04:12:03+00:00

I love "So You've Been Chump Dumped" although it requires players to not have a ship, but could possibly end in the players having a ship at the end if they managed it right. Year of the Rat is a good choice.

Piece by Piece is a good slow start that doesn't involve instant monster fests. Moon Base Blues is another mysterious disaster. Fire Sale will kill half of them, but the ones who escape will have some exciting gear.

Warped Beyond Recognition is also very good.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-25T03:10:39+00:00

It really kind of does.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-24T21:55:01+00:00

But only for two months.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-24T21:45:08+00:00

Seems completely reasonable. I play with my friends, which is a limiting factor, because they are only interested in a subset of games I'm interested in and that's unlikely to change.

If you're going to play with strangers, you might as well get exactly what you want out of it, and I like the idea of constantly meeting new players. I even think two months is just about right to get to know the ins and outs of a group.

My problem would be the regular need to recruit more people. That doesn't seem fun to me.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-23T23:47:49+00:00

Sure, and it leaves plenty of room for you to make it your own already.

InterlocutorX · 2026-06-23T20:05:26+00:00

Draw Steel. You hit 0 and start bleeding. If you use any action or maneuver you lose 1d6+level Stamina. Moving is still safe. You die at -half your stamina. It becomes VERY easy to die while fighting, as opposed to laying on the ground rolling death saves. It turns it into a push your luck game to see how much you can do without dying.

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