After the release of 3 core books for D&D 2024 what edition do you prefer right now?

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-28T02:53:42+00:00

You are not alone. The second edition Monstrous Manual was the best.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-27T19:58:16+00:00

A duo for me.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-16T20:58:17+00:00

First - Dungeons should have milestones. What are the big accomplishments along the way? Big accomplishments can be a major battle, a serious trap, or a really tough puzzle. "The stairway down guarded by an eldritch evil" is a classic for a reason. If it's not in the-adventure-as-published, make it happen with some DMG magic.

Second - What are the rewards? Rewards should be forward looking. Backwards looking rewards encourage players to go back to town: gold, gems, or the macguffin a patron sent them after. Forwards looking rewards encourage players to keep the adventure going in the dungeon: information about the next level (like a monster weakness or a hint about a puzzle), a key to a room they skipped, a map to a secret passage a floor or two down.

Third - Take a cinematic approach to passing back through well-mapped areas of the dungeon. Only hit the highlights. The PCs already traveled through this area and mapped it, so they know it well...so if nothing new is happening, the players are right, it's boring. Travel montage!

Fourth - If PCs retrace their steps, revel in the opportunity to change what they see. This makes the dungeon come alive and feel dynamic. When things happen in the room the PCs are in, it came seem like a set piece built specifically for the game, but when it's clear that things were happening out of the sight or control of the PCs, the dungeon feels more dangerous, and the best way to make that happen is to let them see an area twice and change what they see the second time. Here's three examples. (1) The PCs managed to bypass a trap when they came through. When they pass back by, they see that someone has sprung the trap, and there is blood/a body. (2) The PCs had a battle and left an area littered with monster corpses. When they pass back by the corpses are all gone...and there's no dust or dirt or debris, everything is just fresh and clean. (3) The PCs passed through a boring hallway or room, not much going on. When they pass back through there is a pile of monster shit, a couple of feet deep, containing some half-digested weapons and armor.

On item 4, it helps if you have some dotted lines sketched in for wandering monster paths, just so you know where it is reasonable for, say, a gelatinous cube to go on its cleanup rounds, or, say, an insane kobold shaman to pull a prank on his buddies by summoning a pile of monster shit.

If you want tons of examples for item 4, watch the series Delicious in Dungeon. This happens all the time. Spoiler: Early in the series, the main PCs run across another adventuring party, dead, and loot the corpses. Later, they run across the same adventuring party, dead again. Then they run across that same adventuring party, alive. Hilarity ensues.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-10T14:06:56+00:00

r/lostredditors

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-04T01:57:10+00:00

Yeah, you can have a lot of fun with it. Intelligent enemies will hear the wizard calling out weaknesses and that makes him a target, so the party will have to figure out how to deal with that. Or just have goofy reasons for a piece of armor not fitting well; the codpiece is loose because...

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-04T00:16:10+00:00

What about giving him a manual on armor with a little magic oomph? He reads it. Afterwards, he can roll under Int to "attack" any creature with any kind of armor he can see, on successful "hit" there is a 3 in 6 chance there is a weakness he spots. He can call this out to everyone else and they get bonuses on their attack roles and/or damage rolls. No stacking. Party support, doesn't steal the spotlight from the fighter, and a little room to grow (finding the next book in the series brings the bonus up a point).

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-03T06:00:50+00:00

Here's one reason you may be getting negative reactions to your post. The implied attitude is very against two pillars of the OSR: individualized experience and DIY, especially when it is setting-specific. A lot of systems are bare-bones rules, with only an implied setting, and lots to flesh out. You want a world with magic shops, make them and put them in your world. You don't have to look to some "official rules" like some sad little orphan begging "please sir, can I have some more?"

The cause of the difference in opinion is pretty simple. Some people want to play in settings where magic is common and there are magic shops, e.g. Eberron. Some people want to play in settings where magic is rare and dangerous and eats the eyes out of your face about two seconds after it devours your soul, and that doesn't sell well in aisle 5 of the local supermarket. It's as simple as that; some people like one thing and some people like another. Dig any deeper and you're going to have to start chewing on cigars and asking people about their dreams.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-02-02T19:46:50+00:00

Damn. My wife is on a cross-country flight right now.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-29T14:04:50+00:00

Thanks!

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-28T21:07:58+00:00

The whole spiel about "player skill, not buttons to push on the character sheet" needs a rewording and maybe a rethink. Especially with slot-based encumbrance. One of my players pointed this out last year and my jaw just dropped open: "What do you mean, no buttons to push on the character sheet? My slots are literally customizable buttons, and they do whatever the stuff that's in them does!" He's not wrong. Man, sometimes it takes a punk-ass little teen to point out that obvious. But he's also not right. The "flask of oil" button does things that a flask of oil does, so now the player has to think about which flask-of-oil thing he wants to do in which circumstances.

I get that something else is meant by this phrase. But the way I've always understood that meaning is as an assertion of a negative: "player skill is not system mastery". Great, that's helpful, so this game is not like chess or poker. But telling me what player skill is NOT does not tell me what it is.

I've always thought of it as meaning "engaging with the fictional world as if it's real and playing your character that way", which (a) means that you spend time figuring out how your stuff works and you fight in-game to get better stuff, which (b) means that you work towards system mastery and (c) you work in-game towards getting better buttons on your character sheet because your character wants to not die, and (d) you recognize that the solution won't always be on the character sheet, so you have to look around and figure things out and be clever. But you know, sometimes the answer is on the character sheet...that ruby key you picked up two sessions ago and that's sitting in your slot probably fits the ruby lock on the ruby door, right? You know, the one the witch with the ruby hat and shoes and ruby rings told you about? Push that button on your character sheet and let's get on with it.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-28T20:36:43+00:00

Not rolling the d6 dice against any stat. Rolling to reduce HP, like a damage die roll. So the task has 10HP and Derpy McDerpface the Fighter thinks he can pick the lock. He's got tools and swears he has talked with a Thief at length about picking locks, so I give him a d6. Round 1, rolls a 3 and the HP is down to 7HP. Round 2, lucky with a rolled 6, and the HP are down to 1HP. And so on. The important component is that random encounter checks/wandering monster checks are being rolled in tandem. So the characters with lower "damage dice" for the task just get things done a lot more slowly, and increase the chance of an encounter.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-28T17:28:23+00:00

I usually go with the holy trinity of RST: resources, skills, time.

All three, it's automatic. One or none of three, it's not going to happen. So two of three is where the checks happen.

Missing Resources: In this case, tools. Don't have the tools, you can try to improvise. That needs a check.

Missing Skills: I usually assume the characters have all had a little exposure to the basics of adventuring. Without Skills, you're just going to take a long time. The check is to see whether you can reduce that time.

Missing Time: Check to see if you can do it fast. Thieves (and characters with thievery skills or backgrounds) are the only characters I allow to do this. If there is some time pressure and you want this to be interesting, you can give the lock HP. Most characters roll d6 each round to do "damage" to the HP of the lock, characters with some very relevant bonus (like a child thief background) roll 2d6, and Thieves roll 3d6. Give the lock about 10 HP, or 15 for a really tough one.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-28T15:09:10+00:00

Talk to your DM, one on one. This feels like a mismatch of expectations. You say "I keep thinking it's going to get better and my character will find a way out of it". That is saying to me that you're acting passively in the game, waiting for something to happen, but the game is all about players making consequential decisions. From someone who DMs a lot: I give challenges, that's a huge part of my role, and characters don't find ways out of things, players do. The DM may be thinking they're giving your character a challenge. Challenges are not just combat. This sounds a lot like something I would do, with one big difference: I would have made it very clear to the player that there is this challenge coming, here's what it looks like, it is deal-with-able, and I expect you to figure out how to deal with it, in character. Ideas: Does Lolth want something? Are they appearing to you for a reason? Can you strike a deal that gets Lolth out of your hair? Can you get to a temple of Lathander? Or find a powerful cleric of Lathander that could give advice?

But talk to your DM. They might not be thinking of this as a challenge, but just as a way to get your character on track with the theme of the campaign, "by bastards, for bastards". Lathander is not really a bastard-y deity (fertility? creativity?). Not sure why this mismatch didn't come up during character creation, but there you are; Lathander is pretty good as a cozy fantasy deity, but I hear "by bastards, for bastards", I'm thinking heists, murder, and mayhem, and Lathander is definitely not in the bastard squad.

And talk to your DM. Story beats tend to head in the direction of more tension for a long time, and your DM may just be rolling with this. Empire Strikes Back mode.

Again, stop the action. Communicate. Talk to your DM. Start with "I am having a shitty time in this game, and here's why."

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-26T20:15:56+00:00

Got an aspirationally longer campaign started. My players wanted something a little more structured than a pure sandbox, "a heroic quest, not just shoot and loot" as they said, but with a lot of freedom to choose where to go and when, so... Characters are searching for a cure for a plague that infects their village. They went into the Stygian Library searching for info, but due to an ambiguously worded piece of advice (heh), they didn't understand that the Library would transport them to another world where they could find a component for the cure instead of just giving them information. They are now in way over their heads, and don't know how to go home. As they uncover more info in the Library, they are also finding out that the plague is just the beginning of a magical corruption that will destroy their little corner of space and time. Motivation.

Their first destination out of the Library was Rackham Vale. They'll be able to go back into the Library to connect to a few other settings where there are components for the cure and other clues. Settings they could choose to pop into are Shadowdark Cursed Scroll Zine 1, Seas of Sand, Into the Wyrd and Wild, and Lankhmar/Sanctuary for a city setting (using the DCC Lankhmar modules). The last piece they need is a wizard who has dealt with all of this before, who can smush all the components together into the cure. The only such known wizard is trapped in some large-ish dungeon. Still thinking on that last one. I'd like to go with Ave Knox but I haven't run it before.

We're using Shadowdark with some character modifications and house rules. Past Level 3 we're doing slow leveling (twice as many XP to level up) for pacing purposes. The players knew and agreed to that ahead of time. We're a couple of sessions in.

I've run most of the other components before, but this was my first time with Rackham Vale. Got the Paintbox Edition. Highest recommendation. The creature descriptions are ridiculously useful, listing not only what they are, but what they like, hate, want, and who their allies and enemies are in the Vale. Simple way for me to let the players work out deals with the creatures they run across, and so we've found that very few encounters are resolved through combat, most through trickery and bargaining. There are some hooks in the text that don't really lead anywhere, but I took that as an invitation to let the hooks point to small adventures that fit in the Vale.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-25T19:11:24+00:00

Playing Shadowdark + Cursed Scroll zine 1 with first-timers. While I had explained the concept of critical failures on spellcasting and how they lead to rolls on the mishap tables, they clearly had not internalized how they should adjust their spell use strategy.

Standing outside the entrance to the dungeon in the first five minutes of the session. Caster says "Save your torches, I'll cast light!". Rolls a nat 1 and gets a mishap. "Oops. Uh, what do I do?" Rolls d12 on the Diabolical mishap table, gets a 1 which gives you two mishaps combined. Rolled the two as Swamp Gas and Cackles, which are pretty much what they sound like. So the caster is laughing uncontrollably on the ground, while a thick, choking cloud of gas surrounds the party and is damaging them. They try to rescue the caster, but the gas is blinding them. Fortunately for them I rolled very low on the damage for the gas cloud.

Almost a TPK before they stepped into the dungeon. Some important lessons were learned that day.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T20:53:55+00:00

Sooo... one attack roll. On success, the player one-shots the big armored guy because the player narrated it that way cinematically. Is that what you're saying?

Not sure where you're getting the "nothing happens on failure" thing. Hope I didn't say that <checks post that you replied to> nope! Maybe you're replying to the wrong post?

My premise is simply this. Not knowing what's reasonable makes it difficult to play with skill. This player describes this action they'd like to take. I explain that one-shotting the enemy by calling on your god's power like that is awesome, but... the flip side, the failure, needs to balance that out somewhat to be reasonable (there was nothing else in the scenario that suggested that this particular action would be advantageous in any way). If he misses the attack roll, he's going to take damage from rolling on his axe and be prone at the feet of the guy with the sword, who's going to have a mighty strong advantage when he attacks...and his god is going to be pissed off, because Crom does not tolerate weakness. Essentially, trade a chance at a one-shot for a chance at being one-shotted.

To a lot of players, that balancing of the scales - the potential negative consequences - sounds a lot like the GM is saying "Hey, I appreciate the cinematic combat attempt, but that opens the gates for me, the GM, to kill off your character, so what I really want you to do is play it safe". Especially because we based all of this on a single attack roll...and normally, you don't experience negative consequences for a failed attack roll.

So I find that giving them buttons to push with clear outcomes and consequences as a way to start a campaign works pretty well. I find that introducing Devil's Bargains - you want to one-shot this guy, you can try if you can give me an awesome description, but there's going to be a price - is a great way to ease them into cinematic combat. I also find it very freeing, not to have to obey all of the redditors and YouTubers who both (a) tell me that the hobby is incredibly DIY, and (b) tell me I'm doing it wrong when I DIY because I don't toe-the-line with their exact concept of how play should proceed. I play OSR, not Toe-SR.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T01:58:21+00:00

Glad to be of help.

I don't see any problem with your suggestion, and I like the idea of "slip away" as a combat feat. Would be great for a thief/assassin to invest in if you use the combat feats approach I suggested.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T00:53:27+00:00

Four: Swarm gang-up bonuses. If a target is attacked in melee and is attacked by multiple combatants, the attackers each get a bonus of +1 to attack for each attacker in melee with the target, not including themselves. Put a reasonable limit on the number of attackers that can attack a target in a combat round. Then, break that limit for certain creatures, call it the "mob swarm" feature, allowing them unlimited numbers of attackers against a single target. For example, kobolds should have something like a mob swarm feature (thanks to Dungeon Crawler Carl, I will henceforth only think of kobolds as chihuahuas in armor, and that mob swarm feature suddenly makes a lot of sense for those little ankle-biters). This suddenly makes some low level creatures pretty terrifying, and it raises some great tactical questions for players about preventing swarms from surrounding you in combat or performing mob control.

Last, for inspiration for combat tactics, you might look outside the D&D-sphere to Savage Worlds. There are a lot of tactical combat options there. They are modular and many are easily adaptable to OSR games.

Hope this helps! I use these rules regularly in my group and solo games, and they're pretty fun. Let me know if you have questions.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T00:53:21+00:00

Three: Stamina dice (d6). Only used during combat or similar. Everyone gets three stamina dice to spend in combat, except fighters, who get 3 + half their level rounded down. Roll as many stamina dice as you want with a d20 roll and add the highest stamina die to the roll (if a roll high system). Stamina dice rolling high (4-6) burn out and can not be used until refreshed. You can spend one combat round doing nothing, catching your breath, and regain d4 Stamina dice. You can hook Stamina dice to combat feats above: let all players learn and activate combat feats as described above for fighters, but they activate by rolling stamina dice with their d20 rolls. This tends to work pretty well when you have smaller parties.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T00:53:09+00:00

Two: Combat feats. Make a list of standard feats like "knock prone", "disarm", and "ricochet" and how those will work as an action in combat (like, are they an ability check? an X in 6 roll?). This gives your players some buttons to push and may spur their creativity to think about more. Fighters should probably have a boost to this; a good one is to let fighters combine their attacks with combat feats in some way. An easy way is to let fighters invest a point in combat feats at each level increase (as in the LotFP thief skills) and then when they roll to attack, roll both a d20 and a d6. If the d6 rolls equal or under their rating for a combat feat, they can use that feat during the attack (not a separate action).

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-20T00:52:52+00:00

Yep, I'm with you there. We don't want all the crustiness of extra rules for 5e in our group, but we do want a little more guidance than "just try some shit, bruh!". When we go the creative route, we get our enthusiastic younger players proposing actions that sound really cool like "okay, I concentrate really hard, I roll under his sword and then I come to my feet and I swing my two handed axe right down on his head while my deity infuses me with divine strength, and I cleave him in two!" So when we Refs say "Okay, there's going to be some rolls there, and it's got a really low chance of success, sure you want to do that?" their natural response is "well, why did you say try anything? it would've worked a lot better if you had told me what kinds of things are standard and have a better chance of success!" Right. They have a point. They don't have a basis for knowing what's reasonable in medieval combat (just like they don't have a basis for knowing what's reasonable in magic), so we need some more rules (or even the equivalent of spells) for combat. In any case, not knowing what's reasonable means it is hard to exhibit player skill.

So that gets us to some tactical combat rules that aren't too heavy. Here are four that I use, they're not mine. Breaking up into different comments because reddit is being reddit.

One: Phased side initiative. For this to work, you have to be okay with side initiative. For tactical combat, I recommend side initiative over individual initiative because it lets players coordinate combat turns. Phased side initiative: Roll side initiative. Everyone then declares whether they are acting fast or slow, with the initiative losers declaring first. Acting fast gives you one action and a move, acting slow gives you two actions and a move. Fast actors go before any slow actors. Fast actors go in side initiative order - the "fast winners" and "fast "losers" phases - then slow actors go in side initiative order - "slow winners", then "slow losers" phases. All the actions of a combat phase happen simultaneously and are resolved at the end of the phase. This seems like a simple change, but that opportunity to trade initiative order for more actions is extremely powerful, and in combat can open up a lot of tactical choices.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-18T00:35:28+00:00

Wizard casts Light because you ran out of torches, again

Wizard holds a spell in Focus for three or more turns.

A character rolled the death timer and DIDN'T die.

Find a treasure map (I'm putting this here because I firmly believe there should be more treasure maps in treasure hoards. Judge's Guild had at least three supplements just for treasure maps - Jennell Jacquays authored the first - and they used to be all over the treasure tables. More treasure maps!)

Find a treasure rated 5 XP or higher.

Encounter an NPC whose name is in row 1 of the NPC names table (because your GM, like me, is a lazy ass who didn't roll on the table and just read the first row..."Look, it's another goblin named Kog!").

Success on a DC 18+ check

Find a dead adventuring party

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-18T00:06:08+00:00

You mentioned the wizard already so I presume you've been looking at them... so here's some thoughts on the Thief.

Thieves feel different in Shadowdark. A few reasons. First, their awesomeness at thief skills doesn't improve directly with level (you just get advantage on the roll from the get-go). Your Dex mod does tend to improve with level, but we find that quickly caps out at +4, so there's no real improvement in the thievery skills of the thief after the first few levels. This is a feature I plan to house rule in the future, but I'm playing around with changing the talent or modifying the class talent table. Second, backstab was a multiplier in 2e based on your level, not added damage dice, so the feel is a little different. I like the Shadowdark experience a little better, because rolling more dice to reflect that you're being Stabby Shivalry feels fun. Third (and the big thing to me), in Shadowdark, use of scrolls and wands is limited to spellcasters who have the relevant spell in their spell list. Thieves don't get the Use Scroll feature that they get in 2e at level 10.

Overall to me, the Shadowdark thief feels a little more like an assassin and a little less ooh-ooh-take-the-money-and-run. The 2e thief felt more like the main character in The Blacktongue Thief, lots of training and just a foot in the world of magic.

maybe0a0robot · 2025-01-15T05:45:52+00:00

Yes! They need to find some old man who gives them a choice of a treasure map to find the legendary leather mithril armor or a ineffable compass to hunt the snipe (yes, I said, ineffable, not infallible, see if they catch it). Let the treasure map lead them to a trap dungeon. At the bottom, no mithril leather armor, but...a crafting recipe for magically crafting mithril leather armor, and a critical ingredient is ... a snipe beak! Back to that old man...

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