• Re: OSRIC 3.0 announced

    From Justisaur@21:1/5 to Kyonshi on Thu May 16 09:11:07 2024
    XPost: rec.games.frp.misc

    On 5/16/2024 4:34 AM, Kyonshi wrote:
    Source: https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=310619&sid=bc9df66ac8e684285312387ec9ff9e5d#p310619



    Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
    have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
    might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
    very similar approach.

    Sounds good after reading the post there. I'm all for a easier to
    understand version of 1e, even if I prefer different interpretations of
    some of the rules.

    I hope they remove or move the section on NPCs ability scores as that
    caused problems for both me and others allowing/using OSRIC, as it
    wasn't clear that wasn't for characters that were NPCs.

    What I'd really like to see is a real basic version of 5e, not the WotC
    version that is almost exactly the same, but has fewer races and
    classes. The whole system is just so tied up together in knots it's
    very hard to extricate complexities with it. It really needs a
    different basic system like Basic vs. AD&D had.


    ___________________________

    Mythmere:
    "
    1) Simply maintaining OSRIC under the OGL is possible at this time, but
    in the long run I think it's a bit of a risk. WotC can probably cut off
    access to new users of the OGL at any time by "withdrawing the open
    offer". I don't think I'm giving WotC a roadmap here; they almost
    certainly are aware of this approach to the license. They wanted to do
    more than that to kill it quickly, but there's a much more reliable way
    to poison it over time, which is simply to withdraw the offer to "sign
    on" to the OGL. But after the massive backlash to their attempt to kill
    the license at one blow, they will have to wait a while before
    mentioning the OGL again. This potential future withdrawal of the offer
    would create a problem for anyone new who wanted to publish something
    for OSRIC, so it behooves us to move to a different license now, before
    the axe eventually comes down.

    2) The ORC license has some problems with easy usability. I won't go
    into those because it's complicated and also because there's discussion
    about it in lots of other places. The AELF License, since it works in
    the same way as the OGL, is familiar enough that it can be adopted
    relatively easily by anyone familiar with the OGL.

    3) OSRIC 3.0 is intended to be completely backward-compatible with OSRIC
    2.0, and it shouldn't require any "new versions" of adventures that have
    been published in the past. There might turn out to be minor glitches in
    terms of backward compatibility, but those will be the exception.

    4) The reasons for coming out with a new version:

    a) First, the license, as mentioned above.

    b) Secondly, it's to meet the needs of a younger batch of gamers in a
    context where the PDFs of the original books are available from WotC
    (which wasn't the case when we originally published OSRIC 2.0). This
    means several different avenues of approach.

    --- The writing style will use bullet points and other visual call-outs
    to avoid the "wall of text" effect. Even those of us raised in
    pre-internet days are starting to find the bullet-point arrangement
    preferable to a long block that doesn't visually separate and organize
    the more important elements of the text.

    ---We're going to include a VTT-friendly method of scale since so many
    people now game online.

    ---We're going to try to make this version what EOTB calls a "teaching edition," meaning lots of guidance for playing the game. The "how to
    play" information is in the original books to a degree, but it can be
    presented at the forefront and that's what anyone new to the whole OSR
    needs. Also, AD&D is simply more complex than other OSR games like B/X,
    so it needs to be presented in a step-by-step format that draws the
    learner into the process.


    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
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  • From Justisaur@21:1/5 to Spalls Hurgenson on Tue May 21 06:26:35 2024
    On 5/17/2024 1:37 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
    On Thu, 16 May 2024 09:11:07 -0700, Justisaur <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    By the time the BECMI system was fully developed, it was almost as
    complex as its AD&D counterpart.

    What set Basic apart wasn't so much its rules system, but how it
    introduced the game system to you bit by bit. The Moldavay - and
    especially the Mentzer books - were just better written tomes. Had
    they done the AD&D rules, I think TSR could have skipped the entire AD&D/Basic division.

    True, Mentzer was amazing for the intro in the basic set. Also while
    somewhat of a pain once you were familiar that they were broken up into
    levels and introduced new mechanics in higher level books helped a lot.
    At least the last one also had the Rules Cyclopedia eventually that put
    all the rules in one book.

    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Thu May 23 04:03:02 2024
    [email protected] wrote:
    On Thu, 16 May 2024 13:34:45 +0200, Kyonshi <[email protected]> wrote:

    Source:
    https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php

    Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
    have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
    might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a >>very similar approach.

    Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
    original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
    books.

    Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!

    The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana
    never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Thu May 23 08:04:32 2024
    In article <v2n5te$3280p$[email protected]gnwiki>, [email protected] wrote:
    On 5/23/2024 10:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana

    Too much throwing at the wall with that one?

    No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great condition.

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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  • From Justisaur@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Thu May 23 09:22:44 2024
    On 5/23/2024 1:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
    [email protected] wrote:
    On Thu, 16 May 2024 13:34:45 +0200, Kyonshi <[email protected]> wrote:

    Source:
    https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php

    Seems they are trying for an approach targeted at younger players that
    have a 5e culture instead of going full old school this time. Which
    might be a good approach, I think Old School Essentials had basically a
    very similar approach.

    Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
    original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
    books.

    Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!

    The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.

    Yet another reason not to use UA.

    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
    (\_/)\
    `-'\ `--.___,
    ¶¬'\( ,_.-'
    \\
    ^'

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From lkh@21:1/5 to Ubiquitous on Fri May 24 07:22:49 2024
    Ubiquitous <[email protected]> wrote:
    In article <v2n5te$3280p$[email protected]gnwiki>, [email protected] wrote:
    On 5/23/2024 10:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana

    Too much throwing at the wall with that one?

    No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great condition.

    I seem to remember having listned to an interview with Gary Gygax, where he claimed
    asking for "school book binding" for the three original books was a deliberate choice. He disapproved the decision to go to regular case binding for the later orange spine books.

    So if your three core books still hold up nicely (just like mine), all praise has to got to Gary :)

    ~lkh


    --
    Let's go Brandon!


    --
    https://social.sdfeu.org/@lkh
    IRC: lkh on Libera.chat and others
    XMPP: [email protected]

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  • From Justisaur@21:1/5 to Kyonshi on Tue May 28 08:59:36 2024
    On 5/25/2024 1:25 AM, Kyonshi wrote:
    On 5/24/2024 4:10 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
    On Thu, 23 May 2024 09:22:44 -0700, Justisaur <[email protected]>
    wrote:

    I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
    particularly well thought out.

    A few things I liked, a lot I liked the idea of, but didn't work out in
    play, and a lot of stuff that was obviously bad. The new spells seemed
    to be almost universally loved, which was at least a third of the book.

    I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
    Folio". ;-)

    I've got a lot more.

    Oh come on, the Fiend Folio is amazing. I just regret they didn't put
    out anything with the later monsters from White Dwarf.

    /agree with both that.

    Fiend Folio is very hit and miss though, the hits are amazing, the
    misses are miserable. To be fair, the monster manual had a lot of
    miserable misses too, like wind walkers.

    As it's a DM resource book it's a lot easier to use what I want and not
    what I don't than a mostly player facing book like UA. I played a lot
    of AD&D at the time being a kid & teen eventually, and the additional
    monsters were a godsend to mix it up a bit.

    --
    -Justisaur

    ø-ø
    (\_/)\
    `-'\ `--.___,
    ¶¬'\( ,_.-'
    \\
    ^'

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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Jun 12 10:03:13 2024
    [email protected] wrote:
    Ubiquitous <[email protected]> wrote:
    [email protected] wrote:
    On 5/23/2024 10:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:

    The original rulesbooks were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth >>>> Arcana

    Too much throwing at the wall with that one?

    No, they just fell apart, but my DMG, PH, and DaD books are still in great >> condition.

    I seem to remember having listned to an interview with Gary Gygax, where he >claimed asking for "school book binding" for the three original books was a >deliberate choice. He disapproved the decision to go to regular case binding >for the later orange spine books.

    Interesting! I did not know that!

    So if your three core books still hold up nicely (just like mine), all
    praise has to got to Gary :)

    Praise Gygax!

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Jun 12 10:07:34 2024
    [email protected] wrote:
    Justisaur <[email protected]> wrote:
    On 5/23/2024 1:03 AM, Ubiquitous wrote:
    [email protected] wrote:

    Meh. If I'm playing old-school* then I'm playing old-school with my
    original rules-books. My creaky, held-together-with-duct-tape rule
    books.

    Don't make me Troll-O-Meter you, bro!

    The original rules were nigh indestructable, although the Unearth Arcana >>> never seemed to last more than a couple years of use.

    Yet another reason not to use UA.

    Even as an uncouth and crass young(er) player at the time, I wasn't
    fond of Unearthed Arcana. It wasn't that a lot of the ideas didn't
    appeal to me, but they all felt poorly integrated with the greater
    game. They were good ideas tossed into the pot without consideration
    for how they affected the overall game balance and style. These days
    I'd accuse the developers of 'kitchen-sinking'* the game; throwing in
    new ideas without a real understanding of its effects, just to say
    that they've added something new.

    If memory serves, a lot of the ideas came from Dragon Magazine and were
    meant to be a mix of errtta, clarifications, and new material. I especially appreciated the boost to demi-human level limits.

    * I'm gonna make this phrase happen, just you watch.

    I thought it already was, or already has a phrase.

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Jun 12 10:08:58 2024
    [email protected] wrote:
    On 5/24/2024 4:10 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

    I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
    particularly well thought out. I had a lot less respect for "Fiend
    Folio". ;-)

    Oh come on, the Fiend Folio is amazing. I just regret they didn't put
    out anything with the later monsters from White Dwarf.

    The original Fiend Folio was a mixed bag for me. The monsters were either awesome or aweful.

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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  • From Ubiquitous@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Wed Jun 12 10:10:30 2024
    In article <v34v18$lkk8$[email protected]>, [email protected] wrote:
    On 5/25/2024 1:25 AM, Kyonshi wrote:
    On 5/24/2024 4:10 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
    Justisaur <[email protected]> wrote:

    I never thought UA was /bad/... just not necessary and not
    particularly well thought out.

    A few things I liked, a lot I liked the idea of, but didn't work out in
    play, and a lot of stuff that was obviously bad. The new spells seemed
    to be almost universally loved, which was at least a third of the book.

    Lifted from Dragon Magainze and several modeules.

    --
    Let's go Brandon!

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