Cephalon Dusp's Archives

    One problem that I believe many people notice in RPGS and work to fix, even subconsciously, is having too many choices during character creation. It sounds crazy, but it is a real problem. Anyone who has attempted to make a character in Cyberpunk, Pathfinder, or even 5th Edition D&D knows that the number of choices to be made can make it difficult to quickly make a character, even for experienced players!     5E specifically has 13 classes, a huge number of races, and even more backgrounds, nevermind the character options that unlock as characters level up like spells, subclasses, and feats! There is an enormous number of options to consider, and it can be completely overwhelming for new players.     From my experiences, OSR games generally try to shy away from this, but not nearly as much as we might like to think. Sure, everyone knows about the three main classes of Fighting-Man, Magic-User, and Cleric or Thief, but it is important to remember tha...

       Wow, it has been quite a bit since my last post. My new schedule is pretty hectic and the posts I really want to make are going to take more time than I seem to have, so instead I will write this apparently simple post instead.      I recently came across a post on Delta's D&D Hotspot  that I found very interesting. I will quickly summarize the post for anyone who doesn't feel like reading it (I recommend reading it). In short, the formula OD&D uses for determining if someone hits someone else in combat can be written as: d20 roll + mods >= 20 - level - AC      From there, this can be trivially rearranged for a variety of different systems, including what 5e D&D uses: d20 + level/bonus + mods >= (20 - AC)      In this schema level is replaced with your appropriate bonuses and AC is the hidden THAC0 AC that still sort of underlies the system. (20-AC) is how you convert that THAC0 AC to be the m...

     One of the defining features of OSR games is how they handle gaining experience (XP) and levelling up. XP, which is the tool used to pace character growth, has a an enormous amount of sway in influencing how people interact with the game. Normally, OSR games make the primary source of XP treasure recovered from monsters or dungeons. Actually killing monsters is considered secondary, if it even gives XP at all.      The method of play that this pushes disincentivizes fighting monsters, since it is horribly dangerous and doesn't give great rewards, but also heavy incentivizes diving into dungeons and other locations that would have them because that is where treasure is found.       Compare that with a modern game like 5E, which either does XP by monster or by milestone. The implications of handing out XP primarily/solely based on defeated monster are pretty obvious in what they would incentivize. Milestone progression, however, entir...

       For those who are unfamiliar with it, GLOG (Goblin Laws of Gaming) is very hacky OSR system that was created over on the  Goblin Punch  blog. It isn't exactly a complete system, but it is functional and easily hacked together to be runnable. The catch, however, is that you sort of need to have a different OSR system to patch in the gaps.      I do like the system, though I haven't run it, and it is very popular in the OSRsphere. Partially, this is because of how the system handles classes and levelling. GLOG takes the view that low-level play is the best play, and basically caps advancement at 4th level. Past 4th level, characters can marginally improve their hit points, attack bonus, and saving throws, but that is it. For their first four levels, in contrast, they gain all of that in addition to "Templates" or abilities. Every class comes with 4 tiers of templates (A, B, C, & D) and you just take the next letter whenever you advan...