OSRPGtalk

Words from a grognard

Design Theory: What About Skills?

October 7, 2025 / / 0 Comments

One vexing problem that presents itself when designing an old school system now is the question of how to use skills. This is a design problem because the earliest D&D systems used an implicit skill system instead of an explicit system. That has lead to a lot of people thinking that the old school rules don’t have skills built into them, a mistaken position.

I’ll leave it to those who’ve spoken of it before me to lay out how skills in old D&D appear (see Lucy Blumire’s blogpost about old school skills) and simply assume that the skill system is present as fact. That skill system is implicit in the text, with instances of it only showing when specifics are needed; at no point are the skills presented as being a subsystem in the rules. One way in which this characteristic affects the mechanics directly is in the realm of PC abilities.

At no point in describing PC abilities is a general skill system laid out or referred to. Even when the thief class showed up in a supplement with its personal skill set described, there was no discussion of a general skill subsystem in the rules. The thief skills also differed from the general skill usage by requiring percentile dice rolls instead of an X-in-6 approach. It wasn’t until the appearance of expansion books for AD&D that an explicit presentation of a skill system debuted.

This all means that designers of systems taking an old school approach these days have to decide how to involve skills in the systems. Do we design implicit skills that only get described as a discrete dice roll used in a specific situation here and there, or do we lay out skills as an explicit part of the system? Are skills to be a one-size-fits-all measure of X-in-6 chances called out discretely for everybody or will PC competence vary by class and/or experience?

I’ve decided I want to take a hybrid approach to skills. PC skills will be described as best as possible as discrete instances of what a specific class can do, instead of a list of skills that can be learned and developed by any PC. I also. however, will describe how PCs of other classes use those skills, without them being able to develop any greater competence (much the same as with the X-in-6 approach). This is the same basic tack as thieves being able to develop their ability to climb sheer surfaces while non-thief PCs have just a general chance to climb and never develop that skill further, so it’s not without precedent. An example from my projects would be that of fighters being able to employ stunts in melee (and the development of those locked in through level advancement) and non-fighters being able to attempt the same with much worse chances of success (and no improvement possible).

This approach involves no setting up an explicit skills system that covers learning new skills and generating ratings, then rules on how to develop those skills over the course of play, and how players can go about choosing how many skills and what skills their PCs possess. It stays with “at this level, PCs of this class can do X and all other classes can only wish they could do that as well” approach of AD&D and avoids the explicit approach of Traveller or Runequest or GURPS. I just won’t be shy about calling out the skills.

DA Design: First Combat Module: Notes 1

September 28, 2025 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been playing around with the first of the alternate combat sub-systems in the Dangerous Adventures project. What began as a purely Weapon Speed & Casting Time exercise has morphed into quite a bit. It still has weapon speed and casting time involved, though they appear differently, now.

The primary problem that reared up with the system as originally envisioned involves movement. Breaking movement down by segments proved to be a bit tedious and boring in play. Even grouping segments of movement together on an ad hoc basis whenever all that would happen for those segments would be movement just wasn’t working well.

Also, the weapon speeds in the book obviously weren’t intended to be used in a strict segment count system, so those would all have to be re-figured; I couldn’t find a suitable mathematical formula to use to assign them segment counts. It’s easier to simply work up new speed ratings from scratch.

Now, beginning from scratch means that the ratings don’t have to reference segments, nor range from 1 to 10 to fit. I can break the round into any number of segments that I wish, based solely on what seems to work best for me. That means I can structure rounds around (!) any of the concepts involved in combat. With that in mind, I’ve landed on five segments/phases in a round, based on the different types of movement I want to include. I think the five-step phasing will assist GMs to work in any unusual activity, too, with the provided descriptions of movement types giving suitable examples to generalize from for rulings on the ground.

The list of movement-types: Shift/Intercept; Split-Move (& Fire); Half-Move (& Attack) [Or (Attack &) Half- Move]; Charge (& Attack); Counter-Charge (& Attack); Full Move (Advance); Full Move (Run). These movement-types should provide enough examples to provide guidance for GMs ruling on weird actions.

This is all part of the chassis for the combat system, part of the Basic rules for it. There will be Expanded rules that include abilities added for some PCs (fighters) as they increase in level and also fit both Mana Channeling & Counterspell and Magical Combat procedures. I think it’s flexible enough, at this point, to support any other combat types I may want to add (read: that I’m contemplating now).

Now, LJ has a three-phase round structure too accommodate all of the above, to one degree or another. It’s interesting (at least, for me) to see how the same basic ideas brought on two different structures. I’ll likely post about that at some point so everybody can compare the two.

Design Theory: Combat, Abstraction, & Procedure

September 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Part of my early-rpg-gaming study has involved reading the Chainmail rules and how those were used, not only for minis wargame play, but also play of OD&D. As Chainmail is a wargame, most of what it provides is rules for combat, so it’s an integral part of studying the OG RPG combat rules.

One of the most interesting tidbits to be found in Chainmail is that it has three combat systems. Yeah, it offers a mass combat system for use with miniatures wargame scenarios, a man-to-man system for individuals beating on each other, and a fantasy combat system for dealing with monsters. The rules text as a whole offers up a lot of information on the earliest fighting rules and there’s much to be gathered from reading the text.

Procedures Provide Structure

One aspect shared across all three systems is that they’re all broken down procedurally in play. It’s this procedural step-by-step approach that provides a great deal of the verisimilitude among the abstractions made in the rules. The use of phases provides a feel for how action proceeds apace, yet some activity most often precedes other activity and that difference helps ground the whole in time. I compare stepping through phases here (as with B/X and OSE) with the free-for-all of AD&D and find that using phases does make a difference in flavor, at least for me, so I figure there are other players for whom it makes a difference, too.

The phases provide some structure for the abstractions, especially when dealing with actions that aren’t described in the Advanced rules, such as split-fire missile actions. The phase structure places the initial move early in the round, the missile attack later, and the final move segment after. Let’s look at how it plays out:

THE MOVE/COUNTER MOVE SYSTEM

  1. Both opponent’s roll a die; the side with the higher score has the choice of
    electing to move first (Move) or last (Counter-move).
  2. The side that has first move moves its figures and makes any split-moves
    and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
  3. The side that has last move now moves its figures and makes any split-moves
    and missile fire, taking any pass-through fire possible at the same time.
  4. Artillery fire is taken.
  5. Missile fire is taken.
  6. Melees are resolved.
  7. Steps 1 through 6 are repeated throughout the remainder of the game.
    Note:Missile fire from split-moving troops is considered to take effect immedia-
    tely during the movement portion of the turn, and the same is true of pass-
    through fire. All other fire, both artillery and missile, is considered to
    simultaneously take effect just prior to melee resolution.

This provides a basic feel for time advancing through the round. This feel is enhanced by stepping through artillery fire and general missile fire and melee. While there are arguments to be made about having the chaos of battle reflected in simultaneous resolution for everything, I find the feel of time progressing during a round to be preferable. The switching from player to player and monster to monster with simultaneous resolution doesn’t provide the same.

I also believe that stepping through the phases in play helps GMs develop a feel for how to approach play, in general. Building a habit of taking matters one step at a time during resolution can help GMs provide consistency in adjudication and that helps with the verisimilitude of the setting.

The rules also offer a list of possible actions to take. This list is predicated on minis play, of course, and yet most of what it describes can also happen in man-to-man and fantasy play — split-move fire, pass-through fire, indirect fire, direct fire, cover, charging, and melee. Yes, a player could have a PC do something not on the list, yet the list illustrates the variety of possible combat action just by its size and what it covers. I suspect most GMs could study that section of Chainmail and come away with a better understanding of all the things that can happen and how to sequence them and adjudicate them, even with having to adjust for playing an RPG instead of a minis wargame.

Chainmail also provides a different take on initiative by dint of having the different combat systems order action differently. The basic roll isn’t the end all be all of old school initiative, it turns out. The man-to-man system, for example, uses weapon speeds to figure out how many attacks a combatant can make based on a comparison of weapons between them and their foe. A small, quick weapon vs a large, much slower weapon can lead to multiple attacks that wouldn’t be possible using the fantasy combat system; fighting men and fighting monsters are qualitatively different in Chainmail.

A key concept I pull from this is that using procedures in play offers a lot of benefit at little cost. I don’t see scrapping the free-for-all for phased resolution to result in a loss of flavor in any significant way, while doing so gains a good deal of feel in play. It’s because of this that I’ve embraced the use of phases in my projects, although the specifics vary by which title.

Blog News: Revamp is Underway

September 23, 2025 / / 0 Comments

At work this past weekend I was able to hash out notes on several more topics that will appear in posts on here. The reorganizing and editing of the old posts is also happening apace, despite all that taking writing & design time to do. I figure getting it all organized and finally out of my head will free me up for more design and writing time before long, which would be a net gain for me. When my head gets cluttered, I lose productive time. (And as the triple bypass revealed that I’d been walking around essentially dead for some time, I want to get it all on paper before I do actually fall down.)

Among the things I pondered while working on the assembly line were wizard-locked doors, wards and seals, magical constructs, power crystals for constructs, and what would be driven by such. Also, various ways to involve tracking fatigue in play, some of which I’ve played around with prior and others I’ve not. Thoughts on some tutorial adventure materials with commentary on what players and GMs have to consider as play moves along. Notions about sages — hiring them and how they go about doing their research. A bit on lighting in dungeons that PCs don’t have to provide.

Topics still percolating in my head from before include: counterspell processes for casters and how those work in combat against enemy casters; fighters and performing stunts and exploits; how to possibly use my channeling dice mechanism as part of my Resolve system and what change in feel/flavor would come about (and whether it seems reasonable, at all).

And a good deal about topics for GMing materials. Things to consider for settings, guidance on developing dungeons/ruins/adventure sites. Thoughts on design theory. All. The. Things. And I write best and most productively after I’ve nailed the organization down for whatever I’m writing, so getting it all out of my head and into an outline of some sort is going to help finish it.

The Old School: No “fail forward”

September 22, 2025 / / 3 Comments

One of the most annoying bits I read in online discussions of RPG topics is the notion of “fail forward.” I’m going to try to restrain myself so this doesn’t turn into a straight up rant, as this is one of the lamest notions I’ve heard about game play in the 40 years I’ve been playing elf games. I rolled my eyes when I first encountered it and my opinion of it has dropped since then.

If a PC attempts some task, it goes, and fails in the attempt, play can’t advance because nothing happened. If a PC fails, they say, it should still advance play, by which they mean the PC should succeed in some fashion despite failing. Leaving aside the nonsensical notion that every PC action should meaningfully advance progress in some fashion, this argument is ludicrous. (I think it indicates the player making the argument is far too lazy or lacks the creativity to be a good player, though I’m trying not to rant here.)

Experienced old school players understand things differently, I reckon. They know — from experience — that having failed at one approach to solving a problem simply means that they have to get creative and explore one of the other possible solutions. They don’t expect things to be easy and know that the first, obvious solution may not work. They expect that they may have to work a bit harder than that.

So, when the thief fails to pick the lock on the door that promises to provide access to the area believed to be awash with piles of coins and gemstones, all is not lost. There’s no need to whine and demand that they get access to that part of the dungeon just because they tried something that could gain them access and success should be handed to them with some lame “consequence” attached. The old school players understand they’ll have to work harder: perhaps there’s another door not far away that leads into that section of the dungeon; perhaps in the shdows overhead there’s a passage that bypasses the door; perhaps they can force the door, grab something to use as a battering ram, hack it to pieces, or burn it until they can smash it; trick some dungeon denizen to open the door for them.

The failure of the thief’s attempt to pick the lock didn’t stall out play. It advanced play by eliminating one possible solution to the problem of the locked door. It enhances play, actually, by providing a chance for the players to get creative in opening or bypassing the door. It drives the players to work a little harder and engage with the setting a bit more. Trying only the easy solution and then throwing hands up in defeat while demanding success just isn’t good play.

The same sort of argument arises when dealing with combat. If both a PC and the monster engaged with it are unsuccessful in attacking each other, the cry arises that nothing changed in the fight and that’s bad. A bit of thought shows this to be nonsense, too. Tthe PC keeping the monster occupied while the magic-user behind them finishes a spell changes things as much — if not more — than had the fighter simply laid another four points of damage on the beastie. The PC staying alive and upright could be a significant achievement, if the monster outclasses the character. The PC could use that time to reassess the fight and decide on a different approach to it, which also advances play; there’s more to melee than just doing damage to the foe.

There’s so much creative play that can happen after the easy approach fails that I have to wonder if the folks arguing for “fail forward” have ever experienced any play that embraces challenge as an integral part of the experience. If a party always succeeds with the first thing they attempt, I think that play experience would be might shallow and not very fulfilling.

The Old School: Hallmarks I

April 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

A thread on Reddit sparked a bit of thought. One of the folks offered up three things they thought underpinned the OSR. Now, I’m not exactly an OSR gamer. I hang out in the OSR because that’s the closest organized (!?) community to my preference for old school, classic style play. My thoughts, then, wandered off in the direction of what the fundamentals of old school play are that I observe.

The first point offered up was about the rules. I agree that the rules for a system are important in providing an old school feel. One distinction I recall discussing decades ago was the difference between task resolution and conflict resolution in mechanics, for example. These days, it would also be fair to say that genre-emulation isn’t built into resolution systems, nor are narrative concerns built in.

The OG approach is to focus on resolving tasks without regard to any narrative concerns about conflict or storyline. One example of the difference involved the PCs cracking open a safe or treasure chest in one location, looking for a unique item. An old school approach would have the presence or absence of the item completely divorced from the task of opening the cache. That was contrasted to the conflict- or narrative-resolution system where the success of the PCs in opening the cache meant that the item was there, because the nature of the check was about that specific item instead of just opening a complex lock.

Old school rules present a fundamental simulation of a world/setting. At their core, the rules all work to provide a sense of a consistent setting, with changes in expectations — magic, anyone? — made explicit and players assumed to be using their understanding of real world cause & effect for anything not explicitly laid out as violating those expectations. In a real world scenario, players could only expect the McGuffin to be in the cache if they knew for certain it was there; if they only suspected it could be there, they understand it might not be if they succeed in opening it.

The rules work to ground the characters and everything they do in a consistent world, with boundaries around capabilities. The system explains what PCs can do with relative certainty so the players can understand what their PCs can reasonably do and what they reasonably can’t. Descriptions of skills and abilities are thus as important for settings limits as for describing abilities. Rules that offer no such structure to abilities offer no reliable simulation of any game reality for the players to rely on, as one can never understand what a PC can reasonably do while using an ability.

Old school rules also work to ground PCs in specific roles in the setting. Fighters in D&D, while able to present in many different fashions, all share a world-based role as soldiers, guards, and warriors who serve nobles or civic authorities or wealthy employers. The further rules systems get away from reasonable roles for characters, the less of the old school flavor those rules have. The more specialized a fighting character gets and the more non-fighting ability gets added, the less credibility it has as part of a reasonable world. As classes of character are reflective of archetypes, the further from the archetype one wanders, the less compelling the character.

An old school approach also works to keep the types of characters involved in play credible. I’ve seen several products for sale online recently that offer up new PC classes for games that just don’t reflect old school sensibilities for supposed old school-styled systems. Classes that certainly aren’t of archetypes one would associate with fantasy settings and classes that, even if they would fit into expectations for fantasy settings, aren’t of a sort to adventure, diagetically.

Now, old school systems have added gonzo elements in many ways over the years. I’ll offer that the inclusion of such doesn’t make those elements automatically old school in approach, simply because they don’t reflect the fundamental approach to such things. A class of demon barbers in a fantasy system wanders far afield from fantasy genre elements and tropes and afield from old school expectations (so all Sweeney Todd wannabes can take a seat).

In that regard, I reckon old school is somewhat conservative in added elements. Even mixing sub-genres within a system works well as old school if the fundamentals for each of the sub-genres are upheld. Fantasy and horror, for example, can work together as shown by several systems available. It’s difficult for Cthulhu mythos and fantasy to mix, though, as the fantasy part of the equation doesn’t support the protagonists all going insane in relatively short order. So a system can draw on Lovecraftian horror, in part, yet can’t fully engage with it and still work as an old school system.

Moving on, the discussion on Reddit then included that the playstyle assumed by the system is part of it being old school or not. I fully understand that there are multiple playstyles that can appear at tables using old school systems. I also understand that some of those aren’t supported by the systems being used.

To wit, in the Long Ago, there were tables where expansive PC backstories were a normal part of their play. At no point, however, were such backstories mentioned in the rulebooks. Character sheets had no space dedicated to long backstories. The stories were wholly unsupported by the rules. So, those tables that used them weren’t doing so by the rules in any fashion, so it’s safe to say that such were not typical of expected play of the system.

With that in mind, the rules do support some basic expectations of play. Exploration was an expectation, with exploration procedures, mechanics, and rule discussions surrounding supplies and resource management, navigation, and so on. While the early rulesets didn’t necessarily explain all of that well, the materials provided were in support of it.

Characters weren’t described in terms of personality or story arc or any sort of narrative storytelling terms. They were described in terms of mechanical resolution of abilities and sets of abilities that determined how the character interacted with the game setting in game terms. They weren’t offered up as protagonists in specific stories, they were imaginary people in imaginary worlds and whether there was any cohesive story of any length wasn’t mentioned; if one arose, cool, if not, also cool, as specific stories weren’t the intent of play.

And that further separates the truly old school from traditional playstyles. The appearance of specific storylines intended for play — popularized by the Dragonlance series — is a watershed moment in dividing streams of play into classical and traditional. The ironic part, I think, is that it involved shoehorning AD&D into specific stories for campaigns, something which AD&D was never designed to do. It also means that some approaches to playing AD&D (1e or 2e) are old school, in classic styles, and others aren’t, with play in traditional styles.

[Note: Yes, I fully aware that many TSR adventures were very much railroads with specific storylines expected. I also am aware that those were designed with tournament play in mind and the railroads served the end of figuring out which groups outperformed other groups to advance to the next round. Many of the non-tournament modules used the same approach because they were designed to the same standard, not because the rules demanded it or even offered support for it.]

The third underpinning offered is that of DIY sensibilities. I can see this to an extent, though only because of practical concerns. Most GMs had to DIY materials simply because there weren’t many published materials widely available to provide for everything needed. TSR and Judges Guild and other publishers could only publish so much. The demand was far greater than what those companies could reasonably produce. Any campaign of any substantive length required more adventure material than could be readily acquired from publishers, so GMs had to provide for themselves.

This also extends to the notion of “rulings over rules.” This OSR maxim is properly commentary on the necessity of having to fill in rules sets because the systems lacked rules on so many subjects that would arise play. We grognards made rulings — house rules — in large part to fill in holes in the system and not because we just didn’t want any rules to restrain us; we were wargamers, many of us, and we followed rules as a habit.

I can fully endorse the notion of DIY being old school in that regard and in the context of GMs tweaking system rules to bring a personalized game to the table. That, I think, is the bedrock of DIY in old school games — the understanding that a system is simply the foundation a GM builds a personal game on that they bring to the table to share with players. What tools from the system they use, how they use them, how much they emphasize or de-emphasize any procedural area, and so forth are personal to each GM. GMs use systems to build games to bring to the table.

I think there’s definitely something of substance to the notion that old school systems share hallmarks. I’ll offer up what I think are those hallmarks in posts here. I’m happy to hear from others what they think some hallmarks are. I’m also happy to hear constructive disagreement with my assessments, too.

Characters: Hit Points & Bloat

January 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Hanging out with old school gamers will indubitably result in hearing fussing about hit pooints in D&D versions.One of the recurring laments among old school crowds is that of hit point bloat, especially when talk turns to AD&D. That’s often heard alongside the ongoing search for ways to generate hit points that aren’t as likely to cripple PCs when players rolls badly. The whole concept of hit points, it seems, is good at a theoretical level and lacking in execution most of the time.

There have been many different ways thought up to address the issues surrounding hit points, and I have a new approach to toss on the pile that some may find useful. First, however, I think it’d be useful to take a look at hit points as they began and how they can operate in the systems that use them to serve their purpose a bit better.

The concept of hit points arrived from the world of wargames. In the years when RPGs were being developed and the years prior when the wargames that spawned RPGs ruled the field (!), six-sided dice were pretty much the only game in town, so to speak. D4s, D8s, and other fancy dice weren’t used in games, just the humble cubes of six-siders. That meant that wargames used D6s by default.

This meant that when a game used the concept of “hit dice” to reflect how much damage (in the abstract) a figure could take (or inflict), it was measured using a D6. A normal fighting man, in Chainmail, could take a D6 of damage because they had one hit die. That meant that any weapon could deliver a killing blow of one hit die, as any serious weapon was capable of killing a person with a single strike.

This is what brought about OD&D characters all having D6 hit dice — the highest hp roll on a D6 and the most damage from a weapon matched to reflect the relationship between them. Better fighters in Chainmail were rated in terms of equivalence to multiple normal, unremarkable fighters, so a hero had 4HD to reflect being equivalent to four normal troops, for example, and a superhero twice as many. A monster could be the equivalent of even more men, thus having more HD of that size.

Then the idea that some characters should have more hp than others by dint of class arose. Why would mighty fighting men and puny magic-users both have the same size hit dice? Surely a burly, trained soldier should be able to take more abuse than a weakling who spends far too much time reading musty, old tomes. So hit dice of differing sizes appeared. (I think decreasing the HD size for magic-users was a bad choice, by the way — they’re still normal persons and if random people on the street have a D6, then M-Us should, also.)

This is the moment when hit point bloat started. Now, a weapon strike of 6 points wasn’t a guaranteed fatal blow for all characters. That sword that could certainly skewer any given person, killing them, suddenly couldn’t kill some people. That led to variable weapon damage, so that longer swords could still kill all characters — an arms race guaged by damage points.

Put that together with AD&D’s larger bonuses due to high attributes and now hit points quickly outpace what came before. A Chainmail Hero, at 4HD, averaged 14 hp. An AD&D 4th level fighter, at 4HD, averaged 22 hp. That’s without considering that the Chainmail & OD&D Hero gets no bonus for Constitution and the AD&D fighter can get up to +4 per die. Oof! That’s how we ended up with laments about hit point bloat.

Now, to solve that problem, we can take several steps. Most of the steps I list here are not unique to me, just ways others have addressed the issue over the years. I’m also listing those I’ve at least toyed with that proved to be effective to some degree without totally changing the feel of play.

Reduce the bonuses for extraordinary attributes. This can shave many hp from PCs, especially fighters with the highest scores. If no PC can gain more than 1 extra hp per die, then the worst excesses are eliminated.

Limit the number of hit dice to be gained. There are lots of tables where PCs only gain hit dice through six levels. That culls roughly a third off the possible totals gained through RAW nine levels adding HD.

Assign fighters smaller HD. Fighter PCs were the most egregious offenders of hit point bloat, with those shiny D10s they roll (and then barbarians arrived with D12s). Limit HD to nothing above a D8 and more points get shaved off possible totals.

Use shrinking hit dice. Use the regular hit die size for 1st level, then use smaller dice for the levels after. Drop everybody to D4s from 2nd level onward. Or drop HS size by step every level until down to a D4: D10 –> D8 –> D6 –> D4, for fighters; clerics D8 –> D6 –> D4; and so on.

Roll hit points differently. One way is to roll 2 dice and average them to get the hp increase for a level. Some folks hate the thought of having to do addition and division to do this, so not workable at some tables.

Roll a single die size for hit points. This is actually my solution, though it’s not quite what one would expect. I’m not advocating for all PCs to again roll D6s for hp. I’m advocating using a D4 for all PCs, with a different bonus added for each class.

The average of D4 rolls over the long haul is 2.5 per die. With a D6, that raises a point to 3.5, then a D8 another point to 4.5. That means the difference between an average D4 roll and a D6 roll is one point; we may as well roll the D4 and add a bonus to get a D6 average.

The price for using this rolling approach is that we can’t roll the maximum for a given die size, so no 6 results on a D4+1 roll. The larger the die size, the more lost off the top end. Notice that we also removed the lowest possible results from the mix, so no worries about only rolling a 1. With D8s and D10s replaced in this fashion, we remove even more of the lower end of the possible results.

So, a D4 straight up for magic-users. Range 1 – 4; average 2.5.

A D4+1 for thieves. Range 2 – 5; average 3.5, same as D6.

A D4+2 for clerics. Range 3 – 6; average 4.5, same as D8.

A D4+3 for fighters. Range 4 – 7; average 5.5, same as D10.

This approach meets a lot of preferences. It maintains the same average rolls. The math is easy. The results in the range are all evenly weighted, unlike with rolling multiple dice to sum or average. And, most importantly, it removes the highest totals from possibility, decreasing bloat.

Using this approach, that 4th level fighter still averages 22 hp from dice rolls; the max number of hp rolling this way for 4th level is 28, though, which eliminates anything even approaching the max roll of 40 using D10s. Use this approach in conjunction with limiting the number of HD to 5 or 6 and reducing the possible bonus to hit points due to Constitution, and hit point totals are much more manageable.

Welcome to OS RPG Talk

January 23, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This blog appears primarily for the reason that it provides space for me to offer up thoughts on a great variety of topics pertinent to RPGs. I’m an old school gamer and find many fora on games and game design to be an ill fit, as most of the participants embrace completely different playstyles and philosophies. Any post on those fora can appear in a post here after I’ve been able to work out my thoughts.

The next reason is that it gives me a place to post and explore bits of my design projects where I can get some feedback from interested readers. I don’t see much utility from posting for feedback where most forum users aren’t old school peeps–the feedback gained is likely rooted in much different sensibilities and unlikely to be of much use.

And lastly, this blog is celebrates me regaining the ability to produce materials. My mental health has been spotty for ages–depression–and now that the mental fog isn’t ever present, I’m able to design and create and write, again. It’s such a nice feeling!

[Addendum:] It’s been some twenty months since I started this project, and now I think I’ve a much better grasp of how I want to use it. I’ve three active design projects underway — a bespoke system, an AD&D hack, and a pulpish system — and I want to discuss how a concept will be used in each of those — a compare and contrast exercise involving each concept. I suspect that approach will prove more useful to both me and any readers.

I also want to offer more directly usable material than I’ve done thus far. I know many readers peruse blogs looking for material they can drop into use at their tables, so I look to help them along in that effort and offer up usable goodies that don’t require much work. In other words, I’ll work to offer more than just an examination of concepts, I’ll try to offer usable example material.

I’m adding a bit more structure to the blog, too, in the way of organizing posts into ongoing series covering one subject. Say, a series on building adventures, a series on subsystems (travel, exploration, establishing domains, etc.), a series about GMing techniques…each with standardized hashtags to help search them out. Instead of just idle musings on topics that cross my screen/mind, I want to offer more directly useful writings that are easy to find.

I know it’ll take a while to revisit all of my extant posts and get them revised in accordance with the plan. I’ll try to get all that done on a relatively quick schedule. Some posts will get revised, some merged with another on the same topic, some will disappear, and there will be new posts appearing. As of now, all of the other posts have been removed in anticipation of new posts appearing.

Let’s hope I can maintain motivation to get it all done quickly.

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