OSR movement threat or menace?

[Mistborn]

i've read this 3 times now, and i have no idea what you're saying.

This is a bad idea. When you stare into the void that separates shadzar from logic and reason that void stares back into you.

[codeGlaze]

i've read this 3 times now, and i have no idea what you're saying.

It's normally not worth it.
It's another rant about how WotC just discarded previous editions in order to promote their 'one edition to rule them all'... etc.

And now other people are eating WotC's lunch, so they're (meaning WotC) trying to appease the masses of grognards who have been kicked, abused and spit upon by the progenitors of 3rd (and 4th) edition, by re-releasing AD&D content. Content that they flatly refused to acknowledge once they bought the IP from 'the bitch'. So instead of WotC being a savior of the old school, they just turned into another... something or other.

And now that they're coming, crying, back to the 'original' fan base, that fan base wants nothing to do with them because... something or other.

[John Magnum]

Frank, that sounds good, but it sounds a bit contradictory to some of the other thoughts you've had about multiclassing. If Ranger and Witch King have different resource systems, then it's incredibly hard to level up from Ranger to Witch King. It's probably LESS hard to juggle multiresource multiclassing than it is to produce enough content to make sufficient dependent choices, but still terrible.

It's also not clear that the number of permutations actually fills all that much conceptual space. If you really have a system where each level there are ten choices, but each level is independent from the last one... Well, it depends on what the choices are each level. If every level is the *same* ten choices, because you have a list of ten classes and are doing multiclassing, you have the issue where Ranger 4/Witch King 6, Ranger 2/Witch King 6/Ranger 2, and Ranger 6/Witch King 4 are all different elements of that combinatorially vast space but which don't really contribute to a proliferation of character concepts.

I suppose it's more viable if you tier things and only let people change tracks from Ranger to Witch King at two possible breakpoints, but I'm still not sure about the logistics on it.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Is Adventurer Conqueror King OSR?

I enjoyed playing it, character creation was quick too.

I saw a PDF for that once. It looked pretty cool, there were flexible rules for making your own chimeric monsters to populate the dungeons beneath your wizard tower at high levels.

[Username17]

The idea is that you don't ever give people the opportunity to make a choice to upgrade their ranger's twin strike into falcon strike or wolf strike. And you certainly don't allow them to make a choice to upgrade their falcon strike into blood falcon strike or fire falcon strike. If an ability or a class choice needs to scale up to stronger things at higher levels, it should just do that. Like a Tome Feat and not at all like a Feat Chain.

Basically the key is that you don't want to put yourself into a position where you're writing optional upgrades, because that involves you signing yourself up to write exponential amounts of content that cannot be done. What you want is to write linear amounts of content and then allow players to mix and match that into exponential numbers of different characters.

Frank, that sounds good, but it sounds a bit contradictory to some of the other thoughts you've had about multiclassing. If Ranger and Witch King have different resource systems, then it's incredibly hard to level up from Ranger to Witch King.

True. Just as you cannot write exponential amounts of content, you cannot playtest exponential numbers of character builds. It just cannot happen. So when you're talking about real game changing stuff like resource management systems, you should probably have a really harsh limit on the number of times that ever happens. So for example: if Witch King has a different resource system than Ranger, it should kick in only once as an upgrade (say: at the Heroic/Paragon Tier divide).

If you want to give people in-class options that are "dependent" in the sense that they are only available based on a choice you made at level 1, that's actually doable. What's not doable is having those choices open up new choices in turn. One round of "exponential" increase is actually just a simple multiple. Oddly enough, the 4e power accumulation paradigm (or something like it) can actually be made to work. It's the other stuff about how things fit together that makes it a clusterfuck. It's OK to pick one of three Paladin powers at 7th level. But it's not OK to have to pick a Paladin Power that matches your stat arrangement from Str/Wis, Cha/Wis, or Str/Cha from a list of three because that isn't a fucking choice and chances are good that your non-choice is eventually going to be so shitty that it's like you didn't get anything at all. You can go ahead and have lists of choices of upgrade options that are class specific, or race specific, or even statline specific (not that I recommend doing that) - but as soon as they are specific to more than one of those things you are signing yourself up for too many things to write.

Frankly, I'm not sure that I can think of enough truly "open" sounding options so as to allow truly independent selections at every level. There's the level you pick your Paragon Path, there's the level you start counting as a champion of X, where X is some extraplanar power whose aura/taint you start smelling like, and if you're gonna do subclassing there's the level you start to do that. And of course there's your race, class, background and whatever else you get to pick at first level but that is all at first level. All in all, that's like three or four levels accounted for out of the first 11. You might actually have to set up lists of Shaman choices for level 6 that you can take if you are a Shaman and lists of Ranger choices for level 6 that you can take if you are a Ranger. That would be a shame, because that increases the number of options you have to write in order to give people meaningful amounts of level-up choices. But as long as you don't make these nestedly dependent (such as a list of choices that you can only take if you are an Elf and a Ranger at level 6), then it's just higher, not insurmountably high.

-Username17

[Username17]

You know what? Fuck it. It occurs to me that if you hand out "skills" and "feats", you can in fact just give people truly independent advancement options every level. You can have a big list of skills that people can tag like lip reading and astrology and people can have truly independent ability selections every single damn level.

Of course, you still probably want some stuff like spell choices for Wizards to put into their spellbooks. Not because that's an efficient use of space, because it is is not. But because people seem to like it, and it is more intuitive than having all spellbooks have the same spells in them. As long as you don't go the 4e route where Lightning Strike and Blazing Starfall are both "options" for a Sorcerer, but a Storm Sorcerer can use the secondary effect of Lightning Strike and not Blazing Starfall, and vice versa for the Cosmic Sorcerer, and therefore only one of those two options isn't fake whichever build you go with. Because as soon as we start having options for characters of a single class who are also of a certain race or a certain build or whatever, then the numbers just become crazy.

Let's say for the moment that our Wizard got two spells in his spellbook every level from the Wizard Spells list according to his level. To a first approximation, we'd want at least 6 spells of each level. Though of course it would be entirely possible and indeed better to get by with only 4 spells at 10th level and a lot more at first level (because everyone plays with the first level options, and only a minority play with the 10th level options and even they spend only a fraction of the time with access to the 10th level options that they do with access to the 1st level options). But regardless, you're looking at about 60 spells (minimum) to get you to level 10, which in a halfway sane book format works out to about 4 pages (you can easily get it to less, but I'm assuming you want headers and shit). That's doable. Fuck, you can go crazy and double your outlay on class options for 15 classes and still get in at less than half the book (albeit only barely). But you can't triple that on top of that in order to have different options for different "class builds". You can't throw down a dozen times that many options by having different class options for each race. And you certainly can't do the whole Shadowcaster/Fighter thing and put crap into branching paths.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Are you just talking about skills/feats/spells, or are you talking about all abilities (including class abilities)? I guess what I'm asking is if you're talking about writing a classless system where someone who takes lots of spells is a "wizard".

If so, doesn't this run into the complaint that you'd have a bajillion combinations to playtest, where you get PCs using Mind Thrust and Embrace of Earth in unpredicted ways?

If not, where are you drawing your line?

[hogarth]

Can we get back to slagging on the OSR and move the general game design discussion to another thread?

[Ancient History]

It's about the Special Snowflake Singularity. If you have, let us say, two break-points (decisions) for the first three levels of a class, then you have nine potential 3rd-level characters.

So, for example, let us say everyone in the class takes Level 1 and has the same basic abilities. When they reach Level 2, they can choose between three different but comparable abilities - that's the first break point, and you have three types of Level 2 characters for that class. When they advance to Level 3, they reach the second break point and again have three options, for a total of nine possible combinations of ~7 abilities (1 set for Level 1, 3 for Level 2, and 3 for Level 3). As the class advances, you get a larger possible number of combinations of abilities but you're still writing a relatively small and manageable number of abilities.

If you introduce a race-specific break point, then the possibility space expands to the limit of the number of racial options you have - and each option is so specific and ungeneralized that the number of abilities you have to write approaches the size of the probabilty space itself - and thus you hit the Special Snowflake Singularity.

Consider for example, if you have three races (human, elf, dwarf). Everbody gets the same basic Level 1 again, but when you hit Level 2 in addition to the 3 generic options the writers also threw in special abilities for a dwarf-specific wizard and an elf-specific wizard. So instead of writing 4 sets of abilities, you're writing 6, and instead of have 3 types of Level 2 characters, you have 5 (with the potential for 6 when the inevitable human-specific Level 2 comes out). And that snowballs.

[Username17]

I guess what I'm asking is if you're talking about writing a classless system where someone who takes lots of spells is a "wizard".

No. Absolutely not.

The idea is that as much of the player option as is possible should be shifted into things where you make the choice once and then it stays level appropriate. Because those kinds of fire and forget choices use up relatively little wordcount and thus contribute relatively little to pagebloat.

So it's fine for the Berserker to be a railroad that gives you all kinds of crazy crap for the next bunch of levels. That still uses up hardly any pagespace at all. The entire Berserker as a railroad class takes up a page and a half including the illustration, and can be full of flavor and level appropriate actions and whatever the fuck. Fifteen classes along those lines is actually only a 25 page chapter, and that's including the "What is classes?" essay, the class chart, and a full page splash illo of a party of adventurers doing something.

Page bloat creeps in when you have multiple sets of options nested one after another. And if you have options nested within each other, we get to the literally impossible to manage stuff we were talking about earlier. Having a few levels (or even all levels) where our Berserker gets a choice of Berserker options makes those levels take up many times as much space. And while that's potentially acceptable because we are talking about starting from the standpoint of an incredibly manageable pagelength, we still can't have choices that depend on earlier choices you made after you made the choice to be a Berserker. So no "Super War Form, only for Berserkers with Bear Form" or any of that shit.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

So, the class in on railroads, and all the customizable stuff is divorced from that and handed out with no prereqs, right?

[Almaz]

So it's fine for the Berserker to be a railroad that gives you all kinds of crazy crap for the next bunch of levels. That still uses up hardly any pagespace at all. The entire Berserker as a railroad class takes up a page and a half including the illustration, and can be full of flavor and level appropriate actions and whatever the fuck. Fifteen classes along those lines is actually only a 25 page chapter, and that's including the "What is classes?" essay, the class chart, and a full page splash illo of a party of adventurers doing something.

This is also a key point of most OSR writeups I've seen. While there certainly are classes like "magic user" floating around, everyone who writes a new class just designs a crazy railroad machine that. . . runs about a page, maybe a second. Occasionally they actually do give out choosable class abilities (since there is precedent for it in the MU), but even those run at most another page because the abilities are kept sparing and short, more of a question of "what do you want your bonuses to apply to" or "do you want to set things on fire or ice" than truly unique abilities. Toggleable choices that often could have been part of the ability that was written.

Also, as a general rule, Piddly Shit Bonus abilities are avoided as if they were plagues. Having twenty abilities that give a conditional +1 or +2 to something is usually not considered worth writing, whereas they became a staple of 3e design (for various reasons). It's not like they never show up, but they're far less common, and more abilities are about tangible Things You Can Do. This has both the effect of preventing stacking +1s from scaling the game off into Crazy Town numbers-wise, and making the +1s that you do get seem more valuable, while making the classes themselves more engaging.

[hogarth]

This is also a key point of most OSR writeups I've seen. While there certainly are classes like "magic user" floating around, everyone who writes a new class just designs a crazy railroad machine that. . . runs about a page, maybe a second.

In my experience, non-magic-using classes in OSR games are pretty short because they don't get nice things. And even if a class does get nice abilities, those abilities are kept short by virtue of being super-vague (OSR considers extreme vagueness to be a feature, not a bug). Not to mention the OSR games that go up to level 3 (or whatever) and then stop.

Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong OSR games, though.

[Juton]

In my experience, non-magic-using classes in OSR games are pretty short because they don't get nice things. And even if a class does get nice abilities, those abilities are kept short by virtue of being super-vague (OSR considers extreme vagueness to be a feature, not a bug). Not to mention the OSR games that go up to level 3 (or whatever) and then stop.

Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong OSR games, though.

It doesn't sound like you're having much fun at the OSR games you are going to.

With regard to Fighters and nice things, it seems that in OSR type games the Fighter stays relevant against level appropriate challenges a while longer than in 3.5. So swording is better at least. Also Wizards (or Magic Users if you prefer) actually have in game limitations which delays their rise to dominance. When you factor in the wonky way XP works in older editions I would imagine most groups would never experience the point where the Fighter becomes obsolete.

[hogarth]

In my experience, non-magic-using classes in OSR games are pretty short because they don't get nice things. And even if a class does get nice abilities, those abilities are kept short by virtue of being super-vague (OSR considers extreme vagueness to be a feature, not a bug). Not to mention the OSR games that go up to level 3 (or whatever) and then stop.

Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong OSR games, though.

It doesn't sound like you're having much fun at the OSR games you are going to.

I haven't played too many recently, since I usually prefer to avoid the "Keystone Kops" version of D&D. But I can play and enjoy a goofy game like Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG as an occasional one-shot, for a change of pace. That's probably in spite of the specific rules (which are often pretty stupid) rather than because of them, though.

[Username17]

So, the class in on railroads, and all the customizable stuff is divorced from that and handed out with no prereqs, right?

Mostly. You're still going to have intraclassular customizable stuff like a Wizard's spellbook. But every level you're going to have customizable stuff that is wholly divorced from their class' progression (regardless of how option-laden or railroady that progression actually is). There's a couple of advantages to this:

• It makes new classes a lot easier to integrate into the game.
• It makes monsters a whole lot easier to integrate into the game.
• It makes "powerful races" a whole lot easier to integrate into the game.

A Raptoran is very difficult to integrate into 4th edition D&D, but if you had a non-class related ability you could give up to increase their flight ability, that would be different. If a class comes with a 2 page writeup and 4 pages of options like spells and shit, that's a lot more handlable than a 4e class which is a 12,000 word hot mess before we even get to the mandatory feat and equipment options that also need to be written for it.

The things that absolutely have to stop happening are:

• Feat Chains. Or any branching chains of anything.
• Feats that modify other abilities you have to have in order to make the feat do anything (like Spell Focus or Heighten Turning).
• Ability "options" that are only intended for a member of the class who also has another descriptor (like "is a Drow" or "has the Death Domain").

About the closest thing I could see to a chain that might actually work would be to have a Skill system where a skill could be trained for one point or focused in for two (or whatever). Because the number of entries you'd have to write for that would be a linear number and the number of things the player had to choose from at any given moment wouldn't change when they had tagged a skill.

-Username17

[codeGlaze]

What about extremely broad entry requirements for, say, upper tier feats/options/choices/bling?

Such as you need a certain BAB or CL? So you could ostensibly write more powerful tack-ons for higher level play with out opening it up to level 1s.

[hyzmarca]

What about extremely broad entry requirements for, say, upper tier feats/options/choices/bling?

Such as you need a certain BAB or CL? So you could ostensibly write more powerful tack-ons for higher level play with out opening it up to level 1s.

The easiest way to do it would be to make feats level-dependent but stat independent. Thus you have a set of 20 level 20 feats that you can't take unless you're level 20.

Tying it to BAB or CL makes them class options instead of class-independent general options.

[Juton]

The easiest way to do it would be to make feats level-dependent but stat independent. Thus you have a set of 20 level 20 feats that you can't take unless you're level 20.

Tying it to BAB or CL makes them class options instead of class-independent general options.

One potential problem I can see arising from this is there being a lot of 'trap' options. Say you design a feat with the intention that it is to be used for high level spell casting, something like quicken spell. It's fine if a Wizard or a Cleric takes it, but if the Bard thinks that feat looks nifty then he just wasted a feat.

I'm not sure how you can combine open access to feats, making feats powerful enough to be relevant and making sure the basketweaver isn't left in the dust. Requiring system mastery to be able to build a baseline effective PC is something that should be avoided IMHO, there are people too busy to learn how to optimize or too stupid.

[lans]

. Acording to them It dosn't matter that your fighter is completely incapable of beating a monster like a Behir

This reminds me of the issue of ivory tower gaming that Monte Cook was a fan of. You can easily build a fighter that can take on a Behir. If you know what your doing. Otherwise your getting raped in the knock down fight that you thought you'd be good at. Or if your lucky your buddies kill it in 1 round before it kills you.(ok if your lucky, you get 2 rounds).

Granted with all the feats in all the books, what are the odds that your going to take the feat or feats that you need to not get raped by the Behir that is popping over a steep hill?

So in order to be decent at your general front line role you have 7 choices out of roughly the fighter bonus feat list, an you need a specific 2 or 3 feats to not die, so the choice isn't really a choice

[Username17]

The big thing you want to avoid with purely or effectively level based feat-style options is the Iron Heroes problem where higher level abilities completely shit on lower level abilities that don't operate as prerequisites. Iron Heroes has what are in effect bizarre reverse feat chains, where if you want to take the feat that eliminates the penalty for fighting in the dark when you get high enough level to take it, you sure as fuck aren't going to want to waste one of your lower level feat slots on the feat that reduces that penalty in the meantime.

There's a couple of things you can do about that. One of them is "scaling feats", where feats just grow individually as you level. That's hard, because it's hard to make some abilities grow into something that makes fuckall difference at higher levels (see the jump discussions with the 4rries).

-Username17

[Lokathor]

The other problem with scaling feats is that when you level up you have to update more and more things on your sheet, which a lot of players don't like. And when you go to take a feat you have to compare what you get now and all of what you'll get later with every other feat's "now + all of later", and it gets to be too much at once for a lot of players.

[OgreBattle]

It sounds like that Class would just be something with a "scaling feat" baked into it. So a barbarian's rage getting better and giving him damage reduction and spell resistance could be his class feature... or a scaling "Rage" feat.

[rasmuswagner]

There's a couple of things you can do about that. One of them is "scaling feats", where feats just grow individually as you level. That's hard, because it's hard to make some abilities grow into something that makes fuckall difference at higher levels (see the jump discussions with the 4rries).

-Username17

The other thing you can do is just let them have the ability when they want, even at 1. level. If they want to spend their one "pick" on blindfighting, even when nothing is turning invisible or spamming darkness, go nuts.

[shadzar]

In my experience, non-magic-using classes in OSR games are pretty short because they don't get nice things. And even if a class does get nice abilities, those abilities are kept short by virtue of being super-vague (OSR considers extreme vagueness to be a feature, not a bug). Not to mention the OSR games that go up to level 3 (or whatever) and then stop.

Maybe I'm just looking at the wrong OSR games, though.

It doesn't sound like you're having much fun at the OSR games you are going to.

With regard to Fighters and nice things, it seems that in OSR type games the Fighter stays relevant against level appropriate challenges a while longer than in 3.5. So swording is better at least. Also Wizards (or Magic Users if you prefer) actually have in game limitations which delays their rise to dominance. When you factor in the wonky way XP works in older editions I would imagine most groups would never experience the point where the Fighter becomes obsolete.

level limits for demihumans, as well as concentration needed to cast/maintain spells, also limit the power of casters in old school in some games.