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Author Topic: Essential OSR DM material.  (Read 5052 times)

Steven Mitchell

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #30 on: April 28, 2021, 10:52:33 AM »
The whole point of Rules Cyclopedia is a reference for BECMI. I wouldn't consider it a replacement at all, more like a single reference the DM can use. The players don't have much need for a rulebook during play, anyway, so its usefulness as something entertaining to read seems suspect. Use it as a manual, not a novel.

Well, at the time it was released it was a relatively cheap way to get the rules from the sets that were not necessarily easy to get.  I know, because I bought the RC new to replace the boxed sets that I had lost.  For me, it was a replacement.  However, I'm not much of an art person, wanted it for running my own games instead of the setting material, and treat pretty much any RPG material as primarily reference.  In other words, the perfect audience for that book.  I can see why others in my situation or who were younger and missed out on the boxed sets would feel a little cheated if they didn't share my tastes. 

Brad

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #31 on: April 28, 2021, 11:07:35 AM »
Well, at the time it was released it was a relatively cheap way to get the rules from the sets that were not necessarily easy to get.  I know, because I bought the RC new to replace the boxed sets that I had lost.  For me, it was a replacement.  However, I'm not much of an art person, wanted it for running my own games instead of the setting material, and treat pretty much any RPG material as primarily reference.  In other words, the perfect audience for that book.  I can see why others in my situation or who were younger and missed out on the boxed sets would feel a little cheated if they didn't share my tastes.

I got it when it came out because at the time I had gotten rid of my boxed sets and moved on to the clearly superior AD&D 1st edition. Figured it was an easy way to have the BECMI rules in a convenient package. So, yes, it was a replacement for me as well. The art, eh, honestly it's not terrible. I do like the addition of the Hollow World stuff, the mystic (maybe I'm the only one), wish they had added thugs though. Weapon Mastery I'm ambivalent about as I never owned a copy of the Master set myself and we never really used those rules much. When I did play a 1-36-Immortal campaign one summer, we ended up using RC and Wrath of Immortals. A couple of the players never had the boxed sets, and it wasn't a big deal. I think a lot of this stuff is mostly retrospective analysis of a 30 year old book that until a few years ago was pretty much thought of as the definitive BECMI iteration. There is some unhealthy fascination with collecting boxed sets that a lot of us discarded as "kiddie junk" at the time, only to retroactively decide we were stupid and needed a copy to recapture our childhoods.
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grodog

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #32 on: May 16, 2021, 12:09:20 AM »
What would you consider the essential DM material to come out of the OSR and why?

It's hard for me to distill the OSR down to a single list of useful DM rules/materials.  There's a lot that was crap, and many gems too.  The rules material that I use regularly at the table isn't from the OSR directly---I play AD&D, so although I do use various additional OSRIC rule books regularly (Monsters of Myth, Malevolent & Benign, Trent Foster's AD&D Companion/Legendarium), I don't use the OSRIC rulebook itself.  I have some other OSRIC books that I'll use from time to time (Exhumed Obscura, Dwellers in Dark Places, ), as well as some other OSR rules sets (most regularly Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea).

The decentralized nature of the OSR also makes such a list difficult to compile---there were so many good, cool blog posts (and G+ for awhile) that they've all folded into my backbrain and don't generally stick out as things that I'll come back to directly for reference/usage.  Ditto for much of the content from Fight On! (and to a lesser extent Knockspell and AFS too).

I have used OSR adventures and continue to leverage the best in my campaigns as desire/mood/opportunity coincide, but I don't think that adventures are necessarily what you're looking for? 

If I had to pick just one thing, it would probably be Gabor Lux's overall old-school gaming output---his blog, zines and adventures, and many contributions to KS and FO!  Using Gabor's works, you could still "have the OSR" without even most of the rest of the tentpoles like S&W, OSRIC, the zines, etc.

I think the larger point of the OSR is there is no “essential material; no top tens, nor bullet lists, nor cliff notes that someone can skim/speed-read their way through to a journeyman understanding of the game.

The vibrancy faded as soon as it passed from confirming assertions made in the original works through play (as opposed to the read/speak/read cycle), and discussing what play confirmed, to producing commentary that is to playing D&D what Cosmo articles are to sex: ten things I think this year’s crop of college freshmen should think, written by college sophomores, and surrounded by 271 pages of advertising

LOL =)

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Hakdov

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #33 on: May 16, 2021, 09:31:41 AM »

Mike the Mage

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #34 on: May 18, 2021, 07:06:08 AM »
OSR products that I would recommend:

Games

Fantastic Heroes and Witchery because of its scope, simplicity and flexibility- my second favourite OSR system---and its close.

Beyond the Wall (and especially its companion volume Further Afield) my personal favourite

The Sword & Sorcery sister game to the above: Through Sunken Lands my new shiny favourite

Dungeon Crawl Classics for the funnel and the craziness

Old School Essentialshttps://www.therpgsite.com/Themes/default/images/bbc/italicize.gif for the nostaliga and ease of use plus the expansions

Dragon Warriors (and the adventures Sleeping Gods and Elven Crystals)- my favourit e alternative to D&D redux

Settings

Second the Gazeteers of the Known World especially Karameikos, Glantri and Rockhome

Midderlands for the detail and the creepy oddness

Dolmenwood for the fairy-tale feel

Scenarios[/u] (including only the ones I have run on more than one occasion)

Necropolis of Nuromen (really old school feel)
The Keep on the Borderlands (of course)
Shadowbrook Manor (lots of deadly fun)
The Stygian Garden of Abelia Prim (truly original and excellent)
The Gardens of Ynn (great ideas)
Grave of the Heartless
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Dave 2

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Re: Essential OSR DM material.
« Reply #35 on: May 22, 2021, 01:56:19 PM »
The OSR changed the way I look at RPG gaming, but I can't point to a single product. The real genius was/is hidden & scattered across the blogs.

Lot of this. Jacquaying the Dungeon and No Quantum Ogres were key for me. Plus the general discussion around keeping all of xp for gold, encumbrance, time management, resource management, wandering monsters, reaction rolls and morale checks, and the game that emerges out of all of those.

But I don't have links to hand.

1E AD&D DMG

Also this.

But all that said, I would include the following in any well stocked OSR bookshelf:
Yoon-Suin
Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets
The Caverns of Thracia
Unless you've already started one of your own, one of the newer megadungeons. Barrowmaze or Anomalous Subsurface Environment are strong options. You don't actually need them all though.
One or both of Dyson's Delves books in print. Key at least a couple of the maps to have ready for play.
From ACKS, Lairs & Encounters for some ready to go overland lairs. The core book for the GM chapters in back if you plan to or might get into domain building or merchant trading later, even if you're not running the system.
Veins of the Earth
How to Run, by Alexis Smolensk. Technically old school rather than OSR for those who make the distinction, still a useful look at the high-prep style of GMing.
A False Machine 2011-2014. Patrick Stuart's better blog posts in print. So available for free if you don't mind clicking "older posts" a lot, but something I wish more of the best/influential bloggers had done. Some of those blogs are going dark and the posts lost.
At least one of the arthaus books. A Red and Pleasant Land, Lair of the Blue Medusa, Fire on the Velvet Horizon. Deep Carbon Observatory is arthaus-adjacent but more useful to arthaus-skeptical GMs, so check that out if nothing else.