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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: RPGPundit on September 30, 2016, 10:00:13 PM

Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: RPGPundit on September 30, 2016, 10:00:13 PM
One of the benefits of the OSR is that you can pretty much use all its products interchangeably. Even the most unusual OSR systems (like DCC) are still close enough to baseline old-school D&D that it takes very little effort to adapt them.

So have you used material from other lines in the main OSR game you're running?  Were any of them somewhat unusual combinations of books, like from genres that would not normally be obvious combinations?
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Mordred Pendragon on October 04, 2016, 02:15:39 PM
Not exactly OSR, but I intend to use Boot Hill-styled Old West crossover materials in an OD&D-styled OSR game. Not sure if I'm going to use one of the existing retro-clones or make my own OSR game that takes the best elements from OD&D, AD&D 1E, and Basic and combines them into one game.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Kuroth on October 04, 2016, 03:51:45 PM
They are not all completely osr combinations or what some may consider that type of game, but here are a few.

Osric equipment tables in my D&D 4 campaign a while back.
Stars Without Number campaign development tools/tables for a Terminal Space campaign, though I have that one set-up to be used with Metamorphosis Alpha, Traveller (1977), Rebel Space or Savage Worlds too. I was messing around with the development tools/tables in Stars Without Number.
D30 Sandbox with my original D&D developed edit or AD&D 1, and I have it set to use with Fantasy Age.
Vornheim under Tunnels & Trolls, though I have it set to use with Heroes and Other Worlds too.  There are a number of the more eclectic osr items that I would like to use under Tunnels and Trolls, though I haven't really set-up most of them.
Setting-up Yoon-Suin and Barbarians of Lemuria or Heroes and Other Worlds, though I may switch it to Savage Worlds or my fantasy Traveller, depending upon player make up and general interest by them.

So, more of a osr/other combination summery, with a little osr/osr.  I generally think that one of the better things about the recently published items that reference game resources published in the 70s is their ease to use with a lot of games.  Most of the time, I run what one may call osr under my own original D&D edit or standard AD&D 1.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Kuroth on October 05, 2016, 02:56:11 PM
Stopped by today.

You know something that would be interesting to see is a Dark Albion or Arrows of Indra companion for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Sort of like how Green Ronin has those companions for Freeport for quite a few systems.  Another interesting companion would be some version of Chaosium's system, which I know you also know backward and forward Pundit.  Seems like they would be interesting projects for you, and they would be good to have for those systems, particularly Dungeon Crawl.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: RPGPundit on October 09, 2016, 04:03:33 AM
I hadn't considered that, but I am planning to release a setting book based on my DCC campaign.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Nerzenjäger on October 10, 2016, 06:49:49 AM
I stopped buying everything OSR on Lulu quite a while ago, but BoL Hack (http://www.lulu.com/shop/simon-washbourne/the-bol-hack/paperback/product-22793346.html)–Washbourne's mix of S&W Whitebox with his own Barbarians of Lemuria–is such a nifty combo, I had to get it in print.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: RPGPundit on October 14, 2016, 05:21:42 AM
Quote from: Nerzenjäger;924307I stopped buying everything OSR on Lulu quite a while ago, but BoL Hack (http://www.lulu.com/shop/simon-washbourne/the-bol-hack/paperback/product-22793346.html)–Washbourne's mix of S&W Whitebox with his own Barbarians of Lemuria–is such a nifty combo, I had to get it in print.

Is there a particular reason why you stopped? And did you just mean from Lulu specifically, or OSR products in general regardless of the sales location?
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Dirk Remmecke on December 22, 2016, 07:28:04 AM
That combo I find most unusual:

(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DF0CcK-KfLc/WFLWa9UeK3I/AAAAAAAAYy4/yokrrVKwWokMaz7KmfRjM2yFTUOyTV1gACKgB/s1600/IMG_20161214_152918940.jpg)

Quote from: The Other SidePlus the Cults of Chaos are really not all that different that the Shadow Cults of Blue Rose. Dark Albion: Cults of Chaos goes into far more detail into the cults (naturally) which can add some more ideas for the cults in Blue Rose.  Indeed, England, the "mythical land ... of Roses" can share a lot with the World of Aldea. Aldis is, despite everything else, a mythical version of Western Europe. And let's be honest, a world where a Golden Hart can decide the ruler of one country can have a giant frog as the ruler of another.
In truth Cults of Chaos and Blue Rose have a lot in common.

From Tim Brannan's blog (http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/12/pwwo-blue-rose.html), where he also muses about Blue Rose and the Palace of the Silver Princess (http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/12/blue-rose-and-palace-of-silver-princess.html)...
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: RPGPundit on December 26, 2016, 12:21:30 AM
Yeah, that is an interesting and unusual combination. Like I said, adding Cults of Chaos to just about any fantasy game will make it better. Even blue rose.

Brannan's blog post also inspired this blog entry of mine (http://therpgpundit.blogspot.com/2016/12/blue-rose-heralds-of-breitbart-campaign.html), the first I've done on Blue Rose in quite a long while.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Krimson on December 26, 2016, 01:12:07 AM
Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;936430That combo I find most unusual:



From Tim Brannan's blog (http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/12/pwwo-blue-rose.html), where he also muses about Blue Rose and the Palace of the Silver Princess (http://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2016/12/blue-rose-and-palace-of-silver-princess.html)...

The thing I would change in that picture is that I would swap out the Ravenloft book for Masque of the Red Death. Mind you, I have used Gothic Eastern Europe a few times and even added some of the Domains of Dread. So maybe I'd use that book too.

(http://i415.photobucket.com/albums/pp233/KrimsonGray/Maidenloft/th_GothicEasternEurope2a.jpg) (http://s415.photobucket.com/user/KrimsonGray/media/Maidenloft/GothicEasternEurope2a.jpg.html)

Now if I were to use a mix of Blue Rose (I have both to choose from), Dark Albion and Masque of the Red Death then I would have to take into consideration the time period of Dark Albion, during the mid 15th Century, and work out the political borders from that time period. The internet makes that easy and old borders sometimes still exist as regional borders, so with the help of Google Maps it's not to hard to shape your empires. Because this is incorporating Masque of the Red Death, there would have to be some element of Gothic Horror involved. Gothic Horror arguably works best in an urban setting, meaning a city. Sure it works in other remote areas, but those are often civilized places like castles. I could see Aldis, Jarzon, Rezea and Kern being dropped in, maybe with some creative placement in the same way I did some of the Dread Domains in my map. They are tiny countries. All of them could easily fit in the province I live in. Mind you, so could a good chunk of Europe.

Pundit, if I ever run DCC it will likely be in a kitchen sink setting, likely using Moorcock's Multiverse as a template, Black Blades, Jugadors, Time Travelers, and Chaos Engineers. Sure I might use some of my Mongoose/Chaosium stuff, as well as Deities and Demigods. One twist that I would like to do sometimes is a mashup of Hawkmoon with Stephen King's Dark Tower location of All World. Which means Amarekh could very well be there. I could really mess with them and make the Dark Tower some twisted aspect of Tanelorn. :D
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: urbwar on December 26, 2016, 05:25:24 AM
Quote from: Kuroth;923496Stopped by today.

You know something that would be interesting to see is a Dark Albion or Arrows of Indra companion for Dungeon Crawl Classics. Sort of like how Green Ronin has those companions for Freeport for quite a few systems.  Another interesting companion would be some version of Chaosium's system, which I know you also know backward and forward Pundit.  Seems like they would be interesting projects for you, and they would be good to have for those systems, particularly Dungeon Crawl.

I'd love to see an adaption of Arrows of Indra for the Black Hack
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: RPGPundit on January 02, 2017, 05:07:03 AM
I've never even read the Black Hack.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: urbwar on January 02, 2017, 08:02:13 AM
Quote from: RPGPundit;938218I've never even read the Black Hack.

It's a stripped down OSR variant. Pretty easy to play. There's a large 3rd party support for it, include Simon Washburne's BoL Hack, The Cthulhu Hack, a couple of sci-fi games, some superhero versions, and a samurai game called Kaigaku. There's even a free hack for Tekumel available.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: cranebump on January 02, 2017, 12:00:16 PM
Quote from: urbwar;938232It's a stripped down OSR variant. Pretty easy to play. There's a large 3rd party support for it, include Simon Washburne's BoL Hack, The Cthulhu Hack, a couple of sci-fi games, some superhero versions, and a samurai game called Kaigaku. There's even a free hack for Tekumel available.

Washbourne hacked BoL to run with Black Hack?

(Edited--found his hack on drivethru rpg).
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Skarg on January 02, 2017, 12:44:31 PM
Not terribly OSR per se, but...

I tried doing a little bit of TFT-to-D&D conversion of "playing with both" as experiments that didn't work out how I liked.

When I briefly played classic Traveller, I started gradually converting some of the personal combat mechanics to TFT-like mechanics.

I also used Gamelords' semi-generic Traveller expansions, The Desert Environment and The Mountain Environment, to give detailed rules for deserts, dehydration and climbing in my TFT games. The mass combat system was based on Avalon Hill's Alesia and I think I even used the combat and weather tables from Avalon Hill's Tactics II as the basis for some stuff in one campaign. Naval combat systems were provided by combining Avalon Hill's Wooden Ships & Iron Men with Metagaming's Ramspeed. I have continued to use all of those (except Tactics II) to some degree in my GURPS campaigns.

I created some "extra-dimensional" demons for a GURPS campaign by rolling them up on a Gamma World random mutant table and then converting them to GURPS stats.

Probably some other things I'm not remembering.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Dirk Remmecke on January 02, 2017, 03:11:20 PM
Quote from: cranebump;938249Washbourne hacked BoL to run with Black Hack?

(Edited--found his hack on drivethru rpg).

Not really. They're not compatible. The BoL Hack is more a mix of the BoL system with some d20-isms.
It doesn't use the familiar D&D stats, it doesn't use Black Hack's roll-under-attribute, but adapts BoL's standard dice (here: d20)+stat/career vs. difficulty roll.
It's closer to Microlite than Black Hack, with only two classes, adding Appeal as a fourth attribute, and replacing the four skills with careers (acting like 13th Age's backgrounds).

I like it.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Larsdangly on January 02, 2017, 08:45:23 PM
It's not D&D-based, but an OSR mash up I run is The Fantasy Trip + En Garde!; the first provides good character generation and advancement, combat, magic, monsters, dungeon action rules (all the core stuff for play-by-play table top gaming), but is a bit thin when it comes to campaign play. En Garde! is all organized campaign play, and pretty easily integrated with whatever game system strikes your fancy.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Azraele on January 03, 2017, 11:52:34 AM
Oh oh, I've got one! I've been mashing up ACKS, Vornheim, and red&pleasant land lately. It's been super lucrative gameplay-wise, as the hyper-detail of ACKS mashes well with the hyper-creativity of the Zack S. stuff.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Dumarest on June 15, 2017, 02:22:21 PM
Not D&D derivations, but I consider Crime Fighter to be old school so for a police detectives game we rely upon:
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Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: S'mon on June 15, 2017, 06:29:09 PM
I'm using a version of White Star's space & starship rules as the official space rules for my 5e D&D Wilderlands game.  Planning to use 5e/White Star mashup if the PCs go into Space. I think I may adapt the same to a more fantasy version for my Classic D&D Mystara game too.

I use Mentzer's Companion Set Domain & War rules in every version of D&D I run, don't know if that counts.
Title: Unusual OSR Combos?
Post by: Krimson on June 15, 2017, 08:34:37 PM
Quote from: S'mon;968863I use Mentzer's Companion Set Domain & War rules in every version of D&D I run, don't know if that counts.

We certainly used it in our 1e game.