Quote from: Bren;1124853The more I read threads on what is the real OSR, the more I realize I don't know what is meant by "old school." Which when I think of it is kind of funny given that I've been GMing RPGs since 1974.

Old School means whatever someone wants to market, or doesnt want marketed, today. It means whatever fits someones agenda as a selling point or a derogatory and it started as derogatory and hasnt really moved out of that since. Its still derogatory.

OSR means who the fuck knows! Nearly right out the gate people were using it to steal designs from anything and everything they wanted. Its why the OSR has such a bad rep in various circles. It originally meant just playing in the styles of the 70s and 80s and 90s even. But its a fake term really as people have never stopped playing those ways so there was nothing to "revive" or "renaissance" as its just a marketing gag in the end.

Roll on a random table of what the fuck and you will likely get someones interpretation of what any of this means.
1: steal other peoples games.
2: play in the old style (despite the fact the old style is still being played predominantly)
3: make games that are clones/knock-offs/rip-offs of older D&D.
4: storygames!
5: Miniatures!
6: cute kittens!
7: roll twice and call a doctor.

I agree with jhkim. GM authority doesn't diminish if the GM isn't doing the rolling.

But it still felt weird to not roll my own dice.

Quote from: S'mon;1124885Anyway, why would the players be rolling wandering monster checks or today's weather? Old School D&D type play has a ton of procedural content generation by dice roll.

I ran into those issues when I ran OD&D via the GM never rolls, but I like using the Wandering Monster roll as a fear/tension device. I randomly had a player roll my big D6 at the table and then just nod at the result. It was always fun when a 1 was rolled because they always assumed that meant something bad.

The biggest problem I had was this situation:

Monster Attacks...so the PC dodges / rolls Defense roll (D20 + AC).
This leads to these results - PC fumbles, PC fails, PC succeeds, PC crits.
I can adjudicate the fumbled or critical parry, but how does the monster fumble?

The best I came up with was when the PC parried awesomely (aka a critical), they could smash the monster with their shield or hilt to knock them down, disarm them, or some other effect basically equal to the monster fumbling.

I ran a game this way for a while. Here is my original note to the players. Some one more litrate and probly do a much better job. (NOTE the +12 is because of the change of sence of the defence roll to keep the probs the same).

D&D Varant: Player Only Rolls
Preface

    In this varant the referee attempt to do no die rolling at all. This is achieved by reversing all the normal rolls that the referee makes to defence rolls.

    As a simple rule - PC take off 10 DC (ie AC 21) to make a Mods Rolls (ie +11) and NPC add 12 to Mods (ie attack +5) make a DC (ie 17).

Attack and Defence Rolls

    Attacks stay the same as normal D&D for players but for NPC they are changed. Insteed of the referee rolling to hit attack rolls the players roll 'defence rolls' for their chacter instead. The players subtract 10 from there AC and add this to a d20 as a kind of save vs the NPS static Attack DC. The Attack DC of an NPC is their Attack Mod added to 12.

    IE PC AC 18 vs NPC Attack +7 become a PC Defence Save +8 vs NPC Attack DC 19.

Criticals, Fumbles, Auto Success and Fails

    As in the standard rules a 20 is an auto success, and 1 is an auto fail for Attacks and Saves. The Threat Ranges also apply as normal on attack but on defence rolls they are reversed. If an NPC has Attack Threat Range 17-20 this translates to a Defence Threat Range of 1-4. If the player rolls a second Defence fail then the NPC Crits.

Quote from: Omega;1124909Old School means whatever someone wants to market, or doesnt want marketed, today. It means whatever fits someones agenda as a selling point or a derogatory and it started as derogatory and hasnt really moved out of that since. Its still derogatory.

OSR means who the fuck knows! Nearly right out the gate people were using it to steal designs from anything and everything they wanted. Its why the OSR has such a bad rep in various circles. It originally meant just playing in the styles of the 70s and 80s and 90s even. But its a fake term really as people have never stopped playing those ways so there was nothing to "revive" or "renaissance" as its just a marketing gag in the end.

   There is a recognizable core to the OSR--OD&D, Holmes Basic, B/X, and AD&D 1E, and games designed to reproduce or emulate them. Beyond that, even to the point of BECMI and 2E, things get fuzzy, and one person's 'minor tweak' is another person's 'betrayal of the entire spirit of the OSR and the True Game.'

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1124936There is a recognizable core to the OSR--OD&D, Holmes Basic, B/X, and AD&D 1E, and games designed to reproduce or emulate them. Beyond that, even to the point of BECMI and 2E, things get fuzzy, and one person's 'minor tweak' is another person's 'betrayal of the entire spirit of the OSR and the True Game.'

The "One True Game", surely! :-)

Quote from: Spinachcat;1124920The biggest problem I had was this situation:

Monster Attacks...so the PC dodges / rolls Defense roll (D20 + AC).
This leads to these results - PC fumbles, PC fails, PC succeeds, PC crits.
I can adjudicate the fumbled or critical parry, but how does the monster fumble?

The best I came up with was when the PC parried awesomely (aka a critical), they could smash the monster with their shield or hilt to knock them down, disarm them, or some other effect basically equal to the monster fumbling.

My preference is to not always interpret the die roll as something that the PC does -- which is something I prefer in any system. The die roll is supposed represent any of a wide range of random effects, not just what one side does.

So in house-ruled D&D with critical failures, then if someone rolls a critical failure, that doesn't necessarily mean that the character made a stupid-looking blunder. It could be all sorts of bad luck -- like a particularly well-timed parry by the opponent, for example. It could also be something unrelated to either the attacker or opponent, like an unexpected break in the floor, or a sudden distraction.

I'm on the fence. One thing I do like about players rolling all the dice is the GM can't fudge them - if the player rolls bad and dies, there's no saving them. On the other hand, I roll all my combat dice in the open anyway, and I do like to roll...

DM since late 1977- I suspect it's probably not going to fly as OSR for the majority.

That said, I love it as DM/GM. Keeps me in the fictional groove of the game. When the players have their fate in their own hands,  and all I do is interpret their dice rolls- I feel more like I'm a player as well- which is refreshing. It also gives me more of that "Judge/Referee" mentality- I feel more neutral because I'm no going to be fudging anything.

1st post. Sorry for the rambling "touchy feely-ness"

JeffB, welcome aboard!!

What RPGs have you used the "GM never rolls" for?

How do you handle the "procedural content generation" issues like daily weather or wandering monsters as S'mon brought up?

Do you use it as your default GM method? Or only with specific RPGs?

Quote from: JeffB;1125016DM since late 1977- I suspect it's probably not going to fly as OSR for the majority.

That said, I love it as DM/GM. Keeps me in the fictional groove of the game. When the players have their fate in their own hands,  and all I do is interpret their dice rolls- I feel more like I'm a player as well- which is refreshing. It also gives me more of that "Judge/Referee" mentality- I feel more neutral because I'm no going to be fudging anything.

1st post. Sorry for the rambling "touchy feely-ness"

There's no reason you have to fudge when you're rolling the dice. I throw in the open and play whatever rolls.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1125029JeffB, welcome aboard!!

What RPGs have you used the "GM never rolls" for?

How do you handle the "procedural content generation" issues like daily weather or wandering monsters as S'mon brought up?

Do you use it as your default GM method? Or only with specific RPGs?

Thank you for the warm welcome!

My first experience was using it in Dungeon World and that is where I have used it mostly as that is the SOP for Dungeon World. I have since used it in a variety of D&D "offshoots"- 3.0, 13th Age, WhiteStar, my OD&D/BX/S&W mashup, and I'm sure I don't remember a few. For D&D-esque systems I used the "players roll all the dice variant" in the 3.5 SRD, modifying it slightly for OD&D math when I used it there.

Things like random weather don't really feature in my games (not that weather doesn't sometimes factor in) but most other random things that occur at the table? absolutely.

"Hey roll percentile dice, what'd ya get?" or "roll a six sider-what did you get?". I do that often enough  just for the hell of it to keep them nervous.

I've had them roll up their own  adventure using random tables for Dungeon World or OD&D , given myself 5 minutes of prep and run a improv game (pretty much Dungeon World is that anyway).

I'd have no problem using it as a default method for all games assuming it wouldn't make some the mechanics more cumbersome.  Sometimes though,  my groups  prefer me to make all the normal DM rolls, especially if they are having a bad day rolling their Defense Rolls and such

Quote from: HappyDaze;1125036There's no reason you have to fudge when you're rolling the dice. I throw in the open and play whatever rolls.

On occasion I will fudge dice rolls. I never feel that I have to, but for the sake of fun at the game table, I will fudge rolls very infrequently. (Only ever to the player's benefit- not mine)

Having the dice totally out of my control, and having the players totally in control , psychologically puts me in a different headspace that I like. I'm just a happy observer and now if the dice rolls are crap, they can't blame me

Quote from: JeffB;1125016That said, I love it as DM/GM. Keeps me in the fictional groove of the game. When the players have their fate in their own hands,  and all I do is interpret their dice rolls- I feel more like I'm a player as well- which is refreshing.

Interesting.  It's just the opposite for me - as a GM, I was once "encouraged" by my players to handle all the dice and mechanics myself, rolling in secret and never mentioning any numbers or mechanical terminology, so that the players could more easily stay in their character mindsets without having to think about the game aspects.  They really liked that, and so did I, aside from the occasional case of "really bad thing happens to a PC" when I wanted to show them the dice in order to absolve myself of responsibility for the disaster.

Quote from: JeffB;1125016It also gives me more of that "Judge/Referee" mentality- I feel more neutral because I'm no going to be fudging anything.

I'm neutral, regardless.  I choose not to fudge because, if I did, then I would be taking responsibility for all the bad things that happen and I much prefer to be able to say "it's the dice's fault, not mine!"

Quote from: nDervish;1125247Interesting.  It's just the opposite for me - as a GM, I was once "encouraged" by my players to handle all the dice and mechanics myself, rolling in secret and never mentioning any numbers or mechanical terminology, so that the players could more easily stay in their character mindsets without having to think about the game aspects.  They really liked that, and so did I, aside from the occasional case of "really bad thing happens to a PC" when I wanted to show them the dice in order to absolve myself of responsibility for the disaster.

Ah the exact opposite. I think I would like to try this as well.

At the end of the day, I'll do what the players like/react to best (just as I choose what games/editions they react to best). I do have my own preferences though.

My 2 cents:

Ever since I've tried "GM never rolls" in Apocaypse/Dungeon World, I don't want to get back to rolling dice as a GM, and I try to infuse the method in every game I play.

If that makes or breakes an OSR? I don't care, really.