OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire

OSR Guide For The Perplexed Questionnaire 

By now you are probably aware of G+'s recent announcement to shut down by August of 2019.  As a response to that news, Zak Smith of Playing D&D With Pornstars Blog has written this questionnaire for those of us in the DIY D&D game scene to 

"explain, talk about, extend and preserve the breadth of what the DIY game scene has achieved and means by just talking to each other about it—and helping out any newbies who may just be stumbling on the scene now (there are a surprising number)."

(Clicking on Zak's quote above will take you to the questionnaire if you would like to check it out.)

Let me preface that I've wanted to read others' responses to these questions, but have waited to do so until I wrote my own.  So any unoriginal answers are authentically mine, lol.

 

1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:

It's a tie between James Raggi's I Hate Fun blog post and Matt Finch's A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming.

The I Hate Fun screed really resonated with me when I first read it back in 2013.
  
Finch's Primer was useful for me to read as I was transitioning my gaming from New World of Darkness (now known as Chronicles of Darkness) Changeling the Lost to Lamentations of the Flame Princess and other OSR games.  I go back to it a couple times a year, usually as I'm starting up anew from a gaming/DMing hiatus or at the start of a new game, like when I ran Call of Cthulhu for the first time this year.   


2. My favorite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:

Every once and awhile Zak Smith pops onto G+ with his "RPG Magic 8-Ball" and answers questions from followers about anything RPG for a limited amount of time.  So like campaign, monster, rules/mechanics, this vs. that, etc. queries get answered in useful, sometimes cryptic, and sometimes snarky ways.  Sometimes a combo of all three!  I hope he keeps doing those on another platform when G+ closes.
 
3. Best OSR module/supplement:

Fuuuuuuuuck.  This is like asking which is my favorite cat (out of the three I have.)  I'll try to narrow it down to three.  It pains me to leave out so many other gems, but here we go.

      1.  Vornheim -  It inspired me to go back to D&D style games and has been invaluable in presenting cities in my Year of the Goat campaign.

     2.  Yoon-Suin -  If you don't have this, you're missing out.  I love the setting, love the utility/toolbox design, and love the art.  It's on my campaign map, but the PCs haven't gotten over there, yet.  Can't wait to actually be running this! 

     3.  Red Tide -  I came to the OSR from running WOD Changeling the Lost.  I had run D&D back in my early teens, but I mostly played.  What I'm getting at here is that I needed help getting my shit together to run a sandbox style hexcrawl campaign.  Red Tide combined with Vornheim and Yoon-Suin and reading various blogs helped me run a game that has been the most fun of anything I've run to date!  It has a campaign setting folded into some great campaign generation tools and tables. 

4. My favorite house rule (by someone else):

I like the die-drop equipment tables from blog Dismaster's Den of Unfinished Thoughts.  They are a great way to streamline character creation if players have analysis paralysis during the buying equipment phase.
 
5. How I found out about the OSR:  

I'm not sure how I found out about Playing D&D With Pornstars, but it was my entry into the OSR in late 2012.  Soon after I purchased Vornheim.

6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:

I have a couple of favorites.  Abulafia.  The D&D Web Apps by Ramanan S on his Save Vs. Total Party Kill blog.
 
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:

G+ has been the best place for me to talk to OSR gamers.
 
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:

Instagram and more recently I got a Discord account.  I'm on Twitch as well, but I haven't made good use of that account, yet.
 
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:

I am neither awesome nor pithy.

10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:

Changeling the Lost.  I haven't run it in 4 years, not sure when I will again.
 
11. Why I like OSR stuff:

It all mixes and matches quite well.  Lots of great imagination on display in the writing and art.  Creators who are trying to innovate and succeeding.  Usually a very high quality in the printed materials.
 
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:

Again, I can't narrow it down to two!  How about these eight:)

The Midderlands and The Midderlands Expanded

The Dark of Hot Springs Island

Petty Gods

The Dungeon Dozen

Slumbering Ursine Dunes, The Misty Isles of the Eld, and Fever Dreaming Marlinko 

13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:

Playing D&D With Porn Stars

14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:

It's rough, but I love my campaign map.

 

15. I'm currently running/playing:

I'm currently playing in a 5e campaign.  When it wraps up, I'll be running my LotFP Year of the Goat campaign again.
 
16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because:

I use ascending these days, but when I started playing in 1990 THAC0 was the way it was done.  The LotFP Grindhouse Referee Book has a conversion chart, so if I'm running a module that uses descending, no big whoop.
 
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:

Purple Worm En Scene by Luka Rejec

This illustration and more can be found on Wizard Thief Fighter.

Review Intent Statement

I wear my granny's sunglasses at night... AKA Bast lurks in former habitat, the Boreal Forest Biome

Two Years Ago I Started Mulling Over My Ideas For Reviews...


And came up with nothing earth shattering.  I did settle on how I want to do reviews on rpg books and accessories.  Two part (as in minimum two blog posts) in format; the first part being a review of the product in general and the second being a review of the product in play/use.  As I find a rhythm for writing these, I'll layer more onto this structure as needed.


Up next in FUTUREBLOGS

 The list of materials up for review.  Order of list will not dictate order of review release.  List will be updated both with links to completed reviews and new materials to be reviewed.

-Back in my posts https://mockorangecairn.blogspot.com/2015/07/my-campaigns-rules-and-resources.html https://mockorangecairn.blogspot.com/2017/06/changeling-lost-campaign-post-mortem.html  I hinted at how I had used Vornheim By Zak S. in my Lamentations of the Flame Princess Campaign "Year of the Goat" and in the tail end of my Changeling the Lost Campaign "Bridge."  A closer look at how I used this book in those two systems... Forthcoming!
-I picked up Lamentations of the Flame Princess Free RPG Day 2013 release Better Than Any Man by James Raggi IV on Free RPG Day 2013 at the FLGS.  That was six months after buying Vornheim...
-N2 The Forest Oracle by Carl Smith claimed the first PC death in the game along with a slew of henchmen.  I felt like I did a lot of work to adapt this to my campaign, but I didn't really fuck with stats for monsters and NPCs...
-Red Tide by Kevin Crawford has seen extensive use, not for it's setting, but the Sandbox Structuring Advice and the site creation tables.
-LotFP Referee Book Grindhouse Edition by James Raggi IV.  The adventure at the back of this book kicked off my "Year of the Goat" Campaign! 
-LotFP Rules & Magic by James Raggi IV.  Short take: I own three physical copies, have both versions of the PDF (paid w/ art; free w/o art,) and it's the rules basis for my "Year of the Goat" Campaign. 
-Changeling the Lost 1st edition by White Wolf/CCP.  They've made another edition since my campaign went on hiatus/died.  I'll give you my thoughts on this edition.  It would have been interesting to have done a review of this before my foray into "Old School" or OSR or whatever the fuck it is I'm doing now.  Oh well.  I'm afraid to dive back into this material for fear of wanting to attempt some system hacking (I don't fear the creative engagement, but don't have the time or player interest for this game at this time.)

Changeling the Lost Campaign Post Mortem

"I Loot the Body!"  "No, I do!" "Fuck, I never get any loot."

My Changeling the Lost campaign started in 2008 and played until 2014, when it went hiatus.  I ran 22 sessions, averaging 3.6666666667 sessions a year.  Zak S's blog Playing D&D with Pornstars recent post, Old-Schooling the World of Darkness http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2017/06/old-schooling-world-of-darkness.html, is a response to a fan's query on how to make their NWOD game more Old School.  He does this with eight suggestions that really would have saved my Dungeon Master/Game Master/High Priest/ess of Sunday Morning Mind Cartoon-Puzzles/Storyteller/Keeper/WranglerofCats bacon.  In reading them today, I find that I actually nailed/pulled off/figured out/stole shamelessly a few of them.  In analyzing what I did and didn't have or manage in that campaign, I'm able to do a post mortem on why I thought that I floundered and ultimately put the game aside.

My CtL Campaign Notebook has been sad and lonely since 2014

1. Make sure they're fighting things that can kill them in like 2 hits

     Nope.  I was lousy at this.  One of the SAS (White Wolf term for adventure module) had a nasty Gentry IIRC, but I sucked at throwing enough big bad meanies at 'em when I was making my own material.  I thought of Raymond Chandler's advice all the time, foolishly not ever using it enough, lol.


 2. Make sure they are weak, hunted and isolated, but have a chance to tear it all down

     I had ebbs and flows with this.  The game setting bounced across the USA about 4 times so different places had different Changeling enclaves and other supernatural entities of a variety of densities/concentrations. 


3. Don't use the words

     I used all the words.  ALL THE WORDS.  Oops.


 4. Making preying on humans hard

     I did this ok.  I used the "you have to harvest the glamour you are emotionally attuned to" rule, and that automatically throttled down the human juice box effect.


 5. The story is that it's hard

     I did this well and there was some great play that emerged from characters' hardship.   Somehow I got better at this as I went and the players took their characters to cool levels of guttersnipe I couldn't have foreseen.


 6. Use historical and occult stuff

    This was another thing I pulled off.  Inspiration is everywhere. 


7. Actually be scary

     Sometimes the game was unnerving, unsettling, spooky, or tense.  I don't think I achieved scary with this:-(


 8. PS There is actually a version of Vornheim re-written specifically for Vampire

    

I picked Vornheim up in early 2013.  It was a revelation.  I used the connections between NPCs diagram, the I Loot the Body Table, and I used the Vornheim/Vampire version to make my own City NPC Table for one of the cities in my game.

Left: NPC Relationship Diagram.  Right: Map from the Salt Lake City portion of the campaign.