OSR Explorers OOC

Hi folks! I'm setting this up and then zooming off on vacation, and then heading to a gaming convention! We won't get started really building things out until the end of the month, but in the meantime feel free to chat, introduce yourselves, etc. I'd love to see a little on each of your gaming histories, hear about what attracts you to this kind of gaming, and any experiences you've had with the OSR and especially with Cairn.

I'll get something similar for myself up when I can!

Have fun with your family and friends Harrigan! We'll keep ourselves occupied here!

Hello everyone! I'm quilltid and I've been on GP for almost a year now. This is also where I was introduced to other TTRPG systems to play so I am excited to learn more about playing OSR games. I think I've played OSR-adjacent games like Mausritter with Harrigan and still learning how to play Tales of Argosa. I'm interested in playing more OSR games as it seems very popular here on GP and I'd like to learn more about what makes them so fun! It's been great to try a lot of new systems here and recently my group (shout-out to soises and Adrasthea) successfully finished our Lego D&D campaign, my first time DMing!

Hi everyone! And have fun on vacation and at the convention, @Harrigan! Which gaming convention, if I might ask?

I'm Gwen. I'm a philosophy professor and pro TTRPG designer/publisher. I've been playing RPGs since the early 80s -- the 1983 Mentzer edition Red Box with the Elmore cover, to be precise. I've always played a wide range of systems, from superhero games in the 80s, Palladium and World of Darkness games in the 90s, tons of indie games (PbtA games are my favorite) in the 2000s, and for the past few years OSR games (and tons of 5e)! I've played a fair amount of OSE, a bit of Shadowdark, Mork Borg, Hyperborea, and Dolmenwood, among others.

But I haven't played Cairn yet, nor Knave or Into the Odd, on which Cairn is supposed to be based. So I am excited to try it!

@quilltid Tell me about Lego D&D!

Hi all! I’m Sudo, I’ve been playing RPGs on and off since I was a kid in the 90s, my first game was a TSR flop called Dragon Strike, and I eventually moved on to D&D. I played (mostly GMed) a lot of 3e, 4e, and 5e, and over the last few years have shifted away entirely toward other systems like Symbaroum, Quest, and ICRPG. I’m big on physical books and have accumulated quite the indie collection recently, so I read a lot more game systems than I play. For OSR I’ve only played Knave 1e, and Cairn looks great!

After the pandemic I’ve mostly sworn off playing RPGs by Zoom or VTT since it feels too much like my day job, and I’ve also struggled to keep in-person only games alive recently due to scheduling. I’m new to PbP, but really keen to try since it shouldn’t suffer from the same challenges (though I’m sure it has its own!).

@drgwen philosophy has been a big hobby of mine for the last few years! What’s your area of focus?

Oh fun! My work is on the history of philosophy, especially the 16th-19th Century in Europe. My first book was on Spinoza and I regularly work on people like Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and so on.

Hi All!

I've been on GP for a number of years, but I've only played in 2 games and GM'd 1 game for others. I've been using it for solo play off/on for a while now and have been enjoying that when I actually sit down and play. I'm looking forward to joining a game, especially in the OSR realm which i want to learn more about. I've read Cairn multiple times and love the system on paper. I've never played it and I'm really curious to see how combat plays out.

I started playing in the early 80's during the satanic panic. i got my start on AD&D, then moved onto WEG Star Wars. I took a long break from the hobby and finally found my way back in 2020 when a lot of others did. My how did the RPG world change in 30 years! I quickly latched onto rules-lite games like TinyD6, Maze Rats, Tricube Tails, Tunnel Goons, and 24xx.

I spend most of my gaming time hacking out rules-lite games. I've got a group of online friends who I play voice games with on a weekly basis, but I love me some PbP!

Love seeing these bios and know that I’m a fan of almost every game mentioned!

Forgive me if any of you have seen mine before — started in 1983. Played two sessions (that i remember) of Against the Giants with a fella I met in high school. I played Fonkin Hoddypeak (famous TSR pregen) and from those fateful fall sessions, I never looked back. Got the AD&D PHB, DMG and MM that year for Xmas and ran a campaign for friends until about 1988. In the early years I was running about five days a week, after school, on weekends, during the summer — I was pretty obsessed.

That probably led to my burn-out on D&D in 88, and the group I was in sort of coming apart. They all wanted more D&D, and wouldn’t go for what I was pitching — James Bond, Gamma World, MSH, Judge Dredd, WEG Star Wars, Star Trek, Palladium Fantasy, GURPS, many other 80s games.

Skip to grad school and I found my people. I was still basically a forever GM, but I was able to run *loads* of GURPS (sci-fi, fantasy, Swashbucklers (17th century Europe), post-apocalyptic wastelands, cyberpunk, Cliffhangers (30s Pulp)), plus Underground, Feng Shui and some other 90s stuff. That group also introduced me to Call of Cthulhu and Champions… and those two games were transformative for me as a gamer.

After grad school in the US (1995), that group all went their separate ways and I moved back to my home town (Halifax, I’m now a dual citizen), got married, started a career as an archaeologist and generally had not much time for gaming. Except I found I just couldn’t give it up — and so I found another outlet: play-by-e-mail! I ran years-long games of Call of Cthulhu, Champions, Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles, eventually moving to PbP, to forum-based play in the early 2000s. I played anything and everything during this period (except D&D, I was still ice-cold on the game and 3.5 and PF had made it worse), and I eventually dug deep into the alt and indie scenes. Fudge, Fate, Risus, PbtA and a ton of other non-trad games.

In 2019 I decided to get back into live play, which I did by attending cons, listening to podcasts and getting involved with some online communities who actively played together. Since that time, I usually attend 2-4 cons a year and play biweekly with two different groups.

Since about 2018 I’ve been into the OSR, and maintain that, at least for me, the OSR is an optimized and idealized version of the old games I ran back in the mid 80s. I don’t dig retroclones, but I -surely- like that classic black and white art and simple, "elemental" stories about adventurers facing off against wizards in their towers, witches in dank woods, and giants lurking beneath ice-capped mountains.

I’ve recently realized that PbP might be my preferred way to play RPGs. I don’t ever want to give up playing live again, but there’s something special about this medium when it all clicks. Anyway, sorry to blather. The family is asleep and I’m loose on my iPad!

Gwen: I’m going to Genghis Con in Colorado next week. I’ll be playing Call of Cthulhu (in the arctic circle!), Outgunned, a Savage Worlds take on BattleTech (!), a Savage Worlds western run by an absolute gem of a GM (Karl Keesler, highly recommended), Pirate Borg, and Torchbearer. I’ll also be running Outcast Silver Raiders, and am excited because Luke Stratton (Limithron, creator of Pirate Borg) will be a player. I tend to cover my con experience in my blog / substack, if you want to dig into that further for some crazy reason.

Anyway. Really looking forward to this!

Oh super fun! I hope you have a blast. I'd love to hear how Outgunned is! I've played the rest of those, except Outcast Silver Raiders. What's that like? An OSR game I assume? (OK well I've never played Pirate Borg, but I have played Mork Borg and Cy Borg and I assume it is similar))

So hi, I guess everyone is doing the full blown introduction bit. Here I go:

I started roleplaying in the mid 2000nds, mostly on forums. We did not have a way to roll dice, so it was all purely narrative. We also did not really have GMs back then, just mods that would arbitrate any disputes. Given that we were all just a bunch of teens at the time, I have no idea how this did not instantly fall apart. XD
We also did a lot of RP in video games. As in, playing a game of Civ and sending diplomatic missives in character.

My introduction to "proper" RPGs was though Trevor Devalls solo RP series and I have been playing solo games for about two years now. Wanting to play with other people again, I decided to get in to forum RP once more.

As for the games I play: I did play a lot of Savage Worlds a while back, but I have mostly shifted away from that and gravitated towards the OSR ever since. Lots of Stuff Without Number, Beyond the Wall (Maybe my favorite game so far), some Mörk Borg, some By this Axe I Hack. The really pure retroclones never managed to capture my interest though. I have no nostalgia to rose tint my glasses, so some of the designs of early DnD just seem really obnoxious to me.
I also really like Fabula Ultima for some reason, no idea why. It's about as far removed from all the design principles that make the OSR so good as you can get.

@Harrigan I also avoid D&D. I've played 2 sessions of 5e and that was more than enough for me.

I forgot to include The Black Hack in my bio. I really enjoyed that.

I really enjoy D&D with the right people and when I’m in the mood to have my roleplay interrupted by a surprise war game. Just finding that mood more elusive as I get older xD

Nice to meet everyone!

@Drgwen For Lego D&D, we used the adventure designed for the Lego set made recently. You can still get the free PDF for the adventure, Red Dragon's Tale from D&D Beyond. Everyone made a Level 5 character and, to make it a little bit more Lego since we didn't have the set to play with in person, people could "build" like the Lego movie to help with puzzles and challenges. We had people building rafts, buckets of boiling oil for spider tempura, and walkways over poisonous plants. We did end up veering a lot from the original story, but I think that's part of the fun of doing TTRPGs with others, right?

This may be a very basic question, but I was wondering what your opinion is on The Good Place show as a philosophy professor?

To squid: What game would you recommend for someone trying out solo RPG?

To Sudo: Which game system do you have that you think is the best physical book so far? Is it the page quality, the illustrations, what makes the physical book the best of your collection?

To Aline: That sounds really fun about RPing through Civilization! This may be a very basic question, but which version of Civilization do you think is the best?

To our DM/GM Harrigan: I'm curious to know if your years of archaeological knowledge helps in building the worlds you play in for the TTRPGs? I can imagine it works great for games like Call of Cthulhu.

That's a tough question to answer, honestly. I think it comes down to finding a system that you enjoy enough to stick with it. Solo games are notoriously challenging to keep alive. People bounce off them for a variety of reasons and one I see discussed frequently is system. Personally, I like very rules-lite systems that have player facing rolls for my solo games. The fewer rules the better. A lot of people love Ironsworn for solo play, but it's a little too much for me. I do love the Ironsworn (and Starforged) oracles and use them frequently for both solo and group games.

So first of all, your Lego D&D adventure sounds like fun! Especially for younger players. I'll check it out. Thanks!

As for The Good Place, it is one of my all time favorite shows. They had a real philosophy professor as a consultant and it shows -- they generally get the philosophy right and manage to put in some good philosophy jokes. The episode where they discuss the trolley problem was a particular favorite!

Best Civ version is Civ 4 with the Fall From Heaven mod. Nothing will ever compare to that. For the uninitiated, the FFH mod turns the game in to a fantasy world. And a pretty good one at that. I keep meaning to play it again, but it's such a chore to set up under Linux. :S

Also, for solo RPGs, Mythic GM Emulator is the gold standard as far as I'm concerned. It even works very well as a rules light game all on its own. I did play Ironsworn, once. I had an absolutely miserable time with it. That thing did just not compute for me.

That took a bit of thinking. In terms of quality, illustrations, overall feel of the book, I think I'd have to go with Mausritter actually, though it's possibly a weird choice to go with a black and white print. Everything there is just so perfectly put together for the feel of that game in particular - and all the art and design just works so well together to support the game itself. The other one that comes to mind is a solo game called Thousand Year Old Vampire, it's just a gorgeous and well-made book that exudes style fitting for the fiction it's presenting. I highly recommend both!

Fantastic conversations here while I’m on vacation! I’ll try to catch up a *little*…

Outgunned — I’m not 100% sold on the system just yet, but it is an upgrade from the prior ‘Broken Compass’ engine. I’ve only done one-shots so far, but good pal of mine (digitalhobbit) is about to run a short campaign I’ll be a player in. Hugely looking forward to it, and I might even port in an action-hero type character I developed for a couple of World of Dungeons Turbo: Breakers games…

Outcast Silver Raiders — hardcore mud and blood, human-centric OSR. Think of it as Mork Borg but more serious, more dour, a little less absurdly black / death metal. A little bit of googling will illuminate this path but basically it’s a great hex map game of the ‘Mythic North’ where medieval factions vie for power — including the conquerors, the rebels, the Church, smugglers, etc. It draws on Western Europe and medieval England / Scotland vibes heavily, which I love.

Beyond the Wall — perhaps my favorite game. I will run it on GP eventually.

Archaeology — I would say that my time as an anthropologist and archaeologist (about 12 years including college, grad school, work for Parks Canada) absolutely helps me to build the worlds, scenes, scenarios an characters in my games. Especially for the RPG staff that is closer to what I specialized in which was Northeastern North American Historic Archaeology — basically the contact period in the 16th century to the early settlements in 1604/1605 through Victorian times. Further focusing on the 17th and 18th century in the "colonies."

When you study about the history of archaeology, you learn a ton about work done in Egypt and elsewhere around the world in the 19th century through about the 1930s — perfect stuff for Victorian Cthulhu, WWI treasure-hunting, and all the pulp stuff of the 20s and 30s.

Ironsworn: Amazing piece of masterful clockwork RPG tech… that I don’t want to play. ;)

Wow! Everyone gave such thoughtful answers on the questions posted, appreciate it! I'm glad to hear my liking of The Good Place is not misplaced. I have Civ 4, but not the mod so I will need to check that out. It's funny to hear solo games are hard to keep up, but that is also heartening to know it's not unusual either. I did enjoy playing Mausritter so will look into the book now from the description. It sounds like the people playing in the Genghis Con games will have a lot of fun in detail and setting thanks to your knowledge base. There are also so many games to check out from what you guys listed!

Back from vacation! Now two heavy days of catch up with work, then a gaming con to round out the week and weekend! I'll be popping up here and there, but it'll be next week before I can put serious time into this, discuss the adventure, etc.

Alright, fully back in the saddle! I'll do a full review of the PCs, answer questions, then pose some of my own. Let's fire this puppy up...

Yep, good from my side!

To the other players, for what it’s worth feel free to take a strong steer on minor choices like which inn to go to; better to dive in where someone has a preference than try to decide by committee!

All good here, Warden!

And that's a good plan, Sudo.

Doing good, thanks for checking on us! Will take your advice to heart SudoDragon! Thanks for taking initiative Drgwen!

No prob!

And nice, Wren is good with the cheaper place even if the guy is a little too eager for her taste.

Right, all good here. I was wondering about the prices as well. Been thinking of getting some additional gear, but its all insanely expensive.

All good here! Rowan is broke now, so he'll have to make due with a lowly d6 knife. LOL

Okay so what should we mark down as the cost, assuming we're wanting to sleep there and have some food and drink? I've got 10 silver to my name so tomorrow I'll be sleeping with the pigs in the market I think!

Hold up now. Is the dragon responsible for my missing money?

Aww it is so dead

I have done everything else in this game with a random roll! So I found this, a d100 chart of things you might find in a fantasy warehouse.

https://www.dicegeeks.com/fantasy-warehouse-1d100/

Rolling d100!

80: Crate marked with coat of arms.

Great, but what's IN the crate?

37. Large decorative egg (silver with sapphires)

Uh... GM? Thoughts?

Hah I don’t get to start with treasure? Boo!

Seriously though, I like spices. Let’s go with that.

Hope you don’t mind me splitting up a bit. I heard that kind of thing works well with PbP and wanted to give it a try while in the relative calm of the town.

Also just a heads up that I’m traveling a bit this weekend, should still be able to post but if I miss one due to lack of wifi or some such you’ll know why.

Splitting up is 100% fine, and no worries on traveling, I appreciate the heads up.

I will, however, say this…

OSR PLAYER TIP

Since some of you profess to be new or new-ish to the OSR, from time to time I’ll post some insights, best practices, quirks and expectations here.

SudoDragon posted about the church, assuming at least two things: that the building was still open, and that the priest was in. Generally speaking, unless it’s stated otherwise, these world details are fully the purview of the GM. I’m rolling with it here since we want to get the gang a move-on, but typically I would either decide based on context and what’s come before if both of those things would be true, or I’d bounce some dice to randomize whether the building was open and priest was in.

It’s a little more restrictive than some of you might be used to in a more modern RPG. While there are times when I’ll source the table, generally speaking you shouldn’t make assumptions regarding that sort of thing without at least checking in. It’s no biggie, but it’s a thing.

Good to know! Yeah I was definitely aware that I was pushing things a bit in the interest of moving things onward. I appreciate the flexibility. So your preference here would have been for my first post to stop at the door, allowing your further description, then I do my prayers and look for the priest on a second post, get the answer, and start the conversation on a third (if the priest is in and doesn’t initiate himself)?

It seems like the OSR leans heavy into the philosophy that Warden (GM) owns the setting/NPCs and the players simply react to the information given. Players asking questions to learn more about the setting/world is key as opposed to making assumptions. Is that a fair assessment?

I wanted to give a heads up that I'm going to be leaving on vacation this weekend and will be gone for a week. My posting rate will be quite a bit slower, but I'll do my best to keep up. Feel free to play Rowan as you see fit and assume he's along for the ride.

I guess one way to think of this is not in terms of what you do but what you INTEND to do. It is a bit muddy here as we are in town talking to people, but it becomes much more obvious in a dungeon. You don't say: "I open the door." You say: "I try to open the door." You don't say: "I jump over the bottomless pit." You say: "I try to jump over the bottomless pit." And once you made your intentions clear, the GM takes it from there.

In PbP you have the luxury of adding some prose and some liberties can and should be taken to keep the pace up. Something I have seen used is adding conditions, as in: "I try to open the door and if it is locked I try to pick the lock." Just to reduce the amount of posts needed. But the general structure of: "GM describes scene -> players state their intention -> GM adjudicates -> GM describes the scene, should be kept in place.

Ah, really interesting to hear how to approach these games. I didn't realize there was so much nuance to it!

Or a very short game! It's tough to survive failing multiple saves in a short time in those types of games...

But yeah, I will say that my experience with OSR and NSR games depends more on the GM's philosophy than the specific system chosen. I've played some fairly old school classic OSR systems with GMs who took a very story game style approach, inviting players to fill in large parts of the world, as well as those who took the more traditional approach described above. I like both, though sometimes I don't really want to do the heavy lifting of world building and would prefer simply to react and state my intentions.

I don't mind shared worldbuilding, if done right (Beyond the Wall comes to mind here) I even love it. But I never really meshed well with story games. I think this is more of a mechanics issue than a problem with the style of game itself though.
Thinking about it just now, I really just do not like the PbtA family of games. That's probably it, as I do enjoy Fabula Ultima well enough and that game has a lot of story game elements.

That is totally fair. Myself, I happen to love PbtA games — some of them are my all time faves. But I also love moderately complex (but not TOO complicated) tactical games and OSR games as well, so… go figure.

So yeah, I love Monsterhearts and Masks, but also D&D 5e and Lancer, and also Dolmenwood and Cairn. I’m a weirdo!

Oops! I need to pay attention the thread I'm in before posting! LOL

I play a lot of rules lite games with no or very low prep, so having the players add to the world during the game is great, but within reason. There needs to be some kind of guard rails in place otherwise it gets out of hand.

I don't think you're a weirdo, Gwen, I think you just like different experiences / ways to play. It's always struck me as a little strange when people tout one style over another -- we all have our preferences, but I can absolutely love a writer's room approach (indeed, Beyond the Wall, Fate, loads of indie and PbtA games), a 'classic' OSR vibe where a very tangible world already exists and is revealed to the players through play, emergent play from tables (also often OSR), and all kinds of mixtures in-between.

I will admit I've had really bad experiences at both ends of the spectrum -- with tight-fisted GMs loredumping, and loredumping, and with fully emergent play with no guardrails that just immediate became super dumb. I don't love lore-heavy D&D (though ran a three year campaign in Greyhawk in the 80s!), and don't tend to enjoy Trophy either, where it's both buttoned down (you want treasure, you will die for treasure) and very much open to players adding this, that, and the other thing on a whim.

Gaming is complicated.

Thanks for playing, everyone!

Ok, exhausted, but back from vacation. It was relaxing while there, but man can flight issues completely ruin the end of a great vacation.

I'll get Rowan back into the action later today after I read up on everything I missed.

Woohoo! I'd just written an OOC post to ask what we should do with Rowan! Rest up, get caught up, chime in!

Welcome back!

Thanks! I think your suggestion of him turning in or hanging with Wren is great. I'll get caught up and get him involved.

Wren will loiter for a while longer at the tavern listening to the music and making herself available to others to chat with, but failing to have the courage to flirt with Rosie. And she is fine with that; flirting with a service worker when they are at work is gross anyway.

After a while she'd return to the Egg and chat or sleep.

I don't have anything like that in mind. Although I was thinking that maybe the letter specified that she should bring along some interesting story to tell. That way Nessa would be very interested in the dragon. if you have other ideas, I'll gladly leave it up to you though.

FYI, I have a surgery in a few hours that may prevent me from posting for a day or two. No worry, though-- the surgery is a happy thing--it's a gender affirming procedure.

Hopefully everything goes well.

Do the tally-sticks take up an inventory slot?

Sorry for the slow response. I'm tied up with RL for the next few days. I have a special needs teen that's going through some stuff right now and that is going to take most of my attention.

Real life first, let's take it easy this week!