OSR/NSR Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Most of these are great 1st Level Starters

From this Reddit Post https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/zlzrzf/big_big_list_of_osr_dolmenwood_fairy_tale/

-Most of these are for 1st Lvl D&Dish Characters

Forest of Doom - Dragon Magazine #73

The Lost Cache of Father Thomas - Footprints #5

Gone Fishing - Beer & Barbarians

Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman

Wet Grandpa - Evey Lockhart

Chagmat - Dragon Magazine #63 -admitally it needs some work

Quest for Midas Orb - Dragon Magazine #61

DF27 Red Tam's Bones - Dragonsfoot

Wandering Trees - Dragon Magazine #57 -

The Witch of Windcrag - Dungeon Mag #51

Garden of the Hag Queen - Dragonsfoot

The Fell Pass - Dragon magazine #32

The Shadowed Keep by Kramer

The Gnomes of Levnec

Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess

The Red Demon in The Vile Fens by Gus L

Pollute the Elfen Memory Water by Michael Raston

Yrchyn the Tyrant by Kramer

The Inn of Lost Heroes by Spahn

The Purple Worm Graveyard by Bryce Lynch

The Pale Lady

The Forest of Doom Dragon Magazine # 73

The Gypsy Train Dragon Magazine #93

N2 The Forest Oracle by Carl Smith

Imagine Magazine #17 Tir Nan Og

The Fungus Forest by Nash Press

A Thousand Dead Babies

Scourge of the Tikbalang (fairy horror comes to Dolmenwood)

Slaves to Fate - Earl of Fife Games

Garden of Ynn

Midderzine #2 Port Mulhollow

The Willowmere Vagabonds by Aaron Fairbrook

Barrow Keep - Den of Spies

Elder Oak by Thomas

Tangled by Josh Domanski

Tannic by Amanda P - will require some work to convert to OSE

Realm of Leaves from True Mask Games

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford by Chance Dudinack

Spears of the Northmen https://thiefofwhispers.wordpress.com/2022/08/26/spears-of-the-northmen-an-adventure-for-worlds-without-number/

Land of Milk & Honey by Zzarchov Kowolski

Blood in the Chocolate by Kiel Chenier

A Baker's Denizen by Goblin Stomper Games

The Rot Beneath Winterbrook

Pool of the Standing Stones

Mushroom Hunt (A perfect Dolmenwood Starter) https://www.reddit.com/r/onePageDungeon/comments/r4fyob/i_made_a_lil_hex_adventure_based_on_some_stories/

Patryk Ofat's "Great Faerie Revolution"

Nate Treme's "Bad Frog Bargain"

Peril in Olden Wood

Dovedale from Dungeon Magazine 46 can be modded for it.

Tales of Enchantment from AD&D 2e

EX1 Dungeonland

The Forest of Gornate_ from EMDT/Gabor Lux

Secrets of the Wyrwoode by Luigi Castellani

Beyond the Wall and Barrow Keep - Den of Spies

I have done Barrow Keep - Den of Spies, Dolmenwood, Keep on the Borderlands combo with a certain family of conquerors having special Charm Dragon Psionics :)

Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess

I guess it is not widely known anymore that these two setting are compatible and work well together to create a huge setting.

https://speakwithdeadtrees.blogspot.com/2020/01/dolmenwood-in-emeraude.html

I don’t see many Sci-Fi battlemaps being posted so I thought I would help out a little bit. I have been running 2 sci-fi rpgs concurrently for 3 years and have amassed quite a few decent maps that I have made in DungeonDraft. They are nothing special, but considering how rare sci-fi maps can be, I hope someone finds them helpful. These were all made for 40k or SWN but feel free to use them wherever. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ewe4a3qi083phftrz4f0r/h?rlkey=76c1aogifucbbds47u8fms7eh&dl=0

A good article on restocking https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/48593/roleplaying-games/campaign-status-module-restocking-checklists

DM Angelo's easy method was to have multiple versions of the same adventure. So If we left and came back. Then he just ran one of those other versions.

My method is to have new gang bosses and a few new or renovated rooms. The players old map will mostly match up.

Once to just have fun with them. I had the main entrance sealed in while they were away. Some Holy Knights came by and decided to seal up the main entrance real good. The players remembered hearing about other entrances from captives while down there the last time. So this forced wilderness exploration to find new entrances.

I've been playing around with Thálassa, the Cairn-based RPG about adventures in the mythic ancient Mediterranean.

I decided to make my own custom character sheet. It's fillable, and available in US Letter and A4 sizes.

You can download it here:

https://polyhedralnonsense.com/2023/08/08/thalassa-character-sheets-for-a-mythic-age-rpg/

Hey all,

I’ve always enjoyed TTRPGs, but never could find the right fit for my and my friend group. After trying out a bunch of different systems, one day I took the plunge on MORK BORG and have loved it since.

My group and I love the over-the-top grimdark and find it more funny than anything else, and keeping it light on the rules lets us just enjoy the story unfolding instead of having to fiddle with arcane rules and lists of items. And then the cherry on top are the excellent tables that make rolling up further adventures super easy.

However, so far, I’ve only really been running one shots. It’s super easy for characters to die, which can make running a campaign hard, but I LOVE the idea of the Calendar of Nechrubel—a probabilistic time limit that puts proverbial Sword of Damocles on the world.

Despite how cool it seems, though, I’ve never really run a full campaign before. Anyone who has played this game or one like it, what advice could you give? What is your thought process like as you’re planning out a longer story in which the characters are more or less likely to survive?

If something makes me want to write a hack of Cairn inspired by it, it has to be doing something right.

Or maybe you want to hit the planet with a comet? Fireball is not enough and everybody has it.

You need this book

https://mrlizard.com/reviews-and-walkthroughs/necromican-level-10-and-up/

so the other day we had our sesh and someone brought assorted cheeses as a snack, and puns ensued. I (the dm) jokingly said that for every new cheese pun the whole party heals 1 hp cuz I'm fun like that. Mind you this is a 5e game so a single hp isn't much but its still incentivizing when most of the party is at half health. My players really liked it. I really liked how it brought out that OSR feeling of "the players are clever so their characters benefit mechanically" which I don't get as much as I want because it's 5e and I haven't twisted their arms into the OSR yet.

so

I'm constantly fantasizing about running an osr style game and always in the process of frankensteining my perfect rules set that combines everything I like from a million osr systems... and I had the thought of replacing the resource cost of spells in a system like an into the odd hack or knave hack with creativity. so like if you would normally recover 1 fatigue per night (i know thats not how ITO or knave do) a character with a certain spell or feature could compose a haiku to heal two instead, or maybe a pun made at an enemies expense could deal 2 hp damage with the limitation that it can't damage str (be lethal) or in a world where magic comes from being crazy or sad (like adventure time) roleplaying being crazy or sad could recover a fatigue for a wizard type character.

sorry for the stream of consciousness typing

basically instead of paying with a spell slot or hp or fatigue for an in game magic effect the player has to do some clever wordplay relevant to the situation. the mechanical benefit would be solid but minimal since id want to make it an effect that is only limited in it's usefulness by a player's creativity.

so my question is: did someone already do this better? is there a wordplay/creative thing a player could do that would thematically fit giving a martial/combat mechanical benefit? how should I balance it? How can i use it in hacking a system like knave, synthetic dream machine, or cairn?

also general thoughts and ideas appreciated

Option 1 This is tough to beat price for a Whole Gaming System - The Drive Thru Vaults & Vows Bundle https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/440205/Vaults--Vows--Bonus-Printed--Digital-BUNDLE

with little work you can run Dungeon World Modules to this as well as Iron Sworn. Can always just run Valuts & Vows https://www.reddit.com/r/Solo_Roleplaying/comments/15hi4z6/i_smashed_ironsworn_and_dungeon_world_togetherits/

get https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/360541/Quest-Fronts--Issue-1?src=hottest_filtered

Option 2 - *just a disclaimer - people seem to have a hard time understanding the magic system. I think it is simple and fun to use.

Black Sword Hack Ultimate Chaos Edition - yes the book has to come from Europe and will take it's sweet time getting to a US address. Everything is basicaly in this one book.

https://www.themerrymushmen.com/product/black-sword-hack-ultimate-chaos-edition/

Option #3 *players may be relunctant to play due to notorious rep of creator. This is one of the best playing OSR Games out there. Remove Venger and this would be Number 1 OSR Game. Did I mention it is FREE

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/303380/Crimson-Dragon-Slayer-D20-Revised

honorable mentions OSE, Cairn 2e, Weird North, Electric Bastionland, Mausritter, and Ruby

Started running a Mystara Campaign again and Vanya has come up. I dread her as a force to ruin campaigns.

Because Nobody Expects the Heldannic Inquisition!

One of the players is whishing to go to Vanya's Rest He has been promised to be Knighted if he brings the party there to be converted. That includes being given a castle and 100's of troops.

https://mystara.thorfmaps.com/thibault-vanyas-rest-region-8/

Brief snippet on Heldannic Kngihts https://d-d-3-0-tales-from-mystara.obsidianportal.com/wikis/heldannic-knights

The Free Heldannic Gaz http://pandius.com/The_Heldannic_Knights.pdf Warbirds and Paladins in Space

So I'm going to offer it to the party to revolt against this other PC and run off to Vestland. Where they will get involved in the Search for the Sorona Crown of Vestland. - module Crown of Ancient Glory but I will change out the Ethengar for the Heldannic Knights.

The Heldann Freeholds https://youtu.be/rRNcbImYRUg

These days it feels like the Post OSR spends a lot of time reinventing things that people wrote on blogs in 2010, or stumbling into the same well known solutions and declaring they have "fixed" the play style.

Gus L. shares his thoughts around "7 Maxims of the OSR":

There's little help for this, and as much as introductions to OSR theory like Philotomy’s Musings, Matt Finch’s Quick Primer for Old School Gaming, or Milton, Lumpkin and Perry’s Principia Apocrypha are useful documents and helpful introductions, the majority of OSR wisdom exists as scattered blog posts and in the minds of people who have engaged with the play style over the past 20 or so years. People don't read blogs anymore, but even if they did ... these bloggers, designers, referees, and players have a tendency to fall back on maxims when asked to explain elements of the play style, and it’s not the most efficient way of communicating craft and knowledge.

The "Between Two Cairns" podcast by Yochai Gal & Brad Kerr celebrates its one-year-anniversary. I've personally binged all of the episodes recently

This week they review "Kavlov's Sanctuary" by Jean Luc Lariviere-Lacombe, which might be interesting for @[email protected], who is working on an OSE conversion (more infos under https://hexed.press/posts/kavlovs-sanctuary-ose-kickstarter-announcement).

Free Adventure - The Strange Curious Disappearance of Oberleutnant Schmitz

Suggested System Lamentation of the Flame Princess Suggested Character Level 1-5 for up to 7 players

Further suggested at least one player play an Elf of at least Level 3 with surgically altered ears and connections to either Miskatonic University, Madame Blavatsky, or Henry Steel Olcott's Theosophical Society.

Time - This adventure takes place 2 years after the end of WWI in the Late Spring or Early June of 1920.

Starting Location The Royal Isle of Wight Golf Club in a very private and most austere drawing room.

There are two gentlemen from Lloyds and a German from Mercedes-Benz here along with a deaf butler. Let up to 2 players speak sign language if they insist.

• The Deaf Butler Halberth is an older servant and works for Mr. Smythe – age 77 *** Mr Smythe speaks sign language fluently and Mr. Trimble is very much a beginner
• From Lloyd’s Mr Smythe (the boss of the two and the butler Halberth) -age 52
• From Lloyd’s Mr Trimble (Mr. Smythe’s underling) age 31
• From Mercedes The Famous Engineer Mr. Jonas Dieter Schmitz age 64

The players will be instructed they know and have worked for Mr. Trimble in the past and only know Mr Smythe by reputation. That reputation is that not a stone is overturned or an egg cracked in all of His Majesty’s England without Mr Smythe’s knowledge. **Your option if the PC’s know each other or have worked together. However none of them should know the Elf.

On a roll of 1-3d6 a player may be on friendly enough terms with Mr. Trimble to have a beer after hours with him. Then if that roll is made have player roll d6 again 1-2 they know Mr. Trimble as Agent 001 of His Majesty’s Secret Service (try not to let the other player’s know).

I suggest going to Old Maps Online and getting a few Isle of Wight maps from the 20’s & 30’s. The Duver St Helen’s for the Royal Isle of Wight Golf Club may be welcomed at the table.

Due to the timeline Switchblade knives, revolvers, automatic pistols, and crude sub machine guns will have to be allowed. Grenades and dynamite as well. Have players roll d20 the highest roll gets a scroll of turn undead as if cast by Level 5 Cleric. Have players that didn’t get the item roll d20’s and the highest gets a ring of Protection from Evil 10’ with 2 charges. That is all the goodies for now.

Opening Phase A The players have been summoned by Mr. Trimble under premise – Great Adventure & Profit. Lloyd’s has need of your talents & service yet again.

As they enter the room they are greeted by Mr. Trimble who takes the lead. He introduces everyone to Mr. Smythe and the esteemed German Engineer from Mercedes Mr. Schmitz. Then Mr. Trimble informs the party that the Golf Club Staff will not be available. We have the services of Mr. Smythe’s Private Butler Mr. Halberth for today’s luncheon meeting. Do be kind as Mr. Halberth is deaf. Mr. Smythe or myself can communicate with him.

Then Mr. Smythe draws forth from under his coat a Luger Carbine and attaches the stock. “Last Chance my dear agents of Lloyd’s to leave this business. For I’m going to close and lock the doors now. What we are about to discuss is never to be spoken outside of this room.”

As he is locking the doors the German speaks, “ Now Mr. Smythe! Are such dramatics necessary? I know you have lost a whole team already working on my lost son’s disappearance! I don’t want or need the guilt of more widows & orphans in the world.”

"Your source of information is not so faultless Mr. Schmitz. We have only misplaced one agent. That it was a double 00 was most misfortunate”, said Mr. Smythe.

Then Mr. Trimble says while looking each PC in the eye - “Perhaps a little demonstration of the uniqueness of this team I have assembled. resting his eyes on the Elf Please cast us a spell to alleviate my friend’s concerns.” Then spoken in Elvish “Something Flash to astonish him.”

***Free form it with the players up until a point where Mr. Smythe should finish detailing out the mission.

The Mission: During WWI Mr. Schmitz’s son the Oberleutnant Schmitz flew his WWI Gotha Bomber over the Island of Wight. In the fog his bomber had gone off course and he mistook a church for a military target. Bombing the church. Sometime after the war he had learned of his mistake and that several innocent lives had died from the bombing. The church was damaged so severally that it had to be demolished.

Unable to live with the guilt our Oberleutnant decided to use his connections to Mercedes-Benz and other wealthy companies to raise money to rebuild the church. He flew into the island to be at a ground breaking ceremony. The Oberleutnant checked into a hotel and went to the construction site that night unable to wait for the ceremony in the morning. He has not been seen since leaving the hotel now five months ago.

A few weeks ago 005 was sent to investigate. Last seen by a cabby using a phone booth on the island.

Now Mr. Trimble has ID’s, Cover Stories, and the lot for you. You are all to be Insurance Agents, Underwriters, Building Inspectors, and Journalist. We will have you stay at the same hotel as Agent 005 and the Oberleutnant.

***Let them have some choice as to their cover story, alias names, and other spy stuff. Inform them that Q will meet them at the hotel with his usual assortment of toys.

This Ends Phase A. I will post links for Phase B and C later. Stay Tuned for More.

The Three Arrows of the Black Douglas

There are so many variations of this.

https://youtu.be/c-Hw1zCSWnQ

Don't worry it is daylight

https://youtu.be/rzefjdFo0_E

Next adventure off to the Priory Cemetary https://youtu.be/h-ZL17jS2kA

Some kids have an adventure in 1973 on the Isle of Wight People still talk of it today https://youtu.be/MCSsUEJIcLE

More on the Clown / Scarecrow known as Sam of All Colors https://youtu.be/MBdfBTXWtFo

If you are running X2 Castle Amber or any fun house module you may want to watch this one on the Haunted House Appuldurcombe on the Isle of Wight. https://youtu.be/vRU_hF7f-3U

And do we classifier her as a Witch or a Necromancer? The Woman who lived with 92 Ghost https://youtu.be/aEdgp_aPg0Y

I found a copy of "Three Hearts and Three Lions" set out on a stoop yesterday. Someone's trash is now my treasure!

Saw this posted to Mastodon and I thought it was worth sharing.

A Lesson In Obnoxious Gaming - The World's Greatest Paladin - The Legend of Athene. The player you don't want or maybe you do :)

https://youtu.be/2t3-tpYEI0Y - watching this may make you terrified of corners.

They see Athene is in the game and they play 10x better.

Remember you don't have to send him gold in the mail. These are free tips.

So you want to create adventures live and on the fly do you? I will show you the tools that I use.

Get Sandbox Generator https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430675/Sandbox-Generator

and

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8l15nXmXT3BOUpNYUxha1ZhbmM/view?resourcekey=0-jBMwynTYbEgP4rs2P6gFZQ

and

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/243593/Dungeon-Deck

and https://mythicalink.gumroad.com/l/MythicalDeckOfDungeons-Printed

and https://www.drivethrucards.com/product/203201/Dungeon-Dealer-Maze-Deck-1?src=also_purchased&filters=0_0_44587_44592

and https://dysonlogos.blog/2016/06/19/dungeon-business-cards/

You will need this https://oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com/srd/index.php/Designing_a_Dungeon

and this https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/248427/Designing-Fantasy-Scenarios

along with https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/248735/Encounters-Fantasy-Scenarios?src=also_purchased

You now have infinite resources and endless possibilities at your convince.

Saw this and thought it was interesting.

So on another OSR Resource I was asked about alternative magic systems for OSR Games

Long ago Conrad and Red of Spacegamer and Better Games wrote Conrad's Fantasy because some TSR Lawyers were questioning which games system the adventures they were selling where for.

So Conrad rushed up stairs to his hotel room and wrote HUGO which was later changed and expanded to become Conrad's Fantasy. He didn't have time to write a balanced and carefully crafted spell list. So he just made rules and laws for casting spells.

This lead me to some years later running a top secret game for TSR Staff. During this game a pc lassoed the moon with a magic lasso. Pulled it down to earth with Titan Strength. The rest of the party climbed aboard. I want to say this happened in 1993 it may have been 94.

Six Basic Laws of the Universe - Fantasy Game Setting

Law I - Force flows through fixed channels in only one direction.

Law II - Everything has a fixed identity whether it is fire, earth, water, or air. Earth cannot be like water and still be earth.

Law III Everything has spirit which matches its identity.

Law IV -All Planes of existence are separate and distinct.

Law V The mind is controlled by the spirit.

Law VI Something are not understood except what is, is and what has happened, has happened.

Magic is the force by which the laws can be broken. The magic user combines mystical forces to break the laws.

Break a law and face the law enforcers. Most common of which is the Zaires - Powerful Wizards who tirelessly work to see the laws are held together. Least reality collapse. They fear to many who lack training and understanding to wield magic. This will result in destruction of the universe.

Easiest way to do this in an OSR Game is to steal from Lavender Hacks Resolution System

Nat 20+ Critical Success

18+ Strong Success

8+ Weak Success

7 or less Miss

Nat 1 Critical Miss / Fumble

So only give Magic Users Spell Points at Level 1

1 point to break one Law - some magic attempts may require breaking multiple laws (up to Game Master / Ref to determine).

Additional Magic Points +1 for every point spent. up to max of +4

Say the Magic User at Level 1 gets 3pts + Int Bonus. Then +2 per level gained

As for time - Every 2pts spent equals a round of combat

Interuption of spell casting - Forcess a Save vs Magic to the Spell Caster or suffer 1d4 per spell point spent (this can be used for critical failures as well).

Recovery of Points - 1pt a day + Int Bonus

Last night I ran a one-shot based on one of the scenarios from Kavlov's Sanctuary! Everybody had fun (at least that's what they told me so it must be true, right? 🤐 🤣) and it was nice to finally do a live play-- though I absolutely had some nervousness going on. If you're interested in any of the prep that I did, I streamed some of that earlier yesterday.

The Laidly Worm of Spindleston Heugh -we have a princess turned into a dragon

• another illegal use of Polymorph Spell the Laily Worm and Machrel of the Sea - Evil Stepmother turned him into a worm

The tale of Jorinde and Joringel - poor Jorinde turned into a nightingale and put in a cage by an evil olde witch.

Then there is the Nordic Legend of Skuld's Mother who went from being a hag to a beautiful DarkElven Princess to seduce our hero Helgi.

It is said in battle that Skuld could bring her dead warriors back to life.

Poor Sir Gwain forced to marry the Loathly Lady. She had tricked King Arthur to giver her what she most wanted in return she would answer his riddle that none else could answer.

Back to polymorph - mostly misused as Polymorph Self 1000's of tales of witches changing shape to commit thefts. The most common is for the the Witch to turn into a hare. In this shape they would go into the barn and suck the life out of the farm animals.

For some that was not enough. They would hop right up to a child and jump into the child's arms. To be carried into the house. Then they would suck the life out of all who lived there.

I hope this gives you some idea of how to use Witches in your game and make it up to Folktale Standards.

Have fun and stay away from hares.

https://sadbasilisk.press/posts/2021-04-16-hex-map-of-earth-midgard.html

Get a starter Village / Town I suggest L1 The Secret of Bone Hill and then go here https://restenford.blogspot.com/

Then scatter about the follow adventures on the DM's Map work on rumors and patrons to hire the players

The Halls of Tizun Thane

Dark Tower from Judges Guild

The Abduction of Good King Despot

Isle of the Abbey Dungeon #34

B10 Nights Dark Terror

Ancient Blood - Dungeon #20 https://annarchive.com/files/Dungeon%20Magazine%20%23020.pdf

Citadel by the Sea - Dragon Magazine #78

HS4 The Forge of Ilmarinen by Jeremy Reaban

Ghost Tower of Inverness

Wandering Trees - Dragon Magazine #57

Chagmat - Dragon Magazine #63

The Shattered Circle

Can Seapoint Be Saved - Dragon Magazine #75

Tempus Gelidum – Gus L. https://dungeonofsigns.blogspot.com/2012/12/tempus-gelidium-full-pdf.html

Forest of Doom Dragon Magazine #73

Red Tam's Bones

RC1 The Valley of Karaccia by Mithgarthr Entertainment

Under the Temple Crypt

The Ruins of the White Watch

The Lost Shrine of Sirona

The fun is seeing which ones they actually go do

Then to eventually wrap up the fun - Putting an end to it all I often combine Gone Fishing and Deep Carbon Observatory together for fun

Brood Mother Skyfortress is a must have to end things

another is The Monolith From Beyond Space and Time