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Notes -
Does anybody here have experience with OSR D&D?
Yesterday, I ran a first session of the classic adventure module Caverns of Thracia. I did this to familiarize myself and my players with old-school mechanics in hopes of running, at some point, Deep Carbon Observatory. That captivated me a while back when I was trawling through greatest hits of the OSR, a logical next step from my on again/off again interest in the abstract concept of roleplaying games. Why do I care about that in the first place, seeing as how little I actually play such games? The margin is too narrow to contain an explanation.
But I digress.
Character sheets were simple enough. 3d6 in order, pick race/class, secondary stats. They handled this well enough until we got to equipment. Two of the core mechanics of old-school D&D are “can I afford to lug this around?” and “can I afford not to?” New players can’t really answer either of these questions. Asking them to tally encumbrance is fine. Asking them to plan a baggage train’s worth of loadouts with a limited budget is too much. Simplifying the mechanics with something like an inventory-slot system only helps answer the first question. It does nothing to pare down an overwhelming solution space. Still, this section got my players into a hilariously paranoid spiral over the presence of garlic and stakes in the (basic, non-adventure specific) equipment list. By the time we finalized gear, they were convinced that vampires and werewolves would both feature prominently. I count that as a win.
Actual adventuring started off just fine, too. “A break in the foliage reveals long, low stone walls. The lack of tree cover behind them suggests a plaza or platform. Further structures are visible to the southwest and north. What do you do?” I chose not to switch to adventuring turns until they needed light sources, so this was freeform. They encountered a camp of tribesmen in the southwest ruined tower, but the reaction roll was neutral, so they were able to back off without shedding blood. Investigating that plaza revealed a staircase down and a pair of distorted, doglike guards. Fortunately, those guards were distracted by the campfire smoke from the previous encounter and remained unaware of the party. When a minotaur sauntered up the steps to discipline his guards, the party wisely chose to back off and find another approach.
The next platform they investigated was keyed with a lizardman ambush, a volley of darts followed by a retreat into favorable terrain. As written, this involves half a dozen 2HD monsters getting the drop on the party. I couldn’t tell if I was running exploration or surprise rules wrong, because I couldn’t tell what the players should have done differently. I ended up toning down the number of lizards since the party was so small.
We ended the session there, with the cleric injured but no one dead. I count that as fortunate. Nobody seemed too frustrated, but they have no obvious avenues of progress, and a distinct lack of firepower against anything that wasn’t already determined to run away. I really hope they aren’t convinced that those lizard men were guarding something important.
Real hours: 2.5
Exploration turns: 0
Combat rounds: 1
The fact that we didn’t actually get into a dungeon with corridors and traps has thrown me for a loop. Has anyone here played Thracia, or can anyone point me to actual play of the surface? Am I doing this right?
I have no experience with OSR, but from what I gathered browsing one (1) OSR-related blog, the inventory problem is often solved by hiring people to lug your stuff around behind you while dungeoneering.
That’s the baggage train to which I was alluding. It’s an interesting optimization puzzle…which I wasn’t willing to inflict on a small party fresh out of managing their own encumbrance. Not yet.
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