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Friday, January 20, 2012

Making An OSR "Stew"

I was thinking of the feasibility of running a game using / allowing the use of ALL of the OSR rules available.

I know Zak has the Flailsnail Concord or some such, allowing the use of characters from different rule sets and campaigns in Constacon sessions with some conversion if necessary, but I'm thinking more like a regular, coherent campaign that allows for the use of multiple OSR RPG rules by the players.

For example, John wants to play a fighter from Labyrinth Lord, Advanced Edition Characters, Tom wants to play a magic-user from Basic Fantasy RPG, Cindy wants to grab a cleric from Swords & Wizardry Complete and Adam isn't sure what class he wants to play, but he knows he wants to use the Adventurer Conqueror King Systems for his.

I'm figuring except for AC, everything should work fairly well. AC would need to be converted to one of the systems in use.

As long as no one becomes a rules lawyer over minor hiccups, the DM should be able to hand wave any inconsistencies.

Your thoughts?

7 comments:

  1. It's not just AC that needs minding, it's also hit chances, saving throws and ability modifiers. Seemingly superficial stuff but without adapting to a campaign norm things can be a bit confusing.

    An LL fighter with STR 17 would be +2 to hit and damage while a SW:WB fighter with STR 18 would be +1. How fast does soemone move in chain mail? 9", 6", 30' or 20'?

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  2. For what it's worth, Castles & Crusades was basically designed for this sort of thing. It was made to be compatible with every D&D product from OD&D to 3.5. Worth looking at to get an idea of what kind of modularity was put into such a system.

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  3. As Ozreth said above, C&C is workable with all editions easily, except maybe 4E.

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  4. My immediate though: I understand DM's caring about rules. Players should focus on imagination and fun. **What** can their characters do, not *how* they do it. How is problem for DM.

    Players who are that concerned with the rules, are "doing it wrong". Power-gamers, min-maxers, believing they are limited by rules, etc.

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  5. I agree with Norman -- role play over rule play!

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  6. Interesting idea, but can a stew have too many ingredients?

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  7. C&C would make a decent base for this stew. Fairly flexible and seems to be a good middle ground.

    As for too many ingredients? I dunno. This seems to be the aim of 5e, but if that's the case, shouldn't it be even easier to get the OSR games to work together?

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