The state of Post-OSR content

Hemlock said:
As an example of the former, think of all of those AD&D monster entries that have "number appearing: 30-300." If 286 orcs show up, that's not supposed to be a mere "combat encounter" that's over in a few moments one way or the other. That's practically an invading army, and you might begin interacting with them long before you meet them, by seeing empty fields, burning villages, or refugees trudging hopelessly along the road. The metapurpose of these kinds of random encounters is to add INTEREST and DYNAMISM to the world, to give players things to react to and play off of. It could be 30-300 orcs; it could be a traveling circus run by P.J. Barman with strongmen and acrobats for hire; it could be a sphinx occupying a key trade route and demanding riddling opponents or tribute; it could be an ancient battlefield generating spontaneous undead war parties. At any rate, it's not something I necessarily need the players to resolve right now so much as I need them to know that it's there, now, as part of the context of whatever else they're doing during this adventure. And of course if they do start digging up the battlefield looking for the source of the unrest, they'll find something worth their time.
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I see this, not so much as a random encounter, as procedurally generated content generation (which I think is how it was originally meant to be used, when exploring wilderness that the DM had not keyed).

BTW, the Fiend Folio borks this, by nearly always giving dungeon encounter numbers, instead of wilderness encounter numbers; whereas the Monster Manual gives wilderness encounter numbers for anything that can be encountered in the wilderness. This is why the MM usually discusses the community structure associated with a set of numbers (like the number of leaders, or the fact that if more than two dragons are encountered, the third and fourth will be younger offspring).
 
Agreed, and this is why AD&D (and by extension, OSRIC) needs a book of maps for in-lair encounters that combines the community-based settlements of the MM with the complex-monster examples from Rogues Gallery (for creatures like liches, titans, dragons, etc.) as ready-made encounters that don’t SUCK like most of the Book of Lairs 1 and 2 and related products did (OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes, and setting-specific books for DL, FR, and SJ; REF5 Lords of Darkness being an exception, somewhat).

This is something I’ve been working on on-and-off for several years (not as long as my mega-dungeon designing essays anthology, though), and it will really help shine a light on the type of encounters that exemplify AD&D play at its best.

If I ever finish it ;)

Allan.
 
That's a really great idea Allan. The Frogs Monster Manuals tried to do that to some extent, giving you a text-only example encounter with each monster.

In many ways, that's also what the wildness portion of my campaign book has slowly evolved into---a network of spatially scattered lairs around a few tent-pole installations.
 
grodog said:
Agreed, and this is why AD&D (and by extension, OSRIC) needs a book of maps for in-lair encounters that combines the community-based settlements of the MM with the complex-monster examples from Rogues Gallery (for creatures like liches, titans, dragons, etc.) as ready-made encounters that don’t SUCK like most of the Book of Lairs 1 and 2 and related products did (OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes, and setting-specific books for DL, FR, and SJ; REF5 Lords of Darkness being an exception, somewhat).

This is something I’ve been working on on-and-off for several years (not as long as my mega-dungeon designing essays anthology, though), and it will really help shine a light on the type of encounters that exemplify AD&D play at its best.

If I ever finish it ;)

Allan.
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I've been thinking for a while that a book of bandit camps, one for each terrain type, would be good. But you could do the same thing for demihuman villages, dragon lairs, etc.
 
I was thinking of picking up Raging Swans' Laironomicon, which just got released today. I dig the Thingonomicon from the same publisher, which is full of cool little tables like what that sword looks like or what that ring looks like or what you find on the dead cleric, etc. I may wait to see a few sample pages before I spring to find out how cool the lairs actually are.
 
grodog said:
OSRIC new edition planning starting: new changes are afoot for OSRIC!

Read-up and get current on the Knights & Knaves Alehouse discussion thread started by Matt Finch at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=18254

Allan.
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I've ALWAYS had a constant battle trying to log in to the Knights and Knaves website. Long ago I had registered, got in a few times, then could never log in again. I don't think I pissed anyone off but who knows? Not sure what the deal is.

Anyways, this is exciting news. Although my partner wants to move into a homebrew 2e edition for publishing, I still like the idea of OSRIC and its support. I don't have all the info on the AELF license but already I trust it more than anything else out there....just because of the people behind it. I'm excited for the Kickstarter! As a publisher, Id love a sneak peak of the stat block they plan to use......
 
grodog said:
You’re definitely blocked, banned, or anything like that.
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Like Allan said, you are definitely banned...but you should waste many hours trying to get in anyway because the gatekeepers find it amusing. :P

yArPBG.gif
 
If my account does not get approved can you advocate for Charlie's involvement or a reach out?

I feel strongly he would help and be a great voice

I want this osric 3 black blade hardcover on my table so bad

Shout outs to Allan and co
 
My account creation is not approved
Totally understand that account is for one of the most establish blogs in the space
Not a mimic XD
 
If you can point to your posts in the help thread, I’m sure we can get the accounts approved.

Allan.
 
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