Your favorite OSR retroclones, and what they do well?

[Amaril]

For the past while, I've had an idea knocking around in my head for a game/setting based on the Book of Enoch, and some of the modern works that take creative liberties with it (like the movie Noah or the video game El Shaddai). In a time before the biblical Flood, on an Earth so ancient nothing remains of it in history, humanity is enslaved and oppressed by the fallen angels known as the Watchers, while their monstrous half-human offspring, the Nephilim, ravage the land, devouring all in their path. The players are among those few humans who still resist the Watchers, traveling from place to place fighting their minions, stealing the advanced technology and magic they've brought to Earth and using it against them.

(I know this might be drifting a bit close to forum rules on religion, so just to be clear, I don't mean for any of this to be a discussion on actual biblical mythology--rather, I'm only trying to use that material as a basis for fiction. Hope it's okay.)

In terms of system, I think the best way to do something like this would be with an OSR retroclone. The traditional classes would work well for the setting: fighters and thieves fit in anywhere, magic-users could wield sorcery taught to humanity by the Watchers, and clerics could communicate with God to receive miracles. The old-school adventure model of "go into dungeons to steal treasure and magic items" would work well too, with dungeons being various weird locations the Watchers have built, and stealing their creations benefiting the PCs' communities, helping them to survive in this dangerous world (I'd want to look at making that more of a focus than the PCs being rootless drifters--rather, they'd be part of resistance cells that are always strapped for resources, and trust the PCs with acquiring them).

My group has been trying out Lamentations of the Flame Princess lately, and I feel like that might be a good fit, with some tweaking to the equipment list, and possibly to the magic rules. I'm also aware of Dungeon Crawl Classics, though I don't think that one's areas of focus are quite as good a fit for this idea. To make sure I understand my options, I wanted to ask what other good retroclone systems people have checked out, and what their emphases are, like how Lamentations is all about the weird and horrific, and DCC seems to really emphasize the lethality of old-school play. I could also just write my own retroclone specifically for the setting, but even then, it's nice to know what others have tried. Any suggestions?

[Yora]

My favorite one is Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It really is the only way I would want to play D&D now if the circumstances demand that it has to be a D&D system. The very important thing it does is straightening out the math. Characters have a simple attack bonus and a positive Armor Class, and the thief skills use a single d6 instead of a d100, and are also fully customizable. It also has a slot-based inventory system that makes tracking encumbrance much easier than always recalculating weight, and so practical to use that you can actually use encumbrance instead of just ignoring it because it's so annoying.
Another thing I really like about it is that it drops the limitations on weapons and armor. Everyone can wear and use everything. Wizards only have to look out that their encumbrance doesn't go too high.
Not necessarily an improvement, but certainly an interesting choice that I quite like, is that only Fighters increase their attack bonus as they gain levels. All other characters always have a bonus of +1+Strength or +1+Dexterity. This means that a high Strength wizard can actually fight quite well compared to a 3rd level fighter with moderate Strength, which really helps to break up the pigeonholing of the classes. However, as a fighter progresses in levels, the attack bonus becomes a really important ability. Fighters generally don't have any real abilities except of good hit points and hitting better. In LotFP, high level fighters hit much better than anyone else. Attack bonus is a really important ability.

One thing that I find quite important about LotFP is that the weird horror stuff really is all in the adventures. With the exception of a few wizard spells, the rules themselves are very much generic D&D. But aside from the much improved comfort at using the math, what really sells me on this variant is that the fighter, wizard, and specialist classes feel much more suited to a wider range of genres than "generic D&D". With wizards and specialists having access to weapons and armor, specialists being customizable to be other things than just thieves, and wizards not having the standard blasting spells, characters can be played as much more than just "Fighter", "Thief", and "Wizard".

[DrMartin]

The Black Hack is a very polished OSR inspired system. Focused on dungeon exploring, with really simple mechanics: players roll all the dice except monster damage, every roll is a d20 roll against a stat, (so e.g. roll under your strength to hit in melee, roll under your dex to avoid the monster attack, etc), plus there is a advantage/disadvantage like in 5e.

Text and Tables are open game content so are available online: worth checking out in my opinion :)

[Thrudd]

Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS) is a good one, too. It is based on B/X D&D, with a few tweaks. It has a very good system for designing and implementing fantasy economies and playing the domain ruling phase (level 10-13) with long-term downtime activities. It also has a nice custom class creation system in the second book to be released. My favorite part is the mortal wounds tables and its take on resurrection (restore life and limb).

[Joe the Rat]

Rules-wise, DCC can do a lot for you. The flavor of magic, the gonzo weirdness, and using alignment to reflect connections to elements can work well. Wizard Patronage can feed the grigori or nephilhim or Something Else into characters, creating delightful questions of further loyalty. Wizards burnthemselves and are corrupted by their magics. Clerics can fall out of favor for the day, and be cursed while their magic is on karma cooldown. It has a lot of the same cosmic horror DNA as LotFP.

But the central conceits of the system may work against you. Your characters are schmoes who have the misfortune of falling into adventure. Half a village gets whittled into the 1-2 characters each person plays. It is very much an anti-hero system. Plus all the weird dice. But those Deeds of Arms...

[Amaril]

Rules-wise, DCC can do a lot for you. The flavor of magic, the gonzo weirdness, and using alignment to reflect connections to elements can work well. Wizard Patronage can feed the grigori or nephilhim or Something Else into characters, creating delightful questions of further loyalty. Wizards burnthemselves and are corrupted by their magics. Clerics can fall out of favor for the day, and be cursed while their magic is on karma cooldown. It has a lot of the same cosmic horror DNA as LotFP.

But the central conceits of the system may work against you. Your characters are schmoes who have the misfortune of falling into adventure. Half a village gets whittled into the 1-2 characters each person plays. It is very much an anti-hero system. Plus all the weird dice. But those Deeds of Arms...

Alignment is something I'm a little conflicted on, here. On the one hand, it's stupid and everyone hates it; but, on the other, this premise actually sets up a perfect, totally fitting alignment conflict. Rather than Good and Evil or Law and Chaos, I think I'd do it as Holy and Profane, or something similar. Emphasis would be placed on how Profane things, like magic-users, aren't necessarily evil--both the Holy and the Profane have their place in the rightful order of the universe, but the Profane can be harmful if mishandled or abused.

If I do go for LotFP, I think I'd bring in the alternate spellcasting system from the Vaginas Are Magic supplement (no spell levels, magic-users get one spell slot per level, cast prepared spells safely, can cast any spell they know at any time without preparation but roll on a risky cast save table with potentially horrible mishaps). I think that emphasizes how the knowledge taught to humanity by the Watchers isn't inherently evil, just dangerous if abused, as they and their servants have done. Magic-users can stay safe if they're careful and judicious, but the temptation of greater power at greater risk is always there. Does LotFP not have a system for clerics losing favor by default? If not, I'd definitely want to implement one, possibly from DCC.

I agree, though, some of the central conceits of DCC do kind of run against the feel I want to go for. The whole "start with three level 0 peasants and throw them into a meat grinder to see who comes out again" is definitely part of it. I'd want this game to be lethal, but I get the sense DCC might turn that dial a little too far for my purposes. LotFP, far as I've played it, gives just the right balance of characters feeling heroic while still being very much mortal.

[Frozen_Feet]

Lamentations of the Flame Princess. It is the cleanest, simplest, most playable version of B/X or OD&D I've encountered. But turns out that goes a long way when for once the modules and the design philosophy behind them are actually interesting.

Oh yeah, the Encumberance really are brilliant. They'd deserve to be plagiarized to mainstream games as well. Much easier than tallying weights.

[Doorhandle]

Oh yeah, the Encumberance really are brilliant. They'd deserve to be plagiarized to mainstream games as well. Much easier than tallying weights.

Probably why Diablo and other computer RPGs have been using a similar system for years Still commendable to backport them however.

[Anonymouswizard]

Another vote for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, due to both it's continuing movement away from a houseruled B/X into it's own thing. Not only does it remove most of the offensive Magic-User spells and buffing Magic Missile to the point where at higher levels you can rely on it for offensive and fill your higher level slots with interesting spells.

The encumbrance rules are also great, although I still haven't memorised if oversized items count as two items or if they give +1 encumbrance, although I suspect the latter. But the rules work really well, as most characters will end up making the choice of if they want another few items, slightly better armour, or both with the reduced move. I remember it ends up with Magic-Users never using plate armour as they then are effectively unable to carry other items while casting spells, and even chain being questionable compared to leather.

Note that you can build an armoured specialist, but you'll be missing most of the 'thief' skills or be stripping out of your armour to use it.

There are a few house rules I'd make, mainly aimed at how high level combat will either be padded sumo or heavily weighted against the PCs, depending on how you build opponents and the number you use. The simplest is that I'd allow everybody to apply their Attack Bonus to damage rolls, do you're not dealing a mere 1d8 damage to a 16HD+ slime dragon. But that's a minor problem that arises from the fact I'll be using it for a different type of game than it was strictly intended for.

Also, Alignment is pretty good in it. It removes any notion on it being related to actions or morality, just a simple 'hey, are you influenced by heavenly beings, gribbly demon things, or neither'. Almost makes up for the fact that the Summon spell can cause a localised breakdown of logic (when you finally grok the rules it boils down to 'the biggest pile of dice rolled wins'). Okay, the amazingness of the Summon spell makes up for it's flaws all on it's own.

[Florian]

Adventurer Conqueror King (ACKS) is a good one, too. It is based on B/X D&D, with a few tweaks. It has a very good system for designing and implementing fantasy economies and playing the domain ruling phase (level 10-13) with long-term downtime activities. It also has a nice custom class creation system in the second book to be released. My favorite part is the mortal wounds tables and its take on resurrection (restore life and limb).

Second that. Very good compromise between keeping it old-school simple and still offer the more streamlined and customizable system that were used to today.

[Belac93]

The GLOG (goblin laws of gaming). It's more of a toolkit than a game, but it works well, is quite simple, entirely free, and has a ton of fan support on the internet.

[2D8HP]

I've liked Labyrinth Lord which is basically '81 "Basic" D&D, with some tweaks, and there's supplements to make it more like OD&D or AD&D.

I own LotFP "Rules & Magic", plus a few Adventures and it looks to be a good system, with more changes than LL did from the original D&D rules, none of the changes look harmful, and some look helpful, but they make it harder for my fossilized mind to remember, because there new, but LotFP has the very big advantage of actual printed and bound real books that are on the gamestore shelf instead of hard to read PDF's (I was able to convince my FLGS to get and sell me print copies of LL as well).

My favorite rules of old D&D are the 1977 "bluebook" Basic rules, which was my first game I owned, and used as a DM first (I was a DM before I was a player), the LBB's and oD&D supplements that my first DM used, and all the AD&D stuff from before 1985, but I saw the 1994 "Classic" D&D rules (same as '91 "black box") and they are the easiet version of TSR D&D to learn by reading them, instead of by folklore.

The '81 "B/X" rules, and the '83 "red box" or easier to learn from than my beloved 1970's rules as well.

I don't have deep knowledge of 2e AD&D, but I understand that it's easier to read than 1e AD&D as well.

The 1991 "Rules Cyclopedia" is pretty cool, but not quite an introduction to new players as "Basic" and "Classic", but it includes and expands upon those rules

Anyway, here is a list of retroclones with links,


which you may wish to compare to this list