You are not a traitor to the OSR...you ARE the OSR

A manyfesto.

manifesto (n.) "public declaration," 1640s, from Italian manifesto "public declaration explaining past actions and announcing the motive for forthcoming ones," originally "proof," from Latin manifestus (see manifest (adj.)

manifest (adj.) 

probably from manus "hand"+ -festus "struck"

While this blog entry is struck by one hand, my point is that the OSR is struck by many. Including yours?

Occasionally I see posts like..."I am a trader to the OSR because..." or "I am going to be an outcast for saying this, but..." and I find it really baffling. The OSR is not an institution. It is not incorporated. It is not an authority. There is not an undisputable cannon set in stone. There is no authority to betray.

or else from Latin manifestare "to discover, disclose, betray"

Now we're talking.

The OSR DIY community is a community. It is made of us. it is whatever we are. We are individuals, not of unified mind or ruleset. The OSR is wondrous and breathes many treasures because it is legion. It is not homogenous. There are many parts, each differing from the other but (mostly) working to make each other's experiences more awesome. We are always discovering the OSR together.

Listen.. people be askin me all the time,
"Yo Mos, what's gettin ready to happen with Hip-Hop?"
(Where do you think Hip-Hop is goin?)
I tell em, "You know what's gonna happen with Hip-Hop?
Whatever's happening with us"
If we smoked out, Hip-Hop is gonna be smoked out
If we doin alright, Hip-Hop is gonna be doin alright
People talk about Hip-Hop like it's some giant livin in the hillside
comin down to visit the townspeople
We (are) Hip-Hop
Me, you, everybody, we are Hip-Hop
So Hip-Hop is goin where we goin
So the next time you ask yourself where Hip-Hop is goin

ask yourself.. where am I goin? How am I doin?

-Mos Def, Fear Not of Man 

skip to 1 minute in to hear the above or click here to see/hear on YouTube.

Why do I care about these posts? Post what you want. What I fear is the view from within what I consider to be the OSR community that the OSR has ossified. That there is a cannon which one must follow. We all have our cannon of rules, books, and modules, and learn from and about each other by sharing what those are - and that they are often different.

There is no academy. There is no OSR government. The OSR IS THE REVOLUTION. 

If you're reading this, you're probably already a part of it. 

You're not a traitor to the OSR...you are the OSR.

The revolution will be gamified...let's play!

The Shadow of...SANTICORE!

Secret Santicore 2014 wants you!

http://santicore.blogspot.com/2014/08/secret-santicore-2014-needs-you.html

Go read that post!

In case there is any confusion: I will not be running it or compiling the PDF this year. I have been playing fairy godmother to get things started, but after another week or so I simply won't have time to participate. I might make and fulfill a request, depending. If some other things I'm working on go swimmingly, I might pitch in again in November, but I can't guarantee that and I don't want people relying on me to get the thing done.

If you'd like to help make a PDF, compile many PDFs, be a Handler, or help move the whole project along from a mile-high "project manager" type of view, send an email to the contacts in the blog entry linked above!

If you are confused or curious about Secret Santicore, read this FAQ I wrote when I oversaw it last year.

SANTICORE VOBISCUM

My First RPG

While I often have a distaste for memes, the recent posts got me thinking about the first RPG I played. Sure, sure, the first commerical RPG was probably AD&D 2nd Edition, but what was the first I played?

It's been around 25 years, I think it went something like this...

Character creation:

-find several GI Joe figures (and/or knock-offs that were constructed the same way) with parts that are awesome (cool helmet, neat armor on the arms, good weapons strapped to chest, rocket boots, etc)

-take out the screw in the back, disassemble, reassemble the parts you like. Watch out for the rubber band that hold the pelvis&legs onto the torso! It's hard to position right

-Have adventures!

Your character has the stuff on the parts you used, and whatever add ons (guns, backpack/rocket attachments, etc) not already associated with a currently alive other figure that make sense or you're jazzed about. Of course, their actual abilities are whatever you can imagine and justify to yourself or whichever friend is also playing.

I recall many cybernetics, space travel, trans-dimensional creatures and heroes, lady ninja assassin heroines that were at least as awesome as the main heroes, transformers as enemies, and dates that ended with two figures in a box overnight where something vague happened towards the end of my open-imagination toy playing.

OH yeah - there was a ice cream spaceship gained in a trade with my sister where a growing family of Yodas lived (including eye color variants). Eventually there were 4 of them, and I'm sure they argued and gave contradictory advice to the characters who made the long, hard trek to the mountaintop where their ice cream sundae spaceship was often docked.

Terrain was anything in my room, yard, the neighbor's yard, etc, including extensive dirt sculptures and hedge trimmings. 

ANYWAY, the first commercial RPG books I remember encountering and devouring were the AD&D 2ed PHB and DMG my sister brought home. To start, our main group were all older folks we met through Dallas Comic Cons, then eventually got invited to their home games. Later, we had a few years of playing in a church's meeting room after hours -at the tail end of the Satanic panic, to boot! We didn't tell them that's what we were doing. I think they thought we were playing board games. One of the group had a key.

This all led to the campaign I ran where the base was a dimensionally-travelling tavern called "Neutral Turf" with an umber hulk bartender.

The Sidekick Hardsuit (item/henchthing)

Sidekick Hardsuit - a mechanical animal the size of a dog or large housecat. Starts with 1d8 HP, healed by casting any spell into it's spell engine or at a Blaster Recharge Station.

Can turn into a mechanical suit of armor, improving wearer's AC by double it's HD (starts at 1 HD).
It's HD is increased by 1 when it earns X000 XP and then X000 GP of gems is fed to it's Spell Engine. X=current HD.

When in animal form, It's own AC starts at 12 ascending, and improves by 1 when it goes up in HD.

So 5 months ago I asked some folks on G+ to look at a version of this, and they had great suggestions, some of which are reproduced below. Feel free to make your own, or post them on G+!

+Pearce Shea said  

yeah, I like it too, but given the cost of a level v the AC reward and (I'm assuming) it counts as magical armor (weightless), I might require its HD x 1,000 XP & GP to level it up. Does that make sense?

Also - cursed armourfriend sounds like it's rife with potential (Junketsu- grants AC equal to the HD it leeches off you in blood, Junketsu - grants +Atttack & damage equal to the HD it leeches off you in blood, or COVERS, which slowly consumes you [light armor + 2 {ie, as medium armor} but each miss that is saved by the bonus margin means -2 Con or something])

I integrated his first suggestion above, and really dig the second.

+Reynaldo Madriñan said You could do a lot with it too - various armorfiends could gain small powers every once in a while instead of raw effectiveness.

+Richard Grenville said  

the cursed version is actually a lot like a monster I ran once; a bunch of heavily-armoured slavers - it turned out the armour was in control and using life force from the withered people inside it for magical repairs. They looked like Githyanki but were actually humans suffering the effects of the armour's life drain. 

I was going to save this til I could write a big post and draw a few of them, but it seems great for #awesomegamerday so you get it today!

A debt to +Scrap Princess 's posts here:
http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2014/02/grab-bag-of-symboitical-armour-mechanics.html

http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-wonderful-world-of-symbiotic-armour.html

http://monstermanualsewnfrompants.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-wonderful-world-of-symbotic-armour.html

So You Ate the Dungeon Chocolate, Now What?

Shortly after I moved to NYC, a friend was visiting who hadn't lived in such a dirty city before. I dropped a piece of chocolate on the subway platform. He, knowing me as a germophobe from our high school days, thought to be cool and daring by scooping it up and eating it. Our friends and I stared for a moment. Right away, "Subway Chocolate" became a thing with that group of pals.
Did it cause you to turn into a rat? Did it make you turn into a subway car when you got horny? (We came up with a whole awkward teen cartoon show!)

Thus: Dungeon Chocolate. That thing your PC shouldn't have touched, eaten, etc.
So you need a random effect for a PC who interacted with something they shouldn't have?
Unless stated otherwise, these can be removed by Cure Disease or Remove Curse.

"Astral Projection" by exileinblonde on Deviantart

1	You can turn your body ethereal at will for 1d6 rounds per level; each time you do, an Ability Score is reduced by 1 permanently. In addition, you return to physical form with only 1 HP.
2	You can leave your body; you see a dim reflection of physical objects, and can’t make noise or physically affect anything (although you don’t sink through the floor.) Your body is completely prone and helpless in this state. Your body dies if you don’t get back in it within 24 hours. You also have the penalties of 1 above.
3	You can reroll one roll (except damage) per game session, and take the higher. Everyone else within 40 ft must reroll their next roll and take the lower.
4	Switch one physical (STR, DEX, CON) with one mental (WIS, INT, CHA) ability.
5	Techno-Organic Virus; you get a random robot ability, but lose 1 HP permanently when you use it. If you don’t use the ability in the first round of a combat, the virus wounds you for 1d10 HP.
6	Your flesh begins rotting and turning into toxic slime, which reforms into scarred, tumorous muscles; roll 1d6 and lose that many CHA and add to STR; next game session lose that many INT and add to CON
7	Make a CON save whenever you enter battle, are surprised, or otherwise in a stressful situation; if you fail, you vomit up roaches and other vermin for one round, in which you can do nothing else.
8	Oops, it wasn't chocolate, it was wormy poop! You get a +1 to all Poison Saves, but must eat double rations daily or heal 1 less HP from all Healing. *
9	You slowly turn into a different race or species; in 1d6 days or next gaming session roll on the Reincarnation Chart and make adjustments.
10	Automatically make all Saves VS Magic, but all magic items turn mundane in your hands (and resume being magical when you let go), and beneficial spells do not work on you. Curable by quest.
11	You receive mad visions with a 50% +level chance of gauging the potential for success of the party's current plan. After the immediate first time, you can enter this trance state in wilderness by burning certain herbs and breathing the smoke, but it leaves you helpless and bedridden for 24 hours.
12	Save VS Magic or change alignment/faction allegiance/etc. If you pass that save, Save VS Death or die.

hey this is awkward I thought of 8 more...

13	A crust forms on your extremities over the next turn. You cannot hold objects or move silently. You can attack with the hardened crust for 1d6 damage, your AC improves by 2, but if you roll a 1 on the attack the crust shatters, doing 1d6+1 to you and mangling your hands and feet.
14	A crust forms on your torso and head over the next turn. If you are wearing armor at the end of this turn, you take 2d6 damage. Your AC improves by 4 due to the crust, but any time you are hit, there is a +10% chance per To-Hit bonus of the attacker that the crust shatters, mangling your torso and head for 2d4 damage. If you are hit with a natural 20, a limb is severed (1- RLeg, 2- LLeg, 3-RArm, 4-LArm)
15	You can see in Darkness, but have a -2 penalty to all rolls in bright light.
16	Good bit of chocolate, that. You could use a cuppa, though. In fact, healing doesn't work on you any day you don't take a break of at least a turn and have some well-brewed, high-quality tea. When you do, any healing that has been attempted on you happens all at once.
17	Save VS Poison or be incapacitated for 1d6 turns.
18	What a stroke of luck! +1 to all your rolls the rest of the session.
19	Giant green rage monster: you are under the effects of an Enlarge spell as if cast by a 2d4 level Wizard for 1d4+4 rounds. You attack the nearest creature, if there are many, the last one that hurt you.
20	Roll 1d1000 Here

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy

Haunted (condition for old school rpg games)

"Another one squashed beneath your boot

dashed to pieces with your saber

not even a name to you

a hurdle to gold was on the table

a moat filled with blood you were happy to drain

another one that wouldn't be tricked by your slippery brainsssss

They came to me, after

ssaid, your tassk issss finished. 

Sssssserved your god well, reward for matter

to cower in hisssss pressencessss diminished.

No. What issss thissss word, "No?"

No, I ssssaid. A new tasssk hassss begun."

I gripped the stone face with my last strength, a bead of sweat dripping off my nose, down countless distance, likely on to the sleeping beast below.

"Well, prattling spirit, help me out of this chasm or shove me down into it, but do shut up."

-excerpt from the unedited journal of Porpulent Grantz, explorer, King's Agent, and appointed Savior of the Far Isles.

--

Ghosts as a monster in the Manual are a fine scary beast if run well, but that pile of stats and abilities does not speak to the ghost stories of the heart.

Adventurers are responsible for a great number of souls crossing from life to un-life, from here to there, perhaps more than their enemies, even. 

Being responsible in the real world for maintaining much contemporary equipment that transmits data from here to there, I have the terrible knowledge of how feeble it all is, how many mistakes happen per second that our equipment ignores. Whether the passage of souls is bureaucracy, like unto technology, or a natural process in your worlds, there must at times be mistakes. Perhaps the passion for vengeance overrules sense and order.

It seems inevitable that some adventurers, at some time, will become haunted by a damned soul. Whether touching the wrong thing or smiting a soul that burns hot, the living gains a passenger. This passenger likely wants to see the adventurer suffer, but this creates a paradox; the adventurer must succeed on some occasions to suffer on others. It should also be mentioned that the dead are insane.

Haunted - the PC afflicted so rolls an additional d6 when rolling Ability Checks, Saving Throws, Spell Checks, and To Hit.

1-2 : subtract the number rolled from the check*

3-5 : no effect

6 : add +1 to the check

*after a result of 1 or 2, the player may choose to stop rolling the extra die for the next hour of real time. The ghost is exhausted, disgusted, satisfied; the dead have trouble telling those conditions apart.

The Haunted PC may ask the ghost questions about things it knew in life. On a successful CHArisma check, the Ghost might answer.

It is heavily recommended that if the player does not occasionally role play this haunting, the GM does.

This mechanic partially inspired by Elektra: Assassin by Miller/Sienkiewicz and +Ian Johnson 's d4 drunk mechanic, among other things.

What could be better?

People who read my blog, play in my games, read my posts, and/or read my entries in Santicores past: what do I need to work on? What most needs improvement?
I'm not being neurotic or down on myself here, and there's nothing I'm particularly worried about. I just have a backlog of big serious projects that I'm embarking upon, and wanted some outside feedback for things to keep in mind. Since these are longer-term and more serious RPG projects than I've done before, I wanted to take stock as I plunge in today.

Comment here, or on G+ if you prefer.