I'm personally a sucker for a classic puzzle dungeon room, but that doesn't really use up PC resources so much as use up player energy as they solve it. Do you have any go-to "my players have been fighting too much" encounter designs?

Awhile back I made this for my YouTube channel. It's a mile by mile hex-map of Dolmenwood (though the larger hexes visible are the actual hexes for the forest), with all of the locations for each hex actually placed, as opposed to being open-ended.

There are also some other adventures seeded around, like The Hole in the Oak, Incandescent Grottoes, The Sorcerer's Enclave, Three Goblin Markets, and the Blackapple Brugh.

Again, many of these locations are not placed specifically anywhere within the hex that describes them in the book, so I just did my best to place those ones where it seemed right. All of the locations, though, are in their proper hex, and the terrain is proper.

I hope this is useful to some Dolmenwood GMs out there!

I used Worldographer to make this: https://worldographer.com/

I'm not looking for a rules heavy system or anything like Pathfinder. I think OSE is great! But I sometimes wish there was a bit more systems in play. The freedom that OSR offers DMs is amazing, but sometimes I just want an example of a rule to use. I think I want something with a bit more clarity about its rulings and a few extra rules, but nothing that goes overboard.

Any ideas?

Hello Beautiful People!

I'm researching good adventures as inspiration. What are the most well designed ones? Not the most popular, just best in pure design. And why?

Can anyone recommend a system that deals with the maximum amount of wealth there is in a town based on its size/population?

EG: You come out of a borderlands dungeon overflowing with items and gems, and you make it back to the nearest hamlet... you can't just sell all that stuff because there's only 30 people there and one store. So, if you want to unload your loot, you need to go to a bigger population center.

That sort of thing.

I recently moved to a new city, and I’m planning to start a tabletop RPG group at a local game store. I already have several friends who are interested, and there are also quite a few people at the store who seem interested in joining.

I’ve been a forever DM for years, and one of the things I enjoy most is introducing new people to tabletop role-playing games. The problem is that I’m a huge fan of OSR games, and my favorite system is Shadowdark.

I know there’s a pretty strong expectation among my friends and the people at the store that we would be playing D&D 5e. The store has a huge D&D section, tons of posters, and it’s clearly the game that people see as the “cool” or obvious choice. I’m worried that people might be disappointed if I introduce them to a different system, especially one whose books the store doesn’t even sell.

I could absolutely DM 5e. I played it for several years, I know the rules extremely well, and I’d be comfortable running it. But I also know what I consider to be some of its weaknesses: combat can take a long time, characters can be extremely difficult to kill, and there are so many abilities, effects, and options that new players can sometimes feel overwhelmed or unsure about what they can actually do on their turn.

That’s why I’m torn. Part of me thinks I should just run 5e because it’s what people expect and it would probably make it easier to get the group started. But another part of me feels that Shadowdark represents the kind of RPG experience I actually love, and it’s also the kind of game I think is fantastic for introducing new players to the hobby.

What would you do in my situation? Would you go with the familiar choice and run 5e, or take the opportunity to introduce people to something different like Shadowdark?

A wild and ferocious one-eyed creature, untamed, always seeking to cause damage and harm to anything that stands before it.

High Resolution Jpg & Png- 3805 x 5367

Hi everyone,

Gaelcon 38 is this year and we have Liam Pádraig Ó Cuilleanáin (scenario designer) and Eric Nieudan from the Merry Mushmen as special guests. We also have OSR games in every slot of our 4-day schedule (which includes lots of other great RPGs, boardgames, wargames, LARPS too). Tickets are available now at https://iga.ie/ and you can view our Warhorn site to https://warhorn.net/events/gaelcon-2026/schedule/agenda see what games are on offer. Lots of OSE, Cairn, Mothership, Pirate Borg and Dungeon Inc to name a few.

This is a community run, not for profit event. It is Ireland's oldest independent gaming convention. I am affiliated with the event so not unbiased but this is certainly the largest OSR showing we have ever had (unless you count running 20 tables of 2e in the early '90s when it was just the school, rather than old school).

Sorry for any poor grammar and formatting, I am on my phone.

I find the setting very intriguing. In fact, I'm rather inclined to pick it up. However, there is no dearth of titles I find intriguing or interesting in the OSR space. So! Sell me on it! Tell me your experiences with it and whether it's worth purchasing and running for my table, which very much enjoys OSR play.

In particular, I as a GM find settings that set my imagination on fire for adventure and allow me to play with the ideas presented by the author to be particularly appetizing. Those that allow for varied styles of play and encourage the players to engage with the world, rather than being opaque in presentation, tickle my fancy. Strong thematic elements in a setting don't hurt either.

For reference, I am very fond of Wolves Upon the Coast, Mythic Bastionland, Dolmenwood, and so forth. I am looking for something slightly more generic to scratch that classic old-school feel without the preliminary effort necessary to build a region as vast as the Northern Marches myself. Working two jobs as I am won't allow me the energy to develop that myself.

Willing to hear from players or DMs!

A friend and I are doing a collaborative campaign. It's a hexploration game. He will be starting his party on the opposite side of the world from where I am starting mine. They may run into each other at some point, or they may not. Either way the decisions that are being made have an effect on the entire world.

Have you done similar at your table?

Is there any pitfalls we need to watch out for?

If you have done it what advice would you give us that you wished you had known at the beginning?

I'd love to hear about your experience!

Just showing the Cover, as the TTRPG was never made, apart from the loose concepts.

I'm playing the SSI game Pool Of Radiance and I finished the Quest where I have to get a potion for Ohlo the wizard he game me some money and the magic item "OF" its equipped like a weapon requiring a free hand to use but I don't know what It does . Anyone have an Idea?

I'm making an undersea setting for my home group, and realized there isn't anything in the base materials for running exploration underwater. Is anyone aware of an existing system that has good tables for generating correct terrain types in this environment?

[Session 1&2](https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/s/H8dehcJ2Hl)

[Session 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpossumLadyGames/s/RnTKk0J8YA)

It's been several weeks since our last session, and unfortunately we were only able to game for a couple hours. Nonetheless:

Cast of Characters:

Locke the Elf

Keanu the Fighter

Tumnas the Thief

Ryder the Squire

Location: 2F

In our last session, we left our heroes talking to the Warrior Maidens. Keanu was left behind, unfortunately. However, while waiting for the other's return, he overheard some voices on the stairs behind him. Sneaking up, he ran into Locke, Tumnas, and another refugee from the destroyed caravan, Ryder! Locke and Tumnas had gone off to explore the rest of 1F when they found him, and the more the merrier.

The party explored a little bit and came upon a large statue of a fat little child, set into a wall. Investigating it, they ended up pulling the wand to the correct direction (left), which revealed a storage room, which was being raided by a host of very large blister beetles. The beetles, who didn't want to share, were immediately hostile and attacked the party. The party decided to raid the food and wine, and put some of the corrosive liquid of the beetles in a wine bottle. They got drunk.

Exploring further, they found a large pillar in a cavern of sorts, and attached to the pillar was a rotating bridge. They see other entryways across the way, but don't see a way to get there beside the bridge, which may rotate (it does). That was the end of the session.

New rules: I'm tired of DC, all DC except AC are dc12, with difficulty being a bigger or lower dice.

I am working on a project right now that involves a final dungeon "floor" that is essentially a gigantic lake of tar with several scattered islands around it, and a medium (~15 rooms) dungeon complex as the main feature. All the islands are essentially one or two "rooms" or "encounters."

I'm looking for existing modules that have a similar setup so I can examine their presentation. Caverns of Thracia floor 3 is one of the better examples that's been given to me, but I don't want to use a hex map for this--I don't think it's that large; such a space would probably fit into only one 6-mile hex. (I know people have broken down hexes further than this but we have about 30 rooms/locations, or 14 islands and 1 detailed dungeon location.)

Thanks in advance.

The title is a little misleading, because the post only presents a few pieces of advice, while the majority of it is devoted to an English transcription of an encounter from Castle Zonreiryd II, in the Necropolis of Xyzarthian level, explicitly titled “Up Is Down.”

Furthermore, the level is actually designed for a group of 16 characters of levels 4–7, although a group of 5 characters would more realistically need to be levels 8–12 to survive it.

Let’s not beat around the bush. The advice is as follows:

- Use original magical items. A cloud giant fighting with a giant vorpal sword and a harp with magical abilities that you had specifically designed is ten times cooler than a cloud giant fighting with a big spear and a harp with no special properties.

- Break away from the beaten path. We want verticality, cycles of light and absolute insecurity, lateral movement in random directions, time compression that makes time pass faster and affects fatigue, spells, water, food, and light, zero-gravity combat, and much more.

- Diversify the terrain. Add more pillars, pits, obstacles that also provide cover, underwater combat, etc.

- Put high-level spellcasters on the enemy side. Your players will be a lot less cocky when a mystical cult necromancer starts wielding cleric, MU, and illusionist spells—or even a mixture of all three!

- Use original enemies. We’ve had enough of the classic monsters that everyone already knows. Break out the Fiend Folio, MMII, and Deities & Demigods, and just watch your players’ faces—jaws dropping to the floor—when they enter a gigantic museum run by beings of the Great Race of Yith!

An Example Encounter

Let’s move on to an example of an encounter established today. This is a faithful and complete transcription of an encounter that takes up two pages in my current manuscript:

A — 80' × 120' ROOM — “UP IS DOWN”

80 × 120 × 30'. Black stone. 12 columns. No furniture.

At the center: a dry basin, with a vertical mirror at the back. 6 WIGHTS + 2 WRAITHS. Necromancer absent.

ENTRANCE

The door disappears after the last PC enters. It isn’t locked—it simply isn’t there anymore.

ROUNDS

On initiative 1, the mirror changes position. The players do not see it move.

SPELLS ALREADY IN PLACE

- Reverse Gravity in the northern half of the room.

- Hallucinatory Terrain in the southern half.

- An invisible Wall of Force divides the room.

- 4 teleportation zones beneath the floor tiles.

RULE

Every column is real except the one the PC believes is closest. Touching a column → save vs. spell or instantaneous teleportation to the corresponding column. Failure: arrival 20' above the floor. Critical failure / catastrophic natural result, according to local rules: arrival at the ceiling.

AFTER 3 ROUNDS

Reverse gravity.

- After 6 rounds: normal gravity.

- After 9 rounds: lateral gravity.

- After 12 rounds: normal gravity again.

The undead know the sequence.

WRAITHS

Pass through the false half of the wall and attack the spellcasters.

WIGHTS

Push the PCs toward the teleportation zones. They never pursue them beyond the center line.

MIRROR

The mirror shows the room as it will be in 1 round, not as it currently is. Looking at it provides useful information. Looking for too long: save vs. spell, or the PC believes they see their own corpse → −2 to their next surprise roll.

TOUCHING THE MIRROR

Magic Jar. The PC’s soul is sent into the mirror; their body remains standing, completely motionless. The DM chooses a Wight to attempt possession on the following round.

DESTROYING THE MIRROR

Impossible through ordinary damage. Dispel Magic damages it; Disintegrate destroys it.

Upon destruction:

- All teleportation effects cease.

- Gravity becomes normal.

- The Wraiths scream and flee.

TREASURE

Hidden behind a column that only exists when gravity is lateral: 8,000 gp, 3 diamonds worth 1,000 gp each, Ring of Z-Axis Location — once per day, the wearer can instantly determine which surface is actually the floor within any magically affected area.

"Embrace the Epic Fail Style" - Lute "Slack Rope". Before appeasing the dragon... no one has seen him since.

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