UPDATE: This piece mentions Zak S and has links to his blog, but since I wrote this post, this happened (CW: sexual and psychological abuse). Because of this, I am no longer promoting his work, but I will keep the post unchanged because it is part of this blog's (and my) history nevertheless.
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Here are my replies:
1. One article or blog entry that exemplifies the best of the Old School Renaissance for me:
That's the most difficult. I'll go with Gygaxian Democracy.
It quickly became a staple of the DIY/OSR movement.
2. My favourite piece of OSR wisdom/advice/snark:
You should interact with the world and its inhabitants as if they were really existing and should expect consequences accordingly to this.
3. Best OSR module/supplement:
Better than Any Man as a sandbox campaign (NSFW and gory -you have been warned)
Tomb of the Serpent Kings as an introductory OSR dungeon for both GMs and players.
Vorheim: The Complete City Kit as a toolbox.
4. My favourite house rule (by someone else):
Funerals for the Fallen by James Young
Shields Shall Be Splintered! by Trollsmyth
5. How I found out about the OSR:
When I begun playing RPGs 8-9 years ago I was supposed to be a GM, and I didn't like the complexity of D&D 3.5 (the most popular RPG in Italy at the time) and the fact that characters were more like superheroes than adventurers.
Searching in the net I ended up reading A Quick Primer for Old School Playing by Matt Finch and I started playing Dungeonslayers (a nice old school inspired German RPG) and shortly after I discovered the actual OSR movement and got sucked by it.
6. My favorite OSR online resource/toy:
All the apps of Save vs Total Party Kill by Ramanan S
http://character.totalpartykill.ca to quickly generate characters for different games
The (incomplete) list of stuff it can generate is here: https://github.com/funkaoshi/randomcharacter
The Troika! character generator is not listed but it's there.
Other stuff like here like a random dugeon generator.
Principia Apocrypha: Principles of Old School is the best primer ever for the Old School style of play.
7. Best place to talk to other OSR gamers:
It is (for now) Google Plus with its vibrant communities like OSR.
I dunno now what will happen but a lot of people is migrating on MeWe right now (search for "OSR" in the groups section).
In Italy the best place is the Facebook group OSR D&D Italia.
8. Other places I might be found hanging out talking games:
UPDATE: I misread the question: it is about where else I can be found rambling about games, not other places where to ramble about games.
Here's the new reply, but I'll leave the other 'cause it's still useful:
- Google Plus: google.com/+DismasterFraNe (for now at least)
- MeWe is the new GPlus apparently: mewe.com/i/dismaster.frane
- Twitter: twitter.com/dismasterfrane
- Facebook page: facebook.com/dismastersden
- Facebook account: facebook.com/franeptt
Where else to ramble:
Facebook has some nice groups like Vintage Role Playing Games, Old School Roleplaying or Old School Gaming Rocks!
The best Italian group for GMs (non OSR specific) is GMI - Game Master Italia followed by Fantasika! (non GM specific).
9. My awesome, pithy OSR take nobody appreciates enough:
You can enjoy killing your player's characters (by chance -not by purpose!) and at the same time be their fan.
10. My favorite non-OSR RPG:
Risus: The Anything RPG - a generic minimalist game
Traveller - generic sci-fi
On Mighty Thews - a pulp sword & sorcery rpg/storygame
11. Why I like OSR stuff:
Because it's "player skills not character abilities" so there's a real opportunity and need for players to overcome problems with ingenuity, and concrete risk of character death even at high levels is one the stakes.
12. Two other cool OSR things you should know about that I haven’t named yet:
Most of OSR games (specifically D&D retroclones) are very similar therefore you can take adventures, monsters and supplements published for nearly all OSR D&D-like systems an use them without or with minimal conversion.
Another benefit of these games being very similar is that you can mix and match pieces of them to make your own frankenstein OSR RPG because they are also very modular and simple.
And you can also house-rule them very easily. Customisation is a must.
A third for my Italian fellow players: you can like OSR games and be neither old nor nostalgic (a common cliché around here).
13. If I could read but one other RPG blog but my own it would be:
https://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com without the "Zak Wars" posts (because things like these should not happen and are very sad).
14. A game thing I made that I like quite a lot is:
Random Complete Equipment Generator for LotFP and other fantasy games to generate the whole equipment list for a character with a single die roll.
15. I'm currently running/playing:
A couple of Lamentation of the Flame Princess campaigns on Discord as player after 8 years of being a full-time GM.
Eight years ago I started playing role-playing games by the way.
16. I don't care whether you use ascending or descending AC because
you can always say "armour as chain" instead of using numbers and I'll convert it to my preferred system.
And if I were playing I'd have the to-hit values on my sheet, and the math is not difficult anyway.
17. The OSRest picture I could post on short notice:
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| Treasure for the survivors, by David A. Trampier |
Again,
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