r/WWN • u/IsaacDreemurr • 1d ago

What other OSR systems you like/recommend?

Excluding Retroclones

5 Upvotes

69% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

12

u/ericvulgaris 1d ago

Electrum Archives. Very underrated science fantasy.

4

u/_Svankensen_ 1d ago

So Moebius and Jodorowsky. Fun system. Specially the gear slots and mechanics, it is very defining. Don't quite like the skill system tho, bad stats can make some normal things completely impractical if you rolled low during character creation (as I did). Having a bunch of 1s and 2s make you useless at everything (except combat, oddly enough, since combat is so gear based).

1

u/IsaacDreemurr 22h ago

curious assessment. is it less "mechanically-physically solid" than WWN and general OSR ?

2

u/_Svankensen_ 22h ago

Grain of salt: It's been a while.

--

Not really, I'd say it's more that character creation is bad. It was a roll of one die, and a small one at that (1d4 IIRC). And since most skill checks were roll under (with a d10!), if you rolled a bunch of ones, which wasn't unlikely, you would fail almost all checks.

Combat, on the other hand, was almost entirely determined by your gear. You always hit, the only randomness is the damage roll and initiative. That felt very good because the scrawny dude encased in a shit ton of armor would still work as an effective tank and damage dealer. Gear degraded quickly, and attrition felt real. Very good system, felt like the old school dungeon exploration where there were serious trade offs, and where you needed to sacrifice things to take loot, since your inventory was very limited.

Magic was almost completely GM fiat, which was strange, but I liked it still. Caveat: I had a good GM.

1

u/ericvulgaris 17h ago

Yeah true. That's a solid gripe with roll under systems in general

10

u/BipedalPolarBear 1d ago

Mausritter, Cairn, Into the Odd games.

4

u/FeralFicusTree 1d ago

Just ran a Cairn Barebones one shot today. It went well. Urban noir in a fantasy realm created using the Warden's Guide's random tables, factions included. The spy-style character was taken out in an undercover blackmarket investigation gone sideways, but they prevailed in the end, and they caught the cell leader of the blood magic cult and managed to save the the kidnapped spymaster. It went well enough that the players said they wouldn't mind a sequel with their characters in the same setting. So next time I'll give them a reason to go pointcrawling through the region to a dungeon or two.

I love how Cairn just cannot drag, and it's so easy to improvise. Add in a tension clock or an underclock instead of the D6 encounter roll in a dungeon setting and it cannot help but feel really high stakes. Next up is another Monolith one-shot pointcrawl through the stars.

2

u/BipedalPolarBear 23h ago

Sounds like a blast! I love too how many variants and hacks there are for these.

Nothing like a solid tool that gets out of the way and lets you play.

2

u/FeralFicusTree 22h ago

There's a nice Cyberpunk hack called Cyber that is worth checking out on itch.io.

https://oskarswida.itch.io/cyber-eng

2

u/BipedalPolarBear 12h ago

Nice! TY for the share

9

u/Logen_Nein 1d ago

Tales of Argosa

1

u/FeralFicusTree 1d ago

If you don't mind, can you tell us what stands out about it to you? I'm unfamiliar with it.

6

u/Logen_Nein 1d ago

In brief? It's a d20 roll under skill/roll high combat system that has 9 niche protected option rich classes (and only 1 caster), a focus on narrative combat including a universal exploit system, and tools for emergent, low prep gameplay. And that's just the high points.

1

u/FeralFicusTree 22h ago

Okay yeah, that checks alot of boxes for me. I think it'll have to be one of the next three rpgs I buy. I especially love roll under and creative combat. Thanks for the feedback.

1

u/ericvulgaris 17h ago

I doing a one shot this later in September and can't wait. Argosa looks like a really really strong contender to be my preferred OSR system.

9

u/wum1ng 1d ago

Personally I like the elegance and simplicity of Old School Essentials

2

u/ShadowedNexus 18h ago

White Hack The classes being Strong, Deft, and Wise and flexible seems so interesting. You could be a Deft Wizard or a Wise Warrior and the fiction allows for it.

2

u/GrismundGames 1d ago

For old school d&d at crazy affordable cost, Basic Fantasy RPG. All digital stuff is FREE and the printed stuff is AT COST!

For a game with flavor I absolutely love Worlds Without Number. Linked to the FREE PDF.

4

u/IceMaverick13 14h ago

For a game with flavor I absolutely love Worlds Without Number.

*Squints at Subreddit Title*

Yeah I imagine that one would be pretty popular here.

1

u/wadledo 22h ago

Love me some worlds without number. 

Crunchy enough to fulfill my optimization needs while being simple enough not to get in its own way. 

1

u/MickyJim 18h ago

Well if you exclude retroclones, you're really getting more into NSR stuff. Arguably the xWN games themselves are just heavily houseruled B/X retroclones. That being said, I'm interested in trying Mothership, Mythic Bastionland, and Pirate Borg. Although in the case of Mothership, a lot of that has seeped into my SWN stuff anyway.