Making RPG's The Really Old-School Way

[Doc Sammy]

So, I have been thinking about designing my own game for a long time now, and I have had many unfinished ideas for OSR games (mainly because I get all ADHD when it comes to new gaming ideas), but then I got to thinking on possibly designing another system that isn't exactly a clone of old-school D&D, but is inspired by the creation of Old-School D&D and many of the 1970's RPGs in general.

It's a well-known fact that the first RPG's were spawned from wargames and many had wargaming elements in them, especially back in the 1970's. Stuff like OD&D, En Garde!, and Boot Hill are all examples of these old games.

Often times it seems that they took the combat engine of a wargame, pared it down to One-on-One fighting, and then built an RPG around it. Essentially, the role-playing was present but was more implied rather than directly enumerated. Sandbox play was common, as was "Rulings over Rules" and "Role-Play over Roll-Play". These games were often very simplistic compared to either wargames or even later RPG's like AD&D.

So, as an experiment, I figured I'd take a wargaming system and use it as the basis of an RPG project, most likely modifying it a bit to fit the RPG mold, but still trying to remain fairly simplistic.

There is a series of free, public-domain wargaming rules that can be played with ordinary Army Men or similar toy soldiers called "One Man One Gun", by Thor Sheil. The rules are very light and simple, and it's meant for easy, rules-light skirmish level play. Which I think would be perfect for this type of project.

I've never done wargaming before, but if I were to do so (and I do intend to do so), it would be with Thor Sheil's "One Man One Gun" series, particularly the "Advanced" rules for Modern combat and "One Man One Knight" for Medieval combat.

Most recently, Thor has released supplements for his "One Man" series, including a Samurai supplement for "One Man One Knight" along with Sci-Fi and Zombie supplements for the modern rules. He has also announced a Fantasy supplement for One Man One Knight will be coming soon, which would help me out greatly in this endeavor.

Here are the links to the One Man One Gun rules below. The rules are entirely free to download and view..

Thor's Wargaming Page (Includes both One Man One Gun and the Jersey Shore Battle Rules)
http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/sandygme.htm

One Man One Gun Advanced (Modern)
http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/OMOG-advanced-game-2015.pdf

One Man One Knight (Medieval and Ancient)
http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/OMOKnights.pdf

Supplements
http://www.thortrains.net/shambattle/Samurai-Supplement-for-OMOK.pdf
http://www.thortrains.net/shambattle/OMOG-space-supplement.pdf
http://www.thortrains.net/shambattle/OMOG-Zombie-Supplement.pdf

So, I ask you all, would anyone be willing to help me make an Old-School RPG system out of "One Man One Gun".

I do have ideas for typical OD&D-esque pulp fantasy adventure games, as well as "One Man One Vampire", a conversion of Vampire: The Masquerade to a OMOG-derived system. Think 1990's-style Setting with 1970's-style RPG Rules.

 

[CRKrueger]

Fess up. You only like it because the guys are from the Jersey Shore.

 

[Doc Sammy]

Fess up. You only like it because the guys are from the Jersey Shore.

Well that is a bonus! :cool:

 

[Ladybird]

I'd probably suggest basing your combat mechanic around d10's, and a Weapon vs Armour Type roll, with (Say) swords requiring 7+ to score a hit regardless of target's armour, bashing weapons requiring a 5+ against unarmoured or plate-armoured foes and 8+ against chain or anything that can dissipate the blow, stabbing weapons needing 9+ against plate armour but only 6+ against chain or unarmoured, etc. The d10 gives you some more freedom to add modifiers for high/low stats and for +1 gear. Characters can only take so many hits before going down, etc.
For spells or saving throws, I'd add stats for the character to resist with (Rather than the attacker rolling to attack, the defender would roll to defend), and probably do it in about the same x+ way, perhaps varying the stats by the armour the character is wearing - so unarmoured with give you bonuses to your avoid save, plate would give bonuses to your resist save, etc.
Stat-wise, regardless of what numbers you use, I'd keep the scale of stat modifiers low, +/-2 at most, to keep within the die range.

 

[Spinachcat]

Get some wargaming in before going down this road.

 

[Doc Sammy]

Get some wargaming in before going down this road.

I definitely will. I already have some PDF's of One Man One Gun and its variants, and I have some Army Men as well. All I need is someone to play with, and my uncle is interested in playing.

 

[Spinachcat]

I got my start with Army Men. Many wargamers did. I graduated to cardboard cut outs. That's how I began with 40k. When Rogue Trader came out, most of us didn't have Citadel minis. Instead, we had makeshift everything, and the most popular was just photocopies of the chits at the back of the RT book. We were extra cool because we replaced the chits with standees. That's how we had lots of variant minis in high school. Very few of us had the cash for official GW products.