The state of Post-OSR content

[The Heretic]

Maybe there are so few high-level adventure products available because simple greed is not enough to motivate a high-level party to take big risks. The things that do are more likely to be wrapped up in the world-campaign. Perhaps that's why it's hard to make a "drop in" dungeon work in that context.

...and this is why Adventure Paths seemed to be a godsend. You have the whole campaign plotted out before you, there won't be any trouble getting the PCs motivated to take part in those higher level adventures.

Except, of course, your players have lost free will on the railroad that was necessary to get there.

 

[PrinceofNothing]

There has to be more though since the Blog OSR phase? Heck thats almost 20 years now right with OSRIC Grognardia?

It is likely not much has been published high level because no dms play that to mine material.

If you want to go old- oldschool, there's the C- and M- series for Basic DnD (take w. grain of salt), Gygax's GDQ, S1/S3 (probably great) and some peripheral stuff that might be good. I have a suspicion that Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga is good for example (reviewed it), and the aforementioned Monstrous Arcana series was cool. In theory something like Throne of Bloodstone Rocks because you get to beat up Orcus and Tiamat and go to the Abyss but it probably sucks dick. I feel like running it via play by post. Die! Vecna! Die! is the DnD equivalent of the Infinity wars but somewhere along the lines of the boxed text and the railroading they throw infiltration and gigantic dungeons in there so its not all bad and might be decent.

High level OSR play is very rare, and decent high level play all the rarer. The problem is that long campaigns have become more rare with the decline of both leisure time, time-preference and the skill required to run long-term campaigns so actual play tested material in the 10+ level range is as rare as gold. Huso might be good because his stuff is actually play-tested and comes from his home-campaign, which is no guarantee, but it helps.

There was one for OSR, The Dreams of Ruin, that tried to engage with the players in a way that a high level threat would actually affect them, a large, domain-level problem that cannot be solved with mere brute force but requires a combination of extreme ability, diplomacy, and domain-level effort to solve. To my knowledge, High level DnD is very hard to do properly and few people make the attempt, making it something of a holy grail.

 

[EOTB]

As far as OSR material, the other factor is people publish for money. They may say they publish for love, but that's not true if its not free.

And overwhelmingly, if you want to sell more copies of what you spent your time on, you publish from levels 1-8.

 

[The1True]

Here we are at the high-level adventure discussion again. I said 'hey, there's a niche, let's put our heads together and see if we can come up with something for it'. but it dwindled into the land of meh.

I think most 3/4/5e campaigns make it into the higher levels these days. I'm not going to say it's a deficiency of older editions since my friends and I regularly made it to the super-hero end of campaigns in 1 and 2e before we switched. I'm going to advance the theory then that it's got something to do with the kind of person who identifies with OSR or Classic play. No offense intended. You guys just seem to get bored or think yourselves out of a good time right around 8th lvl.

We really have had this conversation over and over again, but from my experience:
'Mines/Throne of Bloodstone' are both utterly preposterous with everything that made late-80's modules horrible in them, but yes, we had a blast playing them.
We loved everything Vecna. There are at least three of them. They are all railroady, but...Vecna
'Nightmare Keep' was a steaming turd
Any of the S's or EX's are great, but calling them high level is kind of ... I mean ... if 12th lvl is high level for you, then... hey, keep at it!
'Under the Dark Fist' is Spelljammer, but it was easy to scale up and we had a kickass time with it
'Labyrinth of Madness' is fucking rad. Monte Cook; you either love him or hate him, but this is a straight up high-level dungeon challenge and it rocks.
'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' is nuts. Forget the Vestige or the Sentient Sphere of Annihilation, those Winter Wights are absolutely the worst!
I havn't had a chance to run 'Vortex of Madness', 'Rod of Seven Parts' or 'Dragon Mountain'. someday. some day.

and that's just the 1/2e stuff. There's a few 3e adventures maybe worth the conversion but I'll spare you the agony.

 

[Beoric]

I think most 3/4/5e campaigns make it into the higher levels these days. I'm not going to say it's a deficiency of older editions since my friends and I regularly made it to the super-hero end of campaigns in 1 and 2e before we switched. I'm going to advance the theory then that it's got something to do with the kind of person who identifies with OSR or Classic play. No offense intended. You guys just seem to get bored or think yourselves out of a good time right around 8th lvl.

4e made high level adventures by building tougher monsters and nerfing the sorts of spells that change the game (flying, scrying, teleport, nearly all divination spells, etc.). So high level play is structurally indistinguishable from low level play, except turns take a lot longer because you can do so many damn things and have so many options to pick from (although for optimizers combats can go faster because the characters are so damn good at it). I'm not sure that "the same, but more options" is something to emulate.

The 3e modules look the same to me, without spell nerfs being built into the system, but possibly replaced by various linear and/or railroading devices that make the spells irrelevant or unworkable. I have read a lot of them, and none of them have been remotely appealing to me (but my view is possibly coloured by my contempt for wall of text).

I've always been of the view that high level play should be fundamentally different from low level play. This is partly because I think high level character should receive the game-changing spells and equipment, and I strongly disagree with nerfing these things (if these are the rewards of advancement, you are basically turning them into not-rewards). So mechanically they need to be different.

But I also feel that in my game I want them to narratively be different. Life changes in a variety of ways when someone gains power. Even in early edition D&D, higher level fighters can fight squads of soldiers on their own, and high level spellcasters can flatten platoons. That should change the way the world treats them. Patrons ask them to do different things, to wage campaigns rather than carry out heists, for example, or to act as generals or diplomats. They don't get invited to the ball, they get invited to join a dinner club of influencers and power brokers; they don't get asked for advice on a discrete problem, they get asked to help develop policy. A high level murderhobo is a dangerous loose cannon, and authorities will want to find subtle ways to reign them in or take them out; it may be difficult to remain carefree and irresponsible when you can no longer face the challenges head on or defeat them with raw power.

I sometime wonder, what does the fact that most of the high level dungeons I have seen seem like low level dungeons hopped up on Red Bull say about the designers? Or are they just targeting a younger audience that is unacquainted with such things?

 

[squeen]

One thing that did happen naturally as our campaign progressed was that more and more NPCs got thier hooks into the party---the world's problems slowly became their problems. They seemed to accept that mantle ungrudingly---no doubt as a partial result of having labored so long moving through the world as a "nobody". The hunger for prestige (which was doled out sparingly) seemed to take root inside them. Youth?

 

[The1True]

I sometime wonder, what does the fact that most of the high level dungeons I have seen seem like low level dungeons hopped up on Red Bull say about the designers? Or are they just targeting a younger audience that is unacquainted with such things?

Slugfests are probably just the easiest thing to write. It's hard to write a nuanced political thriller/saga of war that can easily be ported into any campaign. The DM's spent 20 lvls world building and now you're asking him to shoe-horn entire kingdoms and hierarchies into that. The usual conceit (like in 'Under the Dark Fist' and a couple of the C and M series adventures) is to send the PC's to a far away kingdom.

I think the best places to look for inspiration are the King Kull/King Conan stories as well as superhero comics. Sure, sometimes Superman stories are just lazily written super-slugfests, but often he is limited by his own powers and principles and there's good stuff in there. In the case of Kull and Conan, they sit heavily on the throne longing for the days of freedom when they could solve their problems with a swing of the blade. They leap to action when danger defeats their underlings capabilities.
Or look at Cerebus the Aardvark getting fucked by his nation's creditors in 'High Society'. (readit readit READIT!)

And like we discussed in my doomed high-level thread; it's okay for some high-level fiat in the lair of the arch-fiend. He's gotten to where he is by grinding XP's same as the PC's. He's encountered every kind of fuckery. When he builds his great redoubt/dread tomb, he's going to take measures to prevent that kind of fuckery. It doesn't break immersion if there are constraints on teleportation/plane travel/divination etc. As long as the whole adventure isn't like that, let it be!

 

[squeen]

Lord Julius.

 

[The1True]

Lord Julius.

Throw Groucho in to frustrate your unkillable PC's!
Man, I lament Dave Sim's slow descent into madness, but 'High Society' and 'Church & State' stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants of speculative and sequential fiction.

but yeah, a solid base for High Level adventures should be the 'summoned from retirement' trope. Another technique for DM's is to 'jump forward' in the story once your PC's have achieved retirement objectives, whatever they might be. Meaningless grinding will kill a campaign every time. In a recent campaign my players made 23rd level and were running guilds and owned factories and walked the halls of power. I bumped everyone forward to 25th lvl for an Epic adventure and we had so much fun that at the end of that I took a break to scale up Labyrinth of Madness and bumped everyone to 30th lvl. Combat slowed to a crawl as the tanks pumped out 8 attacks/rnd and spellcasters had to search for more damage dice and it was the definite end of the story for us, but it was awesome to finally wield the powers that character advancement always promises but never delivers.

Maybe that threshold is lower for you. Maybe your game conks out at 'name' level (9ish). Everyone gets wizard towers and keeps on the borderlands and rides off into the sunset. That's cool. Take a break to think about your next adventure. It's going to require more planning. Bump the PC's forward a couple of levels. A meaningful amount so they can flex some badass new kit; say to 12th. Assume the advancement came through incremental earnings through rents and income as well as numerous petty wars and skirmishes not worth playing out. Move things along on 3's (12, 15, 18, 21). Play your scenarios out as notable events in the later life of your superhero.

 

[squeen]

Back in our 70's play, my DM (who went on to became a PoliSci professor) had an in-dungeon town torn between two factions: a hawkish Nagaer, and peaceful reformer Retrac. Took us awhile to recognize the names. The years was 1979, if that helps.

In my current campaign: one of the prisoners of Granny Gud's ogres is an NPC the party hadn't seen for almost 7 years --- Mork, who claims to be from the Oort Cloud---the planetoid, Nanu specifically. He's obviously insane, right? Older cultural references like that make it easy to create full-formed persona (that of course my younger audience has never heard of before...but made my wife laugh!).

And yes, Lord Julius awaits...written in my town of Dirgenshire almost 8 years ago, but not yet visited by the party. Watching Marx Brothers movies every New Years Eve used to be a tradition with one of my high school pals and I. If and when they ever visit Dirgenshire, it remains to be seen if I can pull-off Groucho's quick wit and/or Lord Julius' political savvy.

One of the reasons High Society/City & State worked so well was because of Cerebus' long solo adventuring background as a "barbarian". Like Kirk in Wrath of Khan, you were always waiting for him to "pick up the sword" and just act---to be The Kirk again. That foundation needs to be laid first---you can't rush these things. I think great DMs plan a very long game, even if it's never realized (mine did).

 

[PrinceofNothing]

I think the best places to look for inspiration are the King Kull/King Conan stories as well as superhero comics. Sure, sometimes Superman stories are just lazily written super-slugfests, but often he is limited by his own powers and principles and there's good stuff in there. In the case of Kull and Conan, they sit heavily on the throne longing for the days of freedom when they could solve their problems with a swing of the blade. They leap to action when danger defeats their underlings capabilities.

There are two contesting views of high-level play that must be adressed. The OD&D/AD&D model is fairly conservative and tends to assume that players will settle down, build-up domains and get embroiled in all sorts of politics, maybe pick up his sword for one last jaunt. There is also the more superheroic model where the PCs gradually accumulate ability to the point where they are essentially demi-gods fighting for the fate of creation that began with stuff like BECMI and can be found in D20 onwards. For that type of game, I'd point to no other example in the appendix N but Michael Moorcock's Stormbringer, wherein the main character is embroiled in a world-spanning struggle between Law and Chaos and crosses swords with godlings, Lords of Chaos and gigantic armies.

Conan as King of Aquilonia is powerful but he is still a man. Elric must stand toe to toe with gods.

 

[The1True]

Conan as King of Aquilonia is powerful but he is still a man. Elric must stand toe to toe with gods.

Fair enough. There is a King Conan story though that I keep referring to, but for the life of me I can't find in my collection where he has advanced to the point where his chosen Aquilonian Guard are are all one-man killing machines, and they're dropping like flies to this awful threat from across the Styx and Conan quests to the heart of the Stygian empire obviously making saving throws that his men can't make, surviving blows that his men can't survive and hitting monsters his men can't hit. It is so emblematic of epic level adventure that I remember remarking at it when I first read it. I really wish I could find it!
Elric is a great example though. Similarly mythological god-kings like Gilgamesh or Greek and Norse heroes like Odysseus or Siegfried might be good templates as well.

 

[EOTB]

At its core, whether by conquest of land, hearts, or secrets; whether by ascent beyond the mortal; high level is about how those PCs make their mark on the world and leave it different

The world becomes shared at that point on multiple levels. And many DMs did not take the chair desiring to share what must be shared in order for high level play to satisfy. (And not every player desires that opportunity)

 

[Beoric]

At its core, whether by conquest of land, hearts, or secrets; whether by ascent beyond the mortal; high level is about how those PCs make their mark on the world and leave it different

The world becomes shared at that point on multiple levels. And many DMs did not take the chair desiring to share what must be shared in order for high level play to satisfy. (And not every player desires that opportunity)

I have often thought that players who want this sort of game need to have a bit of DM in them. I think you need that same urge to build something, to make things happen in the world. And yes, the DM needs to be open to letting someone mess up his sandbox.

Maybe that is part of the reason all interest in this kind of game has died out. Back in the day, everybody in my group DMed. Sometimes they even co-DMed or even switched out DMs in the same campaign, even if it meant one DM had to let another DM play with his world. But it seems like these days there are players and there are DMs but nobody seems to do both.

EDIT: Personally, I would love for someone to try to may their mark on a campaign I was running. Riffing off the stuff that players do is one of the great joys of the game for me. And I would play in a game like that in a hearbeat.

 

[robertsconley]

Honestly, I have no clue.

I have gotten a lot of mileage out of letting players "trash" my setting.

More specifically around name level it dawned on my players that they had what it took to take on the various powers of the world. Kings, magnates, grandmasters, etc. In junior high and high school a lot of the other referee I knew would really get bent if the players tried knocking off the king.

That didn't bothered me. I started just early enough in the late 70s (at least in my neck of the woods in rule NW PA) that I first became of the hex and counter wargame boom first before D&D. So I sent my late elementary school years and early junior high years playing wargames like Panzerblitz, 1776, and other Avalon Hill and SPI titles.

So when we got to the point of name level and my player talking about conquest and establishing guilds in my D&D campaign, I knew I could make do using what I learned from wargaming. The problem I had was being young as I was I didn't know enough to generate all the needed details that was in a good wargame.

At the time I was using World of Greyhawk with the howling emptiness of the 30-miles hexes. The high level detail was great the local stuff that makes or break a campaign about "trashing" a setting wasn't. Remember we are talking circa 1980 in a rural small town.

But then I found out about Judges Guild and the Wilderlands which had the low level details. It also didn't have much in the way of high level details especially on the outer range of maps like the Valley of the Ancients.

So I had the players discover a gate to the Wilderlands and introduced the idea that they were all from there but were kidnapped and transported to Greyhawk. The result was a campaign that resulted in these notes that I still have.
From the Attic: The first campaign of the Majestic Wilderlands

So what you do when you are 9th+ level, my answer is that you trash the setting.
The kicker however was that I made what happened in that campaign part of the next campaign in the Wilderlands. My players went "Oh shit"

 

[Beoric]

I have gotten a lot of mileage out of letting players "trash" my setting.

Yeah, that would make it hard to write a high level module; it would require a high level of improv on the part of the DM, and all the designer could do is present the factions and NPCs well enough that they stick in the DM's head, and give them clear enough motivations and personalities that their responses to whatever random crap the PC's do would be easy for the DM to improvise.

Greyhawk never did that for me, especially since I had the setting but few of the modules when I was younger. It was worse than a blank page, because you felt like you should know what to do with the minimalist national entries, but there was not enough to work with. It was simultaneously constraining and uninspiring for me. Forgotten Realms was the opposite, it was filled with minutia, all of which is cannon, so you are highly constrained with no room for improvisation (plus the politics of FR, so far as I even delved into them, never made it feel alive to me, and was not inspiring to me). Eberron hits the sweet spot for me; the major factions and NPCs stick in my head, and for any given mess that the PCs make I can think of a handful of factions that will care, and have a pretty good idea what they will want to do about it, AND there is lots of room in the setting to improvise.

Maybe a high level module needs to focus more on the situation. Give the PCs a goal, give a few NPCs/factions a goal, tell us what the NPC's plans are and what they do until the players screw it up, and give a few guidelines for how the factions tend react to adversity. Add some things the PCs are likely to need to interact with in pursuing the goal, and some likely endgames depending on the most likely way those things will be interacted with. Which now that I think about it, is kind of what D3 does. Maybe add to that clear advice to the DM that the module works best if the players blow it up, that there are no elements to the module that are required to happen, it is OK if the endgames are never realized, and the DM should feel even freer than usual to improvise and make it his own.

 

[robertsconley]

Yeah, that would make it hard to write a high level module; it would require a high level of improv on the part of the DM, and all the designer could do is present the factions and NPCs well enough that they stick in the DM's head, and give them clear enough motivations and personalities that their responses to whatever random crap the PC's do would be easy for the DM to improvise.

Working on it. Scourge of the Demon Wolf was my first published pass at the general issue of presenting useful material for a free form situation. The next one I am working on won't address the high level issue but I have a few more in the hopper that may.

Greyhawk never did that for me, especially since I had the setting but few of the modules when I was younger. It was worse than a blank page, because you felt like you should know what to do with the minimalist national entries, but there was not enough to work with. It was simultaneously constraining and uninspiring for me. Forgotten Realms was the opposite, it was filled with minutia, all of which is cannon, so you are highly constrained with no room for improvisation (plus the politics of FR, so far as I even delved into them, never made it feel alive to me, and was not inspiring to me). Eberron hits the sweet spot for me; the major factions and NPCs stick in my head, and for any given mess that the PCs make I can think of a handful of factions that will care, and have a pretty good idea what they will want to do about it, AND there is lots of room in the setting to improvise.

With the Wilderlands, I could do the high level stuff even when I was young. I loved the Appendices in the Lord of the Rings and history books. The low level stuff the maps had were variations of the fantasy themes I grew up with so I could take most of them as is and just modify a handful to get what I need. I like the grey box of the Forgotten Realms but by then I had a dozen campaigns in the Wilderlands which was rapidly becoming it own thing which was the Majestic Wilderlands.

Maybe a high level module needs to focus more on the situation. Give the PCs a goal, give a few NPCs/factions a goal, tell us what the NPC's plans are and what they do until the players screw it up, and give a few guidelines for how the factions tend react to adversity. Add some things the PCs are likely to need to interact with in pursuing the goal, and some likely endgames depending on the most likely way those things will be interacted with.

I think that in the ballpark and worth pursuing. With high level you just need to think about the scope. The stuff I published and working on currently are good for low to mid levels but don't have the scope to give the feel this is what a high level character would be dealing with.

Before I had to deal with the bullshit with Bob Bledsaw II I was working on this, the forest of Dearthwood next to the City State of the Invincible Overlord. The basic gist is that it was once was the Elven kingdom of Silverwood. Then the ancient dragon Pan Calderax sacked the Majestic Fastness and shattered the dwarven kingdom and then lead the orcs against the Elves and the humans of the Dragon Empire that CSIO was once the capital of. The forest was ruined in the battles. The fight was much magical as it was physical and left the forest cursed.

But it not a simple thing/ For a high level party could go to into the the Argent Halls, once the royal residence and lay the undead spirit of the Elven King to rest. There but then there is still is everything that moved or crawled into the forest underneath the curse. The dozen tribes of Orcs, the faeries, undead, covens of warlocks, and a very old Green Dragon, Mori that opted to stay. Along with the those who rule outside of the forest border who have their own agendas. The symbols marked taighs were once guardians that warded the borders from interlopers. Each of them has fallen and been corrupted in different ways.

My general idea was to make this not a adventure path but an adventure region. With everything logically hanging together but with opportunities for characters from low level to high to make their mark.

I had some campaigns try to deal with this area. The symbol on the left hand side marked Taigh (mage) was done by PCs who successfully reactivated one of the Elven border guardians call a Taigh and made it their home. But the problem been trying to get the resources needed to untangle the whole mess to cleanse the forest.

There are a lot of detail to iron out even after I repurpose this for my Majestic Fantasy Realms. But but idea to make it a suitable challenge for high level party is to create a multi-layer situation (but not too many layers) that can't be solved just by being able to kill any one thing.



Here is an account of when a mid-level party when into the above.

One Thousand Four Hundred and Fifty Orcs slain
That incident is recorded on the map above on the left hand side Vile Rune (Orc, Decimated).

The Elf Lord's Temple is a low level adventure I created a while back. It near OakWatch Keep on the map.

This is the a series of post made by a player in a 5e campaign I ran. The last couple is how the party redeems the evil Green Dragon Mori.

I have a lot of details written but a useful format still hasn't quite jelled yet in the way it did for Source of the Demon Wolf or the next one the Deceits of the Russet Lord.

 

[Osrnoob]

Your stuff is great man! The remaster you did on wilderlands is totally ace!

I always thought of them as intimidation till I saw your work.

WOHF is like 30 pages and a lot of hexes are not described. Its so easy to add too and use at the table!

I was wondering, as someone with a lot of wilderlands exp... How do you rate/ ranks the JG Wilderlands material over time?

 

[robertsconley]

Your stuff is great man! The remaster you did on wilderlands is totally ace!

Appreciate it.

I was wondering, as someone with a lot of wilderlands exp... How do you rate/ ranks the JG Wilderlands material over time?

Well I got a second bite at the apple when I sign on for the Necromancer Games Boxed set project. I realized that my own take, the Majestic Wilderlands, was pretty much it own thing. So when I got my assignment (villages and castles for Map 1 CSIO, Map 2 Altanis, northern half of Map 12 Isle of the Blest). I started from scratch with the base stats.

I thought it held up pretty well and I was pleased how I got it to hand together without too much trouble.

But I think the overall format needs an update. That what Clark did the NG Boxed Set was the right idea although doing 18 maps at once was too much for everyone. And some of what was too wordy for my taste. So I did the two Points of Light and Blackmarsh as my take.

My goal however with the Wilderlands reprint and just that do a reprint. Laid out nicely with other relevant material from Judges Guild added in. Especially in the later Guidebook. So that folks like you would have access to how it was without having to fight blurry scans and misaligned pages.

When I tackle my own take, the Majestic Fantasy Realms. I intend format it like I did Blackmarsh and the upcoming Wild North. A intro, overview (short), Terrain and notes, Locales keyed by Hex number and notes, and finally anything relevant that may be useful like a city map and short key, rules, items, unique monsters, etc.

After Wild North, I intend to use the 18" by 12" poster format as my standard size for maps . The Wild North is already the same size as the Wilderland maps so it will remain that way.

I hope to inspire folks to utilize that poster format DriveThruRPG uses for their own stuff.

 

[Malrex]

I hope to inspire folks to utilize that poster format DriveThruRPG uses for their own stuff.

I've been looking at that poster format and pondering it for sure.