OSR This tells me OSR is alive and well.

[Jack Daniel]

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[Gus L]

Ah, you're right, it's in Men & Magic, it's just not explained beyond a brief parenthetical found right there on the equipment table entry.

Isn't that everything in Men & Magic ....

 

[Mannahnin]

I note that the "miscellaneous adventuring gear hammerspace" you describe is exactly how OD&D, B/X, and AD&D approach mundane supplies... The idea that tracking rope and spikes and flasks of oil and torch weight individually is important was largeIy adopted mid-OSR as a way to revitalize the low level dungeon exploration style of play...

I'd place a good part of the influence around it on the game "Torchbearer" even...

Yeah, see the whole "80 cn misc. gear" thing from Moldvay? That's a thing that, prior to the appearance of Old-School (née B/X) Essentials circa 2018, could be called TSR D&D's best-kept secret. It seems to have gone totally under the radar in OSR circles prior. The impression I get from OSR blogs and forums is that most folks glossed over its existence in Moldvay Basic entirely and didn't even know about it until relatively recently.

Not least because it's not in BECMI, it's not in Holmes, and to my knowledge, it's not in AD&D or 3LBB either.

That simplification/abstraction from Moldvay is taken from 1974 OD&D (page 15).

Holmes has an interesting variation- it basically just tells you to track treasure and whether you're armored, but it also explicitly instructs you to note on paper where exactly you're carrying your mundane gear, which puts a non-numeric implied limit on how much stuff you can carry. You have to be able to show the DM exactly where you're carrying all this gear.

AD&D is the first edition to really try to clamp down on encumbrance, giving specific values for most gear, not just armor and weapons and treasure. It only gives the equipment encumbrance figures in the DMG, though, where 2nd ed cleans this up and puts it all in the main equipment lists in the PH.

1983 Basic uses a simplified Encumbrance system once more. It assumes that if you're in leather or no armor and carrying "normal" gear you're at 300cn encumbrance, and if you're in chain or plate and carrying normal gear you start at 700cn encumbrance and you add treasure gathered on top of that. And then the Expert set introduces "track the weight of every individual piece of gear" as an optional Expert rule, mimicking AD&D.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Yeah, see the whole "80 cn misc. gear" thing from Moldvay? That's a thing that, prior to the appearance of Old-School (née B/X) Essentials circa 2018, could be called TSR D&D's best-kept secret.

I imagine this is since the 3 big B/X retroclones - Basic Fantasy, LotFP, and Lab. Lord all bolted on a more detailed encumbrance system to the B/X chassis. Nobody played with the "real" encumbrance rules until OSE released them unmodified.

 

[Gus L]

AD&D is the first edition to really try to clamp down on encumbrance, giving specific values for most gear, not just armor and weapons and treasure.

In some places. Kinda. In the PHB it emphasizes the importance and the LLB (#'s) to Coins system (now made weirder by the connection to weight lifting by STR) to try to make sense of things. It then offers movement rates (where encumbrance is supposed to live) that list gear based on rough sizes of gear collections "normal gear" or "heavy gear"... but I don't think the PHB includes an item weights.

I'm pretty sure that only deep in Appendix C of the DMG does AD&D provide a list of weights and measures for "common items" - mostly weapons and armor. The main problem though is that if you actually try to equip your PC with these tools ... they aren't very effective - you can't carry what you need. I doubt many people used the system - both as it's scattered across multiple books (except in a generalized form that somewhat follows the LBB one), incomplete (lots of basic items are missing from the table of measures) and unforgiving as heck.

This is sort of my complaint with AD&D in a nutshell. It's got great stuff in it, but it's scattered, disorganized and doesn't feel very well play tested. One gets the impression that Gygax (or someone) was writing this stuff estimating and systematizing, but not really using it.

Also given that you need 2K GP to level a fighter to 2nd, Treasure is mostly coin hoards and often in CP or SP ... Damn it's hard to get the treasure you need to level out of the dungeon... Heck it's hard to go shopping.

 

[Jack Daniel]

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[DarkCrisis]

So I picked up the PDFs for OSE Advanced and yeah this is it this is D&D. The format is amazing. It’s clear and easy to read and understand. Well organized. This is the mountaintop.

While I’m sure I’ll play more 5E and AD&D here and there, OSE has me sold.

Not to mention its well supported as well.

 

[darjr]

So I picked up the PDFs for OSE Advanced and yeah this is it this is D&D. The format is amazing. It’s clear and easy to read and understand. Well organized. This is the mountaintop.

While I’m sure I’ll play more 5E and AD&D here and there, OSE has me sold.

Not to mention its well supported as well.

OSRIC hopes to do something similar for OSRIC 3. I think the kickstarter was pushed to early 2025.

 

[Reynard]

This thread seems as good a place as any to ask: what is a great adventure for running in AD&D 2E from the OSR? I am looking for something in the 4th to 7th level range that could last maybe a half dozen sessions.

ETA for clarity: I would be using just the core books for AD&D 2E, not the splats or Skills and Powers.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This thread seems as good a place as any to ask: what is a great adventure for running in AD&D 2E from the OSR? I am looking for something in the 4th to 7th level range that could last maybe a half dozen sessions.

ETA for clarity: I would be using just the core books for AD&D 2E, not the splats or Skills and Powers.

I will respond with the obvious. I would go with any of the "classic" modules, which already have the level ranges. Many of them are in that sweet spot.

So...

A1-A4 (each are 4-7, but when they were compiled, they changed it to 7-11, and I'm not sure why.... maybe do some research).
C2
The I series. A lot of good ones, including the Desert series and the OG Ravenloft, as well as I1 and I2.
S2- c'mon. It's fun!
Any in the "Expert" series (it's B/X, but it easily works). X1, X2 are great. But I am partial to the X4/X5 combo, which are underplayed.

And, of course, you can do Temple of Elemental Evil, and skip Hommlet.