u/Catman192

For the past month or so, I've been preparing to run an OSR campaign. In particular, I'm trying to run Swords and Wizardry. I know many DMs try to "over prepare" and get in a sort of "preparation paralysis". I've been doing my best to avoid it. But I realized last night that I'm in an enormous state of anxiety with the whole thing, that I feel like I cannot run a campaign.

My issues stem ENTIRELY from the rules of Swords and Wizardry. This has nothing to do with the actual campaign I'm trying to run.

My biggest issue is I can't find a place in the rulebook that tells me exactly how things are supposed to work. For example, Armor Class. I get it, I know what it is. But what exactly modifies your armor class? At the top of my head, I believe its your dexterity modifier, and your armor...and I think that's it? But I cannot find ANY section in the Swords and Wizardry rulebook that tells you "Armor Class: here's everything that interacts with it". And that REALLY bothers me. It gives me anxiety and makes me worry I'm not going to remember something when DMing.

I've tried looking at other systems (though tbh I REALLY want to run Swords and Wizardry), and none of the rulebooks seem to not have this issue. The ONLY one that did was Castles and Crusades, which had an Armor Class section and then highlighted basically every single thing that could affect it. Castles and Crusades doesn't seem to be for me though.

I've been talking Armor Class, but tbh it's only the tip of the iceberg. There's To-Hit modifiers, Damage modifiers, and that's not even counting skills and stuff. Don't forget Ancestries bonuses...

To summarize, my issue is that there seems to be so many modifiers for so many things, and I just can't remember them all, and they're not in one single place. They're scattered all over the rulebook. This paralyzes me. The idea of running a session and forgetting how to do a certain thing...it makes me feel fake. Like I'm an idiot who doesn't know how to run these games.

I know many of you might be thinking "Don't worry, it's on the sheets. You don't have to calculate it every single time or anything". But the problem is, my confidence is so low, I'm not even sure I'll be able to get the sheets right. I'm worried I'll have forgotten SOMETHING. Or when someone levels up, I'll fuck it up and give someone the wrong numbers.

Sorry for the venting. I REALLY want to play Swords and Wizardry in particular. In theory it looks like the perfect game for me. I just can't remember all the rules and stuff, and it's never organized in one spot.

I know some of you might also be thinking "Well it's RULINGS OVER RULES, so just make a ruling!" And fair enough. If I was hypothetically in a situation not covered in the rules, or just one in general that has no ruling, I should make that call. I agree. But I feel like that's not where I am with this. Instead I'm struggling on the very basics.'

I want to play classic campaign modules so badly, and I want to do it on Swords and Wizardry specifically. But right now it just feels impossible for me. Any help or advice is appreciated.

Going to be running Swords and Wizardry, and someone in my party will be a Magic-User. For the record, everyone is going to be Level 1. I checked at it seems like at Level 1, the Magic-User can literally only know 1 spell. Once they get to Level 2, they can only cast 2 spell per day and that's it?

Magic-Users have lower hit-die, and can't even seem to use most weapons outside of daggers, staffs, and darts. It sounds like after using their once or twice daily spell, they essentially become useless.

Now yes, I'm aware they could keep watch in a situation, or hold a lantern in a dark cave. But are they essentially outside of combat for the rest of the day? And are they this way till later levels only?

Something I hear a lot of women complain about is when a man tells her she's different from "other" women. A few notable examples...

"You're not like the other girls."

"You're pretty funny for a woman."

"For a girl, you're pretty *blank*."

From the male perspective, none of these really seem that bad, but I think I can overall see why a lot of women are bothered by these comments. They seem to make vast generalizations about women, and it can tell a lot about how the man sees women. It seems like he's boxing women into a single group, possibly in a negative way. There's more to it than just that, but overall, I get it. Even if the intentions aren't bad (they aren't most of the time), it can come off as rude, problematic and sexist.

However, I don't know if they're aware, but women really seem to do the exact same thing to men! A few months back I really got into the dating scene. Over the span of a year, I went on several dates, and in general talked to a lot of women. Almost every single woman told me I was kind and seemed like a good man, which I appreciated. But in particular, they would say things like...

"For a guy, you're really nice."

"You're not like most guys."

"Most guys are trash, but you're really nice."

And just the other day at work, one of my friends told me he and his male co-worker were approached by a female co-worker who said “For guys you two have some pretty good emotional intelligence”

How is this even remotely considered okay, if men doing the same is not?

I'm going to be running a campaign in Swords & Wizardry soon, and there's been something that's been confusing me for a while.

I'm looking at the Assassin class, and it mentions "Thieving Skills", and has a full table and everything. For example, it has a "Hear Sounds" check, with different probabilities based on the Assassin's Level. Makes sense.

But my question is, how would other characters deal with this? For example, there's no mention (or at least I couldn't find it in the rules) of a "Hear Sounds" for Magic-Users or Fighters for instance. So how do I determine what numbers they would need to roll to hear something?

I understand OSR is all about "rulings over rules", but are there really no rules for this? Do I just make the call myself?

I'm going to be running B2 Keep on the Borderlands soon, and I'm quite excited. But before I do, I was wondering if anyone had any advice or tips? Particularly, I've heard the Cave of Chaos can get boring after a while. That's what I've seen people say.

I've also seen a lot of people design their own maps and put them here, which actually has been very helpful.

Anything else worth preparing for? Thanks!

Hello. I'm not sure if this is the right sub to post this question on, but hopefully it is.

For context, politically I'm a right-leaning man. But I actually do not entirely disagree with feminism, and think feminists do raise some good points. I've been trying my best to really understand feminism on its own terms, and really try to see where feminists are coming from. I do believe in the saying "he who does not understand his opponent's argument, does not understand his own." I don't want a "right-wing" perspective, or someone from the "Manosphere" to tell me about feminism. So that's why I'm here.

Something I've been thinking about for quite a while now, is about the purpose of feminism. Now, I know that feminists claim the goal/objective of feminism is equality. I'm fully aware of that. But to put it kind of bluntly, why is that desirable?

Feminists argue we currently live in a patriarchy. And they say that they want to abolish it. But why exactly? I know a lot of you might be upset at me, but hear me out. Why do you want to dismantle the patriarchy?

Is it because it's morally wrong to have inequality, and we as a society should strive for good morals?

Is it because the patriarchy causes a lot of harm, and thus abolishing it would lead to less suffering overall?

And on that second one in particular, assuming for a moment that that is our motivation for feminism...what if (purely hypothetically speaking), it was proven that the patriarchy being abolished would lead to more suffering overall? Like if feminism were to hypothetically "win", the world would get worse. There would be more suffering, hunger, whatever, just bad stuff. If that was hypothetically true (I'm not saying it is even for a moment), would feminism no longer be desirable?

Basically, what is the foundation of feminism? What moral ground is it built upon? Why do you want feminism in the first place?

I look forward to hearing your responses. Cheers.