D&D General Why is "OSR style" D&D Fun For You?

[Lanefan]

I mentioned it above, but I think the key thing is that the solution is not on your character sheet. Now granted, you do have stuff on your character sheet, mostly equipment, that can help you. But otherwise you need to engage with the environment in conversation with the GM. And the role of the GM is to be a "referee" and play the world honestly. This is often accomplished through randomness (including randomly rolling for treasure)

I agree with the sentiment but in all honesty I've never once used random treasure tables. Instead I put treasure in that makes sense for the creatures/occupants/foes to have, without regard for what particular characters might find said treasure. When I come up with the adventure, even if it's for a specific party or group, I've no idea whether any given character will still be around when the party gets to said adventure as characters die, retire, split off and form different parties, parties recruit new members, and so on.

And yes, this means they often get magic stuff they simply can't use, so they sell it off when back in town.

 

[Lanefan]

Yup.

Look at those tables. Look at the weighting of the rolls.

How many magic bec du corbin do you see on those tables?

There's nothing stopping a DM from redoing and expanding those tables (which, let's face it, are woefully inadequate when it comes to weapons and armour).

 

[Voadam]

In old school sandbox play there is an alternative to random treasure drops determining a PC's stuff.

A party could specifically spend resources on sages or bards or oracles or treasure maps to find out about missing holy swords for a paladin or a staff of power for a magic user or magical bec de corbins for the double specialized specific polearm master.

That way the PCs assert some control over the chaotic randomness of the open world and its random charts to bend them to their will. The DM can either run with it and devise a themed adventure around the PCs actions, say there are no magic bec de corbins, or make up an epic tale about one that is false and sends the party on a snipe hunt into a random megadungeon.

 

[Lanefan]

I've never played an OSR game as far as I know, but I've never had any desire to because it doesn't seem to me that characters advance in any interesting, non-tread mill sort of way. Please convince me that I am wrong.

It's a question of focus.

If your focus as player is first and foremost on mechanically advancing your character through level-ups, new powers, feats, etc. you're probably much better served by any of the WotC D&D versions as that's what they do.

In old-school gaming, at least the way I see it, advancement is a somewhat secondary consideration. Sure you level up now and then but there might not be much mechanical impact (and even less in the eyes of the player, as the nuts-and-bolts mechanics are largely kept DM-side), and therefore it's not as much of a focus. Instead, the focus is more on the here-and-now in the fiction - how are we gonna get into that castle, how are we gonna knock off that giant, how are we gonna get all this loot back to town - rather than on the broader metagame of mechanical character advancement.

 

[Raiztt]

It's a question of focus.

If your focus as player is first and foremost on mechanically advancing your character through level-ups, new powers, feats, etc. you're probably much better served by any of the WotC D&D versions as that's what they do.

In old-school gaming, at least the way I see it, advancement is a somewhat secondary consideration. Sure you level up now and then but there might not be much mechanical impact (and even less in the eyes of the player, as the nuts-and-bolts mechanics are largely kept DM-side), and therefore it's not as much of a focus. Instead, the focus is more on the here-and-now in the fiction - how are we gonna get into that castle, how are we gonna knock off that giant, how are we gonna get all this loot back to town - rather than on the broader metagame of mechanical character advancement.

But the "how" is directly informated by the "what" of "what can I do", i.e.: what are my capabilities/abilities. Like, what actually differentiates me from another character besides just our str, dex, con, int, wis, and cha? if the "now" is only what matters in OSR, why have levels at all?

 

[Mannahnin]

I appreciate that (and thanks for the reminder), but at some point if you're going to use a term as denotationally broad as "Old School" you shouldn't be surprised when people aren't happy about trying to keep it to yourself.

Wait. "Old School" is specifically open to all older games. Old School Renaissance (or Revival) refers to a rebirth. A revival. The thing being revived was old school D&D, which had been left behind by WotC and was "dead" as a published game. RuneQuest wasn't dead and abandoned by the publisher. Neither was Traveller.

Even those of us who think that OSR most properly refers to D&D and D&D-likes accord due respect to other Old School games. Historically they just weren't the thing that was being reborn or revived. Or at least, old school D&D was the MAIN thing that was being reborn and re-examined.

I'm not looking for it but this is what I meant.

OSR games mostly only allow for a small handful of builds approved by the system chosen by your class. With the smaller list of options and little way to tweak them at start or during play, the games can focus more of providing those specific class fantasies stronger.

It's a matter of focus.

Focus on 3-6 classes
OR
Focus on 12-15 classes with 2-8 subclasses each and 2-4 dozen feats.

Yeah. There's definitely a design tension. One of the nice things, ideally, about the old class progressions is that there isn't all the finicky points-juggling which (for example) characterized 3.x with all its skill points and feat chains and so forth. Or the issue of qualifying for Prestige Classes which necessitated plotting out your character's advancement progression many (or at least several) levels in advance.

I do think it's possible to have a happy medium. The Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLOG) is a NuSR set of rules/hacks which may be a useful example.

I've never played an OSR game as far as I know, but I've never had any desire to because it doesn't seem to me that characters advance in any interesting, non-tread mill sort of way. Please convince me that I am wrong.

This shocks me! I'm accustomed to seeing it much more the opposite way!

A classic accusation I've seen leveled at WotC D&D is that it is much more of a treadmill in terms of character progression. That characters fight similar challenges for their whole careers, that they're always "just adventurers", and that mostly the numbers keep going up on the character sheets at the same pace as they go up in the monster statblocks.

As opposed to classic D&D in which spells are much more powerful and their use more open-ended, so at higher levels the nature of the game and the types of challenges you can take on qualitatively different, compared to lower levels. And the game is explicitly designed to transition to domain management, ruling lands and leading armies for the Fighter-types, and engaging in spell research and magic item creation for the casters (although TBF, 3E had the most detailed rules for magic item creation).

 

[Jack Daniel]

To level the charge that the OSR pays too much attention to old-school D&D and not enough attention to other old TTRPGs is akin to wondering why a forum dedicated to classic Fords doesn't have any discussion about Chevrolets, or why those Commodore enthusiasts are always talking about their PETs and VIC-20s and C64s/C128s and Amigas but never once bother mention the Atari 400/800 or XL/XE or ST series.

 

[Lanefan]

But the "how" is directly informated by the "what" of "what can I do", i.e.: what are my capabilities/abilities. Like, what actually differentiates me from another character besides just our str, dex, con, int, wis, and cha? if the "now" is only what matters in OSR, why have levels at all?

This is in fact a good question.

The main advantage of levels is that characters can slowly progress into being able to face new and (usually) tougher and-or more interesting challenges and opponents, which keeps things fresh for all involved.

As for what differentiates you from the other characters: when it comes to mechanics it's mostly your class. If you're a fighter you're probably going to approach things differently than if you're a thief or a ranger or a cleric. As for differentiation between characters of the same class, that's down to you as player and how you portray said character's personality, quirks, habits, and so forth. I've seen games where two mechanically-almost-identical characters couldn't be more different in how they were played.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah. There's definitely a design tension. One of the nice things, ideally, about the old class progressions is that there isn't all the finicky points-juggling which (for example) characterized 3.x with all its skill points and feat chains and so forth. Or the issue of qualifying for Prestige Classes which necessitated plotting out your character's advancement progression many (or at least several) levels in advance.

I do think it's possible to have a happy medium. The Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLOG) is a NuSR set of rules/hacks which may be a useful example

I always said that if I won the lottery and no longer had to worry about income, I'd create my own OSR with the premise of supporting about 20 adventurer archetypes as class as the core within the system. No customization would be introduced except for race choice and equipment

This way I can fully explore the fantasies of each archetype from nobody to novice to expert to master to grandmaster and offer enough options of archetypes that GMs would not need to kludge in some half working bandaid rule for players as Players would have a few fully supported archetypes in play and party compositions in management to try before they get bored.

Allow for the same fun one might have in brutal power of the OSR heavy fighter in the light duelist or medium barbarian because the game was design for all 3 at the start.

 

[TwoSix]

But the "how" is directly informated by the "what" of "what can I do", i.e.: what are my capabilities/abilities. Like, what actually differentiates me from another character besides just our str, dex, con, int, wis, and cha? if the "now" is only what matters in OSR, why have levels at all?

Honestly, I think it's mostly a way of measuring progress and keeping "score". Purist 1970s D&D was a lot more gamist than subsequent editions.