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

[Malmuria]

Yes, that sounds like our 5e game (and our 1e/BECMI game).

I have a some very specific question about your 5e game

• what do you do about the plethora of darkvision races and the light cantrip? Or is light not an important resource in your game?
• does the fact that characters regain all HP and abilities on a long rest ever obviate challenges they may face
• how often is mundane equipment relevant?
• when doing hex exploration, do the characters ever risk running out of resources like food and water?
• especially if you are a gm, do you find all the tracking (of per rest abilities, 5' ranges, duration of spells, etc) to be cumbersome?
• do you find monster or character HP to be overinflated?
• do the players ever try to approach combat by stacking the odds in their favor outside of initiative, vs tactical gameplay within initiative?

The above are some things I've had difficulty with playing 5e. Characters quickly become too powerful for mundane challenges, combat becomes a slog, and as I've been saying the best answer is some special power or spell on their character sheet. But I'm curious to see how you handle any of these in your game.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I have a some very specific question about your 5e game

I will do my best to answer, but keep in mind I am not the DM. He is the one that keeps track of our houserules.

• what do you do about the plethora of darkvision races and the light cantrip? Or is light not an important resource in your game?

Light and darkness are not something we have ever concerned ourselves with too much in the past 30+ years. We didn't really track it much in 1e and we don't now either. It only matters when it matters. However, most of our PCs don't have darkvision (mostly humans) thought we have a halfling and an elf.

• does the fact that characters regain all HP and abilities on a long rest ever obviate challenges they may face

Not IME. That being said it is not easy to get a long rest in a dungeon or even the wilderness for that matter!

• how often is mundane equipment relevant?

Rope, healer's kit, lock pick tools, oil, caltrops, torches, poles, etc. all have varying levels of use. About the same as I can remember from 1e. We are a pretty careful group and prepare accordingly.

• when doing hex exploration, do the characters ever risk running out of resources like food and water?

We narrate most exploration like we did in 1e. We mostly skip that, but not always, and just assume we get to the dungeon or city or whatever. However, we have never really had to track food or water and we didn't do it in 1e either.

• especially if you are a gm, do you find all the tracking (of per rest abilities, 5' ranges, duration of spells, etc) to be cumbersome?

I'm not the DM, so...?

• do you find monster or character HP to be overinflated?

I don't have an issue with either, though we have discussed reducing them after 10th level in our next campaign. However, we have a few house rules that affect this and rest and healing in general. Here is a brief description:

• Death at 0 BHP
• BHP (bloodied hit points) are based on size (between 4-10 for Medium IIRC) and don't increase with level.
• HP recover normally, but you only get 1 BHP per week of rest and use of healer's kit and med check
• You loose BHP after HP hit 0 and/or on a confirmed critical hit.

• do the players ever try to approach combat by stacking the odds in their favor outside of initiative, vs tactical gameplay within initiative?

I am not sure what your asking. Combat is deadly so we try to avoid combat or stack the odds in our favor by planning and research. We plan strategically. A critical hit could kill you so you really need to get the odds in your favor if possible. That often involves creative approaches to combat. On top of that we don't have a cleric in our group!

The above are some things I've had difficulty with playing 5e. Characters quickly become too powerful for mundane challenges, combat becomes a slog, and as I've been saying the best answer is some special power or spell on their character sheet. But I'm curious to see how you handle any of these in your game.

Well we are level 15 now so mundane challenges tend to be a bit less mundane. However, we are not to powerful and have been running for our lives more than once in the past few levels. Our combat is fast and furious. Typical short (1-2 rounds) but sometimes longer. I actually prefer the longer combats as you get to do more and RP more in them. However, I don't find them a slog. I mean we can zip through a 5 round combat in 20-30 min. We only have one spellcaster (wizard) so spells are a help, but rarely the answer. Typically we plan and strategize to solve our problems.

 

[Lanefan]

I've taken the liberty of re-sequencing a few quoted bits below to batch like points together...

Light and darkness are not something we have ever concerned ourselves with too much in the past 30+ years. We didn't really track it much in 1e and we don't now either. It only matters when it matters. However, most of our PCs don't have darkvision (mostly humans) thought we have a halfling and an elf.

We narrate most exploration like we did in 1e. We mostly skip that, but not always, and just assume we get to the dungeon or city or whatever. However, we have never really had to track food or water and we didn't do it in 1e either.

This explains quite a bit - you'd already dropped some key old-school elements 30 years ago.

With Continual Light available tracking light isn't important...until it is. Light rocks can easily be dispelled, don't work in null-magic areas, and IME people love throwing them into places they can't be recovered "just to see what's down there". This came up recently in my game - they hit an area where magic was suppressed so all their light rocks went out, and in a party of six I think they had a total of three torches between them.

Rope, healer's kit, lock pick tools, oil, caltrops, torches, poles, etc. all have varying levels of use. About the same as I can remember from 1e. We are a pretty careful group and prepare accordingly.

Yep, this is old-school. Love it!

I don't have an issue with either, though we have discussed reducing them after 10th level in our next campaign. However, we have a few house rules that affect this and rest and healing in general. Here is a brief description:

• Death at 0 BHP
• BHP (bloodied hit points) are based on size (between 4-10 for Medium IIRC) and don't increase with level.
• HP recover normally, but you only get 1 BHP per week of rest and use of healer's kit and med check
• You loose BHP after HP hit 0 and/or on a confirmed critical hit.

"Death at 0 BHP" = dead outright, or that's when death saves start? Also, can you recover normal hit points while still down on BHP?

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

"Death at 0 BHP" = dead outright, or that's when death saves start?

No death saves

Also, can you recover normal hit points while still down on BHP?

You can use HD on a rest to recover HP as normal (spells too) with healers kit

 

[Voadam]

With Continual Light available tracking light isn't important...until it is. Light rocks can easily be dispelled, don't work in null-magic areas, and IME people love throwing them into places they can't be recovered "just to see what's down there". This came up recently in my game - they hit an area where magic was suppressed so all their light rocks went out, and in a party of six I think they had a total of three torches between them.

So the same in 5e and Oe/1e/B/X, light spells go out in null-magic areas and humans have no infravision/darkvision.

The difference is at will light cantrip at 1st in 5e versus continual light as a 3rd level cleric spell in 3e and older D&D.

For me as a DM I generally hand wave it as much regardless of edition, it has been pretty constant from 1e to 5e. A few narrative questions about light sources and occupied hands then not really sweat it thereafter with close tracking. 5e it has come up a bit more with automated line of sight in online fantasy grounds games.

 

[haakon1]

Nice. How do you handle combat over email?

General:
I use Word for the text of each “chapter”. They email me & each other with dialogue and actions, and I make sense out of it - e.g., if they talking in multiple threads, I’ll reorder in Word to make it make sense, as a flowing conversation or separate ones.

I use Excel for combat maps. The characters are represented by an object - a box the same size as the squares - with a color and initial. Generally, Blue or close is PC, Green is an ally, Red is an enemy. For the dragons, I put the dragon icon over their red box. The background in this case is a scan (JPG) of the original AD&D TOEE Air Node, blown up to 5 ft. grid from 50 ft. original, with a grid superimposed (bring to front) and the boxes for PC’s, the dragons, and icons for their treasure pile on the top lair.

For combat, I have everyone roll their initiative. Then I put it in a table in order in the Word chapter, with columns for Order, Character, Initiative in a format of “Rolled 10+1 = 11”, In Hand saying things like “Shield and Mace”, and then a copy and paste of the action they want to take. Monster initiative and plans aren’t listed until the monsters take their actions.

Actions could be as simple as “fire bow at wounded dragon” or they could include their roll results, to attack, threat check if applicable, and damage. And they can include contingencpies.

Then I run it, determining the results and rolling any dice they didn’t. If they weren‘t clear or didn’t give me contingencies and their action is no longer logical, most likely I will continue with their intent (e.g., if the wounded dragon is now unconscious, shoot at the other one) or I’ll ask for clarification (e.g., “are you using your +1 arrows or regular arrows?” or “the dragon is out of range for that spell - do you still want to cast it or do something else?”)

I’ll run as far as I can until I need clarification.

Hopefully that’s clear. It’s by no means quick, but it’s accurate to 3.5e rules. The slowness works for me and my players, since we’ve all been doing it for years now. As you can imagine, it’s not for everyone.

I think for my most ardent players, the glory of this campaign is in the non-combat stuff. “Downton and Dragons” like a character getting married, going to Warmaster College during a long downtime interlude, wrestling with their allegiance to their old country or new, and managing fiefs. But the combat gets a lot emails flying closer together.

Because wealth-by-level guidelines became meaningless? Or...?

Because the email campaign started in 1998 with AD&D rules. We were “long into the game” when we converted to 3e in 2001, and converted again to 3.5e when it came out. (2003?) I wasn’t going to add subtract from their stuff because of those rules: “more of a guideline”.

For the most recently added characters, here’s what I did:
late 2020: 2 new player characters, with players I met in GenCon Online. They created a 5th level barbarian and Druid. I let them chose any nonmagical gear they wanted, and gave them each a magic item or some masterwork gear consistent with their character stories. One of the PC’s had an extra weapon they had crafted that they let the barbarian use until he found his own magic weapon. They also shared potions and magic arrows.

early 2021: Former player (wife of a player in since 1998) decided to rejoin with a Halfling 5th level Rogue bartender/spy for the Kron Hill gnomes. Introduced as captured with two NPC’s, her gear nearby, as chosen by the player. She was with 2 NPC’s, but the party sent one of their NPC’s (Spugnoir!) and the PC of a player who joined in 2020 but never got into back to their base (the Tower of Hommlet, as they are working with Burne & Rufus.

2022: Two real world friends who’d never played D&D joined the game by taking over NPC’s met in the Earth Node - survivors of an adventuring party captured by the TOEE and sent into the Nodes with just light armor, one weapon, and a waterskin. They had scrounged some additional stuff, But certainly not aligned to Wealth by Level.

 

[haakon1]

For example, we’ve always hand waved resource management (food, equipment, spell components, etc.) in BECMI up through 5e. So to me, that is not important for OSR style, but to some here it is.

I hand wave “free” spell components, but nothing else.

The logistics element of the game is fun for me. Running AD&D 1e and 3.5e and not beyond ~10th level, it makes logistics spells like Create Food & Water and Leomund’s Secure Shelter really game changers.

Also, I feel it honors D&D’s wargaming roots and the adage “amateurs debate tactics, professIonals plan logistics“.

It also helps that this is one of my favorite books:

The Things They Carried - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I hand wave “free” spell components, but nothing else.

The logistics element of the game is fun for me. Running AD&D 1e and 3.5e and not beyond ~10th level, it makes logistics spells like Create Food & Water and Leomund’s Secure Shelter really game changers.

Also, I feel it honors D&D’s wargaming roots and the adage “amateurs debate tactics, professIonals plan logistics“.

It also helps that this is one of my favorite books:

The Things They Carried - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I do want to clarify that we get into the l logistics / strategic value of those things. We purchase / acquire the material and equipment we need for the adventure at hand. However, we don’t spend a lot of effort tracking what we have once we are adventuring. We generally assume we have what need unless some unexpected comes up that we didn’t prepare for

 

[Hussar]

I know this wasn't directed at me, but, I'd like to take a shot here. Sorry about the fisking, but, it's easier to answer each point individually. Note, assume I'm adding the phrase "for me and my table to the end of every single statement.

I have a some very specific question about your 5e game

• what do you do about the plethora of darkvision races and the light cantrip? Or is light not an important resource in your game?

Since I play online, light and vision are FAR more important than they ever were playing tabletop, for me. LOS effects, plus the fact that all you have to do to screw over darkvision is grant the Stalker feat to a couple of baddies once in a while and you show how important light actually is. Granted, true, tracking time like that - as in how long do your torches last - isn't much of an issue. But, then, in AD&D it was a non-issue by 3rd level anyway with Continual Light. Not a change for me.

• does the fact that characters regain all HP and abilities on a long rest ever obviate challenges they may face

Long rests are a resource, same as anything else. The fact that characters actually can go from full HP to dead in a single encounter means that challenges are never obviated. True, no more Level Drain. But, that isn't much of a loss IMO.

• how often is mundane equipment relevant?

All the time. Tools are used constantly in our game, for example.

• when doing hex exploration, do the characters ever risk running out of resources like food and water?

This is honestly something I struggle with. But, in our current Spelljammer campaign, I came across a nifty idea for dealing with travel that I'm working on, so, yes, it is a serious risk.

• especially if you are a gm, do you find all the tracking (of per rest abilities, 5' ranges, duration of spells, etc) to be cumbersome?

Again, playing online, so, no. That's not cumbersome at all. 99% of it is automated, so, it happens in the background. But, again, I realize that this isn't helpful for people who play F2F.

• do you find monster or character HP to be overinflated?

Character? Not at all. It's usually harder not killing PC's. Everyone forgets that while monster HP is much greater than before, monster damage has generally doubled or tripled, while PC HP haven't even doubled.

• do the players ever try to approach combat by stacking the odds in their favor outside of initiative, vs tactical gameplay within initiative?

The above are some things I've had difficulty with playing 5e. Characters quickly become too powerful for mundane challenges, combat becomes a slog, and as I've been saying the best answer is some special power or spell on their character sheet. But I'm curious to see how you handle any of these in your game.

All the time. My players are pretty cautious and they know I will whack PC's given the chance. Downed PC's will be attacked, for example. The last homebrew monster I used caused characters to make death saves while still having HP. Fail three times and you die outright. Neat mechanic.

 

[haakon1]

most of our PCs don't have darkvision (mostly humans) thought we have a halfling and an elf.

My campaigns tend to be heavily human. I do think it’s a characteristic of Old School. Gygax did say that was an intentional design feature.

My email campaign has 11 humans (including 2 NPC’s), 1 halfling. The family game has 3 humans, 2 gnomes, an elf, and a half-elf. I’m running 3.5e, but with old school modules & vibes in Greyhawk, the oldest school setting.