OSR OSR Gripes

My first edition of D&D was 2nd edition AD&D, and through the years I invested heavily in 3e, 4e, and now 5e (in addition to a myriad other systems, including non-fantasy RPGs.) My friend, who is a retroclone apologist, wanted to run a Labyrinth Lord game.

After rolling my character (even with the "4d6 drop the lowest" method), I came up with the worst imaginable array of ability scores: all 9-12 with no modifiers at all. Even one penalty score would've been preferable, as that would have at least given some flavor to the character.

My character is the frontline fighter, and rolled 2 hp. The weakest monster in the book could literally one-shot him.

Our cleric has one spell for the whole day. Our thief has (at best) around a 20% chance to do any thievery check - sneaking, opening a lock, disabling a trap, etc.

I get that the point is to avoid combat, but they don't even give the party tools to do that. No one has a reliable chance to hide. No one has the ability to throw spells that can befuddle groups of opponents. The fighters can't fight (or even survive). The only chance you have is to stay in the tavern and not even go on the adventure.

I'm wondering "where's the fun?" in OSR games like Labyrinth Lord/Swords and Wizardry?

Throw yourself into combat early and often. Be reckless. You will either get very lucky and make 2nd level or die. Then you can roll up a new, hopefully more robust PC. In other words, create your own character funnel.

Being crazy reckless with a PC can be fun.

As Pogre said, you just have to go for it. Back when that was pretty much the only way to play we either soldiered on or made up our own rules. Nowadays I'd need a really good hook to go back to that style of gameplay, as there are so many others available. On the other hand, if you've never tried it perhaps you should. If nothing else, it'll give you a better insight into what us old fogeys are talking about when we go off about the Good Ol' Days!

For me, from playing the original editions to playing various retroclones, I’d say that that sense of fear is a big part of the enjoyment. It’s like Dark Souls, where victory means that much more for the ease of death.

It’s also about playing smart. About not just relying on what’s written down on your character sheet. As a DM, I kinda love being outwitted. In a 1e game I ran a few years back, I put a big window in the BBEG chamber, to give a more scenic view to the fight. When the battle turned against the PCs, the paladin grabbed the BBEG and jumped out the window, saving the party.
That being said, I can’t argue that the low levels aren’t a grueling gauntlet. Thieves and magic-users take a while to become even just competent. And as soon as I read about giving max HP at first level (I think that showed up first in 3e?), I started doing that in older editions and retroclone games as well.

Also, if you look at magic item distribution, it's much higher in older editions and most OSR games. With great risk comes great reward. Err, some of the time.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people that thinks that OSR play is the only way. I’ve got my own OSR gripes, to be honest, mostly about some of the attitudes that tend to attach themselves to it, rather than the gaming itself.

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pogre said:

Throw yourself into combat early and often. Be reckless. You will either get very lucky and make 2nd level or die..

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This is bad advice if you want to level up. Back then, you didn't get crap for XP for killing monsters. You got XP by getting treasure (and role-playing awards). At low levels, find a way to avoid combat and get the treasure if you wanted to survive and level up. This means being creative. Lead monsters into traps you set up, or lead two monsters to each other and let them fight it out. Get henchmen, etc.

I played Lamentations of the Flame Princess which is one of these old school D&D-esque games.

I lost 5 characters in one session. No exaggeration. That's just how it goes.

Retreater said:

I'm wondering "where's the fun?" in OSR games like Labyrinth Lord/Swords and Wizardry?

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Cynically, I've heard DM's on youtube or on blogs speak of OSR as the fun being that the PC's are helpless to avoid their machinations. There is a certain class of DM, and a certain class of content provider, that seems to delight in modules where the PCs have no real agency, the universe is vastly beyond their comprehension, everything is random whim, and they are vastly outclassed by the NPC's around them and limited in their resources and ultimately doomed to horrid deaths.

Gleeful fun for a certain class of GM no doubt, but as a player all that gets old in a hurry.

I've been playing D&D since the early 80's. I'm not completely baffled by the OSR nostalgia, as I can certainly point to my own variations of it in writing rules and adventures for 1e AD&D or from that mindset. But on the other hand, I'm completely baffled by the OSR as it actually exists. I played in that era. I understand pretty fully all that can and will go wrong with the system and why most people got frustrated with it and ultimately abandoned it. I do understand that it gets a lot right and could in theory be fixed.

But so much of the OSR seems not devoted to fixing it but celebrating its brokenness.

Could you have fun with that character? Yes. Once. For a while until the novelty of it wears off. The second time you roll one up though will be drudgery and you'll be reduced to suicidal play to try to get a better character. At some point, our group eventually realized that the character funnel was nonsense, because it was distraction from what we really wanted to do which was play a character we would actually enjoy playing for a substantial time. We all had fun stories to share about our crappy characters, but it was the non-crappy characters that survived the funnel that we actually cherished and desired.

4d6 drop the lowest is a horrible method. You will abandon it one way or the other, if not now then in a year or three years. You'll either find a method with less randomness or your group will tacitly accept cheating:"Yes I did roll two 18's for my character (on the 18th character that I rolled up)", "Yes I did roll two 18's for my character (after I rerolled the 7 that was ruining the character it luckily was an 18).", "Yes I did roll two 18's for my character (it was a 2 sixes and 2 threes, but I figured close enough)."

The OSR thief is a travesty of terrible design. I only figured this out after playing thieves for 10 years.

First level requires kid gloves by the DM if you aren't going to have half or more of the party die before 1st level. This is true even in later editions, but it's particularly bad in OSR. Plan on playing two characters as a viable answer, and the survivor being the character you commit to. I even had situations where a player lost both characters and a player took over another players other character. As a GM, if you don't want to just prove how easily you can slaughter the PC, you do a lot of "squash the rats" type stuff until they get their second or even third HD.

If you are trying to be fair as a GM, OSR is a nightmare to run. If you don't care and just are willing to run the game however you think is fun, well nothing validates that quite like OSR.

Really, I tried running a 1e AD&D game a few years back and it was really shocking just how badly it played compared to a modern rules set or that I put up with it for more than 10 years. I mean there are things I do love about it and I know how to improvise, it's just that I hate having to improvise every freaking thing. That's way too much heavy lifting that distracts from playing the game. Of course, if you are a seat of the pants type of GM that doesn't give a rip about the players and imagine you are vastly more entertaining than you are, that probably doesn't bother you, but I'm honestly I'm as much at a loss as to why OSR is a thing as you are.

Again, I get the 'rules light' stripped down game desire. What I don't get is the love of warts. If you are going to strip the game down and rebuild it, build it around the still solid old school 8 cylinder engine - not around the rusted body and the kitschy 70's interior.

Sacrosanct said:

This is bad advice if you want to level up. Back then, you didn't get crap for XP for killing monsters. You got XP by getting treasure (and role-playing awards). At low levels, find a way to avoid combat and get the treasure if you wanted to survive and level up. This means being creative. Lead monsters into traps you set up, or lead two monsters to each other and let them fight it out. Get henchmen, etc.

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No question.

I was assuming the OP did not want to spend the whole game trying to save his 2hp fighter and was suggesting ONE way to have a little fun with it. I don't remember roleplaying awards being part of old school D&D - I wish we had done that.

As lowkey13 suggested above he could embrace the old school mode and do what you are suggesting. That would not be fun for me, but to each their own.

Retreater said:

My character is the frontline fighter, and rolled 2 hp. The weakest monster in the book could literally one-shot him.

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Perfect: fight those until you die and then try to roll a better character.

Retreater said:

I'm wondering "where's the fun?"

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As a fellow old-timer who was one of the few regulars I could depend on to stick with a whole season at my Next Playtest table used to say: "You have to make your own fun!"