OSR OSR ... Feel the Love! Why People Like The Old School

lowkey13 · Jul 13, 2019

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Tony Vargas · Jul 13, 2019

Content Removed by Creator.

GameOgre · Jul 14, 2019

1-B/X is cheap. Really, you can buy a hardcopy of Basic Fantasy for $5. So my B/X game cost $5 while my 5E game is up in the hundreds.

2-Less complicated. Rules lite rpg's are just so much easier to run. All that brain space you free up not having to remember 10,000 rules and 20,000 ways those rules are designed to break can instead be used to role play and make awesome adventures.

3-Adventures. Modern rpg adventures are trash. They look pretty. They are all in hardback and take a year to finish but are as imaginative as dried grapefruit. ALL the best work on adventure creation and design is being done by the OSR. I mean I can take all the fun I had running Storm King Thunder and place it beside one of the better One Page Dungeons and I think the one page might actually win.

Garthanos · Jul 14, 2019

Completely a better thread

lowkey13 · Jul 14, 2019

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Warpiglet · Jul 14, 2019

There's more mystery in an imperfect system like 1e. There is more variability in power. Rolling hit points and abilities was exciting! I had a barbarian with 6 12s for hit point rolls...lottery odds! And it became part of his character...

i think as as an adult (not a kid) the danger of missed saving throws and the game's deadliness are high stakes excitement.

but I must say subjectively things were more mysterious and alien. The art was trippy and the Gygaxian imagination lent an air of swords and sorcery as really taking place somewhere not fully knowable.

the newness and lack of symmetry was and is as important as nostalgia.

that said we play 5e now but one day who knows...before I die...it would be cool to get the old books out and play it with the kids!

Salamandyr · Jul 15, 2019

OSR games tend to fit the expected playstyle better than more modern games: fighters fight, clerics back them up, and keep the team going, thieves are sneaky, and magic-users drop fireballs. A plethora of tiny changes, seemingly unconnected, eventually built up a system where fighters no longer value strength, the highest damage dealers were the former thieves, clerics could do everything better than everyone else, and the mark of a badly played magic-user was throwing a fireball (5e excepted, which made fireball OP for its level just to make it popular again--and it still kind of blows compared to the old days).

The art's better in the old books. Somewhere along the way, they decided that the optimal art style for Dungeons & Dragons was a bunch of people standing around like they were in a fashion show in attire that was the LOTR films crossed with a Disney Princess movie instead of anything anyone had ever actually worn. Oh...and the "realistic" armor which wasn't any more realistic than the loin cloths and fighting straps (which one could at least move in) of the old days had been. OSR has vibrant pencils, charcoal and ink drawings instead of mediocre computer color, and Illustrator brush effects. And OSR art generally has balls out action--OSR illustrations are of people doing things. And those things are usually violent or at least interesting (and sometimes even sexy). Give 5e credit...the monster art is generally top notch. The same cannot be said for any illustration involving someone who might be a protagonist.

The numbers are smaller, and there is far less focus on creating a uniform experience. What I mean from that is...a dragon might have 28 hit points, and it's possible that the party will get lucky and slay the dragon in the first round before anyone is hurt (or get unlucky and be wiped out in 1 round by the aforesaid dragon). By contrast, a modern dragon will have hundreds of hit points, the better to make sure it lasts the expected number of rounds, and does the expected number of tactically interesting things, so as to generate the expected amount of fun from fighting and defeating a dragon of that size and power, so that the players get the requisite amount of experience that allows them to progress in power by an expected amount to allow themselves to be challenged enough to be interested but not overly endangered by the next series of encounters. It's all very studied, and all very clean, and it's even fun...for a while.

OSR isn't perfect; much of the fun of being involved has been to be engaged in a form of historical recreation...how to create a game using these imperfect tools, but it's oh so worthwhile.

dave2008 · Jul 15, 2019

lowkey13 said:
So, what do y'all think?

Interesting, thank you for sharing!

lowkey13 said:
I still really like 5e- I mostly run it in an OSR fashion, using 1e modules, but there are a few things I just can't replicate.

I do feel like it would be fairly easily to replicate most of what you like in 5e (not that you need to too). Here are my thoughts:

1. Chargen: No sure about this one, but I guess you could only reveal the class features in 5 level increments. That would at least prevent the planning out of the whole character.

2. Magic Itmes: I agree with you here, but if you take care of some of these other ones (see #8) it comes back naturally.

3. Rules, lack thereof: I feel the same about 5e rules as 1e rules, you can use them if you want them, but you don't have to. I actually think this is a D&D thing and doesn't really change from edition to edition, so I don't get this one personally.

4. Class Niche Protection: Restrict classes to one archtype and don't allow multi-classing as needed. I think that pretty much solves that issue. If needed, remove feats too.

5. Spells: I agree with you here as well. I would suggest restricting archtypes / classes and possibly removing cantrips. That gets you most of what you want I think.

6. Big Bad / Combats / Whack-a-mole: Most 5e combats are already fast, even with the extra HP (damage increased to keep pace) so I don't know what to do for you here (heck I see more effort put in making fights last longer). However, the fear of combat and death can be easily brought back with a few tweaks to the rest and healing rules (either official in the DMG or house rules). If you restore class protection as noted, it will make it even more deadly (less magic).

7. Leveling Man: I would still keep prof., but if you get rid of feats & ASI, then adding a bit back with half proficiency bonus for non trained skills, saves, attacks, etc. would pretty much balance things out. I don't see any real downside.

8. Stats: Remove or seriously limit ASIs. It won't break the game. You don't need an 18 or 20 to be effective in 5e. The benefit of this, especially if you don't allow feats and multi-classing (they are optional systems after all). It will make magic items more prized and special. I don't care about stat generation and 5e already allows multiple methods, so no issue there really.

Monayuris · Jul 16, 2019

dave2008 said:
Interesting, thank you for sharing!

I do feel like it would be fairly easily to replicate most of what you like in 5e (not that you need to too). Here are my thoughts:

1. Chargen: No sure about this one, but I guess you could only reveal the class features in 5 level increments. That would at least prevent the planning out of the whole character.

2. Magic Itmes: I agree with you here, but if you take care of some of these other ones (see #8) it comes back naturally.

3. Rules, lack thereof: I feel the same about 5e rules as 1e rules, you can use them if you want them, but you don't have to. I actually think this is a D&D thing and doesn't really change from edition to edition, so I don't get this one personally.

4. Class Niche Protection: Restrict classes to one archtype and don't allow multi-classing as needed. I think that pretty much solves that issue. If needed, remove feats too.

5. Spells: I agree with you here as well. I would suggest restricting archtypes / classes and possibly removing cantrips. That gets you most of what you want I think.

6. Big Bad / Combats / Whack-a-mole: Most 5e combats are already fast, even with the extra HP (damage increased to keep pace) so I don't know what to do for you here (heck I see more effort put in making fights last longer). However, the fear of combat and death can be easily brought back with a few tweaks to the rest and healing rules (either official in the DMG or house rules). If you restore class protection as noted, it will make it even more deadly (less magic).

7. Leveling Man: I would still keep prof., but if you get rid of feats & ASI, then adding a bit back with half proficiency bonus for non trained skills, saves, attacks, etc. would pretty much balance things out. I don't see any real downside.

8. Stats: Remove or seriously limit ASIs. It won't break the game. You don't need an 18 or 20 to be effective in 5e. The benefit of this, especially if you don't allow feats and multi-classing (they are optional systems after all). It will make magic items more prized and special. I don't care about stat generation and 5e already allows multiple methods, so no issue there really.

You can get *close* with 5e. I've been doing so for several years now. These are all excellent tweaks in that direction, you're not going to get a true old school game out of 5e, but you can get is a 5e game with an old school feel. Which is good enough.

They are two different games. I'm a fan of both. I run old school games for that true classic D&D experience, and I run 5e for when I want a little more of a modern style.

I'm quite happy that old school games are thriving, now.

Ralif Redhammer · Jul 17, 2019

I was reading an OSR book last night and it reminded me of something I loved but had forgotten about: all those +1 swords that would be +3 or so vs. a specific type of foe. I loved that sort of weird granularity, and how the plainest of magic blades could become powerful when used against the right monsters.

In an old campaign, I had a hobgoblin chieftain come with a longsword+1, +2 vs dwarves. The party defeated him, but the ranger claimed the sword (named Dwarfsbane or something predictable). It glowed in the presence of dwarves, so he was often teasing the party dwarf with it.