D&D 5E How Old-School is 5th Edition? Can it even do Old-School?

[S'mon]

I think somewhere between how the wiki and TVTropes articles define it is about right. A grounded, mundane humanocentric setting with little to no magic.

I was thinking low fantasy as in swords & sorcery, vs high fantasy Tolkien-style epic trilogies.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was thinking low fantasy as in swords & sorcery, vs high fantasy Tolkien-style epic trilogies.

That's literary low fantasy. Thieves World stuff. Very different from a settings magic rating.

 

[overgeeked]

I was thinking low fantasy as in swords & sorcery, vs high fantasy Tolkien-style epic trilogies.

Well, compare a Conan story with Lord of the Rings.

In Conan, all magic is evil and corrupting and anything supernatural is scary and bad. Wizards are almost all evil and the biggest “spell” I’ve come across is monster summoning. There’s maybe one magic item, a sword, that’s made to kill one creature. And it does.

In Lord of the Rings, you have a dozen magic rings, a dozen magic swords, magical phials, magic food, crystal balls, etc. I’m talking on the page or referenced, not the deep lore or the Simarillion. But, when it comes to magic spells…you’ve only got a few. Gandalf casts some when fighting the balrog, tries to dispel the domination of Theodin, and casts a light during the fight at Gondor. Maybe speak with animals to talk to that moth. So definitely more magic than Conan, but wildly, wildly under what your typical D&D game has. Most D&D wizards cast more spells in a day than Galdalf did in the entire series.

 

[Mannahnin]

Lord of the Rings is more epic in scope than most Conan stories (although the first Conan story does involve nations and armies battling, as do one or two others), but the magic level in there is still pretty solidly Swords & Sorcery. Many of those magic items don't even appear in the narrative, or only in passing.