D&D General 5e D&D to OSR pipeline or circle?

[Aldarc]

Because the OS in OSR has become false advertising. OSR was originally intended to mimic the older editions of D&D no longer in print, but as it has matured, it's become less about recreating D&D's past and more about creating D&D Hard mode using Gary's long-abandoned advice as justification.

Not sure if I would call it "false advertising." I think like anything when talking about language, the meaning evolves and expands. Retro clones shifted to games designed along the developing principles of OSR or the perceived feel of these older games. However, I don't think it's necessarily about "creating D&D hard mode," though I don't deny that there is a contingent of the OSR community that views it that way, with elitist shades of "git g00d," snubbing their nose at WotC era D&D, and "XTREME HARDCORE MODE!"

IMHO, there are a myriad of reasons why people play OSR that amount to more than boiling things down to shallow reductionist explanations. For example, there are some people who simply prefer lighter games, which a number of OSR games tend to be, though not always.

The sale-pitch here gives away the game: OSR wants to strip PCs down to a few moving parts as possible, place them in situations that are designed for lethality (or should I say, intentionally ignoring attempts at balancing) and telling the players the fun is "figuring it out."

Again, I think that they are less designed for lethality and more for notions of puzzle solving, skilled play, and shifting the game from combat as sport to combat as war. Unbalanced encounters can involve creative problem solving that involves more than just "facerolling the problem" directly with PC abilities.

Personally, I'd like to hear about OS games that actually play like D&D WAS played in the 80's but attempts to fix the pain points like PC fragility. A game that simplifies 5e but without losing the consistency of play or injects high-lethality into the mix. Give me some info on those games!

What do you mean by "the consistency of play"? Also not sure about games that actually play like D&D was played in the '80s. There's likely as much too varied experiences, selective memories, and rose-colored glasses with such attempts as there is with OSR.

You can create more robust Heroic characters with the optional rules in the full version of Worlds Without Number by Kevin Crawford. WWN reduces classes to three plus a hybrid class, but you can also take specialized classes, traditions, etc. It even has a Traveller inspired skill system, feats/talents, and a few other non-OSR like elements. There is also a free version you can find on DriveThruRPG, but I linked the full version.

In Dragonbane (it's more like a d20 BRP system), characters have more hit points; however, because there is a much flatter curve, character HP and mind points basically don't change. So you are a little tougher, but they barely improve except for raising their skills and getting new talents. So characters can die if they get over their heads with powerful monsters or mobbed by too many foes. It doesn't play like 5e because it's - as I alluded to earlier - more of a roll-under-skill system like CoC, but d20 based. However, it does describe itself and play as "mirth and mayhem!" as a sort of beer and pretzels game. I recommend the box set.

I also recommend Index Card RPG by Runehammer Games. It started as a stripped down 5e, but became its own thing where it basically went classless, though 2e restores a quasi-class system. It's more about finding magic items.

There is also Bugbears and Borderlands by the one and only @Sacrosanct:

What would it look like if Moldvay was asked to create a Basic version of 5e? I suspect something like this. While there is an existing official Basic version, it includes all of the rules (not very basic) and hardly any Player Character option.

Bugbears and Borderlands flips the script on that. The rules have been streamlined to the very basic core, while still offering a lot of character customization options at character generation, WHILE also being very easy to learn and play.

Hundreds of pages can be daunting for newer or younger players. It's a reason why Moldvay's B/X back in the day brought in so many new gamers, because it was an easy read and easy to play. B&B emulates this philosophy while being largely compatible with core 5e.

So what's the pipeline from 5e to "Hickman revolution" OSR? Are we looking at Worlds without Number? Hyperborea? OSRIC?
I don't think it's OSE or Shadowdark.

I kinda think that 5e D&D is the Hickman Revolution OSR, which is why I think that it appeals to a lot of people who played 2e D&D.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So what's the pipeline from 5e to "Hickman revolution" OSR? Are we looking at Worlds without Number? Hyperborea? OSRIC?
I don't think it's OSE or Shadowdark.

Definitely not any of the last four you listed. Most OSR stuff isn't thematically or mechanically interested in anything after Ravenloft/full-color covers/Dragonlance.

 

[mamba]

So what's the pipeline from 5e to "Hickman revolution" OSR? Are we looking at Worlds without Number? Hyperborea? OSRIC?
I don't think it's OSE or Shadowdark.

Not sure there is a Hickman-OSR, WWN might be the closest from your list, Hyperborea and OSRIC are basically OSE alternatives. The whole OSR seems to be 'stuck' in a OD&D / BX / 1e pre-Hickman / Dungeoncrawl loop

 

[Micah Sweet]

The tables in WWN are really good in this area and are definitely the most detailed subsystem in the book.

Yup. All the other Without Numbers games work the same.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not sure there is a Hickman-OSR, WWN might be the closest from your list, Hyperborea and OSRIC are basically OSE alternatives. The whole OSR seems to be 'stuck' in a OD&D / BX / 1e pre-Hickman / Dungeoncrawl loop

You're not "stuck" if you want to be there.

 

[Retreater]

So for example, I was just throwing out an idea to my wife who complains that 5e is "too boring."
Me: "What if you can sacrifice half your damage to knock an opponent prone, slide them, disarm them, etc?"
Her: "No. I don't want to give up anything. And I'm happy just standing there if I can do more damage."
This is why I can't sell any OSR games to my group.

 

[Minigiant]

The main split between OSR and 5e gaming is player skill vs character skills.

Power in 5e escalates to the point where past level 5, doing this off your character sheet is suboptimal.

OSR play relies on the players remaining in a flat low power curve as long as possible. Pushing a statue has to be as strong as swinging your sword. Once your sword vastly outmatches the statue, you ignore the statue.

The 5e -> OSR is mostly for those who enjoy low level helplessness to the point that it becomes the game

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So for example, I was just throwing out an idea to my wife who complains that 5e is "too boring."
Me: "What if you can sacrifice half your damage to knock an opponent prone, slide them, disarm them, etc?"
Her: "No. I don't want to give up anything. And I'm happy just standing there if I can do more damage."
This is why I can't sell any OSR games to my group.

I had a player like this who for years resisted lighter games or games where characters' baseline power levels were less than they were in 5E (and he really would have preferred Pathfinder). And then one day, he wanders in, raving about the joys of Mork Borg, which he now plays regularly, along with DCC.

It may just be that your group needs to see the right take on the OSR that matches what they vibe with. Ideally, they'd all vibe with the same thing, but that might be asking too much.

 

[Jahydin]

One of my in-game groups explicitly told me that if people don't roll death saves during a session, they don't feel it was challenging enough.

My group was the same way. We worked out a system where I could change mechanical aspects of combat mid fight in exchange for more XP. This was always telegraphed like, "You strike for 10, but doesn't seem to have much impact. The orc grinning in front of you must be a leader of some kind." That way they knew they were now in "hard mode".

The issue with this though is when things start to go bad in combat, they really start to go bad, and now you're in TPK territory. Thankfully it never happened, but being behind the screen, I knew just how close they were and it made me feel pretty awful.

I think we got all the way to level 13 and they faced off with Zuggtmoy (CR 23) and stomped her in two rounds and that was my last straw. I spent all that night looking over her stats and trying to figure out if there was a rule I missed or something tactically I could have done better, been came up with nothing. My group of 5 could each deal 50-80 damage each turn and it just felt out of control. It was time to move to another system.

In a court intrigue adventure in an OSR game, a single noble demanding a duel can put a PC in mortal danger. In 5E, that noble is going to need to be a demon in disguise or something.

Haha, too true.

 

[overgeeked]

So for example, I was just throwing out an idea to my wife who complains that 5e is "too boring."
Me: "What if you can sacrifice half your damage to knock an opponent prone, slide them, disarm them, etc?"
Her: "No. I don't want to give up anything. And I'm happy just standing there if I can do more damage."
This is why I can't sell any OSR games to my group.

I’ve been reading your struggles with this as long as you’ve been posting them, and I’m sorry to say this, but it sounds like you and your wife have fundamentally opposite tastes in gaming.

It’s a modern lie that everyone can happily play together. That’s not true. Different people have different tastes. What excites you is boring to her and vice versa.

The only advice I can give is either learn to love the kinds of games your wife wants to play, let her run the games for awhile, or stop playing RPGs with your wife.