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

[zakael19]

I'm kinda surprised there's not a PBTA hack of Beyond the Wall & Dungeon World/Freebooters yet (or is there?). Stonetop is kinda that, but less of a "hero's journey into the wilds."

 

[TiQuinn]

Do you really think that a) skill at system and b) skill at table culture are impossible in TTRPGs? Even in 5e there's a huge difference between the players who are skilled players (understand the ruleset enough to do even mild charop and use their abilities wisely in both combat and out), and those who are just there to roll dice and laugh.

In OSR, it's orthogonal thinking; understanding what all the adventurer's kit can do; learning how to ask questions that are actionable about the world. Again, a skillset.

In narrativist games, it's fronting character drives and pursuing them; playing to agenda so the game drives forward; and manipulating the fictional positioning to give yourself better outcomes.

What’s the definition of “skilled play” that we are using for this discussion? Because when I’m talking about skilled play in the context of how Gary Gygax used it, I’m not talking about learning how to make a character or what 2d6 means, or how dispel magic works.

 

[zakael19]

What’s the definition of “skilled play” that we are using for this discussion? Because when I’m talking about skilled play in the context of how Gary Gygax used it, I’m not talking about learning how to make a character or what 2d6 means, or how dispel magic works.

How I understand "skill" in various forms of TTRPGs: Skill at understanding the game priorities and playing towards that.

In OSR, probably more similar to what's in your head from those old dungeon delving days: leveraging player questions + descriptions of actions and exploration to maximize success and minimize risk. OSR has gone away from the confrontational style of GMing that Gygax seemed to like, but does emphasize the same sort of core loops.

In 5e, optimizing a character for success at the culture's challenges (spell selection that matches what you're likely to run into, understanding how abilities combo, looking for opportunities to deploy character sheet skills).

In a narrativist game, understanding fictional positioning + what the premise expects of your play and driving towards that at all times.

 

[TiQuinn]

How I understand "skill" in various forms of TTRPGs: Skill at understanding the game priorities and playing towards that.

In OSR, probably more similar to what's in your head from those old dungeon delving days: leveraging player questions + descriptions of actions and exploration to maximize success and minimize risk. OSR has gone away from the confrontational style of GMing that Gygax seemed to like, but does emphasize the same sort of core loops.

In 5e, optimizing a character for success at the culture's challenges (spell selection that matches what you're likely to run into, understanding how abilities combo, looking for opportunities to deploy character sheet skills).

In a narrativist game, understanding fictional positioning + what the premise expects of your play and driving towards that at all times.

Fair enough, and you’re right: my view of skilled play is that in the context of OSR, it’s a loaded term. It’s based on older writings in that there is a correct way to play that the designers would actively state versus what “not to do”. You really don’t see that anymore in TTRPGs outside of things like having a session zero. I would say that skilled play now is more directed towards DMs in the context of having a fun game, and managing what can be a complex game at times.

 

[zakael19]

Fair enough, and you’re right: my view of skilled play is that in the context of OSR, it’s a loaded term. It’s based on older writings in that there is a correct way to play that the designers would actively state versus what “not to do”. You really don’t see that anymore in TTRPGs outside of things like having a session zero. I would say that skilled play now is more directed towards DMs in the context of having a fun game, and managing what can be a complex game at times.

In the context of 5e, your last is absolutely correct, and part of what many of us dislike about 5e in particular: this culturally reinforced offloading of effort onto the shoulders of a singular person instead of shared and balanced.

But in say PF2e? If you're not engaging in skilled play as a player for that game (understanding your action decisions space, working together to leverage skill synergies, discovering enemy weaknesses and compensating appropriately), those balanced encounters are gonna give you a seriously hard time.

As I've been saying, newer OSR games (and blog/philosophy posts) absolutely have player-facing guidance on how to exercise skill to survive & prosper; and then modules are designed to facilitate that (lots of information, foreshadowing of dangers, open decision space for creativity). PBTAs/FITD games have explicit player agendas that say "for this game to work right: follow these things."

 

[Aldarc]

The shared PC origins and adventure building of Flatland Games combined with Shadowdark's engine would be a killer app for me.

I'm generally turned off by randomized progression and magical mishaps, though I do like rolling for spells from my True20 days or even Fantasy AGE. However, I like how Flatland Games' system sequesters Cantrip, Spell, and Rituals into different classes. I remember, for example, the legally-distinct from Elric class was a Warrior/Mage hybrid that got cantrips and rituals but not spells. I thought that was a great fit for Elric and what we see him do. Or how the Grey Mouser Mage/Rogue class got spells but neither Cantrips nor Rituals.

But I wish that more games would have taken note of what Flatland Games did with character generation. I would enjoy rolling up characters more if it came with that app.

I'm kinda surprised there's not a PBTA hack of Beyond the Wall & Dungeon World/Freebooters yet (or is there?). Stonetop is kinda that, but less of a "hero's journey into the wilds."

That would be awesome. Kind of like a Fantasy Bildungsroman version of Masks.

 

[zakael19]

I'm generally turned off by randomized progression and magical mishaps, though I do like rolling for spells from my True20 days or even Fantasy AGE. However, I like how Flatland Games' system sequesters Cantrip, Spell, and Rituals into different classes. I remember, for example, the legally-distinct from Elric class was a Warrior/Mage hybrid that got cantrips and rituals but not spells. I thought that was a great fit for Elric and what we see him do. Or how the Grey Mouser Mage/Rogue class got spells but neither Cantrips nor Rituals.


That would be awesome. Kind of like a Fantasy Bildungsroman version of Masks.

Im kinda bored and it's winter so all my usual hobbies are curtailed, maybe I'll do some thinkering (thinking & tinkering).

Edit: I'm pretty much done & happy with my drift of Freebooter's playbooks into Dolmenwood stuff (added the Friar as a variant cleric + enchanter). That a was a fun first go at this sort of thing.

 

[Aldarc]

In OSR, probably more similar to what's in your head from those old dungeon delving days: leveraging player questions + descriptions of actions and exploration to maximize success and minimize risk. OSR has gone away from the confrontational style of GMing that Gygax seemed to like, but does emphasize the same sort of core loops.

For example, Ben Milton generally finds detecting traps to be kind of pointless. From what I can tell, I don't think that he particularly enjoys "gotcha games" with his players. Assuming that players are not going too fast through a dungeon,* the traps are automatically detected. It's less about whether you detect traps or not, but whether you set them off or how you deal with them.

* In Knave, at least, the speed at which the party goes through the dungeon determines whether they detect or set-off traps. The trade-off of going slower is leveraged against time. And while you may go slowly into a dungeon, you may accidentally set things off when everything goes south and you are sprinting out of the dungeon.

Im kinda bored and it's winter so all my usual hobbies are curtailed, maybe I'll do some thinkering (thinking & tinkering).

Sometimes that's fun even if it leads nowhere.

 

[Remathilis]

Fair enough, and you’re right: my view of skilled play is that in the context of OSR, it’s a loaded term. It’s based on older writings in that there is a correct way to play that the designers would actively state versus what “not to do”. You really don’t see that anymore in TTRPGs outside of things like having a session zero. I would say that skilled play now is more directed towards DMs in the context of having a fun game, and managing what can be a complex game at times.

Part of the problem is one person's Skilled Play is another person's metagaming. For example, I (the player) knows acid and fire will work on trolls, brown mold exploded with fire, a bugbear isn't a fair fight for a 1st level PC, and never drink the fairy water. But does my PC? Is it skilled play to know the DM would put a secret door at the end of a "dead end" hall? Is it fine to use genre savviness, knowledge of the rules (including knowledge of monster stats) and Meta-game thinking to outwit the DM?

 

[Malmuria]

I'm curious if those of us who started in the 2e era are just a lost generation.

I also started in the early 90s. But before I got to 2e, I started with the 1991 "black box" basic set and the rules cyclopedia. I recently revisited the black box and it teaches you how to play the game in ways that are strikingly resonant with the OSR. It gives players a dungeon crawl and tells the GM to adapt existing rules to cover unexpected situations, i.e. rulings over rules. I also dug up my old 2e Campaign Sourcebook and Catacombs Guide, and the advice in there (from Jaquays) would also be at home in any OSR game.

Part of it is a longing for a Golden Era that did not exist (or didn't exist the way people think it did). It's the rejection of modernity that is the key element: 2e is just 5e with outdated rules. But that older, mythical style of play that was lost and forgotten but now has been returned. A return to when things were Pure and Good. A desire to recapture what was lost. Which is why it focuses on such a narrow sliver of time between when the game stopped being a Chainmail expansion and when the notion of story-driven play became the norm.

Reject Modernity is a key aspect to the retro game movement for all the reasons I outlined above. Its a rejection of the modern idea games should be mechanically dense, rules should cover most situations, combat should be fair, death should be uncommon, and story is paramount. It's a rejection of D&D 3e, of Pathfinder, of 5e and all its spinoffs, and even to a degree 2nd edition. Its looking at Pathfinder 2e of D&D 24 as emphasizing what went wrong in gaming. That APs and crunchy splat books has caused gaming to lose its way. And its an attempt to recapture some mythical pure style of play that supposedly existed before most of those people ever touched a d20. Its trying to recreate the past not as it was but as it should have been.

Your idea of "Reject Modernity" all comes down to your framing. If you define Adventure Path and Character-Build play as "modernity," then anyone looking for something different is, I suppose, "rejecting" modernity. But that ascribes reactionary sensibilities (which, tbh, also have political undertones) to people who simply just want to experience different styles of gameplay. That includes people who started with 5e adventure paths but grew tired of the verbosity or the necessary dm fudging.

But why does WOTC get to define what "modernity" is for everyone? Several of the most popular OSR rulesets are mechanically "modern," using, for example, single universal resolution systems and 5e-isms like advantage/disadvantage. Meanwhile, there's a whole section of the hobby that would consider your version of "story-driven play" as actually quite outdated; are Blades in the Dark players "rejecting modernity" because they don't care for AP-style stories?

Not to mention adventure design. The best OSR adventures run rings around even the best TSR adventures. That's not an attack on anyone at TSR -- they were figuring out all of this stuff on the fly, in public. But the best OSR adventures of today are so much better designed than anything that came out in the duo-tone module era of TSR (or earlier).

The Between Two Cairns podcast reviews older TSR modules and regularly goes in on them for being poorly organized, non-sensical, and denying player choice. There is no uncritical "embrace" of "tradition" in those reviews.