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Yes, there is. But the stakes are higher with save or die effects. Again, it's not for everybody. And I can really only speak to my experiences, but we still have save or die effects because that's what my players prefer. Along with no resurrection. We've tried a lot of different approaches...

No, my point is that there are ways for the PCs/players to know that poison is in play, and that they need to be prepared because poison is often save or die. Quite true. Although in any edition, being thrown into a pit of venomous snakes has a good chance of being fatal. On the other hand, it...

Yes. This is exactly along the lines of how I have always viewed (most) hit points as a measure of skill/stamina. Where the blows wear you down, but you don't really take a major hit. In fact, our combat system is now designed around opportunity attacks and critical hits. Having said that...

I was just curious if you had one in particular in mind. I've always liked his description of hit points in the AD&D DMG: "It is quite unreasonable to assume that as a character gains levels of ability ... that a corresponding gain in actual ability to sustain physical damage takes place. ...

I've been playing since the '70s myself, and there is a difference between the rules/feel and the content. I agree with with your buddy Rob. I can't stand most of the OSR games, usually for one of two reasons. One is that a given set of rules misses what I see as the point of the earlier...

No, and I still think MtG has been a much bigger influence on the design of 3e and later editions than video games. That influence has gone a long way to making the rules/mechanics easier to understand, but I think it has contributed to the effect of the striker, tank, etc. mentality. But I...

More math.

Yes. However, 5e is specifically designed to make the PCs significantly better than commoners, and they then get even better as they gain levels. Where in AD&D, higher level characters had a better chance of succeeding on their saving throw, but the consequences were still much higher than just...

Yes, but... If goblins are known to use poisoned arrows, then you would approach potential encounters with goblins differently. There are also ways to mitigate that in game. For example, while poisoned arrows could be very effective, you can gate it behind some safeguards. For example, a...

Save or Die (or Save or Suck) could be one of those examples. The "standard" approach is fight first, and attack to kill, because a dead thing can't fight you back. But in the past, if you were fighting a venomous snake, it was often better to try to avoid fighting it at all. Even at high...

Temporal constraints in what way? You mean that there's some sort of deadline that they can't miss? That just doesn't apply in most of the adventures my players get involved in. Most of them time we're a much more laid-back exploration type of campaign driven by the choices and actions of the...

Yeah, this is one of those 5e examples where they have basically decided that the PCs should always be able to complete a long rest. It feels very much like the "skip to the action" mantra of 4e. Watches, camp, random encounters...boring. So no need to have them. I don't really have a problem...

While the need for some classes to recover long rest abilities is a consideration, if you're trying to simulate AD&D, the waiting until a safe place actually does make some sense. Many folks forget how long it took for a wizard to actually memorize their spells. For example, to be able to...

I certainly wasn't intending to be perjorative in my original post, and is why I put it in quotes. Although the reality is that I don't think it's "easy mode" at all. If I were to apply any sort of actual descriptor to differentiate, it's usually that I feel 5e is more super-heroic than heroic...

I'm happy to share, and have quite a few times. PM me if you'd like. The problem right now is that it's morphed into something a bit different. Especially magic/spellcasting since we were looking for something quite different. So I've really got to fork the design at an earlier point in the...

Thanks. He had some good points and thoughts, and at least we can still see them. In the end, we're really just responding to the post, not the person, although I was hoping for clarification on his thoughts on Tharizdun. One of my favorites, although I haven't run it in 30 years or so. In...

I'm kind of wondering what you're getting at with this? Not saying you're wrong, just don't understand. It's a classic 1e puzzle, where each PC needs to figure out which tree relates to them, and it provides a bonus for success (and a big one in that era where increasing Ability Scores was not...

This I definitely agree with. For a mass-market game in the age of the MCU, this is exactly what it should be. Unfortunately, it's also not really what I want. The new mechanics are strong, and Adventures in Middle Earth is an amazing template for how you can tone 5e down to a much more AD&D...

No, the "confusion" didn't come from 2e for us. That was how we always interpreted that rule. We figured that since the DMG was published later the rule was a new addition, superseded the earlier "holdover" from OD&D/Basic and we liked it. I seem to recall my friend's parents played the same way...

In my case I was just surprised at the math, since I hadn't directly compared it. Overall I agree with many others' assessments that it's a different game for many different reasons. I'm much less concerned about whether it's easy or hard, as I am about the game having the feel that I...