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If your campaign / game is about surviving a prehistoric jungle then you wouldn't use gold for XP. You would probably either use XP for dinosaurs, or maybe XP for every day they stay alive. If the game is about exploring dungeons and recovering treasure, than recovering gold represents the...

I have a copy of Into The Unknown as well. It is an awesome game. Even though I run base 5e, I use its Running the Game guidelines in all my sessions. There a couple good old school and old school compatible modules to check out.... Ironwood Gorge is pretty solid (it is similar in style to...

Orcs in 5E are really 2HD creatures in OSR terms and they have great axes. That 1d12+2 great axe damage is absolutely brutal. I usually change them to scimitar and shield. It ups their AC but brings their damage back to more manageable levels. In 5E, orcs clock in with avg. 22 hp. Which puts...

My thought was that it was dangerous to do so. Perhaps I'm wrong on this. I will keep it a complaint, but maybe I should adjust my rulings on this, going forward. My largest complaint is that there are already so many ways to circumvent the threat of death in 5e that making potion...

Fair enough. I chalk it up to rules in a new edition that I didn't bother reading since I'm used to the older editions way of doing things. I still would house rule against this though. I think one could administer a potion to a conscious character but I would maintain that one couldn't do...

I actually never seen an actual rule that allows this... specifically to an unconscious character. Regardless, its one of my pedantic complaints. I'm just not convinced that pouring liquid down an unconscious person's throat is going to have the effect that one expects. I'd actually expect you'd...

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...

I don't remember using the bind wounds rule back then, I actually first heard of it as a Swords & Wizardry house rule. Makes sense as a way add a little longevity to a group. I think the common rule is that binding only works on damage taken that specific encounter. Personally, short rests are...

There were no short rest equivalents in B/X or AD&D. Combats were, indeed, rounded up to the nearest turn, but there wasn’t any actual resource or hit point recovery involved. The ‘rest period’ up to 10 minutes was more to maintain time keeping and to maintain the time pressure of a delve...

Agree with potions. I also don’t think you should be able to pour one down an unconscious character’s throat. Most of my players seem to think that is a thing. I’m ok with concentration, though. The take action to disrupt a spell is a classic trope.

So just to keep the topic going... If you are running an old school game, has anything cool happened in your game? Has there been any element in the old school rules that helped develop interesting game play? In my games, cool stuff always happened as a result of favorable Reaction Rolls vs...

Nostalgia is fine as a reason to get into the old school games. Nostalgia led me back to OSR after a lot of experience with every edition of D&D. I think the issue is that there are a lot of arguments made that nostalgia is the only reason to play older edition games. It is clear you are not...

Cool formatting... is that adventure published? I was pleasantly surprised when I realized I could fit my 1st level 5e wizard on an index card - but I think the problem is can I do the same with a 7th level wizard? I think 5E does indeed carry over some of the elements of OSR games. Of course...

I was playing D&D back in the '80s. I started with the Red Box (Mentzer version) then moved on to AD&D with my friends. The thing was, I was 10 when I started (and yes, we did play in my best friend's basement and yes, I did bicycle home afterwards... no demogorgons though... lol). The...

B/X didn't have weapon proficiency. Although BECMI and AD&D I believe did. I like my fighters to be good at all weapons. I generally follow a rule put in place by another retro-clone, where I just give fighters a damage bonus (to melee and missile) that scales by level. It's simple tweak and...

Agree 100% I'll just have to say that this is a thread called "OSR Gripes" so it's not like his posts are off-topic. Personally, I would never play or run 3.5. It is just not a game that works for me... but I don't go around making claims that it is broken or needs to be abandoned. Everyone...

Yup. In the long running B/X game I've been running (about 6-7 years now)... the fighter in the group (level 6 now) was just wrecking house... I commented that his character is pretty bad-ass and asked what his strength was... the player responded 13 (respectable, sure but surprising to me)...

Yeah, let's not let the nostalgia comment derail this thread. I agree 100%. I run old school editions regularly (equal frequency as 5E). I run Basic Fantasy RPG, which is a modern day retro clone of B/X (with some minor differences... not a pure clone). I mostly DM, so some of my favorite...

The thief, as I read it (at least from Greyhawk) had abilities that were borderline supernatural. The thief had Climb Sheer Surfaces, Move Silently (not stealthily), Hide In Shadows, etc. None of these conflict with the manner of adjudication as you describe because they aren't mundane...

Yes that is the original intent for the skill as I have come to understand it. In fact, supplement I: Greyhawk introduces thieves with the following abilities: The thief skill represented the ability to climb sheer surfaces without need for rope. I always thought anyone can climb with the...