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The shift from old-school to trad/modern play has far less to do IMO with D&D moving "out of the dungeon," or even from challenge and skill driven play to story and performative thespianism, than the shift from open to dedicated tables. Everything that makes trad play different from old-school...

Are we seeing Ironheart at 1:40, I wonder?

This whole topic is really just asking, "How much does System Matter?" I say that it matters more than Professor Dungeon Master thinks it does, but less than Ron Edwards thought it did.

Not strictly relevant to 5e perhaps, but here's how I run OD&D fighters these days: Level XP Required Level Title HP THAC0 Save Special Abilities Chainmail Combat 1st 0 Veteran 8 19 14 Set Spear Maneuver 1 Man +1 2nd 2,000 Warrior 12 19 14 Lance Charge Maneuver 2 Men +1 3rd 4,000...

Correct. Also lapis lazuli and kambaba jasper. :cool:

My current set (from Etsy):

Probably closer to "gwãh-nyar" if you're trying to imitate the French accent, but most people just say "grog-nard." "How now, brown drow?" said the liches with stitches in their britches, while the kobolds cobbled cobblestones and the goblins gobbled gobbledygook.

Stahp.

Well when you design a game predicated on managing risk vs. reward, managing resources (like hit points), and deciding just how deep you want to risk delving down into a dungeon during each adventure, a certain degree of measured predictability is desirable. That, I think, lies at the heart of...

This is precisely how and why I can get away with implementing the critical hit mechanic that I use in OD&D and OAD&D, systems which emphatically predicate the balance of their combats on not having critical hits (a mechanic that Gygax appears to have despised, as he never missed a chance to...

This grognard's view of One D&D is complete and utter disinterest. If there is a horizon to my radar, 5e is already a dim shadow skirting the edge of it; 5.5e will be well out of sight and therefore out of mind. And the feeling is mutual.

But they wrote it on the cover of the manuals because that's what everyone on the WizO forums was already calling it in the runup to the release. Since the majority of gamers at the time had no idea how version numbers worked, they just called it "v3.5" because it was already in everybody's...

For what it's worth, I'll probably be starting a new OSR campaign in two or three weeks — or whenever it is that the staff over at Dragon's Lair decides their game-rooms are done being remodeled. :whistle:

Yeah. If I thought that "One D&D" had even a fraction of the staying power that "D&D Next" didn't have, I'd worry that WotC was out to deliberately erase the versions of the game that Gary wrote. But it doesn't, and everyone will call the next version "5.5" or something. Whatever the internet...

(Hm. Long thread.) My only real problem with 5e is that it stops feeling and playing like D&D above about 4th level. Monsters become bags of hit points, swords become nerf bats, and spells become strongly worded suggestions. A typical spell that could end an encounter in an earlier edition...

Alignment threads come up so frequently that instead of retyping what I think of alignment, I now just link to an image captured from my house rules.

The OSR has spoiled me. I never have to leave the OD&D-compatible ecosystem for any reason (except maybe for a Ghostbusters RPG, but I hope to fix that soon myself). Sci-fi? Between X-Plorers, Hulks & Horrors, White Star, and Stars Without Number, I'm spoiled for choice — I never have to touch...