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

[Arilyn]

The modern philosophy of the OSR is not to gleefully kill characters at every turn. The GM should be telegraphing danger, providing lots of choice, having lots of cool things to interact with and avoiding the "gotcha" moments that were often common back in the day. There should be a strong element of "pushing your luck."
If the players look in the right place or logically describe how they disarm a trap, they won't need to roll. If a player does lose a character, the reaction should be, "yeah, I knew this was a strong possibility" or "okay, I deserved that." It's all about informed play.

I hated dungeon crawling back in the early 80s. Crawling around at a boring pace tapping every square with a ten foot pole and being paranoid of everything was not my idea of fun. And running those old modules was so tedious. Running and playing modern OSR is a joy. Gavin Norman, Brad Kerr, Kelsey Dionne, to name a few, have shown me how this style of play should be run and played. Watching Ben Milton's Questing Beast helps my husband and I find the gems we'd enjoy. There's so much creativity, whimsy and weirdness in many OSR adventures that get me excited.

The lighter weight of the games make them really easy to tweak to taste or to fit a particular campaign. There's far less concern about your changes rippling out, causing unintended consequences.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

2) System designed to make players feel powerful and unstoppable; I like stories where the protagonists succeed despite the odd against them.

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.

That's obviously a lot easier to do with OSR games than with 5E, especially after characters have a few levels under their belt, unless you really limit what kind of 5E adventures you're running.

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.

 

[Shardstone]

And yet a good portion of the OSR community does or else they would likely be playing 5e D&D as an OSR game, but they are not. So it makes you look like you desperately just want 5e D&D to be all things for all types of players, which is IMHO not a good way to go about play or discussion here.

Alright, I'm going to bow out of the thread. Saying that I look desperate is pretty much you admitting that you're more interested in trying to bully people then listen to what they have to say. Nice argument ad populum tho.

 

[Imaro]

Why though? If it's a play preference / social contract, cool. But the system itself doesnt facilitate or encourage this unless the GM has just tossed out all the guidance. At which point, you're not really playing 5e? You're playing "D&D, Unicorn Edition" which is neat and all but doesn't have much relationship to the broad play culture nor the RAW & etc. 5e's most detailed sub-system is literally a grid based tactical combat power fantasy made to be engaging and exciting, and the 2024 edition has only made this more clear.

Like, there wouldn't be tons of OSR philosophy on why B/X spin rulesets create a fundamentally different play culture & experience they prefer if the average player sitting down to 5e was like "oh cool, I'm gonna ignore my entire character sheet and all their skills in favor of just saying things!"

What would you say OSR games most detailed sub system is? I mean I'm sure there are outliers but in general I've found it to also be combqt....

 

[zakael19]

What would you say OSR games most detailed sub system is? I mean I'm sure there are outliers but in general I've found it to also be combqt....

Is it a grid based tactical power fantasy?

 

[Imaro]

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.

That's obviously a lot easier to do with OSR games than with 5E, especially after characters have a few levels under their belt, unless you really limit what kind of 5E adventures you're running.

Why? For me the solution seems to be disregard the encounter guidelines when designing your adventure and/or run higher level adventures for more danger.

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.

Huh? Doesn't this depend on the level of the PC, HD of the noble in the OSR game... and why couldn't my noble in 5e have a Stat block that reflected his skills as a duelist?

 

[Imaro]

Is it a grid based tactical power fantasy?

Regardless the question was about the most detailed subsystem being combat. But I'd say most/many are inch based tactical power fantasy.

Edit: Which is to say fundamentally the same.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Or perhaps that noble is a strawman in disguise.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Why? For me the solution seems to be disregard the encounter guidelines when designing your adventure and/or run higher level adventures for more danger.

Huh? Doesn't this depend on the level of the PC, HD of the noble in the OSR game... and why couldn't my noble in 5e have a Stat block that reflected his skills as a duelist?

Because the numbers scale a lot faster in 5E. A random nobleman who might decide to duel a player character because he felt shown up by the PCs at a dinner party, etc., is going to have to be one of the greatest swordsmen in the world if the PCs are over level 7 or so. It strains credulity that every village and keep has incredibly high level characters hanging around, just so the PCs can get into real mortal danger.

In comparison, OSR games have much flatter math. A level five Shadowdark character (roughly the equivalent of a level 10 5E character) could easily get killed in a duel with a level 3 knight NPC.

Can you make 5E as dangerous as OSR games? Yes, but it requires special effort, as I said.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Or perhaps that noble is a strawman in disguise.

Excuse me?