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

[overgeeked]

I think mostly people who like actual plays like them as entertainment, first and foremost. It might be fun to know how the rules underpin what's going on, but other than for people just learning to play a game, I think most of the appeal of actual plays are the performers and the collective story they create.

I now only listen to actual plays by comedians, improv actors and regular actors (I apologize to all the normal people doing actual plays), because I don't need to learn the rules (although it's interesting to see how, say, Insight is used at different tables) and am listening to the performers as a show instead.

Yeah, exactly the same here. I've tried "regular people" live plays and they're just tedious to watch.

 

[overgeeked]

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).

Absolutely. The OSR is a creative whirlwind of gonzo and weird DIY nonsense. I love it.

 

[zakael19]

Absolutely. The OSR is a creative whirlwind of gonzo and weird DIY nonsense. I love it.

And even when it's not, it tends to be just flat out more runnable. Like, most of the better/best OSR content you can open up and run immediately in your system of choice with, at most, grabbing a couple creature stats to have on hand. No blocks of description + backstory + read aloud text you have to sort through for each room, just punchy words that immediately let you set the scene & describe challenges.

 

[Arilyn]

The "OSR characters die early and often" idea is more of a meme than a promise, especially if you're not doing a funnel*. The overall difficulty level is higher, yes, but once you get out of the habit of expecting high hit points and detailed character abilities to insulate you from mistakes, it's fine.

I ran Tomb of the Serpent Kings in Shadowdark over three sessions (my PCs combed nearly every inch of the place) and there are a number of deadly traps and two monsters that, if they ran in screaming to attack, they would 100% die, to the point it's almost not worth rolling dice. But early in the upper levels of the dungeon, they realized that A) this place could kill them if they were reckless and 2) the author (Skerples) was playing fair and a lot of this stuff was telegraphed in some fashion, they quickly learned how to avoid 99% of danger.

About seven characters participated, as I recall, and I don't think any of them died, although there might have been a close call in the first session.

That said, you're not required to play OSR games, just like other people aren't required to play stuff they're not interested in. It's weird that the tone of this thread has become people trying to argue each other out of things they enjoy. Just go do your thing. Life's too short to do otherwise.

* I am not a fan of funnels. No one has kicked me out of the OSR club for this.

I recently finished playing in a long Shadowdark campaign. It ended up having an epic arc that was not initially planned out. We were careful and avoided dying. The GM rolled in open so definitely no fudging. After a few levels, we got fairly tough.

The super deadlines of OSR style games depends on whether the GM is telegraphing danger and offering choice or just dumping danger on the group. Those are two different styles. I've also noticed some players feel that since these games have "high death" they just toss their characters headlong into danger.

Just like with all rpgs, tables are going to have differing styles of play. And there are certainly many recent OSR style games that bring in modern ideas, like His Majesty the Worm. This game is a mega dungeon crawl with character bonds, personal quests, and character backgrounds that develop as you create your character. It's an equal mix of old school and modern.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm glad we agree on this. OSR is based on the myth of how D&D should have been played based on what people think the rules said rather than how it actually was.

Not really. OSR was originally based on a desire to play and provide continued support for TSR D&D. That is its origins. That is what it was initially based on.

The principles and historical revisionism came later, in part when online groups began applying "system matters" to TSR D&D to critically evaluate the sort of experiences that these older games, particularly B/X, cultivated per RAW.* However, I think that focusing on this revisionism is missing the forest for the trees that most people are playing these games because they find them fun. I personally don't give a rat's behind about the myth of how old school D&D was played nor do I particularly care how you played your games in the olden days. I care about whether games are fun or not - and whether they deliver the experience they claim they do - and those are the games that I play.

* There was even a great post on Google+ where Luke Crane (i.e., Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Mouse Guard) talked about his experiences of running B/X per the rules. He admired the game quite a bit as a game.

3.) An attempt to return to the story-light style of dungeon-crawling and exploration that had lacks any attempt of DM narrative and instead focuses only on emergent story (that which only exists to narrate what has happened rather than tell an actual narrative). This is a reaction to adventure paths, metaplots, and the Hickman Revolution.

I overwhelming reject 3 because to me that loses the fundamental notion of role-playing.

How so? An emergent story does not preclude roleplaying your character. Not being guided through a GM's pre-authored adventure does not preclude roleplaying your character. Dungeon-crawling and exploration does not preclude roleplaying your character.

I think that this view seems to presuppose a narrow, if not yucky gatekeeping OneTrueWay, sense of roleplaying. Pardon my French, but screw that crap.

Furthermore, can you not see how adventure paths, metaplots, and the Hickman Revolution could also be construed as antithetical to the fundamental notion of roleplaying? If my character's goals and backstory don't matter or move the needle much because of the pre-authored GM adventure, then isn't the player just along for the ride? That is certainly the feeling that I get when playing a number of APs.

As I said before, if I know that the GM has an adventure path or story campaign planned, then I'm generally not going to bother creating an elaborate backstory or goals for my character. I will probably save roleplaying that character concept for later, because it's probably not going to matter to the GM or the AP. I will probably just create a character with cool options that I may want to see do cool things, less of a CRPG character and more of an ARPG/MMORPG character.

Where is the system that marries the rules light design of B/X with the narrative focus of 2e and later? The one who stll assumes certain balancing of encounters to and hardens PCs enough to make death less of a certainty? The one who innovates on OS rather than attempts to recreate 1977?

That's the OS game I want.

The fact that you are asking about the existence of games that innovate on OS rather than just recreating 1977 is pretty telling for me, let alone others who are more familiar with the OSR movement.

I don't know what game would satisfy all of your criteria. Again, there is possibly Bugbears & Borderlands, though I don't recall what @Sacrosanct wrote in there about balancing encounters. Possibly Castles & Crusaders, but again, I don't know much about its attitude towards balancing encounters.

There are a number of games younger than D&D 5e, such as the Cypher System, where characters are hardier than starting characters in D&D and APs are common, but balanced encounters isn't really that important for the game. At the very least, I can't recall off the top of my head of Numenera talking about balancing encounters for the PCs. But the Cypher System is hardly OSR, as by some accounts, it would be more of Neo-Trad game. Likewise, games like Fate, PbtA, or Blades in the Dark also don't really care about balanced combat encounters, but none of these are remotely OSR games.

What "balancing of encounters" tells me is that you want a game where combat is sport and possibly a game where combat is the hammer that most efficiently solves many of the PCs' problems. There is nothing wrong with that. There are rules for balanced encounters again in Fabula Ultima, but that game isn't as light as B/X and the author is pretty vocal in the book against pre-authored GM stories.

I'm not sure what game will scratch that specific itch for you. But I also don't think that it's the OSR community's obligation to design that game for you nor is it any fault or flaw of the OSR for not having done so. However, if you want that game but are unable to find it, then I recommend that you make it. This is what the initial movers of OSR did when they created retro-clones as well as those that followed who iterated with their own creative visions for OSR games.

Honestly? Yes.


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.

I don't think that this provides a good, satisfying, much less good faith, explanation for why Bob World Builder and Kelsey Dionne genuinely like OSR. I get that you desire to paint the entirety of the OSR community with the same broad stroke negative meta-narrative of "rejecting modernity," but I think that it rudely does a huge disservice to the myriad reasons why people may enjoy playing OSR, none of which requires depicting them as backwards reactionaries who hate modern games. Moreover, there are plenty of mechanically dense older games out there.

My personal subjective take is that one reason why people are shifting to OSR games or even those with rules lighter than 5e D&D or PF1/2 - which is not many in the grand scheme of things when D&D 2014/2024 is GOD ALMIGHTY in the market - has less to do with rejecting modernity and more to do with adapting to the reality of modernity.

This is to say, I ain't got the time for crunchier rules heavy games like I used to and I have little chance in Hades of getting my partner to play them. I know a number of folks here and elsewhere who have made similar comments before. As I get older, my time for gaming grows shorter, and I can't do the APs anymore. I don't like dealing as much with crunchier rules systems. I don't like having to spend a lot of time prepping and balancing encounters. I want something that is easy for myself and others to jump into and get started with the gaming.

Since you talked about video games before, there is a similar phenomenon happening there too. A lot of smaller and shorter games made by AA and A studios are outperforming those made by AAA video game studios. There are a number of various explanations for this phenomenon, but one of them is just a matter of time commitment. Some of these smaller games or retro games require less of your time. It's not necessarily about rejecting modernity. It's about finding fun games that respect your limited time.

Hickman's problem is that he's attacking the wrong target. The Heroes of the Lance walked so that Critcal Role could run. He is the great grandfather of Mercer, not his opposite. The "embrace tradition" of his picture shouldn't have been Dragonlance, its Keep on the Borderlands.

And yet it wasn't about Keep on the Borderlands, and it was Hickman who posted this.

There are times I get very excited hearing about OSR games but oftentimes even the creators of these games slip into the language of “deadliness” or negative comparisons to 5e and it takes me out of the headspace wherein I would want to play the game.

I think that this is fair, and this is also true, IME, with a number of video games. There were many games that I ignored, including initially OSR, because of its sales pitch. But as @Umbran has said many times before, tell me what is good about your game without saying anything bad about another game. Likewise, I see that @Whizbang Dustyboots has already addressed how it's more of an exaggerated meme than a reality.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am aware of "For Gold and Glory" as a 2E retroclone. I don't know anything about the designer. I did pick up a POD copy. Hope I didn't make a mistake.

That's not the one I was thinking of, and I think For Gold & Glory is even more closely emulating 2E than the unnamed game I was thinking of, so good call.

I want to like C&C, but I'm not a fan of the SIEGE engine, adding levels to every check and getting very high numbers, plus the writing/design is just really sloppy. I have the main books, but I'm just not a fan.

Yeah, all of those things are frustrating and, ironically, why I finally decided to check out 5E.

Psionics system
Specialty priests

I don't know of any OSR games that have either of them by default, although I know there's a Dark Sun style setting for Shadowdark.

I suspect, in both cases, there might be third party add on modules for existing OSR games.

Great settings that don't require mechanical translation to a new system

Other than psionics-heavy settings (so, Dark Sun), I think you can probably run any 2E setting with OSR systems. Over on the Shadowdark Facebook group, there's a sizable contingent of people who just use Shadowdark to run their old TSR content.

My favorite Monster Manual for any edition of any roleplaying game

Likewise, the Monstrous Manual should be easy to use with any OSR system, especially ones with declining AC. You might need a three by five card with converting how saving throws between 2E and whatever OSR system you're using, although there are a number of prominent systems that just use the TSR saves.

But what I miss the absolute most about 2E is predictability. I can reasonably guess what damage the party can do to an enemy, without concerning myself with exploding dice from Savage Worlds, massive critical effects from Pathfinder 2e, bonus actions from 5E, etc. I can also understand healing and how much damage a party can withstand. There are too many factors, special powers, etc., for me to reasonably anticipate what a party can handle.

Yeah, I can easily imagine those systems would all be frustrating when trying to emulate 2E's mechanical system.

What I don't like about most other OSR games is the "dungeon" focus. OSE, Shadowdark, etc., all assume stuff like gold = XP, skimp over exploration rules, have monsters that have no place in a world ecology or information about how to use them in a setting - as if they're all designed for monster hotels. In 2E we rarely went to a dungeon, and even when we did, they were more like 5-room dungeons from modern design. It was cross-country, urban, open seas, wilderness survival, etc.

I think a lot of this is, again, hype by people who are really excited and want to "brand" OSR in a certain way. I remember when WotC advertised 3E with "back to the dungeon" and the dungeonpunk aesthetic, and plenty of people did Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury and then said, "OK, I'm done with dungeons, let's go back to the upper world" and were happy doing Eberron, etc., without dungeoncrawls.

I have already mentioned Skerples on this thread, but I would check out Magical Industrial Revolution for an OSR setting that's not at all about dungeons (imagine magical tech bros who have started mulitple Imminent magical apocalypses by trying to democratize and mass-produce magic) and the Monster Overhaul for a bestiary that looks at (in a fast, breezy way) how monsters fit into a fantasy world, among other things. There's only one chapter out of more than a dozen that's explicitly about dungeon-based monsters.

 

[zakael19]

Not really. OSR was originally based on a desire to play and provide continued support for TSR D&D. That is its origins. That is what it was initially based on.

The principles and historical revisionism came later, in part when online groups began applying "system matters" to TSR D&D to critically evaluate the sort of experiences that these older games, particularly B/X, cultivated per RAW.* However, I think that focusing on this revisionism is missing the forest for the trees that most people are playing these games because they find them fun. I personally don't give a rats behind about the myth of how old school D&D was played nor do I particularly care how you played your games in the olden days. I care about whether games are fun or not - and whether they deliver the experience they claim they do - and those are the games that I play.

* There was even a great post on Google+ where Luke Crane (i.e., Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Mouse Guard) talked about his experiences of running B/X per the rules. He admired the game quite a bit as a game.


How so? An emergent story does not preclude roleplaying your character. Not being guided through a GM's pre-authored adventure does not preclude roleplaying your character. Dungeon-crawling and exploration does not preclude roleplaying your character.

I think that this view seems to presuppose a narrow, if not yucky gatekeeping OneTrueWay, sense of roleplaying. Pardon my French, but screw that crap.

Furthermore, can you not see how adventure paths, metaplots, and the Hickman Revolution could also be construed as antithetical to the fundamental notion of roleplaying? If my character's goals and backstory don't matter or move the needle much because of the pre-authored GM adventure, then isn't the player just along for the ride? That is certainly the feeling that I get when playing a number of APs.

As I said before, if I know that the GM has an adventure path or story campaign planned, then I'm generally not going to bother creating an elaborate backstory or goals for my character. I will probably save roleplaying that character concept for later, because it's probably not going to matter to the GM or the AP. I will probably just create a character with cool options that I may want to see do cool things, less of a CRPG character and more of an ARPG/MMORPG character.


The fact that you are asking about the existence of games that innovate on OS rather than just recreating 1977 is pretty telling for me, let alone others who are more familiar with the OSR movement.

I don't know what game would satisfy all of your criteria. Again, there is possibly Bugbears & Borderlands, though I don't recall what @Sacrosanct wrote in there about balancing encounters. Possibly Castles & Crusaders, but again, I don't know much about its attitude towards balancing encounters.

There are a number of games younger than D&D 5e, such as the Cypher System, where characters are hardier than starting characters in D&D and APs are common, but balanced encounters isn't really that important for the game. At the very least, I can't recall off the top of my head of Numenera talking about balancing encounters for the PCs. But the Cypher System is hardly OSR, as by some accounts, it would be more of Neo-Trad game. Likewise, games like Fate, PbtA, or Blades in the Dark also don't really care about balanced combat encounters, but none of these are remotely OSR games.

What "balancing of encounters" tells me is that you want a game where combat is sport and possibly a game where combat is the hammer that most efficiently solves many of the PCs' problems. There is nothing wrong with that.There are rules for balanced encounters again in Fabula Ultima, but that game isn't as light as B/X and the author is pretty vocal in the book against pre-authored GM stories.

I'm not sure what game will scratch that specific itch for you. But I also don't think that it's the OSR community's obligation to design that game for you nor is it any fault or flaw of the OSR for not having done so. However, if you want that game but are unable to find it, then I recommend that you make it. This is what the initial movers of OSR did when they created retro-clones as well as those that followed who iterated with their own creative visions for OSR games.


I don't think that this provides a good, satisfying, much less good faith, explanation for why Bob World Builder and Kelsey Dionne genuinely like OSR. I get that you desire to paint the entirety of the OSR community with the same broad stroke negative meta-narrative of "rejecting modernity," but I think that it rudely does a huge disservice to the myriad reasons why people may enjoy playing OSR, none of which requires depicting them as backwards reactionaries who hate modern games. Moreover, there are plenty of mechanically dense older games out there.

My personal subjective take is that one reason why people are shifting to OSR games or even those with rules lighter than 5e D&D or PF1/2 - which is not many in the grand scheme of things when D&D 2014/2024 is GOD ALMIGHTY in the market - has less to do with rejecting modernity and more to do with adapting to the reality of modernity.

This is to say, I ain't got the time for crunchier rules heavy games like I used to and I have little chance in Hades of getting my partner to play them. I know a number of folks here and elsewhere who have made similar comments before. As I get older, my time for gaming grows shorter, and I can't do the APs anymore. I don't like dealing as much with crunchier rules systems. I don't like having to spend a lot of time prepping and balancing encounters. I want something that is easy for myself and others to jump into and get started with the gaming.

Since you talked about video games before, there is a similar phenomenon happening there too. A lot of smaller and shorter games made by AA and A studios are outperforming those made by AAA video game studios. There are a number of various explanations for this phenomenon, but one of them is just a matter of time commitment. Some of these smaller games or retro games require less of your time. It's not necessarily about rejecting modernity. It's about finding fun games that respect your limited time.


And yet it wasn't about Keep on the Borderlands, and it was Hickman who posted this.


I think that this is fair, and this is also true, IME, with a number of video games. There were many games that I ignored, including initially OSR, because of its sales pitch. But as @Umbran has said many times before, tell me what is good about your game without saying anything bad about another game. Likewise, I see that @Whizbang Dustyboots has already addressed how it's more of an exaggerated meme than a reality.

I mean neither the author of His Majesty the Worm nor I were even alive for the "Old School" play or even the transition to Hickman-esque story focused modules and all that, so it's simply going "huh, this seems like something different and fun" and then trying it out and going "oh yeah, it is - and far more to my taste (and possibly what I thought D&D was)."

Like this is why I've personally tossed 5e in the dumpster this year and moved to DW/Stonetop & etc, because they create the play I thought D&D would be before I started playing.

Edit: to a couple of above points, one big key point for "treasure as XP" is that it firmly puts advancement in the player's hands. I think that sort of thing is pretty key to a lot of OSR preference? For instance, Dolmenwood's spin on OSE includes all treasure retrieved or received as reward (see: quest payouts) as XP; but not stuff randomly stolen around in town or magical item value. So that's going to create a certain type of play if you want to advance.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And even when it's not, it tends to be just flat out more runnable. Like, most of the better/best OSR content you can open up and run immediately in your system of choice with, at most, grabbing a couple creature stats to have on hand. No blocks of description + backstory + read aloud text you have to sort through for each room, just punchy words that immediately let you set the scene & describe challenges.

The Merry Mushmen are now selling adventures that, thematically, would fit in with TSR but are so much better designed, organized and written.

They're not any more gonzo than adventures in Dragon (none of this new-fangled Dungeon magazine nonsense, also get off my lawn) but are just really well done.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just like with all rpgs, tables are going to have differing styles of play. And there are certainly many recent OSR style games that bring in modern ideas, like His Majesty the Worm. This game is a mega dungeon crawl with character bonds, personal quests, and character backgrounds that develop as you create your character. It's an equal mix of old school and modern.

Heck, Heart: The City Beneath doesn't work without character backstories and connections.

 

[Retreater]

I don't quite get this. You have an edition - 5e D&D that is (i) the most successful version of D&D ever (as I understand it at least) and (ii) that cleans up your favoured rule set and fully enables the sort of play that AD&D 2nd ed aspired to,

Oh no. 5E is definitely not a cleaned-up version of what I liked about 2E.