D&D General Dnd and what has changed

[mamba]

3E will never need a retroclone, it has the OGL/SRD.

which is a poor substitute for a retroclone.

I assume it is that the PDFs can easily be bought and PF1 functioned as that retroclone for most of the time there was major interest in one.

I'm not sure why there are so few attempts to reproduce 2E, the only one I know of is For Gold and Glory.

same, the only one I am aware of, I’d certainly be more interested in a modernized 2e than any of the existing 1e / BX clones

 

[mamba]

Can I ask why it had soo many backers?

you can ask, but all we have is speculation I assume. I know that is all I have, so consider that when reading my answer

I assume it is because OSRIC was the original first retroclone, that showed that it can be done and kicked off all the other retroclones. That spot earned it a place in history and probably some goodwill & nostalgia that was paying off here

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Can I ask why it had soo many backers?

How familiar are you with 1E?

There are rules in AD&D that even the most hardcore players are unfamiliar with, because they might get mentioned in passing in the second half of a paragraph on a completely unrelated subject in the DMG. (There are several cases of this, in fact.)

Rules for combat are spread out across several books.

So OSRIC, in addition to being the first retroclone, I believe, making it possible for everyone to publish 1E-compatible works by creating a ruleset (OSRIC) that they could officially be compatible with, reorganized and cleaned up the text of 1E so one can actually play the full ruleset (or, you know, decide that some of those optional rules are pretty goofy and skip them, but do so in an informed manner).

Adding to that, Matt Finch -- best known as the creator of Swords & Wizardry -- has a reverential attitude toward old school games and produces beautiful books that are faithful to the tone and vibes of the original versions, just given a modern, deluxe treatment. The new OSRIC books are gorgeous, as is the screen, and they're also producing a bunch of new 1E-compatible adventures to go along with it.

If you are interested in playing 1E in 2026, OSRIC is pretty clearly the best way to do it, unless you want to spend a ton of time reverse-engineering it and hunting down all of Gygax's random asides for sometimes important rules hidden in incredibly random places.

 

[ECMO3]

So I peaced out of DnD with the introduction of 3rd ed. I understand it did well, then 4th came out and bombed and now there is 5th ed. What has changed?

I think 5E is closer to 2E than any other version since.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think 5E is closer to 2E than any other version since.

I think initially it was. Then it became its own thing.