D&D General Do You D&D OSR?

[Reynard]

No, the max is -3 and you have to roll a 3. Nobody rolled above 16 (I had the only one) or below 5 (he had two). Looks pretty normal until you realize he rolled stats 4 times below zero modifiers, and one at zero...so most of the negative rolls were one person of the 4.

Right, but the actual impact on any given roll was relatively minor given how the rules work. In my experience, bad stats (or good ones) in OSR games are not nearly as impactful as in modern D&D. This is especially true because the intent is to not rely on ability/skill checks, but rather rely on player input.

 

[Voadam]

Right, but the actual impact on any given roll was relatively minor given how the rules work. In my experience, bad stats (or good ones) in OSR games are not nearly as impactful as in modern D&D. This is especially true because the intent is to not rely on ability/skill checks, but rather rely on player input.

This could vary a lot.

If a DM uses roll under stat as a mechanic then it has a big impact. B/X for example suggests that as one option a DM could use to resolve checks not otherwise specified.

If a DM does not then the impacts on attack rolls and such are often minor compared to other editions.

 

[darjr]

Starting an OSRIC php game and my dwarf fighter has a 4 charisma! He’s going to be a survivor and rather upset about it. #osric #dnd #ttrpg #cheezits
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Note I got an allowance Freon the DM to let the 4 charisma pass so he can be a fighter. Whew

 

[Retros_x]

I've never played TSR D&D back then, now I play mostly 5e, but sometimes OSE or Shadowdark one-shots etc. I plan on running a Shadowdark open table campaign starting next year. I also bring some OSR mentalities to 5e because they make sense to me and cleared up a lot of weird elements. We stopped playing 5e games that are mostly political intrigue for example and do many site based adventures again. For a political campaign or other non-site based, non combat-focused games I would play probably something completely different than D&D-likes.

 

[Mannahnin]

One of the nice things about LotFP (B/X), which we run, is if your modifiers total under zero, you reroll, but I can see someone rolling a 16, for stats 9-12, and a 4, and that is 0. We had a guy who rolled under zero four times till he finally got +1 total.

I had this happen in my last campaign, but the player's final set actually had huge ability scores. Went from zero to hero.

I think a number of more recent OSR games have a similar optional rule. Random generation is all well and good, but playing a hapless character who will die 30 seconds into the dungeon is just a waste of time.

Yeah, pretty common. And really just a minor tweak to Moldvay's note about Hopeless Characters in 1981 Basic, but less subjective.

Especially after that player who had to re-roll four times though, I really like the "flip/mirror" variant, and I normally use it in my B/X games. The player just rolls one set, but has the option to take every score, in order, and subtract them from 21. Making all low numbers high and all high ones low. This means you never need to roll multiple sets, but achieves the same end of never sticking a player with a PC who has negative total modifiers... UNLESS they choose to use that set, because it has a high score in the PR of the class they want.

 

[Emerikol]

I came into D&D with 2e in 1993. I played a hybrid of 2e and 1e, then jumped on with 3e and 3.5, intermixed with classic World of Darkness games, Shadowrun, and others. I jumped on 5e with the Next playtest and played it for several years.

But these days I run DCC at my FLGS, and I truly believe it's the godsend of TTRPGs. Inasmuch as I had started to write my own Basic derivative game, but DCC does everything I wanted a game to do and does it better than I could have conceived.

I never really wanted to add that much chaos to my game but I can definitely see it's appeal for those wanting magic to be dangerous and mystical.