D&D General Do You D&D OSR?

[Vaalingrade]

Started in 2001 and... to be honest, I want no part of it. I'm not into skilled play, low magic, combat as war, resource tracking, dungeon crawling, seriousness or high lethality. I bounced hard off all that on the occasion an early DM of mine ran 2e, or every year or so when an interesting con game description blindsides me by being about that stuff and the DM cries my attempts to understand and maybe actually have rules as 'wanting to press buttons'.

I'm more here for telling a collaborative fantasy story while getting to play out the role of an interesting protagonist doing cool stuff as action and social setpieces and mattering in the grand scope of the story (ie, not easily replaceable to the point that death is a constant stake)

 

[overgeeked]

This is my experience as well. Its the players IMO that shape how a 5E game feels, be that superheroic, old school, slice of life, pawn-stance, etc.

My trouble is finding 5E players who don’t want RAW superheroic, easy mode 5E. It’s easier to find players for old-school D&D or OSR games and go from there.

 

[mamba]

I don't believe in "this system isn't a good fit" -- if you don't want to do the work, that's valid but to say the system isn't a good fit speaks to a lack of vision or a lack of understanding of what a roleplaying game is in the first place.

Can I hammer it into the shape I want? Probably, but having to do so means it wasn’t a fit. That feels like the very definition of a bad fit…

 

[Shardstone]

Can I hammer it into the shape I want? Probably, but having to do so means it wasn’t a fit. That feels like the very definition of a bad fit…

The problem is how you and @Reynard keep phrasing it in a negative way and keep expecting others to accept your negative worldviews. It is not hammering anything. My game still uses a lot of core D&D rules. The fact that I modified things to better fit my tastes doesn't mean it was a bad fit, nor does it mean I was here having to work for hours and hours and hours and hours trying to make it into something it's not. Stop assuming your NEGATIVE experiences with modifying the game are universal or objectively true.

 

[mamba]

The problem is how you and @Reynard keep phrasing it in a negative way and keep expecting others to accept your negative worldviews. It is not hammering anything. My game still uses a lot of core D&D rules.

that is a given, why else use it as the base to begin with. I am pretty sure I can turn 5e OSR by revising classes and spells only

The fact that I modified things to better fit my tastes doesn't mean it was a bad fit, nor does it mean I was here having to work for hours and hours and hours and hours trying to make it into something it's not.

that depends on how much effort you spent, agreed. If all you have is a handful of houserules I’d say it was a good fit. If you have 50 pages of changes I’d say you probably should have started with a different game to begin with.

 

[Shardstone]

that is a given, why else use it as the base to begin with. I am pretty sure I can turn 5e OSR by revising classes and spells only


that depends on how much effort you spent, agreed. If all you have is a handful of houserules I’d say it was a good fit. If you have 50 pages of changes I’d say you probably should have started with a different game to begin with.

The bolded is the point of contention. I do not agree with that, and in my opinion, this is an antiethical view to the arts. I view game design primarily as an art, and if people just gave up or refused to do something for these reasons, we would never experience the high amount of innovation we see today.

There are so many 5E spin off games for every genre, and these games are great. Cyberpunk games, Lord of the RIngs (which is a FANTASTIC game), Symbaroum (which IMO is better than the original rule set!), Everyday Heroes, and more. 5E is an amorphous tool designed to be built on top of. In my opinion, people who don't do this are unaware of the true potential the system has.

 

[payn]

If you have to work against the system to get the outcome you want, as you illustrate you do here, then the system isn't a good fit for that thing. of course you can make it fit, but that doesn't make it broadly applicable. 5E as written is generally "easy mode" because that is what the majority of players want.

5E's secret sauce is how pliable it is. You will never get complete satisfaction from it for most tastes, but most tastes can tolerate it. Everyone's second favorite edition. Which is why it works so well becasue most groups are a mixed bag of playstyle.

 

[mamba]

The bolded is the point of contention. I do not agree with that, and in my opinion, this is an antiethical view to the arts. I view game design primarily as an art

well, if designing / tweaking games is a hobby for you rather than a ‘necessary evil’ that you need to get through in order to get to the table then knock yourself out.

There are so many 5E spin off games for every genre, and these games are great. Cyberpunk games, Lord of the RIngs (which is a FANTASTIC game), Symbaroum (which IMO is better than the original rule set!), Everyday Heroes, and more. 5E is an amorphous tool designed to be built on top of.

and that is in part why I said if you need 50 pages to tweak it, you would probably have been better off with a different base than vanilla 5e

If you do this because you want to design a game, all is good. If you do this to get the experience you are looking for at your table, then having a different starting point would probably have helped getting you there faster

 

[Reynard]

The problem is how you and @Reynard keep phrasing it in a negative way and keep expecting others to accept your negative worldviews. It is not hammering anything. My game still uses a lot of core D&D rules. The fact that I modified things to better fit my tastes doesn't mean it was a bad fit, nor does it mean I was here having to work for hours and hours and hours and hours trying to make it into something it's not. Stop assuming your NEGATIVE experiences with modifying the game are universal or objectively true.

No one is arguing with your preferences or experiences, but I will thank you not to put words in my mouth or ascribe motivation to me. I'm right here. You can ask rather than just make stuff up.

 

[Mark Hope]

I'm more here for telling a collaborative fantasy story while getting to play out the role of an interesting protagonist doing cool stuff as action and social setpieces and mattering in the grand scope of the story (ie, not easily replaceable to the point that death is a constant stake)

I love this. This is one of the reasons I don't think of myself as an OSR player because this is pretty much how I run BX and AD&D

I mean, characters can still die but they still matter - sometimes because they die. But yeah, it's all about building a collaborative story for us.

(This thread defines OSR as "TSR-era games", though, which is why I voted the way I did.)