OSR Fans of old school D&D, what are your bare essentials?

[Baron Opal II]

Holmes' rules plus Meepo's expansion. Saving throws I simplify to Grit, Dodge, and Magic.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

1E PH, DMG, and MM. I really haven't needed more than that for 40 years. Most (but not all!) of my house rules in that time have been wastes of time.

 

[Lanefan]

You can be fans of other editions as well, but I’m looking to tap the brains of those who are fans of old school gaming, especially of the various basic sets.


For me:

6 ability scores, with unified bonuses
Single XP progression chart
10 max levels
3 classes: fighter, rogue, caster
Core races: elf, dwarf, human, halfling.
team initiative with a single d10 roll per side.
each class gets a feature at every level, but no subclasses or feats or backgrounds. Chargen has to be fast.

I wouldn't just strip modern D&D down because by just doing that and not adding anything back in you're not left with much. So for me:

6 ability scores, bonuses do not have to be unified (more important, they don't have to be linear - the 8-13 range can be +0)
Variable-by-class xp progression chart; more important is that level-up is achieved via earning xp rather than by milestone or fiat
Open-ended levels but very slow advancement, slowing further after about 8th such that getting higher than 10th is a rare thing.
4 classes - warrior, rogue, divine caster, arcane caster (I wouldn't mind a few subclasses - knight, archer, assassin, druid, illusionist - but they can come later)
Core species: elf, dwarf, human, hobbit
Individual initiatives re-rolled each round on a d6 (or d10 if that's what you want), no modifiers to the rolls, for fog-of-war randomness
Most if not all class features baked in - the only real decisions at char-gen are species, class, weapon prof's, and starting equipment

And I'd add:

Rolled stats
As many in-play mechanics as possible moved DM-side - this is the best method of simplifying play for the players
Some sort of capstone or endpoint the players/PCs can aspire to where the focus of play potentially changes from field adventuring to other things (in 1e this was name level, where you could start building strongholds etc.).

I'd add more but you want this kept as simple as possible.

 

[Voadam]

If you were to take modern DnD and strip it down the basic minimums, what would that look like for you? What are your essentials that still feels like DnD while being as quick to learn and play like the basic sets were previously? I’m talking absolute bare minimum.

If by Modern you mean 5e, I think the starter sets do a fantastic job of this.

Levels 1-3, a few core classes and races, stats, class powers, spells, skills, combat, conditions in 32 pages of rule book is a lot like Moldvay B/X and when I was doing face to face games I brought that rule set as I found it easier to quickly find those core elements there than in the PH.

If you mean for an OSR type game I would want stats, at least a spellcaster and a warrior class, B/X races if going for D&D, spells, some magic items, monsters, traps, combat sequence, conditions.

 

[bmfrosty]

The big one is fast combat rounds. If my players are frozen by a whole bunch of combat options on their sheet at level 5, then I have a problem.

OSE, DCC, and Black Hack are my jam. DCC more for the modularity. If I'm don't feel like doing the tables, I don't have to. As far as speed goes, the martial classes are very fast, and I won't encourage a player to play a caster unless they got they are well suited to it and know what they're going to try to do in any round ahead of their turn.

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm not trying to be snarky here, I promise. This is my honest answer.

All I need for an old-school gaming experience is my POD copy of the Rules Cyclopedia and a set of dice.

+

 

[GMMichael]

Something like this:

SRD

cairnrpg.com

I was thinking this:

Or failing that, this:

Microlite20 Nexus - Home

Microlite20 is a minimalist tabletop role-playing game designed to be usable with the majority of the 3.x OGL/d20 supplements, rules and adventures with little or no advance preparation. The basic rules for character generation, combat, magic and level advancement take up a single sheet of...

microlite20.org