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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9732377" data-attributes="member: 7026594">I don't think you played "wrong".  I think NN identified correctly that you played AD&D in more Trad style, as opposed to most OSR being focused on Classic or a somewhat revisionist "new" OSR style of its own.[URL unfurl="true"]https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-of-play.html[/URL]Shadowdark does have a strong focus on dungeon play at base, especially stuff like the light rules.  I think it more naturally lends itself to Classic play than to Trad, as with most OSR systems.That's not to say that's the ONLY thing it can do.  The new Kickstarter is a big overland hex crawl setting, after all.  It does also have more forgiving rules for going to 0HP and surviving than any TSR edition.Though in my experience in the 80s-90s period we're talking about, many Trad tables used a simple "death at -10HP, bleed at 1HP per round" house rule*, which tends to make it very unlikely for a character to die from simple damage until higher levels, because low level monsters are mostly incapable of doing 11+ points in a single round.  Combine that with not targeting downed PCs, and a little fudging behind the screen to help ensure that you don't drop the whole party at once... And you get a recipe for PC death being relatively rare despite how the RAW TSR D&D rules make it really easy.  If you were to return to 2E AD&D, I think you'll probably want to use some kind of death mitigation mechanic like this house rule.*(There is an official Optional Rule called Hovering on Death's Door on page 75 of the 2E DMG which is similar, but I'm talking about a house rule which further softened it.  By the book optional rule, if you hit zero or less the shock incapacitates you and automatically wipes all spells from your mind. Magical healing can only bring you to 1HP and conscious but incapable of action and barely able to move or talk, until you get a full day of rest or a Heal spell.  But at the more action-focused tables I played at, we normally ignored all those lingering effects, as became standard in subsequent editions). </blockquote>

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