That was actually one of the major selling points to me. It's much easier to add than to subtract. I had considered, for my DL campaign, doing 5e but removing subclasses to lower power levels, but balance was a bit off when I did that. Whereas with OSE, I can add the extra features (classes, some special abilities) without breaking the fundamental math and/or systems.I like that OSE is kinda safe haven for making things for OSR games. More easily used in your flavor of B/X or BECMI or ODD variant.
A secondary nice thing about OSE is that it has gotten some degree of name recognition even in circles that have not really heard about other retroclones.
It seems to me that OSE is an easier sell to players than even B/X, depending on where you go looking.
When I run a D&D game anymore it's with C&C for the same reason. Plus, it's so easy to convert any of my old AD&D 1e or 2e adventures to it. I've never looked at OSE so I can't compare but I came really close to backing the last Kickstarter.I looked at it and even did a few solitary D&D session with it. It is really a well made document. Much better than flipping back and forth through my old Basic and Expert books.
But ultimately I prefer the AD&D1e (Greyhawk) vibe of C&C.
For a different perspective, and one view on where I suspect many part ways with the old school mentality:3. Task resolution. Good heavens, this is quick. You’re an elf and want to listen at a door? Roll a d6, you have a 2 in 6 chance of success.
It's because you're focused on playing your character and trying things in the world, poking around and seeing what you can do...instead of worrying about feats, subclasses, and doing the optimal thing.Isn't that the classic D&D experience? Understanding only half of it, and finding it amazing?![]()
Or the DM simply let creativity and enthusiasm flourish.Possibly she was playing someone's homebrew? People like to customize their OSR games a lot from what I can see.
I agree with your first part (that OSE has too many ways to use dice), but I don’t think variable difficulty is necessarily a good thing. It makes things more complicated for the referee when creating content, contributing to a perception that it’s challenging, so one should use pre-written content because it’s easier. Systems featuring variable difficulty also tend to have progression treadmills, so effective improvements in character ability are actually much less than what the raw numbers suggest, assuming char ops doesn’t ruin everything. I’d much rather dispense with the extra complexity and go with a number that’s on the characters’ sheets (or a static difficulty, either works).I don't see what's harder about "roll a d20, add a number that should be written on your character sheet, does it meet the target number?" except in cases where that "should" isn't met. Which I get if you're playing with, like, very young kids, but otherwise that's a player problem. Plus it lets you vary the difficulty. Why would every secret door be equally difficult to find? I'm not necessarily convinced that d20-plus-modifiers was the ideal choice, but give me some kind of unified, scalable mechanic any day of the week.
Exactly.Just a quick question, with the Elf, 2 in 6 chance means you rolls a D6 and if you roll a 1 or 2, you spot the hidden door or what not?
I've been working on a sandbox campaign for the last weeks, and recently started to wonder why I wanted to run it in 5th edition in the first place. OSE just seems so much neater.
I think a big advantage with OSE (and of course B/X) is that it's lightweigt nature makes it particularly well suited for improvisation and procedurally generated situations. When you realize you need an encounter with a certain type of monster right now, you can put it together in a minute. No need to go through a whole monster description to check what abilities it has and how they work, and how that all translates into useful tactics. If some kind of challenge comes up that you had not thought of before, there's not much in the way of special rules that you could look up. You could of course just make something up on the spot with other editions as well, but I always find it really annoying when I know a mechnic for this situation exists but I would not use it because I'd have to look it up. Making something up that's not covered by the rules feels very different than making something up for something that already has a default rule.
I feel OSE is so simple that when the players have a random encounter with goblins and decide to track a fleeing goblin back to its lair, I could put that lair and the rest of the goblin tribe together while the players are still talking and have it ready by the time they enter the cave entrance in the forest.
Even with the simplicity of 5th edition, I think I would have to take a 15 minute break for that. Which isn't so great if that's the kind of thing that happens once or twice every time you play.
The super simple rules open up new possibilities for running a campaign.
Do you have a YouTube channel (and willing to share it)? I would be interested in seeing your thoughts on this subject.Yes indeed. One of my major gripes about 5e is how unwieldy the statblocks are. In old school games, they are so simple. One line in my notebook tells me everything I need.
I too am really feeling the pull to OSE. I've even suggested converting over to it with one of my AD&D groups and they're half inclined... Regardless of that group's status, I do plan to run an OSE game in the near future too.
Maybe a video comparing and contrasting about the 3 major systems I run (AD&D 1e, 5e, and soon OSE).
*edit: Also really champing at the bit for my OSE materials from the kickstarter... The PDFs should be coming my way any day now.![]()