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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Essafah" data-source="post: 7956654" data-attributes="member: 16472">No need to be confrontational.  Yes.  I personally don't think the style of game you are playing is fun.  The fact that modern D&D seems to be more popular than OSR style games would seem to indicate this is a general consensus but no one said you are not having fun in your game.  I did not not tell you that you are not having fun playing in it or running that style of game.  In fact, I said just the opposite.  I specifically stated as long as you are having fun running an OSR game and you truly have buy-in from your players and they are  having fun then that is the goal.   It has been my experience that many OSR DMs however start running again and assume player buy-in and try to force an OSR style of play on a game and will tell other people their players are having fun when that is not the case.  It seems like you are not in this category and if people talked to your players they are perfectly happy having their characters die at the drop of a hat and having the PCs being inconsequential since as you stated "as a DM you don't care what happens" then that works for your group and I am not begrudging that as again having fun is the goal and if that fits your groups ideal of fun more power to you.Story is important because as a DM part of your  job is being a storyteller.  That is a foundational competency of DMing.  I don't feel I should have to explain that but if you want you can pick up the DMG and read it; it mentions story throughout the book.  As an example,  "It is good to be the Dungeon Master! Not only do you tell fantastic stories about heroes, villains, monsters and magic, but you also get to create the world in which these stories live.   (5E DMG pg. 4 Introduction).   There are several other passages throughout the DMG that references the importance of story.  It also mentions making sure your players actually enjoy the game.  Again a reference to this foundational competency can be found on pg. 6 of the DMG.It seems not only is there a misunderstanding of foundational  DM competencies but also of analogy.   I used Danny Devito because that is what I picture when I think of say a 2E character  whose average abilities scores (if using the default 3d6 keep in order rolled method) would be in the 9-12 range.  I picture somebody with physicality of Danny Devito picking up a sword and saying I am going to fight.  It is the furthest thing from heroic fantasy or sword & sorcery that I can think of BUT it is very Game of Thrones like so I guess I can see why you like it.  To break it down as simple as possible not since 2E is it assumed that the PCs are just average folks (ability wise) who just decided for whatever reason to risk the adventuring life.  Instead it is assumed that whatever their socio-economic/personal origins that the PCs are above the average mien (ability wise) and are marked by destiny to have an impact on their world.  In short, it assumes the DM cares what happens. Again, I never said that OSR game can't be intense or enjoyable (again provided the group has buy-in).  I would not like that style of play nor do I think that style of play would be good for the modern game but I never said some people don't enjoy it.   As far as the nostalgia part, yes I will stand by what I said on that part: many OSR people I have meet seem to look back on the game and not realize that they enjoyed those games to a large extent because of the house rules or rules being ignored.  As an example, one OSR style gamer I meet mentioned how much he loved his 2E game that they have been playing for a few years.  Yes. He still plays 2E.  He mentioned how fond he was of his elven swordsman (fighter) whose highest stat was 17 and how the character had survived to 18th level and hoped to make it to 20th.  This all sounds good but then having DMed several campaigns in 2E I pointed out to him that by the rules he could not have an 18th level elven fighter or get to 20th because of the  race and level limits rules of 2E.   His fighter per 2E rules had to stop somewhere in the early teens (my 2E DMG is packed away and I am not digging it out for the exact level cap but it was near the early teens for elven fighters).  Needless to say he could not progress to 20th level either.  There are optional rules in the 2E DMG to allow demihumans (as they were called then) to exceed these limits provided they have an  exceptionally high class prerequistie score but with a 17 Str the character should not be able to get to 18th level as an elven fighter in 2E, no where near it, but yes if you just ignore that rule I guess his OSR game is fine.  Again, though if people enjoy playing these games and have group buy-in there is no problem. I will agree with this statement and I am glad you and your players are having fun playing OSR.   I like modern games and high adventure.  We can agree to disagree. Luckily D&D is a big tent and is customizable from the baseline to fit the needs of differing groups as needed.  Good gaming.</blockquote>

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