D&D 5E making 5E more "old school" (updated)

[Li Shenron]

Ability Scores: roll 4d6k3, max of 18 at 1st level (including racial

That one doesn't sound very old school to me...

Not sure what specific edition or playstyle you have in mind but I'd rather say "roll 3d6 ability scores, in order".

Also no death saving throws, and bring back save-or-die and level drain, or it didn't happen.

 

[epithet]

That one doesn't sound very old school to me...

Not sure what specific edition or playstyle you have in mind but I'd rather say "roll 3d6 ability scores, in order".

Also no death saving throws, and bring back save-or-die and level drain, or it didn't happen.

If you're going to do that, then you're wasting your time starting with 5e and trying to strip away all the "new school" elements. You'd be a lot better off with AD&D, or an OSR retroclone like Swords & Wizardry.

That said, there is a who lot of room for improvement in those old systems, and I think 5e is a much better system for a campaign. In fact, I don't think I would seriously consider an earlier edition for anything other than a one-shot or an adventure over a couple of sessions. What I would consider is making a couple of tweaks to try to recapture some of the feel of an older edition without changing the core 5e mechanics. Keep in mind that if your players have any experience with 5e, even a few tweaks will probably be enough to "flavor" the game experience.

1. Slow natural healing (DMG 267) would remove the hit point restoration of a long rest. All natural healing comes from using hit dice, and you only get half your hit dice back every day. This makes class features like Song of Rest and feats like Healer much more valuable.

2. Injuries (DMG 272) make combat a lot more interesting. I would say that if you're using the injuries rule, though, that you should make sure you know ahead of time where the regeneration spell or an effect that imitates it can be obtained by relatively low level characters. I'm partial to the lost magical spring guarded by a Guardian Naga or a Unicorn, rumors of which are overheard at the tavern. The point is that getting your leg back can be an adventure, but if your 2nd level character's leg's off and there's no apparent way to fix that situation, you're likely to hobble your way into the thick of an orc horde with the intent to re-roll.

3. Massive damage (DMG 273) leading to system shock rolls make combat more dangerous in a way that is, in my opinion, a lot more interesting and fun that simply saying you're dead at 0, no death save.

4. Greyhawk initiative (Unearthed Arcana) will definataly slow down your combats at first, but it looks like it would become pretty smooth once you and your group got the hang of it. It would add a huge "we're not in Kansas any more" element to your game, and would also get your players to think more tactically and be more prepared when their turn comes around.
​

I think when it comes down to it, 5e is 5e--if you like it well enough to use it as the game system for your campaign, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go ripping out the parts of it that make it what it is. There are some options that have been specifically designed to work with that system, though, that can go a long way toward capturing a more dangerous, dynamic world that might be reminiscent of your old school experience without unnecessarily limiting player's character options or running the risk of changing a rule that throws the entire game system out of alignment.

 

[hejtmane]

I mean if people really want to go old school how about early early days

Fighting Men
Cleric
Magic user

When I started playing we were using the red box
Think are options were
Fighters
Magic User
Thief
Cleric

There you go and only a few races
Human
Dwarf
Hafling
Elf

 

[Monayuris]

If you're going to do that, then you're wasting your time starting with 5e and trying to strip away all the "new school" elements. You'd be a lot better off with AD&D, or an OSR retroclone like Swords & Wizardry.

Completely agree. What I want out of bringing an old-school feel to D&D 5E is realized more out of either removing options that don't fit or playing the game with a more old-school style. If I choose to run 5E it is because I want the mechanics and rules of 5E. I just want to present them in an old-school way.

There is a point where if you have to modify and tweak and change the rules of the game, it may be better to instead start at the other end (with an old-school / OSR game) and tweak the other direction...

There is a point where you are better off asking: how can we make B/X feel more modern / like 5E?

That said, there is a who lot of room for improvement in those old systems, and I think 5e is a much better system for a campaign. In fact, I don't think I would seriously consider an earlier edition for anything other than a one-shot or an adventure over a couple of sessions.

Personally, I disagree with this statement. I actually believe the opposite, the classic rules systems are better for campaign play and 5E is best for one shots / casual dungeon crawling. The older rule systems have much better support for long term play and player agency in the world (through strongholds, domains, etc.).

When I think of wanting an old-school feel out of 5E, I ultimately also think about long term... what are characters doing at the higher / name levels. In old-school they are building strongholds, founding domains, leading armies. If I want that out of 5E, I have to write an entire subsystem on my own.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What I long for most: the 1e AD&D Bard.

I can understand longing for it more than playing it, since it took so long to qualify. ;P

The intricate Non-lethal and Weaponless Combat Procedures.

OMG, someone actually used those! ?!

The Construction and Siege system and how everything in the 1e AD&D economy logically fit.

1e's assumed 'gold rush economy' really didn't make oodles of sense. I mean, on a basic level, it's fine, prices assume adventurers coming out of the dungeon with bags of holding full of coin - or speculators blowing their life savings on gear to go into the dungeon, but everything up to constructing castles running on those assumptions, not so much. The 'economies' of 3e & 4e weren't any more sensical in a broader-world way, but they were more workable w/in the context of a PC-centric campaign, and they could be assumed to make sense, like the gold-rush economy, in the limited context of adventuring, and, in 4e, of paragon & epic 'economies' that just operated on an entirely different scale.

What I love about 5e: Combat is fast. I've been stuck in 1e AD&D combats that last hundreds of rounds.

Amusing. 5e 'fast combat' design was aiming for an AD&D experience.
AD&D experiences varied.

What I like/love about 1e: That classic feeling -- something beyond just nostalgia. The feeling of adventure from the point of view of children riding their dirt bikes into unknown, uncharted territory. The Goonies Effect. There's a reason that Speilberg and D&D are making a comeback and it's not just nostalgia: it's the Great Unknown. 5e doesn't capture that and it never will -- it's just resold dreams.

Sounds like nostalgia, to me. Really nice nostalgia: it's good to have had experiences like that to hearken back /too/. Worth appreciating, enjoying, & celebrating.

I will laud any approach to make modern systems feel more like those from days of yore which make me feel all warm, fuzzy and nostalgiac.

Y'know, part of what makes me nostalgic for gaming in the early 80s isn't the mechanics of the game, it's the presentation. Staple-bound magazine format rule books, amateurish line art & editing - a step or two above a 70s 'zine, but still clearly a labor of love more than a commercial enterprise.

Nobody cared about balance, terms such as DPS and AoO did not exist, ASIs too.

We did have 'balance' - in concept, EGG used the word himself, enough, in the DMG - and some of us did care about it. And we had hot-button debates (in super-slow-motion of letters to Out on a Limb, compared to forums or - gak, Twitter), 'realism' was a hot one (and still is, though most folks banging that drum wouldn't call it that anymore), and dwarven women's beards, for some reason... ;P

If you're going to do that, then you're wasting your time starting with 5e and trying to strip away all the "new school" elements. You'd be a lot better off with AD&D, or an OSR retroclone like Swords & Wizardry.

Sure, if the entirety of the experience and one's emotional investment in it were confined to the table, it'd just be a matter of finding the best game for you & your buddies to get what they want out of. If you wanted nostalgia, it'd be re-playing that old game from back in the day, or, if you want it tweaked & improved, maybe a clone.
But that's not all there is, there's a community, and there's a sense of validation that comes from being even nominally on the same page as the current 'state of the art.' 5e delivers that fuller sense of the experience, not just connecting to the game you played back in the day, but connecting /that/ to the current incarnation of the game.

 

[Sacrosanct]

If you want old school, then get yourself some cheetos, Mt dew, Scorpions playing in the background, popcorn to represent minis, one of your players playing with the damn AT-AT in the background, and another player constantly whining about wanting to get his +5 holy avenger. And kill at least 2 PCs every session.

 

[epithet]

You can't really capture the feel of "old school D&D" by limiting player options. I mean, sure... the AD&D Player's Handbook didn't have the selection of races and classes that we have now in 5e, but that didn't matter at all. There were, from the earliest days of Dragon magazine, plenty of other options that included Half-Ogre (The Whole Half-Ogre, Dragon #73, 1983) and the Duelist class (same issue.) The Rogue's Gallery (1980) provided as NPCs a number of characters that had been played by Gary Gygax and other TSR staff, and included both a lizard man and a centaur.

The difference between "old school" and "modern" regarding character options is that back in the early days, if you wanted to play something more exotic you had to either find a write-up of it somewhere or make it up yourself. Now, there are "official" stats for a lot more races and classes.

That's what I was getting at in my post on the first page of this thread, although I didn't articulate it as well as I should have. In the early days of D&D, you could do anything, play anything, be anything your imagination could conceive of. Most of the groups I played in had a tacit agreement that we would stick to fantasy tropes and not get "too weird," but for the most part we made up rules and stats for whatever wasn't covered in the books or in Dragon magazine.

If you want to simplify your game, you can always stick to the Basic Rules pdf, but that's boring, and it isn't "old school" in any meaningful way.

 

[epithet]

Sure, if the entirety of the experience and one's emotional investment in it were confined to the table, it'd just be a matter of finding the best game for you & your buddies to get what they want out of. If you wanted nostalgia, it'd be re-playing that old game from back in the day, or, if you want it tweaked & improved, maybe a clone.
But that's not all there is, there's a community, and there's a sense of validation that comes from being even nominally on the same page as the current 'state of the art.' 5e delivers that fuller sense of the experience, not just connecting to the game you played back in the day, but connecting /that/ to the current incarnation of the game.

Which is why I followed the statement you quoted with 4 examples of rule additions/variations/hacks that were designed by the D&D team to work with the 5e rule system and might create the feeling of a more old-school D&D experience.

 

[epithet]

... I actually believe ... the classic rules systems are better for campaign play and 5E is best for one shots / casual dungeon crawling. The older rule systems have much better support for long term play and player agency in the world (through strongholds, domains, etc.).

When I think of wanting an old-school feel out of 5E, I ultimately also think about long term... what are characters doing at the higher / name levels. In old-school they are building strongholds, founding domains, leading armies. If I want that out of 5E, I have to write an entire subsystem on my own.

My perspective might be influenced by my opinion that when it comes to building strongholds and leading armies, the best guides and sub-systems are (1) mostly system neutral (even if published for a specific system or setting) and (2) already on my bookshelf. I refer to them (including the AD&D DMG) to help me work out things like weather, cost, time, and troop numbers, but I tend to resolve all that stuff narratively rather than have a player roll to determine their wheat harvest or their heavy infantry's success at withstanding a cavalry charge. That stuff can all be essential story material, but I tend to keep the die rolls to more personal efforts.

 

[Frankie1969]

1E Equipment Conversion

Armor:
Banded Armor: rename Breastplate.
We're done. I didn't realize it would be that easy.

Weapons:
Some of the following items are strictly inferior to existing ones, which is exactly like they were in 1E. (But Gary Gygax really loved the Ranseur.)

Name	Category	Damage	Type	Properties	GP	Lbs
Bo Stick	simple melee	1d4	bludgeon	finesse	1	1
Jo Stick	simple melee	1d6	bludgeon		2	4
Bow, Composite Short	simple ranged	1d6	piercing	ammunition (range 80/360), two-handed	75	2
Bardiche	military melee	2d4	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach	7	12
Bec de Corbin	military melee	1d8	piercing	heavy, two-handed, reach	6	10
Bill-Guisarme	military melee	2d4	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach	6	15
Fauchard	military melee	1d6	slashing	two-handed, reach, dismount	3	6
Fauchard-Fork	military melee	1d8	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	8	8
Flail, Horseman	military melee	1d4+1	bludgeon	-	8	3
Fork, Military	military melee	1d8	piercing	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	4	7
Glaive-Guisarme	military melee	2d4	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	10	10
Guisarme	military melee	2d4	piercing	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	5	8
Guisarme-Voulge	military melee	2d4	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	7	15
Hammer, Lucern	military melee	2d4	bludgeon	heavy, two-handed, reach, dismount	7	15
Mace, Horseman	military melee	1d6	bludgeon	-	4	5
Partisan	military melee	1d6	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach	10	8
Pick, Horseman	military melee	1d6	bludgeon	-	5	4
Ranseur	military melee	2d4	piercing	heavy, two-handed, reach, disarm, dismount	4	6
Spetum	military melee	1d6+1	piercing	two-handed, reach, disarm, dismount	3	5
Sword, Bastard	military melee	1d8	slashing	heavy, versatile (2d5)	25	10
Sword, Broad	military melee	2d4	slashing	-	10	7
Voulge	military melee	2d4	slashing	heavy, two-handed, reach	2	12
Bow, Composite Long	military ranged	1d8	piercing	ammunition (range 90/400), two-handed	100	3

Weapon Properties:
Disarm: The weapon may be used to make a special attack against a held weapon. If your attack roll hits AC 12, the opponent must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC = 8 + your attack bonus) or drop the weapon. This attack does no damage.
Dismount: The weapon may be used to make a Shove attack against a mounted creature.