D&D 5E Question for this community about blending OSR, modern fantasy RPG's (5e)

I realize that the most common answer to my question (see the bottom paragraph) is "no", or "Why re-invent the wheel? something else is already out there" and this is likely a fool's errand, but will ask anyway. I am NOT a fan of 5e, and especially 6e. Right now, I play or DM 5e, AD&D 1e, Basic Fantasy 3e, Pathfinder 2e, and EveryDay Heroes. I have also played or run some Call of Cthulhu, Traveler, Crawford's Scarlet Heroes, among others. So I have some exposure to a number of game styles. I only play in person, as I hate the online experience, as I have witnessed the lack of committment of many online players, let alone how slow online play is to in person play.

I believe that the schism between old school players, and "modern audiences", specifically within the D&D community, is going simply get wider as 6e comes out, with the attendant focus on digitization that Hasbro's Chris Cocks stated in the earnings call this week. To that end, I have envisioned a mashup of a game built on the bones of 5e, but with elements of AD&D, Pathfinder, and Call of Cthulhu added, to varying degrees.

An example of this would be that there are now only 4 classes in my game, with a total of 10 subclasses within those classes. Ranger and Paladin go back to being subclasses of Fighter, Druids are back to a subclass of Cleric, Bard is now a subclass of Rogue. Each magic using subclass is pared way back in magical abilities. As for races/species/whatever you want to call them, there are maybe 6, and are a subset of what is found in AD&D. I want to play/run a game where PC's can and will die, if the players do dumb things, or even if the dice gods frown on them enough. Things like "Oh, you were bit by a Giant Spider, and failed the save vs Poison. You have 1-4 rounds to find a way to neutralize the poison or your PC is "dead dead". Or scrapping the skill experience improvement mechanic in 5e for something much closer to the one used in Call of Cthulhu.

So, to my question that I originally referenced. Is there a percentage of the RPG community, and more specifically within the D&D community, that WANT to play such a game? How big a percentage? And I am not talking about creating such a game for sale. I am essentially talking about a 5e game that is so heavily house ruled that it can no longer be called 5e.
 

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I'll play any game if the people are cool. I don't know if there's a huge appetite "out there" for what you are describing, which seems like an OSR variant, but since you seem to be just looking for some folks to play with, it seems to me the question is whether your regular group are into the game you describe. If you're fun to play with, they'll probably give it a shot.

My question is: how open are you to their input?
 


I think Into the Borderland by O5R games is moslty what you're looking for: 5e mechanics, procedural dungeon crawl system, only 4 classes with the other classes being subclasses. I cant remember if they use race-as-class though...

Anyways, its a best seller on Drivethru so yes, I think there is a major interest for OSRish 5e games.

I myself play using mostly the basic rules of 5e with 4 classes, no feats, no ASI. All the fancy feature found in the other archetypes? I still use them as magic items/reward/boon etc. So you cant be a Barbarian, but a Berserking Weapon +1 can give you the Rage feature 2 times a day.
Working for a fiend might give you one feature from the Fiend-lock. Metamagic Tomes can be found by Wizards, etc.
 


I'll play any game if the people are cool. I don't know if there's a huge appetite "out there" for what you are describing, which seems like an OSR variant, but since you seem to be just looking for some folks to play with, it seems to me the question is whether your regular group are into the game you describe. If you're fun to play with, they'll probably give it a shot.

My question is: how open are you to their input?
How open I am to input? A fair question. If I hear people saying "You should allow Tieflings", and "Players decide if PC's can be killed"...that kind of nonsense I shut down. If someone says "I dunno, I think Paladins should get spell casting at 5th level versus 6th level", that I would listen to.
 

How open I am to input? A fair question. If I hear people saying "You should allow Tieflings", and "Players decide if PC's can be killed"...that kind of nonsense I shut down. If someone says "I dunno, I think Paladins should get spell casting at 5th level versus 6th level", that I would listen to.
Do you have a reason for shutting down tieflings (or any other arbitrary choice) or is this based purely on personal preference? because if the latter, you can expect to have people look at your game and say, "Naw."
 

Do you have a reason for shutting down tieflings (or any other arbitrary choice) or is this based purely on personal preference? because if the latter, you can expect to have people look at your game and say, "Naw."
unless they agree with that choice (Shadowdark has no Tiefling either) or do not mind bringing the Tiefling in again, after all it is supposedly compatible with 5e ;)
 

If you go into any Shadowdark community, you'll see people asking to bring in various favorite D&Disms (I tinkered with creating player character gnomes for Shadowdark on this very forum).

There are people who get extremely absolutist -- "unless it's in core book, IT'S NOT SHADOWDARK #$@#$*(F!" -- but the easily moddable nature of OSR means that people will do so. (Lots of optional ancestries, classes and rules additions available on itch.io and DriveThruRPG, to say nothing of the official ones in issues of Cursed Scroll.)

As always, I think it's up to the table. I do think a certain amount of flexibility -- if everyone at your table really wants playable demonfolk, is there a really good argument for saying no to making those players happy? -- is a necessary component of having an actual ongoing game.
 

So, to my question that I originally referenced. Is there a percentage of the RPG community, and more specifically within the D&D community, that WANT to play such a game? How big a percentage? And I am not talking about creating such a game for sale. I am essentially talking about a 5e game that is so heavily house ruled that it can no longer be called 5e.
Yes! I very much want to play such a game. I like Fifth Edition a lot, but I don't like the direction it has gone. I want a game with modern advancements and old school sensibilities. Or, better yet, I want a game that is modular and can be modified to each tables' tastes. If you like lots of rules, add lots of modules. If you want high fantasy, there's a module for that; low magic, there's a module; tieflings, module.
 
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