Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greg Benage" data-source="post: 7681401" data-attributes="member: 93631">I don't think the OSR is dead, I don't think old-school D&D is "mainstream" (whatever that might mean for what is itself a very niche hobby) and I don't think 5e is especially old school. I do think it's a turn back toward the old school from 3 and 4, but it doesn't even try to get there. 5e does heroic fantasy very well, and that's probably a good thing because heroic fantasy, in my opinion, has been the mainstream of D&D since the mid-80s. If you look at the published adventures for 5e, Wizards has doubled-down and raised the emphasis on heroic fantasy to a new level. I think that's shrewd, because it's what most D&D players want and it's what 5e does best.But old-school D&D wasn't heroic fantasy. I don't know what to call it, exactly: "Tomb-Robber-and-Treasure-Hunter Fantasy" isn't really a thing. The core game experience wasn't about becoming a hero and saving the world, it was about exploring an extremely dangerous wilderness and/or underworld and winning fame and fortune. The classic rules supported that style of play extremely well. The 5e rules and the expectations they create push back against it more than a little.Bottom line: If I'm going to play in a heroic fantasy campaign, I hope it's 5e. If I have an opportunity to play (or especially DM) an old-school D&D campaign, I hope it's B/X. I certainly do not agree that "old school" is the way "most of us" play our D&D. If anything, today's mainstream D&D is the Platonic ideal of the new-school, post-Dragonlance heroic fantasy mode of play.</blockquote>

Verification