OSR Why does OSR Design Draw You In?

[Bill Zebub]

I can only speak for myself (naturally!), but I read a comment on Reddit a few years back that summarized my feelings about OSR vs 5e (for example): "what was once narrative is now mechanical." In other words, having been playing these game for a very long time, I prefer a lighter rules system because it encourages player creativity vs. depending on whatever mechanics they have available to them on their character sheets. If you want to be a pirate, be a pirate, instead of making your Pirate Check. I also don't like the power gaming: characters are too powerful too quickly. 5e can feel like a superhero game.

Again, one person's opinion.

Yeah, this is pretty much my answer, too.

The specific features I like, such as fewer character options, lightweight or non-existent skill systems, etc., are all just manifestations of that philosophy.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

There's something nice about dungeons in particular. They are nice self-contained spaces with hard boundaries to hold neat stuff to encounter. Plus with a myuthic underworld approach, common to many OSR systems, you can get wild and strange without much in the way of external logic. IDK, itæs fun. More generally, I like the simplicity and elegance of a good OSR system for design work, they allow me to focus on the moving diegetic parts without having to crunch too many numbers.

As much as I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the RP pillar, I increasingly am of a mind that taking D&D outside of the dungeon (without the domain end game) was a mistake. That so many of its current problems could be solved by going back to dungeon-crawling as the main mode of play.

 

[Bill Zebub]

As much as I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the RP pillar, I increasingly am of a mind that taking D&D outside of the dungeon (without the domain end game) was a mistake. That so many of its current problems could be solved by going back to dungeon-crawling as the main mode of play.

Much as with my issue with skills, I've struggled to find a way to experience wilderness (hex crawling) mechanically in a way that's as satisfying as dungeons.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Much as with my issue with skills, I've struggled to find a way to experience wilderness (hex crawling) mechanically in a way that's as satisfying as dungeons.

I've had some luck with using rumors and some visual clues to give folks something to go on, but ultimately it lacks that sense of danger you get from exploring a good dungeon.

 

[djotaku]

I got into the hobby in the 90s — the 1106 D&D tan box and AD&D 2nd Edition — and the way everyone around me played was trad. Plotlines, protagonists, and playacting. If you could railroad under the table to make a story happen, awesome, that meant that you were a good DM who cared about narrative and theme and characterization. Player agency? Not a concern. Everything had to serve the story. And players weren't there to be challenged, they were there to get into character and portray their characters, ideally with full-on voices and thespianism, end of story. Or at least, until the end of the story.

It took me several years to notice that this way of playing D&D (a) wasn't particularly fun for a lot of players, and (b) was incredibly stressful to DM, especially if you felt like you had to keep yourself one session ahead of a few different possible branching paths the players might take. Add to that, by the time 3.0 was transitioning to 3.5, character builds and heavy rules systems were making D&D just plain burdensome to deal with at the table.

So I went back to the tan box and from there the Rules Cyclopedia, and the lighter systems eased the burden a bit. But it was really the OSR philosophy (think Abed Nadir: "I'm the Dungeon Master. I have to be impartial, or the game has no meaning") that makes the game runnable. Build a world, make it a lively and dynamic sandbox full of interesting discoverables and interactables, and then stop caring what happens to it. Turn the PCs loose on the sandbox, and then just let the game run itself. Play to find out what happens, and instead of being the maestro Houdini who pulls all the puppet-strings and effects all the outcomes, just enjoy that you get to be surprised.

I could be missing something subtle, but I think everything you mention in your last paragraph could be done in D&D 5e, A5e, Tales of the Valiant, Pathfinder, etc. It's less about OSR and more about the the culture surrounding the game. What I mean is - if people are coming into D&D 5e from watching Critical Role, they may do the railroad thing you're talking about, but there's nothing inherent to 5e or PF2e that requires that. I've certainly run sandboxy games in 5e. And you don't need DCC to run Dungeon Crawls. I think the best thing you get from running or playing DCC is that everyone knows it's going to be a dungeon crawl, so they don't come with Critical Role expectations.