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Message: <blockquote data-quote="amerigoV" data-source="post: 7693628">I downloaded this little gem and just devoured it. That is a wonderful little system.To give you my perspective, I started with AD&D, ditched at 2e, came roaring back for 3.x but got exhausted with it. 4e was not for my group but I appreciated what it tried to do. I am now a Savage Worlds fanboy. 5e is interesting, but an edition too late if you will. So I am not looking at this ruleset through the lens of Nostalgia (1e I do, but I know I would only enjoy about 2 sessions of it before I dropped it again)Some people in the thread have poo-poo'd OD&D, called it primitive, etc. But I can easily see how a good DM would rock with this system and not need all the dead weight that has dogged D&D for decades. Now, I grant that a newer DM might struggle with it - no question. They would either run it "too simple" or start breaking the system with poor adjudications. Also, I can see a veteran D&Der not like it - they have to unlearn too much to appreciate it (I think me stepping away to play other systems helps me appreciate what is there). So I really could see a veteran D&D DM and a bunch of new players just rocking with this game.I see two very advance concepts in this game that D&D quickly lost and has tried to recover for 40 years. Sadly, it looks like it broke with the Greyhawk supplement.First Concept - the core non-magic combat system is an Outcome based system, not an Incremental system. What I mean by Incremental (maybe someone has an official term) is that in isolation combat is resolved by the sum of incremental outcomes that may not all be "equal". A dagger does d4, a longsword does d8, a bow does d6. It does not matter what you are fighting, that is the damage. Your odds of inflicting this damage tends to increase over time, but the impact does not. My understanding this came into being via the Greyhawk supplement when it made explicit strength modifiers for damage and weapons did variable damage.What I mean by Outcome based that your chance to hit in OD&D represents the odds of you doing "meaningful damage" against a creature. By having the HD be d6s and the damage be d6, you immediately know about how many hits a monster can take before it goes down (a 6 HD monster can take about 6 hits). One can think of combat in terms of a 4e skill challenge. If 4 L3 warriors are fighting a Troll (6HD), then the 4 warriors will need to get 6 successes (hits) before the Troll gets up to 12 success (hits against the PCs). It does not matter if the character is modeled after Conan/Fafrd, Grey Mouser, Robin Hood, a knife fighter, someone with a guisarme, or a baseball bat. The "hit" represents that you got the best placement for your weapon to do a HD of damage. So why do I think that is advanced? Well, the moment D&D disconnected the damage and the HD it's various designers have spend 40 years trying to create a "balanced" system. There have been endless classes, feats, skills, PrCs, kits, and special rules to try to just make all these weapon work "equally". They had it on the first try and lost it. The Outcome approach is what some newer games try to do - FFG Star Wars comes to mind (roll all them funny dice and they give you an an relative outcome) - perhaps Fate and Dungeon World might be like this as well from my reading but I do not have those systems. An Outcome based approach allows all sorts of character concepts to work well together without having to make a dense system to explicitly make every combination work. The key to enjoying this would be (to steal a term from Savage Worlds) Trappings. Its all in the description - the DM and Player need to describe the action reflecting the character concept and not just "hit, miss, hit, miss" - which is trap we all fall into.Since going Savage I really do not like HPs. If I ran it, I would not use HPs for the "run of the mill monsters". I would just track the aforementioned hits. I would still roll for PC damage (hey, that is truly D&D) and let the players roll for the BBEG/Dragons/Giants/etc. To me, that is a natural extension of the HD/Damage system.Flexible Character FrameworkThese days you cannot sling a dead cat without hitting myriad of D&D books that have been made to "give players options/choices". Classes, feats, kits, PrCs, etc. But OD&D gives a wonderful framework with the three class:Non-Magic Combatant: Fighting ManPure power Caster: Magic UserHybrid: Cleric.Again, this would need a DM that is good at adjudication and experience with other editions of D&D would be helpful, but you really can make any concept with minor tweaks to these three classes:Robin Hood Archer - Fighting Man, Dex is Prime RequisiteMonk - Cleric with specific spell listRanger - Spell caster - Cleric with specific spell listDruid - MU (depending on how offense base the spells are)Also, its a great framework for skills. If PCs want to do stuff, it should be easy yes (clearly in your character's wheelhouse), no, or roll. If its a stressful situation you can just use the attack matrix like a skill challenge. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Roll the d20, use the PC level (based on their “Proficiency”), assign how hard it is (AC), and how extensive it is (“HD”). </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Proficiency is the attack table – Fighting Man (best), Cleric (medium), Wizard (poor).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the skill is very adventure useful (sneaking around) then it should be balanced vs. the To Hit. So a “good thief” might be Cleric To Hit and used medium proficiency for thief skills. While a Blacksmith Fighter or a Wizard trying to do Enchantments is right in their wheelhouse.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Basically, they have to get HD number of successes (To Hits) before suffering the Character’s level of misses.</li> </ul>Example – Rob the 5th L thief is trying to sneak around and scout a compound. It was already agreed upon that his skills for thieving would be at Medium. The Gm decides the difficulty is middle of the road (AC 5) and there are 4 major areas to scout, so HD=4. Rob has to roll 4 12+’s on a d20 before suffering 5 rolls below a d20. The GM made decide to count a Nat 1 as 2 failures and a Nat 20 as 2 successes.So to me, this system is very relevant and has some design concepts that still are not part of D&D in an elegant manner. I thought I was just going to get a nice historical oddity for the $10. Instead, I see a very fast and fun system that would scratch the D&D itch I get from time to time.</blockquote>

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