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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8064196" data-attributes="member: 6796661">The CR system and official adventures that follow it have contributed to this change in play style.  But I will say that Curse of Strahd was refreshing in that it was easy for PCs to get in over their head. I'm currently running Rappan Athuk, a massive megadungeon, heavily influenced by old school play.   It is easy for players to get in over their head. It is a giant, deadly sandbox.  That effected play in that my very experienced group of players were very cautious early on. Once the magic user go to where he could cast wall of force and teleportation circle, they became a bit bolder but noped out of situations a lot. Another thing that contributes to running away versus standing your ground is that in original D&D you got experience for the treasure your extracted from the dungeon. This is also how I run my current game. Actually, in my current game you only get XP from extracted treasure and some milestones. That changes the incentives.  But not exactly how I thought it would. I thought it would lead to more stealth-based character builds and heist-style play. But that hasn't been the case.  The main difference I see is that if players run into or learn about a dangerous encounter, they'll avoid it if there doesn't seem to be any pay off or strong in-game story reason to go after it. When players no longer see monsters as bags of XP, it changes the incentives and does a better job encouraging all approaches to encounters. Using GP for XP is an easy way to change the incentives without the headache of calculating non-combat encounter XP or going to full milestone leveling (which I find unsatisfying).</blockquote>

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