5E and Pathfinder Players: What is your impression of OSR gaming?

[leons1701]

Yeah, to be fair, some OSR games are more "modern" than others. There's no real reason OSR has to have racial restrictions on classes and other legacy problems just because they kept a simpler style any more than they are required to use THAC0. Castles and Crusades is definitely one of the OSR games I would be more likely to play, in part for that reason.

[Elysium777]

OSR is pretty good and very fun

[cailano]

On 10/26/2023 at 8:33 PM, leons1701 said:

Yeah, to be fair, some OSR games are more "modern" than others. There's no real reason OSR has to have racial restrictions on classes and other legacy problems just because they kept a simpler style any more than they are required to use THAC0. Castles and Crusades is definitely one of the OSR games I would be more likely to play, in part for that reason.

Yeah, it raises that age-old question about "what is OSR," but that's a different topic and TBH, not one I find very interesting.

Castles and Crusades is a really strong system. Simple, fast, looks like a lot of fun. Is it OSR? It seems to have as much in common with AD&D as it does with 3E, and its power level is closer to AD&D. I like to say it's what 3E should have been. I'm currently brainstorming a homebrew campaign for C&C.

[cailano]

Update on poll results: I'm seeing a lot of love for OSR in the most recent responses. Of course, many 5e players on the site may see "OSR" and are so not interested that they don't even click on the post, but the responses we do have are encouraging. Ultimately, there is no one way to play RPGs, and a variety of play styles has to be good for the Myth-Weavers community.

[leons1701]

32 minutes ago, cailano said:

Ultimately, there is no one way to play RPGs, and a variety of play styles has to be good for the Myth-Weavers community.

Definitely agree with this, especially the second part.

[TheDude2371]

Coming in rather late to the party here.

I cut my teeth back in the days just before the Satanic Panic, playing a single character generated from the Basic D&D box set in an AD&D 1st edition module (in case you're wondering, an Elf running through U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, which to this day remains one of my favorite modules of all time, combined with the rest of the U-series as well as UK2: The Sentinel and UK3: The Gauntlet).

My groups played AD&D 2nd edition for many years, even after 3e was released. One of the groups converted over to 3e pretty quickly, while the other stuck with 2e.

I do look back on those days fondly, knowing that "kids these days" will never have the confusion of "lower AC values are better" and show befuddlement at the term "THAC0".

Would I play an OSR game? Maybe, if the mood strikes and I'm at a loose end. However, my own game is leaning toward using PF2e because I like the system.

[pesukarhu]

I've got mixed feelings here. My TL;DR is that I don't think the good parts of OSR games are all that different from the good parts of (many) indie games: small set of rules, some random tables of events to add spice (looking at you, Kevin Crawford), mostly relying on the GM to make things make sense.

Myself, I started with the Moldvay Basic box set, with the crappy green dice and the crayon and B2.

I don't think I'd want to just go back and do that again. There's a lot there that doesn't need continuing:

• The weird percentile-strength past 18 thing.
• Thieves were really bad at thieving.
• The different XP tables per class seemed excessive.
• Getting more XP for higher prime stats.
• etc.

On top of that, early adventures set some bad precedents, like random oops-you-die traps. The Tomb of Horrors sphere of annihilation is legendary, but save-or-die poision needles in chests were not that uncommon. Dangerous is good, gives a sense of peril. Random death is not. In general, this incentivized extreme carefulness, leading to a plodding, check-every-last-thing dungeon crawl style.

I haven't dug much into the modern OSR world, other than run some DCC adventures, but in things like LotFP, there's some weird gender undercurrents, to say the least.

Also, lots of deck-of-many-things elements (colored potions, magic buttons to press, etc.) where you roll on a random table and something either good or bad happens. I don't find that fun. It can be funny at times, but it's mostly just dumb. Random tables are great for forcing characters to deal with the unexpected, but if there isn't any room to react, then it's just a roulette spin.

I can get behind the idea of simpler rules, no skills, no feats, none of this ridiculous planning out a character build for 15 levels of dubiously-in-character multiclassing. We had a lot of fun with just the basics, and it didn't take us all night to make a character. But there's a lot of baggage there, too. It's also a continuum, there are things like Shadow of the Demon Lord that have a good core, then lots of options for the people who like options.

On the other hand, I also like Champions, so I'm not really consistent.
 

Edited November 2, 2023 by pesukarhu (see edit history)

[cailano]

@pesukarhu it sounds like you might like Castles and Crusades, too. Very light, no need to plan characters out in advance, but it modernizes a lot of the pain points you mentioned from older systems.

[leons1701]

1 hour ago, pesukarhu said:

On the other hand, I also like Champions, so I'm not really consistent.
 

Well, I've seen cailano hanging out in the HERO discussion and despite talking smack about all the things I dislike in OSR, I'm in here, so it seems this sort of inconsistency is well distributed. There are dozens of us.

[Excior]

2 hours ago, pesukarhu said:

I've got mixed feelings here. My TL;DR is that I don't think the good parts of OSR games are all that different from the good parts of (many) indie games: small set of rules, some random tables of events to add spice (looking at you, Kevin Crawford), mostly relying on the GM to make things make sense.

Myself, I started with the Moldvay Basic box set, with the crappy green dice and the crayon and B2.

I don't think I'd want to just go back and do that again. There's a lot there that doesn't need continuing:

• The weird percentile-strength past 18 thing.
• Thieves were really bad at thieving.
• The different XP tables per class seemed excessive.
• Getting more XP for higher prime stats.
• etc.

On top of that, early adventures set some bad precedents, like random oops-you-die traps. The Tomb of Horrors sphere of annihilation is legendary, but save-or-die poision needles in chests were not that uncommon. Dangerous is good, gives a sense of peril. Random death is not. In general, this incentivized extreme carefulness, leading to a plodding, check-every-last-thing dungeon crawl style.

I haven't dug much into the modern OSR world, other than run some DCC adventures, but in things like LotFP, there's some weird gender undercurrents, to say the least.

Also, lots of deck-of-many-things elements (colored potions, magic buttons to press, etc.) where you roll on a random table and something either good or bad happens. I don't find that fun. It can be funny at times, but it's mostly just dumb. Random tables are great for forcing characters to deal with the unexpected, but if there isn't any room to react, then it's just a roulette spin.

I can get behind the idea of simpler rules, no skills, no feats, none of this ridiculous planning out a character build for 15 levels of dubiously-in-character multiclassing. We had a lot of fun with just the basics, and it didn't take us all night to make a character. But there's a lot of baggage there, too. It's also a continuum, there are things like Shadow of the Demon Lord that have a good core, then lots of options for the people who like options.

On the other hand, I also like Champions, so I'm not really consistent.
 

This is why you House Ruled your games back in the day, an aspect of the game that was even encouraged by the folks who published the game. For some reason E.G.G. was biased against Demi humans. It had a lot to do with cosmic forces of Law and Chaos striving for control on the prime plane with humans being the dominant force in reality the demi-humans were in decline during the time the games were set in I think

[Bobcloclimar]

12 hours ago, pesukarhu said:

I haven't dug much into the modern OSR world, other than run some DCC adventures, but in things like LotFP, there's some weird gender undercurrents, to say the least.

I mentioned this upthread, but you might consider listening to 3d6 Down The Line's actual plays (mostly OSE-based, currently running through Halls of Arden Vul, but they also had a popular Dolmenwood run and some other modules), which I think exemplifies a lot of the modern "OSR" thinking (at least reflecting what I see on Reddit etc.) - rulings not rules, dangerous but telegraphed (and not lol-random-save or die), combat as war, etc. I've bounced hard off other Actual Plays and usually have difficulty listening to podcast-type content, but this particular one clicked with me for some reason. A lot of that may have to do with the quality of the module and the nature of the group - the GM is firm but fair and keeps things moving at a good clip, and the group is invested just enough in their characters to make them interesting but not so much that it takes away from the primary focus of exploration and looting (which, to be fair, isn't everyone's cup of tea). I actually started listening on episode 34 or 35 of their current run without any prior context and got situated fairly quickly, so if you're interested in sampling an episode or two, don't feel like you have to start at the beginning.

 

13 hours ago, pesukarhu said:

On the other hand, I also like Champions, so I'm not really consistent.

I've been on an OSR and GURPS kick for the last several years, so I feel this 😀.

[Saberfan]

I'd like to expand on my vote for "I've played OSR games before but I prefer modern systems."

I have played many OSR systems- Castles and Crusades, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Blood and Bone, et cetera- and love the feeling of nostalgia they evoke in me. More than that, they excel at certain kinds of games that more modern systems would be too clunky and cumbersome for.

That said, the sheer glut of rules and tweakable stats in modern systems appeals to my desire to tinker with complex builds and the ocean of content out there for them allows me to bring nearly any idea that pops in my mind to the game table. They are also much more popular and easily accessible via official SRDs like the Archives of Nethys supported by Paizo or d20PFSRD, which helps ensure that you can find enough players for a full table.

So it's fair to say that, while I do indeed like modern systems more, I still hold a soft spot for OSRs and they have not gone unused or unappreciated at my table.

Edited November 2, 2023 by Saberfan (see edit history)

[pesukarhu]

19 hours ago, cailano said:

it sounds like you might like Castles and Crusades, too. Very light, no need to plan characters out in advance, but it modernizes a lot of the pain points you mentioned from older systems.

Thanks! I'll give it a read-through. It turns out I have a bunch of C&C PDFs from a Bundle of Holding a few years ago that I've never really read.

Most of my dungeon-crawl gaming is running my kids through fairly simple modules, and I'd love to get them off of 5e. I like 5e, but they have a bad tendency to want to try a different character every few weeks, and it takes a while to put one together. Also, and this is the OSR talking, I'd really like them to stop saying "I roll perception" and say "I examine at the idol, anything by its base?"

@Bobcloclimar, thanks for the ref. I'll check out those actual plays. I don't usually have the patience for that kind of thing, but I'll give it a whirl.

[Vladim]

The thing with nostalgia is... I'm not really convinced that it's a good thing to pursue, though I do get the appeal. I too would like to recreate some early gaming experiences, but even if I were to use a similar system... it's kind of gone now. Everyone's a different person compared to their 20/30-years younger selves, so it's impossible to recreate or relive the thing. Better to spend time trying to create novel experiences. Treasure the memories, for sure, but move on.

Maybe this is too philosophical and veering off topic, but these days those are my thoughts for old school stuff that evoke nostalgia (and other things that evoke nostalgia). It's just... a trap, in a sense. Like a drug, but for old people :)

[Lord Foul]

Ah, nostalgia... it ain't what it used to be!