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Comment by kemotep | Hacker News Reader

If you aren’t interested in playing (or supporting) modern DnD, for the past few years there was been bit of an Old School Renaissance.

Modern reprintings of classic Basic/Expert rule sets in Basic Fantasy RPG or Old School Essentials are easy ways to get in. To say nothing of Dungeon Crawl Classics and of course getting your hands on the original TSR books.

There are dozens of kickstarters, fan zines, and self-published indie works out there, expanding, building, remixing, and making new experiences with the classic rule sets.

Feels like there is easily another 50 years to this hobby, if you look beyond Wizards of the Coast releases.

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As someone who started playing in 1980, I really don't get this OSR. I remember wanting to play a wizard to cast spells but then realizing that I spent 95% of my turns throwing darts because there were no cantrips. As I have gone through the progression of the DnD editions (and of course many other TTRPGS), I have never felt the urge to look back to those earlier weak versions.

I have to wonder if people are being nostalgic for things that have nothing to do with the ruleset.

As someone who didn’t get into DnD until 3.5 was a thing, I like the simplicity of Old School Essentials.

The Basic/Expert ruleset is far more about the imagination for me at least (my style of how I referee). Yes, magic-users at low levels have like no spells but at higher levels, they are capable of doing all kinds of crazy magic, in combination with the ability to research magic, create magical items and so on. That’s part of the balance of the game. I can understand why people don’t like that type of game, but that’s why there’s so many options of Tabletop Roleplaying Games. GURPS, Apocalypse World, Mork Borg, Ghost Dog, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, etc all play differently and all have different mechanics and philosophies of how the game should be played.

Low-level casters sucked, with or without cantrips (which didn't do anything useful in combat when originally introduced, IIRC, in Unearthed Arcana).

But at least they eventually leveled up.

Or…not, if they were non-human and hit their race-specific, often single-digit level cap.

Yeah, come to think of it, old school AD&D rules did leave plenty of room for improvement.

Demihuman level caps were even more annoying in the old school AD&D computer games that enforced them, as it's hard to role play a party of permanently underleveled characters in a high-level area of a brutal, combat-focused, non-level scaled CRPG as anything other than a pile of corpses.

I think it's up to the DM to provide more scenarios for the mages to be more useful.

>I remember wanting to play a wizard to cast spells but then realizing that I spent 95% of my turns throwing darts because there were no cantrips.

I agree, but this is the "video game" mindset of which we've fallen into the trap. Why is the expectation that you can continuously cast spells like a video game? The world wasn't designed that way.

Because then what’s the point of being a wizard, If you spend most of your time in weapon combat?

Or, the old "Hold person" with a cleric, and then single dart to murder.

There were definite downsides with the old material.

Wizards were definitely weaker and more. Limited in those early levels In early dnd. In retrospect with the way "modern" dnd has removed those limitations it's definitely skewed the internal. Class balance now if youre not a spellcatser you're objectively worse at almost everything. See the whole. Linear fighter and quadratic wizard debate.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQu...

The bigger change over the years (which the osr has been trying to go back to) has been to adventure design, as modern dnd has shifted away from location based play to linear stories.

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44578/roleplaying-games...

In addition there has been a marked change in the cultural expectations of players.

https://retiredadventurer.blogspot.com/2021/04/six-cultures-...

For more on the osr in recommend reading the pribcipia apocrypha https://lithyscaphe.blogspot.com/p/principia-apocrypha.html?...

Something I've wondered about the OSR movement, watching from afar. My observation has been that the "typical" D&D play style has changed. By that I mean it seems a lot more common now than it used to be to lean into the actual role playing portion, getting in character, etc. Whereas as an 80s kid, most people I knew would treat it like a narrative at most, "my character swings his sword" type stuff.

Are OSR players generally playing the more theatrical/performative style of play but with the older spirit/rules? Or is this also part of the renaissance?

What's crazy is that the OSR movement itself is now 20 years old and is probably no longer a renaissance or revival but simply a bona fide style of D&D that people play for its own sake.

I haven't played old school D&D in ages. To me, AD&D 2e is the zenith of the game. I had (probably still have, I need to check) the original TSR books. My question to you is: can you point me to an explainer that breaks down all the variations and pros/cons of D&D?

[EDIT] This is what I had in mind: https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/dungeons-and-dragons/how-...

I like ADND 2e. The rules are bit more geeky. The modules are more unforgiving. The worlds are many.

But I only play CRPGs and read rulesets and modules so I'm definitely an outlier.

Return to the tomb of horror, Die Vecna Die and a few others are my favorite reads. I also like reading the Ravenloft ADND 2e source books.

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