Comment by zbikowski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zbikowski | Hacker News Reader

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I appreciate all that Gavin Norman and Necrotic Gnome have done for the OSR TTRPG scene over the past few years, but I have to say each time I see a D&D-derivative system it makes me wish that other systems of the time—like Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls, or West End Games' d6 system beneath Ghostbusters (1985) and Star Wars (1987)—got even half the attention. Tom Moldvay and Dave Cook's Basic/Expert (1981) has been done to death at this point. For a nice historical lesson, look to Moldvay's later work on the Challenges Game System[0], which pares down the AD&D 1E Players Handbook (1978) into 8 pages suitable for running the game at the table.

I could rant for hours about the sacred cows of D&D deserving slaughter, but I'll refrain.

All this is to say, the Dolmenwood campaign book is great and I own it. It was originally a setting for Old-School Essentials published through a zine[1], and I think they could have stopped at just a campaign book, the one that the OP links to. I just don't think we need any more flavors of B/X!

[0] https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=14165

[1] https://necroticgnome.com/blogs/news/the-end-of-wormskin

Whatever the merits of the rules themselves (which I think are estimable), the OSR "ecosystem" is buoyed up by a huge network effect. I would wager that just the list of official D&D modules from the 80s, all of which are easily playable in something like OSE, dwarfs the amount of support that's available for all of those other games combined. That's not counting the many many additional adventures, settings, rules addons, megadungeons, GM aids, etc. that have been created in the last 20 years for various OSR games, which are mostly cross-compatible. It's very hard to come in fresh and compete with that.

At least BRP (the system behind Runequest) and d6 are actively developed and there are games, new and old, using them. They are also rather popular, at least if one browses rpg.net.

T&T I don't know. I think there is a new edition coming along?

This is true. Though I will say that modern iterations of Runequest and d6 (namely OpenD6 and its derivatives) resemble the original systems only barely. Same is true for T&T, which after its 5th Edition became likewise unrecognizable.

My point isn't necessarily that there shouldn't be modern versions of these games—obviously, D&D is the most popular TTRPG (at least in the US), and itself barely resembles the three brown booklets of '74. It's that by going back and discovering what made the originals so great, we can carry these lessons forward and make loving modern interpretations like Old School Essentials/Dolmenwood.

I am sure those systems deserve a modern renovation, but as a general matter, I think the particulars of game systems matter less, overall, when it is not a mechanics heavy system like Pathfinder and DnD 5e...or Rolemaster. It mostly comes down to rulings over rules...which is why rules lite systems, e.g. Mausritter, Knave, Into the Odd, have play in the OSR/NSR scene.

I do not know where on the crunch spectrum the systems you mentioned fall,

There are two things that really scratch the dopamine itch at the table that I think plays well to DnD - 1) the d20. 5% of something amazing or terrible happening is just the right amount of chance for things being regular but not expected. And it being a single lotto ticket somehow makes it better.

2) fistful of dice - eventually you get to toss a fistful of dice and its very satisfying to climb that ladder.

DnD has both and that combined with ability progression I think really locks people in to the system, even outside of the network effect of it. GURPS for instance is great but 3d6 and getting an 18 just isn’t the same, for instance.

I think one of the impetuses to not using the Old School Essentials rules was the Hasbro DnD debacle where they started making moves to undo the Open Gaming License (OGL) in 2023. The resulting Dolmenwood system cleanly removed the last vestiges of anything that might be subject to the OGL...e.g. certain spell names, monster names, etc.

I agree, and it's certainly a good idea; OGL fears are still valid to this day. I think a much cleaner route, however, would be to abandon the chassis entirely. It protects one's long-term IP through unique game mechanics or by using an open system as a base.

A lot of how a game encourages play is based upon the small details that designers choose to include. In 1974, looking at OD&D for the first time, players probably wouldn't think to tap the floor for traps, but a 10' pole is curiously listed on the equipment table. Same with listening at doors, or things like that.

So instead of coming up with something entirely bespoke, companies seem to use D&D as a base not because it serves the game, but because it has lower "buy-in" for customers. Which I think is a shame.

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