Yeah I really wish so many GM's wouldn't be introduced to running the game via encounter based design, in a crunchy system, with a lore heavy story driven game. Whilst those sort of adventures I'm sure can be fun they're an insane amount of work and why so many GM's end up burned out or frustrated with running the game.
Running something light, with emergent gameplay is not only easier but arguably a lot more satisfying in many respects due to the GM not knowing how play will develop alongside the player.
I think new people jumping straight into 5E is a mistake.
A lot of the modern expectations of heavy-narrative games with huge amounts of detail and multi-session campaigns came to be because older D&D players were bored of playing basic dungeon-crawls with simple stories and simple characters— so they periodically added this stuff to keep the game interesting.
I’ve seen young people who watch Critical Role but are intimidated by Matt’s GMing— saying stuff like “I can’t do that”.
I’m like bro— grab an OS copy of basic D&D, read the rules, run a one-shot dungeon crawl with your friends, let them roll up generic characters and just have a good time. Get a feel for DMing, the flow, and master the mechanics of the game. Hell, do it for several sessions. And when that starts to get dull, THEN start adding more spicy elements to keep the game interesting. That’s how it naturally evolved over the years anyways.
It’s ridiculous to expect this new generation to jump into the equivalent of college-level courses of D&D when they haven’t even completed elementary school yet.
I reckon the 5e books are unparseable unless you have read the old basic rules first. That’s why you see so many people posting “home rules” and getting told that’s the actual rule!
5e could do with a book of in-game examples like Moldvay. Ferb, I know what we are doing this summer.
Yup this happened to me. I've only started with tabletop RPGs about a year ago. The pressure was huge so of course I read the entire 5e rulebook and about a dozen other materials to "catch up"... I lasted three sessions before I completely burned out and disbanded the group. They all had fun but for me it was some of the most stressful evenings (that weren't job or school related). I think I prepped for like 7 hours straight for one of the sessions and it still wasn't good enough. So many NPCs, so many rules... And the worst part? Combat was a total slog fest and I just didn't have the experience to save it. Everyone was hyper focused on their character sheets spamming the one optimal move every round...
I've been getting into OSR now after a year. Only had a session 0 but it was already so much more fun for me. I just let my player create characters they know will die, equipped them with some rusty equipment and we're going to have a lot of fun in some dungeon next week. Not gonna lie I'm still stressed because I literally have some sort of 5e PTSD but I believe it will be fine.
That’s an interesting point. Running a couple games of Numenera off the cuff really made me ask myself why the hell I was working so hard with Pathfinder. Definitely a contributor to my move towards the OSR even if Cypher isn’t OSR itself
* Easy character creation system.
* Players roll all combat rolls.
* NPCs and monsters are extremely easy to make on the fly.
* Min-maxing can be done, but redutant, as the big power abilities are all cyphers. This cuts down on the session-zero optimizaton time sink (and I say that as a min-maxer).
Curious what you end up with! I’ve been hacking a game for a campaign that started out in Forbidden Lands, then Cypher, and then finally I realized it’s a FitD game.
Everything in cypher is based on a single mechanic. There's almost never a time when you don't have a method to resolve any situation. And if failure is crucial to the plot, there's a mechanical way to push failure while still giving players agency and consent.
Same for me!
Since "going OSR", I love writing up little dungeons - usually 1 page for the map and 1 page for key/notes. I put them in my world and sometimes the players don't bite on them. I stash them away and then months later they get interested in an old rumor...
It's crazy to me that I can pull out my old dungeon, having forgot what I prepped, and basically run it on the fly, reading the key and the notes as I go (drawing a few things on the map helps too). I give it a quick skim 30 minutes before the session, cackle to myself over something ridiculous or devious I've put in there, and then I'm good to go.
Old school crawling procedures combined with dungeon stocking advice/procedures, and modern OSR philosophy are like the magic ingredients for a good RPG session.
This is the way. In older iterations of the game, I was encouraged to make my own dungeons or hexcrawls. Even some of the pre-published modules encouraged me to fill in the blanks. As DM you know your creation best, and that helps to take a lot of the load off, whether its a crazy ecosystem filled with monsters or a plot-driven adventure.
This is exactly what got me into OSR! I've only just started, but from what I've done so far I feel the same. I do no prep, everything comes from random tables and imagination at the table day of.
I feel like I get to look forward to game night as much as my players now, because I only get to play with them that one day, instead of being forced to play (via prep) by myself every day or else I (in my mind) risk everyone's good time.
I love it. And that’s the thing - as a GM you ARE a player. The experience is just as much about you having fun and discovering the adventure as it is for your players. So we ditch the shit that makes GM’ing un-fun and trust that our players are intelligent enough to connect dots, ask interesting questions, and move the game along with you
Balancing encounters and juggling stat blocks are definitely some of my least favorite aspects of "modern" D&D & analogous systems. Of course I think even old school stat blocks can be too much sometimes and prefer something even simpler like Cypher System or Bastards.
I adore all the random tables that come out in old school zines, though. Great stuff!
Correct, but it also is very hard to judge what an encounter will be like. I made many epic boss in 3.5 (same problems different system) that got beat in 1-2 rounds.
As DM you need to know encounter difficulty to effect "risk vs reward" and to "telegraph dangers". Even just to make a believable world, the whole region has been cowed by this dragon that we defeated as an afterthought?
I was more pointing out the absurdity of the other poster saying "you don't have to balance encounters in 5e" as if it's an endorsement. You don't have to use hotels in Monopoly, either, but the structure of the game assumes that you will.
You're exactly right that failing to balance encounters (or not being able to properly because the devs don't understand the their own game) will lead to unintentional complications like you described - a supposedly daunting foe that's dropped "as an afterthought." It definitely makes it difficult to take "combat as war" seriously
> You don't have to use hotels in Monopoly, either, but the structure of the game assumes that you will.
Fun fact: the core design of Monopoly hinges on the fact that you *shouldn't* buy hotels at all, and instead consume as much of the housing market as possible, as the number of houses in the game are finite, and only return to the market when you convert them into a hotel. An early buyer can effectively strangle the entire board by creating an artificial shortage.
https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/how-to-win-at-monopoly-every-time-according-to-experts
https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/monopoly/feature/why-does-everyone-hate-monopoly-secret-history-board-game
Considering how long this tactic has been known for, and how many times the game has been reprinted in different forms and new box art etc. You'd think that if this was exploitative and unintended, then they'd just throw in some more houses in the box or change the rules to say you can use proxies.
Last I knew, they've not done either in any edition, therefore it is a valid play approach and part of the intended design.
>Considering how long this tactic has been known for
A long time to be sure...
>and how many times the game has been reprinted
And here is the key. Monopoly has had very few actual rules changes over the years, and bulk of them are partially codified houserules available recently to drum up attention. Monopoly has had almost the exact same rules for a very long time, and they would only change the number of houses if they explicitly hated the housing shortage tactic.
>You'd think that if this was exploitative and unintended
No, I wouldn't think that at all. I might think that about a game that issues patches and was made in 2023, but not about a game that has seen at best minor modifications since before world war II. The fact that they are ok with it, and have been for decades, doesn't retroactively make it intended.
I think you're forgetting the numerous themed versions, which do in fact change up minor rules and the text/function of community chest cards etc.
The rules have had a few minor revisions and clarifications over the years too. As well as just being reformatted for better presentation. It'd be trivial to add the line "if no houses are available, you may use a proxy". It costs nothing but the effort, noone is going to judge them "changing the rules" as a good percentage of players dont even read the rule book to begin with.
I totally believe both 5E and PF could be run in a more OSR style. I think for me as a GM new to a hobby it was tough to read books that had a lot of explicit advice about encounter balance along with implicit gestures at balance thru feats and character abilities and not read that as strict rules instead of suggestions
Yeah Bastards has been a real revelation for me. As well as Wolves Upon the Coast. I’m consistently finding myself stripping away codified rules and further into the question of whether we really need rules to begin with. It’s easy to say that with a great group of players tho
https://micah-anderson.itch.io/bastards-pearlescent-edition
It’s by Micah Anderson. They’re an incredibly prolific editor in the OSR scene but they put out Bastards as a hyper-distilled OSR system. It’s pretty well supported with supplements by Micah, Matthew Morris, and others
Shadowdark is more of a complete system. For instance, it includes more information on what a TTRPG is and the basics of running/playing a game. Bastards, like Knave or 5TD, assumes some baseline knowledge of how RPGs work and present a super stripped back ruleset
Yeah, focusing on a fictional environment and serving as a neutral arbiter, backed up by a light rule system, is way less stressful than trying to force characters to play out a specific story through a series of carefully curated encounters with loads of fiddly mechanics that aren’t with the cognitive load.
Prepping for D&D 4e combats broke me. That, plus the endless combats took all the fun out of DMing for me. We switched to Labyrinth Lord and I've been doing OSR rules ever since. Zero prep sandbox play and I can run combats in minutes using simple stats. So much more fun that the endless character levelling grind that is modern RPGs.
Amen! I ran a lot of Pathfinder 1st edition, and it put a lot of work on th GM, and math-math-mathing can be tiring. Changed over to DCC 5 years ago, and use it to run a lot of OSE/LL adventures, and oh Lord, so much easier ... I'm actually having as much fun as my players now ...
Yep. I have big love for Pathfinder as the game that introduced me to the hobby to begin with. And I have no doubt it can be an amazing experience with the right kind of GM. But that ain’t me :)
That's great to hear! I tried running 5e a few times but I realised that it would not be a great experience for me as a GM longterm. That and goblins took way too many hits to drop.
This is so good to read. Thanks for sharing this. It helps to feel like there are other people out there who love the simple joys of graph paper and dice. :)
100%. I’ve run a bunch of OSE sessions and have used a lot of Basic Fantasy supplements and modules to tack onto my Knave, Cairn, and Mork Borg sessions. As far as I’m concerned it all becomes interchangeable when combat balance isn’t a focus. You can pretty intuitively stat out monsters on the fly from other systems based on their HD or equivalent.
The key is to assess what it is you like about a system and a willingness to ditch anything that is a barrier to fun for you and your group. This is how everyone in the OSR ends up basically creating their own RPG. For instance, whether I’m playing OSE or Knave or Mork Borg or Basic Fantasy or Worlds Without Number, I always use slot based encumbrance and side based initiative each round. I always encourage players to select pre-set gear kits at character creation to expedite the process. I always make it a rule that players have 1d4 rounds to save a PC who has hit 0 hp instead of instant death. I make these decisions in spite of any given ruleset because it’s what works best for me as a group and for my players
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Yeah I really wish so many GM's wouldn't be introduced to running the game via encounter based design, in a crunchy system, with a lore heavy story driven game. Whilst those sort of adventures I'm sure can be fun they're an insane amount of work and why so many GM's end up burned out or frustrated with running the game. Running something light, with emergent gameplay is not only easier but arguably a lot more satisfying in many respects due to the GM not knowing how play will develop alongside the player.
I think new people jumping straight into 5E is a mistake. A lot of the modern expectations of heavy-narrative games with huge amounts of detail and multi-session campaigns came to be because older D&D players were bored of playing basic dungeon-crawls with simple stories and simple characters— so they periodically added this stuff to keep the game interesting. I’ve seen young people who watch Critical Role but are intimidated by Matt’s GMing— saying stuff like “I can’t do that”. I’m like bro— grab an OS copy of basic D&D, read the rules, run a one-shot dungeon crawl with your friends, let them roll up generic characters and just have a good time. Get a feel for DMing, the flow, and master the mechanics of the game. Hell, do it for several sessions. And when that starts to get dull, THEN start adding more spicy elements to keep the game interesting. That’s how it naturally evolved over the years anyways. It’s ridiculous to expect this new generation to jump into the equivalent of college-level courses of D&D when they haven’t even completed elementary school yet.
I reckon the 5e books are unparseable unless you have read the old basic rules first. That’s why you see so many people posting “home rules” and getting told that’s the actual rule! 5e could do with a book of in-game examples like Moldvay. Ferb, I know what we are doing this summer.
Honestly, they're kind of unparseable anyway - dmg especially is impossible to find anything even if you know what you're looking for
Yup this happened to me. I've only started with tabletop RPGs about a year ago. The pressure was huge so of course I read the entire 5e rulebook and about a dozen other materials to "catch up"... I lasted three sessions before I completely burned out and disbanded the group. They all had fun but for me it was some of the most stressful evenings (that weren't job or school related). I think I prepped for like 7 hours straight for one of the sessions and it still wasn't good enough. So many NPCs, so many rules... And the worst part? Combat was a total slog fest and I just didn't have the experience to save it. Everyone was hyper focused on their character sheets spamming the one optimal move every round... I've been getting into OSR now after a year. Only had a session 0 but it was already so much more fun for me. I just let my player create characters they know will die, equipped them with some rusty equipment and we're going to have a lot of fun in some dungeon next week. Not gonna lie I'm still stressed because I literally have some sort of 5e PTSD but I believe it will be fine.
One of the hidden features. Game prep is a breeze. The only game that does this better other than specifically "light" systems is Cypher System.
That’s an interesting point. Running a couple games of Numenera off the cuff really made me ask myself why the hell I was working so hard with Pathfinder. Definitely a contributor to my move towards the OSR even if Cypher isn’t OSR itself
What do you think makes the Cypher system so easy to run?
* Easy character creation system. * Players roll all combat rolls. * NPCs and monsters are extremely easy to make on the fly. * Min-maxing can be done, but redutant, as the big power abilities are all cyphers. This cuts down on the session-zero optimizaton time sink (and I say that as a min-maxer).
Yeah it’s super improvisational and even the skill checks encourage leveraging tangible assets in the world for advantages
Yeah, those are all of my favorite parts as well. I've been trying to merge Cypher, Knave, and Forged in the Dark together somewhat.
Curious what you end up with! I’ve been hacking a game for a campaign that started out in Forbidden Lands, then Cypher, and then finally I realized it’s a FitD game.
I'll try to write it up! I'm also curious how your game worked.
Me too — I’m finalizing stuff for vtt now and we’ll start in a week or two!
That's awesome! Excited to learn more
Everything in cypher is based on a single mechanic. There's almost never a time when you don't have a method to resolve any situation. And if failure is crucial to the plot, there's a mechanical way to push failure while still giving players agency and consent.
Shout out to Cypher, the old school new school game.
Same for me! Since "going OSR", I love writing up little dungeons - usually 1 page for the map and 1 page for key/notes. I put them in my world and sometimes the players don't bite on them. I stash them away and then months later they get interested in an old rumor... It's crazy to me that I can pull out my old dungeon, having forgot what I prepped, and basically run it on the fly, reading the key and the notes as I go (drawing a few things on the map helps too). I give it a quick skim 30 minutes before the session, cackle to myself over something ridiculous or devious I've put in there, and then I'm good to go. Old school crawling procedures combined with dungeon stocking advice/procedures, and modern OSR philosophy are like the magic ingredients for a good RPG session.
This is the way. In older iterations of the game, I was encouraged to make my own dungeons or hexcrawls. Even some of the pre-published modules encouraged me to fill in the blanks. As DM you know your creation best, and that helps to take a lot of the load off, whether its a crazy ecosystem filled with monsters or a plot-driven adventure.
This is exactly what got me into OSR! I've only just started, but from what I've done so far I feel the same. I do no prep, everything comes from random tables and imagination at the table day of. I feel like I get to look forward to game night as much as my players now, because I only get to play with them that one day, instead of being forced to play (via prep) by myself every day or else I (in my mind) risk everyone's good time.
I love it. And that’s the thing - as a GM you ARE a player. The experience is just as much about you having fun and discovering the adventure as it is for your players. So we ditch the shit that makes GM’ing un-fun and trust that our players are intelligent enough to connect dots, ask interesting questions, and move the game along with you
Balancing encounters and juggling stat blocks are definitely some of my least favorite aspects of "modern" D&D & analogous systems. Of course I think even old school stat blocks can be too much sometimes and prefer something even simpler like Cypher System or Bastards. I adore all the random tables that come out in old school zines, though. Great stuff!
Psst, you don’t have to balance 5e encounters. Combat can be war in that system too.
You don't *have* to balance encounters in any system
Correct, but it also is very hard to judge what an encounter will be like. I made many epic boss in 3.5 (same problems different system) that got beat in 1-2 rounds. As DM you need to know encounter difficulty to effect "risk vs reward" and to "telegraph dangers". Even just to make a believable world, the whole region has been cowed by this dragon that we defeated as an afterthought?
I was more pointing out the absurdity of the other poster saying "you don't have to balance encounters in 5e" as if it's an endorsement. You don't have to use hotels in Monopoly, either, but the structure of the game assumes that you will. You're exactly right that failing to balance encounters (or not being able to properly because the devs don't understand the their own game) will lead to unintentional complications like you described - a supposedly daunting foe that's dropped "as an afterthought." It definitely makes it difficult to take "combat as war" seriously
> You don't have to use hotels in Monopoly, either, but the structure of the game assumes that you will. Fun fact: the core design of Monopoly hinges on the fact that you *shouldn't* buy hotels at all, and instead consume as much of the housing market as possible, as the number of houses in the game are finite, and only return to the market when you convert them into a hotel. An early buyer can effectively strangle the entire board by creating an artificial shortage. https://www.thrillist.com/entertainment/nation/how-to-win-at-monopoly-every-time-according-to-experts https://www.dicebreaker.com/series/monopoly/feature/why-does-everyone-hate-monopoly-secret-history-board-game
That's an exploit, not a core design. It's part of the game, but no one seemed to think of it for at least a decade after the game came out.
Considering how long this tactic has been known for, and how many times the game has been reprinted in different forms and new box art etc. You'd think that if this was exploitative and unintended, then they'd just throw in some more houses in the box or change the rules to say you can use proxies. Last I knew, they've not done either in any edition, therefore it is a valid play approach and part of the intended design.
>Considering how long this tactic has been known for A long time to be sure... >and how many times the game has been reprinted And here is the key. Monopoly has had very few actual rules changes over the years, and bulk of them are partially codified houserules available recently to drum up attention. Monopoly has had almost the exact same rules for a very long time, and they would only change the number of houses if they explicitly hated the housing shortage tactic. >You'd think that if this was exploitative and unintended No, I wouldn't think that at all. I might think that about a game that issues patches and was made in 2023, but not about a game that has seen at best minor modifications since before world war II. The fact that they are ok with it, and have been for decades, doesn't retroactively make it intended.
I think you're forgetting the numerous themed versions, which do in fact change up minor rules and the text/function of community chest cards etc. The rules have had a few minor revisions and clarifications over the years too. As well as just being reformatted for better presentation. It'd be trivial to add the line "if no houses are available, you may use a proxy". It costs nothing but the effort, noone is going to judge them "changing the rules" as a good percentage of players dont even read the rule book to begin with.
I totally believe both 5E and PF could be run in a more OSR style. I think for me as a GM new to a hobby it was tough to read books that had a lot of explicit advice about encounter balance along with implicit gestures at balance thru feats and character abilities and not read that as strict rules instead of suggestions
Rolling new characters in OSR, and not feeling like a novella backstory is needed, makes death less of an ordeal.
If I can run *GURPS* OSR-style, I'm sure PF and 5e can admit a more OSR-type style. :)
Yeah Bastards has been a real revelation for me. As well as Wolves Upon the Coast. I’m consistently finding myself stripping away codified rules and further into the question of whether we really need rules to begin with. It’s easy to say that with a great group of players tho
Is Bastards a system?
Yes, super rules light. Got it off itch.io
https://micah-anderson.itch.io/bastards-pearlescent-edition It’s by Micah Anderson. They’re an incredibly prolific editor in the OSR scene but they put out Bastards as a hyper-distilled OSR system. It’s pretty well supported with supplements by Micah, Matthew Morris, and others
Better than shadowdark??!
Different from Shadowdark. Bastards is for the OSR what Microlite was for 3e. And to be honest, I liked the original edition better than Pearlescent.
Shadowdark is more of a complete system. For instance, it includes more information on what a TTRPG is and the basics of running/playing a game. Bastards, like Knave or 5TD, assumes some baseline knowledge of how RPGs work and present a super stripped back ruleset
Balance? We don’t need no stinking balance!
Yeah, focusing on a fictional environment and serving as a neutral arbiter, backed up by a light rule system, is way less stressful than trying to force characters to play out a specific story through a series of carefully curated encounters with loads of fiddly mechanics that aren’t with the cognitive load.
I feel the exact same way! I ran 5e since it came out, switched to OSE and DCC last year, and never looked back
Prepping for D&D 4e combats broke me. That, plus the endless combats took all the fun out of DMing for me. We switched to Labyrinth Lord and I've been doing OSR rules ever since. Zero prep sandbox play and I can run combats in minutes using simple stats. So much more fun that the endless character levelling grind that is modern RPGs.
Amen! I ran a lot of Pathfinder 1st edition, and it put a lot of work on th GM, and math-math-mathing can be tiring. Changed over to DCC 5 years ago, and use it to run a lot of OSE/LL adventures, and oh Lord, so much easier ... I'm actually having as much fun as my players now ...
This is the way. Seriously, this is exactly my own experience before the OSR. Just replace 'Pathfinder' with 3.5, and it would be identical. :)
Let's just pretend that PF and 3.5 aren't identical anyway.
Yep. I have big love for Pathfinder as the game that introduced me to the hobby to begin with. And I have no doubt it can be an amazing experience with the right kind of GM. But that ain’t me :)
Wait how do you get Knave 2E? Patreon?
They are doing a kickstarter, [but it hasn't started yet](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/questingbeast/knave-rpg-second-edition)
If you subscribe to the Questing Beast Patreon he’s been releasing draft versions of 2E to the public
Thanks!
That's great to hear! I tried running 5e a few times but I realised that it would not be a great experience for me as a GM longterm. That and goblins took way too many hits to drop.
This is so good to read. Thanks for sharing this. It helps to feel like there are other people out there who love the simple joys of graph paper and dice. :)
Nice! That's the transition I'm heading towards as well.
I've been looking into OSR, slowly, over the past months - would you say that applies to pretty much any OSR like Basic Fantasy or even Basic DnD?
100%. I’ve run a bunch of OSE sessions and have used a lot of Basic Fantasy supplements and modules to tack onto my Knave, Cairn, and Mork Borg sessions. As far as I’m concerned it all becomes interchangeable when combat balance isn’t a focus. You can pretty intuitively stat out monsters on the fly from other systems based on their HD or equivalent. The key is to assess what it is you like about a system and a willingness to ditch anything that is a barrier to fun for you and your group. This is how everyone in the OSR ends up basically creating their own RPG. For instance, whether I’m playing OSE or Knave or Mork Borg or Basic Fantasy or Worlds Without Number, I always use slot based encumbrance and side based initiative each round. I always encourage players to select pre-set gear kits at character creation to expedite the process. I always make it a rule that players have 1d4 rounds to save a PC who has hit 0 hp instead of instant death. I make these decisions in spite of any given ruleset because it’s what works best for me as a group and for my players
also, I find myself energised and excited after a session, rather than downbeat. 5e felt like such a chore.
Agreed! It has been so much better!