I have watched a few discussions from groups that primarily play D&D 5 talk about the OSR on YouTube. The majority of them are fantastic, play the game you want, no edition wars sort of chats, so they are very nicely done. This is also not to say the discussions I watched apply to everyone, this was just a tiny sample size, but the thoughts I had after watching these are interesting.
How they reacted to some of the OSR standards revealed - not in anyone's personal attitudes or preferences, but in how Wizards developed the "secret sauce" of D&D 5.
Making the characters so powerful and impossible to kill negates the "bad dungeon master" or "deathtrap dungeon" syndrome.
As I watched these, those who loved the OSR's concepts, the focus on exploration, the decoupling of experience and combat, the rewarding clever play, and the multiple rewarding types of problem resolution - loved these aspects of the OSR.
One in the discussions seemed shocked the OSR did not emphasize combat. There appeared to be a feeling the OSR did not reward or have any system of social interaction. They also lamented the lack of mechanical character customization. Pretty normal for OSR, so fair points.
What I felt they did not like the most was the feeling of horror, hopelessness, instant death, and powerlessness the OSR prefers. I got this feeling that few of them wanted to feel the "fear of the unknown" and the sheer terror of crawling around in a hole in the ground where avoiding combat was the way to go, and any character could die at any time in a combat encounter or because of carelessness.
Some even said, "Please tell us before you do this to our characters or incorporate these ideas into a game." Another said he loved the feeling of power in D&D 5, which ran counter to the discussion of needing to be careful in an OSR context. If someone has that much power, there is no need to be careful. I get it; pulling OSR concepts on a group of 5E players expecting the 5E experience is not nice. And this is a good point.
This was when the lightbulb turned on my head to the secret sauce of modern games. Combat is fun and gives a chance to show off. Wounds and lasting effects of any injury can be slept off in an hour. Resources instantly recharge like an MMO encounter. It is nearly impossible to die or even be taken out of a fight. The tabletop game is an action RPG video game you are meant to progress through and win.
All of this negates any fear of a "bad dungeon master" or a "killer adventure" and makes the game safe and approachable to play for the mainstream.
Either side is not wrong.
The OSR is excellent - and these are my games of choice.
D&D 5 is loved by millions - and is also excellent.
But why has the latter become massively popular? It is a good game, but in a sense, it always was, so what happened in this edition that changed everything so drastically?
People Were Afraid of D&D
But seeing those reactions to OSR concepts I just take for granted was eye-opening. I feel the reason why D&D was never really mainstream before D&D 5 was people were afraid of the game.
I even saw this back in the day when trying to recruit new players, "No, I don't want to play that."
They did not want to invest time, money, or interest in a hobby where a random group of people at a gaming table could "screw" them. Where anything they did got their character killed. Where they would never be "good" at the game since their character kept getting killed. The rules were too complex, and they felt "stupid," which often got their characters killed. A DM could hold a personal grudge against someone and kill their characters repeatedly. A DM could design a deathtrap dungeon with lethal traps and combat encounters and kill all the characters at the table.
Also, earlier versions of D&D were less focused on social interactions. It was really up to the group; you could either be hack-and-slash or go crazy in a social RP - with no rules - RP experience. The social interaction "rules" in the OSR are invisible and never written down because they are handled as the RP at the table and need no rules. Every group has its own way of doing it.
New games codify and create rules for social interactions to protect the players from "not knowing how" or "the DM with a grudge." Thus, any social interaction is "safe" because you can spec into social feats and abilities, and the "game rules say the RP is successful." Do you see the secret sauce there?
D&D 5's secret sauce is based 100% on removing the fear of playing the game with strangers and delivering a predictable experience.
This is like seeing a fast food or chain restaurant, not knowing the menu, but trusting you can walk into any of them and find something you would like to eat. You trust the company to train the chefs and employees to do the same job correctly and deliver a predictable experience. You do not need to "know the staff" to have a good experience there.
Delivering a predictable experience goes beyond just how the rules play; it extends into character builds, adventure design, monster challenges, how the party play model works, and every product shipped.
OSR Tends Towards Randomness
Also, you will see far more things in the OSR that break the "predictable experience" model. Lots of random charts and randomness in general, random corruption and mutation tables, insanity rules, panic rules that make you lose control of your character, random exploration, random or tiered spell effects, monsters that are mostly made up and unknown in each adventure, and lots of other chance-based events and consequences that take control out of your control and put your character's fate on a chart or a save-or-die roll.
Many great OSR experiences know how to leverage the unpredictable and use that to add enjoyment to the game. You see a lot of frustration in some video games with the "RNG" (random number generator) ruining an experience. This feeling plays into people's feelings towards the OSR and these types of games in general.
The OSR is a Trust-Based Game
With the OSR, the social contracts and connections with others need to be more robust - since you have players putting trust in each other and not "screw" each other with rulings or malicious refereeing. The love of the game and "doing it right" forms the bond of trust between the players and referee. The OSR relies on that currency of confidence and a shared love of the same to work. The most popular OSR games build this by building a love of the game in a community.
Differences are Cool
One type of design is not better, but the differences and design goals are fascinating. D&D 5 has a design goal of delivering a predictable experience, removing the fear of the game, and making the game easier to play with strangers. Character power in all of those goals needs to go up. Survivability needs to be high. Mistakes should be easy to recover from. Resources should replenish rapidly. Every fight should ideally start from the same level of power and resources to preserve balance. Randomness should be lessened. Retainers are discouraged.
The OSR is a resource management game. Combat should be avoided. Exploration and imaginative play are the keys to success. Resources do not recharge rapidly. An adventure wears down the party. Experience is often gold-based, so getting the treasure with the least risk and danger possible is ideal. Character power is lower to enhance the feeling of danger and increase the need to creatively problem-solve. Survivability is lower since the characters are simple. Randomness creates chaos, which plays against careful planning. And planning and hiring retainers are encouraged.
Yes, the OSR has some accessibility issues that D&D 5 solved, but I grew up playing the classics, so that is home to me. It is nice to live in a time where there are games that cater to everyone's tastes, and the communities are so cool with each other existing and sharing ideas.
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