Tired of D&D 5.74? Here's a cool old school rpg from my childhood that can fix it.

You may know me for being an OSR (Open Strategic Resources) blogger, a section of the TTRPG hobby that focuses on games that call back to earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Recently I found an Ebay listing (costing around $2000) on for a copy of an old game from my childhood. 


This game came in a box set, unfortunately I lost the box while moving. It has some things that are sorely missed in an age of Dr Who Artilocks and Spongebob omni classes. It was more grounded, being a game of heroic fantasy. It had no crit chains and success percentages. Instead it had "Advantage" and "Disadvantage". It only had 20 levels and you had much less choice in abilities. Kids today would be bored out of their minds! Character creation was so simple. In an hour you could create a complete character. Pick your species, background, class and equipment. Maybe a subclass and spells depending on your choices. 

 

The old lady gave me a set of her physical dice

You had so much control and ways to fine tune the game. There were many optional rules in the Dungeon master's guide like carousing, Brutal resting and it taught you how to make class options and monsters! Instead of subscribing to D&D Here+, you could be more flexible as it had a more rulings over rules mentality. It had DCs that the "DM" sets and you roll to beat it. It's so elegant. The old lady I bought this off rolled physical dice to beat these DCs. It was very deadly as some monsters weren't balanced and could kill your character. Death was close, especially at lower levels but even at higher levels you weren't safe from Banishment!

 

The book in question

My favorite mechanic was the proficiency system. It was a bonus that grew with only your level. Levels felt like they had meaning, as each level got you closer to a big boost in power as a lot of subclasses had scaling based on your proficiency bonus. Spells were weaker too. Cure Wounds only healed 1d8 hitpoints and you could only answer with an 8d6 Fireball at 5th level. This meant that combats were fast by today's standards of only taking 3-4 hours. Before I forget, I also saw that people used to make (let me check my notes here) "Homebrew". This was content made by people who weren't Approved Creators and who did it because they "loved the hobby". I miss these days. If a copy ever surfaces again I highly recommend you pick up Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition.

Clickables 

Had to edit over a old blogpost but these blogs are still peak. 

Dungeon Doll Creates a monster from a dream 

Grinning Rat slots tetris into the dungeon making process

Gnomestones gives us 3 rules for GMing with ADHD (same bud)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OSR games should have a lot of classes

Image
I couldn't post to my blog due to life being a lot and various tech issues. I did however back the newest Shadowdark Kickstarter so now I feel it is time for a theory post, as I didn't post one in a while.  From The Arcane Library In OSR games, you die often. There are often around 4 to 7 classes (if the game sticks to the B/X model) and it doesn't take too long to play them all, at least each class's early levels. In shadowdark's newest kickstarter, there is plans for 20 classes to be in the one book. I like this. In modern games, having a lot of classes feels overwhelming as I am playing each class for a long period of time due to the lower lethality in those games so my choice matters a lot. In shadowdark, this isn't the case. Death is not only around the corner but right behind you and should your plans go south, that's the end of the character. It is unlikely I will be playing a character for a significant amount of time in shadowdark.  The 24 classes t...
Read more

Everything-as-XP (my home game)

Image
My in person game is starting up. I have chosen to avoid a system for a number of reasons: I am given an hour and a half per session. 90% of my players are new to tabletop. My player count varies. So I have chosen a simple system that they create. One thing I love to leverage is what fantasy does everyone have in their heads. Some have LotR, Harry Potter more lesser known books or movies. There is also video games. Because of this, "fantasy" isn't a singular set of tropes and conventions but multiple.   But how? Characters are simple. Here is the character sheet drawn in Microsoft Paint: a rough mock up of the character sheet Path:  There are only 2 choices. Steel for martial warrior types and Spell for spellcasters. These set how many wounds you can take, whether you get access to magic or deeds. Steels get 2 wounds before getting unconscious, the ability to do mighty deeds of arms if their dice matches. (this is a 2d6+mods system). Spell gets the ability to cast magic (...
Read more

Every system teaches you something. Even bad ones.

Image
Introduction I have played many systems, from narrative focused games to more simulationist games. Over time my tastes have changed from wanting the rules nearly out the picture to wanting the rules to be the focus of the game. Nowadays it leans somewhere in between. Here is a list of all the games I have played and what I learnt from them.  The Games Dungeons and Dragons 5e: advantage is a great mechanic for simply adding to a roll with little tracking.  Pathfinder: It's very hard to make a one-trick pony so every character has at least a dozen toys. Shadowdark: The perfect amount of character abilities (at least from the get-go) is 2. From The Arcane Library's website GURPS: I love how the numbers are done in the beginning meaning once character generation is done, you just need to look at your sheet.  Dungeon Crawl Classics: I love level 0 as it answers the only question a backstory should have and that's why are you here. Troika: Give your players weird and cool toys ...
Read more