Wrote a small post about my OS/OSR likes and dislikes here. I'll paste the part that is relevant to the discussion below (or click the link to see other links and a bit about my own clone).

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2022/02/my-favorite-d-and-osr-likes-and.html

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If I were to choose a "pound for pound champion" of D&D, it would be Moldvay's Basic* - the best ratio of great content per page. On the other hand, my "single book" champion would be the Rules Cyclopedia* - greatest amount of cool stuff in one single book.



Both books are remarkable because of that, IMO; other D&D books would get more extensive with time. Redundant stuff was added and some important content was nearly lost with time (reactions, morale, hirelings, etc.).



However, when I started writing my list of likes and dislikes I realized how extensive the latter is. And these are not details - they are fundamental things about my favorite games. I am still a bit unsure about how to explain this - maybe my "likes" have a bigger weight than my dislikes here. Or maybe "dislikes" are just easier to list - if I were to list my 5e dislikes, for examples, I'd include "too many skills, too many spells, too much repetition and redundancy", but when I write about old school positives I just say "simplicity".



The funny thing is that all my "dislikes" have been fixed in 3e, 4e, and 5e, but I still find that B/X and the RC are better (although early 5e is almost there IMO). Maybe it is just because I find adding half a dozen things to a game is easier than subtracting dozens of things between hundreds.

Anyway, here we go. I'll use B/X as an example because it is my favorite.

Likes:

- Simplicity, usability, conciseness, lack of clutter.

- Focus on reaction, morale, hirelings.

- Easy to house-rule.

- Monsters are easy to run.

Dislikes:

- Race-as-class.

- Different XP tables for each class (including different XP limits), which makes XP useless for some characters for  a big chunk of the game (unless multi-classing etc.)

- Byzantine XP math, including ability bonuses and dividing the XP by your level or something.

- Attacks and saving throws tables.

- Thief skills using d6 and d100 (also, d100 in increments of 5% instead of d20)

- Cleric weirdness.

Neutral:

- Domain building - I like it as long as you actually use it, which I haven't seem in my games.

- Descending AC.

- Vancian magic.

- Lack of "streamlined mechanics".

- Lack of generalized skills for non-thieves.

My preferences have not been changed even after playing multiple versions of D&D. I even wrote my own take on B/X, changing everything I dislike.



I do realize this is a matter of taste. However, most of the I've mentioned as "dislikes", I also find to be:

- Arbitrary (see the cleric post for an example).

- Justifiable if we don't use them ("sure, Halflings stop at 120,000 XP, but we never play high-level campaigns anyway") or use optional rules.

- Only make sense in the wargaming context (if you had a "XP budget" to build your troops, for example).

- Relics of Arneson/Gygax's original campaigns that do not make sense in 99% of our campaigns.

I am curious about your opinions about:

- What are your likes/dislikes and, if different from mine, why do you like/dislike this. For example, why is it useful to have a different XP table to the fighter instead of just making the fighter a bit stronger (say, attacks as monster of the same HD).

- Are there any important likes/dislikes that I'm missing, that might help explain why we still find these games superior to post-2000s D&D?

Add your list of neutrals to the negatives column except domain building along with "way too much dependence on randomness in character generation" and the mechanics not at-all lining up with how it was presented outside the game (i.e. you can emulate heroes from fantasy stories) while actually being more of a strategic resource game where acting like heroes from myth, legend and fantasy fiction would likely get you killed in short order... and you'd have my list.

The high point of D&D for me were the original Dragonlance modules which actually did deliver on letting you play as a fantasy hero (and did you look at those pre-gens' stats? No way those were randomly rolled) instead of going through a small village worth of dirt farmers until one gets lucky enough to not be in danger of immediate death from a stray rat.

So, yeah... I don't actually find old-school D&D even remotely enjoyable and haven't since 1e with orange spines were the current line. The closest thing to old-school D&D I get these days is Palladium Fantasy 1e which actually fixed just about all the problems (except the random stats) I had with AD&D.

I share most of your dislikes.  My reasons however are mostly related to the neutral "lack of streamlined mechanics".  The reason that later editions don't fix those for me is that they go too far the other way--streamlining for the sake of streamlining.  To give specific examples of what I mean, there's nothing wrong with having different mechanics for morale and surprise/perception because those don't really naturally fit well into the d20 mechanic that might work just fine for thief skills.  If widget A and widget B both have approximately the same kind of distribution in the model, then they should use the same mechanic, and it should be recognizable as the same mechanic.  If they don't, they shouldn't be forced into it.

I have a deep aversion to "roll under" and other such mechanics that are seemingly inverted from what most people would expect.  The aversion is somewhat arbitrary and unfair, and I'm aware of that.  In a game of, say, Runequest or Fantasy Hero, I can kind of ignore the roll under for attacks, roll high for damage part, because at least those are on totally separate rolls.  When it starts to multiply, I start to twitch a little.  Strangely enough, it bothers me far more as a GM than as a player, even in a given system.  I guess the more time I spend with the system the more it bothers me.

I get a similar twitch to descending AC now.  It didn't bother me when it was the natural outgrowth of a chart lookup, in a game where everyone I knew made a little personal chart for their character on their college ruled notebook paper character sheet.  I'm not that against chart lookups in a simple game.  The twitch is for how unnecessary it is removed from that context.

The thing is, all that can be "fixed" to some extent.  But it can only be fixed correctly in two situations:

A. The designer is preserving the game as much as possible and simply streamlining  the system within that larger preservation goal.
B. The designer recognizes that they are not preserving the game, and thus the streamlining as such is towards a different design with different goals (whatever those are).

Chesterton's fence all over again.  You can replace race as class or descending AC.  You can't do it correctly without first understanding why they are a thing.  Having thus understood them, you may or may not replace them.

Note also that many discussions of this get all tangled up in another hidden conceit.  Namely, that what some people want to do to "fix" D&D doesn't have anything to do with the above, but is really their idea of how to make the most popular game more like some other game they'd rather play instead.  Arguably, some of the flaws (but not all) of WotC editions stem from a similar dynamic. 

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 01:41:51 PM

- What are your likes/dislikes and, if different from mine, why do you like/dislike this. For example, why is it useful to have a different XP table to the fighter instead of just making the fighter a bit stronger (say, attacks as monster of the same HD).

Do you have a reason why you dislike it? Because the different XP tables have real, concrete effects on gameplay and even on social cohesion. I'm curious if you've fully considered those consequences, or if it's just some vague undefined preference. The reason why I'm asking the question, and not providing my own analysis, is because I find a lot of people's preferences when it comes to game mechanics are unexamined. And while those preferences may be based on an intuitive understand of the real consequences, and the person just hasn't developed the tools to coherently express them; in most cases, they seem to be purely irrational.

Quote from: Pat on February 26, 2022, 06:24:33 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 01:41:51 PM

- What are your likes/dislikes and, if different from mine, why do you like/dislike this. For example, why is it useful to have a different XP table to the fighter instead of just making the fighter a bit stronger (say, attacks as monster of the same HD).

Do you have a reason why you dislike it? Because the different XP tables have real, concrete effects on gameplay and even on social cohesion. I'm curious if you've fully considered those consequences, or if it's just some vague undefined preference. The reason why I'm asking the question, and not providing my own analysis, is because I find a lot of people's preferences when it comes to game mechanics are unexamined. And while those preferences may be based on an intuitive understand of the real consequences, and the person just hasn't developed the tools to coherently express them; in most cases, they seem to be purely irrational.

It's mostly a matter of taste, but I'll try.

First, makes PCs harder to compare. "An adventure for 4-6 5th level PCs" barely makes sense in this context.

Second, it is not that hard to "fix" - for example, enhance the 11th level fighter so he looks more like a 12th level fighter (or even a 5 HD level monster, who has a better attack matrix than the fighter for some reason) and make this 12th level, with the 5th level MU, around 600,000 XP or whatever.

Also, I dislike the idea of "Halflings stop at 120,000 XP... and then what?". The goal of the game is to become a big hero (I do not have the exact Gygax quote), and you do this mostly through XP. So you've got a MU who has a long way to ultimate power and a halfling who either retires or becomes a sidekick.

I'm curious to hear your reasoning why this is a good idea, however - I've heard at least one good argument for that (it encourages rotating PCs).

EDIT: I might add that I dislike that game mechanics should have obscure reasons that are not obvious to players and DMs. If there is a secret reason why the cleric spell progression is completely bonkers and cure serious wounds is a 4th level spell, it should be clear to everyone.

Yeah; I'd probably concur with Moldvay B/X being my favorite iteration of D&D.  There's the nostalgia factor of course, that having been the version I started with, though we went into AD&D within a few months then switched back and forth thereafter through the 1980s.  I played tons of AD&D, but we never bothered to switch to 2e, just buying a few books and modules.  I pretty much loathe 3e and 5e, and never played any 4e, so that's not even a factor for me.  But now we play Castles & Crusades when we want the 1e experience.

But I still keep coming back to B/X or variations on it.  I love the streamlined simplicity, the short and simple character sheets, and the relatively easy to run monsters.  And, as I've gotten older and have less time to prep and play with less experienced players (mostly family members), it's just easier to run and easier for new people to learn.  Hell, I even like race as class so much that when we put together an OSE Advanced campaign, the players could only choose the new or old race classes or the regular human classes; so they could play gnomes, half-elves, etc., but no Half-elven rangers or whatever.

In terms of some of the other stuff, I like having uneven XP advancement.  Always used it and I think it's fine.  In fact, it's been fun in the aforementioned OSE Advanced campaign because it seems like we've got at least 1 PC leveling up after every adventure (not session) due to the uneven advancement.  That campaign will wrap up pretty soon as the PCs are all 8-10th level now. 

I used to absolutely hate ascending AC, but having played with newer players the past couple years, I can appreciate how it generally speeds up play for the newbies.  So I'm at least neutral about it.  I prefer the traditional saving throws to the modern ones (Reflex, Willpower, Fortitude), but I like the Swords & Wizardry single save even better.  I also really like morale and group initiative, as it's just easier to keep track of things for me.  And I've grown to appreciate the three axis alignment system too when I used to prefer the AD&D system.

All this being said, I've also really come to appreciate DCC and the little innovations they add to B/X.  We've been using their action dice and crit tables in our OSE game and after doing this for months now, we are going to just do a straight DCC campaign later this year.  I like how they do clerical healing and how they add flavor to the demi-human classes, not to mention thieves by giving them different skill advancement based on their alignment.  The magic system is a bit burdensome at times, but we're willing to roll with it.  In fact, I found character sheets for all of our original B/X characters from 1981-82 and converted them over to DCC for a high level campaign arc I have in mind.

So basically my overriding concern now is to maximize playing time & fun at the table and not have to mess around with tons of feats, spells, conditions, or even too many character classes & abilities.  There's no reason you can't make a B/X fighter feel like Aragorn, Conan, Lancelot, or Miyamoto Musashi.  Just use your imagination.  So B/X or DCC pretty much check the boxes I want and we can still mess around with C&C if we want that slightly crunchier experience.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is my favorite version of D&D because it gets rid of so much of what makes D&D shit.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 26, 2022, 07:58:16 PM
Shadow of the Demon Lord is my favorite version of D&D because it gets rid of so much of what ages D&D shit.

One of my favorites too - currently running a campaign. The way it deals with ability scores is superb, and it has some awesome features. The growing number of options is another great aspect of the game - starts simple, adds complexity as you go.

Quote from: Persimmon on February 26, 2022, 07:37:33 PM
Yeah; I'd probably concur with Moldvay B/X being my favorite iteration of D&D.  There's the nostalgia factor of course, that having been the version I started with, though we went into AD&D within a few months then switched back and forth thereafter through the 1980s.  I played tons of AD&D, but we never bothered to switch to 2e, just buying a few books and modules.  I pretty much loathe 3e and 5e, and never played any 4e, so that's not even a factor for me.  But now we play Castles & Crusades when we want the 1e experience.

But I still keep coming back to B/X or variations on it.  I love the streamlined simplicity, the short and simple character sheets, and the relatively easy to run monsters.  And, as I've gotten older and have less time to prep and play with less experienced players (mostly family members), it's just easier to run and easier for new people to learn.  Hell, I even like race as class so much that when we put together an OSE Advanced campaign, the players could only choose the new or old race classes or the regular human classes; so they could play gnomes, half-elves, etc., but no Half-elven rangers or whatever.

In terms of some of the other stuff, I like having uneven XP advancement.  Always used it and I think it's fine.  In fact, it's been fun in the aforementioned OSE Advanced campaign because it seems like we've got at least 1 PC leveling up after every adventure (not session) due to the uneven advancement.  That campaign will wrap up pretty soon as the PCs are all 8-10th level now. 

I used to absolutely hate ascending AC, but having played with newer players the past couple years, I can appreciate how it generally speeds up play for the newbies.  So I'm at least neutral about it.  I prefer the traditional saving throws to the modern ones (Reflex, Willpower, Fortitude), but I like the Swords & Wizardry single save even better.  I also really like morale and group initiative, as it's just easier to keep track of things for me.  And I've grown to appreciate the three axis alignment system too when I used to prefer the AD&D system.

All this being said, I've also really come to appreciate DCC and the little innovations they add to B/X.  We've been using their action dice and crit tables in our OSE game and after doing this for months now, we are going to just do a straight DCC campaign later this year.  I like how they do clerical healing and how they add flavor to the demi-human classes, not to mention thieves by giving them different skill advancement based on their alignment.  The magic system is a bit burdensome at times, but we're willing to roll with it.  In fact, I found character sheets for all of our original B/X characters from 1981-82 and converted them over to DCC for a high level campaign arc I have in mind.

So basically my overriding concern now is to maximize playing time & fun at the table and not have to mess around with tons of feats, spells, conditions, or even too many character classes & abilities.  There's no reason you can't make a B/X fighter feel like Aragorn, Conan, Lancelot, or Miyamoto Musashi.  Just use your imagination.  So B/X or DCC pretty much check the boxes I want and we can still mess around with C&C if we want that slightly crunchier experience.

Not much to add except I find myself agreeing with most of this. Race-as-class is good for beginners - or the first few levels - but the way that BFRPG, for example, deals with it feel a lot simpler and more flexible at the same time.

I love me some DCC too, although the tables are just to many for my tastes. So I like to mix and match.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 08:22:59 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 26, 2022, 07:58:16 PM
Shadow of the Demon Lord is my favorite version of D&D because it gets rid of so much of what ages D&D shit.

One of my favorites too - currently running a campaign. The way it deals with ability scores is superb, and it has some awesome features. The growing number of options is another great aspect of the game - starts simple, adds complexity as you go.

Quote from: Persimmon on February 26, 2022, 07:37:33 PM
Yeah; I'd probably concur with Moldvay B/X being my favorite iteration of D&D.  There's the nostalgia factor of course, that having been the version I started with, though we went into AD&D within a few months then switched back and forth thereafter through the 1980s.  I played tons of AD&D, but we never bothered to switch to 2e, just buying a few books and modules.  I pretty much loathe 3e and 5e, and never played any 4e, so that's not even a factor for me.  But now we play Castles & Crusades when we want the 1e experience.

But I still keep coming back to B/X or variations on it.  I love the streamlined simplicity, the short and simple character sheets, and the relatively easy to run monsters.  And, as I've gotten older and have less time to prep and play with less experienced players (mostly family members), it's just easier to run and easier for new people to learn.  Hell, I even like race as class so much that when we put together an OSE Advanced campaign, the players could only choose the new or old race classes or the regular human classes; so they could play gnomes, half-elves, etc., but no Half-elven rangers or whatever.

In terms of some of the other stuff, I like having uneven XP advancement.  Always used it and I think it's fine.  In fact, it's been fun in the aforementioned OSE Advanced campaign because it seems like we've got at least 1 PC leveling up after every adventure (not session) due to the uneven advancement.  That campaign will wrap up pretty soon as the PCs are all 8-10th level now. 

I used to absolutely hate ascending AC, but having played with newer players the past couple years, I can appreciate how it generally speeds up play for the newbies.  So I'm at least neutral about it.  I prefer the traditional saving throws to the modern ones (Reflex, Willpower, Fortitude), but I like the Swords & Wizardry single save even better.  I also really like morale and group initiative, as it's just easier to keep track of things for me.  And I've grown to appreciate the three axis alignment system too when I used to prefer the AD&D system.

All this being said, I've also really come to appreciate DCC and the little innovations they add to B/X.  We've been using their action dice and crit tables in our OSE game and after doing this for months now, we are going to just do a straight DCC campaign later this year.  I like how they do clerical healing and how they add flavor to the demi-human classes, not to mention thieves by giving them different skill advancement based on their alignment.  The magic system is a bit burdensome at times, but we're willing to roll with it.  In fact, I found character sheets for all of our original B/X characters from 1981-82 and converted them over to DCC for a high level campaign arc I have in mind.

So basically my overriding concern now is to maximize playing time & fun at the table and not have to mess around with tons of feats, spells, conditions, or even too many character classes & abilities.  There's no reason you can't make a B/X fighter feel like Aragorn, Conan, Lancelot, or Miyamoto Musashi.  Just use your imagination.  So B/X or DCC pretty much check the boxes I want and we can still mess around with C&C if we want that slightly crunchier experience.

Not much to add except I find myself agreeing with most of this. Race-as-class is good for beginners - or the first few levels - but the way that BFRPG, for example, deals with it feel a lot simpler and more flexible at the same time.

I love me some DCC too, although the tables are just to many for my tastes. So I like to mix and match.

Yeah, BFRPG is fine I guess, but I just find it incredibly bland.  Somehow they've separated race and class and made it less interesting.  Probably my least favorite of the notable OSR/retroclones, though we are using some of the adventures for our OSE campaign.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 06:59:30 PM
First, makes PCs harder to compare. "An adventure for 4-6 5th level PCs" barely makes sense in this context.

I think the comparison issue is true to a small degree, but mostly false. The underlying reason is that XP doubles every level up to name level. So while it's true not all characters will reach 4th level at the same XP total, in most cases there will never be more than a level difference. For instance, consider a thief who will advance to 2nd level at 1,250 XP, and to 3rd level at 2,500 XP, and to 4th level at 5,000 XP. Compare that to a magic-user who advances to 2nd level at 2,500, and 3rd level at 5,000 XP. Once the thief reaches 2nd level, the magic-user will be stuck exactly 1 level behind. And barring fringe cases (like multi-class characters or elves, or classes with weird progressions like 1e's bards or druids), that's typically the maximum difference.

Also, most parties will have a fairly standard range of characters, so their average level will average out. You're unlikely to have all thieves or all MUs, instead it'll be a mix. If the adventure is looking for characters in the range of 4-6th level, and you have a party with levels 3, 4, 5, 5, and 6, you're probably good. Thus, level assessments work fairly well as reasonable approximations.

Plus, if you want something more precise, just give an average XP instead of level ranges. "For characters of 10,000 XP, give or take a bunch." Or just use the fighter as a baseline, and say "characters with XP equivalent to a 4th to 6th level fighter." The latter has the advantage of being backward compatible.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 06:59:30 PM

Quote from: Pat on February 26, 2022, 06:24:33 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on February 26, 2022, 01:41:51 PM

- What are your likes/dislikes and, if different from mine, why do you like/dislike this. For example, why is it useful to have a different XP table to the fighter instead of just making the fighter a bit stronger (say, attacks as monster of the same HD).

Do you have a reason why you dislike it? Because the different XP tables have real, concrete effects on gameplay and even on social cohesion. I'm curious if you've fully considered those consequences, or if it's just some vague undefined preference. The reason why I'm asking the question, and not providing my own analysis, is because I find a lot of people's preferences when it comes to game mechanics are unexamined. And while those preferences may be based on an intuitive understand of the real consequences, and the person just hasn't developed the tools to coherently express them; in most cases, they seem to be purely irrational.

It's mostly a matter of taste, but I'll try.

First, makes PCs harder to compare. "An adventure for 4-6 5th level PCs" barely makes sense in this context.

Second, it is not that hard to "fix" - for example, enhance the 11th level fighter so he looks more like a 12th level fighter (or even a 5 HD level monster, who has a better attack matrix than the fighter for some reason) and make this 12th level, with the 5th level MU, around 600,000 XP or whatever.

Also, I dislike the idea of "Halflings stop at 120,000 XP... and then what?". The goal of the game is to become a big hero (I do not have the exact Gygax quote), and you do this mostly through XP. So you've got a MU who has a long way to ultimate power and a halfling who either retires or becomes a sidekick.

I'm curious to hear your reasoning why this is a good idea, however - I've heard at least one good argument for that (it encourages rotating PCs).

EDIT: I might add that I dislike that game mechanics should have obscure reasons that are not obvious to players and DMs. If there is a secret reason why the cleric spell progression is completely bonkers and cure serious wounds is a 4th level spell, it should be clear to everyone.

I think it goes beyond taste and has concrete impacts on gameplay.

The real consequence of having different XP progressions is that the PCs will level at different times. The thief will probably advance a few sessions before everyone else, then the cleric, then the fighter, with the magic-user lagging a few sessions behind. This gives everyone their moment to shine, because the thief with 2d4 or 2d6 hit dice is now just as tough as the fighter -- at least for a while.

Conversely, uniform XP progressions mean everyone advances in lockstep. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it creates a different experience. Advancing in level therefore becomes a shared experience, instead of an individual experience. Which can help create group cohesion and the sense that everyone is equal. But it's also much more demanding, when it comes to game balance. Because if everyone always moves in lockstep, then you have to be really careful to ensure that all characters are equal at all times. A game where XP progressions vary isn't so demanding, because there's a constant shift in relative power within the party, as different characters level while others have to wait. It's a contrast between being balanced over time, rather than being balanced all the time.

Being balanced over time also synergizes well with certain other old school features, like multiple DMs in the same campaign, each player having multiple characters that are pulled out to fit the night's adventure, a high death rate, a rotating stable of players, retainers, serendipitous magic item finds, starting new characters from 1st level, and random ability score and hp generation. One of the consequences of all these features is that not all PCs are equal at all times. One game, you might roll 18/00. Another, you might have a fighter with S 12. You might roll a 1 for hp, or an 8. Your best character might be a 4th level dwarf, struggling to keep up with super-heroes. You might find a hammer of thunderbolts in one game, or be a lord or lady whose most powerful magic weapon is a +2 club. If your character dies, you might start at 1st level again, and then be incredibly fragile until you keep up -- which, given how XP doubles, will be when the party gains roughly 1 new level. The shared trait that all these different aspects of the game supports is the idea here is that each player will play many characters over a year, or several years. Some of the characters will be overpowered, some will struggle. But you'll get to experience it all.

Conversely, the balanced all the time style works better with point buy systems, a lot of dramatic immunity or other protections against character death, long term investment in a single PC, and requires a more rigorous focus on balance. Since all the character advance in lockstep, it becomes more important to ensure all the characters are able to contribute, in different but equally effective ways, at all time. That puts a lot more stress on balance.

I think that's one of the most important things about looking at these systems: The pieces don't exist in isolation. They all work together to create a certain experience. There's nothing wrong with preferring one experience over another, or just enjoying difference experiences at different times. But the mechanics should be considered by how they help or hinder the experience. If you just pic is based on some vague subjective preference, you may end up hurting the style of play you're trying to encourage. It's better to have an end goal, think about how that end goal can be reached, and deliberately choose subsystems that further that end, rather than to pick a bunch of individual systems without considering how they interact, and hope the end result is something you'll like.

This has gotten too long, so I'll skip the discussion of racial level caps or progressions past name level.

Id say the community is one of the biggest turn-offs for me. I feel I have seen more self-awareness with the W40K community then the OSR community.
If D&D came coated in anthrax, they would be insisting to this day that the best gaming groups would be found when your hospitalized, and its just not 'pure' without it. How maybe they could replicate it with malaria or ebola, but anthrax is too hard to get these days.

My biggest likes have been things built on its spirit, but refined and furthered, like Sine Nominee. But by itself or other clones of it (Like Pundits stuff) have completly unimpressed me because they insist on packaging the warts.

Its design is completly unintuitive, and I feel so much of its fans get a kick out of making it somekind of submission ritual where you must play it as is.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 27, 2022, 12:06:58 AM
Id say the community is one of the biggest turn-offs for me. I feel I have seen more self-awareness with the W40K community then the OSR community.
If D&D came coated in anthrax, they would be insisting to this day that the best gaming groups would be found when your hospitalized, and its just not 'pure' without it. How maybe they could replicate it with malaria or ebola, but anthrax is too hard to get these days.

My biggest likes have been things built on its spirit, but refined and furthered, like Sine Nominee. But by itself or other clones of it (Like Pundits stuff) have completly unimpressed me because they insist on packaging the warts.

Its design is completly unintuitive, and I feel so much of its fans get a kick out of making it somekind of submission ritual where you must play it as is.

The anthrax example is perhaps too harsh, but I mostly agree. Every time I see an explanation from an OD&D fan about how race as class is better, or whatever, I come out feeling like it's an empty rationalization that doesn't tell me anything concrete and requires me to bend my brain like a pretzel to accept it. And most of the merits they taut about OD&D/OSR tend to be stuff that isn't necessarily exclusive to OD&D (ANY game can be pushed forward by falling back on GM rulings, it's not a feature, is a GM technique or workaround for stuff you don't recall or are not covered in the rules, and it applies EVETYWHERE with every game), or are a matter of give and take, where obviously if you add certain elements to the game (like skills) you're going to make it more complex, but there's NO WAY around that if you actually want those elements. So telling me that the game is better without them when I want them and there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them is not really telling me anything constructive, but rather insisting that a TTRPG should be build around what 0e was like. Or insisting that I should give it a chance when the reason I don't like it is because I DID give it a chance--Basic D&D was the first TTRPG I played and the reason I moved away from it is PRECISELY because I gave it a chance and didn't like it.

It's like watching someone reading tea leaves, then insisting that something is there, then when I look at the bottom of the cup, I just see random assortment of tea leaves. And stuff like this even predates the OSR, cuz I used to get into similar arguments back in the 90s when I was starting out, and it was always from people who were stuck playing "Basic" D&D and didn't seem to get any other rule system--even AD&D.

On the actual topic...

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Stuff that I like about old D&D includes:

• Simplicity...at least, compared to other editions of D&D, and mostly in terms of class-structure (skill-based systems are often simpler in terms of core mechanics: Just roll Stat + Skill every time you try something). Later editions just got too cluttered with endless variations of Fighters, Thieves/Rogues and Mystics, and an ever expanding list of fiddly class features that add more to the game's complexity than being meaningful additions to the class's capabilities.


• Less HP bloat: Granted, HP progression still sucks (starts WAY too low, then escalates from that) and it's random (more tea leaves every time I read an explanation why that's better), but it doesn't make the worse of a bad situation, like later editions, by piling more HD perpetually, but just stops that nonsense on its tracks after a certain point.


• Less Bookkeeping: Related to Simplicity, above. Less endless stream of classes or fiddly class features means less crap to keep track of.

Dislikes:

• Class-based/Class Reliance: Don't like being strapped into a specific class or everything that a character can/can't do been locked into a specific class. And multi-classing is a poor substitute for versatility that requires me to jump hoops to get it.


• XP for Gold: ...like treasure isn't already its own reward. And the reliance of XP for gold to supplement combat XP is just as stupid. Just give XP for accomplishments and make every challenge the PCs face or objective they achieve an awardable thing. Paying for training to level as a work around is also silly, cuz then you're stuck relying on gold to level up, then paying for training as an excuse to get rid of excessive amounts of gold. Why not just get rid of the middleman and "DM Rule" XP for doing non-combat stuff and completing special challenges? And no, people don't need XP for Gold as an incentive to go into a cave, slaughter some creatures and take their stuff. They're gonna do that anyway. Treasure is its own incentive and has been throughout the entire span of human history without needing to tie skill progression to its acquisition.


• Race as Class: An elf is a race, a fighter is a profession. Those two things are NOT the same. And no, locking an elf into an "elf" class that's essentially a Fighter-Mage and has the same XP requirements as a Fighter + Mage is not some neat balancing trick that makes up for the fact that elves also get infravision or the ability to spot secret doors. And it doesn't make the game easier to learn either. We all know that an elf is a type of creature and that a fighter is a skill set. It's not a complex concept, and duplicating existing "human" classes and calling a them a "Dwarf" (really just a fighter with infravision) or an "Elf" (really just a Fighter-Mage) does not simplify things. It just adds bloat by replicating existing things and changing the nameplates.


• No Skills: Everything classes can do, skills can do better. No multiclassing, just pick a new skill! And no amount of DM ruling is gonna make my no-skill dwarf feel like a master craftsman.


• Vancian Spellcasting: Doesn't even exist in my game. I just "DM rule" spell memorization the fuck out of my game. Sorcerers were redundant by the time 3e came out. Still not a fan of spell slots, but I can live with them. Also don't like the artificial Arcane/Divine divide or arbitrary spell levels with inconsistent power levels or usefulness, but that's true for every edition.


• Inconsistent Mechanics: Every task involves a different mechanic. Roll-under Ability Score, 1 in 1d6, Thieves percentile skills, combat, etc.


• Thac0/Descending AC Silliness: It's not that my brain is incapable of processing the math, it's that it's stupid jump through hoops math that's completely unnecessary and arbitrary. WTF do I even need to know what my number is to hit an AC value that 90%+ of characters and monsters don't even have in order to know if I hit or not? It's absurd! The VAST majority of encounters don't even have AC 0. Knowing what I need to roll in a d20 to hit that AC specifically is moronic in ways I can't even begin to describe. I can't even fathom what would even compel someone to build an entire mechanic around a value almost NOBODY has that isn't even the base value (that would be 10) to begin with, or even the highest value (or lowest, technically), for that matter. And that's not even getting into how counter intuitive it is to say that "Lower is better", specially when the mechanic expects me to roll high.


• Roll Under: Don't like it aesthetically OR mechanically either. It makes you reliant on a widely variable score you (usually) determined randomly during character creation and are stuck with for the rest of their lives (unless you lose points from some monster's special attack). And if you got lucky and rolled an 18, it means you have 90% freaking percent to succeed at anything you try with that score out of the gate, with character experience having no impact on it, and task difficulty having no impact either, unless the DM decides to give you a penalty (which they're more incentivized to do if you have a high score than if you don't).


• Thief Skills: Weird percentile mechanic that's too low at low levels and doesn't take into account task difficulty or the target's ability to notice someone's hand in their pocket. It's all 100% on the thieves end and their luck with the dice.


• Random Ability Scores: Too much variability and potential to roll characters even more inept than most people IRL, or freaking gods with ridiculous scores if you get lucky. It can skew balance so much it makes me twitch. And once you roll something you're stuck with it for life, unless you lose points due to some mishap (monster special attack, being resurrected) or your DM gives you a magic tome (which I'm not a fan of either).


• Random HP: Too much variability in a game stat I don't consider to be some sort of defining trait that needs to be different for everyone, unless they have higher health-related attributes (Constitution) or special abilities to boost their health (represented by better HD in D&D)--in which case I would tend to think that everyone around the same level of physical fitness would have similar values. But D&D wants me to roll that shit for some reason.

Plus probably a bunch of stuff on their list I can't think of right now, but I've already taken way too long writing this post. 

There are tons of D&D retro-clones to pick from that fix a lot of what is wrong with D&D.  I refuse to even play D&D at all because I don't like advancing upwards in the form of more hit points, while your defense stat doesn't improve.  That's backwards to me.

In my case I suggest an old RPG game system.  Palladium Fantasy.  It's a skills based system that has players improve their strikes, parries, and dodge as they level up, but not a lot of hit points get added each level.  This also means a fight between two identical characters at level one is even odds, but a fight between those two at level-15 is actually still going to look about the same.  Sure, you will be hitting with 1d20+7 or something, but the other guy parries with 1d20+7, so it's a wash. 

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 27, 2022, 12:06:58 AM
Id say the community is one of the biggest turn-offs for me. I feel I have seen more self-awareness with the W40K community then the OSR community.
If D&D came coated in anthrax, they would be insisting to this day that the best gaming groups would be found when your hospitalized, and its just not 'pure' without it. How maybe they could replicate it with malaria or ebola, but anthrax is too hard to get these days.

My biggest likes have been things built on its spirit, but refined and furthered, like Sine Nominee. But by itself or other clones of it (Like Pundits stuff) have completly unimpressed me because they insist on packaging the warts.

Its design is completly unintuitive, and I feel so much of its fans get a kick out of making it somekind of submission ritual where you must play it as is.

I dunno man. I have seen a positive OSR community on Reddit, G+ and here. This very thread - we have some people agreeing, some people disagreeing, but nobody calling heresy on my points.

I do agree that people cling to old methods (the afore mentioned cleric, AD&D byzantine initiative system and the weapon x armor table that contains math errors and not even Gygax used) after they've been made obsolete. But try telling 5e players they game can be improved and you'll see the difference (and I happen to LIKE 5e!).

EDIT: on a second thought, this might be unjust to 5e community. There are plenty of open-minded people, but most are not willing to discuss the fundamentals of the system. If I were to propose difference XP tracks or 2d6 skills, they'd think I'm crazy. OSR is more open to change in this regard, IMO.