When you want to play a D&D-style game, you reach for...

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If I am in the mood to play D&D I'd rather play DCC.
When I think about running D&D I think about B/X and LotFP... which (in cross-mix) are what I used last time I ran D&D.
Nowadays, LotFP appeals to me more for the implied 17th century setting of some of its adventures... and I'd look for a BRP way to use those.
 
Voros said:
Check out Into the Unknown which is 5e as viewed through a B/X lens.
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I bought it as soon as I found out about its existence. The author trimmed a lot of fat; no feats, reduced class options, no skills, level 10 cap, etc. so you have the nice clarity of B/X with 5e elegance. It is an excellent example of what can be done with 5e and I hope to see more supplements in this vein.
 
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Stan said:
I also actively avoid high level play.
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Hey man glad to see someone feels the same way. I feel like levels 10-12 are good caps for pretty much every edition of D&D. At that point characters are like Conan, Merlin, or John Carter; they are at the peak of human ability but still within the realm of plausibility. Once you go beyond that stage PCs stray into superhero or mythic territory and I'd rather play MSH or Exalted to get that fix.
 
Yah, back in the day, I considered levels 10-14 (e.g., Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits) VERY high level. Thus, I never saw the need to go much beyond named level in AD&D, nor to get anything past B/X in the BECMI line.
 
It's telling that the high-level AD&D adventures in the Gygax era (D1-3, Q1, EX1-2, and WG6) all included fiat-based rules exceptions to remove character abilities (e.g. certain spells don't function or function weirdly, magic items lose some "plusses," monsters have fiat Magic Resistance due to "the strange radiation of their homeland," etc.), in order to effectively push the high-level PCs back down into the mid-level sweet spot. I know people have spent decades railing against this as cheating and lazy design but I take it as just a tacit admission that the the game works better at mid-levels (up to about 10-12 at the maximum) and higher-level characters and effects work better as NPCs and antagonists, so when the PCs get to those levels they should probably retire, becoming effectively quasi-NPC patrons to the next generation of characters. I know a lot of players don't like that and want to have their PC have Ultimate Power and be able to sling all those top level spells and have the most powerful magic items, but the game works better when they don't.
 
TheophilusCarter said:
Yah, back in the day, I considered levels 10-14 (e.g., Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits) VERY high level. Thus, I never saw the need to go much beyond named level in AD&D, nor to get anything past B/X in the BECMI line.
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I consider 6th level my total break-up point in those games...:shade:
 
Swords & Wizardry for me. I do add a few bits of modern sensibility but generally speaking I like it lean. There are other OSR titles that are just as good but most of those are not free. Being free is helpful when trying to attract new gamers or those who have blown their budgets on 5e books.
 
T. Foster said:
It's telling that the high-level AD&D adventures in the Gygax era (D1-3, Q1, EX1-2, and WG6) all included fiat-based rules exceptions to remove character abilities (e.g. certain spells don't function or function weirdly, magic items lose some "plusses," monsters have fiat Magic Resistance due to "the strange radiation of their homeland," etc.), in order to effectively push the high-level PCs back down into the mid-level sweet spot. I know people have spent decades railing against this as cheating and lazy design but I take it as just a tacit admission that the the game works better at mid-levels (up to about 10-12 at the maximum) and higher-level characters and effects work better as NPCs and antagonists, so when the PCs get to those levels they should probably retire, becoming effectively quasi-NPC patrons to the next generation of characters. I know a lot of players don't like that and want to have their PC have Ultimate Power and be able to sling all those top level spells and have the most powerful magic items, but the game works better when they don't.
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That final battle at the end of Isle of the Ape can TPK even a high level party without any nerfing required. In fact contra to Gygax's rep as a killer DM I recall he even has an NPC escape hatch for the PCs if they're getting their asses kicked. Land Beyond the Magic Mirror is also a tough high level module, although I can''t recall if there is much nerfing on that demiplane. I think those are both fun modukes, Land... remains one of my favourites.
 
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For a "true" D&D style game it's likely some form of B/X (OSE, Beyond the Wall, etc) clone. I can't really bring myself to run 5e, despite being asked to. I like the "base system" well enough but frankly the sheer amount of magic available to players of every fraking class puts me off hard.

But really it's pretty rare I go in for a "true" D&D experience and reach for all kinds of other games: Mythras, Traveller, PDQ, Ubiquity, D6...the list seems to go on and on and is really dictated by my mood and who I'm playing with.

I look to be starting Tyranny of Dragons with Savage Worlds this weekend, which should be fun.
 
Voros said:
That final battle at the end of Isle of the Ape can TPK even a high level party without any nerfing required. In fact contra to Gygax's rep as a killer DM I recall he even has an NPC escape hatch for the PCs if they're getting their asses kicked. Land Beyond the Magic Mirror is also a tough high level module, although I can''t recall if there is much nerfing on that demiplane. I think those are both fun modukes, Land... remains one of my favourites.
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Both of them have lists of spells that won't function on the particular demiplanes where they're set. Both disallow various conjuration/summoning and instant-transport type spells, WG6 further disallows most divination-type spells and wish/limited wish/alter reality.
 
The Butcher said:
Mythras, ACKS and C&C — a man after my own heart.
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Indeed! And then you went on to categorize the games much like I would. The original post could have very well read "My favorite B/X is ACKS. My favorite AD&D is Mythras Classic Fantasy. What about you?"

The Butcher said:
I’d go with ACKS for a B/X or BECMI/RC feel, which is often, because I’m a big RC-head.

C&C (with a little house ruling of the core mechanic) for an AD&D1 feel, like the classic modules. I could be persuaded to use it for a Greyhawk campaign.

D&D5 for an AD&D2+ or WotC feel (if that makes any sense). More of a high fantasy, save the world feel, a dash of superheroics, maybe more “new school” colors from China Miéville to Warcraft. I really associate the Forgotten Realms, even the “gray box” first edition, with this. And Eberron, of course.

Two games that have been quoted and that I’d love to try are Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, and Beyond The Wall.
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Those categories make a lot of sense to me.

Mythras Classic Fantasy feels like AD&D 1e flavor to me. Checking the inspiration the author gives, AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, the Fantasy Trip, and RuneQuest are listed.
 
The biggest problem for me running D&D these days is that I'm often limited to just a couple of players, and D&D seems to assume 4+ players of various classes. As such, I'm caught between running D&D and trying to make it work with just two PCs, or looking for a whole different system while capturing the feel of old D&D adventures.
 
Couple of months ago, I would have said Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition with the Player's Option rules-- accept no substitutions-- but after having run exactly that game for a couple of weeks I am starting to remember how goddamned sick I was of a lot of the AD&D cruft when I switched to Third Edition twenty years ago.

I've been threatening for years that I was going to make a BECMI plus Player's Option clone. As an intermediate step, and my submission for this thread, I'm going to try converting the parts of Player's Option I want to run to Rules Cyclopedia D&D and running that.

Other than that, yeah... Rules Cyclopedia, Flying Swordsmen, Dark Dungeons. The more I realize I prefer Classic D&D to Advanced, the more I'm looking at different retroclones to see which ones have useful parts for playing D&D the way I grew up with.
 
TheophilusCarter said:
The biggest problem for me running D&D these days is that I'm often limited to just a couple of players, and D&D seems to assume 4+ players of various classes. As such, I'm caught between running D&D and trying to make it work with just two PCs, or looking for a whole different system while capturing the feel of old D&D adventures.
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This is one of the suggested use-cases for the Gestalt rules in 3.5. Have you considered letting all of your characters-- regardless of race-- multiclass?
 
FaerieGodfather said:
This is one of the suggested use-cases for the Gestalt rules in 3.5. Have you considered letting all of your characters-- regardless of race-- multiclass?
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I'm never opposed to multi-classes, but it seems like my players rarely want to do that. I think it's more about scaling down combat, which can be hard to do while still feeling like D&D sometimes.
 
What I did in Dark Passages was borrow the idea of semi and hybrid users from Rolemaster. So, you've got the pure priest who's a divine magic-user with no combat ability, the cleric who can cast spells and fight, and the paladin who can fight and cast spells a little bit. You've also got the hierophant who uses divine and arcane magic and is usually a priest of the god of magic. Druids and rangers basically fall into that spectrum but on the nature side of things. Archers, fighters, and knights are separated out with their specialities and rogues are fighter thieves. I used a class building system similar to the one in the second edition DM's guide but built the classes to the same experience point per level total. The original Dark Passages built the classes to their first editon level costs. The problem is that some classes are just not as good at first level as others. Rogues, for example get everything at second level. Really, while I think it's pretty good, I'd like it to be cleaner and simpler. Fighters don't really need a damage bonus that levels up if they can break their attack bonus into multiple attacks for example.
 
If I needed it quick, and since my group plays a lot of PbtA, I would grab Dungeon World first. However, if I had more time to put into it, I would give Mythras a go.
 
FaerieGodfather said:
I've been threatening for years that I was going to make a BECMI plus Player's Option clone. As an intermediate step, and my submission for this thread, I'm going to try converting the parts of Player's Option I want to run to Rules Cyclopedia D&D and running that.
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I find your ideas intriguing and will check out your Kickstarter when it launches. :smile:
 
OSE or White Box: Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game

DCC looks like a lot of fun but the table-intensiveness during play looks kind of daunting. I'd have to take a more thorough look at it to know for sure.

I also really like Fantastic Heroes & Witchery but I feel I'd use that for when I want to steer away from the D&D-style just a bit.
 
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Fantasy Craft. It was absolutely brilliant. That's not to say it was perfect - HP and saves should have had an i-x progression curve like every other level-adjusted variable, for example. But it made me almost excited to build a character again.

And the way it handles niches, where you're really good at your "thing," and not nearly as good, but still functionally competent at some other things. You're still going to want the specialist to take point when possible, but if for some reason in-game it's not possible you're (usually) not automatically hosed. I just really liked that.

And while I don't ever anticipate using it, I think it's kind of neat that they were able to include a dragon PC type that doesn't destroy their 3.x-derived sense of balance.

Also, flight was available for some subraces and included in a racial feat. And nobody freaked out about flight being way too powerful to allow PCs pretty easy access to. That's refreshing.
 
Armchair Gamer said:
I find your ideas intriguing and will check out your Kickstarter when it launches. :smile:
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Don't know how serious you are, but will be something of a proof-of-concept for my retrowhatever house system-- starting with Shroompunk, and hopefully including Galactic Dragons and the currently untitled "generic D&D" version.
 
TheophilusCarter said:
The biggest problem for me running D&D these days is that I'm often limited to just a couple of players, and D&D seems to assume 4+ players of various classes. As such, I'm caught between running D&D and trying to make it work with just two PCs, or looking for a whole different system while capturing the feel of old D&D adventures.
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I'd see that as a feature, myself...:thumbsup:
 
TJS said:
13th age.
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So to expand a bit. How I see it.

- Easy to hack (much much easier to hack than 5E).
- easy to make the character you want with the background system
- the way defences are calculated doesn't make choice of ability scores so restrictive
-Class talents are easily swapped in and out to enable character concepts
- base resolution is gloriously simple
- Effectively starts at level 3 so skips the boring low levels with boring monsters and gets straight to the good stuff.
- Monster design. Extremely simple and easy to hack on the fly - but interesting and not just bags of hit points.
- the most transparent maths of any D&D type game ever. It's right there in the core book - you can make a monster on the fly from a table on the GM's screen.
- Incremental advances mean 10 levels but you can still spend a long time at the lower levels.
- D20's basic combat engine has been streamined and simplified and strict measuring of distancing and grids taken out - despite being simple movement rules allow for basic common sense actions like moving outside your turn to block the orc that's trying to rush as the wizard.
- The whole system is designed to enable easy improvisation and rulings on the spot. Recoveries make a useful all purpose currency to cover actions PCs attempt to undertake that you want to allow but limit.

My biggest issue with the system is that it doesn't really do a lot to emulate a specific world and create immersion in it - but does any version of D&D do that? To do that I'd have to take D&D apart and come up with my own specific setting oriented take on it.
 
FaerieGodfather said:
Don't know how serious you are, but will be something of a proof-of-concept for my retrowhatever house system-- starting with Shroompunk, and hopefully including Galactic Dragons and the currently untitled "generic D&D" version.
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Serious enough that I will take a look at it at least--I always thought the PO books had good concepts that suffered from mixed implementation.
 
TJS said:
My biggest issue with the system is that it doesn't really do a lot to emulate a specific world and create immersion in it - but does any version of D&D do that?
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2nd Edition made some effort. It wasn't the best at it, sure, but tried harder than any other edition
 
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Savage Worlds. I can do anything ever presented by D&D with as much detail or as little detail as I like without missing a beat, but do it faster, and easier.

If I were going to play *actual* D&D - 2e. If I got a wild hair up my butt, I'd go for Fantasy Craft.

If I were feeling really ballsy, I'd try to rock some Mythras.
 
Ossian said:
When you want to play a D&D-style game, what is your go-to game and why? Do you have more than one go-to D&D game?
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I am using D&D-style to mean "dungeon" crawling - exploring zero to hero fantasy.

For me that will always be Earthdawn.(1e or 2e or classic with a sprinkle of 3e stuff)
Earthdawn does D&D-style better than D&D does.
 
If we are talking about D&D-style rpgs (and not just fantasy rpgs), then this is my pick:

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Others (non D20):
* BRP Classic Fantasy (BGB/Mythras)
* BRP OpenQuest (using the 'Specialists' builds to portray archetypes)
* Fate Core (using Classic Fantasy supplements: Asperita Arcana and Collectanea Creaturae)
* Advanced Fighting Fantasy

I like the core mechanics of D&D 5E, but prefer the classic vibe of D&D B/X...
Low Fantasy Gaming is probably my favourite out of ths list for classic fantasy D&D style done right. Just ticks the boxes I want for D&D.
A fun close second would be Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells

 
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FaerieGodfather said:
Couple of months ago, I would have said Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition with the Player's Option rules-- accept no substitutions-- but after having run exactly that game for a couple of weeks I am starting to remember how goddamned sick I was of a lot of the AD&D cruft when I switched to Third Edition twenty years ago.

I've been threatening for years that I was going to make a BECMI plus Player's Option clone. As an intermediate step, and my submission for this thread, I'm going to try converting the parts of Player's Option I want to run to Rules Cyclopedia D&D and running that.

Other than that, yeah... Rules Cyclopedia, Flying Swordsmen, Dark Dungeons. The more I realize I prefer Classic D&D to Advanced, the more I'm looking at different retroclones to see which ones have useful parts for playing D&D the way I grew up with.
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I'm doing my own weird blend of those games with a few elements stolen from here and there. However, I'll note its more 2E AD&D frame, with weapons mastery, skills, levels as a modifier, and some weird bits stolen from here and there. No multiclassing as was written, but kits are broken into backgrounds and special foci (Dragonslayer, Wardancer, and race-specific kit like elements will provide something similar but more limited.) Wardancer (Bladesinge) will provide fewer spells, no Arcane lore like a wizard (below) gets, and the like.

Magic will not be "D&D's" take on Vancian magic that's one thing I've disliked. Though it may have elements of that. I think I'm going with free spells per day, and then you start making something akin to spell saves based on character vs spell level. A failure results in something-not sure if its fatigue, loss of spells for a short time, or what. However, a higher level wizard can cast more low-level spells with rolls than D&D allows. Though the wizard class will get an overhaul--getting Arcane lore similar to Bardic Lore but focused on magical things specifically--like magic born creatures (golems, owlbears, and similar), objects, and constructions where magic was used. Also, an innate cantrip ability (which can do at most 1 to x damage, nowhere near a good weapon), move small objects, make sounds/minor small effect that doesn't do much more than conjures light any bright than a candle--basically like Thaumaturgy in 5E.

A lot of the rules will be D&D as we played it other than specific noted things above, rather than the direction a lot of OSR games have gone.
 
I'm playing in a 5e game, and have also played AD&D 1e, 2e and 3e, but never played any version of OD&D. I have DM'd Runequest II, Rolemaster, MERP, Tunnels and Trolls and a load of non-fantasy stuff, but I don't think I've ever DM'd any version of D&D. I'd happily play in a game of some OSR system if it was going but I doubt I would go out of my way to procure one to DM a campaign.
 
tenbones said:
Savage Worlds. I can do anything ever presented by D&D with as much detail or as little detail as I like without missing a beat, but do it faster, and easier.
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My first Savage Worlds campaign was mid-campaign conversion of a D&D 3.5 game I was running, and it worked very well.

I'm sure you have heard me say this before tenbones tenbones, but for the benefit of the thread, there are a few things to keep in mind. With magic items, you don't want to go down the road of increasing bonuses over a campaign. Keep bonuses from items in the +1 to +2 range. Instead have items with cool, unique powers (and/or drawbacks, of course), and one-use items like potions and scrolls are always good.

In D&D, you typically get into fights with a similar number of combatants but with everyone having more HP. Given the smaller power scale of SW, it's not a great idea to keep piling bigger and bigger Toughness scores onto monsters indefinitely. With SW, it's better to scale up fights by making having more combatants, not just the number of monsters, but also give the PCs opportunities to have Extras on their side for big fights. These can be hirelings, but they can also be allies the players have made over the course of a campaign. Extras also make great "treasure". If a PC performs a quest for the local duke, he might knight the PC and give him some men-at-arms to serve him. Too many NPCs in a party can be a burden to manage in D&D, but its largely painless in SW, even if all the PCs have some followers of their own.
 
By the way, I picked up Into the Unknown yesterday based on Voros Voros mentioning it. It's an attempt to fuse the best of 5E and B/X. I've only skimmed it so far, but it looks pretty good. I might need to give it a spin soon.
 
Baulderstone said:
My first Savage Worlds campaign was mid-campaign conversion of a D&D 3.5 game I was running, and it worked very well.

I'm sure you have heard me say this before tenbones tenbones, but for the benefit of the thread, there are a few things to keep in mind. With magic items, you don't want to go down the road of increasing bonuses over a campaign. Keep bonuses from items in the +1 to +2 range. Instead have items with cool, unique powers (and/or drawbacks, of course), and one-use items like potions and scrolls are always good.

In D&D, you typically get into fights with a similar number of combatants but with everyone having more HP. Given the smaller power scale of SW, it's not a great idea to keep piling bigger and bigger Toughness scores onto monsters indefinitely. With SW, it's better to scale up fights by making having more combatants, not just the number of monsters, but also give the PCs opportunities to have Extras on their side for big fights. These can be hirelings, but they can also be allies the players have made over the course of a campaign. Extras also make great "treasure". If a PC performs a quest for the local duke, he might knight the PC and give him some men-at-arms to serve him. Too many NPCs in a party can be a burden to manage in D&D, but its largely painless in SW, even if all the PCs have some followers of their own.
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One of the great failings in modern D&D design (at least overtly since 3e) was this idea of "itemization as balance". Most GM's that came up in the Good Ol' Days had to learn this organically. The startling thing to consider with 40-years of experience behind me... is how the developmental process of GMing itself informed the very evolution of the game in very subtle ways.

In other threads there has been discussion of the loss of "medieval" feel of D&D, which partially is due to the conceits that the game was relatively "lowe magic" from it's war-game roots. Magic Item loot spurred the phenomenon of new GM's resorting to rewarding players with heaps of treasure which of course sets them up for more problems down the line in terms of the campaign. I mean... think of how many discussions about Monty Haul campaigns filled early Dragon articles and Letters to the Editor back in the 80's? The fact is, the very conceit of Magic Items were made largely without context and we as GM's had to figure it out for what worked at our table. Personal GM proclivities really informed this - what other media we consumed, the experiences we had both good and bad which would be the foundry that defined our own style at our respective table. D&D evolved with the assumption of items in-game largely free of context to whatever the mechanics of the game were trying to establish as a baseline.

By the time we get to 3e the decision to actually balance that baseline *assumed* magic-items were part of normal class progression.

The longer I've gone onward and upward in this little hobby of ours, I see the cycle repeat itself, in D&D specifically, but designers seem to be more interested in trying to fix this particular problem in the most *bizarre* ways - stretching out the leveling curve, balancing it against other assumed class abilities, etc. which goes against any attempt at foundational conceits of what is "baseline" i.e. normal.

SW skirts this by focusing more on this baseline assumptions of the rules *modified* by the setting itself and sticks to it. Magic items in SW exist, but it doesn't try to deviate too far from established rules for "powers" and advocated explicitly against certain bonuses that might affect the power-curve (like avoid giving bonuses to-hit over damage). D&D has slowly come around to this... but it's too late. Simply because as a class-based system it's turned its respective classes into their own mini-subsystems that are oddly exceptions to normal task resolution... or operate as parallel systems that replace normal task resolution.

When SW does this, it is *always* as a Setting option - not a global system options. This keeps the assumptions of the system baselined and allows developers to go as far as possible within their setting to push the envelope - all while still maintaining the same DNA. This is precisely how you can scale the Savage Worlds system to insanely wide genres and powerlevels without fundamentally changing how all these things operate *together*.

I could *never* take a D&D 5e game and mix supers and fantasy, and sci-fi all at the same time without missing a beat. Much less scale it from gritty-concepts to god-mode stuff simultaneously.

Mutants and Masterminds is a great example of d20 that is counter to all of this - because it focuses the conceits of the system internally, while allowing the GM to express the gameplay externally as needed.
 
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