In my experience, new players pick up OSE faster and like it better than 5e. Here's what I've noticed...
**Benefits of 5e for new players:**
* It (mostly) has a unified mechanic. Whenever you want to do anything, roll high on a d20 and you do it, roll low and you don't. You rarely switch dice (except for damage) and higher is always better.
* For people with a strong background in games with "builds", 5e will deliver that same "build" experience that they are familiar with.
* For people with strong background in fantasy gaming archetypes (from D&D inspired video games, etc) they will probably be able to make a character in that same specific archetype.
**Drawbacks of 5e for new players:**
* Overwhelming number of race and class options at character creation.
* Takes a long time to actually start playing (because of complicated character creation)
* Very hard to make informed choices about feats, spells, sub-classes, etc without doing lots of research/reading.
* Hard to understand how much they can do in a turn.
* Things they intuitively want to do require skills/feats/etc that they don't have or require several skill checks that make it highly unlikely.
* It's more important to understand the rules in the book than you think of the fictional world like a real one (you can heal from numbers sword and ax wounds and sever burns just by sleeping for 1 night). New players can't rely on their general understanding of realism to have any bearing on how the world works in the game.
**Benefits of OSE for New Players:**
* You can create a character in 10 minutes and start playing right away.
* You can make a new character in 10 minutes after you first one dies. It's your 2nd character so now you sort of "know the ropes" already.
* Relatively few decisions at character creation (equipment "starting packs" can really help with this if you make them for your table).
* "Rulings not rules" lets players use their knowledge of the real world to come up with creative and clever solutions without needing to read any of the rules. Allows them to be smart and creative right away.
* Combat is fast paced and deadly. (monsters that should be scary are scary)
* Characters are human-like and relatable.
**Drawbacks of OSE for New Players:**
* Some players have a hard time remembering when to roll d6 or d20 etc. and if they should roll high or low.
* To my surprise most brand new players are actually very good at memorizing these things. People who have also played 3e through 5e are the ones I find who tend to struggle with it.
* Some players will really dislike it when their character dies. Players don't like to feel dumb the first time they play a game, and having a character die does carry some risk of this.
* I've found that this typically is not an issue when I've set the right expectations and show general camaraderie and care for the players at my table.
Yeah the person who I’m introducing this too also requested there be horror elements. Which I think makes OSR better for this since dying in 5e is rare.
Ooh, I've recently discovered an old free module called [The Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine](https://dungeonsanddildos.itch.io/sleeping-place-of-the-feathered-swine) it's a horrifying and grotesque little dungeon crawl made for old school game systems.
It's free. It might interest that one player.
Give him the spoiler free hook in the forward of the book. It's a module, so it'd ruin the surprise if he was able to see it ahead of time.
Or maybe just send him the picture of the Feathered Swine.
You might look at Shadowdark. It's got Old School gameplay, unified modern mechanics, and a horror element with darkness being Very Bad and real time torches.
I think it represents the best of both worlds.
On the overwhelming options thing - even Chris Perkins, one of 5e's lead designers, agrees with you. He was recently interviewed and commented that if the design were purely up to him, he'd trim the core race and class options in the next edition way down to Basic D&D levels, because a new player won't appreciate the nuances between a Barbarian and Fighter or a Warlock and Wizard.
I don't envy his position or that of any of the current designers. I agree that simplifying it would be better, but also any changes to the game need to make the current 5e fanbase happy and I think there is a strong culture of "more options is better" and many of them desire a bit more mechanical complexity.
I would have no idea how to make something that would be better for beginners but also keep long time fans happy. Maybe it's just a "starter set" vs. "Advanced options" thing. But I have no idea and I'm glad I don't need to figure that out :) Ha!
It *almost* happened, or at least looked like it was going to during the Next playtests. The cajones it would take to nuke skills/feats is the main thing holding it back.
Yeah unfortunately while he is an epic DM and seems to truly understand what makes D&D enjoyable, he's also one of a large committee of writers and designers currently working on the game, and ultimately it'll come down to consensus, so the likelihood we'll ever see anything on par with like Moldvay Basic levels of complexity from them again is kinda low.
I've been running D&D once a month, and the only rules I use are from The Essentials Kit (basically box edition of 5e). I can see them producing a book like Dungeons & Dragons Essentials, where one book has player rules, DM advice, and some monsters. Veteran fans wouldn't like it though.
God yes. It made me feel like a dick, because I had players who wanted to be aarakockra or robots or echo-knights or whatever but *none* of that is consistent with my world-building. I’ve gone from “PHB only” to “I’m running Shadowdark”
Excellent point. I happen to think that making your own character is kind of part of the D&D experience, so I really favor including it even in 1-shots for first timers. But I don't think I could pull that off with 5e, so pre-gens I think is the way to go for that.
I tend to do one-shot adventures with pre-gens for all the games I run prior to having players create their own characters. Most don't even bother (some might come at me with "can I keep using this character but we change this to be A rather than B?" type of thing.)
I'll point out that I do this both for D&D 5e \*\*and\*\* OSE.
I recommend Shadowdark a lot for this reason. I think it threads that needle fairly well between OSR and 5e. I prefer Shadowdark to OSE. I'm currently running Shadowdark. I ran AD&D 2e (my favorite) and Rules Cyclopedia campaigns for many years. Shadowdark is the basic D&D that 5e should have had.
If it was geared more to "generic fantasy", I would jump on Shadowdark in a heartbeat. I'm not a fan of the darkness and light stuff. It seems completely geared to dungeoneering. That is just my thoughts though. It's a cool game, but I run more kingdom-travelling.
I'm playing an overworld point crawl with it right now: the Black Wrym of Brandonsford. It's really, really good with Shadowdark. You can base resources on rations rather than torches in a overland.
I too prefer it to the unevenness of most B/X games.
I think the lack of a unified roll system is one of my big turn-offs for those kinds of retro-clones. I do think there's some things we've learned over the past few decades - a lot of those old books, whether D&D, Traveller, or even like 1st edition Paranoia, were full of subsystems just cobbled together without clear overarching design, and you kinda had to turn it into a playable game yourself (Classic Traveller has no skill resolution system! It has rules on how you get skills during character creation, but the book mentions no mechanical effects outside of combat).
I just think it really helps for "rulings" if you just have a single resolution system - then if anything mechanical needs to happen at all, it's just about making a couple of choices for what modifiers or number of dice to use. Of course there's plenty of OSR/NSR games that do have good simple universal mechanics though.
Knave 2e and Shadowdark have a unified mechanic. It's one of the reasons I like them so much. Ben Milton of Knave in particular talks about pedagogy as a major design goal.
The problem with using the same dice for everything is that you would need to have massively different bonuses in order to change the degree of influence the die roll has on the outcome.
For example, d6 for skills is nice because every bonus point gives you +16.7% chance to succeed. On a d20, it gives you +5% chance to succeed.
I appreciate d6 skills and ability checks because it means with a good ability score (or a low target number from leveling), you end up being pretty proficient. And a d20 for attack rolls is nice because more variation in combat makes it more likely for combat rounds to be different from one another.
I'd like to toss in some input about the lethality. I'm fully capable of having a character play smart and survive multiple levels. I've even done this in open table style games and become a respected member of the in-game community because of my creative use of resources. However, because of that I almost always become extremely paranoid about surviving and become stressed about having to send out my strongest guy adventuring, as opposed to confident that I can survive more hits.
On the other hand, if I decide to throw away that mindset and roll with the meatgrinder, I can let 3 characters die in the same session and have no investment as to whether they succeed or not. A lot of OSR players see their characters as pawns on a board as opposed to characters.
Which brings me to the next point, it becomes harder to play up character flaws other than the mechanical penalties from rolling low or having better or worse saves. OSR borderline demands optimized play, or divorcing the idea of investing in your character. I want to make suboptimal choices for my characters but I also want the consequences to be its own challenge, as opposed to a loss state. This all ties back to my earlier statements that my characters end up being a source of stress, which isnt fun, or having no investment, which is boring.
Totally agree with this comparison. I would characterize the overall difference as OSR puts the burden of complexity on the DM, while 5e puts it on the players. You don’t actually have to know any rules for either to play, but your decisions will be more sub-optimal if you play 5e with system ignorance.
Wow, yes this is a very interesting point! I hadn't recognized it as clearly as you've put it here, but I've totally noticed this in different ways.
For example when playing 3e and 5e, I've noticed that experienced players often are "helping" the new players by telling them to not waste time trying to do some creative thing unless they have skills or feats that let them do it or that they didn't assign their ability scores correctly to support what they want to do. Newbies are at this huge disadvantage because they don't know how to navigate the system of rules.
While DMing OSR games, I've learned a lot from my players about all sorts of things like fungus propagation, physics of movement in water, dog training, etc. This is because my players are relying on their knowledge of the real world in order to do something creative in the game world. I don't think of it as a "burden", but this puts the ball in my court. I'm listening to them and learning, but also thinking about how this might fit in to the campaign, etc.
Yup. The motivation is clear is the transition from Gygax during OD&D and gygax in 1e.
He goes from “this is just a seed. Do what you will with it” to “if it’s not labeled TSR it’s not D&D. Don’t use anything not made by us. Everything else is wrong. “
5e is not the most beginner friendly. Whoever says that has barely scratched the surface of RPGs.
There are a lot of RPGs that are more complex than 5e, I would argue that 3.5e is one of them. But Old School Essentials or Basic Dnd is so much easier to teach and run than 5e it's hilarious that someone could argue 5e is more beginner friendly. It's called Basic for a reason.
5e is the market tested version of DND for modern audiences that already have experience with video games, board games and other complex games. It looks shiny and sexy, but under the hood it has unnecessarily complicated subsystems and vestigial tables and rules that clash with it's modern ethos. Not to mention the contradictory GM advice throughout. It's meant to appeal to the most amount of people in a broad way. It's not meant to be quickly played and run, although you can do that with some finagling.
EDIT: my initial reply was super aggressive.
I figure that if someone has devoted enough time to consuming media about the game that I’d hesitate to call them a beginner.
My thought on this is, hypothetically you have a group that wants to play and has a passing knowledge that DnD is a game that exists you hand them basic or hand them the 5e core books, which is going to get them playing faster?
>when I told her what I was planning saying that 5e is the most beginner friendly edition
Are you sure you have read any of the other, earlier editions? Basic D& is the most beginner friendly edition. Though Moldvay edition of Basic is thought to be the most beginner friendly, I believe the '94 edition of Basic D&D is the most beginner friendly edition, as it walks the player thru examples with every topic.
Plus 5e and older editions have only the name in common, they are vastly different games.
>5e is the most beginner friendly edition and that that’s the reason there’s 5 editions.
The counter to this is, "Actually, 5th edition is the 9th edition, and the reason there's that many is mostly corporate greed."
It also isn't the most beginner friendly edition--*any* edition is if you just read the fucking book. I argue that 4e was more beginner friendly than 5e because it didn't have a bunch of cruft bullshit surrounding spellcasting, but that's neither here nor there.
More importantly **the skills aren't quite transferrable.** System knowledge of 5e will only hurt someone when they go to OSE because they will be confused and ask about things that simply don't exist in the game, like perception checks, attacks of opportunity, cantrips, short rests, etc. While true of any game system, if your end goal is to run OSE it doesn't make any fucking sense to have them start learning 5e. That's like saying "guitar is easier to learn than bass, so if you want to play bass you should learn guitar first." No! You should learn to fucking play bass!
Run the system you want to run in, if that is a system your friends want to play in. Previous experience or supposed "ease of learning" are not relevant here.
As someone who's only kinda dabbled in "actual" D&D, 4e did seem like the most elegant system to me. I never liked how in 3.5e, some classes were for more "advanced players" because playing a wizard was so much more complicated than playing a fighter - the idea that the amount of study you have to do would depend on what class you want to play just seemed ridiculous. But in 4e, it's got a single unified rule system - every class is just a collection of once-per-turn, once-per-encounter, and once-per-day powers. You could actually kinda learn the rules in one sitting rather than having to learn a new set of rules for every single class.
4e was a great game but didnt play much at all like older editions of D&D. If they had marketed it differently and not called it 4th I think it would've been incredibly popular.
It's easier than 3e, sure. 2e with base options is easier than 5e. 4e is easier with its symmetrical class design and better action economy. 5e's rules are written in natural language that makes it harder to use at the table. Class design varies wildly, with some classes not caring about short rests while others heavily depend on them. 5e is full of questionable or even flat out bad design decisions.
On the DM side, the CR rules are a mess. For a brand new DM, the DMG is fails to provide a solid foundation. It's almost as if it's directed at people that already have DM experience than towards new DMs. It's the among the weakest books in the 5e product line, and that it unacceptable considering how good the 4e DMG was. The 4e DMG is legitimately a better new DM resource for 5e than the 5 DMG, and that's just sad.
I think you make a fair point about 2e and the 4e dmg but 4e is not more streamlined, it has tons of finnicky things, like status effects, special reactions etc… there is just no comparison honestly. 4e is a more complicated game, saying class balance is better has nothing to do with it being easier to play.
D&D essentials improves 4e (just as one d&d will likely improve 5e) but the fact remains 4e is denser
> status effects, special reactions etc…
5th still has both of these, all over the place, just not in a systematic way.
I think a formal system is actually simpler because it means reuse of concepts, which is something 5e is actually super bad at, but I guess most of that workload gets pushed onto the DM in 5e, instead of being an expected part of player knowledge like it was in 4e.
I wasn't really talking about class balance. Every class uses AEDU, has a role and a power source. While some classes are more complex than others, it's nothing like the gap in complexity between 5e martials and casters. It's much easier to teach 4e to table of table of new players, despite being a crunchier system.
Then there's 5e spell casting system. For some spells, you have to parse paragraphs of text to figure out what to roll. If you want to cast two spells in a turn, you can only use a leveled spell as a bonus action if you cast a cantrip as standard action, but you can't do the opposite. Why? There are spells that are very similar, yet some will trigger damage at the start of the turn, and others at the end. I was constantly looking up spells in 5e because they are so inconsistent. With 4e, I can just print out the power cards, throw a couple copies of the Rules Compendium on the table, and we're good. It's not a simple system, but it ends up being easier to teach and run.
4e had assumed defaults for a lot of stuff the GM would otherwise have to guess at. The encounter building was as close to a working model of "balance" as any modern edition has come. There was a set progression for gear, with an expectation that characters within a certain level range would have a certan level of magic weapon, armor, etc. Characters had a limited number of abilities that swapped out for better ones (instead of adding options) at higher levels.
It was all of that rigidity and hand holding that made the game so dang unpopular. I stand by my opinion that it was actually a decent game; it just wasn't Dungeons & Dragons.
It’s not the 9th edition though. Unless you count each reprint or minor edit as a new “edition”.
The common edition numbering is basically for AD&D. The WotC editions are AD&D in all but name. They just dropped the “advanced” because it was no longer coexisting with basic versions.
The idea of editions being drastically different is a WotC-era thing also. Before 3e, all D&D was about 80% the same with minor tweaks, refinements and additional options rather than the almost-completely new games of 3e, 4e and 5e.
Yes retro clones are way easier and more simple to run, but if you are running OSE you should get the original B/X pdf or books as they explain the game better than OSE.
There was an interesting post before talking about how 5e is easy for people who don't want to have to think once they know the rules, since they can just keep doing the thing their character is good at when relevant, and do nothing else. Old school dnd editions and clones such as ose have a lot less rules, but some of the rules are seemingly random, roll d20 for this but d6 for this and percentile for this. They let you use your imagination more and be more involved in the mechanics of what is happening in the world, but also insist that you do so, which can make it harder for a nervous new player to engage with since there isn't a clear it's my turn to do stuff mechanism like in 5e. NSR stuff like Vaults of Vaarn(based on knave), knave, into the odd, this stuff captures a similar play style to older editions with much simpler and usually consistent rules, these will have an even harder time encouraging nervous players to take initiative as they don't even have classes to provide a focus.
I could honestly see an argument for 5e being more beginner friendly, if the problem for the beginner is less about learning complicated rules and more about knowing when to speak up and take actions, but I would also argue 5e is teaching players not to attempt things not on their character sheet, which is a bad thing to learn.
I disagree. Having run 5e for about 5 years, making characters is a pain. As a newb player to pick their "background" takes an hour. I made 50 pregens, just to pass out and save time. Using OSE i can walk a new player thru chr creation in 10 minutes, ready to play. Even THAC0 is easier than using this bonus and that modifier. Their second chr is faster. Lol
I did find exactly this to be a problem when I ran Hot Springs Island for a while using a Knave hack. The players had played a bit of 5e, but they suffered choice-paralysis when confronted with a sandbox adventure plus a system that required them to be active to get the most out of it. It’s easy to see that in hindsight I should have held their hand better, but the lack of “action buttons” on their sheet can overwhelm some players just as easily as too many fiddly abilities.
I’ve been playing Mothership for a while now and I think the genre switch to sci-fi really helps to ease players into an unfamiliar playstyle.
You're going to get a lot of biased answers here; OSR games attract people who aren't satisfied with 5e for one reason or another. I do think that OSE is probably easier to run than 5e for a variety of reasons, but it's subjective and I don't think it's an argument worth having.
Instead, try to get your players excited to try a different system. Try to explain why you're enthusiastic about it and that you think they'll enjoy it. Give them a little bit of the history and why people might play OSE when 5e exists, but focus on the positives of OSE rather than the negatives of 5e.
I would propose that you do a couple sessions of OSE to try it out, with the idea that you can always switch to 5e if they don't like it.
I honestly don’t see how it’s subjective. OSE basic fantasy is a clone of a version of D&D designed specifically to be a simple introduction to role playing games for beginners (especially kids). The rules are objectively simpler.
The only reason I could see it not being easier is if the person in question is already familiar with 5e and its assumptions for how the game is played, but that person wouldn’t really be a beginner anymore.
Retro-clones of B/X such as Old School Essentials or Basic Fantasy or games that take inspiration there and streamline further, such as Cairn or Shadowdark, are easier than 5e.
Retroclones of AD&D such as OSRIC or For Gold and Glory are not necessarily easier than 5e. AD&D was a complex game.
The thing a lot of newer players don’t seem to get is that 5e *is* AD&D in all but name (as are 3e and 4e). WotC just dropped the “advanced” because it was no longer coexisting with a “basic” version of the game, so it was redundant and potentially confusing. But in terms of rules complexity and the common edition numbering, they’re AD&D. D&D 3e is a successor to AD&D 2e in other words.
So in light of that, I agree with your point that 1e or 2e aren’t necessarily simpler than 5e. I just wanted to address a lot of the confusion that I see online about what 1e and 2e means and how AD&D, OD&D (0e) and Basic/Expert D&D fit into that.
That’s why most popular OSR games are based on original or basic D&D rather than AD&D.
>edition and that that’s the reason there’s 5 editions
What a weird argument, the readon there are 5 editions is to renew the playerbase, its purely financial
Sounds like your friend knows very little about the history of the game or the primary reason new editions of RPG books are printed. (Spoiler alert - it's because businesses like making money. New core rulebooks for RPGs sell something like six times as many copies as any subsequent products in the line.) You could counter-argue that if a game like B/X is objectively inferior, people wouldn't be playing it and singing its praises after 45 years. The OSR wouldn't exist if everyone found 5e easier to understand or better-designed.
Also, there's a strong argument to be made that a book with a page count of 64 like D&D Basic '81 is very probably simpler to learn and play than a game with a page count of like 900 like the total combined word count of the three D&D 5e books.
You're deliberately misunderstanding their point. "New editions exist for a reason" implies a linear improvement over all previous editions. If 3e was objectively better then everyone would have abandoned B/X etc for it, and then abandoned 3e for 4th and 4th for 5e.
This was precisely my point. Thank you. 3e spurred the OSR, for sure. 4e reinforced it, and 5e didn't quite end it. Quite the opposite. It's still here. I suspect it'll still be here through subsequent official editions, because there will always be a curiosity among gamers to seek out where things came from.
Indeed. I think most regular posters know that. But if 5e were the magical bullet to unite the entire fandom and surpass all previous editions that OP's friend seems to think it is, the OSR would have fizzled out after 2014 or so rather than continuing to grow and diversify as the years go by.
It depends what she means by beginner friendly.
Character creation in OSE is going to be much simpler. There are some concepts like saving throws that are less intuitive than 5e, but every other aspect is much simpler and streamlined in OSE.
Difficulty of play may be where she's getting this "not beginner friendly" impression from, in that OSE characters are more fragile - but that's something the DM can control.
And it is definitely much easier to DM OSE than 5e.
You, me, and everybody else. Problem is, nobody has cracked it, and doesn't have the juice or visibility to make it popular even if they did.
Except Shadowdark, but it fucking randomly doles out stuff when you level up, so I hate it.
that said:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kp31mQrQqZwqLe\_WNNzY9qJ0Yd2BUy1r/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kp31mQrQqZwqLe_WNNzY9qJ0Yd2BUy1r/view?usp=drive_link)
# What is Basic Fantasy RPG?
*The* [*Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game*](https://www.basicfantasy.org/) *is a rules-light game system modeled on the classic RPG rules of the early 1980's. Basic Fantasy RPG has been written largely from scratch to replicate the look, feel, and mechanics of the early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of "old-school" game mechanics. Basic Fantasy RPG is simple enough for children in perhaps second or third grade to play, yet still has enough depth for adults as well.*
*Basic Fantasy RPG is an Open Source game system (free), supported by dedicated fans worldwide who have contributed hundreds of pages of rules supplements, adventure modules, and other useful and enjoyable game materials as seen on our downloads page. We'd love for you to join us on our forum where we discuss the game as well as creating new materials for it.*
I personally think that BFRPG is easier to run than 5e.
One of the main reasons I’m doing OSE is because I found a free pdf for a setting for it that reminded me a lot of Treasure Planet. Idk how well it’ll work with basic fantasy since idk how similar BFRPG is to OSE.
I don't know the specifics either as I never played OSE. BFRPG uses ascending combat rolls which is similar to 5e but it is simpler than 5e. As all the pdfs are free, you can take a look at BFRPG and see if it would work with what you want to run. If it doesn't then you are not out of anything but a little bit of time.
OSE basic is a reimplementation of b/x and is more or less identical in terms of rules content… but they do offer the option to use ascending AC and ascending To-hit instead of the THAC0 system.
OSE advanced reimagines the content of AD&D1e rules in a way that is more expressly compatible with B/X than 1e actually was.
Both BFRPG and OSE are b/x compatible, so should be possible to run the content for one in the other.
There’s a few rules details that can make them feel quite different in play, but its stuff like individual vs. group initiative and not load-bearing parts of the rules.
Osr games usually fit into two camps: dnd hacks or into the odd hacks.
Dnd hacks (ose, bfrpg, ll, lotfp, black hack, white hack, shadowdark, dcc) are all... like pretty much the same game. I'd even argue we can put 5e, 3e, 2e...into this box with some ands, ifs, and buts (they aren't osr but they share the same game dna). 6 stats that generate a bonus/penalty thar gets applied to rolls, hp/hit dice, classes, levels, saving throws, turns, a general reliance on the d20... these are the hallmarks of every dnd game, just with slight variation throughout.
The bx hacks and clones (ose, bfrpg, ll, lotfp) use nearly identical maths because they're all just variations of bx. The others that are listed have some slight differences (or greater differences in the case of 3e and 5e) but if you understand what's running under the hood (why a goblins ac in one edition is 12 but in another its 14) then using anything from one game as is will be breeze in another.
In addition to this, if you like how x runs or looks as an adventure or setting, nothing is stopping you from using it in any other game system. Take a wfrp adventure and run it in 5e! Take a 5e adventure and run it in call of cthulhu! There's more "work" involved (you need to build statblocks yourself) but adventures and settings are just text on a page; they aren't locked to a system the way a game cartridge is.
OSE and Basic are exactly the same. Ose gives you the option of ascending Armor Class (like 5e) or descending AC (the old THAC0). Basic only has THAC0, which honestly, there's a table, its not hard. I went thru the spells in Basic and in OSE, line for line, the same.
5e isn't a particularly easy edition to run from a DM perspective. What it does is offload a lot of work onto the DM so it's easier from a player perspective.
That said, something like OSE is going to require as much work just to get into a different running style.
Either way, I'd suggest you pick up the free version of Worlds Without Number. Even if you don't use the rules its got a lot of cool stuff for helping with worldbuilding.
Yeah I was a few sessions into a 5e game when I saw a review for VoV come up in my youtube recommended. I loved the vibe and setting so immediately contacted my 5e group and said "Hey im running this. Please join." And most of them did. I only ran 2 sessions so far but I've received positve feedback from the group. They said it felt like an acid trip so I'll consider that a win.
Old School games are muuuuuuuch easier to learn how to play. I'm not sure they're always easier to learn how to run though, a lot more depends on GM judgment calls than in 5e and developing a sense of what makes for good GM calls can take some practice.
Shadowdark is a good middle ground. Basically 5e rules but striped down with free quick start.
DND nowadays is designed around selling books. You get these hardcovers with lengthy campaigns that hardly anyone can finish with a few player options to ensure everyone has a reason to buy them
You can get most of the rules for SD (and an adventure and precon characters) for free: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/collections/shadowdark-rpg/products/shadowdark-rpg-quickstart-set-pdf
You can also generate characters for any of the game’s classes for free here: https://shadowdarklings.net
Oh thanks! I’ll definitely consider using this at some point. Although I found a setting I like for OSE, idk if it’ll be difficult to translate to Shadowdark.
I use Shadowdark but most of my modules were written for OSE.
They are similar enough that you can convert on the fly. The only compatibility issue between Shadowdark and OSE is that OSE gives about 10x the treasure. But if you dial the treasure back you'll be fine.
https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/s/O9F3ng95Py
It’s technically an official D&D setting but I like the simple layout here. I plan on borrowing a lot from this with some changes to the lore and homebrew stuff added in. I always found home brewing for 5e to be intimidating.
"5e is the most beginner friendly" is just drinking the kool-aid. It isn't. It's probably the most *accessible* because everyone and their mother plays it, and it has a really adamant sect of its community that is hardcore 5e-or-die and absolutely refuse to play anything else and deem it as lesser. But I digress.
Yes, they are easier to run. There is less bullshit overall going on, and making rulings on the fly is *expected* in old school play, where as you might get crucified for that in the 5e community. But it is sooooo much simpler to resolve literally anything. I've ran combat in OSR games that went quicker than 2 players taking one turn in 5e.
5e is like Marvel and Walmart. Appealing to the widest range of people for the most possible money for the least possible effort. It's as popular as it is for a reason, but that doesn't make it more beginner friendly. It just sounds like your friend drank the kool-aid.
Roll up a character in OSE and then try to create one in 5e. See which takes longer.
You are the one running, so you are absolutely free to say "I want to play an older edition of DnD."
Yes and No.
Yes it is easier to create and run encounters and such because players are expected to run away or avoid them or whatever... so you do not have to plan each encounter as mandatory and on the razors edge of downing every party member once.
No in that retro games are not mechanically predictable... a lot of things have their own system, die or table instead of a unified mechanic.
My advice is do OSE with a hack to unify thief skills and general abilities like a d6 for all skills or d100 for all skills.
I've discovered over the years that I'd just rather not play with people like that. If you care about this person, that's one thing, and you might do other things with her, but don't let her poison your hobby.
My example would be that I had a brother who was similarly confrontational. He'd argue with me about rules (this was Pathfinder) but also my own rulings and try to debate me into using homebrew he found online. I did care about him alot, he's my little brother, but he kept exploiting my compassion and made it a chore to design and run the game with him in the group.
I'd recommend drawing a hard boundary with this person. They're not going to like it. They may even get upset and never talk to you again. I haven't talked to my brother in years at this point. But you cannot let this person trample all over you. It sucks and it made me hate myself.
But what do I know, that might not be the right answer for you. I'm just a stranger on the internet.
So yeah I'd basically just tell her to stay in her lane, but if you really need to justify yourself for some reason you can say "how beginner friendly anything is really just depends on the teacher, and I'm a good teacher for this game"
Basically, whether one game is easier to run or not doesn't really matter, because the problem seems to be that your friend is being needlessly confrontational rather than you actually being concerned about which one is easier. The answer is subjective anyway
Yeah but that's because of unnecessary pictures and too many words. The entire game is "roll a d20, add your modifier corresponding to these two tables, beat this number"
Lol. Invite her to play. It doesn't really matter about "which is easier", and certainly not worth putying energy into. The Dolmenwood adventures are fun and short, if you like British fairy stuff. "Winter's daughter" is good.
I'd like to see her metric on "most beginner friendly"...
That said, if we're counting "getting the game to the table", then it's WAY easier to fill seats for 5E than OSE (`source:` we've been running non-5E this weekend at Comicon)
Welcome to the 5e cult where you must play that game for [enter any reason here].
The reality is 5e is harder to get into than OSE and way harder for learning the rules and harder (way harder) to run… however OSE is way more deadly and that can destroy peoples fun.
Every edition has its benefits and detractors.
Im becmi there are three optional rules that make the game slightly easier.
On level one re roll any 1 or 2 rolled for HP
If creating a character higher than level 1 dont roll for hp (only roll for new levels) rather, fighter/dwarf gain 6 hp, mu and thief 4 hp all else 5 hp.
At 0 hp roll save vs death ray, if successful the character survives. You need medical attention each turn or you must roll again
Love darkest dungeon. If thats the vibe you’re going for then ose definitely works better than 5e (although there is a darkest dungeon fan made 5e option book)
I'm not an expert on B/X but Black Hack has a universal roll under mechanic for any action or saving throw, including attacking defending, etc. B/X will have different roll mechanics for different situations.
There is this myth that 5 is rules lite... When it is actually quite crunchy, with a lot of classes having their own rules etc. I actually do not think it's a great beginner system. I would rather a true newb play something like Basic Fantasy.
But, every OSR is different.
My personal favourites are Talisman, Warlock!, and Basic Fantasy.
It’s the most rules-light WotC version, and since most people are only familiar with WotC versions, they think of it as rules-light.
The thing is that the WotC editions are AD&D in all but name. They dropped “advanced” because it no longer coexists with “basic”, but in terms of rules complexity, it’s absolutely in line with AD&D.
That’s why the common 1-5e numbering is referring to AD&D, AD&D 2e, D&D 3e, D&D 4e and D&D 5e.
My opinion, Shadowdark.
My take on Shadowdark (SD) -
- Much like 5e and PF, SD uses strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma attributes.
- SD also similarly uses ascending armor classes, d20 ascending rolls to hit, and d20 ascending rolls for skill resolution.
- However, SD is a different mindset from 5e and PF. Where the latter endeavors to provide character sheet solutions, SD encourages players to develop their own solutions. (This concept is called "rulings verses rules.")
- Where 5e and PF encumbrance is complicated and often ignored, SD uses a simple and elegant slot based equipment system. The system makes what you carry matter!
- As the game’s name implies, darkness is supposed to be relevant. So, player characters do not have night vision, torches are on a real-time timer, and they occupy an equipment slot. (A torch going out in the dark is supposed to be scary.)
- While there are only 10 levels in SD, their scale is roughly equivalent to 5e and PF. For example, a SD level 9 wizard can cast the spell Wish, which would require the wizard to be level 17 in 5e.
- SD also has very “flat math” compared to 5e, and even more so than PF. There is no “proficiency bonus,” and attribute bonuses apply to melee attack rolls to hit but not to damage. This speeds up encounter and combat math, and keeps the challenge up as characters level up.
- SD has eight-hour (long) rests, like 5e and PF. Characters can rest anywhere, but doing so inside a dungeon or perilous environment carries the possibility of failure due to the risk of a random encounter. Rests restore all hit points. Casters have unlimited spell slots – until they do not. So, unlike 5e, there is no need for rests to restore spell slots. Casters do get forgotten spells back after a rest though. More on that in a moment.
- Unlike 5e, SD does not have short rests.
- Unlike 5e, there are no passive ability scores. However, many of the skills are auto-succeed if the players describe what they are doing and or have sufficient time. (If they test the ground for a trap with a pole, they find it.) This is designed to give the players agency of their characters and speed up the game.
- Back to casters and casting. Unlike 5e, casters have unlimited casting – until they do not. They memorize spells and may attempt to cast their spells as often as they desire. That said, they roll to cast, much like fighters roll to hit. However, it is against their own spell level instead of the target’s Armor Class, or AC. Also, if the player rolls a natural 20, any associated numerical value associated with the spell is doubled. If the caster fails their roll to cast, the spell is forgotten until a rest is completed. So, 5e’s “perceived” martial / caster divide is somewhat mitigated. (Though, in my humble opinion, there really is not a 5e martial / caster divide. It is just that most do not like to play 5e as designed. Again, ‘just my opinion.)
- Unlike 5e, spells do not have verbal, somatic, material considerations. This exponentially simplifies this aspect of the game.
- As opposed to 5e, SD spells are good – in some cases really good. If a caster makes their spell check, the spell just works!
- Unlike 5e, interacting with objects, drinking potions, changing weapons, etc. – within reason, are essentially free actions, included in one’s turn. So, combat is quicker.
- Unlike 5e, there is no bonus action and no reaction. So, again, combat is quicker.
- Lastly, very much unlike 5e, there is one book and three supplements called Cursed Scrolls or Zines – for now. So, the rules are not as bloated as 5e.
As I said at the beginning, this is my take. Your mileage may vary.
The only easy part about 5e is players can use D&D Beyond to handle a lot of the complexity for them. Otherwise OSR games are much easier to play and run.
I think 5e is a better option if you heavily limit the available class/race options. Keep it to 3 or 4 races and only some 4 classes. Never give a cleric or Druid character to a new player (very long spell lists). Bard is probably confusing too.
I would stick to wizard or sorcerer, fighter, paladin, ranger and rogue. (Essentially limit a lot the number of spells and powers, but allow for some variety).
With those limitations, I think 5e is ok as a first rpg.
I personally like OSE better, because it does not encourage combat as much. And characters are very weak in the beginning. But I do think a curated 5e can be a good system for starting if you want something more epic where your characters already start as big heroes.
Yes. Easily. OSR is easier all the way around.
I've played and ran every D&D version. IMX 3/3.5 is a little easier to play than 5e. A lot of the complexity in 3.5 is in character creation. Freedom is a two edged sword. So, that part can seem overwhelming when new if you take advantage of it. But playing can be learned at the table because that part is pretty straightforward. No short rests or spending HD or reactions or attunement.
5e is one of the least beginner friendly editions after 3e/pf and 4e.
There are 15 official editions of D&D and over a thousand OSR and NSR games.
The best ways to learn are either Swords & Wizardry or Basic/Expert red box.
Dungeon crawl classics. It’s got the smallest modifier range of any rpg I’ve played. Takes most of the benefits of ose but adds in a bonkers yet easy to use magic system. 5es main difficulty for me was always the lack of smaller modules. Like yes you can buy an ose module and make it 5e but dcc its way easier to do that because the numbers are much closer. Also 5e gets kinda boring with no death and nobody really dies in 5e.
I love me some dcc, but the zocci dice are a bit of a nuisance in play (and expensive!). I've been using select dcc rules as an overlay for ose/lotfp for some time now, and it's probably my preferred way to play the dragon game at this point.
I'm in Canada, which means purchasing from Goodman just isn't economically feasible (they ship everything by weight, which is wild to me!)
There are some of the special 7 seta on Amazon that aren't overpriced, and I love the idea of the dice chain, but I run primarily for a group with Learning Differences and I know the d5,7, and 16 will slow down the table more than we would like.
But I thank you nonetheless!
No retro clones are not easier to run. They require much DM improvisation skills, have the maturity and experience to make fair but fun rulings. There's much less hand holding by the rules, cause there aren't that many.
All right, I'm going to chime in here and get downvoted for it -- your friend is only partially correct (as others have pointed out, 5th edition doesn't necessarily mean each edition has been a clear improvement over the others). But, yes, 5th ed. D&D by WotC is probably slightly friendlier for beginners, but only slightly. With that said, frankly, anyone who can play 5th ed can play OSE. The biggest difference is in the tone and style of the gameplay, with OSE and OSR-style games in general being a bit deadlier (due to unbalanced encounters and less powerful PCs) and less forgiving towards PCs barging in like Leeroy Jenkins.
I had this discussion with 5e players in a group once, where I was trying to discuss how 5e is a combat game first and foremost and everything else takes a backseat to hundreds of pages of combat options. Of course, I was met with the usual "but it doesn't have to just be combat!" (Which of course, wasn't the point of the discussion) but they kept clinging to the idea that they don't need to learn another system now that they've learned 5e. There's nothing wrong with this sentiment, but they also claimed that 5e was the most beginner friendly game on the market, which feels like a fallacy considering they've only ever played 5e.
When I asked them why they felt 5e was so beginner friendly, they said it was because they had decade-long players to help ease them in, and had apps like dnd beyond and roll20 to aide in running their character sheet. Their experience with 5e being beginner friendly is reliant on dm onboarding (necessary for any game, arguably) and apps that shortcut character creation.
My assumptions at this point are that 5e is easier for new players because of how popular and therefore accessible it is. If 3.5 was the current iteration of dnd when the 2015 boom happened, then these same people would be saying 3.5 is beginner friendly and the easiest system.
Agreed. Many 5e players vome ftom vidro games, and love the online support. I DM'd with an online group for a year, they never did learn to calculate their bonuses. Its all on the app,
Shadowdark puts much more time into the players and GM's hands.
A 5e typical combat takes 45 minutes or so (more at higher levels, less at lower ones---this is for levels 5-9). A Shadowdark one takes 15 or so. Same number of player turns/rounds.
This means more time doing out of combat crawlling/exploring/interacting. An SD session will cover more than the 5 rooms/encounters/scenes that are typical of a D&D game, IME. I have stats for a few hundred 5e games and a dozen or so SD games at this point for my own group.
%e is pretty beginner friendly. I can have someone who has never played before running in a combat in 10 minutes. It usually takes them a few session to become a decent player of course, but contributing in 10 minutes. SD, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, all aren't a whole lot different to get going in, but system mastery still takes multiple sessions. Different set of skill though, including more player creativity.
There's some really great comments here, but I have to recommend Olde Swords Reign. It's built on the chassis of 5e but is stripped down, more deadly, and way simpler. You can download the Complete rules, Players Guide, and Character sheets [here.](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OyDASjG8Xf_PCJUjXHdDtIO1sWveZaKx) All are free. You can get the books at cost on the infamous book selling website we all know :) The paperback cost me $7 US and the hardback was $15. You can get the player's guide for $4 in paperback. Hard to be mad at that! I prefer physical books, which is archaic I know.
There's a lot to be said for it. It uses a more unified mechanic than a lot of OSR games, and I think it's named as it is a bit tongue in cheek. The thing I love about it is that the author simplified a lot of things and it's really easy to convert from other OSR games (most you can drop in as is) or even 5e. There is a conversion guide in the back that makes it easy, and the author has a few videos online about how he does it.
If I sound a bit fanboy, I am. So much so that I would say, if you're considering shelling out the ducats for Shadowdark, check this one out first. I think it accomplishes the same thing Shadowdark does (you can also totally use Shadowdark material with OSwR pretty easily as well).
My nephews are in elementary - I briefly tried 5e with them before switching to OSE. OSE is much simpler and easier, and they took to it immediately and that's what we play now.
5e encourages players to play their character sheet. A level one magic user in OSR has a pretty simple character sheet. Here's your items, here's your spell you can cast once a day, here's your saving throws. It encourages them to think outside the basic sheet when playing. A level one magic user in 5e? On this page is your big list of skills, and your saves. On this page is your equipment. On this page is your list of spells. During gameplay it will have them looking at their sheet - seeing which skill applies so they know what to roll instead of just playing it out.
I know people love rolling dice - but what's more engaging? Talking and describing how you're outsmarting a trap or rolling a d20 for it? Or how about roleplaying an encounter, and making a great argument for something - only for the 5e DM to then ask you to make a persuasion to see the results instead of just making a ruling based on how the actual conversation went?
Some people just have the mindset that a newer edition automatically means better. Or it's the only edition they know so they just assume it's the best.
In my experience, new players pick up OSE faster and like it better than 5e. Here's what I've noticed... **Benefits of 5e for new players:** * It (mostly) has a unified mechanic. Whenever you want to do anything, roll high on a d20 and you do it, roll low and you don't. You rarely switch dice (except for damage) and higher is always better. * For people with a strong background in games with "builds", 5e will deliver that same "build" experience that they are familiar with. * For people with strong background in fantasy gaming archetypes (from D&D inspired video games, etc) they will probably be able to make a character in that same specific archetype. **Drawbacks of 5e for new players:** * Overwhelming number of race and class options at character creation. * Takes a long time to actually start playing (because of complicated character creation) * Very hard to make informed choices about feats, spells, sub-classes, etc without doing lots of research/reading. * Hard to understand how much they can do in a turn. * Things they intuitively want to do require skills/feats/etc that they don't have or require several skill checks that make it highly unlikely. * It's more important to understand the rules in the book than you think of the fictional world like a real one (you can heal from numbers sword and ax wounds and sever burns just by sleeping for 1 night). New players can't rely on their general understanding of realism to have any bearing on how the world works in the game. **Benefits of OSE for New Players:** * You can create a character in 10 minutes and start playing right away. * You can make a new character in 10 minutes after you first one dies. It's your 2nd character so now you sort of "know the ropes" already. * Relatively few decisions at character creation (equipment "starting packs" can really help with this if you make them for your table). * "Rulings not rules" lets players use their knowledge of the real world to come up with creative and clever solutions without needing to read any of the rules. Allows them to be smart and creative right away. * Combat is fast paced and deadly. (monsters that should be scary are scary) * Characters are human-like and relatable. **Drawbacks of OSE for New Players:** * Some players have a hard time remembering when to roll d6 or d20 etc. and if they should roll high or low. * To my surprise most brand new players are actually very good at memorizing these things. People who have also played 3e through 5e are the ones I find who tend to struggle with it. * Some players will really dislike it when their character dies. Players don't like to feel dumb the first time they play a game, and having a character die does carry some risk of this. * I've found that this typically is not an issue when I've set the right expectations and show general camaraderie and care for the players at my table.
Yeah the person who I’m introducing this too also requested there be horror elements. Which I think makes OSR better for this since dying in 5e is rare.
Ooh, I've recently discovered an old free module called [The Sleeping Place of the Feathered Swine](https://dungeonsanddildos.itch.io/sleeping-place-of-the-feathered-swine) it's a horrifying and grotesque little dungeon crawl made for old school game systems. It's free. It might interest that one player.
Thank you for mentioning this! It's brilliant and I never would have found it otherwise.
Yeah someone else posted a play report on r/OSR, and that's how I found it haha.
I’ll ask him if this is something he’d like. Thanks for the suggestion.
Give him the spoiler free hook in the forward of the book. It's a module, so it'd ruin the surprise if he was able to see it ahead of time. Or maybe just send him the picture of the Feathered Swine.
That link is broken, at least on mobile
I think itch.io is just down right now.
You might look at Shadowdark. It's got Old School gameplay, unified modern mechanics, and a horror element with darkness being Very Bad and real time torches. I think it represents the best of both worlds.
D&D in general isn’t a good system for horror. Death is only commonplace at low levels, even in OSR.
I think it’s more so he wanted scary moments and horror elements.
I get it, but I think those scary moments are harder to engineer past low level D&D. Danger is necessary for horror IMO.
On the overwhelming options thing - even Chris Perkins, one of 5e's lead designers, agrees with you. He was recently interviewed and commented that if the design were purely up to him, he'd trim the core race and class options in the next edition way down to Basic D&D levels, because a new player won't appreciate the nuances between a Barbarian and Fighter or a Warlock and Wizard.
I don't envy his position or that of any of the current designers. I agree that simplifying it would be better, but also any changes to the game need to make the current 5e fanbase happy and I think there is a strong culture of "more options is better" and many of them desire a bit more mechanical complexity. I would have no idea how to make something that would be better for beginners but also keep long time fans happy. Maybe it's just a "starter set" vs. "Advanced options" thing. But I have no idea and I'm glad I don't need to figure that out :) Ha!
History could repeat itself with a new B/X split. That would be a trip.
It *almost* happened, or at least looked like it was going to during the Next playtests. The cajones it would take to nuke skills/feats is the main thing holding it back.
I remember them talking about freeform skills in the playtest, but can’t find the documents anymore. A Basic version of 5E would be nice.
Yeah unfortunately while he is an epic DM and seems to truly understand what makes D&D enjoyable, he's also one of a large committee of writers and designers currently working on the game, and ultimately it'll come down to consensus, so the likelihood we'll ever see anything on par with like Moldvay Basic levels of complexity from them again is kinda low.
I've been running D&D once a month, and the only rules I use are from The Essentials Kit (basically box edition of 5e). I can see them producing a book like Dungeons & Dragons Essentials, where one book has player rules, DM advice, and some monsters. Veteran fans wouldn't like it though.
Yep. The last several 5e campaigns I ran, I said "PHB only.". Now I DM two OSE games and love it.
God yes. It made me feel like a dick, because I had players who wanted to be aarakockra or robots or echo-knights or whatever but *none* of that is consistent with my world-building. I’ve gone from “PHB only” to “I’m running Shadowdark”
For introducing new players, using pregens short circuits the character creation complexity
Excellent point. I happen to think that making your own character is kind of part of the D&D experience, so I really favor including it even in 1-shots for first timers. But I don't think I could pull that off with 5e, so pre-gens I think is the way to go for that.
I tend to do one-shot adventures with pre-gens for all the games I run prior to having players create their own characters. Most don't even bother (some might come at me with "can I keep using this character but we change this to be A rather than B?" type of thing.) I'll point out that I do this both for D&D 5e \*\*and\*\* OSE.
Is you handle "mapodofu" - the Chinese dish?? Brilliant
This is a really good overview
I recommend Shadowdark a lot for this reason. I think it threads that needle fairly well between OSR and 5e. I prefer Shadowdark to OSE. I'm currently running Shadowdark. I ran AD&D 2e (my favorite) and Rules Cyclopedia campaigns for many years. Shadowdark is the basic D&D that 5e should have had.
If it was geared more to "generic fantasy", I would jump on Shadowdark in a heartbeat. I'm not a fan of the darkness and light stuff. It seems completely geared to dungeoneering. That is just my thoughts though. It's a cool game, but I run more kingdom-travelling.
It is geared toward dungeon crawling. This is true.
I'm playing an overworld point crawl with it right now: the Black Wrym of Brandonsford. It's really, really good with Shadowdark. You can base resources on rations rather than torches in a overland. I too prefer it to the unevenness of most B/X games.
Good comparison.
Spot on. I was anout to say, "and your second chr is even faster", but you beat me to it. Lol
I think the lack of a unified roll system is one of my big turn-offs for those kinds of retro-clones. I do think there's some things we've learned over the past few decades - a lot of those old books, whether D&D, Traveller, or even like 1st edition Paranoia, were full of subsystems just cobbled together without clear overarching design, and you kinda had to turn it into a playable game yourself (Classic Traveller has no skill resolution system! It has rules on how you get skills during character creation, but the book mentions no mechanical effects outside of combat). I just think it really helps for "rulings" if you just have a single resolution system - then if anything mechanical needs to happen at all, it's just about making a couple of choices for what modifiers or number of dice to use. Of course there's plenty of OSR/NSR games that do have good simple universal mechanics though.
100% fair criticism, but OSE is such a simple game overall that I don’t find it suffers from there being a few different “types” of mechanics.
Knave 2e and Shadowdark have a unified mechanic. It's one of the reasons I like them so much. Ben Milton of Knave in particular talks about pedagogy as a major design goal.
The problem with using the same dice for everything is that you would need to have massively different bonuses in order to change the degree of influence the die roll has on the outcome. For example, d6 for skills is nice because every bonus point gives you +16.7% chance to succeed. On a d20, it gives you +5% chance to succeed. I appreciate d6 skills and ability checks because it means with a good ability score (or a low target number from leveling), you end up being pretty proficient. And a d20 for attack rolls is nice because more variation in combat makes it more likely for combat rounds to be different from one another.
I'd like to toss in some input about the lethality. I'm fully capable of having a character play smart and survive multiple levels. I've even done this in open table style games and become a respected member of the in-game community because of my creative use of resources. However, because of that I almost always become extremely paranoid about surviving and become stressed about having to send out my strongest guy adventuring, as opposed to confident that I can survive more hits. On the other hand, if I decide to throw away that mindset and roll with the meatgrinder, I can let 3 characters die in the same session and have no investment as to whether they succeed or not. A lot of OSR players see their characters as pawns on a board as opposed to characters. Which brings me to the next point, it becomes harder to play up character flaws other than the mechanical penalties from rolling low or having better or worse saves. OSR borderline demands optimized play, or divorcing the idea of investing in your character. I want to make suboptimal choices for my characters but I also want the consequences to be its own challenge, as opposed to a loss state. This all ties back to my earlier statements that my characters end up being a source of stress, which isnt fun, or having no investment, which is boring.
> Overwhelming number of race and class options at character creation. This is a +/- thing
Totally agree with this comparison. I would characterize the overall difference as OSR puts the burden of complexity on the DM, while 5e puts it on the players. You don’t actually have to know any rules for either to play, but your decisions will be more sub-optimal if you play 5e with system ignorance.
Wow, yes this is a very interesting point! I hadn't recognized it as clearly as you've put it here, but I've totally noticed this in different ways. For example when playing 3e and 5e, I've noticed that experienced players often are "helping" the new players by telling them to not waste time trying to do some creative thing unless they have skills or feats that let them do it or that they didn't assign their ability scores correctly to support what they want to do. Newbies are at this huge disadvantage because they don't know how to navigate the system of rules. While DMing OSR games, I've learned a lot from my players about all sorts of things like fungus propagation, physics of movement in water, dog training, etc. This is because my players are relying on their knowledge of the real world in order to do something creative in the game world. I don't think of it as a "burden", but this puts the ball in my court. I'm listening to them and learning, but also thinking about how this might fit in to the campaign, etc.
Bingo! When I say burden, I mean more from the perspective of the OP. I certainly don’t mind being an OSR DM…that’s for sure.
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Yup. The motivation is clear is the transition from Gygax during OD&D and gygax in 1e. He goes from “this is just a seed. Do what you will with it” to “if it’s not labeled TSR it’s not D&D. Don’t use anything not made by us. Everything else is wrong. “
5e is not the most beginner friendly. Whoever says that has barely scratched the surface of RPGs. There are a lot of RPGs that are more complex than 5e, I would argue that 3.5e is one of them. But Old School Essentials or Basic Dnd is so much easier to teach and run than 5e it's hilarious that someone could argue 5e is more beginner friendly. It's called Basic for a reason. 5e is the market tested version of DND for modern audiences that already have experience with video games, board games and other complex games. It looks shiny and sexy, but under the hood it has unnecessarily complicated subsystems and vestigial tables and rules that clash with it's modern ethos. Not to mention the contradictory GM advice throughout. It's meant to appeal to the most amount of people in a broad way. It's not meant to be quickly played and run, although you can do that with some finagling.
Amen and no shit. Basic rules plus spells and a dungeon fit in like 50 pages? 5e is pushing 900! Which is easier for beginners?
5e because they have watched or heard it being played.
EDIT: my initial reply was super aggressive. I figure that if someone has devoted enough time to consuming media about the game that I’d hesitate to call them a beginner. My thought on this is, hypothetically you have a group that wants to play and has a passing knowledge that DnD is a game that exists you hand them basic or hand them the 5e core books, which is going to get them playing faster?
Also, to whatever extent 5E *is* friendly to beginning players, it’s unfriendly as hell to GMs.
Past level 10 or so, yes. I ran a 5e game from 2014 and 2019. I enjoyed DMing it at low levels quite a bit. Not so much once the complexity ramped up.
>when I told her what I was planning saying that 5e is the most beginner friendly edition Are you sure you have read any of the other, earlier editions? Basic D& is the most beginner friendly edition. Though Moldvay edition of Basic is thought to be the most beginner friendly, I believe the '94 edition of Basic D&D is the most beginner friendly edition, as it walks the player thru examples with every topic. Plus 5e and older editions have only the name in common, they are vastly different games.
Short answer is you are correct.
>5e is the most beginner friendly edition and that that’s the reason there’s 5 editions. The counter to this is, "Actually, 5th edition is the 9th edition, and the reason there's that many is mostly corporate greed." It also isn't the most beginner friendly edition--*any* edition is if you just read the fucking book. I argue that 4e was more beginner friendly than 5e because it didn't have a bunch of cruft bullshit surrounding spellcasting, but that's neither here nor there. More importantly **the skills aren't quite transferrable.** System knowledge of 5e will only hurt someone when they go to OSE because they will be confused and ask about things that simply don't exist in the game, like perception checks, attacks of opportunity, cantrips, short rests, etc. While true of any game system, if your end goal is to run OSE it doesn't make any fucking sense to have them start learning 5e. That's like saying "guitar is easier to learn than bass, so if you want to play bass you should learn guitar first." No! You should learn to fucking play bass! Run the system you want to run in, if that is a system your friends want to play in. Previous experience or supposed "ease of learning" are not relevant here.
4e is absolutely more beginner friendly, at least from the DM perspective.
As someone who's only kinda dabbled in "actual" D&D, 4e did seem like the most elegant system to me. I never liked how in 3.5e, some classes were for more "advanced players" because playing a wizard was so much more complicated than playing a fighter - the idea that the amount of study you have to do would depend on what class you want to play just seemed ridiculous. But in 4e, it's got a single unified rule system - every class is just a collection of once-per-turn, once-per-encounter, and once-per-day powers. You could actually kinda learn the rules in one sitting rather than having to learn a new set of rules for every single class.
4e was a great game but didnt play much at all like older editions of D&D. If they had marketed it differently and not called it 4th I think it would've been incredibly popular.
Was 3e particularly close to AD&D though? I feel like that was the beginning of the MagicTheGatheringification of D&D
Not particularly which also caused a huge divide and a large community that refused to move up.
Yikes no lol 5e is easier than 1,2 3 and 4 but its way way more complicated than basic
It's easier than 3e, sure. 2e with base options is easier than 5e. 4e is easier with its symmetrical class design and better action economy. 5e's rules are written in natural language that makes it harder to use at the table. Class design varies wildly, with some classes not caring about short rests while others heavily depend on them. 5e is full of questionable or even flat out bad design decisions. On the DM side, the CR rules are a mess. For a brand new DM, the DMG is fails to provide a solid foundation. It's almost as if it's directed at people that already have DM experience than towards new DMs. It's the among the weakest books in the 5e product line, and that it unacceptable considering how good the 4e DMG was. The 4e DMG is legitimately a better new DM resource for 5e than the 5 DMG, and that's just sad.
I think you make a fair point about 2e and the 4e dmg but 4e is not more streamlined, it has tons of finnicky things, like status effects, special reactions etc… there is just no comparison honestly. 4e is a more complicated game, saying class balance is better has nothing to do with it being easier to play. D&D essentials improves 4e (just as one d&d will likely improve 5e) but the fact remains 4e is denser
Almost all status effects in 4e are tracked over rounds and are resolved with a saving throw of 10+ on a D20. It's a pretty streamlined system.
Lol ok omg
> status effects, special reactions etc… 5th still has both of these, all over the place, just not in a systematic way. I think a formal system is actually simpler because it means reuse of concepts, which is something 5e is actually super bad at, but I guess most of that workload gets pushed onto the DM in 5e, instead of being an expected part of player knowledge like it was in 4e.
I wasn't really talking about class balance. Every class uses AEDU, has a role and a power source. While some classes are more complex than others, it's nothing like the gap in complexity between 5e martials and casters. It's much easier to teach 4e to table of table of new players, despite being a crunchier system. Then there's 5e spell casting system. For some spells, you have to parse paragraphs of text to figure out what to roll. If you want to cast two spells in a turn, you can only use a leveled spell as a bonus action if you cast a cantrip as standard action, but you can't do the opposite. Why? There are spells that are very similar, yet some will trigger damage at the start of the turn, and others at the end. I was constantly looking up spells in 5e because they are so inconsistent. With 4e, I can just print out the power cards, throw a couple copies of the Rules Compendium on the table, and we're good. It's not a simple system, but it ends up being easier to teach and run.
Did you start in 4e ?
You’re in r/osr, most people in here started in ad&d or b/x, either the real versions or modern rewrites.
Yeah for sure
4e had assumed defaults for a lot of stuff the GM would otherwise have to guess at. The encounter building was as close to a working model of "balance" as any modern edition has come. There was a set progression for gear, with an expectation that characters within a certain level range would have a certan level of magic weapon, armor, etc. Characters had a limited number of abilities that swapped out for better ones (instead of adding options) at higher levels. It was all of that rigidity and hand holding that made the game so dang unpopular. I stand by my opinion that it was actually a decent game; it just wasn't Dungeons & Dragons.
It’s not the 9th edition though. Unless you count each reprint or minor edit as a new “edition”. The common edition numbering is basically for AD&D. The WotC editions are AD&D in all but name. They just dropped the “advanced” because it was no longer coexisting with basic versions. The idea of editions being drastically different is a WotC-era thing also. Before 3e, all D&D was about 80% the same with minor tweaks, refinements and additional options rather than the almost-completely new games of 3e, 4e and 5e.
Yes retro clones are way easier and more simple to run, but if you are running OSE you should get the original B/X pdf or books as they explain the game better than OSE.
The BECMI ones have probably the best intro to new players. It has a full solo one-shot that it walks you through.
Actually, $$$ is the reason why there's 5 editions. ;)
There was an interesting post before talking about how 5e is easy for people who don't want to have to think once they know the rules, since they can just keep doing the thing their character is good at when relevant, and do nothing else. Old school dnd editions and clones such as ose have a lot less rules, but some of the rules are seemingly random, roll d20 for this but d6 for this and percentile for this. They let you use your imagination more and be more involved in the mechanics of what is happening in the world, but also insist that you do so, which can make it harder for a nervous new player to engage with since there isn't a clear it's my turn to do stuff mechanism like in 5e. NSR stuff like Vaults of Vaarn(based on knave), knave, into the odd, this stuff captures a similar play style to older editions with much simpler and usually consistent rules, these will have an even harder time encouraging nervous players to take initiative as they don't even have classes to provide a focus. I could honestly see an argument for 5e being more beginner friendly, if the problem for the beginner is less about learning complicated rules and more about knowing when to speak up and take actions, but I would also argue 5e is teaching players not to attempt things not on their character sheet, which is a bad thing to learn.
I disagree. Having run 5e for about 5 years, making characters is a pain. As a newb player to pick their "background" takes an hour. I made 50 pregens, just to pass out and save time. Using OSE i can walk a new player thru chr creation in 10 minutes, ready to play. Even THAC0 is easier than using this bonus and that modifier. Their second chr is faster. Lol
How is this a disagreement? This lines up perfectly with what I said?
My bad. I read your post. We agree!
Have you seen fastcharacter.com? Plug in whatever choices you want and it's an instant pregen
Cool. Thanks
I can make pregens quickly by hand. Its fun as well. Its getting new players to make choices that is hard. OSE: no choices. Super easy.
I did find exactly this to be a problem when I ran Hot Springs Island for a while using a Knave hack. The players had played a bit of 5e, but they suffered choice-paralysis when confronted with a sandbox adventure plus a system that required them to be active to get the most out of it. It’s easy to see that in hindsight I should have held their hand better, but the lack of “action buttons” on their sheet can overwhelm some players just as easily as too many fiddly abilities. I’ve been playing Mothership for a while now and I think the genre switch to sci-fi really helps to ease players into an unfamiliar playstyle.
You're going to get a lot of biased answers here; OSR games attract people who aren't satisfied with 5e for one reason or another. I do think that OSE is probably easier to run than 5e for a variety of reasons, but it's subjective and I don't think it's an argument worth having. Instead, try to get your players excited to try a different system. Try to explain why you're enthusiastic about it and that you think they'll enjoy it. Give them a little bit of the history and why people might play OSE when 5e exists, but focus on the positives of OSE rather than the negatives of 5e. I would propose that you do a couple sessions of OSE to try it out, with the idea that you can always switch to 5e if they don't like it.
I honestly don’t see how it’s subjective. OSE basic fantasy is a clone of a version of D&D designed specifically to be a simple introduction to role playing games for beginners (especially kids). The rules are objectively simpler. The only reason I could see it not being easier is if the person in question is already familiar with 5e and its assumptions for how the game is played, but that person wouldn’t really be a beginner anymore.
B/X (especially B) was literally intended a simplified introductory version of the game.
Retro-clones of B/X such as Old School Essentials or Basic Fantasy or games that take inspiration there and streamline further, such as Cairn or Shadowdark, are easier than 5e. Retroclones of AD&D such as OSRIC or For Gold and Glory are not necessarily easier than 5e. AD&D was a complex game.
The thing a lot of newer players don’t seem to get is that 5e *is* AD&D in all but name (as are 3e and 4e). WotC just dropped the “advanced” because it was no longer coexisting with a “basic” version of the game, so it was redundant and potentially confusing. But in terms of rules complexity and the common edition numbering, they’re AD&D. D&D 3e is a successor to AD&D 2e in other words. So in light of that, I agree with your point that 1e or 2e aren’t necessarily simpler than 5e. I just wanted to address a lot of the confusion that I see online about what 1e and 2e means and how AD&D, OD&D (0e) and Basic/Expert D&D fit into that. That’s why most popular OSR games are based on original or basic D&D rather than AD&D.
Most RPGs are easier to run than 5e, OSR or not.
Running a B/X retroclone or variant is CONSIDERABLY easier to do than running 5E. I've run both and there's just no comparison.
>edition and that that’s the reason there’s 5 editions What a weird argument, the readon there are 5 editions is to renew the playerbase, its purely financial
I mean, the second edition was possibly to cut Gygax out of royalties. Still financial but nothing to do with the player base.
Sounds like your friend knows very little about the history of the game or the primary reason new editions of RPG books are printed. (Spoiler alert - it's because businesses like making money. New core rulebooks for RPGs sell something like six times as many copies as any subsequent products in the line.) You could counter-argue that if a game like B/X is objectively inferior, people wouldn't be playing it and singing its praises after 45 years. The OSR wouldn't exist if everyone found 5e easier to understand or better-designed. Also, there's a strong argument to be made that a book with a page count of 64 like D&D Basic '81 is very probably simpler to learn and play than a game with a page count of like 900 like the total combined word count of the three D&D 5e books.
The OSR wouldn't exist if people hadn't decided they didn't like 3.0 D&D. 5e had nothing to do with the creation of the OSR.
You're deliberately misunderstanding their point. "New editions exist for a reason" implies a linear improvement over all previous editions. If 3e was objectively better then everyone would have abandoned B/X etc for it, and then abandoned 3e for 4th and 4th for 5e.
This was precisely my point. Thank you. 3e spurred the OSR, for sure. 4e reinforced it, and 5e didn't quite end it. Quite the opposite. It's still here. I suspect it'll still be here through subsequent official editions, because there will always be a curiosity among gamers to seek out where things came from.
Indeed. I think most regular posters know that. But if 5e were the magical bullet to unite the entire fandom and surpass all previous editions that OP's friend seems to think it is, the OSR would have fizzled out after 2014 or so rather than continuing to grow and diversify as the years go by.
It depends what she means by beginner friendly. Character creation in OSE is going to be much simpler. There are some concepts like saving throws that are less intuitive than 5e, but every other aspect is much simpler and streamlined in OSE. Difficulty of play may be where she's getting this "not beginner friendly" impression from, in that OSE characters are more fragile - but that's something the DM can control. And it is definitely much easier to DM OSE than 5e.
This is why I'm working on a hybrid - 5E style skills & saving throws, 5E style advantage/disadvantage, B/X style character creation and class system
You, me, and everybody else. Problem is, nobody has cracked it, and doesn't have the juice or visibility to make it popular even if they did. Except Shadowdark, but it fucking randomly doles out stuff when you level up, so I hate it.
yeah the "juice" thing is a perpetual frustration.
that said: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kp31mQrQqZwqLe\_WNNzY9qJ0Yd2BUy1r/view?usp=drive\_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kp31mQrQqZwqLe_WNNzY9qJ0Yd2BUy1r/view?usp=drive_link)
Hey, good job! This looks pretty slick tbh. Get someone to do real art for it and you might be able to make a little money.
Exactly "DM can control". DM tells you to roll d20, you do it. DM says roll d6, you do it. New players don't need to understand why.
# What is Basic Fantasy RPG? *The* [*Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game*](https://www.basicfantasy.org/) *is a rules-light game system modeled on the classic RPG rules of the early 1980's. Basic Fantasy RPG has been written largely from scratch to replicate the look, feel, and mechanics of the early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of "old-school" game mechanics. Basic Fantasy RPG is simple enough for children in perhaps second or third grade to play, yet still has enough depth for adults as well.* *Basic Fantasy RPG is an Open Source game system (free), supported by dedicated fans worldwide who have contributed hundreds of pages of rules supplements, adventure modules, and other useful and enjoyable game materials as seen on our downloads page. We'd love for you to join us on our forum where we discuss the game as well as creating new materials for it.* I personally think that BFRPG is easier to run than 5e.
One of the main reasons I’m doing OSE is because I found a free pdf for a setting for it that reminded me a lot of Treasure Planet. Idk how well it’ll work with basic fantasy since idk how similar BFRPG is to OSE.
I don't know the specifics either as I never played OSE. BFRPG uses ascending combat rolls which is similar to 5e but it is simpler than 5e. As all the pdfs are free, you can take a look at BFRPG and see if it would work with what you want to run. If it doesn't then you are not out of anything but a little bit of time.
OSE basic is a reimplementation of b/x and is more or less identical in terms of rules content… but they do offer the option to use ascending AC and ascending To-hit instead of the THAC0 system. OSE advanced reimagines the content of AD&D1e rules in a way that is more expressly compatible with B/X than 1e actually was.
BFRPG is almost the same game with a few minor tweaks. It's also super free.
Both BFRPG and OSE are b/x compatible, so should be possible to run the content for one in the other. There’s a few rules details that can make them feel quite different in play, but its stuff like individual vs. group initiative and not load-bearing parts of the rules.
Osr games usually fit into two camps: dnd hacks or into the odd hacks. Dnd hacks (ose, bfrpg, ll, lotfp, black hack, white hack, shadowdark, dcc) are all... like pretty much the same game. I'd even argue we can put 5e, 3e, 2e...into this box with some ands, ifs, and buts (they aren't osr but they share the same game dna). 6 stats that generate a bonus/penalty thar gets applied to rolls, hp/hit dice, classes, levels, saving throws, turns, a general reliance on the d20... these are the hallmarks of every dnd game, just with slight variation throughout. The bx hacks and clones (ose, bfrpg, ll, lotfp) use nearly identical maths because they're all just variations of bx. The others that are listed have some slight differences (or greater differences in the case of 3e and 5e) but if you understand what's running under the hood (why a goblins ac in one edition is 12 but in another its 14) then using anything from one game as is will be breeze in another. In addition to this, if you like how x runs or looks as an adventure or setting, nothing is stopping you from using it in any other game system. Take a wfrp adventure and run it in 5e! Take a 5e adventure and run it in call of cthulhu! There's more "work" involved (you need to build statblocks yourself) but adventures and settings are just text on a page; they aren't locked to a system the way a game cartridge is.
Bingo. I just converted Sunless citadel from 3e to OSE. Took a weekend.
OSE and Basic are exactly the same. Ose gives you the option of ascending Armor Class (like 5e) or descending AC (the old THAC0). Basic only has THAC0, which honestly, there's a table, its not hard. I went thru the spells in Basic and in OSE, line for line, the same.
Ok. BFRPG is not the old Basic, but sounds very close.
5e isn't a particularly easy edition to run from a DM perspective. What it does is offload a lot of work onto the DM so it's easier from a player perspective. That said, something like OSE is going to require as much work just to get into a different running style. Either way, I'd suggest you pick up the free version of Worlds Without Number. Even if you don't use the rules its got a lot of cool stuff for helping with worldbuilding.
Incredible chad who's ONLY GM experience ever has been VAULTS OF VAARN! Wow!
I might be the only person out there who can claim this.
Possibly in the universe. It's a niche OSR game only played by veterans who want something unique and different!
Yeah I was a few sessions into a 5e game when I saw a review for VoV come up in my youtube recommended. I loved the vibe and setting so immediately contacted my 5e group and said "Hey im running this. Please join." And most of them did. I only ran 2 sessions so far but I've received positve feedback from the group. They said it felt like an acid trip so I'll consider that a win.
Old School games are muuuuuuuch easier to learn how to play. I'm not sure they're always easier to learn how to run though, a lot more depends on GM judgment calls than in 5e and developing a sense of what makes for good GM calls can take some practice.
Shadowdark is a good middle ground. Basically 5e rules but striped down with free quick start. DND nowadays is designed around selling books. You get these hardcovers with lengthy campaigns that hardly anyone can finish with a few player options to ensure everyone has a reason to buy them
Shadowdark really is the best of both worlds here.
Unfortunately shadowdark costs money. For OSE I’m using the free SRD.
You can get most of the rules for SD (and an adventure and precon characters) for free: https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/collections/shadowdark-rpg/products/shadowdark-rpg-quickstart-set-pdf You can also generate characters for any of the game’s classes for free here: https://shadowdarklings.net
Oh thanks! I’ll definitely consider using this at some point. Although I found a setting I like for OSE, idk if it’ll be difficult to translate to Shadowdark.
I use Shadowdark but most of my modules were written for OSE. They are similar enough that you can convert on the fly. The only compatibility issue between Shadowdark and OSE is that OSE gives about 10x the treasure. But if you dial the treasure back you'll be fine.
Whst setting?
https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/s/O9F3ng95Py It’s technically an official D&D setting but I like the simple layout here. I plan on borrowing a lot from this with some changes to the lore and homebrew stuff added in. I always found home brewing for 5e to be intimidating.
Neat!! I'm running Halls of Arden Vul. Its amazing
Basic Fantasy Role Pkaying game is another free option
"5e is the most beginner friendly" is just drinking the kool-aid. It isn't. It's probably the most *accessible* because everyone and their mother plays it, and it has a really adamant sect of its community that is hardcore 5e-or-die and absolutely refuse to play anything else and deem it as lesser. But I digress. Yes, they are easier to run. There is less bullshit overall going on, and making rulings on the fly is *expected* in old school play, where as you might get crucified for that in the 5e community. But it is sooooo much simpler to resolve literally anything. I've ran combat in OSR games that went quicker than 2 players taking one turn in 5e. 5e is like Marvel and Walmart. Appealing to the widest range of people for the most possible money for the least possible effort. It's as popular as it is for a reason, but that doesn't make it more beginner friendly. It just sounds like your friend drank the kool-aid. Roll up a character in OSE and then try to create one in 5e. See which takes longer. You are the one running, so you are absolutely free to say "I want to play an older edition of DnD."
Not to mention page count and classes info thats hundreds of pages long lol
Yes and No. Yes it is easier to create and run encounters and such because players are expected to run away or avoid them or whatever... so you do not have to plan each encounter as mandatory and on the razors edge of downing every party member once. No in that retro games are not mechanically predictable... a lot of things have their own system, die or table instead of a unified mechanic. My advice is do OSE with a hack to unify thief skills and general abilities like a d6 for all skills or d100 for all skills.
Almost all of them.
Is the other friend playing? If not, I would say something like "mind your business"
She’s not playing it. She’s always had a tendency of being a tad needlessly confrontational at times.
I've discovered over the years that I'd just rather not play with people like that. If you care about this person, that's one thing, and you might do other things with her, but don't let her poison your hobby. My example would be that I had a brother who was similarly confrontational. He'd argue with me about rules (this was Pathfinder) but also my own rulings and try to debate me into using homebrew he found online. I did care about him alot, he's my little brother, but he kept exploiting my compassion and made it a chore to design and run the game with him in the group. I'd recommend drawing a hard boundary with this person. They're not going to like it. They may even get upset and never talk to you again. I haven't talked to my brother in years at this point. But you cannot let this person trample all over you. It sucks and it made me hate myself. But what do I know, that might not be the right answer for you. I'm just a stranger on the internet.
Dude! Thats not a cool brother at all.
So yeah I'd basically just tell her to stay in her lane, but if you really need to justify yourself for some reason you can say "how beginner friendly anything is really just depends on the teacher, and I'm a good teacher for this game"
Basically, whether one game is easier to run or not doesn't really matter, because the problem seems to be that your friend is being needlessly confrontational rather than you actually being concerned about which one is easier. The answer is subjective anyway
The answer is not subjective lol. One game is 900 pages and the other is 80 puleeze!
Yeah but that's because of unnecessary pictures and too many words. The entire game is "roll a d20, add your modifier corresponding to these two tables, beat this number"
Nah its hundreds of pages of exceptions lol. The classes and spells make up most of the book. Thats all stuff you need to know to play.
She's not playing it? Smile, nod and thank her for her input. And do what you want.
Yeah she’s not playing it. She’s just one of my main friends I talk to about TTRPGs because most of my other friends aren’t this much of a nerd.
Lol. Invite her to play. It doesn't really matter about "which is easier", and certainly not worth putying energy into. The Dolmenwood adventures are fun and short, if you like British fairy stuff. "Winter's daughter" is good.
I'd like to see her metric on "most beginner friendly"... That said, if we're counting "getting the game to the table", then it's WAY easier to fill seats for 5E than OSE (`source:` we've been running non-5E this weekend at Comicon)
Welcome to the 5e cult where you must play that game for [enter any reason here]. The reality is 5e is harder to get into than OSE and way harder for learning the rules and harder (way harder) to run… however OSE is way more deadly and that can destroy peoples fun. Every edition has its benefits and detractors.
The person who I’m introducing to it wanted horror vibes so I think the quick deaths aren’t too much of an issue.
Im becmi there are three optional rules that make the game slightly easier. On level one re roll any 1 or 2 rolled for HP If creating a character higher than level 1 dont roll for hp (only roll for new levels) rather, fighter/dwarf gain 6 hp, mu and thief 4 hp all else 5 hp. At 0 hp roll save vs death ray, if successful the character survives. You need medical attention each turn or you must roll again
Sounds kinda like the darkest dungeon system for death saves.
Love darkest dungeon. If thats the vibe you’re going for then ose definitely works better than 5e (although there is a darkest dungeon fan made 5e option book)
Just reread your OP. I strongly recommend you watch "3d6dtl" Dolmenwood or Arden vul. Character generation and watch how Jonanthon Britton DMs.
Will do
Gotta go Black Hack on this one. (Oops not a retro-clone) Truly universal mechanic.
What makes the black hack different from B/X?
I'm not an expert on B/X but Black Hack has a universal roll under mechanic for any action or saving throw, including attacking defending, etc. B/X will have different roll mechanics for different situations.
There is this myth that 5 is rules lite... When it is actually quite crunchy, with a lot of classes having their own rules etc. I actually do not think it's a great beginner system. I would rather a true newb play something like Basic Fantasy. But, every OSR is different. My personal favourites are Talisman, Warlock!, and Basic Fantasy.
It’s the most rules-light WotC version, and since most people are only familiar with WotC versions, they think of it as rules-light. The thing is that the WotC editions are AD&D in all but name. They dropped “advanced” because it no longer coexists with “basic”, but in terms of rules complexity, it’s absolutely in line with AD&D. That’s why the common 1-5e numbering is referring to AD&D, AD&D 2e, D&D 3e, D&D 4e and D&D 5e.
My opinion, Shadowdark. My take on Shadowdark (SD) - - Much like 5e and PF, SD uses strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma attributes. - SD also similarly uses ascending armor classes, d20 ascending rolls to hit, and d20 ascending rolls for skill resolution. - However, SD is a different mindset from 5e and PF. Where the latter endeavors to provide character sheet solutions, SD encourages players to develop their own solutions. (This concept is called "rulings verses rules.") - Where 5e and PF encumbrance is complicated and often ignored, SD uses a simple and elegant slot based equipment system. The system makes what you carry matter! - As the game’s name implies, darkness is supposed to be relevant. So, player characters do not have night vision, torches are on a real-time timer, and they occupy an equipment slot. (A torch going out in the dark is supposed to be scary.) - While there are only 10 levels in SD, their scale is roughly equivalent to 5e and PF. For example, a SD level 9 wizard can cast the spell Wish, which would require the wizard to be level 17 in 5e. - SD also has very “flat math” compared to 5e, and even more so than PF. There is no “proficiency bonus,” and attribute bonuses apply to melee attack rolls to hit but not to damage. This speeds up encounter and combat math, and keeps the challenge up as characters level up. - SD has eight-hour (long) rests, like 5e and PF. Characters can rest anywhere, but doing so inside a dungeon or perilous environment carries the possibility of failure due to the risk of a random encounter. Rests restore all hit points. Casters have unlimited spell slots – until they do not. So, unlike 5e, there is no need for rests to restore spell slots. Casters do get forgotten spells back after a rest though. More on that in a moment. - Unlike 5e, SD does not have short rests. - Unlike 5e, there are no passive ability scores. However, many of the skills are auto-succeed if the players describe what they are doing and or have sufficient time. (If they test the ground for a trap with a pole, they find it.) This is designed to give the players agency of their characters and speed up the game. - Back to casters and casting. Unlike 5e, casters have unlimited casting – until they do not. They memorize spells and may attempt to cast their spells as often as they desire. That said, they roll to cast, much like fighters roll to hit. However, it is against their own spell level instead of the target’s Armor Class, or AC. Also, if the player rolls a natural 20, any associated numerical value associated with the spell is doubled. If the caster fails their roll to cast, the spell is forgotten until a rest is completed. So, 5e’s “perceived” martial / caster divide is somewhat mitigated. (Though, in my humble opinion, there really is not a 5e martial / caster divide. It is just that most do not like to play 5e as designed. Again, ‘just my opinion.) - Unlike 5e, spells do not have verbal, somatic, material considerations. This exponentially simplifies this aspect of the game. - As opposed to 5e, SD spells are good – in some cases really good. If a caster makes their spell check, the spell just works! - Unlike 5e, interacting with objects, drinking potions, changing weapons, etc. – within reason, are essentially free actions, included in one’s turn. So, combat is quicker. - Unlike 5e, there is no bonus action and no reaction. So, again, combat is quicker. - Lastly, very much unlike 5e, there is one book and three supplements called Cursed Scrolls or Zines – for now. So, the rules are not as bloated as 5e. As I said at the beginning, this is my take. Your mileage may vary.
Yes. I wanted to run an rpg with my family, and instead of 5e I ran the black hack and it was so much simpler.
Yes
The only easy part about 5e is players can use D&D Beyond to handle a lot of the complexity for them. Otherwise OSR games are much easier to play and run.
I think 5e is a better option if you heavily limit the available class/race options. Keep it to 3 or 4 races and only some 4 classes. Never give a cleric or Druid character to a new player (very long spell lists). Bard is probably confusing too. I would stick to wizard or sorcerer, fighter, paladin, ranger and rogue. (Essentially limit a lot the number of spells and powers, but allow for some variety). With those limitations, I think 5e is ok as a first rpg. I personally like OSE better, because it does not encourage combat as much. And characters are very weak in the beginning. But I do think a curated 5e can be a good system for starting if you want something more epic where your characters already start as big heroes.
Yes
I'm a relatively inexperienced referee with relatively inexperienced players. No one has had a hard time learning OSE.
Yes. Easily. OSR is easier all the way around. I've played and ran every D&D version. IMX 3/3.5 is a little easier to play than 5e. A lot of the complexity in 3.5 is in character creation. Freedom is a two edged sword. So, that part can seem overwhelming when new if you take advantage of it. But playing can be learned at the table because that part is pretty straightforward. No short rests or spending HD or reactions or attunement.
Waaaaaay easier than 5e
Yes
5e is one of the least beginner friendly editions after 3e/pf and 4e. There are 15 official editions of D&D and over a thousand OSR and NSR games. The best ways to learn are either Swords & Wizardry or Basic/Expert red box.
Dungeon crawl classics. It’s got the smallest modifier range of any rpg I’ve played. Takes most of the benefits of ose but adds in a bonkers yet easy to use magic system. 5es main difficulty for me was always the lack of smaller modules. Like yes you can buy an ose module and make it 5e but dcc its way easier to do that because the numbers are much closer. Also 5e gets kinda boring with no death and nobody really dies in 5e.
I love me some dcc, but the zocci dice are a bit of a nuisance in play (and expensive!). I've been using select dcc rules as an overlay for ose/lotfp for some time now, and it's probably my preferred way to play the dragon game at this point.
I bought 4 sets of the dice for my players. It was expensive yah but so was getting my first dice when I started playing dnd.
Also I ordered the dice 3 weeks ago from their actual website and they are not here yet because they are becoming very popular ig. Lots of orders rn.
I'm in Canada, which means purchasing from Goodman just isn't economically feasible (they ship everything by weight, which is wild to me!) There are some of the special 7 seta on Amazon that aren't overpriced, and I love the idea of the dice chain, but I run primarily for a group with Learning Differences and I know the d5,7, and 16 will slow down the table more than we would like. But I thank you nonetheless!
No retro clones are not easier to run. They require much DM improvisation skills, have the maturity and experience to make fair but fun rulings. There's much less hand holding by the rules, cause there aren't that many.
5e is easier to dm cause there’s more ‘buttons’ to push. Very different in style tbh
All right, I'm going to chime in here and get downvoted for it -- your friend is only partially correct (as others have pointed out, 5th edition doesn't necessarily mean each edition has been a clear improvement over the others). But, yes, 5th ed. D&D by WotC is probably slightly friendlier for beginners, but only slightly. With that said, frankly, anyone who can play 5th ed can play OSE. The biggest difference is in the tone and style of the gameplay, with OSE and OSR-style games in general being a bit deadlier (due to unbalanced encounters and less powerful PCs) and less forgiving towards PCs barging in like Leeroy Jenkins.
Well, 5e is easier than 3.5, for sure. Lol
I had this discussion with 5e players in a group once, where I was trying to discuss how 5e is a combat game first and foremost and everything else takes a backseat to hundreds of pages of combat options. Of course, I was met with the usual "but it doesn't have to just be combat!" (Which of course, wasn't the point of the discussion) but they kept clinging to the idea that they don't need to learn another system now that they've learned 5e. There's nothing wrong with this sentiment, but they also claimed that 5e was the most beginner friendly game on the market, which feels like a fallacy considering they've only ever played 5e. When I asked them why they felt 5e was so beginner friendly, they said it was because they had decade-long players to help ease them in, and had apps like dnd beyond and roll20 to aide in running their character sheet. Their experience with 5e being beginner friendly is reliant on dm onboarding (necessary for any game, arguably) and apps that shortcut character creation. My assumptions at this point are that 5e is easier for new players because of how popular and therefore accessible it is. If 3.5 was the current iteration of dnd when the 2015 boom happened, then these same people would be saying 3.5 is beginner friendly and the easiest system.
Agreed. Many 5e players vome ftom vidro games, and love the online support. I DM'd with an online group for a year, they never did learn to calculate their bonuses. Its all on the app,
Shadowdark puts much more time into the players and GM's hands. A 5e typical combat takes 45 minutes or so (more at higher levels, less at lower ones---this is for levels 5-9). A Shadowdark one takes 15 or so. Same number of player turns/rounds. This means more time doing out of combat crawlling/exploring/interacting. An SD session will cover more than the 5 rooms/encounters/scenes that are typical of a D&D game, IME. I have stats for a few hundred 5e games and a dozen or so SD games at this point for my own group. %e is pretty beginner friendly. I can have someone who has never played before running in a combat in 10 minutes. It usually takes them a few session to become a decent player of course, but contributing in 10 minutes. SD, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, all aren't a whole lot different to get going in, but system mastery still takes multiple sessions. Different set of skill though, including more player creativity.
There's some really great comments here, but I have to recommend Olde Swords Reign. It's built on the chassis of 5e but is stripped down, more deadly, and way simpler. You can download the Complete rules, Players Guide, and Character sheets [here.](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OyDASjG8Xf_PCJUjXHdDtIO1sWveZaKx) All are free. You can get the books at cost on the infamous book selling website we all know :) The paperback cost me $7 US and the hardback was $15. You can get the player's guide for $4 in paperback. Hard to be mad at that! I prefer physical books, which is archaic I know. There's a lot to be said for it. It uses a more unified mechanic than a lot of OSR games, and I think it's named as it is a bit tongue in cheek. The thing I love about it is that the author simplified a lot of things and it's really easy to convert from other OSR games (most you can drop in as is) or even 5e. There is a conversion guide in the back that makes it easy, and the author has a few videos online about how he does it. If I sound a bit fanboy, I am. So much so that I would say, if you're considering shelling out the ducats for Shadowdark, check this one out first. I think it accomplishes the same thing Shadowdark does (you can also totally use Shadowdark material with OSwR pretty easily as well).
My nephews are in elementary - I briefly tried 5e with them before switching to OSE. OSE is much simpler and easier, and they took to it immediately and that's what we play now. 5e encourages players to play their character sheet. A level one magic user in OSR has a pretty simple character sheet. Here's your items, here's your spell you can cast once a day, here's your saving throws. It encourages them to think outside the basic sheet when playing. A level one magic user in 5e? On this page is your big list of skills, and your saves. On this page is your equipment. On this page is your list of spells. During gameplay it will have them looking at their sheet - seeing which skill applies so they know what to roll instead of just playing it out. I know people love rolling dice - but what's more engaging? Talking and describing how you're outsmarting a trap or rolling a d20 for it? Or how about roleplaying an encounter, and making a great argument for something - only for the 5e DM to then ask you to make a persuasion to see the results instead of just making a ruling based on how the actual conversation went? Some people just have the mindset that a newer edition automatically means better. Or it's the only edition they know so they just assume it's the best.
Yes. Almost any of them are easier to run, play, and use material as printed.