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OSR, D&D and the BroOSR

This was a great debate/discussion on inappropriate characters – though I felt the audience/Pundit were a bit harsh on Jeffro at some points.  Though I dont agree with Jeffro he made some good points.  My observations as someone who has been playing since 79/80 and went from B/X, BECMI to 1e AD&D in the mid 80s until 3e came out.

  • I wonder if the gap here is generational. The Boomers who invented D&D and then codified the rules as AD&D vs the Generation-X players who were brought up on B/X and BECMI, likely before ever touching AD&D 1e. The reason I say that is when I recently re-read the 1e DMG the way AD&D is meant to be played is very different to the way BECMI ran. BECMI is much closer to the way modern OSR/D&D plays (rules can be bent, DM is top of the food chain etc). I was shocked recently re-reading the DMG/PHB how much of it we didn’t use in the 80s and just how much we house ruled away or just ignored. But when I reread BECMI it isn’t very different to the way modern D&D (OSR or otherwise) is played (bit more domain play, but that’s about it in terms of style).
  • Jeffro represents the Frank Mentzer style of AD&D. That is, PCs succeed through their mastery of the rules as opposed to creative play. The latter is more Gygaxian. They can work together of course – just like Gygax and Mentzer worked together but they are not the same style. Gygax even said Mentzer had a better mastery of the rules than he did. You can see this in the way ToEE is written vs Hommlet.
  • I recently tried 1e with my group. We switched back to house ruled 1e like 5e after 9 sessions. But I kept real time and training. It really is more engaging. The fact real time passes between sessions (between, not at the table) really motivates the players to play during the week and making sure their PCs are always doing something, mostly downtime staff.

Video discussion here.

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons

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